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Sleep is a unique behavioural state, whose exact purpose remains an unsolved mystery. A wealth of evidence posits that sleep facilitates the consolidation of memories. In particular slow oscillations (SOs) during deep slow wave sleep are thought to play a vital functional role in driving this consolidation process by orchestrating phase-coupled thalamo-cortical sleep spindles. To elucidate functional mechanisms of these oscillations, a new experimental technique called auditory closed-loop stimulation has been trialled, which applies brief sound stimuli in phase with on-going endogenous oscillations, and thereby enhances both SO and spindle activity, as well as overnight memory consolidation. The aim of the work presented in this thesis was to use the technique's potential in combination with behavioural measures of declarative and procedural memory and overnight polysomnography (PSG) to investigate oscillatory dynamics and their functional purpose during sleep. In Chapter 2, we examined the applicability of auditory closed-loop stimulation in a cohort of healthy, late middle-aged adults, as SO and spindle activity naturally decline during the lifespan and have been linked to impaired memory. We further compared stimulation outcome in this group to an existing young adult cohort. While the ageing brain responded to the stimulation, its susceptibility was markedly decreased with age, with no favourable impact on overnight memory consolidation observed. Our results demonstrate the need for stimulation optimisation to translate functional protocols to different age groups prior to clinical application. In Chapter 3, we investigated whether slow and fast sleep spindle types could be differentially modulated by applying variations of auditory closed-loop stimulation protocols, as particularly the respective functional contribution of slow spindles in the consolidation process remains unclear. A multi-stimulus protocol was found to enhance slow spindles to a greater extent than fast spindles, and revealed further temporal differences which suggest slow and fast spindles may underlie different neural dynamics in their generation. Auditory closed-loop stimulation constitutes a useful non-invasive tool to probe their potential functional differences in future investigations. Finally in Chapter 4, we considered the psychological impact associated with receiving auditory closed-loop stimulation during sleep and asked whether merely anticipating specific effects in a placebo protocol would have an impact on sleep and cognition. We discovered placebo and nocebo effects in the form of transiently altered slow spindle activity throughout the night, and suggest psychological aspects of applying stimulation could present a crucial factor and require due consideration in future research designs. In conclusion, our results shed new insights on the potential of using customised auditory closed-loop stimulation protocols as a suitable technique in the investigation of sleep oscillation dynamics and their functional implications. However, we also highlight limitations of susceptibility in an older population, and provide evidence of psychological aspects presenting a potentially confounding variable in stimulation outcome.

Interprofessional collaboration between community pharmacists and general practitioners is essential for good quality patient care and the efficient use of resources. There will also be resulting benefits for the practitioners involved, in terms of greater professional role satisfaction. Community pharmacist participation in extended professional roles is dependent on acceptance by general practitioners and could be the key to a better working relationship. The aim of this study was to investigate ways of developing the interprofessional relationship by determining the extent and nature of current collaboration, the potential for the developing the working relationship and establishing and evaluating collaborative projects. In order to determine the extent and nature of current collaboration and the potential for developing the working relationship, two investigations were carried out. Firstly, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a random sample of 20 community pharmacists and 20 general practitioners. Secondly, pharmaceutical advisers in post throughout England and Wales were contacted for information about formal current and planned collaborative activities. Two collaborative projects were established and evaluated as a means to explore the professional interface. One project was a locally organised pilot domiciliary pharmaceutical service. The second project involved three pairs of community pharmacists and general practitioners planning and managing their own collaborative initiatives. Collaboration between community pharmacists and general practitioners must focus on patient benefits and there must be resulting benefits for the professionals involved. Facilitation is the way forward for the development of the working relationship. A structured approach will ensure that barriers are minimised, local needs are met, resources are used efficiently and patients benefit. Initial collaborative activities need to focus on areas of practice that are both non-threatening to the core role of the general practitioner and centre on the community pharmacist's expertise, to ensure general practitioner acceptance. All health care professionals need to adapt to a new environment of patient focused care and for community pharmacists this means working closely with general practitioners and creating their own niche within the primary health care team, to ensure their future role in providing good quality patient care.

In this thesis, I will explore the three main roles that women played in the Yugoslav Wars of 1991-2001: perpetrator, bystander, and victim. Through examining these roles, I hope to draw an equal amount of attention to each of these roles and add new insight to current scholarly discourse on this subject. Furthermore, examining women in Yugoslavia will also reveal how gender influences modern conflicts, especially regarding sexual violence and the justice system. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that women, whether perpetrators, bystanders, or victims, experienced the war differently from men because of gender norms, because women were symbols of the nation, and because the identity of womanhood and their physical differences made them especially vulnerable to sexual violence. Furthermore, the Yugoslav Wars served as a turning point for understanding and prosecution of wartime rape, with the international community finally recognizing it as an intentional, organized strategy and as a crime against humanity. After examining primary documents from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, reading first-person accounts, listening to interviews from witnesses and participants, and consulting a wide variety of secondary and tertiary sources, I hope this project will prove useful not only to researchers hoping to better understand the Yugoslav Wars, but also those seeking to understand the gender dynamics of conflict and the crucial role of identity politics in modern warfare.

Mudstones compose nearly 70% of the volume of sedimentary basins, yet they are among the least studied of sedimentary rocks. Their low permeability and high compressibility contribute to overpressure around the world. Despite their fundamental importance in geologic processes and as seals for anthropogenic-related storage, a systematic, process-based understanding of the interactions between porosity, compressibility, permeability, and pore-size distribution in mudstones remains elusive. I use sediment mixtures composed of varying proportions of natural mudstone such as Boston Blue Clay or Nankai mudstone and silt-sized silica to study the effect of composition on permeability and compressibility during burial. First, to recreate natural conditions yet remove variability and soil disturbance, I resediment all mixtures in the laboratory to a total stress of 100 kPa. Second, in order to describe the systematic variation in permeability and compressibility with clay fraction, I uniaxially consolidate the resedimented samples to an effective stress equivalent to about 2 km of burial under hydrostatic conditions. Scanning electron microscope images provide insights on microstructure. My experiments illuminate the controls on mudstone permeability and compressibility. At a given porosity, vertical permeability increases by an order of magnitude for clay contents ranging from 59% to 34% by mass whereas compressibility reduces by half at a given vertical effective stress. I show that the pore structure can be described by a dual-porosity system, where one rock fraction is dominated by silt where large pores are present and the majority of flow occurs and the other fraction is dominated by clay where limited flow occurs. I use this concept to develop a coupled compressibility-permeability model in order to predict porosity, permeability, compressibility, and coefficient of consolidation. These results have fundamental implications for a range of problems in mudstones. They can be applied to carbon sequestration, hydrocarbon trapping, basin modeling, overpressure distribution and geometry as well as morphology of thrust belts, and an understanding of gas-shale behavior.

In the last fifteen years, Colombia's rapidly growing peace movement has produced activists who fervently work to create peace in a country that has been in conflict for more than forty years. These activists and the organizations that support them represent a heterogeneous group of people who use a diverse array of peace initiatives (or peace actions) to achieve their peace goals. Their work has attempted (and often succeeded) in influencing and impacting Colombian citizens, the government and foreign entities. This thesis focuses on how civil society peace initiatives have influenced and reacted to a changing political climate between 1997-2008 as the Colombian government shifted strategies from a negotiated settlement to a more militaristic approach. In this study I first examine the birth, decline, and rebirth of citizen participation in the Colombian peace movement. I demonstrate how the rise of citizen peace activism strongly influenced the government to sit at the negotiating table with non-state armed actors and how citizen frustration and the decline in participation caused the government to end negotiations and begin a new policy of Democratic Security. Next I analyze how peace organizations, especially at the national level have changed strategies in response to less citizen support and a governmental policy that has shifted away from a peaceful settlement. I suggest that these organizations have relied more heavily on public education, awareness, and networking than in previous years, and that these changes have made them more successful in fulfilling their missions.