In contexts of urban marginalization worldwide, criminal organizations have become increasingly powerful and institutionalized. In Latin America and Caribbean countries, criminal leaders and gangs have taken on the functions and symbols of the state. Many of these mafia-like organizations have evolved into extra-legal structures of rule and belonging. Offering social welfare, security and dispute resolution to the urban poor, these governance structures complement or even replace the formal state. In this proposal, we argue that a new approach is needed to understand the reproduction of the socio-political authority of gangs and cartels within socially excluded communities. We must not look only to their use of violence, or their provision of material goods and services that the state does not provide. We must also pay attention to the aesthetics that constitute and legitimate their power. Such aesthetic practices are critical in persuading inner-city residents that gang rule is normal and natural. This research will study the ?popular culture of illegality?: the music, visual culture and material culture through which the socio-political authority of criminal gangs is produced. Through which aesthetic practices are people mobilized to accept and support criminal authority? How is the popular culture of illegality central to forms of governmentality? How do visuality, aurality and materiality work to constitute and legitimate authority? The research includes three Latin American and Caribbean subprojects. The first sub-project focuses on how criminal leaders are iconized through visual culture in Kingston, Jamaica. The second sub-project studies the ?sonic supremacy? of criminal militias, generated through music in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The third sub-project analyzes the material culture of syncretic Catholic forms associated with drugs crime in Mexico City. Focusing on three urban case studies allows an analysis of criminal authority and aesthetic formations that is comparative, first, in terms of sensorial domains and second, in terms of a broader regional perspective. The research intervenes in the field of critical aesthetic theory by linking it to criminal authority and to work on Latin American and Caribbean popular culture. In so doing, the research will make significant empirical and theoretical contributions to studies of governmentality.

Earthquakes often result in damage to buildings and infrastructure and sometimes loss of human lives. Induced earthquakes due to human activities like gas extraction, are the result of fast slip on powder-filled pre-existing faults in the subsurface due to a rapid breakdown of their strength. The physical mechanisms contributing to the rapid failure remain unclear. In this project we will perform experiments at scales of a single rock grain to millions of grains combined with computer models to investigate these weakening mechanisms. Our results will help to better constrain the hazard of induced earthquakes.

Inkjet printing is nowadays a standard technology in every home, but due to its capabilities concerning the deposition of various materials onto substrates other than expensive paper coated with microporous layers, there is still a great potential to be explored. Goals are to reduce printing costs and ecological damage by using water-based inks and cheap compatible substrates such as uncoated recycled and plain paper. The project will improve our understanding of the interaction of ink with the substrate by using novel experimental and modelling techniques on multiple scales. The developed tools will allow to optimize printing techniques and -products. Next to inkjet printing, the outcome of the project will have relevance for other applications involving multiphase fluid flow in porous media, enhanced oil recovery, transport in biological tissues, or food processing.

Powder agglomeration is common in many particulate processes, including tabletting and selective laser sintering. To optimise process conditions, industry currently relies on expensive trial plants, as no efficient and accurate simulation methods are available. Discrete particle simulations have been used to simulate these processes, but they are slow due to the large number of degrees of freedom (often >1 billion particles per litre), and can only simulate small volumes. Mesoscale particle methods promise to overcome this limitation by upscaling the individual particles, allowing for the simulation of realistic and complex processes. Additionally, the mesoscopic model will act as the key transitional bridge towards developing a predictive macroscopic continuum model. A particular focus in this research will be the quantitatively accurate prediction of large-scale processes, the flow dynamics, and the simulation of highly dynamic, high-pressure, hightemperature processes such as tabletting and selective laser sintering. The contact models will be calibrated and validated by a range of experiments, from individual particle reorganisation in small-scale experiments to bulk experiments.

Particulate materials are the most manipulated substance on the planet, after water. They are of paramount importance to the chemical-pharmaceutical, agri-food, energy, high-tech manufacturing, mining, and construction industries. However, their unique behaviour cannot be captured comprehensively in macroscopic (continuum) models, while microscopic (discrete) models are too inefficient to handle the enormous number of particles. This has so far prevented the development of efficient computational models for particulates, which already exist for fluids and solids. Hence, while cars and airplanes are nowadays designed on the computer, particulate-handling industries still rely on time-consuming and expensive experimentation. To realise virtual prototyping of particulate processes, I will use a novel multiscale approach, microscopically resolving regions where general macroscopic models fail. From these multiscale simulations, I will extract efficient, application-specific macro-models and use them to understand and design innovative particulate-handling machinery. Two timely applications will be developed in collaboration with industry: additive manufacturing, the future of many high-tech industries; and continuous granulation, an aspiration of the pharma industry. Rapid prototyping will be used to create miniature setups, enabling validation and calibration from a single experiment. I am uniquely positioned to carry out this research, having extensive experience in micro- and macro-modelling, coupling, open-source development, model validation, and mesh refinement. The central pillar of this project is coarse-graining, an innovative new coupling technique, developed by me, that is used by universities and industry around the world. Via coarse-graining, my team will integrate two highly-regarded open-source softwares, MercuryDPM, which I founded, and oomph-lib. We will be the first to apply goal-oriented refinement to particulate systems, guaranteeing efficiency and robustness of the integrated software. All advanced algorithms created in this project will be released open-source, meaning immediate dissemination to academia and industry. This will enable a significant speed-up in the design and optimisation of numerous particulate-handling applications.