Fellows

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Philosophy

Project: Forcing in Contemporary Philosophy of Set Theory

_{The project aims at a first comprehensive account of forcing in modern set theory. It claims that forcing developed from an independence-proving and, more generally, theorem-producing technique to a paradigmatic concept, i.e. a way to understand set theory di erently (research hypothesis). I will investigate how forcing was created, accepted and developed in the set-theoretic community, how it influences philosophical questions and research programs; and finally how it restructured the field of set theory, and, possibly, its place within mathematics (research aim). The main research question is therefore: How did the use of forcing by its practitioners change the concept of set theory? This question will be studied by examining forcing in different contexts by regarding philosophical, mathematical and socio-historical aspects.}

Fellow since 07/2016 (former Research Fellow)

See detailed profile: https://scikon.uni-konstanz.de/en/persons/profile/carolin.antos-kuby/

Publications on KOPS

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of History and Sociology

Project: Time, Space, and Ties. Multi-Dimensional Contextual Influence on Older Europeans? Participation in Employment and Family Caregiving

_{Against the background of rising life expectations and welfare budget retrenchments, the societal participation of older people is gaining political and societal importance. The concept of "Productive Ageing" includes various paid and unpaid activities, such as employment, volunteering, informal elder care and grandchild care. Despite a large share of older men and women being engaged in one or several productive activities, we can observe considerable gender differences in activity patterns. Previous studies have indicated that micro-level theories only partly suffice to explain these differences found. Rather, comparative research indicates that the decisions to take up or leave these activities are highly context-sensitive. However, most studies look at individuals linkages in a rather isolated way, and comparative studies often do not go beyond providing descriptive evidence about country differences. Last but not least, the causal direction of the linkages between several activity types often remains unclear.
The proposed project thus addresses the following two research questions: (1) What contextual dimensions influence the participation of men and women in activities in the public and private domain in their second half of life? (2) How does the influence of different contextual dimensions interact?}

Postdoctoral Fellow from 04/2020 until 05/2024

Publications on KOPS

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Biology

Project: Exploring the effect of early experience on individual vocal flexibility and group functioning

_{Most studies in collective behaviour focus on the mechanisms of coordination, such as how individuals make group decisions on where or when to move and which individuals are able to exert the highest influence on these decisions. Less attention has been given to understanding the development and fitness consequences of coordination efficacy.  Furthermore, despite the fact that many social species are known to use vocalizations during coordination, how such signalling behaviour mediates coordination remains poorly understood. During this project I will investigate the use of vocal signals to coordinate group movement and activity in pheasants (Phasianus colchicus), which exhibit marked changes in group structure throughout the year. By using captive reared pheasants, released into the wild when mature, I can manipulate individual’s development, state and group compositions, and post-release track their associations and survival using novel bio-logging technology. Specifically, I ask 1) how vocal signalling develops across an individual’s lifetime, 2) how signals influence group structure and coordination and 3) how early experience influences individual signalling and survival.}

Postdoctoral Fellow since 05/2021

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Physics

Project: Strategies for improving the quality of solutions, discovered by machine learning algorithms for problems in quantum state tomography

_{Due to the rapidly increasing presence of artifical intelligence in daily life, it is demanded that the algorithms for machine learning are dependable and safe. The quality of the solutions (models), which these algorithms find, has to be as high as possible. The project will deal with improving the quality which machine learning algorithms find by using two main approaches. One is Widening, which uses parallel compute resources to improve the exploration of the search space and discover better models. The other approach which we will use to improve the learning algorithms is to incorporate invariants to certain transformations, such as symmetries, in the algorithms with the goal of finding better models. An example of this encoding invariance under symmetry transformations into neural network architectures.}

Fellow since 06/2020

See detailed profile: https://scikon.uni-konstanz.de/personen/profile/violeta.ivanova/

Publications on KOPS

Responsibilities

Affiliated with the Department of Biology

Project: Hungry eyes: an experimental framework testing eye camouflage in active predators

_{Eyes are highly conspicuous. They can convey various information, for example about the position of an animal’s head or where it is looking. Exploiting said information, many species have evolved exaggerated eye spots or “fake eyes”, such as those commonly found on butterfly wings, to deter predators. Equally widespread across the animal kingdom are distinct facial markings such as dark stripes which seemingly conceal or disrupt the eyes. To date, research thereof has focused on the function of eye camouflage from an anti-predator perspective. However, avoiding detection is not only beneficial for prey. Especially for actively foraging predators, evading visual detection by their prey offers strong selective advantages. Numerous species of jumping spiders exhibit striking eye masking patterns and have been shown to use eyes as important cues in the recognition of other (predatory) jumping spiders. Being both highly visual prey and predators with rich cognitive abilities, these spiders offer a unique dual model system. Using common species of jumping spiders, I am going to 1) test how different eye masking patterns influence predator recognition, 2) test the effect of eye masks on foraging success and 3) document the developmental onset of eye mask expression in different species. I will use 3D printing technology as well as novel 3D video tracking methods to quantify natural behavior in these charismatic animals.}

Postdoctoral Fellow from 06/2021 until 05/2024