La croissance économique de la Chine et son impact sur le marché du cuivre

L’émergence de la Chine et son impact sur le marché du cuivre. L’idée du thème m’est venue lors de mon option majeure en Commodity trading à la Haute école de gestion. Avant de suivre de cours, je n’avais que peu de notion du monde du négoce international de matières premières. J’étais en effet loin d’imaginer le nombre de domaines que cela pouvait impacter. Le domaine du négoce international comporte de multiples enjeux, touchant un nombre de domaines impressionnant. C’est pourquoi, j’ai décidé de me concentrer sur un pays et une matière première possédant tous deux une places importantes dans le commerce international. Je me suis donc concentré sur l’expansion économique de la Chine et sur le marché du cuivre lui aussi, possédant de multiples propriétés indispensables pour le développement d’un pays. Dans une optique de clarté, j’ai décidé de diviser mon travail en quatre parties. La première introduit l’économie de la Chine depuis le début du 8ème siècle en relevant les faits les plus importants qui ont menés le pays vers une croissance soutenue. La deuxième partie, décrit le marché du cuivre, allant de son extraction dans les minerais jusqu’à sa commercialisation sur le marché international. Dans cette partie j’analyse les différents domaines dans lesquels le cuivre, est nécessaire et le met en lien divers points touchant au développement industriel. Dans la troisième partie, j’analyse les différentes politiques économiques misent en place par le pays ainsi que la corrélation qui subsiste entre une expansion économique et la hausse du prix du cuivre. La quatrième et dernière partie, qui est la plus conséquente du travail, je décris l'influence que possède la Chine sur le prix du cuivre. Je me concentre également sur les effets des diverses politiques économiques misent en place afin de maintenir le prix du cuivre à leur avantage. Je m’attache à décrire dans cette partie, les effets de cette croissance au sein du pays ainsi que les divers risques et inégalités pouvant mener le pays à une forte descente ce qui engendreraient de fâcheuses conséquences sur le marché du cuivre. A travers ce travail, j’espère donner un aperçu au lecteur, de la Chine et de l’impact qu’elle possède sur les prix dans le marché du cuivre, et les enjeux pour l’économie chinoise

In the jungle of coaching, how to get through successfully ?

Professional coaching has seen itself growing very rapidly from the 90s until today. This high development has brought a significant complexity within the profession, which leaves most of us with an unclear and cloudy idea of what coaching really is. This also comes from the “abuses” of coaching, since anyone can claim to be a coach. Therefore, the first purpose of this paper is to clarify the different aspects and practices of coaching. Determining the added-value of being certified as well as the role of professional coaching associations are also important themes in this paper. Furthermore, confusion in the profession is de facto translated into difficulties when it is about to know to what coach one can turn to. Thus, this Bachelor thesis has a strong emphasis on preparing oneself to a coaching process, and shall be used as a practical tool for selecting what coach would serve best one’s needs. Engaging in coaching and hiring a coach shall not be taken too lightly. Indeed, the coach, who must be differentiated from a psychologist, consultant or mentor, can be seen as one’s guide during a quest for finding one’s inner potential. This suggests that the chemistry between the coach and the client is crucial for successful coaching. Even though motivating, a coaching process can conceal some unpleasant moments. It must be clear to the coachee what specific goals he/she wants to achieve. It is also important to mention that the coachee’s motivation for change is a key success factor of the process. Typically, business coaches provide corporations with « sample » coaching sessions to ensure that coachees will select the coach that suit them best. At this point, there are several processes a coachee should be aware of before partnering with a coach, which is necessary for establishing a good relationship. In addition, the client should have a look at several different aspects before making his/her selection and the sample session should give answers to these. Nevertheless, as coaching is a mutual trust process, the most ingredients for making a choice will be the climate of trust between the two as well as the positive intuition of the client. The focus of the research is international and local, since it refers often to the French speaking part of Switzerland. The results of the research and the recommendations are of interest for prospective corporate and private clients, managers, executives, people working in Human Resources departments and individuals interested in coaching

Relocation services in Swiss universities: best practices and recommandations

Global mobility initiatives have encouraged companies to increasingly turn to international labour markets to source their new talents. Mobility is critical as the knowledge and skills required in some industries are so specific and advanced that the local pool of potential candidates for an opening is way too limited to ensure that companies get the best profiles. This phenomenon also had a significant impact on the mobility of researchers in the academic sector. With the increasing number of agreements between universities, researchers have the possibility to pursue an international career and continue their research in another university. Relocating abroad is not necessarily a painless experience and it brings its own set of challenges that researchers have to manage and be aware of. Some researchers will come with their families and their relocation will bring even more social, psychological and logistical challenges. These cases are typically characterised by high risk of failure and potentially substantial direct and indirect costs. Swiss and international universities have been increasingly developing structures dedicated to facilitating the relocation of incoming employees and researchers. In this paper we compare the various relocation services offered by Swiss universities’ “Welcome Centers” and draw conclusions on the best practices in terms of relocation of international researchers. While this study focuses on Swiss universities and the creation or development of mobility teams within their organization, our findings will mostly be also applicable to private companies seeking to source talents on the international labour markets. Indeed employees in both sectors will face the same psychological, social and cultural challenges that need to be addressed by global mobility teams. The main difference between academic and private sector will lie in the way cases are managed. While both sectors realize the importance of a successful relocation, the private sector tends to rely more heavily on relocation agencies and other external partners as a way to increase the quality of the service offered. This study covers and analyzes the various challenges encountered throughout the relocation process. We were able to identify the most critical ones on which Welcome Centers should focus their efforts. Among these are housing, childcare, professional integration of the partner and immigration

Associations Between Major Depression, Health-risk Behaviors, and Medication Adherence Among Hiv-positive Adults Receiving Medical Care in Georgia

Background: There are approximately 1.2 million people in the United States living with HIV, and 25.6% of HIV-positive adults suffer from depression. The purpose of this study is to examine the contribution of depression to substance use and medication adherence among HIV-positive adults receiving medical care for HIV in Georgia. Methods: Secondary data with a probability sample of 775 HIV-positive adults who took part in the 2009-2013 Georgia Medical Monitoring Project (MMP) were analyzed. Descriptive analyses and multivariate logistic regressions were conducted to assess relationships between depression and current cigarette smoking, injection drug use, other non-injection drug use, and medication adherence, adjusting for sociodemographic covariates (age, gender, race, and education). All analyses accounted for non-response and complex sampling design. Results: Among HIV-positive adults in Georgia, 8.5% met the criteria for major depression, including 13.7% of women and 6.5% of men. Heterosexual adults had a higher percentage of major depression (10.7%) compared to adults who identified as bisexual (7.4%) or homosexual (5.8%). Major depression was also higher among adults with a high school diploma or GED (12.7%) compared to adults with a higher level of education (5.2%). Major depression was associated with a greater odds of current cigarette smoking (AOR 2.7; 95% CI: 1.5, 5.2) and other non-injection drug use (2.5; 95% CI: 1.4, 4.4), after adjusting for sociodemographic variables. The three measures of medication adherence were not statistically significantly associated with major depression. Conclusions: As previously observed for the general population, we found, among HIV-positive adults, significant associations between depression and smoking and other non-injection drug use. Because HIVpositive adults have ongoing encounters with healthcare providers, screening and treatment for depression and other co-morbid substance use is needed to reduce an additional health burden in this population

RE@CT - Immersive Production and Delivery of Interactive 3D Content

International audienceThis paper describes the aims and concepts of the FP7 RE@CT project. Building upon the latest advances in 3D capture and free-viewpoint video RE@CT aims to revolutionise the production of realistic characters and significantly reduce costs by developing an automated process to extract and represent animated characters from actor performance capture in a multiple camera studio. The key innovation is the development of methods for analysis and representation of 3D video to allow reuse for real-time interactive animation. This will enable efficient authoring of interactive characters with video quality appearance and motion

Surviving HIV and Dying for a Smoke: Implications for Tobacco Use Among People Living With HIV

Background: Since the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy in the mid-nineties, deaths among persons living with HIV (PLWH) have declined nationally. Now a controllable condition, HIV has become a chronic disease, highlighting the importance of tobacco cessation in lowering morbidity and premature mortality. Current smoking is approximately twice as high among PLWH compared with the general population. PLWH who smoke experience higher rates of cardiovascular disease, AIDS-defining illnesses, and cancer than PLWH who do not smoke. Loss of life-years associated with smoking among PLWH is greater than life-years lost from HIV. Methods: Data on current smoking, derived from the 2009-12 Georgia Medical Monitoring Project (MMP) were analyzed. Smoking rates were calculated by demographic characteristics, and results were compared to those from the 2011 Georgia Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), a population-based telephone survey. Results: The prevalence of current smoking among PLWH was 36.1%, compared with 21.2% among the general population in Georgia. Smoking prevalence for PLWH generally varied by demographic characteristics according to the same pattern as for the general population, but prevalence was consistently higher among PLWH. Conclusions: The prevalence of current smoking among PLWH in Georgia is high. Clinical and public health interventions must address smoking cessation as part of HIV care to prevent disease, improve quality of life, and reduce mortality. HIV infected smokers have more barriers to quitting (alcohol, depression, drug dependence, and inaccurate risk perception) and a lower quit rate than non-HIV-infected smokers. Efficacy studies of behavioral and pharmacological interventions for smoking cessation specific to PLWH are needed

Quantification of Ventricular Repolarization Dispersion Using Digital Processing of the Surface ECG

Digital processing of electrocardiographic records was one of the first applications of signal processing on medicine. There are many ways to analyze and study electrical cardiac activity using the surface electrocardiogram (ECG) and nowadays a good clinical diagnostic and prevention of cardiac risk are the principal goal to be achieved. One aim of digital processing of ECG signals has been quantification of ventricular repolarization dispersion (VRD), phenomenon which mainly is determined by heterogeneity of action potential durations (APD) in different myocardial regions. The APD differs not only between myocytes of apex and the base of both ventricles, but those of endocardial and epicardial surfaces (transmural dispersion) and between both ventricles. Also, it was demonstrated that several electrophysiologically and functionally different myocardial cells, like epicardial, endocardial and mid-myocardial M cells. The APD inequalities develop global and/or local voltage gradients that play an important role in the inscription of ECG T-wave morphology. In this way, we can assume that T-wave is a direct expression of ventricular repolarization inhomogeneities on surface ECG. Experimental and clinical studies have demonstrated a relationship between VRD and severe ventricular arrhythmias. In addition, patients having increased VRD values have a higher risk of developing reentrant arrhythmias. Frequently the heart answer to several pathological states produced an increase of VRD; this phenomenon may develop into malignant ventricular arrhythmia (MVA) and/or sudden cardiac death (SCD). Moreover, it has been showed that the underlying mechanisms in MVA and/or SCD are cardiac re-entry, increased automation, influence of autonomic nervous system and arrhythmogenic substrates linked with cardiac pathologies. These cardiac alterations could presented ischemia, hypothermia, electrolyte imbalance, long QT syndrome, autonomic system effects and others. Digital processing of ECG has been proved to be useful for cardiac risk assessment, with additional advantages like of being non invasive treatments and applicable to the general population. With the aim to identify high cardiac risk patients, the researchers have been tried to quantify the VRD with different parameters obtained by mathematic-computational processing of the surface ECG. These parameters are based in detecting changes of T-wave intervals and T-wave morphology during cardiac pathologies, linking these changes with VRD. In this chapter, we have presented a review of VRD indexes based on digital processing of ECG signals to quantify cardiac risk. The chapter is organized as follows: Section 2 explains ECG preprocessing and delineation of fiducial points. In Section 3, indexes of VRD quantification, such as: QT interval dispersion, QT interval variability and T-wave duration, are described. In Section 4, different repolarization indexes describing T-wave morphology and energy are examined, including complexity of repolarization, T-wave residuum, angle between the depolarization and repolarization dominant vectors, micro T-wave alternans, T-wave area and amplitude and T-wave spectral variability. Finally, in Section 5 conclusions are presented.Fil: Vinzio Maggio, Ana Cecilia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Saavedra 15. Instituto Argentino de Matemática Alberto Calderón; ArgentinaFil: Bonomini, Maria Paula. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Ingeniería Biomédica; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Laciar Leber, Eric. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de San Juan. Facultad de Ingeniería; ArgentinaFil: Arini, Pedro David. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Ingeniería Biomédica; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Saavedra 15. Instituto Argentino de Matemática Alberto Calderón; Argentin

The Phase Transition to a Square Vortex Lattice in Type-II Superconductors with Fourfold Anisotropy

We investigate the stability of the square vortex lattice which has been recently observed in experiments on the borocarbide family of superconductors. Taking into account the tetragonal symmetry of these systems, we add fourfold symmetric fourth-derivative terms to the Ginzburg-Landau(GL) free energy. At $H_{c2}$ these terms may be treated perturbatively to lowest order to locate the transition from a distorted hexagonal to a square vortex lattice. We also solve for this phase boundary numerically in the strongly type-II limit, finding large corrections to the lowest-order perturbative results. We calculate the relative fourfold $H_{c2}$ anisotropy for field in the $xy$ plane to be 4.5% at the temperature, $T_c^{\Box}$, where the transition occurs at $H_{c2}$ for field along the $z$ axis. This is to be compared to the 3.6% obtained in the perturbative calculation. Furthermore, we find that the phase boundary in the $H-T$ phase diagram has positive slope near $H_{c2}$.Comment: 15 pages including 2 figures, LaTe

On X-ray Optical Depth in the Coronae of Active Stars

We have investigated the optical thickness of the coronal plasma through the analysis of high-resolution X-ray spectra of a large sample of active stars observed with the High Energy Transmission Grating Spectrometer on Chandra. In particular, we probed for the presence of significant resonant scattering in the strong Lyman series lines arising from hydrogen-like oxygen and neon ions. The active RS CVn-type binaries II Peg and IM Peg and the single M dwarf EV Lac show significant optical depth. For these active coronae, the Lya/Lyb ratios are significantly depleted as compared with theoretical predictions and with the same ratios observed in similar active stars. Interpreting these decrements in terms of resonance scattering of line photons out of the line-of-sight, we are able to derive an estimate for the typical size of coronal structures, and from these we also derive estimates of coronal filling factors. For all three sources we find that the both the photon path length as a fraction of the stellar radius, and the implied surface filling factors are very small and amount to a few percent at most. The measured Lya/Lyb ratios are in good agreement with APED theoretical predictions, thus indicating negligible optical depth, for the other sources in our sample. We discuss the implications for coronal structuring and heating flux requirements. For the stellar sample as a whole, the data suggest increasing quenching of Lya relative to Lyb as function of both L_x/L_bol and the density-sensitive MgXI forbidden to intercombination line ratio, as might generally be expected.Comment: Accepted for publication on the Astrophysical Journa

RE@CT - Immersive Production and Delivery of Interactive 3D Content

International audienceThis paper describes the aims and concepts of the FP7 RE@CT project. Building upon the latest advances in 3D capture and free-viewpoint video RE@CT aims to revolutionise the production of realistic characters and significantly reduce costs by developing an automated process to extract and represent animated characters from actor performance capture in a multiple camera studio. The key innovation is the development of methods for analysis and representation of 3D video to allow reuse for real-time interactive animation. This will enable efficient authoring of interactive characters with video quality appearance and motion