VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
A computational account of social reasoning [electronic resource] : towards a more realistic model of theory of mind
Keywords: Psychology.

This thesis develops and tests a unified framework for computational models of how people use their theory of mind (ToM) to reason about others. I begin by using the framework to highlight the core formalization of how people choose actions based upon their beliefs and desires, a formalization common to previous models of social reasoning. I then discuss how the compositional nature of this framework allows it to incorporate more sophisticated models of people's mental states. The framework makes quantitative predictions about how people using these models of ToM should learn and reason about others. In the remainder of this thesis I use the framework to develop a more realistic model of people's ToM. I first examine a set of extensions to the current models of ToM---how people reason about others' attributes like how knowledgeable, reliable, and confident they are. I find that this elaborated model captures how changes in a person's attributes affects how others learn from them and the inferences they make about them. I then examine a core assumption made by previous accounts of ToM---that people form beliefs independent of their desires. I show that people think that others wishfully think, letting their desires affect their beliefs. Incorporating this wishful thinking into the model highlights the profound impact the details of a person's ToM has on their social reasoning. If a person thinks that others wishfully think, then the other's desires should have an impact on how the person learns from them. Indeed, people followed the pattern predicted by the model. They learned more from someone who bets against their desires. Finally, I conclude by describing both the challenges to the framework and how its extensibility can allow future models to overcome these limitations and provide increasingly realistic models of mind.
A computational framework incorporating human and social behaviors for occupant-centric egress simulation [electronic resource]
Keywords: Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Emergency evacuation (egress) is an important issue in safety design of buildings. Studies of catastrophic incidents have highlighted the need to consider occupants' behaviors for better understanding of evacuation patterns. Although egress outcomes are influenced by human and social factors, quantifying these factors in design codes and standards is difficult because occupants' characteristics and emergency scenarios vary widely. As an alternative, computational egress simulation tools have been used to evaluate egress designs. However, most of current simulation tools oversimplify the behavioral aspects of evacuees. This thesis describes a flexible computational framework that incorporates human and social behaviors in simulations to aid occupant-centric egress design. Based on the analysis of literature in social science and disaster studies, the design requirements of SAFEgress (Social Agents For Egress), an agent-based simulation framework, are derived. In SAFEgress, the agent's decision-making process, the representation of the egress environment and the occupants, and the algorithms that emulate human capabilities in perception and navigation are carefully designed to simulate group dynamics and social interactions. A series of validation tests has been conducted to verify the capability of the framework to model a wide range of behaviors. Case studies of a museum and a stadium show that considering group navigation could cause additional bottlenecks on egress routes, thus prolong evacuation. On the other hand, by strategically arranging stewards to control crowd flow, evacuation time can be significantly improved. SAFEgress provides a means to systematically evaluate the effects of human and social factors on egress performance in buildings and facilities. Using the simulation results, facility managers and designers can develop occupant-centric solutions to crowd problems by addressing different scenarios and unique occupants' characteristics. Furthermore, the framework could be applied to support research in social science to investigate the collective behaviors of crowds in a built environment.
The computational image systems evaluation toolbox (CISET) [electronic resource] : a software environment for rapid prototyping and evaluating computational imaging hardware and algorithms
Keywords: Electrical Engineering.

The Computational Image Systems Evaluation Toolbox (CISET) is a software simulation that models the transformation from three-dimensional spectral scene radiance, through multicomponent spherical lenses, to spectral irradiance, sensor responses, and computational imaging algorithms. This toolbox is designed to help the engineer and scientist understand the impact of many important factors that determine the performance of computational imaging systems such as light field cameras and depth estimation systems. The ability to methodically control scene and imaging parameters, which are difficult to control in the real world, helps us understand and design the combination of hardware and software efficiently. The optics tool, which can be used to characterize lenses, models a series of spherical surfaces, each with its own wavelength-dependent index of refraction. CISET accounts for the aperture, which helps characterize depth of field effects and models the effects of lens diffraction using two different methods. Moreover, CISET is computationally efficient so that the designer can interactively adjust parameters and visualize the consequences. Computational imaging systems engineers looking to design and evaluate new systems can easily change the scene geometry, surface reflectance, scene lighting, lens, sensor, and image processing parameters. This controlled environment allows for designers to quickly evaluate engineering trade-offs, isolate image systems parameters, and compare computational imaging results to ground truth information. We used CISET to simulate and explore the compliance range of several famous computational imaging systems, such as a flash/no-flash detail transfer system, a flash/no-flash illuminant estimation system, and depth reconstruction from a stereo image pair. We have also built a full pipeline spectral simulation for a light field camera, which measures light intensity and direction due to a microlens array placed in between the main lens and the imaging sensor. In this case, we utilized CISET to explore different engineering trade-offs between spatial and angular capture resolution of the light field, and evaluated the effects of diffraction due to the microlenses on the performance of the system. Furthermore, we used CISET to prototype a novel 2-flash depth estimation algorithm. CISET also includes optics tools for rendering and analyzing the point spread function (PSF). By storing light field information of a PSF in a plenoptic PSF (pPSF), sensor distances, aperture sizes, and apodization can be changed without recomputation of the PSF. The transform of a lens can also be summarized as a volume of linear transforms (VoLT). VoLT achieves similar benefits as the pPSF, allowing for PSFs with different apertures, sensor distances, and apodization to be computed quickly and efficiently.
Computational insight into catalytic hydrogenation of nitrogen and carbon monoxide [electronic resource]
Keywords: Chemical Engineering.

Computational modeling is becoming an increasingly important tool in the design of heterogeneous catalysts. This thesis explores recent advances in the atomic-scale computational design of catalytic materials. Nitrogen hydrogenation is used to illustrate the core concepts in part I, and these concepts are applied to a wide range of carbon monoxide hydrogenation reactions in part II. Nitrogen hydrogenation, or ammonia synthesis, is one of the most important catalytic processes ever discovered. Industrial-scale ammonia synthesis enabled the mass production of fertilizers which are now used to produce approximately half of the global food supply. Ammonia synthesis is also a well-studied and relatively simple catalytic reaction, and has served as a bellwether reaction for computation in heterogeneous catalysis. Part I of this thesis revisits the ammonia synthesis reaction. Chapter 2 discusses the importance of ammonia synthesis and heterogeneous catalysis in general. Chapter 3 introduces density functional theory (DFT), the workhorse method in quantum-mechanical studies of catalytic materials. Chapter 4 examines how DFT energies can be combined with kinetic modeling in order to gain insight into catalytic trends and design strategies for ammonia synthesis. Chapter 5 applies a novel method for uncertainty quantification and error propagation in order to demonstrate the robustness of the computational catalyst design against uncertainty in the DFT calculations. Hydrogenation of carbon monoxide (CO) is a complex process with many potentially valuable products including methane, methanol, and higher hydrocarbons and alcohols. These reactions will play an increasingly important role in the global economy as fossil resources are exhausted and replaced by more sustainable synthetic fuels. Part II of the thesis applies many of the concepts introduced in part I to CO hydrogenation reactions. Chapter 6 examines the production of ethanol from synthesis gas (CO and H2) and applies the techniques of chapter 4 in order to map the activity and selectivity trends across transition-metal (211) surfaces. Several alloys are identified as promising catalysts for selective ethanol synthesis, including CoCu and CoPt alloys. Chapter 7 combines computational methods and experiments to provide insight into the complex selectivity patterns of CO hydrogenation over rhodium catalysts, indicating that the reaction is structure sensitive and that rhodium catalysts are intrinsically selective toward acetaldehyde rather than ethanol. Chapter 8 and chapter 9 examine CO hydrogenation over non-metallic catalysts (Mo2C and ZnO), revealing the importance of surface termination and the fundamentally different surface reactivity of transition-metal compounds.
Computational modeling and evaluation of reverse osmosis and forward osmosis water treatment technologies integrated with CCHP waste heat [electronic resource]
Keywords: Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Seawater reverse osmosis (RO), Forward Osmosis (FO) and the FO/RO hybrid process have received increased attention. Providing waste heat of a CCHP plant to these membrane technologies could benefit both energy efficiency and environmental impacts of the hypothetical integrated infrastructure system. In order to evaluate the potential benefits, simulation and modeling need to be performed taking all possible system parameters into consideration. In this study, a simulation approach for RO and FO water treatment processes is presented. The design space of a preheated RO system is explored, using the amount of water produced per unit cost as the optimization objective. The results show that typical optimal designs have 70~90°C operating temperature, 0.3~0.5 recovery goal, 50~60 bar operating pressure and larger design capacity.
Conceptualizing Critical Thinking in Hong Kong: The Decoupling of Policy and Practice in the New Senior Secondary Curriculum Reform
Keywords: critical thinking education
Liberal Studies
New Senior Secondary Curriculum
curriculum reform
neo-institutionalism
decoupling
Hong Kong
Stanford Graduate School of Education International Education Policy Analysis
Thesis

Critical thinking is a term increasingly incorporated into educational policy around the world as a primary curriculum reform objective. Despite shifts in policy, however, often the mechanisms for ensuring the implementation of policy in practice are decoupled. Hong Kong is among one of the many educational systems that has recently undergone a drastic curriculum reform in which critical thinking has been defined as a key skill. This paper investigates how critical thinking is conceptualized on different levels of curriculum – from intended to resourced to implemented – in the secondary school subject, Liberal Studies, against the backdrop of the New Senior Secondary Curriculum (NSSC) reform. Employing textual analyses and interviews, I investigate whether and why gaps exist in the conceptualization of critical thinking at these three curricular levels in order to understand the process of decoupling from policy to practice. The findings of the study suggest that critical thinking is conceptualized fairly nebulously from policy to practice, leading to decoupling between the two. These findings highlight a need for Hong Kong educational authorities to provide a clearer definition of critical thinking, as well as stronger programmatic support for teachers, in order to best sustain alignment in this curriculum reform.
Constitutional Promises and Environmental Protection
Keywords:  Program in International Relations
Environmental constitutionalism
environmental performance
Stanford University Program in International Relations
Thesis

Constitutions detailing the legal obligations of a nation to its peoples have been around for centuries, since England’s Magna Carta. As our conceptions of governance evolved, constitutions became the locus for codifying rights considered worthy of protection from the state or by the state. In the past sixty years, constitutions around the world have begun recognizing people’s rights to a healthy environment. Nearly half a century after the widespread adoption of these constitutional clauses, in a world plagued by issues of cooperation over sustainable development and climate change, it begs the question of how effective these rights have been. This study combines quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate the relationship between the commitments made by advanced economies and their ultimate outcomes.
Constraining ocean acidification and anoxia during the end-Guadalupian and end-Triassic extinctions with calcium and uranium isotopes [electronic resource]
Keywords: Geological Sciences.

Many mass extinctions are contemporaneous with emplacement of large igneous provinces (LIPs), suggesting that the environmental effects of LIP volcanism were important kill mechanisms. Of major interest is whether rapid injection of volcanic carbon dioxide into the ocean and atmosphere resulted in seawater acidification and eutrophication. The end-Guadalupian (ca. 260 Ma) and end-Triassic (ca. 201 Ma) extinctions were both associated with LIPs and saw preferential extinction of marine animals sensitive to changes in seawater pH or oxygen content. Carbon isotope fluctuations are consistent with some type of carbon cycle perturbation, and local proxies of acidification and anoxia are widespread. However, we have not yet been able to quantify the severity of acidification or anoxia during these events at a global scale. Calcium and uranium isotopes can be combined with carbon isotope data to constrain these phenomena. This is because the carbon cycle is linked to the calcium cycle via burial of calcium carbonate and chemical weathering of Ca-minerals, and to the uranium cycle via organic carbon production and precipitation of uranium under reducing conditions. For my dissertation, I use these non-traditional isotope systems, along with numerical models of their mass and isotopic fluxes, to constrain the cause of carbon cycle perturbations and the seawater geochemistry during each extinction. Chapter one discusses the end-Guadalupian extinction event. Contrary to claims of large carbon cycle perturbations during the end-Guadalupian extinction, calcium isotope data suggest that acidification was minimal and that carbon isotope excursions were generated or amplified by local conditions. This finding is consistent with much lower revised extinction rates based on new compilations of fossil occurrences. Chapters two and three discuss the end-Triassic extinction event. In contrast to the end-Guadalupian, the end-Triassic calcium isotope record contains a large (0.7‰) negative excursion just above the extinction horizon. Numerical modeling of the carbon and calcium cycles demonstrate that these patterns are consistent with acidification and enhanced calcium isotope fractionation due to higher precipitation rates during recovery from acidification. Uranium isotope data show similarly large perturbations, with a 0.6‰ negative isotope excursion suggesting a 35x increase in the extent of anoxic bottom waters following the end-Triassic extinction. Together, these projects demonstrate the power of combining non-traditional isotope systems with other proxies to constrain the nature of environmental change surrounding mass extinctions in the geologic record.
Contemporary issues in service and operations management [electronic resource]
Keywords: Business.

The essays in this dissertation are motivated by various contemporary issues in the late 2000s and early 2010s related to the environment, healthcare and natural disasters. Chapter 1 explores the issue of environmental and social disclosures on consumer products. Specifically it studies whether consumer reaction to products differ under voluntary and mandatory disclosures, and whether policy makers should mandate disclosure. The results suggest that contrary to basic intuition, mandatory disclosure policies may lead to sub-optimal environmental and social performance by firms. Chapter 2 is motivated by the increasing number of Emergency Departments (EDs) in the US that publish wait times publicly. This work proposes a novel wait time prediction method that combines queuing theory and statistical learning. Implementation results at San Mateo Medical Center (SMMC) show that this method is 30% more accurate than the current industry standard. Furthermore, post-implementation results of the wait time prediction system at SMMC's ED show that publishing accurate wait times led to a decrease in the number of patients who left without being seen by a physician. Chapter 3 is motivated by the events in the aftermath of the Tohoku earthquake, when many supply chains stopped functioning due to upper tier supplier disruptions. This work studies how a manufacturer should optimally source form its suppliers if it knows that disruption risk originates from the upper tiers of its supply chain. The result shows that if there is significant overlap of suppliers in the upper tiers, the manufacturer should pursue an aggressive strategy of inducing its direct suppliers to dual source. On the other hand, if the degree of overlap is low, the manufacturer should focus on its own dual sourcing and inventory mitigation.
A continuous adjoint formulation for hypersonic flows in thermochemical nonequilibrium [electronic resource]
Keywords: Aeronautics and Astronautics.

This thesis explores the formulation, derivation, and implementation of the continuous adjoint equations for hypersonic, nonequilibrium flow environments. The adjoint method is an efficient means for acquiring sensitivity information that can be used in a gradient-based framework to perform optimal shape design of aerospace systems. A solution to the adjoint system of equations carries a computational cost roughly equal to a single solution of the flow governing equations, regardless of the dimensionality of the design space. When compared to other gradient acquisition methods, where computational costs scale with design space dimensionality, the adjoint method is superior when the dimensionality is high and when solutions to the governing equations are expensive. Such conditions are often representative of most aerospace problems of practical interest. In addition to providing gradient information, solutions to the adjoint equations may be used as 'sensors' or 'weighting factors' to perform error estimation and adaptive mesh refinement. Hypersonic systems operate in unique flow environments that are dominated by chemical and thermodynamic phenomena not observed at lower Mach numbers. Accurate simulations of these environments require sophisticated thermochemical models to resolve atomic-scale physical processes that have first-order effects on integrated vehicle performance metrics, including lift, drag, stability, controllability, and heat transfer. Because of the computational expense demanded by these high-fidelity tools, the conceptual vehicle design process often relies heavily on low- to medium-fidelity, correlation-based tools that are confined to narrow regions of applicability. As a consequence, the hypersonic vehicle design process has remained relatively static for the past several decades. The adjoint method enables the use of high-fidelity tools early in the design cycle of hypersonic systems, and is a transformative technology for the hypersonic community. This work provides the first derivation, implementation, and verification of the continuous adjoint equations for hypersonic flow environments in thermochemical nonequilibrium. Appropriate boundary conditions and surface sensitivities are provided for both projected force and thermal objective functions for continuum, viscous, multi-component gas mixtures. The adjoint system is implemented in a second-order, unstructured, finite-volume-method (FVM) flow solver that is representative of the state-of-the-art in high-fidelity aerothermodynamic analysis for hypersonic entry systems. Gradients from the adjoint-derived surface sensitivities are verified against gradients calculated using a finite-difference methodology for several representative geometries relevant to ballistic and lifting-body entry vehicles.