Inria
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Fields of research
Collaborative research actions: promoting cross-disciplinary collaborations
Inria's collaborative research actions (ARC) allow several research teams and other organisations to work together to open up promising new fields of collaboration. They encourage the formation of new synergies between complementary approaches and research subjects. Twelve collaborative research actions were approved in 2010, spanning fields such as health, the environment and virtual reality. We take a look at these projects, which touch upon multiple fields of research.
Collaborative research actions: promoting cross-disciplinary collaborations
Research at Inria is organised into small teams working on specific subjects: the project-teams. The advantage of this organisational structure is that these teams develop strong expertise in their field. Nevertheless, teams must be encouraged to work together on multidisciplinary projects and to look beyond the confines of their own research topic. This is the reason why Inria created collaborative research actions.
The objective of collaborative research actions is to give rise to other ambitious collaborative projects.
Led by a coordinator, researchers from several project-teams, or even from other organisations, work together on a topic that they have defined together. These partnerships, which last two years, then lead to new associations between teams with different and complementary fields of expertise. The eventual objective of collaborative research actions is to give rise to other ambitious collaborative projects such as large-scale actions, national projects (such as French National Research Agency projects) or European projects.
A call for proposals is launched every year. Proposals are then examined by the Research Department. Finally, each year, the completed collaborative research actions present their results at open days.
DISCO: Understanding rubber fatigue
Tyres, seals, and rubber sports items can break under strain without our having properly understood the rupture mechanisms involved. The mathematicians, physicists and mechanical engineers of the DISCO team are trying to understand these mechanisms by modelling fatigue in rubbers based on their microstructure. The researchers are starting by designing a macroscopic model based on the microstructure of healthy rubbers. They must then establish a damage model based on the physical phenomena which come into play on a microscopic scale. This unprecedented work is attracting a lot of interest from industrial players.
Project-teams: SIMPAF, MACS, Ecole Polytechnique (LMS), ESPCI Paris, Max Planck Institute, Leipzig (Germany)
MaBI: Controlling objects by thought
Can we help humans to interact better with machines, or even with each other? Thinking produces electromagnetic activity in the brain. This activity can be detected with electrodes. Eventually, a dialogue may even be established between a user and a machine. Specialists in brain-computer interfaces, signal processing and machine learning are studying the potential for mutual learning between humans and machines. Their goal is to help improve the system and the capacity of human beings to interact. This research work is of interest to severely disabled people, but may also be applied to virtual reality, games, or the development of new active interfaces.
Project-teams: SEQUEL, TAO, LITIS (Rouen), LAGIS (Lille)
ACCESS: Protecting access to data on the web
Users of Web 2.0 applications exchange large quantities of data in XML format. These data must be protected. Thus, each user's read and write access is limited to a greater or lesser degree by a predefined access control policy. Four Inria project-teams, based in Lille, Cachan and Nancy, are pooling their knowledge to improve this protection. To this end, they have opted to use automatic data access control techniques, checking the coherence of policies and applying this work in the context of distributed collaborative editors.
Project-teams: DAHU, CASSIS, PAREO, MOSTRARE
CACO3: Why not analogue computers?
Can we improve the computing power of computers using new algorithm protocols? This is the question being studied by a group of mathematicians. They are interested in analogue computing which, unlike digital computing based on finite, discrete data, could make it possible to design computers which work on continuous data. In theory, an infinite number of calculations could be performed in a second using this method. They are also trying to assess the way in which a single computer could perform complex calculations. For this, they are using a large number of simple calculations conducted in parallel.
Project-teams: CARTE, LIX, University of Alexandria (Egypt), LIF (University of Provence)
(TP)I: Checking embedded systems
Cars and, in particular, planes are being equipped with an increasing amount of embedded computer technology, with electronic components autonomously managing, calculating and controlling a large number of functions. The increasing complexity of the systems means that the development of such components now requires input from several teams. Checking that they are capable of operating properly together is becoming an increasingly difficult task. The researchers working on the (TP)I project are specialists in the design of embedded systems, the modelling of their failures and new information technology environments. Together, they are developing the simplest possible design and verification techniques.
Project-teams: S4, IRCCyN (Nantes), University of Aalborg (Denmark)
DyVi: Modelling the spread of epidemics
Infectious diseases spread through contact between individuals. To model disease transmission, we need to be able to analyse these complex networks of interactions. To do this, researchers have a vast data set collected from 600 people in a hospital. The contacts each of these people had with others were monitored every 30 seconds for 6 months, giving a total of more than 300 million contacts. The researchers will study the ways in which these dynamic data can be displayed and manipulated using graphs.
Project-teams: D-NET, GRAVITE, UPMC (Paris)
MISSION: Wireless emergency networks
One destroyed cable, one electrical failure and communications are interrupted. The simplest solution, pending repair, is to put in place a wireless back-up network. Specialists in these networks, the evaluation of their performance and their autonomous deployment, the researchers in the MISSION team are studying a number of networks including that of Senegal, which often fails. They are studying how small, autonomous robots distributed throughout the existing networks could be capable of moving around to restore connectivity within a day!
Project-teams: POPS, RESO, UPMC Paris (NPA LIP6)
NIEVE: Improving navigation through the virtual world
Navigating around virtual environments is a real challenge. The researchers working on the NIEVE project are specialists in virtual navigation, computer-generated image rendering and neurosciences. They are developing a new way of representing visual appearances: for instance, 3D tools that can be used to locate oneself in space. These tools are like 3D maps. The teams are also investigating the impact of emotions on navigation in virtual audiovisual environments: they are using virtual reality to study phobias triggered by visual or auditory stimuli.
Project-teams: REVES, BUNRAKU, IRCAM
ALCOVNA: They prefer raw data
This group of bio-informatics experts is one of the only research teams in the world to adopt an approach adapted to the new generation of ultra-fast, economic genome sequencers. Instead of attempting to reconstitute an entire DNA sequence using the fragments produced by these sequencers, they are developing models and algorithms to compare fragments from several individuals. Their goal is to detect the important differences between these fragments. The data "clean-up" phase is thus avoided, and biologists are provided with fast, error-free results, displayed in a form that makes them easy to use.
Project-teams: SYMBIOSE, BAMBOO, INRA (Toulouse), University of Pisa (Italy)
NAUTILUS: Algae the answer to climate change and bio-fuels
Microscopic algae suspended in the oceans consume CO2, making them an important factor to take into account when seeking to understand climate change. Some species that can be grown in stirred ponds can have the same effect and be used to produce biofuels. In both cases, the stirring of the water mass, be it natural (ocean currents) or artificial, has a significant impact on biological activity. Modelling specialists, biologists and oceanologists have joined forces to predict the quantity of CO2 consumed or oil produced. How? By pairing hydrodynamic models with biological models.
Project-teams: COMORE, BANG, LOCEAN (Paris), LOV (Villefranche-sur-mer)
PLANTSCAN3D: Plants scanned in 3D
Creating accurate 3D digital models of plants is technically more difficult than producing a model of the human brain, because there is no sensor adapted to the variety of forms and complexity found in plants. This partnership, which combines expertise in geometric modelling and plant architecture modelling, aims to develop automated tools to reconstruct leaves, branches, plants and entire trees. Eventually, the objective is to measure reactions to variations in treatment, environment or genes and to better understand the development of plants on a quantitative basis.
Project-teams VIRTUAL PLANTS, EVASION, GALAAD
SIRAP: A pulmonary artery reducer
Some children suffering from heart conditions have excessively dilated pulmonary arteries, making it impossible to implant a heart valve. A paediatrician from Necker hospital conceived of a device which, when deployed in the artery, takes the form of a toroid (tyre), inside which the heart valve can be installed. Its shape must then be optimised to ensure that it withstands the blood flow. The researchers propose to perform digital simulations of these flows using the geometry of the patients' arteries as identified from MRI scans. Eventually, a prosthesis will be produced and tested in vitro and then in vivo on an animal.
Keywords: Academic partnerships International relations Partenariats européens
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