VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Back into the shadows: immigrants retreat from needed services as deportation fears loom
Keywords:  Department of Communication and Journalism
Communications
Journalism
Virginia Fay
Immigration
Sexual Assault
Domestic Violence
Food Benefits
Medical Services
School Attendance
Driver's Licenses
Deportation
Thesis

Fear of deportation has always been a barrier to immigrants approaching law enforcement, especially those who are undocumented. Compounding the issue, domestic and sexual violence are chronically underreported from all demographics. But in recent months, that fear has multiplied to a new degree because of President Donald Trump’s pledges throughout the campaign and since taking office to crack down on illegal immigration and build a border wall with Mexico.
Immigrants have retreated not just from law enforcement, but from services of all kinds. Parents are afraid to send their children to school in case they’re taken in an ICE raid during the day and their children have no one to return to. Others fear using medical services — clinics note that some patients with chronic illnesses have stopped showing up for treatment. Even legal immigrants are afraid. In some areas, they’ve unenrolled from CalFresh, government food benefits only available to legal residents.
And, many immigrant women across Northern California are too afraid to file for restraining orders, report abuse, or seek U visas — predominately for victims of domestic and sexual violence — which require working with law enforcement.
Bacterial morphology in the Sinorhizobium/Medicago nitrogen-fixing symbiosis [electronic resource]
Keywords: Biophysics.

In this thesis, I explore how bacteria change shape. I used the model bacterial symbiont Sinorhizobium meliloti, which undergoes significant changes in cell shape during its nitrogen-fixing symbiosis with legume plants. Nitrogen is a limiting nutrient in the environment, and nitrogen-containing fertilizers are heavily used in agricultural systems. Organically available (fixed) nitrogen is energetically expensive to produce. Legume plants, in symbiosis with rhizobia soil bacteria, are able to fix nitrogen and do not require nitrogen-containing fertilizers. The model system of Medicago sativa (alfalfa) and the soil bacterium S. meliloti permit laboratory study of this process. As the human population continues to grow, it is essential to understand the conditions that are required for biological nitrogen fixation. M. sativa and S. meliloti initiate symbiosis by exchanging chemical calling cards. S. meliloti cells then invade plant roots. M. sativa forms nodules -- specialized root organs -- to house the bacteria. S. meliloti cells within the nodules differentiate to form nitrogen-fixing bacteroids. These bacteroid cells can be ten times larger and contain twenty times more genomic DNA than free-living cells, and they are often branched in contrast to the rod shaped bacteria found in the soil. The purpose of this dramatic morphological switch is not well understood but appears to be essential for nitrogen fixation. I used different culture media and environmental conditions and examined bacterial mutants to investigate what external factors are involved in S. meliloti free-living cell shape. I tested multiple conditions including microaerobic versus aerobic, salt concentrations in culture media, a range of temperatures, and different carbon sources. Of all these conditions, I discovered that only the presence of phosphate in growth media was strongly correlated to branching and an increase in cell size. This morphology is specifically related to the activity of a phosphate transporter-encoding gene, pstC. This result was confirmed through whole genome sequencing and epistatic expression of mutated and full-length pstC in different laboratory strains of S. meliloti. I hypothesize that an increase in extracellular phosphate concentration may be present within root nodules and may contribute to bacteroid differentiation. More work remains to be done to determine the role of phosphate in legume/rhizobia symbiosis and uncover the mechanism by which phosphate affects cell morphology.
Banking Regulation and Policy Recommendations for Chile
Keywords:  Public Policy Program
Stanford University
Humanities and Sciences
Public Policy Program
banks
capital regulation
Basel accords
solvency
insolvency risk
equity over assets ratio
leverage ratio
risk weighted assets
subprime mortgage crisis
financial crisis
Chilean Banking Law
Thesis

The purpose of this document is to discuss risks that affect financial institutions, in particular banks, and to make policy recommendations related to Chilean Banks General Law. Though most industries exhibit equity over assets ratios above 35%, banks show in general levels below 10%. Deposit insurance and bailout promises are explicit and implicit subsidies, respectively, that allow banks to obtain cheap debt and to hold lower equity ratios than those that they would hold without those subsidies. The Basel Accords have been international attempts to improve banking soundness, but capital requirements have been set at insufficient levels to prevent generalized banking distress. During the subprime mortgage crisis, poorly capitalized financial institutions were unable to cope with generalized house-price drops and massive mortgage failures. Chilean banks were not affected by the financial crisis, in part because of their low dependency on external debt and low exposure to complex securities. The Chilean Congress is discussing a new Banking Law that will fully adopt the Basel III accords. Our proposal is to include an equity over assets requirement of 9%, which is equivalent to the current average of Chilean banks. Setting a higher capitalization means a guarantee that banks’ solvency will not fall below current levels. It would place Chile at the international vanguard of banking regulation.
A Bayesian framework for quantifying fault network uncertainty using a marked point process model [electronic resource]
Keywords: Energy Resources Engineering.

Faults are one of the building-blocks for subsurface modeling studies. Incomplete observations of subsurface fault networks lead to uncertainty pertaining to location, geometry and existence of faults. In practice, gaps in incomplete fault network observations are filled based on tectonic knowledge and structural interpreter's intuition pertaining to fault relationships. Modeling fault network uncertainty with realistic models that represent tectonic knowledge is still a challenge. Although methods that address specific sources of fault network uncertainty and complexities of fault modeling exists, a unifying framework is still lacking. In this paper, a rigorous approach to quantify fault network uncertainty is proposed. Fault pattern and intensity information pertaining to fault networks are expressed by means of a marked point process, namely a marked Strauss point process. Fault network information represented using marked Strauss point process is constrained to fault surface observations (complete or partial) within a Bayesian framework. A structural prior model is defined to quantitatively express fault patterns, geometries and relationships within the Bayesian framework. Structural relationships between faults, in particular age-based fault abutting relations, are represented with an implicit, level-set based approach to represent abutting relations between fault surfaces. A Markov Chain Monte Carlo sampler is used to sample posterior fault network realizations that reflect tectonic knowledge and match fault observations. We apply the methodology to a field study from Nankai Trough and Kumano Basin. In this illustrative study, the target for uncertainty quantification is a deep site with attenuated seismic data with only partially visible faults and many faults missing from the survey or interpretation. A structural prior model is built from shallow analog sites that are believed to have undergone similar tectonics compared to the site of study. Fault network uncertainty for the field is quantified with fault network realizations that are conditioned to structural rules, tectonic information and partially observed fault surfaces. The proposed methodology generates realistic fault network models conditioned to data and a conceptual model of the underlying tectonics. In the second part of the thesis, an approach to incorporate fault network uncertainty in fluid flow problems is proposed. The main challenge is creating multiple structural frameworks and creating deformable grids prior to fluid flow simulation. Proxy-based workflow are presented in order to choose fault network realizations that result in most dissimilar fluid-flow responses. Thus, the computational load of evaluating exhaustive set of fault network realizations is reduced to a select few. The proxy-based approach is illustrated using a field case.
Belief Map
Keywords: critical thinking
polarization
belief
Thesis

The internet dramatically changed who can get access to information and in turn who can talk about it. However, spend just a few minutes online and it becomes apparent how little critical analysis is actually taking place. Motivated reasoning prevents most people from being able to evaluate evidence about controversial issues in an unbiased manner. (Kahne and Bowyer, 2016) The illusion of explanatory depth emboldens extreme opinions about systems that are more complicated than they seem. (Rozenblit and Keil, 2002) Social media algorithms create echo chambers that distort one’s capacity to perceive the world at large. Choices of convenience-- as in the choice not to fact-check, not to explain your reasoning, not to survey opposing viewpoints even if it means having to search-- all undercut one’s ability to reason with rationality. We aim to create a learning tool, in concert with a series of modules, that does a better job of engendering these skills with the intent of providing an alternative to the essay typically deployed in schools to teach critical thinking. Students analyze and map sources for credibility and strength of effect focused around a given issue to create a pseudo-meta-analysis, and reconcile their findings with their own opinions with support built in to our solution design. The goal is that learners recognize the value of engaging with opposing ideas and evidence and demonstrate these behaviors outside of the learning system. Additionally, learners will soften extreme views that lack grounded evidence. This can be measured by looking at heat maps of movement along our charts, as well as investigating the level of reasoning and engagement with evidence that disagrees with their view.
Better donors: a non-monetary incentives mechanism to increase kidney market participation
Keywords:  Department of Economics
Stanford Department of Economics
Thesis

Patients that need a kidney transplant and have a potential donor that is not compatible often participate in centralized kidney exchanges to find a match for a successful transplant. A significant challenge for kidney matching exchanges involves the over-representation of patients that are not compatible with most donors. The presence of these highly sensitized patients decreases the number of possible exchanges amongst incompatible pairs, hence decreasing total successful transplants. This paper proposes a non-monetary mechanism that would decrease the sensitivity of kidney exchange pools. Specifically, the mechanism would encourage compatible pairs with old, low sensitivity donors to participate in centralized kidney exchanges with the objective of exchanging the old donor’s kidney with a kidney from a younger donor, hence improving the health outcomes of the patient. The paper uses Monte Carlo simulations to show that, in a kidney exchange pool with real-world characteristics, very two added compatible pairs lead to an additional kidney transplants. Furthermore, the simulations show that 94% of participating compatible pairs were matched with a younger donor. Given 2016 donor demographics, the introduction of this mechanism could have increased US annual paired kidney donations by up to 10%, or 72 new transplants. If implemented, the proposed a mechanism would lead to both an increase the life expectancy of patients from compatible pairs and a significant increase in total kidney transplants - all without any notable tradeoffs.
Between revolutionary motherland and death [electronic resource] : art and visual culture in socialist Ethiopia
Keywords: Art and Art History.

This dissertation examines the role of art and visual culture in the Ethiopian revolution of 1974, and the ensuing years of Marxist Leninist military dictatorship that followed. It argues that revolutionary change hinged upon a process of visual revelation, and that this process, although begun in earnest by artists and students who sought to challenge authority, was ultimately hijacked by those who would use images not to liberate, but to control. As such, this dissertation examines the positions of art and its makers both at the heart of radical domestic political change, and on the final frontier of the Cold War in Africa. Whilst exploring the ways in which the military sought to harness and utilize artists, this research stresses the survival of creativity even under duress. Four chapters examine, respectively, the centrality of art, photography and film in the downfall of Emperor Haile Selassie, the rapid growth and unexpected trajectory of graphic art, the push for realism and the import of Soviet art concepts, and the politics of cultural heritage both as propaganda and resistance. Addis Ababa is positioned as the main cultural hub, yet the sojourns of young artists to Moscow, Leningrad, Pyongyang and Havana offer insights into the complex global networks of cultural exchange in which Ethiopia's artists were enmeshed. Between 1974 and 1991 Ethiopia was a dictatorship, but Ethiopia's artists were not simply passive propagandists. Their works provide a rich, visual chronicle of an era rife with wavering ideological positions, rampant disillusionment and manifold acts of creative disobedience.
Between Tito and Stalin [electronic resource] : Enver Hoxha, Albanian communists, and the assertion of Albanian national sovereignty, 1941-1948
Keywords: History.

This dissertation offers a new interpretation of the beginning of the Yugoslav-Soviet rift in 1948, examines its relationship with Albania's communist takeover and Yugoslavia's enlargement policies from 1941 through 1948, and lends fresh perspective on the establishment of communist regimes in Eastern Europe. While it challenges views that the Stalinist transformation of Eastern Europe was determined by the nature and outlook of Soviet despotism under Stalin, it argues that ideology and domestic politics were entwined, and that Bolshevism was related to wider political cultures and practices in the region, including citizenship, class, early Cold War discourse, political mobilization, nationalism, and bilateralism.
Beyond survival [electronic resource] : the rise of education in emergencies as global field and profession
Keywords: Education.

Since the turn of the 21st century, the international aid community has embraced an unprecedented focus on education in situations of conflict and emergency. This dissertation argues that this growing global focus indicates a dramatic shift in how the world responds to humanitarian crises and how it envisions the role of education. It points to an earlier world in which humanitarian and development domains were more strictly divided and where education, though integral part of development, was not seen as a necessary social service to be delivered in times of humanitarian emergency. In three articles, the dissertation examines the factors that have facilitated today's unprecedented global mobilization around education in crisis settings, studies the striking expansion of a global network that has been integral to this mobilization, and investigates how global specialists experience their work in this emergent professional field.
Beyond the individual [electronic resource] : ecological factors in social-psychological interventions
Keywords: Education.

This dissertation explores the ecological factors that limit and enhance the potential of social-psychological interventions to foster healthy human development. First, I explore values and publication pressures at the exosystem level that determine what kinds of findings are published in psychology research journals. Next, I explore heuristic biases at the exosystem level that prevent important findings from being implemented after they are published. Finally, I explore how individual changes triggered by a psychological intervention at the microsystem level can change group dynamics in ways that spur new benefits for all group members, even those not affected by the initial intervention. Understanding psychological interventions from this ecological perspective can broaden our understanding of how these interventions might be used to benefit the greatest number of people.
Bioactive Lipids Enhance Cardiomyocyte Differentiation from Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells
Keywords:  Department of Biology
Biology
cardiomyocytes
induced pluripotent stem cells
differentiation
bioactive lipids
sphingosine-1-phosphate
lysophosphatidic acid
Thesis

Heart diseases remain the leading cause of death in the United States as well as worldwide. Due to the limited proliferative capacity of adult mammalian cardiomyocytes, i.e. heart muscle cells, generating cardiomyocytes de novo remains a topic of significant interest in the cardiovascular field. The de novo creation of cardiomyocytes is seen as a potential means of replenishing cardiomyocytes lost upon cardiac injury and diseases. Previous studies have shown that bioactive lipids such as sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) and lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) regulate cellular processes including proliferation, differentiation, and migration in epithelial cells and human embryonic kidney cells. However, their roles in human cardiomyocyte function are poorly understood. I adopted differentiation of human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) as a model and examined the ability of biolipids to stimulate cardiomyocyte (CM) differentiation. Using the recently established hiPSC-derived CM (hiPSC-CM) differentiation platform, I demonstrated that treatment with S1P/LPA during the early stage of differentiation can enhance cardiomyocyte formation, generating higher yield of cardiomyocytes from hiPSC differentiation. I showed that combined S1P and LPA treatment facilitated epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition during hiPSC differentiation and enhanced hiPSC-CM formation by increasing nuclear accumulation of β-catenin, a Wnt pathway mediator crucial to the transcriptional activation of genes necessary for cardiomyocyte differentiation. These findings will help improve hiPSC-CM generation for cardiac disease modeling, precision medicine, and regenerative therapies.
Bioinspired manganese/picolinic acid catalyst system for organic oxidations [electronic resource]
Keywords: Chemistry.

Transition metal-mediated oxidations of organic compounds are fundamental processes in biological systems. Metalloenzymes carry out these reactions with high selectivity and efficiency using earth-abundant transition metals and dioxygen or a reduced surrogate as the terminal oxidant. Motivated by these extraordinary reactions observed in metalloenzymes, synthetic "bioinspired" systems have been developed that are capable of similar reactivity in abiological contexts. One such segment of bioinspired oxidation systems focuses on non-heme Mn coordination complexes, which have demonstrated efficacy for challenging oxidation reactions such as catalytic alkene epoxidation and alkane C--H oxidation. A bioinspired, non-heme catalyst system comprised of a MnII salt, the ligand picolinic acid (2-PyCO2H), and peracetic acid (PAA) as an oxidant generates a remarkably general and powerful oxidant for O-atom transfer reactions to organic substrates. This catalyst system selectively transforms alkenes to their corresponding epoxides and is compatible with a wide range of alkene steric and electronic properties, including difficult electron-deficient substrates. Modifications to this system enable the epoxidation of traditionally incompatible basic nitrogen-containing alkenes and enhanced selectivity at cryogenic temperatures. Epoxidation using the Mn/2-PyCO2H system with PAA is exceptionally fast, reporting a record turnover frequency for a homogeneous epoxidation catalyst of 270 s-1. The reaction is mediated by an electrophilic Mn-based oxidant, with a transient MnIV species observable by complementary in situ high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy experiments. A combined experimental and computational approach suggests a novel redox-assisted Lewis acid mechanism mediated by a MnIV--peracetate complex, in which epoxidation proceeds in a stepwise fashion with a short-lived MnIII intermediate containing a substrate-centered radical. The same catalyst system is also capable of activating alkane C--H bonds to produce oxygenated products. The putative MnIV--peracetate complex is highly reactive for H-atom abstraction from substrates, with some selectivity according to homolytic C--H bond strengths. Experiments suggest a bifurcated reaction coordinate from the resultant organic radical in which radical dissociation (and subsequent reactions) is competitive with the desired oxygen rebound.
Bioinspired melanin nanoparticles for multimodality imaging and biocatalysis [electronic resource]
Keywords: Chemistry.

Water-soluble melanin dots (M-dots) have been developed and synthesized as the nanoplatform for multimodal imaging. Gadolinium (III) loaded M-dots (Gd-M-dots) are proven to be highly sensitive, biocompatible, stable, and multimodal imaging probes without noticeable Gd3+ toxicity. Furthermore, Gd-M-dots showed unique photoacoustic (PA) properties. Compared to the traditional Gd3+-loaded nanoparticles for single-modal MRI, Gd-M-dots can also be radiolabeled with 64Cu2+ for positron emission tomography. Gd-M-dots also exhibit dual contrast enhancing capabilities. In vitro and in vivo studies indicate that Gd-M-dots can be used as a dual T1 and T2 MRI contrast agent with high r1 and r2 relaxivity. Gd-M-dots have a high potential to be a valuable contrast agent for detection and differentiation of tumors, a blood pool contrast agent for MR venography and nanoplatform for tumor diagnostic and therapeutic applications. M-dots can also serve as an effective nanoplatform for preparing a ligand-free and water-soluble heterogeneous catalyst, Cu(I)/M-dots. Cu(I)/M-dots are proven to be a high performance, biocompatible and recyclable catalytic system for CuAAC and bioconjugation without any Cu(I) toxicity. M-dots can serve as a novel metal-loading recyclable catalyst for various applications in bioconjugation and chemical biology.