Research and Teaching at the University of Bonn

How do elites emerge? Do they exercise power independently or only 'by order'? How is domination transmitted and perpetuated? These and many other questions will be transculturally addressed by researchers from June 17 to 19 during the digital conference "Rulers and Elites between Symbiosis and Antagonism. Communicating in Premodern Hegemonic Structures". All those interested are invited to attend. The free event will be held via the Zoom conference system.

The so-called Plexin-A1 gene seems to play a more extensive role in brain development than previously assumed. This is shown by a current study led by the University Hospital Bonn and the Institute of Anatomy of the University of Bonn with more than 60 international partners. The gene is also interesting for another reason: Its mutations are inherited either dominantly or recessively, depending on which part of the gene is affected. The results of the study are now published in the journal "Genetics in Medicine".

Artificial intelligence (AI) can be an important tool for sustainable development to minimize energy usage in large factories or to predict natural disasters before they happen. However, these uses can also have a social and ethical downside. For example, training and tuning AI models produces carbon emissions that harm the environment. Or there are power asymmetries between people when not everyone gets access to the technology. At the world's first conference on the sustainability of artificial intelligence, researchers will discuss environmental, social and economic costs of designing, developing, and using AI from June 15 to 17. The virtual conference is launched by AI ethicist Prof. Aimee van Wynsberghe, Humboldt Professor at the University of Bonn. The conference is supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Institute for Science and Ethics at the University of Bonn.

Communities benefit from sharing knowledge and experience among their members. Following a similar principle - called “swarm learning” - an international research team has trained artificial intelligence algorithms to detect blood cancer, lung diseases and COVID-19 in data stored in a decentralized fashion. This approach has advantage over conventional methods since it inherently provides privacy preservation technologies, which facilitates cross-site analysis of scientific data. Swarm learning could thus significantly promote and accelerate collaboration and information exchange in research, especially in the field of medicine. Experts from the DZNE, the University of Bonn, the information technology company Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and other research institutions report on this in the scientific journal “Nature”.