VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Prenatal Conditions and the Timing of Pregnancies

Conditions experienced in utero have profound consequences for outcomes later in life. Much of this evidence is based on predictable variation in the prenatal environment. Such predictable variation can be avoided by mothers timing their pregnancies; however, this point has received little attention. In this dissertation, I study the timing of pregnancies to avoid foreseeable threats to fetal health, and the implications for the relationship between prenatal conditions and long-run outcomes. The first chapter contains a summary of the existing research on the timing of pregnancies and provides a framework for analyzing the evidence. In Chapter 2, I examine if women time pregnancy to avoid Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting. Earlier research documents that pregnancies which are in utero during Ramadan lead to lower birth- weight and a greater risk of fetal death. Using survey data from Indonesia, the worldâ s largest Muslim country, I find evidence of Ramadan avoidance. The probability of using contraceptives falls by 0.8 percentage points in the first month and by 1.2 percentage points in the second month after Ramadan, allowing mothers to conceive and give birth before the next cycle of Ramadan. Mothers learn to avoid exposure to Ramadan from their prior experience of pregnancy during Ramadan. There is no evidence of avoidance before the introduction of a program that distributed contraceptives, indicating that family planning programs may improve child health by allowing mothers to plan pregnancy to avoid predictable threats to prenatal health. In the final chapter, I study the consequences of prenatal exposure to dengue for infant health. Dengue is one of the most important mosquito-borne viral diseases in the world, yet evidence on its effects during pregnancy is inconclusive. Combining birth records data with data on dengue incidence in Puerto Rico, I find that one confirmed case of dengue per 1â 000 during pregnancy leads to 0.53-0.76 percent fewer live births. Mothers are more likely to avoid dengue exposure in a given pregnancy if they have experienced dengue during a previous pregnancy. My research suggests that predictable variation in prenatal conditions often used in the fetal origins literature may not necessarily be treated as a natural experiment.

Keywords: economics
fertility
health
prenatal
timing
Advisor: Baker, Michael
Biological and Clinical Correlates of Vascular Risk in Adolescent Bipolar Disorder

Early development of cardiovascular disease (CVD) is consistently reported in bipolar disorder (BD). The overall aim of my thesis was to examine potential biomarkers of BD and CVD, with proxies of atherosclerosis. First, method validation of non-invasive standard measures was done to examine if they were associated with traditional cardiovascular risk factors (CVRFs) in adolescents with BD, despite fluctuating disease state, medication(s) and comorbid conditions. Results revealed that carotid intima media thickness (cIMT) and flow-mediated dilation (FMD) are associated with CVRFs in a heterogeneous adolescent clinical sample, and that they may be used in further research in this population as a proxy for CVD. Next, I confirmed that oxidative stress (OS) markers were detectable in the periphery of adolescents with BD, and that OS was associated with CVD risk measures. This supports the hypothesis that there are underlying biological mechanisms that link BD and CVD pathology. Finally, to investigate the early progression of CVD in BD adolescents, we examined pro-inflammatory markers (PIMs), trophic factors and CVRFs, with non-invasive atherosclerosis proxies in psychiatrically healthy adolescents (HC) and adolescents with BD. This case-controlled study allowed us to test for: 1) between group differences at an early stage in disease course; 2) investigate whether potential biomarkers in adult BD are elevated in adolescent BD compared to HC and 3) these biomarkers are associated with atherosclerosis proxies. We found that adolescents with BD had elevated inflammation compared to HC adolescents. Interestingly, there were no between-group differences in non-invasive vascular measures, indicating that there is perhaps an opportunity for prevention. Lower levels of brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) were associated with worse vascular structure (cIMT) in symptomatic BD adolescents. This suggests that there is possible interplay between biomarkers and vascular risk in BD. Moreover, while inflammation, neurotrophins and OS may play a role in BD symptomology and CVD progression, adolescents with BD do not yet show signs of early atherosclerosis, as determined by proxy ultrasound measures. These findings underscore the importance of behavioral and pharmacological interventions aimed at mitigating cardiovascular risk.

Keywords: Adolescent
Bipolar Disorder
Cardiovascular disease
Inflammation
Oxidative Stress
Vascular
Advisor: Goldstein, Benjamin I
Lanctot, Krista
Novel Quantum Phases in Correlated Electron Systems

The quantum nature of electrons emerges in various exotic ways when they are put together with quantum many-body interactions. In Mott insulating systems with strong electron correlation, frustration and strong quantum fluctuations promote localized electron spins to form nontrivial quantum paramagnetic phases such as quantum spin liquid and valence bond solid preventing the development of conventional magnetic orders. In this thesis, we study such exotic quantum phases in various different frustrated quantum magnets. First, encouraged by the spin liquid phenomenology observed in Ba3XSb2O9 (X=Cu, Ni), we investigate Z2 spin liquids on a three dimensional triangular lattice by employing the Schwinger boson mean-field theory with projective symmetry group analysis. It is found that a nematic spin liquid is energetically favorable on this lattice structure rather than symmetric spin liquids. Next, we study various valence bond solid phases that can appear in kagome lattice antiferromagnets by generalizing the recently proposed phenomenological Z2 gauge theory for the topological Z2 spin liquid state found in the nearest-neighbor kagome lattice Heisenberg model. This work provides a bridge between the topological spin liquid and valence bond solid phases previously proposed for kagome lattice antiferromagnets via vison condensation in the gauge theory. Then, we consider optical conductivity in Mott insulators as an experimental probe to detect quantum paramagnetic phases like valence bond solid. Applying this idea to deformed kagome lattice antiferromagnet Rb2Cu3SnF12 with a 12-site valence bond solid state, we estimate the size of optical conductivity in this quantum magnet. After this, another quantum paramagnet BiCu2PO6 is carefully investigated to clarify its puzzling ground state nature and quasiparticle excitations. Utilizing recent high resolution neutron scattering data, we construct a microscopic spin model and also an effective theory for the low energy spin excitations in the compound. We find significant influences of magnetic anisotropies on the ground state and quasiparticle dynamics. Lastly, we investigate emergent quantum phases in the thin film geometries of the pyrochlore iridates, where a number of exotic quantum ground states are proposed to occur in bulk materials as a result of the interplay between electron correlation and strong spin-orbit coupling. The fate of these bulk phases, as well as the novel quantum states that may arise only in a thin film setting, are studied via a theoretical model that allows layer-dependent magnetic structures.

Keywords: Correlated electron system
Frustrated quantum magnetism
Pyrochlore iridate
Quantum spin liquid
Valence bond solid
Advisor: Kim, Yong Baek
Exploring the Identities of Students at Western Branch-campuses in Malaysia and United Arab Emirates

Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are rapidly growing economies with diverse ethnic and linguistic populations. In both, the need for skilled labour has increased the importance of higher education for national development goals. Lacking the capacity to provide public higher education for all their citizens both countries have recruited foreign institutions to educate those who do not have access to public higher education. This thesis examines the experiences of students at Australian and British international branch-campuses (IBCs) in the UAE and Malaysia in order to understand the influence that enrolment at an IBC has on studentsâ identities. Synthesizing the American and European literature on identity and higher education, this thesis conceptualizes identity as the fluctuating social categories that distinguish groups or individuals from one another. The data for this study was collected during five months of fieldwork, employing qualitative interviews with 49 students and 13 administrators/instructors. The majority of student-participants in this study were affiliated with economically powerful, yet politically marginalized minority groups. The findings suggest that Western IBCs promote a new set of identities that differ from those prioritized in the political and social contexts of the UAE and Malaysia. Students perceive that micro-divisions related to ethnicity decrease at an IBC, but new divisions emerge based on ability, language or region. These findings reflect a changing relationship between higher education and identity in the 21st Century. Cross-border higher education is not embedded in a national or local context, nor promotes identities related to those contexts. Instead, studentsâ identities become linked to their achievements, and thus branch-campuses support students as they forge market-relevant identities. In contexts such as Malaysia and the UAE, this role is significant as IBCs provide peripheral ethnic groups with an alternative pathway to enter the economic sector which is increasingly detached from its political context.

Keywords: college student development
cross-border higher education
identity
international branch campuses
Malaysia
United Arab Emirates
Advisor: Hayhoe, Ruth E
Sonority Effects and Learning Bias in Nasal Harmony

An important question in linguistics involves the nature of apparent substantive biases. Biases are often claimed to be universal based on typological evidence. This thesis tests for a substantive bias, the proposed universal implicational nasalized segment hierarchy in vowel-consonant nasal harmony, using an Artificial Grammar paradigm. In particular, I address whether a pattern that is predicted by the implicational hierarchy is in fact easier to learn than one that is not predicted or that is indeterminate with regard to predictions. I use a grammaticality judgment wug test paradigm to investigate whether it is easier to make a generalization when a more marked blocker (more sonorant segment) or target (less sonorant segment) is presented during an exposure phase and a less marked blocker (less sonorant segment) or target (more sonorant segment) in the test phase than vice versa. I call this the sonority hierarchy type prediction. In addition to testing the predictions on the basis of the hierarchy, I also test predictions based on natural classes. The natural class hypothesis predicts that a grammar is more learnable if a new segment (a segment introduced in the test phase but not present in the exposure phase) is of the same natural class as an old segment (a segment introduced in the exposure phase). The experiment was run with speakers of Min (Taiwan Southern Min), a language with no apparent evidence for sonority classes, using a method based on that of Wilson (2006). Experiments were carried out that allow both the sonority hierarchy type and the natural class hypotheses to be tested, taking individual differences (learner types) into account. The results show that both the sonority hierarchy and natural classes play a role, supporting the claim that it is easier to learn a grammar that exhibits a substantive bias than one that does not. In conclusion, this thesis suggests that the implicational nasalized segment hierarchy is testable and learnable in artificial grammar learning to some extent and natural classes are psychologically real and actively used by participants in nasal harmony.

Keywords: features
individual differences
learning biases
nasal harmony
natural classes
sonority hierarchy
Advisor: Rice, Keren
Impact of a Community-based Smartphone Intervention on Maternal Health Service Utilization in Rural Tanzania

Improving access to safe facility-based delivery (FBD) is a challenge in rural Tanzania, where 50% of women deliver at home without skilled medical assistance. Community health workers (CHWs) may improve women’s demand for, and uptake of FBD services; however CHW performance can be suboptimal without supportive supervision and job aids. This dissertation addresses key questions in maternal health services research and contributes to the evidence base for mobile health (“mHealth”), for which rigorous impact studies in low-income countries remain scarce. This study employed a cluster-randomized, controlled, mixed-methods trial design to evaluate the impact of a smartphone-based intervention (SP+) designed to assist CHWs with data collection, prenatal education delivery, gestational danger sign identification, and referral on women clients’ utilization of FBD. Pairs of CHWs in 32 villages were cluster-randomized to receive training on either SP+ or standard, paper-based protocols for use during household visits with clients. The main outcome (delivery location) was ascertained via postnatal household surveys with 572 randomly selected women. In-depth qualitative interviews with 60 CHWs and 14 healthcare professionals, and focus group discussions with 56 women clients were conducted to explore perceptions of CHW performance, quality of care, and SP+ implementation strength. SP+ was associated with increased FBD: after adjusted analyses, the odds of FBD in intervention villages were two times greater than the odds in control villages (OR=1.95; p=0.02). A key underlying mechanism was increased household visit frequency by smartphone-assisted CHWs; these CHWs reported higher job satisfaction compared to peers in the control group. Qualitative findings suggest that SP+ led to perceived improvements in data management, communication, decision-making support, emergency response, enhanced social status and credibility, and perceived health system improvements among clients. However, concerns regarding privacy and data security were raised. Through triangulation of methods and data sources, I demonstrate how factors influencing women’s use of FBD in this context are multidimensional and thus require multi-level maternal health programs and policies. I argue that while SP support for CHWs can be efficacious in targeting increased FBD, prevailing health system weaknesses including a lack of formal support for CHWs limits the potential impact of such strategies.

Advisor: Sellen, Daniel W
Democracy, Identity and Security in Israelâ s Ethnic Democracy: The Ideational Underpinnings of Institutional Change

This work expands on the growing ideational institutionalist literature by proposing that institutional change and stability are influenced most substantially by changes to the underlying ideational network which link core societal ideas. These core ideas create the framework on which institutions are built and in which form they are fashioned. Changes to the ideational network lead to adaptive changes in institutions, but the difficulty in completely removing core ideas from these networks protects the institutions from substantial change. The theory is demonstrated using the case of the surprising stability of ethnic democracy in Israel in the wake of the substantial changes to the countryâ s economic and security realities. Small adaptive changes in the institution of ethnic democracy are traced back to changes in the balance between three core ideas: democracy, Jewish identity, and security. The overall stability of the institution, however, is linked to the enduring linkages of the three core ideas even as they experienced changes in their individual meanings.

Keywords: Democracy
Ideas
Ideationalism
Institutionalism
Israel
Minorities
Advisor: Kingston, Paul
Speech Communication by Younger and Older Adults: The Effects of Age-Related Vocal Changes, Environmental Noise and Simulated Listener Demands

Age-related changes in both speech and hearing can affect communication. While it is well-known that age-related declines in hearing affect speech understanding, especially in difficult situations such as noisy environments, few studies have investigated how age-related changes in speech production can affect communication in adverse conditions. Strategies such as clear speech may be employed, but they have mostly been examined in younger talkers, so little is known about how well older talkers can adjust to difficult conditions. The experiments in this thesis showed that speech and voice characteristics change with normal aging and that older adults have more variable characteristics than younger adults. Age-related changes in older talkersâ voices led to more negative evaluations of their voice quality compared to the quality of the voices of younger talkers. However, the voice properties of older talkers that were expected to decrease intelligibility in noise did not have the expected effect, possibly due to differences between talkers in articulation. Notably, when older talkers spoke in noise, they were able to increase intelligibility to a similar extent as younger talkers, regardless of their voice characteristics. In conclusion, healthy older talkers differ from younger talkers on a number of speech and voice characteristics that may lead to more negative evaluations of voice quality, but older talkers are similar to younger talkers in their ability to communicate in noisy situations.

Keywords: Aging
Clear speech
Lombard effect
Speech perception
Speech production
Advisor: Pichora-Fuller, Margaret K
van Lieshout, Pascal
Performance Practice of Brazilian Opera: Pedro Malazarte by Camargo Guarnieri

The lack of material designed to help the interpreter understand and prepare Brazilian musical repertoire is the motivation for this study, which aims to help performers to learn and perform Brazilian music. My goal is to fill the hole concerning Brazilian music interpretation, and the Brazilian Portuguese language while singing. Mario de Andrade, a Brazilian musicologist in the first half of the twentieth century, encouraged composers to understand the aspects of Brazilian music that were important for the production of a national art music. Such aspects cited by Andrade are studied here and understood not only in relation to his work, but also to the work of other authors who developed research on each specific aspect. These elements are found in the opera Pedro Malazarte by Camargo Guarnieri, cited by some authors as the first Brazilian national opera. I also studied the Brazilian Portuguese language as it is sung, and this dissertation offers a detailed guide to the singer on the particularities of the pronunciation of each letter. It also contains the transcription of the opera from its original language, Portuguese, into the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), following the same structure used in important opera diction guides. The research focus is on Guarnieriâ s opera Pedro Malazarte, but also provides a concise guide for singers, coaches, and conductors who are performing Brazilian music.

Keywords: Brazilian Opera
Guarnieri
Pedro Malazarte
Advisor: MacKay, Gillian
Reciprocal Partnership: An Intervention to Enhance Mathematics Self-efficacy and Achievement of First and Second Semester College Students

Community colleges are calling to support students who are at risk of restricting their career options because they do not have the mathematical groundings to pursue math-related careers. In response, I conceptualize a mathematics intervention program namely, Reciprocal Partnership, which is defined as the collaboration of student dyads to engage in reciprocal learning and teaching under the influence of constructive and collaborative environments that are structured by the Three Learning Situations framework. Reciprocal Partnership is proposed to enrich college students in their mathematical learning and to support their social development during their secondary-tertiary transition for mathematics knowledge and skills are strongly correlated with studentsâ college success and career aspiration. Therefrom, the purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of Reciprocal Partnership on the mathematics self-efficacy and achievement of first- and second-semester college students through a mixed methods approach. It also examines the structure of Reciprocal Partnership to inform the design of effective intervention programs for mathematical learning. Data from final examination grade, and pre- and post-surveys were analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistics, and were used to cross-validate findings from semi-structured interviews. Quantitative results reveal significant effect of Reciprocal Partnership on the mathematics self-efficacy of only students in the first semester, and no significant effect on the mathematics achievement of both students in the first and second semester. However, qualitative results identify a number of benefits for both groups of students such as gains in mathematical knowledge and skill, confidence, motivation, social connection, and comfort. Results from this study suggest the emphasis of mathematics intervention programs on all three learning situations (exploratory, explanatory, and extensional) over only the explanatory situation to maximize learning outcomes.

Keywords: Collaborative Learning
Mathematics Intervention Program
Mathematics Self-efficacy
Reciprocal Peer Tutoring
Secondary-tertiary Transition
Supplemental Instruction
Advisor: McDougall, Douglas
Investigation of the Role of Chromosome 3q26-28 Amplification in Lung Squamous Cell Carcinoma Pathogenesis

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer mortality with squamous cell carcinoma (SQCC) being the second most common form. Lung SQCCs likely originate from basal cells, the stem cells in the bronchial epithelium. Although these cells are normally quiescent and differentiate into ciliated and mucinous progeny, smoking triggers an injury response leading to basal cell hyperplasia and squamous metaplasia, which appears to wane over time as most metaplasias regress, even with continued smoking. However, some metaplasias fail to regress and progress to dysplasia and SQCC through unknown mechanisms. Using primary human tracheobronchial basal cells, we investigated how copy number gains in SOX2 at 3q26-28, which are observed in 94% of SQCCs commencing in dysplasia, promote SQCC progression. We find that SOX2 levels normally oscillate in basal cells, with transient low expression required for ciliated cell differentiation and subsequent increase in SOX2 levels driving mucinous differentiation. By contrast, during injury that promotes squamous metaplasia, PI3K signaling is activated and cooperates with SOX2 to instruct basal cells to enter the hyperproliferative and squamous-committed state, with additional coregulation by TP63, and EP300. We propose that smoking initially induces an unstable metaplastic injury state that creates fields of proliferating stem cells, with coamplification of SOX2, PIK3CA and TP63 at 3q26-28 stabilizing this state and preventing return to a quiescent state. Finally, we provide evidence for PI3K and EP300 inhibitors as chemopreventatives, and their combination as a novel therapeutic strategy to treat SQCCs.

Advisor: Moghal, Nadeem