In recent years evidence has emerged that the endocannabinoid system (ECS) may have a significant role in metabolism and energy homeostasis. Several studies have identified upregulation of the peripheral ECS in obesity and type 2 diabetes, but the mechanisms behind this and the consequences of upregulation are unclear. The aim of this thesis was to further elucidate the role of the ECS in mature adipocytes, and its activity in obesity and related metabolic dysfunction. Three adipose tissue depots were dissected from lean, obese and obese diabetic Zucker rats (n=6-8). In human studies, written informed consent was obtained from healthy volunteers within the University of Nottingham and obese surgical patients at the Royal Derby Hospital. Anthropometric measurements and venous blood samples were obtained. In these studies, subcutaneous abdominal adipose tissue was taken from all subjects (n=28 healthy study; n=27 surgical study), and visceral adipose tissue was obtained from some of the surgical patients (n=14). In all studies, collagenase was used to isolate mature adipocytes from the adipose tissue, and FAAH and MGL activities in the adipocytes were assayed using tritium labelled substrates. Human subcutaneous preadipocytes (Promocell, Germany) were cultured and differentiated. Adipocytes were cultured with high concentrations of glucose (15 mM) and/or insulin (1 μM) for 24 hours, in combination with anandamide or 2-AG for 2 or 24 hours. Adiponectin, leptin and resistin in the cell culture media were then measured using sandwich ELISAs. In another study, anandamide and 2-AG uptake were measured in differentiated adipocytes after 2 or 24 hours’ stimulation with glucose and/or insulin. FAAH and MGL activities in the cultured adipocytes were also measured in this study. In rats, FAAH and MGL activities correlated with body mass. In healthy humans, FAAH activity in subcutaneous adipocytes correlated with BMI and waist circumference, but not with other anthropometric measurements, serum glycaemic markers or adipokines. In obese patients, the enzyme activities had no relationships with any of the anthropometric or metabolic markers investigated. Furthermore, there were no differences in activity between patients with metabolic syndrome or diabetes and those without. In both rats and humans, there were no significant differences in FAAH and MGL activities between subcutaneous and visceral adipocytes. In the cell culture studies, anandamide and 2-AG did not alter adipokine secretion under normal, high glucose or high insulin conditions. Chronic insulin exposure increased anandamide uptake, but none of the other acute or chronic treatments with glucose and/or insulin affected anandamide or 2-AG uptake. Glucose and insulin were found to reduce MGL activity. These studies suggest that the rate of anandamide hydrolysis in mature adipocytes is increased in obesity. This relationship was not apparent in a morbidly obese sample. MGL activity in humans does not have relationships with adiposity or metabolic markers, and this may reflect its role as a major component of lipid metabolism, particularly lipolysis. Anandamide and 2-AG are unlikely to be direct mediators of adipokine secretion, at least in cell culture. Insulin may affect endocannabinoid signalling in adipocytes by increasing anandamide uptake and suppressing MGL activity. Overall, these results support the notion that the ECS in adipocytes is dysregulated in obesity, but this is not driven by specific factors associated with obesity.

This dissertation highlights the influence of the extension of Empire in India on Enlightenment in Scotland. It argues, consistently, that an ever increasing contact with the Eastern parts of Empire over the eighteenth century created productive tensions between the personal, material and intellectual worlds of the Edinburgh literati. Scottish thinkers stood in close contact to one another and congregated in the Select Society and the Poker Club. Beyond the domestic boundaries, they had practical and personal interests in contemporary events in the East Indies. All had relatives or acquaintances in India and were all correspondents of Sir John Macpherson, Governor-General of India (1785-6). The dissertation shows that a revision of civic humanism on the one hand and scientific Whiggism on the other, found their main dilemma in “luxury” and “despotism” respectively. Both of these concepts were intrinsically connected with the perception of India at the beginning of the eighteenth century. One of the outcomes of the literati’s personal and intellectual engagement with India was the different solutions for the regulation of Empire. Ferguson, following the tradition of civic humanism, argued for the importance of civic virtue in order to maintain Empire. His thoughts stood in stark contrast to Smith, Hume and particularly Robertson. Vigour, instead of civic virtue, needed to be developed and strengthened. No monolithic canon of how Empire could be sustained was developed by these men, but all were involved in squaring the circle of improvement through Empire. The constant interplay between domestic, cosmopolitan and imperial spheres suggests that Enlightenment had an imperial nature, which is highlighted in relation to the literati’s particular investigation of “luxury” and “despotism” and their positive perception of Nabobs. Moreover, the dissertation emphasises that Edinburgh associations can not only be viewed as pillars of Enlightenment in Scotland, but also as networks and the gateways to Empire from at least the 1760s. The evidence assembled suggests that men like Ferguson and Robertson were active players in a world which was intellectually and practically shaped by Empire.

This case study analyses how four Irish "opinion leader" newspapers - The Irish Times, the Irish Independent, the Sunday Independent and the Sunday Tribune - constructed the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during the four-year period from July 2000 to July 2004. A primary objective of this case study is to overcome some of the more prominent theoretical inadequacies that have characterised existing research in this area to date. Principally, because existing research has been mostly limited to analysing the American media context and to a lesser extent, the British and other core European contexts, very few analyses have been undertaken on the framing of foreign conflicts by media outlets that operate within entirely different national environments, such as the Irish media environment. Chapter I argues that already existing research has mostly been confined to "testing" propaganda, indexing, hegemonic and political control hypotheses regarding media roles in covering foreign conflicts. These hypotheses are based on assumptions that foreign conflict coverage is mostly influenced by extrinsic structural factors and that, therefore, the media's role is largely restricted to that of acting as conduits for government propaganda and elite perspectives. Consequently, research guided by these hypotheses neglects to investigate fully the influences exerted by the surrounding politico-cultural and media contexts on the various roles adopted by the media when reporting on different types of foreign conflicts. William A. Gamson and his colleagues' model of social constructivist media analysis was chosen as the most appropriate model for fulfilling the objectives of this research. This model analyses media coverage trends as outcomes of contested news construction processes that are potentially influenced by a range of different extrinsic environmental factors and intrinsic media, or news factors. This case study consisted of four different, yet interrelated, stages of research. The first stage consisted of a literature-based contextual analysis of the historical and political environments characterising the arena of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, as well as the arenas of Irish-Israeli and Irish-Palestinian relations. The second research stage involved a longitudinal and descriptive analysis of a representative sampling of coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by The Irish Times, the Irish Independent, the Sunday Independent and the Sunday Tribune during the period from July 2000 to July 2004. The third stage consisted of qualitative frame analysis of news discourses. The fourth and final stage of research involved the undertaking of a series of exploratory, qualitative interviews with key media, political/diplomatic and NGO actors. Chapter 3 briefly outlines how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been historically manifested as a highly unequal, contested and multi-dimensional conflict. Chapter 4 analyses the potential contextual influences exerted by Irish political culture and foreign policy-makin(I-1t1ra ditions on the roles adopted by Irish media. It concludes that Ireland's "small state" and post-colonial status, its consequent lack of "hard power", or "vital" foreign policy interests in the Middle East, as well as its official dependency on UN and EU foreign policy perspectives, are likely to have exerted significant contextual influences on the ways in which the sampled newspapers covered the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Chapter 5 explores the ways in which the changed political environment surrounding Israeli-Palestinian relations during the period of July 2000 to July 2004 had significant constructivist implications for how international media, including the Irish media, covered the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This case study's descriptive analysis of randomly sampled coverage by The Irish Times, the Irish Independent, the Sunday Independent and the Sunday Tribune during the period of July 2000 to July 2004 generated a number of significant findings. Firstly, it was concluded that the regular patterns of attention that the sampled newspapers devoted to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were reflective of the dynamics and politics of that conflict itself, as well as its ongoing international resonance. However, this coverage was frequently of a semi- or non-prominent nature, while the sampled newspapers accorded only miniscule amounts of frontpage, analytical and editorial attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It was concluded that Ireland's "small state" status and its lack of appreciable national or foreign policy interests in Israel and the Palestinian territories influenced these latter trends. However, in addition to the formative influences exerted by the national politico-cultural context, media contextual factors and intrinsic news factors also had discernible constructivist implications for news outcomes. For instance, the finding that the majority of news items were sourced from foreign-based jourrialists and news agencies was related to the operation of news factors, such as editorial judgements and criteria, as well as reporting norms and values. Most significantly, the intense competition characterising the Irish media market overall, as well as the lack of historical grounding of Irish media within a "tradition" of foreign news analysis, exerted substantial influence on these news-sourcing patterns by constraining the sampled newspapers' commitment to foreign news coverage. In relation to the findings generated by this case study's topical analysis, it was also concluded that the operation of news factors, in relation to the wider politico-cultural context, influenced the ways in which the sampled newspapers topicalised the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Thus, while news values tilted editorial decisions towards covering "conflict"/"political violence" topics, these values also served to reduce newspaper coverage of "peace" and other topics. Additionally, politico-cultural factors, such as the relative isolationist and dependent nature of Irish foreign policy worldviews, supplied an important context within which the sampled newspapers neglected to appreciably cover the international diplomaticsecurity context surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Moreover, the low levels of coverage devoted to domestic Israeli and Palestinian topics reflected Ireland's lack of any "vital" interests in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its relatively weak politico-cultural and personal ties with Israel and the Palestinians. Finally, in relation to source access and representation trends, it was found that the sampled newspapers tended to be more or less contested sites (albeit unequal sites). variously featuring the assertions of competing Israeli and Palestinian politicaU"official" sources, rather than exclusively transmitting so-called consensual, hegemonic and elitist constructions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This emerged as a key finding of this research, as it challenges one of the primary theoretical assumptions of the propaganda, indexing, hegemonic and political control hypotheses - namely, that politically-powerful and economically resourceful conflict protagonists consistently have greater levels of media access than politically weaker protagonists, simply by virtue of the power disparities that pertain between them. Instead, this thesis argues that, within highly contested foreign conflict arenas, the protagonist sources' degree of access to international media attention is best viewed as a constructed and achieved outcome, which changes in line with developments in the wider political and media environments and changes in the operation of news factors.

In this study we had the intention to find out how children in preschool exercise influence during circle-times. We have done observations in three different departments, during circle-time, we have also observed how children can react to exercise influence, at the same time we observed also how the preschool-teachers' acted to promote the children in their effort to gain influence. Three interviews were conducted with the intent to identify the teachers' opinions and means to enhance the children's abilities to exercise their influence. In this study we have concluded that children of all ages needs to have their voice heard and influence their surrounding. Furthermore we have seen that the teachers' action can encourage or hamper the child in its attempts to influence its surroundings. It is paramount the teachers identify the "silent" children, with the aim to assist them in finding "their voice". During this study we found that children can either create a situation in which to impose influence or being presented the opportunity directly by the teachers'. In the ways of creating an influential atmosphere with the children, we’ve noticed that their age is an important factor if the child will be heard when trying to impose influence.

Fear is one of the oldest and most basic of human emotions. In this thesis, I will explore the topic of fear in relation to literature, both a staple of the horror genre as well as a device in literary works, as well as in my own writings. In addition, I will use Sigmund Freud's theory of the “uncanny” as a possible device to examine the complexities of fear and its effects both on the mind and body through the medium of literature, and, more specifically, where and how these notions are used within my own short stories. By exploring how and why certain fears are generated, we may be able to better examine our own reactions in this regard.

This study assesses the scope of the Crosslinguistic Influence (CLI) hypothesis’ predictions with regard to early bilingual acquisition. To this end, we analyze longitudinal corpus data from four bilinguals attesting the acquisition of subjecthood (null versus overt; preverbal versus postverbal) and the pragmatic adequacy of early null and overt subjects in a null-subject language (i.e., Spanish) in combination with a language differing in its pro-drop parameter setting (i.e., English). Our results indicate that CLI barely affects the development of subjects in the null-subject language at the initial stages, namely at the outset of null and overt subjects, and in turn support the Separate Development Hypothesis. Our bilingual cohort patterns with their Spanish-acquiring monolingual peer in that both groups display comparable proportions of null subjects as well as acquisitional trajectories of null and overt subjects at the early stages of acquisition. Much like monolinguals, bilinguals begin to produce preverbal and postverbal subjects concurrently. The bilingual children and the monolingual child of this study actually produce extremely high rates of pragmatically appropriate covert and overt subjects, which are for the most part target-like from the start, thus pointing to the absence of CLI effects. In light of monolingual and bilingual data, the paper also revisits the hotly debated issue of the ‘no overt subject’ stage of Grinstead (1998, et seq.), its existence in child Spanish being questionable.

Social networks constitute a major channel for the diffusion of information and the formation of attitudes in a society. Introducing a dynamic model of social learning, the first part of this thesis studies the emergence of socially influential individuals and groups, and identifies the characteristics that make them influential. The second part uses a Bayesian network game to analyse the role of social interaction and conformism in the making of decisions whose returns or costs are ex ante uncertain.

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to explore if there is any evidence that students actually can learn anything with the help of case studies. This study will answer the hypothesis “H” that are constructed as following: “H”. “The case study teaching method is a stimulating method for students to learn in.” Methodology - The method used in this paper is qualitative secondary research from databases. The databases consist of Diva, Google Scholar, Emerald, Web of Science and Scopus. Other secondary research is from research books and books about pedagogy. Implications/Findings - This research study shows that case studies have a positive influence on the student’s engagement and that learning gets more meaningful if the students are more engaged in the learning process. To be more engaged can move the student to a higher level of thinking. Furthermore, case studies enhanced the learning retention in students. Keywords - Student, Evidence, Learning, Case Study, Engagement, Stimulating, Motivation, Influence. Paper type – Research paper.

Gosse’s reputation, both during his lifetime and thereafter, was compromised by his propensity for error, a trait that Henry James famously described as ‘a genius for inaccuracy’. Though much of his biographical and critical writing justifies this criticism, my study of Gosse’s use of the device of allusion, mainly in his fictional writing, reveals a strategy of misprision that is creative and innovative. Since the concepts of Modernism and Postmodernism have changed the way in which texts are read, it is now time to re-read Gosse, and to explore the potential meaning of passages that would hitherto have been dismissed as error or exaggeration. Using Ziva Ben-Porat’s characterisation of allusion ‘as a device for the simultaneous activation of two texts’ as my methodology, I explore the complex and often subversive resonances of Gosse’s allusive practice. Allusion requires four participants: author, reader, the source text by the precursor, and the alluding text. Because a phrase does not ‘become’ an allusion until all four parties have been ‘activated’, many of Gosse’s allusions have for a long time lain dormant in the palimpsest of his writings. I argue that Gosse’s evangelical, tract-writing mother, rather than his father, exerted primary influence on him. I foreground the impact of her prohibition of fiction as the genesis for Gosse’s idiosyncratic vision, showing that its legacy was more bewildering, and ironically more creative, than has hitherto been recognised. Using the revisionary ratios of Bloom’s theory of the anxiety of influence, I establish a trajectory of charged interactions between the texts of Gosse as ephebe and those of his mother as precursor. Many hitherto puzzling and unresolved aspects of Gosse’s writing now make sense in the context of his ‘answering back’ the spectral Bowes. Although Gosse never fully extricates himself from his maternal precursor, he metaphorically orphans himself, and transfers his ephebe allegiance to a host of literary fosterfathers, constantly invoking them in his texts. He thus secures his ‘mental space’ through the covert mode of allusion, and the zenith of this practice is manifested in Father and Son. My thesis demonstrates the potential of allusion as a methodological tool in literary analysis. By his acts of re-reading, Gosse achieves the paradoxical act of simultaneously arresting and promoting a sense of cultural continuity. On the one hand, Gosse arrests tradition by fragmenting texts: by importing a phrase or a passage from a past work into his present text, he engenders textual instability in both. On the other hand, Gosse promotes cultural continuity by importing into his work fragments that serve as allusive bridges forging connections through space and time. I hope that this exploration of his practice will initiate a reassessment of Gosse’s role in relation to the allusive mode as employed by the early Modernists.

This study was made to determine the contributions of John Amos Comenius to the field of education and to analyze specifically his work in this field which would indicate that his philosophy contained concepts for industrial arts which are applicable today.