Showing papers by "School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences published in 2004"
TL;DR: This article on the neurobiology of dyslexia shows that neurobiological data are indeed consistent with this view, explaining both how a specific phonological deficit might arise, and why a sensorimotor syndrome should be significantly associated with it.
339 citations
TL;DR: This paper found that infants turn their heads for isolated bisyllabic words when presented with sentences that either contained the familiarized words or contained both their syllables separated by a phonological phrase boundary.
264 citations
TL;DR: It is generally accepted that cats were first domesticated in ancient Egypt, but several finds from Cyprus suggest that the origins of cat taming were earlier.
Abstract: It is generally accepted that cats were first domesticated in ancient Egypt ([ 1 ][1]–[ 3 ][2]), at the latest by the 20th to 19th century B.C. (Middle Kingdom, 12th dynasty) ([ 4 ][3]). However, several finds from Cyprus suggest that the origins of cat taming were earlier. A cat mandible at the
251 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a combination of morphometrics (traditional and geometrical) allowed the authors to study both the size and shape of endocarp structure of Olive and found morphological criteria for discriminating between wild and cultivated Olive cultivars, and established patterns of morphological variation of olive material according to the geographical origin and to the age of the olive forms.
Abstract: Aim This study intends to improve our understanding of historical biogeography of olive domestication in the Mediterranean Basin, particularly in the north-western area.
Location Investigations were performed simultaneously on olive stones from extant wild populations, extant cultivated varieties from various Mediterranean countries, and archaeological assemblages of Spanish, French and Italian settlements.
Methods A combination of morphometrics (traditional and geometrical) allowed us to study both the size and shape of endocarp structure. Concerning shape, a size-standardized method coupled with fitted polynomial regression analysis was performed.
Results We found morphological criteria for discriminating between wild and cultivated olive cultivars, and established patterns of morphological variation of olive material according to the geographical origin (for extant material) and to the age of the olive forms (for archaeological material). Levels of morphological convergences and divergences between wild olive populations and cultivated varieties are presented as evidence.
Main conclusions Morphological changes of endocarps of olive under domestication at both geographical and chronological scales provide new criteria for the identification of olive cultivars. They allow to determine the origins of cultivated forms created and/or introduced in the north-western Mediterranean regions and to understand how human migrations affected the rest of the Western Mediterranean regions. A model of diffusion of olive cultivation is proposed. It shows evidence of an indigenous origin of the domestication process, which is currently recognized in the north-western area since the Bronze Age.
202 citations
TL;DR: This article found that adoptees do not discriminate Korean voiceless consonants, which are difficult to perceive by native French speakers, and that the difference between Korean phonemes was not perceived better by adoptee having been reexposed to Korean and those without reexposure.
191 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors compare three successful configurations for the success of a technological led growth: deregulated economies explore a science pushed innovation, along with external labour flexibility, significant inequality in terms of competences, and social democratic countries develop a cooperative approach to the knowledge based economy.
Abstract: Whereas the American case may hint that product and labour market deregulation, venture capital and NASDAQ are necessary for the success of a technological led growth, the international comparison suggests the coexistence of at least three successful configurations. Deregulated economies explore a science pushed innovation, along with external labour flexibility, significant inequality in terms of competences. But social democratic countries develop a cooperative approach to the knowledge based economy: rather homogenous educational level, life long learning, negotiation by social partners of the consequence of innovation, collectively organized labour mobility. There is a third configuration for some catching-up economies that use information technology as a method for leapfrogging: labour markets remain largely institutionalised and regulated, without exerting adverse impact upon macroeconomic performance.
104 citations
25 Jun 2004
99 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors develop a model of R&D alliance formation, where pairs of firms combine their knowledge in an attempt to innovate, and whether this attempt is successful depends in part on whether the pair has been successful in the past.
Abstract: In this paper we develop a model of R&D alliance formation. Pairs of firms combine their knowledge in an attempt to innovate. Whether this attempt is successful depends in part on whether the pair has been successful in the past: accumulated experience teaches a pair of firms how to innovate together, but at the same time increases the similarity of their knowledge stocks. A tension exists between the desire for a familiar partner, and desire for a partner with complementary knowledge. How this tension is resolved depends on the nature of the innovation process itself, and the elasticity of substitution of different types of knowledge inputs in knowledge production. From the alliance-innovation process, a variety of networks form. In different parts of the parameter space we observe isolated agents, a dense, connected network, and small worlds.
91 citations
09 Dec 2004
TL;DR: The modele de la distinction (Bourdieu, 1979), which postule lhomologie structurale de l’espace des gouts et des pratiques and de l'espaces des positions sociales, perturbe by l'apparition of formes de segmentation which ne sont exclusivement reliees a des variables de classe sociale, and par la montee de lélectisme des Gouts and des pratsiques des membres des classes superieures as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Le modele de la distinction (Bourdieu, 1979), qui postule l’homologie structurale de l’espace des gouts et des pratiques et de l’espace des positions sociales est aujourd’hui perturbe par l’apparition de formes de segmentation qui ne sont pas exclusivement reliees a des variables de classe sociale et par la montee de l’eclectisme des gouts et des pratiques des membres des classes superieures. Ces evolutions, qui tiennent a la fragilisation du lien entre les classes superieures et la culture savante ainsi qu’a la massification de l’education et de la culture, n’invalident cependant pas totalement le modele de la distinction. Les gouts et les pratiques demeurent fortement lies aux variables de position sociale, mais la dimension symbolique des rapports de domination tend a perdre de son importance dans une societe traversee par de fortes inegalites socioeconomiques qui sont de moins en moins structurees par des cultures de classe.
66 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the impact of land use changes on the amplification effect of CO2 in the atmosphere by the IPCC-A2 future scenario, characterized by high fossil and high land-use emissions.
Abstract: The expansion of crop and pastures to the detriment of forests results into an increase in atmospheric CO2. A first obvious cause is the loss of forest biomass and soil carbon during and after conversion. A second, generally ignored cause, is the reduction of the residence time of carbon when for example forests or grasslands are converted to cultivated land. This decreases the sink capacity of the global terrestrial biosphere, and thereby may amplify the atmospheric CO2 rise due to fossil and land-use carbon release. For the IPCC-A2 future scenario, characterized by high fossil and high land-use emissions, we show that the land-use amplifier effect adds 61 ppm extra CO2 in the atmosphere by 2100 as compared to former treatment of land-use processes in carbon models. Investigating the individual contribution of each of the 6 land-use transitions (forest - crop, forest - pasture, grassland -crop) to the amplifier effect indicates that the clearing of forest and grasslands to arable lands explains most of the CO2 amplification. The amplification effect is 50% higher than in a previous analysis by the same authors which did not consider neither the deforestation to pastures nor the ploughing of grasslands. Such an amplification effect is further examined in sensitivity tests where the net primary productivity is considered independant of atmospheric CO2. We also show that land-use changes which have already occurred in the recent past have a strong inertia at releasing CO2, and will contribute to about 1/3 of the amplification effect by 2100. These results suggest that there is an additionnal atmospheric benefit of preserving pristine ecosystems with high turnover times.
58 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the general model of social learning with irreversible investment and endogenous timing is analyzed for any distribution of private informations, and multiple equilibria appear which are generated solely by information externalities.
TL;DR: In this article, the conditions under which the Southern countries should act together, or separately, with the North about climate change policy and about the conditions for future Southern engagement were determined.
Abstract: This article determines the conditions under which theSouthern countries should act together, or separately, whilenegotiating with the North about climate change policy andabout the conditions for future Southern engagement. The papermodels the international negotiations with complete and withasymmetric information in a dynamic framework. Results showthat, depending on their characteristics, the differentplayers can obtain benefits delaying the moment of theagreement.
TL;DR: A new condition on beliefs that guarantee the Bayesian implementability of all efficient social decision rules is presented and is easy to verify and is both more interpretable and more general than the conditions that are found in the literature.
TL;DR: It is proved that finite Coxeter lattices are bounded, i.e., that they can be constructed starting with the two-element lattice by a finite series of interval doublings, which strengthens their algebraic property of semidistributivity.
TL;DR: The case of a neonate tested three weeks after a neonatal left sylvian infarct suggests that both hemispheres contribute to phoneme perception during the first months of life and confirms the previous findings concerning bilateral responses in normal infants.
01 Jan 2004
TL;DR: In this paper, some selected topics relating Combinatorial Optimization and Hierarchical Classification are discussed, including the following: NP-completeness results and search for polynomial instances; problems solved in a polynomially time (e.g. subdominant theory); design, analysis and applications of algorithms; and some standard algorithmic approaches.
Abstract: This paper is devoted to some selected topics relating Combinatorial Optimization and Hierarchical Classification. It is oriented toward extensions of the standard classification schemes (the hierarchies): pyramids, quasi-hierarchies, circular clustering, rigid clustering and others. Bijection theorems between these models and dissimilarity models allow to state some clustering problems as optimization problems. Within the galaxy of optimization we have especially discussed the following: NP-completeness results and search for polynomial instances; problems solved in a polynomial time (e.g. subdominant theory); design, analysis and applications of algorithms. In contrast with the orientation to “new” clustering problems, the last part discusses some standard algorithmic approaches.
TL;DR: The study concerns the various types of information that can be extracted from shadows by systems that are significantly like the authors' (including embodied artificial systems) in an environment that is significantly like their.
Abstract: I list relevant properties of cast shadows that the visual system could exploit (although it may not exploit). The study concerns the various types of information that can be extracted from shadows by systems that are significantly like ours (including embodied artificial systems) in an environment that is significantly like ours.
TL;DR: It is shown which properties of implicational systems and overhanging relations are general, and which are specific to hierarchical structures, and characterize canonical implication bases of hierarchies and obtain a similar result for overhangings.
TL;DR: Investigation of whether French GPs acted as amplifiers or attenuators in the BSE (‘mad cow disease’) crisis suggests that social agents may act simultaneously as risk amplifiers and risk attenuator depending on the public towards which their communication was directed.
Abstract: Social studies of risk have consistently shown that physicians and health professionals are viewed by the general public as a trustworthy source of information and communication regarding risks. However, few if any empirical investigations have focused on the role physicians, particularly general practitioners (GPs), may play as a ‘social station’ in the processes of amplification or attenuation of risks to health that Kasperson et al described in their framework. The purpose of the present study is to investigate whether French GPs acted as amplifiers or attenuators in the BSE (‘mad cow disease’) crisis. A sample of 602 general practitioners completed a questionnaire aimed at assessing in a variety of ways their cognitive, affective and behavioural responses to BSE. Results show that, (1) GPs expressed moderate concern about BSE-related risks: Mad cow disease only ranked tenth in averaged ratings of 14 current risks to health. (2) However, about 90% of respondents reported having recommended one or sever...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine 67 different credit markets scattered throughout France and examine their evolution both before and after the French Revolution, showing that the institutions of credit markets were not uniformed across France, but they were not peculiar to each local market either.
Abstract: Cet article cherche a comprendre comment se creent (ou se detruisent) les techniques de savoir des marches du credit ainsi que les institutions auxquelles s'adosse ce capital social essentiel a leur fonctionnement. Il examine soixante-sept marches locaux repartis dans toute la France en saisissant leur evolution a partir de trois coupes situees de part et d'autre de ce choc majeur qu'est la Revolution pour pouvoir en suivre les effets. Le credit se reorganise alors non dans le cadre de petites regions ni dans un espace national unifie, mais plutot en deux grands ensembles - l'un au Nord, l'autre au Sud - ou des pratiques du credit distinctes evoluent separement. Comme chacun d'eux, loin d'etre homogene, se hierarchise entre ville et campagnes, il en resulte quatre systemes qui se reperent aussi bien si l'on observe les instruments de credit, les intermediaires ou les circuits de formation que ces derniers se donnent. Pour expliquer cette diversite, il faut accepter que les institutions formelles et informelles se deploient dans l'espace d'une facon qui depend de l'activite des marches mais aussi de l'inegale repartition de la richesse.
This article seeks to explain how the information technology that is essential for the operation of credit markets is created or destroyed. Information technology of this sort is a form of social capital, and the article also seeks to understand how institutions linked to such social capital arise or disappear. It does so by looking at 67 different credit markets scattered throughout France and examining their evolution both before and after the French Revolution. The aim is to follow the consequences of the great changes that the Revolution brought about. It turns out that the institutions of credit markets were not uniformed across France, but they were not peculiar to each local market either. Rather, there were two distinct institutional patterns - one found in Northern France and the other typical of the South - and in each region the institutions of credit markets evolved in a different way. Institutions were also different in the city and in the countryside, and as a result there were really four distinct systems of credit, each with distinctive types of loans and financial intermediaries, who were trained in dissimilar ways. The existence of such differences implies that institutions depended on the volume of lending in each market and also on the level of inequality.
TL;DR: The persistence of CD4 T-cell lymphopenia despite effective anti-retroviral treatment may be associated with anti-CD4 autoimmunity, and t-cell vaccination with autologous autoimmune CD8 T-cells may decrease such autoIMmunity and increase CD4T-cell numbers.
01 Jan 2004
TL;DR: In this paper, the relation between welfare among households and welfare among individuals was investigated and it was shown that the welfare ranking among households is preserved at the individual level if the utility function is increasing, concave and satisfies additional assumptions expressed in terms of the absolute inequality aversion and the absolute prudence towards inequality.
Abstract: The paper investigates the relation between welfare among households and welfare among individuals. Following Samuelson’s model of the family, it is assumed that family’s members share the household income by maximizing a weighted sum of individual utility functions. While the individual population is considered as homogeneous from the point of view of social planner, individuals are treated unequally within each household. We assume a strong regularity in this unfair treatment by assigning a given weight to each type of individuals. The main result shows that the welfare ranking among households is preserved at the individual level if the utility function is increasing, concave and satisfies additional assumptions expressed in terms of the absolute inequality aversion and the absolute prudence towards inequality.
01 Jan 2004
TL;DR: This chapter presents the main topics which can be subsumed under the label “cognitive economics” and which correspond to current work and presents the cognitive processes carried out by an individual agent concerning the structure and revision of his beliefs and the mental deliberation preceding his choice.
Abstract: This chapter presents the main topics which can be subsumed under the label “cognitive economics” and which correspond to current work. It first presents the cognitive processes carried out by an individual agent concerning the structure and revision of his beliefs and the mental deliberation preceding his choice. It then presents the mechanisms of interaction between several agents in the strategic and face-to-face form of game theory or in the more parametric and indirect form of economic theory. Each of the four successive themes is treated from two points of view, an epistemic one where hyper-intelligent agents act and coordinate instantaneously through sophisticated reasoning and an evolutionary one where boundedly rational agents adapt reciprocally through dynamic learning processes. Concluding remarks concern the ontological and epistemological positions of cognitive economics.
TL;DR: In this paper, Berestycki et al. studied the influence of various terms in the equation or of geometry on propagation and derived the speed of propagation of pulsating fronts in periodic domains.
TL;DR: A comparison between two methods for the enumeration of combinatorial objects, namely the ECO method and object grammars, both based on a recursive description for the examined class of objects are made.
TL;DR: Berestycki et al. as discussed by the authors present a traite d'equations de reaction-diffusion en milieu periodique intervenant dans la modelisation de la persistance and des invasions d'especes biologiques.
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TL;DR: In this paper, a non-commutative binary operation on matroids, called free product, was introduced, which respects matroid duality and has the property that, given only the cardinalities, an ordered pair of matroid may be recovered, up to isomorphism, from its free product.
Abstract: We introduce a noncommutative binary operation on matroids, called free product. We show that this operation respects matroid duality, and has the property that, given only the cardinalities, an ordered pair of matroids may be recovered, up to isomorphism, from its free product. We use these results to give a short proof of Welsh's 1969 conjecture, which provides a progressive lower bound for the number of isomorphism classes of matroids on an n-element set.