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Conditional expectations given the sum of independent random variables with regularly varying densities
No full textThe conditional expectation , where X and Y are two independent random variables with , plays a key role in various actuarial applications. For instance, considering the conditional mean risk-sharing rule, determines the contribution of the agent holding the risk X to a risk-sharing pool. It is also a relevant function in the context of risk management, for example, when considering natural capital allocation principles. The monotonicity of is particularly significant under these frameworks, and it has been linked to log-concave densities since Efron (1965). However, the log-concavity assumption may not be realistic in some applications because it excludes heavy-tailed distributions. We consider random variables with regularly varying densities to illustrate how heavy tails can lead to a nonmonotonic behavior for . This paper first aims to identify situations where could fail to be increasing according to the tail heaviness of X and Y. Second, the paper aims to study the asymptotic behavior of as the value s of the sum gets large. The analysis is then extended to zero-augmented probability distributions, commonly encountered in applications to insurance, and to sums of more than two random variables and to two random variables with a Farlie–Gumbel–Morgenstern copula. Consequences for risk sharing and capital allocation are discussed. Many numerical examples illustrate the results
Filling the descriptive representation gap? Youth platforms in global environmental governance
No full textYouth are official stakeholders of global environmental politics (GEP) since 1992, and several youth platforms have been created within the framework of the United Nations since the 2000s. However, recently, the oppositional voice of youth, through climate protests, has increased worldwide. While official youth platforms have been active over the years, this article asks to which extent they mitigate a descriptive representation gap in GEP. Academic investigation on these platforms is extremely limited. To provide new research insights, we track the creation history and the governance evolution of four transnational youth platforms, investigating two research hypotheses. To create new data, our methodology relies on official documentation, observations at international meetings and interviews. Results show the fragility of youth platforms in GEP. However, a strong ownership of these platforms by youth enables them to get a certain leeway for effective representation of youth, and of civil society more broadly
Voice strategies in interactional metadiscourse framework : a contrastive corpus-based study across academic spoken English and Chinese
No full textEffectively expressing scholarly voice is an important aspect of academic communication, as it enables researchers to show expertise, engage with peers, and establish their stances. While considerable attention has been devoted to authorial voice in written texts, its manifestation in spoken discourse remains insufficiently explored. This study investigates voice strategies in academic talks, specifically comparing L1 English, English as a Lingua Franca, and L1 Mandarin Chinese. Grounded in metadiscourse theory, it adopts a contrastive corpus-pragmatic approach to analyze engagement, hedging, and attitude strategies. By providing an in-depth analysis of interactional metadiscourse as a mechanism for conveying academic voice, this research sheds light on the ways in which speakers achieve alignment with their listeners, engage in negotiation, and persuade others in academic interactions. The findings show how the three strategies are influenced by linguistic, cultural, and disciplinary conventions, highlighting both differences and similarities in shared practices and variations in academic settings. It contributes to the broader fields of contrastive pragmatics and discourse analysis, offering a nuanced exploration of interactional metadiscourse resources and their role in shaping academic communication across linguistic and cultural boundaries.L’expression de l’identité énonciative constitue un aspect central de la communication scientifique, permettant aux chercheur.es de démontrer leur expertise, d’interagir avec leurs pairs et d’affirmer leurs positions. Si l’expression de cette identité a suscité une attention considérable dans les textes écrits, sa manifestation dans le discours académique oral demeure largement sous-explorée. Cette étude examine les stratégies énonciatives dans les présentations académiques, en comparant l’anglais langue maternelle, l’anglais en tant que lingua franca et le chinois mandarin. S’appuyant sur la théorie du métadiscours, elle adopte une approche de corpus contrastive pour analyser les stratégies d’engagement, de modalisation (hedging) et d’attitude. En fournissant une analyse approfondie du métadiscours interactionnel comme mécanisme de construction du positionnement énonciatif, cette recherche met en lumière les moyens par lesquels les orateurices parviennent à créer une connexion avec leur auditoire, à négocier leurs idées et à persuader dans des contextes académiques. Les résultats révèlent comment les conventions linguistiques, culturelles et disciplinaires influencent les trois stratégies étudiées, tout en soulignant les similarités et les divergences dans les pratiques académiques. Cette étude contribue aux champs de la pragmatique contrastive et de l’analyse du discours, offrant une exploration nuancée des ressources interactionnelles du métadiscours et de leur rôle dans la structuration de la communication académique au-delà des frontières linguistiques et culturelles.(LALE - Langues et lettres) -- UCL, 202
Static and total life fatigue behaviour of 7075 aluminium alloy produced by laser powder bed fusion
No full textOne of the main drawbacks of Laser Powder Bed Fusion (L-PBF) is the limited material palette currently available and the often poor fatigue performance of the resulting parts. The production of parts using high-strength 7xxx aluminium alloys with the L-PBF technology is not yet well controlled and therefore not yet available for the aerospace industry. In this study, ZrH2 addition to Al7075 powder allows obtaining nearly fully dense parts (99.9%) without hot cracking. Afterwards, an optimised heat treatment (HT) is applied to this alloy to enhance its mechanical performances and reach a yield strength of 515MPa. The influence of each microstructural feature on this high yield strength is analysed in detail. Furthermore, the effect of this HT on the total life in fatigue was assessed. Finally, friction stir processing is applied as a post-treatment to supress residual porosities and modify the fatigue behaviour of the alloy
All‐Atom Quantum Mechanical Methodologies for One‐ and Two‐Photon Absorption of Realistic Systems
No full textAll-atom quantum mechanics (AQM) methodologies are assessed to evaluate one- and two-photon absorption (1PA and 2PA) of realistic systems. All-atom single structure QM (ASQM) and dynamic structure QM (ADQM) methodologies are discussed. These workflows are possible thanks to developments in simplified quantum chemistry methods and in particular with both sTD-DFT-xTB and dt-sTD-DFT-xTB schemes. The ASQM scheme is tested to compute the 1- and 2PA of two proteins: bacteriorhodopsin and iLOV. Results show that the ASQM methodology is able to describe higher-energy transitions involving π-conjugated amino acids such as tryptophan or tyrosine. Then, two variants of the ADQM workflow are evaluated to reproduce the 1- and 2PA of the flavin mononucleotide in aqueous solution, involving either Boltzmann ensemble of conformers in implicit solvent (ADQM-Boltz.) or snapshots of molecular dynamics of explicitly solvated systems (ADQM-MD). Spectra computed with the ADQM-MD approach provide striking comparisons with respect to experiment, while the ADQM-Boltz. approach provides little change with respect to the ASQM workflow
Diversity, gender and SOGI in academia in Belgium
No full textConférence et workshop avec Petra Meier, titulaire de la Chaire Franqui 202
Il ne faut plus chercher la place du droit collaboratif dans le notariat : elle est là !
No full textLe droit collaboratif est un mode alternatif de résolution des litiges qui a été consacré dans notre Code judiciaire en 2018. La septième partie du Code lui est effectivement entièrement dédiée. En lisant son article 1739, nous comprenons que la pratique du droit collaboratif est réservée aux avocats. On s'est alors interrogée sur la possibilité pour le notaire de trouver une place dans le droit collaboratif et inversement pour ce MARL de trouver un siège dans le notariat, puisque le notaire est par essence un acteur du droit actif dans la prévention et la résolution des litiges par la voie amiable. Notre contribution dans le Journal des Modes Alternatifs vise dès lors à explorer les voies de pénétration envisageables
Anscombe, Foot and Wittgenstein: Aristotelian Necessities and Forms of Life
No full textElizabeth Anscombe (1919-2001) and Philippa Foot (1920-2010) met at the end of the 1930s. They were amongst the first women students at Oxford University. Together with a couple of other female students (Cf. Teichman 2019: 2-3, Mac Cumhaill & Wiseman 2022, Lipscomb 2021), they disapproved of the way philosophy, and more particularly moral philosophy, was taught at British universities at the time, namely as a sort of pure confrontation of logical and formal arguments with no considerations for real life concerns such as fascism, the war and bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. ‘It was clear that we were all more interested in understanding this deeply puzzling world than in putting each other down’, Mary Midgley (2013) reports. According to Mac Cumhaill and Wiseman (2022), their female condition led these women to be more in touch with the practical realities and necessities of everyday life and concerns (Aucouturier 2022). This special position as women in a men’s world led them to see problems that their colleagues would not consider and to approach philosophical issues from a less abstract point of view. That is why Anscombe and Foot reinvented moral philosophy by resisting the common stances of their time (notably advocated by Alfred J. Ayer) that moral philosophy could be a mere abstract matter of conceptual analysis and that no objectivity in morality was possible. Together with Iris Murdoch, they wanted to be able to claim that: “Trend is a good man and Rowse is a bad man.” [...] Elizabeth, in her report to the Mary Somerville Fellowship Committee, proposed to “work out [her] doubts about what is called analytical philosophy”. Philippa wanted to show that “it can’t just be a matter of booing and hooraying: when we say there was something absolutely wicked about the Holocaust, this is not just a personal decision, decision not to do such things, or an expression of disapproval. There is something objective here.” (Mac Cumhaill & Wiseman 2022: 182-183) This is one of the reasons why they ended up promoting a kind of naturalism inherited from Ludwig Wittgenstein, and more precisely from his neo-Aristotelian readings. This naturalism takes seriously his remark that ‘[c]ommanding, questioning, storytelling, chatting, are as much part of our natural history as walking, eating, drinking, playing’ (PI 1953: 25). It proposes to understand human action, and more specifically the normative aspects of human action, in the context of such a ‘natural history’. It notably suggests understanding the value judgements regarding human action in continuity with what humans do and need in general, in accordance with their ‘form(s) of life’ (PI 1953: 23), i.e. not only as ‘social’, but also as ‘natural’ beings. In other words, when it comes to understanding what people do and why they do it in reference to their (human) form of life, there is not gap of any sort between what we would commonly call their ‘natural’ needs and behaviours (‘walking, eating, drinking, playing’) and other ‘conventional’ habits and practices (notably those requiring the possession of language) such as ‘commanding, questioning, storytelling and chatting’. That kind of naturalism opens the way for a feminist approach of philosophy by grounding its perspective on the point of view of the variety of human forms of life while not renouncing to a common humanity and dignity as the source of morality. To address this quest for objectivity in morals, Philippa Foot (2001: 15) appeals to what Anscombe calls ‘Aristotelian necessities’, namely ‘that without which good cannot be or come to be’ (Anscombe 1969: 15). Which entails that a proper understanding of this naturalism requires a proper understanding of the workings of the concept of ‘good’ and more specifically of the concept of ‘natural goodness’, that is of what is good for a certain being in accordance with its form(s) of life. In the human case, this last concept of a ‘form of life’ needs to be understood as reflecting what Wittgenstein calls ‘our natural history’. ‘Aristotelian necessities’ and ‘form(s) of life’ are closely linked concepts, since an Aristotelian necessity is meant to grasp what is good or what it is good to do for a certain kind of individual with a certain form of life, in a certain environment. In what follows I explore the extent to which ‘Aristotelian necessities’ may be seen as a useful concept for a renewed form of ‘re-enchanted naturalism’, to echo John McDowell’s (1995) concept of a ‘disenchanted’ or blind naturalism (i.e. blind to the teleological determinations of what happens notably in relation to human practices). A re-enchanted naturalism would consider not only the blind determinations of changes that happen in the world, but also the domain of human practices, of what humans do, of human actions (Aucouturier 2021), that is of our ‘natural history’ in Wittgenstein’s sense. To explore the extent to which Aristotelian necessities can help conceive of a re-enchanted form of naturalism, I shall first briefly consider why it is presented as an alternative to an empiricist or post-empiricist account of the origins of morals. I then turn to the concept of ‘good’ as it appears in the characterization of Aristotelian necessities, notably in relation to what Foot calls ‘natural goodness’. In the third part, I examine how some facts can create duties and how humans can come to learn non-natural necessities, such as rules, rights and promises. In the fourth and final part, I consider the extent to which such a concept of ‘natural goodness’ can account for ‘what is good for a human being’ and as such be a good candidate not only to understand our ‘natural history’ but also to provide, as it aims to do, some kind of objectivity for ethical and normative judgements and duties
