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Jury members Prof. David VRYDAGHS (President), UNamurProf. Denis SAINT-AMAND (Promoter, Secretary), FNRS - UNamurProf. Olivier BELIN, Sorbonne UniversitéProf. Anne REVERSEAU, FNRS - UCLouvainProf. Anne-Christine ROYERE, Université de ReimsYou are cordially invited to attend this defense.The proclamation will be followed by a drink at the Salle académique.

The design of collective decision-making mechanisms for robot swarms engaged in tasks that require consensus among the robots is a challenging problem in swarm robotics. The complexity of this design problem increases with the number of options and the number of cues that robots have to consider to make a decision. The research work presented in this thesis addresses this challenge by exploring the potential of evolutionary robotics (ER) as a design tool for synthesising neural network controllers that underpin the robots' decision-making process. The main objective is to design individual mechanisms that support the emergence of robust, scalable, and effective collective decision-making strategies while avoiding common assumptions made in previous research. These assumptions include pre-defined correlations between environmental features and robot behaviour or the use of specific opinion formation mechanisms, such as the voter or majority rule, to update opinions.The thesis focuses on two fundamental collective decision-making scenarios: the collective perception scenario and the site selection scenario. The first scenario involves robots collectively identifying the most prevalent element in the environment, represented by the colour covering the largest portion of the arena floor. The second scenario requires the robots to collectively choose the best site among several options based on their quality. The Faculty of Computer Science at UNamur invites you to Ahmed ALMANSOORI's PhD Thesis "On the Evolution of Mechanisms for Collective Decision-making in a Swarm of Robots". Directed by Prof. Elio TUCI.In front of a jury composed of:Prof. Wim VANHOOF, President, University of NamurProf. Elio TUCI, Promoter, University of NamurProf. Patrick HEYMANS, Internal Member, University of NamurProf. Muhanad HAYDER MOHAMMED MOHAMMED, Internal Member, University of NamurProf. Yara KHALUF, External Member, Wageningen University (Netherlands)You are cordially invited to a drink, which will follow the public defense.For good organization, please give your answer by Thursday, October 10 by means of this link.Contact: Notaro Amelie - amelie.notaro@unamur.be

This talk, entitled "Sauvons le français... de ceux qui le veulent sauver... du déclin" proposes to walk through the evolution of the French language, deconstructing the alarmist rhetoric that claims our language is in decline. "A little manual for resisting and deconstructing the dominant discourses that are mortifying for a language that is, after all, very much alive and evolving, as long as we let it. French is doing very well, thank you. "Dan Van Raemdonck.To close this evening, a drink will be offered, allowing you to extend the discussions in a convivial atmosphere.

Julie Henry is a doctoral student in computer science and STEAM project leader. Her work focuses, among other things, on gender stereotypes and their influence on career orientation, particularly with regard to STEM professions. Antoinette Rouvroy holds a PhD in legal sciences from the European University Institute (Florence, 2006) and is a qualified FNRS researcher at the Centre de Recherche en Information, Droit et Société (CRIDS). Since 2000, she has been interested in the relationship between law, modes of construction and risk, science and technology, and neoliberal governmentality.The Midi will be moderated by François-Xavier Fiévez, Vice-Rector in charge of Gender. In parallel with this discussion, an exhibition by Plan International entitled #Dream4Girls, pinpointing some big dreams for the future of girls generated by AI, will be accessible in the Quai 22 exhibition hall.This free event is open to the public (registration required).Registrations: https://www.billetweb.fr/midi-genre-ia-menace-ou-opportunite-pour-les-femmes

The film takes viewers on a sensory journey to the heart of life in the Amazon. Spectacular images and mesmerizing sounds reveal the majesty and power of the Amazon, the heart of Mother Earth. Your guides? The indigenous Guardians of the living world. They invite you to join them in protecting a vital heritage.Their story resonates with each of us and calls us to reflect on our responsibility towards future generations.The screening will be followed by a panel discussion in the presence of two indigenous Amazonian chiefs, director Gert-Peter Bruch and Esmeralda de Belgique, director.

The early 21st century has seen a reinvigoration of space exploration both by private and state actors that seek to explore, exploit, settle, and own outer space and its celestial bodies.According to scholars and scientists alike, this reinvigoration warrants labeling our time as the "Second Space Age". Key actors of this Second Space Age have framed the exploration and colonization of outer space as not only progressive and desirable, but also as inevitable to ensure the survival of humanity in face of the multiple crises of the Anthropocene (climate change, over/underpopulation, resource scarcity etc.). Within this "astrofuturist" framework, outer space has become a utopian space that allows for a transformative posthuman experience for all of humanity, for humanity's escape from its terrestrial limitations, for breaking with humanity's terrestrial history, and even for human immortality. The way that outer space is a key ingredient for utopian vision of humanity's future highlights that outer space is a cultural construct negotiated in an interplay between science, technology and culture. These "astrocultural objects", which are central to ascribing meaning to outer space and to stirring the collective imagination, underline the cultural embeddedness both of outer space and our practices of exploring it. A critical engagement with space exploration must therefore go beyond questions of mere technological feasibility then, and instead also interrogate, for example, the prevalence of visions Mars colonization as a remedy for climate change, the politics of race/class/gender in privatized outer space, the continuities of capitalist-colonial structures in the private space industry, or the dominance of specifically US-American frontier discourses of renewal and expansion in allegedly utopian visions of humanity's future in space.If the exploration of outer space is to play a key role in humanity's future beyond our planetary crises, the humanities have to play a key role in critically engaging with our visions for that future.Keynote by Jens Temmen (HHU Düsseldorf)Panel: André Füzfa (UNamur)Moderator: Christina Stange-Fayos (UToulouse)Keynote in EnglishContact: UNIVERSEH - universeh@unamur.be More info about UNIVERSEH and the General Meeting

The observations acquired from space and Soviet landers strongly suggest that Venus' crust is primarily basaltic (akin to Earth's oceanic crust). Yet, some of the most intriguing features of Venus are its crustal plateaus, characterized by heavily deformed terrains, which cover about 7% of its surface and have long been suggested to bear a superficial resemblance to Earth's continental crust and mountain ranges.On Earth, melting of the mantle overlying subduction zones (in the presence of hydrous fluids) followed by fractional crystallization is believed to be the primary mechanism generating the large volumes of intermediate to felsic rocks (rich in SiO2) that make up the continental crust (e.g., granites). The possibility that Venus' highland plateaus are dominated by intermediate to felsic rocks will be reevaluated by the EnVision and Veritas missions, in the hope of providing evidence for the presence of water oceans and, therefore, habitable conditions in Venus' distant past.The speaker will discuss alternative igneous processes that could have produced intermediate to felsic rocks on Venus and the "geologic observations" that would be needed to suggest that more hospitable conditions prevailed on early Venus.Keynote by Max Collinet (UNIVERSEH - UNamur)Panel: TBAModerator: Anne-Sophie Libert (UNamur)Keynote in EnglishContact: UNIVERSEH - universeh@unamur.be More info about UNIVERSEH and the General Meeting

The Elongator complex is involved in the addition of 5'-carboxylmethyluridine (cm5U)-derived modifications to transfer RNAs (tRNAs), thereby influencing the translation of certain messenger RNAs (mRNAs) and helping to maintain the integrity of the proteome. This complex is involved in a variety of biological processes, and is of particular importance in oncology. The identification of chemical inhibitors of Elongator is of significant interest in both basic and pharmaceutical research.Through a yeast screen, this work reveals a potential new role for Elongator and identifies a chemical inhibitor of the complex. This compound presents itself as an interesting candidate as a pharmacological inhibitor, opening up new perspectives for the search for anti-cancer therapies.

COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by SARS-CoV-2. COVID-19 was quickly declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020.At the start of the pandemic, healthcare professionals were faced with the marketing of numerous kits designed to measure binding antibodies. The role of neutralizing antibodies as the best correlate of protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection was quickly highlighted. A neutralization assay with the use of pseudovirus was therefore developed by our team and compared with several binding assays.There have been considerable efforts to produce and clinically validate new vaccines against COVID-19. The CRO-VAX HCP study was designed to assess the humoral response in a population of healthcare professionals who had received two doses of COVID-19 BNT162b2 vaccine.Given the decline in vaccine efficacy over time and the emergence of variants likely to evade immunity, a third dose was quickly recommended by the authorities to boost immunity. This was administered to 155 volunteers in the CRO-VAX HCP study.Still facing a decline in vaccine efficacy over time and the emergence of new variants, a second adapted booster was proposed. In September 2022, 54 participants in the CRO-VAX HCP study received this second booster. The humoral response was assessed and neutralizing antibodies against several variants were measured. In addition, we also measured the cellular response using an interferon-gamma release assay. Compared with the humoral response, which declines considerably over time, the cellular response remained fairly stable. This could therefore explain why individuals with low antibody titers can still be protected against a severe form of the disease .