Alcoolisme et preuve — Le poids singulier de l'identité de l'arbitre

La notion de compétence exclusive reconnue aux arbitres de griefs peut-elle permettre à ces derniers d'accepter en preuve des faits postérieurs au litige sans que leurs sentences ne soient annulées ? En l'état actuel de la jurisprudence, la réponse est affirmative. Néanmoins, le droit positif sur ce point ne semble pas totalement satisfaisant puisque, tant sur le plan de la compétence, entendue strictement, que sur celui de l'erreur manifestement déraisonnable, une telle solution apparaît juridiquement contestable. En effet, la compétence des tribunaux administratifs n'est pas un concept « mou » leur permettant de se réclamer, à ce titre, d'une expertise médicale ou, encore, de créer en milieu conventionné de nouvelles règles de preuve, applicables aux litiges nés de l'interprétation et de l’application des conventions collectives de travail. De surcroît, la notion d'erreur manifestement déraisonnable ne semble pas d'une plasticité telle qu'elle puisse permettre à ce type de solution d'échapper à l'exercice du pouvoir de contrôle et de surveillance des cours supérieures. Les contours de l'autonomie décisionnelle sont assez clairs pour qu'une sentence fondée sur une pareille preuve puisse être qualifiée de solution « manifestement injuste et contraire au sens commun ».Does the notion of exclusive ability acknowledged to grievance referees allow them to accept subsequent facts to the lawsuit in evidence without having their sentences set aside ? According to present case-law, the answer is yes. Nevertheless, on this point the rule does not seem to be satisfactory enough since from both the competence as well as the ultra vires point of view, such a solution appears juridically questionable. As a matter of fact, the ability of the administrative Courts is not a soft concept allowing them to claim a medical valuation for such a reason, or to create new rules of proof applicable to lawsuits based on the interpretation and application of collective agreements. In addition, the ultra vires way does not seem to be flexible enough in order for this type of solution to avoid the Superior Court's power of judicial review. The outlines of the decisionnal autonomy are clear enough for a sentence based on such proof to be qualified as an ultra vires solution

Generalized identifiability conditions for blind convolutive MIMO separation

International audienceThis paper deals with the problem of source separation in the case where the output of a multivariate convolutive mixture is observed: we propose novel and generalized conditions for the blind identifiability of a separating system. The results are based on higher-order statistics and are valid in the case of stationary but not necessarily i.i.d. signals. In particular, we extend recent results based on second-order statistics only. The approach relies on the use of so called reference signals. Our new results also show that only weak conditions are required on the reference signals: this is illustrated by simulations and opens up the possibility of developing new methods

New kurtosis optimization schemes for MISO equalization

International audienceThis paper deals with efficient optimization of cumulant based contrast functions. Such a problem occurs in the blind source separation framework, where contrast functions are criteria to be maximized in order to retrieve the sources. More precisely, we focus on the extraction of one source signal and our method applies in deflation approaches, where the sources are extracted one by one. We propose new methods to maximize the kurtosis contrast function. These methods are intermediate between a gradient and an iterative "fixed-point" optimization of so-called reference contrasts. They rely on iterative updates of the parameters which monotonically increase the contrast function value: we point out the strong similarity with the Expectation-Maximization (EM) method and with recent generalizations referred to as Minimization-Maximization (MM). We also prove the global convergence of the algorithm to a stationary point. Simulations confirm the convergence of our methods to a separating solution. They also show experimentally that our methods have a much lower computational cost than former classical optimization methods. Finally, simulations suggest that the methods remain valid under weaker conditions than those required for proving convergence

Statistical Learning Across Visual and Auditory Modalities

Our ability to learn language is accomplished by using structural patterns found in everyday language. We use these structural patterns in language through a process of Statistical Learning (SL) to implicitly predict sequences in speech and visual input. Our research explored how SL predicts patterns of auditory and visual learning in adults (N = 40; M = 27.1 years) to provide a more complete picture of SL. For the auditory task, participants were tested on whether they learned a novel language that they passively listened to for 6 minutes. Implicit and explicit learning were assessed after the exposure phase. For the visual task, participants were tasked with rapidly indicating a target’s spatial location, which would appear in one of four circles. Reaction time and accuracy were assessed to determine whether implicit and explicit SL occurred. Results demonstrated that implicit SL occurred in both modalities; however, no explicit learning occurred in the visual task and no correlations were found between these tasks. These results hint to an underlying difference in auditory and visual SL. This data may support the hypothesis that SL is modality specific and is not governed by a more general processing capacity. These results provide behavioural data on the role of SL across modalities, which can inform theories of the neurocognitive underpinnings of language and reading acquisition. To better understand the role that SL has on reading and language abilities, future research should look at visual and auditory SL in children with reading and language impairments

Interview of Marc A. Moreau, Ph.D.

Marc Moreau was born in 1948 in Lewiston, Maine. His family is French Canadian, and the part of town where he grew up was a pocket for French-speaking people. It was referred to as a Petit-Canada. Lewiston\u27s economy centered on textile mills. All of his grandparents and both of his parents worked in the mills during their lives. His mother later became a nurse during World War II, and his father served in the army during that time but later returned to the mills. Moreau has a younger sister and brother. He delivered French newspapers as a boy and attended a grade school run by Dominican nuns. He attended Brothers of the Sacred Heart High School. He became an avid trumpet player at a young age and received a full scholarship to study music at the University of Connecticut. However, he realized that his musical skills did not match those of the other students, so he began to look for a different interest. He found one in philosophy, and proceeded on to Temple\u27s doctoral program for philosophy. While at Temple he fought the draft for Vietnam and met his first wife. They divorced after six years and he met and married his current wife, Juliet. Juliet has two children from her first marriage, but he considers her children\u27s children his grandchildren. At the time of the interview, he was chair of the philosophy department at La Salle University

Analyse de sous-maille par densité présumée en Simulation des Grandes Echelles

On s'intéresse à la modélisation des termes de réaction en Simulation des Grandes Echelles d'écoulements turbulents. La densité de sous-maille est souvent approchée dans ce cadre par une loi beta. Les estimateurs optimaux pour ce problème sont étudiés. Ils montrent que le choix des lois beta est justifié. L'essentiel de l'erreur commise provient en effet du choix des paramètres fondamentaux du modèle. Nous montrons ainsi que les estimateurs optimaux constituent un outil pertinent pour l'exploration des modèles de sous-maille et la recherche de pistes pour des améliorations futures