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Metabolomics is the systematic analysis of low-molecular weight compounds (metabolites) within biological systems that represent molecular endpoints of gene expression and environmental exposures. A major goal of metabolomics is achieving better understanding of the pathophysiology of complex disease processes while elucidating mechanisms of action of nutrients, toxins, and/or drugs. Multisegment injection-capillary electrophoresis-mass spectrometry (MSI-CE-MS) is a high-throughput microseparation platform that is ideal for the analysis of polar/ionic metabolites from volume-restricted biological samples. This thesis includes two major metabolomics projects using MSI-CE-MS that are aimed at contributing new advances in public health and chronic disease prevention. Chapter II presents an analysis of the metabolome from patients with phenylketonuria (PKU) — a genetic disease affecting phenylalanine (Phe) metabolism that requires lifelong dietary restriction to prevent irreversible intellectual disabilities. A targeted and nontargeted metabolomics approach using matching urine and plasma samples was conducted to confirm known markers of PKU and identify new markers associated with dietary adherence and disease progression. Along with increased excretion of Phe catabolites in urine, high plasma Phe was associated with decreased excretion of acylcarnitines and greater excretion of histidine catabolites, suggesting impaired fatty acid oxidation and micronutrient deficiencies, respectively. Overall, this may provide a strategy to objectively monitor dietary adherence beyond standard dietary records or patient recall. Chapter III investigates the impact of electronic cigarette smoke exposure on the placental metabolome as a model cell line of fetal development. Evidence of altered amino acid metabolism, in addition to changes in acylcarnitines and metabolites associated with cellular proliferation, were observed in more susceptible first trimester placental cells and were attributed to flavouring agents irrespective of nicotine dosage. This work supports the hypothesis that flavoured e-cigarette formulations pose a significant health risk in comparison to unflavoured formulations and supports the need for further risk assessment and careful regulation of these products to prevent deleterious birth outcomes in pregnant mothers. Thesis Master of Science (MSc)

On dit que j’ai la voix qui traîne En chantant mes rengaines C’est vraiLorsque ça monte trop haut, moi je m’arrêteEt d’ailleurs on n’est pas ici à l’Opéra. On dit que j’ai l’nez en trompette, Mais j’ s’rais pas MistinguettSi j’étais pas comme ça. (Mistinguett, « C’est Vrai », dans Conway, p. 70) Dans des multiples textes théoriques féministes parus depuis les années 1970, la voix de la femme est analysée non seulement en tant qu’objet sonore mais aussi en tant qu’énoncé facilitant la mise en ...

Stella F. Simon and Miklos Bandy’s 1927–28 16mm film, Hands: The Life and Love of a Gentle Sex, is a short, experimental, feminist film whose aesthetic is drawn from American and European modernist photography movements and early avant-garde film traditions. The film’s underlying melodramatic narrative formula is complicated by the use of hands as both protagonists and as the central aspect of its modernist mise-en-scène. However, as with so many of the women who collaborated with men in the silent era, official credit did not go to Simon but to Bandy. The titles on all of the extant film prints credit Bandy as the film’s director, but attribute the idea to Simon. When it published four frame enlargements from the film, the British art film journal Close-Up equally attributed the film to him “after an idea by Stella F. Simon.” However, a review published the following month praised “Miss Simon’s” experiment with abstract, constructivist “scenery” (Blakeston 137). This August 1929 article, therefore, becomes the first source in new research that supports Simon as the film’s principle director (Richter 1971, 44; Barr 21; Horak 1995, 43-44; Wild 93-105). Little is known about Bandy, who was the author of one of the first articles in France to discuss Swedish abstract experimentalist Viking Eggeling’s short film Symphonie Diagonale (1924) in Germaine Dulac’s journal, Schémas. Modernist composer Marc Blitzstein wrote and performed the film’s original four-hand mechanical piano score and made a composite recording of it in March 1936 at the behest of RCA and the Museum of Modern Art (Lehrman 35).