As the end of a projet is getting closer, it is often time to show synthesis of the work achieved. For every project I’m dealing with, I keep up-to-date a (simple) Excel file of the samples I collected and analysed, but I thought about a nifty graph that could get the job done in a nicer way 🙂
Continue reading →One year ago, I told a friend—who happens to be an expert in computer science—I have a dream project. I would like to create my own software. After defining my needs and strategy, he advised me to look for Qt. Qt is a language (C++-based) and environment for software and user interface development.
Recently, after a couple of frustrating experiences with the current solutions, I took the time and started to learn with language, thanks to video tutorials from ProgrammingKnowledge. So far I’ve learnt how to display text on the user interface, how to add push buttons, check and radio boxes, how to interact with user using dialogs, how to create menu options, and how to arrange all that in specific layouts and multiple views. The basic for building a user interface. Now, I need to learn the data handling that a software has to do at some point.
I’ll let you know about the progress 🙂 The big question is, what is this secret software I want to build…
Since a few decades, palynologists not only consider pollen grains and bryophytes and pteridophytes spores in palynological samples, but also any other kind of micro-fossil preserved. Such rests – called non-pollen palynomorphs – come from various origin. Most of them are fungal remains or algae, but there are also plant and animal remains, dinoflagellates, etc.
Continue reading →WordPress had powered this website from the beginning. There are so many things a blogger can do with WordPress. This is certainly the most popular platform for blogging. However it was probably too much in comparison to what I really needed. Very recently www.benscoat.eu has moved to a new structure, much lighter, with just enough customisation options. This is what you’re seeing at the moment.
Continue reading →From August, 12th to August, 17th 2018 will take place the place the next EPPC (European Palaeobotany and Palynology Conference) in Dublin, Ireland. I’ll be co-organising two sessions on palaeo-ecology.
Continue reading →As many of you already know, I’m a big fan of PolyCounter from Takeshi Nakagawa (find it here if you haven’t yet: http://polsystems.rits-palaeo.com/). PolyCounter introduced a modern way to acquiring data of Quaternary-palaeo-ecological samples, replacing the old-fashioned pen and paper by your computer. With PolyCounter, your counting data are instantly accumulated and stored in a numeric file, which is just what you need before you can actually visualise your data, and eventually apply fancy statistics on them.
https://giphy.com/embed/DHqth0hVQoIzS
Some potential users, however, have a (legitimate) fear of loosing data. Well, I would first argue that backing up data is one’s self duty, and actually a most-recommened practise for any kind of numerical data. But, regarding these counting data, I would mostly tell about particular features of PolyCounter.
Continue reading →Recently, I gave a talk about the ecological significance about some fungal spores found in peat bogs of the Central Alps, in Switzerland. I suggested these spores of coprophilous and pyrophilous fungal taxa can be used for assessing past land-use. However, things are not so simple, as we discussed during the following question time 🙂
I’ll be giving a talk next Tuesday (June 13th) in Liverpool, at the 7th NPP Workshop. I’ll talk about the value of pyrophilous and coprophilous fungi to investigate past human activities, taking the example of data published in The Holocene (http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0959683616658523).
