I study information dissemination and opinion formation in a framework of evolving social networks. Individuals take weighted averages repeatedly to update their opinions. They also update their assessments on others' opinions, represented by an influence weight matrix. It is proven that both opinions and the influence weights are convergent. In the steady state, consensus is reached where all individuals hold the same opinion. Convergence occurs with an extended model as well, which indicates the tremendous influential power possessed by a minority group. Then I impose a dual network structure, where individuals not only collect information, but also use the information to play a coordination game with a selected group of opponents that one is connected with. All individuals update their strategies based on a naive learning process within a separate influence network in which information is disseminated. The selection of opponents also gets updated over time. I calculate the critical values of costs associated with connections for different network structures and strategies to occur in the steady state. Finally, I investigate the outcomes of social learning under various exogenous network structures. Individuals use an algorithm that takes into account both proximity of opinions and impact of neighbors. Results also show consensus, with convergence speed correlated with the network structure. In addition, an endogenous network formation in two stages that utilizes network and distance between agents' opinions is proposed. The resulting networks show power-law patterns in degree distribution. / Ph. D.

No / Since the election of Hugo Chávez Frías to the Venezuelan presidency in 1998 on a platform of 'revolutionary' change, the country has been wracked by political turmoil and violence between pro- and anti-government groups. While the political crisis has been reported and portrayed as a new phenomenon that has emerged as a result of Chávez's policy programme and style of government, this article argues that the conflict has deep historical roots and that it has been shaped by the legacy of political organisation in the pre-Chávez period.

The utilization of blockchain technology within Internet of Things (IoT) applications presents an opportunity to eliminate the dependency on a single trusted authority, thus improving scalability and reliability. However, prevalent consensus methods employed in blockchain often come with drawbacks, including high energy consumption, substantial computational requirements, and reliance on trusted authorities. These challenges become particularly pronounced when dealing with resource-constrained IoT devices that necessitate lightweight and low-latency consensus mechanisms. In response to these considerations, trust-free probabilistic consensus methods emerge as a promising approach, enabling every node to actively participate in the consensus process and thereby enhancing the robustness of transactions compared to more rigid consensus methods. Blockchain technology has revolutionized various industries by providing a decentralized and secure platform for data storage and transactions. One of the critical components of blockchain systems is the consensus mechanism, which ensures agreement among network participants regarding the validity of transactions. Traditional consensus mechanisms, such as Proof of Work (PoW) and Proof of Stake (PoS), have significant drawbacks, including high energy consumption and susceptibility to centralization. In response to these challenges, new consensus mechanisms, such as Proof of Chance and Proof of Elapsed Work and Luck (PoEWAL), have emerged. PoEWAL is specifically engineered to address the energy and resource limitations of IoT devices, aiming to consume minimal energy, require fewer computational resources, and exhibit low latency. To assess its practical viability, we conducted experiments using the Contiki Cooja simulator, demonstrating that PoEWAL maintains low energy consumption across varying difficulty levels, thereby highlighting its feasibility in real-world IoT scenarios. Moreover, we conducted an in-depth comparative analysis of PoEWAL against established probabilistic consensus methods, including Proof of Chance, Proof of Work, Proof of Stake, Proof of Activity, Algor and, and Proof of Authority. This comprehensive evaluation considered critical factors such as energy efficiency, consensus time, and network latency. The results of this comparative study affirm that PoEWAL emerges as a well-suited consensus mechanism for implementing blockchain in IoT environments. Its performance demonstrates a balanced trade-off between energy efficiency, consensus speed, and overall network performance, positioning PoEWAL as a promising solution for addressing the unique challenges posed by IoT devices with limited resources.

Attachée à la justification patronale, l’exigence d’objectivité est nécessaire pour lutter contre l’exercice arbitraire du pouvoir de l’employeur dès lors qu’elle oblige ce dernier à bannir ses opinions personnelles des motifs invoqués au soutien d’une mesure de gestion du personnel. Par conséquent, l’employeur doit fonder sa décision sur des prémisses factuelles, indépendantes de son pouvoir discrétionnaire, susceptibles d’être prouvées. Il en va ainsi en matière de licenciement, d’évaluation des qualités professionnelles, comme de toute mesure de différenciation. Toutefois, cette exigence s’avère également ambivalente dès lors qu’elle peut être instrumentalisée par l’employeur pour restreindre les droits et libertés des salariés au nom de l’intérêt de l’entreprise ou de la défense d’intérêts catégoriels particuliers. Un tel usage de l’exigence est d’autant plus aisé que le droit du travail adopte une conception peu rigoureuse de l’objectivité. Il est donc nécessaire d’éprouver la mesure de gestion du personnel à l’aune d’exigences autres, que celle que justifie le fonctionnement de l’entreprise. En fin de compte, la portée de l’exigence d’objectivité doit être relativisée. / Any employer’s decision has to meet the requirement of objectivity, implying that his power cannot be arbitrary, i.e. the employer is prohibited to base any decision on his own personal views. Thus, the employer has to base each decision, outside his discretionary power, on provable factual premises. The objectivity test applies to vocationnal assesment, dismissal, and differenciation between employees. However, the objectivity test is ambivalent as some employers exploit this requirement to restrict employees’ fundamental rights in the name of the company’s interests or some other specific interests. This is all the more easy as judges’ control on employer’s objectiveness is rather loose. Therefore, employers’ staff management have to be scrutinisied on some other legal grounds. On the whole the objectivity test has rather a relative importance.

Cette recherche étudie les enjeux symboliques et organisationnels de la communication managériale, envisagée comme un phénomène « composite ». En mobilisant une heuristique de l’interstice, elle interroge les rapports de pouvoir mis en jeu autour de l’unification et de l’orientation du sens dans ce projet d’encadrement de la parole des managers. Il s’agit, grâce à une approche compréhensive dans une perspective critique, d’analyser les enjeux traversant les médiations de cette méthode, des discours d’escorte aux pratiques en situations des acteurs. Cette mise en tension a permis de montrer que la rhétorique qui a pu contribuer à la fortune de cette méthode est également ce qui peut expliquer certaines des « manières de faire », voire des difficultés pragmatiques qu’elle pose aux acteurs en organisations. Ainsi, l’idéologie aconflictuelle qui travaille la communication managériale se trouve actualisée en situations par les pratiques autour de la communication portée par les managers. Ce faisant, se pose la question des conditions de représentations et d’expressions du dissensus dans des organisations tendues vers un idéal de consensualité marginalisant l’écart. / This research focuses on the symbolic and organizational stakes of managerial communication as a “composite” phenomenon. By using a heuristic of the interstice, it questions the power dynamics surrounding unification and meaning orientation in a project meant to give a frame to managers’ words. Through a comprehensive approach and in a critical perspective, we will analyze what is at stake in the mediations of this method, from appendant speech to actual practices of the participants. Applying this voluntary tension allowed us to demonstrate that the same rhetoric which contributed to the fortune of this method can also explain the way some things are done, or even the pragmatic difficulties encountered by the participants in organizations. Thus, the un-contentious ideology behind managerial communication is updated in practice by customs surrounding communication as carried out by the managers. This raises the question of how the “dissensus” is represented and expressed in organizations reaching for an ideal of “consensuality” that marginalizes difference.

This thesis seeks to examine why the Lavalas elite faction and its oppositions have failed to make and implement mutual agreements, to resolve regime crises and to create an environment conducive to democratic norms. The study derives explanations stemming from three alternative models: modernization, rational choice and misperception. Three periods of consensus-building attempt between the Lavalas elite and its oppositions (1991-1995: Consensus-Building attempt I; 1996-2000: Consensus-Building attempt II; 2000-2004: Consensus-Building attempt III) are considered. By using interpreted models a la Graham Allison, the thesis applies the criteria produced by each model to help interpret the failure of consensus-building in these three historical periods. The thesis' conclusion then assesses the models' strengths and weaknesses, prompting interesting questions for further research in the near future.

Tongue diagnosis is a unique method of diagnosis practiced in traditional Chinese medicine and an important tool in diagnosing diseases before determining proper methods of cures and treatment. In the traditional clinical practice, tongue diagnosis depends solely on the personal knowledge and experience of the practitioner, thereby lacking in objectivity and quantification. Consequently, an automatic tongue diagnosis system (ATDS) has been developed to provide practitioners with objective data and assist them in reaching diagnoses. To prove the system¡¦s stability in clinical application, this study employs 20 sets of tongue images, taken 10 minutes apart from 20 patients with possible variations in lighting, and the length, shape and angle of extruding tongue. The features extracted by the ATDS for each set of tongue images are compared to investigate the intra-agreement of ATDS, and two sessions of tongue diagnosis questionnaires to investigate the intra-agreement of doctors with consensus (DC) and doctors without consensus(DWC),and the inter-agreement between ATDS, DC and DWC, and the inter- agreement among DC and DWC. And this study also investigate the improvement of agreement by DWC after a training process.

The author's Habilitationsschrift--Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. / Includes indexes. Includes bibliographical references (p. 472-485).

Grâce aux travaux de la Cour européenne des droits de l'homme et la Cour interaméricaine des droits de l'homme s'est consolidé un système de normes minimales des droits et des libertés qui, au fil du temps, à assurer la protection de l'individu d'une façon intégrale et quelle que soit son orientation sexuelle : aussi bien dans la sphère intime (sa vie privée et familiale) que dans la sphère publique, sur les plan politique et social, là où, en définitif leur identité est construite. Ceci, cependant, n'a pas été un processus pacifique, ni facile. Les conquêtes des droits, et leur protection se sont déroulés dans un scénario caractérisé par une certaine confrontation entre les Etats, jaloux de leur souveraineté et les tribunaux internationaux, garants de l'interprétation orthodoxe des droits et libertés énoncés dans les conventions. Pour cette raison, nous pouvons nous demander : quels sont les mécanismes que les juges supranationaux ont utilisés dans la pratique afin de limiter le pouvoir des autorités de l’État ? jusqu'à quel point ils ont la légitimité de le faire ? Pour répondre à ces questions, nous avons analysé les étapes et/ou les arrêts importants faisant jurisprudence qui ont été des éléments clés dans la reconnaissance du statut juridique des citoyens homosexuels. Nous avons examiné aussi, si ce statut est le résultat d'un consensus entre les États au sein du Conseil de l'Europe et l'Organisation des États américains ou, au contraire, elle est le résultat d'une interprétation indépendante des conventions internationales par les tribunaux de ces organisations. / Thanks to the work of the European Court of human rights and the Inter-American Court of human rights it has been consolidated a system of minimum standards of rights and freedoms which, over time, endeavours to ensure the protection of the individual in a comprehensive way and regardless of his/her sexual orientation: in the most intimate sphere (his/her private and family life), as well as, in the public sphere, at political and social levels, where, ultimately, their identities are constructed. This process, however, was not peaceful or easy. The struggle for rights and their protection takes places in an international scene characterised by a certain confrontation between States, jealous of their sovereignty and the international courts, guarantors of the orthodox interpretation of the rights and freedoms contained in the conventions. For this reason, we might ask ourselves: what are the mechanisms that the supranational judges have used to limit the power of the authorities of the State? To what extent the international courts are entitled to exercise this control? To answer these questions, we have analysed the steps and/or the leading cases which have entailed the key elements in the recognition of the legal status of homosexual citizens. We also have examined whether this status is the result of a consensus between States within the Council of Europe and the Organization of American States or, on the contrary, it is the result of an independent interpretation of international conventions by the courts of these organisations.

La thèse présente l’analyse d’une séance de formation de "coaching" commercial mettant en scène un formateur d’entreprise et un apprenti, vendeur dans le milieu bancaire. L’objectif était d’étudier le rôle du pronom tu associé à des indices d’adresse d’autre nature dans les modulations du consensus coénonciatif entre le formateur et l’apprenti. Les résultats auxquels notre thèse aboutit : (1) Dans un dialogue, l’énonciateur-locuteur premier peut être soit en état de consensus, soit en état de rupture de la coénonciation vis à vis de l’énonciateur-locuteur second, soit encore en phase intermédiaire (orientée tantôt vers le consensus, tantôt vers la rupture). (2) Il existe des indices d’adresse gestuels, intonatifs et morphosyntaxiques qui permettent de différencier chacun de ces états. (3) L’emploi du pronom tu associé à d’autres indices d’adresse joue un rôle important dans les modulations du consensus entre le formateur et l’apprenti. Ce rôle est particulièrement visible lorsque l’un des énonciateurs-locuteurs (ou les deux) se positionne(nt) en phase intermédiaire. (4) L’énonciateur-locuteur premier passe nécessairement par une des deux phases intermédiaires et ce sont les réactions de l’énonciateur-locuteur second qui informent sur l’état de la coénonciation (consensus ou rupture) à ce moment précis du dialogue. Les régularités dégagées par cette recherche intéressent plusieurs domaines des sciences humaines, notamment la linguistique, les sciences de l’éducation, la communication et la formation en entreprise. / The thesis presents the analysis of a training session of commercial coaching featuring a coach, corporate trainer and a learner, sales in the banking. The objective was to study the role of "you" associated with other indicators of address in the modulations of consensus between the coach and the learner. The results that our thesis leads : (1) In a dialogue, the enunciator-first speaker may be either in a state of consensus, either in a state of coenunciation breaking-off respect to the enunciator- second speaker, or in an intermediate phase (sometimes oriented towards consensus sometimes to break). (2) There are indicators of address gestural, intonation and morphosyntactic that distinguish each of the state. (3) The use of the pronoun "you" associated with other indicators of address does play an important role in the modulation of consensus between the coach and the learner. This role is particularly visible when one of enunciators-speakers or both are in an intermediate phase. (4) The enunciator-first speaker necessarily involves one of two intermediate phases and there are the reactions of the enunciator-second speaker to indicate the status of coenunciation (consensus or failure) at that moment of dialogue. Patterns generated by this research interest to several fields of sciences, including linguistics, science education, communication and training.