Applications of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) for the assessment of performance of universities have been widely reported in the literature. Often the number of universities under the assessment is relatively small compared to the number of performance measures (inputs and outputs) used in the analysis, which leads to a low discriminating power of DEA models on efficiency scores. The main objective of this thesis is the development of improved DEA models that overcome the above difficulty, using a sample of public universities in Malaysia as an illustrative application. The proposed new approach combines the recently introduced Hybrid returns to scale (HRS) model with the use of additional information about the functioning of universities stated in the form of production trade-offs. The new model developed in this thesis, called Hybrid returns to scale model with trade-offs (HRSTO), is applied to a sample of eighteen universities, which is considered to be a very small sample for the DEA methodology. Our results show that, in contrast with standard DEA models, the new model is perfectly suitable for such samples and discriminates well between good and bad performers. The proposed combined use of HRS model with production trade-offs is a novel methodology that can be used in other applications of DEA. Overall, the thesis makes several contributions of the theory and practice of DEA. First, for the first time, it is shown that the higher education sector satisfies the assumptions and can be modelled using the proposed HRSTO model. Second, also for the first time, it is shown that production trade-offs can be assessed for such applications and the methodology of their assessment has been developed and used in the thesis. Third, it is demonstrated that the HRSTO model significantly improves the discriminating power of analysis compared to standard DEA models, which is particularly important for small data sets. Fourth, it is concluded that the HRS model is further improved if production trade-offs are used. Fifth, by experimenting with different specific values of production trade-offs, it is shown that even the most conservative estimates of trade-offs notably improve the model. Finally, our results contribute to the more general discussion of the performance of universities in Malaysia and identification of the best performers among them.

The thesis examines the relationship between Britain and Malaya in the post-war period from 1945 to 1960. It provides a development of existing accounts in the literature that either acknowledge the importance of Malaya to Britain but do not provide any details of the relationship, or provide only historical accounts of Malaya’s changing importance over the same period. The thesis argues that there is a clear continuity in this relationship, conditioned by the nature of capitalist social relations, and this relationship should be characterised as imperialist. The thesis adopts an archive-based analysis of the period, using an open Marxist theory of imperialism. This approach argues that the state is an inherent feature, or manifestation, of capitalist social relations and acts to regulate the circuit of capital in order to avoid or resolve the crises that beset it. Imperialism then is understood as this action undertaken internationally, through the domination of one state by another, to improve conditions for capital accumulation nationally, and in the interests of capital generally. Imperialism is then seen very much as an action undertaken by the state, rather than an historical or necessary stage of capitalism. The thesis argues that the over-production crisis that characterised the inter-war period continued after the war, finding expression in the trade disequilibrium between Eastern and Western hemispheres resulting in a global dollar shortage. Malaya remained important to the Sterling Area through its large surplus of dollar earnings, which it contributed to the Area’s dollar pool and were earned through its rubber and tin exports to the United States. The thesis charts the expression of imperial relations through British use of colonial import restrictions, the sequestration of dollar earnings, and the imposition of exchange controls to minimise the dollar deficit, and attempts to develop Malaya’s economy for eventual independence. However, the thesis argues that even independence does not see a significant shift in the fundamental relations between Britain and Malaya, with the Sterling Area still providing a mechanism through which the imperial relationship is enforced. The thesis does not argue that Malaya’s dollar earnings were the only defence against economic collapse but, rather, without Malaya, Britain would have had to impose much more austere measures both domestically and on the Sterling Area in order to survive the post-war crisis, making the task of reconstruction after the war much more difficult.

The aim of this thesis is to reassess Cain and Hopkins’ gentlemanly capitalist explanation of British imperialism in Asia during the first half of the nineteenth century through examining the lobbying activities of provincial mercantile and manufacturing interests against the renewal of the East India Company’s charter during the periods 1812-1813 and 1829-1833. This thesis particularly has focused on Glasgow’s lobbying activities although Liverpool and Manchester’s cases have also been examined. In Cain and Hopkins’ model, the position of provincial manufacturing interests was outside from the gentlemanly capitalists’ circle consisting of non-industrial capitalists based in London and South-east England, such as the landed aristocracy, the merchants and bankers of the City and professions. Economically, there was a split between these gentlemanly capitalists and the provincial manufacturing interests, and politically, the provincial interests could exercise minor influence on the national politics. This thesis has contributed to three issues related to Cain and Hopkins’ gentlemanly capitalist thesis. The firs issue is the degree of influence of provincial commercial and manufacturing interests on the formation of Britain’s imperial policy. The second issue is the relationship between the gentlemanly capitalists in London and the provincial mercantile and manufacturing interests. The third issue is the Scots contribution to the formation of the British Empire, to which they failed to give their attention. Regarding the first issue, this thesis has demonstrated that the provincial mercantile and manufacturing interests organised effective lobbying activities for the opening of the East India and China trades and succeeded in exerting undeniable influence over the state’s decisions in both the first and second campaigns through well-organised lobbying strategies, powerful lobbing means, and their access to the centre of the national politics through their influential parliamentary supporters. In this thesis, the provincial lobbyists’ economic interests and political backgrounds have closely been examined. Although the provincial lobbyists’ economic and political interests were varied and they split up over some economic and political issues, these did not affect their unity in their challenge against the London merchants’ dominance in the East India trade. This contrasts with Cain and Hopkins’ argument on the gentlemanly capitalists’ superior influence on the national politics. In terms of the second issue, this thesis has shown that there is no evidence for the collaboration between the provincial interests and the London merchants during the 1812-1813 campaign. Nevertheless, as the connection between the provincial manufacturing interests and the London agency houses grew after the opening of the India trade, in the 1829-1833 campaign, the provincial lobbyists and some of the London mercantile interests showed their collaboration. Therefore, this thesis supports the application of Webster’s more complex model than Cain and Hopkins’ original model to British imperialism in Asia during this period. Finally, in respect of the Scots contribution to the formation of British Empire, during these two national campaigns for the opening of the East India trade, the Glasgow lobbyists were very active and the GEIA played a significant role in their lobbying activities.

The present study sets out to examine British policy over the area of Western Asia Minor and the Straits, one of the three vital strategic spots that Britain sought to safeguard in the area of the Near and Middle East, alongside Persia and Iraq, after the end of the First World War. The focus is on Britain’s attitude towards the Greek Expedition in Asia Minor and the ensuing Greek-Turkish war from 1919 to1922 with the settlement of 1923 with the Treaty of Lausanne. The work centres on examining British policy-making process regarding Western Asia Minor and the Straits. Within the British policy-making elite there was a split between those favouring the establishment of Greece as the new protector of British interests in the area, after Turkey’s defeat, and those wanting to continue supporting Turkey for this role. The War, Colonial and India offices inclined towards the former while David Lloyd George and elements within the Foreign Office opted for the Greek solution. The inability of the Greek forces to establish firmly the Greek occupation of Western Asia Minor by defeating the Turkish Nationalist forces in 1921 made a drastic change in the minds of those British policy-makers who had initially supported the Greek option inevitable. This, along with developments such as the Nationalist movement in turkey and the attempts of Britain’s friends and foes alike to contain its supremacy in the region contributed to the change of policy. The study illuminates themes like the Anglo-French relations over the Near and Middle East and British attitudes towards the role of Soviet Russia in the region. With the Treaty of Lausanne British policy returned to the traditional policy of supporting Turkey as the British proxy in the region. British policy-makers by 1923 had achieved a relative stability in the area of the Near and Middle East which remained unchallenged up until the outbreak of the Second World War.

This thesis addresses how interpretations of Islam in an Arab society shape the lives and experiences of young people with visual impairments. The study explores the understanding of disability and of visual impairment in particular, through an analysis of the interface and interplay of gender, culture, religion and disability in an Islamic society and the way in which these influence people's lives. It also analyses the ways in which the teachings of Islam are interpreted in relation to both disability and gender by policy makers and individuals. This topic is approached through a case study of people living with visual impairment in Bahrain. The data was collected through narrative interviews with users, semi-structured interviews with service providers and policy makers, and focus groups _with teachers. Some documentary analysis and observations were also undertaken. Within disability studies, the medical and social models of disability are well established and are being increasingly considered together, in a rational model in order to deal with impairment more judiciously. Diversity, in terms of to what extent these models are applicable or transferable to other cultures and societies, is a neglected area that this thesis addresses. The argument of this thesis is that in Bahrain, Islamic teachings are interpreted to promote a compassionate and charitable approach to people with disabilities which, in some ways, is congruent with the medical model of disability. Segregated specialist educational provision is provided, with limited inclusion in the sixth form, university and in adult life. Owing to Islamic interpretations of gender segregation, visually impaired girls and young women experience the intersection of gender and disability in ways that disadvantage them more than visually impaired boys and young men. Because of their gender and impairment they experience a double jeopardy. It is argued that there is the potential for Islamic teachings to be interpreted to support further social inclusion of disabled people with a focus on a rights-based approach.

In this interdisciplinary thesis I will be arguing that new configurations of state discrimination have outrun the vocabularies of liberal multiculturalism and secularism. These `majoritarianisms' are parasitic on the creeping foreclosure of secular spaces and identities from which emergent antiracist and antifascist struggles can be mounted. State multiculturalism in Britain and India has been instrumental in fertilising the sectarian soil in which the secular has decomposed. They have patronised cultural separateness only to make capital from the isolation of ethnic blocs from mainstream society by expressing exasperation at the reluctance of minorities to `integrate'. The faith and ethnic communities consolidated under the multiculturalist `management' of diversity have grown bereft of a political culture with which to interrogate the racist state. The privileging of cultural consciousness has been at the expense of political consciousness and an understanding of how discrimination cuts across cultural lines. The crisis of the secular is therefore simultaneously also a crisis of citizenship. The thesis opens with chapters that draw on sociological research and political commentary to assess the differing forms of majoritarianism and crises of citizenship in Britain and India respectively. In the third chapter I approach these issues through the prism of postcolonial theory using Gayatri Spivak's rehabilitation of responsibility as a collective right (2003) to arrive at a contemporary expression of political education. In the final two chapters I apply these principles to bring the multicultural and the secular into `productive crisis' in Indian and British contexts by circumventing the orthodox divisions that characterise intellectual approaches to anti-racism and antifascism. I argue that there is a role for a modified understanding of multiculturalism in the recovery of the secular. I conclude therefore that renewing secular culture is predicated on the Left's ability to reaffirm the reciprocity between political consciousness, citizenship and struggles for racial, ethnic and religious equality.

In 1859, the British government launched an expedition to South America with the aim of collecting seeds and plants of the quinine-producing cinchona tree for establishing plantations in British India, so as to relieve the British Government of the escalating costs and uncertainties in the supply of this valuable, and increasingly popular anti-malarial drug. Drawing on recent work on the commodities of empire, tropical acclimatization, and imperial medicine, this thesis provides a detailed study of the first British cinchona plantations established on the Nilgiri Hills of Southern India. Focused on the period between 1860 and 1900, and at the local geographic scale, the research critically examines the engagement and connections between government officials, planters, venture capitalists, labourers, plant material and ideas in the context of the cinchona plantations through a thorough study of archival and secondary sources. Contributions are also made to the study of the spaces of science and the management of the tropical environment. Cinchona is placed in a wider context of the history of botany and plantations in the Nilgiri region, and the major events in the development of cinchona plantations described. In the resulting historical geography the Nilgiri cinchona plantations emerge as a 'nodal' point in the global cinchona network that also relied upon global networks of imperial power, capital and leisure tourism. The experiment was essentially an exertion of power but one that also demonstrated the very vulnerable nature of the empire.

This thesis explores the role Li Hanjun played in the initial stage of the Communist movement in China. It describes Li’s early life, including his family background, his upbringing, his schooling and the environment he grew up in. It analyses some of Li’s early writings to demonstrate his philosophical predispositions and political orientation, as well as his character and temperament. It examines Li’s understanding of Marxism and his endeavours to disseminate it and to introduce various socialist theories into China. It describes his contacts with socialists of other countries and his cooperation with Korean socialists and Soviet agents in China, which helped open up the Communist movement in East Asia. The research focuses on Li Hanjun’s activities in establishing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the opinions he expressed at the Party’s founding congress. It also deals with his ideas and actions in directing labour movements in China. Li Hanjun was a dissident within the CCP and later left the Party. This study clarifies the divergence of views between him and other Party leaders, and shows that his rejection of the Bolshevik doctrines of centralism and dictatorship and of unconditional receipt of financial aid and orders from the Communist International (Comintern) were the main causes of the conflicts and his expulsion. The thesis discusses Li’s vision of socialism, and shows that his ideal socialist society was not one in which a centralist government and the dictatorship of a Communist élite should control and intervene in everything but a collectivity of associations of free and autonomous working people organised in cooperatives. The thesis ends with a critical assessment of Li as a historical figure. It recovers historical facts that have sunk into oblivion, and thus differs from comparable studies published both in China and abroad. It fills important gaps in the history of the early Communist movement in China.

This thesis presents measurements of the branching fractions B(Ds -> lvl) and mea- surements of the pseudoscalar decay constant, fDs , using all the data acquired at the BaBar detector at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, which were collected from September 1999 to April 2007, and comprised 531 fb-1. The following mea- surements are made: B(Ds -> eve) = (6:11 +/-0:38 +/- 0:33) * 10-3, B(Ds -> tvt) = (5:06 +/- 0:34 +/- 0:50) * 10-2 , and a limit B(Ds -> eve) < 1:46 * 10-4 is obtained. Using these measurements a value of fDs = 252 +/- 6 +/- 7 +/- 1MeV is obtained, where the first uncertainties account for the statistical limitations of the data, the second uncertainties account for the systematic uncertainties, and the third uncertainties account for uncertainties associated with other physical constants (dominated by the lifetime of the Ds meson).

When S.Korea was liberated from Japan and soon partitioned between the South and the North in 1945, she was one of the world's poorest countries. The Korean War (1950-1953) had a profound impact on S.Korean society. Hunger became even more routine and famine very common. After the military revolution in 1960 onwards the S.Korean government consistently continued a "growth-first approach" to promote rapid economic development which could then generate resources to raise the living standards of those on low incomes, rather than a selective and targeted approach which involved extensive public action to improve the circumstances of destitute people. Since this time S.Korea began to be counted as a rapidly industrialising country. In 1960, about 65.9 per cent of the labour force in S.Korea was engaged in agriculture and a mere 9.2 per cent in the mining, manufacturing and construction sectors. In 1990, only 19.5 per cent of the labour force was engaged in agriculture and 34.7 per cent in the mining, manufacturing and construction sectors. Even in industry, the structure of the industry has changed from labour-intensive industry, such as textiles and shoes, to capital and skill-intensive industry, such as shipbuilding, automobiles and electronics. In 1960, the urban share of total population was 28.0 per cent. This figure grew to 74.4 per cent in 1990. All these were accompanied by changes in occupation, social class, even the way of life. Even within the house itself, the change in the use of fuel from timber to gas and electricity was accompanied by a dramatic change in the design and structure of housing.