Message of the Coordinator

For this issue I have asked Joos Vandewalle to write the introductory message. You will read Joos' message below in the form of a SWOT analysis of our field and of DYSCO. Joos is the promoter of DYSCO at KULeuven but he is also an accomplished sculptor as some of you may discover with the pictures below.

Thank you Joos! Enjoy the pictures and the newsletter.

Vincent Blondel
DYSCO coordinator


Our scientific field = pervasive, but hidden

When I discuss at broader gatherings the scope and the scientific challenges that we deal with in our research in general and more specifically in DYSCO, I feel that there are elements that a wide audience can grasp easily, but there are elements that are much harder to explain convincingly. In this short message, that I was asked by the coordinator, I would like to discuss with you a SWOT on the perception of our field, in the academic and industrial world and in the wider society.

An important strength of our field is that it is broadly applicable, and pervasive. Whenever you want to handle a part of the world we live in, we need a computer in order to simulate, analyze, evaluate, optimize, or control it. Even more so, a virtual prototype of a new device like a car can only exist inside a computer. Any of these activities critically depends on mathematical models and ways to manipulate these models. So DYSCO has unique opportunities for interdisciplinary cooperations with almost all scientific disciplines. On the other hand our methods and achievements seldom reach the surface and very often lack visibility, since the models and the algorithms are hidden to the wider audiences buried deeply inside computer code and in hardly readable equations. A part of that is due to the widespread lack of interest in mathematics, but there is more to it. In order to understand it, I recommend you to have a look at the admirable recent Youtube video of the quadrocopter ball juggling at ETHZürich

In fact this video does not draw your attention to the real core elements of the system, and these are the model of the system, the signal processing, and the control algorithm. But most of the viewers will not associate any mathematics or systems and control with this video. So we have a problem that is similar to that in the field of electronics when the chips scaled to so low sizes that they were almost considered to be negligible. Intel became more and more aware of that, and their marketing people insisted that all the computers with their processor chips should mention on the outside "Intel inside". Similarly good students in high schools are often unaware that the mathematcs they learn is not only a piece of beauty and a challenge of the mind but at the heart of many of the great engineering successes of the past and of the innnovations to come. So I feel that we have an important task to bring the DYSCO world outside to the youth and society as a whole.

I am happy to hear your views and suggestions about it.

Joos Vandewalle
Joos.Vandewalle@esat.kuleuven.be


Newsletter subscription

The newsletter Dysco News is the monthly newsletter of the Belgian Interuniversity Attraction Pole "Dynamical systems, control and optimization" (DYSCO) funded by the Belgian Science Policy Office. The DYSCO network includes partners at UCL, KUL, UGent, VUB, ULg, UMons, FUNDP, and international partners at Stanford, Princeton and MIT. It is the Belgian National member of IFAC. The newsletter contains information on research activities (visitors, seminars, publications, vacancies, etc.) related to dynamical systems, control and optimization. Subscription is free and open to anyone: subscribe here, or unsubscribe.


Staff Movements and Visitors

UCL
  • Hakan Terelius (KTH Stockholm) will visit us between 11 and 16 March 2013.
KUL

Staff

  • Vyacheslav Kungurtsev, Postdoc, promotor M. Diehl, March 2013

Visitors

  • Sinha Pranay, host M. Diehl, 01/03/2013-31/08/2013
  • Michael Mangold (MPI-Magdeburg), 19-20/3/2013
VUB
  • Mark Vaes, PhD student, promotors J. Schoukens and Y. Rolain, research title : Disseminating System identification for non-specialists
FUNDP
  • Fernando Antonio, Department of Physics, Maringá State University, Brazil (October 1, 2012 - March 31, 2013)
  • Claudia Cianci, PhD Student on Complex System and Nonlinear dynamics at the Department of Systems and Computer Science, University of Florence (Italy). She will mainly work with T. Carletti on "reaction-diffusion equations: from the micro to the macro level" (February 4 – March 31, 2013)
  • Michael Gastner, Faculty of Engineering, University of Bristol, UK, several visits in the course of February and March 2013 (dates not fixed yet)
  • Andrea Roli, researcher at DISI - Department of computer science and engineering, University of Bologna (Italy). He will give a series of lectures about "evolutionary robotics" and he will mainly work with T. Carletti and D. Nicolay in the framework of neural networks and heuristic optimization. (February 11 – March 31, 2013)

Seminars

UCL
  • March 1, 2013 - 11:00 - Euler seminar room
    Rodrigo Aldecoa (Instituto de Biomedina de Valencia, Spain), Surprise maximization reveals the community structure of complex networks.
  • March 5, 2013 - 14:00 - Euler seminar room
    Charlotte Tannier (UNamur), On some block diagonal preconditioners using spectral information to accelerate the solution of large linear systems.
  • March 8, 2013 - 11:00 - Euler seminar room
    Giovanni Samaey (KULeuven), Numerical issues in multiscale simulation and the role of approximate macroscopic models.
  • March 15, 2013 - 11:00 - Euler seminar room
    Hakan Terelius (KTH), Aggregating Probability Distribution Functions Over Time-varying Anonymous Networks .
  • March 15, 2013 - 14:00 - Euler seminar room
    Alessandro Astolfi (Imperial College London), Model Reduction by Moment Matching.
  • March 19, 2013 - 14:00 - Euler seminar room
    Nicola Mastronardi ((Istituto per le Applicazioni del Calcolo M. Picone, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, sede di Bari), On solving KKT linear systems arising in Model Predictive Control.
KUL
  • March 5, 2013 – 10h30-11h30 – ESAT 00.62 - KU Leuven seminars on Optimization in Engineering
    Alex Busboom (GE Munich, Germany) : Controls at GE Global Research.
  • March 15, 2013 – 15h00-16h00 – Celestijnenlaan 200A, Rm 00.225
    N. Trefethen (Oxford University) : Numerical computing with CHEBFUN and CHEBFUN2.
  • March 19, 2013 - 15:00-16.00 - OPTEC WG3 Seminar, KULeuven Chemical Engineering Dept. PW01.01
    Michael Mangold (MPI-Magdeburg), Recent advances in parameter identification and optimal experimental design.
  • March 20, 2013 - 14:00-15:00 - OPTEC WG3 Seminar, KULeuven Chemical Engineering Dept. PW01.01
    Michael Mangold (MPI-Magdeburg), Recent advances in model reduction for population balance systems.
VUB

ELEC Seminars take place at the department ELEC (Pleinlaan 2, Building K, 7th floor) every two weeks, normally on Thursdays in the morning. The final time and date are announced at least one week before a seminar at https://intranet.vub.ac.be/doctoral-schools/nse/team-seminars/elec-seminars/.

  • March 14, 2013, 11:00-11:30, Building K, 7th floor
    Dhammika Widanage (VUB)
  • March 21, 2013, 10:30-11:30, Building K, 7th floor
    David Rijlaarsdam (NTS Systems Development, Netherlands)
ULg

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

FUNDP
  • March 12, 2013, 1 pm, Salle de Conférence du Département de Mathématique (room E25), 2nd floor of the Faculté des Sciences Economiques, Sociales et de Gestion building, Rempart de la Vierge 8, Namur
    Luis Rocha (UCL), Bursts of Vertex Activation and Epidemics in Evolving Networks.

Theses defenses

UCL
  • Olivier Devolder, Exactness, Inexactness and Stochasticity in First-Order Methods for Large-Scale Convex Optimization. Promotors : F. Glineur, Y. Nesterov. March 28, 2013, 15:00 in Auditorium Barb94, Place Sainte-Barbe, Louvain-la-Neuve.
KUL
  • Iris Cornet, Quantification of the heterogeneous heat stress response of E. coli, March 15, 2013 at 17h in the Aula van de Tweede Hoofdwet, Thermotechnisch Instituut Kasteelpark Arenberg 41, 3001 Heverlee.

Graduate School in Systems, Optimization, Control and Networks

The SOCN Graduate School 2012-2013 programme is available on-line : http://sites.uclouvain.be/socn/

The next course is entitled Parallel Coordinates: Visual Multidimensional Geometry and its Applications. It will be given by Alfred INSELBERG (Tel Aviv University, Israel) on April 15, 16, 18, 19, 22, 24, 26, 2013 (13:30-17:00) at K.U.Leuven (ESAT, Kasteelpark Arenberg 10, B-3001 Heverlee (Leuven) - room 00.62).

More information about this course : http://sites.uclouvain.be/socn/Courses/Courses2012-4

On-line registrations are welcome via this form.

Study Days, Workshops and Summer Schools

32nd Benelux Meeting on Systems and Control

The Benelux Meeting 2013 will be held in the ”Conference Hotel OL FOSSE D'OUTH”, Houffalize, Belgium, on March 26-28, 2013.

Scientific Symposium on Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

March 7, 2013

Venue : Novotel Hotel, Vuurkruisenlaan 4, Leuven

In vivo Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy and Spectroscopic Imaging (MRS(I)) are unique, indispensable techniques for non-invasive metabolic imaging. Important areas where MRS(I) can make a difference are oncology and neurology, where metabolic changes due to, e.g., tumour formation, can be detected earlier and more sensitively than with morphological imaging modalities alone. This symposium will introduce us to some of the hottest topis regarding the acquisition, data preprocessing and classification of MRS(I) data, as well as MR imaging quantification.

More information here.

Registration : send an e-mail to anca.croitor@esat.kuleuven.be

Symposium on Advances in Perinatal Monitoring

April 24, 2013

Venue : TU Eindhoven, Zwarte Doos

Perinatology is the medical field that is concerned with the health of mother and child before, during and after birth. Recent decades have seen important advances in perinatal monitoring technology, aimed e.g. at early detection of fetal asphyxia and impending premature birth, assessing fetal condition during delivery, assessing neonatal cerebral autoregulation status, and improving neonatal comfort. This symposium provides a survey of the state of the art and trends in this field, both from a technological and from a clinical perspective. The symposium serves also to honor Prof. Sabine Van Huffel, one of the leading specialists in perinatal monitoring, on the occasion of the award of her honorary doctorate by Eindhoven University of Technology. Together with the symposium there will be an exhibition with scientific posters and real-life demonstrations (e.g. a smart neonatal mattress and jacket, serious obstetric game, electrophysiological pregnancy monitoring).

The program of this symposium can be found here : Advances in Perinatal Monitoring.

Web site : http://www.symposiumperinatologie.nl

Miscellaneous

KUL

It is our pleasure to announce the official release of two new software packages:

These toolboxes are the result of a joint effort between the Kulak-ESAT-SISTA and CS-NALAG research groups at KU Leuven. They are free to use for non-commercial research. We hope that you'll find them useful in your research and we welcome all suggestions and feedback.

Lieven De Lathauwer, Laurent Sorber, Marc Van Barel

Papers produced by the IAP Network

UCL

Nicolas Boumal, Amit Singer, P.-A. Absil, Vincent D. Blondel, Cramér-Rao bounds for synchronization of rotations, submitted, 2013.

Luis Enrique Correa Rocha, Vincent D. Blondel, Temporal Heterogeneities Increase the Prevalence of Epidemics on Evolving Networks, submitted, 2013.

L.E.C. Rocha, A. Decuyper, V.D. Blondel, Epidemics on a stochastic model of temporal network, submitted, 2013.

G.Bastin and J-M. Coron, Exponential stability of networks of density-flow conservation laws under PI boundary control, submitted CDPE 2013 Conference.

Leclercq, Guillaume; Lefèvre, Philippe; Blohm, Gunnar, 3D kinematics using dual quaternions: theory and applications in neuroscience. In: Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, (2013). (Accepté/Sous presse). http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/123374

Coron, Jean-Michel; Vazquez, Rafael; Krstic, Miroslav; Bastin, Georges, Local exponential H2 stabilization of 2x2 quasilinear hyperbolic systems using backstepping. In: SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization, (2013). (Accepté/Sous presse). http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/123864

Blondel, Vincent; Olshevsky, Alexander, On the Cost of Deciding Consensus. In: SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization, (2013). (Accepté/Sous presse). http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/124317

de Montjoye, Yves-Alexandre; Hidalgo, César A.; Verleysen, Michel; Blondel, Vincent, Spotted in the Crowd: Mobility Data as a Digital Fingerprint. In: Nature Scientific Reports, (2013). (Accepté/Sous presse). http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/124316

Correa Da Rocha, Luis Enrique; Blondel, Vincent, Bursts of vertex activation and epidemics in evolving networks. In: PLoS Computational Biology, (2013). (Accepté/Sous presse). http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/124321

Cucuringu, Mihai; Blondel, Vincent; Van Dooren, Paul, Extracting spatial information from networks with low-order eigenvectors. In: Physical Review. E, Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics, (2013). (Accepté/Sous presse). http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/124322

Bastin, Georges; Cassiers, Isabelle, Green growth or low growth: Modelling the balanced transition to a sustainable economy. 1er Congrès interdisciplinaire du développement durable (Namur, Belgium, du 31/01/2013 au 01/02/2013). In: Proceedings. Vol. 4, p. 25-42 (2013). http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/123860

Thomas, Christopher; Krings, Gautier; Lambrechts, Jonathan; Deleersnijder, Eric; Hanert, Emmanuel; Wolanski, Eric, Studying physical connectivity of reefs using a numerical ocean model. 12th International Coral Reef Symposium (Cairns, Australia, du 09/07/2012 au 13/07/2012). http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/120548

Absil, Pierre-Antoine; Hochstenbach, Michiel E., A differential-geometric look at the Jacobi-Davidson framework'. In: K. Huper, J. Trumpf (eds), Mathematical System Theory - Festschrift in Honor of Uwe Helmke on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Birthday , CreateSpace, 2013, p. 11-22. 978-1470044008. http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/125008

KUL

Signoretto M., Suykens J. A. K., Kernel Methods, in invited chapter to appear in Handbook on Computational Intelligence, Neural Networks Section, (Cesare A., and Polycarpou M., eds.), Springer, 2013.

Jumutc V., Suykens J.A.K., Multi-Class Supervised Novelty Detection, Internal Report 13-16, ESAT-SISTA, K.U.Leuven (Leuven, Belgium), 2013.

Cuppens K., Detection of Epileptic Seizures based on Video and Accelerometer Recordings, PhD thesis, Faculty of Engineering, K.U.Leuven (Leuven, Belgium), Dec. 2012, 177 p.

De Moor B., Een ingenieur over leven na letteren, Jaarboek : Uit het Erasmushuis, Alumni Letteren, KU Leuven, 2013, pp. 1-4.

Dai L., Wang J., Wang Z., Tsiaflakis P., Moonen M., Spectrum- and Energy-Efficient OFDM based on Simultaneous Multi-Channel Reconstruction, Internal Report 13-19, ESAT-SISTA, K.U.Leuven (Leuven, Belgium), 2013.

Sima D.M., Van Cauter S., Li Y., Croitor Sava A.R., Himmelreich U., Van Huffel S., Unsupervised brain tumor tissue differentiation based on MRSI with correction for the chemical shift displacement artifact

De Brabanter K., Györfi L., Feature Selection via Detecting Ineffective Features, Internal Report 13-21, ESAT-SISTA, K.U.Leuven (Leuven, Belgium), 2013.

Mall R., Langone R., Suykens J.A.K., FURS: Fast and Unique Representative Subset selection for large scale community structure, Internal Report 13-22, ESAT-SISTA, K.U.Leuven (Leuven, Belgium), 2013.

M. Vallerio, F. Logist, P. Van Erdeghem, C. Dittrich and J. Van Impe, Model based optimization of the cooling system of an industrial tubular LDPE reactor, Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research 52 (4): 1656–1666. Date of publication: January 2013

F. Logist, D. Telen, B. Houska, M. Diehl and J. Van Impe, Multi-objective optimal control of dynamic bioprocesses using ACADO Toolkit, Bioprocess and Biosystems Engineering 36 (2): 151-164. Date of publication: February 2013

Jef Vanlaer, Geert Gins and Jan F.M. Van Impe, Quality assessment of a variance estimator for Partial Least Squares prediction of batch-end quality, Computers & Chemical Engineering. Date of acceptance: January 2013 (Accepted for publication) (Accepted manuscript available online via http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compchemeng.2013.01.012)

D. Telen, B. Houska, F. Logist, E. Van Derlinden, M. Diehl and J. Van Impe, Optimal Experiment Design under Process Noise using Riccati Differential Equations, Journal of Process Control. Date of acceptance: November 2012 (Accepted for publication)

J. Van Dierdonck, R. Van den Broeck, A. Vansant, J. Van Impe, I. Smets, Microscopic image analysis versus sludge volume index to monitor activated sludge bioflocculation - a case study, Separation Science and Technology. Date of acceptance: January 2013 (Accepted for publication)

J. Van Dierdonck, R. Van den Broeck, E. Vervoort, P. D'Haeninck, D. Springael, J. Van Impe, I. Smets, Does a change in reactor loading rate affect activated sludge bioflocculation?, Process Biochemistry 47 (12): 2227-2233.

B. Peeters, R. Dewil and I. Smets, Improved process control of an industrial sludge centrifuge-dryer installation through binary logistic regression modeling of the fouling issues, Journal of Process Control, 2013 (Accepted for publication)

B. Huyck, J. De Brabanter, B. De Moor, J. Van Impe and F. Logist, Model predictive control of a pilot-scale destination column using a programmable automation controller, European Control Conference 13 (ECC13), Zurich (Switzerland), July 17-19, 2013. (Accepted for presentation)

Kathleen Boons, Eva Van Derlinden, Laurence Mertens, Estefania Noriega and Jan F. Van Impe, A comparative study on the evolution of the ratio live/dead cells in E. coli K12 surface colonies, Focus on Microscopy 2013, Maastricht, The Netherlands, March 24 - March 27, 2013. (Accepted for poster presentation)

VUB

Benjamin Sanchez, Johan Schoukens, Ramon Bragos, Gerd Vandersteen, Novel Estimation of the Electrical Bioimpedance Using the Local Polynomial Method. Application to In Vivo Real-Time Myocardium Tissue Impedance Characterization During the Cardiac Cycle, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, Vol. 58, No. 12, December 2011, pp. 3376-3385

David Rijlaarsdam, Pieter Nuij, Johan Schoukens, Maarten Steinbuch, Frequency domain based nonlinear feed forward control design for friction compensation, Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing, Vol. 27, February 2012, pp. 551-562

Kurt Barbé, Wendy Van Moer and Danny Schoors, Analyzing the Windkessel Model as a Potential Candidate for Correcting Oscillometric Blood-Pressure Measurements, IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, No. 2, Vol. 61, pp. 411–418

P. Landin, J. Fritzin, W. Van Moer, M. Isaksson, A. Alvandpour, Modeling and digital predistortion of class-D outphasing RF power amplifiers, IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, Vol. 60, No. 6, June 2012, pp. 1907-1915.

Sandor Kolumban, Istvan Vajk, Johan Schoukens, Approximation of Confidence Sets for Output Error Systems Using Interval Analysis, Control Engineering and Applied Informatics, Vol. 14, No. 2, June 2012, pp. 73-79

Kurt Barbé, Wendy Van Moer, Lieve Lauwers and Niclas Björsell, A simple non-parametric pre-processing technique to correct for non-stationary effects in measured data, IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, Vol. 61, No. 8, pp. 2085-2095, 2012

David Rijlaarsdam, Tom Oomen, Pieter Nuij, Johan Schoukens, Maarten Steinbuch, Uniquely connecting frequency domain representations of given order polynomial Wiener-Hammerstein systems, Automatica, Vol. 48, No. 9, September 2012, pp. 2381-2384

C. Nader, P. Landin, W. Van Moer, N. Björsell, P. Handel, D. Rönnow, Peak-Power Controlling Technique for Stabilizing Digital Pre-distortion of RF Power Amplifiers, IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, Vol. 61, No. 11, November 2012, pp. 3571-3581

P. Landin, W. Van Moer, M. Isaksson, P. Handel, Peak-Power Controlled Digital Predistorters for RF Power Amplifiers, IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, Vol. 61, No. 11, November 2012, pp. 3582-3596

UMons

Thierry Castermans, Matthieu Duvinage, Nicolas Riche, Online emotion classification from electroencephalographic signals : a first study conducted in a realistic movie theater, accepted, 12th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Soft Computing (ICAISC 2013)

M. Duvinage, T. Castermans, M. Petieau, T. Hoellinger, Karthik Seetharaman, G. Cheron, T. Dutoit, A Preliminary Fundamental Study of Ambulatory SSVEP, proceedings of TOBI IV workshop

M. Duvinage, P. Mazza, M. Petitjean, The intraday performance of market timing strategies and trading systems based on Japanese candlesticks, Quantitative Finance (in press), 2013

Coutinho Daniel, Vande Wouwer Alain, A Robust Nonlinear Feedback Control Strategy for a Class of Bioprocesses in IET Control Theory & Applications (2013) (in press)

FUNDP

Vsevolod Salnikov, Daniel Schien, Hyejin Youn, Renaud Lambiotte and Michael T. Gastner, The geography and carbon footprint of mobile phone use in Cote d’Ivoire, Data 4 Development (MIT, May 1 2013), submitted.

Vsevolod Salnikov and Renaud Lambiotte, Late for Good, NetMob (MIT, May 2-3 2013), submitted.

IAP Contact Persons

UCLIsabelle Hisette
KULIda Tassens
UGentMargot Roels
VUBAnn Pintelon
ULgSophie Cimino
UMonsLaurent Dewasme
FUNDPJoseph Winkin

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