It's now official : we'll call him Doctor !

Congratulations to George Ruck !

After 3 years of CIFRE thesis, supported by Inrae Lyon in the person of Arnaud Chaumot and by ViewPoint Behavior Technology , George has reached his goal. On March 25th, 2024, he defended his thesis with excellence in front of a jury of 8 scientists. It was in the presence of his family, friends and colleagues that he was successfully awarded his Phd.

Data-Driven analysis of behavioural responses for ecotoxicological monitoring of effluents : Application to Three Invertebrates.

Short abstract :

This doctoral research addressed the increasing need for advanced ecotoxicological tools in effluent monitoring, driven by stricter water quality standards and heightened monitoring demands. Building upon prior work, the industrial PhD focused on enhancing real-time monitoring of effluents using the ToxMate biomonitoring station, which employs videotracking to measure behavioural responses to micropollutant surges at monitoring sites. To achieve this, a main objective was to identify "behavioural fingerprints" and develop a statistical framework to effectively define them. These fingerprints represent distinct patterns in locomotor response that we showed to vary based on the structure of the chemicals introduced.

Functional data analysis (FDA) served as the core data method for describing complex variability in time series datasets, complemented by conventional artificial intelligence techniques and neural networks for classification and exploratory analysis. A wide range of micropollutants (pesticides, PPCPs, PAHs etc.) was tested in the lab for behavioural response, showing structural similarity in compounds inducing similar reactions. The data science techniques developed were tailored for industrial application, to begin the characterisation of pollutant discharge at the many monitoring sites equipped with ToxMate biomonitoring. We are now looking to alert to recurring events of pollutants and assess potential chemicals of concern through the known structural properties of the defined fingerprints. This ecotoxicological advancement holds significant promise in water treatment, for various applications such as dedicated treatment or optimisation of advanced treatment and re-use.

The entire ViewPoint Behavior Technology / ViewPoint Water Biomonitoring team would like to congratulate George once again and we are delighted to have a Doctor on board.

For more info contact us :

[email protected] or [email protected]

www.toxmate.fr/en

Call +33 4 72 17 91 92