Section: Partnerships and Cooperations

International Initiatives

Inria International Labs

Within the BioNature (http://www.bionature.cl ) operation program of CIRIC Center (Inria Chile), the team participates to the axis Modeling, control and optimization of waste-water treatment processes and biogas production, and more specifically to the research lines

• automation and control of anaerobic digestion,

• innovative technologies and modeling on wastewater and residues treatment.

In this framework, the team has co-supervised the postdoctoral stay of. M. Sebbah in Chile.

Inria Associate Teams

DYMECOS2

• Title: Modelling of microbial ecosystems, bioprocesses control and numerical simulations

• International Partner (Institution - Laboratory - Researcher):

  • Departamento de Ingeniería Matemática (DIM), Universidad de Chile

  • Centro de Modelamiento Matemático (CMM), UMi CNRS/ Universidad de Chile

  • Departamento de Matematica, Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria (UTFSM), Valparaiso (Chile)

  • Bionature, CIRIC, Inria Chile

• Duration: 2014-2016

• See also: https://sites.google.com/site/eadymecos/

• The objective is to develop, from expert knowledge and experimental observations, models of microbial ecosystems that are simple enough to carry out the determination of explicit "control laws", and realistic enough to represent real bio-processes. One of the difficulties is to identify the limits of the validity of these models, in terms of spatial heterogeneity and microbial population size. We aim also outcomes of the modeling for the optimal design of waste-water treatment plants.

Inria International Partners

Declared Inria International Partners

LIRIMA NuWat (https://project.inria.fr/nuwat/ ) 2013-... (Tlemcen, Algeria and Tunis, Tunisia). NuWat focuses on the numerical Modeling and simulation of microbial ecosystems and their application in biotechnology with a focus on solutions considered as promising for countries of the Maghreb, for instance in waste-water treatment systems and its reuse in agriculture under semi-arid climates. NuWat handles the two following related topics: (1) the elaboration of numerical hybrid models for simulation of bacterial ecosystems combining discrete models (for small size populations) and continuous models (for large size populations, substrate and environment); (2) the systematic numerical and software development for biotechnology process control. The project was initially developed in collaboration with the Univ. of Tlemcen but is now extended to the ENIT in Tunis, with an extension of the domain of application to system biology and biotechnologies.

Informal International Partners

• CESAME, Univ. Louvain, Belgium : D. Dochain

• 3BIO, Univ. Mons, Belgium : A. Vande Wouver

• Univ. Neuchâtel, Switzerland : M. Benaim

• MOMAT, Univ. Madrid, Spain : B. Ivorra

• Univ. Newcastle, U.K. : M. Wade

Participation In other International Programs

CIB (Centre Interfacultaire Bernoulli)

• Program: Bernoulli workshops

• Title: The role of mathematics and computer science in ecological theory

• Inria principal investigator: MODEMIC (C. Lobry),

• Partners: EPFL, Lausanne (Switzerland).

• Duration: July 1 to December 31, 2014

• Abstract: A former collaboration of Inria with ecologists (the COREV network presently animated by R. Arditi) initiated (at the beginning of the 90s) by J-L. Gouzé and C. Lobry within the framework of the Inria project team COMORE, pursued then by MERE and COMORE raised an important event: the half-year Mathematics and computer sciences in theoretical ecology which we co-organize with R. Arditi (associated with D. de Angelis and L. Ginzburg) at the Federal Polytechnical School of Lausanne (Centre Interfacultaire Bernoulli).

  The program lasted from July 1 to December 31, 2014. It gathered about 90 participants among them very well known scientists from Theoretical Ecology (S. Allesina, D. de Angelis, P. Chesson, J. Damuth, L. Ginzburg, R. Holt...) and from Mathematics (M. Benaïm, N. Berglund, M. and F. Diener, M. Krupa, A. Lam, W.M. Ni...).

  Six one-week workshops where organized (one each month) on the following topics:

  • Non-adaptive selection: explaining macroscopic laws in ecology and evolution (Organizers: L. Ginzburg, R. Arditi, L.-F. Bersier).

  • Dispersal and competition of populations and communities in spatially inhomogeneous environments (Organizer: D. DeAngelis).

  • Validation of uncertain ecological models with imprecise data (Organizer : S. Ferson)

  • Discrete, explicit simulations versus continuous, aggregated models (Organizers: R. Arditi, C. Lobry, Y. Tyutyunov).

  • Multi-scale models, slow-fast differential equations, averaging in ecology (Organizers: M. Desroches, O. Faugeras, C. Lobry, T. Sari).

  • Microbial ecology and mathematical modelling (Organizers : R. Arditi, J.J. Godon, J. Harmand, C. Lobry)

  The third workshop was organized in collaboration with O. Faugeras (EPI Neuromathcomp, Sophia-Antipolis) and M. Desroches (EPI MYCENAE, Rocquencourt) and tried to find connections between neurosciences and theoretical ecology through mathematical models.

• Web-site: http://mathcompecol.epfl.ch/

TREASURE

• Program: Euromediterranean 3+3

• Title: Treatment and Sustainable Reuse of Effluents in semiarid climates

• Inria principal investigator: MODEMIC (J. Harmand),

• Partners: Centre de Biotechnology de Sfax, Department of environmental engineering (Tunisia), Ecole Nationale des Ingénieurs de Tunis, Dept. de Mathématiques (Tunisia), Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, Dept. EA, MICA et MIA (France), National Research Center, Water Pollution Control (Egypt), University of Patras, Process Control Laboratory (Greece), University of Tlemcen, Automatic control (Algeria), University of santiago de compostella, Environmental engineering (Spain) Université Cadi Ayyad de Marrakech, Faculté des Sciences de Semlalia, Dépt. de Mathématiques (Morocco), Centre National de Recherche sur l'Eau et l'Energie, Université Française d'Egypte (Egypt)

• Duration: Jan 2012 - Dec 2015

• Abstract: The TREASURE network aims at integrating knowledge on the modelling, the control and the optimization of biological systems for the treatment and reuse of waste-waters in countries submitted to semi-arid climates under both socio-economical and agronomic constraints within the actual context of global changes. A special focus of the actual project concerns the integration of technical skills together with socio-economical and agronomic studies for the integrated solutions developed within the network to be evaluated and tested in practice in the partner's countries and, as possible as it may be within the context of the actual research network, valorizing these proposed technologies with the help of industrial on site in partners from South.

• Web-site: https://project.inria.fr/treasure

TASSILI

• Program: Hubert Curien Program

• Title: Procédés membranaires pour le traitement anaérobie des eaux usées - Modélisation, commande et optimisation

• Inria principal investigator: MODEMIC (J. Harmand),

• Partners: LBE-INRA (Narbonne), Univ. Tlemcen (Algeria)

• Duration: 3 years

• Abstract: This project aims at promoting collaborations with our historical Algerian partners of the department of automatic control of the University of Tlemcen. The objectives of the project are to develop research on the modeling and the control of anaerobic systems through the co-advisoring of Zeyneb Khedim (PhD `co-tutelle' between UM2 and Univ. Tlemcen).