Semiotinė populizmo kritika

Comment expliquer l’immense succès actuel de leaders populistes tels que Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, Matteo Salvini, Victor Orban arba ir Marine Le Pen? Les explications sociologiques et politologiques font appel à une série de données contextuelles : ce qui joue en faveur des partis « anti-élitistes », c’est la crise économique, c’est le chômage, l’immigration, l’insécurité, attribués les uns et les autres à la faillite du « système » politique représentatif. Le but de cet article est de compléter ces explications en adoptant une perspective proprement sémiotique (en immanence) qui consiste à analyser les rapports sensibles, de caractère « intime » — personnellement, immédiatement, esthésiquement vécus — qui se nouent entre les leaders populistes et leurs partisans. L’article inclut en outre une typologie des régimes politiques (totalitarisme, absolutisme, démocratie représentative, démocratie « directe » et sa caricature, la démagogie) interdéfinis sur la base des régimes interactionels qui les sous-tendent

Plaidoyer pour l’esprit de création

L’article pose la question de savoir si la recherche, par les sémioticiens, des principes régulateurs qui sont à la base de toute pensée articulée ne tend pas parfois à se transformer en une sorte de parti pris idéologique. L’intention de départ est claire : si nous portons notre attention sur ce qu’imposent les lois de la pensée, c’est avec l’idée que leur connaissance ne peut que favoriser le développement d’une vie intellectuelle libre et créative. C’est là notre visée et c’est ce qui fonde la sémiotique comme prise de conscience émancipatrice – comme « gai savoir », disait Greimas. Cependant, en pratique, à force de mettre systématiquement l’accent sur les contraintes de la production du sens, est-ce que nous ne sommes pas en train d’en arriver au point d’hypostasier la régularité et de nous transformer, paradoxalement, en gardiens de l’ordre obsédés par la règle, au détriment de l’esprit de création 

A multiple decision-maker approach to allocating resources to prepare and respond to major disruptions

Disruptions are significant events that cause a disturbance in the normal operations of communities and can result in thousands of fatalities, millions of dollars lost, and significant infrastructure and ecological damage. It is difficult to model the different decision makers in a disruption and express the decisions made in a form that all decision makers understand and can act upon. In disruption response planning, it is necessary to have specific allocation strategies in place, rather than just a set of guidelines, so that budgets can be created, and effective distribution pathways can be established. Therefore, models need to incorporate both specific spending strategies and multiple decision makers. The resource allocation model developed allows for the objectives of four different independent decision makers to be combined into a single computational metric of economic production measured in U.S. dollars. The model provides insight into areas where decision makers may benefit from cooperation to yield larger overall gains in the reduction of production losses from a disruption. The identification of overlaps shows the potential effect of shared decision making in a complex decision environment. The model is applied to a hurricane with magnitude akin to Hurricane Katrina in the context of the 2015 economy of the U.S. Gulf Coast. Results from the application illustrate that there is likely double spending and overspending in some industries in the impacted economic region, and shared decision making between decision makers is highly encouraged. Shared decision making between decision makers allows for a greater benefit to the economic region than when the federal government acts alone

Direct laser written polymer waveguides with out of plane couplers for optical chips

Optical technologies call for waveguide networks featuring high integration densities, low losses, and simple operation. Here, we present polymer waveguides fabricated from a negative tone photoresist via two-photon-lithography in direct laser writing, and show a detailed parameter study of their performance. Specifically, we produce waveguides featuring bend radii down to 40 {\mu}m, insertion losses of the order of 10 dB, and loss coefficients smaller than 0.81 dB/mm, facilitating high integration densities in writing fields of 300 {\mu}m x 300 {\mu}m. A novel three-dimensional coupler design allows for coupling control as well as direct observation of outputs in a single field of view through a microscope objective. Finally, we present beam-splitting devices to construct larger optical networks, and we show that the waveguide material is compatible with the integration of quantum emitters

L’aménagement d’un espace habitable

Aménager son appartement constitue une expérience des plus intéressantes du point de vue de l’étude de l’interobjectivité. Un véritable dialogue s’y noue entre sujets et objets, ainsi qu’entre les objets eux-mêmes, appelés à cohabiter en un même espace. La problématique ici proposée se concentre surtout sur la dialectique entre esthétique et fonctionnalité qui préside au choix des objets, sur le double rôle de l’espace, précondition du sens en même temps qu’objet parmi les autres, sur certains effets de rimes entre formes, couleurs ou matériaux entrant dans la composition des objets, et sur diverses questions liées à la notion de style en tant que dimension intervenant dans les modes de la coprésence interobjective.Decorating one’s home represents an interesting experience from the point of view of a semiotic theory of the interaction between objets and subjects and, above all, between the objects themselves, especially when juxtaposed within one single space. This article focuses on the dialogue between aesthetics and functionality, which governs the choice of all furniture, on the role of the spatial dimension, on various types of correspondences or “ rhymes ” among shapes, colors or materials composing the objects, and finally on various problems of “ style ” arising from modes of interobjective co-presence

APPLICATION POSSIBILITIES OF THE S960 STEEL IN UNDERWATER WELDED STRUCTURES

In this paper, the application possibilities of the ultra-high strength (UHSS) Domex 960 steel in the underwater welded structures are analyzed. In the research, the investigated material has been tested in bead-on-plate wet welding conditions with the usage of different heat input values, namely 0.63 kJ/mm, 0.72 kJ/mm and 0.93 kJ/mm. Specimens were performed by the manual metal arc (MMA) welding method with the usage of rutile covered electrodes. Firstly, the nondestructive visual testing (VT) was carried out. In the next step, the metallographic macro- and microscopic tests were performed. Finally, the hardness of the weld metal and heat-affected zone (HAZ) was measured by the Vickers HV10 method. The performed experiments allow the statement that the Domex 960 steel could be welded in a water environment. It also showed that increasing heat input leads to decreasing the hardness in HAZ by 30 HV10. It may result in decreasing the susceptibility to cold cracking during butt- and filet welding in the water environment