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Plastic scintillators are used in scenarios where gamma-ray identification is necessary and can be scaled to large sizes for use in applications such as particle physics and nuclear security. In particular, modern plastic materials with the ability to detect neutrons via Pulse Shape Discrimination (PSD) are providing exciting new avenues of research for the field. The pulse shapes for these materials have characteristic decay time constants based on the radiation interaction causing scintillation emission. The materials exhibit this capability with volumes of a few cubic centimetres, but when scaled to larger volumes, the PSD performance diminishes. By identifying the cause of this deterioration, methods can be determined and implemented to increase PSD performance. Through the course of the work reported on, methods for increasing the performance are identified. In one instance, the detector configuration should be chosen based upon the application. The accompanying PSD algorithm should be selected based on the configuration and application environment to achieve maximum performance. When designing the detector configuration, simulations should be used as a tool to help maximise performance. The simulations presented in this thesis have identified that pulse shapes change based on many aspects of the scintillation system. By modelling the light transport, it has been found that the emission direction of scintillation light alters the pulse shape decay times. The light arrives in different distributions based on the directionality. Moreover, these distributions change based on reflector type, the percentage reflectivity and location of the scintillation emission. PSD relies on differences in the decay time constants of pulse shapes. These factors outlined lead to additional time constants being convolved with the pulse shape. This creates variation in the PSD parameter calculated in the algorithms. This variation increases with the scintillator volume and is the cause of reduced performance with large-sized plastic scintillators.

While studies have explored and analyzed the concept of rest in a variety of literary works in the Hebrew Bible (HB) and the Ancient Near East (ANE), attention given to its theological significance and rhetorical function in the literary context of Genesis 1–11 has been wanting. This thesis thus examines how the concept contributes to the thematic development and rhetorical design of Genesis 1–11. It is an exegetical and theological reflection that approaches Genesis 1–11 as a unified textual unit with a coherent literary message. In this light, the primary method to explicate the significance of rest from this literary context is by means of exegesis or a “close reading” of the text. The concept of rest in the ANE signifies not mere inactivity, but rather, the ideal conditions in which another activity or state of being is engaged or experienced. Rest thus includes both elements: cessation from one activity or state of being (rest from) and the engagement of another activity or state of being (rest for). The concept of rest (expressed in a wide variety of lexical terms and associated ideas) within the HB can be broadly described as the ideal conditions (characterized by stability, security, and order) intended for blessing, holiness, and justice within the covenantal relationship with YHWH, that in turn results in the worship of YHWH and the flourishing of his created order. In this light, the provision of rest functions as a powerful soteriological symbol, in which the act of providing rest is regularly expressed as movement (or transition) from particular circumstances or situations (i.e. rest from) to an ideal state for an intended purpose (i.e. rest for). This conceptual pattern can be portrayed as: rest from (particular conditions) → rest to (ideal state) → rest for (purpose). At the same time, a state of unrest indicates the result of God's judgment for rebellion and the fracturing of his relationship with his people, which also has adverse effects on the created order. The concept of rest can be expressed with a broad semantic field of lexical terms, but is most prominently expressed with the terms, שׁבת and נוח . Although scholars have tended to isolate these terms into separate “traditions,” they share a close semantic, conceptual, and theological relationship that is expressed in several passages throughout the HB, which demonstrates the ability to utilize these terms as a coherent literary motif. This understanding is crucial to appreciate the utilization of the rest motif in Genesis 1–11, for the goal of creation is initially expressed with שׁבת but is thematically developed with נוח (along with associated terms and ideas). The rhetorical function of the concept of rest as a literary motif is understood in the light of the overarching theme of Genesis 1–11, which may be expressed as Rest–Unrest– vi Comfort. This theme effectively articulates the development of Genesis 1–11, in which the essential goodness and the intended purposes of God's created order (Rest) are affected by human rebellion that results in the destructive flood (Unrest) but leads to a new reality that humanity must face the enduring consequences of sin with the enduring hope of God's grace (Comfort). Thus, along the contours of this thematic development, the rest motif is traced: the goal of creation is expressed as the rest of God on the seventh day, in which humanity is intended to participate and to provide to the created order. The undoing of creation is expressed with concepts of unrest such as humanity's exile, wandering, wearisome toil, and oppression that culminates with the destructive flood. Finally, the renewal of creation— characterized as a mixture of rest and unrest, blessing and curse—is aptly portrayed as mere comfort (Genesis 5:29) forcing humanity to long for (and even anticipate) the fulfillment of God's intended purposes for his created order. In this light, the concept of rest not only informs the thematic development of Genesis 1–11, but also provides further clarity and greater complexity to its overall rhetorical design and theological message.

This thesis considers the potential of collaborative planning practice to effectively manage and develop sites within Northern Ireland, which are memorialised and sacralised by former conflict and tragic events of the past. It considers the extent to which collaborative methodologies are capable of dealing with the diverse discourses and interpretations that surround space and place. The research unpacks the understanding of space and place from a cultural geography perspective, alongside a consideration of theoretical planning approaches, understanding that techno-rational mechanisms, largely in operation by planning systems, are ineffective in understanding or facilitating the development of such sites which are sensitive to the past. As a result, the thesis deconstructs the key tenets of collaborative planning theory and reassembles it with these understandings of place as a conceptual mechanism to assess the development of three case study sites. All three of these sites are opportunities of strategic investment, delivered to the Northern Ireland Assembly under the Reinvestment and Reform Initiative. At present, rational mechanisms have not failed in facilitating development, despite political, economic and community optimism at the time of their transfer. The research also explores the inconsistencies and ethical challenges raised as a result of the commodification of sacralised sites for tourism or heritage products, seeking to understand the complexities of adding the 'tourist gaze' to these sites. The varied motivations and interpretations of such users are also explored, demonstrating a tourist market that is nuanced and diverse in its interests. Three case studies and a tourist survey are utilised in this research, combining both quantitative and qualitative methods underneath an interpretive epistemology to explore the 'layers of meaning' that contribute to the sacralisation of space. The thesis then provides recommendations regarding collaborative and agonistic structures which may more successfully engage with former sites of conflict, in the future.

This thesis presents an interdisciplinary cultural history of the Anglo-Saxon relationship with trees and woodland. Although the paramount importance of woodland to the Anglo-Saxon world is a known and undisputed aspect of early medieval studies, the intricacies of the relationship between the Anglo-Saxons and trees have never been fully appreciated because this subject has not, until now, been the focus of an interdisciplinary study. By exploring the representation of trees and woodland in Old English literary culture in the context of Anglo-Saxon literary-historical sources and the early medieval archaeological record, this thesis seeks to shed new light upon the terms of this complex interaction. I present arguments for the existence of a common Germanic tree creation myth, reaffirm the notion of an Anglo-Saxon world tree analogous to the Norse Yggdrasill that was subsequently replaced by the cross, and re-evaluate the role of trees in Anglo-Saxon heathenism and Christianity. I demonstrate that the paramount importance of woodland in Anglo-Saxon material culture was understood, appreciated, and is well represented in Old English literature. Furthermore, I show that attitudes towards the physical make-up of settlements were strongly defined by an enduring attachment to woodland that had its origins in the forests of first-century Germany.

Home automation is maturing with the increased deployment of networks and intelligent devices in the home. Along with new protocols and devices, new software services will emerge and work together releasing the full potential of networked consumer devices. Services may include home security, climate control or entertainment. With such extensive interworking the phenomenon known as service interaction, or feature interaction, appears. The problem occurs when services interfere with one another causing unexpected or undesirable outcomes. The main goal of this work is to detect undesired interactions between devices and services while allowing positive interactions between services and devices. If the interaction is negative, the approach should be able to handle it in an appropriate way. Being able to carry out interaction detection in the home poses certain challenges. Firstly, the devices and services are provided by a number of vendors and will be using a variety of protocols. Secondly, the configuration will not be fixed, the network will change as devices join and leave. Services may also change and adapt to user needs and to devices available at runtime. The developed approach is able to work with such challenges. Since the goal of the automated home is to make life simpler for the occupant, the approach should require minimal user intervention. With the above goals, an approach was developed which tackles the problem. Whereas previous approaches solving service interaction have focused on the service, the technique presented here concentrates on the devices and their surrounds, as some interactions occur through conflicting effects on the environment. The approach introduces the concept of environmental variables. A variable may be room temperature, movement or perhaps light. Drawing inspiration from the Operating Systems domain, locks are used to control access to the devices and environmental variables. Using this technique, undesirable interactions are avoided. The inclusion of the environment is a key element of this approach as many interactions can happen indirectly, through the environment. Since the configuration of a home’s devices and services is continually changing, developing an off-line solution is not practical. Therefore, an on-line approach in the form of an interaction manager has been developed. It is the manager’s role to detect interactions. The approach was shown to work successfuly. The manager was able to successfully detect interactions and prevent negative interactions from occurring. Interactions were detected at both device and service level. The approach is flexible: it is protocol independent, services are unaware of the manager, and the manager can cope with new devices and services joining the network. Further, there is little user intervention required for the approach to operate.

This thesis describes exploratory synthetic, structural and electrochemical studies into the molecular and electronic structures of arylamine based hole transporting materials. The principle objectives in these studies were to increase understanding of the electronic structures of the materials involved and to investigate the effect of various substitution patterns on the chemical stability and electronic structure of these materials.

Mindfulness is ongoing scrutiny of existing expectations, continuous refinement of those expectations based on new experiences, appreciation of the subtleties of context, and identification of novel aspects of context that can improve foresight and functioning. This concept of mindfulness has been studied in the domain of business and in relation to what is called High Reliability Organizations. There has not been a great deal of exploration of this concept as it relates to schools, more specifically, elementary schools. This study was an examination of the concept of mindfulness in relation to elementary schools as a tool in the service of improving teaching and learning. Eleven elementary schools in Suffolk County, New York, agreed to be part of this study. The relationship between teacher mindfulness and principal mindfulness was examined using the Mindfulness Scales. Descriptive statistics analysis was used to get a clearer picture of the relationships that exists between the variables and to examine the perceptions of the teachers and principals. Major implications of this study focused on the need to make school leaders more aware of the power and responsibility that they have to impact change within schools. It was further discussed that there is a need to support mindful educational environments by providing opportunities for teachers to share concerns and issues occurring in their buildings. Additional implications of theory and practice are discussed. [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.]

Mõssbauer spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction of five coals revealed the presence of pyrite, illite, kaolinite and Quartz, together with other minor phases. Analysis of the coal ashes indicated the formation of hematite and an Fe (3+) paramagnetic phase, the latter resulting from .the dehydroxylation of the clay minerals during ashing at 700 to 750 C. By using a combination of several physicochemical methods, different successive stages of dehydroxylation, structural consolidation, and recrystallisation of illite, montmorillonite and hectorite upon thermal treatment to 1300 C were investigated. Dehydroxylation of the clay minerals occurred between 450 and 750 C, the X-ray crysdallinity of illite and montmorillonite remaining until 800 C. Hectorite gradually recrystallises to enstatite at temperatures above 700°C. At 900 C the crystalline structure of all three clay minerals had totally collapsed. Solid state reactions occurred above 900 C producing such phases as spinel, hematite, enstatite, cristobalite and mullite. Illite and montmorillonite started to melt between 1200 and 1300°C, producing a silicate glass that contained Fe(3+) and Fe(2+) ions. Ortho-pnstatite, clino-enstatite and proto-enstatite were identified in the thermal products of hectorite, their relative proportions varying with temperature. Protoenstatite was stabilised with respect to metastable clinoenstatite upon cooling from 12000 C by the presence of exchanged transition metal cations. Solid state Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectroscopy of thermally treated transition metal exchanged hectorite indicated the levels at which paramagnetic cations could be loaded on to the clay before spectral resolution is significantly diminished.

This present study traces the origin, development, diffusion and adoption of a non-funded and regionally developed science syllabus - the JMB Environmental Science 'A' level - as a contrast to previous studies which were of national, and funded, Nuffield Science Teaching Projects. Information was collected by questionnaires from teachers and students of the 'A' level, and from interested but non-adopting teachers; by interviewing persons involved in its development and having access to their files; and from examination data supplied by the examination board. The origins of the syllabus are traced to people associated with Project Environment and arise from proposals submitted to the JMB by two teacher groups in different LEA's. It was approved by the Schools Council in April, 1975, and teaching commenced in September, 1975. Data gathered on how teachers and students came to hear of this syllabus show that dissemination of information was mainly through JMB publications and the activities of two LEA advisers. Characteristics of implementing, adopting and nonadopting establishments and their LEA's were collected. While many of the schools implementing and adopting Environmental Science, but not those rejecting it, had a tradition of CSE and 'O' level in Environmental Science, many of the establishments in each of the three categories were colleges of further education in which there was no such tradition. Reasons offered by teachers for nonadoption show their decisions to be justified in part by their questioning the status of the Environmental Science syllabus with respect to the opportunities available for its students after 'A' level and in part on the basis of some degree of misinformation. A number of factors affecting the continuance of the 'A' level in establishments were identified, with the subject having a "Rural Science image" frequently being associated with discontinuance. While the findings about the diffusion of this regionally developed ’A' level contrast with those of earlier studies, the findings on the patterns of adoption and the rates of uptake are broadly similar to those of national projects.

Industrial innovation, particularly that which involves technological change, has been a significant factor in the growth of advanced economics as well as being a major objective for market success for many individual companies. In the first chapter these effects of innovation are assessed and existing knowledge about the process of innovation is reviewed. The purpose of this research is explained in Chapter 2. as seeking to identify the salient characteristics of firms which are highly innovative, as opposed to later- innovating companies. Differences which might be expected are hypothesised, on the basis of previous, related studies in a variety of academic disciplines, in the Third Chapter. A methodology for testing these hypotheses is developed in Chapter 4. and the basis and conduct of the empirical research is outlined. Innovation in the two industries from which a selective sample of early and late innovating firms was drawn is examined in the following Chapter before presenting an extensive comparison and analysis of the results of the Case Studies (which are included in the Appendices) in Chapter 6. Finally, the implications of this new data for both the theory and practice off innovation are discussed in Chapter 7.

Using an asymptotic series approach, a thick shell theory is proposed for doubly curved sheIls with variable thickness. This theory includes the effects of transverse shear stresses and rotatory inertia. The displacement functions are designed to give non-zero transverse shear stresses internal to the shell, which satisfy the stress-free boundary conditions on the upper and lower surface. Use of the stress-free conditions makes the displacement functions, which vary through the thickness of the shell, dependent only on the middle surface displacements. This theory is applied to the twisted plate. A similar approach is applied to the cylindrical shell, but the effects of transverse normal stress are also included. The theory is applied to the problem of free vibrations of shells clamped along one edge with the other three edges free. The results obtained are compared with practical and theoretical results of other researchers, and with those obtained from thin shell theory. The twisted plate results show the answers that are expected from a thick shell theory, in that it predicts lower frequencies than thin shell theory for modes in which the wavelength/ thickness ratio is less than ten. The results for the cylindrical shell show that the inclusion of transverse normal stress to the order assumed is not warranted. The numerical techniques used for the solution of the free vibration problem are based on variational methods in which the Hamiltonian for the shell is minimised, subject to the constraints of the displacement boundary conditions.

Magnetic resonance force microscopy (MRFM) is an emergent technology that has the potential for three-dimensional, non-destructive, and in-situ imaging of biological molecules with atomic resolution. Experiments at IBM have shown that MRFM is capable of detecting and localizing individual electron spins associated with subsurface atomic defects in silicon dioxide. In principle, detection of single nuclear spins is possible as well. MRFM detects the spins by measuring the small spin-induced forces on a micromachined cantilever. Detection of a single electron spin was studied in additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN). Four models of the single spin-cantilever interaction were proposed. We investigated three of these models. A heuristic argument was used to formulate a detector for the continuous-time classical model. Approximate forms of the optimal likelihood ratio test (LRT) for the discrete-time (DT) random telegraph and DT random walk models were derived which hold under certain conditions. It was shown that, under low signal to noise ratio (SNR), the LRT for a DT finite state Markov process in AWGN reduces to the matched filter statistic with the one-step minimum mean-squared error predictor used in place of the known signal values. The next challenge for MRFM is to demonstrate the technology's applicability as an imaging modality with advantages over those already in existence. We therefore considered the problem of image reconstruction in the MRFM setting, which is reconstructing sparse images from noisy projections. The goal here is to perform sparse reconstruction with the tuning parameters selected in a data-driven fashion. The empirical Bayes framework was investigated, and several sparse image reconstruction methods were proposed that are more scalable and have lower computational complexity than sparse Bayesian learning (SBL). In a simulation study, the proposed methods demonstrate benefits over SBL, Landweber, and the projected Landweber method. Under low SNR, a MAP-based solution produced low l1 and l2 reconstruction error. We found that the maximum penalized likelihood estimator using a l1 norm penalty and with its regularization parameter estimated by minimizing Stein's unbiased risk estimate produced consistently good results across a wide range of SNRs.

Today's business climate encourages firms to not just compete on product or service attributes, but also on their ability to differentiate themselves from other firms. Supply chains provide firms this point of differentiation ensuring firms better competitive positioning as a result of being able to leverage themselves on the strengths of the supply chain, not just on the individual strengths of the firm. However, to maintain an effective role as a participant in a supply chain, firms must be able to develop and maintain cooperative relationships with other firms. In order to develop these relationships, firms need to be able to distinguish between different levels of relationship and be able to understand which relationships are worth developing further and which ones are not. Although various literatures confirm the importance of effective inter-firm relationships, less is known of how firms determine which relationships are worth developing for both buyers and sellers. This research proposes and investigates a theory of how buyers and selIers value cooperative business relationships across a range of relationships types. The model was tested using empirical data gathered from the food manufacturing and food distributor industries. Face-to-face interviews were used to gather the data, employing a variety of measurement techniques. Appropriate measurement scales were developed to test the research model. Hypotheses were tested with discriminate analyses and one-way ANOVA's. Limitations of the project were presented and discussed. Twenty-two of the twenty six hypotheses were supported by the analysis. Several of the hypotheses point towards potential improvement in how businesses manage relationships. The results indicate differences between buyers and sellers with regard to relationships. All four relationship levels were confirmed by the buyer, however only three out of the four were confirmed for the seller. Whilst this research makes several unique contributions to theory, including the development of new relational and value continuums, further research opportunities remain. These include examining the impact of relationship values at the same level of relationship in dyadic context, and further testing of the model in other non-related industries.

Diabetes mellitus is a group of metabolic diseases characterized in disordered blood glucose levels with many altered genes, proteins and metabolites. The chronic hyperglycemia in diabetes damages organ systems and makes the diabetic patients vulnerable to one or more complications. The onset of diabetes and complications in diabetes are estimated to occur 5 to 10 years before the clinical diagnosis. The early diagnosis of diabetes prevents the damage and pathological progress of diabetes and complications in diabetes. The central hypothesis of this study was that the protein N-glycosylation pathway in diabetes might be influenced by elevated hexosamine flux in diabetes elevating sugar nucleotide levels. This, in turn, might affect the N-glycan branching pathway and result in detectable changes in plasma glycoprotein glycoforms. The aim of the study was to discover potential glyco-biomarkers for diabetes and complication in diabetes. Mass spectrometry based glycomic quantification was performed to look for alterations in N-glycan profiles between normal and diabetic plasma samples. Fucosylated N-glycans and intersected N-glycans were found to be up-regulated in diabetes with statistical significance. The elevated fucosylation in diabetes was verified at the glycosylation site level by quantitative Aleuria aurantia lectin (AAL) pull-down experiments. Fucosylated fetuin-A and α-1-acid glycoprotein were selected as candidate glyco-biomarkers. A lectin ELISA using F(abʹ)2 fragments as capture antibody was developed to validate the fucosylation changes by screening 20 normal and 20 diabetic patient plasma samples. We conclude that the fucosylation level of fetuin-A is a potential glyco-biomarker for diabetes. Additional work is necessary to see whether this glyco-biomarker correlates with any pathological complications of diabetes.

The parasite Trypanosoma brucei is the causative agent of Human African trypanosomiasis and Nagana in cattle and millions of people in sub-Saharan Africa are at risk for both health and economic issues since current drugs are inadequate. N-linked glycosylation in Trypanosoma bruceidiffers from other eukaryotes and the parasite has several essential glycoproteins.Thus, the study of oligosaccharyltransferase activities is interesting for potential future drug discoveries. To assess whether TbSTT3A is essential in vitro(i.e. in culture), it was replaced by a drug resistance gene in the presence of a tetracycline inducible TbSTT3A ectopic copy. Although both endogenous TbSTT3A genes were replaced in the TbSTT3 locus, the TbSTT3A function was shown to be retained. These results might suggest that the cells have rearranged their genome during TbSTT3A replacement, which would imply that the tetracycline-inducible ectopic copy could not complement the loss of the endogenous TbSTT3A gene, suggesting that it is essential for cell viability in vitro. Additionally, in situ tagging of TbSTT3A enabled us to search for potential binding partners by performing blue native gel electrophoresis and immunoprecipitation using a Stable Isotope Labelling of Amino acids in Cell culture (SILAC) methodology. The results, further strengthened by co-immunoprecipitation, suggested that TbSTT3A forms a large multimeric complex with TbSTT3B in Trypanosoma brucei. To our knowledge, this is the first time two different STT3 enzymes have been reported to associate in an OST complex.

Contrasting physiological requirements for T. brucei survival between procyclic (vector) and bloodstream (mammal) forms necessitate different molecular processes and therefore changes in protein expression. Transcriptional regulation is unusual in T. brucei because the arrangement of genes is polycistronic; however, genes which are transcribed together are subsequently cleaved into separate mRNAs by trans-splicing and are individually regulated. During the process of trans-splicing, a 39-nucleotide splice-leader RNA is added to the 5´ end of mRNA. In this study, gene regulation in trypanosomes will be examined in the context of the 7-methylguanosine cap attached to the 5´ end of the splice-leader. Interestingly, in addition to the capping enzymes identified in other eukaryotes, trypanosomatids have an additional guanylyltransferase and methyltransferase in the form of a bifunctional enzyme (TbCGM1). TbCGM1 was found to be essential in bloodstream form T. brucei, although the purpose of this bifunctional capping enzyme remains unclear. Null mutants of a related enzyme, monomeric methyltransferase TbCMT1, did not show an effect on cell viability in culture, however, the enzyme proved to be important for virulence in vivo. Complementary to the study of T. brucei capping enzymes, we worked to develop a method to allow structural analysis of the 5´mRNA cap by mass spectrometry. Following pre-mRNA processing, regulation of the mature mRNAs is a tightly controlled cellular process. While multiple stage-specific transcripts have been identified, previous studies using RNA-seq found that the changes in overall transcript level do not necessarily reflect the abundance of the corresponding proteins. We hypothesized that in addition to mRNA stability, mRNA recruitment to ribosomes may play a significant role in the regulation of gene expression in T. brucei. To approach this question, we performed RNA-seq of total, subpolysomal, and polysomal mRNA. This transcriptomic data was then correlated with published proteomic studies to obtain a global picture of the relative translation efficiencies and their relationship to steady-state protein levels between bloodstream and procyclic form T. brucei.