Regional economic growth and development is triggered by a combination of many factors such as public sector intervention, national and regional policies, and private sector investments. Regional development funds, through the application of pertinent objectives, focusing, participation, and co-ordination can certainly make an important contribution on regional development. In Chile one of the main public sector policy instruments for regional development are the Regional Investment Funds. The role of these funds in the economic and social development of regions in difficulty or whose development is lagging has significantly increased in recent years. The country has had a regional development fund, the "Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Regional" (FNDR) since the mid-1970s. This fund, modest in its beginning, was significantly increased starting in 1985 due to loans from the Inter American Development Bank. The FNDR has played an important role providing basic social infrastructure in regions. However, despite the increasing amount of resources channelled to regions, twenty five-years of existence of the FNDR, and almost a decade since establishment of Regional Governments in Chile, few improvements can be recorded in the way the Regional Funds are being used or on their overall effect on regional development. The main purpose of the study is to analyse the action of the regional development fund of Chile (the FNDR) and its relationship with the overall objective of regional development. Two different empirical approaches evaluated specific effects of the FNDR. The first was concerned with the analysis of particular aspects of the fund labelled as the "key elements" in the running of the FNDR. The second presents and compares the experience of a similar fund for regional development. The fund selected to carry out this comparison was the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The specific questions to the "key elements" address three different aspects of the existence and performance of the fund: questions 1 and 2 deal with the very existence or the overall aim of the fund; questions 3 and 4, with the way the fund is being allocated and used; and question 5 is rather different as it tries to explore the possibility of finding other potentials for regional development, not exploited as such, due to the dominance and statutory primacy of the fund.

Implementation of the Community Care (Direct Payments) Act 1996 in April 1997 enabled local authorities to make cash payments to service users under the age of 65 with physical and sensory impairments, learning difficulties and mental health problems. This gave users control over money spent on meeting their community care needs rather than receiving services arranged for them by the local authority. The policy is often represented as a victory for the disability movement and as a push towards independent living and social justice. However, direct payments also need to be understood as part of a wider market discourse prominent in the restructuring of welfare. Therefore, a growing culture of localised care markets led by local authorities with increasing ideological diversity may ultimately erode the scope for independent living, choice and control. This thesis examines the impact of these policy discourses informing the planning constructions and user experiences of direct payments in two contrasting areas - one in England and one in Scotland. A third authority - also in Scotland - is examined where direct payments have yet to be implemented and an indirect payment scheme remains in place. In the English authority - 'East Anglia' - findings show direct payments promoted both as part of a wider marketisation of community care and development of independent living services. Implementation has seen a relatively rapid promotion of policy but this is found to be located within wider New Right confines of cost efficiency and accountability. Like East Anglia, the Scottish authority - 'East Scotland' - has also demonstrated a long-term commitment to independent living services and has worked in partnership with the local disability movement to establish a momentum for policy change. However, wider policy use is shown to be restricted by a more dominant anti-market discourse. Similarly for the second Scottish authority in the study - 'West Scotland' - planning fears of service privatisation coupled with limited disability activism and a chaotic aftermath of service reorganisation has resulted in non-implementation of direct payments. By focusing on the impact of these discourses alongside wider controls made by central government, this research examines user experiences of direct payments in East Anglia and East Scotland and indirect payments in West Scotland through a series of semi-structured interviews. Additional information is generated through a discourse analysis of key policy documents and discussions with planners. Whilst findings highlight an overall enthusiasm for both direct and indirect payments, user experiences are shown to be strongly influenced by market and independent living discourses in each area. This has implications not only for individual user constructions of independence but draws more widely on an understanding of collective disability identities.

A variety of topics on the statistical analysis of time series are addressed in this thesis. The main emphasis is on the state space methodology and, in particular, on structural time series (STS) models. There are now many applications of STS models in the literature and they have proved to be very successful. The keywords of this thesis vary from - Kalman filter, smoothing and diagnostic checking - to - time-varying cubic splines and intra-daily effects -. Five separate studies are carried out for this research project and they are reflected in the chapters 2 to 6. All studies concern time series models which are placed in the state space form (SSF) so that the Kalman filter (KF) can be applied for estimation. The SSF and the KF play a central role in time series analysis that can be compared with the important role of the regression model and the method of least squares estimation in econometrics. Chapter 2 gives an overview of the latest developments in the state space methodology including diffuse likelihood evaluation, stable calculations, etc. Smoothing algorithms evaluate the full sample estimates of unobserved components in time series models. New smoothing algorithms are developed for the state and the disturbance vector of the SSF which are computationally efficient and outperform existing methods. Chapter 3 discusses the existing and the new smoothing algorithms with an emphasis on theory, algorithms and practical implications. The new smoothing results pave the way to use auxiliary residuals, that is full sample estimates of the disturbances, for diagnostic checking of unobserved components time series models. Chapter 4 develops test statistics for auxiliary residuals and it presents applications showing how they can be used to detect and distinguish between outliers and structural change. A cubic spline is a polynomial function of order three which is regularly used for interpolation and curve-fitting. It has also been applied to piecewise regressions, density approximations, etc. Chapter 5 develops the cubic spline further by allowing it to vary over time and by introducing it into time series models. These timevarying cubic splines are an efficient way of handling slowly changing periodic movements in time series. This method for modelling a changing periodic pattern is applied in a structural time series model used to forecast hourly electricity load demand, with the periodic movements being intradaily or intra-weekly. The full model contains other components, including a temperature response which is also modelled using cubic splines. A statistical computer package (SHELF) is developed to produce, at any time, hourly load forecasts three days ahead.

Spurred by the ageing transition, many governments have made wide-ranging reforms, dramatically changing Europe's pensions landscape. Nevertheless there remain concerns about future costs, while unease about adequacy is growing. This study develops a comprehensive framework to assess pension system sustainability. It captures the effects of reforms on the ability of systems to alleviate poverty and maintain living standards, while setting out how reforms change future costs and relative entitlements for different generations. This framework differs from others, which just look at generosity at the point of retirement, as it uses pension wealth - the value of all transfers during retirement. This captures the impact of both longevity and changes in the value of pensions during retirement. Moreover, rather than focusing only on average earners with full careers, this framework examines individuals at different wage levels, taking account of actual labour market participation. The countries analysed cover 70% of the EU's population and include examples of all system types. Our estimates indicate that while reforms have decreased generosity significantly, in most, but not all, countries the poverty alleviation function remains strong, particularly where minimum pensions have improved. However, moves to link benefits to contributions have made some systems less progressive, raising adequacy concerns for women and those on low incomes. The consumption smoothing function of state pensions has declined noticeably, suggesting the need for longer working lives or additional private saving for individuals to maintain pre-reform living standards. Despite the reforms, the size of entitlements of future generations should remain similar to that of current generations, in most cases, as the effect of lower annual benefits should be offset by longer retirement. Though reforms have helped address the financial challenge faced by pension systems, in many countries pressures remain strong and further reforms are likely.

Theories of exchange-rate determination have generated a vast theoretical and empirical literature. This thesis adds to that body of literature by asking three questions. (i) How do policymakers respond to exchange-rate misalignment? (ii) How does misalignment affect the decisions of financial-market participants? (iii) What do exchange-rate dynamics reveal about the choices of investors in the face of currency risk? These three questions are tackled with studies that offer broad and tractable conclusions and contribute to furthering the current field of research.

This thesis explores the influence of organizational workplace cultures on the lived experience of work-life balance for individual employees. It focuses on the experiences of a specific professional group called occupational therapists and samples these in two workplace organizations in the public sector; one healthcare and one social services setting. In-depth interviews were used to gather participants’ accounts. Findings suggested that the social services setting had more temporal flexibility, and a more supportive culture of work-life balance than healthcare, but that both organizations utilised power and performance to the advantage of organizational outcomes. Individual employees had little autonomy, control and choice over work-life balance and both organizations created and maintained a state of work-life imbalance as opposed to work-life balance for their staff. Both organizations used the individual occupational therapist’s time and energy as a human resource in the workplace, irrespective of the subsequent impacts on the individual’s personal and family well-being. There was a notable absence from participation in the community and wider social and natural environments in all accounts shared. This study posits that having time and energy for such activities in daily life would enhance well-being at multiple levels of significance and create a more balanced, sustainable and resilient model of work-life balance. Findings suggest that work-life balance is a co-produced phenomenon, with complex interconnected relationships and argues that viewing work-life balance as a whole rather than in its parts is necessary if we are to achieve an egalitarian model of work-life balance, valuing individual well-being and resilience and sustainability of human time and energy over organizational success. This study proposes that organizations need to adapt their cultures to develop a more egalitarian and employee-centred approach to work-life balance but identifies that cultural change at organizational levels alone would not be effective in challenging work-life imbalance.

The dominant theories in the sociological literature identify religion with propositional belief in the transcendent and belonging to and attendance at religious services. This understanding of religion replicates a past Protestant model that fails to account for contemporary religious forms, including Protestant forms. Drawing on Georg Simmel, one of the fathers of sociology, the thesis makes a theoretical contribution by reinterpreting and systematising Simmel’s notions of religiosity as a sensitivity, and of belief as trust, to enhance the understanding of contemporary individual religious identity. The use of these notions and of Simmel’s nuanced perspective on individuality enables the development of a theoretical framework for the understanding of authenticity. The study focuses on individual religiosity, which has been largely neglected by the literature. The most influential theories that have paid attention to the role of the individual – rational choice theory and spirituality studies – have centred on individual self authority and neglected to conceptualise the self. Accordingly, the thesis provides a relational account of the self, on which to ground authenticity as a process of identity formation. The narratives and practices, which emerged from the empirical research, have revealed the construction of Christianity through the prism of authenticity, as a distinctive and ‘truer’ way of living. This construction of authentic Christianity testifies to a shift from doctrinal adherence to a more pluralistic discourse by emphasising an overarching ethics of compassion over exclusive claims to truth. Thus, pluralism offers Christian evangelicals the platform to articulate the particularistic tradition of Christianity, whilst retaining a claim to – what they understand to be – universal truth.

Sure Start Children’s Centres deliver a wide range of services to families with young children. For over a decade an important aspect of Sure Start has been collaborative work involving diverse practitioners, professionals, agencies and organisations. The role of Children’s Centre Teacher (CCT) was established in 2005 with the aim of improving children’s social and cognitive development. This qualitative study examines the experiences of individual CCTs, paying attention to their descriptions of role, their professional identities and how they experience and understand collaborative working. The study uses two methods to collect data, iterative email interviews and personal interviews conducted on a one-to-one basis or in small groups. A total of 15 informants provided data through emails, interviews or both. In terms of role, the study finds that respondents report considerable differences between the centre-based role and that of a classroom teacher. Uncertainty, variability and change pervade their accounts. Despite this it is possible to identify key characteristics of the nature of CCT activity through CCTs’ comparisons of their new role and their previous work. In terms of identity, CCTs clearly position themselves as professionals and place themselves as senior members of the Children’s Centre team. However, identifying the CCT role as a unique profession, teaching specialism or discrete occupation is found to be problematic for a number of reasons. Informants endorse collaborative working, which they describe as part aspiration and part achievement, reporting a mixture of successes and barriers. Children’s Centre Teachers invoke two modes to describe the collaborative work they undertake, the first appears close to traditional models of interprofessional working, the second, which describes the majority of the work they undertake, casts CCTs as advisors and consultants to staff members they see as subordinate. The study also comments on how email interviews might be used in future research.

The research study aspired to ascertain what, if any key factors can be identified by the Senior Nurses in Wales to improve the quality and safety of the service delivered by the nursing service. Numerous reports with recommendations for improvement have been published following significant service failures in the nursing service. Despite these reports, failures continue. This thesis details the methodology and findings of a research study undertaken with Senior Nurses in Wales, to ascertain their views on what factors are needed to have a successful nursing service. It explores what needs to be in place in the nursing service to prevent failure and deliver high quality, safe care to patients. A mixed-method research approach was used which comprised three stages. Stage one analysed secondary qualitative data in the form of case study inquiry reports into service failures. The second stage comprised semi-structured elite interviews with nine Senior Nurses in Wales. The final stage, which was used to prioritise and validate the results from stage two, was a questionnaire sent to 65 Senior Nurses in Wales, with 41 returned. From the analysis of the above research, a Senior Nurses’ Framework covering 6 main themes and containing 35 key factors was developed, which if implemented could potentially lead to a successful nursing service. In addition the thesis explores why Senior Nurses find it difficult to implement such actions, their lack of empowerment and how it is important for their voices to be heard if failure is to be prevented in the future.

Objective: There is a growing body of research which demonstrates positive effects of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) on a diverse range of psychological disorders (e.g. chronic pain, depression, psychosis). Several reviews suggest that ACT may benefit people struggling to adjust to life following a Traumatic Brain Injury; however there are no published treatment trials using ACT with this group. The present study examined the feasibility of an intervention trial of ACT for people with severe Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) treated in an inpatient rehabilitation centre. The findings informed recommendations made for the design and conduct of a larger study. Method: Mixed quantitative and qualitative methods were used including Focus Groups and questionnaire measures. Data were collected from patients and unit staff at multiple time points across three research sites. Focus Group data were analysed using thematic analysis in accord with best practice guidelines. Questionnaires and forms completed by the staff in order to establish application of inclusion/exclusion criteria and participant flow were analysed descriptively to get an indication of the acceptability of features of the study protocol. Results; Focus group findings indicated that due to cognitive deficits exhibited by participants, they perceived the ACT intervention as being too complex, and a number of amendments were suggested to support participants with cognitive deficits in future trials such as increasing repetition of key processes during intervention. Further suggestions were made in relation to future conduct of the study protocol such as revising the inclusion/exclusion criteria, family involvement in data collection, and provision of easy read materials to clients. Results indicated that participants had no issue with the randomisation design, there were no adverse events associated with the study protocol or intervention. Conclusions: Further piloting of the amended intervention protocol in line with recommendations made in this study is recommended prior to drawing any conclusion with regard the suitability and acceptable of ACT with people with a severe TBI in an inpatient facility. Further research should consider the amendments to the study protocol as recommended in this study.