VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Forms of poetic attention [electronic resource]
Keywords: Comparative Literature.

The notion of "poetic form" is as old and familiar as the study of poetry itself, an unquestioned shorthand for "how poems work." But what exactly is formed in a poem? At its core, I argue, poetry is an event of attention generated in the acts of reading and writing. This dissertation offers a systematic exploration of this premise, analyzing how poems compose attention and how attention in turn constitutes poetry's primary material. In doing so, the project also theorizes the process of attention-making itself: its objects, coordinates, and variables. I focus primarily on the American twentieth century, augmenting this modern focus with examples drawn from earlier and nonwestern poets, such as Sappho, Al-Khansa', and William Shakespeare. Making explicit the centrality of attention to poetic experience, this dissertation develops a method and terminology for identifying the dynamics of poetic attention and distinguishes this specifically poetic attention from other varieties of attention. Part One focuses on the dynamics of "transitive" attention, or modes of attention that take an object. Drawing on attention studies in phenomenology, psychology, and cognitive science, I identify five essential dynamic coordinates of transitive attention: intentionality, interest, selectivity, spatiotemporal remove, and apprehension. I demonstrate this process through an exploration of four primary categories of transitive attention: desire (reading Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, and Robert Hass), contemplation (George Oppen, Wallace Stevens, and Rolf Dieter Brinkmann), recollection (Geoffrey Hill, Anne Carson, and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha), and imagination (William Wordsworth, Rainer Maria Rilke, and John Burnside). In each case, I constellate several close readings to unfold the complexity of each mode. In Part Two, I turn to the dynamics of "intransitive" attention, exploring how poetic attention functions when, aside from the formal object that is the poem itself, there is no central object of focus. As in Part One, I begin by parsing the dynamic coordinates of intransitive attention, which include intentionality, the presence or absence of an indirect object, scope, temporal inflection, and subjectivity. I then identify and explore four applied modes: vigilance (reading Stéphane Mallarmé and Friedrich Hölderlin), resignation (Arthur Rimbaud and Charles Wright), idleness (Joan Retallack, Frank O'Hara, and A.R. Ammons), and boredom (Charles Bukowski, Thom Gunn, and T.S. Eliot). This research makes explicit what has been an unspoken intuition among poets and critics alike for centuries: that poetry is at its core an event of attention, that it forms and is formed by attention, that this poetic attention is of human value, and that it might be cultivated—sharpened, sensitized, quickened, refined—through the practice of reading and writing poetry.
For-profit vs. nonprofit [electronic resource] : strategies of competition and collaboration in the continuing care industry
Keywords: Management Science and Engineering.

Few changes in the organization of healthcare in the United States have stimulated more interest and alarm than the rise of a new form of entrepreneurism -- Investor-owned, for-profit organizations that provide health services as a business. Although ours is a predominantly capitalistic society, there have long been concerns about the possible adverse or pernicious effects of profit motivations in healthcare. The majority of the previous empirical studies comparing performance between for-profit and nonprofit healthcare providers suggested that nonprofit providers were superior. However, few studies focus specifically on the continuing care providers. In this dissertation, I first examine the impact of ownership status ─ for-profit vs. nonprofit ─ on occupancy rate, price, and quality of service in the continuing care industry through an empirical study in California. In this empirical study, I collect data from the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) and on-site interviews in 26 Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRCs) in California. In the second part of this dissertation, I set up a two-sided market framework to model the competition between for-profit and nonprofit CCRCs. CCRCs serve as platforms that link together residents on one side and service providers on the other side. By highlighting this two-sided market structure, my model provides new insights to understand the increase in for-profit CCRC's market shares observed in the last decade in the US. Also, the modeling results can help the management in for-profit and nonprofit CCRCs better understand their different strategic positions and assist in their decision-making for market competition and collaboration. In the final chapter of the dissertation, I investigate how these lessons learned from the senior care industry in the U.S. can be adapted to the different cultural and social backgrounds in developing countries such as China, which is emerging as an aging society and has recently started planning and building its senior care infrastructure.
Fragmentation of media tasks on a laptop computer [electronic resource] : moment-by-moment analysis of task-switching and writing performance
Keywords: Communication.

Traditional media activities -- watching a movie, listening to a song, reading a news story, writing an essay -- have typically included a one-to-one mapping of media activity and media device. Modern digital technologies, however, have altered the context in which the majority of media content is experienced: today much of our mediated lives are spent on one or two devices -- laptops, tablets, smart phones -- that centralize and permit rapid switching between a wide variety of content. Activities that were once completed -- and studied -- in isolation are now fragmented and re-woven in a form of media multitasking that takes place on a single screen, engaged in a context very different from traditional modes and likely to influence processing of message content and performance on mediated tasks. The present field study includes a two-stage approach to better understanding the process, not just the outcomes, of completing media tasks in the modern context of interwoven experiences of different content. The first stage is an exploration of this behavior while working on writing tasks, through direct monitoring of media use over an extended period in natural settings. The second stage sought to evaluate how writing task performance is impacted by the fragmentation inherent to laptop computer use, testing hypotheses about task performance derived from the psychological literature on cognitive task-switching. Results revealed that writing tasks are completed in short bursts of time (median = 51 seconds) and small blocks of composition (median = 10 words added or removed in a single burst), with writing sessions consisting of jumbled sequences of time spent writing, time spent on content relevant to the task at hand, and time spent on wholly unrelated media stimuli. The impact of this process on writing performance is moderated by several structural and content-related parameters (e.g., duration of writing segments, time away from the document, frequency of switches, relatedness of content accessed prior to a writing segment, and interactions between these factors), and dependent upon the metric of performance considered (e.g., readability of writing, words added, active editing while writing, deletion of previously written text). Implications for writing strategy and instruction, as well as the need for modern effects researchers to observe media use in its full, fragmented context, are discussed.
Framing Marlow: The Limits of Glamour and Obscurity in Joseph Conrad's Adventure Novellas
Keywords:  Department of English
Joseph Conrad
Conrad
modernism
adventure
obscurity
glamour
frame
frame narrative
English
Stanford University
Stanford
Thesis

This thesis examines Joseph Conrad's modernist subversion of the typical nineteenth century adventure narrative, focusing on Conrad's criticism of the obscurity and glamour of adventure. The thesis brings in insights from modern sociological and political framework theories to examine the frame narrative structures of two of Conrad's novellas: Youth (1898) and Heart of Darkness (1899). The thesis propels against arguments of multiple Conrad critics by sourcing Conrad's modernism to the frame narrative structures of his novellas, rather than his use of obscure language.
From defeat to glory [electronic resource] : the first Anglo-Afghan War and the construction of the Victorian military machine, 1837-1851
Keywords: History.

This dissertation contends that the First Anglo-Afghan War should be studied not only for dramatic import or political point-taking, but for the critical light it can shed on imperial thought, practice, and identity during this crucial period of the British Empire. Through a detailed examination of the historical record, it argues that the war was the birthing ground for techniques, policies, and strategies which echoed down the imperial century. These imaginative, rhetorical, and practical tools, blooded in the wreck of the first British adventure in Afghanistan, would become crucial elements of the imperial military machine. They included imperial mythmaking and the power of narrative construction to transform unacceptable failure into a useful imperial narrative; the brutal efficacy of exemplary violence to not only restore Britain's imperial honor and prestige, but to bolster imperial security by demonstrating the horrific consequences for those who would resist British rule; and the expanding imperial public sphere that played a newly critical role in the contestation of imperial self-analysis and the creation of imperial history. This dissertation argues that the First Anglo-Afghan War was the formative catalyst for the Victorian military machine.
From 'opt out' to blocked out [electronic resource] : the negative consequences of intermittent employment
Keywords: Sociology.

In today's labor market, the majority of men and women have experienced a lapse in labor market participation at some point in their careers. Unemployment from a job loss and leaving work to care for family or children are the two most common reasons behind interruptions in employment. In the dissertation, I ask: how do employment lapses influence subsequent labor market outcomes, such as wages and hiring, and how does the type of employment lapse affect labor market rewards? To answer this question, I use multiple data sources: a longitudinal survey of wages, an audit study of employers, and two original survey experiments. The empirical studies combined allow me to assess the role of employer bias, in addition to other mechanisms and processes that contribute to the negative effects of intermittent employment. I find that the reason behind a lapse matters: relative to individuals who experienced unemployment due to job loss, job applicants who temporarily opted out of work to care for family fare generally worse in terms of wages and hiring prospects. I argue that the disadvantages faced by opt out applicants is due to both the devaluation of care work and employers' perceptions that these applicants violate ideal worker standards. This research provides a systematic causal test of the processes disadvantaging the intermittently employed, which is important to understand given the ubiquity of interrupted employment in today's workforce.
From Soviet heartland to Ukrainian borderland [electronic resource] : searching for identity in Kharkiv, 1943-2004
Keywords: History.

This dissertation investigates the production of a distinctive local identity in Kharkiv, once the third largest city in the Soviet Union and today the second largest city in Ukraine. Beginning with the aftermath of World War II, it traces the city's growth into a modern Soviet metropolis, characterized by enormous factories, numerous higher education institutions, and an ethnically diverse population. It argues the dynamic interaction between Soviet ideology and local patterns of identification in Kharkiv created a durable local culture that continues to shape the city today. Grounded in archival research, this project utilizes diverse methods in order to get at its subject, including social, political, and cultural histories, discourse analysis, interviews, and the study of urban spaces. It focuses on three major themes: the evolving nature of local urban identity; the intertwining of Soviet and Ukrainian factors in local identity; and the continual renegotiation of the city's regional, national, and revolutionary pasts. I argue that the creation of a distinctively Soviet urban culture in Kharkiv was largely successful; Soviet policies and ideology structured public spaces, forms of political contestation, subjectivities, linguistic practices, and historical memories. The Soviet Union's attempt to imprint the historical narrative of the October Revolution on the urban spaces of Kharkiv found resonance locally, in part because Kharkiv was depicted as the cradle of the Soviet Ukrainian state. This mode of identification was strengthened by the experience of World War II and reconstruction, the post-Stalin revalorization of the Soviet Ukrainian narrative, and the peaceful coexistence between the city's two major nationalities, often celebrated as a model for the union. During the 1970s and 1980s, even dissenting movements in the city operated within a Soviet political paradigm that sought to reform the system rather than destroy it. My dissertation shows the relative success of Kharkiv's integration into the Soviet Union, even as it sheds light on the tensions that led to its undoing.
From Zero to Sixty: Explaining the Proliferation of Shi'a Militias in Iraq After 2003
Keywords: Center for International Security and Cooperation
Terrorism
Shi'a Militias
Iraq
Security Sector Reform
Iraqi Civil War
Militias
The Islamic State
ISIS
Thesis

At the time of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, there were two main Shi’a militias operating in the country. When the U.S. withdrew eight years later, there were five such groups. By late 2016 there were well over 40 Shi’a militias active in Iraq. This thesis asks what has driven the proliferation of these groups; specifically, why has there been such a dramatic increase in the number of Iraqi Shi’a militias, not just in the number of men joining these groups. Studying almost 30 of the most prominent Shi’a militias that have emerged in Iraq since 2003, this thesis examines the factors that precipitated this proliferation. It finds that in contrast to the assumptions made by the existing literature on civil wars, militant group fragmentation only accounts for a small portion of the proliferation of the Shi’a militias in Iraq. In fact, most of the new militias that have emerged since 2003 were founded as entirely new, independent organizations, not as splinter groups. Furthermore, a large proportion of these new organizations were founded by political parties, suggesting a link between Iraqi electoral politics and militia proliferation. The data also implies that what splintering has occurred among the Shi’a militias in Iraq is likely not due to direct Iranian influence, as many observers have suggested. Instead, the causes of fragmentation among these groups appear to be relatively diverse, although the evidence suggests that the war in neighboring Syria has played an important role in the proliferation process.
Fugitive intimacies [electronic resource] : the unsettling vows of queer wedlock performance
Keywords: Theater and Performance Studies.

Notarizing intimate relationships through performance techniques is an ancient tradition in the west, yet marriage initiation rituals in modernity are often considered sentimental matters, rarely examined critically as potent cultural choreographies of social belonging. This dissertation examines instances of "queer wedlock performance, " a term referencing not necessarily the union of sexual minorities, but rather those ceremonies and pseudo-ceremonies indexing intimate affiliations that diverge from the regulated expectations of civilized modern adulthood. This project traces a constellation of queer wedlock performances in various media: fictional oaths exchanged onstage in early modern England, extra-legal vows uttered in pursuit of same-sex marriage rights, acts of constrained consent in the writings of 19th century Black women, and the durational coexistence experiments of contemporary live artists. Through the deployment of "un/binding vows, " these diverse promises may fail to secure full legitimacy within extant systems of power, yet they succeed in other dimensions. The un/binding vows of queer wedlock performance function to unsettle norms governing kinship, rendering visible the imperialist inheritances of the marriage institution and the material inequities it maintains. Un/binding vows generate fugitive intimacies that can enable escape from coercive situations. Pursuit of such intimacies is a form of embodied ethico-aesthetic research in which gendered and racialized inheritances structuring relationality can be reworked. Close readings of the ephemera of fugitive intimacies reveal vibrant, temporary, heterogeneous assemblages urging the abandonment of established social hierarchies and offering alternatives to the givenness of love as a teleological project.
The functional organization of control systems in human frontoparietal cortex [electronic resource]
Keywords: Psychology.

Human behavior is not reflexively yoked to the information that streams in from our senses. The way that we respond to a particular sensory stimulus might change from moment to moment depending on external rules, internal goals, and other factors that define the context for that behavior. This flexibility is often attributed to a cognitive control system in prefrontal cortex. Theoretical models propose that patterns of activity across prefrontal neurons convey a representation of abstract contextual information. This representation is thought to be the source of top-down control signals that influence processing in other neural circuits to determine how sensory information is interpreted and which responses are selected. In this thesis, I will report the results of three experiments that were designed to characterize the functional organization of control systems in the human brain. Subjects in my experiments performed context-dependent decision-making tasks, where they followed changing task rules to make simple decisions about the basic features of visual stimuli. I used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure brain activity elicited by these tasks and determined the relative contributions of different brain regions with multivariate tools for decoding information from distributed activation patterns. My experiments identified a distributed network of regions in lateral prefrontal and parietal cortex that express strong representations of context during decision-making. I further determined that the strength of these representations varies over time, indicating that the engagement of control is dynamically allocated. My analyses show that the engagement of the frontoparietal control system can be understood to reflect a measure of prediction error relative to an internal model of the environmental statistics that determine the contextual relevance of different stimulus dimensions. Finally, I found that context is represented by the activity of fine-scaled intrinsic networks within prefrontal cortex. These results provide insight into the computational and neural mechanisms that confer cognitive flexibility on the human mind.
Gene-centric discovery of novel secondary metabolite biosynthetic pathways in Arabidopsis thaliana [electronic resource]
Keywords: Chemical Engineering.

Plants have the capacity to produce a vast array of small molecules in order to interact with and reshape their environment. These so-called secondary metabolites can have diverse biological roles, acting in protection against pathogens and abiotic stresses, uptake of nutrients, and interspecies communication, for instance. Understanding how and why specific secondary metabolites are produced is of significant interest not only from a basic biological perspective, but also because it can enable engineering of hardier plant varieties. Such understanding requires elucidation of a specific metabolite's biosynthetic pathway -- the set of enzymes that carry out the chemical transformations needed to generate the metabolite from ubiquitous small molecule building blocks. Pathway discovery has traditionally been tedious due to the inherent complexity of plant metabolism and genomic organization; today, however, the availability of whole genome sequences and global transcriptional datasets promises to greatly accelerate this process. Here, we describe a gene-centric approach for the discovery of novel secondary metabolite biosynthetic pathways of biological interest in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. Guided by gene expression evidence, we characterize the biochemical function of candidate enzymes of unknown function by metabolic profiling of knockout mutants, followed by coexpression analysis to identify additional pathway enzymes. Chemical and biological characterization of the secondary metabolites produced allows us to probe their likely ecological functions. Three novel metabolite types discovered using applications of this approach are presented: indole-3-carbonyl nitrile (ICN) and derivatives, indolic alkaloids which function in pathogen defense; sideretin, an oxidized coumarin that facilitates iron acquisition from the soil via a reductive mechanism; and cysteine-rich peptides exuded by roots in response to zinc deficiency, whose biological functions are not yet clear. In the first two cases, we describe the complete biosynthetic pathways of both ICN and sideretin and the chemical syntheses of all pathway products. This work demonstrates the broad applicability of gene-centric approaches that leverage the availability of large-scale datasets for identification of biologically significant secondary metabolite pathways, and paves the way for engineering plant varieties with enhanced tolerance to disease and low micronutrient availability.
A general framework for estimation and inference from prototypes of feature clusters [electronic resource]
Keywords: Statistics.

Presented with a dataset with predefined variable grouping structure, I propose using response-aware prototypes (supervised by the response) in further analysis of the data. A framework for testing group-wide signal amongst variables is presented and developed. It is shown that tests based on supervised prototypes are more powerful than competitors from the classical literature. Furthermore, various aspects of multivariate modeling (estimation, prediction and variable selection) on prototypes are considered. A new penalty function for linear regression is proposed, meant to be used when predictions from various datasets need to be combined. Also, a procedure for generating highly interpretable snapshots of the dataset is presented and demonstrated. Finally, FDR controlling knockoff procedures are extended to the prototype level. Overall, prototyping is shown to be a versatile tool for data analysis. Since prototypes are constructed with reference to the response, care needs to be taken to account for this properly in subsequent analysis. Modern statistical inferential tools from the recently developed selective inference literature are applied to this problem throughout.