VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The Free City of Danzig: Between the Vistula and the World (1919-1933)

This dissertation demonstrates, using the example of the Free City of Danzig (1920-1939)—a city-state that was established as part of the Treaty of Versailles to grant Poland access to the Baltic Sea and local autonomy to the predominantly German population—that encounters in regions of conflict are characterized by both antagonism and cooperation. Showcasing cooperative and antagonistic relationships between the population and the government in three institutions within and outside the city—a shipyard, a casino, and a university—as well as a range of illicit transnational relationships, this project argues that Danzig’s political leaders tried to make sense of the ambiguous Free City status through exacerbating divides along national, ethnic and class lines as well as through (unintentionally) creating diverse, multiethnic spaces filled with immigrants who seized the opportunities of the city-state and contributed to its cultural and economic advancement. Danzig’s local population grappled with the bifurcated governance framework in various related ways, but local support for the city-state solution remained consistently low. This project reveals that lack of support for the Free City was not an instinctive reaction characterized by German nationalism (a view dominant in the historiography) but was rather due to the hardship that the majority of the population experienced because of significant changes in the economics of everyday life after the establishment of the Free City. The local population’s negative response originated in the emergence of what this dissertation calls a “post-war borderland society,” a community that languished in post-war conditions longer than other parts of the former German Empire, while almost overnight it confronted a wide array of new (legal and illicit) socio-economic opportunities.Based on research in German, Polish, American and Swiss archives and bringing German and Polish printed primary and secondary sources into conversation, this dissertation moves beyond the dominant historiographical narrative about German-Polish antagonism in Danzig to offer a nuanced interpretation of the history of a city most commonly regarded as nothing but a failed geopolitical experiment that contributed to the outbreak of the Second World War.

Keywords: free cities
Free City of Danzig
Germany
History
Poland
Wolne Miasto Gdansk
Advisor: Wrobel, Piotr
The Role of Circular RNAs in Cardiac Remodeling

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are RNAs with a unique circular structure that generated from back splicing processes. These circular molecules were discovered more than 40 years ago but failed to raise scientific interests until lately. Increasing studies have found that these circular RNAs might not be just by-products of splicing process but possess important regulatory functions through different cellular event. It is true that most circular RNAs are currently being studied in the field of cancer and many of them have been confirmed to be involved in the process of tumorigenesis, circular RNAs are also involved in other non-cancer disease fields. Significant progress has been made in recent period shown that circular RNAs play important physiological and pathological roles in cardiovascular diseases. Fibrotic cardiac remodeling is a maladaptive response to acute or chronic injury that leads to arrythmia and progressive heart failure. The underlying mechanisms remain unclear. I validated novel methods and built mature platform for circular RNA function studies. These include an improved model for circular RNA overexpression, a protocol for specific and efficient pulldown circular RNA-binding partners, and development of circular RNA transgenic mice. Such techniques could be conducted into the circular RNA field and facilitate the research. By using such techniques, I characterized the role of two circRNAs chosen from high-throughput RNA sequencing analysis, circITGα9 and circSLC8A1, in the pathological process of cardiac remodeling. While circITGα9 generates functions through a direct binding with Tropomyosin 3, circSLC8A1 regulates cardiac remodeling by synthesizing a novel peptide which further interact with mitochondria proteins. This thesis outlined the regulatory roles of these circular RNAs and explored their potential in serving as therapeutic targets in fibrotic cardiac remodeling process. On one hand, my study contributes to circular RNA field by providing new platforms to support functional studies and characterizing the specific roles of two circular RNAs, circITGα9 and circSLC8A1. On the other hand, my study contributes to cardiovascular field by providing new regulatory mechanisms and potential therapeutic possibilities to achieve better understanding of physiological and pathological developments of the heart.

Keywords: actin polymerize
circRNA
circular RNAs
mitochondria
Splicing factor
translation
Advisor: Yang, Burton BBY
“Why Doing Good is So Hard”: Examining Community Efforts to Help Criminalized Individuals in Canada

In the Canadian context, the efforts of charitable and non-profit organizations have long been considered key to understanding both the historical trajectory and contemporary shape of punishment. Recently, scholars have suggested that economic and political developments such as neoliberalism and welfare state retrenchment have meant that these organizations, as well as their broader communities, have taken on larger roles in criminal justice processes. In response, there has been a flurry of research examining the penal voluntary sector. Some scholars have suggested that this sector is part of the archipelago of social control, responsible for widening carceral nets and diversifying penal power, while others have envisioned this sector as agitating for social change, improving public safety, facilitating personal growth, and even saving lives. Few studies, however, have explored questions about the size, scope, structure, and boundaries of these diverse organizations and adjacent community efforts collectively. As a result, although valuable analyses have examined parts of the penal voluntary sector and their practices, little guidance is available with regard to conceptualizing the overall texture of this domain. This dissertation is one step toward clarifying the overarching logic that structures practice among the wide range of organizations, associations, and individuals seeking to help criminalized individuals in Canada. In particular, this research draws from the theoretical work of Pierre Bourdieu and the American pragmatist philosophical tradition to advance a view of this domain as structured around the struggle over who and what are legitimately helping criminalized individuals. It explores how diverse efforts to help criminalized individuals fit together—and where, when, and why they sometimes conflict. In doing so, this dissertation furthers understandings of: (i) the diversity of actors working to help criminalized individuals; (ii) the normative assumptions underpinning this work; (iii) the relationships between individuals, organizations, and groups in this domain; and (iv) the impact of various helping efforts on criminalized individuals. Throughout this research, I mobilize four types of qualitative data as evidence: fieldnotes from ethnographic participant observation in penal voluntary sector organizations; semi-structured interviews with volunteers and staff at these organizations; organizational documents obtained through fieldwork; and publicly archived materials.

Keywords: community corrections
criminalized women
penal voluntary sector
prisoner reentry
punishment
voluntary sector studies
Advisor: Goodman, Philip
Schneiderhan, Erik
Epigenetic Regulation Controls Intrinsic and Extrinsic Drivers of Gastrointestinal Development

Gastrointestinal development begins with the formation of a featureless tube known as the primitive gut tube. Endodermal cells lining the inside of the gut tube differentiate into the functional epithelial units of the gastrointestinal system. Mesodermal cells surround the endodermal layer and eventually develop into an array of mesenchymal cells which support epithelial function. Development and maturation of the primitive gut tube into the structurally and functionally unique organs of the gastrointestinal system requires highly specific spatial and temporal patterns of gene expression. However, it remains unclear what forces regulate spatiotemporal gene expression patterns in the early gut. Epigenetic control of gene expression offers a possible mechanism for orchestrating the necessary gene expression patterns, but very little is known about how epigenetic forces regulate gut development. In this thesis, I first investigated how intrinsic epigenetic mechanisms influence gut development by mapping the genome-wide chromatin accessibility profile of the developing gut tube at a single-cell resolution, revealing that at the level of chromatin, individual cells are primed to acquire specific lineage fates. I further mapped epigenetic changes throughout gut development, demonstrating how each organ leverages a unique suite of chromatin accessibility patterns and transcription factors (TFs) to reinforce lineage fate decisions. I further showed that loss of the foregut and hindgut lineage-specific TFs, Sox2 and Cdx2, leads to fate shifts in chromatin accessibility patterns, linking TFs, accessibility, and lineage fate decisions in gut development. Finally, I demonstrated that Sox2 overexpression in early development induces pancreatic transformation into foregut precursors. Further, I investigated how epigenetic forces control extrinsic regulators of lineage fate decisions, specifically intercellular communication. Here, I show that mesenchymal cells control epithelial fate and function through Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 (PRC2)-mediated chromatin bivalency. While key lineage-determining genes possess tissue-specific patterns of chromatin accessibility, PRC2 controls WNT ligand expression in mesenchymal cells without altering accessibility. Reduction of mesenchymal WNT secretion rescues organ fate and proliferation defects caused by PRC2 loss. Collectively, my work highlights how epigenetic mechanisms are critical regulators of gastrointestinal development, functioning intrinsically and extrinsically to regulate gene expression patterns required for lineage fate decisions.

Keywords: Chromatin Accessibility
Epigenetics
Gastrointestinal Development
Intercellular Communincation
Lineage Fate Decisions
Transcription Factors
Advisor: Kim, Tae-Hee
Controls on the Ore Fertility of Continental Arc Magmas: New Constraints from Silicate Melt Inclusions

Upper-crustal magmatic-hydrothermal systems associated with volcanic arcs form the globally important porphyry-type Cu-Mo-Au deposits. However, the overall scarcity of these ore deposits has generated considerable debate regarding the tectono-magmatic conditions that may favour ore genesis. The composition of magmas from which ore fluids are released has received special attention, leading to the controversial concept of unusually ‘fertile’ magmas. Fueling this controversy is the traditionally heavy reliance on whole rock analyses, which are incapable of fully constraining the complex evolution of magmatic reservoirs, and also the inherent challenge of constraining magmatic processes operating at increasing depths. This thesis addresses these limitations by presenting novel data including the concentrations of key ore-related elements (S, Cl, Cu, Mo, Ag, Au, Pt) from silicate melt inclusions (SMI) trapped in phenocrysts from fertile and barren arc magmatic systems, which offer unique records of the silicate melt composition during magma differentiation. At the giant Bingham Canyon deposit, SMI data support a magmatic evolution dominated by the accumulation of co-genetic hydrous and oxidized magmas. This contrasts with previous models involving important contributions to the magmatic ore-fluid element budget by mafic alkaline magmas, and to the ore fluids by magmatic sulfide decomposition. In the Andean Southern Volcanic Zone (SVZ), mafic SMI establish a baseline compositional variation through the arc, and for continental arcs in general. The thicker-crust fertile northern SVZ has lower chalcophile element concentrations but higher S and Cl concentrations than the barren south. These differences are attributed to contrasting extents of deep crustal degassing and magmatic sulfide saturation. As differentiation proceeds to felsic compositions, SMI from different volcanoes exhibit different co-variations in volatile and ore metal concentration. Numerical modelling supports the interpretation that in at least one location, the magma was saturated in fluids with similar compositions to those measured in natural barren and mineralized hydrothermal systems. The findings of this thesis offer new support for a paradigm of magmatic fertility wherein magmas with ‘typical’ ore metal endowments are capable of forming porphyry deposits, with greater emphasis on the availability of magmatic volatile elements and local conditions permitting focused fluid flow in the subsurface ore-forming regime.

Advisor: Zajacz, Zoltan
Towards a More Responsive Legal Ethics

This project takes the view that, despite being one of the most important subjects in the law,legal ethics is largely unresponsive to the myriad legal-ethical issues that lawyers face. The first broad reason for legal ethics poor responsiveness is what I term legal ethics’ two “information problems”: (1) the absence of meaningful legal precedent, and (2) the fact that ambiguities in relational harm make it exceedingly difficult to detect legal ethics problems. I argue that because of these information problems, legal ethics does not have sufficient source material to contend with many legal-ethical issues. The second broad reason for legal ethics poor responsiveness is a “scope problem”: legal-ethical regimes simply do not contemplate a substantial proportion of the ethical issues that come up in legal practice. This project explores the theoretical implications of these shortcomings and suggests some interventions.

Advisor: Yoon, Albert
Monstrosity on the Southwest Frontier: Grotesque Terrain, Body, and Voice in the Works of Henry Clay Lewis and George Washington Harris

Deploying ideas derived from Wolfgang Kayser, Mikhail Bakhtin, and others, this analysis brings to bear paradigms of grotesque theory to explore causal relationships and models of connectivity among terrain, body, and voice in selected work from the literature of the Southwest Frontier. In so doing, it recontextualizes received conceptions of the function of the grotesque in this literary corpus and in the aesthetic of two of its most gifted practitioners, Henry Clay Lewis and George Washington Harris, writers who are the most radical and experimental with the subversive power of this material.At the narrative centre of these tall-tales are frontier “roarers”—therianthropic rhetorical monsters in the liminal space posited by Frederick Turner’s “Theory of the Frontier.” Critical work on Southwest Frontier literature has represented grotesque characters and effects. Signalling the presence of the grotesque in this corpus, this scholarship has predominantly focused on grotesque character or activity as evidence of the monstrous in a normative world and of monstrum as portent. This study, however, looks at this literature, and in particular the works of Lewis and Harris, as a “way of seeing,” and shows how models of terrain, body, and voice are mobilized to convey that vision. In these two authors, the grotesque moves from dislocating effects created by shocking incongruities or monstrous character sketches recorded by urbane literary narrators to an aesthetic structure and strategy. Lewis creates a hoaxingly autobiographical Swamp Doctor as oral centre, while Harris produces the quintessential American freak Sut Lovingood, a monster who engineers monstrous tableaux to violently assail and ultimately reorient the perceptions of his auditors. The product of conscious design rather than psychotic excesses, I argue, these structures and strategies put into new perspective the arcs of these authors’ work and of their central voices. What other critics see as perverse and obscene aesthetic failure, I see as coherent and purposive aesthetic accomplishment. These arcs are strategic and aesthetic tours de force, emblems of the instability at the heart of their creators’ transgressive grotesquerie.

Keywords: George Washington Harris
Grotesque
Henry Clay Lewis
Southwest Frontier
Advisor: Henderson, Greig
Photocatalysts for Heterogeneous Conversion of N2 and CO2: Towards Solar Fertilizer and Solar Fuel Production

Heterogeneous catalysis, in which the reaction of liquid or gaseous reactants is driven on the surface of solid catalysts, is indispensable to the chemical industry. An example is the century-old Haber-Bosch process for hydrogenating nitrogen to ammonia, a chemical that human society is highly dependent upon. Similar to other industrial applications of heterogeneous catalysis, the Haber-Bosch process consumes enormous amounts of energy and leaves a significant carbon footprint. Herein, we demonstrate strategies for less carbon-intensive heterogeneous ammonia synthesis and carbon dioxide conversion by utilizing solar energy as a renewable energy source to power the reaction. We designed Ru nanoparticles supported on CeO2 nanorods as a catalyst for the gas phase reduction of nitrogen to ammonia. The catalytic activity of Ru/CeO2 was observed to be dependent on CeO2’s oxygen vacancy concentration, which assists in hydrogen spillover. In addition, a significant promotion of ammonia production by illumination was observed, attributed to the enhanced nitrogen and hydrogen absorption and dissociation facilitated by photoelectrons from CeO2, and the photothermal effect of Ru nanoparticles. Furthermore, we report urea production from ammonia and carbon dioxide via a single-step process catalyzed by Pd/LTA-3A under ambient conditions, powered solely by solar energy. Pd nanoparticles serve the dual function of catalyzing the dissociation of ammonia and providing photothermal driving. The absorption capacity of LTA-3A removes by-product water, further shifting the equilibrium towards urea formation. This represents a first step towards the use of solar energy in urea production and a vision of sustainable, modular plants for distributed production of urea on farms. Finally, we demonstrate carbon dioxide reduction catalyzed by Fe-substituted In2O3-x(OH)y, in which Fe tunes the surface frustrated Lewis pairs and promotes catalytic activity. In addition, the introduction of Fe suppresses the interference of Drude absorption observed in in-situ diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy, enabling investigation into the reaction pathway.

Advisor: Ozin, Geoffrey
Avicenna’s Modal Metaphysics: The Necessity of the Actual

This dissertation explains how Avicenna’s modal distinction (i.e., the view that (a) every existing being is either necessary per se or possible per se and (b) that every existing being that is possible per se is necessary per aliud) allowed and, indeed, required him to hold that the cosmos is eternally created by God. In Chapters 1 and 2, I explain the role that the modal distinction plays in the proofs for the existence of God in Avicenna’s Healing and Salvation, respectively. I explain why the two together entail that every efficient cause (i.e., causes of existence) belongs to an essentially ordered series and that every series of efficient causes must begin with an uncaused cause that exists necessarily per se (i.e., God). Chapter 3 considers how the modal distinction supports Avicenna’s contention that metaphysical proofs are the only possible proofs for the existence of God. In particular, I explain why Avicenna asserts that a) his God is identical to Ultimate Final Cause of Motion and that b) Aristotle’s proof from motion is not proof for the existence of God. Chapters 4 and 5 consider why the cosmos is eternally created by God. In Chapter 4, I consider the role that prior potency plays in Avicenna’s argument for the eternity of the world. Specifically, I look at how Avicenna’s argument for the eternity of the world depends on his modal version of Aristotle’s argument for why all change and coming to be require prior material potency. Finally, in Chapter 5, I consider the objection (which Avicenna himself raises) that in concluding that motion is eternal, he made motion exist necessarily per se. I show how Avicenna used his modal distinction to argue that motion is not necessary in the sense of necessary per se or uncaused but necessary per aliud in the sense that in that motion must emanate eternally from God because the only way that motion can be necessary per aliud at a time is for it to be necessary per aliud at every time.

Advisor: Black, Deborah L
Welcome to the Oasis of The Real: The Aesthetics of Convergence in Augmented Reality

While Augmented Reality (AR) becomes a ubiquitous technology through applications like Snapchat and Pokémon Go, this study is pioneering in that it offers an in-depth analysis of AR’s cultural production and perceptual paradigms. The thesis maps and outlines twelve categories of AR apps, which are indicative of twelve different ways to experience social space and (re)construct cultural narratives through AR. Focusing on AR apps in cultural settings such as art, museum apps, and cultural heritage projects, this research provides the first overarching, medium-specific framework for both the analysis and production of AR apps in cultural settings.This study begins by synthesizing three common approaches to the technology, in order to reconceptualize AR as a relational, creative, and immersive medium. It further argues that Augmented Reality produces a Convergent Reality (CR): an environment in which material and virtual aspects of bodies, technologies, and landscapes are united through the interactive experiences constructed by such apparatuses. By studying the diverse relationships AR facilitates between digital data and actual environments and by analyzing AR’s unique and complex modes of interactivity, this study identifies six categories of AR as a spatial medium and six categories of AR as a temporal medium. These categories are organized into two diagrammatic models, which expand the common approach to AR as a primarily spatial technology. Analyzing over 40 AR apps, Welcome to the Oasis of the Real shows how AR interfaces can function as effective tools to affirm, contest, or reorganize power structures and cultural narratives, thus demonstrating the technology’s potential to make new spaces for historically underrepresented populations. Accordingly, this research also explains why AR is an effective tool for social activism and how AR can be creatively utilized by GLAM institutions to facilitate innovative experiences and engage visitors in a meaningful – rather than in a gimmicky – interaction.

Keywords: Augmented Reality
Cultural Heritage
Digital Art
Digital Heritage
Locative Media
Museum Apps
Advisor: Kaplan, Louis LK