Project acronym AMPLIFY
Project Amplifying Human Perception Through Interactive Digital Technologies
Researcher (PI) Albrecht Schmidt
Host Institution (HI) LUDWIG-MAXIMILIANS-UNIVERSITAET MUENCHEN
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), PE6, ERC-2015-CoG
Summary Current technical sensor systems offer capabilities that are superior to human perception. Cameras can capture a spectrum that is wider than visible light, high-speed cameras can show movements that are invisible to the human eye, and directional microphones can pick up sounds at long distances. The vision of this project is to lay a foundation for the creation of digital technologies that provide novel sensory experiences and new perceptual capabilities for humans that are natural and intuitive to use. In a first step, the project will assess the feasibility of creating artificial human senses that provide new perceptual channels to the human mind, without increasing the experienced cognitive load. A particular focus is on creating intuitive and natural control mechanisms for amplified senses using eye gaze, muscle activity, and brain signals. Through the creation of a prototype that provides mildly unpleasant stimulations in response to perceived information, the feasibility of implementing an artificial reflex will be experimentally explored. The project will quantify the effectiveness of new senses and artificial perceptual aids compared to the baseline of unaugmented perception. The overall objective is to systematically research, explore, and model new means for increasing the human intake of information in order to lay the foundation for new and improved human senses enabled through digital technologies and to enable artificial reflexes. The ground-breaking contributions of this project are (1) to demonstrate the feasibility of reliably implementing amplified senses and new perceptual capabilities, (2) to prove the possibility of creating an artificial reflex, (3) to provide an example implementation of amplified cognition that is empirically validated, and (4) to develop models, concepts, components, and platforms that will enable and ease the creation of interactive systems that measurably increase human perceptual capabilities.
Summary
Current technical sensor systems offer capabilities that are superior to human perception. Cameras can capture a spectrum that is wider than visible light, high-speed cameras can show movements that are invisible to the human eye, and directional microphones can pick up sounds at long distances. The vision of this project is to lay a foundation for the creation of digital technologies that provide novel sensory experiences and new perceptual capabilities for humans that are natural and intuitive to use. In a first step, the project will assess the feasibility of creating artificial human senses that provide new perceptual channels to the human mind, without increasing the experienced cognitive load. A particular focus is on creating intuitive and natural control mechanisms for amplified senses using eye gaze, muscle activity, and brain signals. Through the creation of a prototype that provides mildly unpleasant stimulations in response to perceived information, the feasibility of implementing an artificial reflex will be experimentally explored. The project will quantify the effectiveness of new senses and artificial perceptual aids compared to the baseline of unaugmented perception. The overall objective is to systematically research, explore, and model new means for increasing the human intake of information in order to lay the foundation for new and improved human senses enabled through digital technologies and to enable artificial reflexes. The ground-breaking contributions of this project are (1) to demonstrate the feasibility of reliably implementing amplified senses and new perceptual capabilities, (2) to prove the possibility of creating an artificial reflex, (3) to provide an example implementation of amplified cognition that is empirically validated, and (4) to develop models, concepts, components, and platforms that will enable and ease the creation of interactive systems that measurably increase human perceptual capabilities.
Max ERC Funding
1 925 250 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-07-01, End date: 2021-06-30
Project acronym ARTIVISM
Project Art and Activism : Creativity and Performance as Subversive Forms of Political Expression in Super-Diverse Cities
Researcher (PI) Monika Salzbrunn
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITE DE LAUSANNE
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH5, ERC-2015-CoG
Summary ARTIVISM aims at exploring new artistic forms of political expression under difficult, precarious and/or oppressive conditions. It asks how social actors create belonging and multiple forms of resistance when they use art in activism or activism in art. What kind of alliances do these two forms of social practices generate in super-diverse places, in times of crisis and in precarious situations? Thus, ARTIVISM seeks to understand how social actors engage artistically in order to bring about social, economic and political change. Going beyond former research in urban and migration studies, and beyond the anthropology of art, ARTIVISM focuses on a broad range of artistic tools, styles and means of expression, namely festive events and parades, cartoons and comics and street art. By articulating performance studies, street anthropology and the sociology of celebration with migration and diversity studies, the project challenges former concepts, which took stable social groups for granted and reified them with ethnic lenses. The applied methodology considerably renews the field by bringing together event-, actor- and condition-centred approaches and a multi-sensory framework. Besides its multidisciplinary design, the ground-breaking nature of ARTIVISM lies in the application of the core concepts of performativity and liminality, as well as in an examination of the way to advance and refine these concepts and to create new analytical tools to respond to recent social phenomena. We have developed and tested innovative methods that respond to a postmodern type of fluid and temporary social action: audio-visual ethnography, urban event ethnography, street ethnography, field-crossing, and sensory ethnography (apprenticeship). Therefore, ARTIVISM develops new methods and theories in order to introduce a multi-faceted trans-disciplinary approach to the study of an emerging field of social transformations that is of challenging significance to the social sciences.
Summary
ARTIVISM aims at exploring new artistic forms of political expression under difficult, precarious and/or oppressive conditions. It asks how social actors create belonging and multiple forms of resistance when they use art in activism or activism in art. What kind of alliances do these two forms of social practices generate in super-diverse places, in times of crisis and in precarious situations? Thus, ARTIVISM seeks to understand how social actors engage artistically in order to bring about social, economic and political change. Going beyond former research in urban and migration studies, and beyond the anthropology of art, ARTIVISM focuses on a broad range of artistic tools, styles and means of expression, namely festive events and parades, cartoons and comics and street art. By articulating performance studies, street anthropology and the sociology of celebration with migration and diversity studies, the project challenges former concepts, which took stable social groups for granted and reified them with ethnic lenses. The applied methodology considerably renews the field by bringing together event-, actor- and condition-centred approaches and a multi-sensory framework. Besides its multidisciplinary design, the ground-breaking nature of ARTIVISM lies in the application of the core concepts of performativity and liminality, as well as in an examination of the way to advance and refine these concepts and to create new analytical tools to respond to recent social phenomena. We have developed and tested innovative methods that respond to a postmodern type of fluid and temporary social action: audio-visual ethnography, urban event ethnography, street ethnography, field-crossing, and sensory ethnography (apprenticeship). Therefore, ARTIVISM develops new methods and theories in order to introduce a multi-faceted trans-disciplinary approach to the study of an emerging field of social transformations that is of challenging significance to the social sciences.
Max ERC Funding
1 999 287 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-09-01, End date: 2021-08-31
Project acronym BPI
Project Bayesian Peer Influence: Group Beliefs, Polarisation and Segregation
Researcher (PI) Gilat Levy
Host Institution (HI) LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH1, ERC-2015-CoG
Summary "The objective of this research agenda is to provide a new framework to model and analyze dynamics of group beliefs, in order to study phenomena such as group polarization, segregation and inter-group discrimination. We introduce a simple new heuristic, the Bayesian Peer Influence heuristic (BPI), which is based on rational foundations and captures how individuals are influenced by others' beliefs. We will explore the theoretical properties of this heuristic, and apply the model to analyze the implications of belief dynamics on social interactions.
Understanding the formation and evolution of beliefs in groups is an important aspect of many economic applications, such as labour market discrimination. The beliefs that different groups of people have about members of other groups should be central to any theory or empirical investigation of this topic. At the same time, economic models of segregation and discrimination typically do not focus on the evolution and dynamics of group beliefs that allow for such phenomena. There is therefore a need for new tools of analysis for incorporating the dynamics of group beliefs; this is particularly important in order to understand the full implications of policy interventions which often intend to ""educate the public''. The BPI fills this gap in the literature by offering a tractable and natural heuristic for group communication.
Our aim is to study the theoretical properties of the BPI, as well as its applications to the dynamics of group behavior. Our plan is to: (i) Analyze rational learning from others’ beliefs and characterise the BPI. (ii) Use the BPI to account for cognitive biases in information processing. (iii) Use the BPI to analyze the diffusion of beliefs in social networks. (iv) Apply the BPI to understand the relation between belief polarization, segregation in education and labour market discrimination. (v) Apply the BPI to understand the relation between belief polarization and political outcomes."
Summary
"The objective of this research agenda is to provide a new framework to model and analyze dynamics of group beliefs, in order to study phenomena such as group polarization, segregation and inter-group discrimination. We introduce a simple new heuristic, the Bayesian Peer Influence heuristic (BPI), which is based on rational foundations and captures how individuals are influenced by others' beliefs. We will explore the theoretical properties of this heuristic, and apply the model to analyze the implications of belief dynamics on social interactions.
Understanding the formation and evolution of beliefs in groups is an important aspect of many economic applications, such as labour market discrimination. The beliefs that different groups of people have about members of other groups should be central to any theory or empirical investigation of this topic. At the same time, economic models of segregation and discrimination typically do not focus on the evolution and dynamics of group beliefs that allow for such phenomena. There is therefore a need for new tools of analysis for incorporating the dynamics of group beliefs; this is particularly important in order to understand the full implications of policy interventions which often intend to ""educate the public''. The BPI fills this gap in the literature by offering a tractable and natural heuristic for group communication.
Our aim is to study the theoretical properties of the BPI, as well as its applications to the dynamics of group behavior. Our plan is to: (i) Analyze rational learning from others’ beliefs and characterise the BPI. (ii) Use the BPI to account for cognitive biases in information processing. (iii) Use the BPI to analyze the diffusion of beliefs in social networks. (iv) Apply the BPI to understand the relation between belief polarization, segregation in education and labour market discrimination. (v) Apply the BPI to understand the relation between belief polarization and political outcomes."
Max ERC Funding
1 662 942 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-08-01, End date: 2021-07-31
Project acronym CHAMELEON
Project Intuitive editing of visual appearance from real-world datasets
Researcher (PI) Diego Gutierrez Pérez
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSIDAD DE ZARAGOZA
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), PE6, ERC-2015-CoG
Summary Computer-generated imagery is now ubiquitous in our society, spanning fields such as games and movies, architecture, engineering, or virtual prototyping, while also helping create novel ones such as computational materials. With the increase in computational power and the improvement of acquisition techniques, there has been a paradigm shift in the field towards data-driven techniques, which has yielded an unprecedented level of realism in visual appearance. Unfortunately, this leads to a series of problems, identified in this proposal: First, there is a disconnect between the mathematical representation of the data and any meaningful parameters that humans understand; the captured data is machine-friendly, but not human friendly. Second, the many different acquisition systems lead to heterogeneous formats and very large datasets. And third, real-world appearance functions are usually nonlinear and high-dimensional. As a result, visual appearance datasets are increasingly unfit to editing operations, which limits the creative process for scientists, engineers, artists and practitioners in general. There is an immense gap between the complexity, realism and richness of the captured data, and the flexibility to edit such data.
We believe that the current research path leads to a fragmented space of isolated solutions, each tailored to a particular dataset and problem. We propose a research plan at the theoretical, algorithmic and application levels, putting the user at the core. We will learn key relevant appearance features in terms humans understand, from which intuitive, predictable editing spaces, algorithms, and workflows will be defined. In order to ensure usability and foster creativity, we will also extend our research to efficient simulation of visual appearance, exploiting the extra dimensionality of the captured datasets. Achieving our goals will finally enable us to reach the true potential of real-world captured datasets in many aspects of society.
Summary
Computer-generated imagery is now ubiquitous in our society, spanning fields such as games and movies, architecture, engineering, or virtual prototyping, while also helping create novel ones such as computational materials. With the increase in computational power and the improvement of acquisition techniques, there has been a paradigm shift in the field towards data-driven techniques, which has yielded an unprecedented level of realism in visual appearance. Unfortunately, this leads to a series of problems, identified in this proposal: First, there is a disconnect between the mathematical representation of the data and any meaningful parameters that humans understand; the captured data is machine-friendly, but not human friendly. Second, the many different acquisition systems lead to heterogeneous formats and very large datasets. And third, real-world appearance functions are usually nonlinear and high-dimensional. As a result, visual appearance datasets are increasingly unfit to editing operations, which limits the creative process for scientists, engineers, artists and practitioners in general. There is an immense gap between the complexity, realism and richness of the captured data, and the flexibility to edit such data.
We believe that the current research path leads to a fragmented space of isolated solutions, each tailored to a particular dataset and problem. We propose a research plan at the theoretical, algorithmic and application levels, putting the user at the core. We will learn key relevant appearance features in terms humans understand, from which intuitive, predictable editing spaces, algorithms, and workflows will be defined. In order to ensure usability and foster creativity, we will also extend our research to efficient simulation of visual appearance, exploiting the extra dimensionality of the captured datasets. Achieving our goals will finally enable us to reach the true potential of real-world captured datasets in many aspects of society.
Max ERC Funding
1 629 519 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-11-01, End date: 2021-10-31
Project acronym CIRCUS
Project An end-to-end verification architecture for building Certified Implementations of Robust, Cryptographically Secure web applications
Researcher (PI) Karthikeyan Bhargavan
Host Institution (HI) INSTITUT NATIONAL DE RECHERCHE ENINFORMATIQUE ET AUTOMATIQUE
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), PE6, ERC-2015-CoG
Summary The security of modern web applications depends on a variety of critical components including cryptographic libraries, Transport Layer Security (TLS), browser security mechanisms, and single sign-on protocols. Although these components are widely used, their security guarantees remain poorly understood, leading to subtle bugs and frequent attacks.
Rather than fixing one attack at a time, we advocate the use of formal security verification to identify and eliminate entire classes of vulnerabilities in one go. With the aid of my ERC starting grant, I have built a team that has already achieved landmark results in this direction. We built the first TLS implementation with a cryptographic proof of security. We discovered high-profile vulnerabilities such as the recent Triple Handshake and FREAK attacks, both of which triggered critical security updates to all major web browsers and TLS libraries.
So far, our security theorems only apply to carefully-written standalone reference implementations. CIRCUS proposes to take on the next great challenge: verifying the end-to-end security of web applications running in mainstream software. The key idea is to identify the core security components of web browsers and servers and replace them by rigorously verified components that offer the same functionality but with robust security guarantees.
Our goal is ambitious and there are many challenges to overcome, but we believe this is an opportune time for this proposal. In response to the Snowden reports, many cryptographic libraries and protocols are currently being audited and redesigned. Standards bodies and software developers are inviting researchers to help analyse their designs and code. Responding to their call requires a team of researchers who are willing to deal with the messy details of nascent standards and legacy code, and at the same time prove strong security theorems based on precise cryptographic assumptions. We are able, we are willing, and the time is now.
Summary
The security of modern web applications depends on a variety of critical components including cryptographic libraries, Transport Layer Security (TLS), browser security mechanisms, and single sign-on protocols. Although these components are widely used, their security guarantees remain poorly understood, leading to subtle bugs and frequent attacks.
Rather than fixing one attack at a time, we advocate the use of formal security verification to identify and eliminate entire classes of vulnerabilities in one go. With the aid of my ERC starting grant, I have built a team that has already achieved landmark results in this direction. We built the first TLS implementation with a cryptographic proof of security. We discovered high-profile vulnerabilities such as the recent Triple Handshake and FREAK attacks, both of which triggered critical security updates to all major web browsers and TLS libraries.
So far, our security theorems only apply to carefully-written standalone reference implementations. CIRCUS proposes to take on the next great challenge: verifying the end-to-end security of web applications running in mainstream software. The key idea is to identify the core security components of web browsers and servers and replace them by rigorously verified components that offer the same functionality but with robust security guarantees.
Our goal is ambitious and there are many challenges to overcome, but we believe this is an opportune time for this proposal. In response to the Snowden reports, many cryptographic libraries and protocols are currently being audited and redesigned. Standards bodies and software developers are inviting researchers to help analyse their designs and code. Responding to their call requires a team of researchers who are willing to deal with the messy details of nascent standards and legacy code, and at the same time prove strong security theorems based on precise cryptographic assumptions. We are able, we are willing, and the time is now.
Max ERC Funding
1 885 248 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-04-01, End date: 2021-03-31
Project acronym CityNet
Project Cities in Global Financial Networks: Financial and Business Services and Developmentin the 21st Century
Researcher (PI) Dariusz, Jacek Wojcik
Host Institution (HI) THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH3, ERC-2015-CoG
Summary Financial and business services (FABS), including law, accounting, and business consulting, have been one of the most dynamic sectors of the world economy, with a fivefold rise in real value added since 1980. Although FABS are central to the processes of globalisation, financialisation, urbanisation and development, our understanding of the sector in the context of tumultuous changes of the early 21st century is partial. How have the FABS firms and centres been affected by the global financial crisis and the Eurozone crisis? How are they changing in response to new financial regulation, the expected shift of economic activity to the Asia-Pacific region, and the digital revolution? What are the impacts of FABS on urban, regional, and global development? We urgently need groundbreaking frontier research to better understand the nature and dynamics of FABS, and their implications.
This project is designed to address this challenge by focusing on three objectives: mapping the FABS sector and its transactional networks worldwide; analysing strategies of FABS firms, as well as policies towards FABS and their institutional environments in cities; explaining the impacts of FABS, their strategies, and place-specific factors on growth, stability, and inequality at urban, regional, national and global level. In doing so, we will develop a new theoretical framework, called the Global Financial Networks, which positions FABS and their networks in the broader economy. Using a mixed-methods approach, we will document the development of FABS and their consequences, cutting through the hype of financial centre indices, and through the fog of ideologically charged debates on the virtues and vices of the financial sector. One of the outcomes of the project will be the world’s first ever atlas of finance. The project will provide a robust evidence base crucial in shaping future rounds of investment by and in FABS, and policies towards FABS by governments and other organisations.
Summary
Financial and business services (FABS), including law, accounting, and business consulting, have been one of the most dynamic sectors of the world economy, with a fivefold rise in real value added since 1980. Although FABS are central to the processes of globalisation, financialisation, urbanisation and development, our understanding of the sector in the context of tumultuous changes of the early 21st century is partial. How have the FABS firms and centres been affected by the global financial crisis and the Eurozone crisis? How are they changing in response to new financial regulation, the expected shift of economic activity to the Asia-Pacific region, and the digital revolution? What are the impacts of FABS on urban, regional, and global development? We urgently need groundbreaking frontier research to better understand the nature and dynamics of FABS, and their implications.
This project is designed to address this challenge by focusing on three objectives: mapping the FABS sector and its transactional networks worldwide; analysing strategies of FABS firms, as well as policies towards FABS and their institutional environments in cities; explaining the impacts of FABS, their strategies, and place-specific factors on growth, stability, and inequality at urban, regional, national and global level. In doing so, we will develop a new theoretical framework, called the Global Financial Networks, which positions FABS and their networks in the broader economy. Using a mixed-methods approach, we will document the development of FABS and their consequences, cutting through the hype of financial centre indices, and through the fog of ideologically charged debates on the virtues and vices of the financial sector. One of the outcomes of the project will be the world’s first ever atlas of finance. The project will provide a robust evidence base crucial in shaping future rounds of investment by and in FABS, and policies towards FABS by governments and other organisations.
Max ERC Funding
1 929 306 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-08-01, End date: 2021-07-31
Project acronym CONSERVATION
Project The Economics and Politics of Conservation
Researcher (PI) Bård Gjul Harstad
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITETET I OSLO
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH1, ERC-2015-CoG
Summary The UN’s approach to climate policy is to focus on national emission caps for greenhouse gases. Most of the economic theory on environmental agreements is also studying such a demand-side approach, even though it is well known that such an approach has several flaws, including carbon leakage and the incentive to free ride. Recent theory has suggested that a better approach may be to focus on the supply-side of the equation, rather than the demand-side. While this recent theory is promising, it is only indicative and has several shortcomings that must be analysed. The goal of this project is to investigate in depth how to best use conservation as an environmental policy tool. The project aims at integrating the theory of emissions and pollution with a model of extraction and thus the supply of exhaustible resources in a coherent and dynamic game-theoretic framework. I will apply this framework to analyse negotiations, agreements, and contracts on extraction levels, and how such policies can interact, complement or substitute for agreements focusing on consumption/emissions. It will also be important to develop and apply the tools of political economics to investigate which (second-best) agreement one may expect to be feasible as equilibria of the game. For highly asymmetric settings, where the possessors of the resource are few (such as for tropical forests), side transfers are necessary and contract theory will be the natural analytical tool when
searching for the best agreement. However, also standard contract theory needs to be developed further once one recognizes that the “agent” in the principal-agent relationship is an organization or a government, rather than an individual.
Summary
The UN’s approach to climate policy is to focus on national emission caps for greenhouse gases. Most of the economic theory on environmental agreements is also studying such a demand-side approach, even though it is well known that such an approach has several flaws, including carbon leakage and the incentive to free ride. Recent theory has suggested that a better approach may be to focus on the supply-side of the equation, rather than the demand-side. While this recent theory is promising, it is only indicative and has several shortcomings that must be analysed. The goal of this project is to investigate in depth how to best use conservation as an environmental policy tool. The project aims at integrating the theory of emissions and pollution with a model of extraction and thus the supply of exhaustible resources in a coherent and dynamic game-theoretic framework. I will apply this framework to analyse negotiations, agreements, and contracts on extraction levels, and how such policies can interact, complement or substitute for agreements focusing on consumption/emissions. It will also be important to develop and apply the tools of political economics to investigate which (second-best) agreement one may expect to be feasible as equilibria of the game. For highly asymmetric settings, where the possessors of the resource are few (such as for tropical forests), side transfers are necessary and contract theory will be the natural analytical tool when
searching for the best agreement. However, also standard contract theory needs to be developed further once one recognizes that the “agent” in the principal-agent relationship is an organization or a government, rather than an individual.
Max ERC Funding
1 571 554 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-08-01, End date: 2021-07-31
Project acronym CSP-Infinity
Project Homogeneous Structures, Constraint Satisfaction Problems, and Topological Clones
Researcher (PI) Manuel Bodirsky
Host Institution (HI) TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET DRESDEN
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), PE6, ERC-2015-CoG
Summary The complexity of constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) is a field in rapid development, and involves central questions in graph homomorphisms, finite model theory, reasoning in artificial intelligence, and, last but not least, universal algebra. In previous work, it was shown that a substantial part of the results and tools for the study of the computational complexity of CSPs can be generalised to infinite domains when the constraints are definable over a homogeneous structure. There are many computational problems, in particular in temporal and spatial reasoning, that can be modelled in this way, but not over finite domains. Also in finite model theory and descriptive complexity, CSPs over infinite domains arise systematically as problems in monotone fragments of existential second-order logic.
In this project, we will advance in three directions:
(a) Further develop the universal-algebraic approach for CSPs over homogeneous structures. E.g., provide evidence for a universal-algebraic tractability conjecture for such CSPs.
(b) Apply the universal-algebraic approach. In particular, classify the complexity of all problems in guarded monotone SNP, a logic discovered independently in finite model theory and ontology-based data-access.
(c) Investigate the complexity of CSPs over those infinite domains that are most relevant in computer science, namely the integers, the rationals, and the reals. Can we adapt the universal-algebraic approach to this setting?
Summary
The complexity of constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) is a field in rapid development, and involves central questions in graph homomorphisms, finite model theory, reasoning in artificial intelligence, and, last but not least, universal algebra. In previous work, it was shown that a substantial part of the results and tools for the study of the computational complexity of CSPs can be generalised to infinite domains when the constraints are definable over a homogeneous structure. There are many computational problems, in particular in temporal and spatial reasoning, that can be modelled in this way, but not over finite domains. Also in finite model theory and descriptive complexity, CSPs over infinite domains arise systematically as problems in monotone fragments of existential second-order logic.
In this project, we will advance in three directions:
(a) Further develop the universal-algebraic approach for CSPs over homogeneous structures. E.g., provide evidence for a universal-algebraic tractability conjecture for such CSPs.
(b) Apply the universal-algebraic approach. In particular, classify the complexity of all problems in guarded monotone SNP, a logic discovered independently in finite model theory and ontology-based data-access.
(c) Investigate the complexity of CSPs over those infinite domains that are most relevant in computer science, namely the integers, the rationals, and the reals. Can we adapt the universal-algebraic approach to this setting?
Max ERC Funding
1 416 250 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-10-01, End date: 2021-09-30
Project acronym DECOR
Project Decorative Principles in late Republican and early Imperial Italy
Researcher (PI) Annette Adelheid Haug
Host Institution (HI) CHRISTIAN-ALBRECHTS-UNIVERSITAET ZU KIEL
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH5, ERC-2015-CoG
Summary This project will provide a comprehensive analysis of the decorative principles employed between the late Republic and the end of the early Imperial period, i.e. the 2nd century BC and the end of the 1st century AD. It will be the first research programme to move away from analyses of single decorative elements in isolation and to focus on their correlation and interaction. This comprehensive approach will be adopted for varying spatial contexts such as houses, sanctuaries and main streets, enabling analyses of the changes decorative principles underwent according to spatial and functional contexts. Within this framework, the project will address four core research questions:
(1) How can the interplay of different decorative elements be analysed for architecturally closed and open urban spaces? A key question here is how forms of decor interact on a formal level, as well as in terms of content and meaning, in order to create specific atmospheres.
(2) What methods allow a scientific assessment of the interplay between decor and the use of space?
(3) Is there a social significance to decorative principles? Do specific social groups or specific spatial contexts favour or exclusively employ specific forms of decor?
(4) How can decorative ensembles be identified as artistic expressions typical for certain periods?
This approach will enable analyses of forms of decor and their dependencies on respective functional contexts in spatial, chronological and social terms.
The project is a pilot project for advancing new methods in substantial analyses of decorated spaces. At the same time, it provides a fundamental advancement of our understanding of the visual culture from the late Republic to the early Roman Empire.
Summary
This project will provide a comprehensive analysis of the decorative principles employed between the late Republic and the end of the early Imperial period, i.e. the 2nd century BC and the end of the 1st century AD. It will be the first research programme to move away from analyses of single decorative elements in isolation and to focus on their correlation and interaction. This comprehensive approach will be adopted for varying spatial contexts such as houses, sanctuaries and main streets, enabling analyses of the changes decorative principles underwent according to spatial and functional contexts. Within this framework, the project will address four core research questions:
(1) How can the interplay of different decorative elements be analysed for architecturally closed and open urban spaces? A key question here is how forms of decor interact on a formal level, as well as in terms of content and meaning, in order to create specific atmospheres.
(2) What methods allow a scientific assessment of the interplay between decor and the use of space?
(3) Is there a social significance to decorative principles? Do specific social groups or specific spatial contexts favour or exclusively employ specific forms of decor?
(4) How can decorative ensembles be identified as artistic expressions typical for certain periods?
This approach will enable analyses of forms of decor and their dependencies on respective functional contexts in spatial, chronological and social terms.
The project is a pilot project for advancing new methods in substantial analyses of decorated spaces. At the same time, it provides a fundamental advancement of our understanding of the visual culture from the late Republic to the early Roman Empire.
Max ERC Funding
1 996 971 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-10-01, End date: 2021-09-30
Project acronym DEMIURGE
Project Automatic Design of Robot Swarms
Researcher (PI) Mauro Birattari
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITE LIBRE DE BRUXELLES
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), PE6, ERC-2015-CoG
Summary The scope of this project is the automatic design of robot swarms. Swarm robotics is an appealing approach to the coordination of large groups of robots. Up to now, robot swarms have been designed via some labor-intensive process.
My goal is to advance the state of the art in swarm robotics by developing the DEMIURGE: an intelligent system that is able to design and realize robot swarms in a totally integrated and automatic way
The DEMIURGE is a novel concept. Starting from requirements expressed in a specification language that I will define, the DEMIURGE will design all aspects of a robot swarm - hardware and control software.
The DEMIURGE will cast a design problem into an optimization problem and will tackle it in a computation-intensive way. In this project, I will study different control software structures, optimization algorithms, ways to specify requirements, validation protocols, on-line adaptation mechanisms and techniques for re-design at run time.
Summary
The scope of this project is the automatic design of robot swarms. Swarm robotics is an appealing approach to the coordination of large groups of robots. Up to now, robot swarms have been designed via some labor-intensive process.
My goal is to advance the state of the art in swarm robotics by developing the DEMIURGE: an intelligent system that is able to design and realize robot swarms in a totally integrated and automatic way
The DEMIURGE is a novel concept. Starting from requirements expressed in a specification language that I will define, the DEMIURGE will design all aspects of a robot swarm - hardware and control software.
The DEMIURGE will cast a design problem into an optimization problem and will tackle it in a computation-intensive way. In this project, I will study different control software structures, optimization algorithms, ways to specify requirements, validation protocols, on-line adaptation mechanisms and techniques for re-design at run time.
Max ERC Funding
2 000 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-10-01, End date: 2021-09-30