New Technologies, Workplace Organisation and the Age Structure of the Workforce: Further Evidence Using the REPONSE Survey

This paper investigates the relationships between new technologies, innovative workplace practices, exports and the age structure of the workforce in a sample of French establishments. We confirm and expand results previously found by Aubert, Caroli and Roger (2004). The share of older workers is lower in innovative firms and the opposite holds for younger workers, both in services and manufacturing industries. This age bias is also evidenced within occupational groups (both high-skill and low-skill). Older workers are affected through both lower inflows and higher outflows. However, we also find evidence that some innovative workplace practices, e.g. delayering or decentralisation of decisions, are associated with a higher share of older workers.new work practices, technology, older workers, labour demand

Validation of Memory Accesses Through Symbolic Analyses

International audienceThe C programming language does not prevent out-of- bounds memory accesses. There exist several techniques to secure C programs; however, these methods tend to slow down these programs substantially, because they populate the binary code with runtime checks. To deal with this prob- lem, we have designed and tested two static analyses - sym- bolic region and range analysis - which we combine to re- move the majority of these guards. In addition to the analy- ses themselves, we bring two other contributions. First, we describe live range splitting strategies that improve the effi- ciency and the precision of our analyses. Secondly, we show how to deal with integer overflows, a phenomenon that can compromise the correctness of static algorithms that validate memory accesses. We validate our claims by incorporating our findings into AddressSanitizer. We generate SPEC CINT 2006 code that is 17% faster and 9% more energy efficient than the code produced originally by this tool. Furthermore, our approach is 50% more effective than Pentagons, a state- of-the-art analysis to sanitize memory accesses

Do breast implants after a mastectomy affect subsequent prognosis and survival?

In a large study, published in this issue of Breast Cancer Research, Le and colleagues report that women receiving implants after mastectomies for early-stage breast cancer experience lower breast cancer mortality than women not receiving implants. Assessment of survival patterns among women receiving reconstructive implants is complex given unique patient characteristics, disease attributes, and treatment patterns. The interpretation of reduced mortality from breast cancer must be assessed in light of significantly reduced risks of death from most other causes. In contrast, patients receiving post-mastectomy implants had elevated rates of suicide, consistent with findings among women with cosmetic implants. Additional well-designed investigations are needed to clarify survival patterns among women receiving reconstructive implants

Improving Adherence to Exercise: Do People With Knee Osteoarthritis and Physical Therapists Agree on the Behavioral Approaches Likely to Succeed?

Objective: To describe which behavior change techniques (BCTs) to promote adherence to exercise have been experienced by people with knee osteoarthritis (OA) or used by physical therapists, and to describe patient‐ and physical therapist–perceived effectiveness of a range of BCTs derived from behavioral theory. Methods: Two versions of a custom‐designed survey were administered in Australia and New Zealand, one completed by adults with symptomatic knee OA and the second by physical therapists who had treated people with knee OA in the past 6 months. Survey questions ascertained the frequency of receiving/prescribing exercise for knee OA, BCTs received/used targeting adherence to exercise, and perceived effectiveness of 36 BCTs to improve adherence to prescribed exercise. Results: A total of 230 people with knee OA and 143 physical therapists completed the survey. Education about the benefits of exercise was the most commonly received/used technique by both groups. People with knee OA rated the perceived effectiveness of all BCTs significantly lower than the physical therapists (mean difference 1.9 [95% confidence interval 1.8–2.0]). When ranked by group mean agreement score, 2 BCTs were among the top 5 for both groups: development of specific goals related to knee pain and function; and review, supervision, and correction of exercise technique at subsequent treatment sessions. Conclusion: Goal‐setting techniques related to outcomes were considered to be effective by both respondent groups, and testing of interventions incorporating these strategies should be a research priority