VALVACC: An environmental sentinel and AI procedure to monitor marine ecosystems

As part of the MIAI Grenoble Alpes Institute (Multidisciplinary Institute in Artificial Intelligence), which aims to conduct research at the highest level in artificial intelligence, the post-doctoral student will be asked to answer a fundamental question: "Can we diagnose and predict the effect of a disturbance, climatic or otherwise, on a coastal ecosystem compartment? We propose to develop a methodology to characterise the signals and biological states of a species (scallop) known to be sensitive to variations in its environment and used as a biological model for studying the responses of benthic fauna to anthropogenic impacts. These bivalves, monitored in situ by miniature and multimodal sensors (accelerometer and valvometer), are used as indicators of the quality of the environment to ultimately constitute monitoring systems for global changes or warning systems for transitory disturbances. We have an excellent corpus of in situ data from a completely new acquisition system (frequency, autonomy, weight, size, precision, etc.). A set of tools has already been developed (patents), the objective will be to propose a multimodal extension and to predict the stress sequences by CNN1 1D networks. (end of project at T0 =12 months).

Missions / functions performed : In the framework of the MIAI Grenoble Alpes Institute (Multidisciplinary Institute in Artificial Intelligence) the role of the postdoctoral fellow will be to take in hand existing algorithms to make an automatic classification of transient signals applied on valvometric or accelerometric signals acquired to classify animals and/or the behaviours of an animal according to its biological state (stressed or not). It will be asked to propose an extension taking into account the multimodal character of the data. Once the temporal sequences linked to stress are identified on the sensors, it will be necessary to predict these stress sequences with 1D CNNs using the concepts developed in the work of Kiranyaz. The objective is to define the best architecture capable of performing the task of predicting the signal or behaviour related to the stress or dynamics under study.

Main activities (in order of importance or quantity 10 lines max) :

The main activity will be to propose extensions to existing algorithms or to adapt existing algorithms for the detection and classification of different types of behaviour.

Five months will be devoted to task 1 (Classification of accelerometry and valvometry data and use of multimodality).

Five months will be devoted to task 2 on the use of 1D-CNN to predict stress behaviour.

Event - Objective result(s) setting the end of the agent's mission:

It is expected that the results will be disseminated through publication in journals, publications in conferences as well as through publication of the code. It is extremely important that the candidate is able to interact with biologist and ecologist collaborators on both the biology itself and on the signal and AI aspects. (Short) stays in Brest will be necessary.

The expected results will concern the analysis of acquired data and data in the process of being acquired.

Evaluation and control of the achievement of the result(s):

The evaluation of the results will be carried out in consultation with the project partners (GIPSA-Lab, CEA, Laboratoire BeBest and the SOMME company). The control will be that conventionally adopted in a research programme.

Desired skills : You are autonomous, proactive and rigorous, and you have good teamwork and communication skills to ensure harmonious interactions between the various project partners. You have good writing skills and are comfortable speaking.