Mission de reconnaissance des palmeraies du Nord-Niger. Compte-rendu de la phase I. Massif de l'Aïr (période du 16 février au 30 mars 1986)

Projet FED "Vallées de l'Aïr". N¼ 51300 33.40.3

Mission de reconnaissance des palmeraies du Nord Niger. Compte-rendu de mission (suite de la Phase I). Période du 23 au 29 mai 1986

Projet F.E.D. "Vallées de l'Aïr" - N¼ 51300 33.40.3

Thick films of YSZ electrolytes by dip-coating process

Yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ, 8% Y2O3) thick films were coated on porous Ni-YSZ substrates using the dip-coating process and a suspension with a new formulation. The suspension was obtained by addition of a polymeric matrix in a stable suspension of a commercial YSZ (Tosoh) powders dispersed in an azeotropic MEK-EtOH mixture. The green layers were densified after an optimization of the suspension composition. YSZ Tosoh particles encapsulated by a zirconium alkoxide sol and added with colloidal alkoxide precursor are used to load the suspension. The in situ growth of these colloids increases significantly the layers density after an appropriated heat treatment. The obtained films are continuous, homogeneous and 20 μm thick. Different microstructures are obtained depending on the synthesis parameters of the suspension

Mission de reconnaissance des palmeraies du Nord-Niger. Identification de la production dattière (Suite de la Phase I). Période du 2 au 26 juillet 1986

Projet FED "Vallées de l'Aïr -N¼ 51300-33.40.34". Rapport n¼

Immigrant community integration in world cities

As a consequence of the accelerated globalization process, today major cities all over the world are characterized by an increasing multiculturalism. The integration of immigrant communities may be affected by social polarization and spatial segregation. How are these dynamics evolving over time? To what extent the different policies launched to tackle these problems are working? These are critical questions traditionally addressed by studies based on surveys and census data. Such sources are safe to avoid spurious biases, but the data collection becomes an intensive and rather expensive work. Here, we conduct a comprehensive study on immigrant integration in 53 world cities by introducing an innovative approach: an analysis of the spatio-temporal communication patterns of immigrant and local communities based on language detection in Twitter and on novel metrics of spatial integration. We quantify the "Power of Integration" of cities --their capacity to spatially integrate diverse cultures-- and characterize the relations between different cultures when acting as hosts or immigrants.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures + Appendi

Simulating temporal evolution of pressure in two-phase flow in porous media

We have simulated the temporal evolution of pressure due to capillary and viscous forces in two-phase drainage in porous media. We analyze our result in light of macroscopic flow equations for two-phase flow. We also investigate the effect of the trapped clusters on the pressure evolution and on the effective permeability of the system. We find that the capillary forces play an important role during the displacements for both fast and slow injection rates and both when the invading fluid is more or less viscous than the defending fluid. The simulations are based on a network simulator modeling two-phase drainage displacements on a two-dimensional lattice of tubes.Comment: 12 pages, LaTeX, 14 figures, Postscrip

Natural recovery of genetic diversity by gene flow in reforested areas of the endemic Canary Island pine, Pinus canariensis

The endemic pine, Pinus canariensis, forms one of the main forest ecosystems in the Canary Islands. In this archipelago, pine forest is a mosaic of natural stands (remnants of past forest overexploitation) and artificial stands planted from the 1940's. The genetic makeup of the artificially regenerated forest is of some concern. The use of reproductive material with uncontrolled origin or from a reduced number of parental trees may produce stands ill adapted to local conditions or unable to adapt in response to environmental change. The genetic diversity within a transect of reforested stands connecting two natural forest fragments has been studied with nuclear and chloroplast microsatellites. Little genetic differentiation and similar levels of genetic diversity to the surrounding natural stands were found for nuclear markers. However, chloroplast microsatellites presented lower haplotype diversity in reforested stands, and this may be a consequence of the lower effective population size of the chloroplast genome, meaning chloroplast markers have a higher sensitivity to bottlenecks. Understory natural regeneration within the reforestation was also analysed to study gene flow from natural forest into artificial stands. Estimates of immigration rate into artificially regenerated forest were high (0.68-0.75), producing a significant increase of genetic diversity (both in chloroplast and nuclear microsatellites), which indicates the capacity for genetic recovery for P. canariensis reforestations surrounded by larger natural stands

Ground State Structure in a Highly Disordered Spin Glass Model

We propose a new Ising spin glass model on $Z^d$ of Edwards-Anderson type, but with highly disordered coupling magnitudes, in which a greedy algorithm for producing ground states is exact. We find that the procedure for determining (infinite volume) ground states for this model can be related to invasion percolation with the number of ground states identified as $2^{\cal N}$, where ${\cal N} = {\cal N}(d)$ is the number of distinct global components in the ``invasion forest''. We prove that ${\cal N}(d) = \infty$ if the invasion connectivity function is square summable. We argue that the critical dimension separating ${\cal N} = 1$ and ${\cal N} = \infty$ is $d_c = 8$. When ${\cal N}(d) = \infty$, we consider free or periodic boundary conditions on cubes of side length $L$ and show that frustration leads to chaotic $L$ dependence with {\it all} pairs of ground states occuring as subsequence limits. We briefly discuss applications of our results to random walk problems on rugged landscapes.Comment: LaTex fil

Dartmoor Payment-By-Results T&T2: final report (15A)

The proposal of the second Dartmoor Test & Trial (T & T) was to test the practical development of payment by results (PBR) on common land by designing and trialling a model with commons graziers across the varied landscape of Dartmoor. It aimed to better understand the barriers and opportunities to improve delivery, including the necessary governance. Both the reward (payment for delivery) and governance and financial administration were addressed