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This thesis examines how the underground club space might be read and developed as a new environment for performances that are democratic, participatory and interactive. It positions the club space as a playful arena and asks how these performative spaces of play are created, navigated and utilised by those who inhabit them. The study looks at the club space and the activities housed therein using performance theory as a lens and as a theoretical tool for understanding the nature of the club context and the possibilities it affords for performative exchange. The thesis identifies and explores the continuum of performance practice that occurs within club spaces and analyses a number of bespoke performances that have been developed specifically for this study in order to illuminate particular theoretical models of interaction. The central premise of this research is that underground clubbing practices themselves can be understood as participatory performance. The ethos of participation prevalent within this culture results in notions of community, engagement and reciprocity being widely circulated and cited as a significant element of the underground experience by clubbers immersed in the scene. This research takes into account the belief in the provisionality of the clubbing space as a potential site of performance where people may try out alternatives, imagine (im)possibilities and play. Furthermore it explores how performance practice carried out in the underground may help develop interactive structures that can be applied to other contexts. Building on existing scholarship in club culture, this study contributes to new knowledge in the field in that it draws parallels between the club space and spaces of play as a way of modelling potential platforms for performative exchange. In addition the study develops a set of models for analysing performance that occurs in unpredictable, fluid, social spaces.

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Young people in post-war Britain have grown up in a context of fast-paced change and constant attention; from transformation in state welfare in the 1940s and 1950s, concern about delinquent and subcultural youth in the 1960s and 1970s, and the consequences of recession and youth unemployment in the 1980s. Youth clubs at this time provided a space where young people could figure out myriad influences on their lives and emerging identities. To date, these significant organisations have been woefully under-examined by historians who have largely failed to look at youth groups except in uniformed or religious contexts, or as part of the solution to youth crime. Much practitioner research remains ahistorical in its approach. Early histories of youth movements such as John Springhall’s are being built upon by exciting new interdisciplinary research, for example by Sarah Mills. This thesis contributes to this emerging body of work and restores the place of the youth club in our understandings of youth in the post-war period. This research set out to establish the full range of roles that youth clubs and their membership associations had in the post-war period and how they linked with other forms of voluntarism, welfare and youth provision. Additionally, this research wanted to look at how youth clubs fitted into the lives of young people at a time when their leisure and cultural pursuits were the subject of much scrutiny. In uncovering the complexity and distinctiveness of youth voluntary organisations, local case studies are essential. They allow this research to demonstrate the local factors at work in shaping young lives and youth cultures and provide much-needed evidence about how voluntary service-providing organisations have contributed to the history of voluntarism and welfare in contemporary British history. Papers of clubs and associations held privately and in archives have been complemented by oral history interviews and a range of other sources to examine fully the voluntary youth club in South London and Liverpool. These sources show that clubs were shaped by unique mixes of geography, welfare politics, social issues, international influences, and young people themselves to create spaces for fluid youth cultures and clubs which could blend roles and relationships in order to adapt to local needs and experiences. Youth voluntary organisations were central to networks of youth welfare in London and Liverpool. By looking at how these organisations operated and their relationship with the state, this thesis establishes that voluntary youth clubs were on the frontier of the mixed economy of welfare. They were dynamic in the face of social change and effective in accommodating and responding to the cultural needs of the young consumer in the post-war period. The evidence presented here shows that youth clubs and associations had a pivotal role in helping young people navigate myriad problems. Furthermore, this thesis argues that the category ‘youth’ has concealed the way in which a wide variety of factors such as class, gender, race, and locality have shaped the experiences of young people. Finally, this thesis reveals the crucial role played by a new generation of youth workers, who challenged traditions rooted in uniformed organisations and older youth movements, in embedding permissive and radical approaches in to youth clubs. Ultimately, this thesis argues that the unfixed and contested identity of the youth club could react, respond and adapt to changing welfare, social and cultural pressures. This has given them an undefinable but central status on the very borders of local mixed economies of welfare in South London and Liverpool where the state, voluntary, consumer and cultural were all interconnected to create not only uniquely situated organisations but also micro-local youth cultures. The research presented here contributes to debates about civil society and the making of citizens. It aids understanding of how the category of youth has been constructed and used in wider society in the post-war period. It also adds to our understanding of what welfare provision has looked like and the boundaries between different types of provision. This in turn informs contemporary discussion of who should provide youth and wider welfare services and what forms this should take.

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Theories about ship wake structure, bubble dynamics, acoustic propagation through bubble clouds, backscattering and target strength of bubble clouds have been investigated and related Matlab simulations have been carried on. Research has been carried on algorithms for ship wake acoustic detection and tracking. Particle filter method has been simulated with Matlab for target tracking using wake echo measurements. Simulation results are promising.

This thesis presents a study concerning stop consonant to vowel transitions which are modeled making use of acoustic tube model. Characteristics of the stop consonant to vowel transitions are tried to be obtained first. Therefore several transitions including fricative to vowel transitions are examined based on spectral and time related properties. In addition to these studies, x-ray snapshots, lip videos and also experiments including subjects are used to intensify the characterization, from the production and the perception side of views. As results of these studies the plosive to vowel transitions are observed to be uttered by exponential vocal tract movements and the perception mechanism is observed to be highly related with exponential spectral changes. A model, based on the acoustic tube model, is tried to be established using the knowledge and the experience gained during characterization therefore proposed model involves the vocal tract parameters observed in characterization part. Finally, plosive to vowel transitions including three types of plosives (alveolar, labial and velar) are synthesized by the proposed model. The formants of the synthesized sounds are compared with the formants of the natural sounds. Also the intelligibility tests of these sounds are done. Performance evaluation tests show the proposed model&rsquo / s performance to be satisfactory.

Finite element method and strip method are two widely used techniques for analyzing steel plate shear wall (SPSW) systems. Past research mostly focused on the prediction of lateral load capacity of these systems using these numerical methods. Apart from the lateral load carrying capacity, the lateral stiffness of the wall system needs to be determined for a satisfactory design. Lateral displacements and the fundamental natural frequency of the SPSW system are directly influenced by the lateral stiffness. In this study the accuracy of the finite element method and strip method of analysis are assessed by making comparisons with experimental findings. Comparisons revealed that both methods provide in general solutions with acceptable accuracy. While both methods offer acceptable solutions sophisticated computer models need to be generated. In this study two alternative methods are developed. The first one is an approximate hand method based on the deep beam theory. The classical deep beam theory is modified in the light of parametric studies performed on restrained thin plates under pure shear and pure bending. The second one is a computer method based on truss analogy. Stiffness predictions using the two alternative methods are found to compare well with the experimental findings. In addition, lateral stiffness predictions of the alternate methods are compared against the solutions provided using finite element and strip method of analysis for a class of test structures. These comparisons revealed that the developed methods provide estimates with acceptable accuracy and are simpler than the traditional analysis techniques.

Noise, which is a noteworthy problem in the world of workers, influences the health, safety, productivity and efficiency of those working in heavy industries and especially those working in petroleum industry. The objective of this study is to reassess the protective measures, taken previously by the company, from the point of view of the negative effects of noise on the workers. For this purpose, two approaches are adopted. Firstly, through questionnaires (response rate: 86%) distributed to workers, their subjective rating of, the noise levels to which they are exposed, the factors affecting their working efficiency and, their working conditions are searched. Secondly, noise levels, in the buildings rated as highly and very highly noisy, are measured by sound level meter. Self-exposure of 28 workers is measured by dosimeter. The overall ambient noise level of the 11 buildings and effect of noise on the working efficiency of the workers working in these buildings were respectively found to be moderate and slightly affected. The workplace index was 3 (out of 5). The working conditions index was on the average 4 (out of 5). The Leq values measured in six of the buildings were found to be in the range of 66, 8 &ndash / 100, 0 dBA. 12 out of 28 workers were observed to be exposed to noise levels greater than 80 dBA. The objective (noise measurements) and subjective (questionnaire) results obtained at the end of the afore-mentioned approaches will be of help in the orientation of the workers while estimating their work efficiency and will also serve as a data base for the planning strategy of the interested company.

Underwater acoustic channel models have been studied in the context of communication and sonar applications. Acoustic propagation channel in an underwater environment exhibits multipath, time-variability and Doppler eects. In this thesis, multipath fading channel models, underwater physical properties and sound propagation characteristics are studied. An underwater channel model for sonar applications is proposed. In the proposed model, the physical characteristics of underwater environment are considered in a comprehensive manner. Experiments /simulations were carried out using real-life data. Model parameters are estimated for a specific location, scenario and physical conditions. The channel response is approximated by fitting the model output to the recorded data. The optimization and estimation are conducted in frequency domain using Mean Square Error criterion.