L’assistance à la mobilité est un enjeu majeur, compte tenu de son importance dans l’augmentation de l’autonomie des personnes. Dans le cadre de cette thèse, nous nous intéressons au moyen d’assistance le plus commun qu’est la canne. Nous avons, dans un premier temps, analysé l’apport des cannes conventionnelles dans l’assistance à des marches perturbées.Cette analyse repose sur des caractérisations expérimentales ainsi que sur la modéli- sation et la simulation de la marche assistée. Nous avons ainsi mis en évidence l’aide au support du poids, au freinage et à la propulsion permises par le point d’appui supplé- mentaire fourni par la canne.Nous avons ensuite introduit le développement d’une canne robotique. Contrairement aux cannes robotiques existantes, notre prototype ne repose pas sur une base mobile statiquement stable. Pour plus de compacité et pour garder les attributs d’une canne conventionnelle, elle est composée d’un axe télescopique et d’une roue à son extrémité, tous deux motorisés. La commande de ce prototype est ensuite décrite. Elle permet de synchroniser les mouvements de la canne robotique avec le cycle de la marche. La canne suit ainsi activement le mouvement de la jambe “invalide” durant la phase de balancement et offre un point d’appui stable pendant la phase d’appui. / Mobility assistance is major challenge since its importance in people autonomy enhancement.In this thesis, we focus on one of the most used assisting device which is the cane.Firstly, we have analyzed the supply provided by conventional canes during impaired gaits.This analyse is based on cane-assisted gait experimental characterizations and simulation.We have highlighted the weight-bearing, braking and propulsion assistance allowed by the additional contact point represented by the cane.Then, the development of a robotized cane is introduced. Unlike existing robotized canes, our prototype does not remain on a stable mobile platform.In order to reduce its volume and keep the shape of a conventional cane, the cane is composed of a telescopic shaft and a wheel at its tip, both motorized.The control of this cane is described. It allows to synchronize the cane motion with its user’s gait. The active cane follows the weakest leg during its swinging phase and offers a stable contact point during the stance phase.

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Call number: LD2668 .T4 1953 S23 / Master of Science

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Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / Scholars are usually attracted to South America because of the characterization of this zone of the Western Hemisphere as a zone with a "long peace". However, almost 200 years after achieving independence from Spain and Portugal, some countries are still facing unsolved territorial and boundary disputes. Thus, the purpose of this thesis is to assess the importance the balance of power has in the inter-state relationships in the Western Hemisphere. This thesis argues that Plan Colombia is creating an imbalance of military power between Colombia and Venezuela and this balance is important to their relations. Three possible explanations are used to explore the relations between these two countries, which are democratic peace, balance of power, and spiral model. The major conclusion of this thesis is that the implementation of U.S. policy in the region is creating an imbalance of power, and that the situation could lead the unbalanced country to increase military capabilities. The long history of misperceptions of the capabilities and intentions of the adversary could provide the dynamics that might trigger a war. Therefore, this U.S. policy is likely to increase tensions and instability in the dyad. / Major, Venezuelan Air Force

The aim of this study was to investigate the perceptions of football players and officials on the provision of employee assistance programs by football clubs in South Africa. The study used interviews to collect data from ten football players playing for different football clubs in the Premier Soccer League (PSL) of South Africa, two officials from the PSL and two officials from South African Football Players Union. The results of this study indicate that football players believe that employee assistance programs need to be made available by football clubs. Although football officials consider the provision of employee assistance programs to be significant, they shifted the responsibility for its provision to football clubs. The results led to the conclusion that South African clubs must provide EAPs to improve the morale and performance of players. Direction for future research could focus on investigating the provision of EAPs by football clubs in Africa and in Europe to compare the differences between clubs that offer EAPs and clubs that do not.

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This thesis analyses issues related to aid in Ethiopia and provision of elder care in the US. The first essay assesses the targeting of two major aid interventions, public works and food aid. Both types of aid are primarily allocated through community-based targeting. The few studies that have analysed the accuracy of aid targeting in Ethiopia have shown biases along demography, geography and political affiliations lines. With the introduction in 2005 of the Productive Safety Net Programme (PSNP), a major social protection programme, several administrative guidelines were introduced aimed at improving targeting. This paper uses the last two rounds of the Ethiopian Rural Household Survey to investigate whether there were changes in both targeting determinants, and amount received for PSNP public works and food aid components from 2004 to 2009. Overall, the PSNP appears to be allocated on the basis of observable-poverty-related characteristics, and food aid on household demographics. In addition, results suggest for both PSNP and food aid beneficiaries, political connections are significant in determining receipt of the program in 2004, but no longer in 2009, indicating an improvement towards means-based targeting. The second essay investigates the long-term effectiveness of emergency aid in Ethiopia in pro- tecting child health from the negative effects of a severe drought that hit the country in 2011. Child malnutrition remains a critical issue in Ethiopia and the literature has shown that shocks can have long lasting effects on physical and cognitive development. Using the two rounds of the Ethiopian Rural Socioeconomic Survey (ERSS) collected in 2011 and 2013, I explore the impact of emergency aid on child height-for-age aged 0-36 months two years after the drought had occurred. Because aid was not randomly allocated, I use a matching estimator to account for selection into the programme. The results show that emergency aid was effective in protecting children that experienced the drought. In the last essay, I research the effects of kindergarten eligibility on the provision of elder care in the US. I am able to identify the trade-off between child care and elder care by exploiting age eligibility criterion for public kindergarten, in combination with state-level variation, in the provision of full-time kindergarten. Through a reduced form approach, I estimate the Intention to Treat (ITT) for the effect of eligibility to kindergarten on provision of elder care. The results show that having the youngest child aged 5 in states that offer full-time kindergarten increases the probability of providing elder care by around 9 percentage points, which corresponds to 63 percentage increase to the baseline. The effect is higher for females (9.2) than for males (8.1).