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The National Museum of Natural History has been carrying out, over the last several years, a study of hominid fossil skulls, which have been discovered in different regions of the world. The aim of the palaeo‐anthropological study of these skulls is to reconstruct the genealogic tree of the evolution of man and to understand better, the diversity of the homo Erectus species on the different continents. Currently, digital techniques and those of rapid prototyping offer a solution to these problems by allowing the virtual or physical reconstitution of the skulls for scientific study. This paper presents this new perspective for the world of palaeontology.

The work deals with the topic of spare parts management in a space system. The paper is divided into three parts. The first one is dedicated to the characterization of the system structure and presents the particularities related to the spare‐elements procurement. Modelling is the object of the second part. After having exposed the bases of the problem to be solved, a macro‐model is introduced. Each of the three elements of an orbital system, namely ground, flying and transport, is then described with a Petri net. Operation specificities of every element are then listed and integrated into the model. A concrete application of this modelling is given in the last part. It concerns the Columbus laboratory of the International Space Station. A representative function is selected and several supply strategies are evaluated.

This article presents a method of management of the initial spare parts supply. This generic problem is of particular interest in certain systems in which the difficulty of accessibility or the life cycle duration constitute risks tied to the possible depletion of the spare parts stock. In this paper we consider the spatial context. After having commented on the particularities of the management of the spare parts supply of a space station, we propose a method based on the minimization of the risk of postponement of a maintenance operation. Finally, an application to the Columbus laboratory of the International Space Station is presented.

In a seeming attempt to legitimate or otherwise dignify social economics (Économie sociale, etc.), “named” economists (Adam Smith, Karl Marx et al.) have been dubbed social economists and/or regarded as having made significant but unrecognised contributions thereto. Conspicuously absent from that roster of celebrities are Léon Walras, économiste social par excellence, et al., who have distinguished themselves in the mainstream but also have done social economy(ics) explicitly, i.e. by that designation. Included in that illustrious et al. list are François Quesnay, J.B. Say, Friedrich von Wieser and Knut Wicksell (inter alios). Their due recognition, as per the present essay, cannot help but measurably further legitimise/dignify social economics.

The distinction between “observed” and “observing” systems that legitimizes the rise of second‐order cybernetics also raises a number of methodological and epistemological issues. These can be generically classified into two broad groups: first, adherence to the model approach and its overemphasis on cognition, at the expense of conation and other factors responsible for the initiation of action; second, an inadequate appraisal of the nature of language and its role within the sum total of human behavior. The overall result is the perennial confusion between the behavior of the expert and that of the subjects under investigation. Underlying both of these, in the final reckoning, is the hypostatical nature of the linguistic and logical constructs employed. The ambiguity surrounding “observing systems” begins to dissipate when we realize that second‐order cybernetics is not so much about an “observer” as about a “self‐observer”. The study of self‐referentiality is not only about language; it is about other forms of behavior as well.

The purpose of this paper is to show that football as a sacred experience is often raised, but has never led to an argued approach. Professional football (soccer) is a genuine societal phenomenon, both through the medias’ interest they cause and through the financial stakes that are related to it. It is common to read that football, through the passions it unleashes, for example in terms of tribal violence, has become a type of religion, with its believers (the fans) and its place of worship (the stadiums).

The authors reviewed the literature, research reports and electronic documents on professional football practices to understand the religious dimension of fan passion in Europe (ritualism, collective beliefs, using of totemic objects, etc.).

The paper suggests a reading grid of religions, founded on four interdependent dimensions (the Community, the Law, the Way and the Experience) and applies it to professional football by underlying its relevance in the singular context of sports show.

Beyond well-known economic stakes, the paper clarifies the football passion from a religious perspective and identifies the main pillars of the fan conversion process according to a heteronomous logic.

Spatial autocorrelation in regression residuals is a major issue for the modeller because it disturbs parameter estimates and invalidates the reliability of conclusions drawn from models. The purpose of this paper is to develop an approach which generates new spatial predictors that can be mapped and qualitatively analysed while controlling for spatial autocorrelation among residuals.

This paper explores an alternate approach using a Fourier polynomial function based on geographical coordinates to construct an additional spatial predictor that allows to capture the latent spatial pattern hidden among residuals. An empirical validation based on hedonic modelling of sale prices variation using a large dataset of house transactions is provided.

Results show that the spatial autocorrelation problem is under control as shown by low Moran's I indexes. Moreover, this geo‐statistical approach provides coefficients on environmental amenities that are still highly significant by capturing only the remaining spatial autocorrelation.

The originality of this paper relies on the development of a new model that allows considering, simultaneously spatial and time dimension while measuring the marginal impact of environmental amenities on house prices avoiding competition with the weight matrix needed in most spatial econometric models.

The bibliography of Cook's voyages is both lengthy and complicated, and, in spite of their far‐reaching importance, their historical and geographical significance, and their considerable literary influence, it has never yet been attempted in its entirety. ‘L'immortel Cook’ was honoured almost as much in France as he was in England, but no satisfactory account exists of the French translations of his works. Sir Maurice Holmes's Introduction to the bibliography of Captain James Cook, R.N., London, Edwards, 1936, is excellent for the original editions, but does not attempt to include translations. Of great value, too, is the Bibliography of Captain James Cook, R.N., F.R.S., circumnavigator, published in 1928 by the Public Library of New South Wales. This is the catalogue of what must have been a remarkably fine exhibition to celebrate the bicentenary of Cook's birth, but it does not, of course, pretend to include items which were not available for display. The only other bibliography specifically devoted to Cook is the one by James Jackson prepared for the centenary of Captain Cook's death and published in the Bulletin de la Société de Géographie, 1879. This must be used with great caution. It has the appearance of having been compiled from entries sent in by various owners and put together without sufficient examination. At all events, while it naturally contains a very large number of French editions, many of them appear twice or even three times in slightly different disguises.

Les premiers textes déclaratifs des droits de l'homme en Occident n'ont pas comporté immédiatement la reconnaissance de droits sociaux. Ainsi, à la suite de la Déclaration des Droits—“Bill of Rights”—imposée à la Monarchie anglaise le 13 février 1689, la Déclaration modèle adoptée en Virginie le 12 juin 1776, sous l'autorité de George Mason, comme la Déclaration d'Indépendance américaine du 4 juillet 1776, et enfin la Déclaration francaise des droits de l'homme et du citoyen, proclamée par l'Assemblée nationale le 26 août 1789, étaient consacrées à l'affirmation des droits civils et politi‐ques face aux pouvoirs dont l'emprise devait être restreinte et contenue, plutôt que confirmée et étendue par l'attribution de nouvelles fonctions, même justifiées par l'intention d'améliorer le sort des plus malheureux. Résolus à ouvrir une bràche décisive dans le système de gouvernement absolutiste, les pionniers des droits de l'homme étaient tenus d'accorder la priorité aux droits conquis de libre disposition sur les droits acquis de protection, de sorte que l'autonomie des citoyens à l'égard de l'Etat était revendiquée avec toutes ses conséquences économiques et sociales. Même l'expression neuve du droit à la vie et à la poursuite du bonheur, qui apparaît dans les déclarations américaines du XVIIIe siècle, s'entendait d'une aspiration irrépressible à la liberté et non point comme l'avers d'obligations sociales imposées à la collectivité, du moins jusqu'à ce que le Préambule de la Constitution des Etats‐Unis d'Amérique du 17 septembre 1787 inscrivît la promotion du bienêtre général—“to promote the general welfare”—au nombre de ses objectifs.

THE commercial world, as a rule, is not the most enthusiastic supporter of Public Libraries, the attitude of the average English business man towards them being one of tolerant contempt, based largely upon the conviction that there is no money in them. He is also misled as to their value for business purposes by the occasional outbursts of irresponsible journalists, who go daft on the fiction question, with no more authority behind their statements than the figures of a single lending department plus the Fleet Street imagination and the professional desire to turn out a sensational paragraph which will go the round of the newspapers. Largely for these reasons, and partly because no great endeavour is made to educate the business man in the commercial value of a good library, he is permitted to become indifferent to the value of institutions whose methods he adopts for his own business purposes without being aware of the fact. Yet, it is true, that practically all modern business methods of accounts, card indexing, vertical filing and general adjustability of office systems are derived from the actual practice of Public Libraries. This was shown most strikingly at the Business exhibitions held at Olympia, in London, and just recently at the “Premier Congrès International du Bureau Moderne,” held at Paris from June 23rd to 30th. At all these exhibitions librarians beheld their own methods of cataloguing, indexing and filing being exploited by stationers, furniture dealers and library furnishers as their own original inventions. Not a word as to the librarian pioneers who had made all this adjustability and expansion possible by their experiments and patient search after scientific flexibility of method. However, it is part of the nature of things that the ideas of the mere hermit‐librarian should be exploited by the shrewd man of business, and librarians should rejoice that, at last, an universal service has been rendered to the world of commerce, which, though not generally recognized, must be accepted as a benefit which a body of mere officials have unconsciously created for their commercial brethren.