Date:    Sat, 7 Dec 1996 18:50:24 GMT
From:    Netfaune@videotron.ca
Subject: Visit / Visiter :"Le Carrefour Quebecois Environnement Faune"

Pour tous les amateurs de faune, visitez le Carrefour Quebecois
Environnement Faune.

Ce site web se veut la porte d'entree pour tous ceux et celles qui
s'interressent directement ou indirectement a la faune et a ses
differents intervenants.

http://www.alphacom.net/cqef

N'hesitez pas a laisser vos commentaires ou suggestions via la carte
de visite du site.

-------------------------------------------------------

For all french users who love nature and wildlife, come visit "Le
Carrefour Quebecois Environnement Faune"

This web site is the gateway for all the people who are interrested
directly or indirectly in wildlife and in all of its intervening
partys of Quebec.

http://www.alphacom.net/cqef

Don't hesitate to leave us your comments or suggestions via our visit
card.


----------------------------------



Mario Hebert
Net.Faune Consultant
Carrefour Quebecois de l'Environnement Faune
Http://www.alphacom.net/cqef
Email.: cqef@videotron.ca
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From:    WirtAtmar@aol.com
Subject: Engineering Risk Management

To add just a few examples (which are often more explanatory than simple
string of words) to the proper definition of paradigm, there are a great
number of web sites that use the word "paradigm" somewhere in their text. But
not all of them use it correctly, nor are they all correct in their
assertions.

One example of an incorrect assertion is:

http://capita.wustl.edu/ME567_Informatics/concepts/paradigm.html

in which the author claims that Thomas Kuhn coined the word "paradigm." This
seems to be a common misperception. But in fact, the word -- in its modern
usage -- was at least 1500 years old by the time that Kuhn was born, and
perhaps a 1000 years older than that. Julius Ceaser almost certainly knew the
word, and probably used it once and a while, probably little altered in
meaning from the way that we use it now. A second site,

http://w3.adb.gu.se/~a95jonas/psi/paradigm.html

seems to be claiming the same thought. However the text is in Swedish -- and
my Swedish often fails me (thus my apologies to the author if I have
misrepresented him).

The concept of a paradigm as a model is far more commonly used in engineering
and business than it is in science. An excellent example of an archetypical,
specific change in paradigm of a mechanical device can be found at:

http://www.nanothinc.com/NanoWorld/Perspectives/Warren/microjet/compressor.ht
ml

Similarly, a modelled methodology (another form of paradigm) for engineering
risk management can be seen at:

http://www.sei.cmu.edu/technology/risk/Risk_Overview/sld008.html

One of the most thoughtful dissertations on questioning the common
methodologies (paradigms) of a community that I found is at:

http://www.bible.org/wtj/w283_f.htm

Finally, a very appropriate and concise definition of a paradigm is given in:

http://hoshi.cic.sfu.ca/~guay/Paradigm/DefParadigm.html

a simple web page devoted to a discussion of how to author a web page and the
cultural paradigm shift that a world linked by the web is perhaps ushering.

Wirt Atmar
atmar@aics-research.com
atmar@fmnh.org
wirtatmar@aol.com