Through my art process and material selection, I investigate how interior spaces long to accumulate memories and possessions. I am interested in encroaching floor to ceiling build-up of collected goods kept in the homes of individuals unable to discard or part with possessions. These individual’s daily movements through their space and their denial of the surrounding mass informs my work. My work is larger than human scale, made of multiple units, and dense; yet understated by the subtle use of color and repeated materials. When I make an installation it often begins with creating a wall or a floor that delineates itself from the actual architecture of a room. I procure discarded domestic fragments such as carpet, shingles, and blinds. I select one material for each project to emphasize excessive quantities. I seek out donated goods and trash piles, heaps on the edge of consumer waste. The sourcing of these materials is serendipitous. I elevate these mundane materials by taking them out of their original context. The cycle of regeneration moves from material to “art object” back to material again as the work is displayed and dispersed back into the cycle of waste. In this thesis I will discuss how through my process and materials, I investigate interior spaces where memory and possessions accumulate.

Humans exhibit a number of suboptimal behaviours in the wake of a loss. For example, gamblers often ‘chase' their losses in an attempt to break even. Similarly, investors tend to hold on to losing stocks too long in the hope that the declining share price might make a recovery. However, the neural mechanisms that instantiate such behaviour are poorly understood. I begin the introductory chapter with a basic historical overview of fundamental economic concepts, interleaving intersecting ideas from psychology and neuroscience. This leads to a more in-depth exploration of the notion that loss-related behavioural biases might provide insight into the neural mechanisms that underlie risky choice. From this, I argue that rats represent a viable animal model of risky decision- making for neuroeconomic research. The original research presented in Chapters 2 – 5 pave the way toward advancing our current understanding of loss-related biases in behaviour with rat models of risky decision-making. By employing insight from psychology and economics, I developed two models of rat behaviour that can be used to study the neural substrates of loss valuation. I presented the experimental paradigms in Chapters 2 and 5, while demonstrating novel loss-related correlations between the midbrain dopamine system and observed loss behaviour in Chapters 3 and 4. The results presented in Chapter 5 demonstrate that rats are capable of producing behavioural patterns akin to loss aversion and the disposition effect. This work has also highlighted a number of areas for future research. In Chapter 6, I explore potential theoretical implications of the results discussed in previous chapters. In summary, this thesis uses experimental risky decision-making tasks in rats to advance our current knowledge of the ways in which concepts such as loss aversion critically influence our internal representation of value.

~ ..•.. There are two types of Oxford Filter; blue filters enhance short wavelength light and yel,low enhance long wavelength light. These filters have previously been shown to improve reading performance, vergence eye movements and perception of visual form and motion. In this thesis the effects of such filters were examined in both an unselected primary school population, and in a clinical population of children with identified visual and/or reading difficulties. A school based visual screening study established that just over 40% of children identified a filter as beneficial when viewing text. These children reported a significantly higher number of visual symptoms and had significantly reduced convergence and accommodation eye movements compared to non-filter choosers. A further trial of filter use revealed that those using blue filters made significant improvements in accommodative function and in spelling ability. A cross-over, randomised controlled trial was conducted in the clinical sample with psychometric, orthoptic and psychophysical assessments administered before and after filter use. Poor readers made significant improvements in reading following filter use, but a smaller dyslexic group were not found to improve their reading. Performance on a Matrices task significantly improved after using yellow filters specifically. There was also evidence that children with reduced saccades improved their spelling with the use of yellow filters, but had reduced spelling following blue use. Although filters impacted upon both orthoptic and literacy measures these improvements appear not to be causally linked. A random dot kinematogram task (RDK) revealed a correlation between magnocellular functioning under blue and yellow lighting conditions and reading; lower reading was associated with poorer RDK thresholds. This association was specific to reading and not evident in relation to dyslexia. Visual search accuracy was also shown to improve significantly after the use of blue and yellow filters. Together these findings have implications for the treatment of orthoptic abnormalities and literacy performance.

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Education, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master in Education / This study aimed to assess selected physiological, osmoregulatory and thermoregulatory responses to tennis play in children, Twenty-four young male tennis players (X age; 13.3+ 1.31 years) were stndied while playing for 90 min under warm environmental conditions (WBGT index= 13-19). Ad libitum consumption of pure water was permitted. Questionnaires were used in order to elicit information regarding the health status, degree of aeelimatizationnnd pre-match trait and state anxiety of the subjects. The physiological variables assessed. included pre- and post-match rectal temperature (T), heart rate (HR) and oxygen consumption (02) during the match. The biochemical observations included pre- and postmatch blood glucose, haematoerit (Ret), haemoglobin (lIb), plasma electrolyte (Na", Cl', K+, Mg++) and total plasma protein (TPP) concentrations. The findings )q~ed that the young tennis players investigated in this study experienced, ~de!'ate levels of pre-competitive trait and state amdety. The estimated nie.m exercise intensity of 50-55% of VOzmax for a duration of 90 min resulted. in a Tre increase of 0.73 •C. Mean percentage dehydration was 0.MO+O.25. Plasma volume (PV) changes were insignificant and were positively related to TPP changes. Mean plasma. Na" and CI- concentrations increased by 0.88 mmol.r" and 2.2 mmol.r:' respectively. The subjects' mean H... response (145 bpm) of a subset or the sample(n=13) and estimated VOz (21.38 ml.kg-l.min-~ represented a 55% of the age adjusted HRmax reserve and approximately a 50-55% of V02 max respectively. The time spent within the target heart rate range (60-85% HR. max reserve) comprised only 33% of the match duration. Mean energy expenditure was estimated to be 1772 KJ dUl'ing the 90 min period. Itwas calculated that in order to prevent harmful levels of dehydration under warm environmental conditions and at an exercise intensity of tennis play of approximately 55% of the age adjusted HR max reserve or 50-55% of V02 max, consumption of 4.44-6.81 mI.Kg-1.br-1 or 200-360 ml.hr" of water is recommended in young tennis players possessing a body mass of 45-53 Kg. The precise quantity was concluded to be a function of the mass and exercise intensity of the subjects and the environmental heat stress index during play. / Andrew Chakane 2018

Primary dysmenorrhoea, or painful menstruation in the absence of pelvic pathology, is a common, and often debilitating, gynaecological condition that affects between 45 to 95% of menstruating women. Despite the high prevalence, dysmenorrhoea is often poorly treated, and even disregarded, by health professionals, pain researchers, and the women themselves, who may accept it as a normal part of the menstrual cycle. The overall purpose of this thesis is two-fold: first, to contribute knowledge about the impact and consequences of recurrent severe menstrual pain on pain sensitivity, mood, quality of life and sleep in women with primary dysmenorrhoea, and secondly, to investigate day-time and night-time treatment of recurrent primary dysmenorrhoeic pain. For this thesis, I completed five separate studies on three different groups of young, otherwise healthy women with a history of severe primary dysmenorrhoea, and age-matched controls without dysmenorrhoea. The first two studies, presented in Chapter 2, addressed the question of whether women with primary dysmenorrhoea are hypersensitive to experimental pain. I used clinically-relevant experimentally-induced muscle pain stimuli (intramuscular injection of hypertonic saline and ischaemia) in referred and non-referred sites of menstrual pain, at different phases of the menstrual cycle. Women with dysmenorrhoea, compared to women without dysmenorrhoea, had increased sensitivity to deep-muscle pain both within the area of referred menstrual pain and at a remote pain-free site. Further, the increased muscle pain sensitivity was evident even in phases of the menstrual cycle when women did not have menstrual pain, illustrating that the changes in pain perception extend outside of the painful menstruation phase. These findings suggest that women with dysmenorrhoea show long-lasting changes in pain processing possibly because of the recurrent dysmenorrhoeic pain. A secondary aim of the study presented in Chapter 2a, was to determine the impact of menstrual cycle phase on experimentally-induced muscle pain sensitivity in women with and without primary dysmenorrhoea. My results suggest that menstrual cycle phase has no effect on pain sensitivity in either group of women. As part of my studies, I investigated the impact of dysmenorrhoeic pain on quality of life and mood. I found that women with dysmenorrhoea had a significantly reduced quality of life (Chapter 3) and poorer mood (Chapter 2a and Chapter 5), during menstruation compared to their pain-free follicular phase, and compared to the menstruation phase of the pain-free control women. These data highlight the negative impact that primary dysmenorrhoea has on young women, for up to a few days every month. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are often prescribed as the first-line therapy for menstrual pain. Yet, severe dysmenorrhoeic pain is often poorly managed, especially at night, when the pain likely disrupts sleep. I conducted two studies investigating the effectiveness of diclofenac potassium, a readily-available NSAID with a low side-effect profile, compared to placebo, in alleviating severe primary dysmenorrhoeic pain across the day (Chapter 4), and during the night (Chapter 5). I also investigated the effectiveness of diclofenac potassium in improving subjective and objective sleep quality (Chapter 5). I found that the daily recommended dose (150 mg) of diclofenac potassium, administered at three timepoints across the first 24 hours of menstruation, significantly reduced perceived menstrual pain, compared to placebo. I confirmed that dysmenorrhoeic pain reduces polysomnographic and subjective measures of sleep quality compared with the pain-free follicular phase. I also showed, for the first time, that diclofenac potassium is effective, compared to placebo, in alleviating nocturnal pain, along with restoring subjective sleep quality and polysomnographic measures of objective sleep quality in women with severe primary dysmenorrhoea. My studies have addressed several gaps in the knowledge about primary dysmenorrhoea. I have shown that women with primary dysmenorrhoea are hypersensitive to deep muscle pain, supporting the hypothesis of other researchers that the recurrent menstrual pain experienced by these women is associated with central sensitisation, and may predispose women with primary dysmenorrhoea to other chronic painful conditions. Therefore, limiting the monthly noxious input into the central nervous systems of these women, by means of effective treatment of dysmenorrhoea, may improve their long-term health. The research presented in this thesis further highlights the efficacy of diclofenac potassium in relieving not only day-time and night-time dysmenorrhoeic pain, but also in restoring objective and subjective pain-induced sleep disturbances in women with dysmenorrhoea. Further, my research has shown that dysmenorrhoeic pain has an immediate negative impact on quality of life and mood during menstruation. The results of this thesis show the multi-factorial impact of dysmenorrhoea and should stimulate further research about the long-term benefits of effective treatment of menstrual pain.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to compare relationships between dietary and physical activity (PA) behaviors and body composition and body fat distribution, as measured by percent body fat (BF%), waist-to-height ratio (WHt), waistto- hip ratio (WHp) and body mass index (BMI) in post-menopausal women (Post), with the same relationships in pre-menopausal women (Pre). METHODS: Ninety-two subjects (n = 48 Post; n = 44 Pre) were measured for height, weight, waist and hip circumferences and skinfold thicknesses. Dietary content was obtained from a Diet History Questionnaire (DHQ II); PA was estimated from responses to the International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ). RESULTS: Multiple regression identified no modifiable predictor variables for Pre. Models for Post identified saturated fat grams (SFGs), PA, years postmenopause (YrsPost), and Alcohol (Alc) as predictors of WHt, WHp, BMI and BF%. CONCLUSIONS: PA, SFG and Alc are modifiable variables related to postmenopausal body composition and fat distribution. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2017. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of cadence on time trial performance in novice female cyclists. Ten novice female cyclists volunteered to participate in this study. Participants performed 3 sessions: one VO2 peak and two time trials (TT). Cadence was randomly selected and fixed for each TT (60 or 100 rpm) while power output (PO) was adjusted by the participant, as tolerated. Finish time, HR, blood lactate, PO, VO2, and RPE were measured throughout the time trials. The major finding of this study was the significantly faster (p<0.05) finish time (minutes) during the 60 rpm condition (34:23) versus the 100 rpm condition (37:34). Also the 60 rpm TT resulted in significant (p<0.05) differences for HR (155.9 vs 161.2 bpm), gross efficiency (21.1% vs 17.7%), and PO (147 vs 129 watts). These results indicate that novice female cyclists benefit from adopting a low cadence during an 8k TT. / by Patricia Graham. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2010. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2010. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

This study aimed to understand the differences in strength or coordination of brain regions involved in processing faces in the presence of aging and/or progressing neuropathology (Alzheimer's disease). To this end, Experiment 1 evaluated age-related differences in basic face processing and the effects of familiarity in face processing. Overall, face processing in younger (22-35yrs) and older participants (63-83yrs) recruited a broadly distributed network of brain activity, but the distribution of activity varied depending on the age of the individual. The younger population utilized regions of the occipitotemporal, medial frontal and posterior parietal cortices while the older population recruited a concentrated occipitotemporal network. The younger participants were also sensitive to the type of face presented, as Novel faces were associated with greater mean BOLD activity than either the Famous or Relatives faces. Interestingly, Relatives faces were associated with greater mean B OLD activity in more regions of the brain than found in any other analysis in Exp. 1, spanning the inferior frontal, medial temporal and inferior parietal cortices. In contrast, the older adults were not sensitive to the type of face presented, which could reflect a difference in cognitive strategies used by the older population when presented with this type of face stimuli. Experiment 2 evaluated face processing, familiarity in face processing and also emphasized the interactive roles autobiographical processing and memory recency play in processing familiar faces in mature adults (MA; 45-55yrs), older adults (OA; 70-92yrs) and patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease (AD; 70-92yrs). / MA participants had greater mean BOLD activity values in more regions of the brain than observed in either of the older adult populations, spanning regions of the medial frontal, medial temporal, inferior parietal and occipital cortices. OA, in contrast, utilized a concentrated frontal and medial temporal network and AD participants had the greatest deficit in BOLD activity overall.Age-related differences in processing faces, in processing the type of face presented, in autobiographical information processing and in processing the recency of a memory were noted, as well as differences due to the deleterious effects of AD. / by Jeanna Winchester. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2009. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2009. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the impact of poser and perceiver gender on the Happiness/Anger Superiority effect and the Female Advantage in facial expression recognition. Happy, neutral, and angry facial expressions were presented on male and female faces under Continuous Flash Suppression (CFS). Participants of both genders indicated when the presented faces broke through the suppression. In the second experiment, angry and happy expressions were reduced to 50% intensity. At full intensity, there was no difference in the reaction time for female neutral and angry faces, but male faces showed a difference in detection between all expressions. Across experiments, male faces were detected later than female faces for all facial expressions. Happiness was generally detected faster than anger, except when on female faces at 50% intensity. No main effect for perceiver gender emerged. It was concluded that happiness is superior to anger in CFS, and that poser gender affects facial expression recognition. / by Sophia Peaco. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2013. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.

Number perception, its neural basis and its relationship to how numerical stimuli are presented have been challenging research topics in cognitive neuroscience for many years. A primary question that has been addressed is whether the perception of the quantity of a visually presented number stimulus is dissociable from its early visual perception. The present study examined the possible influence of visual quality judgment on quantity judgments of numbers. To address this issue, volunteer adult subjects performed a mental number comparison task in which two-digit stimulus numbers (Arabic number format), among the numbers between 31 and 99 were mentally compared to a memorized reference number, 65. Reaction times (RTs) and neurophysiological (i.e. electroencephalographic (EEG) data) responses were acquired simultaneously during performance of the two-digit number comparison task. In this particular quantity comparison task, the number stimuli were classified into three distance factors. That is, numbers were a close, medium or far distance from the reference number (i.e., 65). In order to evaluate the relationship between numerical stimulus quantity and quality, the number stimuli were embedded in varying degrees of a typical visual noise form, known as "salt and pepper noise" (e.g., the visual noise one perceives when viewing a photograph taken with a dusty camera lens). In this manner, the visual noise permitted visual quality to be manipulated across three levels: no noise, medium noise (approximately 60% degraded visual quality from nonoise), and dense noise (75% degraded visual quality from no-noise). / The RTs provided the information about the overt responses; however, the temporal relationship of visual quality (starts earlier than quantity perception) and quantity were examined using eventrelated potentials (ERPs) extracted from continuous EEG recordings. The analysis of the RTs revealed that the judgment of number quantity is dependent upon visual number quality. In addition, the same effect was observed over the ERP components occurring between 100 ms and 300 ms after stimulus onset time over the posterior electrodes. Principal components analysis (PCA) and independent component analysis (ICA) methods were used to further analyze the ERP data. The consistent results of the PCA and ICA were used to represent the spatial brain dynamics, as well as to obtain temporal dynamics. The overall conclusion of the present study is that ERPs, ICs and PCs along with RTs suggested a strategy of quantitative perception (i.e., number comparison) based on the qualitative attributes of the stimuli highlighting the importance of the design of the task and the methodology / by Meltem Ballan. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2010. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2010. Mode of access: World Wide Web.