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The accurate acquisition of customer requirement information is an important part in product planning and positioning, it plays a decisive role in the success of products in the market. the rapid development of e-commerce makes increasing more consumers shopping online and a big volume of customer reviews are posted on different Websites. The online reviews contain valuable opinions of customers, enabling designers to understand their concerns. In this research, an integrated approach has been developed to mine customer requirements according to the online reviews collected from e-commerce sites to form product design specifications. The main research contents include the following aspects: (1) development of useful online review prediction and classification approach; (2) online review implicit product features and sentiment analysis based on the constructed feature and sentiment lexicon; (3) built a knowledge base containing customer requirements mined from online reviews; (4) conduct a dedicated environmental and social LCA on the proposed domestic lighting product by using a professional LCA software. In this study, multiple models and technologies/methods have been successfully implemented: review helpfulness classification model has been constructed based on the training set and test set by tuning and optimizing; proposes a new approach to implicit feature and sentiment analysis, based on explicit formal feature-emotion sentences, implicit feature sentences and implicit sentiment sentences, combined with a feature lexicon, a 1V1/1Vn sentiment-feature rule base and the feature-emotion word pairs are extracted; based on the preliminary analysis results of feature extraction and sentiment analysis, combined with KANO model to establish user requirement mining rules, and consider satisfaction, propose the user demand priority to obtain the final list of user requirements; a real industrial context with lighting product manufacturer (ONA) in Spain has involved with the lighting product life cycle analysis and development for new product. The analytical results of these studies present an in-depth modelling and analysis on the sustainable lighting product lifecycle with the aid of real manufacturing data.

This three-paper dissertation advances theoretical and empirical understandings of how internal, external, and societal systems of civil society organizations (CSOs hereafter) governance influence the achievement of community impact. It therefore aims to provide an understanding of how various CSO governance systems generate community impacts in different ways. The first paper considers the internal governance of CSOs by focusing on governance structure and processes. The second paper examines the external governance of CSOs by focusing on their adaptation to unexpected external events. Finally, the third paper investigates societal governance by focusing on the mechanisms and design principles of governing the commons. The dissertation considers qualitative case studies based in Edinburgh, Scotland - a city that has been greatly influenced by the civil-society movement. The three papers that make up the dissertation are presented in chapters four, five, and six. Paper one explores the role of organizations in the process of internal governance of community-based public spaces. Through an analysis of four CSOs, this study finds that the decision-making process, governance structures, and multi-stakeholder activities are crucial determinants of the efficacy with which the organizational mission is maintained through internal governance. Paper two explores how CSOs developed emergency operations during the first Covid-19 lockdown of 2020 to further develop the understanding of adaptation by organizations facing an exogenous shock. This paper contributes to the understanding of crisis management and resilience through a model that conceptualizes: the overall adaptation processes, identifies specific variants to this process, and reveals the mechanisms by which this learning informs adaptation to organizational structure. Paper three aims to investigate societal governance by focusing on the mechanisms and design principles of governing the commons, which gains further insight into the mechanisms and processes related to governance structure and ownership, and the role they play in supporting the community interactions that build civil society. The presented case studies - four community-based public spaces managed by CSOs - reveal four mechanisms that resonate with different configurations of Ostrom's design principles, which they use to successfully govern the spaces.

Evolution of the nutritional mutualism between plants and arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi was crucial to evolution of life, as it enabled the conquest of the green lineage and its ecosystem on land. Today, apart from AM fungi, plants co-exist with a plethora of micro-organisms, and exactly how the plant immune system balances the need for defence against detrimental micro-organisms and beneficial ones such as AM fungi remains enigmatic. This work characterised plant plasma membrane receptors that perceive microbial carbohydrate patterns, and how they bring about cellular and developmental changes. To understand the origins of the Lysin-motif (LysM) receptor-like kinases (RLKs) and Symbiosis Receptor Kinase (SYMRK), comprehensive phylogenomic analyses of these receptors in more than a hundred plant genomes revealed their deep origins in green algae. I then defined the major clades of LysM-RLKs, their correlation with plant symbiotic capabilities, how the pseudokinases have diversified and refined, and how the ancestral LysM-RLK gave rise to the repertoire in extant land plants. Independent events involving domain fusions of LysM with kinase domains in the plant kingdom and beyond demonstrate how modularity of protein domains enable genetic innovations in the tree of life. A clearly defined receptor phylogeny also enabled systematic genetic dissection of the RLKs. Functions of four different receptor clades were carefully analysed in rice using single and double mutants. Careful assessment of AM colonisation in these mutants reveal chitin and lipochito-oligosaccharides as redundant signals, perceived by an equally redundant set of RLKs, as well as a symbiosis-specific receptor that represents a second checkpoint of symbiotic scrutiny - confirming insights from phylogenomic analyses. Perception of AM fungi also result in plants producing more lateral roots, a response observed for decades. Here, molecular mechanisms of this developmental response are elucidated, where general perception of chitin-derived molecules through LysM receptors and SYMRK activate lateral organ production. This response is also conserved in non-AM hosts, revealing the existence of an ancestral signalling function of these RLKs in shaping plant development - which may have been recruited in the evolution of nitrogen fixing root-nodules. Transgenic lines containing tagged-RLKs were also characterised, paving the way for future biochemical experiments to understand how the receptor complexes activate downstream signalling components for their biological functions.

In 2011-2012, for the first time, I left my hometown of Taipei and went to Lyon. The pursuit of a nomadic life - feeling different cities with my body (Shentigan 身體感) - was ignited and thenceforth has been enacted. I returned to Taipei in 2013, moved to Tokyo in 2016, and I had a fruitful life in London from 2017 to 2020. The next city is summoning my body, and the research initiated and realised by my body's fascination for urban materialities will reinvigorate there. Carrying the fervent indulgence and investigation, this doctoral project analytically delineates the relationships between city, choreography, and body/ Shentigan and formulates a sense or senses of being Taiwanese (Taiwaneseness) through kinesthesia and affects, instead of the politically assigned or declined identities, the authentic/conventional markers of being Taiwanese. This research asks and examines how feelings emerging from the individual corporeal exploration of the collective city space may assist the understanding of the ways choreographies of certain urban spaces produce perceptions and notions of the potential attributes of Taiwaneseness. Benefiting from theorisations of Taiwanese dancing bodies, the historical transformation of Taiwanese identities, contemporary dance studies and urban studies, this practice-led project attends to the phenomena of how bodies collectively and individually move in urban spaces and provide experimental understandings of Taiwaneseness. The significant enlightenment from notions of body as knowledge, non- representational theory, and Asia as method encourage me to problematise the assumed postcolonial construction of Taiwan and the West. I am then able to distinguish my definition of Taiwaneseness as MiQing (瀰情), the filling dynamics, endowed with four specific qualities: circular viscosity, civic spiral energy, diversity of bodies, and empowerment of movements. With personal experiences and bodily participation in a free outdoor dance course, Monday School in Taipei, I address the intersection of the phenomenal observations of urban dancing bodies from the personal, the collective, to the social embodiments in a layered analytical approach called the 'concentric pathway'. Devising two research tools of the Geo- choreo and kinesthetic autoethnography, I unpick a localised dynamic, diffusing both from individual bodies and collective corporeality within specific urban environments to provide renewed perspectives of Taiwaneseness that have predominantly been approached by cultural representational meanings and political ideologies. This research also aims to renew and diversify the discourse and the praxis of Taiwanese bodies with non-exclusive corporealities in everyday life by offering individual experiences and deciphering material, physical, and temporal connections that have not been fully discovered. Throughout the exploration of how the entry of bodies in certain urban spaces rewrites spatial meanings, in this thesis, Taiwaneseness is for me a contingent amalgamation of various and ambiguous moving bodies of MiQing dynamics that is lasting and driven by the act of care, the attentiveness to feeling others, and feeling within others.

Recent years have witnessed increased attention to the dynamics of group activities, and researchers have conceptualised the Community of Practice as a vehicle to promote learning and collaboration within groups. In this thesis, the academic experiences of Chinese postgraduate students are explored, in particular their involvement in interactive activities within the context of UK higher education. It examines the ways in which they participate in classroom-based activities and to what extent they collaborate in group work. Drawing on the social constructivist paradigm of learning, this thesis presents a qualitative study of three academic learning activities at a UK university: interactions within the classroom, participation in seminars, and collaboration in group coursework. The purpose of this study is to determine the extent to which higher education institutions in the UK have the capacity to ensure full participation of their Chinese students in collaborative learning. Three research questions were developed: 1) How do Chinese postgraduate students participate and interact in a classroom environment, for example during lectures and seminars? 2) How do they perceive participation in seminars, and what influences students' participation in seminars, from the students' perspective? 3) What factors facilitate or impede Chinese postgraduate students' participation in group activities? This study is an explorative study, involving a class of students for classroom observation and five participants for interviews. It employs the following methods for data collection: in-depth classroom observations for one semester, and three phases of semi-structured interviews. The data were systematically studied and coded, based on the emerging themes: 1) the dynamics of students' participation in classroom; 2) students' perception of seminar learning and participation; and 3) students' perception of collaboration in joint coursework. There are three major findings. Firstly, this study suggests that the patterns of students' classroom participation are characterised by variety, dynamic alterability, and naturality. Evidence gathered from classroom observations illustrates that students engage in multiple forms of participation in classroom activities. They do so on multiple levels, and both active participation and passive participation are displayed. Furthermore, the absence of static patterns of participation shows that students modify their behaviour in relation to changes within the learning context. Additionally, this study argues that students shift between verbal and non-verbal participation in order to facilitate their moment-to-moment interaction in the classroom. Secondly, data collected from individual, in-depth interviews indicate that participants perceive learning in seminars from three aspects: the cognitive aspect, the pedagogical aspect, and the affective aspect. The participants understand learning in seminars as an opportunity to increase academic understanding and build a sense of belonging. Further, there are several factors that influence students' participation in seminars, including the overall seminar and its design. Notably, students commonly expressed that a seminar class containing fewer than ten students would be the ideal classroom for them, both with regard to participation and interaction. This preference of small-scale seminars is the result of three aspects: sufficient tutor attention; effective peer interaction; and more opportunities to contribute during discussions. In addition, it was shown that students participate more when they are familiar with the person supervising the seminar session: a friendly and inspiring seminar leader can be an effective motivator for students to participate and interact in the classroom. Thirdly, this study contains additional exploration of students' learning experiences outside of the classroom. Data collected from interviewing five participants who had been involved in a previous interview indicate that participants perceive learning from the pedagogical aspect, the individual competence aspect, and the affective aspect. In line with the Collaborative Learning Theory, positive interdependency and promotive interaction are essential factors that promote students' learning within groups. Whilst the feature of group diversity can exert positive and/or negative influences on students' collaboration, this study demonstrates that designing group coursework to be explorative and related to real life situations will diminish the negative impacts that result from group diversity. The findings of this thesis suggest that designs of seminars and group coursework can create a friendly atmosphere for students to collaborate and work efficiently. In particular, this study offers an opportunity to revaluate students' participation patterns and further emphasise the significance of silent study. It also contributes to a comprehensive understanding of the dynamics of student learning in the UK higher education system. Lastly, this thesis investigates the perceptions of Chinese international students studying in the UK with an emphasis on their engagement and collaboration across various learning environments. For those who wish to study in the UK, this may serve as guidance on how to prepare successfully for higher education before coming to study.

Viruses are the cause of many infectious diseases such as the pandemic viruses: acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). During the infection cycle, viruses invade host cells and trigger a series of virus-host interactions with different directionality. Some of these interactions disrupt host immune responses or promote the expression of viral proteins and exploitation of the host system thus are considered 'pro-viral'. Some interactions display 'pro-host' traits, principally the immune response, to control or inhibit viral replication. Concomitant pro-viral and pro-host molecular interactions on the same host molecule suggests more complex virus-host conflicts and genetic signatures that are crucial to host immunity. In this work, machinelearning-based prediction of virus-host interaction directionality was examined by using data from Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection. Host immune responses to viral infections are mediated by interferons(IFNs) in the initial stage of the immune response to infection. IFNs induce the expression of many IFN-stimulated genes (ISGs), which make the host cell refractory to further infection. We propose that there are many features associated with the up-regulation of human genes in the context of IFN-α stimulation. They make ISGs predictable using machine-learning models. In order to overcome the interference of host immune responses for successful replication, viruses adopt multiple strategies to avoid being detected by cellular sensors in order to hijack the machinery of host transcription or translation. Here, the strategy of mimicry of host-like short linear motifs (SLiMs) by the virus was investigated by using the example of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The integration of in silico experiments and analyses in this thesis demonstrates an interactive and intimate relationship between viruses and their hosts. Findings here contribute to the identification of host dependency and antiviral factors. They are of great importance not only to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic but also to the understanding of future disease outbreaks.

Creativity has been recognised as one of the most important skills in the 21st century. Although creativity has been advocated in the context of education, there still seems to be a lack of understanding of the concept of creativity, leading to teaching and learning practices that still encourage uniformity and conformity. The current literature on creativity is insufficient for understanding creativity from a more comprehensive manner, as frameworks and taxonomies for creativity largely focus on either listing a set of components relevant to creativity without explaining strategies that invoke creativity or categorising creative strategies without explaining the factors that support the use of these strategies, and the result of applying these strategies. More importantly, these frameworks are largely theoretical without empirical evidence. While there have been studies that investigate approaches for developing creativity, the effectiveness of these approaches is measured based on the improvement demonstrated through the creative outputs produced by the participants, by mainly looking at the number of solutions being produced and the originality of the solutions. They do not examine the use of strategies in the creative processes. As such, the understanding of how creativity can be supported by the use of set of strategies remains insufficient. In view of these situations, this study aimed to develop a taxonomic framework that could facilitate the understanding and development of creativity, which could serve as a foundation for teaching, learning and assessment. This study viewed creativity from the problem-solving perspective, where problems act as a catalyst for creative thinking. The sample for this study was lecturers and students across various disciplines from an international university in Malaysia. This study aimed at (i) developing a prototype taxonomic framework for creativity through a synthesis of literature on theories, frameworks and research on creativity, (ii) exploring and understanding the meaning of creativity from the higher education lecturers and students' perspectives, (iii) examining the creativity features and usability of the taxonomic framework based on the perceptions of creativity and the relevance of the framework among a group of higher education lecturers and students, and (iv) examining the use of the creative strategies in the prototype taxonomic framework for creativity through a problem-solving task. The methodology for this study involved a mixed-methods, multiphase design. This study comprised four phases i.e., (i) a systematic synthesis of the literature on creativity through a thematic analysis to develop a prototype taxonomic framework for creativity, (ii) data collection from general higher education lecturers and students through a survey, (iii) data collection from the participant-nominated creative students and lecturers through a series of interviews, and (iv) data collection from higher education students through a problem-solving task. Findings revealed that the prototype taxonomic framework for creativity consisted of 24 features of creativity. Findings gained from the survey and interviews showed that creativity was generally perceived as an ability related to the mental processes and the ability to produce something that has a value - usually innovativeness and originality. Additionally, the taxonomic framework was generally perceived to be relevant for teaching, learning and assessment. Findings from the problem-solving task revealed that the taxonomic framework was able to facilitate creativity, by allowing students to use a wider range of strategies, produce more solutions, provide greater detail to their solutions and generate solutions that are novel, useful and ethical. In general, the overall findings from the study have demonstrated that creativity is a skill that can be taught and learned. The implications of the study offered several contributions of the framework for educational purposes.

The MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (CDIs) are one of the most widely adapted sets of parent-report instruments for assessing young children's early vocabulary acquisition (Fenson et al., 2007; Frank, Braginsky, Marchman, & Yurovsky, 2021). The MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (CDIs) are valid and reliable not only with children who are developing typically (Fenson et al., 2007, 1993; Pan, Rowe, Spier, & Tamis-Lemonda, 2004; Rescorla, Ratner, Jusczyk, & Jusczyk, 2005; Law & Roy, 2008), but also with children developing atypically (Galeote, Checa, Sánchez- Palacios, Sebastián, & Soto, 2016; Luyster, Lopez, & Lord, 2007; Mayne, Yoshinaga-Itano, Sedey, & Carey, 1998; Mayne, Yoshinaga-Itano, & Sedey, 1999; D. Thal, DesJardin, & Eisenberg, 2007). The CDIs provide extensive insights into children's vocabulary sizes, yet they rely on parents' knowledge of their children. Furthermore, the completion of each CDI is time-consuming as the parent has to assess their child's word knowledge item-by-item, often amounting to 600 words or more. Although previous efforts were made to develop 100-item short-form versions, it is time-consuming to develop short-forms for each language, and their administrations remain a considerable time investment for parents when completing such forms. The process of completing CDIs is made even more laborious, when having to fill out CDIs for several languages, for children exposed to more than one language, such as most children from Malaysia, a linguistically diverse country, where bi- and multilingually-exposed children constitute a significant proportion of the population. Hence, the objective of the current project is two-fold: 1) to collect the first Malaysian early vocabulary data using an adaptation of the CDI forms and provide insights into Malaysian children's early language development; and 2) to develop CDI-based novel vocabulary assessment tools, with the aim of improving the administration of CDIs and examining the viability of a CDI-based toddler-directed word comprehension assessment tool using tablets to supplement the parental reports. The first part of the thesis adopted the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Developmental Inventories - Malaysian version (MCDI-M), a trilingual form developed by Low (2009) to examine the early vocabulary trajectories of young Malaysian children, along with a quantification of environmental effects on the language development of these children, and examining the composition of early vocabularies, i.e., the acquisition of nouns and verbs. The second part of the thesis introduced two novel early vocabulary assessment tools. First, a language-general, Bayesian-inspired item response theory-based framework was developed - based on prior work by Mayor and Mani (2018) and Makransky, Dale, Havmose, and Bleses (2016) (MM-IRT) in order to reduce the number of items needed to assess children's language. This framework was evaluated using data sampled from the Wordbank database in English, Danish, Mandarin and Italian. The framework was then applied to two sets of MCDI-M dataset to evaluate the possibility of using this set of innovations in the context of multilingual children in Malaysia. Second, a toddler-based version of CDIs, using tablets, was evaluated with the aim of directly assessing each child's language skills, and was evaluated empirically. In sum, the first part of this thesis found the use of MCDI-M as an effective early vocabulary assessment tool for Malaysian children, whereas the second part of this thesis paved the way towards the application of rapid yet robust language assessments powered by MM-IRT, to be used in clinical settings, and demonstrated the viability and convergence of using tablets for direct-measure of language skills.

Wireless mesh network (WMN) is self-constructing and self-healing. Because of its low cost and easy-deployment features, WMN can be used in many scenarios such as emergency communication, Internet of Things, communication in rural areas and so on. Mesh routers and mesh clients compose WMN, and mesh routers are more stable and have stronger abilities. Routing is very important and non-effective routing will bring more interference and unbalanced loads. Most existing routing methods for WMN are reactive, which does not take advantage of the stability of mesh routers. In addition, load, interference, and energy are not considered comprehensively. In this thesis, we overcome the weaknesses of existing routing methods. As centralized proactive and distributed reactive routing methods are suitable for stable mesh routers and mobile mesh clients respectively, we first give a hybrid routing method for WMN including both static mesh routers and mobile mesh clients. In addition, the centralized proactive routing method among infrastructure WMN composed of stable mesh routers is very important. To improve the proactive routing in the proposed hybrid routing, delay is minimized in the optimization model in our second work. Then, to overcome the neglect of energy constraint in these two works, energy harvesting is considered in the third work. Finally, unlike the third work needing to set weight values for different objectives in the routing problem, our fourth work proposes a multi-objective routing with reinforcement learning. In general, the four main works of the thesis are given as follows. First, a hybrid routing method is proposed. The current weaknesses of neglecting regional conditions and not considering whole proactive path conditions when mesh clients accessing mesh routers are overcome. The load conditions are considered for mesh routers. Mobility and energy are further researched for mesh clients. In addition, the region with heavy load will be avoided. This proposed method brings 10.19% and 33.29% improved performance than two current hybrid routing methods respectively. Second, for the infrastructure WMN part, the centralized proactive routing method is designed. The routing problem is formulated as an optimization problem from a global network view. Minimizing delay is set as the objective, which is derived by considering interference, packet transmission failure, and bandwidth. The overhead of obtaining delay is reduced and load is balanced by an improved genetic algorithm. 29.03% and 50.20% better performance than two current methods is gotten. Third, a centralized routing method with a long-term objective to balance load and energy consumption is further proposed. Load, channel condition, energy cost and energy harvesting are considered. This proposed routing can obtain 1.69%, 10.33% and 26.2% better performance compared with three other routing methods. Fourth, to consider delay and energy efficiency at the same time without setting weight values like the previous third work, a multi-objective routing is proposed. The routing problem with uncertain network conditions can be solved. Dyna-Q is used to solve the multi-objective routing problem for the first time. The performance is 42.12%, 43.96% and 47.54% better than three other state-of-the-art routing methods.

In the present thesis, we report the design and results of three experiments. These experiments focused on the impact of information of social value orientation (SVO) in public goods game on cooperative behavior in public goods game. To provide a theoretical underpinning to the work we apply belief-based guilt aversion and reciprocity models from psychological game theory. These allow us to derive testable hypotheses on the role of information on contributions.

Energy demand is rising due to worldwide population increase and improvement of living standard. Excessive utilisation of fossil fuels results in problems increasing global CO2 emission. The technology of pyrolysis/gasification of biomass and waste plastics for H2 production is a promising solution to solve these two problems simultaneously. This thesis aims to study pyrolysis/gasification of biomass and waste plastics for H2 production plus carbon capture and CO2 utilisation (CCU) through experiments and modelling/simulation studies. Catalyst is key to in pyrolysis/gasification process. A novel dual-support catalyst Ni-CaO-C was developed. Three catalyst preparation methods (i.e. wet impregnation method, rising pH method and sol-gel method) were evaluated through comparing the performance of gas production. Experimental studies indicated that the catalyst prepared by rising pH method has the highest H2 yield. Therefore, this method was selected to prepare catalyst Ni-CaO-C for the further experimental studies. Through lab experiments, the optimal catalyst compositions of catalyst Ni-CaO-C were studied by changing Ni load and the support ratio of CaO and activated carbon. The catalytic activity and CO2 adsorption capability of catalyst were used as key performance indicators. The optimal operating conditions of catalyst Ni-CaO-C were studied in different lab experiments through adjusting feedstock ratio, pyrolysis stage temperature, reforming stage temperature and water injection flowrate. Results indicated that the new catalyst Ni-CaO-C possesses high catalytic activity and CO2 adsorption capability simultaneously. The optimal catalyst compositions are Ni load 10 wt% and support ratio (CaO:C) 5:5. Under the optimal operating conditions, the H2 production under Ni-CaO-C is at very high level at 115.33 mmol/g and 86.74 mol%. Use of catalyst Ni-CaO-C for different plastics and biomass was studied experimentally. Three different plastics (i.e. HDPE, PP and PS) were mixed with pine sawdust respectively. Experimental studies of pyrolysis/gasification under situations of no catalysts and using different catalysts (i.e. Ni-Al2O3 and Ni-CaO-C) were carried out. The influences of various operating conditions (e.g. feedstock ratio, reforming temperature and water injection flowrate) on the gas production using catalyst Ni-CaO-C to treat different feedstocks were also studied. Results indicated that catalyst is needed to improve H2 production and catalyst Ni-CaO-C has better performance of than catalyst Ni-Al2O3. The effect of catalyst Ni-CaO-C on different plastics ranks as HDPE > PP > PS. The plastics content in feedstocks is suggested to be 30 ~ 40 wt% to avoid the inhibition on H2 production under excessively high plastics content. PS requires the highest reforming temperature and highest water injection to achieve the lowest acceptable H2 production. To achieve further reduction of CO2 emissions, CCU was applied for pyrolysis/gasification process using Aspen Plus®. Process analysis is carried out based on the validated model to investigate the influence of recycling captured CO2 on the gas production and CO2 conversion when changing various operating conditions (i.e. amount of recycle CO2, reforming temperature and steam to feed (S/F) ratio). This is to achieve high H2 production and to promote CO2 conversion can be found. Simulation results indicated that the following findings: (i) Applying CCU for pyrolysis/gasification inhibits H2 and CO2 production but promoting CO production; (ii) The H2/CO ratio of gas products can be controlled flexibly after recycling CO2 to reforming stage; (iii) Increase of CO2 recycle amount and S/F ratio results in lower CO2 conversion while increase of reforming temperature improve the CO2 conversion; (iv) It is suggested to add solid carbon (e.g. bio-char or carbon-based catalyst) in the reforming stage and changing the operating conditions (i.e. relatively high reforming temperature (e.g. 600 ~ 700 °C) and low S/F ratio (e.g. 3~4)) simultaneously to protect H2 production and achieve a high CO2 conversion. The findings presented in this thesis should be very useful for future large-scale commercial deployment of pyrolysis/gasification process to achieve high H2 production and low CO2 emission.

Silicon carbide (SiC) has very wide applications (e.g. heat exchangers, mechanical seals, cladding material, etc.) due to its high thermal conductivity, excellent high temperature strength, good oxidation resistance, and high radiation resistance. For those applications, thermal conductivity of SiC ceramics is an important property which however varies from 32 W/m/K to 490 W/m/K depending on microstructure. To further understand the effects of fabrication conditions on microstructure of SiC ceramics and dependence of thermal conductivity on microstructure, SiC ceramics were sintered by spark plasma sintering (SPS) with two different liquid phase sintering additives. Aside from that, SiC ceramics without sintering additive were also fabricated by SPS and subsequently irradiated by proton at 340 degree Celsius and different damage levels. Microstructure evolution and thermal conductivity degradation of the irradiated SiC were investigated and correlated. In the SiC sintered with 3-10 wt.% Al2O3-Y2O3, an increase in the sintering additive content results in decrease in grain size and thermal conductivity of the SiC. Lower thermal conductivity of the SiC ceramic with higher sintering additive content is mainly due to smaller grain size rather than low intrinsic thermal conductivity of secondary phase. For the SiC sintered with same content of sintering additive and different holding time, increase in holding time has little influence on grain size but results in formation of continuous network of sintering additive in the SiC. Such continuous network of the sintering additive leads to increase of interfacial thermal resistance and thus decreases thermal conductivity. In the SiC sintered with Y2O3-Sc2O3 at 1750-1850 degree Celsius, the dominant grain growth mechanism changes from interface reaction at 1750 degree Celsius to atom diffusion at 1850 degree Celsius. Moreover, grain growth of the SiC sintered with Y2O3-Sc2O3 not only reduces the number of grain boundary per unit volume but also results in lattice purification originating from removing oxygen impurity of starting SiC powders by Y2O3-Sc2O3, which is suggested to be responsible for higher thermal conductivity of SiC ceramics with a larger grain size. In the SiC sintered without sintering additive, the unit cell volume expansion and significant thermal conductivity reduction are observed after receiving proton irradiation at different damage level, which have been correlated with point defects and interstitial clusters induced by proton irradiation. It is suggested that interstitial-type defects make dominant contribution to unit cell volume expansion while vacancy-type defects and interstitial clusters are responsible for significant thermal conductivity degradation. Furthermore, higher damage level leads to higher volume expansion and lower thermal conductivity but variation extent of volume expansion and thermal conductivity at high damage level are smaller than that at low damage level, indicating more contribution from interstitial clusters at high damage level.

Context: Stroke and dementia are neuropsychological deficits that impact an individual's quality of life. Computerised cognitive training (CCT) is an intervention aimed to ameliorate the deficits. Aim: The current thesis portfolio aims to provide an updated review on CCT efficacy concerning the quality of life and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Additionally, the thesis aims to understand better the cognitive domains that best predict the quality of life in stroke individuals. Method: The systematic review examined the efficacy of existing computerised cognitive training at improving everyday functioning in MCI individuals. Additionally, the review aggregated CCT features that are commonly used in the reviewed CCTs. The empirical paper examined the cognitive variables best-predicting quality of life, focusing specifically on functional outcomes. Results: The systematic review showed tentative evidence for CCT at improving everyday functioning in MCI individuals. The review identified preliminary evidence suggesting socio/emotional factors that might contribute to CCT efficacy. The empirical paper found non-spatial attention as a significant contributor to one model of quality of life. However, this significance was only attainable when depression and motivation subscales were removed from the model. Conclusion: The findings provide tentative evidence supporting CCT at improving everyday functioning and identified possible cognitive domains that best predict life quality. Implications of the findings were discussed further in the discussion chapter. More studies are needed before a firm conclusion can be made about CCT efficacy, and the cognitive domains best predict the quality of life.

This thesis studies the emergence of Sandakan and Jesselton as the principal urban centres in the State of North Borneo from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Despite their small population and physical size relative to the major cities of Southeast Asia, these port towns were gateways to the interior and nodes in regional systems of exchange. This thesis compares the birth, expansion, and maturation of the two towns to examine the nature of urbanization in what was then considered a remote and unexplored land. It contends that geography and colonial capitalism were the primary factors that shaped the economic and social development of the towns. Their different spatial settings created two distinct and discrete hinterland systems within the territory, which were each centred on Sandakan and Jesselton. At the same time, the government built a territorial economy that was geared towards external markets and based on an ethnic stratification of labour, resulting in striking demographic and sociological similarities across the two towns. As a whole, this thesis contributes to the urban history of maritime Asia by stressing the significance of small ports both in connecting the region and in providing counterpoints to studies of major ports.

In this thesis, I examine the impact of digital platforms on performance measurement and management practices. The thesis consists of three essays. In the first essay, I examine practices through which fluid accountability is configured in a fluid organisation by focusing on a case of a luxury resort hotel that operates in a dynamic and complex organisational environment. First, I identify three components of accountability from the literature (transparency, disciplinarity, manageability) through which accountability is configured. Second, I trace practices observed from the case organisation to build a conceptual model to explain the configuration of 'fluid accountability' and show how the three components work differently in a fluid organisation. My in-depth case study builds the basis for understanding of how organisations can configure fluid accountability, in which it seems 'anyone' can be held accountable for 'anything' by 'anyone', in order to adapt to the increasingly dynamic and unpredictable environment. In the second essay, I explore the process through which a luxury hotel resort incorporated smartphones and mobile platforms into its performance management routines. Drawing on an imbrication framework, I conducted case study research in which I found that different sets of affordances and constraints that arose during the smartphone adoption process acted as the building blocks that reconfigured the hotel's performance management routines. This essay improves our understanding of how smartphone and mobile platforms affect performance management routines through an improvisation process that involves various groups of employees. My results highlight the importance of improvisation and the flexibility of mobile platforms in improving the management control system. In the third and last essay, I investigate how external digital platforms shape user organisations' surveillance practices and influence individuals within the organisation. Drawing on Bauman's notion of liquidity, I critically analysed how digital platform and the user organisation's surveillance practices became entangled and new forms of surveillance emerged. The findings reveal that when digital platforms infiltrate user organisations, they can affect the existing surveillance and control practices by making them more flexible, adaptable and efficient, but can also be problematic for individuals within the organisation by increasing surveillance. Specifically, this essay adds new insights into how external digital platforms can influence how individuals experience surveillance, freedom and connection.

Torsion is an important loading mode of tubular shaped composites in engineering applications (e.g. drive shafts). In this respect, a good understanding of the underlying damage mechanisms is crucial for failure prediction and structure optimisation. Until now, limited work has been reported that helps elucidate the real-time damage accumulation mechanisms in three dimensions during the torsional failure process. In this project, the first in-situ time-lapse X-ray computed tomography (CT) study of single-layer braided carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) tubes (fibre volume fraction ~40-45%) loaded progressively under torsion has been reported, aiming to establish the relations between damage mechanisms and braid architecture. Four braid architectures (braid pattern - diamond (1/1) and regular (2/2); braid angle - 35 degree and 45 degree) have been studied. In general, the 2/2 braided CFRP tubes exhibited ~15%-20% higher shear strength and ~25%-30% higher shear modulus than 1/1 braids. With regards to the effect of braid angle; for a given braid pattern, the 45 degree braided CFRPs have slightly higher shear moduli and a lower shear strength than the 35 degree braids. Under the applied torque (shear stress), one set of the braid tows is approximately in a state of axial tension (AT) and transverse compression, whereas the other set in axial compression (AC) and transverse tension. X-ray CT results show that for the 1/1-45 degree braided CFRP tubes, damage initiates in the form of intra-tow cracks in the -45 degree AC tows and circumferential inter-tow debonding between ±45 degree braid tows, followed by out-of-plane fibre micro-buckling and kink-band formation in the -45 degree AC tows at crimped tow cross-over points. By contrast, for the 2/2-45 degree braided CFRP tube, damage initiates from the radial inter-tow debonds between adjacent -45 degree AC tows. Nevertheless, the subsequent damage sequence resembles that for the 1/1-45 degree braided CFRP tube. However, it is noteworthy that the shear strength for the 2/2 braided CFRP tubes drops much more significantly beyond the peak stress than the 1/1 braids. This is related to the buckling of -45 degree AC tows together with the sudden propagation of circumferential inter-tow debonding along vertical zones. This gives rise to a lower remnant strength than that of 1/1 braids once damage has initiated and also highlights the importance of tow cross-overs in constraining large-scale inter-tow debonding. Moreover, the effect of a pair of open-holes (having a diameter one fifth of the inner diameter of the tube) diametrically opposite one another on the torsional behaviour has been assessed for the 1/1-45 degree braided tubes. The shear stiffness and the shear strength have been degraded by ~11% and 17%, respectively. The variation of strain distribution has been monitored by stereo digital image correlation, but also the local damage evolution around the holes has been tracked by X-ray CT. Compared with the unnotched structure, new damage modes, in-plane fibre micro-buckling in the -45 degree AC tows and radial inter-tow debonding between +/-45 degree braid tows, have occurred local to the hole. In summary, the tow cross-over density and the level of tow crimp are important factors to consider for the design of torsion resistant braid structures. For applications that require high shear strength and/or high shear stiffness, 2/2 (regular) braided CFRP tubes are well suited; whereas for applications that require high structural integrity once damage has started to develop, 1/1 (diamond) structures are a better option because the immediate loss of strength is less marked. When introducing holes into such tubes, the tow cross-over regions of the braid structure should ideally be avoided to minimise damage during torsional loading.

This research examines the recruiting practice of the British Hong Kong (HK) Colonial Government before the Japanese occupation (from 1845 to 1932), as well as its corresponding influencing factors. By understanding the HK Government’s dynamic attitude towards different nationalities, the work discusses the national hierarchy within the government. Mixed research method is applied in this work: benefited from a unique record known as the Blue Book which offers employment details of civil servants in HK, it is allowed to generate the staffing characteristics from multiple aspects and the changes by a longitudinal view through quantitative method; on the other hand, qualitative analysis towards related historical materials facilitates the understanding of influencing elements. Suggested by the results, the HK Government typically utilised ethnocentric staffing approach in the whole period. However, the more interesting findings show the government increasingly relied on the locals along with time, and the asynchronised speed of Chinese staff population overtook other nationalities within different departments. Considering the staffing practice as a social phenomenon situated in a particular social context, the research also attempts to discuss the rationality of the previously discussed recruitment approach. It is expected the study of Colonial Government can grasp a deeper sense from the social and historical aspects, filling the gap of Colonial HK history, whilst simultaneously moving the focus of the international recruitment from concerning employee’s nationality to the cultural and social background. Eventually, this research expects to develop and contribute to the literatures of IHRM especially from the perspectives of ethnocentric staffing and homosocial reproduction.

Somaclonal variations (SV) in micropropagated in the vanilla orchid cultivar V. planifolia Andrews are not well-studied so far. Understanding the occurrence of SV in vanilla is important for the development of an effective pre-screening tool for clonal fidelity in in vitro mass propagation of elite vanilla genotypes and for the selection process during in vitro crop improvements of vanilla, which has a narrow genetic basis due to being extensively cloned. In this research, two main regeneration systems, the direct nodal regeneration using optimal shoot induction medium (SIM, Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium + 1.0 mg/L 6-benzylaminopurine (BAP) and the indirect nodal regeneration using optimal callus induction medium (CIM, ½ MS + 2.5 mg/L α-naphthalene acetic acid (NAA) + 1.0 mg/L BAP) were established. Regenerants from both direct and indirect nodal regeneration pathways were studied at morphological, genetic, epigenetic and cytological levels. Morphological abnormalities, such as irregular leaf shape and sizes, and formation of multiple shoot apices, were observed in callus regenerants of vanilla. Further analyses at the genetic and epigenetic levels using inter-simple sequence repeats (ISSR) and methylation-sensitive amplified polymorphisms (MSAP) DNA markers also showed that the indirectly regenerated vanilla cultures were both genetically and epigenetically unstable, as opposed to the directly regenerated vanilla cultures. Using flow cytometry (FCM), relative genome size estimation of vanilla (2C = 5.5 ± 0.27 pg) was achieved with P. sativum as the internal control. Endopolyploidy was observed in different organ explants of vanilla, with irregular marginal replication ratios of 1.33 ± 0.02, 1.42 ± 0.02, 1.60 ± 0.01, 1.76 ± 0.01 and 1.69 ± 0.03 (instead of 2) between respective peaks, which is called "progressively partial endoreduplications, a unique phenomenon seen in some orchid species. The marginal replication ratio was constant between different tissues, but ploidy population levels varied among different tissues. Axillary buds have a dominant 1.5C peak and relatively smaller populations of other endopolyploidy peaks, as opposed to leaf and root and callus tissues which have a relatively balanced population of different mixoploids. Prolonged culture period of callus cultures induced from nodal bud explants (with dominant 1.5C peak) showed a mixoploid population, which increased in the polyploidy population and overall nuclear content (pg) over prolonged culture duration up to 12 months. To obtain a global view of molecular stress response to prolonged culture duration of vanilla callus culture, we further studied by conducting de novo mRNA and microRNA-seq of the 3M, 6M and 12M vanilla calli. A series of genes involved in five key gene families, namely DNA methylation family (found in the KEGG pathway of cysteine and methionine metabolism), retrotransposable element family (in particular the copia and gypsy-like LTR retrotransposons), histone modification family (in particular the HDACs and HATs), DNA transcription factors (in particular the WRKY transcription factors) and microRNAs were found to be differentially expressed. Three miRNAs, namely the vpl_miR395g, vpl_miR166r and vpl_miR8155 expressed in prolonged vanilla callus cultures, were found to potentially regulate eight genes, which fell into the functional gene families of DNA methylation and retrotransposable elements; which results were validated by qRT-PCR. This study has shown that a direct nodal regeneration method is more suitable for clonal mass propagation of elite vanilla genotypes as it produced genetically and epigenetically stable regenerants; while the indirect nodal regeneration could be a potential tool for increasing the genetic diversity of vanilla through in vitro improvements. At the transcriptional level of study, we observed the potential cross-talk between retrotransposable elements, microRNA and DNA methylation, which could have led to the epigenetic regulation of SV in vanilla callus. For clonal fidelity screening process for SV in vanilla, it is recommended to combine morphological, genetic, epigenetic and cytological methods for more effective screening. The microRNAs and their putative target genes could be potential targets for in vitro crop improvements of vanilla as well as screening tools, however, further characterization work is required.

Bacteria are under constant threat by their viral parasites, the bacteriophages (phages) and have evolved a range of anti-phage systems to defend themselves. One of these systems is termed abortive infection (Abi) where, upon phage infection, an Abi system may be activated which initiate a bacteriostatic or bactericidal response. While the infected bacteria do not obviously benefit from the activation of these systems, the cessation of bacterial growth or premature cellular suicide prevents the release of phage progeny. Thus Abi can be viewed as an altruistic process as only the remaining clonal bacterial population benefits. The Type III toxin-antitoxin systems have previously been shown to be involved in Abi, however the mechanisms through which these systems are activated are still poorly understood. A common approach to reveal the phage product involved in triggering these systems is to first determine the mutations that a previously sensitive phage evolves to escape after exposure to an Abi system. Analysis of viral "escape" mutants has been used in this study to try to elucidate the activation mechanism(s) of two Type III systems (ToxIN$_P$$_a$ and TenpIN$_P$$_l$) of several environmental phages. Several new phage products were identified in escape mutants as candidate factors involved in circumventing Abi - and possible roles in phage metabolism predicted. Furthermore, the genomes of several phages that could not evolve escapes, or were insensitive to Abi, are sequenced and these data exposed interesting curiosities regarding Abi (as well as the discovery of several novel and rare phages). Previously, no coliphage was identified that was capable of escape of the ToxIN$_P$$_a$ or TenpIN$_P$$_l$ systems. However, this study defined and characterised the first ToxIN$_P$$_a$ and TenpIN$_P$$_l$ coliphage escapes as well as a new method for isolating host-dependent coliphage escapes. Finally, multiple phages that infect the insect pathogen $\textit{Photorhabdus luminescens}$ TT01 (the bacterial strain from which the TenpIN$_P$$_l$ system originated) were isolated, genomically sequenced and characterised in terms of host range. The results revealed a large superfamily of flagellum-dependent phages that exhibit remarkable host promiscuity, possibly defining the most promiscuous phages thus far identified.

Quinol dependent nitric oxide reductases (qNOR) are important enzymes of the denitrification pathway, which helps liberate nitrogen back into Earth's atmosphere, thereby playing a critical role in the recycling of nitrogen, an essential element of genetic material and amino acids. qNOR catalyses the reduction of Nitric Oxide (NO), an important signalling molecule, to Nitrous Oxide (N2O), one of the major causes of ozone layer destruction. qNORs contribute to energy conservation, as denitrification is an alternate form of respiration in some microorganisms under oxygen limiting environments. However, qNORs are commonly found in pathogenic bacteria, such as Neisseria meningitdis (Nm) (a cause of meningitis worldwide) and the opportunistic (and also denitrifying) pathogen Alcaligenes xylosoxidans (Ax), as a means to combat the host immune response. The mechanisms by which qNOR acquires and catalyses NO are still unknown, and current structural data comprise an inactive crystal structure of Geobacillus stearothermophilus (Gs) qNOR at 2.5 Å and a ~ 4.5 Å structure of the electrogenic NmqNOR, which lacks sufficient detail to delineate proton transfer pathways and the active site (heme and non-heme iron) arrangement, furthermore, both structures were reported to be monomeric. This thesis presents efforts to obtain the first high resolution structure of an active qNOR, which AxqNOR is a suitable candidate owing to confirmation of NO reduction and correct metal content/ratios. A crystallographic structure at 6.5 Å was obtained, which revealed a clear dimeric assembly, a previously unseen state. Efforts to improve the resolution were not successful, and analysis by cryogenic Electron Microscopy (cryo-EM) ensued. A 3D reconstruction of wildtype AxqNOR also showed a dimeric assembly and was resolved to 3.7 Å. The active site arrangement of an active qNOR was revealed, showing the non-heme iron to be ligated with three ligands, not four as in the related cytochrome c dependent NOR (cNOR). The dimer interface was maintained by a conserved helix in qNOR, which is not found in cNOR. Cryo-EM analysis of activity enhanced mutant at 3.2 Å enabled new features to be gleaned in the putative proton transfer channel. In addition, a catalytically inert mutant was solved to 4.5 Å, the latter of which was purified and solved as a monomer, showing significant helical rearrangement compared to dimeric structures. Site directed mutagenesis revealed residues close to the active were important for activity, but proton entry site is still unknown. The oligomeric state of GsqNOR was re-examined and found to be a dimer in the crystal, which prompted questions about NmqNOR oligomeric state. Cryo-EM analysis of the sample used to make crystals (crystallographic structure which is monomeric) surprisingly revealed a dimeric assembly, (reconstruction at 9 Å). Based on this work, the oligomeric status of qNOR is likely dimeric, with crystallisation possible disrupting the assembly in NmqNOR. The high-resolution structures of AxqNOR enable further work on the importance of dimerisation and allow the potential to obtain quinol-based inhibitor bound structures of an enzyme of environmental and medical importance.

Natural rubber (NR) or cis-1, 4-polyisoprene is obtained from the latex that is tapped from a tree known as Hevea Brasiliensis. It can be in the form of preserved latex concentrates or further processed into sheets, crepes, block rubber that associated with its unique characteristics such as great elongation strength, excellent building tack, low rolling resistance, low heat build-up and good low-temperature performance. These are essential characteristics in dynamic working environment and application especially for vehicle tyre and rubber thread. To produce good quality of technically specified rubber or block rubber from raw natural rubber, drying process plays a vital role in the raw rubber processing. To date, the level of technology involves rubber drying is still inefficient and primitive. Non-uniform drying and the occurrence of wet rubber in the final product are the major drawbacks when using the conventional type of trolley dryer. Also, fuel and electricity usage for a single drying operation is noticeably intense and costly. Indeed, the main limitation of conventional drying method is the drying time that is mainly dependent on temperature gradient inside the product and cannot be sustainably reduced because the product is heat sensitive; whereas drying at high temperature for prolong hours could result in quality deterioration too. The prime objective of this research was to investigate combined drying as a mean of crumb rubber processing to reduce the drying time, energy consumption and to produce the desirable dried product. In the present study, crumb rubbers were dried by alternative drying strategies whereby additional drying technologies such as hot air, vacuum, and microwave was integrated into the drying system. Both engineering properties (drying kinetics, effective moisture diffusivity and specific energy consumption) and physicochemical properties (colour, thermal oxidative level, rheological, textural and surface topography) of all dried products were measured and evaluated. The comparisons were made against samples from hot air drying. The finding shows the drying time of microwave-convective drying (MWHA) was found 89% and 50% shorter than convective hot air drying (HA) and microwave (MW) drying, respectively. In terms of drying rate performance, the maximum drying rate of MWHA was found 455% and 62.5% higher than HA and MW drying, respectively. On the other hand, effective diffusion coefficient (Deff) values of both MW drying and MWHA were ranging from 1.48 x 10-8 m2/s to 5.59 x 10-8 m2/s that is six times higher than HA which has lowest Deff recorded at 0.22 x 10-8 m2/s. It is noteworthy to mention that the energy consumption of MWHA is much lower than other drying strategies due to its excellent time saving and energy efficient features in the drying process. The average specific energy consumption (SEC) values of MWHA’s drying strategies were scored below 0.22 MJ/ gH2O whereby HA drying yields SEC values of 0.36-0.44 MJ/gH2O and highest was recorded in vacuum assisted drying which scored at 0.75 MJ/ gH2O. MWHA dried rubber has exhibits lightest colours, minimum total colour change and consistent colour appearance over the range of drying methods. The lesser colour change can be an indication of reduced oxidative reaction and hence better ageing properties of dried rubber. This is corresponding to the high value of activation energy obtained by MWHA’s dried rubber in the thermal degradation study by using the Coats-Redfern methods. Similarly, the rheological properties of MWHA dried rubber including PRI and Po were found in par and the volatile matter was 28.6% lower in comparison with SMR 20 block rubber. In terms of springiness indices, MWHA dried rubbers gave the highest at 72.23% showing marked performance in mechanical properties. In a nutshell, the potential of combined drying techniques in crumb rubber has been proven through this research and able to improve both engineering and physicochemical properties while the drying time is significantly reduced. Furthermore, these findings will supplement the knowledge on crumb rubber drying process which is beneficial to raw rubber processing industries in having economically feasible drying option to be applied to the existing plants.

Rapid development of micropropulsion systems arose from growing interest on micro- and nanosatellites. Utilization of liquid energetic materials such as hydrazine and hydrogen peroxide as propellant in propulsion yielded promising results. However, safety issue remains a great concern as hydrazine is highly toxic. This drives the development of propellants towards lower toxicity and more environmental friendly, namely green propellants. Hydroxylammonium nitrate (HAN) was selected among three green propellants due to its high energy density in addition to ease in storage and handling properties. In order to understand the effect of addition of fuel into HAN binary solution, electrolytic decomposition of zero oxygen balance HAN ternary mixture in thermal isolated beaker was performed at macroscale. Addition of a fuel to binary HAN solution generally has more stages of decomposition, as opposed to single stage in binary HAN solution. Rate of temperature increase in the first stage of decomposition (Ṫ1) was found to be directly proportional to electrical resistivity of the HAN ternary mixture, while maximum electrolytic decomposition temperature (Tmax) of HAN ternary mixture obtained was dependent on fuel added. Visualization of HAN decomposition was demonstrated using transparent PDMS microreactors. A novel DPST integration in triggering the power supply and high speed camera was proposed. Such integration greatly reduced the cost of using a DAQ system, and was shown to capture the decomposition successfully at 5000 fps. Parametric optimization was also carried out in PDMS microreactors. Usage of 3 pairs of electrodes has increased overall reaction rate as high as 225 %, as compared to 1 pair counterpart. The overall reaction rate is proportional to flowrate and applied voltage. 3 pairs of electrodes can initiate decomposition in low voltage region. Applied voltage is the most significant parameter affecting the overall reaction rate. HAN-dextrose has lower decomposition performance compared to binary HAN solution in PDMS microreactor, using the optimized parameters carried out on binary HAN solution. This work has demonstrated both effect of fuel addition in binary HAN solution and parametric optimization in binary HAN solution towards their decomposition phenomena at macroscale and microscale,respectively. Several recommendations were made in future work section, including using screen-printing technology on the microreactor and adding a catalytic reactor after HAN was electrolyzed, to further improve decomposition efficiency.

Since the usage of chemical flocculants especially polyacrylamides is closely related with environmental pollution and health hazards, synthesis of environmental friendly and economic viable bio-flocculants that exhibit high flocculating efficiency is highly desirable. The production of natural bio-flocculants extracted from plant is urgently needed as an alternative to chemical flocculants due to their inherent low toxicity, biodegradability and low environmental footprint. In this study, a plant-based bio-flocculant was extracted from Hibiscus/Abelmoschus esculentus (okra) with conventional hydrothermal extraction (CHE) and microwave assisted extraction (MAE) processes by using water as solvent. The aims of this work were to produce the bio-flocculant through environmentally friendly and economically feasible process, optimise its extraction yield, optimise its flocculating and sludge dewatering properties, and also minimise its production cost in order to be comparable to chemical flocculants (polyacrylamides) from perspectives of quality and cost. The extraction efficiencies of bio-flocculants were justified by the optimised yields, the flocculating abilities were evaluated by the removal of suspended solids (SS) and turbidity after flocculation process and sludge volume index (SVI) whereas the sludge dewatering abilities were assessed by SS removal after filtration and water recovery. Single factor experimental design was employed to study the effects of extraction temperature, time, solvent loading, and agitation speed and particle size on yield, flocculating and dewatering properties of bio-flocculants. The influence of extraction parameters to yield and the reliability of the experimental data were verified by analysing the single factor experimental results with response surface methodology. Results showed that extraction yields were significantly affected by extraction temperature and time and solvent loading. Prolonged extraction (few hours) at high temperature (60-90 ˚C) decreased the yields of bio-flocculants extracted with CHE method. Conversely, extraction at high temperature was favourable for MAE method to raise the yield due to short extraction time in minutes. Flocculating abilities of bio-flocculants were not significantly affected by the extraction conditions whilst the sludge dewatering abilities were mainly influenced by the temperature and particle size. High extraction temperature at ≥ 70 ˚C and the smallest okra particle size at 1mm were the crucial conditions for extraction of bio-flocculants with high dewatering abilities which showed > 95% of SS removal after filtration and ≥75% of water recovery. The optimised yield of CHE at 25.9% was obtained at 50 ˚C, 2 hours, solvent loading of 2.5 w/w and agitation at 200 rpm. On the other hand, microwave-extracted bio-flocculants were best extracted at 90 ˚C, 10 minutes, and solvent loading of 3.5 w/w and okra particle size at 1mm to get the optimised yield at 48.7%. These results revealed that the extraction yield has been enhanced by 87.8% by using MAE method and the extraction time was markedly reduced from hours to minutes. This study uses a combination of empirical observations and an analysis of mass transfer behaviour to yield new insights into the mechanism of MAE. Enhancements in extraction rate and yield achieved by microwave extraction were observed experimentally compared with hydrothermal extraction at temperatures in excess of 50 ˚C, however at lower temperatures there was no observable difference between the two processes. A step-change in extraction yield between microwave and hydrothermal processes was shown to be caused by selective heating. A temperature gradient of the order of 1 ˚C is sufficient to reduce the water chemical potential within the plant cell structure, which causes diffusion of water solvent into plant cell such that internal plant cell pressures can increase to the point where disruption occurs. These findings demonstrate the need to operate microwave extraction processes at a temperature that enables selective heating, and a newly-proposed mass transfer phenomenon that could have wider positive implications for extraction and leaching processes. The bio-flocculants extracted with both methods were applied in flocculation and sludge dewatering without pH alteration and addition of coagulant. Efficient flocculating abilities were attained with >99% of SS and turbidity removal and < 10 mg/L of SVI. However, microwave extracted bio-flocculants were shown to exhibit higher dewatering abilities than hydrothermal extracted bio-flocculants. The bio-flocculants displayed the results of >95% SS removal after filtration and 75% water recovery during sludge dewatering at dosage of 30 mg/L, and was shown to be comparable to or even better than polyacrylamides due to achievement of higher water recovery at the same dosage. Dried bio-flocculants were found to have higher dewatering abilities than aqueous bio-flocculants, probably because drying at low temperature (40 ˚C) has minimised the moisture content and extended the shelf life of bio-flocculants. Biopolymer bridging was preliminary predicted as the plausible bio-flocculation mechanism. The economic feasibility of production of industrial scale bio-flocculant was investigated and the production process was modelled by using SuperPro Designer v9.0 simulation software. The MAE process in continuous mode was verified to be more economically viable than CHE process either in batch or continuous mode if the production scale was beyond 15 tonne/year. Sensitivity analysis for continuous microwave process was conducted and the results indicated the strong influences of annual production and extraction yield followed by raw material okra price on the unit production cost. Continuous microwave process with extraction conditions at 90 ˚C, 10 minutes and solvent loading of 3.5 w/w was identified as the optimised scheme for production of industrial scale bio-flocculant at the lowest production cost. The estimated selling price of aqueous and dried bio-flocculants for an annual production of 220 tonne/year were 41 and 52 $/kg respectively, and was shown to be lower than food grade bio-flocculants but higher than polyacrylamides. This work has clearly showed that okra bio-flocculant could offer a feasible and sustainable alternative to synthetic flocculants for water treatment and sludge dewatering applications due to its high efficiency in flocculating and dewatering, and can be extracted using only water as a solvent, minimising the environmental footprint of the extraction process.

This compositional portfolio comprises eight original works presented in musical scores. The works were written between October 2013 and April 2017 during the course of my PhD research. The compositions featured are for a variety of combinations of voices and solo instrument up to full orchestra. Audio recordings of performances are included for all except the final orchestral work. In these compositions, I introduce a new compositional idea, declaiming, which I have been developing and which is explained in this commentary. This idea is used to determine the formal structure of these pieces. Unique approaches to using this compositional idea are described in this commentary, regarding individual works.

Resistive random access memory (RRAM) is widely considered as a disruptive technology that will revolutionize not only non-volatile data storage, but also potentially digital logic and neuromorphic computing. The resistive switching mechanism is generally conceived as the rupture/restoration of defect-formed conductive filament (CF) or defect profile modulation, for filamentary and non-filamentary devices respectively. However, details of the underlying microscopic behaviour of the resistive switching in RRAM are still largely missing. In this thesis, a defect probing technique based on the random telegraph noise (RTN) is developed for both filamentary and non-filamentary devices, which can reveal the resistive switching mechanism at defect level and can also be used to analyse the device performance issues. HfO2 is one of the most matured metal-oxide materials in semiconductor industry and HfO2 RRAM shows promising potential in practical application. An RTN-based defect extraction technique is developed for the HfO2 devices to detect individual defect movement and provide statistical information of CF modification during normal operations. A critical filament region (CFR) is observed and further verified by defect movement tracking. Both defect movements and CFR modification are correlated with operation conditions, endurance failure and recovery. Non-filamentary devices have areal switching characteristics, and are promising in overcoming the drawbacks of filamentary devices that mainly come from the stochastic nature of the CF. a-VMCO is an outstanding non-filamentary device with a set of unique characteristics, but its resistive switching mechanism has not been clearly understood yet. By utilizing the RTN-based defect profiling technique, defect profile modulation in the switching layer is identified and correlated with digital and analogue switching behaviours, for the first time. State instability is analysed and a stable resistance window of 10 for >106 cycles is restored through combining optimizations of device structure and operation conditions, paving the way for its practical application. TaOx-based RRAM has shown fast switching in the sub-nanosecond regime, good CMOS compatibility and record endurance of more than 1012 cycles. Several inconsistent models have been proposed for the Ta2O5/TaOx bilayered structure, and it is difficult to quantify and optimize the performance, largely due to the lack of microscopic description of resistive switching based on experimental results. An indepth analysis of the TiN/Ta2O5/TaOx/TiN structured RRAM is carried out with the RTN-based defect probing technique, for both bipolar and unipolar switching modes. Significant differences in defect profile have been observed and explanations have been provided.

This grounded theory study sought to understand how educators who have participated in a Punahou School-Wo International Center professional development program define components of global citizenship, integrate them into their teaching practices, and detect its presence. This qualitative study interviewed 20 educators (after reaching saturation) either in-person or through videoconferencing methods. Transcriptions were manually coded to identify topics and themes that could form a grounded theory, defended by interviews and the literature review. Six themes based upon the participants' experiences in professional development experiences emerged from the interviews as fundamental necessities to be a strong global educator, which results from practicing collaboration, empathy, ethical decision making, global awareness, reflective practice and resilient behaviors. Educators need opportunities to participate in professional development around global citizenship in order to successfully provide their students with the skill set to thrive in communities and activities that necessitate complex problem-solving. The implications of this study affect what kind of professional development experiences the Wo International Center should facilitate as well as what kind educators from Punahou's partner schools should be seeking. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

In the past several years, considerable attention has been given to the ultimate horizontal pull-out resistance of vertical deadman anchors, which are usually used together with earth retaining wall. Unfortunately, no significant effort has been made to understand/study the behaviour of discrete deadman anchor in earth retaining wall (anchored wall) subjected to the deflection of earth retaining wall. Therefore, this research aims to fill up this gap. The study on the behaviour of single-plate discrete deadman anchor in anchored wall subjected to the deflection of earth retaining wall is carried out by three-dimensional (3-D) finite element analysis adopting finite element software named PLAXIS. The behaviour of discrete deadman anchor is studied by investigating the effects of several key factors. These include the effects of length of tie rod, embedment depth of anchor, spacing between deadman anchors, friction angle of soil, depth of anchored wall, and stiffness of anchored wall. Practicing geotechnical engineers are able to understand the interactions among soil-anchor-wall by studying the effects of several key factors on the behaviour of discrete deadman anchor. This allows practicing geotechnical engineers to determine the potential failure mechanisms and hence provide the most suitable design of anchored wall in geotechnical engineering. Furthermore, the effects of abovementioned key factors are summarised and design charts are proposed for the preliminary design of anchored wall. The design charts are developed based on limiting the wall deflection to 0.5% of excavation height. The major contribution of this research is the development of design charts for the preliminary design of anchored wall. These design charts may be implemented during early design stages, which serves the purpose for earthwork planning, cost estimation, bill of quantity and others. These design charts are set as a guideline for the preliminary design. Last by not least, the embedment depth of deadman anchor in this research is studied up to 3.0m deep. Deadman anchorage system embedded deeper than 3.0m from ground surface is considered to be impractical due to the difficulty in installation and increase of construction cost and time.

Cardiovascular morbidity and mortality remain the most serious global public health challenge. With the evolution in global socio-economic activities and the associated lifestyle changes, there is an impending epidemic of obesity, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, and diabetes mellitus, all of which fuel premature coronary artery disease and stroke. In the post-statin era, despite considerable efforts in anti-atherosclerotic drug development, a significant number of these potential compounds with initial success in early phase clinical studies failed to translate to clinical outcome benefits. This shows a disparity of various biomarkers and molecular disease mechanisms, and highlighted the inadequacy of current methods of risk stratification and atherosclerosis characterisation. Atherosclerosis imaging such as by MRI does not only serve as 'gate keepers' in the contemporary drug development process; but in combination with modern "omics", would allow precise disease stratification with resolution never achieved before. This integrated characterisation of atherosclerosis will generate novel insights about plaque biology, bridge the gap between molecular insights and clinical outcomes, and help achieve the goal of stratified, personalized, medicine. This thesis hypothesized that plaque compositional heterogeneity such as lipid content is associated with specific gene expression profiles or signatures in human carotid plaque macrophages in a spatially distinct pattern; and that this macrophage functional heterogeneity may in turn play a role in altering response to anti-atherosclerotic treatment. To test these hypotheses, human subjects with carotid atherosclerosis were recruited before carotid surgery and scanned using novel MRI T2 mapping technique. Explanted carotid plaques were then examined by immunohistochemistry-guided laser capture microdissection and microarray analysis. T2 mapping was shown to be able to accurately and reproducibly discriminate all major plaque components, and in particular, quantify plaque lipid content with excellent histological validation. Symptomatic plaques were shown to contain larger lipid-core by T2 mapping compared to asymptomatic plaques, despite similar degree of luminal stenosis. Macrophages from the same cohorts of plaques were procured by immunohistochemistry-guided laser capture microdissection and they were shown to display distinct gene expression profiles based on their micro-anatomical locations and clinical presentations; importantly, macrophages from plaques with high lipid content detected by T2 mapping were found to activate specific interferon / STAT1 pathways. Finally, using nicotinic acid as an example, the functional significance of plaque macrophage heterogeneity was shown in vitro to affect response to pharmacological intervention.

This is a qualitative case study of socio-technical work. This study provided a rare example of an in-depth study of an electronic patient record system in (recent) use, in the only site in Wales where this was possible. The study explored the actual use of the Welsh Individual Health Record (IHR) technology by the multi-disciplinary team members working in an emergency medical assessment unit (EMAU). Purposeful sampling was used. Data collection methods were interviews, informal observations and documents. Interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Complex Adaptive Systems Theory was used as the lens during data analysis. Three main themes emerged: Managing the dynamic context of the EMAU; Patient safety and Issues with the adoption of the IHR. Clear findings emerged on the usefulness of electronic patient record re: medication safety, bridging the intersection of care, as a vessel for information in the case of patients unable to give their medical histories and facilitating co-production to enhance safe, patient-centred care. The IHR system can mediate the information gaps and should not be developed as static entities but should be allowed to grow and adapt to emergent user requirements.

The prevalence of Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) has increased dramatically over the past 10 years in Malaysia due to the modernisation of the country. The most recent national health survey revealed that more than 15.2% of Malaysian adults are suffering from the diseases. Insulin treatment has been demonstrated to play a clinically significant role to improve glycaemic control among selected Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients. However, studies from several local hospitals showed that more than half of T2DM patients are reluctant to initiate insulin treatment. There is an increasing trend for the Malaysian healthcare sector to invest in understanding patients’ health experiences. This qualitative study focused on T2DM patients’ insights about their lived-experience of using insulin treatment as part of their diabetes management. This study aimed to understand the facilitators, which encourage patients to accept insulin treatment and also the psychological, social and behavioural barriers to effective diabetes management. Drawing on interview data with 37 participants, the three main barriers to initiate insulin treatment were worries about inability to handle using insulin, a sense of personal failure and negative perceptions of injections due to past experiences. The facilitators that encourage patients to accept insulin treatment were prior exposure to insulin injections, better side effect profile and wanting a better quality of life. However, there were many obstacles faced by T2DM patients when coping with insulin treatment such as the restriction of lifestyle and concerns about social acceptance. In general, knowledge of T2DM and insulin treatment are still lacking among the Malaysians interviewed in this study. There are still many distorted beliefs and misconceptions about insulin among T2DM patients. At the same time, patients’ concerns and beliefs regarding insulin use are greatly influenced by their experience and support from others. Many participants felt embarrassed and self-conscious when self-injecting insulin in public places. They felt that the Malaysian public often associate the use of injections to drug abuse. Social stigma is one key point, which leads to poor adherence to insulin treatment. Thus it is crucial to increase public awareness about insulin treatment in order to help these patients to be more comfortable about injecting, and also to encourage other people to be more open minded towards insulin treatment. Apart from raising public awareness, there is a need to empower T2DM patients with adequate knowledge through early, simplified, tailored education focusing on the disease nature and the role of insulin. Making them more aware of their health condition and the uses of modern insulin devices at an early stage will better prepare them mentally for insulin therapy.

The objective of this work is to improve performance in fine-grained visual categorization (FGVC). In particular, we are interested in the large-scale classification between hundreds of different flower, bird, dog species. FGVC is challenging due to high intra-class variances caused by deformation, view angle, illumination and occlusion, and low inter-class variance since some categories only differ in detail that only experts notice. Applications include field guides, automatic image annotation, one-click shopping app and 3D reconstruction. At the start, we discuss the importance of foreground segmentation in FGVC, where we focus on the unsupervised segmentation of image training sets into fore- ground and background in order to improve image classification performance. To this end, we introduce a new scalable, alternation-based algorithm for co-segmentation, Bi-CoS, which is simpler than many of its predecessors, and yet has superior performance on standard benchmark image datasets. Next, we extend BiCos to a new model, Tri- CoS, that adds a class-discriminitiveness term directly into the segmentation objective. The new term aims at removing image regions that, although appearing as foreground, do not contribute to the discrimination between classes. We also propose a model that combines parts alignment and foreground segmentation into a unified convex framework. The model is called Symbiotic in that part discovery/localization is helped by segmentation and, conversely, the segmentation is helped by the detection (e.g. part layout). The joined system improves over what can be achieved with an analogous system that runs segmentation and part-localization independently. Finally, we built a new flower dataset consisting of 26,798 high quality images collected by ourselves and 187,559 images gathered from existing datasets. The construction of this dataset follows a strict biological taxonomy. We also evaluate the impact of using the Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) service for filtering fine-grained data.

The partitioning of low-copy number plasmids into daughter cells requires the plasmid encoded ParA and ParB proteins acting on centromeric sites termed parS. Bioinformatics approaches have shown that bacterial chromosome also encodes the ParABS system (Livny et al., 2007). In B. subtilis the majority of the chromosomally encoded parS sites are located near the replication origin region where they are bound by Spo0J (ParB), forming a set of nucleoprotein complexes that colocalizes with oriC (Breier and Grossman, 2007; Graham et al., 2014; Lin and Grossman, 1998; Livny et al., 2007; Murray et al., 2006). SMC complex (condensin) localization at oriC is dependent on Spo0J and is required for chromosome origin segregation (Gruber and Errington, 2009; Sullivan et al., 2009; Wang et al., 2014b). In addition Spo0J regulates Soj (ParA), which in turn controls the master DNA replication initiation protein DnaA (Murray and Errington, 2008; Scholefield et al., 2012; Scholefield et al., 2011). Therefore, I hypothesized that the localization of parS sites proximal to the replication origin might be important for the regulation of Soj by Spo0J. In this thesis I have constructed a range of genetically modified strains that differ in the number and location of parS sites. I have found that a single Spo0J:parS nucleoprotein complex is necessary and sufficient for effective regulation of Soj activity, and that this regulation is independent of the genetic context of the parS site. In contrast chromosome organization and origin region segregation were affected when Spo0J (and presumably condensin) was redistributed to ectopic locations. Finally, I provide evidence that Soj interacts with Spo0J:parS nucleoprotein complexes to promote DNA segregation and dictate chromosome orientation. I propose a model that integrates the roles of 3 Soj as a regulator of DNA replication initiation and chromosome origin segregation.

With the estimated increase in global demand for food and over-reliance on staple food crops, the exploitation of agricultural biodiversity is important to address food security challenges. The aim of this study is to develop approaches to transfer major informational and physical resources developed in model plant and major crop species to resources poor crop species, using oil palm and Bambara groundnut as two exemplar crops. XSpecies (cross-species) approach, the core approach of the study, is described as the approach which uses microarrays developed for a given species to analyse another related species. The use of the XSpecies approach (here the cross-hybridisation of DNA from oil palm onto heterologous Affymetrix microarrays for Arabidopsis and rice), is the first experiment reported in oil palm and focused on a bulked segregant analysis of different shell-thicknesses for oil palm fruit. Primers design involved screening candidate probe-pairs filtered using PIGEONS software against oil palm transcriptome sequences generated using 454 sequencing technology. The results provided an insight into the effects of sequence divergence between oil palm and the reference species (Arabidopsis and rice) onto the power of detecting single feature polymorphism (SFPs) in oil palm, implying the importance of close association between studied and model plant/crop in XSpecies approach. The XSpecies approach coupled with genetical genomics was also tested within legumes, with Bambara groundnut as the query species compared to soybean as the resource rich species (20 Mya). A mild drought experiment, conducted in a controlled environment glasshouse, used an F5 segregating population derived from a controlled cross between DipC and Tiga Nicuru in Bambara groundnut. The cross-hybridisation of Bambara groundnut leaf RNA to the soybean GeneChip individual oligonucleotide probes resulted in a total of 1,531 of good quality gene expression markers (GEMs) on the basis of the differences in the hybridisation signal strength. The first ‘expression-based’ genetic map (GEM map) was constructed using 165 GEMs spanning 920.3 cM of Bambara groundnut genome. The first high density DNA-marker genetic map of 1,341.3 cM combining dominant DArT and co-dominant SNPs, developed using the DArT Seq approach, with additional pre-existing microarray-based DArT and SSR markers, was also developed in the F3 segregating population. Both maps were combined to form the first integrated map of 1,250.7 cM with 212 markers. Morphological differences and the rapid reduction in stomatal conductance observed within the F5 segregating population in the drought experiment provided trait data for a QTL analysis. The comprehensive QTL analysis in Bambara groundnut detected significant QTLs for morphological traits using GEM map, including internode length, peduncle length, pod number per plant, pod weight per plant, seed number per plant, seed weight per plant, 100-seed weight, shoot dry weight and harvest index across four linkage groups: LG1, LG2B, LG8B and LG11A. The loci controlling internode length and peduncle length were also consistently mapped to single marker on LG1 in DArTseq map using F3 segregating population, suggesting that these two traits are probably controlled by single gene or two closely linked genes. Despite significant genotypes effects on stomatal conductance tested in ANOVA analysis, no major QTLs were detected, suggesting the contributions of a number of small genetic effects to stomatal conductance. A preliminary homology search using the LG1 linkage group markers and associated gene models showed the ability to develop a framework for identification of candidate genes in Bambara groundnut relative to soybean. The present study also developed the resources for an eQTL analysis in a cross-species context. Translation from major and model plant species to underutilised and resource poor crops is critical to be able to develop many crop species with potential for future agriculture. This study examines some of the approaches which might be adopted and replicated in various underutilised crop species.

Knowledge is now being seen as the most important strategic resource for organisations. The ability to leverage external knowledge to enhance organisational knowledge is a vital constituent as the second-hand experience can be obtained more rapidly and economically than first-hand experience. Transfer of organisational knowledge is of central interest for both academic researchers and practitioners. Moreover, it is significant for organisational learning and it is a powerful mechanism for gaining competitive advantages. However, knowledge transfer is not straightforward as it depends not solely on the nature of knowledge itself, but also on the process of acquisition and assimilation. There are limitations in knowledge transfer since some types of knowledge may not be directly captured, managed, and are not always prepared in a transferable form. Consequently, this research considers 'practice' as a vehicle for knowledge transfer to further our understanding of how knowledge can be reconstructed through the practice. Despite extensive research on knowledge transfer, there is a dearth of research that has explicitly focused on the practice-oriented knowledge transfer. This is different from the objectivist-based knowledge transfer where knowledge is presented as an object. There is little research that considers knowledge as a result of social interaction and knowledge is context-dependent nature. Additionally, organisations require a method of analysis in order to overcome knowledge transfer difficulties relating to the absent congruence of the sourcereCipient context and assist on organisation's decision to choose a suitable source for the transfer process.

The characteristics of a patient support interface can influence the susceptibility of subjects, particularly there who are immobilised and insensate, to pressure ulcer development. Accordingly, externally powered alternating pressure air mattresses (APAM) are utilised to produce intermittent pressure relief and control of the interface microclimate. These conditions will permit adequate blood and lymph flow within the soft tissues and favourable conditions at the loaded skin surface and thus minimise the risk of ulcer formation. Two sets of measurements were performed. Tissue viability was estimated, from a measure of transcutaneous gas tensions and sweat content, from healthy volunteers subjected to various alternating pressure regimens. The latter was achieved by two different strategies a) a custom–made controller which imposes the pressure profile on the subject and b) a prototype APAMs incorporating a novel sensor, which adjusts the profile according to individual subject characteristics. The latter prototype was placed on an articulated hospital bed, with an adjustable Head of Bed (HOB) angle. The second set of measurements involved monitoring the microclimate, namely temperature and humidity, at the interface loaded with a human analogue model supported on an APAM system. The interface was saturated with moisture to simulate sweating. The human studies, involving healthy subjects with BMI values ranging from 18.9 to 42.5 kg/m2, revealed significant differences in soft tissue response under various support surface profile by both strategies. In many cases, the TcPO2 levels either remained fairly stable during the loaded period or fluctuated at a periodicity equivalent to the cycle period of the APAM system, with the corresponding TcPCO2 levels remaining within the normal basal range. These findings were associated with II maximum interface pressures generally not exceeding 50 mmHg (6.67 kPa). By contrast in some cases, there was a significant compromise to the TcPO2 levels during the loaded period, which was often associated with an increase in TcPCO2 levels. These cases generally corresponded with the internal pressures in the mattress prescribed at a maximum amplitude of 100 / 0 mmHg or when the Head of Bed angle was raised to 45º or above. Changes in prototype covering sheet and air flow rates of the APAM system were found to influence both interface temperature and humidity. These results revealed enhanced levels of humidity often reaching 100% RH at the high simulated sweat rates. By contrast, at the lower sweat rate of 1.5 ml/min, the nature of the prototype covering sheets had an effect on the interface humidity profile, with values considerably reduced in the latter stages of the monitoring period. These results were compared with a compartmental model, which predicted the transport of moisture and heat using various mattress support systems. The results offer the potential for the development of intelligent APAM systems, whose characteristics can be adjusted to an individual morphology. These systems will need to be designed to ensure adequate tissue viability and maintain appropriate microclimate at the loaded interface. Such an approach will be directed at those subjects considered to be at high/medium risk of developing pressure ulcers.

I studied the Blue & John Crow Mountain National Park in Jamaica to evaluate protected area effectiveness in reducing forest clearance in this country, which is a significant contributor to the high biodiversity and high endemism of the Caribbean region. Using time-series Landsat imagery, I found that forest clearance occurred at a similar high rate before and after the declaration of the area as a national park (1.50 % yr-1 and 1.42% yr-1 respectively), and that forest clearance and fragmentation were mostly confined to the more accessible forest at lower elevation (< 1000 m). In these lower elevation forests, I documented high plant endemism (30 %) and beta diversity using data from 25 x 0.04 ha plots, which I established and Adams (1972) flora of Jamaica. To investigate the conservation value of secondary forest, I used the oldest secondary forest ever compared with adjacent old growth forest to assess tree species composition and structure in the two forest types. I showed that although these two forest types were similar in many aspects, they were still different in the percentage of tree individuals that are endemic, and in the species composition of the larger stems. In a more controlled experiment, using one of the longest monitored sets of permanent plots in the tropics, I showed that 24-35 years after intensive disturbance in experimental gaps, the species compositional and basal area of trees in gap plots had not recovered to their pre-cut condition, and gaps were heavily invaded by a non-native species. My results indicate the slow recovery from disturbance of tropical montane forests, and the persistent effect of historical disturbance on secondary forests.

Motor neuron diseases (MNDs) are progressive neurodegenerative disorders characterized by selective death of motor neurons leading to spasticity, muscle wasting and paralysis. Human VAMP-associated protein B (hVAPB) is the causative gene of a clinically diverse group of MNDs including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), atypical ALS and late-onset spinal muscular atrophy. The pathogenic mutation is inherited in a dominant manner. Drosophila VAMP-associated protein of 33 kDa A (DVAP-33A) is the structural homologue of hVAPB and regulates synaptic remodeling by affecting the size and number of boutons at neuromuscular junctions (NMJs). Associated with these structural alterations are compensatory changes in the physiology and ultrastructure of synapses, which maintain evoked responses within normal boundaries. DVAP-33A and hVAPB are functionally interchangeable and transgenic expression of mutant DVAP-33A in neurons recapitulates major hallmarks of the human disease including locomotion defects, neuronal death and aggregate formation. Aggregate accumulation is accompanied by a depletion of the endogenous protein from its normal localization. These findings pinpoint to a possible role of hVAPB in synaptic homeostasis. To elucidate the patho-physiology underlying motor neuron degeneration in humans, we also generated a Drosophila model of ALS8 in the adult eye. Targeted expression of mutant DVAP-33A in the Drosophila compound eye causes a degenerative phenotype characterized by a smaller eye containing missing or aberrantly oriented bristles and fused ommatidia. In a F1 deficiency screen, we performed a genome-wide survey aimed at identifying enhancers and suppressors of the degenerative eye phenotype. Several interacting regions have been found and the identification of these interacting genes will shed new light on the molecular mechanisms underlying VAP-induced ALS.

Multi-task learning refers to learning multiple tasks simultaneously, in order to avoid tabula rasa learning and to share information between similar tasks during learning. We consider a multi-task Gaussian process regression model that learns related functions by inducing correlations between tasks directly. Using this model as a reference for three other multi-task models, we provide a broad unifying view of multi-task learning. This is possible because, unlike the other models, the multi-task Gaussian process model encodes task relatedness explicitly. Each multi-task learning model generally assumes that learning multiple tasks together is beneficial. We analyze how and the extent to which multi-task learning helps improve the generalization of supervised learning. Our analysis is conducted for the average-case on the multi-task Gaussian process model, and we concentrate mainly on the case of two tasks, called the primary task and the secondary task. The main parameters are the degree of relatedness ρ between the two tasks, and πS, the fraction of the total training observations from the secondary task. Among other results, we show that asymmetric multitask learning, where the secondary task is to help the learning of the primary task, can decrease a lower bound on the average generalization error by a factor of up to ρ2πS. When there are no observations for the primary task, there is also an intrinsic limit to which observations for the secondary task can help the primary task. For symmetric multi-task learning, where the two tasks are to help each other to learn, we find the learning to be characterized by the term πS(1 − πS)(1 − ρ2). As far as we are aware, our analysis contributes to an understanding of multi-task learning that is orthogonal to the existing PAC-based results on multi-task learning. For more than two tasks, we provide an understanding of the multi-task Gaussian process model through structures in the predictive means and variances given certain configurations of training observations. These results generalize existing ones in the geostatistics literature, and may have practical applications in that domain. We evaluate the multi-task Gaussian process model on the inverse dynamics problem for a robot manipulator. The inverse dynamics problem is to compute the torques needed at the joints to drive the manipulator along a given trajectory, and there are advantages to learning this function for adaptive control. A robot manipulator will often need to be controlled while holding different loads in its end effector, giving rise to a multi-context or multi-load learning problem, and we treat predicting the inverse dynamics for a context/load as a task. We view the learning of the inverse dynamics as a function approximation problem and place Gaussian process priors over the space of functions. We first show that this is effective for learning the inverse dynamics for a single context. Then, by placing independent Gaussian process priors over the latent functions of the inverse dynamics, we obtain a multi-task Gaussian process prior for handling multiple loads, where the inter-context similarity depends on the underlying inertial parameters of the manipulator. Experiments demonstrate that this multi-task formulation is effective in sharing information among the various loads, and generally improves performance over either learning only on single contexts or pooling the data over all contexts. In addition to the experimental results, one of the contributions of this study is showing that the multi-task Gaussian process model follows naturally from the physics of the inverse dynamics.

The dissertation examines foreign ownership in Korea during 1998-2003. The capital market opening in Korea following the 1997 Asian financial crisis provides a unique opportunity to investigate the changes in corporate ownership structure. The abolition of investment ceilings and various restrictions for the foreign investment allow us to document the greater influences of foreign institutional ownership in the Korean stock market. I empirically investigate (1) the role of foreign ownership in dividend policy, (2) the link between foreign investors and labour cost, and (3) the relationship between the foreign ownership and the level of corporate donations. Using a large firm level dataset, the panel data techniques are used to examine the effects of foreign equity ownership. The analysis shows that foreign ownership is significantly related to higher dividends, labour costs, and corporate donations. These findings highlight the role of foreign ownership in influencing management practices.

A key to next generation Internet is service differentiation. Broadband satellite networks being an integral and complementary part of this global information infrastructure should therefore be capable of providing differential treatment to users with different quality of service (QoS) requirements. This thesis addresses the problem of providing relative service differentiation over next generation satellite networks. We develop a complete service differentiation framework for broadband geostationary (GEO) bandwidth on demand satellite networks that provides proportional differentiated services (PDS) to different network performance metrics. The framework offers a separate "tuning Knob" for satellite operators to control the differentiation of each performance metric. We consider the differentiation of three most important QoS metrics: packet queuing delay, transmission control protocol (TCP) throughput and packet loss. We begin with proportional delay differentiation and propose a time dependent scheduler operating at the medium access control (MAC) layer, named Satellite Waiting Time Priority scheduler. The scheduler closely emulates the PDS model even in short timescales. However, the feasibility region of the scheduler is limited to high load conditions. We focus our throughput differentiation investigation on TCP traffic as it forms the majority of Internet data traffic. Employing the cross-layer approach, we design an integrated solution that requires the joint configuration of TCP-Performance Enhancing Proxy at the transport layer and the scheduling algorithm controlling the resource allocation at the MAC layer. The complementary behaviours of the two differentiation mechanisms combine to achieve the desired differentiation. Realising the need to automate the process of configuring the differentiation parameters, we further explore the use of fixed-point methods to analytically approximate the obtained differentiated TCP performance over dynamic load conditions. We validate our analytical method with extensive simulation results showing close agreement between the approximated and simulated differentiation of TCP flows. For loss differentiation, we propose an innovative profile-based probabilistic dropping scheme. It is capable of providing consistent network-wide proportional loss rate to traffic of different service classes. Although capable of achieving the PDS model under different load conditions, we find instances where the predictability property of the PDS model is violated under certain configurations. Finally, we depart from the PDS model and examine the congestion pricing approach in realising relative service differentiation over both GEO and non-GEO satellite networks. We implement and examine a window-based congestion pricing algorithm that differentiates users based on their respective willingness to pay to achieve the most basic requirement of relative service differentiation i.e. high priority traffic always receive better or no worse performance compared to low priority traffic. We finally conclude that although such an approach may be technically feasible for satellite networks, its adoption in the real world may depend on a lot of other factors.

The fornical tract, a major input-output pathway of the hippocampus, of the primate brain makes crucial contributions to visual memory, as effects after surgical or aetiological lesions of this tract are widely documented in the monkey and human literature. Here, a series of experiments sought to further elucidate the functions of this structure with a battery of novel tasks in macaque monkeys, conducted either on a touchscreen or in an ambulatory chamber, so as to offer a more global view of the mnemonic role accomplished by it. After receiving bilateral transection of the fornix, monkeys are impeded in the 'fast learning' phase of a large number of new visuospatial conditional problems, with major impairments seen in eliminating non-perseverative errors. These fornix transected monkeys are however facilitated in the initial acquisition of a visuovisual conditional task, with facilitation seen in their improved ability in eliminating perseverative errors. It is also demonstrated in an ambulatory apparatus, in comparison to control monkeys, these monkeys are impaired in the new learning of visuospatial context of environments, albeit still displaying intact locomotor and exploratory behaviour patterns. Contrary to the relatively clear role in new learning, the involvement of the fornix in memory retention over the very long-term is unknown. It is shown here that once some visuospatial information is learnt; the fornix is no longer implicated in the retention of the material. The effects of fornix transection are also found to be detrimental on a spatial recognition task, with impairments observed in acquisition of the more demanding stages of the task. The overall results covered in this thesis support previous work suggesting that the fornix mediates the new learning of visual information, and I further propose that this fornical involvement lies primarily in the learning of spatio-temporal contexts, particularly during 'fast learning', as well as in task-sets acquisition. I also argue for dissociation in the contributions of the fornix and hippocampus to some memory processes in the macaque.

This study sets out to investigate the relationship development impacts on small suppliers and their larger customers in the Taiwanese electronics industry. More precisely, this research's principal goal is to outline a framework for relationship development of small suppliers and their larger customers in the Taiwanese electronics network. Recent research has shown that small suppliers may face a range of problems in their relationship with larger customers (Blomqvist, 2002; Johnsen and Ford, 2002; Johnsen, 2005). This research examines the relationship development impacts of relationship characteristics of small suppliers and their larger customers on the process of development of these relationships in the Taiwanese electronics industry. The chosen study method involves a phenomenologicalapproach using case studiesof the relationships of small suppliers and their larger customers in the Taiwaneseelectronics industry. Individual in-depth interviews in both customer and supplier firms with directors or managers who have been closely involved in the relationship are employed to collect relevant primary data. Through the literature review, a classification of relationship characteristicsof small suppliers and larger customers is developed and a relationship development stage model identified (Ford, 1980). A conceptual model of the relationship development impacts of relationship characteristics of small suppliers and larger customers on their relationship developmentprocessis developed, and guidesthe empirical study. Five sets of small supplier and larger customer relationships are examined. From each supplier organisation five persons are interviewed e.g. president, managing director, and marketing manager. Also five individuals in each of the customer organisations are interviewed e. g. vice-managing director, purchasing managerand others involved in supplier relationships. In total, there are 50 participants in 49 interviews, (since Case B supplier side had two participants interviewed together). The researcher analyses the findings from these five sets of customer and supplier relationships through the use of analysis matrices. The premise of this research is to provide a better assessmentof the relationship development impacts on the relationship characteristics of small suppliers and their larger customers on the process of relationship development in the Taiwanese electronics industry. It is hoped that this study can benefit small suppliers by developing a set of managerial lessons from the study concerning relationship development with larger customers in the Taiwanese electronics market. Furthermore, the research provides indicators that different types of relationship development impacts on the relationship characteristics may influence the relationship development process between small suppliers and their larger customers at different stagesof relationship.

An investigation of the potential for enhancing innovation within the TWMMI Due to political, economic, social and technological changes, traditional manufacturers of the TWMMI are facing a fight for survival. An effective strategy is urgently required to help manufacturers to tum these threats into opportunities. One strategy is increasing scope in order to compete with international rivals through creativity, combined with increasing productivity through technology in order to create competitive advantage. This study investigates how SMEs within the TWMMI can improve their competitive advantage. It examines the impact on company performance of creativity and ICT based manufacturing technology. A semi-structured questionnaire with open-ended and closed-ended questions was designed based on a SWOT assessment and literature review to find a positive correlation between creativity and ICT based manufacturing technology and improved business performance. Thus the questionnaire investigates how the TWMMI are dealing with the fact that they are no longer competing effectively in the woodworking machinery market as identified in the SWOT and whether they have implemented any strategic solutions, which are classified in the literature review to solve the problem. From interviews with 30 respondent companies and 18 international customers conducted, results show that: (1) Companies that implement of a high level of creative function achieve a greater level of creative success. (2) It is not always the case that implementing a higher level ofFMS combined with ICT is necessary to gain a greater level of improved business performance. Competitive advantage can be gained through outsourcing manufacturing of component parts to suppliers. (3) The implementation of a higher level of creative function combined with some level ofFMS and ICT or outsourcing may allow the TWMMI to achieve a greater level of improved business performance The strategy recommended to follow includes individual companies co-operating together by investing capital in research and development promoting creativity. Furthermore, promotion of innovation in creativity and ICT based manufacturing technology is also required along with strategic promotion of creative skills in education and society to facilitate creativity in the business environment within Taiwan as a whole.

This thesis is an examination of the Poverty Strategy Paper (PRSP) approach to regulating countries' access to external financing. It locates the PRSP project in the context of contemporary global governance and postcolonial international law and considers its impact on third world state engagement with the international economy and the regulatory webs and institutions, notably the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which underpin these relations. Approaching the subject from an inter- disciplinary perspective, straddling discourses of law, political economy and sociology, this research combines an empirical methodology for examining the linkages between the normative effect of the PRSP framework and the actors who advance these norms with a critical analysis of the power dynamics which underlie the relationships of the subjects and objects of the framework. The thesis demonstrates that far from its emancipatory language, the PRSP project, both in its operational and discursive manifestations, foreclose possibilities for the radical revision of the current asymmetrical rules and institutions of international economic law. Conversely, findings from this research suggest that the PRSP framework adversely reconfigures the form and substance of third world engagement with international law and the global economy. The PRSP project reframes fundamental tenets of international cooperation and global communal responsibility by problematising the state in the context of economic and social development; and constituting nation states as primary sites for the fulfilment of economic and social rights ascribed collectively. This restructuring takes place through a series of legal and institutional interventions of the PRSP framework, as well as through shifts in the regulatory mechanisms, notably the doctrine of conditionality, governing relationships between third world states and their external financiers. In this manner, the PRSP framework introduces a new regulatory discipline on third world states and represents a continuation, if not exacerbation, of the asymmetrical sovereignty characterising postcolonial international law and the imperial nature of the 'development' project sustaining the logic of these relationships, with significant impact on the potential for resistance and reform.

Gelcoats are required to improve the durability of boat hulls, protect the laminate from environmental assault and provide a smooth aesthetic surface finish thus giving significant added value. The material employed for this application needs to exhibit high specific stiffness, strength and toughness, excellent surface quality and cost effectiveness. Unfortunately, conventional gelcoat systems are far from being satisfactory and improvements are needed to meet the diverse requirements of marine product customers.