Stay with me

“Hello, I'm from the memory service. I'm looking for Mr Sheppard?” The door swings wide open and a relieved smile beckons me inside. “Oh yes doctor, we've been expecting you. My husband's just in the living room. This way.

The training and development of Muslim faith leaders: current practice and future possibilities

"There were three broad aims [of the review]: 1. To research and evaluate the current training provisions for imams and scholars provided by seminaries and other imam-training institutions in the UK; to explore the strengths and weaknesses of current provision; and, in particular, to identify any gaps in the training of faith leaders that need to be addressed. 2. To explore the different models and methods employed for training faith leaders and to identify elements of best practice for wider dissemination. 3. To explore the possibilities of collaborative initiatives between the providers of Muslim faith leadership training and mainstream further education and higher education institutions and the possibility of attaining additional knowledge and skills leading to higher education qualifications and better employment prospects." - Page 8

Muslim common religious practices at the Cape : identification and analysis

Bibliography: leaves 92-96.This dissertation examines the side by side existence of Popular Islam, or Muslim Common Religious Practices, with Official Islam in the Cape of today. Our task is thus primarily to identify the popular movement as no systematic documentation in this field has to date been attempted. Almost all approaches in Islamic Studies have concentrated an Official Islam and mostly from theological perspectives. In those works references to particular common beliefs and practices have been made and sometimes suggestively. Comparatively, however, much more, and perhaps methodologically not enough, has been done in Christian studies under the headings of Popular Religion, African Christology and very importantly, African Indigenous Church movements. The academic study of Islam, however, is still a relative novelty in South Africa and we suspect that the area of research into the popular movement may not gather momentum as rapidly as studies on the official movement. This apathy towards this "invisible institution" is attributable to the marginality it receives as a religious response

Magnetocaloric effect and critical behavior near the paramagnetic to ferrimagnetic phase transition temperature in TbCo2-xFex

Magnetocaloric effect (MCE) in TbCo2-xFex has been studied by dc magnetization measurements.On substituting Fe in TbCo2, not only the magnetic transition temperature is tuned to room temperature, but also the operating temperature range for MCE is increased from 50 K for TbCo2 to 95 K for TbCo1.9Fe0.1. The maximum magnetic entropy change (-{\Delta}SM) for TbCo1.9Fe0.1 is found to be 3.7 J kg-1 K-1 for a 5 T field change, making it a promising candidate for magnetic refrigeration near room temperature. The temperature dependent neutron diffraction study shows a structural phase transition (from cubic to rhombohedral phase with lowering of temperature) which is associated with the magnetic phase transition and these transitions broaden on Fe substitution. To investigate the nature of the paramagnetic to ferrimagnetic phase transition, we performed a critical exponent study. From the derived values of critical exponents, we conclude that TbCo2 belongs to the 3D Heisenberg class with short-range interaction, while on Fe substitution it tends towards mean-field with long-range interaction. The derived values of critical exponents represent the phenomenological universal curve for the field dependence of {\Delta}SM, indicating that TbCo2 and TbCo1.9Fe0.1 belong to two different universality classes.Comment: 12 figure

Rilpivirine-Associated Aggregation-Induced Emission Enables Cell-Based Nanoparticle Tracking

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) has improved the quality and duration of life for people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. However, limitations in drug efficacy, the emergence of viral mutations and the paucity of cell-tissue targeting remain. We posit that to maximize ART potency and therapeutic outcomes newer drug formulations that reach HIV cellular reservoirs need to be created. In a step towards achieving this goal we discovered the aggregation-induced emission (AIE) property of the non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor Rilpivirine (RPV) and used it as a platform for drug cell and subcellular tracking. RPV nanocrystals were created with endogenous AIE properties enabling the visualization of intracellular particles in cell and tissue-based assays. The intact drug crystals were easily detected in CD4+ T cells and macrophages, the natural viral target cells, by flow cytometry and ultraperformance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. We conclude that AIE can be harnessed to monitor cell biodistribution of selective antiretroviral drug nanocrystals

Improving the diagnosis and prediction of progression in mild cognitive impairment

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a clinical condition conceptualized as a stage between normal cognition and dementia. To diagnose it requires subjective cognitive impairment, evidence of cognitive impairment on cognitive testing but no abnormality in a person's functioning and no evidence of dementia (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). There has been growing interest in the condition over the past two decades or so because people with MCI are much more likely than people with no cognitive impairment to progress to dementia (Roberts et al., 2013). However, a significant percentage of people with MCI will not progress to dementia and some will revert to having normal cognition. Rates of progression and reversion to normal cognition vary widely in different studies (Manly et al., 2008). People with MCI experience worry about their symptoms and this is partly alleviated by receiving a diagnosis of MCI and being reassured they do not have dementia (Gomersall et al., 2017). The benefits of diagnosis also include gaining a greater understanding of their symptoms and accessing clinical support but a significant amount of uncertainty remains with regards to the risk of progression and recipients of the diagnosis remain frustrated at the lack of treatments for MCI (Gomersall et al., 2017). There has been much interest in improving the prediction of progression to dementia from MCI but to date, the best predictors of progression remain structured clinical and functional assessments, with some additional benefit from measures of cortical volume/thickness from brain imaging (Korolev et al., 2016). As yet, however, there are no interventions that can prevent (Kane et al., 2017) or treat (Cooper et al., 2013) MCI so it seems set to remain an important clinical entity for the foreseeable future

Viscosity of fragile glass-forming melts obtained by high rate calorimetry

Die Kenntnis des temperaturabhängigen Viskositätsverhaltens η(T) einer Glasschmelze ist für Technik und Wissenschaft aufgrund von Heißumform- und Abkühlprozessen, als auch zur Gewinnung tiefergehender Erkenntnisse über die Schmelzstruktur, z. B. die Fragilität einer Schmelze oder die Rolle der Netzwerkbildner und Netzwerkwandler von großem Interesse. Leider ist es nicht einfach, mit vergleichsweise langsam laufenden viskosimetrischen Methoden die gesamte Viskosität oberhalb der Glasübergangstemperatur Tg bei einigen Glassystemen aufgrund der bei den Messungen auftretenden Kristallisation zu messen. Diese Kristallisation beeinflusst stark die Viskosität der resultierenden heterogenen Systeme. Als Ergebnis wird eine Lücke in den Viskositätsdaten zwischen Tg und der Temperatur der stabilen Flüssigkeit erhalten. Weiterhin wurde in der Literatur gezeigt, dass man die aus kalorimetrischen Experimenten abgeleitete -lg qc vs. 1/Tf-Kurve auf die lg η vs. 1/T-Beziehung überlagern kann, indem man einen sogenannten parallelen Verschiebungsfaktor lg K verwendet. Somit ermöglicht K das Abrufen von η, ohne dass Viskositätsmessungen durchgeführt werden müssen. Dies ist von entscheidender Bedeutung, da die Kristallisationsneigung der hier untersuchten Gläser die Bestimmung der Flüssigkeitsviskosität durch rheologische Methoden in einem weiten Temperaturbereich oberhalb von Tg verhindert. Diese kumulative Doktorarbeit wurde entwickelt, um einen kombinierten experimentellen Ansatz basierend auf Kalorimetrie und Viskosimetrie zu testen und um die Lücke in den Viskositätsdaten für mehrere zerbrechliche Glassysteme zu schließen, die aufgrund schneller Kristallisation auftritt. Ein neues kommerzielles Hochgeschwindigkeitskalorimeter wurde mit konventioneller Kalorimetrie kombiniert, um Abkühl- und Aufheizraten bis zu 40.000 K s−1 (2.400.000 K min−1) abzudecken und durch Anwendung von parallelen Verschiebungsfaktoren Konset, Kpeak und Kend Viskositäten von Tg bis hinunter nach η = 104,9 Pa s zu erhalten. Im Detail handelt es sich bei den in dieser Studie getesteten zerbrechlichen Schmelzen um Silikatgläser (Lithiumdisilikat, Diopsid und Standardglas DGG I), ein Fluorphosphatglas (N-PK52A), Telluritgläser (reines TeO2 und zwei Natriumtelluritgläser) und Zr-basierte metallische Gläser (Vitreloy 105 und AMZ4). Es wurde festgestellt, dass dieser kombinierte experimentelle Ansatz geeignet ist, die η(T)-Lücke für die genannten Schmelzen zu verengen. Neue Daten wurden vom Glasübergangsbereich bis hinunter nach η = 106,3 Pa s für das Fluorphosphatglas, 105,5 Pa s für Silikatgläser, 105,3 Pa s für Telluritgläser und 104,9 Pa s für metallische Gläser erhalten. Eine anschließende stark eingeschränkte Parametrierung der verfügbaren Viskositätsdaten ermöglicht die Beschreibung des gesamten Viskositätsbereichs. Nach dieser experimentellen Vorgehensweise verbleibt eine kleinere Lücke in den Viskositätsdaten aller Gläser. Zusätzlich für reines TeO2, dessen schwache Glasbildungsfähigkeit und starke Kristallisationsneigung zuverlässige Messungen im unterkühlten Zustand verhindern, liefert die Parametrisierung den ersten experimentell ermittelten Viskositätsverlauf. Im Fall der metallischen Gläser deuten die bereits verfügbaren gemessenen Viskositätsdaten aus der Literatur auf die Existenz eines ungewöhnlichen Viskositätsverhaltens hin, den „fragile-to-strong“ (F–S) Übergangs. Die in dieser Dissertation bereitgestellten neuen Daten und Anpassungen grenzten das Auftreten dieses F-S-Übergangs auf eine Region bei höherer Temperatur ein.Knowledge about the temperature-dependent viscosity behaviour η(T) of a glass melt holds strong interest for both, technology and science due to hot-forming and cooling processes as well as to gain deeper knowledge about the melt structure, e.g. the fragility of a melt or the role of the network formers and modifiers. Unfortunately, it is not easy to measure the entire viscosity above the glass transition temperature Tg with comparatively slow running viscometric methods for some glass systems due to crystallisation occurring during the measurements. This crystallisation strongly influences the viscosity of the resulting heterogeneous systems. As a result, a gap in viscosity data is obtained between Tg and the temperature of the stable liquid. Further, it has been demonstrated in the literature that one can superimpose the -lg qc vs 1/Tf curve derived from calorimetry experiments on the lg η vs 1/T relationship by using a so-called parallel shift factor lg K. Thus, K enables retrieving η without the need to conduct viscosity measurements. This holds crucial importance since the proneness to crystallise of the glasses studied here prevents determination of liquid viscosity by rheological methods within a wide temperature range above Tg. This cumulative doctoral thesis was designed to test a combined experimental approach based on calorimetry and viscometry to narrow the gap in viscosity data for several fragile glass systems that appears due to fast crystallisation. A new commercial high-rate calorimeter was combined with conventional calorimetry to cover cooling and heating rates up to 40,000 K s-1 (2,400,000 K min-1) and thereby receive viscosities from Tg down to η = 104.9 Pa s by applying parallel shift factors Konset, Kpeak and Kend. In detail, the fragile melts tested in this study are silicate glasses (lithium disilicate, diopside and standard glass DGG I), a fluorophosphate glass (N-PK52A), tellurite glasses (pure TeO2 and two sodium tellurite glasses) and Zr–based bulk metallic glasses (Vitreloy 105 and AMZ4). It was found that this combined experimental approach is suitable to narrow the η(T) gap for the mentioned melts. New data were obtained from the glass transition region down to η = 106.3 Pa s for the fluorophosphate glass, 105.5 Pa s for silicate glasses, 105.3 Pa s for tellurite glasses and 104.9 Pa s for metallic glasses. A subsequent highly-constrained parameterisation of the available viscosity data makes it possible to describe the entire viscosity range. A smaller gap remains in the viscosity data of all glasses after this experimental procedure. Additionally, for pure TeO2, whose weak glass-forming ability and strong tendency to crystallise prevent reliable measurements in the undercooled state, the parameterisation provides the first experimentally-determined viscosity curve. In case of the metallic glasses, the already-available measured viscosity data from literature suggest the existence of an unusual viscosity behaviour, the fragile-to-strong (F–S) transition. The new data and fits provided in this thesis narrowed down the appearance of this F-S transition to a region at higher temperature