It is worth its weight in gold : the Swiss franc in the 1930's

http://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/rae/article/view/5044/4075International audienceSwitzerland is perceived as a unique country. Economic and financial explanations have to be linked to monetary, social and political reasons too. It means that money matters in Switzerland because it is a small, open and multicultural country that needs a strong common anchor in order to exist. This is why we will focus on the key period of the 1930's when the choice to implement the Gold Stallion was more than a technical and monetary choice: it also played the role of a social and political anchor for the Swiss society as a whole to federate

Une approche incarnée du vieillissement normal et pathologique : compréhension du fonctionnement mnésique selon les interactions entre mémoire et perception

Le vieillissement et la maladie d’Alzheimer sont caractérisés par des difficultés mnésiques essentiellement épisodiques. Ces difficultés sont associées à leurs altérations sensorielles et perceptives. Ces liens s’expliqueraient naturellement par les approches incarnées de la cognition qui définissent des propriétés et processus communs entre mémoire et perception. Ces approches supposent une émergence dynamique des connaissances à partir d’un système de mémoire unique dans lequel les connaissances sont définies comme ancrées dans leurs propriétés modales, essentiellement celles sensorimotrices. À travers la nature des interactions multisensorielles pour des connaissances familières, ce travail de thèse propose de tester les approches incarnées de la cognition auprès de jeunes adultes, personnes âgées saines et patients souffrant de la maladie d’Alzheimer. Ces interactions sont supposées être indirectes et sémantiques dans les approches multisystémiques, alors qu’elles seraient directes et perceptives pour les approches incarnées. Deux séries d’expériences ont été conduites. Pour chacune d’elle, une batterie complète de tests neuropsychologiques ainsi qu’un paradigme d’amorçage inter-sensoriel (audition vers vision) ont été complétés. L’originalité du paradigme fut l’ajout, pour la moitié des amorces auditives, d’un masque visuel sans signification. L’Expérience 1 reposait sur un format à long terme – deux phases distinctes – alors que l’Expérience 2 sur un format à court terme – amorce et cible présentées dans un même essai. Cette adaptation permet la manipulation de la congruence sémantique afin de tester plus précisément le rôle de l’attention dans ces interactions multisensorielles. Les résultats démontrent un effet d’amorçage inter-sensoriel pour les jeunes adultes et les personnes âgées. Le masque a interféré avec cet effet d’amorçage, mais uniquement lorsque l’amorce et la cible correspondent à une même connaissance. Cette interférence et sa spécificité supportent l’hypothèse d’interactions multisensorielles directes et perceptives ce qui suggèrent que les jeunes adultes comme les personnes âgées auraient des connaissances modales. En revanche, les patients Alzheimer ne présentent pas d’effet d’amorçage alors que celui-ci est de nature perceptive (effet du masque). Ces résultats supportent l’idée d’une déconnexion cérébrale dans la maladie d’Alzheimer. L’ensemble des données permet de supposer que les difficultés mnésiques dans le vieillissement s’expliqueraient essentiellement par une dégradation de la qualité de leurs connaissances, et donc de leur perception. Les troubles mnésiques dans la maladie d’Alzheimer proviendraient quant à eux d’un déficit d’(ré)-intégration dynamique des différentes composantes des connaissances. Cette recherche supporte les approches incarnées de la cognition et démontre la pertinence de ces approches pour des problématiques neuropsychologiques comme celle du vieillissement. Ces approches ouvrent la voie à de nouvelles recherches plaçant les interactions entre mémoire et perception au coeur du fonctionnement mnésique.Normal aging as Alzheimer’s disease are characterized by memory disorders, primarily for episodic memory. These two populations also present a sensory and perceptive decline, which are strongly correlated with their cognitive impairment. The links between memory and perception may be easily explained in the embodied cognition theory. Indeed, embodiment states that knowledge dynamically emerges from a single memory system in which knowledge remains grounded in its properties, essentially sensory-motor properties. Consequently, perception and memory are closer than previously thought and the links between perception and memory moving to the foreground. The objective of the present research is to assess the embodied cognition theory applied to normal aging and Alzheimer’s disease. To this aim, the nature of the semantic multisensory interactions was tested. According to the multiple memory systems framework, these interactions are indirect and semantic, whereas the embodied cognition theory states that these interactions are direct and perceptual. Young adults, healthy elderly and patients with Alzheimer’s disease completed two experiments. Each experiment was composed of a complete neuropsychological battery and one cross-modal priming paradigm (audition to vision). The novelty of the paradigm was to present a visual meaningless mask for half of the sound primes. Experiment 1 was composed of two distinct phases, whereas the prime and the target were presented in the same trial in Experiment 2. The adaptation of the paradigm in Experiment 2 allowed manipulating the semantic congruency in order to test the attention hypothesis that might underlie the cross-modal interactions. The results demonstrated a significant cross-modal priming effect in young and healthy elderly adults. The mask has interfered with the priming effect only in the semantic congruent situations. The mask interference and its specificity support the direct and perceptual nature hypothesis of the semantic multisensory interactions. This is suggesting that young and elderly adults have modal knowledge. Reversely, the patients with Alzheimer’s disease did not show any priming effect while the effect is perceptual. This result supports the cerebral disconnection hypothesis in Alzheimer’s disease. The data taken together suggest that memory disorders in normal aging could be related to a degradation of the quality of their perception and thus of knowledge. Memory impairments in Alzheimer’s disease might come from an integration disorder to bind dynamically the different components of a memory. The present research support the embodied cognition theory and demonstrates the interest of this kind of approach to explore memory functioning in neuropsychology, such as in aging. These approaches open new avenues of research by focusing on processes rather than systems and by putting on the foreground the interactions between memory and perception

Le sens sexué d'une pratique sportive extrême : le cas des pratiquants de bodybuilding

The aim of this thesis is to understand the gendered meaning of bodybuilding for male heterosexual bodybuilders. We assume the common assertion that such a sport is attractive for men who feel a weakness towards both men and women, testing two hypotheses : H1: Men do bodybuilding to fill a fragility of their male identity.H2: The weakest male identity is, the stronger the involvement.To do this we have based our analysis on qualitative methodology that consists in direct observations and interviews. Our results indicate that:- The entry into the sport is clearly linked to a male weakness, which confirms H1.- If a tie exists between such a feeling of weakness and the involvement into the practice, it is not exclusive. The bodybuilder changes his mind and seems to develop fewer concerns about his male identity, but somtimes new kind of dependence and then new weaknesses.Cette thèse cherche à comprendre le sens sexué de la pratique du bodybuilding chez les hommes hétérosexuels. A partir de la mise en oeuvre de différentes méthodes qualitatives, nous mettons en évidence qu’un lien fort et significatif existe entre la motivation pour entrer dans la pratique et le sentiment de fragilité de l’identité de sexe. Toutefois, ce lien est évolutif, notamment lorsque les individus renforcent leur engagement dans la "carrière" de bodybuilder. Cela ne signifie pas que la perspective genrée liée à la question de l’identité de sexe disparaît, puisque le sens du travail du corps donné dans le bodybuilding possède des liens avec la question du sens accordé au travail professionnel, qui permet aussi de positionner les bodybuilders dans les interactions genrées. Ce point est déterminant, puisqu’il nous amène à conclure que les principaux enjeux relatifs à la problématique de l’identité de sexe se situent dans une compétition intra-masculine, et non pas directement entre hommes et femmes

Sleep Does not Help Relearning Declarative Memories in Older Adults

International audienceHow sleep affects memory in older adults is a critical topic, since age significantly impacts both sleep and memory. For declarative memory, previous research reports contradictory results, with some studies showing sleep-dependent memory consolidation and some other not. We hypothesize that this discrepancy may be due to the use of recall as the memory measure, a demanding task for older adults. The present paper focuses on the effect of sleep on relearning, a measure that proved useful to reveal subtle, implicit memory effects. Previous research in young adults showed that sleeping after learning was more beneficial to relearning the same Swahili-French word pairs 12 hours later, compared with the same interval spent awake. In particular, those words that could not be recalled were relearned faster when participants previously slept. The effect of sleep was also beneficial for retention after a one-week and a 6-month delay. The present study used the same experimental design in older adults aged 71 on average but showed no significant effect of sleep on consolidation, on relearning, or on long-term retention. Thus, even when using relearning speed as the memory measure, the consolidating effect of sleep in older adults was not demonstrated, in alignment with some previous findings

Nitrate and phosphorous evolution in surface water and groundwater across space and time scales – the example of the Jura Mountains

International audienceThe aim of this study is to explore the changes in water quality from local to large spatial scale and from short to long term periods, in order to better understand the fate and transport of pollutants. Our work focused on the analysis of nutrients in surface and groundwaters in the karstic catchment of the Loue river (~ 1000 km²) in the French Jura Mountains. The hydrological behavior of this large basin is highly controlled by surface water-groundwater interactions. Recurrent algae proliferation and a scarcity of species considered to be sensitive are indices of a chronic degradation of the water quality.A first analysis of long term evolution of nitrate over 45 yrs in surface water shows that the nitrate concentration in waters (mean value of 10 mg/l) is controlled mainly by a seasonal effect (from 2 to 40 mg/l). A long term component is also observed showing an increase of several mg/l from 70's to 90's and then a decrease from 2000 to present. This long-term evolution is correlated to the annual amount of synthetic fertilizers used in cultivated areas of the Jura Mountains. On the contrary to nitrate, phosphorous evolution shows no long-term trend. Changes are mostly controlled by several peaks often superior to 0.2 mg/l, and occurring more frequently during autumn.A second analysis of short-term evolution was carried out at the seasonal and event-time scales comparing concentrations and fluxes at 5 gauging stations over the catchment. This analysis showed contrasted nitrate and phosphorous evolutions depending the location. High level nitrate concentrations occurred after recharge events in autumn and winter. The nitrate decrease during spring and summer reaches in some locations the detection limit. This pattern is attributed to the biomass productivity during hottest and driest months. Regarding phosphorous evolution, erratic peaks occurred after rainfalls without their amplitude being correlated with that one of the rainfalls, meaning that it originated probably from effluents from wastewater treatment plants.Finally, these first results showed the spatial and temporal variability of water contamination by nutrients, highlighting the complex hydrological and ecological behaviour on the various sub-catchments. The spatio-temporal variability of anthropogenic activities associated with the complexity of transport processes and with the hydrological conditions are the key processes that explain these contrasting responses within the same hydrosystem

La qualité des relations sociales au sein des SCOP : premiers enseignements d'une enquête en Rhône-Alpes

Ce travail de recherche a été mené depuis le printemps 2012 jusqu'à l'automne 2013 et nous a amenés à enquêter auprès de 40 SCOP. Dans la première partie de ce rapport, nous présentons les éléments saillants de nos observations qui sont ressortis comme récurrents dans un grand nombre de cas. Nous en tirons un constat résumé par le titre de "la qualité des relations humaines au sein des SCOP" pour pointer des caractéristiques communes présentées en trois chapitres qui portent sur : - les indicateurs favorables de qualité de l'emploi ; - des collectifs participatifs et cohésifs ; - des organisations introspectives et adaptatives. En outre, la diversité est extrême à l'intérieur du monde des SCOP. Ce sera l'objet de la seconde partie de ce rapport où nous tenterons de développer des analyses pertinentes des différences entre les SCOP qui ressortent de notre enquête. C'est à travers trois chapitres que nous avancerons ces propositions d'analyse en nous fondant sur : - les diverses données recueillies sur les SCOP ; - les résultats des questionnaires adressés aux salariés ; - un essai de typologie des SCOP en 7 catégories

Instituições do povo, pelo povo, para o povo? O poder e a responsabilidade social dos bancos centrais em uma democracia

This paper sheds light on an overlooked issue in economics, namely the social responsibility of central banks in a democracy. We consider central banks as institutions of power, and, as such, neither are they nor their policies neutral, in the sense that there are inevitable winners and losers. We explain why and how their power should be regulated and controlled by society. Specifically, we focus on the income distributive nature of monetary policy to demonstrate this assertion. From this, we explain that the time is ripe to build a new framework for central banking aiming at improving central banks’ social responsibility consistent with the spirit of a democratic system, and resting on new rules, new types of inner organization and, more broadly, an ethics of responsibility of a new kind.Este artículo da luz sobre un tema olvidado en economía: la responsabilidad social de los bancos centrales en una democracia. Consideramos que los bancos centrales son instituciones de poder y, como tales, ni ellos ni sus políticas son neutrales, pues hay ganadores y perdedores inevitables. Explicamos por qué y cómo la sociedad debe regular y controlar su poder. Nos centramos en el carácter distributivo del ingreso de la política monetaria para demostrar esta afirmación, y mostramos que ha llegado la hora de construir un nuevo marco de banca central que mejore la   responsabilidad social de los bancos centrales conforme al espíritu de un sistema democrático, que se base en nuevas reglas, nuevos tipos de organización interna y una ética de la responsabilidad de nuevo tipo.Este artigo lança luz sobre uma questão negligenciada na economia, ou seja, a responsabilidade social dos bancos centrais em uma democracia. Consideramos que os bancos centrais são instituições de poder e, como tal, nem eles nem suas políticas são neutras, na medida em que há inevitáveis vencedores e perdedores. Explicamos por que e como a sociedade deve regular e controlar seu poder. Concentramo-nos no caráter distributivo da política monetária para demonstrar esta afirmação, e mostrar que chegou o momento de construir uma nova estrutura para o banco central que aumente a responsabilidade social dos bancos centrais no espírito de um sistema democrático, e que se se baseie em novas regras, novos tipos de organização interna e uma ética de responsabilidade de novo tipo

Sedentary Behavior at Work and Cognitive Functioning: A Systematic Review

Background: It is now well-established that sedentarity has a negative impact on the physiological functioning and health of humans, whereas very little is known about the psychological repercussions, especially in cognitive functioning. Yet, studying the cognitive effects of the sedentary lifestyle is particularly relevant in the short term for productivity and in the long term for cognitive health (accelerated aging). This systematic review therefore aims to make an inventory of the potential cognitive effects of sedentarity at the workplace.Methods: Pubmed, PsycINFO, Cochrane, Web of Science, and Scopus were searched for English-language peer-reviewed articles published between January 1, 2000 and December 31, 2017 to identify studies including sedentary behavior and objective measures from cognitive domains (cognitive inhibition, cognitive flexibility, working memory, etc.). To carry out this systematic review, the 3 keywords “Sedentary” and “Cognition” and “Work” (and their derivatives) had to appear in the title or in the summary of the paper.Results: Of the 13 papers that met the inclusion criteria, 9 were short-term interventions, 3 medium-term interventions, and 1 long-term intervention. Nine of them reported non-significant results. Two studies study reported deterioration in cognitive performance. Two reported an improvement in performance in cognitive tasks with one study with overweight adults and the only one study with a long-term intervention. However, these studies intend to reduce sedentary behavior, but do not allow answering the question of the potential cognitive effects of the sedentary lifestyle.Conclusion: These data suggest that sedentary behavior is not associated with changes in cognitive performance in interventions that intend to reduce sedentary behavior. Then, and given the trend toward increased time in sedentary behavior, long-term prospective studies of high methodological quality are recommended to clarify the relationships between sedentary behavior and the cognitive functioning. Our systematic review identifies also the need for retrospective, longitudinal, or epidemiologic studies. It also recognizes the need to standardize methodology for collecting, defining, and reporting sedentary behavior and the need to standardize the cognitive tests used. The relationship between sedentary behavior and cognitive functioning remaining uncertain, further studies are warranted for which 8 recommendations are proposed

Visual and auditory perceptual strength norms for 3,596 French nouns and their relationship with other psycholinguistic variables

Perceptual experience plays a critical role in the conceptual representation of words. Higher levels of semantic variables such as imageability, concreteness, and sensory experience are generally associated with faster and more accurate word processing. Nevertheless, these variables tend to be assessed mostly on the basis of visual experience. This underestimates the potential contributions of other perceptual modalities. Accordingly, recent evidence has stressed the importance of providing modality-specific perceptual strength norms. In the present study, we developed French Canadian norms of visual and auditory perceptual strength (i.e., the modalities that have major impact on word processing) for 3,596 nouns. We then explored the relationship between these newly developed variables and other lexical, orthographic, and semantic variables. Finally, we demonstrated the contributions of visual and auditory perceptual strength ratings to visual word processing beyond those of other semantic variables related to perceptual experience (e.g., concreteness, imageability, and sensory experience ratings). The ratings developed in this study are a meaningful contribution toward the implementation of new studies that will shed further light on the interaction between linguistic, semantic, and perceptual systems

Content-based discovery of multiple structures from episodes of recurrent TV programs based on grammatical inference

International audienceTV program structuring is essential for program indexing and retrieval. Practically, various types of programs lead to a diversity of program structures. In addition, several episodes of a recurrent program might exhibit different structures. Previous work mostly relies on supervised approaches by adopting prior knowledge about program structures. In this paper, we address the problem of unsupervised program structuring with minimal prior knowledge about the programs. We propose an approach to identify multiple structures and infer structural grammars for recurrent TV programs of different types. It involves three sub-problems: i) we determine the structural elements contained in programs with minimal knowledge about which type of elements may be present; ii) we identify multiple structures for the programs if any and model the structures of programs; iii) we generate the structural grammar for each corresponding structure. Finally, we conduct use cases on real recurrent programs of three different types to demonstrate the effectiveness of proposed approach