It is now accepted that there is a link between obesity and several diseases such as cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and atherosclerosis with the common initiating factor in pathogenesis being a state of low grade, chronic inflammation. This st…
The Imperial Dock Lock Special Protection Area (SPA) in Leith Docks on the Firth of Forth currently supports the largest common tern (Sterna hirundo) colony in Scotland. The nest site, a former lock wall in an operational port, was designated as an SPA for the species in 2004 bu…
Diabetes (DM) increases mortality after myocardial infarction and deteriorates post-ischaemic cardiac remodelling. This study investigated possible implications of thyroid hormone (TH) signalling in either reducing or preventing this response. TH signalling has a regulatory role…
The research reported here examines the usability of Computer Assisted Assessment(CAA) and the development of domain specific heuristics. CAA is being adopted within educational institutions and the pedagogical implications are widely investigated, but little research has been c…
The synthesis and characterisation of functionalised polyazamacrocycles and their subsequent immobilisation into porous materials were investigated and reported in this thesis. The incorporation of polyazamacrocycles into porous materials offers the potential to enhance their bi…
In plant ecology, understanding which species live where and why is fundamental for ensuring successful conservation management with the aim of maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services. Biodiversity patterns in space can be empirically linked to spatially scaled environme…
The asymmetric construction of substituted carbonyl compounds, particularly those containing α-quaternary carbon stereogenic centres, remains a significant area of interest in organic chemistry. This can largely be attributed to the ubiquity and versatility of these compounds as…
The objective of this thesis was to develop and prepare multifunctional magnetic nanoparticles with targeting and bimodal imaging capabilities for cancer diagnostic applications. Superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) were the key component in the multifunctional na…
T2K is a long baseline neutrino oscillation experiment designed to measure the θ23 and θ13 mixing angles to high precision using νμ disappearance and νe appearance respectively. A major component of the T2K near detector is the electromagnetic calorimeter; the construction, comm…
Advances in modern science require the development of more robust and improved systems for electroseparations in chromatography. In response, the progress of a new analytical platform is discussed. DFGF (Dynamic Field Gradient Focusing) is a separation technique, first described…
Contour curvature information has been shown to have an impact on the visual perception of shape. We have conducted studies on perception of convexity and concavity in relation to memory and attention. Previous studies (Badcock & Westheirner, 1985; Krose & Julesz, 1989; Nakayama…
The growth of e-science and grid computing has presented new opportunities to researchers working on distributed, collaborative projects, or for whom access to large computational and data-storage resources is essential. There is, however, much work to be done to improve the exp…
Melanocytes within benign human nevi are the paradigm for tumor suppressive senescent cells in a pre-malignant neoplasm. These cells typically contain mutations in either the BRAF or NRAS oncogene and express markers of senescence, including p16INK4A 1-4. However, a nevus can co…
fruitless (fru) is a pleiotropic gene which produces an array of variant transcription factor isoforms to fulfil a range of developmental and behavioural roles, from the regulation of axonal pathfinding during embryogenesis, all the way to the precise orchestration of individual…
Nano-biotechnology combines recent advances in nanotechnology with biology. It is a relatively new discipline and full of promise. One such promise is the elucidation of complex bio-molecular reactions and interactions, the elucidation of which requires the development of reliab…
Active Screen Plasma Nitriding (ASPN) is a novel surface engineering technique, the main advantage of which is the capacity to treat homogeneously all kind of materials surfaces of any shape. Here, ASPN is used to modify the surface properties of ionomer glasses and polymers in …
Supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO\(_2\)) and Soxhlet extraction using hexane as solvent were used to extract 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (2-AP) from Pandan leaves. The effect of different extraction pre-treatments, such as particle size and drying on the extraction yield and concentr…
Low temperature plasma surface alloying with nitrogen (nitriding), carbon (carburising) and both (carbonitriding) has been successfully employed in hardening medical grade ASTM F138, ASTM F1586 and ASTM F2581 as well as engineering grade AISI 316 by the formation of a modified l…
Abstract Recently, there has been increasing interest in investigating the interrelationships among the component stochastic processes of a dynamical system. The applications of these studies are to be found in various fields such as Economics, Neuroscience, Engineering and Neur…