Books published by College Publications

According to many social thinkers it is not possible to quantify the performance of organizations on the basis of the values produced. One initial reply to this critique is that the axiological approach in systems theory aims to fulfil a dual function. On one side, it takes a whole set of universal reference values into consideration which in the end spur human motivation and action justifying life in society, among them the own survival of Homo sapiens which could be in danger today, On the other side, this book proposes to measure this axiological efficiency in operational statistical terms and consequently looking for verifiable results. Therefore, the first aim of this book is to present, define and measure a new concept of "organisational efficiency" which is not limited to known economic aspects or related to neoliberal premises or other ideological misconceptions. On the contrary, for the authors organisational efficiency must address the entire system of values, projected or attained. Duly substantiated criticism can and must be levelled only against any society's or organisation's system of values. More specifically, the texts hereunder the seven works in this book constitute a preliminary attempt to set up an operational quantitative methodology for that purpose. The second aim is to introduce different approaches to measure efficiency applied to specific problems within organisations. On the whole, all the articles identify a number of ways of addressing organisational efficiency, providing a better understanding and critique of this concept.

This World Economics Association (WEA) volume - edited by Maria Alejandra Madi and Jack Reardon and supported throughout by Grazia Ietto-Gillies - originated with a successful WEA online conference (curriculumconference2013.worldeconomicsassociation.org). The volume has been conceived with current and future economics students in mind: they will be the economists of the future. One of the main ideas underlining the book is that "being an economist" in the XXI century requires a radical change in the training of economists and such change requires a global effort. A new economics curriculum is needed in order to improve the understanding of the deep interactions between economics and the political forces and the historical processes of social change. The need for trans-disciplinary and interdisciplinary work is highlighted. Discussions include the following. Main critiques of current practices on theory, methods and structures. Current gaps in the economics curriculum. What should economics graduates know? The contributors are: Nicola Acocella, Sheila Dow, David Hemenway, Arturo Hermann, Grazia Ietto-Gillies, Maria Alejandra Madi, Lars P&aaring;lsson Syll, Constantine Passaris, Paul Ormerod, Jack Reardon, Alessando Roncaglia, Asad Zaman. We hope the volume will stimulate further debate by both students and professional economists - whether academics or not - on how to progress towards an economics curriculum fit for the XXI century.

O Prolog é uma linguagem de programação, mas uma linguagem pouco usual. A designação "Prolog'' é abreviatura de "Programming with Logic'' e a relação com a lógica é o que dá ao Prolog o seu perfil especial. No seu âmago está uma ideia surpreendente: não dizer ao computador o que fazer. Em vez disso, descrevem-se as situações relevantes e a computação é efetuada quando se fazem perguntas. O Prolog deduz novos factos acerca das situações descritas e devolve essas deduções como respostas.Porquê aprender Prolog? Em primeiro lugar, a sua divisa "dizer qual é o problema em vez de dizer como o resolver" faz com que esta seja uma linguagem de muito alto nível, adequada para aplicações com estruturas de conhecimento complexas, tais como inteligência artificial, processamento de língua natural e web semântica. Ao estudar Prolog, o leitor verá como tarefas sofisticadas podem ser resolvidas computacionalmente. Para além disso, o Prolog exige um tipo de raciocínio diferente. Há que ver os problemas de um ponto de vista diferente, declarativamente em vez de procedimentalmente.Adquirir este espírito e aprender a apreciar as relações entre a lógica e a programação, fazem com que o estudo do Prolog seja desafiante e compensador.

Commenting on scientific and cultural developments through various media in his native region Flanders, Jean Paul Van Bendegem (b. 1953) has been a relatively well known philosopher for many years now. Although the entirety of his work is based on the very same humanistic principles, his ventures in logic and in the philosophy of mathematics have received less attention in these public fora. For this Festschrift at the age of sixty, some of Van Bendegem's most important intellectual associates in these areas (colleagues and friends, often both), address topics that have been central to their intellectual exchanges with him. More often than not, these are connected in some way or another to Van Bendegem's notoriously staunch finitism and focus on the humanaspect of mathematics, the sciences, and indeed, even logic.

Les systèmes se rencontrent partout et nous les percevons au quotidien dans nos vies privées et professionnelles. Nous utilisons tous le mot système pour décrire quelque chose d'essentiel mais souvent abstrait, complexe et même mystérieux. Cependant, apprendre à utiliser les concepts système comme outils privilégiés ainsi que les méthodologies du penser système et de l'ingénierie système, procure une base pour lever la part de mystère et aller vers la voie d'une maitrise des systèmes même complexes. Ce parcours au Pays des Systèmes a été élaboré pour promouvoir le penser et l'agir en termes de systèmes. Un aspect original consiste à introduire une sémantique concrète des systèmes, fournie sous forme d'un kit de survie des systèmes et basée d'une part sur un nombre limité de concepts et de principes et d'autre part sur un modèle mental appelé diagramme de couplage système. Cette présentation, indépendante des disciplines, qui aide tout un chacun, est essentielle pour construire une organisation apprenante capable d'utiliser ainsi une approche système pour atteindre ses objectifs d'entreprise. Les huit chapitres sont présentés comme des étapes le long d'un parcours construisant pas à pas les connaissances des systèmes. Chaque chapitre se termine par une section de vérification des connaissances qui propose des questions et des exercices individuels et de groupes. Des études de cas reflétant l'utilisation des concepts, principes et méthodologies relatives aux systèmes sont fournies au titre d'interludes entre les chapitres.

Voilà deux ans que le Réseau LACTO (Langage, argumentation et cognition dans les traditions orales) a été mis en place à l'initiative conjointe des Universités CDG-Lille 3 et MNG-Brazzaville. Des rencontres à caractère scientifique et organisationnel se sont tenues alternativement au Congo (du 19 au 21 janvier 2013) et en France (du 7 au 9 novembre 2013), avec l'implication d'autres universityés, en vue de circonscrire la complexité épistémologique du rapport entre l'oralité et la scripturalité, ou plutôt entre l'orature et l'écriture. Le présent ouvrage est, pour l'essentiel, le résultat des discussions issues de ces rencontres, en guise de tentative de réponse à la question principalement soulevée. Ainsi, contre l'exclusion de l'une ou l'autre instance dans la définition des deux paradigmes du discours philosophique ou scientifique - le paradigme oral et le paradigme écrit - les contributions des uns et des autres s'accordent sur la vision que l'une ne saurait aller sans l'autre. Autrement dit, aucun paradigme ne saurait être pensé en totale exclusion de l'autre, si tant est qu'ils obligent le discours à s'implémenter dans l'espace et à travers le temps. Les catégories de l'espace et du temps constituent de ce fait tout à la fois une trame empirique et un cadre sémantique de déploiement du discours aussi bien oral qu'écrit, dans une optique qui se veut clairement et fondamentalement dialogique. Il est par ailleurs une certaine lecture de la présente réflexion qui laisse entrevoir une triple articulation d'essence logique et herméneutique. Car c'est bien d'une quête de la connaissance et du sens qu'il s'agit : d'abord concernant les rapports épistémologiques de l'orature à l'écriture et de l'écriture à l'orature dans leur histoire, en ouvrant sur la dimension dialogique (Charles Zacharie Bowao, Marcel Nguimbi); ensuite relativement à la mise en situation de l'oralité, qu'il s'agisse du philosopher en langue orale africaine (Mahamadé Savadogo), de la parole proverbiale prise, dans sa dimension logique, mais aussi sociale et politique, tant dans son être que dans son expression sentencielle en contexte d'oralité et de néo-oralité (Mamadou Kabirou Gano, Gildas Nzokou), ou encore relativement à la temporalité propre à la prise de décision et à l'action aujourd'hui (Oumar Dia) ; enfin, relativement à la forme et au contenu du dialogue dans des perspectives herméneutique (Christian Berner), logique (Bernadette Dango Adjoua, Shahid Rahman) et psychanalytique (Dieu-donné Limikou).

Argumentation is the interdisciplinary study of how conclusions can be reached through the construction and evaluation of arguments, that is, structures describing a proposition together with the reasons for accepting it. The field has received growing interest within Artificial Intelligence over the last decades. It covers aspects of knowledge representation and multi-agent systems, but also touches on various philosophical questions.Phan Minh Dung's abstract argumentation frameworks (AFs) play a dominant role in the field. In AFs arguments and attacks among them are treated as primitives, i.e. the internal structure of arguments is not considered. The major focus is on resolving conflicts. To this end a variety of semantics have been defined, each of them specifying acceptable sets of arguments, so-called extensions, in a particular way. This book is mainly concerned with the investigation of metalogical properties of Dung's abstract theory. In particular, we provide cardinality, monotonicity and splitting results as well as characterization theorems for equivalence notions. The established results have theoretical and practical gains. On the one hand, they yield deeper theoretical insights into how this nonmonotonic theory works, and on the other the obtained results can be used to refine existing algorithms or even give rise to new computational procedures. A further main part is the study of problems regarding dynamic aspects of abstract argumentation. Most noteworthy we solve the so-called enforcing and the more general minimal change problem for a huge number of semantics.

World Economic Review is an open peerreviewjournal brought to you by theground-breaking World EconomicsAssociation. We publish papers in allbranches, methods, and paradigmaticapproaches of economics. Through printand on-line journals and conferences,we aim to engage with the real worldso as to confront, explain, and maketractable economic phenomena. Wework to support and advance researchthat investigates the potential linksbetween economics and other disciplines,as well as to provide contributions thatchallenge the divide between normativeand positive approaches.

La Asociación de Filosofía e Historia de la Ciencia del Cono Sur (AFHIC) es una asociación sin fines de lucro, fundada el 5 de mayo de 2000, en Quilmes, Argentina, durante el acto de clausura del II Encuentro de Filosofía e Historia de la Ciencia del Cono Sur. La creación de esta Asociación resultó del interés en profundizar el intercambio entre los investigadores en filosofía e historia de la ciencia de los países del Cono Sur, a partir de los dos primeros encuentros celebrados en Porto Alegre (Brasil, 1998) y Quilmes (Argentina, 2000), realizándose desde entonces tales encuentros de forma bienal y bajo su responsabilidad. El objetivo principal de AFHIC es contribuir a un mejor conocimiento de la ciencia desde una perspectiva tanto filosófica como histórica en los países de habla española y portuguesa, especialmente los del Cono Sur americano, promoviendo un espacio para la reflexión, el intercambio, la discusión, la comunicación y la difusión de dicho conocimiento. El presente libro se trata de la segunda edición de Ciencias de la Vida: Estudios Filosóficos e Históricos y acompaña en esta misma serie de College Publications a la segunda edición del volumen Física: Estudios Filosóficos e Históricos. Ambos libros están compuestos por las contribuciones evaluadas y, en algunos casos, oportunamente modificadas de miembros de la Asociación de Filosofoia e Historia de la Ciencia del Cono Sur.

In this book we deal with combinations of concepts defining individuals in the Talmud. Consider for example Yom Kippur and Shabbat. Each concept has its own body of laws. Reality forces us to combine them when they occur on the same day. This is a case of "Identity Merging". As the combined body of laws may be inconsistent, we need a belief revision mechanism to reconcile the conflicting norms. The Talmud offers three options:1 Take the union of the sets of the rules side by side2. Resolve the conflicts using further meta-level Talmudic principles (which are new and of value to present day Artificial Intelligence)3. Regard the new combined concept as a new entity with its own Halachic norms and create new norms for it out of the existing ones.This book offers a clear and precise logical model showing how the Talmud deals with these options.

The Good, the Right, and the Fair is a comprehensive introduction to contemporary moral and political philosophy especially suited for undergraduate students in medicine and the life sciences. The book covers first questions concerning the good: What makes a life worth living? Is it only humans who matter morally? Is welfare all that matters? It then proceeds to a discussion of the right: How ought we to act? The major ethical theories of the western tradition are presented and their strengths and weaknesses discussed. Finally, key aspects of the philosophical discussion of the fair, including mattersof equality, justice, and liberty, are laid out for the reader. Emphasizing a pluralism of reasonable views, and with illustrative examples drawn primarily from medicine and the life sciences, this book is meant to spur interest in, and to qualify deliberation about ethical issues, rather than to advance specific conclusions concerning morality and justice.

By the time students reach the end of a course on algorithm design, they are starting to ask questions about what computers can and cannot do: Is there a polynomial-time algorithm for every computational problem? Can every problem be solved using dynamic programming? Can every problem be formulated as a graph problem? What is a Computer and What Can It Do? takes advantage of the students' curiosity by answering their questions in the context in which they naturally arose: algorithms.What is a Computer and What Can It Do? is intended to serve as the primary textbook in an undergraduate course for computer science majors at the junior or senior level. Students should have previously taken a sophomore-level course in algorithms that includes a discussion of graph algorithms. This book may also be useful for people in fields other than computer science who have some background in algorithm design and who would like to develop an understanding of the main ideas of theoretical computer science without getting bogged down in minutiae.What is a Computer and What Can It Do? is short so that students can stay focused on understanding the problems that computers can and cannot solve rather than becoming overwhelmed by the details of automata theory and formal languages. This book is not a reference for professors. It is written for students to read ... and enjoy.

Les arguments qui intègrent des énoncés intentionnels et fictionnels défient les loisde la logique classique en remettant en cause la validité de principes comme lagénéralisation existentielle ou la substitution des identiques. A l'interface entrephénoménologie et philosophie de la logique, l'intentionalité et la fictionalité sontabordées par Matthieu Fontaine en lien avec l'étude des pratiques argumentatives.Il se détache ainsi des approches purement référentialistes en s'appuyant sur l'idéeselon laquelle, dans l'argumentation, la fiction émerge d'une interaction liée auxchoix : Être, c'est être choisi !L'auteur défend une théorie artefactuelle dans laquelle la notion de dépendanceontologique occupe une place centrale. Cette notion de dépendance ontologique esttoutefois sujette à de graves difficultés, que l'auteur surmonte avec brio dans unesémantique modale-temporelle.La combinaison de cette théorie artefactuelle à une sémantique pour l'opérateur defictionalité permet in fine l'articulation entre différents points de vue sur la fiction,les points de vue interne et externe notamment. La théorie défendue par l'auteurprend alors une tournure syncrétique novatrice où thèses artefactualistes etmeinongiennes se rencontrent et se réconcilient. M. Fontaine has made a very substantial and possibly pacifying contribution tothe fictionality wars. I warmly congratulate him for it. It is a virtuosoperformance. (John Woods, University of British Columbia, Vancouver) It is clear to me that the work done by Matthieu Fontaine is an important, timely,high-level and inspiring contribution to philosophy, philosophical logic inparticular, that invites and requires further research. (Jean-Paul Van Bendegem, Vrije Universteit Brussel)