The purpose of this dissertation study was to explore how traditional gender norms influence the daily experiences of female student-athletes. The following research question framed this study: How do collegiate female basketball players experience traditional gender norm expectations in relation to their sport? A combination of sources focused on gender norms and athletics informed this study, including previous research, mass media publications and documentaries, and the researcher's individual experiences with gender norms in organized athletics. To explore the research question, six National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I (D-I) female basketball players were interviewed to provide phenomenological data focused on their individual experiences with gender norms in college basketball. Semi-structured interviews utilizing a feminist phenomenological qualitative design were completed via Skype™. A phenomenological approach was employed to focus on the meaning of events experienced by people in specific situations. The feminist lens ensured that the study framed gender as a fluid concept consisting of multiple intersections. The six participants in the study represented five different teams from a major NCAA conference. Almost all of the participants in the study attended a different major research university in the Midwest (two participants attended the same institution). Three major themes surfaced from data provided by participants. These themes include: (1) the challenge of meeting traditional gender expectations (2) contrasting gender expectations in athletic and non-athletic settings (3) the changing dynamic of gender perceptions in women's basketball. These themes focus on participants' experience of contrasting gender expectations in different settings. In athletic settings participants described rarely thinking about gender dynamics or expectations. Off the court, however, players described a stronger perception of expectations for how they should look and behave. Players described experiencing regular questions and assumptions about their gender identity (i.e. female, male, trans*) and / or sexual orientation (i.e. bisexual, gay, heterosexual, queer) when wearing loose fitting basketball sweats during the day. While players rarely thought about conforming to a gender identity or role on the court, they did describe frustrations with an imbalance of media coverage between men's and women's athletics. Based on the findings of this study, recommendations for higher education practice include (1) providing training and educational opportunities for student-athletes, coaches, and administrators focused on gender socialization and subsequent perceptions of student-athletes (2) developing mentoring programs pairing new recruits with veteran players to help acclimate new student-athletes to the demands of the NCAA season, and to explore the impact of traditional gender norm expectations on student-athletes and (3) developing mass media or social media campaigns to help encourage positive recruiting practices in women's basketball and to discourage recruiters focusing on the gender identity or sexual orientation of players and coaches on other teams as a means of lowering interest in those programs.

The purpose of this study was to gather descriptive data on the experiences of Black female student athletes. A better understanding of the experiences of Black female student athletes as students, as athletes, and as developing young women may help student affairs practitioners better understand their collegiate experience; provide them with information to make decisions about student affairs programs, policies, services, and practices; and offer a subgroup of students who have historically been underrepresented in research an opportunity to share their stories. The study addressed the following research question: What are the college experiences of Black female student athletes during athletic eligibility at a large, predominately White, Division I, Midwestern, public university? Eight Black female eligible college student athletes were purposefully selected to participate in the qualitative study. Participants' ages ranged from 18-23 years and they self-identified as Black (n=3), Caribbean (n=3), and West Indian (n=2). The women were drawn from two sports: Basketball (n=2) and Track (n=6). Participants participated in two hour-long interviews. Data were coded and analyzed into categories. A process analysis enabled the key themes from the findings to be identified. Credibility and dependability were accounted through member checks and the use of three outside auditors. Four major themes emerged: Unfulfilled expectations during the college experience as an athlete, student, and developing young person; perceptions of being treated differently from her White female peers; complex relationships that deeply impacted participants' experiences in college both positively and negatively; and positive and negative forms of resistance in which participants' engaged in response to experiences during college. Themes were analyzed and divided into 13 major findings: Misleading recruitment; negative experiences with coaches; difficult transition from high school to college athletics; negative experiences with White teammates, coaches, and staff; social support among Black female athletes; difficult academic transition from high school to college; stereotyping and discrimination in the classroom; no meaningful relationships with faculty; involvement in co-curricular activities; complex relationships with Black men; complex relationships with White women; experiences with depression; and developing a stronger sense of self. Suggestions for future research and implications for practice are discussed in detail.

This Master's Thesis examines what happens when African and Caribbean characters in France or in their own country meet the Other in Francophone literature. How do interracial relationships construct/deconstruct the concept of an intertwined identity? This comparative project explores three 20th century Francophone women writers from Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and the West Indies in order to show how their novels construct or deconstruct the identities of migrated female characters through their interracial erotic and amorous relationships. Starting with Plato's Banquet which describes the origin of love as a splitting of identity and the quest of love as a quest to make that identity whole again, I problematize that notion through the intercultural encounters between the female main character and the white male in a postcolonial context. The study focuses on how the Other influences the female character and intervenes in the construction of the self, and looks at otherness as both an exterior force (the lover, the physical other) and an interior force (recognizing part of the self as other). It also explores how love and desire act as filters and motivators that influence the perception of the other and the self. My hypothesis is the following: the "ethnic woman" turns her foreigner status from a fragile one into one of strength and uses the Other for her integration into the Western society. Through otherness, she grasps a better understanding of the Other but also of herself. That encounter in all three novels pushes the ethnic female to return to her roots. Identities are not just hybrid but rather in a constant process of construction, a shift in self-construction in the globalized contemporary world. The female characters reflect the tendency to rethink not only what this new identity is but also the process of identity construction itself. By studying how women authors write on race and interracial relationships, this thesis offers a new understanding of the relation between love and identity and the female in Postcolonial Studies. Through her romantic relationships with the white male, the female has ultimately the power to decide for herself, which includes deciding to leave the relationship and leave for the sake of her newly found identity.

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Assessement of effects of cadium chloride exposure on the anaphylaxis reaction to food was done on six week old Swiss and BALB/c female mice. The animals were exposed to cadium as cadium chloride for either three days or six weeks. Intra-peritonal dose of cadium chloride was injected once a day, five days per week for three successive weeks. The animals were then sensitised to cow's milk by force-feeding with cow's milk for three consecutive days. Oral exposure of mice to a high dose of cadium resulted in cytotoxicity of liver and kidney cells. Retardation in growth rate and haematology change were detected. Proliferative response to the T-cell epitope from the circumsporozoite protein of plasmodium falsiparum was decreased in cultures of lymph node cells from cadium chronically treated mice and sensitised with the same peptide. In contrast, an increase of cell proliferation was observed when cow's milk was used instead. Significant increase in Immunoglobulin E level and Anaphylactic reaction dependent on the quantity of cadium exposed were recorded. No protective effect of ascorbic acid or zinc acetate on cadium alteration of immune response was observed / Master of Science (Hons) (Food Science)

The effect of a preseason conditioning program of balance and jump landing training exercises was studied to evaluate its influence on static and dynamic balance and the occurrence of ankle and knee injuries in Basketball. Fifty-eight female representative Basketball players (aged 9 – 17 years) were studied over one season. Twenty-nine of these players participated in a six week training program implemented during the preseason. Pre and post tests measured balance and injuries documented over one season. The experimental group’s static and dynamic balance improved significantly as measured by a stork stand test and a multiple single-leg hop-stabilisation test In a post hoc analysis of dynamic balance, participants in the 12 – 13 years experimental group performed significantly better on dynamic balance, whereas the 12 – 13 years control group performed poorest compared with all other age cohorts. The lower limb injury rate for the 29 experimental group participants was .78 injuries per 1 000 hours, while the control group sustained no lower limb injuries in the 2001 season, based on the injury definition utilised in the study. This finding was statistically significant although three of the four injuries sustained were contact injuries. The study findings indicate that appropriately defined balance training can be beneficial for improving balance ability in female Basketball players. Evidence was found in the study for the existence of a critical age when balance training should be introduced to maximise the benefit for young female adolescent Basketball players. / Master of Education (Hons)

Background: The use of chemotherapy and endocrine therapies in the treatment of pre-menopausal women with breast cancer may result in menopausal symptoms, permanent infertility or the need to delay pregnancy. This series of studies investigates the fertility- and menopause-related information needs of pre-menopausal women with a diagnosis of early breast cancer (Studies 1 and 2) and the benefits women need to make undergoing adjuvant endocrine therapies worthwhile (Study 3). Method: Study 1 is a qualitative study of 24 women and Study 2 a survey study amongst 228 women. Study 3 included a subset of 102 women from the sample involved in Study 2 who had been treated with endocrine therapies for a minimum of three months. To be eligible, women had to be aged 40 years or younger (Study 2 and 3) when diagnosed with early stage breast cancer, and be 6-60 months post-diagnosis at the time of participation. For Study 2, participants completed a mailed self-report questionnaire that included a fertility- and menopause-related information needs survey, and standardized measures of distress, quality-of-life, menopausal symptoms and information preferences. For Study 3, participants were asked to complete a face-to-face interview. Results: Study 1 showed that many women thought that the information they had received in the past about fertility and menopausal symptoms was either insufficient or unavailable. Some women felt that, while information on fertility and menopause issues had not been paramount at the time of diagnosis, it became increasingly important after diagnosis. Study 2 showed that 71% of participants discussed fertility-related issues with a health professional as part of their breast cancer treatment and 86% discussed menopause-related issues. Consultation with a fertility or menopause specialist was the most preferred method of obtaining this information. Study 3 demonstrated that the majority of participants considered adjuvant endocrine therapy worthwhile for a 2% absolute gain in survival rates and for a 6-month gain in life expectancy. Conclusions: The results of this series of studies suggest that younger women have unmet needs for fertility- and menopause-related information. Women with early breast cancer who had received adjuvant endocrine therapies judged modest survival gains sufficient to make adjuvant endocrine therapy worthwhile.

MPhilPH / Female tubal sterilisation, often referred to as "tubal ligation" but more often performed these days using laparoscopically-applied metal clips, remains a popular form of contraception in women who have completed their families. A review of the literature on the incidence of failure of tubal sterilisation found many reports of case-series and small clinic-based studies, but only a few larger studies with good epidemiological designs, most recently the US CREST study conducted during the 1980s and early 1990s. The CREST study reported a conditional (life-table) cumulative incidence of failure of 0.55, 0.84, 1.18 and 1.85 per 100 women at 1, 2, 4 and 10 years of follow-up respectively. The study described here estimated a lower bound for the incidence of tubal sterilisation failure in NSW by probabilistically linking routinely-collected hospital admission records for women undergoing sterilisation surgery to hospital admission records for the same women which were indicative of subsequent conception or which represented censoring events such as hysterectomy or death in hospital. Data for the period July 1992 to June 2000 were used. Kaplan-Meier and proportional-hazards survival analyses were performed on the resulting linked data set. The conditional cumulative incidence per 100 women at 1, 2 4 and 8 years of follow-up was estimated to be 0.74 (95% CI 0.68-0.81), 1.05 (0.97-1.13), 1.33 (1.23-1.42) and 1.51 (1.39-1.62) respectively. Forty percent of failures ended in abortion and 14% presented as ectopic pregnancies. Age, private health insurance status and sterilisation in a smaller hospital were all found to be associated with lower rates of failure. Strong evidence of time-limited excess numbers of failures in women undergoing surgery in particular hospitals was also found. The study demonstrates the feasibility of using linked, routinely-collected health data to evaluate relatively rare, long-term outcomes such as sterilisation failure on a population-wide basis.

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