In the world today, an awareness and consideration of sustainability and sustainable development is becoming increasingly important. Education and public awareness have been identified as critical components of the transition to sustainability. A great deal of responsibility is now placed on universities in order to achieve a sustainable future due to their heavy influence on students’ skills and attitudes. This dissertation investigates staff and student perceptions and understandings of, and attitudes towards, sustainability and its integration into university curricula. The study also explores the sustainability of student lifestyles and the factors influencing their views and behaviour. The project’s data was collected using in-depth student questionnaires, six interviews with Programme Leaders, and three senior support staff members at the University of Chester. The project revealed that there is greater awareness of sustainability among staff and students as well as engagement with the issue. Although sustainability-related content is being increasingly integrated within university curricula, the extent of its integration varies significantly between disciplines due to staff perceptions.

Liverpool City Council has undergone a huge transformation, perhaps most notably in its front line services. Many of the staff working within the new functionally centralised environments has been exposed to a prolonged period of transformational and ongoing transactional change. This study has attempted to analyse the effects such a change journey has on individuals, looking particularly at the notion of capacity building and change fatigue. The case study utilised interviews with Managers and staff focus groups which were supplemented by surveys of 60 staff within Liverpool City Councils front line services, i.e. Call Centre and One- Stop Shops. The data confirmed that staff within these environments have undergone a unique change journey over the last four years and found that exposure to extensive and prolonged change does increase an individual capacity to undertake further changes in the future. The extent of the presence of capacity building within individuals was found to be similar in both Call Centre and One- Stop Shops. The evidence also suggests the presence of change fatigue within both working environments and particularly so within the One- Stop Shops where more change fatigue was found to be present. The findings from this research suggest that staff within these working environments would benefit from greater involvement in setting the pace of the change, more effective communication about future change and require greater support from managers as the cumulative effects of change builds to a critical point. This case study is largely theoretical with some application in practise.

This qualitative study explores the experiences of four young, single women, who were diagnosed with breast cancer, and examines the impact of this on their sexuality, during and post-treatment. The data was gathered using semi-structured interviews, and analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Emerging themes included identity loss during treatment, differing degrees of adjustment to an altered body post-treatment, and concerns around dating and new relationships. Although each participant was clearly moving forward in positive ways, ongoing emotional losses were also described, including those related to fertility. Findings largely support earlier work in this area, although there have been very few studies with this particular sub-group of women. One finding that differed from other research was the universal acceptance by prospective partners of participants’ altered bodies.

We give introductions to delay differential equations, stochastic differential equations, numerical approximations, Brownian motion and Ito calculus, stability and bifurcation points and Lyapunov exponents. Using these methods we replicate the calculations in the paper by Neville J. Ford & Stewart J. Norton, entitled Noise induced changes to the behaviour of semi implicit Euler methods for stochastic delay differential equations undergoing bifurcation . We present our results that correspond to some of the tables and equations presented in their paper. We then apply the same methodology using a Milstein numerical method with the same parameters and random distributions and compare these results with our ndings from the Euler-Maruyama scheme. We fi nd that the Milstein scheme exhibits the same relational behaviours between the bifurcation approximations from the Lyapunov exponents and step length as was presented in Ford and Norton's paper for the Euler-Maruyama scheme, we also find that the Milstein scheme maintains its greater accuracy up to and including the bifurcation approximation.

Objective: To establish whether there is a relationship between nutrition knowledge and dietary behaviour in members of commercial slimming clubs. Design: A self-completed questionnaire on nutrition knowledge, dietary behaviour and factors associated with weight-loss management. Setting: Members of slimming clubs in their home environment. Subjects: The targeted sample comprised of 56 members of slimming clubs in the Greater Manchester area recruited through social media and the local Rosemary Conley slimming club leader. Results: The level of nutrition knowledge in the study population was high, however this was not significantly correlated with dietary behaviour which was poor (r=0.054; p=.694). Similarly, nutrition knowledge and dietary behaviour were not significantly correlated with education levels, age or alcohol consumption (p>.05). However, a significant inverse relationship was found between educational attainment and BMI (r=-0.392, p=.005). Barriers to weight loss were not reported to be major factors by this study group; the greatest benefits of membership were support and encouragement from other members and the club leader. The proportion of returning members was >70%. Conclusions: Dietary behaviour in members of commercial slimming clubs is not significantly influenced by nutrition knowledge. Although healthy eating recommendations can be valuable, other factors are more important for achieving weight loss, particularly support and fellowship from other members. Slimming club members regain the weight lost after leaving the clubs and inevitably re-join.

This research explores the experiences of counsellors working with suicidal clients with a focus on how counsellors respond to, and are affected by, a suicide policy with which they have disagreements. A comprehensive review of the literature was conducted. Four counsellors who have tensions with their agency’s suicide policy were interviewed and their experiences explored. The data was analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The research concludes that counsellors who would otherwise feel confident in their work with suicidal clients feel anxious and concerned for the safety of their clients as a result of working within a policy that feels inadequate. The research also demonstrates that counsellors feel isolated when in this position and points to the need for counsellor organisations, such as the BACP, to provide a forum in which such issues can be addressed. The research has also resulted in the production of suggestions as to how policy could be improved and demonstrated that the implementation of these changes would alleviate the stress felt by counsellors and provide more support to clients experiencing a suicidal crisis. In addition the conclusions of the research suggest, controversially, that it is ethical for counsellors to breach policy if they believe that the policy does not have the best interest of the client at its heart, and if it does not protect the client in times of crisis.

The under-recognition and under-treatment of malnutrition in the UK, which costs the NHS an estimated £13 billion each year, has been linked to poor provision of nutritional education in medical and nursing academic programmes. The present study aimed to investigate whether the introduction of a mandatory nutritional education programme for doctors and nurses at a district general hospital would influence knowledge and attitudes related to the recognition and treatment of malnutrition and whether subsequent changes in clinical practice would be observed. It was hypothesised that knowledge, attitudes and clinical practice would all improve following training. A repeated measures design was used to assess knowledge and attitudes among junior doctors and registered nurses before and after an educational intervention using a quantitative questionnaire. A clinical audit of compliance with national clinical standards, in the form of the inpatient nutritional screening policy, was used to assess clinical practice and was a repeat of an audit conducted 12 months before. Both audits were compared for analysis. Baseline knowledge scores were below 55% for both doctors and nurses. Baseline attitude scores reflected an overall positive attitude towards nutritional screening for both groups. The results showed that both knowledge and attitudes improved significantly following training for both occupational groups. The audit identified that national clinical standards were not complied with. However, following training, statistically significant improvements were observed in compliance with the nutritional screening policy between 2008 and 2009. Specifically, the audit found that an additional 8.2% of patients were screened on admission to hospital and an additional 50.1% of patients were screened weekly during admission. Figures of prevalence of malnutrition also increased from 15.79% in 2008 to 19.21% in 2009 but were still lower than national statistics. It is recommended that all NHS Trusts implement mandatory nutritional education programmes for doctors and nurses to support clinical governance. Limitations and considerations for future research are discussed.

Throughout 10 May 1940-22 April 1942, British forces conducted a military occupation of Iceland. There were two initial reasons for this venture: firstly, in order to acquire air and naval bases to combat German forces situated along the Norwegian coast; and secondly, in order to prevent the island from coming under German control, thus guarding against encirclement. Whitehall certainly considered it an advantageous undertaking. However, as this dissertation shall show, such beliefs were swiftly escalated. During June 1940, after France’s capitulation, the retention and defence of Iceland became all the more important. It was essential, for example, that Britain could maintain at least one clear access route in and out the North Atlantic. Failure to do so would surely have lead to her starvation and/or military defeat. As a result, and along with other important reasons discussed herein, over 20,000 British Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force personnel, supported at various points by American and Canadian troops, were eventually stationed there. Unfortunately, there are very few publications on the British invasion and occupation of Iceland, notwithstanding a few specialist works. Those works that do exist, however, read more like chronological narratives, rather than analytical studies. Consequently, there exists some exciting opportunities for the historiography’s expansion, not just in size, but also in nature of content. This dissertation, entitled ‘The Uninvited Guests: Britain’s Military Forces in Iceland, 1940-1942’, contributes to that much needed expansion. This dissertation looks at the British occupation of Iceland over two periods: the invasion period, 10-19 May 1940, and the occupation period, 20 May 1940-22 April 1942. It assesses the effects and consequences of both the invasion and occupation, and tries to determine how far they preserved Icelandic freedoms and secured Allied interests in Northern Europe. Indeed, this dissertation shows that the invasion and initial occupation of Iceland was a complete military disaster, one that offered no benefit to either the Icelanders or Allies. If iii anything, it put the Icelanders at greater risk of harm from German retaliation. This dissertation also shows that Britain made good its early deficiencies by eventually bringing security and prosperity to Iceland, where before there had been none, and by positively utilising Iceland in the war against Germany. The conclusions of this dissertation are fascinating; they show that it is possible to cultivate rich reward from an operation that could have been destined for complete disaster.

Bee products such as honey and propolis have been used medicinally for centuries. More recent research has seen specific types of honey such as manuka honey used in wound healing and propolis as a constituent of mouthwashes and throat lozenges. The present study determined the antioxidant and antimicrobial activities of a number of widely available bee products in the UK. The disc diffusion method was utilised to assess the antibacterial activity of the bee products using a range of bacteria known to cause infection in humans. The ferric- reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assay was utilised to assess the antioxidant activity of the bee products. The results demonstrated that bee products had antibacterial and antioxidant capacity but with considerable variation. The most potent effect was observed using manuka 30+ against S.epidermidis (33mm mean zone of inhibition when applied undiluted compared to 11mm when using standard honey). Other bee products were of much less potency including propolis which demonstrated no significant antimicrobial activity. However, the antioxidant capacity of propolis tablets was 95 µmol/l per 1mg/ml (95,000 µmol/l per 1 gram tablet). The most potent honey tested was manuka 30+ which was 9.0 µmol/l per 1mg/ml (4500µmol/l for a 5g portion) compared with standard honey 5.0 µmol/l per 1mg/ml (2500 µmol/l for a 5g portion).The antioxidant activity of propolis was also demonstrated in human saliva. The FRAP value of the saliva from a single human subject was evaluated following the intake of propolis containing lozenges compared with a control (boiled sweet). These biological effects may be significant in vivo and have particular relevant in the prevention in disease in humans. However, further work is needed in the form of randomised controlled trials.

This qualitative research is an exploration of the impact of person centred training on our important friendships. The data was gathered from four practicing person-centred counsellors using semi-structured interviews and subsequently analysed using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis. Findings from the data showed that our friendships are impacted both negatively but largely positively by our training. Emerging themes include notions such as outgrowth and the collision of worlds as we try to integrate our changes into our lives. A major theme was that we become enriched by our new ways of relating and seek this out from all our friendships and that our friendship landscape necessarily changes as we consciously engage with the core conditions. These findings support other work in this area.