VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Getting in on the Action: Spectatorship at the Technologized Interface of Live Performance
Keywords: Alternate Reality Games
Creative Communities
Interactive Theatre
Ludic Art
Spectatorship
Video Games

This dissertation explores the impact of evolving media and technology on theatre audiences and the consequent performative labour of tech-savvy spectators. In the context of increasing use of digital devices, some theatre and performance-makers are challenging audiences with interactive art projects that make use of ubiquitous technologies. By examining this mode of performative spectatorship through critical scholarship on video games, the dissertation offers insight into the nature of interactive theatre and performance-going and the ethics of demanding so much from the public. The project uses a comparative methodology to examine video game-like performances and engage with theatre companies and artists who use intermedial interventions to encourage dynamic interactions between the audience and the artwork. The analysis is organized into three categories: animated components of installation art, theatrical events where audience input changes the action on stage, and alternate reality games where spectators take on roles in the production. Close reading and analysis of the creative process and ultimate performance of these projects provide substantive material to explore the implications of interactive intermediality.The first chapter of the dissertation aims to explain why concepts from video games are useful in analyzing performance events. It delves into key ideas about games and gamers, highlighting how the process of playing a game is a creative project that involves imagination and problem-solving. The second chapter focuses on art objects that require observer engagement to animate them, challenging traditional notions of liveness as a quality inherent in objects/performances themselves. Instead, the chapter considers liveness as a state of being produced by spectator engagement. The third chapter explores theatre and theatre-like performances and examines the ethics of making audiences conspicuous within the frame of the performance event. Using the gaming concept of ludonarrative dissonance, the chapter suggests that spectatorial unease can be ethically or socially productive. Finally, the fourth chapter demonstrates how alternate reality games can serve as community-building enterprises that mobilize participation both within the game world and without. Overall, the dissertation offers insights into the nature of interactive performance events and spectatorship, using video game concepts and ideas to illuminate these phenomena.
Stochastic and Empirical Models in Support of Managing Patient Flow from Acute to Rehabilitation Care
Keywords: approximate dynamic programming
causal inference
healthcare operations
hidden Markov models
patient flow
structural estimation

The continuing growth of the older population has led to a significant increase in demand for rehabilitation over the past two decades and subsequently in long delays in admission to rehabilitation care. These delays have two important implications: Firstly, delayed patients continue occupying their beds in acute care, blocking new patients from being admitted and incurring additional costs of operating acute beds. Secondly, admission delays could adversely impact rehabilitation outcomes. In this thesis, we propose new empirical and stochastic models of patient flow and use them to develop insights and operational interventions aimed at reducing admission delays. In Chapter 2, we investigate the sources of admission delays in Low Tolerance Long Duration (LTLD) rehabilitation. Admission delays can be caused by capacity constraints or extra processing requirements to plan rehabilitation activities. However, standard data only includes a single (combined) measure of delay, and the bed allocation decisions in practice can be quite complicated with multiple determinant factors. To address these challenges, we propose a Hidden Markov Model to estimate the status-quo bed allocation policy with unobserved processing times. The estimation results are then combined with a high-fidelity queueing model of the system to evaluate the effectiveness of various interventions to reduce admission delays. In Chapter 3, we focus on High Tolerance Short Duration (HTSD) rehabilitation and investigate the causal impact of delays on rehabilitation length-of-stays (LOSs) and outcomes. By utilizing an instrumental variable approach, we find that admission delays increase the rehabilitation LOS and negatively impact the functional outcomes of the patients in rehabilitation. Finally, motivated by the empirical findings of Chapter 3, in Chapter 4, we develop approximately optimal scheduling policies for multiclass queues with wait-dependent service times. We propose a simulation-based approximate policy iteration algorithm, wherein the policy improvement step is guided through Machine Learning-based classifiers and the policy evaluation is accelerated using a coupling approach. Using extensive numerical experiments, we investigate the scalability of the proposed algorithm and further apply it in a Case Study calibrated using HTSD rehabilitation data.
The Warping of International Humanitarian Law: Problematizing Regime Interaction in the Law of Armed Conflict
Keywords: Armed Conflict
International Criminal Law
International Human Rights Law
International Humanitarian Law
International Law
Regime Interaction

This essay has two aims. The first is to demonstrate that substantive international humanitarian law (IHL) is being ‘warped’ in its application through the prisms of international human rights law (IHRL) and international criminal law (ICL), i.e. IHL's substantive norms are being reinterpreted by IHRL and ICC courts and institutions. 'Warping' can undoubtedly create normatively desirable outcomes that improve IHL doctrine without upsetting its internal principles, in particular the balance between humanity and military necessity. However, there are also many instances of warping where IHL is made weaker. The central argument of this essay is that the outcomes of warping are inherently uncertain, and this uncertainty in the development of IHL norms, and especially uncertainty as to what the positive law is, constitutes a significant threat to IHL compliance. The second aim of this essay is to outline potential ways forward to address the risks of the warping of IHL. Firstly, warping occurring at the doctrinal level might be avoided through a theory of ‘compound norms’ accounting for the composite nature of the norms applied by ICL and IHRL institutions: they contain both IHL and IHRL/ICL elements resulting in a compound different from its component parts. Secondly, warping at an institutional level might be prevented through more formalised cooperation between law of armed conflict institutions.
Identifying Targets for Improving Quality of Pediatric Emergency and Critical Care in Low-Resource Settings
Keywords: Child health
Critical care medicine
Emergency medicine

Introduction: Nearly 6 million children and adolescents died worldwide in 2021, largely due to preventable causes and disproportionately in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). To reduce child mortality in LMICs, targeted pediatric emergency and critical care (PECC) quality-of-care interventions are needed. Several knowledge gaps must be addressed to inform their design. Objectives: This thesis (1) describes the epidemiology of disease and outcomes of children 0–14 years presenting with acute illness to a District Headquarter (DHQ) hospital in Pakistan, (2) synthesizes the evidence for performance of pediatric mortality prognostic models developed and validated in LMICs, and (3) describes the global infrastructure for PECC in low-resource settings. Synthesis: In Chapter 3, we included 3850 children presenting to Sanghar DHQ hospital outpatient department and 1286 admitted children. Communicable diseases were the most common presenting diagnoses among outpatients and among inpatients 1–9 years. Non-communicable diseases and nutritional disorders were more common with increasing age. At 28 days from hospital admission, 50 children had died. Age <28 days was associated with increased odds of death (OR 4.39 [95% CI 2.4–8.26], p<0.001, reference age: 28 days-14 years). No sex differences in mortality risk were observed. Leading causes of death included neonatal sepsis/meningitis, neonatal encephalopathy, and lower respiratory tract infections. In Chapter 4, we identified seven prognostic models for hospital mortality validated in >1 cohort. The Lambarene Organ Dysfunction Score [0.85 (0.63–0.95)] and Signs of Inflammation in Children that Kill [0.85 (0.84–0.86)] had the highest summary C-statistics (95% CI). All models were at high risk of bias. In Chapter 5, we described infrastructure for PECC in 238 hospitals in 60 countries, predominantly in Latin America and Africa (N=161, 67.4%). Across 174 intensive care units (ICUs), there were statistically significant differences in the proportion of hospitals reporting consistent resource availability between World Bank country income groups. Resources with low availability in low- and lower-middle income countries included specialized staff, ICU equipment, diagnostic tests (imaging, microbiology, biochemistry), and commonly used drugs. Conclusion: This thesis addresses important knowledge gaps regarding the foundations for delivery of high-quality PECC to reduce child mortality from acute illness.
Learning Sustainability through Participation in the Ecovillage: A Study of Four Cases
Keywords: Community-based learning and practice
Ecology of learning and practice
Ecovillages
Sustainability learning
Sustainable living
Transformative social learning

Ecovillages provide ideal sites for the study of sustainability learning, as learning is integral to the envisioning, development, management, and everyday experience of these sustainable communities. Insight on the learning experiences of ecovillage residents and visitors can contribute to understanding the factors and conditions necessary for learning that fosters transitions to “one-planet living.” Three research questions guided a deep exploration of such learning experiences at four North America ecovillages: (1) Through the ecovillage experience what is learned about living sustainably; (2) How does learning occur through the ecovillage experience; and (3) What is the impact of the ecovillage experience/learning on the learner.A multiple case study approach, with document review, participant-observation, and in-depth interviews with key informants and participants engaged in sustainability-oriented learning opportunities, resulted in robust case data on each ecovillage as a sustainable community and learning environment, learning processes and outcomes, and the learner experience. Cross-case analysis enabled comparisons of the role of the environment and community interactions on learning outcomes and processes, conditions that facilitate or constrain learning, and the potential for application of learning beyond the context of the ecovillage. The study illuminates each ecovillage as a unique place for learning, but that similarly provides a sustainable living environment that is low-impact, connected, cooperative, and holistic. Each of these learning environments fosters awareness, perspective, knowledge, skills, and transformation in all three categories of ecovillage-based learning: eco-living, socio-relational learning, and shifts in worldview / values. Ten key findings highlight the importance of a supportive learning environment, the social and participatory nature of the learning, and the potentials and limitations of ecovillage-based sustainability learning. Comparing the empirical evidence to a theoretical understanding of learning sustainability as a transformative, social practice, this dissertation reveals how this learning happens “in real life,” through on-going processes of individual and collective learning, out of unsustainable living embedded in capitalism, consumerism, and individualism, and into sustainable living that embraces life-supporting ways of being and relating, resilience, sufficiency, and commoning, while engaged in dynamic, sustainability-oriented ecologies of living and practice.
Essays in the Economics of Crime
Keywords: Incarceration
Prison
Programs
Recidivism

This thesis collects three papers on various ways to encourage inmates' social reintegration. The first chapter, Can Recidivism Be Prevented From Behind Bars? Evidence From a Behavioral Program, of which I am the sole author, studies the effects of a cognitive-behavioral intervention targeted at adult incarcerated offenders. Using varying propensities in the likelihood of being recommended for the program, I find large effects in the short term: within a year, the participants' risk of recidivism drops by 16 percentage points. I analyze heterogeneity with respect to the group composition, finding that first-time offenders improve the other participants' receptivity to the treatment. The second chapter, Prison Rehabilitation Programs and Recidivism: Evidence From Variations in Availability, is co-written with Guy Lacroix and Steeve Marchand. We explore the impacts of other programs, such as self-development workshops, addiction interventions and educational activities, on inmates' reintegration. Using an instrumental variable strategy, we show that participation in such programs diminishes reincarceration, while slightly increasing community sentences. This is consistent with participants committing less severe crimes in the future. In the third chapter, Can Parole Reduce Both Time Served and Crime, co-written with Steeve Marchand, we ask how can inmates be effectively released from prisons. In a context where parolees receive substantial rehabilitation assistance, we find that parole, consistent with papers in other contexts, causes an increase in reincarceration, but a decrease in reoffenses. To interpret these findings, we propose a novel framework for studying criminal justice policies that affect reentry by studying the total time spent in prison. We show that the increase in reincarceration is completely driven by technical violations, as parole successfully reduces total time spent in prison.
The Political Economy of Information Literacy: A Corpus-Assisted Critical Discourse Analysis of UNESCO’s Media and Information Literacy: Policy Strategy Guidelines
Keywords: autonomist Marxism
corpus-linguistics
critical discourse analysis
information literacy
political economy of information
UNESCO

This dissertation explores the relevance of information literacy to information policy. While information policy makers have been concerned about access to information through ICTs, there has not been a robust consideration for the role of information literacy education in information policy. With the emergence of the term in 1974, information literacy has been discursively linked to ICTs. This study uses a political economy of information lens to examine the discursive relationship between the increasing centrality of ICTs to the global economy and the development of information literacy policy and strategy guidelines at the supranational level. It examines how the production, distribution, and use of information is presented in UNESCO’s 2013 publication Media and Information Literacy: Policy & Strategy Guidelines. Critical discourse analysis and corpus linguistics are employed to analyse how the words information and technology are constituted and reproduced in the document. The study illustrates that the growing global interest in developing both information literacy policy and programming relates to, is influenced by, and mirrors ideological narratives of technologies as forms of empowerment that ultimately embed information literacy in a capitalist mode of production. The study questions the suggestion that media and information literacy are solutions to reduce gender inequality, ensure democratic engagement, and empower people in social decision-making. The concluding chapter demonstrates a disjuncture between the problems and underlying issues the authors suggest media and information literacy education can solve for all people with the social, political, and economic realities in 10 sub-Saharan Africa countries. Autonomist Marxism is used in the concluding chapter to identify and amplify various sub-Saharan African efforts to resist and struggle against a Western imposed digital capitalism. This resistance is demonstrated in how leaders in these countries describe their information needs, limit the use of ICTs in education, and develop their intellectual property laws, particularly laws related to traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions. The dissertation encourages librarians and information policy makers to consider and engage with the political economy of information literacy—a definition of which is proposed.
Essays on Innovation, Intellectual property, its trade and enforcement
Keywords: Acquisitions
Industrial organization
Innovation
Litigation
Patent Trolls
Structural Estimation

This thesis contains three papers about how imperfections in the intellectual property trade and enforcement may undermine incentives for innovation. In Chapter 1, I discuss Patent Assertion Entities (PAE) which are firms specialized in patent enforcement, and whose effect on innovation are theoretically ambiguous. I exploit a Supreme Court decision affecting PAEs incentives to file patent infringement lawsuits and cross-industry differences in exposure to empirically estimate the casual effect of PAE activity on innovative firms’ performance. I find that the Supreme Court’s ruling effectively discouraged PAEs’ litigation and I show that sectors exposed to PAEs experienced a remarkable increase in their successful patent applications in response to the reduction of PAEsactivity. Chapter 2 investigates the mechanism linking patent litigation and innovation. I develop a dynamic model of litigation here the defendant screens out heterogeneous plaintiffs through a series of out-of-court settlement offers. Employing granular information on patent infringement cases filed in the US from 2007-2021, I estimate my model. I find that patent litigation costs over $48.8 billion a year to listed defendants, $24.7 billion of which from settlement transfers. Furthermore, cases filed by PAEs have smaller stakes, lower quality, and are more likely to settle for smaller amounts. I consider two counterfactuals. First, I introduce a conditional fee-shifting rule, finding it effective in discouraging frivolous litigation, but likely to induce costly delays. Then, I turn to forum shopping, finding that restricting plaintiffs’ discretionality in the choice of venue would dramatically reduce the incentives to file low-quality cases. Finally, Chapter 3 investigates systematic acquisitions of startups, which are prevalent in digital markets. I introduce a model of competition where demand depends substantially on the quality ranking of incumbents, which can be improved by R&D or acquisitions. I find that the prospect of acquisitions incentivizes startups investments when the incumbents are engaged in a neck-and-neck technological race, however these incentives fade as the leader escapes competition. Hence, when network externalities are strong enough, a forward looking industry leader has significant incentives to lock the industry in a state of stagnation, where startups’ investments are low, and killer acquisitions are prevalent.
Producing law and governance: Disciplinary practices in the Colleges for Doctors and Nurses
Keywords: administrative justice
professions
regulation
socio-legal studies

Professional self-regulating bodies define the boundaries of their occupational group membership, and the standards by which practitioners must abide to remain in that membership. This includes developing and employing discipline mechanisms through which professionals are surveilled and sanctioned. These mechanisms shape how we experience expert services, dictate which issues of professional conduct warrant correction and punishment, and wield the power to strip or curtail the livelihood of practitioners who have invested considerable time, money, and identity in obtaining the credentials and experience necessary to their trade. Despite the consequential scope there are, aside from lawyers, few studies of the formal discipline processes of self-regulating professions. Using a comprehensive data set of all discipline records from 1992 through 2017, as well as two years of in-person discipline tribunal observation, I trace the discipline processes of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) and the College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO) to examine how the boundaries, practices, and criteria of discipline compose the health professions and governance of doctors and nurses. I find, first, that the CPSO and CNO enact discipline in ways that serve the priority of maintaining self-regulation. Specifically, I show that patterns of allegations and punishments are imbued with practices that expand the scope of the Colleges' jurisdictions, enable discretion that obscures the severity of conduct, and solicit resources and compliance from their memberships. Further, I show that the Colleges prioritize tribunal performances of "governability" to prove their capacity to control their members. Second, I find that that the historical regulatory trajectories, regarding labour autonomy and status and professionalization, result in distinct experiences and outcomes of discipline for doctors and nurses that persist in the contemporary self-regulatory arrangement (despite ostensibly being standardized by the Regulated Health Professions Act).