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The survival rate of previously incurable diseases in the modern era is staggering due to the rapid advancement of pharmaceutical chemistry and our understanding of the human body. However, one limitation which is still prevalent is the ability to correctly diagnose the disease in its early stages. The clear correlation between successful medical treatments and early disease diagnosis has led to numerous analytical methods being developed. Magnetic resonance imaging, MRI, has come to the fore in this field due to it being a versatile high-resolution non-invasive technique with no radiation exposure to the patient required. Considerable focus is now being applied to the development of contrast agents that can be administered to further aid diagnosis. This research has led to gadolinium-based contrast agents, GBCAs. However, the indiscriminate interactions of previous clinically used GBCAs and the emergence of gadolinium deposits in the tissues of patients after multiple scans has resulted in increased demand for MRI contrast agents with higher specificity and lower dosages. Mesoporous silica nanoparticles, MSNs, have been shown to excel in this field due to its high surface area, facile functionalisation, and low toxicity. The application of MSNs as an MRI contrast agent could therefore result in earlier diagnosis of patients and consequently less global deaths from treatable diseases (Chapter 1). So, the optimisation of the MSN structure to be utilised as a GBCA is performed by variation of the pore diameter and gadolinium ion chelate location to obtain the highest amount of contrast with the minimum dosage of gadolinium (Chapter 3). Following this investigation, the possibilities of stimuli interactive GBCAs are pursued by the formation of a polymer/MSN hybrid system which can change its properties depending on the temperature of the surrounding environment. This response is explored further by observing the tuneability of the interaction by varying the grafting density and length of the MSN bound polymer (Chapter 4). Finally, polymer/MSNs hybrid systems are investigated to allow for specific binding interactions to occur between the system and colorectal cancer cells. This begins with research into how to remove indiscriminate interactions between GBCAs and neighbouring cells. Then, having achieved this, a lectin able to differentiate between healthy and cancerous rectal cells was chemically attached to the MSN bound polymer and shown to highlight colorectal cancer cells by retention of their specific intermolecular interactions. The non-toxicity of the polymer/MSN system was confirmed in-vitro (Chapter 5).

This thesis attempts to identify what the barriers to building a trusted police service in China and India are through answering the questions: How has economic modernisation impacted upon policing? To what extent are the two police forces trusted by its citizens? Do the police carry out their duties in a fair and unbiased fashion? What do police corruption/malpractices look like and why does it persist? And what are the influencing factors in decision-making at the moments-of-truth? There is very limited research into the Chinese Police generally and even less on factors affecting organisational culture, practices, and decision making. There is no comparative study between the Chinese and Indian Police. This thesis found that the Chinese Police are held in higher esteem than the Indian Police by their respective citizenry. Both the Chinese and Indian police use stereotypes and are biased against certain section of society in the way they carry out their duties and that corruption and malpractices are tolerated and engrained in its culture but is subtler in China than in India. However, one surprised finding is that India is more at risk of the rule by man than China, even though India is said to be the world's largest democracy grounded on the principles of the rule of law.

To further understand the biological interactions that govern our daily lives it is essential to develop new techniques for the robust tethering of immobilized bio-molecules to substrates for applications such as bio-mimicry, diagnostics, and durability as well as further self assembly. Current technologies devised for this purpose include the functionalization and lithography of Langmuir-Blodgett films, self-assembled monolayers and spin-coated layers. Whilst these methods provide suitable surfaces, they suffer from being substrate dependent and inappropriate for complex 3D-geometries, thus prohibiting their application to a wide range of materials. Pulsed plasma polymerised films can overcome this hurdle and are utilised in this thesis to present amine, epoxide, thiol and protein resistant Interfaces. For instance, genomic an-ays have been created via di-sulfide bridge formation between DNA and thiol groups. Whilst proteomic arrays have been fabricated either via electrostatic immobilization of proteins to charged regions surrounded by a protein resistant background, or alternately, covalent attachment to epoxide surface groups. Similarly, glycomic arrays have been produced by the covalent attachment of D-maltose and p-D-galacto-methanethiosulfonate to amine and thiol surface groups respectively. Furthermore, it has been shown that sequential plasmachemical nanolayering can provide a passivated upper layer and a reactive underlayer which can be subsequently exposed via mechanical removal of the top layer, to yield reactive pixels on the micron and nano-scale. Finally, the substrate independent nature of plasma polymers has been utilised for the coating of compact disc surfaces with reactive nanolayers. Subsequent protein immobilization has been accomplished via Inkjet printing and has shown promise for potential use as in point-of-care diagnostics.