uni.news

Behavioural researchers at Bielefeld University are studying plovers

Male plovers survive more successfully in the wild than females. Behavioural researchers at Bielefeld University have studied how sex biases develop across the life span of the plover. They report on the consequences of the surplus of males for rearing chicks in the research journal ‘Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences’.
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Applications for Bielefeld University’s ‘Lehrkräfte Plus’ programme close on the 30th of June

Starting in August, refugee teachers can train in the new ‘Lehrkräfte Plus’ programme at Bielefeld University and potentially qualify to work in schools in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). The application phase has now been launched and will continue until the 30th of June 2017. ‘Lehrkräfte Plus’ is a training programme at Bielefeld University set up in cooperation with the NRW Ministry of Education and Training and the State Coordination Office for Local Integration Centres in NRW. The three-year project is being funded by the Bertelsmann Foundation.[Weiterlesen]

Cluster of Excellence CITEC presents new system that learns how to grasp objects

Researchers at Bielefeld University have developed a grasp system with robot hands that autonomously familiarizes itself with novel objects. The new system works without previously knowing the characteristics of objects, such as pieces of fruit or tools. It was developed as part of the large-scale research project Famula at Bielefeld University’s Cluster of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC). The knowledge gained from this project could contribute to future service robots, for instance, that are able to independently adapt to working in new households. CITEC has invested approximately one million Euro in Famula. In a new “research_tv” report from Bielefeld University, the coordinators of the Famula project explain the new innovation.[Weiterlesen]

Joint project with Goethe University Frankfurt and Technische Universität Darmstadt

The German Research Foundation (DFG) has approved a new Transregio Collaborative Research Centre (CRC-TRR) in which physicists from Goethe University Frankfurt, Bielefeld University, and Technische Universität Darmstadt will be carrying out research on ‘strongly interacting matter under extreme conditions’. Over the next four years, the DFG will be funding the CRC-TRR with about 8 million Euros. Professor Dr. Dirk Rischke from Frankfurt University is the Speaker; Professor Dr. Frithjof Karsch from Bielefeld University his deputy.[Weiterlesen]

Bielefeld University with new figurehead research

‘Taming uncertainty and profiting from randomness and low regularity in analysis, stochastics, and their applications’ – that’s the name of the new Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) at Bielefeld University. Funding was approved by the German Research Foundation (DFG) on Wednesday the 24th of May. Starting in July, the interdisciplinary research programme will be receiving 2.5 million Euros a year for an initial period of four years. Its speaker is the mathematician Professor Dr. Michael Röckner.[Weiterlesen]

Cooperation agreement between Bielefeld University and the ‘Kiron Open Higher Education’ platform enables a smooth transition to regular higher education courses  

This Friday (12.05.2017), Bielefeld University and the social start up Kiron Open Higher Education signed their cooperation agreement. Together they share the mission of helping refugees to advance their education, thereby promoting their long-term integration. The agreement between Bielefeld University and Kiron sets out their cooperation ‘on equal terms’. This has become possible through the INTEGRAL² project funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. This project is taking the online formats previously used by Kiron (so-called Massive Open Online Courses - MOOCs) and further developing them into modules just like those offered by universities.[Weiterlesen]

International research project headed by Bielefeld behavioural biologists

Nestling blue tits can discriminate between the smell of other nestlings and adapt their begging behaviour accordingly. This is the outcome of the latest study by Dr. Barbara Caspers and Dr. Peter Korsten from Bielefeld University to be published today on the xxth of yyy in the journal ‘Functional Ecology’. The behavioural biologist Caspers is currently studying odour discrimination in various animals as a ‘Freigeist’ fellow sponsored by the Volkswagen Foundation in her project ‘Der Geruch der Verwandtschaft – wie entsteht er, wie riecht er’ [The smell of kinship – how does it develop, what does it smell like].[Weiterlesen]

New invention at Bielefeld University and the University of Tromsø (Norway)

Physicists at Bielefeld University and tThe Arctic University of Norway in Tromsø have developed a photonic chip that makes it possible to carry out superresolution light microscopy, also called ‘nanoscopy’, with conventional microscopes. In nanoscopy, the position of single fluorescent molecules can be determined with a precision of just a few nanometres, that is, to a millionth of a millimetre. This information can be used to produce images with a resolution of about 20 to 30 nanometres, and thereby ten times that of conventional light microscopy. Until now, this method has required the use of expensive special instruments. Bielefeld University and the University of Tromsø have filed a patent for this new ‘chip-based nanoscopy’ procedure. On the 24th of April 2017 the researchers will be publishing the accompanying study in the journal ‘Nature Photonics’.[Weiterlesen]

Young academics from all over the world starting work on their dissertations

This summer semester, the Bielefeld Graduate School in History and Sociology (BGHS) will be welcoming 17 new doctoral students. Six of them – three women and three men – are being funded by the BGHS. They were awarded their scholarships after a multi-stage international selection procedure.[Weiterlesen]

New development from CITEC researchers at Bielefeld University

Instead of having to tediously search for the right part with one hand and flip through the pages of the instruction manual with the other hand, the smart glasses from the Adamaas system display what step comes next directly in the user’s field of vision. This works for both operating a coffee machine and assembling a bird house. Professor Dr. Thomas Schack, Dr. Kai Essig, and Dr. Matthias Schröder further developed the smart glasses at Bielefeld University’s Cluster of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC). Using “computer vision”, the system can autonomously recognize objects and steps of an activity, and based on this, the glasses show appropriate step-by-step support directly in the display of the glasses. The Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF, Federal Ministry of Education and Research) is providing the project with 1.2 million Euro in funding. A film about Adamaas can now be viewed online.
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