PhD Thesis defence: Klaudia Grechuta
2019-07-05 11:00 - 13:00 (Europe/Madrid) | Campus Poblenou
“Grounding body ownership and language in action: evidence from Healthy and damaged brains”
Klaudia Grechuta, Synthetic, Perceptive, Emotive and Cognitive Systems (SPECS) group
Klaudia Grechuta be defending her PhD thesis in the Sala 55.309 (tercera planta) Edifici Tànger, Campus del Poblenou on Friday 5th July 2019 at 11:00am.
Everyone is warmly invited to attend.
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If you’re an IBEC PhD student and would like to advertise your PhD defence on the IBEC calendar, please contact ibeccommunications@ibecbarcelona.eu

PhD Thesis defence: Javier Burgués
2019-07-09 11:30 - 13:30 | Sala de Graus Eduard Fontseré, Martí i Franquès, 1-11, Barcelona, 08028
“Signal Processing and Machine Learning for Gas Sensors: Gas Source Localization with a Nano-Drone”.
Javier Burgués, Signal and information processing for sensing systems group
Chemical source localization (CSL) by autonomous robots has been a topic of research since the early 1990s and still today remains elusive beyond simple scenarios. It has numerous potential applications, such as the localization of toxic emissions, malodors, gas leaks and hazardous substances in general, without risking human lives. An intuitive CSL approach is to mimic the known chemo-orientation behaviour of some flying insects, such as moths and mosquitos, which effectively use odor plumes for mating and foraging. However, terrestrial robots are too slow to perform insect-like movements and the response time and limit of detection (LOD) of current odor sensors for key compounds of biological relevance for plume navigation is orders of magnitude higher than in biological chemoreceptors. Instead of using a slow terrestrial robot equipped with complex instrumentation, in this thesis we address the CSL problem with a nano-drone, i.e. a miniaturized aerial robot, equipped with a simple metal oxide semiconductor (MOX) sensor. Improving key specifications of MOX sensors for this application is one of the core parts of this thesis. Specifically, we introduce novel signal processing methods for estimating and optimizing the LOD, reducing the power consumption and improving the response time. We propose a univariate LOD optimization method based on linearized calibration models and a multivariate approach based on orthogonal partial least squares (O-PLS). To improve the response time, we use high-frequency features extracted from the MOX signal derivative, which are optimized for changing wind conditions and real-time operation. A novel setup consisting on a 3D grid of MOX sensors is proposed for real-time visualization of the gas distribution. Two map-based CSL strategies are finally evaluated using the nano-drone in experiments performed in a large indoor environment (160 m2) where a chemical source is placed in challenging positions for the drone. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed nano-drone can quickly (< 3 min) build a rough gas distribution map (3D) of the environment and localize the main chemical source within it with small errors.

PhD Thesis defence: Javier Burgués
2019-07-09 11:30 - 13:30 | Sala de Graus Eduard Fontseré, Faculty of Physics, UB, Barcelona, Spain

PhD Thesis Defence: Víctor González Tarragó
2019-07-11 12:00 - 14:00 | Faculty of Medecine
Control of integrin-mediated mechanoresponse by binding partners and force loading rates
Víctor González Tarragó, Cellular and Molecular Mechanobiology group
Víctor González Tarragó will be defending his PhD thesis on Thursday 11th July at 12:00 in the at the Faculty of Medicine (Campus Clínic) aula 14.
Everybody is welcome to attend.
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If you’re an IBEC PhD student and would like to advertise your PhD defence on the IBEC calendar, please contact ibeccommunications@ibecbarcelona.eu

PhD Thesis Defence: Víctor González Tarragó
2019-07-11 12:00 - 14:00 | Aula 14, Faculty of Medicine (Campus Clínic), Barcelona, Spain
Control of integrin-mediated mechanoresponse by binding partners and force loading rates
Víctor González Tarragó, Cellular and Molecular Mechanobiology group
This thesis is a study on the integrin-mediated mechanoresponse by binding partners and force loading rates. Regarding the binding partners, here we demonstrate an alternative and counter-intuitive mechanism, by which another adaptor protein (ZO-1) promotes activation but decreases mechanical resistance. Because such mechanical regulation is bound to impact in downstream mechanosensing processes, this provides an interesting and novel way to regulate cell adhesion, mechanoresponse, and function in general. Regarding the force loading rates, our results show that force loading rates drive mechanosensing by increasing reinforcement and adhesion growth at the local adhesion level, in a talin-dependent way. However, if mechanically induced deformations are too high or too fast, the cytoskeleton fluidizes, thereby decreasing force loading rates and mechanosensing. This provides a unifying mechanism to understand how cells respond not only to directly applied forces, but also to passive mechanical stimuli such as tissue rigidity or ECM ligand distribution. Further, it also provides a framework to understand how the seemingly opposed concepts of reinforcement and fluidization are coupled to drive mechanosensing.
