Slim Epistemology with a Thick Skin

The distinction between “thick” and “thin” value concepts, and its importance to ethical theory, has been an active topic in recent meta-ethics. This paper defends three claims regarding the parallel issue about thick and thin epistemic concepts. (1) Analogy with ethics offers no straightforward way to establish a good, clear distinction between thick and thin epistemic concepts. (2) Assuming there is such a distinction, there are no semantic grounds for assigning thick epistemic concepts priority over the thin. (3) Nor does the structure of substantive epistemological theory establish that thick epistemic concepts enjoy systematic theoretical priority over the thin. In sum, a good case has yet to be made for any radical theoretical turn to thicker epistemology

Objectionable thick concepts in denials

So-called "thick" moral concepts are distinctive in that they somehow "hold together" evaluation and description. But how? This paper argues against the standard view that the evaluations which thick concepts may be used to convey belong to sense or semantic content. That view cannot explain linguistic data concerning how thick concepts behave in a distinctive type of disagreements and denials which arise when one speaker regards another's thick concept as "objectionable" in a certain sense. The paper also briefly considers contextualist, presuppositional, and implicature accounts of the evaluative contents of thick concepts, but finds none clearly superior to the others

Prostitution as a social issue - the experiences of Russian women prostitutes in the Barents region

This article analyses prostitution in the Barents Region as a social question through the subjective experiences of female Russian prostitutes. The women who were interviewed for this research live their everyday lives in the context of Russia. The operational possibilities of the women are based on a sociocultural framework which differs from that of Western countries. This article addresses the following question: How does prostitution construct the agency of women in the Barents Region? The question is explored in terms of the social relationships of the women, their everyday agency within the local environment, their living conditions, and the marginal conditions of their lives. Our focus is on the social structures and the position of the women within them. The data used in this article consist of observational material as well as interviews with 17 women, wherein they discuss their experiences of prostitution in the Barents Region. All of the material was collected in Murmansk, Russia between 2004 and 2008. Qualitative content analysis was performed as a means to understand the aforementioned women’s experiences of prostitution and its relation to everyday life. Prostitution is a product of social structures, a woman’s position, the accessibility of support, and the available personal, social and mental resources. Sometimes prostitution is a way to survive. Women who practice prostitution are often seen only as stereotypes, but the individual paths of their lives and the social contexts in which they live are integral to an understanding of the causes and effects of sex work

Ketterä automaatiotestaus : Käyttäytymislähtöinen ohjelmistokehitys mobiilisovelluksen testauksessa

Opinnäytetyössä oli tarkoitus tutkia keinoja tehostaa mobiilisovellusten koko ohjelmistokehitystä. Useat laitealustat ja käyttöjärjestelmät ovat koettu haasteellisiksi testauksen automatisoinnille ja automaation puute lisää koko sovelluskehityksen kustannuksia. Onko olemassa toimivaa menetelmää kehittää mobiilisovelluksia kokonaisuutena, unohtamatta testausta ja sen automatisointia? Mitkä ovat mahdollisen menetelmän heikkoudet ja vahvuudet, sekä millaisia reunaehtoja kyseinen menetelmä asettaa koko kehitystyölle? Työssä tutkittiin ketteriä kehitys- ja testausmenetelmiä. Erityisesti tarkasteltiin Käyttäytymislähtöistä kehitysmenetelmää ja olisiko sillä mahdollista tehostaa mobiilisovellusten kehitystä kokonaisuutena. Tutkimus pohjaa todelliseen toimeksiantoon, jossa toteutettiin Calabash-testit mobiilisovellukselle, joka tukee kaikkia laitealustoja ja useita rajapintoja.The purpose of this Bachelor's thesis was to study better ways of improving development of mobile applications. One of the major problems of development is software testing and its automation. Automation testing is difficult because of various platforms and several different versions of operating systems This thesis researched existing issues at mobile development and automation testing, possible solutions to these issues and what as well as the benefits and weakness at this method. One of the main frameworks is the study of agile software development and behavior-driven development as the solutions of the problems. The study is based on a real-life assignment. Calabash automation tests were conducted on a mobile application that supports the most-used mobile client

Securitised Ethnic Identities and Communal Conflicts

Excerpt The paper is inspired by Ernesto Laclau\u27s (1996, p. 46) observation of the terrain into which history has thrown us. The terrain is characterised by: [...] the multiplication of new--and not so new--identities as a result of the collapse of the places from which the universal subject spoke--explosion of ethnic and national identities in Eastern Europe and in the territories of the former USSR, struggles of immigrant groups in Western Europe, new forms of multicultural protest and self-assertion in the U.S., to which we have to add the gamut of forms of contestation associated with the new social movements

Irradiation of silicon particle detectors with MeV-protons

Silicon particle detectors are used in several applications and will clearly require better hardness against particle radiation in the future large scale experiments than can be provided today. To achieve this goal, more irradiation studies with defect generating bombarding particles are needed. Protons can be considered as important bombarding species, although neutrons and electrons are perhaps the most widely used particles in such irradiation studies. Protons provide unique possibilities, as their defect production rates are clearly higher than those of neutrons and electrons, and, their damage creation in silicon is most similar to the that of pions. This thesis explores the development and testing of an irradiation facility that provides the cooling of the detector and on-line electrical characterisation, such as current-voltage (IV) and capacitance-voltage (CV) measurements. This irradiation facility, which employs a 5-MV tandem accelerator, appears to function well, but some disadvantageous limitations are related to MeV-proton irradiation of silicon particle detectors. Typically, detectors are in non-operational mode during irradiation (i.e., without the applied bias voltage). However, in real experiments the detectors are biased; the ionising proton generates electron-hole pairs, and a rise in rate of proton flux may cause the detector to breakdown. This limits the proton flux for the irradiation of biased detectors. In this work, it is shown that, if detectors are irradiated and kept operational, the electric field decreases the introduction rate of negative space-charges and current-related damage. The effects of various particles with different energies are scaled to each others by the non-ionising energy loss (NIEL) hypothesis. The type of defects induced by irradiation depends on the energy used, and this thesis also discusses the minimum proton energy required at which the NIEL-scaling is valid.Piipohjaisia hiukkasilmaisimia käytetään laajalti niin ilmailussa, avaruustekniikassa kuin suurenergiafysiikan kokeissa. Piipohjainen hiukkasilmaisin on toiminnaltaan estosuuntaan kytketty diodi ja säteilyn, joka voi olla joko hiukkas- tai sähkömagneettista säteilyä, aiheuttamat vauriot vaikuttavat ilmaisimen sähköisiin ominaisuuksiin (virta-jännite, kapasitanssi-jännite) heikentäen sen toimintakykyä. Tulevaisuudessa ilmaisimilta tullaankin vaatimaan nykyistä suurempaa säteilynkestoa. Säteilynkestotutkimuksissa säteilyttävänä hiukkasena on usein neutroni, protoni tai elektroni. Suurenergiafysiikan kannalta protonisäteilytykset ovat erityisen tärkeitä, sillä niiden aiheuttamat vauriot ilmaisimessa ovat samankaltaisia kuin pionien aiheuttamat. Lisäksi MeV-protonien aiheuttama vauriomäärä on selvästi suurempi kuin neutroneilla ja elektroneilla lyhentäen näin säteilytysaikoja. Ilmaisimen toimintakykyä voidaan parantaa jäähdytyksellä. Tavallisesti säteilytykset tehdään kuitenkin huoneenlämmössä ja ilmaisin ei ole toiminnassa säteilytyksen aikana. Tämä väitöstutkimus keskittyy matalan lämpötilan säteilytyslaitteiston, jossa ilmaisimin pidetään toiminnassa ja sen sähköisiä ominaisuuksia mitataan myös säteilytyksen aikana, kehitykseen ja testaukseen. Laitteisto, joka on toteutettu Helsingin yliopiston 5 MV tandemkiihdyttimen yhteyteen, on testattu ja todettu toimivaksi tietyin rajoituksin, jotka liittyvät MeV-protonisäteilytyksiin