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Peter Lamarque and Stein Haugom Olsen, in Truth, Fiction, and Literature: A Philosophical Perspective (1994), advance a "no-truth" theory of literature, which has become highly influential in the analytic tradition of the philosophy of art. However, considering the historical precursors that have influenced them, their work has been defined largely without considering certain strands of Continental philosophy. In particular, they do not seriously consider the tradition of Heideggerian phenomenology. In this thesis, by relying on the philosophy of Heideggerian thinker Hans-Georg Gadamer, I argue that Lamarque and Olsen advance their no-truth theory of literature because they consider the concept of truth too narrowly. However, there are key elements of Lamarque and Olsen's theory that come very close to a Gadamerian view of art but cannot be satisfactorily explained by appealing only to the fundamental tenets of their strand of analytic philosophy. I conclude by opposing their theory insofar as it is a no-truth theory of literature, but by supporting their theory insofar as it reiterates certain insights that are provided by Gadamer. / Graduate / 0422 / adellazazzera@gmail.com

Damage to the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) has been associated with disinhibited or socially inappropriate behaviour and emotional irregularities in both humans and monkeys. Prominent characteristics of several personality disorder syndromes, in particular Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), are impulsivity and affective instability. This investigation aimed to determine if certain aspects of the Borderline Personality syndrome, in particular impulsivity, are associated with OFC dysfunction. Basic questionnaires of personality, emotion, and impulsivity together with tasks sensitive to frontal lobe dysfunction that assess possible factors related to impulsivity, including time perception, sensitivity to reinforcers, and spatial working memory (SWM), were administered to OFC lesion, BPD, non-OFC prefrontal cortex lesion control, and normal control participants. OFC and BPD patients performed similarly, in that they were more impulsive, reported more inappropriate behaviours, BPD traits, anger, and less happiness than both control groups. They were also less open to experience and had a faster perception of time (in terms of time production) than normal controls. They performed differently on other tasks: BPD patients were less extraverted and conscientious and more neurotic and emotional than all other groups. OFC patients had more severe deficits in reversing stimulus-reinforcer associations compared to all other groups and had a faster perception of time (in terms of time estimation) than normal controls. Both OFC and non-OFC lesion patients had mixed lesions that included dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLFC) damage. Accordingly, they both had SWM deficits, a task used to control for DLFC damage, compared to normal and BPD participants. Since BPD participants were not impaired on this task and non-OFC patients did not perform poorly on the same tests that OFC patients did, the neuropsychological deficits of BPD and OFC patients could not be attributed to SWM deficits or DLFC dysfunction. The findings suggest that some of the cognitive/behavioural deficits commonly found in BPD patients are related to OFC dysfunction while others are unrelated and are perhaps related to other brain systems. The possibility of amygdala dysfunction is discussed. The similarities and dissociations found between BPD and OFC patients on certain tasks may lead to a better understanding of the aetiology of BPD and the functions of the OFC. Theoretical and therapeutic implications of the findings are discussed.

Shipment consolidation is a logistics strategy whereby many small shipments are combined into a few larger loads. The economies of scale achieved by shipment consolidation help in reducing the transportation costs and improving the utilization of logistics resources. The fundamental questions about shipment consolidation are i) to how large a size should the consolidated loads be allowed to accumulate? And ii) when is the best time to dispatch such loads? The answers to these questions lie in the set of decision rules known as shipment consolidation policies. A number of studies have been done in an attempt to find the optimal consolidation policy. However, these studies are restricted to only a few types of consolidation policies and are constrained by the input parameters, mainly the order arrival process and the order weight distribution. Some results on the optimal policy parameters have been obtained, but they are limited to a couple of specific types of policies. No comprehensive method has yet been developed which allows the evaluation of different types of consolidation policies in general, and permits a comparison of their performance levels. Our goal in this thesis is to develop such a method and use it to evaluate a variety of instances of shipment consolidation problem and policies. In order to achieve that goal, we will venture to use matrix-analytic methods to model and solve the shipment consolidation problem. The main advantage of applying such methods is that they can help us create a more versatile and accurate model while keeping the difficulties of computational procedures in check. More specifically, we employ a discrete batch Markovian arrival process (BMAP) to model the weight-arrival process, and for some special cases, we use phase-type (PH) distributions to represent order weights. Then we model a dispatch policy by a discrete monotonic function, and construct a discrete time Markov chain for the shipment consolidation process. Borrowing an idea from matrix-analytic methods, we develop an efficient algorithm for computing the steady state distribution of the Markov chain and various performance measures such as i) the mean accumulated weight per load, ii) the average dispatch interval and iii) the average delay per order. Lastly, after specifying the cost structures, we will compute the expected long-run cost per unit time for both the private carriage and common carriage cases.

The set of molecules cucurbit[n]uril (Qn) are macrocycles composed of n glycoluril monomers linked by methylene groups. These molecules have two oxygen-ringed portals of a diameter slightly smaller than their internal cavity diameter. This thesis describes syntheses, crystallisations, crystal structure determinations, crystal packing analyses and force field calculations exploring the supramolecular chemistry of Qn molecules and their derivatives. Qn acts as a host for guest molecules and at the outset of this project no metal containing molecule had been encapsulated in a Qn molecule. One aim of this project was to prepare such complexes. This was achieved with the synthesis and characterisation of crystalline {[cis-SnCl4(H2O)2]@Q7}2(SnCl6)3(H3O)6(H2O)23. Other compounds prepared and characterised crystallographically in the course of this project are: [(Q6)(Na3(H2O)8)]2[CoCl4]4[Co(H2O)6]2[CoCl(H2O)5]2(Cl)4, (Q5@Q10)(CH3COOH)(Cl)2(H3O)2(H2O)26, (Cl@Q5)4Q6(SnCl6)8(H3O)20(H2O)24, (Q8)3(PtCl6)4(H3O)8(H2O)x, (Q8)2(PtCl6)3(H3O)6(H2O)18, (Q7)(Cr3O10)(H3O)2(H2O)x and (Q6)(SnCl6)(H3O)2(H2O)x. While the smaller Qn (n = 5?) retain their circular forms, the larger Qn (n &gt 8) are less rigid and distort to accommodate larger guests. After analysis of the crystal structures of these Qn compounds and those listed in the Cambridge Structural Database, the principal packing motifs of the Qn molecules were elucidated. The most common is the portal-to-side interaction in which the portal oxygen atoms of one Qn approach the hydrogen atoms around the equator of another Qn. Force-field calculations on guest@Qn complexes were conducted to determine the mechanism for the formation of these complexes. A comparison of the intermolecular interactions of phenylated systems and comparable fluorinated phenyl systems was made using both crystal packing analyses and forcefield energy calculations. Intermolecular energy parameters for these calculations were derived and validated in this work. The principal fluorinated species studied was the [B(C6F5)4]?anion. Examination of its crystal structures found that the substitution of the hydrogen atoms by fluorine atoms is influential enough to alter the predominant intramolecular conformation. It is the ???flipper?conformer, between pairs of perfluorophenyl groups, that is overwhelmingly the favoured conformation and this has a strong effect on the types of phenyl embraces that a [B(C6F5)4]?anion will form. While the parallel 4PFE, the offset parallel 4PFE and the orthogonal 4PFE are all observed the 6PFE is not.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1988. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1990. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 187-195). Also available via the Internet.

Univ., Diss.--Heidelberg, 2003.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Michigan State University. Dept. of Chemistry, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Mar. 30, 2009) Includes bibliographical references. Also issued in print.