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This thesis is made up of three separate papers, all of which explore how decision makers discount information in simplified financial markets where participants' behaviour can be easily segmented. Overall, this thesis provides a valuable contribution to the existing knowledge of pricing anomalies in betting markets by identifying uncharted research niches and adopting novel applications. The first paper explicitly examines how legacy information affects the accuracy of probability forecasts, utilising data from a low liquidity sports betting market where the demographic of bettors is predominantly homogeneous. The findings are important as they shed new light on the ability of participants to discount older information, especially as increasing amounts of past performance information are processed. The second paper explores the influence of order effects in horse race betting markets which are generally ranked from highest to the lowest quality of contenders. Research suggests the way information is presented can impact how effectively information is processed by individuals. This paper finds evidence of order effects in relation to more favoured contenders which has serious implications for the most widely researched phenomena in betting markets, that is, the favourite-longshot bias. The third paper takes a novel twist on a commonly employed benchmark model to focus purely on market makers' ability to frame accurate opening price odds. Paper three directly tests whether public information plays a role in price movements over the duration of betting. In particular, the findings challenge the current consensus in the literature.

This thesis examines the influences on the development of high winds in a case of a damaging extratropical cyclone. Extratropical cyclones are a regular occurrence over the United Kingdom (UK) and much of western Europe: strong cyclones can cause major damage and disruption through high winds, flooding and wave damage. Cyclone Friedhelm occurred on the 7th-8th December 2011, and was observed as part of the "DIAbatic Influence on Mesoscale features in ExTratropical Storms" (DIAMET) field campaign. A case of explosive cyclogenesis, Cyclone Friedhelm exhibited a deepening of 44 hPa in 24 hours, almost double that necessary to be considered a meteorological "bomb". As the storm passed over the UK, strong winds caused widespread damage and disruption, particularly across Scotland. These high winds and their influences are the focus of this thesis, in particular the high-wind region to the south-west of the cyclone centre, in which two high wind phenomena can occur, the cold-conveyor belt (CCB) and sting jets (SJ). The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model is used with a high-resolution setup to investigate the mesoscale wind features, while a lower-resolution configuration is employed to examine the large-scale storm development. The high-resolution simulation is compared to routine observations, and those made specifically as part of the DIAMET project. The WRF model is shown to recreate the storm with a good degree of accuracy. The dynamics of the high wind regions are investigated in order to identify the features and the processes that contribute to their evolution. Trajectories are used to identify parcel ensembles resembling both the SJ and CCB. The effects of forces and balanced flows are discussed and a novel way to calculate the gradient flow is presented. The results of this analysis show a systematic region of super-gradient flow to the south and south-west of the cyclone centre and a region of sub-gradient flow to the north. The SJ parcels are analysed in relation to the past literature including a number of different theories on the cause of the SJ’s descent. Unlike some theories on SJs, latent cooling is shown to have little effect on the wind field, although it does change trajectory evolution. The lower-resolution setup shows that latent heating is key to the deepening of the cyclone, but little change in the track is observed when it is removed. The low-level PV anomaly is shown to be key in driving the deepening of the storm. Varying the time during the simulation at which latent heating is switched off shows the importance of the cyclone’s deepening rate on the wind speed development. Other novel analyses are conducted in order to examine the relationships between circulation and the high winds, showing a strong relationship between the circulation energy and cyclone pressure.

The novels of George Mackay Brown have often been read as upholding a traditional ideal of community as that which is singular and complete, a community which exists outside time and history. As this thesis will show, however, Brown emphasises themes of community, history and myth in his work not in order to validate them without reservation, but to question what use these ideas may have in contemporary life. By reading his novels in conjunction with the work of continental theorists ranging from Martin Heidegger to Jean-Luc Nancy, it becomes apparent that Brown critically explores a post-Kantian modernity in which metaphysical or faith-based foundations are no longer possible. Brown's greatest theme throughout his work is not only how community is built and maintained, but also how it is destroyed, and what life remains after that destruction. Brown continually problematises the idea of community in order to show both its relevance and impossibility in modern society. In separately regarding each of Brown's novels in length, this thesis will highlight the various approaches Brown takes to community: the potentially romantic view of community in Beside the Ocean of time; the centrality of sacrifice for the establishing of community in Magnus; and the interections between community and history in Time in a Red Coat, and Vinland. The thesis then turns directly to the question of the relation between individuals and community in Greenvoe, and ends with a discussion of the way in which Brown portrays his own relation to community in his nonfiction and autobiographical writings. Throughout the thesis, the prevailing notion of Brown as a parochial or naive writer will be continually questioned. In addition, by integrating a wide variety of continental theorists into a discussion of Brown's work, this thesis will explore new opportunities for the general study of contemporary Scottish fiction. By revealing Brown to be a more nuanced thinker of the relation between modernity and community than previous critics have allowed, this thesis will both offer a new perspective on Brown's novels and open new paths for the discussion of the role of community in modern literature.

This thesis tests the hypothesis that variation in water supply, nutrient availability and irradiance determined variation in tree growth along local and regional gradients of resource availability, and over time, in Ghanaian forests. Regional variation in soil water availability determined seasonal patterns of diameter change of Celtis mildbraedii and Strombosia glaucescens in semi-deciduous and evergreen forest, over two years. However, in a semi-deciduous forest, annualized diameter increment of Celtis mildbraedii was higher in summit and slope, compared to valley, positions after two years, even though trees in valley positions experienced a shorter effective dry season. Growth was also greater in the semi-deciduous than the evergreen forest in the second year of the study. These patterns suggest that concentrations of N in soil over topographic gradients, and concentrations of available P and the base cations over regional scales, may be important determinants of growth. Dry season stem shrinkage in semi-deciduous forest can comprise up to 0.5% of tree diameter, and varies between years. Re-enumeration of forest plots in seasonal climates should be carried out over whole year intervals, during the wet season, to minimise bias derived from variation in tree water status. In a semi-deciduous forest, no relationship was found between topography and six year growth rates of two common species or of six functional types defined on the basis of regeneration strategy and regional distribution pattern. However, within this forest, and in a comparison within five different forests across the regional gradient of rainfall and soil fertility, pioneer species with distributions biased towards drier forests had significantly higher growth rates than pioneer species associated with wetter forests. Variation in growth of dry forest pioneer species explained more than half the total variation in stand-level growth rates, demonstrating that it is the presence of abundant, potentially large, fast growing pioneer species in more seasonal forest types that generate regional scale variation in forest growth. These results indicate that the environmental variables found to determine growth are dependent on the scale of the study and the magnitude of the gradient in resources being compared. Variation in soil fertility over regional rainfall gradients in tropical forests has a significant impact on variation in tree growth, within and between species, and at the stand-level.

The first section of this thesis includes a Literature Survey. This review covers the basics of SI engine operation and details the combustion process, looking at the formation of pollutants in particular. The reasons for adopting 4-valve cylinder heads are discussed and their inherent weaknesses are detailed. Current techniques for improving engine performance and reducing emissions are discussed, before assessing the work that has already been carried out on port throttles. As pan of the research programme, a computer model was developed for predicting engine behaviour with port throttles. The theory behind the model is covered in detail. A period of engine testing was undertaken to validate the computer program, and the results are included in this section. The way in which the model was used in optimizing the throttle design is also discussed later in a parametric survey. Engines running with increased valve overlap have also been considered. A port throttle assembly was designed and built for engine testing at Ford's Research Centre. A steady-flow rig was also set up to assess the effect that port-throttles have on in-cylinder air motion. Results from these tests are discussed, showing that a slight change in design to the throttle assembly could lead to improved engine performance. Engine testing at Ford involved full exhaust gas analysis. Several throttle configurations were investigated, and the effect that these changes have on emission levels is discussed in detail. The tests highlighted the possibilities for using port throttles in conjunction with lean burn technology. In the final section, the future for port throttles is covered and conclusions from the research programme are discussed, including the author's suggestions for future investigations.

This thesis interrogates how the Suburban Gothic became a popular and pervasive genre in the United States, and how it is representative of the failure of the American Dream. Using affect theory throughout, with an emphasis on Lauren Berlant's theory of 'cruel optimism', I explore Suburban Gothic works from the modern suburbs' inception after the Second World War until the 1980s. In the first three core chapters of this thesis I examine Suburban Gothic works in relation to their political, social and financial climate in order to demonstrate how the genre represents and reflects the anxieties and fears of the American population as a whole. In the fourth and final chapter, I examine how the Suburban Gothic began to be combined with other genres in the 1980s, conveying a sense of how pervasive it had become. These 'cross genres' were written to appeal to different demographics, suggesting a sense that most Americans had been affected by the suburbs, whether or not they lived in them. In the conclusion I examine modern-day works of Suburban Gothic, which convey a sense that the suburbs and were always, and continue to be, objects of cruel optimism. Throughout this thesis, I examine a wide range of authors, from established literary figures such as Shirley Jackson, Joyce Carol Oates, and Gloria Naylor to more lowbrow authors including Jay Anson and R.L. Stine, as well as bestsellers such as Stephen King and Ira Levin. I have chosen this wide range of literature to allow for a wider reading of the genre and convey not only its importance to Gothic studies, but the broader influence the genre has had on the American literary canon.

Beyond Anchoring Ground is a short story collection that explores encounters between traditional Mediterranean culture and modernity as it presents itself in Western neo-liberal culture today. Its main focus is on characters who end up at the crossroads where different, often conflicting, cultures and identities meet. Through their experiences I try to explore some of the ways cross-cultural encounters and inner conflicts may generate a new sense of identity and a new "culture" within the same person. Throughout, I try to maintain a clear awareness of the fact that such tensions and dislocations can also lead to severe emotional, social and psychological difficulties. In the theoretical component of my thesis, I research the way that fiction, and especially short stories, can encompass societal analyses whilst not forsaking narrative spontaneity or nuance. Much of my research involves examining narrative techniques through which selected exemplar writers such as Elena Ferrante, Pinar Kür and Naghuib Mahfouz have explored how the female body is closely connected with the spaces of domesticity, belonging and closeness, and has a troubled relationship with windows, balconies and other liminal thresholds. Sexually embodied women walk outside these spaces and the world of traditional Mediterranean society is closed to them. But can women who wish to have a voice tolerate the restrictions of these boundaries? I chose the title of this thesis – Border Silence: A Creative Exploration of Transcultural Lives in the Mediterranean – with a view to exploring these issues. In the first chapter, I analyse the ideologically fraught spatialization of gender, dominance and subversion in the context of Mediterranean cultures around the middle of the past century, focusing on stories by Alba de Céspedes and Fatima Mernissi, in which traditional Mediterranean domestic spaces play a dominant role. I then go on to analyse the way that their writings have informed and inspired my PhD stories. The second chapter centres upon the way that space relates to utterance in the fictional context created by a selection of writers from Mediterranean backgrounds and in my own short stories, with a particular focus on voice and gender. It contains an analysis of literary and real silences as ways of disempowering submerged populations, in particular, female or otherwise "othered" experiences and demonstrates how the thinking of Nicoletta Simborowski can be used in creative writing in order to express and/or interpret silence and its relation to utterance. The third chapter discusses subversions of imposed silence: it explores the way that the voices of the past trickle through to the modern world in Mediterranean societies and how the historical, spatial and architectural dimensions of 'haunting' might influence people's lives in both real and fictional worlds. I study the ways that Elif Shafak and Grazia Deledda explore themes of hauntings and magical locations against a Mediterranean background. The theoretical framework is informed by Jacques Derrida's and Avery Gordon's writings on the spectral turn. In the last chapter, I reflect on the creative evolution of the collection as a whole and its engagement with themes of women's roles, gender fluidity in traditional and nontraditional contexts, honour and silence, hauntings and magic, and, ultimately, the journey to find a transcultural voice that might express such themes with resonance and narrative conviction.

Old growth tropical forests are an important carbon store, and currently function as a carbon sink. However, this sink capacity may already be declining and its future is highly uncertain, as patterns of tree mortality, one of the key processes shaping the future of tropical forest carbon, are still poorly understood. Accurate estimates of tropical tree mortality require substantial monitoring efforts across time and space, and analytical techniques that can account for variation at multiple scales. Here, I therefore develop Bayesian models to explore how tree mortality rates vary across the tropics and within Amazonia. Firstly, I derive recommendations for the sample size of plot monitoring networks to confidently detect short- and/or long-term changes in tree mortality rates. A key result is that forests with high baseline mortality rates require smaller plot sampling networks to detect a given change, compared to forests with lower rates. Secondly, using observations from an extensive long-term pan-tropical monitoring network, I derive mortality rate distributions at different, nested spatial scales: at the level of individual plots, biogeographical regions and continents. The results show that stem-based mortality rate distributions are best described at the scale of biogeographical regions: for example, forests in North Australia have lower mean mortality rates but suffer occasional larger- scale disturbances, whereas forests in western Amazonia have higher mean mortality rates but few large-scale disturbances. Finally, I test whether the long-term increase in tree mortality rates in Amazonian forests is related to long-term trends in cumulative water deficit. The results confirm a long-term increase in tree mortality rates, but indicate that this trend is not primarily driven by increasing drought stress. Overall, these findings are important for designing efficient national strategies for monitoring the impact of climate change on forests, calibrating vegetation models and predicting the future of tropical carbon under climate change.

Traditional literary criticism and conventions, lacking the feminine perspective, underemphasise the importance of recurring spatial images of domestic space in women’s domestic fiction. This results in the continual neglect of some women authors and historically and formally-constrained criticisms of domestic novel. This thesis explores the potential of spatial criticism as an alternative analytical lens for the study of women’s domestic fiction. Reconsidering the advantages and disadvantages of historicist and formalist criticism, this project synthesises a spatial analytical method that reemphasises an in-depth interpretation of spatial images in domestic novels by women authors. With this spatial reading strategy, the study aims to reanalyse domestic novels from the nineteenth century and readdress the neglected authors and underrepresented works in the twentieth century. Textual analysis finds that bourgeois domesticity and spatial construction of femininity and the impact of a Christian ethos on Victorian domesticity in Jane Austen’s and Elizabeth Gaskell’s works continue to be partially maintained in the work of middlebrow women novelists such as Dorothy Whipple and contemporary popular fiction by Margaret Drabble, Joanna Trollope, and Helen Fielding. Rivalled by modernist aesthetics and later challenged by post-war social transformation, traditional domesticity and femininity are considered outmoded and subject to popular fiction, which develops into other generic labels such as Aga-saga and Chick lit. As this study demonstrates that the continuance of domestic fiction persists with traditional domesticity and heteronormative femininity that is spatially coded; this body of works, therefore, should not be overlooked in the literary history and the studies of women’s writing, but re-examined by a more applicable and space-oriented criticism.

This work is a study of the life and poetry of the Scottish poet George Campbell Hay, with particular reference to those places where biography, psychology and poetry intersect. It examines and questions some of the biographical 'facts' of Hay's life as he gave them: his acquisition of Gaelic and the cause of his initial mental breakdown in Greece in 1946. It discusses the reasons that may have lain behind his eventual agreement to be conscripted into the British Army after a long period of refusal, and considers how this affected him as a man and as a poet. Post-war, Hay was diagnosed with schizophrenia and as a result spent many years in a mental asylum; this study challenges the diagnosis of schizophrenia and suggests that what Hay actually suffered from was bipolar II disorder. It examines the ways in which the disease may have affected both his methods of working and the form and content of his poetry. On a slightly wider scale it also explores the ways in which Hay's poetry reflected his lived experience, as well as the ways in which he used his work to create and present a personal vision of Scotland.

The Amazon rainforest is a vital biome that is of central importance for the provision of significant ecosystem services locally, regionally and globally. Brazil contains two-thirds of remaining Amazonian rainforests and is responsible for the majority of Amazonian forest loss. Over 0.7 million km^2 of primary forest area in the Brazilian Amazon has been deforested, of which ~20% are under secondary forest regeneration. However, the fate of secondary forests and the extent of degradation of the remaining primary forests (referred to as old growth forests in this thesis) are still unclear. In this thesis, I present: (1) the first large-scale analysis of secondary forest loss over 14 years (2000-2014) using recently released high resolution (30 m) post-deforestation land use datasets (TERRACLASS); (2) a novel machine learning classification method to map tropical forest disturbances using multi-decadal Landsat time-series imagery; and (3) first estimates of the historical degradation of remaining old growth forests using this newly-developed classification method. Our results show an accelerated loss of secondary forests across the entire Brazilian Amazon over our study period, in contrast to primary forest loss. Over 2000-2014, the proportion of total forest loss accounted for by secondary forests rose from (37 ± 3) % in 2000 to (72 ± 5) % in 2014. We developed a multi-decadal Landsat time-series imagery and machine learning random forest classification algorithm, which we found to be an efficient and accurate approach to map tropical disturbed forests. This approach allows me to map the historical degradation of old growth forests from 1984 to 2014. Until 2014, over 246,845 km^2 area of old-growth forests in the Brazilian Amazon (moist forest ecoregion) were degraded, accounted for approximately 10% of total area of old growth forests in the region. However, this approach may have underestimated the actual degradation of old growth forests as it did not detect the low intensity selective logging. In conclusion, the accelerated loss of secondary forests and extensive degradation of old growth forests in the Brazilian Amazon which we report have provided new insights into land use change dynamics in Amazonia. Both of these processes have important implications for carbon storage and biodiversity and sustainable management of forest resources in the Brazilian Amazon.

Approximately 40% of the world's ice-free land has lost its original natural habitat cover to other land uses, such as croplands and pastures, which poses major challenges to conservation. Many conservation strategies have been developed to halt or compensate for past or future natural habitat loss, but the effectiveness of such strategies remains poorly understood. This thesis explores how an emerging conservation scheme can result in effective conservation gains. I use The Environmental Reserve Quota (or CRA; Portuguese acronym) within The Brazilian Forest Code as a case study - the largest forest offset scheme in the world. Under this scheme, landowners must offset past deforestation (buyers) by trading hectares of deforested land with landowners who have standing forest available in their properties (sellers). Alternatively, buyers can offset by allowing forest regrowth. By examining the viewpoints of potential buyers and sellers about CRA (Chapter 2), I find sharp divergences related to programme-specific factors that could potentially affect trade, mostly around price expectations and contract length. Next, I combine policy scenarios with potential spatial scales of scheme implementation, to test how scale affects scheme's conservation outcomes (e.g. area directed to avoided deforestation and/or regrowth; Chapter 3), as the scale in which conservation strategies are implemented often affect conservation trade-offs. Allowing offsets to occur within large spatial scales results in greater area of avoided deforestation and only a small area allocated to regrowth, whilst at small spatial scales results in the opposite pattern. However, the greatest total area was directed to conservation when the scheme was implemented at small scales. Finally, I compare the potential environmental co-benefits (e.g. aboveground biomass storage and accumulation and beta-diversity) associated with avoided deforestation and regrowth at large and small spatial scales (Chapter 4) and find that trade-offs between biomass and biodiversity co-benefits are dependent on spatial scale. Whilst large scale might protect biomass-rich forests, small scale protects highly threatened beta-diversity. These results are important for understanding important aspects associated to conservation schemes and their conservation outcomes. It is key that conservation polices account for landowners preferences in the design of schemes as well as the landscape scale in which conservation gains are expected to be delivered, in order to improve conservation effectiveness.

George MacDonald (1824-1905) is an important figure in the history of fantasy literature. His influence on the Inklings is well documented, and his works for children remain in print to this day. This thesis explores the extent to which fantasy is found in, and shapes, MacDonald's work. By highlighting this aspect of his thought the foundations of the genre of adult fantasy are exposed. The thesis uses Phantastes, MacDonald's first adult fantasy, and Lilith, his final work of adult fantasy, as the respective poles of his career to show the beginnings of a literary experiment and its conclusion. The study is undertaken chronologically, with particular attention paid to the substantial manuscript tradition of Lilith. This permits an exploration of the development of MacDonald's understanding of fantasy at the theoretical level and at the practical level in the act of redrafting. By dedicating entire chapters to these the core elements the then novel idea of adult fantasy is demonstrated as arising in no small part out of an intentional literary undertaking on the part of George MacDonald. By considering MacDonald as principally a literary figure, as opposed to a theological one, it sets out a theoretical framework relevant to the development of fantasy more generally. This is achieved by applying more recent theories on genre to MacDonald, and then considering him in tension with his sources and contemporaries.

Intact Amazonian forests are often considered to be in a steady-state, where gains in growth and recruitment are offset by losses in mortality and where net carbon accumulation is close to zero. However, permanent plot data have shown that this ecosystem removes ca. 0.4 Pg of carbon per year from the atmosphere, approximately 5% of annual anthropogenic emissions. This thesis tests several competing hypothesized drivers of detected shifts in the structure and dynamics of intact forest, by assessing changes in functional and floristic composition over the last 30 years in over 100 long-term tree monitoring plots distributed across the Amazon. I first show that the majority of species are restricted to wetter conditions, indicating that stronger and more frequent droughts could threaten many species (Chapter 3). I generated an index of water-deficit affiliation for more than 500 genera and 1800 species (Chapter 3), and demonstrated that this index can predict drought-induced mortality in several drought experiments (Chapter 4). Finally, I document how floristic and functional composition of Amazonian forests has shifted over the last 30 years: forests are increasingly dominated by large-statured taxa, and further, large trees are becoming even larger in absolute size (Chapters 5 and 6). However, relative gains in basal area were similar across size classes and canopy status. In addition, recruits are increasingly comprised of dry-affiliated genera, while the mortality of wet-affiliated genera has increased in plots where the dry season has become more intense. Communities are becoming more dry- affiliated, although these changes still lag behind the drying trend. Overall, this thesis shows the potential vulnerability of Amazonian biodiversity to an increase in aridity and supports the hypotheses that a changing climate and increased atmospheric CO2 are driving changes in Amazonian floristic and functional dynamics.

Amazonian peatlands are carbon dense ecosystems which also contribute to the biological diversity of the western Amazon. Their existence remained unconfirmed until scientific studies in the last decade revealed extensive peatlands in the Pastaza-Marañón basin of Peru. This study sought to investigate the palaeoecological history and hydrological behaviour of peatlands in the Pastaza-Marañón basin. The aims of the study were to determine the key drivers of past vegetation change in two Amazonian peatlands, to produce the first explicit conceptual model of Amazonian peatland development, to improve our understanding of the hydrological behaviour of Amazonian peatlands, and to improve interpretations of the late Quaternary tropical pollen record. Field data were collected in order to determine the saturated hydraulic conductivity (K), an essential parameter for hydrological models, in three Amazonian peatlands. Measured K at 50 cm depth varied between 0.00032 and 0.11 cm s-1, and at 90 cm, it varies between 0.00027 and 0.057 cm s-1. Simulations using a simple hydrological model suggest that under current climatic conditions, even with high K, peatlands would be unable to shed the large amount of water entering the system via rainfall through subsurface flow alone. An annual record of water table variation from one site, Quistococha, shows that the water level can fall rapidly (c. 1.6 cm d-1) in the absence of rainfall. The main conclusions to be drawn from this part of the study are that most of the water leaves these peatlands via overland flow and/or evapotranspiration, and that regular rainfall is essential for maintaining the moist conditions necessary for continued peat accumulation. Palaeoecological data were collected from two peatlands: Quistococha and San Jorge. The data from Quistococha constitute the first multiple-core study of an Amazonian peatland, and form the basis of a developmental model. These data show that a well-placed single core can represent the main vegetation changes, although multiple cores add valuable detail to the picture of site development. Lateral growth mostly occurred through ‘primary mire formation’, where peat begins accumulating simultaneously across a site: the expansion of Quistococha therefore differs from many temperate and sub-arctic peatlands, where primary mire formation is mostly confined to coastal areas. Differences in the subsurface topography are shown to have affected vegetation development, and likely resulted in higher beta diversity than present during the early stages of Quistococha’s development. At San Jorge, radiocarbon dating has revealed a period of slow accumulation between 1300 and 450 cal yr BP which is also associated with a major change in vegetation from a Pistia dominated aquatic pollen assemblage to a Mauritia and Mauritiella dominated palm swamp assemblage. This is amongst the first evidence suggesting an effect of late-Holocene climatic change on ecosystems in the western Amazon, but will require confirmation through further work at other sites in the region.