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Between Bureaucracy and Sensationalism: The Dichotomy of Australian DEA Reports and Newspaper Portrayals of the Communist Party of Indonesia
No full textBeyond the Battlefield: Military Propaganda and the Battle for Narrative in Nasser's and Sadat's Egypt
No full textPh.D.This dissertation investigates how a range of discursive mechanisms have shaped public reverence for the Egyptian military since the 1952 coup d'état. Drawing on published and archival primary and secondary sources, it elucidates the conceptual framework underpinning the unique significance of the military.The study argues that the army’s esteemed standing primarily derives from propagandistic narratives that exalt its role as the quintessential national institution responsible for the nation’s historical and contemporary glory. These narratives imbue the army with symbolic significance and mythological gravitas, positioning it as morally superior to other state institutions. The study traces the genesis and dissemination of these narratives across various socio-cultural spheres, including the press, education system, and religious discourse —core constituents of civil society.
Special emphasis is placed on the construction of the initial myth surrounding the army in 1956, and its subsequent displacement by the 1973 myth following the demise of the former in 1967. The dissertation demonstrates how wartime propaganda transcended its immediate function of morale bolstering to assume a formative role in shaping enduring official narratives of these military conflicts. Educational curricula and religious discourses subsequently absorbed these narratives, perpetuating them as enduring forms of sociological propaganda that solidified the military’s hegemonic position in the national consciousness. Religious discourse, the dissertation contends, played a supportive role in this process, contributing to both direct propaganda endeavors and the establishment of enduring symbols that transcended the exigencies of wartime. Furthermore, the dissertation argues that the military regime of 1952 deliberately manipulated the Egyptian national narrative to further entrench the notion of the army as the custodian of the nation’s historical glory from time immemorial.
In essence, the study illustrates how these propagandistic narratives and symbolic constructs constitute the bedrock of the army’s long-term propaganda strategy, affording it a distinct advantage and enabling it to wield considerable influence and garner public allegiance whenever called upon
Investment Theory and Practice – It's All 'Realative': How Multiple Stochastic Goals and Delegation Changes the Entire Investment Paradigm
No full textFinance, McDonough School of ManagementThe book is meant to provide a new perspective on asset pricing, asset allocation and risk adjusted performance – the three facets of investment theory and investment finance - by focusing on a positive approach to normative theory. Current theory starts with the assumption that “investors maximize the expected utility of wealth”, when in reality this assumption can be faulted on at least four observations based on reality. Instead, as demonstrated in the book with examples from multiple pension fund Investment Policy Statements: “investors maximize (net) relative risk-adjusted returns for multiple stochastic goals through the use of (hopefully) skillful agents”. As a result, current theory is, as noted by GSB Distinguished Prof. Paul Pfleiderer, is a nest of “chameleons”. Incorporating multiple stochastic goals (like retirement, retirement health, saving for a child’s college etc.) is a major step up relative to current theory, which typically assumes just one deterministic (as in CAPM) or one stochastic goal (say peers, background risk etc.). Moreover, the theory on agency is limited and does not incorporate the fact that investors want to delegate to skillful agents. So, the book is meant to fill a key void, by using positive observations to lay out a normative theory with numerical simulations (and hence will not have substantial empirical evidence). As a result, the recommendations of this theory are easily applied by practitioners too and could lead to better investment results. Some of the recommendations for example, for new financial instruments in Chapter 3 (including one proposed with Nobel Laureate Robert C. Merton), have been implemented in Brazil in 2023, and other countries are in the process of adapting/adopting the same. In summary, while we seek to alter the course of theory by incorporating a “relative” lens as opposed to the current absolute lens (as in physics), the broader purpose is to alter practice to improve investment results for a range of stochastic goals.
GOAL: The goal of the book is to use this new approach to change both theory and practice as incorrect theory or the incorrect application of theory has led to repeated financial crises. The most common and widespread crises being the global retirement crisis and one could even attribute the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank to the focus on absolute wealth as in current theory as opposed to relative wealth, which is the correct measure in practice and as noted over the last 20 years by Nobel Laureate Robert C. Merton. Additionally, the research that forms the basis of parts of the book has already led to the implementation of financial innovations in Brazil for retirement and education financing and is being copied around the world. The target of the book is both academics and practitioners (e.g., CFAs, MBAs; CIOs of investment pools; regulators; policy makers)
“Black Women Should Not Die Giving Life”: The lived experiences of Black women diagnosed with severe maternal morbidity in the United States
No full textDepartment of Biomedical Graduate EducationObjective
We sought to understand the lived experiences of Black women diagnosed with severe maternal morbidity (SMM) in communities with high maternal mortality to inform practices that reduce obstetric racism and improve patient outcomes.
Methods
From August 2022 through December 2022, we conducted a phenomenological, qualitative study among Black women who experienced SMM. Participants were recruited via social media and met inclusion criteria if they self-identified as Black cisgender women, were 18–40 years old, had SMM diagnosed, and lived within zip codes in the United States that have the top-five highest maternal mortality rates. Family members participated on behalf of women who were deceased but otherwise met all other criteria. We conducted in-depth interviews (IDIs), and transcripts were analyzed using inductive and deductive methods to explore birth story experiences.
Results
Overall, 12 participants completed IDIs; 10 were women who experienced SMM and 2 were mothers of women who died due to SMM. The mean age for women who experienced SMM was 31 years (range 26–36 years) at the time of the IDI or death. Most participants had graduate-level education, and the average annual household income was 123,750 USD. Women were especially interested in study participation because of their high-income status as they did not fit the stereotypical profile of Black women who experience racial discrimination. The average time since SMM diagnosis was 2 years. Participants highlighted concrete examples of communication failures, stereotyping by providers, differential treatment, and medical errors which patients experienced as manifestations of racism. Medical personnel dismissing and ignoring concerns during emergent situations, even when raised through strong self-advocacy, was a key factor in racism experienced during childbirth.
Conclusions
Future interventions to reduce racism and improve maternal health outcomes should center on the experiences of Black women and focus on improving patient–provider communication, as well as the quality and effectiveness of responses during emergent situations.
Précis statement: This study underscores the need to center Black women's experiences, enhance patient–provider communication, and address emergent concerns to mitigate obstetric racism and enhance maternal health outcomes
Seeking Light Between the Cracks of Digital Reality
No full textWe often come across people trying to make their possessions look
older and more used, breaking them down as if they have had a
long history of wear. From the destruction of plates as a means of
practicing the artform of kintsugi, to the proliferation of Cottagecore
and its lived-in aesthetics, the Internet is rife with attempts to
introduce some sense of authentic history into mass-produced wares.
This paper takes a critical look at such practices, asking: what are
people doing when they participate in these trends? In answering
this question, this paper intends to elucidate discussions of our age
of mass reproduction alongside the theories of Walter Benjamin’s
“aura.” By this approach, such practices are seen not solely as simple
online trends, but as attempts to reintroduce the aura into massproduced,
everyday objects
Development and Evaluation of Cross-lingual Abstract Meaning Representation
No full textPh.D.Semantic representations, which reflect the meaning of a text, are an important tool for downstream natural language processing tasks which rely on meaning inference. One type of semantic representation called Abstract Meaning Representation (AMR) encodes the relationships between the concepts in the sentence and focuses on predicate-argument structure. AMR was originally designed for English; despite AMR's English-centric foundations, the schema has since been annotated in many languages other than English. In this dissertation, I explore four primary research questions under one overarching hypothesis: AMR in its current form does not function as an interlingua and language-specific considerations should be made if developing, evaluating, or using AMR cross-lingually.First, I investigate to what degree source language has a measurable effect on AMR graph structure by developing a novel method to measure the amount of divergence between cross-lingual AMR graphs. Second, I examine what considerations are necessary to extend AMR beyond English to other languages by (1) categorizing the types and causes of divergences which appear in cross-lingual AMR pairs, and (2) developing linguistically-informed Spanish AMR guidelines, accompanied by an annotated corpus. Third, I introduce a novel metric for evaluation of cross-lingual AMR parsing which accounts for the effect of source language on AMR graph structure and is correlated with human judgments of sentence similarity. Fourth, I investigate the relationship between sentence-level semantic divergence and AMR similarity, shifting towards the question of downstream applications of cross-lingual AMR. Specifically, I demonstrate how cross-lingual AMR can be used to detect differences in meaning in translation pairs and abstract away from the artifacts of the translation process.The findings from this dissertation indicate that while AMR in its current form does not function as an interlingua/cross-lingual meaning representation, language-specific alterations to annotation and evaluation enable AMR to be effectively extended to non-English settings. Further, when extending AMR to non-English and multilingual settings, AMR can be leveraged as an intermediate representation to detect differences in meaning in parallel sentences and isolate the core elements of meaning in translations
Earn-and Learn and Lose Eligibility? The Case for an Earnings Disregard for SNAP Employment and Training Participants in Subsidized Work-Based Learning Programs
No full textM.P.P.The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, provides more than 40 million low-income Americans with food assistance support each month. The SNAP Employment and Training (E&T) programs – state-administered workforce development and job training programs – have become a significant beneficiary of limited federal government dollars used to promote skill development, job placement, and economic mobility through education and training experiences. In 2018, Congress inserted new language into the Farm Bill allowing subsidized work-based learning activities – to include on-the-job training, apprenticeships, and internships – as allowable activities for state SNAP E&T providers. However, Congress did not exclude wages from work-based learning programs when considering income for SNAP eligibility. Many feel that this creates a perverse incentive for those participating in work-based learning programs because they could lose their SNAP eligibility and program spot if they work, learn, and earn too much. Using public use data from the SNAP Quality Control study, this paper will study the effect of participating in a E&T work-based learning program on hours worked per week. The regression analyses found a statistically significant negative relationship between participating in subsidized work-based learning E&T programs and participating at least halftime. However, current data limitations make it impossible to say with certainty whether individuals are decreasing their participation intensity to remain eligible for SNAP E&T programs or if participants are “earning out” of programs before they complete them
FTNTL Town Hall
No full textThis Hybrid town hall is designed to bring together in-person and on-zoom colleagues. Meet up with Full-Time Non-Tenure Line colleagues for updates from members of the Joint Main Campus Committee on FTNTL Issues (COL: Laurie King, Oded Meyer, Astrid Weigert; MSB: Kirsten Anderson; McCourt: Lynn Ross; SFS: Ori Soltes; SCS: Stephanie Kim). This conversation will be conducted in a hybrid fashion, so bring your ideas and concerns whether you can join us in person or via Zoom
Hidden Alliances and Shadow Empires: The Rise and Fall of Nomadic Power on the Great Plains, 1770-1870
No full textPh.D.In the eighteenth and nineteenth-centuries Comanche and Sioux peoples used a combination of violence, trade, and kinship networks to establish nomadic shadow empires. Largely unobserved by Euromericans, these imperial peoples seized territory and resources, subjugated other people groups, exploited proxy military forces, and attempted to establish trade monopolies. In 1840, the two imperial powers and their proxies established peace and de facto military cooperation. Over the next decade, this de facto cooperation grew into an actual alliance that historians have failed to recognize, linking the two shadow empires via an intricate web of kin-relations, familial obligations, and commercial dependencies. This dissertation reframes the Great Plains, shifting from a traditional focus of individual Indian “tribes” to geographic frameworks banded in the north by the Lakota Sioux and in the south by the Comanche. This research opens new avenues for understanding how and why non-state polities formed and exploited military alliances in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
Subversive Wit in the Service of Feminist Literary Activism: British Women Writers’ Use of Humor in the Interwar Era
No full textM.A.Subversive Wit in the Service of Feminist Literary Activism: British Women Writers’ Use of Humor in the Interwar Er