In his celebrated 2007 novel El mundo, Juan José Millás tells the story of the development of Juanjo, a simulacrum of himself, and describes a series of negative developments that the protagonist faces in his childhood. While much has been written about Millás and the “testimonial realism” of his literary generation, little has been written about the psychological factors that influence his characters. In this paper I analyze Juanjo's development as understood from the gradation of guilt to shame, depression, and later suicidal thoughts. Because Juanjo is not able to find an appropriate mechanism of release for his guilt, he spirals into an ever-increasing psychological distress. Thus, his actions do not become an escape per se from the oppressive forces in Spain; but rather, they are mechanisms of delay caused by the subconscious effects of living under Franco's Spain during the 1950s. Mike Wilson-Reginato's first novel El púgil, published in 2007, mixes intertextual references to music, film, and literature to craft a space for the posthuman identity. The two protagonists of El púgil—Art and his olive-green refrigerator, Hal—combine in a new cyborg-like formation. Unlike the cyborg envisioned by Donna Haraway in “A Cyborg Manifesto,” the mechanical-biological union never takes place at the corporeal level, but their union occurs in a psychological dimension within Art's hallucination. To describe the union of Art and Hal, I use Jacques Lacan's concept of the mirror stage to explain Art's adoption of a perceived superior identity and Jean Baudrillard's study of simulacra to show how this adopted identity is an imagined simulacrum. Thus, the combined image of the two characters creates a cyborg identity that erases the distance between man and machine.

Infrared divergences arising in theories with massless gauge bosons have been shown to cancel in scattering amplitudes when using dressed states constructed from the Faddeev- Kulish approach to the asymptotic states. It has been established that these states are closely related to asymptotic symmetries of the theory, that is, non-vanishing gauge trans- formations at the asymptotic boundary. In this thesis, we review both of these aspects for QED and non-Abelian gauge theories. We also investigate the expectation value of the non-Abelian field strength tensor using dressed states. We then present a novel con- struction of the dressing operator for non-Abelian gauge theories using Wilson lines. We demonstrate, to order O(g2), that each term of the dressing operator is reproduced in the presented Wilson line approach, along with additional terms that warrant a more thorough understanding. This work extends previous results that pertained to QED and gravity.

Ce mémoire de maîtrise examine la création aux États-Unis du Committee on Public Information (CPI) et son implantation en Europe, et analyse la relation qui s’établit entre son directeur, George Creel, et le président Woodrow Wilson. Les archives mobilisées pour cette recherche sont des lettres et documents, datés de 1916 à 1920, issus des Woodrow Wilson Papers déposés à la Library of Congress de Washington. Au moment de l’entrée en guerre des États-Unis en avril 1917, le gouvernement — suivant un courant de pensée émergeant au XIXe siècle sur le pouvoir de l’opinion publique — prend conscience de l’importance de maintenir un engouement pour la guerre auprès de sa population, ce qui mène à la création du CPI. Ce comité de « propagande » n’a pas originellement vocation à déborder des frontières américaines. Ce n’est qu’après la révolution en Russie à l’automne 1917 et face à la peur de voir cet allié sortir de la guerre que prend forme l’idée d’exporter les valeurs démocratiques américaines et les idées wilsoniennes dans le monde afin de gardées mobilisées les populations alliées et préparer le terrain pour l’après-guerre. Loin de se restreindre à la Russie, le comité étend son travail aux autres pays de l’Entente et aux neutres, avec comme objectif d’atteindre éventuellement les populations des empires centraux. L’analyse des échangés entre le président et George Creel met en lumière la collaboration étroite entre les deux hommes et la relation d’interdépendance qui s’établit entre eux au cours de la guerre. Le CPI trouve dans le président un soutien précieux afin d’affirmer son autorité et ainsi atteindre un plus grand public, malgré les critiques acerbes provenant du personnel diplomatique en poste à l’étranger et méfiant quant aux objectifs et méthodes du comité. Inversement, le Président bénéficie d’une organisation dédiée à mettre en valeur ses idéaux en Amérique et dans le monde. Ce mémoire est la première recherche qui examine de façon globale l’œuvre du CPI sur le continent européen. / This master's thesis examines the creation in the United States of the Committee on Public Information (CPI) and its deployment in Europe, and analyzes the relationship that developed between its director, George Creel, and President Woodrow Wilson. The archives used for this research are letters and documents, dated from 1916 to 1920, from the Woodrow Wilson Papers in the Library of Congress in Washington. Upon the entry of the United States into the war in April 1917, the government - following a trend of thought emerging in the nineteenth century on the power of public opinion - became aware of the importance of maintaining enthusiasm for the war among its population, which led to the creation of the CPI. This "propaganda" committee was not originally intended to extend beyond American borders. It was only after the revolution in Russia in the fall of 1917 and the fear of seeing this ally leave the war that the idea of exporting American democratic values and Wilsonian ideas around the world took shape in order to keep the allied populations mobilized and prepare the ground for the post-war period. Far from restricting itself to Russia, the committee extended its work to other Entente countries and neutrals, with the aim of eventually reaching the populations of the central empires. An analysis of the exchanges between the President and George Creel highlights the close collaboration between the two men and the interdependence that developed between them during the war. The CPI found in the President a valuable support in order to assert its authority and thus reach a wider public, despite the sharp criticism coming from the diplomatic personnel posted abroad who was suspicious of the committee's objectives and methods. In return, the President benefits from an organization dedicated to showcasing his ideals in the United States and around the world. This dissertation is the first research to examine the work of the CPI on the European continent globally.

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The uniqueness of Samuel Wilson, Jr.’s (born 1911) career is studied in terms of practicing architect, scholar, and civic leader. The author was motived by the void in architectural literature about the people who have saved our architectural heritage. The introduction explains the purpose of the dissertation to determine, analyse, and interpret Wilson’s contributions, beginning in 1934. The search began with oral histories taken from Wilson and some of his peers. Archival research was conducted in the Tulane University Library and The Historic New Orleans Collection. Chapter 1 gives biographical information on Wilson, and background on New Orleans and the Vieux Carré (French Quarter) in the 1920s when Wilson entered Tulane University (1927). Nathaniel Cortlandt Curtis [Sr.], Moise Goldstein, and Richard Koch, the trio of architects who influenced Wilson, are introduced. Chapter 2 is devoted to the experiences that moved Wilson in the direction of historic buildings, the Historic American Buildings Survey (1934) and a scholarship to Europe (1938). Chapter 3 presents Wilson’s mentor, Richard Koch, a pioneer in adaptive reuse and new design in an historic environment. Wilson carried his mentor’s concepts further and into the realm of scholarly pursuit. Along with publishing and teaching, Wilson was a driving force in the institutionalization of preservation in New Orleans. His election as founding president of Louisiana Landmarks Society (1950) is the beginning of his leadership role for the next twenty years. Chapter 4 deals with Wilson’s projects in the post World War II era of new construction in the Vieux Carré and central city, and how he guided change by the use of historicism. Chapter 5 discusses, through Wilson’s projects, the critical preservation issues of the 1950s and 1960s. It was an era of problem solving without precedent guidelines. Chapter 6 summarizes Wilson’s contributions from his field accomplishments and the creation of a new body of knowledge to his activities in national preservation policy. The appendixes form a catalog of Wilson’s work: historic projects; literary works; drawings; TV programs, audio and audio—visual recordings; honors and awards; translation of a specification for a colonial horse-and-wind mill; and four walking tours. There are 154 illustrations. / Ph. D.

Hintergrund: Der Morbus Wilson ist eine seltene, angeborene Störung des Kupferstoffwechsels, bei welcher es zu Akkumulationen von Kupfer und infolgedessen zu Schäden in verschiedenen Organen des menschlichen Körpers kommt. Die Therapie besteht vor allem darin, den Kupferspiegel medikamentös zu senken. In einzelnen Fällen wurde der Kupferspiegel während der Therapie so weit gesenkt, dass bei den Patient*innen neurologische Symptome auftraten (sogenannte Kupfermangel-Myeloneuropathien). Kupfer ist ein essenzieller Kofaktor mehrerer Enzyme im menschlichen Körper, so auch der Cytochrom-c-Oxidase, welche einen wichtigen Bestandteil der mitochondrialen Atmungskette und damit der zellulären Energiegewinnung darstellt. Die Bestimmung ihrer Aktivität ist bisher für verschiedene Zellen und Gewebe etabliert worden, ein standardisierter Assay für die Bestimmung in Thrombozyten existiert jedoch nicht. Fragestellung: Für die optimale Bestimmung der Cytochrom-c-Oxidase-Aktivität in Thrombozyten sollen bereits existierende Methoden angepasst werden. Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es, die Aktivität der Cytochrom-c-Oxidase bei Morbus Wilson-Patient*innen unter kupfersenkender Therapie zu untersuchen und auf einen Zusammenhang zum Serum-Kupferspiegel zu prüfen. Die Frage, ob eine zu starke Kupfersenkung durch die Therapie des Morbus Wilson zu einer verringerten Cytochrom-c-Oxidase-Aktivität führt und ob diese Myeloneuropathien hervorruft, soll somit beantwortet werden. Material und Methodik: Es wurden 36 Morbus Wilson-Patient*innen unter kupfersenkender Therapie und 20 gesunde Kontrollproband*innen untersucht. Es erfolgte eine Blutabnahme für die Gewinnung der Thrombozyten sowie für die Bestimmung des Serum-Kupferspiegels. Die Bestimmung der Aktivität der Cytochrom-c-Oxidase erfolgte spektralphotometrisch in Thrombozyten. Des Weiteren wurde die Aktivität des Komplex-II der Atmungskette bestimmt, da dieser nicht kupferabhängig ist und seine Aktivität daher bei Kupfermangel nicht eingeschränkt sein sollte. Zusätzlich ermöglichte die Berechnung des Quotienten der Cytochrom-c-Oxidase-Aktivität und der Komplex-II-Aktivität die Erfassung sehr geringer Aktivitätseinschränkungen der Cytochrom-c-Oxidase. Im Rahmen dieser Dissertation wurde die spektralphotometrische Messung dieser beiden Enzymaktivitäten in Thrombozyten entwickelt und optimiert. Zur Justierung der Enzymaktivitäten bei unbekannter Mitochondrienmenge diente die Aktivität der ausschließlich in Mitochondrien vorkommenden Citratsynthase. Die so bestimmten Enzymaktivitäten wurden mittels SPSS zwischen Wilson-Patient*innen und Kontrollproband*innen verglichen und untereinander sowie mit dem Serum-Kupferspiegel auf Zusammenhänge untersucht. Ferner wurden die Morbus Wilson-Patient*innen klinisch auf Anzeichen für Myeloneuropathien untersucht, um die Untersuchungsergebnisse anschließend auf einen Zusammenhang zu der Cytochrom-c-Oxidase-Aktivität zu prüfen. Ergebnisse: Der auf den Untersuchungen von Kirby et al. beruhende Assay für die spektralphotometrische Bestimmung der Cytochrom-c-Oxidase-Aktivität in isolierten Mitochondrien konnte durch die Zugabe von 0,3 mM Dodecylmaltosid für die Messung in Thrombozyten erfolgreich optimiert werden. Ebenso wurde der Assay für die Komplex-II-Aktivität durch die Zugabe von 1 mg/ml BSA für die Bestimmung in Thrombozyten erweitert (Kirby et al., 2007). Die Aktivität der Cytochrom-c-Oxidase der Wilson-Patient*innen war signifikant niedriger als die der Kontrollgruppe, während die Kontrollgruppe eine signifikant höhere Komplex-II-Aktivität aufwies. Der Quotient von Cytochrom-c-Oxidase-Aktivität und Komplex-II-Aktivität war in der Patient*innengruppe folglich ebenfalls signifikant erniedrigt. In der Analyse aller untersuchten Proben zeigte sich ein signifikanter Zusammenhang zwischen Serum-Kupferspiegel und Cytochrom-c-Oxidase-Aktivität, welcher in der Betrachtung der Subgruppen (Wilson Patient*innen und Kontrollproband*innen) jedoch nicht nachgewiesen werden konnte. Keiner der untersuchten Patient*innen wies klinische Anzeichen für Myeloneuropathien auf. Schlussfolgerung: Der optimierte Assay der Cytochrom-c-Oxidase-Aktivität und Komplex-II-Aktivität in Thrombozyten erlaubt die zuverlässige Bestimmung der Atmungskettenaktivität in einem einfach zugänglichen Gewebe und ist damit für vielfältige Fragestellungen einsetzbar, wenn Einflüsse medizinischer Maßnahmen auf die mitochondriale Funktion untersucht werden sollen. Mit 36 Morbus Wilson-Patient*innen umfasst diese Arbeit eine der bisher größten untersuchten Patient*innengruppen dieses seltenen Krankheitsbildes. Der erniedrigte Quotient der Cytochrom-c-Oxidase-Aktivität und Komplex-II-Aktivität ist als Bestätigung einer Cytochrom-c-Oxidase-Einschränkung bei Morbus Wilson-Patient*innen unter kupfersenkender Therapie zu werten. Die Korrelation zwischen dem Serum-Kupferspiegel und der Cytochrom-c-Oxidase-Aktivität sowie die Aktivitätsreduktion der Cytochrom-c-Oxidase in der Patient*innengruppe ist eine wichtige Erkenntnis für die zukünftige Überwachung und gegebenenfalls Anpassung der Therapie von Morbus Wilson. Der Zusammenhang zwischen der Cytochrom-c-Oxidase-Aktivität und Myeloneuropathien sollte an Patient*innen mit Myeloneuropathien weiter untersucht werden. Es wurde jedoch gezeigt, dass Kupfermangel und niedrige Cytochrom-c-Oxidase-Aktivitäten nicht unbedingt mit Myeloneuropathien einhergehen. Therapie-induzierte Kupfermangel-Myeloneuropathien gilt es weiterhin zu vermeiden. / Background: Wilson’s disease is a rare, congenital disorder of copper metabolism, which leads to accumulations of copper and consequent damage in various organs of the human body. The therapy consists mainly in lowering the copper level by medication. In individual cases, the copper level was lowered during the therapy to such an extent that the patients developed neurological symptoms (so-called copper deficiency myeloneuropathies). Copper is an essential cofactor of several enzymes in the human body, including cytochrome c oxidase, which is an important component of the mitochondrial respiratory chain and thus of cellular energy production. The determination of its activity has been established so far for various cells and tissues, but a standardized assay for its determination in platelets does not exist. Purpose: For the optimal determination of cytochrome c oxidase activity in platelets, existing methods will be adapted. The aim of this work is to investigate the activity of cytochrome c oxidase in Wilson’s disease patients under copper-lowering therapy and to test for a correlation to serum copper levels. The question of whether excessive copper lowering by Wilson’s disease therapy leads to reduced cytochrome c oxidase activity and whether this possibly causes myeloneuropathies will thus be answered. Material and Methods: 36 Wilson’s disease patients under copper-lowering therapy and 20 healthy control subjects were studied. Blood was drawn for platelet collection and determination of serum copper levels. The activity of cytochrome c oxidase was determined spectrophotometrically in platelets. Furthermore, the activity of complex II of the respiratory chain was determined, since this is not copper-dependent and its activity should therefore not be limited in copper deficiency. In addition, calculation of the quotient of cytochrome c oxidase activity and complex II activity allowed detection of very low activity limitations of cytochrome c oxidase. In this dissertation, the spectrophotometric measurement of these two enzyme activities in platelets was developed and optimized. The activity of citrate synthase, which occurs exclusively in mitochondria, was used to adjust the enzyme activities when amount of mitochondria was unknown. The enzyme activities determined in this way were compared between Wilson’s disease patients and control subjects using SPSS and examined for correlations with each other and with serum copper levels. Furthermore, the Wilson’s disease patients were clinically examined for signs of myeloneuropathies, in order to subsequently examine the examination results for a correlation to the cytochrome c oxidase activity. Results: The assay for spectrophotometric determination of cytochrome c oxidase activity in isolated mitochondria, based on studies of Kirby et al, was successfully optimized for measurement in platelets by the addition of 0.3 mM dodecylmaltoside. Similarly, the assay for complex II activity was enhanced by the addition of 1 mg/ml BSA for determination in platelets (Kirby et al., 2007). The activity of cytochrome c oxidase of Wilson patients was significantly lower than that of the control group, with the control group had a significantly higher complex II activity. Consequently, the quotient of cytochrome c oxidase activity and complex II activity was also significantly lower in the Wilson patient group. A significant correlation between serum copper level and cytochrome c oxidase activity was found in the analysis of all samples examined, which, however, could not be proven in the examination of the subgroups (Wilson patients and control subjects). None of the patients examined showed clinical signs of myeloneuropathies. Conclusion: The optimized assay of cytochrome c oxidase activity and complex II activity in platelets allows reliable determination of respiratory chain activity in an easily accessible tissue and is thus applicable to a variety of questions when influences of medical interventions on mitochondrial function are to be investigated. With 36 Wilson's disease patients, this work includes one of the largest groups of patients of this rare disease studied so far. The decreased quotient of cytochrome c oxidase activity and complex II activity is a confirmation of cytochrome c oxidase impairment in Wilson’s disease patients on copper-lowering therapy. The correlation between serum copper level and cytochrome c oxidase activity as well as the reduction of cytochrome c oxidase activity in the patient group is an important finding for future monitoring and, if necessary, adjustment of Wilson’s disease therapy. The relationship between cytochrome c oxidase activity and myeloneuropathies should be further investigated in patients with myeloneuropathies. However, it has been shown that copper deficiency and low cytochrome c oxidase activities are not necessarily associated with myeloneuropathies. Therapy-induced copper deficiency myeloneuropathies should continue to be avoided.

This dissertation argues that Anglophone writers across the nineteenth-century Atlantic World can be seen trying to represent specific natural worlds as intentionally produced by the cultural practices of Indigenous or African Diasporic people. The case studies that support this argument include the work of Anne Wollstonecraft, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Gilbert Wilson, and they respectively travel from the plantation worlds of Matanzas, Cuba amidst the island’s “sugar revolution,” New England river wetlands but especially the unrelenting persistence of swamps, desert island archipelagos in the Pacific just before the Guano Wars, and the upper Missouri River basin beds increasingly enclosed by United States military installations. Reading each writer’s representation of these natural and social worlds through the framework of ‘land management,’ this thesis proposes a way of registering and tracing their shared attempt to discern practices that all center around the reproduction of ‘natural variation.’ It contends that these nineteenth-century attempts to observe, speculate, or imagine instances of natural variation, each as a product of Indigenous or African Diasporic land management practices be read as a form of poetics, which this dissertation defines as the rhetorical appropriation and reconfiguration of previous modes of discourse (as opposed to an idea of raw innovation). Here, Wollstonecraft, Hawthorne, Melville, and Wilson each renegotiate the colonial justification narrative, official orders of natural history, the perspective of the travel log, and early ethnographic anthropology, in order to represent myriad relationships between natural resilience and subaltern ‘survivance,’ the convergence of which this dissertation ultimately names ‘endurance.’ Finally, we might think of each renegotiation as itself a form of ‘management’ by which these writers respectively highlight their understanding of literature’s role in empire, but do so, in the hopes of rerouting this relay so that representations of nature come to include the role of cultural practices of land management. This archive of ‘endurance’ might be read, then, as the result of disparate authors who all nevertheless believe that literary work might actually help restore and sustain cultural and environmental realities.

In dieser Arbeit praesentieren wir Resultate der topologischen Suszeptibilitaet “chi” und untersuchen die Faktorisierung der reinen SU(N) Yang-Mills Eichtheorie im 't Hooft'schen Grenzwert grosser N. Ein entscheidender Teil der Berechnung von chi in der Gittereichtheorie ist die Abschaetzung des topologischen Ladungsdichtekorrelators, die durch ein schlechtes Signal-Rausch- Verhaeltnis beeintraechtigt ist. Um dieses Problem abzuschwaechen, fuehren wir einen neuen, auf einem mehrstufigen Vorgehen beruhenden Algorithmus ein, um die Korrelationsfunktion von Observablen zu berechnen, die mit dem Yang-Mills Gradientenfluss geglaettet wurden. Angewandt auf unsere Observablen, erhalten wir Ergebnisse, deren Fehlerskalierung besser ist, als die von herkoemmlichen Monte-Carlo Simulationen. Wir bestimmen die topologische Suszeptibilitaet in der reinen Yang-Mills Eichtheorie fuer Eichgruppen mit N = 4,5,6 und drei verschiedenen Gitterabstaenden. Um das Einfrieren der Topologie zu umgehen, wenden wir offene Randbedingungen an. Zusaetzlich wenden wir die korrekte Definition der topologischen Ladungsdichte durch den Gradientenfluss an. Unser Endresultat im des Grenzfalls von grossen N repraesentiert eine neue Qualitaet in der Verifikation der Witten-Veneziano Formel. Schliesslich benutzen wir die Gitterformulierung, um die Erwartungswertfaktorisierung des Produkts eichinvarianter Operatoren im Grenzwert grosser N zu verifizieren. Wir arbeiten mit durch den Yang-Mills Grandientenfluss geglaetteten Wilsonschleifen und Simulationen bis zur Eichgruppe SU(8). Die Extrapolationen zu grossen N sind in Ueberstimmung mit der Faktorisierung sowohl fuer endlichen Gitterabstand als auch in Kontinnumslimes. Unsere Daten erlauben uns nicht nur die Verifizierung der Faktorisierung, sondern auch einen hochpraezisen Test des 1/N Skalierungsverhaltens. Hier konnten wir das quadratische Skalierungsverhalten in 1/N finden, welches von 't Hooft vorhergesagt wurde. / In this thesis we present results for the topological susceptibility “chi”, and investigate the property of factorization in the 't Hooft large N limit of SU(N) pure Yang-Mills gauge theory. A key component in the lattice gauge theory computation of chi is the estimation of the topological charge density correlator, which is affected by a severe signal to noise problem. To alleviate this problem, we introduce a novel algorithm that uses a multilevel type approach to compute the correlation function of observables smoothed with the Yang-Mills gradient flow. When applied to our observables, the results show an scaling of the error which is better than the one of standard Monte-Carlo simulations. We compute the topological susceptibility in the pure Yang-Mills gauge theory for the gauge groups with N = 4, 5, 6 and three different lattice spacings. In order to deal with the freezing of topology, we use open boundary conditions. In addition, we employ the theoretically sound definition of the topological charge density through the gradient flow. Our final result in the limit N to infinity, represents a new quality in the verification of the Witten-Veneziano formula. Lastly, we use the lattice formulation to verify the factorization of the expectation value of the product of gauge invariant operators in the large N limit. We work with Wilson loops smoothed with the Yang-Mills gradient flow and simulations up to the gauge group SU(8). The large N extrapolations at finite lattice spacing and in the continuum are compatible with factorization. Our data allow us not only to verify factorization, but also to test the 1/N scaling up to very high precision, where we find it to agree very well with a quadratic series in 1/N as predicted originally by 't Hooft for the case of the pure Yang-Mills gauge theory.