Title Promoter Affiliations Abstract "Virtual Private Ad Hoc Networks: development and integration of autonomous ans self-*(self-configuring, self-learning, self-adapting) techniques and extentions towards sensor networks" "Ingrid Moerman" "Department of Information technology" "This postdoctoral research project will build further on the virtual private ad hoc network (VPAN) concept, developmend during the PhD. The VPAN concept will be extended with autonomous ans self-configuring, self-learning and self-adapting (self-*) techniques to establich, manage and to maintain VPAN's. This project will further integrate sesor networks in te VPAN concept." "Networks of professionals and informal caregivers: a social network analysis." "Peter Raeymaeckers" "Centre for Research on Environmental and Social Change" "Public service organizations are increasingly using networks of volunteers and professionals to support, guide and provide services to vulnerable groups. Against this background, this study (1) analyzes the structure of networks and positions in networks of volunteers and professionals public service organizations, and (2) analyzes how professionals, volunteers, and patients evaluate these networks. This research develops and validates theoretical assumptions about networks between individuals working together in the roles of volunteers and paid staff. Our project has a strong empirical component. Given the nature of the research questions, we will combine quantitative and qualitative research methods, including interviews, network analysis and evaluation research. The planned research will contribute to the literature on social networks, social work, and volunteer management." "Implementing the Personal Network Story - Intervention to strengthen social networks of vulnerable groups in society" "Bea Maes" "Parenting and Special Education, LUCAS - Centre for Care Research and Consultancy" "Healthy social relations strongly contribute to mental and physical wellbeing and a reduction of care consumption. In the PhD of Evy Meys (2022) a tailor-made Personal Network Story (PNS)-intervention was developed and positively evaluated to improve the social relations of adults with a disability. The intervention has potential added value for the wellbeing of the individuals, the professionalization of the social care sector, and the realization of an inclusive society. This project’s aim is to upscale and implement this newly developed intervention to strengthen social networks of vulnerable groups in society. Next to persons with a disability, also persons with severe mental health problems and formerly homelessness people are vulnerable for limited and less varied social networks. In this project the intervention will be adapted to meet the needs of different target groups. Manuals and training packages will be developed to facilitate broader implementation. Finally the intervention will be piloted and evaluated in 60 cases in the three target groups. This will be done in close collaboration with clients and professionals of home-based care services in VAPH, CAW, Housing First and GGZ." "Network architectures and protocols for efficient ad hoc collaboration between heterogeneous networked objects" "Ingrid Moerman" "Department of Information technology" "In the Internet-of-Things, an increasing number of heterogeneous devices will be co-locatedin the same area. Current networking approaches are not designed to support efficient direct communication between co-located devices from different networks. To optimize theseheterogeneous networks, ad hoc cooperation between co-located devices of different networktechnologies is needed.To this end, this project develops methodologies for cross-network, cross-technologynegotiation. To optimize the network performance of co-located networks in a global way, colocated devices take into account the network requirements of all devices when negotiating about cooperation opportunities (in the form of sharing network resources). As part of this project, the following challenges are tackled. (i) A network service architecture is developed, in which network functionality (such as interference avoidance, dynamic transmission powercontrol, shared routing, different routing protocols, etc.) can be added to devices at run-time.(ii) Distributed network monitoring algorithms are developed. These algorithms are capableof detecting co-located (heterogeneous) networks and can monitor how the activation ofnetwork services influences the performance of multiple co-located networks that usedifferent communication technologies. (iii) Finally, negotiation algorithms based onreinforcement learning are developed to select the optimal network services that should beactivated, based on the network requirements of the collaborating devices.Ultimately, this project leads to autonomous algorithms capable of negotiating about optimal network optimization solutions that take into account the heterogeneity and dynamicrequirements of co-located devices." "Innovative solutions for underground high-voltage lines and networks." "Dirk Van Hertem" "Electrical Energy Systems and Applications (ELECTA)" "For the further development and strengthening of the future electricity network, based on a high integration of renewable energy, underground high-voltage connections and grids will be essential.These high-voltage connections can be either AC (alternating current) or DC (direct current) technology. DC is becoming an increasingly important technology. However, underground connections are not only more expensive, there are still many technological challenges here, both in terms of AC and DC underground connections.The need for more underground high-voltage lines and networks results in 3 changes in the transmission network of the future:1. More AC underground cables in the AC network;2. More DC connections to transport large powers over large distances (underground);3. The rollout of a new backbone network, an internal mesh (HV)DC (high voltage, direct current) network that efficiently and reliably integrates distributed energy sources.These three changes mean that the future transmission network will look and behave differently due to the presence of cables and the influence of power electronic converters. These changes give rise to the following 4 challenges of the future transmission network:Challenge 1: Controlling the operating risks associated with AC underground cables to enable longer underground connectionsChallenge 2: Protection of underground AC and DC cablesChallenge 3: Control of underground AC and DC cables in systems dominated by software-controlled invertersChallenge 4: Development of large-scale robust DC networks as the backbone of the future energy system" "The impact of reproductive axis hormones on changes in brain functional networks during healthy, accelerated and pathological aging (i.e. Alzheimer's disease)." "Marleen Verhoye" "Bio-Imaging lab" "Aging has profound effects on many cellular processes that predispose to neurodegeneration, impairment in cognitive function, as well as changes in brain functional networks (e.g. default mode network (DMN) and its anticorrelated networks) and synaptic alterations. However, the key mechanisms orchestrating brain aging remain largely unknown. The hypothalamus, a key region of the hypothalamic–pituitary–gonadal axis (HPG-axis), is crucial for the neuroendocrine interaction between the central nervous system and various peripheral functions, but seems also involved in age-related neurodegeneration. This knowledge drives a new paradigm shift suggesting that the aging process is driven by the integration of immune and hormonal responses, with the hypothalamus having a leading role. A broad literature also suggests the involvement of menopause and age-related testosterone decline-induced alterations in HPG axis hormone levels in the etiology of Alzheimer's disease (AD), which is the most common form of dementia in elderly population. The overall goal of this preclinical project is to investigate patterns of functional alterations in the DMN and its anticorrelated networks using rsfMRI across from normal aging to accelerated and pathological aging (i.e, AD), and to explore whether differences in functional connectivity are associated with differences in HPG axis hormones and hypothalamic inflammation. The first aim of the study is to observe the short and long term effect of luteinizing hormone (LH) and estrogen hormone treatment, on the DMN and its anticorrelated networks. We hypothesize that loss of estrogenic support after ovariectomy will have significant effect on these networks, and these effect can be reversed after hormone therapy. The second aim of the project is to gain more insight into how the alterations of the GnRH-HPG axis receptor signalling alter functional networks of the brain during pathological aging (i.e. AD). The third aim is to examine the capacity of a GnRH agonist, leuprolide acetate, which decreases the release of LH, and amyloid load to modulate DMN and its anticorrelated networks, in the brain of Tg2576 carrying Swedish APP mutation." "Three contributions to an evolving urban studies research agenda: world city networks, polycentric urban regions, and collaborations at the intersection of data and social sciences" "Ben Derudder" "Public Governance Institute" "In the context of ongoing ontological/epistemological/methodological debates on the nature of urban studies, this research program submitted as an integral part of the BOFZAP position in 'city science' consists of three main pillars: extensions to world city network research; research into polycentric urban regions; and research collaborations at the intersection of social science and data sciences. " "Evaluating the effectiveness of networks of schools in Flanders: a multiple level approach" "Geert Devos" "Department of Educational Studies" "The research evaluates the effectiveness of Flemish networks of schools by operationalizing the framework of Provan and Milward (2001). Effectiveness is evaluated at three levels (network, school and community), consisting of various stakeholders. A mixed method design is used (quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis) and both kind of data are brought together by a comparative analysis." "A query language for analyzing probabilistic networks." "Luc De Raedt" "Informatics Section" "Information networks are becoming an increasingly popular way of representing information. In its most basic form such a network can be seen as a set of objects interconnected by links. Because of this ling structure, these networks ware capable of representing complex information while keeping a simple data model. Information networks can be found in a wide variety of domains such as social networks, citation and publication networks, and biological networks such as gene-protein interaction networks and pathways. Although all these domains seem very different, they share a lot of operations. For example, determining the influence of a publication in a citation network is similar to finding the role of a gene in a biological pathway, finding the well-connected users in a social network corresponds to finding the important traffic hubs in a road network, and network analysis algorithms such as Google's PageRank can be applied to different types of networks such as the world wide web and social networks. Because of this common structure it seems natural to look for a common infrastructure to deal with these networks. In this project we continue on our previous work on a data model and quary language for manipulating, transforming, ans analyzing information networks. More specifically we will focus on extending our model to support the most important operations used in network analysis and exploration, upgrading our data model towards weighted and probabilistic networks, and studying the issue of quary optimization." "Bioinformatics: from nucleotids to networks (N2N)" "Kathleen Marchal" "Department of Plant Biotechnology and Bioinformatics" "The platform From Nucleotides to Networks (N2N) aims at setting up pipelines for the processing of the increasing flow of molecular data and the development of techniques for the integration of this data into further bio-informatics research."