ALTAïS - Penetrating the depths of matter to meet today's challenges
Founded some 50 years ago, the Laboratoire d'Analyse par Réactions Nucléaires (LARN) in the Department of Physics at the University of Namur is home to a 2MV tandem particle gas pedal named ALTAÏS (Accélérateur Linéaire Tandetron pour l'Analyse et l'Implantation des Solides), in operation since 1999.
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Water and the ecological transition: the world and Wallonia
The IPCC warns of the growing impact of global warming on water, with more frequent droughts and floods threatening global supplies. By 2050, 42% of river basins will be severely affected, and flood damage could quadruple in the event of 4°C warming. Although they bear little responsibility, the most vulnerable populations suffer the worst consequences. In Wallonia, recent climatic disasters and water pollution illustrate the stakes. To raise public awareness, an event is being organized in Charleroi with debates and screenings.Program17:00 | Introductory session Head of UNESCO Belgium Mr Aurélien Dumont, Secretariat of UNESCO's Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme, World Water Situation17:40 | Screening of the film "H2O, water, life and us: the Emergency"18:30 | Break18:45 | Lectures and debate Prof. Dr. Marnik Vanclooster (U.K.). Marnik Vanclooster (UCLouvain), "Situation en Wallonnie" Prof. Alfred Bernard (UCLouvain), "Normes et toxicologie" Debate Moderated by Prof. Karim ZouaouiBouin (UCLouvain). Karim ZouaouiBoudjeltia (ULB), with the participation of Aurélien Dumont, Marnik Vanclooster, Alfred Bernard.20:30 | Cocktail dinnerGRATULAR : Registration required: f.amer@wbi.beThe members of the "exact and natural sciences" Sub-CommissionBernard Feltz (UCLouvain, Chairman), Bertrand Hespel (UNamur), Marie-Geneviève Pinsart (ULB, CIGB), René Rezsohazy (UCLouvain), Frédéric Rychter (Secrétaire général), Olivier Sartenaer (UNamur), Didier Serteyn (ULiège), Anne Staquet (UMons), Marnik Vanclooster (UCLouvain), Karim Zouaoui Boudjeltia (ULB)
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UNamur at the heart of Printemps des Sciences
Le Printemps des Sciences is the must-attend science and technology event in Wallonia and Brussels. It takes place every year in early spring and offers free activities accessible to all.
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Public thesis defense - Movsun KUY
This thesis presents a novel approach to address the challenges of deploying and managing Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) in resource-constrained and multi-domain environments. The proposed solution leverages a Raspberry Pi clusterbased approach for NFV deployment in resource-constrained environments, combined with a deployable Sidecar VNF (S-VNF) coordinator for multi-domain NFV orchestration.The thesis demonstrates the feasibility of integrating NFV into edge computing environments by successfully deploying and managing Network Services (NSs) on a Raspberry Pi cluster. The S-VNF coordinator facilitates efficient cross-cloud NFV deployment and management while ensuring security and interoperability.While the obtained deployment and scaling delays in the testbed setup were significant due to the bare-metal deployment process used, the proposed solution remains valuable in environments where service maintenance time is a critical factor.By automating deployment and scaling, organizations can minimize the impact of service maintenance time, improve customer satisfaction, and enhance system resilience. Moreover, the solution enables NFV to be deployed effectively in edge environments, providing benefits such as reduced latency and improved network performance.Overall, this thesis contributes to the advancement of NFV by providing innovative solutions for deployment and management in challenging environments. The proposed framework has the potential to enable the widespread adoption of NFV and drive the development of new network services.Directed by Prof. Laurent SCHUMACHER and Prof. Sokchenda SRENG.In front of a jury composed of:Prof. Wim VANHOOF, President, University of NamurProf. Laurent SCHUMACHER, Co-Promoter, University of NamurProf. Sokchenda SRENG, Co-Promoter, ITC Graduate School (Cambodia)Prof. Florentin ROCHET, Internal Member, University of NamurProf. Johann MARQUEZ-BARJA, External Member, University of AntwerpProf. Bruno QUOITIN, External Member, University of MonsProf. Raveth HIN, External Member, ITC Graduate School (Cambodia)You are cordially invited to a drink, which will follow the public defense.For good organization, please give your answer by Thursday March 20 by means of this link.Contact: Daelman Isabelle - isabelle.daelman@unamur.be
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Better prediction of climate extremes
Statistics usually focus on anticipating events that fall within the norm. But what about rare events? They are dealt with by a branch of mathematics called extreme value theory, in which Anna Kiriliouk, lecturer in statistics at UNamur, is a specialist. Applied to the climate, this theory enables us to better predict extreme climatic events, at a time when these are multiplying due to climate change.
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Gabriel Dias De Carvalho Junior: an academic career in physics didactics
Gabriel Dias De Carvalho Junior adds his expertise in didactics and cognitive psychology to the physics didactics research unit of UNamur's Department of Physics. With almost two decades of teaching experience in Brazil, he works to improve teaching practices. His innovative projects aim to make teaching more inclusive and accessible, while establishing international collaborations.
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Artificial intelligence at the service of the educational imagination: the innovative gamble of André Fűzfa and Fabrice Rasir
An astrophysics expert, Professor André Fűzfa (Faculté des sciences, Institut Naxys) also harnesses his scientific knowledge to take everyone on a journey into the world of the imagination, through literature. Finding Ganymede is his new novel, co-created with illustrator Fabrice Rasir, an alumnus of the Mathematics Department. A book that incorporates images generated by artificial intelligence (AI). The novel is thus a skilful blend of graphic AI, physics and fiction that helps stimulate the imagination while providing an instructive dimension.
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1st Global Chinese Materials Conference (GCMC2025)
The conference is co-organized by the University of Namur, Belgium and Wuhan University of Technology, China and supported by Foshan Xianhu Laboratory and other organisms.More info on the GCMC2025 website...
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UNamur at the sixth edition of SETT
On January 23 and 24, 2025, UNamur experts were present at the SETT (School Education Transformation Technology) trade show for its sixth edition. A must-attend event for digital education in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, dedicated to principals, teachers and technical-pedagogical advisors.
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Marc Hennequart, researcher at UNamur, receives a Grant from the Fondation contre le cancer (Cancer Foundation)
Since September 2023, Marc Hennequart, Professor of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at UNamur, has been conducting groundbreaking research into pancreatic cancer. His team, based at the Faculty of Medicine and the Institut Narilis, studies the early stages of oncogenesis (the process of transforming a normal cell into a cancerous one) to better understand the metabolic changes behind this particularly aggressive cancer.
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Space, between dream and strategic challenge
Space has become a major economic and strategic issue. As a member of the European UNIVERSEH Alliance, UNamur explores this space theme in its various departments, from physics to geology, via mathematics, computer science or philosophy. Without forgetting to address the general public, who still dream of the stars...
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Francqui 2025 Chair - Explainable Software Engineering
Version françaiseDans le cadre d’une Chaire Francqui internationale 2024-2025, la faculté d’informatique (UNamur) aura le plaisir de recevoir le Professeur Arie Van Deursen (TU Delft, Pays-bas) du 24 au 27 mars 2025, pour une série de leçons sur le thème: "Explainable Software Engineering".
Explainable Software Engineering in the Public Sector
The field of software engineering seeks to devise theories, methods, tools, and techniques that support the development, operation, and evolution of the digital infrastructure modern society relies on. While the software engineering capabilities have advanced substantially over the past decades, it remains challenging to deliver high quality systems in a timely and cost-effective manner. Government system in particular have a weak reputation in this respect.To better understand why, we analyze 125 complex software projects in the public sector in The Netherlands. The projects are described in public reports published by the Advisory Council on IT Assessments (AcICT), which advises the Dutch parliament and cabinet on riks and chances of success in complex Information Technology (IT) projects. The projects span a time period of 10 years, represent a total budget of over 14 billion Euros, and cover such areas as tax collection, social security, pensions, health, traffic control, defense, or water management.We study these reports through the lens of "explainability", focusing on supporting decision making. Furthermore, we reflect on current advances in software engineering, including modern software testing and large language models, in addressing current software engineering challenges.
Program
INAUGURAL LECTURE: Explainable Software Engineering in the Public Sector - Tuesday 25/03 - 18:00-19:00 - PA02 SESSION 1: Architectural decision making in software engineering - Monday 24/03 - 10:30-12:30 - I33SESSION 2 : Tests as executable explanations - Tuesday 25/03 - 14:00-16:00 - I33SESSION 3: Technical debt, test smells, legacy systems - Wednesday 26/03 - 14:00-16:00 - I33SESSION 4: Artificial Intelligence for Software Engineering - Thursday 27/03 - 10:30-12:30 - I33
About the speaker
Arie van Deursen is a professor at Delft University of Technology, where he leads the Software Engineering Research Group. His research interests include software testing, language models for code, trustworthy artificial intelligence, and human aspects of software engineering. He presently serves as chair of the Steering Commmittee of the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE).He is a member of the Dutch Advisory Council on IT Assessments (AcICT), as well as a member of the Advisory Board of ING Bank The Netherlands. In 2023, he was elected fellow of the Netherlands Academy of Engineering (NAE).
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