The thesis is a historical study from a socio-legal perspective of debates about, and developments in, criminal investigation law in NSW since 1945. In that period, the NSW parliament has enacted extensive criminal investigation powers and safeguards. This can be seen as the result of the increasing political sensitivity of 'law and order'. Politicians have sought to exercise (and demonstrate) greater control over the criminal justice system. Legislation has been employed to provide a framework for police actions, and to define a role for others, including judges, magistrates and the Ombudsman. Political focus on law and order has also reversed the incentive structure for the police hierarchy. In the 1950s, there were strong incentives not to push for extra powers, lest policing practices and effectiveness receive unwanted scrutiny. In the 1970s, police were dragged into debate about their powers, in the face of the 'authorise and regulated' model suggested by numerous inquiries. More recently, police organisations have often initiated calls for new powers, in part to explain past failings. Another important factor driving debate and reform in recent decades has been the proliferation of oversight agencies, and academic insights that have debunked the 'rotten apple' paradigm. The Federal Government and Parliament have also been increasingly active in what would once have been considered purely State/Territory realms of criminal justice law and politics. These major influences have been coupled with a host of others, including the impact of a series of Royal Commission and law reform reports, the ongoing war on drugs, and the campaign against police verbals in the 1970s and 1980s. The examination of the forces that have influenced debate and reform yields other insights. For example, the complexity of the phenomenon of 'non-reform' is apparent from an examination of debates about policing in the 1950s. Prevailing trends in law and order politics (eg, that populist politics supports additional powers) can be seen to be anchored in the contemporary political context rather than being timeless truths. The multiple roles of law, in governing relationships between state agencies and actors, not just between police and suspects, are also highlighted.

Although some research has focused on feminist practice in general, the external and internal dynamics of feminist practice still remains theoretically and empirically under-researched. This study addresses this void in feminist research and places a special focus on the relationship of feminist organisations with the state and within the broader context of the women's movement. This thesis explores the constitution and maintenance of feminist practices in one specific context in South Korea and Australia. Drawing on empirical and historical data derived from the case studies, two questions are explored in this study: What constitutes feminist practices in a feminist organisation? How can feminist practices be sustained?. Two feminist-run Sexual Assault Centres (SACs), one in Korea, one in Australia are studied and analysed, involving 32, in-depth interviews with activists of the two centres, non-participant and participant observation, and document analysis. First, this thesis provides a detailed account of feminist practice and organisational dynamics among feminist organisations, the feminist movement and the state. This thesis confirms that the practices of feminist organisations are seen as dynamic processes constituted by the context in which they are situated, the role of feminist activists and the nature and strength of the broader women's movement. This study, in particular, demonstrates that the relationship of the organisation with the state is a strong determinant in constructing feminist practices. Second, this thesis examines organisational practices at different phases such as the establishment, development and crisis phases. As both centres were experiencing crises, the study illuminates that the crisis in each centre has provided an opportunity for re-examination and reflection on their practices in shifting internal and external contexts. This study also suggests that continuous reflexive attention is necessary to maintain feminist practices. Moreover, the study demonstrates that the role of the activists in constructing and maintaining feminist practices is critical, in particular, in small organisations such as the ASAC and KSAC. This research, the first major study on feminist practices in Korea and Australia, makes a significant contribution to the study of feminist organisations, the state and, in general, feminist theory.

This thesis described the chemical investigations of natural products from Australian marine sponge-derived fungi. Sponge samples were collected from the Great Barrier Reef, Queensland, Australia, by Queensland Museum. The thesis is divided into eight chapters and can be devided into two major parts. The first three chapters comprised the first part of the thesis: Chapter 1 outlined the research background, literature review of marine fungal secondary metabolites; Chapter 2 introduced fungal culture and storage background knowledge, and the list of isolated marine fungal strains. Chapter 3 introduced the background of the thrombin inhibition assay and assay results. The second part (Chapter 4 to 7) of this thesis is focused on chemical isolation and structure elucidation of secondary metabolites from isolated fungal strains, mostly active strains against thrombin. An unidentified fungal strain, FS-G315858 (T)-Y, isolated from the frozen sponge sample Dysidea sp.1400 produced five peptide compounds (chapter 4, 16-20). Compound 16 is a polypeptide which features the same relative configuration with a known compound unguisine A, and compounds 17-20 are diketopiperazines. Active fungal strains FS-G315695 (T)-Y and FDPS-61732-YB were isolated from different sponge samples. However, they were identified to be the identical fungal strain Eurotium rubrum; the chemical isolation of FS-G315695 (T)-Y from its mycelia EtOAc extract resulted in three compounds (chapter 5, 17-19). Compounds 18 and 19 were identified to be flavoglaucin and iso-dihydroauroglaucin. Compound 17 was identified to have the same relative configuration with a known compound neo-echinulin A. The chemical isolation of FDPS-61732-YB from its broth EtOAc extract resulted in several diketopiperazines (chapter 5, 27-29). Another active fungal strain FS-G315695 (T)-WY was identified as Aspergillus ochraceous, the chemical isolation of its mycelia EtOAc extract resulted in one benzodiazepine compound (chapter 6, 18), together with two fatty acids (chapter 6, 16-17). The structure of compound 18 was elucidated and identified to have same relative configuration with the known compound circumdatin E. Media comparison for active fungal strain FS-G315695 (T)-Y was conducted and this work resulted in producing several neo-echinulin analogues (chapter 7, 1-3). The isolation and structure elucidation of these compounds were reported in chapter 7.

Thesis (M.A. (MW))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2009.

This qualitative study was aimed at developing an understanding of how persons involved in the investigation or deliberation of child abuse and neglect cases think and feel about the process of weighing evidence and drawing conclusions from it. Twenty investigators, supervisors, and administrators employed by the Child Protective Services agency in Texas were asked to describe cases they had investigated or reviewed that had been particularly difficult because of conflicting or ambiguous evidence. They were also asked opinion questions about the agency's actuarial risk assessment instrument and the concept of preponderance of evidence. Finally, participants were asked to respond to two short case vignettes describing allegations of sexual abuse. Constant comparative and narrative analysis of interview data revealed that the process of case deliberation in CPS makes use of both intuitive and analytic decision-making styles, and there is a general movement from intuition to analysis as a case ascends the decision-making hierarchy. This movement entails a shift from narrative forms of thought and an outcome-oriented ethic to analytic forms of thought and a rule-based ethic. Though intuitive decision making is at least partly guided from personal experience and personal values, and does produce error because of that, it is nonetheless a form of rationality as capable of being guided by scrupulousness and fidelity to truth as analysis is. The personal value and outcome-oriented ethic that intuition brings to the decision making process not only cannot be eliminated, it is necessary to the program's achievement of its mission. It is recommended that the training of new investigators should, first, acknowledge the large role that intuitive thinking plays in CPS decision making and, second, develop ways to help decision makers discipline intuition, in the words of one participant, and to create conditions that foster its optimal functioning.

The structural quality of material (concentration and nature of defects) and optical properties (intensity and spectral emission range) of semiconductor materials are usually closely correlated. The idea of this work was to carry out a basic characterization of the structural (by X-ray diffraction technique and scanning electron microscopy) and optical (by micro photoluminescence measurements) properties of nanocrystalline ZnO samples and find a correlation. A number of ZnO samples prepared by atmospheric pressure metalorganic chemical vapor deposition at different regimes and on different substrates were investigated. According to the aim of the work the most important results can be summarized as following. The analysis of ZnO nanocrystalline structures deposited on Si (100) substrates have displayed a dependence of structural quality, morphology and microstructure as well as the optical spectral purity on the deposition temperature. The deposition at 500 ºС resulted in the massive of 1D ZnO nanopillars that demonstrated the best optical properties: a mono-emission in the ultraviolet spectral range was observed. Moreover, the results of microstructure investigation give a suggestion to the explanation of the ZnO nanopillars growth. The results obtained from ZnO on sapphire substrates revealed a moderate influence of the oxygen content during deposition on the structural quality of zinc oxide. However, a strong correlation between the oxygen content and deep-level emission intensity from ZnO nanostructures has been observed, which confirms the determinative role of oxygen for the defect emission from ZnO. It was shown that during the deposition of ZnO on specially prepared homoepitaxial template the substrate surface has not the major effect on the morphology of depositing ZnO structures. SiC was revealed to be the most appropriate substrate for hetero-deposition of textured ZnO nanostructures: the growth results in the massive of epitaxially related ZnO hexagons on the SiC (0001) plane. A number of factors - p-type conductivity of the substrate used, regular and uniform epitaxial growth of ZnO nanostructure, their excellent mono-spectral emission in short wavelength range of spectra, provides a strong background for further investigation of the electroluminescence properties of the obtained heterostructures and are of great importance for the progress of optoelectronics towards low-scaled elements.

Tanzania is endowed with more than 10,000 plant species, of which 1,100 are endemic. The coastal regions host most endemic species, due to its wide range of productive ecological conditions. Over 25 % of all species are used as wild-harvested medicinal plants. About 60% of the Tanzanian population in both rural and urban areas depends on traditional medicine and herbs as their primary health care, and as a means of generating income. This is due to high costs and unavailability of the universal healthcare, which was abolished in 1993. The aim of the thesis is to make a structured and a quantitative investigation to identify traded medicinal plants traded in markets of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania with a purpose to understand the chain and consequences of commercial trade on wild-harvested medicinal plants. A quantitative market research using free list surveys was used in combination with individually repeated in-depth structured and semi-structured interviews. Furthermore, Conservation Assessment and Planning Management method was used to prioritise species that are in need of conservation due to commercial trade. The results show that the chain of commercial trade of medicinal plant species begins in the forest and is then distributed to different stakeholders, such as harvesters, vendors, Traditional Healing Practitioners, consumers and exporters. The research also shows that the large urban and international demand of medicinal plant species supplied by the vendors and exporters is the major threat, specifically to destructively harvested species such as Cassia abbreviata, Zanthoxylum usambarense, Zanthoxylum chalybeum, Myrsine africana, Milicia excelsa and Prunus Africana. These medicinal plants species are up-rooted and/or ring-barked and are therefore in need of conservation. This calls for several conservation guidelines such as policy and regulations, Traditional Ecological Knowledge, education and planting of the medicinal plant species in their natural forests as well as collecting samples of medicinal plant species in a herbarium. Policies can be implemented to conserve these species, for instance only allowing registered practitioners to harvest the medicinal plant species to a level that will sustainably balance the quantity of medicinal plant species in the forest and its supply. In conclusion, an important policy regulation could be an export tax on internationally-traded wild-harvested medicinal that is levied on the purchasing international pharmaceutical companies, which would then be used to fund the conservation of the medicinal plant species to retain a sustainable wild stock. More investigation on the actual population sizes of these plant species is needed in order to secure their existence and contribute to sustainable development both socially and environmentally

This thesis research aims to develop an improved, efficient, low-capacity heat engine, running on an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) to generate power. The ORC is driven by low or moderate temperature heat sources, such as; renewable energy in the form of a hot gas derived from biomass/biogas/biofuel combustion streams, waste heat recovery, process heat recovery, etc. The ORC is more suitable and flexible than a conventional steam Rankine cycle, especially when it is applied to low power range. In this research, an extended surface heat exchanger is used to boil the pressurised working fluid, R134a, using a hot air as heat source. The expander used is a scroll type, coupled to a generator, which is able to produce maximum 1.6 kW output. Experimental data of the heat engine are measured under different operating conditions and utilized in the analysis and comparisons. Power generation under various conditions is investigated in order to determine the optimum performance parameters for the heat engine. The isentropic efficiency of the expander is found to be over 40% and reaches 80% for the improved expansion conditions. For the boiler, it is determined that the overall heat transfer coefficient multiplied with the heat transfer area is around 150 W/K. The energy efficiency of the experimental ORC is around 3% for hot air as the low temperature heat source at about 105oC where exergy efficiency reaches 22%, respectively. / UOIT

Based on interviews and ethnographic fieldwork, this dissertation shows how the Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario (OCC) – whose object is to speak for the dead to protect the living – is shaped by risk management priorities. It illustrates how the OCC, like many contemporary organizations, has altered its operations and decision making to manage threats to its reputation. The result of these moves has been the privatization of public safety decision making with bereaved families, the general public, and even front line coroners, increasingly excluded from speaking for the dead. This is to say, policy recommendations that shape how life in Ontario is lived tend to be generated in private sessions by OCC managers. While much of this can be attributed to the OCC’s focus on reputational risk management, there are other important factors affecting the privatization of public safety. Drawing on research in the sociology of culture, the dissertation finds that the OCC’s experience of risk management is moderated by other, layered institutional structures. These ‘institutional structures’ are analytic constructs with moral and methodological dimensions that inform the way work in the OCC is carried out. The dissertation demonstrates that the moral priorities and method preferences of doctors, lawyers, managers, families, and modern governments are layered over and under risk management. These layers augment or diminish risk management’s impact on the way death is determined and public safety regimes are developed. In addition to offering a window on death investigators and their work, the dissertation proposes a theoretical toolset for better understanding how contemporary organizations are organized and run.

A numerical investigation of the interaction of a planar shock wave with a rigid wedge and cone in an air-filled shock tube is performed by computing the unsteady flow field of the interaction process. The Euler and Navier-Stokes equations are solved in two dimensions to produce flow solutions for regular and Mach reflections with and without the viscous and thermal boundary layer on the inclined surface. The transition boundary between these two patterns is determined by changing both the shock strength and the angle of the inclined surface so that the simulations are perpendicular to the theoretical transition boundary. The numerically determined boundaries are compared to the theoretical boundaries predicted by two- and three- shock theories and with results obtained from experiments. The results show that the transition boundary between regular and Mach reflection is different not only for wedges and cones but also for inviscid and viscous numerical solutions.