13,651 research outputs found
The development of the Kent coalfield 1896-1946
One of the unique features of the Kent Coalfield is that it is entirely concealed by newer rocks. The existence of a coalfield under southern England, being a direct link between those of South Wales, Somerset and Bristol in the west and the Ruhr, Belgium. and northern France in the east, was predicted by the geologist R. A. C. Godwin-Austen as early as 1856. It was, however, only the rapid increase in demand for Britain's coal in the last quarter of the nineteenth century that made it worth considering testing this hypothesis. The first boring was made in the years 1886-90, and although it discovered coal, this did not in itself prove the existence of a viable coalfield. This could be done only by incurring the heavy cost of boring systematically over a wide area. As the financial returns from such an undertaking were uncertain, it was not surprising that in the early years, around the turn of the century, a dominant role was played by speculators, who were able to induce numerous small investors to risk some of their savings in the expectation of high profits. As minerals in Britain were privately owned, the early pioneer companies not only had to meet the cost of the exploratory borines, but also, if they were not to see the benefit of their work accrue to others, lease beforehand the right to mine coal from local landowners in as much of the surrounding area as possible. This policy was pursued most vigorously by Arthur Burr, a Surrey land specula tor, who raised capital by creating the Kent Coal Conoessions Ltd. and then floating a series of companies allied to it. Burr's enterprise would probably have been. successful had it not been for the water problems encountered at depth in -v- the coalfield. As a result, the Concessions group found itself in control of most of the coalfield, but without the necessary capital to sink and adequately equip its 01ffi collieries. By 1910, however, the discovery of iron ore deposits in east Kent, coupled with the fact that Kent coal was excellent for coking purposes, began to attract the large steel firms of Bolckow, Vaughan Ltd. and Dorman, Long & Co. Ltd. in to the area. The First World War intervened, however, to delay their plans, and to provide an extended lease of life to the Concessions group, which, by the summer of 1914, was facing financial collapse. By the time Dorman, Lone & Co, in alliance with Weetman Pearson (Lord Cowdray), had acquired control over the greater part of the coalfield from the Concessions group, not only was the country's coal industry declining, but so was its steel industry, which suffered an even more severe rate of contraction during the inter-war years. As a result, Pearson and Dorman Long Ltd. was forced to concentrate just on coal production, and this in turn was hampered not only by the water problems, but also by labour shortages and the schemes introduced by the government in 1930 to restrict the country's coal output, in an attempt to maintain prices and revenue in the industry. Nevertheless, production did show a substantial increase between 1927 and 1935, after which it declined as miners left the coalfield to return to their former districts, where employment opportunities were improving in the late thirties. Supporting roles were played in the inter-war years by Richard Tilden Smith, a share underwriter turned industrialist with long standing interests in the coalfield, who acquired one of the Concessions group's two collieries, and by the Powell Duffryn Steam Coal Co. Ltd., which through subsidiary companies, took over the only colliery to be developed by a pioneer company outside the Concessions group. The impossibility of Kent coal, because of its nature, ever gaining more than token access to the more lucrative household market, and then the failure of the local steel industry to materialise meant that the -vi- companies had to develop alternative outlets for their growing outputs. Although nearness to industrial markets in the south-east of England did confer certain advantages were poor consolation for the hoped for developments of either the early pioneers or the later industrialists. Instead of the expected profits, the companies mostly incurred losses, and only the company acquired by Powell Duffryn ever paid a dividend to its shareholders in the years before nationalisation. From the point of view of the Kent miners, the shortage of labour in the coalfield, particularly in the years 1914-20 and 1927-35, was to an important extent responsible for their being amongst the highest paid in the industry. At the same time the more favourable employment opportunities prevailing in Kent compared with other mining districts enabled the Kent Nine Workers Association to develop into a well organised union, which on the whole was able to look after the interests of its members fairly successfully. Throughout the period 1896 to 1946 the Kent Coalfield existed very much at the margin of the British coal industry. Its failure to develop substantially along the lines envisaged by either the early pioneers or by the later industrialists meant that its importance in national terms always remained small
Towards a sociology of conspiracy theories: An investigation into conspiratorial thinking on Dönmes
This thesis investigates the social and political significance of conspiracy theories, which has been an academically neglected topic despite its historical relevance. The academic literature focuses on the methodology, social significance and political impacts of these theories in a secluded manner and lacks empirical analyses. In response, this research provides a comprehensive theoretical framework for conspiracy theories by considering their methodology, political impacts and social significance in the light of empirical data. Theoretically, the thesis uses Adorno's semi-erudition theory along with Girardian approach. It proposes that conspiracy theories are methodologically semi-erudite narratives, i.e. they are biased in favour of a belief and use reason only to prove it. It suggests that conspiracy theories appear in times of power vacuum and provide semi-erudite cognitive maps that relieve alienation and ontological insecurities of people and groups. In so doing, they enforce social control over their audience due to their essentialist, closed-to-interpretation narratives. In order to verify the theory, the study analyses empirically the social and political significance of conspiracy theories about the Dönme community in Turkey. The analysis comprises interviews with conspiracy theorists, conspiracy theory readers and political parties, alongside a frame analysis of the popular conspiracy theory books on Dönmes. These confirm the theoretical framework by showing that the conspiracy theories are fed by the ontological insecurities of Turkish society. Hence, conspiracy theorists, most readers and some political parties respond to their own ontological insecurities and political frustrations through scapegoating Dönmes. Consequently, this work shows that conspiracy theories are important symptoms of society, which, while relieving ontological insecurities, do not provide politically prolific narratives
Coloniality and the Courtroom: Understanding Pre-trial Judicial Decision Making in Brazil
This thesis focuses on judicial decision making during custody hearings in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The impetus for the study is that while national and international protocols mandate the use of pre-trial detention only as a last resort, judges continue to detain people pre-trial in large numbers. Custody hearings were introduced in 2015, but the initiative has not produced the reduction in pre-trial detention that was hoped. This study aims to understand what informs judicial decision making at this stage. The research is approached through a decolonial lens to foreground legacies of colonialism, overlooked in mainstream criminological scholarship. This is an interview-based study, where key court actors (judges, prosecutors, and public defenders) and subject matter specialists were asked about influences on judicial decision making. Interview data is complemented by non-participatory observation of custody hearings. The research responds directly to Aliverti et al.'s (2021) call to ‘decolonize the criminal question’ by exposing and explaining how colonialism informs criminal justice practices. Answering the call in relation to judicial decision making, findings provide evidence that colonial-era assumptions, dynamics, and hierarchies were evident in the practice of custody hearings and continue to inform judges’ decisions, thus demonstrating the coloniality of justice. This study is significant for the new empirical data presented and theoretical innovation is also offered via the introduction of the ‘anticitizen’. The concept builds on Souza’s (2007) ‘subcitizen’ to account for the active pursuit of dangerous Others by judges casting themselves as crime fighters in a modern moral crusade. The findings point to the limited utility of human rights discourse – the normative approach to influencing judicial decision making around pre-trial detention – as a plurality of conceptualisations compete for dominance. This study has important implications for all actors aiming to reduce pre-trial detention in Brazil because unless underpinning colonial logics are addressed, every innovation risks becoming the next lei para inglês ver (law [just] for the English to see)
Political Islam and grassroots activism in Turkey : a study of the pro-Islamist Virtue Party's grassroots activists and their affects on the electoral outcomes
This thesis presents an analysis of the spectacular rise of political Islam in Turkey. It has two aims: first to understand the underlying causes of the rise of the Welfare Party which -later became the Virtue Party- throughout the 1990s, and second to analyse how grassroots activism influenced this process. The thesis reviews the previous literature on the Islamic fundamentalist movements, political parties, political party systems and concentrates on the local party organisations and their effects on the party's electoral performance. It questions the categorisation of Islamic fundamentalism as an appropriate label for this movement. An exploration of such movements is particularly important in light of the event of 11`x' September. After exploring existing theoretical and case studies into political Islam and party activism, I present my qualitative case study. I have used ethnographic methodology and done participatory observations among grassroots activists in Ankara's two sub-districts covering 105 neighbourhoods. I examined the Turkish party system and the reasons for its collapse. It was observed that as a result of party fragmentation, electoral volatility and organisational decline and decline in the party identification among the citizens the Turkish party system has declined. However, the WP/VP profited from this trend enormously and emerged as
the main beneficiary of this process. Empirical data is analysed in four chapters, dealing with the different aspects of the Virtue Party's local organisations and grassroots activists. They deal with change and continuity in the party, the patterns of participation, the routes and motives for becoming a party activist, the profile of party activists and the local party organisations. I explore what they do and how they do it. The analysis reveals that the categorisation of Islamic fundamentalism is misplaced and the rise of political Islam in Turkey cannot be explained as religious revivalism or the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. It is a political force that drives its strength from the urban poor which has been harshly affected by the IMF directed neoliberal economy policies. In conclusion, it is shown that the WP/VP's electoral chances were significantly improved by its very efficient and effective party organisations and highly committed grassroots activists
Innovation systems’ response to changes in the institutional impulse: Analysis of the evolution of the European energy innovation system from FP7 to H2020
This study addresses how the institutional impulse developed by the European Union influenced the evolution of the European energy innovation system. Considering the contributing role of innovation systems in the development of new knowledge and technology, it can be stated that the institutional impulse achieved by the European Union through the research framework programmes creates a network of relations between entities and projects. This enables the exchange of information and expertise, which is considered a key element for innovation development. Previous studies have attempted to determine whether institutional impulse is an essential element in understanding the efficiency of innovation systems and their related research policies. However, their investigations have yielded inconclusive results. Using the CORDIS database of the European Commission, this study aims to fill this gap by assessing the European energy innovation system for two periods (2007–2013 and 2014–2020) through two of its research funding programmes—FP7 and H2020—thereby contributing to the literature in the innovation systems field. Social network analysis has been conducted to examine how changes in the institutional impulse, reflected in the new objectives in the research funding programmes, are associated with changes in the structural and topological properties of the innovation systems’ underlying networks. The first contribution indicates that the innovation system responds to changes in the goals of funding programmes, as the taxonomy, topology, and structural properties of their underlying networks underwent modifications due to the newly proposed objectives. The second contribution shows that network properties (cohesion and centrality metrics) can explain the efficiency and effectiveness of innovation systems, drawing useful conclusions for policymakers and individual entities. This last contribution also has important policymaking implications, as it provides the basis for understanding how innovation policy goals can be achieved by changing the institutional impulse to direct the innovation system towards these objectives
Strung pieces: on the aesthetics of television fiction series
As layered and long works, television fiction series have aesthetic properties that are built over time, bit by bit. This thesis develops a group of concepts that enable the study of these properties, It argues that a series is made of strung pieces, a system of related elements. The text begins by considering this sequential form within the fields of film and television. This opening chapter defines the object and methodology of research, arguing for a non-essentialist distinction between cinema and television and against the adequacy of textual and contextual analyses as approaches to the aesthetics of these shows. It proposes instead that these programmes should be described as televisual works that can be scrutinised through aesthetic analysis. The next chapters propose a sequence of interrelated concepts. The second chapter contends that series are composed of building blocks that can be either units into which series are divided or motifs that unify series and are dispersed across their pans. These blocks are patterned according to four kinds of relations or principles of composition. Repetition and variation are treated in tandem in the third chapter because of their close connection, given that variation emerges from established repetition. Exception and progression are also discussed together in the fourth chapter since they both require a long view of these serial works. The former, in order to be recognised as a deviation from the patterns of repetition and variation. The latter, In order to be understood in Its many dimensions as the series advances. Each of these concepts is further detailed with additional distinctions between types of units, motifs, repetitions, variations, and exceptions, using illustrative examples from numerous shows. In contrast, the section on progression uses a single series as case study, Carnivà le (2003-05), because this is the overarching principle that encompasses all the others. The conclusion considers the findings of the research and suggests avenues for their application
Studies of strategic performance management for classical organizations theory & practice
Nowadays, the activities of "Performance Management" have spread very broadly in actually every part of business and management. There are numerous practitioners and researchers from very different disciplines, who are involved in exploring the different contents of performance management. In this thesis, some relevant historic developments in performance management are first reviewed. This includes various theories and frameworks of performance management. Then several management science techniques are developed for assessing performance management, including new methods in Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Soft System Methodology (SSM). A theoretical framework for performance management and its practical procedures (five phases) are developed for "classic" organizations using soft system thinking, and the relationship with the existing theories are explored. Eventually these results are applied in three case studies to verify our theoretical development. One of the main contributions of this work is to point out, and to systematically explore the basic idea that the effective forms and structures of performance management for an organization are likely to depend greatly on the organizational configuration, in order to coordinate well with other management activities in the organization, which has seemingly been neglected in the existing literature of performance management research in the sense that there exists little known research that associated particular forms of performance management with the explicit assumptions of organizational configuration. By applying SSM, this thesis logically derives some main functional blocks of performance management in 'classic' organizations and clarifies the relationships between performance management and other management activities. Furthermore, it develops some new tools and procedures, which can hierarchically decompose organizational strategies and produce a practical model of specific implementation steps for "classic" organizations. Our approach integrates popular types of performance management models. Last but not least, this thesis presents findings from three major cases, which are quite different organizations in terms of management styles, ownership, and operating environment, to illustrate the fliexbility of the developed theoretical framework
Towards the development of care management in community care for elderly people in Korea
This study is concerned with the feasibility of several forms of care management in the development of community care for elderly people in Korea. Chapter one introduces the background of community care in Korea in the light of demographic, socio-economic, and political realities. This chapter reviews the changing Korean society as a barometer to understand the scope, size, and speed of social needs, especially community care for elderly people, over the last few decades. Chapter two explores various definitions, concepts, and theories of community, community care, and care management by building upon trends previously established in the research. This helps to identify the different models of care management and the pre-conditions necessary for the application of different models in Korea. Chapter three explores what factors have affected the development of community care, and what community dare has achieved for elderly people in the UK. Especially, care management in community care for elderly people in the UK is examined in detail. Chapter four details the findings of field research on community care for elderly people in Korea. This covers the needs of elderly people and their carers, and the social worker's tasks and available resources. The potential for the use of care management based on the findings of field research is assessed. Chapter five investigates whether the UK models of care management are suitable for Korean society, which interventions are useful for developing care management, and the strategies, and principles involved
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Privacy-aware Smart Home Interface Framework
Smart home user interfaces are pervasive and shared by multiple users who occupy the space. Therefore, they pose a risk to interpersonal privacy of occupants because an individual’s sensitive information can be leaked to other co-occupants (information privacy), or they can be disturbed by intrusions into their personal space (physical privacy) when the co-occupant interacts with the smart home user interfaces. This thesis hypothesises that interpersonal privacy violations can be mitigated by adapting the user interface layer and presents insights into how to achieve usable user interface adaptation to mitigate or minimise interpersonal privacy violations in smart homes.
The thesis reports two case studies and two user studies. The first case study identifies the key characteristics needed to model the rich context of interpersonal privacy violations scenarios. Then it presents knowledge representation models that are required to represent the identified characteristics and evaluates them for adequacy in modelling the context information of interpersonal privacy violation scenarios. The second case study presents a software architecture and a set of algorithms that can detect interpersonal privacy violations and generate usable user interface adaptations. Then it evaluates the architecture and the algorithms for adequacy in generating usable privacy-aware user interface adaptations. The first user study (N=15) evaluates the usability of the adaptive user interfaces generated from the framework where storyboards were used as the stimulant. Extending the findings from the usability study and expanding the coverage of example scenarios, the second user study (N=23) evaluates the overall user experience of the adaptive user interfaces, using video prototypes as the stimulant.
The research demonstrates that the characteristics identified, and the respective knowledge representation models adequately captured the context of interpersonal privacy violation scenarios. Furthermore, the software architecture and the algorithms could detect possible interpersonal privacy violations and generate usable user interface adaptations to mitigate them. The two user studies demonstrate that the adaptive user interfaces, when used in appropriate situations, were a suitable solution for addressing interpersonal privacy violations while providing high usability and a positive user experience. The thesis concludes by providing recommendations for developing privacy-aware user interface adaptations and suggesting future work that can extend this research
Breaking Ub with Leishmania mexicana: a ubiquitin activating enzyme as a novel therapeutic target for leishmaniasis
Leishmaniasis is a neglected tropical disease, which inflicts a variety of gruesome pathologies on humans. The number of individuals afflicted with leishmaniasis is thought to vary between 0.7 and 1.2 million annually, of whom it is estimated that 20 to 40 thousand die. This problem is exemplary of inequality in healthcare – current leishmaniasis treatments are inadequate due to toxicity, cost, and ineffectiveness, so there is an urgent need for improved chemotherapies.
Ubiquitination is a biochemical pathway that has received attention in cancer research. It is the process of adding the ubiquitin protein as a post-translational modification to substrate proteins, using an enzymatic cascade comprised of enzymes termed E1s, E2s, and E3s. Ubiquitination can lead to degradation of substrate proteins, or otherwise modulate their function. As the name suggests, this modification can be found across eukaryotic cell biology. As such, interfering with ubiquitination may interfere with essential biological processes, which means ubiquitination may present a new therapeutic target for leishmaniasis.
Before ubiquitination inhibitors can be designed, components of the ubiquitination system must be identified. To this end, a bioinformatic screening campaign employed BLASTs and hidden Markov models, using characterised orthologs from model organisms as bait, to screen publicly-available Leishmania mexicana genome sequence databases, searching for genes encoding putative E1s, E2s, and E3s. To confirm some of these identifications on a protein level, activity-based probes, protein pulldowns, and mass spectrometry were used. Using an activity-based probe that emulates the structure of adenylated ubiquitin, E1s were identified, and their relative abundance quantified. A chemical crosslinker extended the reach of this probe, allowing the identification of an E2 (LmxM.33.0900). It is noted that L. mexicana has two E1s – unusual for a single celled organism. Of these E1s, LmxM.34.3060 was considerably more abundant than LmxM.23.0550 in both major life cycle stages of the in vitro Leishmania cultures.
It is important to describe the wider context of these enzymes – what is their interactome, what are their substrates? To study this, CRISPR was used to fuse a proximity-based labelling system, BioID, on genes of interest – LmxM.34.3060 and LmxM.33.0900. The E2 (LmxM.33.0900) was shown to interact with the E1 (LmxM.34.3060), validating the results from the activity-based probe and crosslinker experiments. Due to sequence homology with characterised orthologs, the E2 was hypothesised to function in the endoplasmic reticulum degradation pathway. Immunoprecipitations of a ubiquitin motif, diglycine, were conducted with a view to gathering information on the substrates of ubiquitin. Anti-diglycine peptides included some of those identified by BioID. Experiments examining ubiquitin’s role in the DNA damage response were also initiated, as were improvements to the proximity-based labelling system, however these were not followed to completion due to a lack of time and resources.
To examine the possibility of finding novel drug targets in the ubiquitination cascade, recombinant proteins were expressed. LmxM.34.3060 was expressed in a functional form, while a putative SUMO E2 (LmxM.02.0390) was functional after refolding. Expressed LmxM.33.0900 was not functional and could not be refolded into a functional form. Drug assays were conducted on LmxM.34.3060, which found an inhibitor of the human ortholog, TAK-243, to be 20-fold less effective against the Leishmania enzyme. Additional assays found an inhibitor that was 50-fold more effective at inhibiting the Leishmania enzyme as opposed to its human equivalent - 5'O-sulfamoyl adenosine. Furthermore, a new mechanism of action, inhibiting the E1, for was identified for drugs previously characterised to inhibit protein synthesis. LmxM.34.3060 underwent biophysical characterisation, with structural information obtained using SAXS and protein crystallography. A crystal structure was solved to 3.1 Å, with the in-solution SAXS structure complementary to this. TAK-243 was modelled into the LmxM.34.3060 structure and clashes were predicted, concurring with TAK-243’s reduced efficacy against the Leishmania enzyme in the drug assays.
This project aimed to characterise the potential of an understudied biochemical system to provide novel therapeutic targets for a neglected tropical pathogen. To achieve this aim it presents the identifications of two E1s, an interactome, a structure, and a potent, selective inhibitor of a Leishmania ubiquitin activating enzyme
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