The practice and development of modern medicine requires large amounts of data, particularly in the domain of cancer. The future of personalized medicine lies neither with “genomic medicine” nor with “precision medicine”, but with “data medicine”. The establishment of this DM has required far-reaching changes, to establish four essential elements connecting patients and doctors: biobanks, databases, bioinformatic platforms and genomic platforms. The “transformation” of scientific research areas, such as genetics, bioinformatics and biostatistics, into clinical specialties has generated a new vision (...) of care. Molecular tumor boards are one response to these changes and are now providing better access to next-generation sequencing and new cancer treatments to patients with inoperable or metastatic cancers, and those for whom the usual treatment has failed. However, MTB face a crucial ethical challenge: maintaining and improving the trust of patients, clinicians, researchers and industry in academic medical centers supported by private or public funding rather than providing genetic data directly to private companies. We believe that, in this era of DM, appropriate modern digital communication networks will be required to maintain this trust and to improve the organization and effectiveness of the system. There is, therefore, a need to reconsider the form and content of informed consent documents at all academic medical centers and to introduce dynamic and electronic informed consent. (shrink)

En 1928 la théorie des form constants par Klüver catégorisait les hallucinations visuelles en quatre grandes catégories. Alors que la notion de form constants venait à s’appliquer virtuellement à toutes les figures entoptiques, comme l’avait prévu son auteur, dont les photismes synesthésiques, Cytowic a décrit et Carol Steen représenté ce que voient réellement des synesthètes visuels. L’une des caractéristiques d’œuvres de peintres synesthètes serait justement la présence de ces formes classées par Klüver. L’anthropologie avec la thèse de l’externalisation a montré (...) que certaines cultures ont repris les form constants perçues dans le premier stade de l’intoxication pour en faire les patterns de leur art. Les modèles physiologico-mathématiques permettent de localiser en V1 l’origine de production des photismes et d’expliquer leur morphogénèse. Mais une explication des circuits neuraux empruntés pour passer des différents types de déclencheur sensoriel à l’apparition de photismes synesthésiques reste aujourd’hui au stade de l’hypothèse. La synesthésie est l’objet de recherches alliant les sciences les plus contemporaines dont la génomique. Il est possible que les études sur la synesthésie transforment son statut de phénomène marginal en un élément essentiel dans la compréhension du système physiologique sous-jacent à l’esprit humain. In 1928, Klüver’s theory of form constants placed visual hallucinations into four broad categories. Whereas, as predicted by its author, the notion of form constants was virtually applicable to all entoptic figures, including synesthetic photisms, the very notion of entoptics was definitively extended. Cytowic has described and Carol Steen has represented what visual synesthetes actually see. The presence of these forms, as they have been classified by Klüver, is precisely one of the characteristics of the works of synesthetic painters. With the thesis of externalization, the field of Anthropology has shown that some cultures have adopted the constant forms perceived in the first stage of intoxication as patterns for their art. Physiological-mathematical models allow us to locate the origin of photism production in V1, and to explain these photisms’ morphogenesis. But, even today, an explanation of the neural pathways used to pass from different types of sensory triggers to the appearance of synesthetic photisms remains at the hypothesis stage. Synesthesia is a research topic that combines some of the most contemporary sciences, including genomics. Studies on synesthesia may just transform its status as that of a marginal phenomenon into that of an essential element in understanding the physiological system underlying the human mind. (shrink)

Cognitive sciences and neurology finally put the stress on olfaction and its dysfonctionalities. Their researches may explain linguistic phenomenoms (insuitability between language and odors) or litterary issues (proustian memory). Neurology and anthropology apparently conclude that there is a fundamental inadequation between human language and odors, opposed to language and colors’s subtle and narrow links.

À partir des années 1980 eut lieu une véritable révolution dans la connaissance du phénomène neurologique de la synesthésie, qui s’est accompagnée d’une révolution culturelle avec l’apparition de témoignages personnels de synesthètes. Cette représentation littéraire et plastique des perceptions synesthésiques fait partie du mouvement contemporain de représentations autobiographiques de différentes conditions neurologiques. Carol Steen, Patricia Lynne Duffy et Marcia Smilack sont des acteurs pionniers de la représentation des perceptions synesthésiques. From the 1980s, a revolution took place in the knowledge of (...) the neurological phenomenon of synesthesia, which has been accompanied by a cultural revolution with the emergence of personal accounts of synesthetes. Autobiographical representation—literary or plastic—of synesthetic perceptions belongs to the contemporary movement of autobiographical representations of various neurological conditions. Carol Steen, Patricia Lynne Duffy and Marcia Smilack are pioneers involved in representation of synesthetic perceptions. (shrink)

Un enjeu éthico-politique de taille, retentissant autant chez Gilles Deleuze que chez Félix Guattari, consiste par conséquent à analyser les transformations de la subjectivité et de l'être-ensemble dans le cadre des mutations en cours..

Developing countries face numerous barriers to conducting effective and efficient ethics reviews of international collaborative research. In addition to potentially overlooking important scientific and ethical considerations, inadequate or insufficiently trained ethics committees may insist on unwarranted changes to protocols that can impair a study's scientific or ethical validity. Moreover, poorly functioning review systems can impose substantial delays on the commencement of research, which needlessly undermine the development of new interventions for urgent medical needs. In response to these concerns, the Drugs (...) for Neglected Diseases Initiative, an independent nonprofit organization founded by a coalition of public sector and international organizations, developed a mechanism to facilitate more effective and efficient host country ethics review for a study of the use of fexinidazole for the treatment of late stage African Trypanosomiasis. The project involved the implementation of a novel ‘pre-review’ process of ethical oversight, conducted by an ad hoc committee of ethics committee representatives from African and European countries, in collaboration with internationally recognized scientific experts. This article examines the process and outcomes of this collaborative process. (shrink)

The practice and development of modern medicine requires large amounts of data, particularly in the domain of cancer. The future of personalized medicine lies neither with “genomic medicine” nor with “precision medicine”, but with “data medicine”. The establishment of this DM has required far-reaching changes, to establish four essential elements connecting patients and doctors: biobanks, databases, bioinformatic platforms and genomic platforms. The “transformation” of scientific research areas, such as genetics, bioinformatics and biostatistics, into clinical specialties has generated a new vision (...) of care. Molecular tumor boards are one response to these changes and are now providing better access to next-generation sequencing and new cancer treatments to patients with inoperable or metastatic cancers, and those for whom the usual treatment has failed. However, MTB face a crucial ethical challenge: maintaining and improving the trust of patients, clinicians, researchers and industry in academic medical centers supported by private or public funding rather than providing genetic data directly to private companies. We believe that, in this era of DM, appropriate modern digital communication networks will be required to maintain this trust and to improve the organization and effectiveness of the system. There is, therefore, a need to reconsider the form and content of informed consent documents at all academic medical centers and to introduce dynamic and electronic informed consent. (shrink)

Understanding the mechanisms and the time and spatial evolution of penumbra following an ischemic stroke is crucially important for developing therapeutics aimed at preventing this area from evolving towards infarction. To help in integrating the available data, we decided to build a formal model. We first collected and categorised the major available evidence from animal models and human observations and summarized this knowledge in a flow-chart with the potential key components of an evolving stroke. Components were grouped in ten sub-models (...) that could be modelled and tested independently: the sub-models of tissue reactions, ionic movements, oedema development, glutamate excitotoxicity, spreading depression, NO synthesis, inflammation, necrosis, apoptosis, and reperfusion. Then, we figured out markers, identified mediators and chose the level of complexity to model these sub-models. We first applied this integrative approach to build a model based on cytotoxic oedema development following a stroke. Although this model includes only three sub-models and would need to integrate more mechanisms in each of these sub-models, the characteristics and the time and spatial evolution of penumbra obtained by simulation are qualitatively and, to some extent, quantitatively consistent with those observed using medical imaging after a permanent occlusion or after an occlusion followed by a reperfusion. (shrink)

In teasing out the diverse origins of our “modern, ecological understanding of epidemic disease” Greater than the parts: holism in biomedicine, 1920–1950, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1998), historians have downplayed the importance of parasitology in the development of a natural history perspective on disease. The present article reassesses the significance of parasitology for the “invention” of medical ecology in post-war France. Focussing on the works of microbiologist Charles Nicolle and on that of physician and zoologist Hervé Harant, I argue (...) that French “medical ecology” was not professionally insulated from some major trends in parasitology, especially in Tunis where disciplinary borders in the medical sciences collapsed. This argument supports the claim that ecological perspectives of disease developed in colonial context but I show that parasitologists such as Harant built on the works of medical geographers who had called attention to the dynamic and complex biological relations between health and environment in fashioning the field of medical ecology in the mid-1950s. As the network of scientists who contributed to the global emergence of “disease ecology” is widening, both medical geography and parasitology stand out as relevant sites of inquiries for a broader historical understanding of the multiple “ecological visions” in twentieth-century biomedical sciences. (shrink)

Qu'est-ce que la 'déconstruction'? Quelles sont les origines philosophiques de ce mot magique, brandi par tous ceux dont le but, déclaré ou non, est de criminaliser l'Occident en le réduisant à une expression du racisme, de l'esclavagisme, de l' 'hétéro-patriarcat' et de l'impérialisme colonial? Cette civilisation redoutable dont les proies seraient les peuples dominés, racisés, opprimés, et les minorités essentialisées en tant que victimes systémiques? Ainsi la civilisation occidentale se trouve-t-elle convoquée devant un nouveau grand Tribunal de l'Histoire pour répondre (...) de ses crimes, imaginaires ou réels, et, surtout, elle est la seule civilisation à être mise au banc des accusés. Au croisement de la recherche universitaire et du militantisme politique, le décolonialisme, l'intersectionnalité, la 'théorie critique de la race', la 'théorie queer', la 'théorie du genre', mais aussi le 'wokisme', né d'une corruption idéologique de l'antiracisme et du féminisme importée des campus étatsuniens, se sont peu à peu diffusés dans les médias et dans la société tout entière grâce à une propagande violente et culpabilisante puisant dans un imaginaire victimaire. Dans ce livre incisif et documenté, qui part d'une réflexion sur la pensée de Nietzsche et sur ses mésusages par les disciples français de Heidegger, Pierre-André Taguieff analyse ces théories aussi foisonnantes qu'inconsistantes et dénonce l'émergence de ce nouvel esprit totalitaire qu'il faut se garder de réduire à ses effets les plus médiatisés, comme ces 'déboulonnages' spectaculaires illustrant la violence purificatrice de la 'cancel culture'. De fait, ce néo-puritanisme obscurantiste, inquisitorial et punitif représente, dans les démocraties occidentales, un défi majeur pour les défenseurs de la liberté d'expression, de pensée et de création."--Back cover. (shrink)

Comment devient-on philosophe? Par quel sursaut un Aristoclès se fait-il Platon, jusqu'à s'imposer dans la liste des " auteurs philo " Il faut enquêter, non pas sur la vie privée, mais sur la vie intime : rumination intellectuelle, ton sur lequel on parle, motivations amoureuses... Ce qui fait un philosophe, c'est un immense travail sur soi, et la rencontre d'autres philosophes, vivants, de leurs problématiques. Mémoire sémantique + obsession métaphysique, voilà le code génétique du philosophe. Il débute par un attentat (...) religieux, puisqu'il commence sa carrière en niant tel ou tel sacré. Bien sûr, il vaut mieux être mâle, communiquer par les livres adopter la langue dominante, écrire quand on est célibataire. Comment gagner sa vie? Pas forcément en étant enseignant, comme c'est le cas aujourd'hui. Le profil du philosophe nous le révèle orphelin, vivant à l'étranger, souvent laid, jamais fou, et serial thinker, prêt à changer de philosophie pourvu qu'il reste, lui, à menacer le monde donnera ou donnera pas du sens à notre vie? Le philosophe est l'être inquiet qui pense inquiéter l'Être par deux trois mots bien aiguisés. (shrink)

Means–ends decoupling, the institutionally induced implementation of ineffective practices, has become increasingly common. Extant theory suggests that means–ends decoupling has real consequences, which makes it unstable and difficult for organizations to sustain. Yet little is known of how, and with what outcomes, firms organize such means–ends decoupling. We examine organizing via multiple qualitative and longitudinal case studies of how Swedish fast fashion retailers implement and manage the collection of used garments. We find that firms combine two organizational arrangements: structural and (...) temporal core–compartment separations, which mitigate consequences of means–ends decoupling by obscuring and justifying efficiency gaps. Thereby we provide a theoretical explanation for how means–ends decoupling can persist over time. (shrink)

The problem of measurement is often considered an inconsistency inside the quantum formalism. Many attempts to solve it have been made since the inception of quantum mechanics. The form of these attempts depends on the philosophical position that their authors endorse. I will review some of them and analyze their relevance. The phenomenon of decoherence is often presented as a solution lying inside the pure quantum formalism and not demanding any particular philosophical assumption. Nevertheless, a widely debated question is to (...) decide between two different interpretations. The first one is to consider that the decoherence process has the effect to actually project a superposed state into one of its classically interpretable component, hence doing the same job as the reduction postulate. For the second one, decoherence is only a way to show why no macroscopic superposed state can be observed, so explaining the classical appearance of the macroscopic world, while the quantum entanglement between the system, the apparatus and the environment never disappears. In this case, explaining why only one single definite outcome is observed remains to do. In this paper, I examine the arguments that have been given for and against both interpretations and defend a new position, the “Convivial Solipsism”, according to which the outcome that is observed is relative to the observer, different but in close parallel to the Everett’s interpretation and sharing also some similarities with Rovelli’s relational interpretation and Quantum Bayesianism. I also show how “Convivial Solipsism” can help getting a new standpoint about the EPR paradox providing a way out of the seemingly unavoidable non-locality of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Eigenfeatures are created by the principal component approach (PCA) used on objects described by a low-level code (i.e., pixels, Gabor jets). We suggest that eigenfeatures act like the flexible features described by Schyns et al. They are particularly suited for face processing and give rise to class-specific effects such as the other-race effect. The PCA approach can be modified to accommodate top-down constraints.

Examinant la pertinence des travaux d’Edgar Morin dans la gestion des organisations productives et, plus particulièrement pour l’accroissement de l’efficacité collective, cet article propose des outils de réflexion opérationnels aux responsables d’organisations, s’appuyant sur six notions de la pensée complexe exposée dans La Méthode : les principes hologrammatique, d’auto-organisation, de la variété requise, de co-évolution, dialogique et de récursivité.Examining the relevance of the work of Edgar Morin in the management of productive organizations, and in particular for increasing collective efficacy, this (...) article proposes tools for reflection operational managers of organizations, based on six concepts complex thinking outlined in Method: hologrammatic principles, self-organization, requisite variety, co-evolution, dialogic and recursion. (shrink)

Restituer la pensée d'Aristote c'est retrouver les problèmes qu'il s'était lui-même posés, sans avoir le souci de ce que la postérité pourrait y trouver par la suite pour éclairer ses propres problèmes. Le Corpus de l'œuvre d'Aristote est constitué de notes de cours inédits, qui furent probablement corrigées et augmentées tout au long d'une carrière d'un enseignant chercheur. Elles n'étaient pas destinées à la publication. Quand on les étudie aujourd'hui, il faut donc s'armer de la conviction qu'Aristote, même s'il a (...) dépassé son temps, puisque son œuvre a été exhumée presque trois siècles après sa mort, appartient néanmoins à son époque, à la fois par sa formation et par les auditeurs ou lecteurs qu'il pouvait y trouver. Son œuvre, élaborée dans un climat platonicien qu'elle critique, propose une réforme de la pensée, qui est intéressante en elle-même, même si elle s'est trouvée reprise ou, au contraire, rejetée au cours des âges qui l'ont suivie. Pour l'apprécier vraiment, il faut se garder de tout anachronisme, c'est-à-dire de la projection des problèmes d'un temps sur un temps antérieur, où ces problèmes n'étaient pas apparus. Si un auteur est grand, c'est sans doute parce que la postérité peut s'y instruire, mais on se ferait une fausse idée de cette grandeur si on la réduisait à l'usage qu'on a pu déjà en faire ou qu'on peut en faire aujourd'hui. La vraie grandeur réside dans les pas que cet auteur a accomplis en son temps, et qui ne dispensent pas d'en fournir d'autres, même si l'exemple ancien est digne d'être retenu. (shrink)

Avec la mondialisation des communications, la responsabilité de chaque journaliste se trouve décuplée, sachant qu'il a pour lecteur le monde entier. Cela confère au journaliste francophone, en particulier, une vocation singulière, dans un monde où les courants d'information convergent: il doit être le défenseur de la diversité des sources d'information. L'information est devenue l'une des armes les plus redoutables. Les journalistes francophones ont donc une mission propre: celle de faire prévaloir l'objectivité, de conserver la distance critique nécessaire pour constater ce (...) qui doit l'être, contre l'exclusion et l'intolérance.With the globalization of communication, journalists have wider responsibilities because they have the whole world as their readership. This situation particularly confers a singular vocation on French-speaking journalists in a world where information flows converge. They must broadcast the diversity of information sources. Information has become one of the most frightening weapons. Therefore French-speaking journalists have a particular mission which is to promote objectivity, keep the critical distance necessary to observe efficiently and to fight exclusion and intolerance. (shrink)

The moral philosophy of Levinas offers a stark prospectus of impossibility for corporate ethics. It differs from most traditional ethical theories in that, for Levinas, the ethical develops in a personal meeting of one with the Other, rather than residing in some internal deliberation of the moral subject. Levinasian ethics emphasises an infinite personal responsibility arising for each of us in the face of the Other and in the presence of the Third. It stresses the imperious demand we experience to (...) be open to, prepared for and impassioned with that which we may not know, or recognise, about ourselves or about the Other. Such a demand transcends our intellectual and/or rational potential; it involves us in a carnal and somatic bodily experience of otherness. If we are to speak of Levinasian ethics in a business context, it cannot be a matter of corporate ethics but only a matter of individual managerial ethics. What such an ethics would be like is yet to be outlined. This paper proposes a series of questions and suggestions that will explicate some key terms of a practice organised around a Levinasian vocabulary of otherness, responsibility, proximity, diachrony and justice. (shrink)

Parce qu’elle s’est élaborée à partir d’un héritage antique, l’avocature dispose d’une culture commune dès la fin du Moyen Âge. Dans la France des XVII e et XVIII e siècles, ces caractères partagés se renforcent par la professionnalisation, l’harmonisation institutionnelle des ordres et le renforcement d’un droit commun du barreau, qui n’est pas le fruit du seul travail des avocats et de leurs structures professionnelles ; l’émergence d’un « barreau français » a également été favorisée par l’État et les tribunaux. (...) Avec l’Empire et la Restauration, la construction nationale du barreau connaît un deuxième temps fort ; dans un premier temps, c’est l’État qui s’impose comme son acteur essentiel. (shrink)

A large number of physicists now admit that quantum mechanics is a non-local theory. The EPR argument and the many experiments showing the violation of Bell’s inequalities seem to have confirmed convincingly that quantum mechanics cannot be local. Nevertheless, this conclusion can only be drawn inside a standard realist framework assuming an ontic interpretation of the wave function and viewing the collapse of the wave function as a real change of the physical state of the system. We show that this (...) standpoint is not mandatory and that if the collapse is not considered an actual physical change it is possible to recover locality. (shrink)

A large number of physicists now admit that quantum mechanics is a non-local theory. The EPR argument and the many experiments showing the violation of Bell’s inequalities seem to have confirmed convincingly that quantum mechanics cannot be local. Nevertheless, this conclusion can only be drawn inside a standard realist framework assuming an ontic interpretation of the wave function and viewing the collapse of the wave function as a real change of the physical state of the system. We show that this (...) standpoint is not mandatory and that if the collapse is not considered an actual physical change it is possible to recover locality. (shrink)

A large number of physicists now admit that quantum mechanics is a non-local theory. The EPR argument and the many experiments showing the violation of Bell’s inequalities seem to have confirmed convincingly that quantum mechanics cannot be local. Nevertheless, this conclusion can only be drawn inside a standard realist framework assuming an ontic interpretation of the wave function and viewing the collapse of the wave function as a real change of the physical state of the system. We show that this (...) standpoint is not mandatory and that if the collapse is not considered an actual physical change it is possible to recover locality. (shrink)

A large number of physicists now admit that quantum mechanics is a non-local theory. The EPR argument and the many experiments showing the violation of Bell’s inequalities seem to have confirmed convincingly that quantum mechanics cannot be local. Nevertheless, this conclusion can only be drawn inside a standard realist framework assuming an ontic interpretation of the wave function and viewing the collapse of the wave function as a real change of the physical state of the system. We show that this (...) standpoint is not mandatory and that if the collapse is not considered an actual physical change it is possible to recover locality. (shrink)

BackgroundAt the start of 2021, oncologists lacked the necessary scientific knowledge to adapt their clinical practices optimally when faced with cancer patients refusing or reluctant to be vaccinated against COVID-19, despite the marked vulnerability of these patients to severe, and even fatal forms of this new viral infectious disease. Oncologists at Foch Hospital were confronted with this phenomenon, which was observed worldwide, in both the general population and the population of cancer patients.MethodsBetween April and November 2021, the Ethics and Oncology (...) Departments of Foch Hospital decided to investigate this subject, through an empirical and interdisciplinary study in bioethics. Our scientific objective was to try to identify and resolve the principal bio-ethical issues, with a view to improving clinical practices in oncology during future major pandemics of this kind, from a highly specific bio-ethical standpoint. We used a mainly qualitative methodological approach based on questionnaires and interviews.ResultsIn April 2021, 29 cancer patients refused or were reluctant to be vaccinated. Seventeen of these patients said that making vaccination mandatory would have helped them to accept vaccination. In October 2021, only 10 cancer patients continued to maintain their refusal. One of the main reasons for the decrease in refusals was probably the introduction of the “pass sanitaire” in July 2021, which rendered vaccination indispensable for many activities. However, even this was not sufficient to convince these 10 cancer patients.ConclusionWe identified a key bio-ethical issue, which we then tried to resolve: vaccination policy. We characterized a major tension between “the recommendation of anti-COVID-19 vaccination” and “free will”, and the duty to “protect each other”. Mandatory vaccination, at least in France, could resolve this tension, with positive effects on quality of life, or survival, in cancer patients initially refusing or reluctant to be vaccinated, but only if collective and individual scales are clearly distinguished. (shrink)

Résumé Beaucoup de cinéastes et de théoriciens français ont très longtemps clamé que le cinéma ne consistait pas à produire des images, mais des plans – catégorie adossée à la notion de durée et très vague, puisqu’elle désigne une découpe à la fois spatiale et temporelle. Cette réticence au concept d’image a ainsi nourri une sorte de « Yalta » cinéphile, distinguant la lignée des frères Lumière (la vue comme art du réel) et celle de Georges Méliès (le tableau fantasmagorique). (...) Cette opposition entre image (souvent assimilée, ici, à l’imagerie ou au cliché) et plan-durée peut être comparée à la fort ancienne querelle du dessin et de la couleur (ce qui cerne et ce qui déborde). Nous tenterons ici d’étudier l’éventualité d’un « icono-réalisme », en nous appuyant notamment sur les travaux de Gilles Deleuze et de Jacques Rancière (La Fable cinématographique), ainsi que sur un moyen-métrage de Pier Paolo Pasolini, La Ricotta (1963). (shrink)

La reconnaissance accordée en sciences cognitives (Van Gelder et Varela) à l’analyse husserlienne du présent mental en termes de rétention et protension a manqué sa radicalité transcendantale, qui est aussi la limite de cette analyse. Si l’on recherche dans la subjectivité l’origine de notre sens du temps, il ne suffit pas de revenir au présent mental par réduction du temps objectif, il faut élargir aux aspects grammaticaux et aux rythmes biologiques l’éventail des moyens d’accès au temps d’un sujet incarné dans (...) le monde de la vie. (shrink)