J. M. E. McTaggart's critique of the idea of God

This item was digitized by the Internet Archive. Thesis (M.A.)--Boston Universityhttps://archive.org/details/jmemctaggartscri00cop

Implications Of Canadian Oil Tax Policies

The purpose of the thesis is to examine some of the implications of the policy initiatives taken by both levels of government during the 1974-80 period (i.e., from the OPEC oil embargo and subsequent quadrupling of posted world oil prices to the introduction of the National Energy Program, or NEP). A survey of the fiscal instruments employed by both the federal and the oil-producing provincial levels of government to distribute the oil revenues generated in Canada is presented. The focus of this survey is primarily on the pre-NEP regime and the immediate post-NEP regime. The remainder of the thesis then deals with some of the distributional and efficiency aspects of these tax regimes.;One of the distributional implications of the intergovernmental revenue-sharing from oil production, as defined by the underlying tax regime in place, is that the pre-NEP tax regime, for example, will have repercussions for provincial revenues (for both the have and the have-not provinces the thesis examines the ramifications of the pre-NEP regime on the equalization program (in place at that time). Specifically, the implications for the magnitude and the funding of the equalization payments are examined. Correspondingly, a recommendation favouring an alternative system of equalization--a two-tier program which with the second tier taking the form of an interprovincial revenue-sharing pool (and focussing essentially on revenues under sole provincial control)--is presented and evaluated.;The thesis also examines the economic efficiency aspects of the pre- and post-NEP tax regimes. In particular, we address the issue of an inefficient allocation of resources within the oil industry itself. That is, based on the assumption that the pure-profits tax is economically efficient (i.e., optimal) then the pre- and post-NEP tax regimes are predicted to distort the allocation of exploration and developmental capital employed in the production of alternative types of oil (e.g., conventional, secondary, tertiary, non-conventional and frontier oil). The result therefore, is an efficiency loss incurred by Canada. An attempt to illustrate the magnitude of this efficiency loss is also presented. . . . (Author\u27s abstract exceeds stipulated maximum length. Discontinued here with permission of author.) UM

Temporal changes in gamma dose rates in the Esk Estuary, UK

Over the last 30 years there has been a reduction in the radioactive discharges from the UK's Sellafield site. Radionuclide activity concentrations in the environment around Sellafield have declined as a result. However, routine monitoring results from the nearby Esk Estuary show a less clear trend, with fluctuations in gamma dose rate measurements being reported from year to year. A comprehensive survey (n = 576) of gamma dose rates in the Esk Estuary was undertaken in 2007 and the data compared to a similar survey carried out in 1989. There was a highly statistically significant decrease in the external gamma dose rates within the Esk Estuary between 1989 and 2007. The measured total gamma dose rate range in 2007 was 0.064 - 0.235 μGy h-1with a mean of 0.123 μGy h-1. This equates to a maximum exposure of 0.200 μSv h-1. There was no evidence of large-scale sediment redistribution under current conditions. However, there was limited evidence to suggest that part of the reason for the reduction in measured dose rates was the burial of contaminated sediment deposits by uncontaminated sediments transported by tidal processes

Cadmium uptake from sediment by Cylindrotheca closterium and the effect of diatom presence on partitioning of cadmium between sediment and water: A laboratory study

Although it is well established that microalgae take up metals and other contaminants from water and it has been suggested that algae may play a significant role in mobilizing sediment bound contaminants, there has been little research on the uptake of sediment‐associated contaminants by microalgae. This may be important for microphytobenthos, which is closely associated with sediments. We report on laboratory experiments investigating the uptake of cadmium (Cd) from sediment and water by Cylindrotheca closterium over 96 h. The role of microalgae in the partitioning of Cd between sediment and water was also investigated. While concentrations do not typically represent those in the natural environment, we showed C. closterium takes up Cd from sediment, and concentration in microalgae is affected by sediment organic matter content. Cylindrotheca closterium influenced Cd movement between sediment and water: transfer from water to sediment was slowed, while transfer from sediment to overlying water (all treatments) and interstitial water (unprocessed sediment treatments) was increased. This is the first article to describe Cd uptake by diatoms from intertidal sediment in relation to sediment properties and mobilization of Cd from sediment in the presence of diatoms. Microalgae may serve as a pathway for sediment‐associated metals to enter into aquatic food webs, and their presence appears to increase metal concentrations in water potentially making any mobilized metals available for uptake by other species. Given this and their importance as the basis of the food chain, there may be implications for environmental and human health and potential impacts for the biological stability of the sediment

Reconfigurable Cellular Composite Structures for Lighter than Air Vehicles with Scalable Size and Endurance

Engineered non-stochastic cellular materials show promising characteristics on the laboratory scale,with nearly ideal specific stiffness and strength scaling at ultralight mass density. These propertiessuggest performance benefits in any application with combined stiffness and mass constraints, suchas air vehicles. We investigate here the application of re-configurable cellular composite materialsand structures to lighter than air vehicles. We describe the properties and applicability of these materials,provide an example analysis of governing loading conditions associated with airships, showan example optimization method for navigating the design space, and describe how recent advancesin cellular material manufacturing and reconfiguration enable system performance benefits includingnew concepts of operation. Lastly, we propose lighter than air vehicles that are assembled andmaintained in-flight, eliminating structural compromises associated with transitional flight modesand ground handling.Engineered non-stochastic cellular material properties suggest performance benefits in lighter than air vehicles due tostiffness and mass constraints that are intrinsic to the airship design problem. Recent advances in cellular materialmanufacturing and reconfiguration enable system performance benefits including new concepts of operation, such aslighter than air vehicles that are assembled and maintained in-flight, eliminating structural compromises associatedwith transitional flight modes and ground handling. Existing engineered cellular materials display properties allowinglarge large scale airships design as monocoque cellular solids. Inevitable improvements in cellular material propertiesand manufacturing will improve feasibility even further. Given the suggestion that the two most significant technologygaps exist across all current airship projects are manufacturing and assembly processes and ground handling [7],a strategy that encompasses construction and maintenance in flight could provide critical rephrasing of the systemdesign problem through these new concepts of operation. Refactoring of traditional manufacturing, operation, andservice process constraints could extend to other domains in aerospace systems and manufacturing in general.In future work, the complexity of the design task would benefit from a form of optimization in order to find themost suitable geometry for a chosen application. For example, the Sequential Least SQuares Programming (SLSQP)function from within the SciPy Minimize library is a multiobjective constrained optimization method that has beenapplied to fixed wing aircraft design. [17] In this situation it would allow for several objective functions such as drag,bending stiffness, buoyancy and cost of transport to be incorporated into a composite objective function