Le volontarisme doxastique et les raisons de la foi chez Thomas d’Aquin

Autant dans la Somme Théologique que dans le De Veritate, Thomas d’Aquin développe une théorie de la foi religieuse au sein de laquelle la volonté occupe un rôle central. Ceci soulève la question exégétique de savoir si Thomas d’Aquin va jusqu’à endosser un volontarisme doxastique, c’est-à-dire la thèse selon laquelle il est possible de former certaines croyances volontairement. Dans cet article, je soulève quelques difficultés propres aux lectures de l’Aquinate qui ne lui attribuent pas un volontarisme doxastique. J’explique ensuite la forme spécifique que prend ce volontarisme chez Thomas d’Aquin, ainsi que la raison pour laquelle cette thèse est essentielle à sa conception de la foi religieuse

The construction of theory in MIS research

As a relatively new academic discipline, MIS has gone through processes of initiation, expansion, and consolidation. During the past two decades, MIS researchers have examined the state of their discipline and have found it wanting at times in the area of theory building and development. One important criticism of early MIS research was that it lacked strong theory of its own, and that it was often weakly grounded in theory, if at all. This paper examines the process and significance of theory building with an emphasis on some of the most well known MIS research streams. This paper demonstrates that MIS researchers have begun to develop strong theory and apply it successfully

Time Dependent Discrete Ordinates Neutron Transport Using Distribution Iteration in XYZ Geometry

The DI algorithm is an alternative to source iteration that, in our testing, does not require an accelerator. I developed a formal verification plan and executed it to verify the results produced by my code that implemented DI with the above features. A new, matrix albedo, boundary condition treatment was developed and implemented so that infinite-medium benchmarks could be included in the verification test suite. The DI algorithm was modified for parallel efficiency and the prior instability of the refinement sweep was corrected. The testing revealed that DI performed as well or faster than source iteration with DSA and that DI continued to work where DSA failed. Performance did degrade when the diamond-difference (without fixup) spatial quadrature was used. Because diamond-difference is a non-positive spatial quadrature, it can produce nonphysical negative fluxes, particularly in higher dimensions. I developed a new fixup scheme to accommodate the negative fluxes, but it did not improve performance in XYZ geometry when the scattering ratio was near unity

Maintenance Activities in OOP and 3GL

Maintenance is the process of changing existing software to modify software, either to add or enhance existing functions, or to fix errors (bugs). Maintenance is the dominant activity of many MIS organizations. An average of 70% of software budgets are devoted to maintenance (Swanson & Beath, 1989). Object-oriented programming (OOP) languages have been in used in research and, to a limited extent, in practice for approximately fifteen years. However, it was not until recently that OOP received considerable attention from the practitioner community. The object-oriented paradigm has been hailed because of its natural relationship to the real world, ease and speed of development, and ability to reuse objects in different programs. These capabilities are thought to produce major productivity gains over programming in 3GLs. However, given the importance of maintenance in the MIS organization, the decision to develop systems using OOP must include evaluation of the relative effectiveness of maintenance in that environment. Unfortunately, little research investigates the maintainability of applications written in object-oriented languages. The objective of this study is to examine the maintenance of systems developed in objected-oriented programming languages

Experience as a Moderating Variable in a Task-Technology Fit Model

We test the addition of experience with maintenance tools and with the maintenance task to our previously tested task-technology fit model for software maintenance tool use. Tool experience is significant as both a main and moderating effect, but task experience adds little to the explanatory power of the model

Development of the preterm infant gut microbiome: a research priority.

The very low birth weight (VLBW) infant is at great risk for marked dysbiosis of the gut microbiome due to multiple factors, including physiological immaturity and prenatal/postnatal influences that disrupt the development of a normal gut flora. However, little is known about the developmental succession of the microbiota in preterm infants as they grow and mature. This review provides a synthesis of our understanding of the normal development of the infant gut microbiome and contrasts this with dysbiotic development in the VLBW infant. The role of human milk in normal gut microbial development is emphasized, along with the role of the gut microbiome in immune development and gastroenteric health. Current research provides evidence that the gut microbiome interacts extensively with many physiological systems and metabolic processes in the developing infant. However, to the best of our knowledge, there are currently no studies prospectively mapping the gut microbiome of VLBW infants through early childhood. This knowledge gap must be filled to inform a healthcare system that can provide for the growth, health, and development of VLBW infants. The paper concludes with speculation about how the VLBW infants' gut microbiome might function through host-microbe interactions to contribute to the sequelae of preterm birth, including its influence on growth, development, and general health of the infant host

Histocompatibility: Clarifying Fusion Confusion

SummaryIn the colonial tunicate Botryllus schlosseri, a co-dominant trait determines the capacity of adjacent colonies to fuse or reject. An innovative RNA sequencing approach has now identified the gene that predicts the outcomes of this naturally occurring allograft

Examining Multiple Dimensions of Task Technology Fit

Investigating the fit of an information technology to a user’s task, known as task-technology fit (TTF), is a frequent focus of HCI/MIS research. In such research, “fit as moderation”, one of Venkatraman’s (1989) six conceptualizations of fit, is common. This conceptualization assumes two variables, e.g., task and technology, and an outcome variable. Task and technology, however, have multiple dimensions that should be considered when investigating fit. We examine three methods HCI/MIS researchers have used for augmenting the fit as moderation conceptualization for multiple dimensions. We propose and test a new method involving a single PLS model capturing the multiple dimensions of fit, which is more consistent with Venkatraman’s (1989) original conceptualization and statistical model for fit as moderation than those currently in the literature. Our method as compared against one method in the literature, using a separate model for each dimension, works at least as well