VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Quantum chemistry for solvated molecules and electronic excited states on graphical processing units [electronic resource]
Keywords: Chemistry.

This dissertation utilizes general-purpose graphical processing units (GPGPUs) to accelerate quantum chemistry computations for solvated molecules and molecules in electronic excited states. Most chemical and biological processes happen in the solution phase. However, the application of solvent models in quantum chemistry calculation of large biomolecular system is limited by the CPU computation bottleneck. In this work, we will first show our techniques to accelerate the Conductlike Polariable Continuum Models (C-PCM) at the Hartree-Fock and DFT level of theory. Then the machinery is extended to solvated molecules at electronic excited state described with time dependent density functional theory (TDDFT), with both the state-specific and linear-response approaches. Simulation of photochemistry usually involves multiple electronic states and propagation of the nuclear wavefunction on potential energy surfaces, especially near conical intersections. This requires the electronic structure methods used to be (1) able to describe multiple states in a balanced way; (2) efficient enough for the thousands of energy and gradient computations required in molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. We derived and efficiently implemented the analytical gradient of State-Interaction State-Averaged Restricted Ensemble Averaged Kohn Sham (SI-SA-REKS) method, which is an alternative to high-level multireference wavefunction based methods, thus enabling excited state MD study of larger molecules. Finally we will demonstrate an efficient computational workflow for accurately reproducing and predicting redox potential of quinones, using our GPU accelerated PCM method.
Quantum tunneling and spontaneous baryogenesis in the relaxion model
Keywords:  Department of Physics
quantum tunneling
relaxion
baryogenesis
cosmological relaxation
electroweak hierarchy
Thesis

The Cosmological Relaxation mechanism is proposed as an alternative solution to the Electroweak Hierarchy Problem, where the mass of the Higgs boson is dynamically relaxed to its current value of 125 GeV through its interaction with the relaxion -- a hypothetical scalar particle which lies beyond the Standard Model -- in the early universe. So far, many of the theoretical implications of this model remain to be investigated. In this work we present the analytic calculations of quantum tunneling rate of the relaxion in a corrugated potential with growing sinusoidal barriers. We find that the tunneling rate is parametrically suppressed so that quantum tunneling effectively stops shortly after the electroweak phase transition. We also derive the baryon-to-entropy ratio generated by spontaneous baryogenesis from the slow-roll of the relaxion along its potential after reheating. We find that the minimal QCD relaxion model generates slightly insufficient baryon asymmetry and discuss several approaches to improve its agreement with the experimental values.
Ratcheting, competition, and the diffusion of technological change [electronic resource] : the case of televisions under an energy efficiency program
Keywords: Business.

The study of the diffusion of innovation and technological change enjoys a long tradition in marketing and often places an emphasis on the role of consumer adoption. Complementing this process of diffusion are firms, which differentiate in the extent to which they provision technological change in their products. In markets with societal implications or externalities, policy is implemented to avoid the under provision of innovation. Firms have clear incentives to engage in strategic behavior in such markets because policymakers use market outcomes as a benchmark in designing regulation. This study examines a unique energy efficiency standard for television sets, under which future minimum efficiency standards are explicitly a function of current product offerings. The setting illustrates firms' dual incentives at work: Depending on the competitive environment, they have strategic incentives to both ratchet up, and ratchet down, the quality of their product offerings in order to influence future standards. These incentives affect the pace at which innovation reaches consumers. I develop and estimate a structural model of product entry and endogenous regulation to illustrate how such dynamic standards affect product release decisions, consumer purchases, and the competitive environment. My analysis provides evidence that firms are more likely to ratchet down quality when they have similar cost structures or when the market is concentrated.
"Real people, real events" [electronic resource] : actuality and mass politics in Maoist documentary cinema
Keywords: Art and Art History.

Documentary filmmaking in Mao's China involved intricate and often unpredictable negotiations between the reporting of historical facts and the transmission of ideological messages, as well as between interpreting the world and changing it. As a study of Chinese documentarian practice during the 1950s and 60s, this dissertation will illuminate how its representations and transformations of lived reality reflected broader societal tensions. The political salience of Mao-era documentary cinema, I contend, can be thrown into relief by following how the terms of debate over its engagement with social reality were successively revised against a shifting ideological and technological terrain. The first half of this study interrogates the decisive critical concept of zhenshixing (truthfulness, authenticity), concentrating on the contest over creative and organizational agency that hung in the balance amidst 1950s disputes concerning how filmmakers should and should not go about addressing themselves to "real people, real events". The second half of my project then turns to the textual analysis of key motion pictures released at the onset of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution: the nuclear test film Great Triumph of Mao Zedong Thought (1966) and the documentary series celebrating the historic Red Guard rallies in Beijing (1966-67). I show how the imagery and aesthetic choices found in these cinematic works point to contending visions of social mobilization and political subjectivity, visions that called into question prior media production arrangements and espoused new logics of form, giving expression to essential conflicts between anarchic mass-political exuberance and the grey rationality of technocratic control. This dissertation reveals the surprising theoretical depth and formal innovativeness of a cinematic corpus that has been dismissed as dogmatic and devoid of aesthetic interest. Moreover, it brings into focus what was productively aberrant and exceptional about Cultural Revolution culture, underscoring fractures and scissions in Mao-era documentary cinema, as reframed in terms of a "politicizing of art" deeply indebted to Maoist notions of truth and aesthetic production, representation and reality, knowing and doing.
Reason-product (in)compatibility [electronic resource] : implications of consumer reasoning for post-choice satisfaction
Keywords: Business.

This dissertation challenges and extends longstanding research on the topic of deliberative reasoning in consumer choice, a decision strategy whereby consumers carefully consider or articulate their arguments for or against making a choice. This literature has accepted that such reasoning (versus not reasoning) leads to less satisfying choices. I argue that this view is too narrow. Instead, I propose that reasoning does not lead to reduced satisfaction as a rule, but rather as a function of a mismatch between the content of consumers' reasons and the types of products under their consideration. I refer to this as "reason-product (in)compatibility." This framework proposes that deliberative consumer reasoning includes two broad types: reasoning which relies on "cognition-based" reasons, grounded in defensible evaluations and beliefs; and reasoning which relies on "affect-based" reasons, grounded in feelings and emotional reactions. In hedonic product choice contexts, only cognition-based reasoning leads to reduced satisfaction, while in utilitarian contexts, only affect-based reasoning leads to reduced satisfaction. The mechanism behind these results is a change in consumers' choice behavior: the type of reasoning (cognition- or affect-based) influences how consumer evaluate their options, and ultimately, what kind of product they choose (utilitarian or hedonic). Thus, deliberative reasoning appears to lead to less satisfying choices not as a rule, but rather as a result of when the reasons and products are incompatible. By contrast, when reasons and products are compatible, deliberative reasoning does not reduce post-choice satisfaction. I note that much of the extant literature has focused only on the effect of relying on cognition-based reasoning in hedonic contexts. I confirm these patterns of results both in surveys of real world purchase retrospections, and in experimental studies. Finally, I cover the contributions of the work, identify and address alternative accounts and limitations, and outline future research directions.
Re-centering C-Pop: The Sinification of K-pop through Cultural Hybridity, Mimicry, and Gender Bending
Keywords:  Stanford Global Studies
Center for East Asian Studies
C-pop
K-pop
East Asian Pop Culture
Thesis

This thesis tells the story of the development of a new form of contemporary mainland Chinese C-pop that has been created through mimicry, cultural hybridization, and gender-bending. K-pop has had a strong influence in the creation of this new form, but C-pop is uniquely Chinese in that the performers are Chinese and sing in Chinese, and their efforts are supported by the Chinese government. Chapter 1 introduces the background of K-pop in China, explains the structure of the K-pop industry, and explains the concept of mimicry, which is a key theoretical concept in this thesis. Chapter 2 examines the popularity of K-pop in China using data from Chinese social media and news outlets, analyzes why K-pop is popular, and addresses the sentiments of anti-fans. Chapter 3 focuses on FFC-Acrush, a new mainland Chinese C-pop group, which demonstrate how Chinese “boy bands” are mimicking and hybridizing K-pop, creating a new form of music in the third space. This chapter will provide a visual analysis of how FFC-Acrush is similar to and distinguished from Korean K-pop, particularly in the way that gender is performed. Chapter 4 investigates the high-level actors who affect the reception of K-pop and C-pop in China, namely the Chinese state and entertainment companies, and analyzes their motives for and means of emulating South Korea, featuring another the C-pop group, TFBOYS, as an example. The conclusion assesses whether or not China can become a center of ‘cool’ and provides concluding remarks.
Recruiting for Excellence: International Hiring and Enrollment in Recent Russian Higher Education Reforms
Keywords:  Center for Russian
international higher education
higher education
Russian higher education
internationalization
Russian universities
Stanford Global Studies
Center for Russian
East European
and Eurasian Studies
Thesis

Higher education has increasingly become a marker of national prestige, as well as a key instrument of national development. In the past 15 years, developing and developed countries alike have engaged in a series of “excellence initiatives” to pump money into higher education institutions. China, France, Germany, and Russia have all introduced these excellence initiatives as a critical step toward “world-class” status. Higher education reform has been an ongoing project in Russia in the past ten years, as the country strived to overcome setbacks in academia following the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 2009, the state invested in 40 universities as a means of creating world class research institutions across the country. Like most countries, Russia has now turned toward world university rankings as a guide to gauge its global success, which are based on a series of metrics, including publications, collaborations, and the recruitment of foreign scholars and students.
This research focuses specifically on internationalization and recruitment efforts at a funded public university, a private university, and a state technical institution, to better understand the differing motives of recruitment. Institutions included in the 5-100 Project are assisted by the government, and so have the largest incentive to recruit internationally. All the same, public institutions throughout the country are governed by nationwide monitoring, although their recruitment occurs at a much more “grassroots” level because they are not provided any special budget. By promoting internationalization across the spectrum, Russia seeks to improve its brand and reputation around the world and expand its reach to students beyond developing countries, in addition to creating a competitive economic good. However, the effect of disproportionately investing in one university over another remains an issue in how higher education reforms are structured, not only in Russia but internationally. The study also examines the impact of implementing reforms quickly on individuals who are recruited by these universities, both to study and teach.
Redundancy and awareness in discourse [electronic resource]
Keywords: Linguistics.

Rational speakers should not be redundant. This is a view on language use that is both widely held and intuitively compelling. It is also wrong. This dissertation shows that speakers routinely produce redundant utterances and explores the reasons why they do so. In particular, it focuses on rational motivations for redundancy as they relate to a speaker's desire to raise a listener's awareness of or draw a listener's attention to some issue. At a high level, this dissertation demonstrates that the models standardly assumed by linguists for modelling discourse are insufficient to make sense of the full range of functions that language use serves. These models typically make the idealizing assumptions that all speakers and listeners have perfect memories, are fully rational, and are logically omniscient. The arguments in the following pages show the necessity of thinking of linguistic discourse in a more nuanced way. This more elaborate model of discourse recognizes that speakers are well aware of the cognitive limitations of their interlocutors, but also that they have well-developed strategies to deal with such limitations.
Regulation of calcineurin through interactions at a critical substrate binding site [electronic resource]
Keywords: Biology.

Cells respond to changing conditions by communicating through signal transduction pathways. Calcineurin, the Ca2+/calmodulin-activated serine/threonine protein phosphatase, mediates the cellular response to Ca2+ by regulating phosphorylation in diverse cellular contexts. Calcineurin plays key roles in development, neuronal signaling, and immunity by targeting a variety of substrates. Calcineurin substrates contain conserved motifs that bind to docking sites on the surface of the enzyme and contribute to substrate specificity. Our studies reveal that these docking surfaces are important not only for substrate recognition, but are vital for substrate engagement and positioning, and their accessibility is a requirement for functional dephosphorylation. We present research that defines one such surface, the LxVP docking pocket. Additionally, we elucidate the mechanism of inhibition by the viral protein inhibitor A238L, which inhibits calcineurin by occupying both critical substrate recognition sites while leaving the catalytic center fully accessible. Finally, we investigate the calcineurin variant CNbeta1, and discover the distinct molecular strategy by which autoinhibition and activation occurs in this isozyme. This work contributes to our knowledge of calcineurin regulation and substrate recognition, and lays the groundwork for understanding the complex signal transduction networks controlled by this important phosphatase.
Regulation of the INO80 chromatin remodeling complex in response to TORC1 inhibition
Keywords:  Department of Biology
Biology
chromatin
signaling pathway
TOR
cell metabolism
Thesis

Eukaryotic cells have large genomes that are tightly wrapped around protein cores called histones to fit in the small nuclear compartment. However, cells also need chromatin remodeling complexes to unwind the genetic material. The yeast INO80 chromatin remodeling complex regulates the expression of genes that are involved in metabolic pathways, such as glycolysis and oxidative phosphorylation. Broadly, this research considers the relationship between the metabolism of the cell and the activity of chromatin modifying enzymes. Specifically, this research was designed to elucidate the regulation of the INO80 chromatin remodeling complex in response to nutrient stress in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. In particular, we focused on the TOR signaling pathway, which is a nutrient-responsive regulator of cell growth. Previous studies found that treatment with rapamycin or depletion of amino acids, both of which reduce TORC1 activity in the pathway, caused degradation of Ino80, the catalytic core of the INO80 complex. However, it is unknown if this also disrupts the stability of other subunits of the INO80 complex. Using Western blot analysis of epitope-tagged proteins, we analyzed the stability of the INO80 complex subunits in response to TORC1 inhibition. We find that rapamycin treatment results in specific degradation of Ino80 but no other subunits. In addition, we replicated an assay to track TORC1 activity. This study contributes to our understanding of the response of chromatin remodelers under nutrient stress, a cellular condition that can be found in disease like diabetes and cancer.
Residents’ struggles continue as officials learned their lessons from San Jose flood
Keywords:  Department of Communication
San Jose Flood
100-year flood
City of San Jose
Santa Clara Valley Water District
Clean-Up
Department of Communication
MA Thesis
Journalism
Thesis

Four months after a major flood hit the city of San Jose, many residents are still struggling to get back in their homes, get their cars replaced, or mentally recover from the flood's impacts. While city and water district officials have learned their lessons in disaster preparation, crisis communication, and managing recovery efforts, some residents still live with friends or family members, or in hotels and temporary apartments.
The flood led to the evacuation of 14,000 people, with 1,400 of them directly affected by temporary displacement or other damages to private and/or business properties. This story and accompanying video takes a closer look at how residents are dealing with the situation. It also examines the role of the Santa Clara Valley Water District and city officials of San Jose.
Revenue management with side information [electronic resource]
Keywords: Business.

Companies launch new products periodically without accurate prior knowledge of the true demand. One method to learn the demand function is price experimentation, where companies adaptively modify prices to learn the hidden demand function and use that to estimate the revenue-maximizing price. Nevertheless, proper price experimentation is a challenging problem due to the potential revenue loss during the learning horizon that can be substantially large. In fact, optimally balancing the trade-off between randomly selecting prices to expedite the learning versus selecting prices that maximize the expected earning has been subject of recent research in the operations management literature. A generic problem is to consider that a firm sells products over multiple periods without knowing the demand function. The firm sequentially sets prices to earn revenue and to learn the underlying demand function simultaneously. We establish a model to illustrate that this problem is closely related with bandits problem, which is a specific case of reinforcement learning. In addition, with accumulated data assisting to predict the true demand function, the price experimentation policy has some surprising feature. We demonstrate that, under certain conditions in the rich data environment, the challenging price experimentation problem could be solved by the ubiquitously used greedy pricing policy.
Revitalizing Public Life: Social Interaction in Seattle's Community Gardens
Keywords:  Department of Anthropology
anthropology
urban studies
sociology
community gardening
seattle
Thesis

Sociologist Robert Putnam, in his classic work Bowling Alone, describes how the retreat from public life has become a problem in large cities. With Putnam’s ideas in mind, this thesis investigates social life in Seattle’s community gardens. Gardens promote urban public life through engaging a diverse array of participants, gardeners struggle to navigate the program’s rules related to its two, sometimes contradictory, goals: inclusion and community creation. While much has been written about community gardens, there is an ethnographic gap in which scholars have not learned closely from the gardeners themselves. To address this gap, I studied four garden sites using participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and informal conversation. Interacting with gardeners, I learned how they relate to each other through the shared experience of gardening as well as organizing against a common enemy manifested as vandalism and theft by non-gardeners. My findings pose questions such as: Why should local government prioritize creating programs that engage people in public space? How does a group strike a balance between inclusion of all and cohesion of some? How can public spaces best serve the full range of residents? This thesis concludes with a discussion of how Seattle’s community gardening program is one of many initiatives through which Seattle models local progressivism directly in conflict with national political and economic trends.