Digital Commons Network^™

Law And People With Disabilities, Janet E. Lord, Deepti S. Raja, Peter Blanck

All Faculty Scholarship

This article describes the progressive development of disability law, particularly in light of international developments that are transforming domestic disability law frameworks. It provides an overview of the conceptualization of disability in law, charting the shift from a medical model to a social model of disability and more recently to a human rights model. The abstract covers the implications of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), and the processes and approaches for translating international disability law standards into national level law. It sheds light on the contemporary disability rights landscape in the light of dramatic legislative …

The 95 Theses: Legal Research In The Internet Age, Amy E. Sloan

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

There Is No Such Thing As Litigation: Access To Justice And The Realities Of Adjudication, Robert Rubinson

All Faculty Scholarship

Does a "contest by judicial process" describe litigation's "means and applications"? Overwhelmingly, no. Litigation is not about judges: it is about default judgments, settlements, plea bargains. It sometimes does not even involve judges at all. Litigation is not about trials: the amount of litigation that goes to trial is infinitesimal. It is not about "process": the process is so minimal that to dignify it with that term stretches the word beyond recognition. It is not a "contest": it is an exercise where one side has no plausible chance of winning, especially since that side either has no lawyers or lawyers …

The Holmes School Of Law: A Proposal To Reform Legal Education Through Realism, Robert Rubinson

All Faculty Scholarship

This article proposes the formation of a new law school, the Holmes School of Law. The curriculum of the Holmes School would draw upon legal realism, particularly as articulated by Oliver Wendell Holmes. The proposed curriculum would focus on educating students about "law in fact"—how law is actually experienced. It rejects the idea that legal education should be about reading cases written by judges who not only bring their own biases and cultural understandings to their role, but who also ignore law as experienced, which, in the end, is what law is. This disconnect is especially troubling because virtually all …

The Innovator's Dilemma, Max Stul Oppenheimer

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Case For Reviving A Statutory Invention Registration System, Max Stul Oppenheimer

All Faculty Scholarship

When Congress overhauled U.S. patent law in 2011, the main debate

focused on the merits (and constitutionality) of converting from the incumbent

first-to-invent system, in effect since 1790, to a first-to-file system. With little

attention or analysis, the statutory overhaul also did away with what was

perceived as a rarely used relic of the pre-Internet era: the Statutory Invention

Registration system. Concluding that the Statutory Invention Registration system

was essentially useless under the outgoing law, Congress eliminated a system

with potentially significant uses under the new law, including uses that would

help redress the disadvantage imposed on U.S. inventors by …

"Law Is Coercion": Revisiting Judicial Power To Provide Equality In Public Education, José F. Anderson

All Faculty Scholarship

This article is an attempt to start a conversation about where we find ourselves in the plight to help our most challenged public schools. It is not intended to be a comprehensive solution to the problem, but rather a hard look at how, after decades of many efforts, we are further away from the equal education contemplated by the United States Supreme Court's historic decision in Brown v. Board of Education. This article does not desire to simply cast blame for the failures of our children, but to send a reminder that, as Frederick Douglass would say, we can hardly …

Euclidean Reconstruction Of Natural Underwater Scenes Using Optic Imagery Sequence, Han Hu

Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping

The development of maritime applications require monitoring, studying and preserving of detailed and close observation on the underwater seafloor and objects. Stereo vision offers advanced technologies to build 3D models from 2D still overlapping images in a relatively inexpensive way. However, while image stereo matching is a necessary step in 3D reconstruction procedure, even the most robust dense matching techniques are not guaranteed to work for underwater images due to the challenging aquatic environment. In this thesis, in addition to a detailed introduction and research on the key components of building 3D models from optic images, a robust modified quasi-dense …

An Electrophysiological Investigation Of Reward Prediction Errors In The Human Brain, Thomas Sambrook

School of Psychology Theses

Reward prediction errors are quantitative signed terms that express the difference between the value of an obtained outcome and the expected value that was placed on it prior to its receipt. Positive reward prediction errors constitute reward, negative reward prediction errors constitute punishment. Reward prediction errors have been shown to be powerful drivers of reinforcement learning in formal models and there is thus a strong reason to believe they are used in the brain. Isolating such neural signals stands to help elucidate how reinforcement learning is implemented in the brain, and may ultimately shed light on individual differences, psychopathologies of …

Survivability Of Wave Energy Converter And Mooring Coupled System Using Cfd, Edward Ransley

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

This thesis discusses the development of a Numerical Wave Tank (NWT) capable of describing the coupled behaviour of Wave Energy Converters (WECs) and their moorings under extreme wave loading. The NWT utilises the open-source Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software OpenFOAM(R) to solve the fully nonlinear, incompressible, Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations for air and water using the Finite Volume Method (FVM) and a Volume of Fluid (VOF) treatment of the interface. A method for numerically generating extreme waves is devised, based on the dispersively-focused NewWave theory and using the additional toolbox waves2Foam. A parametric study of the required mesh resolution shows …

Brain Inspired Approach To Computational Face Recognition, Joao Paulo Da Silva Gomes

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

Face recognition that is invariant to pose and illumination is a problem solved effortlessly by the human brain, but the computational details that underlie such efficient recognition are still far from clear. This thesis draws on research from psychology and neuroscience about face and object recognition and the visual system in order to develop a novel computational method for face detection, feature selection and representation, and memory structure for recall. A biologically plausible framework for developing a face recognition system will be presented. This framework can be divided into four parts: 1) A face detection system. This is an improved …

High-Performance Near-Time Processing Of Bulk Data, Martin Swientek

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

Enterprise Systems like customer-billing systems or financial transaction systems are required to process large volumes of data in a fixed period of time. Those systems are increasingly required to also provide near-time processing of data to support new service offerings. Common systems for data processing are either optimized for high maximum throughput or low latency. This thesis proposes the concept for an adaptive middleware, which is a new approach for designing systems for bulk data processing. The adaptive middleware is able to adapt its processing type fluently between batch processing and single-event processing. By using message aggregation, message routing and …

Investigation Of Cavitating Flow Luminescence For Analytical Spectroscopy, Claire Margaret Frances Whitfield

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

Cavitating Flow Luminescence (CFL) is spontaneous photon emission associated with hydrodynamic cavitation which occurs when a flowing liquid passes through a Venturi.1 In this work, cavitation and micro-plasma generation in a flowing liquid, using a micro-Venturi, has been investigated. A bench-top system was designed and constructed to study CFL in a variety of liquids. The system comprised a high flow, liquid handling manifold and micro-Venturi with a variety of orifice sizes ranging from 160 – 220 μm i.d. The CFL was detected for the first time on a micro-scale using a PMT. The effect of various parameters such as temperature, …

Rip Currents In The Uk: Incident Analysis, Public Awareness, And Education, Eleanor Molly Woodward

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

Rip currents present a severe hazard to water users worldwide, resulting in over 100 drownings and thousands of lifeguard rescues annually. This thesis examines the demographics of who is effected by rip currents in the UK, what activity they are undertaking, when and where incidents occur, how much the public know, what people have experienced, and how best to educate them. Analysis of 7909 rip current lifeguard rescues (16777 people) across the UK between 2006-2013 highlighted the most at risk group, and subsequent target audience for education, to be male teenagers aged between 13-17 years old (n=2906, 17%). Geographically, the …

Affective Quality Of Educational Services Measurement In The Context Of Higher Education Marketing, Hanna Shauchenka

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

Educational marketing has become an increasingly important area within Higher Education as the competition for students has intensified. Being able to measure and understand the quality of educational services – a key factor in the decision making process for a prospective student – is an incredibly challenging problem as it involves the quantitative measurement of factors such as emotions and affections towards an Institution or programme, which themselves tend to be intangible. The application of total quality management philosophy and methodology in the context of higher education today is fully acknowledged and widely used. These conditions have defined the main …

Using Marxan And Marxan With Zones To Support Marine Planning, Frances Peckett

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

With the growth in human pressures on the marine environment and the increase in competition for space and resources there has been recognition by many governments of the need to use the marine environment sustainably and allow for its acceptable allocation for each sector. The aim of this thesis is to evaluate the use of Marxan and Marxan with Zones as practical tools to enable the production of marine plans that integrate environmental and socioeconomic data and to suggest best practice in the types of data used. In this thesis three key aspects of data type and integration were identified …

The Effect Of Dynamic Mobilisation Exercises On The Equine Multifidus Muscle And Thoracic Profile, Gillian Tabor

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

Introduction: A relationship between spinal musculature and back pathology has been established in human and equine studies. Exercises to increase Multifidus cross sectional area (CSA) have been shown to reduce the amount and reoccurrence of back pain in humans. Similarly dynamic mobilisation exercises (DME) have led to an increase Multifidus CSA in horses on box rest. The effect of DME on the Multifidus muscle of thoroughbred racehorses in training was investigated and two measurement methods, that can be used to evaluate the outcome of a treatment or exercise programme on Multifidus, were compared. Methods: Ultrasound imaging was used to measure …

Improved Composability Of Software Components Through Parallel Hardware Platforms For In-Car Multimedia Systems, Andreas Knirsch

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

Recent years have witnessed a significant change to vehicular user interfaces (UI). This is the result of increased functionality, triggered by the continuous proliferation of vehicular software and computer systems. The UI represents the integration point that must fulfil particular requirements for usability despite the increased functionality. A concurrent present trend is the substitution of federated systems with integrated architectures. The steadily rising number of interacting functional components and the increasing integration density implies a growing complexity that has an effect on system development. This evolution raises demands for concepts that aid the composition of such complex and interactive embedded …

Flaring And Pollution Detection In The Niger Delta Using Remote Sensing, Barnabas Ojo Morakinyo

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

Abstract Through the Global Gas Flaring Reduction (GGFR) initiative a substantial amount of effort and international attention has been focused on the reduction of gas flaring since 2002 (Elvidge et al., 2009). Nigeria is rated as the second country in the world for gas flaring, after Russia. In an attempt to reduce and eliminate gas flaring the federal government of Nigeria has implemented a number of gas flaring reduction projects, but poor governmental regulatory policies have been mostly unsuccessful in phasing it out. This study examines the effects of pollution from gas flaring using multiple satellite based sensors (Landsat 5 …

Art In The Public Realm And The Politics Of Rural Leisure: Access And Environment, Alex Murdin

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

Exploring both political aesthetics and the politics of aesthetics to outline an environmental ruralism for art in public spaces, this practice lead research project postulates a “complemental practice”, outlining its methodology and contexts for operation, the rural, spaces of leisure and the public realm. It is a response to threats to spatial and environmental commons from heritage, place-making and nostalgia, psychological inhibition such as a sense of global contingency and widespread economic exploitation. Responses by artists to this situation can be characterised as a binary of dialogism (Kester, 2004) and relational antagonism (Bishop, 2004), i.e. consensual/collaborative or antagonistic/autonomous practices. Informing …

International Study Visits And The Promotion Of Intercultural Capabilities: An Exploratory Study, Valerie Huggins

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

Internationalisation is high on the agenda of Higher Education in the UK, with the promotion of the students’ intercultural capabilities seen as key for their future careers and lives as global citizens. Within this agenda international study visits are considered beneficial for student teachers, giving those with limited exposure to cultural diversity an opportunity to learn first-hand about education in other countries. Taking a postmodern approach and using Facet Methodology, the research investigated the extent to which the pattern of study visits in a School of Education in a University in the South West of England was conducive to promoting …

The Legal Regimes Governing Marine Renewable Energy In England And Wales, Victoria Jane Hamlyn

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This thesis involves an examination of the main international, regional and national legal regimes regulating marine renewable energy in England and Wales. Deriving from a complex patchwork of law and policy, developments have ensued in the absence of a distinct governing ‘legal regime’ and within a number of competing paradigms. This original synthesis attempts to identify lacunae, conflicts and connections within and between the span of legal genres that MRE evokes. Against a backdrop of climate change mitigation, the key findings show that despite the presence of political will for offshore renewable energies, MRE development faces a number of legal …

The Go-Between. The Film Archive As A Mediator Between Copyright And Film Historiography., Claudy Wilhelmina Elisabeth Op Den Kamp

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

Based on the premise that only in being accessible can the film reach its potential for history making, the contribution of the film archive to a particular film historical narrative is fragmented: the films that are extant are not necessarily available and the ones that are available are not necessarily publicly accessible. The contention of the thesis is that ‘doing’ film history in the context of the film archive should always be seen in light of an ever increasingly narrowing fragmentation of accessible material that takes place in the film archive. What is new about the contribution of this thesis …

Rex Whistler (1905-1944) Patronage And Artistic Identity, Nikki Frater

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This thesis explores the life and work of Rex Whistler, from his first commissions whilst at the Slade up until the time he enlisted for active service in World War Two. His death in that conflict meant that this was a career that lasted barely twenty years; however it comprised a large range of creative endeavours. Although all these facets of Whistler’s career are touched upon, the main focus is on his work in murals and the fields of advertising and commercial design. The thesis goes beyond the remit of a purely biographical stance and places Whistler’s career in context …

Knowledge Management Competence For Erp Implementation Success, Uchitha Jayawickrama

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

The global business environment has changed dramatically in recent years, as competition in complex knowledge-based economies has increased. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have been viewed as a way to manage increased business complexity, leading to the rapid adoption and implementation of such systems, as ERP can support enterprises to improve their competitiveness. Knowledge management (KM) is crucial for ERP systems implementation, however a highly demanding task. Therefore, the primary concern of this research is to examine the effectiveness of knowledge management activities that would contribute to achieve ERP implementation success. This study adopted mixed methods approach by combining semi-structured …

Legitimising Discourses And The Efforts To Reform The European Union’S Fiscal Governance Arrangements, Thomas Warren

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

With a rapid centralisation of fiscal sovereignty now being aired as a possibility following on from the financial and economic crisis, this thesis considers how legitimising discourses are shaping the efforts to reform EU fiscal governance. Norman Fairclough’s ‘moderately constructivist’ three-dimensional framework for CDA is drawn upon. This approach is also combined with insights drawn from the new institutionalist literature base (particularly from its historical and discursive strands of thought), with an additional emphasis being placed on broader understandings of structural forms of power as developed through the writings of Susan Strange. It is found that the emerging debate over …

Polyphibianism: Evolving Transdisciplinarity Into An Imaginary Organism Of Living Knowledge, Ziva Ljubec

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

Transdisciplinarity emerged from the urge to grasp the elusive knowledge in the most fertile zone in between and beyond disciplines that escapes even the most elaborate interdisciplinary operations. While interdisciplinary protocol enables experts to operate within foreign disciplines, in the extreme case as diverse as art and science (by inviting artists into scientific departments and vice versa), the production of knowledge remains confined to particular domains. To transcend these confinements and access the knowledge that evades institutionalisation Basarab Nicolescu’s Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity sets up conditions for an open structure to be grown outside the current compartmentalisation into a living knowledge. …

Investigation Of Microplastic Debris In Marine Surface Waters Using Different Sampling Methods, Saeed Seyed Sadri

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

‘Microplastics’ are pieces of plastic debris <5mm in diameter. They are introduced into the marine environment directly for example via release of small pieces of plastics used as abrasives and indirectly through the fragmentation of larger items. The European Marine Strategy Framework Directive 2008/56/EC (MSFD) regards microplastics as an emerging issue of concern and calls for more data on the quantity, distribution and composition of this debris. This thesis examines the amount, composition and distribution of buoyant microplastic debris in marine waters using different sampling devices and methodologies. To investigate the spatial distribution, abundance and composition of microplastic debris between nearshore and offshore marine subsurface waters a subset of samples from the Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) survey were examined. Abundance was generally higher in nearshore coastal waters than the offshore oceanic samples, with the highest mean concentrations observed in the UK’s coastal waters of the northeast Atlantic and the southern North Sea. To validate the accuracy of the presence/absence of microplastic debris reported in the Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) samples by analysts at the Sir Alister Hardy Foundation for Ocean Science (SAHFOS) a subset of data was formally analysed using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. This analysis indicated a good level of accuracy (~66%) in the ability of the SAHFOS’ analysts to detect visually microplastic fragments during their normal processing of plankton samples. To compare quantity and composition of buoyant microplastic debris collected by two different approaches (CPR vs. Manta net) samples were collected from a similar body of coastal waters. The results showed significantly higher abundance of microplastic in samples collected by the manta net per unit of distance but no significant difference once the results were standardised per cubic volume of water. To assess the susceptibility of each method to ‘procedural contamination’, repetitive controlled tests were conducted to quantify the amount and composition of contaminants before, during and after the sampling programme. In both methods the highest number of contaminants was found on the net and prior to the deployment to sea. The semi synthetic Rayon fibres were the most abundant type of contaminants in both cases. To compare the abundance and composition of buoyant plastic debris in estuarine waters according to daily and lunar tidal cycles a mensurative experiment was conducted in a macrotidal Estuary. Microplastics comprised 82% of the debris and there was a significant difference in size frequency distribution between the spring and neap tides with more fragments of larger size observed during spring tides. In conclusion, this study shows further evidence of the spatial heterogeneity of microplastic debris distribution in marine waters and therefore also highlights the need for more comparable data from different marine habitats using standardised methodologies.

Process-Based Modelling Of Storm Impacts On Gravel Coasts, Robert Timothy Mccall

Other Faculty of Science and Engineering Theses

Gravel beaches and barriers occur on many high-latitude, wave-dominated coasts across the world. Due to their natural ability to dissipate large amounts of wave energy, gravel coasts are widely regarded as an effective and sustainable form of coastal defence. However, during extreme events waves may overtop, overwash, and even lower, the crest of the gravel beach, flooding the hinterland. In the evaluation of the safety of gravel coasts against flooding, coastal managers currently rely on models that have been shown in previous studies to be inaccurate. The research in this thesis attempts to improve the current predictive capacity of gravel …

Pudu Jail's Graffiti: Beyond The Prison Cells, Khairul Ismail

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

The aim of this thesis is to examine and analyse the images of graffiti contained within the portfolio of ‘Pudu Jail’s Graffiti (PJG)’, documented work from the abandoned prison facility in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, between 2002 and 2003. The objective has been to discover whether the ‘Pudu Jail’s Graffiti’, has a distinct visual narrative(s) compared with other prison graffiti research, concluding that its qualities lies in the complexity of visual cultures brought within the space of the prison cells. The prison graffiti retrieved from this portfolio has been analysed through a process of qualitative review; in order to find its …