Conservatoire national des arts et métiers

About: Conservatoire national des arts et métiers is a education organization based out in Paris, France. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Context (language use). The organization has 3573 authors who have published 7127 publications receiving 141430 citations. The organization is also known as: CNAM & Conservatoire des arts et métiers.

Health in the prison system: representations and practices by prison guards in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Abstract: The role of prison guards in limiting access to health services by inmates and the impact of their representations on daily health practices were investigated through an action-research program. The program aimed to produce knowledge and improve the guards' involvement in tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS control by raising their awareness. Developed in three prisons and two hospitals, the study included individual interviews and group discussions and showed that representations of health and illness, risk hierarchy, and preventive strategies are related to actors' status in the prison's social organization, the conflicts and tensions between them, and the sense of group belonging that reinforces identities and antagonisms. Such representations have a major influence on the guards' daily practices and inmates' access to health services. The denial of inmates' right to health and their limited autonomy contributed to the implementation of essentially prescriptive health actions. The guards' awareness of their own health representations and practices may contribute to the deconstruction of stereotypes and increase their involvement in prevention and care. Further, improvement of inmates' health depends on changes in prison conditions.

A Hamiltonian approach to stabilization of nonholonomic mechanical systems

Abstract: A simple procedure is provided to write the equations of motion of controlled mechanical systems with constraints as controlled Hamiltonian equations with respect to a "Poisson" bracket which does not necessarily satisfy the Jacobi-identity. Based on the Hamiltonian form a stabilization procedure is proposed. >

A User’s Guide to the Cornish Fisher Expansion

Abstract: Using the Cornish Fisher expansion is a relatively easy and parsimonious way of dealing with non-normality in asset price or return distributions, in such fields as insurance asset liability management or portfolio optimization with assets such as derivatives. It also allows to implement portfolio optimization with a risk measure more sophisticated than variance, such as Value-at-Risk or Conditional Value-at-Risk The use of Cornish Fisher expansion should avoid two pitfalls: (i) exiting the domain of validity of the formula; (ii) confusing the skewness and kurtosis parameters of the formula with the actual skewness and kurtosis of the distribution.This paper provides guidelines for a proper use of the Cornish Fisher expansion.