A quantitative forward model has been developed to investigate the controls on the deposition, erosion, and preservation of passive rift margin stratigraphy. The model includes thermal subsidence, variable absolute sealevel, flexural isostasy, subaerial and submarine deposition on fluvial and marine equilibrium profiles, and the facility to vary sediment supply through time. Results from the quantitative model can be used to reproduce elements of the sequence stratigraphic depositional model. Conducting sensitivity tests demonstrates that variables such as sediment supply and fluvial profile behaviour are likely to be of equal importance to thermal subsidence and eustasy in passive margin stratigraphy. Sensitivity tests with the quantitative model also demonstrate the problems associated with attempting to use a discretised stratigraphic model to investigate unforced cyclicty resulting from complex interactions in stratigraphic systems. Although the model appears capable of producing such unforced cyclical behaviour, this cyclicity is shown to be due to a numerical instability within the model which occurs with certain initial conditions and assumptions. The applicability of the model to observed stratigraphy is tested by comparing specific model output to patterns of stratigraphy from the North American Atlantic margin. The results from this test demonstrate that although the model is in many respects simplistic when compared to the complexities of natural systems, it is nevertheless capable of reproducing some of the basic elements of the observed stratigraphic patterns.

Connections between George Eliot and Immanuel Kant have been, for the most part, neglected. However, we have good reason to believe that Eliot not only read Kant (as well as many who were directly influenced by Kant), but substantially agreed with him on critical and moral issues. This thesis investigates one of the issues on which Kant and Eliot were most closely aligned, the need for duty in morality. Both the English novelist and the German philosopher upheld a vision of duty that could command absolutely while remaining consonant with human freedom and grounding a sense of moral dignity. This vision runs throughout the works of both writers, but is first developed and takes on a particular urgency in the works examined in this thesis, ranging from some of their early publications to Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason and Eliot’s Romola. The first chapter discusses duty in the wider context of debates about Divine Command Morality, in which the good is defined by its accord with the will or command of God, and which both Kant and Eliot resisted in formulating their own moral visions (while maintaining the language of law and command). This chapter also discusses evidence we have for Eliot’s familiarity with Kant and establishes critical context for this paper. The second chapter discusses religion – in particular, religious enthusiasm – as a necessary background for duty, which exists in the absence of theological certitude, even as it seeks to preserve something of religion’s capacity to command and its popular scope. Kant’s path to the first Critique led through works foundational for, but also sometimes at odds with the priorities and conclusions of critical science, and Eliot’s first novel was preceded by a critical career that paints a quite different picture of religion than the sympathetic portrait of Dinah Morris. The third chapter deals with three dimensions of duty in Kant and Eliot, autonomy, reflection and respect, primarily through Kant’s second Critique and The Mill on the Floss. In the conclusion, I turn to Romola to illustrate the conflict and indeterminative power inherent in this conception of duty.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Health Research Methodology -- McMaster University, 2002. / Bibliography: leaves 241-259. Also available via World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Case Western Reserve University, 2008. / Frances Payne Bolton [School of Nursing]. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Melbourne, School of Earth Sciences, 2007. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 211-240).

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Glasgow, 2007. / Ph.D. thesis submitted to the Department of Geographical and Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences Faculty, University of Glasgow, 2007. Includes bibliographical references. Print version also available.

Thesis (M.Sc. Earth and Ocean Sciences)--University of Waikato, 2008. / Title from PDF cover (viewed September 17, 2008) Includes bibliographical references (p. 225-232)

Thesis (Ph.D. in Nursing) -- University of Colorado Denver, 2007. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 168-181). Free to UCD affiliates. Online version available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations;

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed Sept. 19, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. 147-170).

Thèse (M.A.) -- Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, 2003. / Bibliogr.: f. 76-77. Document électronique également accessible en format PDF. CaQCU