The goal of this research project is to create a Mathcad template file capable of statistically modelling the effects of mean and standard deviation on a microparticle batch characterized by the log normal distribution model. Such a file can be applied during manufacturing to explore tolerances and increase cost and time effectiveness. Theoretical data for the time to 60% drug release and the slope and intercept of the log-log plot were collected and subjected to statistical analysis in JMP. Since the scope of this project focuses on microparticle surface degradation drug release with no drug diffusion, the characteristic variables relating to the slope (n = diffusional release exponent) and the intercept (k = kinetic constant) do not directly apply to the distribution model within the scope of the research. However, these variables are useful for analysis when the Mathcad template is applied to other types of drug release models.

Four-dimensionalism is a popular philosophical view of how we persist through time. However, some philosophers, such as Mark Johnston and Eric Olson, argue that four-dimensionalism has perverse implications on our practical ethics. This is because, if four-dimensionalism is true, then there exist entities called personites. And if personites exist, then many of the ordinary prudential, social, and moral habits we engage in, like present self-sacrifice for future benefit, promising to do something painful in the future, or being held responsible for something the we did in the past, subjects personites to suffering without sufficient compensation, consent, or desert. And this would be immoral according to our common-sense morality. In this paper, I argue that if four-dimensionalism is true, and personites exist, then we are still morally permitted to engage in the above practices. If four-dimensionalism turns out to be true, it has no perverse implications on how we ought to live.