Local practices of humanitarian aid: Pharmaciens sans frontières Anjou in Romania during the 1990s

The fall of the communist regime caused a massive flow of humanitarian aid to Romania, from all over the world. Pharmaciens sans frontières (PSF) Anjou, a departmental branch of PSF France, was one of them. After retrieving and sorting unused medication for three years, its members decided to take matters into their own hands and go to Romania. This also led to the development of other types of projects, such as internships and inter-university collaboration. In this article I argue that, at a local level, actions are highly influenced by individual stakeholders. Therefore, this study aims to better understand and illustrate the role of everyday practices in the evolution of humanitarian aid to Romania during the 1990s. The article will also question the purpose and utility of these person-to-person contacts

Ambassadeurs en pays étranger: la place des lecteurs dans la diplomatie culturelle franco-roumaine (années 1960 et 1970)

Après un coup d’arrêt causé par la mise en place du régime communiste, les relations franco-roumaines reprennent. Malgré leur appartenance à deux camps idéologiquement opposés, la France et la Roumanie encouragent l’accroissement des échanges bilatéraux. Les relations culturelles se développent et se diversifient. On assiste à la création de lectorats roumains en France et français en Roumanie. Au delà de leur fonction officielle, d’enseignement de la langue, les lectorats et les lecteurs constituent de véritables relais et ambassadeurs culturels. Les archives des ministères des Affaires étrangères (français et roumain), des Universités roumaines (Iași et Bucarest) et des témoignages oraux ont été mobilisés pour l’étude de l’action des lecteurs durant les décennies 1960 et 1970. Ils permettent une meilleure connaissance de l’autre. Les étudiants français découvrent la Roumanie, sa langue, sa culture et ses traditions, alors que les Roumains peuvent maintenir un lien avec la civilisation française et, par son intermédiaire, occidentale. Au delà des objectifs officiels et malgré les contrôles instaurés par les autorités roumaines, des contacts existent entre Français et Roumains, rendant le Rideau de fer perméable. Cette étude illustre la complexité des relations culturelles Est-Ouest durant la Guerre froide.

Images d’enfants roumains et médias occidentaux. La construction d’une cause (1989-1990)

In 1990, following the Romanian « live » revolution, the world was astonished to discover the situation of Romanian institutionalised children. This study aims to question the way western media addressed the issue of Romanian abandoned children. Therefore, this article will analyse the construction of the cause of endangered Romanian children, both in France and the United States. The analysis of the media coverage will illustrate how Romania’s image and that of its children is influenced by a variety of factors: domestic policy, child representations, etc. on a different level, in this study I argue that, however surprising this might seem, there is no difference in the way this aspect is dealt with in France and the United States

Bures distance between two displaced thermal states

The Bures distance between two displaced thermal states and the corresponding geometric quantities (statistical metric, volume element, scalar curvature) are computed. Under nonunitary (dissipative) dynamics, the statistical distance shows the same general features previously reported in the literature by Braunstein and Milburn for two--state systems. The scalar curvature turns out to have new interesting properties when compared to the curvature associated with squeezed thermal states.Comment: 3 pages, RevTeX, no figure

Fidelity for displaced squeezed states and the oscillator semigroup

The fidelity for two displaced squeezed thermal states is computed using the fact that the corresponding density operators belong to the oscillator semigroup.Comment: 3 pages, REVTEX, no figures, submitted to Journal of Physics A, May 5, 199