From The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH): “New trees to improve well-being on campus”

From The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH)

3.21.23
Emmanuelle Marendaz Colle

Young trees southwest of the Rolex Learning Center © Lina Bentires-Alj/ EPFL 2023.

In an effort to adapt outdoor spaces to climate change, enrich biodiversity and increase the comfort of the EPFL community, several hundred trees and shrubs were planted this winter.

With its iconic buildings that have sprung up on the Ecublens campus over the years, the EPFL has progressively distanced itself from nature, a feeling that is reinforced by the ongoing and future construction of new buildings, such as the RTS complex to the east and the Advanced Sciences Building (ASB) planned for the west. This densification is today accompanied by a reflection and concrete actions to bring back vegetation on the open spaces. This movement is part of the ambitions of EPFL’s Climate and Sustainability Strategy, one of whose objectives is to approach a 30% canopy index by 2030.

Between February and March 2023, no less than 200 trees of thirty different species, 450 shrubs and 30 fruit trees were planted on campus under the direction of the Outdoor Spaces group of the Sustainability Unit at the Vice Presidency for Responsible Transformation (VPT). These plantings are in addition to the 82 potted trees already installed on campus during 2022 as part of the Campus Piéton project, which will be planted at a later date once work is completed on the affected area. In 2019 for the 50th anniversary of EPFL a first series of 50 trees had already appeared.

Planting in the right place

“The idea is to plant in the right place, taking into account climatic and ecological, landscape, heritage and social issues,” explains François Dupuy, landscape architect in charge of the team. According to him, a resilient campus can only be conceived “with the benefit of a generous tree planting to be passed on to future users”.

By 2070 we can expect Lausanne’s climate to resemble that of the Balkans today. The choice of species was therefore made to allow the trees to thrive in the decades to come, with a mixture of native species, from the Mediterranean basin and southeastern Europe, all raised locally. It will take twenty years for these trees to reach full maturity, and continued planting over the next fifteen years to significantly improve the campus climate, already marked today by too much concrete and impervious space.

“Trees are a climate damper that mitigates heat islands and the risk of flooding, continues François Dupuy. The canopy absorbs CO₂ while diffusing water vapor. This process cools the ambient air. In the shade of a tree, the temperature is lowered by at least 5°C. Strategic placement of trees can therefore reduce the air temperature of an urbanized area by 2°C to 8°C.”

Ecological corridor

Beyond the climate, the presence of trees on campus offers multiple benefits, adds the manager: they are beneficial to health, improve the living environment and contribute to social ties; they mark the landscape and, moreover, promote biodiversity by serving as an ecological corridor for birds and small mammals.

The choice of locations was made taking into account all these parameters, as well as the constraints of the campus operation, such as traffic for deliveries, maintenance of facades, or festive events requiring large spaces, such as the Balelec festival, to name but one.

The main locations chosen for this first stage of planting are the south and west of the Rolex Learning Center, near the cantonal road and Place Cosandey, Maryam Mirzakhani Road, west of EPFL Pavilions, as well as several areas in the north of the campus, along Route de la Sorge and Avenue Forel, notably around the Rivier and Forel parking lots.

The 591621 m^2 of campus land currently includes about 1300 trees as well as about 39000 m^2 of forest. This represents less than 18% of canopy cover. To reach 30%, it is estimated that there should be at least 2500 mature trees on campus with a crown diameter of 10 meters.

“Our implementation strategy combines a proactive attitude with an opportunistic approach. Trees must be the driving force behind new projects, and must be included in all work sites that offer planting opportunities,” concludes François Dupuy.

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

EPFL campus

The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH) is a research institute and university in Lausanne, Switzerland, that specializes in natural sciences and engineering. It is one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, and it has three main missions: education, research and technology transfer.

The QS World University Rankings ranks EPFL(CH) 14th in the world across all fields in their 2020/2021 ranking, whereas Times Higher Education World University Rankings ranks EPFL(CH) as the world’s 19th best school for Engineering and Technology in 2020.

EPFL(CH) is located in the French-speaking part of Switzerland; the sister institution in the German-speaking part of Switzerland is The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zürich [Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich] (CH). Associated with several specialized research institutes, the two universities form The Domain of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH Domain) [ETH-Bereich; Domaine des Écoles Polytechniques Fédérales] (CH) which is directly dependent on the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research. In connection with research and teaching activities, EPFL(CH) operates a nuclear reactor CROCUS; a Tokamak Fusion reactor; a Blue Gene/Q Supercomputer; and P3 bio-hazard facilities.

ETH Zürich, EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne) [École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne](CH), and four associated research institutes form The Domain of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH Domain) [ETH-Bereich; Domaine des Écoles polytechniques fédérales] (CH) with the aim of collaborating on scientific projects.

The roots of modern-day EPFL(CH) can be traced back to the foundation of a private school under the name École Spéciale de Lausanne in 1853 at the initiative of Lois Rivier, a graduate of the École Centrale Paris (FR) and John Gay the then professor and rector of the Académie de Lausanne. At its inception it had only 11 students and the offices were located at Rue du Valentin in Lausanne. In 1869, it became the technical department of the public Académie de Lausanne. When the Académie was reorganized and acquired the status of a university in 1890, the technical faculty changed its name to École d’Ingénieurs de l’Université de Lausanne. In 1946, it was renamed the École polytechnique de l’Université de Lausanne (EPUL). In 1969, the EPUL was separated from the rest of the University of Lausanne and became a federal institute under its current name. EPFL(CH), like ETH Zürich (CH), is thus directly controlled by the Swiss federal government. In contrast, all other universities in Switzerland are controlled by their respective cantonal governments. Following the nomination of Patrick Aebischer as president in 2000, EPFL(CH) has started to develop into the field of life sciences. It absorbed the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC) in 2008.

In 1946, there were 360 students. In 1969, EPFL(CH) had 1,400 students and 55 professors. In the past two decades the university has grown rapidly and as of 2012 roughly 14,000 people study or work on campus, about 9,300 of these being Bachelor, Master or PhD students. The environment at modern day EPFL(CH) is highly international with the school attracting students and researchers from all over the world. More than 125 countries are represented on the campus and the university has two official languages, French and English.

Organization

EPFL is organized into eight schools, themselves formed of institutes that group research units (laboratories or chairs) around common themes:

School of Basic Sciences
Institute of Mathematics
Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering
Institute of Physics
European Centre of Atomic and Molecular Computations
Bernoulli Center
Biomedical Imaging Research Center
Interdisciplinary Center for Electron Microscopy
MPG-EPFL Centre for Molecular Nanosciences and Technology
Swiss Plasma Center
Laboratory of Astrophysics

School of Engineering

Institute of Electrical Engineering
Institute of Mechanical Engineering
Institute of Materials
Institute of Microengineering
Institute of Bioengineering

School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Institute of Architecture
Civil Engineering Institute
Institute of Urban and Regional Sciences
Environmental Engineering Institute

School of Computer and Communication Sciences

Algorithms & Theoretical Computer Science
Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
Computational Biology
Computer Architecture & Integrated Systems
Data Management & Information Retrieval
Graphics & Vision
Human-Computer Interaction
Information & Communication Theory
Networking
Programming Languages & Formal Methods
Security & Cryptography
Signal & Image Processing
Systems

School of Life Sciences

Bachelor-Master Teaching Section in Life Sciences and Technologies
Brain Mind Institute
Institute of Bioengineering
Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research
Global Health Institute
Ten Technology Platforms & Core Facilities (PTECH)
Center for Phenogenomics
NCCR Synaptic Bases of Mental Diseases

College of Management of Technology

Swiss Finance Institute at EPFL
Section of Management of Technology and Entrepreneurship
Institute of Technology and Public Policy
Institute of Management of Technology and Entrepreneurship
Section of Financial Engineering

College of Humanities

Human and social sciences teaching program

EPFL Middle East

Section of Energy Management and Sustainability

In addition to the eight schools there are seven closely related institutions

Swiss Cancer Centre
Center for Biomedical Imaging (CIBM)
Centre for Advanced Modelling Science (CADMOS)
École Cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL)
Campus Biotech
Wyss Center for Bio- and Neuro-engineering
Swiss National Supercomputing Centre

From The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH): “Global warming kills forests by restricting tree transpiration”

From The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH)

3.21.23
Sarah Perrin

©iStock.

UN International Day of Forests on 21 March is the perfect opportunity to showcase some of the important forest research being done at EPFL. For instance, one recent study found that the changes in relative humidity caused by higher temperatures are having a significant impact on trees.

“The data clearly show that tree mortality is increasing at an exponential rate,” says Prof. Charlotte Grossiord, the head of EPFL’s Plant Ecology Research Laboratory (PERL)*. No stranger to forest health, she’s studying the mechanisms behind forest ecosystems and how they’re responding to climate change. This year, 21 March will mark not only the first day of spring but also the 11th annual UN International Day of Forests – an occasion to shine the spotlight on Grossiord’s research. A study she published recently in Journal of Applied Ecology [below] shows that the lower relative humidity resulting from higher temperatures is disrupting trees’ natural transpiration process, putting many species at risk.
*Part of the School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC).

Forests cover some four billion hectares of land, or nearly 31% of the Earth’s surface. To underscore the essential role they play and build awareness about the urgent need to protect them, the UN introduced an annual forest day in 2012. This year’s theme is “Forests and Health.” Forests are a vital food source for around a billion people and countless animals. They serve as a natural barrier to disease transmission between animals and humans, and are home to thousands of plants used as the basis for drug treatments – or that could hold the keys to drug treatments of the future.

What’s more, forests are a crucial ally in the fight against climate change. They capture and store over half of the carbon that’s emitted worldwide in their soil and vegetation, are a breeding ground for biodiversity, and operate as natural filters in the water cycle.

NASA | A Year in the Life of Earth’s CO2.
This video shows the role that trees play in the global carbon cycle. When trees shed their leaves and enter a dormant state in the fall, they stop capturing CO2 (in red), which leads to a sharp increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

However, the UN estimates that 10 million hectares – the equivalent of around 14 million soccer fields – of forestland disappear each year due to deforestation, and a further 35 million are destroyed by insects. According to Global Forest Watch, 119 million hectares have burned to the ground over the past 20 years as fires occur more frequently and with greater intensity. In addition to this lost tree cover, scientists are also worried about forest health.

A birch tree attacked by bark beetles. ©iStock.

“The direct effects of the more frequent and intense droughts and the lastingly higher temperatures are now easily visible in tree health,” says Grossiord. The hotter, dryer climate is making life a struggle for trees, as reflected in their prematurely yellow leaves and dried-out branches, for example – turning them into easy prey for insects (such as the bark beetles common in Europe) and fungi.

Grossiord and her research group are meticulously studying all these phenomena. They’ve set up a 1.2-hectare site in Valais Canton where they compare the health of trees subject to the full impact of droughts with those that have been watered regularly over the past 20-plus years.

Lately, her research group has been looking specifically at the consequences of changes in relative humidity levels caused by higher temperatures. “This is having an important effect on trees, but until now it hasn’t really been studied,” says Grossiord. “These changes are causing worrying atmospheric droughts which are directly impacting tree transpiration and temperatures. All that can eventually pose a threat to their survival.”

Air at higher temperatures can hold more water vapor, but the recent series of droughts means there’s less water in forest ecosystems. As a result, the gap between the amount of vapor that air can contain and the amount it actually does contain – what’s called the vapor pressure deficit (VPD) – is increasing. “The rising VPD is bringing us closer to desert-like conditions than to tropical-forest ones, and can explain the swift deterioration in the health of many trees,” says Grossiord.

Pressured to transpire: drought, heat and forests.

Strength in diversity

Plants protect themselves from heat and drought by closing their stoma, or the pores on leaves that enable gas exchange with the air and, crucially, that allow plants to absorb the CO2 they need to live. With their stoma closed, trees can neither take in CO2 effectively nor carry water up to their leaves. They become weakened and eventually die. “We saw a striking example of this during the record heat wave that swept through the western US and Canada in summer 2021,” explains Grossiord. “Temperatures reached nearly 50°C and trees turned brown in the space of just a few hours. When it gets too hot, plants stop conducting photosynthesis and perform only respiration, meaning they release CO2 into the air.”

That said, some species are more resistant than others to warm temperatures and can better adapt. Oak trees, for example, hold up well in hotter, drier climates, whereas beech trees – quite common at central-European latitudes – will probably disappear or migrate to the north. “That’s why plant diversity and interaction are so important in a forest, and it’s another focus area for our research at PERL,” says Grossiord. “That’s also why single-species crops are so problematic. They’re much more likely to be wiped out in the event of extreme weather or a parasite infection, since all the plants respond in the same way.”

In light of both the faster aging process – with growing seasons getting shorter and shorter – and the galloping tree mortality rates, forest ecosystems might eventually become unable to play their essential role. We’re already seeing signs of this in Switzerland and the rest of Europe, but what about elsewhere in the world? “It’s hard to quantify this process on a global scale because in many regions, we don’t have enough data or reliable information sources,” says Grossiord. “But we’re seeing that forests in general are becoming younger. That’s due partly to industrial forest plantations – like eucalyptus – but also to extreme weather events that tend to kill older, more vulnerable trees first.” Unfortunately, older trees are also the ones with the highest carbon-storage capacity.

Assisted migration

So what can we do to protect the world’s forests? According to Grossiord, it’s simple: we need to halt deforestation, take better care of existing forests, and reduce our carbon emissions, which are the source of the problem. “Even if we plant new trees, we can’t expect plants to absorb all the carbon that we’ll emit if we continue along the current trajectory,” says Grossiord. “Climate change will reduce forests’ absorption capacity, and newly planted trees can never replace natural forests, whose complex ecosystems have evolved over hundreds or even thousands of years.”

One idea that warrants further study, in her view, is assisted migration. That involves importing species that are more resistant and acclimated to warmer climates. “If the trees that form our existing tree cover disappear within the next 30 years and we don’t import new species from southern regions, we could simply end up with no more forests,” she says. “But any form of assisted migration should be done in a carefully thought-out manner with an emphasis on diversity.”

Journal of Applied Ecology

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

EPFL campus

The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH) is a research institute and university in Lausanne, Switzerland, that specializes in natural sciences and engineering. It is one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, and it has three main missions: education, research and technology transfer.

The QS World University Rankings ranks EPFL(CH) 14th in the world across all fields in their 2020/2021 ranking, whereas Times Higher Education World University Rankings ranks EPFL(CH) as the world’s 19th best school for Engineering and Technology in 2020.

EPFL(CH) is located in the French-speaking part of Switzerland; the sister institution in the German-speaking part of Switzerland is The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zürich [Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich] (CH). Associated with several specialized research institutes, the two universities form The Domain of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH Domain) [ETH-Bereich; Domaine des Écoles Polytechniques Fédérales] (CH) which is directly dependent on the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research. In connection with research and teaching activities, EPFL(CH) operates a nuclear reactor CROCUS; a Tokamak Fusion reactor; a Blue Gene/Q Supercomputer; and P3 bio-hazard facilities.

ETH Zürich, EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne) [École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne](CH), and four associated research institutes form The Domain of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH Domain) [ETH-Bereich; Domaine des Écoles polytechniques fédérales] (CH) with the aim of collaborating on scientific projects.

The roots of modern-day EPFL(CH) can be traced back to the foundation of a private school under the name École Spéciale de Lausanne in 1853 at the initiative of Lois Rivier, a graduate of the École Centrale Paris (FR) and John Gay the then professor and rector of the Académie de Lausanne. At its inception it had only 11 students and the offices were located at Rue du Valentin in Lausanne. In 1869, it became the technical department of the public Académie de Lausanne. When the Académie was reorganized and acquired the status of a university in 1890, the technical faculty changed its name to École d’Ingénieurs de l’Université de Lausanne. In 1946, it was renamed the École polytechnique de l’Université de Lausanne (EPUL). In 1969, the EPUL was separated from the rest of the University of Lausanne and became a federal institute under its current name. EPFL(CH), like ETH Zürich (CH), is thus directly controlled by the Swiss federal government. In contrast, all other universities in Switzerland are controlled by their respective cantonal governments. Following the nomination of Patrick Aebischer as president in 2000, EPFL(CH) has started to develop into the field of life sciences. It absorbed the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC) in 2008.

In 1946, there were 360 students. In 1969, EPFL(CH) had 1,400 students and 55 professors. In the past two decades the university has grown rapidly and as of 2012 roughly 14,000 people study or work on campus, about 9,300 of these being Bachelor, Master or PhD students. The environment at modern day EPFL(CH) is highly international with the school attracting students and researchers from all over the world. More than 125 countries are represented on the campus and the university has two official languages, French and English.

Organization

EPFL is organized into eight schools, themselves formed of institutes that group research units (laboratories or chairs) around common themes:

School of Basic Sciences
Institute of Mathematics
Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering
Institute of Physics
European Centre of Atomic and Molecular Computations
Bernoulli Center
Biomedical Imaging Research Center
Interdisciplinary Center for Electron Microscopy
MPG-EPFL Centre for Molecular Nanosciences and Technology
Swiss Plasma Center
Laboratory of Astrophysics

School of Engineering

Institute of Electrical Engineering
Institute of Mechanical Engineering
Institute of Materials
Institute of Microengineering
Institute of Bioengineering

School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Institute of Architecture
Civil Engineering Institute
Institute of Urban and Regional Sciences
Environmental Engineering Institute

School of Computer and Communication Sciences

Algorithms & Theoretical Computer Science
Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
Computational Biology
Computer Architecture & Integrated Systems
Data Management & Information Retrieval
Graphics & Vision
Human-Computer Interaction
Information & Communication Theory
Networking
Programming Languages & Formal Methods
Security & Cryptography
Signal & Image Processing
Systems

School of Life Sciences

Bachelor-Master Teaching Section in Life Sciences and Technologies
Brain Mind Institute
Institute of Bioengineering
Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research
Global Health Institute
Ten Technology Platforms & Core Facilities (PTECH)
Center for Phenogenomics
NCCR Synaptic Bases of Mental Diseases

College of Management of Technology

Swiss Finance Institute at EPFL
Section of Management of Technology and Entrepreneurship
Institute of Technology and Public Policy
Institute of Management of Technology and Entrepreneurship
Section of Financial Engineering

College of Humanities

Human and social sciences teaching program

EPFL Middle East

Section of Energy Management and Sustainability

In addition to the eight schools there are seven closely related institutions

Swiss Cancer Centre
Center for Biomedical Imaging (CIBM)
Centre for Advanced Modelling Science (CADMOS)
École Cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL)
Campus Biotech
Wyss Center for Bio- and Neuro-engineering
Swiss National Supercomputing Centre

From The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH): “A new tool for protein sequence generation and design”

From The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH)

3.9.23
Nik Papageorgiou

EPFL researchers have developed a new technique that uses a protein language model for generating protein sequences with comparable properties to natural sequences. The method outperforms traditional models and offers promising potential for protein design. iStock photos.

Designing new proteins with specific structure and function is a highly important goal of bioengineering, but the vast size of protein sequence space makes the search for new proteins difficult. However, a new study by the group of Anne-Florence Bitbol at EPFL’s School of Life Sciences has found that a deep-learning neural network, MSA Transformer, could be a promising solution.

Developed in 2021, MSA Transformer works in a similar way to natural language processing, used by the now famous ChatGPT. The team, composed of Damiano Sgarbossa, Umberto Lupo, and Anne-Florence Bitbol, proposed and tested an “iterative method”, which relies on the ability of the model to predict missing or masked parts of a sequence based on the surrounding context.

The team found that through this approach, MSA Transformer can be used for generating new protein sequences from given protein “families” (groups of proteins with similar sequences), with similar properties to natural sequences.

In fact, protein sequences generated from large families with many homologs had better or similar properties than sequences generated by Potts models. “A Potts model is an entirely different type of generative model not based on natural language processing or deep learning, which was recently experimentally validated,” explains Bitbol. “Our new MSA Transformer-based approach allowed us to generate proteins even from small families, where Potts models perform poorly.”

The MSA Transformer reproduces the higher-order statistics and the distribution of sequences in natural data more accurately than other models, which makes it a strong candidate for protein sequence generation and protein design.

“This work can lead to the development of new proteins with specific structures and functions; such approaches will hopefully enable important medical applications in the future,” says Bitbol. “The potential of the MSA Transformer as a strong candidate for protein design provides exciting new possibilities for the field of bioengineering.”

The study is published in eLife [below], whose editors commented: “This important study proposes a method to sample novel sequences from a protein language model that could have exciting applications in protein sequence design. The claims are supported by a solid benchmarking of the designed sequences in terms of quality, novelty and diversity.”

eLife

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

EPFL campus

The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH) is a research institute and university in Lausanne, Switzerland, that specializes in natural sciences and engineering. It is one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, and it has three main missions: education, research and technology transfer.

The QS World University Rankings ranks EPFL(CH) 14th in the world across all fields in their 2020/2021 ranking, whereas Times Higher Education World University Rankings ranks EPFL(CH) as the world’s 19th best school for Engineering and Technology in 2020.

EPFL(CH) is located in the French-speaking part of Switzerland; the sister institution in the German-speaking part of Switzerland is The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zürich [Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich] (CH). Associated with several specialized research institutes, the two universities form The Domain of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH Domain) [ETH-Bereich; Domaine des Écoles Polytechniques Fédérales] (CH) which is directly dependent on the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research. In connection with research and teaching activities, EPFL(CH) operates a nuclear reactor CROCUS; a Tokamak Fusion reactor; a Blue Gene/Q Supercomputer; and P3 bio-hazard facilities.

ETH Zürich, EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne) [École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne](CH), and four associated research institutes form The Domain of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH Domain) [ETH-Bereich; Domaine des Écoles polytechniques fédérales] (CH) with the aim of collaborating on scientific projects.

The roots of modern-day EPFL(CH) can be traced back to the foundation of a private school under the name École Spéciale de Lausanne in 1853 at the initiative of Lois Rivier, a graduate of the École Centrale Paris (FR) and John Gay the then professor and rector of the Académie de Lausanne. At its inception it had only 11 students and the offices were located at Rue du Valentin in Lausanne. In 1869, it became the technical department of the public Académie de Lausanne. When the Académie was reorganized and acquired the status of a university in 1890, the technical faculty changed its name to École d’Ingénieurs de l’Université de Lausanne. In 1946, it was renamed the École polytechnique de l’Université de Lausanne (EPUL). In 1969, the EPUL was separated from the rest of the University of Lausanne and became a federal institute under its current name. EPFL(CH), like ETH Zürich (CH), is thus directly controlled by the Swiss federal government. In contrast, all other universities in Switzerland are controlled by their respective cantonal governments. Following the nomination of Patrick Aebischer as president in 2000, EPFL(CH) has started to develop into the field of life sciences. It absorbed the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC) in 2008.

In 1946, there were 360 students. In 1969, EPFL(CH) had 1,400 students and 55 professors. In the past two decades the university has grown rapidly and as of 2012 roughly 14,000 people study or work on campus, about 9,300 of these being Bachelor, Master or PhD students. The environment at modern day EPFL(CH) is highly international with the school attracting students and researchers from all over the world. More than 125 countries are represented on the campus and the university has two official languages, French and English.

Organization

EPFL is organized into eight schools, themselves formed of institutes that group research units (laboratories or chairs) around common themes:

School of Basic Sciences
Institute of Mathematics
Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering
Institute of Physics
European Centre of Atomic and Molecular Computations
Bernoulli Center
Biomedical Imaging Research Center
Interdisciplinary Center for Electron Microscopy
MPG-EPFL Centre for Molecular Nanosciences and Technology
Swiss Plasma Center
Laboratory of Astrophysics

School of Engineering

Institute of Electrical Engineering
Institute of Mechanical Engineering
Institute of Materials
Institute of Microengineering
Institute of Bioengineering

School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Institute of Architecture
Civil Engineering Institute
Institute of Urban and Regional Sciences
Environmental Engineering Institute

School of Computer and Communication Sciences

Algorithms & Theoretical Computer Science
Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
Computational Biology
Computer Architecture & Integrated Systems
Data Management & Information Retrieval
Graphics & Vision
Human-Computer Interaction
Information & Communication Theory
Networking
Programming Languages & Formal Methods
Security & Cryptography
Signal & Image Processing
Systems

School of Life Sciences

Bachelor-Master Teaching Section in Life Sciences and Technologies
Brain Mind Institute
Institute of Bioengineering
Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research
Global Health Institute
Ten Technology Platforms & Core Facilities (PTECH)
Center for Phenogenomics
NCCR Synaptic Bases of Mental Diseases

College of Management of Technology

Swiss Finance Institute at EPFL
Section of Management of Technology and Entrepreneurship
Institute of Technology and Public Policy
Institute of Management of Technology and Entrepreneurship
Section of Financial Engineering

College of Humanities

Human and social sciences teaching program

EPFL Middle East

Section of Energy Management and Sustainability

In addition to the eight schools there are seven closely related institutions

Swiss Cancer Centre
Center for Biomedical Imaging (CIBM)
Centre for Advanced Modelling Science (CADMOS)
École Cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL)
Campus Biotech
Wyss Center for Bio- and Neuro-engineering
Swiss National Supercomputing Centre

From The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH): “Scientists monitor wildlife to boost preservation efforts”

From The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH)

3.2.23
Anne-Muriel Brouet

To mark the tenth annual UN World Wildlife Day, we compiled a sample of EPFL research projects that are using technology to protect and preserve wildlife.

Everywhere you look, biodiversity is under threat. According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), wildlife populations have plummeted by 69% since 1970. Species extinction is unfolding at more than 1,000 times the natural rate. The percentages of species threatened with extinction are chilling: 40% for plants, 41% for amphibians, 27% for mammals and 13% for birds. While climate change and a growing demand for energy are unlikely to reverse this trend, technological progress and scientific research could help mitigate its effects.

Introduced by the United Nations ten years ago, World Wildlife Day celebrates the adoption of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) on 3 March 1973. To mark this occasion, we decided to spotlight EPFL research groups that are developing systems to identify, monitor and preserve wildlife.

Tracking fauna with an eye in the sky

Humming high off the ground, drones have become a popular method for tracking and cataloging wildlife populations from afar. A case in point is in the Kuzikus Wildlife Reserve in Namibia, where Devis Tuia and his group recently kicked off the latest in a series of projects to refine the AI-powered computer-vision software that autonomously extracts information from drone images.

Prof. Tuia, who heads EPFL’s Environmental Computational Science and Earth Observation Laboratory (ECEO), was instrumental in bringing together scientists from universities, businesses and NGOs working at the nexus of conservation ecology, drone technology and computer vision. Together they created the WildDrone network, an international initiative aiming to revolutionize wildlife conservation through the use of drone technology. The initiative involves ten PhD projects funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Networks program, two funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and one funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI).

In the Kuzikus Wildlife Reserve in Namibia, reserachers assess animal populations through the use of AI-based software. © Friedrich Reinhard.

“Drones really changed the game in wildlife monitoring,” says Tuia. “Not only do they let you cover more ground than a helicopter, for example, but they’re also cheaper, safer and more easily scalable.” In addition to counting animal populations every few months, drones equipped with AI-powered computer vision can also be deployed when needed and deliver actionable insights in near real-time.

However, there’s still room for improvement. “Today, we can create AI models that perform well in one setting, like a wildlife reserve – but not so well in another one or even in the same one at a different time of year,” says Tuia. The work his research group is doing under the WildDrone initiative seeks to tackle this problem.

The Kuzikus project is just one of several wildlife conservation projects that Tuia’s research group is conducting to assess animal populations through the use of AI-based software. For instance, they applied their AI technology in conjunction with drones to monitor the population of coastal sea birds like the African Royal Tern. And closer to home, their software is shedding light on the interactions among wildlife species in the Swiss National Park.

“Our dream,” says Tuia, “is to be able to monitor animals without harming or disturbing them, and to give rangers the real-time data they need to do their job of protecting wildlife. Maybe in a few years, we’ll be able to go even further and support decision-makers with the information required to design better policies and reduce conflict.”

Taking care of coral reefs

Several EPFL laboratories are working to pinpoint what makes Red Sea corals so resilient to global warming and pollution. ©Guilhem Banc-Prandi.

Half of the world’s coral reefs have already been destroyed, taking with them not only their fascinating colors but also the ecosystems that had evolved around them. The disappearance of coral reefs is affecting everything from single-cell algae to coastal fishing communities. Several EPFL labs are studying ways to preserve coral reefs. For example, they are working with the EPFL’s Transnational Red Sea Center on a project to pinpoint what makes Red Sea corals so resilient to global warming and pollution. By exposing these corals to warmer temperatures and observing their adaptive response, the Laboratory for Biological Geochemistry (LGB), headed by Anders Meibom, is gaining a better understanding of the mechanisms behind their resistance. Meanwhile, ECEO is using a simple GoPro camera to map large areas of shallow coral reefs. The data are then run through an AI program to identify the reefs’ composition and degree of deterioration, along with any waste present. And scientists at GEOME – formerly the Laboratory of Geographic Information Systems (LASIG) and now part of LGB – are using satellite data to better understand and predict the adaptive capacity of corals by combining genomic information with environmental readings (such as temperature and water currents). Their approach is called environmental genomics, and it’s already been used in similar GEOME projects in the southern Pacific and on land to study the adaptive capacity of indigenous species in Uganda, Morocco and several European countries.

Tracking animal behavior

On a smaller scale, scientists are studying the behavior of animals in order to better protect them. One key method employed in quantifying animal behavior is “pose estimation,” or the use of a computer program to identify the pose (position and orientation) of various parts of an animal’s body. Pose estimation is done in laboratories by placing markers on an animal, but when it comes to wild species in the savanna or on an icecap, the method is impossible to implement. EPFL professors Alexander Mathis and Mackenzie Mathis have therefore developed a program that uses “markerless” tracking for animals. Called DeepLabCut, their software runs deep learning algorithms to teach computers to recognize parts of an animal without relying on physical or virtual markers.

Smart Microphone that can record animal sounds and, with the help of AI, recognize them. © Olivier Stähli.

While some animal species are disappearing, others are proliferating rapidly. Wolves are one such example, including in Switzerland, where they’re a real nuisance for animal breeders. To address this problem, two EPFL students – Miya Ferrisse and Olivier Stähli – have developed a device called a Smart Microphone that can record animal sounds and, with the help of AI, recognize them. The system has been tested successfully on wolves in the Swiss Alps and elephants in South Africa. Once it locates a wild animal, the device sends a real-time alert to a smartphone so that wildlife rangers can respond immediately. The goal of the new technology is to support wildlife preservation efforts and enable humans and animals to coexist more peacefully. Ferrisse, Stähli and two other Swiss university students have created a startup called Synature to further develop and market their device.

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

EPFL campus

The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH) is a research institute and university in Lausanne, Switzerland, that specializes in natural sciences and engineering. It is one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, and it has three main missions: education, research and technology transfer.

The QS World University Rankings ranks EPFL(CH) 14th in the world across all fields in their 2020/2021 ranking, whereas Times Higher Education World University Rankings ranks EPFL(CH) as the world’s 19th best school for Engineering and Technology in 2020.

EPFL(CH) is located in the French-speaking part of Switzerland; the sister institution in the German-speaking part of Switzerland is The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zürich [Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich] (CH). Associated with several specialized research institutes, the two universities form The Domain of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH Domain) [ETH-Bereich; Domaine des Écoles Polytechniques Fédérales] (CH) which is directly dependent on the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research. In connection with research and teaching activities, EPFL(CH) operates a nuclear reactor CROCUS; a Tokamak Fusion reactor; a Blue Gene/Q Supercomputer; and P3 bio-hazard facilities.

ETH Zürich, EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne) [École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne](CH), and four associated research institutes form The Domain of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH Domain) [ETH-Bereich; Domaine des Écoles polytechniques fédérales] (CH) with the aim of collaborating on scientific projects.

The roots of modern-day EPFL(CH) can be traced back to the foundation of a private school under the name École Spéciale de Lausanne in 1853 at the initiative of Lois Rivier, a graduate of the École Centrale Paris (FR) and John Gay the then professor and rector of the Académie de Lausanne. At its inception it had only 11 students and the offices were located at Rue du Valentin in Lausanne. In 1869, it became the technical department of the public Académie de Lausanne. When the Académie was reorganized and acquired the status of a university in 1890, the technical faculty changed its name to École d’Ingénieurs de l’Université de Lausanne. In 1946, it was renamed the École polytechnique de l’Université de Lausanne (EPUL). In 1969, the EPUL was separated from the rest of the University of Lausanne and became a federal institute under its current name. EPFL(CH), like ETH Zürich (CH), is thus directly controlled by the Swiss federal government. In contrast, all other universities in Switzerland are controlled by their respective cantonal governments. Following the nomination of Patrick Aebischer as president in 2000, EPFL(CH) has started to develop into the field of life sciences. It absorbed the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC) in 2008.

In 1946, there were 360 students. In 1969, EPFL(CH) had 1,400 students and 55 professors. In the past two decades the university has grown rapidly and as of 2012 roughly 14,000 people study or work on campus, about 9,300 of these being Bachelor, Master or PhD students. The environment at modern day EPFL(CH) is highly international with the school attracting students and researchers from all over the world. More than 125 countries are represented on the campus and the university has two official languages, French and English.

Organization

EPFL is organized into eight schools, themselves formed of institutes that group research units (laboratories or chairs) around common themes:

School of Basic Sciences
Institute of Mathematics
Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering
Institute of Physics
European Centre of Atomic and Molecular Computations
Bernoulli Center
Biomedical Imaging Research Center
Interdisciplinary Center for Electron Microscopy
MPG-EPFL Centre for Molecular Nanosciences and Technology
Swiss Plasma Center
Laboratory of Astrophysics

School of Engineering

Institute of Electrical Engineering
Institute of Mechanical Engineering
Institute of Materials
Institute of Microengineering
Institute of Bioengineering

School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Institute of Architecture
Civil Engineering Institute
Institute of Urban and Regional Sciences
Environmental Engineering Institute

School of Computer and Communication Sciences

Algorithms & Theoretical Computer Science
Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
Computational Biology
Computer Architecture & Integrated Systems
Data Management & Information Retrieval
Graphics & Vision
Human-Computer Interaction
Information & Communication Theory
Networking
Programming Languages & Formal Methods
Security & Cryptography
Signal & Image Processing
Systems

School of Life Sciences

Bachelor-Master Teaching Section in Life Sciences and Technologies
Brain Mind Institute
Institute of Bioengineering
Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research
Global Health Institute
Ten Technology Platforms & Core Facilities (PTECH)
Center for Phenogenomics
NCCR Synaptic Bases of Mental Diseases

College of Management of Technology

Swiss Finance Institute at EPFL
Section of Management of Technology and Entrepreneurship
Institute of Technology and Public Policy
Institute of Management of Technology and Entrepreneurship
Section of Financial Engineering

College of Humanities

Human and social sciences teaching program

EPFL Middle East

Section of Energy Management and Sustainability

In addition to the eight schools there are seven closely related institutions

Swiss Cancer Centre
Center for Biomedical Imaging (CIBM)
Centre for Advanced Modelling Science (CADMOS)
École Cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL)
Campus Biotech
Wyss Center for Bio- and Neuro-engineering
Swiss National Supercomputing Centre

From The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH): “Electronic metadevices break barriers to ultra-fast communications”

From The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH)

2.17.23
Celia Luterbacher

EPFL researchers have come up with a new approach to electronics that involves engineering metastructures at the sub-wavelength scale. It could launch the next generation of ultra-fast devices for exchanging massive amounts of data, with applications in “6G” communications and beyond. Credit: EPFL.

Until now, the ability to make electronic devices faster has come down to a simple principle: scaling down transistors and other components. But this approach is reaching its limit, as the benefits of shrinking are counterbalanced by detrimental effects like resistance and decreased output power.

Elison Matioli of the Power and Wide-band-gap Electronics Research Lab (POWERlab) in EPFL’s School of Engineering explains that further miniaturization is therefore not a viable solution to better electronics performance. “New papers come out describing smaller and smaller devices, but in the case of materials made from gallium nitride, the best devices in terms of frequency were already published a few years back,” he says. “After that, there is really nothing better, because as device size is reduced, we face fundamental limitations. This is true regardless of the material used.”

In response to this challenge, Matioli and PhD student Mohammad Samizadeh Nikoo came up with a new approach to electronics that could overcome these limitations and enable a new class of terahertz devices. Instead of shrinking their device, they rearranged it, notably by etching patterned contacts called metastructures at sub-wavelength distances onto a semiconductor made of gallium nitride and indium gallium nitride. These metastructures allow the electrical fields inside the device to be controlled, yielding extraordinary properties that do not occur in nature.

Crucially, the device can operate at electromagnetic frequencies in the terahertz range (between 0.3-30 THz) – significantly faster than the gigahertz waves used in today’s electronics. They can therefore carry much greater quantities of information for a given signal or period, giving them great potential for applications in 6G communications and beyond.

“We found that manipulating radiofrequency fields at microscopic scales can significantly boost the performance of electronic devices, without relying on aggressive downscaling,” explains Samizadeh Nikoo, who is the first author of an article on the breakthrough recently published in the journal Nature [below].

Record high frequencies, record low resistance

Because terahertz frequencies are too fast for current electronics to manage and too slow for optics applications this range is often referred to as the ‘terahertz gap’. Using sub-wavelength metastructures to modulate terahertz waves is a technique that comes from the world of optics. But the POWERlab’s method allows for an unprecedented degree of electronic control, unlike the optics approach of shining an external beam of light onto an existing pattern.

“In our electronics-based approach, the ability to control induced radiofrequencies comes from the combination of the sub-wavelength patterned contacts, plus the control of the electronic channel with applied voltage. This means that we can change the collective effect inside the metadevice by inducing electrons (or not),” says Matioli.

While the most advanced devices on the market today can achieve frequencies of up to 2 THz the POWERlab’s metadevices can reach 20 THz. Similarly, today’s devices operating near the terahertz range tend to break down at voltages below 2 volts, while the metadevices can support over 20 volts. This enables the transmission and modulation of terahertz signals with much greater power and frequency than is currently possible.

Integrated solutions

As Samizadeh Nikoo explains, modulating terahertz waves is crucial for the future of telecommunications, as the increasing data requirements of technologies like autonomous vehicles and 6G mobile communications are fast reaching the limits of today’s devices. The electronic metadevices developed in the POWERlab could form the basis for integrated terahertz electronics by producing compact, high-frequency chips that can already be used with smartphones, for example.

“This new technology could change the future of ultra-high-speed communications, as it is compatible with existing processes in semiconductor manufacturing. We have demonstrated data transmission of up to 100 gigabits per second at terahertz frequencies, which is already 10 times higher than what we have today with 5G,” Samizadeh Nikoo says.

To fully realize the potential of the approach, Matioli says the next step is to develop other electronics components ready for integration into terahertz circuits.

“Integrated terahertz electronics are the next frontier for a connected future. But our electronic metadevices are just one component. We need to develop other integrated terahertz components to fully realize the potential of this technology. That is our vision and goal.”

Nature

The evolution of electronics has largely relied on downscaling to meet the continuous needs for faster and highly integrated devices [1*]. As the channel length is reduced, however, classic electronic devices face fundamental issues that hinder exploiting materials to their full potential and, ultimately, further miniaturization [2]. For example, the carrier injection through tunnelling junctions dominates the channel resistance [3], whereas the high parasitic capacitances drastically limit the maximum operating frequency [4]. In addition, these ultra-scaled devices can only hold a few volts due to the extremely high electric fields, which limits their maximum delivered power[5],[6]. Here we challenge such traditional limitations and propose the concept of electronic metadevices, in which the microscopic manipulation of radiofrequency fields results in extraordinary electronic properties. The devices operate on the basis of electrostatic control of collective electromagnetic interactions at deep subwavelength scales, as an alternative to controlling the flow of electrons in traditional devices, such as diodes and transistors. This enables a new class of electronic devices with cutoff frequency figure-of-merit well beyond ten terahertz, record high conductance values, extremely high breakdown voltages and picosecond switching speeds. This work sets the stage for the next generation of ultrafast semiconductor devices and presents a new paradigm that potentially bridges the gap between electronics and optics.

• References to notes in the full science paper, available with institutional credentials.

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

EPFL campus

The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH) is a research institute and university in Lausanne, Switzerland, that specializes in natural sciences and engineering. It is one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, and it has three main missions: education, research and technology transfer.

The QS World University Rankings ranks EPFL(CH) 14th in the world across all fields in their 2020/2021 ranking, whereas Times Higher Education World University Rankings ranks EPFL(CH) as the world’s 19th best school for Engineering and Technology in 2020.

EPFL(CH) is located in the French-speaking part of Switzerland; the sister institution in the German-speaking part of Switzerland is The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zürich [Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich] (CH). Associated with several specialized research institutes, the two universities form The Domain of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH Domain) [ETH-Bereich; Domaine des Écoles Polytechniques Fédérales] (CH) which is directly dependent on the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research. In connection with research and teaching activities, EPFL(CH) operates a nuclear reactor CROCUS; a Tokamak Fusion reactor; a Blue Gene/Q Supercomputer; and P3 bio-hazard facilities.

ETH Zürich, EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne) [École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne](CH), and four associated research institutes form The Domain of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH Domain) [ETH-Bereich; Domaine des Écoles polytechniques fédérales] (CH) with the aim of collaborating on scientific projects.

The roots of modern-day EPFL(CH) can be traced back to the foundation of a private school under the name École Spéciale de Lausanne in 1853 at the initiative of Lois Rivier, a graduate of the École Centrale Paris (FR) and John Gay the then professor and rector of the Académie de Lausanne. At its inception it had only 11 students and the offices were located at Rue du Valentin in Lausanne. In 1869, it became the technical department of the public Académie de Lausanne. When the Académie was reorganized and acquired the status of a university in 1890, the technical faculty changed its name to École d’Ingénieurs de l’Université de Lausanne. In 1946, it was renamed the École polytechnique de l’Université de Lausanne (EPUL). In 1969, the EPUL was separated from the rest of the University of Lausanne and became a federal institute under its current name. EPFL(CH), like ETH Zürich (CH), is thus directly controlled by the Swiss federal government. In contrast, all other universities in Switzerland are controlled by their respective cantonal governments. Following the nomination of Patrick Aebischer as president in 2000, EPFL(CH) has started to develop into the field of life sciences. It absorbed the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC) in 2008.

In 1946, there were 360 students. In 1969, EPFL(CH) had 1,400 students and 55 professors. In the past two decades the university has grown rapidly and as of 2012 roughly 14,000 people study or work on campus, about 9,300 of these being Bachelor, Master or PhD students. The environment at modern day EPFL(CH) is highly international with the school attracting students and researchers from all over the world. More than 125 countries are represented on the campus and the university has two official languages, French and English.

Organization

EPFL is organized into eight schools, themselves formed of institutes that group research units (laboratories or chairs) around common themes:

School of Basic Sciences
Institute of Mathematics
Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering
Institute of Physics
European Centre of Atomic and Molecular Computations
Bernoulli Center
Biomedical Imaging Research Center
Interdisciplinary Center for Electron Microscopy
MPG-EPFL Centre for Molecular Nanosciences and Technology
Swiss Plasma Center
Laboratory of Astrophysics

School of Engineering

Institute of Electrical Engineering
Institute of Mechanical Engineering
Institute of Materials
Institute of Microengineering
Institute of Bioengineering

School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Institute of Architecture
Civil Engineering Institute
Institute of Urban and Regional Sciences
Environmental Engineering Institute

School of Computer and Communication Sciences

Algorithms & Theoretical Computer Science
Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
Computational Biology
Computer Architecture & Integrated Systems
Data Management & Information Retrieval
Graphics & Vision
Human-Computer Interaction
Information & Communication Theory
Networking
Programming Languages & Formal Methods
Security & Cryptography
Signal & Image Processing
Systems

School of Life Sciences

Bachelor-Master Teaching Section in Life Sciences and Technologies
Brain Mind Institute
Institute of Bioengineering
Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research
Global Health Institute
Ten Technology Platforms & Core Facilities (PTECH)
Center for Phenogenomics
NCCR Synaptic Bases of Mental Diseases

College of Management of Technology

Swiss Finance Institute at EPFL
Section of Management of Technology and Entrepreneurship
Institute of Technology and Public Policy
Institute of Management of Technology and Entrepreneurship
Section of Financial Engineering

College of Humanities

Human and social sciences teaching program

EPFL Middle East

Section of Energy Management and Sustainability

In addition to the eight schools there are seven closely related institutions

Swiss Cancer Centre
Center for Biomedical Imaging (CIBM)
Centre for Advanced Modelling Science (CADMOS)
École Cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL)
Campus Biotech
Wyss Center for Bio- and Neuro-engineering
Swiss National Supercomputing Centre

From The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH): “Tossing coins to understand spheres”

From The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH)

2.14.23
Nik Papageorgiou

EPFL mathematicians, in collaboration with Purdue University, have settled a 30-year-old question about spheres and 4-dimensional spaces. The results bring new light to the “Euler Class,” one of the most powerful tools to understand complicated spaces.

For mathematicians “Euler Class” is one of the most powerful tools for understanding complicated spaces by cutting them into simpler pieces. It is named after Swiss mathematician Leonard Euler who was the first to consider the idea.

“Just like something as complex as DNA is ultimately made of simple atoms, it is how these simple pieces are assembled that contains the important information rather than the pieces themselves,” says Professor Nicolas Monod, who leads the Ergodic and Geometric Group Theory research unit at EPFL. His group joined forces with colleagues at Purdue University to solve an old question about spheres. The answer has been published the leading mathematics journal Inventiones [below].

In 1958, Fields medalist John Milnor noticed a problem when trying to build spaces using only circles and two-dimensional surfaces: there was a limit on how complicated the Euler class can be in two dimensions. The observation snowballed into an entire field of research in higher dimensions, and mathematicians quickly realized that Milnor’s “complexity bound” didn’t apply for spaces in all dimensions.

Monod explains: “A question that had remained open for decades was, what about gluing spheres on 4-dimensional spaces? Is there also here a limit on how they fit together?” He continues: “Gluing spheres on 4-dimensional spaces is a particularly important construction because this is precisely how the very first ‘exotic spheres’ have been constructed!”

Classical approaches of understanding spaces have proven unable to solve this 4-dimensional question. So the EPFL mathematicians turned to the Bernoulli process, named after Swiss mathematician Jacob Bernoulli, for inspiration. The Bernoulli process, which is a model of tossing coins, was combined with the study of spheres and the Euler class to finally solve the question.

“A very curious thing happened when we set out to solve this problem,” says Monod. “If it remained unsolved for so long, it is perhaps because none of the classical methods used to understand spaces seemed to be able to crack this specific question about 4 dimensions. Instead, we turned to an unlikely source for inspiration: tossing coins!”

As a game with a 50-50 chance to guess the right side of a coin, this might seem very simple, but its simplicity is misleading. “The Bernoulli process already includes many of the advanced features of probability theory when we set out to repeat the toss more and more often,” says Monod. “In fact, the Central Limit Theorem – which is a kind of Law of Large Numbers – even tells us that this simple model can emulate many of the most complicated random phenomena of nature if we are willing to toss enough coins for long enough.”

Probability and random processes might seem not to have much to do with the the analysis of higher dimensions in space, but mathematics is as much a creative art as a science. “Earlier this year, we published [Geometric and Functional Analysis (below)] the discovery that Bernoulli’s random coin games can help solve some difficult algebraic questions, very much non-random questions,” says Monod. “This has now been combined with the study of spheres and the Euler Class to finally solve the old question about 4-dimensional spaces: no, there is no limit at all to the size of the Euler class for spheres in four dimensions.”

“So the coins came to the rescue of algebra and geometry, and Bernoulli visits the Euler class: indeed, mathematicians do things differently,” he concludes.

Inventiones
Geometric and Functional Analysis

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

EPFL campus

The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH) is a research institute and university in Lausanne, Switzerland, that specializes in natural sciences and engineering. It is one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, and it has three main missions: education, research and technology transfer.

The QS World University Rankings ranks EPFL(CH) 14th in the world across all fields in their 2020/2021 ranking, whereas Times Higher Education World University Rankings ranks EPFL(CH) as the world’s 19th best school for Engineering and Technology in 2020.

EPFL(CH) is located in the French-speaking part of Switzerland; the sister institution in the German-speaking part of Switzerland is The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zürich [Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich] (CH). Associated with several specialized research institutes, the two universities form The Domain of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH Domain) [ETH-Bereich; Domaine des Écoles Polytechniques Fédérales] (CH) which is directly dependent on the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research. In connection with research and teaching activities, EPFL(CH) operates a nuclear reactor CROCUS; a Tokamak Fusion reactor; a Blue Gene/Q Supercomputer; and P3 bio-hazard facilities.

ETH Zürich, EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne) [École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne](CH), and four associated research institutes form The Domain of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH Domain) [ETH-Bereich; Domaine des Écoles polytechniques fédérales] (CH) with the aim of collaborating on scientific projects.

The roots of modern-day EPFL(CH) can be traced back to the foundation of a private school under the name École Spéciale de Lausanne in 1853 at the initiative of Lois Rivier, a graduate of the École Centrale Paris (FR) and John Gay the then professor and rector of the Académie de Lausanne. At its inception it had only 11 students and the offices were located at Rue du Valentin in Lausanne. In 1869, it became the technical department of the public Académie de Lausanne. When the Académie was reorganized and acquired the status of a university in 1890, the technical faculty changed its name to École d’Ingénieurs de l’Université de Lausanne. In 1946, it was renamed the École polytechnique de l’Université de Lausanne (EPUL). In 1969, the EPUL was separated from the rest of the University of Lausanne and became a federal institute under its current name. EPFL(CH), like ETH Zürich (CH), is thus directly controlled by the Swiss federal government. In contrast, all other universities in Switzerland are controlled by their respective cantonal governments. Following the nomination of Patrick Aebischer as president in 2000, EPFL(CH) has started to develop into the field of life sciences. It absorbed the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC) in 2008.

In 1946, there were 360 students. In 1969, EPFL(CH) had 1,400 students and 55 professors. In the past two decades the university has grown rapidly and as of 2012 roughly 14,000 people study or work on campus, about 9,300 of these being Bachelor, Master or PhD students. The environment at modern day EPFL(CH) is highly international with the school attracting students and researchers from all over the world. More than 125 countries are represented on the campus and the university has two official languages, French and English.

Organization

EPFL is organized into eight schools, themselves formed of institutes that group research units (laboratories or chairs) around common themes:

School of Basic Sciences
Institute of Mathematics
Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering
Institute of Physics
European Centre of Atomic and Molecular Computations
Bernoulli Center
Biomedical Imaging Research Center
Interdisciplinary Center for Electron Microscopy
MPG-EPFL Centre for Molecular Nanosciences and Technology
Swiss Plasma Center
Laboratory of Astrophysics

School of Engineering

Institute of Electrical Engineering
Institute of Mechanical Engineering
Institute of Materials
Institute of Microengineering
Institute of Bioengineering

School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Institute of Architecture
Civil Engineering Institute
Institute of Urban and Regional Sciences
Environmental Engineering Institute

School of Computer and Communication Sciences

Algorithms & Theoretical Computer Science
Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
Computational Biology
Computer Architecture & Integrated Systems
Data Management & Information Retrieval
Graphics & Vision
Human-Computer Interaction
Information & Communication Theory
Networking
Programming Languages & Formal Methods
Security & Cryptography
Signal & Image Processing
Systems

School of Life Sciences

Bachelor-Master Teaching Section in Life Sciences and Technologies
Brain Mind Institute
Institute of Bioengineering
Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research
Global Health Institute
Ten Technology Platforms & Core Facilities (PTECH)
Center for Phenogenomics
NCCR Synaptic Bases of Mental Diseases

College of Management of Technology

Swiss Finance Institute at EPFL
Section of Management of Technology and Entrepreneurship
Institute of Technology and Public Policy
Institute of Management of Technology and Entrepreneurship
Section of Financial Engineering

College of Humanities

Human and social sciences teaching program

EPFL Middle East

Section of Energy Management and Sustainability

In addition to the eight schools there are seven closely related institutions

Swiss Cancer Centre
Center for Biomedical Imaging (CIBM)
Centre for Advanced Modelling Science (CADMOS)
École Cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL)
Campus Biotech
Wyss Center for Bio- and Neuro-engineering
Swiss National Supercomputing Centre

From The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH): “Chromo-encryption method encodes secrets with color”

From The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH)

2.13.23
Celia Luterbacher

In a new approach to security that unites technology and art, EPFL researchers have combined silver nanostructures with polarized light to yield a range of brilliant colors which can be used to encode messages.

Cryptography is something of a new field for Olivier Martin, who has been studying the optics of nanostructures for many years as head of the Nanophotonics and Metrology Lab EPFL’s School of Engineering. But after developing some new silver nanostructures in collaboration with the Center of MicroNanoTechnology, Martin and PhD student Hsiang-Chu Wang noticed that these nanostructures reacted to polarized light in an unexpected way, which just happened to be perfect for encoding information.

They found that when polarized light was shone through the nanostructures from certain direction a range of vivid and easily-identifiable colors was reflected back. These different colors could be assigned numbers, which could then be used to represent letters using the electronic communication standard code ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange). To encode a secret message, the researchers applied a quaternary code using the digits 0, 1, 2 and 3 (as opposed to the more commonly used binary code 0 and 1). The result was a series of four-digit strings composed of different color combinations that could be used to spell out a message, and the method of chromo-encryption was born.

For example, using their system, the color sequence orange, yellow, red, white represented the digits 1, 0, 2, 0, respectively; a string of numbers which in turn coded for the letter ‘H’ in the secret test message ‘Hello!’.

“Each color code is not unique, meaning that the same digit – 0, 1, 2 or 3 – may represent a different color. This means the encryption system is even more secure, because the chance of guessing the correct code sequence is smaller,” Martin explains. The lab’s results have recently been published in the journal Advanced Optical Materials [below].

The top row represents the message “Hello!” in quaternary code, which is revealed when the silver nanostructures are illuminated with the correct polarization. The bottom two rows display incorrect sequences when incorrect polarization keys are used. © NAM EPFL.

A surprising response to light

At the heart of the new method lies the silver nanostructures’ unique reaction to polarized light. The different hues that the researchers observed were first produced by varying the length and position of the nanostructures. Next, the researchers shone polarized light onto them, meaning that the light waves oscillated in controlled directions (vertically, horizontally, or diagonally). Depending on the polarization direction, the light reflected from the nanostructures changed from dull to vivid, yielding robust colors that were then sent through a second polarizer for analysis.

Crucially, in the chromo-encryption method, only the correct combination of polarization directions would reveal the secret message; light polarized in any other direction would reveal a series of colors corresponding to a nonsense message.

Martin explains that to their surprise, the nanostructures exhibited what is known as a chiral response, as they reflected the polarized light in a different direction than the excitation itself. In physics and chemistry, chirality – or the properties of a material that arise from its geometric asymmetry – is an important and well-studied functional aspect of molecules like proteins. But it was not expected to be seen in the symmetrical silver nanostructures.

“Chirality is a concept that is often misused, and is difficult to nail down. The fundamental aspect of chirality in simple geometries like those exhibited by our nanostructures is a key finding of this study.”

Combining technology with the human eye

In addition to encoding messages, the researchers demonstrated that they could use their method to reproduce a painting – in this case, Picasso’s Mediterranean Landscape – at the nanometer scale. To achieve this, they replaced the pixels of a digital reproduction of the painting with their silver nanostructures. Just as with the chromo-encryption method, the artwork was only revealed when light polarized in the correct direction was shone onto the “nano-painting”.

Optical image of a nano-printing of Picasso’s “Mediterranean Landscape” (reproduced with permission © Succession Picasso/2022, ProLitteris, Zürich) when using an incorrect polarization key. NAM EPFL

Optical image of a nano-printing of Picasso’s “Mediterranean Landscape” (reproduced with permission © Succession Picasso/2022, ProLitteris, Zürich) when using the correct polarization key. © NAM EPFL

Martin says he believes that the method’s combination of nanotechnology with human visual perception has a lot of potential both for artistic applications and encryption techniques, such as more secure banknotes.

“Nanomaterials and color are at the crossroads of high-tech and artistry, and I find that very appealing. Using nanostructures, you can encode a huge amount of information onto an extremely small area, so there is the potential for very high information density. At the same time, an approach to encryption that can be read and interpreted by the naked human eye, as opposed to a computer, could be advantageous.”

Advanced Optical Materials

Figure 1

Color contrast controlled by polarization. a) Readout principle: each color pixel contains a rectangular Ag nanostructure (scale bar 300 nm). The incident polarization is controlled with a polarizer and the scattered light goes through another polarizer (analyzer). b) Muted colors with low chroma are generated when the polarizer and analyzer are parallel to the nanostructures axis (horizontal polarization). c) When rotating both polarizers perpendicular to the nanostructures axis, all the colors appear greyish (vertical polarization). d) When both polarizers are rotated by 45°, along the diagonal direction, vivid and saturated colors are observed.

Figure 2

Colors controlled by the illumination and detection polarizations. a) Unit cell used in this work, with the nanorod aligned horizontally. b) Titled SEM image of a typical fabricated sample, scale bar 300 nm. c) Computed reflectances
and phases for different combinations of the illumination polarization α and the detection polarization β. Phase shift between the incident and the reflected lights, induced by the sample (see text for details). d) Polarization states of reflected light (red arrows) as a function τ under diagonal polarization illumination (black arrows). e) Computed reflectances for diagonal polarized illumination and four different detection polarizations. f) Measured reflectance for the sample in (b) for different polarization combinations. Panels (c)–(f) are for L = 100 nm.

See the science paper for further illustrations.

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

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Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

EPFL campus

The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH) is a research institute and university in Lausanne, Switzerland, that specializes in natural sciences and engineering. It is one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, and it has three main missions: education, research and technology transfer.

The QS World University Rankings ranks EPFL(CH) 14th in the world across all fields in their 2020/2021 ranking, whereas Times Higher Education World University Rankings ranks EPFL(CH) as the world’s 19th best school for Engineering and Technology in 2020.

EPFL(CH) is located in the French-speaking part of Switzerland; the sister institution in the German-speaking part of Switzerland is The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zürich [Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich] (CH). Associated with several specialized research institutes, the two universities form The Domain of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH Domain) [ETH-Bereich; Domaine des Écoles Polytechniques Fédérales] (CH) which is directly dependent on the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research. In connection with research and teaching activities, EPFL(CH) operates a nuclear reactor CROCUS; a Tokamak Fusion reactor; a Blue Gene/Q Supercomputer; and P3 bio-hazard facilities.

ETH Zürich, EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne) [École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne](CH), and four associated research institutes form The Domain of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH Domain) [ETH-Bereich; Domaine des Écoles polytechniques fédérales] (CH) with the aim of collaborating on scientific projects.

The roots of modern-day EPFL(CH) can be traced back to the foundation of a private school under the name École Spéciale de Lausanne in 1853 at the initiative of Lois Rivier, a graduate of the École Centrale Paris (FR) and John Gay the then professor and rector of the Académie de Lausanne. At its inception it had only 11 students and the offices were located at Rue du Valentin in Lausanne. In 1869, it became the technical department of the public Académie de Lausanne. When the Académie was reorganized and acquired the status of a university in 1890, the technical faculty changed its name to École d’Ingénieurs de l’Université de Lausanne. In 1946, it was renamed the École polytechnique de l’Université de Lausanne (EPUL). In 1969, the EPUL was separated from the rest of the University of Lausanne and became a federal institute under its current name. EPFL(CH), like ETH Zürich (CH), is thus directly controlled by the Swiss federal government. In contrast, all other universities in Switzerland are controlled by their respective cantonal governments. Following the nomination of Patrick Aebischer as president in 2000, EPFL(CH) has started to develop into the field of life sciences. It absorbed the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC) in 2008.

In 1946, there were 360 students. In 1969, EPFL(CH) had 1,400 students and 55 professors. In the past two decades the university has grown rapidly and as of 2012 roughly 14,000 people study or work on campus, about 9,300 of these being Bachelor, Master or PhD students. The environment at modern day EPFL(CH) is highly international with the school attracting students and researchers from all over the world. More than 125 countries are represented on the campus and the university has two official languages, French and English.

Organization

EPFL is organized into eight schools, themselves formed of institutes that group research units (laboratories or chairs) around common themes:

School of Basic Sciences
Institute of Mathematics
Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering
Institute of Physics
European Centre of Atomic and Molecular Computations
Bernoulli Center
Biomedical Imaging Research Center
Interdisciplinary Center for Electron Microscopy
MPG-EPFL Centre for Molecular Nanosciences and Technology
Swiss Plasma Center
Laboratory of Astrophysics

School of Engineering

Institute of Electrical Engineering
Institute of Mechanical Engineering
Institute of Materials
Institute of Microengineering
Institute of Bioengineering

School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Institute of Architecture
Civil Engineering Institute
Institute of Urban and Regional Sciences
Environmental Engineering Institute

School of Computer and Communication Sciences

Algorithms & Theoretical Computer Science
Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
Computational Biology
Computer Architecture & Integrated Systems
Data Management & Information Retrieval
Graphics & Vision
Human-Computer Interaction
Information & Communication Theory
Networking
Programming Languages & Formal Methods
Security & Cryptography
Signal & Image Processing
Systems

School of Life Sciences

Bachelor-Master Teaching Section in Life Sciences and Technologies
Brain Mind Institute
Institute of Bioengineering
Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research
Global Health Institute
Ten Technology Platforms & Core Facilities (PTECH)
Center for Phenogenomics
NCCR Synaptic Bases of Mental Diseases

College of Management of Technology

Swiss Finance Institute at EPFL
Section of Management of Technology and Entrepreneurship
Institute of Technology and Public Policy
Institute of Management of Technology and Entrepreneurship
Section of Financial Engineering

College of Humanities

Human and social sciences teaching program

EPFL Middle East

Section of Energy Management and Sustainability

In addition to the eight schools there are seven closely related institutions

Swiss Cancer Centre
Center for Biomedical Imaging (CIBM)
Centre for Advanced Modelling Science (CADMOS)
École Cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL)
Campus Biotech
Wyss Center for Bio- and Neuro-engineering
Swiss National Supercomputing Centre

From The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH): “Ultrafast control of spins in a microscope”

From The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH)

1.27.23
Nik Papageorgiou

Researchers at EPFL have developed a new technique that can visualize and control the rotation of a handful of spins arranged in a vortex-like texture at the fastest speed ever achieved. The breakthrough can advance “spintronics”, a technology that includes new types of computer memory, logic gates, and high-precision sensors.

“Technological advancements in computation, data storage and sensing all require new techniques to control the nanoscaled magnetic properties of materials,” says Professor Fabrizio Carbone at EPFL’s School of Basic Sciences. One of these properties is “spin”, which refers to the magnetic orientation of individual atoms.

Spin has attracted a lot of interest in recent years, giving rise to the field of spin electronics or “spintronics”. Apart from the fundamental study of spin, the more practical aim of spintronics is to exploit not just the charge of electrons – as in traditional electronics – but also their spin, adding and extra degree of freedom that can improve the efficiency of data storage and transfer.

However, this first requires that we can control small numbers of spins. “The visualization and deterministic control of very few spins has not yet been achieved at the ultrafast timescales,” says Dr Phoebe Tengdin, a postdoc in Carbone’s lab, pointing out the very tight timeframes that this control needs to happen for spintronics to ever make the leap into applications.

Now, Tengdin along with PhD student Benoit Truc and fellow postdoc Dr Alexey Sapozhnik have developed a new technique that can visualize and control the rotation of a handful of spins arranged in a vortex-like texture, a kind of spin “nano-whirlpool” called a skyrmion.

To do this, the scientists used sequences of laser pulses at a femtosecond timeframe (10^-15 or a quadrillionth of a second). By arranging the laser pulses apart just right, they were able to control the rotation of spins in a selenium-copper mineral known in the field by its chemical composition, Cu2OSeO3. The mineral is quite popular in the field of spintronics, as it provides an ideal testbed for studying spins.

Controlling the spins with laser pulses, the researchers found that they could even switch their orientation at will by simply changing the delay time between successive driving pulses and adjusting the laser polarization.

Temporal evolution of spin distribution (on the left) for a sequence of laser pulses (on the right).

But the study didn’t stop there. By using a type of transmission electron microscope that can “see” nanoscale dimensions, the team were also able to actually image the spin changes. The breakthrough has enormous implications for the fundamental aspects of spintronics.

The work offers the field a new protocol for controlling magnetic textures at ultrafast timescales, and opens up exciting new opportunities for spin switches in next-generation information storage devices.

“Our experiments demonstrate that it is possible to manipulate and image a handful of spins at very high speed using a moderate intensity light beam,” says Tengdin. “Such an effect can be exploited in low-consumption ultrafast devices operating on spins. New types of memories or logic gates are possible candidates, as are high-precision sensors.”

Physical Review X

Other contributors

Anhui University
EPFL Laboratory of Quantum Measurements
EPFL Crystal Growth Facility
EPFL Laboratory of Nanoscale Magnetic Materials and Magnonics
University of New Hampshire
University of Cologne

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

EPFL campus

The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH) is a research institute and university in Lausanne, Switzerland, that specializes in natural sciences and engineering. It is one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, and it has three main missions: education, research and technology transfer.

The QS World University Rankings ranks EPFL(CH) 14th in the world across all fields in their 2020/2021 ranking, whereas Times Higher Education World University Rankings ranks EPFL(CH) as the world’s 19th best school for Engineering and Technology in 2020.

EPFL(CH) is located in the French-speaking part of Switzerland; the sister institution in the German-speaking part of Switzerland is The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zürich [Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich] (CH). Associated with several specialized research institutes, the two universities form The Domain of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH Domain) [ETH-Bereich; Domaine des Écoles Polytechniques Fédérales] (CH) which is directly dependent on the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research. In connection with research and teaching activities, EPFL(CH) operates a nuclear reactor CROCUS; a Tokamak Fusion reactor; a Blue Gene/Q Supercomputer; and P3 bio-hazard facilities.

ETH Zürich, EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne) [École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne](CH), and four associated research institutes form The Domain of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH Domain) [ETH-Bereich; Domaine des Écoles polytechniques fédérales] (CH) with the aim of collaborating on scientific projects.

The roots of modern-day EPFL(CH) can be traced back to the foundation of a private school under the name École Spéciale de Lausanne in 1853 at the initiative of Lois Rivier, a graduate of the École Centrale Paris (FR) and John Gay the then professor and rector of the Académie de Lausanne. At its inception it had only 11 students and the offices were located at Rue du Valentin in Lausanne. In 1869, it became the technical department of the public Académie de Lausanne. When the Académie was reorganized and acquired the status of a university in 1890, the technical faculty changed its name to École d’Ingénieurs de l’Université de Lausanne. In 1946, it was renamed the École polytechnique de l’Université de Lausanne (EPUL). In 1969, the EPUL was separated from the rest of the University of Lausanne and became a federal institute under its current name. EPFL(CH), like ETH Zürich (CH), is thus directly controlled by the Swiss federal government. In contrast, all other universities in Switzerland are controlled by their respective cantonal governments. Following the nomination of Patrick Aebischer as president in 2000, EPFL(CH) has started to develop into the field of life sciences. It absorbed the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC) in 2008.

In 1946, there were 360 students. In 1969, EPFL(CH) had 1,400 students and 55 professors. In the past two decades the university has grown rapidly and as of 2012 roughly 14,000 people study or work on campus, about 9,300 of these being Bachelor, Master or PhD students. The environment at modern day EPFL(CH) is highly international with the school attracting students and researchers from all over the world. More than 125 countries are represented on the campus and the university has two official languages, French and English.

Organization

EPFL is organized into eight schools, themselves formed of institutes that group research units (laboratories or chairs) around common themes:

School of Basic Sciences
Institute of Mathematics
Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering
Institute of Physics
European Centre of Atomic and Molecular Computations
Bernoulli Center
Biomedical Imaging Research Center
Interdisciplinary Center for Electron Microscopy
MPG-EPFL Centre for Molecular Nanosciences and Technology
Swiss Plasma Center
Laboratory of Astrophysics

School of Engineering

Institute of Electrical Engineering
Institute of Mechanical Engineering
Institute of Materials
Institute of Microengineering
Institute of Bioengineering

School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Institute of Architecture
Civil Engineering Institute
Institute of Urban and Regional Sciences
Environmental Engineering Institute

School of Computer and Communication Sciences

Algorithms & Theoretical Computer Science
Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
Computational Biology
Computer Architecture & Integrated Systems
Data Management & Information Retrieval
Graphics & Vision
Human-Computer Interaction
Information & Communication Theory
Networking
Programming Languages & Formal Methods
Security & Cryptography
Signal & Image Processing
Systems

School of Life Sciences

Bachelor-Master Teaching Section in Life Sciences and Technologies
Brain Mind Institute
Institute of Bioengineering
Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research
Global Health Institute
Ten Technology Platforms & Core Facilities (PTECH)
Center for Phenogenomics
NCCR Synaptic Bases of Mental Diseases

College of Management of Technology

Swiss Finance Institute at EPFL
Section of Management of Technology and Entrepreneurship
Institute of Technology and Public Policy
Institute of Management of Technology and Entrepreneurship
Section of Financial Engineering

College of Humanities

Human and social sciences teaching program

EPFL Middle East

Section of Energy Management and Sustainability

In addition to the eight schools there are seven closely related institutions

Swiss Cancer Centre
Center for Biomedical Imaging (CIBM)
Centre for Advanced Modelling Science (CADMOS)
École Cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL)
Campus Biotech
Wyss Center for Bio- and Neuro-engineering
Swiss National Supercomputing Centre

From The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH): “Why rivers matter for the global carbon cycle”

From The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH)

1.19.23
Rebecca Mosimann

In a new journal article, EPFL professor Tom Battin reviews our current understanding of carbon fluxes in the world’s river networks. He demonstrates their central role in the global carbon cycle and argues for the creation of a global River Observation System.

Until recently, our understanding of the global carbon cycle was largely limited to the world’s oceans and terrestrial ecosystems. Tom Battin, who heads EPFL’s River Ecosystems Laboratory (RIVER), has now shed new light on the key role that river networks play in our changing world. These findings are outlined in a review article commissioned by Nature [below].

Battin, a full professor at EPFL’s School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC), persuaded a dozen experts in the field to contribute to the article. For the first time, their research combines the most recent data to demonstrate the critical importance of river ecosystems for global carbon fluxes — integrating land, atmosphere and the oceans.

A sensor network studies the biogeochemistry of streams in the Swiss Alps.© Nicolas Deluigi.

Calculating carbon fluxes
In their article, the authors highlight the role of the global river ecosystem metabolism. “River ecosystems have a much more complex metabolism than the human body,” explains Battin. “They produce both oxygen and CO2 through the combined effect of microbial respiration and plant photosynthesis. It’s important to fully appreciate the underlying mechanisms, so that we can evaluate and quantify the impact of the ecosystem metabolism on carbon fluxes.” Pierre Regnier, a professor at Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) and one of the contributing authors, adds: “Understanding river ecosystem metabolism is an essential first step towards better measuring the carbon cycle, since this metabolism determines the exchange of oxygen and greenhouse gases with the air. Scientists already have recent aggregate estimates for lakes, coastal environments and the open oceans. Our research adds the missing piece to the puzzle, paving the way to a comprehensive, integrated, quantified picture of this key process for our ‘blue planet.’” The researchers arrived at their findings by compiling global data on river ecosystem respiration and plant photosynthesis.

Their findings point to a clear link between river ecosystem metabolism and the global carbon cycle. While routing water toward the oceans, river ecosystem metabolism consumes organic carbon derived from terrestrial ecosystems, which produces CO2 emitted into the atmosphere. Residual organic carbon that is not metabolized makes its way into the oceans, together with CO2 that is not emitted into the atmosphere. These riverine inputs of carbon can influence the biogeochemistry of the coastal waters.

Battin and his colleagues also discuss how global change, particularly climate change, urbanization, land use change and flow regulation, including dams, affect river ecosystem metabolism and related greenhouse gas fluxes. For instance, rivers that drain agricultural lands receive massive amounts of nitrogen from fertilizers. Elevated nitrogen concentrations, coupled with rising temperatures owing to global warming, can cause eutrophication – a process that leads to the formation of algal blooms. As these algae die, they stimulate the production of methane and nitrous oxide, greenhouse gases that are even more potent than CO2. Dams can also exacerbate eutrophication, potentially leading to even higher greenhouse gas emissions.

Tom Battin, head of EPFL’s River Ecosystems Laboratory (RIVER).© Alain Herzog.

A new river observation system
The authors conclude their article by underlining the necessity for a global River Observing System (RIOS) to better quantify and predict the role of rivers for the global carbon cycle. RIOS will integrate data from sensors networks in the rivers and satellite imagery with mathematical models to generate near-real time carbon fluxes related to river ecosystem metabolism. “Thereby, RIOS would serve as a diagnostic tool, allowing us to ‘take the pulse’ of river ecosystems and respond to human disturbances,” says Battin. “River networks are comparable to our vascular systems that we monitor for health purposes. It is time now to monitor the health of the world’s river networks’. The message couldn’t be clearer.

EPFL River Ecosystems Laboratory

Owing to global change, the ecological integrity of streams and rivers is at threat worldwide. At EPFL’s River Ecosystems Laboratory (RIVER), we conduct insight-driven and fundamental research that cuts across the physical, chemical and biological domains of alpine stream ecosystems. We study biofilms, the dominant form of microbial life in streams, including the structure and function of their microbiome, and their orchestration of ecosystem processes. We also study stream ecosystem processes and biogeochemistry, including whole-ecosystem metabolism and related carbon fluxes — from the small to the global scale. We blend environmental sciences and ecology, and combine fieldwork with experiments and modeling to gain a better mechanistic understanding of stream ecosystem functioning.

Nature – River ecosystem metabolism and carbon biogeochemistry in a changing world

See the full article here .

Comments are invited and will be appreciated, especially if the reader finds any errors which I can correct. Use “Reply”.

five-ways-keep-your-child-safe-school-shootings

Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

EPFL campus

The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH) is a research institute and university in Lausanne, Switzerland, that specializes in natural sciences and engineering. It is one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, and it has three main missions: education, research and technology transfer.

The QS World University Rankings ranks EPFL(CH) 14th in the world across all fields in their 2020/2021 ranking, whereas Times Higher Education World University Rankings ranks EPFL(CH) as the world’s 19th best school for Engineering and Technology in 2020.

EPFL(CH) is located in the French-speaking part of Switzerland; the sister institution in the German-speaking part of Switzerland is The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zürich [Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich] (CH). Associated with several specialized research institutes, the two universities form The Domain of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH Domain) [ETH-Bereich; Domaine des Écoles Polytechniques Fédérales] (CH) which is directly dependent on the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research. In connection with research and teaching activities, EPFL(CH) operates a nuclear reactor CROCUS; a Tokamak Fusion reactor; a Blue Gene/Q Supercomputer; and P3 bio-hazard facilities.

ETH Zürich, EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne) [École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne](CH), and four associated research institutes form The Domain of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH Domain) [ETH-Bereich; Domaine des Écoles polytechniques fédérales] (CH) with the aim of collaborating on scientific projects.

The roots of modern-day EPFL(CH) can be traced back to the foundation of a private school under the name École Spéciale de Lausanne in 1853 at the initiative of Lois Rivier, a graduate of the École Centrale Paris (FR) and John Gay the then professor and rector of the Académie de Lausanne. At its inception it had only 11 students and the offices were located at Rue du Valentin in Lausanne. In 1869, it became the technical department of the public Académie de Lausanne. When the Académie was reorganized and acquired the status of a university in 1890, the technical faculty changed its name to École d’Ingénieurs de l’Université de Lausanne. In 1946, it was renamed the École polytechnique de l’Université de Lausanne (EPUL). In 1969, the EPUL was separated from the rest of the University of Lausanne and became a federal institute under its current name. EPFL(CH), like ETH Zürich (CH), is thus directly controlled by the Swiss federal government. In contrast, all other universities in Switzerland are controlled by their respective cantonal governments. Following the nomination of Patrick Aebischer as president in 2000, EPFL(CH) has started to develop into the field of life sciences. It absorbed the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC) in 2008.

In 1946, there were 360 students. In 1969, EPFL(CH) had 1,400 students and 55 professors. In the past two decades the university has grown rapidly and as of 2012 roughly 14,000 people study or work on campus, about 9,300 of these being Bachelor, Master or PhD students. The environment at modern day EPFL(CH) is highly international with the school attracting students and researchers from all over the world. More than 125 countries are represented on the campus and the university has two official languages, French and English.

Organization

EPFL is organized into eight schools, themselves formed of institutes that group research units (laboratories or chairs) around common themes:

School of Basic Sciences
Institute of Mathematics
Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering
Institute of Physics
European Centre of Atomic and Molecular Computations
Bernoulli Center
Biomedical Imaging Research Center
Interdisciplinary Center for Electron Microscopy
MPG-EPFL Centre for Molecular Nanosciences and Technology
Swiss Plasma Center
Laboratory of Astrophysics

School of Engineering

Institute of Electrical Engineering
Institute of Mechanical Engineering
Institute of Materials
Institute of Microengineering
Institute of Bioengineering

School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Institute of Architecture
Civil Engineering Institute
Institute of Urban and Regional Sciences
Environmental Engineering Institute

School of Computer and Communication Sciences

Algorithms & Theoretical Computer Science
Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
Computational Biology
Computer Architecture & Integrated Systems
Data Management & Information Retrieval
Graphics & Vision
Human-Computer Interaction
Information & Communication Theory
Networking
Programming Languages & Formal Methods
Security & Cryptography
Signal & Image Processing
Systems

School of Life Sciences

Bachelor-Master Teaching Section in Life Sciences and Technologies
Brain Mind Institute
Institute of Bioengineering
Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research
Global Health Institute
Ten Technology Platforms & Core Facilities (PTECH)
Center for Phenogenomics
NCCR Synaptic Bases of Mental Diseases

College of Management of Technology

Swiss Finance Institute at EPFL
Section of Management of Technology and Entrepreneurship
Institute of Technology and Public Policy
Institute of Management of Technology and Entrepreneurship
Section of Financial Engineering

College of Humanities

Human and social sciences teaching program

EPFL Middle East

Section of Energy Management and Sustainability

In addition to the eight schools there are seven closely related institutions

Swiss Cancer Centre
Center for Biomedical Imaging (CIBM)
Centre for Advanced Modelling Science (CADMOS)
École Cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL)
Campus Biotech
Wyss Center for Bio- and Neuro-engineering
Swiss National Supercomputing Centre

From The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH): “A tool to detect higher-order phenomena in real-world data”

From The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH)

1.16.23
Celia Luterbacher

EPFL researchers have developed a novel approach to network analysis that allows them to reveal and interpret, for the first time, interactions among multiple variables in data from neuroscience, economics, and epidemiology.

Many phenomena – brain signals, stock prices, or COVID hospitalizations, for example – can be studied using time series data, which are collected as repeated measurements over a given time interval. Most tools for interpreting such data rely on what is known as pairwise statistics, which takes into account the interaction between two variables. But in the real world, events are often dependent on more than just two variables.

“Imagine a conversation in a pub between two people versus three or four, or imagine the interactions between a couple versus a couple with a child; the dynamics change completely the more variables you add,” explains Enrico Amico of the Medical Image Processing Lab (MIP:Lab). Amico is currently an SNSF Ambizione scholar hosted by the lab, which is run jointly between EPFL’s School of Engineering and the University of Geneva Faculty of Medicine.

“As a computational neuroscientist, I know that neuronal activity is coordinated by many different parts of the brain, but when I collect brain data, I am only able to analyze time series data related to pairs of network nodes; I cannot analyze higher-order (or group) interactions,” he says.

Recognizing the need for an improved computational framework for interpreting the complexity of real-world phenomena, Amico and Andrea Santoro of the Neuro-X Institute collaborated with colleagues from Austria’s Central European University and Italy’s CENTAI Institute to create a method for analyzing the higher-order organization of multivariate time series data. Their groundbreaking work has been published in Nature Physics [below].

“Simply put, we developed a method to detect and infer higher-order information from real data. This is part of an exciting new branch of higher-order mathematics with potential applications in many real-world systems, from neuroscience, finance, and epidemiology to medicine, climate science, ecology – anything, really,” Amico says.

Revealing multivariate interactions with data ‘Polaroids’

The researchers applied their new methodology to three complex real-world datasets on brain activity, stock price fluctuations, and 20th-century epidemics. Their higher-order approach was able to distinguish major features in each regime that could not be detected by standard pairwise statistics. As Amico puts it, each time series measurement acted as a kind of three-dimensional data “Polaroid”, or snapshot of the spatial configuration of the system under study.

For example, in the case of brain activity, the researchers’ multivariate time series method was able to detect oscillations between chaotic and synchronized neural interactions occurring in a brain at rest. Similarly, in the economic example, their method was better able to distinguish between periods of financial stability and crisis. In the epidemiological example, the researchers were even able to detect interactions between the spread of different diseases, like flu and pertussis.

“You might imagine that epidemics spread independently, but with our approach, we were able to classify different diseases with better accuracy, and even see how the spread of one interacted with the spread of another.”
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Computing power – and creativity – is key

Amico explains that the reason multivariate computations have not previously been attempted is largely down to recent advances in computing power. While the concept of multivariate time series analysis is simple enough, it is much easier said than done, as the complexity of the mathematical modelling grows exponentially with each added variable.

“We are able to use ancient mathematics in new ways thanks to modern computing power, and access to big data. Computing power is key – and so is creativity. We are creating a new mathematics, and creative thinking is important for tackling these issues.”

So, when it comes to the number of variables that can be analyzed concurrently, is the sky the limit? In theory perhaps, but in practice, no.

“In our paper, we focused on three variables. I think that five would likely reach the limits of today’s maximum computing power,” Amico says.

Science paper:
Nature Physics

See the full article here .

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EPFL campus

The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne [EPFL-École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne] (CH) is a research institute and university in Lausanne, Switzerland, that specializes in natural sciences and engineering. It is one of the two Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, and it has three main missions: education, research and technology transfer.

The QS World University Rankings ranks EPFL(CH) 14th in the world across all fields in their 2020/2021 ranking, whereas Times Higher Education World University Rankings ranks EPFL(CH) as the world’s 19th best school for Engineering and Technology in 2020.

EPFL(CH) is located in the French-speaking part of Switzerland; the sister institution in the German-speaking part of Switzerland is The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zürich [Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich] (CH). Associated with several specialized research institutes, the two universities form The Domain of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH Domain) [ETH-Bereich; Domaine des Écoles Polytechniques Fédérales] (CH) which is directly dependent on the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research. In connection with research and teaching activities, EPFL(CH) operates a nuclear reactor CROCUS; a Tokamak Fusion reactor; a Blue Gene/Q Supercomputer; and P3 bio-hazard facilities.

ETH Zürich, EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne) [École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne](CH), and four associated research institutes form The Domain of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (ETH Domain) [ETH-Bereich; Domaine des Écoles polytechniques fédérales] (CH) with the aim of collaborating on scientific projects.

The roots of modern-day EPFL(CH) can be traced back to the foundation of a private school under the name École Spéciale de Lausanne in 1853 at the initiative of Lois Rivier, a graduate of the École Centrale Paris (FR) and John Gay the then professor and rector of the Académie de Lausanne. At its inception it had only 11 students and the offices were located at Rue du Valentin in Lausanne. In 1869, it became the technical department of the public Académie de Lausanne. When the Académie was reorganized and acquired the status of a university in 1890, the technical faculty changed its name to École d’Ingénieurs de l’Université de Lausanne. In 1946, it was renamed the École polytechnique de l’Université de Lausanne (EPUL). In 1969, the EPUL was separated from the rest of the University of Lausanne and became a federal institute under its current name. EPFL(CH), like ETH Zürich (CH), is thus directly controlled by the Swiss federal government. In contrast, all other universities in Switzerland are controlled by their respective cantonal governments. Following the nomination of Patrick Aebischer as president in 2000, EPFL(CH) has started to develop into the field of life sciences. It absorbed the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research (ISREC) in 2008.

In 1946, there were 360 students. In 1969, EPFL(CH) had 1,400 students and 55 professors. In the past two decades the university has grown rapidly and as of 2012 roughly 14,000 people study or work on campus, about 9,300 of these being Bachelor, Master or PhD students. The environment at modern day EPFL(CH) is highly international with the school attracting students and researchers from all over the world. More than 125 countries are represented on the campus and the university has two official languages, French and English.

Organization

EPFL is organized into eight schools, themselves formed of institutes that group research units (laboratories or chairs) around common themes:

School of Basic Sciences
Institute of Mathematics
Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering
Institute of Physics
European Centre of Atomic and Molecular Computations
Bernoulli Center
Biomedical Imaging Research Center
Interdisciplinary Center for Electron Microscopy
MPG-EPFL Centre for Molecular Nanosciences and Technology
Swiss Plasma Center
Laboratory of Astrophysics

School of Engineering

Institute of Electrical Engineering
Institute of Mechanical Engineering
Institute of Materials
Institute of Microengineering
Institute of Bioengineering

School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering

Institute of Architecture
Civil Engineering Institute
Institute of Urban and Regional Sciences
Environmental Engineering Institute

School of Computer and Communication Sciences

Algorithms & Theoretical Computer Science
Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
Computational Biology
Computer Architecture & Integrated Systems
Data Management & Information Retrieval
Graphics & Vision
Human-Computer Interaction
Information & Communication Theory
Networking
Programming Languages & Formal Methods
Security & Cryptography
Signal & Image Processing
Systems

School of Life Sciences

Bachelor-Master Teaching Section in Life Sciences and Technologies
Brain Mind Institute
Institute of Bioengineering
Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research
Global Health Institute
Ten Technology Platforms & Core Facilities (PTECH)
Center for Phenogenomics
NCCR Synaptic Bases of Mental Diseases

College of Management of Technology

Swiss Finance Institute at EPFL
Section of Management of Technology and Entrepreneurship
Institute of Technology and Public Policy
Institute of Management of Technology and Entrepreneurship
Section of Financial Engineering

College of Humanities

Human and social sciences teaching program

EPFL Middle East

Section of Energy Management and Sustainability

In addition to the eight schools there are seven closely related institutions

Swiss Cancer Centre
Center for Biomedical Imaging (CIBM)
Centre for Advanced Modelling Science (CADMOS)
École Cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL)
Campus Biotech
Wyss Center for Bio- and Neuro-engineering
Swiss National Supercomputing Centre