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Psychosocial Challenges Facing Athletes (Medium and Long distance Runners) in Eldoret, Kenya
No full textInternational audienceAll over the world, sports have been known to bring social cohesionat the individual, family and socio-economic development to a country. Over the years, in Kenya, athletics have promoted development, aesthetic value and recognition to the country and individuals as well. Despite the positive impact athletics can have on development to a country and individuals, studies have shown that athletes do not receive much psychosocial support to reach their full potentials and participate effectively in the general development of the country. This study examined the psychosocial challenges facing athletes in Eldoret, Kenya. The study specifically investigated individual-related psychosocial challenges; family and community-related psychosocial challenges facing athletes; and the coping strategies devised by athletes to deal with psychosocial problems in the study area.The study was informed by Social Breakdown Theory (SBT) theory. The study used descriptive research design. The study targeted medium and long distance runners in Eldoret and limited itself to 99 professional athletes from 8 locations that are major sources of athletes in Eldoret through simple random sampling. The study used snowball sampling in selecting key informants (elite athletes) from each selected location and government officials from the sports ministry. Both quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection were used. The study employed both qualitative and quantitative data analysis. In qualitative analysis, the data was presented by use of quotes and narrative descriptions. Quantitative analysis involved derivation of statistical descriptions and interpretation of data by use of descriptive statistics that purely relied on numerical values. The study found that athletes (medium and long-distance runners), have not been given much psychosocial support. Instead, they are exposed to much vulnerability aggravated by lack of social acceptance, over-dependence by close kin, isolation, lack of mentorship and peer support and are thus unable to participate effectively in the sport. The study recommends that there is a need to designing appropriate interventions that mitigate psychosocial challenges among athletes to promote athletes’ wellness and personal development
A marginally stable optical resonator for enhanced atom interferometry
No full textWe propose a marginally stable optical resonator suitable for atom interferometry. The resonator geometry is based on two flat mirrors at the focal planes of a lens that produces the large beam waist required to coherently manipulate cold atomic ensembles. Optical gains of about 100 are achievable using optics with part-per-thousand losses. The resulting power build-up will allow for enhanced coherent manipulation of the atomic wavepackets such as large separation beamsplitters. We study the effect of longitudinal misalignments and assess the robustness of the resonator in terms of intensity and phase profiles of the intra-cavity field. We also study how to implement atom interferometry based on Large Momentum Transfer Bragg diffraction in such a cavity
Human-shark interactions: The case study of Reunion island in the south-west Indian Ocean
No full textInternational audienceAn uncommon series of shark attacks, mostly involving surfers, occurred on the West coast of ReunionIsland between 2011 and 2013, causing eight deaths. Following these events, which resulted in social,economic and political upheaval, and referred to as the"shark crisis", a scientific program with the aim ofunderstanding shark behavior and ecology in Reunion Island was launched in 2012. It integrated spatialand temporal monitoring protocol of coastal uses allowing for the study of shark attack repercussions onthe dynamics of 15 types of uses. In this paper, we bring shark and users observations together in order toassess human-shark interactions. Firstly, we assess the impacts that shark attacks have triggered in termsof users spatiotemporal distribution between 2011 and 2013. Secondly, we explore human-shark in-teractions in 2013 using cross-mapping techniques. Results show that three areas (Saint-Gilles, Trois-Bassins, Etang-Sale) have high levels of potential interaction and should be of high interest for thelocal authorities and stakeholders for further mitigation policies. Although further studies are needed tobetter understand the link between shark presence and shark attack, this study provides afirst insight into human-shark interactions in Reunion Island
Conformal antenna array for millimeter-wave communications: performance evaluation
No full textInternational audienceIn this paper, we study the influence of the radius of a cylindrical supporting structure on radiation properties of a conformal millimeter-wave antenna array. Bent antenna array structures on cylindrical surfaces may have important applications in future mobile devices. Small radii may be needed if the antenna is printed on the edges of mobile devices and in items which human beings are wearing, such as wrist watches, bracelets, and rings. The antenna under study consists of four linear series-fed arrays of four patch elements and is operating at 58.8 GHz with linear polarization. The antenna array is fabricated on polytetrafluoroethylene substrate with thickness of 127 µm due to its good plasticity properties, and low losses. Results for both planar and conformal antenna arrays show rather good agreement between simulation and measurements. The results show that conformal antenna structures allow achieving large angular coverage and may allow beam-steering implementations if switches are used to select between different arrays around a cylindrical supporting structur
Radial buoyancy effects on momentum and heat transfer in a circular Couette flow
No full textInternational audienceThe numerical investigation of a circular Couette flow with a radial temperature gradient is performed to elucidate the influence of the radial buoyancy on flow and heat transfer for different values of the Prandtl number when the gravitational acceleration is neglected. We consider an infinite-length cylindrical annulus of radius ratio 0.8 with the inner rotating cylinder and the outer stationary cylinder. The flow is stabilized with the outward heating while it is destabilized with the inward heating. A weakly nonlinear analysis shows that the transition to stationary axisymmetric modes is supercritical while the oscillatory axisymmetric modes occur via a subcritical bifurcation. The effect of the centrifugal buoyancy on the transfer of angular momentum (i.e., torque) is quite weak while the effect on the heat transfer is significant
Graph-based Event Extraction from Twitter
No full textInternational audienceEvent detection on Twitter has become an attractive and challenging research field due to the popularity and the peculiarities of tweets. Detecting which tweets describe a specific event and clustering them is one of the main challenging tasks related to Social Media currently addressed in the NLP community. Existing approaches have mainly focused on detecting spikes in clusters around specific keywords or Named Entities (NE). However, one of the main drawbacks of such approaches is the difficulty in understanding when the same keywords describe different events. In this paper, we propose a novel approach that exploits NE mentions in tweets and their entity context to create a temporal event graph. Then, using simple graph theory techniques and a PageRank-like algorithm, we process the event graphs to detect clusters of tweets describing the same events. Experiments on two gold standard datasets show that our approach achieves state-of-the-art results both in terms of evaluation performances and the quality of the detected events
The pros and cons of mating with strangers
No full textInternational audienceA recommendation of: Clemente SH, Santos I, Ponce AR, Rodrigues LR, Varela SAM & Magalhaes S. 2017 Despite reproductive interference, the net outcome of reproductive interactions among spider mite species is not necessarily costly. bioRxiv 113274, ver. 4 of the 30th of June 2017. doi: 10.1101/11327
Parallel numerical modeling of hybrid-dimensional compositional non-isothermal Darcy flows in fractured porous media
No full textInternational audienceThis paper introduces a new discrete fracture model accounting for non-isothermal compositional multiphase Darcy flows and complex networks of fractures with intersecting, immersed and non immersed fractures. The so called hybrid-dimensional model using a 2D model in the fractures coupled with a 3D model in the matrix is first derived rigorously starting from the equi-dimensional matrix fracture model. Then, it is dis-cretized using a fully implicit time integration combined with the Vertex Approximate Gradient (VAG) finite volume scheme which is adapted to polyhedral meshes and anisotropic heterogeneous media. The fully coupled systems are assembled and solved in parallel using the Single Program Multiple Data (SPMD) paradigm with one layer of ghost cells. This strategy allows for a local assembly of the discrete systems. An efficient preconditioner is implemented to solve the linear systems at each time step and each Newton type iteration of the simulation. The numerical efficiency of our approach is assessed on different meshes, fracture networks, and physical settings in terms of parallel scalability, nonlinear convergence and linear convergence
Weaving a Web of Linked Resources : Editorial
No full textInternational audienceThis editorial introduces the special issue based on the best papers from ESWC 2015. And since ESWC'15 marked 15 years of Semantic Web research, we extended this editorial to a position paper that reflects the path that we, as a community, traveled so far with the goal of transforming the Web of Pages to a Web of Resources. We discuss some of the key challenges, research topics and trends addressed by the Semantic Web community in its journey. We conclude that the symbiotic relation of our community with the Web requires a truly multidisciplinary research approach to support the Web's diversity
Les contrats à impact social : une nouvelle génération de PPP pour les politiques sociales
No full textInternational audienceExperimented in the United Kingdom and in the United States for several years, the Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) – in France Social Impact Contracts - aim at benefiting from a private financing of some social programs while conditioning the debt reimbursement and the financial returns to the fulfilment of performance objectives. For instance, this type of incentive-based contracts were experienced for addressing challenges as reducing prisoner recidivism. A call for projects was launched by the French minister in charge of the social and solidarity economy in March 2016. These contracts that are not always bond-based may be defined as “future contracts on social results”. In such mechanisms, the program is prefunded by the private sector (commercial banks or foundations), may benefit from its innovation capacities and its efficiency gains induced by an incentive-based contract. However, some possible pitfalls should be stressed. These ones are linked to costs factors but also to adverse effects on the quality of the service, especially if this one is difficult to define precisely. The aim of this paper is to present and to assess, mainly on the basis of international experiences, these contractual devices. We put the accent on their potential consequences in terms of a definition and supply of social services. We insist on the coherence of such output- based contracts and the more general tendency leading to an increasing use of payment by results schemes within the public sector.Expérimentés depuis quelques années au Royaume-Uni et aux États-Unis, les Social Impact Bonds, ou contrats à impact social (CIS), en France visent à faire financer par des investisseurs privés des programmes sociaux en conditionnant leur remboursement et leur niveau de rémunération financière à la réalisation d’objectifs de performance. Les CIS, qui ont été par exemple utilisés outre-Manche dans des programmes de prévention de la récidive pour de jeunes délinquants, ont fait l’objet d’un appel à projets lancé par le ministère en charge de l’économie sociale et solidaire en mars 2016. Les CIS, qui financièrement correspondent plus souvent à des contrats à terme sur des résultats sociaux qu’à des titres obligataires, visent à faire préfinancer des programmes sociaux par des investisseurs (banques, fondations...) et à bénéficier des capacités du secteur privé en termes d’innovation et d’efficacité. Le recours aux CIS pose néanmoins un ensemble de questions tenant aux coûts et aux risques liés (notamment en regard de la définition des objectifs contractuels) mais aussi à la capacité du secteur privé à s’investir dans des politiques sociales. Il s’agit dans cette contribution de présenter, notamment au travers des expériences étrangères, les modalités de fonctionnement et les premiers bilans des CIS, de discuter des risques qu’ils seraient susceptibles d’induire en termes de définition et de gestion des politiques publiques et enfin de montrer comment ces derniers s’intègrent dans un mouvement de contractualisation voire de mise en marché de l’action publique, avec notamment la montée en puissance dans les pays anglo-saxons de schémas de paiements en fonction des résultats