The prevalence of sexual harassment among college women has been reported to range from 33% to 97% (Klein, Apple, & Khan, 2011; Yoon, Funk, & Kropf, 2010) across the lifespan. In any one year of college, the prevalence of sexual harassment reported by women ranges from 33% to 57% (Crown & Roberts, 2007; Huerta, Cortina, Pang, Torges, & Magley, 2006). The severity and frequency of sexual harassment has been found to be related to reports of psychological distress (Nielsen & Einarsen, 2012), feelings of shame (Yoon et al., 2010), anxiety and depression symptoms (Murdoch, Pryor, Polusny, & Gackstetter, 2007), and social isolation (Pershing, 2003). These consequences of sexual harassment are concerning given the association between depression, isolation, and suicidality (Boardman, Grimbaldeston, Handley, Jones, & Willmott, 1999; DeWall, Gilman, Sharif, Carboni, & Rice, 2012). While there are numerous studies documenting the negative consequences experienced by women who are sexually harassed, little is known about the relationship of sexual harassment to the more severe negative outcomes of suicidal ideation and self-harm behaviors and what variables might facilitate this hypothesized relationship. Thus, the purpose of this study is to explore whether the experience of sexual harassment is related to increased suicidality and if this hypothesized relationship is mediated or moderated by other factors such as an individual’s response style and/or degree of connection to or isolation from others.

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) can provide new methods for information gathering for a variety of applications. In order to ensure the network quality of service, the quality of the measurements has to be guaranteed. Distributed fault detection and isolation schemes are preferred to centralized solutions to diagnose faulty sensors in WSNs. Indeed the first approach avoids the need for a central node that collects information from every sensor node, and hence it limits complexity and energy cost while improving reliability.In the case of state estimation over distributed architectures, the sensor faults can be propagated in the network during the information exchanging process. To build a reliable state estimate one has to make sure that the measurements issued by the different sensors are fault free. That is one of the motivations to build a distributed fault detection and isolation (FDI) system that generates an alarm as soon as a measurement is subject to a fault (has drift, cdots ). In order to diagnose faults with small magnitude in wireless sensor networks, a systematic methodology to design and implement a distributed FDI system is proposed. It resorts to distinguishability measures to indicate the performance of the FDI system and to select the most suitable node(s) for information exchange in the network with a view to FDI. It allows one to determine the minimum amount of data to be exchanged between the different nodes for a given FDI performance. In this way, the specifications for FDI can be achieved while the communication and computation cost are kept as small as possible. The distributed FDI systems are designed both in deterministic and stochastic frameworks. They are based on the parity space approach that exploits spacial redundancy as well as temporal redundancy in the context of distributed schemes. The decision systems with the deterministic method and the stochastic method are designed not only to detect a fault but also to distinguish which fault is occurring in the network. A case study with a WSN is conducted to verify the proposed method. The network is used to monitor the temperature and humidity in a computer room. The distributed FDI system is validated both with simulated data and recorded data. / Doctorat en Sciences de l'ingénieur et technologie / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Close relationships play an integral role in human health (Coan & Sbarra, 2015). It follows, then, that the dissolution of an important relationship can have a variety of negative health consequences (Amato, 2010; Kitson & Morgan, 1990; Sbarra, Law, & Portley, 2011), and social loss confers vulnerability to a range of morbidities and early mortality. Disrupted marital status is one of the strongest sociodemographic predictors of stress-induced physical illness (Somers, 1979) and marital disruption has long been reported as one of life's most stressful events (Bloom, Asher, & White, 1978). Robust evidence links divorce or separation to poorer health outcomes; however, the exact mechanisms through which relationship dissolution influences our health so profoundly are not yet fully elucidated (Sbarra, Hasselmo, & Bourassa, 2015). The current study investigated how changes in psychological responses to divorce are associated with changes in immune responding in recently-separated adults (N = 55). I followed participants over an average of five months, collecting psychological distress measures at three visits, each one month apart, and immune measures at two visits, five months apart. To assess how variability in social engagement is associated with immunological responses following the end of a marriage, I incorporated naturalistic, observational data using a new methodology. I found that an objectively derived composite of social behaviors including (a) time spent with others; (b) time spent socializing/entertaining; (c) time spent in substantive conversation; and (d) time spent receiving positive support predicted concurrent immune outcomes over and above the effects of psychological distress and/or loneliness, and that psychological distress may exert indirect influence on immune outcomes through social integration. Furthermore, attachment style revealed differential longitudinal associations between social integration and immune outcomes. This research expands current knowledge on the immune-relevant outcomes of divorce and separation, and includes new methodology for naturalistically-derived measures of social engagement in determining how this common life stressor is associated with health over time.

This thesis researches the need for increased social engagement among isolated elderly population receiving home care service in Sweden. The notion of ‘social engagement’ and how to stimulate it is a central point throughout the work. The author finds that the isolation issue is related to political factors, sustainability and Swedish culture and how they interact with the individual. The theoretical framework is comprised of the field of care science and theories regarding isolation and sense of community. Using such empirical research and more in-depth own research such as interviews, the author concludes that social isolation is, in fact, a problem. The answer or suggested solution to this problem takes the shape of a design proposal: Play, Share, Connect, Repeat. Play, Share, Connect, Repeat is a game introduced by home care service that aims to create bonds and stimulate social engagement between care receivers.

HIV/AIDS threaten more than 40 million people worldwide and more than 5 million in South Africa alone. There is no cure for the disease yet, and novel drugs need to be discovered to make any progress in combating the disease. Twelve extracts from indigenous South African plants were analysed, of which one, Elaeodendron croceum, showed exceptionally good inhibition of transcription factors and a recombinant HIV strain in the HeLa-TAT-Luc and MT-2 VSV-pseudotyped recombinant virus assays. The pure compound isolated from this extract seemed to be the most toxic of all the samples, with toxicity of only 25% at a concentration of 100 _g/ml. When the concentration is increased, the toxicity increased slowly from 15% at a concentration of 0.195 _g/ml until it reached 25% toxicity at a concentration of 100 _g/ml. The active concentration of the compound against HIV is much lower at 100 ng/ml with an inhibition of approximately 90% of the recombinant virus. The therapeutic index of 250 makes it a promising possibility to be studied further for the compound to be used as a drug. The semi-purified extract and the pure compound were tested for its toxicity on VERO cells. The semi-purified extract had no toxicity up to a concentration of 50 _g/ml and the pure compound had toxicity of 20 % up to a concentration of 25_g/ml. The active concentration of 100 ng/ml for the VSV-Pseudotype assay is much lower than the start of toxicity at 25 _g/ml, and leaves a margin of activity before the toxicity level is reached. Both the extract and pure compound shows promising results in vitro to be developed into a medicine to be used against HIV, but need more research on the effects in vivo. Using an extract is easier, cheaper and faster than isolating a pure compound from the extract. It might also be possible that the extract could be prepared as a tea and its use could be very accessible. / Thesis (PhD (Plant Physiology))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Plant Science / unrestricted

Accessibility is a key tenet of the Canadian health care system. As many older persons, age 60 years and older, are managing ongoing chronic health conditions as part of their everyday lives, issues of access to health services are particularly important. Vancouver has a substantial number of older Korean immigrants, yet little is known about their experience and perceptions about accessing Primary Health Care (PHC) services. This study explored issues related to PHC access by older (aged 60 years and older) Korean immigrants. This qualitative study employed purposive sampling and interpretive description methodology. Open-ended interview data and field notes were gathered from 10 older Korean immigrants (five male and five female) recruited in Vancouver from mid-October 2006 to April 2007. The findings revealed that older Korean immigrants have had difficulty gaining access to appropriate PHC services because of the shifts in their social positioning and other barriers which contributed to an inappropriate use of PHC services, delays in care and lack of continuity in PHC. Also, the data revealed a number of ways the PHC system is unresponsive to the health care needs of older Korean immigrants. This study offers insights that may assist health care professionals to understand the nature of the challenges older Korean immigrants face when seeking health care and how they seek to resolve them. The analysis proposes a number of interventions that respect the older Korean immigrants’ values and interventions that may improve their access to PHC. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Nursing, School of / Graduate

An increasing interest in non-canonical nucleic acid structures has drawn the attention of the scientific community during the last few decades. One such structure, the G-quadruplex, has been the focus of an increasing number of scientists as G-quadruplexes are believed to play a role in biological processes such as telomere integrity and gene expression. Their existence in vivo is largely unproven but they have stimulated a lot of research into small molecules that interact with them. The development of a new class of such molecules is described in this thesis. A member of this family showed to be very selective in stabilising one particular G-quadruplex. The further development of another family of G-quadruplex interacting small molecules is also presented in this thesis and some of their effects in cellulo were assessed. Based on the scaffold of this family, an affinity probe was developed, which can mediate the isolation of its nucleic acid targets from human cells. This is the first example of the use of a small molecule with an affinity tag that has been used to isolate a nucleic acid target in a structure specific manner from human cells.

Isolation of those ill with contagious disease has been a fundamental infection control concept for hundreds of years. However, recent studies suggest that fewer than 50% of health—care workers comply with their hospitals' isolation precaution policies and that efficacy of some of those policies is questionable. In response, two new systems, based upon fundamentally different goals, were promoted. The Centers for Disease Control, prompted by health—care worker& concerns about occupational risk of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) from a growing number of patients with acquired immunodeficiency disease syndrome (AIDS), issued formal guidelines in 1987. This formed the basis for Universal Precautions (UP), a unifying strategy for precautions with all patients regardless of diagnosis intended to reduce risk to hospital staff members. Also in 1987, one hospital issued guidelines for Body Substance Isolation (BSI), hygienic precautions to be used with all patients based on recognition that colonized body substances are important reservoirs for cross—infection to both patients and staff members. These new strategies have been promoted widely, but there have been no formal assessments to reconcile controversies they raised nor to confirm their effectiveness. Further, necessary assessment tools have not been validated. This thesis provides new tools and new information to address three vital questions: Have hospitals adopted Universal Precautions or Body Substance Isolation? Do their staff members use the new system of precautions in daily practice? Has reliable use of a new system led to decreased risk of infection? A confidential mailed survey of all acute—care Canadian hospitals was conducted to measure rates of guideline receipt and adoption. It also obtained information on motivations for and perceived effectiveness of strategies adopted. A self—selected group of responding hospitals subsequently participated in standardized covert observation of their nurses infection control practices, then had the observed nurses complete a test examining their knowledge and beliefs. Employee health records were also examined to determine whether needlestick injury rates had changed since adoption of a new infection control strategy. Most Canadian hospitals adopted and modified new strategies based upon reasonable but unproven extensions of logic to protect health—care workers from HIV. 74% claimed UP (65%) or BSI (9%) but only 5% of 359 claiming UP and 0 of 50 claiming BSI adopted all policies expected. Many hospitals had not received key guideline publications. Guideline source, hospital size, and other variables were significantly associated with receipt. Nurses in 35 hospitals were observed to wear gloves during only z60% of procedures in which gloving was expected; rates varied widely among hospitals. Direct examination of sharps disposal containers confirmed compliance with a policy to not recap used needles (taken as recapping rate of 25%) in only 47% of 32 hospitals. Paired analysis of needlestick injury rates in 11 hospitals during comparable 90—day periods before versus after implementing UP/BSI showed no significant difference. 489 nurses completing a written test achieved their highest scores and least discordance among questions regarding procedural issues established long before UP/BSI, and lower scores or greater discordance on UP/BSJ concepts of philosophy, risk recognition and newer procedures. Positive correlation between knowledge and practice was not evident. UP and BSI now mean different things in different hospitals and have not been effective in harmonizing health—care workers’ infection control practices. Carefully standardized assessment methods are needed to guide their evolution to cost—effectiveness. / Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies / Graduate

The hemopoietic system Is organized as a hierarchy of hemopoietic cell populations distinguished by differences in their proliferation and differentiation potential. Studies using short-term in vitro and in vivo assays based on colony formation in semi-solid medium, or in the spleens of lethally irradiated mice, respectively, have shown that these procedures detect primarily lineage-restricted progenitor types and have provided much information about the characteristics and regulation of such cells. Assessment of lymphoid and myeloid tissue reconstitution after more prolonged periods following transplantation has established the existence of a more primitive stem cell type; however, the retrospective nature of these complex analyses has Impeded characterization and purification of these cells. My first objective was to develop a procedure for the selective isolation of stem cells with short-term in vitro and in vivo multilineage differentiation potential. For this I devised a single-step, four-parameter fluorescence activated cell sorting procedure In which cells were selected according to their forward and orthogonal light-scattering properties, and their surface expression of the Thy-1 and H-2K antigens. Application of this procedure to marrow cells from mice treated 4 days previously with 150 mg/kg of 5-fluorouracil showed that it could be used to sort a subpopulation that was enriched 100-fold in CFU-GEMM and in which 1 in 4 cells was a day 12 CFU-S. To determine the extent to which stem cells with long-term lympho-myeloid repopulating potential had been copurified, I undertook to develop a quantitative procedure that might allow this primitive cell population to be measured and hence characterized on a routine basis. This required an assay that would detect donor-derived hemopoiesis exclusively, and that was sensitive enough for the detection of limiting numbers of cells with long-term lympho-myeloid repopulating potential. This was shown to be possible using a competitive repopulation assay in which lethally irradiated female recipients were transplanted with male "test" cells together with a second suspension of female cells with adequate short-term repopulating activity but greatly diminished long-term repopulating potential. These sex differences were then used to specifically identify the 5 week progeny of stem cells in the test suspension. Assessment of the sorted day 4 5-FU marrow population revealed that it was capable of repopulating all hemopoietic organs after transplantation and that an enrichment of 30-fold over unseparated, 5-FU-treated marrow had been achieved. My second objective was to determine whether the competitive long-term lymphoid and myeloid repopulation obtained with these sorted cells was due to the activity of Individual stem cells with a dual potential for lymphopoiesis and myelopoiesis. For this I used retroviral-infection to uniquely mark sorted cells In vitro, and then transplanted them in sufficiently low numbers to allow individual regenerated clones to be detected and analyzed. In some mice, distribution of cells with the same unique integration marker in different lymphoid and myeloid cell populations established the presence of lympho-myeloid stem cells in the original sorted population. In addition, clones with restricted tissue distributions were also documented. My final objective was to investigate whether the competitive repopulation assay was in fact able to serve as a procedure for the exclusive quantitation of long-term lympho-myeloid repopulating stem cells. A limiting dilution approach was used to compare the frequency of hemopoietic stem cells (competitive repopulating units, CRU) in marrow obtained from a variety of sources, using >20% repopulation by male cells at 5 or 10 weeks post-transplantation as the end point. The results obtained were largely independent of the time of analysis, and whether repopulation of recipient marrow or thymus was evaluated, suggesting that either can be used in this assay to quantitate a hemopoietic stem cell with the potential to regenerate both lymphoid and myeloid systems. These studies have provided procedures for the detection, quantitation and selective enrichment of the most primitive stem cells in the murine hemopoietic system which have competitive long-term lympho-myeloid repopulating ability. The availability of these procedures should facilitate the development of additional purification steps leading to the isolation of these cells as homogeneous suspensions, and their further use as targets for retrovirus-medilated gene transfer to determine the genetic basis of their activation, determination and neoplastic transformation. / Science, Faculty of / Microbiology and Immunology, Department of / Graduate

The choroid plexuses are largely responsible for cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) secretion and therefore play a fundamental role in brain homeostasis. The membrane proteins involved in CSF secretion are not fully known. Several electroneutral transporters have been identified by molecular methods in choroid plexus epithelial cells but there is a lack of functional data to support their expression making it impossible to elucidate their role in CSF secretion fully. The activity of many of these transporters can be observed in cell volume regulation. Thus, the main aim of the present study was to determine the ability of mammalian choroid plexus epithelial cells to regulate their volume in response to anisosmotic challenge and to investigate the transporters involved.Experiments were performed on cells isolated from the mouse fourth ventricle choroid plexus. Cells were isolated using a combination of manual perturbation, the enzyme dispase and a Ca2+ free incubation to disrupt tight junctions. Cell volume was measured using a video-imaging method. Cells used in this study were all of a similar morphology and had a mean volume of 0.71 pL.Cells exhibited a HCO3- dependent regulatory volume increase (RVI) in response to hypertonic challenge. Strong evidence is presented that the Na+/H+ exchanger (NHE1) and the Cl-/HCO3- exchanger (AE2) contribute to the RVI but the Na+K+2Cl- cotransporter (NKCC1) and the epithelial Na+ channel (ENaC) do not. Choroid plexus cells exhibit a HCO3- dependent regulatory volume decrease (RVD) in response to hypotonic challenge. The RVD was unaffected by DIOA (an inhibitor of KCC activity), the K+ channel inhibitors TEA+, Ba2+ or 4AP or the Cl- channel inhibitors DIDS or NPPB. However removal of extracellular Ca2+ completely abolished cell swelling in response to hypotonic challenge. This sensitivity of volume change to Ca2+ was specific to cell swelling as cell shrinkage in hypertonic artificial CSF was unaffected by removal of extracellular Ca2+.Thus functional evidence is presented to further elucidate the role of several proteins in the choroid plexus cell volume regulatory response to anisosmotic challenge.