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This study set out to improve upon the quality of research addressing variation in cancer outcomes amongst children and young adults (CYAs) through the novel application of multiple imputation (MI) to the population based Yorkshire cancer register. The study also sought to determine whether there were inequalities in disease severity according to age, ethnicity or deprivation for CYAs with cancer for the first time in the UK and to quantify cardiovascular late effects amongst survivors of CYA cancer based on a unique data linkage approach to hospital admission data. Key survival inequalities for CYAs with central nervous system (CNS) tumours (n=795), leukaemia (n=912) and germ cell tumours (GCTs) (n=846) between 1990 and 2009 were identified. Teenagers and young adults (TYA) compared to children across all three groups and those of non-white and non-Asian ethnicity diagnosed with CNS tumours had significantly poorer survival. Importantly, these survival inequalities could not be explained by differences in the stage at diagnosis according to age, ethnicity or deprivation. Survival rates from CNS tumours and leukaemia continued to improve over time. These improvements only became evident after using MI to adjust for missingness, which is often ignored by researchers. Despite no observed improvement for GCTs over time, the number of advanced stage tumours at diagnosis decreased significantly for this diagnostic group. For all cancers combined, the long term cardiovascular effects of cancer exist not only for children, but also for TYAs surviving their cancer. Continued efforts should be made to ensure equal access to clinical trials and improved treatment protocols for TYAs. In addition, children as well as TYAs should be monitored for early signs of cardiovascular disease to maximise cardiovascular health. Finally, ignoring missing data can result in reduced study power and biased estimates, thus researchers should strive to use advanced techniques such as MI to account for missing data.

Humans live in large, complex social groups, where relationships are thought to be managed through complex social and communicative abilities. Despite extensive evidence that having a larger social network is associated with positive life outcomes, the individual characteristics associated with the formation and maintenance of social ties and why some individuals have larger social networks than others, are not well understood. In this thesis, I studied the relationship between social network size and individual differences in personality, expressivity, and reactivity to stress. This thesis focuses on how this relationship presents in older adults- an overlooked population in individual differences research who may be at particular risk of the consequences to having a smaller social network. First, I outline the findings from a secondary analysis of a large, nationally representative sample of older adults, which indicated that the personality traits, extraversion, and agreeableness, were strong predictors of social network size. Next, I expanded the study of socio-communicative traits to include self-rated and observed facial expressivity. The findings from this online survey indicated that extraversion, agreeableness, and openness were strongly associated with social network size, though expressive traits were not. Finally, I studied the impact of stress on facial behaviour and how facial and physiological reactivity to stress may be related to social network size. I found that stress had an effect on smiling behaviour during social interactions but did not prompt a change in overall expressivity. Indices of reactivity to stress were not related to social network size, but as in my previous studies, I found that extraversion was related to social network size, as was expressive impulse control. Overall, this thesis contributes to the discussion on how socio-communicative traits may have evolved to help us succeed in a complex social environment, as well as contributing evidence on how individual differences influence social outcomes in older people.

The general wellbeing (GWB) of employees is affected by various job, individual and related factors, including working conditions, job satisfaction, work-life balance and similar measures of an employee’s quality of working life (QoWL). These factors in turn can be affected by the set of overarching values that can give value and meaning to the work undertaken by employees. These values could come, in part, from the national or religious culture people grow-up in. Although there has been much research conducted on the quality of working life and wellbeing of employees, most of this research has been undertaken in western countries and based on western values. Very little of this research has been conducted on how the QoWL and wellbeing of workers is related to these values in a majority Islamic (e.g. Turkey) country, or have directly compared this to a non-Islamic or non-religious majority society (e.g. the UK). To investigate this gap in the research, the present thesis addresses four main objectives: (i) to explore and understand the concept of the QoWL and wellbeing in employees working in Turkey; (ii) to determine the extent to which such values affect the QoWL and wellbeing of Turkish workers and whether this effect is influenced by the religiosity of workers; (iii) to investigate if the observed relationship between wellbeing and religiosity on these values can also be observed in UK employees and (iv) to determine if these values affect the wellbeing of Turkish and UK religious workers differently. Both qualitative and quantitative designs were employed across the studies of this thesis. An initial study used semi-structured questions across six focus groups (n = 42 participants) and found evidence of religion and job characteristics having an impact on the wellbeing and work satisfaction of Turkish employees. Based on the results of this study, a survey containing questions about the QoWL and Islamic Work Ethic (IWE) values was then distributed to Turkish employees (n= 453). A translated and adapted version of this survey was then used to examine the same aspects of a UK sample of employees (n= 481). In the final stage of the project, the data for the Turkish and UK workers were compared to come to an understanding of how IWE values differentially influenced the experience of work and general wellbeing of these employees. The qualitative data were analysed using applied thematic analysis and the quantitative data was analysed using structural equation modelling. The results indicated that IWE values indirectly affected the General Wellbeing (GWB) of highly religious Turkish workers, as well as, somewhat surprisingly, for both religious and nonreligious UK workers. When only religious employees from the two countries were compared, it was found that the relationship between IWE and GWB was mediated by different job characteristics. For example, whilst Work-Life Balance was a strong mediator for Turkish religious workers, Job-Career Satisfaction was the strongest mediator between IWE and GWB for religious UK workers. The findings of this thesis contribute to the literature of several disciplines including occupational psychology, business ethics, management, and wellbeing, and provide an important insight into how workers’ work ethic values relate to their wellbeing and how this relationship is relevant to HR practitioners.

Repair of DNA damage is one of the most important processes undergone in a dividing cell. This is a two-part study undertaken to better understand some of the proteins involved in the sensing and repair of DNA damage in Drosophila melanogaster. The first portion of this experiment followed two Drosophila Rad51 paralogs, dmRad51D and dmXRRC2, and using constructs tagged with GFP, found that they entered the nucleus in response to drug induced DNA damage. Approximately one hour after the induction of DNA damage via bleomycin, dmRad51D and dmXRCC2 entered the nucleus of the Drosophila culture cells, where they remained for the next three to four hours. Following this period in the nucleus, the cells were visualized moving back into the cytosol. The second portion of this experiment was concerned with the four Drosophila Rad51 paralogs (dmRad51 D, dmXRCC2, Spn B, and Spn D) and two paralogs from Homo sapiens (hsRad51 D and dmRad51 D) and their interactions.

Parkinson's disease (PD) neurodegeneration is characterized by loss of the dopaminergic cells of the substantia nigra, and has been linked to oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction. The reactive neurotransmitter dopamine (DA) may play a role in neuronal vulnerability. DA oxidation has been shown to elicit dopaminergic toxicity in animal models, covalently modify proteins, and affect mitochondrial function. However, mitochondrial protein targets of DA modification are unknown. In this study, I utilized proteomic techniques to identify and characterize mitochondrial proteins altered following in vitro exposure to DA oxidation. Using two-dimensional difference in-gel electrophoresis and mass spectrometry analyses, I identified a subset of mitochondrial proteins that exhibited decreased abundance following exposure of isolated rat brain mitochondria to DA quinone (DAQ). Losses of two of these proteins, mitochondrial creatine kinase (MtCK) and mitofilin were further confirmed by Western blot analyses. Western blot also confirmed significant decreases of these two proteins in differentiated PC12 cells exposed to DA. I next utilized two-dimensional gel electrophoresis with autoradiography to identify proteins covalently modified by DAQ. I identified a subset of proteins covalently modified by ¹⁴C-DA from rat brain mitochondria exposed to ¹⁴C-DAQ and from differentiated SH-SY5Y cells exposed to ¹⁴C-DA. Proteins including mortalin/GRP75/mtHSP70, subunits of Complex I, MtCK, and mitofilin, amongst other proteins, were found to be covalently modified. We chose to further examine mitofilin, a protein implicated in maintaining mitochondrial structure. To characterize the effect of altered mitofilin levels on cell viability, I utilized overexpression and knockdown techniques to modulate mitofilin expression in dopaminergic cell lines, differentiated PC12 and SH-SY5Y cells, and examined their response to dopaminergic toxins, DA and rotenone. I found that increased mitofilin expression was protective against both DA- and rotenone-induced toxicity in both cell lines, and decreased mitofilin enhanced DA-induced toxicity in differentiated SH-SY5Y cells. Therefore, in this thesis, I identified a subset of mitochondrial and cellular proteins that are potential targets of DA-induced modification, and may have roles in PD pathogenesis. Modulating the expression level of one of these proteins, mitofilin, affected the cellular response to toxins, and may play a role in dopaminergic cell vulnerability.

One hundred eighty five college students (75 male and 110 female) solved 12 anagrams, completed the Bem Sex Role Inventory, and completed a posttest which measured participant's internal and external attributions about the success or failure outcome of the anagram solutions. A 4 x 2 x 2 factorial ANOVA with gender-role type (masculine, feminine, androgynous, or undifferentiated), biological sex, and outcome as the independent variables was used to analyze the outcome scores for internal and external attributions. Contrary to prediction, there was no significant interaction between gender-role identity and outcome. The internal attributions in the success condition for all subjects were significantly greater than internal attributions in the failure condition. There were no other significant main effects or interactions. Results of this study are in agreement with meta-analytic findings which state there are no significant differences between males and females in success/failure attributions.

The growing array of scams and the ability to commit fraud from different countries via the Internet makes it difficult for authorities to identify and prosecute offenders, leaving victims without justice. Fraud prevention often concentrates on warning victims about specific scams already in operation, however, such information dates quickly as new scams arise or scammers adapt their techniques. Additionally, Internet security warnings are frequently ignored due to their abundance and the security fatigue felt by users. An individual difference approach to scam prevention has not as yet been adopted by relevant agencies, despite the fact that scammers often focus on those characteristics when targeting potential victims. This approach would allow for more tailor-made advice to potential and repeat victims of fraud. The aim of the present thesis was to identify individual differences that may be implicated in vulnerability to fraudulent offers in order to develop a valid measure of susceptibility to fraud. In the first study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with fraud victims to explore personal meanings and experiences associated with becoming a victim of fraud. Using a thematic analysis, several diverse reasons emerged for being motivated to respond to and remain engaged with fraudulent offers. These included the personal needs and attributes of the victim; their life circumstances, interpretation of source credibility and the type of persuasion techniques used. These findings, along with available research, theories and models, were used to inform the development of a psychometric measure assessing individual vulnerability to fraud in the second study. The newly developed Susceptibility to Fraud Scale consisted of five subscales measuring compliance, impulsivity, vigilance, the time invested in decisionmaking and belief in justice; the Scale was found to predict previous fraud victimisation, the ability to recognise phishing correspondence, and real-life situations that may be a scam. In the final study, the newly developed scale was tested using a proxy scam situation. Susceptibility to fraud evaluated by the scale was related to the acceptance of false personality feedback (known as the Barnum Effect), with individuals who were more susceptible to fraud, compliant and impulsive, more likely to see themselves as inferior to others. Previous fraud victimisation was connected to impulsivity. The findings also suggested that fraud susceptibility may not always be connected to fraud victimisation. The newly developed Susceptibility to Fraud Scale is the first scale of its kind. It is based on the various analytical concepts and supported by the evidence of three separate studies, offering new ways of addressing vulnerability to fraud offers. Additionally, the overall findings of this programme of research were used in the formation of the proposed Model of Fraud Susceptibility.

Postgraduate learners are not only important for contributing to the development of Pakistan, but their age and exposure to English has the potential to reveal interesting motivations and attitudes towards learning English when compared to lower-level learners. This thesis investigates the motivations and attitudes toward learning English in rural-urban contexts of postgraduate (MA/MSc) non-major English as Second Language (ESL) students in Pakistan. This thesis addresses three main objectives. First, to identify postgraduate learners' motivational orientations toward learning English and their attitudes toward English as a World Language (EWL); second to determine whether the learners' gender has an effect on their attitudes toward EWL; third to identify learners' perceptions about the de-motivational factors related to impeding their successful English learning in the classroom. This study employed a concurrent mixed-methods design. The data collected from a remote public university in the developing province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan, with the survey completed by 500 students, and the semi-structured interviews were conducted on 26 postgraduate students. The quantitative data were analysed using factor, correlation, and regression analyses and t-tests. The qualitative data were analysed using thematic analysis. In contrast to earlier studies, this study identified that learners exhibit a wide range of L2 motivational orientations. The findings confirmed the newly-discovered ‘National Interest’ orientation in its extended form categorised as 'National-Islamic Interests, and confirmed Dörnyei's recent Ideal L2 self in this context, and also points toward the emergence of the rarely noted 'L2 Indigenous Integrative’ orientation, related to using English for local purposes. Similarly, the other rarely noted orientations of 'EWL as a L2 motivation', 'Family Interests', and 'Use of English for Voicing Females' Rights' emerged in the study. The traditional concept of L2 Integrative did not emerge, which confirms findings from studies such those by Lamb (2004) suggesting that L2 Integrative may be unattainable in a globalizing world. The findings also highlighted four aspects of the learners' positive attitudes towards EWL: 'attitudes toward the non-native varieties of English', ‘attitudes toward English as a main source of global communication', ‘attitudes toward the use of English as a tool of cross-cultural communication', and ‘attitudes toward the supremacy of native speakers and their Englishes'. The study revealed that learners' attitudes toward EWL had a positive correlation with learners’ motivational orientations. In general, learners' gender did not have an impact on their attitudes toward EWL. However, females appeared to hold more positive beliefs in the supremacy of native speakers and their use of English. Finally, the three main sources of learners' de-motivation: teacher-related factors (methods of teaching, behaviour, etc.), learner-related factors (feelings of L2 anxiety and reduced confidence), and factors related to the classroom environment and facilities are highlighted. On the basis of all findings, theoretical implications, suggestions for language policymakers and recommendations for further research are provided in Pakistan.

The last 25 years of UK’s drug policy has been criticised as focusing on risk management, harm-reduction techniques and contributing to the criminalisation of the drug users whose treatment needs were not adequately addressed. Likewise,until recently research in criminal justice settings has been concentrating on evaluating treatment outcomes, often disregarding individual experiences and processes. Drug policy in the UK has recently undergone a historical shift, striving towards more person-centred practices that focus on recovery and ‘putting people first’. Along with the shift in the drug policy, there is a demand for research that individualises recovery processes and journeys and draws attention to examining personal and contextual factors that influence change. This thesis is part of the interest in individual experiences of addiction and recovery and focuses on delineating the process from one stage to the other. It is divided into two parts: the first part explores the process of change in a group of active users and users in recovery through the examination of their life stories. The second part explores the accounts of change in a group of substance using offenders in prison. Temporality is used as a methodological approach to examine change thoroughly across and at different points in time in order to understand drug using and recovery trajectories. The findings of the current study reveal change as a nonlinear process full of discontinuities, manifested in patterns of interchangeable states of relapse and abstinence or treatment attempts. The transition from addiction to recovery is achieved through the users’ participation in treatment groups that encourage the reconstruction of addict narratives to recovering ones. Analysis of the data collected in the prison confirmed the importance of relational factors in the adoption of new, healthier narratives. Moreover, it highlighted the significance of cultivating a climate of acceptance and support as an essential component of the therapeutic work conducted in prisons. The thesis serves as a critical body of work that links a multidisciplinary body of literature. The findings of the thesis contribute both to the academic knowledge in the fields of forensic psychology, addiction and criminology and provide essential knowledge to practitioners working with substance users both in the community and in the prison.

Background: In general, the shortage of organs and tissues for donation reflects not only the rise in the number of patients in need of transplants, but also the failure to acquire sufficient donors. A variety of factors is responsible for this shortage, including poor public awareness and insufficient knowledge, religious perceptions of potential donors and families, and the failure of healthcare staff to identify potential donors. Because of their close relationships with potential donors and families, nurses are vitally important in the donation process. The hospital nursing population in Israel is composed of people from a mixture of religious groups, creating a complex environment which may influence the nurse's behaviour. There is thus a clear need to examine what factors affect the professional behaviour of nurses in the organ donation process. Aims: The overall aim of this research was develop a sensitive psychometric scale to identify key points in nurses' perceptions of professional duty toward organ donation in the context of religion. Methods: The research was divided into four stages using a number of methods. First, a qualitative study with seven homogenous focus groups of hospital nurses grouped by religion was done. The findings were used for the second stage, whose aim was to develop a sensitive psychometric scale of the coverage, relevance and readability of the initial items and a pilot study examining each item. Next, a large-scale field test was conducted and the data were then analysed using principal component analysis. In the third stage, reliability and validity of the newly developed Care & Donate scale were evaluated. Finally, in stage four, the relationship between the Care & Donate scale and key questions in each category was demonstrated. Results: The first stage found thirteen central themes, reduced into four categories, reflecting the nurses' perceptions towards organ donation. The next stage produced an initial conceptual framework for developing a psychometric scale. In the field test stage, a principal component analysis produced a robust conceptual framework composed of 23 items in three subscales. Conclusion: This research is the first to develop a reliable, valid, sensitive measure of nurses’ attitudes towards organ donation in north of Israel: the Care & Donate scale. The scale should provide the basis for an intervention program for nurses and help evaluate the effectiveness of such programs. Analysis of the Care & Donate scale also provided evidence that the scale is related to scales developed outside of Israel, possibly leading to its use in other countries.

Purpose: A prolonged time to diagnosis (TTD) for cancer patients has been highlighted as a factor potentially contributing to worse outcomes. The majority of early diagnosis research in childhood and young adult (CYA) cancer has focused on primary care. This population-based study aimed to investigate TTD in secondary care services for CYAs diagnosed with cancer and its effect on survival in Yorkshire, UK. Method: 1098 cases of cancer aged between 0-24 years were identified from the Yorkshire Specialist Registry of Cancer in Children and Young People over a 6 year period. ICD-10 codes contained within the in-patient HES episodes were reviewed against accepted UK CYA cancer awareness campaigns in order to identify alert signs and symptoms preceding the date of definitive diagnosis. The cohort was analysed in terms of the time spent in hospital care, number of alert and non-alert code containing events and 1 and 3-year survival, the latter modelled using Cox regression. Results: 457 (41.6%) cases had no identifiable alert code containing episodes preceding their date of diagnosis. In two thirds of the remaining cases (437/641) the alert codes only occurred within the month preceding diagnosis. Cases with alert codes present within the month prior to diagnosis had a significantly poorer survival compared to patients with no alert code containing episodes (hazard ratio=1.67, p=0.003). For cases with a more prolonged TTD, there was a significantly poorer survival for 15-24 year olds (hazard ratio = 2.48, p=0.001) but not for 0-14 year olds (hazard ratio=0.98, p=0.964). Conclusions: In Yorkshire, secondary care services appear to be organised effectively to deal with timely diagnosis of CYA cancers. This research supports the current focus of early diagnosis research at primary care for childhood cancer but indicates the need for further investigation of TTD in secondary care particularly in the TYA population.

The relationship between game content and gameplay remains underexplored. High level debate about the relative narrativity of games remains common, but there is a gap in the understanding about the particularities of how diegetic objects relates to the business of managing player experience and behaviour at the heart of gameplay. The first half of this thesis proposes a new model for understanding gameplay as a network of affordance relationships which define supported actions. The theoretical focus upon supported actions rather than object characteristics enables a better understanding of the framework of gameplay created by a complex system of interrelated objects. In particular, it illustrates how the essential ludic structure of first-person games can be described in very simple terms, thus defining a discontinuity between complexity of experience and simplicity of structure. It is proposed that story is a primary means of managing this discontinuity to provide an immersive and seamless experience. Traditional models of narrative and interactive narrative are discussed to illustrate the problems of attempting to apply them directly to gameplay, and this is summarised in a discussion of the narratology/ludology debate. Instead, a new conceptualisation of narrative, drawn from the use of narrative as a model and metaphor in psychology, and based on schema theory is offered. It is argued that this new, game-specific conceptualisation - of a network of protonarrative units - maps efficiently and effectively onto the affordance model of gameplay and thus resolves the historical problem. In the second half of the thesis, evidence is offered to support the argument that not only can story be understood as a form of affordance, but that by examining commercial FPS titles, it is clear that story is used to manipulate player behaviour - that it serves a distinct gameplay function. This is achieved by analysing core elements of story: worlds and their populations; the avatar as a key device in managing the player/system relationship; and plot as the predetermined changes to object relationships over the course of a game. It is concluded that when gameplay is understood as a network of affordances, and story as a network of proto narrative units, and when the genre is analysed with this model in mind, not only is an understanding of the gameplay function of story evident, but this analysis yields a deeper level of understanding about the nature of FPS games and gameplay than has previously been available.

Interface metaphor is a widely used design technique for interactive computer systems. The advantages of using interface metaphors derive from their ability to promote active learning, which enables a user to transfer knowledge from a familiar real world domain, to an unfamiliar computing domain. Interface metaphor is not currently used for the design of automated phone services, and it was the aim of this thesis to examine whether interface metaphor could improve the usability of speech-activated automated mobile phone services. A human-centred design methodology was followed to generate, select, and develop potential metaphors, which were used to implement metaphor-based phone services. An experimental methodology was then used to compare the usability of the metaphor-based services with the usability of currently available number-based phone services. The first experiment examined the effect of three different interface metaphors on the usability of a mobile city guide service. Usability was measured as a range of performance and attitude measures, and was supplemented by telephone interview data. After three consecutive days of usage, participants both preferred, and performed better with, the service that was based on an office filing system metaphor. Experiment two was conducted over a six week period, and investigated the effect of users' individual differences, and the context of use, on the usability of both the office filing system metaphor-based service, and a non-metaphor service. The results showed that performance with the metaphor-based service was significantly better than performance with the non-metaphor service. The usability of the metaphor-based service was not significantly affected by users' individual characteristics and aptitudes, whereas the number-based service was, suggesting that metaphor-based services may be more usable for a wider range of potential users. Usability levels for both services were found to be consistent across both private and public locations of use, suggesting that speech-activated mobile phone services provide a flexible means of information access. Experiment three investigated the strategies used by participants when interacting with mobile phone services, specifically the visualisation strategy that was used by two thirds of the metaphor-based service participants in experiment two. In addition to the attitude and performance measures used for experiments one and two, face-to face interviews were conducted with participants. The results indicated that significantly more participants visualised the metaphor-based services relative to a non-metaphor service, and that visualisation of the service structure led to significant performance improvements. This thesis has demonstrated the usability benefits of interface metaphor as a design technique for speech-based mobile phone services. These benefits of metaphor appear to derive from their ability to provide a mental model of the phone service that can be visualised, and their ability to accommodate the individual differences of users.