Working Conditions and Health of European Older Workers

Working conditions have greatly evolved in recent decades in developed countries. This evolution has been accompanied with the appearance of new forms of work organisation that may be sources of stress and health risk for older workers. As populations are ageing, these issues are particularly worrying in terms of the health, labour force participation and Social Security expenditure. This paper focuses on the links between quality of employment and the health of older workers, using the Share 2004 survey. Our research is based on two classical models: the Demand-Control model of Karasek and Theorell (1991) and the Effort-Reward Imbalance model of Siegrist (1996), which highlight three main dimensions: Demand that reflects perceived physical pressure and stress due to a heavy work load; Control that refers to decision latitude at work and the possibilities to develop new skills; and Reward that corresponds to the feeling of receiving a correct salary relatively to efforts made, of having prospects for personal progress and receiving deserved recognition. These models also take into account the notion of support in difficult situations at work and the feeling of job security. Our estimations show that the health status of older workers is related to these factors. Fairly low demand levels and a good level of reward are associated with a good health status, for both men and women. Control only influences the health status of women. Lastly, the results reveal the importance on health of a lack of support at work and the feeling of job insecurity; regardless of gender; these two factors are particularly related to the risk of depression. Thus health status and working conditions are important determinants of the labour force participation of older workers.Working conditions, Health, Older Workers

Stress at Work and the Health of Older Workers in Europe,

Working conditions have changed in recent decades. This study focuses on the existing links between job organization and the health status of older workers using the Share 2004 survey. It is based on the Karasek and Theorell (1991) and the Siegrist (1996) models, which highlight three main areas: the psychological demand, which reflects perceived physical demand and pressure due to heavy workload; the control at work, which relates to freedom of action and the opportunity to develop new skills; and the reward a person receives, which equates to the feeling of receiving an adequate salary relatively to the effort realized, having prospects for job advancement and receiving the recognition deserved. These models also take into account the notion of support at work in difficult situations and the feeling of job security. Our estimates show that the health status of older workers is linked to these factors.Job Organization, Health, Older Workers

Organisation du travail et sante des seniors en Europe

Les conditions de travail ont rapidement évolué au cours des dernières décennies dans les pays développés. Cette évolution s’est accompagnée de l’apparition de nouvelles formes d’organisation du travail s’avérant être sources de pénibilité et de risques pour la santé. Dans un contexte de vieillissement des populations, ces problèmes sont particulièrement préoccupants, en matière de santé, d’emploi et de financement des retraites. Cette étude s’intéresse aux liens existant entre l’organisation du travail et la santé des seniors (50 ans et plus). A partir des données de l’enquête SHARE 2004, nous montrons que plusieurs facteurs liés à l’organisation du travail - tels qu’une forte demande psychologique, un manque de latitude décisionnelle, une récompense reçue par le travail insatisfaisante, l’absence de soutien dans le travail mais aussi l’insécurité de l’emploi - sont corrélés à l’état de santé des seniors. Dès lors, l’organisation du travail comme la santé constituent des déterminants importants de la sortie d’activité des seniors.job organization, health, older workers

A New Method for Generating Safe Motions for Humanoid Robots

International audienceThis paper introduces a new method for planning safe motions for complex systems such as humanoid robots. Motion planning can be seen as a Semi-Infinite Programming problem (SIP) since it involves a finite number of variables over an infinite set of constraints. Most methods solve the SIP problem by transforming it into a finite programming one by using a discretization over a prescribed grid. We show that this approach is risky because it can lead to motions which violate one or several constraints. Then we introduce our new method for planning safe motions. It uses Interval Analysis techniques in order to achieve a safe discretization of the constraints. We show how to implement this method and use it with state-of-the-art constrained optimization packages. Then, we illustrate its capabilities for planning safe motions for the HOAP-3 humanoid robot

Safe Motion Planning Computation for Databasing Balanced Movement of Humanoid Robots

International audienceMotion databasing is an important topic in robotics research. Humanoid robots have a large number of degrees of freedom and their motions have to satisfy a set of constraints (balance, maximal joint torque velocity and angle values). Thus motion planning cannot efficiently be done on-line. The computation of optimal motions is performed off-line to create databases that transform the problem of large computation time into a problem of large memory space. Motion planning can be seen as a Semi-Infinite Programming problem (SIP) since it involves a finite number of variables over an infinite set of constraints. Most methods solve the SIP problem by transforming it into a finite programming one using a discretization over a prescribed grid. We show that this approach is risky because it can lead to motions which may violate one or several constraints. Then we introduce our new method for planning safe motions. It uses Interval Analysis techniques in order to achieve a safe discretization of the constraints. We show how to implement this method and use it with state-of-the-art constrained optimization packages. Then, we illustrate its capabilities for planning safe motions dedicated to the HOAP-3 humanoid robot

Fixed Point Probability Field for Occlusion Handling

In this paper, we show that in a multi-camera context, we can effectively handle occlusions at each time frame independently, even when the only available data comes from the binary output of a fairly primitive motion detector. We start from occupancy probability estimates in a top view and rely on a generative model to yield probability images to be compared with the actual input images. We then refine the estimates so that the probability images match the binary input images as well as possible. We demonstrate the quality of our results on several sequences involving complex occlusions