School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences

About: School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences is a facility organization based out in Villejuif, France. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Politics. The organization has 1230 authors who have published 2084 publications receiving 57740 citations. The organization is also known as: Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales & EHESS.

Right on in sign language

Abstract: Spoken language is dealt with by the left hemisphere of the brain. But does that apply to sign languages? A study employing functional magnetic resonance, which reveals the brain areas activated when subjects undertake a task such as understanding sentences, surprisingly finds that processing of sign language is carried out in parts of both hemispheres. This challenging result runs counter to observations from people with brain damage, and is open to various interpretations.

Pragmatic Interpretations of Vague Expressions: Strongest Meaning and Nonmonotonic Consequence

Abstract: Recent experiments have shown that naive speakers find borderline contradictions involving vague predicates acceptable. In Cobreros et al. (Journal of Philosophical Logic, 41, 347–385, 2012a) we proposed a pragmatic explanation of the acceptability of borderline contradictions, building on a three-valued semantics. In a reply, Alxatib et al. (Journal of Philosophical Logic, 42, 619–634, 2013) show, however, that the pragmatic account predicts the wrong interpretations for some examples involving disjunction, and propose as a remedy a semantic analysis instead, based on fuzzy logic. In this paper we provide an explicit global pragmatic interpretation rule, based on a somewhat richer semantics, and show that with its help the problem can be overcome in pragmatics after all. Furthermore, we use this pragmatic interpretation rule to define a new (nonmonotonic) consequence-relation and discuss some of its properties.

Transboundary Pollution in the Black Sea: Comparison of Institutional Arrangements

Abstract: This paper analyses the transboundary pollution between Romania and Ukraine, coastal states along the Black Sea, and studies the welfare consequences of institutional arrangements for controlling this problem. To achieve this goal, we use a dynamic and strategic framework. We compare in terms of total welfare for two countries a first-best case with three different institutional arrangements: the non-cooperative game of countries, the uniform emission policy and the constant emission policy as proposed by the Black Sea Commission. Our findings indicate that the non-cooperative game provides a better level of total welfare than the other rules.

Le métier de conseiller d’insertion et de probation : dans les coulisses de l’État pénal ?

Abstract: Cet article etudie les evolutions du metier de conseiller d’insertion et de probation (Cip) en proposant une sociologie des groupes professionnels attentive aussi bien aux enjeux statutaires qu’aux enjeux moraux. La transformation du service social des prisons en service penitentiaire d’insertion et de probation (Spip) a en effet constitue un processus a la fois de professionnalisation, de juridicisation par inscription dans le champ du droit (plutot que dans le champ du social), mais aussi de deplacement d’un pole d’intervention « compassionnel » vers un pole d’intervention « repressif ». En s’appuyant sur une enquete de terrain en prison, l’etude des situations de travail et des conflits permet de problematiser les ruptures et continuites par rapport aux trajectoires individuelles des agents, et par rapport aux dispositifs institutionnels dans lesquels s’inscrit leur action. Le cas d’etude des Cip, groupe professionnel ici envisage comme revelateur de ce que fait l’institution aux personnes placees sous main de justice, permet plus largement d’envisager une ethnographie de l’Etat en actes.

Assessing Signal-Driven Mechanisms in Neonates: Brain Responses to Temporally and Spectrally Different Sounds

Abstract: Past studies have found that in adults that acoustic properties of sound signals (such as fast vs. slow temporal features) differentially activate the left and right hemispheres, and some have hypothesized that left-lateralization for speech processing may follow from left-lateralization to rapidly changing signals. Here, we tested whether newborns’ brains show some evidence of signal-specific lateralization responses using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and auditory stimuli that elicits lateralized responses in adults, composed of segments that vary in duration and spectral diversity. We found significantly greater bilateral responses of oxygenated hemoglobin (oxy-Hb) in the temporal areas for stimuli with a minimum segment duration of 21 ms, than stimuli with a minimum segment duration of 667 ms. However, we found no evidence for hemispheric asymmetries dependent on the stimulus characteristics. We hypothesize that acoustic-based functional brain asymmetries may develop throughout early infancy, and discuss their possible relationship with brain asymmetries for language.