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The main purpose of the research presented in this thesis is to design and develop a game prototype for improving user awareness against ransomware, which has been reported as the most significant cyber security threat to the United Kingdom by the National Cyber Security Centre. Digital transformation is helping individuals, organisations, governments and Industrial control systems to modernise and improve their effectiveness. At the same time, cyber crimes are evolving and targeting essential services. A successful cyber attack can compromise users' privacy, bring bad publicity and financial damage to organisations and target national security. A literature review was conducted to understand threats to the cyber social system. Literature in this thesis reports attackers exploit humans as the weakest link to execute successful security breaches. Therefore to address this challenge, a significant gap has been identified as an opportunity to contribute to user awareness of the ransomware cyber security threat. The current thesis proposes RansomAware a novel game prototype to improve user awareness. The game is based on Technology Threat Avoidance Theory (TTAT) model. In this thesis two studies are carried out, study 1 empirically validates the elements of TTAT to be embedded in the RansomAware prototype and reports a significant change in users' motivation to avoid ransomware cyber security threat 55% and avoidance behaviour 29%, whereas study 2 evaluates game usability and report significant results of SUS average score of 87.58 and statistical results of p < 0.01 indicate user's satisfaction of the RansomAware. Finally, the research provides guidelines on how the proposed RansomAware game can be adopted by practitioners and individuals to improve their awareness against the ransomware cyber security threat.

The past decade of artifcial intelligence and deep learning has made tremendous progress in highly perceptive tasks such as image recognition. Deep learning algorithms map high dimensional complex representations to low dimensional array mappings. However, these mappings are generally blindly assumed to be correct, further justifed with high accuracies on trending datasets. The challenge of creating a comprehensive, explainable and reasonable deep learning system is yet to be solved. One way to deal with this is by using uncertainty quantifcation, or uncertainty aware learning, with the help of Bayesian methods. This thesis contributes to the feld of uncertainty aware learning by demonstrating how uncertainty can be used to recover performance in case of a physical attack, how uncertainty can be used to improve sensitivity to noise and how it can be used to improve performance on dynamic datasets. The frst contribution involves learning from model uncertainty in the application of deep learning-based semantic segmentation. The second contribution deals with robustness and sensitivity analysis in image classifcation and fnally, the third contribution in continual learning by using variance to update the learning rate. The frst contribution proposes the architecture AdvSegNet which aims to improve the performance of Bayesian SegNet. In the second contribution, a combined architecture of convolutional network feature extractor and a Gaussian process (CNN-GP) is made to classify images under uncertain conditions including noise, blurring and adversarial attacks. Finally, in the continual learning subject area, the architecture CNN-GP is trained on datasets presented sequentially. Results show an improvement in performance and sensitivity to adversarial attack and noisy conditions as well as an improvement in dynamic datasets with a small number of tasks.

This thesis forms a part of the much lager project whose aim is to classify the maximal subgroups of the finite simple exceptional group of Lie type E₈(2). Groups H with F*(H) isomorphic to L₂(64), L₂(16), L₂(8), L₃(4), or L₃(3) arise as some of the possible candidates for maximal subgroups of E₈(2). We prove that if F*(H) is isomorphic to L₂(64), L₂(16) or L₃(4) then H cannot be maximal in E₈(2). Partial progress is made towards establishing whether L₂(8) can be a maximal subgroup. A highlight is that we find maximal subgroups of E₈(2) isomorphic to L₃(3); we show that there are at most 3 conjugacy classes of them. Extensive use of the computer algebra package 'Magma' has been made to prove our results. After the work done in this thesis not much is left to do in order to classify the maximal subgroups of E₈(2).

Public policies impact the day to day activities of individuals. Effective public policy outcomes result in general acceptance among the community. The transparency in policy making process and participation during policy creation holds significant positions for developing trust among the community. Established domains such as e-health employs provenance for creating transparency and trust among the researchers. Public policy making can also use provenance to develop trust and transparency in their processes. At present, however, public policy makers employ various means to manage public policy making. Having no unified platform for the policy making process presents challenges in respect of searching and locating the evidence that was used during policy creation and for ensuring trust and transparency among actors. The absence of such a support also presents challenges for participation in public policy making. To address the given challenges, this research presents the provenance framework that manages the public policy making provenance data and enable participation of diverse actors. Due to dynamicity attached to public policy making, a provenance framework needs to be adaptable. Therefore, a model-driven approach has been used to frame the public policy making provenance framework. In addition to a model-driven approach, a mechanism is required that can enable the capture of public policy processes. However, the knowledge-intensive dynamics of public policy making presents challenges for using process-based solutions. Therefore, this research work describes a process-agnostic approach inspired from a network-based packet switching approach for tracking policy making processes. Managing public policy provenance data is not the only facet that develops trust. What is required is the facilitation of citizens and non-government bodies in the policy creation process. Therefore, a provenance framework has been designed by considering the principles of smart governance which results in a smart cities solution. In order to evaluate the framework, a proof-of-concept has been designed and implemented. An evaluation has been carried out to determine the suitability of a model-driven and a process-agnostic approach for policy making provenance framework in smart cities. For the evaluation purposes, three public policy making case studies Shops Opening Hours' Resolution, Air Quality Monitoring, and Neighbourhood Planning were employed. The three case studies were used to derive various experiments to test the provenance framework. The experiments captured the dynamic and knowledge-intensive aspects of the provenance framework. The results collected from the execution of the experiments demonstrated the aptness of a process-agnostic approach and model-driven approach for the policy making provenance framework. Lastly, an end user evaluation was carried out to assess the effectiveness of the provenance framework. The positive responses of end users showed the usefulness of the provenance framework.

Early animal development depends largely on the activation/expression of genes, and this often depends on the binding of transcription factors to genomic DNA sequences on which they act. This is particularly true of genes that determine cell fate; for example, Asc1-1 leads to neural differentiation and MyoD for muscle. In early development, different genes need to be activated in sequence by appropriate transcription factors. It is commonly believed that a transcription factor has only a very short dwell time of seconds or minutes on its appropriate DNA sequence. On the other hand, differentiated cell strains retain their differentiated state for many years. Does this mean that a transcription factor molecule must be exchanged for another molecule of the same kind, or could it be that a transcription factor dwell time might be significantly prolonged in stably differentiated cells, as are most non-dividing adult cell types? I have investigated the dwell time of the neurogenic transcription factor Asc1-1 by injecting mRNAs or DNAs into the non-dividing oocyte of Xenopus. Transcription factor proteins can be introduced by mRNA injection and DNA sequences to which they bind, when required; induced gene expression is monitored by expression of fluorescent reporter genes. I have used competition experiments with differently marked transcription factor proteins and DNA binding sequences to measure dwell time in living oocytes. I find that the dwell time of the factor proteins on the DNA or chromatin to which they specifically bind is much longer than is generally believed. This unexpected stability may contribute to the strength of cell differentiation in normal development. Several aspects of the regulation of transcription in non-dividing cells have been studied. Xenopus oocyte can form stable transcriptional complexes on an injected DNA template. Once formed, these transcriptional complexes stay stable for several rounds of transcription, which can last for days without letting any other DNA compete for the mRNA expression. The nature of these complexes has been thought to be tightly bound to their template DNA. However, a new mechanism governing this phenomenon of stabilised transcription in Xenopus oocyte has been proposed. According to this phenomenon, stabilised mRNA expression by a DNA template in Xenopus oocyte is established by local transcription factors' entrapment. RNA polymerase II factors have been shown to enable the formation of stabilised nuclear compartments. This finding proposes a new way of how the non-dividing cells can maintain their gene expression for a prolonged time.

The popularity of Twitter for information discovery, coupled with the automatic shortening of URLs to save space given the 280 character limit, provides cybercriminals with an opportunity to obfuscate the URL of a malicious Webpage within a tweet. Once the URL is obfuscated, the cybercriminal can lure a user into clicking on it with enticing text and images before carrying out a cyber attack using a malicious Web server. This is known as a drive-by download and has been reported to account for 48% of web-based attacks. In a drive-by download a user’s computer system is infected while interacting with the malicious endpoint, often without them being made aware the attack has taken place. An attacker can gain control of the system by exploiting unpatched system vulnerabilities, and this form of attack currently represents one of the most common methods employed. In order to counter drive-by download attacks on Twitter, this thesis contributes to the existing literature on detecting malware on online social networks by shifting the focus towards the effects of malware on user machines, and away from the malware signature and dynamic behaviour, which can be obfuscated. Initially we developed a drive-by download detection model for Twitter that was successful in classifying URLs into malicious and benign with an F-measure of 0.81 during training, and 0.71 while testing on an unseen dataset. The model was then extended into a predictive model that was able to redictwhethertheURLwaspointingtoamaliciousWebpagewith0.99F-measure (using 10-fold cross-validation) and 0.833 F-measure (using an unseen test set) at 1 second into the interaction with a URL. These provide a novel contribution with which it is possible to kill the connection to the server before an attack has completed - thus proactively blocking and preventing an attack, rather than reacting and repairing at a later date. This thesis also contributes to the broader literature on malware propagation by uncovering both social and content-based factors that aid in the propagation of a tweet containing a link to a malicious Web server. This was achieved by gathering data from seven different and diverse sporting events over a period of three years. The data were then analysed to answer questions including: why are certain Tweets retweeted more than others? is virality partly driven by psychological arousal? and, is the act of retweeting affected by the tweet content and the emotions it evokes? Experimental results showed a strong association towards content-driven features, such as emotions and the choice of words associated with emotions that were used to compose a tweet or create hashtags. Tweets that contain malicious links were associated with negative emotions, particularly the emotion fear, for their retweet likelihood (virality) and survival (longevity of propagation). Whereas, in tweets that were classified as benign, it was positive sentiment and high arousal emotions such as surprise that were associated with the size and survival of Web links.

The aim of this study is to generate an in-depth understanding for the existence and causes of legitimacy concerns of NGOs in the complex Humanitarian Development Field (HDF) in Pakistan. NGOs are found short on delivering both the agenda of humanitarian relief and mainstream development. Beyond failure of delivery the acceptance of these entities is otherwise also low in a Muslim Pakhtun backyard of the world. Yet the NGO sector has shown boom post 9/11 to ultimately find itself implicated by the State in Pakistan post 2013 on various pretexts. What necessitates the State to oppose NGOs in a region that needs multiple players to fight underdevelopment and conflict? The leading question this research addresses is thus, why NGO legitimacies are declining in the region. Empirically rooted in three cases (local NGOs), this qualitative research abducts causal mechanisms of the incidence of decreased NGOs’ legitimacy through examining reality at three levels under a Critical Realist methodology. Firstly, at the empirical level are increased events of coercion, regulative constraints, operational obstruction, and intimidation of NGOs. Secondly, at the actual level are the three identified mechanisms that explains why NGOs face marginalization including the ‘purported’ anti-state stance, commercialization of the institution of HDF and NGOs therein, and the opacity and corruption that NGOs structures increasingly embed. These mechanisms work in a complex context that has been explained as three discrete phases of humanitarian crisis in the study region post 9/11. Thirdly, at the real level, NGOs face legitimacy crisis in large part because of a shift in institutional norms of humanitarianism and developmentalism both globally and nationally. Research outcomes reveal, foremost, that legitimacy crisis may be traced to the existence of multiple institutional logics (of humanitarianism and developmentalism) ingrained in HDF with both positive and detrimental consequences for NGOs. It is demonstrated that competing logics has been a source of under development of NGOs, and consequently that of the underdevelopment of the institutional environments in which they operate. At the 3 same time, a positive spinoff of competing logics has been recorded as NGOs are gradually turning into sustainable organizations to suggest that logics multiplicity force organizations to course correction and embeddedness in newer institutional orders. However this course correction of NGOs as made manifest through their strategies is just a small fraction of NGOs response to their alienation. In line with Neo-institutional theory, NGOs adopt a variety of other responses to the sometimes contradictory logics of HDF. Evidence reveals that NGOs show agency, despite institutional disdain and coercive procedures, in gaining different forms of legitimacies at the meso level of organization-field interaction. Particularly important are the NGOs quest for attaining normative/regulative, cognitive, and output legitimacies. Faced with multiple normative, cultural, religious, and practical impediments, it is both intriguing and fascinating to see small relief NGOs survive and mold into ‘development’ organizations in an environment hostile to their existence. The contributions of the study are three-fold: a) an analytical frame combining Institutional theory and critical realism to explain how field-level institutional changes affect organizations in both beneficial and detrimental ways, b) a theoretical contribution focusing on four insights on NGOs structures viz, temporality of legitimacy challenge, legitimacy fatigue, emergence of an entrepreneurial streak amongst NGOs, and a possible beginning of NGOs playing institutional entrepreneurs in HDF to give it newer institutional outlook.; and c) a practitioner focused emancipatory contribution where NGOs as social actors need to ensure a higher level of agency awareness to overcome the challenges of decreased legitimacies and play their due role in development of the region. The research addresses a glaring research gap in humanitarian development chain by focusing on the lower most tiers of local NGOs who are a critical conduit between donors and beneficiaries in crisis environments.

The thesis aims to contribute to the literature on bank governance by examining the influence of board characteristics on the performance, risk exposure and capital structure adjustment of the U.S. banks. Chapter 2 sheds light on the importance of corporate governance and discusses in detail the mechanisms it offers to deal with the agency problems specific to banks. The chapter also provides a review of the extant literature on bank corporate governance and discusses how bank governance is different from the governance of non-financial firms. More specifically, chapter 3 analyses the appointments of outside CEOs of financial and non-financial firms as independent directors on US bank boards and their implications for the banks and the outside CEO firms. The study shows that outside CEOs from financial firms match with less traditional banks, while CEOs from non-financial firms match with more lending-oriented banks. Appointing outside CEOs from financial firms generates higher abnormal returns for the appointing bank as compared to other director appointments and long-term benefits for both the appointing bank and for the outside CEO firm. In contrast, appointing CEOs from non-financial firms does not benefit the bank while it generates positive abnormal returns and longer-term benefits, especially in terms of credit access, for the firm of the outside CEO. Overall, although considered highly skilled directors, outside CEOs are not always beneficial to bank boards. Chapter 4 investigates the impact of board independence on a bank's capital management using a sample of US-listed banks. The study shows that banks with more independent boards privilege lower target capital ratios and adjust more slowly (quickly) towards the target ratio when they are undercapitalized (overcapitalized). Replacing independent directors without financial expertise with financial expert directors, as advocated by regulators, further lowers target ratios but accelerates the recapitalization process of undercapitalized banks by means of equity issuance. Further tests, exploiting exogenous variation in regulatory scrutiny across banks, show that a stronger regulatory oversight induces independent directors, especially when they have financial expertise, to favour a bank capital management less aligned to shareholder interests.

In a linear hypermedia system, all users are offered a standard series of hyperlinks. Adaptive Hypermedia (AH) tailors what the user sees to the user's goals, abilities, interests, knowledge and preferences. Adaptive Hypermedia is said to be the answer to the 'lost in hyperspace' phenomenon, where the user has too many hyperlinks to choose from, and has little knowledge to select the most appropriate hyperlink. AH offers a selection of links and content that is most appropriate to the current user. In an Adaptive Educational Hypermedia (AEH) course, a student's learning experiences can be personalised using a User Model (UM), which could include information such as the student's knowledge level, preferences and culture. Beside these basic components, a Goal Model (GM) can represent the goal the users should meet and a Domain Model (DM) would represent the knowledge domain. Adaptive strategies are sets of adaptive rules that can be applied to these models, to allow the personalisation of the course for students, according to their needs. From the many interacting elements, it is clear that the authoring process is a bottleneck in the adaptive course creation, which needs to be improved in terms of interoperability, usability and reuse of the adaptive behaviour (strategies). Authoring of Adaptive Hypermedia is considered to be difficult and time consuming. There is great scope for improving authoring tools in Adaptive Educational Hypermedia system, to aid already burdened authors to create adaptive courses easily. Adaptation specifications are very useful in creating adaptive behaviours, to support the needs of a group of learners. Authors often lack the time or the skills needed to create new adaptation specifications from scratch. Creating an adaptation specification requires the author to know and remember the programming language syntax, which places a knowledge barrier for the author. LAG is a complete and useful programming language, which, however, is considered too complex for authors to deal with directly. This thesis thus proposes a visual framework (LAGBlocks) for the LAG adaptation language and an authoring tool (VASE) to utilise the proposed visual framework, to create adaptive specifications, by manipulating visual elements. It is shown that the VASE authoring tool along with the visual framework enables authors to create adaptive specifications with ease and assist authors in creating adaptive specifications which promote the "separation of concern". The VASE authoring tool offers code completeness, correctness at design time, and also allows for adaptive strategies to be used within other tools for adaptive hypermedia. The goal is thus to make adaptive specifications easier, to create and to share for authors with little or no programming knowledge and experience. This thesis looks at three aspects of authoring in adaptive educational hypermedia systems. The first aspect of the thesis is concerned with problems faced by the author of an adaptive hypermedia system; the second aspect is concerned with describing the findings gathered from investigating the previously developed authoring tools; and the final aspect of the thesis is concerned with the proposal, the implementation and the evaluation of a new authoring tool that improves the authoring process for authors with different knowledge, background and experience. The purpose of the new tool, VASE, is to enable authors to create adaptive strategies in a puzzle-building manner; moreover, the created adaptive strategies could be used within (are compatible with) other systems in adaptive hypermedia, which use the LAG programming language.

Introduction: Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is associated with a diverse range of endocrine, metabolic and cardiovascular risk factors. Low vitamin D in PCOS is associated with multiple cardiovascular risk factors and vitamin D replacement therapy has been suggested as a promising alternative for the prevention and treatment of PCOS. Empagliflozin; a sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitor, has been shown to have several favourable effects on inflammatory and cardiovascular risk factors in both type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients and could potentially be a treatment option in women with PCOS. Methods: The first study was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial with an objective to determine the effect of vitamin D supplementation on liver fibrosis markers. Forty overweight and obese women with PCOS were randomization to either vitamin D 3200 IU daily or placebo for 3 months. The second trial was a randomised open-label parallel study to look at the effects of empagliflozin versus metformin on hormonal, metabolic and cardiovascular risk factors in women with PCOS. Forty overweight and obese women with PCOS were randomization to either empagliflozin 25mg or metformin 1500mg daily for 3 months. Results: For vitamin D treatment, there were significant reductions in individual liver fibrosis markers [hyaluronic acid (HA), N-terminal pro-peptide type-III pro-collagen (PIIINP), tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-1 (TIMP-1)] and their cumulative enhanced liver fibrosis (ELF) score was associated with a significant improvement in alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels in patients randomized to vitamin D, whereas there were no changes in any of these parameters in the placebo group. There were no changes in free androgen index (FAI), insulin resistance (Homeostasis model assessment-insulin resistance; HOMA-IR), other anthropometric, inflammatory and body composition parameters in either group. There were no significant changes in endothelial microparticles (EMPs) in the vitamin D group as compared to the placebo group. In the second study, there were significant reductions in anthropometric and body composition parameters in patients randomized to empagliflozin while patients on metformin had significant increases in these parameters as compared to baseline. Between groups comparisons at the end of the study showed that the percentage reductions in anthropometric and body composition parameters were statistically significant in the empagliflozin group as compared to the metformin group. There was significant reduction in total testosterone levels in the metformin group only but not in the empagliflozin group. There were no significant changes in FAI, HOMA-IR, reactive hyperaemic index (RHI), fasting lipids and other hormonal and metabolic markers in both the groups. However, there were significant increases in cluster of differentiation 54 (CD54) and cluster of differentiation 62 (CD62) microparticles in the empagliflozin group and cluster of differentiation (CD106) microparticles in both the empagliflozin and metformin groups. Conclusions: Direct beneficial effects of vitamin D supplementation on markers of hepatic fibrosis were seen in overweight and obese women with PCOS shown by a reduction in the ELF score and its constituent liver fibrosis markers (HA, PIIINP, TIMP-1). However, vitamin D supplementation did not improve endothelial function as suggested by no significant changes in EMPs in the vitamin D group as compared to the placebo group. In the second trial, empagliflozin improved anthropometric and body composition indices after three months of treatment. However, there was significant increase in CD54 and CD62 microparticles after empagliflozin and CD106 microparticles after both empagliflozin and metformin treatments suggesting that the effects of empagliflozin and metformin could be partly mediated through modulation of endothelial function. This research work suggests both vitamin D and SGLT2 inhibition (empagliflozin) as potential treatment options in women with PCOS for improving future cardiovascular risk.

This thesis studies the political and social practices of prosperous bazaar merchants and traders to understand the dynamics of power and authority in contemporary urban Pakistan. Broadly, it considers how propertied groups, such as traders, maintain their dominant position in Pakistan's political sphere, and how the consent of subordinate classes is structured to reproduce this persisting arrangement. Drawing on 12 months of ethnographic fieldwork in a large wholesale bazaar of Lahore, this thesis demonstrates that bazaar traders accumulate power and authority through a fused repertoire of transactional bargaining, material patronage, and Islamic civic leadership. By mobilizing voluntary associations, and forming personalized relations of reciprocity with state functionaries and political elites, traders are able to reproduce their material and status privileges through political access and co-optation of public resources. Such networks also position them as patrons and brokers for the urban poor who work in marketplaces, helping the latter resolve pressing issues of everyday subsistence, while sustaining ties of exploitative dependence in the process. These ties are simultaneously legitimized through an accompanying cultural politics grounded in religious ideals. Bazaar traders remain deeply embedded with Islamist actors and play a central role in administering mosques, seminaries, and religious charities. Therefore, notions of piety, divinely ordained class and status hierarchies, and benevolent civic virtue - disseminated and popularized through their articulation and performance by bazaar traders - shape the cultural frames under which class authority and material conditions are interpreted by subordinate groups in marketplaces. Ultimately, these processes act as the building blocks of a persisting arrangement, wherein the influence bazaar traders possess through economic resources and their authority over the urban poor is transacted with weak political parties during elections, thus underpinning the reproduction of Pakistan's elite-dominated political sphere. By documenting the everyday power practices of a dominant group and the microprocesses that feed into the political sphere, this thesis rectifies deterministic statist and structuralist explanations for Pakistan's lasting regime of elite power. It also contributes to ongoing debates on the roles played by the state, political parties, and civil society in the articulation of hegemonic political arrangements.

Mobile commerce (m-commerce) provides remarkable opportunities for online retail organisations, but also poses the risk of identity-related frauds. Due to the propensity of these frauds through mobile devices, approaches used by retail organisations are ineffective for management of identity frauds in m-commerce. Online retail organisations need a guiding framework for the evaluation of approaches used for identity fraud management. In addition, very little research has been conducted on identity frauds and methods of evaluation of the approaches to combat it in m-commerce. To better understand these issues and address the missing link, this study explores the types and possible methods of identity-related frauds in m-commerce and evaluates approaches. The fraud management lifecycle framework Wilhelm (2004) has been extended to include the evaluation of identity fraud management approaches. A qualitative approach to data collection was adopted and case study research methods were applied. Three large online retail organisations based in the UK were selected for data collection. In all, 36 semi-structured interviews were conducted from staff involved in online business management, information security, and related areas. Where possible, internal documents were also collected. Wilhelm's (2004) framework was adopted to underpin this research. The reliability of the questionnaire was tested through a pilot study. The results were analysed using a thematic approach. Both inductive and deductive approaches were used to explore themes at each stage of the framework. The cross-case analysis approach adopted to compare the results of the three case studies was also reflected through extant literature. This study found that most of the identity frauds are committed through mobile devices while online organisations are using traditional e-commerce approaches, which are not equally effective in m-commerce. Furthermore, these approaches have never been evaluated in m-commerce, which is a major cause of increasing identity fraud. This is the first study to evaluate the existing identity fraud management approaches in m-commerce. This research has identified the weaknesses and limitations in the approaches used in identity fraud management. The study also suggests guidelines to improve existing approaches and some new approaches. Finally, the Wilhelm (2004) framework has been extended to evaluate identity fraud management approaches in m-commerce. The study provides in-depth understanding about the process of identity fraud management, which consists of the methods, approaches, and strategies that online organisations have adopted. In this research, guidelines are suggested to evaluate the identity fraud management approached in m-commerce. This will help online organisations to understand the weaknesses in existing approaches and improve the performance in m-commerce identity fraud management. This study will also help online organisations to control the fraud losses and could provide them with a competitive edge in the industry.

Market economies have been characterized by boom and bust cycles. Since the seminal work of Hamilton (1989), these large scale fluctuations have been referred to as regime switches. Ang and Bekaert (2002) were the first to consider the role of regime switches for stock market returns and portfolio optimisation. The key stylized facts regarding regime switching for stock index returns is that boom periods with positive mean stock returns are associated with low volatility, while bear markets with negative mean returns have high volatility. The correlation of asset returns also show asymmetry with greater correlation being found during stock market downturns. In view of the large portfolio losses from correlated negative movements in asset returns during the recent 2007 financial crisis, it has become imperative to incorporate regime sensitivity in portfolio management. This thesis forms an extensive application of regime sensitive statistics for stock returns in the management of equity portfolios for different markets. Starting with the application to a small 3 asset portfolio for UK stocks (in Chapter 4), the methodology is extended to large scale portfolio for the FTSE-100. In chapters 5 and 6, respectively, using stock index data from the subcontinent (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) and for the Asia Pacific, optimal regime sensitive portfolios have been analysed with the MSCI AC Index (for Emerging and Asia Pacific Markets) being taken as the benchmark index. Portfolio performance has been studied using a dynamic end of month rebalancing of the portfolio on the basis of regime indicators given by market index and relevant regime dependent portfolio statistics. The cumulative end of period returns and risk adjusted Sharpe Ratio from this exercise is compared to the simple Markowitz mean-variance portfolio and market value portfolio. The regime switching optimal portfolio strategy has been found to dominate non-regime sensitive portfolio strategies in Asia Pacific and 3 asset portfolio for UK stocks cases but not in Subcontinent case (for the first half of out-sample period). In the case of the relationship of the sub-continental indexes vis-à-vis the MSCI benchmark index, the latter has negligible explanatory power for the former especially for the first half of out-sample period. Hence, the regime indicators based on MSCI emerging market index have detrimental effects on portfolio selection based on the sub-continental indexes. As regime sensitive variance–covariance matrices have implications for the selection of optimal portfolio weights, the final Chapter 7 uses the FTSE-100 and its constituent company data to compare and contrast the implications for optimal portfolio management of filtering the covariance matrix using Random Matrix Theory (RMT). While it is found that filtering the variance-covariance matrix using Marchenko-Pasteur bounds of RMT improves optimal portfolio choice in both non-regime and regime dependent cases, remarkably in the latter case for Regime 2 determined variance-covariance matrix, the RMT filter was least needed. This result is given in Chapter 7, Table 7.5-1. This confirms the significance of using Hamilton (1989) regime sensitive statistics for stock returns in identifying the ‘true’ non-noisy variance-covariance relationships. The RMT methodology is also useful for identifying the centrality, based on eigenvector analysis, of the constituent stocks in their role in driving crisis and non-crisis market conditions. A fully automated suite of programs in MATLAB have been developed for regime switching portfolio optimization with RMT filtering of the variance-covariance matrix.

The aim of this doctoral research was to 'critically explore brand love and brand defence in consumer-brand relationships by considering the question: can consumers go beyond positive word-of-mouth, and/or brand advocacy to defend their loved-brands against criticism?' In achieving the research aim, the study involved exploring, conceptualising, and measuring a novel construct in branding, namely 'brand defence' through the empirical study of consumers' word-of-mouth attributions towards a loved brand. Brand defence has been identified, proposed, and conceptualised as a superior form of consumers' word-of-mouth behaviour attributed towards their loved brands, when their loved brands are faced with negative word-of-mouth. The conceptualisation of brand defence is developed from two theories: 1. The Fairness Theory of Folger and Cropanzano (1998, 2001), and 2. Social Capital perspective of Equity Theory (Adler, 2001; Adler and Kwon, 2002). Moreover, consumers' brandfavourable WOM is explored in a hierarchy based on the assumptions of Means-End Theory (Guttman, 1982), which suggests brand defence is a superior WOM behaviour that supersedes brand advocacy and positive-WOM in supporting the brand against negative WOM. Though identifying and conceptualising brand defence, this study investigated the role of brand love in promoting brand-favourable positive word-of-mouth behaviour in response to any negative word-of-mouth about the loved brand. Therefore, this study involved incorporating two important research streams; 1. word-of-mouth, and 2. consumer-brand relationships. In order to extend understanding of the extent and nature of consumers' brand-favourable word-ofmouth behaviour towards loved-brands, the study conceptualised and categorised the brandfavourable word-of-mouth in form of a hierarchy, building on the assumptions of Means-End Theory (Gutman, 1982; Wansink, 2003). The study assigned brand defence the top vertex of the hierarchy against negative word-of-mouth about a loved brand, followed by brand advocacy, and positive word-of-mouth. Moreover, the study also involved investigating the role of brand trust, brand loyalty, and brand forgiveness in mediating the impact of brand love on brand defence, advocacy, and positive word-of-mouth. In lieu of limited empirical investigation of brand defence, and the proposed doctoral research model, this study involved mixed methods research, spanned over three research phases: Phase-I: Pre-survey qualitative interviews and pre-test survey to develop the measuring scale for brand defence. Phase-II: Main quantitative surveys exploring two product categories: cosmetics and consumerelectronics. The research model was refined through confirmatory factors analysis and the scale validation and research hypotheses including the hierarchy of brand-favourable WOM were tested through structural equation modelling. Phase-III: Post-survey laddering interviews exploring the same product categories as main surveys, to explore consumers' values behind certain attributions through hierarchical value-maps analysis. This is the first study to use value-maps analysis in consumer-brand relationships and word-of-mouth. The key findings of the research suggest brand defence as the strongest and most prevalent brandfavourable WOM against negative-WOM, which goes beyond brand advocacy and positive wordof- mouth against negative-WOM. Moreover, this study also involved testing the mediating role of brand trust, brand forgiveness, and brand loyalty on the relationship of brand love and the three proposed WOM behaviour. Partial mediation was found for all three constructs for brand defence, depicting a positive impact of all the three relationship constructs on brand defence, along with the direct and mediating influence of brand love. The hierarchical relationships between positive-WOM, brand advocacy and brand defence were also found to be significant. However, the hypotheses concerning positive impact of brand love on positive-WOM were rejected, implying that in cases of negative-WOM incident, consumers tend to defend their loved brand and do not offer any lower intensity WOM behaviour. The qualitative findings concurred with this viewpoint, providing useful insight into the nature, intensity, and intent of consumer-brand relationships and their consequent positive outcomes, especially in brand defence. Overall, this study offers both theoretical and methodological contributions to knowledge by conceptualising and measuring a new branding construct, brand defence. The major theoretical contributions of this research comprise: 1. Conceptualising and categorising brand-favourable WOM in the form of a novel hierarchy; 2. Introducing a new branding construct, 'brand defence' by observing, conceptualising, developing, and measuring the construct; 3. recognising and highlighting the importance of consumer-brand relationships, particularly brand love in promoting brand-favourable WOM especially brand defence in managing, counteracting, and venting negative-WOM; 4. Conceptualising the nature of brand love by evaluating existing research on consumer-brand relationships, brand love, para-social love, and interpersonal bi-directional and unreciprocated love. The major methodological contributions of this research include: 1. Developing and implementing a measuring-scale for a new branding construct, brand defence; 2. Exploring and measuring brand forgiveness by adopting an interpersonal forgiveness scale and adapting to the branding context. 3. Measuring the hierarchical relationships between positive-WOM, brand advocacy, and brand defence; 4. Conducting laddering interviews in appreciating the consumers' value structures in forming consumer-brand relationships (brand love) and their brand-focussed behavioural and psychological consequences. Furthermore, the study also offered practical implications on how managers can mobilise brand defence by fostering consumer-brand relationships, particularly brand love, in cultivating brand defence to potentially mitigate the disruptive effects of negative word-of-mouth, both offline and online.

The study of reverberation, broadly defined as the multipath propagation of sound in an enclosed space, has attracted significant interest from speech processing engineers and researchers alike. This is due in large part to the proliferation of speech processing technologies that facilitate distant talking speech input. In such scenarios, understanding the impact of reverberation on speech quality, and mitigating its detrimental impact through dereverberation techniques, are important and practically well motivated tasks. This research concerns both these topics. More specifically, in this work we (1) extend and develop an objective measure for predicting the level of perceived reverberation, (2) conduct an experimental investigation into reverberation perception and (3) propose the use of a spherical microphone array rake receiver to perform speech dereverberation. In order to assess the level of perceived reverberation in speech, we develop the extended Reverberation Decay Tail (RDTx) measure. Employing an improved perceptual model, the performance of the measure is first evaluated objectively. Later, we propose experimental methodologies and listening test schemes to collect subjective assessments. From the data obtained, the acoustic parameters most strongly correlated with reverberation perception are identified. The insights gained from the experimental investigation are used to further develop and validate the model of perceived reverberation incorporated in the RDTx measure. The final contribution of this work, is the formulation of acoustic rake receivers in the spherical harmonic domain, which exploit signal reflections to perform speech dereverberation. Evaluating the proposed designs using widely adopted objective metrics, as well as the objective measures developed in this work, demonstrates the constructive use of early reflections can lead to substantial dereverberation.

This thesis sets out to investigate how law was used as a tool of governance in late colonial and early postcolonial India, with special reference to the invocation of states of exception or simply, extraordinary laws. The question is closely related to another issue, the creation of certain 'problem categories' to whom the normal process of law did not apply and which represented a legalised and permanent state of exception. With regards to both questions this thesis has found a consistency in perspective across the colonial - post-colonial divide. Bureaucrats in independent India were just as obsessed with maintaining peace and tranquillity as the colonial law and order administration. The case studies discussed in this thesis are diverse both in terms of their focus on different regions and the analytic angle of each instance involved. They include an analysis of the workings of the Defence of India Act of 1915 and the Rowlatt Bills in the 1910s, followed by more bottom-up case studies of how Section 144 CrPC was deployed in local emergencies in several provinces across India. Of particular importance in this context is Uttar Pradesh (UP) which is used to compare governmental practice under the pre and post-Independence Congress administrations. A certain overall pattern emerges from these case studies. For one, there was an increasing trend to 'normalize' states of exception for the sake of maintaining law and order. At the same time, there was an important but subtle shift amongst the kind of situations leading to the invocation of extraordinary legislations and, the nature of those 'exceptional categories' of people- or problem categories to whom the normal rule of law was not believed to apply, from late colonial and early postcolonial India. The Raj started witha number of relatively clearly defined problem categories - badmaashes,dacoits, thuggs, unruly labour, communists - it often had to totalise the potential reach of emergency legislation to the entire Indian populace. In post-colonial times, such a totalization was often reversed but a sense of problem categories nevertheless persisted.

Introduction: Acute pancreatitis (AP) is frequently complicated by pancreatic necrosis, multiple organ failure, prolonged hospitalisation and death. There is no specific, licensed drug therapy for this disease to date. Opening of the mitochondrial permeability transition pore (MPTP) is a key event in the pathophysiology of AP and is therefore a valid drug target for its treatment. Cylophilin D (CypD, a mitochondrial matrix protein), is a key regulator of MPTP formation and opening of the latter is also modulated by a new drug TRO40303. The aim of this investigation is to explore the effects of newly identified CypD inhibitors and TRO4303 in both murine and human pancreatic acinar cells (PAC) in response to established pancreatic toxins as well as the severity of experimental acute pancreatitis (EAP). The study also provides a qualitative assessment of all published literature evaluating agents tested for treatment of EAP using a newly devised scoring system. Methods: Confocal fluorescence microscopy of isolated PACs was used to evaluate the effects of MPTP inhibitors on mitochondrial function, calcium handling and cell fate in response to TLCS (taurolithocholate sulphate) and other pancreatic toxins - CCK (cholecystokinin) and POAEE (palmitoleic acid ethyl ester). In order to identify novel CypD inhibitors, computational modelling was undertaken. Compounds predicted to bind with CypD were screened using biophysical assay - surface plasmon resonance (SPR) - to evaluate binding affinity. Candidates with high affinity for CypD were subsequently evaluated in the aforementioned biological assays. Efficacy of TRO40303 in ameliorating the severity of EAP was tested in three different models. Results: TRO40303 prevented loss of mitochondrial membrane potential (ΔΨm) induced by TLCS, CCK and POAEE and improved Ca2+ clearance in PACs. TRO40303 reduced necrotic cell death pathway activation in response to TLCS in murine (p < 0.05) as well as human PACs (p < 0.01). Therapeutic administration of TRO40303 significantly reduced serum amylase, pancreatic trypsin, pancreatic and lung myeloperoxidase and histopathology scores in hyperstimulation, biliary and alcoholic EAP. Screening strategy of CypD inhibitors identified a novel small molecular inhibitor, AP-1A02, with a KD and Ki of 0.8 μM and 1.7 μM respectively. AP-1A02 protected ΔΨm and also significantly reduced necrotic cell death pathway activation in human as well as murine PACs in response to TLCS. Conclusion: This work demonstrates that MPTP is a valid target for the treatment of AP. TRO40303 protects mitochondria, reduces necrotic cell death pathway activation and ameliorates the severity of EAP and is therefore a candidate drug for human AP. Further work needs to be undertaken to optimize AP-1A02 and develop other small molecule CypD inhibitors with the aim to develop it as a potential drug for AP.

Knowledge management can play a central strategic role in organisational life, potentially initiating from strategy planning to performance achievement. The continuous adjustment of organisational strategy and performance can be powerful in knowledge intensive organisations such as think tanks. Think tanks are policy research organisations, usually of small to medium size, and non-profit in nature. The Pakistani think tank ‘industry’ is at an important tipping point in terms of establishing knowledge ‘impact’ for the state and the wider society. Think tank organisations are gaining dual attention for creating awareness in society and suggesting policies to the state. The central purpose of this research is to provide an explanation of why and how knowledge management plays a role within think tanks, especially with regards to organisations linking strategy and performance. It also seeks to provide evidence from Pakistani think tanks providing suggestions for organisational improvement that may be applicable to think tanks in other developing countries. A thorough literature review from the field of knowledge management includes knowledge, knowledge management, and the strategic relationship of knowledge management, organisational strategy and organisational performance. Specifically, the research seeks to analyse knowledge management in social sciences policy research think tanks based in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. The participation of eight think tanks provided access for field visits to conduct interviews, observations and document collection. From the findings, it is recommended that consciousness towards knowledge management can highlight the natural and independent process to keep organisational strategy and performance improving continuously in a cyclic manner. Knowledge resources with Pakistani think tanks demand proper recognition and valuation, as they are potentially being worth more compared to material resources. Amongst the knowledge resources, cultural values and norms, multilingual skills, ‘friendly’ internal environments and leadership are found to be important. The strength of Pakistani think tanks is in their Relational Capital, which they appear to be utilising. Informal-Tacit knowledge management practices are highlighted more in the context, though gaps do appear to exist for formal practices. It is suggested that think tanks could further enhance real visibility through their Relational Capital and making use of tacit informal practices leading to friendly, multilingual and effectively leadership cultures with positive values. Think tanks have the potential to help provide solutions during turbulent times, both leading and managing knowledge – effecting a positive impact upon both state and society.

Challenging behaviors are considered predictors of poor outcomes and children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are at increased risk for such behaviors. There is limited research on how the functions of such behaviors and intervention strategies aimed at reducing them may differ by context. Using a researcher-designed survey, this study examined parents' and teachers' descriptions of the function of, and strategies for, challenging behaviors among children with and without ASD. A total of 488 respondents completed the survey, including 251 (51.5%) teachers and 237 (48.5%) parents. The participants were recruited in person and via social networking using snowballing and word-of-mouth. The study findings revealed that while both parents and teachers frequently identified avoidance/escape and attention-seeking as functions of challenging behaviors for children with and without ASD, there were some differences in their reports. Most notably, for children with ASD, 28% of parents reported children's use of challenging behaviors to get attention at home whereas 2% reported this function at school, while 72% of the teachers indicated children's use of challenging behaviors to seek attention at school and only 10% reported this function at home. The two most common intervention strategies identified by both teachers and parents were reinforcing positive effortful behavior and providing positive attention such as praise and acknowledgement. These finding are critical as they show the differences in the opinions towards the use of challenging behaviors in the home and school settings as reported by parents and teachers and inform future intervention efforts aimed at addressing challenging behaviors in varying contexts. [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.]

Geological faults are known to have a major impact on fluid flow in the subsurface and may developed isolated compartments for hydrocarbon reservoirs. The knowledge of their properties is important for petroleum industries within interests that include oil and gas production, Carbon dioxide storage and radioactive waste disposal. Large data sets have been collected on the single-phase permeability of fault rocks but these have been collected under inappropriate laboratory conditions such as low confining pressures and using distilled water as the permeant. Some data have been published on the gas relative permeability of fault rocks but no data is available on oil-water relative permeabilities or from fault rocks that are not strongly water-wet. The current thesis aims to produce high quality experimental data to partly fill these knowledge gaps by collecting gas and brine absolute permeability data from fault rocks at reservoir stress conditions using a formation compatible brine as well as oil-water relative permeabilities from fault rocks that are water-wet and after wettability alteration so that they become less water wet. The key findings of this thesis show that the absolute permeability of fault rocks is very stress sensitive due to the presence of microfractures created during coring or core-retrieval. The stress sensitivity of permeability increases with decreasing permeability. On average, fault rocks have a permeability at in situ stress which is ~ 20% that measured at ambient conditions. Permeability is also found to be less sensitive to brine composition, with permeabilities to distilled water being around 20% those when measured with brine. So the effects of two poor laboratory practices cancel each other out meaning that much published data remain usable. The obtained results from oil water relative permeability measurements of water-wet cataclastic faults are consistent with what is known about grain-sorting controlling relative permeability. The changes in wettability resulting from aging the samples in crude oil are also consistent with what would be expected when the wettability of samples is altered to being neutral to oil-wet. These results raise the possibility that fault rocks in some reservoirs may not be strongly water-wet and will therefore not act as capillary barriers. A new clay-mixing model is also presented, which explains the scatter on permeability vs clay content that is used as input for calculating fault transmissibility multipliers in production simulation models. The obtained results can be used as the analogues for similar fault rock types and implemented in the reservoir simulation models for the future forecast of hydrocarbon production.

This thesis presents new numerical algorithms for approximating functions by trigonometric polynomials and trigonometric rational functions. We begin by reviewing trigonometric polynomial interpolation and the barycentric formula for trigonometric polynomial interpolation in Chapter 1. Another feature of this chapter is the use of the complex plane, contour integrals and phase portraits for visualising various properties and relationships between periodic functions and their Laurent and trigonometric series. We also derive a periodic analogue of the Hermite integral formula which enables us to analyze interpolation error using contour integrals. We have not been able to find such a formula in the literature. Chapter 2 discusses trigonometric rational interpolation and trigonometric linearized rational least-squares approximations. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to numerically solve these problems. The contribution of this chapter is presented in the form of a robust algorithm for computing trigonometric rational interpolants of prescribed numerator and denominator degrees at an arbitrary grid of interpolation points. The algorithm can also be used to compute trigonometric linearized rational least-squares and trigonometric polynomial least-squares approximations. Chapter 3 deals with the problem of trigonometric minimax approximation of functions, first in a space of trigonometric polynomials and then in a set of trigonometric rational functions. The contribution of this chapter is presented in the form of an algorithm, which to our knowledge, is the first description of a Remez-like algorithm to numerically compute trigonometric minimax polynomial and rational approximations. Our algorithm also uses trigonometric barycentric interpolation and Chebyshev-eigenvalue based root finding. Chapter 4 discusses the Fourier-Padé (called trigonometric Padé) approximation of a function. We review two existing approaches to the problem, both of which are based on rational approximations of a Laurent series. We present a numerical algorithm with examples and compute various type (m, n) trigonometric Padé approximants.

The research aims to investigate the application of meshfree particle methods for computational modelling of the Fluid Structure Interaction problems with particular emphasis on flow around cylindrical objects and aerofoils. For this purpose, a solution scheme has been developed for solving incompressible, viscous Navier-Stokes (N-S) equations over meshfree particles. Spatial derivatives appearing in N-S equations are dealt with using radial basis functions infinite difference mode (RBF-FD). A comparative study has also been conducted between implicit and explicit in time solution schemes for N-S equations over meshfree nodes. Subsequently, a coupled meshfree and mesh-based solution scheme is proposed, over hybrid fluid grid, for incompressible, viscous flow around stationary as well as moving objects. The aim of this coupled solver is to provide efficiency and flexibility by combining the advantages of both meshfree and mesh-based methods. The coupled solution scheme suggests generating a body conformal meshfree nodal cloud around the solid body in the near field. A static Cartesian grid surrounds the meshfree cloud in the far field. The Meshfree nodes offer flexibility in dealing with solid motion by moving along the solid boundary without necessitating re-meshing. The Cartesian grid, on the other hand, provides improved performance by allowing faster computation owing to the use of efficient mesh based method. Flow equations, in Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian (ALE) formulation, are solved using RBF-FD based scheme over moving meshfree nodes. Conventional infinite differencing is used over static Cartesian grid for flow equations in Eulerian formulation. The coupled solution scheme, on hybrid grid, is employed for closely coupled Fluid Structure Interaction problems. The equations for solid motion are solved using classical Runge-Kutta method. Close coupling between fluid and structural solvers is realized by a sub-iterative prediction-correction algorithm. In order to reduce computational overhead due to sub-iterations, only near field flow (in meshfree zone) is solved during inner iterations. Solution over full fluid domain is sought during outer (time step) iterations only, when the convergence at fluidsolid interface has already been reached. The solution scheme is also applied for high Reynolds number problems. For this purpose, a stabilization term is included in the flow equations to suppress the spurious oscillations. The stabilization term is derived using vimomentum balance equation over control volume and applying higher order Taylor series expansion of momentum flux and fluid forces. In order to avoid ill-conditioning and accuracy problems related to RBF matrices in domains having varying nodal density, use of shape adaptive RBFs are proposed. In that, the shape parameter of the radial basis function is varied according to local nodal density. Moreover, adaptive sizing of influence domain has also been introduced to maintain suitable number of neighbouring particles. These adaptive techniques are found to be useful as they allow much finer nodal distribution at regions of interest enabling accurate capturing of flow gradients and leading to better results. The use of hybrid grid offers flexibility in dealing with moving boundaries. Moreover, in addition to allowing faster computing over Cartesian grid, it also enables using the reduced fluid domain during inner FSI iterations and therefore helps reduce the number of computations in the fluid domain during fluid-solid coupling. The solution scheme was tested for problems relating to flows around static as well as moving cylinders and aerofoils. Flow induced vibrations have been studied with one and two degrees of freedom. The results are found to be in good agreement with previous numerical work and experimental results.

The objective of this thesis is threefold: Firstly, to deal with the deterministic problem consisting of non-linear heat equation of gradient type. It comes out as projecting the Laplace operator with Dirichlet boundary conditions and polynomial nonlinearly of degree 2n-1, onto the tangent space of a sphere M in a Hilbert space H. We are going to deal with questions of the existence and the uniqueness of a global solution, and the invariance of manifold M i.e. if the suitable initial data lives on M then all trajectories of solutions also belong to M. Secondly, to generalize the deterministic model to its stochastic version i.e. stochastic non-linear heat equation driven by the noise of Stratonovich type. We are going to show that if the suitable initial data belongs to manifold $M$ then M-valued unique global solution to the generalized stochastic model exists. Thirdly, to investigate the small noise asymptotics of the stochastic model. A Freidlin-Wentzell large deviation principle is established for the laws of solutions of stochastic heat equation on Hilbert manifold.

Prostate cancer (PC) is a major health problem in the Western world. Current diagnostic tests such as serum prostate specific antigen (PSA), digital rectal examination (DRE) and prostate biopsies each have limitations. PSA may be elevated in non-malignant conditions such as urinary tract infection, prostatitis and benign prostatic hyperplasia. PC screening, risk stratification and monitoring after treatment requires cancer biomarkers with higher sensitivity and specificity for prostate cancer. Cancer biomarkers that could distinguish between clinically significant PC and clinically insignificant disease would help clinicians and patients to avoid over-treatment and under-treatment of localised PC. Engrailed-2 (EN2) is a promising novel biomarker for PC. The EN2 gene is a member of the HOX gene family, which are expressed in the embryonic human brain during development. Several human malignancies, including PC, have demonstrated re-expression of HOX gene products. Human EN2 is protein that is secreted into the urine and may be conveniently assayed using ELISA. Urinary EN2 remains stable at room temperature for up to four days, and there is no requirement for prior DRE. Prostate HistoscanningTM (PHS) is a novel trans-rectal ultrasound-based imaging technique. The manufacturers claim that it has the ability to detect and localise PC. The aim of the studies described in this thesis was to evaluate the roles of EN2 and PHS in the diagnosis of PC, risk stratification of patients diagnosed with localised PC, and the follow up of patients after radical PC treatment. Urinary EN2 was assayed in healthy volunteers and various groups of PC patients. An assay of seminal EN2 was developed, and applied to specimens from healthy volunteers and PC patients. PHS was performed in patients immediately prior to undergoing radical prostatectomy. Urinary EN2 levels were significantly lower among healthy volunteers compared to patients with localised PC (either on active surveillance or before undergoing radical prostatectomy). There was no significant difference between urinary EN2 levels among healthy volunteers and patients who were disease-free five years after radical treatment for PC. There was a strong correlation between urinary EN2 levels and prostate tumour volume among patients undergoing radical prostatectomy. There was no significant difference between urinary EN2 levels before and after neoadjuvant hormone therapy, or before and after prostate brachytherapy. Urinary EN2 levels in the PC relapse group following radical prostatectomy and prostate brachytherapy were significantly higher than among the cured group. Among PC patients, seminal EN2 levels were significantly higher than urinary EN2 levels. We found no correlation between tumour volume and pathological stage measured by PHS versus whole mount RP histology. PHS failed to detect and localise PC in routine clinical practice. However, urinary and seminal EN2 show promise as a PC biomarker.

The spontaneous capillary-driven filling of micro channels is important for a wide range of applications. Reporting for the first time for vertically mounted open top channels, in this work the theory for capillary rise in channels of rectangular cross-section has been tested and verified, taking into account the effects of surface topography assuming a Wenzel state. The theory has been tested via capillary rise experiments using polydimethylsiloxane oils of viscosity 96.0, 48.0, 19.2 and 4.8 mPa s within the 400μm and 600μm closed square glass tubes and SU8 open top smooth walled rectangular cross-section channels having width 400μm and 600μm and depth 135μm. It has been shown that capillary rise heights in plane open top walled channels (with roughness factor of 1) can be fitted using the exact numerical solution and that these are similar to fits using the analytical visco-gravitational solution. The viscous friction contribution was found to be higher than predicted by theory assuming a non-rigidified liquid–air boundary, but far below that for a rigidified boundary, which is recently reported for imbibition into horizontally mounted open micro channels. It has also been observed that fingers of liquid spreading along the internal edges of the smooth walled channels in advance of the main body of liquid consistent with wetting expectations. These fingers were observed to be thicker and larger in size for wider and shallower channels. The data from the experiments in which prominent liquid fingers were observed was fitted using the visco-gravitational approximation and it was found that the rise heights were far less than the expected heights especially in wider and shallower channels. In SU8 open top channels, Wenzel roughness was introduced on the walls in the form of triangular steps to provide additional surface area to rising liquid. The experiments were performed with 300-350μm deep open top rough walled SU8 channels of width 400μm and 600μm using PDMS oils of viscosity 19.2, 48 and 96 mPas. The equilibrium height was observed to be increased in channels with greater roughness. The data was fitted using the visco-gravitational solution and the fitted height was found to be increased with roughness but not as much as expected from a Wenzel consideration. This deviation of fitted height from its predicted value was found to be more in the channels with greater roughness factors. The stick-slip behaviour of the liquid fingers was observed along the roughness steps.

The study explores the practicability and usefulness of the Carpe Vitam Concept of Leadership for Learning (LfL) for schools in Pakistan, placing this project amongst the pioneering work that might bring a new insight for practitioners, policy makers and researchers in the South East Asian region and particularly in Pakistan. Data was collected from six public and private secondary schools with a case study approach through interviews, questionnaires and documentary analysis from six headteachers, thirty teachers, three hundred and sixty parents and three hundred and sixty students. Data was analysed with a constant comparison approach that looked for meanings through emerging themes. The study construes how leadership and learning are conceptualized and experienced differently by different stakeholders in public and private schools in Pakistan. The research highlights the importance of dialogue between all stakeholders to establish shared vision for effective learning outcomes where knowledge of self, others, organization and community supplement the entire process at all levels. The study places emphasis on an on-going process of reflection for better resilience, resourcefulness and reciprocity amongst stakeholders for effective outcomes.

Since its discovery in 1966 the alkene-arene meta-photocycloaddition reaction has proved useful in the total synthesis of several natural products and compounds of theoretical interest. [I] Introduction of a complex tricyclic carbon framework to afford the commonly observed regioisomers 1 and 2 (Scheme i) via a single step is achieved upon irradiation of an aromatic and alkene precursor with 253.7 nm light. The reaction is of significant utility and has been subject to various mechanistic studies leading to the proposal of a widely accepted mechanism. More recently, high level theory has been applied to the prototypical case of benzene and ethene, however, the affect of substituents upon this model remains to be examined. providing scope for investigation in this area. Herein an approach to maximise the chemical and quantum yields in the intramolecular version of the reaction will be studied as a foundation towards the total synthesis of natural products containing a gomerane skeleton (Figure i).[4] Such syntheses will be directed using ab initio electronic structure calculations in a predictive manner to establish regio- and stereochemical preferences, enabling the utility of computational methods to be assessed in a field of considerable synthetic importance.

Pyrolysis gasoline (PyGas) is a by-product of high temperature naphtha cracking during ethylene and propylene production. It is a high octane number mixture which contains aromatics, olefins and paraffins ranging from C5s to C12s. PyGas has high potential for use as a gasoline blending mixture and/or as a source of aromatics. Currently, PyGas is generally used as a gasoline blending mixture due to its high octane number, but global production of PyGas is very high and further increases are anticipated in the future due to higher demands for ethylene and propylene. However, current strict fuel regulations for aromatic content make PyGas utilisation as a blending mixture more difficult, therefore a useful avenue for PyGas consumption is desired. Catalytic hydrogenation of PyGas is an important industrial and academic research area for the stabilisation, upgrading and utilisation of PyGas. Limited work has been performed on the hydrogenation of PyGas and an incomplete picture of the process has been obtained. The composition of PyGas is very complex and therefore most of the studies have been carried out with single compounds or a mixture of a few model compounds for simplicity and generality. However, the single model compound cannot be representive of the entire PyGas hydrogenation process. Furthermore, the behaviour of these compounds is generally different in mixtures than as individual compounds. Hence, the hydrogenation of a PyGas, which contained styrene, toluene, 1-octene, cyclopentene, heptane, decane and 1,3-pentadiene/1-pentene, was investigated over alumina supported nickel and palladium catalysts. This is a comprehensive model for the broader groups of hydrocarbons present in PyGas. The aim of the work was to investigate the effect of reaction parameters such as reaction temperature, total reaction pressure, hydrogen partial pressure and WHSV of PyGas on the hydrogenation of PyGas. Different strategies were proposed for PyGas consumption to obtain; (i) a high octane number gasoline blend, (ii) an aromatic source mixture and (iii) hydrogenation of surplus aromatics present in PyGas. These desired products were achieved during PyGas hydrogenation over both the nickel and palladium catalysts by using different reaction conditions. However, the palladium catalyst was found to be preferable for the selective hydrogenation of reactive species such as styrene, diolefins and for the isomerisation of olefins, without the hydrogenation of aromatics during PyGas hydrogenation at mild reaction temperatures. However, surplus aromatics hydrogenation can be achieved over the palladium catalyst with an increase in reaction temperature. Conversely, a greater amount of aromatics saturation was observed during PyGas hydrogenation over the nickel catalyst. Therefore the nickel catalyst was found to be preferable when aromatic ring saturation is desired during PyGas hydrogenation. The selective hydrogenation of PyGas without aromatics saturation was achieved over a nickel catalyst when using a low hydrogen partial pressure. The kinetics of PyGas hydrogenation were also investigated for a better understanding of the process. The apparent orders for hydrogenation /isomerisation of the PyGas components were investigated by using an empirical rate equation. During PyGas hydrogenation, first order (1.1 to 1.6) kinetics were observed for the hydrogenation of olefins to their respective paraffins over both the nickel and palladium catalysts with an increase in hydrogen partial pressure, which became zero or negative order kinetics when sufficient amounts of hydrogen were available on the surface of the catalyst. Negative order kinetics were observed for olefin isomerisation to internal olefin with an increase in hydrogen partial pressure. Meanwhile the hydrogenation of styrene to ethylbenzene followed zero order kinetics with respect to hydrogen over both catalysts due to the strong adsorption of styrene onto the catalyst. Third order kinetics were observed for aromatics hydrogenation over both catalysts. On the other hand, the hydrogenation of olefins to paraffins followed zero to negative order (0 to -0.7) kinetics, whilst positive order (1.6 to 3.6) kinetics were observed for isomerisation of olefins to internal olefins with respect to PyGas. Moreover, positive order (0.7 to 1.0) kinetics were observed for styrene hydrogenation to ethylbenzene with respect to PyGas. The hydrogenation of aromatics followed negative orders kinetics with respect to PyGas over both catalysts due to competitive hydrogenation of the olefinic and aromatic components. Coke deposition is believed to be the main reason for catalyst deactivation during the PyGas hydrogenation reaction. The amount and nature of the coke deposited was investigated by in-situ temperature programmed oxidation (TPO). The increase in reaction temperature not only increased the amount of coke deposition but also produced more condensed hydrogen deficient type coke. Conversely, the carbon laydown decreased with an increase in hydrogen partial pressure. Larger amounts of coke deposition took place over the nickel catalyst when compared to the coke deposited over the palladium catalyst under identical reaction conditions. Moreover, a soft type coke (with lower C/H ratio) was deposited over the palladium catalyst, while a comparatively hard type coke (with higher C/H ratio) was deposited over the nickel catalyst. Both the nickel and palladium catalysts used during PyGas hydrogenation were effectively regenerated by in-situ TPO with no significant loss to their catalytic properties.

The educatiuonal achievements of British Muslims, particularly South Asians, have been studied in past decades, but, unfortunately, the impact of digital technologies on young Muslim children has not recieved sufficient attention. In addition, past studies mostly relied on quantitative methods to gain knowledge on the educational achievements of British Muslims. The thesis is grounded in a qualitative approach within a social constructionist paradigm, to elicit the views of young British Muslim girls on their use of digital technologies for educational achievements. The data presented were obtained by carrying out semi-structured interviews with a sample of young (14-19 year old) British Muslim girls at three single-sex Islamic faith schools, and were analysed using mainly template analysis, and also matrix analysis and cross-case analysis within and cross the case studies. It was found that most of the female Muslim students interviewed for this research study were satisfied and performed competently at case Islamic faith schools. Furthermore, the educational success at school A was attributable to educational norms and values relative to the provision of digital resources and skilled teaching staff. The educational experiences of school B and C were problematic, largely because of access to digital technologies, and provision of digital content and skilled teaching staff. Another factor of students’ underachievement was found to be that parents had limited levels of education and inadequate understanding of the education. Most of the students had a positive attitude towards the technologies. The thesis concludes that the educational achievement of British Muslim girls in schools is closely related to access to digital technologies, digital academic content, skilled academic staff and the technological, infrastructure in schools. The net effect of digital technologies is positive on Muslim girls in the increasingly competitive nature of the education system. The thesis is original and the first study of this kind that offers an insight into the access to digital technologies and educational attainment of young British Muslim girls that is reflected in key concepts through the usage and incorporation of technologies in education. Other aspects of this research include the issues of provision of technologies at home and parents’ educational level, contribution to knowledge, and the need for further broader and longitudinal study.

The increasing use of interactive multimedia applications over the Internet has created a problem of congestion. This is because a majority of these applications do not respond to congestion indicators. This leads to resource starvation for responsive flows, and ultimately excessive delay and losses for all flows therefore loss of quality. This results in unfair sharing of network resources and increasing the risk of network ‘congestion collapse’. Current Congestion Control Mechanisms such as ‘TCP-Friendly Rate Control’ (TFRC) have been able to achieve ‘fair-share’ of network resource when competing with responsive flows such as TCP, but TFRC’s method of congestion response (i.e. to reduce Packet Rate) is not ideally matched for interactive multimedia applications which maintain a fixed Frame Rate. This mismatch of the two rates (Packet Rate and Frame Rate) leads to buffering of frames at the Sender Buffer resulting in delay and loss, and an unacceptable reduction of quality or complete loss of service for the end-user. To address this issue, this thesis proposes a novel Congestion Control Mechanism which is referred to as ‘TCP-friendly rate control – Fine Grain Scalable’ (TFGS) for interactive multimedia applications. This new approach allows multimedia frames (data) to be sent as soon as they are generated, so that the multimedia frames can reach the destination as quickly as possible, in order to provide an isochronous interactive service. This is done by maintaining the Packet Rate of the Congestion Control Mechanism (CCM) at a level equivalent to the Frame Rate of the Multimedia Encoder.The response to congestion is to truncate the Packet Size, hence reducing the overall bitrate of the multimedia stream. This functionality of the Congestion Control Mechanism is referred to as Packet Size Truncation (PST), and takes advantage of adaptive multimedia encoding, such as Fine Grain Scalable (FGS), where the multimedia frame is encoded in order of significance, Most to Least Significant Bits. The Multimedia Adaptation Manager (MAM) truncates the multimedia frame to the size indicated by the Packet Size Truncation function of the CCM, accurately mapping user demand to available network resource. Additionally Fine Grain Scalable encoding can offer scalability at byte level granularity, providing a true match to available network resources. This approach has the benefits of achieving a ‘fair-share’ of network resource when competing with responsive flows (as similar to TFRC CCM), but it also provides an isochronous service which is of crucial benefit to real-time interactive services. Furthermore, results illustrate that an increased number of interactive multimedia flows (such as voice) can be carried over congested networks whilst maintaining a quality level equivalent to that of a standard landline telephone. This is because the loss and delay arising from the buffering of frames at the Sender Buffer is completely removed. Packets sent maintain a fixed inter-packet-gap-spacing (IPGS). This results in a majority of packets arriving at the receiving end at tight time intervals. Hence, this avoids the need of using large Playout (de-jitter) Buffer sizes and adaptive Playout Buffer configurations. As a result this reduces delay, improves interactivity and Quality of Experience (QoE) of the multimedia application.

The aim of this study was to develop a condition specific quality of life measure for hypodontia patients. A structured three stage approach to the methodology was followed, based on the work of Hunt et al. (1986). This entailed the use of qualitative methods to identify relevant dimensions of patients' perceptions, the creation of items from the qualitative data and then testing the properties of the measure including readability, ease of administration, validity and reliability. Five focus groups were held with a total of twenty two participants to identify issues of importance to patients. The transcripts of the discussions were analysed to derive the themes of importance. The frequency of occurrence of themes was determined. Four broad themes were identified that informed the design of the sections of the questionnaire. The readability ofthe questionnaire was assessed using the Flesch Reading Ease Score and was found to have a value of 81, or a U.S. grade level 5 equivalent to a reading age of 10 years. The criterion validity was analysed by comparing seven items of the questionnaire with seven similarly worded items in the Child Perception Questionnaire (CPQ). The criterion validity was good for these seven items. The construct validity was tested using Principal Component analysis (PCA). This in general showed good construct validity for the four sections of the questionnaire. It highlighted a low level of construct validity for one question each in both the activities and appearance section of the questionnaire. Cronbach’s alpha was used to test internal consistency reliability and was shown to be good for both the overall questionnaire and the individual sections of the questionnaire. Test-retest reliability scores showed good agreement between responses at Tl and T2 for all four sections. This was tested using the Intra Class Correlation Coefficient and Bland and Altman method. A condition specific quality of life measure has been developed for use in hypodontia patients. It demonstrates acceptable levels of reliability and validity and can therefore be considered for use in future hypodontia research and audit.

Crystal Engineering is the design of crystalline material using non-covalent synthesis. Co-crystals are multi-component crystals which are constructed from complementary intermolecular interactions, they are also known as supramolecular complexes. Design of such materials utilises the synthon approach, this involves the understanding of common intermolecular interactions which occur in the crystal packing and is used to design new solids with desired physical properties and chemical properties. Primary amides form supramolecular heterosynthons, these synthons represent an opportunity for a design of multi-component crystals in which one molecule contains a primary amide and a second molecule which is complimentary to the primary amide, usually carboxylic acids. The progress with regards to the screening process for the determination of co-crystals is evident in the literature, In particular, high throughput solution growth methods and solvent drop grinding. The comparison of Isonicotinamide and Benzamide as a co-crystal component has been presented. This study was motivated by the observation that the CSD contains 24 Isonicotinamide and 1 Benzamide co-crystal. The interaction with carboxylic acids is the focus of the work, in particular those which form Isonicotinamide co-crystal are being screened with Benzamide. Our work utilises a ReactArray Microvate to carry out the low throughput solution growth on a matrix of carboxylic acid with Benzamide, this study has been coupled with the Kofler hot stage microscope method which visually aids to screen and view co-crystal phase formation. Crystallisation screens have resulted in the identification of known co-crystal phases of Isonicotinamide and Benzamide, additionally new co-crystal phases have also been identified with Fumaric, 3-hydroxybenzoic acid, Mandelic Acid, 4-Nitrobenzoic Acid and Tartaric Acid. Single crystal structures of the Fumaric and 4-Nitrobenzoic acid have been obtained. In order to develop an understanding of co-crystal formation in Isonicotinamide and Benzamide with our supramolecular library, packing landscape analysis is being undertaken using both the CSD and crystal structures we have obtained. This is undertaken as collaboration with Dr Andy Parkin and Professor Gilmore (University of Glasgow), we have identified that the dSNAP analysis is a way forward for the analysis of how co-crystals pack. The analysis highlighted the subtleties that were present in the packing motifs of the Isonicotinamide co-crystals. In particular the cis and trans orientation of the amide and acid carbonyl to each other and the planar and off planar layer assemblies. All of which are required to maximise the hydrogen bond usage of the components comprising the co-crystals. Further investigations have led to the collaborative project with Syngenta Ltd in the design of a co-crystal screen using a high through-put robot, Crissy® -Automation Platform by Zinsser Analytical, using an extended screen of 16 acid coformers with Isonicotinamide, Benzamide and Nicotinamide the sample have been characterised using a reflectance diffraction method, GADDS. Further analysis of this data involves the use of polySNAP, which has led to further collaboration with Professor Gilmore's group.

The objective of this thesis is to develop a conceptual model that determines how employee perceptions of their work environments are related to their wellbeing and behaviour. This thesis replicates and extends job demands-control-support (JDCS) theory by integrating variables associated with perceived work environment characteristics (job demands, autonomy, managerial support, and family support), general wellbeing (anxiety), job-related wellbeing (job satisfaction and organization commitment), behaviour (turnover), personal characteristics (male versus female employees), and organizational characteristics (public versus private sectors) into a coherent model. The structural equation modelling technique is used to validate of the measurement model and for examining the inter-relationships among these variables at both the individual and workplace level. For the purpose of analysis, data has been taken from 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey (VVERS 2004). At individual level, the findings suggest that employee perceptions of their work environment are associated with their general and job-related wellbeing. The empirical findings show that (1) higher job demands placed on employees and perceived lack of family support influence job attitudes through their effect on anxiety, (2) high job control and managerial support reduces work related anxiety and increases job satisfaction and organization commitment, and (3) male and female employees do not perceive their work environments differently. At workplace level, the findings suggest that employee shared perceptions of their work environment are associated with their wellbeing and behaviour. The empirical findings show that: (1) higher job demands placed on employees increases their work related anxiety and reduces their job satisfaction in private workplaces, (2) high job control and managerial support increases job satisfaction and organization commitment, (3) perceived lack of family support reduces organization commitment in private sector, (4) job satisfaction is the only direct antecedent of turnover, (5) of work environment characteristics, autonomy and managerial support are indirect antecedents of turnover, (6) lack of family support reduces organization commitment in private sector. Overall, the thesis indicates that while JDCS theory is useful in explaining employees psychological and health related wellbeing, extending theory to include family support and using extended theory to predict job-related wellbeing and turnover increases our understanding of the underlying phenomena.

Campylobacter jejuni is a common cause of human gastrointestinal infections. Invasion of host epithelial cells is believed to be an important virulence Mechanism of this bacterium. C. jejuni strains vary in their ability to invade the human epithelial cells and some of the strains are hyperinvasive. The aim of this work was to find the molecular basis of this hyperinvasive phenotype. The previously studied hyperinvasive phenotype of C. jejuni 01/51 in INT-407 cells was verified using Caco-2 cell based invasion assay and the assay was set up at Nottingham Trent University by selecting blood agar for 48 hours as the pre-assay bacterial growth conditions and 100 multiplicity of infection as the starting inoculum. Seven hundred and sixty eight mutants generated in this strain by random transposon insertional mutagenesis were screened for their ability to invade human intestinal epithelial cells in an in vitro model and 174 mutants were selected for further studies. The motility of selected mutants was determined and 40 mutants that showed more than 75% motility compared to wildtype strain, with a very low level of invasion were selected for reconfirmation of this reduced invasion phenotype using standard INT-407 and Caco-2 cells based invasion assays. Localisation of the transposon insertion site by plasmid rescue was attempted in 15 mutants that showed very low levels of invasion in both eukaryotic cell lines. Preliminary DNA sequencing data from these mutants has identified, amongst others: cipA; an anion-uptake ABC-transport system permease; a glycosyltransferase; a membrane protein; a capsule polysaccharide biosynthesis protein, a putative histidine triad (HIT) family protein; a putative restriction modification enzyme; a putA; a putative cytochrome C and 2 hypothetical proteins. DNA sequence from one mutant had no database match. Targeted mutagenesis was done in 6 genes to verify the reduced invasion phenotype observed in the transposon mutants and Caco-2 cell-based adhesion and invasion assays were performed. All the six targeted mutants showed reduced invasion of Caco-2 cells compared to the wildtype strain but interestingly adhesion was variable. Complementation of 4 mutated genes partially restored the reduced invasion phenotype in the mutants. The reduced invasion of the mutants into human intestinal epithelial cells was not due to a reduction in their growth, motility, atmospheric air survival, culture media or intracellular survival of the mutants. The Cj1136 mutant showed significantly reduced ability to colonise the chick gut and the gene was also found to be crucial for lipooligosaccharides biosynthesis in C. jejuni.

The thesis uses NIE and NIS perspectives to analyse the post-Enron response of the UK companies and auditors with regards to joint provision of audit and non-audit services (NAS). Three potential behaviours are investigated: NAS purchase behaviour of the UK companies; NAS disclosure behaviour of the UK companies; and responses of the auditors to draft APB ethical standards (2004a). Using the NIE-NIS framework, it is acknowledged that such responses could be driven by varying degrees of legitimacy, and economic dependence. The thesis uses multi-strategy research methods to investigate the behaviours of UK companies and auditors. Using a sample of 147 FTSE 250 companies, the thesis provides evidence of changes in NAS purchase behaviour post-Enron. Also, it is found that NAS purchase behaviour varies with varying threats of legitimacy. OLS and 2SLS regression results identify audit fees, company size, and legitimacy threat as important determinants of NAS fees in the UK. With regards to NAS disclosure behaviour, the results indicate that UK companies significantly increased NAS related disclosures in their annual reports, irrespective of varying levels of institutional pressures. Use of a disclosure index facilitates this thesis in identifying the determinants of NAS disclosures of the UK companies. Company size, governance, and registration with the SEC are found to be important determinants of disclosure levels. A qualitative analysis of the auditors' response letters to the draft APB ethical standards reveals that the responses of different groups of auditors varied with the varying threats of legitimacy. Also, it is found that the auditors' responses were driven by economic reasons. Overall, the findings of this thesis suggest that behaviour in the UK was significantly affected by the events in the US and that UK companies followed strategies both of voluntarily reducing NAS purchase and providing greater NAS disclosure to help maintain confidence in UK financial reporting and auditing. Also, the strategies adopted by auditors varied in accordance with their legitimacy threat exposure, and economic dependence. 6

Advances in wireless and Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) technology has given birth to a new technology field sensor networks. These new technologies along with pervasive computing have made the dream of a smart environment come true. Sensors being small and capable of sensing, processing and communicating data has opened a whole new era of applications from medicine to military and from indoors to outdoors. Sensor networks although exciting have very limited resources, for example, memory, processing power and bandwidth, with energy being the most precious resource as they are battery operated. However, these amazing devices can collaborate in order to perform a task. Due to these limitations and specific characteristics being application specific and heterogeneous there is a need to devise techniques and software which would utilize the meager resources efficiently keeping in view the unique characteristics of this network. This thesis presents a lightweight, flexible and energy-efficient middleware framework called MidWSeN which combines aspects of queries, events and context of WSN in a single system. It provides a combination of core and optional services which could be adjusted according to the resources available and specific requirements of the application. The availability of multiple copies of services distributed across the network helps in making the system robust. This middleware framework introduces a new Persistent Storage Service which saves data within the sensor network on the nodes for lifetime of the network to provide historical data. A Priority algorithm is being also presented in this thesis to ensure that enough memory is always available. A novel context enhanced aggregation has also been presented in this thesis which aggregates data with respect to context. Application management service (AMS) provides Service optimization within the network is another novel aspect of the proposed framework. To evaluate the functionality of the work presented, different parts of the framework have also been implemented. The tests and results are detailed to prove the ideas presented in the framework. The work has also been evaluated against a set of requirements and compared against existing works to indicate the novel aspects of framework. Finally some ideas are presented for the future works.

The study is based upon an analysis of the general principles of criminal liability in English law and Shari 'ah. It is hoped that it may provide a valid basis for discussion of the future development of criminal law. The relationship between law and society is an organic one and this relationship in Shari'ah is based on revelatory text of precepts, law, and admonitions. Shari'ah is an essential part of faith of every Muslim; a sound knowledge of its principles not only gives him a sense of inner fulfilment but enables him to order his life according to the dictates of his religion. On the other hand, in English law, religious beliefs and private morality might be viewed as not a matter for law. Religion is in that context generally conceived as a spiritual sphere of supra-human connotation distinct from law, which is basically a secular concern. Both the systems of law under consideration are different in their sources and nature. English law, being a positive law, finds its source in legislation and other recognised sources. Shari 'ah is a divine ordinance imposed upon people without having a freedom of choice and it has its roots in its primary sources, the Holy Qur'an, and the Sunnah. However, the revelatory nature of Shari'ah does not render it entirely inflexible and immutable. The finality of authoritative legal texts is confined only to a limited number of injunctions in the primary sources. The secondary sources provide flexibility to meet the changing requirements of society. A legal system should strike a fair balance between flexibility and inflexibility of legal rules. A very flexible system of law may lead to inconsistencies, illogicalities and at the same time may be subject to abuse by judges while a rigid system, which leaves no room for judicial discretion is likely to lead to injustice in certain cases. It is submitted that the very flexible nature of English law has left it full of inconsistencies and illogicalities, despite the appropriate use of judicial discretion. The research offers a general view of modern thinking about the theoretical foundations and methodology of Shari'ah Shari 'ah recognises a variety of sources and methods from which a rule of law might be derived. Part-I of the thesis discusses the evolving principles of Islamic jurisprudence from their rudimentary sources. The specific relationship between socio-religious reality and the production of theoretical legal discourse is illustrated in Part-11 and III while dealing with the problem of intoxication and private defence in society. It suggests that Shari'ah provides a framework in which the complex and sometimes competing needs of an individual and society can be fairly apportioned. The research will demonstrate that there is a well developed system of criminal law in Shari'ah that can be compared with the most developed and civilised criminal law of the contemporary world, for example, English criminal law. In order to compare the compatibility of both the legal systems, the approaches of both towards the problems of intoxication and self-defence have been taken as a parameter. Though Shari 'ah provisions seem to be predominantly prescriptive as compared to English criminal law, the comparison will show that it can provide practical solutions to problems faced by human society of any age. Shari 'ah being a revealed law is proactive in its nature. It takes action to cause changes and not only react to a change when it happens. This particular feature can be felt while dealing with the problem of intoxication. English criminal law, on the other hand, being a positive law bears the characteristics of a reactive law. It reacts to events or changes rather than acting first to cause change or prevent something. Another major difference between the two legal systems might be that English criminal law has passed through many evolutionary phases and reached at the present stage through the efforts of the political power and the state; whereas, Muslim states and governments throughout the centuries neither had a hand in the development of Islamic jurisprudence nor in the training and certification of jurists or jurisconsults whose task it was to formulate the law. History suggests that using the combined forces of religion, morality and law Shari'ah has effectively eradicated social evils and created a peaceful environment for human coexistence, where every one can enjoy his rights without a fear of infringement by the others. In cases of infringement of such rights, the offender shall be liable to severe punishments. The principles of criminal liability are on a par with the corresponding principles of the English criminal law. While protecting the rights of the victim of the crime, Shari'ah does not ignore the rights of the offender for fair trail, impartial justice and liability for punishment proportional to the offence committed by him. At the same time it recognises excuse and justification defences under appropriate circumstances, as it will be evident while comparing the defences of intoxication and self-defence with the same in English criminal law. The study reveals that there are similarities and differences between English law and Shari'ah when considering the issue of crime and criminal liability. However, this may be considered as normal phenomenon of comparing any two different legal systems. The differences can be attributed to their sources, origin, history and nature of the social values to be protected. Similarities can be ascribed to zeal for social justice and stability. The study of differences and similarities will provide an opportunity to illuminate our understanding of law and the process of its development. As both the systems have their own methodology to tackle legal issues, a different approach to the similar problem will provide a fresh insight leading to revitalised solutions. It will also be helpful to understand the methodology and the legal reasoning of both the systems leading towards a better understanding of law in general and at the same time providing efficient means for improvement.

In this thesis, a new concept of finite strip elements is introduced. Lagrangian, Hermitian and spline-type interpolations have been used independently along the two axes of the plate mid-plane. Different plate-bending theories; Mindlin, Reissner and Kirchhoff theories have been applied in the derivations of the new finitestrip elements, for isotropic and composite materials. The new elements have also been extended to work as faceted shell elements for the analysis of cylindrical shells, folded plates and stiffened plates. An efficient modular programming package based on those elements was designed, and it is capable of performing linear and non-linear stress analysis, buckling analysis and natural frequency analysis. The modular package, which was coded in FORTRAN has different solvers and a built-in mesh generator for different types of plate structures. A number of case studies have been employed for the validation of the package and testing its different capabilities. The package has proved to be an efficient tool for numerical modelling of plates, cylindrical shells, folded plates and stiffened plates made of isotropic and composite layered materials.

lass fibre reinforced plastic (GRP) structural profiles, in standard shapes and sizes are now being commercially manufactured by the process of pultrusion. GRP profiles are light weight, posses higher specific strengths and are more durable than the conventional metal or concrete counterparts. GRP pultruded profiles have open or closed cross-sections comprising thin composite walls of low elastic moduli. Stability failure has been identified as the main cause of failure for these profiles when subjected to compressive stresses, as it may occurs at stresses much lower than the ultimate strengths. Therefore, the load carrying capacities of composite compression members mainly depends upon stability criteria. The conventional stability analyses for the prediction of buckling loads are not considered adequate as the GRP material is orthotropic and its behaviour is different from steel (non-yielding). The existing guidance for the design of composite members under compression ignores the presence of geometrical imperfections inherited in the pultruded profiles, whilst, experimental evidence suggests considerable loss of stiffness due to the imperfections particularly in the intermediate column heights. The design guidance provided by the manufacturers gives empirical equations based on data obtained from experiments on specified profiles. A universal design curve based on the experimental results of concentrically loaded GRP columns has been developed and presented. However, conducting a vast experimental study is not always feasible. The need to develop a procedure, predicting failure load numerically for the development of a design curve for GRP columns has been recognised. Two GRP box-sections (closed square cross-sections) have been investigated for failure/buckling loads using experimental and numerical methods. In the experimental phase, specimen columns of various heights have been concentrically loaded in compression to measure the failure loads. Experimental results have been compared with the theoretical predictions made using classical methods and the equations given by the design manuals. Based on the experimental and analytical failure loads, an experimental design curve has been derived. In the numerical study, 3-dimensional full scale finite element models representing experimental configuration of the composite columns, have been analysed using both linear and nonlinear solutions. Imperfections of known amplitudes have been included parametrically to establish the sensitivity of the failure loads towards imperfections. Imperfect model have been calibrated for the estimation of imperfection amplitude present in the profiles using experimental data. Using the numerical and analytical data, a design curve has been derived establishing interaction coefficients for each profile. The numerical design curve is compared with the experimental design curve for the validation of the numerical procedure adopted in this study. Effects of perforations (circular holes) on the buckling stiffness of GRP box-section columns have also been investigated. Holes are drilled in the walls of profiles and tested experimentally to measure the loss in the buckling loads. Finite element models of columns with holes have been developed and analysed for buckling loads. Comparisons of experimental and numerical results are plotted. For use in the numerical representation of the composite columns, mechanical properties of the orthotropic GRP material of the both sections have been established analytically and experimentally. In-plane shear properties have been measured by physically testing standard sized coupons, extracted along the length of profiles. However, short coupons were available in the transverse directions due to dimensional constraints. Short coupons, similar in geometry to the standard coupon, but smaller in size, have been validated for performance using finite element analyses and comparing the outcomes with the models of standard coupons. Both standard and short coupons have been used for the experimental measurement of the in-plane shear properties. Compression properties have also been measured experimentally. Ultimate failure/buckling loads of the composite columns depend upon their heights, material properties, and the cross-sectional dimensions. These factors have been combined into one characteristic parameter 'λ', the slenderness ratio. As the later two factors are constant for a particular box-section profile, the ultimate loads depend upon column heights. Four types of failure modes; global, local, modal interaction and material failure have been observed. The loss in the buckling stiffness is minimal for smaller circular holes, provided the interval between holes is not less than 20 times the diameter of the holes. For bigger holes and an inter hole spacing of 10time the diameter, a loss of 30% have been measured. Finite element representation of pultruded columns adequately predicted the numerical failure loads and failure modes for most of the column heights.