The conventional legal scholarship on the law of self-determination, recognition and statehood in international law makes five arguments. First, although the concept of statehood has not been satisfactorily defined, statehood has been governed by international law in several key aspects. Second, the right to self-determination has become a well-established right under international law, and the creation of the majority of states in contemporary international law, particularly in the UN era, was the result of the application of the right to self-determination. As a consequence of the recognition of the right to self-determination, no state can be created in violation of this right. Third, international law is a coherent system, especially when considering concepts such as recognition and statehood. Fourth, the recognition of a new state is declaratory, and the constitutive doctrine of recognition is unsound. Fifth, secession as a usual method of state creation is not regulated by international law. This thesis…
This thesis explores ‘popular conspiracism’ as an identifiable cultural current in late Victorian and Edwardian Britain, evident in Parliament, politics, the press and popular literature. It contends that popular conspiracism was visible throughout the public sphere in the period 1880-1914, and was structured by three key discursive motifs. Firstly, popular conspiracism described secretive, often transnational systems of agency and connectivity operating beneath the surface of everyday life, and attributed pseudo-divine characteristics of potency and perception to the hidden actors that peoples these systems. Secondly, popular conspiracist discourses were deeply bound up in the interplay between the sometimes contradictory practices of secrecy, transparency and accountability encoded within contemporary liberal governance. These allowed for the emergence of conspiratorial speculations regarding individuals and behaviours which were ambiguously situated within the public sphere: i.e. whose existence was known…
Ageing sees a decline in appetite and food intake with associated deficiencies in both macronutrients and micronutrients. Reduced food intake will eventually lead to malnutrition. Different factors may contribute to malnutrition, including the physiological condition of a person, such as smell or taste dysfunction. Research has investigated methods that help to increase food consumption in the older population, with some studies demonstrating the impact of added herbs and spices on improving the liking and palatability of food. Spices with high polyphenol and antioxidant activity exhibit various health benefits, including regulating blood glucose levels. Moreover, monosodium glutamate (MSG) has been added to different foods, resulting in flavour enhancement and increased appetite. Hence, it can be hypothesised that sumac, containing glutamic acid, in addition to its high antioxidant and polyphenol content as a potential natural flavour enhancer, might also increase appetite among older adults. This PhD study…
The research investigates the relationship between acousmatic music and instrumental music, using developments in 20th century western art music to define its context including the compositional practices of Arnold Schoenberg (d.1951), Claude Debussy (d.1918), Nikolai Roslavets (d.1944), Luigi Nono (d.1990), Iannis Xenakis (d.2001) and Natasha Barrett (1972-). This was a practice-based PhD resulting in the creation of a series of new compositions for a variety of forces that addressed the following research questions: 1. What have been the problematics of the development of compositions for acousmatic and acoustic instrumental forces and how are these present in the work of the key practitioners referenced above? 2. What are the cultural conditions that have precipitated the perpetuation of the problematisation of the relationship between acousmatic and acoustic compositional practices? 3. Is it possible to generate a series of original sound compositions that explore and provide potential solutions to the…
This thesis presents the work undertaken while carrying out research into acoustic measurement techniques for 3-dimensional acoustic radiation data for musical instruments, specifically when the instruments are being played by musicians. The original contribution to knowledge that is presented includes the development of an algorithm which can be used for post-processing of recorded data to obtain signals from ‘virtual’ microphones. The project is discussed along with a rationale for the particular test and measurement procedure used in this research and is followed by a literature review outlining both historical and current research and writing relevant to the project. A design for high spatial resolution 3-D acoustic measurement apparatus is proposed, and the design details and construction methods are discussed. The measurement process is described, including the issues surrounding testing and the use of human musicians in the measurement of musical instrument acoustic radiation patterns. A novel algorith…
Most international hotel companies have adopted initiatives to reduce their impacts on the environment. When seeking to deliver against these, most depend on a combination of resource reduction technologies and initiatives designed to change employee behaviours. For many, the latter is particularly challenging and thus there is a growing interest in pro-environmental behaviours. Thus, this has become an increasingly important topic for academics and practitioners in the hospitality sector. Over recent years, theoretical pro-environmental behaviour models have been tested in domestic, public and workplace settings, although in practice few of these have focused on hospitality workplaces. The limited focus on pro-environmental behaviour in hospitality workplace settings means that many areas of application of pro-environmental behaviour remain under-researched; in particular, the role of values (for example, personal environmental values in the personal sphere, and company environmental values in the corporate …
This thesis examines changing concepts and practices relating to sex variations— intersexualities, transformations of sex, and non-heteronormative sexual desires and behaviours—derived from the biological sciences and their impact in Britain through the Edwardian and interwar eras. Using a variety of published and archival sources, the thesis makes three main contributions to scholarship. Firstly, it identifies tensions between narratives of naturalisation and narratives of eugenic manipulation that emerged as British biologists reconceptualised sex variations, sex differences, and sexualities more generally, following major discoveries in genetics and endocrinology around 1900, especially X and Y chromosomes and “sex” hormones. Even as biologists produced a new biology of sex within a profoundly patriarchal and queerphobic cultural environment, sex variations were pivotal to their endeavours, posing a plethora of challenges to long-standing cultural, theological, and legal proscriptions that construed such v…
Organisation and management studies often consider the notion of identity in relation to profession, professionalism and professionalization. What is under-developed is how professional identities are constructed in domains that are contested, under-defined or in transformation. Private security offers a unique research site. Contested yet increasingly legitimised following the Private Security Act 2001, the UK private security industry is under-researched as a site of meaning in professional lives. Using identity as analytical bridge between self and sociality, this thesis investigates the relationship between broader discourses of security and professionalization processes in the development of professional selves at different levels of analysis. Processes of professionalization have been expedited since the founding of the Security Industry Authority (SIA), tasked with ‘ensuring only fit and proper people and organisations deliver regulated private security services’ (SIA 2019). There are numerous stakeh…
Global biodiversity is being ravaged by the commercial utilisation of wild plants and animals. In recent years this commercial trade has dramatically escalated. Once a species is targeted, trade-driven demands can rapidly diminish wild populations. In Southeast Asia, the potent combination of rising population, disposable wealth, popular demand and easy access to natural resources has had a drastic impact on the region’s mega rich biodiversity, propelling over-exploitation and illicit trade. This makes it a crucial field of study. In this critical appraisal, I present my research on a leading driver of species decline – the trading of species for meat and medicine predominantly in the Southeast Asian region from 2015-2021. My primary objective has been to augment existing knowledge of species utilised for these purposes and discover ways in which to minimise negative trade-driven impacts. My work has encompassed analysis of 15 years’ worth of seizure and CITES trade data, 60 days of market surveys, and 90 day…
This thesis sets out to uncover the unknown mechanisms that control the complex, heterogeneous function of the meniscus. This has been accomplished through the use of modern pore network extraction (PNE) techniques to characterise the pore space within the meniscus, a soft tissue situated inside the knee which is fundamental for the correct functioning of the joint. While these PNE techniques were not primarily designed for use in high-porosity materials, this project demonstrates that they can be adapted for use in complex biological materials with the inclusion of bespoke adaptations developed in this study. Current literature has highlighted notable variance between results depending on the method selected to segment the pore space. To ensure a fully comprehensive analysis, a selection of three segmentation methods were assessed for comparison. This project found that the choice of the segmentation method does in fact have a notable impact on the characterisation of the pore space and the decision of which…