Infection outcomes under genetic and environmental variation in a host-parasite system: Implications for maintenance of polymorphism and the evolution of virulence

Virulence (the harm to the host during infection) is the outcome of continuous coevolution between hosts and parasites. This thesis adds to a growing body of work on host-parasite interactions, and describes experiments that study the effects of variation in the genetic and the environmental contexts of infection. All of them focus on interaction between the planktonic freshwater crustacean Daphnia magna and a naturally occurring parasite, the spore-forming bacterium Pasteuria ramosa. I show that elevated minimum temperatures that facilitate parasite growth drive natural epidemics of this parasite. I also demonstrate that the expression of infection traits in P. ramosa is temperature-dependent in a genotype-specific manner [genotype-by-environment (GxE) interactions]. These GxE interactions could maintain polymorphism through environment-dependent selection. Next, I test if GxG interactions for infectivity can be altered by environmental variation (GxGxE interactions), and find that this trait is quite robust to thermal variation. Infectivity is also more important in determining parasite fitness relative to the production of transmission stages, highlighting the importance of considering natural infection routes, an aspect sometimes overlooked in studies of host-parasite systems. Another experiment under different food and temperature regimes showed evidence for environment-dependent virulence-transmission relationships, a fundamental component of virulence evolution models. Lastly, I show that variation in temperature does not increase the cost to the host of resisting infection

The development of statistical theory in Britain, 1865-1925: a historical and sociological perspective

This thesis discusses the development of statistical theory in Britain in the period 1865 to 1925, and attempts to account for this development as an institutional and an intellectual phenomenon. Close connections are shown to have existed between statistical theory as a scientific specialty and eugenics and social Darwinism, in particular in the work of Francis Galton (1822 -1911) and Karl Pearson (1857- 1936). An analysis of eugenics as a social and political movement is presented, and it is argued that eugenics played a major role in facilitating the institutional growth of statistical theory as a field of study. Two scientific controversies involving Karl Pearson and his followers (with William Bateson and the early Mendelians, and with George Udny Yule) are examined, and it is suggested that these controversies might usefully be seen as generated and sustained by divergent social interests. The development of the theory of statistical inference in this period is discussed briefly, and the early pioneering work of W.S. Gosset ('Student') and R.A. Fisher is surveyed.It is concluded that the generation and assessment of scientific innovations by statisticians in this period must be seen as fundamentally affected by social factors having their origins both within science and in the wider society

Puritan affective culture: emotional identities and the publications of Samuel Clarke (1599-1682)

On Black Bartholomew's Day 1662, the Presbyterian Samuel Clarke was one of over two thousand ministers and teachers ejected from their positions by the Restoration government. From the outside, puritans in general, and Presbyterians in particular, were regarded as divisive and censorious. Their dissent was characterised as emanating from zealotry and unreasonable passion that placed them beyond the bounds of a moderate middle way. But for those who counted themselves as godly, intense emotional experience was the essence of rationality and an essential part of their piety. Historians have debated the emotional impact of Calvinist theology and how feeling was central to religious experience. They have exhaustively scrutinised the place of puritanism more generally. However, the role of affect as articulated in public discourse, and the dynamics of emotion in shaping the interface between individual and collective identity has been neglected. Yet, feeling was a fundamental component of politico-religious identities that reflected cultural habituations and determined the nature of the interaction between those of different persuasions. This thesis proposes that a concept of affective culture helps to locate Clarke's Presbyterianism within these multifarious identities as they developed in the mid-seventeenth century. It draws upon concepts and methodologies from the field of emotions history to explore the relationship between cultures, published text and affect. In his published anthologies Samuel Clarke presented patterns of affect, mobilising a construction of unruly passions and rational affections to underpin his purpose of representing his confessional community as an orthodoxy at the centre of the English Church. This account begins with a macro view that establishes the place of Clarke's work in the affective context of mid-seventeenth-century politico-religious conflict. It goes on to develop an analysis of how Clarke fashioned a template of pious emotion, before considering how affective culture shaped personal and collective identities

Face and body perception and the physical traits that influence attractiveness in humans

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On Counterinsurgency: Firepower, Biopower, and the Collateralization of Milliatry Violence

This dissertation investigates the most recent cycle of North Atlantic expeditionary warfare by addressing the resuscitation of counterinsurgency warfare with a specific focus on the war in Afghanistan from 2006 to 2014. The project interrogates the lasting aesthetic, epistemological, philosophical, and territorial implications of counterinsurgency, which should be understood as part of wider transformations in military affairs in relation to discourses of adaptation, complexity, and systemic design, and to the repertoire of global contingency and stability operations. Afghanistan served as a counterinsurgency laboratory, and the experiments will shape the conduct of future wars, domestic security practices, and the increasingly indistinct boundary between them. Using work from Michel Foucault and liberal war studies, the project undertakes a genealogy of contemporary population-centred counterinsurgency and interrogates how its conduct is constituted by and as a mixture firepower and biopower. Insofar as this mix employs force with different speeds, doses, and intensities, the dissertation argues that counterinsurgency unrestricts and collateralizes violence, which is emblematic of liberal war that kills selectively to secure and make life live in ways amenable to local and global imperatives of liberal rule. Contemporary military counterinsurgents, in conducting operations on the edges of liberal rule's jurisdiction and in recursively influencing the domestic spaces of North Atlantic states, fashion biopoweras custodial power to conduct the conduct of lifeto shape different interventions into the everyday lives of target populations. The 'lesser evil' logic of counterinsurgency is used to frame counterinsurgency as a type of warfare that is comparatively low-intensity and less harmful, and this justification actually lowers the threshold for violence by making increasingly indiscriminate the ways in which its employment damages and envelops populations and communities, thereby allowing counterinsurgents to speculate on the practice of expeditionary warfare and efforts to sustain occupations. Thus, the dissertation argues that counterinsurgency is a communicative process, better understood as mobile military media with an atmospheric-environmental register blending acute and ambient measures that are always-already kinetic. The counterinsurgent gaze enframes a world picture where everything can be a force amplifier and everywhere is a possible theatre of operations

The expert patient: an exploration of self-management in long term conditions

Chronic disease is the major challenge facing global health care. In tandem there has been the emergence of active and informed patients in western society, with the contemporary patient increasingly involved in decisions about their treatment and care. However, while it is acknowledged that the vast majority of chronic disease management is via self-care and effective self-management has a potentially significant effect on reducing resource demand, there has been comparatively little research on the concept of the expert self-managing patient within chronic disease. The aims of this study were therefore to: " Investigate how patient expertise is viewed, interpreted, defined and experienced by patients and clinicians. " Understand how patient expertise is promoted and enabled through the self-management process. " Discover how patient expertise is enhanced or impeded by other mechanisms. Adopting a grounded theory approach underpinned by critical realism, the study commenced with three focus groups with patients and seven focus groups conducted with nurses and physiotherapists. Using the emergent themes as a starting point for constant comparative analysis, concurrent data collection via semi-structured interviews and observation was conducted. This included interviews with twenty two patients, twelve clinicians including doctors, nurses and physiotherapists and two Expert Patients Programme lay tutors. Observation was undertaken with ten consultant and nurse-led clinics, a six week Expert Patients Programme and an eight week Back Fitness Course. A storyline is described that illustrates the journey of the expert patient and the thesis explores the barriers and enablers on this journey. A typology of the expert patient is developed in which it is shown that expert patients fall into four quadrants with overt acceptors as the idealized patient within medical consultations. The findings suggest that many expert patients learned characteristics of being succinct and non-emotional when communicating with clinicians, but at the cost of not being able to articulate the emotional consequences of living with chronic disease. Variance from this idealized type leads to conflict which is explored through theories of the medical division of labour. It is concluded that the typology of the expert patient should be widely discussed and acknowledged as a framework for professional and lay practice. In particular, there should be explicit recognition of the emotional needs of people with chronic illness. Recommendations for policy and practice are generated that include acknowledgement of the expert patient beyond the medically idealised type. It is suggested that within the Expert Patients Programme there should be a move away from the current rigid content and delivery style and a greater focus on the subjective experience of chronic illness. Lay tutors would benefit from developing skills to support the psychological needs of participants. Furthermore, it is suggested that the behaviours and working environment that characterised nurse specialists should be used as a template for good practice to enable clinicians to meet the needs of expert patients. Finally, recommendations are made for inter-professional education. It is suggested that the skills of a variety of expert patients beyond the idealized overt-acceptor type are utilised in order to expose clinicians to a fuller range of patient narratives surrounding the experience of chronic disease

Landscapes of blindness and visual impairment : sight, touch and laughter in the English countryside

Through ethnographic research acting as a sighted guide for members of specialist walking groups who visit areas of the Lake District and Peak District, in this thesis I illustrate how people with blindness experience and talk about their landscape encounters. Building on work on landscape and the body, in the wake of `nonrepresentational theory', a distinct approach to interpreting landscape experience is advocated, where these experiences are understood to exist in reciprocal `becomings' which draw variably from the possible material, embodied and discursive domains of landscape. Attention is also given to limits of personal testimony about embodied experiences of landscape and the contribution that neurobiological research might make to better understanding embodied experience. These dynamics of interview testimony and processes of landscape experience are illustrated in the thesis through recourse to interview material, ethnographic field-notes, photographic, video data and secondary research material. Specific attention is given to the inter-corporeal and inter-subjective processes of vision, touch and laughter which are found to be key elements in blind walkers' encounters with and talk of, the material landscapes of the Lakes and Peaks. These representations of blind walkers' landscape experiences are important because they help to off set the rather `ablist' literature which has tended to be evident in representations of countryside users and representations of landscape as a form of distant and objectifying visual apprehension.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceEconomic and Social Research CouncilGBUnited Kingdo

The Evolution of the Red River Valley Settlement System, 1714--1860.

Since the first European settlement was established in the middle of Indian territory in 1714, the Red River Valley had experienced a dramatic transformation until the end of the antebellum period. The trajectory of the evolution can be divided into five vertical cross sections. The formative phase (1714--1803) features the colonial regimes in political arena, less-specialized regional economies, nascent urban units laden heavily with defensive functions, and coerced labor system. The settlement system resembled a semi-primate pattern with Natchitoches on the summit. The period of the Territory of Orleans (1804--1812) corresponded to the transition phase. During this interim, traditional staples and cotton underpinned regional economies; towns added agricultural functions to the original strategic ones; and the introduction of cotton gin and short-staple variety prepared the region for the massive cultivation of the cash crop in the next period. In addition to Natchitoches, Alexandria began to carve out its sphere of influence. A variety of learning processes were in motion in the third phase of trials, errors and adjustments (1813--1834). There were experiments with intensive land use, mixed rural economy, agro-commercial towns, steam power, and new machinery. The spread of population resulted in the increase in the number of settlement hierarchies. An expansion regime led the fourth phase (1835--1850). Land and regional resources were used in more commercialized manner. In the middle of this period, sugar emerged as a major supplementary crop to cotton in the parishes of Rapides and Avoyelles. Because of weak cotton market, however, rural economies turned into specialized diversification regime. The renewed emphasis on the traditional wisdom of crop rotation helped to sustain this diversified economies. With the deepening staple economy, towns invited more commercial populations than before. In the meantime, the removal of logjams led to the re-configuration of settlement system from Natchitoches-centered one to Shreveport-centered one. The last phase of assertion (1851--1860) is characterized by systemic improvement of natural environment, the installation of diversified specialization regime in rural economy, increase of commercial and professional occupations, and scientific management. Boosted cotton economy sustained the continuous progression of the region. Settlement system showed the sign of the end of in-filling process. The system was consolidated around the three nuclei of Shreveport, Natchitoches and Alexandria

Mixed Methods Action Research: Intervention Strategies for Employee Turnover in Ethnic Asian Enterprises in New Zealand

Excessive employee turnover can pose a threat to a firm’s growth and survival. This is particularly true for small ethnic Asian businesses that rely heavily on human labour input with cultural and language challenges. This paper sets out to develop effective intervening strategies for the high labour turnover found in ABC (pseudonym), a small ethnic Asian company in New Zealand that provides commercial cleaning and shopping trolley collections services. This study used a multistrand mixed method action research (MMAR) approach that leverages discussions, a survey and interviews for data collection in the cycle of action research (AR) proposed by Coghlan and Brannick: 'constructing' (Phase 1), 'planning action' (Phase 2), 'taking action' (Phase 3), and 'evaluating action' (Phase 4). This design helps cross-validate the gathered data and enhance the rigour and credibility of the research outcomes. In Phase 1, having identified excessively high employee turnover as the research problem, the subsequent literature review revealed three candidate intervening variables: leadership styles, job satisfaction and level of ethnic entrepreneurship (co-ethnic community involvement). In Phase 2, data were collected and analyzed using a mixed method to understand the impact of the intervening variables on turnover and identify the areas for improvement when applying the found-to-be effective variables in ABC. The quantitative data was collected from employees of ethnic Asian companies including ABC. The statistical analyses on 222 usable questionnaires suggested that two variables (leadership styles – supportive and participative, and job satisfaction) were found to be the strong predictors of employee withdrawal intention. Interestingly, it was not possible from the data to claim a moderating effect of ethnic entrepreneurship on the relationships between leadership and turnover propensity. The succeeding qualitative study gathered the data from twelve ABC employees via phone. The interview results were largely aligned with the quantitative findings. They confirmed the beneficial effect of supportive and participative leadership styles on job satisfaction, and highlighted the detrimental effect of the directive style. In phase 3, the meta-inferences gained from merging the outcomes of Phase 2 were validated in ABC’s context through the discussions with ABC executives. These yielded three feasible action plans with six strategies to tackle employee turnover under leadership styles and job satisfaction categories: taking leadership training, facilitating effective communication systems (changing the frequencies and mode of the communications), and providing non-monetary rewards (free snacks, job titles, and celebrating personal and work milestones). In phase 4, the suggested action plans are evaluated and consideration is given for future research. Overall, this MMAR study fulfilled its objective of producing context-specific outcomes to my real work context. At the same time, it has contributed to the body of knowledge by extending the Western and large organisation oriented turnover study, to the small ethnic Asian companies in New Zealand. However, the suggested strategies are not the final solutions to the problem, and measuring their effect remains a task for future research as the second cycle of action research (AR)