Abstract
\r\nAround 30% of cancers are preceded by chronic inflammation which occurs at the site where tumors will develop. However, whether this oncogenic process, particularly observed in the intestine, can be initiated by a specific immune cell population remains unknown. We recently identified two distinct effector T cell populations capable to initiate the oncogenic transformation of a healthy intestinal epithelium (Fesneau et al., Nat Immunol. 2024; Brewer et al., Nat. Rev. Canc. 2024), as well as the factors controlling their differentiation. By revealing the presence of tumorigenic T cells, this work opens a new field in oncology and immunology that will be key for both our understanding of the early steps of carcinogenesis and the development of prophylactic therapies against cancer.
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The QSE Center Spring Assembly will take place on Friday May 29, 2026, from 14h-16h in CM 1 105. This event is an opportunity to bring the EPFL quantum community together and to share the breadth of our activities and collaborations.
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\r\n14h00-15h00: Flash talks – Eleven 5-minute talks will be given by a range of different QSE Center stakeholders including students, researchers, and internal and external collaborators.\r\n
First-order methods are widely used in optimization and machine learning, and their behavior is often analyzed through the spectrum of worst case convergence rates. Obtaining such guarantees is often difficult and both time consuming and error-prone. Starting with the work of Drori and Teboulle (2014), novel techniques have been used to gain numerical insights, leading to the release of various performance estimation (PE) software.
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\r\nIn this talk, I will show how various computer-aided techniques can be used to study first-order optimization methods in a systematic way. From performance estimation problems with automated Lyapunov discovery, to symbolic regression and computer algebra systems, novel tools completely reshape the way we approach theory of optimization.
\r\nAs a main example, I will focus on error feedback methods used with compressed communication in distributed optimization. While error feedback has been widely studied, existing theory often provides untight (thus unreliable) bounds. I will present tight analyses with matching lower bounds that allow a fair comparison between error feedback schemes and standard compressed gradient descent, and help explain when error feedback is useful and when it is not.
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\r\nOverall, the talk aims to show how various computer-aided proofs can lead to clearer and more reliable insights into first-order optimization methods.
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\r\nBased on :
\r\nA Tight Theory of Error Feedback Algorithms in Distributed Optimization, DB Thomsen, A Taylor, A Dieuleveut
\r\nInternational Conference on Machine Learning (ICML 2026)
\r\nTight analyses of first-order methods with error feedback, DB Thomsen, A Taylor, A Dieuleveut
\r\nAdvances in Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) (2025).
\r\nPEPit: computer-assisted worst-case analyses of first-order optimization methods in Python
\r\nB Goujaud, C Moucer, F Glineur, JM Hendrickx, AB Taylor, A Dieuleveut
\r\nMathematical Programming Computation 16 (3), 337-367 (2024)
\r\n(eventually - as a detour) Provable non-accelerations of the heavy-ball method B Goujaud, A Taylor, A Dieuleveut, Mathematical Programming, 1-59 (2025)
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Thesis Director: Prof. J.-Ph. Brantut,
\r\nPhysics doctoral program
\r\nThesis Nr. 11525
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\r\nTo take part in the public defense, please contact directly the speaker
Thesis Directors: Prof. X. Hu, Prof. L. Tang
\r\nChemistry and Chemical Engineering doctoral program
\r\nThesis Nr. 11390
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\r\nTo take part in the public defense, please contact directly the speaker
Thesis Director: Prof. J. Luterbacher,
\r\nChemistry and Chemical Engineering doctoral program
\r\nThesis Nr. 11539
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\r\nTo take part in the public defense, please contact directly the speaker
Thesis Directors: Prof. M. Lütolf, Prof. G. La Manno
\r\nMolecular Life Sciences doctoral program
\r\nThesis Nr. 10892
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\r\nTo take part in the public defense, please contact directly the speaker