Investigating child deaths- achieving a balanced approach between sensitivity and the investigative mind set

The investigation of child death is a complex and emotionally demanding specialism for investigators. I intend, within this context statement, to try and answer both for myself, and others, how, and why this became my specialism and to follow the journey I made in becoming the national police lead, changing policy and practice

Emulation based uncertainty and sensitivity analysis for complex building performance simulation

Uncertainties in building performance simulation arise from the propagation of both epistemic (e.g. due to poorly or un- observed input parameters) and aleatory (e.g. due to occupants' stochastic interactions) uncertainties. A good framework for the quantification and decomposition of uncertainties in dynamic building performance simulation should: (i) simulate the principle deterministic processes influencing heat flows in buildings and the stochastic perturbations to them, (ii) quantify and decompose the total uncertainty into its respective sources, and the interactions between them, and (iii) achieve this in a computationally efficient manner. In this thesis, a new framework, named as Emulation based Uncertainty and Sensitivity Analysis (EmUSA) framework, is introduced which does just that. Two case studies, a monozone office building for the frameworks' proof of principle and the other multizone residential building for it's extension are being investigated to perform Uncertainty and Sensitivity Analysis for the Complex case of Building Performance Simulation (BPS) i.e. the Stochastic BPS (S-BPS). The detailed development of this new framework for emulating both the mean and the variance in the response of a stochastic building performance simulator (EnergyPlus co-simulated with a multi-agent stochastic simulator called No-MASS) is presented, for heating and cooling load predictions. The effectiveness of these emulators, applied to a monozone office building, has been demonstrated and evaluated to quantify and decompose prediction uncertainties. With a range of 25-50 kWh/m2, the epistemic uncertainty due to envelope parameters dominates over aleatory uncertainty relating to occupants' interactions, which ranges from 6-8 kWh/m2, for heating load predictions. However, the converse is observed for cooling loads, which vary by just 3 kWh/m2 for envelope parameters, compared with 8-22 kWh/m2 for their aleatory counterparts. This is due to the correspondingly larger stimuli provoking occupants' interactions. Sensitivity indices corroborate this result, with wall insulation thickness (0.97) and occupants' behaviours (0.83) having the highest impacts on heating and cooling load predictions respectively. This new emulator framework (including training and subsequent deployment), for the case of monozone office, achieves a factor of c.30 reduction in the total computational budget, whilst overwhelmingly maintaining predictions within a 95% confidence interval, and successfully decomposing prediction uncertainties. The second case of a multizone residential building demonstrates the applicability and readiness of this new framework for the uncertainty problems (pertaining to the building scale) of increasing scope and complexity. An increased scope is analysed by investigating the impact of uncertainties in detailed thermophysical (e.g. conductivity, density, solar transmittance, etc.) properties of opaque and transparent building envelope materials, along with the mostly inexact infiltration rate. For the increased complexity, a greater degree of stochastic occupants' interaction freedom (e.g. use of lights) along with the stochastic phenomena of occupants' behaviours (e.g. presence, windows and shades interactions) was enabled. To this end, the framework has shown a ready extensibility and applicability by incorporating a parameter screening step as a pre-step to the Uncertainty Quantification (UQ) workflow for the purpose of segregating the most influential input parameters from the non-influential ones. For the extended case, the framework is now overall (training and subsequent deployment) moderately computationally efficient as compared to the proof of principle case with the costs reduced to a low fraction (0.25) of its equivalent classical counterpart, with predictivity coefficient Q2 > 0.95. As the occupants' behaviours are relatively constrained during heating season, the effects of uncertainties in wall insulation conductivity (sensitivity index = 0.8428) and thickness (0.0771) dominate the heating load predictions than the stochasticity due to occupants' interactions (0.0010). The similar insignificance of stochastic phenomena (0.0130) as compared to brickwork solar absorptance (0.5032) and wall insulation conductivity (0.3714) has been observed during cooling season, due to the acceleration of short- and long-wave radiation phenomena which then dampens the occupants' interaction to restore their thermal comfort

A Health Impact Assessment (HIA) on the draft regulation ‘Advertising and Promotion of Unhealthy Foods and Non-Alcoholic Beverages to Children Regulation’ in Fiji

This report details the process and recommendations from a health impact assessment (HIA) on the draft regulation on marketing of food and non-alcoholic beverages in Fiji

A Health Impact Assessment (HIA) on the draft regulation ‘Advertising and Promotion of Unhealthy Foods and Non-Alcoholic Beverages to Children Regulation’ in Fiji

This report details the process and recommendations from a health impact assessment (HIA) on the draft regulation on marketing of food and non-alcoholic beverages in Fiji

Influence of feed bulk on physicochemical properties of digesta in pigs.

M.Sc.Agric. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg 2013.Physicochemical properties of fibre-based diets were used to determine the influence of feed bulk on physicochemical properties of digesta within each segment of the gastrointestinal tract and digesta in pigs. In the first experiment, three pigs (14 ± 1.2 kg body weight (BW) were allocated to each of six diets containing maize cob levels at 0, 80, 160, 240, 320 and 400 g/kg DM inclusion levels for four weeks. All pigs were fed ad libitum. They were slaughtered, eviscerated and weights of the gut compartments were recorded, then contents of digesta from each segment were sampled for the determination of water concentration, water holding capacity (WHC) and swelling capacity (SWC). The WHC of digesta in the stomach, ileum and caecum decreased (P < 0.05) with maize cob inclusion level. The SWC in the stomach decreased with the inclusion level of maize cob meal. The SWC of caecal digesta increased with maize cob inclusion (P < 0.05). Physicochemical properties of digesta increased (P < 0.05) from the stomach to ileum then decreased as the digesta moved through the hindgut. In the second experiment, four fibres namely maize cob, lucerne hay, sunflower husk and citrus pulp were used. These fibres were used in formulating diets for finishing pigs. Twenty-one complete diets were formulated by dilution of a conventional feed with increment levels of each fibre source at 0, 80, 160, 240, 320 and 400 g/kg. Each of the diets was offered ad libitum to four of 84 pigs weighing 80.8 ± 8.15 kg body weight, in individual pens, for 30 days. Stomach weights increased linearly with an increase in neutral detergent fibre (NDF) but increased with quadratic functions with an increase in SWC of the diet (P <0.05). An increase in WHC of the fibrous diets increased linearly the WHC of the proximal colon (P <0.01) at a faster rate compared to the WHC of the distal colon (P <0.001). As the SWC of the diets increased, linear increases in SWC of the digesta in the stomach (P <0.01) and caecum (P 0.05). There was a linear decrease (P < 0.01) in SFI of finishing pigs as the SWC of the digesta. It can be concluded that the swelling capacity of the diets and stomach digesta in stomach are accurate predictors of scaled feed intake. Swelling capacity had great influence in the stomach weights whilst other bulking properties, such as WHC and neutral detergent fibre, affected the weight and digesta properties in the caecum, proximal and distal colon.More keywords can be found on page iii of the dissertation

Negotiating the sacred space: A comparative study of the impact of the dynamics of culture and Christian theology on women in the South Sea Evangelical Church, and in the Anglican Church of Melanesia, Small Malaita, Solomon Islands

The discourses on women’s empowerment, leadership and development in the contemporary Pacific, and Melanesia suggest that local women in these regions are discriminated against and denied gender equality with men. The experience of disempowerment, and the unequal relationship between men and women is evident in all levels of societies, including local communities, government agencies, civil society and even church organisations. Contemporaneously, women continue to seek, advance and aspire to forms of leadership empowerment, and embrace their own visions of development for themselves and their communities in specific areas, such as the main Christian churches and the fellowships, unions, groups and committees that constitute them. This thesis is a comparative study of the dynamics of gender relations and women’s empowerment, and development in the South Sea Evangelical Church (SSEC), and the Anglican Church of Melanesia (ACOM), in the Solomon Islands with particular attention to Small Malaita. The study draws on local church women’s experience, particularly the SSEC Women’s Fellowship, and the ACOM Mothers’ Union. The study suggests that major differences exist between the two churches, regarding doctrines and faith traditions, missionary philosophies, the treatment of the Bible, and approaches to local culture. Nevertheless, despite the differences, local women in both churches have continued to experience unequal treatment in the relationship between men and women in formal leadership in the two churches. Men assume formal and public leadership, while women take on a leadership role in fellowship groups, youth and children’s ministry and at the same time oversee the general care of local church buildings. This present scenario is historically constituted and shaped by missionaries’ philosophies, and reinforced by local cultural beliefs. However, I argue that while these experiences have become widespread, the local church women are not passive but actively deal with local situations in an appropriate manner relevant to their respective socio-cultural contexts. This has provided a framework for personal and collective development, self-fulfilment and varying forms of leadership in specific gendered domains

Strategies for mitigation of pollution and environmental management in metallurgical industries

The paper deals with different strategies that can be adopted for mitigation of pollution from metallurgical industries. It discusses various management aspects in connection with pollution mitigation especially the policy options for environment management. The technology options available have been discussed in details

Urban energy simulation based on 3d city models: a service-oriented approach

Recent advancements in technology has led to the development of sophisticated software tools revitalizing growth in different domains. Taking advantage of this trend, urban energy domain have developed several compute intensive physical and data driven models. These models are used in various distinct simulation softwares to simulate the whole life-cycle of energy flow in cities from supply, distribution, conversion, storage and consumption. Since some simulation software target a specific energy system, it is necessary to integrate them to predict present and future urban energy needs. However, a key drawback is that, these tools are not compatible with each other as they use custom or propriety formats. Furthermore, they are designed as desktop applications and cannot be easily integrated with third-party tools (open source or commercial). Thereby, missing out on potential model functionalities which are required for sustainable urban energy management. In this paper, we propose a solution based on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). Our approach relies on open interfaces to offer flexible integration of modelling and computational functionality as loosely coupled distributed services