Individual’s existential ambivalence has according to Jacques Derrida, one of the foremost proponents of post-structuralism, led to a continuous demand for structure (Cooper, 1989). Categories, used as structural tools, are however often hierarchically organized, where one category is more preferable than the other, also referred to as binary oppositions. Alternative categories and/ or references will appear when adopting a deconstruction process, which is crucial in order to invoke change and development (Cooper, 1989; Markkula et al., 2011; Marion, 2006). The aim of present research is trying to identify if Derrida’s theory of undecidable transfer of features (Agger, 1991; Cooper, 1989; Livingston, 2010; Bates, 2005) is applicable in fashion, more specifically fast- and slow fashion, and if the two categories are susceptible to a merge. Deconstructionism and Derrida’s theory of undecidable was furthermore applied as the theoretical framework throughout the study. Present research has been executed with an interpretive methodological approach and through a poststructural epistemological outlook (Hudson & Ozanne, 1988; Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2016). Data was derived through two focus group interviews, involving seven informants at a time, with Autodriving as a visual research tool (Heisley & Levy, 1991) and open-ended questions as a complementing instrument (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2016). A thematic analysis was furthermore applied when revisiting the data and analysing its content. The findings finally suggest that a merge between fast- and slow fashion is executable, which furthermore also legitimises Derrida’s theory of undecidability. This study has however only begun the deconstruction process and does therefore encourage future researchers to continue investigating the theory of undecidability (Agger, 1991; Cooper, 1989; Livingston, 2010; Bates, 2005) not only in fashion, but also within other institutions.

This study provides the baseline and initial assessment of the napping habits of the United States Military Academy Class of 2007. This portion of a four-year longitudinal study examines data collected on 62 Cadets over 32 days from 4 October 2004 to 4 November 2004 using actigraphy data and sleep logs. Data were stratified and cleaned in accordance with nap infrastructure. A total of 607 naps were reported for a total of 73.3 hours of additional sleep. Naps ranged from 15 minutes to six hours and occurred most frequently on weekdays. This finding contrasts with research of other samples of adolescent college students. Weekend naps were shorter in duration than weekday naps. This finding was also a departure from current scientific nap research findings. Consistent with other research, most naps were between 30 minutes to one and one half hours in length. Frequency and duration of naps were greatest on Wednesdays. The primary type of nap taken was restorative, as opposed to appetitive or prophylactic in nature. Afternoon naps were more prevalent than morning naps, possibly reflecting Cadet class schedule rather than sleep need. Suggestions for additional research are proposed.

This research is about examining the way in which racialized environmental violence contributes to exploitative social relations becoming embedded in the everyday world. I argue that the space of the everyday has been produced through cycles of social relations proceeding from and/or tied to racialized environmental violence. I continue the work of critical scholars in asserting that social and environmental violence is linked in the same ideological impulse which seeks to hide itself behind a variety of alienating processes. The slow way in which environmental violence works is particularly impactful in these processes because of its attritional lethality, contributing to premature death. I studied these processes by examining the histories surrounding the site of a construction day labor firm in Richmond, Virginia. My methodology includes archival research on newspapers, public documents, and secondary sources establishing that the patterned co-location of social and environmental violence does not occur by chance.

Hepatitis C is a serious disease that affects about 200 million people worldwide. No anti-HCV vaccine or specific anti-viral drugs are available today. Non-structural protein 3 (NS3) of HCV is a bifunctional serine protease/helicase, and the protease has become a prime target in the search for anti-HCV drugs. In this work, the complete HCV NS3 gene has been cloned and expressed, and the protein has been purified using affinity chromatography. An assay for measuring the protease activity of full-length NS3 protease has been developed and used for inhibition studies. A series of peptide-based inhibitors of NS3 protease varying in length, the composition of the side-chain and the N- and C-terminal groups have been studied. Potent tetra-, penta- and hexapeptide inhibitors of the NS3 protease were discovered. Hexapeptides with an acyl sulfonamide C-terminal residue were the most potent inhibitors of the NS3 protease, having nanomolar Ki-values. The selectivity of the inhibitors was assessed using other serine and cysteine proteases. NS3 protease inhibitors with electrophilic C-terminal groups were non-selective while those comprising a C-terminal carboxylate or acyl sulfonamide group were selective. All inhibitors with a small hydrophobic P1 side-chain residue were non-selective for the NS3 protease, being good inhibitors of human leukocyte elastase. This result highlights the importance of the P1 residue for inhibitor selectivity, which stems from the major role of this residue in determining substrate specificity of serine proteases. Electrophilic inhibitors often cause slow-binding inhibition of serine and cysteine proteases. This was observed with other proteases used in our work but not with NS3 protease, which indicates that mechanism of inhibition of NS3 protease by electrophilic inhibitors may not involve formation of a covalent bond. The structure-activity relationships obtained in this work can be used for improvement of peptide-based inhibitors of HCV NS3 protease towards higher inhibitory potency and selectivity.

The medical mushroom Ganoderma lucidum has long been used in traditional Chinese medicine and shown effective in the treatment of many diseases including cancer. Here we studied the cytotoxic effects of two natural compounds purified from Ganoderma lucidum, ergosterol peroxide and ganodermanondiol. We found that these two compounds exhibited cytotoxicity not only against fast proliferating cells, but on quiescent, slow-cycling cells. Using a fibroblast cell-quiescence model, we found that the cytotoxicity on quiescent cells was due to induced apoptosis, and was associated with a shallower quiescent state in compound-treated cells, resultant from the increased basal activity of an Rb-E2F bistable switch that controls quiescence exit. Accordingly, we showed that quiescent breast cancer cells (MCF7), compared to its non-transformed counterpart (MCF10A), were preferentially killed by ergosterol peroxide and ganodermanondiol treatment presumably due to their already less stable quiescent state. The cytotoxic effect of natural Ganoderma lucidum compounds against quiescent cells, preferentially on quiescent cancer cells vs. non-cancer cells, may help future antitumor development against the slow-cycling cancer cell subpopulations including cancer stem and progenitor cells.

Obesity within the Canadian population is on the rise, as people continue to lead hurried lifestyles there is little time to slow down and prepare a meal for oneself or one’s family. As younger generations grow up in these rushed lifestyles, the opportunities to learn about food and nutrition in the home is quickly disappearing. As a result this practicum project explores promoting healthy lifestyles by reconnecting people with food through the creation of a Culinary Learning Centre located in The Forks Market Building, in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Individuals who are motivated to change the way they view and value food are provided with a comprehensive learning environment that approaches teaching through a holistic and collaborative manner. Informed by an extensive literature review into the Slow Food Movement, and learning theory; research into four case studies; and detailed programming, culminated in an interior design solution promoting positive learning, social interaction, and student well-being. / October 2016

When damaged DNA is detected during replication, a checkpoint delays the cell cycle to allow time for repair. Here I show that continually delaying the cell cycle in the G2/M phase of the cell cycle stabilizes the genome of Saccharomyces cerevisiae in both checkpoint proficient and deficient cells; a phenomenon I call slow cycle stabilization (SCS). SCS stabilizes the genome in cells defective for DNA damage response (DDR), spindle checkpoint, and telomere biology, as well as wild type (WT) cells. I verify SCS using genetic and chemical means and further substantiate SCS using three different Saccharomyces cerevisiae chromosome systems.

It is hypothesized in this study that children reared with "concerned" mothers (N) will display significantly superior intellectual performance and less neurological impairment as compared with children reared with neglectful mothers (MN) and children diagnosed as failure to thrive (FTT, falling below the third percentile in height and weight). The FTT children will show significantly more deficits than both N and MN groups. The participants in this study were forty-five children rigidly matched on all possible variables. F-tests and Newman-Keuls' analyses reveal severe intellectual deficits in both MN and FTT groups. The FTT group displayed significantly more neurological deficits lending support for a nutritional basis of this syndrome as opposed to the traditional psychogenic explanation.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Les structures à cristaux photoniques bidimentionnels ont permis la fabrication d'une large variété de composants nanophotoniques. En particulier, dans les PC parfaits, la densité locale d'états optiques se trouve exacerbée au niveau des points de symétrie du diagramme de bande. Près de ces points, où la vitesse de groupe tend vers zéro, la faible courbure de bande courbure de bande donne lieu à des modes stationnaires, dits de lumière "lente" (ou modes de Bloch lents). Les propriétés de la lumière lente en font de bons candidats pour améliorer l'effet Purcell, pour produire des effets non-linéaires ou pour concevoir des lasers à faible seuil. Parmi ces modes, les modes de Bloch lent émettant dans la direction verticale, c'est à dire situé au niveau du point Γ de la zone de Brillouin, sont particulièrement intéressants pour intégrer des architectures 2D avec de l'optique en espace libre. En particulier, certains de ces modes ont permis la réalisation d'émission laser dans la 3e direction avec des propriétés de polarisation particulières. D'autres applications prometteuses concernent le désordre : en introduisant un désordre aléatoire mais contrôlé dans la structure photonique, il est possible d'induire une transition entre le mode de Bloch lent de la structure ordonnée vers un mode localisé par le désordre, de type localisation d'Anderson dans une structure faiblement désordonnée.Dans cette thèse, les modes de Bloch lents ont été étudiés et caractérisés en Microscopie optique en champ proche. Nous nous sommes concentrés sur les modes en Gamma de la structure graphite. Le SNOM a permis de visualiser la composante évanescente du mode avec une résolution spatiale inférieure à la limite de diffraction. Dans ce travail, nous avons montré que le champ lointain et de l'image en champ proche du mode à la surface du cristal photonique sont différentes et que seules les mesures en champ proche permettent de rendre compte du mode réel à l'intérieur de la membrane de cristal photonique, en accord avec prédiction théorique. L'importance du choix de la sonde (silice, pointe métallisée, Nano-antenne) pour l'étude des structures à cristaux photoniques a également été démontrée. Outre la mesure d'intensité du champ électromagnétique, la polarisation du champ électrique a été mesurée à l'échelle nanométrique pour la première fois par l'aide d'une antenne à ouverture papillon. Ces résultats permettent d'identifier sans équivoque des modes avec les simulations 3D-FDTD.Dans ce travail est également rapporté la première observation de la localisation de la lumière dans deux types de lasers aléatoires à base de cristaux photoniques bidimensionnels. Le caractère aléatoire est introduit soit en déplaçant les positions des motifs du cristal (trous d'air), soit en faisant varier de façon aléatoire le diamètre des trous. Pour la première fois nous avons observé directement par SNOM la localisation de la lumière dans le cristal désordonné. Cela nous a permis d'observer la transition de morphologie du mode de Bloch lent entre le cristal ordonné et le cristal désordonné. / 2D-Photonic crystal (PC) structures have enabled the fabrication of a wide variety of nanophotonic components. In perfect PCs, the exploitation of the enhanced local density of states at critical points of the band diagram has attracted considerable attention. Near these points, where the group velocity vanished, low curvature flat bands give rise to delocalized and stationary optical slow Bloch modes (or slow light modes). Properties of slow light make them good candidates to enhance Purcell or various non-linear effects or to design low-threshold lasers. Among these modes, slow Bloch modes (SBMs) emitting in the vertical direction, i.e. located at the Γ- point of the Brillouin zone are particularly interesting for integrating 2D PC architectures with free space optics. In particular, some SBMs proved to be suitable for achieving strong vertical emission with peculiar polarization properties. Other promising applications concern disorder: by introducing a controlled randomness into the PC structure, it is possible to induce a transition from slow Bloch mode (in ordered PC) to Anderson’s localization (in disordered PC) as a function of disorder degree. In this PhD dissertation, Slow Bloch modes have been studied and characterized by the means of Near-field Scanning Optical microscopy (NSOM). We particularly focused on Slow Bloch laser mode at Γ- point of a honeycomb 2DPC. This NSOM technique enables to visualize the evanescent component of the mode with a spatial resolution below the diffraction limit. In this work, we showed that the far-field and the near-field image of the mode at the 2D-PC surface are different and that near-field results yield a better insight in the real mode structure inside the PC slab in agreement with theoretical prediction. The importance of the probe selection (bare silica, metallized tip and bow-tie aperture nanoantenna) for studying III-V photonic crystal structures was also demonstrated. Besides intensity measurement of the electromagnetic field, the polarization of the electric field has been measured at the nanoscale for the first time by using a bow-tie nano-antenna probe. These results enable the unambiguous identification of the modes with the 3D-FDTD simulations.In this work is also reported the first observation of two-dimensional localization of light in two types of 2D random photonic crystal lasers, where Slow Bloch Mode (SBM) is scattered by artificial structural randomness in triangular PCs. The structural randomness is introduced whether by nanometer displacements in the positions of lattice elements (air holes), whether by variation of the hole diameters. The direct near-field imaging of the lasing mode by use of NSOM for the first time, allowed us to observe the transition of the extended planar SBM to be Anderson localized.