Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Enteric viruses are infectious human pathogens that initiate infection in the gastrointestinal tract. They follow a fecal-oral route of transmission and are spread by contamination of food, water, or contact between individuals. Furthermore, enteric viruses also cause significant morbidity, mortality, and economic burdens yearly. Coxsackievirus (CV) is commonly isolated among enteric viruses and is an etiological agent of hand, foot, and mouth disease, hemorrhagic conjunctivitis, and myocarditis. The virus predominantly infects infants and young children and accounts for 11% of the fatality rate in neonates. Despite CV’s impact on human health, there are no treatments or vaccines for CV infections. Using a mouse model to study a key CV, Coxsackievirus B3 (CVB3), our laboratory has found two critical factors that impact CVB3 replication and pathogenesis. First, we have demonstrated that intestinal bacteria enhance intestinal CVB3 replication. We found that certain specific bacteria (Salmonella enterica) and its cell wall components, like lipopolysaccharides (LPS), enhanced CVB3 stability and infectivity in vitro. Additionally, we found that particular constituents of LPS are required for stability to occur. These data suggest that specific bacteria may be integral in maintaining CVB3 infectivity in the intestine. Besides virus-microbiome interaction, CVB3 is also impacted by sex hormones. Using castrated mice models, we observed a sex bias to CVB3 infection, with male mice succumbing to CVB3-induced disease at an increased rate compared to female mice. Our data suggest that testosterone, a predominant male sex hormone, enhanced CVB3 intestinal replication and viral dissemination to organs in male and female mice, but lethality only in male mice. Moreover, testosterone also affected the immune response by reducing the activation of the CD8+ T cells. CD8+ T cells are required to clear the viral infection and are integral in vaccine development. In contrast, we found an enhanced CD8+ T cell response in female mice to CVB3 infection, suggesting a sex-dependent T cell response that may underlie the sex bias in disease. Overall, these data represent an essential advancement in the CV field and will help develop future therapeutics and aid in vaccine design to limit CV infections.

Sin Lai-ting. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 153-156). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Abstract in English --- p.i / Abstract in Chinese --- p.iii / Acknowledgements --- p.iv / Table of Contents --- p.v / List of Tables and Graphs --- p.vii / Chapter Chapter 1： --- lntroduction --- p.1 / Chapter Chapter 2: --- Literature Review and Application --- p.4 / Chapter 2.1) --- The Theory of Marriage and Family Formation --- p.4 / Chapter 2.2) --- The Theory of the Allocation of Time Between Family Members in Housework and Market Work --- p.6 / Chapter 2.3) --- Application of Becker's Theoretical Models to Different Variables --- p.12 / Chapter 2.4) --- Empirical Review on the Division of Labor between Husbands and Wives --- p.24 / Chapter 2.5) --- Decomposition of the wage differential of men and women --- p.31 / Chapter 2.6) --- Summary --- p.33 / Chapter Chapter 3: --- Methodology --- p.35 / Chapter 3.1) --- Changes in the Relative Economic Contribution of Husbands and Wives to Their Families --- p.35 / Chapter 3.2) --- Stable and Unstable Mating --- p.39 / Chapter 3.3) --- Reasons for the Changes in Economic Contribution of Husbands and Wives --- p.43 / Chapter 3.4) --- Decomposition of the Economic Contribution Differential --- p.46 / Chapter 3.5) --- Definitions of Control Variables --- p.48 / Chapter 3.6) --- Summary --- p.52 / Chapter Chapter 4: --- Data and Sample Description --- p.53 / Chapter 4.1) --- Data and Sample Extraction --- p.53 / Chapter 4.2) --- Variable Characteristics --- p.55 / Chapter Chapter 5: --- A First Look at the Changes in Relative Economic Contribution of Husbands and Wives --- p.58 / Chapter 5.1) --- Simple Data Analyses --- p.58 / Chapter 5.2) --- Pooled Regressions with Husband Dummy --- p.64 / Chapter 5.3) --- Summary --- p.70 / Chapter Chapter 6: --- An Analysis of Selected Characteristics between Husbands and Wives --- p.72 / Chapter 6.1 ) --- 2x2 Canonical Correlation Analyses --- p.72 / Chapter 6.2) --- 3x3 Canonical Correlation Analyses --- p.75 / Chapter 6.3) --- Summary --- p.78 / Chapter Chapter 7: --- Reasons for the Changes in Relative Economic Contribution of Husbands and Wives to Their Families --- p.79 / Chapter 7.1) --- Determinants of the Changes in Economic Contribution of Husbands and Wives to their families --- p.79 / Chapter 7.2) --- Decomposition of the Economic Contribution Differential of Husbands and Wives to their Families --- p.90 / Chapter 7.3) --- Summary --- p.93 / Chapter Chapter 8: --- Conclusion --- p.94 / Tables --- p.98 / Graphs --- p.129 / Flow Chart --- p.136 / Appendix --- p.137 / References --- p.153

published_or_final_version / English Studies / Master / Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics

Firstly, the aims of the study were to investigate the influences of various factors, sex differences, Cytomegalovirus/Epstein-Barr virus (CMV/EBV) serostatus and vitamin D concentrations on respiratory illness incidence and immune function during the winter months in a student cohort of endurance athletes. In Chapter 3, the findings of the study concur with recent reports of illness incidence at major competitive games which indicate that female athletes may be more susceptible than their male counterparts to upper respiratory tract illness (URTI) symptoms and that lower oral-respiratory mucosal immunity may, in part, account for this. It was also found that previous coinfection with CMV and EBV might promote protective immune surveillance to lower the risk of URTI. In addition, it can be concluded that athletes with low plasma vitamin D concentrations may have a higher risk of URTI and suffer more severe symptoms when URTI is present. This may be due to impaired mucosal and systemic immunity as secretory immunoglobulin A (SIgA) secretion, cathelicidin levels and antigen-stimulated pro-inflammatory cytokine production appear to be increased by vitamin D-dependent mechanisms. A series of follow-up studies were also conducted to examine the effect of vitamin D on mucosal and systemic immunity in athletes. In Chapter 4, it was reported that the influence of vitamin D on circulating cytokines might be different in athletes compared with non-athletes and that both pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokine production by multi-antigen stimulated whole blood culture were not influenced by 1,25-dihydroxy vitamin D (1, 25(OH)2D) iconcentrations within the normal healthy range. In Chapter 5, it was found that 5000 IU of vitamin D3 supplementation daily appears to have a beneficial effect in up-regulating the expression of SIgA and cathelicidin in athletes during a winter training period. Nevertheless, the findings reported in Chapter 6 showed that there were no significant effects of vitamin D status and a 4-week period of daily high does vitamin D3 supplementation on salivary antimicrobial protein (AMP) responses to prolonged exercise. In conclusion, a series of studies in this thesis have demonstrated the influence of various factors (sex differences, CMV/EBV serostatus and vitamin D concentrations) on susceptibility to URTI among athletes. Moreover, it was suggested that vitamin D3 supplementation could have a positive effect on immune function and lead to decreased incidence of respiratory infections.

No description available.

The Australian zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) serves as an excellent model organism for studying the mechanisms that influence brain sexual differentiation. The brain and behavior of the zebra finch are sexually dimorphic. The regions of the brain that control the learning and production of song (song control nuclei) are significantly larger in the male brain than in the female brain and only males sing courtship songs, thus the majority of past research has focused on the development of these sex differences. In the majority of mammals, brain sexual differentiation occurs because hormones secreted from the gonads act to initiate male or female brain development. In zebra finches, estradiol is sufficient to masculinize the male brain, however manipulations of developmental hormone exposure fail to fully reverse the sex differences in song nuclei size. Furthermore, genetic females induced to develop functional testicular tissue do not develop a completely masculinized song system and castration has no effect on development of the song system in males. The source of the increased estrogenic signal in male zebra finch brain has yet to be identified, but data suggest that other neuronal factors play a role in development of the song control nuclei. Coregulators, such as coactivators and corepressors, are proteins and RNA activators that work by enhancing or depressing transcriptional activity of the nuclear steroid receptor with which they associate. Coregulators also modulate the development of sex-specific brain morphology and behavior in rodents and birds and may help to explain the difficulties observed in altering song nuclei development via castration and gonadal hormone replacement. As an estrogen receptor-α coactivator, ribosomal protein L7 (RPL7) is able to make the brain more sensitive to estradiol by enhancing the effects of steroid receptor action. Therefore, this dissertation addressed the following questions regarding RPL7: (1) is RPL7 expression sexually dimorphic in the song nuclei of the zebra finch brain?; (2) is RPL7 protein expression regulated by steroid hormones?; and (3) does decreasing RPL7 protein expression with antisense oligonucleotides alter neuronal survival in vivo and song nuclei size and neuron number in vitro? Collectively, these studies will provide valuable information about the role of steroid receptor coactivators in development of the zebra finch song system and on the role of coactivators on sexual differentiation of the brain.

ABSTRACT SEX DIFFERENCES IN VISUAL REACTION TIME: EFFECT OF SPORT PARTICIPATION AND DRIVING Tanyel, Emine &Ouml / zge M.S., Department of Physical Education and Sport Supervisor: Y. Do&ccedil / . Dr. Sadettin Kirazci July 2007, 84 pages The purpose of this study is to investigate whether sport participation and driving has any effect on the differences between sexes in visual reaction time (RT). There were three groups (control, exercise, driver), and 20 males and 20 females in each group. The sport participation group was athletes from taekwondo were training at least for five years, minimum three days per week throughout the year. The driver group was males and females were working as representatives of companies and driving at least 20.000 km. annually for the last four years. Each participant was asked to read and sign informed consent and information form at the beginning of the study. Participants were measured three times for simple visual RT, simple visual RT with movement, two and three visual choices RTs for both hands. Descriptive statistics was performed for the four measures according to the groups and sexes. Group and sex differences were examined with MANOVA. The result indicated statistically significant interaction between sex and group for both hands in favor of males for most of the comparisons. Significant differences were also found between three groups and between two sexs for both hands. This study indicated that long term sport participation requiring visual information and driving extensively shorten visual reaction of the participants compared to their counterparts who were not acting in sport and driving.

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

This study investigates the effects of student sex, student’s interest in learning science and school characteristics – school type and school size- on 15-year-old scientific literacy in Canada through HLM. Using PISA data in 2006, the results showed 19% of the total variability in scientific literacy could be attributed to schools in Canada. There is a significant sex difference in scientific literacy in Canada at the student level. In addition, students’ interest in learning science is related to their scientific literacy significantly. Students who have a higher interest in learning the subjects of physics, chemistry, human biology, astronomy, and geology are predicted to achieve higher science scores than those students who have less interest in learning these subjects. In terms of the school characteristics variables, students who attend public schools have better scientific literacy scores. Also, students who go to bigger schools significantly outperform in scientific literacy.

Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 91-96). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.