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The role of academic support has historically lacked prominence in UK HE, only emerging in literature in the 1990s despite practices pre-dating this. Consequently research is limited and tends to focus on evaluating best practice e.g. academic literacies versus broad skills; embedded versus bolt-on; and centralised versus devolved approaches. According to Bourdieu, however, practices are shaped by an interplay between 'context' - the rules, dominant capital and power positions of a field, and 'perceptions' - habitus, capital and subsequent positions of agents (Bourdieu, 1984; 1998). Therefore in order to evaluate the practices of academic support services it is necessary to consider context - both political and institutional, and perceptions of purpose - of both HE as well as academic support. The aim of this thesis is to evaluate critically the role of academic support in contemporary UK HE. The following questions offer a breakdown of this enquiry: 1. How do academic support practitioners perceive their role? 2. How are practitioner perceptions influenced by the larger policy context? To answer these questions I carried out and thematically analysed data from 17 interviews with 5 academic support teams, as well as reviewing key UK HE reports and policy (1963-2016), and literature pertaining to the purpose and practices of UK HE academic support. Analysis revealed academic support roles to be mediating a complex mix of conflicting powers (political, institutional and academic) and conflicts between economic, social and cultural values and priorities. These conflicts are embodied in three opposing, but coexisting, approaches to academic support: 'remedial', development and business. While 'remedial' and business are politically driven - underpinned by competition, commerce and commodity; development arises from the humanistic and social values of academic support practitioners and their desire to empower individuals for social and cultural progression. Development is characterised by liberal values of developing higher thinking (emotion and intellect) through the support of knowledge acquisition (self and subject); thus enabling individuals to have more fulfilling lives and contribute more meaningfully to society. In contrast 'remedial' involves overcoming deficits in students, staff and institutions in order to achieve policy-defined, and enforced, performance targets. However, enforced performance targets (at all levels of education) perpetuate deficits and inequalities between individuals and institutions, subsequently maintaining the need for academic support. The business, or customer service approach, emerged more recently with the marketisation of HE and political drives to improve teaching and learning quality 'efficiently' (BIS, 2016) through consumer satisfaction. However, efficiency and consumer satisfaction conflict, thus creating barriers to quality teaching and learning. Therefore the policies driving the business approach undermine the very purpose of education as a means to learning and growth. Through HE policy, central government has increasingly reduced the purpose of HE to the short-term pursuit of economic capital, thus perpetuating disempowerment, inequality and social divides. In contrast, academic support services champion social and cultural values, recognising the long-term and holistic benefit of education for society as well as the economy. However, to achieve these benefits it needs government to reconsider the dominant capital of society and education, and devolve power over education to those qualified to make educational judgements for the greater good.

One of the major issues that continues to be addressed in mathematics and mathematics education concerns the significance that technology plays and its impact on learning for mathematics students. This study researched the narrative between technology and interaction in an online class by understanding how online students make sense of mathematics in a completely virtual classroom environment. While data were collected from all students in two classes, the bulk of the analyses focused on four students in one asynchronous online class. Four interaction types, learner-learner, learner-technology, learner-instructor, and learner-content, were examined. Although the study is not exhaustive, many interesting and a few unexpected trends emerged from the data. One of those findings was that the four interaction types worked fairly well for analyzing the data. Another was that students tend to have preferences for interaction type and that the learner-technology and learner-instruction types appeared to be most effective in helping students construct meaning. A third finding involved the fact that over the ten-week term the majority of students were able to become a community despite not interacting in person with their classmates. In brief, the study shows that technology can offer alternative ways to conceptualize and deliver mathematics. Because online instruction continues to experience unprecedented growth at colleges and universities across the nation, the need for research about how well technology facilitates learning in online mathematics teaching environments continues. [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 psychological impact of a critical care admission is sufficient to precipitate significant psychiatric morbidity for those who survive it. The true proportion of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is unclear. A prospective longitudinal study of 90 survivors was conducted to examine the proportion of PTSD, using a structured clinical interview and compared to that identified through a self- report questionnaire. Assessments of anxiety, depression, cognitive function and quality of life, were also performed. The primary aim was to determine the true prevalence of PTSD after critical care discharge The proportion of survivors of critical care treatment who developed PTSD, according to a structured clinical interview after discharge was modest and lower than that reported previously in most critical care studies or compared to that identified through self-report questionnaires. However, the identified proportion of 10% PTSD still represents a significant minority who could potentially benefit from detection and treatment. A model stepped care pathway is proposed, to support survivors in their psychological recovery after discharge from critical care.

This thesis concerns the class of interacting binaries known as intermediate polars (IPs). These are semi-detached magnetic cataclysmic variable systems in which a red dwarf secondary transfers material via Roche lobe overflow onto a white dwarf (WD). The magnetic field of the white dwarf (~ 106 to 107Gauss) plays an important part in determining the type of accretion flow from the secondary. In chapter 1 I discuss binary systems in general, moving on to a more in depth look at Intermediate polars (IPs), their geometry and characteristics, ending with a brief look at all known IPs to date. In the first part of the thesis I present an analysis of the X-ray lightcurves in 16 IPs in order to examine the possible cause of the orbital modulation. I show that X-ray orbital modulation is widespread amongst IPs, but not ubiquitous. The orbital modulation is most likely due to photoelectric absorption in material at the edge of the accretion disk. Assuming a random distribution of inclination angles, the fact that such a modulation is seen in seven systems out of sixteen studied (plus two eclipsing systems) implies that modulations are visible at inclination angles in excess of 60°. It is also apparent that these modulations can appear and disappear on timescales of ~years or months in an individual system, which may be evidence for precessing, tilted accretion disks. In the second half of the thesis I use a particle hydro dynamical code known as HyDisc, to investigate the accretion flows in IPs, as a function of parameter space for two dipole models. One where we assume that the density and size scale of the blobs being accreted are constant which we refer to as the n6 model, and the other where the size scale and density of the accreted blobs are not constant refered to as the n3 model. I show that the accretion flow can take the form of an accretion disk, accretion stream, propeller accretion and ring accretion for the n3 model and stream and disk accretion in the n6 model, depending on the magnetic field strength, orbital period and spin period of the system. IPs violate some of the assumptions of Doppler tomography, such as motion parallel to the orbital plane due to the accretion curtains and that accretion flow is constant throughout the orbital period, making the analysis more complex and the interpretations of observational tomograms flawed as they are based on false assumptions. We have therefore generated simulated tomograms from the simulated accretion flows so we can compare them with real tomograms from observed data and begin to interpret them better. In this way we can discover the nature of the accretion flows in real systems. We show that some of the tomogram features that are produced are in good agreement with those of published observations, but there are also a number of new features which arise corresponding to each of the accretion mechanisms of disks, streams, propellers, weak propellers and ring systems.

Historians have identified shell-shock, a contemporary umbrella term for the range of nervous and mental afflictions suffered by soldiers in the First World War, as a key episode in the transition to modern psychological approaches to mental disorder in Britain. This thesis argues that wartime theories of shell-shock display considerable continuity with central tenets of pre-war psychological medicine. An approach to the history of shell-shock which emphasises continuity opens new perspectives on the significance of the episode for British psychiatry and society in the early twentieth century. This thesis shows that theories of shell-shock were formulated within an evolutionary framework of understanding, and breaks down the conventional historiographical division between `organic' and `psychological' explanations of the war neuroses. It argues that in the debates on shell-shock, doctors explored questions about the constituents of human identity which had been given fresh urgency by the Darwinian revolution. They attempted to understand the relative roles of mind and body in the causation of mental disorder, but also invoked other conceptual pairings: the relations between animal and human behaviour, the balance of emotion and will in ideal conduct, the influence of heredity and environment in shaping action, and the interaction of individual and social psychologies. Wartime psychological medicine thus drew on and extended existing debates within and outside medicine, including those on the traumatic neuroses, crowd psychology and democracy, and the relative rights and responsibilities of citizen and state. The thesis argues that the importance of shell-shock therefore extended beyond its putative effect on British psychology. Theories of the war neuroses were a microcosm of debates on the nature of modernity, its nebulous effects on the individual, and its consequences for society.

This thesis studies the interaction of several polypyrimidine PNAs with both free and nucleosomal DNA under different ionic conditions. These different PNAs explore the effects of base sequence, length and polarity on the interaction. This work used variants of the tyrT DNA sequence, which contain PNA binding sites located a different positions with respect to the end of the fragments, thereby affecting their translational positioning when reconstituted onto histone octamers. Footprinting studies with DNaseI and S1 nuclease, together with gel retardation assays and fluorescence melting studies were used to examine the sequence specificity and binding affinity of these PNAs to free double strand DNA. At low pHs (5.0) DNaseI footprints were observed at submicromolar PNA concentrations. No binding was detected at higher pHs, consistent with the involvement of C⁺•GC triplets in this interaction. Higher PNA concentrations (typically 10μM) were required to induce S1 cleavage and to produce bandshifts, suggesting strand invasion (generating 2:1 PNA:DNA complexes) is a slower and less stable process. The most stable complexes were formed when the PNA was of increased length and orientated parallel to the duplex purine strand. Within all eukaryotic cells, DNA is associated with histone proteins in the form of chromatin. Therefore, similar studies were performed on these DNA fragments, which have been reconstituted into nucleosome core particles, thereby assessing the accessibility of each of the target sites, when located in different positions. These complexes were prepared by either challenging reconstituted nucleosomes with PNA, or by attempting to wrap pre-formed PNA-DNA complexes around the histone octamer. PNA is unable to bind to the central nucleosomal DNA core particle, though some interaction with the peripheral regions is detected.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are widely recognised as harmful, persistent organic pollutants, whilst surfactants are more easily degraded but their ubiquitous use both domestically and industrially ensures their presence in natural waters. Owing to both their hydrophobic and hydrophilic properties, surfactants are capable of both adsolubilisation and solubilisation of co-contaminants, hence, their presence in natural waters is considered extremely significant. The purpose of this research was to determine how surfactants and PAHs influence each other in estuaries where both are co-disposed. This study is the first to employ environmentally realistic concentrations of surfactants and to use natural particles in order to determine how changes in surfactant behaviour impinge on the sorption of a representative PAH to sediment. The experimental method employed involved tracing the solubility and sorption of a '''C-labelled PAH (phenanthrene) in the presence of representative surfactants from the three main groups, i.e., anionic, nonionic and cationic. Initially the four compounds were examined in isolation at two temperatures (8°C and 20°C), salinities and particle concentrations. The next stage involved incorporating each surfactant with phenanthrene in the same experiment and repeating the range of variables. Solubility and adsorption of phenanthrene in the presence of Triton X-100, sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) or hexadecyltrimethylammonium iodide (HDTMA) proved to be highly complex. The adsorption, expressed as a Freundlich coefficient, KF was generally nonlinear and varied according to surfactant type, salinity, temperature, and contact sequence. The overriding influence, however, was sediment particulate matter (SPM) concentration. On some occasions the surfactants in isolation displayed unusual particle concentration effects (PCE), such as an increase of surfactant in the aqueous phase as the SPM concentration increased. Despite this, they all generally exaggerate the more typical PCE displayed by phenanthrene, where the particle-water partition coefficient is reduced as particle concentration increases. This effect is then modified by temperature and contact sequence, which has important environmental implications with regard to removal or release of compounds stored within sediments. However, overall, at environmentally relevant concentrations, the surfactants appear to enhance sorption, rather than solubility, with HDTMA the most effective surfactant at removing phenanthrene from the aqueous phase.