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Michael De Volder, Engineering Department - IfM
 

Wed 26 Feb 16:30: On induced completely prime primitive ideals in enveloping algebras of classical Lie algebras

http://talks.cam.ac.uk/show/rss/5408 - Mon, 24/02/2025 - 22:59
On induced completely prime primitive ideals in enveloping algebras of classical Lie algebras

On induced completely prime primitive ideals in enveloping algebras of classical Lie algebras

Abstract: The classification of completely prime primitive ideals in enveloping algebras of simple complex Lie algebras is long-standing classical problem in representation. Although the classification of all primitive ideals as a set was established in the 1980s the problem for completely prime primitive ideals has proved much more challenging. In this talk we will cover recent work in which we show that an important class of completely prime primitive ideals, which we refer to as Losev—Premet ideals, can be understood through a process of parabolic induction in the case of simple Lie algebras of classical type. We’ll explain how this can be reduced to problem about 1-dimensional representations of finite W-algebra. At the end of the talk, we’ll explain a modular analogue of these results about minimal dimensional representations of reduced enveloping algebras.

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Mon 17 Mar 17:00: From Machine Learning to Machine Reasoning: Deterministic Neural Syllogistic Reasoning

http://talks.cam.ac.uk/show/rss/5408 - Mon, 24/02/2025 - 20:58
From Machine Learning to Machine Reasoning: Deterministic Neural Syllogistic Reasoning

In my last talk (https://talks.cam.ac.uk/talk/index/228790), I show four methodological limitations that prevent machine learning systems from reaching the rigour of syllogistic reasoning. They cannot achieve the rigour, not because of insufficient amount of training data, instead, to achieve the rigour, they shall not use training data. What kind of neural networks can be? Neural networks use vector embedding, which is a sphere embedding with zero radius. In this talk, I will show the four limitations can be completely avoided by promoting vector embedding into sphere embedding with non-zero radius. I will introduce a novel neural network, Sphere Neural Network (SphNN), which explicitly represents geometric objects, here spheres, and introduces the method of syllogistic reasoning by constructing Euler diagrams in the vector space. Instead of using training data, SphNN uses a neighbourhood transition map to transform the current sphere configuration into the target. SphNN is the first neural network that achieves deterministic human-like syllogistic reasoning in one epoch with the worst computational complexity of O(N) (where N is the length of the chain).

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Boosting the reduction of CO2 and dimethylamine for C–N bonding to synthesize DMF via modulating the electronic structures of indium single atoms

http://feeds.rsc.org/rss/ee - Mon, 24/02/2025 - 17:39

Energy Environ. Sci., 2025, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/D4EE05681G, PaperJingui Zheng, Shaohan Xu, Lingzhi Sun, Xun Pan, Qihao Xie, Guohua Zhao
The indium single atom of InN3 affects the electronic properties of adsorption of CO2 and HN(CH3)2. This resulted in hydrogen transfer from HN(CH3)2 to CO2, generating the intermediate species of *N(CH3)2 and *COOH that are conducive to C–N coupling.
To cite this article before page numbers are assigned, use the DOI form of citation above.
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Thu 20 Mar 16:00: ‘Humoral immunity in the lung of influenza infected mice’

http://talks.cam.ac.uk/show/rss/5408 - Mon, 24/02/2025 - 17:13
‘Humoral immunity in the lung of influenza infected mice’

This Cambridge Immunology and Medicine Seminar will take place on Thursday 20 March 2025, starting at 4:00pm, in the Ground Floor Lecture Theatre, Jeffrey Cheah Biomedical Centre (JCBC)

Speaker: Tal Arnon, Professor of Cellular Immunology, The Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, Oxford

Title: ‘Humoral immunity in the lung of influenza infected mice’

Host: Ondrej Suchanek, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge

Refreshments will be available following the seminar.

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Wed 26 Feb 14:15: Good moduli spaces of A_r-stable curves

http://talks.cam.ac.uk/show/rss/5408 - Mon, 24/02/2025 - 16:45
Good moduli spaces of A_r-stable curves

The search for alternative compactifications of the moduli space of smooth curves has been central in the panorama of moduli spaces and a possible way to construct such compactifications is allowing curves with worse-than-nodal singularities. Curves with A_r-singularities, which we call A_r-stable, naturally appear in the literature as a possible choice. This project focuses on proving the existence of the good moduli space of a suitable open of the moduli stack of A_r-stable curves. We will explain the choice of the open by showing what the obstructions to S-completeness and Theta-reductivity are for the stack of A_r-stable curves. This is an on-going project with Davide Gori and Ludvig Modin.

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Fri 07 Mar 14:00: Axiomatization of infinity-categories

http://talks.cam.ac.uk/show/rss/5408 - Mon, 24/02/2025 - 15:35
Axiomatization of infinity-categories

I’ll discuss our proposed axiomatization of synthetic categories that allows to develop most of (infinity-)category theory from first principles, without relying on explicit set-theoretic models. We expect that such a synthetic theory can make it easier to practice (infinity-)category theory for non-experts and teach it to beginners; moreover, it lends itself to formalization in proof assistants. This talk is based on ongoing collaborative work with D.-C. Cisinski, K. Nguyen and T. Walde.

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Thu 20 Mar 16:00: Tal Arnon, Professor of Cellular Immunology, The Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, Oxford

http://talks.cam.ac.uk/show/rss/5408 - Mon, 24/02/2025 - 14:30
Tal Arnon, Professor of Cellular Immunology, The Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, Oxford

This Cambridge Immunology and Medicine Seminar will take place on Thursday 20 March 2025, starting at 4:00pm, in the Ground Floor Lecture Theatre, Jeffrey Cheah Biomedical Centre (JCBC)

Speaker: Tal Arnon, Professor of Cellular Immunology, The Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, Oxford

Title: TBC

Host: Ondrej Suchanek, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge

Refreshments will be available following the seminar.

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Thu 06 Mar 13:00: Mathematical Modelling of Emergent Survival in Microbial Communities

http://talks.cam.ac.uk/show/rss/5408 - Mon, 24/02/2025 - 12:44
Mathematical Modelling of Emergent Survival in Microbial Communities

The gut microbiome is more than a collection of individual bacteria – it is a dynamic ecosystem where survival depends on interactions between species. In fact, these interactions can be more decisive for a bacterium’s fate than external factors like the host’s diet or drug intake. In this talk, I will explore how gut microbial communities navigate challenges such as nutrient scarcity and drug exposure, often revealing surprising survival patterns that defy predictions based on single-species behaviour. I will introduce how mathematical models can capture these emergent survival dynamics, enabling predictions of which species thrive or decline in a community context. By delving into the metabolic alliances and competitive strategies of gut bacteria, my research aims to offer insights into microbiome resilience, pathogen resistance, and the design of targeted probiotic therapies. Whether you are fascinated by the gut-brain axis, applied mathematics, or simply intrigued by the unseen battles (and friendships) within, this lunchtime seminar aims to make the microscopic world come alive.

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Thu 27 Feb 16:00: “The multifaceted roles of gamma delta T cell subsets in colon cancer”

http://talks.cam.ac.uk/show/rss/5408 - Mon, 24/02/2025 - 12:43
“The multifaceted roles of gamma delta T cell subsets in colon cancer”

This Cambridge Immunology and Medicine Seminar will take place on Thursday 27 February 2025, starting at 4:00pm, in the Ground Floor Lecture Theatre, Jeffrey Cheah Biomedical Centre (JCBC)

Speaker: Seth Coffelt, Professor of Cancer Immunology, School of Cancer Sciences, University of Glasgow Cancer Research UK Scotland Institute

Title: “The multifaceted roles of gamma delta T cell subsets in colon cancer”

Abstract: Understanding how immune cells impact cancer progression and metastasis is the major focus of the Coffelt lab. Specifically, we are interested in the mechanisms by which gd T cells participate in tumour evolution: from early stages of initiation to late stages of cancer spread. gd T cells encompass several phenotypically and functionally different subsets, including those that traffic between organs and lymph nodes as well as those that remain fixed within specific organs. We and others have shown that these gd T cell subsets can be either tumour-promoting or tumour-opposing. Recently, we have focused our efforts on gd T cells in colon cancer, asking questions about their behaviour during tumour evolution. Using genetically engineered mouse models of colon cancer, we have found that gut-resident Vg7 cells participate in cancer immunosurveillance, but are excluded from the tumour microenvironment. Current efforts are focused on understanding how pro-tumour gd T cells, including Vg4 and Vg6 cells, play a role in tumour initiation. Acquiring this knowledge may help in the design of new immunotherapies for patients with colon cancer

Host: Virginia Pedicord, CITIID , Cambridge

Refreshments will be available following the seminar.

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Thu 27 Feb 16:00: “The multifaceted roles of gamma delta T cell subsets in colon cancer”

http://talks.cam.ac.uk/show/rss/5408 - Mon, 24/02/2025 - 12:35
“The multifaceted roles of gamma delta T cell subsets in colon cancer”

This Cambridge Immunology and Medicine Seminar will take place on Thursday 27 February 2025, starting at 4:00pm, in the Ground Floor Lecture Theatre, Jeffrey Cheah Biomedical Centre (JCBC)

Speaker: Seth Coffelt, Professor of Cancer Immunology, Cancer Research UK, University of Glasgow

Title: “The multifaceted roles of gamma delta T cell subsets in colon cancer”

Host: Virginia Pedicord, CITIID , Cambridge

Refreshments will be available following the seminar.

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Tue 11 Mar 14:00: Title to be confirmed

http://talks.cam.ac.uk/show/rss/5408 - Mon, 24/02/2025 - 10:25
Title to be confirmed

Abstract not available

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Wed 12 Mar 14:00: Spatio-temporal Melt and Basal Channel Evolution on Pine Island Glacier Ice Shelf from CryoSat-2

http://talks.cam.ac.uk/show/rss/5408 - Mon, 24/02/2025 - 09:59
Spatio-temporal Melt and Basal Channel Evolution on Pine Island Glacier Ice Shelf from CryoSat-2

Ice shelves buttress the grounded ice sheet, restraining its flow into the ocean. Mass loss from these ice shelves occurs primarily through ocean-induced basal melting, with the highest melt rates occurring in regions that host basal channels – elongated, kilometre-wide zones of relatively thin ice. While some models suggest that basal channels could mitigate overall ice shelf melt rates, channels have also been linked to basal and surface crevassing, leaving their cumulative impact on ice-shelf stability uncertain. Due to their relatively small spatial scale and the limitations of previous satellite datasets, our understanding of how channelised melting evolves over time remains limited. In this study, we present a novel approach that uses CryoSat-2 radar altimetry data to calculate ice shelf basal melt rates, demonstrated here as a case study over Pine Island Glacier (PIG) ice shelf. Our method generates monthly Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) and melt maps with a 250 m spatial resolution. The data show that near the grounding line, basal melting preferentially melts a channel’s western flank 50% more than its eastern flank. Additionally, we find that the main channelised geometries on PIG are inherited upstream of the grounding line and play a role in forming ice shelf pinning points. These observations highlight the importance of channels under ice shelves, emphasising the need to investigate them further and consider their impacts on observations and models that do not resolve them.

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Fri 28 Feb 13:00: Interacting Quantum Field Theory on a Causal Set

http://talks.cam.ac.uk/show/rss/5408 - Mon, 24/02/2025 - 09:50
Interacting Quantum Field Theory on a Causal Set

Causal set theory is an approach to quantum gravity in which spacetime is fundamentally discrete at the Planck scale. In this theory, spacetime takes the form of a random Lorentzian lattice known as a “causal set”. In this talk, I will describe recent developments in defining interacting scalar quantum field theories on this novel background. I will present diagrammatic rules for computing in-in correlators; these rules are manifestly causal thanks to the appearance of the retarded propagator. This framework is a step towards new quantum gravity phenomenology, since it enables the computation of early universe observables under the assumption that spacetime is fundamentally discrete.

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Thu 27 Feb 11:30: Green Carbon for the Chemical Industry: Decoupling Polymers from Fossil Resources

http://talks.cam.ac.uk/show/rss/5408 - Mon, 24/02/2025 - 09:30
Green Carbon for the Chemical Industry: Decoupling Polymers from Fossil Resources

Reducing reliance on fossil carbon is central to the concepts of sustainable development and material stewardship. Whereas decarbonization of the energy sector is feasible through the development of renewable energy, the chemicals sector needs carbon as a building block. The lasting and growing demand for this embedded carbon, especially for production of polymers, must be met in the future through utilization of renewable feedstocks such as biomass, CO2 and recycling of carbon-containing waste. In this context, the transition from fossil to renewable polymers provides a major challenge. Advances in renewable polymers will be exemplified through case studies of two of the most promising bio-based platforms for plastics: lactic acid (LA) and hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF).

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Tue 25 Feb 16:05: Towards the Responsible Development of Foundation Model and Generative AI

http://talks.cam.ac.uk/show/rss/5408 - Mon, 24/02/2025 - 09:29
Towards the Responsible Development of Foundation Model and Generative AI

Foundation Model and Generative AI are among the most promising topics nowadays. However, their rapid developments also raise a series of critical challenges on responsibility such as privacy, security and Intellectual property (IP). In this talk, I will touch on the relevant risks and how we are championing the responsible development of Foundation Model and Generative AI, including using Federated Learning to empower the training/fine-tuning/adaptation of foundation models without touching on the original data; training models on public and synthetic data only; strategies to detect and address the unauthorized data usage, training data memorization, and IP infringements, ensuring compliance and trust.

Bio: Dr. Lingjuan Lyu is currently leading the privacy-preserving machine learning and vision foundation model team in Sony Research. Her main research interests include the low-cost foundation model and generative AI model development, responsible AI, and federated learning. She has won a series of awards, including AI 10 to Watch, IJCAI Early Career Spotlight, IEEE Outstanding Leadership Award, IBM Ph.D. Fellowship, National Scholarship, and Best/Outstanding/Oral/Spotlight paper awards or recognitions from top venues like ICML , ACL, CIKM , NeurIPS, AAAI , IJCAI, WWW , and KDD . She also served as a chair, committee member, or organizer of top conferences including her recent role as a chair for NeurIPS’24 Datasets and Benchmarks.

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Conjugated Coordination Polymer Aerogels with Increased Accessibility of Well‐Defined Single‐Atom Metal Sites as a New Paradigm of Electrocatalysts

A facile and general strategy is developed to prepare conjugated coordination polymer aerogels (denoted as M-CCPA, M = Ni, Cu, Zn, etc.) that can markedly increase the accessibility of their well-defined single-atom metal sites within their hierarchically porous structures with mesopores and nanopores, which can provide a wide space for the design of high-performance catalysts toward various energy-conversion systems.


Abstract

Developing high-performance single-atom catalysts (SACs) with maximum metal utilization efficiency is of significance, which presents enormous potentials to be extensively applied. It is desired yet challenging to elaborately tailor the coordination structures of active sites in SACs and simultaneously enable sufficient accessibility of these active sites to reactants. Here, a facile and general strategy to prepare conjugated coordination polymer aerogels (CCPA) with porous architectures that can markedly increase the accessibility of their elaborately-tailored active sites, which as a new electrocatalyst paradigm can fully present both the structural advantages of SACs and aerogel materials, is reported. Taking nickel (Ni) as an example, Ni-based CCPA (Ni-CCPA) and its counterpart Ni-CCP with non-aerogel feature are studied as a proof-of-concept case. Electrochemical measurements show that, relative to Ni-CCP, Ni-CCPA exhibits appreciably higher performance toward alkaline oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Both the experimental results and theoretical simulations unravel that the improved OER performance of Ni-CCPA arises from the accelerated OH− diffusion within its porous architecture and enhanced OH− concentration near its highly exposed active sites at its high-curvature surfaces with localized electric fields. Importantly, as evidenced by the Cu-CCPA and Zn-CCPA examples, such strategy can be promisingly applied to prepare high-performance CCPA targeted toward various catalytic reactions and beyond.

Hierarchical‐Structured RGO@EGaIn Composites as Advanced Self‐Healing Anode for Room‐Temperature Liquid Metal Battery

GO naturally adsorbs onto the surface of LMPs via electrostatic interactions, self-assembles into a core–shell structure, and subsequently reduces to RGO in an acidic solution. The presence of RGO in the hierarchical structural composites significantly improves the electrode-electrolyte interface, suppressing and accommodating the irregular deformation of LMPs during the electrochemical reaction process and promoting the formation of a stable SEI film.


Abstract

Gallium-based liquid metal (LM) has emerged as a promising candidate anode material for lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), exhibiting high theoretical capacity, excellent electrode kinetics, and unique self-healing ability. However, the liquid-solid-liquid transition during the electrochemical reactions can disrupt the solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) and damage the structural integrity, ultimately limiting the cycling stability. Here, hierarchical-structured reduced graphene oxide coated eutectic gallium-indium liquid metal particles (RGO@EGaIn LMPs) are synthesized using a facile self-assembly strategy. The customized RGO@EGaIn electrode demonstrated impressive performance in both half-cell and full-cell configurations for LIBs. The morphological and phase transitions of RGO@EGaIn LMPs during the lithiation/delithiation processes are uncovered by real-time in situ transmission electron microscopy tests. It is clarified that the presence of RGO in the hierarchical structure buffers the volume expansion of LMPs from ≈160% to 125% and provides a fast pathway for the rapid transfer of ions and electrons during the electrochemical reaction, which effectively enhances the electrochemical performance of the electrode. This work introduces a straightforward and effective method for preparing high-performance room-temperature liquid metal electrodes, representing a significant step forward toward the commercial application of liquid metal batteries.

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4 January 2021

We are seeking to hire a research assistant to work on carbon nanotube based microdevices. More information is available here: www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/28202/

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We are seeking to hire a postdoc researcher to work on the structuring of Li-ion battery electrodes. More information is available here: www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/28197/