Field of research:
Scandinavian Studies, Celtic Studies, History of Religions

Research interests:
Religious and cultural history of north-western Europe (esp. Iceland and Ireland); Old Norse and medieval Irish literature; relationships and intercultural exchange between the classical Mediterranean, the Celtic, and the Germanic world

Planned research project:
"Atlantic Outlooks on Place: Place Lore and Storytelling Traditions in Iceland and Ireland"

Keywords:
landscape & narrative; place names; Ireland; Iceland; medieval literature; geographical myth

German host university:
Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich

Host during the mobility phase:
University College Cork, Ireland

Website:
http://www.nordistik.uni-muenchen.de/personen/mitarbeiter/matthias-egeler/index.html

Field of research:
Economics

Research interests:
globalization, international political economy, technological change

Planned research project:
"Position in global value chains, technological capabilities and economic performance"

Keywords:
global value chains, technological capabilities, economic performance

German host university:
University of Bremen

Host during the mobility phase:
University of Sussex, UK

Presentation:
Position in global value chains, technological capabilities and economic performance

Field of research:
Management

Research interests:
Organization Theory, Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Business Ethics

Planned research project:
"The Formation of an Islamic Bank: Resolving Institutional Complexity through the Co-Generation of an Institutional Template"

Keywords:
Institutional Complexity, Institutional Logics, Organization Theory, Organizational Sociology

German host university:
University of Hamburg

Host during the mobility phase:
Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria

Website:
https://www.wiso.uni-hamburg.de/fachbereich-sozoek/professuren/geiger/team/guemuesay-ali-aslan.html

Field of research:
History, Arabic

Research interests:
History of merchant communities in the Eastern Mediterranean; history of the Ottoman Empire, Syria, and Egypt in the 18th century; Arabic dialects and linguistics; Arabic epistolography; French occupation of Egypt 

Planned research project:
"Syrian Arab traders of the eastern Mediterranean - An analysis of 18th century Arabic merchant letters"

Keywords:
merchant networks; Arabic epistolography; Damiette; Bilād al-Shām; Ottoman trade; 18^th century

German host university:
Freie Universität Berlin

Host during the mobility phase:
The Graduate Center, City University of New York 

 

Field of research:
Philosophy 

Research interests:
Philosophy of perception, colour

Planned research project:
I will develop an account of superficial properties, in terms of their dependence on the relevant source of information and argue that observational properties (colour, smell, sound, taste) are superficial.
This will allow us to understand the relation between the qualitative aspect of the world and its non-qualitative ground. Scientific explanations aim to exhaustively explain the material world in quantitative terms. This seems to exclude qualitative properties from the physical world. Observational qualities are either reduced to structural properties, or identified with subjective properties of the mind.
However, qualitative properties are manifest in perception. Hence, under this view, we would have to conclude that perception is systematically misleading.
The proposed account of superficiality will enable us to see observational qualitative properties as part of the objective world. It will also enable us to unravel so far intractable issues on the metaphysics of colours, sounds, smells and taste. Focusing on colour, I will argue that my account of superficiality rules out eliminativism and provide the background to make intelligible and to support views that understand colours as properties of the objects, e.g. primitivism. These views are often rejected on the ground of allegedly incompatible findings in neuroscience. I will consider these data and show that these data can be accommodated by primitivism in the light of the proposed understanding of superficiality.

Keywords:
philosophy of perception, metaphysics of colour, observational properties, superficiality, phenomenal consciousness, scientific image and manifest image, neuroscience, unique hue

German host university:
University of Tübingen

Host during the mobility phase:
University of Fribourg, Switzerland

Presentation:
Observational Propetyies as Superficial Properties

Field of research:
American Studies

Research interests:
American Cultural History; Popular Culture; Memory Studies; Film and Media History

Planned research project:
"Remakes, Sequels, and Prequels in Hollywood Cinema: A Cultural History"
My research project explores the cultural history of Hollywood remaking, from the transition to sound to the digital era (1927–2015). While academic and journalistic writings often frame cinematic remaking as a symptom of Holly­wood’s waning creativity, I argue that it has always played and continues to play an important role in structuring the development of cinema as a tech­nological medium and in shaping processes of identity formation among successive generations of cinemagoers in the U.S. The project adopts a broad concept of remaking that extends to all formats that repackage an already familiar story (remake, sequel, and prequel), and a cultural studies approach that treats these films as sites of memory and pop-cultural archives. It further combines a production-oriented analysis, focusing on moments when predominant production practices and media ecologies of the U.S. film industry have changed, with an inquiry into reception, audience engagement, and the ways in which Hollywood remaking becomes productive in the dis­courses and paratexts that surround it. My research sheds light on the evolution of Hollywood remaking both from a synchronic and diachronic perspective, and it examines how remakes, sequels, and prequels participate in writing the history of their own medium, promote feelings of media-generational belonging, and ultimately foster knowledge about film, culture, and the nation at large.

Keywords:
Hollywood cinema, Remakes, Sequels, Prequels, History of American Cinema, Memory, (Media) Generations, American Cultural History

German host university:
Freie Universität Berlin

Host during the mobility phase:
University of Wisconsin-Madison

 

Field of research:
Hittitology

Research interests:
cognitive linguistics, diplomatic and historiographic texts, Hittite language, Akkadian language, ancient history

Planned research project:
"Political metaphor in Hittite diplomatic and historiographic text"
In Hittite diplomatic and historiographic texts some concepts are expressed metaphorically, in particular concept regarding phases of political life, the relations among the lands and their kings, the idea of inland and overseas, the characteristics of the Hittite king, political, military, and personal events. The metaphorical expressions are based on verb or expressions of motion; involving body parts; recall the comparison between a person and an animal; describe the concepts of life and death; concern the lexicon of the family and relatives.
These metaphors are not to be considered figures of speech but as expressions of a system of thinking, i.e. as conceptual metaphors (Lakoff – Johnson 1980).
The research questions are the following:
1. Which political metaphors are attested? How are they structured?
2. How do they dependent on context, language, and/or genre?
3. Which metaphors are of Hittite origin?
4. Which functions do they have?
The answer to those questions focuses on 3 goals: identification, classification and description of the metaphorical expressions; analysis of their functions; description of the changes in their use in relation to the genre and through time.
The working method is the Metaphor Identification Procedure (MIP) (Semino 2008) developed by the so-called Praggelejaz Group. The procedure counts three phases: Reading of the texts, to understand their general meaning; identification of the lexical units; description of every unit and of its meaning in different texts and contexts.
The relevance of this research proposal is threefold: is innovative (no study has been dedicated to the analysis of conceptual metaphors in Hittite), interdisciplinary (it involves Hittitology and cognitive linguistics), and accurate in the methodology (a specific working method has been developed).

Keywords:
Hittite, Diplomacy, Historiography, Conceptual/Cognitive Metaphors

German host university:
Freie Universität Berlin

Host during the mobility phase:
KU Leuven, Belgium

 

Field of research:
Interdisciplinary

Research interests:
Ethnobotany, agroecology, medical anthropology, food sovereignty

Planned research project:
"Plants of the Mesoamerican gods: reliques of the past or perspectives for the future?"
Uncertainty and market demand are the known drivers of plant domestication. However, they are not the only motivations behind resource management decisions. Using religion as an entry point, this project explores traditional farming in one of the origins of domestication of globally important food crops: Mesoamerica.

Keywords:
Ritual plants, domestication, Mesoamerica, Cora

German host university:
University of Hamburg

Host during the mobility phase:
National Autonomous University of Mexico – Institute of Investigations on Ecosystems and Sustainability

 

Field of research:
Criminal Law

Research interests:
Criminal Procedure, Legal Philosophy, Substantive Criminal Law, Legal Comparison

Planned research project:
A Comparative Study on Bringing Criminal Charges in the United States and Germany

Keywords:
Criminal Procedure; Legal Comparison; Double Jeopardy; Collateral Estoppel

German host university:
German host university: Philipps-Universität Marburg; Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Georg Freund

Host during the mobility phase:
Buffalo Criminal Law Center, University at Buffalo; Prof. Luis Chiesa

Field of research:
Psychology

Research interests:
Neuroscience; Emotion and Attention Networks, Social Cognition

Planned research project:
"Testing temporal models of cortical networks involved in emotion and attention processing of words and faces"

Keywords:
Emotion; Attention; EEG/ERPs; Source localization; Modeling

German host university:
Bielefeld University; Affective Neuropsychology, Prof. Johanna Kissler

Host during the mobility phase:
Ghent University; CAPLAB, Prof. Gilles Pourtois

 

Field of research:
Agricultural economics and Sociology ( Climate risk management and Insurance)

Planned research project:
"Mitigation of data scarcity in crop insurance pricing by exploiting spatial information: A Propagation-Separation Approach"

Keywords:
Agricultural economics, agricultural insurance, pricing ,data scarcity, adaptive weighted smoothing

German host university:
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Host during the mobility phase:
Mississippi State University, USA

Field of research:
Marine Science

Research interests:
My main field of research concerns the marine nitrogen cycle with special focus in N transformation processes in regions with low dissolved oxygen concentrations (Oxygen Minimum Zones) in coastal and open oceans.

Planned research project:
The planned project will focus on the marine production of nitrous oxide (N2O), a potent greenhouse gas and an important ozone- destroying agent. The general focus of the project is the regulation of N2O production pathways in the OMZs off the coast of Peru. In the project I will use molecular techniques to analyze the bacterial and archaeal community responsible for N2O production and combine this with rate measurements using isotope tracers.

Keywords:
N2O, nitrogen cycle, oxygen minimum zones (OMZ), nitrification, denitrification

German host university:
Christian- Albrecht Universität zu Kiel

Hosts during the mobility phase:
Princeton University, USA

Field of research:
Disease ecology and evolution

Research interests:
Disease evolution and ecology in wildlife communities and how this interacts with disease emergence processes. Microbiome assembly and the holobiont. 

Planned research project:
Factors impacting within- and between-species transmission of parasites in wildlife remain poorly understood. I propose to study factors impacting the assembly of the microorganism community of a wild primate community in Taï National Park, Côte d'Ivoire. To date, I used established molecular approaches to screen this community of non-human primate species and surrounding human populations for a subset of pathogens. I used next-generation sequencing approaches to study the gut bacterial community and began using a hybridization capture approach to generate partial and full genomes of the pathogen responsible for yaws, Treponema pallidum pertenue. Drs. Briese and Lipkin of Columbia University recently developed a vertebrate virus bait set that represent a major break through in these capture methods, allowing entire viral communities to be detected and sequenced simultaneously. This approach is flexible and can scaled up to include a broad range of targets including phages, bacteria, and fungi. I will use this approach to screen the high-quality collection of Drs. Leendertz and Wieler, to which I contributed during my dissertation research. These include samples from live animals (blood, swabs, feces), some of which are under behavioral observation and represented by longitudinal sampling. They also included samples from carcasses of animals that died from known causes (e.g., anthrax, monkey pox) or of unknown causes. I hope to gain insights how this microorganism community is influenced by behaviors such as social networks, polyspecific associations, chimpanzee’s hunting of red colobus monkeys, and anthropogenic disturbance. These approaches will provide insights into interactions between parasites through processes of facilitation and exclusion; by later incorporating human samples, I hope to gain insights into aspects of the microbiome that more readily cross the species barrier at the human-wildlife interface and those pathogens circulating in this ecosystem.

Keywords:
Virome, non-human primates, hybridization capture

German host university:
Freie Universität Berlin

Hosts during the mobility phase:
Columbia University, USA

 

Field of research:
Auditory Neuroscience

Research interests:
Cochlear implant induced plasticity of the central auditory system; impact of hearing experience; electrophysiological and behavioral consequences of different binaural cochlear implant stimulation

Planned research project:
"CI-Brain-Link: Analyzing consequences of cochlear implant stimulation in deaf brains by linking molecular, electrophysiological, and behavioral approaches"
Every day, 1-2 children are born deaf in Germany. In addition, a similar number of post-lingually deafened patients receive a cochlear implant (CI). This neuroprosthesis restores a sense of hearing and promotes speech comprehension and production, but fails to fully replace a healthy ear's ability to support speech comprehension in noise or sound localization, and implantees retrain months or years to derive maximal benefit from their CIs. Deaf patients are increasingly supplied binaural and not only monaural with CI to improve their hearing ability. However, many details of how the auditory pathway adapts to monaural versus binaural CI stimulation remain unknown. Intensified basic research is required in order to inform clinical decisions about implantation.
My long-term goal is to understand how auditory brain regions adapt to monaural or binaural CI stimulation, and how parameters such as interaural synchronization influence the chances of deriving maximum benefit from the CIs. In this project I will focus on 1) acquiring essential in-vivo physiological and behavioral skills, and establishing them in my German host, 2) collecting data that will open up a functional perspective on the rapid ultrastructural changes in auditory pathways following CI surgery, and 3) starting with experiments that examine neural and behavioral responses under different binaural stimulation conditions to foster the development of improved coding strategies for CI users.
To this end I plan a series of electrophysiological and behavioral experiments with several monaural and binaural CI stimulation protocols in mature rats deafened neonatally. In addition, the gained results will be augmented by molecular changes brought about by these stimulation strategies.
My approach will link electrophysiological and behavioral data to molecular manifestations and will grant insights into adult brain plasticity to a degree that allows influencing the direction of nervous network re-organization.

Keywords:
central auditory system; inferior colliculus; cochlear implant; deafness; neuroplasticity; sound localization; in-vivo recording

German host university:
Universitätsklinikum Freiburg, Dept. for Otorhinolaryngology, Neurobiological Research Laboratory of Prof. Robert-Benjamin Illing

Host during the mobility phase:
City University of Hong Kong, Dept. for Biomedical Science, Auditory Neuroscience Group of Prof. Jan Schnupp

Field of research:
Wildlife Ecology and Conservation

Research interests:
Human-predator conflict, ecology and conservation of wildlife, human dimensions of wildlife

Planned research project:
In Kenya spotted hyena may be the most disliked large carnivore due to serious livestock depredation and they are often persecuted and killed. The project will clarify why human-hyena coexistence can be either peaceful (Ethiopia, Yirga PhD research) or problematic (Kenya). This insight will be used to devise and analyze alternative models of large carnivore-human interactions. The developed theory will be applied within the host’s developing research line on wolf-human conflict and coexistence in Germany and the EU.

Keywords:
human-carnivore conflict and coexistence, wildlife in man-used landscapes

German host university:
Ruhr University Bochum

Hosts during the mobility phase:
Kenya Wildlife Survive

Field of research:
Algebraic graph theory and Combinatorial Matrix Theory

Research interests:
Matrix Theory, Graph Theory, Combinatorics, Real and Complex Analysis

Planned research project:
"Zero Forcing, Inverse Eigenvalue Problems for Graphs and Transversally Intersecting Manifolds"

Keywords:
Graph, graph propagation, graph coloring, eigenvalues, zero forcing, eigenvectors, multiplicity, real manifolds, implicit function theory

German host university:
University of Konstanz

Host during the mobility phase:
University of Regina, Canada

Field of research:
Chemistry

Research interests:
Analytical methods for determination of organic micropollutants; Compound specific isotope analysis; Levels, sources, fate, effects and remediation of organic pollutants in the environment; Environmental Risk Assessment, (Eco)toxicology and Environmental health; Reconstruction of past environment with anthropogenic & biomarkers in lake sediments; Analytical chemistry; Biogeochemistry; Environmental Chemistry; Atmospheric Chemistry; Organic Geochemistry; Paleoenvironmental studies

Planned research project:
"Compound-specific stable isotope values of oxygenated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (OPAHs) as tracers of their formation in the environment: method validation and case studies"

Keywords:
Oxygenated PAHs, PAHs, microbial degradation, photochemical degradation, compound specific stable isotope analysis, soil, air

German host institutions:
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)

Host during the mobility phase:
Organic Geochemistry Unit (OGU), School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, UK

Field of research:
Soil Science, Soil Physics

Research interests:
Soil Structure, Pore size distribution, Water retention characteristic, Plant available water, Agricultural soils, Impact of management on soil properties, Sustainable land use, Sustainable use of resources like water, Soil quality

Planned research project:
"Plant available water and related soil physical properties as affected by tillage and residue management in a Mediterranean long-term experiment on clay loam"

Keywords:
Soil physical properties, plant available water, organic carbon, tillage, long-term experiment

German host university:
Leibniz University Hannover

Host during the mobility phase:
University of Thessaly, Greece
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

 

Field of research:
Economic Geology, Mineral Economics

Research interests:
Base-metal sulphide deposits, trace element geochemistry, compositional data analysis, geostatistics, raw material criticality/supply risks, mineral markets

Planned research project:
"HelEAd – High-tech elements in European and Australian Zn-Pb deposits"
A number of elements essential to modern technologies are classified as critical for the EU due to their predominant production in China. Despite this, a systematic assessment of their production potentials within the EU and other ‘western’ countries has never been made. Particularly for Ga, Ge and In these potentials could be significant. This project aims to generate a detailed understanding of the distribution of these elements in two of the world’s major zinc-lead districts – the Irish Midlands Orefield, Ireland, and the Mount Isa District, Australia – via two case studies. The aim is not only to understand the metallogenetic significance of this distribution, but also its implications for the economic utilisation of these elements. This would allow for a first assessment of existing production potentials. Not only Ga, Ge and In will be studied, but also other chalcophile trace elements potentially carrying important geological information, e.g. As, Co, Se, Sb, Te and Tl. Results are expected to be of wider applicability to sediment-hosted base metal deposits elsewhere in the world.

Keywords:
Geochemistry; By-products; Trace elements; Compositional data analysis (CoDa); Geostatistics

German host university:
TU Bergakademie Freiberg

Host during the mobility phase:
University of Adelaide, Australia

 

Field of research:
Mathematics

Research interests:
Discrete complex analysis and discrete Riemann surfaces, discrete differential geometry, integrable systems, differential geometry

Planned research project:
"Discrete holomorphic spinors on Riemann surfaces and the Ising model"
In the last decade, interest in discrete complex analysis arose from its applications in statistical physics. The linear theory of discrete holomorphic functions was instrumental in the proof that the Ising model exhibits conformally invariant properties in the thermodynamical limit. S-holomorphicity of fermionic observables, which is closely connected to holomorphicity of discrete spinors, played an important role. I want to enrich the linear theory of discrete complex analysis by a discrete theory of holomorphic spinors on Riemann surfaces. In particular, I plan to transfer known properties of s-holomorphic functions on rhombic planar quad-graphs to corresponding properties of holomorphic spinors on general quad-graphs. In addition, I intend to contribute to the current research on the (critical) Ising and double-Ising model.

Keywords:
Discrete complex analysis, quad-graph, holomorphic spinor, fermionic observable, double-Ising model

German host university:
Technische Universität Berlin

Host during the mobility phase:
Université de Genève, Switzerland

Website:
http://page.math.tu-berlin.de/~fguenth/
 

Field of research:
Biophysical Chemistry

Research interests:
NMR methods development; solution structure elucidation

Planned research project:
The determination of protein solution structure – the investigation which 3D structure proteins preferably have in solution and how stiff or flexible individual subunits in the structure are – is a major driving force for continuous development of NMR spectroscopy. This method provides a wealth of structural information, such as (average) interatomic bond orientations, which I intend to probe via residual dipolar couplings (RDCs).
With the approach to collect RDC data and to interpret it in terms of protein solution structure, that I intend to develop and demonstrate, I hope to provide very detailed structural information, in particular for proteins that are very challenging to study, because they are a highly flexible.

Keywords:
Solution structure determination, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Residual Dipolar Couplings

German host institutions:
Technische Universität Darmstadt
Max-Planck-Institut für biophysikalische Chemie Göttingen

Host during the mobility phase:
National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Diseases, Bethesda, MD, USA

Field of research:
Quantum Physics

Research interests:
Quantum Information, Quantum Optics

Planned research project:
Quantum information science promises radical changes in technological capabilities. A major goal is to build quantum computers, which are strongly believed to outperform their classical counterparts. Of particular interest in quantum information science is to identify the resource that enables this speedup. One intensively pursued avenue for achieving and demonstrating this “quantum advantage” lies in simulation and sampling problems. This research project will make two significant contributions to understanding the promise and limitations of quantum simulation by focusing on a particular case, the use of quantum-optical circuits for simulation.  Firstly, by using the well-developed theory of phase-space quasiprobability distribution, we will provide general efficient classical algorithms for simulating approximately, under certain circumstances, quantum-optical circuits. This formalism will have significant implications in identifying and designing quantum-optical models of computation. Secondly, we will investigate the effects of imperfections, in particular, mode mismatching on physical implementations of quantum-optical models of computation, with a special emphasize on boson sampling. 

Keywords:
Optical quantum information processing, Boson sampling, Phase-space quasiprobability distributions

German host university:
Leibniz University of Hannover

Host during the mobility phase:
The Institut of Photonic Studies (ICFO), Barcelona, Spain
University of New Mexico, USA

Field of research:
Geography

Research interests:
Synergistic use of remote sensing and statistical modeling for understanding forest ecosystem dynamics

Planned research project:
Forest disturbances largely shape the state and services of current forest ecosystems. However, little is known about how those dynamics manifest in space and time throughout Europe. The lack of spatially and temporally explicit datasets makes it difficult to evaluate past management practices, as well as to predict potential future changes. Consequently, the objectives of this proposed research project are i) to develop a framework for mapping and characterizing forest disturbances in Central Europe using remote sensing data, and ii) to apply this framework to reconstructing the forest dynamics of the Central European forest ecosystems over the time period 1985 to 2015. For so doing, we will utilize Landsat time series analysis to map forest disturbances of varying agents (i.e., harvest, partial harvest, wind, bark beetle, forest health decline) across central European forests and analyze those maps with regard to spatial and temporal trends in disturbances regimes. We expect to gain novel insights into the spatial and temporal trends and patterns of forest disturbances in Europe, and to deliver novel products for forest management and modeling.

Keywords:
Forest ecosystems, forest disturbances, remote sensing, Landsat

German host university:
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Host during the mobility phase:
Universität für Bodenkultur (BOKU), Vienna, Austria

Field of research:
Theoretical Physics

Research interests:
Quantum Gravity, Quantum Field Theory

Planned research project:
"Combinatorial renormalization of group-field quantum gravity"

Keywords:
Group field theory, Tensor Models, Renormalization

German host university:
Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Institut für Physik

Host during the mobility phase:
Université Paris Sud XI, Laboratoire de Physique Théorique, France

Field of research:
Atomic and Molecular Physics

Research interests:
Photoionisation, Photoelectron Angular Distributions (PADs), Photoelectron Circular Dichroism (PECD)

Planned research project:
"Interaction of neutral chiral molecules with femtoseconds laser pulses: Photoelectron Circular Dichroism (PECD) and selective control over fragmentation"
The research proposal deals with the study of chiral molecules by using chiral sensitive techniques, based upon interaction with femtosecond laser pulses. These experiments aim at determining the absolute configuration of chiral molecules, a very important issue especially for the pharmaceutical industry. Photoelectron Circular dichroism (PECD), a forward/backward asymmetry, with respect to the light propagation axis, of the photoelectron angular distribution due to circularly polarized light-induced photoionization of free chiral molecules, is a very powerful tool to study chirality and determine the absolute configuration of chiral molecules. Most PECD studies are performed in synchrotron facilities; however laser-based experiments are much more available to the scientific community than beamtimes in synchrotrons. We therefore want to deepen the understanding of laser-based PECD and develop its full analytical interest.

Keywords:
Photoelectron Circular Dichroism (PECD), chiral molecules, absolute configuration, femtosecond laser pulses, selective control 

German host university:
Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-Universität Frankfurt

Host during the mobility phase:
Technische Universität Wien, Austria

Field of research:
Materials Science, Production Engineering

Research interests:
microstructural effects on damage tolerance, thermal shock and corrosion on cemented carbide, Laser induced damage

Planned research project:
"Damage Tolerance of Cemented Carbides"
Assess microstructural effects on damage-related features, e.g., induced by thermal shock and corrosion, on the mechanical performance of cemented carbides. Microstructural effects on damage tolerance will be accounted by using residual strength, as a function of damage level. Evaluate the damage on the hardmetal surfaces induced by laser machining process. Laser will be applied to create and produce functional structures on cemented carbide surfaces. Systematic and quantitative analysis of the induced surface damage will be conducted as a function of microstructural properties.

Keywords:
cemented carbide, thermal damage, microstructure, fracture, laser, surface integrity

German host university:
Saarland University

Host during the mobility phase:
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. BarcelonaTech, Spain

Field of research:
Electrical Engineering and Information Technology

Research interests:
Hardware-aware Signal Processing, Estimation Theory, Wireless Systems

Planned research project:
The analysis of nonlinear stochastic systems forms a challenge in various branches of science like physics, biology and computer science. In particular in engineering, where increasing demands for low-cost, energy-efficient and fast sensing devices are emerging and systems have to be operated outside their linear regime, nonlinear stochastic models have gained growing attention. Recent results in the field of wireless systems show that the analog measurement equipment can be significantly simplified if one allows for highly nonlinear behavior and compensates the effect by optimized system design and strong digital processing algorithms. However, in order to obtain high-resolution measurement systems under these circumstances, a mathematical framework is required to perform the transition from the output data of a nonlinear and noisy physical system to an appropriate parametric statistical model. Recently the approach of approximating the system output by an equivalent exponential family distribution has shown to form a versatile method within the setting of parameter estimation with nonlinear system design. Therefore, the project aims at a better theoretic understanding of model replacement strategies and possible practical applications in wireless systems, biomedical engineering and machine learning.

Keywords:
statistical signal processing, estimation theory, nonlinear systems, exponential family, wireless systems, biomedical engineering, machine learning

German host university:
University of Bayreuth, Chair of Stochastics

Host during the mobility phase:
Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Mathematics Department