Do Euro-Med agreements improve democracy and the quality of institutions in EU partner countries ?.

The European Union enforced respect of human rights and democratic principles an essential elements of all its preferential and non preferential trading agreements since the beginning of the 90's. In all EU external agreements, an essential element would imply that the EU can impose sanctions against violating states, that is, "suspension of high-level bilateral contacts, trade embargoes, suspension of arms sales, suspension of military cooperation and suspension of cooperation", as was the case for Serbia and Burma because of human rights abuses such as torture, political arrests or censorship. But its preference is to use positive action rather than penalties. This paper deals with Euro-Med Agreements, it aims at assessing the impact of these constraints on EU partners governance. Using within comparisons and difference-in-differences estimates, we find that these agreements improved Mediterranean countries governance but not the respect of democratic principles.Trade agreements; Panel data analysis; Governance; Euro-med; Partenariat euro-méditerranéen;

Trade and democracy. An empirical investigation..

Democracy; trade policy; trade openness;

Career Interruptions : How Do They Impact Pension Rights ?.

The aim of this article is to analyse the question of career interruptions and to evaluate their impact on pension retirement for French private sector workers. Using the last French survey on households' wealth (2003-2004), we first study the career set-backs for individuals born between 1937 and 1949. We highlight the new trends in professional paths. The risk of unemployment and job flexibility has sharply risen. As a consequence, some cohorts appear to be more exposed to career interruptions. Second, we determine how pension rights for French employees are affected by different career accidents. We consider unemployment, part-time employment and inactivity periods. Our results show how, by compensating for some career accidents, the French legislation allows individuals to receive, in some cases, the same level of social security pension that they would have received with a smooth professional path.Part Time; Pension; Retirement; Social Security; France;

Video Manipulation Techniques for the Protection of Privacy in Remote Presence Systems

Systems that give control of a mobile robot to a remote user raise privacy concerns about what the remote user can see and do through the robot. We aim to preserve some of that privacy by manipulating the video data that the remote user sees. Through two user studies, we explore the effectiveness of different video manipulation techniques at providing different types of privacy. We simultaneously examine task performance in the presence of privacy protection. In the first study, participants were asked to watch a video captured by a robot exploring an office environment and to complete a series of observational tasks under differing video manipulation conditions. Our results show that using manipulations of the video stream can lead to fewer privacy violations for different privacy types. Through a second user study, it was demonstrated that these privacy-protecting techniques were effective without diminishing the task performance of the remote user.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figure

Aléas de carrière et pension de retraite

International audienceLe système de retraite français établit un lien fort entre l'activité et la retraite, car les droits à pension s'acquièrent en fonction des périodes d'activité. En outre, les paramètres de calcul de la pension sont définis par référence à une carrière continue. En particulier, depuis 2008, les pleins droits sont accordés à un individu totalisant au moins quarante années de durée d'assurance. Tout écart par rapport à cette carrière de référence est ainsi susceptible de modifier le montant de la pension que percevra l'assuré. Le système d'assurance vieillesse comporte cependant des dispositifs de solidarité, parmi lesquels, l'octroi de droits à pension sans contrepartie de cotisations en cas d'interruption de carrière pour cause de maladie, de chômage ou d'éducation des enfants

Career Interruptions: how do they impact pension rights?

International audienceThe aim of this article is to analyze the question of career interruptions and to evaluate their impact on pension retirement for French private sector workers. Using the last French survey on households' wealth (2003-2004), we first study the career setbacks for individuals born between 1938 and 1948. We highlight the new trends in professional paths. The risk of unemployment and job flexibility has sharply risen. As a consequence, some cohorts appear to be more exposed to career interruptions. Second, we determine how pension rights for French employees are affected by different career accidents. We consider unemployment, part-time employment and inactivity periods. Our results show how, by compensating for some career accidents, the French legislation allows individuals to receive, in some cases, the same level of pension that they would have received with a smooth professional path

Antimicrobial Resistance among Campylobacter Strains, United States, 1997–2001

We summarize antimicrobial resistance surveillance data in human and chicken isolates of Campylobacter. Isolates were from a sentinel county study from 1989 through 1990 and from nine state health departments participating in National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System for enteric bacteria (NARMS) from 1997 through 2001. None of the 297 C. jejuni or C. coli isolates tested from 1989 through 1990 was ciprofloxacin-resistant. From 1997 through 2001, a total of 1,553 human Campylobacter isolates were characterized: 1,471 (95%) were C. jejuni, 63 (4%) were C. coli, and 19 (1%) were other Campylobacter species. The prevalence of ciprofloxacin-resistant Campylobacter was 13% (28 of 217) in 1997 and 19% (75 of 384) in 2001; erythromycin resistance was 2% (4 of 217) in 1997 and 2% (8 of 384) in 2001. Ciprofloxacin-resistant Campylobacter was isolated from 10% of 180 chicken products purchased from grocery stores in three states in 1999. Ciprofloxacin resistance has emerged among Campylobacter since 1990 and has increased in prevalence since 1997

Characterization of Coastal Urban Watershed Bacterial Communities Leads to Alternative Community-Based Indicators

BACKGROUND: Microbial communities in aquatic environments are spatially and temporally dynamic due to environmental fluctuations and varied external input sources. A large percentage of the urban watersheds in the United States are affected by fecal pollution, including human pathogens, thus warranting comprehensive monitoring. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Using a high-density microarray (PhyloChip), we examined water column bacterial community DNA extracted from two connecting urban watersheds, elucidating variable and stable bacterial subpopulations over a 3-day period and community composition profiles that were distinct to fecal and non-fecal sources. Two approaches were used for indication of fecal influence. The first approach utilized similarity of 503 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) common to all fecal samples analyzed in this study with the watershed samples as an index of fecal pollution. A majority of the 503 OTUs were found in the phyla Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Actinobacteria. The second approach incorporated relative richness of 4 bacterial classes (Bacilli, Bacteroidetes, Clostridia and alpha-proteobacteria) found to have the highest variance in fecal and non-fecal samples. The ratio of these 4 classes (BBC:A) from the watershed samples demonstrated a trend where bacterial communities from gut and sewage sources had higher ratios than from sources not impacted by fecal material. This trend was also observed in the 124 bacterial communities from previously published and unpublished sequencing or PhyloChip- analyzed studies. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: This study provided a detailed characterization of bacterial community variability during dry weather across a 3-day period in two urban watersheds. The comparative analysis of watershed community composition resulted in alternative community-based indicators that could be useful for assessing ecosystem health

Les conséquences des profils individuels des revenus d'activité au long de la carrière sur le niveau des pensions de retraite

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