ZUKOnnect Fellows

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Computer and Information Science

Project: Exploring Collective Motion Through Evolutionary Game Theory

The project aims to explore collective behavior through the lens of evolutionary game theory. Most contemporary models for collective behavior assume deterministic individual movements under noisy conditions. However, individuals, in reality, can be irrational and may refuse to follow deterministic rules. Our primary goal is to investigate how these irrational individuals (defectors) affect collective behavior, considering both the pros and cons. We will explore four sub-objectives:

1. The impact of defectors on collective behavior.

2. Dynamic role switching and the emergence of leadership in swarms.

3. Analyzing the influence of varying time scales on individual behaviors within the game framework.

ZUKOnnect Fellow from 07/2024 until 06/2025 (onsite in fall 2024)

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Biology

Project: The influence of landscape phenology and climate on collective roosting in straw-colored fruit bats

For migratory species, decisions made in each annual cycle may reflect considerations of landscape phenology but also the climate. Climate change has affected migration phenologies in several species, including bats. The migratory straw-coloured fruit bat (Eidolon helvum), an important seed disperser and Africa's most gregarious fruit bat, forms large seasonal colonies throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa. Their colonies are conspicuous, blanketing large trees, and bats are often hunted or disturbed by nearby residents. Recent work suggests that their migration is timed with the increase in landscape greenness signaling the start of the growing season that moves as a wave across Africa each year. Phenological timings and length of the growing season in Africa have been changing over the past few decades with climate change and this “green wave” fruit bats use for migration could become weakened or disrupted. Additionally, roosts and foraging habitat are increasingly threatened by human disturbance. Using data (from 2000 – present) from the Eidolon Monitoring Network (www.eidolonmonitoring.com) at 17 sites across Africa, I will fit a continental scale model of colony counts using generalized additive mixed models to explore the impact of climate and regional factors influence bat abundance.

ZUKOnnect Fellow from 07/2024 until 06/2025 (onsite in fall 2024)

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Politics and Public Administration

Project: Unveiling Obstetric Violence: Exploring its Impact on Maternal Mental Health and Birth Outcomes in Rural Jharkhand, India

Respectful maternity care stands as an inherent right for every woman, yet obstetric violence persists as a harrowing reality during childbirth, casting a shadow on women's health globally. His study endeavors to shed light on the prevalence of obstetric violence and its consequential effects on both the mental health of women and birth outcomes within the rural communities of Chatra district, Jharkhand, India. A multistage sampling method was employed in the study. Two hundred forty-six pregnant women were selected based on the prevalence of obstetric violence in India using the Cochran sampling technique. A community-based longitudinal study was conducted, with two phases of data collection. In the initial phase, they collected data on pregnant women’s mental health during different trimesters. The subsequent phase tracks participants post-delivery to investigate Obstetric Violence effects. The study incorporates a mixed method approach, i.e., descriptive, multivariate analysis, and qualitative analysis. Studying obstetric violence in India is crucial for maternal health improvement and advocating legal reforms. With the ZUKOnnect fellowship, he plans to collaborate with Anke Hoeffler and Abena Yalley to co-author at least two research papers based on his study objectives and will also explore opportunities to validate the questionnaire regarding obstetric violence.

ZUKOnnect Fellow from 07/2024 until 06/2025 (onsite in fall 2024)

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Mathematics and Statistics

Project: Efficient numerical characterization in multiobjective pointwise tracking optimal control problems

Optimal control problems of partial differential equations (PDEs) mainly consist in finding the best control variable for a state system described by PDEs, such that it provides a satisfactory (optimal) associated state and that also optimizes the value of a given function. Due to their capability for modelling important practical applications from, e.g., engineering, economics, and physics, these problems have received much interest in the last decades. In this project, they will focus on providing a numerical characterization of pareto stationary fronts for multiobjective optimal control problems with a moderate number of tracking cost functionals subject to a semilinear elliptic PDE and control constraints.

ZUKOnnect Fellow from 07/2024 until 06/2025 (onsite in fall 2024)

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Computer and Information Science

Project: Construction and Analysis of the Functional Network of the C58/J Strain: Brain Connectivity and Complexity in a Murine Model of Autism

This research project tackles a critical void in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) research, focusing on the development and analysis of functional brain networks in the C58/J mouse strain, which is significant due to its behavioral phenotypes that resemble aspects of ASD. ASD is a complex neurodevelopmental condition that presents substantial challenges to individuals, families, and health systems worldwide. Its multifactorial etiology—encompassing genetic, environmental, and neurobiological factors—renders it a highly heterogeneous and difficult-to-diagnose condition.

The project is structured into two primary objectives: 1) developing a standardized preprocessing protocol for Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data for the C58/J strain, filling a notable gap as such a protocol does not currently exist, and 2) conducting a detailed analysis of the functional brain networks after preprocessing. This analysis includes comparing these networks between the C58/J strain and the control C57BL/6 strain, which is widely recognized for its neurobiological normality and serves as a standard reference in neuroscience research.

Utilizing graph theory, the research aims to construct and analyze functional brain network models, offering a sophisticated mathematical framework to describe and quantify complex patterns of neural connectivity and complexity. This approach allows for the quantification of various connectivity and complexity aspects, such as node degree, clustering coefficients, and path lengths, providing a comprehensive understanding of the functional network organization in the C58/J mouse model.

A key component of this research is the comparison of functional networks derived from the C58/J strain with those from the C57BL/6 strain to identify specific neural circuit alterations potentially underlying the behavioral phenotypes associated with ASD. Additionally, the project will investigate the networks' complexity, focusing on the intricate and dynamic interaction among different brain regions, which is often disrupted in ASD, leading to atypical information processing and integration.

By establishing a standardized method for fMRI preprocessing and the subsequent analysis of functional networks in the C58/J mouse model, this project aims to significantly advance our understanding of the neural basis of ASD. This could lead to the identification of novel biomarkers and diagnostic tools, contributing crucial insights to the neuroscience field and enhancing therapeutic strategies for ASD.

ZUKOnnect Fellow from 07/2024 until 06/2025 (onsite in fall 2024)

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Linguistics

Project: Cross-linguistic study on the processing of language production and understanding in children with ASD

Language acquisition in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is marked by dramatic delays, with first words produced at an average age of 38 months, compared to 8-14 months in typical development. The majority of studies have concentrated on pragmatic and prosody deficits, with few works to address syntactic development in children. Because the major studies focused on English, it is unclear whether the results are specific to English or can be generalized cross-linguistically. Also, while a small child can recognize words in their native language, the same words require intention to speak and can take longer to produce. However, studying how children with ASD process and understand syntactically complex language may impact on their educational outcomes. Thus, the purpose of this study is to investigate syntactic processing in children with ASD, focusing on understanding and production languages such as Brazilian Portuguese, Japanese, English and German. We specifically intend to address the following questions: i) what structures children with ASD understand but struggle to produce cross-linguistically; and ii) what methods were used in such studies. We recognize that there may not be enough time to conduct experiments; therefore, we will conduct a critical bibliographic research to answer the previously raised questions.

ZUKOnnect Fellow from 07/2024 unitl 06/2025 (onsite in fall 2024)

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Biology

Project: Metabolism in lakes of Strobel Lake Plateau (Patagonian steppe, Argentina)

Her research focuses on the structure of planktonic communities in shallow lakes of the Patagonian Steppe (Argentina), specifically on the Buenos Aires Lake Plateau and the Strobel Lake Plateau. She has experience in the analysis and taxonomic identification of phyto- and zooplankton, as well as in the study of picoplankton using flow cytometry. Additionally, she has investigated food webs in lakes with and without the introduction of exotic fish on the Strobel Plateau, using stable isotopes. Recently, she has developed an interest in the metabolism of water bodies in the basaltic Patagonian plateaus. Currently, she is expanding her research to include the study of the microbial community of Pampas shallow lakes, using molecular techniques.

ZUKOnnect Fellow from 07/2024 until 06/2025 (onsite in fall 2024)

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of History and Sociology

Project: Housing strategies, living arrangements, and intra-family politics of migrant families in a small Chinese city

Within families, housing serves as both a familial asset and a residential space for family members, and therefore is closely associated with intra-family politics. Through a multi-sited ethnography, this research project interrogates how migrant families’ housing strategies and settlement patterns are shaped by and shaping their intra-family politics. This inquiry is addressed through two dimensions explored in two papers.

The first paper examines how migrant families have developed various living arrangements across the rural-urban divide, and how intergenerational relations have played out in this process. It especially pays attention to the agency of the older generation in navigating migration and managing intergenerational tensions.

The second paper focuses on the agency of women in providing housing for their elderly parents within the persistent dominance of patriarchal norms. Traditionally, the patriarchal kinship practice dictates that the son (and the son’s wife) cares for the elderly parents. Thus, the aspirations of migrant women directly challenge this tradition. This paper demonstrates that the realization of female migrants’ aspirations hinges on the conditions and strategies for avoiding conflicts with their husbands. The intricate and contradictory aspect is that circumventing the husband's authority often depends on adhering to patriarchal norms.

ZUKOnnect Fellow from 07/2024 until 06/2025 (onsite in fall 2024)

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Chemistry

Project: In vitro evaluation of the molecular toxicity of carvacrol using the enzyme-modified Fluorimetric detection of Alkaline DNA Unwinding (emFADU)

_{This research is aimed at evaluating the molecular cytotoxicity of carvacrol, a component of crude plant essential oils that have been observed to demonstrate appreciable antioxidant capacity in the storage of lipid-rich foods compared to butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT). For the proposed research, the genotoxicity, apoptosis induction, capacity to induce DNA damage in plasmid DNA, and the induction of DNA strand breaks by carvacrol will be compared to an established genotoxin and BHT. The apoptosis induction will be studied using Annexin V APC/PI flow cytometry. The detection of the DNA strand breaks and plasmid DNA damage will be studied using the enzyme-modified version of cell-based Fluorimetric detection of Alkaline DNA Unwinding (emFADU). The results of this research are important as they will shed light on the safety of carvacrol proposed as a natural alternative to synthetic antioxidant food additives.}

ZUKOnnect Fellow from 07/2023

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Linguistics

Project: Creating a Tamil treebank to support language application development

_{The objective of this research is to create a high-quality computer-based resource known as a "treebank" that systematically and computationally encodes linguistic knowledge of a language. This resource is useful for the Tamil language to enhance natural language processing capabilities and facilitate linguistic analysis. The proposed treebank will be constructed using the Lexical Functional Grammar (LFG) formalism, which offers a detailed method of capturing language features. While a small treebank already exists, it has limited coverage of language structures and vocabulary. Consequently, this research seeks to expand the existing resource, developing a larger, high-quality treebank with additional Tamil text to support language application development. Achieving this goal necessitates expertise in both linguistics and computer science. The study will also explore the use of machine learning techniques to aid in the development and evaluation of the new treebank. Eventually, the treebank will be made publicly available, allowing others to utilise and build upon it. This treebank will serve as an invaluable resource for Tamil language processing, enabling more accurate and efficient natural language understanding and text generation. Moreover, it will facilitate various applications such as Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) and machine translation. Additionally, the treebank will be instrumental in the study of the language and the documentation of its unique features.}

Herz Fellow from 07/2023

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Literature, Art and Media

Project: Posthuman Landscapes in Latin American Art

_{The project aims to study the emergence of a new way of conceiving and designing relationships among nature, culture and technology in twenty-first century Latin-American arts from a materialistic and posthumanist viewpoint. The research focuses on a selection of socio-environmental themed works carried out in those artistic areas where there is experimentation by means of artefactualities and non-human agencies. These are works that get close to design, action and intervention, and that occasionally involve working on territories and with communities. In them, it is observed that the perception and experimentation modes of "nature" which are ruled by the traditional landscape genre, get disorganized, to give rise to what could be called “posthuman landscapes'': new spatial, sensitivity and relationality regimes between agents (human and non-human) and environment, guided by non-extractive logics of environmental intervention and the promotion of a non-anthropocentric sensorium. The research is interested in contributing to historiographical, cognitive and categorical revision of contemporary art, moving away from the centre-periphery scheme towards a situated, de-centred and autonomous comprehension of the aesthetic, technological and conceptual programmes owned by these latin american productions.}

ZUKOnnect Fellow from 07/2023

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Politics and Public Administration

Project: The colonial and apartheid roots of urban authoritarianism in South Africa

_{In the country’s long history, the black African subject emerges as both expelled and alienated from the urban space. When cities were constructed under the colonial economy, the black subject was only accepted in the fringes as a labourer. Under Apartheid, through a combination of laws and brute force, the black subject was maintained at the edge of the city in townships and other such abject spaces. In the post-apartheid period, this long colonial and apartheid history of the city sheds into the authoritarianism of the neoliberal rationality of the market. This research puts the concept of global authoritarianism in conversation with the decolonial concept of coloniality with the aim of making sense of the history and the present of cities in relation to inequality, especially in the Global South. The focus here is on cities in South Africa. The research uses a combination of qualitative methods that include ethnography, interviews and archival research to collect data that is analysed through a combination of critical discourse analysis, ideological analysis and psychoanalysis, among various methods. The research is daily turning into genealogical work around representation and subjectivity.}

ZUKOnnect Fellow from 07/2023

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Biology

Project Title: The influence of collective behavior in energy expenditure and thermoregulation in Egyptian fruit bats. 

_{Caves can be considered important natural laboratories and it is well-known that cave characteristics can favor physiological processes in bats. What remains unknown is the role of collective behavior in the energy expenditure during daytime in these habitats. Bats' large colonies in caves can be the perfect match between an optimal study model and a natural laboratory to address this question. Rousettus aegyptiacus is the only fruit bat occurring in Europe and relies on fruit from a variety of plants throughout the year. Cyprus is characterized by a seasonal climate resulting in changing vegetation, which potentially creates food bottlenecks for this tropical species, especially in winter, and studies have shown that these bats can change their sharing networks depending on the availability of resources and that energy is a limiting component in their diet. My main aim is to test whether and how collective behavior influences energetic strategies of R. aegyptiacus, in winter. I will use generalized linear models to test the relations between energy expenditure, temperature, and collective behavior. I expect to elucidate patterns and trades-off involved in energy expenditure and thermoregulation mediated by collective behavior on R. aegyptiacus, this could contribute to the understanding of the factors that favor the occurrence of this species in Europe and its adaptability to changes in climate.}

Herz Fellow from 07/2023

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Physics

Project: Perovskite solar cells for integrated self-charging Supercapacitors

_{Electrochemical devices (batteries and supercapacitors) are more sustainable and environmentally friendly and their hybridization has even favoured their use in modern electronics. Despite their efficiency, life is limited to few thousand cycles. In order to get continuous power output, there is a need to develop a practical strategy to scavenge multiple types of energies (electrochemical, solar etc.) simultaneously. In this regard, the concept of a self-charging energy system incorporating conversion cells (perovskite solar cell (PSC)) and hybrid supercapacitor for concurrently scavenging solar and electrochemical energies is proposed, so that the energy resources can be used effectively and complementarily. In this system, supercapacitor plays a dual role of storing energy as well as balancing the solar energy fluctuations. There are challenges in fabricating self-charging system i.e., vulnerability of the perovskite material under moisture, thermal conditions etc., when SCs with aqueous liquid electrolyte are used. Herein, I propose to fabrication system integrating a perovskite solar cell and a hybrid supercapacitor- a self-charging system during this programme. Briefly, the operation of this system can be described as, initially under illumination, solar energy captured by the solar cell will generate electricity, which will be stored I the supercapacitor immediately. This photo charged PSC will provide electricity to power the external electrical devices whenever and where ever required. This work presents an easy approach for the fabrication of self-charging system at normal temperature, enabling electricity supply for electrical devices in the future.}

Herz Fellow from 07/2023

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Educational Science

Project: Dreams and hopes at school. Exploring Family Dynamics, Parenting Styles, and Children's Dispositions in Chilean Schools

_{My five-year research project aims to investigate the relationship between family life, parenting styles, and children's dispositions within the educational context of Chile. Given a high focus on social class, reproduction and school choice in the local literature, this study seeks to challenge the assumption that the acquisition of class-based dispositions occurs automatically, highlighting the active role of both adults and children in the process. Employing a critical ethnography approach, the research goes beyond the automatic logics of social reproduction to explore agency and resistance. Through traditional ethnographic techniques such as observations and interviews, along with projective and narrative techniques, the complex relationships between families and schools is being examined. This research is being conducted in a middle and lower-class district of Santiago, focusing on two public schools deeply connected to their communities. Recognizing the socio-communitarian aspects alongside the family aspect, the research emphasizes the diversity within schools and the potential to challenge stereotypes associated with lower-class students.}

ZUKOnnect Fellow from 07/2023

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Mathematics and Statistics

Research project:Implementation of Aedes aegypti control strategies in spatiotemporal dynamics using insect techniques

_{For this research project proposes to extend a time-only dependent model with sex structure, to a spatially distributed version (in a bi-dimensional domain) to design the control strategies based on releases of sterile male mosquitoes that account for this spatial heterogeneity. One of the objectives of this study is to reduce costs by indicating where to release more sterile males and where to release fewer or none.}

Herz Fellow from 07/2023

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Chemistry

Project: Electrochemically active, luminescent and biocompatible Polymer@Metal-Organic Framework Composites for potential biosensor applications

_{Due to the surging demand for point-of-care devices and significant technological uplift biosensors have gained a great deal of attention in the field of sensing. Being compact, fast responsive, and highly specific it has proven to be an effective tool in the sensing of various biological analytes. Deepanshu Bhatt’s research interest includes the usage of lectin-carbohydrate interaction for the fabrication of microbial biosensors. He is working on the topics of electrochemical and optical detections of nosocomial infection causing bacteria P. aeruginosa and E. coli using the sugar conjugated Metal organic frameworks. MOF is a hybrid material consisting of the linkage of the metal ion with an organic bridging ligand through coordination bonds having optical, electronic, and magnetic properties with tunable porosity and large surface area. Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have rapidly emerged as important multifunctional mesoporous materials and works as a transducer in biosensor. He is an active researcher and contributes to various lab projects and as well helps fellow colleagues. He has good basic knowledge of nanomaterial synthesis and analytical instrumentation.}

ZUKOnnect Fellow from 08/2022

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Physics

Project: The Last-mile in Perovskite Light Emitting Diode (PeLEDs): Enhancing the Color Blue

_{Metal halide perovskites (MHP) have attracted tremendous attention in photovoltaic devices and light emitting diodes (PeLEDs) owing to their low-cost solution processing and excellent optoelectronic properties. PeLEDs showing infrared, red, and green emission demonstrate external quantum efficiencies (EQEs) over 20%, however, the EQE of blue PeLEDs is significantly lower (~5.5%) due to a defect density in blue emitters. Besides, the blue emitter also shows phase segregation due to migration of ions, generating defect states thereby leading to poor spectral stability. Further improvement in efficiency and stability of blue PeLEDs requires inhibition of ion migration and effective defects passivation. Here, we propose embedding MHP with long chain polymer, such as polyvinylpyrrolidone and ethyl cellulose to improve moisture sensitive MHPs, to inhibit ion migration, and to improve defect intolerance of (Cs/MA)Pb(Br/Cl) based blue PeLEDs. Polymer embedment in the bulk of MHPs would favour formation of smaller grain size, which can enhance carrier capture efficiency and thus the EQE.}

Herz Fellow from 07/2022

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of History and Sociology

Project: Digital financial service innovation for inclusion of women in the Global South: Examining mobile money use in Eswatini’s traditional informal markets in Manzini

_{The project explores the impact of mobile money- (a form of digital financial service innovation) use on the financial inclusion of women in traditional informal markets in Manzini, Eswatini (formerly Swaziland). I examine how the day and mundane financial practices of the women affect how they perceive adopt and use mobile money in ways that links it to their cultures, traditions, taboos, kinships relationships (Kusimba et al. 2015) as opposed to the rhetoric of the financial inclusion Agenda. While its it is partly true that the intensification of digital money is reinventing the “social” and is reinvented by it in return by inserting sociality at par with market relations, conceptually, the extent to which this social character of money is represented in new digital currencies like mobile money is less understood specifically in informal settings. Important to note is that dominant discourses have focused on mobile money’s promise to expand financial inclusion (Beck, et al, 2007; Anderlone and Vandone,2010; Dermiguc-Kunt et al, 2018) through bringing the untapped market segments into mainstream finance as if the state of exclusion and lack of service thereof is a natural state in these communities. But this political process of banking the unbanked has failed to take into consideration the lived experiences of the local and the created nature of exclusion as its guiding principle thereby undermining the potential of studying the social life of such initiatives as mobile money in heterogeneous contexts. Therefore this study takes the women’s experiences as its starting point to understand financial inclusion from their perspective as mobile money generates new kinds of social and economic opportunity and vulnerability as well as a way of overcoming the constraints of time and space.}

ZUKOnnect Fellow from 07/2022

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Biology

Project: Cell signalling data mapping into cell trajectories from live imaging

_{Understanding how cell signaling and tissue morphodynamics are coupled during embryogenesis is still an open question in developmental biology. Cell signaling and reaction-diffusion models have been extensively used to understand self-regulated pattern formation during embryonic development. However, due to the lack of experimental tools to simultaneously visualize tissue dynamics (i.e. cell movements) and signaling in vivo, these studies are restricted to time scales in which tissue morphodynamics can be neglected. To overcome this need, we propose developing a novel mathematical model that can estimate activation levels of different signaling pathways with high spatio-temporal resolution during early zebrafish development. Briefly, signaling data (i.e. extracted from immunostained fixed embryos) will be sparsely mapped the into single cell trajectories from the live imaging experiments (i.e. SPIM microscopy images). Then a statistical model based on random fields and an optimal linear predictor will be used to generate a continuous description of the signaling activation levels over time and space. The model will be applied to study some of the most important signaling pathways active during early zebrafish development, such as Nodal, BMP and FGF.}

Herz Fellow from 07/2022

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Computer and Information Science

Project: Understanding the Environmental Fate of Organic Pollutants on Soils: Correlational and Causal Evidence on Sorption Coefficients.

_{The environmental fate of organic pollutants on soils is linked to sorption coefficients, i.e., the distribution between the retained and the aqueous concentration of pollutant in chemical equilibrium. Consequently, sorption coefficient data are used as scientific evidence for knowledge generation and decision-making in global and local contexts, such as agriculture and environmental health. The interpretation of these data is generally based on correlational evidence, which depends on experimental designs (i.e., methods for data production and processing) and assumptions (explicit or not). However, the inherent complexity of soil dynamics together with the diversity of pollutant-soil combinations, experimental designs, and scale-dependent findings, affect the validity of correlational evidence as a reliable way to interpret data and use them in contexts of environmental concern. For instance, the link between correlational and causal evidence depends on the presence of confounding variables and hidden processes due to uncontrolled, unknown and unavoidable sources of variability during the studies. In this sense, the aim of this project is to build a reliable evidence-based framework able to represent the sorption process and the environmental fate of organic pollutants on soils for better practices, with the intention of supporting scientists and decision-makers to simplify future experimental research, fill knowledge gaps and use reliable data for regulatory purposes.}

ZUKOnnect Fellow from 07/2022 until 06/2023
Postdoctoral Fellow from 04/2024

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Literature, Art and Media

Project: Studying literary adaptation for the gamebook format. The case of Apuleius' Metamorphoses

_{This project aims to study literary adaptation for the gamebook format. For that, it will be created previously a gamebook adaptation inspired by Metamorphoses, by Apuleius (c. 125 - c.170), written in English. Concomitantly with the rewriting and improvement of this interactive text, we seek to reflect on what new perspectives a classic text can gain through the literary adaptation in the interactive gamebook format and in what way. Huizinga (1971) and Caillois (1990) will be authors used to explain the concept of game; Iser (1996, 1999, 2002, 2013) will be chosen regarding the type of game promoted by literature itself; Silva (2019), finally, will explain what a gamebook is. In a short time, the project will raise the hypothesis that gamebooks coming from literary adaptations may contribute to the diffusion of literary works through their adaptation, being the new version of Metamorphoses, the first gamebook created from a text originally written in Latin. To conclude, this project will result in the most in-depth study ever done with gamebooks, which may bring this textual hybrid closer to academic studies.}

Herz Fellow from 07/2022

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Biology

Project: Introduced plant-pollinator interactions in different anthropogenic landscapes

_{Plant–pollinator interactions are important as flowering plants require pollinators for pollination as well as most pollinators rely on angiosperms for food resources. Besides native plants, introduced plants may be key food resources for pollinators. Understanding the potential value of introduced plants to pollinators is urgently needed. However, introduced plants which are more attractive and may have larger flowers or more flowers per plant can outcompete native plants for pollinators. Little is known about introduced plant-pollinator interactions across anthropogenic landscapes, particularly in tropical orchards. Hence, information about which pollinators forage on introduced plants and how landscape composition influences plant diversity in tropical orchards are important for habitat management and pollinator conservation. This project aims (1) to assess introduced plant diversity in tropical orchards, (2) to identify key floral traits of introduced plants based on available taxonomic database and published studies, (3) to construct pollination networks between introduced plants and pollinators, and (4) to examine whether anthropogenic landscapes (proportions of surrounding agricultural and urbanized cover) affect the number of introduced plant species in tropical orchards.}

ZUKOnnect Fellow from 07/2022

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Biology

Project: The fitness consequences of collective coordination during predator mobbing

_{During the Herz Fellowship, Zou Yuqi will focus on collective predator mobbing. In social animals, collective decisions are a vital part of their daily live, including moving about and antipredator defense. Birds give diverse mobbing calls, presumably to recruit others and to coordinate collective predator mobbing. Individuals and groups likely vary in their collective decision-making during mobbing, but this aspect remains unexplored. The project will be carried out under the supervision of Dr. Michael Griesser and Prof. Iain Couzin.}

Herz Fellow from 07/2022

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Biology

Project: Identification of a Novel Strong Antifungal Polyene and Identification of the Lavendamycin Biosynthetic Gene Cluster of the Rhizobacterium Streptomyces sp. BR123 Isolated from the Rhizosphere of Helianthus Annuus from Pakistan

_{With the seriously emerging threat of multiresistant pathogens that cannot be treated with antibiotics in clinical use as well as the need to fight plant pathogens to ensure nutrition for the growing population there is a strong need to identify novel antifungal and antibiotic secondary metabolites. One possible source for promising microorganisms are little studied habitats. Therefore, I focused on the isolation and testing of Streptomyces strains from the rhizosphere of plants from different regions in Pakistan. From Helianthus annuus plants I isolated different Streptomyces strains that I screened for their antimicrobial and antifungal activity. The most promising five strains were chosen to be analyzed further. The cultivation conditions were optimized for antibiotic production. The supernatants were extracted and the resulting extracted products were subjected to liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) analysis as well as biological testing. From Streptomyces sp. BR123 I identified lavendamycin using LC-MS and NMR. In addition, this strain produces a polyene with a quasimolecular ion of 2072 that strongly inhibited the growth of the plant pathogenic fungus Fusarium solani and Fusarium oxysprorum. Because of its promising antimicrobial potential Streptomyces sp. BR123 was genome sequenced in order to both identify the gene cluster responsible for lavendamycin production and the gene cluster coding for the production of the unknown antifungal polyene to help its structure elucidation.
Aims:}

• _{Identification of the complete lavendamycin gene cluster}
• _{Structure elucidation of the novel polyene with strong antifungal activity}

ZUKOnnect Fellow from 09/2021

Responsibilities

Manfred Ulmer Fellowship

Affiliated with the Department of Chemistry

Project: Exploring Guanosine Based Scaffold for Bioinspired Materials for ‘Mineral Plastics’

_{The naturally occurring phenomenon of biomineralization produces extremely intricate and enthralling nanostructures in nature utilizing a variety of mineral salts. This project blends the concept of biomineralization with purine based supramolecular gels to produce hydrogels/organogels of enhanced efficacy. It will comprise of study of guanosine derived mineral incorporated hydrogels or organogels to be explored as ‘mineral plastic’ for their subsequent use as biodegradable and biocompatible materials. Mineral salts of Mg+2, Ba+2, Sr+2 and Ca+2 will be screened with the guanosine derivative. The resulting hydrogels/organogels will be characterized and analyzed for their rheological properties. The non-covalent interactions in the guanosine based gels would offer new and improved characteristics to gels and hence the consequent ‘mineral plastic’ as compared to the previously used covalently stabilised ones. The proposed materials would provide efficient, environment-friendly and sustainable alternatives for use in biomedical and energy applications.}

ZUKOnnect Fellow from 10/2021

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of History and Sociology

Project: Social control, hygienism and family law: transnational knowledge exchange between Brazil and the League of Nations (1919-1930)

_{This project investigates the transnational network of knowledge exchange regarding hygienism, health, and family issues that happened through Brazilian participation in the League of Nations (LoN). It aims to analyze how this knowledge exchange informed (or was informed by) discourses and practices of social control developed and employed by the Brazilian government and its policymakers. Part of these was directed towards more informal practices and discourses of social control, enforcing a hygienist project as means of socially “sanitizing” the nation altogether with a very ideological view of the desired model of family. These themes were heavily discussed in the LoN. This research, then, hopes to analyze the exchange processes within it that involved the Brazilian delegation and its collaborators}

ZUKOnnect Fellow from 09/2021

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Politics and Public Administration

Project: Hybrid Conflict Resolution in Rural Zimbabwe’s Customary Courts

_{The study concerns indigenous conflict resolution mechanisms in Zimbabwe’s rural communities. It engages with debates on decolonizing conflict resolution mechanisms in Africa. To put the study into context, from the 1890s onwards, contact with European institutions in Zimbabwe resulted in the existence of a dual legal system, namely: Roman Dutch law and customary law. The colonial government imposed a European legal system on Zimbabwe’s customary law (Holleman 1952). As a result, the colonial government nurtured a new system of addressing conflict until independence in 1980. Until then, addressing social conflicts was an area dominated by the European legal system. After independence, the new government re-institutionalized the dual system, but gave higher priority to the European legal system. Thus, again technically, the traditional system of conflict resolution continued to be compromised (Moyo 2014). Roman Dutch law operates outside the family and village system, thus alienating local people from their cultural resources despite the fact that the majority of rural people still have confidence in customary courts (Matavire 2012).}

Herz Fellow from 09/2021

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Linguistics

Project: Breaking Accessibility Barriers to Revaluate the Phonology of Bokyi

_{His doctoral research explores the phonology of a minoritized, endangered Niger-Congo language, Bokyi, for the purpose of documentation and classification. Due to its minority status within the Bendi phylum, Bokyi is under-studied, resulting in lack of standard orthography, linguistic description, and most notably, forced subsumption under language groups such as the Efiks and Ibibios in Southern Nigeria. His study draws on ethno-phonetic corpus to produce an inventory of Bokyi phonemes, syllabic structure, and tonal grammar; and to compare these with those of neighbouring languages (Ejagham and Bakor). This is particularly crucial for classification, as it is already observable that Bokyi exhibits nasalized phonemes and nasal prefixes – features most typical of Bantoid languages (cf. Crab 1967). On the analytical level, the study benefits from the synergy of phonological concepts such as the Optimality Theory (OT), and social identity theory to describe the language as well as establish its status as an independent system. Overall, the work revaluates Bokyi towards addressing its minoritized status, and more broadly, towards the linguistic empowerment of its speakers.}

Herz Fellow from 09/2021

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Mathematics and Statistics

Project: Incremental algorithms with acceleration techniques for hierarchical optimization problems and its applications

_{We consider a hierarchical constrained optimization given as a problem of minimizing a finite sum of nonsmooth convex functions subject to the solution set of different kinds of subproblems. We investigate incremental methods for the considered hierarchical constrained optimizations and we show the elucidation of its practical applications in different disciplines}

ZUKOnnect Fellow from 09/2021

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Physics

Project: Synthesis of highly efficient MOF and Perovskite composite for development of stable and efficient optoelectronic device

_{With escalating energy demands and the depletion of fossil fuel, the society requires alternative solutions for the sustainable production and storage of energy. Renewable sources, e.g., solar cells, windmills, and solid oxide fuel cells have become the technologies of future for the energy production. Batteries and supercapacitors are vital for the energy storage. Still, these energy consumption and production devices need further research and development work so as to meet the industrial specifications. Developing these devices is facing several challenge including their shape, size, cyclic stability, lifetime etc. and most of these challenges has its basic root on the type of material used in them. In this context exploring potential materials for energy harvesting and storage is one of the prime challenges. Since the beginning of 20th century, Perovskite compounds and their composites have been intensively explored to develops various energy devices, e.g., solar cells, LEDs and SOFCs, batteries, and supercapacitors. The motivation behind using Perovskite materials lies in their excellent physical and chemical properties, such as optoelectronic response, structural stability, thermal stability, catalytic activity, and simple synthesis. The properties of perovskite materials depend mainly on the arrangement of the atoms of different elements and by altering these atomic arrangements perovskite can exhibit impressive array of electrical, electronics, optical, chemical properties. Metal halide Perovskite (MHP) based solar cell (PSC) showed remarkable growth in research due to their highpower conversion efficiency (PCE) of 23%. This high efficiency is due to its tunable band width, ambipolar semiconducting behavior, superior electrical conductivity etc. Also, MHP is a direct bandgap semiconductor, which is due to the broad and strong light absorbance in the visible wavelength range. The excitons give rise to emission of strong photoluminescence at room temperature that can be changed by modifying organic molecules or halide anions, same as in the case of optical absorption. These optical properties make MHP suitable for a range of light-emitting applications, including lasers, light-emitting devices and optical sensors. Due to these vast spectrum of optical and electronic properties MHPs nanoparticles (NPs) has potential to replace organic lightemitting diodes (OLEDs) and silicon solar cells in the coming years.}

Herz Fellow from 09/2021

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department Computer and Information Science

Project: Various Colorings of Fractional Powers of Graph

_{The main goal of the on-site visit is to initiate the investigation of the relationship of (certain variants of) the chromatic number and NP-hard graph covering/decomposition problems. The chromatic number of a graph is the smallest number of colors needed to color all nodes in a given graph such that no two adjacent nodes share the same color. The chromatic number is an important graph parameter as it allows to characterize structural properties. For example, a graph with a small chromatic number can be decomposed into a small number of independent sets. We are interested in extending the knowledge about the connection of graph colorings and path cover or path partition of graphs. In particular, we want to study how (local) graph colorings can help to find better bounds for the k-Path Cover problem, and we would like to come up with bounds for the so called ordered chromatic number in special graph classes to characterize the decomposability of a given graph.}

Herz Fellow from 09/2021

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Politics and Public Administration

Project: Political Corruption: The effect of Party Nationalization

ZUKOnnect Fellow from 10/2020

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Biology

Project: Synthesizing priorities for bat conservation across multiple dimensions in the Anthropocene

ZUKOnnect Fellow from 10/2020

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of History and Sociology

Project: Pentecostal Charismatic Christianity, city-scapes and urban form in Harare

ZUKOnnect Fellow from 10/2020

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Biology

Project: Biodiversity of the genus Trichoderma: Bioeffecacy Evaluation,
Bioactive Compound Characterizations, Optimal Mass Production and Product Development for the Biological Control of Coffee Wilt Disease (Fusarium xylarioides) in Ethiopia

ZUKOnnect Fellow from 10/2020

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Biology

Project: Diel variation in collective behaviour of fish

ZUKOnnect Fellow from 10/2020

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Mathematics and Statistics

Project: Mathematical modeling and control of a transmission dynamics model for typhoid fever

AAA Fellow from 08 until 10/2019

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Literature, Art and Media Studies

Project: Global Midwifery Crisis

AAA Fellow from 07 until 09/2019

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Chemistry

Project: Construction of efficient and economical solar cells for solar harvesting

AAA Fellow from 08 until 10/2019

Responsibilities

Associated Fellow per AAA Fellowship

Affiliated with the Department of Politics and Public Administration

Project: The Family Reunification of Refugees in Brazil

Associated Fellow since 07/2019

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Linguistics

Project: Recognizing a user’s intent from his/her web search queries

AAA Fellow from 07 until 10/2019

Responsibilities

ZENiT Fellowship

Affiliated with the Departments of Literature & Politics and Public Administration

Project: “Abuse and humiliation” in the delivery room: The horror of obstetric violence in Ghana

_{Obstetric violence in a major health problem in both developed and developing countries (World Health Organisation (2015). However, the reality in those countries outside Europe, US, Canada and Australia is understudied. This research project examines the correlation between women's experiences of obstetric violence and the low facility-based deliveries and the high maternal mortality rate in Ghana. The quantitative (cross-sectional) research methodology will be used to collect and analyse data. The research findings will enable the Ghana government and other international organisations, such us the World Health Organisation (WHO) to understand the magnitude of the abuse and humiliation women face during delivery and its implications on women's health. This will assist stakeholders in developing policies and frameworks to curb the problem of obstetric violence in Ghana.}

ZENiT Fellow since 06/2024

Postdoctoral Fellow from 09/2020 until 05/2024

ZUKOnnect Fellow from 08 until 10/2019