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Abstract Most massive stars live in pairs. Often, since their birth, they have lived close to another star. During their life as a couple, certain events in the life of a star will bring them so close together that they will exchange matter, a phenomenon …

Abstract La Chaumière indienne is a short philosophical tale by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, published in 1791. It depicts the encounter between an English scholar and an Indian outcast, a face-off between the learned culture of the European Enlightenment …

Abstract After a supernova explosion, if the remaining core does not exceed 3 solar masses, it can remain in equilibrium as a neutron star. It is the Pauli pressure of the degenerated neutrons that compensates for gravity. The explosion of the Crab …

Abstract First-person thoughts, i.e. thoughts one would express using the pronoun " I ", are reflexive : the thought I would express by saying " I'm hungry " is about myself as the thinker of that thought. In this seminar, I defend an introspectionist …

Abstract A thought, in the sense of Descartes and the Cartesians, is a content of consciousness, whatever it may be. Some contents of consciousness are " representative " and have an object to which they relate. Among these, we distinguish between those …

Abstract The immense diversity of floral characteristics (flower shape, size and color, floral odors) is commonly explained by the shared evolutionary history between plants and pollinators. The many species of pollinator are thought to have played a …

Abstract In the history of life, the first interactions between plants and pollinators were almost concomitant with the appearance of flowering plants, or even preceded it. Through natural selection mechanisms, they led to the evolution of traits that …

Abstract In the past few years, there has been considerable activity around a set of quantum bounds on transport coefficients (viscosity, conductivity) and chaos (Lyapunov exponents), relevant at low temperatures. The interest comes from the fact that …

Abstract In these last two lectures, we are interested in models of random (q+1)-regular graphs with N vertices. We study the spectral hole of the adjacency matrix, in the limit where N tends to infinity. We present a result by Joel Friedman, and several …

Abstract Political debates offer citizens a unique opportunity to appreciate the position of political representatives on the most controversial issues of the day. In view of the active expression of the various players in political life, these debates …

Abstract NLP for linguistics, with a brief detour into NLP applications for the humanities and social sciences. Linguistics as a field of application for NLP, in three examples : computational morphology and morphological complexity ; computational …

Abstract Hyperbolic systems in dimension 1 of space play a crucial role in various real-life domains such as navigable rivers, irrigation canals, heat exchangers, chemical reactors, gas pipelines, road traffic, chromatography, and many others. This talk …

Abstract People seem to have an early understanding of the world around them, and the other people in it. Before children can reliably say "ball", "wall", or "Saul", they expect balls not to go through walls, and for Saul to go right for a ball (if …

The Origins of Geometric Symbols since Prehistory: A Language of Thought? Abstract In the Lascaux cave, just below the magnificent drawing of a large deer, is the simple but unmistakable outline of a rectangle. All over the world, since prehistoric times, …

Abstract In low- and middle-income countries, there are many small businesses, and few large ones. How can this be explained ? And how do companies in poor countries operate ? Are they as productive ? Do they face specific …

Abstract For centuries, it was expected that all planetary systems, by virtue of the universality of physical laws, would roughly resemble our own, with small rocky planets on the inside and gas giants on the outside, all on nearly circular, coplanar …