Profiling the physiological and psychological effectiveness of singlet oxygen in the management of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)

COPD is a progressive respiratory disease and is currently the third leading cause of death worldwide. Primary COPD symptoms include breathlessness, cough, and sputum production; these symptoms are linked to a host of secondary physical issues, such as poor sleep quality and fatigue and psychological issues, such as anxiety and depression. These issues have a broad and negative impact on people's quality of life. This thesis aims to understand further the day-to-day effects of COPD symptomology, exploring the experiences of how COPD affects the quality of life and the insight from COPD participants regarding medication(s), in addition to the efficacy of current strategies and interventions and whether there is scope for a non-pharmacological intervention that could potentially fill this void. The overall aim is to increase the knowledge and awareness of the physiological and psychological determinants that affect the quality of life of COPD patients. A variety of different types of data and data collection methods, which includes using Qualtrics online survey, online Microsoft Team interviews, PhotoVoice and receiving photographs using an application called Signal and planning to conduct a double-blinded NHS randomised controlled trial (RCT) in collaboration with external stakeholders. The main findings are that COPD participants' physiological and psychological symptoms increase in severity as the respiratory condition progresses, which is consistent with previous research literature. However, despite significant differences such as for breathlessness, sleep quality and health-related quality of life, the results that were not expected and were the opposite of the proposed hypotheses were the non-significant results such as for self-compassion, readiness to use a new intervention, as well as confidence to try a new intervention. The results highlight that self-compassion remained moderate across the different COPD severities (medium, high and very high), and the readiness and confidence to try a new intervention were very high across the COPD severities. Also, medication side effects and changing medications. However, despite this, COPD participants have shown readiness and confidence to try new interventions that improve the management of their condition. An abundance of different interventions and strategies that are non-pharmacological based are already being used to help manage COPD symptoms, showing additional support that participants are willing to try anything to improve their quality of life. This thesis highlights the importance of using new qualitative methodologies such as PhotoVoice and the significant insight and vulnerabilities it captures from participants, as well as using patient and public representatives across the research processes. The thesis also presents a double-blind RCT protocol, co-designed with the patient and public representatives, to collect empirical data on the efficacy and safety of a singlet oxygen energy device (SoeMac) as an adjunct therapy to prescribed medications. This protocol has been developed extensively and is ready to be implemented. To ensure effectiveness, further research should investigate the role of self-compassion and self-conscious emotions such as guilt, self-criticism, shame-based avoidance, and embarrassment for each level of COPD severity (including low COPD severity), COPD participants from ethnic minority backgrounds and younger COPD onset. Concerted attempts driven by physiological and psychological research that underpin clinical interventions are required to ensure that the needs and wants of patients are addressed and that treatments and benefits to patients are accepted and accessible

Proposed Environmental Quality Standards for Phenol in Water

This is the Proposed Environmental Quality Standards (EQS) for Phenol in Water prepared for the National Rivers Authority, and published by the Environment Agency in 1995. The report reviews the properties and uses of phenol, its fate, behaviour and reported concentrations in the environment and critically assesses the available data on its toxicity and bioaccumulation. The information is used to derive EQSs for the protection of fresh and saltwater life and for the abstraction of water to potable supply. Phenol is widely used as a chemical intermediate and the main sources for phenol in the environment are of anthropogenic origin. Phenol may also be formed during natural decomposition of organic material. The persistence of phenol in the aquatic environment is low with biodegradation being the main degradation process (half-lives of hours to days). Phenol is moderately toxic to aquatic organisms and its potential to bioaccumulate in aquatic organisms is low

Comprehensive analysis of Hox gene expression in the amphipod crustacean Parhyale hawaiensis.

Hox genes play crucial roles in establishing regional identity along the anterior-posterior axis in bilaterian animals, and have been implicated in generating morphological diversity throughout evolution. Here we report the identification, expression, and initial genomic characterization of the complete set of Hox genes from the amphipod crustacean Parhyale hawaiensis. Parhyale is an emerging model system that is amenable to experimental manipulations and evolutionary comparisons among the arthropods. Our analyses indicate that the Parhyale genome contains a single copy of each canonical Hox gene with the exception of fushi tarazu, and preliminary mapping suggests that at least some of these genes are clustered together in the genome. With few exceptions, Parhyale Hox genes exhibit both temporal and spatial colinearity, and expression boundaries correlate with morphological differences between segments and their associated appendages. This work represents the most comprehensive analysis of Hox gene expression in a crustacean to date, and provides a foundation for functional studies aimed at elucidating the role of Hox genes in arthropod development and evolution

This New Ocean: A History of Project Mercury

When Congress created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958, it charged NASA with the responsibility "to contribute materially to . . . the expansion of human knowledge of phenomena in the atmosphere and space" and "provide for the widest practicable and appropriate dissemination of information concerning its activities and the results thereof." NASA wisely interpreted this mandate to include responsibility for documenting the epochal progress of which it is the focus. The result has been the development of a historical program by NASA as unprecedented as the task of extending man's mobility beyond his planet. This volume is not only NASA's accounting of its obligation to disseminate information to our current generation of Americans. It also fulfills, as do all of NASA's future-oriented scientific-technological activities, the further obligation to document the present as the heritage of the future. The wide-ranging NASA history program includes chronicles of day-to-day space activities; specialized studies of particular fields within space science and technology; accounts of NASA's efforts in organization and management, where its innovations, while less known to the public than its more spectacular space shots, have also been of great significance; narratives of the growth and expansion of the space centers throughout the country, which represent in microcosm many aspects of NASA's total effort; program histories, tracing the successes- and failures- of the various projects that mark man's progress into the Space Age; and a history of NASA itself, incorporating in general terms the major problems and challenges, and the responses thereto, of our entire civilian space effort. The volume presented here is a program history, the first in a series telling of NASA's pioneering steps into the Space Age. It deals with the first American manned-spaceflight program: Project Mercury. Although some academicians might protest that this is "official" history, it is official only in the fact that it has been prepared and published with the support and cooperation of NASA. It is not "official" history in the sense of presenting a point of view supposedly that of NASA officialdom-if anyone could determine what the "point of view" of such a complex organism might be. Certainly, the authors were allowed to pursue their task with the fullest freedom and in accordance with the highest scholarly standards of the history profession

Existing Guidelines and Certificates for Culturally Sensitive Tourism in Canada

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An Integrated Content and Metadata based Retrieval System for Art

In this paper we describe aspects of the Artiste project to develop a distributed content and metadata based analysis, retrieval and navigation system for a number of major European Museums. In particular, after a brief overview of the complete system, we describe the design and evaluation of some of the image analysis algorithms developed to meet the specific requirements of the users from the museums. These include a method for retrievals based on sub images, retrievals based on very low quality images and retrieval using craquelure type