VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Spaesati d'Italia: Emigration in Italian National Identity Construction from Postwar to Economic Miracle

Since the founding of the Italian nation in 1861, mass emigration has played a crucial role in the construction of a national identity among a population historically divided by regional, ethnic, linguistic and cultural differences. In the aftermath of the Second World War, emigration continued to fulfill a vital function in Italy's national redefinition. In material terms, it enabled Italy to rebuild a devastated political and economic framework in a manner that allowed old power blocs to evade the restructuring of traditional relations of production./nYet emigration proved equally essential for redrawing the cognitive map of the nation, laying out the new ideological terrain upon which material reconstruction was to take place. In the ideological vacuum that followed the collapse of Fascism and the nation's loss of foreign colonies, postwar emigration narratives proved fundamental for carrying out a project of collective redemption that cleansed Italians from the stain of Fascism while restoring the colonial imaginary that had traditionally governed the nation's relationship with its South. By supplying at once absolution for past sins and an archaic internal Other against which the new nation could measure itself, postwar representations of emigration helped pave the way for Italy's transformation into a "modern," post-Fascist democracy, a founder of the European Union, and one of the world's leading economies./nThis dissertation examines emigration narratives produced in literary and filmic texts spanning from 1945 to 1964 in works by key figures of Italian postwar culture such as Carlo Levi, Ignazio Silone, Rocco Scotellaro, Mario Soldati, Aldo Fabrizi, Luchino Visconti, and Pier Paolo Pasolini. By examining shifting forms of interdiction that placed migrant Others outside the moral, spatial and temporal boundaries of the nation, this research aims to illustrate how the emigrants' textual presence gave shape and meaning to the new nation, bringing into focus the contours of a new republic emerging from the ashes of Fascism.

Advisor: Fuller, Mia
The Cellular Mechanoresponse: Single-Cell Studies by Atomic Force Microscopy

Cells in their native environment are bombarded by mechanical signals ranging from strains within a developing embryo to stiffening of diseased tissue. How these extracellular mechanical signals are converted to biological activity on the cellular scale is a complex and unresolved problem in biology with implications in development and disease. This dissertation focuses on development and implementation of Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM)-based techniques to probe the interactions of cells with the mechanical microenvironment and use of these techniques towards characterizing and explaining the cellular mechanoresponse./nWe began by integrating a DNA-based adhesion technology with AFM that enables the manipulation of cells by a cantilever without influencing cell viability or signaling. This technique surpasses existing approaches both in the tunability and magnitude of adhesion strength to allow single-cell de-adhesion experiments that measure cell-ligand bonds without cell-surface rupture./nThe first step in the cellular mechanoresponse is the translation of an extracellular mechanical signal to an intracellular mechanical signal. We used high-resolution three-dimensional multi-particle tracking to measure how local stress applied by an AFM cantilever is propagated through an adherent cell. We observe a distance-dependent propagation on the timescale of seconds and that required an intact cytoskeletal network. This slow stress propagation is consistent with a poroelastic description of the cell that controls the timescales and lengthscales over which external stresses can be transmitted through cells./nRecent studies have demonstrated that cells exhibit stiffness-dependent behaviors over long timescales, but the mechanism of how cells sense stiffness over short timescales remains particularly elusive. To study early events in stiffness sensing, we developed a feedback algorithm that enables dynamic and reversible control of the stiffness exposed to a single cell. We employ this stiffness clamp technique to study the contractile response of cells to sudden changes in extracellular stiffness, as defined by the cantilever. We find that the cell contraction rate adapts by accelerating upon a step decrease in stiffness or decelerating upon a step increase, both on a timescale of seconds. This seconds-timescale adaptation is independent of focal adhesion signaling, but it depends strongly on cell contractility suggesting that extracellular stiffness signals are filtered by the viscoelastic cytoskeleton./nTogether, the techniques described here provide novel and tunable control of the mechanical signals presented to and measured from a single cell with AFM precision. The results obtained using these techniques describe important timescales and considerations towards understanding the cellular mechanoresponse.

Advisor: Fletcher, Daniel A
Politicizing Islam: State, gender, class, and piety in France and India

This dissertation is a comparative ethnographic study of Islamic revival movements in Lyon, France, and Hyderabad, India. It introduces the importance of class and the state in shaping piety and its politicization. The project challenges the common conflation of piety and politics and thus, the tendency to homogenize "political Islam" even in the context of secular states. It shows how there have been convergent forms of piety and specifically gendered practices across the two cities--but divergent Muslim class relations and in turn, forms of politics. I present four types of movements. In Hyderabad, a Muslim middle-class redistributive politics directed at the state is based on patronizing and politicizing the subaltern masses. Paternalistic philanthropy has facilitated community politics in the slums that are building civil societies and Muslim women's participation. In Lyon, a middle-class recognition politics invites and opposes the state but is estranged from sectarian Muslims in the working-class urban peripheries. Salafist women, especially, have withdrawn into a form of antipolitics, as their religious practices have become further targeted by the state. These forms of politics (and antipolitics) are expressions of the historical institutionalization of Muslims as a social group as determined by state models of secularism and urban marginality. Only by accounting for the state, class, and gendered dynamics as well as clarifying specific conceptions of politics, can Islamic revival movements be fully understood.

Advisor: Burawoy, Michael
Human papillomavirus infection in HIV-seropositive men who have sex with men in both the United States and India: prevalence, incidence, and risk factors for infection

Abstract/nHuman papillomavirus infection in HIV-seropositive men who have sex with men in both the United States and India:/nPrevalence, incidence, and risk factors for infection/nby/nAlexandra Lydia Hernandez/nDoctor of Philosophy in Epidemiology/nUniversity of California, Berkeley/nProfessor Arthur Reingold, Chair/nHuman immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected men who have sex with men (MSM) are at high risk of anal cancer compared with the general population. Human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, particularly HPV 16, causes anal cancer. The prevalence of anal HPV infection among HIV-infected men in the US is >90% but little is known about the risk factors for prevalence, and incidence of or the risk factors for type-specific anal HPV infection . There is also limited knowledge about anal HPV infection among HIV-infected MSM in India, although the background incidence of HPV-related cancers in both men and women is high in India. Indian HIV-infected MSM may be at especially high risk for anal HPV infection and HPV-associated disease./nMy aim was to determine the prevalence and incidence of and risk factors for anal HPV infection among two populations of HIV-infected MSM, one from San Francisco and the second from India. The San Francisco population was two-year longitudinal study and allowed for both prevalence and incidence analysis; the India study was cross-sectional in design and allowed only for a prevalence analysis./nThe prevalence of anal HPV infection among HIV-infected MSM in San Francisco was 92%, 80% had oncogenic types and 42% had HPV 16. A higher number of total life-time partners was associated with increased prevalence of HPV 16. The incidence of any anal HPV infection was 21.3 per 100 person-years (PY) and 3.5/100 for HPV 16. A higher number of recent partners with whom the participant was the receptive partner was associated with a higher incidence of any anal HPV infection. New receptive partners, more frequent receptive sex, and new oral-anal contact partners was also associated with a higher incidence of any anal HPV infection. The prevalence of anal HPV infection among HIV-infected Indian MSM was 71%, and ever having receptive anal intercourse and higher number of receptive partners increased prevalence. "Almost always" condom use with receptive anal intercourse decreased prevalence of anal HPV infection among HIV-infected Indian MSM./nIn conclusions, HIV-infected MSM in both San Francisco and India have high prevalences of anal HPV infection and the incidence of anal HPV among these men in San Francisco is also high. The most important risk factors for infection are total number of male partners and receptive anal intercourse. Condoms may protect against anal HPV infection, but further research is needed to confirm results. HIV-infected MSM should be counseled on safe sex practices with all partners and encouraged to receive the recently recommended HPV vaccine.

Advisor: Reingold, Arthur
Essays on financial intermediation

In this dissertation, I analyze behavior of two types of financial intermediaries that play critical roles in capital allocation: ratings agencies and merger advisors. Each type of intermediary survives due to (assumed) informational advantages relative to firms and investors. In the following chapters, I analyze how differences in information between market participants and intermediaries lead to signaling behavior related to privately-observed quality. My results explain some seemingly-anomalous aspects of financial markets, and provide a framework for assessing the impact intermediaries can have on efficient capital allocation./nIn the first chapter, I examine whether rating agencies strategically manipulate the informativeness of bond ratings in response to competition from private lenders. I model a monopolistic rating agency that caters to a low-quality marginal customer with uninformative ratings. High-quality customers prefer informative ratings but are captive customers of the rating agency in the absence of competition from private lenders. With competition from private lenders, the rating agency uses informative ratings to keep high-quality customers in public markets. The model also suggests that the ratings sector dampens the impact of capital supply shocks, and offers a strategic pricing rationale for the controversial practice of issuing unsolicited credit ratings./nIn the second chapter, I test predictions of the model using a measure of informativeness based on the impact of unexpected ratings on a debt issuer's borrowing cost. I analyze two events that increased the relative supply of private vs.\ public lending: the temporary shutdown of the high-yield market in 1989 and legislation in 1994 that reduced barriers to interstate bank lending. After each event, I find that the informativeness of ratings increased for issuers whose relative supply of private vs.\ public capital increased most./nIn the third chapter, I analyze how acquiring firms select and pay advisors. I present a model in which an advisor with privately known quality screens targets (due diligence) and improves negotiation outcomes (bidding). When a transaction involves only bidding, advisors pool by offering fees contingent on a completed transaction. By contrast, a transaction involving due diligence can lead to a separating equilibrium and fixed fees. The model predicts that acquirers use advisor market share instead of stock return-based measures to select advisors when synergies are not observable, and that acquirers with better information about advisor quality pay higher fees. I argue that investors in leveraged buyouts are skilled in acquisitions, and find that they pay higher fees for both mergers and tender offers, controlling for assignment and deal characteristics. They are also less likely to include contingent fees than other acquirers. Results suggest skilled investors use private information about advisor ability to hire advisors, and do so primarily to screen targets rather than to improve negotiation outcomes.

Advisor: Odean, Terrance
Power-efficient Design of Multi-Gbps Wireless Baseband

There is a growing interest in the use of the 7 GHz of unlicensed bandwidth around 60 GHz for high-speed wireless data transfers. Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) radio frequency (RF) circuits have been demonstrated to effectively operate in this band, but the challenge remains to design a complete high data-rate, energy-efficient system. With data rates of several Gb/s and short wavelengths, the baseband signal processing that compensates for the distortion of the wireless channel presents a significant challenge. This work demonstrates the design of a power-efficient baseband at different levels of abstraction from the algorithm level down to the transistor level./nA method for optimizing the equalizer architecture under power and bit-error rate (BER) constraints has been developed. This method has been used to optimize the number of equalizer taps and the distribution of signal processing between analog and digital domains. Two chips were built to demonstrate the methodology based on the IEEE wireless personal area network (WPAN) standard./nThe first, fully-digital chip implements a single-carrier demodulator that minimizes the power consumption using a parallelized distributed arithmetic architecture. A 2mm x 2mm test chip in a 65 nm CMOS process implements a 6-tap feedforward and 32-tap feedback equalizer for binary phase-shift keying (BPSK) that can be configured to cancel the response of up to 72 symbols while consuming 5.6mW at 2 Gb/s throughput./nThe second 1.86mm x 1.86mm chip implements a reconfigurable 4-bit ADC and 6-tap analog equalizer in addition to the digital equalizer for quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK) demodulation. The analog preprocessor is measured to consume 1.3mW for the driver and 300 uW/tap for the analog equalization. The ADC power consumption varies from 1.2mW to 3.8mW depending on the resolution at 1.76 Gs/s. It is shown that, given a BER requirement,/nthe mixed-signal reconfigurable receiver architecture can reduce the total link power consumption compared to a full-digital fixed transceiver depending on the propagation condition.

Advisor: Nikolic, Borivoje
Queering US Public Mourning Rituals: Funerals, Performance, and the Construction of Normativity

The state uses public funeral practice and large-scale national mourning as an opportunity to affirm cultural and sexual norms as state values, as evidenced in state and military funerals. My dissertation, "Queering U.S. Public Mourning Practice: Funerals, Performance, and the Construction of Normativity," argues that funeral practice in fact exposes the precarity of traditional kinship and sexual practices while simultaneously constructing the heteronuclear family and heterosexuality as norms. I argue that public funerals appropriate practices and aesthetics coded as abject, socially excessive, and queer in order to demonstrate their distance from these national "others." My investigation divides loosely into two parts. I begin by juxtaposing the funerals of national heroes (Presidents Lincoln, Kennedy, and Reagan and fallen soldiers of the Iraq war) with the funerals and mourning practices of LGBT people and people of color within these sites. These first chapters propose a politics of visibility which calls attention to the relationship between the invisible and the hypervisible. In the second half of the dissertation, I turn to funeral and memorial practices already framed by difference: New York's African Burial Ground and the virtual altars devoted to the memory of Gloria Anzaldúa. With these two chapters I argue that the normative operates as a performative tool wielded to gain access and rights or as a foil to mourning practices that contest borders of memory and death.

Advisor: Glazer, Peter R
Channeling Politics: Shaping shorelines & cities in the Netherlands, 1990-2010

Water-oriented real estate development has emerged as a leading urban investment strategy over the past few decades. But business interests are only part of the story, and the political possibilities created when soil is turned into streams and lakes or when land-based construction is given an aquatic focus are vast. As this study of water politics in Amsterdam shows, bringing water back to the forefront of urban planning today is creating an entirely new spatial terrain of action in the city where ideas of class, nature, sexuality, and security collide in tenacious, sometimes troubling, and often inspiring ways./nThis study of changing land-water relationships in and around Amsterdam between 1990 and 2010 accomplishes two objectives. First, at the empirical level, I tease out the many significant and surprising ways that water-oriented urban development has become a hotbed of political maneuvering. Shoreline debates cut through some of the most contentious issues of the day, from welfare restructuring and anti-gay violence to monument preservation and global warming. I explain that, while these shifts are partially emerging through professionalized planning sectors as expected, they owe much to the elusive and quotidian interaction of residents, activists, and passers by with houses, vistas, parties, relics, cameras, and neighbors that, by happenstance or design, have recently begun circulating through the watery spaces of town. And I show that long-overlooked institutional and cultural dependencies stemming from bureaucratic specializations and urban lore significantly shape the opportunity structures surrounding water, a phenomenon that helps explain the high degree of informal water-oriented investment taking hold in Amsterdam as elsewhere./nSecond, from a theoretical perspective, this empirical study of water politics in Amsterdam shows that these re-appropriations of water in urban life are radically altering some of the most fundamental expectations about the essence, meaning, and import of cities, both as a lived reality and as an epistemic category. Long-standing assumptions about the places of freedom in the city, the embodied casings of urban history, and the relationship between town and country no longer hold. The empirically rich chapters in this book explore these three issues in turn and, in so doing, explain how, why, and to what political ends watery spaces in the city once thought dangerous, degrading, and irrelevant have come to appear habitable, luxurious, and profitable, or vice versa.

Advisor: Watts, Michael
Total Synthesis of Amphilectolide, Sandresolide B, Archazolid B and towards Archazolid A and Caribenol A

The total synthesis and synthetic efforts toward norditerpene natural products isolated from Pseudopterogorgia elisabethae and macrocyclic polyketides from Archangium gephyra is described. A highly convergent synthesis of archazolid B, uniting three linear subunits, is accomplished using various modern transition-metal catalyzed reactions. A relay ring-closing metathesis is featured for closure of the 24-membered macrocyclic ring. Construction of the carbon skeleton of archazolid A is also described, featuring two robust, scaleable building blocks and their unification. New strategies for the construction and elaboration of a 1,4 skipped diene moiety are established in this synthesis./nThe total synthesis of norditerpenes amphilectolide and sandresolide B are also described. A palladium mediated carbonylative coupling is featured en route to the preparation of a key furan building block that can be used to access several norditerpene natural products produced from Pseudoterogorgia elisabethae. This key building block was then elaborated to amphilectolide utilizing a lanthanide catalyzed ring closure and furan oxidation with singlet oxygen. The ring-closure product may also be used to access caribenol B./nThe furan building block was also used to construct sandresolide B, where a Myers alkylation overcame steric constraints in this system. An intramolecular Friedel Crafts acylation is used to close a 7-membered ring. These strategies also provide insight to a next generation route toward caribenol A, and the progress toward the initial strategy via Stork-Danheiser ring closure is described.

Advisor: Trauner, Dirk
Toste, Dean