Historical shoreline changes and wave refraction analysis, Smith Island, Chesapeake Bay : final report

The objective of this study was to develop wave and sediment transport estimates (based on wave refraction analysis and historical shoreline change analysis) for the western shoreline of the Chesapeake Bay Smith Island area

L’affirmation d’une opposition française au « Lyon-Turin » : un conflit entre liminarité et intermédiarité

Les enquêtes d’utilité publique autour du projet ferroviaire Lyon-Turin ont été des moments d’apparition et de développement d’une contestation composite au projet en France, notamment en 2012. Divers collectifs associatifs sont apparus à cette occasion et une personnalité a émergé, Daniel Ibanez, donnant un visage et une cohérence à une contestation devenant opposition. La posture argumentative des années 2012-2013 fait progressivement place à une posture dénonciatrice à partir de 2014, basculement qui constitue une forme de liminarité dans la modalité d’expression du conflit. Les fondements de cette contestation en France demeurent distincts de ceux dans le Val de Suse, territoire d’opposition historique au projet. Le principe d’utilité est premier en France lorsque, historiquement, le principe de responsabilité est le ferment en Italie. Cet article entend interroger les trajectoires actorielles de l’opposition française à ce projet à travers une analyse des discours et des ancrages politiques des protagonistes. L’axe comparatif proposé vise à interroger les spatialités des mouvements contestataires en France et dans le Val de Suse. Cet article entend ainsi contribuer à une réflexion sur la distinction entre « local » et « proximité » au travers d’une étude de la relation des mouvements contestataires à l’entité « montagne » dans le processus de construction sociale d’un argumentaire.Public interest enquiries conducted in relation to the proposed Lyon-Turin rail link have revealed the development of a composite protest to the project in France, particularly in 2012. Different associations have emerged, along with a personality, Daniel Ibanez, which have provided this protest movement with both a face and greater coherence in its opposition to the project. A somewhat argumentative stance in 2012-2013 has progressively given way to one that has more clearly denounced the project since 2014, a change indicating a form of liminality in the expression of conflict. The foundations of this opposition in France remain distinct from those in the Susa Valley, the historic area of opposition to the project in Italy. The principle of usefulness is foremost in France while, historically, the principle of responsibility has been the driving force in Italy. This article examines the paths of the different players making up French opposition to the project by analyzing the discourse and political underpinnings of the protagonists. The study’s comparative approach seeks to gain insights into the spatialities of the opposition movements in France and the Susa Valley. The article thus hopes to contribute to a more meaningful reflection on the distinction between “localness” and “proximity” by studying the relationship between protest movements and “mountain areas” as an entity in the process of the social construction of a line of argument

Les Nouvelles Traversées Alpines : la “cité-Europe” à l’épreuve de l’acceptabilité alpine ?

La pensée des traversées alpines est indissociable de celle des réseaux urbains alpins et, au-delà, européens. La nouvelle phase de percée des tunnels de base le réaffirme : les “Nouvelles Traversées Alpines” se retrouvent au coeur de l’enjeu de connexion des réseaux ferroviaires européens à grande vitesse. L’invention de la “cité-Europe” passe ainsi par la réinvention d’un pacte alpin autour du dessein de franchissement entre les villes de piedmonts et les communautés montagnardes traversées. Ces dernières ont, en effet, la capacité de bloquer un projet par leur refus. L’exemple du projet Lyon-Turin l’illustre, en contre-point de la réussite du tunnel de base du Lötschberg. La réussite suisse semble tenir à la capacité de conjuguer les inventions technique et sociale du tunnel, ne niant pas la dimension territoriale de cet objet réticulaire.It is impossible to think about the alpine crossings without thinking about the alpine and European urban nets. The construction of the basis tunnels recalls it: the “New Alpine Crossings” are the kernel of the connection issue between the European high-speed railways nets. The invention of a “city-Europe” needs a reinvented pact, between the cities of the plains and the alpine communities, based on the reaffirmation of a common crossing destiny. The alpine communities can thwart the project by refusing it, as the example of the Lyon-Turin project shows, in contrast to the successful Lötschberg basis tunnel. The Swiss success seems to come from the capacity to mix technical and social inventions, replacing the territorial dimension in the reticular fundament

Faire-corridor : le corridor comme agencement politico-réticulaire

La notion de corridor peut être entendue comme un objet ou un concept. Cet article propose de centrer la réflexion, à partir d’une entrée actorielle, sur les intentionnalités organisationnelles et organisatrices qui conduisent à appréhender la notion de corridor comme un agencement politico-réticulaire. Il n’y a effectivement pas de corridor en soi, ce qui invite à questionner le « faire-corridor ». L’analyse du système ferroviaire suisse de franchissement alpin permet de revenir sur les fondements politiques qui donnent à voir une pensée du corridor fondée sur la redondance et la répartition, et non la concentration. La dialectique réticularisation du système/axialisation des services n’est qu’en apparence paradoxale. Les dynamiques de l’organisation axiale des services de transport combiné révèlent la façon dont les opérateurs ferroviaires, dans un contexte de libéralisation, s’approprient les fonctionnalités d’un système fondé sur la connectivité. Faire-corridor, dans le cas étudié, est ainsi une autre façon de faire réseau, à partir d’une dialectique réticularité/nodalité.Corridors are considered as well as objects or concept. This paper proposes to think about it from an actors-based approach by dealing with organizational motivations. There are no evident corridors. “Corridor” is a political and reticular layout characterized by a high degree of connectivity of a system. Thinking about corridors needs analyses which are focalized on corridor-making process in order to evaluate the role of actors. Based on analyses of the Swiss railway Alpine crossing system, this paper aims to show how a “corridor” can be characterized by the connectivity and not by a concentration process. Dialectic between reticularization of the system and axialization of the services is not paradoxical as operators are making theirs properties of the system in a context of liberalization. Corridor-making is another way of network-making from a dialectic between reticularity and nodality

CrossBeam: Learning to Search in Bottom-Up Program Synthesis

Many approaches to program synthesis perform a search within an enormous space of programs to find one that satisfies a given specification. Prior works have used neural models to guide combinatorial search algorithms, but such approaches still explore a huge portion of the search space and quickly become intractable as the size of the desired program increases. To tame the search space blowup, we propose training a neural model to learn a hands-on search policy for bottom-up synthesis, instead of relying on a combinatorial search algorithm. Our approach, called CrossBeam, uses the neural model to choose how to combine previously-explored programs into new programs, taking into account the search history and partial program executions. Motivated by work in structured prediction on learning to search, CrossBeam is trained on-policy using data extracted from its own bottom-up searches on training tasks. We evaluate CrossBeam in two very different domains, string manipulation and logic programming. We observe that CrossBeam learns to search efficiently, exploring much smaller portions of the program space compared to the state-of-the-art.Comment: Published at ICLR 202

Perceptions in (Outdoor) Education: Using Openness and Vulnerability as Learning Tools

In this presentation Kevin discusses the “masks” that we all wear and how outdoor education can be a tool to help empower people to take control of the masks they wear each day. Examples of masks include proficiency, extraversion and stubbornness

Aménagement des petites villes et imprégnation locale des grands projets ferroviaires en France

Les chantiers ferroviaires intermétropolitains interrogent les territoires organisés autour des petites villes notamment car la grande vitesse est généralement associée au renforcement des effets d’agglomération. Pour autant, celle-ci ne supprime pas le rôle d’intermédiation des villes de rang inférieur. Ces chantiers posent, comme par effet de miroir, la question du devenir de leur modèle de centralité dans un contexte de promotion de la connectivité territoriale. Loin d’uniquement accentuer les effets de captation métropolitaine, la mise en place d’un réseau ferroviaire modernisé peut incarner pour de nombreuses villes petites et moyennes une opportunité majeure dans l’élaboration de leur projet de territoire, notamment dans un contexte de reconversion urbaine et industrielle. L’article ambitionne de mettre en regard deux processus d’appropriation locale et de contractualisation de projets de modernisation ferroviaire : le contrat de territoire des pays de Maurienne autour du projet et du chantier du tunnel Euralpin Lyon-Turin et de la Démarche grand chantier d’une part, et le projet Bretagne à Grande vitesse (BGV) autour de l’ouverture de la LGV Ouest-Bretagne d'autre part.Intermetropolitan railway yards question the territories around small towns and cities since high speed is usually associated with enhanced agglomeration effects, even if the role of intermediaries of lower-ranking cities should not be underestimated. These projects raise the issue, as a mirror effect, of the future of their centrality model in a context of promotion of territorial connectivity. The establishment of a modernized railway network may represent for many small and medium sized cities a major opportunity in the development of their territorial project, especially in a context of urban and industrial reconversion. This article aims to compare two processes of local appropriation and contractualization of railway modernization projects: the territory contract “Pays de Maurienne” around the construction of the Euralpin Lyon-Turin tunnel and the “Démarche grand chantier” on the one hand, and the Brittany High Speed ​​Project (BGV) around the opening of the LGV Ouest-Bretagne on the other

LambdaBeam: Neural Program Search with Higher-Order Functions and Lambdas

Search is an important technique in program synthesis that allows for adaptive strategies such as focusing on particular search directions based on execution results. Several prior works have demonstrated that neural models are effective at guiding program synthesis searches. However, a common drawback of those approaches is the inability to handle iterative loops, higher-order functions, or lambda functions, thus limiting prior neural searches from synthesizing longer and more general programs. We address this gap by designing a search algorithm called LambdaBeam that can construct arbitrary lambda functions that compose operations within a given DSL. We create semantic vector representations of the execution behavior of the lambda functions and train a neural policy network to choose which lambdas to construct during search, and pass them as arguments to higher-order functions to perform looping computations. Our experiments show that LambdaBeam outperforms neural, symbolic, and LLM-based techniques in an integer list manipulation domain

We Have Always Been Virtual: Gilles Deleuze and the Computer-Generated Image

The use of computer-generated imagery is becoming increasingly ubiquitous across many fields including media, advertising, architecture and art. This represents a fundamental shift within visual culture, as imagery can now be produced routinely by means of rendering algorithms based on spatial representations. We propose that the account of the image provided by Gilles Deleuze in his books on cinema provides a rich philosophical framework for understanding such contemporary imaging practices. By providing a Deleuzian reading of James Kajiya\u27s 1986 rendering equation we argue that there is a tacit ontology of the image underwriting both Deleuze’s work on cinema and current computer graphics technologies. This ontology frees the image from traditional transcendent categories of subject positions or vantage points and instead revolves around the concept of an immanent image. We argue that these considerations lead us to a reformulation of the notion of the virtual, one that challenges its rigid segregation from the real