From Face-to-Face to Screen-to-Screen: Real Hope or True Fallacy?

Published in cooperation with the American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolutio

The Prosecution Service Function within the Swiss Criminal Justice System

The criminal justice system of Basel is described as a cantonal example for Switzerland. Special attention is paid to the Prosecution Service Function within this framework and its relationship to police and courts. The article not only refers to legal provisions but to the factual handling of criminal cases as wel

Impact of Galileo on the Road Sector

This presentation describes the main ITS (Intelligent Trasnportion Systems) services and their requirements in positioning. Different types of navigation systems are presented with a focus on satellite-based systems and the potential of Galileo with value added services

Calibration automatique d’une caméra

Une méthode utilisée pour faire du tracking de personne consiste à évaluer les points d’une carte du sol ayant la plus grande probabilité de contenir quelqu’un. Etant donné une position sur la carte, il s’agit de représenter une personne comme un rectangle dans l’image provenant d’une caméra, et d’estimer à quel point l’image binaire dérivée de l’image réelle ressemble à cette image synthétique, la comparaison étant faite par l’algorithme POM. Cette opération est faite sur plusieurs caméras placées à différents endroits, et filmant la même scène sous un angle différent. Il est alors possible de localiser la personne par la position la plus probable correspondant à toutes les vues caméra. Pour utiliser cette méthode, il faut connaître les transformations donnant la position de la tête, respectivement des pieds de la personne dans une vue caméra, étant donné un point de la carte. Ces transformations peuvent être déterminées de manière exacte si tous les paramètres de la caméra sont connus (position exacte, focale, etc..). Si toutes ces informations ne sont pas disponibles de manière précise, il faut alors calibrer la caméra par des méthodes annexes, par exemple en posant des marques au sol, et en les retrouvant manuellement sur les images des caméras, mais ce travail est relativement long. Durant ce projet, nous avons testé une méthode de calibration automatique des caméras permettant d’obtenir la transformation voulue sans avoir besoin de repères posés à la main. Cette calibration se base sur la détection de la position d’une personne en mouvement dans toute la zone couverte par les caméras ; cette position est ensuite utilisée à la place des repères au sol pour estimer la transformation

How damaging is imprisonment in the long-term? A controlled experiment comparing long-term effects of community service and short custodial sentences on re-offending and social integration

Since the 19th century, short custodial sentences were said to foster re-offending through alienating inmates from families and work. The present study is one of the few randomized controlled trials comparing short custodial sentences with community service orders. Between 1993 and 1995, 123 subjects were randomly assigned to community service or immediate custody (of a maximum of 14days) in the Lake of Geneva area (Switzerland). The present study updates results published earlier on a follow-up period of 2years by considering re-convictions and social integration over 11years. Although statistically not significant, re-offending was tentatively more common among ex-prisoners in the long run. Eleven years later, ex-prisoners were better off, complied better with tax regulations, and did not fare worse regarding employment history or marital status. In line with recent systematic reviews, the results do not confirm the wide-spread assumption that short custodial sanctions are harmful when compared to community servic

SCOUTS Missions: ESA New Program for Science Mission Based on Small Satellite

This paper presents the main characteristics of the new Scout framework in ESA\u27s Earth Observation directorate aimed to exploit and support the New Space initiative in Europe in the frame of Earth science missions. In particular, details will be provided to explain the subtle balance between the commercial new space aspects and the science traditional aspects of the Scout framework. An overview of the 4 missions selected during the first consolidation round will be given as well as the one under development highlighting for each one the innovations, applications as well as the challenges and the achievements of the development phase. More details will be presented for the mission under implementation that will be on the launch pad in 2024

Incidence d'un milieu poreux sur le rotationnel des structures tourbillonnaires émises dans le sillage

Une approche analytique est proposée pour estimer et comparer les rotationnels des vecteurs de la vitesse associés aux structures tourbillonnaires émises dans le sillage d'une géométrie à culot droit avec et sans milieu poreux. Le modèle est établi en considérant un milieu poreux adjacent à un écoulement extérieur alimenté par un écoulement de type Darcy compris entre deux écoulements laminaires pour les très faibles nombres de Reynolds rapportés à la taille des pores. Le rotationnel des structures tourbillonnaires émises dans le sillage par le milieu poreux est déterminé à partir de la discontinuité transversale des vitesses relevée à l'interface entre l'extérieur et le milieu poreux. Les résultats montrent que le rotationnel des structures tourbillonnaires issues des gradients transversaux des vitesses relevées de part et d'autre de l'interface entre le milieu poreux et l'écoulement externe est fonction de la perméabilité K du milieu poreux et peut être supérieur ou inférieur au rotationnel des structures émises sans milieu poreux. Les résultats fournissent une explication aux réductions des rotationnels des structures tourbillonnaires émises dans les sillages de géométries simplifiées munies de milieux poreux sur le pavillon et/ou le soubassement, Bruneau et al (2008 et 2010). Ils montrent l'intérêt de poursuivre les investigations pour mieux comprendre les processus physiques à l'origine des réductions de traînée aérodynamique et améliorer leur efficacité.   Référence : Bruneau CH, Gilliéron P. & Mortazavi I.; Passive control around the two-dimensional square back Ahmed body using porous devices, Journal of Fluids Engineering, volume 130, 061101, June 2008. Bruneau CH, Creusé E., Depeyras D., Gilliéron P. and Mortazavi I.; Coupling active and passive techniques to control the flow past the square back Ahmed body, Computers and Fluids 38, n° 10, 2010

Dynamique du paysage rural de la partie nord-ouest de la Suisse:une analyse pour comprendre la variation des populations du lièvre brun (Lepus europaeus)

Since the 1950s, the population of the Brown hare (Lepus europaeus) has dramatically decreased in Switzerland as well as in other European countries. According to the Swiss Ornithological Institute of Sempach, this animal is an adequate indicator of the state of the landscape. Its decrease is probably due to intensification of agricultural practices, extension of urbanism and development of transport networks (Pfister et al., 2002). Today, the Brown hare is on the Swiss Red list of species that must be protected. This thesis presents an analysis of the landscape dynamics of the North-Western part of Switzerland, from the 1950s to the 1990s, through an historical analysis of the state of the landscape as it is perceived by the hare. In particular, we identify the factors of the landscape that are relevant for this animal, determine their trend of evolution, and finally postulate hypotheses for the evolution over the next years and their consequences for the hare populations. For each decade, 936 communes are described, using 40 variables related to agricultural practices, land-use, morphology, urbanisation, climate and geography. This database is called "Landscape". These data, mainly extracted from communal statistics, were found to be adequate to describe the evolution of the composition of the landscape at a large scale. We studied the content, the quality and the organisation of this database "Landscape" with the help of descriptive statistical methods (data distribution, histograms and boxplots at each decade, dynamics of the statistical characteristic values) and using principal components analysis (PCA). The latter reveals two groups of communes: urban (belonging to an agglomeration) and rural. On average, it also shows a very definite evolution of the urban character of both groups, from the 1950s to the 1990s. The three first components of the PCA explain only 45% of the variance. Therefore, we decided not to simplify the database by replacing our variables by these agglomerated variables, as the loss of information would be important. Among the 40 variables, 16 key-variables for the hare were identified. For this, an "Index of abundance of hares" was calculated for a sub-set of 125 communes, defined as the mean number of hares hunted per total communal area between 1980 and 1985. The link between this index and the 40 variables, describing the state of 125 communes in the 1980s, was analysed with the use of correlation, linear multiple regression, the method Pegase (a multivariate hierarchical divisive procedure, based on information theory (Phipps, 1981)), and additional information from the Swiss Ornithological Institute of Sempach. These methods were found to be complementary and their use enables us to take into account several perspectives. It would be interesting to go further by calculating this index for a larger number of communes in order to optimise the use of Pegase. The main trends of evolution of these key-variables, observed on the 936 communes, between the 1950s and the 1990s, are: 1. Decrease in the fraction of agricultural area; 2. Intensification of agricultural practices, increase in the mean ownership unit area (mean parcel size), changes of the type of agriculture; 3. Urbanisation and increased private car use; 4. Slight increase in rainfall. Two scenarios of evolution of the landscape for the next years are defined. Presuming that the identified trends will continue (Scenario A), the situation of the population of the hare will rapidly become critical: 1. The slow decrease in agricultural area will induce a pressure on the potential habitat of the hare; 2. The strong increase in areas of road/rail will reduce the habitat of the hare and most of all induce a fragmentation of the landscape, as well as barriers that are often impassable for the hare; 3. The extremely rapid increase in the number of cars will lead to an increase in road kill; 4. The increase in mechanisation in the agricultural practices, shown by the increase in the mean parcel size, the decrease in the working force and the slight increase in the number of tractors, are three reasons of important disturbance of the hare's habitat. In addition, the increasing rainfall, even if small, makes it probably more difficult for the animal, as it doesn't appreciate wet soils. On the other hand, in case the areas with corn stay relatively stable, and the grants for land improvement keep on decreasing, gradually "replaced" by grants encouraging extensive agricultural practices like direct grants for ecological compensation measure, the situation of the hare could stop getting worse. This scenario corresponds to a management of the territory that would not take into account new constraints and needs appearing with time. In order to take this into account, a second scenario (B) is defined, which is less extreme. It is based on trends for the future discussed by the Federal Agency for Agriculture, in the proposal for a modification of the law in the canton Vaud on country planning and buildings, and in the monitoring of Swiss statistics of the country. Both scenarios are rather pessimistic: for more than half of the key-variables integrated in both scenarios, the evolution probably leads to a negative situation for the hare. As this species is a good indicator of the quality of the landscape (Pfister et al., 2002), we recommend to take into account the needs for this species in the future management of the territory. According to our results, it would be important for the hare population to remain stable or even increase: 1. To encourage extensive agricultural practices; 2. To slow down, or better stop, the extension of urban areas and road/rail networks; 3. To reduce private car use. As these two last recommendations seem quite unrealisable in the near future, we propose to extend the network of favourable structures for the hare: hedges, fallow land and other areas close to natural state. At the same time, a plan of observation has to be developed, in order to control the results of these measures. These measures would enable sustainable growth of hare population, and, at the same time, sustainable management of resources and our patrimony