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Environmental issues surrounding railway operation and construction have become more prominent in recent years, increasing the need for administrators and researchers to understand how residents living around railways respond to the noise and vibration generated by them. Within this context, the University of Salford, within the project funded by Defra “Human response to vibration in residential environments” (NANR209), has derived exposure response relationships for railway traffic and construction for a population sample of 1281 people: 931 for railway traffic and 350 for railway construction. Vibration measurements within residences have been used for assessing human exposure to vibration alongside a social study questionnaire based on face-to-face interviews for quantifying the human response. The first part of this work is concerned with the exposure side of NANR209. The design and implementation of measurement methodologies are presented and discussed, which provide exposure data suitable for building an exposure response relationship for vibration caused by the sources mentioned above. In light of the large amount of vibration data gathered during the project, the analysis of vibration signals is considered in the second part of the dissertation. Two aspects connected with the assessment of the human exposure to vibration are investigated: wave field assessment and ground to building transmissibility analysis.

In this work we investigate some aspects of the physics of strongly correlated systems by taking into account both electron-electron and electron-phonon interactions as basic mechanisms for reproducing electronic correlations in real materials. The relevance of the electron-electron interactions is discussed in the first part of this thesis in the framework of a self-consistent theoretical approach, named Composite Operator Method (COM), which accounts for the relevant quasi-particle excitations in terms of a set of composite operators that appear as a result of the modification imposed by the interactions on the canonical electronic fields. We show that the COM allows the calculation of all the relevant Green s and correlation functions in terms of a number of unknown internal parameters to be determined self-consistently. Therefore, depending on the balance between unknown parameters and self-consistent equations, exact and approximate solutions can be obtained. By way of example, we discuss the application of the COM to the extended t-U-J-h model in the atomic limit, and to the two-dimensional single-band Hubbard model. In the former case, we show that the COM provides the exact solution of the model in one dimension. We study the effects of electronic correlations as responsible for the formation of a plethora of different charge and/or spin orderings. We report the phase diagram of the model, as well as a detailed analysis of both zero and finite temperature single-particle and thermodynamic properties. As far as the single-band Hubbard model is concerned, we illustrate an approximated self-consistent scheme based on the choice of a two-field basis. We report a detailed analysis of many unconventional features that arise in single-particle properties, thermodynamics and system's response functions. We emphasize that the accuracy of the COM in describing the effects of electronic correlations strongly relies on the choice of the basis, paving the way for possible multi-pole extensions to the two-field theory. To this purpose, we also study a three-field approach to the single-band Hubbard model, showing a significant step forward in the agreements with numerical data with respect to the two-pole results. The role of the electron-phonon interaction in the physics of strongly correlated systems is discussed in the second part of this thesis. We show that in highly polarizable lattices the competition between unscreened Coulomb and Fröhlich interactions results in a short-range polaronic exchange term Jp that favours the formation of local and light pairs of bosonic nature, named bipolarons, which condense with a critical temperature well in excess of hundred kelvins. These findings, discussed in the framework of the so-called polaronic t-Jp model, are further investigated in the presence of a finite on-site potential U, coming from the competition between on-site Coulomb and Fröhlich interactions. We discuss the role of U as the driving parameter for a small-to-large bipolaron transition, providing a possible explanation of the BEC-BCS crossover in terms of the properties of the bipolaronic ground state. Finally, we show that a hard-core bipolarons gas, studied as a charged Bose-Fermi mixture, allows for the description of many non Fermi liquid behaviours, allowing also for a microscopic explanation of pseudogap features in terms of a thermal-induced recombination of polarons and bipolarons, without any assumption on preexisting order or broken symmetries.

Single photon counting has led to many innovations in the manner we observe physical properties of materials, molecules and biological substrates. This comes with the ability to also generate photon streams that record emissive events on the timescale of picoseconds. Using time correlated single photon counting (TCSPC) the events of light stimulation can be recorded with high precision. I leverage the use of TCSPC as a platform to develop complimentary methods to study and manipulate this collected photon stream. Within this I develop methodologies to probe systems across the spectrum from the UV-visible to the short-wave infrared or SWIR (1-2 �m). In Chapter 1 I describe the basis of using light to stimulate photophysical events, covering definitions and theory. There I will also introduce single photon counting along with the ability to resolve spectral signatures through interferometry. In Chapter 2, I cover the implementation of Mach-Zehnder interferometry to simultaneously take broadband spectra while retaining the timing information of photon events. We call this technique Decay Associated Fourier Spectroscopy (DAFS), a method that utilizes interferometry to associate photophysical lifetimes with spectral signatures. I demonstrate DAFS’ capability by recovering Forster resonance energy transfer (FRET) dynamics for a mixture of an organic dye and quantum dots. I then demonstrate the broadband resolution of DAFS by mixing a visible and SWIR quantum dot and recovering the spectra and lifetime data simultaneously over an octave spanning window. In Chapter 3, I introduce a follow-up method to the aforementioned DAFS. Taking advantage of the spectral coherence of emitted photon streams, I introduce interferometric or Fourier filtering to separate signals and term this method “Spectrally-selective Time-resolved Emission Filtering” or STEF. I demonstrate STEF in the context of several systems including laser scatter and emitter, mixed and emitters, and imaging biological systems. STEF allows me to bypass the use of conventional filters in the study of complex chromophore mixtures. In Chapter 4, I then develop another method that utilizes precision timing of multiple pulses to shelf and study short-time events such as fluorescence and long-time events such as phosphorescence simultaneously. Here we term the method fluorescent optical cycling or FOC. Using FOC, I can use pulse trains of on and off times to collect the “total photon economy” or all photon events to understand all radiative, nonradiative, and other energy dissipation pathways. Along with a simple kinetic model, I use FOC to measure these properties in dual emitting platinum complexes, highly phosphorescent anti-boron clusters, and SWIR-emitting singlet oxygen. To finish, I show that FOC and DAFS can be used in tandem to achieve spectral specificity. I will then finish with a perspective on preliminary efforts to establish measurement schemes that could complement the above novel methods. Within Chapter 5, I describe and demonstrate our ability to collect SWIR Fluorescent lifetime imaging microscopy (SW-FLIM), Fluorescent Correlation Spectroscopy (FCS), and dip probe studies. Alongside this, I will discuss experimental plans, to combine these techniques with DAFS, STEF, and FOC while offering perspective on future experiments.

Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird (1960) and Delia Owens’ Where the Crawdads Sing (2018), set in the 1930s and 1960s, respectively, portray coming of age stories narrated from the points of view of two female protagonists, Scout and Kya. In Mockingbird, Lee conveys Scout’s maturation via a first-person narrative, recounting the events she witnesses between 1933 and 1935 as a linear flashback when she is an adult, whereas Owens conveys maturation in Crawdads, which happens over the course of Kya’s life, from a roving third-person narrative point of view, between 1952 and 2009. Both novels immerse the young protagonists in communities impacted by social phenomena, such as racism, prejudice, gender-norms, and the marital complex, all of which have a profound impact upon their lives and, subsequently, the personalities they develop as a result. Both only six years old at the onset of each novel, Mockingbird’s Jean Louise (“Scout”) Finch, and Crawdads’ Catherine Danielle (“Kya”) Clark negotiate societies and their own values in order to obtain a share of power, and reject the metaphorical and material subjugation that normally attends paradigms inherent to the Deep South in the 1930s and 1960s. Lee and Owens utilize narrative points of view, in conjunction with symbols and images that function as objects for the projection of Scout’s and Kya’s psychic energy, to portray the struggles of young protagonists subject to morally challenging social phenomena, and to comment on how interactions with social and cultural values can both reflect and inform identity and personality development, broadly.

This thesis aims to explore the meaning and the significance of the shame of being human through a mutually elucidating dialogue between Levi's work and that of a range of philosophers (Hannah Arendt, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Roberto Esposito). It argues that shame assumes an ontological dimension in Levi's writings which questions what it means to be human. The ontology of shame is analyzed through three broad chapters examining different aspects of being central to Levi's work. The first chapter 'Being on Trial' investigates how and why Levi, during and after his translation of Kafka's Trial, progressively identifies with Josef K. Since shame is an emotion of self-evaluation, the trial's process of 'giving an account of oneself' is important for understanding what elicits Levi's feeling of shame. The second chapter 'Being a Person, Being an Animal' discusses Levi's concept of the human by analysing his writings through the lens of Esposito's work on the category of the person. I argue that Levi prompts us to see the human not as something that we definitively know, but as something that we do, that we practise in our concrete, daily interaction with other living beings. Building on this idea of the human, the last chapter, 'Being Ashamed', explores the meaning of the shame of being human and some of the ethical-political questions raised by Levi's work. To do so I examine the relations between shame and evil, power and survival, and the different practices, techniques, and discourses through which human beings are made subjects. My argument is that political evil - the evil that arises from specific relations and networks of power - is the prime elicitor of the shame of being human. The shame of being human emerges precisely when the practice of the human is ignored, negated, or radically overturned by ourselves or by 'significant others', i.e., human beings who we recognise as humans, with whom - as members of the human community - we identify, and whom we expect to exemplify and live up to the ideal that the practice of the human configures.

The keyboard instrument was improved through a long series of developments until the pianoforte was developed, which reached beyond the capabilities of the harpsichord. Christofori developed the pianoforte which would lead to the ultimate development of the concert grand piano. Not all composers were privileged to have the pianoforte at their fingertips, let alone the grand piano with all of its improvements. Therefore, each composer’s musical style can be correlated to the piano’s development during each time period. Each musical era signifies where the piano was developmentally during that century. Through this progression the piano came to be a means of emotion and imagination, allowing audiences to see the colors, moods, and pictures that can be created through music.

"This study was undertaken in the belief that current theories of social change, especially those espoused and utilized by sociologists, are inadequate as explanatory tools regarding certain types of social change in the future. One unorthodox theory of change, that of Richard T. LaPiere, was found to be of more use than others. This theory was radically modified to better facilitate the analysis of the latest manifestations of social change. A survey of social change in Western history from the middle ages to the present day was performed in order to illustrate the efficacy of LaPiere’s theory plus the attendant modifications proposed by the author. Finally, the societal problems which may well evolve along with the new form of change were examined. Some minor suggestions for mitigating the impact of these problems were made."

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 16-11, page: 2069.