Cancers rely on multiple, heterogeneous processes at different scales, pertaining to many biomedical fields. Therefore, understanding cancer is necessarily an interdisciplinary task that requires placing specialised experimental and clinical research into a broader conceptual, theoretical, and methodological framework. Without such a framework, oncology will collect piecemeal results, with scant dialogue between the different scientific communities studying cancer. We argue that one important way forward in service of a more successful dialogue is through greater integration of applied sciences (experimental and clinical) (...) with conceptual and theoretical approaches, informed by philosophical methods. By way of illustration, we explore six central themes: (i) the role of mutations in cancer; (ii) the clonal evolution of cancer cells; (iii) the relationship between cancer and multicellularity; (iv) the tumour microenvironment; (v) the immune system; and (vi) stem cells. In each case, we examine open questions in the scientific literature through a philosophical methodology and show the benefit of such a synergy for the scientific and medical understanding of cancer. (shrink)

The agroecological transition of agriculture not only requires changes in practices but also in ways of thinking and in their underlying values. Agroecology proposes broad scientific principles that need to be adapted to the singularities of each farm. This contextualization leads to the identification of agroecological practices that work locally and could serve as evidence-based practices to be transferred to local practitioners. This strategy was tested in a 4-year experiment conducted with dairy-sheep farmers in the South of France. The aim (...) was to collectively engage in the agroecological transition. Our work focused on the creation of a diagnostic tool that was used to analyze local farms and identify virtuous practices to be promoted locally as evidence-based practices. But this strategy came up against the complexity and singularity of the situations to be transformed: not only was no evidence found but the construction of the diagnostic tool itself led to controversy concerning the models of agriculture to be promoted. The experiment then took a pragmatic turn: on-farm workshops were organized to enable farmers to benefit from the professional judgment of peer farmers who were willing to help their colleagues accomplish their agroecological transition. The diagnostic tool, which was designed to be prescriptive, was then used to judge the social acceptability of solutions that made sense in each farmer’s own situation. Our experiment led us to conclude that managing the agro-ecological transition of farmers and their farming system is better conceived as a value-based process than as an evidence-based one. (shrink)

Marcel Beaufils fut un pedagogue exceptionnel qui exerca une influence decisive sur l'evolution de l'esthetique musicale en France, a partir des annees 50. Or, parmi ses ouvrages, Musique du son, musique du verbe est tres certainement celui qui porte le plus fortement la marque de son activite d'enseignant au Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Paris ; cette mission, il semblait l'entendre davantage comme celle d'un declencheur d'idees, catalyseur, plutot que du transmetteur d'un savoir fige une fois pour toutes. Bouleversant (...) toute tentative de classification academique, toute certitude acquise, ce livre laisse des pointilles ; un grand souffle traverse son ecriture. N'en deplaise aux musicographes, il s'agit la d'un ouvrage de creation, qui nous rappelle que Marce Beaufils etait egalement un ecrivain qui savait manier le verbe a la fois en tant que dramaturge et en tant que poete. (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)

Many studies require standardized and replicable protocols composed of emotional stimuli. To this aim, several databases of emotional pictures are available. However, there are only few images directly depicting interpersonal violence, which is a specific emotion evocative stimulus for research on aggressive behavior or post-traumatic stress disorder. The objective of the current study is to provide a new set of standardized stimuli containing images depicting interpersonal situations. This will allow a sensitive assessment of a wide range of cognitions linked to (...) social interaction. To this aim, 240 participants rated the valence and arousal of 79 pictures collected from online sources in 2018. Results showed a distinctive pattern of valence and arousal regarding the picture content and specific associations between those two dimensions. Taken together, these results suggest a good reliability of the selected images. In conclusion, our study provides an open access set of recent pictures depicting interpersonal situations along with normative valence and arousal ratings, that are available for download from: https://osf.io/ak4m7/?view_only=None. (shrink)

Stroke is a severe health issue, and motor recovery after stroke remains an important challenge in the rehabilitation field. Neurofeedback, as part of a brain–computer interface, is a technique for modulating brain activity using on-line feedback that has proved to be useful in motor rehabilitation for the chronic stroke population in addition to traditional therapies. Nevertheless, its use and applications in the field still leave unresolved questions. The brain pathophysiological mechanisms after stroke remain partly unknown, and the possibilities for intervention (...) on these mechanisms to promote cerebral plasticity are limited in clinical practice. In NFB motor rehabilitation, the aim is to adapt the therapy to the patient’s clinical context using brain imaging, considering the time after stroke, the localization of brain lesions, and their clinical impact, while taking into account currently used biomarkers and technical limitations. These modern techniques also allow a better understanding of the physiopathology and neuroplasticity of the brain after stroke. We conducted a narrative literature review of studies using NFB for post-stroke motor rehabilitation. The main goal was to decompose all the elements that can be modified in NFB therapies, which can lead to their adaptation according to the patient’s context and according to the current technological limits. Adaptation and individualization of care could derive from this analysis to better meet the patients’ needs. We focused on and highlighted the various clinical and technological components considering the most recent experiments. The second goal was to propose general recommendations and enhance the limits and perspectives to improve our general knowledge in the field and allow clinical applications. We highlighted the multidisciplinary approach of this work by combining engineering abilities and medical experience. Engineering development is essential for the available technological tools and aims to increase neuroscience knowledge in the NFB topic. This technological development was born out of the real clinical need to provide complementary therapeutic solutions to a public health problem, considering the actual clinical context of the post-stroke patient and the practical limits resulting from it. (shrink)

Biological evolution provides a creative fount of complex and subtle adaptations, often surprising the scientists who discover them. However, because evolution is an algorithmic process that transcends the substrate in which it occurs, evolution’s creativity is not limited to nature. Indeed, many researchers in the field of digital evolution have observed their evolving algorithms and organisms subverting their intentions, exposing unrecognized bugs in their code, producing unexpected adaptations, or exhibiting outcomes uncannily convergent with ones in nature. Such stories routinely reveal (...) creativity by evolution in these digital worlds, but they rarely fit into the standard scientific narrative. Instead they are often treated as mere obstacles to be overcome, rather than results that warrant study in their own right. The stories themselves are traded among researchers through oral tradition, but that mode of information transmission is inefficient and prone to error and outright loss. Moreover, the fact that these stories tend to be shared only among practitioners means that many natural scientists do not realize how interesting and lifelike digital organisms are and how natural their evolution can be. To our knowledge, no collection of such anecdotes has been published before. This paper is the crowd-sourced product of researchers in the fields of artificial life and evolutionary computation who have provided first-hand accounts of such cases. It thus serves as a written, fact-checked collection of scientifically important and even entertaining stories. In doing so we also present here substantial evidence that the existence and importance of evolutionary surprises extends beyond the natural world, and may indeed be a universal property of all complex evolving systems. (shrink)

Individual differences in effortful control, a component of temperament, reflecting the ability to use attention and other cognitive processes to self-regulate emotion and behavior, contribute to child academic adjustment, social competence, and wellbeing. Research has linked excessive screen time in early childhood to reduced self-regulation ability. Furthermore, research suggests that parents are more likely to use screens with children who have more challenging temperaments, such as low levels of effortful control. Since screen time by children between the ages of 0 (...) and 18 has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, it remains timely to investigate the developmental pattern of association between child screen media use and effortful control. We hypothesize that higher levels of screen media intake at age 3.5 will be associated with lower effortful control at age 4.5 and that lower effortful control at 3.5 will contribute to more screen media intake at age 4.5. This study draws on participants followed longitudinally over the span of 2-years for an investigation of Canadian preschoolers’ screen media use during the pandemic. A follow-up with this sample was completed in 2021. Analyses using a cross-lagged panel model revealed stability in child screen time and effortful control between the ages of 3.5 and 4.5. Child screen time at age 3.5 significantly contributed to decreased effortful control scores at the age of 4.5, whereas effortful control at age 3.5 did not contribute to screen time at age 4.5. Our results partially confirmed our hypothesis and indicated that higher levels of screen time intake were detrimental to the development of effortful control. These results suggest that screen media use, an exceedingly frequent activity, may play an enduring role in development by shaping young children’s temperaments. (shrink)

The relationship between Rand and Branden changed over eighteen yaears from student and teacher, to friends, to colleagues, to lovers and finally antagonists.

Agroecological transitions aim at developing sustainable farming and food systems, adapted to local contexts. Such transitions require the engagement of local actors and the consideration of their knowledge and reasoning as a whole, which encompasses different natures of knowledge (empirical, scientific, local, generic), related to different dimensions (economic, environmental, technical, social, political), as well as their values and perceived uncertainties. While these transitions are often problematized in relation to technical issues, this article's objective is to start from the way the (...) local actors consider these transitions in order to see what issues are actually involved. In this study, we analyzed the reasoning of diverse farming actors, including farmers and farm advisors. We conducted 30 cognitive mapping interviews, during which the local actors drew cognitive maps to explicit their reasoning concerning their agroecological transition with an open approach. Their reasoning revealed an emphasis on the human & social dimension of the process of agroecological transitions: (i) human and social considerations come first in the transition process, while technical solutions are viewed as secondary, (ii) use and development of human capacities, social interactions and human well-being are crucial to the conduct of agroecological transitions, (iii) human-scale farming appears as a condition for the use of human capacities, human well-being and rural development, (iv) agroecological transitions imply farming advisory transitions, and (v) rural development appears as a condition for agroecological transitions, implying transitions in society as a whole. (shrink)

The ambiguous-cue task is composed of two-choice simultaneous discriminations involving three stimuli: positive (P), ambiguous (A) and negative (N). Two different trial types are presented: PA and NA. The ambiguous cue (A) served as an S- in PA trials, but as an S+ in NA trials. When using this procedure, it is typical to observe a less accurate performance in PA trials than in NA trials. This is called the ambiguous-cue effect. Recently, it was reported in starlings that the ambiguous-cue (...) effect decreases when the stimuli are presented on an angled (120°) panel. The hypothesis is that the angled panel facilitates that the two cues from each discrimination are perceived as a compound, precluding value transfer via a second-order conditioning mechanism. In this experiment, we used pigeons and a flat panel. Nevertheless, our data were quite similar to the previous data in starlings. We conclude that the form of the panel cannot explain the ambiguous-cue effect. Several alternatives to be explored in future experiments are suggested. The riddle of the ambiguous-cue problem still remains unsolved. (shrink)

Various threshold Boolean networks, a formalism used to model different types of biological networks, can produce similar dynamics, i.e. share same behaviors. Among them, some are complex, others not. By computing both structural and behavioral complexities, we show that most TBNs are structurally complex, even those having simple behaviors. For this purpose, we developed a new method to compute the structural complexity of a TBN based on estimates of the sizes of equivalence classes of the threshold Boolean functions composing the (...) TBN. (shrink)

This is the first volume of a two-volume project whose aim is to publish all the known Middle English manuscript translations of the French Somme le mi, a thirteenth-century manual of religious instruction offering teaching on the Decalogue, the seven deadly sins and their remedies, compiled by the Dominican friar Laurent of Orleans. The project extends and deepens our knowledge of the influence of this popular French text, known today only from the versions entitled The Ayen bite of Inwit (...) and The Book of Vices and Virtues, published in 1866 and 1942, respectively. This volume presents the versions extant in BL MSS Royal 18. A. x and Add. 37677; the second will cover the versions in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 494, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 1286, and Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS e Musaeo 23. The texts of both volumes have been prepared with the help of the recently-published edition of the French text, a circumstance from which the earlier English editions were unable to benefit. It is likely that the versions edited here for the first time will make a considerable contribution to our understanding of the processes of textual transmission and to that of translation itself in English literary circles of the fifteenth century. (shrink)

Résumé Où va la peinture est un livre de Laurent Marissal qui se présente à la fois comme un traité sur la peinture et comme une œuvre peinte. Les actions qu’il relate sont elles-mêmes revendiquées comme des actions picturales. L’article s’interroge sur ces usages hétérodoxes de la notion de « picturalité », tout d’abord au niveau de la mise en forme narrative du livre, puis à celui des actions que cette forme a pour dessein de relater. Une dernière partie (...) étudie la relation du travail de Laurent Marissal avec le courant du narrative art. (shrink)

Auguste Comte (1798-1857) construit une vision unifiée de l’histoire humaine débouchant sur un état final considéré comme définitif. Pour cela, il mobilise plusieurs registres, dont certains peuvent paraître mutuellement contradictoires : l’ingénierie scientifique appliquée à la science sociale, la transposition laïque du thème chrétien de la venue prochaine du Royaume, le genre utopique et même la littérature d’anticipation. La superposition de ces stratégies de légitimation vient pallier les limites de la science pour la réorganisation sociale. Depuis le xx e siècle (...) nous sommes revenus du mythe du progrès et de sa dimension eschatologique, mais au prix d’une désillusion et d’une perte de sens collectif, voire d’un catastrophisme qui ressuscite d’anciennes terreurs apocalyptiques. (shrink)

Les écrits du dernier Husserl développent une théorie du monde de la vie qui s’expose dans la Krisis de 1936 et dans les nombreux textes inédits qui lui font cortège. Si cette théorie du monde de la vie ne se présente pas, à première vue, comme une éthique ou une théorie de l’éthique, elle demeure marquée par une préoccupation éthique qui scelle l’unité des analyses husserliennes. Dans cet article, on cherchera à préciser les contours et la portée de cette ultime (...) éthique husserlienne, en revenant en particulier sur le motif de l’auto-méditation que Hus-serl érige en principe de la responsabilité individuelle et sociale. (shrink)

A collection of essays argues that philosophy is an essential element of human life--a force that shapes human character and national culture and destiny--and offers the rational philosophy of Objectivism as an alternative.

Le programme de recherche que l'on trouvera ci-dessous nous semble particulièrement original et utile d'un point de vue rythmanalytique – et cela à double titre. Alors que la vitesse, l'accélération et l'urgence sont, depuis quelques années, les objets d'une littérature pléthorique et désormais assez répétitive, Laurent Vidal et les chercheurs regroupés dans l'ANR TERRIAT s'intéressent, quant à eux, à la « lenteur » et à l'« attente ». Second point fort, ils orientent leur attention vers la question des « (...) (...) - 4. Rythmes du social – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Heredity has been dismissed as an insignificant object in Claude Bernard’s physiology, and the topic is usually ignored by historians. Yet, thirty years ago, Jean Gayon demonstrated that Bernard did elaborate on the subject. The present paper aims at reassessing the issue of heredity in Claude Bernard’s project of a “general physiology”. My first claim is that Bernard’s interest in heredity was linked to his ambitious goal of redefining general physiology in relation to morphology. In 1867, not only was morphology (...) included within experimental physiology, but it also theoretically grounded physiological investigations. By 1878, morphology and physiology were considered as completely independent sciences, and only the latter was perceived as suitable to experimentation. My second claim is that this reversal reflected the existence of two opposite attitudes towards heredity. In the late 1860s, Bernard was convinced that heredity would soon be accessible to experimental manipulation and that new species would be produced in the laboratory exactly like organic chemistry succeeded to do for raw bodies. Ten years later, he ascertained that this was impossible. My third claim is that Bernard was epistemologically ill-equipped to address the issue of heredity. Bernard was strongly committed to a general reasoning scheme that acknowledged only three categories: determining conditions, constant laws and phenomena. This scheme was a key factor in his successes as a physiologist who was able to capture new mechanisms in living bodies. Nonetheless, it also prevented him from understanding how time and history could be endowed with a causal action that cannot be reduced to timeless parameters. (shrink)

Ideas of the contemporary novelist on capitalism, individual liberty, and free enterprise, illustrated by extracts from her four novels.

Nous présentons ici une version modale des dialogues de recherche de conditions (SSD) que nous avons introduits dans [Rahman & Keiff 2004]. La sémantique utilisée correspond à celle des systèmes modaux non normaux.

“Through centuries of scourges and disasters, brought about by your code of morality, you have cried that your code had been broken, that the scourges were punishment for breaking it, that men were too weak and too selfish to spill all the blood it required. You damned man, you damned existence, you damned this earth, but never dared to question your code. . . . You went on crying that your code was noble, but human nature was not good enough (...) to practice it. And no one rose to ask the question: Good?—by what standard? (shrink)

As a student in Clermont-Ferrand at the relocated Strasbourg University, Julien Freund (1921-1993) took part in the local actions of the Groupe Franc de Combat. The theme of resistance later found its way into his work as a philosopher and political scientist. This study, based on hitherto unpublished archival documents, attempts to synthesise his scattered remarks in an attempt to identify the main thrust of his work.