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The recent development of small scale electronics working within an integrated wireless sensor network has led to the massive potential monitoring of human and structure health. Such devices however are often limited by their battery life, thus there is a great need for energy harvesting to increase the lifespan of these devices. This thesis presents a novel vibration energy harvester based upon dielectric elastomers. A number of numerical models and device setups are investigated, where the device was subjected to a wide variety of harmonic excitation conditions as well as random vibrations. The numerical model was developed through experimentation to determine the nonlinear material properties of a commonly used material, V HBTM 4910. This allowed the device to be compared favourably against other energy harvesters of similar volume. The proposed device is capable of producing a maximum energy density of 9.15J/kg at an excitation frequency of 35Hz. Although observations made regarding the influence of the material nonlinearity have predicted that with a slight increase in the material nonlinearity, the device could significantly increase its energy density to 4359J/kg which would occur at the extremely useful frequency of 3Hz. The creation of this numerical model to simulate an energy harvester also allowed the direct comparison between a promising new electrical scheme and a well developed conventional scheme. Specific investigations were carried out on the device size and orientation, which highlighted an extremely effective setup which can harvest energy from a wide range of excitation conditions and orientations.

With the move towards a society where responsibility has been placed upon the individual to make financial provision for future events, comes the need for individuals to be able to interact with the financial services sector and make informed decisions regarding their financial choices. This research focuses on the barriers that influence why and how consumers access advice from Regulated Financial Advisers. Three key variables are highlighted by this research that each affect the consumer’s ability to access regulated financial advice; Firstly, knowledge, where sub-themes relating to need, knowledge of services and ‘finding an adviser’ were identified. These highlighted the concept of advice not generally being the ‘subjective norm’. Secondly, trust, where the concepts of ‘general trust’ and ‘individual trust’ emerged along with the issues surrounding consumers’ abilities to apply ‘critical trust’. Thirdly, affordability and cost, which includes the consumer’s appreciation of the value of advice. Finally, this research asks whether consumers are overwhelmed by the extent of the provision they need to make to shape their financial future. It therefore begs the question as to whether the degree to which the welfare state has already been rolled back has resulted in financial planning issues beyond the capabilities of most consumers.

Scientists were important players in China's Cold War foreign relations. This dissertation examines the international activities of a cohOlt of elite and internationally educated scientists who were involved in international organisations such as the World Federation of Scientific Workers (WFSW) and events such as the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. Focusing on the first three decades of the Cold War, this study encompasses a series of critical phases in China's development, in its relations with the outside world, and for its scientific community. Recently declassified archival material covering this period provides an opportunity for a far greater depth of analysis and nuance in understanding than would have been possible less than a decade ago. For the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), these elite scientists were singularly effective intercultural intennediaries who, embedded in overlapping transnational epistemic and activist networks, won sympathy and support for the People's Republic of China (PRC) among foreign intellectuals. Such party-approved propaganda activities also afforded these scientists valuable opportunities to maintain contact with overseas scientific communities from which they were otherwise largely cut off. These PRC-based scientists and the domestic scientific organisations with which they were affiliated all had roles to play within the Chinese foreign affairs system. This dissertation shows that scientists' individual personal and professional networks, their activities in the WFSW, at the Pugwash conferences, and at events like the Peking Science Symposium conferences, all carried a mixture of opportunity and risk for a developing state like the early PRC.

The Department of Regional Development (DRD), Northern Ireland, designed and constructed numerous highways cuttings in stiff overconsolidated glacial tills during the 60's and 70's. The designs were largely based on ~ntemporary empirical approaches using undrained shear strength, with limited consideration given to the long-term stability of the slopes. Recently there has been an increased frequency of reported slope failures including the failure at Dromore, Co. Down. Consequently Queen's University of Belfast and Roads Service (Northern Ireland), in collaboration With the University of Saskatchewan, have completed a comprehensive hydrogeological research study on a new 18m deep cutting in a drumlin formed in overconsolidated till at Loughbrickland, Co. Down; Northern Ireland. The primary objective was to examine the effects of environmental changes on the groundwater regime with a particular focus on the stability of the slope. A laboratory and field instrumentation programme was carried out including detailed monitoring of head levels and local meteorological conditions. Three years of validated climate and head level data provided a comprehensive understanding of seasonal hydrogeological fluctuations within the Loughbrickland drumlin slope. The head level fluctuations demonstrate a clear relationship with seasonal variation in climate. The· data set provides a basis for further investigation into the effects of cyclic pore water pressure fluctuations and progressive failure on the long-term stability ofslopes. The collated field data was used to create a transient coupled seepage/slope stability model, using SeeplW and SlopelW (Geoslope International, Calgary, Alberta) to analyse the impact of climate on pore water pressure and subsequently slope stability. The model was calibrated using the field and laboratory data and was capable of accurately simulating the annual fluctuations in head level. A sensitivity analysis was completed to .assess the effect of predicted UKCIP climate scenarios on the slope stability of the cutting at Loughbrickland. The model simulates that climate change (UKCIP scenarios) will have minimal effect on the annual cycle of head levels and therefore on the short to medium term slope stability.

The aim of this study was to develop and implement a low cost, high speed, flow visualisation tool for 3-D velocity measurement throughout time dependent particle seeded fluid flow volumes. To achieve this, a new high performance wind / water tunnel was designed and constructed using CFD as a design aid. The tunnel provided the necessary platform for obtaining consistent high quality images of fluid flow. Images were grabbed using low cost CCD cameras and downloaded via a PC mounted image capture board, to system RAM. The conventional high cost laser sheet illumination method was replaced with a low cost, portable floodlight system, which enabled both 2-D and 3-D flow volumes to be illuminated. For the 3-D image capture, stereo photogrammetric techniques were employed. Advanced calibration algorithms were developed which automatically detected camera positioning. This reduced the inherent human error associated with setting-up a complex imaging system. 2-D pattern matching and particle tracking algorithms were developed, optimised and tested using real and synthetically generated flow data, to establish practical limits for particle seeding density, particle image size, flow velocity and flow complexity. These results demonstrated that particle tracking was more suited to real-time 3-D applications. The developed algorithms formed the base of a Windows 95/Windows NT package for general purpose analysis of 2-D and 3-D single exposure image streams of particle seeded fluid flow.

This thesis describes the advances made towards the development of a complete pilot scale process for an enzyme catalysed carbon-carbon bond forming reaction. Transketolase is such an enzyme that has high synthetic potential as a stereospecific carbon-carbon bond forming reagent. Transketolase from Escherichia coli has been produced from recombinant forms of E. coli over-expressing the enzyme to a level of 25%–40% of the total protein. This level of expression has been achieved in high productivity fermentations up to 1000 L in scale. Transketolase was determined using a linked, multi-enzymic assay which was shown to be accurate and reliable using commercially available transketolase. The enzyme has also been purified to homogeneity and subsequently crystallised. An initial investigation into the substrate specificity of the enzyme illustrated the wide range of substrates accepted by this form of transketolase and led to the synthesis of two novel compounds. Further synthesis suggested that E. coli transketolase dictates the stereochemistry of two new chiral centres in the reaction product. Using the transketolase catalysed reaction between hydroxypyruvate and glycolaldehyde to form erythrulose as a model example, biotransformation scale-up conditions were mimicked to investigate the optimum conditions for reaction and productivity. Substrate concentrations of 0.5 M were used and the reaction was found not to be inhibited by high substrate concentrations but it was inhibited by the accumulation of product. Conversions of >95% were achieved based on the loss of glycolaldehyde, but the reaction only proceeded to -60% completion. The information derived from this research, and that of other members of the transketolase group, will help to provide more widely applicable guidelines for biotransformation process design, operation and scale-up.

This dissertation examines the work of Pier Paolo Pasolini through the diverse forms and operations in which subjectivity presents itself and determines the orientation of his aesthetic, cultural and ideological practice. It develops a model of the work of subjectivity which is then applied in turn to the three major areas of his life and work. Part I examines his activities as an intellectual operator, or cultural activist, which show him using and creating opportunities for self-promotion and self-expression in a wide range of intellectual arenas, each with its own audience and professional obligations. Part II concentrates on his poetry, which is seen as a privileged locus of aesthetic selfexpression, and identifies a subtle pattern of shifting modulation of imagery and vocabulary, which is constantly renewed and transformed by use in different contexts. And Part III analyses his semiological theory and practice of cinema, showing how the totalising nature of representation which attracts him to cinema overshadows the play of variation and formal patterning in poetry, and thus regularly displaces the locus of subjectivity away from the films themselves and towards ancillary discourses. The dissertation demonstrates that Pasolini consistently manipulates the formal characteristics of the idioms, media and genres in which he works, creating multiple dynamics of variation in each. This particular variatio, which Pasolini came close to theorising in his formulation of 'sperimentalismo', is shown to be the vessel for the implicit and neverfixed work of subjectivity. The complex interplay between form and subjectivity, which emerges from the close detail of the analysis, is posited as an interpretative key to Pasolini which challenges more direct and superficial critical commonplaces, such as the dichotomy between 'passione e ideologia' suggested by Pasolini himself and followed by many since.

The chemistry of heterocyclothiazenes is surveyed, with particular emphasis being placed on the dithiazine heterocyclic class. The known synthetic routes to dithiazines are discussed and the chemical, physical and spectroscopic properties of these heterocycles are reviewed. A wide range of novel 1,4,2-dithiazine derivatives have been efficiently synthesised, the key synthetic step being nitrogen ring expansion of 1,3-dithiolium cation salts by iodine-ammonia methodology. The utility and scope of this methodology have been developed. A variety of analytical techniques have been used to characterise the 1,4,2-dithiazines. Notably, the first X-ray crystal structures of the heterocycle are presented. Mechanisms for the ring expansion reaction are discussed. Reactions of 1,4,2-dithiazines have been extensively studied; the compounds act as precursors to a variety of other heterocyclic systems (isothiazoles, dithiins and thiophenes), and provide access to useful synthetic intermediates (mono-protected 1,2- di thiols).The iodine-ammonia approach has also been used to synthesise derivatives of the rare 1,2,3-dithiazine system, representing the first chemical route to this heterocycle. In related studies, the X-ray crystal structure of a l,2-dithiole-3-thione is described; the molecule is characterised by a three-dimensional array of non-bonded intermolecular close sulphur-sulphur contacts.

This study will provide an analytical account of the changing practices and strategies for manpower utilisation in a single shipyard (Govan) from the 1950/60's to the beginning of the 1990's. This will reveal, at different phases, four distinct approaches to manpower utilisation strategies and their associate industrial relations process. These could be summarised as:- Model One - the classical approach where manpower utilisation strategy was based on the principle of dividing labour and characterised by the concept of job specialisation and manpower agreements that were concluded on the basis of national agreements. Model Two - the scientific management approach where the strategy was to conclude local agreements between management and the workforce that were characterised by the introduction of limited forms of functional flexibility and industrial engineering techniques. Model Three - the flexibile work approach where the strategy was based on the concept of the 'Flexible Firm' and characterised by the move to conclude national agreements to enable the introduction of functional and numerical forms of flexible working. Model Four - the new realism approach where the strategy was to recognise that manhours were the principal component of shipyard competitiveness and where local agreements were concluded between management and the shipyard workers that increased manpower effectiveness. The account of models One to Three provides us with an understanding and detailed analysis of the systems of manpower utilisation and associated industrial relations practices adopted by management as the shipyard progressed through different economic, technological and organisational phases prior to Kvaerner's acquisition of the yard in 1988. Model Four is the approach to manpower utilisation developed and implemented as part of this work, and this account details the ways in which the manpower and industrial relations problems were identified and resolved. The differences between the approaches as depicted in the four models will be interpreted on the basis of a 'conceptual framework' developed for this purpose, and this 'toolbox' will enable us to present conclusions on the successive phases of change.

This thesis examines in contort the Civil Aviation Authority, a body described by some as a constitutional innovation. The accuracy of such a description is assessed and the utility of such an innovation is considered. The evolution of the CAA is described with an account of the development of civil aviation regulation in Britain and by an examination of the CAA's predecessors, the Air Transport Licensing Board and the Air Transport Advisory Council. The deficiencies of these licensing authorities are examined in order to explain the reasons for the setting up of an agency governing the selection of the CAA's framework of powers and duties. In order to see the CAL in its constitutional context an account is given of the past methods of regulation found in this country and of the CAA's relationship to other kinds of agency encountered in Britain. A model of the CAA is compared with the structure of American regulatory agencies. The Authority is then examined, in operation. It will be argued that the CAA's structure attempts to gain the best of a number of worlds in combining three factors: the use of formal public hearing procedures; subjection to ministerial control by written policy guidance; and the incorporation of extensive resources, expertise and independence. This study considers whether the above combination has proved workable, efficient and just. It asks if administrative law theory provides adequate tools to appraise such an agency and whether we find, in the CAA, a useful device of government which could be employed in other areas.

In order to investigate the clinical potential of NMR relaxation time measurements in the detection and diagnosis of malignancy in excised tissue specimens, a pulse spectrometer (2MHs operating frequency, 1Kw pulse power) has been constructed for measuring T1 and T2 relaxation times of protons in biological tissues. The pulse sequences used are (TT-t -TT/2) for T1 and CPMG for T2. The spectrometer is equipped with a dual phase sensitive detector giving in-phase and quadrature phase outputs. Field stability is maintained by a flux stabiliser and a field correction unit operating on the quadrature signal following an FID. In the majority of cases T1 relaxation has been characterised by single exponential behaviour, (exceptions have been some human normal and tumour specimens and fat tissue) and in general the tumour specimens exhibit the greater relaxation times. Different examples of the same tissue type exhibit a range of values outwith that of experimental error which limits the extant to which the technique can be used to identify individual specimens. The only criterion for tissue identification established has been that no T1 of the normal tissues examined exceeds 650 msec. Whereas some tumour tissues do and the results indicate that this technique has only limited application in the detection and diagnosis of cancer. Two mechanisms which might account for the elevated T1 values have been investigated and the results obtained from water content estimation of normal and rat tissues show a definite correlation between water content and T1 which has been corroborated at a cellular level by immersion refractometric measurements of the cytoplasm in rat liver and hepatoma cells.

The first object of this work was to produce a technique of analysing continuously the exit gases of flow reactors under conditions where the extent of decomposition is small, and to do this with particular reference to the small changes in reactant concentration. This was preferred to analysis for products since the translation of the data for the latter into kinetic rate equations requires a knowledge or assumptions of the stoichiometry. The second aim of the work was to apply the technique to typical systems as used for bond dissociation energy determinations and test the method on a reaction of importance. 2, Details have been given of the development of the system where the analyses can be performed mass spectrometrically and continuously on both the inlet and exit gases, with about 30 seconds between each sampling. The technique minimises the chance that variations in flow conditions or changes in reactor efficiency will pass undetected, it permits also variations in kinetic parameters to be studied without opening up the reactor but merely by altering the variables and waiting for new steady state conditions. In order to deal with the small variations in the large signals given by the reactant decomposition, an electrical backing off device was used after sufficient stability had been obtained. The details of this have been given. 3. In order to check the flexibility of the technique, the thermal decomposition of methyl bromide in excess toluene, previously investigated by Szwarc, was carried out in the flow system. 4. It was shown experimentally that the rate of decomposition of the methyl bromide was given by: -d [MeBr]/dt = {k0 + k[sub]T[Toluene] + K[sub]A[Argon]} [MeBr] when using up to 0.1 mm CH3Er in about 1 mm of toluene and 1 mm of argon carrier gas. The reaction was shown to be surface dependent and was studied in two furnaces of different S/V ratio. 5. Methods of analysis of the data have yielded k0, k[sub]T and k[sub]A. The temperature coefficient of k0 has been shown to be k0 = 10 11·86 exp (-66,700/RT) sec −1 in the range 960°  1090° . The activation energy from the K[sub]T temperature variation is 63.2 k.cals/mole. 6. The kinetic data-have been discussed and k0 is ascribed to the first order decomposition process while the second term has been considered to be a surface reaction. The snail increase of the rate with rise in argon pressure is thought to be caused by increases in the steady state concentration of hydrogen atoms, due to argon impeding the partial wall removal of this entity, 7. The activation energy of 66,7 k.cals/mole for the unimolecular decomposition has been compared with other data on D(CH3 - Br). 8. Finally, suggestions have been made for further work in the study of this reaction to aid a more complete understanding of the apparently complex mechanism involved.

This thesis looks at the different ways in which anthropology and literature interact, focussing particularly on the works of Italian writers between the 1960s and the 1980s as an example of a moment of especially fruitful and intense exchange between the perspectives and epistemological frameworks of the two disciplines. The Introduction starts with a brief historical reconstruction of the relationship between anthropology and literature, followed by a discussion of a set of shared epistemological problems. The Introduction goes on to propose that the decades in the period spanning from the immediate post-war years to the 1980s, which were characterised by a sharp rise in the publication and translation of anthropological books as well as transformative changes in Italian literature, can be defined as the "anthropological moment" of Italian culture. The following chapters (2-5) are dedicated to the close reading through an anthropological lens of the works of the three authors considered in this thesis as case studies: Italo Calvino, Primo Levi and Gianni Celati. They reconstruct how each of the three authors first came into contact with anthropological studies and retrace the readings in this field that had a major impact on their ideas of literature and their writing choices. Each chapter is devoted to the close reading of key works written between the 1970s and the 1980s, compared with the anthropological sources and perspectives from which writers took inspiration. These include, among others, Calvino's 'La Poubelle agréée' and Sotto il sole giaguaro, Levi's 'Gli stregoni', 'Verso Occidente and I sommersi e i salvati, and Celati's Fata morgana and Verso la foce. They show how Calvino, Levi and Celati do not simply consider anthropological books as a repertoire of sources, but engage closely with their methodology, borrowing the tools of the anthropologist and applying them to their analyses of different cultural aspects of reality. This thesis aims to demonstrate the existence of profound connections at the level of epistemology and literary invention between anthropologists and writers, and to hypothesise the presence of an anthropological-literary eye in the literary and ethnographical works compared in its chapters.

Picking at Scabs is a body of photographic work that engages with the fragile and unreliable nature of memory. The book and installation address, with differing levels of narrative clarity, my adolescent struggles with my father’s alcoholism. In an accompanying book, Five-lined Skink, photographs from the family album are curated and annotated to reclaim the structure and narrative of the photographic record and act as a visual and thematic counterpoint. The autobiographical work uses recent photographs, images from my personal archive, and photographs from the family album to create an emotional space described by writing. Photographs range from unsettling images of a burned out house and a capsized boat to unkempt yards and idyllic images Niagara Falls. Artifacts such as immunization records and my father’s grade school photographs are used to connect the image to a tangible past. Short narrative writings, presented on the wall and book, recount memories at odds with the images to call attention to the disparity between the collective family narrative and my own memory.

This dissertation investigates the intersections between industrial literature produced in Italy between 1955 and 1965 and the anticolonial discourse and debate which was circulating around Italy and Europe in those same years. Adopting a transnational and transdisciplinary approach, it shows how anticolonialism was far more vividly present as a discourse in Italian industrial intellectual milieux and in industrial literature than previously acknowledged, thanks to the mediation of key figures such as Giovanni Pirelli, Giovanni Giudici, and Franco Fortini, among others. It also traces a strong conceptual link that was established in those same milieux between colonial situations of occupation, exploitation and oppression, and industrialisation in Italy. Following an Introduction that provides essential contextual details and describes the aims, scope, and method of the dissertation, Part One looks at how colonial and anticolonial questions were addressed between 1955 and 1965 in a cluster of periodicals related in various ways to industry: from industrial company publications (for example, Il gatto selvatico), to militant anticapitalist journals (Quaderni piacentini and others), to literary reviews (such as Il menabò). What emerges is a sense of the awareness that Italian industrial intellectual milieux developed in relation to colonial dynamics and anticolonial movements in the contemporary world and also of the different interests that these milieux pursued in committing (or not committing) to anticolonialism. Part Two identifies and scrutinises a cluster of keywords and narrative tropes that the anticolonial and industrial discourses shared (such as 'alienation', 'paternalism', 'race') that allows us to trace key lines of affinity between the two spheres. An anticolonial reading of six Italian industrial novels by Ottiero Ottieri, Paolo Volponi, Goffredo Parise, and Giovanni Pirelli that deploy clusters of these keywords and tropes is then proposed, supported by the findings presented in previous chapters. It is argued that Italian industrial writers proved so receptive to anticolonial thought because they were obliged to tackle analogous sets of questions in industrial settings. The conclusion summarises the most significant findings of the dissertation and suggests future related lines of research.

The dissertation examines the field of popular magazines in 1930s Italy, by first examining the broad field of magazine production under Fascism and then undertaking three case studies of individual magazines - L'Avventuroso (1934 - 1943), Omnibus (1937 - 1939), and Grazia (1938 -) - in order to build an in-depth analysis of the production, format and reception of the popular press in this period. In the interwar years, and in particular from 1934 onwards, innovative printing techniques and production methods transformed the periodical press worldwide. The emergence of new forms of illustrated magazines expanded the readership and started a process of standardisation and mass production of periodicals. The dissemination in Italy of the rotocalco, a new product aimed at the masses that was developed in the 1930s, offers a particularly interesting starting point for analysing the development of a modern Italian mass press and culture within the peculiar dynamics of a controlling Fascist regime and the mixed national and international forces that shaped it. Modern Italian magazines developed in dialogue with foreign industries, imitating models from abroad and adapting them to the Italian culture. The development of popular press in the 1930s represented a challenge for the Fascist regime, which approached it both as a threat and an opportunity to shape Italian popular culture. Through the analysis of three case studies, each from a key sector of popular press - comics, general cultural magazines, and women's magazines - and each produced by one of the three main publishing companies in the field - Nerbini, Rizzoli, and Mondadori - the dissertation aims to provide a detailed picture of the development of mass print culture in Italy during Fascism. The analysis provides examples of the impact of and cracks in Fascist censorship and cultural autarchy on the periodical press and argues that the Italian popular press developed in dialogue with European and American culture, which influenced both the form and content of rotocalchi, reinterpreting and adapting these models to Italian standards and to the constrictions of Fascist control.

The steady-state continuity equation for a real gas is solved using finitedifferences with the boundary conditions for a minipermeameter having an elliptical or circular injection tip seal. The resulting pseudo-potential distribution for the cylindrical domain of a core plug sample is obtained for various permeability ratios. Geometric factors are then calculated by numerically integrating the mass fluxes at the inlet surface inside the injection tip seal. Using a generalized form of Darcy's law, the geometric factors, and data from minipermeameter measurements, estimates of the permeability ratio of four core plug samples are obtained using the geometric factor ratio approach assuming planar isotropy. Finally, quantitative estimates of kx and ky are calculated based on an elliptical and four circular tip seals.

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Californians, in 1933 and 1934, were psychologically ready to act against prevailing social and economic conditions. Existing economic dislocations could not continue for long without peril. It was not clear whether the revolt would be toward fascism or extreme radicalism. There was at all events a growing popular reaction against those who had political and economic control of the State, and this was especially noticeable in the southern part of the State.