Projects
Mitigation of railway induced vibration using seismic metamaterials KU Leuven
Railways are a sustainable and climate friendly means of transport, but vibration remains an environmental concern. We will investigate if seismic metamaterials installed on the propagation path between tracks and buildings can efficiently mitigate railway induced vibration. Seismic metamaterials are artificially engineered composite materials consisting of an arrangement of cells that are installed on the surface or embedded in the soil; ...
Reuse of phosphorus from organic waste streams in agriculture - an experimental analysis of the sustainability KU Leuven
Decades of excessive use of phosphorus (P) fertilisers in agriculture resulted in large soil P reserves in arable soils. This historical over-fertilisation contrasts with the impending scarcity of natural mineral P resources and with the adverse environmental effects due to losses of P to the natural environment; for these reasons, the reservoirs of soil P are often denoted as the legacy P. To reduce these environmental effects, ...
Local ans systemic effects of exposure of Arabidopsis thaliana to increased metal concentrations: integration of gene expression and root morphology to reveal molecular parameters with ecological significance in mono- and multi -pollution. Hasselt University
Discrete element modelling of flexible flat biomass KU Leuven
Computational models have become an indispensable tool in engineering. By allowing in silico experiments on a wide range of systems, modelling techniques provide insights that are otherwise challenging to obtain. To elucidate the mechanics of multi-particulate systems comprised of individual particles that are relatively large compared to the system of interest, the individual particle nature should be taken into account to capture ...
Phosphorus speciation in highly weathered soils as affected by redox cycles. KU Leuven
The role of photoheterotrophic and chemoautotrophic prokaryotes in the microbial food web in terrestrial Antarctica: a cultivation approach combined with functional analysis Ghent University
We will study the diversity of key genes in mechanisms for CO2 fixation and for exploiting solar energy by bacteria. A large-scale isolation campaign from selected terrestrial Antarctic samples will be performed to obtain bacterial cultures that harbor these alternative mechanisms and use these organisms to experimentally test hypotheses with regard to their role in the community.
FWO sabbatical bench fee professor Finke Ghent University
The focus of my sabbatical leave is to increase the process coverage of my soil development model SoilGen by implementing functionality that (i)
was designed by my PhD-students and myself and (ii) has been developed by researchers at the SLU in Sweden. This will increase the application
domain of SoilGen so that both physical and chemical protection of soil organic matter (SOM) is simulated by the model. Hereto, in addition ...
The role of non-coding RNAs in nematode-induced transgenerational priming in rice Ghent University
Rice is one of the most important staple crops in the world. With our growing world population,
food security becomes even more important. Due to environmental concerns, rice cultivation is
shifted from flooded fields to well-drained soils, which poses problems with soil-bound nematodes
(and other diseases) that majorly jeopardize rice yield. Plants have many mechanisms to defend
themselves against these nematodes and ...