Research on the Berard Auditory Integration Training method has shown improvement in the regulation of attention, activity and impulsivity of children whose auditory system have been re-trained. Anecdotal reports have found improvements in sleeping patterns, balance, allergies, eyesight, eating patterns, depression and other seemingly unrelated physiological states. During the Auditory Integration Training (AIT) procedure dynamic music, with a wide range of frequencies, is processed through a system of filters in the AIT device. The volume and tone of the music is constantly and randomly modulated. The researcher explored Berard AIT as a possible intervention for learners between the ages of six and twelve years, who experienced problems with sustained attention and who have difficulty in shifting their attention from task to task. The aim was to investigate if Berard AIT method would enable the learner to stay calm, relaxed yet alert, with focused attention and thus concentration with appropriate reflection before action. An experimental quantative study, with a pretest-posttest control group design, was conducted to investigate the effect that Berard Auditory Integration Training has on learners with attention problems. Checklists and different measurements were conducted before the training started and repeated three months after the training was completed, to monitor if any change in the way that the learners pay attention, occurred the case group of ten learners was compared with ten learners in a control group who did not initially receive the intervention. Although the results of the post-tests varied amongst the learners, most learners in the experimental group experienced a statistical significant increase in attention control and a reduction in behavioural problems by the third month following the listening sessions. / Thesis (M.Ed.), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2010

L'alimentation en eau constitue le principal facteur limitant la croissance, voire la survie des<br />plantes. Les modèles climatiques prévoient pour les 50 à 100 années à venir une baisse des<br />précipitations et des températures estivales accrues dans la moitié sud de la France. La durée<br />de vie d'une forêt de pin maritime, de sa plantation jusqu'à la coupe d'exploitation est<br />justement de 50 ans. Il est donc important de savoir si ces organismes pourront faire face à ces<br />brusques changements climatiques ; en d'autres termes si les variétés améliorées plantées<br />aujourd'hui pourront maintenir le niveau actuel de productivité dans un milieu plus pauvre en<br />eau, et tolérer des épisodes de sécheresse intense. La capacité de ces organismes à faire face à<br />ces perturbations brutales dépendra à la fois de leur plasticité phénotypique et de leur diversité<br />génétique. Dans le cadre de cette thèse, nous avons étudié la plasticité moléculaire du système<br />racinaire de jeunes plants de pin maritime élevés en milieu hydroponique et soumis à un stress<br />osmotique par ajout de polyéthylène glycol. Un plan factoriel croisant deux écotypes (France<br />et Maroc) par cinq niveaux de stress a permis d'analyser les réponses du transcriptome et du<br />protéome à court et long terme. Nos investigations ont porté sur l'accumulation des transcrits<br />de 7000 gènes et de 1200 protéines. L'analyse statistique des données a permis d'identifier<br />des gènes dont la plasticité moléculaire est génétiquement contrôlée, révélant des stratégies de<br />réponse différentes de chaque écotype. La valeur adaptative de ces gènes pourra alors être<br />confirmée par l'interprétation des patrons de diversité nucléotidique de ces gènes candidats.

Le bleuet sauvage (Vaccinium angustifolium Ait. et V. myrtilloides Michaux) représente un marché en plein essor au Canada, premier pays producteur et exportateur mondial de ce fruit. Pour faire face à la demande, les producteurs cherchent continuellement à adapter leurs pratiques de production dans le but d’améliorer leur rendement et l'état de santé de leurs bleuetiers. Or, les micro-organismes présents dans les racines et dans le sol jouent un rôle non négligeable en lien avec la santé des plantes. Ce microbiote est donc d’intérêt d’un point de vue agronomique, pourtant, contrairement à d’autres cultures, très peu d’études se sont penchées spécifiquement sur le microbiote du milieu racinaire du bleuetier sauvage. Ce doctorat s’inscrit donc dans l’optique d’accroître les connaissances sur les communautés bactériennes et fongiques présentes dans les bleuetières au Québec. Les objectifs de ce projet sont de détecter les taxons qui pourraient avoir un impact sur les variables agronomiques des bleuetiers telles que le rendement; d’identifier les variables physico-chimiques du sol influençant ces communautés; et d’étudier les impacts que peuvent avoir les différentes pratiques agricoles, telles que la fertilisation et la fauche thermique, sur ces micro-organismes. Nous nous sommes appuyés sur le séquençage de nouvelle génération et le métacodage à barres de l’ADN environnemental de nos échantillons de racines et de sol afin d’obtenir une analyse des communautés bactériennes et fongiques de la rhizosphère et des racines des bleuetiers. Les analyses multivariées effectuées par la suite permettent de comparer ces communautés et de voir si certaines espèces sont spécifiques à une condition particulière. Dans l’ensemble, cette thèse a donc permis de caractériser les communautés fongiques et bactériennes du milieu racinaire du bleuetier sauvage in situ dans plusieurs bleuetières du Québec. De nombreuses espèces de champignons mycorhiziens éricoïdes ont été systématiquement identifiées dans les trois études et leur prédominance suggère leur importance pour le bleuetier sauvage. Nous avons également trouvé que l’ordre bactérien des Rhizobiales, connu pour sa capacité à fixer l’azote atmosphérique, occupait une part importante de la communauté bactérienne. Les études sur la fertilisation et la fauche thermique ont démontré que ces deux pratiques agricoles avaient peu d’impact significatif sur les communautés microbiennes étudiées. Enfin, cette thèse donne des pistes de réflexion sur la fixation d’azote par les communautés bactériennes et pose les premières bases pour des essais de bio-inoculation avec les espèces fongiques et bactériennes détectées ayant un potentiel impact bénéfique sur la culture des bleuets sauvages. / The wild blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium Ait. and V. myrtilloides Michaux) market is booming in Canada, the world's leading producer and exporter of this fruit. In order to meet the demand, growers are constantly trying to adapt their production practices to improve their yields and the health of their blueberry fields. Micro-organisms present in the roots and in the soil play a significant role in the health of the plants. This microbiota is therefore of interest from an agronomic point of view, yet, contrary to other crops, very few studies have been conducted specifically on the microbiota of the root environment of wild blueberries. This doctoral project therefore aims at increasing our knowledge of the bacterial and fungal communities present in wild blueberry fields in Quebec. The objectives of this project are to detect taxa that could have an impact on agronomic variables of wild blueberry fields such as fruit yield; to identify soil physico-chemical variables influencing these communities; and to study the impacts that different agricultural practices, such as fertilization or thermal pruning, may have on these micro-organisms. We relied on next generation sequencing and metabarcoding of environmental DNA from our root and soil samples to obtain an analysis of the bacterial and fungal communities in the rhizosphere and roots of blueberry shrubs. Subsequent multivariate analyses allow us to compare these communities and see if certain species are specific to a particular condition. Overall, this thesis has characterized the fungal and bacterial communities in the root environment of wild blueberry in situ in several Quebec wild blueberry fields. Numerous species of ericoid mycorrhizal fungi were systematically identified in all three studies, and their predominance suggests their importance to wild blueberries. We also found that the bacterial order Rhizobiales, known for its ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen, occupied an important part of the bacterial community. Studies on fertilization and thermal mowing showed that these two agricultural practices have limited significant impacts on the microbial communities studied. Finally, this thesis provides insights into nitrogen fixation by bacterial communities and lays the groundwork for bio-inoculation trials with the fungal and bacterial species detected to have a potential beneficial impact on wild blueberry cultivation.

Breast cancer mortality is mainly due to distant recurrence of the disease arising from dormant tumor cells established by cancer therapies. Patients who initially respond to cancer therapies often succumb to distant recurrence of the disease. It is not clear why people with the same type of breast cancer respond to treatments differently; some escape from dormancy and relapse earlier than others. In addition, some tumor clones respond to immunotherapy while others do not. We investigated how autophagy plays a role in accelerating or delaying recurrence of neu overexpressing mouse mammary carcinoma (MMC) following adriamycin (ADR) treatment, and in affecting response to immunotherapy. We explored two strategies: 1) transient blockade of autophagy with chloroquine (CQ), which blocks fusion of autophagosomes and lysosomes during ADR treatment, and 2) permanent inhibition of autophagy by a stable knockdown of ATG5 (ATG5KD), which inhibits the formation of autophagosomes in MMC during and after ADR treatment. We found that while CQ prolonged tumor dormancy, but that stable knockdown of autophagy resulted in early escape from dormancy and recurrence. Interestingly, ATG5KD MMC contained an increased frequency of ADR-induced polyploid-like cells and rendered MMC resistant to immunotherapy. On the other hand, a transient blockade of autophagy did not affect the sensitivity of MMC to immunotherapy. Our observations suggest that while chemotherapy-induced autophagy may facilitate tumor relapse, cell-intrinsic autophagy delays tumor relapse, in part, by inhibiting the formation of polyploid-like tumor dormancy. Although immunotherapy of breast cancer by means of anti-HER2 antibodies prolongs survival of breast cancer patients, disease recurrence remains a major challenge. On the other hand administration of human vaccines against infectious disease in a preventive setting or during latency/dormancy has been successful in offering a cure. Here, we sought to use adoptive immunotherapy (AIT) at the time of tumor dormancy in order to prevent progression of breast cancer. We used a low dose immunogenic chemotherapy by means of 5-FU, Adriamycin, and Cyclophosphamide (FAC) in order to stabilize tumor progression prior to AIT using autologous tumor-reactive lymphocytes. Low dose FAC established local tumor dormancy, inhibited distant tumor dormancy occurring long before distant metastasis, and induced predominate a Ki67- quiescent type of tumor dormancy, which is less susceptible to tumor immunoediting. Dormant tumor cells expressed the cell survival pathways, including the endothelin receptor/ligand (ETRA, ETRB and ET-1) and PD-L1, thereby protecting them from elimination by AIT. In addition, tumor-reactive CD8+ T cells also produced ET-1 as a survival ligand for ETRA positive tumor cells. A combination of AIT with the blockade of tumor cell survival pathways resulted in a significant improvement of AIT against tumor dormancy. We also showed that the inhibition Bcl-xL downstream of the tumor cell survival pathways is specifically effective against dormant tumor cells, suggesting a combination of AIT with small molecules inhibitors of Bcl-xL. Altogether, we showed that distant tumor dormancy is established long before distant recurrence of breast cancer, and that the expression of several tumor cell survival pathways in dormant cells protects them from immunotherapy. Our results suggest that immunotherapeutic targeting of tumor dormancy combined with the blockade of a common downstream cell survival pathway could prevent tumor progression and recurrence of the disease.

1979年1月1日，美國與我國斷絕外交關係後，為因應新的外交關係發展，美國依其「臺灣關係法」成立「美國在臺協會」處理對臺事務，我國也相應成立「北美事務協調委員會」做為對口單位，雙方並互派駐代表機構，建立了有別於傳統國際法的準外交關係；同時，另依據雙方協定及各自的國內法，賦予對方派駐機構及人員享有相當於政府間國際組織的特權與豁免。此種非邦交國及不被承認政府之準外交代表機構的特權與豁免，經過多年的實踐，其結果如何？為本論文研究與探討的重點。 雖然就協定的內容，我國與美方派駐機構及人員僅享有相當於在美國政府間國際組織的特權與豁免。然經由本研究發現，由於兩國各自的國內法及執行面的因素，雙方派駐機構及人員享有之特權與豁免，在實踐上是有差距的，我駐美館處及人員享有的特權與豁免並不及「美國在臺協會」駐華機構及人員。此外，是否給予不被承認國家派駐之外交代表機構特權與豁免及給予其主張國家豁免的權利，也完全是國家基於政治考量之主權行為，而非國際法之規範；同時，給予一個不被承認國家派駐外交代表機構相當程度的特權與豁免或給予主張國家豁免的權利，也並不會因此就造成國際法上國家或政府承認的情形。由於現今時空環境與國際情勢已有很大的變化，與當年兩國斷交時之氛圍，實不可同日而語。據此，本文亦依研究所得，綜整幾點淺薄意見，以供相關單位及人員參考，期能提升雙方派駐機構及人員的特權與豁免地位，並有效維護我國家及人民的權益。 / In recognizing the People’s Republic of China as the government of China in January 1979, the United States derecognized the government on Taiwan, “the Republic of China,” previously recognized as the government of China. As a matter of public international law, severance of diplomatic relations and derecognition of the government carried some potential important consequences to the ROC government including that it is not diplomatic and sovereign immunity in the US. However, the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) was enacted by the US Congress in April, 1979 to preserve and promote extensive, close, and friendly commercial, cultural, and other relations between the people of the US and the people on Taiwan. The TRA also created new, quasi-diplomatic agencies to enable the US government and the ROC government to communicate through a novel, non-diplomatic channel. Under the TRA, a Taiwanese official entity known as the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO) – previously known as the Coordination Council for North American Affairs (CCNAA) – has been permitted to act as the unofficial instrumentality of the Taiwanese people, in Washington, D.C. Also the Washington–based TECRO has had an American counterpart in Taipei, named the “American Institute in Taiwan” (AIT), specifically established pursuant to the TRA as a non-profit, private corporation responsible for conducting or carrying out all US programs, transactions, and other relations with respect to Taiwan. Though it lacks official status, the AIT’s role in Taiwan closely resembles that of a diplomatic mission. Agreements between the two quasi-diplomatic agencies authorized by their respective government accord the two agencies and their staff the privilege and immunity similar to that of the public international organization. The purpose of this research is to analyze the privileges and immunities of the quasi-diplomatic agencies, and also give a detailed examination of the practice over thirty years on both sides. Through this research, we found that there are differences in practice between two sides due to different internal legal system and enforcement. On the other hand, we also found that the public international law and international circumstances give considerable latitude to the improvement of the privileges and immunities of the quasi-diplomatic agencies.