AAU

3D spatial auditory displays can provide accurate information about the relation between the sound source and the surrounding environment, including the listener and his/her body which acts as an additional filter.This information cannot be substituted by any other modality (e.g. visual or tactile). Nevertheless, today's spatial representation of audio tends to be simplistic, being multimodal systems currently integrated with simple stereo or surround sound. In IT'S A DIVE extremely innovative techniques for binaural sound rendering will be developed, following a multidisciplinary approach encompassing different research areas such as computer science, acoustics, and psychology. The focus of the research program will be on structural modeling of head-related transfer functions (HRTFs), i.e. a family of state-of-the-art modeling techniques that overcome the current limitations of headphone-based 3D audio systems. The customization of the HRTF model based on the user's anthropometry will grant to any user a low-cost and real-time fruition of realistic individual 3D audio, previously only possible with expensive equipment and invasive recording procedures. The main objective of the research program will be the definition and experimental validation (through subjective psychophysical tests) of a completely customizable structural model for binaural sound presentation, which is today still missing in the literature on spatial audio. The technical focus will be on the exploitation of a vast number of public HRTF databases, including custom controlled acoustical measurements, and of state-of-the-art machine learning techniques in order to customize HRTFs by incorporating prior knowledge on the relation between HRTF features and anthropometry. The research program is expected to represent an innovative breakthrough for a plethora of applications, e.g. personal cinema, teleconferencing and teleoperation systems, electronic travel aids, and computer games.

Conservation and management of marine turtle populations are challenging because of their complex life history involving long-distance migrations. Consequently, marine turtles are affected by a wide range of anthropogenic threats across temporal and spatial scales, including climate change. The cumulative effect of these impacts is likely to have direct and indirect implications on these endangered species in the near future. This project aims to refine our understanding of the spatial structure of green turtles (Chelonia mydas) in the South-West Indian Ocean to understand better how populations interact and how they may be impacted by threats both at the nesting ground, at distant foraging areas, and along migratory corridors. To do so we aim to apply the power of genome-wide Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) combined with traditional mtDNA markers to assess fine-scale population structure and recent demographic history. In addition, the research will take a multidisciplinary approach, combining novel genetic methods with data from movement ecology (satellite telemetry) and oceanography (ocean current modelling) to provide a comprehensive analysis of connectivity between breeding and foraging areas. The results will allow conservation managers and policymakers to identify areas in need of protection and to assess the potential impacts of anthropogenic activities such as marine turtle interaction with fisheries. As such, our results will provide the scientific basis for future conservation actions within the framework of Integrated Maritime Policy. This project will allow me to gain critical new skills in conservation genomics. This will broaden my research horizon, strengthen my research profile and place me in a strong position for furthering my research career within the European Community.

The overall objective of WILLOW is to make wireless communication a true commodity by enabling lowband communications: low-rate links for massive number of devices and ultra-reliable connectivity. This research effort is a major endeavour in the area of wireless communications, taking a different path from the mainstream research that aims at “4G, but faster”. Lowband communication is the key to enabling new applications, such as massive sensing, ultra-reliable vehicular links and wireless cloud connectivity with guaranteed minimal rate. The research in WILLOW is centred on two fundamental issues. First, it is the efficient communication with short packets, in which the data size is comparable to the size of the metadata, i.e. control information, which is not the case in broadband communication. Communication of short packets that come from a massive number of devices and/or need to meet a latency constraint requires fundamental rethinking of the packet structure and the associated communication protocols. Second is the system architecture in which graceful rate degradation, low latency and massive access can exist simultaneously with the broadband services. The principles from WILLOW will be applied to: (a) clean-slate wireless systems; (b) reengineer existing wireless systems. Option (b) is unique to lowband communication that does not require high physical-layer speed, but can reuse the physical layer of an existing system and redefine the metadata/data relationship to achieve massive/ultra-reliable communication. WILLOW carries high risk by conjecturing that it is possible to support an unprecedented number of connected devices and wireless reliability levels. Considering the timeliness and the relevance, the strong track record of the PI and the rich wireless research environment at Aalborg University, WILLOW is poised to make a breakthrough towards lowband communications and create the technology that will enable a plethora of new wireless usage modes.

The transport sector is the highest consumer of fossil fuels accounting for 96% of the global energy, which correspond to 65% of the global crude oil consumption. The escalating consumption of fossil fuel causes deleterious environmental pollution by releasing > 7 billion tons of CO2 in the atmosphere. The awareness to transition from conventional fossil fuel to eco-friendly options has resulted in several decarbonization strategies with Europe’s priority to develop new alternative and carbon-neutral energy sources based on a cost-effective biomass-based thermochemical conversion. Hence, the objective of CO-HTL4BIO-OIL is to develop commercially viable catalytic co-hydrothermal liquefaction (CO-HTL) that converts 2G wet solid food by-products such as rye straw, shellfish, and beef tallow into a sustainable transport fuel with potential 100% atom efficiency, low production costs, and zero CO2 emissions. The specific experiments include: (1) identify proper pretreatment prior to CO-HTL for efficient removal of undesirable heteroatoms (2) validate baseline Lab-scale CO-HTL by determining integrated models of HTL parameters and proportions of binary/ternary mixtures; (3) establish efficient catalytic upgrading to bring the HTL intermediate bio-crude oil to drop-in transport fuel; (4) carry out bench-scale HTL for techno-economic assessment. It is anticipated that an in-depth study on the HTL parameters, optimization of the CO-HTL process, and techno-economic assessment will provide an outlook scenario of the industrial-scale process for high biofuels production capacity. Therefore, CO-HTL4BIO-OIL will diversify my scientific competences in renewable energy and equip me with new transferable skills. Thus, combining my skills in carbon-based biomaterials with the host’s expertise in advanced biofuels, a mutual benefit will be realized. The project will positively impact Europe’s knowledge-based economy and society towards sustainable and green transportation.

Most synthetic materials are close-to or reside-in equilibrium, however, life, the most ‘intelligent materials’ on earth, always stays away-from-equilibrium. This non-equilibrium state is usually sustained by high energy molecules (chemical fuels) harvested from metabolic reaction cycles. This has inspired the construction of chemically fueled dissipative molecular assemblies. Currently, these chemically fueled systems mainly focus on small molecules. Compared to small molecules, polymers show advantages in constructing 3D-bulk materials, as well as, integrating and amplifying molecular-scale changes to visible macroscopic changes. Thus, I propose to construct chemically fueled polymeric materials to overcome current limitations. A series of dextran-based chemically fueled hydrogels are constructed by coupling with appropriate analogue metabolic reaction cycles. The resulting hydrogels are responsive to chemical fuels and have the ability of self-healing and programmable decay. The life-time of the hydrogels is controllable by manipulating the kinetics of the reaction cycles. Controlled release of active ingredients (e.g. for drug delivery applications) from these hydrogels will be investigated. This fellowship will help me to reintegrate into the scientific community after maternity leave since 2017 in France. The project will be interdisciplinary as it ranges from the understanding of biological materials over polymer chemistry, systems chemistry, and organic chemistry to potential biomedical applications. It will also promote the two-way transfer of knowledge between me and the host.