Three questions concerning Reid's moral epistemology

Title page publication date is May 2015. Vita and public.pdf file indicate publication date is May (Spring) 2016.Dissertation supervisor: Peter Markie, Ph.D.Includes vita.In my dissertation, I argue for a novel interpretation of Reid's moral epistemology. Accordingly, I attempt to show that Reid is committed to the view that we obtain moral knowledge by way of moral intuition and moral perception. I maintain that, by way of moral intuition, one obtains knowledge of what Reid calls moral first principles, which constitute the set of basic or foundational moral beliefs from which all other moral beliefs are ultimately inferred; moreover, I believe moral intuition and perception, at least on Reid's account, provides one with knowledge of moral particulars (e.g., whether a particular action is morally wrong or right or whether a particular individual is virtuous or vicious). Furthermore, I show how Reid's account of moral perception and intuition fits with his other philosophical commitments. I then show exactly how the belief-forming processes of intuition and perception enables us to obtain knowledge of moral reality. Finally, I respond to a number of objections one might raise to my interpretation of Reid or Reid's moral philosophy in general. Ultimately, while I mainly focus on what I take to be the most accurate and philosophically plausible account of Reid's moral epistemology, I largely put aside contemporary applications of Reid's moral epistemology. Nonetheless, I think the arguments defended in this dissertation help set the foundation for applying Reid's moral epistemology to contemporary philosophical issues.Includes bibliographical references (pages 236-241)

Renewable energy target scheme report of the expert panel

An examination of the operation, costs and benefits of the RET, including the economic, environmental and social impacts, the extent to which the objectives of the scheme are being met and the interaction of the RET with other Commonwealth and state and territory policies. Introduction The Review of the Renewable Energy Target (RET) scheme was jointly announced by the Hon Ian Macfarlane MP, the Minister for Industry, and the Hon Greg Hunt MP, the Minister for the Environment, on 17 February 2014. The Terms of Reference state that the review is to examine the operation, costs and benefits of the RET scheme including the economic, environmental and social impacts, the extent to which the objectives of the scheme are being met and the interaction of the RET with other Australian Government and state and territory government policies. The review is to provide advice on whether the objectives of the RET scheme are still appropriate and the range of options available for reducing its impact on electricity prices

Cooperative Jahn–Teller effect and the role of strain in the tetragonal-to-cubic phase transition in MgxCu1

Temperature and composition dependences of the I41/amd → [Fd\bar 3m] phase transition in the MgxCu1 − xCr2O4 spinel solid solution, due to the melting of the cooperative Jahn–Teller distortion, have been studied by means of single-crystal X-ray diffraction. Crystals with x = 0, 0.10, 0.18, 0.43, 0.46, 0.53, 1 were grown by flux decomposition methods. All crystals have been refined in the tetragonal I41/amd space group except for the Mg end-member, which has cubic symmetry. In MgxCu1 − xCr2O4 the progressive substitution of the Jahn–Teller, d9 Cu2+ cation with spherical and closed-shell Mg2+ has a substantial effect on the crystal structure, such that there is a gradual reduction of the splitting of a and c unit-cell parameters and flattening of the tetrahedra. Single-crystal diffraction data collected in situ up to T = 1173 K show that the tetragonal-to-cubic transition temperature decreases with increasing Mg content. The strength of the Cu—Cu interaction is, in effect, modulated by varying the Cu/Mg ratio. Structure refinements of diffraction data collected at different temperatures reveal that heating results in a gradual reduction in the tetrahedron compression, which remains significant until near the transition temperature, however, at which point the distortion of the tetrahedra rapidly vanishes. The spontaneous strain arising in the tetragonal phase is large, amounting to 10% shear strain, et, and ∼ 1% volume strain, Vs, in the copper chromite end-member at room temperature. Observed strain relationships are consistent with pseudoproper ferroelastic behaviour ([e_{\rm t}^2] ∝ Vs ∝ [q_{\rm JT}^2], where qJT is the order parameter). The I41/amd → [Fd\bar 3m] phase transition is first order in character for Cu-rich samples and then evolves towards second-order character. Although a third order term is permitted by symmetry in the Landau expansion, this behaviour appears to be more accurately represented by a 246 expansion with a change from negative to positive values of the fourth-order coefficient with progressive dilution of the Jahn–Teller cation

Maml1 acts cooperatively with Gli proteins to regulate Sonic hedgheog signaling pathway

Sonic hedgehog (Shh) signaling is essential for proliferation of cerebellar granule cell progenitors (GCPs) and its misregulation is linked to various disorders, including cerebellar cancer medulloblastoma. The effects of Shh pathway are mediated by the Gli family of transcription factors, which controls the expression of a number of target genes, including Gli1. Here, we identify Mastermind-like 1 (Maml1) as a novel regulator of the Shh signaling since it interacts with Gli proteins, working as a potent transcriptional coactivator. Notably, Maml1 silencing results in a significant reduction of Gli target genes expression, with a negative impact on cell growth of NIH3T3 and Patched1−/− mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs), bearing a constitutively active Shh signaling. Remarkably, Shh pathway activity results severely compromised both in MEFs and GCPs deriving from Maml1−/− mice with an impairment of GCPs proliferation and cerebellum development. Therefore Maml1−/− phenotype mimics aspects of Shh pathway deficiency, suggesting an intrinsic requirement for Maml1 in cerebellum development. The present study shows a new role for Maml1 as a component of Shh signaling, which plays a crucial role in both development and tumorigenesis

GNAM and OHP: Monitoring Tools for ATLAS experiment at LHC.

ATLAS is one of the four experiments under construction along the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) ring at CERN. The LHC will produce interactions at a center-of-mass energy equal to âs = 14 TeV at 40 MHz rate. The detector consists of more than 140 million electronic channels. The challenging experimental environment and the extreme detector complexity impose the necessity of a common scalable distributed monitoring framework, which can be tuned for the optimal use by different ATLAS sub-detectors at the various levels of the ATLAS data flow. This note presents two monitoring tools that have been developed for this aim within the architecture ATLAS Monitoring Framework and the Data Acquisition System: GNAM and OHP. The first one is a framework for online histogram production; the second one is graphical application for histogram presentation. This tools are now widely used during the ATLAS commissioning and their performances are reported in this not

Electronic and Magnetic Structures of Sr2FeMoO6

We have investigated the electronic and magnetic structures of Sr2FeMoO6 employing site-specific direct probes, namely x-ray absorption spectroscopy with linearly and circularly polarized photons. In contrast to some previous suggestions, the results clearly establish that Fe is in the formal trivalent state in this compound. With the help of circularly polarized light, it is unambiguously shown that the moment at the Mo sites is below the limit of detection (< 0.25mu_B), resolving a previous controversy. We also show that the decrease of the observed moment in magnetization measurements from the theoretically expected value is driven by the presence of mis-site disorder between Fe and Mo sites.Comment: To appear in Physical Review Letter

Limits on Dark Matter Effective Field Theory Parameters with CRESST-II

CRESST is a direct dark matter search experiment, aiming for an observation of nuclear recoils induced by the interaction of dark matter particles with cryogenic scintillating calcium tungstate crystals. Instead of confining ourselves to standard spin-independent and spin-dependent searches, we re-analyze data from CRESST-II using a more general effective field theory (EFT) framework. On many of the EFT coupling constants, improved exclusion limits in the low-mass region (< 3-4 GeV) are presented.Comment: 7 pages, 9 figure