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Paul Woafo, professor of Physics at the University of Yaoundé I, Cameroon, is holder of a “Doctorat de troisième cycle” and a “Doctorat d’Etat” both obtained in Cameroon in 1992 and 1997 in Nonlinear Dynamics analyzing the effects of discrete nature of solids on the propagation of topological waves in ferroelectric materials, surface physics and biological molecules.

He is presently managing a research group on Modeling and Simulation in Engineering, Biomimetics and Prototypes (www.lamsebp.org). He is member of various scientific organizations at the national and international levels including Cameroon Academy of Sciences (Fellow and Dean of the College of Mathematical and Physical Sciences), Cameroon Physical Society (past founding President), African Physical Society, European Physical Society, American Physical Society, Humboldtian (Germany) since 2007 and has been an associate member of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (Trieste, Italy) from 1995 to 2005. Winner of the TWAS Prize for Young Scientists in 2004.

In 2020, he received the award of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) for his achievements as a scientist, academic teacher, science manager and for the development of physics within Cameroon and Africa, and the enhanced integration of the Cameroonian Physics community into the global scientific discourse. In 2022, he was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society.

His research activities cover both fundamental and applied research in the following main topics:

• Macro/micro/nano-electromechanical and mechatronic systems: fundamental studies and applications in robotics, structural vibrations monitoring and control, bio-inspired devices and energy harvesting;
• Electronic/electrical circuits development for telecommunications and bionic engineering;
• optoelectronic oscillators (optical chaos cryptography and new optical signals) and optomechanical oscillators (squeezing and cooling states);
• Biological waves and oscillators with the effects of diseases (calcium waves, enzymatic reactions, transition to pathogenicity, nervous signals);
• Fundamental studies on complex dynamics of excited and self-excited oscillators of mechanical and electrical/electronic types (sub- and super-harmonic states, chaos, bursting oscillations, chaos control, synchronization).
• Domain-walls dynamics in ferroelectric materials and hydrogen-bonded lattices,
• Adatoms diffusion on metallic surfaces,
• Propagation of localized waves in superconducting and semiconducting transmission lines,
• Characterization and mechanical control of the dynamical behavior of mechanical structures,
• Determination of artificial vascular prosthesis,
• Modelling and optimization of water filters,
• Optimization and modernization of African musical instruments.

These research activities have led to about 300 articles in Physics and Engineering journals and supervision of 70 Ph.D thesis.

He is Reviewer for some physics and engineering journals of the following publishers: Elsevier, American Physical Society, American Institute of Physics, Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Springer, World Scientific Publishing and others.

He is also engaged in various outreach activities for the promotion of physics and engineering education.

A natural or man-made system is said to be chaotic if its future is unpredictable and if it is extremely sensitive to initial conditions. Different to the chaos due to stochastic interactions, deterministic chaos has special signatures. It has shown its presence in all scientific fields from natural sciences to humanities. Avoided in some systems, it is used for the improvement of some technological processes: cryptography, domestic appliances, electrical treatment of diseases such as heart arrhythmias and epilepsy.

Biological oscillators are at the center of many processes in living bodies (human, animal or vegetal). They possess some typical features generating self-sustained oscillations. Their period can vary from microsecond to one day. The understanding of their working principles leads to the development of new electrical circuits which serve in electrical engineering, but also as the generator of artificial devices or toys used for biological assistance (pacemaker, heart, muscle) and those related to defence and security (bio-inspired devices mimicking birds,insects, millipedes, fish, snakes, etc.).

This seminar presents, in general terms, some

• basic information on deterministic chaos and bio-inspired electrical oscillators,
• special phenomena occurring in human body, in chemical and social sciences understandable through the chaos theory,
• applications derived from chaos theory and bio-inspired electrical oscillators: chaos cryptography, improvement of the efficiency of home appliances, electrical treatment of some diseases, financial markets control, development of bio-inspired artificial toys for medicine, security and defense, etc.

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