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The Council of Europe, created in 1949, is the oldest European political organization yet it is the most misunderstood. However, it plays an active role in shaping human rights policies, democratic regimes and the rule of law in Europe. Although all the decision-making power is in the hands of the member States, the Council of Europe progressively gains political leverage by generating a whole corpus of treaties and a set ofimplementation policies, putting serious constraints on the States which ratify them. The most famous is the European Court of Human Rights. This treaty not only deals with human rights policies but also relates to the organization of the territory, minority rights and languages as well as newer social issues such as bioethics, cybercrime and terrorism.The Council of Europe was the best suited European organization to integrate Central and Eastern Europe States (CEES) after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and to help them make the transition to democratic institutions, respectful of the fundamental European values in order to be able to join the European Union. These widenings continued to the Russian Federation and Caucasus.Since the integration of 10 CEES between 2004 and 2007 within the European Union, the Council of Europe has been confronted with a deep identity crisis which force the institution into redefining its position and its role in the construction of Europe, in a context of increasingly sharp ideological confrontation between Russia and European Union State members. ; Le Conseil de l'Europe, créé en 1949, est la plus ancienne des organisations politiques européennes bien qu'elle soit méconnue. Son rôle est pourtant déterminant dans les domaines des droits de l'homme, de la démocratie pluraliste et de la prééminence du droit en Europe. Fonctionnant sur le mode classique d'une organisation intergouvernementale laissant tout le pouvoir de décision aux Etats membres, le Conseil de l'Europea pu progressivement générer tout un corpus de traités contraignants pour les Etats qui les ...

The Operations Evaluation Department (OED) is an independent unit within the World Bank. The goals of evaluation are to learn from experience, to provide an objective basis for assessing the results of the Bank's work, and to provide accountability in the achievement of its objectives. This report on the Post-Conflict Fund (PCF) is one of twenty six case studies that have been prepared as source material for the second phase of OED's independent evaluation of the Bank's involvement in global programs. The program objective is to position the Bank through constructive engagement in conflict-affected countries where normal instruments and budget provisions cannot apply. The key findings are as follows : (i) a flexible instrument such as the PCF serves the needs that the Bank's numerous instruments do not fulfill in conflict-affected countries; (ii) yet if the policy guidelines under which it operates are too flexible, and the DGF criteria are ambiguous and insufficiently enforced, the instrument can be less than fully effective; (iii)Programs can continue over several years without a results-based framework and strong monitoring and evaluation; (iv) as currently designed, the country-by-country approach of the program does not sufficiently generate broader cross-country lessons and does not exploit the program's full potential to serve the Bank and its partners strategically; and (v) a global partnership program on conflict-affected countries with partners at the governance level might help the Bank, United Nations (UN) agencies, and other stakeholders to better respond to the transition from relief, to rehabilitation and reconstruction and development. Finally, this being an OED evaluation, it focuses primarily on the Bank's strategic role and performance in playing up to its comparative advantage relative to other partners in each program.

Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio's successful visit to Washington between 9 and 11 April testified to a deepening of the US-Japan alliance and important strategic shifts across the First Island Chain, which includes archipelagos stretching from the Kurils up in Northeast Asia down to the Japanese archipelago, Taiwan, the Philippines, all the way south to the Malay peninsula in Southeast Asia.
This is part and parcel of a shift in favour of a "Strategy of Denial", as per the thinking of then US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development Elbridge Colby, a key policymaker under the Trump administration.[1] According to Colby, the US would double its efforts at balancing China, enlist US allies and partners across the First Island Chain to buttress deterrence capabilities towards the People's Republic – including in Taiwan – and avoid a potentially domino-like process of subordination to Beijing. These efforts revolve around Japan's ability to shoulder more security responsibilities, a strengthened and more seamless US-Japan alliance – including joint operational planning over a Taiwan crisis scenario and the restructuring of portions of the US military planning to Japan – and a set of geopolitical minilaterals, within which the US-Japan alliance plays a key role.US-Japan(-Philippines) cooperation in the security domain
Japan's three strategic documents from December 2022 and the joint statements by Japan and the US in 2023 suggest that the transpacific allies are indeed working in lockstep in the security domain, with deterrence and coercive diplomacy vis-à-vis China high in policymakers' minds. According to these documents, Japan is about to shoulder more security responsibilities as it militarises and embraces offensive strike capabilities. In the process, Japan would ease US fatigue and work side-by-side to buttress its military and diplomatic projection – an aspect emphasised by Kishida in his speech to a joint session of the US Congress. Interestingly, Kishida's visit coincided with a trilateral Japan-Philippines-US summit, which attested to the strategic outreaches of both Washington and Tokyo to interlock the US hub-and-spokes system across the First Island Chain.
Japan's minilateral diplomacy aimed at purposeful multi-layered security ententes, often on an ad hoc basis, has worked in concert with the US government's regional efforts. The aim has been to balance China militarily, counter its regional and global diplomatic and economic influence, and do so "by taking full advantage of comprehensive national power, including diplomatic, defence, economic, technological, and intelligence/information capabilities", as per Japan's 2022 National Security Strategy.[2]
This whole-of-government grand strategy walked side-by-side with the US concept of an "integrated deterrence" that leveraged allies' capabilities, including basing rights and access for the aforementioned strategic objectives. The force posture and – to all effects – military doctrine changes in Japan have gone hand in hand with increases of US basing rights in both Japan and the Philippines and through enhanced bilateral military cooperation with Manila.Developments in the Taiwan Strait and the creation of the MLR
While underplayed by government actors, especially so now that US-China relations have (to some extent) stabilised and public reassurances are gaining more traction, the Taiwan-specific aspects of these strategic changes are worthy of note.
From a geopolitical standpoint, Japan and the US benefit from the preservation of the status quo across the Taiwan Strait because it bottles up China's advancement into the seas within the First Island Chain and facilitates the tracking of Chinese military assets venturing beyond it, including intercontinental ballistic missiles, ships and submarines. In fact, as mentioned, the Japanese government has been discreetly overhauling its security regime, military doctrine and force posture to preserve a modicum of military balance of power, even just asymmetrically, to deter Chinese aggression.
In parallel, the US government has been providing Taiwan with weapons, training and ways to bolster resilience along its newfound emphasis on asymmetric deterrence across the First Island Chain, while eliciting coalition-building with and among third parties, including NATO allies.
Japan's interlinkage of its own security with Taiwan's is evident in US-Japan alliance developments in 2023. On 11 January 2023, the Japan-US "2+2" meeting of foreign and defence ministers was held in Washington during which both governments announced that "the 12th Marine Regiment w[ould] be reorganized into the 12th Marine Littoral Regiment by 2025", a move aimed at "strengthen[ing] alliance deterrence and response capabilities by positioning more versatile, resilient, and mobile forces with increased intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, anti-ship, and transportation capabilities".[3] This initiative dovetailed with the expansion of the US-Philippines Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement to allow for four new US bases in key spots across the First Island Chain, thus increasing from five to nine, with more possibly in store to allow for rotational deployments.
Effectively, the Marine Littoral Regiment (MLR), made up of ca. 1,800-2,000 servicemen, will split into smaller teams of 50-100 soldiers to allow for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) of Chinese activities across the East and South China Seas by deploying unmanned surface, underwater and aerial vehicles. Hence, in a contingency, these US amphibious teams in Japanese and the Philippines' territory may distribute maritime operations (that is, disperse lethal forces) through anti-ship missiles and low-altitude defence systems, all while theoretically hopping from island to island every 48 to 72 hours to avoid Chinese attacks, while continuing to conduct ISR and fight. These so-called "stand-in forces", which will have to rely on Japanese military and/or civilian facilities (and, potentially, on Japan's direct military involvement), may well disrupt a Chinese blockade or amphibious landing on Taiwan and facilitate logistical support to the self-governed island. Finally, and in connection to that, a Japan-Philippines Reciprocal Access Agreement, which is currently under negotiation, would strengthen the Tokyo-Manila security side of the newly born trilateral.Enlisting the Republic of Korea
Aside from the US-Japan alliance preparations for a Taiwan contingency and coordination with the Philippines, minilateral alignments have gone through the enlisting of the Republic of Korea (RoK), better known as South Korea. The advent of the conservative Yoon Suk-Yeol presidency translated into a stronger RoK alignment with the US and its goals. In fact, an Indo-Pacific Strategy was announced in December 2022. Yoon Suk-Yeol specifically assigned its development to the North America Affairs Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, suggesting a desire to align with Washington. Aided by his forceful character as a former prosecutor, Yoon single-handedly abandoned his predecessor Moon Jae-in's engagement policy towards the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), aka North Korea, and aligned more fully with the United States on the China and Russia dossiers, so much so that it "indirectly" supplied more artillery shells to Ukraine than all European countries combined. Yoon's decision to tilt on one side of the conflict in Ukraine was not a foregone policy choice given the influence and leverage that Russia and China may exert over their North Korean neighbour, which constitutes Seoul's main foreign and security policy preoccupation. These developments cemented the idea of a progressive rift among competitive blocs, following Russia's 2022 war of aggression in Ukraine.
More importantly, and through active US intercession under the Biden administration, the South Korean government took the initiative in perhaps the hardest foreign policy call: reprising dialogue with Japan. This had soured over a negative spiral of disputes over the legacy of past colonial occupation and economic retaliation, especially in 2019. Kishida's mellower public persona and more conciliatory political background compared to his immediate predecessors in Japan's Prime Minister's Office, the late Abe Shinzō in particular, partly smoothened the road. But there were no meaningful concessions from the Japanese government's side, not least because of Kishida's unpopularity and, crucially, the weight of nationalists within his own Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).
Still, the stabilisation of Japan-RoK relations – two major US allies – ushered the way for the landmark trilateral US-Japan-RoK cooperation, as evidenced by the Camp David summit of 18 August 2023.[4] There too, minilateral cooperation expanded horizontally to include the diplomatic, educational and technological fields. But the key "integrated deterrence" outcomes were in security, through expanded intelligence sharing, missile defence and strengthened cybersecurity coordination. More importantly, the three documents released at the summit aimed at regularising security consultations, routinising trilateral meetings, both at the summit and working level, and diversifying and expanding their remit beyond North Korea to include food security, economic security and, importantly, China.The potential benefits of minilateralism
Through these arrangements, first and foremost, the US government aimed at an institutionalisation of US-RoK-Japan cooperation, thus inter-locking the region's most powerful, prosperous and technologically advanced US allies. It did so with an eye on binding South Korea and Japan into cooperation into the future, as successive governments in either country may not be as sympathetic to their counterpart across the sea as the current ones (especially Yoon's). The routinisation of trilateral cooperation and coordination also aimed at damage limitation in the event of a potential Trump comeback, who would prioritise his own interests at the expense of trilateral coordination.
Second, in the context of the RoK-Japan-US minilateral, regularised avenues for dialogue were deepened at multiple levels: from Director General level up to summit meetings, which will be held at least once a year.
Third and in connection to the above, the scope of trilateral cooperation expanded notably across agencies, given the multi-layered nature of the challenges and opportunities faced by the three countries. The inauguration of a Japan-US-RoK Indo-Pacific Dialogue and of a Trilateral Framework on scientific cooperation, including defence technology, testified to this logic, not unlike other minilaterals that the Biden administration promptly revitalised or gave birth to, such as the Quad with Australia, India and Japan, or AUKUS with Australia and the UK (soon to include, perhaps, Japan and Canada in one of their two pillars of cooperation). Japan-US-RoK cooperation, however, promised to go deeper with new dialogues or plans on common or coordinative frameworks aimed at combating North Korea's cyber activities, stifling disinformation and promoting humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HA/DR), as well as government financing across the Indo-Pacific (starting with the Pacific Islands), maritime, space and economic security, including the establishment of an early warning system on potential disruptions to supply chains.
Fourth, the most publicised development has been the strengthening of intelligence sharing, notably by allowing for a trilateral real-time system that linked the three countries radars tracking and evaluating missiles flying from North Korea, with potential implications also in a Taiwan contingency scenario. This may also well apply to the Philippines – although Manila was likely not as appealing as Seoul's capacity in this regard. Notably, reporting has suggested that Japan was quietly beefing up military and intelligence assistance to the self-governing island, if not directly, by triangulation through the United States, and potentially with some help from South Korea as well.[5]Looking ahead to November 2024 and beyond
While momentum has been clear, some of these mechanisms may be put to the test – especially the pledge to consult – by regional dynamics, as North Korea's bellicose behaviour toward its neighbour has been accompanied by DPRK leader Kim Jong-un's overtures towards Japan. Moreover, the Japanese government is still watchful about domestic political developments in South Korea, such as the progressive parties' electoral resounding win in the recent legislative elections (that is, a non-confidence vote against Yoon) and the South Korean Supreme Court's decision to uphold lower courts' orders for compensation by Japanese industries' responsible for wartime labour. Also for this reason, Tokyo is unlikely to allow South Korea into the G7 framework on a more regular basis, which is arguably also one of Washington's desiderata to buttress the rostrum of "like-minded partners". Similar hesitancies have been likely at play vis-à-vis Manila, where former President Rodrigo Duterte's daughter – the current Vice-President – may swift the pendulum away from this alignment of planets carefully engineered by the Biden administration.
Developments in US politics may affect the process too. With a second Trump presidency, the Japanese government would be again fearful of a reprise of US concessions to, and US summit diplomacy with, North Korea. This same logic may apply to the US-Japan-Philippines minilateral and other ententes that have been cajoled or blessed by Washington, such as NATO's outreach towards the Asia-Pacific, especially Japan, South Korea and Australia. A Trump redux may break apart NATO, but he might also rethink the merits of his mercenary and transactional tactics in the context of coercive diplomatic leverage towards China.
Thus, the bigger test of the "resilience" of minilateral alignments is the possible resurface of a disruptive and unilateral Trump presidency, whose transactional logic would thrive on US leverage at a bilateral level, and, perhaps, the incognita of China's staying power and of US-China strategic rivalry at large. As events unfold, the First Island Chain is and will be the place to watch to understand the geopolitics of US-China competition.Giulio Pugliese is Associate fellow (Asia-Pacific) at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI), Lecturer in Japanese Politics at the University of Oxford and Part-time Professor on EU-Asia Studies at the European University Institute.
This commentary is an extract and re-adaptation from a forthcoming academic article: Giulio Pugliese and Marco Zappa, "Japan 2023: Still Walking on Abe Shinzō's Footsteps", in Asia Maior, Vol. XXXIV.[1] Elbridge A. Colby, The Strategy of Denial. American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict, New Haven/London, Yale University Press, 2021.[2] The English language version of the strategy translates jōhō merely as "intelligence", but it is a broader concept that encompasses (and can be translated as) "information". In fact, the Japanese government has been particularly apt at leveraging information and intelligence to shape its strategic environment. Cfr. Japan Ministry of Defence, Kokka anzen hoshō senryaku [National Security Strategy], December 2022, p. 4, https://www.cas.go.jp/jp/siryou/221216anzenhoshou/nss-j.pdf. For the English language version see: National Security Strategy of Japan, December 2022, p. 3, https://www.mofa.go.jp/fp/nsp/page1we_000081.html.[3] US and Japan, Joint Statement of the Security Consultative e Committee ("2+2"), 11 January 2023, https://www.mofa.go.jp/files/100444894.pdf.[4] Japan, RoK and US, The Spirit of Camp David: Joint Statement of Japan, the Republic of Korea, and the United States, 18 August 2023, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/08/18/the-spirit-of-camp-david-joint-statement-of-japan-the-republic-of-korea-and-the-united-states.[5] Kathrin Hille and Demetri Sevastopulo, "US to Link up with Taiwan and Japan Drone Fleets to Share Real-Time Data", in Financial Times, 8 June 2023, https://www.ft.com/content/bde0db76-a7f8-4ecd-b5d5-03de0b5a8659.

One of the major challenges in the evolution of the Internet architecture is the definition of a protocol architecture that allows to solve the following major issues in Internet routing and traffic forwarding capabilities, (i) keeping a routing state that is manageable with current and forthcoming computing infrastructure – i.e., with few millions of states, (ii) offering a scalable pull architecture in support of data-plane programmability, (iii) offering a scalable forwarding plane able to be regularly optimized with only active flows information, (iv) offering locator/identifier separation for advanced IP mobility, (v) is incrementally deployable, (vi) can enhance the support of over-the-top services. The Locator/Identifier Separation Protocol (LISP) has been identified as one of the rising protocols in this respect. In its current status, it supports the above mentioned requirements at a level that is acceptable for basic networking environments. However, it shows too limited capacities when it comes to take into consideration fault resiliency and capability to react fast to network state updates. These shortcomings can be compensated by enhancing the control-plane architecture, and the routing algorithms therein. In this dissertation, we propose new protocol features and experiment novel control-plane primitives, as well as hybrid distributed-centralized routing state dissemination algorithms, to scale with different network conditions. We first design and build own open source LISP data-plane and control plane node, comparing it with other implementations, showing how our implementation can scale for large networks and reach performances suitable for real deployments. We present how our implementation served to operate all network nodes (data-plane and control-plane nodes) of a large scale experimentation testbed, the LISP-Lab testbed. Then we propose a novel LISP-based solution for VM live migrations across geographically separated datacenters over wide area IP networks. Experimenting it at large scale, we show that with our approach we can easily reach sub-second downtimes upon Internet-wide migration, even for very distant clients. Moreover, we investigate cross-layer network optimization protocols, in particular in relation with the Multipath Transport Control Protocol (MPTCP) to which LISP can deliver path diversity in support of bandwidth increase, confidentiality support and connection reliability, also using LISP traffic engineering network overlays. Despite we could benefit from only few overlay network nodes, we could experimentally evaluate our proposals showing the positive impact by using our solution, the negative impact of long round-trip times on some MPTCP subflows, and the strong correlation between the differential round-trip time among subflows and the throughput performance. Finally, we worked on a framework to improve LISP operation at the Internet scale, by facilitating cooperation between LISP Mapping Systems and introducing more automation in the LISP connectivity service delivery procedure. We believe such optimization could raise awareness among the service providers' community, yielding new business opportunities related to LISP mapping services and the enforcement of advanced inter-domain traffic engineering policies for the sake of better quality of service guarantees. ; L'un des défis majeurs de l'évolution de l'architecture Internet est la définition d'une architecture protocolaire permettant d'améliorer le routage, et en particulier (i) conserver un système de routage gérable avec les technologies actuelles et futures c'est-à-dire, avec quelques millions d'états, (ii) offrir une architecture apte à faciliter la programmabilité du plan de transfert, (iii) proposer un système de routage évolutif pouvant être régulièrement optimisé avec uniquement les informations sur les flux actifs, (iv) fournir une séparation entre localisateurs et identificateurs pour la mobilité IP avancée, (v) faciliter un déploiement incrémental, (vi) mieux servir les services applicatifs "over-the-top". Le protocole LISP (\textit{Locator/Identifier Separation Protocol}) a été identifié comme l'un des protocoles émergents à cet égard. Dans son état actuel, il répond très bien aux besoins susmentionnés. Cependant, il subit des limitations lorsqu'il s'agit de prendre en compte la résilience et la capacité à réagir rapidement aux mises à jour de l'état du réseau. Ces inconvénients peuvent être compensés en améliorant l'architecture du plan de contrôle et ses algorithmes de routage. Dans cette thèse, nous proposons une nouvelle architecture réseau-système et expérimentons de nouvelles primitives de plan de contrôle, ainsi que d'algorithmes de diffusion des états, en testant son passage à l'échelle avec différentes conditions de réseau. Nous concevons et construisons d'abord un nœud de plan de données et de plan de contrôle LISP open source. Nous le comparons avec d'autres implémentations en montrant que notre implémentation atteint des performances adaptées aux vrais déploiements. Nous montrons comment notre implémentation a permis la mise en oeuvre d'une plateforme d'expérimentation à grande échelle, la plate-forme LISP-Lab, en opération aussi bien les fonctions de plan de transfert que les fonctions de plan de contrôle. En suite, nous proposons une nouvelle solution pour les migrations à chaud de machines virtuelles à travers des centres de données géographiquement répartis sur des réseaux IP étendus. Des tests dans un testbed réel connecté nativement à Internet montrent qu'avec notre approche, nous pouvons facilement atteindre des temps d'arrêt inférieurs à la seconde lors de la migration sur une grande échelle, même pour des clients très distants. En outre, nous avons étudié des protocoles d'optimisation de réseau multicouche, en particulier en relation avec le protocole MPTCP (Multipath Transport Control Protocol), auquel LISP peut offrir une diversité de chemins pour l'agrégation de bande passante, ainsi qu'une plus grande confidentialité et fiabilité des connexions. Bien que nous ne puissions bénéficier que de quelques nœuds de réseau superposés, nous avons pu évaluer expérimentalement nos propositions en montrant l'impact positif de notre solution, l'impact négatif des longs temps d'aller-rétour sur certains sous-flux MPTCP, et la forte corrélation entre le temps d'aller-retour différentiel et le débit. Enfin, nous avons travaillé sur une refonte du plan de contrôle de LISP afin d'améliorer son fonctionnement du à l'échelle d'Internet, en facilitant la coopération entre les systèmes de mapping LISP et en introduisant plus d'automatisation dans la procédure de fourniture de services de connectivité LISP. Nous croyons qu'une telle optimisation pourrait sensibiliser la communauté des fournisseurs de services, générant de nouvelles opportunités commerciales liées aux services de cartographie LISP et l'application de politiques d'ingénierie de trafic interdomaines avancées dans le but d'obtenir de meilleures garanties de qualité de service.

The thesis focuses on the little-known role of private developers in making of urban spaces in India, in the metropolitan regions of Bangalore and Chennai. The aim of this doctoral research is to observe and explain how developers contribute to the transformation of the spatial organization of cities and their landscape, but also the way of representing and designing as well as develop and govern the development. By probing the physical, symbolic and political, we explore the mechanisms that help explain the more rapid growth of some promoters to a recent moment in urban history. This then needs to take into account the promotion of the activity of specific scrutinizing the ways in which businesses access to the resources they need (land, capital and regulatory power) while taking care of the historicizing. In the context of liberalized India, we note that the growth of real estate development companies due to three aspects combined: 1) a significant demand for new construction that reflects the real estate consumer companies seeking modern premises to house their employees and a growing upper middle class; 2) a socio-relaxed regulatory environment on all important aspects of the property development business, and in particular the arrangements for access to building materials and labor, but also to urban land and capital to pre-finance development operations; 3) finally, the availability of capital from various sources (financial markets, commercial banks, private investors). In the mid 2000s, some developers have managed to develop very rapidly, while managing to maintain a strong autonomy vis-à-vis investors that underpin their development. This relative autonomy of developers, coupled with the firepower provided by the financial markets allowed them to implement a strategy to conquer real estate markets in both their original spaces and by implanting in other cities of south India. They were able to increase their production volume, multiplying projects characterized by their increasing size. Real estate developers surveyed are in strong position to articulate visions on urban development, the governance of cities and urban Indian society. These views reflected those proposed by other leading Indian business leaders and international audit firms: the Indian city should be transformed to meet a world-class city ideal, characterized by efficient urban infrastructure and services. Proponents disqualify public players because of their incompetence and their use of fraudulent compensation practices. Conversely, proponents boast of producing urban forms responding to this world-class city ideal, provide effective services in their housing complexes, demonstrate probity and professional integrity including meeting the requirements of transparency in financial communication and good governance, and more generally to work for the common good through the production of housing and office buildings adapted to the economic modernization of India. These self-legitimation discourse encourage them to dream aloud to replace public authorities in charge of the development of cities, or at least to assume even greater responsibility in their transformation ; La thèse s'intéresse à la place encore méconnue des promoteurs immobiliers privés dans la fabrication des espaces urbains en Inde, en prenant pour terrain de recherche les régions métropolitaines de Bangalore et Chennai. L'enjeu de cette recherche doctorale est d'observer et d'expliquer comment des promoteurs immobiliers contribuent à la transformation de l'organisation spatiale des villes et de leurs paysages, mais également de la manière de les représenter et de les concevoir ainsi que de les aménager et de gouverner leur développement. En sondant ces dimensions matérielles, symboliques et politiques, nous explorons les mécanismes qui aident à comprendre l'essor plus rapide de certains promoteurs à un moment récent de l'histoire urbaine. Ceci nécessite alors de prendre en compte les spécificités de l'activité de promotion en scrutant les modalités par lesquelles les entreprises accèdent aux ressources qui leur sont nécessaires (le foncier, les capitaux et le pouvoir réglementaire) tout en prenant soin de les historiciser. Dans le contexte de l'Inde libéralisée, nous remarquons que l'essor des entreprises de promotion immobilière tient à trois aspects conjugués : 1) une demande importante en nouvelles constructions qui reflète la consommation immobilière d'entreprises recherchant des locaux modernes pour héberger leurs salariés et d'une classe moyenne supérieure croissante; 2) un environnement socio-règlementaire assoupli sur tous les aspects importants pour l'activité de promotion immobilière, et en particulier les modalités d'accès aux matériaux de construction et à la main-d'œuvre, mais également au foncier urbain et aux capitaux pour préfinancer les opérations de promotion ; 3) enfin, la disponibilité de ces capitaux à partir de diverses sources (marchés financiers, banques commerciales, investisseurs particuliers). Ainsi, au milieu des années 2000, certains promoteurs sont parvenus à se développer très rapidement, tout en parvenant à conserver une autonomie forte vis-à-vis des investisseurs qui sous-tendent leur essor. Cette autonomie relative des promoteurs, doublée de la puissance de feu apportée par les marchés financiers leur a permis de mettre en œuvre une stratégie de conquête de marchés immobiliers à la fois dans leurs espaces d'origine et par l'implantation dans d'autres villes d'Inde du sud. Ils ont ainsi pu accroître leur volume de production, multipliant des projets caractérisés par leur taille croissante. Les promoteurs immobiliers étudiés se trouvent en position de force pour énoncer des visions sur le développement urbain, la gouvernance des métropoles et pour société urbaine indienne. Ces visions retrouvent celles proposées par d'autres grands entrepreneurs indiens et des cabinets d'audit internationaux : la ville indienne doit être transformée afin de répondre à un idéal de ville de classe mondiale, caractérisée notamment par des infrastructures et services urbains efficients. Les promoteurs disqualifient les acteurs publics en raison de leur incompétence et de leur recours à des pratiques de rémunération frauduleuse. A contrario, les promoteurs se targuent de produire des formes urbaines répondant à cet idéal de ville de classe mondiale, d'apporter des services efficaces au sein de leurs complexes immobiliers, de démontrer leur probité et leur intégrité professionnelles notamment en répondant aux exigences de transparence en matière de communication financière et de bonne gouvernance, et plus généralement d'œuvrer au bien commun par la production de logements et d'immeubles de bureaux adapté à la modernisation économique de l'Inde. Discours d'auto légitimation qui les incitent à rêver tout haut de se substituer aux autorités publiques en charge de l'aménagement des métropoles, ou du moins, à assumer une responsabilité plus importante encore dans leur transformation

The thesis focuses on the little-known role of private developers in making of urban spaces in India, in the metropolitan regions of Bangalore and Chennai. The aim of this doctoral research is to observe and explain how developers contribute to the transformation of the spatial organization of cities and their landscape, but also the way of representing and designing as well as develop and govern the development. By probing the physical, symbolic and political, we explore the mechanisms that help explain the more rapid growth of some promoters to a recent moment in urban history. This then needs to take into account the promotion of the activity of specific scrutinizing the ways in which businesses access to the resources they need (land, capital and regulatory power) while taking care of the historicizing. In the context of liberalized India, we note that the growth of real estate development companies due to three aspects combined: 1) a significant demand for new construction that reflects the real estate consumer companies seeking modern premises to house their employees and a growing upper middle class; 2) a socio-relaxed regulatory environment on all important aspects of the property development business, and in particular the arrangements for access to building materials and labor, but also to urban land and capital to pre-finance development operations; 3) finally, the availability of capital from various sources (financial markets, commercial banks, private investors). In the mid 2000s, some developers have managed to develop very rapidly, while managing to maintain a strong autonomy vis-à-vis investors that underpin their development. This relative autonomy of developers, coupled with the firepower provided by the financial markets allowed them to implement a strategy to conquer real estate markets in both their original spaces and by implanting in other cities of south India. They were able to increase their production volume, multiplying projects characterized by their increasing size. Real estate developers surveyed are in strong position to articulate visions on urban development, the governance of cities and urban Indian society. These views reflected those proposed by other leading Indian business leaders and international audit firms: the Indian city should be transformed to meet a world-class city ideal, characterized by efficient urban infrastructure and services. Proponents disqualify public players because of their incompetence and their use of fraudulent compensation practices. Conversely, proponents boast of producing urban forms responding to this world-class city ideal, provide effective services in their housing complexes, demonstrate probity and professional integrity including meeting the requirements of transparency in financial communication and good governance, and more generally to work for the common good through the production of housing and office buildings adapted to the economic modernization of India. These self-legitimation discourse encourage them to dream aloud to replace public authorities in charge of the development of cities, or at least to assume even greater responsibility in their transformation ; La thèse s'intéresse à la place encore méconnue des promoteurs immobiliers privés dans la fabrication des espaces urbains en Inde, en prenant pour terrain de recherche les régions métropolitaines de Bangalore et Chennai. L'enjeu de cette recherche doctorale est d'observer et d'expliquer comment des promoteurs immobiliers contribuent à la transformation de l'organisation spatiale des villes et de leurs paysages, mais également de la manière de les représenter et de les concevoir ainsi que de les aménager et de gouverner leur développement. En sondant ces dimensions matérielles, symboliques et politiques, nous explorons les mécanismes qui aident à comprendre l'essor plus rapide de certains promoteurs à un moment récent de l'histoire urbaine. Ceci nécessite alors de prendre en compte les spécificités de l'activité de promotion en scrutant les modalités par lesquelles les entreprises accèdent aux ressources qui leur sont nécessaires (le foncier, les capitaux et le pouvoir réglementaire) tout en prenant soin de les historiciser. Dans le contexte de l'Inde libéralisée, nous remarquons que l'essor des entreprises de promotion immobilière tient à trois aspects conjugués : 1) une demande importante en nouvelles constructions qui reflète la consommation immobilière d'entreprises recherchant des locaux modernes pour héberger leurs salariés et d'une classe moyenne supérieure croissante; 2) un environnement socio-règlementaire assoupli sur tous les aspects importants pour l'activité de promotion immobilière, et en particulier les modalités d'accès aux matériaux de construction et à la main-d'œuvre, mais également au foncier urbain et aux capitaux pour préfinancer les opérations de promotion ; 3) enfin, la disponibilité de ces capitaux à partir de diverses sources (marchés financiers, banques commerciales, investisseurs particuliers). Ainsi, au milieu des années 2000, certains promoteurs sont parvenus à se développer très rapidement, tout en parvenant à conserver une autonomie forte vis-à-vis des investisseurs qui sous-tendent leur essor. Cette autonomie relative des promoteurs, doublée de la puissance de feu apportée par les marchés financiers leur a permis de mettre en œuvre une stratégie de conquête de marchés immobiliers à la fois dans leurs espaces d'origine et par l'implantation dans d'autres villes d'Inde du sud. Ils ont ainsi pu accroître leur volume de production, multipliant des projets caractérisés par leur taille croissante. Les promoteurs immobiliers étudiés se trouvent en position de force pour énoncer des visions sur le développement urbain, la gouvernance des métropoles et pour société urbaine indienne. Ces visions retrouvent celles proposées par d'autres grands entrepreneurs indiens et des cabinets d'audit internationaux : la ville indienne doit être transformée afin de répondre à un idéal de ville de classe mondiale, caractérisée notamment par des infrastructures et services urbains efficients. Les promoteurs disqualifient les acteurs publics en raison de leur incompétence et de leur recours à des pratiques de rémunération frauduleuse. A contrario, les promoteurs se targuent de produire des formes urbaines répondant à cet idéal de ville de classe mondiale, d'apporter des services efficaces au sein de leurs complexes immobiliers, de démontrer leur probité et leur intégrité professionnelles notamment en répondant aux exigences de transparence en matière de communication financière et de bonne gouvernance, et plus généralement d'œuvrer au bien commun par la production de logements et d'immeubles de bureaux adapté à la modernisation économique de l'Inde. Discours d'auto légitimation qui les incitent à rêver tout haut de se substituer aux autorités publiques en charge de l'aménagement des métropoles, ou du moins, à assumer une responsabilité plus importante encore dans leur transformation

Nowadays, the problem of care for people with disabilities is a major concern. Many studies prove that handicaps strongly impact modern society, economically and socially. Dependence, resulting in disability situations, is the inability to perform alone the tasks of daily living. A specialized assistance or even hospitalization, in the most advanced cases, may become necessary. Politicians were not deceived by making this issue a priority, particularly in France where the government has provided large sums of money. The World Health Organization, in its latest definition of disability says that disability is situational and that a suitable environment can compensate for the inability and correct the dependency. We can wonder, to what degree, can technology bring in the life of every day, a certain degree of comfort and independence for disabled people? Today, technology brings through intelligent houses, pervasive systems and home automation, the necessary resources for people to gain autonomy and stay longer at home. These solutions are based on specialized support services adapted to the uniqueness of the patient's pathology. Thus, a patient with physical disabilities could have an environment control solution while a patient with cognitive impairment may compensate for his disability through behavior analysis solutions. We offer a healthcare solution combining the two fields of action, to compensate for situations of multiple handicaps. To ensure independence, living comfort, security, health surveillance and home care for disabled people, algorithms require a lot of processing resources. The lack of processing devices can slow or even block the deployment of different assistive tasks and question considerably the user experience and therefore the acceptance of the solution. Neglecting the impact of resources for deploying can lead to inconvenient situations, even dangerous in the case of vital emergency. Can we really offer the best possible assistance service if our infrastructure does not allow its achievement? To address this problem, designers oversize the solution. In other words, extra dedicated and expensive equipments are installed in the person's environment. This attitude, although widely used in the industry, does not respect the recommendations of ambient assisted living, which aim to reduce the cost criteria and intrusiveness. Modern lifestyles imply that today's home, without any particular modifications, is already full of home-automation and electronic devices with unused capacities. We offer a resource modeling approach to highlight their abilities. However, be aware of these capabilities is not enough, the system also need to know how to manage them to facilitate the deployment of assistive services. Indeed, if the system can properly manage the utilization of the capabilities of one resource, the joint optimization of several resources, at the same, time is not enough controlled. We have set up a contextual deployment flow which, thanks to the knowledge of the environment and resources, can deploy a service on any devices capable of carrying out the operation. A distribution of the processing load, uniformly, helps to ensure dependability of our solution, by avoiding resource bottlenecks and overall system overload. ; À notre époque, la problématique de la prise en charge des personnes en situation de handicap est d'une importance majeure. Nombreuses sont les études qui prouvent qu'économiquement et socialement le handicap impacte fortement la société moderne. La dépendance, résultat des situations de handicap, est l'incapacité de réaliser seul les tâches de la vie courante. Une aide spécialisée, voire l'hospitalisation dans les cas les plus avancés, peut devenir nécessaire. Les politiques ne se sont pas trompés en faisant de cet enjeu une priorité, notamment en France où le gouvernement a débloqué d'importantes sommes d'argent. L'Organisation Mondiale de la Santé, dans sa dernière définition du handicap, explique que le handicap est situationnel et qu'un environnement adapté peut compenser l'incapacité et supprimer la dépendance. Nous pouvons nous demander dans quelle mesure la technologie peut apporter, dans la vie de tous les jours, un certain degré de confort et une autonomie aux personnes dépendantes. La technologie apporte, aujourd'hui par l'intermédiaire des habitats intelligents, des systèmes pervasifs et de la domotique, les moyens nécessaires aux personnes pour gagner en autonomie et vivre plus longtemps à domicile. Ces solutions s'appuient sur des services d'assistance spécialisés, adaptés à la singularité de la pathologie du patient. Ainsi, un patient en situation de handicap physique se verra proposer une solution de contrôle d'environnement tandis qu'un patient souffrant de trouble cognitif pourra compenser son handicap grâce aux solutions d'analyse du comportement. Nous proposons une solution d'assistance unifiant les deux champs d'action, pour compenser les situations de polyhandicaps. Pour assurer autonomie, confort de vie, sécurité, surveillance et assistance à domicile des personnes dépendantes, les algorithmes d'assistance requièrent beaucoup de ressources de traitement et le manque de ces dernières peut ralentir voire bloquer le déploiement des différentes tâches et remettre en question considérablement l'expérience utilisateur et par conséquent l'acceptation de la solution. Négliger l'impact des ressources sur le déploiement peut mener à des situations de fonctionnement gênantes, voire dangereuses, dans le cas d'une urgence vitale. Peut-on vraiment proposer le meilleur service d'assistance possible si notre infrastructure ne permet pas sa réalisation ? Pour répondre à cette problématique, les concepteurs surdimensionnent la solution. Autrement dit, des équipements supplémentaires, spécialisés et couteux, sont installés. Toutefois, cette attitude très répandue dans l'industrie ne respecte pas les recommandations de l'aide au handicap, qui cherchent à réduire les critères de couts et d'intrusivité, notamment. Les habitudes de vie moderne impliquent que la maison d'aujourd'hui, sans modifications particulières, regorge déjà d'équipements domotiques et électroniques aux capacités inexploitées. Nous proposons une approche de modélisation des ressources pour mettre en évidence leurs capacités. Cependant, avoir conscience de ces capacités ne suffit pas, il faut aussi les connaître et savoir les gérer pour faciliter le déploiement des services d'assistance. En effet, si l'exploitation des capacités au niveau d'une ressource est correctement maitrisée, l'optimisation conjointe des capacités de plusieurs ressources est quant à elle moins développée. Nous avons mis en place un flot de déploiement contextuel qui grâce à la connaissance de son environnement et des ressources qui le composent peut déployer un service sur n'importe quel équipement capable de le réaliser. Une répartition de la charge de traitement de manière uniforme permet de garantir une sureté de fonctionnement en évitant un engorgement des ressources et une surcharge globale du système.

Users expect modern software to be both continually available and updated on the fly. Introduction of new features and integration of bug fixes should not trouble the smooth running of an application. Developers also benefit from dynamic mod- ifications of software, e.g. they can adapt code to new unanticipated situations or they can run dynamic analyses to get feedback about the behavior of running applications for monitoring, debugging and optimization purposes. Programming languages and their runtimes should thus provides developers with mechanisms that improve software adaptability.At the same time, the increasing size and complexity of software call for ap- plications made up of many interacting components developed by different parties. In this context, either all components are trusted or each component needs to be properly protected from other ones. For example, a plugin should not be able to manipulate the internal structures or leaks private data of its host application unre- strictedly. Likewise, a malicious library should not be able to corrupt its clients or interfere with their operations. Programming languages should thus provide devel- opers with mechanisms that improve software isolation, such as encapsulation and custom access control policies.The need for dynamic adaptations that can change nearly every aspect of an application on the one hand and the need for properly confined components on the other hand pulls programming language design in two opposite directions: ei- ther more flexibility or more control. This dissertation studies this tension in the context of dynamically-typed object-oriented languages with two language mech- anisms that promote software adaptability: reflection and extension methods. For both mechanisms, we demonstrate their usefulness, their harmful effect on encap- sulation and propose solutions to retain their power while maintaining encapsula- tion. ; Les utilisateurs s'attendent à ce que les logiciels d'aujourd'hui soient à la fois con- tinuellement disponibles et mis-à-jour à la volée. L'introduction de nouvelles fonc- tionnalités et l'intégration de correctifs ne doit pas perturber la bonne marche d'une application. Les développeurs bénéficient aussi de la modification dynamique des logiciels: par exemple, ils peuvent adapter le code à de nouvelle situations non anticipées ou bien ils peuvent exécuter des analyses dynamiques pour obtenir du retour sur le comportement d'applications en cours d'exécution, et ce, à des fins de monitorage, de déboggage et d'optimisation. Les languages de programmation et leurs environments d'exécution doivent donc fournir aux développeurs des mécan- ismes qui améliorent l'adaptabilité logicielle.Dans le même temps, l'augmentation de la taille et de la complexité des logi- ciels requièrent des applications faites de nombreux composants développés par différents groupes. Dans ce contexte, soit tous les composant sont supposés dignes de confiance ou bien chaque composant doit être convenablement protégé des autres. Par exemple, un greffon logiciel ne doit pas être capable de manipuler les structures internes ou bien de divulguer les données privée de son application hôte de manière non contrôlée. De la même manière, une bibliothèque malveillante ne doit pas pouvoir corrompre ses clients ou interférer dans leurs opérations. Les lan- guages de programmation doivent donc fournir aux développeurs des mécanismes qui améliorent l'isolation logicielle, tels que l'encapsulation et des politiques de contrôle d'accès sur mesure.Le besoin de supporter des adaptations dynamiques qui peuvent change quasi- ment chaque aspect d'une application d'un côté, et le besoin d'avoir des com- posants convenablement confinés d'un autre côté, poussent la conception des lan- guages de programmation dans deux directions opposées: soit plus de flexibilité, soit plus de contrôle. Cette dissertation étudie cette tension dans le contexte des languages orientée-objet dynamiquement typés via deux mécanismes qui promeu- vent l'adaptabilité logicielle: la réflexion et les méthodes d'extension. Pour cha- cun de ces mécanismes, nous démontrons leur utilité, leurs effets néfastes sur l'encapsulation et proposons des solutions qui conservent leurs forces tout en main- tenant l'encapsulation.

Questionnaire about Harvey Steele Burwell's service in World War I, 1917-1919, not signed by Burwell but dated 1 January 1925. ; Questionnaire originally part of a survey of Norwich University alumni conducted by a "Norwich in the World War" committee consisting of Charles N. Barber (chairman), Carl V. Woodbury, K.R.B. Flint, and Gustaf A. Nelson. Data from these questionnaires may have been used in a chapter of "Vermont in the world war, 1917-1919" by Harold P. Sheldon (1928). Transcription by Carina Berg. Transcriptions may be subject to error.