IFISC research wins CSIC prize for relevant pHd theses
Researcher Mattia Mazzoli, currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Institut Pierre Louis d'Epidémiologie et de Santé Publique (iPLesp), has won one of the prizes for relevant doctoral theses awarded by the CSIC. His thesis, entitled "Human mobility: data analysis, theory and models" was carried out at IFSIC (UIB-CSIC) under the supervision of researchers Pere Colet and José J. Ramasco, and was defended in July 2021. The thesis has been selected among the 20 awarded, within the global area "society". Mazzoli's work consisted of proposing and testing new methods to study human mobility in different contexts, scales and applications, such as using Twitter data on the Venezuelan exodus, the spread of epidemics in airports or how urban structure affected the spread of Covid.According to the CSIC, this award "aims to recognise and thank the fundamental work carried out in our organization by research staff in training, professionals whose work is crucial for the advancement of knowledge and the CSIC". Around 200 doctoral theses were submitted to the competition in its first phase, of which only 20 were selected.CSIC
http://ifisc.uib-csic.es/en/news/ifisc-research-wins-csic-prize-relevant-ph…
Formation of biological patterns by pulsed signals
Alan Turing first described
how regular patterns found in living things, such as the stripes of
zebras, appear.A collaborative study
between IFISC and Princeton University proposes an alternative
mechanism to explain this pattern formation.
Understanding how regular shapes (patterns) are generated in nature
is a key question, as they have a major influence on the
functionality, resilience and properties of organisms and their
aggregations. Structures as diverse as the patterns on an insect
shell, the stripes on a zebra or bacterial cultures have been the
subject of analysis for decades, mainly with the intention of
understanding how they are generated.
A recent study in which Eduardo Colombo, from Princeton University in
the United States, and Cristóbal López and Emilio Hernández-García,
from IFISC (UIB-CSIC), have collaborated, has identified a new
mechanism of pattern formation in biological contexts. The work,
published in Physical Review Letters, proposes a mathematical model
in which these patterns emerge from the interaction of organisms that
communicate through the intermittent emission of noxious signals.
In the 1950s, the British mathematician Alan Turing found a very
general mechanism capable of explaining some of the patterns found in
nature. However, this mechanism was not necessarily linked to life
activity, so it has been equally applied to understand other
structures that appear spontaneously in inert systems, such as
chemical reactions, optical and mechanical devices, etc. In essence,
the Turing process consists of competition between a substance that
tends to multiply, and which in turn generates another substance
capable of eliminating the first one in an inefficient way, but
having greater mobility and therefore occupying places where the
first substance has not yet arrived. After 70 years of research,
hundreds of physical, chemical and biological systems have been
identified that can be explained by the Turing process with some
variations.
The new mechanism proposed in this study also requires two types of
substances, one of which is capable of eliminating the other, which
produces it. The novelty of the model lies in the fact that the
production of this second substance is carried out in a pulsed,
intermittent manner. It is also necessary that the substance produced
propagates through space in a certain way, for example as liquids
propagate in porous media. In such situations, in cases where the
Turing mechanism is not able to generate structures, and the
substances would be distributed homogeneously in space, the
intermittent production destabilises the homogeneous distribution and
the substances are grouped together to form periodic fringe-like
structures.
The proposed mechanism may be of relevance in patterns where the
interaction between elements occurs in very short pulses compared to
reaction processes. This category would include patterns found in
chemistry or ecology, such as in bacterial cultures where bacteria
may intermittently secrete toxins. Colombo, Eduardo H.; Lopez, Cristobal; Hernandez-Garcia, Emilio. Physical Review Letters 130, 058401 (1-5) (2023). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.058401
http://ifisc.uib-csic.es/en/news/formation-biological-patterns-pulsed-signa…
11F: International Day of Women and Girls in Science 2023
In 2015, the United Nations General Assembly
decided to proclaim 11 February as the International Day of Women and Girls in
Science with the aim of achieving full and equal access to science for girls
and women.
This year IFISC joins forces with the CSIC
Delegation in the Balearic Islands as well as with the other CSIC centers in
the Balearic Islands to organize the activity "Conecta con las científicas
del CSIC en Illes Balears". This free online activity is especially aimed
at schools and will consist of two interactive live broadcasts on 9 and 10 February
in which different researchers from the centers will talk about what they work
on, their day-to-day work and the challenges they face. More details and
instructions on how to access are available on the delegation's
website.
From IFISC, the activity will be attended by
PhD student Annalisa Caligiuri, who is currently working under the
supervision of Tobias Galla and Lucas Lacasa on topics related to statistical
physics and stochastic processes applied to opinion dynamics and complex
networks.
In addition, IFISC is once again collaborating
with the introductory workshop on programming for young people organized by
Django Girls on Saturday 25 February at Parc Bit.
We take this opportunity to recall the results of the
survey on the perception of the IFISC gender equality plan that were presented at the previous
11F and on which the gender equality and women's empowerment committee has been
working over the last year.
http://ifisc.uib-csic.es/en/news/11f-international-day-women-and-girls-scie…