La reconnaissance des acquis expérientiels: étude de cas de la politique d'admission des adultes à l'Université Laval

Has the inclusion of experience as a criterion of admission for adult students raised significantly the chances of these students of being admitted? The authors analyse the new admission policy at Laval University (1980) and, from a sample of400 candidates' dossiers, its practice age and a fair amount of experience appear to be important factors opening the door of university. However, the effects of these factors are particularly enhanced if experience is close to academic or cognitive learning or combined with a CEGEP diploma and a grade higher than 65%. Thus, experience does not seem to be used as a basis of admission of its own, but mainly to corroborate academic ability already expressed by good grades.Les auteurs évaluent formellement la politique et le processus d'évaluation de la clientèle adulte qui ne rencontre pas les critères "normaux" d'admission aux programmes de premier cycle à l'Université Laval en 1980. L'étude de l'application de cette politique, tenant compte de l'expérience de vie ou des acquis expérientiels des candidats adultes en plus de leurs acquis scolaires antérieurs et l'analyse d'un échantillon de 400 dossiers de candidats adultes nous révèlent que l'âge et la durée de l'expérience constituent des facteurs favorisant l'admissibilité des candidats adultes. Elles démontrent aussi clairement que le profil de référence, lors de ce processus d'évaluation, est principalement la for- mation scolaire et sa dimension cognitive. En effet, le fait de posséder des expé- riences liées à l'apprentissage, au moins un diplôme de niveau collégial et des résultats scolaires supérieurs à 65%, augmente les chances d'un candidat d'être reconnu admissible. Le concept d'expérience de vie semble donc être utilisé de façon secondaire, comme confirmation au renforcement des succès scolaires antérieurs, plutôt que comme critère autonome

Contribution of point sources to the soft gamma-ray Galactic emission

The nature of the soft gamma-ray (20-200 keV) Galactic emission has been a matter of debate for a long time. Previous experiments have tried to separate the point source contribution from the real interstellar emission, but with a rather poor spatial resolution, they concluded that the interstellar emission could be a large fraction of the total Galactic emission. INTEGRAL, having both high resolution and high sensitivity, is well suited to reassess more precisely this problem. Using the INTEGRAL core program Galactic Center Deep Exposure (GCDE), we estimate the contribution of detected point sources to the total Galactic flux.Comment: Proceedings of the 5th INTEGRAL Workshop, Munich 16-20 February 2004. ESA SP-55

From Gaussian beam to complex-source-point spherical wave

It is shown that the paraxial Gaussian beam becomes the complex-source-point spherical wave when all-order corrections are made according to the method of Lax, Louisell, and McKnight. Apparent contradictions between previously published first-order corrections are also discussed

Efficient Olfactory Coding in the Pheromone Receptor Neuron of a Moth

The concept of coding efficiency holds that sensory neurons are adapted, through both evolutionary and developmental processes, to the statistical characteristics of their natural stimulus. Encouraged by the successful invocation of this principle to predict how neurons encode natural auditory and visual stimuli, we attempted its application to olfactory neurons. The pheromone receptor neuron of the male moth Antheraea polyphemus, for which quantitative properties of both the natural stimulus and the reception processes are available, was selected. We predicted several characteristics that the pheromone plume should possess under the hypothesis that the receptors perform optimally, i.e., transfer as much information on the stimulus per unit time as possible. Our results demonstrate that the statistical characteristics of the predicted stimulus, e.g., the probability distribution function of the stimulus concentration, the spectral density function of the stimulation course, and the intermittency, are in good agreement with those measured experimentally in the field. These results should stimulate further quantitative studies on the evolutionary adaptation of olfactory nervous systems to odorant plumes and on the plume characteristics that are most informative for the ‘sniffer’. Both aspects are relevant to the design of olfactory sensors for odour-tracking robots

Variability of the gas transfer velocity of CO2 in a macrotidal estuary (The Scheldt)

We report a large set of 295 interfacial carbon dioxide (CO2) flux measurements obtained in the Scheldt estuary in November 2002 and April 2003, using the floating chamber method. From concomitant measurements of the air-water CO2 gradient, we computed the gas transfer velocity of CO2. The gas transfer velocity is well correlated to wind speed and a simple linear regression function gives the most consistent fit to the data. Based on water current measurements, we estimated the contribution of water current induced turbulence to the gas transfer velocity, using the conceptual relationship of O’Connor and Dobbins (1958). This allowed us to construct an empirical relationship to compute the gas transfer velocity of CO2 that accounts for the contribution of wind and water current. Based on this relationship, the spatial and temporal variability of the gas transfer velocity in the Scheldt estuary was investigated.Water currents contribute significantly to the gas transfer velocity, but the spatial and temporal variability (from daily to seasonal scales) is mainly related to wind speed variability.Bioges