Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Contributions in concept of nessecity'

Cette thèse de doctorat est consacrée à la reconnaissance de concepts visuels (VCR pour "Visual Concept Recognition"). En raison des nombreuses difficultés qui la caractérisent, cette tâche est toujours considérée comme l’une des plus difficiles en vision par ordinateur et reconnaissance de formes. Dans ce contexte, nous avons proposé plusieurs contributions, particulièrement dans le cadre d’une approche de reconnaissance multimodale combinant efficacement les informations visuelles et textuelles. Tout d’abord, nous avons étudié différents types de descripteurs visuels de bas-niveau sémantique pour la tâche de VCR incluant des descripteurs de couleur, de texture et de forme. Plus précisément, nous pensons que chaque concept nécessite différents descripteurs pour le caractériser efficacement pour permettre sa reconnaissance automatique. Ainsi, nous avons évalué l’efficacité de diverses représentations visuelles, non seulement globales comme la couleur, la texture et la forme, mais également locales telles que SIFT, Color SIFT, HOG, DAISY, LBP et Color LBP. Afin de faciliter le franchissement du fossé sémantique entre les descripteurs bas-niveau et les concepts de haut niveau sémantique, et particulièrement ceux relatifs aux émotions, nous avons proposé des descripteurs visuels de niveau intermédiaire basés sur l’harmonie visuelle et le dynamisme exprimés dans les images. De plus, nous avons utilisé une décomposition spatiale pyramidale des images pour capturer l’information locale et spatiale lors de la construction des descripteurs d’harmonie et de dynamisme. Par ailleurs, nous avons également proposé une nouvelle représentation reposant sur les histogrammes de couleur HSV en utilisant un modèle d’attention visuelle pour identifier les régions d’intérêt dans les images. Ensuite, nous avons proposé un nouveau descripteur textuel dédié au problème de VCR. En effet, la plupart des photos publiées sur des sites de partage en ligne (Flickr, Facebook, ...) sont accompagnées d’une description textuelle sous la forme de mots-clés ou de légende. Ces descriptions constituent une riche source d’information sur la sémantique contenue dans les images et il semble donc particulièrement intéressant de les considérer dans un système de VCR. Ainsi, nous avons élaboré des descripteurs HTC ("Histograms of Textual Concepts") pour capturer les liens sémantiques entre les concepts. L’idée générale derrière HTC est de représenter un document textuel comme un histogramme de concepts textuels selon un dictionnaire (ou vocabulaire), pour lequel chaque valeur associée à un concept est l’accumulation de la contribution de chaque mot du texte pour ce concept, en fonction d’une mesure de distance sémantique. Plusieurs variantes de HTC ont été proposées qui se sont révélées être très efficaces pour la tâche de VCR. Inspirés par la démarche de l’analyse cepstrale de la parole, nous avons également développé Cepstral HTC pour capturer à la fois l’information de fréquence d’occurrence des mots (comme TF-IDF) et les liens sémantiques entre concepts fournis par HTC à partir des mots-clés associés aux images. Enfin, nous avons élaboré une méthode de fusion (SWLF pour "Selective Weighted Later Fusion") afin de combiner efficacement différentes sources d’information pour le problème de VCR. Cette approche de fusion est conçue pour sélectionner les meilleurs descripteurs et pondérer leur contribution pour chaque concept à reconnaître. SWLF s’est révélé être particulièrement efficace pour fusion des modalités visuelles et textuelles, par rapport à des schémas de fusion standards. [...]
This Ph.D thesis is dedicated to visual concept recognition (VCR). Due to many realistic difficulties, it is still considered to be one of the most challenging problems in computer vision and pattern recognition. In this context, we have proposed some innovative contributions for the task of VCR, particularly in building multimodal approaches that efficiently combine visual and textual information. Firstly, we have proposed semantic features for VCR and have investigated the efficiency of different types of low-level visual features for VCR including color, texture and shape. Specifically, we believe that different concepts require different features to efficiently characterize them for the recognition. Therefore, we have investigated in the context of VCR various visual representations, not only global features including color, shape and texture, but also the state-of-the-art local visual descriptors such as SIFT, Color SIFT, HOG, DAISY, LBP, Color LBP. To help bridging the semantic gap between low-level visual features and high level semantic concepts, and particularly those related to emotions and feelings, we have proposed mid-level visual features based on the visual harmony and dynamism semantics using Itten’s color theory and psychological interpretations. Moreover, we have employed a spatial pyramid strategy to capture the spatial information when building our mid-level features harmony and dynamism. We have also proposed a new representation of color HSV histograms by employing a visual attention model to identify the regions of interest in images. Secondly, we have proposed a novel textual feature designed for VCR. Indeed, most of online-shared photos provide textual descriptions in the form of tags or legends. In fact, these textual descriptions are a rich source of semantic information on visual data that is interesting to consider for the purpose of VCR or multimedia information retrieval. We propose the Histograms of Textual Concepts (HTC) to capture the semantic relatedness of concepts. The general idea behind HTC is to represent a text document as a histogram of textual concepts towards a vocabulary or dictionary, whereas its value is the accumulation of the contribution of each word within the text document toward the underlying concept according to a predefined semantic similarity measure. Several variants of HTC have been proposed that revealed to be very efficient for VCR. Inspired by the Cepstral speech analysis process, we have also developed Cepstral HTC to capture both term frequency-based information (like TF-IDF) and the relatedness of semantic concepts in the sparse image tags, which overcomes the HTC’s shortcoming of ignoring term frequency-based information. Thirdly, we have proposed a fusion scheme to combine different sources of Later Fusion, (SWLF) is designed to select the best features and to weight their scores for each concept to be recognized. SWLF proves particularly efficient for fusing visual and textual modalities in comparison with some other standard fusion schemes. While a late fusion at score level is reputed as a simple and effective way to fuse features of different nature for machine-learning problems, the proposed SWLF builds on two simple insights. First, the score delivered by a feature type should be weighted by its intrinsic quality for the classification problem at hand. Second, in a multi-label scenario where several visual concepts may be assigned to an image, different visual concepts may require different features which best recognize them. In addition to SWLF, we also propose a novel combination approach based on Dempster-Shafer’s evidence theory, whose interesting properties allow fusing different ambiguous sources of information for visual affective recognition. [...]

Entendue communement aujourd'hui comme la periode historique s'etendant du ive millenaire avant l'ere chretienne au ve siecle apres j. -c. , l'antiquite comme concept prend naissance dans le milieu humaniste des la seconde moitie du xive siecle en italie, puis dans le reste de l'europe aux xve et xvie siecles. L'antiquite est d'abord une idee, forgee par l'interpretation humaniste et renaissante dela culture greco-romaine, et represente alors le temps mythique de la perfection originelle. De cette conception, issue pour une large part des acquis juridiques lies aux redecouvertes successives du prestigieux heritage du droit romain, etait ne un moyen age, ere intermediaire comprise comme decadence culturelle, que la renaissance cloturait precisement en reinventant les valeurs greco-romaines antiques. Cette vision tripartite du temps de l'histoire posait les fondements intellectuels de la periodisation en antiquite. Moyen age, temps modernes. Au cours des xviiie et xixe siecles, l'essor de l'archeologie historique mais aussi prehistorique fait eclater le cadre classique de l'antiquite jusque-la circonscrite a rome et athenes, et assure son passage d'un temps mythique a un temps historique. Les decouvertes de pompei, herculanum ou troie, ainsi que les progres graduels de la connaissance des civilisations egyptienne et mesopotamienne determinent la conscience d'un temps de l'histoire remontant largement au-dela de la grece et meme au-dela de l'histoire, en forgeant un temps de la prehistoire, distingue du precedent par le critere culturel de l'ecriture. A ce titre, la configuration contemporaine du concept periodologique d'antiquite est la traduction scientifique et didactique des mutations epistemologiques successives qui affecterent les temps anciens de l'histoire, et que refletent et consacrent tant la science de l'histoire du droit que les manuels scolaires republicains des dernieres decennies du xixe siecle, 'siecle de l'histoire', et du debut du xxe siecle.

PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO
COORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DO PESSOAL DE ENSINO SUPERIOR
PROGRAMA DE SUPORTE À PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO DE INSTS. DE ENSINO
PROGRAMA DE SUPORTE À PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO DE INSTITUIÇÕES COMUNITÁRIAS DE ENSINO PARTICULARES
La thèse ci-présente a pour objectif d introduire une discussion concernant le corps dans la psychose et les contributions du concept de lettre chez Lacan. Pour ce faire, nous ouvrons avec une réflexion à propos du concept de corps chez Freud et quelques différences fondamentales par rapport au corps organique tel qu il est pensé par la médecine. Nous introduisons ensuite des réflexions concernant la spécificité du corps dans la psychose à partir de Freud. Quelques contributions à propos du corps chez Lacan sont également abordées : sa relation avec la construction de l image spéculaire, le concept de phallus et d objet a. Nous apportons alors quelques contributions à propos du concept de lettre chez Lacan ainsi que son importance dans la discussion du corps dans la psychose. Le choix du concept de lettre chez Lacan est justifié par l intérêt de construire et de vérifier une hypothèse selon laquelle il peut être possible, pour le sujet psychotique, de construire un corps sans nécessairement passer par la référence phallique ni non plus par la métaphore délirante, mais par un travail d amarrage et de nouage des trois registres à partir d un bricolage des restes, des bouts de parole, ce que Lacan nomma la lettre.
Esta tese tem como objetivo introduzir uma discussão sobre o corpo na psicose e as contribuições do conceito de letra, em Jacques Lacan, para este tema. Para isso, abrimos uma reflexão sobre o conceito de corpo, em Sigmund Freud, e algumas diferenças fundamentais com relação ao corpo orgânico, tal como pensado pela medicina. Em seguida, introduzimos reflexões sobre a especificidade do corpo na psicose a partir de Freud. Também são abordadas algumas contribuições sobre o corpo, para Lacan, sua relação com a construção da imagem especular, o conceito de falo e de objeto a. Traremos, então, algumas contribuições sobre o conceito de letra, em Lacan, e sua importância para discussão sobre as possibilidades de construção de um corpo na psicose. A escolha pelo conceito de letra se justifica pelo interesse em construir e verificar uma hipótese, a saber, de que o sujeito psicótico pode construir um corpo sem passar pela referência fálica, nem pela metáfora delirante, mas sim por um trabalho de amarração e enodamento dos três registros – real, simbólico e imaginário –, a partir da bricolagem dos restos, cacos, pedaços da palavra, aquilo que Lacan chamou de letra.

This study presents a comparative analytical investigation of two divergent yet parallel doctrines of self-realization. John Dewey, a distinguished American thinker, represents a naturalist pragmatist conception of self-realization on the one hand, and 'Allama Tabataba'i, a renowned Muslim philosopher, an Islamic perception on the other. While Dewey is considered a spokesperson for modern American pragmatist and humanist thought, 'Allama may be seen as typical of Islamic Shi'i thinking. In dealing with their conceptualizations of self-realization, the intention in this study is to focus on some significant aspects of the human self, to rediscover its potentiality and to determine the wisdom behind self-realization from a comparative perspective. After outlining the two thinkers' scholarly backgrounds, instructional contexts, sources, methods, works and purposes, the study examines certain specific issues. It investigates their understandings of human nature, and explores their positions on moral experience and human character, as well as on the arts and sciences as vehicles for self-realization. As its final chapter, the study elaborates the basic elements and manifestations of self-realization as depicted in Dewey's and 'Allama's systems of thought. This research aims at clarifying the parallels, similarities and differences that exist between the two scholars, through an in-depth comparison of their respective naturalist and Islamic approaches and attitudes.

Cette thèse porte sur la commande non linéaire des systèmes mécaniques sous-actionnés, ces systèmes possédant moins d'actionneur que de degrés de liberté. La dynamique interne de ces systèmes est souvent instable ce qui les rend difficiles à commander et requiert des méthodes de commande spécifiques. La contribution de cette thèse est la proposition de deux approches de commandes originales dont le but est la génération de cycle limites stables sur toutes les coordonnées du système mécanique sous-actionné. La première approche de commande est basée sur la linéarisation partielle par retour d'état et l'optimisation de trajectoires de référence. La seconde approche est basée sur les travaux récents sur la commande sans modèle, une technique de commande qui permet de contrôler un système sans avoir besoin de modèle mathématique préalable de sa dynamique. Ces deux approches de commande sont appliquées à un système mécanique sous-actionné particulier: le pendule inversé stabilisé par roue d'inertie. Plusieurs scénarios sont proposés, à la fois en simulation numérique et en temps-réel sur une plate-forme expérimentale. Les résultats obtenus attestent de la capacité des contrôleurs proposés à stabiliser le système autour de cycles limites stables en dépit de la présence de perturbations externes
This thesis is focused on non linear control of underactuated mechanical systems, thoses systems with less actuators than degrees of freedom. The internal dynamics of such system is often unstable making them particulary difficult to control. Thus specific care must be taken when designing controlers for such systems. The main contribution of this thesis is the design of two new control schemes for stable limit cycles generation on all coordinates of underactuated mechanical systems. First control approach is based on partial feedback linearization and reference trajectories optimization. Second approach is based on recent work on model free control,a control scheme which doesn't require prior mathematicalmodel of the controlled system dynamics. The proposed approaches are applied to an inertiawheel inverted pendulumtestbed. Several experimental scenarios are proposed, both in numerical simulation and in realtime implementation. Obtained results demonstrate the ability of both controllers to stabilize the system around stable limit cycles and to reject external disturbances

Formal concept analysis (FCA) is a mathematical formalism based on order and lattice theory for data analysis. It has found applications in a broad range of neighboring fields including Semantic Web, data mining, knowledge representation, data visualization and software engineering. ICFCA is a series of annual international conferences that started in 2003 in Darmstadt and has been held in several continents: Europe, Australia, America and Africa. ICFCA has evolved to be the main forum for researchers working on theoretical or applied aspects of formal concept analysis worldwide. In 2013 the conference returned to Dresden where it was previously held in 2006. This year the selection of contributions was especially competitive. This volume is one of two volumes containing the papers presented at ICFCA 2013. The other volume is published by Springer Verlag as LNAI 7880 in its LNCS series. In addition to the regular contributions, we have included an extended abstract: Jean-Paul Doignon reviews recent results connecting formal concept analysis and knowledge space theory in his contribution “Identifiability in Knowledge Space Theory: a Survey of Recent Results”. The high-quality of the program of the conference was ensured by the much-appreciated work of the authors, the Program Committee members, and the Editorial Board members. Finally, we wish to thank the local organization team. They provided support to make ICFCA 2013 proceed smoothly in a pleasant atmosphere.:EXTENDED ABSTRACT Jean-Paul Doignon: Identifiability in Knowledge Space Theory: a survey of recent results S. 1 REGULAR CONTRIBUTIONS Ľubomír Antoni, Stanislav Krajči, Ondrej Krídlo and Lenka Pisková: Heterogeneous environment on examples S. 5 Robert Jäschke and Sebastian Rudolph: Attribute Exploration on the Web S. 19 Adam Krasuski and Piotr Wasilewski: The Detection of Outlying Fire Service’s Reports. The FCA Driven Analytics S. 35 Xenia Naidenova and Vladimir Parkhomenko: An Approach to Incremental Learning Based on Good Classification Tests S. 51 Alexey A. Neznanov, Dmitry A. Ilvovsky and Sergei O. Kuznetsov: FCART: A New FCA-based System for Data Analysis and Knowledge Discovery S. 65

St. Augustine believed that we are created to aspire to a perfection that aligns our relationships in such a way that we function out of a sense of respect for ourselves and the universe in which we live. In so doing we explore the possibilities of creativity and happiness. His thinking moved from the context of classical Greek thought into a Christian one. By living and recording the dilemma of being unable to act as his intellect mandated, he developed an innovative concept of will. He believed that we are motivated to act through our loves but we have a divided will that can only move towards integration if we love correctly. This necessitates an inward journey.
The thesis of this paper is that if one subscribes to Augustine's beliefs there are serious implications for education. The following authors are cited to develop these implications in a modern philosophical and educational setting: Charles Taylor, Iris Murdoch, Israel Scheffler and Bob Samples. Finally, a brief resume of relevant teaching approaches and materials is offered.

Thesis (Ph. D.) -- University of Maryland, College Park, 2003.
Thesis research directed by: Government and Politics. Title from t.p. of PDF. Includes bibliographical references. Published by UMI Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor, Mich. Also available in paper.

Two texts by Nishitani, written ten years apart, reflect a very different position on the nietzschean question of the overcoming of nihilism. Although a student of Heidegger's at Freiburg between 1936 and 1939, Nishitani shows no evidence of a heideggerian influence in The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism. In this period (1949), he considers, contrary to Heidegger, that the affirmative aspects of nietzschean philosophy constitute a radical overcoming of nihilism. It is only in What is Religion? (1961) which appears in 1982 as Religion and Nothingness (English translation) that his view changes, reflecting more closely a heideggerian position. Nietzsche's concept of the Will to Power is evidence for Nishitani that Nietzsche enmeshed still in a philosophy of "Being", remains within traditional Western metaphysics. Because in Nishitani's view, Western metaphysics is nihilist, he finally concludes that Nietzsche did not overcome nihilism.
This development in Nishitani's thought is considered, in a concluding perspective of the present text, as evidence of the markedly more profound influence of Heidegger on the later, more mature work of Nishitani.

L'explosion de la quantité de documents multimédias, suite à l'essor des technologies numériques, a rendu leur indexation très coûteuse et manuellement impossible. Par conséquent, le besoin de disposer de systèmes d'indexation capables d'analyser, de stocker et de retrouver les documents multimédias automatiquement, et en se basant sur leur contenu (audio, visuel), s'est fait ressentir dans de nombreux domaines applicatifs. Cependant, les techniques d'indexation actuelles rencontrent encore des problèmes de faisabilité ou de qualité. Leur performance reste très limitée et est dépendante de plusieurs facteurs comme la variabilité et la quantité de données à traiter. En effet, les systèmes d'indexation cherchent à reconnaître des concepts statiques, comme des objets (vélo, chaise,...), ou des événements (mariage, manifestation,...). Ces systèmes se heurtent donc au problème de variabilité de formes, de positions, de poses, d'illuminations, d'orientations des objets. Le passage à l'échelle pour pouvoir traiter de très grands volumes de données tout en respectant des contraintes de temps de calcul et de stockage est également une contrainte.Dans cette thèse, nous nous intéressons à l'amélioration de la performance globale de ces systèmes d'indexation de documents multimédias par le contenu. Pour cela nous abordons le problème sous différents angles et apportons quatre contributions à divers stades du processus d'indexation. Nous proposons tout d'abord une nouvelle méthode de fusion "doublement précoce " entre différentes modalités ou différentes sources d'informations afin d'exploiter au mieux la corrélation entre les modalités. Cette méthode est ensuite appliquée à la détection de scènes violentes dans les films. Nous développons ensuite une méthode faiblement supervisée pour la localisation des concepts basiques (comme les objets) dans les images qui pourra être utilisé plus tard comme un descripteur et une information supplémentaire pour la détection de concepts plus complexes (comme des événements). Nous traitons également la problématique de réduction du bruit généré par des annotations ambiguës sur les données d'apprentissage en proposant deux méthodes: une génération de nouvelles annotations au niveau des plans et une méthode de pondération des plans. Enfin, nous avons mis en place une méthode d'optimisation des représentations du contenu multimédia qui combine une réduction de dimension basée sur une ACP et des transformations non linéaires.Les quatre contributions sont testées et évaluées sur les collections de données faisant référence dans le domaine, comme TRECVid ou MediaEval. Elles ont participé au bon classement de nos soumissions dans ces campagnes
A consequence of the rise of digital technology is that the quantity of available collections of multimedia documents is permanently and strongly increasing. The indexing of these documents became both very costly and impossible to do manually. In order to be able to analyze, classify and search multimedia documents, indexing systems have been defined. However, most of these systems suffer quality or practicability issues. Their performance is limited and depends on the data volume and data variability. Indexing systems analyze multimedia documents, looking for static concepts (bicycle, chair,...), or events (wedding, protest,...). Therefore, the variability in shapes, positions, lighting or orientation of objects hinders the process. Another aspect is that systems must be scalable. They should be able to handle big data while using reasonable amount of computing time and memory.The aim of this thesis is to improve the general performance of content-based multimedia indexing systems. Four main contributions are brought in this thesis for improving different stages of the indexing process. The first one is an "early-early fusion method" that merges different information sources in order to extract their deep correlations. This method is used for violent scenes detection in movies. The second contribution is a weakly supervised method for basic concept (objects) localization in images. This can be used afterwards as a new descriptor to help detecting complex concepts (events). The third contribution tackles the noise reduction problem on ambiguously annotated data. Two methods are proposed: a shot annotation generator, and a shot weighing method. The last contribution is a generic descriptor optimization method, based on PCA and non-linear transforms.These four contributions are tested and evaluated using reference data collections, including TRECVid and MediaEval. These contributions helped our submissions achieving very good rankings in those evaluation campaigns

To the author's knowledge, this is the first systematic study of the concept of enmity in the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. Examining this important category does not only elucidate the concept itself, but also provides an opportunity to reconnect fragments of Hobbes's thought that are increasingly being treated as disparate subjects. It is suggested that the notion of enmity can shed further light on related aspects of his political philosophy, including human competitiveness, the roles of fear and trust, the evil of violent death, the status of rebels, and his theory of international relations. In addition, the subject invites a rethinking of Hobbes's place in the history of political thought. It is argued that he was among the first to make enmity a central subject of political philosophy. This seems to be related to Hobbes's break with the traditional notion of natural sociability, as a consequence of which he describes the natural condition of mankind as a war of all against all. Although Hobbes depicts human beings as natural enemies, he holds that enmity does not exclude the possibility of reconciliation; individuals can supposedly overcome their hostility through subjection to a sovereign. These views give rise to a dynamic distinction between public and private enmity, according to which outright hostility can be transformed into private rivalry if human beings renounce their natural right of war. Conversely, subjects become public enemies if they rebel against the sovereign. Hobbes's views on natural enmity and reconciliation also have important implications for his theory of international relations. This thesis particularly highlights the possibility that states can be decomposed and reassembled after a foreign invasion, which precludes wars of annihilation.

Un des premiers modèles d'indexation de documents qui utilise des termes comme descripteurs était une structure de treillis, cela une vingtaine d'années avant l'arrivée de l'analyse formelle de concepts (FCA pour "Formal Concept Analysis"), qui s'affirme maintenant comme un formalisme théorique important et solide pour l'analyse de données et la découverte de connaissances. Actuellement, la communauté en recherche d'information (RI) s'intéresse particulièrement à des techniques avancées pour la recherche des documents qui relèvent des probabilités et des statistiques. En parallèle, l'intérêt de la communauté FCA au développement de techniques qui font avancer l'état de l'art en RI tout en offrant des fonctionnalités sémantiques lui est toujours bien vivant. Dans cette thèse, nous présentons un ensemble de contributions sur ce que nous avons appelé les systèmes FCA de recherche d'information ("FCA-based IR systems''). Nous avons divisé nos contributions en deux parties, à savoir l'extraction et l'indexation. Pour la récupération, nous proposons une nouvelle technique qui exploite les relations sémantiques entre les descripteurs dans un corpus de documents. Pour l'indexation, nous proposons un nouveau modèle qui permet de mettre en oeuvre un modèle vectoriel d'indexation des documents s'appuyant sur un treillis de concepts (ou treillis de Galois). En outre, nous proposons un modèle perfectionné pour l'indexation hétérogène dans lequel nous combinons le modèle vectoriel et le modèle de recherche booléen. Finalement, nous présentons une technique de fouille de données inspiré de l'indexation des documents, à savoir un modèle d'énumération exhaustive des biclusters en utilisant la FCA. Le biclustering est une nouvelle technique d'analyse de données dans laquelle les objets sont liés via la similitude dans certains attributs de l'espace de description, et non pas par tous les attributs comme dans le "clustering'' standard. En traduisant ce problème en termes d'analyse formelle de concepts, nous pouvons exploiter l'algorithmique associée à la FCA pour développer une technique d'extraction de biclusters de valeurs similaires. Nous montrons le très bon comportement de notre technique, qui fonctionne mieux que les techniques actuelles de biclustering avec énumération exhaustive
One of the first models ever to be considered as an index for documents using terms as descriptors, was a lattice structure, a couple of decades before the arrival of Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) as a solid theory for data mining and knowledge discovery.While the Information Retrieval (IR) community has shifted to more advanced techniques for document retrieval, like probabilistic and statistic paradigms, the interest of the FCA community on developing techniques that would improve the state-of-the-art in IR while providing relevance feedback and semantic based features, never decayed. In this thesis we present a set of contributions on what we call FCA-based IR systems. We have divided our contributions in two sets, namely retrieval and indexing. For retrieval, we propose a novel technique that exploits semantic relations among descriptors in a document corpus and a new concept lattice navigation strategy (called cousin concepts), enabling us to support classification-based reasoning to provide better results compared with state-of-the-art retrieval techniques. The basic notion in our strategy is supporting query modification using "term replacements'' using the lattice structure and semantic similarity. For indexing, we propose a new model that allows supporting the vector space model of retrieval using concept lattices. One of the main limitations of current FCA-based IR systems is related to the binary nature of the input data required for FCA to generate a concept lattice. We propose the use of pattern structures, an extension of FCA to deal with complex object descriptions, in order to support more advanced retrieval paradigms like the vector space model. In addition, we propose an advanced model for heterogeneous indexing through which we can combine the vector space model and the Boolean retrieval model. The main advantage of this approach is the ability of supporting indexing of convex regions in an arbitrary vectorial space built from a document collection. Finally, we move forward to a mining model associated with document indexing, namely exhaustive bicluster enumeration using FCA. Biclustering is an emerging data analysis technique in which objects are related by similarity under certain attributes of the description space, instead of the whole description space like in standard clustering. By translating this problem to the framework of FCA, we are able to exploit the robust machinery associated with the computation of concept lattices to provide an algorithm for mining biclusters based on similar values. We show how our technique performs better than current exhaustive enumeration biclustering techniques

The concept of matter as it is treated in the philosophical systems of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and John Duns Scotus is examined, partly to ascertain the influence which the original Aristotelian concept of matter had on the two medieval thinkers, and partly to determine which of these two thinkers remained more faithful to the original Aristotelian concept. An analysis is carried out of the views of the three philosophers regarding the ontological status of matter; the intelligibility of matter; the issue of the real distinction between matter and form; the role played by matter in individuating composite substances; and its role in defining composite substances and determining their essences. Finally, the views of Aquinas and Scotus regarding the theory of universal hylomorphism and the theory of the plurality of forms are discussed and compared. It is shown that, while most of the Franciscan philosophical tradition up to Scotus's time was far more influenced by Platonist than by Aristotelian principles, Scotus, though a Franciscan, was much closer to Aristotle than to Plato in his views regarding matter. In fact, the few deviations from the original Aristotelian concept found in Scotus's theory can be ascribed to theological concerns. It is argued, furthermore, that Scotus's views on the concept of matter are far closer to the original Aristotelian theory than our analysis shows Aquinas himself to be.

This thesis studies al-Ghazali's theory of knowledge, particularly his concept of knowledge of God in his three later works: "The book of Knowledge" of the Ih&dotbelow;ya', al-Munqidh, and Iljam al-`Awamm. From his conception of knowledge of God the first book of the Ih&dotbelow;ya ', to his criticism of various approaches to attaining the knowledge of God in the Munqidh, to his assertion of the best method for attaining the knowledge of God in the Iljam, the aim of the current study is to find out which faculty of man's perception, according to al-Ghazali, is the most appropriate for accessing Divinity. Since al-Ghazali's three works studied here---were composed in different periods, and since the Iljam was completed only a few days before his death, the objective of this study is then to see if there is any change, or development, in al-Ghazali's position regarding the issue of knowledge of God during the later period of his life.

The notion of "the subject" is central methodologically to the heuristics of Bernard Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding (1957; 5th ed., 1992) is Lonergan's most significant work in which he attempts to unveil the ever-elusive dynamics of conscious being as it functions in diverse realms of human thought. Essential to this endeavor is the identification of conscious operations (acts) and their objectifications (contents). This constitutes the "semantic" burden of Insight which, consequently, ought not to be separated from Lonergan's pragmatical mode of investigation. Failure to note this dipolar structure of Insight results in misinformed analyses which are quick to make faulty ideational correlations, thereby excusing out of hand any ingenuity on the part of Lonergan. This study attempts to reverse such trends by examining certain basic relations of the thinking subject in Insight (i.e. "experience" and "understanding"), and by developing the dynamics of such a relation in the larger context of the differentiations of consciousness (i.e. "intellectual" and "religious"), a concept that is brought to full fruition in Lonergan's widely read Method in Theology (1972).

Un des premiers modèles d'indexation de documents qui utilise des termes comme descripteurs était une structure de treillis, cela une vingtaine d'années avant l'arrivée de l'analyse formelle de concepts (FCA pour "Formal Concept Analysis"), qui s'affirme maintenant comme un formalisme théorique important et solide pour l'analyse de données et la découverte de connaissances. Actuellement, la communauté en recherche d'information (RI) s'intéresse particulièrement à des techniques avancées pour la recherche des documents qui relèvent des probabilités et des statistiques. En parallèle, l'intérêt de la communauté FCA au développement de techniques qui font avancer l'état de l'art en RI tout en offrant des fonctionnalités sémantiques lui est toujours bien vivant. Dans cette thèse, nous présentons un ensemble de contributions sur ce que nous avons appelé les systèmes FCA de recherche d'information ("FCA-based IR systems''). Nous avons divisé nos contributions en deux parties, à savoir l'extraction et l'indexation. Pour la récupération, nous proposons une nouvelle technique qui exploite les relations sémantiques entre les descripteurs dans un corpus de documents. Pour l'indexation, nous proposons un nouveau modèle qui permet de mettre en oeuvre un modèle vectoriel d'indexation des documents s'appuyant sur un treillis de concepts (ou treillis de Galois). En outre, nous proposons un modèle perfectionné pour l'indexation hétérogène dans lequel nous combinons le modèle vectoriel et le modèle de recherche booléen. Finalement, nous présentons une technique de fouille de données inspiré de l'indexation des documents, à savoir un modèle d'énumération exhaustive des biclusters en utilisant la FCA. Le biclustering est une nouvelle technique d'analyse de données dans laquelle les objets sont liés via la similitude dans certains attributs de l'espace de description, et non pas par tous les attributs comme dans le "clustering'' standard. En traduisant ce problème en termes d'analyse formelle de concepts, nous pouvons exploiter l'algorithmique associée à la FCA pour développer une technique d'extraction de biclusters de valeurs similaires. Nous montrons le très bon comportement de notre technique, qui fonctionne mieux que les techniques actuelles de biclustering avec énumération exhaustive
One of the first models ever to be considered as an index for documents using terms as descriptors, was a lattice structure, a couple of decades before the arrival of Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) as a solid theory for data mining and knowledge discovery.While the Information Retrieval (IR) community has shifted to more advanced techniques for document retrieval, like probabilistic and statistic paradigms, the interest of the FCA community on developing techniques that would improve the state-of-the-art in IR while providing relevance feedback and semantic based features, never decayed. In this thesis we present a set of contributions on what we call FCA-based IR systems. We have divided our contributions in two sets, namely retrieval and indexing. For retrieval, we propose a novel technique that exploits semantic relations among descriptors in a document corpus and a new concept lattice navigation strategy (called cousin concepts), enabling us to support classification-based reasoning to provide better results compared with state-of-the-art retrieval techniques. The basic notion in our strategy is supporting query modification using "term replacements'' using the lattice structure and semantic similarity. For indexing, we propose a new model that allows supporting the vector space model of retrieval using concept lattices. One of the main limitations of current FCA-based IR systems is related to the binary nature of the input data required for FCA to generate a concept lattice. We propose the use of pattern structures, an extension of FCA to deal with complex object descriptions, in order to support more advanced retrieval paradigms like the vector space model. In addition, we propose an advanced model for heterogeneous indexing through which we can combine the vector space model and the Boolean retrieval model. The main advantage of this approach is the ability of supporting indexing of convex regions in an arbitrary vectorial space built from a document collection. Finally, we move forward to a mining model associated with document indexing, namely exhaustive bicluster enumeration using FCA. Biclustering is an emerging data analysis technique in which objects are related by similarity under certain attributes of the description space, instead of the whole description space like in standard clustering. By translating this problem to the framework of FCA, we are able to exploit the robust machinery associated with the computation of concept lattices to provide an algorithm for mining biclusters based on similar values. We show how our technique performs better than current exhaustive enumeration biclustering techniques

Nous étudions différents aspects de l’exploration ou fouille de motifs dans des jeux de données tabulaires binaires et numériques. L’objectif de l’exploration de motifs est de découvrir un petit ensemble de motifs non redondants qui peuvent recouvrir presque entièrement un ensemble de données et être interprétés comme des unités de connaissances significatives et utiles. Nous nous concentrons sur les questions clés telles que la définition formelle de l’intérêt des motifs, la minimisation de l’explosion combinatoire des motifs, la définition de mesures pour évaluer les performances des méthodes d’exploration de motifs, et le rapprochement entre l’intérêt et la qualité des ensembles de motifs. Nous proposons une structure dite “de niveaux de fermetures” et l’algorithme GDPM qui la calcule. Cette structure nous permet d’estimer à la fois la complexité des données et celle des motifs. En pratique, cette structure peut être utilisée pour représenter la topologie des données par rapport à une mesure d’intérêt. Du point de vue conceptuel, cette structure autorise un analyste à comprendre la configuration intrinsèque des données avant de sélectionner une mesure d’intérêt plutôt que de comprendre les données au moyen d’une mesure d’intérêt choisie arbitrairement. Nous discutons également de la différence entre l’intérêt et la qualité des ensembles de motifs. Nous proposons d’adopter les bonnes pratiques de l’apprentissage supervisé et de les adapter à la fouille de motifs. Ainsi, nous avons développé un algorithme d’exploration d’ensembles de motifs appelé KeepItSimple, qui met en relation l’intérêt et la qualité des ensembles de motifs et qui permet de retrouver de façon efficace un ensemble de motifs intéressants sans craindre d’explosion combinatoire. De plus, nous proposons un algorithme glouton d’énumération de motifs susceptibles d’intérêt qui remplace les méthodes classiques d’énumération de motifs fermés fréquents lorsque les motifs sont trop nombreux. Enfin une dernière contribution porte sur le développement d’un algorithme qui s’appuie sur le principe MDL appelé Mint qui a pour objectif d’extraire des ensembles de motifs dans les données numériques. Il repose sur des bases théoriques solides tout en ayant l’objectif pratique de retourner un ensemble concis de motifs numériques qui sont non redondants et informatifs. Les expérimentations montrent que Mint surpasse généralement ses concurrents en efficacité et qualité des motifs retournés
In this thesis, we study different aspects of pattern mining in binary and numerical tabular datasets. The objective of pattern mining is to discover a small set of non-redundant patterns that may cover entirely a given dataset and be interpreted as useful and significant knowledge units. We focus on some key issues such as (i) formal definition of pattern interestingness, (ii) the minimization of pattern explosion, (iii) measure for evaluating the performance of pattern mining, and (iv) the discrepancy between interestingness and quality of the discovered pattern sets. Moreover, we go beyond the typical perspectives of pattern mining and investigate the intrinsic structure underlying a tabular dataset. The main contributions of this research work are theoretical, conceptual, and practical. Regarding the theoretical novelty, we propose a so-called closure structure and the GDPM algorithm for its computing. The closure structure allows us to estimate both the data and pattern complexity. Furthermore, practically the closure structure may be used to represent the data topology w.r.t. an interestingness measure. Conceptually, the closure structure allows an analyst to understand the intrinsic data configuration before selecting any interestingness measure rather than to understand the data by means of an arbitrarily selected interestingness measure. In this research work, we also discuss the difference between interestingness and quality of pattern sets. We propose to adopt the best practices of supervised learning in pattern mining. Based on that, we developed an algorithm for itemset mining, called KeepItSimple, which relates interestingness and the quality of pattern sets. In practice, KeepItSimple allows us to efficiently mine a set of interesting and good-quality patterns without any pattern explosion. In addition, we propose an algorithm for a greedy enumeration of likely-occurring itemsets that can be used when frequent closed itemset miners return too many itemsets. The last practical contribution consists in developing an MDL-based algorithm called Mint for mining pattern sets in numerical data. The Mint algorithm relies on a strong theoretical foundation and at the same time has a practical objective in returning a small set of numerical, non-redundant, and informative patterns. The experiments show that Mint has very good behavior in practice and usually outperforms its competitors

Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2000.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis examines the relationship between law and justice. Firstly, it is argued that the concept of justice tends to be defined too narrowly as distributive justice or as a mechanism to maintain social order. It is argued that Jacques Derrida's understanding of justice not only gives a richer and broader understanding of the concept, but also on its complex relationship with the law. Lastly, some of the possible implications for jurisprudence (with specific reference to Critical Legal Studies, Critical Race Theory and Drucilla Cornell) are examined.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis ondersoek die verhouding tussen geregtigheid en die reg. Daar word eerstens geargumenteer dat geregtigheid te maklik gedefinieer word as distributiewe geregtigheid of as In meganisme om sosiale orde te bewerkstellig. Daar word geargumenteer dat Jacques Derrida se verstaan van die konsep nie aileen 'n breer en ryker verstaan moontlik maak nie, maar dat dit ook fokus op die komplekse verhouding met die reg. Laastens word sommige van die moontlike implikasies vir regsfilosofie (met spesifieke verwysing na Critical Legal Studies, Critical Race Theory en Drucilla Cornell) ondesoek,

Cette thèse examine à partir d’une étude de cas la pertinence de l’épistémologie sociale quant à la compréhension du changement scientifique en économie. La question d'une contribution mutuelle de l'épistémologie sociale et des approches cognitivistes de l’épistémologie « individuelle » (individual epistemology) et de la philosophie des sciences y occupe cependant une place centrale. On étudie ainsi comment le cadre social de la recherche aide à constituer ou à consolider les dispositions cognitives des chercheurs.L’étude de cas porte sur l’approche dite « macroprudentielle » des processus de régulation financière élaborée par un groupe d’économistes de la Banque des Règlements Internationaux (BRI) à l’occasion de la crise financière de 2007-8.Il s’agit de montrer sur un exemple précis emprunté à l’économie néoclassique contemporaine que le cadre social – qui inclut des institutions, des organisations, des associations, des universités, des revues scientifiques, etc. - a une grande influence sur les pratiques des chercheurs – et plus encore sur les perspectives théoriques qu’ils adoptent, non seulement comme membres d’un groupe mais même à titre individuel.Cette thèse se trouve donc au confluent de diverses disciplines. Outre l’épistémologie individuelle et sociale et la philosophie générale des sciences, la thèse est ainsi conduite à aborder des questions plus spécifiques de philosophie des sciences économiques (pluralisme des perspectives et des méthodologies notamment) et d’histoire de la discipline économique
This PhD thesis studies the relevance of social epistemology for the understanding of scientific change in economics. The question of a mutual contribution of social epistemology, of cognitivist approaches of individual epistemology and of philosophy of science is at the center . By using a case study we thus examine how the social framework of research helps to constitute or consolidate the cognitive dispositions of researchers. The case study focuses on the so-called "macroprudential" approach to financial regulation which was developed by a group of economists from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in the years prior to the financial crisis of 2007-8. Il will be shown by the example of contemporary neoclassical economics that the social framework - which includes institutions like scientific associations, universities, journals, international organizations, etc. - has great influence on the practices of researchers - and even more on the theoretical perspectives they adopt. This thesis is at the interface of various disciplines. In addition to individual and social epistemology and the general philosophy of science, it will address more specific questions of the philosophy of economics (pluralism of perspectives and methodologies in particular) and the history of the discipline of economics

Formal concept analysis (FCA) is a mathematical formalism based on order and lattice theory for data analysis. It has found applications in a broad range of neighboring fields including Semantic Web, data mining, knowledge representation, data visualization and software engineering. ICFCA is a series of annual international conferences that started in 2003 in Darmstadt and has been held in several continents: Europe, Australia, America and Africa. ICFCA has evolved to be the main forum for researchers working on theoretical or applied aspects of formal concept analysis worldwide. In 2013 the conference returned to Dresden where it was previously held in 2006. This year the selection of contributions was especially competitive. This volume is one of two volumes containing the papers presented at ICFCA 2013. The other volume is published by Springer Verlag as LNAI 7880 in its LNCS series. In addition to the regular contributions, we have included an extended abstract: Jean-Paul Doignon reviews recent results connecting formal concept analysis and knowledge space theory in his contribution “Identifiability in Knowledge Space Theory: a Survey of Recent Results”. The high-quality of the program of the conference was ensured by the much-appreciated work of the authors, the Program Committee members, and the Editorial Board members. Finally, we wish to thank the local organization team. They provided support to make ICFCA 2013 proceed smoothly in a pleasant atmosphere.

This thesis examines the viability of the concept of political liberalism. Since its emergence, the idea of a purely political liberalism has been the subject of a voluminous amount of discourse and debate. The concept of political liberalism has been presented as both a solution to the problems of justice and political stability troubling liberal democracies and an exemplar of all that is wrong with contemporary political philosophy; it has, quite literally, altered the landscape and the vernacular of contemporary political theory. Herein it is argued that, despite the significant amount of literature that has been devoted to the analysis of the idea of a purely political liberalism, the idea itself has yet to be subjected to the type of critique that is required if one is to assess its viability effectively. Though there have been a number of contemporary political theorists who have developed conceptions of political liberalism which they believe differ in important ways from those of their doctrinal colleagues, detailed analyses of the concept of political liberalism have and remain focussed almost exclusively on a single formulation: namely, Rawlsian political liberalism. This singular focus has precluded the completion of a comprehensive assessment of the viability of the concept (as opposed to a single conception) of political liberalism as represented both by Rawlsian and non-Rawlsian models. This thesis confronts this problem by expanding the scope of investigation to include a fulsome examination of other prominent paradigmatic conceptions of political liberalism namely, those developed by Charles Larmore and Judith Shklar and in so doing provides a more inclusive and, subsequently, thorough critique than has previously been offered. Adopting such an approach reveals that, despite protestations to the contrary, the prominent paradigmatic conceptions of political liberalism are sufficiently similar in all important respects to enable their conflation for the purpose of analysis; and when subjected to a thorough analysis, the idea of a purely political liberalism proves itself to be untenable.
Political Science
D. Litt. et Phil. (Politics)

These experiments investigate perceptual and semantic factors underlying animacy effects in semantically-driven language production tasks, and explore how differences in semantic organization affect the degree to which concepts are shared across languages. McRae, de Sa, and Seidenberg (1993) hypothesized that animate concepts exhibit greater intercorrelations among their semantic features than do inanimate concepts. McRae et al.'s model predicts that animate items should exhibit slower response latencies than inanimate items when presented in categorized lists as a result of response competition. Experiments 1 (bilingual picture naming) and 2 (bilingual translation) compared response latencies for animate and inanimate items presented in categorized and randomized sequences. Translation and picture naming performance were contrasted because they engage similar semantic processes but differ in terms of perceptual processing requirements. In Experiment 1, pictures of animate items were named slower than pictures of inanimate items, and semantic categorization facilitated response latencies for both types of items. In Experiment 2, animate items were translated faster than inanimate items, and semantic categorization did not affect response latencies. Findings imply that animacy effects in picture naming and translation reflect both perceptual and conceptual factors. Theoretical conclusions drawn from these results rest on the assumption that both tasks are semantically-driven. Results of Experiments 3-5 provide empirical support for this assumption: no animacy effects were observed for target items in a monolingual word naming task, and the animacy effects observed in Experiments 1 and 2 were replicated under conditions in which semantic activation was required before response output. In Experiment 6, visual similarity ratings obtained for the target pictures suggested that animacy effects obtained in Experiments 1 and 4 were influenced by perceptual factors. The absence of a categorization by animacy interaction in Experiments 1 and 2 does not directly support McRae et al.'s (1993) model. However, these findings do suggest that animate concepts share larger proportions of semantic features than do inanimate concepts, as reflected by facilitated translation latencies for animate items. Higher visual and semantic similarity for animate items results in slower response latencies when the same items are presented in picture naming tasks.

李敬國.
"2001年9月"
論文 (哲學碩士)--香港中文大學, 2001.
參考文獻 (leaves 133-140)
附中英文摘要.
"2001 nian 9 yue"
Li Jingguo.
Lun wen (zhe xue shuo shi)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue, 2001.
Can kao wen xian (leaves 133-140)
Fu Zhong Ying wen zhai yao.
凡例 --- p.1
前言 --- p.4
Chapter 第一章 --- 康德的前驅：希臘及代關於「自由」的學說 --- p.8
Chapter 〈一〉 --- 導言 --- p.8
Chapter 〈二〉 --- 自由意志與自由槪念的發展 --- p.9
Chapter 〔I〕 --- 多德 --- p.9
Chapter 〔II〕 --- 笛卡爾 --- p.13
Chapter 〔III〕 --- 斯賓諾莎 --- p.16
Chapter 〔IV〕 --- 休謨 --- p.21
Chapter 〔V〕 --- 萊布尼茲 --- p.25
Chapter 〈三〉 --- 小結 --- p.30
Chapter 第二章 --- 康德的自由槪念 --- p.32
Chapter 〈一〉 --- 自由槪念底價値與意義 --- p.32
Chapter 〈二〉 --- 自由槪念 --- p.39
Chapter 〔I〕 --- 《純粹理性之批判》中的自由槪念 --- p.39
Chapter (A) --- <超驗辯證論> 〉 --- p.39
Chapter (1) --- 「二律背反」底推述 --- p.39
Chapter (2) --- 「超驗自由」與兩重世界之界分 --- p.45
Chapter (B) --- <純粹理性底法規> 〉 --- p.47
Chapter (C) --- 自由底任意與天然自由之關係 --- p.51
Chapter 〔II〕 --- 《道德底形而上學之基礎》中的自由槪念 --- p.53
Chapter (1) --- 從《純粹理性之批判》到「實踐理性之批判 」 --- p.54
Chapter (2) --- 自由槪念底發現 --- p.56
Chapter (3) --- 自由槪念底兩種意義 --- p.61
Chapter (4) --- 「自由」與有理性者底關係 --- p.63
Chapter (5) --- 關於循環論證底問題 --- p.65
Chapter 〔III〕 --- （實踐理性之批判》中的自由槪念 --- p.67
Chapter (1) --- 自由與道德底關係 --- p.67
Chapter (2) --- 「自由」理念一作爲實踐理念底公設 --- p.72
Chapter 〔IV〕 --- （判斷力之批判》中的自由槪念 --- p.74
Chapter (1) --- 從「自由」至「自然」之過 渡 --- p.74
Chapter (2) --- 「自由」與「合目的性」槪念 --- p.77
Chapter 第三章 --- 康德哲學中的自由意志 --- p.81
Chapter 〈一〉 --- 引言 --- p.81
Chapter 〈二〉 --- 意志概念 --- p.81
Chapter 〔I〕 --- 意志槪念底基本義 --- p.81
Chapter 〔II〕 --- 意志與理性 --- p.85
Chapter 〔III〕 --- "“Wille´ح 與""Willkur´ح 之意義" --- p.87
Chapter (1) --- 《純粹理性之批判》中的「意志 」 --- p.87
Chapter (2) --- 《道德底形而上學之基礎》中的「意志 」 --- p.89
Chapter (3) --- 《實踐理性之批判》中的「意志」 --- p.91
Chapter (4) --- 《道德底形而上學》中的/意志 」 --- p.92
Chapter (5) --- 「意願」與「意念」之區分 --- p.96
Chapter (6) --- 「意念」與「意志」之區 分 --- p.98
Chapter 〔IV〕 --- 善的意志 --- p.100
Chapter 〈三〉 --- 義務槪念 --- p.103
Chapter 〔I〕 --- 義務槪念乃唯有理性者所專屬 --- p.103
Chapter 〔II〕 --- 「出於義務」與「合乎義務」 --- p.104
Chapter 〔III〕 --- 「義務」與「愛好」 --- p.106
Chapter 〔IV〕 --- 善的意志與義務間底關係 --- p.108
Chapter 〈四〉 --- 定言令式 --- p.117
Chapter 〔I〕 --- 道德律則僅唯一定言令式 --- p.118
Chapter 〔II〕 --- 定言令式底原則 --- p.121
Chapter 〔III〕 --- 目的王國與意志自律 --- p.122
Chapter 〔IV〕 --- 意志自律爲一切道德律則所依據底惟一原則 --- p.125
結語 --- p.128
參考書目 --- p.133

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006.
Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-07, Section: B, page: 4145. Adviser: Ed Diener. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 57-68) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

L'objectif de cette thèse est de contribuer sur un plan conceptuel, méthodologique et managérial au nouveau champ de recherche qui se développe depuis plusieurs années autour du concept de personnalité de la marque. Cette recherche s'inspire des différentes théories de la personnalité humaine et du concept de soi pour appréhender la relation existante entre la marque et le consommateur. L'ensemble de ces réflexions permet de légitimer la métaphore conceptuelle de la personnalité de la marque. Par ailleurs, une démarche spécifique est proposée pour développer une échelle de mesure de la personnalité qui soit applicable et pertinente pour le domaine des marques. Aussi, une étude qualitative et cinq études empiriques permettent de définir, de stabiliser et de valider la structure du « baromètre de personnalité des marques ». Finalement, le modèle conceptuel testé a pour objectif de vérifier le pouvoir prédictif de la personnalité de la marque sur le comportement du consommateur (attachement à la marque et intention d'achat) dans le domaine spécifique des parfums. Des variables modératrices telles que l'âge, la sensibilité et la fidélité générale à la marque sont également intégrées au modèle global. Les résultats de cette sixième étude empirique menée auprès de 838 consommateurs confirment l'influence de la personnalité de la marque sur le comportement du consommateur et mettent en exergue l'existence d'une congruence entre la personnalité de la marque et celle du consommateur. Des analyses complémentaires proposent une nouvelle mesure factorielle de cette congruence et attestent aussi de son caractère prédictif sur l'attachement à la marque et l'intention d'achat. L'ensemble de ces résultats offre de multiples implications managériales notamment en termes de positionnement et de communication. En effet, le baromètre de personnalité des marques atteste d'un très fort pouvoir différenciateur et peut donc permettre aux responsables opérationnels de singulariser leurs marques à partir de leur profil de personnalité.