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Diocesan Coordinators are the principal drivers of activities within the Catholic Church in England and Wales to sustain and nourish healthy marriage and family life. This is the first study of their professional context, practices and purpose, further informed by North American accounts of family ministry in Congregational, Reformed and Roman Catholic settings, mainly from the 1980’s. This study aimed to better understand the Coordinator role so as to inform capacity-building efforts within dioceses for family ministry. This is an inductive study using the methodology of qualitative description. Fourteen diocesan coordinators participated in an online survey. Job descriptions, person specifications and diocesan vision statements were reviewed. Four Coordinators were selected for telephone interview. The tripartite conceptual framework draws on the Church’s understanding of family ministry, the diocesan-parish relationship and the ecclesial identity of the family. This study reveals that diocesan Coordinators are primarily responsible for training and networking activities with volunteers engaged in family ministry. Work with families in crisis is largely unacknowledged by their employers. Relationships with parishes are ambivalent. Coordinators tend to develop supra-parish networks of marriage preparation or parenting facilitators, rather than processes which enable autonomous parish family ministry to develop. Diocesan structures of support, including guiding visions for family ministry, are weak, compounding a lack of training for their role. Nonetheless Coordinators have developed important pragmatic approaches and moral frameworks to manage the sensitivities of this ministry. Their practice has implications for broader Church efforts to pastorally accompany families following publication of Amoris Laetitia, the pope’s post-synodal document on marriage and family life. More attention to recording practice is strongly recommended in order to facilitate reflective practice, particularly on pragmatic approaches and moral frameworks. Coordinators and their dioceses need greater theological competence, especially regarding the ecclesial identity of the family, in order to better serve the complexity and realise the potential of parish family ministry.

Asthma is a heterogeneous chronic inflammatory disease characterised by recurrent, reversible airflow obstruction, bronchial hyperresponsiveness (BHR) and airway remodelling. Impaired lung function in childhood asthma has been associated with polymorphisms in ADAM33. Soluble ADAM33 (sADAM33) is increased in bronchial lavage fluid (BALF) from asthmatics and is inversely correlated with FEV1. sADAM33 is induced by TGF-β present in asthmatic lungs, and promotes angiogenesis. ADAM33 expression is developmentally regulated and is influenced by maternal allergy via IL-13. This thesis will examine the hypothesis that alteration in the expression of ADAM33 will influence lung structure, affecting vessel and smooth muscle formation and these subsequent changes will impact on pulmonary function in airway inflammation. In DOX inducible Il-13 transgenic mice, significant neutrophilic inflammation and goblet cell metaplasia were observed. BHR was induced after methacholine challenge and IHC showed increased bronchial smooth muscle. Similarly, in human embryonic and juvenile mouse lungs, IL-13 suppressed Adam33 mRNA but not Acta2. ADAM33 was identified in BALF of the overexpressing mice. ADAM33 enzymatic activity was also significantly increased. In the ADAM33 transgenic model, induction of ADAM33 resulted in enzymatically active sADAM33 in BALF. ADAM33 significantly increased the expression of fibrotic markers suggesting regulation of pulmonary myogenesis, fibrogenesis, and angiogenesis. Consistent with this, immunofluorescence revealed airway remodelling with increased smooth muscle, collagen deposition and vessel formation in ADAM33 mice. In contrast, inflammatory cell counts in BALF, expression of inflammatory mediators and mucus related genes were not altered by ADAM33. In Adam33 -/- challenged with HDM, there was less BHR and eosinophilic and neutrophilic inflammation compared to Adam33 +/+. HDM caused suppression of Adam33 mRNA as well as ectodomain shedding of ADAM33 protein in BALF of wildtype mice that was absent in Adam33 -/-. The study provides novel data showing expression of sADAM33 in airways to induce myogenesis, fibrogenesis and angiogenesis, consistent with a process causing airway remodelling in the absence of inflammation.

The use of the aza-[2,3]-Wittig sigmatropic rearrangement in the synthesis of α,α-disubstituted α-amino acids has been investigated with the emphasis on obtaining enantioenriched rearrangement products. It was hoped that an enantioenriched precursor could form an axially chiral enolate which would impart chiral information on the product. To access an axially chiral enolate, the rearrangement conditions of a known precursor 66 have been studied. Varying temperature had no effect on the enantioselectivity. Different bases were investigated with only KHMDS instigating rearrangement. Upon treatment with KHMDS, 66 rearranged to form the desired product as well as pyrrolidine 119. The temperature of the rearrangement was varied; at lower temperatures only 119 was isolated. A range of precursors with potential chelating groups has been synthesised. The effect of temperature on aza-[2,3]-Wittig rearrangement of these precursors was investigated; however, rearrangement did not occur at below temperatures of around - 40 ºC and this temperature was not low enough to provide an axially chiral enolate intermediate, as evidenced by the racemic nature of the rearrangement products. The aza-[2,3]-Wittig rearrangement of amide precursor 63 was also investigated. The only product isolated upon treatment with KH and 18-crown -6 was pyrrolidine 158. Precursors 150 (derived from tert-leucine), and oxazoline 159 were subjected to rearrangement conditions. Deuterium quench studies showed that, in both cases, deprotonation had not occurred, possibly due to the sterically encumbered enolate that would form upon deprotonation. Further investigations into the cyclisation of 66 showed that the probable mechanism was aza-[2,3]-Wittig rearrangement, followed by cyclisation. The resulting pyrrolidine was formed as a single diastereomer. Precursors 65, 67 and 175 also underwent cyclisation in a similar manner. The relative stereochemistry of these pyrrolidines was determined by nOe experiments. Studies of the mechanism of cyclisation of 63 were inconclusive. It is unknown whether pyrrolidine 158 is formed by an incomplete rearrangement or a fast rearrangement-cyclisation sequence. The utility of the cyclisation was further demonstrated by Fleming oxidation of the dimethylphenylsilyl group and protiodesilylation of 119.

The research focuses on young people excluded from school, and those identified as being at risk of exclusion. It assesses their skills in communication, empathy / perspective taking, and incorporates information from staff at their schools relating to their perceptions of the participants’ communication skills and their risk of exclusion. This data, along with interviews with a smaller sample of the young people who have experienced permanent exclusion, is used to discuss implications for policy and intervention with regard to supporting pupils with language difficulties. The research is set out in two papers. Paper One describes the findings from an assessment of communication skill and empathy / perspective taking. Paper Two uses the findings from Paper One to compare the participants’ skills with the perceptions of their teachers regarding their communication ability and risk of exclusion, and also describes the findings from interviews with a selection of the participants. The research demonstrated significant communication difficulties in the sample groups. This has implications for their prospects, as the literature review highlights the difficulties that young people can experience if their language difficulties are not addressed. The questionnaire completed by staff showed that although many staff were aware of the pupils’ language difficulties, they often underestimated the extent of these difficulties.

The focus of this research is the re-conceptualisation of learning in higher education. By theorising the university as a group of interconnected discourses I have been able to develop an understanding of student learning identity which goes beyond the formal academic settings of the university and which explores the influence of both the social and academic spheres of the university in terms of student transition and engagement in learning. Data were gathered in three phases: through in-depth interviews with sixty nine students entering their first year at three British universities, the collection of three day diaries from forty four of these students and follow up interviews with thirty students from the original sample. By negotiating positions on continua of continuity and discontinuity of experience with interlocutors in identified discourse settings, students were found to experience learning as an integral and transformative aspect of their identities.