This study analyses the processes of agricultural and rural restructuring that have characterised rural economies since the end of the Second World War, leading to a reorientation from productivist to more entrepreneurial models of farming. In particular, the transition from the conventional role of the farmer as price taker, which requires appropriate technical and managerial competency, towards that of price maker, which calls for broader entrepreneurial competencies is highlighted. This transition is explored in the context of farm tourism, identified as a diversification strategy to promote a more sustainable rural economy and to protect farm incomes against market fluctuation. To date, the literature on farm tourism has overlooked many of these processes and whilst conceptualising the farmer as an entrepreneur, has not sufficiently engaged with key theories of entrepreneurship or indeed emergent frameworks of entrepreneurial skill and competency. The research draws on a mixed-method’s approach, which includes two distinct research phases conducted in the North West of England. In the initial phase, a survey of 118 diversified farm tourism businesses identifies that whilst the primary motivation to diversify is to provide additional household income, these farmers value business and management competencies at the expense of entrepreneurial competency. Thus, this initial phase, challenges the extent to which farmers are currently entrepreneurial in the context of the rural and agricultural restructuring highlighted. At the second research phase, utilising Q Methodology, a technique designed for the systematic study of subjectivity, a 42-item instrument developed from the extant literature on entrepreneurial competence was administered to 15 farm tourism entrepreneurs. The Q analysis identifies three distinct perspectives on entrepreneurial skill and competency which farmers identify as necessary for successful diversification, termed: the Reflective Leader, the Opportunity Aware Organiser and the Opportunity Driven Innovator. The main characteristics of these groups are discussed and provide the basis for a taxonomy of the farmer as a rural tourism entrepreneur. Moreover, the results reveal the heterogeneity of diversified farmers in the study region, which encapsulates a wide range of perspectives from the risk averse to the opportunity aware, from the managerial to the entrepreneurial The thesis concludes by presenting a conceptual model of entrepreneurial competency, as well an additional taxonomy which classifies the farmer as a rural entrepreneur within a broad landscape of farming identity. The work thus provides a better understanding of farm tourism and a valuable insight into the complexity of rural and farm tourism entrepreneurship. As well as suggestions for future research, the findings will be of interest to academics and policy actors, with the conclusions providing a foundation to better understand farm diversification. Insights that may better inform rural business support, training and advisory services and foster critical policy discussion and debate.

The games industry has developed online multiplayer three-dimensional game worlds that allow players from different geographical locations to engage in competitive and cooperative gameplay together. This has enabled players from different cultures to inhabit the same virtual game world, bypassing any geographical or cultural boundaries found in the real world. These 3D game worlds ask the player to use the basic principles of spatial awareness and movement from the real world, and are often virtual representations of real world environments. These spaces are designed for players from all nationalities to inhabit concurrently. There is now a need to determine design considerations for these multicultural multiplayer game worlds but any investigation must consider the historical evidence from the games industry of cultural differences in gameplay preferences. This thesis discusses the effect of cultural knowledge on the spatial design and interpretation of three-dimensional game environments that are based on real world affordances. A new methodology for the comparative analysis of the design of three-dimensional game environments is established using Space Syntax metrics. This facilitates the discussion of cultural models applied to design thinking for the implementation and interpretation of game environments. Through spatial metrics the analysis of the intelligibility underlying three-dimensional game environments is correlated to the imageability of the projected two-dimensional screen image. The application of this methodology to internationally popular, and culturally specific, game environments establishes new knowledge on tacit cultural influences within game design processes. The analysed intelligibility of the environments indicates cognitive differences between Eastern and Western cultures, already recognised in the interpretation of two-dimensional imagery, also exist within the design and interpretation of three-dimensional game spaces. This study establishes a new methodology through the analysis of intelligibility for design research into game environments. The resulting evaluation of tacit cultural influences within the design of the environments establishes new cultural differences and commonalities. These design characteristics can inform future game design methodologies within industry for the design and implementation of multicultural game environments.

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The development of the nonlinear version of the Continuous-time Generalised Predictive Control (NCGPC) is presented. Unlike the linear version, the nonlinear version is developed in state-space form and shown to include Nonlinear Generalised Minimum Variance (NGMV), and a new algorithm, Nonlinear Predictive Generalised Minimum Variance (NPGMV), as special cases. Through simulations, it is demonstrated that NCGPC can deal with nonlinear systems whose relative degree is not well defined and nonlinear systems with unstable zero dynamics. Geometric approaches, such as exact linearisation, are shown to be included in the NCGPC as special cases.

Although human sustained control movements are continuous in nature there is still controversy on the mechanisms underlying such physiological systems. A popular topic of debate is whether human motor control mechanisms could be modelled as engineering control systems, and if so, what control algorithm is most appropriate. Since the early years of modelling sustained control tasks in human motor control the servomechanism has been an adequate model to describe human tracking tasks. Another continuous-time system model that is often used to model sustained control tasks is the predictive controller which is based on internal models and includes prediction and optimisation. On the other hand, studies have suggested intermittent behaviour of the ``human controller'' in sustained motor control tasks. This thesis investigated whether intermittent control is a suitable approach to describe sustained human motor control. It was investigated how well an intermittent control system model could approximate both the deterministic and non-deterministic parts of experimental data, from a visual-manual compensatory tracking task. Finally, a preliminary study was conducted to explore issues associated with the practical implementation of the intermittent control model. To fit the deterministic part of experimental data, a frequency domain identification method was used. Identification results obtained with an intermittent controller were compared against the results using continuous-time non-predictive and predictive controllers. The results show that the identified frequency response functions of the intermittent control model not only fit the frequency response functions derived from the experimental data well, but most importantly resulted in identified controller parameters which are similar to those identified using a predictive controller, and whose parameter values appear to be physiologically meaningful. A novel way to explain human variability, as represented by the non-deterministic part of the experimental data (the \emph{remnant}), was developed, based on an intermittent control model with variable intermittent interval. This model was compared against the established paradigm, in which variability is explained by a predictive controller with added noise, either signal dependent control signal noise, or observation noise. The study has shown that the intermittent controller with a variable intermittent interval could model the non-deterministic experimental data as well as the predictive controller model with added noise. This provides a new explanation for the source of remnant in human control as inherent to the controller structure, rather than as a noise signal, and enables a new interpretation for the physiological basis for human variability. Finally, the theoretical intermittent control model was implemented in real-time in the context of the physiological control mechanism of human standing balance. An experimental method was developed to apply automatic artificial balance of an inverted pendulum in the context of human standing, via functions electrical stimulation control of the lower leg muscles of a healthy subject. The significance of this study is, firstly, that frequency domain identification was applied for the first time with intermittent control, and it could be shown that both intermittent and predictive control models can model deterministic experimental data from manual tracking tasks equally well. Secondly, for the first time the inherent variability, which is represented by the remnant signal, in human motor control tasks could be modelled as part of the structure of the intermittent controller rather than as an added noise model. Although, the experimental method to apply automatic artificial balance of an inverted pendulum in the context of human standing was not successful, the intermittent controller was implemented for the first time in real-time and combined with electrical muscle stimulation to control a physiological mechanism.

Increasingly, people turn to the Internet for access to services, which often require disclosure of a significant amount of personal data. Networked technologies have enabled an explosive growth in the collection, storage and processing of personal information with notable commercial potential. However, there are asymmetries in relation to how people are able to control their own information when handled by enterprises. This raises significant privacy concerns and increases the risk of privacy breaches, thus creating an imperative need for mechanisms offering information control functionalities. To address the lack of controls in online environments, this thesis focuses on consent and revocation mechanisms to introduce a novel approach for controlling the collection, usage and dissemination of personal data and managing privacy ex- pectations. Drawing on an extensive multidisciplinary review on privacy and on empirical data from focus groups, this research presents a mathematical logic as the foundation for the management of consent and revocation controls in technological systems. More specifically, this work proposes a comprehensive conceptual model for con- sent and revocation and introduces the notion of 'informed revocation'. Based on this model, a Hoare-style logic is developed to capture the effects of expressing indi- viduals' consent and revocation preferences. The logic is designed to support certain desirable properties, defined as healthiness conditions. Proofs that these conditions hold are provided with the use of Maude software. This mathematical logic is then verified in three real-world case study applications with different consent and revocation requirements for the management of employee data in a business envi- ronment, medical data in a biobank and identity assurance in government services. The results confirm the richness and the expressiveness of the logic. In addition, a novel testing strategy underpinned by this logic is presented. This strategy is able to generate testing suites for systems offering consent and revocation controls, such as the EnCoRe system, where testing was carried out successfully and resulted in identifying faults in the EnCoRe implementation.

Radical innovation has been identified as one of the central topics of innovation management, being relevant to the development process, the categories, and the R&D department’s responsibilities for development. Based on the above three individual research conversations, this research aimed to determine, when the R&D department of a large telecommunications operator engaged in radical innovation, which capabilities they used and how the use of these capabilities was affected by different contextual factors at each stage of the radical innovation development cycle. By comparing the aim of the current research with other researchers’ findings on relevant topics, three gaps in the research were identified, and two research questions were raised, as below: • RQ1: What capabilities do the R&D department of an STO use for each separate activity during its radical innovation development process? • RQ2: Within the radical innovation development process of an STO, which contextual factors explain the differential uses of the R&D department’s capabilities? Following the above research questions and based on the philosophical views of interpretivism and social constructivism, this PhD study uses a qualitative research strategy and a case study research approach for guiding the research design. Based on the data collected from 29 interviews plus a three-month, full-time participant observation, four case studies were conducted, which are the telematics service within China Mobile, the Xi-He system within China Telecom, and 21CN and BT Fusion within British Telecom (BT). By comparing the four cases, the R&D departments’ uses of capabilities in each separate activity of its radical innovation development cycle were identified, and the reasons for the different uses of these capabilities were described in relation to six contextual factors derived from the literature. Based on the four case studies and the data analysis, from the perspective of the R&D department eight theoretical propositions were put forward for an STO to develop its radical innovation. The propositions concerned the capabilities involved at each stage of the R&D department’s radical innovation development cycle, as well as the contextual factors that played the most significant roles in affecting these capabilities at all of the radical innovation development stages. In addition to the eight theoretical propositions, practically, five guidelines were also proposed in this study, which contributes to the understanding of the R&D managers and strategy people of other Chinese and British STOs, in terms of the impacts that the contextual factor of cultural contexts would have on their radical innovation development activities.

This thesis contributes to the discussion around the practice of co-design with children by providing support for reflections to practitioners. The framework that derived from this research aims to increase the awareness on the implications the different aspects involved on co-design session have on its outcome. Researchers with little experience in managing co-design sessions can benefit from it when deciding on their co-design strategies.

The ability to detect small refractive index changes in analytes is of uttermost importance since these index changes can be directly correlated to the presence of small amounts of chemicals of interest within analytes. Photonic devices such as 1D PhC nanocavities are one of the interesting structures to be used as optical sensors due to their capability to integrate with CMOS technology. We present in this study, a simple optical technique of detection based on 1D PhC nanocavities that gives good sensitivity for various types of chemicals. The work reported in this thesis concerned with the designed, fabrication, and characterisation of 1D PhC nanocavity devices based on silicon-on-insulator (SOI) material. The objective of this work is to provide an optical wave-guided sensing technology using 1D PhC nanocavity devices in the wavelengths region around 1550 nm. Firstly, the PhC nanocavities were designed and modelled using 2D and 3D Finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) computations to provide insight behaviour of the resonator waveguides. The designated PhC nanocavity devices were carefully fabricated via combination of electron beam lithography (EBL) and the dry and wet etching technology. The nanocavity devices were realised using optimised fabrication process to ensure the sensing chips are reproducible and reliable. This is done by careful control at nanometre scale of fabrication process of the PhC nanocavity devices and the microfluidic chip. Then, the devices were paired with the PDMS based microfluidic channel system. The nanocavity devices were characterised and the sensor system were tested for their optical sensing capabilities. The sensitivity of various Q factor values corresponds to the different cavity lengths are studied. The sensor system sensitivity, S were measured via refractive index sensing experiment varying from 135.78 to 245.72 nmRIU-1 with the detection limit, DL of 8 x 10-6 RIU. The sensing area estimated is 2.35 μm2. In addition, through the non-specific interaction experiment, bio molecular proteins BSA as low as 3.125 μg/ml concentrations were detected. Finally, the sensor system thermal responses were measured.

Light sources are an important part of physically-based rendering when accurate imagery is required. High-fidelity models of sky illumination are essential when virtual environments are illuminated via the sky as is commonplace in most outdoor scenarios. The complex nature of sky lighting makes it difficult to accurately model real life skies. The current solutions to sky illumination can be analytically based and are computationally expensive for complex models, or based on captured data. Such captured data is impractical to capture and difficult to use due to temporally inconsistencies in the captured content. This thesis enhances the state-of-the-art in sky lighting by addressing these problems via novel sky illumination methods that are accurate, practical and flexible. This thesis presents two novel sky illumination methods where; the first of which focuses on clear sky lighting and the second one deals with illumination from cloudy skies. The first approach compactly and efficiently represents sky illumination from both existing analytic sky models and from captured environment maps. For analytic models, the approach leads to a low, constant runtime cost for evaluating lighting. When applied to environment maps, this approach approximates the captured lighting at a significantly reduced memory cost, and enables smooth transitions of sky lighting to be created from a small set of environment maps captured at discrete times of day. This makes capture and rendering of real world sky illumination a practical proposition. Results demonstrate less than 4% loss of accuracy compared to ground truth data. The straightforward implementation makes it possible to compute skies at sub milliseconds times on modest GPUs. The second approach focuses on modelling of clouds from whole sky HDR images by using classification and optimisation techniques. This method pre-classifies the input image according to the cloud types of the pixels which improves both the duration and accuracy of the optimisation. The classification process itself compares well with similar processes from meteorological science and classifies whole images with 97% accuracy and individual pixels with an 80% accuracy. The method can be applied to any cloud type as soon as the optical properties are known. When combined with artificial sky lighting models consisting of arbitrary sun position to relight the extracted cloud model any day time simulations can be obtained based on the original single capture. Results for this method demonstrate a performance of 90% accuracy for fully digitally generated environment maps constructed from a single captured environment map when compared with the original capture.