Chopwell Township 1851-1911 : Aspects of Residency Using A Microcosmical Approach

This thesis presents the results of an exploration into aspects of the residency of the inhabitants of four County Durham mining villages over the period 1851-1911. These four villages - Chopwell, High Spen, Blackhall Mill and Victoria Garesfield - were all within a few kilometres of each other and housed the population of a region known, historically, as Chopwell Township. Miners in High Spen and Victoria Garesfield had been working coal from the middle of the nineteenth century but major developments at Chopwell from 1895 created a new colliery village of over 5000 inhabitants by 1911. This large in-migration created some unusual conditions for this inquiry into residency. The basic data for the analysis was obtained from the on-line versions of seven Censuses (1851-1911), supported by parish registers (1890-1911) and the 1910 Property Valuation Survey. Generally the ten-year Residential Persistence rates determined for three of the villages are comparable to other published figures, while the ten-year rates of Chopwell differ. It is suggested that the low values found for Chopwell, over the decade 1901-1911, were the result of the influx of workers which created a transient period of social ‘churning’ as the migrants adjusted to their new environment. A study of the inter-censal period, 1901-1911 for Chopwell and High Spen, revealed frequent short-distance migrations with residents moving between streets. Some of these migrations seem to occur for housing reasons, either up-sizing (for larger families) or down-sizing (for smaller families). A limited examination was also made of the conjecture that the presence of large numbers of children in a household restricted mobility but the results were equivocal. To untangle the web of relationships that develop in communities it was necessary to create Household Histories. This exercise revealed ‘hidden’ illegitimate’ children, frequent re-marriages with surname changes, wider kin networks and some doubtful birthplaces

What older people tell us about the role of physical activity in the management of depression

Reports on a study which set out to explore the way in which older people admitted to hospital with depression experience exercise groups and the manner in which they engage in physical activity once discharged. Eleven participants aged 69 to 86 years were purposively selected using exercise group attendance records. The findings from this study support the use of exercise groups for older people admitted to hospital with depression. Community based interventions designed to promote physical activity in older people recovering from mental illness are most likely to be effective if they address individually identified functional goals and take into account the social needs of the older service users

Bayesian Pathway Analysis in Epigenetics

A typical gene expression data set consists of measurements of a large number of gene expressions, on a relatively small number of subjects, classified according to two or more outcomes, for example cancer or non-cancer. The identification of associations between gene expressions and outcome is a huge multiple testing problem. Early approaches to this problem involved the application of thousands of univariate tests with corrections for multiplicity. Over the past decade, numerous studies have demonstrated that analyzing gene expression data structured into predefined gene sets can produce benefits in terms of statistical power and robustness when compared to alternative approaches. This thesis presents the results of research on gene set analysis. In particular, it examines the properties of some existing methods for the analysis of gene sets. It introduces novel Bayesian methods for gene set analysis. A distinguishing feature of these methods is that the model is specified conditionally on the expression data, whereas other methods of gene set analysis and IGA generally make inferences conditionally on the outcome. Computer simulation is used to compare three common established methods for gene set analysis. In this simulation study a new procedure for the simulation of gene expression data is introduced. The simulation studies are used to identify situations in which the established methods perform poorly. The Bayesian approaches developed in this thesis apply reversible jump Markov chain Monte Carlo (RJMCMC) techniques to model gene expression effects on phenotype. The reversible jump step in the modelling procedure allows for posterior probabilities for activeness of gene set to be produced. These mixture models reverse the generally accepted conditionality and model outcome given gene expression, which is a more intuitive assumption when modelling the pathway to phenotype. It is demonstrated that the two models proposed may be superior to the established methods studied. There is considerable scope for further development of this line of research, which is appealing in terms of the use of mixture model priors that reflect the belief that a relatively small number of genes, restricted to a small number of gene sets, are associated with the outcome

Developmental and genetic studies in Murine Histidinaemia

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:D34022/81 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Maintaining places of social inclusion : Ebola and the emergency department

We introduce the concept of places of social inclusion—institutions endowed by a society or a community with material resources, meaning, and values at geographic sites where citizens can access services for specific needs—as taken-for-granted, essential, and inherently precarious. Based on our study of an emergency department that was disrupted by the threat of the Ebola virus in 2014, we develop a process model to explain how a place of social inclusion can be maintained by custodians. We show how these custodians—in our fieldsite, doctors and nurses—experience and engage in institutional work to manage different levels of tension between the value of inclusion and the reality of finite resources, as well as tension between inclusion and the desire for safety. We also demonstrate how the interplay of custodians’ emotions is integral to maintaining the place of social inclusion. The primary contribution of our study is to shine light on places of social inclusion as important institutions in democratic society. We also reveal the theoretical and practical importance of places as institutions, deepen understanding of custodians and custodianship as a form of institutional work, and offer new insight into the dynamic processes that connect emotions and institutional work