Event

Defense of doctoral thesis in computer science - Sacha Corbugy

Abstract Deep learning has become an extremely important technology in numerous domains such as computer vision, natural language processing, and autonomous systems. As neural networks grow in size and complexity to meet the demands of these applications, the cost of designing and training efficient models continues to rise in computation and energy consumption. Neural Architecture Search (NAS) has emerged as a promising solution to automate the design of performant neural networks. However, conventional NAS methods often require evaluating thousands of architectures, making them extremely resource-intensive and environmentally costly.This thesis introduces a novel, energy-aware NAS pipeline that operates at the intersection of Software Engineering and Machine Learning. We present CNNGen, a domain-specific generator for convolutional architectures, combined with performance and energy predictors to drastically reduce the number of architectures that need full training. These predictors are integrated into a multi-objective genetic algorithm (NSGA-II), enabling an efficient search for architectures that balance accuracy and energy consumption.Our approach explores a variety of prediction strategies, including sequence-based models, image-based representations, and deep metric learning, to estimate model quality from partial or symbolic representations. We validate our framework across three benchmark datasets, CIFAR-10, CIFAR-100, and Fashion-MNIST, demonstrating that it can produce results comparable to state-of-the-art architectures with significantly lower computational cost. By reducing the environmental footprint of NAS while maintaining high performance, this work contributes to the growing field of Green AI and highlights the value of predictive modelling in scalable and sustainable deep learning workflows. Jury Prof. Wim Vanhoof - University of Namur, BelgiumProf. Gilles Perrouin - University of Namur, BelgiumProf. Benoit Frénay - University of Namur, BelgiumProf. Pierre-Yves Schobbens - University of Namur, BelgiumProf. Clément Quinton - University of Lille, FranceProf. Paul Temple- University of Rennes, FranceProf. Schin'ichi Satoh - National Institute of Informatics, Japan
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PROFILE - Michel Ajzen, the surgeon of managerial and organizational practices

How can teleworking and face-to-face work be reconciled? How can these professional practices be framed to reinforce the innovative and sustainable dimensions of hybrid work? These are the questions that Michel Ajzen, a specialist in organizational management, is tackling as part of his teaching assignments in the Department of Management Sciences at UNamur. His research focuses on hybrid work and organizational innovation, with a transdisciplinary approach aimed at reinventing managerial practices to meet contemporary challenges.
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Article

UNamur researcher wins Best Research Paper Award at American Marketing Association conference - SERVSIG

Floriane Goosse, a PhD student at the University of Namur, within the NaDI-CeRCLe research center, has received the prestigious "Best Research Paper Award" for her thesis paper conducted in collaboration with Wafa Hammedi, professor in the Department of Management at UNamur, and Dominik Mahr, from Maastricht University.
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Article

René Preys: the archaeologist who examines Egyptian menus

What exactly did the ancient Egyptians eat? How did they prepare and preserve their food? What was their nutritional value? René Preys, an Egyptologist at UNamur, is currently involved in this astonishing research. This expert is a major figure in Belgian Egyptology. Interview.
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Event

The physicochemistry of parchment and inks - experimental and historical approaches.

will take place from September 2 to 6, 2024 at the Gîte du domaine d'Haugimont (owned by the University of Namur) and will deal with medieval manuscripts in their material and historical aspects (parchment and ink manufacture). The event is aimed at historians, archaeologists and researchers in the physical and chemical sciences. Participation is free for doctoral students attached to FNRS doctoral schools in the disciplines concerned. At the crossroads of archaeology, history and the exact sciences, this colloquium-workshop will give the floor to three speakers (a physicist, a chemist and a historian) who will present the interdisciplinary research they are conducting together in this field. Workshops on parchment reproduction, inks and writing materials will be held each day.More information on the event .
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Article

The "Même pas peur! between education, experience and commitment

The wolf, long banished from our lands, has made a remarkable comeback in Wallonia since 2016. This mysterious being, now protected, arouses as much fascination as fear. Through an exhibition, held as part of the Cultural Project course, third-year history bachelor students have traced the history of the wolf. From April 11 to 27, 2024, the exhibition entitled "Même pas peur! Une évolution de l'image du loup à travers les siècles" invited audiences to plunge into the heart of a historical exploration.
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Research fields

Our society is undergoing a digital revolution, impacting its organization, but also its practices, and even its values. Most sectors of our society have to integrate this revolution, including eHealth, eGov, eServices, collaborative economy. Solving these challenges requires a transdisciplinary approach including technology, scientific foundations, but also societal, ethical, juridical and economic viewpoints.NADI aims at federating all the UNamur researchers working on the following challenges in 7 research fields:
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Research centers

Building on a tradition of computer science research at the University of Namur, NaDI federates six research centers focusing on different aspects of the digital society.
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