Continuous cellular automata on irregular tessellations : mimicking steady-state heat flow

Leaving a few exceptions aside, cellular automata (CA) and the intimately related coupled-map lattices (CML), commonly known as continuous cellular automata (CCA), as well as models that are based upon one of these paradigms, employ a regular tessellation of an Euclidean space in spite of the various drawbacks this kind of tessellation entails such as its inability to cover surfaces with an intricate geometry, or the anisotropy it causes in the simulation results. Recently, a CCA-based model describing steady-state heat flow has been proposed as an alternative to Laplace's equation that is, among other things, commonly used to describe this process, yet, also this model suffers from the aforementioned drawbacks since it is based on the classical CCA paradigm. To overcome these problems, we first conceive CCA on irregular tessellations of an Euclidean space after which we show how the presented approach allows a straightforward simulation of steady-state heat flow on surfaces with an intricate geometry, and, as such, constitutes an full-fledged alternative for the commonly used and easy-to-implement finite difference method, and the more intricate finite element method

Tracking uncertainty in a spatially explicit susceptible-infected epidemic model

In this paper we conceive an interval-valued continuous cellular automaton for describing the spatio-temporal dynamics of an epidemic, in which the magnitude of the initial outbreak and/or the epidemic properties are only imprecisely known. In contrast to well-established approaches that rely on probability distributions for keeping track of the uncertainty in spatio-temporal models, we resort to an interval representation of uncertainty. Such an approach lowers the amount of computing power that is needed to run model simulations, and reduces the need for data that are indispensable for constructing the probability distributions upon which other paradigms are based

Un chronotope à personnage ajouté : le nouveau fantastique des Cités obscures (Schuiten-Peeters)

Cet article analyse une des possibles stratégies susceptibles d'augmenter le prestige de la littérature fantastique. Loin de se contenter d'innover ou de transformer le fantastique, certains auteurs en profitent pour interroger la notion même du genre afin d'aboutir à de nouvelles formes de fantastique. C'est ce qui se passe dans la série de bande dessinée Les Cités obscures, créée par François Schuiten et Benoît Peeters en 1983 et toujours en pleine évolution. Les auteurs y explorent certains aspects de la création littéraire (la dimension matérielle du roman graphique, la technique narrative de la métalepse, l›idée générale des univers parallèles) pour inventer une nouvelle forme de littérature fantastique qui se veut trans-genres tout en brouillant les frontières entre les notions de temps-espace (chronotope) et de personnage.This article examines one of the possible strategies to upgrade the status of fantastic literature. Rather than simply innovating or transforming the fantastic, certain authors make this project part of a larger attempt to question the very notion of genre itself in order to induce new forms of the fantastic. This is what happens in the long running comics series The Dark Cities (1983-) by François Schuiten and Benoît Peeters, who explore various aspects of literary creation (the material dimension of the graphic novel, the narrative technique of metalepsis, the global idea of parallel universes) in order to invent a form of fantastic literature that is radcially trans-genre while blurring also the boundaries between the notions of time-space (chronotope) and character

Quelles pratiques pour quels enjeux?

Le présent article tente d’interroger la numérisation de l’héritage culturel dans la perspective de la sémiotique de la culture de Lotman, chez qui la notion de mémoire non héréditaire joue un rôle crucial. Trois questions sont successivement traitées : le rapport entre anciens et nouveaux médias, le rapport entre médias et contenus, le rapport entre le privé et le public. Dans tous les cas, on tente de montrer qu’il n’est ni utile ni souhaitable de penser ces rapports sur le mode du déterminisme technologique. En revanche, l’accent est mis systématiquement sur les aspects sociaux et politiques des rapports entre médias ou entre médias et utilisateurs.This article tries to analyze the digitization of cultural heritage from the viewpoint of Lotmanian cutlural semiotics, in which the notion of non-hereditary memory plays a crucial role. It tackles mainly three questions : what is the relationship between old and new media, what is the relationship between a medium and its content, and what is the relationship between the private and the public sphere in media ? In all cases, the article challenges the still often dominant vision of technological determinism. Instead it stresses the necessity to take into account the social and political aspects of the relationships between media or between media and their users

Peut-on encore faire allusion ?

Dans la rhétorique classique, l’allusion est une fi gure comme tantd’autres, et son emploi ne pose que des problèmes de style, non de fond. Dans uneculture homogène, où l’on part de l’idée qu’auteur et lecteur partagent les mêmesréférences, l’allusion est « reçue » dans les deux sens du terme : on l’accepte parcequ’on sait qu’elle sera décodée. Avec l’érosion et la volatilité de la culture commune(mais pas forcément du lieu commun), faire allusion est devenu tout à coupquelque chose de dangereux ; en même temps, il est diffi cile d’écrire sans faire allusion.Dès lors, la « gestion » de l’allusion devient un enjeu fondamental pour lepoète. J’aimerais discuter ici quelques-uns des écueils auxquels celui-ci fait facelorsqu’il veut qu’on repère et juge ses allusions

Sémiotique et photographie: 1961-2006

Le présent article offre un aperçu des rencontres et interactions entre les champs de la photographie et de la sémiotique depuis 1961 (date de publication de l’article fondateur de Roland Barthes “Le Message photographique”). Il analyse successivement trois aspects de cette problématique: a) la grande diversité des analyses sémiotiques du fait photographique; b) les apports mutuels des deux domaines, puisque la sémiotique a changé notre manière de voir la photographie et vice versa; c) les problèmes et les opportunités qui se profilent lorsqu’on cherche à articuler théoriquement les deux domaines.This article proposes first of all a survey of the encounters and interactions between photography and semiotics since 1961 (date of publication of the seminal article by Roland Barthes on "The Photographic Message"). It then examines successively the three following aspects: a) the wide range of semiotic analyses of photography that have been proposed since 1961; b) the mutual enrichments of both domains, for photography has shaped our vision of semiotics as much as semiotics has redefined our approach to photography; c) the problems and challenges that emerge when one tries to amalgamate both domains at a theoretical level

Une photographie vaut-elle mille films ?

Le présent article s’interroge sur les potentialités narratives d’un média que l’on a tendance à croire guère approprié au récit : la photographie. Peu apte en elle-même, du moins à première vue, à rendre le temps, la narration et surtout la fiction, la photographie souffre encore davantage de la comparaison avec le média nouveau qui l’a « remédié » (au sens de Bolter et Grusin) : le cinéma. L’analyse d’un exemple, une image photographique de Cartier-Bresson qui existe également sous forme cinématographique, montre cependant que, dans certains cas, le pouvoir narratif d’une image fixe peut dépasser celle d’une image mobile. Pour comprendre un tel écart paradoxal, il importe cependant de situer la narrativité sur le plan de la lecture de l’image, et non plus sur celui de ses formes.This article aims at scrutinizing the narrative power of a medium which one considers unable to perform narrative tasks : photography. Not only has photography a problem when it wants to tackle issues of time, storytelling, and fiction ; the medium is suffering moreover from a negative comparison with the medium that has replaced it (“remediated” in the sense coined by Bolter and Grusin). Yet the analysis of an example, a picture by Cartier-Bresson which exists also in movie form, suggests that the power of a fixed image may exceed, under certain circumstances, that of a mobile image. In order to understand this paradox, one needs however to analyze narrativity not only in terms of media forms, but also in terms of media practices and to stress the role of the reader

Crowdsourcing: A Critical Discussion on Some Issues of a Challenging New Practice in the Digitization of Photographic Heritage

This article deals with a certain number of issues raised by the use of crowdsourcing in the management of photographic archives. Although crowdsourcing is (and should remain) a vital instrument in the description and analysis of photographic material, it does not really take into account certain problems such as the difference between information and knowledge, the reduction of knowledge to merely cognitive elements (at the expense of social, political, and ideological belief systems) and the creative tension between the unique artefact on the one hand and serialization on the other hand. Relying on the work by Yves Citton and his plea for the role of interpretation in humanist research, this article will offer a new way of "framing" the technique of crowdsourcing in a larger interpretive context.This article deals with a certain number of issues raised by the use of crowdsourcing in the management of photographic archives. Although crowdsourcing is (and should remain) a vital instrument in the description and analysis of photographic material, it does not really take into account certain problems such as the difference between information and knowledge, the reduction of knowledge to merely cognitive elements (at the expense of social, political, and ideological belief systems) and the creative tension between the unique artefact on the one hand and serialization on the other hand. Relying on the work by Yves Citton and his plea for the role of interpretation in humanist research, this article will offer a new way of "framing" the technique of crowdsourcing in a larger interpretive context