Councillors' perceptions of audit committees: a strong structuration analysis

This thesis explores how councillors in English local councils perceive audit committees and the impact of those perceptions on the audit committee’s governance and accountability roles, analysed through Quadripartite Strong Structuration Theory (Stones, 2005). Audit committees are not compulsory in England other than in Mayoral authorities but most councils have one and, while there is a considerable volume of research relating to audit committees particularly in the private sector, studies of councillors’ perceptions of them and the impacts of those perceptions on the governance and accountability roles of audit committees within the specific context of English local councils are very limited. It is this gap that this research aims to reduce. Assuming a phenomenological approach and underpinned by Quadripartite Strong Structuration Theory (Q.S.S.T.), data were collected through minimally structured interviews with 24 councillors who were members of their councils' audit committees or, recent members, at the time of the interviews. Using the quadripartite structure of Q.S.S.T. as the analytical framework, analysis of the interviews revealed three themes: 'The Cinderella Committee,' 'The Schleswig-Holstein Question' and 'The Party Hat.' 'The Cinderella Committee' reveals a general dispositional framework in which audit committees are perceived as mundane and low priority, leading to avoidance behaviours among councillors. ' The Schleswig-Holstein Question' uncovers the challenges councillors face in understanding complex financial reports and the perceived inadequacy of training, which constrains the ability to question effectively. ' The Party Hat' exposes the influence of political allegiances on audit committee independence and effectiveness, revealing conflicts of interest and the need for personal resilience among councillors in fulfilling their audit committee roles. The interview data suggest that, while some councillors recognise the importance of audit committees, negative perceptions and partisan influences often hinder the audit committee’s capacity to fulfil its governance and accountability roles effectively. Against this backdrop of negativity, some interviewees, perceiving a conflict between their prior knowledge of audit committees and their current council experience, exercised their active agency to change negative attitudes and improve the independence and competence of the audit committee through positive messaging, changing the audit chair where that was perceived to be a political appointment and organising training and mentoring. These measures were effective but could be disrupted by changes in political leadership or control. Interviewees in opposition felt constrained by political structures from attempting to make changes. This study concludes that the consistency of the narrative between interviewees from various councils provides evidence that councillors' perceptions of audit committees shape their engagement, competence, and independence which directly impacts the committee's effectiveness in fulfilling its governance and accountability roles. These perceptions reveal challenges and weaknesses within local council audit committees but the insights gained may assist in the development of policies to enhance financial governance and accountability in English local councils

“To his finger-tips a fighting man”: toxic masculinity in fin-de-siècle imperial gothic literature

In our modern times, toxic masculinity has become a buzzword spouted by the media, scholars, and the woman on the street venting to her friends. Many conceive of this as a new phenomenon in which a small subset of men are regressing to cavemen mentality as a reactionary response to newfound gender ideologies that have proliferated in modern society. “To His Fingertips a Fighting Man:” Toxic Masculinity in Fin-de-Siècle Imperial Gothic Literature aims to refute this notion of toxic masculinity as a modern phenomenon by looking at its underpinnings in the late Victorian era. The rise of the New Woman, threats to British imperialism, and an increasingly visible immigrant class constituted significant concerns to white men’s traditionally unquestioned place of power at the fin de siècle. I highlight how figures of change like the New Woman and imperial subjects were demonized in literature of the period in an attempt to foster suspicion and animosity toward their growing autonomy. Through an exploration of Imperial Gothic texts, I demonstrate how divisive rhetoric was weaponized against women and people of color in order to justify their continued subjugation under patriarchal control. I also exhibit toxic masculinity as not simply limited to the extreme misogyny, racism, and violence that most people today associate with the term, but instead illustrate how discourses that patronize, dehumanize, or alienate marginalized groups are implicated in toxically masculine culture. I exhibit toxic masculinity as insidious due to the antagonistic relationships that it fosters between men within the dominant society and everyone with whom they interact. I additionally show how toxic masculinity harms men within the dominant culture by limiting them to a narrow expression of supposedly appropriate masculinity. The discursive techniques that I analyze in fin-de-siècle texts are remarkably similar to those used by toxically masculine men today, proving a consistency to these beliefs that belies the century plus difference between them

Environmental injustices in Robinson Jeffers’s and Denise Levertov’s ecopoetry

This thesis explores critiques of environmental injustices in the poetry of Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962) and Denise Levertov (1923-1997). The anthropocentrism typical of American culture constantly imposes hierarchal division and underestimation of otherness which cause injustices to people and nonhumans. In urban, war, and natural environments, the poets investigate the impact of modernity, imperialism, and environmental degradation on changing environmental conditions and ecological wholeness. Jeffers and Levertov establish in their poetry a shared trajectory where they start with a description of injustices and their destructive impacts, progress towards a condemnation of the politics behind these injustices, and propose alternative ecological values. In their trajectories of critique across these three contexts, their poetry attempts to bridge the divide between the city and nature, between the Americans and the Vietnamese, and between humans and nonhumans. It provides a model for the reconstruction of anthropocentrism toward ecological relations of integrity. Their poetry reveals situations of the environmental ‘unconscious’ and attempts to draw a vision of environmental imagination and justice. Chapter 1 of the thesis registers Jeffers’s response to modernity. It explores his presentation of the city as a centre for accumulating change and corruption that separates man from nature. He presents the struggle of presence within the confinement of urbanization, mechanization, and rapid changes against human instinctual freedom and cultural values, a crisis he resists with his philosophy of Inhumanism. Instead, he urges a withdrawal to nature where he affirms in the landscape timeless and holistic values as contrasting models to human values. Chapter 2 investigates Levertov’s account of the Vietnam War as breeding violence and destruction to people's safety and emotional wellness. She presents victimization, loss, and emotional stasis which she supports with her political poetry of resistance. She encourages empathy, solidarity, and the need to maintain safety for others. Chapter 3 traces the poets’ presentations of exploitation, destruction, and cruelty to land and animals in their poetry. In the poems, both poets point out nonhuman forces that wrestle with humanity's injustices which they represent through myth and figuration. In their presentation of nonhumans, they highlight existing ideologies that underestimate nonhumans and seek in their poetry to affirm nonhuman agency and consciousness. In my investigation of their critique of injustices, my thesis draws on recent developments and turns of ecocriticism. It reframes the poets’ critiques through Environmental Justice theory, looking at human alienation in the city, the victimization of people in the Vietnam War, the exploitation of lands, and the cruelty to animals as environmental injustices. Under these thematic discussions, my thesis analyses the affective forces that emerge in response to injustices across these contexts. Jeffers’s presentation of the hopelessness of people in the city, Levertov’s depiction of the victimized emotions in Vietnam, and their presentation of nonhuman struggle in the degraded environments underscore the poets’ awareness of the notion of interdependency in the universe. The thesis also demonstrates the material forces of nonhumans that wrestle with human denial of them and affirm their existence instead. These recent developments in ecocriticism, which resonate with the poets’ critiques, elucidate the fundamental dynamics of existence and challenge the anthropocentric ideology that fosters such injustices

Temperature controlled, single column, continuous hydrophobic interaction chromatography of proteins

The increasing clinical relevance of mAbs has necessitated a substantial scale-up in biopharmaceutical production. To address this rising demand, numerous biopharmaceutical companies have invested in large-scale manufacturing facilities employing standardised platform processes (Shulka and Gottschalk, 2013; Shukla et al., 2017). Despite the operational advantages of continuous downstream processing methods, their adoption within the industry has been limited. The primary impediments include the excessive generation of equilibration, wash, elution, and regeneration buffers, contributing to inefficiency and waste. Additionally, the mechanical and software complexities of existing continuous chromatography systems render them costly and challenging to implement. Thus, there is a clear demand for innovative technologies that can facilitate continuous processing while offering sustainable advantages, such as reduced buffer and salt consumption. This thesis seeks to advance a continuous chromatography solution, specifically through the development and application of the TCZR system. Unlike conventional continuous chromatography approaches that typically rely on multiple columns and intricate control mechanisms, the TCZR offers a streamlined alternative, employing a single-column system with temperature modulation. Prior applications of this technology have focused on thermo-responsive cation exchange chromatography (Müller et al., 2013; Cao, 2015), and a thermally responsive protein A mutant (Ketterer et al., 2019). In this work, we extend the utility of the TCZR to hydrophobic interaction chromatography (TCZR-HIC), broadening its application in bioprocessing. Chapter 2 documents the materials, methods, and instrumentation used in the below results chapters. As the TCZR, chromatography methods, and analysis are closely related between these chapters, these have been documented in a stand-alone chapter to avoid redundancy. Chapter 3 presents a new application of the TCZR using HIC. In this work, TCZR-HIC is employed to purify bovine serum albumin isocraticly, meaning that the salt concentration remains constant during both binding and elution, which contributes to the process's sustainability. A local temperature decreases of ΔΦ = 30 °C was used to facilitate protein desorption, effectively decoupling the elution process from the mobile phase composition. This setup enables continuous TCZR-HIC with a single column, offering a more sustainable and simplified alternative to traditional multi-column systems. Chapter 4 builds upon the principles established in Chapter 3, exploring the application of TCZR-HIC to a thermally stable and commercially significant mAb, Rituximab. The feasibility of utilizing TCZR-HIC in a bioprocessing context is evaluated with Rituximab as a model system. While the technique demonstrates potential, optimal results necessitate a greater temperature deference than the current TCZR instrumentation can achieve. Chapter 5 summarises the findings from the preceding studies and outlines possible directions for this research. Recommendations for enhancing the TCZR system are discussed, with a focus on overcoming the limitations identified in the current setup. To conclude, this thesis aims to elucidate the capabilities of TCZR-HIC through the purification of two model proteins, BSA and Rituximab. The research expands upon the foundational work by Müller and Franzreb, demonstrating continuous single-column purification and exploring the applicability of TCZR-HIC in an industrial bioprocessing context. The findings offer promising insights into the future of sustainable continuous chromatography technologies for biopharmaceutical production

On the measurement and prediction of graphene production for enabling sustainable photocatalytic processes

Two-dimensional materials (2DMs, such as MoS$_2$, hBN, gC$_3$N$_4$, graphene) have emerged over the last 20 years with diverse applications in construction, electronics, and energy storage, due to their unique electronic, chemical, optical and mechanical properties. One such application of 2DMs is for sustainable, passive water treatment using photocatalysis. Here, they have shown great promise over traditional catalysts (e.g., TiO2) in treating heavily polluted groundwater using only sunlight as the driving mechanism. Reviewing these advanced visible light active photocatalysts (Chapter 1), show they are often composites of several different materials. In many of these photocatalytic systems, graphene has been demonstrated as an essential component for photocatalytic composites, due to its high conductivity and non-volatility. However, key challenges associated with synthesis of 2DMs remain salient. These include the cost and performance of synthesis techniques, limited knowledge of the mechanisms that drive production, and lack of predictive models that describe large scale manufacture. One group of 2DMs synthesis techniques with demonstrable ability to upscale is liquid phase exfoliation (LPE) using mechanical force. These techniques function by dispersing a layered material in a fluid, and exposing the mixture to an intense mechanical force. Over time, the intense force destroys the layered material into a spectrum of differently sized particles, ranging from macroscopic agglomerates to few-layered material including nanosheets. LPE is also material agnostic, with the ability to synthesise numerous semi-conducting and conducting 2DMs that can form the building blocks of photocatalysts and their heterostructures. In Chapter 2, a simple exfoliation system consisting of a modified kitchen blender is presented alongside evaluation of the system for producing graphene, which formed the basis for OpenLPE, an open hardware and software platform that can be used by the research community. In Chapter 3, this testbed is used to investigate methods of in situ characterisation of few-layered material concentration and morphology, a process which for nanomaterials is otherwise long and exhaustive requiring many steps to ensure proper separation of nanomaterials. Here, UV-Visible spectroscopic measurements are used to enable quick discrimination between materials, highlighting challenges associated with the use of spectroscopic techniques in highly aerated fluid flows. As exfoliating methods become more widespread, there are no mathematical models available to industry that describe nanomaterial production at scale. Such models would allow for accurate experimentation and evaluation of potential liquid-phase processes with fewer expensive iterations. To address this, Chapter 4 presents a statistical model of graphite breakup using the population balance approach, demonstrating a prediction of graphite breakage and yield of any size fraction. Further, we examine the applicability of positron emission particle tracking for evaluating the internal flow fields of exfoliating systems, with the intention that these measurements can be taken to physically interpret the system. Collectively, these results and models provide insights on the breakage mechanisms and fluid dynamics that underpin mechanochemical exfoliation processes for 2DMs, and provide direction for the eventual intensification and optimisation at any manufacturing scale

Residential care workers’ understanding and experiences of their relationship-building with the children in their care

The purpose of this thesis was to gain insight into caregivers’ lived experiences of the relationship building process with the children in their care; and to offer new insight into what works for the treatment of trauma in children who are in care from carers’ perspectives in view of supporting good practice and better therapeutic outcomes for both children and caregivers. The first chapter contains a brief introduction describing the wider context of the research and each chapter of the thesis. In Chapter two, a systematic literature review was conducted to analyse existing studies with variables focused on caregivers’ experiences and characteristics. Conclusions from this chapter highlighted that there is scarce literature focusing on caregivers’ experiences. In this review, caregivers highlighted a series of barriers and facilitators related to the perceptions and meaning-making of the relationship-building process. Meaning making is a concept widely used in IPA (interpretative phenomenological analysis for qualitative data) and refers to understanding how caregivers in this case, experience, perceive and make sense of their world and lived experiences in their own ways. In general, although it is acknowledged that this is important when working with children, oftentimes its function is not fully understood. Chapter three consists of the empirical study conducted with six caregivers who agreed to participate in this research. Their experiences and meaning-making of the relationship-building process with the children in their care were analysed. Three superordinate themes were identified: Relationship-building; The emotional impact on caregivers; and Caregiver similar lived experiences: Insight and motivation. There was a narrative around meeting the practical needs of children and around the challenges that they experience in building relationships. Participants also spoke of boundaries and their own limitations in terms of knowledge and expertise. In addition, they spoke of how hard they find the role at times but also noted that it could be enjoyable and rewarding. Lastly, there was a narrative around how their own life experiences had impacted on their desire to be a caregiver and there was a perception that past experiences enabled them to be more effective in their roles. Chapter four focuses on the critique of a psychometric tool used to assess and identify trauma symptomatology in children, the Trauma Symptoms Checklist for Children (TSCC, 2001 Briere). The tool has been widely utilised (1882 citations to date), within academia and practice and has been translated into multiple languages such as Chinese, German, Swedish, Spanish, Korean. This indicates a high level of acceptance of the robustness and rigour of the instrument to assess for childhood trauma within academia, triage, and the professional community despite the limitations generally associated with self-report assessments. The critique revealed important factors related to the relationship-building process. That is, how understanding developmental trauma, attachment, and a child centred relational approach to treating traumatised children will positively benefit the assessment, diagnostic process, and treatment of children. Chapter five of this thesis combines the overall findings of all the chapters and synthesises these in implications for future research and clinical practice, a general conclusion as well as strengths and limitations

Learning during times of failure and blame: how English local government responds to central government intervention

How policymakers learn from failure is a perennial question. Some argue that blame avoidance hinders nuanced reflection and learning, suggesting that less blame could lead to more focus on avoiding repeated policy failures. However, the conceptual and empirical relationship between failure, learning and blame is underdeveloped in political science. By uncovering the way policy actors interpret failure, learning and blame, this thesis argues that learning is the means by which failure and blame are known. This finding results from an interpretive comparative case study analysis of the “dilemmas” and “narratives” English local government actors encountered during central government interventions. Specifically, the interventions into Birmingham City Council (2014-2020) and Northamptonshire County Council (2018-2021). The dilemmas were shaped by two governance “traditions” – centralisation and autonomy – each with competing ideas about local government’s purpose, power, and accountability. By identifying the narratives that emerged and how they changed over time, this thesis finds that local actors shifted from contesting failure to accepting wrongdoing and responsibility. By showing that groups learn to shift from contestation to consensus over failure and blame, this thesis provides a novel connection between concepts which past research has only narrowly examined. This thesis also contributes to the policy failure literature by demonstrating that actors compete over the boundaries of failure as a means to delimit and/or expand notions of change embedded within. By tackling the under-researched topic of “blame-games” outside of the public view, this thesis shows that those who witness their colleagues “lose” blame-games draw lessons from such experiences and apply these to future conflicts. Finally, this research contributes to the policy learning literature by demonstrating that learning can entrench, rather than challenge, ideas about power within governance

An approach for monetisation of social impacts accruing from rural roads

This PhD thesis is about finding the best methodology to be used in attaching value to social benefits accruing from rural roads through Monetisation of social benefits and costs. This PhD thesis specifically discusses the valuation of social benefits in monetary terms. The monetization of social benefits may be used in prioritizing maintenance of rural roads in low-income countries a process currently not taken care of by many available valuation methodologies. The closest of these is the Road Economic Decision Model (RED), a World Bank methodology which considers low volume roads but not rural roads with traffic volumes less than 50 vehicles per day. The thesis consists of literature review on the methodology techniques, proposed methodology for carrying out the research, the case study to assess the implementation of the proposed methodology and a discussion on the findings as well as the recommendations for further research. The available literature indicates that Sub-Saharan Africa has approximately 700,000 kilometres of rural roads, with half of them in poor condition. These rural roads however are characterized by poor maintenance regimes, low funding and in many instances limited management. Despite inadequate maintenance, rural roads contribute significantly to the economic and social development of the areas they traverse as well as provision of access to markets and amenities such as schools, health centers, religious centers, tourism centers and farmlands. Despite rural roads being drivers of development in the communities they serve, decision makers are reluctant to allocate adequate funding for the improvement and maintenance. The literature also shows that there is no dedicated monetizing methodology for social benefits accruing from rural roads, however there are a number of techniques in use for other sectors such as environment, water and agriculture. In lieu of this, there is need to develop a methodology which can be used to monetize the social benefit from rural roads. Based on the theory of change process, the outcomes are assessed, and the associated impacts as well as the social return on investments (SROI) ratio are calculated. The SROI ration measures the value of the benefits or costs in line with the investment in monetary terms. To demonstrate the effectiveness of SROI technique, a case study in Kamuli district in Uganda was adopted, field work carried out using survey tools and the respective data collected and collated for analysis. Results for all ten roads surveyed indicated positive correlation in the figures obtained through SROI calculations. The results provided proof that SROI can be used to monetise social benefits accruing from rural roads. It’s however, important to note that monetization based on SROI is not void of limitations. There is need to validate the data inputs, analysis and modelling. Valuation of social benefits should be considered as an ongoing process other than an event. Therefore, Monetisation of social benefit for a given community be carried out regularly

Mathematical modelling of hydrocortisone replacement therapy

Cortisol is a stress hormone produced by the adrenal glands and is responsible for multiple processes in the body, including regulating blood pressure and sugar and managing the sleep/wake cycle. Adrenal insufficiency is a condition characterised by inadequate production of cortisol resulting in symptoms such as fatigue, weakness, and weight loss. Hormone replacement therapy attempts to artificially regulate cortisol for patients with adrenal insufficiency, however this treatment is rarely personalised to an individual. In this thesis we develop mathematical models to predict hormone dynamics after the delivery of hydrocortisone (the term for cortisol delivered as a medication). We apply these models to assess differences in cortisol response after two commonly used delivery methods, namely a continuous intravenous infusion regime (CIV), and regular intravenous bolus injections (BIV). We fit these models to published experimental data from an in-patient study. Driven by the desire to study the most parsimonious model that contains the dominant processes affecting blood cortisol levels, the models consider the substantial role of binding protein in changing cortisol dynamics, as well as its effects on excretion. For simplicity, other metabolic processes and distribution across physiological compartments (such as organs or tissues) are neglected. The resulting models comprise five free parameters common to both delivery modes. Additionally, by exploiting the disparity of time scales in the system we obtain asymptotically reduced models of each delivery mode, involving just four free parameters. One critically important (but often neglected) aspect of models of this type is the desire to recover unique parameter values upon fitting to experimental data. We assess both the structural and practical identifiability of the derived models, highlighting those parameters which can be reliably inferred and those which cannot. We find that the models are practically identifiable for all model parameters except the binding and unbinding rates. This limitation is mitigated by the relative lack of sensitivity of cortisol dynamics to the precise value of these rates; instead it is the ratio of binding versus unbinding that governs dynamics. In all cases (except in the addition of significant noise) this ratio is shown to be practically recoverable. We further consider the question of whether low time-resolution measurements of combined concentrations of free and bound circulating cortisol enable model parameters to be uniquely estimated and/or inferred. Finally, the models are fitted using both frequentist and Bayesian approaches, the latter having the added benefit of providing estimates regarding the uncertainty in the parameters which affect the dynamics. Parameter estimates from fitting the BIV model alone, and both BIV and CIV models simultaneously show good agreement, but differ from fitting only the CIV model. These differences highlight the advantage of integrating data from multiple modes of delivery to extract the dominant mechanisms of cortisol response thereby offering the potential to tailor treatments specific to an individual patient

Images of divine nursing in the ancient Egyptian New Kingdom: kingship, kinship, and the role of the goddess

This thesis explores the use of divine nursing imagery – depictions of the king being nursed by a goddess – during the ancient Egyptian New Kingdom (ca 1539–1292 BCE) by considering the layers of context that shaped their creation and usage, including their physical, decorative, geographical, and social contexts. Research into this imagery has tended to examine it as a standardized and homogeneous motif across period and location. This thesis challenges this idea by analyzing the adaptations and variations across appearances of the motif as well as shifts in audience and medium to determine how it functioned within the specific decorative programs and narratives in which it was located. Chapter 2 considers the social context in which images of divine nursing were created and viewed, using archaeological, art historical, and textual evidence to explore ancient Egyptian practices and ideas regarding breastfeeding and wet-nursing during the New Kingdom. Chapters 3–5 presents a series of case studies which seek to reconstruct the layers of context around specific divine nursing scenes and address some seemingly “unusual” depictions that emerge during the New Kingdom. Chapter 3 analyzes the scene of Thutmose IV nursed by Hathor and Werethekau at the temple of Amada in Nubia, the first divine nursing scene to appear in Nubia and a unique adaptation of the double nursing pattern. By considering its context, the scene’s role in efforts to assert Egyptian control in Nubia become more evident. The geographical implications of divine nursing continue to be apparent as Chapter 4 examines the nursing cow-goddess subtype of divine nursing imagery. This case study examines a group of divine nursing scenes tied geographically and iconographically largely to the region of Deir el-Bahari and which were combined with or inserted into existing Hathoric imagery, adding to the layered meaning and functionality of the images, statues, and votive offerings on which it appears. Considering the shift from temple wall reliefs to more public-facing and portable objects, Chapter 5 examines the appearance of divine nursing on stelae. This group of seven stelae represents the range of forms the divine nursing motif took during the New Kingdom and its expanded audience. The imagery takes on elements and implications of self-presentation, communication, relationships, and ritual. Finally, Chapter 6 considers the themes and patterns that appear across these case studies, how they compare with prior research on divine nursing imagery, and how they might influence future approaches to the scenes. I propose that to better understand divine nursing scenes it is more effective to consider divine nursing as an action that could be incorporated or adapted into existing imagery, rather than a static image with largely the same implications across period and location. It was a means of creating relationships and informing the social identity of king, goddess, and image commissioner