Perspectives de Recherche en Economie Forestière en France : Programmes Prioritaires pour la Période 2005-2008

The Laboratory of Forestry economics (LEF) was created in 2000 as a joint research unit of the French Institute of Forestry, Agricultural and Environmental Engineering (ENGREF) and the National Institute of Agronomic research (INRA). The mission of the LEF is to conceive, develop, and transfer methods and tools of economic analysis to improve the management of the goods, services and products of the forest and the forestry sector. The aim of this first issue of the “Cahiers du LEF” is to present a synthetic overview of the orientations and future issues for French forest economics research.Forest economics, Research

Decidable and undecidable problems about quantum automata

We study the following decision problem: is the language recognized by a quantum finite automaton empty or non-empty? We prove that this problem is decidable or undecidable depending on whether recognition is defined by strict or non-strict thresholds. This result is in contrast with the corresponding situation for probabilistic finite automata for which it is known that strict and non-strict thresholds both lead to undecidable problems.Comment: 10 page

Cosmological Simulations using Grid Middleware

One way to access the aggregated power of a collection of heterogeneous machines is to use a grid middleware, such as DIET, GridSolve or NINF. It addresses the problem of monitoring the resources, of handling the submissions of jobs and as an example the inherent transfer of input and output data, in place of the user. In this paper we present how to run cosmological simulations using the RAMSES application along with the DIET middleware. We will describe how to write the corresponding DIET client and server. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 presents the DIET middleware. Section 3 describes the RAMSES cosmological software and simulations, and how to interface it with DIET. We show how to write a client and a server in Section 4. Finally, Section 5 presents the experiments realized on Grid'5000, the French Research Grid, and we conclude in Section 6.Comment: submitted Nov 200

Revisiting Matrix Product on Master-Worker Platforms

This paper is aimed at designing efficient parallel matrix-product algorithms for heterogeneous master-worker platforms. While matrix-product is well-understood for homogeneous 2D-arrays of processors (e.g., Cannon algorithm and ScaLAPACK outer product algorithm), there are three key hypotheses that render our work original and innovative: - Centralized data. We assume that all matrix files originate from, and must be returned to, the master. - Heterogeneous star-shaped platforms. We target fully heterogeneous platforms, where computational resources have different computing powers. - Limited memory. Because we investigate the parallelization of large problems, we cannot assume that full matrix panels can be stored in the worker memories and re-used for subsequent updates (as in ScaLAPACK). We have devised efficient algorithms for resource selection (deciding which workers to enroll) and communication ordering (both for input and result messages), and we report a set of numerical experiments on various platforms at Ecole Normale Superieure de Lyon and the University of Tennessee. However, we point out that in this first version of the report, experiments are limited to homogeneous platforms

SENSORY SPATIAL APPRAISAL OF THE CHILD MEDICAL UNITOF MUSTAPHA PACHA HOSPITAL IN ALGIERS

Mustapha Pacha hospital is one of the oldest health services of Africa. It was constructed as a shelter of injured soldiers in the 19th century during the Ottoman Regency. It has a stratigraphy of more than two centuries. Its final planning was held by Jules Voinot in and with the Champs de Manoeuvre Algiers city extension, at the beginning of the 20th. Having a ward configuration, neither its organization nor its functional basics spatial use did change, regarding the demographical or the technical needs. It is integrated in the city and vice-versa. The research takes as a case study the Children Clinical Medical Unit. It is one of the first wards of the hospital which receives more than 300 children each day. The objective of this research is to evaluate the spatial sensory criteria of children in the Clinical Medical Unit through Evidence Based Design approach. This approaches consists to evaluate the impact of spaces on child welfare. This research combines three steps:First, data collection regrouping historical insights regarding the unit. Second the observation of the spatial paths hospitalization of children. Third, a photo elicitation semi structured interview in order to evaluate the main lived spaces. The outcomes will contribute to healthcare facilities refurbishment operation on sensory spatial appraisals through taste, sight, touch, smell, and sound. The study will impact the healthcare facilities architecture in Algeria and expose the need of the expertise concerns regarding the sensitive aspects of ancient healthcare architecture and architectural sensory appraisals

Articulation et collaboration entre les équipes pédagogiques et les services de documentation au coeur de la transformation pédagogique de l’enseignement supérieur

Le M.E.N.E.S.R. a initié un travail sur le thème de la collaboration entre les équipes pédagogiques et les services de documentation. Dans le contexte de la transformation pédagogique de l’enseignement supérieur, la manière dont les parcours de formation font appel à la bibliothèque et la façon dont les enseignants inter-réagissent avec les personnels de documentation deviennent un levier potentiel d’évolution des pratiques. La DGESIP (pôle pédagogique) a chargé le Laboratoire Interuniversitaire des Sciences de l’Education et de la Communication (LISEC, EA 2310) de réaliser une étude visant à faire un état des lieux des collaborations entre enseignants, équipes pédagogiques et services de documentation à travers leurs pratiques et leurs modes d’organisation, leur utilisation des espaces de travail et l’accompagnement des étudiants. Il s’agit d’identifier des avancées et des facteurs de blocage, et de proposer des pistes favorisant des approches intégratives afin de réactualiser la place des services et des espaces de documentation dans les apprentissages universitaires

Seniors et tablettes interactives - Livre blanc

L’apparition des terminaux mobiles dotés d’écrans tactiles a constitué une véritable rupture dans les usages de l’Internet. Ces nouvelles interfaces simplifiées ont permis d’introduire une nouvelle « grammaire gestuelle » auprès de l’ensemble des utilisateurs. En introduisant une nouvelle forme de « mobilité domestique », ces terminaux ont aussi permis d’intégrer plus étroitement ces services à la vie quotidienne des citoyens. Plutôt que de créer des technologies spécifiquement dédiées aux seniors, il est désormais possible de faire évoluer les outils et les services « grand public » afin que les seniors puissent en bénéficier. En effet, l’ergonomie constitue désormais un facteur crucial pour la démocratisation des services de l’Internet. L’objectif de la Délégation aux Usages de l’Internet en publiant ce livre blanc est de permettre à l’ensemble des acteurs de l’Internet (constructeurs de terminaux et concepteurs de services mobiles) de mieux prendre en compte les besoins des seniors. Ce livre blanc a été élaboré à l’issue d’une étude menée par le laboratoire du CNRS Le Lutin avec l’association d’entreprises Silicon Sentier

Bandwidth-Centric Allocation of Independent Tasks on Heterogeneous Platforms

In this paper, we consider the problem of allocating a large number of independent, equal-sized tasks to a heterogenerous "grid" computing platform. Such problems arise in collaborative computing efforts like SETI@home. We use a tree to model a grid, where resources can have different speeds of computation and communication, as well as different overlap capabilities. We define a base model, and show how to determine the maximum steady-state throughput of a node in the base model, assuming we already know the throughput of the subtrees rooted at the node's children. Thus, a bottom-up traversal of the tree determines the rate at which tasks can be processed in the full tree. The best allocation is {\em bandwidth-centric}: if enough bandwidth is available, then all nodes are kept busy; if bandwidth is limited, then tasks should be allocated only to the children which have sufficiently small communication times, regardless of their computation power. We then show how nodes with other capabilities -- ones that allow more or less overlapping of computation and communication than the base model -- can be transformed to equivalent nodes in the base model. We also show how to handle a more general communication model. Finally, we present simulation results of several demand-driven task allocatio- n policies that show that our bandwidth-centric method obtains better results than allocating tasks to all processors on a first-come, first serve basis

Finding a Vector Orthogonal to Roughly Half a Collection of Vectors

International audienceDimitri Grigoriev has shown that for any family of $N$ vectors in the $d$-dimensional linear space E=(\ff{2})^d, there exists a vector in $E$ which is orthogonal to at least $N/3$ and at most $2N/3$ vectors of the family. We show that the range $[N/3,2N/3]$ can be replaced by the much smaller range $[N/2-\sqrt{N}/2,N/2+\sqrt{N}/2]$ and we give an efficient, deterministic parallel algorithm which finds a vector achieving this bound. The optimality of the bound is also investigated