In this thesis, I examine Kant's conception of simultaneity in relation to the idea of the empirical determinacy of time. I begin by introducing the concepts of time and simultaneity in Newton and Leibniz, and demonstrate how these two modern conceptions of time contributed to Kant's understanding of simultaneity and cosmological unity. It will be argued that Kant's conception of simultaneity was intended to account for the possibility of the rational determination of time, and that for this purpose, Kant sought to reinterpret the Principle of Sufficient Reason in his early writings by linking it to the simultaneity-relation between substances in reciprocal interaction, thus arguing for the possibility of coexistence between substances. This provides a way to understand how the unity of the world is fundamental to Kant's understanding of the rational determination of time and space. In Kant's critical period the relation of simultaneity is analysed as empirically realized through mutual interaction, but the pure manifold of time is thought to be intuitional, which requires the implementation of relational categories in order to be reproduced in experience. In the Third Analogy of the First Critique, the concept of mutual interaction is analysed in terms of balanced forces, which provides a means of describing the evolution of a dynamical system over time. It provides the process by which the connection between different dynamical systems is possible, and also for the synchronization of different clocks.

In the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas developed two models for how humans may speak of God - either by the analogy of proportion or by the analogy of proportionality. Aquinas's doctrines initiated a theological debate concerning analogy that spanned several centuries. In the 18th century, there appeared two closely related arguments for atheism which both utilized analogy for their own purposes. In this thesis, I show that one argument, articulated by the French materialist Paul-Henri Thiry Baron d'Holbach, is successful in showing that God-talk, as conceived of using the analogy of proportion, is unintelligible non-sense. In addition, I show that another argument, articulated by Anthony Collins (Vindication of Divine Attributes), George Berkeley (chapter IV of Alciphron), and David Hume (chapter XII of Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion) can be restructured into an argument for the position that the analogy of proportionality makes the distinction between atheism and theism merely verbal. Since both of these are undesirable consequences for the theist, I conclude that Aquinas's doctrine of analogy does not withstand the assault of 18th century atheists. / Master of Arts

This theoretical and experimental investigation has proven that accurate results can be obtained by using the hydraulic analogy. The analogy can be used in either the subsonic, transonic or supersonic range. The theory was intended to be general and showed that an exact analogy exists between free surface water flow and two dimensional gas flow. By theoretical investigation, a new channel was proposed and experiments were conducted. Remarkable correlation between theory and experiment was found and it is believed that the method presented in this thesis represents a closer approximation to the actual flow of air than any of the other present day analogies. It has been shown that by using the analogy, the pressure, density, and temperature can be easily obtained. In addition, the shock wave phenomenon can be easily observed. This analogy would be an excellent took in demonstrating the different types of flow around bodies. Analogy research in the field of supersonic aerodynamics is not only justified, but also necessary since the present day experimental technique in wind tunnels present economical and scientific difficulties. A large amount of knowledge can be obtained from analogy research in this field. The analogy described in the paper gives accurate results; the proposed apparatus is inexpensive, and experiments can be performed in a very short time. / Master of Science

Biologically inspired design (BID) is a widespread and growing movement in modern design, pulled in part by the need for environmentally sustainable design and pushed partly by rapid advances in biology and the desire for creativity and innovation in design. Yet, our current understanding of cognition in BID is limited and at present there are few computational methods or tools available for supporting its practice. In this dissertation, I develop a cognitive model of BID, build computational methods and tools for supporting its practice, and describe results from deploying the methods and the tools in a Georgia Tech BID class. One key and novel finding in my cognitive study of BID is the surprisingly large degree to which biological analogues influence problem formulation and understanding in addition to generation of design solutions. I call the process by which a biological analogue influences the evolution of the problem formulation analogical problem evolution. I use the method of grounded theory to develop a knowledge schema called SR.BID (for structured representations for biologically inspired design) for representing design problem formulations. I show through case study analysis that SR.BID provides a useful analytic framework for understanding the two-way interaction between problems and solutions. I then develop two tools based on the SR.BID schema to scaffold the processes of problem formulation and analogue evaluation in BID. I deployed the two tools, the four-box method of problem specification and the T-chart method of analogical evaluation, in a Georgia Tech BID class. I show that with minimal training, the four-box method was used by students to complete design problem specifications in 2011 and 2012 with 75% of students achieving better than 80% accuracy. Finally I describe a web-based application for interactively supporting BID practice including problem formulation and analogue evaluation. Thus, my dissertation develops a cognitive model of analogical problem evolution in BID, a knowledge schema for representing problem formulations, a computational technique for evaluating biological analogues, and an interactive web-based tool for supporting BID practice. Through a better cognitive understanding of BID and computational methods and tools for supporting its practice, it also contributes to computational creativity.

La thèse est relative à la compréhension de la physique et au contrôle des émissions acoustiques dans les jets turbulents simples et double-flux. La génération du bruit est associé à des structures turbulentes de grandes tailles caractéristiques et à la turbulence de petites échelles. i Il est maintenant admis que les structures de grandes échelles sont des instabilités se propageant dans un champ moyen turbulent. Ici elle sont analysées sur la base de la théorie linéaire non locale appelées PSE pour Parabolized Stability Equations. Ces instabilités inflexionnelles associées à la présence de couche de cisaillement sont des modes de Kelvin-Helmhotz. Dans le cas du jet sous détentu des cellules de choc apparaissent et influencent très fortement les taux d'amplification et fréquences des modes propres. Divers écoulements sont investigués, de faible nombre de Mach au jet double-flux supersonique dont le champ moyen provient de simulation LES (Cerfacs). Le champ acoustique lointain est déterminé par l'analogie de Ffowcs-Williams-Hawkings. Ensuite une étude de sensibilité originales des instabilités et du bruits par rapport à divers forage locaux est produite sur la base deséquations de stabilité PSE adjointes. Les fortes sensibilités apparaissent dans les couches de cisaillements et aussi dans une moindre mesure autour des cellules de chocs. Les sensibilités sont plus complexes pour le jet double flux et dépendent du mode instable étudié lié soit au jet primaire soit au jet secondaire. Les sensibilités maximales se trouvent auvoisinage de la sortie de la tuyère et à la limite ou à l’extérieur du cne potentiel. En complément une étudesur le jet simple flux permet de mettre en rapport les approches de quantification d'incertitude et la sensibilité calculée par des équations adjointes. Les résultats de sensibilité vont permettre de contribuer à proposer des stratégies de contrôle aero-acoustique dans les jets de turboréacteurs. / This thesis leads to a better knowledge of the physic and of the control of acoustic radiation in turbulent single and dual-stream jets.It is known that jet noise is produced by the turbulence present in the jet that can be separated in large coherent structures and fine structures. It is also concluded that these large-scale coherent structures are the instability waves of the jet and can be modelled as the flow field generated by the evolution of instability waves in a given turbulent jet. The growth rate and the streamwise wavenumber of a disturbance with a fixed frequency and azimuthal wavenumber are obtained by solving the non-local approach called Parabolized Stability Equations (PSE). Typically the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability owes its origin into the shear layer of the flow and, moreover, the inflection points of the mean velocity profile has a crucial importance in the instability of such a flow. The problem is more complex in case of imperfectly expanded jet where shock-cells manifest inside the jet and strongly interaction with the instability waves has been observed. Several configurations are tested in this thesis, from a subsonic incompressible case to the dual-stream underexpanded supersonic jet obtained by solving Large Eddy Simulations LES (CERFACS). The acoustic far-field is determined by the Ffowcs-Williams-Hawkings acoustic analogy. Then a sensitivity analysis of the jet with respect to external forcing acting in a localized region of the flow are investigated by solving the adjoint PSE equations. High sensitivity appeared in the shear-layer of the flow showing, also, a high dependency in the streamwise and radial direction. In the case of dual-stream jet the propagation of the instability in the inner and outer shear layer should be taken into account. This configuration leads to two different distinct Klevin-Helmholtz modes that are computed separately. The highest sensitivity is determined in the exit of the nozzle outside of the potential core of the jet. In addition, comparison between sensitivity computed by adjoint equations and Uncertainty Quantification (UQ) methods has been done, in the case of a single-stream jet, showing a link between these two methods for small variations of the input parameters. This result leads to the application of a lower cost tool for mathematical analysis of complex problem of industrial interest. This work and in particular the sensitivity theory investigated in this thesis contribute to a development of a new noise control strategy for aircraft jet.

N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors are glutamate-gated calcium permeable ion channels that play a key role in excitatory synaptic transmission and plasticity, and their dysfunction underlies several neuropsychiatric disorders. The overactivation of NMDA receptors by tonically increased ambient glutamate can lead to excitotoxicity, associated with various acute and chronic neurological disorders, such as ischemia, Alzheimer and Parkinson's disease, epilepsy or depression. On the opposite, NMDA receptor hypofunction is thought to be implicated in autism, schizophrenia, or intellectual disability. Recent DNA screening for neurological and psychiatric patients revealed numerous mutations in genes encoding for NMDA receptor subunits. The activity of NMDA receptors is influenced by a wide variety of allosteric modulators, including neurosteroids that could both inhibit and potentiate the activity of NMDA receptors, which makes them promising therapeutic targets. In this thesis, we describe new classes of neurosteroid analogues which possess structural modifications at carbons C3 and C17 of the steroidal core, and analogues without D-ring region (perhydrophenanthrenes). We evaluated the structure-activity relationship (SAR) for their modulatory effect on recombinant GluN1/GluN2B receptors. Our results...

Who provides better inputs to new product ideation tasks: problem solvers with expertise in the area for which new products are to be developed, or problem solvers from "analogous" markets that are distant but share an analogous problem or need? Conventional wisdom appears to suggest that target market expertise is indispensable, which is why most managers searching for new ideas tend to stay within their own market context even when they do search outside their firms' boundaries. However, in a unique symmetric experiment that isolates the effect of market origin, we find evidence for the opposite: Although solutions provided by problem solvers from analogous markets show lower potential for immediate use, they demonstrate substantially higher levels of novelty. Also compared to established novelty drivers, this effect appears highly relevant from a managerial perspective: we find that including problem solvers from analogous markets vs. the target market accounts for almost two thirds of the well-known effect of involving lead users instead of average problem solvers. This effect is further amplified when the analogous distance between the markets increases, i.e., when searching in far vs. near analogous markets. Finally, results indicate that the analogous market effect is particularly strong in the upper tail of the novelty distribution, which again underscores the effect's practical importance. All this suggests that it might pay to systematically search across firm-external sources of innovation that were formerly out of scope for most managers. (authors' abstract)

Well developed innovation processes are becoming an essential component to the continued success of a large number of industries. Such processes build upon the evolutionary steps taken to advance innovation. In light of the need for innovation, companies and engineers must create the most efficient processes for their systems or product development teams. A step toward the creation of such processes, as well as the corresponding teaching of such processes in higher-education, is the development of a baseline of current best practices. This paper considers a contribution to this effort in the form of a study of a specific group of innovation practitioners. The study was created to probe a group of leaders in the engineering design domain using technical, demographic, and short answer questions. Various analysis methods are used to obtain a fundamental view of the answers to the questions but also the demographics of the participant group. Two deductive analysis methods are used, the first a set of hypotheses are explored from participant responses, and second a qualitative technique to understand links in the short answer portion of the study. An additional inductive approach is used, consisting of a correlating approach to compare responses to questions and understand trends across the participants. Results from the analysis emphasize the current perceptions of innovation by the participants and opportunities to refine our search for better innovation practices. / text

La recherche en bruit de combustion est de nos jours majoritairement consacrée au développement d'outils de calcul du bruit rayonné par les flammes. Les méthodes actuelles de CFD telles que la LES ou la DNS sont capables de fournir le champ acoustique rayonné par des sources de bruit, mais elles sont cependant limitées à des domaines de faible taille, ceci dû à leur fort coût de calcul. Pour surmonter cette limitation, on a vu l'émergence de méthodes hybrides. Dans cette approche, les sources de bruit sont découplées du son rayonné. Les sources sont alors calculées par les méthodes de DNS et de LES tandis que l'analogie acoustique permet de calculer le son rayonné par des codes acoustiques, moins coûteux en temps de calcul.L'objet de cette étude est de développer un outil numérique sur la base de l'analogie acoustique de Phillips pour de faibles nombres de Mach. Il permet de prendre en compte l'impact des conditions limites sur le champ acoustique résultant. La LES et le code de calcul acoustique développé ont été utilisés pour évaluer le bruit produit par une flamme turbulente confinée. Les deux techniques donnent des résultats en accord tant que les bonnes quantités sont comparées: il a été observé que le signal de pression obtenu directement à partir de la LES contient une quantité non négligeable d'hydrodynamique, laquelle doit être négligée si on cherche à comparer seulement les champs acoustiques issus des deux codes.L'hypothèse d'un nombre de Mach faible est totalement réaliste si l'on considère l'écoulement présent dans une chambre de combustion. Elle conduit à des simplifications significatives lorsque les analogies acoustiques sont considérées. Cependant, cette hypothèse ne peut pas être utilisée pour l'écoulement en amont (entrée d'air, compresseur) ni en aval (turbine, tuyère) des chambres de combustion aéronautiques. Un outil numérique a été développé pour pallier ce problème. Il est basé sur les équations d'Euler Quasi-1D, qui prennent en compte des écoulements convectifs, non isentropiques et non isenthalpiques. Cet outil permet d'estimer les conditions limites acoustiques qui doivent être imposées sur les entrées/sorties d'une chambre de combustion pour prendre en compte la présence d'un écoulement de nombre de Mach non négligeable, alors que les calculs acoustiques sont eux effectués sous cette hypothèse fortement restrictive. / Today, much of the current effort in combustion noise is the development of efficient numerical tools to calculate the noise radiated by flames. Although unsteady CFD methods such as LES or DNS can directly provide the acoustic field radiated by noise sources, this evaluation is limited to small domains due to high computational costs. Hybrid methods have been developed to overcome this limitation. In these schemes, the noise sources are decoupled from the radiated sound. The sources are still calculated by DNS or LES codes whereas the radiated sound is evaluated by acoustic codes using an acoustic analogy.In the present study, a numerical tool based on the Phllips' analogy for low Mach numbers flows has been developed. This tool accounts for the role of the boundary conditions in the resulting acoustic field. Both LES and the acoustic code developed here are used to assess the noise produced by a turbulent confined flame of a turbulent swirled-stabilized staged combustor. Good agreements are obtained between both techniques as long as the good quantities are compared: the pressure signal obtained directly from LES contains a non negligible amount of hydrodynamics that must be removed when a suitable acoustics-acoustics comparison is sought. The low Mach number assumption is completely realistic when considering the flow within a combustion chamber; it also conducts to considerable simplifications when leading with acoustic analogies. However, it cannot be used for the upstream (air-intake, compressors) and downstream (turbines, nozzle) of an aeronautical combustion chamber. A numerical tool is developed based on the quasi-1D Linearized Euler Equations in order to account for convective, non-isentropic and non-isenthalpic flows. By means of this tool, it is possible to estimate the acoustic boundary conditions that should be imposed at the inlet/oultlet of a given combustion chamber when performing low-Mach number acoustic computations.

Pourquoi une thèse sur Rabelais, en 2012 ? Certes : en apparence on ne présente plus l’écrivain, qui s’inscrit ànotre Panthéon, sans conteste, comme l’un des « pères » de la littérature française. Pourtant, le constat quifonde notre propos, c’est qu’il y a, justement, une nécessité urgente à réintroduire Rabelais. Auprès du grandpublic – parce que les lecteurs la délaissent, souvent induits à penser qu’elle est illisible ou inactuelle. Leréintroduire, aussi, dans le discours de la critique généraliste, dont les recherches les plus stimulantes tendent àrejeter Rabelais, et son époque dans la sphère du non-littéraire. C’est aussi ce que les rares études sur laréception de l’écrivain indiquent : en suggérant qu’au-delà d’une série de reprises ponctuelles ou d’imitationsde second rang, l’auteur n’aurait pas eu de réelle postérité chez les écrivains modernes – et qu’il se serait heurtéà un « malentendu », sinon à une déconcertante « défiguration ». En somme, à l’époque moderne, l’oeuvre deRabelais s’identifie insidieusement à un objet du patrimoine : plus qu’à un objet littéraire – de rechercheslittéraires. Et en 2012, malgré soi, l’on en viendrait à reprendre les conclusions amères de Céline : que Rabelaisa « raté son coup ». Alors que faire ? Notre thèse sur les « fils de Rabelais », envisageant successivement les casde Nerval et d’Apollinaire, entend récuser ce constat accablant. En réhabilitant la notion de « fils » enlittérature, nous montrerons que Rabelais possède bel et bien une postérité dans la littérature moderne : qu’auXXIe siècle, son oeuvre réussit encore à faire parler d’elle – et à inspirer de nouveaux regards critiques. / Why present a thesis on Rabelais in 2012? Clearly, at first sight, we no longer need to showcase a writer who has undoubtedly earned his place in our Pantheon as one of the "fathers" of French literature. Yet, our whole thesis is based on the premise that there is a pressing need to revitalise Rabelais in our literary consciousness. Readers neglect his work – often led to believe that it is unintelligible or outdated – and the trend in the most stimulating of critical studies is to reject Rabelais and his era into the non-literary sphere. This is what the rare studies of how the writer was received show : they suggest that, aside from a series of one-off replications or substandard imitations, the author is not really a source of inspiration to modern writers – his legacy has come up against "misunderstanding" and has even bafflingly been "distorted". In short, in our modern age, Rabelais' work is insidiously identified as part of our heritage, rather than literary matter or a subject for literary study capable of inspiring critics and writers. If, in 2012, against our better judgment, we are tempted to concur with Céline's bitter conclusions: that Rabelais "failed in his design ". What should we do about it? The aim of our thesis on the "sons of Rabelais" is to challenge this damming conclusion, by considering successively Nerval’ and Apollinaire’ cases. Through a rehabilitation of the notion of a literary descendant or “son”, we will show that there is a clear thread between Rabelais and modern literature, and that in the 21st century, his work can still, and always still, succeed in attracting debate and discussion – inspiring fresh critical thought. Keywords : Rabelais – Nerval – Apollinaire – filiation – reception – posterity – analogy – manner.