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Oxidation and hydrolysis in the system titanium (III)-oxygen-hydrogen has been studied by a variety of techniques in this work. Solids produced by base precipitation were poorly defined. Although they had an analytical formula corresponding to titanium trihydroxide, the absence of a sharp hydroxide stretching frequency in infra-red spectra showed that they were not simple hydroxides. Such solids, when dry, oxidized immediately upon contact with air to give poorly crystallised products. Heating caused crystallisation when alkali metal hydroxide had originally caused precipitation, the product contained both alkali metal hexatitanate and titanium dioxide of anatase structure; if aqueous ammonia had been the precipitating agent the solid consisted of the anatase structure alone. Aging of solids precipitated by alkali metal hydroxide yielded solely hexatitanates. In a similar manner, mixed alkali metal hexatitanates, of any composition, were prepared by aging and oxidizing the solid precipitated by controlled mixtures of aqueous alkali metal hydroxides. When zinc ions were also initially present, they too participated in the crystallisation process, yielding various zinc titanates. Precipitation by solid sodium hydrogen carbonate yielded poorly defined titanium trihydroxide rather than a carbonate. Hydrolysis products oxidized too quickly to be collected. Oxidized products had either the rutile or anatase structure; when a complexing anion was present the rutile structure was favoured, while the anatase structure was obtained when the anion was only weakly complexing. The thermal decomposition and oxidation of titanium (III) oxalate hydrate was also studied. An intermediate, titanyl oxalate, was observed, while the final, fully oxidised, product had the anatase structure at lower temperatures. Titanium (III) chloride hexahydrate and titanium (III) sulphate pentahydrate were also investigated. No stable intermediates were isolated; fully oxidized products had the anatase structure. A discussion of the various factors which influence the formation of the observed structures concluded this work.

The work contained within this PhD by Published Work aims to encourage researchers and practitioners within the spatial disciplines to engage with the story worlds of sf. Through this commentary and the collected essays, I reflect on the moments where sf has illuminated my architectural thinking to demonstrate the critical creative potential of reading sf, particularly for those involved in our built futures. As depicted in Mohsin Hamid's Exit West, the science-fictional operates as a doorway, as a manifestation of the unsettling and transformative presence of some-place other. These fictions and the worlds they contain are "doors that could take you elsewhere" (Hamid, 2017: 69), they hold open the possibility of alternatives, of strangeness contained within that which we have built. As an architect and architectural lecturer these imagined worlds are the landscapes through which I have oriented my research and my practice. In this work I trace how my research has developed in response to my engagement with sf, moving from sole author to collective research practices, from a focus on canonical texts to a centring of feminist sf, and from written works to acts of research through making. The commentary and the essays included in the portfolio are organised into four sections which relate to these shifts in approach. In Writing with fiction I consider verticality within sf texts and the slippages between the imagined and the designed, in Writing with practice I reflect on feminist sf to inform architectural thinking and practice, in Writing with others I undertake collective research with the Beyond Gender Research Collective, and in Writing with making I use sf in making practices to construct built responses to fictional worlds. Through this work I consider how the act of reading sf as a reflective and creative process might transform architectural practice. I see these fictions as more than a source of design inspiration, they offer us opportunities to engage with complex and critical spatial concerns, to reflect on the nature of architectural practice, and suggest alternative ways of making together. These are the ways we imagine elsewhere; this is how we determine the doorways to build.

The survival of patients with localised oesophagogastric (OG) cancer is poor even with multimodality therapy and modern surgical techniques. The need to identify robust but easily-reproducible prognostic and predictive biomarkers is paramount for better patient selection, as is the investigation of rational therapeutic combinations for patients with poor prognostic tumours. Pooled analysis of data from five large randomised controlled trials shows that females suffer more toxicity from cytotoxic chemotherapy but their survival is better than males following neoadjuvant chemotherapy and surgery. Older patients can achieve the same outcome as younger patients when treated with the same perioperative paradigm. Central pathological assessment of samples taken from over 1500 clinical trial patients confirms that the lymph node status in the resection specimen following neoadjuvant chemotherapy is the single most important prognostic factor in resected OG cancer. Determination of regression grading within either the primary tumour or metastatic lymph nodes is not required to define prognosis any further. The impact of chemotherapy on the immune tumour microenvironment of patients treated with current standard-of-care perioperative FLOT chemotherapy was evaluated via multiplex immunofluorescence. Patients with higher PD-1+ immune cell infiltrates at baseline have better survival than patients with low levels, with a similar trend also observed for high activated CD8+ T-cells and high FOXP3+ T-cells. In addition, PD-1+ immune cells predict better tumour responses to chemotherapy. Due to the immunogenic activity of chemotherapy agents within the FLOT regimen, synergy with checkpoint inhibition is likely to improve responses. Interim analysis results from the phase II ICONIC (Perioperative Immuno-Chemotherapy in Operable oesophageal aNd gastric Cancer) study show this novel combination to be safe with no unexpected toxicity or surgical detriment. The results presented in this thesis outline an important evaluation of clinical and pathological markers which have been defined from large trial datasets. In addition, this thesis has sought to investigate the interplay between chemotherapy and tumour infiltrating immune cells as we head towards chemo-immunotherapy possibly playing a role in the management of these tumours with the hope of improving patient outcomes.