The PhD is driven by a need to analyse what Scottish planning has come to represent in practice. It does this through a focus on how Scottish planning reform (Planning etc. Scotland Act, 2006) has been used to respond to the key public policy issues of achieving ‘sustainable growth’ and particularly planning for housing in growth- pressured city-regions. In England, Allmendinger’s (2016) recent critical consideration of the current state of planning despondently sees ‘neoliberal spatial governance’ where planning is focussed on ‘facilitating growth,’ through ‘post political’ process and driven by ‘narrow sectional interests’. This thesis analyses the extent to which such critique is a relevant way of understanding Scottish planning and how planning has come to be criticised from some perspectives as a tool for rolling out growth, while for others planning is still perceived as a drag on growth. It does this by analysing planning practice in two city regions – Aberdeen and Edinburgh - which have faced pressures for growth, particularly housing growth. Both have used the reformed Scottish planning system to deal with these pressures. In Aberdeen, it reveals why an ambitious growth agenda easily emerged, where planning actors utilised the reformed Scottish planning system to advocate an ‘ambitious strategy’. In Edinburgh, it reveals why, despite utilising the same planning system, a more complex and conflictual relationship around planning and housing growth has remained in place, as the city-region struggled to realise a spatial strategy that adapts to existing local political tensions. In each case the role of global and local structuring economic conditions are foregrounded. This qualitative comparative case study analyses the operation of Scottish planning in the period (2007-2016) in two growth-pressured Scottish city-regions. It involves 48 interviews conducted in the period 2013-2015 with public sector officers, councillors, developer interests and community and special interest groups and the analysis of documents associated with planning strategies. It has been conducted by a planner who has worked ‘in the field’ in the public and private sectors in both cases. It applies a broadly Gramscian analysis, utilising a Strategic Relational Approach, where planning actors pursue differing agendas and attempt to address wider and competing public policy concerns while operating within evolving structural conditions. It demonstrates the ways in which planning is a means by which particular interests can formalise their ambitions for growth but can equally be used to constrain and defer decisions around growth. However, both cases reveal planning as a form of ‘neoliberal spatial governance’ where the contradictions of current state-market relations mean Scottish planning is unlikely to meet its complex objective of delivering ‘sustainable economic growth’.

This work explores the commissioning arrangements in the NHS after the adoption of Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs). The thesis aims to explore how these new commissioning arrangements have affected the decision making process and why commissioners select the providers that they do. This data is then used to see whether or not the service is being subjected to privatisation as was feared with the introduction of the Health and Social Care Act (2012). This work will begin by exploring definitions of privatisation and marketisation before embarking on a description of the shape of the private sector in the NHS. This is followed by the development of an internal/external pressure conceptual framework, adapted from the work of Pettigrew et al. (1992) to understand the pressures that commissioners may face in the selection of providers. The research was underpinned by symbolic interactionism and studied the work of two CCGs, using example services to explore their decision making processes. The thesis explores the themes that emerged from the data by using the internal/external pressure conceptual framework and then discusses to what extent privatisation has occurred in the NHS using the earlier definitions. The research concludes that the ability of the commissioners to freely select providers is severely limited and that as such, the selection of private providers is clustered in specific services.

This study concerns the lived experience of participants in 50+ exercise groups (mainly women) that are taught by the researcher who is herself 50+. Activities comprise Exercise to Music, Pilates and Tai Chi for Arthritis and most classes are run under the auspices of an Adult Learning scheme. The research explores the meanings which people attach to the processes of ageing and how these relate to their engagements with exercise. The work was stimulated by a desire to understand the factors that encourage the participants to engage in and adhere to exercise and, in so doing, to make useful recommendations for health promotion and service provision with the intention that others might avoid the dangers of sedentary behaviour. This ethnographic case study spans approximately four years beginning in the spring of 2013. It draws on data collected in five semi-structured interviews and ten focus groups that were recorded and transcribed and five shorter telephone interviews which were noted at the time. Also included are data from numerous short vox pops and interviews 'on the move'. Altogether 56 individuals contributed verbal comment that has been recorded in some way. The data are reinforced by participant observation and access to enrolment documents. All of this is supported by a field journal which creates an audit trail and traces the evolution of the study. The originality of the study lies in the ability of the researcher to open up the 'black box' of the exercise class to reveal what matters most to older adults when they engage in exercise and how the contents of the box are socially constructed. Drawing on her own life experience as an exerciser and as an educator, the researcher is in a unique position to relate to the participants both as a peer and as a professional. The study situates perceptions of ageing in the context of identity formation. It explores elements across the life course which have shaped those perceptions and how such perceptions intersect with values and beliefs about exercise and, furthermore, how they continue to do so. Through unpacking the 'black box' of the exercise class, findings demonstrate the existence of a 'package' of elements that individuals require in their iv exercise: some essential, others desirable and yet others totally unacceptable. Factors which are considered essential vary with the choice of exercise but there remains an overwhelming sense of agreement that whatever is chosen should be pleasurable and co-constructed in partnership with other people. How this occurs forms the major contribution to knowledge which may be valuable in its application to provision, instructor recruitment and training for older adult exercise classes. Though the knowledge arises specifically from the participants of this case study it has relevance in informing exercise provision for similar groups of people.

This thesis details a comprehensive empirical evaluation of the implications of a minimum wage increase in the Mexican labour market, estimating the impact on real wages, the distribution of earnings, employment, and informal employment. It uses, as a natural experiment the 2012 partial harmonization of Mexico's regional minimum wages, in which one out of the three minimum wage zones experienced an unexpected minimum wage rise. Using Difference in Differences regressions, we fmd no evidence of adverse employment effects in the labour market. Instead, the estimates suggest positive effects on real hourly wages, employment, and occupation in the formal sector. These results can be taken as evidence for the existence of monopsonistic labour markets in Mexico. Synthetic Control Method procedures demonstrate that the employment findings are robust to the choice of estimation method and to the level of aggregation in the data, corroborating non-negative effects on employment. In addition, Unconditional Quantile Regressions for the distributional wage effects suggest a small improvement in wages for the targeted lowest income workers, although, due to positive spillover effects, the relative increase in wages for the upper percentiles is even greater. This has the net effect of actually widening dispersion of wages.

La présence de cavités souterraines anthropiques ou naturelles est la cause de nombreux problèmes d'effondrements du sous-sol. La détection et caractérisation de ce type de cavité restent un challenge pour la géophysique du fait de la complexité des milieux de la subsurface. Pour répondre à ce besoin, nous proposons une approche par mesures de sismique active qui se base sur l'étude des effets de la cavité sur les ondes de surface de type Rayleigh. Les limites des différentes méthodologies mises en place à ce jour ne permettent pas de remonter avec précision aux paramètres de la cavité car les interactions entre les ondes de Rayleigh et la cavité sont mal identifiées et non prises en compte. Dans ce cadre, nous cherchons à définir de nouvelles observables sismiques porteuses d’informations en vue de proposer une méthode d’imagerie des cavités souterraines adaptée à la subsurface. Nous utilisons une approche combinée basée sur de la modélisation numérique et expérimentale à échelle réduite. L'analyse des tirs sismiques et des phénomènes associés a permis de définir des observables robustes, basées notamment sur la prise en compte de la composante horizontale. Leur sensibilité est étudiée en fonction des paramètres de la cavité comme son diamètre ou sa profondeur en lien avec la longueur d’onde propagée. Les résultats démontrent ainsi l'importance de la composante horizontale très sensible à la cavité. En effet, l'analyse de l’ellipticité du déplacement particulaire à travers les rapports H/V révèle de fortes perturbations au voisinage de l'hétérogénéité “cavité”. Des acquisitions menées sur le terrain visent à initier des tests de faisabilité en milieu réel. / Many underground collapses are due to the presence of natural and anthropogenic cavities in the subsurface. The detection and characterization of this kind of cavity remain a challenge for geophysical methods, due to the complexity of subsurface media. To address this need, we suggest a method based on active seismic measurements to study the influence of a cavity on surface Rayleigh waves. So far, the different methodologies proposed in the literature are not able to precisely assess the cavity parameters, because the interactions between the void and Rayleigh waves are poorly identified and not taken into account. In this context, we define new seismic observables bearing information, with the aim of suggesting a new underground cavity imaging method suitable for subsurface environments. Our approach combines numerical modelling and reduced scale experimentations. The analysis of seismic recordings and associated phenomena lead us to define robust observables, especially based on the consideration of the horizontal component. Their sensibility is studied as functions of the cavity parameters, such as its diameter or its depth regarding the propagated wavelength. Our results demonstrate the significance of the horizontal component, which is highly sensitive to the presence of an object such as a cavity. Indeed, the analysis of the particular displacement ellipticity through H/V spectral ratios reveals strong perturbations in the vicinity of the heterogeneity caused by a void. In addition, several field data have been carried out and in the aim to initiate feasibility tests in real media.

Issued also as Thesis (Ph. D)--University of Pennsylvania / Includes bibliographical references (p. 482-518) and index. Also issued in print and microfiche.

Typescript (photocopy)

Thesis (M.A.)--Kutztown University. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, page: 2845. Typescript. Abstract precedes thesis as preliminary leaves [i]-iv. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 118-120).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1984. / Vita. Bibliography: leaves 201-207.

Thesis (M.S.)--Ohio State University, 1984. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 72-75). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center.