Bare Particulars and Exemplifcation

Bare particulars tend to get a bad rap. But often, the arguments lodged against bare particulars seem to miss important aspects of the theoretical context of bare particulars. In particular, these arguments fail to situate bare particulars within a constituent ontology with substrates, and thus fail to appreciate an important consequence of that context: the need for two types of exemplification. In this paper, I do three things. First, I motivate and describe the need, given bare particulars, for two types of exemplification, and explore more generally how constituent ontologies with substrates ought to think about exemplification. Second, I show how Andrew Bailey’s (2012) new argument against bare particulars fails when that need is charitably considered. Third, I highlight where bare particular theory ought to be pressed, which turns out to be precisely its account of exemplification

Wagering on Pragmatic Encroachment

Lately, there has been an explosion of literature exploring the the relationship between one’s practical situation and one’s knowledge. Some involved in this discussion have suggested that facts about a person’s practical situation might affect whether or not a person knows in that situation, holding fixed all the things standardly associated with knowledge (like evidence, the reliability of one’s cognitive faculties, and so on). According to these “pragmatic encroachment” views, then, one’s practical situation encroaches on one’s knowledge. Though we won’t endorse pragmatic encroachment here, we find the view intriguing, and it’s popularity warrants carefully considering it’s implications. One potential avenue of exploration concerns religious epistemology, in particular, whether pragmatic encroachment has consequences concerning the epistemic requirements of atheism. We begin the journey down that avenue by connecting Pascal’s Wager to pragmatic encroachment in order to defend this conditional: If there is pragmatic encroachment, then it is ceteris paribus more difficult to know that atheism is true (if it is) than it is to know that God exists (if God does exist)

The Spiders of East Bay, Southampton Island, Nunavut, Canada

In 2000 and 2001, 22 816 spiders were caught in pitfall traps in East Bay Migratory Bird Sanctuary, Southampton Island, Nunavut, Canada. Of these, 18 711 were adults of 18 species, 4 lycosids and 14 linyphiids, with 2 of the linyphiids unknown. Six habitats in the study area (gravel ridge, dry heath, scrub willow, sedge meadow, moss carpet, and intertidal zone) are described, and habitat preferences of each species are presented. When compared to five other Canadian Arctic spider communities, the community reported here fits the general pattern of reduction in families and species with increasing latitude, and demonstrates both the patchiness of Arctic spider distribution and the difficulties of comparing habitat preferences.En 2000 et 2001, 22 816 araignées ont été attrapées dans des pièges à fosses du Refuge d’oiseaux migrateurs de la baie Est, dans l’île Southampton, au Nunavut, au Canada. De ce nombre, 18 711 étaient des adultes de 18 espèces différentes, soit quatre araignées-loups et 14 linyphies, dont deux des linyphies étaient inconnues. Six habitats visés par l’étude (pente en gravier, bruyère sèche, broussaille de saule, cariçaie, tapis de mousse et zone intertidale) sont décrits. Les préférences de chacune des espèces pour ce qui est des habitats sont également présentées. Comparativement à cinq autres communautés d’araignées de l’Arctique canadien, la communauté dont il est question ici cadre avec la tendance générale de réduction des familles et des espèces plus la latitude augmente, et démontre à la fois l’inégalité de la répartition d’araignées de l’Arctique et les difficultés de comparaison des préférences en matière d’habitat

An Annotated Checklist of the Spiders of Newfoundland

Since Hackman’s report in 1954 of 216 (adjusted from a total of 220 for apparent errors) spider species from Newfoundland, the total has grown by 68% to 363. An annotated checklist is presented. Of this total, 223 (c. 61%) are Nearctic, 119 (c. 33%) are Holarctic and 21 (c. 6%) are introduced. Comparisons are made with other Canadian spider faunas. The introduced species and the proportions of Linyphiidae, Lycosidae and Dictynidae are discussed

Protein refolding methods for biomanufacturing

Interferon alpha 2b (IFN-a2b) is a soluble cytokine and a member of the type I interferon (IFN) family of which there are fourteen members. IFN-a2b is used in the treatment of hairy cell leukaemia and both hepatitis B and C. IFN-a2b actions are mediated through specific receptor binding which initiates a series of signalling cascades leading to the transcription of genes carrying the promoters containing the interferon stimulated response element (ISRE). Due to these actions the IFNs as a whole are an ideal family of proteins to be investigated further with the possibility of the production of life saving drug products. Cobra Biomanufacturing have a keen interest in IFN-a2b especially due to its beneficial effects. This project is therefore an investigation of the IFN-a2b molecule from expression to final purified product. The refolding of the IFN-a2b was the main concern of this project due to it being the `bottleneck' for many protein based processes. The investigation of natively folded IFN-a2b led to the conclusion that IFN-a2b is a stable protein which remains folded under reducing conditions. The addition of guanidine-HCI or urea to the native protein reveals differences in the success of unfolding. These differences were also witnessed during the solubilisation of the IFNa2b inclusion bodies. The refolding is only successful when the inclusion bodies have been solubilised in guanidine-HCI. Due to the differing refolding results gained, which depended on the denaturant used to solubilise the inclusion bodies, the solubilised inclusion bodies themselves were investigated. This revealed partial structure present in the urea solubilised inclusion bodies; however this was confirmed as being not native. The implications of this for biomanufacturing are that if the starting conditions are not correct even as early as the solubilisation of the inclusion bodies then the following process will result in incorrectly folded product.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Flavour Breaking Effects of Wilson twisted mass fermions

We study the flavour breaking effects appearing in the Wilson twisted mass formulation of lattice QCD. In this quenched study, we focus on the mass splitting between the neutral and the charged pion, determining the neutral pion mass with a stochastic noise method to evaluate the disconnected contributions. We find that these disconnected contributions are significant. Using the Osterwalder-Seiler interpretation of the connected piece of the neutral pion correlator, we compute the corresponding neutral pion mass to study with more precision the scaling behaviour of the mass splitting.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figure

Weight Enumerators and Weight Distribution of KM Codes

In this thesis we will attempt to classify a particular class of KM codes (named after H. Krishna and S.D. Morgera). The construction of these codes is based mainly on the multiplicative complexity problem of multiplying two polynomials together, as this relates directly to a particular type of bilinear form and the main theorem linking codes and bilinear forms (Theorem 3.11) can then be invoked. We review work done by Winograd, Hopcroft and Musinski and Fiduccia on the general multiplicative complexity problem and work done by Lempel, Seroussi and Winograd on the topic of using the Chinese Remainder Theorem on this problem. We introduce a new method of looking for algorithms for polynomial multiplication, by way of diagrams. This will then enable us to produce many more related algorithms. We also develop two new bounds for the minimum number of multiplications needed to multiply two polynomials modulo ueta over F2 (which we denote by M2(eta-1,ueta)), namely one lower bound of 5/2(eta-1) and an attainable upper bound of eta2/4 + eta + 1 for eta even and eta2/4 + eta - 5/4 for eta odd. This attainable bound is used in the construction of the KM codes with wraparound later in the thesis. We also develop an attainable upper bound for the number of multiplications needed to multiply two polynomials modulo P(u) over F2 (which we denote by M2(eta-1,P(u))); again this turns out to be of the order eta2, but the algorithms are easily generalised for any eta. We fully classify KM codes for the parameter N(= k + d - 1) < 4 using these results on complexity and algorithm formation, and attempt the case of N = 5. This enables us to find that the optimal weight enumerator is obtainable by KM codes for N < 5. Next we introduce constant degree codes and obtain tables of the weight enumerators for the shunted (the idea of reducing/increasing k while increasing/decreasing d) families for w (the degree of the coprime polynomials used in the CRT) equals 2 and give the reader the proof of the generalising nature of our work. This last section is done in two separate ways, firstly we obtain results via the dual code weight enumerator and then dualise back to the primary code using the MacWilliams identities, and then we further develop the idea of using the dual code and look at the sets of the relations found and obtain results that use some complex linear algebra and operations on the vectors to express the weight distribution of the codes. The results obtained should serve as a basis for anybody using KM codes