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In the paper by Inna Ganschow, the camp experience in the Soviet Union as a result of forced conscription will be treated, specifically in its artistic processing: secretly written diaries and letters by Luxembourg Wehrmacht soldiers. Contemporary historical research today calls them ego documents – private, handwritten texts of a personal nature. The range of texts to be examined in the lecture ranges from the smuggled out notes and letters that their released comrades took with them to Luxembourg, through diaries, speeches and self-made dictionaries to poems, short stories and drawings, some of which were in the camp and some immediately after the return from Tambov and other camps in the Soviet Union. The focus is on the question of dealing with the thesis of the Auschwitz concentration camp survivor Viktor Frankl, psychiatrist and neurologist from Vienna, that the meaning of camp life - logotherapy - can have a self-healing effect and increase the self-healing powers, which increases the chances of survival.

This research paper examines the role of cloud computing in promoting sustainable development. Cloud Computing (CC) has emerged as a transformative technology that has the potential to reduce the environmental impact of businesses and organizations, while also enabling economic growth and social development. The paper explores the environmental benefits of cloud computing, including energy efficiency, reduced carbon emissions, and the potential for renewable energy integration. It also examines the economic and social benefits of cloud computing, including cost savings, increased productivity, and improved access to technology. The paper concludes by highlighting the potential challenges and opportunities associated with the adoption of cloud computing for sustainable development and identifies key areas for future research and policy action. Overall, the paper argues that cloud computing has the potential to play a critical role in promoting sustainable development, and that further research and policy action are needed to realize its full potential.

This research paper aims to explore the relationship between water pollution and sustainable development. Water pollution is a significant environmental challenge that threatens the sustainability of ecosystems, human health, and economic development. Sustainable development aims to meet the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The research methodology involves a comprehensive review of relevant literature on water pollution and sustainable development, including empirical studies, theoretical frameworks, and policy documents. The research will explore the impact of water pollution on sustainable development, the drivers of water pollution, and the policy and regulatory frameworks that promote sustainable water management. The findings of this research paper will contribute to a deeper understanding of the complex relationship between water pollution and sustainable development and provide insights into effective strategies and policies that can promote sustainable water management. The research will also highlight the importance of public awareness and education in promoting sustainable practices and behaviors that can help to prevent and mitigate water pollution. This research paper will provide valuable insights into achieving sustainable water management practices that promote environmental sustainability and socio-economic development.

Data and R scripts for the paper:Comparing the transmission of carbapenemase-producing and extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-producing Escherichia coli between broiler chickens. Data includes the phyloseq RDS for the 16S rRNA v3v4 sequencing data and its metadata. Analysis scripts as used for the paper for both the modeling and the microbiome. See README for more details. Links: NCBI SRA BioProject:PRJNA948179 Paper doi: Abstract paper: Comparing the transmission of carbapenemase-producing and extended-spectrum beta-lactamase-producing Escherichia coli between broiler chickens Natcha Dankittipong, Jesse B. Alderliesten, Jan Van den Broek, M. Anita Dame-Korevaar, Michael S. M. Brouwer, Francisca C. Velkers, Alex Bossers, Clazien J. de Vos, Jaap A. Wagenaar, J. Arjan Stegeman, Egil A. J. Fischer The emergence of carbapenemase-producing Enterobacteriaceae (CPE) is a threat to public health, because of their resistance to clinically important carbapenem antibiotics. The emergence of CPE in meat-producing animals is particularly worrying because consumption of meat contaminated with resistant bacteria similar to CPE, such as extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL)-producing Enterobacteriaceae, contributed to colonization in humans worldwide. Currently, no data on the transmission of CPE in livestock is available. We performed a transmission experiment to quantify the transmission of CPE between broilers to fill this knowledge gap and to compare the transmission rates of CPE and other antibiotic-resistant E. coli. A total of 180 Ross 308 broiler chickens were distributed on the day of hatch (day 0) over 12 pens. On day 5, half of the chickens in each pen were orally inoculated with 5·102 colony-forming units of CPE, ESBL, or chloramphenicol-resistant E. coli (catA1). Amoxicillin drinking water treatment was given twice daily in 6 of the 12 pens from days 2 to 6 to evaluate the effect of antibiotic treatment on the transmission rates. Cloacal swabs of all animals were taken to determine the number of infectious broilers. We used a Bayesian hierarchical model to quantify the transmission of the E. coli strains. E. coli can survive in the environment and serve as a reservoir. Therefore, the susceptible-infectious transmission model was adapted to account for the transmission of resistant bacteria from the environment. In addition, the caecal microbiome was analyzed on day 5 and at the end of the experiment on day 14 to assess the relationship between the caecal microbiome and the transmission rates. The transmission rates of CPE were 52 – 68 per cent lower compared to ESBL and catA1, but it is not clear if these differences were caused by differences between the resistance genes or between the E. coli strains. Differences between the groups in transmission rates and microbiome diversity did not correspond to each other, indicating that differences in transmission rates were probably not caused by major differences in the community structure in the caecal microbiome. Amoxicillin treatment from day 2 to 6 increased the transmission rate more than three-fold in all inoculums. It also increased alpha-diversity compared to untreated animals on day 5, but not on day 14, suggesting only a temporary effect. Future research could incorporate more complex transmission models with different species of resistant bacteria into the Bayesian hierarchical model.

POEX 65 was a transdisciplinary experiment and event which took place in Copenhagen December 10-20, 1965. Short for ’POetry EXperiment’, POEX 65 was an exhibition event curated and created by Danish artist Knud Hvidberg (1948-91). It aimed at breaking the boundaries of artgenres, the false devision of professional and amateur, as well as the autonomy of the ‘work of art’ through the active use of technological and mediated platforms such as Flexowriters, Punch Paper Poetry, and Electronic Visual Music. As such, it was a very important event in Scandinavian media art history with more than 80 participants from 5 countries – from as different field as Conceptual Art, Electronic Music, Modern Jazz Poetry, Fluxus, Performance Art, Modern Dance, Concrete Poetry, Poesie Sonore etc... Nevertheless, POEX 65 somehow was forgotten – and almost erased from the academic memory and public archives. In 1990s POEX 65 was only hesitantly recognized as one of the most ambitious and original events of the 1960s in Denmark – but in short passages and footnotes. POEX 65 remained an enigma. The event itself has reached an almost total black-out 45 years later. The works themselves are not there anymore – or are but fragments. So why bother?This paper is about why it is extremely important to bother and care about the performative & collaborative media art practices like POEX 65. It is about the methodological and theoretical considerations put into the ongoing task conducted in the research project ‘The Unheard Avantgardes’ which is part of the LARM Infrastructure (focusing on sound in archives in Denmark and Northern Europa). But first and foremost, my paper will be about POEX 65 – the artists and their ideas, the art works, the contexts and the events; And the Paradigms of Post-Performative Media Art Practices at play in POEX 65.

This paper examines sight loss, identity, uncertain borders and power, using postcolonial theory. The novel explored in this paper, Blindsided, follows a British-Egyptian ophthalmologist to Mali and back to the UK. She experiences sight loss, and a consequent shift from doctor to patient, from subject to object, which forces her to explore her identity issues. She becomes no longer the observer but the examined. This novel sits in an underexplored intersection between postcolonial theory, literature, disability theory and medical humanities. It offers a perspective on the shifts in power that occur within sight loss, within relationships; it offers this paradigm in order to examine how we may unlearn privilege, and explore becoming other. The critical paper continues this exploration, providing a unique analysis of how people with sight loss have written about the subject in academia, literature and creative non-fiction. It delves into the porous boundaries between these different types of writing, and demonstrates that writing about sight loss is a way that people who experience it can seize back the power that society takes from them, gain authority, and take control of their own narrative.

This dissertation contains three independent papers on labor and demographic economics. In the first paper, I develop evidence, hypothesize, and empirically examine the effects of different types of prior experience of founders on annual job creation in new ventures. I use a two-stage estimation method; a random-effects negative binomial model (second stage) corrected for survival bias using a discrete-time hazard model (first stage). The paper adds to the literature by examining how the impact of founder experience on job creation changes under uncertainty using high-tech industries and industry recession as proxies for uncertainty., In the second paper, I utilize an intersectionality framework of gender and race/ethnicity to examine retention in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce, employing a multinomial/binary logit framework. I also examine the factors impacting the movement of STEM graduates either into STEM-unrelated jobs or out of the labor force. The paper aims to contribute to the existing literature by accommodating a switch to career pathways that require STEM expertise in non-STEM environments as well., In the third paper, I explore whether the proportion of women in leadership positions (leadership diversity) is lower in the STEM sectors than in the non-STEM sector at both low- and high-level leadership positions. I then examine whether the gender gap in leadership attainment in STEM occupations is related to occupational sex composition. To achieve this, the paper applies an endogenous switching probit model to account for workers’ self-selection into public and private sectors.

Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) are two large-scale safety net programs in the U.S. that provide public assistance to the low-income population. Over the years both programs have undergone several policy changes and have evolved to cover more needy individuals. This three-paper dissertation is a culmination of three research studies, two of which examine the effect of the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) Medicaid expansion on outcomes of realized access to dental care i.e., dental visits and out-of-pocket dental care spending, respectively, while the third paper explores the relationship between SNAP participation and dental visits (realized access), and between SNAP participation and unmet dental care need due to cost (perceived access)., The few studies that have examined the impact of the Medicaid expansion on dental visits utilization have shown somewhat mixed findings and are mostly limited to examining early impacts (1-2 years post-expansion). Thus, Study I of this dissertation examined the longer-term impacts of states’ Medicaid expansions on dental visits utilization, by their adult dental benefits coverage level. Restricted data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) for the years 2011 through 2017 were obtained; the sample included adults aged 21-64 years with income up to 138% of Federal Poverty Level. A quasi-experimental Difference-In-Difference (DID) study design was used to examine the overall and year-by-year impacts of the Medicaid expansion on annual dental visits based on a states’ adult dental benefits coverage level (i.e., extensive, limited, and emergency-only/no benefits). Overall, expansion states, compared to non-expansion states, saw a 3-6 percentage point increase in annual dental visits in the post-expansion period (2014-2017), relative to the pre-expansion period (2011-2013). Year-by-year examinations revealed that the Medicaid expansion was associated with a significant increase in the likelihood of an annual dental visit among low-income adults in states with extensive benefits in 2014 (nearly 5 percentage points), and in states with limited and emergency-only/no dental benefits in both 2014 (6 percentage points for both) and 2016 (4 and 5 percentage points, respectively)., Expanding Medicaid also has the potential to reduce out-of-pocket dental care spending among low-income adults gaining coverage through Medicaid, especially among states that provide comprehensive adult dental benefits. Thus, Study II of this dissertation examined the impact of states’ Medicaid expansion on out-of-pocket dental care spending among low-income adults residing in states that provided extensive adult dental benefits. A DID study design with a two-part (hurdle) modeling approach was utilized to analyze post-expansion year-by-year changes in: a) the probability of incurring any out-of-pocket dental spending, and b) the amount of out-of-pocket spending (conditional on any spending) between expansion states with extensive benefits and non-expansion states. Overall, a greater proportion of adults in expansion states with extensive dental benefits (58%) reported zero dollars in out-of-pocket dental care spending, compared to those in non-expansion states (31%). Our DID analysis found that, compared to non-expansion states, adults residing in states that provided extensive adult dental benefits and expanded Medicaid were significantly less likely to incur any out-of-pocket dental spending in the first two years of implementing the expansion (2014 and 2015)., There is growing interest in examining SNAP’s spillover impacts on improving healthcare access and outcomes, postulated to be due to SNAP’s ability to reduce food-insecurity thereby potentially freeing up some financial and cognitive resources to seek care. Thus, Study 3 of this dissertation examined the association between participation in SNAP and realized and perceived access to dental care among low-income adults. A sample of SNAP income-eligible adults aged 19-64 was created by pooling MEPS data for the years 2011 to 2017. Applying a propensity score method to control for important differences in characteristics between participants and eligible non-participants, and using a Doubly-Robust approach, multivariable logistic regressions modelling the impact of SNAP participation on annual dental visits and unmet dental care need due to cost were performed. Interestingly, we found that SNAP participants, compared to eligible non-participants, have significantly lower odds of having an annual dental visit (approximately 20%) and significantly greater odds of reporting unmet dental care need due to cost (approximately 40%)., In conclusion, the results of the three studies in this dissertation provide some important insights into the dental care access impacts of the ACA’s Medicaid expansion and provide foundational evidence on the relationship between participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and dental care access among low-income adults. Results from Study I are suggestive of a positive link between the expansion of Medicaid and increased dental visits. However, longer-term impacts were less consistent and varied based on states’ adult dental coverage level thereby warranting further research. Study II results are encouraging and show that providing comprehensive dental benefits in Medicaid adult dental programs is protective against incurring any out-of-pocket expense for those who utilize dental care, with the potential to benefit more low-income individuals when these states expand Medicaid eligibility. Lastly, Study III results show that SNAP participation is associated with lower dental visits utilization and greater unmet dental care need due to cost. While we postulate that this may be due to several reasons, such as, SNAP benefits not being enough to offset non-food costs, and perhaps, the most disadvantaged of all SNAP-eligible families who tend to have fewer resources being more likely to enroll in the program, further research is needed to fully investigate and understand the underlying causal mechanisms through which these associations operate.

International audience; This paper is concerned with analytical developments of results firstly introduced by the authors in [1]. These developments are devoted to the optimization of upper bounds of the interval covariance matrices appearing in the Interval Kalman Filter [2]. The proposed study is mainly highlighted through two aspects. Firstly, the optimization is further performed by considering a class of upper bounds and minimizing the traces of these bounds in two stages (in terms of a gain matrix and then with respect to a scalar parameter). Secondly, the paper provides conditions under which the optimal trace value is controlled and hence the proposed Algorithm in [1], namely Optimal Upper Bound Interval Kalman Filter (OUBIKF), is ensured to perform with stability (i.e. without width explosion of the resulting interval estimators). Also under these conditions, the OUBIKF Algorithm, having a similar structure of the Standard Kalman Filter (SKF), is ensured to get a smaller trace upper bound of the covariance matrices in the correction step than the one in the prediction step. Numerical simulations based on anautomotive model is performed to illustrate the developed results.

This dissertation focuses on strategies that entrepreneurs use to start and grow a startup. The first chapter studies the link between entrepreneurial programs and types of founders. Specifically, it studies the return for entrepreneurs who participated in accelerator programs that require founders to give up equity to participate in the program compared to founders that graduated from accelerators that do not require equity. The second chapter qualifies the textual structure of ICOs’ white papers using natural language processing (NLP) following a methodology introduced by Toubia et al., (2021). The chapter focuses on the relationship between speed, volume, and circuitousness and the success of ICOs., In Chapter 1, I exploit data on startups that graduated from accelerators that are heterogeneous in equity design. I study the dilemma of going big or staying small that has been challenging entrepreneurs to wisely decide whether to trade equity in exchange for capital investment and have a more valuable equity share or retain a majority equity stake and look for noteworthy opportunities in later stages. The major heterogeneity among accelerators that I focus on is equity investment and early-stage seed funding. Using matched sample analysis, I provide evidence that although participating in an equity-investment accelerator has beneficial effects on the post-accelerator performance of portfolio companies to reach the next round of fundraising faster, they raise less capital in 12-month, 18-month, and 24-month time horizons after graduation in comparison to graduates of equity-free accelerators. In fact, I find that founders with more years of corporate experience and higher-quality business ideas tend to shorten the path to success by participating in equity-investment accelerators. On the other hand, consistent with Hallen et al. (2020) who believe that a learning mechanism is the primary cause of accelerator effects on venture development, I find that, while ventures are heterogeneous and they learn at different rates and different depths, some entrepreneurs have already learned what to do, and it is accelerator equity design and seed investment that negatively impacts acceleration and slows down venture growth., Chapter 2 exploits the content of white papers that are published by Initial Coin Offering (ICO) campaigns. We study information exchanged between ICOs and investors via disclosed information in 2149 ICO white papers. We employ natural language processing (NLP) to quantify the structure of white papers and demonstrate their contribution to the success of ICOs. Following the content analysis procedure by Toubia et al. (2021), we elicit information from ICO textual sources by calculating three measures namely, speed, volume, and circuitousness. Our findings show that ICO projects with a well-written white paper that disclose risk and routinely return to previously discussed topics (i.e., circuitousness) are likely to raise more funds. Consistent with this, white papers that cover more ground (i.e., volume) contribute positively to the successful outcomes of ICO fundraising campaigns. In contrast, white papers that transit quickly between topics (i.e., speed) are less likely to have a positive impact.

This paper examines changes in occupational crowding of immigrant women in frontline industries in the United States during the onset of COVID-19, and we contextualize their experiences against the backdrop of broader race-based and gender-based occupational crowding. Building on the occupational crowding hypothesis, which suggests that marginalized workers are crowded in a small number of occupations to prop up wages of socially-privileged workers, we hypothesize that immigrant, Black, and Hispanic workers were shunted into frontline work to prop up the health of others during the pandemic. Our analysis of American Community Survey microdata indicates that immigrant workers, particularly immigrant women, were increasingly crowded in frontline work during the onset of the pandemic. We also find that US-born Black and Hispanic workers disproportionately faced COVID-19 exposure in their work, but were not increasingly crowded into frontline occupations following the onset of the pandemic. The paper also provides a rationale for considering the occupational crowding hypothesis along the dimensions of both wages and occupational health.

My dissertation recovers the abolitionist might of the first nursing narrative of the U.S. Civil War, Louisa May Alcott’s Hospital Sketches (1863), which was published as a series of letters in Boston’s Commonwealth newspaper (1862-1896) in summer 1863 before its collection in a volume published by journalist James Redpath in fall 1863. As I uncover the abolitionist context of the original Sketches, I employ Alcott’s letters, the most enduring literary work to emerge from the pages of the Commonwealth, as an opportunity to examine the paper’s first year. Using practices of periodicals studies, I scrutinize the conditions and context in which the paper was produced in order to assess its goals, methods, and audience. I apply the same methods in my assessment of Hospital Sketches, tracing the reception of the letters in press reviews. I examine the founding of the Commonwealth in September 1862 just before the announcement of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22 and discuss its principled editors Moncure D. Conway and Franklin B. Sanborn along with its funder George Luther Stearns. Exploring their connection to John Brown’s militant abolitionism in the 1850s, I consider the paper’s aim to transform the war to preserve the union into a conflict against slavery after July 1862’s Second Confiscation Act and the Militia Act suggested the possibility. Additionally, I probe the way the Commonwealth initially defined itself as fully engaged in wartime political strategy, positioning itself against Boston’s powerhouse abolitionist newspaper and another Stearns-funded venture, The Liberator., Treating Alcott’s contributions during the weekly’s first year as a body of work that deserves comprehensive evaluation, I discuss her January 1863 short story “M.L.” alongside her series “Letters from the Mountains” and poem “Busy Bessie, At Her Spinning Wheel,” both published in fall 1863, noting Alcott’s use of the picturesque and travel sketches in her Commonwealth publications. I then discuss Hospital Sketches as it appeared in the weekly and in its collected edition, arguing that the two chapters Alcott added for the august compilation encourage an appraisal of the text as an abolitionist travel sketch. Finally, I track the development of the Sketches during the 1860s, concluding with their illustration by Alcott’s friend Elizabeth Greene in 1869’s Hospital Sketches and Camp and Fireside Stories., My dissertation shows Alcott exercising her literary dexterity by adapting Hospital Sketches for different audiences when she found success as a professional writer. In examining the Commonwealth, I also depict the context in which readers originally encountered her hospital drama and trace responses to it through press reviews and advertisements. By tying Hospital Sketches to the paper’s abolitionism, I not only investigate the use of literature to accelerate social reforms, but I also situate literary output as a primary strategy of the mid-war abolitionist effort. In addition to being aesthetically pleasing, literature could be deployed rhetorically to imagine reconstructive possibility as the promise of the Emancipation Proclamation flourished.

Tabulated list of bird names in ǃUi and Taa branches of TUU, with selected comparative reference data for KHOE and NTU languages. To accompany paper [Title] [Authors] (temporarily anonymised, pending review). Sources set out in Appendix B of the paper.

In response to concerns about university students stress and mental health, many universities offer animal visitation programs (AVPs). While popular, nothing is known about the role of students’ separation anxiety from their childhood pet(s) either in shaping experiences during the transition to university, their engagement in available AVPs, or their effects. Drawn from a random sample of first-year university students (N=2,000), this dissertation recruited incoming students separated from their family pet, and randomly assigned them to a semester long, bi-weekly AVP program featuring 2-hour sessions (N=105) or a waitlist control condition (N=104). Together, three independent manuscripts examine 1) the prevalence and predictors of pet separation anxiety (PSA); 2) the role of PSA and psychological mood symptoms predicting AVP uptake (e.g., frequency, duration); and 3) the efficacy of AVP on trajectories of psychological risk and resilience. Results from Paper 1 revealed that 1 in 4 students reported moderate-severe PSA during their first week on campus. Symptom severity was significantly related to people-substituting-pet-attachment (β=0.19, p=0.015), spending more time with pets compared to other pet owners (β=0.24, p=0.002), talking to pets (β=0.19, p=0.009), and pet-co-sleeping (β=0.16, p=0.027). Results from Paper 2 revealed that early program attendance was informed by students’ mental health history (B= -0.876, p=0.03, OR=0.417), early semester stress (B= -0.177, p=0.04, OR=0.838) and anxiety (B= 0.179, p=0.01, OR=1.196). Overall attendance frequency (β=-0.342, p=0.004, d=0.697) and duration (β=-0.286, p=0.03, d=0.529) were negatively associated with high PSA. Results from Paper 3 showed students in the AVP condition had more adaptive trajectory slopes for depression (B=-3.05, p=0.01, d=0.514), worry (B=-3.92, p=0.04, d=0.416,) stress, (B=-1.94, p=0.05, d=0.386), and self-compassion (B=4.03, p=3 sessions) and high PSA were controlled. This dissertation suggests PSA is important both in considering students' risk during the transition to university, the influence on uptake of AVPs and their effects on psychological wellbeing. In sum, while AVPs are considered a resource for students missing their pets, high PSA students are less likely to attend AVPs efficacious in preventing declines in psychological adjustment during what many experience as a stressful transition.

Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) methods are a class of Monte Carlo methods that are used to obtain random samples of a high dimensional random variable in a sequential fashion. Many problems encountered in applications often involve different types of constraints. These constraints can make the problem much more challenging. In this paper, we formulate a general framework of using SMC for constrained sampling problems based on forward and backward pilot resampling strategies. We review some existing methods under the framework and develop several new algorithms. It is noted that all information observed or imposed on the underlying system can be viewed as constraints. Hence the approach outlined in this paper can be useful in many applications.