Accumulating clinical studies suggest that ERBB4 expression is associated with tumor differentiation and correlates with favorable prognosis in breast cancer. In addition, previous studies have indicated that ERBB4 and its ligands HRG and HB-EGF are implicated in mammary gland development. In the current studies, we have investigated ERBB4 function and the molecular mechanisms of ERBB4 signaling in breast development and cancer. First, we successfully employed a mammary specific Cre-Lox system to define ERBB4 function in breast development. ERBB4 disruption in the mammary gland resulted in impaired mammary epithelial differentiation and lactation. STAT5A activation and STAT5A-regulated milk protein genes beta-casein and WAP expression were abolished in biparous ERBB4Flox/Flox WAP-Cre mammary glands. These results strongly suggest that ERBB4 plays critical roles in mammary epithelial differentiation and lactation by regulating STAT5A activity in mammary gland development Having identified ERBB4 function during normal breast development, we elucidated the role of ERBB4 signaling in breast cancer. We found that ERBB4 induces apoptosis of human breast cancer cell lines but not normal epithelial cells, suggesting that ERBB4 specifically induces apoptosis of malignant cells. Further studies demonstrated that ERBB4 couples to the mitochondrial apoptotic pathway by functioning as a pro-apoptotic BH3-only protein. This was demonstrated by ERBB4 intracellular domain (4ICD) mitochondrial localization, induction of Bak oligomerization, interaction with Bcl-2, and the presence of a functional BH3 domain. In addition, STAT5A was found to enhance ERBB4-induced apoptosis in human breast cancer cell lines, partly by facilitating ERBB4/4ICD mitochondrial translocation. Consistent with 4ICD apoptotic activity, cytosolic 4ICD significantly correlates with apoptosis in primary breast tumors In conclusion, during breast development, ERBB4 contributes to mammary epithelial differentiation and lactation by regulating STAT5A activity, whereas in breast cancer, ERBB4 suppresses cancer cell growth by functioning as a pro-apoptotic BH3-only protein. Our results provide a molecular explanation for the previous clinical findings demonstrating loss of ERBB4 expression during breast cancer progression. These results support the contention that ERBB4 functions as a tumor suppressor in breast cancer and suggest that peptides corresponding to BH3 domain of ERBB4 may be developed as an effective drug for therapeutic treatment of breast cancer / acase@tulane.edu

Spontaneous obesity of adult Macaca cyclopis, M. fascicularis, and M. mulatta at the New England Regional Primate Research Center was examined. Weight, crown-rump length, anterior trunk height, and abdominal, subscapular and suprailiac skinfolds were measured in 33 female and 9 male M. cyclopis, 61 female and 19 male M. fascicularis, and 125 female and 23 male M. mulatta. Correlations of skinfolds with weight-height indices showed that, of the skinfolds measured, the abdominal skinfold is most highly correlated with all indices. The Quetelet Index (weight/height('2)), substituting crown-rump length for height, was used to define obesity. Animals having Quetelet Indices one standard deviation above the mean for their sex and species were considered obese. Spontaneous activity, feeding behavior, and social and self-directed behavior of pairs of obese and nonobese subjects, matched for age, sex, species, and cage type, were recorded. A total of 38 animals was observed. Food consumption by age-matched pairs of obese and nonobese M. fascicularis and M. mulatta females was also quantified. Behavior of obese and nonobese subjects did not differ at statistically significant levels. However, obese animals spent more time than nonobese animals in grooming and in inactivity, and nonobese subjects spent more time in very active locomotion. Gross quantities of food consumed by obese and nonobese subjects did not differ at statistically significant levels. As differences in behavior and food intake of obese and nonobese subjects seem inadequate to explain the range of adiposity in these populations, it is deduced that much of the obesity in these macaques has a genetic basis / acase@tulane.edu

This thesis examines the concept that well structured hosts provide an ideal environment for carrying out selective (stereo and regio) photochemical reactions. Three naturally occurring cyclodextrins and one achiral diol host has been used for the study. Using prochiral, chiral and achiral organic molecules as probes the usefulness of this concept was explored Chapter one provides an introduction to the two hosts. It presents properties of the hosts studied and reasoning for why they were considered. Since four photochemical systems have been studied in cyclodextrins and two in the diol host, a detailed introduction has been provided for cyclodextrins followed by a more general introduction for the diol host Chapter two discusses the results of tropolone ethers studied within cyclodextrins. Tropolone ethers undergo a 4-pi electrocyclization resulting in chiral products. Using the inherently chiral cyclodextrin as a host for this reaction, the stereo-chemical outcome of the products formed was examined Chapter three discusses the photoisomerization of diphenyl cyclopropanes and its derivatives inside cyclodextrins. The probes provide insight into how the process of chiral control may be occurring inside the host and help understand how the rigidity of the host can control the stereoselectivity of guests. It also points out the importance of moisture in carrying out these photoisomerizations inside cyclodextrins Chapter four discusses the photocyclization of cyclohexadienones and naphthalenone systems in cyclodextrins. The host did not provide a very suitable environment for the photochemical reaction. Conversions were very low. It did, however, provide insights into the polarity of the host Chapter five examines the regioselective capacity of cyclodextrins. Photo-Fries rearrangement reactions of naphthyl phenyl esters were investigated. The primary aim of this project was to see how much regio control the cyclodextrin interior has to offer Chapter six examines the possibility of a crystalline achiral host controlling the stereochemical outcome of a photoreaction. Though the result obtained using a chiral tropolone was very successful, the host did not work with other chiral guests studied / acase@tulane.edu

Children in the developing world work because of the desperate poverty their families face, itself a result of national and global inequitable distributions of wealth. Unfortunately, the focus on the structural causes of child labor has obscured investigation of the work these children perform, the income earned from their labors, and their reasons for undertaking specific types of labor. Based upon research conducted among children working on the streets of Guatemala City, I have found that urban street labor offers children the opportunity to earn an income well above the legal minimum wage; in fact, most do better than their peers and many adults working in agriculture and industry. While the children themselves clearly recognize the disadvantages of urban street labor, such as danger, filth, instability and the shame associated with street-based occupations, most children prefer this type of labor to others they have performed. In the course of their work, child street laborers become acquainted with adults laboring in both the formal and informal urban economies. These adults provide them with knowledge, connections and capital that allow them to move on to eventual ownership of their own more lucrative businesses. In addition, many urban child street laborers view their current jobs as a means of obtaining the vocational skills and connections that will allow them to migrate to and survive in the cities of Mexico and the United States / acase@tulane.edu

This project explores the re-definition of the American Republic in mass-produced literature and culture between 1830-1855. The re-articulation of what it meant to be a member of the republic shifted with the growth of urban centers and industrial capitalism. Drawing for Marxist and post-Marxist critical analysis and the methodology of cultural studies, The Consumptive Republic posits that certain facets of the republican ideal---public good over private gain and the belief in the commonwealth---were recessed while other facets more amenable to possessive capitalism---social mobility and personal desire---were highlighted. The devices, techniques, and products that made this shift palatable to Americans were largely the result of the growing urban nature of pre-Civil War America. Specifically, the novels of George Thompson are examined, linking the advertisements opening and closing his work with his interpellation of a fluctuating middle class. George Lippard's The Quaker-City and his later conspiratorial novels indicate the extent that concerns over the loss of the Republic caused by hidden cabals and secret societies permeated popular literature. Lippard's creation of his own secret society, The Brotherhood of the Union, links these concerns with Lippard's involvement in The Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross. Nathaniel P. Willis's construction of fashion as a republican device and his development of the consuming flaneur indicate how dress and the beginning of consumer capitalism engaged questions of what leisure and fashion meant to antebellum America. His position as editor of the influential Evening Mirror allowed Willis to circulate his ideas of dress and its leveling power. Fanny Fern's novel Ruth Hall is examined to show how gender is implicated in the changing conceptions of the Republic. Fern's effort to separate gender from economic power also forced a reconstruction in the sentimental novel / acase@tulane.edu

A study was conducted on individual differences in informational coping styles and coronary-prone behavior patterns regarding their mediating roles in the experience of subjective and physiological arousal prior to and during stressful cognitive task performance. Two-hundred and forty-six college-aged subjects were categorized according to coping style, information-monitors and information-blunters, and according to coronary-prone behavior pattern, Type A and Type B. Ninety-six of these participants were given either brief or detailed information about a difficult anagram task, during which noise was administered to one half of the subjects. Repeated measures of state anxiety, body sensations, and heart rate were collected at pre-information (baseline), post-information, and post-task phases. A post-experimental questionnaire concerning self-report of arousal created by the information and noise manipulations, and by the anagram task; and concerning attribution of quality of cognitive task performance was completed by each subject at the end of the experiment A significant positive correlation was found between Type A behavior pattern and information-seeking coping strategy. There were significant main effects of phases for all dependent variables: state anxiety, negative body sensations, and heart rate. Most notably, a significant information x coping style interaction showed that information-monitors experienced less anxiety when given detailed information, their preferred amount, than when exposed to brief information. The converse was true for the information-blunters, substantiating the conclusion that they prefer a brief amount of information concerning an aversive event. This interaction supports the primary hypothesis of the study and documents the effects of these individual differences in information preference with a cognitive task / acase@tulane.edu

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The projections of frontal cortical oculomotor areas and visual cortical areas to the superior colliculus, as well as projections from the superficial to the deep collicular compartments, were examined in the domestic cat using the retrograde transport of WGA-HRP/HRP. The following observations were made. (1) Large, intermediate, and deep collicular injections consistently result in the retrograde labeling of neurons in frontal cortical oculomotor areas previously suggested as analogous to the frontal eye fields (FEF) of the monkey. (2) Large injections involving all collicular layers consistently result in the retrograde labeling of neurons within numerous visual cortical areas. In contrast, small laminar injections are associated with specific patterns of retrograde cortical labeling depending on the location of the injection site in either the superficial or deep collicular compartments. Specifically, following injections restricted to the superficial grey layer, the heaviest labeling is found in the primary visual cortical areas located in the caudal-most regions of the cerebral cortex. With increasingly more ventral placement of small restricted injections of WGA-HRP/HRP, the majority of labeled neurons are seen in progressively more rostral areas of neocortex, while the labeling in caudal cortical areas becomes diminished. These data support the view that visually responsive neurons in the intermediate and deep grey layers of the superior colliculus in the cat receive visual information from extensive extrastriate visual cortical areas. (3) Following the placement of small injections of WGA-HRP/HRP within the intermediate and deep laminae of the superior colliculus, retrogradely labeled neurons are found in all collicular layers dorsal to the injection site. Specifically, injections placed within the intermediate grey layer result in the retrograde labeling of large numbers of neurons in the superficial grey and optic layers. The majority of labeled neurons following deep injections are observed in the intermediate grey layer, and the number of labeled superficial neurons decreases with increasing depth of the injection site. These observations confirm and add new data to previous evidence supporting the view that visual information reaching the superficial collicular layers can be transmitted to the deep compartment via interlaminar connections. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.) / acase@tulane.edu

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The papasi of Zanzibar represent an informal group of young, semi-employed men who hover at the margins of the tourism industry and attempt to 'court' Western women in hope of securing a work visa to Europe or North America. The author's fieldwork, based on participant observation of the papasi lifestyle in the year 2000, contributes valuable insights into the significance of this group. Through a focus on recent definitions of agency as self-authoring behavior, this study demonstrates the ways that understanding of agency has been transformed by embracing the global forms of entertainment culture newly available to the formerly agrarian socialist island. The roots of papasi activity in local and global imaginative forms is discussed through a consideration of the pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial historical economy. Firsthand interviews and observation of Zanzibari men and the Western women they dated or married allow for a very intimate analysis of the role of emotions in agentive behavior among these young men. This study also contributes an ethnographic insight into the polarized political situation on Zanzibar with firsthand reference to conditions surrounding the October 2000 election and its aftermath, considering the role that papasi political behavior plays in that context. An appendix, a glossary and a bibliography are included / acase@tulane.edu