Intra- and supra-salt strain during gravity-driven salt tectonics on passive margins

Ductile salt units have a profound influence on the subsequent tectono-stratigraphic evolution of sedimentary basins. The development of thin-skinned, kinematic zones of updip extension and downdip contraction, driven by the interplay between gravity gliding and gravity spreading, is well established. In detail, however, there is great complexity in the range of structural styles observed on salt-influenced passive margins, and their key controls are still not fully understood. I use 3D seismic reflection data from two salt-influenced passive margin settings (the Kwanza Basin, offshore Angola and the Levantine Basin, offshore Lebanon) to interpret their post-salt tectono-stratigraphic evolutions. I assess the relationship between sub-, intra-, and supra-salt structures, with a particular emphasis on the influence of base-salt relief and intra-salt lithological heterogeneity. A number of different tools are employed to perform this analysis, including structural restorations, strain calculations and translation measurements. Ramp syncline basins develop due to salt flow over base-salt relief and provide a record of horizontal overburden translation during gravity gliding. This record can be used to calculate rates of translation, revealing spatial and temporal variations at the basin scale in both study areas, which are linked to thick- and thin-skinned processes. On the Angolan margin, the interaction of salt flow with base-salt relief is inferred to generate local stress fields that allow synchronous extension and contraction despite closely spaced positions on the margin. On the Lebanese margin, the salt flow over large sub-salt anticlines modulates the rate of basinward translation. In both cases I show that the geometry of the base-salt surface can have an important influence on the orientation and distribution of supra-salt structures. The seismic-based interpretations are tested using physical analogue models, designed to investigate the effect of salt thickness and heterogeneity on the degree of coupling between sub- and supra-salt structures in experiments with controlled boundary conditions. These results support and integrate the seismic case studies, showing how thinner and more heterogeneous evaporite sequences are more strongly influenced by the base-salt geometry. I conclude that the interaction between salt flow and base-salt relief is a primary control on the structural development of the salt and overburden in gravity-driven systems, and this may explain some of the observed contrast in structural styles between different salt basins.Open Acces

Social support, coping strategies and the impact on relationships for adolescents who have experienced cancer

Adolescence is a period characterised by a number of biological, social and psychological changes. Those facing a cancer diagnosis in adolescence find that they have further challenges and changes to deal with, in addition to the normal challenges associated with adolescence. The purpose of this research was to understand the experiences of adolescents who have had cancer. The aim was to examine the impact their illness had on their social relationships, to explore how they coped and found support, and to investigate the impact having cancer had on the developmental tasks associated with adolescence. While there has been extensive literature on these topics internationally, there has been limited research conducted within a New Zealand context. Semi-structured interviews were completed with eight young people who had been diagnosed with cancer between the ages of 13 and 20. These interviews were transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis. Two topics that seemed to encapsulate the overall experiences of the participants were identified. These topics were coping with cancer and life will never be the same. In addition, seven themes were identified, which included: coping strategies, the importance of social support, obtaining illness related information, cancer as loss, cancer as a time of growth and development, relationships change and after the cancer is gone. The findings of this study highlighted the importance of providing information for adolescents at the right time in their cancer journey. Another major finding in this study was that many young people with cancer felt that their peers were not equipped to deal with their illness or offer support, and as a result many relationships were lost. Despite this, many participants reported that they were able to utilise social support by meeting others with cancer and receiving support from parents, siblings and some peers. Another key finding from this study was that following the completion of treatment, adolescents continue to face a number of challenges. Some of these challenges include dealing with the long term effects of their illness such as infertility or learning to adjust to a new identity as a cancer survivor. While findings in this study suggested that cancer was conceptualised as a time of loss including a loss of identity and a loss of opportunities, all participants were able to identify positive changes as a result of their illness. These changes included a newfound appreciation for life and making the most of opportunities they were provided. This thesis provides recommendations for professionals, agencies and services working with this population to ensure that appropriate emotional and psychological support is continued to be offered to young people and their families, particularly following completion of treatment. There was also a need identified for peers of young people with cancer to be given some sort of education in order to help support their peers through their cancer journey

Deformation processes along continental transform faults: the southern Dead Sea Fault System, Israel

The mechanical weakening processes involved in the development of major crustal fault systems have been widely documented, and it is recognised that clay-bearing fault rocks frequently have a significant influence on fault strength and slip behaviour in the upper crust. It is less well-understood how mechanical processes, such as cataclasis and the entrainment of shales along fault zones, interact with chemical processes, such as clay mineral transformations, during fault rock development. These processes can combine to form fault zones that may be both lithologically and mechanically heterogeneous, and which may also evolve over time, changing the nature of observed heterogeneities. Data are presented here from a suite of exhumed fault sections of the southern Dead Sea Fault System (DSFS), Israel. The DSFS is an active continental transform fault that has accumulated approximately 105 km of sinistral displacement since the mid-Miocene; 60 km in an initial phase (20-18 Ma) and a further 45 km within the last 5 Ma. The studied faults lie immediately to the west of the active fault trace, west of the town of Elat, southern Israel, and are estimated to have been exhumed from shallow depths (<5 km, but potentially significantly less). Fieldwork has been carried out to document the architecture of the fault outcrops, recording comprehensive structural data, and to collect samples of a range of fault rocks. Samples have been analysed by optical and scanning electron microscopy to record microstructures and mineralogy of framework minerals, by X-ray diffraction (XRD) to record mineralogy of clay minerals, and by fusion inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (FUS-ICP/MS) to quantify elemental composition. Results show the fault sections to be highly heterogeneous and comprise a range of fault rocks: variably fractured damage zones hosted in crystalline basement and sedimentary cover rocks; crushed crystalline basement rocks; mechanically entrained shale gouges; and fault gouges formed by a combination of cataclasis and neomineralisation of Mg-bearing smectite. Through operation of grain-size reduction and limited fluid-rock interactions, there is a bulk change from fault rocks dominated by frictionally strong phases, such as quartz, feldspars and calcite, displaying no obvious fabric, through to foliated phyllosilicate-rich fault gouges that likely have much lower frictional strengths. Elemental compositions across the fault zones suggest limited ingress of chemically reactive exotic fluids during neomineralisation. Mechanically entrained shale that has not undergone significant brittle deformation is also present in relatively large volumes in some instances and it is likely that the incorporation of this material inhibits further cataclastic deformation within the fault zones. Phyllosilicate-rich gouges contain microfolds on the centimetre to micron-scales, and preserve evidence of distributed deformation at shallow depth and low temperature conditions. The heterogeneous nature of mechanically complex fault zones is influenced largely by the initial mineralogy of protolith rocks, but also by syn-tectonic processes, leading to the evolution of fault rock mineralogy with time. The development of layers of aligned phyllosilicate minerals have the potential to significantly alter the physical properties and mechanical strength of a fault zone, even if they are not present in large volumes (perhaps as little as 10-20%). The precipitation and/or entrainment of weak mineral phases may account for the evidence of both aseismic creep (microfolding) and coseismic slip (rock pulverisation) within these fault zones, recording different stages in their evolution

Discovering Open Access Art History: A Comparative Study of the Indexing of Open Access Art Journals

This article evaluates the indexing of open access art journals in four frequently utilized art indexes: Art Full Text, ARTbibliographies Modern, Art \u26 Architecture Complete, and Bibliography of the History of Art/International Bibliography of Art. The authors also compare the indexing of open access journals in Google Scholar to that in the traditional indexes mentioned above and demonstrate that the commercial indexes currently lag behind Google Scholar in terms of content coverage. This article argues that increased indexing of open access art journals in the traditional, subject-specific indexes will be integral to their acceptance within the discipline of art history

Forms of distinction and variations in social participation from early adulthood to midlife: a lifecourse perspective using longitudinal data

Social participation has a wide variety of benefits affecting health and social outcomes at individual, community, and national levels. This, along with concerns that levels of participation are in decline, have led to the expansion of interest in the factors that motivate and restrict social participation from both researchers and policy makers; with encouraging participation at all lifecourse stages a particular policy aim. This research develops understandings of how social participation varies across the lifecourse using a longitudinal cohort study and its qualitative sub-study. Previous studies largely used cross-sectional and short-term panel data and so were unable to track the development of social participation and social relationships across the lifecourse. The relationships between social participation, social class, gender, and employment and family characteristics are also investigated. Social class and previous participation experience are shown to have a consistent relationship with social participation, while the relationship between social participation, employment and the family shifts across the lifecourse. The gendered nature of social participation and responsibilities towards the family and employment are highlighted. The qualitative analysis indicated social participation is potentially underreported in quantitative data and identified novel themes that provided insight into the class-based patterns of social participation by showing it is valued widely, albeit in different ways. These findings are discussed in relation to Bourdieu’s concept of habitus as it is argued that the experiences of those of a higher social class during their childhood develops the dispositions, or habitus, that encourages social participation behaviours across the lifecourse. Efforts aimed at increasing social participation must consider the diversity, or current lack thereof, of participants. This research showcases the strength of using longitudinal data, with both qualitative and quantitative analyses in depicting the relationships and nuances in lifecourse social participation behaviours

Consumer influence on product life : An explorative study.

In recent years the sustainability of consumption levels within industrialised countries has been increasingly challenged. The contribution of consumption to escalating volumes of waste and pollution coupled with the threat of resource scarcity and exhaustion, have lead to global political consensus concerning the requirement to tackle this critical issue. The optimisation of product life has been identified as one of several strategies that could be employed to resolve these problems. The focus of the majority of studies relating to product life spans concern issues of production and economics, such as technical durability and the effect of market structures. Scant attention has been paid to consequent consumption. This thesis investigates consumers' influence on product life across the consumption cycle, using Sheffield as a case study. It represents the first exploration in the UK of its type. The thesis draws together the many disparate pieces of relevant research identified during the literature review to construct a new comprehensive conceptual framework for exploring the consumption life cycle of products from the consumer perspective. This framework was then used to structure the collection of data, which encompassed a combination of mail surveys and semi-structured interviews. The data collected were used to evaluate how different patterns of consumption across acquisition, ownership and disposal influence the service life of three domestic products, including everyday footwear, big kitchen appliances and upholstered chairs. This included the development of a new methodology for measuring consumer optimisation of product life. The research also sought explanations for differences in patterns of consumption and consequent variations in service life. The results reveal substantial differences in the patterns of consumption both between categories of product and across the different stages of the consumption process. They indicate that the service lives of everyday footwear and upholstered chairs are notably more susceptible to consumer influence than large kitchen appliances, and that people are more optimising of product life spans in disposal than in acquisition or ownership.The findings demonstrate that a wide range of factors affect consumers' influence on product life spans, which were classified under the headings; personal, social / situational and product characteristics. The research discovered that the nature and influence of factors is highly complex. A large combination of factors operates simultaneously, they are dynamic over time, and the strength of their impact fluctuates on the basis of interdependencies within the system, and in response to external signals. On the basis of the research findings, the main barriers to consumer optimisation of product life spans were evaluated and their implications and possible solutions were discussed. This thesis demonstrates that consumers play a critical role in the life span of domestic products and that their inclusion in policies to tackle sustainable consumption is imperative

Developing safety signs for children on board trains

Every year a significant number of young children are injured as a result of accidents that occur on board trains in Great Britain. These accidents range from being caught in internal doors, slips, trips and falls and injuries caused by seats. We describe our efforts working with RSSB to design a new set of safety signs in order to help prevent such accidents occurring. The research involved running a set of workshops with young school children (aged 4-10, n=210) and showing them examples of existing train signs and gathering the requirements for new designs. A second set of workshops with these children was used to evaluate the new signs based on the outcomes from the earlier workshop. We describe our findings alongside a set of outline guidelines for the design of safety signs for young children, A final section outlines possibilities for future research

Developing safety signs for children on board trains: findings from Great Britain

Every year a significant number of young children are injured as a result of accidents that occur on board trains in Great Britain. These accidents range from being caught in internal doors, slips, trips and falls and injuries caused by seats. We describe our efforts working with RSSB to design a new set of safety signs in order to help prevent such accidents occurring. The research involved running a set of workshops with young school children (aged 4-10, n=210) and showing them examples of existing train signs and gathering the requirements for new designs. A second set of workshops with these children was used to evaluate the new signs based on the outcomes from the earlier workshop. We describe our findings alongside a set of outline guidelines for the design of safety signs for young children. A final section outlines possibilities for future research

Salivary free light chains as a new biomarker to measure psychological stress: the impact of a university exam period on salivary immunoglobulins, cortisol, DHEA and symptoms of infection:the impact of a university exam period on salivary immunoglobulins, cortisol, DHEA and symptoms of infection

Introduction: Measurement of immunoglobulin free light chains (FLCs) in saliva can serve as a non-invasive biomarker in health and behavioural research. FLCs have been explored in relation to physiological stress but FLC responses to psychological stress and their relationship with infections remain unknown. This study aimed to investigate the impact of exam period stress on salivary FLCs alongside other established biomarkers of stress and whether FLCs relate to symptoms of infection. Methods: 58 healthy adults studying at university completed saliva samples and questionnaires in a period without exams (baseline), and again prior to the start of an exam period. Saliva samples were assessed for FLCs, IgA, cortisol and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA). Measures of life events stress, perceived stress, anxiety and depression were completed. Students also reported incidence and severity of symptoms of infection and rated general well-being at baseline, prior to, during and after the exam period. Exercise, sleep and alcohol consumption were also assessed at both timepoints. Results: FLCs secretion rates were significantly lower at the exam period compared to baseline (p &lt;.01), with reductions of 26% and 25% for κ FLC and λ FLC, respectively. In agreement, salivary IgA secretion rate was lower at exams (non-significant trend, p =.07). Cortisol concentration significantly increased at exams (p &lt;.05) while DHEA did not change, leading to an increase in the cortisol:DHEA ratio (p =.06). Depression (p &lt;.05) and anxiety increased from baseline to exams and life stress reported in the build up to the exam period was higher compared with baseline (p &lt;.001). Well-being significantly decreased from baseline to exams (p &lt;.01). The proportion of participants reporting infection symptoms (70%) was unchanged between baseline and prior to exams. No significant relationships were found between FLCs or other saliva parameters and infection symptoms, well-being or stress/psychological measures. Changes in saliva parameters between timepoints were independent of health behaviours. Conclusions: Salivary FLCs are responsive to life events stress and corroborate with IgA. This preliminary study highlights the potential utility of FLCs as a new salivary biomarker in stress research.</p