Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Digital Commons Network™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

University of Plymouth

Discipline
Keyword
Publication Year
Publication
Publication Type
File Type

Articles 5761 - 5790 of 6794

Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network

An Investigation Into Use Of The Freshwater Gastropod Viviparus As A Recorder Of Past Climatic Change, Melanie Jane Bugler Jan 2011

An Investigation Into Use Of The Freshwater Gastropod Viviparus As A Recorder Of Past Climatic Change, Melanie Jane Bugler

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences Theses

Through isotopic analysis of Viviparus lentus (V. lentus) a high resolution record of stepwise changes in 8 180 and 8 13C across the Eocene I Oligocene transition and Oi-l glacial maximum has been produced for the continental Solent Group strata, Isle of Wight (UK). Comparison of this V. lentus δ18 Ocarb. record with high resolution marine δ18 Ocarb. records shows that similar isotopic shifts exist in the near coastal continental and marine realms. In order to calculate palaeotemperatures from this new continental record an investigation into the biology of modern Viviparus and its effect on the isotopic composition of its …


Diffuse Minewater Pollution: Quantification And Risk Assessment In The Tamar Catchment, Alison Turner Jan 2011

Diffuse Minewater Pollution: Quantification And Risk Assessment In The Tamar Catchment, Alison Turner

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences Theses

Abandoned metal mines in the Tamar catchment, south west England, represent a significant threat to surface water quality via generation of acid mine waters. Currently the River Tamar fails environmental quality standards (EQS) established under the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC) for dissolved Cu (x ̅ = 0.19 ± 0.05 μmol L-1) and Zn (x ̅ = 0.19 ± 0.06 μmol L-1, both 1997-2007) downstream of historic mining area of Gunnislake. The aim of this study was to quantify the risk to surface water quality by diffuse drainage generated by mine waste tips. For the first time, a GIS model was …


Factors Influencing The Marine Spatial Ecology Of Seabirds: Implications For Theory, Conservation And Management, William James Grecian Jan 2011

Factors Influencing The Marine Spatial Ecology Of Seabirds: Implications For Theory, Conservation And Management, William James Grecian

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

Seabirds are wide-ranging apex-predators and useful bio-indicators of marine systems. Nevertheless, changes are occurring in the marine environment, and seabirds require protection from the deleterious effects of climate change, fisheries, pollution, offshore development, introduced predators and invasive species. The UK supports internationally important populations of seabirds but also has vast wind and wave resources, therefore understanding how seabirds use the marine environment is vital in order to quantify the potential consequences of further exploiting these resources. In this thesis I first describe the range of wave energy converting devices operational or in development in the UK, and review the potential …


Life Cycle Assessment Of Flax Fibres, Nilmini Pj Dissanayake Jan 2011

Life Cycle Assessment Of Flax Fibres, Nilmini Pj Dissanayake

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

This thesis aims to investigate the sustainability of bast fibres specifically flax fibres as the reinforcement for polymer matrix composites (referenced to glass fibres) by undertaking a quantitative Life Cycle Assessment using the eight environmental impact classification factors of global warming, acidification, eutrophication, human toxicity, aquatic toxicity, ozone depletion, photochemical oxidants creation and non-renewable/abiotic resource depletion. A data set was compiled from numerous literature sources to complete the Life Cycle Inventory for the production of flax fibres. Three scenarios were studied for the production of either flax sliver (pre-spun fibre) or yarn (post-spun fibre): low (no-till combined with warm water …


Cobalt Biogeochemistry In The Atlantic Ocean Using Flow Injection-Chemiluminescence, Rachel Shelley Jan 2011

Cobalt Biogeochemistry In The Atlantic Ocean Using Flow Injection-Chemiluminescence, Rachel Shelley

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

As ~ 50% of global photosynthesis occurs in marine environments, the factors regulating this process e.g. trace metal availability, have an impact on the global carbon cycle. The key cyanobacteria genera Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus have an absolute requirement for Co. Dissolved cobalt (dCo) concentrations in the open ocean are extremely low (5–120 pM). A sensitive flow injection technique using chemiluminescence detection (FI-CL) was developed (detection limit 4.5 pM dCo, RSD ≤ 4%). Seawater samples must be UV-irradiated prior to analysis, in order to liberate organically-bound Co. A field study in the Sargasso Sea, demonstrated that aerosol Co was significantly more …


The Ecotoxicology Of Engineered Nanoparticles To Freshwater Fish, Benjamin John Shaw Jan 2011

The Ecotoxicology Of Engineered Nanoparticles To Freshwater Fish, Benjamin John Shaw

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

The use of nanoscale materials is growing exponentially, but there are also concerns about the environmental hazard to aquatic biota. Metal-containing engineered nanoparticles (NPs) are an important group of these new materials, and whilst there are undoubtedly a plethora of beneficial uses for these NPs, it is essential that an appropriate risk assessment is carried out in order to protect the environment and human health, with the consumption of contaminated fish a distinct possibility. The current study aimed to assess the bioavailability, uptake and toxicological effects of two metal-NPs (TiO2 NPs and Cu-NPs) to fish from both dietary and waterborne …


Encoding Strategies And Mechanisms Underpinning Adaptation To Stimulus Statistics In The Rat Barrel Cortex, Lucy Anne Davies Jan 2011

Encoding Strategies And Mechanisms Underpinning Adaptation To Stimulus Statistics In The Rat Barrel Cortex, Lucy Anne Davies

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

It is well established that, following adaptation, cells adjust their sensitivity to reflect the global stimulus conditions. Two recent studies in guinea pig inferior colliculus (IC, Dean, Harper & McAlpine 2005) and rat barrel cortex (Garcia-Lazaro, Ho, Nair & Schnupp 2007) found that neural stimulus-response functions were displaced laterally in a manner that was dependent on the mean adapting stimulus. However, the direction of gain change, following adaptation to variance, was in contradiction to Information Theory, which predicts a decrease in gain with increased stimulus variance. On further analysis of the experimental data, presented within this thesis, it was revealed …


Detecting Phytoplankton Size Class Using Satellite Earth Observation, Robert J. W. Brewin Jan 2011

Detecting Phytoplankton Size Class Using Satellite Earth Observation, Robert J. W. Brewin

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

A new range of multi-plankton biogeochemical models have recently been developed, designed to advance our understanding of the ocean carbon cycle to improve predictions of its future influence on climate. Synoptic measurements of the different phytoplankton communities are required to validate and ultimately improve such models. Measuring ocean colour from satellite is the only method currently available for synoptically monitoring wide-area properties of ocean ecosystems, such as phytoplankton chlorophyll biomass. Recently, a variety of bio-optical methods have been established that use satellite data to identify and differentiate between either phytoplankton functional types (PFTs) or phytoplankton size classes (PSCs). In this …


Elucidating The Relative Importance Of The Bacterial And Fungal Feeding Channels Within The Soil Food Web Under Differing Land Managements, Felicity Victoria Crotty Jan 2011

Elucidating The Relative Importance Of The Bacterial And Fungal Feeding Channels Within The Soil Food Web Under Differing Land Managements, Felicity Victoria Crotty

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

The overall aim of this thesis was to elucidate the relative importance of the bacterial and fungal energy channels within the soil food web and to differentiate and appreciate the differences in niche of the soil fauna when affected by differing land management. Feeding niche of the soil fauna is ambiguous and has been previously determined by observation, inference or biochemical studies. One method that can determine feeding preferences in situ is the use of stable isotopes. Stable isotopes trace the passage of C and N through different trophic levels, both at natural abundance and by the addition of a …


Communicating Air: Alternative Pathways To Environmental Knowing Through Computational Ecomedia, Andrea Polli Jan 2011

Communicating Air: Alternative Pathways To Environmental Knowing Through Computational Ecomedia, Andrea Polli

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This dissertation, Communicating Air: Alternative Pathways to Environmental Knowing through Computational Ecomedia, is the culmination of an art practice-led investigation into ways in which the production of ecomedia may open alternative pathways to environmental knowing in a time of urgent climate crisis. This thesis traces the author’s artistic, personal and political development across the period of study and presents an extended argument for greater public engagement with weather and climate science, greater public and private support for long-term collaborations between media art and climate science, and increased public open access to global weather and climate monitoring and computationally modelled data.


Gestalt Biometrics And Their Applications; Instrumentation, Objectivity And Poetics, Hannah Drayson Jan 2011

Gestalt Biometrics And Their Applications; Instrumentation, Objectivity And Poetics, Hannah Drayson

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This thesis is about the relationship between human bodies and instrumental technologies that can be use to measure them. It adopts the position that instruments are technological structures that evoke and manifest particular phenomena of embodied life. However, through their history of association and use in the sciences and scientific medicine, instruments tend to be attached to a particular ontology, that of mechanical objectivity. Embarking from research into the artistic uses of physiological sensor technology in creative practices such as performance and installation art, this thesis asks whether it is possible to use instruments in a way that departs from …


Ageing Futures: Towards Cognitively Inclusive Digital Media Products, John Charles Vines Jan 2011

Ageing Futures: Towards Cognitively Inclusive Digital Media Products, John Charles Vines

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This thesis is situated in a moment when the theory and practice of inclusive design appears to be significantly implicated in the social and economic response to demographic changes in Western Europe by addressing the need to reconnect older people with technology. In light of claims that cognitive ageing results in an increasing disconnection from novel digital media in old age, inclusive design is apparently trapped in a discourse in which digital media products and interfaces are designed as a response to a deterministic decline in abilities. The thesis proceeds from this context to ask what intellectual moves are required …


Application Of Intermediate Multi-Agent Systems To Integrated Algorithmic Composition And Expressive Performance Of Music, Alexis Kirke Jan 2011

Application Of Intermediate Multi-Agent Systems To Integrated Algorithmic Composition And Expressive Performance Of Music, Alexis Kirke

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

We investigate the properties of a new Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) for computer-aided composition called IPCS (pronounced “ipp-siss”) the Intermediate Performance Composition System which generates expressive performance as part of its compositional process, and produces emergent melodic structures by a novel multi-agent process. IPCS consists of a small-medium size (2 to 16) collection of agents in which each agent can perform monophonic tunes and learn monophonic tunes from other agents. Each agent has an affective state (an “artificial emotional state”) which affects how it performs the music to other agents; e.g. a “happy” agent will perform “happier” music. The agent performance …


A Cortical Model Of Object Perception Based On Bayesian Networks And Belief Propagation., Salvador Durá-Bernal Jan 2011

A Cortical Model Of Object Perception Based On Bayesian Networks And Belief Propagation., Salvador Durá-Bernal

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

Evidence suggests that high-level feedback plays an important role in visual perception by shaping the response in lower cortical levels (Sillito et al. 2006, Angelucci and Bullier 2003, Bullier 2001, Harrison et al. 2007). A notable example of this is reflected by the retinotopic activation of V1 and V2 neurons in response to illusory contours, such as Kanizsa figures, which has been reported in numerous studies (Maertens et al. 2008, Seghier and Vuilleumier 2006, Halgren et al. 2003, Lee 2003, Lee and Nguyen 2001). The illusory contour activity emerges first in lateral occipital cortex (LOC), then in V2 and finally …


Biofilm Formation And Control In A Novel Warm Water Distribution System, Paul Waines Jan 2011

Biofilm Formation And Control In A Novel Warm Water Distribution System, Paul Waines

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

Biofilm Formation and Control in a Novel Warm Water Distribution System By Paul Lewis Waines Abstract Investigations were carried out to assess biofilm formation within a model warm water distribution system (test rig) under a variety of conditions. Analysis methods included ATP-/ culture-based analysis, SEM and confocal microscopy. Molecular-based community analysis was carried out using PCR/DGGE. High pH (9.53-10.08), induced by the presence of a sacrificial anode within the water heater, had a profound inhibitive effect on the culturability of biofilm bacteria on copper (Cu) pipe within the test rig. Concurrent investigations into the effect of stagnation (varied periods of …


The Molecular And Behavioural Ecology Of Click Beetles (Coleoptera: Elateridae) In Agricultural Land, Carly Marie Benefer Jan 2011

The Molecular And Behavioural Ecology Of Click Beetles (Coleoptera: Elateridae) In Agricultural Land, Carly Marie Benefer

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

The larvae (wireworms) of some click beetle genera inhabit the soil in agricultural land and are crop pests. In the UK, a pest complex of Agriotes species, A. obscurus, A. sputator and A. lineatus, has been identified as the cause of the majority of damage. However, studies on their ecology are lacking, despite knowledge of this being important for the development of sustainable risk assessment and pest management strategies, in part due to the morphologically cryptic nature of wireworms. The ecology of economically important click beetle species was investigated, focusing on UK Agriotes species. The relationship between sex pheromone trapped …


Population Structuring And Dispersal In The Highly Pelagic Leach's Storm-Petrel: Implications For The Eu Population, Anthony William James Bicknell Jan 2011

Population Structuring And Dispersal In The Highly Pelagic Leach's Storm-Petrel: Implications For The Eu Population, Anthony William James Bicknell

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

Dispersal is a fundamental process that shapes many aspects of population ecology and evolution. Dramatic local population declines brought about by anthropogenic-driven changes to ecological processes are unfortunately becoming ubiquitous and increasing the urgency to understand dispersal behaviour in many species. For species where direct methods of tracking movement and dispersal are unsuitable, other indirect methods need to be employed to understand and characterise these behaviours. The steep population decline, due to predation, at the largest EU population of Leach’s storm-petrels Oceanodroma leucorhoa (St Kilda, Scotland), and the potential part immigrant birds have in buffering this threat, highlighted the need …


An Integrated Ecotoxicological Assessment Of The Engineered Nanoparticles, C60 Fullerenes In Different Life Stages Of Marine Mussels, Mytilus Edulis, Sherain Al-Subiai Jan 2011

An Integrated Ecotoxicological Assessment Of The Engineered Nanoparticles, C60 Fullerenes In Different Life Stages Of Marine Mussels, Mytilus Edulis, Sherain Al-Subiai

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

Studies were undertaken to determine ecotoxicological effects of model manufactured or engineered nanoparticles (ENPs), either alone or in combination with a representative polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (i.e. PAHs: fluoranthene) at different levels of biological organisation (viz. biochemical, histological and behavioural levels) in a sentinel, widely distributed marine invertebrate species, Mytilus edulis. With the current and predicted levels of pollution in the marine and coastal environment, there is an urgent need to establish the potential effects of persistent and emerging contaminants which includes ENPs and PAHs, to protect human and environmental health. In this study, initially, it was aimed to optimise the …


A Mythography Of The Crossroads:How Is The Severance/Threshold/Return Progression In Both Mythology And Modern Wilderness Rites-Of-Passage Established Through Metaphor? An Enquiry Conducted Through Contemporary Storytelling Practice, Martin Shaw Jan 2011

A Mythography Of The Crossroads:How Is The Severance/Threshold/Return Progression In Both Mythology And Modern Wilderness Rites-Of-Passage Established Through Metaphor? An Enquiry Conducted Through Contemporary Storytelling Practice, Martin Shaw

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

How is the Severance/Threshold/Return progression in both mythology and modern wilderness rites-of-passage established through metaphor? An enquiry conducted through contemporary storytelling practice. This research examines the metaphorical structures within seven selected myths in relation to wilderness rites-of-passage, and the key thematic progression of Severance/Threshold/Return. These rites-of-passage are an essential component of an ongoing programme offered to the general public. The research is primarily creative in that the oral texts have been developed from extant myth over several years, and adapted to a variety of performance contexts. The evolution of these oral texts is examined in an analytical text, which draws …


Communicating The Unspeakable: Linguistic Phenomena In The Psychedelic Sphere, Diana R. Slattery Jan 2011

Communicating The Unspeakable: Linguistic Phenomena In The Psychedelic Sphere, Diana R. Slattery

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

Psychedelics can enable a broad and paradoxical spectrum of linguistic phenomena from the unspeakability of mystical experience to the eloquence of the songs of the shaman or curandera. Interior dialogues with the Other, whether framed as the voice of the Logos, an alien download, or communion with ancestors and spirits, are relatively common. Sentient visual languages are encountered, their forms unrelated to the representation of speech in natural language writing systems. This thesis constructs a theoretical model of linguistic phenomena encountered in the psychedelic sphere for the field of altered states of consciousness research (ASCR). The model is developed from …


The Supervisory Assemblage: A Singular Doctoral Experience, Elizabeth Done Jan 2011

The Supervisory Assemblage: A Singular Doctoral Experience, Elizabeth Done

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

In this thesis, I apply Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s ontology of becoming to my own learning, thinking and writing. The adopted method - nomadic inquiry, is derived from the philosophising of Deleuze, whose concepts function as pedagogic values that I mobilise throughout my writing and perform – not merely explain, to problematise common perceptions of the thesis, supervision and doctoral experience. Deleuze resists models that inhibit context-specific creativity, yet I can readily identify the defining features of my own supervision: resolutely student-centred, facilitative of free experimentation, supportive of my becoming as an academic subject and the writing through which …


Effects Of Ocean Acidification On Macroalgal Communities, Lucia Porzio, Maria Cristina Buia, Jason M. Hall-Spencer Jan 2011

Effects Of Ocean Acidification On Macroalgal Communities, Lucia Porzio, Maria Cristina Buia, Jason M. Hall-Spencer

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

No abstract provided.


Encapsulation Of Cauliflower (Brassica Oleracea Var Botrytis) Microshoots As Artificial Seeds And Their Conversion And Growth In Commercial Substrates, Hail Z. Rihan, Mohammed Al-Issawi, Stephen Burchett, Michael P. Fuller Jan 2011

Encapsulation Of Cauliflower (Brassica Oleracea Var Botrytis) Microshoots As Artificial Seeds And Their Conversion And Growth In Commercial Substrates, Hail Z. Rihan, Mohammed Al-Issawi, Stephen Burchett, Michael P. Fuller

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

No abstract provided.


No Reason For Complacency, Jason Hall-Spencer Jan 2011

No Reason For Complacency, Jason Hall-Spencer

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

No abstract provided.


Third Way Architecture: Between Cybernetics And Phenomenology, S Murrani Jan 2011

Third Way Architecture: Between Cybernetics And Phenomenology, S Murrani

School of Art, Design and Architecture

This article in its essence aims to challenge and unfold, each at a time, two different fields of methodology – cybernetics and phenomenology – that have direct effects on the product of being and the process of becoming in architectural discourse. Furthermore, this article suggests a third way philosophy for architecture that relates notions of post-phenomenology and technoscience, and considers both to be equally vital to development and speculation within current architectural discourse. First, the history of each of the two fields – cybernetics and phenomenology – will be unveiled with a focus on exploring their impact upon architecture in …


Short-Term Exposure To Warm Microhabitats Could Explain Amphibian Persistence With Batrachochytrium Dendrobatidis., Joshua H. Daskin, Ross A. Alford, Robert Puschendorf Jan 2011

Short-Term Exposure To Warm Microhabitats Could Explain Amphibian Persistence With Batrachochytrium Dendrobatidis., Joshua H. Daskin, Ross A. Alford, Robert Puschendorf

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

Environmental conditions can alter the outcomes of symbiotic interactions. Many amphibian species have declined due to chytridiomycosis, caused by the pathogenic fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), but many others persist despite high Bd infection prevalence. This indicates that Bd's virulence is lower, or it may even be a commensal, in some hosts. In the Australian Wet Tropics, chytridiomycosis extirpated Litoria nannotis from high-elevation rain forests in the early 1990 s. Although the species is recolonizing many sites, no population has fully recovered. Litoria lorica disappeared from all known sites in the early 1990 s and was thought globally extinct, but a …


Fresh Waters And Fish Diversity: Distribution, Protection And Disturbance In Tropical Australia., Stephanie R. Januchowski-Hartley, Richard G. Pearson, Robert Puschendorf, Thomas Rayner Jan 2011

Fresh Waters And Fish Diversity: Distribution, Protection And Disturbance In Tropical Australia., Stephanie R. Januchowski-Hartley, Richard G. Pearson, Robert Puschendorf, Thomas Rayner

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

BACKGROUND: Given the globally poor protection of fresh waters for their intrinsic ecological values, assessments are needed to determine how well fresh waters and supported fish species are incidentally protected within existing terrestrial protected-area networks, and to identify their vulnerability to human-induced disturbances. To date, gaps in data have severely constrained any attempt to explore the representation of fresh waters in tropical regions. METHODOLOGY AND RESULTS: We determined the distribution of fresh waters and fish diversity in the Wet Tropics of Queensland, Australia. We then used distribution data of fresh waters, fish species, human-induced disturbances, and the terrestrial protected-area network …


Numerical Investigation Of Deep Water Circulation In The Faroese Channels, Nataliya Stashchuk, Vasiliy Vlasenko, Toby J. Sherwin Jan 2011

Numerical Investigation Of Deep Water Circulation In The Faroese Channels, Nataliya Stashchuk, Vasiliy Vlasenko, Toby J. Sherwin

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

The overflow of dense water from the Nordic Seas through the Faroese Channels is investigated numerically using the Massachusetts Institute of Technology General Circulation Model. The model is forced by the removal of a barrier that separates different water masses in the bottom layer of the Faroe-Shetland Channel at the north-eastern boundary. An analysis of the output reveals that during its adjustment in the rotating channel the propagating flow is unstable and forms cyclonic and anti-cyclonic eddies in the Faroese Channels. The life-time of the cyclonic eddy is about 10 days, but an anti-cyclonic eddy that is formed upstream of …


Specialization In Plant-Hummingbird Networks Is Associated With Species Richness, Contemporary Precipitation And Quaternary Climate-Change Velocity, B Dalsgaard, E Magard, J Fjeldsa, Amm Gonzalez, C Rahbek, Jm Olesen, J Ollerton, R Alarcon, Ac Araujo, Pa Cotton, C Lara, Cg Machado, I Sazima, M Sazima, A Timmermann, S Watts, B Sandel, Wj Sutherland, J-C Svenning Jan 2011

Specialization In Plant-Hummingbird Networks Is Associated With Species Richness, Contemporary Precipitation And Quaternary Climate-Change Velocity, B Dalsgaard, E Magard, J Fjeldsa, Amm Gonzalez, C Rahbek, Jm Olesen, J Ollerton, R Alarcon, Ac Araujo, Pa Cotton, C Lara, Cg Machado, I Sazima, M Sazima, A Timmermann, S Watts, B Sandel, Wj Sutherland, J-C Svenning

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

No abstract provided.


High In Situ Repeatability Of Behaviour Indicates Animal Personality In The Beadlet Anemone Actinia Equina (Cnidaria)., Mark Briffa, Julie Greenaway Jan 2011

High In Situ Repeatability Of Behaviour Indicates Animal Personality In The Beadlet Anemone Actinia Equina (Cnidaria)., Mark Briffa, Julie Greenaway

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

'Animal personality' means that individuals differ from one another in either single behaviours or suites of related behaviours in a way that is consistent over time. It is usually assumed that such consistent individual differences in behaviour are driven by variation in how individuals respond to information about their environment, rather than by differences in external factors such as variation in microhabitat. Since behavioural variation is ubiquitous in nature we might expect 'animal personality' to be present in diverse taxa, including animals with relatively simple nervous systems. We investigated in situ startle responses in a sea anemone, Actinia equina, to …