Quadrivium (Exhibition Catalogue)

Quadrivium is Latin for the fourways or the place where the four roads meet. It\u27s use here describes Knoxville and the School of Art as the place where artistic roads and artists have met. Quadrivium features the work of the four most recent additions to the faculty of the School of Art: Joshua Bienko, Evan Meaney, Althea Murphy-Price, and Karla Wozniak

An AHP-derived method for mapping the physical vulnerability of coastal areas at regional scales

International audienceAssessing coastal vulnerability to climate change at regional scales is now mandatory in France since the adoption of recent laws to support adaptation to climate change. However, there is presently no commonly recognised method to assess accurately how sea level rise will modify coastal processes in the coming decades. Therefore, many assessments of the physical component of coastal vulnerability are presently based on a combined use of data (e.g. digital elevation models, historical shoreline and coastal geomorphology datasets), simple models and expert opinion. In this study, we assess the applicability and usefulness of a multi-criteria decision-mapping method (the analytical hierarchy process, AHP) to map physical coastal vulnerability to erosion and flooding in a structured way. We apply the method in two regions of France: the coastal zones of Languedoc-Roussillon (north-western Mediterranean, France) and the island of La Réunion (south-western Indian Ocean), notably using the regional geological maps. As expected, the results show not only the greater vulnerability of sand spits, estuaries and low-lying areas near to coastal lagoons in both regions, but also that of a thin strip of erodible cliffs exposed to waves in La Réunion. Despite gaps in knowledge and data, the method is found to provide a flexible and transportable framework to represent and aggregate existing knowledge and to support long-term coastal zone planning through the integration of such studies into existing adaptation schemes

Search for heavy resonances decaying to two Higgs bosons in final states containing four b quarks

A search is presented for narrow heavy resonances X decaying into pairs of Higgs bosons (H) in proton-proton collisions collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC at root s = 8 TeV. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 fb(-1). The search considers HH resonances with masses between 1 and 3 TeV, having final states of two b quark pairs. Each Higgs boson is produced with large momentum, and the hadronization products of the pair of b quarks can usually be reconstructed as single large jets. The background from multijet and t (t) over bar events is significantly reduced by applying requirements related to the flavor of the jet, its mass, and its substructure. The signal would be identified as a peak on top of the dijet invariant mass spectrum of the remaining background events. No evidence is observed for such a signal. Upper limits obtained at 95 confidence level for the product of the production cross section and branching fraction sigma(gg -> X) B(X -> HH -> b (b) over barb (b) over bar) range from 10 to 1.5 fb for the mass of X from 1.15 to 2.0 TeV, significantly extending previous searches. For a warped extra dimension theory with amass scale Lambda(R) = 1 TeV, the data exclude radion scalar masses between 1.15 and 1.55 TeV

Measurement of the top quark mass using charged particles in pp collisions at root s=8 TeV

Peer reviewe

Coastal Wave Hydrodynamics and Morphological Evolution

Ce manuscrit présente un résumé de mes travaux de recherche qui sont focalisés sur deux thèmes principaux : l’évolution morphologique des plages et l’hydrodynamique de vagues en zone côtière. Ces deux thèmes sont fortement liés, avec l’objectif commun d’améliorer, à la fois la connaissance des processus physiques qui contrôlent la dynamique en zone côtière, et aussi les modèles numériques capables de reproduire l’hydrodynamique et l’évolution morphologique dans cet environnement complexe. Le premier chapitre présente succinctement ces deux thèmes, mes projets de recherche, les collaborations que j’ai développées et l’évolution de mes travaux de recherche pendant les 10 dernières années depuis la n ma thèse. Pendant cette période, j’ai suivi une gamme d’approches diérentes pour aborder ces thèmes, allant de l’analyse des observations in situ et des expériences en laboratoire, à la modélisation empirique et numérique des processus observés. Ces approches complémentaires m’ont d’abord permis d’étudier les processus physiques qui contrôlent la dynamique en zone côtière à plusieurs échelles d’espace et de temps pour développer une vision globale de cet environnement complexe. Ces travaux ont de plus contribué à mon deuxième objectif, à savoir le développement des modèles empiriques et numériques pour une variété d’applications, allant de l’évaluation des risques côtiers et l’estimation de la ressource des énergies marines renouvelables, au dimensionnement et à la gestion des structures marines et côtières. Le deuxième chapitre est dédié au thème de la morphodynamique en zone côtière, avec deux grands axes de travail : (1) l’analyse de l’évolution morphologique des plages, basée sur des observations morphologiques de plusieurs sites d’étude et sur des mesures expérimentales eectuées en laboratoire, pour améliorer la compréhension des variations spatiales et temporelles observées, et (2) la modélisation empirique et numérique de l’évolution des prols de plage, validés avec les observations, pour améliorer les outils de prédiction. Ses travaux m’ont permis d’identier des questions fondamentales qui continuent de structurer mes thèmes de recherche, en particulier une amélioration de la compréhension des processus d’érosion et d’accrétion, et notamment des variations en espace et en temps à une variété d’échelles. Ces connaissances me permettent de valider des modèles numériques basés sur des processus physiques et de les appliquer aux échelles spatiales locales et aux échelles temporelles des événements, mais aussi de proposer des modèles simpliés, de type empirique, applicables aux échelles spatiales d’une plage ou d’un secteur du littoral et aux échelles temporelles des saisons, des années, des décennies. Mes travaux en cours explorent diérents axes d’amélioration de ces types de modélisation, notamment pour améliorer la prise en compte des processus physiques dans un modèle empirique d’équilibre, incluant le transport longshore, les interactions entre les vagues et le niveau de l’eau et les impacts du changement climatique

Seasonal Sand Level Changes on Southern California Beaches

Seasonal airborne and ground-based observations of sand level changes were made along the coast of southern California from 2001 to 2008. Hourly, high alongshore spatial resolution wave estimates from a network of wave buoys and a spectral refraction wave model complement the sand level change data. Water returns from the ocean surface were removed from the airborne lidar elevation observations with a new method using tide and wave data, which was validated with concurrent in situ surveys. The resultant sand levels show high alongshore variability in seasonal shoreline position change along the 120-km survey region. Alongshore variability in wave energy, geologic factors, and sand grain size are hypothesized to control the alongshore variability of the seasonal shoreline change magnitude.Monthly or more frequent ground-based surveys at four selected focus sites show seasonal shoreline and bathymetry change, with winter shoreline erosion and offshore bar development, and summer shoreline accretion and the loss of the offshore bar. Analysis of surveys completed after a small beach nourishment at Torrey Pines Beach showed the presence of the nourishment through more than one full seasonal cycle.Observations from Torrey Pines Beach show the dependence of shoreline change on the initial shoreline position and the wave forcing. The observations motivated the development of an equilibrium shoreline change model, which accurately reproduces the observations with four free parameters. With at least two years of monthly surveys or multiple years of appropriately-timed biannual observations used to determine the free parameters, the model accurately predicts withheld observations and is applied at the additional survey sites. Ongoing work includes applying the model at additional locations and investigating the relationship between the tuned parameters and geologic factors

Brief communication "Evaluating European Coastal Evolution using Bayesian Networks"

International audienceThe coastal zone is a complex environment in which a variety of forcing factors interact causing shoreline evolution. Coastal managers seek to predict coastal evolution and to identify regions vulnerable to erosion. Here, a Bayesian network is developed to identify the primary factors influencing decadal-scale shoreline evolution of European coasts and to reproduce the observed evolution trends. Sensitivity tests demonstrate the robustness of the model, showing higher predictive capabilities for stable coasts than for eroding coasts. Finally, the study highlights the need to update and expand large-scale coastal data sets, particularly by including local scale processes and anthropogenic impacts

Enhancing the resilience of levee systems through methodological developments

International audienceThe resilience of levee systems is intuitively associated with physical and technical measures applied to aide in the recovery or adaptation after a destructive event. However, facing a hazard whose characteristics are never fully anticipated and to which a fully predetermined response cannot be proposed, the responsiveness of levee managers depends primarily on their ability to make decisions that must necessarily be based on a sufficient level of information and be supported by appropriate methodological frameworks. Building on previous research about the response to the Xynthia storm, this paper demonstrates that the resilience of protection systems involves expanding the approaches for hazard characterization, flood protection system definition, and intervention modes. With climate change, and the current ecological and digital transitions, methodological developments in the field of flood protection should also encourage the mobilization of more varied disciplines and strengthen solidarity between stakeholders. These links must be woven in the long term, under normal conditions, to be put in place rapidly in emergency situations. Ultimately, methodologies and operational tools must be developed for all (both normal and emergency) circumstances, within the framework of a global, integrated and cohesive approach