This study investigates the procedural learning, retention, and reactivation of temporal sensorimotor sequences in children with and without developmental coordination disorder. Twenty typically-developing children and 12 children with DCD took part in this study. The children were required to tap on a keyboard, synchronizing with auditory or visual stimuli presented as an isochronous temporal sequence, and practice non-isochronous temporal sequences to memorize them. Immediate and delayed retention of the audio-motor and visuo-motor non-isochronous sequences were tested by removing auditory or visual (...) stimuli immediately after practice and after a delay of 2 h. A reactivation test involved reintroducing the auditory and visual stimuli after the delayed recall. Data were computed via circular analyses to obtain asynchrony, the stability of synchronization and errors. Firstly, an overall deficit in synchronization with both auditory and visual isochronous stimuli was observed in DCD children compared to TD children. During practice, further improvements were found for the audio-motor non-isochronous sequence compared to the visuo-motor non-isochronous sequence in both TD children and children with DCD. However, a drastic increase in errors occurred in children with DCD during immediate retention as soon as the auditory stimuli were removed. Reintroducing auditory stimuli decreased errors in the audio-motor sequence for children with DCD. Such changes were not seen for the visuo-motor non-isochronous sequence, which was equally learned, retained and reactivated in DCD and TD children. All these results suggest that TD children benefit from both auditory and visual stimuli to memorize the sequence, whereas children with DCD seem to present a deficit in integrating an audio-motor sequence in their memory. The immediate effect of reactivation suggests a specific dependency on auditory information in DCD. Contrary to the audio-motor sequence, the visuo-motor sequence was both learned and retained in children with DCD. This suggests that visual stimuli could be the best information for memorizing a temporal sequence in DCD. All these results are discussed in terms of a specific audio-motor coupling deficit in DCD. (shrink)

Pathologizing ugliness refers to the framing of unattractive features as a type of disease or deformity. By framing ugliness as pathology, cosmetic procedures are reframed as therapy rather than enhancement, thereby potentially avoiding ethical critiques regularly levelled against cosmetic surgery. As such, the practice of pathologizing ugliness and the ensuing therapeuticalization of cosmetic procedures require an ethical analysis that goes beyond that offered by current enhancement critiques. In this article, I propose using a thick description of the goals of medicine (...) as an ethical framework for evaluating problematic medical practices. I first describe the goals of medicine based on Daniel Callahan's account. I then propose that the goals work best in conjunction with ancillary ethical concepts, namely medical knowledge and skills, standards of practice and medical duties and virtues. Next, I apply the thick description of the goals of medicine in critiquing the practice of framing ugliness as disease. Here, I demonstrate ethical conflicts between aesthetic judgments that underpin the practice of pathologizing ugliness and medical judgments that inform ethical medical practices. In particular, the thick description of the goals of medicine helps reveal ethical conflicts in at least three key domains common to clinical practices, which include (a) disease determination, (b) diagnostic evaluation and (c) establishing clinical indications. My analysis offers a novel way of critiquing the practice of pathologizing ugliness in cosmetic surgery, which tends to be neglected by enhancement critiques. (shrink)

This article provides a critical comparative analysis of the substantive and procedural values and ethical concepts articulated in guidelines for allocating scarce resources in the COVID-19 pandemic. We identified 21 local and national guidelines written in English, Spanish, German and French; applicable to specific and identifiable jurisdictions; and providing guidance to clinicians for decision making when allocating critical care resources during the COVID-19 pandemic. US guidelines were not included, as these had recently been reviewed elsewhere. Information was extracted from each (...) guideline on: 1) the development process; 2) the presence and nature of ethical, medical and social criteria for allocating critical care resources; and 3) the membership of and decision-making procedure of any triage committees. Results of our analysis show the majority appealed primarily to consequentialist reasoning in making allocation decisions, tempered by a largely pluralistic approach to other substantive and procedural values and ethical concepts. Medical and social criteria included medical need, co-morbidities, prognosis, age, disability and other factors, with a focus on seemingly objective medical criteria. There was little or no guidance on how to reconcile competing criteria, and little attention to internal contradictions within individual guidelines. Our analysis reveals the challenges in developing sound ethical guidance for allocating scarce medical resources, highlighting problems in operationalising ethical concepts and principles, divergence between guidelines, unresolved contradictions within the same guideline, and use of naïve objectivism in employing widely used medical criteria for allocating ICU resources. (shrink)

In spite of the growing interest witnessed in the study of the relationship between emotion and language, the determination of the emotional valence of sentences, paragraphs or texts has so far attracted little attention. To bridge this gap, a technique based on the emotional aspect of words is presented. In this preliminary study, we have compared the affective tones of the sentences of four texts as perceived by readers, to the values generated by the words that compose the texts. The (...) results support the psychological reality of the affective tones of linguistic units larger than a word, and the possibility of their evaluation through the lexical information. Such information should be. useful for studying the role of emotional interest on text processing and for the analysis of the natural stories produced by people in reaction to stressful events. (shrink)

Most agents can acquire information about their environments as they operate. A good plan for such an agent is one that not only achieves the goal, but is also executable, i.e., ensures that the agent has enough information at every step to know what to do next. In this paper, we present a formal account of what it means for an agent to know how to execute a plan and to be able to achieve a goal. Such a theory is (...) a prerequisite for producing specifications of planners for agents that can acquire information at run time. It is also essential to account for cooperation among agents. Our account is more general than previous proposals, correctly handles programs containing loops, and incorporates a solution to the frame problem. It can also be used to prove programs containing sensing actions correct. (shrink)

Pathologizing ugliness refers to the use of disease language and medical processes to foster and support the claim that undesirable features are pathological conditions requiring medical or surgical intervention. Primarily situated in cosmetic surgery, the practice appeals to the concept of "aesthetic pathology", which is a medical designation for features that deviate from some designated aesthetic norms. This article offers a two-pronged conceptual analysis of aesthetic pathology. First, I argue that three sets of claims, derived from normativist and naturalistic accounts (...) of disease, inform the framing of ugliness as a disease. These claims concern: (1) aesthetic harms, (2) aesthetic dysfunction, and (3) aesthetic deviation. Second, I introduce the notion of a hybridization loop in medicine, which merges the naturalist and normative understanding of the disease that potentially enables pathologizing practices. In the context of cosmetic surgery, the loop simultaneously promotes the framing of beauty ideals as normal biological attributes and the framing of normal appearance as an aesthetic ideal to legitimize the need for cosmetic interventions. The article thus offers an original discussion of the conceptual problems arising from a specific practice in cosmetic surgery that depicts ugliness as the disease. (shrink)

La question du sens est une question essentielle, qui revient et reviendra aussi longtemps que l'homme s'interrogera sur lui-même, et que l'individu réalisera qu'il ne peut se suffire à lui-même. À un moment ou un autre de son existence, chacun s'interroge sur le sens de la vie, de ses actes, de ses engagements. La quête du sens répond ainsi à un besoin de justification, car rares sont ceux qui ont le courage d'un Nietzsche reconnaissant la mort du sens avec la (...) mort de Dieu. La recherche du sens est donc une construction spirituelle ou philosophique en réponse à une inquiétude pour quelque chose (valeur, idéal, action) ou quelqu'un, et s'accompagne d'un besoin d'agir, de créer, de se responsabiliser. Au-delà d'une justification de nos vies, la construction du sens tend ainsi à une forme de pacification de l'esprit, à une paix de l'âme. Nous aspirons tous à une forme d'absolu que nul n'atteint. Mais qu'importe, car ce qui compte n'est pas le but mais le chemin. Comme l'indique Guy Arcizet dans la préface, l'important c'est « de construire et dérober à l'irrationnel et à l'inconnaissable installés une part du royaume de la connaissance ». Guy Arcizet, l'auteur de la préface, a été Grand Maître du Grand Orient de France de 2010 à 2012. Gilbert Abergel, psychanalyste, auteur de la postface, a été Grand Maître du Grand Orient de France de 1992 à 1994. (shrink)

The Ordinary Hero is an in-depth search of where we should turn to find meaning in our lives.

Applying ethical values in scientific research is conditional to the determination of a metaphysical position on human beings as such. The contemporary context of science and technoscience is essentially based on technological fallouts and a modern dogma of efficiency, relegating ethics to a second place at best. This carries possibly dangerous consequences for humanity. The objective of natural sciences worthy or their name is a return to a form of investigation closer to its origin, but also more conscious of the (...) implications of modern technology. Hence, ethics must be at the heart of scientific education and research, not in its margins. (shrink)

Les « commodités de la conversation », on le sait, désignaient spirituellement les fauteuils pour les Précieuses de Molière. Nous tentons de mettre en place les « commodités du silence », en nous défiant du mobilier habituel. À toutes les époques et sous toutes les civilisations, les lieux de l'énonciation ne se contentent pas de refléter les propos, ils participent à leur fabrication. Le babil à ciel ouvert dans le mail de Madame de Sévigné, les rudes affrontements verbaux de la (...) « case à palabres » - Etudes japonaises – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Section précédente Deuxieme section – L'indétermination L'informe, est au cœur de leur recherche plastique. Telle, au sein des « Vers nouveaux », cette exclamation de Mémoire : Regret des bras épais et jeunes d'herbe pure! Qui regrette? Génitif objectif ou subjectif? Quand? Quels bras? De quels corps? Ceux d'un enfant ou d'une rivière? La nominalisation délivre de toute référence événementielle et temporelle ; la modalité exclamative fait surgir radieusement le - Poétique et Études littéraires – GALERIE – Nouvel article.

Section précédente Troisième section – La naissance éternelle Tout, chez le dernier Rimbaud et le dernier Cézanne, dit la naissance, son allégresse et sa fraîcheur. Dans ce monde indécis, aux déséquilibres primordiaux de l'enfantement, où tout « demande grâce au jour », les objets chancellent et les êtres titubent, frappés de malformations. Fig. G – Madame Cézanne à la jupe rayée, vers 1877 Huile sur toile 72 x 56cm Museum of Fine Arts, - Poétique et Études littéraires – GALERIE – (...) Nouvel article. (shrink)

After explaining the interdisciplinary aspect of the series of events organized around the square of opposition since 2007, we discuss papers related to the 4th World Congress on the Square of Opposition which was organized in the Vatican at the Pontifical Lateran University in 2014. We distinguish three categories of work: those dealing with the evolution and development of the theory of opposition, those using the square as a metalogical tool to give a better understanding of various systems of logic (...) and those related with applications of the theory of opposition to conceptual analysis and pedagogy. (shrink)

Many-valued logics are standardly defined by logical matrices. They are truth-functional. In this paper non truth-functional many-valued semantics are presented, in a philosophical and mathematical perspective.

La constat de ce livre est que l'oeuvre de Hobbes repose sur une position metaphysique et qu'il faut donc reinscrire Hobbes dans l'histoire de la metaphysique pour elucider sa place dans l'histoire de la pensee ethique et politique. Il ne s'agissait pas pour l'auteur de reduire l'importance politico-historique de l'oeuvre, ni d'en minimiser l'inscription dans l'histoire de la guerre civile anglaise, mais au contraire de mettre au jour la structure speculative qui en fondait l'originalite theorique. La pensee de Hobbes engage (...) une reelaboration du concept de verite, c'est-a-dire une redefinition du rapport entre la perception, le discours et le monde qui constitue l'horizon de sa philosophie naturelle et de sa philosophie politique. (shrink)

Il semble que, malgré les nombreuses mises en garde de ces dernières années venant de différents côtés, l’installation de dispositifs d’évaluation s’opère actuellement dans tous les secteurs de la société et les institutions : l’hôpital et le système de santé, les institutions d’éducation et de formation en général, les universités et la recherche en particulier,...

Universal Logic is not a new logic, but a general theory of logics, considered as mathematical structures. The name was introduced about ten years ago, but the subject is as old as the beginning of modern logic: Alfred Tarski and other Polish logicians such as Adolf Lindenbaum developed a general theory of logics at the end of the 1920s based on consequence operations and logical matrices. The subject was revived after the flowering of thousands of new logics during the last (...) thirty years: there was a need for a systematic theory of logics to put some order in this chaotic multiplicity. This bo. (shrink)

En 1723, la Charte fondatrice de la Grande Loge de Londres donne à l'ordre Maçonnique pour projet de devenir le « centre de l'union et le moyen de nouer une amitié fidèle parmi des hommes qui sans cela seraient restés à perpétuelle distance ». De cette aspiration à relever Babel procèdent les tentatives pour cartographier la République maçonnique, mettre sur pied un réseau de correspondance et une langue véritablement universels - ce dernier chantier menant à l'espéranto. L'ordre Maçonnique a décliné (...) tout au long du XVIIIe siècle cette utopie planétaire sur le mode d'une véritable citoyenneté de la République maçonnique avec son passeport, ses droits et ses devoirs. Puis il a dû répondre aux formidables bouleversements issus de 1789 et de l'éveil des nationalités, en s'orientant vers une conception plus engagée de la République universelle des francs-maçons, sensible aux idées libérales et à lémancipation des peuples, au risque de donner des arguments à ses détracteurs, qui lui reprochent de se rendre coupable d'un crime d'indifférenciation. (shrink)

Les trente dernières années du XX e siècle ont été marquées par une très forte inflation des règles du droit du travail visant à protéger l’emploi. Ces règles encadrent notamment le licenciement et tentent d’endiguer le recours aux contrats précaires. Mais on s’aperçoit aujourd’hui qu’il n’existe pas de rapport mécanique entre les objectifs poursuivis (protéger l’emploi), leur traduction législative et les résultats produits qui sont décevants. Prenant acte de son impuissance le législateur entend désormais changer de paradigme en concentrant ses (...) efforts sur la protection des transitions professionnelles. Toutefois les lois les plus récentes qui s’inscrivent dans cette perspective connaissent de nombreux déboires, et pour l’instant il ne semble pas évident que la prospection sur ces nouvelles terres donne plus de résultats que ceux obtenus sur les anciennes. (shrink)

Impact of Reformation on the birth of Modernity and America.

L'objectif est ici de déterminer la mesure dans laquelle nous serions aujourd'hui sortis des catégories conceptuelles sur lesquelles la pensée politique moderne s'est construite.

Les technologies de l’information et de la communication, Internet en particulier, ont réalisé une véritable révolution dans nos manières d’être, de penser et d’agir. Après l’étonnement de départ, dû à la découverte de dispositifs comme le courrier électronique, les bibliothèques en ligne, le téléchargement de musiques ou de films, nous avons tendance à oublier l’importance...

YVES CHARLES ZARKA — Éric Marty, je suis content d’avoir un dialogue avec vous aujourd’hui. Il y a un moment déjà que je souhaitais discuter d’un phénomène qui est pour moi assez surprenant. Je pense au nombre de publications actuelles en France sur la question juive, les Juifs, le Juif, parfois sur la dénomination « juif ». On ne sait plus très bien. Des ouvrages à répétition,..