11 SNF research grants for over 3 million

Eleven projects proposed by researchers at USI and its affiliated/associated entities have been accepted by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF), for over 3 million Swiss francs. The funds granted to these researchers underline not only the quality of their work, but also their competiveness among peers in Switzerland. The SNF awards the best research projects submited by researchers in Switzerland  on a competitive basis, by the two annual deadlines in April and in October.

The following list of grantees for proposals submitted by the April 2016 deadline, with the project name and beneficiary, and related affiliation, takes into account only those projects where the first applicant is affiliated to USI.

• Model-Free Asset PricingBeneficiary
  Beneficiary: Prof. Paul Schneider
  Afffiliation: USI, Faculty of Economics, Institute of Finance (IFin)
   
• Uncertainty and volatility in capital markets
  Beneficiary: Prof. Antonio Mele
  Affiliation: USI, Faculty of Economics, Institute of Finance (IFin)
   
• The inferential dynamics of reframing within dispute mediators' argumentation
  Beneficiary: Prof. Sara Greco
  Affiliation: USI, Faculty of Communication Sciences, Institute of Argumentation, Linguistics and Semiotics (IALS)
   
• Greenwashing accusations and their effect on CSR trust in B2B settings. Does it pay not to engage in greenwashing?
  Beneficiary: Prof. Peter Seele
  Affiliation: USI, Faculty of Communication Sciences, Institute of Marketing and Communication Management (IMCA)
   
• Cosmmus 2: an infrastructure for scalable distributed applications
  Beneficiary: Prof. Fernando Pedone
  Affiliation: USI, Faculty of Informatics
   
• HEARTFUSION: Imaging-driven Patient-specific Cardiac Simulation
  Beneficiary: Prof. Rolf Krause
  Affiliation: USI, Faculy of Informatics, Institute of Computational Science (ICS)
   
• Stress-Based Methods for Variational Inequalities in Solid Mechanics: Finite Element Discretization and Solution by Hierar- chical Optimization
  Beneficiary: Prof. Rolf Krause
  Affiliation: USI, Faculy of Informatics, Institute of Computational Science (ICS)
   
• Quantum Metadynamics
  Beneficiary: Prof. Michele Parrinelllo
  Affiliation: USI, Faculy of Informatics, Institute of Computational Science (ICS)
   
• Lift and Project Methods for Machine Scheduling Through Theory and Experiments
  Beneficiary: Prof. Luca Maria Gambardella, Direttore
  Affiliation: IDSIA Institute Dalle Molle for Artificial Intelligence
   
• Studies on T cell activation, differentiation and plasticity in humans
  Beneficiary: Dr. Federica Sallusto
  Affiliation: IRB Institute for Research in Biomedicine
   
• Astrophysical Spectropolarimetry
  Beneficiary: Dr. Michele Bianda
  Affiliation: IRSOL Istituto Ricerche Solari

In addition, the following two proposals were granted SNF funds for projects submitted by IOR (Institute of Oncology, the research unit of IOSI Istituto Oncologico della Svizzera italiana), currently in the process of affiliation to USI, for a total amount of over 1 million Swiss francs:

• The ETS transcription factor ESE3/EHF as a regulator of prostate epithelial cell differentiation and stem cell properties
  Beneficiary: Dr. Giuseppina Carbone, head Prostate Cancer Biology
  Affiliation: IOR Institute of Oncology
   
• Molecular prediction of long term benefit from ibrutinib in high risk chronic lymphocytic leukemia
  Beneficiary: Dr. Davide Rossi, group leader Experimental Hematology
  Affiliation: IOR Institute of Oncology