The ventricular pressure profile is characteristic of the cardiac contraction progress and is useful to evaluate the cardiac performance. In this contribution, a tissue-level electromechanical model of the left ventricle is proposed, to assist the interpretation of left ventricular pressure waveforms. The left ventricle has been modeled as an ellipsoid composed of twelve mechano-hydraulic sub-systems. The asynchronous contraction of these twelve myocardial segments has been represented in order to reproduce a realistic pressure profiles. To take into account the different energy (...) domains involved, the tissue-level scale and to facilitate the building of a modular model, multiple formalisms have been used: Bond Graph formalism for the mechano-hydraulic aspects and cellular automata for the electrical activation. An experimental protocol has been defined to acquire ventricular pressure signals from three pigs, with different afterload conditions. Evolutionary Algorithms have been used to identify the model parameters in order to minimize the error between experimental and simulated ventricular pressure signals. Simulation results show that the model is able to reproduce experimental ventricular pressure. In addition, electro-mechanical activation times have been determined in the identification process. For example, the maximum electrical activation time is reached, respectively, 96.5, 139.3 and 131.5 ms for the first, second, and third pigs. These preliminary results are encouraging for the application of the model on non-invasive data like ECG, arterial pressure or myocardial strain. (shrink)

The ventricular pressure profile is characteristic of the cardiac contraction progress and is useful to evaluate the cardiac performance. In this contribution, a tissue-level electromechanical model of the left ventricle is proposed, to assist the interpretation of left ventricular pressure waveforms. The left ventricle has been modeled as an ellipsoid composed of twelve mechano-hydraulic sub-systems. The asynchronous contraction of these twelve myocardial segments has been represented in order to reproduce a realistic pressure profiles. To take into account the different energy (...) domains involved, the tissue-level scale and to facilitate the building of a modular model, multiple formalisms have been used: Bond Graph formalism for the mechano-hydraulic aspects and cellular automata for the electrical activation. An experimental protocol has been defined to acquire ventricular pressure signals from three pigs, with different afterload conditions. Evolutionary Algorithms have been used to identify the model parameters in order to minimize the error between experimental and simulated ventricular pressure signals. Simulation results show that the model is able to reproduce experimental ventricular pressure. In addition, electro-mechanical activation times have been determined in the identification process. For example, the maximum electrical activation time is reached, respectively, 96.5, 139.3 and 131.5 ms for the first, second, and third pigs. These preliminary results are encouraging for the application of the model on non-invasive data like ECG, arterial pressure or myocardial strain. (shrink)

The paper describes the conceptual models used to understand the processes determining plant growth rates in response to environmental changes. A series of experiments and growth models were used at three organizational levels: the specific plant organs, the whole plant and the plant canopy. The energy conversion efficiency and the total plant carbon balance were first examined. The carbon partitioning amongst the plant parts was then studied. The energy conversion efficiency is generally understood. In modelling carbon partitioning it was first (...) necessary to establish the carbon demand for each plant organ. The carbon partitioned amongst plant organs was then calculated in two ways. The first one based on empirical data consisted in defining which organ received the carbon prior to other organs. The second one was based on the relationship between the carbon mass of specific organs and their trophic activity. This hypothesis allowed the optimization of the carbon partitioning in order to maximize the whole plant growth rate. The opportunities to use these theoretical approaches in plant growth modelling are discussed. (shrink)

New concepts may prove necessary to profit from the avalanche of sequence data on the genome, transcriptome, proteome and interactome and to relate this information to cell physiology. Here, we focus on the concept of large activity-based structures, or hyperstructures, in which a variety of types of molecules are brought together to perform a function. We review the evidence for the existence of hyperstructures responsible for the initiation of DNA replication, the sequestration of newly replicated origins of replication, cell division (...) and for metabolism. The processes responsible for hyperstructure formation include changes in enzyme affinities due to metabolite-induction, lipid-protein affinities, elevated local concentrations of proteins and their binding sites on DNA and RNA, and transertion. Experimental techniques exist that can be used to study hyperstructures and we review some of the ones less familiar to biologists. Finally, we speculate on how a variety of in silico approaches involving cellular automata and multi-agent systems could be combined to develop new concepts in the form of an Integrated cell (I-cell) which would undergo selection for growth and survival in a world of artificial microbiology. (shrink)

Le chevalier Louis de Jaucourt (1704-1780), principal auteur de l'Encyclopédie avec plus de dix-sept mille articles, est une figure marquante des Lumières, qui néanmoins reste largement méconnue. Ce livre collectif explore différents aspects de l'oeuvre du chevalier, dans l'Encyclopédie et au-delà. Il analyse la richesse et la diversité de sa pensée qui paraît à travers son éclectisme philosophique ou son écriture par emprunts, dans son propos médical, son travail d'historien, de biographe, de juriste, de critique d'art, ou encore d'encyclopédiste (...) et d'éditeur. Dans tous les cas, l'étude des articles de Jaucourt révèle une pensée stimulante, à la fois représentative de l'Encyclopédie et originale par plusieurs de ses traits. (shrink)

D. N. Rodowick _Gilles Deleuze's Time Machine_ Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1997 ISBN: 0822319705 280 pp.

When it was first published in French in 1980, The Ordinary Man of Cinema signaled a shift from the French film criticism of the 1960s to a new breed of film philosophy that disregarded the semiotics and post-structuralism of the preceding decades. Schefer describes the schizophrenic subjectivity the cinema offers us: the film as a work projected without memory, viewed by (and thereby lived by) a subject scarred and shaped by memory. The Ordinary Man of Cinema delineates the phenomenology of (...) movie-going and the fleeting, impalpable zone in which an individuals personal memory confronts the cinemas ideological images to create a new way of thinking. It is also a book replete with mummies and vampires, tyrants and prostitutes, murderers and freaksfigures that are fundamental to Schefers conception of the cinema, because the worlds that cinema traverses (our worlds, interior and exterior) are worlds of pain, unconscious desire, decay, repressed violence, and the endless mystery of the body. Fear and pleasure breed monsters, and such are what Schefers emblematic "ordinary man" seeks and encounters when engaging in the disordering of the ordinary that the movie theater offers him. Among other things, Schefer considers "The Gods" in 31 brief essays on film stills and "The Criminal Life" with reflections on spectatorship and autobiography. While Schefers book has long been standard reading in French film scholarship, until now it has been something of a missing link to the field (and more broadly, French theory) in English. It is one of the building blocks of more widely known and read translations of Gilles Deleuze (who cited this book as an influence on his own cinema books) and Jacques Rancière. (shrink)

Book review of Jean-Louis Schefer's The Ordinary Man of Cinema (2016) with particular attention to Schefer's conception of affect and its influence on Deleuze.

This paper critically examines the materialism that Gilles Deleuze espouses in his oeuvre to the benefit of educational theory. In Difference and Repetition, he presented transcendental empiricism by underwriting Kant with realism (Deleuze, 1994). Later, in Capitalism & Schizophrenia I & II that were co-written with Félix Guattari (1984, 1988) and that they named Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze's philosophical approach is realigned into what I term here as transcendental materialism, and latterly as immanent materialism; that I claim effectively (...) eliminate phenomenology as perceptual input. This essay takes this transformation seriously as a way of understanding educational data, research and practices. The proposition that is central to this paper is that transcendental and immanent materialism give us a means of dealing with educational phenomena without the interference of perception or a stable category of experience, by connecting data with theory and circumventing subjectification. It is argued that this proposition has important consequences for educational research, and the construction of educational arguments that will be illustrated in this essay. Deleuze's debt to French Marxism and in particular to the work of Louis Althusser are also recognised through this writing. (shrink)

This review points out how Baldwin's book is unique in that it foregrounds proto-Marxist views of God. But it misses the mark by not mentioning "Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s work on the rhizomic nature of the Buddhist ‘mandala’.".

This volume brings together twenty original essays on the changes and continuities in gender relations and intersecting politics of sexuality, race, class and location. The book is located in debates about contemporary culture at a moment of rapid technological change, global interconnectedness and the growing cultural dominance of neoliberalism and postfeminism. The collection traverses disciplines, spaces and approaches. It is marked by an extraordinarily wide focus, ranging from analyses of celebrity magazines and makeover shows to examinations of the experiences of (...) young female migrants, 'mail order brides' and young women who repudiate feminism. The contributions are united by their attempts to think through the ways in which experiences and representations of femininity are changing in the twenty-first century. Are we seeing new femininities? Are neoliberalism and postfeminism constructing new identities and subjectivities? What kinds of analytic tools and cultural politics are needed to critically engage with the current moment? This book will be of interest to everyone studying gender, media or cultural studies. (shrink)

An engaging account of how Shaftesbury revolutionized Western philosophy At the turn of the eighteenth century, Anthony Ashley Cooper, the third Earl of Shaftesbury, developed the first comprehensive philosophy of beauty to be written in English. It revolutionized Western philosophy. In A Philosophy of Beauty, Michael Gill presents an engaging account of how Shaftesbury’s thought profoundly shaped modern ideas of nature, religion, morality, and art—and why, despite its long neglect, it remains compelling today. Before Shaftesbury’s magnum opus, Charactersticks of (...) Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, it was common to see wilderness as ugly, to associate religion with fear and morality with unpleasant restriction, and to dismiss art as trivial or even corrupting. But Shaftesbury argued that nature, religion, virtue, and art can all be truly beautiful, and that cherishing and cultivating beauty is what makes life worth living. And, as Gill shows, this view had a huge impact on the development of natural religion, moral sense theory, aesthetics, and environmentalism. Combining captivating historical details and flashes of humor, A Philosophy of Beauty not only rediscovers and illuminates a fascinating philosopher but also offers an inspiring reflection about the role beauty can play in our lives. (shrink)

One of the most significant disputes in early modern philosophy was between the moral rationalists and the moral sentimentalists. The moral rationalists — such as Ralph Cudworth, Samuel Clarke and John Balguy — held that morality originated in reason alone. The moral sentimentalists — such as Anthony Ashley Cooper, the third Earl of Shaftesbury, Francis Hutcheson and David Hume — held that morality originated at least partly in sentiment. In addition to arguments, the rationalists and sentimentalists developed rich analogies. The (...) most significant analogy the rationalists developed was between morality and mathematics. The most significant analogy the sentimentalists developed was between morality and beauty. These two analogies illustrate well the main ideas, underlying insights, and accounts of moral phenomenology the two positions have to offer. An examination of the two analogies will thus serve as a useful introduction to the debate between moral rationalism and moral sentimentalism as a whole. (shrink)

I argue that a policy of presumed consent for cadaveric organ procurement, which assumes that people do want to donate their organs for transplantation after their death, would be a moral improvement over the current American system, which assumes that people do not want to donate their organs. I address what I take to be the most important objection to presumed consent. The objection is that if we implement presumed consent we will end up removing organs from the bodies of (...) people who did not want their organs removed, and that this situation is morally unacceptable because it violates the principle of respect for autonomy that underlies our concept of informed consent. I argue that while removing organs from the bodies of people who did not want them removed is unfortunate, it is morally no worse that not removing organs from the bodies of people who did want them removed, and that a policy of presumed consent will produce fewer of these unfortunate results than the current system. (shrink)

: We argue that healthy people should be allowed to sell one of their kidneys while they are alive—that the current prohibition on payment for kidneys ought to be overturned. Our argument has three parts. First, we argue that the moral basis for the current policy on live kidney donations and on the sale of other kinds of tissue implies that we ought to legalize the sale of kidneys. Second, we address the objection that the sale of kidneys is intrinsically (...) wrong because it violates the Kantian duty of respect for humanity. Third, we address a range of consequentialist objections based on the idea that kidney sales will be exploitative. Throughout the paper, we argue only that it ought to be legal for an individual to receive payment for a kidney. We do not argue that it ought to be legal for an individual to buy a kidney. (shrink)

Many moral philosophers in the Western tradition have used phenomenological claims as starting points for philosophical inquiry; aspects of moral phenomenology have often been taken to be anchors to which any adequate account of morality must remain attached. This paper raises doubts about whether moral phenomena are universal and robust enough to serve the purposes to which moral philosophers have traditionally tried to put them. Persons’ experiences of morality may vary in a way that greatly limits the extent to which (...) moral phenomenology can constitute a reason to favor one moral theory over another. Phenomenology may not be able to serve as a pre-theoretic starting point or anchor in the consideration of rival moral theories because moral phenomenology may itself be theory-laden. These doubts are illustrated through an examination of how moral phenomenology is used in the thought of Ralph Cudworth, Samuel Clarke, Joseph Butler, Francis Hutcheson, and Søren Kierkegaard. (shrink)

This book explores a fundamental tension in Aristotle's metaphysics: how can an entity such as a living organisma composite generated through the imposition of form on preexisting matterhave the conceptual unity that Aristotle demands of ...

Existing research has shown that norm violations influence causal judgments, and a number of different models have been developed to explain these effects. One such model, the necessity/sufficiency model, predicts an interac- tion pattern in people’s judgments. Specifically, it predicts that when people are judging the degree to which a particular factor is a cause, there should be an interaction between (a) the degree to which that factor violates a norm and (b) the degree to which another factor in the (...) situation violates norms. A study of moral norms (N = 1000) and norms of proper functioning (N = 3000) revealed robust evidence for the predicted interaction effect. The implications of these patterns for existing theories of causal judgments is discussed. (shrink)

Arguments in favor of legalized assisted suicide often center on issues of personal privacy and freedom of choice over one's body. Many disability advocates assert, however, that autonomy arguments neglect the complex sociopolitical determinants of despair for people with disabilities. Specifically, they argue that social approval of suicide for individuals with irreversible conditions is discriminatory and that relaxing restrictions on assisted suicide would jeopardize, not advance, the freedom of persons with disabilities to direct the lives they choose. This paper examines (...) the idea promoted by some proponents of assisted suicide that it is reasonable to be depressed about one's diminished quality of life in cases of irreversible illness or disability and, therefore, such depression should not call into question the individual's competence to request assistance in dying. The concept of rational depression is defined and examined in the context of: four real-life cases involving individuals with disabilities who requested assistance in dying; a set of criteria commonly applied to decision-making to determine rationality; and research bearing on the emotional status of people with disabilities. It is concluded that although disability is associated with particular socially mediated stressors, there is no theoretical or empirical evidence to indicate that depression and its role in the right to die is dynamically different, more natural, or more reasonable for disabled people than for non-disabled people. (shrink)

Aristotle's conception of being is dynamic. He believes that a thing is most itself when engaged in its proper activities, governed by its nature. This paper explores this idea by focusing on Metaphysics , a text that continues the investigation of substantial being initiated inMetaphysics Z. Q.1 claims that there are two potentiality-actuality distinctions, one concerned with potentiality in the strict sense, which is involved in change, the other concerned with potentiality in another sense, which he says is more useful (...) for the present project. His present project is the investigation of substantial being, and the relevant potentiality is the potentiality for activity, the full manifestation of what a thing is. I explore Aristotle's two potentiality-actuality distinctions AND argue that the second distinction is modeled on the first, with one crucial modification. Whereas a change is brought about by something other than the object or by the object itself considered as other (as when a doctor cures himself), an activity is brought about byte object itself considered as itself. This single modification yields an important difference: whereas a change leads to a state other than the one an object was previously in, an activity maintains or develops what an object already is. (shrink)

This book offers a sustained examination of the core Stoic ethical claims and their significance for modern moral theory. The first part considers the Stoic ideas of happiness as the life according to nature and virtue as expertise in leading a happy life and explores the senses of ‘nature’ (both human and universal) relevant for ethics. It also explains the distinction in value between virtue and ‘indifferents’ and analyses virtuous practical deliberation as selection between ‘indifferents’ directed at leading a happy (...) human life. The second part studies Stoic thinking on ethical development (in their terms, learning to live naturally). It brings out the close interconnections between making progress in ethical understanding, in forming and deepening social relationships, and in emotional responses. The third part discusses how Stoic ethics, as interpreted here, can contribute to contemporary moral theory, especially virtue ethics. It suggests that Stoic thinking on the virtue-happiness relationship offers a cogent alternative to Aristotle, currently the main ancient prototype for virtue ethical theory. It explores ways in which Stoic ideas on human and universal nature can contribute to modern ethical debates, notably on how to respond effectively to the pressing challenge of climate breakdown. It also highlights the potential value of Stoic thinking on development and guidance for modern virtue ethics as well as discussing the powerful impact Stoicism has already had in contemporary ‘life-guidance’. (shrink)

The ethical dilemma of whether autonomous vehicles should protect the passengers or pedestrians when harm is unavoidable has been widely researched and debated. Several behavioral scientists have sought public opinion on this issue, based on the premise that EDs are critical to resolve for AV adoption. However, many scholars and industry participants have downplayed the importance of these edge cases. Policy makers also advocate a focus on higher level ethical principles rather than on a specific solution to EDs. But conspicuously (...) absent from this debate is the view of the consumers or potential adopters, who will be instrumental to the success of AVs. The current research investigated this issue both from a theoretical standpoint and through empirical research. The literature on innovation adoption and risk perception suggests that EDs will be heavily weighted by potential adopters of AVs. Two studies conducted with a broad sample of consumers verified this assertion. The results from these studies showed that people associated EDs with the highest risk and considered EDs as the most important issue to address as compared to the other technical, legal and ethical issues facing AVs. As such, EDs need to be addressed to ensure robustness in the design of AVs and to assure consumers of the safety of this promising technology. Some preliminary evidence is provided about interventions to resolve the social dilemma in EDs and about the ethical preferences of prospective early adopters of AVs. (shrink)

In the mid-20th century, descriptive meta-ethics addressed a number of central questions, such as whether there is a necessary connection between moral judgment and motivation, whether moral reasons are absolute or relative, and whether moral judgments express attitudes or describe states of affairs. I maintain that much of this work in mid-20th century meta-ethics proceeded on an assumption that there is good reason to question. The assumption was that our ordinary discourse is uniform and determinate enough to vindicate one side (...) or the other of these meta-ethical debates. I suggest that ordinary moral discourse may be much less uniform and determinate than 20th century meta-ethics assumed. (shrink)

Michael B. Gill offers a new account of Humean moral pluralism: the view that there are different moral reasons for action, which are based on human sentiments. He explores its historical origins, and argues that it offers the most compelling view of our moral experience. Together, pluralism and Humeanism make a philosophically powerful couple.

This paper presents a model for the structure of universal frameworks in logic, mathematics, and physics that are closed to logical conclusion by the mechanism of paradox across a dualism of elements. The prohibition takes different forms defined by the framework of observation inherent to the structure. Forms include either prohibition to conclusion on the logical relationship of internal elements or prohibition to conclusion based on the existence of an element not included in the framework of a first element. The (...) model is applied to logical arguments in philosophy, mathematics, and physics and is initially a geometrical analysis of quantum theory and its application in experiment. Conclusion from the analysis is extended to give insight into the complexity of infinities above the two-dimensional boundary of the model. (shrink)

This article introduces a special section concerned with precariousness and cultural work. Its aim is to bring into dialogue three bodies of ideas — the work of the autonomous Marxist `Italian laboratory'; activist writings about precariousness and precarity; and the emerging empirical scholarship concerned with the distinctive features of cultural work, at a moment when artists, designers and (new) media workers have taken centre stage as a supposed `creative class' of model entrepreneurs. The article is divided into three sections. It (...) starts by introducing the ideas of the autonomous Marxist tradition, highlighting arguments about the autonomy of labour, informational capitalism and the `factory without walls', as well as key concepts such as multitude and immaterial labour. The impact of these ideas and of Operaismo politics more generally on the precarity movement is then considered in the second section, discussing some of the issues that have animated debate both within and outside this movement, which has often treated cultural workers as exemplifying the experiences of a new `precariat'. In the third and final section we turn to the empirical literature about cultural work, pointing to its main features before bringing it into debate with the ideas already discussed. Several points of overlap and critique are elaborated — focusing in particular on issues of affect, temporality, subjectivity and solidarity. (shrink)

Moral phenomenology, as i will use the term in this paper, is the study of our experience of morality. It is the study of morality “as experienced from the first-person point of view,” 1 the study of the “what-it-is-like features of concrete moral experiences,” 2 the study of introspectively accessible features that can be discerned by “a direct examination of the data of men’s moral consciousness.” 3A crucial part of moral phenomenology is the study of what it is like to (...) make a moral judgment. This part of moral phenomenology seeks to delineate the introspectively accessible mental features that are essentially involved in judging that an act ought or ought not to be performed, and in judging that a person is virtuous or vicious.An adequate moral theory must account for the phenomenological facts. It must accommodate or explain in some way the introspectively accessible mental features essentially involved in our moral experience. An adequate moral theory must cohere with what it is like to make moral judgments.It has been common for philosophers to claim that their moral theories are superior to others because their moral theories better account for our experience of moral judgment. In sections 2 and 3 of this paper, I will show how Francis Hutcheson and David Hume used phenomenological claims of this sort to argue that their sentimentalist moral theories were superior to rationalist and egoist rivals.But Hutcheson’s and Hume’s phenomenological arguments do not succeed, or so I will argue in section 4. They fail to show that the phenomenology of moral judgment constitutes a strong reason for us to accept sentimentalism and reject rationalism and egoism. I think, moreover, that this failure is the typical fate of moral phenomenological arguments in general. This is because I think the introspectively. (shrink)