No fewer than four TU/e researchers received a Vidi grant this week for their research proposals. NWO awards these grants of up to 850,000 euros to talented researchers. With the help of the Vidi grant, talented scientists can further develop their research lines and start or expand their research groups. The new research projects at TU/e focus on neural networks, improving warnings for dangerous weather, haptic feedback in surgical robots, and better simulations of tissue repair after a heart attack.
The NWO Vidi grants are personal research grants and a prestigious recognition of the quality and talent of both the researcher and the project proposal they have submitted.
Neural Networks
Researcher Christopher Hojny of the Department of Mathematics & Computer Science has received a Vidi grant for his project 'ENeMIP: Embedding Neural Networks in Mixed-Integer Programming'.
Hojny: "Neural networks help computers to learn patterns in data, while mixed-integer programming (MIP) is used to make complex decisions in areas like energy, transport, and healthcare. Today, these two powerful tools cannot be combined effectively because MIP struggles with large neural networks."
"This project develops new mathematical methods and algorithms that allow MIP to work with much bigger and more accurate neural networks. All results will be built into open-source software such that they can be used widely. This will make it easier to design better, data-driven decision systems for real-world problems that affect society."
More reliable forecasts of dangerous weather
For her project 'MOSAIC: Multivariate structure and interdependence in complex data', Elisa Perrone of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science received a Vidi.
Perrone: "This project addresses the challenge of predicting dangerous weather situations where multiple conditions occur together, such as strong winds combined with heavy rainfall or low visibility during landing. These situations are difficult to predict reliably because current methods struggle to depict how weather conditions interact, leading to uncertainty in high-impact decisions."
"MOSAIC combines advances in statistics and discrete geometry with weather forecasting to better depict interactions, resulting in improved predictions for high-impact events such as storms, heatwaves, and floods. This will support safer aviation, better preparedness for extreme weather, and more informed decision-making in a changing climate."
Sensing what your surgical robot touches
Irene Kuling of the Department of Mechanical Engineering has been awarded the opportunity to carry out her research on 'Hands-on from afar!' with her Vidi.
Kuling: "Teleoperation technology allows users to perform tasks remotely using robots, much like video calling, but for physical tasks."
"This research focuses on the development of haptic feedback systems that enable a user to feel what a robot hand is feeling, almost as if the user is touching something with their own hand. By combining insights from human perception with soft robotics, this project enables intuitive remote control for applications such as remote maintenance and remote healthcare."
Simulations of blood vessels and heart repair
Researcher Tommaso Ristori of the Department of Biomedical Engineering will be able to use his Vidi for his project, in which he aims to develop simulations to regrow vessels of the infarcted heart.
Ristori: "Acute myocardial infarction causes severe loss of cardiac blood vessels. This loss inhibits the heart's ability to regenerate, potentially leading to premature death. Current treatments after infarction fail to stimulate sufficient blood-vessel growth, a process called angiogenesis."
"The major challenge is that, after infarction, angiogenic cells must form vessels within a dense scar tissue, dynamically strained with every heartbeat. How these dynamic deformations affect interactions between angiogenic cells and scar tissue remains unknown. We will address these challenges by developing and experimentally validating computational models that will uncover novel strategies to boost vessel formation and enable cardiac regeneration."
