Grants

A large proportion of trees and shrubs are located outside of forests in peri-urban and rural dryland areas, playing a crucial role for the stability of the ecosystems, biodiversity, and providing food resources and shelter for humans and animals. However, no large scale assessment on individual trees and their density outside of forests exists. Here, this project applies deep learning on sub-meter resolution satellite imagery at continental scale, to map each woody plant and its characteristics (e.g. density, crown size) in hyper-arid, arid and semi-arid Africa, with a specific focus on the Sahara and Sahel. Furthermore, the environmental and social factors that determine the distribution, characteristics and functions of each tree and shrub are analyzed. Results will be stored in a publicly available spatial data-base including each woody plant outside forests in Africa, which is pivotal to understand their role in ecology, as carbon stocks, agroforestry, and in people’s livelihoods.

Migration and Membership Regimes in the Ancient Greek World (c. 400 BCE-100 CE) aims at providing a new comprehensive framework for the study of ancient Greek migration in the Hellenistic period (broadly conceived). In contrast with earlier scholarship, which mostly confined itself to juridical aspects of foreigner status, the project departs from the assumption that legal, social, economic and religious aspects of host communities should be viewed as integral parts of a 'membership regime' which profoundly shaped outcomes for migrants as well as citizens. The project consist of four case studies each probing different aspect of different membership regimes: (1) the social means by which wealthy foreigners assimilated with local civic elites, (2) the social and economic integration of former slaves, (3) the negotiation of status fragility of free foreigners in the economy, politics and religion, and (4) women's agency in the cult of foreign gods.

Small RNA-mediated transposon silencing in animals occurs via Piwi protein effector complexes guided by Piwi-interacting small RNAs (piRNAs). The piRNA pathway is thus part of a genetic conflict between the host genome and genetic parasites in the form of transposons. With this work, I will uncover mechanistic insight into how transposons and animal genomes co-evolve and reveal the molecular ‘weapons’ and consequences of the on-going genetic arms race. To do this, I will use the heterochromatic expression pathways of Drosophila piRNA source loci as a novel model system for mechanistic understanding of genetic conflicts. With this system, I will apply proteomics, genetic screen, evolutionary analyses, and high-throughput protein interaction assay to identify the molecular mechanisms employed by transposons to evade piRNA-mediated silencing and further to uncover how the piRNA pathway factors, in turn, adapt in the constant arms race between the host genome and transposons.

Intelligent machines that understand natural language texts are the Holy Grail of AI. If achieved, it can automatically extract useful information from big messy text collections. Many challenges must be overcome first. To alleviate the scarcity of resources and broaden the scope to Danish and other small languages, I will unify two strands of research, transfer learning and weak supervision, with the aim to design cross-domain and cross-lingual algorithms that extract information more robustly under minimal guidance (for two applications: syntactic parsing and information extraction). Besides existing benchmarks, the designed technology is tested in production on job skills text data provided by "Styrelsen for Arbejdsmarked og Rekruttering". Resulting prototypes will be made publicly available to accelerate innovation in the use of linguistic data for knowledge discovery.

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is a highly aggressive, universally fatal brain tumor, for which no efficient treatments exist. The compound [125I]iododeoxyuridine (125I-UdR) was recently shown to be highly effective against GBM in rats, even curing animals in some cases. 125I-UdR kills cancer cells by inserting into the DNA and emitting a burst of highly destructive Auger electrons. When tested in pigs however, 125I-UdR rapidly washed out of the brain, due to the larger brain size. This ruled out translation to humans. In this project, we will develop nanocarrier systems for delivering 125I-UdR againt GBM. Such systems can distribute and be retained efficiently by convection enhancded delivery (CED) in brain tissue, solving the problem of wash-out. In addition, we will design systems for releasing free and unmodified 125I-UdR after distribution in the brain. This is because the uptake of 125I-UdR into DNA is enzymatic. With this, we will develop a new therapy and potential cure for GBM.

Animals must continuously adapt to osmotic challenges to maintain homeostasis and to survive. This requires the coordinated actions of organs with specialized functions, which in turn are modulated by systemic signals communicated by other organs to ensure an appropriate physiological response by the organisms. Molecular osmoreceptors lie at the heart of the central mechanisms coordinating these processes. Yet, the molecular identity of such osmosensitive molecules, and how they modulate the release of known neuroendocrine factors that control systemic osmoregulation is unknown. Using the genetic model organism, Drosophila melanogaster, in combination with cutting-edge technologies in Next-Gen Sequencing (NGS), quantitative mass-spectrometry, neuroendocrinology, genetics, advanced bioimaging, this research program will achieve a paradigm shift in our understanding of the molecular, cellular and network mechanisms that mediate systemic osmoregulation in the largest animal group on Earth

DNA-protein crosslinks (DPCs) are lesions induced by a variety of crosslinking agents including many chemotherapeutics. DPCs are highly toxic because they block DNA replication and thereby threaten genomic integrity. Despite their relevance to humans, it is only recently that experiments in yeast and frogs demonstrated the existence of a dedicated proteolysis pathway that removes DPCs. Using Xenopus egg extracts we recapitulated DPC repair in a test tube and showed how this reaction is coupled to DNA replication. Seeking to understand the molecular events that link DPC proteolysis to DNA replication, we found that DPC degradation can also occur in the absence of replication. In this proposal, we will use the power of our in vitro system to delineate different mechanisms of replication-independent DPC-repair and identify small molecules that inhibit these processes. This project will deepen our understanding of how these toxic lesions are removed from the genome.

The goal of the project is to invent novel, accurate and efficient numerical methods for CFD simulations of fluid flows involving sharp fluid interfaces. Focus is on finite volume methods on unstructured polyhedral meshes, where I will: 1) Develop accurate and efficient numerics for representing and advancing a complex, sharp fluid interface under the action of a given velocity field in a computational domain. 2) Consistently incorporate the interfacial discontinuity of physical properties into the solution algorithm for the discretized incompressible Navier-Stokes equations. 3) Invent new methods to calculate surface curvature and represent surface tension forces numerically. The approach will be based on computational geometry combined with ideas from the theory of mimetic methods to ensure preservation of basic properties of the underlying differential operators in the solved PDE's. Open source code will be developed and released in the OpenFOAM framework.

The project examines how culture gets-in-action—influences, shapes and strictures social action. Extending the cultural sociology ‘strong program’ that treats culture as an independent variable with causal influence on social life, the project proposes to operationalize culture via the autonomous and formal cultural model of popular culture fictional genres. Drawing on literary hermeneutics, genre, reception and possible world theory, the project develops a novel conceptual and methodological approach that allows for empirically following how popular culture genres are appropriated and activated by social actors within organizational and professional settings. The project consists of three sub-projects. The first examines the role of science fiction in robotic design within a robotics incubator; the second the role of crime fiction in police work in a national police unit; and the third the role of climate fiction professional climate change activism in social movement organization

Continuous flow technology has been widely applied in synthetic organic chemistry for the synthesis of high-value-added chemicals, whereas it has been recently discovered in biocatalysis employing enzymes for organic synthesis. The idea of light utilization through combination of photo- and biocatalysis enable the “green” synthesis of chemicals. The ultimate goal of PHOTOX-f project proposed here is to develop highly productive continuous photobiocatalytic synthesis of an active pharmaceutical intermediate in miniaturized flow bioreactors. The PhD project deals with the design of robust photo-biocatalytic preparations, systematic analysis and assembly of photocatalyst (carbon nanodots) with the biocatalyst (peroxygenase). Whereas, the PostDoc project is dedicated to the fabrication of meso-scale glass tubular flow bioreactors and development of photobiocatalysis in multiphasic media, which will be followed by demonstration of increasing the manufacturing capacity by numbering-up.