Although having conscious experiences is a fundamental feature of our everyday life, our understanding of what consciousness is is very limited. According to one of the main conclusions of contemporary philosophy of mind, the qualitative aspect of consciousness seems to resist functionalisation, i.e. it cannot be adequately defined solely in terms of functional or causal roles, which leads to an epistemic gap between phenomenal and scientific knowledge. Phenomenal qualities, then, seem to be, in principle, unexplainable in scientific terms. As a reaction to this pessimistic conclusion it is a major trend in contemporary science of consciousness to turn away from subjective experiences and re-define the subject of investigations in neurological and behavioural terms. This move, however, creates a gap between scientific theories of consciousness, and the original phenomenon, which we are so intimately connected with. The thesis focuses on this gap. It is argued that it is possible to explain features of consciousness in scientific terms. The thesis argues for this claim from two directions. On the one hand, a specific identity theory is formulated connecting phenomenal qualities to certain intermediate level perceptual representations which are unstructured for central processes of the embedding cognitive system. This identity theory is hypothesised on the basis of certain similarities recognised between the phenomenal and the cognitive-representational domains, and then utilised in order to uncover further similarities between these two domains. The identity theory and the further similarities uncovered are then deployed in formulating explanations of the philosophically most important characteristics of the phenomenal domain—i.e. why phenomenal qualities resist functionalisation, and why the epistemic gap occurs. On the other hand, the thesis investigates and criticises existing models of reductive explanation. On the basis of a detailed analysis of how successful scientific explanations proceed a novel account of reductive explanation is proposed, which utilises so-called prior identities. Prior identities are prerequisites rather than outcomes of reductive explanations. They themselves are unexplained but are nevertheless necessary for mapping the features to be explained onto the features the explanation relies on. Prior identities are hypothesised in order to foster the formulation of explanatory claims accounting for target level phenomena in terms of base level processes—and they are justified if they help projecting base level explanations to new territories of the target level. The thesis concludes that the identity theory proposed is a prior identity, and the explanations of features of the phenomenal domain formulated with the aid of this identity are reductive explanations proper. In this sense, the thesis introduces the problem of phenomenal consciousness into scientific discourse, and therefore offers a bridge between the philosophy and the science of consciousness: it offers an approach to conscious experience which, on the one hand, tries to account for the philosophically most important features of consciousness, whereas, on the other hand, does it in a way which smoothly fits into the everyday practice of scientific research.

Femto access points (FAP) are low-power cellular base stations that are designed to be autonomously deployed by customers indoors. Due to spectral scarcity, FAPs are expected to share spectrum with underlying macrocells. Closed access refers to the strategy where only Owners of the FAP are allowed access; whereas the FAP is open to everyone under Open access. Challenges such as dead zones or excessive signaling arise when implementing these two access strategies. Cognitive ac¬¬cess control is a hybrid approach that would have the FAP first senses the environment, prioritizes different classes of users, and then reserves a portion of femtocell radio resource for Owners while distributing the remaining to Visitors. Simulation results have shown that by utilizing the proposed Cognitive access control and reserve resource dynamically with the surrounding environment, both Macro-user and Owner throughputs will improve over the macrocell-only baseline, as well as both Closed and Open access strategies.

Femto access points (FAP) are low-power cellular base stations that are designed to be autonomously deployed by customers indoors. Due to spectral scarcity, FAPs are expected to share spectrum with underlying macrocells. Closed access refers to the strategy where only Owners of the FAP are allowed access; whereas the FAP is open to everyone under Open access. Challenges such as dead zones or excessive signaling arise when implementing these two access strategies. Cognitive ac¬¬cess control is a hybrid approach that would have the FAP first senses the environment, prioritizes different classes of users, and then reserves a portion of femtocell radio resource for Owners while distributing the remaining to Visitors. Simulation results have shown that by utilizing the proposed Cognitive access control and reserve resource dynamically with the surrounding environment, both Macro-user and Owner throughputs will improve over the macrocell-only baseline, as well as both Closed and Open access strategies.

Cette thèse concerne la nature de la conscience émotionnelle et son rôle dans l’autisme. L’hypothèse principale concerne les particularités autistiques à propos des émotions propres : les autistes auraient un accès plus « cognitif » à la conscience de leurs émotions par rapport aux neurotypiques, dont la conscience des émotions se fait plutôt sur la base de données phénoménales. Une hypothèse secondaire concerne les liens entre ces particularités et l’ensemble de celles qui concernent la vie émotionnelle des autistes : cette particularité concernant la conscience émotionnelle serait un facteur favorisant la présence d’anxiété et d’alexithymie dans l’autisme, ainsi que la dysrégulation émotionnelle. Elle serait aussi à l’origine des particularités de reconnaissance émotionnelle de l’autisme. Le premier chapitre présente l’état de la recherche en psychologie concernant les particularités émotionnelles dans l’autisme. Les chapitres 2 et 3 visent à donner des définitions opérationnelles aux notions de « conscience » et d’« émotions ». Le dernier chapitre propose une interprétation des résultats présentés dans le chapitre 1, à la lumière des distinctions terminologiques des chapitres 2 et 3. Cette interprétation est l’hypothèse principale mentionnée : les émotions des neurotypiques accèdent à la conscience avant tout et la plupart du temps par un accès phénoménal, c’est-à-dire que ce sont les éléments subjectifs de l’émotion qui accèdent à la conscience. Chez les autistes, c’est plutôt un mode d’accès cognitif qui permet à leurs émotions de parvenir à la conscience : ce sont donc davantage les éléments objectifs et descriptifs de l’émotion qui parviennent à la conscience. / My thesis is about emotional consciousness and its function in autism. The main hypothesis is about the particularities of autistic people’s own emotions: autistic people would mainly have a “cognitive access’ to the consciousness of their emotions while neurotypical people’s emotional consciousness would appear thanks to phenomenal data. A secondary hypothesis is about the relationship between these particularities and the particularities of emotional lives of autistic people: the particularity of emotional consciousness would foster anxiety, alexithymia, and emotional dysregulation, which are observed in autism. It would also be the source of particularities of emotion recognition in autism. The first chapter presents the results of studies in psychology about emotion particularities in autism. Chapter 2 and 3 give operational definitions of “consciousness” and “emotions”. The last chapter proposes an interpretation of the results of chapter 1, in the light of the terminological distinctions given in chapter 2 and 3. This interpretation is the main hypothesis just mentioned: neurotypical people’s emotions access consciousness above all and most of the time thanks to a phenomenal access, that is to say that the subjective components of emotions access consciousness. In autism, it is rather a cognitive access mode that allows their emotions to access consciousness: objective and descriptive components access consciousness.