VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Racial politics of the white left and beyond
Keywords: Humanities and Sciences.
Political Science.

Literature in political science has long established that a person's attachment to a given social group can have powerful consequences on the political beliefs they adopt. Across the three papers in this dissertation, I build on this work by studying how an individual's connection to their racial group influences their reaction to political messages and their views on important political issues. The first and second paper explore the importance of this connection to the racial group for a specific subset of Americans: White Democrats. Much of the political science scholarship on White identity has focused on its role in shaping the attitudes and behavior of White conservatives and White Republicans. However, I argue that White identity also has a profound effect on the behavior of Whites on the political left. Specifically, White Democrats respond negatively to progressive racial messaging when it can be perceived as threatening to Whites' racial in-group. This negative reaction could arise in response to messages White Democrats perceive as threats to their self-esteem---which I explore in paper one---or in response to messages they perceive as threats to their sense of group position or their material well-being---which I examine in paper two. The findings from these papers highlight how threats to their racial group matter for White Democrats forced to negotiate the conflict between their political identity and their racial identity. The third paper examines the relationship between three different levels of connection to one's racial group: geographic, social, and psychological. Using a novel dataset that includes the four largest ethnoracial groups in the United States, my co-authors and I find that there is only a weak correlation between geographic, social, and psychological embeddedness in one's racial group. Additionally, psychological attachment to a person's racial group proves to be an especially strong predictor of important political attitudes, while geographic attachment to the racial group is a very weak predictor of these attitudes. Together, these papers highlight the profound effect that the connection to one's racial group that exists within an individual's mind has on their political attitudes and behaviors
Reading in the digital age : teacher and students' experiences with multimodal literacy and varied text types
Keywords: Education.

Over the last several decades, forms of reading have expanded far beyond conventional print-based text to include multimodal representational forms rooted in new practices and contexts (Miller, 2007) including a variety of text formats within technologies. This rapidly changing digital landscape has impacts on the ways in which students engage with, and teachers incorporate, other non-print mediums particularly for primary aged students learning how to read. This dissertation explores questions regarding text types across three studies. The first chapter and study is a systematic research synthesis examining research published between 1996 when the call for multimodal literacies was first made, until 2022. Findings reveal 33 kindergarten-5th grade studies classroom studies focused explicitly on multimodal instructional approaches to teaching literacy. Findings reveal 74 research questions have been asked, and 102 research findings have been found across five themes: multimodal compositions, reading multimodal texts, empowerment through multimodality, impacts of multimodal instruction on student learning, and multimodal pedagogy. The second chapter, a mixed methods study, examines one small group of 5th grade multilingual students identified as struggling with engagement in reading, and their interactions with one another and their teacher as they engaged in text-based discussions using three kinds of text types: print-only, print-plus image, and video-only. This study finds talk distributions to be consistent with the literature on student and teacher talk with no statistically significant difference between text types. Student and teacher talk moves were found to vary little between text types, though higher rates of instructing moves were found to be statistically different from print-only and print-plus image texts. Video-only engagement for students was rated overwhelmingly higher as compared to other text types. Using a discourse analysis approach combined with descriptive and inferential statistics, the third chapter and study compares the degree to which Collaborative Reasoning lessons were dialogic, the dialogic moves used, and the percentage of overall student talk during nine dialogic discussions focused on three types of text: print-only, print-plus image, and video-only across three groups of 5th grade students with varying language and literacy profiles. This study finds a positive statistically significant difference in the degree of dialogicality when discussing multimodal texts as compared to print-only, and highlights how multilingual students showcase their rich and sophisticated linguistic repertoires through the use of various dialogic moves during text-based discussions with multimodal texts
Realizing ultralow-leakage monolayer and highly P-type bilayer transition metal dichalcogenide transistors
Keywords: Engineering.
Electrical Engineering.

For decades, Moore's Law has driven great improvements in the density, performance, and price of silicon electronics. This pace, however, has slowed as silicon reaches atomic limits, e.g. mobility degradation as a result of surface roughness scattering. Two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors, in particular atomically-thin transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), could overcome some of the limitations of silicon electronics. While n-type TMD transistors with relatively good on-state have been demonstrated, their off-state and p-type regimes have been broadly underexplored. In this work, I have investigated these regions of 2D TMD transistor behavior. First, I provide an overview on the growth of monolayer TMDs by chemical vapor deposition and the methods with which we can non-destructively characterize them. This allows for the direct synthesis of large-area, 2D materials for electronic study. I highlight that this process can even deposit monolayers onto non-planar substrates, such as three dimensional sidewalls or deep trenches. Next, I discuss our study of the extremely low currents achievable in the off-state of monolayer TMD transistors, enabled by their band gap which is approximately twice that of silicon. These were measured by fabricating ultrawide (~ 1 mm) devices, enabling the detection of currents as low as 10 aA/μm, four orders of magnitude lower than possible in silicon, at room temperature. We also use temperature-dependent measurements and modeling to explore the fundamental limits of leakage currents in these 2D semiconductors. Finally, I focus on recent work developing p-type TMD transistors, which are necessary to achieve 2D CMOS technology, by utilizing bilayer WSe2. These bilayer devices show significant increases in hole mobility and current drive compared to monolayers. I discuss the possible mechanisms for this improvement, such as change in band structure and material resilience to fabrication. This work suggests that monolayers may not always be the most optimal channel thickness for TMD transistors, particularly p-type. Taken together, our results reveal an interesting trade-off between high-performance and low-power devices with layer number in 2D electronics
Reasoning about floating point in real-world systems
Keywords: Engineering.

Continuous computations, which involve continuous data and operations on them, are ubiquitous in diverse areas such as machine learning and scientific computing. In theoretical studies of such computations, we typically use real numbers and exact operations. In practice, however, we often substitute floating-point numbers for the reals and apply inexact floating-point operations, which presents a clear discrepancy between the theory and practice of continuous computations. In this dissertation, we aim at better understanding this discrepancy, especially for three different classes of real-world computations. First, for computations that implement math libraries using floats, we present automatic techniques to formally verify their correctness. Next, for computations that calculate derivatives of neural networks at floating-point inputs, we show theoretical results on their correctness. Lastly, for computations that train deep neural networks using floats, we present a systematic way to accelerate them using lower-precision floats.
Reciprocity laws and identity-based encryption
Keywords: Humanities and Sciences.
Mathematics.

Identity-based encryption (IBE) is a longstanding challenge in cryptography: can we securely encrypt a message to somebody if we only know their identifier (such as an email address, URL, etc.), without the need to first obtain their public key? In an IBE system, there is a single central trusted party who possesses a "universal key", allowing them to derive the secret key for all users. This arrangement provides much more stringent constraints on the mathematical objects used to build the system than in the usual public-key setting: the relationship between each identities and its corresponding secret keys needs to be cryptographically hard to compute, but knowledge of a single "universal key" must be enough to compute the secret key for every identity. While the problem of identity-based encryption was first posed by Shamir in 1985, the first construction of an IBE system was not until 2001, when Boneh-Franklin built an IBE system using the Weil pairing for elliptic curves. Also in 2001, Cocks constructed an IBE system based on the arithmetic of quadratic residues. Given an RSA number N = pq, the problem of determining which integers are quadratic residues modulo N is believed to be intractable, but knowledge of the factorization of N is sufficient to solve the problem. In this thesis, we provide an abstract-algebraic framework for Cocks' construction, resulting in a large family of possible generalizations. At this level of abstraction, we construct an IBE system and prove that its security reduces to the hardness of an underlying mathematical problem. However, it is not clear from the general definitions that encryption and decryption can be implemented using efficient (i.e. polynomial time) algorithms. To address this challenge, we fix our attention on the problem of detecting l-th powers modulo an RSA composite N = pq in a number field K containing the l-th roots of unity. Then, by applying the Artin reciprocity law of class field theory, we show that the corresponding IBE system can be realized with efficient algorithms
The red flower of life : a history of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, 1964-2020
Keywords: Humanities and Sciences.
History.

This dissertation reconstructs the lived experiences of Afghan radicals affiliated with the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). It traces the PDPA's ascent from their initial gatherings in 1964 through their 1978 coup, and the lives of those who survived their party's subsequent downfall in 1992. By covering over fifty years of history and memory, the study delves into the lives of both adherents and former adherents through archives and interviews conducted between 2018 and 2020. Several guiding questions lead the way: How can the recollection of a coup challenge the conventional explanatory frameworks that delineate the trajectories of modern nations? How can we leverage a variety of archives, such as oral testimonies, poetry, and fiction, to examine social memory and disrupt the historiographical practices tied to the archives of power? How are coups, revolutions, and civil wars interconnected? Ultimately, this project aims to demonstrate that the PDPA's rise to power and the ensuing Soviet invasion in 1979 did not inevitably seal Afghanistan's fate. Both documented records and collective memories reveal that Afghans sought alternative paths.
Red Lines That Bind: International Law and Domestic Political Audiences in U.S. Counterproliferation Policy
Keywords: Center for International Security and Cooperation
Nuclear counterproliferation
Security, International > Research
National security
Political science
Politics and government
World politics
International relations
Social sciences > Research
Deterrence (Strategy)
Deterrence (Strategy) > Research
Threats
Threats of violence
Strategy
Military policy
United States
Iran
Nuclear nonproliferation
Public opinion
Public opinion, American
Presidents
Text
Thesis

When, for whom, and why does the international lawfulness of military force affect the credibility of coercive threats? The credibility of coercion largely hinges on the domestic political costs that leaders incur for making, backing down from, or acting upon foreign threats (domestic audience costs). Doctrinal legal research investigates the international lawfulness of the threat and use of force, while an extensive body of international security literature examines domestic audience costs through vignette survey experiments. However, no studies have directly evaluated the effects of international law on domestic audience costs.
In my thesis, I present a representative sample of the U.S. public with a vignette survey on a hypothetical foreign policy crisis: Iran is on the brink of developing nuclear weapons, and the U.S. President issues a deterrent threat against an Iranian nuclear weapons test. The various treatment scenarios presented in the survey vary by three factors: the stated international lawfulness of the U.S. President’s threat, the President’s subsequent decision to either follow through or back down after Iran conducts a nuclear weapon test, and—when the President follows through—the success or failure of the ensuing military engagement. My data demonstrate that the stated international legality of the counterproliferation threat and whether the President followed through on the threat affects respondents’ political support for the President and perceived levels of reputational damage. There are no observable domestic audience costs for an internationally lawful counterproliferation threat, with backing down from an internationally unlawful threat resulting in more political support from respondents compared to staying out (domestic audience benefit). Moreover, varying the international lawfulness of threats resulted in notable divergence in the effects of inconsistency and belligerence, with the U.S. public’s preferences for counterproliferation offsetting perceived reputational damage for making such threats. Depending on the treatment, respondents’ individual-level characteristics and assumptions help explain their political support for the President. My findings provide valuable insights for policymakers considering the effects of international law on domestic political support for coercive threats.
REDOX GEOCHEMISTRY AND CARBON ISOTOPE CHEMOSTRATIGRAPHY OF THE MIDDLE-LATE DEVONIAN HORN RIVER GROUP
Keywords: Geological Sciences
Devonian
Geochemistry
Text
Thesis

The Late Devonian mass extinction is the most contentious of the “Big Five” extinction events: its timing, severity, and causes remain under much debate. A major hindrance to a holistic understanding of the Late Devonian mass extinction event(s) is a lack of sedimentary geochemical data coupled with a lack of reliable age constraints. Moreover, during this interval, oxygen levels may have stabilized to modern levels for the first time in Earth’s history. To better characterize changes in marine redox conditions and their relationship to the Late Devonian extinction, I measured iron speciation and carbon isotopes to characterize the Horn River Group, Northwest Territories, Canada. These data elucidate local redox conditions and more precisely correlate the shales and carbonates understood to be broadly co-eval in time. My findings show that the basin was predominantly euxinic throughout the Middle Devonian, and that it likely records the Frasnes hot shale event. Whereas much work remains to be done to characterize the enigmatic Late Devonian extinctions, the results presented here represent a step forward in understanding how marine redox conditions varied throughout the Devonian.
Reducing reference usage in detection of regulated RNA processing
Keywords: Medicine.
Biochemistry.

RNA sequencing methods have become increasingly sensitive, high-throughput, and cost- effective, resulting in an unprecedented volume of sequencing data accessible to the public. RNA processing events, such as alternative splicing or alternative polyadenylation, leave distinct signatures in RNA-seq reads. However, RNA-seq data is critically underutilized: sequence variation from RNA processing, beyond simple annotated alternative splicing, is most often ignored. We introduce a new statistical method to detect regulated RNA processing from single- cell RNA-seq data, that does not rely on existing gene annotations. Using this method, we detect cell type-specific RNA processing differences in human lung. We also discover developmentally regulated RNA processing changes, including global 3'UTR length changes, in both human spermatogenesis and Arabidopsis thaliana root development. We also demonstrate the use of a fully reference-free statistical method for discovery of regulated sequence variation in plant RNA-seq data. By fully removing the reliance on alignment to detect regulated changes, we can discover condition- and cell type-dependent RNA processing events even when an isoform or entire gene is missing from the reference
Reductive electrochemical technologies to target macroconstituents : in potable reuse, wastewater discharge, and agricultural fumigation
Keywords: Engineering.

Most current methods of water and wastewater treatment systems involve the purchase and transport of chemicals to centralized treatment facilities. Interest in decentralized treatment systems is growing, partly because pumping water to and from treatment facilities constitutes a significant fraction of the overall energy used within the water cycle. Electrochemical treatment systems are particularly attractive for these decentralized systems, since their modular nature enables them to be placed in locations such as the basements of apartment buildings. They also have the potential to be operated remotely, thereby avoiding the need to hire highly trained operators for each treatment site. An additional advantage is the potential to generate chemical reagents on-site, avoiding the purchase and shipping of reagents to these distributed sites and the associated CO2 emissions. While electrochemical treatment technologies are a potentially powerful tool for advancing decentralized treatment, there have been three main limitations that have inhibited scale-up. First, research has focused on oxidative (anodic) systems, but these systems can oxidize chloride and other halides, which are ubiquitous, into toxic halogenated products (e.g., perchlorate). Second, expensive materials are used to fashion anodes to combat their degradation under oxidative conditions (e.g., boron-doped diamond). Third, research has often targeted oxidation of contaminants that are microconstituents (< μg/L), but competition by macroconstituents (e.g., mg/L of dissolved organic matter) results in low process efficiencies and treatment timescale in excess of the ~1 h timescales typical of full-scale water and wastewater treatment processes. In this thesis, I offer a novel approach to address these three challenges. First, I focus on reductive (cathodic) processes, thereby avoiding halide oxidation to toxic byproducts. Second, I use inexpensive materials to construct cathodes (e.g., stainless steel, carbon), which was possible because their use as cathodes avoided their oxidative degradation. Third, I focused on three applications relevant to three separate sub-fields of environmental engineering where the cathode targeted macroconstituents, enhancing process efficiency and enabling treatment over reasonable timescales. For each application, I evaluate the impact of various performance metrics (e.g., voltage/current, pH, ionic strength, and electrode materials) to determine the optimal operational conditions. Using this data and real water or matrix conditions, I develop initial cost estimates against currently used technologies to assess whether the electrochemical process is feasible and where improvements need to be made in future work on the treatment processes.
Reframing US-China strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific: the role and agency of Southeast Asian nations
Keywords:  Stanford Global Studies
Southeast Asia
US-China relations
US-China great power competition
Laos
Indonesia
Philippines
Stanford Global Studies
Text
Thesis

The prevailing geopolitical landscape painted in the media is often as follows: the US and China are caught in a Thucydides trap in which a rising power is challenging to eclipse the incumbent, and Southeast Asia is a key theatre where this will play out. Many are reminded of the Cold War, during which Southeast Asian countries were divided along their alignment strategies. Today, they face pressure from the US and China to pick a side in international politics and they are often portrayed as a prize to be won. They appear helpless and at risk of being the collateral damage of great power rivalry. Moreover, the narratives portrayed in Western and Chinese media and/or literature are divided – both sides see themselves as the force of good for the prosperity of the region and are critical when Southeast Asian countries work with the other.
However, there is also an alternative perspective that the US-China strategic competition could provide fertile ground for Southeast Asian countries to advance their own national interests. While navigating the US-China tension can be challenging, the big powers’ eagerness to engage and win them over gives them additional leverage and more options to obtain the necessary support and assistance for their own development. The trade war and the push for decoupling may also inadvertently present new opportunities for some Southeast Asian countries. The Southeast Asian nations have always acted according to what pragmatism dictates and they will no doubt try to make the best use of the situation.
Hence, this paper seeks to explore the ways in which Southeast Asian countries could shape the dynamics of the US-China strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific region and the key drivers behind their foreign policy toward the two big powers. To this end, it delves deeper into three case study countries that lie on different points along the spectrum of US/China-leanings – namely Laos, Indonesia, and the Philippines – to illustrate the relevant factors at play. The paper can also help inform American and Chinese policymakers about the needs of Southeast Asia and the effectiveness of their current approaches. Most importantly, it hopes to reframe the conversation to focus more on the agency of the region and shed light on the Southeast Asian point of view that tends to be lacking in the current discourse.