Study of Post-World War II French Aeronautical Aluminium Alloy and Coatings: Historical and Materials Science Approach

ABSTRACT

In many countries, collections of historic aircraft, conserved in Air and Space museums or local associations, reflect the importance of a national or local history. Mostly parked outdoors, aircraft suffer from significant corrosion requiring conservation operations. During renovation, metallic parts are often replaced by association members. This can lead to a major loss of information since industrial archives dealing with materials and processes do not always survive. However, if these elements can be considered, they could be a fundamental source of information on the materials originally used and of the technical history of aeronautics. This work reports a thorough study of aluminium-based alloy parts collected on a Breguet aeroplane dating from the 1950s, during its recent renovation. Thanks to an approach coupling multi-scale material characterisation and research in archives, information on the industrial knowledge is revealed. Several historic grades of aluminium-based alloys were found, namely A-U4G, A-U4G1, and A-U3G, depending on the role of the part. Similarly, different protective coatings were identified (anodic oxidation, primers, and paintings), depending on the role of the metallic part and its location in the plane. Knowledge of the materials from bulk metal to the coated surface is necessary for good conservation practices regarding aeronautical heritage artefacts. Related documents and archives also fundamentally help in understanding such complex artefacts.     

Complementing subjective with objective data in analysing expertise: A machine-learning approach applied to badminton

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to assess which combination of subjective and empirical data might help to identify the expertise level. A group of 10 expert coaches classified 40 participants in 5 different expertise groups based on the video footage of the rallies. The expertise levels were determined using a typology based on a continuum of 5 conative stages: (1) structural, (2) functional, (3) technical, (4) contextual, and (5) expertise. The video allowed empirical measurement of the duration of the rallies, and tri-axial accelerometers measured the intensity of the player’s involvement. A principal component analysis showed that two dimensions explained 54.9% of the total variance in the data and that conative stage and empirical parameters during rallies (duration, intensity of the game) were correlated with axis 1, whereas duration and acceleration data between rallies were correlated with axis 2. A random forest algorithm showed that among the parameters considered, acceleration, duration of the rallies, and time between rallies could predict conative stages with a prediction accuracy above possibility.

This study suggests that performance analysis benefits from the confrontation of subjective and objective data in order to design training plans according to the expertise level of the participants.     

The Perceived Impact of Eight Systemic Factors on Scientific Capital Accumulation

Minerva - In the global academic capitalist race, academics, institutions and countries’ symbolic power results from the accumulation of scientific capital. This paper relies on the...     

Performance Management in the French System of Secondary-Teacher training

The present study focuses on performance analysis and performance management in teacher training in France. After a brief summary of the French system of secondary-teacher training, determinants affecting performance are analyzed. The analysis shows that three determinants – the number of external competitors, the size of a department and the number of posts to be filled by recruitment examinations – are crucial to the performance of a training department. The analysis reveals, however, that although a department’s performance may be related to its size, efficiency and inefficiency limits have to be taken into account in growth strategies.     

Deboning the Fish: Hosting a Future Creating Workshop with Undergraduate Women in STEM

Innovative Higher Education - Despite the broad scope of literature on the topic of women in STEM, women in male-dominated spaces within academia are rarely given the opportunity to speak openly...     

On not seeing words: Illiteracy and language

Although literacy is realized in particular ways in different cultures, it also has a universal, cognitive dimension: namely, that skilled reading accentuates the distinction between language and meaning. The study of adult non-readers in literate cultures provides supporting evidence for this argument.     

Knowledge acquisition from text: Introduction

European Journal of Psychology of Education -     

Extraordinary Animals and Expository Writing: Zoo in the Classroom

A zoo outreach program led to placing animals in classrooms where those animals became foci for numerous learning activities such as writing, observing, and care. Systematic debriefings suggested uniqueness to learning outcomes connected to zoo animals. Subsequent analysis of student writing indicated that students responded to situational interest by recording more observations, made use of more science facts, and used more science vocabulary when writing about unique animals (albino hedgehog, legless lizard) than ‘ordinary’ animals (rabbit, dove). The results are interpreted in terms of motivation, creating situational interest, and the familiarity of the schema available to the students. Policy implications are discussed.     

Higher education policy as an exercise in contemporary history

The study of higher education is a broad field. A recent estimate identified some 19 different disciplines and perspectives. Such range of perspectives raises central questions as to what might constitute the core areas. Whilst recognising that history does not possess a single dominant paradigm, this article suggests that history opens up several avenues not without interest to policy studies in higher education. By providing issues the outcome of which is known, history may serve as a vehicle for testing the validity of contemporary theories developed in higher education policy studies. The article argues that greater attention ought to be paid - and most particularly in studies involving cross national comparisons - to the cultural and historic specificities that permeate the formal dimensions of law, structure and administrative forms.