The scope of perceptual knowledge

Plausibly perceptual knowledge satisfies the following: (1) It is knowledge about things from the way they appear. (2) It can embrace more than the way things appear. (3) It is phenomenologically immediate and thus, in one sense, non-inferential. (2) and (3) place a significant constraint on adequate elucidations of (1). Knowledge about an object, from the way it looks, which embraces more than the way it looks, should not turn out to be inferential in the relevant sense. The paper shows how this constraint can be met, drawing upon a conception of a discriminative capacity. The discussion touches on literature dealing with observation in science, knowledge of other minds, and the possibility of moral knowledge

How Meaning Might Be Normative

The aim is (i) to outline an account what it is to grasp the meaning of a predicative term, and (ii) to draw on that account in an attempt to shed light on what the normativity of meaning might amount to. Central to the account is that grasping the meaning of a predicative term is a practical matter—it is knowing how to use it correctly in a way that implicates having an ability to use it correctly. This calls for an examination of what it is to use a term correctly. Two quite different types of correctness are liable to be conflated. Sections 2 and 3 show why they must be kept apart. Sections 4 and 5 consider how correctness of the second type might be conceived within a practice-theoretic framework and how that framework might make sense of the idea that meaning is essentially normative. The concluding section responds to an objection

A Précis of Understanding People: Normativity and Rationalizing Explanation

The article provides a summary of the author's book Understanding People: Normativity and Rationalizing Explanation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004). It details three areas in which the notion of a normative commitment is made central. These are (1) believing and intending, (2) practices conceived as essentially rule-governed activities, and (3) meaning and concepts. An account is given of how we may best explain the commitments incurred by beliefs and intentions. It is held that those states are themselves essentially normative. A problem of the relevance of rationalizing to rationalizing explanation is explored and the relation between normative commitments and normative reasons is discussed

Why Knowledge Matters

An explanation is given of why it is in the nature of inquiry into whether or not p that its aim is fully achieved only if one comes to know that p or to know that not-p and, further, comes to know how one knows, either way. In the absence of the latter one is in no position to take the inquiry to be successfully completed or to vouch for the truth of the matter in hand. An upshot is that although knowledge matters because truth matters this should not be understood to mean that knowledge matters because true belief matters

Novel III-V compound semiconductor technologies for low power digital logic applications

As silicon (Si) complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology continues to scale into the 10 nm node, chip power consumption is approaching 200 W/cm2 and any further increase is unsustainable. Incorporating III-V compound semiconductor n-type devices into future CMOS generations could allow for the the reduction in supply voltage, and therefore, power consumption, while simultaneously improving on-state performance. The advanced state of Si CMOS places stringent demands on III-V devices, however: the current 14 nm Si tri-gate devices employ high aspect ratio, densely spaced fins which serve to significantly increase current per chip surface area. III-V devices need to significantly out perform state of the art Si devices in order to merit their disruptive incorporation into the well established CMOS process. This necessitates that they too exploit the vertical dimension. To this end, this thesis reports on the fabrication, measurement and analysis of high aspect ratio junctionless InGaAs FinFETs. The junctionless architecture was first demonstrated in 2010 and was shown to circumvent pro- hibitive fabrication challenges for devices with ultra short gate lengths. This work investigated the impact of fin width on both the on and off-state performance of 200 nm gate length devices, with nominal fin widths of 10, 15 and 20 nm. Excellent subthreshold performance was demonstrated, with the narrowest fin width exhibiting a minimum subthreshold swing (SS) of 73 mV/Dec., and an average SS of 80 mV/Dec. over two decades of current. A maximum on-current, Ion, of 80.51 μA/cm2 was measured at a gate overdrive of 0.5 V from an off-state current, Ioff, of 100 nA/cm2 and a drain voltage, Vd, of 0.5 V, with current normalised by gated perimeter. This is competitive with other III-V junctionless devices at similar gate lengths. With current normalised to base fin width, however, Ion increases to 371.8 μA/cm2, which is a record value among equivalently normalised non-planar III-V junctionless devices at any gate length. This technology, therefore, clearly demonstrates the feasibility of incorporating scaled, etched InGaAs fins into future logic generations. Perhaps the greatest bottleneck to the incorporation of III-V compounds into future CMOS technology nodes, however, is the lack of a suitable III-V PMOS candidate: co-integrating different material systems onto a common substate incurs great fabrication complexity, and therefore, cost. III-V antimonides, however, have recently emerged as promising candidates for III-V PMOS and exhibit the highest bulk electron mobility of all III-Vs in addition to a hole mobility second only to germanium. InGaSb ternary compounds have been shown to offer the best combined performance for electrons and holes in the same material, and as such, have the potential to the enable the most simplistic incarnation of III-V CMOS; provided, of course, that is possible to form a gate stack to both device polarities with sufficient electrical properties. To date, however, there has been no investigation into the high-k dielectric interface to InGaSb. To this end, this thesis presents results of the first investigation into the impact of in-situ H2 plasma exposure on the electrical properties of the p/n-In0.3Ga0.7Sb-Al2O3 interface. The parameter space was explored systematically in terms of H2 plasma power and exposure time, and further, the impact of impact of in-situ trimethylaluminium (TMA) pre-cleaning and annealing in forming gas was assessed. Metal oxide semiconductor capacitors (MOSCAPs) were fabricated subsequent to H2 plasma processing and Al2O3 deposition, and the correspond- ing capacitance-voltage and conductance-voltage measurements were analysed both qualita- tively and quantitatively via the simulation of an equivalent circuit model. X-Ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis of samples processed as part of the plasma power series revealed a combination of ex-situ HCl cleaning and in-situ H2 plasma exposure to completely remove In and Sb sub oxides, with the Ga-O content reduced to Ga-O:InGaSb <0.1. The optimal process, which included ex-situ HCl surface cleaning, in-situ H2 plasma and TMA pre-cleaning, and a post gate metal forming gas anneal, was unequivocally demonstrated to yield a fully unpinnned MOS interface with both n and p-type MOSCAPs explicitly demonstrating a genuine minority carrier response. Interface state and border trap densities were extracted, with a minimum Dit of 1.73x1012 cm-2 eV-1 located at ~110 meV below the conduction band edge and peak border trap densities approximately aligned with the valence and conduction band edges of 3x1019 cm-3 eV-1 and 6.5x1019 cm-3 eV-1 respectively. These results indicate that the optimal gate stack process is indeed applicable to both p and n- type InGaSb MOSFETs, and therefore, represent a critical advancement towards achieving high performance III-V CMOS

The epistemological significance of reflective access

This thesis is, in part, a defence of a broad-based approach to epistemology. We should be wary of taking too narrow a focus and thus neglecting important aspects of knowledge. If we are too focused on one methodology then we are likely to miss insights that can come about from a different perspective. With this in mind, I investigate two particular methodologies in detail: Kornblith’s naturalism and Craig’s ‘genealogical’ approach. Kornblith emphasises the importance of looking at knowledge in the context of the natural world, thus stressing the continuity between animal and human knowledge. Craig, on the other hand, focuses on a distinctly human aspect of knowledge: the importance of enquiry and the sharing of information. As such, the two theories of knowledge that are developed have different emphases. I argue that by bringing them together we can better understand what knowledge is. This leads us to the other main contribution of this thesis, which is a defence of the role of reflection in epistemology. This has often been neglected in contemporary epistemology, primarily because of the effectiveness of externalist theories of knowledge. The focus on externalism has lead to reflection being sidelined. I do not argue that reflection is necessary for knowledge, but rather want to bring back attention to the important role that it plays in human life. Reflectively accessible justification is necessary for our knowledge claims and therefore plays a vital role in enquiry. If we add reflectively accessible justification to knowledge then it is both more stable and more valuable. Even if it is not necessary for knowledge, reflection should not be neglected.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Exploring the Application of Homomorphic Encryption to a Cross Domain Solution

A Cross Domain Solution (CDS) is a means of secure information exchange that provides the ability to access or transfer digital data between varying security domains. Most existing CDS methods focus on risk management policies that rely on using protected or trusted parties to process the information in order to solve this problem. A CDS that is able to function in the presence of untrusted parties is a challenge. We apply the concepts of homomorphic encryption (HE) to explore a new solution to the CDS problem. We built a practical software case study application using the Yet Another Somewhat Homomorphic Encryption Scheme (YASHE) around the specific challenge of evaluating the gateway bypass condition on encrypted data. We assess the feasibility of such an application through performance and memory profiling in order to find a parameter selection that ensures proper homomorphic evaluation. The correctness of the application was assured for 64-, 72-, 96-, and 128-bit security parameter selections of YASHE resulting in high latency performance. The computing time required by our proof-of-concept implementation may be high but this approach allows the manual process employed in current systems to be eliminated