Postpartum weight retention is commonly considered an important precursor to long-term weight gain, with existing research suggesting that failure to lose weight in postpartum has significant future health implications. While postpartum has been identified as a possible ‘window of opportunity’ for women to make health behaviour change and manage their weight, it remains unclear how mothers, and in particular ‘large’ (BMI ≥ 40 kg/m2) mothers, experience health and engage with health-related behaviours at this particular point in the life course. Existing research has done little to enhance our understandings of the lived, embodied and practical realities of caring for an infant and, crucially, how this impacts health and weight management during the postpartum period. In addition, qualitative research focusing on postpartum has largely ignored the temporal dimensions of this period and, instead, has tended to focus attentions on a single ‘snapshot’ in time. To address these gaps in the literature, this study employed longitudinal qualitative methodology to explore 15 ‘large’ (BMI ≥ 40 kg/m2) women’s lived experience of health and weight management over the first six months following childbirth. Participants were recruited from a specialist antenatal metabolic clinic based in Edinburgh, Scotland. When possible, three in-depth semi-structured interviews were carried out with each participant: the first at six weeks postpartum, the second at three months and, the third at six months postpartum. Both six weeks and six months have consistently been identified in the literature as important markers for postpartum women. Hence, it was hoped that by interviewing at these and an intervening time point (i.e. three months) it would be possible to capture and understand processes of change with regards to weight management in the postpartum period. The analysis revealed that accounts of health and weight were far from straightforward and seemed to be heavily influenced by the wider social context, which routinely pathologises, demonises and stigmatises ‘fatness’. Challenging contemporary discourses of the ‘obesity epidemic’ which frame the large body as a direct consequence of individual lifestyle, participants principally drew upon lay notions of inheritance and implicated a genetic predisposition to resist individual responsibility for weight and body size. The analysis suggests that concerns for health were largely predicated on subjective experiences and, in the absence of tangible and embodied experiences of ill-health, participants expressed little if any impetus to engage in weight management for the purpose of improving their health. In short, the idea that their weight was an indicator of poor health, or future health risk, was not a view shared by participants. Instead, they expressed more complex understandings of their weight, and their responsibilities to engage in health changing behaviour. Despite articulating often strong desires to engage in weight management ‘for the baby’, the longitudinal focus revealed a disjuncture between these intentions and the reality of those engagements. Influential in this discordance was the transition from an intensely medicalised and closely monitored pregnancy, to a period of minimal or no follow up in postpartum. The lack of ‘surveillance’ appeared to have a notable impact on participants’ engagements with health-related behaviours once at home and going about the day-to-day tasks of caring for their infant. Dominant discourses around ‘good’ mothering also made it difficult for participants to prioritise their own needs (such as weight management) ahead of those of their children and other family members. When participants reflected on their experiences of mothering they frequently drew upon understandings of themselves as relational beings and, at times, positioned themselves as phenomenologically inseparable from their baby. This relationality was often experienced as a diminishing of individual autonomy, as the body of the mother and the baby became inter-embodied and bounded. Consequently, my analysis serves to problematise the individualised expectation surrounding a mother’s ability to act autonomously and engage in health-related behaviours in postpartum. These findings also call for a stronger appreciation to be developed of the complexities surrounding engagements with health-related behaviours at this particular point in the life course. In particular this research demonstrates the importance and utility of adopting a more embodied approach, which in turn has some notable implications for public health policy and practice.

This research addresses the following question: ‘In the context of climate change, how do different actors narrate the uncertain, ambiguous and risky future of maize agriculture, and what are the implications?' A multi-sited and institutional ethnography approach was adopted in order to look critically at how knowledge and narratives of future change in Kenyan maize agriculture are constructed by a variety of actors. The thesis describes: contested narratives of climate change and climate change impacts (through an analysis of the global climate impact modelling endeavour); contested narratives of change on smallholder farms (based on two case study sites in Kenya); contested narratives of pro-poor technological interventions (including the development of genetically modified drought tolerant maize); and contested narratives of technology regulation (with a focus on Kenyan biosafety policy). It is shown that narratives are contested in multiple sites and by a variety of actors and, although the resolution of these contestations often fall along familiar lines of power and elite capture, there are examples in which alternative perspectives find agency. This is the case not only in national policy-making arenas and the board-rooms of international development initiatives, but also in the fields and communities of smallholder farmers, the offices of national research centres, and the operations of civil society organisations. It is argued that, within these diverse settings, critical analysis of the constructed nature of knowledge is a necessary foundation on which to open up the negotiation of Kenya's agricultural future to multiple alternatives.

The study is based upon the Vertical Line Array (VLA) of the Asian Seas International Acoustic Experiment (ASIAEX), dated from May 3, 2001 to May 16, 2001, in which the ambient noise was measured and the six frequencies (including 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1,200 Hz) were analyzed. The depth dependence of ambient noise levels in shallow water is not significant, and the fluctuations of ambient noise levels can be measured by Fourier analysis. With the similar analysis on static water pressure and temperature variation, the acoustic data has shown obvious in K1 and M2 tidal periods. The frequency dependence of ambient noise was also investigated, the lower frequency components, 50, 100, and 200 Hz, were mainly contributed from distant shipping noise, and the local wind was the dominating factor in higher frequencies such as 400, 800, and 1,200 Hz. This result was further verified by the increased levels at higher frequency due to the typhoon Cimaron during the experiment. Finally, the probability distribution function of ambient noise levels was calculated at each frequency, and was found the lower frequency ambient noise levels were not significantly affected by the typhoon as higher frequency. The threshold frequency of the ambient noise levels affected by the wind wave is about 400 Hz.

Macrophages are cells of the innate immune system that can be found in large quantities in cancer tumors and affect cancer progression by regulating growth and invasiveness of cancer cells. There are two main phenotypes of macrophages denoted M1 and M2. In this thesis, the M1 and M2 phenotype of human macrophages were characterized, and effects of the macrophages on the growth and invasiveness of colon and lung cancer cells were studied. Macrophages of the M1 phenotype, but not the M2 phenotype, inhibited growth of both colon and lung cancer cells, and the inhibition for some of the cancer cell lines was induced by cell cycle arrest in the G1/G0 and/or G2/M cell cycle phases. In the colon cancer cell line, the macrophage induced cell cycle arrest was found to attenuate the cytotoxic effect of the chemotherapeutic drug 5-FU. Macrophages were also shown to express high levels of proteases (matrix metalloproteinase-2 and 9) and high levels of proteins of the urokinase-type plasminogen activator (uPA) system, in comparison to the lung cancer cell lines studied. Expression of these has been found to predict poor outcome in lung cancer, and the results suggest macrophages to be important contributors of these in lung tumors. Furthermore, the M1 phenotype was found to express higher levels of the uPA receptor than the M2 phenotype. Prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) is a potent inflammatory molecule expressed by e.g. macrophages and monocytes, and inhibition of its expression has been shown to reduce the risk of colon cancer. Green tea and black tea was found to be potent inhibitors of PGE2 formation in human monocytes, and the inhibitory effects of green tea was likely due to its content of the polyphenol epigallocatechin gallate. Rooibos tea also inhibited PGE2 formation, but was less potent than green and black tea. The primary mechanism for the inhibition was via inhibition of expression of enzymes in the PGE2 formation pathway, and primarily microsomal prostaglandin synthase-1. / Macrophages are cells of the immune system often found in large numbers in cancer tumors. They affect multiple aspects of cancer progression, including growth and spread of cancer cells, and the efficacy of treatments. There are two major macrophage phenotypes denoted M1 and M2, that have mainly pro- and anti-inflammatory properties, respectively. In this thesis, M1 and M2 macrophages were characterized and effects of them on different aspects of cancer progression were studied using culture of colon, and lung cancer cells. The M1 phenotype inhibited proliferation of cancer cells from both colon and lung. The growth inhibition was for some cell lines accompanied by cell cycle arrest. The macrophage induced cell cycle arrest was found to protect colon cancer cells from the cytostatic drug 5-fluorouracil. Prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) contributes to colon cancer development and treatment of monocytes with tea extracts inhibited PGE2 formation via inhibition of expression of microsomal prostaglandin E synthase-1. Proteases can degrade the extracellular matrix of a tumor to facilitate cancer cell invasion and metastasis. The M1 and M2 phenotypes of macrophages expressed several protease activity related genes to a greater extent than lung cancer cells, and M1 more so than the M2 phenotype.

No description available.

This thesis will trace the development of the thought of Joseph Houldsworth Oldham. The thesis will describe the development of the thought of one of the fathers of the modern ecumenical movement. A review of the theses written in Great Britain and North America since the Second World War reveals no study of Oldham's thought. Although biographies have been written about most of Oldham's contemporaries in the modern ecumenical movement – Mott, Brent, Söderblom, Temple, Paton – no biography has been written about Oldham. Therefore the necessity of this thesis is to tell the untold story of Joseph Houldsworth Oldham: His Thought and Its Development. The author has selected Oldham's published works as the basis of this study. Oldham's unpublished papers and correspondence – much of it now gathered in boxes at Edinburgh House in London and at the World Council of Churches in Geneva – are not discussed in this thesis. This body of unpublished material could provide the basis for another study on Oldham. The author planned originally to tell the story of the thought and the life of J.H. Oldham. This intention shortly proved to be beyond the bounds of one thesis. This thesis does not, therefore, discuss in detail the story of Oldham's life. Information about his life has generally been placed in the footnotes where it forms the setting for the development of his thought. Oldham published prolifically from 1898 to 1963. The volume and variety of his writings during this sixty-five year period was not, however, immediately apparent to the author. Although the catalogue of the British Museum lists Oldham's books and a few of his pamphlets, it scarcely hints at his total output. Part of the task of this thesis, therefore, was the compilation of a bibliography of Oldham's published works.

Part 1 of the thesis, ‘The Balance of Where We Are: A Theory of Composition in Relation to Cognitive Poetics’, considers a compositional theory of poetry, with particular attention to the creative process, the poetic line, and trope. Drawing on from the disciplines of creative writing and cognitive poetics, this thesis asserts basic and important considerations for writing poetry. Chapter One seeks a model for the creative process that will aid in sustaining poetic composition but without dictating a specific method of writing. In presenting several theories of creativity it discusses ways of understanding these mental processes in preparation for the actual poem. It suggests an approach to poetry that will keep the writer focussed and aware of his or her limitations. Chapter Two establishes what it means to be writing poetry in an ‘age of cognitive science’ where some literary scholars have made a ‘cognitive turn’, by explaining the field of cognitive poetics. It considers specifically the cognitive poetics of Reuven Tsur as an important theory to enhance poetic composition. It connects some of Tsur’s discussions on poetic elements to enhance the craft-oriented approach to poetry. Chapter Three examines the poetic line as the basic unit of a poem which any compositional theory must consider. It reiterates the neural theory of the line as a ‘carrier wave’ of conceptual information that is both pleasing to the ear and the mind. It then re- evaluates specific poetic experiments concerning the line, and suggests a method of scanning to help the contemporary reader’s awareness of poetic rhythms. Chapter Four examines trope, specifically poetic metaphor in relation to the assumption of conceptual metaphor theory that poetic metaphors are extensions of everyday metaphors. It welcomes an alternative cognitive-literary explanation by re-iterating metaphor theories from Reuven Tsur and Don Paterson. Finally, it argues that the practitioner is always writing the variation of the ‘one’ poem that he or she has discovered. Part 2 of the thesis, ‘The Secret Uncles: Poems’, consists of my own poems.

No description available.

Recent evidence has shown the important role of macrophages in both tumor development and progression. To investigate the role of macrophages we used a mouse model known as MaFIA (Macrophage Fas Induced Apoptosis) mice that allows for the selective deletion of macrophages. Mice were given melanoma cells at various stages of depletion. Tumor mass was measured and organs were processed for flow cytometry to measure melanoma cell migration. The results show that mice receiving depletion treatment have larger tumor sizes and weights than those mice retaining their macrophage population. We detect metastasis in both the lung and kidney in both macrophage depleted and non depleted mice. The more macrophages in an organ the larger the amount of melanoma positive cells are detected.

京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(医学) / 甲第23801号 / 医博第4847号 / 新制||医||1058(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院医学研究科医学専攻 / (主査)教授 小林 恭, 教授 竹内 理, 教授 金子 新 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Medical Science / Kyoto University / DFAM