Thesis (M.C.S.)--Regent College, Vancouver, B.C., 1998. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 225-239).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Michigan State University. Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on July 22, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (leaves 170-174). Also issued in print.

Thesis (D. Min.)--McCormick Theological Seminary, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

At its core, this book represents an attempt to outline and clarify a concept of ‘wisdom’. Building upon an established tradition of ‘philosophy as a way of life’ the discussion focuses on an understanding of a model of philosophy which sets a union of the virtues as its ultimate goal (finding models of non-ethical and primarily academic philosophy to be lacking). Aristotle’s practical wisdom and Plato’s humble, human wisdom are found to be complimentary in certain key respects and useful (in conjunction) in describing the nature of this ‘wisdom’ as a state of moral expertise and broad insight (an understanding of, and action according to, that which is most important). An account is given of the kind of moderate moral realism which is able to account for the ‘moral facts’ which are necessary to render this sort of moral knowledge viable. This moderate realism is founded upon a similarly moderate or compromising epistemology which will itself constitute a recurring theme of this ‘wisdom’. Moving from this metaethical and epistemological fuondation, some account is given of the sort of practical means by which this moral knowledge might be arrived at with the suggestion that traditional analytic and cogitative practices must be combined with far more anthropological ‘living-with’ practices in order that this moral learning can be plausible. Further to this suggestion of an amalgam of philosophy and anthropology, an effort is made to describe the sense in which aesthetic and ethical insight converge in this process of recognising moral knowledge and that, as such, ‘true philosophy’ must also allow for artistic (particularly narrative and poetic) methods. Having made a case for the practice of philosophy to move substantially away from its conventional means, the latter half of the book sets out a specific model of ‘living-with philosophy’ in an attempt to demonstrate this novel model of philosophy and the more detailed nature of wisdom. This ‘case study’ takes the shape of living-with other living things and the stories and lessons which have unfolded through the author’s own life with the non-human world. Due to the fundamental (practically, emotionally and conceptually fundamental) and particularly varied nature of living with (by and through) non-human life, organic vegetable gardening is taken as a good (if not the best) means of realising this process of moral learning. This discussion focuses upon the way in which close living with non-human life can and should highlight the manner in which various virtues which are fundamental to a union of virtue can appear to be in conflict (particularly what might be called ‘compassion’ and ‘prudence’). Ultimately an attempt is made to describe the way in which these conflicts can and should be found to be complimentary to the realisation of wisdom through a subtle, complex but intuitive process of balancing. The book concludes with an examination of this act of balancing, particularly ‘in the face of death’, and the way in which it is commensurate with moods and attitudes of quietness, poignancy and good humour. It is found that wisdom, the union of virtues, is more than the sum of its parts, that it is characterised particularly by these kinds of attitude (echoing the moderation and humility explored at the outset).

Massive OB stars are very influential objects in the ecology of galaxies like our own. Current catalogues of Galactic OB stars are heavily biased towards bright (g < 13) objects, only typically including fainter objects when found in prominent star clusters (Garmany et al., 1982; Reed, 2003; Maíz-Apellániz et al., 2004). Exploitation of the VST Photometric Hα Survey (VPHAS+) allows us to build a robust catalogue of photometrically-selected OB stars across the entire Southern Galactic plane, both within clusters and in the field, down to ~20th magnitude in g. For the first time, a complete accounting of the OB star runaway phenomenon becomes possible. Along with making the primary selection using VPHAS+ colours, I have performed Markov-Chain Monte Carlo fitting of the spectral energy distributions of the selected stars by combining VPHAS+ u, g, r, i with published J, H, K photometry. This gives rough constraints on effective temperature and distance, whilst delivering much more precise reddening parameters A0 and RV - allowing us to build a much richer picture of how extinction and extinction laws vary across the Galactic Plane. My thesis begins with a description of the method of photometric selection of OB star candidates and its validation across a 2 square degree field including the well- known young massive star cluster Westerlund 2 (Mohr-Smith et al., 2015)1. Following on from this I present spectroscopy with AAOmega of 283 candidates identified by our method, which confirms that ~ 94% of the sample are the expected O and early B stars. I then develop this method further and apply it to a Galactic Plane strip of 42 square-degrees that runs from the Carina Arm tangent region to the much studied massive cluster in NGC 3603. A new aspect I attend to in this expansion of method is tightening up the uniform photometric calibration of the data, paying particular attention to the always-challenging u band. This leads to a new and reliable catalogue of 5915 OB stars. As well as increasing the numbers of identified massive stars in this large region of the sky by nearly an order of magnitude, a more complete picture of massive star formation in the Carina Arm has emerged. I have found a broad over-density of O stars around the highly luminous cluster NGC 3603 and have uncovered two new candidate OB clusters/associations. I have also paired up the ionization sources of a number of HII regions catalogued by the RMS survey. It is also shown that the OB star scale- height can serve as a roughly standard ruler, leading to the result that the OB star layer shows the onset of warping at RG ~ 10kpc. My results confirm that this entire region requires a non-standard (3.5 < RV < 4.0) reddening law for distances greater than ~2kpc. The methods developed in this study are ready to roll out across the rest of the VPHAS+ footprint that has been observed to date. This extension will take in a strip ~ ±2 degrees across the entire Southern Galactic mid-plane (a sky area of over 700 square degrees), within which we expect to find the majority of massive OB stars. This will result in the largest catalogue of Galactic OB stars to date.

À l’appui des Caractères de la Bruyère, nous ouvrons à nouveau une question laissée en suspens par les études qui ont été menées autour de « la philosophie comme manière de vivre ». Cette question concerne la nouvelle relation entre la parole et l’action qui se serait établie à partir des XVIe et le XVIIe siècles en Occident. Au travers des différentes hypothèses proposées, nous avons choisi d’étudier le rôle qu’y a joué la parole de type machiavélien ou la logique de la domination. À la fois mode d’accès à la connaissance, mode de constitution de soi et rapport à la politeia, cette logique en laquelle s’est inscrit progressivement le savoir moderne nous détourne d’un accès au texte de la Bruyère pouvant libérer tout son potentiel de réformation éthique – sa psychagogie. Pour accéder à ce potentiel, il nous faut tour à tour prendre distance avec la logique de la domination et renouer avec cet autre rapport au langage qu’elle n’a cessé par ailleurs de discréditer, à savoir ce rapport d’origine socratique que relaient les différentes productions philosophiques de l’Antiquité auxquelles se réfèrent les Caractères. Aussi, devrons-nous réévaluer objectivement les postulats anthropologiques qui sont autant de motifs éthiques qui innervent la pensée politique et sociologique moderne et qui configurent le foyer de notre expérience politique actuelle. / By having recourse to La Bruyère’s Characters, this work aims at reassessing a question that has been let aside by scholarly studies dedicated to « the philosophy as a way of life ». This question deals with the new relation between speech and action which is believed to have occurred in the 16th-17th centuries in the West. Through different hypotheses, we have chosen to examine the role played by the Machiavellian type of speech, or the logic of the domination. Being at the same time a way to access knowledge, a mode of self-constitution and a relationship to politeia, this logic is the place where the Modern knowledge gradually falls within and also turns us away from an access to La Bruyère’s text that can release its potential of ethical reformation – its psychagogy. In order to gain access to this potential, we have in turns to distance ourselves from the discursive logic of domination and to renew with this other relation to language, to oneself and to politeia that this logic constantly brings into disrepute, in other words to this Socrastic relation to be found in the philosophical production of the Antiquity to which the Characters refer to.

Master of Science / Department of Architectural Engineering / Bill Zhang / In structural engineering, it can be challenging to incorporate a sustainable design without sacrificing structural integrity. However, flat plate voided slabs are an interesting alternative to standard flat plate concrete slab systems due to the reduction in concrete and the recycled plastic void formers that are located inside the slab. This research is necessary because an increased use of voided slabs in concrete structures would help fight climate change by reducing the CO₂ emissions caused from cement production. This report will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of implementing plastic void formers into solid flat plate slabs and examine a parametric study comparing voided flat plate slabs to solid flat plate slabs. The design of the voided slabs follows the CRSI Design Guide for Voided Concrete Slabs while also referencing the ACI 318-14 Building Code Requirements for Structural Concrete. Three different slabs for typical square bay sizes of 25 feet, 30 feet, and 35 feet are designed to compare the effectiveness of voided slabs to traditional solid slabs.

Cette recherche doctorale se propose d’interroger la valeur généalogique que Michel Foucault attribue au christianisme en se focalisant sur la problématique de la subjectivité et notamment sur la forme de vie comme enjeu de la constitution de la subjectivité. Pour ce faire elle est structurée sur la base des trois domaines généalogiques ou axes constitutifs des « foyers d’expérience » tels que Foucault lui-même les conçoit dans ses dernières recherches. Ainsi la première partie de ce travail est consacrée au problème de la vérité, notamment en ce qui concerne les formes de véridiction ; la seconde partie se concentre sur l’analyse du pouvoir ou plus précisément sur les techniques gouvernementales ; et finalement, la troisième partie se focalise sur les formes de subjectivation ou les pratiques de soi. La description et l’analyse de ces trois axes à la lumière du corpus foucaldien actuellement publié ainsi que des textes inédits comme Les aveux de la chair permettra d’envisager les réponses à deux questions centrales liées au diagnostic du présent qui traverse toute l’entreprise philosophique foucaldienne : quelle est le rôle historique du christianisme dans la configuration des formes actuelles d’assujettissement ? Peut-on trouver à l’intérieur du christianisme des phénomènes qui nous permettent de résister à ces formes d’assujettissement ? / This dissertation investigates the genealogical value that Michel Foucault assigns to Christianity focusing on the configuration of subjectivity, particularly on the way of life as a main domain in which subjectivity is constituted. More precisely, the dissertation is structured by following the three genealogical domains or constitutive areas of “focal points of experience” in Foucault’s last works. The first part tackles the problem of truth, in particular for what concerns the forms of veridiction; the second part focuses on the analysis of the forms of power, or more exactly, the techniques of governmentality; the last part approaches the forms of subjectivation or the practices of self. Based on available Foucauldian corpus and unpublished material –especially the Confessions of the Flesh (Les aveux de la chair) – the description and analysis of these three domains aim to answer two fundamental questions related to the Foucauldian diagnosis of the present: What is the historical role of Christianity in the configuration of the current forms of subjection? Are there any Christian phenomena according to which we could resist to those forms of subjection?

Quantum state discrimination is a fundamental problem in quantum information science. We investigate the optimal distinguishability of orthogonal two-qubit (bipartite) quantum states. The scenario consists of three parties: Alice, Bob, and Charlie. Charlie prepares one of two orthogonal states and sends one qubit to Alice and the other to Bob. Their goal is to correctly identify which state Charlie sent. In most state discrimination scenarios, it is assumed that Alice and Bob can freely communicate with one another so as to collectively agree on the best guess. In this research, we consider a more restricted setting where only one-way classical communication is possible from Alice to Bob. Under this setting, we study two figures of merit (i) Alice's optimal probability, $P$, of identifying the state , and (ii) Alice's optimal probability, $P^\perp$, of identifying the state along with helping Bob identify the state perfectly. We show that in general $P\neq P^\perp$ and we prove a theorem for when $P=P^\perp$. We also found that the maximum of $P-P^\perp$ can arbitrarily approach $1/2$.