Diversité culturelle | EPFL Graph Search

La diversité culturelle est l'existence de différentes cultures au sein d'une organisation ou une société. Elle désigne le fait d’inclure différentes perspectives culturelles dans une organisation ou une société. Caractéristiques 350px|thumb|right| 37e Assemblée générale de l’UNESCO en 2013, Paris. Selon certains anthropologues et sociologues, c'est un concept servant à décrire l'existence de différentes cultures au sein d'une société, en fait à l'intérieur d'un État-nation. La « défense de la diversité culturelle » peut prendre plusieurs acceptions :

un rééquilibrage à obtenir : ainsi, l'idée de défense de la diversité culturelle passe par la promotion d'actions en faveur de « minorités culturelles » défavorisées ;
la préservation de « minorités culturelles » menacées de disparition ;
dans d'autres cas, on parle de « protection culturelle », ce qui renvoie au concept d'« exception culturelle ». Cela fait le lien entre la vision sociale de la culture et la vision com

Analysis of the Relations Between Daily Space-Time Behaviours and Modal Practices. The Case of Switzerland

Guillaume Simon Joseph Drevon, Alexis Gumy, Armelle Loreline Hausser, Vincent Kaufmann

Reducing the role of the car in daily mobility practices is still largely a struggle for Switzerland's public transport policies. Adapting transport supply to user demand is the major challenge for this modal shift, the response to which requires a detailed understanding of the diversity of mobility behaviours. This article proposes to analyse the mobility behaviours of the Swiss population based on a spa tio-temporal approach to mobility. The creation of a spatio-temporal typology of "typical days" made it possible to distinguish five profiles. A significant diversity of behaviours that largely influence and condition modal practices are shown by the analysis. The results highlight the need to take the diversity of the demand for mobility into account in transport policies.

2020

Lean synthesis and application to lower-limb exoskeletons

Tristan Hubert Vouga

Mobility impairments are the most prevalent of all disabilities, affecting the life of nearly one in 20 individuals in developed countries. In the most severe cases, they can have dramatic consequences for the social, mental and physical well-being of those impacted. Wearable robots, also known as exoskeletons, are devices that can physically help humans achieve certain tasks by compensating a disability or augmenting their capacity. Such devices have already proven to temporarily restore some physical function such as the ability to walk for individuals who had suffered a spinal cord injury (SCI). As of today, their limited performance has however prevented them from being widely accepted and used in community. Their high cost, bulkiness, weight, poor usability and limited intelligence are often regarded as a cause. Exoskeleton research and development faces several challenges which have so far limited adoption, whether in the medical field or not. These challenges include the unpredictable and complex nature of human users; the important diversity of their pathologies and needs; the long cycles inherent to hardware development and patient testing; together with the difficulty to compare devices' design and mode of action. In an attempt to cope with these challenges, this thesis introduces the lean synthesis framework. It draws on modularity and digital manufacturing to accelerate and reduce the costs of exoskeleton development process. A collection of modules is presented, along with "DualSKin fabrication", a digital fabrication method particularly adapted to the case of wearable robotics, both used by the framework. We tested the framework by developing four lower-limb exoskeletons with different use cases. TWIICE, enabling individuals with a motor-complete SCI to walk again; SPRIINT, for running assistance of individuals with transfemoral amputation; INSPIIRE, for the study of gait and postural control; WIITE, enabling individuals with SCI to perform ski-touring. TWIICE was found to be the lightest exoskeleton capable of climbing stairs and among the fastest of its category. SPRIINT was the first exoskeleton able to assist running in individuals with transfemoral amputation and the fastest exoskeleton for running ever reported. WIITE was the first reported exoskeleton allowing SCI patients to practice ski-touring. INSPIIRE provided important and translatable insights on human gait and postural control. These findings enabled the implementation of a self-balancing controller on TWIICE. The important variety of these use cases exemplifies the diversity addressable by lean synthesis. New device development and fabrication cycles as short as five weeks were possible thanks to a high degree of reusability. Development and manufacturing costs could also be reduced by leveraging on standard components sharing and recycling. The presented DualSkin fabrication method was found to reduce the production costs of prototype structural parts by 93% with respect to CNC machining while remaining competitive for small series up to 500 parts with respect to low-volume injection molding. These findings suggest that the proposed implementation of lean synthesis contributed positively to addressing all of the considered challenges without deteriorating performance. Together, these contributions advocate for lean synthesis as a new tool for both wearable robotics research and product development.

EPFL2019

Highly Skilled Expatriates' Networks in the Cosmopolitan City: Constructing Post-migration Patterns of Belonging in Geneva (forthcoming)

Hossam Adly El Shentenawy

Within the field of migration studies, the construction of transnational networks and multilocal belongings has been widely described (Beck 2000, Glick-Schiller et al. 1995). However, much of this literature focuses on the construction of networks based on nationality, ethnicity or religion. Studies on how migrants (re)create diverse kind of ties within a host society remain insufficient. My presentation argues that highly skilled expatriates in Geneva not only construct networks based on pre-migration factors, but also establish ties that rely on new patterns of identification and belonging. Furthermore, these new patterns are closely linked to the urban dynamic of the city. This research is based on participant observation and in-depth interviews in two fields, one based on the United Nations Women’s Guild and the other on expat online forums. Interestingly, it seems in the first field that constructing ties and solidarity at the city level relies on a hybrid process of folklorization of cultural diversity and feminization of migration. In the second field, online interactions appear to be constitutive of an “expat identity” linked to the localization of specific residential and leisure places in the city centre and thus embedded in the urban dynamic of Geneva. These results shed light on expatriates’ networks relying on the construction of post-migration patterns of belonging within an urban context. Furthermore, they allow for broader consideration of a changing city centre through cosmopolitan ways of life and gentrification induced by the presence of highly skilled expatriates.

2012

Lean synthesis and application to lower-limb exoskeletons

Tristan Hubert Vouga

EPFL2019