Documents found
-
1181.More information
Technologies, Defense and Transatlantic Relations, by Yves BoyerToday the international compétition among nations bas shifted from the quest of traditional tools of power towards the mastering of key technologies as well as their applications. Consequently, the acquisition of scientific and technological advantages provides a dominant position within the concert of nations. In this framework, the United States are trying to acquire and maintain a dominant trade position vis-à-vis their main economie rival, the European Union. The question of maintaining a strong defense industrial base in the European Union shall thus he examined in the general framework of the overall relations with the US. Not only the maintenance of this industry is of paramount importance to preserve a strong high-tech base in Europe but also for providing the EU members ivith a freedom of maneuver when contemplating the development of a common defense policy. Accordingly, the main question adressed in this article relates to the potential effects of a growing contradiction in the Western world between maintaining a strategie cohesiveness in the field of defense when at the same time entering a period of fierce competition in the field of trade of high-tech products.
-
1182.More information
Groundwater contamination by agricultural practices is a problem of growing concern with water resources managers. Considering the environmental importanve of the situation and the complexity of agricultural systems, models are used more than ever in parallel with field investigaffons to assist in the decision-making process. Most available models are either too complicated (many non-measurable parameters) or too simple (semi-empirical or site-specific) to be used as management tools. Such tools should conform to known theory and be structured to enable efficient analysis of field situations with minimal requirements for parameters. The AgriFlux model was developed according to these criteria. It is a mechanistic-stochastic model simulating groundwater contamination by agricultural fertilizers. It combines reliability and conceptual representations with a limited number of parametersMost mechanistic models are also deterministic, using a single value for every parameter. Because of the important field variability of most parameters, it is pertinent to use a stochastic model, incorporating the variability resulting from field heterogeneity, measurement errors and intrinsic uncertainty related to parameter definition. AgriFlux represents soil water and nitrogen dynamics at the scale corresponding to a homogeneous area (soil type, crops, fertilizers, ..), usually the agricultural field. The soil profile is divided in homogeneous horizons or compartments. A daily tlme step is used in the calculations. The model is based on a modular structure to facilitate the inclusion of future modules describing the fate of phosphorus and pesticides. At present, AgriFlux contains two modules. The first one named HydriFlux, simulates water-related processes (precipitation snowmelt, infiltration, runoff, water uptake by plants, evaporation, percolation and drainage using soil water characteristic functions and the unsaturated hydraulic conductivlty function. The second module, NitriFlux, represents the nitrogen cycle processes (fertilizer inputs, mineralization, nitrification, denitrification, nitrogen uptake by plants and nitrate leaching). Biochemical processes are influenced by soil temperature and humidity.To illustrate the use of AgriFlux in a resource management perspective, an application of the model was performed on an agricultural field located near Québec City (Québec, Canada). The cultivated soil consists of a loamy sand underlain by a coarse till. Sweet corn (Zea Mays, L) was grown on the plot for ten years using standard inorganic fertilizations. The environmental studies performed on the site consisted of sampling interstitial water through a series of tension Iysimeters (June 1990-November 1991) to determine the nitrate concentration of water reaching the groundwater. Soil samples were collected (June 1991-November 1991) to evaluate the potential for nitrate leaching. The parameters required to represent the field were identified from site characterization (soil data), from available agricultural data (crop and fertilization data), from literature (nitrogen cycle parameters) and from other available values (climate data). Special care was put into the identification of nitrogen cycle parameters because of their importance on the simulated results. The necessary parameters require no adjustement or optimization because they represent physically measurable values.The simulated nitrate concentrations represent the measured values relatively well with the exception of some periods during the year especially during the summer for which the measured values are slightly overestimated by the model. This discrepancy can be explained partially by the drought of the 1991 summer months which limited the number of water samples thus restricting their representativeness. The spatial variability of measured concentrations was underestimated by AgriFlux. This can be related to the small number of field measurements compared to simulated values (the standard deviation decreases when the number of values increases), to a possible underestimation of parameter variability in the model (mainly nitrogen cycle parameters which are difficult to estima te) and to the influence of macroporosity (matric flow and macropore flow having different nitrate contents). This observation confirms the importance of using a stochastic model and the necessity of sampling at many locations in the field. The soil nitrate contents are represented with less precision by the model. Rapid variations in measured values are not found in the simulated soil nitrate contents. The overestimation of simulated summer nitrate concentrations and underestimation of simulated soil nitrate contents can be related to the drought conditions prevailing during the summer of 1991. When the soil is very dry, water extracted from tightly bonded water can contain more nitrates than freely flowing water, an effect which AgriFlux does not take into account.The case study shows an example of an application of AgriFlux in a resource management perspective. Overall, simulated results represent adequately measured values, thus confirming the parameter values selected to represent the field under study. A water resources manager could use this set of parameters to represent a large number of scenarios consisting of alternative agricultural practices. These scenarios can be confirmed afterwards by a limited number of field investigations. The use of a model such as AgriFlux in the decision-making process facilitates and accelerates the implementation of governmental intervention .
Keywords: Modèle, gestion, eaux souterraines, fertilisants, contamination, nitrates, agriculture, Model, management, groundwater, ferlilizers, contamination, nitrates, agriculture
-
1183.
-
1184.More information
Peripheral isolated regions may often find themselves faced with significant development issues, and tourism is often mentioned as an alternative solution to traditional extractive development. However, natural resource based tourism would likely reproduce patterns of logic resembling those of extraction. Based on the theory of uneven geographical development, this article therefore proposes a parallel reading of the effects generated by these two types of natural resource development on Anticosti Island. Despite an abundance of natural resources, the island’s geographical location and history of accumulation by environmental dispossession would seem to limit the appropriation capacities of the local population. In short, results demonstrate that the turning of natural resources and their extraction into tourist attractions transforms how an area is used and creates inequalities with regard to the economic benefits generated.
-
1185.More information
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Association des archivistes du Québec (AAQ), five archivists conducted an analysis of the content of the journal Archives using an approach based on text-mining techniques and completed by a bibliometric analysis. These approaches make it possible to process large amounts of data in order to automatically extract some characteristics that allow them to learn about both the thematic evolution of the journal and the place occupied by its production in the scientific and professional archival space in Quebec and internationally. Their article offers an opportunity to review the main themes addressed in the journal for the last twenty years by reporting on the evolution of the research topics studied and, more generally, the archival profession. It also allows them to question the links existing between the authors and their institutions and to ask them about the academicization or professionalisation of the journal.
-
1186.More information
Keywords: MTE, approche inductive, pensée associative, psychanalyse
-
1187.More information
Since Shlesinger's (1998) programmatic article, many interpreting corpora have been developed. Generally, they include interpreted communication instances taking place in various settings, such as conferences, healthcare, and other institutional contexts, such as television. Notwithstanding differences concerning setting and communicative situation, all these corpora show common traits as far as size and interrogation aspects are concerned: more specifically, they have limited size, and their interrogation possibilities are influenced by the presence – or absence – of transcript-audio alignment and tagging level. This paper focuses on these aspects by presenting two corpora collected at the University of Trieste, namely CorIT (Italian Television Interpreting Corpus) and CorILex (Legal Interpreting Corpus). The main differences distinguishing these two corpora will be discussed in relation to the latest developments of research in corpus linguistics. Our goal is to identify the place interpreting corpora currently occupy within corpus linguistics, a domain that is becoming increasingly diverse, multifaceted, and multidisciplinary.
Keywords: corpus d'interprétation, transcription, alignement, interprétation à la télévision, interprétation judiciaire, interpreting corpora, transcription, alignment, television interpreting, legal interpreting, corpus de interpretación, transcripciones, alineación, interpretación televisiva, interpretación jurídica
-
1188.More information
Internet has enabled the electronic Word-of-Mouth (e-WOM) to develop. This means of communication facilitates to consumers online of access to further information on the one hand and to facilitate the interpersonal communication via online reviews, of the other part. The objective of this paper is to examine to what extent the electronic word of mouth (e-WOM) can affect brand image, attitude and purchase intention in the agrifood industry taking, as a field of study, the Tunisian context. A survey is conducted among 270 respondents. The results show that e-WOM has a positive impact on the brand image, attitude and purchase intention.
Keywords: Internet, bouche à oreille, image de marque, intention d'achat, attitude, Internet, word of mouth, brand image, purchase intention, attitude, Internet, el boca a boca, marca, intención de compra, la actitud
-
1189.More information
This article relates to the social context of the implementation of information and communication technologies, and to its main contributions to education. Whenever a technical innovation penetrates society, decision makers, whether under the pressure of the political imperative for action or because they are visionaries, decide that it must be incorporated into the school setting. In France, over the past few decades, radio, television, and informatics have all been compelled to be integrated into schools and into the educational system (Durpaire, 1997). It would seem that the simple equation "technical innovation = academic innovation" is viewed as axiomatic. The Internet is no exception to this simplistic ideological framework. It is true, however, that there is something more in the potential offered by the Internet, namely interactivity.
-
1190.More information
The section of the Beaudette River in the Regional County Municipality of Vaudreuil-Soulanges in southern Québec (Canada) is an important fish sanctuary. However, it is being negatively impacted by sediment-laden agricultural runoff and bare shorelines in residential areas. The present study sought to describe the watershed to obtain a better understanding of the threats to habitat quality and thus allow for more effective intervention. This was done through the characterization of fish habitat; assessment of riparian band quality; analysis of water quality; the mapping of erosion, sedimentation and obstacles; and fish sampling. The analysis of fish habitat quality showed this to be low to very low at nearly 75% of the sampling stations. Bacteriological and physicochemical water quality indices were also generally low, indicating that ecological functions of the river are impaired. The fish sampling data show that the river has a higher species richness in sections with good quality riparian bands and when fish habitat index values are high. These results highlight the need for appropriate management actions to ensure the sustainability of the Beaudette River ecosystem.
Keywords: bande riveraine, érosion, gestion du territoire, paysages agricoles, qualité de l'eau, agricultural landscapes, erosion, land management, water quality, watershed