God’s Extended Mind

The traditional doctrine of divine omniscience ascribes to God the fully exercised power to know all truths. but why is God’s excellence with respect to knowing not treated on a par with his excellence with respect to doing, where the latter requires only that God have the power to do all things? The prima facie problem with divine ”omni-knowledgeability’ -- roughly, being able to know whatever one wants to know whenever one wants to know it -- is that knowledge requires an internal representation, whereas mere ”knowledgeability’ does not. I argue to the contrary that knowledge does not require an internal representation, and that even if it did, an omni-knowledgeable God would satisfy this requirement. omni-knowledgeability therefore represents a distinct understanding of God’s cognitive excellence while satisfying the traditional insistence on full omniscience

Quantitative analysis of the leakage of confidential data

Basic information theory is used to analyse the amount of confidential information which may be leaked by programs written in a very simple imperative language. In particular, a detailed analysis is given of the possible leakage due to equality tests and if statements. The analysis is presented as a set of syntax-directed inference rules and can readily be automated

Seeking to find a place for spiritual transcendence through engaging with earthquake images in geography textbooks

This thesis explores my perceptions as a Christian geography teacher, how a series of images, depicting the effects of and responses to earthquakes, in contemporary geography textbooks develops a sense of place and through this offers opportunities for spiritual transcendence in two English secondary school classes. This is explored through the lens of a growing reflexivity of how my faith influences my teaching. On reviewing the literature of sense of place and of spiritual transcendence major themes began to emerge which provided a focus for the research. When considering the concept of sense of place, the themes of emotion and geographical imaginations provided the context for the research, while the themes of meaning, connectedness, emotions, and imaginations, provided context to spiritual transcendence for the research. The post-structural informed research took the form of a critical discourse analysis of nine images contained within two contemporary geography textbooks, personal reflections on how students in two secondary phase classes that I taught responded to the images using a research journal as well as two focus groups with students to discuss their thoughts on the images. The personal reflexivity focused on my perception of how the images allowed opportunities to develop a sense of place and spiritual transcendence. The theoretical lenses through which I analysed the data involved a modified “Visual Methodologies” approach rooted in critical discourse analysis. The approach focused on two elements. The first element was the site of the image, which focused on the elements and signs that I perceived to be present within the image. The second element, site of audience, focused on how I perceived students were responding to the image to develop meaning. These two dimensions provided an insight into how, as a Christian geography teacher, I perceived a development in sense of place and spiritual transcendence. The analysis revealed that different aspects of an image might provide greater opportunities for a sense of place and spiritual transcendence. The results of this research cannot be generalised as they focus on my own perceptions of two classes. However, a connection between a sense of place and spiritual transcendence appeared to emerge, a tethered sense of place. A new personal pedagogical approach to using textbook images in the classroom which has the potential to encourage spiritual transcendence also emerged. Both areas might be considered for further investigation by others. Finally, as a process of undertaking this thesis, I have also become reflexively aware of the interaction between my faith as a Christian and my geographical pedagogies in deepening my understanding of what it is to be a Christian Geography Teacher

A static analysis for quantifying information flow in a simple imperative language

We propose an approach to quantify interference in a simple imperative language that includes a looping construct. In this paper we focus on a particular case of this definition of interference: leakage of information from private variables to public ones via a Trojan Horse attack. We quantify leakage in terms of Shannon's information theory and we motivate our definition by proving a result relating this definition of leakage and the classical notion of programming language interference. The major contribution of the paper is a quantitative static analysis based on this definition for such a language. The analysis uses some non-trivial information theory results like Fano's inequality and L1 inequalities to provide reasonable bounds for conditional statements. While-loops are handled by integrating a qualitative flow-sensitive dependency analysis into the quantitative analysis

USING ABSOLUTE DEVIATIONS TO COMPUTE LINES OF BEST FIT

Research Methods/ Statistical Methods,

(63)Cu NQR Evidence for Spatial Variation of Hole Concentration in La(2-x)Sr(x)CuO(4)

We report experimental evidence for the spatial variation of hole concentration x_(hole) in the high Tc superconductor La(2-x)Sr(x)CuO(4) (0.04 <= x <= 0.16) by using (63)Cu NQR for (63)Cu isotope enriched samples. We demonstrate that the extent of the spatial variation of the local hole concentration D(x)_(hole) is reflected on (63)1/T1 and deduce the temperature dependence. D(x)_(hole) increases below 500 - 600K, and reaches values as large as D(x)_(hole)/x ~ 0.5 below ~ 150K. We estimate the length scale of the spatial variation in x_(hole) to be R_(hole) >~ 3nm from analysis of the NQR spectrum.Comment: Accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter

Solar silicon via the Dow Corning process

Technical feasibility for high volume production of solar cell-grade silicon is investigated. The process consists of producing silicon from pure raw materials via the carbothermic reduction of quartz. This silicon was then purified to solar grade by impurity segregation during Czochralski crystal growth. Commercially available raw materials were used to produce 100 kg quantities of silicon during 60 hour periods in a direct arc reactor. This silicon produced single crystalline ingot, during a second Czochralski pull, that was fabricated into solar cells having efficiencies ranging from 8.2 percent to greater than 14 percent. An energy analysis of the entire process indicated a 5 month payback time

Prevalence and risk factors for joint pain among men and women in the West of Scotland Twenty-07 study

Objective: To examine the association between three modifiable risk factors (obesity, smoking, and alcohol consumption) and reported joint pain. Methods: Cross sectional data were collected on 858 people aged 58 years living in the West of Scotland and on the same individuals four years later, aged 62 years. Results: There was a positive relation between obesity and reported pain in the hips, knees, ankles, and feet. The strongest relation was with knee pain (odds ratio = 2.42 (95% confidence interval, 1.65 to 3.56)). There were no strong consistent associations between smoking habits and pain in any joint after adjusting for sex, alcohol consumption, body mass index, social class, and occupational exposures. Similarly, alcohol was not consistently related to pain in any joint in the fully adjusted models. Conclusions: Obesity had consistent and readily explained associations with lower limb joint pain. The data suggest that smoking behaviour and alcohol consumption are not consistently associated with joint pain across the body