Lettres de soldats au service de la France : Édition intégrale des lettres conservées aux archives de l’État à Liège. Tome I (1795-1809) et Tome II (1810-1812)

Pendant près de vingt ans, l’actuelle province de Liège fut intégrée à la République puis à l’Empire français. Plus de 25 000 hommes participèrent aux guerres révolutionnaires et napoléoniennes, laissant derrière eux des milliers de lettres adressées à leurs familles. Conservées aux Archives de l’État à Liège, 1 500 de ces missives sont publiées ici pour la première fois en édition intégrale. Cette publication en deux volumes restitue la voix directe des soldats : leur formation, les campagnes, les souffrances, les espoirs, les amours et leur regard sur les territoires traversés. Le texte a été adapté dans une langue accessible tout en respectant au plus près l’expression originale. Cette édition critique offre une plongée rare et précieuse dans l’expérience vécue de la guerre à l’époque napoléonienne.Print edition available for purchase for € 60,00 through the National Archives of Belgium. Order via publicat[at]arch.be

ARTPRESSE - An intermedial study of Belgian art as a networked structure seen through the lens of the mass media magazines in the interbellum years - BRAIN RESEARCH PROJECT Contract - B2/191/P2 - FINAL REPORT

The Artpresse project (2020–2025) was a five-year interdisciplinary collaboration between KBR, KU Leuven, and ULiège, investigating the networked structure of the Belgian art world during the interwar period. By leveraging mass-market magazines as a primary lens, the project sought to map the cultural landscape of the interbellum through both Dutch-speaking and Francophone periodical collections. The central objective was to bridge the gap between traditional art history and digital heritage, exploring how large-scale digitized corpora can reveal patterns of cultural representation, artistic reception, and circulation across linguistic and ideological boundaries. At the heart of Artpresse is a significant archival component. The project facilitated the large-scale digitization and processing of over 750,000 pages from KBR’s historical periodical collections. This extensive corpus is now fully accessible in full-text search mode via the Belgica Periodicals platform and stored in KBR’s Media Stock for long-term preservation. Beyond digital accessibility, the research placed a strong emphasis on the material and editorial dimensions of the magazines, with specific attention paid to printing techniques. Archival research complemented this analysis, providing crucial insights into the interconnected networks of publishers and printers that shaped the Belgian media landscape. A key academic output of the project is a forthcoming doctoral dissertation at ULiège focusing on the representation of fine arts within a curated sub-corpus of 17 family magazines published between 1929 and 1936. This research is supported by a comprehensive illustrated and indexed catalogue, providing a critical selection and methodic description of the visual and textual contents. The findings of Artpresse underscore the vital importance, and the inherent methodological challenges, of studying and describing periodical collections. The project successfully demonstrated that while these “middlebrow” sources are essential for understanding modern heritage culture, their sheer volume and heterogeneous nature require robust digital infrastructures and precise metadata standards. Ultimately, Artpresse has not only enriched the digital accessibility of Belgian press periodical heritage but also established a rigorous framework for future quantitative and qualitative studies of the 20th-century press

Les bassins d’offrandes en laiton (XVe-XVIe siècles). Enquête historiographique et réflexions méthodologiques

Since the 19th century the term Beckenschlägerschüssel referred in specific publications to a certain type of brass basins decorated with a large panel of both secular and religious motifs, applied with different techniques. These objects were very little studied since this period and still suffer from being scholarly ignored and poorly recognized as a research topic per se. Yet, they played an important role in the medieval society, both in domestic and religious contexts. Thousands of them are still preserved in collections around the world. This contribution aims at investigating the recontextualization issues of these basins from an epistemological and historiographical perspective, which prevent from establishing their historicity.Le nom de convention Beckenschlägerschüssel sert à désigner, depuis le xixe siècle, dans la littérature spécialisée, un type de bassins en laiton, décorés à l’aide de plusieurs techniques, d’une large gamme de motifs profanes et religieux. Peu étudiés depuis cette époque, ces objets souffrent aujourd’hui d’une méconnaissance et d’un désintérêt persistants. Ils ont pourtant joui d’un succès certain dans la société médiévale et sont encore conservés par milliers à travers le monde. Polyvalents, ils ont été utilisés aussi bien dans les foyers que dans les églises. Cette contribution se présente comme une enquête historiographique et méthodologique visant à dresser le panorama des problèmes de recontextualisation auxquels se heurtent les recherches visant à établir l’historicité de ces objets

De quoi « Belgique » est-il le nom ?

Évoquer la littérature belge pose la question du nom du pays. À partir de quelle époque est-on autorisé à parler de littérature « belge » et d’auteurs « belges » ? Peut-on considérer parmi eux des personnes nées avant 1830 ? Faut-il qu’un auteur se revendique ouvertement comme Belge ? Le nom est en effet bien plus ancien que l’État qui le porte depuis 1830. Il a désigné des territoires différents au fil des siècles, mais aussi à une même époque et en fonction de l’interlocuteur

Atmospheric lifetime of sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) and five other trace gases in the BASCOE model driven by three reanalyses

In this work, sulphur hexafluoride (SF6), which is often used as a tracer for stratospheric transport due to its inertness in the stratosphere and nearly linear growth rate in the troposphere, is included in the chemistry transport model (CTM) of the Belgian Assimilation System for Chemical ObsErvations (BASCOE). Sink and recovery reactions for this species are implemented in the model, which has a top in the mesosphere at 0.01 hPa. The simulated SF6 distributions are compared with MIPAS and ACE-FTS observations and the global atmospheric lifetime is computed from CTM runs driven by three recent meteorological reanalyses: ERA5, MERRA2 and JRA-3Q. The results show that BASCOE SF6 profiles are generally within 10 % of the satellite observations below 10 hPa, although discrepancies increase at higher altitudes. The global atmospheric lifetime is used as an additional diagnostic for the implementation of the chemistry in the mesosphere, where satellite measurements are unavailable. The derived SF6 lifetimes are 2646 years with ERA5, 1909 years with MERRA2 and 2147 years with JRA-3Q, in accordance with recent literature. Due to the large spread of published lifetimes for SF6, the study is extended to N2O, CH4, CFC-11, CFC-12 and HCFC-22, to validate the SF6 results. The lifetimes for these species are in agreement with previously reported values, and their spread between simulations is smaller compared to SF6. This analysis highlights the sensitivity of SF6 to the input reanalysis data sets and thus to differences in dynamics

Non-thermal electron acceleration in turbulent, post-flare coronal loops

Context. The generation of energetic, non-thermal electrons during solar flares plays a critical role in energy transportation from the corona to the chromosphere, producing regions of observed intense X-ray emission. Turbulence in post-flare loops, particularly from Kelvin–Helmholtz instabilities (KHIs), has been suggested and investigated as a mechanism for trapping and accelerating electrons in such scenarios. Aims. Starting from past results, we aim to characterise the energisation process of electrons trapped in a turbulent post-flare looptop, quantifying the contributions of different acceleration mechanisms, and establishing a coherent numerical framework for describing particle energetics. Methods. We performed test-particle simulations with the guiding-centre approximation in addition to a 2.5D magnetohydrodynamic model of a time-evolving, post-flare coronal looptop. We implemented an improved formulation of the guiding-centre equations, which explicitly conserves energy, enabling a consistent analysis of electron acceleration in the turbulent plasma. Results. We find that, in the plasma turbulence inside the looptop, electrons develop supra-thermal energy distributions with tails compatible with hard X-ray emission. The dominant energisation channel arises from perpendicular gradient effects in the form of second-order, Fermi-like stochastic acceleration, while curvature effects are dominant for particles on long trajectories. Statistical correlations with the measured particle pitch angle confirm that the strongest acceleration occurs for electrons trapped in bouncing motions within turbulent magnetic structures. Conclusions. Our results provide an understanding of how KHI-induced turbulence in coronal looptops produces and sustains populations of trapped non-thermal electrons, supporting the interpretation of observed X-ray sources. We dissect and clarify the relative roles of different magnetic effects and the emergence of stochastic, Fermi-like energisation. We also demonstrate the advantages of the improved guiding-centre-approximation (GCA) formalism on a simple reproducible test, for the future benchmarking of GCA implementations

Inventaire des archives de l’Office de Réadaptation sociale de Charleroi (1953-1992)

Plongez au cœur de la réinsertion avec les archives de l’Office de Réadaptation sociale de Charleroi (1953–1992). À travers des centaines de dossiers, découvrez les parcours de détenus et d’anciens détenus accompagnés vers une nouvelle vie, entre espoir et obstacles. Témoignages, rapports sociaux et récits personnels dévoilent la réalité concrète de l’après-prison. Ce fonds met aussi en lumière l’évolution de l’aide sociale en Belgique, devenue progressivement plus professionnelle. Parmi ces voix, un récit autobiographique bouleversant interpelle et sensibilise. Près de dix mètres d’archives pour comprendre ce qui se joue après la peine.The records described in this inventory are held at the State Archives in Mons (inventory code 524 - AEM.13.013).This inventory is the fixed published version dated 25-03-2026. For the dynamic inventory under active revision, including recent updates and additions, please consult our online search platform AGATHA. In AGATHA, you can also request the archival items you wish to consult in the reading room

Neutron Monitor Data as Input to European Projects: SWESNET and PECASUS

Various space weather services, like those for spacecraft operations and aviation, rely on neutron monitor data. In this paper, two major European projects are discussed, respectively the ESA Space Safety Program Space Weather Service Network (SWESNET) project and the Pan-European Consortium for Aviation Space Weather User Services (PECASUS) project. Neutron monitor data is used by several products in the SWESNET Space Radiation Expert Service Centre product portfolio (e.g., ANeMoS products, AVIDOS, COMESEP, RadSEP, and UTU-SEP products). PECASUS relies on neutron monitor data to estimate the radiation exposure at flight level, a key input for compiling ICAO radiation advisories. Maintaining these and other products that depend on neutron monitor real-time data will require further extensions and support of the current neutron monitor network with new or updated stations

De aanslag op het Twintigste Jodenkonvooi (deel 2): tussen herinnering en geschiedenis

Op 19 april 1943 deden drie jonge verzetsmannen het ondenkbare. Ze stopten een deportatietrein met Joden richting Auschwitz en lieten zeventien mensen ontsnappen. In deze vervolgaflevering kijken Nico Wouters en Koen Aerts naar de herinnering over het 20ste konvooi en de spanning tussen de verhalen van getuigen en de archiefbronnen. Komt onze herinnering overeen met de historische werkelijkheid? Wanneer nieuwe feiten worden onthuld, blijkt deze verzetsaanslag niet zo uniek als we vandaag denken. Maar toch komen Nico en Koen uiteindelijk tot een verrassend positief besluit.Te beluisteren via Spotify, Apple Podcast en via www.weeralwo2.be