Lime-based mortars have the potential to be used in modern masonry construction, alleviating its environmental impact as well as adding beneficial properties. It is further possible to enhance the sustainability by adding construction and demolition waste as partial binder and aggregate replacement in such mortars. This project aims to combine lime and waste to produce innovative materials for masonry.
The goal of this research is to create a bridge between lime and cement mortars, and study their structure and performance. Mortar mixtures will be characterized, focusing on the efflorescence effect. For the study of the efflorescence, contamination and further accelerated aging of the mortars is done. Physical and chemical characterization is carried out, together with micro-CT for 3D analysis.
Providing lime mortars with an early strength is usually done through expensive and/or toxic chemicals. Here we propose obtaining rapid hardening of lime mortars through bacterial CO2 production and calcium carbonate precipitation. Also, the autogenous self-healing capacity of lime mortars will be studied and bacteria will be added into lime mortar, to induce CaCO3 precipitation in occurring microcracks.
The research topics of this project are the use of biologically inspired principles in artificial neural networks, and the study of local and global network topologies. I develop a process for generating biologically plausible ANNs for complex temporal tasks. I start from state-of-the-art echo state networks.
Microbial fermentation products are massively used and consumed. Purity of these products is thus crucially important, especially in case of direct intake, as usually occurs for food supplements and vitamins. Currently, the industries are responsible for the quality of their commercialized microbial fermentation products. However, several unexpected impurities of biological origin, including ...
The relation between postwar art and technology is widely considered in terms of progress, optimism, and prosperity. This project sets forth to re-examine postwar art and technology in more subtle and complex ways. Its ambition is to analyze postwar sculpture in Belgium in its unique engagement with the rise and fall of techno-optimism, showing how three successive generations of artists reflected upon technologyU+2014its values, ...
The U+2018target trialU+2019 framework has recently gained prominence in medical research as a way of making causal inquiries when data from a randomised trial is not available. The guiding principle is that one should try to emulate the desired hypothetical trial of interest. This is relevant for questions where it may not be feasible to randomise patients, or a trial would take years to carry out but answers are urgently needed.
In ...