Bradford Scholars
Bradford Scholars is the University of Bradford online research archive. Access is free to anyone interested in research being conducted at Bradford. In the repository you will find a range of materials from journal articles and conference papers to research reports and theses.
Contact the repository team via openaccess@bradford.ac.uk with any queries about Open Access or how to deposit your research papers.
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Publication The development of a spatial explicit agent-based modelling framework to explore past vegetation dynamicsThe ways in which humans interacted with and subsequently altered their environments in the past has always been an important consideration when it comes to archaeological interpretation. Unfortunately, the temporal resolution of data we do have rarely allows us insight into how environmental change would have been perceived at the human scale. The early and mid-Holocene saw dramatic changes climatically and culturally in North-West Europe, with the Mesolithic to Neolithic transition perhaps the most important of them all, manifesting in the shift from hunting and gathering to farming practices. Debate still surrounds causality of these changes, but the archaeological record presents definitive changes in woodland composition and structure at this time. However, the data we are often presented with span centuries and millennium, offering only static snapshots in time. Considering this, new ways of applying what data we do have through the integration of methods from other disciplines are still needed to fully explore such past phenomena. This thesis describes the development and implementation of a spatially explicit agent-based modelling suite integrating individual tree dynamics and human interaction from prehistory. Adopting approaches used for contemporary woodlands, primarily forest succession models, these are applied to prehistoric landscapes with change determined by human management, climate change and landscape features. Key concepts of computer modelling and their effects on both the implementation and interpretation of the produced results provides the foundation for rationalising such an approach, weighing both the pros and cons.Publication Resource-Induced Coping Heuristics and Organizational Ambidexterity in Context of Weak Institutions and Underdeveloped MarketsThe current study contributes to the understanding of the micro foundations of organizational ambidexterity from the context of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in weak institutions and underdeveloped markets by focusing on three issues. First, drawing from the conservation of resources theory as a theoretical lens, this study explores the relationship between owner-managers’ resource-induced coping heuristics and organizational ambidexterity. Second, it investigates the mediating mechanism of entrepreneurial bricolage in this relationship. Third, it examines the boundary effects of financial resource capability and environmental dynamism in the first and second relationships, respectively. The quantitative study adopts a cross-sectional survey design. Data collected from 273 Nigerian owner-managers in multi-sector industries was analyzed using AMOS in structural equation modelling. The results show that resource-induced coping heuristics leads to SME ambidexterity and that entrepreneurial bricolage serves as the mechanism which transforms owner-managers’ resource-induced coping heuristics into exploration and exploitation. Surprisingly, the results reveal that environmental dynamism impedes the relationship between entrepreneurial bricolage and exploration but facilitates exploitation through bricolage. This study sets new, empirically founded information about drivers of ambidexterity in the context of weak institutions and underdeveloped markets by showing that resource-induced coping heuristic serves as a coping mechanism which fosters the simultaneous pursuit of exploration and exploitation through entrepreneurial bricolage. Additionally, by revealing that, in a more dynamic environment, SMEs are less likely to pursue exploration through entrepreneurial bricolage, this study makes a novel and significant contextual contribution on the implications of environmental dynamism for organizational outcomes in weak institutions.Publication Elevated expression levels of microRNA-143/5 in saphenous vein smooth muscle cells from patients with type 2 diabetes drive persistent changes in phenotype and function(2014-09)Type 2 diabetes (T2DM) promotes premature atherosclerosis and inferior prognosis after arterial reconstruction. Vascular smooth muscle cells (SMC) respond to patho/physiological stimuli, switching between quiescent contractile and activated synthetic phenotypes under the control of microRNAs (miRs) that regulate multiple genes critical to SMC plasticity. The importance of miRs to SMC function specifically in T2DM is unknown. This study was performed to evaluate phenotype and function in SMC cultured from non-diabetic and T2DM patients, to explore any aberrancies and investigate underlying mechanisms. Saphenous vein SMC cultured from T2DM patients (T2DM-SMC) exhibited increased spread cell area, disorganised cytoskeleton and impaired proliferation relative to cells from non-diabetic patients (ND-SMC), accompanied by a persistent, selective up-regulation of miR-143 and miR-145. Transfection of premiR-143/145 into ND-SMC induced morphological and functional characteristics similar to native T2DM-SMC; modulating miR-143/145 targets Kruppel-like factor 4, alpha smooth muscle actin and myosin VI. Conversely, transfection of antimiR-143/145 into T2DM-SMC conferred characteristics of the ND phenotype. Exposure of ND-SMC to transforming growth factor beta (TGFβ) induced a diabetes-like phenotype; elevated miR-143/145, increased cell area and reduced proliferation. Furthermore, these effects were dependent on miR-143/145. In conclusion, aberrant expression of miR-143/145 induces a distinct saphenous vein SMC phenotype that may contribute to vascular complications in patients with T2DM, and is potentially amenable to therapeutic manipulation.Publication Adipose tissue: a source of stem cells with potential for regenerative therapies for wound healing(2020-07)Interest in adipose tissue is fast becoming a focus of research after many years of being considered as a simple connective tissue. It is becoming increasingly apparent that adipose tissue contains a number of diverse cell types, including adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) with the potential to differentiate into a number of cell lineages, and thus has significant potential for developing therapies for regenerative medicine. Currently, there is no gold standard treatment for scars and impaired wound healing continues to be a challenge faced by clinicians worldwide. This review describes the current understanding of the origin, different types, anatomical location, and genetics of adipose tissue before discussing the properties of ASCs and their promising applications for tissue engineering, scarring, and wound healing.Publication Investigating inherent functional differences between human cardiac fibroblasts cultured from non-diabetic and type 2 diabetic donors(2014-08)Introduction Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) promotes adverse myocardial remodeling and increased risk of heart failure; effects that can occur independently of hypertension or coronary artery disease. As cardiac fibroblasts (CFs) are key effectors of myocardial remodeling, we investigated whether inherent phenotypic differences exist in CF derived from T2DM donors compared with cells from nondiabetic (ND) donors. Methods Cell morphology (cell area), proliferation (cell counting over 7-day period), insulin signaling [phospho-Akt and phospho-extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) Western blotting], and mRNA expression of key remodeling genes [real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR)] were compared in CF cultured from atrial tissue from 14 ND and 12 T2DM donors undergoing elective coronary artery bypass surgery. Results The major finding was that Type I collagen (COL1A1) mRNA levels were significantly elevated by twofold in cells derived from T2DM donors compared with those from ND donors; changes reflected at the protein level. T2DM cells had similar proliferation rates but a greater variation in cell size and a trend towards increased cell area compared with ND cells. Insulin-induced Akt and ERK phosphorylation were similar in the two cohorts of cells. Conclusion CF from T2DM individuals possess an inherent profibrotic phenotype that may help to explain the augmented cardiac fibrosis observed in diabetic patients.