Train journeys at ungodly hours

The Golden Age is before us, not behind us

Sallust 

First of all, a huge “thank you” to my supervisor for these past, nearly four, years, Professor David Collison, for his unflagging support and advice of one sort and another. Hopefully all those train journeys at ungodly hours paid off.

Also, thanks to Mark Whiteley, one of the nicest and most helpful people imaginable, who supervised my 3^rd-year and MChem projects, for setting me off on further roads, and to both Emma and Hannah for their good influence then and since.

To Professors Eric McInnes and Richard Winpenny for advice and inspiration. Sorry this took so long Richard, it wasn’t deliberate, honest!

To Iain May for what seems to have been a career defining chat a long, long time ago…

In the Magnets Group and beyond, thanks to Floriana Tuna for her expertise with EPR and SQUID. To Stephen Sproules for help with EPR and being so knowledgeable about almost everything, danke sehr. Thanks to Asad for everything over the past eight (help!) years. Won’t forget seeing England keep The Ashes at Old Trafford, rain and all. To Eufemio, Panama’s greatest scientist! One day, maybe, I’ll get there… Thanks to Luke and Tom for being magnets-heroes to worship. To all those past and present members who’ve offered up some help or advice, you’re all wonderful. A special thanks to those who had to endure my tortuous writing up and for their (unwitting or otherwise) support through it, especially James, Sam and Claire.

For the newer Magnets Group members at Manchester and those venturing abroad (Scotland), best wishes! Keep your enthusiasm if possible. And good luck to all MChem students who passed through my orbit. I noticed not many of you stuck with chemistry though… To the latest project students Tom (Prodigy) and Hatty, I hope you get what you want!

Even more recently I made the geographically short move to the National EPR Service. I’m so grateful to know the wonderful people Chloe, Simon and Dan who haunt the Alan Turing Building. Thanks for keeping me at least slightly sane whilst figuring things out over there!

To my brothers John and Ben: Hurrah, made it this far! Thanks for all the things that have made this more bearable. Maybe all those weird side-projects can get done now… rockets, weather balloons, rail-guns, prog-rock albums??? So much to catch up with…

Lastly, thanks to my parents for all the moral support and the amazing chances they’ve given me over the years (not to mention living in the same house as me and John for the past few years in particular).

Contributor: Joseph Sharples

Source: Sharples, J (2013) Cooling Rapidly and Relaxing Slowly with 4f Ions, PhD, University of Manchester

A mentor and friend, from whom I have learnt the vital skill of disciplined critical thinking

Foremost, I would like to express my deepest thanks to my two supervisors, Professor Phil Trinder and Dr Patrick Maier. Their patience, encouragement, and immense knowledge were key motivations throughout my PhD. They carry out their research with an objective and principled approach to computer science. They persuasively conveyed an interest in my work, and I am grateful for my inclusion in their HPC-GAP project.

Phil has been my supervisor and guiding beacon through four years of computer science MEng and PhD research. I am truly thankful for his steadfast integrity, and selfless dedication to both my personal and academic development. I cannot think of a better supervisor to have. Patrick is a mentor and friend, from whom I have learnt the vital skill of disciplined critical thinking. His forensic scrutiny of my technical writing has been invaluable. He has always found the time to propose consistently excellent improvements. I owe a great debt of gratitude to Phil and Patrick.

I would like to thank Professor Greg Michaelson for offering thorough and excellent feedback on an earlier version of this thesis. In addition, a thank you to Dr Gudmund Grov. Gudmund gave feedback on Chapter 4 of this thesis, and suggested generality improvements to my model checking abstraction of HdpH-RS.

A special mention for Dr Edsko de Vries of Well Typed, for our insightful and detailed discussions about network transport design. Furthermore, Edsko engineered the network abstraction layer on which the fault detecting component of HdpH-RS is built.

I thank the computing officers at Heriot-Watt University and the Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre for their support and hardware access for the performance evaluation of HdpH-RS.

Contributor: Rob Stewart

Source: Stewart, R (2013) Reliable Massively Parallel Symbolic Computing: Fault Tolerance for a Distributed Haskell, PhD, Heriot Watt University

Gave me the confidence to ‘think in public’

I would like to thank my supervisor Professor Ed Steinmueller for his perfect mix of pragmatism and exacting standards that have made it possible for me to complete this work.

I would like to thank my colleagues at Public-i and also the clients who have helped and supported me during the course of this research.  I also want to thank the many people who commented and contributed so much on the blog and twitter and gave me the confidence to ‘think in public’.  A special thank you also to George who has read the whole thing and given me insightful comments and amazing support.

Finally I want to thank my friends, family and in particular my husband Tim who endlessly encouraged me and put up with the unavoidable side effects of doing a PHD in parallel with attempting to have a life.

Contributor: Catherine Howe

Source: Howe C (2013) Building Civic Architecture in Cyberspace: Digital civic spaces and the people who create them, PhD, University of Sussex

…my parents for everything. You made me into who I am.

Although writing up the PhD thesis might be the effort of one person, the reason that person even gets as far as starting to write up is thanks to all the people supporting that PhD student. I am grateful for everyone who has been there to support my journey towards the finished thesis. I’m indebted to and grateful for the following persons…

… my main supervisor Stefan Holmlid, for all the support and letting me find my own path whilst at the same time showing me which alternate paths I might be missing. Never forcing, always suggesting suits me perfectly!

… my two co-supervisors Arne Jönsson and Björn Alm. Both of you have provided invaluable outsiders perspectives on my research when most needed. Björn, a special thank you for all the fruitful discussions in general and on the methodological approach in general. And to Arne, thank you for your experience and making sure the research continued to progress towards a finished thesis.

… everyone who has participated in my studies. I am extremely grateful for all your help. In total roughly 50 people have been involved in one way or another in providing the data used in the studies. This thesis would not have been possible to write without your help. An extra warm thank you to everyone in the three agencies I worked in/with for the final study for allowing me to be a part of your work places.

… HCS for providing an enjoyable place to work in. And special thanks to IxS and the fika-crowd. IxS for providing an intellectually inspiring  environment to work in, in which there always are new perspectives to be found when needed – thank you Stefan, Johan, Matti, Johan, Lisa, Eva, Mathias and Tim. And to the fika-crowd for providing many laughs, exciting discussions and a few beers during my PhD studies. So a big thank you to all of you; those of you who were here when I started and now have moved on (Sanna, Maria and Sara), those who have been here throughout most of my PhD (Johan, Amy, Jody and Anna) and all of you have joined the last few years (Lisa, Jonas R, Mattias, Kricke, Falkenskägg, Robin, Tim, Camilla and Karin). Also, thanks to all the administrative staff, especially Lise-Lott and Anne.

… an extra thank you to Johan and Lisa, the ones I tend to turn to first when I have something to discuss. Or just need a break.

… all the photo models. For the cover I want to thank the Zodiaken-staff in general for allowing me to take the photos on the front and back of the thesis cover, and Kristofer Frendesson in particular for getting in front of the camera. Similarly, my thanks go to the “customers” Matti, Lisa, Johan, Amy, Stefan and Tim. Furthermore, many thanks go to Jalal Maleki for taking the photos at Zodiaken. For the examples of visualisation techniques, my thanks go to Anna for modelling and Jonas H for photographing.

… my parents for everything. You made me into who I am.

Research support: The research presented in this thesis has been supported by: Vinnova: SERV project: Service Design, innovation and involvement. Ref no: 2007-03444. European Union: CIP Competitiveness and Innovation Program, research project “Service Design as an approach to foster competitiveness and sustainability of European tourism”.

Contributor: Fabian Segelström

Source: Segelström F (2013) Stakeholder Engagement for Service Design: How service designers identify and communicate insights, PhD, Linköping University

The seven anonymous informal carers who shared their lives with us

My deep appreciation to the following people who made this effort possible:

DE MONTFORT UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF HEALTH AND COMMUNITY STUDIES Mike Saks, Dean, School of Nursing and Midwifery; Mel Chevannes, Head of School

EXTERNAL EXAMINER Robert Miller, Director, The Centre for Social Research, School of Sociology and Social Policy, Queen’s University of Belfast, Northern Ireland

SUPERVISORY SUPPORT Denis Anthony (1st), Mark Johnson (2nd), Naomi Watson (Advisor)

MENTOR AND ADVISORY SUPPORT Brown DMU School of Economics and Social Science, Milton Keynes

ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPORT Sirron Norris-Monahan, Mary Seacole Research Centre, DMU

BIBLIOGRAPHIC SUPPORT Staff of the Charles Frears Campus Library, DMU

COLLEGIATE SUPPORT Veronica Bishop, Prue Chamberlayne, Harriet Clarke, Mark Freeman, Dawn Freshwater, Kenneth Gergen, Gunter Mey, Katja Mruck, Tinu Okubadajo, Richard Olsen, Tom Wengraf

COMMUNITY SUPPORT Hayley Poole and CLASP Carers’ Centre, Leicester; Fiona Gordon, Tracey Jeffers and The West Indian Senior Citizens’ Project, Leicester

PERSONAL SUPPORT UK Enid Irving, Scott Woods USA Mary Fallon, Mrs. Edward Jones

ANALYSES TEAM MEMBERS Denis Anthony, Mandy Ashton, Mark Atkinson, Roger Bettles, Giotto Bonomaully, Nicky Brooks, Brown, Jonathan Carver, Violet Chidombwe, Jim Doher, Mark Johnson, Christopher Maggs, Frances Maggs-Rapport, Belinda Place, Haley Poole, Ali Rashed, Jenny Smith, Denis Walsh, Naomi Watson

THE SEVEN ANONYMOUS INFORMAL CARERS WHO SHARED THEIR LIFE STORIES WITH US

Contributor: @Kip Jones

Source: Jones, K (2001) Narratives of identity and the informal care role, PhD, De Montfort University Leicester

Thanks to all those on #phdchat…for the enormous help, moral support, motivation and kindness

To describe this as a journey is an understatement. It has been hard work, ridiculously difficult at times, but extremely rewarding, and I am surprised and amazed to have made it to this point. I have a number of people to thank for their support in getting this far on this doctoral journey.

First, thanks very much to my supervisor Ron Thompson, for his constant support, advice, calmness and tenacity over the last five years, and also to Roger Crawford my second supervisor for his advice on my draft thesis, and a big thanks to all the tutors who generously gave up their time for me to interview them.

Next on the list, a massive thank you to my husband, Duncan, and my lovely children, Nicola, Sam, and Lauren for all their love and support, for putting up with my moods and grumpiness at times, and for allowing me time away from family stuff to get this thing completed, and to you this thesis is dedicated. I am also forever indebted to my mum and dad for all they sacrificed for us, and thanks also to my lovely brothers: Dave and Pete; and sisters: Janet and Debbie, who are so supportive in whatever I do in my life.

A huge thank you to two very special colleagues: Cath Ellis, for believing in me and giving me the confidence to start on and continue on this doctoral journey; and to Liz Bennett, who I have been lucky enough to have had travelling this same journey alongside me, and whose constant support, practical advice and optimism has helped to keep me going, and dragged me to the finish line. I’d also like to thank Cheryl Reynolds and David Powell for all their support along the way.

Finally thanks to all those on #phdchat on Twitter, too many to name individually, for the enormous help, moral support, motivation and kindness. Phdchat is a great example of the affordances of social media, providing a personal learning network of doctoral students worldwide supporting and collaborating together.

Contributor: @SueFolley

Source: Folley, S (2013) Bridging the gap between face-to-face and online teaching: a case study exploring tutors’ early experiences of teaching online in a UK university 2009-2012. Doctoral thesis, University of Huddersfield

It is as close to living the life of a monk as you can get, without actually setting foot in a monastery

Thanks are due to the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council for the funding that made this research possible. By extension I’d like to offer my thanks to all the staff of the Department of Mathematics & Statistics at the University of Surrey.

My supervisor, Dr Peter Hydon, is a remarkable, thoughtful and kind man to whom I would like to offer my sincerest gratitude for inspiration in fields well beyond that of mathematics.

Of course, my parents have offered tremendous support and encouragement, as have Jessie and her family, and my thanks naturally go to them all.

Finally, for any postgraduate student that happens upon these acknowledgements, may I assure you of the truth of a fellow student’s works on the practise of research – that it is as close to living the life of a monk as you can get, without actually setting foot in a monastery. I should also point that it’s a lot of fun, too.

Contributor: @rich_w

Source: Watts, R (2005) Determining the symmetries of initial-value problems, MPhil, University of Surrey

Mum – it might all have been worth it in the end!

I  would like to take this opportunity to thank a few people who have made the process of writing this dissertation somewhat easier during the past year.

Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. William Webster, for being patient, encouraging and supportive. Also for giving me lots of valuable advice that has certainly made this project a lot easier to complete.

Thank you to Topshop and Stirling University Library for allowing me to use them as case studies for this project.

To Catherine and Amber for taking part in the study, you helped me out a lot. Thank you.

To Justine, who has managed to keep me smiling through the hardest parts of this process and who I will always be grateful for, thank you.

Thank you to Doug, Ash and Jeff – our days out and banter has meant a lot to me and has kept my social life alive during this (somewhat isolating) process.

My friends have been a constant support and have kept me sane through the last few months: Thanks to Amy, Stuart, Gillian, Ailsa, Craig, John, Fiona, Christine, Adam M and Adam RF.

To Will and Debbie for providing me with very sound advice and endless support on the other side of a screen. Thank you.

To Niall, thank you. For absolutely nothing.

Thanks to Kyle, Sam and Rachel. Just because.

And finally, thank you to my parents, Mandy and John. Their endless support has meant more to me than I could possibly express and will be forever grateful to them for their assistance, comforting words and lovely hugs. Mum – it might all have been worth it in the end!

“What’s next?”

President Josiah Bartlet – The West Wing.

Contributor: @lornypoppins

Source: BA (Hons) Business Studies, Stirling University

…for their understanding and support on this wonderful journey

I firstly wish to acknowledge the guidance and support provided by my primary supervisor, Associate Professor Marj Kibby from the University of Newcastle. I very much appreciate everything she has done in the course of the supervision of this thesis. Associate Professor Kibby provided a safe space for me to explore the new world of being a doctoral candidate, provided insightful feedback whenever it was required (often within short timeframes), and was a great support throughout. I thank her for her kindness and for the incredible encouragement to pursue this research.

I also wish to thank my two co-supervisors. Professor Patricia Gillard initially supported me on this path, introducing me to Associate Professor Kibby, and providing me with the “roadmaps” so I could navigate what was then a very new world of academia. After Professor Gillard’s retirement from the University of Newcastle, Associate Professor Christine Daymon, Murdoch University, agreed to co-supervise my doctoral work. I am most appreciative of her offer of supervision at a crucial time in the project. I am most grateful for the time she spent providing insightful critique and guidance when it was most necessary.

I must acknowledge the generous support of the University of Newcastle throughout this project. Through the support offered by internal grants I have been able to spend extended periods of time working on my research and have been afforded opportunities to travel to undertake field work and also to present my research in progress to my peers at conferences – a vital part of my ability to move through this project. I must particularly thank Professor Patricia Michie, Professor Bill Hogarth, Dr Brian Regan, Dr Anne Llewellyn and Professor Tim Roberts for providing guidance and support.

The generous support of my colleagues and fellow research students in the School of Design, Communication and IT throughout my doctoral project has been very much appreciated. I also wish to thank my undergraduate students, and particularly my honours students, who have challenged me and spurred me on to engage with new techniques and ideas.

Thank you to my husband, Stephen, and to my children, Alexandra and Patrick, for their understanding and support on this wonderful journey.

I must acknowledge the work of Kim Edmonds who provided professional editorial services in the latter stages of my thesis preparation. These services were limited to editing for consistency (Standard E, Completeness and Consistency of the Australian Standards for Editing Practice) and complied with the University of Newcastle’s Policy for Editing of Research Theses by Professional Editors.

This thesis is dedicated to my parents, Frank and Joan Skillen.

Contributor: @melanie_james

Source: James, M (2010) The strategic construction of intended meaning in Australian public relations campaigns through the use of key messaging and positioning techniques, PhD, University of Newcastle, Australia

my brothers Nikolas and James Bowe for their programming advice and motivation

I thank my supervisor Simon Puglisi for his patience and guidance, Juha Kärkkäinen (University of Helsinki) for helping me to understand RRR, and Francisco Claude (University of Waterloo) for his advice and explanation of his code. I also thank my brothers Nikolas and James Bowe for their programming advice and motivation. Finally, I thank RMIT University for providing me with a scholarship to complete this paper.

Contributor: @alexbowe
Source: Multiary Wavelet Trees in Practice, Honours Thesis, RMIT Melbourne