Grants

Why do only certain memberships have a moral standing? Why is it, for example, that we think indigenous groups or women might deserve protection and rights, but not, say, groups of urban dwellers? This project considers whether a Cultural Copying (CC) account of group membership can also explain why a certain group has a moral standing (i.e. are the targets of group rights, protections) etc. In the CC account, membership is achieved by chain of cultural reproduction. The hypothesis is that many of acts of cultural copying will also involve features of membership that political theorists have suggested might underlie group rights (e.g. reciprocity, historical continuity). Membership in a gender, for example, is passed on within a chain of social learning within a particular cultural niche and these engagements with past (role) models may lead to a sense of belonging and solidarity within the chain. The project combines research from philosophy of social science with political theory

This research project makes the representation of Syria in war and peace the object of an ethnographic inquiry of image construction. It examines how images and memories reconfigure what Syria was and is and what it is in a process of becoming for Syrians themselves by focusing on the active establishment of archives and the processes of archiving. The project is a critical contribution to rethinking unstable temporal orderings of past, present, and future as it engages the question of how to theorize futurity. Hence, the research questions are: How do archives come into being, and how do they shape, regulate, and change perceptions, memories, and potential futures? How is the image of Syria re-assembled, re-made, and re-mediated by Syrian actors across personal, collective, and institutional contexts? And how do political changes in the present impact on the reading and use of the past in the creation of viable futures?

This project will investigate past populations of three Arctic marine mammal species: polar bear, narwhal and beluga. Using a combination of state of the art ancient DNA methodologies and stable isotope analysis, we will analyze an exceptional collection of hundreds of subfossil faunal remains spanning 50,000 years of evolutionary history. By opening a window directly into the past, we will elucidate how past changes in the environment impacted each of these Arctic endemics. The power of this proposal lies in the interdisciplinary study of several co-distributed species; each is a critical component of the Arctic ecosystem and an indicator species of the response of Arctic mammalian fauna to climatic perturbations. By understanding past evolutionary and ecological responses across species, we will provide crucial information on their resilience, and thereby that of Arctic marine ecosystems, to near-future predictions of climate change.

This project deals specifically with the borderlands between what is possible and impossible in the grammatical systems of language, while examining the borders between clauses, more specifically their left edge. Theoretical and experimental syntax will be combined in pursuit of the overall goal which is to investigate how a fundamental property of human language interacts with a unique characteristic of Danish. The focus is on one of the defining characteristics of human language, namely the possibility of extracting elements long-distance from embedded clauses to the left edge of main clauses. Danish is a particularly interesting object of inquiry in connection with long-distance extractions because the syntax of Danish displays an exceptionally wide range of possibilities for moving constituents to the left edge of clauses, including extractions from types of embedded clauses which previously in the international scientific literature have been thought to be impossible.

B cells not only contribute to but also drive a broad range of autoimmune diseases. I developed a novel mouse model of prototypic autoimmune disease development, with extrafollicular foci and spontaneous, autoreactive germinal centers composed of B cell clones derived from the normal repertoire. The model recapitulates a prominent type I interferon signature as well as rampant epitope spreading, reminiscent of that observed in human lupus patients. Strikingly, in this model a single autoreactive B cell clone is sufficient to break tolerance, raising important questions of autoimmune disease development: 1) Which cellular pathways does this clone and potential related clones rely on during the process of breaking tolerance; 2) Is this a unique phenomenon and does the initiating clone or its target antigen harbour particular qualities that allow this; and 3) Can similar properties be observed in B cell clones in patients? This will shed light on targetable pathways in autoimmune disease.

There is an unmet medical need for managing hypertension. Angiotensin II (ANG II) is the most potent regulator of blood pressure and sodium balance. It exerts a major hypertensive effect through interactions with its receptor (AT1R) present in the vasculature and the kidney epithelium, including the proximal tubule. My findings show that the endocytic receptor megalin captures filtered ANG II at the apical side of the proximal tubule cells causing AT1R stimulation and increased renal sodium reabsorption and blood pressure. The megalin-ANG II-AT1R axis may thus be of significance in the pathogenesis of hypertension and associated kidney injury. Using kidney cell cultures, transgenic animal models, and human kidney and urine samples, we will uncover the molecular mechanisms of the megalin-ANG II-AT1R axis in physiological conditions as well as in hypertension and proteinuric kidney disease. Our findings may reveal new targets for the modulation of renal sodium excretion and hypertension.

An important determinant for successful public sector purchasing is the contract skills of the administering personnel. However, academic research on the impact of public contract skills on contract performance is very limited. This project examines whether training public officials in transactional and relational contract management skills improves the outcomes of contracts between governments and businesses. The project carries out a randomized national field experiment that offers training to the entire population of public purchasing officials in Danish local and regional governments. Subjects will be split into relational training, transactional training, and control groups, with the two training groups receiving intensive programs in contract management. The research assesses whether training improves managers’ skills in contracting, changes their contract management practices, and, ultimately, leads to better contract performance.

Cells are physically separate from their surroundings, yet remain coherent with their neighbors and able to exchange specific sets of molecules. Previous research has shown that the junctions which facilitate transport between cells exhibit remarkable flow control features, a process which is currently believed to be energized and tightly regulated. However, passive physical flow control increasingly appears to be a fundamental mechanism for cell-cell transport. Consistent with this concept, transport has been shown to exhibit a strong mechanical stress dependence, a hallmark of soft matter interactions. The key hypothesis of this proposal is that complex fluid flow control patterns can be encoded in material properties of soft matter systems. We will combine experiments on microfluidic devicess and plant model systems with low- Reynolds-number flow and elasticity theory to elucidate the behavior of cell networks linked by soft junctions.

Denmark has announced the ambition to be the world’s first country to reach 100% renewable energy in all sectors by 2050. Such a major transition, however, requires a number of critical and precious materials in emerging technologies (e.g., neodymium intensive permanent magnets for offshore wind turbines and platinum based catalysts for fuel cells) and consequently raises concerns on potential resource bottlenecks from both geotechnical and geopolitical perspectives. In this project, we will develop a dynamic, whole chain, trade linked, stock driven, and technology specific model to explore critical materials bottlenecks and mitigation strategies of Denmark’s transition towards 100% renewable energy. Our results can help industry and policy makers identify resource constraint-aware pathways of renewable energy technologies and ensure an even stronger and more competitive Danish renewable energy industry in a global market.

Data structures is a central field in computer science that studies how efficiently data can be stored and searched on a computer. The field is very mature and many strong techniques have been developed for both designing new data structures, but also for proving mathematically that the current data structures are optimal, i.e. they cannot possible be improved. A recent line of work has successfully, and quite surprisingly, used data structure techniques to settle long-standing open problems in cryptography and machine learning. This project will push that line of work much further by designing provably optimal algorithms in cryptography and machine learning via applications of data structure techniques.

The PI aims at using the Gromov-Witten and Donaldson-Thomas theory of three and 4 complex dimensional target spaces in order to prove the important modularity conjectures in string theory and further use these modular structures to prove further dualities between different models of string theories. This proposal is in algebraic geometry and in fact besides its contribution to Super string theory, it has high impact on pure mathematics and algebraic geometry, and specially the subject of invariants of Calabi-Yau spaces and enumerative algebraic geometry.

Atmospheric aerosols show unambiguous implications both for the global climate and human health. The largest source of aerosol particles is from gas-to-particle conversion, however, the chemical identity and relative significance of participating vapours remain uncertain. Furthermore, even the basic physiochemical properties of 1-2 nm particles are unknown and are not possible to directly study experimentally. We will develop a state-of-the-art machine learning potential based on quantum chemical atmospheric molecular cluster reference data. Utilizing this new method we will screen for potential candidate cluster systems, which might be able to grow into larger cluster sizes. This project will thus lay the foundation for an entirely new research field targeting the formation and properties of 1-2 nm atmospheric molecular clusters, which has previously been out of reach.

Assessing real-life health effects of vaccination programmes is rarely prioritised in low-income countries. It is assumed that vaccine effects on child health can be reliably estimated based on vaccination coverage and disease burden. Accumulating evidence contradicts this assumption: Vaccines have broader effects on child health and the sequence of vaccines matters. To optimise health effects, I propose a shift from 12-month coverage as currently measured to indicators associated with lower mortality. I will assess the association between these proposed indicators and mortality in several low-income countries. In Guinea-Bissau, I will furthermore test whether changing the indicators improves the implementation and health effects of the vaccination programme. Finally, to optimise future vaccination programmes, I will conduct a trial of a planned programme change. With empirical evidence and appropriate indicators, we may ensure that universal health coverage leads to better health.

My research project is driven by the question: What are nature’s fundamental building blocks, i.e., the constituents of matter and the quantum structure of spacetime? A central novelty of my project is my hypothesis that the interplay of matter and quantum gravity holds the key to the answer. I will test whether a powerful symmetry principle, scale-invariance, sets in at tiny distances close to the Planck sale, making quantum gravity with matter an asymptotically safe theory. My research methodology employs a mathematical version of a microscope, the Renormalization Group. Its use in two approaches to quantum gravity is a stand-out feature of my project. This will enable me to push the boundaries of the field by mapping the phase diagram of quantum gravity with matter, and bridging the gap to particle physics. I will discover whether quantum gravity and the Standard Model are asymptotically safe and for the first time explore the nature of dark matter in the asymptotic-safety paradigm.

The goal of INNATE is to propose a fundamentally new paradigm of adaptive machines that can continually learn from experiences and apply previously learned knowledge to novel situations. Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods are becoming part of our daily and can now outperform humans in many domains. However, these systems still pale in comparison to even simple biological intelligence, which can learn and adapt to unforeseen experiences. Current machine learning systems can only deal with situations they have been trained for in advance; they are unable to adapt during execution to unexpected events. Organisms in nature can react quickly to changes because they have evolved innate priors that reflect properties of the physical world. Here we will develop a new class of algorithms based on a combination of evolutionary computation and state-of-the-art reinforcement learning, which will significantly extend the usefulness of robots in manufacturing and warehouse automation.

Tiny population. Huge territory. Extreme conditions. It is far from obvious where to find inspiration when Greenland aims for independence. Scholarship trapped between idiographic detail and unreflexive insertion in theoretical categories leaves us no clear image of how a wide variety of im- and explicit comparisons in political debate, public policy, and scholarly analysis configure how Greenland imagines independence. Through a close reading of current and historical texts on core developmental sectors, IMAGINE PoCo shows how application, rejection and forgetting of categories for comparison closes off some futures, making others self-evident. Combining insights from late imperialism and early decolonization with International Political Sociology approaches to identity, it advances our understanding of an understudied case, central for a reconfigured Arctic; theorizes the politics of comparison in the negotiation of collective identity; and opens up a new comparative research agenda.

Stacking two-dimensional (2D) materials in van der Waals heterostructures offers unlimited possibilities for tailoring quantum states and inducing new electronic properties. In this project, I will systematically generate such heterostructures by combining 2D material growth and transfer methods that can produce stacks with arbitrary material combinations and tuneable interlayer twist angles. The quantum states of these stacks will be determined at my new facility for angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy experiments with nanoscale spatial resolution (nanoARPES) at the ASTRID2 light source at Aarhus University. I will extend the capabilities of this setup to enable in operando measurements of functioning heterostructures integrated in electrical devices, which will unveil how the structure of the materials correlates with their electronic structure and how these properties are modified in the presence of current or electrostatic doping.

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.

The proposed project “Responding to a changing world: Neanderthal Extinction and Dispersal in Glacial Extremes (NeanderEDGE)” investigates how our closest extinct relative, the Neanderthal (Homo neanderthalensis), responded to the extreme climatic instability of the last glaciation at the northern edge of their distribution. Crucial focus is on establishing the northern Neanderthal distribution boundary and on understanding human biogeographical-, adaptive- and extinction dynamics in times of extreme climate change. Through the building of a unique database resource; developing of a new theoretically refined approach; execution of geoarchaeological groundtruthing and field surveying; novel behaviour-ecological distribution modelling; as well as international collaboration and outreach, this project develops a new research agenda and delivers a deep-time perspective on contemporary quandaries of human-climate interaction and extinction risks at multiple spatiotemporal scales.

Among HIV infected individuals on long-term antiretroviral therapy, there is a stable and long-lived persistent viral reservoir that forms the greatest barrier to an HIV cure. This project seeks to employ linked single cell and single provirus analyses to identify cell regulatory elements as well as the viral determinants that characterize infected cells at the start of antiretroviral therapy and thus, potentially control the establishment of the long-lived persistent viral reservoir. The expectation is that identification of these factors will yield therapeutic targets that can be modulated by clinical interventions implemented to alter the fate of the infected cells and reduce or eliminate long-term HIV persistence in HIV infected individuals.

Proteins function as catalysts due to the defined sequence and structure. Developing their catalytic functions typically requires the alteration of protein compositions (amino acids). Many believe that such alternation can be achieved only by using genetic approaches, such as site-directed mutagenesis and directed evolution (Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1993 and 2018). To break this inertial thinking, a chemical method is proposed here to change protein composition for new catalysis. In this proposal, catalytically active polymers are conjugated to proteins, creating semisynthetic enzymes that have the desired characteristics (catalysis) different from their natural proteins. This chemical approach acts similarly as genetic tools since both change protein composition for catalysis. But differently, the protein-polymer conjugation process would be more efficient and simpler because a vast variety of known active polymers can be chosen and tailored for catalysis development.

The Arctic cryosphere is a sentinel of climate change. Sea ice extent and volume have plunged over the last decades and the Greenland Ice Sheet and arctic glaciers are losing mass at an accelerating rate. Reaching a seasonally ice-free “blue” Arctic Ocean as predicted in the next decades is a policy-relevant threshold in the Earth system, yet its consequences for the arctic marine ecosystem remain uncertain. This project will unveil the long-term impact of arctic cryosphere changes on primary productivity and protist biodiversity (sea ice microalgae and phytoplankton). A unique suite of high-resolution marine sediment records spanning the Holocene will be analysed by a combination of state-of-the-art paleoceanography (biomarkers, biogeochemical tracers and microfossils) and paleogenetics (sedimentary ancient DNA) methods. Close collaboration with the climate modelling community will allow model-data comparison and the wide dissemination of data crucial for better future predictions.

ULTRA-LOWD will explore the development of a new table-top light source utilising gas-filled hollow-core fibre that will enable us to track the evolution of elementary excitations in low-dimensional materials using pump-probe and ultimately photoelectron spectroscopies. For example, we will be able to observe and optically control the modulation of the bandgap in semiconducting thin-films on ultrafast time-scales and generate single-burst electron bunches, accelerated to record-high energies for an optically driven system. This will have a significant impact on advancing the field of ultrafast laser science, while enriching our understanding of electron interactions in an important class of material system for next-generation semiconducting devices, moving us closer to an era of high-speed THz electronics. Finally, this project lays foundations on the path to momentum-resolved measurements of electron dynamics in low-dimensional materials using THz pumped photoelectron spectroscopy.

Bacteria have intricate social lives. Interactions occur within and between species, and when they take place inside the human body complexity increases. Our microbiome composition is dynamic, and while some changes are implicated in disease development less is known about how interactions within the microbiome affect community composition and host health. To address this I propose to use an interdisciplinary Evolutionary Medicine approach, which seeks to implement evolutionary theory to tackle health challenges. With a focus on the human stomach bacterium Helicobacter pylori, which can both cause and protect against disease, I will use mouse models to explore how interactions within and between species affect host health. I will test the hypothesis that intra- and interspecies interactions shape symbiont traits that are involved in host manipulation, and affect host health. As such, my Research Program will open new horizons in how we study and manage our microbial associates.

With a prevalence of 20% to 45%, fatty liver disease has reached epidemic proportions. However, only a subset of those with hepatic steatosis, the first stage of the disorder, go on to develop severe liver diseases such as cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. We currently lack effective methods to identify these ‘progressors’ early, before they reach an irreversible disease stage. We hypothesize that genetic factors play a key role in fatty liver disease progression. The aims of this study are to: 1) identify and characterize new genetic risk factors for fatty liver disease, 2) combine the individual genetic factors into a risk score, and 3) test if a higher genetic risk score predicts disease progression. We will utilize four cohorts from the UK, US, and Denmark totalling >600,000, including >1,000 patients with various stages of fatty liver disease. The study may open new avenues to the prediction and prevention of fatty liver disease progression.