Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Physical implications'

With improved perioperative care and surgical techniques, pelvic exenteration (PE) has improved the survival of advanced pelvic malignancies. However, it has been associated with significant morbidity, ranging from 31.6% to 86% depending on the reporting of the studies. Postoperative morbidity has been demonstrated to affect quality of life (QoL), which is important for cancer survivors. Thus, it is valuable to classify physical complications to accurately reflect the surgical morbidity and understand predictors of QoL. However, there is a lack of grading classification for PE, making it difficult to monitor and comparing surgical morbidity. The reporting of surgical complications has been inconsistent in the exenteration literature. Chapter 1 introduces the thesis. Chapter 2 identifies stronger associations between comprehensive complication index, the number of complications and length of stay than Clavien-Dindo Classification. These findings suggest that the number of complications is important after PE. However, all these classifications have their limitations. There may be a need to develop a new specific classification for PE. Chapter 3 determines some predictors for QoL for patients with locally advanced rectal cancer and locally recurrent rectal cancer (LRRC), but they are more reflective of the extent of the resection. Patients with LRRC tend to undergo more extensive surgery. However, both groups have similar QoL outcomes. Chapter 4 concludes the thesis. Chapter 2 emphasises the importance of a standardised classification system. Chapter 3 shows that patients with LRRC underwent a more extended resection but had comparable QoL outcomes. Future studies can investigate a more intense preoperative and early postoperative rehabilitation program, increasing their preoperative physical and mental strength and minimising their risks of postoperative complications.

Book Summary: Balance Function Assessment and Management, now in its second edition, continues to comprehensively address the assessment and treatment of balance system impairments through contributions from top experts in the areas of dizziness and vertigo. Designed for use in graduate audiology programs and by practicing audiologists, this is also a valuable text for those in the fields of physical therapy, otolaryngology, and neurology. Assessment chapters focus on ocular motility testing, positional/positioning testing, caloric testing, rotational testing, computerized dynamic posturography, and vestibular evoked potentials. Treatment chapters examine nonmedical, medical, and surgical treatments of dizziness and vertigo, vestibular rehabilitation, and assessment of and intervention for risk of falls. Additionally, this text provides background information on the vestibular and ocular motor systems with corresponding sample cases. New topics addressed in this edition include: Development of the vestibular system Central compensation following peripheral vestibular system impairment Video head impulse test (vHIT) Biomechanics and physiology of balance Electrocochleography (ECochG) Pediatric vestibular system and balance assessment Effects of age on the vestibular and balance systems An added bonus to the second edition is the companion website that offers additional reference materials, such as video clips, associated with the text.

Vehicle Ad hoc Networks (V ANET) have been proposed to provide safety on the road and deliver road traffic information and route guidance to drivers along with commercial applications. However the challenges facing V ANET are numerous. Nodes move at high speeds, road side units and basestations are scarce, the topology is constrained by the road geometry and changes rapidly, and the number of nodes peaks suddenly in traffic jams. In this thesis we investigate the physical and link layers of V ANET and propose methods to achieve high data rates and high throughput. For the physical layer, we examine the use of Vertical BLAST (VB LAST) systems as they provide higher capacities than single antenna systems in rich fading environments. To study the applicability of VB LAST to VANET, a channel model was developed and verified using measurement data available in the literature. For no to medium line of sight, VBLAST systems provide high data rates. However the performance drops as the line of sight strength increases due to the correlation between the antennas. Moreover, the performance of VBLAST with training based channel estimation drops as the speed increases since the channel response changes rapidly. To update the channel state information matrix at the receiver, a channel tracking algorithm for flat fading channels was developed. The algorithm updates the channel matrix thus reducing the mean square error of the estimation and improving the bit error rate (BER). The analysis of VBLAST-OFDM systems showed they experience an error floor due to inter-carrier interference (lCI) which increases with speed, number of antennas transmitting and number of subcarriers used. The update algorithm was extended to VBLAST -OFDM systems and it showed improvements in BER performance but still experienced an error floor. An algorithm to equalise the ICI contribution of adjacent subcarriers was then developed and evaluated. The ICI equalisation algorithm reduces the error floor in BER as more subcarriers are equalised at the expense of more hardware complexity. The connectivity of V ANET was investigated and it was found that for single lane roads, car densities of 7 cars per communication range are sufficient to achieve high connectivity within the city whereas 12 cars per communication range are required for highways. Multilane roads require higher densities since cars tend to cluster in groups. Junctions and turns have lower connectivity than straight roads due to disconnections at the turns. Although higher densities improve the connectivity and, hence, the performance of the network layer, it leads to poor performance at the link layer. The IEEE 802.11 p MAC layer standard under development for V ANET uses a variant of Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA). 802.11 protocols were analysed mathematically and via simulations and the results prove the saturation throughput of the basic access method drops as the number of nodes increases thus yielding very low throughput in congested areas. RTS/CTS access provides higher throughput but it applies only to unicast transmissions. To overcome the limitations of 802.11 protocols, we designed a protocol known as SOFT MAC which combines Space, Orthogonal Frequency and Time multiple access techniques. In SOFT MAC the road is divided into cells and each cell is allocated a unique group of subcarriers. Within a cell, nodes share the available subcarriers using a combination of TDMA and CSMA. The throughput analysis of SOFT MAC showed it has superior throughput compared to the basic access and similar to the RTS/CTS access of 802.11.

The purpose of this project is to examine how online physical education courses impact student learning and achievement of fitness and health standards now that budget cuts are leading to the curtailing or elimination of traditional physical education classes at the secondary level of K-12 education.

Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2014.<br>This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.<br>Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.<br>Includes bibliographical references.<br>Most modern era software-enabled, electro-mechanical systems are becoming more complex as we demand more performance and better lifecycle properties (e.g. robustness) from them. As a consequence system development projects are becoming increasingly challenging and are falling behind in terms of schedule and cost performance. The complexity of technical systems depends on the quantity of different elements and their connectivity, i.e., complexity means a measurable system characteristic. There are three main dimensions of complexity that emerged in the context of system design and development: (1) Structural Complexity; (2) Dynamic Complexity and (3) Organizational Complexity. Structural complexity pertains to the underlying system architecture or more generally, the enabling infrastructure. Dynamic complexity refers to the complexity of the system behavior or process running on the underlying infrastructure. Organizational Complexity relates to the system development process and the organizational structure of the development team. This dissertation primarily focuses on developing a theoretical framework for structural complexity quantification of engineered systems and subsequently a complexity-based design paradigm of interconnected, complex engineered system. There are four distinct thematic parts in this dissertation: (i) theoretical development of the proposed structural complexity metric, including the metric's qualification as a valid complexity measure based on its mathematical properties; (ii) empirical validation of the proposed complexity metric based on simple experiments and application of the methodology to compute structural complexity of complex engineered systems like jet engines and advanced printing systems; (iii) systemic implications from a complexity management standpoint, including introduction of complexity budgeting for system development and linking actual complexity to human perception of complexity through the notion of complicatedness, and (iv) extension of the proposed metric to system-of-systems and a computational framework for measuring dynamic complexity. The topological complexity metric, C₃ is shown to clearly distinguish between system architectural regimes (e.g., centralized, hierarchical, transitional and distributed). The ball and stick experiment empirically establishes the super-linear relationship between structural complexity (X) and development effort (Y) with exponent, b=1.48.<br>by Kaushik Sinha.<br>Ph. D.

Three hundred seventy-six college students responded to a measure designed to examine retrospective accounts of the physical affection received during early childhood. The study looked exclusively from the perspective of the adolescent. Assessing the importance of touch in human development, and the role it plays in adult attachment and the ability to form and maintain close and intimate relations with others was the purpose of the study. Six separate measures were used to assess the role of touch in adolescent development: three items from Gupta and Schork to assess physical affection (touch); Simpson's attachment style measure; Gerlsma, Arrindell, Van der Veen, and Emmelkamp's parental warmth measure; and Rosenthal, Gurney, and Moore's Erikson Psychosocial Inventory Scale to assess intimacy. Also, one-item measures to assess trust and parents' marital satisfaction were all utilized in this study. Results confirmed statistically significant relationships between parental warmth and touch, warmth and attachment, and intimacy and attachment. Related literature supported the findings of the study and point to the importance of parental warmth and touch in early childhood for competent social and emotional development during adolescence. Implications of the results and possible areas of future research are discussed.

Ageing is associated with a decline in health. Physical activity is known to attenuate this decline; however a large amount of the general population does not participate in the recommended amount of physical activity. Time is reported in middle-aged and elderly populations as a major barrier to exercise participation. Therefore time-efficient and effective exercise paradigms are required to encourage engagement in physical activity, improve health and reduce the risk of disease. The aim of this thesis was to investigate the potential of using high intensity training (HIT) as an exercise paradigm to promote optimal ageing. Seventy seven participants (age range 35-75 years) were recruited to take part in HIT protocols consisting of 10 x 6 second sprints interspersed with a minimum of 1 minute recovery. Prior to taking part in the training participants underwent a series of baseline measures which included physical function tests, predicted aerobic capacity, oral glucose tolerance test, fasting lipid profile, body composition and blood pressure. After 6-10 week of training, participants were retested to determine the effectiveness of HIT. Following 6, 8 or 10 weeks of HIT, physical function was significantly improved by 9-29% in both middle aged and elderly populations. Aerobic capacity was increased by 10.5% in middle aged participants and by 5.1-8.7% in elderly participants. Blood glucose clearance, as assessed by area under the curve, was decreased by 6% in the middle aged participants and 4.2-17% in the elderly population. Systolic blood pressure was unchanged in the middle aged participants but was reduced by 5.4-8% in the elderly participants. Following 10 weeks of HIT, circulating lipid profile was significantly improved in the elderly by 11-25.9%. These improvements are speculated to be a result of HIT-induced adaptations in skeletal muscle mitochondrial, cardiac, vascular and metabolic function. Very short duration sprints provide rapid improvements in various aspects of health and could be utilised to promote optimal ageing.

The objective of this dissertation is to classify the opportunities, advantages, and limits of novel interconnects for post-CMOS logic that can augment or eventually replace the CMOS logic. Post-CMOS devices are envisaged on the idea of using state variables other than the electron charge to store and manipulate information. In the first component of the thesis, a comprehensive analysis of the performance and the energy dissipation of novel logic based on various state variables is conducted, and it is demonstrated that the interconnects will continue to be a major challenge even for post-CMOS logic. The second component of the thesis is focused on the analysis of the interconnection aspects of spin-based logic. This research goal is accomplished through the development of physically-based models of spin-transport parameters for various metallic, semiconducting, and graphene nanoribbon interconnects by incorporating the impact of size effects for narrow cross-sectional dimensions of all-spin logic devices. Due to the generic nature of the models, they can be used in the analysis of spin-based devices to study their functionality and performance more accurately. The compact nature of the models allows them to be easily embedded into the developing CAD tools for spintronic logic. These models then provide the foundation for (i) analyzing the spin injection and transport efficiency in an all-spin logic circuit with various interconnect materials, and (ii) estimating the repeater-insertion requirements in all-spin logic, and (iii) estimating the maximum circuit size for all-spin logic. The research is crucial in pinpointing the implications of the physical limits of novel interconnects at the material, device, circuit, and architecture levels.

The purpose of this research study was to examine the effects of consumption of beverages (caffeinated and alcoholic) and physical activity on the frequency and severity of hot flashes in peri-menopausal, menopausal, and post-menopausal women by conducting an on-line survey of women over the age of 40 employed at a Midwestern University. One-hundred ninety-six women participated in this study. Majority of participants were age 50-59 (n=104, 53.1%), and were in the naturally post-menopausal reproductive stage (n=81, 41.3%). Overall, results revealed that the effects of self-reported physical activity, average daily caffeine and alcohol intake were not significant in predicting the frequency of hot flashes (R2=.043, F(6, 184) = 1.39, p= .221). However, results revealed a small, but statistically significant effect of physical activity, caffeine, and alcohol intake on severity of hot flashes (R2=.068, F(6,180) = 2.195, p = .046). Additionally, relatively more participation in aerobic physical activity increased frequency of hot flashes (p= .031); while higher intensity of aerobic physical activity had an inverse relationship on both frequency and severity of hot flashes (p=.011, p=.003, respectively).<br>Department of Family and Consumer Sciences

It is increasingly well-known that chronic diseases are placing a burden on the United States, including the healthcare system. Considering chronic disease risk and quality of life (QOL) measures, improving lifestyle behaviors such as physical activity (PA) should be further explored. In particular, using a place-based approach such as the healthcare system to improve lifestyle behaviors is a strategy to explore. Lifestyle Medicine (LM) is an approach that uses behavior as therapy to treat conditions and is suggested as an approach for primary care. The purpose of study 1 was to explore potential differences in QOL of patients who were referred to LM and are categorized into one of three groups 1) did not engaged in LM 2) engaged in up to two sessions of LM 3) engaged in three or more sessions of LM. The purpose of study 2 was to explore the relationship among provider QOL, PA level, and referral practices to LM. Participants completed demographic and lifestyle referral practices questionnaire, RAND-36 item health questionnaire, and Physical Activity Vital Sign questions. Results from study 1 include no significant differences between LM groups, QOL, and PA. Additionally, a significant difference was found for patient general health QOL score for those who met PA guidelines (M = 68.16, SD = 23.346) versus those who did not meet PA guidelines (M = 54.67, SD = 16.23); t (48) = 2.41, p = .02. Results for study 2 include no significant differences between provider PA minutes and LM referral as well as provider general health QOL and LM referral. A significant difference was found for provider general health QOL score for those who met PA guidelines (M = 85.833, SD = 10.68) versus those who did not meet PA guidelines (M = 67, SD = 9.08); t (9) = 3.109, p = .013. This dissertation will further inform the healthcare community (health system and health professionals) about the importance of PA to overall QOL for patients and providers. Moving from sick care to preventive care using LM approaches must be further explored and studied for both improved health outcomes and financial sustainability.<br>North Dakota State University. College of Human Development and Education. Department of Health, Nutrition and Exercise Sciences

The present research examines the impact of not reauthorizing the Superfund taxes on the operations of the program. EPA NPL site status data were obtained from the EPA CERCLIS database for analysis in this study. Data were selected for the fiscal years 1981 to 2009 in four NPL listing status categories: proposal to the NPL, final NPL listing, deletion from the NPL, and achievement of construction completion. Since the Superfund tax expired in 1995, data from the 1981 to 1995 fiscal years and data from the 1996 to 2009 fiscal years were analyzed to determine if there were mean differences in NPL status achievements for those time frames potentially caused by lack of funding. The data in the fifth category (partial NPL deletion) were not analyzed because the EPA did not begin tracking this category as a program goal until 1997. EPA uses the status of sites in these categories to track achievement of program goals and effectiveness. The null hypothesis for this study is that there is no difference between program outcomes (NPL site status data reported by fiscal year) for the time period from 1981 to 1995 and 1996 to 2009 meaning that the failure to re-authorize the Superfund tax has not affected the clean-up of contaminated sites and how they are managed. The alternative hypothesis is that failure to re-authorize the Superfund tax has affected the clean-up of contaminated sites and how they are managed. In support of the alternative hypothesis, there were mean differences (for time frames 1981 to 1995 and 1996 to 2009) for NPL site status achievements for the following milestones: final listing on the NPL, deletion from the NPL, and achieving construction completion status on the NPL. These results suggest that variations in funding may have some impact on NPL status achievements. Annual funding trends from program inception to 2010, achievement of Superfund program goals for the 2009 and 2010 fiscal years, and the impact of the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding on the program were also examined. Although program goals were generally met or exceeded, limited funds will continue to impact the cleanup of existing and future Superfund sites.

The general circulation of the ocean acts as an energy reservoir. This means that the external forcing (primarily by the wind field) is balanced by dissipation. However, the dissipation is not well understood because energy does not easily cascade forward to small scales where dissipation is active. Approximate geostrophic balance holds over much of the ocean because the advective timescale is typically long compared to the Coriolis timescale. The resulting geostrophic turbulence behaves similarly to 2D turbulence in the sense that energy is not cascaded forward to small scales. In fact, there is an inverse cascade of energy toward large scales for these "balanced" flows. One possible mechanism for dissipation of the balanced flow is nonlinear interactions with unbalanced flow. In this thesis we made an analogy between balanced flow and 2D flow for the unstratified case. We numerically integrated the hydrostatic, barotropic vorticity equation using a pseudo-spectral, triply-periodic model varying the rate of rotation and the level of 3D (corresponding to unbalanced) energy via a 3D forcing. We analysed the energetics of the 2D flow to determine the impact of rotation and the 3D energy level. We found that there is a critical Rossby number between 0.1 and 1 above which there is 2D energy drain and below which there is 2D energy gain. We found that the magnitude of the drain/gain at large scales increases with forcing up to a limiting value. A review of ocean energetics and turbulent 2D-3D interactions is also presented.

<p> Modern and fossil ecological data exist at very different taxonomic, spatial, and temporal scales. For modern ecology, data are typically collected at the species-level, cover square meter quadrats to the entire globe, and span days to decades at most. For fossil assemblages, spatial scale might be comparable to that studied by modern ecologists, but fossil data are taxonomically and temporally much coarser (respectively, order-, family-, genus-level at best, and 104-108 years). Recent research has shown that ecological patterns and the processes affecting them change across scale. Therefore, using modern ecological theory and methods to study fossil data is an incommensurate exercise and potentially produces spurious results. Moreover, scale varies by orders of magnitude even among fossil assemblages, so comparing fossil sites without an appreciation of scale may also lead to ambiguous conclusions. </p><p> I argue that a disregard of scale within paleoanthropology has contributed to its inability to synthesize seemingly disparate paleoecological results into a coherent, unified framework. As a result, paleoanthropology has remained relatively stagnant regarding its understanding of how paleoecological processes drove hominin evolution. With this in mind, I adopt scale as a central theme in my dissertation and attempt to understand how ecological pattern and process change across modern and fossil scales in East African large mammal communities, and if these scale differences can be analytically reconciled. </p><p> The results from my three research chapters show ecological patterns (and the relevant processes driving them) fundamentally change across modern and fossil scales. Thus, modern and paleoecological theory and data are each incomplete: modern ecologists need to analyze fossil data if they want to study ecology at large time scales, and paleoecologists need to examine modern data and theory in order to understand smaller-scale processes; simple extrapolation and interpolation will not do. For paleoanthropologists, that means it is less than straightforward to infer smaller-scale ecological processes (e.g., paleoenvironmental reconstruction, interspecific interactions) from fossil assemblages, and caution should be exercised when attempting to do so. I by no means offer a panacea for this scale issue, but hopefully my research will make paleoanthropologists more cognizant of scale and encourage future research on this topic. Only then can we finally begin to understand what exactly were the important ecological drivers affecting hominin behavior and evolution. </p>

This thesis investigates the impacts of diagenesis on the Late-Cretaceous Eagle Ford Formation (Fmn) in south-west Texas. This was achieved utilising many techniques such as of outcrop and core analysis, standard petrographic techniques (including cathodoluminescence [CL] and scanning electron microscopy [SEM]), and geochemical analysis (x-ray diffraction [XRD], stable isotope analysis of C and O within inorganic minerals and Rock Eval pyrolysis). The bulk of diagenetic products and textures were identified via petrographic techniques, with geochemical analysis confirming interpretations based on visual observations. This thesis shows the Eagle Ford Fmn is a calcareous, organic-rich mudstone containing eight distinct lithofacies, which have all been directly impacted by burial diagenesis. The Lower Eagle Ford Fmn mainly comprises of dark organic and clay-rich lithofacies which represent a classic source rock with interbedded carbonate rich lithofacies. The Upper Eagle Ford Fmn is organic and clay-poor, with the bulk of lithofacies carbonate dominated and heavily cemented. An initial anoxic, open marine depositional environment which transitions into an oxic deepening environment is inferred during deposition of the Eagle Ford Fmn. Early, microbial derived redox reactions have precipitated authigenic calcite and pyrite within the Eagle Ford Fmn. Authigenic calcite infills and preserves biogenic debris (mainly planktonic and benthic foraminifera), with pyrite framboids post-dating the carbonate cements. Kaolinite infilling biogenic debris is also a common occurrence indicating it is also an early diagenetic product. Smectite is converted to mixed layer I/Sand illite during deep burial processes at similar depths and temperatures to hydrocarbon generation and expulsion. Authigenic quartz cements precipitate within primary porosity and on top of carbonate cements. Chlorite is observed as the last mineral precipitated in the Eagle Ford Fmn, often pseudomorphed from kaolinite within the micritic matrix. Diagenesis has had the greatest impact on porosity distribution in the Eagle Ford Fmn. The organic, clay-rich lithofacies contain little intra/inter-crystalline porosity with the bulk observed as clay-held or organic porosity. Meanwhile the carbonate-rich lithofacies contain mainly intra-crystalline porosity. Concretions are a common feature observed in the Lower Eagle Ford Fmn outcrops. Four concretion types were identified and studied using a variety of petrological and geochemical techniques. Diagenesis plays a major role in all concretions types. However, primary factors such as sea level fluctuation, sediment input and tectonic activity also have key impacts on the formation of concretions.

Aim: The physical and chemical characterisation of batches of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) / ‘ecstasy’ tablets seized in Malta were investigated to derive new information to be used for forensic intelligence purposes. Methods: Thirty seizures containing 45 batches of ‘ecstasy’ tablets were investigated for their physical (logo, breakline, colour, shape, mass, diameter, thickness, hardness, friability and disintegration rate) and chemical characteristics over a 5 year period. Impurity profiling was carried out by GC-MS with additional chemical characterization by colour tests, TLC, FT-IR and SEM-EDX. MDMA enantiomer ratio was determined by TFAA derivatisation followed by GC-MS analysis on a chiral column. The effect of UV and fluorescent light, temperature (5, 15, 25, 35 and 40°C) and humidity (33 and 75% RH) on the physical features was assessed. ‘Ecstasy’ tablets from seizures (N = 172) at EDM parties by the police were analysed to determine the psychoactive substance content per tablet. Partygoers at an EDM party were interviewed to determine their drug-use, including ‘ecstasy’ tablets and party behaviour. Results: Of the 45 batches examined 66.7% contained MDMA only as the main active ingredient, 6.7% contained mCPP, 4.4% BZP, 2.2% (1 batch) DPIA, 2.2% methanostenolone and 13% caffeine only. The majority of seized tablets were round in shape (91%) with logo (88.9%). The mean of means for mass of 237.2 mg (RSD 28.9%), diameter 8.09 mm (RSD 12.0%) and thickness 3.86 mm (RSD 19.1%). Of the 4 batches of tablets subjected to photostability testing (white, blue, green and orange colour), only the orange-coloured tablets showed a significant change in colour (p < 0.05, one-way ANOVA). The diameter of tablets stored at 15°C and 75% RH increased by 1.22 mm (p < 0.05, one-way ANOVA) and the thickness of tablets stored at 40 and 15°C respectively and 75% RH increased by 0.14 and 0.12 mm respectively (p < 0.05, one-way ANOVA). Chemical profiling determined that the Leuckart and reductive amination reactions were most probably used to synthesize the racemic MDMA and all tablets had a 50:50 ratio of R and S enantiomers. Lactose was the excipient mostly detected in tablets (40%). ‘Ecstasy’ tablets were the second most commonly confiscated drug at EDM parties (27.9%, n = 48 / 172) (cannabis being the most common), however our interviewed clubbers mostly (98.3%, n = 57) used alcohol. Conclusion: Physical and chemical characterisation can help link or discriminate between batches of ‘ecstasy’ tablets. For intelligence purposes tablets should be stored away from sunlight (visible and UV light) and at low RH (≈ 25%) and temperature (≈ 25°C).

Curriculum value orientations are considered important as they influence the manner in which teachers implement the curriculum and undertake their teaching of physical education. The purpose of this study was to investigate what has influenced the development of curriculum value orientations of teachers of physical education in secondary schools and to consider the implications of these value orientations for curriculum implementation, and consider the influences for teacher development, and in-service professional development. The research utilised 'an existing inventory to establish the value orientations of nineteen secondary school physical education teachers. Interviews were then conducted to collect data from six of the teachers who formed two groups of three with different value orientations. Interview data was analysed using the process of constant comparison. Analysis revealed that influences. which have impacted on the formation of these teachers' value orientations can be classified within the categories of life experiences before teacher education, influences during teacher education, influences in the school setting and reflective practice. Findings indicate that secondary school physical education teachers have different value orientations and a range of factors has shaped their value orientations. These include teacher philosophy, teacher education, professional development, life experiences, curriculum, colleagues, schools and reflective practice. The discussion investigates how and to what extent these influences have shaped teachers' different value orientations. The value orientations and their implications for curriculum implementation are discussed and then the influences themselves are considered. Finally, in view of the influences, the implications for teacher education and in-service professional development are discussed. Teachers in this study enter teacher education with a sense of what it means to be a physical education teacher based on their own experiences in life, school and sport in particular. The way in which they interpret these experiences leads to different beliefs. These beliefs lead to the development of a value orientation, which in tum influences the way in which teachers make curriculum decisions, plan, implement and deliver their physical education programmes. This research indicates the extent to which life expenences, teacher education, and professional development impacts on value orientation is variable, but in order to create a change in value orientations, a key component is the development of critical reflection as a well established and ongoing habit. The study suggests that having an understanding of and an awareness of value orientations will enable teachers to consider their beliefs and the influences on these, and to make infonned decisions about curriculum and practice.

Through distributed stream network routing, it has quantitatively been shown that the relationship between flow travel time and discharge varies strongly nonlinearly with stream stage and with catchment-specific properties. Physically derived distributions of water travel times through a stream network were successfully used to parameterise the streamflow response function of a compartmental hydrological model. Predictions were found to improve compared to conventional statistically based parameterisation schemes, for most of the modelled scenarios, particularly for peakflow conditions. A Fourier spectral analysis of 55-110 years of daily discharge time series from 79 unregulated catchments in Sweden revealed that the discharge power spectral slope has gradually increased over time, with significant increases for 58 catchments. The results indicated that the catchment scaling function power spectrum had steepened in most of the catchments for which historical precipitation series were available. These results suggest that (local) land-use changes within the catchments may affect the discharge power spectra more significantly than changes in precipitation (climate change). A case study from an agriculturally intense catchment using historical (from the 1880s) and modern stream network maps revealed that the average stream network flow distance as well as average water levels were substantially diminished over the past century, while average bottom slopes increased. The study verifies the hypothesis that anthropogenic changes (determined through scenario modelling using a 1D distributed routing model) of stream network properties can have a substantial influence on the travel times through the stream networks and thus on the discharge hydrographs. The findings stress the need for a more hydrodynamically based approach to adequately describe the variation of streamflow response, especially for predictions of higher discharges. An increased physical basis of response functions can be beneficial in improving discharge predictions during conditions in which conventional parameterisation based on historical flow patterns may not be possible - for example, for extreme peak flows and during periods of nonstationary conditions, such as during periods of climate and/or land use change.<br><p>QC 20150903</p>

Doutoramento em Biologia<br>The red deer (Cervus elaphus) is currently one of the most widespread and abundant wild ungulates in the Iberian Peninsula and is extremely important both ecologically, as a key species for the functioning of the ecosystems, and economically, as a major game species. In Iberia, red deer populations are subjected to different management systems that may affect the physical condition of the individuals, with further consequences for population dynamics. Studies investigating the effects of management practices and environmental conditions on the performance of red deer are still rare regarding Mediterranean ecosystems. Much of the knowledge concerning the ecology of red deer and the impact of management on its physical condition is based on studies conducted in northern and central regions of Europe, where climatological features and management practices differ from those observed in the Mediterranean areas of Iberia. Studies on a biogeographical scale can provide important insights into the relationships between species and a particular environment and contribute to the development of more targeted and appropriate management practices. The optimisation of sampling procedures and the fine-tuning of pre-existing analytical techniques are also fundamental to a more cost-effective monitoring and, therefore, are of enormous value to wildlife managers. In this context, the main aims of this thesis were: 1) to optimise the procedures used to assess the physical condition of red deer; and 2) to identify relevant management and environmental factors affecting the nutritional condition and stress physiology of red deer in the Mediterranean ecosystems of Iberia, as well as any potential interactions between those factors. Two studies with a methodological focus, presented in the first part of the thesis, demonstrated that the physical condition of red deer can be evaluated more simply, using more cost- and time-effective procedures than those traditionally used: i) it was shown that only one kidney and its associated fat is enough to assess nutritional condition in red deer; and ii) the feasibility of using near infrared spectroscopy to predict the concentrations of stress hormone metabolites was demonstrated using faeces of red deer for the first time. Subsequently, two large-scale observational studies, conducted in representative red deer populations found in Mediterranean Iberia, highlighted the importance of considering seasonal environmental variations and variables related to hunting management practices to better understand the nutritional and physiological ecology of red deer. High population densities had adverse effects on the nutritional condition of the deer and were associated with increased stress levels in natural populations without supplementary feeding. Massive hunting events involving the use of hounds were also identified as a potential source of chronic stress in red deer. The research presented in this thesis has clear implications regarding the management and monitoring of red deer populations in Mediterranean environments and is intended to help wildlife managers to implement more effective monitoring programmes and sustainable management practices.<br>O veado (Cervus elaphus) é, atualmente, uma das espécies de ungulados silvestres mais abundantes na Península Ibérica. É também uma espécie extremamente importante em termos ecológicos, por ser um elemento chave para o funcionamento dos ecossistemas, e socioeconómicos, por ser uma espécie de caça maior emblemática e altamente valorizada. Na Ibéria, as populações de veados estão sujeitas a diferentes práticas de gestão que podem afetar a condição física dos indivíduos de diferentes formas e, por conseguinte, determinar a sua dinâmica. Apesar da importância desta espécie, os estudos sobre os efeitos da gestão cinegética e das condições ambientais nos indicadores da sua condição física são ainda escassos nos ecossistemas mediterrânicos. Grande parte do conhecimento sobre a ecologia do veado e sobre o impacto da sua gestão cinegética é baseado em estudos realizados em regiões do norte e centro da Europa, onde as características climáticas e os sistemas de gestão diferem daqueles existentes nos ambientes mediterrânicos da Península Ibéria. Os estudos realizados a uma escala biogeográfica podem ser bastante úteis para compreender as relações das espécies com o ambiente, e podem contribuir para o desenvolvimento de práticas de gestão mais específicas e adequadas às necessidades de gestão. A otimização de procedimentos de amostragem e do uso de técnicas analíticas é também essencial para uma monitorização mais eficaz das populações silvestres em termos de tempo e custos associados e, portanto, é uma tema de grande interesse para gestores de fauna selvagem. Neste contexto, os principais objetivos desta tese foram: 1) otimizar os métodos usados para avaliar a condição física do veado; e 2) identificar os fatores de gestão cinegética e ambientais que afetam o estado nutricional e a fisiologia do stress do veado nos ecossistemas mediterrânicos da Ibéria, assim como investigar possíveis interações entre esses fatores. Dois estudos de cariz metodológico, apresentados na primeira parte desta tese, demonstraram que a condição física do veado pode ser avaliada usando procedimentos mais simples e rentáveis do que aqueles normalmente utilizados: i) demonstrou-se que o estado nutricional do veado pode ser avaliado usando apenas um rim e a sua gordura perirrenal; ii) provou-se, pela primeira vez, a viabilidade da espectroscopia no infravermelho próximo para estimar concentrações de metabólitos de hormonas de stress usando fezes de veado. Posteriormente, dois estudos observacionais, realizados em diferentes populações de veados representativas da região mediterrânica ibérica, evidenciaram a importância de considerar as variações ambientais sazonais e as variáveis de gestão cinegética para compreender a ecofisiologia e a ecologia nutricional do veado. Observou-se que as densidades populacionais elevadas afetaram de forma negativa o estado nutricional dos veados e estiveram também associadas a níveis de stress mais elevados em populações naturais sem alimentação suplementar. Para além disto, verificou-se que a realização de eventos de caça massivos com matilhas pode ser um fator de stress crónico nas populações de veados. Os resultados obtidos no âmbito desta tese têm diversas implicações no que diz respeito à monitorização e gestão das populações de veados nos ambientes mediterrânicos. Espera-se que os estudos aqui apresentados ajudem os gestores de fauna silvestre a implementar programas de monitorização populacional mais eficazes e práticas de gestão mais sustentáveis.<br>El ciervo rojo (Cervus elaphus) es actualmente uno de los ungulados silvestres más abundantes de la Península Ibérica. Es una especie con una elevada importancia ecológica, siendo un elemento clave en la dinámica de los ecosistemas mediterráneos, y presenta un gran valor socioeconómico, al ser una especie de caza mayor emblemática y muy apreciada. En el territorio peninsular, las poblaciones de ciervos están sometidas a diferentes sistemas de manejo que pueden modular la condición física de los individuos y, consecuentemente, determinar la dinámica de sus poblaciones. Pese a la relevancia de esta especie, aun son escasos los estudios sobre los efectos de la gestión cinegética y de las condiciones ambientales en los indicadores de su condición en los ecosistemas mediterráneos. La mayor parte del conocimiento sobre la ecología de esta especie y sobre el impacto de su gestión cinegética se basa en estudios realizados en regiones del norte y centro de Europa, donde las características climáticas y sistemas de manejo son diferentes a los presentes en los ambientes mediterráneos de la Península Ibérica. Los estudios realizados a una escala biogeográfica pueden ser muy útiles para comprender las relaciones de las especies con el ambiente, y pueden contribuir al desarrollo de prácticas de manejo más especificas y adecuadas a las necesidades de gestión. La optimización de procedimientos de muestreo y la puesta a punto de técnicas analíticas son también de gran importancia para una monitorización más eficaz de las poblaciones silvestres en términos de tiempo y costes asociados y, por consiguiente, son temas de gran interés para los gestores de la fauna silvestre. En este contexto, los objetivos principales de esta tesis doctoral fueron: 1) optimizar los métodos usados para evaluar la condición física del ciervo; y 2) identificar los factores de manejo y ambientales que afectan el estado nutricional y la fisiología del estrés del ciervo en los ecosistemas de la Iberia mediterránea, así como estudiar las posibles interacciones entre dichos factores. Dos estudios con un enfoque metodológico, presentados en la primera parte de esta tesis, demostraron que la condición física del ciervo se puede valorar usando procedimientos más sencillos y rentables que los usados tradicionalmente: i) se ha demostrado que el estado nutricional del ciervo se puede evaluar usando solamente un riñón y su grasa perirrenal; y ii) se comprobó, por primera vez, la viabilidad de la espectroscopia en el infrarrojo cercano para estimar las concentraciones de metabolitos de hormonas de estrés usando heces de ciervo. Posteriormente, dos estudios observacionales basados en poblaciones de ciervo representativas de la Iberia mediterránea evidenciaron la importancia de considerar las variaciones ambientales estacionales y las variables de manejo cinegético para comprender la ecofisiología y la ecología nutricional del ciervo. Se observó que las densidades poblacionales elevadas afectan de forma negativa al estado nutricional de los ciervos y éstas se asociaron con niveles de estrés más elevados en poblaciones naturales sin suplementación alimentaria. Además, se verificó que los eventos de caza masivos con rehalas pueden representar un factor de estrés crónico en las poblaciones de ciervos. Los resultados obtenidos en esta tesis tienen implicaciones en lo que respecta a la monitorización y gestión de las poblaciones de ciervos en ambientes mediterráneos, y se espera que los estudios aquí presentados ayuden a los gestores de fauna silvestre a implementar programas de monitorización más eficaces y prácticas de gestión más sostenibles.

Congested activity schedules are common in soccer, with implications for impaired performance and increased injury risk. It has recently been suggested that valid soccer-specific exercise protocols (SSEP’s) may offer a unique opportunity to assess the physical demands associated with periods of fixture congestion. Fixture congestion in the current thesis is defined as a high frequency of soccer-specific activity performed with less than or equal to seventy-two hours of recovery interspersing successive bouts. Study one describes the development of a novel treadmill-based SSEP characterised by clusters of high intensity (HI) efforts. The SSEP was validated against the velocity profile and total distance (TD) covered, and elicited a physical response comparable to match-play. Study two utilised the same SSEP to consider the physical response associated with successive bouts of soccer-specific activity interspersed with either 48 or 72h recovery. There was no difference in the fatigue response associated with two soccer simulations, with 48 h sufficient for full recovery of the physiological and PlayerLoadTM data. The 48 h recovery was therefore applied in Study three, where three games in a week is typically the worst case scenario for fixture congestion. Study three quantified the cumulative and residual physiological and biomechanical response associated with the completion of three successive bouts of the SSEP, completed with 48 hrs recovery between each trial. Study three also assessed the physical response associated with successive bouts of different exercise modalities (continuous, repeat-sprint, and intermittent), specific to the demands of the SSEP. The physical response was specific to each activity modality, but the volume of work and number of HI efforts performed across the three SSEP’s elicited a mechanical and muscular emphasis with residual fatigue. Study four attempted to assess the effectiveness of an interchange rule on reducing the cumulative and residual physical fatigue response associated with the completion of the SSEP. The interchange rule appeared to elicit a positive effect on the physiological and perceptual response to, and rate of mechanical recovery following the completion of the SSEP. Study five focused on developing and assessing the effectiveness of a novel post-match active recovery protocol on aiding the rate of post-trial mechanical and perceptual recovery. The active recovery protocol had a positive effect on the eccentric knee flexor angle of peak torque data recorded at 300 deg·s-1. The current series of studies offers a mechanistic understanding of the physical response associated with periods of short-term fixture congestion in soccer. The current studies have implications for the design and micro management of training and competition schedules, and the contemporary use of biomechanical analyses to quantify markers of performance and injury.

The ultimate goal of seismology is to estimate the timing, magnitude and potential spatial extent of future seismic events along pre-existing faults. Based on the rate-state friction law, several theoretical physical earthquake models have been proposed towards this goal. Tectonic loading rate and frictional properties of faults are required in these models. Modern geodetic observations, e.g. GPS and InSAR, have provided unprecedented near-field observations following large earthquakes. In theory, according to the frictional rate and state asperity earthquake model, velocity-weakening regions holding seismic motions on faults should be separated with velocity-strengthening regions within which faults slip only aseismically. However, early afterslip following the 2011 MW 9.1 Tohoku-Oki earthquake revealed from GPS measurements was largely overlaid on the historical rupture zones, which challenged the velocity weakening asperity model. Therefore, the performance of the laboratory based friction law in the natural events needs further investigation, and the factors that may affect the estimates of slip models through geodetic modelling should also be discussed systematically. In this thesis, several moderate-strong events were investigated in order to address this important issue. The best-fit co- and post-seismic slip models following the 2009 MW 6.3 Haixi, Qinghai thrust-slip earthquake determined by InSAR deformation time-series suggest that the maximum afterslip is concentrated in the same area as the coseismic slip model, which is similar to the patterns observed in the 2011 Japan earthquake. In this case, complex geometric asperity may play a vital role in the coseismic nucleation and postseismic faulting. The major early afterslip after the 2011 MW 7.1 Van mainshock, which was revealed by one COSMO-SkyMed postseismic interferogram, is found just above the coseismic slip pattern. In this event, a postseismic modelling that did not allow slip across the coseismic asperity was also tested, suggesting that the slip model without slip in the asperities can explain the postseismic observations as well as the afterslip model without constraints on slip in the asperities. In the 2011 MW 9.1 Tohoku-Oki earthquake, a joint inversion with the GRACE coseismic gravity changes and inland coseismic GPS observations was conducted to re-investigate the coseismic slip model of the mainshock. A comparison of slip models from these different datasets suggests that significant variations of slip models can be observed, particularly the locations of the maximum slips. The joint slip model shows that the maximum slip of ~42 m appears near the seafloor surface close to the Japan Trench. Meanwhile, the accumulative afterslip patterns (slip >2 m) determined in previous studies appear in spatial correlation with the Coulomb stress changes generated using the joint slip model. As a strike-slip faulting event, the 2011 MW 6.8 Yushu earthquake was also investigated through co- and post-seismic modelling with more SAR data than was used in previous study. Best slip models suggest that the major afterslip is concentrated in shallow parts of the faults and between the two major coseismic slip patterns, suggesting that the performance of the rate and state frictional asperity model is appropriate in this event. Other postseismic physical mechanisms, pore-elastic rebound and viscoelastic relaxation have also been examined, which cannot significantly affect the estimate of the shallow afterslip model in this study. It is believed that the shallow afterslip predominantly controlled the postseismic behaviour after the mainshock in this case. In comparison to another 21 earthquakes investigated using geodetic data from other studies, complementary spatial extents between co- and post-seismic slip models can be identified. The 2009 MW 6.3 Qinghai earthquake is an exceptional case, in which the faulting behaviours might be dominated by the fault structure (e.g. fault bending). In conclusion, the major contributions from this thesis include: 1) the friction law gives a first order fit in most of natural events examined in this thesis; 2) geometric asperities may play an important role in faulting during earthquake cycles; 3) significant uncertainties in co- and post-seismic slip models can appreciably bias the estimation of fault frictional properties; 4) new insights derived from each earthquake regarding their fault structures and complex faulting behaviours have been observed in this thesis; and (5) a novel package for geodetic earthquake modelling has been developed, which can handle multiple datasets including InSAR, GPS and land/space based gravity changes.

A series of MoS(n) complexes were studied to afford a better understanding of the factors which affect the electronic structures in these complexes. Molybdenum sulfur interactions are of interest because of their importance in biology, and because of the utility of such complexes as catalysts in the petroleum industry. The He I gas phase photoelectron spectra (PES) of the series LMo(E)(OR)₂ [(L=hydrotris(3,5-dimethylpyrazolyl)borate), (E=O, NO)] were explored as a point of reference to the analogous thiolate complexes. These studies show that the nitrosyl complexes (formally Mo(II)) are 0.8 eV more difficult to ionize than the oxo analogues (formally Mo(V)). This counterintuitive result is ascribed to the differing π interactions of the nitrosyl and oxo ligands. The first single crystal EPR study of an oxo-Mo(V) complex with a single diothiolene-type ligand, LMoO(bdt) [bdt = 1,2-benzenedithiol], is reported. The principal g tensor elements was found to be oriented in the MoS₂ plane nearly perpendicular to the Mo-O vector, with a magnitude of 2.004. This large g value is attributed to contributions from sulfur spin-orbit coupling. These findings suggest that the singly occupied molecular orbital (SOMO), which is expected to be primarily metal in character, contains a significant amount of S character. The HeI, HeII, and NeI PES of LMoE(SPh)₂ and LMoE(tdt) [E = O, NO, S; tdt = 3,4-toluenedithiol] show that the ligand E and the formal oxidation state of the metal have little effect on the position of the first ionization potential, suggesting that the Mo-S interaction is the dominant factor in the electronic structure. An empirical equation is developed to quantify the relative amount of sulfur character in the "metal" orbitals. The results of these studies suggest that thiolate donors act as "electronic buffers" to a Mo center because of the close energy matching between Mo 4d and S 3p orbitals. This energy matching can be invoked to explain the utility of MoS(n) complexes as effective biological and industrial catalysts.

Geriatric board-certified specialists (GCSs) address health care needs of the growing geriatric population. The study's purposes were to: examine career paths of GCSs, identify influencing factors, and explore implications for higher education. Twelve of 14 original 1992 GCSs participated. Data included document collection and interviews. Using a qualitative methodology, commonalities were sought among individuals and HyperRESEARCH software was used for data management. The participants were adventurous, valued education, and were enthusiastic about physical therapy (PT), geriatrics, and specialization. Their career path began with choosing PT as a career, professional education, and their first job. One GCS moved directly into geriatrics. Others went to different settings before geriatrics. As participants recognized they "fit" in geriatrics, they pursued postprofessional education to increase knowledge before choosing board certification. In choosing PT, volunteer experience and personal research were common influences. In choosing to work with elders, influences throughout life gradually built a social context supporting the decision. GCSs chose specialist certification to assist in professionalization of geriatric PT, because they were highly skilled, for career advancement, and for self professionalization. Specialist certification had few financial consequences. Participants gained friends and professional networks. They experienced improved patient care, increased educational opportunities, and/or increased professional service. GCSs' vision was for a better society and health care system. This vision included successful aging - that it is possible and would benefit society. To bring about global change, GCSs perceived they had to influence older individuals, legislators, PT students, peers, and other professionals. Implications for higher education are as follows. Professional schools should not base admission on expressed intentions to work with elders. Curricula and clinical experiences should be such that a nonageist generalist is produced. Higher education's role postprofessionally can be through continuing education, formal degrees, and geriatric residency programs. Gerontology programs also could meet educational needs. Higher education can play an important role in the professionalization of individuals and ultimately the profession itself.

Renal replacement therapy, in the form of dialysis or transplantation, is the cornerstone of management for end-stage renal disease. UK renal registry shows nearly half of those needing renal replacement therapy are treated by dialysis – predominantly by haemodialysis. Patients on renal replacement therapy have increased mortality risk compared to age matched general population. Moreover, some specific subgroups of patients on haemodialysis have increased risk of mortality than expected. The survival benefit seen in women in the general population is attenuated resulting in similar survival for men and women on haemodialysis therapy. In addition, obese individuals and those of non-Caucasian origin have better survival outcome. Though the underlying reason for these findings is not clear and is likely to be multi-factorial, it has been hypothesised that this paradox could be due to the current practice of normalising dialysis dose to total body water. A number of metabolic factors – body surface area, resting energy expenditure and total energy expenditure – have been proposed as alternative to total body water for scaling dialysis dose. There were two overarching aims of this work – one was to study the effect of declining renal function on resting and total energy expenditure and to study the influence of various energy expenditure measures on uraemic toxin generation. The second was to study the impact on survival outcome of using these alternate parameters for normalising dialysis dose and to derive dialysis dose adjustments based on these metabolic parameters. In order to study these aims, studies were designed to explore different aspects of energy expenditure measures along with a longitudinal study to examine the impact of these parameters on survival outcome. The relationship between energy metabolism, body composition and uraemic toxin generation was studied with a retrospective analysis of 166 haemodialysis patients in whom urea generation rate was used as surrogate marker of uraemic toxin generation. It was found that total energy expenditure and fat-free mass predicted uraemic toxin generation after adjustment for other relevant variables. This study provided the preliminary data which was useful in designing further studies for this work. The effect of renal function on resting and total energy expenditure was studied in 80 patients with varying stages of chronic kidney disease who were not on renal replacement therapy. Resting and total energy expenditures were measured directly using gold-standard methods. It was found that declining renal function did not have a significant influence on either of these measures. This supports the hypothesis that metabolic rate is the driving force for glomerular filtration rate and not vice-versa. The directly measured energy expenditure measures were also found to have a moderately strong relationship with urea generation rate in these patients not on renal replacement therapy. The impact of physical activity on uraemic toxin generation, and thereby dialysis requirement, was studied in a prospective cross-sectional study of 120 haemodialysis patients in whom the physical activity was measured by an accelerometer device. Results from the study showed physical activity level to be a significant predictor of uraemic toxin generation after adjustment for gender and body size differences. This study results stressed the importance of adjusting dialysis dose based on individual’s physical activity level. To study the impact of using metabolic factors as normalising parameter for scaling dialysis dose on survival outcome, a large-scale longitudinal study was conducted with 1500 maintenance haemodialysis patients recruited for the study. Dialysis dose-related parameters and survival outcomes were collected at baseline and at various time points during the follow-up period of 18 months. Study results were analysed in two parts - the theoretical basis for using these metabolic factors as scaling parameters was explored which showed that current minimum target dialysis dose risks under-dialysis in certain subgroups of patients and using these alternative parameters may provide a more equivalent dialysis dose across individuals of different body sizes and gender. With these results arguing for potential use of the alternative parameters, the impact on survival of using them were examined. It was found that all three parameters performed better than the current parameter (total body water) with regards to predicting mortality. Total energy expenditure was found to be the best parameter with the lowest hazard ratio for risk of death. The study data was also analysed to derive an algorithm for adjustment of minimum target dialysis dose based on body size and physical activity level. This newly derived minimum dose target was also shown to impact on survival with those underdialysed based on this criteria having poorer survival outcomes. To understand the impact of whole body protein turnover on resting energy expenditure and uraemic toxin generation, a cross-sectional study was conducted on 12 patients with advanced CKD – 6 each in pre-dialysis CKD and haemodialysis group. It was found that haemodialysis patients had higher rate of protein turnover compared to pre-dialysis patients. Whole body protein turnover was found to contribute significantly to resting energy expenditure and had a moderately strong relationship with urea generation rate. In the course of these studies, two questionnaire tools have been validated for use for clinical and research purposes – one is a self-report comorbidity questionnaire and the other, the Recent Physical Activity Questionnaire. The comorbidity questionnaire was developed as part of this work and was validated against Charlson Comorbidity Index. The Recent Physical Activity Questionnaire was validated for physical activity data collection and energy expenditure calculation against the gold-standard doubly labelled water method. In conclusion, it has been demonstrated that metabolic factors such as body surface area, resting energy expenditure and total energy expenditure are more closely related to uraemic toxin generation compared to total body water. It has also been demonstrated that physical activity contributes to metabolic waste production and may necessitate changes in dialysis requirement. It has been shown that these metabolic factors, when used as scaling parameter for dialysis dosing, may predict survival better than the current parameter in use. The algorithm for dialysis dose adjustment and the questionnaires validated in this work have provided novel tools for further research studies and clinical practice. The central hypothesis of this work is that some metabolic factors may be better markers of uraemic toxin generation compared to total body water. It is hypothesised that modifications in dialysis practice based on these factors may improve the quality of haemodialysis and favourably impact on survival outcome for patients with end-stage renal disease. The work presented here largely supports this hypothesis.

Team Invasion Games (TIG) such as soccer, field hockey and basketball hold a prominent position within Physical Education (PE) curricula in schools in Scotland. However, the Review Group on PE (Scottish Executive, 2004a) claim that fewer pupils in schools are able to relate to these “traditional” activities and that this may be one of the reasons why pupils choose to opt out of PE and physical activity. One of the aims of this thesis was to investigate the perceptions and experiences of pupils and teachers in relation to TIG within a Scottish urban state school and its three feeder primary schools. Findings indicated that both the teachers and the pupils in each school valued TIG but the value the pupils attached to TIG was contingent on their perception of competence in TIG. This thesis also investigated the ways PE teachers in each school taught TIG. Results found teachers predominantly used teacher-led, skill-focussed approaches, especially in the primary schools. None of the teachers indicated any awareness of alternative, game-based, pupil centred teaching approaches such as Teaching Games for Understanding (TGfU) (Thorpe &amp; Bunker, 1982) or the Tactical approach (Griffin et al., 1997). The final part of the thesis involved an intervention where one teacher from the urban state secondary school was introduced to a game-based, pupil-centred teaching approach in order to teach basketball to a class of secondary 1 (S1) pupils (n=27; age 12-13 years). The effects this approach had on pupil learning were compared to another S1 class (n=25) who took part in their regular ‘skill-focussed’ basketball lessons. Findings indicated that the game-based class performed significantly better in 4v4 basketball games for decision making on-the-ball (p&lt;0.05) and off-the-ball (p&lt;0.001). The game-based group also acquired more sophisticated basketball knowledge and perceived their decision making competence to be significantly higher from pre to post intervention (p&lt;0.01) compared to the skill-focussed group.

<p> The present study aimed to investigate the impact of psychological resilience and daily stressors on physical activity levels among mothers completing a three-month physical activity program. The sample consisted of 30 low-income mothers recruited to participate in a larger community-based physical activity intervention study. It was expected that women higher in resilience would participate in more physical activity over the program than women lower in resilience, and women lower in resilience would be more negatively affected by daily stressors than those higher in resilience, resulting in less physical activity over the program. However, results showed a pattern that among the women lower in resilience, those experiencing a higher severity of daily stressors throughout the program participated in more physical activity than those experiencing a lower severity of daily stressors. Implications for targeting mothers to use physical activity as a coping mechanism are discussed.</p>

Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend that children engage in 60 min of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) every day of the week (CDC, 2010), current estimates suggest that most children do not (Troiano et al., 2008). Inadequate physical activity increases the risks related to a number of health problems in children (Reilly & Kelly, 2011), however, these risks are mitigated, at least in part, by increasing activity to levels correlated with health benefits (Ross et al., 2000). The functional analysis methodology proposed by Iwata et al. (1982/1994) provides an efficient and effective way to identify functional relationships, and lends itself to investigating the variables responsible for increased levels of MVPA. In the current study, the functional analysis methodology was used to assess relationships between MVPA and environmental events (i.e., Attention, Interactive Play, Alone, and Escape), which were alternated with a control condition in a multielement design. Results of the current study indicated that all four participants were most active in the Interactive Play condition and the percentage of MVPA varied across test and control conditions. In addition, the frequency and duration of bouts of MVPA was greatest in the Interactive Play condition. The current study presents a methodology for identifying environmental contingencies that support increased levels of MVPA in young children, and holds great promise for improving our understanding of the variables related to physical activity so that effective interventions can be designed to improve children's health and wellbeing.

Single well forced gradient tracer tests are a potential cost-effective approach to estimate in situ aquifer contaminant fate and transport parameters for use in natural attenuation assessments and remediation schemes. To date dipole flow tracer tests have been used to measure the conservative and hydraulic parameters of an aquifer, while push-pull tests are well characterised for use with biodegrading tracers. The effect of typical aquifer physical heterogeneity on the ability of single well tests to successfully estimate parameters has not yet been characterised. Also, the ability of single well tests to accurately and quickly measure aquifer parameters using tracer mixtures should be analysed. To investigate the effect of physical heterogeneity on single well tests scaled down ultraviolet imaging experiments were performed in a low profile box. Potential tracers for use in mixtures were investigated through column and batch experiments: Inorganic anions and fluorescein, inorganic cations, acetate and trichlorofluoroethene were considered to measure conservative transport parameters, cation exchange capacity, biodegradation potential and hydrophobic sorption respectively. Numerical modelling was used to simulate reactive tracer signals in single well forced gradient tests. Results suggest that dipole flow tracer tests are appropriate for measuring conservative transport parameters and the sorption of lowly retarded tracers, but are not highly suitable for biodegrading tracers. Tests could be performed with non-recirculating flow, allowing simpler modelling, if equal injection and extraction flow rates could be ensured. Push-pull tests are suitable for biodegrading tracers and moderate to highly retarded tracers. This limits the potential to use reactive tracer mixtures in these tests. Dipole flow tracer test breakthrough curves are highly susceptible to heterogeneity, and could be used to identify discrete permeability variations in aquifers. The effect of heterogeneity is not significant on push-pull test breakthrough curves, but seriously affects tracer plume migration. Inorganic anions provided the most reliable conservative tracer. Trichlorofluoroethene was found to be a suitable tracer to measure hydrophobic sorption. The biodegradation surrogate chosen for a field test should biodegrade similarly to the contaminant under study.

The progressive enrichment in volatiles and light incompatible elements observed during upper-crustal differentiation of granitic and rhyolitic magmas leads to significant changes in melt physical-chemical properties and has important implications for ore deposition and volcanic devolatization. Thermodynamic calculations and experimental studies of melting equilibria in the Na 2O-K2O-Al2O3-SiO2-F 2O-1-H2O system are used to evaluate mineral stabilities, fluid compositions, the extent of fluoride-silicate liquid-liquid immiscibility, fluorine and water solubility limits and differentiation paths of natural fluorine-bearing silicic magmas. The interaction of fluorine with rock-forming aluminosilicates corresponds to progressive fluorination by the thermodynamic component F2O-1. Formation of fluorine-bearing minerals first occurs in peralkaline and silica-undersaturated systems that buffer fluorine concentrations at very low levels (villiaumite, fluorite). The highest concentrations of fluorine are achieved in peraluminous silica-oversaturated systems, saturated with fluorite or topaz. Thermodynamic models of fluorosilicate melts indicate clustering of silicate tetrahedra in the Na2O-SiO 2-F2O-1 system, whereas initial NaAl-F short-range order evolves into partial O-F disorder in the albite-cryolite system. Experiments performed at 520-1100°C and 0.1-100 MPa completely describe liquidus relations and differentiation paths of fluorine-bearing felsic magmas. Coordination differences and short-range order effects between [NaAl]-F, Na-F vs. Si-O lead to the fluoride-silicate liquid immiscibility, which extends from the silica-cryolite binary through the peralkaline albite-silica-cryolite ternary and closes in multicomponent, topaz-bearing systems owing to the destabilizing effect of increasing peraluminosity. Liquidus relations indicate that fluoride-silicate liquid-liquid immiscibility is inaccessible to quartz-feldspar-saturated granitic melt