Metaphysics and religious experience

The thesis is entitled Metaphysics and Religious Experience and is concerned, in the main, to explore the degree to which metaphysical argument can, if at all, corroborate the professed insights of those who claim, or have claimed, to have personally encountered God, or a Divine Being. The thesis is divided into an introductory chapter and nine subsequent chapters. The introductory chapter is entitled "Does Religious Language convey an Intelligible Message?" and is concerned to clear the ground for talking about religion, by rebutting verificationist-inspired claims that religious language is not, and cannot be, cognitively meaningful. In Chapter One, which is entitled "Religious Experience and Knowledge of God" the question of whether it is legitimate to make truth-claims on the basis of ostensible religious experience is examined, and it is concluded that critics of religious experience such as Hepburn and Martin ultimately fail to prove their case. Chapter Two moves away from the critique of verificationism with which the first two chapters (including the introductory chapter) are concerned, to a consideration of whether the various subjects of supposed religious experience have in all ages and cultures been led through their experiences to make similar claims. Chapter Three is entitled "The Possibility of Metaphysics" and sets out to examine the major criticisms of the enterprise of metaphysical argument. Chapter Four is entitled "The Nature of Finite Individuals" and is concerned to argue for a metaphysical proposition, which, on the basis of more immediate intuitive experience, the mystics (and other subjects of ostensible religious experience) would also uphold. Chapter Five is entitled "Bosanquet's Refutation of Pluralism" and Chapter Six is entitled "The Position of J.N. Findlay on the Nature of Finite Individuals." The chapters primarily deal with the philosophers' respective arguments for the truth of the metaphysical proposition mentioned above. Chapter Seven is entitled "Man, Nature and the Primacy of the Subject" and is concerned to appraise arguments for and ultimately to defend the view that a further metaphysical proposition, supportive of the mystics' (& etc.) claims, may plausibly be affirmed, that proposition being that in addition to there being an ultimate confluence of finite minds, there is also an ultimate unity between mind and nature. Chapter Eight is entitled "The Testimony of Religion as it is Practised" and deals with the question of whether the ritualistic religious consciousness of' the ordinary religious believer contains any element of genuine insight. Chapter Nine, the final chapter, is entitled "Moral Experience as Evidence for the Mystical Absolute." This chapter is concerned to argue that deep philosophical reflection on the nature of our moral experience provides us with strong evidence that finite individuals have an acute, consciousness of a universal spiritual "state of being", transcending their natures as particulars. This "state of being" corresponds closely to the "Divine Being" or "Spiritual Presence" which mystics (& etc.) claim to have encountered, and thus moral experience provides further support for their claims. The Spiritual Reality revealed through metaphysical reflection transcends finite beings, but is immanent to them nonetheless. It constitutes a Reality which shows up the tragic limitation of finite life. Yet it also shows that the potential, value, and destiny of all finite life is to express an essence which goes far beyond the finite

Drinking water turbidity and emergency department visits for gastrointestinal illness in Atlanta, 1993–2004

The extent to which drinking water turbidity measurements indicate the risk of gastrointestinal illness is not well-understood. Despite major advances in drinking water treatment and delivery, infectious disease can still be transmitted through drinking water in the U.S., and it is important to have reliable indicators of microbial water quality to inform public health decisions. The objective of our study was to assess the relationship between gastrointestinal illness, quantified through emergency department visits, and drinking water quality, quantified as raw water and filtered water turbidity measured at the treatment plant

Drinking water residence time in distribution networks and emergency department visits for gastrointestinal illness in Metro Atlanta, Georgia

We examined whether the average water residence time, the time it takes water to travel from the treatment plant to the user, for a zip code was related to the proportion of emergency department (ED) visits for gastrointestinal (GI) illness among residents of that zip code. Individual-level ED data were collected from all hospitals located in the five-county metro Atlanta area from 1993 to 2004. Two of the largest water utilities in the area, together serving 1.7 million people, were considered. People served by these utilities had almost three million total ED visits, 164,937 of them for GI illness. The relationship between water residence time and risk for GI illness was assessed using logistic regression, controlling for potential confounding factors, including patient age and markers of socioeconomic status (SES). We observed a modestly increased risk for GI illness for residents of zip codes with the longest water residence times compared to intermediate residence times (odds ratio (OR) for Utility 1 = 1.07, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.03, 1.10; OR for Utility 2 = 1.05, 95% CI = 1.02, 1.08). The results suggest that drinking water contamination in the distribution system may contribute to the burden of endemic GI illness

Chemical Beam Epitaxy of Compound Semiconductors

Contains an introduction, reports on three research projects and a list of publications.3M Company Faculty Development GrantDefense Advanced Research Projects Agency Subcontract 216-25013Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Subcontract 542383Joint Services Electronics Program Contract DAAL03-92-C-0001National Science Foundation Grant ECS 88-46919National Science Foundation Grant ECS 89-05909National Science Foundation Grant DMR 92-0295

Using observational data to estimate an upper bound on the reduction in cancer mortality due to periodic screening

BACKGROUND: Because randomized cancer screening trials are very expensive, observational cancer screening studies can play an important role in the early phases of screening evaluation. Periodic screening evaluation (PSE) is a methodology for estimating the reduction in population cancer mortality from data on subjects who receive regularly scheduled screens. Although PSE does not require assumptions about natural history of cancer it requires other assumptions, particularly progressive detection – the assumption that once a cancer is detected by a screening test, it will always be detected by the screening test. METHODS: We formulate a simple version of PSE and show that it leads to an upper bound on screening efficacy if the progressive detection assumption does not hold (and any effect of birth cohort is minimal) To determine if the upper bound is reasonable, for three randomized screening trials, we compared PSE estimates based only on screened subjects with PSE estimates based on all subjects. RESULTS: In the three randomized screening trials, PSE estimates based on screened subjects gave fairly close results to PSE estimates based on all subjects. CONCLUSION: PSE has promise for obtaining an upper bound on the reduction in population cancer mortality rates based on observational screening data. If the upper bound estimate is found to be small and any birth cohort effects are likely minimal, then a definitive randomized trial would not be warranted

Estimating adjusted prevalence ratio in clustered cross-sectional epidemiological data

BACKGROUND: Many epidemiologic studies report the odds ratio as a measure of association for cross-sectional studies with common outcomes. In such cases, the prevalence ratios may not be inferred from the estimated odds ratios. This paper overviews the most commonly used procedures to obtain adjusted prevalence ratios and extends the discussion to the analysis of clustered cross-sectional studies. METHODS: Prevalence ratios(PR) were estimated using logistic models with random effects. Their 95% confidence intervals were obtained using delta method and clustered bootstrap. The performance of these approaches was evaluated through simulation studies. Using data from two studies with health-related outcomes in children, we discuss the interpretation of the measures of association and their implications. RESULTS: The results from data analysis highlighted major differences between estimated OR and PR. Results from simulation studies indicate an improved performance of delta method compared to bootstrap when there are small number of clusters. CONCLUSION: We recommend the use of logistic model with random effects for analysis of clustered data. The choice of method to estimate confidence intervals for PR (delta or bootstrap method) should be based on study design