In this thesis I will argue that it is irrational to anticipate the future. I do not claim that the future will not exist, but rather that our current selves will never experience that future. Support for this seemingly implausible thesis begins when consider the problems posed by personal identity puzzle cases. When we consider hypothetical cases such as fission, where one existing person will divide into two future people (for example through brain transplants or teletransportation), we instinctively wonder which of the two post-fission bodies the pre-fission person would 'wake up' in. Could it be the case that our subject of experience does not in fact 'go' anywhere? I initially consider the interdependency between personal identity and the displacement of our current selves into the past or future. Ultimately, I will argue that self displacement is not based on personal identity, but rather the reverse that is, that personal identity is based on our hard-wired tendency to displace our current selves into the past or future. I then present the crux of my argument, that it is irrational to anticipate the future. I will do this by presenting cases in which it is clearly irrational to anticipate 'waking up' in a certain body and demonstrating that these cases are comparable to 'waking up' in the same physically or psychologically continuous body. Contrary to our most deeply held beliefs, it is not rational to expect that our present subject of experience will somehow be there in the future. This astonishing conclusion removes our most obvious reason for concern about future selves. I will argue that if this conclusion is correct, we have relatively weak reasons for prudential concern about the future. One of the key objectives of this thesis will therefore be to determine whether it is rational for our current self to be concerned about a future self that it will never experience being. I will show that if we are irrational to anticipate the future, then we must radically rethink the sort of prudential concern we have for our future selves. I argue that our reasons to be concerned about future selves are much weaker than (or at least very different than) those we might have originally imagined. I will also show that it is not against reason to be unconcerned about future selves, unless we believe that we are morally obliged to be concerned for all future people.

[Truncated abstract] The development of an automated classification system of wear particles or surfaces is of great interest to the machine condition monitoring industry. The system, once developed, may also find applications in medical diagnostics. Such a tool will be able to replace human experts in the detection of the onset of early machine failure, or in the diagnosis and prognosis of, for example, joint diseases. This will improve efficiency, reliability and also reduce costs of monitoring or diagnostic systems. Current literature available on this topic has included various studies on different classification methods. However, there has been no work conducted on the development of a totally integrated automated classification system. The first part of this thesis presents a study investigating the efficiency and robustness of various pattern recognition methods currently described in literature. A special computer program was developed to test each of the classification methods against both standard image databases and tribological surface images. There are three core components of a pattern recognition system that need to be analysed: (1) feature extraction, (2) feature reduction and (3) classifier. Each of these components provides a vital link that can affect the reliability of the complete classification system. ... The optimal classifier was the Linear Support Vector Classifier. This part of research is described in Paper 2. The second part of this thesis contains work verifying the performance of the automated classification system developed using both tribological and bio-tribological surface images. Experiments were carried out to generate wear particles created under different wear mechanisms (adhesive, abrasive and fatigue wear) and various operating conditions representing different degree of wear severity. The automated classification system developed was able to successfully classify wear particles with respect to both the type of wear mechanism operating and the wear severity. The results of this classification are described in Papers 3 and 5. The success of the automated classification system was also confirmed by its ability to classify different groups of worn (osteoarthritic) cartilage surfaces (Paper 4). This could lead to potential applications of the system for early detection of the onset of osteoarthritis. In conclusion, the automated classification system developed can accurately classify both tribological and bio-tribological surface images. This system could become a vitally important tool in both machine condition monitoring and medical diagnostics.

[Truncated abstract] This thesis examines the potential role of dietary intake in the development of two common conditions affecting the prostate gland; prostate cancer and benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH). Diet is of interest as a potential risk factor for prostate cancer because of geographical variations in prostate cancer incidence and increased prostate cancer risks associated with migration from Asian to western countries. Some geographical variation has been suggested for BPH, but this is less certain. However, both prostate cancer and BPH have potential links with diet through their positive associations with sex hormone levels, metabolic syndrome, increased insulin levels and chronic inflammation. In addition, zinc is an essential dietary micronutrient required for semen production in the prostate gland. The original work for this thesis is presented in six manuscripts of which, four have been published in peer-reviewed journals (at the time of thesis completion). BPH investigated in this thesis is defined as surgically-treated BPH. The following hypotheses were investigated. Regarding foods, nutrients and the risk of prostate cancer and BPH: 1. Increasing intakes of fruits, vegetables and zinc are inversely associated with the risk of prostate cancer and BPH 2. Increasing intakes of total fat and calcium are positively associated with the risk of prostate cancer and BPH. 3. Dietary patterns characterised by high meat, processed meat, calcium and fat content are positively associated with the risk of prostate cancer and BPH. 4. Dietary patterns characterised by high fruit and vegetable and low meat content are inversely associated with the risk of prostate cancer and BPH. v Regarding methodological issues related to the study of diet-disease relationships: 5. Dietary patterns (overall diet) elicited from principal components analysis yield stronger diet-disease associations than when studying isolated nutrients. 6. Remotely recalled dietary intake is reliable enough to be used in studies of chronic disease with long latency periods, such as prostate cancer and BPH. Methods: Data from two studies was used to address the hypotheses above. ... Based on the literature reviewed and the original work for this thesis, the most important dietary risk factors for prostate cancer and BPH appear to be those common to western style diets, i.e. diets high in red meat, processed meat, refined grains, dairy products, and low in fruit and vegetables. This type of diet is likely to result in marginal intakes of antioxidants and fibre, excess intakes of fat and possibly, moderate intakes of carcinogens associated with processed meat and meat cooked at high temperatures. These dietary factors have been linked with biomarkers of inflammation, and they support the hypotheses that chronic inflammation is involved in the development of both prostate cancer and BPH. In addition, this work builds on evidence that zinc is an important factor in prostate health. There is scope for more investigation into the reliability of dietary patterns and the use of nutrient patterns as an alternative to focussing on single food components. Further studies on the reliability of remote dietary intake would also be useful. Because of the latency of chronic disease, it can be theorised that remote dietary recall may uncover more robust diet-disease relationships.