Message of the Coordinator

Let me remind you of two important activities for this month. First there is our graduate school course on Mathematics of PDE Constrained Optimization, given by Michael HINZE of the University of Hamburg, Germany. It will be delivered at KULeuven during the last two weeks of February (see below for more details). Then there are the Francqui chair lectures on Complexity and Simplicity of Optimization Problems, to be delivered by Yurii NESTEROV at the University of Liège during the months of February and March. The Inaugural lecture will be held on February 17 (see below for more details). I invite you all to attend these lectures : Yurii is a world leader in optimization and I am sure his lectures will be very informative for experts as well as non-experts in optimization. I use this opportunity to congratulate him once again with this honor.

Paul Van Dooren
DYSCO coordinator

Staff Movements and Visitors

UCL
  • Markus ESCH, Post-Doc (Université du Luxembourg), starting date : February 2012. He will work with Vincent Blondel's team on the topic "Algorithmic analysis of large graphs and networks".
  • Alok KUMAR, Post-Doc (Indian Institute of Information Technology), starting date : February 2012. His research topic will be "Experimental updateless evolutive routing".
UGent-SYSTeMS
  • Junzhi GUAN has joined SYSTeMS for PhD in Modelling identification and control of MIMO closed-loop system to guide patient-individualized ICU sedation. Thesis advisors : Robain De Keyser, Clara Ionescu. Period : October 11 - September 2014.
VUB-ELEC
  • Erliang ZHANG, Post-Doc, University of Technology of Compiègne, France (since January 2012).
  • Charles NADER, PhD student (joint thesis supervision), University of Gävle, Sweden (January - March 2012).
  • Kin Kwan WONG, PhD student (joint thesis supervision), University of Warwick, UK (12 March - 5 April 2012).

Seminars

UCL
  • February 3, 2012 - 11:00 - Euler seminar room
    Hadrien Melot (Computer Science Department, Faculty of Sciences, Université de Mons), GraPHedron and House of Graphs – online tools for graph theorists.
  • February 17, 2012 - 11:00 - Euler seminar room
    Thomas Dueholm Hansen (Department of Computer Science, Aarhus University, Denmark), Subexponential lower bounds for randomized pivoting rules for the simplex algorithm.
KUL 1
  • February 7, 2012 - 14:00-15:00, ESAT 00.62 : OPTEC MANET workshop on Tensors and Large scale optimization
  • February 7, 2012 - 11:00-12:00, ESAT 00.62 : KU Leuven Seminars on Optimization in Engineering
    Tobias Lindstrom Jensen (Dept. Electronic Systems at Aalborg University) : A Lower Complexity Bound for l1-regularized Least-squares Problems using a Certain Class of Algorithms.
  • February 8, 2012 - 16:00-17:30, Dept. Computer Science, Celestijnenlaan 200A, room 00.225 : 22nd Simon Stevin Lecture on Optimization in Engineering
    John Betts : Algorithmic Choices When Solving an Optimal Control Problem
  • February 8-9, 2012 - Aud. Arenberg Castle, Heverlee : OPTEC Short Course
    John Betts, The Direct Transcription Method for Optimal Control
  • February 9, 2012 - 14:00-15:00, ESAT 00.62 : SISTA Seminar
    Kris De Brabanter (KU Leuven, ESAT-SCD) : Properties of Linear Smoothers.
  • February 9, 2012 - 15:00-16:00, Dept. of Computer Science, Celestijnenlaan 200A, 00.225 : KU Leuven Seminars on Optimization in Engineering
    John Betts, Optimal Control of Partial Differential Equations with Delay.
  • February 9, 2012 - 16:00-17:00, Dept. of Computer Science, Celestijnenlaan 200A, 00.225 : KU Leuven Seminars on Optimization in Engineering
    John Betts, Discretize Then Optimize.
  • February 15-24, 2012 - 10:30-12:30, ESAT : Ph.D. Course on convex optimization
    Goele Pipeleers and Quoc Tran Dinh.
  • February 15, 2012 - 16:30-17:30, ESAT 00.62 : KU Leuven Seminars on Optimization in Engineering
    Martin Mönningmann (Automatic Control and Systems Theory, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany) : Fast explicit model predictive control.
ULg-SYST

Systmod weekly seminars normally take place on each Friday, 11am. They are announced on this webpage.

  • Friday 3/2/2012 - 11:00 am - Room R7, Montefiore Institute (B28)
    Benoit Donnet, ULg - Internet Topology Discovery
  • Friday 10/2/2012 - 11:00 am - Room R7, Montefiore Institute (B28)
    Rodolphe Sepulchre, ULg - A personal journey through spiking network
  • Friday 17/2/2012 - 15:00 - Salle Académique, Place du 20 août
    Yurii Nesterov, Francqui Chair inaugural lecture
  • Friday 24/2/2012 - 10:30-12:30 - Room R7, Montefiore Institute (B28)
    Yurii Nesterov, Francqui Chair lecture
  • Friday 2/3/2012 - 10:30-12:30 - Room R7, Montefiore Institute (B28)
    Yurii Nesterov, Francqui Chair lecture
  • Friday 9/3/2012 - 10:30-12:30 - Room R7, Montefiore Institute (B28)
    Yurii Nesterov, Francqui Chair lecture
  • Friday 16/3/2012 - 10:30-12:30 - Room R7, Montefiore Institute (B28)
    Yurii Nesterov, Francqui Chair lecture

Theses defenses

UGent-SYSTeMS

On the 12th of January, 2012, Frits Petit had his public defence of his PhD thesis (supervised by Mia Loccufier & Dirk Aeyels) entitled Exploring the limitations of linear and nonlinear vibration absorbers.

Papers produced by the IAP Network

UCL

A. Browet, P-A Absil, P. Van Dooren, Performance of a synchronized community detection algorithm, submitted for presentation at the Benelux Meeting, March 27-29, 2012, Heijden (The Netherlands)

R. M. Jungers, On the existence of a bounded trajectory for nonnegative integer systems, to appear in Groups, Geometry and Dynamics.

J. Cardinal, S. Fiorini, G. Joret, R. M. Jungers and J. I. Munro, Sorting under Partial information (without the Ellipsoid Algorithm), to appear in Combinatorica.

R. M. Jungers, A. A. Ahmadi, P. A. Parrilo, and M. Roozbehani, When is a set of LMIs a sufficient condition for stability?, Submitted.

A. Favache, D. Dochain, J. Winkin, A PDE Approach to the Derivation of the Brayton-Moser Form for Power-Shaping Control, In: Proceedings of the 50th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control and European Control Conference (CDC-ECC), pp. 2782-2787, 2011.

B. Vandereycken, P.-A. Absil, S. Vandewalle, A Riemannian geometry with complete geodesics for the set of positive semidefinite matrices of fixed rank, Technical report UCL-INMA-2010.063, URL: http://www.cs.kuleuven.be/publicaties/rapporten/tw/TW572.abs.html, accepted for publication in IMA Journal of Numerical Analysis, 2012.

P.-A. Absil, J. Malick, Projection-like retractions on matrix manifolds, In: SIAM Journal on Optimization, Vol. 22, no. 1, p. 135-158 (2012). doi:10.1137/100802529.

N. Mastronardi, P. Van Dooren, Recursive approximation of the dominant eigenspace of an indefinite matrix, submitted to Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics, 2012.

KUL 1

R. Van den Broeck, J. Van Dierdonck, P. Nijskens, C. Dotremont, P. Krzeminski, J.H.J.M. van der Graaf, J.B. van Lier, J.F.M. Van Impe and I.Y. Smets, The influence of solids retention time on activated sludge bioflocculation and membrane fouling in a membrane bioreactor, Journal of Membrane Science, Accepted for publication, 2012.

F. Logist, M. Vallerio, B. Houska, M. Diehl and J. Van Impe, Multi-objective Optimal Control of Chemical Processes using ACADO Toolkit, Computers and Chemical Engineering 37: 191-199, 2012.

C. Verhelst, F. Logist, J. Van Impe and L. Helsen, Study of the optimal control problem formulation for air-to-water heat pump systems, Energy and Buildings 45: 43-53, 2012.

Peter M. Van Erdeghem, Filip Logist, Christoph Dittrich, Jan F. Van Impe, Detailed steady-state simulation of tubular reactors for LDPE production: influence of numerical integration accuracy, Computers and Chemical Engineering 37: 40-47, 2012.

J.A. Gil, P. Krzeminski, J.B. van Lier, J.H.J.M. van der Graaf, T. Wijffels, R. Van den Broeck, I.Y. Smets, J.F.M. Van Impe and D. Prats, MBR performance: Operational problems in industry, Filtration + Separation 48 (6): 36-41, 2011.

G. Gins, B. Pluymers, I.Y. Smets, J. Espinosa and J.F.M. Van Impe, Prediction of batch-end quality for an industrial polymerization process, Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (6870): 314-328, 2011.

D. Telen, F. Logist, E. Van Derlinden and J. Van Impe, Parameter accuracy vs. decorrelation in optimal experiment design: a multi-objective point of view, 22nd ESCAPE - European Symposium on Computer Aided Process Engineering, London, United Kingdom, 17-20 June 2012, Accepted for oral presentation.

Sorensen M., De Lathauwer L., Tensor Decompositions with Block-Toeplitz Structure and Applications in Signal Processing, in Proc. of the Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems, and Computers (Asilomar 2011), Monterey, California, Nov. 2011, 5 p.

De Brabanter K., De Brabanter J., Suykens J.A.K., Vandewalle J., De Moor B., Robustness of Kernel Based Regression: Influence and Weight Functions, Internal Report 12-05, ESAT-SISTA, K.U.Leuven (Leuven, Belgium), 2012.

Giacobello D., Christensen M.G., Murthi M.N, Jensen S.H., Moonen M., Sparse Linear Prediction and its applications to speech processing, Internal Report 12-08, ESAT-SISTA, K.U.Leuven (Leuven, Belgium), 2012. Accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Audio, Speech and Language Processing.

Batselier K., Dreesen P., De Moor B., The Geometry of Multivariate Polynomial Division and Elimination, Internal Report 12-09, ESAT-SISTA, K.U.Leuven (Leuven, Belgium), 2012.

Breckpot M., Agudelo O.M., De Moor B., Control of a single reach with model predictive control, Internal Report 12-10, ESAT-SISTA, K.U.Leuven (Leuven, Belgium), 2012.

Alzate C., Suykens J.A.K., A Semi-Supervised Formulation to Binary Kernel Spectral Clustering, Internal Report 12-14, ESAT-SISTA, K.U.Leuven (Leuven, Belgium), 2012.

Koolen N., Gligorijevic I., Van Huffel S., Reliability of Statistical Features Describing Neural Spike Trains in the Presence of Classification Errors, Internal Report 12-15, ESAT-SISTA, K.U.Leuven (Leuven, Belgium), 2012. Accepted for publication in Proceedings of BIOSIGNALS 2012 – International Conference on Bio-inspired Systems and Signal Processing, Van Huffel S., Correia C, Fred A. and Gamboa H., Vilamoura, Portugal; SciTePress; 1-4 February, 2012 .

UGent-SYSTeMS

E. Quaeghebeur, N. Huntley, K. Shariatmadar and G. de Cooman, Maximin and maximal solutions for linear programming problems with possibilistic uncertainty, Submitted to IPMU 2012.

N. Huntley, R. Quiñones, K. Shariatmadar, E. Quaeghebeur, G. de Cooman and E. Kerre, Implementation of maximin and maximal solutions for linear programming problems under uncertainty, Submitted to FLINS 2012.

De Keyser R., Ionescu C., Adaptive control of an artificial ventilator for a COPD patient, Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine 104, (2011), pp. e178-e188, DOI information: 10.1016/j.cmpb.2011.03.001.

Ionescu C., Machado J.T., De Keyser R., ''Is multidimensional scaling suitable for mapping the input respiratory impedance in subjects and patients ?'', Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine, 104, (2011), e189-e200, DOI information: 10.1016/j.cmpb.2011.02.009

Pop C., Muresan B., Dulf E., Ionescu C., De Keyser R., Festila C., ''Multivariable predictive control for the secondary processes in a cryogenic carbon isotope separation column'', Scientific Bulletin of the Politechnica University of Timisoara, Romania, Transactions on Automatic Control and Computer Science, 56(70), no 4, ISSN 1224-600X, 137-144, 2011

Ionescu C., Muntean I., De Keyser R., The influence of asymmetric space filling in the human lung, Acta Universitatis Apulensis, Special Issue on Understanding Complex Systems, (Eds): B. Iantovics, L. Hluchy, R. Kountchev, ISSN 1582-5329, pp. 28-36, 2011.

Naumovic M., De Keyser R., Ionescu C., Testing the Matlab Simulink-based frequency response analyzer, CD-Proc. of the TELSIKS – Int Conf on telecommunications in modern satellite, cable and broadcasting services, October 5-8, Nis, Serbia, 589-592, ISBN: 978-1-4577-2017-8, 2011.

De Keyser R., Ionescu C., Festila C., ''A one-step procedure for frequency response estimation based on switch-mode transfer function analyzer'', in Proc. IEEE-CDC Conf on Decision and Control joint with ECC-European Control Conf., December 12-15, Orlando, Florida, 1189-1194, 2011 (cited ISI proceedings).

Ionescu C., De Keyser R., Struys M., ''Evaluation of a Propofol and Remifentanil interaction model for predictive control of anesthesia induction'', in Proc. IEEE-CDC Conf on Decision and Control joint with ECC-European Control Conf., December 12-15, Orlando, Florida, 7374-7379, 2011 (cited ISI proceedings).

VUB-ELEC

J. Sjöberg, J. Schoukens, Initializing Wiener-Hammerstein models based on partitioning of the best linear approximation, Automatica 48 (2012) 353-359.

UMONS

M. Sbarciog, A. Vande Wouwer, Some Considerations About Control of Multi-species Anaerobic Digestion Systems, 7th Vienna International Conference on Mathematical Modelling (MATHMOD), 15-17th February 2012, Vienna, Austria.

Johan Mailier, Andres Donoso-Bravo, Alain Vande Wouwer, A Simple Procedure for the Identification of Macroscopic Bioprocess Models: Application to Anaerobic Digestion, 7th Vienna International Conference on Mathematical Modelling (MATHMOD), 15-17th February 2012, Vienna, Austria.

L.O. Santos, L. Dewasme, D. Coutinho, A. Vande Wouwer, Nonlinear model predictive control of fed-batch cultures of micro-organisms exhibiting overflow metabolism: Assessment and robustness, Computers & Chemical Engineering, In Press, Available online, 29 December 2011.

Graduate School in Systems, Optimization, Control and Networks

The SOCN Graduate School 2011-2012 programme is available on-line : http://sites.uclouvain.be/socn/

The next course is entitled Mathematics of PDE constrained optimization. It will be given by Michael HINZE (University of Hamburg, Germany) on February 20, 22, 24, 27, 28, 29, 2012 at K.U.Leuven (9:00-12:30) (ESAT, Kasteelpark Arenberg 10, B-3001 Heverlee (Leuven) - room 00.62 except on February 20 : room ESAT 02.58).

More information about this course : http://sites.uclouvain.be/socn/Courses/Courses2011-3

On-line registrations are welcome via this form.

Study Days, Workshops and Summer Schools

Francqui chair Yurii Nesterov

A Francqui chair 2012 was awarded by ULg to Yurii Nesterov.

He will give a set of lectures entitled "Complexity and Simplicity of Optimization Problems".

You are all cordially invited to the inaugural lecture that will be held on February 17, 2012 15h, Salle Académique, Liège.
This inaugural lecture will be preceded by a workshop in the morning. Speakers will be Etienne De Klerk (Tilburg University), Alexandre d'Aspremont (CNRS - Ecole Polytechnique, Paris), and Michel Baes (ETH Zürich).

The five main lectures will be held every Friday from February 24 to March 23.

Participation to each event is free, but prior registration is mandatory.

More information on the following page : http://www.montefiore.ulg.ac.be/~francqui

18th Belgian Mathematical Programming Workshop, 1st-2nd March 2012

Invited speakers:

  • Coralia Cartis, Univ. of Edinburgh: Optimal Newton-type methods for nonconvex smooth optimization problems
  • Benedetta Morini, Univ. of Firenze: Bound-constrained nonlinear equations and nonlinear least-squares: affine scaling methods and related software

Details, location and registration on http://sites.uclouvain.be/BMPW/

Vacancies

UCL - Center for Space Radiations : Call for applications for the recruitment of a PhD researcher Electronics engineer or physicist

The Center for Particle Physics and Phenomenology (CP3) and the Center for Space Radiations (CSR) at Catholic University of Leuven are recruiting a Civil Engineer in Electronics or in Physics for research in "Radiation hardness of miniaturized energetic particle detectors" or "Development of compact space radiation instrumentation".

The activities of these research centers are conducted within the framework of international collaborations (CERN, ESA, national space agencies, etc ....) And the selected candidate will be willing to stay abroad regularly. In addition to the main research activity mentioned above, the successful candidate will be encouraged to participate in the specification and design of electronic systems for data acquisition and testing of the radiation hardness of components.

Skills and qualifications:

  • Master degree in electronics engineering, applied/nuclear physics or equivalent;
  • Fluent in English;
  • Experience in C++ programming;
  • Experience in either GEANT4 programming, the design of microelectronic devices, the design, simulation and testing of analog systems (charge preamplifier, power supplies, discriminators, etc ....) as well as in programming of FPGAs, DSPs, microcontrollers, etc... are considered an asset.

Application deadline: June 30, 2012

For more information about this position, contact:

Prof. Eduardo CORTINA GIL
UCL/IRMP/CP3
Chemin du Cyclotron, 2
B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve
Tél. : 010 47 32 42
E-mail : Eduardo.Cortinagil@uclouvain.be

Université de Liège - Faculté des Sciences Appliquées, Département Aérospatiale & Mécanique - Open academic position in the field of Thermal Modeling and Design of Mechanical Systems

The Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering (A&M) of the University of Liège (Belgium) offers a full-time academic position to an expert in heat transfers working towards computational modeling and design of mechanical systems. Applicants with experience in any related area are welcomed, including, but not limited to,

  • spacecraft systems,
  • heat exchangers,
  • miniaturized propulsion systems,
  • stir-welding...

The selected candidate will develop research activities in his/her fields in close collaboration with the other research units of the Department and the Faculty. He/She will also teach undergraduate/graduate courses to students in the bachelor and master degrees and supervise student research. As an academic staff member, he/she will also assume administrative and management responsibilities within the Department, the Faculty and the University.

Here is an indicative list of courses which could be associated to this position:

  • Heat transfer
  • Modeling of heat transfers
  • Thermal control of space systems

Application procedure

Applicants must hold a Dr. or PhD degree. They will demonstrate an international scientific experience in their research fields and show a strong interest in teaching. They will have – or will commit themselves to acquire – a working knowledge of the French language. The deadline for the submission of applications is March 31.

Applications must be submitted in duplicate by registered mail to the Rector of the University of Liège, Place du 20-Août 7, 4000 Liège, Belgique and must include

  • the application letter,
  • a detailed curriculum vitae with a complete list of publications,
  • a short description of the candidate’s five most significant publications,
  • a short document (3 pages maximum), describing the future research directions of the candidate,
  • an electronic version of all publications.

Applicants should also send an electronic copy of their application material to the contact address (see below). They should also arrange for three international experts to submit letters of recommendation on their behalf.

At the end of the selection procedure, the selected applicant will be

  • either appointed for a fixed period of not more than 5 years, after which a tenured appointment will be considered ;
  • or directly appointed with tenure.

In both cases, the appointment will start on the 1st of October 2012 or later, depending on the availability of the applicant.

Contact address:
Prof. Eric JM DELHEZ
Head of the Department of Aerospace & Mechanical Engineering
Université de Liège
Sart Tilman B37
B-4000 Liège - Belgium
E-mail : E.Delhez@ulg.ac.be

IAP Contact Persons

UCL-INMAIsabelle Hisette
KUL 1Ida Tassens, Kristel Bernaerts
UGent-SYSTeMSMargot Roels
VUB-ELECAnn Pintelon
KUL 2Wim Michiels, Jan Swevers
ULg-SYSTRodolphe Sepulchre
ULBMichel Kinnaert
UMONSAlain Vande Wouwer

Useful links : UCL | KUL | UGent | VUB | ULg | UMons | UNamur | Stanford | Princeton | MIT