Search

The 21 papers presented in this thesis are representative of the candidate's research output over a 27-year period in the field s of veterinary and forensic entomology and include some of his most significant contributions from >150 post-doctoral peer-reviewed publications. They include scholarly, synoptic reviews and novel experimental research in a wide variety of areas, ranging from taxonomy and systematics to ecology, physiolog y, behaviour and control techniques and show how these areas impact and interact with the overarching theme of the thesis, the association of blow flies and flesh flies with living and dead vertebrate tissues. Studies of flies on living vertebrate tissues are linked to the disease condition known as myiasis, in the field of veterinary entomology, while studies of flies on dead tissues relate to the field of forensic entomology, the interpretation of insect evidence in legal investigations. The work presented in the thesis has helped to significantly advance veterinary and forensic entomology by:- • Providing the necessary knowledge base for the advancement of research on myiasis, especially traumatic myiasis a hitherto neglected tropical disease, and the most important obligate myiasis -causing species, thereby improving our ability to respond to future range expansions of these economically important pests in a timely manner. • Improving techniques for trapping myiasis-causing flies for monitoring and control. • Improving techniques for prophylactic treatment of sheep/goat flocks against agents of traumatic myiasis. • Improving our understanding of the genetic make-up of geographically dispersed populations of the two most important agents of traumatic myiasis in the Old World, Chrysomya bezziana and Wohlfahrtia magnifica. • Providing protocols and raising standards for the application of forensic entomology. • Improving methods for collection, preservation, identification and aging of fly samples in forensic entomology. • Introducing the use of micro-computed tomography techniques to provide novel qualitative and quantitative information on the intra- puparial development of blow flies for use in forensic entomology and studies of metamorphosis. The candidate has developed w orld-class expertise in myiasis and forensic entomology and the application of both fields to matters of societal importance, pest control and the judicial system. The impact of the published works is demonstrated by:- • The significant and increasing citation levels over the period considered. • The stimulation of studies by other researchers globally in the two fields. • The inclusion of the knowledge and techniques into standard international protocols and manuals on myiasis and forensic entomology. The paper s presented here in support of this submission to the Doctor of Science Degree provide evidence of a sustained and significant contribution by the candidate to the fields of veterinary and forensic entomology, with impact at an international level.

The atmospheres of Chemically Peculiar A stars provide a fascinating area of research on many levels: their slow rotation, strong magnetic fields and lack of turbulent convection give rise to stratification of different ionic species of the same element through a process of radiative levitation. In particular, this phenomenon has already been seen in the abundance disequilibria of Iron, and rare earth elements such as Neodymium (Nd) and Praseodymium (Pr). The research work described in this thesis involves the development of a semi-automated set of routines coded in the programming language IDL to measure equivalent widths of selected Fe lines, and the application of these routines to perform an abundance survey of Fe i and Fe ii species on the high-resolution spectra of approximately 350 Ap stars collected between 2007 and 2010 on the FEROS Echelle spectrograph housed at the 2.2–m telescope at European Southern Observatory at La Silla, Chile. The results show strong correlations with effective temperature as a consequence of atmospheric strat- ification. The approach is then extended to the ionic pairs of rare earth species Pr ii / Priii and Ndii / Ndiii to investigate whether these abundance disequilibria in the rapidly oscillating Ap stars are a consequence of the relatively cool temperatures of those stars, or rather a signature of pulsation. We believe that the onset of this disequilibrium phenomenon observed in the cooler Ap stars is more likely to be a temperature effect, rather than a signature of pulsation.

Aiming to make an intervention in critical theory, film-philosophy and British Cinema scholarship, this thesis investigates what a marriage of Lacanian and Badiouian theories of the subject can bring to the study of the radical British feature film of 1968: films which in differing ways represent the political and intellectual debates current in the culture. The question of what can be learnt through an analysis situated within theories of the subject has not been addressed within British Cinema studies. Psychoanalytic film theory in its previous incarnations utilised a section of Lacan's thought in order to focus on the ways in which the spectator was placed into a subject position by the unseen workings of the apparatus. Furthermore, the limited amount of Badiouian film scholarship is concerned with whether films can be thought philosophically. A fuller use of Lacan with Badiou as a hermeneutic model to address films from a specific period and context creates a new interpretive model on the porous boundary between critical theory and film-philosophy. This thesis utilises Lacan's categories of the Imaginary, Symbolic and, predominantly, the Real alongside the Badiouian Event to interrogate the ways in which Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment (Karel Reisz, 1966), Privilege (Peter Watkins, 1967), Herostratus (Don Levy, 1967), Performance (Donald Cammell & Nicolas Roeg, 1970) and if ... (Lindsay Anderson, 1968) represent the radical subject of 1968, in order to argue for the efficacy of ideological critique, to think politically about cinema, and advocate the continuing resonance of the period in contemporary praxis.

A broad introduction, with new revised Latin text, full editorial notes and bibliography. A translation will be published with the text.