VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Bad doctors, enablers, and the powerless : the United States opioid crisis and the redefining of help

The contemporary opioid crisis has coincided with a notable shift towards more public-health-focused drug policies than in previous drug crises. Yet individuals struggling with addiction continue to be seen as responsible for the onset and persistence of their condition, and this blame can carry over to their families. These dynamics highlight the persistent tension between moral and medical discourses of addiction that permeate society. Drawing on data I collected through 65 in-depth interviews with current and former opioid users and their non-opioid using family members, my dissertation examines: 1) how they attempt to navigate this tension to treat or prevent drug addiction for those closest to them and 2) the impact these efforts have on their sense of self and well-being. In the first paper, I illustrate how concerns about "enabling" complicate family members' notions of help and create a morally fraught dilemma because it is unclear to them whether it is more harmful to provide or withhold support. Attempts to navigate this dilemma were often a source of guilt and anxiety. In the second paper, I examine the ways individuals who have struggled with addiction attempt to support others struggling with addiction and the benefits and challenges they encounter. For many, the ability to help others provided a positive boost in their self-esteem and played a crucial part in their identities as "recovered" users. However, focusing too much on helping others was considered problematic because it might distract a person from properly managing their recovery. In the third paper, I explore the ways parents who have struggled with drug addiction conceptualize their children's risk of addiction and the strategies they take to minimize those risks. I demonstrate how an emphasis on socialization as a driver for drug use and addiction created a space where some parents felt they could help minimize their children's risk of following in their footsteps, despite potential biological predispositions. Together, this dissertation's findings provide important insight on how conflicting cultural meanings surrounding addiction complicate the meaning of social support in ways that may contribute to the stigmatization and marginalization of people who use drugs and their families. They also have broader theoretical implications for understanding how ambiguity may strain identities and relationships, the benefits and risks associated with helping in the context of illness, and how conceptions of risk impact social support patterns and parenting strategies

Keywords: Sociology.
Advisor: Correll Shelley Joyce
Freese Jeremy
Clair Matthew K.
Saperstein Aliya
Bakken ecology : the culture and space of fracked farmland in North Dakota

Farmland fracking shapes culture, space, and ecology in northwestern North Dakota's Bakken region. Oil company employees and officials, scientists and landowners collectively manage the socioecological uncertainties of juxtaposed agriculture and extractivism. This dissertation examines the politics of that public/private managerial process. Engaging political and environmental anthropology, I describe modern environmental politics in the Bakken as a reflection of Settler colonial ideals integral to the founding of the nation. Fracking in the Bakken is no imposition of, or victimization by, government and corporations. Instead, hydrocarbon commodification is a deeply personal practice through which people manage uncertainty according to colonial ideals for both space and ecology. Through that process, the people who live in and/or manage the Bakken come to define the modern environment according to colonial ideals for managing socioecological processes. Not just a product of conservative America, the politics of managing hydrocarbon commodification analyzed in this dissertation are evidenced across modern ecologies

Keywords: Anthropology.
Advisor: Ferguson James
Ebron Paulla A.
Garcia Angela
Tambar Kabir
Balancing Act: US Financial Diplomacy towards China’s Current Account Surplus, 2009-2013

The 2008 global financial crisis, the worst since the Great Depression, was viewed by the United States’ government as partially a consequence of China’s undervalued renminbi and export-reliant economic model. Despite intensive American engagement, these Chinese policy choices bred a current account surplus and ballooning global imbalances. While regulatory missteps most directly spawned the crisis, imbalances were seen as inflating the bubble. After the crisis, US policymakers prioritized addressing China’s surplus via financial diplomacy. This thesis analyzes how and why US policymakers engaged with China, and to what degree this diplomacy was effective. It builds a detailed diplomatic history of the 2009-2013 period, coinciding with the first term of the Obama administration and main period of post-crisis diplomacy. This history is derived from speeches, communiques, and other official communications from the bilateral Strategic & Economic Dialogues and multilateral G20 summits, as well as other public Treasury Department statements, Chinese government documents, and media reports. The official history is supplemented with interviews with key US policymakers. Based on this data, I draw three main conclusions. First, US diplomats were sensitive to China’s internal politics. By building on the arguments of Chinese groups aligned with US aims, negotiators leveraged China’s ‘two-level game.’ In essence, American pressure was used by Chinese technocrats as leverage in domestic battles over reform. Additionally, US officials kept many elements of diplomacy private to ensure China’s leaders could save face by claiming reform was based on self-interest, not external pressure. Second, the US used the G20 to legitimize and broaden the rebalancing agenda while building multilateral pressure on China, though it could not construct a sustained coalition due to European unwillingness to pressure China. Third, while substantive reform arguments were most important, US negotiators used bilateral concessions as leverage, while also pursuing China-favorable reforms at the IMF to build trust. These bargaining chips were strengthened by the threat of Congressional protectionism. Overall, my thesis suggests that Chinese interests, not American pressure, drove most key reforms. However, strategic US engagement played an important role in facilitating change within China, providing a model for future financial diplomacy.

Keywords: Center for International Security and Cooperation
International economic relations
Economic policy > International cooperation
China
Foreign exchange
Group of Twenty
United States. Department of the Treasury
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Thesis
Advisor: Goldstein Judith
Baleen whale physiology revealed through the integration of bio-logging and ecoinformatics

Ecology is in the process of becoming "big data" scientific discipline, but development and adoption of infrastructure has been patchy. From community science to automated sensor networks, ecologists are collecting, aggregating, and analyzing more data than ever before. Among these new data sources are bio-loggers: animal-borne sensor packages that track location, behavior, physiology, and more. With hardware advancements in the last few decades, the data from these devices increased in quantity and complexity beyond the technical capacity of many ecologists. This challenge is particularly visible in physio-logging (the use of bio-loggers for observing physiology), which frequently employs a more diverse suite of sensors than other bio-logger applications. Therefore, physio-logging provides a compelling case study for developing ecological informatics infrastructure. This dissertation identifies the informatics gaps in physio-logging, demonstrates methodological advancements possible with greater infrastructure, and applies physio-logging data to a conservation framework. In Chapter 1, I offer a perspective on how the lack of informatics infrastructure stifles innovation. By looking to other scientific disciplines for inspiration, I describe how a greater emphasis on computational reproducibility could fuel collaboration and discovery. Chapters 2 and 3 build on the themes of infrastructure and innovation by providing examples of new physio-logging analytical methods. Finally, Chapter 4 uses bio-logging data to model the physiological consequences of anthropogenic disturbance to vulnerable cetacean populations

Keywords: Biology.
Advisor: Goldbogen Jeremy
Hazen Elliott Lee
O'Connell Lauren A.
Ponganis Paul J.
Thompson Stuart (Professor of biology)
Ballots & Bullets: Understanding the Conditions that Facilitated Hybrid Actor Participation in Elections in Iraq and Lebanon

Hezbollah’s transition to parliamentary politics spurned the term “Hezbollah model,” but it is far from the only hybrid actor to hold seats in a national government. What are the conditions that facilitate hybrid actor participation in national elections? This thesis takes a qualitative approach to understand the interplay of these conditions for Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Sadrist movement in Iraq. The thesis makes a probabilistic argument about the presence and significance of four conditions: government tolerance, a supportive constituency, power vacuum, and foreign involvement.
Hybrid actor electoral participation has important implications for policymakers who are interested in preventing these actors from integrating with state governments, and in slowing the spread of Iranian influence in the Middle East, as Iran has had the most success in cultivating mutually beneficial relationships with hybrid actors in the region. Specifically, understanding the conditions that precipitate participation in elections opens the door to preventive measures in other countries in which hybrid actors flourish but have yet to enter into politics.

Keywords: Center for International Security and Cooperation
Lebanon
Iraq
Elections
Political participation
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Thesis
Advisor: Blaydes Dr. Lisa
Basal hydrology under Totten Glacier after the GlaDS model and a Potential Transition Zone

The Aurora Subglacial Basin (ASB) in East Antarctica contains at least 3.5 meters of eustatic sea level potential in ice grounded below sea level, primarily draining through Totten Glacier into the Sabrina Coast. Totten’s coastal grounded ice has been thinning faster than any other glacier system in East Antarctica since the beginning of the satellite altimetry record and its grounding line has been retreating since at least 1996. Recent work has shown that a vast subglacial hydrological system underlies the Totten Glacier Catchment, likely providing important controls on ice dynamics. Ice-flow acceleration is directly linked to the distribution of subglacial hydrology; for example, a channelized or otherwise centralized hydrological system streamlines water loss without increasing basal lubrication, while distributed systems can increase lubrication and therefore ice flow. To predict the future behavior of this sensitive area, we must improve our understanding of the characteristics of the subglacial flow. Recent work applying the Glacier Drainage System (GlaDS) model applied to the ASB revealed a varied hydrological system beneath the Totten Glacier Catchment with channelization occurring within 200 km of the Totten grounding line. While the model provides a compelling picture of the glacier, the ice-penetrating radar survey coverage available at the time was not optimized for testing for the presence or absence of water in the modeled locations. Using newly-acquired aerogeophysical data, we provide a systematic comparison of inferred basal character and the modeled hydrological setting to test for a transition from a distributed to concentrated water system upstream of Totten’s grounding line. With these new data, we provide an updated picture of the subglacial system beneath Totten Glacier.

Keywords: Glaciology
Geophysics
Antarctica > East Antarctica
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Thesis
Advisor: Greenbaum Jamin
Schroeder Dustin
Basement membrane invasion during breast cancer

In epithelial cancers, cells must invade through basement membranes (BMs) to metastasize. The BM, a thin layer of extracellular matrix (ECM) underlying epithelial and endothelial tissues, is primarily composed of laminin and collagen IV and serves as a structural barrier to cancer cell invasion, intravasation, and extravasation. Bm invasion has been thought to require protease degradation since cells, which are typically on the order of 10um in size, are too large to squeeze through the nanometer-scale pores of the BM. However, recent studies point toward a more complex picture, with physical forces generated by cancer cells facilitating protease-independent BM invasion. In this dissertation, I present work studying the impact of ECM mechanics on cancer cell invasion of the BM during breast cancer progression. Specifically, I will present work investigating the impact of ECM stiffness on the ability of cancer cells to form invadopodia protrusions in three-dimensional (3D) BM-like matrices. We show that increased stiffness of BM-like matrices diminishes invadopodia protrusion formation and cancer cell migration, contrasting the results from traditional 2D culture studies. Additionally, I will discuss my work on the development of a 3D in vitro model of collective invasion through endogenously produced BM. We find that cells utilize both proteases and forces to invade through the BM collectively. We also show that cells rely on volume expansion and contractility to exert pulling forces on the BM during invasion. These results reveal new mechanisms underlying breast cancer invasion and may lead to new strategies to inhibiting BM invasion. Ultimately, a comprehensive understanding of the diverse modes of BM invasion may yield new strategies for blocking cancer progression and metastasis

Keywords: Bioengineering.
Advisor: Chaudhuri Ovijit
Dunn Alexander Robert
Yang Fan (Bioengineering researcher and teacher)
Battlegrounds to Bipartisanship: The Effect of Military Experience on Bipartisanship in the U.S. Congress

The U.S. Congress has become increasingly polarized over the last few decades, at times struggling to move past partisan divides to pass legislation, ultimately leading to little public trust in the institution. Meanwhile, for years, polling of the American public has shown the U.S. military to be among the most trusted institutions. Military service is often considered a crucial part of an individual’s identity. It is commonly cited to lend credibility to public figures’ published opinions and can serve as a major part of the platform on which veterans run for elected offices. Existing literature finds that military experience does impact mindsets on ideological issues such as defense budget and use of force, but the literature often fails to distinguish between relevant types of military service, such as branch, length, generation, and component. This thesis considers the effect of military experience, including various differentiators of that service, on bipartisanship in Congress. I collect data on the military background of Congress Members from 1991-2021, and I find that military service does correlate with higher bipartisanship or less partisanship, as measured in roll-call voting, bill sponsorship, and rhetoric. Length of military service and other differentiators, however, do not have a significant effect. I posit, therefore, that this increase in bipartisanship is due to self-selection and not socialization. Rather than any values learned from the military leading to bipartisanship, patriotism may prompt some to enter both the military and then Congress, as they serve their country through problem-solving that often necessitates bipartisanship. This finding highlights the importance of encouraging a strong national identity if we are to uphold a functional and flourishing democracy.

Keywords: Center for International Security and Cooperation
United States. Congress
Veterans
Partisanship
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Thesis
Advisor: Sagan Scott
Felter Joe
Robinson Michael
Behavioral responses to environmental and policy changes in agricultural systems

Designing effective agri-environmental policies requires accurately anticipating grower responses to changing policy, economic, and environmental factors. Current understanding of behavioral response in agricultural systems is limited by models that fail to quantify and propagate uncertainty, fail to probe the implications of assumptions about model structure and underlying data, and fail to include important feedback loops between model components. The data underlying these models further limit understanding when their inadequate resolution or uncertainty specification obscure agricultural system details. We introduce computational research to employ modernized data and modeling in agri-environmental policy analysis. In Chapter 2, we develop Bayesian modeling for unambiguous groundwater depth uncertainty estimation from sparsely sampled groundwater data. The resulting groundwater maps improve spatial bounds and temporal resolution compared to existing depth maps and vastly improve uncertainty quantification. In Chapter 3, we estimate agricultural groundwater irrigation over the growing season at high spatial resolution using (i) new evapotranspiration modeling that offers unprecedented uncertainty quantification and (ii) newly compiled, comprehensive surface water data. We produce crop-specific groundwater irrigation estimates with clear confidence intervals by applying Monte Carlo methods to propagate uncertainty in the model's underlying data. In Chapter 4, we employ large-scale econometrics techniques to elucidate grower adaptation to rapid soil salinization at the field scale, which is the level at which growers adapt to changing conditions. Results show that grower adaptation significantly mitigates damages attributable to soil salinization, indicating underestimation of damages in previous economic assessments that could lead to inaccurate public policy analyses. Chapters 2-4 highlight the value of diverse, highly resolved datasets for environmental policy analysis. The pace of data-driven discovery is limited by diffusion of data sharing and reuse principles in the research community. In Chapter 5, we envision how embracing such data principles would accelerate breakthroughs in water treatment research that are critical to achieve ambitious improvements to our water systems. We recommend practical steps for stakeholders to bridge the gap between existing practices and this envisioned future

Advisor: Mauter Meagan
Fletcher Sarah (Sarah Marie)
Luthy Richard G.
Better prediction through design : new tools for learning health systems

The act of prediction is ubiquitous in health care--be it via clinician gestalt, or through algorithms. Increasingly, predictive algorithms are beginning to displace clinician decision-making and to drive interventions of all types. Underscoring their importance, just one category of clinical predictive algorithms alone--those used for case management--is used to drive care for over 200 million individuals in the U.S. each year. However, evidence remains scant that algorithm deployments for this and other use cases actually improve clinical outcomes. This evidence gap is further compounded by the particular impracticality of conducting randomized controlled trials to study these algorithms' impacts, and by the lack of alternative design approaches. Moreover, there also exists a currently-unmet need for approaches to iteration on preexisting algorithmic deployments, so that an intervention can be re-prioritized to the patients most likely to benefit. This thesis attempts to fill this methodological vacuum using established tools from causal inference, with the problem of hospital readmission prediction and prevention as a test case

Advisor: Baiocchi Michael
Geldsetzer Pascal 
Liu Vincent
Owen Art B.
Beyond the status quo remote work : how workers gain and lose status in their organizations amid shifts to remote work

Over the years, there has been a pervasive stigma associated with remote work. Remote workers are typically conferred low status in their organizations and are afforded fewer resources than their "on-site" colleagues. Yet, the COVID-19 pandemic has shaped new conceptions of remote workers and the viability of remote work for the future. As more and more organizations are adopting remote and hybrid work and as remote workers are no longer a minority group in many organizations, remote workers seem to have gained relative status in their organizations. There is a new understanding that remote work is "real" work and workers seem to have more authority than ever before to adopt remote work arrangements. Yet we have minimal understanding of the microdynamics underlying how these shifts related to remote workers' status in organizations are playing out. This dissertation draws on ethnographic methods to examine the status-ridden processes through which workers come to be remote workers and hybrid workers (or fail to become such). It demonstrates how these status dynamics play out through the materiality of technology and through high-status actors' "status contests" and theorizes the less visible ways in which remote workers are gaining and losing status in their organizations. This two-chapter dissertation contributes to research on occupational jurisdiction, the sociology of classification, and remote work, while also offering practical implications aimed at helping organizational leaders make strategic decisions about remote and hybrid work moving forward

Keywords: Management Science and Engineering.
Advisor: Karunakaran Arvind 
Valentine Melissa (Melissa A.)
Sutton Robert I.
Big carbon's strategic response to global warming, 1950-2020

This dissertation examines the relationship of the U.S. and international oil and gas industry with the issue of global warming from the 1950s to the present, including early warnings to the industry; the development of climate science within the broader scientific community; internal research on global warming by Exxon and others within the industry; international coordination by the industry to deceive the public about global warming and delay fossil fuel controls; false and misleading public communications by the industry; the industry's continued strategies to weaken and delay fossil fuel controls, including influencing climate economics and academic research, shifting blame to consumers, and greenwashing the industry's public image; and an examination of greenhouse gas emissions and global warming attributable to the industry's dishonest actions

Keywords: History.
Advisor: Proctor Robert
Edwards Paul N. 
Wolfe Mikael