La résistance de Liège et son incidence sur le plan d’opérations allemand

Conference given outside the academic context (2013)

Compte rendu de Claude Simon: Situations

E-print/Working paper (2013)

Compte rendu du passionnant ouvrage dirigé par Paul Dirkx et Pascal Mougin au sujet de Claude Simon. Esquisse de réflexion sur la clôture du texte.

Inverse dynamics of serial and parallel underactuated multibody systems using a DAE optimal control approach

in Multibody System Dynamics (2013)

The inverse dynamics analysis of underactuated multibody systems aims at determining the control inputs in order to track a prescribed trajectory. This paper studies the inverse dynamics of non-minimum ... [more ▼]

The inverse dynamics analysis of underactuated multibody systems aims at determining the control inputs in order to track a prescribed trajectory. This paper studies the inverse dynamics of non-minimum phase underactuated multibody systems with serial and parallel planar topology, e.g. for end-effector control of flexible manipulators or manipulators with passive joints. Unlike for minimum phase systems, the inverse dynamics of non-minimum phase systems cannot be solved by adding trajectory constraints (servoconstraints) to the equations of motion and applying a forward time integration. Indeed, the inverse dynamics of a non-minimum phase system is known to be non-causal, which means that the control forces and torques should start before the beginning of the trajectory (preactuation phase) and continue after the end-point is reached (post-actuation phase). The existing stable inversion method roposed for general nonlinear non-minimum phase systems requires to derive explicitly the equations of the internal dynamics and to solve a boundary value problem. This paper proposes an alternative solution strategy which is based on an optimal control approach using a direct transcription method. The method is illustrated for the inverse dynamics of an underactuated serial manipulator with rigid links and four degrees-of-freedom and an underactuated parallel machine. An important advantage of the proposed approach is that it can be applied directly to the standard equations of motion of multibody systems either in ODE or in DAE form. Therefore, it is easier to implement this method in a general purpose simulation software. [less ▲]

Has the fight against international terrorism undermined European data protection standards? A special regard to the perspectives of the transatlantic relationship

Doctoral thesis (2013)

Il s’agit d'une analyse des accords PNR (Passenger Name Records) entre l’Union Européenne et les Etats Unis et plus en général des changements aux lois de protection de la vie privée qui sont intervenus ... [more ▼]

Il s’agit d'une analyse des accords PNR (Passenger Name Records) entre l’Union Européenne et les Etats Unis et plus en général des changements aux lois de protection de la vie privée qui sont intervenus dans les dernières années, surtout à la suite des événements du onze septembre 2001. La réflexion porte donc sur l’évolution du concept de protection des données personnelles vis à vis des nouveaux instruments de collecte d’informations et d’enquête. [less ▲]

Observation de l’atmosphère de Vénus par le spectromètre imageur VIRTIS-M de Venus-Express : analyse des émissions nocturnes de O2 et OH

Doctoral thesis (2013)

Venus, the second planet of the solar system, has a very dense CO2-dominated atmosphere. Above 50 km, its dynamics is usually decomposed into two main circulation patterns. The first one, the Retrograde ... [more ▼]

Venus, the second planet of the solar system, has a very dense CO2-dominated atmosphere. Above 50 km, its dynamics is usually decomposed into two main circulation patterns. The first one, the Retrograde Superrotating Zonal (RSZ) circulation, controls atmospheric layers below 65 km of altitude. This motion is related to the retrograde rotation of the planet. The second circulation operates above 120 km. This Subsolar-Antisolar (SS-AS) circulation generates a flux from the dayside to the nightside of Venus. It originates from the strong temperature gradients at the top of the atmospheric layer. Between 65 and 120km, the circulation is more complex and no in situ measurement has been performed to study this region of the atmosphere. However, it is possible to use minor atmospheric constituents and their spectral signatures as dynamic tracers to better understand this region. For example, oxygen atoms are produced by photodissociation of CO2 molecules which dominate the Venusian atmosphere. They are then carried by the SS-AS circulation to the planet nightside, where they recombine into O2 molecules in several metastable excited states. Their de-excitation produces measurable emissions, named nightglow which may be qualitatively investigated. This thesis focuses on the study of these emission phenomena. Data have been acquired by the Venus Express spacecraft, in a quasi-polar elliptical orbit around Venus since April 2006. More specifically, observations have been made with the VIRTIS-M instrument, a multispectral imager. As VIRTIS observes in the visible and near infrared domains, some molecular oxygen and hydroxyl transitions can be detected in the data. The main goal of this study has been to extract quantitative information from these observations and to analyze both the density of constituents (such as excited molecular oxygen, atomic oxygen and ozone) and the dynamical processes involved in this region of the Venusian atmosphere. In a first part, data acquired at 1.27 µm in nadir mode have been processed and analyzed in order to study the O2(a1Δg→X3Σg-) infrared atmospheric transition. Data processing consists in correcting the geometrical effects associated with the view angle, the cloud reflection and the thermal contribution. Data analysis following emission patches in individual data sets points out a large variability of the phenomenon, both in terms of brightness and localization. Emission peaks vary from 0.5 to 6 MegaRayleighs (MR) and may be observed over the entire southern hemisphere of the planet, which is the observable part in nadir mode. However, once the individual data are grouped together to generate a statistical map, our analysis shows that the emission at 1.27 µm is located around the antisolar point, which confirms the SS-AS circulation predominance. This map is improved in the northern hemisphere by adding vertical intensity profiles derived from limb images. These profiles are deconvolved to take into account VIRTIS-M spatial resolution and transformed by the Abel inversion to get a local profile of the volume emission rate. A vertical integration of these profiles simulates a nadir observation and completes the bidimensional statistical map of the O2(a1Δg) emission. The intensity reaches 1.6 MR at the antisolar point and the mean nightside value is 0.5 MR. This map, combined with limb profiles, allows to generate a tridimensional distribution of the emission. It shows that the emitting layer is located at ~96.5 km. These results, combined with a tridimensional distribution of the CO2 density (generated with the VTS3 model or measurements from the SPICAV spectrometer on board Venus Express) allows to generate a 3-D map of the atomic oxygen density. The mean nightside density value is 2.0x1011 cm-3 at 103.4 km. This empirical map validates the VTGCM model, as no measurements of the atomic oxygen density had ever been performed in this region of the Venus atmosphere. Other oxygen transitions have been detected in the visible domain (Migliorini et al., 2012): the Herzberg II (c1Σu-→X3Σg-) and Chamberlain (A’3Δu→a1Δg) transitions. Using CO2 and O density profiles derived from our previous study, these transitions have been modeled. Some reaction parameters, whose laboratory measurements are insufficient or inexistent, have thus been estimated. The distribution of the Herzberg I (A3Σu→X3Σg-) transition has also been simulated. Other emission limb profiles have also been extracted from the VIRTIS-M database: the OH(Δv=1) and OH(Δv=2) Meinel emission bands of the hydroxyl molecule. First, these profiles have been processed to subtract a stray signal. The simultaneous statistical study shows that IOH(Δv=1)= 0.60 MR and IOH(Δv=2)=0.23 MR at ~97 km and that their intensity are correlated. The spectral analysis with synthetic spectra demonstrates that only v’≤4 vibrational levels are populated. These emissions have been modeled taking into account excited OH production, deactivation by collisions and reaction and spontaneous emission loss. The CO2 and O density profiles derived from the oxygen study have been used. The quenching coefficients have been adjusted to consider the temperature of the emitting layer and two quenching mechanisms by CO2 have been implemented. This model showed that collisional quenching by single quantum jump (Δv=1) best reproduces the observations. Likewise, an ozone density of 5.8x106 cm-3 at 96.5 km (for the best case) is in good agreement with the recent SPICAV O3 detection. Finally, the study of simultaneous OH(Δv=1) and O2(a1Δg) limb profiles showed a very high spatial correlation of these two emissions. This result has been explained by the role of atomic oxygen as a common precursor for the formation of both molecular oxygen and hydroxyl. [less ▲]

Le management public dans la sphère scolaire : émergence des pratiques de médiation scolaire au sein de trois « mondes » d’acteurs

Conference (2013, March 28)

This article aims to examine changing practices of school mediation in three “worlds” of actors – the educational world, the manager world and the “living together” world – crossing three fields of ... [more ▼]

This article aims to examine changing practices of school mediation in three “worlds” of actors – the educational world, the manager world and the “living together” world – crossing three fields of research in sociology: the interactionism, the sociology of public management, and the sociology of school. Traditionally performed by the institutional mediator of the school or, occasionally, by a local mediator, the variety of contemporary mediation practices appears as a consequence of the organizational challenges of New Public Management of Belgium. I will first explain the background of the changes which occurred in the educational field and examine the changing role of school stakeholders. Then, I will present three case studies which illustrate how schools are anchored in the three “worlds” of actors mentioned above. Finally, I will discuss the results giving the first lines of interpretation of this school evolution. [less ▲]

Comment mettre en place une pédagogie active dans les grands groupes ? Grâce à l’utilisation de Diigo : logiciel de partage de signets en ligne

Conference (2013, March 28)

Characteristics of Near-Death Experiences Memories as Compared to Real and Imagined Events Memories

in PLoS ONE (2013), 8(3),

Since the dawn of time, Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) have intrigued and, nowadays, are still not fully explained. Since reports of NDEs are proposed to be imagined events, and since memories of imagined ... [more ▼]

Since the dawn of time, Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) have intrigued and, nowadays, are still not fully explained. Since reports of NDEs are proposed to be imagined events, and since memories of imagined event have, on average, fewer phenomenological characteristics than real events memories, we here compared phenomenological characteristics of NDEs reports with memories of imagined and real events. We included three groups of coma survivors (8 patients with NDE as defined by the Greyson NDE scale, 6 patients without NDE but with memory of their coma, 7 patients without memories of their coma) and a group of 18 age-matched healthy volunteers. Five types of memories were assessed using Memory Characteristics Questionnaire (MCQ – Johnson et al., 1988): target memory (NDE for NDE memory group, coma memory for coma memory group, and first childhood memory for no memory and control groups), old and recent real event memories and old and recent imagined event memories. Since NDEs are known to have high emotional content, participants were requested to choose the most emotionally salient memories for both real and imagined recent and old event memories. Results showed that, in NDE memories group, NDE memories have more characteristics than memories of imagined and real events (p<0.02). NDE memories contain more self-referential and emotional information and have better clarity than memories of coma (all p<0.02). The present study showed that NDE memories contain more characteristics than real event memories and coma memories. Thus, this suggests that they cannot be considered as imagined event memories. On the contrary, their physiological origins could lead them to be really perceived although not lived in the reality. Further work is needed to better understand this phenomenon. [less ▲]

Cyrtodactylus sanook (Squamata: Gekkonidae), a new cave-dwelling gecko from Chumphon Province, southern Thailand

in Zootaxa (2013), 3635(3), 275-285

Laplace et le développement des politiques scientifiques en Europe

Conference (2013, March 27)