The problem of this study was the ingestion of certain foods and their observed effects on behavior. The purpose of the study was to investigate the possible relationships between specific foods and (1) weight loss and gain; (2) hunger urges; (3) depression scores; (4) hand-eye coordination; (5) short-term auditory memory; and (6) heart rate. The subject in this study had previously been diagnosed as having sensitivities to certain foods. To determine the effects of certain foods on the subject a repeated measure design was employed. Specifically, an A-B-B-A-B-A design was used where A phases represented a 6-day period in which the subject ate foods to which she was sensitive. During earlier testing, the subject was found to be sensitive to corn, citrus fruit, pork, lamb, carrots, nuts, watermelon, and pineapple. These foods were found to induce irregular psycho-behavioral and physiological characteristics upon repeated and systematic testing procedures. Her nonreactive foods include fish, chicken, most green and yellow vegetables, bananas, cantaloupe, pears, apples, strawberries, and blueberries.

This essay consists of a fragmental process and collection of different theories and inspirational hangups from different academics, artists and my own thoughts and memories from my childhood. The essay also consists of my own poetry and collection of words I have found describing for my own practice. My ambition is to understand why I have always been a sculptor. The research is mainly about my own relationship to Cathrene Malabous writing about destructive plasticity and how it's connected to the brain. What happens to a body and mind when you've been traumatized? And how do I connect that knowledge with my own artistic practice? The research also touches on questions relevant to our historical and contemporary society to think about when it comes to solutions for how to cure the image we have of bodies that suffer from mental illness.

Background: Persistent stress contributes to the onset and maintenance of problem gambling (PG), increasing risks for physiological disturbances. However, minimal research examines acute stress effects and relationships with PG features such as impulsivity or gambling urges. Purpose: The current study examines multiple facets of acute subjective and physiological stress responses in PG. Stress effects on gambling urges and relationships with impulsivity are also explored. Methods: A PG (n=21) and healthy control (HC; n=21) group were exposed to acute psychosocial stress. Saliva samples were collected while participants completed self-report measures of mood and gambling urges. Gambling urges, salivary cortisol (sC), salivary alpha-amylase (sAA), and subjective stress reactivity and recovery were compared within and between groups from baseline up to an hour following stress. Relationships between trait impulsivity, gambling urges, and all aspects of the acute stress response were examined. Results: The PG group showed blunted sC reactivity but reported heightened mood disturbances compared to HCs, while sAA levels did not differ between groups. Within PG and HC groups, sAA had a more rapid acute stress onset than sC, but between-marker differences were pronounced in PG. Self-reported gambling urges were high among PG participants but remained relatively unchanged following acute stress. Impulsivity was positively associated with gambling urges, however, it was not correlated with the acute stress response. Conclusions: This study provides a novel and wide-ranging assessment of the acute stress response in PG, for which research is currently limited. These results indicate that high stress in PG contributes to multi-faceted alterations of the acute stress response relative to HCs. Self-reported gambling urges are elevated and associated with greater trait impulsivity in PG but are unaffected by acute stress exposure. Our findings provide insight into acute stress processing dysfunction in PG and have implications for potential harms, such as increased suicide risk. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / Chronic or continuous life stress can increase the risk of developing and sustaining gambling problems. The current study assessed the effects of a 20-minute stressful task on mood, physiological reactions, the desire to gamble, and their relationships with impulsivity in healthy individuals compared to those with problem gambling (PG). Results showed that after the stressor, the PG group reported more negative mood, but physiological reactions were reduced when compared to healthy participants. In individuals with PG, a greater desire to gamble was correlated with being more impulsive. Overall, our findings show that the long-term stress typically experienced by individuals with PG can affect their mental and physiological reactions to temporary stressors. Additionally, more impulsive individuals show a greater desire to gamble, which may contribute to problematic gambling behaviours. Future research should assess the life impacts of chronic stress in PG, such as the risk of gambling relapse and suicide.

Loss is a fundamental part of the human experience, from the loss of security and innocence that comes with the necessary separation of child from parent to the ultimate loss of life. Along the way, there are the losses of jobs, of incomes, of homes; the losses of friendships, of family members, of lovers; the losses of direction, of control, of hope. As cognitive and caring beings, humans struggle to cope with these losses, to greater and lesser degrees of success. This is the theme at the heart of this thesis. Fire Ants is composed of ten short stories, fictive works, which differ in specific subject matter, yet deal unilaterally with issues of loss. Like the venomous creatures that threaten to eat B. D. Packard alive in the title story, life eats away at a number of characters in the collection who are deficient. The narrators in "Aftermath" and "Hues," for example, suffer psychological -- if not physical -- deaths. But not all of the characters lack coping mechanisms, unhealthy as they may sometimes be. As the stories unfold, some characters begin to gain small degrees of perspective and understanding, to learn that while life is full of loss, it is not always entirely bleak. As demonstrated in "Cross Creek," good exists, though it is not always where one might expect it. And life can be full despite loss, as depicted in "Stitches."

Ce mémoire a pour but de s’intéresser au traitement du corps dans les créations littéraires et cinématographiques de Nelly Kaplan, à la manière dont il est perçu et aux normes (sociales, historiques, politiques) qui le façonnent. À travers l’analyse de trois œuvres significatives de Kaplan, soit le recueil de nouvelles Le Réservoir des sens, le film culte La Fiancée du pirate ainsi que le récit Un manteau de fou rire, l’étude cherche à faire connaître la démarche de l’auteure-artiste qui met en œuvre des modes de vie où règnent les libertés sexuelle et morale, au grand bonheur des personnages littéraires et cinématographiques. L’auteure-artiste met effectivement à distance certaines idées reçues sur les corps féminin et masculin grâce notamment à des stratégies d’humour et d’ironie, ce qui la conduit à remettre en cause le système traditionnel des identités sexuées et sexuelles, basé sur des binarismes (masculin/féminin ; bien/mal ; intellectuel/sentimental ; clair/obscur ; etc.). Ses créations sont empreintes d’un désir de libération qui se manifeste à travers la révolte (érotique) que portent en eux les personnages et qui les amène à s’émanciper des idéaux petit-bourgeois, dont la morale catholique. Kaplan se livre ainsi à la déconstruction des règles morales et politiques et propose une nouvelle organisation du monde basée sur le respect des pulsions et des désirs individuels. / This master’s thesis concentrates on the human body ; how it is perceived in the context of social, historical and political norms that shape it. The thesis focuses on the approach of Nelly Kaplan who introduces lifestyles where sexual and moral freedom reigns, to the delight of the protagonists featured in her work. This is accomplished through analysis of three significant works by Kaplan : a collection of short stories called Le Réservoir des sens ; the cult-movie La Fiancée du pirate ; and the narrative Un manteau de fou rire. Kaplan attacks preconceived and historical prejudices about the male and female body through humour and irony, which leads to Kaplan questioning an outdated paradigm that is the binarity of sexual identities. Her creations are marked by the desire for liberation, which is expressed through an (erotic) revolt carried out by her characters. This act leads them to emancipate themselves from the petite bourgeoisie catholic ideal. Kaplan thus engages in the deconstruction of moral and political rules and proposes a new organization of the world based on respect for individual impulses and desires.