Two bijections on Tamari intervals

We use a recently introduced combinatorial object, the interval-poset, to describe two bijections on intervals of the Tamari lattice. Both bijections give a combinatorial proof of some previously known results. The first one is an inner bijection between Tamari intervals that exchanges the initial rise and lower contacts statistics. Those were introduced by Bousquet-M\'elou, Fusy, and Pr\'eville-Ratelle who proved they were symmetrically distributed but had no combinatorial explanation. The second bijection sends a Tamari interval to a closed flow of an ordered forest. These combinatorial objects were studied by Chapoton in the context of the Pre-Lie operad and the connection with the Tamari order was still unclear.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figure

A study of composite material damage induced by laser shock waves

A laser shock wave technique has been used to study the damage tolerance of T800/M21 CFRP (Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer) composite material with different lay_ups. Different levels of damage have been created according to various laser irradiation conditions. Several characterization methods such as Optical Microscopy, X-ray Radiography, or Interferometric Confocal Microscopy have been used to quantify these defects. The nature of the defects induced by the shock wave propagation has been studied. The sensitivity of the composite material damage to the shock conditions has been shown and quantified. Moreover, the experimental results gathered with each technique have been compared to each other and it leads to a better understanding of the CFRP behavior under high dynamic loading. These original results have enabled the definition of a specific damage criterion for CFRP under dynamic loading

Mecagenius : An Innovative Learning Game for Mechanical Engineering.

International audienceThe present paper provides a description of Mecagenius, a learning game to teach mechanical engineering at an engineering faculty. Firstly, the Mecagenius game and learning content are introduced before practical ways of integrating this application in educational activities are explored in relation to the skills the teacher seeks to transmit knowledge. This is followed by a review of the literature on the educational effectiveness of serious games. Secondly, the learning game experience of Mecagenius on a course is reported, providing evaluations from both students and teachers. Interviews with teacher and students together with the collected computer records allow for an assessment of the advantages and drawbacks of teaching and learning with this kind of tool.Through a qualitative analysis of students’ game reports, the different strategies used in this educational environment are assessed

Evidence for a Cr metastable phase as a tracer in DLI-MOCVD chromium hard coatings usable in high temperature environment

Cr deposits are widely used as protective coatings but multifunctional performances are required in harsh environments motivating research on new processes. MOCVD of Cr metal coatings was carried out by direct liquid injection (DLI) of a unique solution containing bis(ethylbenzene)chromium as metal source and thiophenol as inhibitor of carbide formation. A low amount (<6%) of the metastable δ-Cr phase was found embedded in the stable α-Cr phase. The formation of this metastable phase originates from both the low deposition temperature (<723 K) and the use of thiophenol. It was not reported under other CVD conditions. Dense coatings were deposited by implementing a multilayer growth mode. Such coatings exhibit a high nanohardness of about 17 GPa. The δ-Cr metastable phase undergoes an irreversible structural transformation to bcc-Cr above 723 K. The mechanical properties of coatings are not affected by the structural transformation because of the similarity of their crystallographic structures (both cubic), their density very close (a volume contraction of only 0.4% during the transformation) and its low content. This metastable phase is a signature of the DLI-MOCVD process and it can be used as a tracer for Cr coatings operating in high temperature environment without loss of the basic properties

PATHWAY DETECTION AND GEOMETRICAL DESCRIPTION FROM ALS DATA IN FORESTED MOUNTANEOUS AREA

International audienceIn the last decade, airborne laser scanning (ALS) systems have become an alternative source for the acquisition of altimeter data. Compared to high resolution orthoimages, one of the main advantages of ALS is the ability of the laser beam to penetrate vegetation and reach the ground underneath. Therefore, 3D point clouds are essential data for computing Digital Terrain Models (DTM) in natural and vegetated areas. DTMs are a key product for many applications such as tree detection, flood modelling, archeology or road detection. Indeed, in forested areas, traditional image-based algorithms for road and pathway detection would partially fail due to their occlusion by the canopy cover. Thus, crucial information for forest management and fire prevention such as road width and slope would be misevaluated. This paper deals with road and pathway detection in a complex forested mountaneous area and with their geometrical parameter extraction using lidar data. Firstly, a three-step image-based methodology is proposed to detect road regions. Lidar feature orthoimages are first generated. Then, road seeds are both automatically and semi-automatically detected. And, a region growing algorithm is carried out to retrieve the full pathways from the seeds previously detected. Secondly, these pathways are vectorized using morphological tools, smoothed, and discretized. Finally, 1D sections within the lidar point cloud are successively generated for each point of the pathways to estimate more accurately road widths in 3D. We also retrieve a precise location of the pathway borders and centers, exported as vector data

Chromium carbide growth at low temperature by a highly efficient DLI-MOCVD process in effluent recycling mode

The effect of direct recycling of effluents on the quality of CrxCy coatings grown by MOCVD using direct liquid injection (DLI) of bis(ethylbenzene)chromium(0) in toluene was investigated. The results are compared with those obtained using non-recycled solutions of precursor. Both types of coatings exhibit the same features. They are amorphous in the temperature range 673–823 K. They exhibit a dense and glassy-like microstructure and a high hardness (> 23 GPa). Analyses at the nanoscale revealed a nanocomposite microstructure consisting of free-C domains embedded in an amorphous Cr7C3 matrix characterized by strong interfaces and leading to an overall composition slightly higher than Cr7C3. The stiffness and strength of these interfaces are mainly due to at least two types of chemical bonds between Cr atoms and free-C: (i) Cr intercalation between graphene sheets and(ii) hexahapto η6-Cr bonding on the external graphene sheets of the free-C domains. The density of these interactions was found increasing by decreasing the concentration of the injected solution, as this occurred using a recycled solution. As a result, “recycled” coatings exhibit a higher nanohardness (29 GPa) than “new” coatings (23 GPa). This work demonstrates that using bis(arene)M(0) precursors, direct recycling of effluents is an efficient route to improve the conversion yield of DLI-MOCVD process making it cost-effective and competitive to produce protective carbide coatings of transition metals which share the same metal zero chemistry

Binary partition trees-based robust adaptive hyperspectral RX anomaly detection

International audienceThe Reed-Xiaoli (RX) is considered as the benchmark algorithm in multidimensional anomaly detection (AD). However, the RX detector performance decreases when the statistical parameters estimation is poor. This could happen when the background is non-homogeneous or the noise independence assumption is not fulfilled. For a better performance, the statistical parameters are estimated locally using a sliding window approach. In this approach, called adaptive RX, a window is centered over the pixel under the test (PUT), so the background mean and covariance statistics are estimated us- ing the data samples lying inside the window's spatial support, named the secondary data. Sometimes, a smaller guard window prevents those pixels close to the PUT to be used, in order to avoid the presence of outliers in the statistical estimation. The size of the window is chosen large enough to ensure the invertibility of the covariance matrix and small enough to justify both spatial and spectral homogeneity. We present here an alternative methodology to select the secondary data for a PUT by means of a binary partition tree (BPT) representation of the image. We test the proposed BPT-based adaptive hyperspectral RX AD algorithm using a real dataset provided by the Target Detection Blind Test project

Two bijections on Tamari Intervals

We use a recently introduced combinatorial object, the $\textit{interval-poset}$, to describe two bijections on intervals of the Tamari lattice. Both bijections give a combinatorial proof of some previously known results. The first one is an inner bijection between Tamari intervals that exchanges the $\textit{initial rise}$ and $\textit{lower contacts}$ statistics. Those were introduced by Bousquet-Mélou, Fusy, and Préville-Ratelle who proved they were symmetrically distributed but had no combinatorial explanation. The second bijection sends a Tamari interval to a closed flow of an ordered forest. These combinatorial objects were studied by Chapoton in the context of the Pre-Lie operad and the connection with the Tamari order was still unclear

CFAR Hierarchical Clustering of Polarimetric SAR Data

International audienceRecently, a general approach for high-resolution polarimetric SAR (POLSAR) data classification in heterogeneous clutter was presented, based on a statistical test of equality of covariance matrices. Here, we extend that approach by taking advantage of the Constant False Alarm Ratio (CFAR) property of the statistical test in order to improve the clustering process. We show that the CFAR property can be used in the hierarchical segmentation of the POLSAR data images to automatically detect the number of clusters. The proposed method will be applied on a high-resolution polarimetric data set acquired by the ONERA RAMSES system