This thesis presents a study of the characterisation of fine aggregates manufactured from waste quarry material and their use in concrete supported by artificial neural network models of the fresh and hardened concrete properties. The reutilization of rock filler, a by-product of the sand manufacturing process, as a soil liming material is explored. A set of tests and techniques were identified to characterise fine aggregates manufactured from quarry dusts via a dry processing system. Granite, limestone, sandstone and basalt manufactured sands and their unprocessed counterparts “feed quarry dusts” were characterised with respect to their shape and texture, grading and quality of fines (presence of clays). The results showed that the reprocessing of quarry dusts improves the particle shape and grading irrespective of rock mineralogy. Plasticised and non-plasticised concrete mixes were developed and the fresh and hardened properties tested. Concrete consistency, compressive and flexural strength is correlated with the fine aggregate characterisation test results. The manufactured fine aggregates showed a higher water demand when compared with natural sand whereas compressive and flexural strengths were enhanced. Artificial neural network models were developed to enable the prediction of the consistency and compressive strength of concrete. These models used the fine aggregate properties and mix composition parameters as input variables and were validated using a separate testing dataset, additional concrete mixes and numerical evaluation. Artificial neural network models were shown to be able to predict fresh and hardened concrete properties based on the fine aggregate characteristics. The excess fillers created in the sand manufacturing process were evaluated for soil liming potential through standard tests and a soil incubation study. The main finding was that materials with high silicate content exhibit a potential for liming, however, a higher dosage is required when compared to the dosage of high purity limestone to achieve the same liming potential.

The Fish Creek-Vallecito Basin exposes an archive of sediment related to early rifting of the Gulf of California beginning at 8.0 Ma followed by Colorado River delta progradation from 5.3-3.0 Ma. Mio-Pliocene deposits from the Fish Creek-Vallecito Basin of southern California and a sample from the modern Colorado River delta were analyzed through detrital zircon U-Pb (n=1996) and (U-Th)/He (n=280) double-dating in order to better constrain sediment provenance, hinterland exhumation, and Colorado River evolution. Coupling this dataset with outcrop study of the first Colorado River-sourced turbidites into the basin at 5.3 Ma, allows for evolution of the Colorado River system to be viewed from a source-to-sink perspective. Detrital zircon U-Pb and (U-Th)/He (ZHe) ages obtained in this study suggest earliest derivation of sediment was from the Peninsular Ranges followed by more distant sediment sourcing from the Colorado River. Initial Colorado River-sourced deposits show Yavapai-Mazatzal U-Pb ages with Laramide ZHe ages suggesting that the river was sourcing from Laramide basement cored uplifts at the onset of deposition into the Gulf of California, supporting a top-down model of river evolution. An increased percentage of Grenville U-Pb age grains as well as a wider range of ZHe ages associated with western US basement-derived zircon from a modern Colorado River delta sample indicate erosion into older stratigraphic units through time which is consistent with deep erosion on the Colorado Plateau since ~6 Ma. Vertically measured sedimentology logs through the Wind Caves Member, the first Colorado River-sourced unit deposited, were used to determine slope and basin floor architecture as the Colorado River and delta dispersed subaqueous sediment gravity flows into the marine Gulf. Measured sections arrayed along depositional strike show a 4.5 km wide pod of sand-rich turbidites that were delivered through a broad Fish Creek exit point from the paleo-Colorado shelf. The vertical sedimentation trend is one showing thick bedded, amalgamated channelized and sheet-like sandstones initially, shifting to thinnerbedded sheets and more isolated channels higher in the increasingly muddy section. The facies variability up section is interpreted as a change from a submarine basin floor fan to a lower slope environment as the Colorado River prograded its delta into the Gulf. / text

By 2003 the first Irish Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects had reached the operational stage. Media reports were emerging of significant differences in the effectiveness of these projects. This research set out to find a means by which effectiveness of PPPs could be increased and to develop a model that would assist PPP practitioners with this task in the future. Through a literature review, the Irish PPP process was mapped, the changes encountered in the introduction of PPP were investigated and a conceptual model – based on a traditional process model - was proposed. The model was tested by examining the outcomes of two projects and assessing the effect of participant attitudes on these outcomes. The projects were analysed in terms of Risk, Value and Innovation, and three propositions were offered: • there were differences in project outcomes; • there were differences in the attitudes of the project participants; • the attitudes influenced the outcomes. Using a combination of research methods, the data were gathered and analysed. The first two propositions were proven for Risk and Value but not for Innovation. In addressing the third proposition, a pattern matching exercise was undertaken and a number of findings were reached. These findings were further tested to establish their validity, credibility and reliability. The results showed that specific elements of participant attitudes were found to affect some of the project outcomes and that these had a significant effect on the overall success of the project. The findings showed that PPP conducted as outlined by the conceptual model would not maximise effectiveness. The model was revised so that it commenced with analysis of the desired outcomes and proceeded by working back through the PPP process to define the inputs necessary for success. Using this information, the model was refined, making it ready for use by future PPP practitioners.

Social and organisation theorists have become increasingly interested in studying information and communication technologies over the last two decades. This thesis examines how information and communication technologies are organised, and what is organised by information and communication technologies. The thesis contributes to the interest in detailed studies of information and communication technology through an analysis of the implementation and deployment of a mobile data system-the Vehicle Mounted Data System (VMDS)-by firefighters, fire crews and officers at a United Kingdom fire brigade. This thesis examines what becomes of the Vehicle Mounted Data System when it is introduced into a UK fire brigade. This includes an exposition of how recurring issues including the boundaries of the brigade, what is meant by standardisation and risk, what counts as information, and what is understood by devolved incident management is reordered as the VMDS becomes a constitutive part of the problematic fire service provision. The VMDS is bound up with reality constituting effects and this means that what is meant by technology and organisation becomes an important topic of scholarly study. This thesis develops a non-essentialist ontology of technology and organisation-an ontological turn in organisation theory. It is argued that the VMDS is a relational effect that is aligned with existing boundaries and assumptions at Hereford and Worcester Fire Brigade, that the VMDS is a multiple object that is a mutable mobile and is deployed not only to manage safety at incidents but also for managing performance and organisational flexibility, and that the instabilities of the VMDS are responded to ambivalently by various actors as they are enrolled in the collective upkeep of the VMDS. In analysing the Vehicle Mounted Data System a range of analytical resources are drawn upon, including, most significantly, actor-network theory, but also the writings of Deleuze and Guattari. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the politics of theory and suggests that researchers would remain faithful to their intellectual tradition and a sense of critical and creative purpose if they engaged with and helped to construct the heterogeneous ways in which technological devices such as the Vehicle Mounted Data System transform what organisation theorists understand by organisation.

Thorium-230 and protactinium-231 have been widely used as proxies of oceanic processes in both modern and past marine environment. Their application as such proxies is, however, limited by sparse data from the modern ocean with which to characterize their distribution and behavior. This thesis aims to provide such data and to assess their uses as oceanic proxies for ocean circulation, sediment dissolution, and modern dust input. Twelve profiles of dissolved ²³⁰Th, ²³¹Pa and ²³²Th obtained on a meridional GEOTRACES section in the Southwest Atlantic confirm the expected transport and fractionation of ²³¹Pa from ²³⁰Th by deep ocean circulation out of the modern Atlantic. There is however neither a water mass dependence nor progressive change as water masses age, which challenges the use of sedimentary ²³¹Pa/²³⁰Th to assess past flow in the South Atlantic. Decreases of ²³⁰Th and ²³¹Pa observed in near-bottom water indicate enhanced sea-floor removal in regions where nepheloid layers are present. In a second study of sedimentary nuclides concentration, high-resolution ²³⁰Th_xs profiles from sediment in Southeast Atlantic exhibit increasing ²³⁰Thxs concentrations from core-top to a depth of ∼3 cm followed by relatively constant values at greater depth, suggestive of sediment dissolution in the upper sediment core. This observation suggests the use of ²³⁰Thxs to quantify sediment dissolution. Combined with sediment composition measurements, ²³⁰Th_xs also provides an assessment of which constituents are dissolving from the sediment. (²³¹Pa/²³⁰Th)_xs ratios do not appear to be affected by sediment dissolution. A third study, in the tropical Atlantic Ocean, combines water-column measurements of ²³⁰Th, ²³²Th with coeval aerosol measurements, and allows assessment and improvement of the use of ²³²Th to quantify dust input to the surface ocean. ²³²Th-derived dust flux increases from 0.43 g/m²/yr at low latitude in the South Atlantic to 10.70 g/m²/yr at higher latitude in the North Atlantic, and broadly agree with a model of dust input. The data presented in this thesis have expanded the dataset of ²³⁰Th, ²³²Th and ²³¹Pa in the Atlantic Ocean, and provide an insight into future uses of these nuclides as oceanic proxies.

Data from existing research are linked together to produce an overview of the effects of chloride-induced corrosion on reinforced concrete structures. The effects of chloride-induced corrosion on the following mechanisms have been investigated: (i) Cracking. (ii) Bond strength. (iii) Flexural strength. (iv) Shear strength. (v) Column behaviour. Models have been developed to link material and structural aspects of deterioration. Despite the complexity of the behaviour, many of the models are modifications to existing procedures contained in UK codes. Material and structural models are integrated together in a spreadsheet for assessing the variation in load-carrying capacity with time. Time to cracking and residual load-carrying capacity are found to be sensitive to small variations in key parameters such as the cover and the surface chloride level. Predictions from a spreadsheet model indicate that structures designed and built to BS 8110 should achieve their design life without the need for significant repair. The predictions also indicate that the UK Highways Agency was justified in making BD 57 more onerous than BS 5400. With validation against further test data the procedures developed in this Thesis could form the basis for codes of practice for the assessment of corrosion-damaged concrete structures and the durability design of new concrete structures.

This research examines the effect of plan irregularities on the progressive collapse of steel structures. Firstly, 2, 3 and 5-storey steel structures, regular and irregular, located in regions with different seismic activity designed in accordance with AISC (20 I 0) and ASCE7 (20 I 0). Secondly, the effect of the four plan irregularities on the progressive collapse of braced and unbraced steel structures located in regions with different seismic activity assessed. The collapse patterns of the I4 buildings is analysed and compared under seven loading scenarios using nonlinear dynamic and static analyses. In the nonlinear dynamic analyses, node displacements above the removed columns and the additional force on the columns adjacent to them are discussed. Furthermore, the capacity of the columns is compared to determine their susceptibility to collapse. ln the nonlinear static analyses, the pushdown curve and yield load factor of the structures are obtained after column removal. The results indicate that an irregular structure designed in site class C seismic zone collapses in most of the column removal scenarios. Moreover, when comparing regular and irregular structures designed in site class E seismic zone, the demand force to capacity ratio (D/C) of the columns in the irregular structures is on average between I.5 and 2 times that of the regular ones has been discussed by Homaioon Ebrahimi et.al (20 I7). The lack of 2-storey building bearing capacity to withstand the removal of the column is lower than that of the 5-storey structure, which is due to the level of redundancy that characterises in the 5-storey structure.

The search to find new ways of improving performance in the construction industry led to the introduction of collaborative working and, after fifteen years the question is has this approach delivered the expected improvements. The management of collaborative relationships is often underpinned by trust as a governance mechanism. However, owing to the practical problems of operating in the public sector combined, with the natural disposition of human behavior, the risk of opportunism and exploitation remains, requiring additional governance mechanisms to be put in place. However these mechanisms can only be realised if there is a position of strong buyer power. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to consider what impact buyer / supplier power has on collaboration and the consequent benefits delivered. Research has been carried out on a case study involving four projects from the Birmingham Construction Partnership using interviews and a questionnaire. It was found that levels of collaboration were not affected by marginal differences in power, but rather by agency factors and trust. However, the conclusion drawn is that the buyer must retain a strong position of power in order to ensure the buyer obtains a good apportionment of value generated by collaboration.

Les interférons de Type I (IFN) sont des cytokines produites par les cellules en réponse à une infection virale. Les IFNs ont des effets pleïotropiques et parfois paradoxaux, protecteur ou néfaste pour l’immunité Innée ou adaptative. Certains facteurs intrinsèques (type cellulaire) peuvent expliquer une partie ces discordances. Mon travail de thèse s’est intéressé à l‘effet du microenvironnement cytokinique sur la réponse IFN. En utilisant des analyses à large échelle, nous avons étudié la réponse IFN dans 4 contextes de polarisation des lymphocytes T auxiliaires (Th). Nous avons identifié 1/ un programme de transcription conservé et 2/ une réponse IFN flexible, modulant spécifiquement les principales fonctions des Th (cytokines, chemokines) en fonction du contexte polarisant. La réponse antivirale apparait aussi flexible avec une moins bonne protection des Th2 et Th17 contre l’infection par HIV-1et HIV-2. Nos résultats suggèrent que l’environnement cytokinique contrôle en partie la réponse IFN et peut ainsi moduler cette dernière dans différents contextes physiopathologiques. / Type I IFN (IFN) are innate cytokines produced by host cells during viral infection. Ithas pleiotropic and sometimes opposing, protective or detrimental effects, on both innateand adaptive immunity that remain poorly understood. Parts of IFN response may be explain by intrinsic effect (cell-­‐specificity). My thesis was focused on the effect of the microenvironment, as present during T Helper cell differentiation, on IFN response. Using a systems level approach, we studied IFN responses during Four Human T Helper cell differentiation. We identified 1/ a conserved IFN-­‐induced transcriptional program comprising mostly antiviral genes 2/ a flexible IFN response, leading to a different pattern of chemokine and cytokine induction by IFN in distinct Th environments. Antiviral response was also flexible with a lesser protection to HIV-1 and HIV-2 infection in Th2 and Th17 contexts. Our in vitro results suggested that environmental control might shape the effects of IFN in different physiopathological contexts.

Self-reactive CD4+ helper T cells (Th) are key causal agents in the pathogenesis of many autoimmune diseases. Experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) is a CD4+T cell model of the demyelinating autoimmune disease multiple sclerosis (MS). It has been shown that EAE is caused by CD4+ T-cells that produce pro-inflammatory cytokines IFN-γ (Th1) and IL-17 (Th17). As such, understanding how these Th cells are generated and controlled is essential. There is debate as to whether Th1 and Th17 cells act independently in EAE or if there is plasticity between these two subtypes, and whether the capacity to switch from Th1 to Th17 confers pathogenic capacity. T-bet was first described as the master transcription factor for Th1 cells, and is thought to have a critical role in EAE even though IFN-γ, the Th1 archetypal cytokine, has been shown to be redundant. More recent work has shown that T-bet is expressed in multiple immune cell types, and it remains unclear in what cells the expression of T-bet is required for EAE. Considerable efforts have been put into understanding the role of T-bet in EAE pathogenesis, with a view to modulate cells expressing T-bet for therapy. The hypothesis of this work was that T-bet has multifaceted roles in EAE, in initiating and directing an immune response in innate antigen presenting cells such as dendritic cells (DC) as well as programming pathogenic effector CD4+ T cell (Teff) response to antigen. T-bet-/- mice were studied using different models of EAE to dissect the role of T-bet in disease pathogenesis. Active immunisation of C57BL/6 mice with the immunodominant peptide from myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG35-55) showed that T-bet-/- mice developed EAE with an IL-17 dominated profile and critically, T-bet-/- mice were able to produce GM-CSF which has recently been described as a key cytokine for EAE. T-bet-/- cells were not able to transfer EAE in a model of passive transfer EAE, where CD4+ T cells were polarised towards a Th1 profile in vitro. Illustrating that T-bet is required in CD4+ T cells for Th1 mediated EAE. DC driven EAE showed that T-bet-/- DC were able to activate CD4+ T cells in vitro and cause EAE upon co-transfer into host mice with transgenic CD4+ T cells. Thus, it has been shown that T-bet is not required in EAE. This work represents a step further towards understanding the disease mechanisms involved in EAE and suggests T-bet is not an appropriate therapeutic target for the treatment of MS.