Aspects of Facial Contrast Decrease with Age and Are Cues for Age Perception

Age is a primary social dimension. We behave differently toward people as a function of how old we perceive them to be. Age perception relies on cues that are correlated with age, such as wrinkles. Here we report that aspects of facial contrast–the contrast between facial features and the surrounding skin–decreased with age in a large sample of adult Caucasian females. These same aspects of facial contrast were also significantly correlated with the perceived age of the faces. Individual faces were perceived as younger when these aspects of facial contrast were artificially increased, but older when these aspects of facial contrast were artificially decreased. These findings show that facial contrast plays a role in age perception, and that faces with greater facial contrast look younger. Because facial contrast is increased by typical cosmetics use, we infer that cosmetics function in part by making the face appear younger

The Substitution of Worksharing and Short-Time Compensation in France: A Difference-in-differences Approach

The short-time compensation (STC) program aims at avoiding redundancies in case of strong short-term downturns. In the literature, STC is an instrument of both job security and flexibility. This paper investigates the impact of worksharing on STC in France. The form of worksharing examined in this study is the reduction of the standard or contractual hours worked per week to 35 hours in France. We quantify the average decrease in the STC recourse with difference-in-differences estimators assessed on a balanced panel of French establishments. We highlight a substitution effect between STC and worksharing due to their internal flexibility role. As a consequence, STC seems to be less used as a flexibility device and the worksharing policy would refocus STC on its employment protection role.

Short-Time Compensation and Establishment Exit: An Empirical Analysis with French Data

According to the French law, the short-time compensation (STC) program aims at avoiding redundancies during short-term downturns. Even if it does not shield establishments from redundancies (Calavrezo, Duhautois and Walkowiak, 2009a), STC can preserve an establishment's survival. This paper studies the relationship between STC and establishment exit over the period 2000-2005. We merge six data sets and we test the relationship between STC and establishment exit with propensity score matching techniques. Our results show that, on average, the year after establishments implement STC, they exit the market more intensely than establishments that do not use the program.short-time compensation, establishment exit, selection bias, propensity score matching

Cartographier la demande d'asile en France : tendances nationales, représentations départementales et réalités locales

Titre du fascicule : L'asile politique en Europe depuis l'entre-deux-guerresThis article puts forth a cartographic representation of requests for asylum in France based on analysis of data collected by the OFPRA (Office Français de Protection des Réfugiés et Apatrides : French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless People). The cartographic translation of spatial data relating to requests for asylum offers an initial geography of the requests for asylum in France, between zones of high density and lower density. It provides a presentation of national trends, examines how these are expressed throughout the departments and inquires about local realities. The first part of the article looks into the distribution of asylum requests among departments in 2003, then uses a dynamic approach to compare the medium (1993-2003) and short-terms (2002-2003) to point out year-to-year fluctuations. The second part contrasts requests for asylum with housing capacity, showing the disjunction between the two. Lastly, the article highlights the significance and the limits of cartographic representation of this phenomenon.Cet article propose un travail de représentation cartographique de la demande d'asile en France à partir du traitement des données de l'OFPRA. La traduction cartographique des données spatialisées relatives à la demande d'asile offre une première géographie de la demande d'asile en France, entre zones de forte densité et zones potentiellement moins chargées. Elle propose une première présentation des tendances nationales, revient sur leurs expressions départementales et interroge les réalités locales. La première partie s'intéresse à la distribution départementale des demandes d'asile en 2003, puis dans une approche dynamique en comparant temps moyen (1993-2003) et temps court (2002-2003), relevant ainsi les aléas des fluctuations inter-annuelles. La seconde partie de lﾒarticle croise la demande d'asile avec les capacités d'hébergement, elle montre ainsi la disjonction des deux données. Enfin, l'article met en relief la portée et les limites de la représentation cartographique du phénomène Version disponible sur Internet : [ http://remi.revues.org/document976.html

Virtual Interactive Tablet to Support Vocational Training in Immersive Environment

International audienceThis paper presents a tool designed to assist a virtual reality learner in a vocational training context. The benefits of VR are spreading outside the video-games and research field, leading the vocational education institutions to consider using this technology for training purposes. By simulating emblematic professional situations, teachers can train students in good conditions regarding safety, logistics and financial resources. In the French vocational training system, VR is just at its beginnings and the lack of experiments with this training context highlighted the need for new tools allowing teachers to use VR with their students. The work presented in this paper is part of a global project aiming to create, design and assess new VR tools and methodologies for this specific context. In order to guide, inform and assist the user, we are presenting a generic tool that can ease VR sessions by proposing embedded tools within easy reach of the immersed user, such as a camera, an inventory, a printer or stock management. This tool is a virtual tablet that can be grabbed by the immersed user allowing her/him to interact efficiently with the virtual environment

Simulation Tools for the Design of Virtual Training Environments

International audienceVirtual Reality (VR) for Education is spreading around and more and more training centers want to provide digital training, especially using VR technologies. The VR market is in full growth and many companies, startups and research teams are working on developing VR for Education on a large scale. Many domains are concerned by this learning digitalization, like science (Oliveira et al., 2019), military (Taupiac, 2018) and so on. The benefits of VR for education are numerous (Mano, 2019) and deeply investigated since the beginning of VR. There are many approaches in the process of training with VR, particularly since the commercialization of new VR headsets like HTC Vive™ and Oculus Rift™. Those headsets allow room scale tracking and are shipped with 3D space tracked controllers, granting a better user experience and a higher diversity in virtual training situations. New headsets are also affordable and so not only reserved for industrials, research or military, leading to new use of VR. In the VR industry, we have noticed some approaches used for the design of scenario. One classic approach is "serious game" that mainly consists in cloning classical educational games to VR, like point and clicks, 360° videos (Rupp et al., 2016) or dialog tree situations. The main interest of this category relies on existing projects and previous experiences with "standard serious games". The drawback is about the freshness of VR: it may not be suitable for those existing projects that were working nicely on a 2D screen. This kind of transposition could lead to atrocious user experiences and the underuse of the potential of VR. For educational purposes, other developers have followed another path: replicate reality. The main purpose is to provide situations that mimic real life situations. With this, training users with a high degree of realism eases skills transfer from VR to real situations. Realism can be achieved i

Investigating the Knowledge in Knowledge Management: A Social Representations Perspective

In this panel, we will draw on Serge Moscovici’s theory of social representations to address these knowledge management challenges. Moscovici introduced and popularized the concept of social representations in the field of social psychology. His early definition of social representation is that of “the elaborating of a social object by the community for the purpose of behaving and communicating” (1963, p. 251). Social representations correspond to a socially shared set of common knowledge and ideas that agents elaborate and communicate to make sense of and act in their environment (Jodelet 1989b; Moscovici 1973, 1984; Vaast and Walsham 2005). Moscovici’s goal was to rehabilitate the ways that social psychologists understood common thinking and common knowledge. Common knowledge was usually considered to be inferior to scientific knowledge; however, Moscovici considered it to be an active and complex social reflexive process. To this end, he studied social representations as important phenomena (i.e., their structure and dynamics, and their role in language, communication, and understanding)

Etude d'une classification d'echos sonar fondee sur un traitement sequentiel

Cet article présente une étude sur une méthode de classification d'échos sonar ATBF. La difficulté du problème traité s'intensifie plus particulièrement lorsque les signaux sont pollués par une réverbération de surface importante qui produit des échos parasites. De nombreuses études sont consacrées au traitement d'une unique image de détection temps-gisement. Ici l'originalité de la méthode réside dans l'aspect séquentiel du traitement mais également dans l'introduction de paramètres dynamiques discriminants. Les performances du classifieur sont évaluées sur des signaux sonar réels détectés par grand fond. Les résultats sont encourageants et montrent que l'information qu'offre le traitement séquentiel en association avec les paramètres statiques et dynamiques n'est pas négligeable et on peut espérer apporter une aide à l'opérateur grâce à un tel classifieur