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The inadequacy of community-based services for frail older people in the 1970s pointed to the need for providing co-ordinated care responsive to multiple needs. The fully evaluated Kent Community Care Project (KCCP), a care management experiment which pioneered this new approach, successfully maintained users for longer at home with enhanced quality of life at no additional cost. While the KCCP benefited from intensive support from the evaluation team, there was a need to investigate whether schemes set up in other areas could be successful when the promotion of good practice was limited to that provided by the agency. The schemes evaluated in this study were early replications of the KCCP in two contrasting parts of Kent. County-wide mechanisms were set up to encourage good practice, such as regular meetings of field staff and managers on policy and practice issues, a working group to develop procedures, peer review and monitoring and feedback. A full cost-effectiveness analysis was undertaken on each of the two schemes using a quasi-experimental design with before/after evaluation interviews on matched experimental and control groups over a one year period which was costed. Both schemes successfully maintained users at home for significantly longer, and achieved significant improvements in quality of life, quality of care and health status, though less striking than in the KCCP, again at no additional cost. However, they differed from the KCCP in causing a considerable shift in expenditure from health services to social services, with a consequent striking reduction in hospital bed-blocking as well as care home use. Cost-outcomes analyses suggested that budget caps were too generous for resources to be deployed most efficiently. Because this study took place during the early 1980s, it has been treated largely in its historical context. Nevertheless, the investigation also suggests some important ways in which the current practice of post-reform care management might be improved.

This project reports a study of inertial cavitation and its associated effects. By employing a global approach involving both chemistry and acoustics a reproducible ultrasonic reactor has been produced and characterised. hiitially, the sound field generated in the cylindrical ultrasonic reactor is characterised both theoretically and experimentally. The sound field is considered with a variable operating frequency. An acoustic model is developed to predict the spatial distribution of acoustic pressure, which is compared with experimental measurements of the spatial characteristics of luminescent emission from the cell. A sound speed (averaged in space and time) within the cavitation environment in the range of 868-1063 m s⁻¹ was calculated for the first time. The implications for chemical activity within ultrasonic cells of this nature are discussed. Chemical activity within the acoustically characterised model ultrasonic reactor is then investigated. A novel electrochemical technique is presented for the detection of radicals (OH* and H*) produced as the result of cavitation induced by ultrasound. A study of four example reactions is reported; evidence for OH* formation is found through the Weissler reaction, the Fricke reaction and the detection of H₂O₂; evidence for the production of H* is obtained by a Cu⁺²/Cu⁺ system. In all cases, redox active materials trap the oxidative or reductive radicals. Electrochemical detection within a flow cell is then used to sense redox active products of the reactions between a chosen trapping agent and radicals produced within an ultrasonically irradiated solution. The detectors are seen to be sensitive and to work reproducibly within an acoustically characterised cavitation environment. The electrochemical sensors were then used to investigate the frequency dependence of the production of radicals in the model ultrasonic reactor. Radical production is shown to be highly frequency dependant in the range of 20 kHz to 160 kHz ultrasound. However, the dominant frequency dependence is not of the chemistry per se, but is a function of the ability of the acoustic reactor to provide sufficient inertial cavitation. MBS(C)L appears to predict at which frequency chemical activity should be expected to be most efficient within a particular cell. The variation of the rate of these reactions is correlated to MBS(C)L as a frinction of the frequency with a resolution of 1 kHz. The results obtained are discussed with reference to the acoustics, in particular to the modal nature of the cell employed. The electrochemical radical sensors were then tested in a "standard" Branson ultrasonic bath (40 kHz) with a "standard liquid", designed by NPL (National Physics Laboratory). This was part of an attempt to develop a reference sensor for cavitation. Three sensors were successfully tested including the Weissler reaction, multi bubble sonoluminescence (MBSL) and multi bubble sonochemiluminescence (MBSCL). The results achieved from the study including those obtained by the various partners are critically analysed. Finally an electrochemical, photographic and spectrophotometric study of single bubble sonoluminescence (SBSL) is preformed to probe the differences between MBSL and SBSL. The first electrochemical evidence for the production of radicals as a result of SBSL is reported using the electrochemical Weissler reaction.

We investigate the convergence of the derivative expansion of the exact renormalisation group, by using it to compute the β function of scalar λϕ⁴ theory. We show that the derivative expansion of the Polchinski flow equation converges at one loop for certain fast falling smooth cutoffs. The derivative expansion of the Legendre flow equation trivially converges at one loop, but also at two loops: slowly with sharp cut-off (as a momentum-scale expansion), and rapidly in the case of a smooth exponential cutoff. Finally, we show that the two loop contributions to certain higher derivative operators (not involved in β) have divergent momentum-scale expansions for sharp cutoff, but the smooth exponential cutoff gives convergent derivative expansions for all such operators with any number of derivatives. In the latter part of the thesis, we address the problems of applying the exact renormalisation group to gauge theories. A regularisation scheme utilising higher covariant derivatives and the spontaneous symmetry breaking of the gauge supergroup SU(N|N) is introduced and it is demonstrated to be finite to all orders of perturbation theory.

This thesis sets out to establish the fact that Frederic Manning is a writer whose work, hitherto regarded as too limited in its scope, its quantity and its quality to be exceptional, is actually diverse, productive and highly articulate, therefore justifying him a notable places in literature. The reasons given for that previous estimate are considered, and countered. The study commences with an introductory chapter briefly covering the main events in his life, particularly in relation to his literary development. Then follow three chapters which discuss his writing, genre by genre - his poetry, minor prose works, and major prose works. In particular the chapter on his minor prose works covers ground not previusly examined in such detail, being devoted to his reviews and his other critical writing, ranging through classical literature, and all eras of English literature, as well as through his critiques of noteworthy writers in French and Italian literature. In this genre Manning applies his knowledge, drawn from his outstanding breadth and depth of reading, to his theoretical appreciation of literature, while generally applying its practical value throughout his own creative writing. Previous analysts have been satisfied to deposit Manning among late Victorian adherents to Arnoldian standards, who yet somehow managed to write The Middle Parts of Fortune, seen by them as an aberration from the norm. This study makes the case for his progression from the Pre-Raphaelites and the Aesthetes/Decadents of the nineteenth century, to a Modernist trend in him, traced from the originality he perceived in William Morris, Thomas Hardy, J.M. Synge, Henri Bergson’s philosophy, and in his fascination with twentieth century developments in dramatic construction. The conclusion reached is that, based on the diversity of material and consistent quality of Frederic Manning’s canon, his reputation as a writer will increase as further research comes to be devoted to his many-faceted life and works.

The central thesis defended here is that we can have truth and objectivity in accounting. We do not contend that this potential is presently realized: On the contrary, we argue that certain contradictions immanent to capitalism give rise in late modernity to crisis tendencies in financial accounting as a way of knowing - epistemological crisis. We do contend that accounting's tendencies to epistemological crises can, at least in theory, be overcome. We begin to defend this view by considering accounting as an essentially descriptive activity. The account given by the philosopher Donald Davidson of the very possibility of knowledge is used to justify the view that intersubjectivity is all the foundation we need, or can have, for objectivity, and to defend out claim that we can have accounting knowledge, that is, true accounts/descriptions of an objective and intersubjectively accessible public world. The defence here is against those theorists, including those inspired by certain strands of the phenomenological, (post)structuralist and hermeneutic traditions, who would deny the possibility of any such objectivity in accounting. Using an analysis of the history and debate surrounding the issue of accounting for deferred tax in the United Kingdom (UK), we endeavour to locate accounting in terms of the dichotomy the philosopher Bernard Williams draws between science and ethics. We find that the descriptive and normative are inextricably entangled in accounting concepts in much the same way as they are entangled in thick ethical concepts such as 'chastity' or 'courage'. We recognise that the descriptive aspect of accounting can not be neatly distinguished from the normative and dealt with separately. Furthermore, following Williams, we argue that difficulties associated with the objective validation of the normative dimension of thick accounting concepts renders knowledge held under them vulnerable to destruction by reflection.

This thesis examines the role played by the United Nations in the implementation of the August 1962 New York Agreement. The Agreement ended a thirteen year dispute between the Netherlands and Indonesia concerning the future of West New Guinea and its Papuan inhabitants (or Irianese as they were known by Indonesia). Under the terms of the Agreement, the territory's administration was transferred to a temporary UN authority (UNTEA) which remained from 1 October 1962 until 1 May 1963. Following this, control of West New Guinea was handed over to Indonesia which renamed it West Irian (later Irian Jaya, now Papua). In 1968, a small UN team returned, led by Fernando Ortiz Sanz, the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative for West Irian (UNRWI). The team's responsibility was to "advise, assist and participate" in Indonesian preparations for an act of Papuan self-determination planned for 1969. This 'Act of Free Choice' (or Pepera as it was known by Indonesia), and the UN's involvement, were central to the Agreement and its fulfillment. Following the Introduction and a short chapter on the background to the dispute, chapters two to four look at the UNTEA administration. Chapter five examines briefly the first years of Indonesian rule in West Irian between 1963 and 1967. The arrival of the UN team in 1968 and Ortiz Sanz's first two tours of the territory are discussed in Chapters Six and Seven. Preparations for the Act in 1969, including the selection of the 1022 Papuan representatives who took part in it, are examined in Chapters Eight and Nine. Chapter Ten looks at the conduct of the Act itself and international reaction culminating in the UNGA vote of November 1969. The thesis ends with a conclusion in Chapter Eleven.

This thesis is concerned with the development and application of a new method of performing multiple scattering calculations of X-ray Photoelectron Diffraction (XPD) from periodic surfaces. The technique is based on the dynamical theory of Reflection High Energy Electron Diffraction (RHEED), allowing more efficient access to high photoelectron energies (1000eV and above) than is available using present calculational schemes. Convergence tests have been performed to identify the limitations of the present method. The method is applied to two overlayer systems for which XPD experimental data is available, c(2 x 2)S and c(2 x 2)O on Ni(001). For the c(2 x 2)S system, which is relatively well understood and therefore a good test system, data at four emission (take-off) angles is fitted, giving optimum agreement with the S atoms occupying hollow sites at a vertical adsorption height of between 1.30A and 1.35A. The agreement is improved slightly for the lowest two take-off angles by an outward relaxation in the top Ni-Ni layer spacing. Comparison is made with single scattering calculations for the system and the present method shown to be far superior at the lowest take-off angle. This clearly demonstrates the importance of multiple scattering at grazing emission angles. For the c(2 x 2)O system, data at two take-off angles is fitted giving optimum agreement with the O atoms in hollow sites at an adsorption height of 0.75A. By allowing a small outward relaxation in the top Ni-Ni layer spacing, an almost equally good fit to the data is found at an adsorption height of 0.80A. An offcentre bonding site which has been proposed, in which the O atoms are displaced from their hollow sites by 0.3A in the [110] direction has been considered and ruled out.