Students diagnosed with long-term mental health conditions have been the focus of policy development for over a decade. Student mental health is on the increase and universities are legally obliged to make reasonable adjustments for disabled students. Therefore it is crucial that nursing and midwifery education provides an inclusive learning environment, while maintaining fitness to practice standards. The focus of this study was to explore how discourses of mental health, reasonable adjustments and fitness standards influence nursing and midwifery education for students with a mental health condition. Principles of Wodak’s (2001) critical discourse analysis approach, which gives prominence to dominant discourses, their justifications and persuasive nature was utilised. Ten key written texts and 23 semi-structured interviews with students, lecturers and clinical mentors were conducted to acquire the constructions of mental health, reasonable adjustments and fitness requirements. The findings show that the dominant discourses attributed to students experiencing mental ill health were around medicine, difference and blame, all of which reinforced mental health stigma. In addition, mental health discourses within both verbal and written texts were not underpinned by disability discourses, allowing the exclusion of students who disclose mental ill health from accessing reasonable adjustments. In conclusion, students considered to have a mental health label faced discriminatory barriers and legislative and regulatory requirements of equality were not implemented.

The implementation of standardized testing has changed education in the United States resulting in a content ripple effect from the higher grades down to preschool-aged children. To match that ripple effect early childhood education can be evaluated and reformed accordingly by exploring many factors that make up the early childhood education system. This manuscript addressed one factor, early childhood teacher preparation, through a synthesis of literature related to the potential benefits of earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Early Childhood Development and Education, or a BS. The theories of early brain development were explored first and then studies of the social components affecting an Early Childhood Educator's, or ECE's, choice in teacher preparation were reviewed. The review then defined and compared the Child Development Associate or CDA, the Associate of Arts degree, or AA, and the BS. Professional recommendations and standards according to the National Association for Young Children, or NAEYC were included to understand how valuable the BS is to these trend setters of the field. The review then explored how the BS is currently being used nationally in a state-funded program known as VPK, utilizing the National Institute for Early Education Research, or NIEER. This data provided a snapshot of the national demand for the BS in the early childhood field. The pay disparities were then correlated with levels of education and compared with primary and upper grade compensation. The final value explored was research of how the BS directly affected results of the quality in the early childhood classroom and teacher-child interactions. These studies used two quality rating scales, the ECERS and CLASS, which were defined and compared. The findings of the synthesized literature review provided understanding of a young field that is growing and implies where further research and change could happen to match the effects of an evolving education system in the United States of America.

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Whilst the number of women in the British Parliament increases in line with social progress towards gender equality, androcentric language use in the House of Commons prevails and perpetuates a harmful outdated hierarchical order of gender. The aims of this study are two-fold, (1) to gain insight into how androcentric occupational titles are used to negotiate the hierarchical structure of the Chamber, (2) to explore how MPs’ male bias is reflected by their use of androcentric generic nouns. From a gender perspective with the theoretical framework of feminist critical discourse analysis (CDA), this study analyses debates from the Hansard at Huddersfield Corpus. The analysis found that the term chairman can be used to ascribe rank as it contains an additional level of authority that the gender-neutral chair lacks. Through the use of androcentric generic nouns, the analysis uncovered how a male bias is internalised from various linguistic constructions such as conventional expressions and quotations that portray man as the norm. Stereotypical associations to denominators of professions, subject areas, and their hierarchical order determined by the hegemonic relationship between women and men were found to influence lexical choices. As a result of MPs’ use of androcentric generic nouns, non-male people are misrepresented and constrained by the implications of their connotated gendered meanings.

Cancer is a disease characterized by complexity and unpredictability. Consequently, its treatment is difficult and all too often unsuccessful. Almost all cancers are treated with some combination of the traditional anti-cancer armamentarium: surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy. Recently, however, gene therapy has emerged as a promising addition to this existing repertoire. Its application as a single agent, or in combination with other anti-cancer treatments is proving successful in both pre-clinical and clinical settings. In this work I have investigated the combination of a conventional chemotherapy drug, cisplatin, with a type of cancer gene therapy known as cytosine deaminase + 5-fluorocytosine suicide gene therapy. Suicide gene therapy is the intracellular conversion of non-toxic prodrug to its active form by a metabolic enzyme of non-mammalian origin. There are many established enzyme/prodrug combinations, but here the bacterial enzyme cytosine dearninase (CDA) was used to convert inert 5-fluorocytosine (5FC) to highly toxic 5-fluorouracil (5FU). Of the various vector systems for therapeutic gene delivery, adenoviral (Ad) vectors have proven particularly suitable for application to cancer. This work used a first generation adenovirus type 5 vector expressing the enzyme cytosine deaminase (AdCDA) cloned from E. coli. The combination of AdCDA/5FC with cisplatin was chosen because the combination of 5FU and cisplatin, both of which are used extensively in cancer treatment, has proven effective clinically and demonstrates synergy in vitro. This combination was evaluated in murine mammary carcinoma MTIA2 cells, human colorectal carcinoma HT29 cells, HT29pl4 cells, the photofrin resistant sub-line of HT29 cells, and murine melanoma Bl6/FIO cells. The classical clonogenic assay was used to evaluate this combination treatment since it provides an accurate indication of the effectiveness a cancer treatment will have in vivo. AdCDA infected MTIA2, HT29, and HT29pl4 cell lines exhibited a dose response to increasing concentrations of SFC that was significantly different from control vector infected cells. Similarly, uninfected cells demonstrated a dose response to increasing concentrations of cisplatin. The effect of the combination on clonogenic survival, administered in the sequence of a 48 h exposure to SFC followed by 1 h exposure to cisplatin, was greater than additive compared to the effect of the two treatments alone. F10 cells exhibited a dose response to increasing concentrations of cisplatin. However, it could not be shown reproducibly that AdCDA infected FlO cells exhibited a dose response to SFC that differed significantly from control vector infected cells. Work with the FlO cells was inconclusive regarding the combination treatment, but it rendered information regarding the sensitivity of these cells to what is hypothesized to be an unidentified component present in some preparations of 5FC. Evaluation of this treatment in vivo, using both murine and human tumor cell lines, will further define the potential of AdCDA/5FC + cisplatin as a clinically relevant cancer treatment. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

This study takes a closer look at the screenplay of the 2019 coming-of-age film, Booksmart. Using critical discourse analysis, and Fairclough’s three-dimensional method, it examines the way girls are portrayed based on the screenplay and its audience reviews. The main theories used in order to find the right perspective for this analysis, are Steiner’s (2014) feminist media theory. Gendered Language theories are also taken into account in order to find the right components in the text, such as word choices in the dialogue. Previous studies used to guide this study include Henesy (2020), Yue (2019), Shapiro (2017), Edwards (2016) and Nairn et. al. (2014). Using gendered language, performed gender and feminist values to decode the screenplay, the findings of this study show that the choices made in the screenplay of Booksmart (2019) are to distinguish the difference between the two female protagonists. The main component being how they deliver their dialogue and how certain characteristics in both conversation and personality can change the power dynamic between the two protagonists. The film also manages to split its audience into two groups: the ones who hate it, and the ones who love it.

In recent years the greater emphasis is placed on the renewable energy sources that are environmentally friendly. Demand for renewable energy sources is supported by government incentives, which leads to an increasing pace of investment in this sector. Prices for electricity from renewable energies are far higher than the prices of conventional electricity. If the current trend continues, it is only a matter of time before they meet. According to this fact, PRE Company decided to invest in hydropower. This thesis deals with identifying of potential investment opportunities in small hydropower plants from the PRE point of view and the subsequent evaluation of these variants on the basis of multi-criteria decision making.

This study identifies the characteristics of seven key principles of good/corporate governance at three levels: as notions that originated in business; in their applications to sport through systematic review; and in relation to the interpretations given to them in the Olympic Movement. The aims of this study are, thus, to establish and utilise the IOC s definitions/interpretations and operationalisations of corporate and/or good governance developed in a western framework and apply to a non-western NOC, the Korean Olympic Committee (KOC). This study adopts critical realist assumptions which give rise to the hypothesis that both the regularities of the Korean society and its unobservable social structures have an impact on the corporate governance of the KOC. It also uses Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to examine each interviewee s discourse in order to identify the knowledge embraced by it and to interpret social practice(s) and the exercise of power. CDA is employed in relation to four selected events follows: the KOC/KSC merger, budgetary planning, the recruitment of staff in terms of gender and disability equity and the processes used for selecting the KOC President and the Chef de Mission. The unobservable deep structure is shown to be real domain in Korean society by the social practices exhibited in the four events. The government and, in particular, the State President represent the highest and most influential authority in decision-making on Korean sports policy. That power relationship coupled with the pre-existing structure of the KOC/KSC s financial dependency on the government has resulted in a situation where the government has been able to interfere greatly in the KOC/KSC s overall decision-making on sports policy including the election of the President of the KOC. The KOC/KSC President is the most influential stakeholder in the decision-making within the organisation including the selection of Chef de Mission. As the pre-existing structure of cultural expectations determines that women should usually quit their jobs after marriage and that people with disabilities are incapable of working, the strongly male with abilities-dominated organisational culture has resulted in a social phenomenon whereby few females or people with impairments have succeeded in being promoted to senior positions. From the macro-level perspective, the first KOC/KSC merger accomplished on the orders of the State President shows the dominance of economic power as suggested in Marxist influenced forms of analysis. The incumbent KOC President, who is at the pinnacle of the business elite, contributed to the KOC/KSC merger, which illustrates the aspect of elitism. In connection with the budgetary process, this may be viewed as evidence of the existence of a neo-corporatist structure in which the state plays a central role and acts in a unitary way with the involvement of a limited number of actors. With respect to the meso-level perspective, the aspect of clientelism is exhibited since the government habitually appoints its political aides to be the heads of various sporting organisations. Concerning political governance, it becomes obvious that the government has direct control over KOC/KSC s policy. In terms of systemic governance, the relations among the domestic stakeholders of the KOC are more likely to follow a hierarchical type of governance, as the government has adopted the highest position and the National Federations are under the control of the KOC/KSC. With reference to Lukes (1974) second dimension of power this can be evidenced in the context of the non-decision making roles of women and the disabled. The IOC s interpretations of the key principles of corporate governance in a western framework are applied to the KOC. Accountability, responsibility, transparency and democracy are established but the KOC s governance practices are not equivalent, while effectiveness and efficiency are interpreted as the same ways of the IOC s. In general, power centralisation is apparent throughout the Korean cultural context. The KOC s power structure and organisational culture is likely to be concentrated to the KOC President within the organisation and broadly, the Korean government enjoys its power centralisation decision-making in the Korean context which gives rise to a peculiarly Korean way of interpreting and applying the principles of corporate governance. In such circumstances, nevertheless, where the KOC is making an effort to align its practices with the IOC s recommendations as much as possible, the indication is that the KOC is on course to reflect the IOC s governance practices.

The thesis offers a comparative analysis of language policies in the EU and India. Specifically, it examines the role of power and ideology in the formulation and implementation of language policies. The need for this thesis emerged in view of the lack of comprehensive comparative analyses of language policies which leads to epistemological gaps, including one-dimensional narratives of language policies, and theories which are lacking in precision. In light of these gaps, the thesis undertakes a comprehensive investigation of policies in eight policy domains (administration, legal safeguards for minority languages, law, education, media, healthcare, business, and social welfare) in the EU and India and in two case studies each from the EU (Luxembourg, Wales), and India (Manipur, Tamil Nadu), chosen on the basis of maximum and minimum deviation from the EU's and Indian policies. The study examines policy texts (statutes on language use in these polities), and contexts which concern the historical and socio-political factors underpinning language policies. The thesis makes three important contributions. First, it marks a break from the prevalent understanding of power in macro-level policymaking. Research to date has tended to view power as a monolithic entity, while this thesis offers evidence that power and ideology are not uniform across policy domains. Second, it bridges the text-context divide of language policy research by conducting an investigation of policy-related legislation, and highlighting the importance of texts in understanding language policies, as they reflect the changes in power structures through time. Third, the thesis proposes a new analytical concept for investigating language policies, Categories of Differentiation (COD). Categories of Differentiation refer to the sets of binaries which underpin language policies in the aforementioned case studies. These binaries include the hills-valley divide (Manipur), the Dravidian-Aryan divide (Tamil Nadu), and the autochthonous-allochthonous divide (EU) among others. Language policies have often been described as 'multilayered', and COD offer a systematic approach to exploring these multiple layers. Overall, the thesis demonstrates how comparative research aids understanding of language policies, and sets out a possible theoretical framework for conducting it.

Inom det vetenskapliga fältet för kvinnligt och manligt missbruk beskrivs ofta att kvinnan har andra och mer komplexa behov än mannen. Mannen och hans sociala situation, problematik och behov har generellt beskrivits som norm. Socialsekreterare grundar sina bedömningar och beslut på föreställningar om vad kvinnor och män har för specifika behov. Dessa föreställningar produceras och reproduceras genom rådande diskurser som verkar inom denna specifika sociala domän. Denna studie undersöker vilka centrala diskurser som kan identifieras i socialsekreterares föreställningar om kvinnligt och manligt missbruk, samt hur dessa verkar och reproduceras samt vad det kan få för implikationer för den sociala praktiken. Detta har undersökts genom en kritisk diskursanalys av sex semistrukturerade intervjuer med missbrukshandläggare. I resultatet framkommer tre centrala diskurser: 1) kvinnans utsatthet och komplexa vårdbehov, 2) männen i skuggan, samt 3) individen i fokus. Dessa tre utgör vad som i uppsatsen benämns den vetenskapliga diskursen om kvinnligt och manligt missbruk. Trots att de till viss del är motsägelsefulla visar studien hur socialsekreterare formar sina uttalanden i linje med alla tre och på så vis rättfärdigar sitt sätt att agera och organisera arbetet. Diskursen om individen i fokus framträder dock som dominant i förhållande till de andra två och förefaller vara en diskurs som skapar goda socialsekreterare och främjar klienters autonomi. Genom diskursens status förpassas de andra två, med fokus på genus, till bakgrunden och samhällets rådande könsordning riskerar vidmakthållas. Slutligen förefaller diskursen om individen i fokus verka oproblematiserat både inom det vetenskapliga och praktiska fältet för socialt arbete med missbruk, vilket kan få konsekvensen att socialsekreterare oreflekterat och omedvetet placerar klienter i kategorier som verkar förtyckande. / Within the scientific field of female and male substance abuse, women have often been described as if they have other and more complex needs than men. The man and his social situation, problems and needs are in general described as the norm. Social workers base their assessments and decisions on ideas of what specific needs men and women have. These ideas are produced and reproduced by the prevailing discourses that operate in this specific social domain. This study examines which central discourses that can be identified in the social workers notions about female and male abuse, further how these discourses operate and are reproduced and how that may implicate the social practise. This has been investigated through a critical discourse analysis of six semi-structured interviews with social workers active on the field of substance abuse. The results show three main discourses: 1) women’s vulnerability and complex care needs, 2) men in the shadow, and 3) the individual in focus. These three constitute what in this paper is called the scientific discourse on female and male abuse. Despite they are somewhat contradictory, the study shows how social workers form their statements in line with all three, thus justifying the way they act and organize their work. The discourse about the individual in focus emerges as dominate in relation to the other two and appears to be a discourse that creates good social workers and encourages clients' autonomy. Through this discourse status the other two, with a focus on gender, are relegated to the background and the prevailing gender order in society risks being maintained. Finally, it appears the discourse of the individual in focus seem un- problematized both in the scientific and practical field of social work with substance abuse, which may have the consequence that social workers unreflective and unknowingly puts clients into oppressive categories.