Sharif Digital Repository

Hartry Field argues that meaning-besed approaches to explaining the apriority of certain propositions fail to succeed in their endeavour. He suggests that adoting what one cals a non-factualist view of justification itself removes the mystery of the apriority of such propositions, and sketches what such a view of justification involves. A priori justification is often thought mysterious or out of keeping with a naturalistic view of the world; strong forms of priori justification that involve empirical indefeasibility are often thought especially mysterious. While this is no doubt correct for excessive claims of a priority – for instance, claims to prori acces to features of the physical... 

As Davidson says, "Rorty sees the history of Western philosophy as a confused and victorless battle between unintelligible skepticism and lame attempts to answer it." Therefore we can say that the core issue of Epistemology, in various ages of history of philosophy, is the problem of skepticism. Semantic externalism according to some contemporary philosophers, like Hilary Putnam, Anthony Brueckner and Donald Davidson, gives various answers to skeptical arguments. On the other hand, skepticism also can be a challenge for semantic externalism. In this thesis, I have attempted to draw a scheme to clarify the status of these issues with regard to each other  

My dissertation includes four chapters; three introductory chapters and a final conclusion. The first chpter is a comprehensive introduction to the problem of consciousness. The next chapter is allocated to representationalism, especially Michael Tye's PANIC theory, as a solution to the hard problem of consciousness and related phenomena. The third chapter is a brife look at causal theories of mental content. And the last chapter contains my arguments agaisnt Tye's theory. Apparently, mental states are of two categories; some mental states have representational content and some other have phenomenal aspect; there is something it is like to undergo latter states. Representationalism holds... 

In this dissertation, the thesis of Duhem-Quine holism will be intoduced and its similarity and dissimilarity in epistemolical webs of Duhem and Quine will be enumerated and criticisms that is taken to this thesis will be examined. In chapter 1 and 2, the fundamental characteristics of Duhem and Quine viewpoints will be introduced in sequence. This chapter is introduction to more accurate understanding of holism each of them and better Comparison together. In chapter 3, we will introduce their holism and we’ll see what the results of their holism in falsification and confirmation of different Hypotheses are. In chapter 4, we will discuss about discrepancy between their viewpoints and we... 

Polyethylene (PE) is used as an insulation material for wires and cables because of its excellent electrical properties. For such application, it can be exposed to the high energy irradiation such as gamma ray and electron beam (EB), making possible crosslinking of the PE. Most of the properties of PE are improved greatly after irradiation, but it was harden and split easily. Due to the flexibility of EVA, depending on the vinyl acetate content, it can improve the toughness of the LDPE significantly upon addition to this polymer. As a result, radiation induced LDPE/EVA blend has been a good candidate for the wire and cable insulation. Also, upon addition of a few amount of OC, different... 

The continuous rise in electricity demand and the ever growing power generation in different power networks over the world have caused the short circuit level in the power systems to exceed the operational rating of the installed power devices (including cables, circuit breakers and buses). Replacing these devices with new higher rating devices is an expensive solution. From this point of view, utilizing fault current limiters is an economical solution. Superconducting fault current limiters form an efficient category of current limiters. This type is expected to be studied and used widely in future due to their advantages. In this thesis, the first chapter reviews the superconductivity... 

Terahertz waves which includes frequencies between 100 GHz to 10 THz of electromagnetic spectrum have found many applications in science, medical treatments and industry. One of the recent methods to produce these waves is using nonlinear properties of superconductors based on Josephson junctions which inherently appear in some superconductors called BSCCO. Stack of intrinsic junctions of these superconducting materials can radiate terahertz waves by only applying a DC voltage across them. This Thesis investigates some of these structures based on Josephson junctions to produce coherent radiation of terahertz waves. For the optimization of the radiation power, this study also investigates... 

There are different approaches in modifications of General Relativity as the theory of gravity. The modified theories of gravity are important cases in this context, which mostly start by modifying the Einstein-Hilbert action, while keeping the general covariance. Within the modified theories of gravity, we consider two cases. The first is the f(R) theories of gravity, and the second is curvature squared theories of gravity with an action like S = ∫d4x pg( 116GR + (R)2 + R2 +(R)2). Curvature squared theories of gravity have interesting feautures, most important of which is renormalizability, in contrast with General Relativity. But this advantage, as noted by K.S. Stelle in 1977 comes at... 

Near Horizon Extremal Geometries (NHEG), are geometries which may appear in the near horizon region of the extremal black holes. These geometries have SL(2;R)U(1)n isometry, and constitute a family of solutions to the theory under consideration. In the first part of this report,their thermodynamic properties are reviewed, and their three universal laws are derived. In addition, at the end of the first part, the role of these laws in black hole thermodynamics is presented. In the second part of this thesis, we review building their classical phase space in the Einstein-Hilbert theory. The elements in the NHEG phase space manifold are built by appropriately chosen coordinate transformations of... 

Multiverse scenario has been recently addressed by physicists and they have found it useful in many areas of physics. In this dissertation, I have treated some issues about multiverse such as the kinds of multiverses, the arguments for or against multiverse, areas in which multiverse is introduced, etc. This dissertation has six chapters and an appendix. In the chapter one, some classifications of multiverse is introduced, and also some definitions of the concept of a world is presented. Then, my classification and definition of a multiverse and a world is introduced. In the chapter two, the concept of possible worlds in philosophy and its relationship with multiverse hypothesis is examined.... 

Employing high-temperature superconducting (HTS) tapes, instead of copper or aluminum wires for winding in a superconducting transformer, results in a series of significant advantages; such as: smaller volume, lighter weight, higher efficieny, greatly extended overload capability, better voltage regulation, lower life cycle cost, fault current limiting capability, lower environmental pollution and lower risk potential against fire hazards.In this thesis, optimal design of flux diverter using genetic algorithm for axial short circuit force reduction in HTS transformers has been performed. Then, multilayered flux diverters have been proposed for reduction of weight and losses. The impact of... 

Valve leak detection is very important due to bad direct effects on parts life and engine power. Acoustic emission (AE) has a good known ability on leak detection between fault detection methods. The aim of this thesis is presenting the ability of AE method for valve leak detection in internal combustion engines. The research method in a general framework based on the idea that firstly some evaluations were done in static tests for leakage due to three faults including clearance, quasi-crack and notch. Then, the evaluations were continued with dynamic analysis of rotational speeds and different loads on the engine. Finally, the neural network approach was used to automatically detect all... 

Inrush Current is a form of over-current that occurs during energization of a transformer. For power transformers, the magnitude of the first peak of inrush current is initially several times the rated load current but slowly decreases until it finally reaches the normal exciting current value. This process typically takes several minutes. Time-variant axial and radial electromagnetic forces under inrush current and short-circuit current are calculated (by finite element method; FEM), and compared. An analytic method is presented for computation of inrush current in transformer. The simulation results obtained by this proposed method are compared with the measured values. A compact... 

The goal of this thesis is to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the two existing formulations of Bohmian mechanics. The first one was proposed by Bohm, and emphasizes on the dynamics being second-order, and in which, the key tool for explaining the quantum phenomena is a non-classical potential, called "the quantum potential". In this approach, the postulates of de Broglie's "pilot-wave" theory, which now is known as Bohmian mechanics, are non-fundamental and are special to the atomic level. The possibility is proposed that these postulates become subjected to some modifications at the nuclear or lower levels, but no particular way for performing such modifications is suggested. The... 

In this study biological denitrification method by moving bed biofilm reactor is investigated. The main advantage of MBBR reactor is due to their capacity for high removal rates and low operational problems such as clogging. Two MBBRs in series with 3 liter volume each, were designed in experimental set up and used in this research. Nitrification reactor worked under aerobic conditions and denitrification reactor operated under anaerobic conditions. Methanol was used as carbon source in the reactors throughout the study. Fifty percent of each reactor volume was occupied with KMT1 packing. To finding the optimum nitrate loading rate, the concentration of ammonium and nitrate were changed from... 

Since 1980s the electricity market has been gradually evolving from a monopoly market into a liberalized one for encouraging competition and improving efficiency. This brings the opportunity for generation companies (Gencos) to make more profits while embracing more risks of not being dispatched. Therefore, it has become a core interest for the Gencos to develop optimal bidding strategies to maximize the profits and minimize the risks while participating in such a competitive market. Error of determining day-ahead electricity price is one of the sources of the risk. Energy price has a high impact on bidding strategy optimization process. So it should be determined with low error which is not...