Elham Kashefi is Professor of Quantum Computing at the University of Edinburgh and Directeur de recherche at CNRS, Sorbonne Universite, LIP6. She has pioneered a trans-disciplinaly research environment investigating all aspects of quantum cloud computing and verification of quantum technology all the way to actual industrial applications. She is Senior Science Team Leader for the UK Computing and Simulation Hub and the Co-founder of the French start up VeriQloud Ltd.
Future information and communication networks will certainly consist of both classical and quantum devices, some of which are expected to be dishonest, with various degrees of functionality, ranging from simple routers to servers executing quantum algorithms. Most of the technology required to achieve advanced stages of a quantum internet is still in its infancy, hence it is very hard to predict the potential use cases. Several applications, however, have already been characterized depending on the different stages of a quantum network such as secure delegated quantum computing, quantum key distribution, clock synchronization, leader election, quantum digital signatures, quantum money among others. Such applications promise to impact and transform the society on multiple levels including communication, accessing information and security. Therefore, it would be extremely useful to have a standard framework to describe the protocols that are relevant to quantum internet such that they become available to the diverse quantum information science community. We take the first step in this direction and call such an initiative: The Quantum Protocol Zoo which consists of an organised collection of protocols that could be implemented (or simulated) in the coming years. In this lecture I present an overview of the filed through this new platform of interaction with various communities contributing to it.
In this talk, I will give an overview of the research carried out by the Perception team (Inria and Laboratoire Jean Kuntzman) for the past five years. I will start by stating the scientific challenges of fusing audio and visual data, in contrast to other data fusion paradigms. I will discuss audio-visual alignement and audio-visual tracking in the context of multiple users interacting with a robot or, more generally, with an intelligent agent. I will emphasize the complementary roles played by visual and audio perception and I will address in detail the problems associated with fusing these two modalities in unrestricted settings, such as interaction with a robot in a complex environment. Finally, I will discuss the challenges of combining multimodal perception with speech communication and with robot control.
Joseph Fourier holds a special position in the history of sciences, with respect of course to his scientific career, but also to his political actions and his societal impact. Rightly considered as one of the fathers of mathematical physics, Fourier built his magnum opus—the Analytical Theory of Heat —on a vision of science that is astonishingly modern, beyond conventional barriers between disciplines. Fourier has however been long ignored, whereas he has been more than instrumental in the numerical revolution we experien ce since the 50s and that is now an integral part of our everyday life: without Fourier, no JPEG, no MP3, no algorithms for medical or astronomical imaging! As a follow-up of the « Fourier year » which has celebrated in 2018 the 250thanniversary of Fourier’s birthday, we will sketch the life and legacy of this exceptional figure, and underline how much his pioneering works paved the way for avenues which never ceased to be explored, with recent contributions whose spectrum spans large and complementary aspects of physics and information sciences.
The use of GIS and spatial information has become essential in planning the adaptation of human communities to the impacts of climate change and disasters, especially in developing countries where other alternative infrastructures do not always exist. Reducing the vulnerability of communities to these impacts, while increasing their resilience through a sustainable path to development, requires however more advanced tools, like dynamic integrated models of socio-ecosystems, able to capture and represent the complex interactions and feedback loops between a changing society and its changing environment in multiple climatic scenarios.Â
