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The role of NAC transcription factors in the genetic regulation of senescence timing and grain protein content in wheat
Get PDFWheat is the fourth most produced crop globally, and the first in the UK. High wheat grain protein content is important for both baking quality and nutritional value. A genetic trade-off between protein content and yield makes it a challenge to improve protein content without decreasing yield. In wheat, nitrogen remobilized from senescing leaves to developing grain contributes to grain protein content, and earlier leaf senescence correlates with increased protein and decreased yield. Transcription factors regulate the timing of leaf senescence in plants.
The aim of this thesis was to characterize the role of NAC transcription factors in regulating senescence timing in wheat. To achieve this, the progress of leaf and peduncle senescence was measured in wheat with overexpression or loss-of-function mutations of candidate NAC transcription factors. Results showed that NAC5-1 and NAM-2 promote earlier senescence, while NAP-1 does not. NAC5-1 and NAM-2 promote decreased grain length and kernel weight respectively, but do not affect grain protein content. This provides some support to the model that transcriptional regulation of senescence timing mediates the trade-off between wheat protein content and yield. Showing that NAC5-1 and NAM-2 regulate senescence timing contributes to deciphering the transcription factor network of senescence in wheat. To explore application of transcription factors regulating senescence to wheat breeding, this thesis demonstrated that known senescence regulator NAM-1 increases grain protein content in a UK field context. Allelic variants in candidate NAC transcription factors were identified and tracked in wheat breeding populations. Variation in senescence-regulating transcription factors such as NAC5-1 and NAM-2 could be targeted in wheat breeding to optimise the balance between wheat grain protein content and yield
Trade challenges of LDC graduation: evidence from Bangladesh's garment and pharmaceutical industries
Get PDFThis thesis examines the impact of graduation on least-developed countries (LDCs) exports through two case studies on the clothing and pharmaceutical industries of Bangladesh.
The special and differential treatment (SDT) provisions, as gradually developed in the world trade system, aim to support developing countries, especially LDCs, in their efforts to use trade as a tool for development. But there are concerns regarding the effectiveness of SDT measures in promoting trade and development in LDCs, as well as the potential disruptions resulting from the withdrawal of those benefits upon graduation.
The research has used a qualitative methodology that combines the more traditional analysis of legal materials and secondary sources with in-depth interviews to complement the findings. The case study approach is utilised to understand the issues comprehensively and investigate the effectiveness of SDT provisions and the impact of their withdrawal.
Findings show that the selected Bangladeshi industries obtained significant advantages from LDC-specific SDT measures. Accordingly, withdrawing such benefits risks substantially impacting the performance of the sectors.
Since a record number of LDCs are currently in the graduation phases, these findings may help graduating LDCs, their trade partners and the WTO to create a well-designed graduation support system to avoid disruptions in development and ensure sustainable graduation
Evaluating the role of the dermal pathway in driving human exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (pfas)
Get PDFPer- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have been identified in multiple sources that come in contact with the skin, i.e., personal care products, fabrics and dust. Despite this, knowledge of dermal uptake as a source of human exposure to PFAS is lacking. The aim of this thesis was to utilize in vitro techniques to study the dermal uptake of PFAS from dust. Firstly, physiologically based extraction tests were applied to assess the dermal bioaccessibility of 17 PFAS from indoor dust to synthetic sweat sebum mixtures (SSSM). PFAS bioaccessibility in a 1:1 sweat:sebum mixture ranged from 54-92% for perfluorocarboxylic acids (PFCAs) and 61-77% for perfluorosulfonic acids (PFSAs). The presence of cosmetics significantly impacted the dermal bioaccessibility of target PFAS. Subsequently, in vitro 3D-human skin equivalent (3D-HSE) models were used to evaluate the dermal bioavailability of 17 PFAS after exposure to 500 ng/cm2 PFAS dissolved in methanol over 24-36 hours. PFPeA and PFBS displayed the highest absorbed fraction values, 58.9% and 48.7% respectively. Significant negative correlations were seen for the absorbed fraction and carbon chain length and logKOW. Steady-state flux (JSS) and permeation coefficients (Papp) were determined for target compounds with significant permeation after 36 h exposure. Combining the data produced in the bioaccessibility and bioavailability studies, the human dermal exposure from contact with dust was estimated. While dust is only one of multiple possible sources of dermal contact to PFAS, this pathway alone contributed meaningfully to the total body burden. Total PFAS exposure via dermal uptake from dust during summer ranged from 25-767 pg/kg bw/week and 91-2761 pg/kg bw/week for adults and toddlers respectively. Finally, phase I in vitro metabolism of two novel prototype PFAS in human and rat was investigated. Research on possible PFAS alternatives is urgently required as a result of proposed global restrictions and regulations on current-use PFAS. Following incubation with rat liver S9 (RL-S9) and human liver S9 (HL-S9) fractions, two and one main metabolites were detected respectively. Complete mineralization during the in vitro hepatic metabolism of these novel PFAS by HL-S9 and RL-S9 fractions was not observed
The direct and indirect effects of attenuated salmonella typhimurium on intestinal tumour epithelium
Get PDFAttenuated Salmonella enterica serovar typhimurium (STm) home to and colonise tumours, where it can induce tumour regression. In this thesis I aimed to identify how STm invade tumour cells and to what extent intracellular invasion is necessary for anti-tumour response. Bulk and single-cell RNA-sequencing were utilised to reveal differences between invasive versus extracellular-restricted Salmonella. ApcMin/+ mice were treated with Salmonella that are invasion-sufficient or extracellular-restricted, then innate immune infiltrate and polyp burden were assessed. I used in vitro models to show that STm preferentially invades proliferating cells in patient and murine tumour organoids. Invasion of tumour cells was dependent on Salmonella binding host cell cholesterol via SipB expression. Previous studies have shown that cell-surface cholesterol is maximal during mitosis, thus I show mechanistic insight into why proliferating cells are preferentially targeted. STmΔaroA induce similar transcriptional changes in both mouse and human tumour organoids in vitro when restricted to the extracellular space or permitted to invade. I generated and validated a strain of STm which cannot invade intracellularly, STmΔaroAΔsipB, but I show with oral gavage of ApcMin/+ mice
that this mutant can colonise the polyp environment in vivo. This extracellular survival resulted in similar innate cell recruitment but led to superior clearance of polyps, which warrants further investigation. In summary, STm specifically infects proliferating tumour cells via binding of cell surface cholesterol, which has implications for utilisation of bacteria as intracellular drug delivery systems. Intracellular invasion appears to be dispensable for the therapeutic effect, as we see reduction of polyps with STmΔaroAΔsipB; this double mutant may then represent a superior and safer bacterial cancer therapy agent
A study on the count/noncount distinction of abstract nouns in English from a pedagogical perspective
Get PDFThe count/noncount distinction of nouns is an essential part of EFL/ESL teaching. L2 learners need to know when to use an indefinite article (a/an), a zero determiner singular form (ø) or a plural form. The count/noncount distinction of abstract nouns is more difficult than that of concrete nouns because abstract nouns provide no perceptual information and many abstract nouns can be used as both count and noncount. L2 learners face two questions: when to use a/an with abstract noncount nouns (e.g. knowledge) and when to use abstract nouns as count or noncount (e.g. Everyone stood in stunned silence/ a stunned silence/ stunned silences). The following explanations are often found. 1) Based on the hypothesis that grammar reflects conceptualization, some cognitive linguists claim that every noun can be used as either count or noncount depending on how a referent is interpreted. 2) Some abstract noncount nouns admit a/an when they are pre-modified by an adjective and/or post-modified by a phrase or a clause. 3) A/an can be used with abstract noncount nouns when the individual, particular nature of a referent is emphasized. The validity of these three propositions is examined in this PhD thesis.
Regarding the first proposition, the count/noncount distinction is not a direct reflection of the conceptual distinction. The distinction is flexible only with nouns that have both a count and noncount use. Grammatical convention takes precedence with nouns that have only a count or noncount use. The second proposition is examined with the data collected from the Bank of English and other corpora such as COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English) and BNC (British National Corpus). Thirty-six abstract nouns (e.g. anger, warmth) are collected from the example sentences presented by twelve reference grammars and eight English learner’s dictionaries as the evidence to support their proposition that abstract noncount nouns admit a/an when they are modified. Three case studies are conducted to examine how frequently the thirty-six nouns occur with a/an or ø when they are modified by three types of modifiers (adjectives, prepositional phrases and relative clauses). It is found that the presence of a modifier per se is not correlated with a high frequency of a/an. A high frequency of a/an is largely limited to particular combinations of nouns and adjectives, e.g. measurement adjectives and state nouns (a long silence), or limited to nouns denoting liking and disliking in the [to have (to take) + (Adj) Noun + PP] construction (e.g. Victoria had a well-known dislike for small children).
The third proposition is supported by the corpus analysis. All the nouns examined in this study occur with modifiers more frequently than without modifiers when the nouns combine with a/an, and most of them occur with modifiers highly frequently. It is more likely that a/an requires a modifier rather than the other way around. The semantic property of a/an is individuation, and an abstract noncount noun calls for modification to acquire an individuated interpretation of a referent.
Based on the hypothesis that there is some semantic connection between the meaning of a noun and the type of count reading available for the noun, the grammatical behavior of abstract nouns in four semantic groups (emotion, mental activity, quality, state) is examined to explore the circumstances under which abstract nouns that have both a count and noncount use acquire count readings. Many mental activity nouns (e.g. awareness), emotion nouns (e.g. fear) and state nouns (e.g. silence) acquire a count reading when they refer to a viewpoint, a cause and an event respectively. Quality nouns acquire various count readings such as an act (e.g. cruelty), a life form (e.g. intelligence), etc.
Little research has been done on the count/noncount distinction of abstract nouns, and comprehensive guidelines have yet to be developed to help L2 learners to predict a type of count reading an abstract noun may acquire. For the meantime, L2 learners are advised to consult learner’s dictionaries to find if a noun (or a sense of a noun) is count or noncount. However, dictionaries often fail to provide sufficient information about whether a noun can occur with a/an, ø or in the plural form. Based on the findings in this study, some revisions are proposed to make dictionaries more helpful for L2 learners. Also some suggestions are made to improve the way in which the count/noncount distinction of abstract nouns is taught
Shifting scenes of intangible cultural heritage in the United Arab Emirates: working towards building a new heritage in the Arabian Gulf region
Get PDFIntangible cultural heritage as a concept, a policy, and a practice has increasingly become a matter of value and recognition for individuals, governments, and various international communities. Such growing significance has facilitated new safeguarding approaches to manage the impacts of modernisation on traditional practices of heritage, raising questions about nationalism and the critical role of state power in the process of building national identity. The role of nationalism is further complicated by the need to negotiate a multitude of local traditions and cultural expressions in a cosmopolitan nation-state. Thus, this thesis aims to examine the shifting role of intangible heritage from a community-based practice into a state-sanctioned process of selection in the United Arab Emirates through three perspectives: local, national, and international. Data was collected using qualitative methods (mainly observations and interviews) that aimed to explore the new and traditional forms of safeguarding intangible heritage among the top-down and bottom-up levels. The thesis demonstrates the need to understand intangible heritage as a social activity at these two levels in order to identify the challenges present in a diverse and modernised nation-state that is trying to mediate its traditions. Further, this thesis argues that some traditional practices should be understood and approached beyond UNESCO’s universal definitions. This thesis contributes to knowledge concerning the reconciliation of the role of intangible heritage in a modernised nation-state while recognising both its potential and its limitations. The exclusion of the local heritage practitioners is challenged in this thesis against state-driven approaches aimed at selecting certain heritage elements or narratives as representatives of a broader national identity of nation-states
Advancing our understanding of legal consciousness: unpacking the lived experiences of abortion seekers
Get PDFThis thesis focuses on the legal consciousness of abortion seekers, analysing how they perceive and define law and the resulting impact on their lived experiences. The research specifically examines the alignment between the existing understanding of what influences legal consciousness and the experiences of abortion seekers, exploring potential implications for enhancing abortion-related legal frameworks. As expected from existing literature, hegemony, identity, and mobilisation emerge as interconnected factors shaping the legal consciousness of abortion seekers. However, analysis of an original collection of social media narratives demonstrates that this existing understanding of legal consciousness does not fully capture the complexity of abortion seekers’ interactions with or lived experience of the law. The research highlights that the legal consciousness development for abortion seekers is shaped by social, cultural, religious, and gender norms, showcasing its pluralistic nature; however, the geopolitical context of abortion, other intersecting laws, and stigma further impact legal consciousness.
Moreover, social media proves to be a dynamic platform for rapid information exchange, support, and mobilisation facilitating the evolution of legal consciousness. Abortion seekers experience the law as a continuous flow, engaging in mutual learning. This transcends geographical confines, allowing adaptation to an ever-changing legal landscape. Social media further enables the development of a collective legal consciousness with broader implications for health and well-being and is a powerful tool for societal transformation. As a result, the thesis suggests a more responsive and personalised legal approach to abortion regulation.
Individuals articulate a preference and need for an ideal law that acknowledges individual circumstances and better aligns with personal values and notions of right or wrong. They call for the legal recognition of reproductive rights and access to quality healthcare, with the acknowledgement of abortion as an essential service. The expressed need for human-centred legal design that demonstrates a more holistic understanding of social context to improve abortion-related legal frameworks and seekers' well-being challenges the assumption that mere legal knowledge is sufficient to assert one's rights. These findings collectively contribute to a nuanced understanding of the legal consciousness of abortion seekers, providing valuable insights for policy development and societal transformation
The cheapest police: the limits of recognition and intellectual freedom in Canadian libraries
Get PDFCurrent debates within librarianship around intellectual freedom echo debates in broader society around free speech, cancel culture, and "culture war". This thesis argues that, far from being a transcendental value or purely intellectual concept, intellectual freedom is deeply implicated in political struggles over class, race, gender, and sexuality. Taking two recent controversies over the exclusion of trans and Indigenous people from Canadian libraries, this thesis links library policy and practice with longstanding tendencies within Canadian politics itself, in particular the hegemonic use of a form of communitarianism known as the politics of recognition. Once a pragmatic strategy to manage Canadian cultural and political demands of marginalized groups, in the 1990s the politics of recognition became a sophisticated political theory, one which informs Canadian politics (including the politics of libraries) to the present day. Applying a conjunctural analysis of the media, moral panics, and hegemony drawn from the work of Stuart Hall, this thesis offers a critique of Canadian politics and libraries as political institutions that focuses on three main areas: liberal individualism, bourgeois hegemony, and the politics of recognition which liberalism developed to neutralize the threat of radical difference. These interlocking strands paint a picture of Canadian libraries not as politically neutral organizations fostering individual freedom and unconstrained intellectual development, but as playing a specific role in the construction and maintenance of liberal hegemony which demonizes particular Others - like trans and Indigenous peoples - as part of a broader political strategy: the maintenance and survival of the liberal Canadian state itself. The concept of intellectual freedom in librarianship, in particular, can then more clearly be seen as a pragmatic tool in the service of the Canadian state's hegemonic strategy, rather than as a pure, timeless, apolitical concept
Male mask and monologue: voices from the silent minority within lymphoedema
Get PDFBackground
Men’s perceptions of non-cancer-related lymphoedema are the basis of this thesis. Lymphoedema is a long-term physical condition which has multiple causes that lead to swelling in any part of the body. Lymphoedema can affect a person beyond the physical effects of swelling, to encompass the psychological and relational aspects within their lives. Men as a proportion of those affected by lymphoedema are a minority compared to women. A systematic meta-aggregation review was conducted which revealed that men affected by non-cancer-related lymphoedema are also underrepresented in the academic literature. The review indicated that theories of masculinity had not yet been used to explore men’s experiences of lymphoedema, and nor had narrative inquiry has been utilised. The limited empirical literature and methodological approaches used in men with non-cancer related lymphoedema. Provided a unique opportunity to explore men’s perceptions as outlined in the proposed research questions.
Research Questions
The existing literature was used in the formation of the main research question that was to be answered through the four sub-questions outlined below.
Main research question: What are the perceptions of men diagnosed with non-cancer-related lymphedema?
Sub-research questions:
1. How do men perceive engagement within their self-management of their non-cancer-related lymphoedema?
2. How do men perceive their non-cancer-related lymphoedema within their daily lives?
3. What are men’s perceptions of support within their non-cancer-related lymphoedema?
4. What are men’s perceptions of masculinity within their non-cancer-related lymphoedema?
Methods
Interpretivist qualitative methodology was applied throughout the thesis that supported the research questions outlined. As outlined in the background of the thesis was the limited exploration of the perceptions of men with non-cancer related lymphoedema and the use of narrative inquiry. The thesis used multiple methods and analytical approaches aligned to narrative inquiry across the three individual studies, such as online semi-structured interviews and the application of narrative linguistic analysis. The multiple approaches and reflexivity used across the three studies provided methodological triangulation that increased the trustworthiness and rigour of the work.
Findings
The findings of the thesis were formed across the four individual studies which included the systematic meta-aggregation review, narrative survey, solicited diaries and online semi-structured interviews. The systematic review identified four synthesised findings 1) the new norm, 2) the journey into the unknown, 3) access and 4) personhood. These findings were noted as being present in varying degrees within the narrative survey, solicited diaries and online semi-structured interviews. What was added to these findings was the way men may or may not align to varying aspects of hegemonic masculinity in their gender expression within traits and behaviours, due to multiple masculinities and the disruption caused to men’s masculinity due to lymphoedema. These aspects were noted across all themes and parts within the studies, for example, narrative survey theme psychological, diary theme vulnerability and semi-structured interview part disruption. In addition, the findings suggest that men use traits and behaviours as masculine capital within the negotiations surrounding their hegemonic masculinity, due to their disrupted masculinity and vulnerability. This was noted in the narrative survey through the theme of physical control, but also within the diary theme of solace in routine and the online interview part journey. Collectively the findings answered the overarching question of the perceptions of men with non-cancer-related lymphoedema.
Implications
Following the findings across the whole thesis has implications across policy, practice, research, and theory. Future policies were considered as needing to involve men within their production and to build upon previous projects that had focused on men. Whilst recognising that men as a group have differences and nuances. These nuances need to be present within practice through gender-based interventions, such as support or educational programmes that are co-produced, or gender transformative by challenging perceived unhealthy behaviours. The effectiveness of these interventions or approaches are possible future research implications that have relevance within the current national conversations surrounding men’s health. The thesis has explored and applied the two theoretical concepts, 1) hegemonic masculinity and 2) HIMM framework. What was noted was the need in the findings to expand them to include other theories, such as biographical disruption, to explain what was seen as disrupted masculinity, and typologies, such as renegotiating hegemonic masculinity, to interpret how men adapt their masculinities. The implications indicate the wide-ranging outcomes from the thesis that have relevance within both the area of lymphoedema and beyond
Daily martyrdom and the suffering feminine body: discourses of female asceticism in late antique and early medieval Christianity
Get PDFEarly Christian narrative demonstrates the inextricability of body and text. Christian theology and doctrine of the early church was written on and through bodies – the body of Christ, of Mary, of the tortured, mutilated bodies of the martyrs, on the emaciated bodies of ascetics and the continent bodies of virgins. Within these narratives, women’s bodies feature heavily.
Body narratives are rife throughout the literature of the early church, and these linguistic representations of bodies; their actions, perceptions, emotions, and thoughts are also embedded in authorial corporal understanding, reflecting their writers’ world view and cultural and theological understanding. What is selected by the author, how stories are retold, and how this is communicated to the reader are mediated through the body and through the author’s understanding of the body that is depicted. Somatic representations in ancient literature therefore provide an important avenue through which to explore not only early Christian understanding of corporeality, gender and sexuality, but also social, cultural and theological meanings that are inscribed on the bodies to whom we have access.
This thesis seeks to explore the narrative articulation of the female body, focusing on the textual commemoration of corporeal suffering of female ascetics in late antique Christian hagiography. It considers the rhetorical, theological, didactic and social uses of the suffering female body, by reconsidering these sources as corporeal performances interwoven within other existing discourses and interrogates them through the lens of gender and sexuality, illness and disability, and the history of emotions. In so doing, this thesis will shed new light not only on the accounts of the hagiographic Lives examined in this study, but also male and female corporeality, early Christian understandings of gender and sexuality, and eschatological thought
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