On March 14, the ERAdiate Team launched its Lecture Series, a very important mechanism of interaction and dissemination. They serve the purpose of bringing to UNIZA new trends and knowledge from around the world, but also, and perhaps more importantly, to connect UNIZA researchers together on interdisciplinary topics.
The theme of the first Lecture Series was on “Current Trends and Future Perspectives on Sustainable and Smart Mobility”. This first lecture was crafted to address wider visions of a sustainable future, which underpins the research scope of ERAdiate.
Dr. Floridea Di Ciommo started by setting the scene of mobility today, questioning the conventional Value of (Travel) Time (VoT) used in transport planning. She concluded by proposing a shift of focus to ‘accessibility’ (or ‘inaccessibility’) as a more complete substitute to VoT.
Dr. Yannick Cornet presented his work on the concept of Reasonable Travel Time (RTT). In the same vein as Dr. Di Ciommo, his research reframes transport from the traveller perspective.
Dr. Giuseppe Lugano presented the MoTiV project, unique in content: it is the first project that will implement the concepts presented by the two speakers and focus on collecting data on the experience of travel using a state-of-the-art mobile app, which will be available in November 2018.
On May 17, the ERAdiate Team was pleased to welcome and host distinguished guests from Hosei University (Japan) for its second Lecture Series: Prof. Kazuo Yana and Prof. Genci Capi of the Faculty of Science and Engineering came to present their work on intelligent robotic systems.
The presentation on potential for collaboration with the Institute of Integrated Science and Technology, led by Prof. Kazuo Yana, was followed by a lecture on the study of learning processes designed to improve decision-making algorithms for self-driving robots. The research method consists of capturing and analysing brain signals on live mice trained to find food in a maze. The result of the direction prediction is then used for designing real robot navigation systems.
Lecture series will continue throughout 2018, with upcoming topics covering autonomous vehicles and robots and implementation of ‘sustainable and smart’ to mobility and cities. To support internal networking, ERAdiate has launched in parallel more focussed Cafés Scientifiques, which will tackle topics of common interest in more depth.
Reports and presentations can be found here:
ERAdiate Lecture Series #2 ”Opportunities for research collaboration with Hosei University (Japan)”