Monitoring, tracking and forecasting ionospheric perturbations using GNSS techniques

in Journal of Space Weather and Space Climate (2012), 2(A22),

The paper reviews the current state of GNSS-based detection, monitoring and forecasting of ionospheric perturbations in Europe in relation to the COST action ES0803 ‘‘Developing Space Weather Products and ... [more ▼]

The paper reviews the current state of GNSS-based detection, monitoring and forecasting of ionospheric perturbations in Europe in relation to the COST action ES0803 ‘‘Developing Space Weather Products and Services in Europe’’. Space weather research and related ionospheric studies require broad international collaboration in sharing databases, developing analysis software and models and providing services. Reviewed is the European GNSS data basis including ionospheric services providing derived data products such as the Total Electron Content (TEC) and radio scintillation indices. Fundamental ionospheric perturbation phenomena covering quite different scales in time and space are discussed in the light of recent achievements in GNSS-based ionospheric monitoring. Thus, large-scale perturbation processes characterized by moving ionization fronts, wave-like travelling ionospheric disturbances and finally small-scale irregularities causing radio scintillations are considered. Whereas ground and space-based GNSS monitoring techniques are well developed, forecasting of ionospheric perturbations needs much more work to become attractive for users who might be interested in condensed information on the perturbation degree of the ionosphere by robust indices. Finally, we have briefly presented a few samples illustrating the space weather impact on GNSS applications thus encouraging the scientific community to enhance space weather research in upcoming years. [less ▲]

Zoom : Chicago Gospel Festival 2012

Article for general public (2012)

Case note on Case C-272/09 P, KME Germany and others v. Commission

in Common Market Law Review (2012), 49

In KME, the applicant raised the issue of compatibility of EU courts review of Commission’s fines with the right to a fair trial protected by article 6 ECHR. Relying on article 47 of the Charter, the ... [more ▼]

In KME, the applicant raised the issue of compatibility of EU courts review of Commission’s fines with the right to a fair trial protected by article 6 ECHR. Relying on article 47 of the Charter, the Court ruled that the review performed by the General Court did comply with the right to an effective remedy and to a fair trial. Unlike the Advocate General, the Court did not rely chiefly on unlimited jurisdiction on fines. It ruled that the review of legality is capable of affording sufficient protection of parties procedural rights. It held in particular that “Courts cannot use the Commission’s margin of discretion […] as a basis for dispensing with the conduct of an in-depth review of the law and of the facts [less ▲]

Prévenir les mammites bovines - Techniques et outils en 2012

Conference given outside the academic context (2012)

Carrying capacity of stainless steel columns in the low slenderness range

in 6th International Conference on Coupled Instabilities in Metal Structures : CIMS, Glasgow 3-5 December 2102 (2012, December)

In European standards, for Class 4 cross-sections, the Effective Width Method (EWM) must be used to account for the effect of local buckling. Because of the complexity of this method, other methods have ... [more ▼]

In European standards, for Class 4 cross-sections, the Effective Width Method (EWM) must be used to account for the effect of local buckling. Because of the complexity of this method, other methods have been developed, such as the Direct Strength Method (DSM) for cold-formed thin-walled profiles and the Continuous Strength Method (CSM), initially established for members made of stainless steels. To a large extent, the CSM yield accurate predictions, especially in the low slenderness range where the current DSM design procedure tends to produce conservative results, for materials with pronounced strain hardening. The present paper presents an extension of the DSM which provides accurate strength predictions in the low slenderness range for stainless steel thin-walled section columns failing by distortional, local and overall buckling. [less ▲]

Kongo–Lisbonne : la dialectique du centre et de la périphérie dans l'Église kimbanguiste

in Canadian Journal of African Studies (2012), 46(3), 411-427

Cf. pdf attaché

Traitement de la mammite bovine - Actualité 2012

Conference given outside the academic context (2012)

La mammite doit être ciblée en tant que maladie de production et risque de mortalité. Sa caractérisation repose sur une bonne connaissance de ses aspects épidémiologiques à l'échelle de la région, ainsi ... [more ▼]

La mammite doit être ciblée en tant que maladie de production et risque de mortalité. Sa caractérisation repose sur une bonne connaissance de ses aspects épidémiologiques à l'échelle de la région, ainsi, à l'aide d'indicateurs épidémiologiques pertinents, la mammite peut être caractérisée par une prévalence d'environ 100.000 cas wallons par an. Soit 50% de prévalence maximale en Wallonie. Sur base des informations disponibles sur le terrain wallon, il est possible d'identifier les cibles prioritaires thérapeutiques. A travers l'étude des bases de données de l'ARSIA, nous sommes en mesure de déterminer un schéma de travail incluant : les germes prioritaires et leur sensibilité moyenne aux antibiotiques. Dans une seconde phase, les aspects pharmacologiques du traitement des mammites sont revus à la lumière des contraintes que pose la mamelle bovine. Cette phase donne lieu à une meilleure adéquation entre choix du traitement, cible thérapeutique et sensibilité des pathogènes. Puis seront abordés des exemples de thérapeutiques en fonction du germe présent dans la ferme, en s'attardant sur la posologie choisie et le type de stratégie thérapeutique en fonction du degré d'atteinte. Les mammites impliquant Streptococcus uberis, Staphylococcus aureus, les staphylocoques coagulase négatif et les mammites à coliforme sont ainsi passées en revue. Enfin, la question de la thérapie anti-inflammatoire est abordée. 2 cas pratiques issus du terrain sont abordés en fin de formation afin d'illustrer la complexité de la thérapie mammaire, et le fait que le germe et le traitement ne sont jamais les seuls facteurs à prendre en compte pour le praticien. [less ▲]

Les observateurs

Article for general public (2012)

Coopération amateurs professionnels

Syndromes hémorragiques chez le bovin, cas rares ?

Conference given outside the academic context (2012)

La pancytopénie néonatale bovine a apporté un attrait nouveau à la compréhension pour le praticien rural des mécanismes liés à la coagulation. En outre, cette pathologie a réveillé l'attention des ... [more ▼]

La pancytopénie néonatale bovine a apporté un attrait nouveau à la compréhension pour le praticien rural des mécanismes liés à la coagulation. En outre, cette pathologie a réveillé l'attention des confrères pour d'autres syndromes hémorragiques. Ces mécanismes sont supposés connus, et pour autant, au quotidien en pratique, ils ne revêtent pas forcément un transfert aisé à des situations habituelles. Aussi, il parait important de refaire un point sur les principales composantes de la coagulation chez le bovin ainsi que ses spécificités d'espèce, afin d'aborder les pathologies cardinales associées à des saignements. [less ▲]

Optimal discovery with probabilistic expert advice

in Proceedings of the 51st IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC 2012) (2012, December)

Motivated by issues of security analysis for power systems, we analyze a new problem, called optimal discovery with probabilistic expert advice. We address it with an algorithm based on the optimistic ... [more ▼]

Motivated by issues of security analysis for power systems, we analyze a new problem, called optimal discovery with probabilistic expert advice. We address it with an algorithm based on the optimistic paradigm and the Good-Turingmissing mass estimator. We show that this strategy attains the optimal discovery rate in a macroscopic limit sense, under some assumptions on the probabilistic experts. We also provide numerical experiments suggesting that this optimal behavior may still hold under weaker assumptions. [less ▲]