Effect of disorder geometry on the critical force in disordered elastic systems

We address the effect of disorder geometry on the critical force in disordered elastic systems. We focus on the model system of a long-range elastic line driven in a random landscape. In the collective pinning regime, we compute the critical force perturbatively. Not only our expression for the critical force confirms previous results on its scaling with respect to the microscopic disorder parameters, it also provides its precise dependence on the disorder geometry (represented by the disorder two-point correlation function). Our results are successfully compared to the results of numerical simulations for random field and random bond disorders.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figure

Greta Alfaro, le rituel à l’épreuve de l’animal

L’éthologie a depuis longtemps remarqué que nombreux sont les exemples de groupes animaux organisés en sociétés dont les logiques relationnelles et les pratiques collectives peuvent être comparées à celles des hommes. Des artistes contemporains ont envisagé un transfert entre l’homme et l’animal susceptible d’interroger la phénoménologie d’une corporéité sociale. Pour certains d’entre eux, comme Greta Alfaro, le rituel humain peut être relu – ou revu – par l’animal. Le vautour ou le sanglier se révèlent les complices involontaires d’une enquête sur des pratiques que l’on pourrait croire spécifiques à l’humain. Et, partant, ils permettent ainsi d’ouvrir le champ d’un patrimoine commun.Many animal societies display relational logic and collective practices that can be compared to those of humans, as it has been noticed by ethology. Contemporary artists have considered a transfer between human and animal susceptible to question the phenomenology of a social group. For some of them, like Greta Alfaro, the human ritual can be re-read - or reviewed - through animal. The vulture or the wild boar prove to be the involontary accomplices of an investigation on practices which we could consider specific to the human being. And therefore, they so allow to open the area of a common heritage

La bête mise à mort. Diana Michener, Damien Hirst, Guillermo Vargas : trois formes d’une projection

La mort de la bête est une figure récurrente de l’art que l’on retrouve dans la création contemporaine. Qu’il s’agisse de montrer le corps de l’animal à l’agonie ou, abattu, d’en offrir une vision parcellaire, les artistes tentent de mettre en lumière ce que notre société souvent s’ingénie à masquer ou a tendance à nier. Si l’Américaine Diana Michener choisit de retenir la trace, à vif, d’une incroyable survivance dans l’œil de la bête fraîchement exécutée, ou, encore, si, à travers des dispositifs sophistiqués, l’Anglais Damien Hirst interroge la force réifiante et mortifère à l’œuvre dans nos représentations, le Costaricain Guillermo Vargas n’hésite pas, lui, à provoquer la confrontation du public, la plus directe et la plus violente – mais peut-être aussi la moins spécieuse –, avec l’irréversible condamnation.The death of the beast is a recurring artistic motif that is to be found in contemporary creation. Whether artists show the animal’s body in agony or offer a fragmented vision of it once it has been slaughtered, they try to shed light on what our society often does to hide or tends to deny. While the American photographer Diana Michener chooses to show the trace of the freshly executed animal’s incredible survival that is still present in its eye, and while the English artist Damien Hirst questions the reifying and mortiferous force at work in our representations through sophisticated devices, Costa Rican artist Guillermo Vargas confronts the public—but perhaps also the least specious—with an irreversible death sentence in the most direct and violent manner

Research on durable junction of multimaterials

This collective project aimed to assess the potential of adhesive bonding in various applications in the field of building construction. This evaluation takes into account technical, economical and ecological aspects and provides a methodology that can be easily transferred to other applications.RONDUJU

Counseling personnel, counseling de carrière et psychothérapie

Une évolution sensible se fait jour dans les rapports qu’entretiennent counseling personnel, counseling de carrière et psychothérapie. Cette évolution est particulièrement marquée dans le contexte nord-américain. S’agissant des processus fondamentaux de changement qui sont à l’œuvre dans ces différentes approches de la relation d’aide, elle met en évidence l’importance de leurs facteurs communs. Elle conduit à proposer un cadre conceptuel intégrant les facteurs qui leur sont spécifiques et ces facteurs communs. Ce qui émerge, en effet, c’est le caractère éminemment personnel de toute problématique d’orientation, c’est l’indissociable inscription du travail dans l’expérience subjective et intersubjective, c’est l’intrication profonde de deux facettes fondamentales de la condition humaine, aimer et travailler. L’histoire de ces rapprochements est rapportée aux conditions de naissance et de développement du counseling de carrière, de la psychothérapie, et du counseling personnel qui ont conduit, si longtemps et actuellement encore, à essayer de les distinguer radicalement, en vain. Elle est l’occasion d’examiner en quoi le contexte d’un pays comme la France peut rendre difficile la perception de tels changements, alors même qu’ils se produisent déjà.As a response to the perceived fragmentation, a significant evolution has characterized the relationships between personal counseling, career counseling and psychotherapy. This evolution is most noticeable in North America. At the heart of this perspective is the major contribution of common factors that appear across different approaches accounting for most of the gains that result from psychological interventions. Based on a conceptual analyse of basic processes operating in personal counseling, career counseling and psychotherapy, an integrative conceptual framework is proposed. To the extent that practitioners are able to arrive at a common set of principles. What will emerge will be robust and efficacious interventions in that they have survived the distortions imposed by specific approaches. Love and work are described as two indissoluble facets of the subjective and intersubjective processes of career counseling, personal counselling and psychotherapy. Historical milestones of career counseling, psychotherapy and personal counseling contains many paradoxes. One relating to definition of specialities has been arbitrary and radical distinctions between career counseling, personal counseling and psychotherapy. One consequence is the formalization of the helping process. A fluid integrative perspective, might facilitate fruitlfull analysis of these professional practices in Franc

Potentialities of Near Infrared Spectroscopy to Assess Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium Nutrient Status of Grasslands in the Reunion Island

Controlled mineral fertilisation practices are an important component for sustainable management of grasslands. The assessment of available nutrients for plants and the general recommendations on the level of phosphorus and potassium to apply to grasslands are classically based on classical soil analysis and average regional levels. For nitrogen, mid or long term recommendations cannot easily be derived solely from soil composition, because it may be rapidly leached from the soil. Recent approaches tended to show that herbage plant N (Lemaire & Gastal, 1997), P, K (Duru & Huché, 1997) mineral analyses associated with actual biomass measurement could be useful for the calculation of combined nutrient indices (IN, IP, IK). Expressing these indices along references curves with a standard optimum value of 100, indicates the limiting factors or excess in the mineral feeding of the plants. It provides a diagnosis of the main nutrient status at a specific local plot situation. The step has been successfully implemented to provide local advice in the management of grasslands on Reunion Island (Blanfort, 1998). Nitrogen content can be predicted from NIRs, but this technique is less used for the other elements. However, the concern is here more related to the development of a combined index, it appeared interesting to test the potential of NIRs to predict these or to rank grasslands according to nutrition levels

Building Decision Tools for Sustainable Grassland Management: A Case Study of Participatory Research in La Réunion

During the last 30 years, cattle breeding has developed in La Reunion Island (France, Indian Ocean) with strong support from local authorities and extension structures. The Union des Associations Foncières Pastorales (UAFP) initiated and still sustain a large effort on grassland improvement. During the same period, CIRAD managed different research programmes on agronomic aspects of pasture management). Scarcity of space, the volcanic soil and tropical climatic conditions contributed to repeated forage shortages during the dry season, making forage production a major issue for cattle breeders. In 1991, CIRAD launched a research programme to elaborate decision tools for assessing and improving pasture management. A partnership was developed with UAFP, with the local institution being involved in the elaboration of the tools and now being completely in charge of their use to advise cattle breeders on pasture management

Numerical computation of critical properties and atomic basins from three-dimensional grid electron densities

Claudine Katan ‘s present address : CNRS UMR6082 FOTON, INSA de Rennes, 20 avenue des Buttes de Coësmes, CS 70839, 35708 RENNES cedex 7, FranceInternational audienceInteGriTy is a software package that performs topological analysis following the AIM (atoms in molecules) approach on electron densities given on three-dimensional grids. Tricubic interpolation is used to obtain the density, its gradient and the Hessian matrix at any required position. Critical points and integrated atomic properties have been derived from theoretical densities calculated for the compounds NaCl and TTF-(2,5)Cl(2)BQ (tetrathiafulvalene-2,5-dichlorobenzoquinone), thus covering the different kinds of chemical bonds: ionic, covalent, hydrogen bonds and other intermolecular contacts