VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Beyond Set Theory: The Relationship between Logic and Taxonomy from the Early 1930 to 1960
Keywords: History and Philosophy of Biology
History and Philosophy of Logic

In this dissertation I look at the relationship between logic and taxonomy as taxonomists responded to double attack: an attack on their methodology from the biological community during the 1930s and at the start of a methodological civil war that erupted in late 1950s. According to the usual story, the relationship between logic and taxonomy could not have been worse. Taxonomists were thought to be either mired in Aristotelian essences or lost in some dubious set-theoretic wasteland. This story, however, is now recognized as being a political tool rather than an accurate history and the time is ripe for something new. I examine four cases: British botanist John Gilmour, American paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson, German entomologist Willi Hennig, and American philosopher Morton Beckner that help illustrate the richness of this relationship. These cases will show how different branches of logic successfully played roles in taxonomy’s methodological reform, rather than set-theory playing the dominant and ultimately failing role as the old paradigm. In addition, it will become clear that one reason why this could be done was because many of these taxonomists were part of transient interdisciplinary groups willing to relax the standards of authority within interdisciplinary communities. These changes in authority helped facilitate communication and promote knowledge production during this complex time. Taxonomists without the traditionally recognized expertise in logic chose to read logic on the fly, and likewise philosophers and other biologists without established training in taxonomy could enter the debate in significant and productive ways.
Bernardino Licinio: Portraiture, Kinship and Community in Renaissance Venice
Keywords: Early Modern Art
Venice
Bernardino Licinio
Portraiture
Bergamo
Kinship
Immigration
Painting
Renaissance

Bernardino Licinio was a painter of Bergamasque origin active in Venice from c. 1510 to c. 1550. Licinio was a prolific painter of portraits, concert scenes and religious images for the home and headed a prosperous family workshop. Yet the artist is largely denied importance within the current art historical narrative, being conceived as “minor,” “provincial” or “second-rate.” My dissertation questions the “constructedness” of historical identities and presents the first nuanced understanding of Licinio’s place within Venetian culture. I argue that his status as “minor” is a modern construct rather than a reflection of his contemporaries’ perception. My dissertation inscribes itself within endeavours to “de-centre” the Renaissance conceptually, and is especially indebted to recent studies of material culture that challenge art historical hierarchies and aesthetic biases. The dissertation provides a multilayered reading of Bernardino Licinio’s artistic identity through frameworks that stem from what I consider unique aspects of his practice, while others arise from problems posed by his historiographical reception. The artist’s position between Venice and Bergamo provides the line of enquiry for chapter one, where I engage with the Bergamasque community conceived, on the one hand, as a form of historiographical framing, and on the other, as a social reality. In chapter two, music as a cultural phenomenon provides a frame for exploring Licinio’s intellectual world. I contend that his engagement with musical themes suggests an involvement with the communities of interest fostered by music as a social act. Chapter three addresses Licinio’s hitherto unrecognised contribution to shaping a tradition of female portraiture. The chapter thus challenges the accepted conceit of women’s “artistic invisibility” in Venetian art, while simultaneously highlighting Licinio’s role in forming the genre of family portraiture. Chapter four presents a case study of two images where the artist talks about himself and his family: the Portrait of Arrigo and Agnese Licinio with their Children and the Self-Portrait with Workshop. Through these portraits, I explore the convergence of familial and professional identities, the conceptual ties between the home and the family, and the structures of kinship that provided the foundation for the Renaissance workshop.
Upping the Anti: Psychiatrization, Survival, and the Politics of Alterity
Keywords: alienation
alternative media
anthropology of health and illness
iatrogenesis
identity politics
mainstream media
medical anthropology
news media
pharmaceutical industries
politics of representation
psychiatrization
psychiatry
social etiologies
social movement communities
neoliberalism

Based on archival research (1970s to 1990s), media analysis (January 2006 through January 2011), and ethnographic fieldwork (August 2009 through September 2010) conducted in and around the Canadian city of Toronto, this dissertation explores a jarring disconnect between mainstream representations of psychiatric illness and intervention, and psychiatric survivors’ representations of the same experiences. Whereas the news media consistently portray the brains and bodies of psychiatrized people as existential threats to the national body politic, those with firsthand knowledge of the pathway from medicalization to medication frequently advance very different claims: that it is psychopharmaceutical compounds and not “mental illnesses” that usurp and assail people’s rational faculties and derail cherished aspirations, and that it is dissent rather than compliance that confers health. Due to both the extensive credibility that psychiatry enjoys throughout civil society and pharmaceutical firms’ enthusiasm for marketing not just drugs but diseases, individuals who are averse to medical intervention must contend with the twin stigmata of diagnosis and distrust; fully aware that they are viewed as unruly and inauthentic by both the public and their own families, they learn to dissemble and prevaricate about their lives in acts of protective self-silencing. Because forcible detention is always a latent threat, there is little manoeuvring room for people who wish to recover from lives of hardship but emphatically reject the equation of recovery with biological normalization, and of madness with illness. Over the past four decades, psychiatrized individuals have counterbalanced their marginality by mobilizing under collective identifiers like “anti-psychiatry,” “psychiatric inmates’ liberation,” “the psychiatric survivor movement,” and “mad pride,” and militating against prejudicial attitudes toward behavioural deviance. While these efforts have born some fruit, the overwhelming predominance of white voices in all of these communities has led to the trivialization or erasure of other genres of injustice, an outcome that has not gone unnoticed by participants who are both racialized and psychiatrized. The dissertation thus concludes by considering how collective identity labels can be just as alienating and silencing as psychiatric labels to those who transgress received criteria for virtuous conduct that mask, and thereby reinforce, hegemonic social norms.
Society, Language, and Carnival in the Comedies of Ludovico Ariosto
Keywords: Renaissance drama
Ariosto's comedies
carnivalesque subversion
billingsgate speech
grotesque realism
carnival

Through a comprehensive analysis of Ludovico Ariosto’s comedies carried out in line with Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of carnival and with a careful eye to the socio-historical context in which Ariosto lived and worked, this dissertation brings to light several new reasons to explain why these plays were so successful that they quickly replaced the production of ancient Roman comedies in sixteenth-century Ferrara. The first chapter reconstructs all recorded sixteenth-century performances and printings of Ariosto’s plays. It then provides a summary of the plays and examines the stylistic and structural changes Ariosto wrought to earlier versions of his plays. It also focuses on a chronological survey of the critical fortunes of Ariosto’s comedies throughout the centuries. The second chapter provides with a summary of Bakhtin’s theory of carnival. It then identifies and defines the elements of carnivalesque subversion and grotesque realism in the depiction of the relationship between servants and masters and in the interaction between the marginalised and wealthy sectors of sixteenth-century Ferrarese society in Ariosto’s plays. The third chapter examines the language in Ariosto’s plays by applying Bakhtin’s theory of billingsgate speech as a type of carnival subversion. The extensive use of abusive, insulting, and cursing words and indecent or obscene expressions in Ariosto’s plays suggests that Ariosto purposefully filled his plays with billingsgate speech in order to align them with the carnival spirit that was part of the temporal context of their première performances. The close examination of Ariosto’s comedies through the prism of Bakhtin’s theory of carnival reveals that Ariosto purposefully enriched his plays with elements of carnivalesque subversion, grotesque realism, and billingsgate speech in an effort to free his plays from classical imitation and to mark a transition between two worlds, ancient Rome and sixteenth-century Ferrara. Most importantly, this analysis shows that Ariosto used his plays as a means not only to entertain his audience, but also to critique and reform contemporary Italian society. In so doing, this dissertation reveals the presence of a social commitment that, previously, had not been fully appreciated.
Patterns of Bequest within the Family: Testamentary Evidence from the Ecclesiastical Registers of Canterbury and York c. 1340-1440
Keywords: medieval law
family history
testaments
computerized data
marriage
inheritance
caring for children
bequests
medieval charity
medieval households
material history
urban families
medieval wives
medieval husbands
medieval widowers
medieval widows
medieval testators
effect of primogeniture on inheritance

This dissertation examined the strategies and decisions made by 200 English testators who used their wills to provide for the safety and success of their spouses and children. From this analysis, patterns of bequest emerged that were clearly linked to testators’ gender and marital and social status. External factors, such as the type of tenure by which the family held property also played a primary role. Those who held by military or feudal tenure made choices strongly shaped by the rules of English common law and custom; those who held by burgage tenure cared for their family within the framework of customs and statutes established for an urban environment. Husbands, for example, entrusted their wives with the role of executor, while widows chose their sons, and widowers their friends and clergy. Analyzing bequests to children revealed that commoner parents, unlike their chivalric counterparts, exhibited little bias toward their offspring based on the child’s gender. Parents influenced by the rights of primogeniture, however, strongly favored their sons and their sons’ families. The wills selected were chosen from two sources: James Raine’s Testamenta Eboracensia and E. F. Jacob’s The Will Register of Henry Chichele. The sample included 76 women (48 widows, 23 wives, and 5 single women) and 124 men (104 husbands and 20 widowers) whose wills were probated between c. 1340 and 1440 in the ecclesiastical courts of either York or Canterbury, England. The goal, to understand more clearly the familial behavior and politics involved when parents and spouses transferred power and property, made it essential that the analytical methodology employed be both flexible and accurate. Microsoft’s Access data base allowed the findings to shape the results, avoiding as far as possible the imposition of 21st-century categories on fourteenth- and fifteenth-century sensibilities.
Functions of Notch1, Notch3, and Fringe Glycosyltransferases during Thymocyte β-Selection and T-cell Leukemogenesis
Keywords: Notch Signaling
T-Cell Development
Leukemia
Thymus

T-cells play critical roles in the immune system, from fighting infection and tissue remodeling to anti-tumor immunity. Notch1 (N1) signaling is a conserved signaling pathway that is required for T-cell specification and commitment of multi-potent progenitors. Subsequently, N1 co-operates with pre-T-cell receptor (pre-TCR) signaling to induce self-renewal of TCRβ+ CD4/CD8 double negative (DN) progenitors. This “β-selection” process produces large numbers of CD4/CD8 double positive (DP) progenitors whose survival is N1-independent. Thus, N1 signaling plays key roles at several stages of intrathymic T-cell development. However, excessive N1 activation causes T-cell lymphoblastic leukemia/lymphoma (T-LL). Hence, the goal of my thesis was to elucidate how N1 signaling is regulated during thymocyte β-selection. There are four mammalian N receptors (N1-4), activated by ligands of the related Delta-like (DL1 and DL4), and Serrate/Jagged (Jag1 and Jag2) families. Fringe glycosyltransferases modify N receptors, enhancing activation by DL ligands and inhibiting activation by Jag1. My thesis goals were to elucidate: 1) the role of N3 downstream on N1 in thymocyte β-selection and T-cell leukemogenesis; 2) how Fringe glycosyltransferases modulate N1 sensitivity to DL vs Jag family ligands during β-selection; and 3) the global impact of ectopic N1 activation on T-cell development. In Chapter 3, I examined the role of N3 in thymocyte β-selection and N1 induced T-LL using N3–deficient mice, and showed that N3 is dispensable for both processes. In Chapter 4, I demonstrated that Lfng and Mfng have distinct functions in modulating N activation by DL1 and DL4 versus Jag1 during β-selection. Unexpectedly, Jag2-induced β-selection was uniquely insensitive to both Lfng and Mfng. Finally, in Chapter 5, I generated a new mouse model to ectopically activate N1 signaling in TCRβ+ DN progenitors, and used it to demonstrate that N1 signaling impacts thymocyte self-renewal during β-selection in vivo. As expected, ectopic N1 signaling in DP thymocytes altered CD4/CD8 lineage commitment and caused T-LL. However, ectopic N1 activation also prevented development of certain innate-like T-cells and caused T-cell lymphopenia, and eventually lead to auto-immune-like pathologies. Collectively, my findings expanded our understanding of N regulation in β-selection, and revealed unexpected effects of aberrant N1 activation in these stages.
'French like the others': Colonial Migrants in Wartime France, 1939-1947
Keywords: France
Colonialism
Immigration
Second World War

This dissertation explores the largely unknown history of how migrants from across the colonial empire experienced the Second World War in France. By the 1930s France possessed the second-largest colonial empire in the world. Although people from across the French empire had resided in the métropole during the interwar period, the declaration of war against Nazi Germany in September 1939 necessitated the recruitment of thousands more French colonial subjects to serve as workers for the war effort. There were perhaps 100,000 from across the French empire living in France at the start of the war, and this number swelled to more than 140,000 by June 1940. While historians have recently begun to uncover the history of migration between France and its colonies, this is the first study to comparatively examine the heterogeneous mix of Southeast Asians and North Africans living on metropolitan soil. Placing colonial migration in a comparative framework reveals the extent to which racial perceptions and hierarchies within French colonial thought impacted the existence of people of color in France. I have deliberately eschewed previous ways of examining how colonialism affected French society, which tend to favor representation or exoticism, and instead constructed a social history of race and immigration geared around daily life. Utilizing over twenty public and private archival collections, this dissertation is focused on quotidian interactions between colonial workers, French men and women, employers, and officials from the French state. This reveals the dynamic between local and national issues in shaping the experience of colonial migrants in France; gives insight into how access to food, employment and social welfare was determined by colonial status; and the extent to which fears over policing, health, and non-white migration animated exclusionary policies. This dissertation argues that France should be viewed as a colonial and metropolitan space where migrants from across the empire met forms of colonial knowledge, power, and discipline. Focusing on the inherent tension between France and its empire, rather than constructing an intellectual framework that subsumes France and empire together, reveals the true impact of colonialism on metropolitan society. My focus on the 1930s and 1940s, which crosses the Third Republic, Vichy and Liberation eras, demonstrates the treatment of colonial migrants was not just about specific political regimes but firmly rooted in entrenched racial stereotypes of North Africans and Vietnamese that persist in France today.
Oxidative Stress and an Alternative Glutathione-dependent Mechanism in the Developmental Toxicity of Methanol
Keywords: Methanol
Oxidative stress
Teratology
Mouse model
Reactive oxygen species
Alcohol

The in vivo teratogenicity of methanol (MeOH) and its underlying molecular mechanisms were investigated, particularly the pathogenic contribution of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and oxidative stress. First, MeOH pharmacokinetics were compared among different strains of mice (CD-1, C3H and C57BL/6J) and species (New Zealand White rabbits and cynomolgus monkeys) to determine the potential contribution of metabolism to teratological risk. The mechanism was evaluated directly by manipulating important ROS-relevant pathways including: (1) altering a key antioxidative enzyme (genetically altered mice with high or low catalase activity), (2) inhibiting glutathione [GSH] synthesis using buthionine sulfoximine (BSO), and (3) blocking ROS effects with a free radical spin-trapping agent (phenylbutylnitrone, PBN). Rabbits and one mouse strain (C3H) were resistant to MeOH teratogenicity. Sensitive (C57BL/6J, CD-1) and resistant (C3H) mouse strains exhibited similar MeOH and formic acid (FA) pharmacokinetics, suggesting that developmental risk is not dependent upon MeOH or FA metabolism. MeOH did not increase embryonic ROS formation or DNA oxidation, nor was MeOH teratogenicity altered in C57BL/6J mice expressing elevated catalase levels, or by pretreatment with PBN, suggesting that ROS do not contribute to the in vivo mechanism of MeOH teratogenesis. This apparent ROS independence was in contrast to results from other studies implicating a ROS-dependent mechanism, based on different models of toxicity. These species- and strain-dependent results raise questions regarding the determinants of risk and the relevance of different animal models to the human situation. The spectrum of MeOH-initiated birth defects was expanded, and the incidences of multiple anomalies increased, by GSH depletion. GSH is both a ROS scavenger and a cofactor for formaldehyde dehydrogenase (ADH3), which detoxifies the MeOH metabolite formaldehyde. The results from this collection of studies suggest that formaldehyde is a proximate teratogen in vivo, and that GSH protects by serving as a cofactor for ADH3.
VEPH1 Regulation of TGF-beta Signalling
Keywords: VEPH1
ovarian cancer
TGF-beta

Epithelial ovarian cancer is the leading cause of gynecologic cancer-related mortality. Altered transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) and wingless and integration 1 (Wnt) signalling are associated with the pathogenesis of ovarian cancer. Factors contributing to evasion of growth-limiting TGF-β signals or abnormal Wnt signalling activity in epithelial ovarian cancer cells remain to be elucidated. A high-throughput protein-protein interaction screen indicated interaction of the pleckstrin homology (PH) domain of ventricular zone-expressed PH domain-containing protein homolog 1 (Veph1) with TGF-β receptor I (TβRI), suggesting VEPH1 may modulate TGF-β signalling. VEPH1 is amplified in some epithelial ovarian cancers, with correlated increased transcript levels. In this thesis, the potential role for VEPH1 in regulating TGF-β signalling and altering the transcriptome of ovarian cancer cells was explored. VEPH1-TβRI interaction was confirmed and the effect of VEPH1 expression on SMAD2/3-dependent TGF-β signalling was examined. VEPH1 inhibited SMAD2/3-dependent TGF-β signalling in HepG2, COS7, and SKOV3 cells. Gene expression profiling of SKOV3 cells stably transfected with VEPH1 cDNA confirmed muted TGF-β-induced transcriptional responses by VEPH1 expression. SMAD2/3 and TβRI engage in a transient interaction during TGF-β signalling to phosphorylate SMAD2/3 and enable its nuclear accumulation in association with SMAD4 for transcriptional regulation. VEPH1 altered the dynamics of SMAD2-TβRI association to limit TGF-β-induced nuclear levels of SMAD2. The expression of VEPH1 was determined to produce significant changes in the transcriptome of SKOV3 cells consistent with an impact upon multiple signalling cascades. In particular, expression of Wnt signalling components was affected by elevated levels of VEPH1 and VEPH1 enhanced canonical Wnt signalling. Overall, these studies provide strong evidence of VEPH1 inhibition of canonical TGF-β signalling and support a model whereby VEPH1 impedes release of SMAD2 from TβRI. Furthermore, VEPH1 expression appears to affect multiple signalling pathways, such as the Wnt signalling cascade, that are known to be involved in cancer progression.
Strategic Ligand Design as a Route to Complexes for Small Molecule Activation and Catalysis
Keywords: Inorganic Chemistry
Transition Metal Chemistry
Catalysis
Ligand Design

The choice of both ligand and metal centre plays a critical role in the reactivity of a complex. Notably, several ligands have been designed that do not act as innocent spectators but rather act cooperatively with the metal centre, imparting unique reactivity leading to the generation of a number of new catalytic systems. Herein, the syntheses of a library of metal complexes containing strategically designed ligands are detailed with the primary focus being ligand reactivity. In this context, the syntheses of group 10 complexes containing multidentate N-donor ligands are described. The preparation and reactivity of low valent diimine-Ni complexes with electron deficient alkynes and olefins is explored, and the ability of these ligands to act as electron acceptors is discussed. Similarly, the reactivity of bis-phosphinimine and bis-aminophosphine ligands with palladium is described. The choice of metal precursor is demonstrated to be important in the reactions with the bis-phosphinimine ligand, as partial reduction of the ligand is observed leading to the isolation of a mixed aminophosphine-phosphinimine species. Furthermore, the design of novel multidentate ligand systems containing either aminophosphine or phosphinite functional groups for use as reactive ligands is investigated. The syntheses of group 10, ruthenium and rhodium complexes containing these ligands are described. The reactivity of the ligands is detailed, and catalytic applications are explored with the results demonstrating that the nature of the donor ligands has a dramatic impact on reactivity. Finally, the syntheses of phosphinoamide complexes of zirconium, hafnium and ruthenium are detailed. The ability of the metal and ligand to act cooperatively in the activation of small molecules is investigated, further developing a new paradigm in metal-ligand cooperative reactivity. The application of these complexes in a number of catalytic processes including the dehydrogenation of amine-boranes and the reduction of CO2 is also explored.