Modèles classiques et complexité sémiotique

L’article propose un aperçu concernant divers aspects de la « complexité » en sémiotique, sans toutefois ignorer le fait que beaucoup des considérations avancées à cet égard présentent des analogies significatives avec ce qu’on observe dans d’autres disciplines. Parmi les aspects les plus importants, la nécessité de renoncer à l’idée qu’on puisse donner des définitions objectives et univoques des objets sémiotiques. Prenant sens dans un contexte dialogique et conflictuel, un texte ne peut pas être analysé comme une entité autonome, en ignorant sa nature complexe d’acte argumentatif. En outre, les modèles narratifs sur lesquels reposent les textes étant multiples et divergents, il faut aussi dépasser une simple représentation linéaire du modèle génératif. Mais la base de tout cela n’est autre que l’idée de Saussure selon laquelle les entités sémiotiques n’existent qu’en tant que faisceaux de relations. L’idée même de complexité relève donc peut-être d’une théorie dont la nature est fondamentalement sémiotique !

“Jugamos a la guerra”: Boys, Toys, and Military Masculinity in Galdós’s La desheredada

In the sixth chapter of Benito Pérez Galdós’s La desheredada, we find children at play in an impoverished neighborhood of Madrid. But what at first glance appears to be a simple representation of boys playing war is, upon closer inspection, a problematization of Spanish masculinity. This article suggests that the concepts of militarism and masculinity were synonymous throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. Galdós, however, critiques this conflation by converting the children’s game into a tragedy.

A Seat at the Table or a Power Seat: The Impact of Simple Representation Versus Power Representation of Women in Government on Funding for Primary Education

Scholars have repeatedly shown that female politicians focus more on common good issues such as health care and education than their male counterparts. When men hold the majority of positions of political power these issues may not be raised for debate within government even if women are present. Using a cross-country dataset, this research examines the impact of women in government on public spending on primary education. Specifically, it explores whether it is enough for women to be represented in government, or if they must have a position of power to effect policy outcomes. The analysis results indicate that both women’s simple representation and power representation are significantly positively correlated with increases in federal spending on primary education; however, when women hold positions of political power there is a greater impact on funding than when they simply hold a seat in the legislature.

Theoretical preliminaries

The chapter introduces some terminological conventions and a simple representation of sentence structure for the analysis of clitic placement and other syntactic displacements. It elaborates on four key notions: dependencies, nesting, domains, and criteria. The term dependency refers to the relationship between the clitic and the syntactic position where the corresponding argument is (allegedly) projected. The second important factor regarding clitic placement has to do with the identification of the clausal domains where clitics can occur. The third relevant factor in the definition of clitic placement is nesting, i.e. the mechanism whereby clitics are attached to morphosyntactic structures. Lastly, clitic placement is dependent on discourse-driven displacements that are triggered by instructions termed criteria.

An efficient approach to study membrane nano-inclusions: from the complex biological world to a simple representation

Membrane nano-inclusions are of great interest in biophysics, materials science, nanotechnology, and medicine. In this work, We combined MD simulations and theories to reveal their physics behavior.

La morphonologie du roumain : système d’alternances vs système de morphonèmes

The paper confronts two models of the Romanian morphonological system. The first one is a complete set of alternations, which are based on three essential relations of purely formal opposition. These are 83 alternations that are even more subdivided, mainly by the criterion of their direction. The second one is made up of 117 morphonemes derived from directional alternations and is based on qualitative, quantitative and distributional opposition relations. Wider use can be achieved by a system of morphonemes, above all thanks to a strict way of defining the constituent units and their simple representation.

Processing symbolic numbers: The example of distance and size effects

According to the dominant view in the literature, several numerical cognition phenomena are explained coherently and parsimoniously by the Approximate Number System (ANS) model, which model supposes an evolutionarily old, simple representation behind many numerical tasks. We offer an alternative model, the Discrete Semantic System (DSS) to explain the same phenomena in symbolic numerical tasks. Our alternative model supposes that symbolic numbers are stored in a network of nodes, similar to conceptual or linguistic networks. The benefit of the DSS model is demonstrated through the example of distance and size effects of comparison task.

Jacob’s Ladder: Prime Numbers in 2D

Prime numbers are one of the most intriguing figures in mathematics. Despite centuries of research, many questions remain still unsolved. In recent years, computer simulations are playing a fundamental role in the study of an immense variety of problems. In this work, we present a simple representation of prime numbers in two dimensions that allows us to formulate a number of conjectures that may lead to important avenues in the field of research on prime numbers. In particular, although the zeroes in our representation grow in a somewhat erratic, hardly predictable way, the gaps between them present a remarkable and intriguing property: a clear exponential decay in the frequency of gaps vs. gap size. The smaller the gaps, the more frequently they appear. Additionally, the sequence of zeroes, despite being non-consecutive numbers, contains a number of primes approximately equal to n / log n , n being the number of terms in the sequence.

Honest signalling of trustworthiness

Trust can transform conflicting interests into cooperation. But how can individuals know when to trust others? Here, I develop the theory that reputation building may signal cooperative intent, or ‘trustworthiness’. I model a simple representation of this theory in which individuals (1) optionally invest in a reputation by performing costly helpful behaviour (‘signalling’); (2) optionally use others’ reputations when choosing a partner; and (3) optionally cooperate with that partner. In evolutionary simulations, high levels of reputation building; of choosing partners based on reputation; and of cooperation within partnerships emerged. Costly helping behaviour evolved into an honest signal of trustworthiness when it was adaptive for cooperators, relative to defectors, to invest in the long-term benefits of a reputation for helping. I show using game theory that this occurs when cooperators gain larger marginal benefits from investing in signalling than do defectors. This happens without the usual costly signalling assumption that individuals are of two ‘types’ which differ in quality. Signalling of trustworthiness may help explain phenomena such as philanthropy, pro-sociality, collective action, punishment, and advertising in humans and may be particularly applicable to courtship in other animals.