VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Make Russia Great Again: Russia's Politics of International Intervention
Keywords: Stanford Global Studies
Center for Russian East European and Eurasian Studies
Russia
international
humanitarian
intervention
Ukraine
Crimea
Syria
foreign policy
Brezhnev Doctrine
Thesis

In a globalized world where states’ domestic problems can and will have international consequences, how do governments resolve the tension between state sovereignty and the protection of human rights? In the context of Russia, what factors drive its leaders to use or refuse humanitarian intervention? This thesis analyzes Russia’s conception of international intervention predicated on humanitarian ideals in three parts: first, the Soviet legacy of the Brezhnev Doctrine; second, how the text of Russia’s foreign policy conceptions is formulated to propagate Russia’s role in the world; finally, analysis of two relevant case studies. The first, of Russia’s intervention in Crimea in 2014, finds Russia using its conception of the “Russian world” to justify its unilateral intervention. The second, of Syria, reveals a more complicated case where Russia utilizes its power in the U.N. Security Council to block humanitarian intervention, but at the same time sends its troops to Syria to assist President Bashar al-Assad’s forces. The author’s findings were that Russia uses military intervention ostensibly predicated on humanitarian ideals as a political tool in service of the goal of stability, interpreted as a continued hold on power. Further, when Russia condemns international humanitarian intervention, it preserves for itself power and influence on the world stage—and prevents a precedent of military intervention being established, in order to avoid its application to Russia’s own illegitimate interventions.
Making more than a market [electronic resource] : environmental marketization and the politics of landscapes and distribution in the Brazilian Amazon
Keywords: Anthropology.

Creating new markets is an increasingly prevalent strategy to address environmental degradation. This dissertation examines the politics and social significance of one prominent environmental marketization policy—the System of Incentives for Environmental Services (SISA) in the Amazonian state of Acre, Brazil. SISA allowed for the issuance and sale of "carbon credits, " which represent reductions in climate-changing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, to outside polluters and other buyers. Yet SISA entailed much more than making a market in carbon, this dissertation reveals. SISA's approach made carbon credits and ecosystem services—often dismissed as neoliberal—into tools of redistribution that expanded and reshaped the state through providing rural welfare. SISA's redistributive approach also undermined rural residents' ability to claim rights to carbon revenue, instead assigning them the precarious government-granted status of "beneficiary." SISA's use of "incentives" to intensify production to protect the forest also contained its own contradictions and exclusions. It favored field over forest and expertise over rural knowledge, threatening to increase deforestation and benefit wealthier landholders. However, such wide-ranging marketization efforts were not implemented without impediment. Rather, Acre's landscapes and politics mediated carbon's marketization through rural people's every day negotiations and land use practices, in ways that challenge both theory of environmental markets and critiques of them. This ethnography shows how environmental marketization can constitute a key and undetermined arena of moral struggle and collaboration between the state and those it governs.
Making sense of slavery [electronic resource] : slavery studies before civil rights
Keywords: History.

"Making Sense of Slavery" is the first full history of the study of slavery in America from the rise of abolitionism to the start of the civil rights movement—a century during which questions about slavery were open for debate in a way that they had not been before and have not been since. The story unfolds in two parts. Part 1, "Slavery, " looks at the origins of the study of slavery while the institution still existed. This was the period when political pressures encouraged the development of new arguments both for and against slavery that ended up having ramifications for society as a whole—and helped lead to the Civil War. Part 2, "Freedom, " examines how the study of slavery was incorporated into the modern research university from about 1865 to 1935—after emancipation ended slavery but before the civil rights movement asserted black equality as an incontrovertible fact. Scholars seeking to navigate the social and political changes of Reconstruction and the Progressive Era looked back to slavery as a way of thinking about race relations and industrial capitalism. Here I start with the historian Herbert Baxter Adams and his students at Johns Hopkins University, who were the first university scholars to study slavery. Then I turn to Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, a Georgia-born historian who made himself into the first modern scholar of slavery. I also look at how other scholars—especially Carter Woodson and W. E. B. Du Bois—started to undermine Phillips's work and lay the foundation for the kinds of slavery studies that emerged during the civil rights movement and continue to be written today.
Mapping Poverty with Satellite Imagery
Keywords:  Department of Computer Science
Poverty
Satellite
Imagery
Mapping
Convolutional
Deep Learning
Neural Network
Semi-supervised
Gaussian Process
Deep Kernel Learning
Africa
Stanford
Computer Science
School of Engineering
SUSTAIN
Nighttime Light
Artificial Intelligence
Science
Sustainability
Machine Learning
Thesis

Poverty eradication is the first of 17 Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations to reach by 2030. Measuring poverty is an important step to alleviating poverty, as it helps to inform research studies, target aid efforts, guide policy decisions, and generally monitor the progress of such an initiative. In the developing world, where the need for poverty data is the most pressing, poverty data is particularly scarce due to the resource cost associated with conducting surveys.
This data gap is one of the crucial challenges to overcome in order to alleviate poverty. This thesis aims to cover a variety of methods towards closing this poverty data gap using remote sensing and satellite imagery data. We introduce a high-resolution poverty mapping method using only publicly available satellite data. The approach utilizes transfer learning to leverage knowledge from data-rich sources and combat the data gap. We also attempt to reduce the data gap by incorporating additional data, detailed in preliminary work using multiple resolutions of satellite imagery to improve predictive performance. We develop a semi-supervised method which narrows the data gap by utilizing abundant unlabeled satellite imagery. We show that can use this method to also take advantage of spatial correlations of poverty measures to improve our model predictions.
Experiments are conducted on a variety of real-world datasets, as well as poverty measure prediction problems for 5 African countries - Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, Nigeria, and Rwanda - demonstrating that our methods based on only publicly available data can approach the predictive performance of surveys conducted in the field and potentially transform efforts to track and alleviate poverty. Finally, we detail the implementation of a deployment pipeline system designed to support automated production of global scale poverty maps that is flexible enough to incorporate any dataset and model. This represents the first step towards providing up-to-date poverty maps to guide the decision-making process of nonprofit organizations and policymakers.
Mass bone-working industry in the Western Zhou period (1046-771 BC) [electronic resource]
Keywords: East Asian Languages and Cultures.

This dissertation attempt to address the operation of mass bone-working craft industry and its interaction with other social aspects in an early urbanized society during the Western Zhou period (ca. 1050-771 BC), late Bronze Age China. This research is mainly based on the new archaeological findings from the excavation and survey at the Yuntang bone-working locus in ancient Zhouyuan city. Multiple archaeological approaches were used, including zooarchaeological analysis, chaîne opératoire analysis, as well as microscopic characterization. Economically, the procurement of raw materials for bone-working was closely intertwined with other forms of exploitation and consumption of animal resource in city context. In terms of technology, The Yuntang bone-working production was a highly specialized technical system. Meanwhile, the bone-working industry was probably a royal-controlled property, functioning as the tool to help the maintenance of central government's economic superiority.
Material remains [electronic resource] : narrating the dead at al-Qaşr al-Kabīr
Keywords: Iberian and Latin American Cultures.

My research begins in the observation that there is a prevalence of corpses in the narrative of the early modern Western Mediterranean, and that those corpses frequently coincide with moments when narrators grapple with questions of authority and credibility. My argument is that corpses became a source of epistemic certainty as a mechanism to compensate for insufficiencies in narrative authority, and particularly for insufficiencies in the credibility of eyewitness testimony. In this dissertation, I explored the use of corpses and human bodies as repositories of epistemic certainty in accounts of the battle of al-Qasr al-Kabir, which took place in 1578 between Portuguese and Moroccan forces. Following this event, the corpses of kings and soldiers played a central role not only in determining the very viability of three Mediterranean monarchies, but were also fundamental to how stories about it were told. Using a methodological approach that combines literary analysis with a sociolinguistic understanding of presence and a historicized understanding of the epistemological status of testimony and witnessing, my project traces a shift in how reliability and authority were constructed across Portuguese, Spanish, and Arabic traditions. I argue that the stories told about al-Qasr al-Kabir mark a watershed moment in how narrative was written during the early modern period, a legacy that has come down to us in canonical texts like Don Quixote and the Comentarios reales.
Materials and devices for stretchable electronics and electronic skin [electronic resource]
Keywords: Materials Science and Engineering.

Mechanically compliant electronics enable exciting new technological opportunities, especially in the field that integrates electronics with soft, irregular, and moving objects such as the human body. Wearable, implantable, and prosthetic devices benefit from engineering the mechanics to match that of biology to minimize measurement errors, reduce inflammation, and promote lifelike characteristics, respectively. Chapter 1 of this thesis gives an overview of the current status of mechanically compliant materials and sensors. Chapter 2 describes preliminary efforts toward creating stretchable transistors using polymeric semiconductors. The role of semiconductor mechanics on the stretching behavior of the transistor is investigated, and we found that brittle semiconductors could form microcracks that lead to strain-independent stretching characteristics after an initial preconditioning step. Contact resistance plays a large role in the device performance and the stretching performance; larger contact resistance is typically associated with lower performance, but more constant performance with strain. Chapter 3 describes stretchable transistors composed entirely of carbon nanotubes and elastomers. By combining carbon nanotubes, which have very high mobility, with thermoplastic elastomers, we were able to create devices with exceptional toughness and tear resistance. We investigated the limiting factors for device performance in stretchable devices by varying the semiconducting CNT diameter. We found that at small CNT diameters, the devices are limited by the low charge densities in the channel caused by the use of low-capacitance dielectrics. At large diameters, the devices were limited by low doping levels and contact resistance. In addition to data analysis elements such as transistors, wearable and bio-integrated electronics require sensors such as pressure sensors. Chapter 4 describes a novel type of resistive pressure sensor based on microstructuring conductive polymers to make them elastic. When pressure is applied to a counter-electrode, the contact area increases, decreasing the resistance across the interface. These sensors have excellent sensitivity and minimal temperature dependence. Creating electronics that communicate in the same way as biological organisms could facilitate seamless integration between technology and the human body. Toward this end, we prepared an artificial analogue of biological mechanoreceptors. The system combines flexible circuits with pressure sensors that have been engineered to modulate the frequency of voltage pulses created by the flexible circuits. The artificial mechanoreceptor could communicate pressure information to neurons in vitro, demonstrating the potential of the approach for bio-integrated electronics.
Mathematical and statistical approaches to elucidate recent human evolutionary history [electronic resource]
Keywords: Biology.

Reconstructing human evolutionary history is of central importance to many fields, from medical genetics and biological anthropology to archaeology and environmental studies. Human population histories, such as where and when people move, and how populations grow or adapt to their environments, affect human genetic and phenotypic variation, and disease risk. The past decade has reinforced the importance of recent human population history for the distributions of variation; over the past fifteen thousand years, populations around the world have undergone dramatic demographic changes related to environmental and cultural adaptation. This thesis develops multiple new methods to leverage genetic and archaeological evidence to reconstruct past human demography during the past ~15,000. Chapters 2-4 derive a set of mechanistic models describing the impact of sex-biased admixture on distributions of genetic ancestry in an admixed population. Chapters 3 and 4 infer the sex-specific admixture history of major human migrations during the last ten thousand years. Finally, Chapter 5 leverages models from ecological statistics and demographic archaeology to test the relationship between human population growth, local environments, and agricultural development. Together, these chapters interrogate the impact of environmental and cultural change on human demography during the last fifteen thousand years using new mathematical and statistical methods.
Mathematical proficiency, game aesthetics, and cultural models in digital game-based learning [electronic resource]
Keywords: Education.

This dissertation examines the digital game-based learning experiences of historically underserved students in their elementary mathematics classes. Using the Digital Math Game-Based Experience Framework, I describe their experience in terms of the mathematical proficiency gains, cultural models of high functioning digital math game players, and preferences in game aesthetics. In a pilot study, I found that students' mathematical proficiency increased compared to students who did not play. The follow-up study revealed that among historically underserved students who play a cognitively challenging digital math game, girls showed higher gains in mathematical proficiency, eliminating differences that existed before game play. Unlike widely held cultural models of gamers in media and gaming research, the students held images of high-functioning digital math game players with a wide range of physical characteristics. Students also responded positively to the game aesthetics. Implications for educators and game designers are discussed.
Measuring sample quality with Stein's method [electronic resource]
Keywords: Statistics.

As the size of datasets has grown, classical methods like Markov chain Monte Carlo have become increasingly burdensome from a computational perspective. Practitioners have been turning to biased Markov chain Monte Carlo procedures that are able to trade off asymptotic exactness for computational speed. Unfortunately, previously used diagnostics to aid with these methods are insufficient for assessing the asymptotic bias incurred. We will first introduce a new computable quality measure based on Stein's method that quantifies the maximum discrepancy between sample and target expectations over a large class of test functions. Our first main theoretical contribution will be showing that our measure converges to zero only if a sample converges to its target distribution. Empirically we will show this discrepancy avoids the problems faced by previous diagnostics, e.g., effective sample size. Our next step will be to generalize these ideas to cover a larger class of target distributions. By studying Ito diffusions with fast-mixing rates, we will be able to extend the purview of acceptable target distributions from distributions with strongly log-concave densities with bounded third and fourth derivatives to a much larger class that includes multimodal and heavy-tailed distributions. Finally, in the last chapter, we will study a variation of our previous methods that is computationally feasible to obtain for much larger samples. This variation will combine our ideas with those from reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces to define a closed-form expression for our measure. While other authors have also recommended this faster variation, we show that most common choices for the kernel function are insufficient for controlling convergence in the multivariate setting. A special class of kernel functions that do indeed control convergence will be proposed and shown to dominate the other traditional kernel functions empirically.
Mechanical behavior of deep interseismic slip from geodetic inversions and physics-based models [electronic resource]
Keywords: Geophysics.

While substantial progress has been made in understanding how and where interseismic strain accumulates on faults, enabling the identification of fault segments that are more likely to host earthquakes, the mechanical behavior of the deep locked-to-creeping transition remains unclear. Estimates of slip deficit in such transitional regions are particularly complicated. Since earthquakes result from the sudden release of elastic strain along a fault interface, reasonable estimates for slip deficit, and consequent strain accumulation, are critical for earthquake hazard assessment. In this thesis, I combine physics-based models of the locked-to-creeping transition region with geodetic inversions of surface deformation rates to evaluate the slip and stress behavior of the deep edge of the locked region. Most of my work focuses on the Cascadia subduction zone, a region known to host Mw 9 megathrust events which presents one of the greatest earthquake hazards in the US. In northern Cascadia, interpretations of interseismic slip deficit on the megathrust are complicated by an unresolved "gap" between the down-dip limit of the locked region, inferred from kinematic inversions of deformation rates, and the top of the ETS (Episodic Tremor and Slip) zone. I first present evidence that negative shear stress rates in this transitional region are required to fit the surface velocities, producing unexpected large interseismic slip rates. I then develop a new method that allows slip to penetrate up dip into the locked region. Up dip propagation of deep interseismic slip indeed provides a physical explanation for the steep slip rate profile and the negative shear stress rates inferred in northern Cascadia without requiring temporal changes of the fault strength. I finally extend this model to strike-slip faults, by applying this new tool to the Carrizo Plain section of the San Andreas fault in California. This final model constitutes a first step at explaining the discrepancy between geodetically-derived locking depths and microseismicity along the San Andreas fault.
Mechanism of dietary cholesterol uptake by niemann-pick C1-like 1 protein [electronic resource]
Keywords: Biochemistry.

Cholesterol is an essential biomolecule playing a number of key physiological roles; disruption of its homeostasis can result in developmental errors, illness or premature death. NPC1L1 plays an important role in cholesterol regulation by mediating its dietary uptake and biliary re-uptake. However, the mechanism of its action and how the drug, Ezetimibe, inhibits NPC1L1 are poorly understood. In this project, we have shown that the existing model that suggested NPC1L1-mediated cholesterol uptake requires endocytosis, and that Ezetimibe works by blocking endocytosis is incorrect. Endocytosis is not involved in NPC1L1-mediated cholesterol uptake or function. We have proposed an alternative, though still incomplete mechanism, based on the similarity between the lysosomal protein NPC1 and NPC1L1. Our data suggest that the N-terminal domain and domain 2 of NPC1L1 require an interaction for both cholesterol uptake and Ezetimibe binding. In addition, we have demonstrated that a functional sterol sensing domain is required for NPC1L1 protein function. Finally, we have shown that microsomal triglyceride transfer protein is involved in regulating the biosynthesis of NPC1L1.