Magister Psychologiae - MPsych / The aim of this study was to explore how HIV positive people understand and describe their experience of taking antiretroviral treatment consistently in a strictly organised regimen. Eight participants were recruited from Ikhwezi Clinic. The participants were interviewed using an in depth interview guide. A Phenomenological data analysis was employed through which six themes emerged. The themes are forgetting and memory aids, fitting treatment into daily routine, belief in effectiveness of medication, experiences of side effects, disclosure and social support and relationship with the health care provider. The health belief model and the self-efficacy theory were applied in the study. These theories helped to understand that the decision to take treatment is not only based on the individual experiences and beliefs but the interaction with the social and environmental factors as well. Family, community and health care factors are all interconnected and play a vital role in the decision to commence and continue with HAART. The study revealed that PLWHA can adhere to antiretroviral medication if they believe in the benefits of doing so. Furthermore it became clear that experiences of men and women differ when it comes to HAART. The involvement of the inlaws as experienced by the women in this study had a negative influence in the participants' adherence routine. Further studies are needed to explore the influence of culture in decision making by women with regards to their health.

No description available.

The research presented in the dissertation deals with the synthesis, characterization, photophysical, electrochemical, and pump probe studies of porphyrin-fullerene based donor-acceptor conjugates. The first chapter provides insights into the introduction of the thesis, which explains the events that occur in natural photosynthesis and the mimicking process of an artificial photosynthesis based on natural photosynthesis, works done in covalently and non-covalently linked donor acceptor systems, and the penetration of the literature related to the long-lived charge-separated states donor-acceptor conjugates. The second chapter details the physical methods employed to monitor the various photochemical processes in the donor-acceptor moiety. The third chapter focusses on designing and synthesizing a platinum porphyrin-fullerene dyad used for long-lived charged-separated state. The formation of a high-energy, long-lived radical ion pair by electron transfer from the triplet excited state is orchestrated in the dyad. The porphyrin ring is modified with three triphenylamine which act as secondary electron donors. The spin state of the electrons leading to the formation of long-lived charge-separated state is demonstrated by time-resolved optical and EPR spectroscopy. The fourth chapter studies metal ligand axial coordination. Two porphyrins were self-assembled via metal-ligand axial coordination of phenyl imidazole functionalized fulleropyrrolidine. A 1:2 complex formation with ImC60 was observed in the case of (TTP)Co, while for (TPA)4PCo only a 1:1 complex was possible. Spectroelectrochemistry revealed the formation of Co (III) porphyrin cation instead of Co (II) porphyrin radical cation during the oxidation of phenyl imidazole coordinated cobalt porphyrin. Using computational and electrochemical results, an energy level diagram was constructed to visualize the various photochemical events. Using femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy, it was possible to observe the energy transfer and charge-separation process. The fifth chapter deals with the singlet oxygen generation of platinum and palladium porphyrins. In this chapter, a series of meso-substituted porphyrins are synthesized and metalated by platinum and pallidum porphyrins and characterized by several methods. The ability of both platinum and palladium porphyrins reveals higher electrochemical redox gaps as compared to their free base porphyrins. Both platinum and palladium porphyrins can generate singlet oxygen and probe by monitoring the photoluminescence of 1O2 at 1270 nm. The study highlights the importance of different meso-substituents in triplet porphyrin sensitizers that can estimate the singlet oxygen quantum yield, which is useful for photodynamic therapy, chemical synthesis, and other applications.

This dissertation examines the lives of Latin American immigrants in two enforcement landscapes of the US South, revealing the entanglement of religion with everyday social experiences and their geographies. It supposes that local places and their politics have the potential to structure action, but that these realities do not go uncontested by strategic actors. As federal-local enforcement agreements proliferate, local neighborhoods are increasingly perceived and mapped by immigrants in relation to insecurity and risks they pose. I find that Latinos strategically resist precarity and the local immigration conditions by engaging both communal and individual forms of religion in their neighborhood spaces. They make spaces safe through the enactment of religion where danger is perceived and redefine local geographies that threaten their existence through practical decisions with their religious networks. The research employs ethnographic, visual, and spatial methods, including in-depth interviews with 60 participants. Situated in a practice approach, the research follows these religious actors from their institutional spaces of religion into the multiple and varied locations of their lives. It interrogates the practices in institutions and spaces of the neighborhood, including the immigrant religious congregations that remain a focal point in Latino lives. By attending to the micro interactions and practices that occur in these geographies, the dissertation uncovers how spaces within places are battlegrounds of power where hiddenness and visibility are situationally and strategically employed. The research findings are developed in three empirical chapters, as I map the role of religion in these negative policy contexts. In the first, I consider the place of Latino congregations in relation to the US religious landscape and the logics of congregational geography. Then, I investigate the communal practices of religion at these Latino churches given the everyday experiences of immigrants, documenting the practical ways immigrant congregations assisted members with the local conditions of enforcement. Last, I turn to locate religion in the broader spaces of social life. Participants’ stories reveal that religion is transportable to all kinds of spaces, and they creatively invoke their traditions to claim space and redefine themselves around the neighborhood. Not every practice in everyday life should be counted as religious, but this dissertation reveals that religion remains entangled in the local immigration experience. / 2029-02-28T00:00:00Z

Chronic pain disorders are estimated to affect a significant proportion of the global population. These disorders are often debilitating and pose a substantial challenge to the everyday life of those affected. Modern medicine has made great strides in understanding the physiological processes involved in chronic pain. However, chronic pain is more than merely a physiological process. Chronic pain is an embodied mode of being-in-the-world that manifests in multiple aspects of lived experience, from the ability to perform day-to-day tasks to the relationship between body and self. Consequently, it is essential to cultivate a rich appreciation of chronic pain as a lived experience. To rely solely on physiological knowledge in conceptualizing chronic pain precludes the development of such an appreciation. This work examines the ways that phenomenology can be leveraged to broaden the current medical understanding of chronic pain to better incorporate subjective experience. As a rigorous methodology for studying embodied consciousness, phenomenology provides the theoretical and conceptual tools to form a rich description of chronic pain's lived experience. First, a brief history of theories of pain is presented to contextualize the development of modern medical understandings of chronic pain. Following this, the writings of three classical phenomenologists—Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty—are presented, and key phenomenological concepts are introduced. Phenomenology is then used to examine the lived experience of chronic pain. Finally, means of integrating phenomenology into the current medical framework are explored.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.