Bluberries (Vaccinium sp.) are rich in polyphenols that are responsible for lowering the risk of developing several chronic degenerative diseases. However, the effect of food matrix interactions on the bioaccessibility and bioavailability of polyphenols is not well understood. In this research free and complexed polyphenols found in blueberry extracts were characterized and their antioxidant activity as well as antiproliferative activities against colon cancer cells (HT-29) and normal colon cells (CRL-1790) were evaluated. The blueberry food matrix and different carbohydrate-rich synthetic matrices were characterized and their biological activities assessed alone and in complexed state with polyphenols. The degradation of polyphenols during their transit through the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) was evaluated using an in vitro digestion model. Biological activities of blueberry polyphenols and their parent metabolites produced during colonic fermentation were estimated by in vitro antioxidant assays and cell proliferation analysis using HT-29 and CRL-1790 cell lines. HPLC analysis revealed the presence of 7 phenolic compounds and 13 anthocyanins in all samples. Although the concentration of the polyphenols varied among the samples, free and complexed polyphenols showed significant antioxidant and antiproliferative activities. Polyphenol complexes were analyzed using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) revealing the presence of electron dense complexes ranging from 100 – 200 nm. Pectinase treatment disrupted the structure of the complexes, suggesting the pectin nature of the polyphenol complexes. The antioxidant- and antiproliferative activities of the blueberry food matrix alone was below 10% compared to almost 90% and 70% of free and complexed polyphenols, respectively. Polyphenols and anthocyanins were highly stable during simulated gastric digestion step with approximately 93% and 99% of recovery, respectively. The intestinal digestion process decreased the polyphenol- and anthocyanin- contents by 49% and 15 % respectively. During colonic digestion, the complex polyphenol mixtures were degraded to a limited number of phenolic compounds. Only acetylated anthocyanins were detected in low amounts after the colonic digestion process. After simulated colonic digestion, the isolated catabolites showed lowered antioxidant activity and cell growth inhibition potential. Understanding the interactions that occur among polyphenols and different food matrices may help to produce more stable foods with better bioavailability. / The National Council of Science and Technology of Mexico (CONACYT)

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

This thesis seeks to understand why civil society organisations (CSOs) in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) began to mobilise in the 1990s and why government overtures to consulting CSOs on trade matters emerged from around the same time. In addition, this thesis examines the ways in which different types of CSOs have mobilised on trade issues and the ways in which governments have included CSOs in trade consultations. To answer the “why” questions, this thesis posits that both material and ideational factors were important for motivating CSOs to conceive of themselves as needing to mobilise on trade matters in the context of the 1990s. The material and ideational factors of note here are: shifts in the direction of neo-liberal policy orientation, towards a focus on globalisation and towards emphasising good governance. These have impacted on actor interests and perceptions. Despite ideational and material factors impacting on CSO interest perceptions and on government approaches to trade matters, these factors cannot account for variations in the types of CSOs that mobilise and that governments consult on trade matters. This is where institutional factors become important. Institutions can help one to understand how different CSOs have mobilized and how CSOs have been included on trade matters at the region level and across three case studies (Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, and St. Lucia). In essence the thesis shows that whilst ideational and material factors help one to understand why CSOs have mobilised and have been included, institutional factors help one to understand how they have been included.

How may the mental health of socially deprived HIV/AIDS affected communities be supported in an era of ‘global mental health’? To date, ‘community’ efforts have been informed by a largely biomedical and epidemiological body of evidence, distracting attention from lived realities, local contexts and their abilities to frame understandings of mental distress and treatment. This thesis seeks to contribute a productive critique of the Global Mental Health field, by expanding on some of the missing dimensions in their conceptualisations of health and healing. Through a focus on social psychological processes of community, knowledge and social change, it formulates a series of suggestions for how the Movement for Global Mental Health (MGMH) and other policy actors can build on their existing efforts, through establish health enabling contexts where communities actively participate in addressing mental distress, and tackling the contexts that constitute distress in locally relevant ways. The thesis reports on a case study of KwaNagase (Manguzi), an HIV-affected rural community in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It takes interest in the intersection of three respective groups, exploring how they understand, cope with, and work together in efforts to support mental well-being: 1) poor HIV/AIDS affected women experiencing mental distress; 2) community level supports (local NGOs and traditional healers); and 3) public health services (primary health sector). Data was collected over a three month period using multiple methods. In-depth individual interviews (n = 43) were triangulated by a motivated ethnography (Duveen and Lloyd, 1999) that explored local cultural, structural and symbolic contexts of community that frame understandings of mental health and delivery of care. Grounded thematic analyses identified that women’s understandings of mental distress were shaped by experiences of poverty, violence and HIV, which in turn, limited their ability to meet normative expectations linked to gender roles of ‘mother’ and ‘wife’. Indigenous psychosocial coping strategies employed by women to tackle the aforementioned drivers of distress were underpinned by the presence or absence of social psychological resources that optimise health and well-being: agency, partnerships, critical thinking and solidarity. Primary mental health care actors’ (NGOs and formal health service actors) understandings of women’s distress were informed by an awareness of the structural and symbolic issues facing women in everyday life, aligning with the women’s own understandings. Their best practices highlighted efforts to establish receptive social spaces – a critical dimension of health enabling contexts but were limited by symbolic and structural barriers such as stigma among providers, and general under-resourcing of the sector. To overcome the limits facing community mental health services in Manguzi and similar contexts, the thesis concludes by highlighting a series of suggested actions to bolster identified community mental health competencies, and provides a tool kit of recommended strategies to support existing public sector efforts to promote mentally healthy communities.

The central claim of this work is straightforward: if one endorses cosmopolitan principles of distributive justice, then one ought also to be a world statist. This is not the generally held view. Institutionally, cosmopolitans have tended to endorse – when they have endorsed any particular institutions at all – either modified and enhanced versions of today's domestic state system, or ‘intermediary’ institutional constructs that are conceptualised as sitting apart from both the domestic state system and a world state. I aim to demonstrate that, from a cosmopolitan perspective, these are inferior alternatives, and to make the case for a federal world state. The point of such a project is to confront cosmopolitan moral theory with its radical institutional implications, which its proponents have often ignored or resisted. In making this argument, after underlining conceptual and empirical difficulties for the idea of ‘cosmopolitan law’ without strong central government, I pay extended attention to what has been described as cosmopolitanism’s ‘solidarity problem’, which recognises that there is currently little appetite among the global population for distributing resources or otherwise changing behaviours and practices so as to realise cosmopolitan distributive principles. I consider three approaches to this problem: the possibility of the principled transformation of domestic states; the development of a sense of global community; and an emphasis upon the harnessing of self-interested motivations. In each case I demonstrate the importance of the transcendence of the domestic state system, and global political integration. Thereafter, I directly address various ‘intermediary’ institutional prescriptions, arguing that in many respects they are less clearly distinguishable from a world state than their authors believe, and that where they are distinguishable this represents a disadvantage with respect to the realisation of cosmopolitan ends when compared to a world state. Finally, I consider and reject a range of common critiques of the world state itself, while emphasising that many of these critiques in fact function as critiques of cosmopolitan distributive theory, rendering them unavailable to the cosmopolitan theorists who are my intended audience.

In the absence of ligand, certain growth factor receptors can be activated via G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) activation in a process termed transactivation. Serotonin (5-HT) receptors can transactivate the receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF) ?? receptors in smooth muscle cells, but it is not known if similar pathways occur in neuronal cells. Here, it is shown that 5-HT can transiently increase the phosphorylation of PDGF?? receptors in a time- and concentration-dependent manner in SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cells. This transactivation pathway was pertussis-toxin sensitive, and was dependent on phospholipase C activity, intracellular calcium signaling and subsequent protein kinase C activation. Exogenous application of non-lethal concentrations of H2O2 induced the phosphorylation of PDGF?? receptors in a concentration-dependent fashion, similar to that observed with 5-HT. Further investigation revealed reactive oxygen species (ROS) production as a necessary component in the transactivation pathway, as scavenging ROS eliminated PDGF?? receptor phosphorylation. NADPH oxidase was determined to be the likely source of ROS given that the NADPH oxidase inhibitors diphenyleneiodonium chloride and apocynin abrogated PDGF?? receptor transactivation. The role of Src tyrosine kinase was also investigated, and its location in this signaling cascade was determined to be downstream of calcium signaling, but upstream of NADPH oxidase activity. In addition, the activation of ERK1/2 in this system was elucidated to be independent of PDGF?? receptor transactivation. Interestingly, 5-HT also transactivated TrkB receptors, another RTK whose function is implicated in clinical depression. Expectedly, the enzymes in this mechanism were consistent with those revealed in 5-HT-to-PDGF?? receptor signaling. This cross-talk between 5-HT and RTKs such as TrkB and PDGF?? receptors identifies a potentially important signaling link between the serotonergic system and neurotrophic factor signaling in neurons that could have implications in mental health disorders including depression. Furthermore, although transactivation pathways are commonly initiated by a GPCR, recent reports have demonstrated that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) were able to block 5-HT-induced transactivation of PDGF?? receptors, suggesting that in addition to GPCRs, monoamine transporters may also be involved in RTK transactivation. SH-SY5Y cells pretreated with the SSRI fluoxetine blocked 5-HT-induced transactivation of the PDGF?? receptors, but not PDGF-induced PDGF?? receptor activation. Upon further examination, it was discovered that during the pretreatment period, fluoxetine itself was transiently transactivating the PDGF?? receptor via 5-HT2 receptors. By the end of the pretreatment period, the effects of fluoxetine on PDGF?? receptor phosphorylation had returned to baseline, and a subsequent transactivating stimulus (5-HT) failed to ???re-transactivate??? the PDGF?? receptor. Additional investigations demonstrated that 5-HT pretreatment can block dopamine-induced PDGF?? receptor transactivation, but not PDGF-induced PDGF?? receptor activation. This is the first demonstration of the heterologous desensitization of an RTK via a transactivation pathway, and this phenomenon is specific for transactivation pathways because in all cases the PDGF?? receptor ligand PDGF-BB was able to directly stimulate receptor activity in spite of GPCR agonist pretreatment. Heterologous desensitization in transactivation signaling reveals a previously unknown short-term ???blackout??? period wherein no further transactivation signaling can occur to potentially exploit the mitogenic effects of RTK activation.

No description available.

This thesis is an examination of slave abolitionists in Liverpool and Manchester and their shared hinterland of South Lancashire. Cheshire and North Wales from 1787 to 1834. The changing economic and social structures of the region provide a backdrop to consider activities during the campaign against the slave trade up to its abolition in 1807, and the campaign for emancipation, which achieved success in 1834. The thesis uses existing theories of economic decline and economic sacrifice to explain Britain’s abandoning of the slave system as a starting point. However, the thesis explores the complex interplay of commercial, religious and political interests in the region in an attempt to gain a clearer picture of the forces at work, which motivated protagonists’ activities. The thesis contextualises the campaigns against the slave trade and the institution of slavery within the rapidly industrialising landscape of the region. This industrialisation ushered in a new local social and economic elite: the industrial middle class, who would assume political influence to match their economic power, with the reform of Parliament in 1833. This study shows that it was appeals to the interests of the new élite that carried most weight, helping bring about the sea change in British public opinion. An examination of important abolitionalists’ activities in the region illustrates how the anti-slavery movement framed their arguments. These arguments tied together religious and economic concerns within a broader political framework, which reflected the growing importance of laissez faire economic philosophy and the declining influence of traditional power brokers. In this light, it is interesting to consider the arguments forwarded by abolitionists who fell outside of this industrial, Dissenting, disenfranchised group to illustrate how their concerns differed. The study recognises that opposing political paradigms could be used to underpin arguments against slavery.

This study explores lay perceptions of embodiment and health through the narratives ofa group of 'everyday' women and men in a Canadian community. Gender, class and cultural influences on individual and collective experiences of embodiment are examined along with the ways in which these concepts evolve over the life course. The research is based on in depth interviews with a sample of forty working- and middle-class white women and men between the ages of30 and 65. I argue that notions of embodiment and health are multiple, fluid and contextual. They are shaped and reshaped over time in relation to individual biographies and social and cultural influences, and negotiated in relation to the prescribed values of the larger body politic. I suggest that research must attend to the spatial and temporal dimension of ideas about embodiment and health. In the context of this case study, I argue that everyday ideas about regional identity are enmeshed with the cultural codes which signify racial, class and gender identity. These frame peoples' understandings and representations of 'healthy selves' and 'unhealthy others' and are central to their notions of embodiment. Based on these findings, I propose a more nuanced approach to theorizing 'the body' and health in feminist and sociological theory. I argue for a closer engagement between theoretical frameworks and empirical studies with the aim of developing a more fully embodied social theory.

This thesis seeks to foreground and analyse black female subjectivity by recourse to dramatic texts by twentieth-century African-American women playwrights, African- American historical narratives, and black and post-structuralist feminist theories. An attempt is made at the outset to re-assess African-American historico-political conditions in the 1920s and 1960s in order to explore the relationship between black political activism and cultural production. Although African-American social upheavals of the 1960s have come to be characterised as "revolutionary", it is necessary to critically re-evaluate the organisational hierarchy and ideological impetus that underpinned the black civil rights organisations, in order to interrogate the intractable relationship between mainstream white institutions and black civil rights organisations. Within this critical framework, the absence of African-American women from historical narratives is particularly marked, despite the fact that black women were also working at the interstices between cultural production and political activism. In contrast, historical narratives of the 1920s and the Harlem renaissance situate the contributions of African-American women alongside those of African-American men. The dramatic works of Georgia Douglas Johnson and Mary Burrill, two prominent figures of the Harlem renaissance,d emonstrateb lack women's efforts to articulate and dramatise the prevailing conditions of racism and sexism at a time when African- Americans' lives continued to be blighted by Jim Crowism. These "maverick" women playwrights are a part of a continuum of black women who seek to challenge mainstream and white patriarchal hegemony. The second half of the thesis attempts to create a link between the plays of the "mother playwrights" and contemporary black women writers who continue the tradition of fusing cultural production and political activism. It's Morning by Shirley Graham and Beloved by Toni Morrison both foreground infanticide as an act of counter-insurgency, under white supremacist ideology. This raises the issue of the ways in which the contemporary black female writer perceives black female subjectivity. On this subject, black feminist scholars write of the multifarious nature of black female subjectivity and as a consequence of this, black feminist epistemologists seek to reflect the multiple dilemmas inherent in black female materiality within white mainstream society. Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf is a seminal example of a black feminist dramatic text (choreopoem) that offers representations of black female subjectivity as multiple, and in process. The final chapter offers a detailed analysis of Shange's choreopoem and this leads me to define the black female subject (referred to as the Coloured body after Shange's "colored girls"/women) as a "shifting subject", (in contradistinction to a unitary subjecthood), that embodies radical possibilities for change. In conclusion, attempts are made to examine the way in which I myself attempt to resist homologisation into a mainstream and white academic institution, offering my own background, as theatre academic as material(ity) for the hypothesis of the "shifting subject".