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The Hydra: social purity in Britain, 1870-1885
No full textSocial purity is the subject of scholarly disagreement. In addition to the interpretive
difficulties caused by the number of groups that promoted social purity, engagement
has been complicated by the entanglement of historical analysis with fraught debates
about sexuality and feminism. This thesis offers a new perspective by reversing a
common pattern in the scholarship. Instead of viewing social purity from the 1880s,
this thesis begins in 1870 with the first full year of the campaign to repeal the
Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864, 1866, and 1869. These laws, which provided for
the compulsory medical inspection and treatment of women believed to be
prostitutes, have received considerable attention. Previous historical analysis has
focused on the development of the campaign to repeal the Acts, the demographics
of its members, the Parliamentary progress of repeal, and the roles of gender and
libertarianism in the debate. This thesis views the campaign for repeal through a
different lens: as part of a surge in Christian sexual reform activity. From 1870,
Christian leaders in the repeal campaign used the term “social purity” to describe the
type of chaste community threatened by the Acts. By following the rising popularity of
the term “social purity” alongside the development of other reforming projects, this
thesis suggests that social purity is best understood as an organizing ideology
shared by reformers working across campaigns. Together, the chapters demonstrate
the integration of important reforming projects during this period and challenge
historical narratives that underestimate the importance of Christian sexual reformers
to the repeal campaign.
This thesis considers five important campaigns that operated from 1870 to
1885: agitation for the repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts; promotion of social
purity by Christian propagandists; efforts to “rescue” women who sold sex; advocacy
of a higher age of sexual consent; and opposition to “white slavery,” or coerced
prostitution. It gives particular attention to the deep connections between these
campaigns; the ways that they fomented and supported each other. The first chapter
focuses on ideology, encapsulated and promulgated by Christian repealers in the
earliest years of their campaign, 1870–1871. From this foundation, the next chapters
explore the ways that repealers adopted various tactics to promote widespread
social renewal. The second chapter analyzes the way repealers used the term
“social purity,” and the reasons they launched the first independent social purity
group in 1873. The third chapter builds on the second, exploring sermons and
publications published between 1874 and 1884 that presented social purity to
Christian audiences. After mapping the meaning of social purity, and highlighting the
way that it reinforced repeal narratives, the next chapters detail repealers’
involvement in related campaigns. Chapters four and five demonstrate the strong,
and previously underestimated, links between the repeal campaign and efforts to
rescue women who sold sex and to oppose sex trafficking. Finally, chapters six and
seven investigate characteristics that historians have used to separate reformers and
their campaigns. These chapters argue that openness to coercive state suppression
of the sex trade and the publication of incendiary unverified information were
common enough among reformers working between 1870 and 1885 that they cannot
serve as distinguishing characteristics for a social purity movement. In different
ways, each chapter contributes to an interpretation of sexual reform as practically
integrated and driven by shared moral assumptions
Landscape dynamics in the Miombo woodlands of Southeast Angola
No full textLand cover changes, driven largely by anthropogenic activity, profoundly influence socio-ecological landscape dynamics. These alterations can reshape the structure and function of ecosystems, affecting their capacity to support biodiversity, regulate climate, and provide essential services. Human-induced modifications to the Earth's land surface not only modify ecological processes but also have wide-ranging consequences for human well-being, highlighting the interconnected nature of environmental and societal systems.
The highlands of southeast Angola host a vast expanse of sparsely populated miombo woodland that is globally significant as a carbon store and for biodiversity conservation. These woodlands also hold immense hydrological importance for southern Africa and serve as a vital resource for local livelihoods in Angola, providing essential provisioning ecosystem services. However, anthropogenic pressures may be impacting the functioning of the ecosystems in this region. The miombo woodlands and grasslands here offer a critical case study for understanding the interplay between natural processes and anthropogenic influences on tropical grassland, savanna, and woodland ecosystems due to the heterogeneity in vegetation types and land use intensities. This thesis investigates land cover dynamics, fire regimes and impacts within wooded ecosystems, and changes in above-ground biomass to inform sustainable management and biodiversity conservation in the southeast of Angola, so that the miombo woodlands in this region can continue to provide a wide range of ecosystem services.
Analysis of land cover dynamics over space and time can identify where conversion or modification of land cover is occurring and provide insights into possible associations with known causes and drivers of change. In chapter 3, we developed a 30-year land cover time series using data from the Landsat archive. We found that total woodland extent remained roughly stable despite fluctuations between dense and open woodland structures. Furthermore, we observed a peak in canopy opening towards the end of the Angolan civil war which we associate with the resettlement of displaced people. Over 30 years, 61% ± 2% of canopy opening was offset by subsequent canopy closure, which peaked a decade after the war ended, indicating the resilience of miombo systems. A resource-use frontier in the northwest highlights urban-driven pressures on woodland resources, while remote core areas of woodland remained relatively stable. These findings can support conservation managers and policymakers in spatially locating potential area-based forms of conservation in support of the 30 x 30 target of the Global Biodiversity Framework and support the sustainable management of the woodlands in the face of woody resource use frontiers driven by urban demand.
Fire, though a pivotal component in the functioning of African mesic savannas, is often maligned as destructive in tropical wooded ecosystems and is attributed as a cause of woody vegetation losses. Despite this, some authors argue that fire does not cause the loss of woody vegetation and is instead a consequence of vegetation structure. In chapter 4, using burned area data from MODIS, the land cover time series from chapter 3 and methods for causal inference, we found that fire is both a cause of canopy opening and a consequence of prior canopy opening, creating a feedback loop where fire can amplify itself within the woodlands, with significant implications for carbon dynamics, biodiversity, and local livelihoods. Late dry-season fires, in particular, exacerbate canopy loss, underscoring the need for sustainable land use practices to mitigate runaway land cover change. These findings contribute to the ongoing debate surrounding the impact of fire in tropical savannas, but will also help to inform fire policy and management in southeast Angola to reduce the impact of self-amplifying fires that can cause unintended land cover changes.
Woody encroachment threatens biodiversity and ecosystem function across tropical savannas, including Africa’s largest wooded savanna, the miombo woodlands, where grasslands are rapidly declining. While woody encroachment and densification increase carbon sequestration, a priority under the Paris Agreement, they come at the expense of open-ecosystem biodiversity and services. In chapter 5, using ALOS ScanSAR radar data and level 4 biomass estimates from GEDI, we estimated above-ground biomass from 2018 – 2023 and identified woody encroachment onto grasslands and densification within woodlands in southeast Angola. We found that both processes are widespread and progressing rapidly, with woody encroachment increasing at 2% annually as a proportion of grassland and densification occurring at 3% annually as a proportion of woodland. Densification contributed 21 times more biomass gains overall and twice the per-hectare biomass increase compared to woody encroachment. Both processes are linked to remoteness from anthropogenic land use, climate change, and fire frequency, with woody encroachment more common at lower fire frequencies and where late dry-season fires occur. We argue that prioritizing the conservation of grasslands over carbon gains is essential to preserving biodiversity, while carbon-focused management objectives should target the woodlands for greater efficiency. Collaborating with local communities to align conservation, livelihoods, and fire management may help limit encroachment and protect the region’s grasslands
Making sense of informal teacher community of practice with social and epistemic network analysis
Get PDFCommunities of Practice (CoPs) have gained currency in teacher research and professional learning as the emergent social learning among professionals within a shared domain. Their critical role has been claimed in enhancing professional development and improving teaching practices and student outcomes, particularly in research aimed at designing interventions and professional development projects. However, there is still a great deal of conceptual confusion about what exactly constitutes a ‘community’ in the CoP framework and operational definitions, and the role of agency in emergent informal learning is less well understood.
This thesis explores the dynamics of informal online Communities of Practice (CoPs) among teachers, with a particular focus on 1) how these communities are structured through interaction and 2) how they facilitate content sharing that influences professional learning. By integrating the conceptual frameworks of CoP and relational agency, this research addresses significant gaps in the current understanding of how teacher communities operate and select what matters to them, especially in informal, self-organised settings.
The study begins with a theoretical overview of the most common conceptualisations of communities, followed by a systematic review of literature that identifies gaps in the operationalisation of teacher communities in empirical studies, highlighting the lack of explicit operational definitions and the underemphasis of agency in shared learning. Subsequent chapters employ a novel method that combines Social Network Analysis (SNA) and Epistemic Network Analysis (ENA) to examine simultaneously the structural and content dimensions of interactions within an informal online teacher CoP. This dual analytical approach reveals the critical role of social ties, shared domains, and emotional relatedness in sustaining engagement and facilitating meaningful exchanges.
Findings indicate that while conceptual CoPs focus on shared practices and learning, the informal nature of online teacher CoPs often cultivates a broader range of interactions that transcend typical educational discussions, incorporating significant contributions to finding solutions in professional practice and emotional support. The thesis illustrates how relational agency contributes to the dynamics of these communities, enabling members to collectively navigate and negotiate the challenges of professional practice.
Methodologically, it demonstrates the utility of SNA and ENA in dissecting the complex interplay between structure and content within CoPs. Practically, the insights offer ideas for developing professional communities in educational settings. Furthermore, this research provides key insights into how such communities sustain and evolve. It highlights the interplay between core and peripheral members and underscores the importance of relational agency and emotional relatedness in creating a supportive, collaborative environment crucial for continuous professional development. This work enhances our understanding of digital platforms as communities of practice for professional learning that go beyond mere information exchange
Motivation in kinship care: carer perspectives of the dynamics of child and carer factor
No full textBACKGROUND:
Kinship care is a complex phenomenon characterised by the dynamic interplay of intergenerational, child and carer factors. Similarities have been highlighted between kinship care and other forms of alternative care, and whilst children in kinship care generally fare better than other care-experienced children, outcomes for many are still poor. Exposure to adversity and early attachment disruptions contribute to poor outcomes. In spite of this, many adapt positively making them an important group in further advancing our understanding of the processes and mechanisms that underpin resilience.
AIMS:
A series of three overlapping studies were conducted: a validation study; a quantitative survey; and a grounded theory study. The first study sought to validate a measure of motivation in kinship care, via factor analysis, and compared kinship and foster carer motivations. A second quantitative survey explored the relationship between kinship carer, family/environmental, and child factors, via kinship carer self-report. It was hypothesised that some carer motivations would be associated with child internalising, externalising and attachment- and trauma related difficulties and child competence; kinship carer stress and resilience would be associated with correlates of child resilience (total behaviour problems and competence); and kinship carer attachment insecurity and parenting stress would be positively associated with child internalising, externalising and attachment- and trauma related behaviour problems. Finally, a grounded theory study of what motivates kinship carers to take on and continue in the kinship carer role was conducted to develop a substantive theory of motivation in kinship care.
RESULTS:
The validation study of 225 kinship and foster carers identified three factors: child-, self-, and family-oriented motivations. There were no significant differences between kinship and foster carers in terms of child-oriented motivations. Foster carers were significantly more likely to endorse self-oriented motivations, whilst kinship carers were significantly more likely to endorse family-oriented motivations.
In the quantitative survey, 81 kinship carers completed a survey focusing on a child in their care. Clinical levels of parenting stress was reported by 27% of carers, with clinical levels of child behaviour problems reported for 47%; and clinical levels of attachment- and trauma-related difficulties reported for 63% of children. Almost half (44%) reported child competence scores within the clinically low range. Parenting stress was the only significant predictor of variance in child competence and child behaviour problems/difficulties within regression models.
In the grounded theory study, 19 kinship carers’ motivations to take on and continue in the caring role were found to be multi-faceted. The grounded theory developed included a core category: there’s no other choice – they need to be with me, which underpinned non-core categories: putting the child(ren)’s needs first; loving the child(ren) and having a bond; wanting to keep the child(ren) in the family; feeling empathy and compassion; picking up the pieces; just getting on with it and feeling it’s worth it.
DISCUSSION:
Parenting stress was the only significant predictor of child difficulties within regression models. Significant child difficulties across all domains were reported. Recognising the likely bidirectional relationship between traumatised children’s behaviour and kinship carer parenting stress is likely to be essential in informing approaches to support. The grounded theory explained the multi-faceted nature of carer motivation and the complexity of relationships and relational trauma as the context for kinship care. A holistic, attachment- and trauma-informed approach to assessment and intervention, should be developed in collaboration with kinship families in order to help families recover from adversity and thrive
A combined experimental and computational study of DNA topology and chromatin organization
No full textThe three-dimensional arrangement of the genome within the nucleus has been long shown to be highly interconnected with gene expression and crucial for the correct functioning of the cell. Many proteins are involved in the organization and dynamics of DNA and chromatin, though the mechanisms behind their action and their possible synergy often remain far from clear. Moreover, when trying to recapitulate mechanisms that are potentially deleterious to the organism, such as retroviral integration chromatin topology cannot be overlooked. The aim of this thesis is to study at different scales the mechanisms that govern the arrangement of the genome within the nucleus and their implications.
I start by studying the effects of DNA topology on the insertion bias of DNA elements. The insertion of viral DNAs or transposons can be an important factor for genetic diversity, or, when unregulated, for disease. I perform Molecular Dynamics simulations to study the insertion of DNA elements into naked DNA or chromatin. In particular, I explore the role of loops within the substrate. I discover that they act as “geometric catalysts” for DNA integration by reducing the energy barrier for substrate deformation. Additionally, I study the effect that the 1D pattern and 3D conformation of loops have on the distribution of integration sites. Finally, I study the competition/synergy effect of having a substrate that presents both loops and nucleosomes.
I then turn to look at the synergy between type II topoisomerase (topoII), a protein that is able to resolve topological entanglements, and condensin, a protein from the family of the structural maintenance of chromosomes complex (SMC), which is thought to be able to regulate genome architecture via a loop- extrusion mechanism. In this case, I use gel electrophoresis experimental assay to study kinetoplast DNA decatenation efficiency and plasmid relaxation efficiency of topoII in the absence or presence of condensin. Furthermore, I study the effect of salt concentration on these two processes.
Finally, I use simulations to investigate the roles played by loop extrusion driven by SMC proteins and regulatory factors such as CTCF and WAPL in shaping chromatin architecture. I also study their effects on gene expression on a chromosomal scale. To obtain the results, I employ the highly predictive heteromorphic polymer (HiP-HoP) framework, which integrates polymer physics with bioinformatic data. I observe that the average transcriptional activity is not strongly impacted by loop extrusion by SMC proteins. Strikingly, the transcriptional noise (measuring the variability of gene expression in the cell population) is instead strongly affected by the removal of these regulatory factors. From our simulations we are also able to relate these changes in the transcriptional pattern to the ones in 3D chromosomal and gene structure
Dear Green Place project poster (A2)
No full textA poster summarising the findings of a citizen science project collaboration between the GroundsWell Consortium and Citadel Young Spark project. The project was funded by IMPETUS and involved young people engaging in various activities (including using the Our Outdoors app) to inform the use of their local parks.A poster summarising the findings of a citizen science project collaboration between the GroundsWell Consortium and Citadel Young Spark project. The project was funded by IMPETUS and involved young people engaging in various activities (including using the Our Outdoors app) to inform the use of their local parks
The mechanical application of the law: reassessing 19th-century 'legal formalism'
Get PDFThis dissertation revisits and critically examines the widespread historical narrative
(‘Traditional Account’ or ‘TA’) of legal formalism in 19th-century Continental Europe, specifically
the codification process and the ‘School of the Exegesis’ (école de l'Exégèse) in France, and the
Jurisprudence of Concepts (Begriffsjurisprudenz) in Germany.
The TA portrays 19th-century legal thought as a rationalist illusion, out of touch with legal
practice and ultimately refuted by 20th-century realism, as well as critical and sociologicall-inclined
approaches to the law. This thesis challenges this narrative by interrogating the historical sources,
i.e., the texts attributed to formalist thinkers, to uncover what they actually claimed about law and
adjudication. In particular, it challenges the dominant portrayal of 19th-century mechanistic and
naïve conception of law and adjudication. Contrary to the TA’s view that 19th-century jurists held
a rigid, deductivist model of legal reasoning -wherein the judge acted as the mere “mouthpiece of
the law”- this work argues that such a depiction is historically flawed. Further, this dissertation
explores the intellectual and institutional contexts in which 19th-century legal scholarship operated
in France and Germany, and reframe the debates on ‘legal formalism’ in terms that reveal their
enduring significance for contemporary jurisprudence.
Chapter One clarifies the conceptual terrain by disambiguating ‘legal formalism’ from
adjacent but distinct concepts of the same term, and from the related concept of legal positivism.
This work focuses on a specific concept of legal formalism: a theory of adjudication that denies or
minimizes judicial discretion by asserting the determinacy of legal norms and the mechanical nature
of legal reasoning.
Chapter Two reconstructs the TA across national historiographies and illustrates how the
narrative about 19th-century legal formalism was shaped by 20th-century critiques. In France, the
School of the Exegesis is commonly accused of reducing the law to the literal text of the Code civil,
assuming a complete and coherent legal order in which interpretation was unnecessary. In
Germany, the Jurisprudence of Concepts is said to have developed an abstract, conceptual system
of law derived from Roman legal categories, likewise guided by assumptions of systematicity,
coherence, and absolute closure. The TA regards these developments as expressions of an
overarching 19th-century formalist worldview.
Chapters Three and Four challenge the accuracy of this narrative by returning to the
primary texts and intellectual contexts of the French and German legal traditions. In both cases,
this work shows that the TA has serious shortcomings and presents a distorted picture about 19th-
century legal science: neither school of thought embraced the mechanical conception of
adjudication that the TA attributes to them. A new, more nuanced, picture emerges that needs to
be accounted for.
Chapter Five reframes these 19th-century traditions through drawing from the conceptual
framework of Patrick Atiyah and Robert Summers. It argues that 19th-century legal thought can
be better understood as having a normative commitment to different types of formality in law and
legal reasoning -authoritative, interpretive, and mandatory-, rather than the reductive notion of
“mechanical” application of the law. By distinguishing between formality and formalism, this
scheme gives space for a conception of law and legal reasoning that favours formality in the law
without being naïve about its possibilities. What the TA misinterprets as blind faith in deduction
was, in fact, a deliberate strategy for preserving legal autonomy and resisting arbitrary adjudication.
Chapter Six identifies three substantive disputes that animate the transition from 19th to
20th-century legal thought: (1) the opacity of legal norms and the tension between certainty and
flexibility; (2) the nature of legal orders and the role of legal science in their construction; and (3)
the meaning of the state’s monopoly over legal sources. These debates reflect broader normative
disagreements about the law’s autonomy, authority, and function within society. The chapter
argues that far from being resolved or rendered obsolete, these disputes remain central to
contemporary jurisprudential debates -particularly in light of the potential formalization of legal
reasoning through artificial intelligence.
In sum, this dissertation offers both a historical correction and a conceptual reorientation.
It argues that the TA’s account of legal formalism oversimplifies and distorts the 19th-century
juristic landscape, and fails to recognize the enduring relevance of debates about law’s formality,
determinacy, and autonomy. By recovering the internal coherence and intellectual depth of the
traditions it critiques, this work provides a more balanced and insightful account of legal thought
during a foundational period in the development of modern European legal systems. In this way,
this thesis invites a more nuanced engagement with its historical manifestations and philosophical
stakes. Ultimately, it aims to show that ‘legal formalism’, properly understood, is not a relic of the
past but a recurring and resilient feature of legal discourse -one that continues to shape our
understanding of law’s nature, boundaries, and role in democratic societies
Essays on the interbank money market
No full textThe thesis delves into the intricate design of the interbank money market, a unique financial market where banks lend and borrow from each other. It explores three microstructure aspects that are often obscure and overlooked: relationship lending, the role of collateral, and the dynamics of counterparties change. All datasets were obtained from Indonesia, an emerging market and a major economy in the Southeast Asia region. This thesis is structured in three parts; each is an independent but related reading.
The first part examines relationship lending, where lending banks build special ties with borrowing banks to reduce information asymmetry. These relationships help lenders offer better loan terms, such as lower interest rates and larger loans, especially when public information about borrowers is scarce. This study highlights the role of trust in promoting market stability and reducing risks in uncertain times. The second part focuses on how collateral—assets pledged to secure loans—affects loan terms. The research finds that the use of collateral leads to more favourable loan terms but does not replace the trust built through relationships. Instead, collateral and relationships work together to reduce risks, with the legal framework playing a key role in how well collateral protects lenders. The third part investigates the decisions of market participants to choose each other as lending partners. Contrary to the usual belief that financial performance drives these decisions, the research shows that the size of the borrowers often plays a more significant role.
In addition to literature contribution, this research provides insights for regulators, policymakers, and market participants. It helps explain how the interbank money market functions at a granular level, offering practical guidance for improving market stability and efficiency. Such contributions are especially valuable because this financial market is the backbone of liquidity provision for the banking sector and plays a crucial role for the transmission of monetary policy to the broader economy
Rock single rough fractures: spatial continuity applications, coupled hydraulic-mechanical numerical models and their validation against experiments
Get PDFRadioactive waste management is an increasingly important environmental problem facing countries and nuclear entities worldwide. Currently, the overall international consensus is to package the waste in Engineered Barrier Systems (EBS) and safely dispose of it in an underground Geological Disposal Facility (GDF) excavated in a suitable low-permeability host rock several hundred meters below the surface. The main risk for disseminating the radionuclides into the biosphere is through their transportation in subsurface fluids which, in a low permeability host rock, will be mainly achievable through the host rock’s fractures. Similar challenges are faced in containment (temporary storage or permanent disposal) or extraction of fluids in industrial applications such as CO2 and hydrogen or geothermal energy.
Fractures’ ability to conduct fluids (their permeability) is dependent on their aperture (the space between the two fracture’s surfaces) which in turn is a function of the physical properties of the rock (namely its Poisson ratio and modulus of elasticity), the fracture surfaces geometries and the coupled processes acting on the fracture at each point. Coupled thermo-hydraulic-mechanical-chemical (THMC) processes are processes where inputs such as temperature, fluid pressure, mechanical stress or chemical species’ saturations, impact other THMC processes, hence termed coupled. In other words, coupled THMC processes directly interact with and influence each other, for instance the local stress field magnitudes and orientations (mechanics), the temperature (thermal), the fluid pressure (hydraulic) and the chemistry (chemical) of the fluids and rocks.
Conceptual models are the simplified design of complex systems. Numerical models are computer adaptations of such conceptual models, used to assess how those complex systems function. To study the mechanisms of fluid flow through single rough fractures, numerical THMC coupled processes models are used because they simulate complex coupled THMC systems, advancing the understanding of the systems’ behaviour. These models rely on the fractures’ rough surfaces or aperture representations to simulate fluid flow with changing aperture distributions based on changes in THMC processes conditions. Single fractures’ are generally deterministically represented by acquiring the fractures’ surfaces’ roughness information which are then digitally stored. These digital files, however, can be acquired with a digital resolution that is too high (has too many data points) to create computationally efficient numerical models. One solution is to selected subsets of that original dataset to create a lower resolution model or they need to be upscaled (coarsening their resolution). Traditional upscaling methods average the points onto the model’s mesh. Hence, the methods chosen to lower the resolution of the data to create the numerical model neglect the inherent spatial correlation, or spatial continuity, of the dataset. This thesis starts by characterising a rock’s rough fracture’s surface using its inherent spatial continuity information through semi-variograms. Semi-variograms are the functions that describe correlations between the points in both distance and direction defined through a mathematical technique, which can be used to create more accurate upscaled representations of fracture models. Two Finite Element Method (FEM) hydro-mechanical numerical models were created from the aperture field data of rock fractures upscaled utilising the spatial continuity techniques and an arithmetic averaging, therefore allowing comparison of results. More accurate results were observed in the models upscaled using spatial continuity. The open-source FEM OpenGeoSys 5 (OGS-5) code utilised is uses an initial aperture distribution and the cubic law for calculating the permeability field from the aperture field. The aperture field is calculated from the normal stress acting on each element. As the normal stress on each elemental is applied, it affects the aperture of the fracture at the element level which in turn affects the fluid pressure. The fluid pressure throughout the fracture was calculated numerically using OGS.
A hydro-mechanical model depicting fluid flow through the fracture amid changes in the fracture aperture due to mechanical stress was created and validated against experiments conducted in the Geo-Reservoir Experimental Analogue Technology (GREAT) cell. The GREAT cell is an apparatus capable of simulating at-depth polyaxial stresses on 200mm diameter by 200mm length cylindrical samples with fluid flow capabilities. The OGS-5 code used wasn’t intially designed to cope with fluid pressures above the confining pressure at the mesh’s element level, corresponding to the element’s aperture increase, i.e. fracture opening. This thesis incorporates adaptations to that code to allow effective stress to be negative thus accommodating fracture opening.
Finally, the work presented here also attempts to find the Representative Elementary Area (REA) of the aperture field data using its spatial continuity techniques introduced. It analyses the spatial continuity of the fields upscaled at different scales using traditional upscaling methods. It uses the raw data spatial continuity (highest resolution) as the comparison standard. The assumption is that the spatial continuity parameters change as the resolution of the data decreases. The criterion for choosing the REA is that the behaviour of the spatial continuity of the standard can be reasonably reproduced (i.e. the parameters are similar) within the scope of the work intended with the upscaled data.
In summary, the work contained in this thesis encompasses advances in methodology in the analysis and interpretation of rock fracture roughness and aperture fields. It provides applications to REA determination and upscaling methods for coupled THMC processes numerical modelling. Therefore, the work provides new tools to tackle uncertainty regarding processes such as contaminant transport in the disposal (e.g. CO2 and radioactive nuclides) which are crucial in applications such as seasonal fluid storage in geo-reservoirs (e.g. natural gas or hydrogen) or geothermal energy extraction.Quintessa LtdNuclear Waste Services UKEngineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Smart Pulses for Subsurface Engineerin
The powers of human memory are limited: an assessment of the institutional practice and collection management of ‘lost’ material culture within teaching collections at the University of Edinburgh
Get PDFThis paper examines the fragmented history and rediscovery of the 1927 Lyell donation to the University of Edinburgh, exploring how its material culture can become dispersed across different academic departments. Through a combination of archival research, object-based assessments, and subject-specific analysis, this study investigates how inconsistent cataloguing, institutional shifts, theoretical developments, and evolving teaching practices obscured and decreased a collection and its original context and scientific value. This revealed key questions addressing broader challenges in managing historical collections, including the loss of institutional memory, poor documentation practices, and the difficulties of integrating older collections into modern educational frameworks. By focusing on the movement of shells and hand-axes between the Cockburn Geological Museum and the Gordon Childe Archaeology Collection, this research revealed both a clear connection to the original Lyell donation, and the importance of object biographies and archival evidence in re-establishing provenance. This illustrates the potential of archival work and object-centred approaches to uncover hidden contexts and restore value to teaching collections. Additionally, it highlights the importance of standardised documentation and institutional memory. Ultimately, this research emphasises the need for standardised documentation, collaborative institutional memory, and object-centred methodologies to preserve and revitalise collections both for teaching and research
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