Projects
RECENT INTERDISCIPLINARY PROJECTS, FUNDED by naXys
Can pairwise interactions predict community stability against small and large perturbations?
Promoters: T. Carletti & F. De Laender – in collaboration with ILEE Institute
Understanding community stability against episodic changes, as well as how stability is impacted by more gradual changes, is a pressing need. In this project we want to evaluate our capacity to predict stability, as well as the effects of important global change drivers thereon, from simple community models. To this end, we will parameterize community models with pairwise interactions and compare our predictions of stability against small and large perturbations of species densities, and this under various scenarios of two environmental changes (heat and pollution). We will combine experiments with a unique cyanobacteria system, mathematical modelling, and novel theory based on hypergraph theory.
Models of opinion dynamics for controlling cluster formation in a swarm of robots
Post-doctoral research fellowship of Muhanad Alkilabi (AI & ROBUST)
The second postdoctoral fellow, Muhanad Alkilabi, joined naXys in January 2021. His interdisciplinary project aims at drawing inspiration from mathematical models of opinion dynamics to develop a clustering algorithm for autonomous robots. Moreover, the collective behavior of the robots will be the basis of the development of an installation art in collaboration with the collective VOID, a visual art collective based in Brussels, and the KIKK non-profit association that promotes digital and creative cultures. The project clearly belongs to both the AI and ROBUST research poles, with an opening for civil society.
Synthetic population for space debris
Post-doctoral research fellowship of Jérôme Daquin (SPACE & ROBUST)
The first grantee of a one-year naXys postdoctoral fellowship, Jérôme Daquin, joined naXys in March 2020, after a PhD at Paris Observatory in Astronomy and Astrophysics and postdoctoral stays at RMIT University (Melbourne) and University of Padova. His research tackles the problem of space sustainability and space debris under a dynamical system approach, by combining analytical and computational techniques. At naXys, Jerôme deepened certain aspects of this endeavor, mainly via synthetic population techniques. As a result, his project linked directly the SPACE and ROBUST research poles.