PhD Theses Collection: Recent submissions
Now showing items 241-260 of 1177
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Assistant, Trainee and Qualified Psychologists’ Personal Experiences of Caring for Others and the Influence of Caring on Clinical Practice
(2021-03-09)The aim of the study is to explore the relationship between the unpaid personal caring experiences of psychologists and the perceived impact on their clinical practice and sense of self. The intersection between psychologists ... -
Primitive Methodism in Hertfordshire from 1838 to 1918: a Socio-Economic and Demographic Study
(2021-03-01)This is a study of the history and development of Primitive Methodism in Hertfordshire from 1838 to 1918. It aims to discover and document, principally by means of socio-economic and demographic analysis, firstly, how ... -
Securing the Edges of IoT Networks: a Scalable SIP DDoS Defense Framework with VNF, SDN, and Blockchain
(2021-02-19)An unintended consequence of the global deployment of IoT devices is that they provide a fertile breeding ground for IoT botnets. An adversary can take advantage of an IoT botnet to launch DDoS attacks against telecommunication ... -
Adaptation of Heuristic Evaluation for Mobile Applications and the Impact of Context of Use
(2021-02-25)The aim of this programme of research was to build upon prior work regarding the heuristic evaluation of mobile applications in two important areas. A mixed methods approach was taken to address the research questions ... -
Probing the Role of AGN Feedback and Galactic Mergers in Galaxy Evolution
(2020-06-09)In this thesis we aim to probe the role of two of the processes that can dictate the evolution of galaxies – feedback from the central active galactic nucleus (AGN) and mergers. To study the importance of AGN feedback ... -
Improving Defect Prediction Models by Combining Classifiers Predicting Different Defects
(2018-10-02)Background: The software industry spends a lot of money on finding and fixing defects. It utilises software defect prediction models to identify code that is likely to be defective. Prediction models have, however, reached ... -
Emotions, Motivation-Based Action Selection and Dynamic Environments
(2013-12-19)In contrast to traditional approaches, where the focus is on developing or evolving artificial “brains” as the route to artificial intelligence (AI) more recent approaches have increasingly emphasised and modelled the ... -
The Impact of Socio-Cultural Values on Autistic Women: an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis
(2021-01-07)The experiences of autistic females, particularly those of adult women are not well understood. The way that autism has been conceptualised traditionally has contributed to knowledge being largely extrapolated from experiences ... -
The Impact of a Movement-Based Emotional Self-Regulation Programme on Adolescents with Special Educational Needs During the Transition Period from School to Post-School in Hong Kong
(2021-02-08)The emotional wellbeing of adolescents remains a concern in the Hong Kong community. The prevalence of emotional problems for adolescents with special educational needs (SEN) is higher than their mainstream peers. Adolescents ... -
Autonomous and Intrinsically Motivated Robots for Sustained Human-Robot Interaction
(2021-02-04)A challenge in using fully autonomous robots in human-robot interaction (HRI) is to design behavior that is engaging enough to encourage voluntary, long-term interaction, yet robust to the perturbations induced by human ... -
The Efficacy of Probiotics in Modulating Clostridium difficile Spore Germination, Growth and Toxin Production in an in vitro Human Gut Model
(2021-01-22)Background and aims Clostridium difficile infection (CDI) remains a healthcare burden and recurrent CDI (rCDI) still affects 20-30% of patients. Probiotics are live microorganisms that confer a host health benefit, but ... -
Modeling Affect-Based Relationships and Social Allostasis as Mechanisms for Adaptation in Social Groups
(2021-01-29)Artificial social agents are becoming increasingly present in the real world. For these agents, their success is tied to their ability to remain truly autonomous—to appropriately adapt their decisions and behaviours across ... -
Behind the Mask of a CEO of a Management Training Institution: Exploring Breakdowns of Identity in the Struggle for Recognition
(2021-02-05)This thesis explores how idealisations of management identity influence everyday practice as a CEO, drawing on narrative accounts from my experience over a number of years. Combining the performative perspective of Erving ... -
Estimation and Modelling of Errors in the Library Preparation Stage of Next Generation Sequencing
(2020-12-16)Next-generation sequencing has empowered genomics by making it possible to sequence genomes at a lower cost and less time compared to the traditional Sanger method. However, these improvements suffer from reduced accuracy ... -
The Development of the Literary Werewolf: Language, Subjectivity and Animal/Human Boundaries
(2017-03-07)The werewolf is a stock character in Gothic horror, exemplifying humanity’s fear of ‘the beast within’, and a return to a bestial state of being. Central to this is the idea that the werewolf is, once transformed, without ... -
An Exploratory Study of How and Why Some Micro-Finance Banks Overcome Adversity and Why Others Do Not
(2021-01-13)This exploratory study was undertaken to gain an understanding of how and why some Micro-finance Banks (MFBs) in Lagos, Nigeria cope with, adapt to and overcome adversity in response to a spate of failures in the industry ... -
A Comparison of Tillage Techniques on Selected Soil Microbes Within the Rhizosphere of Wheat
(2021-01-27)This thesis reports on the implications of Conventional tillage regimes with a focus upon Arbuscular Mycorrhizal (AM) fungi for their contribution to soil chemical, physical and biological attributes, including aggregation, ... -
Family Narratives of Lives Where Both Parent and Child Have Been Diagnosed with Persistent Physical Symptom (PPS) Conditions
(2020-12-17)There is a limited body of research that explores the lived experiences of families with persistent physical symptoms (PPS) conditions and no qualitative research on the intergenerational component to PPS. Existing research ... -
The Use of Photovoice as a Methodology to Explore Identity Expression Amongst People with Intellectual Disabilities who have No or Limited Verbal Communication
(2020-12-02)People with severe and profound intellectual disabilities are rarely given the opportunity to participate in research. This is despite the development of inclusive participatory practices. A lack of involvement in research ... -
Culture-related Depression in Taiwanese Women and the Application of The BodyMind Approach TM
(2016-09-28)This research explores the connection between modernisation and depression in women in Taiwan from two perspectives, those of modernisation and individualisation, and the duality between body and mind. Many researches ...