Moving from Flood Resistance to Resilience: “Still doing it the hard way” in Western Canada

Flooding poses a significant threat to society, a threat that is likely to increase with changing climate. Over recent decades, the limitations of a historical reliance on command and control approaches to flood risk management (FRM) have been recognised and scholarly and practical effort has been made towards becoming flood resilient rather than flood resistant. Despite these efforts, the cost of flood events continues to rise. Progressing FRM in a way that increases resilience to flooding requires a better understanding of the challenges that exist when attempting to operationalise theoretical principles of resilience in practice. Empirical studies of FRM implementation, however, are not well represented in the literature. This thesis enhances understanding of the challenges involved in operationalising flood resilience concepts. To achieve this aim, scholarly literature self-identified by the authors as being related to flood risk management, governance and resilience was analysed, and the Prairie Provinces of Canada were utilised as a case study of FRM practice, priorities and preferences. It was found that rather than tackling flood resilience as a defined research topic, FRM and flood resilience research is carried out in specialised disciplinary silos and which does not relate well to the challenges of implementing FRM. Within the Canadian Prairie Provinces, FRM practitioners understand the need for a diverse policy approach to flood risk and for more coordinated and collaborative management; however, challenges from fragmented governance exist in the region including unclear roles and responsibilities, policy conflicts, and inefficiency. Broadly effective emergency planning and response suggests that these challenges are not insurmountable. The FRM priorities of stakeholders are similar across the study area suggesting that there is an underlying foundation for an inter-provincial regional strategy. The heterogeneous policy preferences between provinces and homogenous preferences within provinces, however, present challenges to implementing coordinated multi-level FRM strategies. Importantly, it was found that existing flood policy instruments may not be effective in influencing policy choices, and that innovation is required in this area to progress more resilient FRM. Overall, the findings of this thesis strongly support: the need for close linkages between the academic and practice communities; that research and policy programs should treat FRM as a distinct, holistic, issue, and; that organisations or agencies are needed to facilitate the coordination of stakeholders and resources required to research, manage and continually improve FRM

Utilising the International Criminal Law Doctrine of Command Responsibility to establish State Responsibility

This thesis takes forward the application of the concurrence between individual responsibility and state responsibility in international law identified by Nollkaemper who noted that the findings with respect to individual criminal responsibility in international criminal law may be utilised in subsequent cases concerning state responsibility. Currently the emphasis is primarily on the utilisation of international criminal law to establish the individual criminal responsibility of actors in systemic international crimes. Although international criminal law has developed various methodologies in order to address such crimes the focus on the individual perpetrator does not adequately reflect the true nature of system criminality. Despite the limited role of international responsibility with respect to such international crimes and the limited trial mechanisms available with respect to proceedings on an interstate basis the combination of the determination of state responsibility and individual criminal responsibility can serve to more adequately represent the true face of system criminality. In the Bosnia Genocide case the International Court of Justice relied almost exclusively on the evidence obtained in the course of criminal proceedings before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in its establishment of state responsibility. In that instance the provisions of the Genocide Convention with respect to state and individual responsibility were mirrored enabling the Court to readily apply the evidence which it received. This study is concerned with responsibility, both individual criminal responsibility and state responsibility. It seeks to align command responsibility and state responsibility, linked as both are by their common purpose of the protection of the international community addressing state responsibility with respect to serious breaches of peremptory norms as a result of system criminality. As a unique form of criminal responsibility founded in and interpreted through the principle of state responsibility the processes by which command responsibility is established reflecting those utilised to establish state responsibility. This relationship provides both a theoretical and practical basis for the establishment of state responsibility for international crimes concerning state armed forces

Vowel Nasalisation in Scottish Gaelic: The Search for Paradigm Uniformity Effects in Fine-Grained Phonetic Detail

According to the modular feedforward architecture of grammar, the phonetics is sensitive only to the output of the phonology and is thus blind to morphological or lexical conditioning (Pierrehumbert 2002). However, this prediction is challenged by claims that fine-grained phonetic detail may display paradigm uniformity (PU) effects (Steriade 2000). In the present study I search for phonetic PU effects in vowel nasalisation in Scottish Gaelic by investigating alternating items in which a nasalising environment is removed by a morpho(phono)logical process known as lenition, which replaces initial [m] with [v] under certain morphosyntactic conditions.In vowels following initial [m], a clear distinction is found between (i) categorical phonological nasalisation, which may be subject to lexically conditioned blocking and which displays overapplication in lenited forms, and (ii) gradient phonetic nasalisation, which applies in those items where categorical phonological nasalisation fails to occur and which disappears completely in lenited forms. The differing patterns displayed by these two types of nasalisation fit neatly with the predictions of a modular architecture, in which categorical phonology has direct access to morphological information but gradient phonetics does not, and I conclude that non-modular architectures such as Exemplar Theory are not the correct explanation for putative PU effects

Development of novel melt spinning based processing route for oxide dispersion strengthened steels

Melt spinning of an Fe-5Y and Fe-1Y-1Ti (wt%) alloys produced a relatively uniform spatial distribution of Y and Ti in solid solution and ribbons with consistent yield (> 60% by weight), fast processing time ( 100 g feedstock material) and repeatability. Heat treatment in the presence of Fe2O3 as an oxygen source (Rhines pack method) at 973 K validated the potential of forming < 20 nm Yrich oxides in the 1 Fe-5Y ribbons. Pulverized Fe-1Y-1Y ribbons were consolidated to bulk using the field assisted sintering technique (FAST) incorporating nano-sized Fe3O4 powder as the oxygen source. After FAST at 1273 K, 50 MPa and 30 min a comparatively high number density of sub-micron Y and/or Ti-rich oxides were developed. Further formation of fine-scale oxides took place during post-FAST annealing, resulting in an approximate 20% increase in hardness at temperatures below 573 K, but with a reduced hardening effect above 673 K due to a small fraction of persistent porosity and mechanically weak prior ribbon boundaries that were decorated with Ti-rich oxide

Polar ferromagnet induced by fluorine positioning in isomeric layered copper halide perovskites

We acknowledge the University of St Andrews and the China Scholarship Council (studentship to CH) and the University of St Andrews (studentship to AJB).We present the influence of positional isomerism on the crystal structure of fluorobenzylammonium copper (II) chloride perovskites A2CuCl4, by incorporating ortho, meta and para- fluorine substitution in the benzylamine structure. Two-dimensional (2D) polar ferromagnet (3-FbaH)2CuCl4 (3-FbaH+ = 3-fluorobenzylammonium) is successfully obtained, which crystallizes in a polar orthorhombic space group Pca21 at room temperature. In contrast, both (2-FbaH)2CuCl4 (2-FbaH+ = 2-fluorobenzylammonium) and (4-FbaH)2CuCl4 (4-FbaH+ = 4-fluorobenzylammonium) crystallize in centrosymmetric space groups P21/c and Pnma at room temperature, respectively, displaying significant differences in crystal structures. These differences indicate that the position of the fluorine atom is a driver for the polar behaviour in (3-FbaH)2CuCl4. Preliminary magnetic measurements confirm that these three perovskites possess dominant ferromagnetic interactions within the inorganic [CuCl4]∞ layers. Therefore, (3-FbaH)2CuCl4 is a polar ferromagnet, with potential as a type I multiferroic. This work is expected to promote further development of high performance 2D copper (II) halide perovskite multiferroic materials.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Development of bovine abomasal organoids as a novel in-vitro model to study host-parasite interactions in gastrointestinal nematode infections

Gastro-intestinal nematode (GIN) parasites are a major cause of production losses in grazing cattle, primarily through reduced growth rates in young animals. Control of these parasites relies heavily on anthelmintic drugs; however, with growing reports of resistance to currently available anthelmintics, alternative methods of control are required. A major hurdle in this work has been the lack of physiologically relevant in vitro infection models that has made studying precise interactions between the host and the GINs difficult. Such mechanistic insights into the infection process will be valuable for the development of novel targets for drugs, vaccines, or other interventions. Here we created bovine gastric epithelial organoids from abomasal gastric tissue and studied their application as in vitro models for understanding host invasion by GIN parasites. Transcriptomic analysis of gastric organoids across multiple passages and the corresponding abomasal tissue showed conserved expression of tissue-specific genes across samples, demonstrating that the organoids are representative of bovine gastric tissue from which they were derived. We also show that self-renewing and self-organising three-dimensional organoids can also be serially passaged, cryopreserved, and resuscitated. Using Ostertagia ostertagi, the most pathogenic gastric parasite in cattle in temperate regions, we show that cattle gastric organoids are biologically relevant models for studying GIN invasion in the bovine abomasum. Within 24 h of exposure, exsheathed larvae rapidly and repeatedly infiltrated the lumen of the organoids. Prior to invasion by the parasites, the abomasal organoids rapidly expanded, developing a ‘ballooning’ phenotype. Ballooning of the organoids could also be induced in response to exposure to parasite excretory/secretory products. In summary, we demonstrate the power of using abomasal organoids as a physiologically relevant in vitro model system to study interactions of O. ostertagi and other GIN with bovine gastrointestinal epithelium

Polarity and ferromagnetism in two-dimensional hybrid copper perovskites with chlorinated aromatic spacers

We would like to thank the China Scholarships Council for a studentship to CH. PSH and WZ thank the Welch Foundation (Grant E-1457) and the National Science Foundation (DMR-2002319) for support.Two-dimensional (2D) organic−inorganichybrid copper perovskites have drawn tremendous attention as promisingmultifunctional materials. Herein, by incorporating ortho, metaand para-chlorine substitution in the benzylamine structure, we firstlyreport theinfluence of positional isomerism on the crystal structures of chlorobenzylammonium copper (II) chloride perovskites A2CuCl4. 2Dpolar ferromagnets (3-ClbaH)2CuCl4 and (4-ClbaH)2CuCl4(ClbaH+ = chlorobenzylammonium) are successfully obtained. They bothadopt a polar monoclinic space group Cc at room temperature, displayingsignificant differences in crystal structures. In contrast, (2-ClbaH)2CuCl4adopts a centrosymmetric space group P21/c at roomtemperature. This associated structural evolution successfullyenhances the physical properties of the two polar compounds with high thermalstability, discernible second harmonic generation (SHG) signals, ferromagnetism,and narrowoptical band gaps.These findings demonstrate that theintroduction of chlorine atoms into the inter-layer organicspecies is a powerful tool to tune crystalsymmetries and physical properties, and this inspires further exploration of designinghigh-performance multifunctional copper-based materials.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

NKp46⁺CD3⁺ Cells: A Novel Nonconventional T Cell Subsetin Cattle Exhibiting Both NK Cell and T Cell Features

The NKp46 receptor demonstrates a high degree of lineage-specificity, being expressed almost exclusively in natural killer cells. Previous studies have demonstrated NKp46 expression by T-cells, but NKp46(+)CD3(+) cells are rare and almost universally associated with NKp46 acquisition by T-cells following stimulation. In this study we demonstrate the existence of a population of NKp46(+)CD3(+) cells resident in normal bovine PBMC which include cells of both the αβ TCR(+) and γδ TCR(+) lineages and is present at a frequency of 0.1-1.7%. NKp46(+)CD3(+) cells express transcripts for a broad repertoire of both natural killer (NKR) and T-cell receptors (TCR) and also the CD3ζ, DAP10 and FcεR1γ but not DAP12 adaptor proteins. In vitro functional analysis of NKp46(+)CD3(+) cells confirm that NKp46, CD16 and CD3 signalling pathways are all functionally competent and capable of mediating-re-direct cytolysis. However, only CD3 cross-ligation elicits IFN-γ release. NKp46(+)CD3(+) cells exhibit cytotoxic activity against autologous Theileria parva infected cells in vitro and during in vivo challenge with this parasite an expansion of NKp46(+)CD3(+) cells was observed in some animals, indicating the cells have the potential to act as an anti-pathogen effector population. The results presented herein identifies and describes a novel non-conventional NKp46(+)CD3(+) T-cell subset that is phenotypically and functionally distinct from conventional NK and T-cells. The ability to exploit both NKR and TCR suggests these cells may fill a functional niche at the interface of innate and adaptive immune responses

Climate emergency summit III:nature-based solutions report

An RSGS &amp; SNH report from the Climate Summit held in April 2020"The Climate Emergency is the result of burning fossils fuels and changes in the way we use the land that short-circuit global carbon and nitrogen cycles. To remain within safe climate limits (1.5-2°C), the remaining carbon budget for all people, and for all time, is now so small that stopping fossil fuel use, while essential, will not by itself address the problem. Changing the way we use the land and sea is now essential. Nature-based solutions are vital to creating a safe operating space for humanity. "Extract from the foreword by Dr Clive Mitchell, Outcome Manager: People and Nature, Scottish Natural Heritage. The report has 45 contributors for a variety of institutions