A Success Story? Delivering the Vision for Catalyst

In a bold and unprecedented move by the University, a new building, housing Library and Learning Services, Student Services and Careers was agreed by the University’s Board of Governors at their November 2016 meeting. At an initial cost of £26m it represents the largest single investment in a new building project by the University. This was a project to create an inspiring building and ‘provide an intellectually stimulating, creative and inclusive environment for [the university’s] community’. Whilst being highly student-focused, it was designed as a facility for the entire Edge Hill community including researchers, staff, alumni, and external visitors. Its proposed location at a central point of arrival on campus, would make a statement not only about the importance of the student experience, but also act as a reference point to the institution’s heritage of female empowerment with a ‘suffragette garden’ and spaces designed for outdoor public speaking and performances. The decision to co-locate Services was seen as a progressive and sustainable initiative, creating efficiencies of space and resources, and enabling the delivery of a converged front-line service with 24 hour opening. Arranged over 4 floors, the 8000sqm building was designed to accommodate and deliver, all enquiries, advice and support related to residential and on campus accommodation and campus life; pastoral support for care leavers, well-being, counselling, money advice and chaplaincy; academic support for library users, academic skills and research support; disability support; transitions between years and for those seeking careers advice, volunteering, graduate employment and part-time work. A complementary staff facing suite of services comprise advice for effective use of learning technologies, library resources and web based services. The construction of the building began in July 2017 and the first staff members moved into their new offices in June 2018, with the building and its services fully operational in September 2018. This case study will summarise key decisions made during the construction phase, including the development of a vision for the building and will reflect on the extent to which goals identified pre- entry have been realised during the first year of occupancy

Prescription for change: medical undergraduates' perceptions of learning in traditional and problem-based courses

Abstract available: p. [3

Multidisciplinary perspectives on the history of human interactions with life in the ocean

Abstract There is an essentially circular interaction between the human social system and the marine ecosystem. The Oceans Past V Conference “Multidisciplinary perspectives on the history of human interactions with life in the ocean” held in Tallinn, Estonia, in May 2015 was an opportunity for the presentation and discussion of papers on a diverse array of topics that examined this socio-ecological system from a historical perspective. Here we provide background to the disciplines participating in the conference and to the conference itself. We summarize the conference papers that appear in this special volume of the ICES JMS and highlight issues which arose during general discussion. We make two conclusions. First, to have greater impact and ensure more efficient use of knowledge gained from marine historical ecology (MHE) and marine environmental history (MEH) in ecosystem-based management and related policy development, practitioners need to work more routinely with population and ecological modellers and statisticians. This will allow greater processing of the available historical data to derive ecologically meaningful properties that can then be used to assess the ecological impact of long-term changes of affected species and define appropriate and realistic management targets. Second, increased multi- and trans-disciplinary effort is required to better understand the relative importance of different human demographic, technological, economic, and cultural drivers on the patterns, intensities and trajectories of human activities affecting marine ecosystems.</jats:p

Whole Child Development Mapping Project in Western Europe and North America: The UK (1)

Visualization 1 Originally published in Optics Express on 28 November 2016 (oe-24-24-27785

Sex Education: Challenges and Choices

Noting public concern about sexual exploitation, abuse and sexualisation, we argue that sex education in the UK needs revision. Choice is a feature of current sex education policy and, acknowledging that choice can be problematic, we defend its place in an approach to sex education premised on informed deliberation, relational autonomy, a particular view of personhood and moral literacy. We argue, however, that choice and the approach outlined must be located in the realities of young people’s lives

Exercise pathophysiology and exercise therapy in Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is an incurable disorder of the pulmonary circulation, characterised by progressive vascular remodelling, vasoconstriction and increased right ventricular afterload. The direct consequence of this is impaired cardiac output, initially in response to exercise and in later stages of the disease at rest. Progressive exercise limitation is the cardinal clinical feature and ultimately premature death from right heart failure ensues. Available disease targeted treatments slow progression, however, PAH remains incurable with a high symptom burden and prognosis remains poor. Lung transplantation provides the only hope of cure. A small proportion of patients are eligible and fit enough for transplantation, notwithstanding the availability of suitable donor lungs and associated post-transplant morbidity in those who survive. Current drug therapy is expensive and is limited to three classes of pulmonary arterial vasodilator. The most effective form of treatment, epoprostenol, is invasive, requiring central venous access and significantly impacts on quality of life despite the associated improvements in exercise capacity. The abnormalities in the right ventricle and pulmonary circulation are well established in PH. More recent evidence has highlighted multi-system abnormalities in PH patients, with muscle dysfunction from a clinical to cellular level, systemic inflammation and insulin resistance. It is unclear whether these changes are a result of the atrophying effects of low cardiac output, or a systemic process associated with PH but independent from cardiac function. Historically exercise had been avoided in PAH, however recent evidence suggests it provides significant benefit in terms of exercise capacity and quality of life. Exercise is an attractive therapeutic option for many reasons. With established infrastructure, it is cost effective, sustainable and provides wide-ranging benefits out with the pulmonary circulation, such as reduced risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and improved mental health. The exercise programmes studied in PAH have been wide ranging in terms of the approach used and have shown variable degrees of success. The most successful programmes have employed fairly intensive exercise regimens and many countries do not have the resource or infrastructure to adopt this approach. The role of exercise therapy in PAH and the mechanisms by which it exerts a beneficial effect remain poorly understood. It is also unclear what the best outcome measure is to determine the efficacy of exercise-based interventions in PAH. The feasibility of intensive exercise therapy in countries where residential exercise programmes are not robustly established remains untested. The aims of this thesis are • To establish the population demand, feasibility and safety of PH specific exercise therapy in a UK pre-capillary PH population. • To explore potential physiological and biological mechanisms behind the improvements seen in exercise capacity in order to gain a greater understanding of the disease process. • Identify key components of the exercise programme to allow recommendations for effective PAH exercise prescriptions moving forwards. To address the aims of the thesis, three studies were performed. The first two studies were precursors to the main study discussed in chapters 5 to 9: 1. “Assessing the demand for exercise therapy in a Scottish PAH population” (Chapter 2): 2. “The ventilatory, gas exchange and haemodynamic response to upright and supine exercise”, (Chapter 3), 3. “The effect of adding exercise training to optimal drug therapy in Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension”. Chapter 1 provides an introduction to exercise physiology in PAH and describes the current state of knowledge regarding exercise therapy in PAH Chapter 2 describes the current standard of care for patients with PAH in Scotland and the demand for exercise therapy in the Scottish PAH population. From this data, it is clear that there is significant enthusiasm for exercise rehabilitation in PAH. Potential barriers to its uptake or implementation were explored and these included employment, carers commitments and proximity to the exercise venue. In Chapter 3, the ventilatory, gas exchange and haemodyanamic responses to upright and supine exercise are discussed in order to determine the degree to which exercise capacity is reduced in the supine position and the physiological changes that accompany this. This information was used to help design the protocol used for supine endurance exercise with invasive haemodynamic measurements, discussed in Chapter 7. From this data, it is clear that exercise capacity is significantly reduced in the supine position, this appeared to be due to changes in ventilatory efficiency and was associated with significant alterations in the stroke volume – heart rate response to exercise. Chapter 4 outlines the study protocol and exercise intervention for the main study in this thesis “The effect of adding exercise training to optimal drug therapy in Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension”. Chapter 5 describes the overall efficacy of exercise therapy in PAH in relation to the primary outcome measures of the study “The effect of adding exercise training to optimal drug therapy in Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension”; specifically, 6 minute walk distance (6MWD), quality of life and right ventricular ejection fraction. Analysis of potential “responders” and “non-responders” and factors associated with poorer prognosis are discussed in an exploratory post-hoc analysis. Chapters 6 to 9 adopt a systems-based approach to describe the physiological and pathobiological changes that are present in the studied PAH cohort and the factors that change with exercise therapy. Each chapter discusses the specific relationship with responders and non-responders to exercise therapy in more detail. The specific methods used to assess each system are discussed in the individual chapters and the overall protocol for the exercise therapy is discussed in Chapter 2. Chapter 6 discusses the impact of exercise therapy on lung function, looking at cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET), pulmonary function tests and mouth pressures. The sensitivity of different exercise outcome measures are also explored including cycling endurance time, 6MWD, and incremental CPET. Chapter 7 investigates invasive haemodynamic responses to exercise therapy using both resting and exercise right heart catheterisation. A steady state exercise protocol is used to assess serial measurements of haemodyamics and oxygen extraction throughout exercise. In Chapter 8, a non-invasive approach to assessing cardiac status before, during and after exercise therapy is investigated using cardiac magnetic resonance imaging and N-terminal pro brain natriuretic peptide (NTproBNP). These changes are correlated with invasive haemodynamic markers. Chapter 9 discusses the impact of exercise therapy on muscle function, metabolism and levels of systemic inflammation. Serum and muscle biomarkers are explored to provide pilot data on potential mechanisms for PAH myopathy and how it may be reversed. Collectively these chapters demonstrate improved exercise capacity and quality of life in response to exercise therapy in PAH. This is associated with improved ventilatory efficiency and cardiovascular function, with changes being linked to prognosis. Potential mechanisms behind these improvements are explored and include the reversal of deconditioning, lung recruitment, improved vascular endothelial health, reduced atrial stretch and reduced hyperventilation. Chapter 10 outlines the major findings and conclusions of this research and future research avenues to be explored

Emotions and education: cultivating compassionate minds

This thesis is primarily a philosophical exploration of emotions. From a feminist, liberal perspective, I focus on the cultivation of morally appropriate emotions, particularly compassion, in education. My central claim is that emotions are essential elements of human intelligence and wellbeing. They are complex responses to events of significance to us and, because emotions play a central role in our lives, they help to define who we are and why we are as we are; they are expressions of our values and what we value. Emotions can motivate us to action, and so we need, if we want just institutions, to ensure that those actions are ethical and proportionate. On the view that emotions can be rational, and that they result from eudaimonistic judgements, if we want a society of healthy human beings who have concern for others, who know how to treat others fairly and sensitively, how to take action when things go wrong, then we need to attend, I argue here, to emotional health in education. We should aim to habituate the emotional capacities of all individuals as an enduring resource of good character. At issue, is how to educate young people to have healthy emotions that are ethical, proportionate, discerning and deliberative, that have ethical action as their goals, and which do not negatively discriminate on the basis of gender. In the development of emotional wellbeing and moral character, compassion is an emotion that merits particular attention. Such is the potential ethical power of this emotion, that I propose compassion to be the arch-guardian of the moral domain and, accordingly, a prerequisite for the cultivation of moral sentiment and respect for human dignity. A consideration of emotions will raise questions about who should feel, how we should feel, when, and to what extent, emotions such as compassion, sympathy or anger in acceptable and appropriate ways. I argue, too, that we should attend to the how and why of interpreting these emotions. Whilst a number of analyses reveal how powerful emotional interpretations are in stigmatising, labeling or stereotyping men and women, rarely, if ever, are questions raised in education about the assumptions on which gendered emotions rest. I respond here by proposing that if education is to serve a role in the cultivation of morally appropriate emotions, then we must question, and should no longer accept, gendered emotions, that is emotions that belong to, or are more ‘natural’ for one sex than another. Acknowledging the importance of care for wellbeing, I question the claims of some care ethicists who would have us believe that care does not require moral theory and that it is not an issue of justice. I assert, to the contrary, that unless an ethics of care rests on sound moral and conceptual constructs, it will perpetuate a bifurcation of emotion and reason whilst sustaining stereotypically gendered emotions. In order to illuminate my argument for the cultivation of de-gendered, just emotions, I draw upon empirical research on the effects of deformed emotional attitudes towards women and children which seriously impede their wellbeing and functioning. I draw, too, on novels, both for the exemplification of my arguments and as a vehicle which, creatively and sensitively used, can help us to shape our imaginative and empathic capacities to take into the folds of our consciousness people who are both similar to and remote and different from us. I am accompanied throughout the thesis by a fictional pupil ‘Nancy’ with and through whom I exculpate complex theoretical and philosophical issues. The thesis re-affirms the importance of cultivating morally appropriate de-gendered emotions, particularly compassion, and concludes with the proposal that we should incorporate and embed an understanding of the emotions in the education curricula, for both pupils and those who teach them. I propose, too, that emotions might be regarded as an architectonic capability anchoring and influencing all other human capabilities

Teacher-trainee Perceptions of Coeducation in a Microteaching Context in the Sultanate of Oman

Since 1970, the Sultanate of Oman has undergone rapid development, modernisation and educational reform within which a policy of coeducation has been introduced in grades 1 to 4, cycle 1, Basic Education schools and in most state-run and private higher education institutions. Situated within a coeducational tertiary college, a critical interpretive case study was conducted on 25 male and 85 female third-year English teacher trainees. Informed by a social-constructionist framework this study seeks to understand their perceptions of coeducation in the microteaching component of their initial teacher education programme. This study also provides a platform for the voices of these teacher trainees to be heard. Due to the accepted and practiced large-culture norms discouraging male and female interaction between non-family members in the Arabian Gulf, it was found that the coeducational microteaching classes are sites of struggle through which, drawing on the work of Barkhuizen (1998), six perceptions emerged: sustainments, emotions, predictions, reflections, evaluations and transformations, represented by the acronym, SEPRET. While there is only a slight difference in their perceptions of coeducational microteaching, the male and female trainees are both fostering stereotypical gender roles through which small cultures of ‘romance’ and ‘laddishness’ are being perpetuated. As a result of coeducation, they are experiencing a negative ‘mirror’-effect where they are masking, inhibiting, and repositioning aspects of their performance, participation and identities. The large- and small-culture constructs of Holliday (1999) are evidenced inside and outside the coeducational microteaching classroom walls and a new model of learner actions on their perceptions of coeducation is presented. The study ends with the voices of the teacher trainees calling upon the powers that be to understand their behaviour and recommends single-gender rather than coeducational microteaching spaces in this particular Omani initial teacher education context

Save The Frogs

The species Xenopus laevis is native to sub saharan Africa, but ever since its discovery in effectiveness in pregnancy tests, the frog now lives invasively around the world. Today the Xenopus Laevis is used mostly in laboratories as a model organism for studying developmental biology (Willigan 2001). The commercialized herbicide Atrazine, has been found to interact with this model organism species in an odd way you might not have guessed (Sanders 2010). Atrazine is primarily absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract and has been shown to have neuroendocrine, reproductive, and developmental effects on experimental animals such as Xenopus laevis (ATSDR 2004). The toxic nature of Atrazine has been found to emasculate male frogs in a study by biologists at the university of California, Berkeley (Sanders 2010). Frogs are extremely susceptible to environmental disturbances due to their permeable skin. This makes them accurate indicators of stressors in the environment (Kerry 2017). This is why we find it imperative to study the effects of Atrazine on frogs, not only because knocking out a species can affect food chains in areas where they reside but it also affects those halfway across the globe, hundreds of miles from its immediate reach