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Thesis advisor: Daniel J. Harrington / Thesis advisor: Thomas D. Stegman / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

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Försäljare av detoxpreparat hävdar att kroppens reningsmekanismer i vårt moderna samhälle inte längre räcker till och behöver hjälp på vägen, företrädesvis i form av påstått utrensande örtblandningar. Vissa förespråkar även tarmsköljningar och joniserande fotbad. Syftet med den här studien är att kartlägga floran av detoxprodukter i form av kosttillskott: vilka typer det finns, vilka ingredienser som ingår och vilka påståenden som görs. Påståendena har klassificerats efter testbarhet och trovärdigheten har bedömts genom sökningar i PubMed och Web of Science. Några av de testbara påståendena verkar helt sakna evidens, något påstående lutar sig mot studier behäftade med problematiska brister medan vissa påståenden förtjänar vidare studier, då de bygger på studier med preliminärt lovande resultat. Det går inte att utesluta en framtid för evidensbaserade detoxdieter, lika lite som det går att säga att detoxdieter av idag håller vad de lovar. Det krävs fler kliniska, placebokontrollerade studier och en tydligare skiljelinje mellan det som är ren bluff och det som är seriös forskning. Konsumenter bör vara medvetna om bristen på evidens och riskerna som finns, exempelvis i form av kontaminerade produkter och risk för interaktioner med läkemedel. / Sellers of detox preparations argue that in our modern society, the body's purification mechanisms are no longer sufficient and need a little help, preferably in the form of alleged cleansing herbal formulas. Some also advocate colonic irrigation and ionizing foot baths. The purpose of this study is to survey the flora of detox products in the form of nutritional supplements: what types there are, what ingredients are included and which claims are made. The claims have been classified for testability and reliability was assessed through searches in PubMed and Web of Science. Some of the testable assertions seem to completely lack evidence, other claims lean on studies that suffer from problematic deficiencies, while some claims deserve further study since they find support from studies with promising preliminary results. You cannot rule out a future for evidence-based detox diets, no more than you can to say that detox diets today keep their promises. More clinical, placebo-controlled studies are required and a clearer dividing line between what is pure bluff and what is serious research. Consumers should be aware of the lack of evidence and the risks that exist, for example in the form of contaminated products and the potential risk of interactions with medicines.

Data cleansing approaches have usually focused on detecting and fixing errors with little attention to big data scaling. This presents a serious impediment since identify- ing and repairing dirty data often involves processing huge input datasets, handling sophisticated error discovery approaches and managing huge arbitrary errors. With large datasets, error detection becomes overly expensive and complicated especially when considering user-defined functions. Furthermore, a distinctive algorithm is de- sired to optimize inequality joins in sophisticated error discovery rather than na ̈ıvely parallelizing them. Also, when repairing large errors, their skewed distribution may obstruct effective error repairs. In this dissertation, I present solutions to overcome the above three problems in scaling data cleansing. First, I present BigDansing as a general system to tackle efficiency, scalability, and ease-of-use issues in data cleansing for Big Data. It automatically parallelizes the user’s code on top of general-purpose distributed platforms. Its programming inter- face allows users to express data quality rules independently from the requirements of parallel and distributed environments. Without sacrificing their quality, BigDans- ing also enables parallel execution of serial repair algorithms by exploiting the graph representation of discovered errors. The experimental results show that BigDansing outperforms existing baselines up to more than two orders of magnitude. Although BigDansing scales cleansing jobs, it still lacks the ability to handle sophisticated error discovery requiring inequality joins. Therefore, I developed IEJoin as an algorithm for fast inequality joins. It is based on sorted arrays and space efficient bit-arrays to reduce the problem’s search space. By comparing IEJoin against well- known optimizations, I show that it is more scalable, and several orders of magnitude faster. BigDansing depends on vertex-centric graph systems, i.e., Pregel, to efficiently store and process discovered errors. Although Pregel scales general-purpose graph computations, it is not able to handle skewed workloads efficiently. Therefore, I introduce Mizan, a Pregel system that balances the workload transparently during runtime to adapt for changes in computing needs. Mizan is general; it does not assume any a priori knowledge of the graph structure or the algorithm behavior. Through extensive evaluations, I show that Mizan provides up to 84% improvement over techniques leveraging static graph pre-partitioning.

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The mid-20th century, particularly the 1940s and 1950s, was marked by significant Jewish migration and ethnic cleansing worldwide following the Holocaust and widespread antisemitism. A common misconception is that the Holocaust's effects were confined to Europe; however, substantial evidence shows that similar policies and migrations occurred in the Middle East and North Africa, where antisemitism was also a prominent issue often overlooked in historical narratives. Furthermore, the perception that Zionism—a movement for the re-establishment, development, and protection of a Jewish nation in what is now Israel, as defined by the Oxford Dictionary—originated solely within European or "White" Jewish communities is both antiquated and inaccurate. This thesis delves into the history of the Jewish communities of Iraq to better understand the ethnic cleansing and forced removal practices in the Middle East and their impact on contemporary global perceptions of Zionism and the State of Israel. The establishment of the State of Israel played a crucial role in saving Jewish communities worldwide, including those in Iraq. A focused examination of Iraq's situation during this period, alongside the broader global context of Jewish displacement following the rise of the State of Israel, highlights the necessity of Israel's formation then and now. The Iraqi government, weakened by internal and external pressures, upheld a policy of oppression and discrimination against its Jewish community, often citing fear of retaliation from extremist nationalist and pan-Arab parties. This thesis argues that such justifications are insufficient to excuse the forced oppression of a community. Through a detailed analysis, this work aims to demonstrate how the II exodus and forced removal of Jewish communities from Iraq constituted a form of ethnic cleansing and continues to shape global views on Zionism and the State of Israel.

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