Project acronym GROWTHPATTERN
Project Coordination Of Patterning And Growth In The Spinal Cord
Researcher (PI) Anna Kicheva
Host Institution (HI) INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AUSTRIA
Country Austria
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), LS3, ERC-2015-STG
Summary Individuals of the same species vary widely in size, but their organs have reproducible proportions and patterns of cell types. How cell fate specification and tissue growth are coordinated during embryonic development to achieve this reproducibility is a fundamental question in biology. Yet, surprisingly little is known about the underlying mechanisms. A major challenge has been to obtain the quantitative data required to assess the dynamics and variability in growth, pattern and signalling by morphogens – molecules that regulate both cell fate specification and tissue growth. I recently established experimental and theoretical approaches that allowed me to reconstruct with unprecedented resolution the three-dimensional growth and pattern of mouse and chick spinal cord. My data revealed a previously unanticipated role of tissue growth dynamics in controlling pattern reproducibility. This quantitative framework provides an exciting opportunity to elucidate the biophysical and molecular mechanisms of growth and pattern coordination. I will use this unique position to understand: 1) how signalling by multiple morphogens is integrated to control pattern, 2) how morphogens control cell cycle kinetics, 3) how morphogen source and target tissue are coupled to achieve pattern reproducibility. To address these issues, I will build on my experience with quantitative analyses to design novel assays where signalling, cell cycle dynamics and transcriptomes can be precisely measured and manipulated with single cell resolution. I will exploit state-of-the-art genome editing techniques to uncouple the critical feedback links and gain a novel perspective on pattern reproducibility and morphogen function. The project will advance our fundamental understanding of tissue morphogenesis and provide novel insights relevant to understanding information processing by signal transduction cascades, morphogen gradient activity, tissue engineering, and cancer biology.
Summary
Individuals of the same species vary widely in size, but their organs have reproducible proportions and patterns of cell types. How cell fate specification and tissue growth are coordinated during embryonic development to achieve this reproducibility is a fundamental question in biology. Yet, surprisingly little is known about the underlying mechanisms. A major challenge has been to obtain the quantitative data required to assess the dynamics and variability in growth, pattern and signalling by morphogens – molecules that regulate both cell fate specification and tissue growth. I recently established experimental and theoretical approaches that allowed me to reconstruct with unprecedented resolution the three-dimensional growth and pattern of mouse and chick spinal cord. My data revealed a previously unanticipated role of tissue growth dynamics in controlling pattern reproducibility. This quantitative framework provides an exciting opportunity to elucidate the biophysical and molecular mechanisms of growth and pattern coordination. I will use this unique position to understand: 1) how signalling by multiple morphogens is integrated to control pattern, 2) how morphogens control cell cycle kinetics, 3) how morphogen source and target tissue are coupled to achieve pattern reproducibility. To address these issues, I will build on my experience with quantitative analyses to design novel assays where signalling, cell cycle dynamics and transcriptomes can be precisely measured and manipulated with single cell resolution. I will exploit state-of-the-art genome editing techniques to uncouple the critical feedback links and gain a novel perspective on pattern reproducibility and morphogen function. The project will advance our fundamental understanding of tissue morphogenesis and provide novel insights relevant to understanding information processing by signal transduction cascades, morphogen gradient activity, tissue engineering, and cancer biology.
Max ERC Funding
1 499 119 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-07-01, End date: 2021-06-30
Project acronym HUNAYNNET
Project Transmission of Classical Scientific and Philosophical Literature from Greek into Syriac and Arabic
Researcher (PI) Grigory Kessel
Host Institution (HI) OESTERREICHISCHE AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN
Country Austria
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2015-STG
Summary It is often taken for granted that the Greek-Arabic translation movement (8th-10th c.) that made the whole bulk of Classical Greek scientific and philosophical literature available in Arabic (and that was later handed over to Europe in Latin translations) owes much to the preceding period in the history of transmission of this scientific and philosophical literature, namely translations into the Syriac language that were implemented by Aramaic-speaking Syriac Christians. The problem of continuity between the two periods however has not been tackled thoroughly in scholarship and thus the actual impact of the Syriac translations on later methods of translation has so far not been measured and assessed. One feasible solution to this problem in our understanding of the background to the Greek-Arabic translation movement is to implement a comprehensive comparison of Syriac and Arabic translations by means of lexicographical analysis. This project offers a research tool capable of allowing this comparison. It will combine methods of online lexicography and of corpus linguistics with the aim of presenting in a systematic and rationalized way the lexical data from the entire corpus of Syriac scientific and philosophical translations, comparing and analyzing its terminology and translation techniques, first, with the extant Greek originals and, secondly, with Arabic versions. The lexicographic database will be an effective instrument providing definite data for the study of Syriac and Arabic translations and their close connections. It will reveal how the Syriac translations along with underlying methods and tools that were put to use for the first time ever by Syriac Christians eventually determined the prosperity of the Islamic sciences. Fully endorsing a principle of open access the database creates a new instrument for a study of the history of the transmission of Greek scientific literature in Antiquity and the Middle Ages.
Summary
It is often taken for granted that the Greek-Arabic translation movement (8th-10th c.) that made the whole bulk of Classical Greek scientific and philosophical literature available in Arabic (and that was later handed over to Europe in Latin translations) owes much to the preceding period in the history of transmission of this scientific and philosophical literature, namely translations into the Syriac language that were implemented by Aramaic-speaking Syriac Christians. The problem of continuity between the two periods however has not been tackled thoroughly in scholarship and thus the actual impact of the Syriac translations on later methods of translation has so far not been measured and assessed. One feasible solution to this problem in our understanding of the background to the Greek-Arabic translation movement is to implement a comprehensive comparison of Syriac and Arabic translations by means of lexicographical analysis. This project offers a research tool capable of allowing this comparison. It will combine methods of online lexicography and of corpus linguistics with the aim of presenting in a systematic and rationalized way the lexical data from the entire corpus of Syriac scientific and philosophical translations, comparing and analyzing its terminology and translation techniques, first, with the extant Greek originals and, secondly, with Arabic versions. The lexicographic database will be an effective instrument providing definite data for the study of Syriac and Arabic translations and their close connections. It will reveal how the Syriac translations along with underlying methods and tools that were put to use for the first time ever by Syriac Christians eventually determined the prosperity of the Islamic sciences. Fully endorsing a principle of open access the database creates a new instrument for a study of the history of the transmission of Greek scientific literature in Antiquity and the Middle Ages.
Max ERC Funding
1 498 452 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-05-01, End date: 2021-04-30
Project acronym MagnonCircuits
Project Nano-Scale Magnonic Circuits for Novel Computing Systems
Researcher (PI) Andrii Chumak
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITAT WIEN
Country Austria
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), PE3, ERC-2015-STG
Summary Magnons – quanta of spin waves – propagating in magnetic materials having nano-scale wavelengths and carrying information in the form of a spin angular momentum, can be used as data carriers in next-generation nano-sized low-loss information processing systems. The low losses of magnonic systems can be reached due to the absence of translational electron motion associated with Joule heat-ing and extremely low magnetic damping in the dielectric Yttrium-Iron-Garnet (YIG) material used.
The recent revolutionary progress in the growth of high-quality YIG films with nanometer thickness, and in the patterning of these films, opened a way to the practical development of nano-scale mag-nonic computing systems. However, the decrease in sizes of YIG structures to sub-100 nm requires the development of the physical knowledge base for understanding linear and nonlinear magnetization dynamics in nanostructures.
The strategic goal of the proposed MagnonCircuits research program is to make a transformative change in the data processing paradigm from traditional electronics to magnon spintronics. The ingre-dients required for such a transformation and addressed by MagnonCircuits are: (i) The fabrication of magnon conduits of sub-100 nm width, the development of a toolbox enabling excitation and de-tection of fast exchange magnons, and the understanding of the physics underlying magnon dynamics at the nano-scale in the exchange interaction regime. (ii) Employment of such novel physical phenom-ena as spin pumping, spin transfer torque and spin Hall effect to overcome the fundamental limita-tions of the state-of-the-art approaches in magnon spintronics, and to compensate the dissipation in magnonic circuits. (iii) Realization of two-dimensional magnonic circuits required for transport and processing of magnon-carried data. A proof-of-concept models of two nano-scale devices – majority gate and magnon transistor – will be developed in the course of MagnonCircuits.
Summary
Magnons – quanta of spin waves – propagating in magnetic materials having nano-scale wavelengths and carrying information in the form of a spin angular momentum, can be used as data carriers in next-generation nano-sized low-loss information processing systems. The low losses of magnonic systems can be reached due to the absence of translational electron motion associated with Joule heat-ing and extremely low magnetic damping in the dielectric Yttrium-Iron-Garnet (YIG) material used.
The recent revolutionary progress in the growth of high-quality YIG films with nanometer thickness, and in the patterning of these films, opened a way to the practical development of nano-scale mag-nonic computing systems. However, the decrease in sizes of YIG structures to sub-100 nm requires the development of the physical knowledge base for understanding linear and nonlinear magnetization dynamics in nanostructures.
The strategic goal of the proposed MagnonCircuits research program is to make a transformative change in the data processing paradigm from traditional electronics to magnon spintronics. The ingre-dients required for such a transformation and addressed by MagnonCircuits are: (i) The fabrication of magnon conduits of sub-100 nm width, the development of a toolbox enabling excitation and de-tection of fast exchange magnons, and the understanding of the physics underlying magnon dynamics at the nano-scale in the exchange interaction regime. (ii) Employment of such novel physical phenom-ena as spin pumping, spin transfer torque and spin Hall effect to overcome the fundamental limita-tions of the state-of-the-art approaches in magnon spintronics, and to compensate the dissipation in magnonic circuits. (iii) Realization of two-dimensional magnonic circuits required for transport and processing of magnon-carried data. A proof-of-concept models of two nano-scale devices – majority gate and magnon transistor – will be developed in the course of MagnonCircuits.
Max ERC Funding
1 487 969 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-06-01, End date: 2021-11-30
Project acronym RESPONSIVENESS
Project The Microfoundations of Authoritarian Responsiveness: E-Participation, Social Unrest and Public Policy in China
Researcher (PI) Christian Goebel
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITAT WIEN
Country Austria
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2015-STG
Summary "China’s success story of the past three decades is seen as an anomaly. Market-based reforms have generated an economic system that can hardly be described as socialist anymore, but the Communist Party of China remains in power. Although social unrest is on the rise, the CCP enjoys the consent of the overwhelming majority of its people. Most agree that China’s economic performance is the key to solving this apparent puzzle, but how can extraordinary high rates of public support be maintained in a country where income inequality is so extreme?
We believe that the answer to this question lies in the responsiveness of China’s authoritarian one-party regime to popular demands and grievances, a capability that has so far been attributed only to democratic regimes. We further believe that the rapid improvement of e-participation, the opportunity to evaluate public services on the Internet, has greatly facilitated regime responsiveness - China’s score in the United Nations e-participation index is higher than the European average. We suggest, however, that as the government increasingly calibrates public policy towards satisfying the demand of China’s netizens, the ""technologically illiterate"" are forced to express their demands in public protests and other forms of social unrest.
The proposed project sheds light on the intended and unintended consequences of enhanced e-participation in China by exploring which social interests China’s rulers incorporate into public policy making, and how these decisions influence the propensity of particular social groups to voice their demands by either participating online or taking to the streets. By exploring the “complex system” in which online complaints, social unrest and public policy interact, the project provides insights into the micro-foundations of regime responsiveness in China. It thereby increases our knowledge of how the CCP seeks to defer the antagonism that prompted the revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia and Syria."
Summary
"China’s success story of the past three decades is seen as an anomaly. Market-based reforms have generated an economic system that can hardly be described as socialist anymore, but the Communist Party of China remains in power. Although social unrest is on the rise, the CCP enjoys the consent of the overwhelming majority of its people. Most agree that China’s economic performance is the key to solving this apparent puzzle, but how can extraordinary high rates of public support be maintained in a country where income inequality is so extreme?
We believe that the answer to this question lies in the responsiveness of China’s authoritarian one-party regime to popular demands and grievances, a capability that has so far been attributed only to democratic regimes. We further believe that the rapid improvement of e-participation, the opportunity to evaluate public services on the Internet, has greatly facilitated regime responsiveness - China’s score in the United Nations e-participation index is higher than the European average. We suggest, however, that as the government increasingly calibrates public policy towards satisfying the demand of China’s netizens, the ""technologically illiterate"" are forced to express their demands in public protests and other forms of social unrest.
The proposed project sheds light on the intended and unintended consequences of enhanced e-participation in China by exploring which social interests China’s rulers incorporate into public policy making, and how these decisions influence the propensity of particular social groups to voice their demands by either participating online or taking to the streets. By exploring the “complex system” in which online complaints, social unrest and public policy interact, the project provides insights into the micro-foundations of regime responsiveness in China. It thereby increases our knowledge of how the CCP seeks to defer the antagonism that prompted the revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia and Syria."
Max ERC Funding
1 292 440 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-05-01, End date: 2021-10-31
