Search

Nearly everyone agrees that physical pain is bad. Indeed, if anything merits the status of a platitude in our everyday thinking about value, the idea that pain is bad surely does. Equally, it seems clearly true that emotional suffering – despair, loneliness, grief, disappointment, guilt, shame, lovesickness, and the like – are all bad as well. We are strongly inclined to pity and feel sorry for those who suffer emotionally in these ways; we are motivated, at least some of the time, to do what we can to alleviate their suffering. Given this, it might seem curious that pain and suffering are so integral to sport – whether one is a participant or a spectator. There’s nothing particularly puzzling about pain and suffering that is inadvertently related to sport – as when an athlete injures her hamstring and has to miss her chance at Olympic glory, or when supporters face the misery of getting up at 6am because an away game has been scheduled to start at noon. But there does seem to be something curious about the extent to which pain and suffering are voluntarily embraced by participants and spectators, as the quotation from Nick Hornby aptly illustrates. Why do people willingly engage in something that brings about so much suffering? In this paper, I’ll attempt to answer this question.

In this thesis, we are interested in the autonomous navigation of robotic systems, particularly quadrotor UAV systems. We have focused on the problems related to the generation of optimal trajectories and the design of robust control to ensure tracking.In the first part of the thesis, a new method for generating trajectories is proposed. This method is based on the direct-collocation technique, differential flatness and Bézier curves.Differential flatness is used to reduce the number of parameters of the optimization problem.Bézier curves are used to approximate the flat outputs. The direct-collocation method transforms the problem of infinite optimization into a problem of nonlinear programming with finite dimension. The suggested methodology allows solving complex problems of calculating optimal trajectories in a fast, simple and efficient way, because the number of parameters will be considerably decreased, exceeding a reduction rate of 60 %.In the second part of the thesis, we put forward robust control to parametric uncertainties and external disturbances. Using flatness, the nonlinear system is transformed into a linear Brunovsky canonical form, for which it is easier to create a state feedback controller. To consider the parametric uncertainties and the external disturbances affecting the system, we propose an algorithm which uses the sliding mode and active disturbance rejection control.The simulation results show that the considered approach permits eliminating the effect oftotal disturbances and reducing the effect of chattering while ensuring the required degree of robustness.For unknown disturbances with significant variations affecting both the system and the measurements,we are interested in the last part of the thesis in developing new flatness control based on an interval observer., Dans cette thèse nous nous sommes intéressés à la navigation autonome des systèmes robotiques et particulièrement pour les systèmes UAV, cas d’un quadri-rotor. Nous nous sommes focalisés sur les problèmes liés à la génération des trajectoires optimales et la conception des commandes robustes assurant la poursuite.Dans une première partie de la thèse, une nouvelle méthode de génération de trajectoires a été proposée. Cette méthode est basée sur la technique de collocation directe, la platitude différentielle et les courbes de Bézier. La platitude différentielle a été utilisée pour réduire le nombre de paramètres du problème d’optimisation. Les courbes de Bézier sont utilisées pour approximer les sorties plates. La méthode de collocation directe permet de transformer le problème d’optimisation infinie en un problème de programmation non linéaire de dimension finie. La méthodologie proposée permet de résoudre des problèmes complexes de calcul des trajectoires optimales d’une manière rapide, simple et efficace, puisque le nombre de paramètres sera réduit d’une façon considérable qui dépasse un taux de réduction de 60 %. Dans la seconde partie de la thèse, nous avons proposé une commande robuste par platitude qui assure le suivi de la trajectoire proposée en présence d’incertitude paramétrique et de perturbation externe. En utilisant la platitude, le système non linéaire est transformé en un système linéaire commandable sous la forme de Brunovsky, pour lequel il est plus facile de trouver un bouclage de rétroaction. Pour tenir compte des incertitudes paramétriques et des perturbations externes affectant le système, nous avons proposé un algorithme qui utilise le mode glissant et le contrôle actif par rejet des perturbations. Les résultats de simulation ont prouvé que l’approche considérée permet d’éliminer l’effet des perturbations et de réduire l’effet de broutement tout en assurant le degré de robustesse demandé.Pour le cas des perturbations inconnues à variations significatives affectant aussi bien le système que les mesures, nous nous sommes intéressés dans la dernière partie de la thèse à développer une nouvelle commande par platitude basée sur l’observateur par intervalle.

Neural systems process information. This platitude contains an interesting ambiguity between multiple senses of the term “information.” According to a popular thought, the ambiguity is best resolved by reserving semantic concepts of information for the explication of neural activity at a high level of organization, and quantitative concepts of information for the explication of neural activity at a low level of organization. This article articulates the justification behind this view, and concludes that it is an oversimplification. An analysis of the meaning of claims about Shannon information rates in the spiking activity of neurons is then developed. On the basis of that analysis, it is shown that quantitative conceptions of information are more intertwined with semantic concepts than they seem to be, and, partially for that reason, are also more philosophically interesting.

Can we make mistakes about what rationality requires? A natural answer is that we can, since it is a platitude that rational belief does not require truth; it is possible for a belief to be rational and mistaken, and this holds for any subject matter at all. However, the platitude causes trouble when applied to rationality itself. The possibility of rational mistakes about what rationality requires generates a puzzle. When combined with two further plausible claims – the enkratic principle, and the claim that rational requirements apply universally – we get the result that rationality generates inconsistent requirements. One popular and attractive solution to the puzzle denies that it is possible to make rational mistakes about what rationality requires. I show why (contra Titelbaum (2015b), and Littlejohn (2015)) this solution is doomed to fail.

The field of metaethics, the branch of moral philosophy that examines the nature and status of morality, is rich in theoretical diversity. Nonetheless, a majority of professional philosophers embrace a subset of theories that affirm the existence of objective moral facts. I suggest that this may be related to the very method that philosophers use to construct metaethical theories. This method involves analyzing how ordinary people think and argue about morality. Analysis of ordinary moral discourse is meant to reveal common platitudes (or truisms) about the nature of morality itself, including the platitude that morality trades in objective moral facts. But do philosophers investigate ordinary moral discourse in any systematic way? How do they arrive at such platitudes? On what grounds are they justified? In this paper, I critically examine these questions and argue that a) any such platitudes need to be investigated systematically through empirical research and b) philosophers ought to be engaged in this research themselves.

This is the second of a six chapters of the penultimate draft of a book titled Public Debt: An Illusion of Democratic Political Economy. This essay explores just who it is that supplies the macro guidance that is envisioned in the various macro theories. The answer to this question is of great significance for the political economy of public debt and fiscal policy. Where the two extreme points of answer regarding this question are some macro czar as an analytical convenience and “the people” as a democratic platitude, this essay takes a Machiavellian-inspired tack whereby the few dominate the many.

An important platitude about prudential rationality is that I should not refuse to sacrifice a smaller amount of present welfare for the sake of larger future benefits. I ought, in other words, to treat my present and future as of equal prudential significance. The demands of prudence are less clear, however, when it comes to one’s past selves. In this paper, I argue that past benefits are possible in (at least) two ways, and that this fact cannot be easily accommodated by traditional approaches to prudential rationality. Against univocal accounts of prudential rationality, I hold that the possibility of past benefits suggests that a bias toward the present and future is defensible when it comes to some welfare goods, but that prudential reasons are temporally neutral between when it comes to the success or failure of one’s long-term projects.

Derek Parfit’s argument against the platitude that identity is what matters in survival does not work given his intended reading of the platitude, namely, that what matters in survival to some future time is being identical with someone who is alive at that time. I develop Parfit’s argument so that it works against the platitude on the intended reading.

There is a familiar teleological picture of epistemic normativity on which it is grounded in the goal or good of belief, which is taken in turn to be the acquisition of truth and the avoidance of error. There is also a widespread platitude to the effect that this is at heart two distinct goals in tension with one another. The teleological picture faces numerous challenges, but one of the most interesting is an argument that rests on this platitude. This paper looks more closely at the standard way of understanding the truth goal, drawing out its explicit and implicit features. The aim will be to show that the standard way the truth goal is understood is deeply mistaken, to propose and defend an alternative model, and to show how this alternative model restores the unity of the goal and its potential to ground and explain the normative dimensions of belief.

Inferential Role Semantics is often criticized for being incompatible with the platitude that words of different speakers can mean the same thing. While many assume that this platitude can be accommodated by understanding sameness of meaning in terms of similarity of meaning, no worked out proposal has ever been produced for Inferential Role Semantics. I rectify this important omission by giving a detailed structural account of meaning similarity in terms of graph theory. I go on to argue that this account has a number of attractive features, prominent among them that it makes sameness of meaning probabilistically determine co-reference.

This critical notice provides an overview of Harry Frankfurt’s On Inequality and assesses whether Frankfurt is right to argue that equality is merely formal and empty. I counter-argue that egalitarianism, properly tweaked and circumscribed, can be defended against Frankfurt’s repudiation. After surveying the main arguments in Frankfurt’s book, I argue that whatever plausibility the ‘doctrine of sufficiency’ defended by Frankfurt may have, it does not strike a fatal blow against egalitarianism. There is nothing in egalitarianism that forbids acceptance of the moral platitude expressed in sufficientarianism's positive thesis, (viz., it is morally important that everyone have enough). Nor is there anything in egalitarianism as such that makes it impossible to recognize the banal truth that there are many important things besides equality, and that many dimensions of human affairs are improperly appraised from a relational or comparative point of view. The fact that a relational or comparative point of view is sometimes out of place, however, surely does not mean that it always is. I conclude with the suggestion that egalitarianism is most compelling when it is understood as a normative conception of social relations (rather than, as Frankfurt seems to assume throughout his book, a thesis about the equal distribution of something) and thus presides over precisely those aspects of human affairs for which that relational or comparative point of view is germane.

In the intriguing article The puzzle of the changing past, Barlassina and Del Prete (Analysis 75:59–67, 2015) argue that, if one grants a platitude about truth and accepts a simple story that they tell, one is forced to conclude that the past has changed. I will suggest that there is a coherent way to resist that conclusion. The platitude about truth is in fact a platitude, but the story is not exactly as they tell it.

To say that the island of Madura has been relatively neglected and understudied over the long term by scholars, foreign and domestic alike, is a platitude: aside from a couple of well-intentioned e...

Good’s theorem is the apparent platitude that it is always rational to ‘look before you leap’: to gather (reliable) information before making a decision when doing so is free. We argue that Good’s theorem is not platitudinous and may be false. And we argue that the correct advice is rather to ‘make your act depend on the answer to a question’. Looking before you leap is rational when, but only when, it is a way to do this.

In this thesis, we present an effective construction of self-synchronizing stream ciphers based on the class of Linear Parameter-Varying (LPV) dynamical systems. For such systems, the state-space representation admits an affine expression regarding the input and the state but the state matrices depend on time varying parameters. This dependence can be expressed using nonlinear functions of the output variable. Hence, the resulting dynamics of the system are nonlinear. We show that the self-synchronization property is related to a structural property of the dynamical system known as flatness. Flatness is an algebraic property that allows, when possible, the expression of the input and state parameters of a dynamical system as functions of its outputs which is then called flat output. A characterization of the flatness is expressed in terms of state matrices of the dynamical matrix. A complementary characterization is given in terms of properties of the related adjacency graph. The combination of the algebraic and graph theory characterization gives a systematic construction of a new class of self-synchronizing stream ciphers. In the second part of the thesis, we tackle security aspects of self-synchronizing stream ciphers. We propose a spectral approach to performing side channel attacks. This approach offers reduced complexity when compared with standard approaches used for side channel attacks. We also give a security proof, based on the notion of indistinguishability, for the canonical form of self-synchronizing stream ciphers. A neccessary and sufficient condition is proposed in order to characterize the indistinguishability. Finally, we establish some results on vectorial boolean functions and properties they can be achieved when trying to design Self-Synchronizing Stream Ciphers, Nous présentons dans le cadre de cette thèse une construction effective de chiffreurs par flot auto-synchronisants centrée autour de la classe particulière des systèmes dynamiques Linear Parameter Varying (LPV). Il s'agit de systèmes dont la représentation d'état admet une écriture affine par rapport à l'état et l'entrée mais dont les matrices de la représentation dépendent de paramètres variants dans le temps. Cette dépendance peut se traduire par des fonctions non linéaires de la variable de sortie. La dynamique résultante est donc non linéaire. Nous montrons que la propriété d'auto-synchronisation est liée à une propriété structurelle du système dynamique à savoir la platitude. La platitude est une propriété algébrique qui permet d'exprimer lorsque cela est possible les paramètres d'entrée et sortie d'un système dynamique en fonction de sa sortie qui est appelée dans ce cas une sortie plate. Une caractérisation de la platitude est exprimée en termes des matrices d'état du système dynamique. Une caractérisation complémentaire est proposée en termes de propriétés d'un graphe d'adjacence associé. L'utilisation conjointe de la caractérisation algébrique et graphique donne lieu à une construction systématique d'une nouvelle classe de chiffreurs auto-synchonisants. Dans la deuxième partie de la thèse, nous nous intéressons à la sécurité de chiffreurs auto-synchronisants. Nous proposons dans un premier temps une approche spectrale pour réaliser une attaque par canaux cachés. Cette approche offre une complexité réduite par rapport aux approches classiques utilisées pour les attaques par canaux cachés. Nous donnons ensuite une preuve de sécurité de la forme canonique d'un chiffreur auto-synchronisant basée sur la notion d'indistinguabilité. Une condition nécessaire et suffisante pour caractériser l'indistinguabilité des chiffreurs auto-synchronisants est proposée. Finalement, nous avons établi des résultats sur les propriétés de fonctions vectorielles booléennes qui permettent de caractériser d'une façon générale les chiffreurs auto-synchronisants

The distinction between nature and ethics is easily and straightforwardly recognisable in the difference between what is and what ought to be: such a definition is widely supported, almost like a platitude. However, generally accepted definitions and principles risk no longer undergoing discussion and critique, so that their meaning blurs and fades into the rituality of a premise that almost no longer belongs to philosophical discourse as its foundation and constituent element.

This paper begins with the oft-repeated claim that having (religious) faith involves trust in God. Taking this platitude seriously requires at least two philosophical tasks. First, one must address the relevant notion of “trust” guiding the platitude. I offer a sketch of epistemic trust: arguing that epistemic trust involves several components: acceptance, communication, dependence, and confidence. The first duo concerns the epistemic element of epistemic trust and the second part delimit the fiducial aspect to epistemic trust. Second, one must also examine what differentiates faith qua trust. I argue that we should not distinguish faith from trust merely by believing religious propositions but by the attitudes they express. In particular, the attitude of faith is more deeply entrenched and central to one’s noetic structure than trust simpliciter. The paper ends by arguing that the account proposed insofar as it accommodates and explains certain “faith desiderata”. We can thus give content to the “faith is a kind of trust” platitude with a model of trust on hand while showing how that model confirms and explains important features of faith.

Rational thinkers respect their evidence. Properly understood, that is a platitude. But how can one respect one's evidence unless one knows what it is? So must not rational thinkers know what their evidence is?

The class of audio systems includes traditional musical instruments (percussion, string, wind, brass, voice) and electro-acoustic systems (guitar amplifiers, analog audio processing, synthesizers). These multi-physical systems have a common property: out of excitation sources (generators), they are all passive. We present a set of automatic methods dedicated to their modeling, simulation and control, which explicitly guarantee and exploit the passivity of the original system. This class of systems is that of port-Hamiltonian systems (PHS), introduced in system theory in the early 1990s. Regarding the models, we exploit the fact that the interconnection of systems described in this formalism explicitly preserves the dynamics of total dissipated power. This enabled the development of an automated method that builds models of complete instruments based on a dictionary of elementary models. Regarding the simulations, we developed a numerical method that preserves the passive structure of PHS in discrete-time domain. This ensures the stability of simulations (for which the C++ code is automatically generated). Regarding the control, we exploit the interconnection structure to automatically build an input-to-output decoupled form for a class of PHS. Systems of this class are flat, within the meaning of the differential flatness approach. A formula that yields the (open loop) control law for these systems is provided., Les systèmes audios incluent les instruments de musique traditionnels (percussions, cordes, vents, voix) et les systèmes électro-acoustiques (amplificateurs de guitares, pédales d’effets, synthétiseurs analogiques). Ces systèmes multi-physiques possèdent une propriété commune : hors des sources d’excitation (les générateurs), ils sont tous passifs. Nous présentons dans cette thèse un ensemble de méthodes automatiques dédiées à leur modélisation, leur simulation et leur contrôle, qui garantissent explicitement et exploitent la passivité du système original. Nous utilisons dans ce travail le formalisme des systèmes hamiltoniens à ports (SHP), introduits en automatique et théorie des systèmes au début des années 1990. Pour la modélisation, on exploite le fait que la connexion de systèmes décrits dans ce formalisme préserve explicitement la dynamique de la puissance dissipée de l'ensemble, pour développer une méthode automatique de modélisation d'instruments complets à partir de modèles élémentaires rassemblés dans un dictionnaire. Pour la simulation, une méthode numérique qui préserve la structure passive des SHP à temps discret a été développée, garantissant ainsi la stabilité des simulations (pour lesquelles le code C++ est généré automatiquement). Concernant le contrôle, on exploite la structure d'interconnexion afin de déterminer automatiquement une forme découplée (sous-systèmes hiérarchisés) pour une certaine classe de SHP. Les systèmes de cette classe sont dits systèmes hamiltonien à ports plats, au sens de la propriété de platitude différentielle, à partir de laquelle une loi de commande en boucle ouverte exacte sur le modèle est générée.

McTaggart’s argument against the reality of the A series (or some variation on that argument) poses a serious problem for the moving-now block theory of time (MNBT). A defender of MNBT can respond along lines suggested by Broad: by denying that we should understand ‘e was present’ as saying that e is present at some past moment t. There is, however, a serious—plausibly defeating—objection to this type of response: it implicitly denies a non-negotiable platitude about time. As a result, MNBT is not tenable. Growing block theories are also defeated by a similar objection.

The aim of this PhD thesis is to analyze a PV-grid connected system in terms of control, stability and reliability. A comparison between a classical 2-Level inverter and a multilevel NPC is presented. The advantages and weakness of both the converters are analyzed with respect to the power efficiency, optimization of the energy injection to the grid and reliability of the system. In order to control the inverter output current, two different solutions are proposed: flatness-based control and passivity-based control. These controls are compared in terms of robustness, complexity and number of sensors used. It is shown that both the controls may manage the resonance problems due to a LCL filter. For increasing the efficiency of the MPPT in a configuration Distributed-MPPT with connections in series of the boost converters outputs, a novel technique for the dc voltages balancing of a NPC inverter is proposed. A large stability analysis using "Higher-Order-Singular-Value-Decomposition" is presented and compared with Takagi-Sugeno approach for nonlinear systems. Finally, 2-Level inverter is compared with two multilevel inverters (NPC and NPP) in terms of availability, considering the redundancy levels of the converters. To analyze the systems availability, the Markov chains theory is considered and it is implemented on GRIF, Cette thèse a pour but l'analyse d'un système photovoltaïque connecté au réseau électrique en prenant en compte le contrôle, l'étude de la stabilité et la fiabilité. Un onduleur de type 2-Niveau a été comparé avec un onduleur multi-niveaux appelé Neutral Point Clamped. Les avantages et désavantage de chaque topologie ont été analysé en considérant l'efficacité énergétique, l'optimisation de l'injection de l'énergie sur le réseau électrique et la fiabilité du système. Pour le contrôle du courant de sortie de l'onduleur, ont été proposées deux solutions : un contrôle basé sur la théorie de la platitude et un contrôle par passivité. Ces deux différents contrôles sont comparés par rapport à la robustesse, la complexité et le nombre de capteurs utilisés. Il a été montré que les deux contrôles sont capables de gérer la problématique de la résonance du filtre LCL. Pour augmenter l'efficacité de l'algorithme MPPT dans une configuration Distributed-MPPT avec la connexion en série des deux sorties des convertisseurs boost, une nouvelle technique a été proposé pour l'équilibrage des tension d'entrée d'un onduleur NPC. En utilisant un outil appelé TPtool, un étude de la stabilité large signal par "Higher-Order-Singular-Value-Decomposition" a été présenté et comparé avec une méthode basée sur les modèles Takagi-Sugeno pour des systèmes non-linéaires. Finalement, l'onduleur 2-Niveaux est comparé avec deux multi-niveaux différents (NPP et NPC) en termes de disponibilité, en prenant en compte les niveaux de redondance des convertisseurs. Pour analyser la disponibilité, a été considérée la théorie des chaines de Markov et pour l'implémentation, le logiciel GRIF a été utilisé

It is a platitude that morality is normative, but a substantive and interesting question whether morality is normative in a robust and important way; and although it is often assumed that morality is indeed robustly normative, that view is by no means uncontroversial, and a compelling argument for it is conspicuously lacking. In this paper, I provide such an argument. I argue, based on plausible claims about the relationship between moral wrongs and moral criticizability, and the relationship between criticizability and normative reasons, that moral facts necessarily confer normative reasons upon moral agents.

Ortega's Meditations On Technology displays a number of rhetorical strategies, especiallythe functions of platitude, paradox and dissociation. This article analyses the relations between rhet-oric and the theme of Ortega's essay. RESUMEN Meditacion de la tecnica abunda en recursos retoricos entre los que sobresalen la perogrullada, la paradoja y la disociacion. El presente ensayo indaga en la relacion entre retorica y tematica en el texto orteguiano.

This paper considers contradictory functions of public relations experts especially obvious in crisis situations. On the one hand, a PR manager is expected to be loyal to the company where he/she works, and on the other, to think about the public interest. Is it possible to expect the truth and ethics from PR persons under such conditions? Critical situations have shown that it is almost impossible. The best proof of this is the tragedy in Japan supporting the platitude that the truth becomes a victim of a PR person in critical situations.

One thing nearly all epistemologists agree upon is that Gettier cases are decisive counterexamples to the tripartite analysis of knowledge; whatever else is true of knowledge, it is not merely belief that is both justified and true. They now agree that knowledge is not justified true belief because this is consistent with there being too much luck present in the cases, and that knowledge excludes such luck. This is to endorse what has become known as the ‘anti-luck platitude’. But what if generations of philosophers have been mistaken about this, blinded at least partially by a deeply entrenched professional bias? There has been another, albeit minority, response to Gettier: to deny that the cases are counterexamples at all. Stephen Hetherington, a principal and vocal proponent of this view, advances what he calls the ‘Knowing Luckily Proposal’. If Hetherington is correct, this would call for a major re-evaluation and re-orientation of post-Gettier analytic epistemology, since much of it assumes the anti-...

It is a platitude among decision theorists that agents should choose their actions so as to maximize expected value. But exactly how to define expected value is contentious. Evidential decision theory (henceforth EDT), causal decision theory (henceforth CDT), and a theory proposed by Ralph Wedgwood that this essay will call benchmark theory (BT) all advise agents to maximize different types of expected value. Consequently, their verdicts sometimes conflict. In certain famous cases of conflict—medical Newcomb problems—CDT and BT seem to get things right, while EDT seems to get things wrong. In other cases of conflict, including some recent examples suggested by Andy Egan, EDT and BT seem to get things right, while CDT seems to get things wrong. In still other cases, EDT and CDT seems to get things right, while BT gets things wrong.It's no accident, this essay claims, that all three decision theories are subject to counterexamples. Decision rules can be reinterpreted as voting rules, where the voters are the agent's possible future selves. The problematic examples have the structure of voting paradoxes. Just as voting paradoxes show that no voting rule can do everything we want, decision-theoretic paradoxes show that no decision rule can do everything we want. Luckily, the so-called “tickle defense” establishes that EDT, CDT, and BT will do everything we want in a wide range of situations. Most decision situations, this essay argues, are analogues of voting situations in which the voters unanimously adopt the same set of preferences. In such situations, all plausible voting rules and all plausible decision rules agree.

The possibilities of depicting non-existents, depicting non-particulars and depictive misrepresentation are frequently cited as grounds for denying the platitude that depiction is mediated by resemblance. I first argue that these problems are really a manifestation of the more general problem of intentionality. I then show how there is a plausible solution to the general problem of intentionality which is consonant with the platitude.

Anti-luck epistemology is an approach to analyzing knowledge that takes as a starting point the widely-held assumption that knowledge must exclude luck. Call this the anti-luck platitude. As Duncan Pritchard (2005) has suggested, there are three stages constituent of anti-luck epistemology, each which specifies a different philosophical requirement: these stages call for us to first give an account of luck; second, specify the sense in which knowledge is incompatible with luck; and finally, show what conditions must be satisfied in order to block the kind of luck with which knowledge was argued to be incompatible. What I’ll show here is that the modal account of luck offers a plausible story at the first stage and leads naturally to equally plausible lines to take at the second and third stages, at which a safety condition on knowledge is squarely motivated. There are, however, recent challenges—advanced by Jonathan Kvanvig (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 77: 272–281, 2008); Kelly Becker (2007); and Jennifer Lackey (Australasian Journal of Philosophy 86(2):255–267, 2008), among others—to the plausibility of the safety-based anti-luck project I’ve sketched here at each of its three stages of development. Once I’ve made precise the challenges, I’ll show why none implies that we abandon the commitments of the safety-based anti-luck project at any of its stages. What we should conclude, then, is that a safety-condition on knowledge is motivated by independently defensible accounts of (1) what luck is; and (2) just how knowledge should be thought incompatible with it.

According to Jackson, Pettit & Smith (2000), "restricted particularism" is not affected by their supervenience-based consideration against particularism but, they claim, suffer from a different difficulty, roughly that it would violate the platitude about moral argument that, in debating controversial moral issues, a central role is played by various similarity claims. I present a defense of "restricted particularism" from this objection, which accommodates the platitudinous character of the claim that ordinary participants in conversations concerning the evaluative are committed to descriptive similarities and differences being relevant in the way described by Jackson, Pettit and Smith, to moral similarities and differences. My defense exploits a presuppositional component congenial to response-dependent proposals such as Lewis's (1989)

By defining both depictive and linguistic representation as kinds of symbol system, Nelson Goodman attempts to undermine the platitude that, whereas linguistic representation is mediated by convention, depiction is mediated by resemblance. I argue that Goodman is right to draw a strong analogy between the two kinds of representation, but wrong to draw the counterintuitive conclusion that depiction is not mediated by resemblance.

Translation is not just ‘a window opened on another world’, or some such pious platitude. Rather, translation is a channel opened, often not without a certain reluctance, through which foreign infl...

The EU has increasingly committed itself to fusing security and development. Developmental approaches to security are routinely seen as integral to the EU’s distinctive foreign policy identity. This paper finds, however, that much work remains to be done to implement this commitment. Few in the EU would doubt that development and security go hand in hand, but differences abound over what this implies for the allocation of finite resources and the nature of diplomatic engagements. CEPS Working Documents are intended to give an indication of work being conducted within CEPS research programmes and to stimulate reactions from other experts in the field. Unless otherwise indicated, the views expressed are attributable only to the author in a personal capacity and not to any institution with which he is associated.

It has been claimed that “the central problem of relativism is one of giving it a coherent formulation, making the doctrine more than the platitude that differently situated people may judge differ ...

The romance between Botho and Lene in this novel is founded on a ‘lover's discourse’ (Roland Barthes), that is to say an escape from the description of human behaviour in conventional and impoverishing categories. However, the lovers’ view of each other as ‘special’ and ‘indefinable’ is undermined by other characters, who consciously and unconsciously reintegrate them and their experiences into the readily intelligible template of an officer's premarital affair with a lower-class girl. It is this, and not social pressures per se, that destroys their love. Moreover, Botho himself unwittingly introduces this platitude into his relationship with Lene, thereby destroying it from within. Indeed his initial attraction to her, which he claims is founded on her ‘difference’, is in fact based on seeing in her the artlessness of a simple, unspoilt girl – a stereotype not borne out by Lene's conduct and in any case false to the basis of their intimacy in the non-defining lover's discourse. After his break with Lene and return to the world of platitude, Botho comes to share its desire to reintegrate those who see themselves as living outside its confines, as can be seen from his treatment of his friend Rexin.

The word topos is greek and denotes a place. Later on, it took on the meaning of the latin locus communis-literally "common place". The English word "commonplace" is rendered in the Oxford English Dictionary as "an ordinary topic of conversation" or "an everyday saying; a platitude". In my paper i would like to stress the existential aspect of the topic, related to the "deep" topics of enemity and conflict, of friendship and love and care, themes that are reiterated and re-established in the more or less artificial settings that we call schooling and education. This leads me to the question of the transcendental, or rather the work of the transcendental in the activity of education. The main point is that the transcendental is not far away or beyond of our real life, but has its place and setting in that very life, inside the life we live. My argument here starts with a thought figure sifted from g.w.f. Hegel's logic, the finite-infinite relation presented in the first book under the heading of the doctrine of being. There is, in short, an inner and intimate relationship between the finite and the infinite, the real and the utopian, the here and the beyond. I shall argue that hegel's dialectic configures an everyday, existential and tran-scendental thinking relevant for education. Resumen Topos es la palabra griega que denota un lugar. Este termino tomo posteriormente el significado del latA­n locus communis -literalmente, "lugar comun"-. Y el diccionario de Oxford traduce la palabra inglesa "common-place" como "un tema ordinario de conversacion" que viene a ser lo que se entiende en castellano por "topico" o "lugar comun". En mi articulo me gustaria subrayar el aspecto existencial de los "topicos", tales como por ejemplo, la enemistad y el conflicto, o la amistad y amor; que son temas recurrentes y reestablecidos en los escenarios mas o menos artificiales a los que llamamos escolarizacion y educacion. Esto me conduce hacia la cuestion de lo trascendental o, mejor, al papel que desempena lo trascendental en la actividad educativa. El punto principal es que lo trascendental no es lo que esta lejano o mas alla de nuestra existencia ordinaria, sino que se encuentra dentro de la misma vida que vivimos. Mi argumento comienza con la consideracion de la intima e intrinseca relacion entre lo finito y lo infinito, lo real y lo utopico, el aqui y el mas alla, tal como la presenta Hegel en el epigrafe dedicado a la doctrina del ser, en el primer libro de su logica. Sostendre que la dialectica Hegeliana configura un modo de pensar cotidiano, existencial y trascendental, que tiene una gran relevancia para la educacion.

This article discusses a series of concrete doable steps that radiologists need to take to save the field from commoditization and disrespect and instead turn it into one that provides high value to patients, referring physicians, and hospitals.

The current gas turbine regulation systems are based on complex architectures that manufacturers tend to make more modular with more cost effective technologies while ensuring a greater or equal level of reliability. In this context, the fuel system health monitoring, which aims to identify critical hydraulic components dysfunction, allows to reduce maintenance costs, to improve maintainability level and to ensure gas turbine availability. The present study focuses on the development of performant and robust diagnosis methods for the detection and isolation of faults affecting primary fuel system hydraulic functions. Existing nonlinear model based residual generation methods are presented and applied to the fuel system. The analytical approach for decoupling, combined with extended Kalman filters, helps fault isolation by generating residual structures. A new approach based on differential flatness theory is proposed for nonlinear systems fault diagnosis with an application to the fuel system. Sliding mode differentiators are used to estimate derived signals that are necessary for the application of some residual generation methods. Numerical simulations illustrate the efficiency of obtained results. An experimental application is presented using a real data set from a partial test bench provided by Turbomeca company of the SAFRAN group., Les systèmes de régulation des turbomoteurs actuels sont basés sur des architectures complexes que les constructeurs tendent à rendre plus modulaires avec des technologies plus économiques tout en garantissant un niveau de fiabilité supérieur ou égal. Dans ce contexte, la surveillance du circuit carburant, qui a pour but de déceler les dysfonctionnements des composants hydrauliques critiques, permet de réduire le coût de maintenance, d'améliorer le niveau de maintenabilité et d'assurer la disponibilité des turbomoteurs. La présente étude porte sur l'élaboration de méthodes de diagnostic performantes et robustes permettant la détection et la localisation des défauts impactant les fonctions hydrauliques primaires du circuit carburant. Des méthodes existantes de génération de résidus à base de modèles non linéaires sont présentées et appliquées au cas du circuit carburant. L'approche analytique pour le découplage, combinée avec des filtres de Kalman étendus, permet la structuration des résidus pour assurer la localisation des défauts. Une nouvelle approche basée sur la théorie de platitude différentielle est proposée pour le diagnostic de défauts des systèmes non linéaires avec une application au cas du circuit carburant. Les différentiateurs à modes glissants sont utilisés pour l'estimation des dérivées de signaux nécessaires à l'application de certaines méthodes de génération de résidus. Des simulations numériques illustrent la pertinence des résultats obtenus. Une application expérimentale est présentée en utilisant un jeu de données réelles issues d'un banc d'essais partiel et fournies par la société Turbomeca du groupe SAFRAN.

Duncan Pritchard (2007: 277) rightly observes that ‘[i]t is a platitude in epistemology to say that knowledge excludes luck’. On the reading relevant to present purposes, this epistemological anti-luck platitude is a generalization intended to capture widespread intuitive reactions to Gettier Cases: cases similar to those Gettier (1963) employed to show that justified true belief doesn’t suffice for knowledge.1 The pertinent reading of the anti-luck platitude is the one that Dancy (1985: 134) expresses in the following passage: This was just the point of the Gettier counterexamples; nothing in the tripartite definition [of knowledge as epistemically justified true belief] excluded knowledge by luck.

Firstly, we study flatness of multi-input control-affine systems. We give a complete geometric characterization of systems that become static feedback linearizable after a one-fold prolongation of a suitably chosen control. They form a particular class of flat systems, that is of differential weight equal to n+m+l, where n is the dimension of the state-space and m is the number of controls. We illustrate our results by several examples. Secondly, we give a complete geometric characterization of systems locally static feedback equivalent to a triangular form compatible with the m-chained form. We analyze and solve their flatness. We discuss singularities and provide a system of first order PDE's to be solved in order to find all x-flat outputs. We illustrate our results by an application to a mechanical system: the coin rolling without slipping on a moving table., Premièrement, nous avons caractérisé les systèmes multi-entrées, affines par rapport aux contrôles, linéarisables dynamiquement via une pré-intégration d'un contrôle bien choisi. Ils forment une classe particulière de systèmes plats : ils ont un poids différentiel de n+m+1, où m est le nombre de contrôles et n est la dimension de l'état. Nous avons présenté des formes normales compatibles avec les sorties plates minimales et décrit toutes les sorties plates minimales. Nous avons appliqué nos résultats à plusieurs exemples. Deuxièmement, nous avons décrit les systèmes multi-entrées statiquement équivalents à une forme triangulaire compatible avec la forme multi-chaînée. Ensuite, la platitude de ces systèmes a été analysée et résolue. Nous avons discuté les singularités dans l'espace de contrôle et déterminé toutes les sorties plates. Nous avons appliqué ces résultats au système mécanique d'une pièce roulant sans glissement sur une table en mouvement.