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INTRODUCTION: The detection of a second inorganic phosphate (Pi) resonance, a possible marker of mitochondrial content in vivo, using phosphorus magnetic resonance spectroscopy (31P- MRS) at 3T is technically challenging, which may prevent its reproducible quantification. PURPOSE: To determine the reproducibility of resting alkaline inorganic phosphate (Pialk) measurement using 31P-MRS in human skeletal muscle at 3 tesla (T). METHODS: Resting 31P- MRS of the quadriceps muscles was acquired on two separate visits, within seven days, in 13 healthy, sedentary to moderately active young adults using a whole-body 3T MR system. Measurement variability related to coil position, shimming procedure, and spectral analysis were also quantified. 31P-MRS data were acquired with a 31P/1H dual-tuned surface coil positioned on the quadriceps using a pulse-acquire sequence. Test-retest absolute and relative reproducibility were analyzed using coefficient of variation (CV) and intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC), respectively. RESULTS: Pialk demonstrated a within-subject reproducibility marginally greater then the 10% cutoff (CV: 10.6 ± 5.4%; ICC: 0.80), but still appropriate given its small concentration in relation to other 31P metabolites. Proximo-distal change in coil positioning along the length of the quadriceps induced large variability in Pialk quantification (CV: 21.1%). In contrast, measurement variability due to repeated shims on consecutive scans from the same muscle sample (CV: 6.6%), and the automated spectral processing procedure, were minor (CV: 2.3%). Both metrics of absolute and relative reproducibility of Pialk were of similar magnitude to other well-resolved metabolites (e.g., phosphocreatine, Pi, and phosphodiester). CONCLUSION: Using multiple metrics, the present study established the high reproducibility of Pialk quantification by 31P-MRS using a surface coil on the quadriceps muscle at 3T. However, large variability in Pialk quantification can originate from positioning the coil on the most distal part of the quadriceps, which should be avoided due to shimming inhomogeneity.

This project examines the implications of mythologizing women writers, specifically Woolf and Austen, and transforming them into their own famous characters. Using various writings that theorize women's voices, sense of agency, and political autonomy in relationship with the public/private dichotomy, this project argues that women writers are often appropriated and fictionalized in this way because of a patriarchal cultural understanding that women are associated with the private, personal, and domestic spheres. More importantly, it argues that this increasingly frequent treatment aligns with and forwards a neoliberal political and cultural agenda. The politics of the last twenty or thirty years, in short, are shaping interpretations and adaptations of major works of the English canon, specifically Mrs. Dalloway and Pride and Prejudice. Particular examples of such adaptations include The Hours, Vanessa and Her Sister, Becoming Jane, and Longbourn. This project ultimately analyzes these and a select number of other texts in order to show that these contemporary treatments of two of the most famous female writers from the English canon reveal quite a bit about current attitudes within the United States about gender (in)equality, care work/dependency, and sexuality. / Master of Arts

The purpose of this thesis is to track Virginia Woolf's enactment of conscious experience over the course of her 3 most consciousness forward novels, To the Lighthouse (1927), The Waves (1931), and Mrs. Dalloway (1925). This thesis aims to examine Woolf's ideas and theories about individual consciousness, collective consciousness, and how gendered consciousness plays a role in both. Set against the consciousness philosophy of Woolf's time, this thesis sets Woolf's ideas apart from the abstractions of philosophy and attempts to trace Woolf's enactment of consciousness throughout three of her most famous novels. In researching this project, I studied the consciousness scholarship that was circulating within scholarly circles during Virginia Woolf's time. I also read about what Virginia Woolf herself had to say about philosophy and its usefulness. Finally, I researched what scholars of Virginia Woolf had to say about her work and the philosophy of consciousness. By using all these avenues for my research, I was able to paint a portrait of Virginia Woolf's involvement with philosophy, her ideas about conscious experience, and how those ideas took shape in her novels. In her novels, Virginia Woolf transcends academic philosophy by creating a way to understand and visualize the phenomenology of consciousness that is unique and entirely her own. In the first chapter of this thesis, I explore Woolf's depiction of gendered consciousness in her novel To the Lighthouse. In this chapter, I argue that Woolf suggests a difference between the way men and women experience the world. She explores the implications of those experiences for the collective consciousness, and the delicate line that balances gendered individual consciousness with the collective experience. In the second chapter, I look at Woolf's theory of group consciousness in The Waves, which explores what it means to be part of a collective experience while also balancing being an individual with one's own inner experience. In this chapter, I argue that Woolf formulates a coming-of-age narrative to enact the development of both the individual and collective consciousnesses. She also splits the coming-of-age narratives into two different groups, based on gender. I argue that Woolf does this to highlight the different ways in which men and women experience, how that experience develops from adolescence to adulthood, and the balance that must be maintained to reach Woolf's idea of enlightenment. Finally, in the last chapter, I discuss Woolf's ideas about inner and outer experience in Mrs. Dalloway, including the novel's implicit assertion that there must be stability, or balance, in both inner and outer conscious experience if one is to function within the collective consciousness of society. I argue that Woolf shows this balance, or lack thereof, in the parallel narratives of Clarissa and Septimus. In doing this she once again asserts that there is a gendered difference in the way men and women experience and shows how the balance of inner and outer experience functions between both men and women. By analyzing these three texts, I hope to show both Woolf's understanding of conscious experience and the ways in which she enacts this understanding in her three most consciousness-forward novels. / Master of Arts / What is consciousness? What does it mean to have an experience? For years scholars have attempted to answer these questions. Consciousness, as an area of study, raises a few questions. These questions include: What does it mean to have an experience? What is it like, both cognitively and physically, to perceive what's happening around you, and why does it matter in the first place? In the early 20th century, consciousness, and the study of it were at the center of scholarly attention. Influential philosophers such as William James and G.E Moore were just beginning to formulate their theories about conscious experience and to bring them into public view. In this thesis I argue that Virginia Woolf provided her own answer to these questions about consciousness during her career. By reading Woolf against consciousness scholarship, I aim to discuss the ways in which Woolf creates a new idea or philosophy of consciousness, one that considers gender, society, and the individual, and depicts how all these things coalesce into what we understand as "experience." Woolf's thoughts and philosophies were no doubt influenced by those who came before her, but she also created a concept or way of enacting consciousness in her novels that was uniquely her own. In the first chapter of this thesis, I explore gendered and collective consciousness in To the Lighthouse (1927) and the balance that must be maintained within both. In the second chapter, I explore collective or group consciousness in The Waves (1931) and explore how Woolf enacts a coming of age of both collective conscious identity and individual conscious identity, Finally, in the last chapter, I explore Woolf's ideas about inner and outer conscious experience in Mrs. Dalloway (1925), and how one must balance these experiences if they are to function in the collective consciousness of society.

Bile is a biofluid synthesized by liver and concentrated in the gallbladder. Interference with the bile flow may cause cholestasis. Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) is an inflammatory cholestatic disorder which eventually may result in liver cirrhosis and failure. The management of PSC is controversial. The only effective treatment for end stage disease is orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT). However, cholangiocarcinoma (CC), which is the major complication of this long-lasting disease, is an absolute contraindication for the surgery. Therefore, early diagnosis of the disease can not only improve the outcome of PSC, but also facilitate the allocation of donated livers to those who can benefit from transplantation. Unfortunately, the diagnosis of CC is challenging. Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP), the gold standard technique, is highly invasive. Non-invasive alternatives such as magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography (MRCP) have lower accuracy. Therefore, it is essential to develop more accurate and less invasive diagnostic techniques. Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) is an evolving technique with potential to detect disease-related metabolic changes. In vitro studies have proven the capacity of MRS in the early detection of hepatopancreatobiliary (HPB) disorders based on the metabolic analysis of bile obtained invasively. An in vivo alternative has been attempted by others on human bile within the gallbladder. However, due to the poor quality of the acquired spectra, quantification of most major bile metabolites was not possible, except for choline-containing phospholipids (chol-PLs). In the current study, the quality of the in vivo 1D spectra has been greatly improved, and we have obtained the first 2D L-COSY spectra from bile within the gallbladder. Spectral data from healthy controls and PSC patients were compared. Statistically significant differences in the concentrations of chol-PLs, and glycine- and taurine-conjugated bile acids were revealed in the 1D analysis. Our 2D spectra also demonstrated potential for the detection of metabolic differences between the two groups. The success of these studies indicates a strong potential of in vivo bile MRS techniques to characterize and diagnose a wide variety of HPB disorders. / May 2014

<div><div><div><p>Head injuries in collision sports have been linked to long-term neurological disorders. High school collision sport athletes, a population vulnerable to head injuries, are at a greater risk of chronic damage. Various studies have indicated significant deviations in brain function due to the accumulation of repetitive low-level subconcussive impacts to the head without externally observable cognitive symptoms. The aim of this study was to investigate metabolic changes in asymptomatic collision sport athletes across time within their competition season and as a function of mechanical force to their head. For this purpose, Proton Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) was used as a tool to detect altered brain metabolism in high school collision sport athletes (football and soccer) without diagnosed concussion. Also, sensors were attached to each athletes head to collect the count and magnitude of head impacts during their games and practices. Transient neurometabolic alterations along with prolonged recovery were observed in collision sport athletes.</p><div><div><div><p><br></p><p>Multi-site studies are becoming important to increase statistical power, enhance generalizability, and to improve the likelihood of pooling relevant subgroups together activities which are otherwise limited by the availability of patients or funds at a single site. Even with harmonized imaging sequences, site-dependent variability can mask the advantages of these multi-site studies. The aim of this study was to assess multi-site reproducibility in resting-state functional connectivity fingerprints, and to improve identifiability of obtained functional connectomes. We evaluated individual fingerprints in test- retest visit pairs within and across two sites and present a generalized framework based on principal component analysis (PCA) to improve identifiability. The optimally reconstructed functional connectomes using PCA showed a substantial improvement in individual fingerprinting of the subjects within and across the two sites and test-retest visit pairs relative to the original data. Results demonstrate that the data-driven method presented in the study can improve identifiability in resting-state functional connectomes in multi-site studies.</p></div></div></div></div></div></div>

Identifying targets in cluttered scenes is critical for our interactions in complex environments. Our visual system is challenged to both detect elusive targets that we may want to avoid or chase and discriminate between targets that are highly similar. These tasks require our visual system to become an expert at detecting distinctive features that help us differentiate between indistinguishable targets. As the human brain is trained on this type of visual tasks, we observe changes in its function that correspond to improved performance. We use functional brain imaging, to measure learning-dependent modulations of brain activation and investigate the processes that mediate functional brain plasticity. I propose that dissociable brain mechanisms are engaged when detecting targets in clutter vs. discriminating between highly similar targets: for the former, background clutter needs to be suppressed for the target to be recognised, whereas for the latter, neurons are tuned to respond to fine differences. Although GABAergic inhibition is known to suppress redundant neuronal populations and tune neuronal representations, its role in visual learning remains largely unexplored. Here, I propose that GABAergic inhibition plays an important role in visual plasticity through training on these tasks. The purpose of my PhD is to investigate the inhibitory mechanisms that mediate visual perceptual learning; in particular, learning to detect patterns in visual clutter and discriminate between highly similar patterns. I show that BOLD signals as measured by functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) do not differentiate between the two proposed mechanisms. In contrast, Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) provides strong evidence for the distinct involvement of GABAergic inhibition in visual plasticity. Further, my findings show GABA changes during the time-course of learning providing evidence for a distinct role of GABA in learning-dependent plasticity across different brain regions involved in visual learning. Finally, I test the causal link between inhibitory contributions and visual plasticity using a brain stimulation intervention that perturbs the excitation-inhibition balance in the visual cortex and facilitates learning.

Lors de l'analyse des données recueillies dans le cadre de projets de recherche clinique, les modèles statistiques intègrent habituellement de manière homogène l'information apportée par l'ensemble des observations. Les estimations obtenues peuvent cependant être modifiées par un nombre restreint voire par une seule observation, illustrant leur influence différente. Les mesures d'influence individuelle ont été proposées pour la quantifier, à la fois dans le but de détecter lesinfluences et de mieux comprendre également les modèles auxquels elles s'appliquent. L'objet de ce travail est d'évaluer l'influence individuelle dans le cadre de modèles statistiques récents. La première partie propose une mesure de l'influence individuelle locale pour le modèle de régression du risque instantané associé à la fonction d'incidence cumulée proposé par Fine et Gray pour l'analyse de données censurées en présence de compétition. La seconde partie du travail cherche à mettre en évidence l'influence individuelle des premiers sujets inclus dans un essai séquentiel de recherche de dose de phase I ou II utilisant la méthode de réévaluation séquentielle (MRS). Une adaptation de la MRS permettant de diminuer l'influence des premiers individus est enfin proposée.