VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The Social Work of Poetry: Youth Writing, Empowerment, and Action

This study explores the post–high school lives and literacies of a group of student poets who attended an alternative high school. Using mixed qualitative methods including participant observation, survey, focus groups, and case study interviews, this research followed this group of poets for up to six years after they took the poetry class in order to illustrate how they activated the writing tools gleaned in their in–school poetry class. With a strong reliance on participant voice, this study explores (a) participants' memories of the poetry class that they reported as having a positive impact on their lives; (b) the evolution of these young-­–adults as writers and the functions of literacy in their post-­–high school lives; and (c) the lasting impact of memorable poems produced in the context of the poetry class. Findings illuminated how this group of students valued what they described as a family–like community in poetry class where they felt they could break through personal and institutional silence. Through this process, they grew as individual writers by pulling on the strength of the tight community of poets, internalizing the voices of the group, and refracting them through their own prismatic representations of themselves and their worlds. The social learning that unfolded in the poetry class through the discussion, critique, and development of each poet's voice paved the way for the development of individual writers and for changing attitudes toward schooled learning. Regardless of the frequency of their writing post–high school practice they all understood writing as a critical tool for overcoming life challenges. Participants identified touchstone poems produced in the context of poetry class that resulted in moments of development and altered their life paths. My work argues that for students who have experienced failure or disengagement in schools, positive literacy–;learning spaces that nurture trust, tolerance, and the breaking of silence along with the fostering of written communication and story–telling have the potential help students develop agentive identities and to be armed with literacy as a life skill or social tool.

Advisor: Freedman, Sarah W
Iridium-Catalyzed Reactions of C-H, N-H, and O-H Bonds with Alkenes: Methodologies and Mechanisms

The following dissertation discusses methods for the addition of NH bonds of amides and indoles to alkenes, CH bonds of heteroarenes to bicycloalkenes, and OH bonds to unactivated alkenes. The final section describes a method for the oxidative coupling of unactivated alkenes with furans to generate vinylfurans. All of the processes, discussed herein, are catalyzed by iridium bisphosphine complexes. Mechanistic investigations of the catalytic processes provide information on elementary organometallic reactions such as oxidative addition of XH bonds, and the subsequent reactivity of the organometallic products with alkenes.

Advisor: Hartwig, John F
The Impact of Sleep Deprivation on Anxiety and Affective Brain Function

Recent evidence suggests there is an intimate and causal relationship between sleep and anxiety. Despite such progress, several unknowns remain. For example which factors predispose some individuals to be vulnerable to the anxiogenic impact of sleep loss while others appear to be resilient have yet to be identified. Furthermore, whether trait-anxiety, in turn, predicts the sensitivity of individuals to amplified emotional brain reactivity associated with a lack of sleep is similarly unknown. Moreover, little is currently known about the embodied interplay between peripheral and central nervous system mechanisms leading to such abnormalities of affective processing caused by sleep deprivation. Characterizing these mechanisms is necessary not only to gain a deeper understanding of the pathophysiological pathways underlying the condition of anxiety, but also for developing effective treatments for the amelioration of anxiety as well as guiding public health policy aimed at anxiety disorder prevention. Targeting these unanswered questions, this thesis combines functional and structural MRI techniques, together with high-density EEG recordings, to test the overarching hypothesis that sleep deprivation leads to dysregulation of the extended-limbic system contributing to, and interacting with, the state of anxiety. Three specific predictions emerged from this overarching hypothesis and were tested in separate experiments. First, experiment 1 confirms the hypothesis that structural brain morphology in a network of limbic brain regions predicts vulnerability to the anxiogenic impact of sleep deprivation, and that sex moderates this interaction. Second, experiment 2 provides evidence supporting the hypothesis that trait anxiety determines the degree to which sleep deprivation amplifies limbic brain reactivity during the anticipation of potentially aversive emotional experiences. Finally, results from experiment 3 affirms the prediction that, beyond central limbic brain changes, sleep deprivation additionally dysregulates peripheral, autonomic cardiac signaling in response to affective stimuli as well as decouples the normally inter-related association between central brain and peripheral nervous systems. Collectively, these results help characterize a framework in which sleep deprivation contributes to anxiety symptomology through impairments in affective processing by both the central (limbic) and peripheral (autonomic) nervous system functioning. Moreover, these data suggest that the co-morbid features of sleep disruption and altered limbic as well as autonomic function commonly reported across anxiety disorders may be causally related. Considering the continued decreases in sleep time across society and the high prevalence of anxiety disorders, these findings have significant therapeutic, clinical and public health ramifications.

Advisor: Walker, Matthew P
String Theory, Chern-Simons Theory and the Fractional Quantum Hall Effect

In this thesis we explore two interesting relationships between string theory and quantum field theory./nFirstly, we develop an equivalence between two Hilbert spaces: (i) the space of states of U(1)^n Chern-Simons theory with a certain class of tridiagonal matrices of coupling constants (with corners) on T^2; and (ii) the space of ground states of strings on an associated mapping torus with T^2 fiber. The equivalence is deduced by studying the space of ground states of SL(2,Z)-twisted circle compactifications of U(1) gauge theory, connected with a Janus configuration, and further compactified on T^2. The equality of dimensions of the two Hilbert spaces (i) and (ii) is equivalent to a known identity on determinants of tridiagonal matrices with corners. The equivalence of operator algebras acting on the two Hilbert spaces follows from a relation between the Smith normal form of the Chern-Simons coupling constant matrix and the isometry group of the mapping torus, as well as the torsion part of its first homology group./nSecondly, the Fractional Quantum Hall Effect appears as part of the low-energy description of the Coulomb branch of the A_1 (2,0)-theory formulated on (S^1xR^2)/Z_k, where the generator of Z_k acts as a combination of translation on S^1 and rotation by 2&pi/k on R^2. At low-energy the configuration is described in terms of a 4+1D Super-Yang-Mills theory on a cone (R^2/Z_k) with additional 2+1D degrees of freedom at the tip of the cone. Fractionally charged quasi-particles have a natural description in terms of BPS strings of the (2,0)-theory. We analyze the large k limit, where a smooth cigar-geometry provides an alternative description. In this framework a W-boson can be modeled as a bound state of k quasi-particles. The W-boson becomes a Q-ball, and it can be described by a soliton solution of BPS monopole equations on a certain auxiliary curved space. We show that axisymmetric solutions of these equations correspond to singular maps from AdS_3 to AdS_2, and we present some numerical results.

Advisor: Ganor, Ori
Without Thinking: An Ethnography of the Diagnosis of Dementia in an American Clinic and in a French Clinic

This dissertation describes the building of knowledge about dementia in two renowned clinics in the world of neuroscience: one situated in America, the other in France. How do these teams of neuroscientists distinguish the demented person from the reasonable person?/nDrawing on 18 months of ethnographic research, I analyze how the understanding of frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a neurodegenerative disease that is defined in opposition to Alzheimer's disease (AD), allows neuroscience to explore, from the destruction of our brain, our emotional and social being. Well equipped with contemporary and American cerebral theories on "empathy" and "sociality", I then examine how teams of neuroscientists diagnose the pathology of the social and emotional being in an individual patient. How do they reach a diagnosis in a context at times marked by uncertainty? I lay out these uncertainties that point to the weakness of an exclusive positive definition of knowledge and I study how medical expertise can be conceived as connoisseurship, bringing to light the "feelings" and "tastes" of these doctors for the disease as a decisive tool for the making of a diagnosis. I conclude on the differences I observed in the understanding of FTD in the French clinic versus in the American clinic.

Advisor: Liu, Xin
Bodily Impacts: Locating Vietnamese Modernism in the Contact Zones

Bodily Impacts: Locating Vietnamese Modernism in the Contact Zones/nThis dissertation examines Vietnamese modernist poetry as a cross-cultural contact zone, historically embedded, and composed of a dense network of intertextual engagements. What are the salient features of this cluster of work, and how do they inform our understanding of the larger constellation of international modernism? This dissertation makes several contributions to existing studies. First, this project explores the historical development of Vietnamese modernism by tracing the evolution of modernist poetry through three historical eras: the late-colonial era of the 1930s, the revolutionary era of the late-1950s and the "Renovation" era of the 1970s/1980s. In doing so, I demonstrate that there was indeed a modernist "movement" in Vietnam with trajectory and momentum, and even though historical events disrupted it at certain junctures. Second, this dissertation examines the complex transnational force-field that shaped Vietnamese modernism by tracing its web of connections to literary traditions in Vietnam, China, France and the former Soviet Union. Third, it considers the value of different theoretical orientations to the study of marginal literatures including approaches derived from history, colonial and postcolonial studies, comparative and world literature. I view these texts as markers of wider collisions, convergences, and re-articulations, rather than homologies. More than merely point out features that Vietnamese modernist texts share with European counterparts, I discuss the ways these poems participate in conversations with, and thus shift understandings of, modernism elsewhere--but from within the specific socio-cultural context of Vietnam. I move beyond internal-formal analysis to relate Vietnamese modernism to specific historical moments of cultural engagement to uncover the perceptible network of literary relations. In examining this case-study, I offer an extension to the cultural imagination of modernism, and a modest contribution to understanding cultural formations on the margins.

Advisor: Zinoman, Peter
When States Fall Apart

Failed states--countries in which governing institutions have corroded or collapsed-- are considered by many scholars to pose a grave threat to global security. Policymakers broadly share this view. The United States' 2002 National Security Strategy flatly declared that "America is now threatened less by conquering states than by failing ones", while the United Nations warns of the global dangers posed by states that cannot meet their responsibilities as sovereign powers./nThe conventional wisdom on the risks posed by failed states represents a significant shift in international relations scholarship, which has traditionally emphasized the threat that strong states pose to weaker polities. It also represents a shift in foreign policy, as fears of state failure have flooded resources into shoring up weak states and reconstructing failed ones. But do failed states pose a global security threat? Despite the stakes, there has been little empirical research that isolates and tests the causal mechanisms linking state failure with specific threats. This project empirically assesses the consequences of state failure, through an investigation of several security threats of global significance: transnational terrorism, and pandemic disease outbreaks. The core finding of the research is that failed states largely do not act as "exporters" of international security hazards. To the contrary, that the aspects of institutional incapacitation that analysts frequently highlight--broken security institutions, weak public service provision, corroded infrastructure--often render failed states systematically less likely to propagate security threats than higher-capacity states./n/nHowever, though fragile and failed states do not pose a generic and grave international security risk, they remain sites of endemic violence and instability. And so while the security imperative for engagement may be limited, the moral case remains. Accordingly, the second element of the dissertation explores the dynamics of statebuilding and reconstruction, focusing in particular on the linkage between institutional reconstruction and legitimacy. While international efforts to reconstruct failed states have generally focused on legitimation through the establishment of liberal-democratic institutions, the results suggest that delivery of basic services, rather than governance processes alone, play a vital role in structuring popular perceptions of state legitimacy. Building systems to effectively deliver services is necessarily a long-term process, implying that efforts to reconstruct fragile states will need to be sustained if they are to succeed.

Advisor: Weber, Steven
Fragment Based Identification of Phosphatase Inhibitors

Phosphatases are broadly introduced as an enzyme class with therapeutic implications in a variety of disease areas. A substrate-based fragment approach is used to identify novel phosphatase inhibitors of first Mycobacterium tuberculosis protein tyrosine phosphatase PtpA, for potential therapeutic implications in tuberculosis, then for striatal-enriched protein tyrosine phosphatase (STEP), which has therapeutic implications for Alzheimer's disease. Finally, benzopentathiepins and seleninic acids are investigated as redox-reversible inhibitors of STEP. Aditionally, a method for the asymmetric additions of Knochel-type benzyl zinc reagents to N-tert-butanesulfinyl aldimines is described.

Advisor: Ellman, Jonathan A
Essays on leveraged buyouts and distressed asset pricing

This dissertation consists of three chapters that concern leveraged buyouts and the risk- return relationship of distressed stocks. The first chapter uses hand collected cash flow statements to present the origin, ownership and use of cash in leveraged buyouts of large publicly traded U.S. firms by private equity funds between 1980 and 2006. I find suggestive evidence that target firms exhibit inefficient investment in the form of empire building pre-acquisition. Once controlled by private equity funds, firms exhibit a significant decline in investment, sales and asset growth, and employment growth as debt is used to motivate managers and forces the release of excess free cash flows. I do not find evidence of value creation, as the profitability of the underlying assets does not increase under private equity control. There is evidence of an increase in cash flows from financial management expertise. This form of excess cash generation contributes to the funding of dividends but the majority of the funding is from asset sales and reduced investment prior to exit. Cash flow statements are also used to evaluate returns. I find that the IRR generated by underlying assets is insufficient to cover the cost of financing debt, adversely affecting the IRR to equity holders./nThe second chapter, co-authored with Harm Schu ̈tt, tests whether leveraged buyouts improve targets operating performance? We hand collect complete, comprehensive financial statements for a sample of 138 large public U.S. firms that were acquired by private equity funds in leveraged buyouts between 1980 and 2006, and we examine the operating performance of these companies. Because of our comparatively large dataset with comprehensive financial statements we can better scrutinize operating performance and the technical accounting issues associated with leveraged buyouts. We find that the acquired firms do not exhibit post-buyout improvements compared to industry peers. In addition to operations, we evaluate outcomes for the acquired firms. In an expanded sample of 531 large public to private leveraged buyouts we find that 109 (21%) subsequently declare bankruptcy or were restructured outside the bankruptcy court while held by private equity funds. Our results suggest that while private equity managers might be savvy investors, they are not better operators of the target companies./nThe third chapter explores the breakdown in the risk-return relationship of financially distressed stocks. I model firms in financial distress using an endogenous default model and demonstrate that distressed firms have nonsymmetric return distributions and are systematically mispriced under the CAPM. I propose the use of a CRRA utility model to correct for the mispricing of positive skewness in the return distribution of distressed stocks. I create portfolios using four distress measures and compare the risk-return relationship under both models. I find that the anomalously low return delivered by portfolios of the most distressed stocks is driven by the inclusion of OTC traded stocks.

Advisor: Parlour, Christine
Towards Understanding Fine-Tuning in Fundamental Physics

The standard models of particle physics and cosmology are enjoying wild success, but are beset by surprising features. Chief among these are the mysterious smallness of general relativity's cosmological constant (known as the cosmological constant "problem"), and the mysteriously tremendous strength of all other forces relative to gravity (known as the hierarchy "problem"). Both are instances of a physically relevant quantity that (due to quantum effects) is a sum of many (unknown) quantities; in both cases, these summands seem to cancel out to remarkable precision to give a much smaller sum, a phenomenon called fine-tuning./nThe size of the cosmological constant has proved robust against explanation on the grounds of physical principles like symmetry. Such explanations of the electroweak/gravity hierarchy abound, but recent experimental efforts have ruled many of them out, or forced them to introduce new fine-tuning. In both cases, arguments about selection effects and priors have emerged./nHere, a dialectic approach is taken to understanding this apparent fine-tuning in nature: First, symmetry is employed. Supersymmetry famously resolves the hierarchy problem, but is under siege by increasing experimental constraints ruling out much of its natural parameter space. A class of supersymmetry models with supersymmetry broken at a low scale is proposed which evade experimental constraints without needing fine-tuning. The key ingredient is some anti-correlation between supersymmetry-breaking effects and electroweak-breaking effects on a field, e.g. if the symmetry-breaking fields are localized at different points along an extra/ndimension./nThen, a careful argument employing selection effects and Bayesian reasoning is undertaken to show that the size of the cosmological constant is not surprising. Previous such arguments have suggested many different probability measures on the space of different possibilities, but a careful review of quantum mechanics shows a unique measure consistent with the Born rule that determines quantum-mechanical probability./nFinally, the harmony of these two approaches is briefly assessed. Upon reflection, the quantities observed in nature must have their values due to both underlying principles and selection effects. Implications are very briefly discussed.

Advisor: Nomura, Yasunori
New Synthetic Methods for Integrating Metal Nanoparticles with Biomolecules

Integrated systems that incorporate biomolecules, organic small molecules, and inorganic materials with precise, nanoscale positional relationships present a great synthetic challenge yet to be mastered by `top down' engineering approaches or `bottom up' chemical synthetic methods. Focusing on this challenge, we have developed well defined protein-inorganic nanomaterial conjugates to understand fundamental photophysical properties and develop new materials for targeted dual fluorescence/electron microscopy. First, we designed and constructed three systems to explore the effect of metal nanoparticles on organic fluorophores. The basis of these systems was the spherical protein capsid of bacteriophage MS2, which was used to house either organic fluorophores or gold particles within its interior volume. The exterior surface of each capsid was modified with ssDNA to facilitate the placement of either a gold nanoparticle or a fluorophore of interest at a fixed distance from the capsid. Next, pairing reported external modification strategies for MS2 that target both native and unnatural amino acids with a variety of interior inorganic cargo, we sought to produce additional materials for metal controlled fluorescence (silver nanoparticles), dual fluorescence/electron microscopy (CdSe/ZnS quantum dots and CdSe/CdS dot rods), and electron microscopy (discrete gold nanoparticle assemblies). Finally, a previously reported oxidative coupling reaction between anilines and ortho-aminophenols was adapted for gold nanoparticle bioconjugation. The reaction proceeds under mild conditions with fast reaction times and little-to-no background protein adsorption to the gold nanoparticles.

Advisor: Francis, Matthew B