‘Who’s left holding the baby?’ Exploring couples’ decision-making to have a biological baby following a woman’s diagnosis of Marfan syndrome

Research into the psychological effects of reproductive decision-making when an individual has a diagnosis of Marfan syndrome, a genetically inherited and potentially life-threatening condition, is rare and mainly quantitative in nature. In response, this study has investigated the experience of couples’ decisionmaking to have a baby when a woman has been diagnosed with Marfan syndrome. The study was conducted using unstructured interview data, analysed using the qualitative methodology of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). The participants were six couples with a female diagnosis of Marfan syndrome. Five couples with children provided retrospective data and one couple making the decision to have a baby provided live data. Four superordinate themes emerged: her decision is already made; creating an informed decision; finding psychosocial support; existing with the fallout of the decision. The experience of decision-making was complex and multidimensional for the males, females and couples. The women demonstrated a strong drive to have a baby despite the 50/50 odds of having a child with Marfan syndrome, whereas the men described the tension between wanting a child and coping with the potentially life-threatening risks for a woman in pregnancy and childbirth. A compelling account of the couples’ difficulties in exploring their options and assessing the risks with medical professionals emerged. It is argued that this research provides important insights for counselling psychologists and other professionals when working with individuals and couples affected by Marfan syndrome and other genetically inherited conditions at the critical time of coping with reproductive decision-making

Ecclesiastical history, its nature and purpose : inaugural lecture delivered at Rhodes University

Inaugural lecture delivered at Rhodes UniversityRhodes University Libraries (Digitisation

The Enhancement of Earth Science Laboratories and Activities through Inquiry, Discovery and Hands-on Methods

The central objective of this project is to enhance the middle school eighthgrade Earth Science curriculum by developing or adapting existing laboratory activities to model hands-on, inquiry, and discovery learning methods. These laboratory activities are designed to encourage independent student-centered learning as opposed to teacher-centered and directed activities. The project also explored the nature of the science laboratory as it exists in classrooms today and how it can be improved through an understanding of the nature and process of science

Diffusion and advection of radionuclides through a cementitious backfill with potential to be used in the deep disposal of nuclear waste

This work focuses on diffusion and advection through cementitious media, the work arises from two research contracts undertaken at Loughborough University: Experiments to Demonstrate Chemical Containment funded by UK NDA and the SKIN project, funded by the European Atomic Energy Community's Seventh Framework Programme. Diffusion will be one of the most significant mechanisms controlling any radionuclide migration from a nuclear waste, deep geological disposal facility. Advection may also occur, particularly as the immediate post closure groundwater rebound and equilibration proceeds but is expected to be limited by effective siting and management during the operational phase of the facility. In this work advection is investigated at laboratory scale as a possible shorter timescale technique for providing insight into the much slower process of diffusion. Radial techniques for diffusion and advection have been developed and the developmental process is presented in some detail. Both techniques use a cylindrical sample geometry that allows the radionuclide of interest to be introduced into a core drilled through the centre of the test material. For diffusion the core is sealed and submerged in a container of receiving solution which is sampled and analysed as the radionuclide diffuses into it. For advection, a cell has been designed that allows inflow via the central core to pass through the sample in a radial manner and be collected as it exits from the outer surface. The radionuclide of interest can be injected directly into the central core without significant disturbance to the advective flow. Minor improvements continue to be made but both techniques have provided good quality, reproducible results. The majority of the work is concentrated on a potential cemetitious backfill known as NRVB (Nirex Reference Vault Backfill) this is a high porosity, high calcium carbonate content cementitious material. The radioisotopes used in this work are 3H (in tritiated water), 137Cs, 125I, 90Sr, 45Ca, 63Ni, 152Eu, 241Am along with U and Th salts. In addition the effect of cellulose degradation products (CDP) on radioisotope mobility was investigated by manufacturing solutions where paper tissues were degraded in water, at 80⁰C, in the absence of air and at high pH due to the presence of the components of NRVB. All diffusion experiments were carried out under a nitrogen atmosphere. All advection experiments were undertaken using an eluent reservoir pressurised with nitrogen where the system remained closed up to the point of final sample collection. Results for tritiated water and the monovalent ions of Cs and I were produced on a timescale of weeks to months for both diffusion and advection. The divalent ions of Sr, Ca and Ni produced results on a timescale of months to years. Variations of the experiments were undertaken using the CDP solutions. The effects of CDP were much more apparent at radiotracer concentration than the much higher radiotracer with non-active carrier, concentration. In the presence of CDP Cs, I and Ni were found to migrate more quickly; Sr and Ca were found to migrate more slowly. Additional Sr experiments were undertaken at elevated ionic strength to evaluate the effect of the higher dissolved solids content of the CDP solutions. Some of the results for HTO, Cs, I and Sr have been modelled using a simple numerical representation of the system in GoldSim to estimate effective diffusivity and partition coefficient. The diffusion model successfully produced outputs that were comparable to literature values. The advection model is not yet producing good matches with the observed data but it continues to be developed and more processes will be added as new results become available. Autoradiography has been used to visualise the radionuclide migration and several images are reproduced that show the fate of the radiotracers retained on the NRVB at the end of the experiments. As the experimental programme progressed it was clear that results could not be produced in a suitable timescale for Eu, Am U and Th. These experiments have been retained and will be monitored every six months until either diffusion is detected or the volume of receiving liquid is inadequate to ensure the NRVB is saturated

Sexual health and older adults: Suggestions for social science research

The body of evidence on older adults’ sexual health is beginning to grow. However, it remains an under-researched area particularly within the social sciences. This letter to the editor outlines four considerations for those who carry out social science research in this area: 1. defining the age category ‘older adults’; 2. being clear about the types of sex under research; 3. capturing a range of diverse voices; and 4. considering the use of qualitative research methods to explore the topic in-depth. These suggestions are aimed at helping researchers to avoid some of the pitfalls of research in this area, as well as improving the evidence base in order to advance recognition of the issues and drive change in service provision

Data compression and regression based on local principal curves.

Frequently the predictor space of a multivariate regression problem of the type y = m(x_1, …, x_p ) + ε is intrinsically one-dimensional, or at least of far lower dimension than p. Usual modeling attempts such as the additive model y = m_1(x_1) + … + m_p (x_p ) + ε, which try to reduce the complexity of the regression problem by making additional structural assumptions, are then inefficient as they ignore the inherent structure of the predictor space and involve complicated model and variable selection stages. In a fundamentally different approach, one may consider first approximating the predictor space by a (usually nonlinear) curve passing through it, and then regressing the response only against the one-dimensional projections onto this curve. This entails the reduction from a p- to a one-dimensional regression problem. As a tool for the compression of the predictor space we apply local principal curves. Taking things on from the results presented in Einbeck et al. (Classification – The Ubiquitous Challenge. Springer, Heidelberg, 2005, pp. 256–263), we show how local principal curves can be parametrized and how the projections are obtained. The regression step can then be carried out using any nonparametric smoother. We illustrate the technique using data from the physical sciences