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The Great Glen Fault (GGF) of Northern Scotland is a long-studied yet enigmatic fault structure. BGS interest in the movement history of the GGF, as part of a new UK-wide strategic initiative, has been stimulated by the Coire Glas project – a hydro-pumped storage scheme with the capability to double the current electricity storage capacity of Great Britain. This major civil engineering project will involve tunnelling through tectonised rocks associated with the GGF. Here, we outline a workflow for the characterisation of fault rocks using a fault gouge sample taken from the GGF close to the Coire Glas site. Our preliminary results show that the microstructure of the studied sample reflects a complex history of fracturing and related mineralization associated with movement on the GGF. We note that computerized tomography (CT) has proved a useful tool in confirming minimal disruption of the fault gouge material during sample preparation.

This thesis gives insight into the interplay of cultural memory, its political instrumentalization and emergent consequences by exploring remembrance and cultural memories of the ethnonational conflict in the case study of Cyprus. Therefore, this study highlights the multifaceted characteristics of cultural memory and how the past can be instrumentalized in political and everyday scenes. This study uncovers a reality-representation divide by employing the cultural memory lens. This is important since understanding the ‘constructive’ dimensions and how we perceive them relates to how we imagine the future. In the case study of Cyprus, the future of the island has the potential to hold fundamentally different futures depending on the cultural memories of the communities, some tending to divide while others to unify the different cultural memory groups. As seen in the case of Cyprus, cultural memory and narratives are the consequences of some political choices and essential variables that need to be worked on for a better future.

This thesis aims to answer if antitrust is capable of regulating digital platform monopolies in the United States. The Microsoft antitrust case of 1998-2001 is used as a case study to provide lessons for antitrust regulators today. Four primary sources from the Department of Justice are manually coded and analyzed, namely the Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law, Final Judgment, and the Competitive Impact Statement. These documents were accompanied by secondary sources to account for lacking relevant information. The important lessons from the case study are that (1) prices form an inconclusive criterion for analyzing consumer welfare in the modern age, (2) trials need to move quickly, else remedies will not have the desired effect in the rapidly changing technology sector and (3) remedies need to be concrete and oriented on prevention versus punishment. Based on these findings, accompanied by prominent literature on regulating digital platform companies, the thesis concludes that antitrust is currently not capable of regulating digital platform monopolies in the United States. The thesis argues that antitrust has not managed to keep up with the rapid innovations of technology and therefore requires a substantial update in order to conform to the demands of regulation in the 21st century.

This thesis gives insight into the interplay of cultural memory, its political instrumentalization and emergent consequences by exploring remembrance and cultural memories of the ethnonational conflict in the case study of Cyprus. Therefore, this study highlights the multifaceted characteristics of cultural memory and how the past can be instrumentalized in political and everyday scenes. This study uncovers a reality-representation divide by employing the cultural memory lens. This is important since understanding the ‘constructive’ dimensions and how we perceive them relates to how we imagine the future. In the case study of Cyprus, the future of the island has the potential to hold fundamentally different futures depending on the cultural memories of the communities, some tending to divide while others to unify the different cultural memory groups. As seen in the case of Cyprus, cultural memory and narratives are the consequences of some political choices and essential variables that need to be worked on for a better future.

This thesis aims to answer if antitrust is capable of regulating digital platform monopolies in the United States. The Microsoft antitrust case of 1998-2001 is used as a case study to provide lessons for antitrust regulators today. Four primary sources from the Department of Justice are manually coded and analyzed, namely the Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law, Final Judgment, and the Competitive Impact Statement. These documents were accompanied by secondary sources to account for lacking relevant information. The important lessons from the case study are that (1) prices form an inconclusive criterion for analyzing consumer welfare in the modern age, (2) trials need to move quickly, else remedies will not have the desired effect in the rapidly changing technology sector and (3) remedies need to be concrete and oriented on prevention versus punishment. Based on these findings, accompanied by prominent literature on regulating digital platform companies, the thesis concludes that antitrust is currently not capable of regulating digital platform monopolies in the United States. The thesis argues that antitrust has not managed to keep up with the rapid innovations of technology and therefore requires a substantial update in order to conform to the demands of regulation in the 21st century.

BACKGROUND: Neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (nCRT) and surgery is a widely used treatment for locally advanced resectable oesophageal cancer, with 20-50 per cent of patients having a pathological complete response (pCR). Disease, however, still recurs in 20-30 per cent of these patients. The aim of this study was to assess the pattern of recurrence in patients with a pCR after nCRT and surgery. METHODS: All patients with a pCR after nCRT and surgery included in the phase II and III CROSS (ChemoRadiotherapy for Oesophageal followed by Surgery Study) trials (April 2001 to December 2008) and after the CROSS trials (September 2009 to October 2017) were identified. The site of recurrence was compared with the applied radiation and surgical fields. Outcomes were median time to recurrence, and overall and progression-free survival. RESULTS: A total of 141 patients with a median follow-up of 100 (i.q.r. 64-134) months were included. Some 29 of 141 patients (20,6 per cent) developed recurrence. Of these, four had isolated locoregional recurrence, 15 had distant recurrence only, and ten had both locoregional and distant recurrence. Among the 14 patients with locoregional recurrences, five had recurrence within the radiation field, seven outside the radiation field, and two at the border. Median time to recurrence was 24 (10-62) months. The 5-year overall survival rate was 74 per cent and the recurrence-free survival rate was 70 per cent. CONCLUSION: Despite good overall survival, recurrence still occurred in 21 per cent of patients. Most recurrences were distant, outside the radiation and surgical fields.

Background: Retrospective assessment of pre-injury health-related quality of life (HRQL) is frequently used to measure change from pre- to post-injury HRQL. However, retrospective measurement may be confounded by recall bias. It is assumed that presence of recall bias is influenced by several factors, such as the measurement scale or the instrument that is used, the measurement schedule, and the presence of a substantial health event during the follow up period. This study empirically tests these assumptions by comparing pre-injury EQ-5D summary scores, EQ-5D profiles and visual analogue scale (EQ-VAS) scores of trauma patients, as recorded 1 week and 12 months post-injury, respectively. Methods: A sample of 5371 adult trauma patients who attended the Emergency Department (ED) followed by hospital admission, received postal questionnaires 1 week (T1) and 12 months (T2) post-injury. The questionnaires contained items on pre-injury health, in terms of EQ-5D3L and EQ-VAS. Results: One thousand one hundred sixty-six completed data pairs with T1 and T2 pre-injury data were available. Mean pre-injury EQ-5D summary scores were 0.906 (T1) and 0.905 (T2), respectively, with moderate intertemporal agreement (intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) T1T2 = 0.595). In absolute terms, 442 (37.9%) respondents reported a different pre-injury EQ-5D profile at T2 compared to T1. The least stable EQ-5D dimension was pain/ discomfort (20.2% reported a change). Mean T2 pre-injury EQ-VAS score was significantly higher than mean T1 pre-injury EQ-VAS score (T2 84.6 versus T1 83.3). Multivariable logistic regression analysis indicated that lower educational level, comorbid disease and having PTSD symptoms were independent predictors of change of pre-injury EQ-5D profile. Conclusions: Despite one third of respondents reported a different pre-injury health level, if asked for on two interview occasions separated by 1 year, on the group level this difference was nil (EQ-5D summary score) to s

When evaluating a network topology, occasionally data structures cannot be segmented into absolute, heterogeneous groups. There may be a spectrum to the dataset that does not allow for this hard clustering approach and may need to segment using fuzzy/overlapping communities or cliques. Even to this degree, when group members can belong to multiple cliques, there leaves an ever present layer of doubt, noise, and outliers caused by the overlapping clustering algorithms. These imperfections can either be corrected by an expert user to enhance the clustering algorithm or to preserve their own mental models of the communities. Presented is a visualization that models overlapping community membership and provides an interactive interface to facilitate a quick and efficient means of both sorting through large network topologies and preserving the user's mental model of the structure. © 2013 IEEE.

Adaptive visualization approaches attempt to tune the content and the topology of information visualization to various user characteristics. While adapting visualization to user cognitive traits, goals, or knowledge has been relatively well explored, some other user characteristics have received no attention. This paper presents a methodology to adapt a traditional cluster-based visualization of communities to user individual model of community organization. This class of user-adapted visualization is not only achievable, but expected due to real world situation where users cannot be segmented into heterogeneous communities since many users have affinity to more than one group. An interactive clustering and visualization approach presented in the paper allows the user communicate their personal mental models of overlapping communities to the clustering algorithm itself and obtain a community visualization image that more realistically fits their prospects.

Adaptive visualization approaches attempt to tune the content and the topology of information visualization to various user characteristics. While adapting visualization to user cognitive traits, goals, or knowledge has been relatively well explored, some other user characteristics have received no attention. This paper presents a methodology to adapt a traditional cluster-based visualization of communities to user individual model of community organization. This class of user-adapted visualization is not only achievable, but expected due to real world situation where users cannot be segmented into heterogeneous communities since many users have affinity to more than one group. An interactive clustering and visualization approach presented in the paper allows the user communicate their personal mental models of overlapping communities to the clustering algorithm itself and obtain a community visualization image that more realistically fits their prospects.

When evaluating a network topology, occasionally data structures cannot be segmented into absolute, heterogeneous groups. There may be a spectrum to the dataset that does not allow for this hard clustering approach and may need to segment using fuzzy/overlapping communities or cliques. Even to this degree, when group members can belong to multiple cliques, there leaves an ever present layer of doubt, noise, and outliers caused by the overlapping clustering algorithms. These imperfections can either be corrected by an expert user to enhance the clustering algorithm or to preserve their own mental models of the communities. Presented is a visualization that models overlapping community membership and provides an interactive interface to facilitate a quick and efficient means of both sorting through large network topologies and preserving the user's mental model of the structure. © 2013 IEEE.

Aim: This study was undertaken to compare the diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of total vitamin B 12 analyses to active B 12 (holoTC) analyses in a population of patients attending the Dr George Mukhari Hospital in Pretoria. Methods: Routine serum folate, full blood count (FBC), thyroid function test, homocysteine, serum total vitamin B 12 and active B 12 analyses were performed on 30 samples. Results: Serum folate was determined in all patients and 96% of the patients had a normal folate value. When looking at the FBC results it is important to note that three times as many males as females presented with anemia (36% versus 16%). Thyroid function tests were normal in 90% of patients. When the total vitamin B 12 test was preformed only 10% of patients tested positive for vitamin B 12 deficiency, in contrast to the active B12 analyses where 16% of patients tested positive for vitamin B12 deficiency. Both tests had a diagnostic sensitivity of 50%. The diagnostic specificity for total vitamin B12 was 93% in comparison with the 86% obtained by the active B12 analyses; when homocysteine was used as the true marker for vitamin B12 deficiency. Conclusion: Diagnostic sensitivity was the same and the total vitamin B12 test's specificity was better in comparison to the active B 12 analyses. Thus the active B 12 assay cannot be recommended for routine use, since it has no benefit.

Objectives: Tuberculosis (TB) is a major health problem in South Africa with disease rates more than double those observed in other developing countries and up to 60 times higher than those currently seen in the USA or Western Europe. Seventy years ago, it was demonstrated that approximately 70% of patients with primary adrenal insufficiency (PAI) was due to TB and this remains a major cause of PAI in developing countries. With these figures in mind it is of great concern that patients with TB are not screened for adrenal insufficiency more often. The aim of the study was to investigate the prevalence of adrenal insufficiency in patients diagnosed with TB. Study population: Seventy three patients at the Dr George Mukhari- and Kalafong hospitals in Gauteng, South Africa, aged 20-91 years, were included. 49 Females and 24 males were recruited. All patients had positive TB microscopy. Metods: High dose adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) stimulation tests were done on all patients, a post stimulation cortisol concentration of > 500nmol/L was considered a normal response. Baseline ACTH determination was also done on all patients. ACTH determination was performed using the Siemens Immulite 2000 ACTH assay, whilst cortisol determination was done on a Beckman Coulter UniCel DxI 800 immunoassay system. Results: 68 patients had a normal response. 5 patients had a post ACTH stimulation cortisol of less than 500nmol/L. Conclusion: Five patients (6.85%) had a blunted response to the ACTH stimulation test which identifies some form of adrenal insufficiency. None of the patients had an increased ACTH concentration. This finding excludes PAI and the normal ACTH concentrations in these 5 patients are highly suggestive of secondary-or tertiary adrenal insufficiency.