Ghent University

This proposal for a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Global Fellowship is meant for the training of Dr. Pieter van Mierlo, currently at Ghent University, in the Functional Brain Mapping Laboratory (FBM Lab) of the University of Geneva, one of the world leading brain imaging laboratories. The goal of the project is to explore the communication between brain regions in epilepsy patients to ameliorate their treatment. In the first stage a non-invasive tool, ElectroEncephaloGraphy (EEG), will be used to measure the electric field of the brain through electrodes placed on top of the scalp. By measuring the voltage difference between the EEG electrodes the electric field of the brain can be studied with a high temporal resolution (ms). Recently, high density EEG (hd-EEG) systems have been developed with up to 256 electrodes. These systems allow more accurate measurements compared to the old systems having only ± 32 electrodes. The FBM Lab is one of the few labs that have hd-EEG recordings of epilepsy patients. In this project we will develop an algorithm to investigate the brain networks in epilepsy patients based on hd-EEG recordings. The brain networks will be studied to localize the epileptic focus, the brain region that causes the seizures. In the second stage hd-EEG will be combined with functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) that images the concentration of oxygen in the brain with a high spatial resolution (mm). The simultaneously recorded hd-EEG / fMRI allows studying the brain networks with both a high temporal and spatial resolution. Furthermore, fMRI is more sensitive to record brain activity of deep brain structures compared to hd-EEG. The added value of combining hd-EEG with fMRI to localize the epileptic focus will be assessed. In the third and final stage, the developed algorithms will be implemented at the UGent. A prospective study will be done to quantify the influence of functional connectivity analysis on patients’ treatment management.

This project examines a neglected aspect of the social and cultural life in Europe in the modern period: the impact of women editors on public debate. From the 1700s on, European women actively participated in the cultural arena through the journals that they edited. This project advances the hypothesis that periodical editorship enabled these women to take a prominent role in public life, to influence public opinion and to shape transnational processes of change. In order to test this hypothesis, the project will bring together a multilingual and multidisciplinary team of six researchers who will combine methodologies from literary studies, (women’s) history and the social sciences to map the transnational networks of intellectual exchange in which women editors participated, with particular attention to practices of textual transfer (including translation, adaptation, reprinting and reviewing) across language boundaries and historical periods. The project has two parts: 1) a database will take stock of women editors and their periodicals, make available new material and provide a data source for socio-textual network analysis; 2) five thematic subprojects will study the impact of women editors on some of the most significant processes of socio-cultural transformation in modern European history: the beginnings of the periodical press, the rise of the novel, domestic ideology, consumer culture and women’s rights. By examining how these processes unfolded in the press through practices of textual transfer both among women and in the larger publishing landscape, the project will not only initiate a shift in our thinking about the participation of women in society and print culture but also pave the way for pan-European research on the periodical press.

PS-IRAQ’s objectives: 1) study the relationship between knowledge production and political engineering in state and nation-building of occupied Iraq (2003-6); and 2) analyze how scientific knowledge of the state acted as a constituent element of political agency. This project also seeks to 3) develop detailed analysis of 2 sites of state and nation-building in Iraq (2003-6). The cases are the occupation’s and US efforts in: 1) restoring electrical supply and rebuilding the national electrical grid; and 2) the introduction of new Iraqi representative bodies. This project is interdisciplinary, drawing on comparative politics, the anthropology of state and economy, political geography, and social studies of science and technology. It examines how scholars from history, political science, political economy, anthropology and social theory have understood Iraq prior to and after the invasion, and how they engaged in the making and the transfer of ideas about the state. Data-collection relies on archival, library-based research, and interviews. The project generates conceptual and empirical insights relevant to European external action in Southern and Eastern Mediterranean Countries, especially crisis response and state-building. European excellence and innovation is promoted by developing a reflexive understanding of the relationship between social science knowledge and state-building practice and policy. Lessons from the US experience enhance the mutual understanding of US policy formation and social scientific knowledge formation processes. This will enhance potential for European international cooperation on state-building.

Whole-plant assessment of Innovative, Sustainable and Energy-efficient Future Layouts Of Wastewater treatment plants The WISEFLOW project addresses multiple, and oftentimes conflicting, current and future challenges of wastewater treatment plants: load increases due to population growth and urbanization, stricter effluent quality limits, space-limitations for building new plants, energy-efficiency and last but not the least, sustainability. A promising perspective to address these challenges is through the integration of existing and novel technologies, in a smart and innovative way, within wastewater treatment plant configurations. These technologies include, but are not limited to: anaerobic treatment, high-rate activated sludge units, chemically enhanced primary treatment, aerobic granular sludge systems and shortcut nitrogen removal processes. Moreover, besides description of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus in biochemical processes, attention will be paid to the fate of sulfur, which has deleterious effects and is often overlooked but is particularly present in coastal areas. Research in this project will focus on key process engineering aspects, i.e. design and control, as the missing link to bring sustainable schemes for municipal wastewater treatment into practice. Through model-based analysis of unit processes and integrated schemes, including model calibration and validation based on experimental full- and lab-scale data, the proposed schemes will be optimized, evaluated and compared using multi-criteria objective analysis and newly-developed evaluation criteria. The overall multi-criteria evaluation and optimization of these novel wastewater treatment plant schemes is technically challenging and inherently innovative. The developed methodology and insights gained from this project will not be only most valuable as such, but will also be transferable to additional novel treatment technologies coming up in the future.

The project will address the following key question: How can we provide fibre-like connectivity to moving objects (robots, humans) with the following characteristics: very high dedicated bitrate of 100 Gb/s per object, very low latency of <10 μs, very high reliability of 99.999%, very high density of more than one object per m2 and this at low power consumption? Achieving this would be groundbreaking and it requires a completely new and high-risk approach: applying close proximity wireless communications using low interference ultra-small cells (called “ATTO-cells”) integrated in floors and connected to antennas on the (parallel) floor-facing surface of ground moving objects. This makes it possible to obtain very high densities with very good channel conditions. The technological challenges involved are groundbreaking in mobile networking (overall architecture, handover with extremely low latencies), wireless subsystems (60 GHz substrate integrated waveguide-based distributed antenna systems connected to RF transceivers integrated in floors, low crosstalk between ATTO-cells) and optical interconnect subsystems (simple non-blocking optical coherent remote selection of ATTO-cells, transparent low power 100 Gb/s coherent optical / RF transceiver interconnection using analogue equalization and symbol interleaving to support 4x4 MIMO). By providing this unique communication infrastructure in high density settings, the ATTO concept will not only support the highly demanding future 5G services (UHD streaming, cloud computing and storage, augmented and virtual reality, a range of IoT services, etc.), but also even more demanding services, that are challenging our imagination such as mobile robot swarms or brain computer interfaces with PFlops computing capabilities. This new concept for ultra-high capacity wireless networks will open up many more opportunities in reconfigurable robot factories, intelligent hospitals, flexible offices, dense public spaces, etc.