The aim of this paper is to provide a formulation of the modal cosmological argument for the existence of a necessary entity, that is more resistant to criticism than those hitherto formulated. The conclusion is that there exists a necessary entity powerful enough to causally sustain the world. It has only two substantial premises, which are very innocuous. The argument requires no assumption that contingent entities must have a cause, or even that they normally have a cause, or the impossibility of infinite regresses, or any particular theory of time, and works irrespectively of which modal framework is accepted.

Nineteenth-century America witnessed a period of tremendous growth and change as cities flourished, immigration swelled, and industrialization spread. This setting allowed prostitution to thrive and professionalize, and the visibility of such “immoral” activity required Americans to seek a new understanding of morality. Current literature commonly considers prostitution as immediately declared a “social evil” or briefly mentions why Americans assigned it such a role. While correct that it eventually did become a “social evil,” the evolution of discourse relating to prostitution is a bit more complex. This thesis provides a survey of this evolution set against the changing American understanding of science and morality in the nineteenth century. By tracing the course of American thought on prostitution from necessary to social evil, this thesis contributes to a growing understanding of a marginalized group of people and America’s view of national morality.

Bakgrund: Inom den psykiatriska vården kan tvångsåtgärder behöva utföras på patienter som vårdas under tvångsvård. Detta kan innebära att patienternas delaktighet i vårdandet försvinner. Tidigare forskning visar att sjuksköterskor har svårt att vidta tvångsåtgärder då åtgärderna går emot flera av de principer som sjuksköterskor arbetar efter. Syfte: Belysa sjuksköterskors upplevelse av tvångsåtgärder inom psykiatrisk vård. Metod: En kvalitativ litteraturöversikt utförd med en systematisk sökning av vetenskapliga artiklar och analyserad med hjälp av femstegs analys.  Resultat: Sjuksköterskors upplevelse av tvångsåtgärder är mycket negativ. De upplever det som den svåraste delen av arbetet. Relationen mellan sjuksköterskan och patienten påverkas även negativt. Det upplevdes däremot som något nödvändigt för att skydda personal och patienter. Inget annat alternativ kunde inte heller identifieras och tvångsåtgärder sågs därför som nödvändigt för att situationen inte skulle bli ohållbar. Konklusion: Sjuksköterskor som arbetar inom psykiatrisk vård har en svår arbetsuppgift att utföra tvångsåtgärder när tvångsvård behövs. Det skapar ett etiskt dilemma som medför att respektera patientens autonomi/integritet och behovet att utföra åtgärder som resulterar i en kränkning av patienten. När en patient blir för aggressiv är situationen ohållbar. Tvångsåtgärder ses som nödvändigt för att bedriva en trygg och säker psykiatrisk vård. / Background: Restrictive measures can sometimes be necessary in psychiatric care as patients are treated with compulsory care. This can result in the disappearance of patient´s participation in the care. Previous research shows that nurses have difficulty using these measures as it goes against several of the nursing principles. Aim: Examine nurses experience of restrictive measures in psychiatric care. Method: A qualitative literature review was made using a systematic search for scientific articles. The data was analyzed using a five-step analysis. Findings: Nurses' experience of restrictive measures was very negative. They perceived it as the most difficult part of the job. The relationships between nurses and patients were also affected negatively. However, they perceived restrictive measures as necessary to protect patients and staff. No other alternative could be identified and it was perceived necessary to have the alternative of using it, to not make the situation unsustainable. Conclusion: Nurses in psychiatric care have a difficult task to perform with restrictive measures when compulsory care is needed. It creates an ethical dilemma, the patient’sautonomy/integrity needs to be respected but restrictive measures that violate patients are also needed. When patients become too aggressive the situation is unsustainable. To perform safe psychiatric care, restrictive measures are necessary.

This research analyzed why some university faculty resisted a new software program using a new model of motivation. The new model, called the motivation and acceptance model (MAM), was inspired by the technology acceptance model and the commitment and necessary effort model of motivation. This model was tested on faculty at a college in a large southeastern university who were resisting a new software program called LiveText. This research used regression analysis to determine the relationship between the variables of the MAM: perceived usefulness, perceived organizational support, perceived ease of use, and attitude toward LiveText. The research was conducted during the Spring 2007 semester. The data were analyzed with regression, independent-sample t-tests, and descriptive statistics using SPSS v15. This research demonstrates that the MAM accurately measured the relationship between professors' perceptions and their use of LiveText. The research also suggests that the perceived utility of LiveText and users' attitudes toward LiveText were statistically significant predictors of LiveText use and that perceived ease of use also predicted whether the professors found LiveText useful. Additional research should seek to develop a greater understanding of technology acceptance and employee resistance to innovations using larger sample sizes, a variety of environments and organizations, diverse populations, and different types of technologies and technology-implementation strategies.

While reading a news article about the upcoming presidential election one day, I noticed a trend. The vast majority of political articles discuss what the federal government should do, but almost never cover what it could do. In elementary school, American children are taught that the Constitution, a 4,543-word document, is the place from which all federal power is derived; but the Constitution says nothing about the regulation of travel, narcotics, or the vast majority of other areas that affect the way we live our daily lives, so where does that power come from? After some preliminary research, I discovered that a great deal of it comes from how the Supreme Court has interpreted two Constitutional Clauses in particular (The Necessary and Proper Clause, and the Commerce Clause) and decided to dig deeper. This thesis is a product of that research. Through a historical overview of Supreme Court jurisprudence on these two clauses, this thesis will reveal that, one case at a time, federal power has gradually expanded through the centuries and shows no sign of slowing, the effect of which is the degradation and potential devolution of American federalism, the backbone upon which this country was founded.

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Ultra-fine grained materials with sub-micrometer grain size exhibit superior mechanical properties when compared with conventional fine-grained material as well as coarse-grained materials. Severe plastic deformation (SPD) techniques have been shown to be an effective way to modify the microstructure in order to improve the mechanical properties of the material. Crystalline materials require dislocations to accommodate plastic strain gradients and maintain lattice continuity. The lattice curvature exists due to the net dislocation that left behind in material during deformation. The characterization of such defects is important to understand deformation accumulation and the resulting mechanical properties of such materials. However, traditional techniques are limited. For example, the spatial resolution of EBSD is insufficient to study materials processed via SPD, while high dislocation densities make interpretations difficult using conventional diffraction contrast techniques in the TEM. A new technique, precession electron diffraction (PED) has gained recognition in the TEM community to solve the local crystallography, including both phase and orientation, of nanocrystalline structures under quasi-kinematical conditions. With the assistant of precession electron diffraction coupled ASTARÔ, the structure evolution of equal channel angular pressing processed commercial pure titanium is studied; this technique is also extended to two-phase titanium alloy (Ti-5553) to investigate the existence of anisotropic deformation behavior of the constituent alpha and beta phases.

This DPhil project is set in the context of single crystal elasticity-plasticity finite element modelling. Its core objective was to develop and implement a methodology for predicting the evolution of texture in single and dual-phase material systems. This core objective has been successfully achieved. Modelling texture evolution entails essentially modelling large deformations (as accurately as possible) and taking account of the deformation mechanisms that cause texture to change. The most important deformation mechanisms are slip and twinning. Slip has been modelled in this project and care has been taken to explore conditions where it is the dominant deformation mechanism for the materials studied. Modelling slip demands that one also models dislocations since slip is assumed to occur by the movement of dislocations. In this project a model for geometrically necessary dislocations has been developed and validated against experimental measurements. A texture homogenisation technique which relies on interpretation of EBSD data in order to allocate orientation frequencies based on representative area fractions has been developed. This has been coupled with a polycrystal plasticity RVE framework allowing for arbitrarily sized RVEs and corresponding allocation of crystallographic orientation. This has enabled input of experimentally measured initial textures into the CPFE model allowing for comparison of predictions against measured post-deformation textures, with good agreement obtained. The effect of texture on polycrystal physical properties has also been studied. It has been confirmed that texture indeed has a significant role in determining the average physical properties of a polycrystal. The thesis contributes to the following areas of micro-mechanics materials research: (i) 3D small deformation crystal plasticity finite element (CPFE) modelling, (ii) geometrically necessary dislocation modelling, (iii) 3D large deformation CPFE modelling, (iv) texture homogenisation methods, (v) single and dual phase texture evolution modelling, (vi) prediction of polycrystal physical properties, (vii) systematic calibration of the power law for slip based on experimental data, and (viii) texture analysis software development (pole figures and Kearns factors).

<p>The paper contains comment, clarification and criticism, even constructive criticism, of some theses that have been put forward by Laurence Bonjour in his In Defense of Pure Reason.</p><p>It presents a concept of experience that deals with the relation between cognizer and object of experience that has a great similarity to that of Bonjour. Through analysis it is shown that the concept of a priori entails that Bonjour has two concepts of a priori, a narrow and a broad one. The narrow one is, in my own words: According to moderate rationalism a proposition p is a priori justified if and only if you apprehend that p must be true in every possible world. This doesn’t mean that Bonjour doesn’t believe in an epistemological, metaphysical and semantic realm. The broad one does not mention anything about possible worlds.</p><p>Casullo in his A priori justification rejects Bonjour’s argument against Quine’s coherentism. A defense is put forward with the concept ‘an ideal of science for apparent rational insights’. The concept of axiomatic system and foundationalism is used. If we assume that the colour proposition ‘nothing can be red all over and green all over at the same time’ has the meaning that we, in this very moment, are representing a property in the world, thus we have an argument of superposition for the correctness of the proposition. The ground for this argumentation relies on the identification of colours with superposing electromagnetic waves.</p>

The paper contains comment, clarification and criticism, even constructive criticism, of some theses that have been put forward by Laurence Bonjour in his In Defense of Pure Reason. It presents a concept of experience that deals with the relation between cognizer and object of experience that has a great similarity to that of Bonjour. Through analysis it is shown that the concept of a priori entails that Bonjour has two concepts of a priori, a narrow and a broad one. The narrow one is, in my own words: According to moderate rationalism a proposition p is a priori justified if and only if you apprehend that p must be true in every possible world. This doesn’t mean that Bonjour doesn’t believe in an epistemological, metaphysical and semantic realm. The broad one does not mention anything about possible worlds. Casullo in his A priori justification rejects Bonjour’s argument against Quine’s coherentism. A defense is put forward with the concept ‘an ideal of science for apparent rational insights’. The concept of axiomatic system and foundationalism is used. If we assume that the colour proposition ‘nothing can be red all over and green all over at the same time’ has the meaning that we, in this very moment, are representing a property in the world, thus we have an argument of superposition for the correctness of the proposition. The ground for this argumentation relies on the identification of colours with superposing electromagnetic waves.