Fifteen institutions from seven countries – France, Poland, Portugal, Kenya, Brazil, the USA, and Colombia – will implement the MOSAIC project starting from the new year. The project focuses on open, multimodal, and replicable information ecosystems supporting cross-border communities. MOSAIC is simultaneously the first initiative in Poland under the ‘Horizon Europe’ framework that addresses environmental aspects of epidemiological threats. The project task for ICM UW is to prepare data infrastructure and software for stakeholders.

The project, titled “Multi-site application of Open Science in the creAtion of healthy environments Involving local Communities (MOSAIC),” secured funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe framework program: Environment and health – Planetary health (HORIZON-HLTH-2023-ENVHLTH-02-01) and is set to be implemented over four years starting from January 1, 2024.

The international consortium is led by the French institute IRD (Institut de Recherche pour le Développement), with a total of 15 institutions from 7 countries: France, Poland, Portugal, Kenya, Brazil, the USA, and Colombia. In Poland, the project is implemented by the Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling at the University of Warsaw (ICM UW), under the direction of Dr. Aneta Afelt, in collaboration with the IT team led by Łukasz Dumiszewski. Within the international research team, ICM UW is responsible for data management.

MOSAIC is the first project in Poland under the ‘Horizon Europe’ program to address environmental aspects of epidemiological threats.

“When I started working with local communities ten years ago – training local public health workers in Cambodia, Laos, and Indonesia to use simple spatial analysis tools and report unusual illnesses – a project like MOSAIC was a dream of integrating scientific achievements and their intended beneficiaries. Even then, rich spatial data on the quality of the natural environment, computational capabilities, defining and creating specialized databases were not integrated and utilized in the daily practices of local epidemiological services in developing countries. Also, in science, the integration and transdisciplinary approach to creating and interpreting data sets from many, often unrelated disciplines, were not obvious.

I remember the critical view of applying geographic analysis methods in the concept of One Health – it’s just a map! What’s new in this? Today, the One Health concept is already a well-established paradigm in which Earth and environmental sciences have their obvious representation. I am very pleased that our MOSAIC project will also be implemented in Poland, including us in one of the most important current research trends – the relationship between the environment, humans, and health,” comments Dr. Aneta Afelt from ICM UW, the coordinator of the MOSAIC project in Poland.

MOSAIC – Multi-site application of Open Science in the creation of healthy environments Involving local Communities

Horizon Europe, HORIZON-HLTH-2023-ENVHLTH-02: Environment and health

Planetary health: understanding the links between environmental degradation and health impacts

Text: Dr. Aneta Afelt, ICM UW


The development of remote techniques for acquiring large amounts of data on the qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the Earth’s environment, combined with the continually growing analytical capabilities and computational power of modern supercomputers, is one of the decisive factors for the dynamic development of interdisciplinary research on the relationships between the conditions of the natural environment and the quality of our health. The necessity of a systemic approach to epidemiological threats arising from the diversity of human living conditions, as well as equivalently – conditions for food production and the associated transformation of the Earth’s natural ecosystem, has been a research demand for many years. However, it gained particular significance in the last three years as we globally grapple with the pandemic of the SARS-CoV-2 animal-origin virus.

The pandemic, impacting many areas of our daily life, simultaneously pointed to our scientific limitations, primarily in the prediction of epidemiological threats; both at the local level – crucial for the comfort of local communities, and at the global level – influencing the redistribution of economic resources and, as research results indicate, widening the economic gap between societies.

Current research results on the planet still do not provide a comprehensive understanding of the interactions (consequences and benefits) between environmental changes, its degradation, and health – this applies to all levels of planetary health. The MOSAIC project is one of the six selected for implementation under Horizon Europe, Environment, and health – Planetary health. The common goal of the selected projects is to seek optimal methods and tools to support communities in building resilience to changing conditions on the planet (such as threats arising from climate change, exploitation of natural resources, or a drastic decline in biodiversity and the global standardization of socio-ecological systems).

In the photos, transboundary areas of Southeast Asia; private archive of Dr. Aneta Afelt.

The MOSAIC project is dedicated to collaboration with local communities in low- and middle-income countries living in transboundary areas, grappling with the negative impacts of environmental changes and degradation affecting their health and well-being. It also considers the unique socio-political contexts that increase their vulnerability to threats. MOSAIC recognizes that these populations may be better adapted to interpret and use complex and multi-themed information about their environment to identify and understand the environmental impact on their well-being. Key to this is the recognition and implementation of locally feasible, acceptable, and sustainable adaptive solutions. Unfortunately, local communities may not necessarily possess the required scientific skills to fully benefit from them. MOSAIC aims to design and implement open, multimodal, and replicable information ecosystems that support transboundary communities in: i) understanding the environmental impact on their well-being, ii) building a health-promoting environment, iii) influencing public debate, public policy, and public decisions.

MOSAIC is based on the principles of open science, allowing: i) participatory and data sciences to collaborate with multiple disciplines and stakeholders, ii) scientists and society to co-create and utilize data and knowledge, guided by common values.

Two bioregions particularly affected by climate change, extreme weather events, and land cover degradation have been selected for collaboration: East Africa and the Amazon, with three transboundary research areas as “laboratories.” Direct collaboration with local communities will enable the implementation and evaluation of project development, testing of reproducibility and reuse of methods, data, and tools, and facilitating inter- and trans disciplinarity through the joint mobilization of a multidisciplinary team.

The European Commission’s DG Connect revealed the winners of the public procurement tender titled “Managed Services for the European Open Science Cloud Platform (EOSC)” published under the Horizon Europe Research Infrastructures Work Programme 2022. ICM University of Warsaw is a member of the Open Science Agora Consortium providing professionally managed services for the core components of the EOSC EU Node. 

The procurement for the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) aims to establish and implement a comprehensive enabling infrastructure known as the EOSC EU Node. This infrastructure is designed to offer access to a diverse range of FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data and high-quality interoperable services across various domains, encompassing tasks such as data management, computing, processing, analysis, and storage. 

The Open Science Agora consortium, of which ICM University of Warsaw is a member, is set to deliver expertly managed services for the fundamental elements of the EOSC EU Node. This encompasses responsibilities such as overseeing the Web Portal Front Office, managing Resource Catalogues and Registry Services, operating the Application Workflow Management engine, implementing Federated Identity Management and Single-Sign-On solutions, handling Monitoring and Accounting functions, and coordinating the overall Service Management System and service integration. 

The objective of the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) is to establish a federation of infrastructures that offers seamless access to interoperable research objects and value-added services throughout the entire research data lifecycle, encompassing discovery, storage, management, analysis, and subsequent reuse. 

European Comission /  ICM University of Warsaw 


Learn more 

The Commission announces winners of the EOSC Procurement 

European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) 

The ICM Scientific Conference 2023 took place on November 29-30, 2023. The event showcased selected projects of High-Performance Computing (HPC) users and achievements of the Interdisciplinary Center for Mathematical and Computational Modeling (ICM) in the field of large-scale computations and educational activities. The meetings at the former University of Warsaw’s Library also had a celebratory aspect, marking the 30th anniversary of the ICM’s existence as a university-wide research and scientific unit at the University of Warsaw.

Scientific Sessions: KDM and PIONIER-LAB

On the first day of the conference, during the Scientific Sessions of KDM (High-Performance Computers) several KDM users summarized their often years-long computations on ICM supercomputers.

This included presentations by:

In the afternoon session, the ICM Team for Data Centers and Computer Network Services presented the PIONIER-LAB project. This national platform integrates research infrastructures with innovation ecosystems, creating unique laboratories such as:

The project also involves utilizing the existing national PIONIER fiber-optic network. The main goal of the PIONIER-LAB project is to provide a platform for scientific units, entrepreneurs, and other entities interested in conducting scientific research and development work.

More information about PIONIER-LAB can be found at https://pionier-lab.pionier.net.pl/ .

Jubilee Celebration

The second day of the ICM UW Scientific Conference was dedicated to jubilee meetings, celebrating the 30th anniversary of ICM as a university-wide research and scientific unit at the University of Warsaw. In addition to a historical overview, the current interdisciplinary achievements of ICM, including broadly defined scientific and educational activities, were presented, along with the development plans of the unit.

The conference also celebrated nearly three decades of numerical weather forecasting, including 25 years of the Synoptician’s Commentary in the Meteo service. Recognitions for many years of work, including daily comments on numerical weather forecasts, were given to retired officers of the military aviation meteorological service: Maciej Ostrowski – a graduate in meteorology at PW, former head of the Central Meteorological Bureau of military aviation; Ryszard Olędzki – a graduate of UMCS, former chief synoptician of the same bureau; Ryszard Klejnowski – a graduate of WAT, retired deputy director of IMGW.

We express our sincere gratitude to our distinguished speakers and participants of the ICM UW 2023 Scientific Conference. In particular, we wish to extend our heartfelt thanks for the presence and well-wishes of the Chief of the Hydrometeorological Service of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland – Col. Maciej Betke, as well as representatives of the KDM centers in Poland: Jerzy Proficz (CI TASK), Marek Magryś (Cyfronet), Krzysztof Kurowski, and Tomasz Piontek (PCSS).

The aviation projects of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling, University of Warsaw (ICM UW) related to the optimization of the global network of connections and the concept of directional transfer nodes were presented at the European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC).

During the “12th ECAC/EU Dialogue: Flying sustainably — from buzz to reality” conference (Valencia, October 24-25, 2023), various aspects of environmentally friendly civil aviation were discussed, particularly flight route optimization, the use of biofuels, emission reduction, and network optimization.

In the session titled “Economic sustainability – is the sector economically viable?”, Dr. Jan Malawko introduced the Big Data projects in civil aviation carried out by ICM UW, such as the optimization of the global network of connections and the concept of directional transfer nodes.

The conference in Valencia was dedicated to the dialogue between the European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC) and the European Commission, airspace users, airlines, airports officials as well as representatives of state aviation authorities and international aviation organizations.

The event, organized under the auspices of the Spanish Presidency of the EU Council, brought together around 150 participants from around the world, including a significant number from South America.

Debate featuring dr. Jan Malawko, ICM UW


How to balance connectivity with sustainability requirements
ECAC/EU Dialogue with the air transport industry
Session: Economic sustainability – is the sector economically viable?


See more

Statement of the 2023 ECAC/EU Dialogue with the air transport industry

Jan Malawko – University of Warsaw, Biography

Registration is open for the workshop „Lavrentiev’s phenomenon, approximation, and regularity”, a joint ICM-MIM initiative under the IDUB programme entitled PDEs in Mathematical Biology. On 20-22 November, we invite graduate students, postdocs, and all researchers interested in the calculus of variations and Lavrentiev’s phenomenon to Warsaw.

Invited speakers

Organizers:

Participation is free but registration is mandatory. Registration form and more information can be found on the workshop’s website: pde.icm.edu.pl

The event will take place as part of a wider MIM-ICM research programme called “PDEs in Mathematical Biology”, belonging to the priority research area at the University of Warsaw – The Challenge of Petabytes (IDUB, POB III). The activity is carried out by the Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics and Mechanics (MIM) and the Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling (ICM) from 1 January to 31 December 2023.


The Interdisciplinary Center for Mathematical and Computational Modeling at the University of Warsaw (ICM UW) is commencing the implementation of the international FAIRBiRDS project: FAIR Bird Research Data and Software: closing the research lifecycle in the long tail of science. The project, coordinated by ICM UW, was selected as one of the top nine-rated R&D initiatives out of 34 applications submitted in the CHIST-ERA ORD competition.

The FAIRBiRDS project brings together interdisciplinary teams of leading bird ecologists and IT specialists and will be carried out by the University of Warsaw in collaboration with the Jagiellonian University and research teams from Belgium, Brazil, France, and the Netherlands. The goal of the scientists is to create a standardized repository of open ecological data linked to a repository of peer-reviewed open scientific software, enabling the analysis of this data.

“The project, funded in part by the NCN in Poland, aims to standardize the model of ecological data and the ultimate goal is to create a transparent research landscape for ecological sciences based on open research data, analytical tools, and publications described with rich metadata and interconnected relationships,” – says Dr. Eng. Robert Sot, coordinator of the FAIRBiRDS R&D consortium and acting director of ICM UW.

Among the nine winning projects in the CHIST-ERA Open & Re-usable Research Data & Software (ORD) competition, five involve scientists from Poland. International consortia composed of at least three research teams from at least three different countries were eligible for funding. The head of the Polish team had to hold at least a doctoral degree. The CHIST-ERA network aims to support research in information and communication technologies. More information can be found on the NCN and CHIST-ERA websites.


Members of the FAIRBiRDS consortium

Poland: University of Warsaw (ICM UW – leader); Jagiellonian University

Belgium: University of Antwerp

Brazil: Universidade Federal de Viçosa

France: CEFE/CNRS – Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle & Evolutive (French National Center for Scientific Research)

Netherlands: NIOO-KNAW – Netherlands Institute for Ecology (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences)

The joint IGF-ICM project will facilitate the collection and use of atmospheric data and enable new research and development work in atmospheric physics as well as numerical modeling. The experience gathered by the IGF-ICM team can be widely used and easily implemented for other UW Units collecting measurement and observation data of various types.

We are pleased to announce that thanks to the cooperation between the Institute of Geophysics, Faculty of Physics UW (IGF), and the Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling at UW (ICM), a multifunctional, integrated database of atmospheric observational and measurement data and simulation results has been designed and built, along with access granted for IGF Atmospheric Physics Department to the ICM RepOD Open Data Repository,  as part of the IDUB Priority Research Area III project, which runs from 2021-2023. The IT infrastructure built ensures security, related to the collection, storage, and sharing of scientific data, as well as compliance with the principles of FAIR data – findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability.

The launched database allows secure storage and sharing of both current and archived data from atmospheric measurements conducted continuously by the Radiation Transfer Laboratory and the Remote Sensing Laboratory of IGF. The database can also store data from current and archived measurements of the PolandAOD network, as well as data from measurement campaigns, such as the EUREC4A-ATOMIC project campaign. In order to make the data stored in the database available to the public, it must be placed in the RepOD system. Shared data can be raw or processed, after quality control, compressed into ZIP files, and supplemented with appropriate metadata, i.e. descriptions that characterize the shared dataset.

For the purposes of the integrated database created, a dedicated data collection (Dataverse) was created in the RepOD system for the Atmospheric Physics Department. This is a place where further data sets (Datasets), such as the EUREC4A-ATOMIC dataset can be stored and shared. The RepOD system is based on the open-source Harvard software “The Dataverse Project”. It allows storing, viewing, sharing, and downloading data directly from an Internet browser. Sharing a dataset in RepOD also allows it to be integrated into other ecosystems, such as OpenAIRE. Currently, there is no limit to the size of the dataset shared in RepOD, but a single uploaded ZIP file cannot exceed 5.0 GB. Use of RepOD is free and open to all users, but some features, related to storing and sharing data publicly, require prior registration.

Datasets deposited in RepOD are assigned a DOI number. The DOI number is pre-assigned to the dataset when it is deposited, even before publication. This makes it possible to link the data to the publication by indicating the corresponding DOI in the publication, without the need to share the data before the publication appears. Activation of the DOI number occurs when the collection is activated. Both the description of the collection (Metadata) and the dataset itself (Dataset), in accordance with RepOD’s regulations, are always made available under a CC0 license. However, it is possible to choose a different license for individual files in the collection.

The joint IGF-ICM project will facilitate the collection and use of atmospheric data and enable new research and development work in atmospheric physics as well as numerical modeling. The IGF-ICM team continues to work on further development of the database. Among other things, it is planned to add more laboratories to the database, with the implementation of automatic transfer of acquired measurement data, and to improve the management of the process of backing up and sharing data. The experience gathered by the IGF-ICM team can be widely used and easily implemented for other UW Units collecting measurement and observation data of various types.

Source: IGF UW

Emerging from ICM University of Warsaw, Smarter Diagnostics has been chosen as the Entrepreneur of the Year UW 2023 in the Start-up of the Year category. “Our dream is for our vision of using AI in imaging diagnostics to succeed in the market. We want to achieve success, stop being a start-up, and operate as a thriving company. We want our idea to spread worldwide,” comments Bartosz Borucki, who received the main award from Adam Struzik, Marshal of the Masovian Voivodeship, and Aleksandra Szwed from the Department of Regional Development and European Funds at the Masovian Marshal’s Office.

“At Smarter Diagnostics, we develop a platform for the prevention of sports injuries. We primarily utilize magnetic resonance images and analyze them using artificial intelligence methods. The software we create allows for objective diagnostics as well as accurate recommendations for users to support their health protection,” explains Dr. Norbert Kapiński, Co-founder and CTO of the company, an AI & Computer Vision specialist at ICM.

“The University of Warsaw has had a tremendous impact on our development and the development of our company. Personally, I have spent over 20 years at the University, including at the demanding Faculty of Physics, after which no challenges are difficult anymore. We started with research conducted at the University, received support in the commercialization processes of technologies developed at ICM UW, as well as funding in programs supporting companies at the incubation stage, such as the Innovation Incubator or the FIRE program,” summarizes Bartosz Borucki, Co-Founder and CEO of Smarter Diagnostics, as well as the long-time Head of the Artificial Intelligence and Image Analysis Team in Medical Diagnostics at ICM UW.

VI Edition of Entrepreneur of the Year UW

This year’s edition of the Entrepreneur of the Year competition saw 59 entrepreneurs apply, including representatives from 19 faculties and units of the University of Warsaw. The awards in the competition were ultimately granted in four categories: Master of Business, Social Entrepreneur, Innovation/Innovator of the Year, and Start-up of the Year at the University of Warsaw. Only start-ups that were registered no later than 12 months before the competition’s deadline and had been in operation for no longer than five years were eligible to participate in the latter category. The VI edition of the competition took place under the patronage of the Rector of the University of Warsaw and the Marshal of the Masovian Voivodeship.

About Smarter Diagnostics

Smarter Diagnostics utilizes the capabilities of Artificial Intelligence to revolutionize the role of medical imaging in orthopedics and sports medicine. Their goals include preventing sports injuries and improving Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) diagnostics in both clinical and preventive settings. They develop and implement AI methods for the analysis of medical images to extract the most minute diagnostic information about musculoskeletal tissues. They save time for radiologists by providing them with supportive diagnostic software. They help professionals and amateurs avoid sports injuries by monitoring their health status in screening examinations. They generate significant savings for athletes, clubs, insurers, and the healthcare system by preventing costly injuries.

Learn more at https://www.smarterdiagnostics.com/


Translational and clinical research in oncology, basics of cancer treatments, bioinformatics, computational biology and drug development will be the main topics of the 2nd edition of 4eu+ Summer School. This time we are happy to invite you to Czech Republic (Marianske Lazne) between 2-5 July 2023.

The purpose of 4eu+ Against Cancer program (Comprehensive and integrative educational program in oncology) is to give students an overview of the multiple components of complex and multidisciplinary research in oncology. In addition, brief information about general principles of science funding will be presented.

During the summer school, the students will have the opportunity to attend lectures illustrating important topics of contemporary research in oncology delivered by a team of international researchers, teachers and members from 4EU+ universities. They will be able to interact with the experts, present their own article and research, expand their knowledge and build their own network.

4eu+ Against Cancer is a part of the Flagship 1: Urban Health and Demographic Change program and grants awarded oncology educational projects which the beneficiaries are:

How to apply?
The summer school is open to students from the 4eu+ European University Alliance with a Bachelor or Master 1 degree or equivalent. Please send your motivation letter and your curriculum vitae to all 3 leading faculty by May 15, 2023.

This year’s event is hosted by Charles University in Prague. Details can be found on 4eu+ Against Cancer website.

Registration is open until 30 March for the spring school ”Structured Population Models”, a joint ICM-MIM initiative under the IDUB programme entitled PDEs in Mathematical Biology.

On 15-19 May, we invite graduate students and postdocs interested in the application of models in demography, cell biology, immunology and ecology to Warsaw; special attention will be paid to the analysis in the setting of Radon measures over an abstract metric space.

In addition to lectures by invited speakers, the programme also includes poster sessions.

Topics and invited speakers:

Lectures’ descriptions, registration form and more information can be found on the school’s website: pde.icm.edu.pl

The event will take place as part of a wider ICM-MIM research programme called “PDEs in Mathematical Biology”, which focuses on three particular topics: Structured Population Models, Tissue Growth Models, and the links between statistical methods and analysis of measure solutions to PDE.

The ‘PDEs in Mathematical Biology’ programme belongs to the priority research area at the University of Warsaw – The Challenge of Petabytes (IDUB, POB III). The activity is carried out by the Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics and Mechanics (MIM) and the Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modelling (ICM).

 

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