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Sport-based policies and government reports highlight a need to prioritise athlete welfare and for greater focus on embedding safeguarding among sporting culture. Research has previously focused on topics surrounding care (e.g., abuse, coach-athlete relationships, safeguarding), however much of this is psychological, and care itself is rarely conceptualised. This thesis used a sociological lens, combining Foucault and Goffman's work to deconstruct and explore everyday interactions, discourses, and disciplinary practices associated with care. The aim of this thesis was to advance knowledge about the practice of care within gymnastics. Three studies focused on failings of care, care and touch-based practice, and safeguarding education. Participants included gymnasts, coaches, parents, and NGB employees. Multiple qualitative methods were used including focus groups, interviews, observations, qualitative surveys, and data was presented through creative nonfictions and realist tales. Findings showed narratives of survival through mechanisms of power are presented from across the gymnastics community, significant as previous gymnastics research have been dominated by elite Women's artistic gymnasts' experiences. Foucault's concept technologies of surveillance and Goffman's dramaturgical metaphor showed how care and touch is embodied, including differentiating types of touch (i.e., performative, and care-based touch). Gymnasts and parents stated they expected and wanted care-based touch to be included in coaching practice. This thesis presented a novel definition of care in gymnastics. In addition, Foucault and Goffman's combined sociological lens presented a new term to conceptualise care -interactionist care. Care in gymnastics should be conceptualised as an interaction, an embodied perspective developed knowledge on what care is by positioning the body as an entity to construct care.

Histology is the study of the microscopic structure of biological tissues, where thin (4 Histology is the study of the microscopic structure of biological tissues, where thin (4 μm) sections of tissues such as lung, skin, or brain are examined under the light microscope (LM). These methods have underpinned many discoveries in biology and are widely used in research and clinical diagnoses. However, classical histology only provides a twodimensional (2D) view of tissue features that are inherently three-dimensional (3D). X-ray micro-computed tomography (μCT) generates 3D images of biological tissues in the millimetre down to micrometre (μm) scale. Examples of biological structures in this range include capillaries, lung alveoli, and even whole organs of small animals. As μCT imaging does not destroy the sample, the same specimen can subsequently be imaged with LM, extending current 2D methods with 3D visualisation of tissue microstructure. This project develops a method for correlative LM and μCT of formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) specimens, which is compatible with routine histology workflows. Firstly, protocols for μCT imaging of FFPE tissues without additional sample preparation were developed, providing the equivalent of hundreds of histology slides within hours. An objective and user-friendly image quality measurement tool (GaussQuality) was developed to quantitatively optimise these protocols. Image analysis tools for semi-automatically integrating correlative images were developed using open-source software, saving hours of researcher time. The developed workflow guides the user through co-registering their correlative image datasets to obtain interactive visualisations of their data. This workflow preserves the high spatial resolution of LM, which is not currently possible with equivalent methods in literature. Notably, a tool was developed to transfer expert annotations made on gold standard LM images to the μCT images, bringing 3D context to established methods of visualising biological structures. In the future, these transferred annotations can provide validated training data for 3D segmentation of biological features from μCT images. The developed acquisition and integration workflows were applied to three case studies in collaboration with clinical partners: assessment of COVID-19-related lung damage patterns, classification of lung adenocarcinoma subtypes, and detection of lymph node metastasis in head and neck cancers. Integration of the correlative images for these studies was achieved within hours, compared to the several days it would have taken to manually process these images. This provides proof that correlative LM and μCT has huge potential to facilitate imaging studies that were previously inaccessible, adding a new dimension to our understanding of biological structure. (μm) sections of tissues such as lung, skin, or brain are examined under the light microscope (LM). These methods have underpinned many discoveries in biology and are widely used in research and clinical diagnoses. However, classical histology only provides a twodimensional (2D) view of tissue features that are inherently three-dimensional (3D). X-ray micro-computed tomography (CT) generates 3D images of biological tissues in the millimetre down to micrometre (μm) scale. Examples of biological structures in this range include capillaries, lung alveoli, and even whole organs of small animals. As μCT imaging does not destroy the sample, the same specimen can subsequently be imaged with LM, extending current 2D methods with 3D visualisation of tissue microstructure. This project develops a method for correlative LM and μCT of formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) specimens, which is compatible with routine histology workflows. Firstly, protocols for μCT imaging of FFPE tissues without additional sample preparation were developed, providing the equivalent of hundreds of histology slides within hours. An objective and user-friendly image quality measurement tool (GaussQuality) was developed to quantitatively optimise these protocols. Image analysis tools for semi-automatically integrating correlative images were developed using open-source software, saving hours of researcher time. The developed workflow guides the user through co-registering their correlative image datasets to obtain interactive visualisations of their data. This workflow preserves the high spatial resolution of LM, which is not currently possible with equivalent methods in literature. Notably, a tool was developed to transfer expert annotations made on gold standard LM images to the μCT images, bringing 3D context to established methods of visualising biological structures. In the future, these transferred annotations can provide validated training data for 3D segmentation of biological features from μCT images. The developed acquisition and integration workflows were applied to three case studies in collaboration with clinical partners: assessment of COVID-19-related lung damage patterns, classification of lung adenocarcinoma subtypes, and detection of lymph node metastasis in head and neck cancers. Integration of the correlative images for these studies was achieved within hours, compared to the several days it would have taken to manually process these images. This provides proof that correlative LM and μCT has huge potential to facilitate imaging studies that were previously inaccessible, adding a new dimension to our understanding of biological structure.

This study aims to explore how the imagined Chinese community, as the nation of Taiwan, was created and recreated between 1949 and 2011, to become the Taiwanese community. The theoretical concept of the ‘imagined community’, which is interconnected with the concepts of ‘invented tradition’ and ‘banal nationalism’, has been used to suggest a sociological interpretation of the transformation of people’s self-identification from ‘Chinese’ to ‘Taiwanese’, as a kind of reflection of the changing nation of post-war Taiwan. The social phenomenon of Taiwan residents’ changing self-identification raises a key concern, namely, has the nature of the nation in Taiwan changed? Junior and senior high school history textbooks (1949 to 2011), which can be regarded as representing the officially invented history, were used as resources, and analysed together with data gathered during interviews with twenty-five history teachers, who had not been screened for age or ethnic differences. The history textbooks provided content for a case study, comparable to that of the theoretical concept of the ‘invented tradition’. This could be regarded as ‘banal nationalism’, through which the life environment is subtly shaped and reshaped to become the ‘imagined community’, namely, the ‘national’ environment. The interviews with teachers were intended to help the researchers understand how the content in history textbooks had been taught, in order to explain how, or whether, the society undermined or reinforced the officially structured ‘imagined Taiwanese community’. The two approaches – one of which could be regarded as a top-down power, while the other could be considered as a social force – jointly provided the research framework and a perspective consistent with the changing social phenomenon of the increasing ‘Taiwanese’ identity among members of the population. This study concluded that ‘Taiwan’ has been produced and reproduced from the local identification to the national. The research results show that the meaning of ‘China’ and ‘Taiwan’ changed during three time periods: from the 1950s to the late 1980s, from the 1990s to the 2000s, and from the 2000s to 2010 and later. Through this process, mainland China and Taiwan were identified as one Chinese nation-state, beginning in the 1950s to the late 1980s, as one nation but two states, from the 1990s to the early 2000s, and finally, as two nation-states, from the early 2000s to 2010 and later. This research explored how ‘Taiwan’, an ‘imagined community’, has been shaped over time. Teachers further manifested ‘Taiwan’ as an explicit concept of national identity by providing other examples, in addition to the content in textbooks, and noting distinctions between ‘China’ and ‘Taiwan’. Theoretical logic is coherent with this empirical investigation, and this study provided the perspective to interpret how the state worked as a top-down force cooperating with society’s bottom-up perseverance, to invent ‘Taiwanese’ national history, through which the national identity of Taiwan was manifested.

Expansion of the genetic code through engineering of the translation machinery has vastly increased the chemical repertoire of the proteome. Incorporation of non-canonical amino acids (ncAAs) entails use of engineered aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase (AARS)•transfer RNA (tRNA) pairs that do not interact with the canonical aminoacylation machinery. Although engineered AARSs are selected for their ability to utilize ncAAs and discriminate against the twenty canonical amino acids, many utilize other ncAAs – a phenomenon known as polyspecificity. Specific incorporation of multiple ncAAs in a single polypeptide requires knowledge of the polyspecificities of engineered and wild-type AARSs, which this thesis explores. Recoding of the UAG and UGA stop codons has facilitated the incorporation of more than 150 ncAAs. Given the abundance of degenerate sense codons, potentially many more ncAAs can be incorporated. This thesis investigates the malleability of sense codons, and presents the findings from two engineered systems that change the amino acid designations of sense codons. In bacteria, an mRNA minihelix (selenocysteine insertion sequence, SECIS) recruits a dedicated elongation factor SelB that incorporates selenocysteine (Sec) at a UGA stop codon. Replacement of the UGA codon revealed that at least 58 of the 64 codons could be recoded to Sec, thus demonstrating that the Sec machinery is able to outcompete cognate aminoacyl-tRNAs. Next, an engineered pyrrolysyl-tRNA synthetase developed to incorporate 3-iodo-L-phenylalanine (3-I-Phe) was used to reassign sense codons in wild-type E. coli. To quantify the amino acids incorporated at a specific serine AGU codon in a super-folder GFP reporter protein, a selected reaction monitoring (SRM) experiment was performed – the incorporation yields (65±17% 3-I-Phe, 33±17% serine, 1±1% phenylalanine, and 1±1% threonine) revealed the intricacies of tRNA competition during aminoacylation and decoding. Reassignments of other serine (AGC, UCG) and leucine (CUG, UUG, UUA) codons were less efficient, thus providing a guideline for the choice of sense codons to reassign in future studies. Since the engineered AARS•tRNA pair so efficiently reassigns a serine AGU codon in wild-type E. coli, it should provide complete reassignment in genomically recoded organisms that feature an “open” codon., Medical Sciences

Anaerobic microcosms were set up with CPO-produced organochlorines or control organic matter. Organohalide respirers from the phyla Chloroflexi, Proteobacteria and Firmicutes were measured with qPCR. Among all dechlorinators, Dehalogenimonas 16S rRNA had the most obvious and sustained growth from CPO-produced organochlorines. Other Dehalococcoides-like Chloroflexi were enriched as well and Dehalobacter had a temporary enrichment from CPO-produced organochlorines. The ratio of Dehalogenimonas/Bacteria in the microcosms amended with CPO increased from -1.40 � 0.27 on Day 7 to -0.60 � 0.40 (log10) on Day 82 while in the CTRL microcosms the ratio increased slightly from -1.58 � 0.19 (log10) to -1.42 � 0.10 (log10). In the TRFLP analysis, putative dechlorinating Chloroflexi was examined and a single OTU with a restriction fragment length (RFL) of 276 base pair (bp) was a major component in all three CPO microcosms on Days 61 and 84. The relative peak area of the OTU was 25.8, 15.1 and 72.6% on Day 61 compared to minimal abundance in controls. Another OTU with fragment length of 278 bp likely represents a non-chlorinating species, and had a significance presence in all microcosms after Day 0. The results in this research has shown that the CPO-produced organochlorines are able to stimulate the growth of Dehalococcoides-like Chloroflexi group and other organohalide respirers that are also known to dechlorinate PCBs and PCE in contaminated soils and sediment.

This research is about information technology (IT) and merger and acquisition(M&A). In recent years, M&A has been a common tool and a fast way for companies to grow and do business. Thus, M&A activity still continues to flourish despite the current economic downturn. M&A is a business transaction and IT has become an increasingly important part of the business. Studies show that while many M&A have failed for different reasons, the major reason is that the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), the Chief Information Officer (CIO), and the key handler of the M&A project did not bring the IT department on board early in the project, due to lack of understanding of the critical role that IT plays in M&A deals. In order to successfully execute M&A, it is essential to have a well-built IT department as a model for M&A with well thought out governance and policies in order to set a good foundation for a successful M&A project. This paper offers some viewpoints, approaches, and methods to help ensure the success of the M&A project; this paper also illustrates some real world successful examples which show the M&A project's ability to perform the synergy capture which drives most M&A.