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Thin film heterostructures, combining layers of materials with different magnetic properties, have received high levels of attention as they often exhibit new behaviour not seen in the individual layers. In particular, heterostructures utilizing ferrites have shown modified magnetic properties, and have found applications in spin-filtering magnetic tunnel junctions and insulator spintronics. In this work, we investigate pulsed laser deposition grown CoFe2O4 (CFO) and NiFe2O4 (NFO) single films and heterostructures. NFO is of interest due to its large exchange splitting, its ability to form insulating or conducting phases depending on its growth conditions, and the possibility to control its magnetic anisotropy through strain. CFO, on the other hand, exhibits a large positive cubic magnetocrystalline anisotropy constant compared to other ferrites, high magnetostriction, and low conductivity. The difference in the magnetic anisotropy and electronic properties between NFO and CFO, but similar crystal structure, provides the motivation to combine them into a heterostructure. For this purpose, we have studied single films of CFO and NFO as well as bilayers of NFO/CFO and CFO/NFO grown on Al2O3 [001] with different thicknesses. Here we present how interfacial effects, such as exchange coupling and strain, affect the magnetic properties and structural properties of single films and heterostructures. Polarised neutron reflectivity (PNR), X-ray reflectivity (XRR), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and vibrational sample magnetometry (VSM) have been used to characterise samples' magnetic and structural properties. Of particular importance, PNR was utilized to measure magnetic profiles as a function of depth across the chemically different layers. We first study [111] orientated CFO and NFO single films to investigate their growth on the strained ALO substrate and to have reference magnetic properties for later comparison to heterostructures. Both films showed a lower than bulk magnetisation, indicating anti-phase boundaries (APBs) defects play a large role in their magnetisation. A difference in chemical and magnetic profiles between NFO and CFO indicated a differing strength of effect from the ALO [001] interface on the density of APBs. We have then investigated bilayer samples of [111] orientated bilayers of CFO and NFO. Modified hysteresis loops and coercive field (Hc) values of the bilayers show evidence of exchange coupling. Certain magnetic properties of the bilayers depend on the layer thickness and growth order, i.e. CFO/NFO or NFO/CFO, on the ALO substrate. The measurements show an overall relative increased magnetization of NFO when grown on top of CFO, and depending on the layer order of the bilayer CFO and NFO show different Hc values. The changes in moment imply strain-related effects from the highly lattice mismatched substrate. The changes in Hc can be explained by a combination of strain-related effects, exchange coupling and layer thickness.

The premise that agri-environment schemes (AES) achieve their management goals and benefit biodiversity and landscape features as well as improve water and soil quality remain controversial. Their success is thought to be constrained by multiple factors such as target taxa, previous management and starting conditions. Modelling the responses of plants and soils and summarising these as indicators and metrics to determine the impacts of AES under global change, provides the basis of this thesis. The first chapter introduces global environmental change and the place of AES in mitigating these and then moves on to explore predictive ecology and environmental modelling as useful sources of concepts, datasets and tools to support sustainable land management and policy in the in the UK. The objective is to use modelling to provide new evidence-based insights that help guide mitigation of global change impacts, principally agricultural intensification. The second chapter explores the potential for grassland AES options in Wales (UK) to achieve expected impacts on plant diversity and soil condition. A 13-year time interval was modelled to estimate the response of plants and soils to AES options and climate change. Empirical models of soil response to extensifying grassland management were constructed from published experimental data and used to drive change in soil inputs to a small ensemble of ecological niche models for British plants. Outputs were summarised by grouping species by the ecosystem functions and services they support and by matching projected species composition to the National Vegetation Classification. Results indicated that at least 10 years of management under grassland AES options are needed to drive vegetation towards desirable plant assemblages more typical of lower fertility habitats while promoting desirable species groups and reducing undesirable ones. Also, management effects had a more marked effect on vegetation than climate variation within 13 years. The third chapter focuses on tree planting as a commonly funded AES management prescription for afforestation, promotion of biodiversity and climate change mitigation. Using species niche modelling we explore how tree disease and climate change could limit achievement of these goals. In the temperate lowlands, succession takes 30 to 50 years to establish forest conditions, to explore establishment by planting, scenarios of broadleaved woodland development across Wales were modelled. This allowed estimation of the potential species composition of forests with, and without, climate change, and Fraxinus excelsior removal due to ash-dieback (Hymenoscyphus fraxineus). Results suggested some soil variables and woody species groups could achieve baseline forest values in less than 30 years. In contrast, other species groups failed to reach baseline equivalents within this time. Where Fraxinus excelsior was removed from the species pool it is expected that a scrub phase will persist or, if present, Acer pseudoplatanus will become dominant. The findings also indicated that given the UK's fragmented, habitats relying entirely on already degraded successional processes could lead to poor afforestation outcomes. The fourth chapter concerns the effects of nitrogen (N) enrichment on UK grasslands and how indicators focused on this can or cannot be used to support assessment of AES success. Prolific use of N fertilisers and the exposure of natural and semi-natural ecosystems to surplus N has led to higher biomass production but has also created conditions that erode biodiversity. Also, gaseous N emissions from agriculture and fossil fuel burning lead to atmospheric deposition and accidental increases of N on land. These can be thought of as a 'hard rain' impacting vegetation positively or negatively by: stimulating higher crop yields or lowering diversity. The aims here are: to determine if N change will lead to a corresponding shift in grassland communities species composition; and to determine over what timescale changes in vegetation and soil can or cannot be measured. To explore this, modelling workflows were established consisting of: fertiliser-induced soil change using novel generalised linear mixed effect models; and, Bayesian models to estimate vegetation change caused by N deposition. This created scenarios reflecting change in N abundance inputs to the ecological niche model described in the previous two chapters. A novel result in the context of managing expectations from AES is that some changes in management are expected to take decadal timescales for measurable change to be observed. Thus, as indicators explored often showed little change over the modelling duration, proof of management change as well measured indicators are advisable for results-based policy to determine AES outcomes. The final synthesis chapter evaluates the magnitude and timescales of change expected under the AES prescriptions modelled and how this knowledge can be tied into current development and validation of future AES. Also, suggestions are made on methodological improvements to modelling AES outcomes as well as further research concerning long term ecological monitoring and big data use in ecology for large-scale restoration. The findings which concern the application of modelling to AES impacts can be summarised as a recommendation to fund longer and stronger AES prescriptions to ensure they achieve their goals. As ecological and environmental science to inform good AES design does exist, a novelty of the research is, that despite evidence of good practice being possible, the current approach is often insufficient. Therefore, the wider suggestion to improve AES delivery is regular monitoring and evaluation to inform ongoing adaptation-based design.

The oceans provide highly important benefits to humans, ranging from sustenance and travel to livelihoods and spiritual wellbeing to climate stabilisation. Yet, globally the use of the marine environment has been unsustainable with extensive pressure being applied either directly or indirectly. This has led to the degradation of almost all marine ecosystems, with no system considered pristine from the depths of the Marianas trench to the inshore seas. Destabilisation of the ocean systems is jeopardising their ability to slow down the effects of climate change. This destabilisation is being driven in part by unsustainable and destructive human practises, such as: overfishing, pollution, coastal development, deep sea mining and habitat destruction. To counteract the negative effects of these practises, spatial management of the marine environment is highly important. The most common form of marine spatial management is the creation of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). MPAs are being championed as a method to decrease negative impacts to marine systems, while also allowing a certain level of benefit to humans, with inclusion to legislation guidance from organisations such as: Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and European Union (EU: Marine Strategy Framework Directive and Water Framework Directive). MPAs can be highly varied in multiple ways: geographic extent, from tens of square metres to thousands of square kilometres; level of protection, from total prohibition of all activities to personal quotas for specific activities; enforcement, from heavy military enforcement to no enforcement and designation rationale, from fisheries and conservation to personal or spiritual. This variety in MPAs, alongside the inherent variability of the marine environment in which they are applied, makes the application and assessment of successful MPAs a significant challenge. Therefore, effective and efficient MPA assessment is highly important, not only to allow for the adaptive management of current MPAs but also to inform the best approach for implementing new MPAs elsewhere. Here a model system, Lyme Bay in the United Kingdom, is used to assess non-extractive MPA monitoring methods. The system includes multiple management strategies, with differing geographical, temporal and protection scales; many of the details are unique to the location but could, if beneficial, be applied more widely throughout the United Kingdom (UK) and potentially the globe. University of Plymouth staff, students and volunteers have applied a range of monitoring methods yearly to assess different MPA effects since the summer of 2008. Discussed is the assessment of the methods themselves, some of the potential analysis techniques and the use of these techniques to assess the different management strategies within the model system.

In 2015, a Commission of the Catholic Church produced a document describing the relationship between Judaism and the Church. This document used the irrevocable nature of the Old Testament covenant which God made with the Jews as the base of its theological argument. I wish to investigate this use of covenant from both Biblical stand point, as well as its use in both conciliar and post-conciliar documents, as it typifies the current direction of theology in the area of Catholic Jewish relations. Thus, in the first section my thesis examines the use of ‘covenant’ in the Old Testament texts, and the rise of covenant as a short-lived organising principle in Old Testament scholarship. In the second, I examine the development of covenant with particular attention to its presence or absence in the Vatican Council’s declaration Nostra Ætate, together with other conciliar texts. I trace the development of this covenantal language through the other post conciliar documents concerning the relationship of Judaism to Christianity. I end in the third section by outlining the dangers of using covenant in this manner, and propose a completely different solution to the relationship of Judaism to the Church and to salvation. My argument throughout the thesis is that covenant is not one single concept. In the Old Testament, there is no single covenant, nor does covenant occupy an unbroken position within Old Testament scholarship up to the eve of the Council. Covenant plays no significant role in the conciliar discussions and the term was not used in the final conciliar documents in a consistent manner. I conclude that the use of ‘covenant’ as the foundational description of Judaism, and thus her relationship to salvation and the Church, is a much later development, and is one whose implications have not been fully considered. I conclude that any theology of Jewish/Catholic relations based on covenant will ultimately fail, as the basis on which the relationship stands (covenant) is not and cannot be, used for that purpose. I present a modest proposal, radically recasting the connection of Judaism to the Church.

In this study the author investigates his interpretive practice as a conductor, revealing how interpretive operations occur not as discrete and isolated activities, but rather an intertwined cyclic process. The study was based on an experiment of the author conducting five scores on two different occasions separated in time by between one day and several months. The study design included extensive content analysis of over 30 hours of video in which more than 12,000 codes were applied and collated. The study design also included traditional texted research, autoethnographic writing (a 25,000-word practice journal), semi-structured interviews, the use of Sonic Visualiser, and the documentation of a range of score study methods which the author describes as ‘listening in silence'. Although there are numerous studies that compare different performances of the same piece, and consider the extent to which differences are intentional and/or creative, none has been undertaken by a conductor in the role of artist-researcher. The study develops what the author calls the ‘ethos of multiple interpretability', suggesting that a conductor can be ‘animated by' the belief that there is no single correct way to perform a work specified by a score.

Viral populations exhibit extensive genomic diversity that may be be profiled with contemporary nucleotide sequencing instruments, offering insight into virus transmission and the evolution of clinically relevant phenotypes within intrapatient infections. Emerging understanding of the role of the microbiome in human health and disease has pushed routine study of viruses beyond that of specific pathogen populations to include prospecting entire viral communities. In the current absence of high fidelity long read sequencing, analyses of such data must begin with reconstructing the short sequence fragments generated by sequencing instruments through either alignment to an appropriate reference sequence or de novo fragment assembly. By consequence of their error prone polymerases, RNA viruses in particular can present intrapopulation diversity to an extent that is problematic for the application of either of these approaches. In this thesis I present novel computational methodologies for robust de novo and reference-guided inference of viral consensus sequences, together with methods for characterising both interspecific and intraspecific genomic variation within viral populations. Through development and application of a wavelet-based sequence comparison approach to simulated viral populations, we demonstrate that seeding alignments using reduced dimensionality sequence representations provides accuracy broadly comparable with—and in some circumstances exceeding—that of the most accurate available aligners. Separately, I present a methodology that identifies sample-specific preprocessing and assembly parameters for optimal reconstruction of specific viruses, together with a companion tool that enables visual exploration of metagenome assemblies with taxonomic annotations retrieved using web services. I also present Kindel, an efficient approach for inferring population consensus sequences from read alignments of arbitrary quality, that unlike existing approaches is able to reconcile both aligned insertions/deletions and leverage unaligned sequence context to locally reassemble discordant alignment regions of up 1.5x read length. I apply Kindel to the characterisation of highly diverse and difficult to assemble intrapatient hepatitis C virus populations, and propose a feature extraction and decomposition methodology for monitoring temporal shifts in the state of specific viral populations. Used in conjunction with the taxonomic annotation and filtering tool Tictax, these approaches represent efficient and composable tools for the reconstruction and exploration of viral genomic and metagenomic communities using a portable computer. In the final chapter I describe the application of these methodologies to profiling the nasopharyngeal viromes of a cohort of asthmatic children and healthy controls, identifying differences in viral composition indicative of microbial dysbiosis within the asthmatic virome.

Silence’s expressive potential came to the fore in twentieth-century arts and letters as never before. Its role in Christian theology and spirituality has a much longer history, but by the beginning of the twentieth century, its expressive potential had not been significantly recognized in liturgical choral music. This study examined the relationship between twentieth-century musical silence and the expression of silence as the ineffable in Anglican choral music (referred to as English cathedral music or ECM) of the middle of the twentieth century. The oeuvres of Benjamin Britten and Herbert Howells, two composers successful in both secular and liturgical repertoires and prominent in mid-twentieth-century ECM, were analyzed. This study examined perceptions and expressions of silence in areas of thought and creativity closely related to ECM: Anglican theology, twentieth-century music, and twentieth-century literature. It found that twentieth-century Anglicanism had an ethos of restraint about expressing silence, but the High Church wing (closer to Anglicanism’s Catholic roots) was more open to expressing silence as the ineffable than the Evangelical wing. Howells’s High Church background and Britten’s Evangelical background help account for Howells’s interest and Britten’s lack of interest in silence as the ineffable. This difference between Howells and Britten also became apparent by examining the silence-related literature they selected or avoided. Howells’s oeuvre thus became the focus of the remainder of the study. Howells’s perceptions of, and techniques for expressing, silence as the ineffable—some of which are unique to him—were identified and compared with the perceptions and techniques of important continental composers interested in silence: Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Anton Webern, and Olivier Messiaen. This study analyzed Howells’s more direct expressions of silence in several secular works before analyzing the more nuanced expression of silence in his ECM.

This thesis undertakes an analysis of the law pertaining to the regulation of telecommunications in Nigeria generally and more specifically with regards to the extension of access to telecommunications services to unserved and underserved persons and areas in Nigeria. The study is situated in the context of privatisation and liberalisation reform of the Nigerian telecommunications sector. It addresses the question of how to extend access to telecommunications services in Nigeria to unserved and underserved persons and areas. This question is researched by focusing on the sector regulator the Nigerian Communications Commission and analysing the mechanisms, ranging from licensing to interconnection to universal service provision and the National Rural Telecommunication Programme, that have been deployed in the past to achieve this objective to ascertain how these may be improved to ensure that as many persons and areas as possible have access to telecommunications services. The issue of securing the accountability of the regulator responsible for the deployment of these access extension mechanisms is also addressed. The research identifies the main international influences on the development of the Nigerian regulatory framework and shows the country’s ability to borrow from a number of sources while adapting and refining the borrowed rules to solve Nigerian problems. The thesis makes a contribution to knowledge in at least three material ways. It is, to the best of my knowledge, the first work on the legal framework for the regulation of telecommunications in Nigeria after the enactment of the Communications Act 2003. Secondly, it is also the first work that I am aware of which analyses issues of access to telecommunications services using a variety of regulatory mechanism as opposed to focusing on universal access and universal service alone. Finally it presents a positive illustration of a successful outcome of globalisation of rules, specifically the transposition or transplantation of specific legal rules in the economic context of a developing African country.

My doctoral research focuses on the development and operation of the intelligence services in British colonial Burma during the years 1930 to 1942. This involves an examination of the causes of intelligence development, its progress throughout 1930-1942, its rationale and modus operandi, and the pressures it faced. This time period permits us to assess how intelligence development was a product of the colonial government's response to the 1930 peasant uprising which came as such a shock to colonial security and how thereafter intelligence helped prevent popular hostility to the government from taking the form of an uprising. As a result, intelligence information was increasingly used to secure colonial power during the period of parliamentary reform in Burma in 1937. The thesis further examines the stresses that riots and strikes placed on colonial security in 1938, the so-called ‘year of revolution’ in Burma. The thesis then proceeds to consider how intelligence operated in the final years of colonial rule before the Japanese occupation of Burma in 1942. This study is significant not only because very little work on the colonial security services in Burma exists for the period under review, but also because it reveals that intelligence was crucial to colonial rule, underpinning the stability of the colonial state and informing its relationship with the indigenous population in what remained, in relative terms at least, a colonial backwater like Burma. The argument that intelligence was pivotal to colonial governmental stability in Burma because of its centrality to strategies of population control departs from conventional histories of Burma which have considered the colonial army to have been the predominant instrument of political control and the most significant factor in the relationship between the state and society in colonial Burma. Rather it will be argued here that the colonial state in Burma relied on a functioning intelligence bureau which collected information from local indigenous officials and informers and employed secret agents to work on its behalf. This information was collated into reports for the government which then became integral to policy formulation. The primary source base for this work includes British colonial material from government and private collections predominantly in the British library as well as government papers in the National Archives in Kew.

This thesis is a generative-based investigation of second language (L2) attrition. L2 attrition research to now has measured the loss of lexical items, morphology, word order, and so on. However, none to my knowledge has examined attrition from within an established theoretical framework such as Chomsky's theory of Government and Binding (GB). In particular, this study considers the loss of reflexive binding in proficient L2 English speakers. Informants are six Japanese university students who spent their junior (third) years abroad in the United States. These six informants consisted of two groups: three who had childhood exposure to English, and three whose first exposure to English in the L2 environment was as adults during their university stay overseas. In order to observe attrition which might occur shortly after exposure to the L2 ceased, an important aspect of this research was to begin data collection as soon as possible after the informants' returns to Japan from studying abroad. Data collections occurred at various intervals for each informant and lasted up to 16 months. Data for this longitudinal study were collected via two tests: a truth value judgment test and a grammaticality judgement test. This study is unique in that it uses generative-based SLA research tools and methods to investigate L2 attrition. Furthermore, the truth value judgment test and the grammaticality judgment test provide results which support the hypothesis that principles of reflexive binding attrite in a manner not inconsistent with UG constraints. The general pattern exhibited by all six test subjects initially shows varying but high levels of knowledge of reflexive binding. Over the course of their data collection periods, the informants' knowledge of reflexive binding in English becomes unstable in the face of zero exposure to the target language. In particular, reflexives in finite subordinate clauses tend to remain bound grammatically to local antecedents to a greater degree than in nonfinite clauses. Reflexive binding in tensed clauses thus appears more resistant to attrition. Age at first exposure to the L2 was also considered as a factor in determining ultimate level of attrition. Evidence was found of a sensitive period up to age eight for the successful acquisition and long-term maintenance of knowledge of the principles of reflexive binding, even upon loss of exposure to the L2.

Many functional programming languages rely on the elimination of 'impure' features: assignment to variables, exceptions and even input/output. But some of these are genuinely useful, and it is of real interest to establish how they can be reintroducted in a controlled way. This dissertation looks in detail at one example of this: the addition to a functional language of dynamically generated names. Names are created fresh, they can be compared with each other and passed around, but that is all. As a very basic example of state, they capture the graduation between private and public, local and global, by their interaction with higher-order functions. The vehicle for this study is the nu-calculus, an extension of the simply-typed lambdacalculus. The nu-calculus is equivalent to a certain fragment of Standard ML, omitting side-effects, exceptions, datatypes and recursion. Even without all these features, the interaction of name creation with higher-order functions can be complex and subtle. Various operational and denotational methods for reasoning about the nu-calculus are developed. These include a computational metalanguage in the style of Moggi, which distinguishes in the type system between values and computations. This leads to categorical models that use a strong monad, and examples are devised based on functor categories. The idea of logical relations is used to derive powerful reasoning methods that capture some of the distinction between private and public names. These techniques are shown to be complete for establishing contextual equivalence between first-order expressions; they are also used to construct a correspondingly abstract categorical model. All the work with the nu-calculus extends cleanly to Reduced ML, a larger language that introduces integer references: mutable storage cells that are dynamically allocated. It turns out that the step up is quite simple, and both the computational metalanguage and the sample categorical models can be reused.

Through a combination of biographical evidence and literary analysis, this paper argues that Edgar Allan Poe’s knowledge of the Catholic Faith demonstrates the writer had an interest in and a sympathy for Catholicism, and that this interest and sympathy profoundly shaped his work.

Abnormal glycosylation can impact cardiac proteins, affecting signaling, contraction, and metabolism, which leads to compromised cardiac function. O-GlcNAcylation, the only form of intracellular glycosylation, involves adding a single GlcNAc molecule to proteins via enzymes: O-GlcNAc Transferase (OGT) for addition and O-GlcNAcase (OGA) for removal. The Ednie/Bennett lab has previously demonstrated that in both chronic (OGT KO) and acute (OGT inhibition) models of reduced cardiomyocyte O-GlcNAcylation, a disruption of Ca2+ homeostasis occurs. This study delved into the cardiac voltage-gated sodium channel (NaV 1.5) in these models. NaV 1.5 expression was analyzed through western blotting and immunocytochemistry, while its functional activity was gauged using whole cell voltage-clamping. We also investigated how the trafficking proteins LITAF and NEDD4-2 might influence NaV 1.5 expression in the OGT KO. Initial results highlight distinct regulatory mechanisms, warranting additional studies

While no dogmatic declarations have been made on the definition of the body, creeds, councils, and constitutions have affirmed its resurrection. The present work of comparative theology explores the body and divinization in Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) and Daoist Xiao Yingsou (fl. Song Dynasty 960-1278). Early in his writing, Teilhard loses interest in discovering the theological significance of the human body in favor of addressing the fulfillment of the Cosmic Body of Christ. Accordingly, studies of Teilhard easily overlook the individual's body. This work derives a theory of the body and its role in divinization from Teilhard by introducing an anthropological category not present in traditional theological language. Shen, the experiencing body, is the word Xiao uses to describe the Daoist in the process of divinization. Shen challenges conventional notions of body, physicality, and their importance to Christian spiritual life. The experiencing body is a living community of souls in relationship to an essential soul, who receives bonding power from Christ. On their own, humans cannot maintain the relationships within themselves, but must surrender them to perfection in Christ. Biblically, Christian anthropology departed from a monistic to a tripartite view with Paul. In the early Church, Irenaeus and Augustine defended a unity of body and soul against the gnostics heresies. Later, Thomas Aquinas formulated a theory of the body as largely defined by the soul. The bodies did not give positive contributions to people's life in God. Teilhard inherited this view of the human, but was unsatisfied with it. At the same time, he read contemporary French philosophers who provided the spark he needed to develop his ideas on creation and divinization. Early in his writing, he considers the body in light of Christology and biology. He drops the question in favor of strengthening an argument for the divinization of the entire cosmos in the Cosmic Body of Christ. Nonetheless, in the pursuit of this answer, his writings imply the individual body. Human bodies most clearly appear in his mysticism of action, which he explains in The Divine Milieu. Teilhard cannot articulate the individual body because he lacks a cosmology that does not choose between non-subsistent matter and selfsubsistent spirit. Xiao Yingsou's commentary on Daoism's Scripture of Salvation provides such a cosmology. Xiao utilizes both word and image to describe a divinizing cosmic body using three terms: dong, ti, and shen. The individual's body in a process of perfection is shen. This body is not a static collection of interworking parts, but a movement of transformation that generates salvific energy for the entire cosmos. Shen highlights in Teilhard's work a body understood as a community interacting with other beings to perfect relationships in Christ. Therefore, the body is physical, but with Teilhard's expanded notion which exceeds the limitations of time and space. This view yields a body that is not an obstacle to divinization, but absolutely necessary for it.

PREFERENTIAL TRADE AGREEMENT AS PATH TO ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: THE CASE OF NIGERIA’S RESPONSE TO AFRICAN GROWTH AND OPPORTUNITY ACT (AGOA) by Bede U. Eke This dissertation examines the issue of preferential trade agreements (PTAs) as a vehicle for economic growth. It focuses on how Nigeria has implemented the United States’ African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) which is a PTA aimed at offering eligible Sub-Saharan African countries duty-free access to U.S. markets of many of their textile and agro-based products. It is envisaged that the Act would help promote economic growth through trade expansion for the eligible countries. Since Nigeria is a major AGOA participant, and offers the largest market in Africa, examining AGOA implementation in Nigeria is pertinent in understanding the successes and challenges of the Act. The research made use of both secondary and primary data sources. The primary data included interviews with AGOA stakeholders in Nigeria who responded to questionnaires distributed to them either by mail or in-person. In all, the findings reveal among other things, that although its implementation has had some major challenges, AGOA is helping in trade expansion and economic growth in Nigeria through increase in export and implementation of its conditionalities, which have encouraged reforms and trade capacity building (TCB) initiatives. However, the targeted industry and sector (textile and agriculture respectively) are yet to witness significant export growth although they hold great potential for success. This does not suggest a failure of the Act but need to re-evaluate its objective vis-à-vis its achievement after six years of implementation. Although the findings in this research may not be generalized to other participating Sub-Saharan countries given that each country has fairly unique political and economic conditions that produce different implementation outcomes, there are reasons to believe that the Nigerian case offers a clue about the general issues AGOA is facing in the participating countries. The research offers recommendations in the light of the findings.

Pollination is a valuable ecosystem service in which wild insect pollinators play a major role. Currently, managed pollination of crops relies almost entirely on one insect species, the honey bee Apis mellifera L. Interest in alternative pollinator species has increased in recent years with declines in honey bee and wild pollinator populations in Europe and North America. Bumble bee colonies are managed successfully for greenhouse pollination of tomatoes; however, field management of bumble bees has not been proven to be reliable and cost-effective. Habitat manipulation has been suggested as a low input means of increasing bumble bee populations but so far has not led to a reliable method of improving bumble bee numbers. Improving the scientific basis of habitat manipulation and the provision of artificial nest sites on farmland may help increase bumble bee populations in the vicinity of a crop. Eighty, four-unit nest boxes have been situated on Kowhai Farm at Lincoln University for four years, and occupancy by bumble bee queens has been recorded during that time. The results collected during the four years are summarised and used along with appropriate literature to suggest how the bumble bee nest boxes on Kowhai Farm could be used to investigate the factors influencing bumble-bee queen nest site selection. Twenty commercially-produced Bombus terrestris (L.) colonies were placed at 20 field sites. Sites were divided into two treatments, based on the predominant habitat within 10 m of the colony. The landscape surrounding the colonies out to a radius of 500 m was divided into one of four habitat categories: flowering crop, non-food crop, pasture, and 'other'. The proportion of each habitat category was calculated for each colony. Colony performance was measured by a productivity index. The performance of B. terrestris colonies was highly variable and no significant habitat effects were observed. Highly variable microsatellite loci have been used to differentiate nest mates from non-nest mates in several social insect species. Such markers could be used to investigate bumble bee forager movement within a landscape. Twelve microsatellite loci isolated in the bumble-bee B. terrestris were tested for applicability to New Zealand populations of Bombus hortorum (L.). Three loci could repeatedly produce informative gels. Regression relatedness was calculated between B. hortorum individuals collected from three naturally founded colonies. The three useful loci provided sufficient information to distinguish between related and unrelated workers. A high proportion of the workers collected from within nests appeared to be unrelated to each other.

The thesis records a study of difference - the difference between reading and hearing biblical texts. It shows that the types of interpretation people make when reading such texts often differ from those they make when they are hearing the same texts read aloud. The extent of the difference is demonstrated in ten studies where theories relating to reading and hearing are applied to the Greek text of Mark 6:30-8:27a. The biblical texts used in the studies vary in the size, as do the themes and issues investigated. Despite this diversity the results are consistent across all ten studies. Almost all the assessments made in these studies are verified by independent data, such as the published opinions of biblical scholars and literary analyses of the Greek text. As elucidated in the thesis; the results attained, the method utilised and the theories employed are relevant for assessing the types of interpretation people are likely to make when reading and listening to other biblical stories. Because the research encompasses a literary issue and concerns the processes that are used in communication, the approach adopted is a literary one and the methodology incorporates media criticism and audience criticism. Other techniques, such as narrative criticism, rhetorical criticism, and reader response criticism are utilised extensively in the various analyses and assessments. The ten studies are preceded in the thesis by data as to the processes people use in reading texts and in listening to non-reciprocal speech. Such data includes information relating to experiments and studies into the communicative processes that have been carried out over the past fifty years. There is also data as to the theories that have been developed by scholars based on the results of such experiments and studies. These are the theories that are used in this thesis. There are also several analyses in the thesis which collectively demonstrate that texts used in Church liturgies should be those that have been specifically translated to meet the needs of listeners. This is a very important issue, because, even in very literate communities, there are still more Christians who listen to biblical texts being read than those who read such texts for themselves.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the impact of AIDS on intergenerational relationships in Nigeria. The study made use of secondary data sources, supplemented by mail survey of a selected group of Nigerians who are engaged in AIDS’ research and relief issues. Findings revealed that AIDS has had a major impact on the relationships between the younger and older populations in the affected areas in Nigeria. It has considerably increased the caregiving responsibilities and challenges faced by the older population at the time when they are supposed to be receiving care. AIDS caregivers face discrimination as a result of the stigma attached to the disease. Governmental policies and programs have not been adequate in addressing the intergenerational challenges that arise as a result of the disease. Recommendations are made as a way to tackle the challenges.