Section Days abstract book 2010.indd - RUB Research School ...

RESEARCH DISCUSSIONS
ACROSS DISCIPLINES
Welcome to the 4 th Section Days of the Ruhr University Research School!
The 4 th Section Days of the Ruhr University Research School take place on November 03-05,
2010. They are organised by teams of doctoral fellows from the three scientific sections:
Natural Sciences and Engineering, Life Sciences, Humanities and Social Sciences. They are
realised as three one-day conferences with invited guest speakers and doctoral candidates
from other universities. The Section Days combine talks of guest scientists and fellows with
workshops and poster presentations to support research discussions across disciplines. They
give insight into up-to-date research discussions in different research areas and continue the
interdisciplinary dialogue within and beyond the sections.
The conference topics are:
Natural Sciences and Engineering (November 03, 2010):
“Nanotechnology”
“Plenty of room at the bottom” - Richard Feynman’s (California Institute of Technology)
famous speech in 1959 is considered as the foundation of Nanotechnology. With his
demonstration how to write the entire Encyclopedia Britannica on the head of a pin, he
showed impressively the possibilities present in this research field, “the small scale”, and
provided a lot of new impulses for scientists.
Nanotechnology is defined as the understanding and control of matter at dimensions between
approximately 1 and 100 nanometers (=1 E-9 meter) size range. It has recently become one of
the most active research fields in the areas of solid state physics, chemistry, biology, and
engineering. This leads to the requirement to fabricate new materials on an even finer scale
with the goal to continue decreasing the cost and increasing the speed of information
transmission and storage. Nanomaterials display novel and often enhanced properties and
functions that differ markedly from those seen from items made of identical materials and can
open up possibilities for new technological applications. One far-reaching phenomenon,
which appears when dealing with such small-dimension materials is the increasing influence
of quantum mechanical effects. Some of these effects, like superposition and entanglement,
which play an important role in the concept of Quantum Computers, will be introduced within
this conference.
Life Sciences (November 04, 2010):
“Communication”
This year´s Life Science Section Day is dedicated to “communication”. In general,
communication describes a process whereby information is enclosed in a package and is
imparted by a sender to a receiver via some medium. This includes much more than the
communication between single individuals, which builds the basis of our society but also e.g.
the behavior of different signaling molecules, different cells and brain regions, or even
different generations. In all cases, communication shapes and defines the emerging
cooperation.
While keeping this in mind, the section day will focus on several topics within the life
sciences, regarding micro- and neurobiology, behavioral biology, as well as the worldwide
communication between different scientists.