Behaviour emerges from an interplay of various brain regions and billions of neurons forming a network. The brain acquires its organization by a series of developmental events. The correct wiring of the brain is crucially important for all brain functions. Nevertheless, the brain is both stereotyped and variable across individuals. Currently only a subset of genes have been identified that shape specificity in connectivity and it is highly elusive what promotes variability in synaptic connectivity and whether this is behaviourally relevant. To work on these questions I have chosen the Drosophila olfactory system, which is well-defined both on the levels of circuitry and behaviour and as such well-suited to answer these question. Furthermore, from the perspective of circuitry, it is particularly appropriate as it is comprised of both deterministic and non-deterministic synaptic connectivity. In a first step to tackle the question, I will perform a screen to identify genes shaping deterministic and non-deterministic neural connectivity. In parallel, I will investigate olfactory behavioural variability in the fly and correlate this to circuitry variations on the morphological, synaptic and electrophysiological level. After identifying genes that are important for connectivity and correlating circuit to behavioural variability, I aim to modify circuit variability to alter behaviour.

Art academies played an essential role in shaping modern art in China. They were the sites where European methods of art education were introduced; where the social role of the modern artist was defined; where the importance of traditional art forms and training methods was negotiated; where art history as a modern field was established; and where political and ideological changes in artistic practices were first implemented. Today, art academies incorporate laboratories of innovation as well as academic curricula inherited from the socialist period. Thus, they are emblematic of the dynamics within the Chinese cultural sphere and society at large, and of the tensions between a rapid globalization on the one hand and the preservation of cultural heritage and national identity discourses on the other. By studying art academies, their global histories and institutional practices, as the most significant actors in modern Chinese art, CHINACADEMY offers new understandings of the aesthetic, social, and political conditions of artistic creation in modern and contemporary China. Tracing the transnational connections to Japan, France, the Soviet Union, and other regions, it shows how institutional structures and artistic practices were adapted to the requirements of Chinese society in acts of cultural translation. It questions existing narratives of modernization, conservation, and political influence in art by highlighting personal affiliations, the agency of institutions, issues of conflict, and gendered experiences. These will be excavated through oral histories as well as archival records. By stressing the importance of academic and traditionalist practices, CHINACADEMY also decentres the paradigm of modernism that is still prevalent in global histories of modern art. It thereby proposes a new perspective for a global art history that pushes beyond Eurocentric as well as Sinocentric narratives.

Electromagnetic radiation in the terahertz (THz) frequency range (0.3-30 THz) is a powerful tool for material spectroscopy and characterization in a contact-free, non-ionizing and non-destructive way. An essential application is the contact-free measurement of the complex-valued reflectivity and, ideally, refractive index of materials. Such knowledge is essential in condensed-matter research (for characterization of, e.g., the conduction-electron concentration and scattering in semiconductors, of optical phonons in insulators and magnons in antiferromagnets) and in applied settings. Ideally, THz reflectivity measurements should be (1) ultrabroadband (covering two decades from 0.3 to 30 THz), (2) user-friendly and offer (3) high precision and low noise. However, requirements (1)-(3) are not fulfilled by current approaches. The goal of T-SPINDEX is to build a prototype THz time-domain reflectivity spectrometer to determine the THz refractive index of materials rapidly. Features (1)-(3) are achieved altogether by using an innovative laser-driven coherent THz source, a spintronic THz emitter.