VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Analysis of wide neural networks : insights from linearized models
Keywords: Electrical Engineering.

In this thesis, we study two linearized approximations to neural networks: Random Feature model (RF) and Neural Tangent Model (NT). For two-layer neural networks (NN), we prove the existence of a performance gap between NN and these approximations under two simple data distribution models. We show that this gap in performance stems from the fact that, unlike NT and RF, NN learns efficient representations of the target function. In the second part of this thesis, we study the approximation power of NT and RF in high dimensions. We show that when the features are uniformly distributed on the sphere, these models can only fit surprisingly simple polynomial functions to the data. In the end, we examine the generalization behavior of these approximations in high dimensions. We show that in order to learn anything beyond low-degree polynomial functions, these approximate networks require extremely large number of training data points. Our results suggest that, while these approximations might perform well in various applications, they do not sufficiently capture the full power of neural networks
Andre Breton and the modern art of collecting
Keywords: Art and Art History.

While André Breton's (1896-1966) literary contributions to Surrealism have long been recognized within scholarship, his multifaceted collecting practices have generally been overlooked. Over the course of his career, Breton would assemble a private collection that consisted of more than 10,000 diverse and multivalent objects within his atelier at 42 rue Fontaine, where he lived for more than forty years. My dissertation, "André Breton and the Modern Art of Collecting, " adjusts the terms by which Breton is traditionally understood by tracing the evolution of his personal collection and his activities as a collector, beginning with his leadership of the Surrealist movement in the 1920s and 1930s; through his relationship during World War II with anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss; and culminating with Breton's imagined exploratory "voyage" around his densely packed atelier in 1966. Collecting—as an aesthetic practice, a set of material processes, and a method—emerges as a principal lens through which to interpret Breton's vital and interrelated activities as a poet, critic, curator, and creator of objects. Drawing from unpublished archival material and supported by object-based research and literary analysis, this study offers new ways to understand the role of collecting within Breton's creative production, Surrealism, and, by extension, the historical avant-garde
A’ole TMT: Environmental Justice and Indigenous Resistance in Hawaiʻi
Keywords: Environmental justice
Indigenous Rights
Hawaii
Text
Thesis

Lilli Carlsen’s capstone project provides a human rights centered analysis on the Aʻole TMT movement led by Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) in opposition to the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on Mauna Kea, the tallest mountain on the big island of Hawaiʻi. Through a multifaceted analysis, Lilli demonstrates how this current struggle touches on a myriad of topics including scientific progress, cultural revitalization, and settler colonialism. Furthermore, she asserts Kanaka Maoli are not protesting TMT, they are protesting the construction of TMT on their sacred mountain and, by doing so, they are continuing a long history of Native Hawaiian resistance to settler colonialism. Lilli hopes to demonstrate the ways in which the A’ole TMT movement connects to the larger Hawaiian sovereignty movement and highlights a unique way that environmental justice can intersect with indigenous rights activism on Hawai’i.
Applications of large-scale and high-resolution topographic data in tectonic geomorphology
Keywords: Geological Sciences.

Many discoveries in geomorphology have been driven by new platforms for acquiring elevation data and new methods for measuring landscape characteristics and change in these datasets over the past two decades. This dissertation addresses three problems: detecting and measuring attributes of tectonic landforms in elevation data at scale, filtering point clouds to improve representations of the ground surface, and detecting change due to near-surface deformation in high-resolution datasets. It uses two sources of "big data" common in tectonic geomorphology: regional-scale, airborne light detection and ranging (lidar) data and small footprint, ultra-high density photogrammetric data. Geomorphic indicators of faulting, such as fault scarps and topographic lineaments, provide important evidence of fault zone extent, maturity, and activity beyond the observational timescales of instrumental or historical data. In Chapter 1, a template matching method to detect tectonic landforms including earthquake fault scarps is developed and applied at scale to a regional lidar dataset imaging over 2500 square kilometers of the northern San Andreas fault system. The method is evaluated against field-based morphologic dating and improvements to semi-automated fault mapping methods are discussed. Chapter 2 focuses on classification of ground and vegetation points, an important prerequisite to mapping landforms or measuring topographic change. Color-based classification and a multi-scale curvature method using relative height are combined to efficiently classify point clouds, exploiting the color attributes of these data. The new method captures rills, small channels, and tree fall in a photogrammetric dataset that are not visible in lidar data and produces consistent elevation models and topographic derivatives from each data source. Change detection applied to pre- and post-event elevation data has recently enabled inversions of shallow slip in large, surface-rupturing earthquakes. Chapter 3 systematically explores how subtle displacements due to near-surface deformation might be resolved by applying these techniques to photogrammetric data. A series of synthetic experiments is performed by deforming photogrammetric point clouds according to an elastic dislocation model and measuring the resulting displacements. The results indicate a minimum of 0.5 m of dip slip (1-2 m strike slip) is resolved at 100 m depth, consistent with the baseline variability of these data. They also document a survey-specific horizontal bias at large window sizes that provides important information for future applications, especially imaging of strike-slip earthquakes or propagating sills. Potential improvements to the level of detection using a higher frequency time series of displacements are discussed
Archaeology of austerity : the effects of the economic crisis on heritage in Greece
Keywords: Nanoglou, Stratos degree committee member.
Anthropology.

Greece's identity is inseparable from its archaeological heritage. The legacy of western civilization feeds this identity, which is bolstered by classical archaeology and the tourism industry. Since the start of the global financial crisis, the emblems of ancient history have been deployed by politicians, news outlets, and others to bring recognition to the problems of the country in an attempt to create either international solidarity with the Greek people or outline their transgressions and misappropriations (Hamilakis 2016; Hanink 2017; Plantzos 2012). The expense of preserving archaeological sites and managing museums has become a drain on the government's already crippled budget. The failing financial situation has placed the security of artifacts at risk, witnessed by museum robberies and the looting of artifacts at undocumented sites (Howery 2013). Recognizing the socio-political use of heritage during the economic crisis, I demonstrate the ways archaeology is expected to operate for the good of the nation, which keeps intact the main ideological premise along with its guiding strategies and policies. My fieldwork is based upon a grounded ethnography focused on the significance of archaeological heritage sites and shows the alienation of the people who are expected to connect to them. I analyze the infrastructure that produces sites, the nature of assumptions regarding archaeology, and the perspectives of residents with respect to their nationally defined heritage. In addition to this qualitative research, I examine the income and expenditures amassed within the heritage industry to determine the socio-economic impact of archaeology. This crucial juncture of crises has the potential to induce a transformation for the improvement of the organization, management, and practice of archaeology
The art of not governing : local politics in postwar Lebanon
Keywords: Political Science.

This dissertation examines how local government institutions reinforce or undermine the stability of predatory democracies -- regimes where free and fair elections coincide with high levels of elite rent-seeking and non-inclusive social policies. It focuses on one type of predatory democracy, the party cartel system. In party cartel systems, dominant political factions form a pact following elections with the aim of eliminating competition in subsequent electoral cycles. Like most predatory democratic regimes, such systems inevitably invite outside challengers to run for office and overthrow the cartel. In Lebanon and elsewhere, however, party cartels often enjoy remarkable resilience even while enacting unpopular policies. The dissertation argues that local governments constitute key institutions upon which party cartels rely to reinforce their power. The dissertation provides evidence for these claims through a single-country study of Lebanon, where a post-war party cartel oversaw extraordinarily high levels of elite predation and low levels of welfare provision. It relies on local electoral data; an original municipal elite survey conducted after the latest local elections; a national survey conducted before and during the 2019-20 protests; and 142 interviews collected during 2016-2020 fieldwork in Lebanon. The analysis combines large-N statistical analysis of local elections and governance outcomes with comparative analysis of a smaller set of municipal case studies. Three key findings emerge. First, the Lebanese civil war constituted a formative period during which members of the soon-to-be party cartel began coopting local government institutions. This process occurred unevenly, and was only partially complete by the end of the war. Following the war's end, party cartel members gradually began to consolidate control over municipalities, uniting to compete against vestiges of the pre-war elite class. Crucial to this process was the withholding of public goods from competitive municipalities and rewarding of them to loyal cartel strongholds. Finally, because the spread of cartel control over municipalities across Lebanon gradually extinguished electoral opposition, the cartel inadvertently laid the groundwork for more contentious, extra-electoral mobilization, culminating in protests that began in October 2019
Aspects of the half-filled Landau level
Keywords: Physics.

This thesis examines the paradigmatic integer quantum Hall to insulator transition (IQHIT) from the perspective of composite-fermions. A treatment of the disorder faithful to the flux attachment constraint is shown to be crucial in obtaining a composite-fermion description of this quantum critical point and explaining the phenomenology. The disorder in composite-fermion coordinates is a combination of flux and potential disorders. In the simplest mean-field approximation, these two are proportional in space leading to a Hamiltonian analogous to a spin-1/2 in a random magnetic field with a Zeeman term that has a gyromagnetic ratio of g = 2. The breaking of average time-reversal symmetry by such a disorder is shown to be of critical importance. Using this approach, we show how the traditional Halperin-Lee-Read theory of the half-filled Landau level can be consistent with the particle-hole symmetry either with or without disorder. For the former, a reinterpretation of the IQHIT in electron coordinates between the filling fractions ν = 1 and ν = 0 in terms of a transition between the composite-fermion filling fractions ν_cf = −1 and ν_cf = 0 is crucial. Further, this suggests that the IQHIT is self-dual under flux attachment with just a change of sign. We corroborate this using an effective field theory approach and numerical calculations of the critical properties at a mean-field level. Such a self-duality can be then used to obtain the universal critical resistivity tensor. Going beyond the mean-field theory, we study the leading effects of gauge fluctuations. We find that the experimentally observed dynamical scaling exponent of z = 1 can be obtained from the gapless plasmon modes due to the finite conductivity at the critical point. The characteristic scale of this effect is shown to be similar to what's seen in the experiments. Further, by extending this theory to fractional quantum Hall transitions, we show how the Debye screening effects in the presence of Coulomb interactions can lead to an explanation for the conjectured superuniversality of quantum Hall transitions. Finally, we propose an RG-flow as suggested by a perturbative study in the gauge fluctuations and the inverse conductivity of composite-fermions
Assessing China's unconventional carbon pricing system
Keywords: Management Science and Engineering.

Currently, China is the world's largest emitter of CO2, accounting for about 28 percent of global emissions. At the time of this writing, China just announced that it aims to have CO2 emissions peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. Achieving this target requires dramatically reducing the reliance on fossil fuel. One of the biggest efforts China is planning is the nationwide carbon emissions trading system that has been piloted in several provinces since 2013. Once implemented, this system will become the world's largest emissions trading system. This dissertation assesses the economic impacts of China's forthcoming nationwide carbon emissions trading system. China's emissions trading system differs from a conventional cap and trade (C&T) system and a carbon tax, the carbon pricing instruments used elsewhere. This nation will employ a tradable performance standard (TPS). A key property of TPS is its rate-based allowance allocation approach. The rate-based approach makes TPS implicitly subsidize output as an implicit output subsidy, which has significant consequences for cost-effectiveness and distributional impacts. This dissertation aims at assessing the economic impacts of this unconventional emissions trading system. It considers the first phase of the system that covers only electricity sector and the second phase that covers electricity, cement and aluminum sectors, offering theoretical analysis and numerical simulations. In Chapter 2, with matching analytically and numerically solved models, we assess the cost-effectiveness and distributional impacts of China's forthcoming TPS for reducing CO2 emissions from the power sector. In Chapter 3, I extend the single-sector partial equilibrium model employed in Chapter 2 to a multi-sector general equilibrium model to examine the impacts of China's TPS across the whole economy. A general equilibrium model is also necessary for the assessments of China's TPS that potentially will be implemented in multiple sectors. In Chapter 4, I examine the impacts of market power on the cost-effectiveness of TPS and C&T. To the best of my knowledge, this chapter is the first study that focuses on the impacts of market power on a rate-based allowance trading system. I consider two types of market power: the market power in the carbon allowance market and the market power in the electricity market. I show how the two types of market power affect TPS and C&T differently
Assessing expertise in mechanical engineering design
Keywords: Beach, David W., degree supervisor.
Mechanical Engineering.

This work introduces a novel assessment of expertise in mechanical engineering design that is more authentic, complete, and scalable than current alternatives. Results from this assessment provide a repeatable measurement of a test-takers level of expertise in the discipline. In addition to providing an absolute measure of one's expertise, such an assessment also allows for quantified comparisons of the relative effectiveness of different educational experiences. Such comparisons can be used as feedback for teacher training to improve student outcomes. This is part of a larger effort to transform the perception of university teaching as a disciplinary expertise that can be measured and quantifiably improved. A course planned around authentic expert decision making in mechanical engineering design was developed. Students of that course were provided the opportunity to refine their command of this set of expert decisions in ways that are consistent with industry practice. The student outcomes, as measured by this novel assessment, show dramatic improvement when compared with the outcomes of conventional university courses
Assessing the impact of residential buildings heating electrification on future electric loads and grid capacity requirements in California
Keywords: Energy Resources Engineering Department
School of Earth Energy &amp; Environmental Sciences
Thesis

We study the impacts of residential heating electrification on 2030 and 2045 California electricity loads and grid capacity requirements, as California complies with increasing Renewable Portfolio Standards and emissions reductions targets. We first develop electricity demand scenarios that account for residential heating electrification through the adoption of a mix of electric heat pump and electric resistance heating technologies. We find that residential heating electrification greatly increases electricity demand (5.9-13.0% demand increase in 2030 and 9.8-21.5% in 2045), especially during the winter. Heating electrification and electric vehicle charging needs bring changes in diurnal load shapes, resulting in bimodal demand profiles with strong morning and evening demand peaks. We also find that California’s yearly electricity loads remain summer peaking driven by cooling needs, even under aggressive heating electrification assumptions of 90% of residential heating electrified by 2045. To assess electric grid impacts, we input our electricity demand scenarios into a California-wide capacity expansion and dispatch model to solve for a least-cost energy system in 2030 and 2045. Residential buildings heating electrification results in overall higher grid capacity requirements, annual system costs, storage needs as well as an increase in imports and associated emissions from out-of-state generation. Added electricity loads from heating electrification increase California’s reliance on electricity imports, which increases modelled CO2 emissions from electricity generation. Nevertheless, heating electrification could achieve net emissions savings of more than 15 MMt CO2 per year in 2030 and 26 MMt CO2 in 2045 through the elimination of on-site natural gas consumption. Our results highlight the challenges associated with the integration of winter heating loads in California’s future solar-dominated grid and the value of flexible low-carbon generation resources such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) in integrating additional loads from residential heating electrification.
Assessing the Range of Cognitive Processes in the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Examination (HKDSE)’s English Language Reading Literacy Test
Keywords: Cognitive processes
high-stakes testing
HKDSE
large-scale assessment
reading literacy
washback effect
Stanford Graduate School of Education International Education Policy Analysis
Thesis

This study examines the range of cognitive processes assessed in the English language reading literacy test as part of the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Examination (HKDSE), the secondary school exit test in Hong Kong. Prior studies have suggested that higher order cognitive processes are often undermined in high-stakes tests and classrooms, due to what is called the “washback effect.” This prompts the following hypothesis: despite its top-performing education system, Hong Kong has failed to provide a versatile collection of test items that involve complex reasoning. To investigate the cognitive demands of the test, as well as their relationship with student performance, this study maps the test items with reference to the cognitive levels assessed using in-depth document analysis. ANOVA is used to statistically determine differences in accuracy rates to supplement the analysis throughout. Results indicate that the test has placed an overwhelming emphasis on lower order cognitive processes over the past decade (2012–2019), and that items assessing higher order cognitive skills are, as expected, met with statistically significantly poorer performance in the test. Implications for future revision of the test and curriculum policy are discussed.
Asymptotic properties of some random evolutions and geometries
Keywords: Mathematics.

This thesis comprises two parts. The first part concerns asymptotic properties of the stochastic heat, Kardar--Parisi--Zhang, and Burgers equations, as well as the fractional parabolic Anderson model. We show several results about long-time behavior and scaling limits of these equations. The second part concerns the Liouville quantum gravity metric. We show the existence of subsequential scaling limits of two natural regularizations of this metric, in the first case at very high temperature and in the second case for all subcritical temperatures
Atomic layer deposition of multi-component catalyst systems for the oxygen evolution reaction
Keywords: Chemical Engineering.

Development of catalysts for the OER continues to be a research priority with the aim of improving the efficiency of electrochemical water splitting. One of the best classes of catalysts for the OER in alkaline electrolytes is based on doped nickel oxyhydroxides. In this dissertation, atomic layer deposition (ALD) was utilized to synthesize model catalyst systems for research. First, the role of iron in nickel oxyhydroxide catalysts will be discussed. ALD was used to perform surface-directed modification of nickel oxyhydroxide catalysts. ALD of iron oxide on these nickel oxyhydroxide catalysts was found to deposit iron on the surface without modifying the bulk nickel properties. Through this selective deposition, an iron-doped nickel oxyhydroxide surface was found to be the active site motif required for high OER activity. Second, the role of aluminum as a dopant will be discussed. ALD was utilized to synthesize well-defined, ultra-thin nickel-aluminum oxide films. A study was performed to understand the growth behavior of ALD nickel-aluminum oxide. Nucleation effects of ALD aluminum oxide on surfaces prepared by ALD nickel oxide was found to be the dominant effect resulting in non-constant growth per cycle. With the knowledge obtained in the growth behavior studies, well-defined nickel-aluminum oxide films were deposited for catalysis. To form the final catalyst, an electrochemical conditioning procedure was employed to convert the as-deposited oxide films to the active oxyhydroxide catalyst. Turnover frequencies (TOFs) were determined for each catalyst, and it was found that the highest performing electrocatalysts were the films containing nickel, aluminum and iron, confirming that aluminum exerts a promotion effect on nickel oxyhydroxide catalysts. For the thinnest films, aluminum doping improved the TOF of nickel-iron oxyhydroxide catalysts by over 300%