Detection chain and electronic readout of the QUBIC instrument

The Q and U Bolometric Interferometer for Cosmology (QUBIC) Technical Demonstrator (TD) aiming to shows the feasibility of the combination of interferometry and bolometric detection. The electronic readout system is based on an array of 128 NbSi Transition Edge Sensors cooled at 350mK readout with 128 SQUIDs at 1K controlled and amplified by an Application Specific Integrated Circuit at 40K. This readout design allows a 128:1 Time Domain Multiplexing. We report the design and the performance of the detection chain in this paper. The technological demonstrator unwent a campaign of test in the lab. Evaluation of the QUBIC bolometers and readout electronics includes the measurement of I-V curves, time constant and the Noise Equivalent Power. Currently the mean Noise Equivalent Power is ~ 2 x 10⁻¹⁶ W/√Hz

Detection chain and electronic readout of the QUBIC instrument

The Q and U Bolometric Interferometer for Cosmology (QUBIC) Technical Demonstrator (TD) aiming to shows the feasibility of the combination of interferometry and bolometric detection. The electronic readout system is based on an array of 128 NbSi Transition Edge Sensors cooled at 350mK readout with 128 SQUIDs at 1K controlled and amplified by an Application Specific Integrated Circuit at 40K. This readout design allows a 128:1 Time Domain Multiplexing. We report the design and the performance of the detection chain in this paper. The technological demonstrator unwent a campaign of test in the lab. Evaluation of the QUBIC bolometers and readout electronics includes the measurement of I-V curves, time constant and the Noise Equivalent Power. Currently the mean Noise Equivalent Power is ~ 2 x 10⁻¹⁶ W/√Hz

BEEP : un outil à disposition des éleveurs pour objectiver le bien-être de leurs animaux

Les questions relatives au bien-être animal apparaissent souvent comme des contraintes pour les éleveurs, alors qu’ils sont le mieux à même de parler de leurs animaux et de leurs pratiques. Un outil d'évaluation du bien-être animal a été co-construit avec des éleveurs de trois régions. Cet article présente les méthodes utilisées lors de sa conception ainsi que l’outil consolidé. Une liste exhaustive de critères a été établie lors de trois ateliers de co-élaboration impliquant des éleveurs, leurs conseillers et des experts du bien-être animal. Les éleveurs ont indiqué comment ils évaluaient si leurs animaux se portaient bien, soit de manière spontanée lors d’échanges, soit en réagissant aux questions d'un visiteur naïf. Des représentants des groupes ont ensuite recueilli, hiérarchisé et sélectionné les critères selon quatre dimensions : logement, comportement, santé et alimentation. Ils ont proposé des modes opératoires pour la réalisation des mesures en élevage. Un prototype d'outil a été construit et testé par les éleveurs et leurs techniciens à deux reprises dans leurs élevages. Les retours d'expérience des deux sessions de notation ont permis d'évaluer la faisabilité de cet outil dans différents types de fermes, les difficultés rencontrées dans sa mise en œuvre par les éleveurs, et de finaliser avec eux une liste de mesures pertinentes. L’outil final comporte 15 mesures à relever principalement sur les animaux, dans deux salles en post-sevrage et en engraissement. Cet outil a vocation à être largement utilisé par les éleveurs ou leurs conseillers, qui pourront objectiver la situation de l’élevage, se comparer aux autres élevages et envisager des voies de progrès.Animal welfare issues often appear as constraints for farmers, even though they are the people best placed to talk about their animals and practices. An animal welfare assessment tool was co-constructed with farmers from three regions of France. This article presents the methods used during development as well as the final tool. An exhaustive list of criteria was established at three co-development workshops involving farmers, their advisers and animal welfare experts. Farmers indicated how they evaluate whether their animals are doing well, either spontaneously during exchanges or by responding to questions from a naive visitor. Group representatives then looked at and ranked all the criteria and selected some of them according to four dimensions: housing, behaviour, health and feeding. They proposed procedures for carrying out measures on the farm. A prototype tool was then built and tested by farmers and their technicians twice on their farms. The feedback from the two scoring sessions made it possible to evaluate the feasibility of this tool on different types of farms, identify the difficulties encountered during implementation by farmers and finalise a list of relevant measures with farmers. The final tool consists of 15 measures to be taken mainly on animals, in two rooms during the post-weaning and fattening periods. This tool is intended to be widely used by farmers or their advisers to assess the condition of the farm and its animals according to these indicators, compare it to other farms and consider pathways for progress

A co-elaborative tool to assess growing pigs welfare

Animal welfare assessment systems are mainly used by external auditors. Better commitment could be achieved if farmers could assess the welfare of their pigs themselves and act to improve it. A project was designed to build an animal welfare assessment tool with farmers from three different French regions. An exhaustive list of criteria was established at three co-design workshops involving farmers, their advisers and animal welfare experts. Farmers indicated how they evaluated whether their animals were doing well, either spontaneously in a brainstorming discussion, or by answering to questions from a naïve visitor. Then representatives of the groups gathered, prioritized and selected the criteria according to four dimensions: housing (cleanliness, moisture, resting posture), behaviour (fear of human, use of enrichment material),health (diarrhoea, coughing, lameness, severe body/tail lesions, physical appearance) and feeding (trough/drinker cleanliness, low body weight). They proposed rapid measurement methods (observation at group level from the corridor and individually in the pen) and stages to use them: two rooms in the post weaning period (PW) and two rooms in the growingfinishing period (G). A prototype tool was built on these bases. Farmers and advisers scored their animals twice, after the training session and six months later (spring 2017). The first series of evaluation indicated that lameness frequency was lower in PW than in G (0.27 vs 0.41% of pigs) and ranged from 0 to 1.7% (PW) and 3.6% (G). Exploratory behaviour was scored whenentering the room and 10 minutes later. The percentage of pens with enrichment investigation was higher after 10 minutes presence, higher in PW period than in G period (34.5 vs 23.1%) and ranged from 0 to 100% of pens. The feedback of both sessions will allow to assess the feasibility of this tool in different type of farms, the difficulties encountered in the implementation by the farmers and to finalize with them a list of relevant measures

Une typologie agricole au service de la définition de politiques locales territoriales

International audienceThis work aims at exploiting a set of data collected from a prospective agricultural diagnosis conducted on the Community of Communes of Desvres-Samer (CCDS) in Pas-de-Calais (France). Agriculture is a pillar of this land: this is why elected representatives wanted a precise analysis so as to find adapted answers for their local objectives. Based on data collected during a survey conducted at the request of the CCDS, this classification intends to establish a territorial agriculture typology. Statistical and analytical process-based, this typology has enabled to characterise more finely the landscape entities constituting the studied area, with coherent farm units and similar issues. This work therefore provides a useful tool to deepen the understanding of the field reality and to guide future community’s choices and territorialised action plan.Ce travail vise à exploiter un ensemble de données issues d’un diagnostic agricole prospectif territorial mené sur la communauté de communes de Desvres-Samer (CCDS) dans le Pas-de-Calais (France). L’agriculture est un pilier stratégique de ce territoire, c’est pourquoi les élus ont souhaité une analyse fine pour trouver les réponses les plus adaptées aux enjeux locaux. Basée sur des données recueillies lors d’une enquête réalisée à la demande de la CCDS, cette classification a pour but d’établir une typologie de l’agriculture du territoire. S’appuyant sur un traitement statistique et analytique, elle permet de caractériser finement les entités paysagères composant le territoire étudié, avec des unités agricoles cohérentes et des enjeux similaires. Ce travail apporte un outil utile permettant à la fois d’approfondir la compréhension de la réalité du terrain mais également de guider les futurs choix de la collectivité sur un programme d’actions territorialisées

Table ronde: Quelles pistes pour parvenir ensemble aux objectifs Ecophyto

National audienc

QUBIC-the Q & U bolometric interferometer for cosmology

QUBIC (Q and U bolometric interferometer for cosmology) is an international ground-based experiment dedicated to the measurement of the polarized fluctuations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). It is based on bolometric interferometry, an original detection technique which combines the immunity to systematic effects of an interferometer with the sensitivity of low temperature incoherent detectors. QUBIC will be deployed in Argentina, at the Alto Chorrillos mountain site near San Antonio de los Cobres, in the Salta province. The QUBIC detection chain consists of 2048 NbSi transition edge sensors (TESs) cooled to 320 mK. The voltage-biased TESs are read out with time domain multiplexing based on superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) at 1 K and a novel SiGe application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) at 60 K allowing an unprecedented multiplexing (MUX) factor equal to 128 to be reached. The current QUBIC version is based on a reduced number of detectors (1/4) in order to validate the detection technique. The QUBIC experiment is currently being validated in the lab in Salta (Argentina) before going to the site for observations. This paper presents the main results of the characterization phase with a focus on the detectors and readout system

QUBIC:Exploring the primordial universe with the Q&U bolometric interferometer

In this paper we describe QUBIC, an experiment that will observe the polarized microwave sky with a novel approach, which combines the sensitivity of state-of-the art bolometric detectors with the systematic effects control typical of interferometers. QUBIC unique features are the so-called "self-calibration", a technique that allows us to clean the measured data from instrumental effects, and its spectral imaging power, i.e. the ability to separate the signal in various sub-bands within each frequency band. QUBIC will observe the sky in two main frequency bands: 150 GHz and 220 GHz. A technological demonstrator is currently under testing and will be deployed in Argentina during 2019, while the final instrument is expected to be installed during 2020.Comment: Proceedings of the 2018 ICNFP conference, Crete. Published by Universe arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1801.0373