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This thesis aims to provide the first comprehensive review of church building and restoration in an English county between 1800 and 1914. Architectural trends and arrangements of furnishings and fittings receive the greatest attention, together with the setting of local events in the national context. The condition and appearance of churches in the pre-Ecclesiological era are considered and a rather more favourable picture built up than that inherited from the nineteenth century. The rise of Ecclesiology is examined and it is clear that Leicestershire follows rather than plays a leading part in national trends. Throughout emphasis is placed on statistical information to illuminate the points under discussion, for example, to assess the impact of the restoration movement on local churches; the claim that restoration was destruction is critically examined, particularly in relation to G. G. Scott. It is shown that from about 1870 there-was a great need for new churches in Leicester, and, although there were some notable buildings provided, there was a general tendency towards architectural simplicity which led back to the values embodied in the pre-Victorian buildings. This is also associated with changing stylistic fashions; after the flowering of the Gothic Revival, its waning is traced and examples given of the use of non-Gothic styles. The above themes are generally treated chronologically. They are followed by separate treatments of the processes of selecting architects (the clear evidence is limited), building materials and their application (Leicestershire has an excellent diversity of materials), and the methods of funding the work. Back-up material is provided in a series of Appendices. Of these the longest and most important are the ones summarising the work done at each church, the work of individual architects, and a review of the amount and timing of activity in other selected counties. The latter seems to show that not all counties follow the Leicestershire pattern, which peaks in the 1860s.

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The kinematic and kinetic characteristics of arm movement during four activities of daily living: lifting a weight, driving a steering wheel, opening/closing a door and cutting were investigated in this study by using a human movement analysis system comprising a 6 camera Vicon motion analysis system, a 6 component strain-gauged transducer, a specially designed and instrumented steering wheel simulation system, a door and a cutting plate. The most important achievements of this study are: (1) Implementation of the residual analysis technique into a computer program to filter the noisy kinematic data at an autoselected cut-off frequency for each data sequence. (2) The development of a new method of representing the velocity and acceleration of points of interest using the phase plane presentation. It was found that driving is the most complicated activity investigated in this study according to the range of arm movement. From the kinetic results, it was found that the order of difficulty of the four activities can be arranged as cutting, door opening/closing, lifting, and driving according to the magnitude of the maximum resultant total shoulder moment. The difficulty of the lifting activity increased with the weight to be lifted and the height of lifting. It was also found that the major component of the shoulder moment is the flexion/extension moment for most of the activities except driving, therefore it is concluded that having sufficient shoulder flexion/extension strength is most important for conducting most upper limb activities of daily living. In addition, the results of this study provide information for improving the understanding of the biomechanics of the upper limb activities and for clinical reference.

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Twisting movements are categorised into three mechanical types, named as DIRECT, COUNTER-ROTATION and TILT TWIST. Twisting techniques are studied using mathematical models. A mathematical inertia model is constructed to enable the determination of segmental inertia parameters from anthropometric measurements. A film analysis program is developed so that the angles, which specify the orientation and configuration of the body, may be derived from digitised film data. A computer simulation model, comprising 11 segments and 17 degrees of freedom, is constructed to represent the human body in free fall. The combined use of the three computer programs results in maximum errors of 3% for somersault and 9% for twist in ten filmed movements. The mechanics of twisting techniques are explained using simple mathematical models. An analysis of rigid body motions shows that there are two distinct modes of motion, named as the ROD MODE and the DISC MODE. It is shown that it is possible to change from one mode to the other by varying the angle of pike and this permits the twist to be increased or stopped or even reversed. The capacities of twisting techniques are determined using simulations. For twists from a piked position, delaying the extension from the pike can increase the twist rate although this does depend upon the particular technique used and the initial direction of somersault. The contributions of twisting techniques used in the filmed movements are determined using simulations based upon modifications of the film data. It is found that counter-rotation techniques made small contributions and that aerial techniques, which increased the angle of tilt, were the major contributors, even in movements where the twist was apparent at take off. Using the simulation model it is shown that the build up of twist in the unstable double layout somersault may be controlled by means of small asymmetrical arm movements during flight.