Privatization Experiences in France

France lived through a long period of nationalization until the early 1980s, when nearly all the largest industrials firms as well as all the banks and public services were state-owned. Since then, a series of privatization moves have caused the state sector to shrink. Public services present a complex situation. For example, after its IPO, the national telecommunications operator France Telecom was simultaneously subjected to the deregulation of the telecom market in the world and to a new type of governance. EDF, the national electricity producer is next in line and should experience the same problems and opportunities.privatisation, competition, regulation, utilities

Privatisation Experiences in France

Privatisierung, Wettbewerb, Regulierung, Nutzen, Frankreich, Privatization, Competition, Regulation, Utility, France

Application of a Combined Active Control and Fault Detection Scheme to an Active Composite Flexible Structure.

In this paper, the problem of increasing reliability of active control procedure is considered. Indeed, a design method of rejection perturbation in presence of potentially faults, on a flexible structure with integrated piezo-ceramics, is presented. The piezo-ceramics are used as actuators and sensors. A single unit based solution, which handles both control action and fault diagnosis is proposed. The algorithm uses H∞ optimization techniques. A full order model of the structure is first obtained via both finite-element (FE) approach and identification procedure. This model is then reduced in order to be used in our robust approach. By a suitable choice of weightings functions, the provided method is able to reject disturbance robustly and to estimate occurred faults. The case of sensors and actuators faults is discussed. The choice of weightings for diagnosis and control systems is also tackled. Finally, the effectiveness of this integrated method is confirmed by both simulation and experimental results

3D statistical facial reconstruction

The aim of craniofacial reconstruction is to produce a likeness of a face from the skull. Few works in computerized assisted facial reconstruction have been done in the past, due to poor machine performances and data availability, and major works are manually reconstructions. In this paper, we present an approach to build 3D statistical models of the skull and the face with soft tissues from the skull of one individual. Results on real data are presented and seem promising

Evolucion geomorfologica y gitologica de las cuencas y piedemontes auriferos de la Cordillera Oriental (Sur del Peru, Norte de Bolivia)

En la Cordillera Oriental del sur del Peru (y norte de Bolivia) placeres auriferos son conocidos en las cuencas intramontanas del piedemonte meridional de la sierra (Ananea-Ancocala, Ulla-Ulla), en los valles y remanentes interfluviales de la vertiente amazonica, en las cuencas intramontanas situadas al limite de la faja subandina (Quincemil) y sobre el piedemonte amazonico mismo (Mazuko, Madre de Dios). En las cuencas altiplanicas el oro esta contenido en sedimentos glaciales y fluvioglaciales recientes derivados de la erosion de zonas mineralizadas (amas sulfo-arseniado con mantos de cuarzo) estrechamente localizados en la Formacion Ananea (Siluro-Devoniano). Los sedimentos anteriores (Plioceno) son esteriles. El relleno conglomeradico plioceno de las cuencas de la vertiente amazonica contiene, en ciertos casos (Cangalli), oro con leyes altas en las facies de paleocanon y paleovalles proximos y en muchos casos oro diseminado en el conjunto de la formacion, pero todos estos sedimentos juegan el papel de colector intermediario y alimentan placeres localizados en terrazas y playas formadas por removilizaciones sucesivas al curso de la diseccion cuaternaria. Fenomenos parecidos explican la distribucion del oro en el piedemonte mismo. El analisis conjunto de la morfoscopia y composicion de las chispas de oro y del sequito de minerales acompanantes permite localizar varias fuentes primarias de oro. (Résumé d'auteur)

Statistical skull models from 3D X-ray images

We present 2 statistical models of the skull and mandible built upon an elastic registration method of 3D meshes. The aim of this work is to relate degrees of freedom of skull anatomy, as static relations are of main interest for anthropology and legal medicine. Statistical models can effectively provide reconstructions together with statistical precision. In our applications, patient-specific meshes of the skull and the mandible are high-density meshes, extracted from 3D CT scans. All our patient-specific meshes are registrated in a subject-shared reference system using our 3D-to-3D elastic matching algorithm. Registration is based upon the minimization of a distance between the high density mesh and a shared low density mesh, defined on the vertexes, in a multi resolution approach. A Principal Component analysis is performed on the normalised registrated data to build a statistical linear model of the skull and mandible shape variation. The accuracy of the reconstruction is under the millimetre in the shape space (after rigid registration). Reconstruction errors for Scan data of tests individuals are below registration noise. To take in count the articulated aspect of the skull in our model, Kernel Principal Component Analysis is applied, extracting a non-linear parameter associated with mandible position, therefore building a statistical articulated 3D model of the skull.Comment: Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Reconstruction of Soft Facial Parts RSFP'200

Non-exponential spontaneous emission dynamics for emitters in a time-dependent optical cavity

We have theoretically studied the effect of deterministic temporal control of spontaneous emission in a dynamic optical microcavity. We propose a new paradigm in light emission: we envision an ensemble of two-level emitters in an environment where the local density of optical states is modified on a time scale shorter than the decay time. A rate equation model is developed for the excited state population of two-level emitters in a time-dependent environment in the weak coupling regime in quantum electrodynamics. As a realistic experimental system, we consider emitters in a semiconductor microcavity that is switched by free-carrier excitation. We demonstrate that a short temporal increase of the radiative decay rate depletes the excited state and drastically increases the emission intensity during the switch time. The resulting time-dependent spontaneous emission shows a distribution of photon arrival times that strongly deviates from the usual exponential decay: A deterministic burst of photons is spontaneously emitted during the switch event.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure