Institut Mines-Telecom Business School | #Innovation #StrategicManagement
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They help us to order food, book a trip or discover cultural events and bars. Chatbots are virtual intermediaries providing us with access to many services, and are becoming ever more present on messaging applications such as Messenger, Whatsapp, Telegram, etc. In 2016, Yan Georget and Javier Gonzalez decided to enter the conversational agent market, founding their start-up, Botfuel, incubated for a year at ParisTech Entrepreneurs. They were not looking, however, to develop simple, low-end chatbots. “Many key players target the mass market, with more potential users and easy-to-produce chatbots”, explains Yan Georget, “this is not our approach”.
Botfuel is aimed at businesses that want to provide their customers with a high quality user experience. The fledgling business offers companies state-of-the-art technological building blocks to help develop these intelligent conversational agents. It therefore differs from the process typically adopted by businesses for designing chatbots. Ordinarily, chatbots operate on a decision-tree basis, which is established in advance. Developers create potential scenarios based on the questions the chatbot will ask the user, trying to predict all possible responses. However, the human mind is unpredictable. There will inevitably be occasions where the user gives an unforeseen response or pushes the conversational agent to its limits. Chatbots that rely on decision-trees soon tend to struggle, often leaving customers disappointed.
“We take a different approach which is based on machine learning algorithms”, explains Yan Georget. Every sentence provided by users is analyzed to understand its meaning and identify its possible intentions. To achieve this, Botfuel works in collaboration with businesses on their databases, trying to understand the primary motivations of web-users. For example, the start-up has collaborated with BlaBlaCar, helping them to fine-tune their chatbots, which in turn allows customers to find a carshare more easily. Thanks to this design approach, the chatbot knows to attribute the same meaning to the phrases: “I want to go to Nantes”, “I would like to get to Nantes by car” and “looking for a carshare to Nantes”, something which is near impossible for traditional chatbots which dismiss various semantic formulations if the conversation doesn’t exactly match the expected discussion scenario.
Botfuel also uses information extraction algorithms to precisely identify dates, places and desired services, regardless of the order in which they appear in the conversation with the chatbot. Understanding the user is clearly Botfuel’s principal motivation. Building on this, Yan Georget explains the choices they made in terms of the issue of language correction. “People make typos when they are writing. We opted for word-by-word correction, using an algorithm based on the occurrence of each word in the language and the resemblance this has with the mistyped word entered by the user. We only correct mistakes made by a user if we are sure we know what word it is they were wanting to type.” This approach differs from that of other chatbots, which base correction on the overall meaning of the phrase. This second approach sometimes incurs errors by associating a user with the wrong intentions. Even though more errors may be corrected with this method, Botfuel prefers to prioritize the absence of misunderstanding, even if it means the chatbot has to ask the user to reformulate their question.
In addition to BlaBlaCar, many other businesses are interested in Botfuel’s chatbots. French insurance provider April and French bank Société Générale now form part of their clientele. One of the main reasons these new interfaces are attracting so much interest is, according to Yan Georget, because “conversational interfaces are very powerful”. “When using an online purchasing service, you have only to type in what you’re looking for and you’ve practically already made the purchase.” The alternative consists in going through the menu of the website of a vendor and finding the desired product from a list using search filters… this takes several clicks, and wastes several minutes, in comparison to simply typing in “I’m looking for Fred Vargas’s latest novel” into the chatbot interface.
For businesses, chatbots also represent a great opportunity to learn more about their customers. Botfuel provides an analysis system allowing businesses to better understand the links between different customer demands. By talking to a chatbot, the customer provides a lot more information than they would by simply browsing the site. It explains their interests in a more detailed way and provides better explanation for their dissatisfaction. These are all elements that can be very valuable to businesses, helping them to improve their service for the benefit of the customer.
These new perspectives revealed by chatbots are promising, but Yan Georget would also like to moderate expectations and alleviate certain fears surrounding the service: “The aim of chatbots is not to replace humans in the customer experience. Their purpose is to use conversation as an interface with machines, in place of the interactions that we currently have. When a computer operating system changes, habitual users have to readapt to this new interface. With chatbots, the conversational interface doesn’t change, conversation is flexible. The only thing that changes is the additional features that a chatbot can gain with each update.” In terms of the “intelligent” nature of the chatbots, the co-founder remains cautious in this respect. With a doctorate in artificial intelligence, he is aware of the ethical limits and risks associated with an unbridled boom in this field of technology. The focus is therefore on the issue of non-supervised learning in chatbots, which gives them more autonomy when dealing with customers. For Yan Geroget, the example of Tay, Microsoft’s chatbot which was made to become racist on Twitter by its users, is very significant. “The development of chatbots should be supervised by humans. Auto-learning is too dangerous, and it is not the kind of risk to which we are willing to expose businesses or final users.”
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On 29th June at Télécom ParisTech, Botfuel and ParisTech Entrepreneurs came together for a meet-up dedicated to discussing chatbots and education. In this sector, intelligent conversational agents represent a potential asset for personalized education programs. From revising for your exams with Roland Garros through the chatbot Messenger “ReviserAvecRG”, to finding your path with the specialist careers advisor bot “Hello Charly”, aimed at young people between the ages of 14 and 24, or even practicing writing in a foreign language, chatbots undeniably offer a real range of tools.
The meet-up provided an opportunity to share and present experiences and concrete examples from specialist businesses. This event comes as part of the launch of the incubator’s “Tech Meet-ups” program, meetings focusing on technology and the future. The event is therefore the first in a series that will be continued in October with the next “Tech Meet-up”, which this time will be dedicated to the blockchain.[/box]
Stephan Clémençon: Organization for the exhibition began about a year and a half before the event. Our council was complementary in terms of skills, since it was made up of mainly technical specialists in IT data, etc., as well as others who focused on usage and legal issues. Our aim was to identify the topics to be addressed during the exhibition by illustrating with examples. Above all, we wanted to make the link between data and applications. Secondly, the exhibition organizers presented the different workshops to us and what they did was extraordinary.
SC: We wanted to show that data are not just a way of representing information. For example, we addressed the notion of storage. Often, people don’t realize the network aspect, the fact that there are kilometers of fiber optic cables at the bottom of the oceans. It’s important to show people pictures of that. In practice, people switch on their computer, search for information, etc., but they actually have no idea about the physical and concrete aspect behind this, such as what a data center looks like. The important thing was to demystify data.
SC: I mentioned to the organizers that biometrics could have an impact on the public. The idea was to follow the digital trace of visitors, who had their photo taken at the exhibition entrance. I also worked on the Algorithmic aspect with Françoise Soulié-Fogelman [a professor in computing at Tianjin University, China]. We illustrated how recommendation engines work and what their principles are. The objective was to demystify the algorithmic aspect. An algorithm is simply a sequence of tasks leading to a result. We explained that it was nothing new and that they are already in use in daily life.
SC: I think that addressing the subject of data is important. People are scared to talk about artificial intelligence, automatic processing by machines, etc. and rightly so, because we are becoming dependent on these technologies. But this is not something specific to machine learning, it applies to technology as a whole. It is therefore very important to explain how these technologies work. Working with Cité des Sciences also allowed us to reach young people who use technology but don’t necessarily ask themselves how it works. I also took part just out of curiosity. I had no idea about how these exhibitions were put together and it allowed me to discover this new world.
SC: I feel that it was a small but well thought-out exhibition. It was educational on the topic of data and what they are used for. There was a good balance between mathematical aspects and usage. It would be interesting to generalize this kind of exhibition because there is a real need to provide society with information about digital technology. In terms of artificial intelligence which has lately become fashionable and developing robotization, many of these issues are suffering because of received ideas. They deserve to be presented to the general public in the form of an exhibition. We are currently sitting on the threshold of some really significant transformations and it would be good if people started to think about these rather than just letting them happen.
Just like Alice, we fell down the rabbit hole and discovered a strange new world: data. One rainy Friday, the team at I’MTech passed through the doors of the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie in Paris and stumbled across the temporary Terra Data exhibition. After having our faces scanned at the entrance, we were plunged into a whole new world. What was it? The inside of our computer, the cloud or the Internet? Surrounded by four walls covered in mirrors, our new environment had an infinite feel to it. At its heart, there were some thirty backlit tables, each color representing a theme such as pixels, and each containing a piece of information. At table number 1, Serge Abiteboul, director of research at Inria and scientific curator of the exhibition, kicked things off with a video message.
The visit was full of explanations and hands-on activities. Designed to be educational, the exhibition progressively introduces the visitor to the world of data. But what do they mean? A photograph, the film you watched last night, your shopping list… data are everywhere in our daily lives. Regardless of what form they take, they represent information. From the days of Sumerian tablets to the big data of today, data have grown exponentially. Visitors can also observe the incredible amount of data produced per second on social media. But how can we process all this data?
This is where algorithms come in to it. There’s nothing complicated about them, we use them every day without even noticing. Visitors can then try out an algorithm for themselves, by tying a tie. Are you more of a simple knot or a half-Windsor kind of person? In either case, the aim is to show that an algorithm is nothing more than a series of simple tasks. Other uses are then presented, in particular in the context of computing. Algorithms allow search engines to index data. As Françoise Soulié-Fogelman from Tianjin University in China explained, they create deep learning techniques, allowing artificial intelligence to learn to play chess, for example. They are also behind facial recognition technology.
Françoise Soulié-Fogelman, a researcher at Tianjin University
“We’re entering a world where we no longer know exactly what a piece of data means” begins the Political Science sociologist, Dominique Cardon, in a video introducing the theme: “What does all this data actually change?” “Data is just a simple trace which we don’t really know the meaning of”, she adds. This isn’t necessarily good or bad. It all depends on the resulting usage. From studying climate to neuroscience, data affect all areas of scientific research. They are responsible for the evolution of various occupations such as data journalism, as well as leading to the creation of new professions such as data scientists. These jobs are based around extracting the relevant parameters from these masses of information. In this way, a 3D video represents the reconstruction of an area in Venice between 950 and 1986. This visualization was made possible following the digitalization of archives.
Following on from these vestiges of the past, the modern man leaves digital traces through cookies or Wi-Fi, that is, their personal data. Information lost in the web can be collected through our connections and recorded without us even knowing. CNIL advises visitors about how to better protect their digital information.
Going beyond direct usage, data are changing the way society functions. Another video presents the concept of algorithmic intermediation, which is how web giants (i.e. Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon) eliminate intermediaries between the client and the supplier through digital platforms. On the one hand, this horizontal communication puts all individuals on the same level. On the other, it encourages the constant assessment of others.
Data collected in this way for a website can then be sold on to other platforms. This contributes to the creation of a digital identity which sticks with us and leads us to wonder about the protection of this information. So, where is data leading us? Most likely towards a system without borders which still remains to be defined.
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The Terra Data exhibition enjoyed a wide range of expertise from sociologists and even experts in machine learning. The scientific advisors benefitted from the knowledge of the researchers and other key figures such as Serge Abiteboul from Inria and Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin from CNIL. To find out more about the role of a scientific exhibition advisor, Stephan Clémençon from Télécom ParisTech gives us details here.
Practical information
Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie
30, avenue Corentin-Cariou – 75019 Paris
Open Tuesday to Saturday from 10am to 6pm, Sundays from 10am to 7pm.
Closed Mondays.
From age 11 – In French, English and Italian – Length of visit: 1 h 30 mins.[/box]
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The storage of green energy is an issue which concerns many sectors, whether for energy transition or for supplying power to connected objects using batteries. Thierry Djenizian, a researcher at Mines Saint-Étienne, explains the main problems to us, focusing in particular on how electrochemical storage systems work.
Thierry Djenizian: it has become essential to combat the various kinds of pollution created by burning fossil fuels (emission of nanoparticles, greenhouse gases, etc.) and also to face up to the impending shortage over the next decades. Our only alternative is to use other natural, inexhaustible energy sources (i.e. hydraulic, solar, wind, geothermal and biomass). These sources allow us to convert solar, thermal or chemical energy into electrical and mechanical energy.
However, the energy efficiency of RSEs is considerably inferior to that of fossil fuels. Also, in the cases of solar and wind power, the source is “intermittent” and therefore varies over time. Their implementation requires complex and costly installation processes.
TD: in a general sense, energy produced by RSE drives the production of electricity which can be stored in systems that are either mechanical (hydraulic dams), electromagnetic (superconducting coils), thermal (latent or sensitive heat) or electrochemical (chemical reactions generating electron exchange).
Electrochemical storage systems are made up of three elements: two electrodes (electronic conductors) separated by an electrolyte (an ion conductive material in the form of a liquid, gel, or ceramic, etc.). Electron transfer occurs on the surface of the electrodes (at the anode in the case of electron loss and at the cathode in the opposite case) and they circulate within the circuit in the opposite direction to that of the ions. There are three main categories of electrochemical storage systems: accumulators or batteries, supercapacitors and fuel cells. For RSEs, the changes produced are ideally stored in accumulators for energy performance and cost reasons.
TD: Let’s take the example of accumulators (rechargeable batteries). The size of these varies according to the quantity of energy required by the device in question, ranging from a button battery for a watch, through to a car engine. Dimensions aside, accumulators function by using reversible electrochemical reactions.
Let’s consider the example of a discharged lithium-ion accumulator. One of the two electrodes is made out of lithium. When you charge the battery, it receives negative charge (electrons), or in other words, electricity produced by the RSE, since the provision of electrons triggers a chemical reaction, releasing the lithium from the electrode in the form of ions. The ions then migrate through the electrolyte to insert themselves into the second electrode. When all the sites that can accommodate lithium on the second electrode are occupied, the battery is fully charged.
As the battery is discharged, reverse chemical reactions spontaneously occur, re-releasing the lithium ions which make their way back to the starting point. This allows for a current to be recovered which corresponds to the movement of previously stored charges.
TD: Every approach has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. For example, fuel cells present the issue of high costs due to the use of platinum which speeds up the chemical reactions. Additionally, hydrogen (the fuel within the cell) produces many restrictions in terms of production and security. Hydrogen is also hard to obtain in large quantities through a source other than hydrocarbon compounds (fossils) and is also an explosive, meaning there are restrictions in terms of storage.
Supercapacitors are the preferred system for devices requiring a strong power supply over a short period of time. In basic terms, they allow a small amount of charge to be stored but can redistribute this very quickly. They can be found in the systems that power the opening of airplane doors for example, as these need a powerful energy supply for a short period of time. They are also used in hybrid car engines.
Conversely, the accumulators we talked about before allow a large number of charges to be stored but their release is slow. They are very energy efficient but not very powerful. In some ways, the two options are complementary.
Let’s compare these measures to another system in which electrons are represented as a liquid. Supercapacitors are like a glass of water. Accumulators would then be comparable to a jug, in that they offer a much larger water (or charges) storage capacity than the glass. However, the jug has a narrow neck, preventing liquid from being poured quickly. The ideal would be to have a jug which could release its contents and then be refilled easily like the glass of water. This is precisely the subject of current research which is based on finding systems able to obtain large densities of energy and power.
TD: The field of potential applications is extremely vast as it encompasses all the growing energy needs that we need to satisfy. It includes everything from large installations (smart grid) to providing power for portable microelectronic devices (connected objects), and even transport (electric vehicles). In the latter, the battery directly influences the performance of the environmentally-friendly automobiles.
Today, lithium-ion batteries can considerably improve the technical characteristics of electric vehicles, making their usage possible. However, the energy efficiency of these accumulators is still 50 times lower than that of hydrocarbons. In order to produce batteries that are able to offer a credible electric car to the market, the main thing that needs to be done is to increase the energy storage capacity in the batteries. Indeed, getting the maximum amount of energy possible from the smallest possible volume is the challenge faced by all transport. The electric car is no exception.
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It is June 8, 2006. Angry voices fill the streets in Nouméa. This anger has mobilized the 2,500 people gathered together by the indigenous committee of Rhéébu Nùù—a citizen collective advocating for Kanak interests. On this day, demonstrators once again took to the streets to demand an end to the landscaping projects underway on the Goro plateau, on the southern tip of the main island, and the construction of the associated mine site. Yet, historically, New Caledonia had not been opposed to mining. Mining activity had been going on in the territory for over a century. Nouméa was even home to a nickel mine operated by Société Le Nickel (SLN), which was founded on the island in 1880 to tap into this local mineral resource.
But the project on the Goro plateau was different. The mining activity was operated by another company from Canada: Inco. When the company decided to establish a mine here in 1999, it proposed an innovative project, which broke with the extraction and upgrading methods the other New Caledonian mining complexes had been using. Inco was interested in the nickel found in laterites, a different rock type than the garnierite sought after by its competitors. However, a different type of process is used to extract the nickel from the laterites. The hydrometallurgical process that is required leads to the release of a chemical element, manganese, that Inco planned to discharge into the New Caledonian lagoon. But the inhabitants living near the Goro plateau said “no”. This was the start of a long social and scientific debate that remains emblematic of citizen mobilization that can succeed in creating new values.
As a sociologist specializing in controversies with Mines Nancy and Mines ParisTech, Julien Merlin is particularly interested in social conflicts related to mining operations. The “Goro-nickel” project initiated by Inco is his favorite topic—and the focus of the thesis he will complete next fall. He presented part of this thesis at a scientific seminar organized by the Mine & Société Network of Excellence on May 16, 2017 at Mines ParisTech. By analyzing disputes between citizens, administrations and companies, he studies how new demands arise and how stakeholders structure their action. In the background, what is unfolding is a new way of organizing democratic life on a local level. How do these controversies lead to the creation of an identity citizens connect with? What connections are created between civil society actors in order to promote citizen expertise, and how is this expertise recognized?
The young researcher sees the Goro-nickel as emblematic of these issues. When the first voices were heard speaking out against the project in 2002, they were dissonant. On the one hand, the Kanak tribes made economic demands. “The indigenous community demanded that the entire subcontracting sector related to the factory, such as earthmoving operations and staff catering facilities, be assigned to local Kanak companies,” Julien Merlin explains. On the other hand, environmental organizations, like Corail Vivant, fought for the preservation of the New Caledonian lagoon, so that it could become a UNESCO world heritage site. And a pipe dumping manganese into the ocean represented a serious obstacle in obtaining this designation.
It’s hard to imagine any motive that would bring these two different arguments together. However, over the next two or three years, the environmental organizations forged relationships that did not previously exist with Kanak tribes to create a common cause. “We have to understand that behind the indigenous peoples’ economic motivations was an assertion of their identity,” the sociologist explains. “What they were seeking, above all, was a recognition of their link to the land, within the context of an economic imbalance between the Kanak population and the population descended from colonial settlers.”
Little by little, the two movements began to harmonize. The two groups came together under one banner set to kill two birds with one stone. The assertion of identity and the economic demands now became the movement in defense of cultural and natural heritage. The local Rhéébu Nùù collective drew on international legal tools, defined by the UN, in defense of traditional indigenous intellectual property. For example, based on an article of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, the Kanak citizens asserted the right to monitor the land development of their territory based on their status as an indigenous population. They saw the New Caledonian environment as an integral part of their culture and history: they must have decision-making power in these issues.
Protection of the New Caledonian lagoon became a common cause that united the actors speaking out against the Goro-Nickel project. Photo: Thomas Pesquet.
“The actors coming together in this way, as the direct result of Goro-nickel project controversy, created new values and new identity,” Julien Merlin points out. “Before these two groups formed a common cause, the discourse related to indigenous identity in New Caledonia was primarily nationalistic.” The Goro-nickel controversy therefore caused a new type of discourse on identity, based on heritage and the connection to nature. Locally, the Rhéébu Nùù collective’s influence was so great that in the Yaté municipality, near the Goro plateau, mayor Étienne Ouetcho was elected on the collective’s ticket and held office from 2008 to 2014. It was the first time since 1977 that the FLNKS independentist party was replaced in the city’s administration—before again winning the municipal elections in 2014. This change can also apparent regarding environmental issues. Whereas before these issues received little attention, they are now key components in New Caledonia’s political debates. “At the same time as this new indigenous identity was emerging, a new identity was also created for the land, as an environment that must be protected,” the researcher explains.
The reason this new discourse on environmental issues and identity has resulted in such a strong local response, is that it was able to gain legitimacy, putting the Goro-nickel project on hold for several years. Throughout the entire first phase of the controversy, the organizations forming a common cause were not being heard due to the absence of an established institutional mechanism that could increase their impact. In addition, their inability to provide any expertise to counter the project engineers and scientists was systematically emphasized.
So how did the citizens succeed in changing this situation? “In response to the refusal to hear their arguments, the organizations and local population went to the industrial site to destroy equipment, stop the construction work, and prevent the work site from continuing any further,” explains Julien Merlin. When they found it impossible to make their voices heard, the citizens chose “a situation of extreme violence,” the researcher explains. To handle this situation, the local authorities decided to create an information, consultation and oversight committee (CICS) to assess the environmental impacts of the Goro site. The committee brought together representatives from the government, Inco company, and the Rhéébu Nùù collective. Each with their analyses and specialists.
With the establishment of this consultation committee to examine the assessments and counter-assessments, the manganese problem could be introduced into the discussions. The technical demands were also heard. Problems such as the amount of manganese released into the lagoon, were therefore brought to the forefront. The company had planned to release 100 milligrams per liter of water into the ocean, whereas legislation in mainland France only authorized amounts 100 times less than this. The organizations were also able to present its case using local expertise on the lagoon’s current patterns, demonstrating an accumulation of manganese that would be higher in this context than in the context of coastal regions in mainland France.
“In this case, the technical issue truly brought forth an issue of democracy at the micro-local level: how can small-scale citizen demands be taken into account?” Julien Merlin observes. And it built on a criticism often made concerning citizens involved in this type of struggle: “This mobilization is clearly deeper than an instinctive refusal based solely on factory’s geographical proximity.” The “not in my backyard” syndrome, or Nimby, as some scientists refer to it, is too limited to encompass the deep motivations of the indigenous community and environmentalists. “This approach views citizen action almost as pathological: people take action because they do not understand the problems. But in the Goro-nickel project case, the citizens perfectly demonstrated their ability to understand the social and technical issues.”
Has the New Caledonian case changed consultation processes on a larger scale, by influencing other regional planning projects? It’s a tricky question. First because the New Caledonian administration is independent, making the transfer of political practices complex. Secondly, the social and cultural issues differ depending on the context. The mineral drilling project at the Merléac site in Brittany recently made the news after coming to a halt due to citizen mobilization and government announcements. Julien Merlin—who is also studying this case—emphasizes that the Merléac project, for example, does not have the same implications in terms of identity issues as those involved in the Goro-Nickel project. The consultation mechanisms that work well in one situation are not necessarily effective in another situation.
However, a few initiatives have shown that the French administration is trying to take this new mobilization dimension into account at the national level. One such initiative, launched in April 2015 by Emmanuel Macron when he was France’s Minister of Economy, Industry and Digital Affairs, is worth mentioning. In his role in charge of the mining projects associated with his ministry, he launched the initiative entitled “Responsible Mining” (“Mine responsable”) to ensure that these sites met the requirements of the new national sustainable development strategy. Yet the consultation aimed at bringing the stakeholders together did not prove successful. “The environmental organizations chose to withdraw from the process,” the young sociologist recalls. “They were not satisfied with the format of the consultation. This shows that the real problem is linked to the representation issue: how can organizations, experts, and industrial players all be fairly represented?” The administration appears to be seeking answers to this question. For example, in late May, Nicolas Hulot, the new Minister of Ecological and Solidarity Transition, announced that he wanted to commission an independent study of the Merléac drilling project.
Hidden behind this issue are questions of democracy and legislation, regardless of where the controversy takes place. By using technical, identity and economic arguments, the organizations openly question what the projects’ impacts will be. They question what the economic consequences will be at the local level, and call into question the general interest of resuming mining operations in France. Furthermore, their objections often highlight the outdated Mining Code. Few changes have been made to this code over the past few decades, and those changes were primarily related to post-mining: management of the former mining sites, upgrading the facilities… The organizations contest the mining timetable that pushes projects through before a comprehensive reform of the code, which must be brought into line with the Environmental Code.
Now back to Yaté and the Goro plateau, where do things stand today? In 2006, the Brazilian company Vale acquired the Inco project, and continued the consultation process with the various stakeholders, including the citizen associations. The environmentalists and indigenous organizations no longer form a common cause, but primarily for procedural reasons: each group is represented within the consultation associations. In order to limit the release of manganese in the lagoon, Vale chose not to complete the hydrometallurgical process on site. The company therefore complies with legislation of mainland France by only releasing a quantity that is less than the threshold amount of 1 milligram per liter of water. To accomplish this, the company had to develop a new method for the processing change. The residents’ social action has therefore been become a part of the project’s technical aspect.
The operation was therefore able to begin, although protests persisted, despite 6 marine sites becoming UNESCO world heritage sites in 2008. That year, Vale suffered several mishaps, including a major acid leak in the lagoon at the southern tip of the island, a little over two years ago. The citizens and organizations are therefore continuing their fight to increase industrial safety and better protect the environment. At this point, the actors have already structured their action, and it appears things are running more smoothly than they were fifteen years ago, when the mobilization was still in its infancy. The citizen expertise has been institutionalized. The CICS still exists, and a Grand Sud environmental quality monitoring system has been created: l’Œil. Created directly following the Goro-Nickel controversy, the goal is to expand this initiative to include the entire southern province. Yet this could create new controversies. Would it be legitimate for the local Goro collective to represent the entire territory? Should new collectives be integrated in the process? One thing is for sure, the sociologists will closely study these developments.
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Julien Merlin is conducting his thesis work on New Caledonia, funded by a doctoral contract at the Centre for Innovation Sociology at Mines ParisTech. He is also conducting post-doctorate work on the resurgence of mining activity in mainland France, funded by Labex Ressources 21 and the Grand Est region, at Mines Nancy and the University of Lorraine. In two questions, he explains the significance of his research.
Julien Merlin: What’s interesting is to study the “productive” aspect of controversies. They lead to the formulation of new social identities, to the production of new expertise and knowledge, and reveal the political nature of science and technology. Therefore, the goal is not to study everything related to science and technology on the one hand, and sociological issues on the other. On the contrary, the goal is to study how these aspects are produced together.
JM: Goro-Nickel is an exemplary case. An issue that could be reduced to a technical problem —the environmental impact of a pipe dumping manganese— or a social problem —the Kanak identity— exists in a co-definition dynamic. It is interesting to note that this feature is now ubiquitous, and extends far beyond mining projects. Not too long ago, it was not easy to say that science and technology raised questions of democracy. The study of controversies sheds light on this aspect. In the future, the role that science and technology should play within companies will certainly be discussed by civil society actors to a greater extent.[/box]
The “Silense” European project launched in May 2017 is aimed at redefining the way we interact with machines. By using ultrasound technology similar to sonar, the researchers and industrialists participating in this collaboration have chosen to focus on 3D motion sensing technology. This technology could allow us to control our smartphone or house with simple gestures, without any physical contact with a tactile surface.
Lower the volume on your TV from your couch just by lowering your hand. Close the blinds in your bedroom by simply squeezing your fingers together. Show your car’s GPS the right direction to take by lifting your thumb. It may sound like scenes from a science fiction movie. Yet these scenarios are part of the real-life objectives of the European H2020 project called “Silense”, which stands for (Ultra)Sound Interfaces and Low Energy iNtegrated SEnsors. For a three-year period, this project will bring together 42 academic and industrial partners from eight countries throughout the continent. This consortium—which is particularly large, even for a H2020 project—will work from 2017 to 2020 to develop new human-machine interfaces based on ultrasound.
“What we want to do is replace tactile commands by commands the users can make from a distance, by moving their hands, arms or body,” explains Marius Preda, a researcher with Télécom SudParis, one of the project’s partners. To accomplish this, scientists will develop technology that is similar to sonar. An audio source will emit an inaudible sound that fills the air. When the sound wave hits an obstacle, it bounces back and returns to the source. Receivers placed at the same level as the transmitter record the wave travel times and determine the distance between the source and the obstacle. A 3D map of the environment can therefore be created. “It’s the same principle as an ultrasound,” the researcher explains.
In the case of the Silense project, the source will be made up of several transmitters, and there will be many more receivers than for a sonar. The goal is to improve the perception of the obstacles, thus improving the resolution of the 3D image that is produced. This should make it possible to detect smaller variations in shape, and therefore gestures that are more complex than those that are currently possible. “Today we can see if a hand is open or closed, but we cannot distinguish a finger that is up or two fingers that are up and squeezed together”, Marius Preda explains.
Télécom SudParis is leading the project’s software aspect. Its researchers’ mission is to develop image processing algorithms to recognize the gestures users make. By using neural networks to create deep learning, the scientists want to create a dictionary of distinctly different gestures. They will need to be recognizable by the ultrasound sensors regardless of the hand or arm’s position in relation to the sensor.
This is no easy task: the first step is to study differentiating gestures; the ones that cannot confuse the algorithms. The next steps involve reducing noise to improve the detection of shapes, sometimes in a way that is specific to the type of use—a sensor in the wall of a house will not have the same shortcomings as one in a car door. Finally, the researchers will also have to take the uniqueness of each user into account. Two different people will not make a specific sign the same way nor at the same speed.
“Our primary challenge is to develop software that can detect the beginning and end of a movement for any user,” explains Marius Preda, while emphasizing how difficult this task is, considering the fluid nature of human gestures: “We do not announce when are going to start or end a gesture. We must therefore succeed in perfectly segmenting the user’s actions into a chain of gestures.”
To meet this challenge, researchers at Télécom SudParis are working very closely with the partners in charge of the hardware aspect. Over the course of the project’s three-year period, the consortium hopes to develop new, smaller generations of sensors. This would make it possible to increase the number of transmitters and receivers on a given surface area, therefore improving the image resolution. This innovation, combined with new image processing algorithms, should significantly increase the catalogue of shapes recognized by ultrasound.
The Silense project is being followed very closely by car and connected object manufacturers. A human-machine interface that uses ultrasound features several advantages. In comparison to the current standard interface—touch—it improves vehicle safety by decreasing the attention required to push a button or tactile screen. In the case of smartphones or smart houses, this will mean greater convenience for consumers.
The ultrasound interface that is proposed here must also be compared with its main competitor: interaction through visual recognition—Kinect cameras, for example. According to Marius Preda, the use of ultrasound removes the lighting problems encountered with video in situations of overexposure (bright light in a car, for example) or underexposure (inside a house at night). In addition, the shape segmentation, for example for hands, is easier using 3D acoustic imaging. “If your hand is the same color as the wall behind you, it will be difficult for the camera to recognize your gesture,” the researcher explains.
Silense therefore has high hopes of creating a new way to interact with machines in our daily lives. By the end of the project, the consortium hopes to establish three demonstrators: one for a smart house, one integrated into a car, and one in a screen like that of a smartphone. If these first proof-of-concept studies prove conclusive, don’t be surprised to see drivers making big gestures in their cars someday!
The problem facing a physicist working on the way water flows after a dam failure, is that there are not many opportunities to compare theory with experience. Despite their occasional portrayal in works of fiction, researchers are rarely sociopaths. Therefore, very few scientists would be ready to blow up a dam in the mountains to experimentally confirm the results of their equations. They must therefore find alternative solutions. One such solution could very well be to simulate a dam break using an optical fiber and a laser. At least this is what is suggested in the results published one June 20 in the journal Physical Review Letters. Five optical physics researchers from the University of Lille and IMT Lille-Douai authored this scientific article: Gang Xu, Matteo Conforti, Alexandre Kudlinski, Arnaud Mussot and Stefano Trillo.
For the first time, this team from the Physics of lasers, atoms and molecules laboratory (PHLAM) observed a dam of photons—the elementary particles of light—breaking in an optical fiber. “A photon dam is a light pulse from a laser with two very different levels of intensity,” explains Arnaud Mussot, a researcher at IMT Lille-Douai and a PHLAM member. The light signal is made up of a group of photons with a high energy level (those sent with high intensity), and another group with a lower energy level. This situation is similar to a true dam, in which the altitude of the water replaces the energy of the photons.
By comparing the light signal’s shape at the input and output of an optical fiber measuring 15 kilometers long, the researchers observed an alteration in the signal. The two very distinct plateaus, with the high energy photons at the top and the low energy photons on the bottom, were disrupted during transit. The output signal showed a third plateau in the middle, revealing that some photons had lost energy. In addition, “the plateaus were now connected via very slow, oblique wave fronts, which are rarefaction waves and shock waves,” Arnaud Mussot explains. Just like waves that span out when the wall retaining the water breaks.
The reason the comparison between these two dam types is so significant, is that both events are similar from a mathematical point of view. Similar equations describe the photons’ behavior within the optical fiber and water that rushes out after a break in the infrastructure. “In order to make them identical, we had to configure our experiment a certain way,” the researcher explains. They specifically needed to prevent signal dropouts caused by propagation along the length of the cable, since no analogy of this phenomenon exists in the water dam scenario. “We set up an original system to compensate for these dropouts by using an in situ optical amplifier,” Arnaud Mussot adds.
(a) Photograph of the Teton River dam breaking in Idaho, USA, in 1976. Results from the input (b) and output (c) of an optical fiber. The red arrows show the analogy between the difference in the water altitude and the difference in the photons’ energy levels. The green areas show the characteristics of the wave’s chaotic behavior following the dam break.
There are limits, however, to the similarity between the two kinds of dams, and they are only clearly established in very specific situations in which the modeling equations are valid. Local topography—which is very specific—will probably require additional corrective terms to be included in the models. However, this analogy remains “a good method for observing experimental results of theoretical equations, and validating them through experiments,” explains Arnaud Mussot. These scientific results will therefore enable connections to be made between scientists working on both subjects. The communities will be able to provide each other with their respective results, to the benefit of both fields.
Mines Saint-Étienne | #EnergyTransition #RenewableEnergies #Environment
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So, you’ve created a piece of art or technical component… but you’re afraid it won’t survive shipping? The solution to your problem is 100% French—and it’s called Pack&Strat®. The process offers layers of packaging that adapts to the shape of any object. The source of this innovation: Stratoconception, the patented process from the Research and Development team at CIRTES, which is also associated with the INORI platform (Innovation sur les Outillages Rapides Intelligents – Innovation in Fast Smart Tools, see box below).
What is the purpose behind INORI? To industrialize and market machine/software pairs for processes in the areas of plastics, advanced machining and additive manufacturing like Pack&Strat®. “We are an industry of the future platform, featuring all the ingredients the name implies: digital software, robots and machines,” explains Claude Barlier, the founder and president of INORI.
The platform currently enables the daily manufacturing of 3D packaging for 70 big-name companies. This includes Airbus, Baccarat, Bugatti, SECO Tools and La Poste. These last three companies installed the processes marketed by INORI in their own facilities. Let’s take a trip back to 1991 to learn how the platform has managed to win this share in the additive manufacturing market.
It all started with research work carried out in the mid-1980s, and continued with the patent for the Stratoconception process, which was submitted by Claude Barlier in 1991. The process uses a layer-by-layer 3D printing procedure based on a digital file. The part that needs to be produced is automatically broken down into layers. These layers are calculated to ensure the part will withstand the future mechanical constraints it will be subject to. The layers are then “printed” by using a laser cutting system (or another cutting system) before being assembled.
Parts measuring several meters long can be produced this way. In addition, the diverse materials used by the platform (polymers, resins, wood, metal…) open the door to many different applications. “We have manufactured interior fittings for Airbus and others for Zodiac Aerospace, for boats. We create very elaborate technical parts and tools that enabled us to manufacture a full-size coach,” explains Claude Barlier. However, while the method for manufacturing the parts has been successful, there is still a problem when it comes to transporting the merchandise to the customer. “The parts were arriving damaged, which is when we had the idea of expanding our offering and creating 3D packaging adapted to each object,” the president of INORI recalls.
“We create a positive part. Our idea was to make its negative by creating its imprint using the digital file. That is the Pack&Strat® process,” Claude Barlier explains. It consists of software integrated into qualified cutting machines (cutter, milling…). The rest, you already know. The corresponding packaging is printed using the same process that produced the part. The result is a tailor-made cocoon. “We can package every possible and imaginable part by using its digital file or with a 3D scan of the object. The most successful solution uses cardboard. We cut layers out of this material and, in 5 minutes, we can package a part measuring 0.5 meters long,” Claude Barlier explains.
The platform features equipment that is adapted to printing packaging by unit and serial production. It is also committed to a sustainable development approach. It offers packaging made of cardboard, wood, cork, and other existing renewable sheet materials. “We made the decision not to follow the trend of consumables that consists in selling our captive materials in addition to our machines. Instead, we work with all the qualified industrial materials on the global market, which enables us to remain open,” Claude Barlier adds.
Example of packaging produced with the Pack&Strat process– Credits: CIRTES
If the customers are satisfied with the two processes mentioned above, they can then buy and integrate the software offer or the machine/software duo. Marketing these processes is also a central concern for INORI as the platform moves forward. The platform recently raised €1.5 million from its shareholders. This will enable it to boost the national and international business activities and target the industrial parts and packaging sector.
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Credits: CIRTES
The INORI platform is part of the VirtuReal (“from Virtual to Reality”) center in Saint-Dié-des-Vosges. CIRTES and InSIC (created by Mines Nancy, Mines Albi and CIRTES) are also part of this center. INORI was created in response to a national invitation to tender aimed at establishing innovation platforms. “The platform’s objective is to be complementary to INSIC and CIRTES and InSIC in terms of costs, means, and human, scientific and technical skill,” explains Arnaud Delamézière, the director of InSIC. The center’s entire platform covers an area of 8,000m². It houses industrial-sized equipment and pilot machines that make it possible to carry out pre-marketing trials for processes. Its current shareholders are La Caisse des Dépôts, La Caisse d’Epargne Lorraine Champagne Ardenne, CIRTES, InSIC. Fourteen SME manufacturers and key accounts are also shareholders. Visit of the platform here.[/box]