Beauty is in the efficient coding of the beholder

Sexual ornaments are often assumed to be indicators of mate quality. Yet it remains poorly known how certain ornaments are chosen before any coevolutionary race makes them indicative. Perceptual biases have been proposed to play this role, but known biases are mostly restricted to a specific taxon, which precludes evaluating their general importance in sexual selection. Here we identify a potentially universal perceptual bias in mate choice. We used an algorithm that models the sparseness of the activity of simple cells in the primary visual cortex (or V1) of humans when coding images of female faces. Sparseness was found positively correlated with attractiveness as rated by men and explained up to 17% of variance in attractiveness. Because V1 is adapted to process signals from natural scenes, in general, not faces specifically, our results indicate that attractiveness for female faces is influenced by a visual bias. Sparseness and more generally efficient neural coding are ubiquitous, occurring in various animals and sensory modalities, suggesting that the influence of efficient coding on mate choice can be widespread in animals

Et si on faisait comme ceux de la plaine ? Aspirations et limites d'une petite agriculture dynamique en Tunisie centrale

L'histoire tunisienne a produit ce qui est perçu comme un fort dualisme entre petite et grande agriculture. Après avoir été longtemps marginalisée par des politiques agricoles productivistes, la petite agriculture est aujourd'hui encouragée, notamment suite à la révolution de 2011. Face à la paupérisation du monde rural, à l'exode et aux difficultés pour les jeunes diplômés de trouver du travail, la petite agriculture représente un véritable enjeu social et politique en Tunisie. Dans cet article, nous nous proposons de questionner la dichotomie usuellement présentée entre petite agriculture et agriculture productive, à partir d'une étude de cas approfondie en Tunisie Centrale. Une analyse du discours des jeunes de la localité de Haffouz, nous permettra de montrer ce à quoi ils aspirent, mais aussi les facteurs qui freinent leur accession à un modèle agricole " rêvé ". Notre réflexion met en avant le dynamisme de ces jeunes, souvent présentés comme attentistes. S'ils espèrent en effet un appui de l'État, ils mobilisent cependant leurs propres stratégies pour porter l'avenir de leurs exploitations. (Résumé d'auteur

Exploring the relationship between internship and employability.

Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.This study aims to shed light on the current debate regarding the role of internships in higher education in graduates’ employability. Facing unparalleled challenges to deal with the problem of graduate unemployment, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are gradually anxious with the professional insertion of their graduates in the labour market. Graduates, academics and employers from three sectors of the Mauritian economy – Finance, ICT, Hotel and Accommodation who have participated in internships were interviewed for this study. This study aims to assess the importance of internships for the employability of graduate students. Three inter-related dimensions are explored. Firstly, the extent to which the introduction of internships in study programmes contributes to the decrease in graduate unemployment rates is analysed. Second, the extent to which the different features of internships, namely those associated with their length and structure, contribute to lower graduate unemployment rates is assessed. Thirdly, the internship approaches, which seem to allow greater job preparedness, namely those related to interns’ supervision entailing close collaboration between universities and employers, are discussed. The key findings of the study were the perspectives on graduate attributes, perspectives on an internship, academic learning for employability, workplace learning for employability, additional learning for employability, and the challenges and opportunities in preparing graduates for employability. Both employers and academics in this study displayed their interest and initiative to lead change in their respective environments and for their benefit. Further, the new collaboration between academics and employers provide graduates with relevant internships. Results demonstrate that study programmes that include internships tend to significantly enhance graduates’ employability, particularly within the universe public higher education institutions. Besides the instrumental value of internships, the impact of the nature and structure of the internship on the percentage of unemployed graduates who get a job after an internship with the same employer are also discussed. Mandatory internships and the inclusion of multiple, shorter internships throughout the degree are negatively associated with unemployment levels because employers prefer long duration placement of graduates. Results also indicate work-based learning can be used as a successful strategy to bridge theoretical knowledge and practice and enhance graduate employability. These findings provide important insights for the evaluation and/or the design of internship programmes in higher education. Benefits of internships are extensively reported in the majority of interviews dealing with the professional integration of graduates. There is a consensus that internships can be regarded as an institutional mechanism that facilitates graduates’ transition from higher education to work. Thus, showing that there is a relationship between internship and employability

Proposition of an action layer for electrum

Electrum is an extension of Alloy that adds (1) mutable signatures and fields to the modeling layer; and (2) connectives from linear temporal logic (with past) and primed variables à la TLA+ to the constraint language. The analysis of models can then be translated into a SAT-based bounded model-checking problem, or to an LTL-based unbounded model-checking problem. Electrum has proved to be useful to model and verify dynamic systems with rich configurations. However, when specifying events, the tedious and sometimes error-prone handling of traces and frame conditions (similarly as in Alloy) remained necessary. In this paper, we introduce an extension of Electrum with a so-called “action” layer that addresses these questions.This work is financed by the ERDF - European Regional Development Fund - through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation - COMPETE 2020 - and by National Funds through the Portuguese funding agency, FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, within project POCI-01-0145-FEDER016826, and the French Research Agency project FORMEDICIS ANR-16-CE25-000

Évolution des pratiques et des conceptions de l’enseignement, de l’apprentissage et des TIC chez des enseignants du primaire en contexte de développement professionnel

Cet article examine l’évolution des pratiques et des conceptions relatives à l’enseignement, à l’apprentissage et aux technologies. Deux perspectives principales de l’apprentissage s’imposent chez 40 enseignants du primaire participant à une recherche-action-formation : le béhaviorisme social et le néoconstructivisme. Les données ont été recueillies au moyen des entrevues et des observations, au début et à la fin de la formation continue. L’analyse de ces données révèle des pratiques relevant davantage du béhaviorisme social, alors que les conceptions sont plutôt associées à des perspectives multiples. La discussion analyse les résultats à la lumière du contexte de la recherche, des travaux sur le changement conceptuel et la pratique des enseignants. Des pistes de formation et de recherche sont suggérées.This article examines the evolution of practices and conceptions regarding teaching, learning and the use of educational technology. An action-training-research project proposed two main learning perspectives: social-behaviourism and neo-constructivism to 40 primary level teacher participants. Data was collected using interviews and observations both at the beginning and at the end of the in-service training. An analysis of the data shows that teaching practices are mostly related to social behaviourism, while representations are mainly associated with multiple perspectives. The discussion provides an analysis of these results in light of the specific research context, the current work on changing representations, and teachers’ practices. Suggestions regarding training and future research are provided.Este artículo analiza la evolución de las prácticas y de las concepciones referentes a la enseñanza, al aprendizaje y a las tecnologías. Resaltan dos perspectivas principales del aprendizaje en los 40 docentes de la enseñanza básica que participan a una investigación-acción-formación: el behaviorismo social y el neoconstructivismo. Los datos han sido recolectados por medio de entrevistas y de observaciones al inicio y al final de la formación continua. El análisis de estos datos revela que las prácticas son más centradas en el behaviorismo social; mientras las concepciones se encuentran más asociadas con perspectivas múltiples. Se analizan los resultados a la luz del contexto de la investigación, de los trabajos sobre el cambio conceptual y sobre la práctica docente. Al terminar, se presentan algunas pistas de formación y de investigación

Visuoperceptual deficits and participation in older adults after stroke

Introduction: Visuoperceptual deficits frequently occur after a stroke but little is known about how they evolve over time. These deficits may have an impact on participation in daily activities and social roles. Objectives: The aims were to 1) track changes over six months in the visual perception of older adults with persistent visuoperceptual deficits after a stroke; 2) examine if these changes differed between participants who had and had not received rehabilitation services; and 3) verify if participation differed between participants with and without visuoperceptual deficits. Methods: Visual perception as well as participation of 189 older adults who had had a stroke were evaluated in the first month (T1) after being discharged home from an acute care hospital (NO REHAB group) or rehabilitation unit (REHAB group). For visual perception, only participants presenting deficits at T1 were re-evaluated at 3 months (T2; n=93), and those with deficits at T2 were re-evaluated at 6 months (T3; n=61). Results: A total of 57 people (30.2%) had visuoperceptual deficits six months after discharge home. Despite persistent deficits, approximately 45% of the participants in the two groups improved while 50% of the NO REHAB group and 24.3% of the REHAB group deteriorated. Changes in the mean scores on the MVPT-V were similar in the two groups. Participation, and especially participation in social roles, was more restricted in participants with visuoperceptual deficits (p<0.001), whatever the severity of the stroke. Conclusion: Visuoperceptual deficits are common post-stroke. However, they evolve differently in different people and are associated with a reduction in participation