SAFIR Research Newsletter - Second Issue

Released eight times per year, the newsletter highlights recent research outputs, events, partnerships, and opportunities across SUAD.

New Publications (May 2025)

All works listed here are from HAL and include the SAFIR affiliation. For annual reporting, these will be automatically counted. If your publication is missing from this list, please make sure it is registered in HAL with the SAFIR affiliation. It will then appear in the next issue of the newsletter.

JOURNAL ARTICLES

Chakraborty, T. - Thompson sampling for zero-inflated count outcomes with an application to the Drink Less mobile health study. The Annals of Applied Statistics, 2025, 19 (2), pp.1403 - 1425. https://doi.org/10.1214/25-AOAS2030

Christopoulos, S. - Numerical Modeling and Optimization of High-Performance CsSnI3 Perovskite Photodetectors. Journal of Electronic Materials. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11664-025-11925-4 

De Masi, G. - Boundary Control Behaviors of Multiple Low-cost AUVs Using Acoustic Communication. IEEE Access, 13, pp.72506 - 72525. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2025.3564077 

Goswami, R., Chakraborty, T. - Shape Penalized Decision Forests for Imbalanced Data Classification. IEEE Access. 13, pp.86380 - 86395 https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2025.3569523 

Kumar, S. - Fractional nanofluid flow dynamics of thermal transport and entropy generation in a wavy porous enclosure containing a hot circular cylinder. Physics of Fluids, 37(3). https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0255831 

Li, L. - Broadband‐Light‐Induced [2+2] Cycloaddition and Thermoinduced Cycloreversion‐Powered Dynamic Molecular Crystals. Angewandte Chemie, 137(17). https://doi.org/10.1002/ange.202502107 

Li, L. - Flexible Organic Crystalline Fibers and Loops with Strong Second Harmonic Generation. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 147(13), 11346-11358. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.5c00598 

Li, L. - Head‐to‐Tail Packing to Facilitate [2+2] Cycloaddition for Green Synthesis of Cyclobutane Derivatives in Specific Configuration. Chemistry - A European Journal. https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.202500442 

Li, L. - Light‐Driven Adaptive Molecular Crystals Activated by [2+2] and [4+4] Cycloadditions. Chemistry - A European Journal, 31(14). https://doi.org/10.1002/chem.202404229 

Li, L. - Low-Temperature Dynamics at Nano- and Macroscales: Organic Crystal That Exhibits Low-Temperature Molecular Motion and the Thermosalient Effect. Chemistry of Materials, 37 (9), pp.3373-3383. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemmater.5c00171 

Li, L. - Mechanochemistry for the Sustainable Synthesis of Organic Hole Transport Materials in Perovskite Solar Cells. Crystal Growth & Design, 25(8), 2402-2408 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.cgd.4c01523 

Li, L. - Reply to: On the giant deformation and ferroelectricity of guanidinium nitrate. Nature Communications, 16(1071). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-55789-4 

Li, L. - Thiophene Sulfone Single Crystal as a Reversible Thermoelastic Linear Actuator with an Extended Stroke and Second-Harmonic Generation Switching. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 147(9), 7749-7756. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.4c17448 

Motte-Baumvol, J. - Human mobility and socio-environmental vulnerability: the protection of environmental displaced persons in Rio Grande do Sul in light of international instruments on loss and damage. Revista de direito internacional, 22(1). https://doi.org/10.5102/rdi.v22i1.9878

Motte-Baumvol, B. - Assessing the link between COVID-19-induced telework adoption and residential relocation in France, the UK, and the US. Cities, 163, 106037. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2025.106037 

Sengupta, S. -Non-linear Phillips Curve for India: Evidence from Explainable Machine Learning. Computational Economics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10614-025-10942-z 

CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS

Catelan, N., Svard, P. - AI and Digital Humanities in the Arabian Gulf: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Infrastructure, Cultural Heritage, and Community Building. Intelligence artificielle et humanités numériques dans le Golfe arabo-persique : perspectives interdisciplinaires sur l’éthique, le patrimoine culturel et la construction communautaire.

Chaterera-Zambuko, F. - Greening digital records management: insights from the United Arab Emirates’ initiatives. 34th ICARUS Convention themed ‘Archives Reflecting 21st Century Challenges – Migration and Sustainability

Chaterera-Zambuko, F., Kabata, V. - Records Management at Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi: Challenges, opportunities and future possibilities. The UAE Zero-bureaucracy Initiative, e-administration, Open-data Developments and The Role of Recordkeeping for Organizations.

De Masi, Guilia (2025). Processing Continuous-Valued Signals for Multimodal Spike-Based Pose Regression, 2025 IEEE International Conference on Simulation, Modeling, and Programming for Autonomous Robots (SIMPAR), https://doi.org/10.1109/SIMPAR62925.2025.10979088

Frangieh, R. H.- Integrating Financial Data Analysis and Artificial Intelligence: A Mini Bibliometric Review of Emerging Trends and Applications. 8th Equal Opportunities Conference "Responsible Innovation and Society 5.0.

Frangieh, R. H. - Social Media Influencers: Their Effect on Consumer Purchase Behavior. International Conference on Business Intelligence for Technology Innovation.

Hadid, A. - Synthetic Image Detection Using Mixture of Knowledge Distillation from Vision-Language Models. Pattern Recognition. ICPR 2024 International Workshops and Challenges, pp. 226-243.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-88223-4_17 

Sasal, L., Elabid, Z., Hadid, A. - Advanced History Matching Workflow by Deep Learning Surrogates with Knowledge-Based Graph Neural Networks. GOTECH, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. https://doi.org/10.2118/224578-MS

BOOK CHAPTERS

Garcia, B. - The Promise of Environmental Cooperation in Latin America. In Latin American International Law in the Twenty-First Century (pp. 559-578). Oxford University Press, New York, https://doi.org/10.1093/9780197754016.003.0033

PREPRINT ARTICLES

Chakraborty, T. - A Compounded Burr Probability Distribution for Fitting Heavy-Tailed Data with Applications to Biological Networks. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2407.04465

Christopoulos, S. - Exploring WS2 as a potential buffer layer for improved CFTS-solar cell performance. Romanian Journal of Physics. https://rjp.nipne.ro/accpaps/4E87478B584A25C0830131F3B9EB4F9B2CCD96A6.pdf 

Hadid, A - DeeCLIP: A Robust and Generalizable Transformer-Based Framework for Detecting AI-Generated Images. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2504.19876

TECHNICAL OR PRACTITIONER-ORIENTED ARTICLES

Ferhani, B. - Les tests psychométriques pour recruter les « candidats les plus moraux » : vraie solution ou discrimination déguisée ?. The Conversation France.

CORRIGENDUM

Li, L. - Erratum: Publisher Correction: Reply to: On the giant deformation and ferroelectricity of guanidinium nitrate. Nature Communications, 16, 3304. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-58611-x  

Spotlight on Research Excellence: Dr. Liang Li

Each newsletter highlights one publication from the period covered.

Dr. Liang Li holds a B.Sc. from Shandong University, China, and a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Bayreuth, Germany (2011). He has held positions as Assistant Professor at Shandong University; Group Leader and Senior Research Scientist at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST); and Research Scientist at New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD). He is currently an Affiliated Professor at the SAFIR – Novel Materials Research Institute, Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi, and remains affiliated with NYUAD. He is also co-founder and Vice-President of the Emirates Crystallographic Society (ECS). His research focuses on smart materials, adaptive and dynamic materials, the maximum entropy method, and structure–property relationships in crystallized materials — materials that can change their behavior in response to external conditions such as light, pressure, or temperature. He investigates how the internal atomic structure of crystals determines their overall properties, using theoretical tools like the maximum entropy method. Crystals are central to his work because their highly ordered structure allows scientists to understand and precisely control how materials respond, making them ideal for developing technologies like sensors, actuators, or energy-efficient devices.

“Crystals That Twist and Shine”

Flexible Organic Crystalline Fibers and Loops with Strong Second-Harmonic Generation, Lin, Y., et al.

Read more: https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202403215 

What if your crystals were not just smart, but flexible enough to twist into loops and still beam out laser magic? That’s exactly what this research achieved: ultra-flexible organic crystalline fibers that can be bent and knotted—without losing their optical charm. These crystals perform second-harmonic generation, which means they double the frequency of incoming light. This effect, crucial for lasers and optical technologies, usually requires rigid and delicate materials. But Lin and colleagues show that you can have both strength and suppleness. Their work opens exciting prospects for wearable photonics, soft robotics, and future optical computing—where your next crystal circuit might look less like a chip and more like a spaghetti loop.

International Conferences Participations

34th ICARUS Convention, Chaterera-Zanbuko, F., 12 May, Budapest

29th Archival Science Colloquium, Kabata, V., 20 May, Marburg

Characterization of Copper Oxide Nanoparticles, El Rifai, J., 26 May, Strasbourg

Converging Realities and Realms of Possibility, Harbi, I., 27–28 May, San Diego

ECLC 2025: 17th European Conference on Liquid Crystals, Bsaibess, E., 1 June, Prague

International Conference on Education Sciences, Kordoni, A., 2 June, Kuala Lumpur

IALLT/LET Conference, Harbi, I., 25–28 June, Manoa

Rencontres Francophones Transport Mobilité (RFTM), Motte-Baumvol, B., 18–20 June, Dunkerque

ESARBICA XXVIII Biennial Conference 2025, Masuku, M. & Critelli, M., 16–20 June, Zimbabwe

Archiving 2025: Society for Imaging Science and Technology, Critelli, M., 24 June, Granada

9th IFAC Symposium on System Structure and Control (SSSC), Younes, G., 30 June, Gif-sur-Yvette

International Association for Media and History Conference, Masuku, M., 30 June, Cape Town

SAFIR Research Events: May 2025

Past Events and their Organizers:

Internal seminar: Workshop on Zotero for beginners (English session), Motte-Baumvol, B., 5 May

Internal seminar: Workshop on Zotero for beginners (French session), Motte-Baumvol, B., 6 May

Leveraging Transnational Remote Work Mobilities for Inclusive Sustainable Development, Chaveneau, C., 7 May

Blue Economy Conference, Garcia, B., 22 May

Calls for Projects and Grants

PhD and Postdoc Grants: Submit by 5 May 2025 (included) – 1 position per project. (Closed Call)

New SAFIR Members

The following researchers have joined SAFIR since January 2025:

Adam, O., Affiliated Researcher – Center for Environment and Sustainable Development

AlSaadi, M. S. M., AffiliatedPhD Student – Center for Applied Mathematics, Statistics and Data Science; Center for Health and Care

Barman, M., AffiliatedPhD Student – Center for Applied Mathematics, Statistics and Data Science

Chauvin, P., Associate Professor – Center for Applied Mathematics, Statistics and Data Science; Center for Health and Care

Cohen, M., Affiliated Researcher – Center for Heritage and Material Science; Center for Environment and Sustainable Development

Debailly, R., Associate Professor – Center for Environment and Sustainable Development; Center for Humanities, Languages and Education; Center for Health and Care

Goswami, R., AffiliatedPhD Student – Center for Applied Mathematics, Statistics and Data Science

Hecht, C., AffiliatedPhD Student – Center for Environment and Sustainable Development

Jahan, N., AffiliatedPhD Student – Center for Applied Mathematics, Statistics and Data Science

Kumar, S., Postdoctoral Researcher – Center for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Policy

Madathil, M. S., Affiliated PhD Student – Center for Applied Mathematics, Statistics and Data Science

Meziane, T., Affiliated Researcher – Center for Environment and Sustainable Development

Motte-Baumvol, B., Senior Researcher – Center for Global Societies, Cultures, Cities and Arts

Motte-Baumvol, J., Associate Professor – Center for Global Societies, Cultures, Cities and Arts

Panja, M., Affiliated PhD Student – Center for Applied Mathematics, Statistics and Data Science

Rogove, J., Postdoctoral Researcher - Center for Humanities, Languages and Education; Center for Artificial Intelligence and Digital Policy

Sengupta, S., AffiliatedPhD Student – Center for Applied Mathematics, Statistics and Data Science