Title Promoter Affiliations Abstract "EDA for hardware/software generation based on design space exploration." "Nele Mentens" "Electrical Engineering Technology (ESAT), Diepenbeek Campus, ESAT - COSIC, Computer Security and Industrial Cryptography, Informatics Section, Computer Science Technology, Diepenbeek Campus" "In several application domains a set of well-known algorithms exists e.g. for encryption, hashing, multimedia encoding (mp3, mpeg, …) and image recognition. When implementing these algorithms in digital hardware (ASIC or FPGA), requirements such as performance, resource utilization (or occupied chip area) and power/energy consumption must be taken into account. This brings along a considerable amount of manual ad hoc work, putting a lot of strain on development time and non-recurring engineering cost. We solve this by building an EDA (Electronic Design Automation) tool that generates a hardware implementation of a given algorithm taking into account the non-functional requirements. The generic concept will be applied in several application domains. To obtain a competitive solution, application-specific knowledge and specialized low-level hardware libraries are used." "Tools for Togetherness. Prospection, reflection and exploration of public and collective spaces in Flanders." "Maarten Gheysen" "Urban Design, Urbanism, Landscape and Planning" "While dispersed territories make up a majority of the recent Flemish urbanisation, they are seldom interpreted as a city. Moreover, in mainstream discourses dispersed territories are considered as a spillover of the traditional city and conceived either as not urban enough or a loss of rural and natural values and thus to be remediated. Interpreting dispersed territories as an autonomous urban condition however enables to valorize existing qualities in these territories such as the proximity of urban resources, the high quality of life or the abundancy of open space, all of them hardly to be found in the traditional city.In this interpretation the public and collective space play a crucial role. These are the places were people meet, were collective challenges can be tackled (water management, mobility, ecology and biodiversity,…) and that represent in a symbolic way how people live together and attribute to society. This research elaborates on these ‘tools for togetherness’ and identifies, challenge and explores the potential of public and collective spaces in dispersed territories." "Visions of becoming and belonging: an (autobiographic) exploration of photo studios in Balochistan, Pakistan." "Paolo S H Favero" "Artesis Plantijn Hogeschool Antwerpen, Visual and Digital Cultures Research Center (ViDi)" "Focusing on the world of photo studios in contemporary Balochistan (Pakistan), the present project enters the terrain of the vanishing. With the arrival of digital technology photo studios are disappearing and along with them also their hand painted backdrops, props, costumes and cameras, the long sessions, the chatting and the manuality that make up the social life of these environments. What is not disappearing, however, is the desire to transform life by means of photographs where individuals are allowed to enter a fanasy world. Photographic studios in Balochistan are spaces where dreams are born and lives are shaped. In a studio you can become anything, a freedom fighter, a friend of the prime minister, the boyfriend of a movie star . Photographs are not mere representations, they are tools for performing life, for becoming. The disappearance of the studios carries also a deeper social meaning. Photographic aesthetics are in fact key terrain around which local communities gather. They bring individual fantasies in touch with a sense of belonging to the local community. So what will happen once they disappear? The project builds on my practice as a photographer and documentary filmmaker as well on my own biography as a displaced artist from Quetta, Balochistan, lending my own story and my own self to become the object of the work of local photographers. My exploration of the world of vanishing photographic studios will allow me to further explore the meaning of photographs in a South Asian context. Doing this I will also address matters of race, ethnicity and gender as they meet and merge in the context of the studios. The project will result in a set of different outcomes whose three pillars are: an observational documentary, a web-based archive and an immersive installation. Regarding the latter, my aim is to create a virtual immersive space through which viewers can experience what it means to be photographed in a studio in Balochistan. In an impulse to prevent this world from fading away I plan to use of the same technology blamed for the disappearance of the studios (the digital) for the purpose of its preservation." "Archaeological Exploration of the Bronze Age Site of Sissi (Crete): towards a Study of Minoan social Organisation." "Ilse Schoep" "Archaeology, Leuven" "Despite more than a century of investigation, our understanding of Bronze Age (Minoan; c.3100/3000-1300 BC) society on Crete, traditionally considered Europe's first urban civilisation, is still limited, partly because of a failure to question a dominant model of social and political organisation inherited from the early twentieth century pioneers of Minoan archaeology, partly because of enduring gaps and biases in the data and partly because of a failure fully to incorporate advances in archaeological theory and methodology. The proposed project will address thes issues by contributing to a major interdisciplinary study of social, economic and political organisation at the site of Sissi on Crete (SARPedon), where ongoing excavations (since 2007), co-directed by the project leader and under the auspices of the Belgian School of Archaeology in Greece, have revealed a settlement and its associated cemetery. The proposed project will focus specifically on three main areas of study: the structure, temporality and use of space across the site; the production, exchange and consumption of pottery; and diet, health and funerary practice. These three elements represent separate lines of approach to the question of social, economic and political organisation and have been designed not just to be innovative and ground-breaking studies in their own right, but also to be mutually comparable and to link with other current and planned research within the SARPedon framework." "Organizational space and inclusion" "Koen VAN LAER" Diversity "This PhD aims to contribute to the literature on inclusion in organizations by further examining the underexplored role of organizational spaces. Academic debates on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) have traditionally drawn on psychological theories to understand diversity, mainly focusing on inclusionary and exclusionary interpersonal dynamics. Challenging the individualist stance of these traditional approaches, critical perspectives to inclusion have emphasized the need to consider and unveil unequal power relations and structural dynamics reproducing them. While arguing for a more structural focus, studies that adopt a critical approach have mainly privileged the role of discourse, thereby mirroring traditional approaches in their disregard for the role of organizational space. This study aims to contribute to these debates by addressing the gap in the literature concerning the role of organizational space in inclusion and in efforts to promote organizational inclusion. The term organizational space refers to the built environment that arises from the activities, objects, configurations, and social practices within an organization (Stephenson et al., 2020). Rejecting the view of space as fixed and neutral, a spatial approach recognizes it as a dynamic and performative entity. Spaces are thereby recognized to have an impact on identity constructions, power relations, and the experiences of marginalized individuals and to traditionally reflect white, middle-class, able-bodied, male norms. As a result, they can have important implications for organizational inclusion. The research goal of this PhD is to investigate how organizational spaces designed to promote inclusion (e.g. quiet spaces for neuro-diverse individuals) are organized, managed, experienced, resisted, and appropriated. This study will thereby explore between top-down, formal modifications of spaces to make workplaces more inclusive and bottom-up, informal processes of space appropriation by individuals themselves. Moreover, it will explore how these processes of spacing relate to the broader DEI policies of organizations to create inclusive organizations. To attain this goal, an ethnographic multiple case study approach based on observations, interviews, and document analysis will be used. Ultimately, the study seeks to contribute valuable insights into the intersection of organizational spaces and inclusion practices, offering a comprehensive understanding of their role in shaping inclusive workplace environments." "Investigating Space Plasma Turbulence using Kinetic Simulations" "Fabio Bacchini" Plasma-astrophysics "This Ph.D. project aims to investigate the fundamental processes governing space plasma turbulence in the solar context using kinetic simulations. The solar wind is a magnetized plasma originating from the Sun and flowing through the solar system, and its interaction with the interstellar medium generates turbulence. Turbulence plays a crucial role in the acceleration and transport of energetic particles, affects the dynamics and structure of the heliosphere, and provides insights into the fundamental physics of plasmas. The project will employ fully kinetic simulations, which treat the plasma as particles, to study small-scale phenomena and thermal and nonthermal physics related to dissipation and heating. The simulations will explore the kinetic processes driving the solar wind turbulence, such as wave-particle interactions, magnetic reconnection, and particle acceleration. The results of this project will provide insight into the fundamental physics of plasmas, which can be applied to space weather prediction and the understanding of the behavior of the solar wind, and will also have important implications for space exploration and satellite operations." "Computationally Guided Carbon Nanotube Composites for Space Applications" "David Seveno" "Department of Materials Engineering, Structural Composites and Alloys, Integrity and Nondestructive Testing (SCALINT)" "Transformative advances in composite materials could usher a new era in space exploration. The research focuses on harnessing the potential of carbon nanotubes (CNTs), the strongest known synthetic fibers. The project extends the mesoscopic distinct element method tool pioneered by the candidate fellow to simulate the critical mesoscopic scale of a CNT raw material, where an extreme variability in network topology of CNT cross-linked by catalyst nanoparticles are encountered. The specific work will focus on the bridging the atomistic and mesoscopic scales, although paths for linking the mesoscopic discrete and continuous level simulations will be explored. The expanded toll will fill a gap in the simulation methods for CNT yarn formation and will mark an important step toward computationally-guided manufacturing of CNT composites." "A dynamical analysis of the regulation of the cell cycle in space and time" "Lendert Gelens" "Laboratory of Dynamics in Biological Systems" "The cell division cycle is a crucial biological process, essential for development and survival of all organisms. In eukaryotes, the cell cycle is regulated by an intricate network of genes and proteins that controls the progress of the cycle. All of these interactions give rise to dynamical features such as bistability and time delay which aid in the coordination of cell cycle events. Understanding this complex interplay has been helped by mathematical models, which describe how the concentrations and activities of different components of this network change over time.In this thesis, we describe our results on different dynamical elements that play a role in the cell cycle. We have four different chapters with results. In the first chapter we investigate the role of time delay in the oscillations that drive the early embryonic cell cycle. This time delay acts between the important mitotic kinase Cdk1 and a protein complex called the APC/C. The delay has been measured experimentally, but its origin and exact role are not yet clear. In a simple model, we show how ultrasensitivity and delay together determine whether oscillations exist. Importantly, we illustrate that different implementations of the time delay may alter the conclusions. At the end of this chapter we describe a method to turn the ultrasensitive response into a bistable response, and briefly describe the implications of this method.In the second results chapter we show how such a bistable response curve can change dynamically in time. We use mitotic entry as a motivating example to show that bistable response curves can become time dependent if different compartments are introduced in an existing cell cycle model. We then explore the consequences of a changing bistable switch and show that it may provide robustness to cellular transitions and oscillations.The third results chapter starts from an experimental observation, namely that the timing of the early embryonic cell cycle has a particular dependence on temperature. We explore how this scaling can be explained by the dynamics of the cell cycle oscillator. For this, we make the reaction rates of two different cell cycle models dependent on temperature, and explore how different sensitivities of different rates can reproduce the observed scaling. This chapter is the report of work in progress.The final results chapter puts oscillators based on time delay and bistability in a spatial context. Such systems can produce traveling waves, and these waves are often generated by pacemakers: regions which oscillate faster than their surroundings. In biological systems, such waves can function to transmit information, and an important question is which elements of the oscillator and the pacemaker determine the speed of these waves. We answer this question using numerical simulation and analytical methods. In this way, we show that timescale separation is important for the speed, but only in the oscillator based on bistability. Moreover, we explain how the size and frequency difference of the pacemaker affect the speed of the waves, and the speed by which they permeate the rest of the medium. At the end of this chapter, we briefly explain what happens in a system where multiple pacemakers compete to entrain the medium." "An evaluation of the socio-economic effects of funding by ESA (European Space Agency) to private organizations." "Peter Teirlinck" "Department of Management, Strategy and Innovation (main work address Brussels)" "Space-based applications are considered as actual and potential drivers for technological innovations that have the potential to contribute to productivity gains in the economy and society at large. With the development of the space economy and the large - public - budgets involved, stakeholders including policy-makers, investors, member of the public and private sector and academia and citizens increasingly call for - comparable - evaluation of the socio-economic benefits of space activities. A major hampering factor is the lack of comparable statistical data and the existence of a number of methodological obstacles to accurately quantify the space sector and render data and evaluation comparable across countries (OECD, 2012) . Undertaking an evaluation of the space sector involves looking beyond the core space activities in order to explore the wider interactions with other sectors and other markets, or as highlighted in OECD (2011) shifting attention from the space sector to the space economy. The challenge is to capture the numerous and complex value chains and downstream applications arising from the vast array of scientific, technical, environmental, business and consumer applications related to the space sector that reach into many aspects of economic and social life (OECD, 2012) . Moreover, work is needed on the concepts and definitions for the space sector and the wider space economy (OECD, 2012) . The evaluation concentrates on direct and in particular indirect industrial effects of ESA funding to participant organizations. Direct industrial effects (Cohendet, 1998, p.191) relate to the 'effects directly related to the project objectives as contractually defined between the space agency and the (group of) contractors. These effects arise from the establishment and operation of an industrial infrastructure, mainly on account of the stimulation of activity (measured in terms of level of production and net job creation)'. Indirect industrial effects take a broader view and take into account 'the creation of new knowledge, the transfer of technology, building up of new competences, quality improvements, acquisition of new processes, development of new markets ... derived by the participants in space programmes and used elsewhere' (Cohendet, 1998, p.191 )." "To Be Seen: Nubian Displacement and en-gendered Resistance in 'Public' Space." "Els De Vos" "Henry van de Velde" "This project investigates how gender relations become manifest in the design, uses and representations of the built environment of displaced Nubians, an African population that was displaced and resettled in 1964, under a development-induced displacement and resettlement (DIDR) scheme. It does so in order to develop a toolkit for designers who want to work with marginalized communities.Gender aspects of disposition and post-displacement architecture are both under-theorized themes in DIDR literature in general. Nevertheless, resettled societies are often averse to their built environment as it does not satisfy their cultural and socio-economic needs. Women in particular, often suffer great losses in their status and the quality of their spaces. The case of Nubians in particular is understudied in most of its aspects, as it was unavailable for independent research since 1960's. This research intends to fill this gap as it scrutinises from a gender perspective the spaces of displacement used by Nubians in Egypt. A single case-study approach is employed, as the research sheds light on the Nubian settlement of Qustul, a medium-sized settlement which is also the home town of the researcher. The research approach is largely informed by feminist literature and post positive epistemology. The project uses ethnographic methods for collecting and processing data, and especially auto-ethnographic tools that position the researcher as a displaced person, a Nubian, and a woman; all of which are factors influencing data acquisition and processing. The research has explored a toolkit with participatory observations, experiential drawings, and innovative mapping techniques in order to characterize other space dynamics, more concerned on the gendered experience. This research argues that spaces of forced resettlement act as a tool of spatial violence that disenfranchises displaced people, especially women. So far, the research has produced maps of spaces and spatial tactics that offer resistance against spatial violence. These maps will form the point of departure to extract ontological lessons about the gendered spatial production and the concepts of public and private space. Eventually, it will result in a moral and tactical toolkit for architects, urbanist, and planners."