Ce travail s’est construit en partant d’une déclaration de Ferdinand de Saussure présentant le langage comme un « milieu intermédiaire ». Ce propos de Saussure n’a d’abord existé que sous la forme orale, mais fut transcrit dans les notes de cours de ses auditeurs ; il figure finalement dans l’édition critique du Cours, due à Rudolf Engler (que l’on doit considérer comme le véritable éditeur de Saussure). Librement inspiré de la Généalogie de la morale de Nietzsche, cette étude poursuit le but d’enquêter généalogiquement sur les présupposés des principales écoles linguistiques du 20ème siècle (néo-grammairiens, structuralisme, grammaire générative, fonctionnalisme, cognitivisme à la manière de Rosch et Varela). L’enquête généalogique vise à montrer que la conception dite « théorie du reflet » a ses racines dans le pessimisme romantique. Ce nouveau positionnement devrait permettre d’élaborer une nouvelle orientation (justifiant la revendication d’une « fondation constitutive »), par le recours méthodique à la phénoménologie ainsi qu’à l’outil de la Gestalt, issue de la psychologie de même nom. Il faut voir le « milieu intermédiaire » comme métaphore équivalente aux champs sémantiques, ce qui conduit à intégrer dans ce travail un examen critique des précurseurs dans cette voie que sont Jost Trier et Els Oksaar. / This work mainly deals with a statement of Ferdinand de Saussure, describing language as « milieu intermédiaire » (which might be named in english : « intermediary mental space », in accordance to Fauconnier’s « mental space ») ; Saussure’s statement was only in spoken form, but fortunately transcribed by listeners of his lectures in Geneva. Freely inspired from Nietzsche‘s Genealogy of morals, this study means to enquire into the main XXth century linguistic schools (neo-grammarians, structuralism, generative grammar, fonctionalism, cognitive sciences as with Varela and Rosch), which should make it possible to elaborate a new orientation of this science (justifying the claim of a « fondation constitutive »). This research aims at thoroughly recasting the method through the screen of phenomenology (including recourse to the « Gestalt », of the same-named psychology). The « intermediary mental space » is to be seen as an eq! uivalent of the semantic fields, which had led me to survey – as an important part of my work - the studies of the precursors in this direction, Jost Trier and Els Oksaar, but through a critical approach of their work.

Entropy, first introduced in thermodynamics, is used in a wide range of fields. Chapter 1 discusses some important theoretical and practical aspects of entropy: what is entropy, is it subjective or objective, and how to properly apply it to living organisms. Chapter 2 presents applications of entropy to evolution. Chapter 3 shows how cellulosic biofuel production can be improved. Chapter 4 shows how lattice vacancies influence the thermodynamic properties of materials. To determine the nature of thermodynamic entropy, Chapters 1 and 2 describe the roots, the conceptual history of entropy, as well as its path of development and application. From the viewpoint of physics, thermal entropy is a measure of useless energy stored in a system resulting from thermal motion of particles. Thermal entropy is a non-negative objective property. The negentropy concept, while mathematically correct, is physically misleading. This dissertation hypothesizes that concepts from thermodynamics and statistical mechanics can be used to define statistical measurements, similar to thermodynamic entropy, to summarize the convergence of processes driven by random inputs subject to deterministic constraints. A primary example discussed here is evolution in biological systems. As discussed in this dissertation, the first and second laws of thermodynamics do not translate directly into parallel laws for the biome. But, the fundamental principles on which thermodynamic entropy is based are also true for information. Based on these principles, it is shown that adaptation and evolution are stochastically deterministic. Chapter 3 discusses the hydrolysis of cellulose to glucose, which is a key reaction in renewable energy from biomass and in mineralization of soil organic matter to CO2. Conditional thermodynamic parameters, ΔhydG', ΔhydH', and ΔhydS', and equilibrium glucose concentrations are reported for the reaction C6H10O5(cellulose) + H2O(l) ⇄ C6H12O6(aq) as functions of temperature from 0 to 100°C. Activity coefficients of aqueous glucose solution were determined as a function of temperature. The results suggest that producing cellulosic biofuels at higher temperatures will result in higher conversion. Chapter 4 presents the data and a theory relating the linear term in the low temperature heat capacity to lattice vacancy concentration. The theory gives a quantitative result for disordered vacancies, but overestimates the contribution from ordered vacancies because ordering leads to a decreased influence of vacancies on heat capacity.

Les réseaux d’entreprises sont des formes organisationnelles conduisant à un certain nombre d’avantages pour les entreprises qui en sont membres. Pour ces dernières, cette forme organisationnelle présente l’intérêt de ne pas supprimer leur autonomie ni leur indépendance, tout en bénéficiant des avantages liés aux rapprochements inter-organisationnels. De par cette particularité, les réseaux comprennent ainsi deux niveaux organisationnels distincts mais indissociables : le niveau organisationnel des entreprises membres et le niveau organisationnel du réseau. Avant de bénéficier des avantages auxquels conduit l’organisation en réseau, il est nécessaire qu’il soit construit par les organisations qui en sont à l’origine. Dans le temps, la construction du réseau conduit à un certain renforcement de son degré de néguentropie, se traduisant par une complexification sur le long-terme. Cette complexification s’opère tout en conservant l’autonomie et l’indépendance des organisations qui en sont membres. Peu de recherches se sont intéressées à cette question de la construction des réseaux. Cette thèse propose d’y répondre un utilisant l’approche par les oppositions paradoxales (approche par les paradoxes et approche par les dialectiques), qui permet de prendre en considération l’indissociabilité du double niveau organisationnel des réseaux. Par le biais d’une étude de cas appliquée à un réseau d’entreprises dans le secteur horticole de la région angevine, nous cherchons à identifier comment les objectifs de chacun des deux niveaux organisationnels contribuent à la construction du réseau en question et au renforcement de son degré de néguentropie. / Business networks are organizational forms that lead to a number of benefits for business members. For the latter, this organizational form has the advantage of not eliminating their autonomy or their independence, while benefiting from the advantages linked to inter-organizational reconciliations. In this way, the networks thus comprise two distinct but inseparable organizational levels : the organizational level of the member companies and the organizational level of the network. Before benefiting from the advantages of networking, it is necessary that it be built by the organizations that are at the origin of it. In time, the construction of the network leads to a certain strengthening of its degree of negentropy, resulting in a long-term complexification. This complexity takes place while preserving the autonomy and independence of the member organizations. Little attention has been paid to this question of network construction. This thesis proposes to answer it using a paradoxical approach (paradoxical approach and dialectical approach), which makes it possible to take into account the indissociability of the dual organizational level of networks. Through a case study applied to a network of companies in the horticultural sector of the Angevin region, we seek to identify how the objectives of each of the two organizational levels contribute to the construction of the network in question and to the reinforcement of its degree of negentropy.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T14:55:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 NielsenCD_DISSERT.pdf: 3425927 bytes, checksum: 2a460ebc6b49fe832a4f35b40786bc47 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-12-20 / Conventional methods to solve the problem of blind source separation nonlinear, in general, using series of restrictions to obtain the solution, often leading to an imperfect separation of the original sources and high computational cost. In this paper, we propose an alternative measure of independence based on information theory and uses the tools of artificial intelligence to solve problems of blind source separation linear and nonlinear later. In the linear model applies genetic algorithms and R?nyi of negentropy as a measure of independence to find a separation matrix from linear mixtures of signals using linear form of waves, audio and images. A comparison with two types of algorithms for Independent Component Analysis widespread in the literature. Subsequently, we use the same measure of independence, as the cost function in the genetic algorithm to recover source signals were mixed by nonlinear functions from an artificial neural network of radial base type. Genetic algorithms are powerful tools for global search, and therefore well suited for use in problems of blind source separation. Tests and analysis are through computer simulations / Os m?todos convencionais para resolver o problema de separa??o cega de fontes n?o lineares em geral utilizam uma s?rie de restri??es ? obten??o da solu??o, levando muitas vezes a uma n?o perfeita separa??o das fontes originais e alto custo computacional. Neste trabalho, prop?e-se uma alternativa de medida de independ?ncia com base na teoria da informa??o e utilizam-se ferramentas da intelig?ncia artificial para resolver problemas de separa??o cega de fontes lineares e posteriormente n?o lineares. No modelo linear aplica-se algoritmos gen?ticos e a Negentropia de R?nyi como medida de independ?ncia para encontrar uma matriz de separa??o linear a partir de misturas lineares usando sinais de forma de ondas, ?udios e imagens. Faz-se uma compara??o com dois tipos de algoritmos de An?lise de Componentes Independentes bastante difundidos na literatura. Posteriormente, utiliza-se a mesma medida de independ?ncia como fun??o custo no algoritmo gen?tico para recuperar sinais de fontes que foram misturadas por fun??es n?o lineares a partir de uma rede neural artificial do tipo base radial. Algoritmos gen?ticos s?o poderosas ferramentas de pesquisa global e, portanto, bem adaptados para utiliza??o em problemas de separa??o cega de fontes. Os testes e as an?lises se d?o atrav?s de simula??es computacionais

Cette thèse a pour objet d’aborder l’information en tant que lien essentiel entre les sciences de la nature et les sciences humaines. Il y est principalement fait état de principes de la science physique, alliés à un ensemble d’approches scientifiques issues, notamment, des théories de la complexité, du chaos, de l’information, de l’auto-organisation, des émergences et des écosystèmes. Les lois de la thermodynamique jouent un rôle central dans ce contexte, où l’organisation et la néguentropie sont directement inscrites dans le champ de la production d’informations. Il y est en particulier fait référence à la Loi de maximisation d’entropie (ou, autrement dit, de dissipation d’énergie), dont l’incidence sur le fonctionnement et le comportement des structures dissipatives que sont les humains est soulignée via un large éventail d’exemples pris dans la vie courante, incidences fondées à la base sur le rôle omniprésent de l’information. L’approche systémique, à laquelle il est fait appel dans un certain nombre de considérations, conduit ici à souligner en profondeur les incidences interactives de l’environnement (l’écosystème) - et des principes de la sélection naturelle qui le déterminent - avec le comportement humain et les phénomènes d’information qui définissent celui-ci. Les applications de l’approche globale de cette thèse s’expriment dans une grande variété de domaines, dont également ceux de la survie, du bien-être, de la conversation et de la robotique. / This thesis aims at considering the information as essential link between the sciences of the nature and the human sciences. It is mainly refered to principles of the natural science, allied in a set of scientific stemming approaches, in particular, theories of the complexity, of chaos, of information, auto-organization, emergences and ecosystems. The laws of the thermodynamics play a central role in this context, where the organization and the negentropy make directly part of the field of information production. There is in particular refered to Law of maximization of entropy Production (or, in other words, of energy dissipation), among which the incidence on the functioning and the behavior of the human being as a dissipative structure is underlined via a wide range of examples taken in the common life, incidence basically established on the omnipresent role of the information. The systemics approach, to which it is brought up in a number of considerations, leads here to underline the interactive incidences of the environment (the ecosystem) - linked to the principles of the natural selection which determines its evolution - with the human behavior linked to the information phenomena which define it. The applications of the global approach of this thesis appear in a broad variety of domains, of which also those of the survival, the well-being, the conversation and robotics.