The European community’s response to the central European challenge the Genesis of a European common foreign policy

This MA thesis deals with the European Community's response to the Central European challenge. The lack of explanatory and normative theories to explain the European integration process as a whole demonstrates that it has been driven by Member States' interests and could be heavily influenced by external aspects. Despite the different political models of organisation (i.e. federation, confederation or international organisation) at the disposition of several states to organise themselves to tackle international problems, West European member states did not completely subscribe to any of these and that makes the European Union the political invention of this century. The politico-administrative model of the European Union is the result of a original and unprecedented bargaining to preserve national interests and supranational efficiency both at the same time. This process is both the source of its originality and the reason of its relative inefficiency when compared to the United States of Germany. However the European Union survives and proves the relevance in the international scene when confronted to external effects. Our argument is that Central Europe could be considered as one of the external factors that might push the European Union to strengthen its decision making process and to render its action more efficient and responsive to Central European needs. This thesis deliberately limits itself to the economic and political sides of European external policy and shows the evolution of the methods, structures and concepts that the European Union used to build up a Common Commercial Policy and to set up the Common Foreign and Security Policy

The BLLAST field experiment: Boundary-Layer late afternoon and sunset turbulence

Due to the major role of the sun in heating the earth's surface, the atmospheric planetary boundary layer over land is inherently marked by a diurnal cycle. The afternoon transition, the period of the day that connects the daytime dry convective boundary layer to the night-time stable boundary layer, still has a number of unanswered scientific questions. This phase of the diurnal cycle is challenging from both modelling and observational perspectives: it is transitory, most of the forcings are small or null and the turbulence regime changes from fully convective, close to homogeneous and isotropic, toward a more heterogeneous and intermittent state. These issues motivated the BLLAST (Boundary-Layer Late Afternoon and Sunset Turbulence) field campaign that was conducted from 14 June to 8 July 2011 in southern France, in an area of complex and heterogeneous terrain. A wide range of instrumented platforms including full-size aircraft, remotely piloted aircraft systems, remote-sensing instruments, radiosoundings, tethered balloons, surface flux stations and various meteorological towers were deployed over different surface types. The boundary layer, from the earth's surface to the free troposphere, was probed during the entire day, with a focus and intense observation periods that were conducted from midday until sunset. The BLLAST field campaign also provided an opportunity to test innovative measurement systems, such as new miniaturized sensors, and a new technique for frequent radiosoundings of the low troposphere. Twelve fair weather days displaying various meteorological conditions were extensively documented during the field experiment. The boundary-layer growth varied from one day to another depending on many contributions including stability, advection, subsidence, the state of the previous day's residual layer, as well as local, meso- or synoptic scale conditions. Ground-based measurements combined with tethered-balloon and airborne observations captured the turbulence decay from the surface throughout the whole boundary layer and documented the evolution of the turbulence characteristic length scales during the transition period. Closely integrated with the field experiment, numerical studies are now underway with a complete hierarchy of models to support the data interpretation and improve the model representations.publishedVersio

Corps au travail, corps travaillés

Le dossier de ce numéro 14 de la Nouvelle Revue du Travail sur « Corps au travail, corps travaillés » interroge la perte d’intérêt des sciences humaines pour le corps au travail : le déplacement du travail ouvrier – lui-même moins pénible physiquement – vers le travail des bureaux et des services a fait glisser les centres d’intérêts de nos disciplines, y compris parce que la fatigue mentale a occupé, au moins en France, le premier plan de nombre de recherches. Enprenant appui sur des terrains contrastés, ce Corpus propose de questionner à nouveaux frais, l’enrôlement et l’engagement du corps au travail. En faisant dialoguer les sociologies du corps et du travail, c’est toute la palette des multiples expressions du corps travaillé qui se déploie : le corps énergie à laquelle renvoie la métaphore du « moteur humain » saisi comme un lieu de projection du pouvoir, le corps sensible vu comme puissance d’agir et rapport pratique au monde, le corps socialisé enchâssé dans les différents rapports sociaux se jouant dans le body work, ou encore, le corps « marchandise » pensé à travers les modes d’appropriation capitaliste dont il peut faire l’objet. Les six articles de ce Corpus rouvrent la boîte noire du corps au travail. Qu’il s’agisse des corps mobilisés par les scaphandriers travaux publics ou par les coursiers à vélo chez Deliveroo qui expérimentent de nouvelles techniques spatio-temporelles. Les corps des éducateurs spécialisés sont engagés à travailler (sur) les corps de « jeunes de quartier » ou d’enfants « intellectuellement déficients » et donnent à voir la variété des régimes de corporéité impliqués dans le travail social. Enfin, les corps des ouvriers de l’industrie et du BTP atteints de cancers ou ceux transformés en échantillons organiques par les biobanques révèlent comment le travail peut franchir les barrières de la peau. Dans la rubrique Varia, la rationalisation de la tournée des facteurs de La Poste a les effets attendus d’une automatisation d’un processus qui ne tient pas compte de la réalité du terrain et surcharge les journées : le remplacement d’un modèle fondé sur la confiance et la négociation chez les fonctionnaires d’hier par une prescription tendue contribue à une détérioration des conditions de travail de salariés aujourd’hui titulaires de contrats de droit privé. Le deuxième article analyse un paradoxe : aux États-Unis et ici à Oakland, ce sont plutôt les ouvriers travaillant dans le bâtiment qui choisissent leur patron ou leur employeur momentané, en raison d’une ethnicisation pratique de ceux-ci, c’est-à-dire par un classement plus ou moins explicite selon leurs qualités de patrons. Le troisième article montre comment des chômeurs sont radiés en Belgique parce que les voies de recherche d’emploi qu’ils utilisent ne correspondent pas aux normes administratives : en l’absence de preuves tangibles, ces pratiques ne sont pas reconnues comme légitimes et disqualifient certains chômeurs aux yeux de l’institution qui les exclut. La Controverse relance le débat sur le travail et l’émancipation. De Marx à aujourd’hui la dispute se situe autant dans le travail qu’au dehors du travail. Quatre spécialistes se penchent sur les perspectives d’une « émancipation laborale », c’est-à-dire sur les possibles ouverts ou à ouvrir dans le travail, à partir des questions extrêmement pointues de la NRT. Au-delà de la simple remise ne cause de l’organisation capitaliste du travail, les auteurs tracent des voies pertinentes et contemporaines d’une émancipation dans et par le travail. La rubrique Matériaux propose et débat autour d’un entretien, très distancié, réalisé avec Marie L. téléconseillère pour une grande mutuelle française. Entre non-reconnaissance, perte de sens, sentiment de déclassement et peur de trouver pire ailleurs, Marie aborde, dans une approche réflexive, nombre de thématiques du quotidien professionnel : rationalisation des opérations, santé au travail, tensions entre temporalités, relations de travail, système d’emploi, etc. Champs et contrechamps interroge deux sociologues à propos du film Nos batailles (2018) : au-delà de la qualité de la description du travail dans un atelier de logistique, le débat porte plutôt sur le rapport travail/hors-travail et plus particulièrement sur le non-partage des tâches domestiques... jusqu’au départ du foyer de l’épouse qui laisse les deux enfants à la charge du père. L’article souligne la cohérence des choix de cadrage et de mouvements de la caméra avec les contenus des séquences et avec les émotions que le réalisateur souhaite faire partager. Ce numéro de la NRT se clôt par une petite dizaine de recensions et de notes de lecture critiques

Risk Factors and Time to Clinical Symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis Among Patients With Radiologically Isolated Syndrome

International audienceIMPORTANCE: Younger age, oligoclonal bands, and infratentorial and spinal cord lesions are factors associated with an increased 10-year risk of clinical conversion from radiologically isolated syndrome (RIS) to multiple sclerosis (MS). Whether disease-modifying therapy is beneficial for individuals with RIS is currently unknown. OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the 2-year risk of a clinical event (onset of clinical symptoms of MS) prospectively, identify factors associated with developing an early clinical event, and simulate the sample size needed for a phase III clinical trial of individuals with RIS meeting 2009 RIS criteria. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This cohort study used data on prospectively followed-up individuals with RIS identified at 1 of 26 tertiary centers for MS care in France that collect data for the Observatoire Français de la Sclérose en Plaques database. Participants were aged 10 to 80 years with 2 or more magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans after study entry and an index scan after 2000. All diagnoses were validated by an expert group, whose review included a double centralized MRI reading. Data were analyzed from July 2020 to January 2021. EXPOSURE: Diagnosis of RIS. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Risk of clinical event and associated covariates at index scan were analyzed among all individuals with RIS. Time to the first clinical event was compared by covariates, and sample size estimates were modeled based on identified risk factors. RESULTS: Among 372 individuals with RIS (mean [SD] age at index MRI scan, 38.6 [12.1] years), 354 individuals were included in the analysis (264 [74.6%] women). A clinical event was identified among 49 patients (13.8%) within 2 years, which was associated with an estimated risk of conversion of 19.2% (95% CI, 14.1%-24.0%). In multivariate analysis, age younger than 37 years (hazard ratio [HR], 4.04 [95% CI, 2.00-8.15]; P < .001), spinal cord lesions (HR, 5.11 [95% CI, 1.99-13.13]; P = .001), and gadolinium-enhancing lesions on index scan (HR, 2.09 [95% CI, 1.13-3.87]; P = .02) were independently associated with an increased risk of conversion to MS. Having 2 factors at the time of the index MRI scan was associated with a risk of 27.9% (95% CI, 13.5%-39.9%) of a seminal event within 2 years, increasing to 90.9% (95% CI, 41.1%-98.6%) for individuals with all 3 factors (3 risk factors vs none: HR, 23.34 [95% CI, 9.08-59.96]; P < .001). Overall, with 80% power to detect an effect size of 60% within 24 months, a total of 160 individuals with RIS were needed assuming an event rate of 20%. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: This study found that age younger than age 37 years, spinal cord involvement, and gadolinium-enhancing lesions on index MRI scan were associated with earlier clinical disease and relevant to the number of enrolled patients needed to detect a potential treatment effect

Financiarisation et travail

Le “Corpus” de ce numéro de La Nouvelle Revue du Travail est consacré aux interdépendances entre la financiarisation de l’économie et les transformations contemporaines du travail. L’entrée privilégiée ici est la gestion, ses acteurs et ses dispositifs, instances intermédiaires grâce auxquelles le macro-économique conforme le microsocial, à travers les métamorphoses imprimées au travail. C’est en particulier autour de l’étude critique des actes désormais omniprésents de mesures physiques et de valorisations comptables des activités de travail conduits par les managers (ou les gestionnaires) que s’est construit ce numéro. Dit autrement, les articles ici rassemblés cherchent à éclairer les différentes manières dont les impératifs de rentabilité financière sont réinterprétés en termes de décisions de rationalisation du travail et marquent les organisations contemporaines – qu’elles soient publiques ou privées – du même réductionnisme calculatoire, sans oublier les réactions ou les résistances des personnels concernés. Procéder à un tel choix, c’est renouer avec une ambition initiale de la sociologie, quand Durkheim et les membres de L’Année sociologique discutaient les impensés anthropologiques de l’économie politique, ou quand Weber, Sombart ou Marx nous invitaient à nous intéresser à la comptabilité pour comprendre comment le capitalisme entraînait le travail dans les voies qui étaient les siennes

The BLLAST field experiment: Boundary-Layer late afternoon and sunset turbulence

Due to the major role of the sun in heating the earth's surface, the atmospheric planetary boundary layer over land is inherently marked by a diurnal cycle. The afternoon transition, the period of the day that connects the daytime dry convective boundary layer to the night-time stable boundary layer, still has a number of unanswered scientific questions. This phase of the diurnal cycle is challenging from both modelling and observational perspectives: it is transitory, most of the forcings are small or null and the turbulence regime changes from fully convective, close to homogeneous and isotropic, toward a more heterogeneous and intermittent state. These issues motivated the BLLAST (Boundary-Layer Late Afternoon and Sunset Turbulence) field campaign that was conducted from 14 June to 8 July 2011 in southern France, in an area of complex and heterogeneous terrain. A wide range of instrumented platforms including full-size aircraft, remotely piloted aircraft systems, remote-sensing instruments, radiosoundings, tethered balloons, surface flux stations and various meteorological towers were deployed over different surface types. The boundary layer, from the earth's surface to the free troposphere, was probed during the entire day, with a focus and intense observation periods that were conducted from midday until sunset. The BLLAST field campaign also provided an opportunity to test innovative measurement systems, such as new miniaturized sensors, and a new technique for frequent radiosoundings of the low troposphere. Twelve fair weather days displaying various meteorological conditions were extensively documented during the field experiment. The boundary-layer growth varied from one day to another depending on many contributions including stability, advection, subsidence, the state of the previous day's residual layer, as well as local, meso- or synoptic scale conditions. Ground-based measurements combined with tethered-balloon and airborne observations captured the turbulence decay from the surface throughout the whole boundary layer and documented the evolution of the turbulence characteristic length scales during the transition period. Closely integrated with the field experiment, numerical studies are now underway with a complete hierarchy of models to support the data interpretation and improve the model representations

PeakForest: a multi-platform digital infrastructure for interoperable metabolite spectral data and metadata management

International audienceIntroduction Accuracy of feature annotation and metabolite identification in biological samples is a key element in metabolomics research. However, the annotation process is often hampered by the lack of spectral reference data in experimental conditions, as well as logistical difficulties in the spectral data management and exchange of annotations between laboratories. Objectives To design an open-source infrastructure allowing hosting both nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and mass spectra (MS), with an ergonomic Web interface and Web services to support metabolite annotation and laboratory data management. Methods We developed the PeakForest infrastructure, an open-source Java tool with automatic programming interfaces that can be deployed locally to organize spectral data for metabolome annotation in laboratories. Standardized operating procedures and formats were included to ensure data quality and interoperability, in line with international recommendations and FAIR principles. Results PeakForest is able to capture and store experimental spectral MS and NMR metadata as well as collect and display signal annotations. This modular system provides a structured database with inbuilt tools to curate information, browse and reuse spectral information in data treatment. PeakForest offers data formalization and centralization at the laboratory level, facilitating shared spectral data across laboratories and integration into public databases. Conclusion PeakForest is a comprehensive resource which addresses a technical bottleneck, namely large-scale spectral data annotation and metabolite identification for metabolomics laboratories with multiple instruments. PeakForest databases can be used in conjunction with bespoke data analysis pipelines in the Galaxy environment, offering the opportunity to meet the evolving needs of metabolomics research. Developed and tested by the French metabolomics community, PeakForest is freely-available at https://github.com/peakforest