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Exploring the legacies of steel slag at Glengarnock, North Ayrshire: A situated interdisciplinary account of an anthropogenic geomaterial
Get PDFThe steelmaking furnace is a place where raw earth materials and human industrial activities meet. Steel slag is an entity that is encouraged to form through the intersection of these influences, as it is employed to withdraw and entrain natural chemical impurities, and hold these contaminants separate from the furnace’s nascent end products. Once it has completed this task, slag is dumped at the outer limits of a works landscape. Here— generally out of sight and out of mind— it enters into new relations with its surroundings. Steel slag does not occur naturally in our environment – its existence depends upon human agency. Yet its material origins and post-depositional afterlives are also shaped by environmental processes. Steel slag can thus be conceived of as an anthropogenic geomaterial, holding multi-temporal stories which can be traced by attending to the entangled worlds it encompasses. The potential of these narratives has however received almost no scholarly attention.
This thesis presents an account of the steel slag that forms one of the last remaining physical vestiges of the former Glengarnock Steelworks in North Ayrshire, Scotland. The deposition of this slag into a loch closely neighbouring the works gradually claimed an entirely new anthropogenic landscape from this waterbody, which has in recent years been shaped by a local authority led regeneration project. I develop an interdisciplinary approach— that emerges from the particular juxtaposition of my research context and the three disciplines of geography, archaeology and geology— to explore the past, present and possible futures of this place, positioning its slag as a once largely forgotten, but now newly re-encountered material legacy that simultaneously manifests as a waste product, a post-industrial remnant, and as a novel anthropogenic rock. In so doing, I demonstrate how a personal engagement with this slag’s stories can be used to reanimate taken-for-granted histories, rewrite emerging heritage narratives, and re-imagine carbon futures. In this thesis, I am continuously challenged and surprised by Glengarnock’s steel slag, yet I also come to care about this neglected industrial waste deposit. I find ultimately that electing to pay attention to a local outcropping of an anthropogenic geomaterial reveals choices, and that exploring what can be done with our material legacies, as well as what might be conferred as a result, can contribute to the task of working though the world shaping implications of humanity’s assumption of geological force
Power flow analytics for power distribution networks
Get PDFPower flow analytics play a crucial role in the management and optimisation of power distribution networks, which are essential for ensuring the reliable and efficient delivery of electrical energy. This thesis explores the advanced methodologies and applications of power flow analytics within distribution networks, focusing on both the theoretical and practical aspects of analysing and improving network power transmitting performance.
The primary objective of this research is to enhance the understanding and applications of power flow analytics in the context of power networks at distribution levels. The research studies a range of analytical techniques to investigate power flow characteristics, including traditional methods and contemporary approaches. Key areas of focus include the development and application of advanced algorithms for power flow tracing, loss allocation, and the integration of new visualization techniques to aid in the interpretation of complex data. Simulation studies are conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of proposed power flow analytics methods. Significant findings include the loss allocation of complex power in distribution networks, and important applications. The benefits of integrating visualization tools are also highlighted, to enhance decision-making and operational management in power distribution networks. Finally, the application of power flow tracing to the wheeling charges calculation problem is investigated.
The conclusions drawn from this research underscore the importance of advanced power flow analytics in addressing the challenges faced by modern distribution networks. The study demonstrates that improved analytical methods can achieve accurate network performance and loss assessment and management, and effective planning and operation of power distribution systems
Application of imaging and omics to understand communication across the microbiome-gut-brain axis
No full textAbstract not currently available
Transnational business and human rights disputes: a court-centric framework of analysis
Get PDFThis thesis explores the role of domestic courts in addressing human rights due diligence in resolving transnational business and human rights (“BHR”) disputes within the context of parent-subsidiary relationships. Specifically, it investigates how courts in the home state interpret and apply established legal frameworks, encompassing international law, national corporate law, and tort law, to resolve disputes where subsidiary activities in compliance with host state law result in human rights impacts. The study addresses two legal issues: the conflict of human rights standards between home and host states; and the responsibility of parent corporations for human rights impacts resulting from their subsidiaries’ operations.
Firstly, corporations often find themselves obliged to adhere to host state laws even when they conflict with the human rights standards of the home state. This legal issue primarily concerns the negative aspect of human rights due diligence, which requires courts to address applicable human rights standards before determining whether human rights, as asserted by victims, have been violated.
Secondly, corporate structures often involve establishing subsidiaries in foreign jurisdictions to benefit from an entity shield against liability risks. This practice prompts an examination of how courts can impose a due diligence duty on parent corporations to prevent human rights impacts resulting from their subsidiaries’ operations. Unlike the first issue, this legal question entails a positive duty that does not correspond directly to substantive human rights. Consequently, courts must seek positive rules when establishing this duty and emphasise the conduct of a duty-bearer rather than the outcome of human rights impacts.
The thesis applies the analytical framework – termed the “court-centric” framework – to examine the two legal issues through the lens of domestic courts in the home state. The primary focus of this framework is on the interplay between different areas of laws surrounding BHR disputes and the balance of the interests of all parties concerned. This framework is distinct from the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which appear to prioritise human rights over other interests.
Addressing the first issue, the framework examines the interconnection of human rights balancing by national courts and international relations. It offers a nuanced understanding of the challenges in balancing human rights with other interests on an international scale. Through the proposed refinement, the framework paves the way for guided cooperation and understanding between states in resolving challenges in the BHR context.
Turning to the second legal issue concerning corporate responsibility for human rights impacts from subsidiary operations, this framework emphasises the role of national courts in applying and interpreting corporate and tort law. It offers a pragmatic avenue by which to establish a positive duty of due diligence for parent corporations to ensure the protection of human rights.
The court-centric framework of analysis contributes to the evolving BHR studies by offering a nuanced perspective on the role of national courts in addressing transnational disputes. It promotes corporate accountability and advances the implementation of human rights due diligence in business practices
Efficiency limiting processes in epitaxially grown mid-infrared lasers on silicon
Get PDFThe field of Si photonics is concerned with the development of photonic components that are compatible with highly mature complimentary metal-oxide (CMOS) fabrication processes. Recently, optoelectronic integrated circuits (OEICs) operating in the mid-infrared (mid-IR) have garnered interest, driven by their suitability for lab-on-a-chip spectroscopy. Despite significant progress in passive components, the lack of high-quality CMOS compatible light sources is bottlenecking the production of fully integrated circuits. Various methods of incorporating lasers onto Si exist, however, long-term, monolithic epitaxial growth is preferential for scalable, low-cost manufacturing. In this thesis, two different approaches for epitaxial integration of mid-IR light-sources on Si are investigated.
The first approach is to move away III-V lasers, instead utilising direct bandgap group IV materials. The performance of first-generation electrically injected bulk GeSn lasers were probed using high hydrostatic pressure at low temperature. The devices exhibited threshold current densities of 1.2 kA/cm2 at 85 K which rose with increasing pressure. 93% of the threshold is attributable to large defect related losses in the buffer layer, but even at low temperatures over 1% of carriers are found to occupy states in the L-valley. Temperature-dependent modelling of the carrier distribution was then used to assess the feasibility of GeSn as a bulk active region material. This showed that Sn contents in excess of 20% were required to ensure over 90% of carriers occupy the Γ valley at room temperature (RT). As such, it is likely that the upper operational temperature is limited by indirect carrier losses and a change of heterostructure design is required to achieve electrically injected devices close to RT.
The second approach involves heteroepitaxial growth of mature Sb-based lasers on Si. In this study, devices on Si operating at 2.3 μm are compared to those on native GaSb emitting at a similar wavelength. Temperature-dependent measurements were used to confirm heightened defect related recombination in the devices on Si, and illustrated the onset of a highly temperature dependent process above 150 K. A combination of high hydrostatic pressure measurements and modelling suggest that hole leakage and leakage of carriers to confined L-valley states were likely contributing to the observed temperature dependence in the lasers on Si. Adaptations to the active region and waveguiding layers are proposed to improve the performance of future devices
Clinical characterisation of the cardiovascular effects of targeted anti-cancer therapies
No full textAbstract not currently available
How does social class shape and influence the ethnic identity of immigrants? Take the Chinese group in Glasgow as an example
Get PDFThis thesis focuses on Chinese immigrants from different social classes in Scotland, aiming to explore how individuals' understanding of ethnicity is influenced by their social class, thereby contributing to the sociological literature on the intersection of ethnicity and class. In particular, it pays close attention to the life trajectories of working-class Chinese immigrants, especially those on the margins of society, enriching the British sociological scholarship on the experiences of Chinese immigrants by refusing to treat this group as simply homogenous.
The thesis adopts an everyday life approach, emphasizing the importance of capturing, identifying, and analysing dynamic, nuanced, and complex social relationships and practices related to ethnicity in daily life. It also employs an intersectional lens, arguing that individuals’ understanding of ethnic identity is always shaped by the interwoven influences of different social categories and multiple social spaces. Furthermore, this study draws on Bourdieu’s theoretical framework, utilizing concepts such as social space, field, capital, habitus, doxa, symbolic violence, and reproduction to analyse the different forms of class inequality experienced in ethnic identity construction and reproduction.
Based on two years of fieldwork – including life history interviews with 29 participants from different class backgrounds in Glasgow and two periods of participant observation – this study qualitatively examines the participants’ life trajectories and the ways in which they understand ethnicity within a broader socio-cultural context. Grounded theory was adopted for data analysis, and the results are presented through key themes and case studies, incorporating participants’ original interview excerpts. Accordingly, the thesis argues that within a given social space or field, class influences ethnicity through the unequal possession, inheritance, distribution, and access to different forms of resources, which is reflected in a series of social relations and practices in everyday life. The findings suggest that participants’ understanding of ethnicity is always structurally shaped by their social position and the logic of the spaces they inhabit. For example, due to the unequal possession and acquisition of material and symbolic resources caused by class differences, individuals encounter different forms and degrees of obstacles in transnational mobility, as well as varying capacities and strategies to cope with these challenges, which shape their interpretation of ethnicity. This study also emphasizes that the way class influences ethnicity within a given social space depends on its specific hierarchical structure and the forms of capital that are at stake in such spaces. For example, in Chinese school space, class can influence students' ethnic identity and resistance through the degree of cultural capital inheritance and inequalities in the possession and distribution of educational resources, thereby affecting the reproduction of ethnicity
On the use of user interface specific domain Gherkin in behaviour driven development
Get PDFThere has been a noticeable rise in the popularity of behaviour driven development (BDD) in the software industry. Gherkin is a popular language for describing system behaviours, since it uses simple natural language that can be understood easily by all those involved. Gherkin describes system behaviours as examples of how the system should behave in different scenarios. However, existing research has identified several challenges with current approaches to BDD and Gherkin. First, stakeholders struggle to express and negotiate requirements in Gherkin when they are expressed in terms of business domain concepts. Second, the automated acceptance tests associated with requirements expressed in business domain concepts require additional developer effort. Third, stakeholders find selecting an appropriate abstraction level when developing Gherkin scenarios can be challenging.
To address these challenges, this thesis investigates the feasibility and efficiency of using user interface specific domain concepts for expressing requirements. This approach emphasises the expression of system behaviours in terms of user interface elements, such as buttons, text entry fields and so on. The intuition behind this approach is that the user interface represents a common ‘language’ for stakeholder discussion of requirements, that is independent of business specific concepts. The research followed an empirical methodology and used four different methods to evaluate the approach: multivocal literature review, design science, case studies, and laboratory experiment.
First, a multivocal review of BDD and its best practices was undertaken to establish the prevailing understanding of Gherkin usage. Second, a framework that comprises standardised low level Gherkin scenario steps and the associated acceptance test functions was developed. The objective was to investigate the applicability of user interface domain specific Gherkin use in BDD.
Third, three case studies were undertaken to improve and validate the design and implementation of the user interface domain specific Gherkin language and the automated acceptance test suites associated with it. The objective was to identify weaknesses in the design and implementation of the user interface specific domain Gherkin language. The results of the case studies suggest that using user interface specific domain concepts for communicating system requirements is feasible.
Fourth, a controlled laboratory experiment was conducted to find out whether it is easier to comprehend and document scenarios written in user interface specific domain Gherkin than scenarios written in business domain Gherkin. The results indicate that non-software practitioners, who represent customers, found scenarios written in user interface specific domain Gherkin to be significantly easier to document than scenarios written in business domain Gherkin. Further, the results show that for the same group, scenarios written in user interface specific domain Gherkin were marginally easier to comprehend than scenarios written in business domain Gherkin. In addition, the results suggest that for software practitioners, scenarios written in user interface specific domain Gherkin were marginally easier to comprehend and document than scenarios written in business domain Gherkin
Investigating factors that affect student engagement and academic performance in novice students in CS education
No full textAbstract not currently available
The impact of Helicobacter hepaticus infection on host immunity
Get PDFThe mammalian immune system has evolved alongside a complex microbiota. Microbial colonization drives constant immune responses at steady state, while microbiota-derived metabolites and signals have functional impacts on host immune cells. Helicobacter hepaticus (Hh) is a member of the murine intestinal microbiota with the capacity to drive immune responses in a context-dependent manner. Hh stimulates strong immune regulation which counterbalances the induction of effector responses and allows persistent colonization without pathology. Whether these interactions alter how the host immune system responds in a subsequent disease setting has not previously been explored. In this thesis, we aimed to investigate how Hh affects the outcome of inflammatory disease and test whether Hh drives phenotypic and functional changes to intestinal immune cells at steady state.
Here, we demonstrate that Hh colonization attenuates intestinal disease severity in the DSS colitis model. This was dependent on extended colonization with Hh prior to colitis onset and was not present immediately following infection, suggesting a mechanism by which Hh primes intestinal immune responses at steady state to alter disease outcomes. We found that Hh colonization stimulated increased monocyte and neutrophil infiltration to the colon at steady state and drove increases to local proinflammatory cytokine transcription. However, colonic macrophages from infected mice showed suppressed cytokine responses ex vivo, indicating that Hh functionally modulates local immune cells to limit inflammatory responses. We tested whether the disease attenuating effect was dependent on recognition of Hh by TLR2, with the aim of elucidating the mechanism through which Hh affects disease outcomes. We demonstrate that disease attenuation does not require TLR2 signalling, suggesting that a different mechanism drives disease protection in Hh colonized animals.
This work provides insight into how host immune functions are shaped by the resident immunomodulatory microbiota. As the role of the microbiota in health and disease is becoming increasingly apparent, it is critical to develop a greater understanding of these interactions. Our work supports the conclusion that the microbiota primes the intestinal immune system at steady state, thereby altering immune responses during inflammatory settings
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