Patterning methods for organic electronics

Organic electronics is an exciting new avenue for low cost electronics. The unique properties of organic semiconductors may enable a new generation of electronic devices to be fabricated into flexible, large area, and even transparent consumer products. However, for this to become a reality, many challenges must first be overcome. As the performance of these materials continues to improve, it is now necessary to look to new manufacturing methods and materials that can fully exploit the advantages of organic materials. The work presented in this thesis is focused on the development of new and high resolution fabrication methods which are compatible with organic electronic materials. The findings presented in the first half of this thesis are based on the idea that fundamentally new forms of manufacturing are required to match the unique properties of organic materials. Initially the adhesion properties of several materials are analysed with a focus on how they interact at the nano-scale. Further work then outlines how adhesion forces can be manipulated and used to produce highly aligned nano-scale electronic devices, something that until now has required high cost and specialist equipment. The second part of this thesis describes how existing fabrication methods can be modified to produce high performance organic devices. By creating self-aligned organic transistors, higher frequency device operation and enhanced performance may be possible. New materials such as graphene and low voltage nano-scale dielectrics are tested in this configuration and compared with similar devices reported in the literature.Open Acces

Resilient Hermeneutics: Using simulations in decision-centric and information rich environments

In an environment in which artificial intelligence and autonomous systems are increasingly the foundation of decision-centric approaches to modern warfare, interpretation of these data-rich hyper speed realms will be a common dilemma for command, control, and analysis. Numerous military reports have recognised that future warfare will be increasingly defined by a “large mass of autonomous systems” (Australian Army, 2021) and that the key strategic challenges and advantages will depend upon a shift towards decision-centric capabilities (Clark et. al., 2020). In this complex, remote and hybrid security context, hermeneutics, or the theory and methodology of interpretation, will be the critical challenge. We propose to build scenario-based simulations around four hermeneutic modalities. Informed by real world examples, our approach extrapolates hypothetical scenarios to develop immersive decision-making simulations. These scenarios require participants to navigate four sophisticated and nuanced hermeneutic modalities: (1) The hermeneutics of trust explores how decision-making integrity and robust systems may be disrupted or hijacked by adversaries. (2) Critical hermeneutics situates digital objects/processes within a broader sociopolitical and cultural context acknowledging the contentious interfacing of human communities with machine learning activities. (3) Cryptic hermeneutics is a disposition that actively seeks to reveal and unmask systemic bias or nefarious elements within digital ecosystems. (4) The hermeneutics of suspicion allows for sophisticated forms of deciphering and revealing multiple sources of knowledge and layers of meaning. Advanced simulations would explore the weaponisation of countermeasures. These simulations will deliver research and training that will enhance the resilience and decision-centric capacity of command, control, and intelligence practitioners

Digital Ethnography Redux: Interpreting Drone Cultures and Microtargeting in an era of Digital Transformation

[EN] This paper affirms and demonstrates the application of digital ethnography methodologies to two digitally transformative phenomena that are fundamentally enmeshed in the public sphere: personal drones and microtargeting. We review recent methodological studies on digital ethnography that can be delineated into three forms: research that is online or remote by necessity because of physical distance between researcher and participants; research that uses natively digital tools to study phenomena (Rogers 2013; Fish 2019) and research focused on digital cultures (Markham 2020). Our application of digital ethnography is further informed by qualitative ethnographic research undertaken by Horst, Pink, Postill and Hjorth (Horst, et al., 2016); and Manovich’s work on the application of digital ethnography to examine automation and big data (Manovich & Arielli, 2022). Beesley (forthcoming) utilises longitudinal visual ethnography as a lens to understand consumer drone cultures and disentangle the multiple narratives surrounding these disruptive technologies. Mount (2020), utilised digital ethnography to review two decades of microtargeting activities, employed by Strategic Communication Laboratories and Cambridge Analytica, to influence electoral behaviour. This methodological research will be combined with our conceptual swarm hermeneutics framework (Mount & Beesley, 2022) to develop scenario based simulations that will further evaluate interpretive schemas and behaviours.Mount, G.; Beesley, D. (2022). Digital Ethnography Redux: Interpreting Drone Cultures and Microtargeting in an era of Digital Transformation. En 4th International Conference on Advanced Research Methods and Analytics (CARMA 2022). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 181-188. https://doi.org/10.4995/CARMA2022.2022.1508318118

Markets, Government And Environmental Policy Issues For Public Transit

This paper considers the wider transport policy implications of bus deregulation, especially the links with environmental objectives. The major themes are the role of markets in creating opportunities through incentives to innovate which impact positively on the environment without the intervention of government, but which accord with political agendas, defining an appropriate set of goals and performance criteria for urban passenger transport which give credence to environmental sustainability, distinguishing outcome and outputs and structuring the regulator to deliver. We use the experience with mini-buses in Britain to show how markets create environmentally compatible incentives

Making sense of reasons: prospects for an interpretivist account of practical reasons

This thesis investigates the prospects for an interpretivist account of practical reasons. The proposed account identifies practical reasons with sets of propositional attitudes from which certain actions follow, given the constraints of interpretable functioning. Following Davidson, these constraints are taken to be enumerated by formal decision theory and formal semantics. Thus the account of practical reasons is framed in terms of what rationally follows from agents' beliefs and desires. The hope is that an account of practical reasons of this kind can explain the existence of practical reasons without invoking irreducible normative properties or relations. This outcome depends upon the availability of a theory of (radical) interpretation which is free from prior normative commitments. It is argued that a non-normative reading of Davidson's theory of radical interpretation is available, such that the account of practical reasons can meet this requirement. Although the proposed account of practical reasons does not admit of the possibility of categorical reasons for action, the ensuing objection that it fails to allow for the possibility of moral reasons for action is resisted. It is suggested that a plausible account on which moral reasons are hypothetical in kind can be provided. In particular, an account of moral reasons which is framed in terms of the motivations associated with a capacity for empathic affect is advanced. More generally, the aspiration of the thesis is to provide an account of practical reasons framed in terms of the requirements of interpretable functioning which will be regarded as an interesting and credible naturalistic option

Making sense of reasons: prospects for an interpretivist account of practical reasons

This thesis investigates the prospects for an interpretivist account of practical reasons. The proposed account identifies practical reasons with sets of propositional attitudes from which certain actions follow, given the constraints of interpretable functioning. Following Davidson, these constraints are taken to be enumerated by formal decision theory and formal semantics. Thus the account of practical reasons is framed in terms of what rationally follows from agents' beliefs and desires. The hope is that an account of practical reasons of this kind can explain the existence of practical reasons without invoking irreducible normative properties or relations. This outcome depends upon the availability of a theory of (radical) interpretation which is free from prior normative commitments. It is argued that a non-normative reading of Davidson's theory of radical interpretation is available, such that the account of practical reasons can meet this requirement. Although the proposed account of practical reasons does not admit of the possibility of categorical reasons for action, the ensuing objection that it fails to allow for the possibility of moral reasons for action is resisted. It is suggested that a plausible account on which moral reasons are hypothetical in kind can be provided. In particular, an account of moral reasons which is framed in terms of the motivations associated with a capacity for empathic affect is advanced. More generally, the aspiration of the thesis is to provide an account of practical reasons framed in terms of the requirements of interpretable functioning which will be regarded as an interesting and credible naturalistic option

Circadian clocks, glucocorticoids and the gated inflammatory response

In mammals endogenous, self sustained oscillators, known as circadian clocks, have evolved as a result of day night cycles, with a period close to 24 hours, and are involved in many physiological processes; such as sleep wake cycles, metabolic and hormonal activity. The suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), is the central oscillator, and is synchronised to the external environment by light, via the eye. It has been demonstrated that peripheral clocks, too, contain the circadian oscillator, with tissues such as the lung, liver, heart and kidney as well as many isolated cell types remaining rhythmic, in culture, for many days. However, these peripheral oscillators require a signal from the central oscillator in order to co-ordinate a synchronised time. Leading candidates in the relay of this information are the circulating glucocorticoid hormones corticosterone (rodents) or cortisol (man), which are known to have potent effects on the peripheral clock, both in-vivo and in-vitro. Further to this, glucocorticoids have been used for many decades to suppress the symptoms of inflammation, a by product of many human diseases.This thesis aims to address the temporal regulation of the peripheral clock by the endogenous glucocorticoid, corticosterone, using a transgenic mouse harbouring a luciferase conjugated clock reporter, and circadian reporter cell lines. It also aims to address the relative contribution of the two closely related nuclear hormone receptors, the glucocorticoid and mineralocorticoid receptors. A further aim of the work with glucocorticoid signalling was to design a flow-though culture system, in order to address the effects of the endogenous pulsatile release of glucocorticoids on the peripheral oscillator. This thesis also aims to characterise the inflammatory response in relation to its circadian characteristics; its relationship with corticosterone and the effect of inflammation on the central clock components. Finally, this thesis aims to investigate a potential input/output of the clock, a member of the family of C/EBP transcription factors, C/EBP alpha, and whether it is under endogenous circadian control and regulated by glucocorticoids.Work in this thesis has shown that glucocorticoids dynamically regulate the peripheral clock at all phases of the circadian cycle and that this regulation occurs mainly through the glucocorticoid receptor; yet the mineralocorticoid receptor does have a function in the immediate response to glucocorticoid administration. Furthermore, as a result of the initial temporal profile after corticosterone addition, on the clock protein PERIOD2, I have shown transient regulation of the clock through Caveolin-1 based signalling. There is also a significant circadian component to the inflammatory response, which appears, at least in part, to be REV-ERB alpha mediated, and the inflammatory response also has profound effects on circadian gene expression in the periphery. A functional flow-through system was designed and a working model produced, albeit with technical difficulties, to address glucocorticoid pulsing and circadian timing but much more work is needed for effects to be fully understood. C/EBP alpha appears not to be under circadian regulation nor under direct glucocorticoid regulation, at least in peripheral models used here.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Testing the automaticity of an attentional bias towards predictive cues in human associative learning

It is well established that associative learning, such as learning new cue-outcome pairings, produces changes in attention: cues that are good predictors of relevant outcomes become prioritized compared to those that are non-predictive or redundant. However, there is controversy about whether such a learnt attentional bias results from a controlled orientation of attention, or whether it can be involuntary in nature. In three experiments, participants learned that cues of certain colours were predictive or non-predictive, and we assessed attention to cues using a dot-probe task. On dot-probe trials, participants were instructed to control attention by orienting towards a cue of a certain shape (target), while trying to ignore another cue (distractor). Although the colours of the cues were critical for the associative learning task, they were irrelevant for the dot-probe task. The results show that, even though participants’ controlled attention was focused on the target shape (as evident in response times and accuracy data), response times to the probe were slower (Experiments 1 and 2) and error rates were higher (Experiment 2 and 3) when the distractor was of a (previously) predictive colour. These data suggest that attention was captured involuntarily by the predictive value of the distractor, despite this being counterproductive to the task goal

Contextual cuing of visual search does not guide attention automatically in the presence of top-down goals

Visual search is faster when it occurs within repeated displays, a phenomenon known as contextual cuing (CC). CC has been explained as the result of an automatic orientation of attention towards a target item driven by learned distractor-target associations. In three experiments we tested the specific hypothesis that CC is an automatic process of attentional guidance. Participants first searched for a T target in a standard CC procedure. Then, they experienced the same repeated configurations (with the T still present), but now searched for a Y target that was positioned either in a location on the same, or on a different side, from the old T target. Results suggested that there was no interference caused by the old T-target: target search was not affected by the relative positions of the T and Y. Instead, we found a general facilitation in search times for repeated configurations (Experiments 1 and 2). This main effect disappeared when the need for visual search was eliminated in Experiment 3 using a “feature search task”. These results suggest that repeated sets of distractors did not trigger an uncontrollable response towards the position of the T; instead, CC was produced by perceptual learning processes