Environmental issues surrounding railway operation and construction have become more prominent in recent years, increasing the need for administrators and researchers to understand how residents living around railways respond to the noise and vibration generated by them. Within this context, the University of Salford, within the project funded by Defra “Human response to vibration in residential environments” (NANR209), has derived exposure response relationships for railway traffic and construction for a population sample of 1281 people: 931 for railway traffic and 350 for railway construction. Vibration measurements within residences have been used for assessing human exposure to vibration alongside a social study questionnaire based on face-to-face interviews for quantifying the human response. The first part of this work is concerned with the exposure side of NANR209. The design and implementation of measurement methodologies are presented and discussed, which provide exposure data suitable for building an exposure response relationship for vibration caused by the sources mentioned above. In light of the large amount of vibration data gathered during the project, the analysis of vibration signals is considered in the second part of the dissertation. Two aspects connected with the assessment of the human exposure to vibration are investigated: wave field assessment and ground to building transmissibility analysis.

The purpose of this research is to define a framework for the enhancement and commitment of public participation in the context of river basin management (RBM) in Portugal based on the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) to achieve good water governance. In Portugal, public participation is often scarce, in spite of stakeholders being invited to participate by water management companies, as later referred to in this research. The WFD also maintains that stakeholders should be involved in RBM decisions. Based on an interpretivist research philosophy the research adopted case studies and expert interviews to provide multiple sources of evidence on the nature and complexity of River Basin Management and Public Participation The main case study interviews were carried with the case study managers. Additional expert interviews were carried with other case study stakeholders and general stakeholders (from industry and agriculture sectors). Data was analysed using content analysis. Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) application produced “rich pictures” to identify the level of engagement and commitment by stakeholders to participation in national water resources management. Cross case analysis was performed using the outcomes of case studies and interviews. Following this, the final framework was developed to meet the aim and objectives of the research. This research provided the identification of gaps in stakeholders’ participation in RBM. A final conceptual model is presented aiming to guide decision makers to solve this problem. It is proposed that two types of partnering groups are created to fulfil the aim and objectives which were pursued. The importance of this research relies on RBM improvement and the enhancement of the body of knowledge in Public Participation, to minimize the gaps on good water governance in Portugal. This research provides a framework which may guide some of the policy makers in RBM on how to optimise the participation of the stakeholders, assessing multi-stakeholder viewpoints in parallel. It aims to support the achievement of a major societal goal which is to gain trust among all groups of stakeholders and the community served by the river basin, which can lead to improved contribution and commitment to reach good water governance.

The sound field in rooms of small dimensions used for music reproduction is characteristically different from that found in larger rooms for music performance such as auditoria. Key differences between small critical listening spaces and large auditoria are the vastly different ranges of energy decay, 100 ms for the former and up to 8 s for the latter, and its directional behaviour, typically non-diffuse for the former and approximating a diffuse field for the latter. Despite these substantial differences, most of the metrics developed to describe the sound field in large spaces are evoked to quantify the performance of small rooms. This project focuses on developing measurement methods to characterise temporal and spatial qualities of sound in small rooms. A number of methods based on currently available acoustic probes have been developed. The implementation requisites and accuracy for each method has been quantified. Factors such as direction, time of arrival and strength of reflections have been extracted using signal analysis techniques based on the active instantaneous intensity and short-time Fourier transform. These factors are subsequently mapped to allow a description of their evolution through the energy decay in the room for a given measurement location. The best performing system, based on the use of one-dimensional p-p intensity probe mounted in a custom cradle, achieves a minimum overall mean error of 0.226 degrees and 2.971 degrees for the direct sound and first reflection respectively, which is near or below the measured human minimum audible angle (MAA). The method developed has direct applications in the quantification of small room acoustic sound fields for critical listening purposes.

The Carpathian Mountains in Romania hold around 150-200 glacial lakes and traverse a region where there are considerable environmental concerns. Despite a long tradition of palaeoecological study in the region, to date relatively little has been published on the alteration of their sediment characteristics due to recent human-induced environmental impacts. This research project has investigated the physical characteristics, the mineral magnetic properties and the trace metal levels of sediment cores from ten selected lakes in the southern and northern Carpathians of Romania in order to evaluate the possibility of using these lakes’ sediment as records of recent human impacts and, in particular, trace metal deposition. Laboratory analysis has included sediment bulk density measurements, loss-on-ignition and laser diffraction based particle size determination, environmental magnetism and geochemical (ICP-OES) analysis. A single core from one of the south lakes (Lacul Capra) was radiometrically dated. There were distinct variations in catchment and lake area, the ratio of catchment area to lake size and in lake depth between both regions. The physical characteristics of the lake sediments demonstrated similar trends in their down core profiles in both regions, although the lakes from the south demonstrated a larger particle size range than those in the north. The environmental magnetism of the sediment cores demonstrated common characteristics in surface or near surface peaks magnetic concentration, but there were variations in the magnitude of the concentrations between both regions. The surface increase in concentrations indicated the influence of the atmospheric deposition of particulate deposition associated with fossil fuel combustion and vehicle emissions, but it may also be influenced by microbiological activities within the lakes’ sediment. The geochemical analysis (EFs and down-core profiles) showed that the same trends in metal concentration were repeated across the lakes in both regions, but the south lakes displayed higher peak in Pb and Zn concentrations, than were found in the north lakes. The research project has demonstrated the likely influence of atmospheric particulate deposition on the sediments of the lakes from both regions and it has demonstrated spatial and temporal variations in trace metal levels in the lake sediments. It has thereby provided a preliminary database and an overview of palaeolimnological information in two regions of the Romanian Carpathians. Thus, it provides an addition to the records of recent pollution in Romania and a gateway to further investigations in the area of recent palaeoenvironmental change in this region.

Trypanosomes are a major cause of disease and death in both animal and human populations. Resistance or susceptibility to African trypanosomes has been associated with TLR9 gene. Hence, the primary objectives of this study were to apply molecular tools to investigate trypanosome infections in British badgers and Nigerian cattle, and to investigate variation in bovine TLR9 gene in relation to their trypanosome infection status. The ITS Nested PCR method was used to detect trypanosomes in the British badgers and Nigerian cattle. Two novel hemi-nested PCRs targeting two bovine TLR9 CpG Islands were developed to derive genetic and epigenetic DNA sequence data of 72 African bovine samples. Twenty-nine out of 82 badger samples amplified tested positive for trypanosomes (35.4% prevalence). Analysis of sequence data showed the badgers were infected with Trypanosoma (Megatrypanum) pestanai and as expected our phylogenetic analysis shows the badger trypanosome to cluster together with T. pestanai (100% bootstrap support) in the Megatrypanum clade. Ten out of 80 Southern Nigerian cattle were shown to be positive for trypanosomes resulting in a 12.5% prevalence rate. A total of 9 polymorphisms were found in targeted region of bovine TLR9 gene. The study showed no significant association between SNPs and trypanosomiasis (p = <0.05). Our results confirm the methylation of bovine TLR9 gene and identified CpG-SNPs (2256 and 2865) which removes a C-G site and perhaps could alter DNA methylation as potential epigenetic markers for bovine TLR9 gene. Also, it reports the significant correlation between CpG Island SNPs (p = <0.05, all cases), suggesting possession of one Island SNP is a predicting tool for possession of the others. Future work is targeted at publishing papers in peer reviewed journals based on results from these studies.

The quality of low frequency audio reproduction in small spaces has always been problematic. For some time, methods have been suggested in order to optimise this reproduction. Many such methods have been based upon objective metrics which remain unproven from a subjective perspective. Whilst perception has been studied, this thesis identifies a research gap for more thorough testing. A series of listening tests has been conducted, with virtual rooms auralised and presented over headphones in order to isolate specific modal parameters and allow efficient collection of subjective response from many listening environments. The work presented searches for optimal values and perceptual thresholds of three parameters - modal spacing, density and decay. Results show that optimal spacings and densities may only be defined where assumptions are made which are not valid in realistic listening spaces. Thresholds of modal decay1 have been defined, which are considered valid re- gardless of stimuli or replay level. These are around 0.2 seconds for frequencies above 100Hz, and increase sharply below this point to around 0.85 seconds at 32Hz. Through the testing of these parameters, it is shown that whilst discrimination between two rooms is usually a simple task, this does not reveal the underlying repro- duction quality. The perceived quality of the room response is of great importance, and new experiments assess this quality using a paired comparison method which provides a simpler subjective task than direct scaling methods. A set of descriptors is elicited which can be used to evaluate low frequency audio. These descriptors - articulation, resonance and bass energy - are used to assess the impact of three room parameters on perceived reproduction quality. Room response metrics are also eva- luated for perceived quality. Results reveal that modal decay is a primary indicator of quality, with shorter decays producing rooms with a higher perceived quality of reproduction.

The successful execution of public construction projects and keeping them within estimated cost and prescribed schedules, quality and satisfying policy goals depend on a methodology that requires sound engineering and managerial judgment. This problem is more evident in the public traditional or adversarial type of contracts in which the contract is awarded to the lowest bidder. Construction procurement policy of public projects has been utilised by many countries as an important tool for achieving economic, social, political and other objectives in developing all aspects of change in the construction industry. Although the construction industry in Libya has suffered ever since the UN sanctions, recent events in the region coupled with the restructuring of the economy, lifting the sanctions and re-establishing new relations with the developed world and global free trade organisations, and attracting foreign investments are expected to yield an unprecedented growth in the construction activities. The Libyan infrastructure is in desperate need for development projects in many areas, especially in the fields of water collection and distribution, tourism and housing. As a result, an unprecedented number of projects are currently under planning and contract awarding stages, which poses as a potentially effective opportunity to drive for change in the construction industry and beyond. This research is an insight of the issue of how construction procurement policies are made and how they affect the outcome of a local public construction project in the current Libyan setting. This was achieved by dividing the first theoretical part in to three pillars or elements of research concerned with, Public policy in the context of construction procurement; Public Sector construction procurement and Public Sector Projects Outcome to build a solid platform of a conceptual knowledge before embarking on a case study investigation to give the required realistic background to the scientific research. Three case studies were selected based upon criteria drawn from the literature review. An intra and cross case study analysis were carried out based mainly on projects' a review and analysis of projects' documentation, but supported by questionnaires and an interviews for each project case study, which enabled a process of contrast comparison, replication and interpretation of findings. It was found that public construction procurement policy in the Libyan local context lacked clarity in defining policy goals. Moreover, construction procurement is perceived as a contract strategy or an arrangement, where by emphasis on the technical aspect was far greater than emphasis on other related policy as a drive-for-change aspects. The policy of restricting the form of public projects contracts made for hard to local public clients to embrace other procurement systems, which might have been more beneficial to the outcome of projects in terms of satisfying policy goals. It appeared that State bodies are more concerned with the administrative side of these projects. Technical and project managerial aspects are usually left for their consultants, either public or private. This caused a serious detachment of control and therefore difficulties and shortcomings in using the construction procurement of local public projects as a policy tool. The main findings of the analysis were based on taxonomy of documentary data collected in the case studies, which assisted in generating conclusions linking back to the theory of the three research elements mentioned above. Finally recommendations along the lines of enhancing transparency, the communication process, the need for a comprehensive State guidelines and the need for vocational education and training to participating State bodies were presented as an attempt to inform and possibly assist academics and Libyan policy makers to achieve positive and fruitful goals in local construction projects through good construction procurement policy making and implementation.

The airport terminal is becoming an increasingly ‘taken for granted’ part of many peoples’ lives. As air travel becomes less expensive, more and more individuals are choosing to travel for both business and pleasure, and the airport has become a site of increasing interest to scholars from a variety of academic disciplines. Sociologists, geographers and anthropologists have offered a range of perspectives on the spatial nature of the airport, ranging from the ‘transitional space’ described by Gottdiener (2001), to Auge’s (1995) ‘non-place’, free and empty of power and social relationships. The sociological foundation for this thesis however, stems from the work of Erving Goffman, and specifically his examination of the total institution. In an effort to capture the institutional nature of the airport terminal, the study used observation, semi-structured interviews and video and audio recordings during fieldwork at airport terminals across the globe. Specific conceptualisations of the airport as a city, shopping mall, theme park and non-place are explored through existing literature and empirical study, and are measured against the institutional backdrop of the practices and activities of the places themselves. The author concludes that airport terminal buildings are not the conceptualisations they are often cited as being. They are however sociologically significant spaces because of their design and use in the era of increased globalisation, security, control and uncertainty, where people management and control is seen as a vital function, and where the conversion of customers into compliant docile bodies is key to minimising risk and maximising profits.

This thesis is aimed at developing an academically robust, cost effective tool / procedure for measuring safety culture that is easily administered on a busy construction site in Great Britain. This researcher works as a safety manager on construction sites and is typically employed on multi-million pound new build projects for blue-chip clients. These sites typically employ between 1-3,000 workers. Keeping workers safe is challenging and important, not only from the legal and ethical perspectives but also to ensure the companies reputations. To this end all of the companies and clients that this researcher has worked for in the last 15 years have been keen and vocal in their attempts to improve the safety culture on site. The researcher has witnessed large sums of money being spent in an attempt to make such improvements. Typically, companies wish to see tangible results after having invested money in order to facilitate change or improvements. Investing money to improve the site safety culture should be no different. This is where the difficulties arise and where a gap in knowledge has been identified by this research.

Soundfield reproduction has a vast array of applications, yet the ecological validity – and external validity – has been little researched beyond the narrow limits of the physical approach. This mixed model research explored the differing perception of reproduced urban soundfields and urban soundscapes. The methodology analysed the influences of: auralisation technique; soundscape; place affordances; time; space; and memory – subject agency and expertise. Three methods of data collection and analysis were employed: a semantic differential analysis and two psycholinguistic methods – one existing and one novel. The semantic differentials’ soundscape dimensions of the public’s response from in situ listening were replicated by participants’ responses from ambisonic reproduction but not binaural. A generalised soundscape dimension model was proposed that integrates the structural model of appraisal theory with the interpretation of motivation-affordance fit and mediation dimensions. Different soundscapes were evaluated differently and stimulated differing processes of perception, which in turn effected reproducibility. A focus group was used as well as members of the public and laboratory participants. It was found that experts responded more in terms of source identification. Existing methods found no significant difference between in situ and ambisonic listening. The novel method found the ambisonic soundfield was described in terms of objects in motion or sound objects whilst the binaural soundfield and in situ soundscape were described in terms of sources or activity. As an assessment of external validity, the novel psycholinguistic method found that binaural reproduction held validity over ambisonic reproduction. An in situ real-time binaural reproduction test sought to isolate the ‘electroacoustic ear’ – the findings were consolidated and discussed in terms of embodiment and ventriloquism. The novel psycholinguistic analysis provided a more accurate representation of the cognitive process of soundscape perception and is offered as a tool for the external validity assessment of urban soundfield reproduction.