This PhD seeks to use conversation analysis (CA) to respond to the urgent real-world issue of racial health inequality in maternal health outcomes. Racial health inequalities in the UK pregnancy-post-partum journey are stark. MBRRACE-UK's November 2021 report identifies a more than four-fold difference in maternal mortality rates between Black and white women in the period 2017-2019. The Royal College of Midwives has acknowledged systemic racism and unconscious bias, launching a 'Race Matters' strategy. Midwives identify that unconscious bias negatively impacts practice (Chitongo et al, 2021) and research shows how pervasive cultural myths, e.g., Black women are less susceptible to pain (Saluja & Bryant, 2021) and more aggressive (e.g., Ashley, 2014), are enacted on the ward. Despite communication being crucial to a mother-midwife relationship (Heys et al, 2021, Nicholls & Webb 2006) and in supporting safe outcomes for mother and baby (Dickson 1997) and despite Black women reporting feeling they are not listened to (Jomeen & Redshaw 2012, MBRRACE-UK, 2021), there is little empirical research in this area. This PhD will examine communication between Black mothers and white midwives, aiming to understand if unconscious bias operates through language use in the maternity setting and whether communication plays a role in sustaining racial health inequality. The primary research question is 'How do Black women experience not being listened to?' with secondary questions of 'If there are presentations of unconscious bias in the data, by what mechanisms does it manifest?' and 'Does communication maintain inequality in this setting for Black women'? I will record perinatal appointments of Black mothers with white midwives for conversation analysis. CA recognises communication as joint activity (Sacks, 1984) and 'is more concerned with perlocutions than with illocutions' (Stubbe et al, 2003, p354). This will allow emphasis on listening, characterised as lacking by Black mothers.

Specific Learning Disabilities (SpLDs) is a common term in today's society, which manifests in different ways and can cause various difficulties in daily life. For one person it might be the lack of attention, for another, it might be struggling to read fluently or conduct basic mathematical calculations; these are different groups of Learning Disabilities. Early detection and treatment of SpLDs are crucial, as it enables the start of interventions that support the best outcomes for children living with SLDs. Not addressing SLDs at a young age has a major influence on development into adulthood and results in a high economic cost, exceeding the lifetime costs of asthma, intellectual disability, and diabetes have a huge shortage of special educators to conduct SLDs screening and subsequently providing treatment post diagnosis. There are nearly 90% of the world's children reside in Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). The challenge of early detection and early intervention of SpLDs is exacerbated by limited expertise, including limited screening, diagnostic and treatment resources in LMICs. For instance, in the Global South, the skilled human resource and tools to assess SpLDs are very limited. Thus, these children are undiagnosed and negatively reinforced by the community by stigmatizing and labelling them. These factors all lead to low self-esteem and behavior problems that further interfere with their ability to learn. In vulnerable communities, which are often already poverty stricken, this operates as a vicious cycle, simply because optimal education is the main method of breaking this vicious cycle. We aim to target these developmental issues by developing and piloting low-cost mobile app-based solution for the screening of SpLDs that will lead to early intervention. Specific learning disorder may affect handwriting in a way that can be visually distinguished. The purpose of the proposed research is to evaluate the ability of deep learning to distinguish between those who have SpLDs and those who do not, from their handwriting. The proposed solution requires no more than taking a photo of the handwritten image on a mobile phone and passing it to the prediction model and getting the prediction results. Based on the proposed solution, the SpLDs screening can be conducted at home, in a school study area without any additional special setting. The important factors of this app are simplicity, ease of use, less training requirement, the accuracy of the results, and reliability. This app can serve from individual to national level for screening SpLDs in children. This will reduce the burden of the shortage of special educators, and this will be a huge relief for LMICs. This will, in general, reduce the inequalities faced by vulnerable and marginalized children, by providing an opportunity to receive optimal health and educational services. This will lead to the improvement of quality education received by ALL which in turn will contribute to wider societal improvements. In addition to the direct impact on the child, the spillover effects on the family and community development are significant. Further, creating an opportunity to screen a larger population will increase societal awareness of SpLDs and reduce the stigma and enhance public and parent involvement and engagement in managing SpLDs and supporting the affected families.

BEYOND will train the next generation of water professionals who will deliver scientific and technological innovation across disciplines, institutions and countries needed to solve European water quality problems in an era of global change. In the last decade, some improvement in understanding of water pollution has been achieved but there are still significant knowledge gaps, especially in the context of climate change and emerging contaminants, coupled with a lack of systems approach and operational tools required by water management. To address water quality pressures, we need to better target heterogeneity in the land-water continuum, accounting for recipient-specific sensitivity to pollution pressures and the spatial and temporal variation in sources, pathways, and impacts on stream ecology and ecosystem services, now and under future climatic conditions. BEYOND will equip Researchers with critical technical and communication skills needed to provide evidence-based management of landscapes and river networks under current and future conditions. They will gain expertise in interdisciplinary catchment science, novel high-resolution water quality sensors and models, gain access to cutting-edge water quality instrumentation in experimental catchments in Europe and through secondments to SMEs, and skills in citizen science. BEYOND Researchers will become leaders in innovation and knowledge exchange needed to achieve water quality improvements, through effective interactions with public and private stakeholders during secondments and short visits.

My research focuses on woollen cloth finishing in Ireland, a subject that has been largely neglected, with terms like 'fulling' and 'tentering' having been discarded from the vernacular. Finishing deserves to be returned to its rightful place alongside its partner processes, spinning, dyeing and weaving. I will explore the role played by finishing, focusing on C.H. Bates & Co. whose business archive I have inherited. For almost seventy years Bates & Co. operated a cloth finishing business at Kilmainham Mills, which is believed to be the last intact fulling mill, incorporating finishing processes, on the island of Ireland. In 2018 Dublin City Council purchased the Mill and in 2022 began restoration. In 2021 I was commissioned to research the Mill's history from 1904-1973 when it was operated by Charles H. Bates & Co. Finishing was perfected in Yorkshire. Ireland didn't benefit from early industrialization like Britain, with cottage industries like spinning, hand-weaving and fulling surviving there much longer. When Irish textiles were mechanised, they were influenced by Yorkshire practices. Unlike England or Scotland, which had textile training colleges in Huddersfield and Galashiels, Ireland lacked one. Skilled workers, knowledge and technology were imported from Britain. Finishing involves scouring, fulling or milling, tentering, raising and brushing, cropping and pressing, among other processes, which render woolen cloth soft, warm, weatherproof and resistant to further shrinking. Yet finishing has been scantily researched, perhaps due to its industrial nature in comparison to the techniques of spinning, dyeing and weaving, which continued to be practiced in cottages long after finishing had been mechanised. Weavers brought their cloth to finishing mills on which they were entirely dependent: woollen cloth is neither sellable nor wearable until it has been finished. Fulling has been traced to ancient Rome and Pompeii and is considered the first textile process to have been mechanised, with water-powered 'tuck' mills known from the twelfth century. Kilmainham Mills changed from fulling, to flour milling, and back to finishing in 1904 when purchased by Yorkshire finisher Charles H. Bates. My great-grandfather Harry Archer, another Yorkshire finisher, took ownership in 1911. Under their direction Bates & Co. thrived for seven decades as the only independent company in Ireland specializing in wool finishing. Precedents of Yorkshire men founding woollen mills in Ireland include Leeds man Obadiah Willans, who in 1812 established Hibernian Mills in Inchicore in Dublin, Huddersfield man Jeremiah Houghton, whose woollen mill in Celbridge, Co. Kildare was the largest in Ireland by c.1815; Clayton Woollen Mills, Navan, Co. Meath, founded in 1867 by brothers Frederick and John Clayton of Holme Top Mills in Horton, Yorkshire, and Tullamore Yarns in Co. Offaly, founded in 1937 as the first worsted spinning mill in Ireland, by Salts of Saltaire, Yorkshire.

This research represents the first multi-disciplinary exploration of the right to health in postconflict settings. Using a post-apartheid South African case study, this project utilises public health tools and methodologies layered with human rights law and transitional justice disciplines to critically examine the dynamic relationship between direct and structural health violence post-conflict. When apartheid formally ended in 1994, the newly elected government represented a new era of peace and reconciliation. However, transitional mechanisms heavily focused on individual human rights violations, neglecting proper redress for rights (e.g. the right to health) that have an inherent collective component. Consequently, post-apartheid South Africa continually struggles to support people in realising their right to health. This research aims to tackle the lingering manifestations of conflict-related health violence by creating an interdisciplinary informed framework for addressing micro to macro health violence in post-conflict settings and show how it can be operationalised to support communities in realising their right to health. It uses a mixed methods approach of qualitative semi-structured interviews and facilitated group discussions, to examine from a strengths-based perspective how communities who have experienced health violence assert autonomy over their right to health. As one of the first in-depth explorations that bridges past and present health rights perspectives to uplift community voices, the impacts of this research are important at individual, community, national, and international levels, and has significant implications for policy and praxis, especially regarding addressal of rights with collective components, and reckoning with the legacy of apartheid.