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Scientific literacy is an increasingly important skill for today and tomorrow's citizens. Encapsulated in the definition of being scientifically literate, one must be knowledgeable about science and technology in context and be able to interpret and communicate the information well. Introductory science courses, like general chemistry, are key learning environments to promote scientific literacy by engaging students in context-based learning activities as these classrooms are taken by a diverse array of students. Educators must however consider how to integrate such activities with finesse as to not perpetuate misconceptions of science. This dissertation consists of a series of studies examining contextual-based chemistry learning through a communication lens in three ways. The first project compares how chemistry is portrayed in news media and the fundamental concepts are aligned with the introductory college level chemistry curriculum objectives. An assessment of potential contextual connections was made for educators' use. The second project studies how students make connections to and learn about chemistry in context through their writing via soundboards. Through coding the soundboards and finalized student papers, students found the task of communicating chemistry in an essay format proved to be challenging yet engaging. Students who participated in the soundboards were able to meet the multi-pronged goals of the writing prompt. However, scaling the interactive guidance is not feasible in large lecture classrooms. Thus, the third project focuses on the development, implementation, and analysis of a curated chatbot, a communication aid built to provide personalized, instantaneous, instructor-approved information for the writing assignment. The analyses of the log processes showcased the variety of ways students sought help using the tool. The curated chatbot has promise to extend to other classroom use case, such as deconstructing a course syllabus and interactive pre-laboratory preparation. [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.]

Executive functions (EF) are important cognitive processing skills required for planning, reasoning, problem solving and self-monitoring. It is vital to various aspects of human development from behavioral, social-emotional to academic. There is an increasing interest in identifying and developing cognitive skills training interventions. Results have shown promising results using custom-designed games for cognitive skills training. Cognitive skills training games can enhance cognitive skills training performance and outcomes through motivating and engaging learners in repeated practice and progressive challenges. However, research focus on understanding the impact of game design on motivation and performance in custom-designed cognitive skills training games is limited. This study examined the impact of two specific game design elements (star system and motivational agent) in a cognitive skills training game on adolescents' intrinsic motivation and executive function skills. Four versions of Gwakkamole, a digital game designed to train inhibition skill, a specific subskill of executive function, were played by adolescents (aged 9-14; N = 103) for 20 minutes, (1) star system only, (2) motivational agent only, (3) star system and motivational agent, and (4) no star system and motivational agent. Three levels of transfer Game log data were used for measuring in-game performance. Two EF measures were administered before and after the interventions: the Flanker task (inhibition skill measure) and the Dimensional Change Card Sort (DCCS) task (shifting skill measure) for understanding EF performances. Intrinsic Motivation Inventory was administered after the intervention for measuring intrinsic motivation. Controlling for pretest score, a significant higher in-game performance was found in the star system groups but no significant differences were found in executive functions performances. In addition, there were no significant differences in the level of intrinsic motivation across treatment conditions. These findings illustrate the potential of game design elements in improving game-based cognitive skills training outcomes. It provides a foundation for informing future research in designing and developing custom-designed cognitive skills training games. [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.]

This thesis aims to take the first step in developing a quantitative analysis workflow for characterising histological changes in pre-implantation renal biopsies. Solving this is highly beneficial as there is a significant disparity between organ supply and demand worldwide. It can also help to alleviate the workload caused by a shortage of pathologists. This work would allow quantitative measurement of histological features related to chronic and acute injuries in pre-implantation biopsies. These features can then be linked to scores given by pathologists, post-transplant clinical endpoints, and proteomic biomarkers to help researchers better understand the mechanisms of organ injury and repair. First, we build the main feature extraction workflow based on convolutional neural networks (CNN) to automatically segment different tissue compartments in renal biopsies. We design handcrafted features and qualitatively show that some of these features can capture visual changes related to chronic and acute injuries. Then, we find that many tissue compartments in the primary dataset have artefacts not present in the training data. We discuss Bayesian Neural Networks (BNNs) to quantify uncertainties in segmentation and propose a way to improve histological estimates. Next, we propose using tissue compartment-based features to improve classification and interpretability in a multi-instance learning setting. In addition to learned attention, tissue compartments are weighted by segmentation quality to reduce the impact of instances that bear little resemblance to the training data. Finally, we combine techniques developed in this project to detect acute injuries from biopsies. We propose an algorithmic score consisting of models trained on pathologists' assessments and donors' clinical states. The score is significantly associated with Delayed Graft Function (DGF) in the test data. These findings suggest that our workflow can facilitate research in kidney transplant where pathologist time is limited. It also shows histology has great potential in predicting post-transplant complications.

Bile acids (BAs) are steroidal organic compounds found within the bile fluid of all vertebrates. They are biosynthesised within the liver and have the primary physiological function of solubilising and digesting dietary fats. Research within the last two decades have shown BAs can operate as signalling molecules to affect a number of vital physiological functions; the BA-activated receptors of note are the Farnesoid X receptor (FXR) and Takeda G-protein coupled receptor 5 (TGR5). Activation of these receptors have therefore become attractive targets for the treatment of various metabolic disorders including non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), while emerging evidence has revealed certain BAs to exhibit neuroprotective properties. A geminal difluorinated BA has been identified as a lead compound for treating Parkinson's disease and its optimised synthesis is discussed herein. Various fluorination routes are explored, with the optimum route identified combining an organocatalytic and silyl enol ether fluorination approach. The synthesis of novel fluorinated BA analogues as agonists of the FXR is also discussed, which have shown promising preliminary biological results for the treatment of NASH.

This PhD research aims to establish an interdisciplinary interrogation of heritage and sustainability. It investigates how these two concepts may be understood under a coherent theoretical framework, how they are debated in academic and public discourse, and how they are practised in complex contexts, focusing on heritage management in China. One of the research objectives is to bridge the gap between theoretical reflections and practice in the heritage field. This initiative emerges in response to the disconnections between the recent critical turn of Heritage Studies and heritage practices. One of these disconnections lies in the challenges of translating these academic critiques and critical approaches into operable methods to inform heritage practices, policies, strategies, and decision-making. Therefore, this PhD research concerns a re-conceptualisation of heritage and sustainability through theoretical exploration and empirical studies and developing research and practical methods to tackle these disconnections. The research outcomes demonstrate original contributions to knowledge on three levels. First, a theoretical framework is established to conceptualise heritage and sustainability's relational, multi-deterministic, and dynamic nature. Second, a more holistic understanding of the case studies, a group of heritage sites with pre-14th century timber buildings in Shanxi Province, China, is obtained by implementing such a framework and the relevant methodology and methods. Third, the theoretical framework is developed into a versatile methodology and set of methods that can be applied in practice to understand, assess, and facilitate sustainable heritage management. The theoretical framework and approach developed in this PhD research, namely the Relational Morphostasis /Morphogenesis (M/M) approach and its relevant set of methods, are conceptually versatile to be adopted in various scales and contexts. They can be refined and adapted for application in other heritage types, from policy and strategy making to specific project evaluation through further empirical testing and investigation.

Being bored is a common daily affective experience that brings varying behavioural and mental health consequences. Some see boredom as an emotion which carries unique functions; others believe it causes evil and is comparable to hell. This thesis investigates how people's lay beliefs about boredom relate to the ways boredom is experienced and coped with, as well as their relationships with mental well-being. Across eight samples, the role of boredom beliefs was scrutinised using multiple methods, including qualitative interviews, scale development, correlational surveys, and longitudinal studies. After presenting an overview of the thesis in Chapter 1, Chapters 2 and 3 examine boredom as momentary state and as chronic experience. Chapter 2 synthesizes existing literature on boredom to propose a new theoretical framework as the Boredom Feedback Model. Chapter 3 investigates the characterizations of boredom proneness; it reports data indicating that boredom frequency, boredom intensity and perceived life boredom each represents some aspects of boredom proneness. Chapter 4 explores what lay beliefs about boredom people have. Through qualitative and survey data, three boredom beliefs were identified-whether one appreciates the functions of boredom ('boredom functionality'), dislikes being bored ('boredom dislike'), and believes that boredom is a normal experience ('boredom normalcy'). The Boredom Beliefs Scale was developed and validated to quantify these beliefs. In a series of correlational and longitudinal studies, Chapters 5 and 6 examine how boredom beliefs relate to boredom experience, coping and mental health. Results in both chapters shown that, at both between- and within-person levels, boredom dislike was positively associated with boredom experience (boredom frequency and intensity). In Chapter 5, boredom dislike interacted with boredom experience in predicting smartphone use. Further, in Chapter 6, disliking boredom moderated the association between boredom experience and mental well-being among adolescents and young adults, such that the negative association was stronger in high level of boredom dislike. Also, there was a positive association between boredom normalcy and mental well-being. Finally, Chapter 7 summarizes and synthesizes the key findings. It highlights the theoretical and practical implications of this thesis, as well as its limitations and directions for future research. To conclude, this thesis underscores the importance of boredom beliefs in mitigating the behavioural and mental health impacts of boredom.

This study examines the implications of social, financial, and institutional factors on women's entrepreneurship in Vietnam and the role of motivation in facing these challenges. The significance of women's entrepreneurship to the local economy, creating employment and generating income, has drawn more attention to governmental efforts in encouraging and supporting women entrepreneurs. However, only a few qualitative studies were conducted on women's entrepreneurship in Vietnam. Consequently, the intertwined impact of social, motivational, financial and governmental factors on women's entrepreneurship is still under-researched in developing economies. Therefore, this research addressed the literature gap by adopting an interpretive qualitative exploratory approach to examine the situation of women entrepreneurs in Vietnam. The perspectives of 28 Vietnamese female entrepreneurs were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews and then analysed using the thematic analysis and the five-step coding approach. Data analysis revealed that the key motivational factors for Vietnamese women entrepreneurs are financial incentives, self-achievement, independence, social status, and desire to help others. These motivations encouraged these women entrepreneurs to persist and enhance their business survival against financial constraints, the lack of entrepreneurial skills, the limited governmental support, and the social perceptions of female entrepreneurs' capabilities. By relying on these findings, policymakers can enhance the potential success of women entrepreneurs by reducing gender inequality, developing more practical and effective entrepreneurial programs, and raising awareness about these programs. From another perspective, this research is suggested to assist women entrepreneurs to improve their business success through vicarious learning, persistence, development of skills, and raising personal awareness. In summary, this research provided insights on the impact of governmental, social, financial, and motivational factors on women entrepreneurs in Vietnam, contributing to more effective practice within women entrepreneurship in developing countries.

The dominance of motorcycles in mixed transport systems in developing cities and countries might lead to several problems such as traffic congestion and accident. To solve these challenges and increase the modal share of public transport (PT), several new PT projects have been invested in these countries. However, there seems to be very little evidence on evaluation methods of all transport modes to analyse the feasibility of a new PT mode and identify the most cost-effective mixed transport system. Therefore, it is essential to have a comprehensive evaluation method for motorcycle, car, Demand Responsive Transit (DRT) and PT in mixed transport environments. Hence, the main aim of this thesis is to develop a comparative economic assessment for evaluating the feasibility of a new PT mode and choosing the best mixed transport system based on the PT technologies' characteristics and the conditions of local transport networks. The comparative economic assessment is integrated from four models: Social Cost Model, Incremental Elasticity Analysis, Incremental Multinomial/Nested Logit Model and Microscopic Simulation Model. The Social Cost Model calculates the social costs of exclusive private transport (PRV), segregated PT, exclusive DRT and mixed transport at a strategic planning level. The Incremental Elasticity Analysis evaluates endogenous changes in total general demand of all transport modes by using the demand elasticity with respect to a composite cost (a logsum). The Incremental Multinomial/Nested Logit Model estimates the choices of passengers in favour of all transport modes with respect to generalised costs. The Microscopic Simulation Model simulates all existing transport modes' flows on the local network by using a microscopic simulation model in VISSIM, which is developed, calibrated and validated based on the data collected from one real urban corridor in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. The comparative economic assessment was applied to compare the existing mixed transport situation and twelve transport infrastructure options with a new PT technology (Bus Rapid Transit, elevated Metro or Monorail) replacing the existing bus services; either wholly or partially, and with or without a congestion charge scheme for PRV on the chosen corridor in Hanoi, in terms of average social cost, total general demand and PT share. The results show that eight options with Bus Rapid Transit or Monorail or Metro are feasible. In addition, the BRT option thatreplaces all existing buses with a congestion charging scheme is the best alternative in terms of average social cost. Transport planners and decision makers in Hanoi can draw on the findings of this thesis. Moreover, the methodology of the comparative economic assessment might be applied and modified to various transport networks with an abundance of motorcycles to assess the costs and benefits of each new PT technology and mixed transport systems with or without the congestion charge. However, various limitations are identified and further work is suggested.

"Finance, money and debt" are the most common causes of anxiety affecting mental health and wellbeing (Swift et al., 2014). The main purpose of this study is to explore the nature and determinants of financial wellbeing (FWB) in the context of online financial education. This knowledge is needed to identify the intervention strategies that could promote FWB and consider whether these determinants should be focused on simultaneously or individually. This study uses the recent concepts of FWB which identify desired living standards and financial freedom as the essence of FWB (Brüggen et al., 2017; CFPB, 2015a). These concepts are employed together with an adaptation of the concept of human needs based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs (1943, 1954). The study examines financial needs satisfaction and perceived financial wellbeing (Perceived FWB) as two components of FWB amongst learners in online financial education who intend to improve their financial capability. A pragmatic approach which uses a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods, such as survey and interview, is used in the study. Quantitative dominant crossover mixed analysis has been selected. The study finds that financial capacity - wealth and income - is by far the strongest determinant of FWB. Financial capacity is found to be a key determinant of both Perceived FWB and financial needs satisfaction. The role of financial behaviours is much less significant than financial capacity in determining FWB, though this may be because financial capacity might reflect the outcome of individual financial behaviour. By contrast, financial attitudes and perceived financial capability are only key determinants of Perceived FWB. The study suggests a hierarchy of financial needs satisfaction with four levels: finance for existence, finance for security, finance for enjoyment, and finance for self-actualisation that fit into the hierarchy of Maslow's human needs framework. Finally, the 'being in control' financial attitude is identified as the key attitude in terms of its effect on FWB, corroborating the results from Vlaev and Elliott (2014); similarly, 'savings and investment' behaviours are found to be a key behavioural factor.

Leadership development focused on leader identity has increased in popularity over the past decades. However, research on leader identity and leadership development has not fully captured the role of an individual's future identity, nor the gap between their self-views and ideal perceptions of leaders, have on their pursuit of leadership development. This thesis therefore fills the gap in our understanding and investigates the role of leader identity in individuals' pursuit of leadership development and leadership more broadly. In the first empirical chapter, I introduce the concept of the Leader Future Work Self (LFWS), which is adapted from the Future Work Self (FWS) literature (Strauss et al., 2012). LFWS is proposed to contain both people's hope and fears related to their future identity as a leader. This new model of LFWS illustrates the linkages between the hope and fear elements of LFWS and the related motivations and behavioural strategies for leadership development. In the second empirical chapter, I explore the impact of activating LFWS's hope and/or fear elements on intention for leadership development (LI) and leader self-efficacy (LSE). The findings highlight the potential utility of imaginative narrative writing for activating LFWS's hope elements. Moreover, I found that the strength of an individual's LFWS may influence their LI, when hope elements of LFWS are activated. Furthermore, this chapter shows the need to consider the role gender plays in an individual's LFWS. In the final empirical chapter, I extend my research on identity and leadership by empirically investigating the influence of congruence between Implicit self-theories (ISTs) and Implicit Leadership Theories (ILTs) on LSE. The findings highlight the importance of integrating the above congruence concept, as well as gender-related leadership characteristics, in the understanding of LSE. Overall, this thesis sheds light on the significance of both LFWS and IST/ILT congruence for our understanding of leadership development.

In advanced drug development and delivery, fluorescence studies have clarified and improved aspectssuch as biodistribution, stability and metabolism with respect to the complexities imposed by thebiological systems. The ultimate aim of this study was to assess the delivery kinetics of a synthesisedfluorescently labelled insulin in an implantable artificial pancreas (INsmart device) developed by Tayloret al, 2016, which is currently being tested in-vivo. The first objective of this thesis was to produce a fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC)-insulin conjugatewhich shows equivalent biological activity to native insulin under novel reaction conditions without theneed for using protecting groups and multi-step synthetic conditions. Secondly, the stability andsolubility profiles of the synthesised FITC-insulin conjugate in solution will be investigated for long-term storage and future applications. Thirdly, physiologically relevant glucose concentrations will beused to assess the performance of FITC-insulin delivery from an INsmart device. Lastly, other dyessuch as eosin isothiocyanate (EITC) and rhodamine B isothiocyanate (RBITC) will be assessed aslabelling candidates to produce other derivatised insulin conjugates. Mono-labelled FITC-insulin conjugate was successfully synthesised using a molar ratio of 2:1 (FITC:insulin) with short reaction times (up to 18h) at pH7 after studies were conducted to examine theeffects of reaction time, molar ratio and pH. The labelling position of this mono-labelled species wasidentified by MS-Orbitrap Fusion at the B1 residue (MonoB1). However, during synthesis,MonoB1conjugate always contains some trace amounts of unlabelled insulin that required furtherpurification by RP-HPLC using a gradient method. This HPLC method could identify four FITC-insulinconjugates including two mono-labelled species (labelled at the A1 or B1 position), di-labelled species(labelled at the A1 and B1) and tri-labelled species (labelled at the A1, B1 and B29). Further analysiswas performed using MALDI-MS to confirm the molecular weight of each conjugate produced. The biological activity of four FITC-insulin conjugates was assessed in human umbilical veinendothelial cells (HUVEC) and skeletal muscle cells (C2C12) via the insulin signalling pathway byexamining the levels of AKT phosphorylation (pAKT) and cell surface GLUT4. There was no significantdifference in pAKT and the GLUT4 cell surface levels observed for synthesised MonoB1 compared tonative insulin, highlighting that this conjugate was as biologically active as native insulin. The enhanced stability and solubility of FITC-insulin conjugate using diluting fluid containing m-cresol,glycerol and zinc oxide, which is typically contained in most commercial insulin formulations arebeneficial for setting up the in-vitro delivery study of the INsmart device. Because it allows aconcentrated depot of FITC-insulin in the device for release over an extended time. Improvement inthe smart gel formulation with diluting fluid and the use of correct membrane pore size showedpromising and reproducible results in the extended experiments where the INsmart device has beenset up and triggered multiple times with glucose and other dietary saccharides which act as controls toshow the specificity of the gel to glucose challenges. The results indicated that the device is capable ofdelivering basal insulin dose which can be boosted in response to multiple (11x) mealtime glucosesurges over a 5-day period. EITC and RBITC were used as fluorescent candidates to assess whether the same syntheticmethodology of fluorescently labelled insulin was applicable to different dye sizes. Mono-labelledinsulin conjugate with EITC was achieved using the same reaction conditions as in FITC-insulinsynthesis. Further development is still needed to remove unreacted RBITC during the synthesis ofRBITC-insulin conjugate.

This study contributes to knowledge on the future of work during a pandemic through exploring the impacts of working from home in the COVID-19 (coronavirus) crisis on employees within the Vietnamese hospitality and tourism business. Starting from December 2019, when the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak started sweeping the world, many employees switched to working at home in order to mitigate the negative effects of the virus on health issues and death rates. Due to the serious nature of COVID-19, the Vietnamese government also announced and applied national lockdown policies across the country. Therefore, a large number of companies across all industries have been affected, especially in the hospitality and tourism sectors. By collecting and analysing data from employees about their thoughts and experiences of this crisis and also reviewing and applying the appropriate academic literature, practical contributions proposed in order to support businesses for their future strategies in dealing with similar crisis situations. The author recognizes that research in relation to the topic of telework and employee satisfaction and motivation is not scarce. However, there is a dearth of current research on endeavouring to examine telework in the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis situations. Accordingly, this study concentrates to address the gap by providing insights into what the experience of teleworking during the COVID-19 pandemic may look like, which was an unexplored field, by collecting employees’ opinions. This research study also looks at the unprecedented influences of telework on factors including work-life balance, job satisfaction, motivation and well-being, and also the subsequent push for the digital transformation of the workforce. The results show that there are many different influences of working from home during COVID-19 that have had an impact on employees, and also that digital technology has been one of the key elements in maintaining these influences.

Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) are humans' stomach-dwelling bacteria that pose high mutation and recombination rates. These features allow them to achieve great genetic diversity and adapt to a wide range of within-host environments with different selective pressures, including presence of antibiotics. This study focused on the H. pylori population in Cape Verde, an archipelago that was first inhabited in the 15th century by Portuguese colonists and African slaves, followed by their extensive admixture. The high prevalence of H. pylori infection and crowded living environment facilitate cross infection and genetic exchange between divergent strains, which promote rapid evolution of the bacteria. This thesis aimed to study between-host and within-host genomic variation and evolution of H. pylori from asymptomatic individuals in Cape Verde. The genetic architecture and evolution of antibiotic resistance of H. pylori in Cape Verde were also investigated. Population genetic analyses based on whole genome data discovered that the main axis of genetic variation of H. pylori in Cape Verde was not due to admixture as in their hosts, but presence of four populations groups, two of which were highly differentiated from African and European ancestral strains and were likely to represent recent clonal expansions. Evidence of within-host genetic exchange through recombination was found between strains within-host, regardless of the presence of multiple strains, the presence of mixed ancestry and the ancestry/ancestry combinations. Resistance mechanisms of four antibiotics (Amoxicillin, Clarithromycin, Metronidazole and Tetracycline) of H. pylori in Cape Verde were only partially explained by known resistance-associated mutations. Significantly associated variants identified using GWASs included both established and novel variants. The understanding of this H. pylori population from asymptomatic hosts will serve as a major step towards establishment of Cape Verde as a model population for studying co-evolutionary trajectories of human hosts and bacteria.

The research aims to investigate the relationship between macroeconomic development and the performance of foreign banks in Vietnam. There are three objectives. The first objective is to explore the development pattern of foreign banks operating in Vietnam and the second is to identify the opportunities and challenges confronting those foreign banks. The third is to identify solutions to the problems faced by them, with a view to suggesting a framework of best practices for foreign banks in Vietnam. This research draws on the leading foreign direct investment (FDI) theory, particularly Dunning’s Eclectic Paradigm, along with international business analysis models such as PESTLE, SWOT analysis, and the TOWS matrix. The study will be based on data collected from internal sources, such as the State Bank of Vietnam, (SBV) and external sources such as the CEIC, the World Bank, the Asia Development Bank (ADB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the period 2007–2019. In addition, first-hand data collected from several interviews and focus groups with Vietnamese bankers, academics, experts and senior managers of foreign banks are included to add value to the research and make it unique. The emphasis on a recommended strategic solution highlights my contribution to the existing knowledge and practice of the performance of foreign banks, as well as the advancement in general of the FDI theory. Critical macroeconomic factors to be examined in this study include GDP growth rate, inflation rate and FDI inflow. The case studies on the ANZ bank and HSBC in Vietnam demonstrates how foreign banks would operate in an emerging financial market like Vietnam and any likely problems and challenges they may encounter. The changes made by these banks across the management, financial services and marketing processes in order to adapt to the macroeconomic environment in Vietnam has provided them with comparative advantages and strong capital returns. In addition, the presence of foreign banks has modernised the local financial/banking industry and made contributions to the economic growth of Vietnam. Generally, the performance of foreign banks is correlated positively with the macroeconomic development in Vietnam.

Cells fate choices are governed by a multitude of signalling pathways during development. Environmental and internal cues converge onto important developmental genes that control transcriptional networks and in turn dictate cell fate outcomes. In budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, nutrient and mating type signals regulate the expression of a developmental gene called IME1. Upon nutrient starvation, IME1 is expressed and diploid cells are induced to enter a conserved cell differentiation programme known as sporulation or gametogenesis. During sporulation, meiotic cell divisions take place to generate four haploid spores. How nutrient signals modulate the expression of IME1 was unknown. In this thesis, I demonstrate that nutrient signals regulate repression of IME1 transcription. Glucose and rich nutrients including nitrogen compounds control the binding of an array of at least nine sequence-specific transcription factors to the IME1 promoter. The transcription factors in turn recruit Tup1-Cyc8, a conserved transcriptional repressor complex to inhibit IME1 transcription. Importantly, Tup1-Cyc8 is heavily involved in the repression of IME1 transcription, given that IME1 is fully de-repressed when Tup1-Cyc8 is depleted. I find that three transcription factors, Yap6, Sok2, and Phd1, play significant roles in mediating Tup1-Cyc8 repression of the IME1 promoter. Remarkably, IME1 transcription is highly responsive to changes in nutrient availability. I show that the IME1 promoter is poised for activation under Tup1-Cyc8 repression. Furthermore, IME1 transcription is rapidly activated when Tup1-Cyc8 is lost. My findings present a model of how complex signals regulate developmental genes at the transcriptional level to control cell fate decisions in eukaryotes.

This thesis uses gravitational lensing to map the distribution of dark matter around galaxy clusters, and to infer their formation history. Galaxy clusters are the oldest and most massive gravitationally-bound objects in the Universe, exploited in the most discriminating tests of cosmology. It is therefore essential to understand the astrophysics of their formation. Indeed, clusters grow through filamentary connections with surrounding large-scale structures - and to chart their history is to trace the evolution and trajectory of the Universe itself. Gravitational lensing is the apparent distortion in the shapes of distant galaxies due to foreground mass, such as a galaxy cluster. Many software algorithms have been developed to measure gravitational lensing and to reconstruct the distribution of foreground mass. In this thesis, we assess the performance of two mass-mapping techniques, using mock images of the BAHAMAS simulation, where the true distribution of mass is known. We find the methods suitable for different applications: MRLens suppresses noise without bias, while Lenstool suppresses noise further, but at a cost of over-estimating the mass in cluster outskirts (R > 1Mpc) by up to a factor 2. We also develop a filter to search for large-scale filaments connected to galaxy clusters. We then use these calibrated techniques, and the largest ever mosaic of Hubble Space Telescope imaging, to study galaxy cluster MS 0451-03 (z=0.54). We map the distribution of its dark matter, and discover six group-scale substructures, linked to the cluster halo by three possible filaments. By comparing lensing results with analyses of X-ray emission and optical spectroscopy, we conclude that the cluster collided with another 2--7 Gyr ago. Its star formation was quenched and its gas was heated; its gas has still not yet relaxed, and the dark matter halos are approaching second apocentre. In the next decade, space-based telescopes will reveal this richness of detail about tens of thousands of galaxy clusters. If these observations are properly calibrated, via studies like this thesis, they will bring a new era of precision cosmology. As a final step towards this future, we present preliminary results from two ongoing projects: using deep learning to further suppress noise in lensing mass reconstruction, and the first successful measurement of gravitational lensing from a balloon-borne telescope at the edge of space.

This thesis aims to establish a Kierkegaardian philosophy of culture to address the theoretical problems of modern East Asian philosophy of culture, particularly Chinese New Confucianism and the Kyoto School (represented by Mou Zong-San and Watsuji Tetsuro respectively) who try to formulate their cultural subjectivities for the sake of cultural modernisation. Both schools adopt Hegelian philosophy of culture and therefore inherit the problems of Hegelian dialectics which Kierkegaard criticises. While Kierkegaard himself does not develop a philosophy of culture, this thesis argues that his concepts of culture in terms of the manifestations of passions, community and contemporaneity are useful resources for the formulation of East Asian cultural selves. Firstly, in chapter 1, I argue that there are two tasks of modern East Asian philosophers of culture: how to understand a culture (epistemic task) and how to establish a cultural self (ontological task). Secondly, in chapter 2, I argue that there are three theoretical problems in Mou’s and Watsuji’s Hegelian philosophies of culture, namely, the impossibility of change in cultural value, the lack of empirical method and the neglect of openness of interpretation. Thirdly, in chapter 3, I argue that Kierkegaard’s definition of culture in terms of the manifestations of passions explain East Asian cultural development more consistently than Hegelian dialectics. Fourthly, in chapter 4, I establish a Kierkegaardian philosophy of culture and argue that a cultural self is formulated by the concepts of community and contemporaneity where individuals express their passions according to their free wills. Finally, I argue that Kierkegaardian philosophy of culture fulfils both the ontological and epistemic tasks of East Asian philosophers and solves the theoretical problems they encounter when they adopt Hegelian dialectics.

Background Since the concept of end of life care was first introduced in the late 80's in Hong Kong (Chan, 2002) and Taiwan (Glass et al, 2010), research interests examining the influence of Chinese culture in respect of death, dying and end of life issues has gained popularity (Bowman & Singer, 2001; Chan & Chow, 2006; Chen et al, 2014; Hsu et al, 2009; Mjelde- Mossey & Chan, 2007; Tung, 2011; Zhou, 2016). However, there is a dearth of empirical examination on the process of the establishment and development of the concept and service of end of life care, within a socio-cultural Chinese environment. In the context of Macao, there is only one study (Lo, 2002) describing the establishment of the inpatient hospice, and to date, there is no empirical evidence on the establishment of end of life care, nor on factors that influence the development of end of life care in the context of Macao. Aim The aim of this case study was to develop a theoretical understanding of how the end of life care was introduced, established and developed, and to examine the factors that had shaped the end of life care in Macao. Methods A qualitative case study research approach (Stake, 1995) was conducted and the end of life care in Macao was the case of this research. Data was collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with the initiators (n=3) and developers (n=8), from three different settings that provide and promote end of life care in Macao. Interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed. Qualitative data analysis software, Nvivo 11, was used to organise the data and facilitate analysis. All data was analysed based on the principle of thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Findings Through thematic analysis, the emergence of end of life care in Macao can be understood to some extent to have developed through a social movement formation. Initiators with diverse backgrounds collectively conceptualised that the suffering of people as experienced at the end of their lives in Macao was a social problem needed to be changed, and they subsequently developed different approaches in pursuing for change. This findings also revealed that the growth of end of life care has become stagnant after the initial wave of establishment. The framing perspective (Snow & Benford, 1988; Snow et al, 2014; Snow et al, 1986) was adopted in this research in aiding the conceptualisation of end of life care in Macao as a social movement, and the development of a theoretical understanding regarding the development of end of life care in Macao. This research identified three key conceptual perspectives elucidating the developmental trajectory and factors contributing to the growth and then stagnation of end of life care in Macao. These three conceptual perspectives were: - The conceptualisation of the problem with dying: the suffering of people as experienced at the end of their lives (the grievance in the context of the framing perspective) - The incoherent strategies developed by initiators in establishing end of life care (the lack of internal frame cohesion) - The variety of contextual and conceptual constraints that influenced the subsequent development and then stagnation of end of life care (the lack of external frame cohesion) within the context of Macao The findings indicate the integration of these three conceptual perspectives has led to a holistic, theoretical understanding of the development of end of life care in Macao addressing the research aim and contributes to knowledge about end of life care. With specific regard to the socio-cultural environment of Macao, the study has taken a unique theoretical approach in developing understanding of the end of life care as a social movement by way of the framing perspective. This thesis has proposed a new way to examine the emergence of end of life care, which would facilitate the exploration of end of life care development in other cultural contexts.

Despite changes in availability and uptake of modern contraception and several decades of HIV risk behaviour change intervention, rates of fertility and HIV remain high in south-western Uganda. This thesis set out to explore the reasons why and understand the specific challenges married individuals face negotiating and managing HIV risk and family planning. Data collection took place between 2015-2016 in six villages, located in a pre-existing general population cohort run by the MRC/UVRI Uganda Research Unit on AIDS in Kyamulibwa. The dataset includes 36 life-stories of men and women at different stages of the marital life-course, focus groups with married individuals, and interviews with religious leaders, health workers and a traditional healer/birth attendant. A social determinants of health approach was used as a base to investigate drivers of sexual attitudes and practices, fertility preferences, family planning use and navigation of HIV. A framework and network mapping technique guided interpretation and data analysis. This thesis identifies social practices that are sustaining high fertility and contributing to a risk environment, which heightens HIV susceptibility for married individuals, particularly women in this setting. Unequal gender power dynamics are played out through practices of transactional sex, early and pressurised marriage for females, gender-based violence and the commonality of male engagement in extra-marital relations. Whilst types of marriage and marital circumstances vary substantially, widespread cultural beliefs underpin expectations of marital roles and obligations relating to unprotected sex. Over the life-course, females often try multiple family planning methods, frequently favouring approaches that do not require spousal involvement. Tensions are highlighted between the ways married individuals are told they should protect against HIV and manage fertility, and the cultural and religious discourses shaping marital gender roles, as well as the context and circumstances in which sex and sexual relations take place.

Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOFs) are new remarkable nano-porous materials that exhibit exceptional thermal and chemical stabilities. They have a broad range of applications ranging from, not limited to, gas storage/separation, molecular separations, sensor, catalysis, drug delivery and removal of toxic chemicals and detoxification of warfare agents. The properties of the materials are highly dependent on the nature of the atomic interactions and structural arrangement of the crystallise material. This thesis focused on the MOFs that respond to stimuli where the structure will undergo reversible transformation in which it can lead to remarkable sorption properties that enhance the material performance. The selected MOFs, ZIF-8 and Mg-MOF-74 were studied in this thesis. The materials were evaluated at atomistic and quantum levels. Here, we proposed a new theoretical concept regarding controlling molecular movements by implanting molecular machines in Mg-MOF-74. We designed the molecular machines to respond to external electric field and the machines are anchored within the onedimensional pore channel of Mg-MOF-74. The pore opening and closing was simultaneously controlled by the induced electric field; thus, the flow directions of methane can be controlled at molecular level. Moreover, this thesis moved onto the study regarding mechanical 'gate' opening movements in ZIF-8 which are stimulated by introduction of water molecules to the system. First, we examined with water models response in ZIF-8. Five types of different water models and six different ZIF-8 force fields were chosen and simulated with Grand Canonical Monte Carlo method. We found that the simulated adsorption isotherms are significant diverse in relation to water models. Afterward, we mimicked experimental water adsorption set up through the use of a graphene piston in molecular dynamics simulation. Here, we demonstrated through the use of water that we witnessed experimental 'gate' effect. However, we also found that current atomics force fields in literature were unable to replicate the adsorption isotherm at experimental conditions, resulting in the development and modifications for new force field that tune to water responses in ZIF-8.

This thesis examines how Chinese-Canadian evangelicals (CCEs) maintain social solidarity through short-term missions (STMs) to China. STMs are pilgrimage-like service trips that entails an individual to travel to a distant place to engage in social service for one or two weeks. This research draws on theoretical insights from Randall Collins' interaction ritual chains (IRC) theory to examine the intersections of ethnicity, religion, and emotions at the macro-, meso-, micro-, and situational levels. This study involved over 131 in-depth interviews with 48 STM participants, observations of four STMs in 2015, and a two-year ethnography of a sending church north of the Greater Toronto Area in 2015-16. My first empirical chapter takes a macro-level perspective to investigating the global missions phenomenon. My findings reveal that the religious discourses that motivate the collective actions of transnational Chinese fundamentalist organizations are unstable, and this unity based on a religious pan-Chinese ethnicity is challenged by linguistic, geographic, generational, and ideological fractures. In my second chapter analyzing the meso-level CCE congregations, I observed how they maintained their organizational focus by operating cyclically and how each congregation's members actively participated to maintain the pursuit of their mission. In my third chapter, I focus on the micro-level motivations for CCEs to engage in STM action. I connect contemporary neuroscience to IRC theory's conception of IR "chains," and suggested the concept be revised to "entangled chains." I discuss how acknowledging the emotional entanglement of various identities should drive the analytical discussion of the self in modernity. My final chapter examines how situations of putative spiritual conflicts allowed STMers to generate various collective-effervescence outcomes. This thesis contributes to the sociology of religion and emotions and our understanding of communities by uncovering how social solidarity is generated and sustained at multiple levels of social organization.

Despite the vast research on project success and sustainability, little is known about managing project sustainability, particularly Hong Kong's construction industry. Previous empirical studies on construction project implementation success lack the ingredients of sustainability. This sequential mixed methods research explores such a relationship from both project maturity and process perspectives. The quantitative study on local construction project managers identifies the status quo of project sustainability maturity. In addition, it identifies sustainability success criteria and factors attributable to project implementation success. The quantitative study results generate question for a subsequent qualitative e-Delphi study. The follow-up e-Delphi study distinguishes the degree of impact related to economic sustainability, environmental sustainability, and social sustainability on construction projects. This study surveyed 55 local construction project managers and received consensus from 12 international experts in the field. First, the mixed methods study found that a discernible construction project sustainability maturity level does not appear in the Hong Kong construction industry. However, organisations generally value project sustainability. Second, the study found four traditional success criteria to explain a majority of local construction project implementation success. Third, two significant sustainability impact criteria (economic and environmental constructs) contributed to local construction project implementation success. However, criterion representing social sustainability impact was not identified. Fourth, the traditional constituent success criterion for construction project implementation success linked to certain sustainability impact elements. Fifth, the study categorised important sustainability impact-related factors (economic: 3; environmental: 4; and social: 3). Finally, e-Delphi experts believed that environmental sustainability was more important than economic and/or social sustainability. This study contributes knowledge to researchers in the field. It also provides local construction project managers with management practices in structuring sustainability-related success criteria and factors contributing to project implementation success. Limitations of this study include not able to conduct longitudinal study, limited judgmental sample size in the survey, clients and stakeholders' view not being considered in the quantitative study, and that majority of the e-Delphi experts in the qualitative study are not base in Hong Kong, etc. Such limitations may reduce the reliability of the research findings.

This project uses corpus linguistics and geostatistics to test the sociolinguistic typological theory put forward by Peter Trudgill on the history of Norwegian. The theory includes several effects of societal factors on language change. Most discussed is the proposal that ‘intensive’ language contact causes simplification of language grammar. In the Norwegian case, the claim is that simplificatory changes which affected all of the Continental North Germanic languages (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian) but not the Insular North Germanic Languages were the result of contact with Middle Low German through the Hanseatic League. This suggests that those simplificatory changes arose in the centres of contact with the Hanseatic League: cities with Hansa trading posts and kontors. The size of the dataset required would have made it impossible for previous scholars to test this prediction, but digital approaches render the problem tractable. I have designed a 3.5m word corpus containing nearly all extant Middle Norwegian, and developed statistical methods for examining the spread of language phenomena in time and space. The project is made up of a series of case studies of changes. Three examine simplifying phonological changes: the rise of svarabhakti (epenthetic) vowels, the change of /hv/ > /kv/ and the loss of the voiceless dental fricative. A further three look at simplifying morphological changes: the loss of 1.sg. verbal agreement, the loss of lexical genitives and the loss of 1.pl. verbal agreement. In each case study a large dataset from many documents is collected and used to map the progression of the change in space and time. The social background of document signatories is also used to map the progression of the change through different social groups. A variety of different patterns emerge for the different changes examined. Some changes spread by contagious diffusion, but many spread by hierarchical diffusion, jumping first between cities before spreading to the country at large. One common theme which runs through much of the findings is that dialect contact within the North Germanic language area seems to have played a major role: many of the different simplificatory changes may first have spread into Norwegian from Swedish or Danish. Although these findings do not exactly match the simple predictions originally proposed from the sociolinguistic typological theory, they are potentially consistent with a more nuanced account in which the major centres of contact and so simplifying change were in Sweden and Denmark rather than Norway.

This dissertation contributes to studies of Frances Burney’s prose fiction, by establishing the importance of the combined influence of theatrical models and Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa in shaping Burney’s novels. Reading the collection of novels by Burney as a rebellion against the tragic plot into which the acclaimed heroine of Richardson’s second novel is ensnared, it argues that Burney’s works blend together dramatic and novelistic conventions to produce narratives with ambivalently successful conclusions. It shows, through analyses of all four of Burney’s novels, that the author positions turning points with sentimental crises and peculiar circumstances within the narratives as dramatic climaxes which allow the heroines temporarily to overlook conventional social expectations of women to make important decisions to help them make positive changes in their lives before they resign control once again. In allowing female characters these small freedoms to act for themselves, I argue that there is an underlying message in Burney’s fiction that it is necessary for women to become more assertive in order to gain more conscious control of their destiny. The main thesis of my work is that it is with incremental adjustments in female conduct, and with the blending of the comic and tragic forms, that Burney’s fiction dramatizes the ways in which women make the most of their circumstances and resources to find peace, if not happiness, in a dignified manner in a society which restricts their freedom of choice and expression.

This thesis consists of three chapters on public and development economics that study incentives in public policies from the perspective of microeconomics. It is devoted to understanding behavioural responses in public policies that are relevant to its design in each domain, including trading in market with frictions, enrolment in education and child marriage practice for young girls, and childcare resource allocation in family. Chapter 1 studies how transaction tax policy affect market with frictions. Transaction tax in property market, with tax rate decreasing in holding period of property, received attention from governments in Asia for moderating speculation since 2000s. Using administrative transaction record of property, this chapter studies the behavioural response to the transaction tax in the timing of transaction, tax incidence and selection of buyers in Hong Kong and Singapore. I find that the inherent tax incentives, in the form of tax notches, induced tax avoidance behaviour in the timing of transaction, and average buyer and seller are willing to wait 3-4 weeks to avoid 1% of transaction tax. Exploiting discontinuity in tax liability at daily level, I find that the tax policy has impact on transaction activity that links closely to its rate and lower the overall chance of a property sold. Buyers bear significant tax burden on seller specific tax even when tax-free sellers are abundant in the market both evidence suggest strong search friction in property market. I also find that the differential tax rate in holding duration produce selection effect among buyers with different ex ante probability of trade in the taxable holding period. This chapter contributes to understanding the nature of transaction tax in markets with search friction. Chapter 2, a joint work with S Roy, studies the impact of matrimonial laws introduced by the British in colonial India during 1800s and early 1900s. Legal reforms on marriage practices, including laws on minimum marriage age and female infanticide, were introduced in British Provinces - district that were under British direct rule. Exploiting quasi-random variations of districts that were former British Provinces within each post-independent Indian states, this chapter studies their impact on female education and under age marriages in post-Independent India. From independent sources of large-scale micro data, including administrative records from schools and representative household surveys, we find that in former British Provinces females have 5% lower chances of marrying under the current legal age, and 1.6% higher chance of attending school at 10-16 years old. Child Marriage abolition Act was introduced in 1931, which raised the minimum age of marriage for female to 14. With newly digitized data on district level marriage pattern from Census of India 1901-1931, we find that the act distorts the marriage market in the short-run by increasing the likelihood of girls marrying at young age as it was preannounced before its implementation, while district more aware of the law exhibit lower child marriage in the long run. It suggest that expansion of education for girls in India has demand side constraints from child marriage practice that has historical root. The introduction of prenatal sex-detection technologies in India has led to a phenomenal increase in abortion of female fetuses. Chapter 3, a joint work with S Anukriti and Sonia Bhalotra investigates their impact on the relative chances of girls surviving after birth, fertility and parental investments. We find that it lead to reduction in excess female mortality, erosion of gender gaps in parental inputs such as breastfeeding and immunization, and moderation of son-stopping fertility. For every five aborted girls, we estimate that roughly one additional girl survives to age five. Our findings have implications that sex-selective abortion not only account for counts of missing girls but also for the later life outcomes of girls.

Research data is essential to scholarship. The value of research data and its management has been increasingly recognized by policy makers and higher education institutions. A deep understanding of disciplinary practices is vital to develop culturally-sensitive policy, tools and services for successful data management. Previous research has shown that data practices vary across sub-fields and disciplines. However, much less is known about how disciplinary cultures shape data practices. There is a need to theorise research data practices based on empirical evidence in order to inform policy, tools and services. The aim of the thesis is to examine the interrelation between data practices and disciplinary cultures within geography. Geography is well-established and multidisciplinary, consisting of elements from the sciences, social sciences and humanities. By examining a single discipline this thesis develops a theoretical understanding of research data practices at a finer level of granularity than would be achieved by looking at broad disciplinary groupings such as the physical and social sciences. Data collection and analysis consisted of two phases. Phase one was exploratory, including an analysis of geography department websites and researcher web profiles and a bibliometric study of collaboration patterns based on co-authorship. Phase one aimed to understand the disciplinary characteristics of geography in preparation for Phase two. The second phase consisted of a series of 23 semi-structured interviews with researchers in geography, which aimed to understand researchers data practices and their attitudes toward data sharing within the context of the sub-discipline(s) they inhabited. The findings of the thesis show that there are contrasting intellectual, social and data differences between physical and human geography. For example, intellectually, these two branches of geography differ in terms of their research objects and methods; socially, they differ in terms of the scale of their collaborative activities and the motivations to collaborate; furthermore, the nature of data, how data is collected and data sharing practices are also different between physical and human geography. The thesis concludes that differences in the notion of data and data sharing practices are grounded in disciplinary characteristics. The thesis develops a new three-dimensional framework to better understand the notion of data from a disciplinary perspective. The three dimensions are (1) physical form, (2) intellectual content and (3) social construction. Furthermore, Becher and Trowler s (2001) disciplinary taxonomy i.e. hard-soft/pure-applied, and the concepts urban-rural ways of life and convergent-divergent communities, is shown to be useful to explain the diverse data sharing practices of geographers. The thesis demonstrates the usefulness of applying disciplinary theories to the sphere of research data management.

This thesis seeks to investigate the accounting, governance and executive compensation practices of non-profit organizations (NPOs). Specifically, this thesis explores whether UK charities engage in earnings management practices, how they implement governance practice and its effectiveness on financial accountability, and the determinants of CEO compensation in the UK charitable sector. Informed by several theoretical perspectives, namely stakeholder theory (ST), resource dependence theory (RDT) and the social theory of agency (STA), this thesis partially relies on a sample of UK charities (1414 charities in the second chapter and the 250 largest charities in the third and fourth chapters). This study finds that: (i) UK charities use accrual accounting to manage their financial results (earnings management) to a zero level; (ii) the presence of UK charity governance (notably board diversity and the presence of experts on the audit committee) are positively associated with financial accountability; and (iii) while organizational performance is not found to be associated with CEO compensation, elements of the governance structure and CEO characteristics have a significant influence on CEO compensation. As a result, this thesis claims several contributions to the literature, theory and practice. Specifically, this thesis not only documents the practice of earnings management in UK charities, but also asserts the significance of several governance factors to organization accountability, such as the diversity of the board and the presence of experts on audit committees, and suggests several determinants influencing charity CEO compensation (for instance, governance elements, government funding, charity age, size and sectoral factors). The thesis also demonstrates the applicability of ST, RDT and STA in a non-profit context. Lastly, this thesis provides several important implications for academia and practice towards developing theories and regulations/guidelines in relation to accrual accounting practice, governance and CEO compensation in non-profit organisations.

While a plethora of new imaging techniques are being investigated as adjuncts or improvement to existing imaging tests, most of these novel techniques take many years before they are validated for clinical use. The aims of this thesis, which is focused on patients with colorectal liver metastases, were three-folds: (1) to evaluate whether the use of liver specific contrast enhanced MRI with diffusion-weighted MRI improves the surgical management of these patients compared with conventional CT, (2) to evaluate whether imaging tests used in routine clinical practice, such as 18-Flurodeoxyglucode (FDG) PET/CT and diffusion-weighted MRI (DW-MRI), yield predictive and prognostic information in this clinical setting and (3) to evaluate the use of conventional MRI and DW-MRI in identifying the effects of malignancy on the adjacent liver parenchyma and also treatment-related complications of the hepatic parenchyma. The studies undertaken showed that although the use of liver specific contrast enhanced MRI with DW-MRI has a higher diagnostic sensitivity compared with CT, its use did not significantly alter management in the majority. When assessing colorectal liver metastases using DW-MRI, the pre-treatment lesion ADC values may predict response to treatment although this requires further validation. Using FDG PET-CT imaging, we showed that higher pre-treatment standardized uptake value (SUV) predicted for shorter patient progression free survival. Using a combination of diffusion-weighted MR imaging and T1-weighted MRI, we described a novel MRI diagnostic sign of hepatic injury from malignant biliary obstruction, which was corroborated with serum alanine transferase (ALT) derangements. In a separate evaluation, we found that although the sign of sinusoidal obstruction syndrome (SOS) on gadoxetic acid enhanced MRI was frequently observed in patients receiving oxaliplatin chemotherapy, it was infrequently associated with significant long term hepatic veno-occlusive disease. As FDG-PET/CT and diffusion-weighted MRI are becoming more main-stream in clinical practice, these techniques will play an increasingly role in the management of colorectal liver metastases.

With the integration of mobile devices into our daily lives, smartphones are privy to increasing amounts of sensitive information. As of 2016, Android is the leading smartphone in popularity with sophisticated mobile malware targeting its data and services. Thus this thesis attempts to determine how accurate and scalable Android malware analysis and classification methods can be developed to robustly withstand frequent, and substantial, changes within the Android device and in the Android malware ecosystem. First, the author presents a comprehensive survey on leading Android malware analysis and detection techniques, and their effectiveness against evolving malware. Through the systematized survey, the author identifies underdeveloped areas of research which lead to the development of the novel Android malware analysis and classification solutions within in this thesis. This thesis considers the usefulness and feasibility of reconstructing high-level behaviours via system calls intercepted while running Android apps. Previously, this method had only been rudimentarily implemented. However, the author was able to remedy this and developed a robust, novel, framework, to automatically and completely reconstructs all Android malware behaviours by thoroughly analysing dynamically captured system calls. Next, the author investigates the efficacy of using our reconstructed behavioural profiles, at different levels of abstractions, to classify Android malware into families. Experiments in this thesis show our reconstructed behaviours to be more effective, and efficient, than raw system call traces. To classify malware, we utilized support vector machines to achieve high accuracy, precision and recall. Deviating from previous methods, we further apply statistical classification to achieve near-perfect accuracies. Finally, the author explores an alternative Android malware analysis method using memory forensics. By extrapolating from these experiments, the author theorizes how to use this method to assist in capturing behaviours our previous methods could not, and how they could assist classification.

This thesis discusses the concept of "apprehension of Jesus" in the Gospel of John by focusing primarily on John's use of seeing, hearing, knowing, witnessing, remembering and believing terms. After briefly clarifying what is meant by a concept from a linguistic perspective, I analysed and examined the grammatical features of the key apprehension terms used. In view of the errors committed in previous studies of Johannine synonyms used for the apprehension terms, I set up the semantic fields for the concept of apprehension. On the basis of this linguistic foundation, I offer an exegetical analysis to investigate how the apprehension terms and related terms function in the contexts of the Gospel of John in order to show how John intends to affect his readers. Through my analysis of the selected passages and the persuasive strategies used in them, I argue for a new reading of the Gospel of John, proposing that there is a four-phased apprehension of Jesus where ideas of seeing, hearing, knowing, witnessing, and remembering collaborate with believing: (1) John 1-4. Initial encounters are characterised by a generally positive and sincere reception of Jesus which are guided by the message of the Jonannine preamble and monologues (1:1-5, 9-18; 3:16-21, 31-36); (2) John 5-12. Subsequent encounters are characterised by a largely negative and hostile response to Jesus; (3) John 13-17. Deepening encounters are focused on knowing Jesus in a more personal way and even beyond the time-frame of his earthly life; and (4) John 18-21. Heightened and climactic encounters engage the readers in a manner climactic to the overall plot. In a collaborative and progressive manner, the apprehension terms function in the four phases so as to demonstrate to the readers the multifaceted importance of faith; they highlight the characters' apprehension of Jesus and contribute to encourage faith in the readers. After identifying the author's persuasive strategies we shall be able to work out what his intended impact on the readers was. First, by depicting different characters' apprehension of Jesus, I shall show that John has a dual goal of faith-engendering and faith-fostering targeted to believing as well as non-believing readers. Second, by understanding how Jesus' own apprehension of the spiritual reality is relevant to the readers' perception of him, I shall show that the Gospel of John reminds readers of the importance of the "present"-ness of a living, omniscient, and divine Jesus. Third, an evaluation of John's strategy in helping his readers to understand the role of Jesus' signs and words will show that the activities of seeing signs and hearing words function complementary to bring about apprehension. The activities of "seeing" signs and "hearing" words in the parst are now associated with reading John's trustworthy testimony in the present. Finally, regarding the role of faith in perceiving Jesus, I explain that readers' belief/unbelief, as part of their apprehension/perception process, is open to challenging possibilities upon encountering and knowing the narrated Jesus. The readers of the Gospel of John should be struck by the fact that belief/unbelief is not only the end result of their process of apprehension of Jesus; it is also paradoxically their presupposition prior to the same apprehension in the Gospel of John. Thus, these four impacts generated from the four apprehension phases highlight the author's thoughtful concerns for his readers in subsequent generations. These findings present an original contribution to the significance of the concept of apprehension of Jesus which is insufficiently appreciated in current Johannine scholarship. They serve as the basis for opening new avenues for reflection and research.

Since the 1960s, the advocacy of "teaching mathematics so as to be useful" is not without hindrance in school curricula, partly due to the lack of appropriate assessment tools. Practical approaches have been accumulating quickly, but researchers showed that they are not satisfactory in testing students' ability to apply mathematical knowledge, be they "word problems" in school textbooks, national tests, or large-scale international assessments. To understand the causes behind the dissatisfaction, there is a need to reveal (1) the theories that are used in the test designs, and (2) what the actual assessments are in various curricula. This motive leads to the purpose of the current study, which is to identify empirically consistent theories about students' ability to apply; the results can be organized as a framework to analyze assessment tools such as PISA, as well as various curricular materials. Based on the current theories, a framework of assessment analysis is created in order to study the coverage of modeling steps of public assessment items. This study finds that, though many education systems have claims of introducing modeling and application into their curricula, high-stake assessments mostly involve a small fraction of the steps that are required in a full modeling cycle. It furthers an earlier result that certain textbooks, though claiming the importance of modeling, almost ignored the first and last steps of modeling. It is found in this study that public assessments are even more limited: most test items that are supposed to test students' knowledge of application involve only one or two steps of modeling. Furthermore, the tool "modeling spectrum" that is used in the analysis does not only reveal how modeling steps are covered, but can also assists educators to improve or create problems with modeling and application. [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.]

The problem of heating the solar corona requires the conversion of magnetic energy into thermal energy. Presently, there are two promising mechanisms for heating the solar corona: wave heating and nanoflare heating. In this thesis, we consider nanoflare heating only. Previous modelling has shown that the kink instability can trigger energy release and heating in large scale loops, as the field rapidly relaxes to a lower energy state under the Taylor relaxation theory. Two distinct experiments were developed to understand the coronal heating problem: the avalanche effect within a multiple loop system, and the importance of thermal conduction and optically thin radiation during the evolution of the kinked-unstable coronal magnetic field. The first experiment showed that a kink-unstable thread can also destabilise nearby threads under some conditions. The second experiment showed that the inclusion of thermal conduction and optically thin radiation causes significant change to the internal energy of the coronal loop. After the initial instability occurs, there is continual heating throughout the relaxation process. Our simulation results show that the data is consistent with observation values, and the relaxation process can take over 200 seconds to reach the final relaxed state. The inclusion of both effects perhaps provides a more realistic and rapid heating experiment compared to previous investigations.

Systemic Sclerosis (SSc) is a connective tissue disease characterised by inflammation and autoimmunity, vasculopathy, and interstitial remodelling and fibrosis. This thesis focuses on CTGF (CCN2), a member of the CCN family of matricellular proteins, as elevated CTGF expression is a hallmark of chronic fibrotic diseases such as SSc. In addition to the association of CTGF expression and fibrosis in human disease, experimentally, fibroblast-specific overexpression of CTGF has been shown to induce a fibrotic phenotype, as demonstrated in the Col1a2-CTGF transgenic mice. Prominent features of fibrosis included a thickened dermis, as well as excess collagen deposition in the skin and lung. This CTGF overexpression also provoked changes in the alveolar epithelium. In the lung of Col1a2-CTGF mice, immunostaining revealed a marked increase in the number of cells co-expressing the epithelial marker, TTF-1 and mesenchymal cell markers α-SMA and Snai1, indicative of epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT)-like changes. This suggested a role for the paracrine effects of CTGF in promoting the phenotypic switching of alveolar epithelial cells. EMT is likely to contribute, at least in part, to the accumulation of interstitial fibroblasts during fibrosis. Complementary in vitro studies in alveolar epithelial cells (AECs) showed that CTGF knockdown using siRNA suppressed TGF-β-induced mesenchymal cell proteins while inducing redistribution of the epithelial cell marker E-cadherin. Immunostaining and Western blotting showed that recombinant CTGF induced EMT-like morphological changes and expression of α-SMA in AECs. Finally, we were interested in whether the reduction or absence of CTGF could abrogate fibrosis. Knockdown of CTGF suppressed the induction of fibrotic proteins in TGF-β-treated control fibroblasts and SSc lung fibroblasts. Deletion of the CTGF gene showed reduced bleomycin-induced pulmonary fibrosis in mice. Overall, these results support that CTGF plays a pivotal role in fibrosis and blocking CTGF activity may be useful as a specific target of attenuating fibrosis in SSc.

For more than two decades, research on accelerated science classes has mostly been in , Mathematics and seldom in other science subjects and has mostly been conducted in English-speaking countries (e.g., Stanley & Stanley, 1986) and seldom in Asian countries with Chinese populations. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of an accelerated science programme for gifted & talented Chinese students in a gifted & talented secondary school in Hong Kong in terms of their proficiency, their motivation, their skilfulness and the usefulness ofthe programme. The assessment results of three science subjects (Physics, Chemistry, Biology) of Grade 9 (G9) students from accelerated and non-accelerated science classes were compared in the three cohorts 2007-08, 2008-09, and 2009-10. A questionnaire was used to evaluate the students' perceptions regarding their motivation and the usefulness of the programme from the three G9 cohorts and follow up interviews were conducted with six students from Cohort 2009-10 to enquire their views. The assessment findings showed that the students who attended the two cohorts 2007-2008 and 2009-2010 of the G9 Accelerated Science Programme achieved better in their science subjects. The G9 Accelerated Science Programme (2008-2009) .might not have any effects on the science achievements of the students. Student interviewees found the Accelerated Science Programme more engaging than the traditional science subjects for various reasons such as they could learn advanced topics more deeply to broaden their horizons in science. The Accelerated Science Programme was valid for the students' learning to do better in their science projects for different reasons such as they got to have more hands-on experience in doing sCientific investigations. The interview findings also revealed that the students picked up a variety of skills according to Gardner's (as cited in Sousa, 2009) theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI). Future researchers can treat this study as a representative model to help gifted & talented Chinese students in science.

Studies of Overhauser DNP in liquids are presented in this thesis, where the polarisation is achieved in-situ using TEMPO-derived radicals at a magnetic field of 3.4 T (143 MHz/94 GHz 1H NMR/EPR frequency). The dielectric heating of lossy water solvent is unavoidable at high field, and so knowledge of temperature effects is important to properly compare enhancement results. It is shown that the temperature dependent DNP enhancement of water protons can be determined provided that the 1H NMR shift is sufficiently resolved and the nuclear relaxation T1I is sufficiently fast. Considerable sensitivity gains are made at modest temperatures, e.g. [E] ~ 40 at ~40 degrees C, and much greater enhancements are achievable at elevated temperatures, e.g. [E]~ 130 at ~ 100 degrees C. Since high radical concentrations (100 mM TEMPOL) are used, the leakage and saturation factors approach 1, enabling an experimental determination of the coupling factor from the enhancement. A value of E = 0:055+0:003 is found at 25 degrees C, which agrees well with values in the literature calculated from molecular dynamics simulations. The DNP enhancement is measured as a function of temperature for three organic compounds dissolved in water: glycine, L-proline and acrylic acid; with enhancements of -17, -16 and -11 at ~40 degrees C. To the author's knowledge, this is the first report of solute molecule enhancements for direct in-situ liquid DNP at this field. Significant enhancements are obtained, however, further analysis of the results reveals significantly weaker coupling of the electron spin to the solute molecule protons than to the solvent molecule protons. Discrepancies between experimental coupling factor ratios and those calculated from a force-free hard-sphere model suggest that the classical analytical models used to describe Overhauser DNP may require refinement. In addition to these temperature studies, simultaneous saturation of two EPR hyperfine lines is investigated and achieved, resulting in an increase in observed DNP enhancement.

Some people living with HIV (PLWHIV) who wish to have children seek assisted reproductive techniques to achieve conception, others pursue adoption. Existing research indicates that prohibitive costs and limited facilities specialising in HIV-related infertility treatment hinder access. Other studies highlight reluctance by adoption agencies to consider PLWHIV, although their experiences have scarcely been explored. This qualitative study utilised Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) and social constructivism to explore experiences of pursuing infertility treatment and adoption. Through HIV voluntary organisations, the study recruited 11 participants living with HIV who had received support with accessing fertility treatment and adoption services. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted, providing detailed accounts of the experiences of participants. The study protocol was reviewed by the Terrence Higgins Trust and received ethical approval from the University of Surrey Ethics Committee. The findings suggest that HIV-related infertility, fertility treatment and adoption are socially constructed. Therefore, the reality of participants’ experiences was influenced by their engagement with those services and the wider social context. Childlessness was seen as a form of loss. However, seeking alternative ways of parenting represented resilience. The findings of this study present fertility treatment and adoption experiences as separate entities to reflect the differing discourses and constructs that influenced participants’ life-worlds. The study postulates that fertility treatment is predominantly influenced by the medical model although social and cultural influences contribute to the reality of infertility and the need to address childlessness. Adoption was seen as a last choice when fertility treatment was unsuccessful. However, for homosexual individuals, adoption was considered their only option. Overall, the journey to seek parenthood was motivated by participants’ desire for a normal life, rights to creating families and achieving parenthood. However, pursuing either adoption or fertility was fraught with challenges such as stigma, discrimination, power imbalances, psychological and emotional problems. For many, support from charitable organisations was seen as a source of support that increased resiliency through the journey of seeking and fighting for parenthood. Achieving parenthood was considered meaningful in reconstructing individual identities after coming to terms with HIV as a long-term condition. Contingency planning was an important aspect of implementing stable long-term arrangements for adoptive children in the event of health deterioration. Healthcare and social care services will benefit from education around the current definition of HIV, with implications for enhancing family life. Up-to-date knowledge about HIV will not only improve practice but also enable non-discriminatory practices. This may result in improved experiences for PLWHIV as they seek parenthood.

Evolution of developmental genes is an important mechanism for plant morphological evolution. The LRL genes are an ancient group of bHLH transcription factors that positively regulate root hair development in angiosperms. Here I show that, in the moss Physcomitrella patens, two LRL genes are present and they positively regulate rhizoid and caulonema (a rhizoid-like cell type) development. GUS-transcriptional reporter plants show that both PpLRL1 and PpLRL2 are expressed in tissues giving rise to caulonemata. Loss-of-function mutants in either PpLRL1 or PpLRL2 led to defective rhizoid and caulonema development, and the Pplrl1 Pplrl2 double loss-of-function mutants completely lack rhizoids and caulonemata. Consistent with this, gain-of-function mutants show enhanced rhizoid and caulonema development. In addition, I show that the stimulatory effects of auxin and low phosphate on the development of rhizoids and/or caulonemata required PpLRL gene function. Together, these results show that LRL genes are conserved, positive regulators in tip-growing rooting cell development in land plants. To elucidate whether LRL genes belong to part of a conserved gene network, I use qRT-PCR to determine the transcriptional interaction between LRL genes and the Class I RSL genes, which is another group of conserved regulators of rhizoids and root hairs. Comparing the LRL-RSL network between P. patens and A. thaliana reveals that LRL and Class I RSL genes are transcriptionally independent of each other in P. patens but one LRL gene is transcriptionally downstream of Class I RSL genes in A. thaliana. This suggests that the gene network controlling tip-growing rooting cell development has changed since mosses and angiosperms last shared a common ancestor.

Intra-organizational factors are an important line of inquiry to improve the explanation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) behavior in current theory and management concepts. Contributions from organizational behavior literature were used in this thesis to orient the analysis to the company’s structure in order to provide alternative explanations as to ‘why’ and ‘how’ companies addressed social responsibility issues and activities. Qualitative methods were employed to investigate the structure/decision relationship among a sample of decision processes of multinational business organizations. Conclusions suggest that social responsibility issues and activities can be treated contextually by the company, and its complexity can influence and shape the development of alternatives to address the issues and activities.

The Hong Kong Government has launched three five-year strategies on Information Technology in Education since 1998. The First Information Technology in Education (ITEd) Strategy invested heavily in resources to; build a solid foundation for schools with Information Technology (IT) infrastructure and equipment, provide professional training programmes and digital resources for teachers, and foster IT as a learning tool for students. The Second ITEd Strategy was aimed at harnessing the power of IT to enhance the effectiveness of teaching and learning for teachers and students alike. The Third ITEd Strategy pointed out that IT is only one of many mediators in learning and teaching, and the use of IT should be placed in the wider context of a learning environment (EDB, 2008b:4). Nevertheless, this thesis argues that some challenges or obstacles have emerged during the process of education reform in Hong Kong and are yet to be overcome. These include issues such as: the 'richness' versus 'reachness' of IT, 'information overflow', 'islands of information'; building a repository for managing knowledge and motivating knowledge sharing culture. In order to explore these issues, the thesis problematises the idea of knowledge and information. It suggests that since people have different understandings on the term 'Knowledge', it is more useful to use the taxonomy of four 'Knows' - 'Know Who', 'Know What', 'Know How' and 'Know Why' (Lundvall and Johnson, 1994: 23-42). In relation to Hong Kong and IT, the first three 'Knows' of the new taxonomy have been developed to identify some obstacles encountered under the three ITEd strategic plans in Hong Kong from the viewpoint of Knowledge Management (KM). The fourth 'Know' - 'Know Why' has been developed to identify the reasons to initiate a KM project Secondly, Handzic's (2004) extended KM framework was adopted to study a case study - Wetland Project According to the Third ITEd Strategy, the technological component of the Handzic's framework was further developed to enhance its original attributes. The framework was also revised to testify a student-centred pedagogical approach, KM process and to define the characteristics of knowledge in a knowledge stock with an illustration of the KM project Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) was used to study the significance of all KM practices in the project and to examine its services perceived by the participants. Based on the research findings, some results were considered to be significant (i.e. the significance of transferring knowledge instead of information, examining the constraints/limitations of KM project, and identifying any pedagogical tools). They could be used to tackle the challenges of, or obstacles to, education reform under the three ITEd Strategic Plans (i.e. improve the effectiveness in managing the IT resources, students' learning outcomes; and any shortcomings during project implementation).

Some low-valent, three-coordinated β-diketiminato heavy group 14 metal complexes have been synthesised and their reactions examined. Initially, our attention is focused on several β-diketiminatolead(II) alkoxides. The lead(II) alkoxides show different basic and nucleophilic reactivities from transition metal analogues. For example, the reaction between the lead(II) tert-butoxide and methyl iodide proceeds only under forcing conditions to give the lead(II) iodide and methyl tert-butyl ether. However, facile reversible carbon dioxide insertion into the lead-oxygen bond is observed. To investigate the steric effect of the bulky β-diketiminato ligand, compounds with various aromatic groups attached to nitrogen have been made. When either [(BDIPh)PbCl] (BDIPh = [HC{C(Me)N(C6H5)}2]−) or [(BDIIPP)PbCl] (BDIIPP = [HC{C(Me)N(4-iPrC6H4)}2]−) was treated with potassium tert-butoxide, the reactions gave the unexpected bis[β-diketiminato]lead(II) complexes. However, treatment of [(BDIDMP)PbCl] (BDIDMP = [HC{C(Me)N(2,6-Me2C6H3)}2]−) with AgOTf led to the expected β-diketiminatolead(II) triflate. These results suggest that the ortho-substituent on the N-aryl groups in the β-diketiminato ligand plays an important role in influencing the formation of bis[β-diketiminato]lead(II) complexes. A series of β-diketiminato heavy group 14 metal phosphanides was synthesised. The phosphorus is pyramidally coordinated in the compounds containing diphenyl- or dicyclohexylphosphanido ligands. In contrast, the geometry at phosphorus is planar in the germanium(II) and tin(II) bis(trimethylsilyl)phosphanides. The phosphorus in the lead(II) bis(trimethylsilyl)phosphanide is pyramidally coordinated. The observed conformations may be explained by the steric congestion from the β-diketiminato ligand and electronic effects in the phosphanido ligand. Reactions of the phosphanido complexes with one equivalent of elemental chalcogen give phosphinochalcogenoito complexes. Further reaction with elemental chalcogen gives phosphinodichalcogenoato complexes. In contrast, treatment of the germanium(II) dicyclohexylphosphanide with elemental chalcogen leads to the formation of germanium(IV) chalcogenide. The presence of NMR-active nuclei in these complexes makes possible detailed spectroscopic analysis.

The practice of workplace learning is important for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to stay competitive in the face of today’s environmental pressures from globalisation, competition, technological advancement and the knowledge economy. However, firm characteristics such as limited internal resources and capabilities are factors that affect how they practise workplace learning at any given point in time. According to organisational life cycle (OLC) theory, during the firm’s growth from inception, to high-growth, to maturity, the internal resources and capabilities of the firm develop. The literature has discussed workplace learning and the organisational life cycle separately, and little is known about how they are related. This study attempts to connect the workplace learning practices in SMEs and the organisational life cycle to understand how they practice workplace learning at different life-cycle stages. The research reports on a case study of 30 Hong Kong SMEs at different life-cycle stages (11 at inception, 10 at high-growth and 9 at maturity). Two consecutive phases of data collection are involved. Phase I identifies the life-cycle stage of the firm through theoretical sampling with an OLC questionnaire. Phase II adopts a mixed methods design to explore the workplace learning practices (categorised by learning levels) in those SMEs at each life-cycle stage through the online Learning Practices Questionnaire (LPQ), as well as semi-structured interviews with 4 SMEs identified at each stage through snowball sampling with data gathered until data saturation was reached. Both quantitative and qualitative results lend support to each other. Results of this study show that the levels of workplace learning practised by SMEs are varied in importance between life-cycle stages (except inter-organisational learning which is common to all stages). Four major findings emerge: (1) The individual level of workplace learning is important at all life-cycle stages but most important at inception. (2) The group level of workplace learning is more important at high-growth than it is at maturity. (3) The organisational level of workplace learning is more important at high-growth and maturity than it is at inception. (4) The inter-organisational level of workplace learning is high at all life-cycle stages and there is no significant difference between stages. To conclude, this study has established a connection between the workplace learning practices in SMEs and the organisational life cycle, providing owner/managers with a better understanding of how the firm’s development relates to their workplace learning strategies.

The bacterium Clostridium difficile is responsible for recent epidemics of gastroenteritis and currently causes over twice as many deaths per year as the other major hospital ‘superbug’, MRSA. Since the bacterium is resistant to conventional antibiotics there is an urgent need to develop novel therapies. C. difficile secretes a family of proteins that are held in place on the cell wall by non-covalent forces, producing a proteinaceous coat (the surface layer or S-layer) that surrounds the entire cell. These S-layer proteins (SLPs) are immunogenic in humans and play a role in binding to host cells. Synthesis of the C. difficile S-layer involves site-specific proteolytic cleavage of the SlpA precursor by an as yet unidentified C. difficile protease. Identification of the protease that processes SlpA has proven challenging, due in part to a lack of established genetic tools in C. difficle. Here the development of novel chemical probes that can disrupt S-layer formation by inhibiting the protease are described, and found to be powerful chemical proteomic tools for both protease identification and exploring the process of S-layer formation. Screening and inhibition experiments were first performed to identify novel synthetic irreversible protease inhibitors combining an electrophilic warhead with a specific sequence element matching the SlpA cleavage. These compound series were shown to possess structure-dependent activity, and inhibited cultures were also more sensitive to lysozyme-induced cell lysis, suggesting that correct processing and assembly of the S-layer is important for cell envelope integrity. Optimised inhibitors were further developed into ‘activity-based probes’ (ABPs) carrying an affinity tag, and were successfully used to isolate and identify de novo the key protease involved in cleavage of SlpA, Cwp84, using a combination of different labelling and proteomics approaches. These probes also permitted identification of Cwp84 activity across a wide range of clinical strains. In later work, the scope of the warhead element was explored in more detail, and the potential antibacterial effects of the inhibitors were investigated in both wild type and genetically engineered strains. Finally, the contributions of this work in terms of both chemical technology and C. difficile biology are critically assessed.

This thesis is a reflection of my research in max-algebra. The idea of max-algebra is replacing the conventional pairs of operations (+,x) by (max, +). It has been known for some time that max-algebraic linear systems and eigenvalue-eigenvector problem can be used to describe industrial processes in which a number of processors work interactively and possibly in stages. Solutions to such max-algebraic linear system typically correspond to start time vectors which guarantee that the processes meet given deadlines or will work in a steady regime. The aim of this thesis is to study such problems subjected to additional requirements or constraints. These include minimization and maximization of the time span of completion times or starting times. We will also consider the case of minimization and maximization of the time span when some completion times or starting times are prescribed. The problem of integrality is also studied in this thesis. This is finding completion times or starting times which consists of integer values only. Finally we consider max-algebraic permuted linear systems where we permute a given vector and decide if the permuted vector is a satisfactory completion time or starting time. For some of these problems, we developed exact and efficient methods. Some of them turn out to be hard. For these we have proposed and tested a number of heuristics.

Efficient maritime navigation through obstructions is still one of the many problems faced by mariners. The increasing traffic densities and average cruise speed of ships also impede the collision avoidance decision making process by reducing the time in which decisions have to be made. It seems logical that the decision making process be computerised and automated as a step towards reducing the risk of collision. Although some studies have focused on this area, the majority did not consider the collision regulations or environmental conditions and many previously proposed methods were idealistic. This study develops a motion planning algorithm that determines an optimal navigation path for ships in close range encounters based on known and predicted traffic and environmental data, with emphasis on the adaptability of the algorithm to optimised for different criteria or missions. The domain of interest is the 5 nautical mile region around own-ship based on the effective range of most modern navigation radars and identification devices. Several computational constraints have been incorporated into the algorithm and categorised based on safety priority. Collision-free and conformity with collision regulations are the primary constraints that have to be satisfied; followed by secondary or optional mission specific constraints e.g. commensurate with environmental conditions or taking the shortest navigation path. Own-ship speed is considered to be a dynamic property and a function of the engine setting, which is a variable modifiable by the optimisation routine. The change in the ship’s momentum as a result of a turning manoeuvre is also included in the model. A modified version of an evolutionary algorithm is adopted to perform the optimisation, where the variables are spatial coordinates and the engine setting at the particular path segment. The navigation path can be optimised for specific criteria by adjusting the weighting on the cost functions that describe the properties of the navigation paths.

In this PhD research study, we focus on building a content-based search engine for 3D articulated geometry models. 3D models are essential components in nowadays graphic applications, and are widely used in the game, animation and movies production industry. With the increasing number of these models, a search engine not only provides an entrance to explore such a huge dataset, it also facilitates sharing and reusing among different users. In general, it reduces production costs and time to develop these 3D models. Though a lot of retrieval systems have been proposed in recent years, search engines for 3D articulated geometry models are still in their infancies. Among all the works that we have surveyed, reliability and efficiency are the two main issues that hinder the popularity of such systems. In this research, we have focused our attention mainly to address these two issues. We have discovered that most existing works design features and matching algorithms in order to reflect the intrinsic properties of these 3D models. For instance, to handle 3D articulated geometry models, it is common to extract skeletons and use graph matching algorithms to compute the similarity. However, since this kind of feature representation is complex, it leads to high complexity of the matching algorithms. As an example, sub-graph isomorphism can be NP-hard for model graph matching. Our solution is based on the understanding that skeletal matching seeks correspondences between the two comparing models. If we can define descriptive features, the correspondence problem can be solved by bag-based matching where fast algorithms are available. In the first part of the research, we propose a feature extraction algorithm to extract such descriptive features. We then convert the skeletal matching problems into bag-based matching. We further define metric similarity measure so as to support fast search. We demonstrate the advantages of this idea in our experiments. The improvement on precision is 12\% better at high recall. The indexing search of 3D model is 24 times faster than the state of the art if only the first relevant result is returned. However, improving the quality of descriptive features pays the price of high dimensionality. Curse of dimensionality is a notorious problem on large multimedia databases. The computation time scales exponentially as the dimension increases, and indexing techniques may not be useful in such situation. In the second part of the research, we focus ourselves on developing an embedding retrieval framework to solve the high dimensionality problem. We first argue that our proposed matching method projects 3D models on manifolds. We then use manifold learning technique to reduce dimensionality and maximize intra-class distances. We further propose a numerical method to sub-sample and fast search databases. To preserve retrieval accuracy using fewer landmark objects, we propose an alignment method which is also beneficial to existing works for fast search. The advantages of the retrieval framework are demonstrated in our experiments that it alleviates the problem of curse of dimensionality. It also improves the efficiency (3.4 times faster) and accuracy (30\% more accurate) of our matching algorithm proposed above. In the third part of the research, we also study a closely related area, 3D motions. 3D motions are captured by sticking sensor on human beings. These captured data are real human motions that are used to animate 3D articulated geometry models. Creating realistic 3D motions is an expensive and tedious task. Although 3D motions are very different from 3D articulated geometry models, we observe that existing works also suffer from the problem of temporal structure matching. This also leads to low efficiency in the matching algorithms. We apply the same idea of bag-based matching into the work of 3D motions. From our experiments, the proposed method has a 13\% improvement on precision at high recall and is 12 times faster than existing works. As a summary, we have developed algorithms for 3D articulated geometry models and 3D motions, covering feature extraction, feature matching, indexing and fast search methods. Through various experiments, our idea of converting restricted matching to bag-based matching improves matching efficiency and reliability. These have been shown in both 3D articulated geometry models and 3D motions. We have also connected 3D matching to the area of manifold learning. The embedding retrieval framework not only improves efficiency and accuracy, but has also opened a new area of research.