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Edward Irving (1792-1834) exercised a profound effect on developments in nineteenth-century theology within the English-speaking world. He is especially known for his thought regarding the return of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and his pre-millennialism, including his belief in the imminent physical return of Jesus Christ. Indeed, Irving is generally remembered as a central figure in the movement of early nineteenth century premillennialism and as a fore-runner of the modern Pentecostal movement. Most scholarly interpretations of Irving have focused on particular aspects of his thought, such as the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, his millenarianism, or his understanding of Christology. This thesis provides a new interpretation of Irving’s contributions, examining the interrelationship of his theological ideas and exploring the development of them within the context of his life, including his childhood and youth within the Covenanting country of southwest Scotland, his education within the University of Edinburgh and his early teaching career, his assistantship to Thomas Chalmers in the celebrated St John’s experiment in urban ministry in Glasgow, his move to London in 1822 and his meteoric rise to fame as a preacher there, his personal trauma, including his unhappy affair with the future Jane Welsh Carlyle, the deaths of his children and the tragic accident at Kirkcaldy, his connections with Romantic intellectual and religious circles in the capital, and his growing involvement with the prophetic movement. Under the influence of the Romantic Movement, Irving’s religious sensibility had matured. This thesis argues that Irving’s theological views, including his views on the gifts of the Spirit and his millennialism, formed a coherent system, which focused on his doctrine of Christ, and more particularly on his belief that Christ had taken on a fully human nature, including the propensity to sin. Only by sharing fully in the human condition with its ‘sinful flesh’ concerning all temptations, Irving believed, could Christ become the true reconciler of God and humanity and a true exemplar of godly living for humankind. When we view Irving’s theology from the perspective of his idea of Christ’s genuine humanity, we can comprehend it more clearly; Irving’s understanding of the spiritual gifts and his apocalyptic visions of Christ’s return in glory had clear connections with his Christology. Irving’s distinctive ideas on Christ’s human nature and his eloquent descriptions of Christ’s ‘sinful flesh’ resulted in severe criticisms from the later 1820s, and finally led to his being deposed from the ministry of the established Church of Scotland in 1833. His belief that we encounter God through Christ’s sinful flesh reflected Irving’s Romantic emphases, including the striving to transcend human limits. The Romantic sensibilities of the age and Irving’s belief that the Church was locked in impotence and spiritual lethargy led him to expect a divine interruption, and to long for an ideal world through an eschatology that would bring glorification to the Church. Irving’s view of the person of Christ must be understood within this broader theological framework and historical context, in which he maintained that common believers could achieve union with Christ through both their sharing of Christ’s genuine humanity and the work of the Holy Spirit.

This thesis is a comparative and analytical study which comprises of an analysis of the rules of the seller's liability for non-conforming goods of four legal systems; Korean law, English law, the U.N. Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (1980) and the E.C. Directive on Certain Aspects of the Sale of Consumer Goods and Associated Guarantees. The purpose of this study is to ask whether there is any need to introduce a unified liability system into Korean law and how to achieve the system under the existing law in order to overcome all the complexities caused by the separate existence of the general liability for non-performance and the seller's guarantee liability. A further purpose is to investigate how effectively the rules of the seller's liability for non-conforming goods protect the reasonable expectations of the parties; in particular, the interests of consumers and private sellers which are distinguished from those of commercial buyers and business sellers, respectively, and where the issue is not directly related to the particular interests of consumers or private sellers, the common interests of all the parties. The study is conducted by an internal evaluation within the boundaries of law in a legal context and an external evaluation in light of 'efficiency' as used by economists. It shows, first, that Korean law needs a unified liability system which is based on a contract to resolve the problems originating in the distinction between the general liability as a contractual liability and the seller's guarantee liability as a legal liability. Second, achieving a genuine unified liability system require one's interpretation that rescission and damages in the seller's guarantee liability should be as they are in the general liability. This would settle other problems inherent in the casuistic distinction between the general liability as a fault liability and the seller's guarantee liability as no-fault liability and its consequences in interpreting damages under the seller's guarantee liability. Finally, in what aspects of the seller's liability for non-conforming goods each jurisdiction fails to reflect the interests of consumers and private sellers, and the common interests of all the parties.

This research has been concerned with the chemical consequences of neutron capture in chromium(III), cobalt(III) and ruthenium(III) ammine complexes: pentammine, ethylenediamine and tetraethylene-pentamine. The isotopic exchange of ligand chlorine atoms of complexed ions with outer anionic chloride ions during neutron bombardment of the solid chromium(III), ruthenium(III) and cobalt(III) ammine complexes has been studied with chlorine-36 labelled chlorine atoms and anionic chloride ions. The order of stability of the complexes is: [M(NH3)5C1]C12 < cis- and trans-[M(en)2C12] C1 < [M(tetren)C1]C12. Although the retention was increased gradually during prolonged neutron irradiation, which is described as a result of pile annealing (thermal and radiation), a few recoil species were observed on paper electrophoresis. The macroscopic distribution of recoil products in Cr(III) and Ru(III) ammine complexes, determined by the re-irradiation of paper electrophoregram, showed that the rupture of metal-ligand bond is about 2-3% in acid media and about 9-11% in neutral media. The recoil atom reaction was explained using the disorder model, which postulates that the recoil atom generates about its starting point only small changes in the lattice arrangement without producing a melt, and the final fate of the recoil atom is determined by the structure of the immediate environment it has reached after losing its kinetic energy. The chemical effects of internal conversion of outer energetic bromine atoms in Cr(III) ammine complexes (-NM3, ethylenediamine), and 58mCo and 60mCo in the Co (III) tetren complex have been investigated. The experimental observations on isotope exchange and paper electrophoresis indicated that there is no significant evidence for an additional chemical effect. The results were discussed in view of the possibility that the effect of large crystal field stabilization for Cr(III) and Co(III) plays an important role in determining the recoil reactions. Thermal annealing reactions differ from system to system depending on the physical and chemical properties of the host crystal. The isochronal thermal annealing of neutron irradiated [Cr(NH3)5C1] C12 and cis-[Cr(en)2C12] C1 was discussed using the exciton model. Thermal transfer, or exchange, in chlorine-36 labelled [Ir(NH3)5C1] C12 and trans-[Ir(en)2C12] C1 has been shown to give a heating curve similar to that obtained during annealing of neutron irradiated complexes. The substitution of chlorine-36 labelled chlorine atoms in the complex by anionic chloride ions in [Ir(NH3)5C1] C12 was explained by the isotope exchange model, involving a single step chemical exchange. The oscillating isotherm of chlorine-36 labelled trans-[Ir(en)2C12] C1 was explained by a mechanism involving a series of thermal decomposition reaction.

This dissertation addresses methodological problems in causal inference in the presence of time-varying confounding, and provides methodological tools to handle the problems within the potential outcomes framework of causal inference. The time-varying confounding is common in longitudinal observational studies, in which the covariates and treatments are interacting and changing over time in response to the intermediate outcomes and changing circumstances. The existing approaches in causal inference are mostly focused on static single-shot decision-making settings, and have limitations in estimating the effects of long-term treatments on the chronic problems. In this dissertation, I attempt to conceptualize the causal inference in this situation as a sequential decision problem, using the conceptual tools developed in decision theory, dynamic treatment regimes, and machine learning. I also provide methodological tools useful for this situation, especially when the treatments are multi-level and changing over time, using inverse probability weights and $g$-estimation. Substantively, this dissertation examines transitional justice's effects on human rights and democracy in emerging democracies. Using transitional justice as an example to illustrate the proposed methods, I conceptualize the adoption of transitional justice by a new government as a sequential decision-making process, and empirically examine the comparative effectiveness of transitional justice measures --- independently or in combination with others --- on human rights and democracy.

In this dissertation, I study the dynamics of ethnic group boundaries in China, emphasizing its continuity through changes from the pre-imperial times to the present day. I distinguish the imperial, patrimonial pattern of ethnic relations, to which China belongs as a case, from the colonial and national type in which ethno-racial boundary-making tends to function as a source of social inequality and political discrimination. Further, I depict the post-imperial Chinese state as the ‘imperial nation,’ enshrining the traditional Sinic ideals of statehood and nationhood together with the patrimonial structures of ethno-territorial governance, albeit with reconfigurations in a national form. The current imperial nation of China is to some degree the prison-house of nation, which symbolizes the fundamental contradiction of being in the midst of the empire-nation continuum in the age of nation-states. Yet, like most non-colonial world-empires, it is modeled not on ethnic exclusion but on the trans-ethnic inclusion underscoring its multiethnic unity. Therefore, I critically examine several misunderstandings and misconceptions in that scholarship which interprets Chinese realities through the lenses of racism, internal colonialism, and Oriental Orientalism. I illustrate ethnicity in China as an imagined category associated with the state-making process and examine how the macro-level structure has affected the individual’s ethnic self-identity. I identify three major characteristics, which constitute major chapters of this study. First, I discuss the ethnic boundary-making process in both cognitive and institutional dimensions. Despite the enduring evidence of Sinocentric prejudice, the various Chinese states have institutionalized ethnic categories not so much to discriminate against non-Han groups as to protect and privilege them compared with the Han peoples. Second, I trace the ethnic boundary-clearing characteristic in the construction of national self-imagery. The conception of common descent as the primordial foundation of Chinese genealogical nationalism has not identified one particular group at the expense of others, but has been employed to integrate diverse ethnicities within one big family, often portrayed as descendants of the mythical Yellow Emperor. Lastly, I demonstrate the porous nature of ethnic boundaries at the individual level, based on the analysis of the Eight Banner household registers as an empirical case of boundary-crossing.

We identified and functionally characterized yeast fRMsr homolog which showed specificity for reduction of free Met-R-SO and contributed to oxidative stress resistance of yeast cells. We further identified three conserved Cys which participate in catalysis through disulfide exchange. Evolutionary analyses revealed that the occurrence of fRMSr is restricted to unicellular organisms. We further found that mammalian MsrA can reduce free Met-S-SO, whereas MsrBs do not reduce free Met-R-SO. Consistent with these findings and the lack of fRMsr, mammalian cells could not grow in media that replaced Met with Met-R-SO. However, they grew in the presence of free Met-S-SO, which was reduced by MsrA. Expression of yeast fRMsr in mammalian cells supported the growth of mammalian cells on Met-R-SO, increased resistamce to oxidative stress, and affected expression levels of proteins that are regulated by Met availability. We extended the finding of deficiency in free Met-R-SO reduction in mammals to examine the ability of Msrs to reduce compounds containing methylsulfinyls. Methylsulfide group has a prochiral sulfur, resulting in two diastereomers upon sulfoxidation. We found that methylsulfinyls in sulmazole sulfoxide, triclabendazole sulfoxide, and mesoridazine could be stereospecifically reduced by MsrA, but MsrB and fRMsr were not active. We also found that dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO), which has a methylsulfinyl group, can only be reduced by MsrA. To examine the role of Met in aging, we performed lifespan analyses in fruit flies. There was no difference in lifespan of flies maintained on restricted (0.1 mM Met) and regular (1 mM) Met diets. Instead, we observed uncoupling between reproduction and longevity. A popular theory of aging suggests that dietary restriction is inversely proportional to reproduction due to nutritional redistribution of resources from egg generation to somatic maintenance, but we found that this theory did not follow our data that are based on variation in Met concentration. Overall, our studies characterized all three known types of methionine sulfoxide reductase and uncovered biological significance of free methionine sulfoxide reduction and its deficiency in mammals.

Attempts to control sediment-containing runoff and associated water quality problems have involved the establishment of many small to medium sediment retention ponds and the injection of nonionic and anionic polyacrylamide (PAM) flocculants to enhance colloid removal. However, to date use has been driven more by practicing engineers and trial-and-error approaches than by logical and consistent design approaches. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to optimize colloidal clay removal in PAM-aided sediment retention ponds by applying experimental and theoretical methodologies. Initially, simple measurement techniques for the molecular weight (MW) and charge density (CD) of various PAMs were tested and their characteristic behaviors in aqueous solution were investigated for use in subsequent optimization tasks. A simple intrinsic viscosity measurement technique and acid-base titration method showed their capabilities as the most plausible substitutes of state-of-the-art techniques in measuring MW and CD, respectively. Also, a cylindrical shape for PAM conformation in aqueous solution was shown to be the best assumption for predicting the characteristic behavior of PAM molecules. In adsorption and flocculation experiments with nonionic PAMs and negatively-charged kaolinite clay particles, adsorption capacities of PAMs on kaolinite were found to increase with increasing PAM MW up to a certain size (~ 18 M g/mol) but then decrease beyond this size due to entanglements between PAM molecules. Flocculation efficiency with nonionic PAM also increased with increasing MW up to a point due to its nonequilibrium kaolinite flocculation but eventually decreased by entanglements between PAM molecules. In parallel experiments with anionic PAMs and negatively-charged kaolinite particles, adsorption capacities were found to be inversely proportional to the PAM CDs, while flocculation efficiencies were directly proportional to the PAM MWs. Along with the effects of PAM MW and CD, the presence of divalent cations such as Ca2+ and Mg2+ enhanced adsorption and flocculation due to cationic bridging and/or charge screening between PAM and kaolinite (PAM-+M+-Kaolinite). However, concurring steric stabilization was also found to counteract flocculation due to the conformational compaction of adsorbed PAMs by the cationic bridging between pre-adsorbed PAM molecules (PAM-+M+-PAM). In short, PAM and solution characteristics, including change density (CD), molecular weight (MW) of PAM, and cationic species in the solution, were found to make critical effects on adsorption and flocculation and thus to be the controlling parameters in optimizing PAM applications as soil stabilizers or flocculants. In a model-based optimization of PAM-aided sediment retention ponds, the applicability of utilizing multi-dimensional Discretized Population Balance Equations combined with a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD-DPBE model) was demonstrated in a series of simulation tasks with a model retention pond. The CFD-DPBE model was demonstrated to be a valuable simulation tool for natural and engineering flocculation and sedimentation systems as well as flocculant-aided sediment retention ponds.

Low-power and small size analog to digital converters (ADCs) are the strategic building blocks in state of the art mobile wireless communication systems. Various techniques have been developed to reduce both power consumption and die area of the ADC. Among these, the opamp-sharing technique shows the most promise. In opamp-sharing, power and die area are saved by sharing one opamp between two successive pipeline stages. However, this technique suffers from the well-known memory effect drawback due to the absence of the reset phase that discharges the opamp's input parasitics. In this dissertation, this drawback is solved by introducing a discharge phase before the opamp is used for the pipeline stages without compromising speed and resolution of the ADC. Further power and area reduction is achieved by using a capacitor-sharing technique. This technique reduces the effective load capacitance of the opamp by reusing the charge on the feedback capacitor for the MDAC operation of the following stage, resulting in faster settling without increasing opamp power. The proposed low input-capacitance variable-gm opamp also helps to reduce the memory effect and improves the settling behavior of the stage output by increasing the bandwidth of the opamp while input parasitics of the opamp are kept small. The prototype designs of a 10-bit 50MSample/s pipelined ADC and a 14-bit 100MSample/s pipelined ADC implemented in 0.18¹m CMOS technology demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed techniques. The first ADC achieves 56.2dB SNDR and 72.7dB SFDR for a Nyquist input at full sampling rate while consuming 12 mW from a 1.8-V supply. The FOM, defined as, [power/2[superscript ENOB].Fs], is 0.46 pJ/step with Fin = 24.5MHz at 50MS/s. The second ADC achieves 72.4dB SNR and 88.5dB SFDR at 100MS/s with a 46MHz input and consumes 230mW from a 3V supply. The FOM of the second ADC is 0.69 pJ/step with Fin = 46MHz at 100MS/s.

Research evidence suggests that the combined presence of item-specific (target brand information) and relational (competing brand information) encoding is necessary to induce higher memory performance and a more favorable evaluation of the target brand. This elaborative processing, however, necessarily requires cognitive capacity enough to render both types of encoding. Product knowledge is an important cognitive factor which affects how consumers understand and organize incoming product information, ultimately influencing purchase decisions. This research is proposed to investigate how consumer knowledge affects product memory, cognitive responses, evaluations, and confidence in evaluation in consideration of competitive and non-competitive ad contexts with 11 specific research hypotheses outlined. It hypothesizes that high knowledge (HK) individuals perform well in both competitive and non- competitive ad contexts whereas LK individuals perform worse in the non- competitive than competitive ad context. The findings suggest that product knowledge serves as a resource for elaborating on target brand information. HK individuals are able to elaborate on target brand messages regardless of whether competitive (relational) brand information is explicitly presented or not. They retrieve same amount of target attributes, elicit high elaboration thoughts (target attribute thoughts), evaluate the target brand favorably, and feel confident in evaluation in both competitive and non-competitive ad contexts. In contrast, LK individuals recall less target attributes, evaluate the target brand less favorably, and feel less confident in evaluation in the non-competitive than the competitive ad context. That is, competitive ad context (where both item-specific and relational processing are readily available) could benefit LK individuals but not HK individuals. This study extends previous research on item-specifi-crelational framework in consideration of competitive advertising contexts by demonstrating that LK individuals lacking in relational information can perform better in product memory and evaluation if provided with competitive brand information appropriately. This study also adds to the growing body of literature on competitive ad context by illustrating that its positive effect is not manifested in a uniform manner for all consumers and that product knowledge is a possible factor which guides its valence.

During the life cycle of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, haploid cells of opposite mating type can fuse during sexual conjugation to form a diploid cell. In preparation for conjugation, haploid cells secrete small diffusible peptide molecules [α-factor, a tridecapeptide pheromone and a-factor, a modified dodecapeptide pheromone] that specifically bind to cell surface receptors found on the opposite mating type cell. The basic structure of the receptors (Ste2p for α-factor and Ste3p for a-factor) is evolutionarily conserved and places them among the 7-transmembrane, G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). Part 1 of this dissertation is an overview of the structure and the molecular mechanisms involved in ligand recognition and activation these receptor families with specific emphasis on peptide hormones and α-factor receptors. Part 2 of this dissertation is a study of a-factor analogs in which Tyr13 was replaced with a number of side chains for the design of an iodinatable ligand for affinity labeling studies as a direct iodination at Tyr13 abolished function of α-factor. The result of binding and biological activity assays of these analogs showed the lack of strict requirement for Tyr13 and allowed the design of several multiple replacement analogs in which Phe or p-F-Phe were substituted at position 13 and Tyr was placed in other positions of peptide. One potential receptor ligand [Tyr(125I)1, Nle12, Phe13]α-factor exhibited saturable binding with a Kdof 81 nM and was competed by α-factor for binding. In Part 3, an analysis of the α-factor receptor was carried out using random and site-directed mutagenesis to try to understand pheromone binding and receptor activation mechanisms. Three receptors containing mutations F55V, S219P, and S259P were screened for their altered ligand specificity and analyzed for their biological responses to various α-factor analogs and for their ligand binding profiles. The S259P mutation demonstrated ligand dependent biological response to all peptides tested (α-factor, antagonists and a synergist). The S219P mutation responded to α-factor, some antagonist peptides and the synergist, but not to other antagonists. The F55V mutant receptor responded only to α-factor and the synergist peptide and not to any antagonist analogs. These results confirmed previous findings that the fifth and sixth transmembrane domain of the receptor are important for receptor activation. In addition, changes in binding affinity of α-factor and its analogs indicate that residue 55 of α-factor receptor is involved with ligand binding. Part 4 of this dissertation is a study of identification of the α-factor binding region of Ste2p using site-directed mutagenesis and ligand modification. Affinities and activities of mutant receptors at serine 47 and threonine 48 residues were determined with analogs in which Gln10 of α-factor was replaced with various functional groups. All mutant receptors showed a similar number of binding sites and efficacy but different Kd and EC50 values for a-factor compared to those of wild type receptor. A mutant receptor (S47K, T48K) had dramatically reduced affinity and activity for K10 and Orn10-α-factors while the affinity of S. kluyveri α-factor (E10 with additional four variant residues) was increased over 40-foid compared to that of wild type receptor. In contrast to KK substitution, the affinity of K10- and Orn10-α-factor was greatly increased in a S47E, T48E mutant receptor while the binding of S. kluyveri α-factor was decreased over 100-fold. E10-α-factor showed about two fold higher affinity in this mutant receptor than KK mutant receptor. The affinity of K10- and Orn10-α-factors for the EE mutant, however, dropped 4-6 fold in the presence of 1M NaCI while affinity of α-factor was not affected by this treatment. The results indicate that 10th Gin residue of S. cerevisiae α-factor when bound to the receptor is adjacent to Ser47 and Thr48 residues in the receptor.

In spite of the drastic changes in the economy and in the labor market, wage differentials across manufacturing industries have been persistent over the last 3a years in Korea. A two-step approach is adopted to analyze the sources of inter-industry wage differentials with special reference to unique features of the Korean labor market. In the first step, individual workers' earnings are regressed on the personal attributes, human capital factors and industry dummy variables. In the second step, the estimated coefficients of the industry dummy variables are regressed on the industry characteristics. Special attention is given to the effects of the industrial policies supporting targeted industries and the government intervention in the labor market on earnings in the manufacturing industries. Also, the effects of market power of a few large business groups (chaebôls) and the large influx of women and highly educated workers into the labor market are analyzed. The empirical finding shows that the amount of subsidized bank loans that is a proxy for the industrial policy and the average years of schooling of the industry have a positive effect on earnings. On the other hand, the large influx of female workers shows a negative effect on the earnings of female workers as well as other workers. In addition, the results of our analysis show that the effect of the proportion of workers employed in large firms in a given industry on earnings is insignificant. The evidence does not support the hypothesis of the positive effect of the market concentration on wages; nor does it support the hypothesis of the negative effect of the monopsonic restraints in the employment practice. In general, the results of our study support the proposition that the wage differentials that exist in Korea are products of both human capital characteristics and industry characteristics. In particular, industrial policy has been primarily responsible for keeping wage differentials persistent between the supported industries and the non-supported industries.

With an increasing pressure to use cleaner fuels in shipping, LNG has become a realistic marine fuel of choice by many ship-owners. Although it will undoubtedly contribute towards cleaner shipping, there is a general concern about the safety of its use. Such fears are based on the fact that an accidental release of this flammable mixture may lead to potential incidents, in particular, of fire and explosion. In this context, ensuring the safety is one of the most crucial tasks for the industry in adopting LNG as a marine fuel. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that several rules, regulations, standards and guidelines have been produced at both international and local level. Nevertheless, due largely to the brevity of their history, the existing regulations and class rules appear to have some limitations and shortcomings, in particular, they lack explicit requirements in quantitative terms. It is true that there are rules and guidance for design and operation of LNG process systems in chemical industry with a relatively long history, and they can to some extent be used to safeguard the use of LNG as a fuel, but the arrival of LNG-fuelled ships has made it essential and urgent that their safety should be investigated in detail. In an effort to examine the existing regulations more intimately a conceptual design exercise to retrofit a 300,000 DWT very large ore carrier to use LNG as one of the marine fuels was carried out in accordance with current regulations. Although it was felt that the most hazardous areas of such a ship are with the fuel preparation room with high-pressure fuel supply system and the bunkering systems, the current regulations were not of much help during this process. In order to obtain meaningful insights into their threats, the safety of these critical areas were systematically evaluated using quantitative risk assessment models that have been proven to be an effective and efficient tool for evaluating risks in oil/gas process systems. It became obvious from the outset that an efficient computation tool is essential for the investigation. Consequently, the conventional quantitative risk assessment methods were modified and augmented to best suit the current problem and implemented in a computer program called Integrated Quantitative Risk Assessment (IQRA). One of the main strengths of IQRA is that it can carry out the whole process of risk analysis from frequency calculation to evaluation of consequence in a seamless process, unlike existing software which require tedious post-processing to obtain the risk values. It has more than proven its worth during the course of this project. LNG bunkering, at the two weakest ends (on-board LNG receiving point and LNG supplying point) were examined first. Usually such weak points are made relatively safe by imposing a 'safety exclusion zone' where non-essential personnel are not allowed entry during the process in question is in progress. However, there is no realistic regulation or guidance to help determining the extent of the zones. One of the few existing guidelines based on population-independent analysis requires an exclusion zone far too extensive and impossible to implement. A realistic method of determining the exclusion zones based on statistical quantitative risk assessment was developed and demonstrated in this thesis. An interesting fact discovered through this study was the fact that short duration bunkering at large scale tends to require smaller exclusion zones than smaller scale bunker for longer duration. The next area to examine was the fuel preparation room with a high-pressure fuel gas supply system. In this study, an event tree analysis was used to identify events that may cause vapour cloud explosion. General frequency data from various sources was used, and fault tree analysis was applied. Consequence was analysed in terms of the impact from explosion using a CFD and an FEA program. It was found that the structure of some sections of the fuel preparation room must be strengthened in addition to the scantling required by the classification rules. Additionally, the safety of a medium-sized floating regasification unit was investigated by applying a hierarchical system modelling method newly put forward in this thesis. It demonstrated the excellence of the hierarchical system modelling in assessing the overall risk of complex process systems. The results were compared to the recommendations produced by a benchmark HAZOP study and selective quantitative risk assessment method. This project established and demonstrated the way that the quantitative risk assessment techniques can be used to investigate the safety of a variety of novel marine LNG plants. A series of studies have proven that the framework and methodology developed in this thesis provides structured guidelines to conduct quantitative risk assessment associated with LNG-fuelled ships as well as LNG process systems regarding fire and explosion. The facility for parametric and sensitivity analyses have also been shown to be an excellent tool in gaining insight into the nature and characteristics of risks that are inherent in oil/gas process systems while improving understanding of contributing factors to risks and methods of mitigating them as well as points to note during quantitative risk assessment. It is thought that such a tool will be a very useful aid in future rule development. Last but not least, the safety of people and ships in using and/or processing LNG is paramount. If it is agreed that enhancing the current regulations is an urgent task, it is expected that the results of the studies carried out in this thesis can make a significant contribution to decision-making and further regulatory framework for port authorities and rule-makers.