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Project acronym 15CBOOKTRADE
Project The 15th-century Book Trade: An Evidence-based Assessment and Visualization of the Distribution, Sale, and Reception of Books in the Renaissance
Researcher (PI) Cristina Dondi
Host Institution (HI) THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Summary The idea that underpins this project is to use the material evidence from thousands of surviving 15th-c. books, as well as unique documentary evidence — the unpublished ledger of a Venetian bookseller in the 1480s which records the sale of 25,000 printed books with their prices — to address four fundamental questions relating to the introduction of printing in the West which have so far eluded scholarship, partly because of lack of evidence, partly because of the lack of effective tools to deal with existing evidence. The book trade differs from other trades operating in the medieval and early modern periods in that the goods traded survive in considerable numbers. Not only do they survive, but many of them bear stratified evidence of their history in the form of marks of ownership, prices, manuscript annotations, binding and decoration styles. A British Academy pilot project conceived by the PI produced a now internationally-used database which gathers together this kind of evidence for thousands of surviving 15th-c. printed books. For the first time, this makes it possible to track the circulation of books, their trade routes and later collecting, across Europe and the USA, and throughout the centuries. The objectives of this project are to examine (1) the distribution and trade-routes, national and international, of 15th-c. printed books, along with the identity of the buyers and users (private, institutional, religious, lay, female, male, and by profession) and their reading practices; (2) the books' contemporary market value; (3) the transmission and dissemination of the texts they contain, their survival and their loss (rebalancing potentially skewed scholarship); and (4) the circulation and re-use of the illustrations they contain. Finally, the project will experiment with the application of scientific visualization techniques to represent, geographically and chronologically, the movement of 15th-c. printed books and of the texts they contain.
The idea that underpins this project is to use the material evidence from thousands of surviving 15th-c. books, as well as unique documentary evidence — the unpublished ledger of a Venetian bookseller in the 1480s which records the sale of 25,000 printed books with their prices — to address four fundamental questions relating to the introduction of printing in the West which have so far eluded scholarship, partly because of lack of evidence, partly because of the lack of effective tools to deal with existing evidence. The book trade differs from other trades operating in the medieval and early modern periods in that the goods traded survive in considerable numbers. Not only do they survive, but many of them bear stratified evidence of their history in the form of marks of ownership, prices, manuscript annotations, binding and decoration styles. A British Academy pilot project conceived by the PI produced a now internationally-used database which gathers together this kind of evidence for thousands of surviving 15th-c. printed books. For the first time, this makes it possible to track the circulation of books, their trade routes and later collecting, across Europe and the USA, and throughout the centuries. The objectives of this project are to examine (1) the distribution and trade-routes, national and international, of 15th-c. printed books, along with the identity of the buyers and users (private, institutional, religious, lay, female, male, and by profession) and their reading practices; (2) the books' contemporary market value; (3) the transmission and dissemination of the texts they contain, their survival and their loss (rebalancing potentially skewed scholarship); and (4) the circulation and re-use of the illustrations they contain. Finally, the project will experiment with the application of scientific visualization techniques to represent, geographically and chronologically, the movement of 15th-c. printed books and of the texts they contain.
Project acronym 3D_Tryps
Project The role of three-dimensional genome architecture in antigenic variation
Researcher (PI) Tim Nicolai SIEGEL
Summary Antigenic variation is a widely employed strategy to evade the host immune response. It has similar functional requirements even in evolutionarily divergent pathogens. These include the mutually exclusive expression of antigens and the periodic, nonrandom switching in the expression of different antigens during the course of an infection. Despite decades of research the mechanisms of antigenic variation are not fully understood in any organism. The recent development of high-throughput sequencing-based assays to probe the 3D genome architecture (Hi-C) has revealed the importance of the spatial organization of DNA inside the nucleus. 3D genome architecture plays a critical role in the regulation of mutually exclusive gene expression and the frequency of translocation between different genomic loci in many eukaryotes. Thus, genome architecture may also be a key regulator of antigenic variation, yet the causal links between genome architecture and the expression of antigens have not been studied systematically. In addition, the development of CRISPR-Cas9-based approaches to perform nucleotide-specific genome editing has opened unprecedented opportunities to study the influence of DNA sequence elements on the spatial organization of DNA and how this impacts antigen expression. I have adapted both Hi-C and CRISPR-Cas9 technology to the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma brucei, one of the most important model organisms to study antigenic variation. These techniques will enable me to bridge the field of antigenic variation research with that of genome architecture. I will perform the first systematic analysis of the role of genome architecture in the mutually exclusive and hierarchical expression of antigens in any pathogen. The experiments outlined in this proposal will provide new insight, facilitating a new view of antigenic variation and may eventually help medical intervention in T. brucei and in other pathogens relying on antigenic variation for their survival.
Antigenic variation is a widely employed strategy to evade the host immune response. It has similar functional requirements even in evolutionarily divergent pathogens. These include the mutually exclusive expression of antigens and the periodic, nonrandom switching in the expression of different antigens during the course of an infection. Despite decades of research the mechanisms of antigenic variation are not fully understood in any organism. The recent development of high-throughput sequencing-based assays to probe the 3D genome architecture (Hi-C) has revealed the importance of the spatial organization of DNA inside the nucleus. 3D genome architecture plays a critical role in the regulation of mutually exclusive gene expression and the frequency of translocation between different genomic loci in many eukaryotes. Thus, genome architecture may also be a key regulator of antigenic variation, yet the causal links between genome architecture and the expression of antigens have not been studied systematically. In addition, the development of CRISPR-Cas9-based approaches to perform nucleotide-specific genome editing has opened unprecedented opportunities to study the influence of DNA sequence elements on the spatial organization of DNA and how this impacts antigen expression. I have adapted both Hi-C and CRISPR-Cas9 technology to the protozoan parasite Trypanosoma brucei, one of the most important model organisms to study antigenic variation. These techniques will enable me to bridge the field of antigenic variation research with that of genome architecture. I will perform the first systematic analysis of the role of genome architecture in the mutually exclusive and hierarchical expression of antigens in any pathogen. The experiments outlined in this proposal will provide new insight, facilitating a new view of antigenic variation and may eventually help medical intervention in T. brucei and in other pathogens relying on antigenic variation for their survival.
Project acronym AAREA
Project The Archaeology of Agricultural Resilience in Eastern Africa
Researcher (PI) Daryl Stump
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY OF YORK
Summary "The twin concepts of sustainability and conservation that are so pivotal within current debates regarding economic development and biodiversity protection both contain an inherent temporal dimension, since both refer to the need to balance short-term gains with long-term resource maintenance. Proponents of resilience theory and of development based on 'indigenous knowledge' have thus argued for the necessity of including archaeological, historical and palaeoenvironmental components within development project design. Indeed, some have argued that archaeology should lead these interdisciplinary projects on the grounds that it provides the necessary time depth and bridges the social and natural sciences. The project proposed here accepts this logic and endorses this renewed contemporary relevance of archaeological research. However, it also needs to be admitted that moving beyond critiques of the misuse of historical data presents significant hurdles. When presenting results outside the discipline, for example, archaeological projects tend to downplay the poor archaeological visibility of certain agricultural practices, and computer models designed to test sustainability struggle to adequately account for local cultural preferences. This field will therefore not progress unless there is a frank appraisal of archaeology's strengths and weaknesses. This project will provide this assessment by employing a range of established and groundbreaking archaeological and modelling techniques to examine the development of two east Africa agricultural systems: one at the abandoned site of Engaruka in Tanzania, commonly seen as an example of resource mismanagement and ecological collapse; and another at the current agricultural landscape in Konso, Ethiopia, described by the UN FAO as one of a select few African "lessons from the past". The project thus aims to assess the sustainability of these systems, but will also assess the role archaeology can play in such debates worldwide."
"The twin concepts of sustainability and conservation that are so pivotal within current debates regarding economic development and biodiversity protection both contain an inherent temporal dimension, since both refer to the need to balance short-term gains with long-term resource maintenance. Proponents of resilience theory and of development based on 'indigenous knowledge' have thus argued for the necessity of including archaeological, historical and palaeoenvironmental components within development project design. Indeed, some have argued that archaeology should lead these interdisciplinary projects on the grounds that it provides the necessary time depth and bridges the social and natural sciences. The project proposed here accepts this logic and endorses this renewed contemporary relevance of archaeological research. However, it also needs to be admitted that moving beyond critiques of the misuse of historical data presents significant hurdles. When presenting results outside the discipline, for example, archaeological projects tend to downplay the poor archaeological visibility of certain agricultural practices, and computer models designed to test sustainability struggle to adequately account for local cultural preferences. This field will therefore not progress unless there is a frank appraisal of archaeology's strengths and weaknesses. This project will provide this assessment by employing a range of established and groundbreaking archaeological and modelling techniques to examine the development of two east Africa agricultural systems: one at the abandoned site of Engaruka in Tanzania, commonly seen as an example of resource mismanagement and ecological collapse; and another at the current agricultural landscape in Konso, Ethiopia, described by the UN FAO as one of a select few African "lessons from the past". The project thus aims to assess the sustainability of these systems, but will also assess the role archaeology can play in such debates worldwide."
Project Life in a cold climate: the adaptation of cereals to new environments and the establishment of agriculture in Europe
Researcher (PI) Terence Austen Brown
Host Institution (HI) THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH6, ERC-2013-ADG
Summary "This project explores the concept of agricultural spread as analogous to enforced climate change and asks how cereals adapted to new environments when agriculture was introduced into Europe. Archaeologists have long recognized that the ecological pressures placed on crops would have had an impact on the spread and subsequent development of agriculture, but previously there has been no means of directly assessing the scale and nature of this impact. Recent work that I have directed has shown how such a study could be carried out, and the purpose of this project is to exploit these breakthroughs with the goal of assessing the influence of environmental adaptation on the spread of agriculture, its adoption as the primary subsistence strategy, and the subsequent establishment of farming in different parts of Europe. This will correct the current imbalance between our understanding of the human and environmental dimensions to the domestication of Europe. I will use methods from population genomics to identify loci within the barley and wheat genomes that have undergone selection since the beginning of cereal cultivation in Europe. I will then use ecological modelling to identify those loci whose patterns of selection are associated with ecogeographical variables and hence represent adaptations to local environmental conditions. I will assign dates to the periods when adaptations occurred by sequencing ancient DNA from archaeobotanical assemblages and by computer methods that enable the temporal order of adaptations to be deduced. I will then synthesise the information on environmental adaptations with dating evidence for the spread of agriculture in Europe, which reveals pauses that might be linked to environmental adaptation, with demographic data that indicate regions where Neolithic populations declined, possibly due to inadequate crop productivity, and with an archaeobotanical database showing changes in the prevalence of individual cereals in different regions."
"This project explores the concept of agricultural spread as analogous to enforced climate change and asks how cereals adapted to new environments when agriculture was introduced into Europe. Archaeologists have long recognized that the ecological pressures placed on crops would have had an impact on the spread and subsequent development of agriculture, but previously there has been no means of directly assessing the scale and nature of this impact. Recent work that I have directed has shown how such a study could be carried out, and the purpose of this project is to exploit these breakthroughs with the goal of assessing the influence of environmental adaptation on the spread of agriculture, its adoption as the primary subsistence strategy, and the subsequent establishment of farming in different parts of Europe. This will correct the current imbalance between our understanding of the human and environmental dimensions to the domestication of Europe. I will use methods from population genomics to identify loci within the barley and wheat genomes that have undergone selection since the beginning of cereal cultivation in Europe. I will then use ecological modelling to identify those loci whose patterns of selection are associated with ecogeographical variables and hence represent adaptations to local environmental conditions. I will assign dates to the periods when adaptations occurred by sequencing ancient DNA from archaeobotanical assemblages and by computer methods that enable the temporal order of adaptations to be deduced. I will then synthesise the information on environmental adaptations with dating evidence for the spread of agriculture in Europe, which reveals pauses that might be linked to environmental adaptation, with demographic data that indicate regions where Neolithic populations declined, possibly due to inadequate crop productivity, and with an archaeobotanical database showing changes in the prevalence of individual cereals in different regions."
Project Adaptation, Dispersals and Phenotype: understanding the roles of climate, natural selection and energetics in shaping global hunter-gatherer adaptability
Researcher (PI) Jay Stock
Summary Relative to other species, humans are characterised by considerable biological diversity despite genetic homogeneity. This diversity is reflected in skeletal variation, but we lack sufficient understanding of the underlying mechanisms to adequately interpret the archaeological record. The proposed research will address problems in our current understanding of the origins of human variation in the past by: 1) documenting and interpreting the pattern of global hunter-gatherer variation relative to genetic phylogenies and climatic variation; 2) testing the relationship between environmental and skeletal variation among genetically related hunter-gatherers from different environments; 3) examining the adaptability of living humans to different environments, through the study of energetic expenditure and life history trade-offs associated with locomotion; and 4) investigating the relationship between muscle and skeletal variation associated with locomotion in diverse environments. This will be achieved by linking: a) detailed study of the global pattern of hunter-gatherer variation in the Late Pleistocene and Holocene with; b) ground-breaking experimental research which tests the relationship between energetic stress, muscle function, and bone variation in living humans. The first component tests the correspondence between skeletal variation and both genetic and climatic history, to infer mechanisms driving variation. The second component integrates this skeletal variation with experimental studies of living humans to, for the first time, directly test adaptive implications of skeletal variation observed in the past. ADaPt will provide the first links between prehistoric hunter-gatherer variation and the evolutionary parameters of life history and energetics that may have shaped our success as a species. It will lead to breakthroughs necessary to interpret variation in the archaeological record, relative to human dispersals and adaptation in the past.
Relative to other species, humans are characterised by considerable biological diversity despite genetic homogeneity. This diversity is reflected in skeletal variation, but we lack sufficient understanding of the underlying mechanisms to adequately interpret the archaeological record. The proposed research will address problems in our current understanding of the origins of human variation in the past by: 1) documenting and interpreting the pattern of global hunter-gatherer variation relative to genetic phylogenies and climatic variation; 2) testing the relationship between environmental and skeletal variation among genetically related hunter-gatherers from different environments; 3) examining the adaptability of living humans to different environments, through the study of energetic expenditure and life history trade-offs associated with locomotion; and 4) investigating the relationship between muscle and skeletal variation associated with locomotion in diverse environments. This will be achieved by linking: a) detailed study of the global pattern of hunter-gatherer variation in the Late Pleistocene and Holocene with; b) ground-breaking experimental research which tests the relationship between energetic stress, muscle function, and bone variation in living humans. The first component tests the correspondence between skeletal variation and both genetic and climatic history, to infer mechanisms driving variation. The second component integrates this skeletal variation with experimental studies of living humans to, for the first time, directly test adaptive implications of skeletal variation observed in the past. ADaPt will provide the first links between prehistoric hunter-gatherer variation and the evolutionary parameters of life history and energetics that may have shaped our success as a species. It will lead to breakthroughs necessary to interpret variation in the archaeological record, relative to human dispersals and adaptation in the past.
Project acronym AgeConsolidate
Project The Missing Link of Episodic Memory Decline in Aging: The Role of Inefficient Systems Consolidation
Researcher (PI) Anders Martin FJELL
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITETET I OSLO
Summary Which brain mechanisms are responsible for the faith of the memories we make with age, whether they wither or stay, and in what form? Episodic memory function does decline with age. While this decline can have multiple causes, research has focused almost entirely on encoding and retrieval processes, largely ignoring a third critical process– consolidation. The objective of AgeConsolidate is to provide this missing link, by combining novel experimental cognitive paradigms with neuroimaging in a longitudinal large-scale attempt to directly test how age-related changes in consolidation processes in the brain impact episodic memory decline. The ambitious aims of the present proposal are two-fold: (1) Use recent advances in memory consolidation theory to achieve an elaborate model of episodic memory deficits in aging (2) Use aging as a model to uncover how structural and functional brain changes affect episodic memory consolidation in general The novelty of the project lies in the synthesis of recent methodological advances and theoretical models for episodic memory consolidation to explain age-related decline, by employing a unique combination of a range of different techniques and approaches. This is ground-breaking, in that it aims at taking our understanding of the brain processes underlying episodic memory decline in aging to a new level, while at the same time advancing our theoretical understanding of how episodic memories are consolidated in the human brain. To obtain this outcome, I will test the main hypothesis of the project: Brain processes of episodic memory consolidation are less effective in older adults, and this can account for a significant portion of the episodic memory decline in aging. This will be answered by six secondary hypotheses, with 1-3 experiments or tasks designated to address each hypothesis, focusing on functional and structural MRI, positron emission tomography data and sleep experiments to target consolidation from different angles.
Which brain mechanisms are responsible for the faith of the memories we make with age, whether they wither or stay, and in what form? Episodic memory function does decline with age. While this decline can have multiple causes, research has focused almost entirely on encoding and retrieval processes, largely ignoring a third critical process– consolidation. The objective of AgeConsolidate is to provide this missing link, by combining novel experimental cognitive paradigms with neuroimaging in a longitudinal large-scale attempt to directly test how age-related changes in consolidation processes in the brain impact episodic memory decline. The ambitious aims of the present proposal are two-fold: (1) Use recent advances in memory consolidation theory to achieve an elaborate model of episodic memory deficits in aging (2) Use aging as a model to uncover how structural and functional brain changes affect episodic memory consolidation in general The novelty of the project lies in the synthesis of recent methodological advances and theoretical models for episodic memory consolidation to explain age-related decline, by employing a unique combination of a range of different techniques and approaches. This is ground-breaking, in that it aims at taking our understanding of the brain processes underlying episodic memory decline in aging to a new level, while at the same time advancing our theoretical understanding of how episodic memories are consolidated in the human brain. To obtain this outcome, I will test the main hypothesis of the project: Brain processes of episodic memory consolidation are less effective in older adults, and this can account for a significant portion of the episodic memory decline in aging. This will be answered by six secondary hypotheses, with 1-3 experiments or tasks designated to address each hypothesis, focusing on functional and structural MRI, positron emission tomography data and sleep experiments to target consolidation from different angles.
Project acronym AGESPACE
Project SPATIAL NAVIGATION – A UNIQUE WINDOW INTO MECHANISMS OF COGNITIVE AGEING
Researcher (PI) Thomas Wolbers
Host Institution (HI) DEUTSCHES ZENTRUM FUR NEURODEGENERATIVE ERKRANKUNGEN EV
Summary "By 2040, the European population aged over 60 will rise to 290 million, with those estimated to have dementia to 15.9 million. These dramatic demographic changes will pose huge challenges to health care systems, hence a detailed understanding of age-related cognitive and neurobiological changes is essential for helping elderly populations maintain independence. However, while existing research into cognitive ageing has carefully characterised developmental trajectories of functions such as memory and processing speed, one key cognitive ability that is particularly relevant to everyday functioning has received very little attention: In surveys, elderly people often report substantial declines in navigational abilities such as problems with finding one's way in a novel environment. Such deficits severely restrict the mobility of elderly people and affect physical activity and social participation, but the underlying behavioural and neuronal mechanisms are poorly understood. In this proposal, I will take a new approach to cognitive ageing that will bridge the gap between animal neurobiology and human cognitive neuroscience. With support from the ERC, I will create a team that will characterise the mechanisms mediating age-related changes in navigational processing in humans. The project will focus on three structures that perform key computations for spatial navigation, form a closely interconnected triadic network, and are particularly sensitive to the ageing process. Crucially, the team will employ an interdisciplinary methodological approach that combines mathematical modelling, brain imaging and innovative data analysis techniques with novel virtual environment technology, which allows for rigorous testing of predictions derived from animal findings. Finally, the proposal also incorporates a translational project aimed at improving spatial mnemonic functioning with a behavioural intervention, which provides a direct test of functional relevance and societal impact."
"By 2040, the European population aged over 60 will rise to 290 million, with those estimated to have dementia to 15.9 million. These dramatic demographic changes will pose huge challenges to health care systems, hence a detailed understanding of age-related cognitive and neurobiological changes is essential for helping elderly populations maintain independence. However, while existing research into cognitive ageing has carefully characterised developmental trajectories of functions such as memory and processing speed, one key cognitive ability that is particularly relevant to everyday functioning has received very little attention: In surveys, elderly people often report substantial declines in navigational abilities such as problems with finding one's way in a novel environment. Such deficits severely restrict the mobility of elderly people and affect physical activity and social participation, but the underlying behavioural and neuronal mechanisms are poorly understood. In this proposal, I will take a new approach to cognitive ageing that will bridge the gap between animal neurobiology and human cognitive neuroscience. With support from the ERC, I will create a team that will characterise the mechanisms mediating age-related changes in navigational processing in humans. The project will focus on three structures that perform key computations for spatial navigation, form a closely interconnected triadic network, and are particularly sensitive to the ageing process. Crucially, the team will employ an interdisciplinary methodological approach that combines mathematical modelling, brain imaging and innovative data analysis techniques with novel virtual environment technology, which allows for rigorous testing of predictions derived from animal findings. Finally, the proposal also incorporates a translational project aimed at improving spatial mnemonic functioning with a behavioural intervention, which provides a direct test of functional relevance and societal impact."
Project acronym ALFA
Project Shaping a European Scientific Scene : Alfonsine Astronomy
Researcher (PI) Matthieu Husson
Summary Alfonsine astronomy is arguably among the first European scientific achievements. It shaped a scene for actors like Regiomontanus or Copernicus. There is however little detailed historical analysis encompassing its development in its full breadth. ALFA addresses this issue by studying tables, instruments, mathematical and theoretical texts in a methodologically innovative way relying on approaches from the history of manuscript cultures, history of mathematics, and history of astronomy. ALFA integrates these approaches not only to benefit from different perspectives but also to build new questions from their interactions. For instance the analysis of mathematical practices in astral sciences manuscripts induces new ways to analyse the documents and to think about astronomical questions. Relying on these approaches the main objectives of ALFA are thus to: - Retrace the development of the corpus of Alfonsine texts from its origin in the second half of the 13th century to the end of the 15th century by following, on the manuscript level, the milieus fostering it; - Analyse the Alfonsine astronomers' practices, their relations to mathematics, to the natural world, to proofs and justification, their intellectual context and audiences; - Build a meaningful narrative showing how astronomers in different milieus with diverse practices shaped, also from Arabic materials, an original scientific scene in Europe. ALFA will shed new light on the intellectual history of the late medieval period as a whole and produce a better understanding of its relations to related scientific periods in Europe and beyond. It will also produce methodological breakthroughs impacting the ways history of knowledge is practiced outside the field of ancient and medieval sciences. Efforts will be devoted to bring these results not only to the relevant scholarly communities but also to a wider audience as a resource in the public debates around science, knowledge and culture.
Alfonsine astronomy is arguably among the first European scientific achievements. It shaped a scene for actors like Regiomontanus or Copernicus. There is however little detailed historical analysis encompassing its development in its full breadth. ALFA addresses this issue by studying tables, instruments, mathematical and theoretical texts in a methodologically innovative way relying on approaches from the history of manuscript cultures, history of mathematics, and history of astronomy. ALFA integrates these approaches not only to benefit from different perspectives but also to build new questions from their interactions. For instance the analysis of mathematical practices in astral sciences manuscripts induces new ways to analyse the documents and to think about astronomical questions. Relying on these approaches the main objectives of ALFA are thus to: - Retrace the development of the corpus of Alfonsine texts from its origin in the second half of the 13th century to the end of the 15th century by following, on the manuscript level, the milieus fostering it; - Analyse the Alfonsine astronomers' practices, their relations to mathematics, to the natural world, to proofs and justification, their intellectual context and audiences; - Build a meaningful narrative showing how astronomers in different milieus with diverse practices shaped, also from Arabic materials, an original scientific scene in Europe. ALFA will shed new light on the intellectual history of the late medieval period as a whole and produce a better understanding of its relations to related scientific periods in Europe and beyond. It will also produce methodological breakthroughs impacting the ways history of knowledge is practiced outside the field of ancient and medieval sciences. Efforts will be devoted to bring these results not only to the relevant scholarly communities but also to a wider audience as a resource in the public debates around science, knowledge and culture.
Project acronym AlgoFinance
Project Algorithmic Finance: Inquiring into the Reshaping of Financial Markets
Researcher (PI) Christian BORCH
Host Institution (HI) COPENHAGEN BUSINESS SCHOOL
Summary Present-day financial markets are turning algorithmic, as market orders are increasingly being executed by fully automated computer algorithms, without any direct human intervention. Although algorithmic finance seems to fundamentally reshape the central dynamics in financial markets, and even though it prompts core sociological questions, it has not yet received any systematic attention. In a pioneering contribution to economic sociology and social studies of finance, ALGOFINANCE aims to understand how and with what consequences the turn to algorithms is changing financial markets. The overall concept and central contributions of ALGOFINANCE are the following: (1) on an intra-firm level, the project examines how the shift to algorithmic finance reshapes the ways in which trading firms operate, and does so by systematically and empirically investigating the reconfiguration of organizational structures and employee subjectivity; (2) on an inter-algorithmic level, it offers a ground-breaking methodology (agent-based modelling informed by qualitative data) to grasp how trading algorithms interact with one another in a fully digital space; and (3) on the level of market sociality, it proposes a novel theorization of how intra-firm and inter-algorithmic dynamics can be conceived of as introducing a particular form of sociality that is characteristic to algorithmic finance: a form of sociality-as-association heuristically analyzed as imitation. None of these three levels have received systematic attention in the state-of-the-art literature. Addressing them will significantly advance the understanding of present-day algorithmic finance in economic sociology. By contributing novel empirical, methodological, and theoretical understandings of the functioning and consequences of algorithms, ALGOFINANCE will pave the way for other research into digital sociology and the broader algorithmization of society.
Present-day financial markets are turning algorithmic, as market orders are increasingly being executed by fully automated computer algorithms, without any direct human intervention. Although algorithmic finance seems to fundamentally reshape the central dynamics in financial markets, and even though it prompts core sociological questions, it has not yet received any systematic attention. In a pioneering contribution to economic sociology and social studies of finance, ALGOFINANCE aims to understand how and with what consequences the turn to algorithms is changing financial markets. The overall concept and central contributions of ALGOFINANCE are the following: (1) on an intra-firm level, the project examines how the shift to algorithmic finance reshapes the ways in which trading firms operate, and does so by systematically and empirically investigating the reconfiguration of organizational structures and employee subjectivity; (2) on an inter-algorithmic level, it offers a ground-breaking methodology (agent-based modelling informed by qualitative data) to grasp how trading algorithms interact with one another in a fully digital space; and (3) on the level of market sociality, it proposes a novel theorization of how intra-firm and inter-algorithmic dynamics can be conceived of as introducing a particular form of sociality that is characteristic to algorithmic finance: a form of sociality-as-association heuristically analyzed as imitation. None of these three levels have received systematic attention in the state-of-the-art literature. Addressing them will significantly advance the understanding of present-day algorithmic finance in economic sociology. By contributing novel empirical, methodological, and theoretical understandings of the functioning and consequences of algorithms, ALGOFINANCE will pave the way for other research into digital sociology and the broader algorithmization of society.


Easy Homemade Sangria - by the Glass!!
Easy Homemade Sangria - by the Glass!
I've been making glasses of this "sangria" for years.
Seriously, I can drink a lot of this since it tastes so good and since it's summer, I'm thirsty!
Here is a "recipe" for the sangria I make - by the glass but really, no recipe is necessary. Pour a half glass of some kind of red wine (not too sweet) and add half as much orange juice and again either ginger ale or Sprite or seltzer. Fill with any kind of fruit and have at it!! I did put together a recipe since many people like to follow an exact recipe.
RECIPE for EASY SANGRIA BY THE GLASS!
Cut up fruit - strawberries, blueberries, melons, etc.
I start with the wine and add the rest of the ingredients, finishing with ice cubes and the frozen fruit ice cubes that I make to put in easy and quick seltzer drinks.
Yum! So perfect for summer!
Looks Yummy!! Thanks for stopping by!!
Thanks for sharing that project...I might just have to pinch that idea! Looks great in your lovely garden.
Hi Linda - I mentioned this on my blog today - and provided a link to this article. Thanks for the great idea!
Such a great idea! Thanks for sharing on Worthwhile Wednesdays!
Mmm that looks refreshing. Thanks for sharing! Hello from Treasure Box Tuesday.
What a great idea! Thanks so much for sharing with the Let's Get Real party.
Butterflies also love this type with the pebbles in the bottom with shallow water to drink from too.