In this article we present a new kind of computing device that uses biochemical reactions networks as building blocks to implement logic gates. The architecture of a computing machine relies on these generic and composable building blocks, computation units, that can be used in multiple instances to perform complex boolean functions. Standard logical operations are implemented by biochemical networks, encapsulated and insulated within synthetic vesicles called protocells. These protocells are capable of exchanging energy and information with each other through transmembrane (...) electron transfer. In the paradigm of computation we propose, protoputing, a machine can solve only one problem and therefore has to be built specifically. Thus, the programming phase in the standard computing paradigm is represented in our approach by the set of assembly instructions that directs the wiring of the protocells that constitute the machine itself. To demonstrate the computing power of protocellular machines, we apply it to solve a NP-complete problem, known to be very demanding in computing power, the 3-SAT problem. We show how to program the assembly of a machine that can verify the satisfiability of a given boolean formula. Then we show how to use the massive parallelism of these machines to verify in less than 20 min all the valuations of the input variables and output a fluorescent signal when the formula is satisfiable or no signal at all otherwise. (shrink)

New concepts may prove necessary to profit from the avalanche of sequence data on the genome, transcriptome, proteome and interactome and to relate this information to cell physiology. Here, we focus on the concept of large activity-based structures, or hyperstructures, in which a variety of types of molecules are brought together to perform a function. We review the evidence for the existence of hyperstructures responsible for the initiation of DNA replication, the sequestration of newly replicated origins of replication, cell division (...) and for metabolism. The processes responsible for hyperstructure formation include changes in enzyme affinities due to metabolite-induction, lipid-protein affinities, elevated local concentrations of proteins and their binding sites on DNA and RNA, and transertion. Experimental techniques exist that can be used to study hyperstructures and we review some of the ones less familiar to biologists. Finally, we speculate on how a variety of in silico approaches involving cellular automata and multi-agent systems could be combined to develop new concepts in the form of an Integrated cell (I-cell) which would undergo selection for growth and survival in a world of artificial microbiology. (shrink)

Quantum mechanics is a very successful theory that has impacted on many areas of physics, from pure theory to applications. However, it is difficult to interpret, and philosophical contradictions and counterintuitive results are apparent at a fundamental level. In this book, Laloë presents our current understanding of the theory. The book explores the basic questions and difficulties that arise with the theory of quantum mechanics. It examines the various interpretations that have been proposed, describing and comparing them and discussing their (...) success and difficulties. The book is ideal for researchers in physics and mathematics who want to know more about the problems faced in quantum mechanics but who do not have specialist knowledge in the subject. It will also interest philosophers of science specializing in quantum physics. (shrink)

The impact of socially responsible corporate behavior on economic performance is a major preoccupation of managers today. This article explores the links between narrowly defined constructs: stakeholder orientation, environmental proactivity and profitability, from the perspectives of stakeholder theory and resource-based theory. We collected data on the food and beverage, and household and personal products industries. Using structural equation modeling, this paper makes two contributions. We found a negative link between companies simply having a higher stakeholder orientation and profitability. Importantly, however, (...) environmental proactivity not only had a positive impact on profitability, but also appeared to mediate the relationship between stakeholder orientation and profitability. In other words, if a company is more environmentally proactive, it will be more attentive to a broad array of stakeholders, and this will in turn contribute positively to profitability. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that standard, indexical contextualism about "knows" is unable to account for the factivity of this epistemic expression.

From the resurrection of body to eternal recurrence -- The shadow of God -- The guiding thread -- The logic of the body -- The system of identical cases -- From eternal recurrence to the resurrection of body.

Qu'est-ce qu'un commentaire philosophique? Le cas offert par Gilles Deleuze dans son commentaire de Leibniz (Le pli) est l'occasion de saisir quelques uns des enjeux de cette pratique essentielle au travail du philosophe. En revivifiant en effet une tradition historiquement datée (Wölfflin), Gilles Deleuze s'est attaché à produire une description originale du système leibnizien. Au-delà des difficultés soulevées par la nature même de son modèle (la notion de baroque), le commentaire de Deleuze se singularise par une conception particulière de la (...) lecture philosophique comme recréation d'une pensée à partir de la description de ses conditions formelles d'existence. (shrink)

The work of Emmanuel Levinas has been both abundantly recognized and criticized in moral philosophy. This Janus-faced attitude is also present in ecological theories, which find fertile ground in Levinas’ thought without being able to explain its apparent anthropocentrism. Opposing hermeneutical paths tend to focus either on otherness as an absolute alterity, implying a potentially unlimited responsibility for all alterities, or on otherness as a re-foundation of humanism, leading to the conclusion that responsibility is unlimited only among humans. Here I (...) seek to disentangle Levinas from these two extreme interpretations, first by reviewing ecological readings of his philosophy, in both the Francophone and Anglophone spheres, and second by analyzing specific Levinasian terms that might be particularly helpful for a non-anthropocentric or deep ecology. The main results of this investigation are a distinction between the ethics of responsibility and the ethics of vulnerability, an explanation of Levinasian compulsory or methodological humanism, and a schematic model of sensibility as enjoyment/vulnerability capable of supporting deep ecology without the traditional notions of free will, rights, or values. (shrink)

The Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA) provides that “an individual who has sustained either (1) irreversible cessation of circulatory and respiratory functions or (2) irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brain stem, is dead.” We show that the UDDA contains two conflicting interpretations of the phrase “cessation of functions.” By one interpretation, what matters for the determination of death is the cessation of spontaneous functions only, regardless of their generation by artificial means. By the (...) other, what matters is the cessation of both spontaneous and artificially supported functions. Because each UDDA criterion uses a different interpretation, the law is conceptually inconsistent. A single consistent interpretation would lead to the conclusion that conscious individuals whose respiratory and circulatory functions are artificially supported are actually dead, or that individuals whose brain is entirely and irreversibly destroyed may be alive. We explore solutions to mitigate the inconsistency. (shrink)

En este texto se trata de pensar el proyecto que Foucault inició con el análisis de la parrhesía. Se aborda ese problema en relación a otros dos elementos de su obra: la reflexión sobre la función de los intelectuales y sus escritos sobre la noción de crítica. Desde esa perspectiva trataré de mostrar que las investigaciones sobre la parrhesía reflejan el intento de pensar una nueva política de la verdad.

Requiring family authorization for apnea testing subtracts health professionals control over death determination, a procedure that has traditionally been considered a matter of clinical expertise alone. In this commentary, we first provide evidence showing that health professionals’ (HPs) disposition to act on death determination without family’s prior consent could be much lower than that referred to by Berkowitz and Garrett (2020). We hypothesize that HPs may have reservations about their own expertise as regards death, and may thus hesitate to impose (...) their views on patients’ families. We then address the theoretical question of clinical expertise in death determination by distinguishing judgments about facts (e.g., the presence or absence of spontaneous breathing) from interpretations given of these facts (i.e., their meaning for the vital status of an individual). We argue that, while clinicians may claim some expert authority on the former, they hold no particular authority on the latter. (shrink)

There are different ways to consider the movement of the part-time theater and audiovisual workers, or intermittents. A classic, distanced way, sees a professional group protecting its rights and ideologies in the face of an unemployment reform presented as a campaign against cheats. Or a more inward and forward-looking way, showing the movement’s productivity, what it is symptomatic of, how it foreshadows a deeper political transformation. Intermittence is a particular seismic zone between two tectonic plates of our values: culture and (...) labor. Questions of employment practices, subjective relations to time, discontinuity of activity and creative process, more than exchanges of opinions about high culture, are what have allowed the movement to persist, construct and propose.The many additional human and circumstantial ingredients have finally brought forth, at least in our minds, the idea of a particular emergence of law and of common things. Still fragile and relative, this emergent juncture leads us to a fresh questioning of the public debate via another process of work, elaboration and creativity around the lived substance of things, and not only of their symbolic representations. A process which is the intermittent’s daily condition, one which could unexpectedly lead to a transformation of politics, via the obligation to approach all these common things differently. These common things whose very process of emergence seems to be transforming. (shrink)

The scholarly and scientific professions are undergoing changes like any other profession, also due to the ongoing mutations of the labor market. Intermittent scholars and researchers in a situation of economic uncertainty are increasingly numerous. These individuals are not just « deprived of status » as civil servants, but are also independent «free agents », with a different point view stemming partly from the necessity of remaining mobile, of leaving the familiar path in order to progress intellectually. Their independence in (...) relation to the academic environment and the professional status of professors or researchers, can be the result of a voluntary decision, which puts them into the forefront of the transversality which does not yet fully exist between the disciplines, objects and professions of scholarship, science and research. Yet the violence of this economically precarious situation is not something one chooses; it forces us to ask new questions, which must be approached from a social and political standpoint. Tie following article tells the tale of an independent cognitive laborer: an ecosystemic mistake in the eyes of some, an obvious symptom of ongoing mutations for others. (shrink)

Noam Chomsky applies a rational, scientific approach to disciplines as diverse as linguistics, ethics, and politics. His best-known innovations involve a groundbreaking theory of generative grammar, the revolution it initiated in cognitive science, and a radical encounter with political theory and practice. In _Chomsky Notebook_, Cedric Boeckx and Norbert Hornstein tackle the evolution of Chomsky's linguistic theory. Akeel Bilgrami revisits Chomsky's work on freedom and truth, and Pierre Jacob analyzes his naturalism. Chomsky's own contributions include an interview with Jean Bricmont (...) and an essay each on Edward Said and the natural world. Altogether, these works reveal the penetrating insight of a remarkable intellectual whose thought extends into a number of fields within and outside of academia. For the uninitiated reader and longtime fan, this anthology attests to the power of Chomsky's rationalism and the dexterity of his critical investigations. (shrink)

Alireza Bagheri supports a policy on organ procurement where individuals could choose their own definition of death between two or more socially accepted alternatives. First, we claim that such a policy, without any criterion to distinguish accepted from acceptable definitions, easily leads to the slippery slope that Bagheri tries to avoid. Second, we suggest that a public discussion about the circumstances under which the dead donor rule could be violated is more productive of social trust than constantly moving the line (...) between life and death. (shrink)

What could be more inert than mathematical objects? Nothing distinguishes them from rocks and yet, if we examine them in their historical perspective, they don't actually seem to be as lifeless as they do at first. Conceived as they are by humans, they offer a glimpse of the breath that brings them to life. Caught in the web of a language, they cannot extricate themselves from the form that the tensive forces constraining them have given them. While they do not (...) serve a specific biological purpose, they are still, above all, possibilities of life, objects imbued with power. Though they know neither pain nor laughter, their mode or style of existence endows them with a special form of life that structures the givenness, the matter of the other entities in which they participate. Because of this, by intervening in the framework of these entities, mathematical objects condition their form of space, enjoining the entities to submit to a structure that they have not chosen. (shrink)

Heidegger avait porté son attention sur la détermination de l'être de l'étant comme volonté. F. Fischbach explore et met à jour d'autres possibles recelés par l'ontologie de l'agir : il étudie ce qui se tient derrière les conceptions les plus diverses de l'être de l'étant, l'actus.

C'est un fait bien etabli maintenant que le titre commode d'idealisme allemand ne recouvre ni une unite monolithique de doctrines ni l'unite univoque d'un processus qui, passant par Fichte et Schelling, aurait trouve avec Hegel son seul accomplissement possible. Prenant pour fil conducteur la question de savoir comment doit commencer la philosophie et par quoi il faut commencer en philosophie, on tente ici une lecture comparee de Hegel et de Schelling avec l'ambition de rouvrir entre eux un dialogue rendant manifeste (...) que leur separation n'a pu avoir lieu que sur le fond de ce qui leur echut a tous deux egalement, a savoir la tache d'accomplir la philosophie comme science. La question du commencement philosophique est bien celle que seuls pouvaient veritablement poser ceux qui ont voulu conduire la philosophie a sa fin, a son accomplissement, c'est-a-dire Hegel et Schelling. (shrink)

This book is based on Professor Franck's highly acclaimed Hague Academy General Course. In it he offers a compelling view of the future of international legal reasoning and legal theory. The author offers a critical analysis of the prescriptive norms and institutions of modern international law and argues that international law has the capacity to advance, in practice, the abstract social values shared by the community of states and persons. This book is both thought-provoking and original and as such (...) is essential reading for students of international law and legal theory. (shrink)

This chapter elaborates and develops the thesis originally put forward by Mary Morgan (2005) that some mathematical models may surprise us, but that none of them can completely confound us, i.e. let us unable to produce an ex post theoretical understanding of the outcome of the model calculations. This chapter intends to object and demonstrate that what is certainly true of classical mathematical models is however not true of pluri-formalized simulations with multiple axiomatic bases. This chapter thus proposes to show (...) that - and why - some of these computational simulations that are now booming in the sciences not only surprise us but also confound us. To do so, it shows too that it is needed to elaborate and articulate with some new precision the concept of weak emergence initially due, for its part, to Mark A. Bedau (1997). (shrink)

En el presente ensayo se propone una lectura de la obra Taberna y otros lugares (1969) de Roque Dalton. Se considera que es oportuno pensar la figura del poeta salvadoreño a la luz, no simplemente de los exilios políticos, sino también de la privación (en términos genéricos) de la figura del poeta de sus antiguas funciones en –lo que Ángel Rama denominó– la ciudad letrada. La ciudad modernizada (Rama, 1984) expulsó al poeta de su lugar privilegiado, lo que provoca un (...) trauma y una búsqueda novedosa. En ese contexto, el poeta redefine su voz y la literatura sufre una reterritorialización, es decir, redefine sus márgenes. En América Latina, el problema fue abordado por José Martí que incluso propuso nuevos desafíos a la disciplina (como el problema de la identidad latinoamericana). Se cree que Taberna y otros lugares (1969) retoma estas búsquedas y se arriesga la hipótesis ue, al redefinir su campo, la obra de Dalton puede ser leída no solo en clave literaria, sino también historiográfica desde una mirada benjaminiana. (shrink)

This book analyses the impact computerization has had on contemporary science and explains the origins, technical nature and epistemological consequences of the current decisive interplay between technology and science: an intertwining of formalism, computation, data acquisition, data and visualization and how these factors have led to the spread of simulation models since the 1950s. -/- Using historical, comparative and interpretative case studies from a range of disciplines, with a particular emphasis on the case of plant studies, the author shows how (...) and why computers, data treatment devices and programming languages have occasioned a gradual but irresistible and massive shift from mathematical models to computer simulations. -/- . (shrink)

Dans un nombre croissant de domaines scientifiques - sciences de la nature, sciences humaines aussi bien que sciences des artefacts -, la simulation ne joue plus le rôle de succédané temporaire d'une théorie encore en gésine parce que non encore élaborée ; c'est-à-dire qu'elle ne joue plus systématiquement le rôle d'un modèle provisoire ou d'un schéma servant à condenser les mesures. C'est qu'elle n'a pas la nature d'un signe graphique, linguistique ou mathématique. Elle joue au contraire de plus en plus (...) le rôle d'une réplication détaillée du réel : elle est une intuition reconstruite avec justesse mais sans abstraction rationnelle et généralisante, donc sans transfiguration iconique. Une des limites de l'épistémologie dialectique de Bachelard tient à ce qu'elle ne donne pas les concepts pour penser assez distinctement ces pratiques contemporaines de simulation. C'est pourquoi l'A. propose de concevoir l'idée que la science contemporaine se développe non plus selon la seule dialectique matérialisme / rationalisme, mais selon la triade rationalisme/computationalisme/matérialisme. (shrink)

La expansión de las actividades informales de feriantes en el conurbano bonaerense constituye una de las manifestaciones del fenómeno de la heterogeneidad no regulada del aprovisionamiento de bienes de consumo, que a su vez, emergen como intermediarios económicos que atienden a necesidades y demandas de consumidores territorialmente segregados y no articulados a los mercados formales, en su mayoría.Es en ese sentido que el presente artículo quiere rescatar y señalar los componentes centrales que asoman en un proceso que parte con el (...) supuesto de que la confianza constituye un elemento central cuando otras formas que actuarían como garante de las interacciones aparecen débiles, ausentes o no primordiales como garantía de las interacciones sociales, como es el caso de la feria de Solano. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage rend hommage à différents « Maîtres à penser » qui, par leur oeuvre, ont notablement enrichi leur discipline. Les juristes, historiens, politistes, philosophes, économistes étudiés ici ont en commun de réfléchir sur le pacte démocratique. Comment articuler liberté et égalité, économie et politique, religion et laïcité, violence et norme coercitive... pour qu'advienne une harmonie synonyme de paix sociale? Chacun - Sturzo, Cuche, Pocock, Quesnay, Zagrebelsky, Makhno, Fanon, Rivero, Albert, Bataille, Desjardins - apporte sa propre réponse. La diversité des (...) auteurs est à l'image de la dimension résolument pluridisciplinaire de ce nouvel opus du Bulletin annuel de Villetaneuse. (shrink)

Où trouver la force de continuer à vivre quand des épreuves terribles privent de l'énergie ou du désir nécessaires pour perpétuer une existence devenue en apparence absurde? Les récits de résilience sont nombreux. Mais il aura fallu attendre Nietzsche pour que la philosophie s'empare avec acuité de cette question. ± [...] je fis de ma volonté de santé, de vivre, ma philosophie? : accablé d'une maladie terriblement douloureuse, l'auteur du Gai Savoir fait d'une expérience vécue un terrain d'expérimentation pour la (...) pensée. La force de vivre est exclusive chez lui de toute recherche d'un quelconque salut dans une foi ou dans une cause. Non pas fuir la maladie, mais se l'approprier en l'explorant par la pensée. En découlent une leçon et une question. Une leçon : la souffrance ne prive pas la vie de son sens, ni ne préjuge de sa valeur. Une question, celle du philosophe qui se fait ± médecin de la civilisation? : le nihilisme peut-il être surmonté? (shrink)

El estudio examina mediante una revisión sistemática la literatura científica. La metodología se basó en la aplicación de los principios de la declaración PRISMA. Los resultados indicaron que la mayor producción de estudios fue en 2021, con predominancia de idioma inglés, España como el mayor productor, Reino Unido con el mayor número de revistas y el uso de realidad aumentada como la estrategia más estudiada. La producción científica en educación, y más particularmente en metodologías aplicada a la educación, ha generado (...) una serie de estudios bibliométricos, los cuales han demostrado la evolución de las mismas en lapsos de tiempo diversos. (shrink)

It is known that in differentially closed fields of characteristic zero, the ranks of stability $RU$, $RM$ and the topological rank $RH$ need not to be equal. Pillay and Pong have just shown however that the ranks $RU$ and $RM$ coincide in a group definable in this theory. At the opposite, we will show in this paper that the ranks $RM$ and $RH$ of a definable group can also be different, and even lead to non-equivalent notions of generic type.

The abilities to attribute an action to its proper agent and to understand its meaning when it is produced by someone else are basic aspects of human social communication. Several psychiatric syndromes, such as schizophrenia, seem to lead to a dysfunction of the awareness of one’s own action as well as of recognition of actions performed by other. Such syndromes offer a framework for studying the determinants of agency, the ability to correctly attribute actions to their veridical source. Thirty normal (...) subjects and 30 schizophrenic patients with and without hallucinations and/or delusional experiences were required to execute simple finger and wrist movements, without direct visual control of their hand. The image of either their own hand or an alien hand executing the same or a different movement was presented on a TV-screen in real time. The task for the subjects was to discriminate whether the hand presented on the screen was their own or not. Hallucinating and deluded schizophrenic patients were more impaired in discriminating their own hand from the alien one than the non-hallucinating ones, and tended to misattribute the alien hand to themselves. Results are discussed according to a model of action control. A tentative description of the mechanisms leading to action consciousness is proposed. (shrink)

Cet article vise à éclairer le contexte universitaire et éditorial qui favorisa la publication du Treatise on electricity and magnetism de James Clerk Maxwell afin de mieux cerner la nature de cette entreprise scientifique. Le projet fut formé en 1867 à l'occasion d'une réforme introduisant l'étude de l'électricité et du magnétisme dans l'enseignement délivré à Cambridge et s'inscrivait dans un mouvement plus vaste qui développait l'enseignement de ces disciplines dans les universités britanniques. L'étude des relations entre le projet de Maxwell (...) et d'autres ouvrages contemporains indique que le Treatise était en situation de devenir un ouvrage de référence en Grande-Bretagne. Ainsi, le livre de Maxwell était-il l'instrument d'une très ambitieuse tentative de transformation de l'électromagnétisme, indissociable de son contexte et conforme à sa fonction pédagogique. (shrink)

We give a reduction of the function field Mordell–Lang conjecture to the function field Manin–Mumford conjecture, for abelian varieties, in all characteristics, via model theory, but avoiding recourse to the dichotomy theorems for Zariski geometries. Additional ingredients include the “Theorem of the Kernel”, and a result of Wagner on commutative groups of finite Morley rank without proper infinite definable subgroups. In positive characteristic, where the main interest lies, there is one more crucial ingredient: “quantifier-elimination” for the corresponding [Formula: see text] (...) where [Formula: see text] is a saturated separably closed field. (shrink)

Desde la ruptura con la visión liberal decimonónica del fenómeno nacionalista, los autores emprenden la difícil tarea de reconstruir, aunque sólo programáticamente, el sentimiento nacionalista desde un punto de vista emancipatorio. Este es el único camino posible para enlazar con los nuevos movimientos sociales que, como el texto señala, generalmente rechazan el fenómeno nacionalista. En efecto, existe ya un nuevo nacionalismo, con un fuerte potencial emancipatorio y que está llamado a caminar junto a la idea de Ecología politica. La ruptura (...) con el nacionalismo decimonónico tiene lugar cuando los nuevos nacionalismos aparecen como un acto de disidencia contra el concepto de Estado-Nación. Este concepto cada vez más afectado por su crisis constitutiva y crónica-crisis de la participación política reducida a"democracia virtual", crisis de eficiencia y crisis cultural-, es el objetivo a combatir por parte de los nuevos nacionalismos. Aquí tiene lugar el encuentro con la Ecología política, en la disidencia del progreso, en la búsqueda de caminos de reconstrucción de identidades destruidas por el mercado. Incluso, la Etnopolítica y la Ecología política coinciden en el mismo campo -el de la disidencia, el de las vías alternativas, el de la emancipación-, con los mismos significados -pluralismo, urgencia vital, necesidad-; finalmente, buscan alcanzar objetivos en los que se coincide: seguridad ontológica y reconstrucción conjunta de las formas de vida ecológicas. (shrink)

Pratiquer la phénoménologie, c'est reconduire les choses et les concepts aux horizons ou aux situations selon lesquels nous y accédons. Qu'advient-il si cet accès n'est plus seulement le fait du regard objectivant de la conscience ou de la préoccupation de l'existant mais également l'œuvre du corps? A la description des phénomènes se substitue alors l'enchaînement des scènes où ils apparaissent et dont ils sont la concrétisation : une dramatique des phénomènes. Qu'il s'agisse, par exemple, des relations entre le temps et (...) la chair chez Husserl, l'être et le vivant selon Heidegger, la différence ontologique et le corps pour Levinas, les études ici réunies s'attachent à cette dramatique des phénomènes qui atteste que les relations éidétiques ne sont pas des liens désincarnés. (shrink)