We have developed a simple mathematical model with three physiologically significant states to describe the changes in intrauterine pressure associated with a contraction during human parturition. The myometrium is modelled as a set of smooth muscle cells, each of which is in one of three states (quiescent, contracted, refractory) at a given time. These states are occupied according to a cycle governed by three temporal parameters. The solutions of the equations describing the model show an oscillatory behavior for particular values (...) of these parameters, which is very similar to the time dependant development of intrauterine pressure during labor. Due to its non-linear terms, our model could lead to chaotic oscillations (in the mathematical sense), whose clinical counterpart may occur in cases of dystocia. Despite its simplicity, this model appears to be a useful guide to further investigations of the oscillatory behavior of the myometrium, or other smooth muscles, in normal and pathological situations. (shrink)

1. La décision de l'intelligence et la méthode concrète-complexe.--2. La transmutation concrète-complexe.--3. Réalité sociale et logique: 1. essai. Psychologie collective; histoire et connaissance. 2. essai. Jugements économiques et sociologie des liaisons.

Ce volume collectif montre que l'herméneutique fictionnalisée permet de réfléchir sur les procédures de l'interprétation, de penser les limites de la fiction et de prendre en charge des discours que les disciplines savantes ne sont pas toujours en situation de produire.

In this thorough compendium, nineteen accomplished scholars explore, in some manner the values they find inherent in the world, their nature, and revelence through the thought of Frederick Ferré. These essays, informed by the insights of Ferré and coming from manifold perspectives—ethics, philosophy, theology, and environmental studies, advance an ambitious challenge to current intellectual and scholarly fashions.

In this thorough compendium, nineteen accomplished scholars explore, in some manner the values they find inherent in the world, their nature, and revelence through the thought of Frederick FerrZ. These essays, informed by the insights of FerrZ and coming from manifold perspectives—ethics, philosophy, theology, and environmental studies, advance an ambitious challenge to current intellectual and scholarly fashions.

A geometrical model of the emergence of a primordium at the shoot apex in dicotyledons is proposed. It is based on recent fundamental results on plant morphogenesis, i.e.:- the emergence is preceded by the reorganization of the microtubules of the cortical cytoskeleton, leading to a new orientation of the synthesis of the cell wall microfibrils; - the resulting global stress is related to the general orientation of the cell growth. So the model sums up the continuous interactions linking the microtubules, (...) the microfibrils and the cell growth axis. (shrink)

Citizen science is growing quickly, given its potential to enhance knowledge coproduction by diverse participants, generating large and global data sets. However, uneven participation in CS is still an important concern. This work aims to understand participation dynamics in CS and how they are shaped by participation barriers and drivers. We do so by examining participation in CONECT-e, a CS project that uses a wiki-like platform to document traditional ecological knowledge. More precisely, we analyze quantitative data on participants’ profile and (...) activity patterns and qualitative data on barriers and drivers of participation. Our findings suggest that overcoming the education, age, and residence participation barriers is challenging even in cocreated CS projects. This is potentially due to issues of perceived self-illegitimacy and low access to information and communication technologies. Our results also point out that participants’ alliance with the project’s objectives and trust relationships with the project team are important drivers of participation in CS projects. Finally, we also highlight the need to think beyond participation as single actions and rather consider participation diversity in CS as functional diversity in ecosystems, with participants performing a diverse set of interconnected tasks or functions. (shrink)

The pandemic caused by the new coronavirus has sparked discussions among health professionals about the role of food and nutrition in the infectious condition caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus in different population groups. Malnutrition, including obesity, may reflect more severe outcomes in the physiopathology of infection and systemic responses caused by COVID-19. The present work aims to make considerations directed to the nutritionist about the susceptibility of COVID-19 in individuals submitted to malnutrition, highlighting possible outcomes of the disease and the (...) importance of nutritional care in maintaining the health of these patients. Therefore, maintaining a good nutritional status of these patients, combined with an adequate level of micronutrients will not guarantee protection against infection caused by COVID-19, however, it is essential to minimize the risks of worsening this disease. (shrink)

Industrial shrimp farming has been promoted by international development and financial institutions in coastal indebted poor countries as a way to obtain foreign exchange earnings, reimburse external debt, and promote development. The promotion of the shrimp industry is a clear example of a more general trend of support of export-oriented primary products, consisting in monocultures of commodities, as opposed to the promotion of more diverse, traditional production directed to feed the local population. In general, it is assumed that export-oriented aquaculture (...) and agriculture, in a framework of liberalization policies, facilitates economic growth and this is associated with poverty reduction and the improvement of food security. However, it has been shown that the promotion of export-oriented production, mostly in the hands of big corporations, can have detrimental consequences for the livelihoods of local populations and the environment. As a result, international institutions, NGOs, and the industry aim to minimize these impacts by promoting sustainable export-oriented production. But some impacts may remain, since the main issue is the primary focus on international deregulated markets and the search for cheap primary products. To illustrate the relationships between the mainstream concept of development, the environmental and social impact of industrial farming systems, and the promotion of export-oriented production in developing countries, this article analyzes the case of the shrimp aquaculture industry. (shrink)

Mod ern cit i zen ship is ma te ri al ized by the con sti tu tional body of the XIX cen tury. With the na tional States, the na tion al ist no tion of cit i zens trans formed the ide al ized “so ci ety of in di vid u - als” into “a com mu nity of iden ti cal be ings”. It is dem on strated that,..

This essay is a revision of ?Rudiments of an Ethics of News Reporting,?; which won honorable mention in the 1985 Carol Burnett/University of Hawaii/ AEJMC Prize for Student Papers on Journalism Ethics. It argues that news reporting suffers from a misplaced faith in individual autonomy, a faith that resists a sense of social duty on the basis of negative freedom; therefore, journalism stands in need of a moral theory that recognizes community and personhood as fundamental human characteristics essential to ethical (...) decision?making. (shrink)

Mass media ethics and the classical liberal ideal of the autonomous individual are historically linked and professionally dominant--yet the authors of this work feel this is intrinsically flawed. They show how recent research in philosophy and social science--together with a longer tradition in theological inquiry--insist that community, mutuality, and relationship are fundamental to a full concept of personhood. The authors argue that "persons-in-community" provides a more defensible grounding for journalists' professional moral decision-making in crucial areas such as truthtelling, privacy, organizational (...) culture, and balanced coverage. With numerous examples drawn from life as well as from theory, this book will interest journalists, editors, and professionals in media management as well as students and scholars of media ethics, reporting, and media law. (shrink)

Meat?eating as a human practice has been under ethical attack from philosophers such as Peter Singer and Tom Regan on both utilitarian and deontological grounds. An organicist ethic, on the other hand, recognizes that all life other than the primary producers, the plants, must feed on life. This essay affirms, with many environmental ethicists, the moralconsiderability of biota other than the human, but denies that this enlargement of the moral community beyond Homo sapiens necessarily precludes our eating of meat. First, (...) absolute deontological arguments against meat?eating are disputed, then utilitarian?hedonistic arguments are shown not to be sufficient to require ethical vegetarianism. Both sorts of arguments have strengths, however, that set us on guard against current abuses in the meat?raising and slaughtering industries. If the principle of ?due respect? for beings with different degrees of intrinsic value is honored, then moderate meat?eating under reformed social practices can be seen as licit. Two final problems then require investigation: the problem of dietary justice for poor humans and the problem of ?speciesism?. Dealing with the latter requires discussion of cannibalism and the ethics of humans being eaten by still higher ?aliens? (shrink)

The introduction of self-driving vehicles gives rise to a large number of ethical issues that go beyond the common, extremely narrow, focus on improbable dilemma-like scenarios. This article provides a broad overview of realistic ethical issues related to self-driving vehicles. Some of the major topics covered are as follows: Strong opinions for and against driverless cars may give rise to severe social and political conflicts. A low tolerance for accidents caused by driverless vehicles may delay the introduction of driverless systems (...) that would substantially reduce the risks. Trade-offs will arise between safety and other requirement on the road traffic system. Over-reliance on the swift collision-avoiding reactions of self-driving vehicles can induce people to take dangerous actions, such as stepping out in front of a car, relying on its fast braking. Children travelling alone can violate safety instructions such as the use of seatbelts. Digital information about routes and destinations can be used to convey commercial and political messages to car users. If fast passage can be bought, then socio-economic segregation of road traffic may result. Terrorists and other criminals can hack into a vehicle and make it crash. They can also use self-driving vehicles for instance to carry bombs to their designed places of detonation or to wreak havoc on a country’s road system. (shrink)

Pourquoi les catalans revendiquent-ils l'indépendance de la Catalogne ? Sont-ils un peuple, une nation ? Une nation en Europe peut-elle encore établir son État ? L'auteure propose une analyse en pensant à neuf les concepts politiques pour entendre ce qui est en jeu en ce moment décisif de l'histoire européenne. Il devient alors possible de comprendre la raison pour laquelle le droit à l'autodétermination s'applique à leur cas. Il importe de distinguer nation et nationalisme. Ces Discours sont trois essais de (...) phénoménologie politique qui s'adressent aux catalans et aux européens. Ouvrir les possibles – telle est l'affaire de la philosophie. (shrink)

We examine the degree structure $\operatorname {\mathrm {\mathbf {ER}}}$ of equivalence relations on $\omega $ under computable reducibility. We examine when pairs of degrees have a least upper bound. In particular, we show that sufficiently incomparable pairs of degrees do not have a least upper bound but that some incomparable degrees do, and we characterize the degrees which have a least upper bound with every finite equivalence relation. We show that the natural classes of finite, light, and dark degrees are (...) definable in $\operatorname {\mathrm {\mathbf {ER}}}$. We show that every equivalence relation has continuum many self-full strong minimal covers, and that $\mathbf {d}\oplus \mathbf {\operatorname {\mathrm {\mathbf {Id}}}_1}$ needn’t be a strong minimal cover of a self-full degree $\mathbf {d}$. Finally, we show that the theory of the degree structure $\operatorname {\mathrm {\mathbf {ER}}}$ as well as the theories of the substructures of light degrees and of dark degrees are each computably isomorphic with second-order arithmetic. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage, fruit d'une étroite collaboration entre des enseignants-chercheurs appartenant aux laboratoires GEPECS et C3S ainsi qu'au Pôle Arts, culture, théâtre, musique de l'université de Franche-Comté, porte sur le regard esthétique. Les contributions retenues, présentées pour la plupart lors d'un colloque interdisciplinaire qui s'est tenu à Besançon le 21 octobre 2011, ont été regroupées en deux grandes parties. La première, de nature historique et conceptuelle, fournit des éléments de cadrage et croise notamment des perspectives philosophiques et sociologiques. La deuxième propose (...) des illustrations et des études de cas relatives à l'analyse de tableaux (le Serment du jeu de paume), d'affiches (prix de Diane et du Jockey Club), d'expériences archétypales (comme la visite de Freud à l'Acropole), de mises en scène de corps en mouvement (chez Georges Demeny, par exemple) ou de débats autour de l'abstraction (la "trahison" de Jean Messagier) et de l'esthésie. (shrink)

Prior reports suggest that affective effects in visual word processing cannot be fully explained by a dimensional perspective of emotions based on valence and arousal. In the current study, we focused on the contribution of approach and avoidance motivational systems that are related to different action components to the processing of emotional words. To this aim, we compared frontal alpha asymmetries and brain oscillations elicited by anger words associated with approach motivational tendencies, and fear words that may trigger either avoidance, (...) approach or no action tendencies. The participants’ task was to make decisions about approaching or distancing from the concepts represented by words. The results of cluster-based and beamforming analyses revealed increased gamma power band synchronization for fear words relative to anger words between 725 and 750 ms, with an estimated neural origin in the temporal pole. These findings were interpreted to reflect a conflict between different action tendencies underlying the representation of fear words in semantic and emotional memories, when trying to achieve task requirements. These results are in line with the predictions made by the fear-hinders-action hypothesis. Additionally, current data highlights the contribution of motivational features to the representation and processing of emotional words. (shrink)

La parole n'est pas entendue de manière univoque chez les Grecs mais dans la diversité de mots et de sens. C'est cette diversité qu'il s'agit de penser et pour ce , l'interpréter.

The political issue of Catalan independence requires us to think about it as Europeans. Since the end of the Second World War, we have created a space for democracy in Europe. This is why the question of Catalonia concerns us. This is not an internal political conflict within the Spanish state – the conflict between Catalonia and Spain is our responsibility. Responsibility means the response we make to the political demands of our world through our understanding, as giving a response (...) is an existential way of being specific to humans. Attempting to "understand the world", a task of reflection called for by Hannah Arendt, is to be concerned about the shared world. Human rights are at stake. We will ask ourselves whether the right to self-determination can be applied to Catalans. Therefore, it is the fundamental political concepts of people, sovereignty, nation and independence on which this right is based that need to be clarified. Our phenomenological analysis will consist of untangling the knots, removing prejudices, and dismantling ideological constructions to be able to judge freely. (shrink)