Search

Since the turn of the millennium fragile, conflict-affected states (FCAS) have grown to constitute a significant issue within European discourse. The spill-over of their 'complex political emergencies' is destabilising, as epitomised by the 9/11 attacks. Bush's 'war on terrorism' speech-act during 9/11's aftermath signified a juncture, and new historical epoch within International Relations. Within this epoch the EU was confronted by violent extremism/terrorism and irregular-migration flows. Nonetheless, fragile states risked being 'aid orphans'. They can be unattractive to aid-donors due to the foreign aid dilemma whereby those states and peoples exhibiting the direst need of assistance are frequently the hardest to assist through the complexity of their needs and threats. This thesis takes a critical interest in UK government and EU-level institutional thought pertaining to aid challenges in fragile states. It focusses specifically upon the empirical case of Afghanistan (which was the facilitator of 9/11, and whose 'complex political emergency' spanned the epoch). Research is conducted from a critical-interpretivist perspective, qualitatively tracing aid ideas through institutional frame analysis (IFA), with interest in how some ideas came to be prevalent within European discourse while others did not. This entails expanding upon the genesis of ideas, their promulgation, diffusion and salience amidst frame-contestation within interactive discursive-struggle, and their subsequent adoption and adaptation (or resistance thereto). In doing so, the thesis reveals changes within institutional framing of problems and solutions, institutional path-dependency and associated cultural values. Ultimately, the thesis reveals substantive processes of Europeanization concerning transformational soft-content between the UK and EU-level, including notably how UK leadership ambitions 'uploaded' pragmatic facets of whole-of-government and stabilisation thinking.

This thesis muddies the idea of singular being, tracing the footprints of nature writer and poet Edward Thomas, from the beginning of his epically creative final four years, to the site where he died in 1917, during the Battle of Arras. It is presented as a series of engagements with landscape, writing, and poetry; affective mapping, chasing memory-prompts, bookmarks and the shock of the poetic. The journeys seek to return to an ‘open’ idea of the geographical imagination, negating a negative, reductionist form of geography; shifting the focus away from sociologically determined notions of mobility. A resident of England for all his life, but with Welsh heritage, Edward Thomas believed he belonged nowhere. His texts: little time capsules, admixtures of social commentary, environmental action, and personal musings, are archaeological exercises, presenting a complicated picture of loss, demonstrating the value of artistic imagination. Loss - and subsequent estrangement from the world - would become his poetic source. This thesis is about trying to understand the relationship between poetry - indeed all ‘land writing’ - and place. How it affects in-place, what it does in-place? To understand this relationship properly it was necessary to consider why, as humans, we write? To find out what the subjective condition of the poet, or writer, emerges out of - in order to relay the experience of meeting poetry in-place. Edward Thomas began as a nature writer and became a poet after much agonizing. This made him a useful subject (object) (neither). Furthermore he suffered a long period of introspection and had a knowledge of Freud and psychoanalysis - which he underwent in 1912. This was played out in what Edna Longley (2008) terms; ‘poetic psychodrama.’ His poems often feature a split self or switch between patient and analyst (Longley, 2008). The Other Man, is his doppelganger, who he plays himself off against: the poems are, as such, multi-voiced, counterpointed, intersubjective. Deleuze and Guattari wrote in A Thousand Plateaus (1988: 3): ‘since each of us was already several, there was already quite a crowd.’ Edward Thomas knew this all too well. From the beginning of this ambulatory homage my psyche became inextricably linked with his.

Theories with a chemical potential are difficult to treat numerically because the action is complex and therefore methods based on a probability interpretation of the weight break down. This is an issue known as the sign problem. Complex Langevin dynamics was first proposed in the early 1980s and does not rely in a probability interpretation of the weight, so it can in principle l)e applied even where there is a severe sign problem. However, the combined problems of numerical instabilities and incorrect convergence impeded such early studies. In this work, the problem of runaway trajectories is cured l)y the use of a general adaptive stepsize procedure, which can be applied to both abelian and non-abelian theories. A study of the three-dimensional XY model at non-zero chemical potential follows, in which the problem of incorrect convergence is encountered. A formal justification of complex Langevin dynamics is given, from which a set of criteria are derived which can be used to test the validity of results. These ideas are applied to the SU(3) spin model, which is found to pass them all and therefore give correct results. An improved integration algorithm, which eliminates leading order step size corrections, is outlined and shown to give improved results.

11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1 (11β-HSD1) is a key enzyme in the conversion of cortisone to the functional glucocorticoid hormone cortisol. This activation has been implicated in several human disorders, notably the metabolic syndrome where 11β-HSD1 has been identified as a novel target for potential therapeutic drugs. Crystal structures have revealed the presence of a pronounced hydrophobic surface patch lying on two helices at the C-terminus. The physiological significance of this region has been attributed to facilitating substrate access by allowing interactions with the endoplasmic reticulum membrane. In order to initiate investigations into the potential interaction between 11β-HSD1 and membrane, hydrophobic residues in the C-terminal helices of human and guinea pig 11β-HSD1 were mutated to glutamic acid. One of these mutants, F278E, displayed greatly increased yields of soluble protein on expression in E.coli together with an increase in both monodispersity and activity. No change in structure was observed when compared to the previously reported wild-type structure. Human F278E 11β-HSD1 enzyme was then used as a background to construct a hybrid dimer system to analyse novel heterozygous mutations in the HSD11B1 gene (R137C and K187N) which are thought to give rise to cortisone reductase deficiency (CRD). Expression of the heterodimers in E.coli revealed that the negative effects of both mutations can extend to the normally-active WT partner, leading to a marked suppression of 11β-HSD1 activity, which could account for the phenotype observed in patients presenting with CRD. Finally, a comparison of human WT and F278E 11β-HSD1 enzymes was used to probe the membrane association of 11β-HSD1. A combination of western blot analysis and fluorescence quenching experiments revealed that the binding of 11β-HSD1 to membrane is via both hydrophobic and electrostatic interactions.

This project, the first dissertation on foodways during the U.S.-Mexico War, reconstructs Anglo-American soldiers’ experiences with Mexican comestibles. By employing food history’s theoretical framework, this dissertation will argue that Anglo-American soldiers’ experiences with Mexican foodways reflected cultural norms within their own society. In particular, these exchanges illustrated antebellum U.S. cultural perceptions of animal life, ethnicity, gender, race, and the senses. At the same time, their observations varied on a personal level. Some troops readily embraced Mexican foodways, comparing these exotic foods to familiar Anglo-American victuals. Others, viewing Mexico’s cookery as foreign and uncivilized, disliked the country’s provender or regarded it with indifference, consuming Mexican foods solely out of desperation. Still others gradually developed an appreciation for Mexican foodways, finding edibles that satisfied their Anglo-American taste preferences. This dissertation will arrive at three conclusions. First, it will show that American soldiers’ experiences with Mexican foodways could impact their pre-existing cultural mores. Second, it will demonstrate that American soldiers, in their food-related exchanges with Mexicans, developed new ideas about the country’s people. Specifically, it will determine that American soldiers who showed openness to Mexican foodways tended to exhibit more favorable attitudes towards Mexicans. Finally, this dissertation will conclude that American soldiers’ perceptions of Mexico’s foodways improved over time, coinciding with a more enlightened opinion of the Mexican people.

A method for comparing related nozzle designs possessing widths proportional to their frequencies over a broad frequency range is presented and utilized on asymmetric multiple Fourier nozzle designs. The underlying causes of the frequency dependent performance of the nozzle designs are explored and compared. Based on this knowledge, a better understanding of the operation of the nozzles is obtained. From this understanding, nozzle designs intended to operate at higher frequencies can be built in a more effective manner.

I present RAACD, a software suite that detects misbehaving computers in large computing systems and presents information about those machines to the system administrator. I build this system using preexisting anomaly detection techniques. I evaluate my methods using simple synthesized data, real data containing coerced abnormal behavior, and real data containing naturally occurring abnormal behavior. I find that the system adequately detects abnormal behavior and significantly reduces the amount of uninteresting computer health data presented to a system administrator.

The purpose of this study was to see if trends of "Cherokee" sandstones within the study area could be mapped effectively, for petroleum exploration, if (a) sandstones are defined relative to the spontaneous potential curve only, if (b) sandstones are mapped by aggregate thickness, and if (c) sandstones are mapped by geologic software such as Geographix by Landmark Graphics Corportation. Data was used from scout cards, state completion reports, small scale electric logs and electronic data provided by IHS Energy. Thirteen stratigraphic cross-sections and thirteen structural cross-sections were constructed in grid pattern across the study area. Structural contour maps were and isopach maps of aggregate sand thickness were constructed for the "Cherokee" sandstones. Maps of the "Cherokee" sandstones could be mapped effectively for petroleum exploration using the three criteria set forth. These maps are efficient as a first-approximation for the distribution and configuration of the reservoirs. The Geographix software is adequate for providing useful documents quickly and easily. It can contour structure maps adequately but lacks the "human intuition" to contour the sandstone isopach maps reasonably.

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between teacher ethnicity and student ethnicity as it might affect teacher decisions to refer the student for suspension, expulsion, or special education. One hundred, thirty-seven elementary and secondary school teachers read a case history vignette in which student ethnicity was varied. Teachers were asked to respond to a series of questions. Responses were grouped into three subscales, measuring the respondent's tendency to refer the student for suspension, expulsion, or special education, respectively. Data were analyzed with three sets of one-way analyses of variance, one for each of the three subscales. In each set of analyses, student ethnicity was held constant, with teacher ethnicity constituting the grouping variable. Tukey post-hoc comparisons were used to detect mean differences when overall F's were significant. The analyses indicated a trend (p =.08) for white teachers to refer for suspension. Post hoc analyses revealed that white teachers were more likely to refer white students for suspension than were African-American teachers. Significant main effects were also found for the expulsion variable in Asian students (p =.02) and the special education variable in Hispanic students (p =.04). White teachers were more likely than Asian teachers to refer Asian students for expulsion, and less likely than African-American teachers to refer Hispanic students to special education. Subsidiary analyses in which teacher ethnicity was held constant with student ethnicity constituting the grouping variable revealed that African-American teachers were more likely to refer Hispanic students to special education than African-American students. Asian teachers were more likely to refer Hispanic students for expulsion than Asian students. A trend (p =.06) emerged in the tendency of white teachers to refer white students more often than Asian students for special education. Hypothesis 1, hypothesis 2, and hypothesis 3 were only partially supported. The study did not reveal bias toward African American male students. However, there appears to be some relationship among teacher ethnicity bias, student ethnicity, suspension, expulsion, and special education.

This report summarizes the results of a study on the life cycle of a member of the trematode family Acanthooolpidae, genus Stephanostomum Looss, 1899, which was carried on during the summers of 1948, 1949, 1951, and the winter of 1948-49 at the Marine Station of the College or the Pacific at Dillon Beach, California. Only one previous experimental work has been done on the life cycle of any member of this family. Martin (1939) reported the life cycle of Stephanostomum tenue (Linton) which he had obtained at Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Modifications of his technical procedures have been used in this study. It is hoped that this endeavor will further facilitate investigations in life cycle studies. The results obtained may be of economic value because the adult members of the family are parasitic in marine fishes, many of which are of commercial importance.