Fringe tracking performance monitoring: FINITO at VLTI

Since April 2011, realtime fringe tracking data are recorded simultaneously with data from the VLTI/AMBER interferometric beam combiner. Not only this offers possibilities to post-process AMBER reduced data to obtain more accurate interferometric quantities, it also allows to estimate the performance of the fringe tracking a function of the conditions of seeing, coherence time, flux, etc. First we propose to define fringe tracking performance metrics in the AMBER context, in particular as a function of AMBER's integration time. The main idea is to determine the optimal exposure time for AMBER: short exposures are dominated by readout noise and fringes in long exposures are completely smeared out. Then we present this performance metrics correlated with Paranal local ASM (Ambient Site Monitor) measurements, such as seeing, coherence time or wind speed for example. Finally, we also present some preliminary results of attempts to model and predict fringe tracking performances, using Artificial Neural Networks.Comment: SPIE conference, Optical and Infrared Interferometry II

Choix idéologiques, attitudes politiques des pré-adolescents et contexte politique

Le contexte politique global participe avec d'autres facteurs mieux connus (famille, parents, école) à la formation des opinions et des attitudes des pré-adolescents. L'étude se propose d'isoler le rôle spécifique de cette variable. Elle fait apparaître que l'environnement global dans lequel l'enfant fait ses expériences sociales influe à la fois sur la nature de ses choix idéologiques et ses représentations du monde politique. Pour mesurer l'influence du contexte au niveau d'une unité politiquement homogène — la commune — différents indicateurs de caractérisation politique ont été établis

La démocratie à l’école

L'article entend, à partir de questions sur la désignation d'un chef de classe éventuel, étudier la place de l'école dans l'apprentissage des modèles de conduites pouvant ultérieurement influencer attitudes et comportements politiques ; l'ensemble des résultats montre l'importance et les limites du modèle scolaire. A ne juger que sur les résultats (qui est élu ?), à n'écouter que le discours (pourquoi cet élu-là ?) le critère de la réussite scolaire semble s'imposer. La confrontation des caractéristiques sociales des élus et de leurs électeurs montre que ce n'est souvent qu'une façade qui masque des mécanismes complexes d'affinités et d'exclusions idéologiques sociales.Starting from the questions raised by the designation of a class representative, the article wishes to study the role of the school in the learning of behavioral patterns liable to influence later political attitudes and behaviors ; the results show the importance and the limits of the school model. Judging from the results (who is elected !), hearing the discourse (why that particular one ?) school achievement seems to impose itself as determinant. The comparison between the social characteristics of the elected candidates with those of their electorate shows that they are only a facade which screens the intricate mechanisms of attraction and ideological and social exclusion

Et si je vous dis famille...:Note sur quelques représentations sociales de la famille

On sait peu de choses sur les représentations sociales de la famille au sein de l'opinion, chacun faisant comme si l'usage commun du mot renvoyait à une représentation universellement partagée. Une analyse secondaire des données d'un sondage apporte certains éléments de réponse. Elle montre une diversité des représentations liée à l'appropriation par chacun d'un modèle social dominant, en fonction de certaines données sociobiologiques, des circonstances particulières des existences individuelles, en fonction, enfin, du système de normes et de valeurs de chacun.A note on various social representations of the family. Little is known of the social representations of family among public opinion, everyone acting as though the common use of the word meant a universally accepted representation. Secondary analysis of survey data brings rudimentary answers. It shows a variety of representations related to individual appropriation of a dominating social model, all depending on sociobiological data, on particular individual life events, and finally on individual norms and values systems

Devenir monstre

Les études tératologiques du début du xixe siècle sont nées des travaux de classification du xviiie siècle. Linné reconnaissait l’existence de monstruosités dans la Création qu’ils considéraient comme des monstres ou encore des jeux ou prodiges de la nature. Cette arrangeante considération permettait d’expliquer les exceptions au sein d’une nature fixe. Dans sa classification de 1758, à côté des quatre variétés humaines, il introduit la catégorie des Monstrosus, où l’on trouve notamment les n..

Laboratoires maritime

La découverte des fonds marins et de sa diversité a replacé l’homme du xixe siècle dans un monde beaucoup plus vaste. Mais pour étudier ce milieu, de nouveaux équipements et des modifications de pratiques de collectage de spécimens ont été nécessaires. Il faut désormais observer au plus près de la mer pour expérimenter sur des spécimens vivants ou récemment décédés. La recherche maritime ne résulte cependant pas que d’une volonté d’inventorier le vivant, elle souhaite appuyer l’industrialisat..

A construção do conceito de inovação didática à luz da teoria antropológica do didático : um ensaio teórico

O uso cotidiano do termo “inovação” costuma ser associado ao lançamento de novos produtos ou serviços que proporcionam soluções para necessidades percebidas, ou a serem fomentadas em campanhas de marketing, para os mais diversos problemas. No âmbito educacional, essa concepção pode se traduzir na busca por inovações didáticas, de caráter essencialmente técnico, que supostamente solucionarão os problemas de ensino-aprendizagem com pouca ou nenhuma dependência do contexto onde ocorrem. A partir da constatação de que a própria razão de ser da educação, e como promovê-la, está longe de ser consensual, uma visão tecnicista da melhoria das ações didáticas tende a contribuir mais para a abertura de demandas em um “novo” nicho de mercado do que auxiliar na formação das pessoas. Igualmente, concepções de inovações como produtos, ou entes abstratos sem compromisso efetivo com a prática, inibem compreensões mais aprofundadas sobre, e para, seu uso efetivo em sala de aula. Buscamos com esta dissertação realizar um aprofundamento teórico em relação à conceitualização de inovação didática, assim como viabilizar formas de operacionalizar esse conceito. Mais especificamente, desenvolvemos a construção de uma proposta teórica que permita distinguir em que medida algo pode, ou não, se apresentar como uma inovação didática, destacando as suas especificidades educacionais e suas relações com diferentes contextos. Tomamos a Teoria Antropológica do Didático (TAD) como uma possibilidade para iniciar discussões que permitam elucidar mecanismos do fenômeno do estudo, posto que essa teoria propicia realizar análises, a partir de seus construtos (e.g., relações, posições, instituições e praxeologias), sobre as influências da alteração ou inserção de um novo elemento em atividades de ensino e aprendizagem. No entanto, desenvolvimentos e desdobramentos da TAD sobre teorizações acerca de inovações didáticas são incipientes. Ao encontro disso, a Teoria de Difusão de Inovações (TDI), que tem sido utilizada para investigar modificações nas práticas docentes, oferece uma perspectiva sobre inovações, apresentando uma conceitualização mais geral sobre elas, sem adentrar em particularidades das inovações didáticas. Realizamos uma articulação teórica, sob a forma de uma releitura conceitual, entre a TAD e a TDI para caracterizar, analisar e explorar as inovações didáticas. Dessa articulação, compreendemos que inovação didática é um tipo de tarefa, uma técnica, tecnologia, teoria, ou um conjunto desses elementos (praxeologia), julgado(a) racionalmente por uma instância como novo(a) em comparação ao já estabelecido em uma instituição em análise, e capaz de auxiliar alguém, na referida instituição, a estabelecer ou modificar relações, com objetos de estudo, entendidas pela instância julgadora como desejáveis. Com a conceitualização que propomos esperamos contribuir com desdobramentos da TAD, situando antropológica e institucionalmente as inovações didáticas, ensejando amparar a elaboração de um referencial teórico para estudo desses entes. De forma complementar, apontamos possíveis implicações para a pesquisa em ensino, a exemplo da compreensão do grau em que uma inovação pode ou não ser caracterizada como didática, e das complexidades inerentes aos fenômenos de adoção e difusão desse tipo de inovação.The daily use of the term “innovation” is usually associated with the release of new products or services that provide solutions for perceived needs, or to be promoted in marketing campaigns, for a wide range of problems. In the educational scope, this concept can be translated into the search for didactic innovation, of an essentially technical character, which will supposedly solve teaching-learning problems with little or no dependence on the context in which they occur. From the observation that the very raison d’être of education, and how to promote it, is far from being consensual, a technical vision of the improvement of didactic actions tends to contribute more to the opening of demands in a “new” niche of market than helping to educate people. In the same way, conceptions of innovations as products, or abstract entities without an effective commitment to practice, inhibit deeper understandings of, and for, their effective use in the classroom. In this work, we seek to carry out a theoretical deepening in relation to the conceptualization of didactic innovation, as well as to enable ways to operationalize this concept. More specifically, we developed the construction of a theoretical proposal that allows us to distinguish to what extent something may or may not present itself as a didactic innovation, highlighting its educational specificities and its relationships with different contexts. We take the Anthropological Theory of the Didactic (ATD) as a possibility to initiate discussions that grants us to elucidate the mechanisms of the phenomenon of study, since this theory propitiates to accomplish analysis, based on its constructs (e.g., relations, positions, institutions and praxeologies), on the influences of alteration or insertion of a new element in teaching and learning activities. However, ATD’s developments and unfoldings on theorizations about didactic innovations are incipient. In face of this, the Diffusion of Innovations Theory (DIT), which has been used to investigated changes in teaching practices, offers a perspective on innovations, presenting a more general conceptualization about them, without entering into the particularities of didactic innovations. We performed a theoretical articulation, in the form of a conceptual reframing, between ATD and DIT to characterize, analyze and explore didactic innovations. Therefrom, we understand that didactic innovation is a type of task, technique, technology, theory, or a set of these elements (praxeology), rationally judged by an instance as new compared to what has already been established in an institution under analysis, and capable of helping someone, in that institution, to establish or modify relationships, with objects of study, understood by the judging instance as desirable. With the conceptualization that we propose, we hope to contribute to ATD developments, anthropologically and institutionally situating the didactic innovations, providing the opportunity to support the elaboration of a theoretical framework for the study of these entities. Complementarily, we point out possible implications for research in education, such as understanding the degree to which an innovation may or may not be characterized as didactic, and the complexities inherent in the phenomena of adoption and diffusion of this type of innovation

A List of Bright Interferometric Calibrators measured at the ESO VLTI

In a previous publication (Richichi & Percheron 2005) we described a program of observations of candidate calibrator stars at the ESO Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), and presented the main results from a statistical point of view. In the present paper, we concentrate on establishing a new homogeneous group of bright interferometric calibrators, based entirely on publicly available K-band VLTI observations carried out with the VINCI instrument up to July 2004. For this, we have defined a number of selection criteria for the quality and volume of the observations, and we have accordingly selected a list of 17 primary and 47 secondary calibrators. We have developed an approach to a robust global fit for the angular diameters using the whole volume of quality-controlled data, largely independent of a priori assumptions. Our results have been compared with direct measurements, and indirect estimates based on spectrophotometric methods, and general agreement is found within the combined uncertainties. The stars in our list cover the range K=-2.9 to +3.0 mag in brightness, and 1.3 to 20.5 milliarcseconds in uniform-disk diameter. The relative accuracy of the angular diameter values is on average 0.4% and 2% for the primary and secondary calibrators respectively. Our calibrators are well suited for interferometric observations in the near-infrared on baselines between ~20m and ~200m, and their accuracy is superior, at least for the primary calibrators, to other similar catalogues. Therefore, the present list of calibrators has the potential to lead to significantly improved interferometric scientific results

Quality control and instruments monitoring for

ABSTRACT The VLTI Data Flow Operations consist in monitoring the performance of the different VLTI instruments offered to the community, in verifying the quality of the calibration and scientific data and their associated products. Since the beginning of MIDI (April 2004) and AMBER (October 2005) Service Mode Operations, scientific as well as calibration data have been accumulated to monitor the instruments and the quality of the observations on different time scales and under different conditions or system configurations. In this presentation, we will describe the Quality Control procedures and give some statistics and results on the different parameters used for instrument monitoring for time scales from hours to years in the case of MIDI. We will show that this includes parameters extracted directly from the instruments (Instrumental Transfer Function, Flux stability, Image Quality, Detector stability …) and parameters extracted from some of the sub-systems associated to the instruments (Adaptive Optics, telescopes used …). We will discuss the development of the monitoring of the instruments once more instrument modes or sub-systems such as PRIMA are offered to the community