The following is an essay review of Paul Needham's translation of Pierre Duhem's Lemixte et la combinaison chimique and a numberof other essays. In this review we describe theintent and general features of Le mixte and try to place it in the larger context of Duhem'sprogram for energetics. The long essay (Essay3) opposing Marcellin Berthelot'sthermochemistry is singled out for detailedcommentary, since it gives Duhem's reasons forendorsing Josiah Willard Gibbs's chemicalstatics. We argue that a chemical mechanics ofa Gibbsian sort, (...) defended in Le mixte and otheressays in this volume, was the inspiration for,and basis of, Duhem's energetics. Needham'swelcome translations help an English-languageaudience to better understand the basiccontours of Duhem's important, if ultimatelymisguided, project. We conclude with somecomments on the difficulties in translatingDuhem and on the quality of the translationsNeedham has provided. (shrink)

Parent pauvre de la formation polytechnicienne à l’époque de Poincaré, la chimie resta en dehors des centres d’intérêt du savant malgré l’importance sociale qu’elle acquit à la fin du xixe siècle. Le mathématicien, physicien et philosophie y fut confronté assez fortuitement en 1907 comme président de la Commission scientifique d’étude des poudres de guerre créée après l’explosion du cuirassé Iéna car Marcellin Berthelot, qui avait été pressenti comme éminent spécialiste des poudres et explosifs mourut dans l’intervalle. Dans un (...) contexte international tendu entre la France et l’Allemagne depuis l’annexion de l’Alsace-Moselle en 1871 et alors que la crise marocaine relança l’esprit de revanche, cet accident catastrophique porta un rude coup à la confiance du pays dans ses moyens de défense. Le gouvernement jugea alors que seul Poincaré avait l’autorité scientifique nécessaire pour rassurer l’opinion publique sur la sécurité des poudres sans fumée issues de l’industrie chimique inventées par son camarade de promotion Paul Vieille et maintenir l’ennemi à distance. Les archives de la Commission et la correspondance administrative de Poincaré témoignent de son investissement. Sa correspondance personnelle avec Henry Le Chatelier, autre ingénieur X-Mines spécialiste des poudres et explosifs, permet de mieux cerner son appréhension des problèmes complexes posés par les nouvelles poudres et de dévoiler sa stratégie pour contourner les blocages institutionnels dus à la rivalité entre le service producteur des Poudres et salpêtres et les services consommateurs de l’Artillerie et la Marine et aux attaques contre le monopole des poudres de la part des industriels et de leurs partisans au Parlement. (shrink)

The following is an essay review of Paul Needham's translation of Pierre Duhem's Lemixte et la combinaison chimique and a numberof other essays. In this review we describe theintent and general features of Le mixte and try to place it in the larger context of Duhem'sprogram for energetics. The long essay (Essay3) opposing Marcellin Berthelot'sthermochemistry is singled out for detailedcommentary, since it gives Duhem's reasons forendorsing Josiah Willard Gibbs's chemicalstatics. We argue that a chemical mechanics ofa Gibbsian sort, (...) defended in Le mixte and otheressays in this volume, was the inspiration for,and basis of, Duhem's energetics. Needham'swelcome translations help an English-languageaudience to better understand the basiccontours of Duhem's important, if ultimatelymisguided, project. We conclude with somecomments on the difficulties in translatingDuhem and on the quality of the translationsNeedham has provided. (shrink)

With the increased use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in wildlife conservation, issues around whether AI-based monitoring tools in wildlife conservation comply with standards regarding AI Ethics are on the rise. This review aims to summarise current debates and identify gaps as well as suggest future research by investigating (1) current AI Ethics and AI Ethics issues in wildlife conservation, (2) Initiatives Stakeholders in AI for wildlife conservation should consider integrating AI Ethics in wildlife conservation. We find that the existing literature (...) weakly focuses on AI Ethics and AI Ethics in wildlife conservation while at the same time ignores AI Ethics integration in AI systems for wildlife conservation. This paper formulates an ethically aligned AI system framework and discusses pre-eminent on-demand AI systems in wildlife conservation. The proposed framework uses agile software life cycle methodology to implement guidelines towards the ethical upgrade of any existing AI system or the development of any new ethically aligned AI system. The guidelines enforce, among others, the minimisation of intentional harm and bias, diversity in data collection, design compliance, auditing of all activities in the framework and ease of code inspection. This framework will inform AI developers, users, conservationists, and policymakers on what to consider when integrating AI Ethics into AI-based systems for wildlife conservation. (shrink)

Dans cet ouvrage, la philosophie de Rene Descartes nous apporte un discours nouveau sur le probleme relatif au rapport permanent entre la raison et la foi a partir de ses Meditations metaphysiques. Cette philosophie nous invite a nous questionner sur la necessite d un choix entre l engagement de croire et la liberte de savoir. Ce livre nous permet de mieux comprendre les enjeux d une telle problematique. Alla Marcellin Konin a partage l experience de plusieurs annees d enseignement (...) de la philosophie dans les Academies de Poitiers, de Nantes, de Caen et de Rouen en France. a l Universite de Poitiers et de Bordeaux 3, il a travaille sur la philosophie de la Nature et sur l Idealisme allemand. Mediateur dans les Organisations et Membre associe a MAPP (Metaphysique Allemande et Philosophie Pratique) de l Universite de Poitiers, il enseigne la philosophie a l Universite Felix Houphouet-Boigny de Cocody. Il poursuit actuellement ses recherches en philosophie de l histoire, en metaphysique, en philosophie morale et politique. Alla Marcellin Konin a partage l experience de plusieurs annees d enseignement de la philosophie dans les Academies de Poitiers, de Nantes, de Caen et de Rouen en France. a l Universite de Poitiers et de Bordeaux 3, il a travaille sur la philosophie de la Nature et sur l Idealisme allemand. Mediateur dans les Organisations et Membre associe a MAPP (Metaphysique Allemande et Philosophie Pratique) de l Universite de Poitiers, il enseigne la philosophie a l Universite Felix Houphouet-Boigny de Cocody. Il poursuit actuellement ses recherches en philosophie de l histoire, en metaphysique, en philosophie morale et politique.". (shrink)

If Spinoza is a thinker very present in the Faculties of Philosophy, on the other hand, he is presented as one of the great forgotten of the humanist programs of secondary education. Contrary to what happened with other philosophers, who had more chance of spreading in non-specialized contexts (we can cite Nietzsche, Pascal, Plato or Schopenhauer as obvious examples), Spinoza is generally considered a excessively systematic author, and complex, whose works would have been written for a small group of scholars. (...) Nothing could be further from the truth. Spinoza’s life was full of completely surprising events, from his estrangement from the Jewish community (which repudiated him in a strict and disagreeable way), through his dalliances with heterodox currents which gradually grew in power, until his meeting with Leibniz and his intrepid travels. from one part of his native Holland to another. In this article, we examine the concept of desire in Spinoza's philosophy and its connection to the philosopher's decision to find the greater good. Since the greatest good, in turn, is nothing but its own enjoyment, we conclude that ignoring its existence, seeking it, and living it are, respectively, the conditions of the vulgar, the philosopher, and the wise, as what happened in the Garden of Epicurus. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to examine preliminary evidence of the validity of the Trauma Reflective Functioning Scale and to investigate reflective functioning and attachment in pregnant women with histories of trauma, with a particular focus on the capacity to mentalize regarding trauma and its implications for adaptation to pregnancy and couple functioning. The Adult Attachment Interview was used to assess attachment, unresolved trauma and mentalization (measured as reflective function; RF) regarding relationships with attachment figures (RF-G) and trauma (RF-T) (...) in 100 pregnant women with histories of abuse and neglect. The majority (63%) of women had insecure attachment states of mind and approximately half were unresolved regarding trauma. Furthermore, the majority of women manifested deficits specific to RF-T. Their RF-T was significantly lower than their RF-G; the findings indicate that women with histories of childhood abuse and neglect do not manifest a generic inhibition of reflectiveness, but a collapse of mentalization specific to trauma. Low RF-T, indicative of difficulty in considering traumatic experiences in mental state terms, was associated with difficulty in investment in the pregnancy and lack of positive feelings about the baby and motherhood. In addition, low RF-T was also associated with difficulties in intimate relationships. Results of a regression analysis with RF indicated that RF-T was the best predictor of investment in pregnancy and couple functioning. In sum, the study provides preliminary evidence that RF-T can be reliably measured and is a valid construct that has potential usefulness for research and clinical practice. It highlights the importance of mentalization specifically about trauma and suggests that it is not the experience of trauma per se, but the absence of mentalization regarding trauma that is associated with difficulties in close relationships and in making the transition to parenthood. (shrink)

Statistics play a critical role in biological and clinical research. To promote logically consistent representation and classification of statistical entities, we have developed the Ontology of Biological and Clinical Statistics (OBCS). OBCS extends the Ontology of Biomedical Investigations (OBI), an OBO Foundry ontology supported by some 20 communities. Currently, OBCS contains 686 terms, including 381 classes imported from OBI and 147 classes specific to OBCS. The goal of this paper is to present OBCS for community critique and to describe a (...) number of use cases designed to illustrate its potential applications. The OBCS project and source code are available at http://obcs.googlecode.com. (shrink)

Statistics play a critical role in biological and clinical research. However, most reports of scientific results in the published literature make it difficult for the reader to reproduce the statistical analyses performed in achieving those results because they provide inadequate documentation of the statistical tests and algorithms applied. The Ontology of Biological and Clinical Statistics (OBCS) is put forward here as a step towards solving this problem. Terms in OBCS, including ‘data collection’, ‘data transformation in statistics’, ‘data visualization’, ‘statistical data (...) analysis’, and ‘drawing a conclusion based on data’, cover the major types of statistical processes used in basic biological research and clinical outcome studies. OBCS is aligned with the Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) and extends the Ontology of Biomedical Investigations (OBI), an OBO (Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies) Foundry ontology supported by over 20 research communities. We discuss two examples illustrating how the ontology is being applied. In the first (biological) use case, we describe how OBCS was applied to represent the high throughput microarray data analysis of immunological transcriptional profiles in human subjects vaccinated with an influenza vaccine. In the second (clinical outcomes) use case, we applied OBCS to represent the processing of electronic health care data to determine the associations between hospital staffing levels and patient mortality. Our case studies were designed to show how OBCS can be used for the consistent representation of statistical analysis pipelines under two different research paradigms. By representing statistics-related terms and their relations in a rigorous fashion, OBCS facilitates standard data analysis and integration, and supports reproducible biological and clinical research. (shrink)

Le concept de conflit revêt divers aspects. Entre les litiges, les violences, les différends, les désaccords, les guerres, il importe de définir les éléments de la conflictualité et le caractère institutionnel des recherches en matière de gestion et de résolution des conflits de nos jours. Néanmoins, nous sommes parvenus à percevoir que la clé du succès des résolutions des conflits pour une paix durable réside dans l’expérience humaine de la culpabilité et du pardon. Ce n’est certes pas des éléments nouveaux (...) pour les spécialistes et les diplomates en matière de gestion des conflits. Cependant, Ces deux notions sont reléguées au second plan au profit de compromis et de mesures coercitives à l’encontre des factions en conflits. Notre vision de la résolution des conflits est que sans la mise en exergue de l’expérience de la culpabilité et du pardon, les peuples vivront dans un conflit perpétuel qu’ils transmettront aux générations futures : la haine durable (sustainablehate). Est-il possible d’institutionnaliser le pardon et de mener des actions conduisant à une véritable culpabilité collective et individuelle préalable à toute réconciliation durable des peuples? La nature et la fréquence de nos conflits obligent à reconsidérer les méthodes d’approche jusqu’ici utilisées. En effet, c’est ce que tentent de faire certaines commissions pour la réconciliation appelée pour la plupart « Dialogue – Vérité – Réconciliation ; Dialogue – Justice – Réconciliation ; justice et paix, etc ». où les belligérants, les bourreaux et les victimes sont invités à l’aveu, à la vérité et au pardon pour un re-vivre ensemble. Mais dans l’espace d’un processus de réconciliation engagé à travers desdites commissions, les ballets de confessions aussi bien que les sentiments de victimisation se succèdent avant à l’arrière fond l’amnistie pour les bourreaux et l’octroi du pardon de la part des victimes. Cela, parait peu convainquant pour la raison que ces commissions sont en majeure partie installées par les vainqueurs du moment. Dans une certaine Afrique surtout, ces derniers (les vainqueurs) sont aidés par des alliés occidentaux de hauts niveaux. Il s’agit alors de processus où la paix est provisoire et se maintient au bout de la force ; et où les bourreaux sont toujours les autres. (shrink)

La q4e de couv. indique : "Quels programmes, quels paradigmes sous-tendent les recherches en sciences humaines, créent les écoles rivales et rapprochent des disciplines différentes? Comment chacune de ces disciplines parvient-elle à articuler la dimension historique et structurelle qui la compose? Comment se gèrent les rapports entre modélisations mathématiques et récits de situation? Quelle place est donnée aux causes, quelle signification accordée aux raisons? Faut-il opposer ou articuler explication et compréhension? Les sciences sociales sont des disciplines aux frontières incertaines? Les (...) unes, comme l'histoire ou la géographie, remontent à l'Antiquité. Les autres, comme la sociologie ou la psychologie sociale, ont tout juste un siècle. Certaines prennent pour objet l'ensemble des phénomènes sociaux et d'autres - l'économie, la linguistique, etc. - privilégient un domaine d'activité déterminé. Mais derrière cette diversité - d'origines, d'objet, de tradition - surgissent des points essentiels de rencontre et de recouvrement que synthétise et interroge ce manuel.". (shrink)