Chinese history was co-constructed by Han (Chinese) people, transmitters of farming language and culture, and non-Han people, typically transmitters of nomadic language and culture in North and Northwest China. Governance by non-Han steppe rulers lasted for almost ten centuries (half of the history of imperial China since the First Emperor of Qin) and the Gansu-Qinghai area was the most important migration corridor between Central and East Asia. These languages and populations have competed, mixed and merged for ages. Surprisingly, a cross-linguistically comprehensive portrait of this region is missing in spite of individual language descriptions. The present Project will study language mixture and language replacement patterns in the Gansu-Qinghai area, which geographically constitutes a natural demarcation between nomadic herders and farmers. In this intense contact area, home to nomadic languages and populations, Sinitic (Han) languages started to resemble non-Han languages, adopting similar syntactic means, while Yugur languages (Western Yugur belongs to Turkic language group and Eastern Yugur belongs to Mongolic language group), spoken by typical nomadic populations, kept their syntax relatively intact. The mixing degree of languages and populations in this area remains unclear, and in-depth research with an interdisciplinary approach is necessary. The Project will determine the linguistic situation in this anthropological corridor by targeting two nomadic languages (Western and Eastern Yugur) and a variety of Sinitic languages. The analysis of language mixing and language replacement processes will be based on quantified data modeling, part of which will come from molecular anthropology and other fields such as history and archeology. This interdisciplinary approach will offer a global vision of language and population mixing in the Gansu-Qinghai area and a living sample of language preservation or loss due to different lifestyles and cultures.

Invasive species are currently considered second only to habitat loss as a cause of rapid and undesirable changes in the functioning of ecosystems worldwide. In the United Kingdom alone, the annual cost of invasive species is estimated to be ~£1.7 billion. In this context, major cause for concern is that human-mediated species translocations and global warming are both causing rapid shifts in species' ranges and phonologies at an escalating rate. For example, a Pacific diatom Neodenticula seminae was documented into the North Atlantic for the first time in 800,000 years due to climate-driven melting of the Arctic ice cap and changes in ocean circulation. Such abrupt introductions can result in novel interactions (e.g., predator-prey or resource competition), which then have the potential to result in disruptive invasions of non-native species into local communities. In this project, we will meet the challenge of developing a general framework for predicting invasion success by building the first-ever global database on the temperature dependence of metabolic (physiological) traits relevant to species invasions through interactions, use these data to develop and parameterize a novel theoretical framework, and test some key predictions of this theory using laboratory experiments with a globally important functional group, the Phytoplankton (photosynthetic unicellular marine and freshwater algae and bacteria). Phytoplankton form the base of form the base of most aquatic food webs and contribute over half of global primary production. We will address three core questions: (1) How will mismatches in how metabolic traits (e.g., respiration and photosynthesis rate) of natives and non-native species respond to temperature change affect invasions? This question is important because new species often arrive with the physiological "baggage" of the environment they originated in, and therefore may be poorly adapted to their new environment (at least initially). (2) Does the rate and magnitude of thermal acclimation (defined as phenotypic changes in thermal-response with change in environmental temperature) in a non-native species to its new environment influence its invasion success? This question is important because many species can overcome the initial disadvantage of a novel environment by rapidly adjusting the way their metabolism responds to temperature. (3) Are natural temperature cycles important determinants of invasion success? This question is important because species invasions, especially in temperate regions, take place in climates that change cyclically at daily (say-night cycles) and seasonal (e.g., winter-summer) scales. Therefore, a non-native species that arrives, say, in winter, may have a lesser chance of invading successfully than if it arrived in summer. Overall, this study will fill a major gap in our understanding of the importance of metabolic constraints on species interactions for species invasions. We expect our results to form a new and robust foundation for predicting species invasions in natural as well as human-dominated environments. Our global database on metabolic traits will be a valuable, long-term resource for mapping metabolic traits onto potentially invasive species, and also for parameterizing ongoing efforts to model the effects of climate change on ecosystem services, including the carbon cycle.

GHG emissions reduction policies to mitigate the alarming climate change can impact carbon-intensive industrial sectors, leading to loss of employment and competitiveness. Current multistage CCU technologies using renewable electricity to yield fuels suffer from low energy efficiency and require large CAPEX. eCOCO2 combines smart molecular catalysis and process intensification to bring out a novel efficient, flexible and scalable CCU technology. The project aims to set up a CO2 conversion process using renewable electricity and water steam to directly produce synthetic jet fuels with balanced hydrocarbon distribution (paraffin, olefins and aromatics) to meet the stringent specifications in aviation. The CO2 converter consists of a tailor-made multifunctional catalyst integrated in a co-ionic electrochemical cell that enables to in-situ realise electrolysis and water removal from hydrocarbon synthesis reaction. This intensified process can lead to breakthrough product yield and efficiency for chemical energy storage from electricity, specifically CO2 per-pass conversion > 85%, energy efficiency > 85% and net specific demand 250 g of jet fuel per day in an existing modular prototype rig that integrates 18 tubular intensified electrochemical reactors. Studies on societal perception and acceptance will be carried out across several European regions. The consortium counts on academic partners with the highest world-wide excellence and exceptional industrial partners with three major actors in the most CO2-emmiting sectors.

In this proposal we investigate different aspects of superconductivity with the ultimate goal of finding novel ways - that can be tested experimentally - to increase substantially the critical temperature (Tc) of a superconductor/superfluid. Motivated by recent experimental advances in cold atom, manipulation of nanostructures and theoretical advances in high energy physics, we propose to achieve this goal by studying: 1) finite size effects in different models of high Tc superconductivity both theoretically and experimentally, 2) superconductivity in systems that do not thermalize, 3) superconductivity induced in systems with Efimov states (three particles bound states that occur in situations in which the two body interaction does not lead to bound states). In relation to 1) we aim a description, mostly analytical, of finite size effects in different mean field descriptions of high Tc superconductor. Then, for the models leading to a highest Tc's we plan to carry out a more refined theoretical analysis whose results can be used to describe superconductivity in realistic systems. Finally, in collaboration with experimentalists,we aim to chose the materials and parameters (size, grain shape...) most suitable for experimental studies, show experimentally that the critical temperature can be substantially (>15%) increased and propose technological applications. In relation to 2) we first provide a quantitative description of the stability of the equivalent of a Cooper's trimer in many body systems described by Efimov physics. Then we explore the feasibility of ground states based on a collection of Efimov states by using Monte Carlo techniques. If successful, we aim to describe quantitatively the resulting superconducting state andits stability to thermal fluctuations.In relation to 3) we first address the role of Anderson-Mott localization effects in the route to thermalization in a closed many body system by using exact diagonalization techniques, random matrix theory and the finite size scaling method. Based on these results we put forward a characterization of thermalization in closed many body systems. Finally we investigate superconductivity in systems that do not thermalize. Specifically we aim to identify the non-thermal quasiparticle distribution that enhances Tc the most.A fully theoretical/analytical descritption of these systems is challenging since many of them are strongly interacting. In high energy physics the Anti de Sitter (AdS) - conformal field theory (CFT) correspondence, provides, in certain cases a theoretical framework to tackle these problems. In relation with this problem we explore to what extent this technique provides a really quantitative description of quantum critical points and certain aspects of high temperature superconductivity.

QMol will realise a new generation of switchable organic/organometallic compounds, with the potential to fulfil societal needs for flexible energy harvesting materials, low-power neuromorphic computing, smart textiles and self-powered patches for healthcare. The possibility of creating these exciting materials derives from a series of world firsts by the investigators, demonstrating that advantageous room-temperature quantum interference effects can be scaled up from single molecules to self-assembled monolayers, new strategies for controlling molecular conformation and energy levels, and new methods of molecular assembly, which can be deployed in printed scalable architectures. The demand for wearable electronic devices has increased enormously in recent years and integration of these devices into textiles is highly desirable. A key problem is the need for a power supply, typically in the form of a battery or supercapacitor, which need to be recharged. To overcome this problem, QMol will develop flexible thermoelectric materials that can covert waste heat from the body and other sources into electricity. Progress in this direction has been made using disordered, doped polymer composites [eg ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces 2020, 12, 41, 46348], but there is a need to develop higher-performance, inexpensive, easily processable, flexible thermoelectric materials. The best inorganic materials cannot fulfil these requirements and therefore QMol will focus on the development of high-performance, thin-film, organic/organometallic materials. In parallel with these developments, it is widely recognised that dendritic-synaptic interconnections among neurons in the brain embed intricate logic structures enabling decision-making that vastly outperforms any artificial electronic analogues, with extremely low power requirements. Moreover, the network in a brain is dynamically reconfigurable, which provides flexibility and adaptability to changing environments. To build artificial neural networks, which mimic this behaviour, QMol will develop thin-film, organic/organometallic materials, which embed complex logic possibilities in the material properties of a single circuit element and outperform recent realisations of such logic elements. The resultant current-voltage characteristic of these molecular memristors will exhibit history-dependent, non-volatile switching transitions between different conductance levels. As demonstrators of the wide potential of these new materials, by the end of the Programme, we shall deliver (i) smart textiles with in-built thermal management, (ii) cross-plane, memristive devices, which are a fundamental building block of a neuromorphic computer (iii) flexible organic thermoelectric energy generators (TEGs) and self-powered patches for healthcare. We have demonstrated that room-temperature quantum interference effects in monolayer molecular films can be used to enhance memristive switching, energy harvesting and thermal control. Since transport is perpendicular to the plane of such films, long-range order within the films is not required. QMol recognises that although monolayer films are of fundamental scientific interest, they are not technologically useful, because for example, in a device, it is not possible to create a significant thermal gradient across a monolayer in a perpendicular direction. Therefore the new materials envisaged by QMol will be finite-thickness multi-layers, which move the above functionalities into the third dimension. The team comprises nine academics, with track records at the forefront of their fields. They are supported by twenty world leaders from industry and academia, comprising the six-member QMol Advisory Board and fourteen external partners. Eight postdoctoral researchers (PDRAs) will be employed by QMol and will be joined by eight PhD students, an industry-funded CASE student and an industry-funded PDRA.