Limitations of antiarrhythmic drugs on cardiac sudden death prevention appeared since the early 80's. The "Cardiac Arrhythmia Suppression Trial"(CAST) showed more recently that mortality was significantly higher inpatients treated with some particular antiarrhythmic drugs than in non-treated patients. In this field, our group recently demonstrated that a bolus of a Class 1B antiarrhythmic drug was able to trigger a ventricular fibrillation due to transient blocks induction. The aim of the present work was to systematically study, by use of the van (...) Capelle and Durrer (VCD) model which allows to simulate ventricular activation wave propagation, the link between arrhythmogenic effects and the ability of transient blocks to possibly degenerate in severe arrhythmias. A fragment of the ventricular wall is represented by an array of 16384elements electrically coupled. Effects of induction of one or several transient blocks, as the effects of their size and duration on possible induction of reentries have been studied. Results obtained show that various combinations between these different parameters may trigger reentries, ventricular tachycardia and/or more complex patterns assimilable to ventricular fibrillation. These results clearly evidence the fact that possible induction of transient blocks may directly be related to risk factor associated to arrhythmogenic effects of antiarrhythmic drugs. (shrink)

The present work is aimed at investigating the effects of myocardial infarction and ischemia on induction of ventricular fibrillation. Electrophysiologic effects of global and local ischemia (variation of the dispersion of refractory periods as well as conduction velocity) on initiation of reentry mechanisms was studied by means of computer simulations based on a cellular automata model of propagation of activation wave through a ventricular surface element. A local area of ischemia where effects of the dispersion of refractory periods are investigated (...) is then simulated. This is made using a Gaussian distribution characterized by its mean and standard deviation. These simulations show that ischemia is capable of initiating reentry phenomena which propagate through the whole ventricle; they are responsible for ventricular fibrillation which causes sudden cardiac death, even when ischemia only involves limited parts of the myocardium. Statistical study of the probability of reentries as a function of both of the size of ischemic zones and the rate of dispersion of refractory periods shows that the latter parameter is of primary importance in triggering cardiac reentries. (shrink)

Much indirect evidence supports the hypothesis that transformations of mental images are at least in part guided by motor processes, even in the case of images of abstract objects rather than of body parts. For example, rotation may be guided by processes that also prime one to see results of a specific motor action. We directly test the hypothesis by means of a dual-task paradigm in which subjects perform the Cooper-Shepard mental rotation task while executing an unseen motor rotation in (...) a given direction and at a previously learned speed. Four results support the inference that mental rotation relies on motor processes. First, motor rotation that is compatible with mental rotation results in faster times and fewer errors in the imagery task than when the two rotations are incompatible. Second, the angle through which subjects rotate their mental images, and the angle through which they rotate a joystick handle are correlated, but only if the directions of the two rotations are compatible. Third, motor rotation modifies the classical inverted V-shaped mental rotation response time function, favoring the direction of the motor rotation; indeed, in some cases motor rotation even shifts the location of the minimum of this curve in the direction of the motor rotation. Fourth, the preceding effect is sensitive not only to the direction of the motor rotation, but also to the motor speed. A change in the speed of motor rotation can correspondingly slow down or speed up the mental rotation. (shrink)

Sometimes it is possible in quantum theory for a system to interact with another system in such a way that the information contained in the wave function becomes very scrambled and apparently incoherent. We produce an example which is exactly calculable, in which a macroscopic change is induced in the environment, and all phase information for the system is apparently lost, so that a measurement has seemingly been made. But actually, although the wave function has been badly scrambled, all the (...) original information is still present. We call this situation one of “latent order.”Subsequently, the system interacts again with the environment, wiping out the macroscopic change, and the wave function once again becomes manifestly coherent. Thus the apparent measurement has been undone, and leaves no aftereffect. Thus, our “measurement” has disappeared without a trace. We call such a measurement a “haunted measurement,” and we believe that until the measurement process is rigorously understood, the concept of measurement is ambiguous. It is just not good enough to say that an amplification stage occurs “somewhere” in the process.We also point out the connection between the haunted measurement and delayed-choice experiments and discuss a haunted version of the “Schrödinger's Cat” experiment and of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experiment. (shrink)

Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)

Philosophy of Communication Ethics is a unique and timely volume that creatively examines communication ethics, philosophy of communication, and "the other.".

Le philosophe est-il capable d'affronter intellectuellement les situations que subissent ceux dont la vie est confrontée à la plus extrême fragilité? Par-delà l'émotion et l'indignation, peut-on forger des outils philosophiques qui puissent nous aider à agir? A quoi servirait donc de philosopher, avec des concepts, des données et des images, en Haïti ou au sud du Sahara? A dégager les logiques qui, entre raison et déraison, dictent les pires radicalisations de la souffrance et de l'humiliation dont le monde humain reste (...) capable. A établir, au-delà de généralités convenues, d'indispensables priorités face aux exigences de la survie ou à celles d'une vie décente pour les femmes, les enfants, pour les plus vulnérables à la violence et au risque. « Comme être humain et comme philosophe, j'ai postulé en décidant d'écrire ce livre que la philosophie, à condition de sortir de son enfermement dans les concepts et les purs principes, peut être humaine – je veux dire : prendre en charge, comme une pensée et comme un discours qui a ses spécificités, les questions que soulève le type de vacillement entre l'humain et l'inhumain qui m'apparaît constitutif de l'extrême. » LES POINTS FORTS - Un auteur médiatique - Un sujet brûlant PUBLIC CONCERNE Public d'essais. (shrink)

Issu d'un colloque organisé en octobre 2005 à l'Ecole normale supérieure cet ouvrage collectif replace l'oeuvre de J. Derrida au sein de la tradition philosophique. Il interroge ses concepts, sa relation à certaines figures de cette tradition, la transition qu'elle effectue entre plusieurs moments philosophiques. Cet hommage s'attache à commenter l'oeuvre du philosophe mais aussi à la continuer.

" La musique est sans doute le langage qui dit le plus, le mieux, qu'elle n'est là que pour dire qu'il existe un autre langage en elle-même, dont elle n'est que l'apparence. Comment entendre la musique, donc? Ou plutôt : comment entendre ce que la musique fait entendre par-delà ce qu'on en saisit? Trouver les mots pour dire ce que la musique exprime et que les mots sauraient dire, est-ce possible? Par quels mots pouvoir dire qu'il existe de l'indicible et (...) que cet indicible, précisément, ne peut être approché que par ce qui s'éloigne des mots? Vouloir écrire sur la musique, c'est peut-être répondre à la peur qu'il n'en demeure rien : qu'elle passe et se dissolve sans qu'on ait arrêté, par des mots, son mouvement vers sa disparition. Si je ne dis rien de ce qui passe, me dis je, ce qui passe, tout en passant, ne me dit rien. J'arrête ; je fixe, donc. Je dénomme afin que ce que j'écoute me parle. Si je né m'entends pas parler - ne serait-ce qu'intérieurement - à propos de ce que j'écoute, je n'entends pas. J'écoute à la fois ce que j'écoute et ce que je tente de m'en transmettre. " Alain Médam. (shrink)

The object of this paper is to retrace the steps that led Buchanan from marginal cost pricing to clubs. We claim that the idea individuals could form clubs to finance public goods can be traced back to his first works on public finance, at the end of the 1940s, and relates to the financing of highways and the pricing of their construction and of their use. Very early in his career Buchanan adopted Knut Wicksell’s proposal to use a marginal cost (...) pricing rule even for public goods. The many criticisms raised against this rule led him to replace it with club pricing. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the connections and links that existed between Buchanan and Italian economists. We show that, even though Buchanan had read them, it was only after having spent one year in Italy—1955–1956—that Buchanan paid attention to these economists. Here, Francesco Forte played a particularly important role. It did not only transform Buchanan’s conception of the public debt but also lead him to pay more attention to law, institutions and political phenomena.

Ce compte rendu a déjà paru sous le titre « Le rythme : une des formes concrètes du temps. » sur EspacesTemps.net le 2 août 2021. M. Antonioli, G. Drevon, L. Gwiazdzinski, V. Kaufmann & L. Pattaroni, Manifeste pour une politique des rythmes, Lausanne, EPFL Press, 2021, 168 p. Le Manifeste pour une politique des rythmes est un argumentaire pour la reconnaissance de la nature rythmique des pathologies du capitalisme et la nécessité de politiques y répondant en termes d'émancipation, de (...) mise - Recensions. (shrink)

The French school of theoretical biology has been mainly initiated in Poitiers during the sixties by scientists like J. Besson, G. Bouligand, P. Gavaudan, M. P. Schützenberger and R. Thom, launching many new research domains on the fractal dimension, the combinatorial properties of the genetic code and related amino-acids as well as on the genetic regulation of the biological processes. Presently, the biological science knows that RNA molecules are often involved in the regulation of complex genetic networks as effectors, e.g., (...) activators, inhibitors or hybrids. Examples of such networks will be given showing that there exist RNA “relics” that have played an important role during evolution and have survived in many genomes, whose probability distribution of their sub-sequences is quantified by the Shannon entropy, and the robustness of the dynamics of the networks they regulate can be characterized by the Kolmogorov–Sinaï dynamic entropy and attractor entropy. (shrink)

In my 2003 SCR paper “Inner speech and conscious experience” (LINK) I put forward the notion that we most often need to talk to ourselves in order to understand who we are. That is, inner speech is frequently required to access self-information and to gradually build a self- concept. To illustrate, let’s imagine that you want to reflect on an abdominal pain you are currently experiencing. It is very likely that you will engage in an internal monologue, thinking “Why is (...) it that my belly hurts? I feel cramps... Ha! I get it—I skipped breakfast...” You could go on and also notice: “I’ve been missing breakfast often lately... I tend to sleep in, I don’t eat breakfast, and by noon I’m starving... And I didn’t go to the gym as often as I should have... This is bad—I’m getting _lazy_...” Here the adjective “lazy” constitutes the conclusion that you have drawn from your inner monologue; it may then become a more or less permanent part of your self-concept. (shrink)

La publication de l'Emile a produit une rupture épistémologique qui n'a pas échappé à Kant. Mais, rejetant toute assomption philosophique, l'ouvrage de 1762 met en récit une méthode qui prétend accomplir l'homme en ce qu'il est, tout en même temps qu'en ce qu'il doit être. Consacrant le pouvoir d'autoformation du sujet, Rousseau ouvre pourtant, à son corps défendant, une nouvelle brèche philosophique dans le rapport que ce sujet triomphant entretient avec ce que le Genevois s'obstine à présenter comme " la (...) bonté absolue du projet ". C'est à penser cette brèche, et le chemin pour la franchir, que se consacreront un certain nombre de penseurs et acteurs pédagogiques, qui peuvent ainsi s'inscrire dans la postérité éducative de l'Emile, et que présentent des spécialistes de chacun d'entre eux : Condorcet (A. Trouvé), Kant (B. Vandewalle), Pestalozzi (M. Soëtard), Fichte (J: M. Lamarre), Herbart (J: F. Goubet), Dilthey (D. Moreau), Dewey (M. Fabre), Freinet (R. Hétier). Ont-ils réussi? Il se pourrait que l'Emile, avec le noeud de questions qu'il tisse, soit encore devant nous. (shrink)

"Malebranche est un penseur étonnant, et d'autant plus qu'en un sens, pour qui n'est pas chrétien, et chrétien convaincu, il semble inutilisable. Mais quant à la sincérité, à la lumière qui baigne toute l'entreprise, au style souple et charmeur, à la conviction audacieuse et toujours sur la brèche de ses stupéfiantes démonstrations, Malebranche est incomparable. On va de merveille en merveille, comme si on visitait une admirable église remplie de petites peintures toutes plus surprenantes les unes que les autres. Lorsque (...) je suis revenu au Traité de la nature et de la grâce, quelque chose comme une grâce m'a en effet touché. J'espère qu'à votre tour, lecteurs, vous en serez touchés", Alain Badiou. (shrink)

Do numbers and the other objects of mathematics enjoy a timeless existence independent of human minds, or are they the products of cerebral invention? Do we discover them, as Plato supposed and many others have believed since, or do we construct them? Does mathematics constitute a universal language that in principle would permit human beings to communicate with extraterrestrial civilizations elsewhere in the universe, or is it merely an earthly language that owes its accidental existence to the peculiar evolution of (...) neuronal networks in our brains? Does the physical world actually obey mathematical laws, or does it seem to conform to them simply because physicists have increasingly been able to make mathematical sense of it? Jean-Pierre Changeux, an internationally renowned neurobiologist, and Alain Connes, one of the most eminent living mathematicians, find themselves deeply divided by these questions.The problematic status of mathematical objects leads Changeux and Connes to the organization and function of the brain, the ways in which its embryonic and post-natal development influences the unfolding of mathematical reasoning and other kinds of thinking, and whether human intelligence can be simulated, modeled,--or actually reproduced-- by mechanical means. The two men go on to pose ethical questions, inquiring into the natural foundations of morality and the possibility that it may have a neural basis underlying its social manifestations. This vivid record of profound disagreement and, at the same time, sincere search for mutual understanding, follows in the tradition of Poincaré, Hadamard, and von Neumann in probing the limits of human experience and intellectual possibility. Why order should exist in the world at all, and why it should be comprehensible to human beings, is the question that lies at the heart of these remarkable dialogues. (shrink)

In the late 1970s and the 1980s, a number of radical left political theorists focused their philosophical attention on the relevance of ancient atomism, revitalizing a tradition that went back to Karl Marx's work on his dissertation. This essay looks at the uses of atomism by two thinkers in particular, Jacques Rancière and Alain Badiou, in order to see how their discussions of and references to ancient materialism help to shed light on their fundamental disagreements about the nature of (...) community and equality. First, this paper argues that what Badiou and Rancière most obviously share in their assessments of atomism is a negative judgment regarding the post-swerve constitution of the world, while what most obviously distinguishes their positions is their differing judgments regarding the preswerve rain of the atoms in the void. Becoming clear both about how Badiou and Rancière respond to what comes before and after the atomistic swerve helps to clarify an implicit response on Rancière’s part to what has become Badiou’s chief objection to Rancière’s political theory. Second, this paper argues that the fact that Badiou assesses both what comes before and what comes after the swerve as negative, while Rancière assesses only what comes after the swerve as negative, makes clear that their most essential point of difference concerns the status of the swerve that mediates between before and after. Working through the complexities of Badiou’s analysis of the swerve and uncovering Rancière’s extremely subtle analysis of the swerve helps to clarify a major aspect of what has become Rancière’s chief criticism of Badiou’s conception of philosophy. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Badiou's Ethics Three Concerns about Badiou's Ethics Mainstream Approaches to the Ethics of Teaching The Ethics of Teaching Note References.

This paper is perhaps an impressionistic response to accounts of the extraordinary set-theoretical activity being undertaken by W. Hugh Woodin and colleagues in the present moment, in the context of the mathematical ontology proposed and elaborated by Alain Badiou. The argument presented is that the prevailing and sustained incoherence of the mathematical ontology underscores a contemporary deficit of humanity’s symbolic organization which, in turn, yields confusion and conflict in terms of subjective orientation. But a new axiom promises to realize (...) a coherent set theory, i.e. stable, consistent and complete. This remarkable development offers hope for the pursuit of a modern symbolic, and a consequent resolution of the general subjective disorientation. (shrink)

This paper argues that Badiou's and Lacan's theorizations of ethics offer a way to formulate an ethics of teaching and to explore what such an ethics might look like when teachers encounter events that disrupt their quotidian lives. Relying on the work of Badiou and Lacan, the paper critiques mainstream approaches to the ethics of teaching and sketches an alternative pedagogical ethics.

In this book, Livingston develops the political implications of formal results obtained over the course of the twentieth century in set theory, metalogic, and computational theory. He argues that the results achieved by thinkers such as Cantor, Russell, Godel, Turing, and Cohen, even when they suggest inherent paradoxes and limitations to the structuring capacities of language or symbolic thought, have far-reaching implications for understanding the nature of political communities and their development and transformation. Alain Badiou's analysis of logical-mathematical structures (...) forms the backbone of his comprehensive and provocative theory of ontology, politics, and the possibilities of radical change. Through interpretive readings of Badiou's work as well as the texts of Giorgio Agamben, Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, Livingston develops a formally based taxonomy of critical positions on the nature and structure of political communities. These readings, along with readings of Parmenides and Plato, show how the formal results can transfigure two interrelated and ancient problems of the One and the Many: the problem of the relationship of a Form or Idea to the many of its participants, and the problem of the relationship of a social whole to its many constituents. (shrink)

According to Quentin Meillassoux, one of the principal aims of speculative philosophy “must be the immanent inscription of values in being.” In this regard, the return to speculation in contemporary philosophy is in many ways a deeply ethical project. This “inscription of values” can only be successful, however, if it can somehow assert an absolute ethical value without, on the one hand, resorting to the kind of dogmatism laid to rest by the Kantian critique; or, on the other, by falling (...) into some form of ethical relativism incapable of grounding universal ethical judgments. Unfortunately, too many of these attempts have failed. The aim of this paper is twofold: firstly, to explore the structure and failures of two such attempts through an analysis of the ethical projects of Alain Badiou and Quentin Meillassoux, respectively; and then, secondly, to show how both of these thinkers, and the project of speculative ethics in general, could benefit by turning to the work of F.W.J. Schelling on the concept of good and evil as absolute ethical values. (shrink)

Artikkeli tarkastelee aluksi Hannah Arendtin analyysiä totalitarismin pohjimmiltaan ideologisesta luonteesta ja ideologisen ”idean” olemuksesta. Tätä analyysiä verrataan Alain Badioun yritykseen herättää henkiin ideologinen ”idean politiikka”. Artikkelin perusväitteen mukaan sekä Arendt että Badiou näkevät politiikan alueena, jolla uutuus ja ihmisen kyky ryhtyä maailmaa muuttaviin hankkeisiin voivat toteutua. He ymmärtävät kuitenkin poliittisen aktiviteetin muodon olennaisesti eri tavoin: Arendtille politiikka on perusluonteeltaan toimintaa, praksista, Badioulle se on pohjimmiltaan idean tuottamista, poiesista. Tällä on keskeisiä seurauksia heidän politiikkakäsityksilleen. Lopuksi osoitetaan, että Badioun ”ideologinen” ymmärrys (...) politiikasta jää alttiiksi Arendtin peruskritiikille, jonka mukaan politiikan välineellinen ymmärtäminen keinojen ja päämäärien viitekehyksessä on viime kädessä kyvytön sulkemaan pois poliittisen terrorin mahdollisuutta. (shrink)