Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Following the end of the colonial period, Latin America became a thriving market for goods from the industrializing world, particularly the United States, Great Britain, and France. This thesis explores the sociocultural implications of importation into Mexico City and Caracas, Venezuela, situating the flow of commodities within cultural processes. It analyzes how ordinary people in the two cities interacted with goods from abroad. While most studies of this phenomenon focus on elites, this research suggests that they did not comprise the only group to desire, acquire, and display imported commodities. In Mexico City, non-elites could achieve upward mobility by displaying European items. In Caracas, powerful external commercial ties allowed city residents of most classes to obtain foreign commodities and construct their identity by way of them. Thus, people throughout the social strata associated with imported goods, leading to internal and external effects on cultural identity. / Tinker Foundation / University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Serotonin was first discovered in the late 1940s as a vasotonic factor and is now considered a principal neurotransmitter in the nervous system. 5-HT6 receptors are one of the most recently identified members of the serotonin receptor family which consists of seven classes (5-HT1-5-HT7). 5-HT6 receptors are G-protein coupled, positively coupled to an adenylate cyclase second messenger system and are primarily found in the central nervous system (CNS). The exact functional role of 5-HT6 receptors has not been determined, but is implicated to have possible involvement in certain neuropsychiatric disorders and cognition. To investigate the functional role of these receptors, it is useful to identify 5-HT6 selective ligands as pharmacological tools. Our laboratory identified one of the first 5-HT6 receptor antagonists: the arylsulfonamide MS-245 (14a). It has been assumed that a sulfonyl (i.e., SO2) moiety is important for the binding of arylsulfonamides at 5-HT6 receptors. We now have identified benzyl analog 33 (R=H) as a single example of a non-sulfonyl analog that retains affinity. This questions the importance of the SO2 group and whether an aryl moiety or other hydrophobic groups (of equal or greater hydrophibicity) is required for binding. The purpose of the present investigation was to determine if the SO2, and the aryl moieties are required for high affinity binding. N1-Alkylsulfonyl- 78, and N1-benzyl-substituted tryptamines 33 were synthesized and affinities compared with their corresponding N1-benzenesulfonyl-substituted counterparts 31 at h5-HT6 receptors. None of the alkylsulfonyl or benzyl analogs displayed and/or retained the affinity of the simple benzenesulfonyl tryptamine analog (31a) (Ki = 4.1 nM). The results show that an arylsulfonyl group at the tryptamine N1 position is optimal, relative to an alkylsulfonyl group, for 5-HT6 receptor affinity. In a comparative analysis utilizing six pairs of tryptamines, it was found that there was little correspondence (r2 = 0.048) between the 5-HT6 receptor affinities of the examined benzyl and benzenesulfonyl pairs. Current findings indicate that an aryl (or substituted aryl)sulfonyl (rather than benzyl) moiety is optimal for high affinity binding, and further suggest that N1-benzenesulfonyl- and their corresponding N1-benzyltryptamine counterparts bind in a different fashion.

<p>The present paper examines the N₁ by N₁ construction using corpus linguistic methodology.The distribution of types of the construction that occur more than once either unhyphenated or hyphenated in any subcorpus of the British National Corpus accessed through the BrighamYoung University interface is examined. Written and spoken language as well as variousgenres are compared. Hyphenation is also investigated. A collocation analysis of some typesof the construction is further carried out and it is concluded that the N₁ by N₁ construction canbe part of the on a N₁ by N₁ basis construction. Results from the quantitative analysis as wellas the qualitative discussion suggest that the N P N construction may be undergoinglexicalisation starting as an adverbial and moving to functioning as a premodifier. Thissuggestion is indicated through complementary diachronic searches in the Oxford EnglishDictionary. It is also indicated that the construction may follow a development pattern similarto that of N₁to N₁. The notion of construction is discussed in relation to the N₁ by N₁ construction, and a hierarchical view of constructions is proposed as a solution to some of theproblems with the term.</p>

A number of studies have indicated that violent video gameplay is associated with higher levels of aggression, and desensitization to violent content contributes to this association. Utilizing a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task, the current study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate selective attention (N1 activation), cognitive control (N2 activation), and desensitization (P3 activation) as neurocognitive mechanisms potentially underlying the association between gameplay and subtypes of aggression. Results showed video game players and non-players differed significantly in brain activation when engaged with violent imagery. N1 and P3 amplitude moderated the association between gameplay and pleasure-oriented aggression. Follow-up analyses further revealed that individuals who play games for many hours and show large N1 activation (high selective attention) in the face of violence have small P3 activation (heightened desensitization). Thus, our results suggest that selective attention to violent content and subsequent desensitization effects moderate the association between video gameplay and aggression.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most prevalent cancers worldwide. Current therapeutic approaches for HCC including surgical resection and trans-arterial embolization (TAE) remain largely ineffective, underscoring the need for development of novel therapeutic strategies. Because HCC is high vascularized, continuous administration angiogenesis inhibitor using gene therapy approach may facilitate long-term blockade tumor vasculature, thereby perturbing the growth of HCC. Vasostatin 112 (VS112) encodes an alternatively spliced fragment of angiogenesis inhibitor vasostatin, which encompasses residues 1-64 and 133-180 of calreticulin. In this study, recombinant adenovirus encoding VS112 (Ad-VS112) was generated to evaluate its potential for suppression of orthotopic Novikoff hepatoma in syngenic Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats. Adenovirus-mediated VS112 overexpression significantly inhibited the migration and tube formation of endothelial cells, indicating the anti-angiogenic potency of VS112 gene delivery. However, VS112 overexpression had no influence on the viability of N1-S1 Novikoff hepatoma cells. To investigate the prophylactic effect of VS112 expression on hepatoma growth, N1-S1 cells were infected with Ad-VS112 or adenovirus encoding green fluorescent protein (Ad-GFP) then implanted into the liver of SD rats. After 14 days, rats implanted with VS112-expressing showed significantly reduced incidence and size of hepatoma compared with those implanted with Ad-GFP-infected cells. To investigate the therapeutic efficacy of VS112 gene delivery, the SD rats were implanted with N1-S1 cells on day 0, treated with adenovirus vectors (2 x 1010 plaques forming units) via intravenous route on day 1, then sacrificed on day 14 to monitor hepatoma growth. By measuring tumor weight, it was found that Ad-VS112-treated rats exhibited significantly decreased tumor burden compared with control groups, which was in accordance with their lower serum GOT level. Histological analysis revealed a significant reduction of vWF-positive blood vessels in Ad-VS112-treated tumors, which was accompanied with a decrease in Ki-67-positive proliferating cells and an increase in TUNEL-positive apoptotic cells. Moreover, the expression of pro-inflammatory nuclear factor kappa B (NF£eB) and cyclooxgenase II (COXII) was also effectively attenuated in Ad-VS112-treated hepatoma. In conclusion, prior or post VS112 gene delivery potently suppresses the growth of orthotopic hepatoma,thereby holding promises for future treatment of HCC.

Visual attention has long been described in terms of the spotlight metaphor, which assumes that two-dimensional regions of the visual field are selectively processed. However, evidence suggests that attention can be distributed to depth in addition to two-dimensional space (Andersen and Kramer, 1993; Gawryszewski, Riggio, Rizzolatti, and Umiltà, 1987). Research supporting this idea has induced depth through binocular disparity. Thus, the results of previous research may be specific to stereoscopic stimuli and not apply generally to the perception of depth. Three experiments were conducted in order to determine if visual attention could be distributed to a non-stereoscopic apparent depth. In these experiments, the perceptual experience of depth was induced in a visual scene using only pictorial depth cues. Subjects were required to attend either a near or far depth in this scene. Experiments 1 and 2 employed electrophysiological recordings and found a reliable modulation in the amplitude of the attention sensitive visual component, P1, when subjects directed attention to far depths. Behavioral measurements in Experiment 3 supported this result, finding speeded reaction time to attended far depth stimuli. No P1 modulation or reaction time facilitation was found when the pictorial depth cues of the visual scene were attenuated. These results suggest that visual attention may be distributed to pictorial depth and are further consistent with a viewer-centered asymmetry in attending to depth.

Examined was whether the mismatch negativity (MMN) varied predictably in response to changes in the direction of frequency-modulated tone glides and equivalent second formant transitions in vowels (e.g., /ɪ/ as in “bit” and /e/ as in “bate”). A novel stimulus presentation paradigm was designed to distinguish the MMN from the N1 component. 10 normal-hearing adults with no neurological diseases were recruited and presented stimuli via insert earphones while they watched a silent, subtitled movie. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 128 scalp electrodes. The MMN was successfully distinguished from the N1, marking participants’ ability to discriminate vowel stimuli only. A significant early P2 component, which decreased in size with successive stimulus presentations, was also elicited for vowels only and is believed to reflect formant encoding. Discrepancies between vowel and tone results are discussed along with clinical implications and contributions to the fields of ERP and vowel research.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) medication on auditory skills in clinically depressed subjects. Experimental subjects prescribed an SSRI were tested in a medicated and an unmedicated condition, and the test results were compared. Furthermore, the experimental group was compared with a control group consisting of normal subjects. Test measures included pure tone audiometry, tympanometry, acoustic reflex thresholds, and auditory electrophysiologic measures such as auditory brainstem and auditory late responses. An assessment scale for depression (Beck Depression Inventory-II) was also used. Results indicated statistically significant differences for the BDI-II between the control and experimental groups for both conditions. Electrophysiologic measures indicated a significantly shorter latency for auditory late potential P1 at 55 dBnSL, and a significantly larger amplitude at 45 dBnSL for the N1/P2 component for the unmedicated group. Although the other measures showed trends, they did not reach significance.

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