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In the latter half of the 20th Century there has been a policy of mass psychiatric asylum closure in the United Kingdom, North America, Australasia and much of Western Europe. In the aftermath of this psychiatric asylum sites have experienced five key 'fates': 'Retention' - those asylum sites which have been retained within the health care profession; 'Residential' - those sites that have been converted into housing; 'Redevelopment' - those sites which have been reused in a separate institutional capacity; 'Dereliction' those sites that have been abandoned; and 'Demolition' - those sites that have been destroyed. In this thesis the focus has been on the former psychiatric asylum sites which have been retained within the National Health Service in England and Wales. Only approximately 12 former county psychiatric asylum sites have had retention as their main 'fate'. After uncovering the extent of psychiatric asylum retention, this thesis looked to answer two key questions: how have they been retained?; and what has led to their retention? This thesis utilised a wide variety of qualitative research methods performed at four case study sites: Cefn Coed Hospital; Kingsway Hospital; St Nicholas' Hospital; and St James' Hospital. The key methods used in this thesis were: semi-structured interviews; multi-sensory autoethnography; archival research; and content analysis. The semi-structured interviews were performed as face-to-face interviews and were with a variety of participants including MPs, AMs, local councillors and NHS staff amongst others. This thesis found was that there are three key forms of retention: those former psychiatric asylum sites which have been retained for mental health care purposes; those which have been retained for National Health Service administrative purposes; and those which have been retained for both of the previous two purposes. It was found that the sites have been retained largely due to inertia; and that it would take only an imbalance in the multitude of factors affecting psychiatric asylum retention for this situation of inertia to be broken and the sites to be closed. This inertia was caused by a variety of factors, which included: NHS Estates and planning policy; stigma (or lack thereof); and conservational factors. What we see from this is that it makes financial sense to continue to utilise former psychiatric asylum sites. One of the key hurdles to this in the past has been the stigma surrounding the spaces; however this thesis has found that these sites are accepted by the communities in which they stand. In addition to these, various factors, especially those relating to conservation, have made the sale of such sites by the National Health Service unappealing to buyers, with restrictions on development at the sites. This thesis shows that former psychiatric asylum sites which have been retained within the National Health Service can function well if they are maintained and if they are utilised appropriately. However this is not always possible, as some sites are restricted in their development options by aspects of heritage management. It also shows how policy in relation into mental health care can be protracted in its enactment; with some policies taking decades to take shape.

The development of new semiconducting conjugated polymers has been an important aspect of plastic electronics research since the early days of the field, as it allows the optoelectronic properties to be tuned for various applications. Dithienometalloles, which consist of a 2,2'-bithiophene fused with a bridging heteroatom, have been an important class of monomers for some time. The heteroatom serves an important role, both in holding the bithiophene unit rigidly coplanar and also in tuning the energetics of the system. In addition, these moieties often possess alkyl chains located on the bridging heteroatom that serve to confer solubility and processability to the final polymers. In this thesis we report the synthesis and properties of a number of dithienometallolecontaining polymers, in which the necessary solubilising groups have been moved from the bridging heteroatom to the adjacent thiophene backbone of the dithienometallole. This enabled the preparation of novel, soluble arsole-containing conjugated polymers. These dithienoarsole containing materials were used in both organic field effect transistors and organic photovoltaic devices, showing promising performances as well as significantly improved air stability over their phosphorus-containing analogues. The effect of changing the bridging heteroatom in dithienometalloles was also studied by comparing the optoelectronic properties and device performances of polymers with carbonyl, silicon, germanium, and nitrogen bridging groups. Finally, dithienopyrrole-based sensors were developed that showed substantial colour changes on exposure to basic solutions, as well as potential for use as readily dopable materials for electronic applications.

Tendons are robust structures, made of cellular and extracellular components, that transmit force efficiently between muscle and bone that is essential for permitting strength and mobility in vertebrates. Although the tendon is mainly comprised of extracellular matrix, resident tendon cells – tenoblasts and tenocytes – have been established as responsible for constructing the fibrotic structure of the tendon during development. Various forms of tendinopathy impact a broad demographic range, yet effective treatment modalities remain rather limited due to our lack of understanding of the molecular mechanisms that drive tendon healing, which has made this a critical area of tendon research. Recently, the presence of a stem cell/progenitor-like tendon cell population within the tendon was identified, implicating their potential role in tendon regeneration and providing course for further research on this novel tendon cell population (Bi et al., 2007) . Several genetic markers, such as Scleraxis (Scx), collagen type I (Col I) and Mohawk (Mkx), have been shown to trace the tendon cell lineage (Edom‐Vovard & Duprez, 2004; Ito et al., 2010; Schweitzer et al., 2001). However, they do not provide specificity towards these tendon-derived stem cell/progenitor cells (TSPCs), nor do they give much insight into the interactions between the resident cells that govern tendon biology. Through the use of an Axin2 marker, previous stem cell research has suggested the Wnt/beta-Catenin signaling pathway to be involved in regulating the self-renewing capacity of these cells within the intestine, liver, epidermis and brain (Bowman, van Amerongen, Palmer, & Nusse, 2013; Lim et al., 2013; Wang, Zhao, Fish, Logan, & Nusse, 2015). Therefore, this study aims to apply the Axin2 marker to the previously identified TSPC population to illustrate the heterogeneity of these cells and implicate that their proliferative potential is controlled through Wnt/beta-Catenin signaling. By using an Axin2-CreERt2;Rosa-LSLTdTomato mouse model in an injured state, due to the disruption of the tendon matrix during TSPC isolation, we have demonstrated through RT-qPCR analysis that there are differences in gene expression between Axin2+/- cells, particularly in Mkx and Col II. Furthermore, we utilized cell counting and FACS analysis to show that the Axin2+ cells have a greater propensity to proliferate than Axin2- cells. Our findings suggest that the Wnt/beta-Catenin pathway is involved in regulating tendon cell fate and may be an underlying mechanism behind tendon repair.

Since Barack Obama's presidential campaign of 2008, media outlets have changed how race is covered and framed during political campaigns. In the so-called "post-racial" era of American politics when race is supposed to matter less, we are still very much attuned to stories that are framed by racial conflict. When the media wraps a "racial mode of interpretation" around a conflict between two candidates, there are potential electoral penalties involved for either a white or black candidate who becomes entangled in such a controversy.This project describes this process and provides empirical evidence that individuals' political judgments of candidates can be changed when exposed to such framing. Through a series of three survey experiments that simulate the effect of race-salient media coverage on voters, I find that there are statistically significant electoral penalties--in some cases, more than 10 percentage points--when respondents learn new information about a candidate that either assigns blame for a "race play" or connects him and his opponent to racial controversy. There is also evidence that the media plays a significant role in assigning blame for playing the race card. More respondents were willing to assign blame to a particular candidate when they read news stories in which a media analyst blamed that candidate.While past literature has focused on racial priming processes that activate white resentment through implicit or explicit cues in campaign ads, this research demonstrates that there may be an important learning process that has been overlooked. Media coverage with an explicit racial mode of interpretation may activate a broader backlash effect among respondents regardless of their racial resentment scores.

Abstract: Drawing on three months of ethnographic research and interviewing largely around the Faroese capital of Tórshavn, this thesis represents an investigation into the experience of music, music-making, and being a musician in the Faroe Islands. Principally, the thesis seeks to answer the central question of how Faroese musicians and industry professionals are projecting a sense of place as well as creating, expressing, and marketing an emergent Faroese identity in the global market. Building on a discussion of the historic and contemporary significance of traditional music in the islands, the construction of Faroese musical identity is examined in the context of Faroese metal music and the constitution of meaning therein. The latter portions of the thesis rely heavily on quoted speech in order to evoke this constitution of meaning, as well as of the scene as a social group, as described by key figures within the realm of Faroese metal.

In this post-civil right era, race and ethnicity have taken on more visual rhetorical styles that carry implicit meanings concerning race class and gender. Nowhere is this more evident than in media and mainstream popular culture, where ethnicity is inextricably linked to consumer culture. This post-civil rights information age society consistently repackages the domineering messages that reinforce stereotypes and normative ideologies that oppress sub-altern groups (women, people of color, homosexuals, and people of lower economic status). Through our technological development, representations of the ethnic ‘Other’ have shifted from ‘performing’ ethnicity to ‘being’ the ethnic other. This analysis examines new gaming technologies and the impact the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas has on the player’s perception of black masculinity. This analysis critically analyzes the audience demographic, semiotic codes, cultural context, literary text, and social debates surrounding the game. Ultimately, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas presents whole new type of animal, more dangerous and more pervasive than the negative representations of African-Americans on television. This is a critical analysis of not just the culture that created it but also the culture that consumes it.