Many discrete optimization challenges in Computer Science, such as the travelling salesman problem or train scheduling, can often be solved optimally in practice, with performance guarantees for large-scale instances. This is a great achievement; these problems are usually NP-complete, which is a strong theoretical certificate for intractability. Continuous computational challenges are intractable in practice even on moderately sized scales. We want to show that many algorithmic challenges are complete for the complexity class ER. This captures the aforementioned intractability phenomenon from a theoretical perspective, in the process, unveils deep relations to real algebraic geometry and implies that discretizing the problem is unlikely to be possible. One such continuous intractable problem is motion planning (MP). A practical example of MP is the control of a robot arm to perform a given mechanical task without collisions. The continuous nature of movement in MP is the intuitive reason why methods, which have been applied to problems in NP, fail for MP. Showing ER-completeness makes this intuition a tangible fact. Awareness of this relation is crucial for algorithm designers as it is used to identify tractable cases. In a recent paper, Mikkel Abrahamsen, Anna Adamaszek and I could show that the Art Gallery Problem is ER-complete, settling the complexity of this long-standing open problem and implying that all current practical approaches are non-optimal. In a subsequent paper, in preparation, I designed a provably correct algorithm avoiding the lower bound in a careful way. A student is currently implementing and testing the algorithm.

MODSCAPES deals with rural landscapes produced by large-scale agricultural development and colonization schemes planned in the 20th century throughout Europe and beyond. Conceived in different political and ideological contexts, such schemes were pivotal to nation-building and state-building policies, and to the modernization of the countryside. They provided a testing ground for the ideas and tools of agronomists, politicians, environmental and social scientists, architects, engineers, planners, landscape architects and artists, which converged around a common challenge. Their implementation produced new rural landscapes, which have seldom been considered as a transnational research topic. Hence, MODSCAPES aims to raise awareness of this largely unrecognised shared cultural heritage which today forms tangible evidence of recent European history. MODSCAPES is carried out by a team combining expertise in architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, planning, art history, and anthropology. It is led by five experienced individual investigators, with the support of four associated partners internationally relevant. MODSCAPES combines research-driven and bottom-up participatory activities based on the collection, processing, elaboration, and critical interpretation of visual data and multiple narratives concerning 12case studies located in 6 EU countries and 3 non-EU neighbouring countries. Introducing the concept of landscape as a unifying paradigm for a trans-disciplinary approach to the topic?s tangible (the built environment) and intangible legacies (the related cultural and sociopolitical context), this project aims not only to establish the European relevance of the topic, but also to bridge research, practice, and policy. Hence, it aspires to test research outcomes against the current challenges faced by modernist rural landscapes as a resource for future reflective societies and inclusive environments. MODSCAPES deliverables engage and target diversified audiences to enable a better understanding of the common patterns and rich variety which shaped our national identities and may help to support shared European narratives.

All species interact. How species interact determines the health and stability of our vital ecosystems. Researchers use models to help understand biodiversity patterns in time and space and their vulnerability to environmental changes. Rarely do these models include species interactions. An important interaction for the successful functioning of our ecosystem is between flowering plants and their bee pollinators. I will use current knowledge and different modelling approaches to make better predictions of where wild bees occur and the flowers they interact with now and in the future, to aid scientific understanding of species interactions in general and improve conservation planning.