VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Provenance, paleogeography, and mass-movement of deep-water depositional systems in arc-adjacent basins [electronic resource] : the cretaceous-paleogene California forearc and upper miocene mohakatino formation, New Zealand
Keywords: Geological and Environmental Sciences.

Plate convergence and associated subduction result in a dynamic setting where the development and evolution of sedimentary systems are influenced by a variety of autogenic and allogenic processes. Correspondingly, patterns of sedimentation within basins that form trench-ward of magmatic arcs (i.e., forearc basins) are often complex as a result of the interplay between interrelated factors that include: (1) magmatism and orogenesis in the hinterland, (2) changes in subduction regime (e.g., steep versus shallow angle of plate descent), and (3) local basin deformation. This dissertation examines the tectonic and sedimentary processes that acted in concert to influence the evolution of two arc-adjacent sedimentary systems: the Late Cretaceous-Eocene California forearc (Chapters 1 and 2) and the late Miocene Taranaki Basin, New Zealand (Chapter 3). These three chapters include investigation of a variety of processes that occur at different temporal and spatial scales. Specifically, major themes of this dissertation include (1) the evolution of sediment dispersal patterns in response to changes in continental arc magmatism and subduction regime (Chapter 1), (2) the development and early history of the central San Andreas fault system and the paleogeographic setting of central California (Chapter 2), and (3) submarine mass-movement and patterns of soft-sediment deformation within a basin-floor sedimentary succession (Chapter 3). The data types and methods used in each chapter are diverse and include detrital zircon U-Pb geochronology, subsurface datasets (e.g., well logs and seismic-reflection data), outcrop description, and structural analysis.
Providence and acceleration [electronic resource] : prophetic modalities in early modern Iberian literature
Keywords: Iberian and Latin American Cultures.

Rather than foretelling the future in any strict sense, prophecy in early modern Iberian literature works to read a telos—what I call "destiny"—out of the historical or legendary past. An act of postdiction, this teleological mode of reading also has an important pragmatic and interpellative element; it calls for and even demands present action in light of a preordained future. Prophecy, in this sense, works to transcend time in order to act both within and upon it. Particularly in early modern Catholic Europe, prophecies shaped perceptions of and controlled destiny through two modalities that, drawing on Reinhardt Koselleck's "Futures Past" (1985), I call "providentialism" and "accelerationism"—that is, the practice of slowing time down to defend the status quo with triumphalist postdictions or quickening its pace to rush to meet a future perceived to be redemptive. Although providentialist and accelerationist prophecies crop up frequently across literary genres in early modern Iberia, given the simultaneously evangelical and acquisitive motives that underlay the development and expansion of Portugal and Spain's respective empires, they are most prevalent in texts sitting at the crossroads of the sacred and the political. Such texts include, but are not limited to, epic poems, autos sacramentales, sermons, and political treatises that appropriate, develop, and use prophecy in their interrogations of empire. More specifically, I focus on epics such as Alonso Ercilla y Zúñiga's "La Araucana" (1569, 1578, 1589) and Luís de Camões's "Os Lusíadas" (1572), Pedro Calderón de la Barca's autos sacramentales, as well as António Vieira's prophetic treatises and a selection of his sermons.
Quantitative reservoir characterization integrating seismic data and geological scenario uncertainty [electronic resource]
Keywords: Energy Resources Engineering.

The main objective of this dissertation is to characterize reservoir models quantitatively using seismic data and geological information. Its key contribution is to develop a practical workflow to integrate seismic data and geological scenario uncertainty. First, to address the uncertainty of multiple geological scenarios, we estimate the likelihood of all available scenarios using given seismic data. Starting with the probability given by geologists, we can identify more likely scenarios and less likely ones by comparing the pattern similarity of seismic data. Then, we use these probabilities to sample the posterior PDF constrained in multiple geological scenarios. Identifying each geological scenario in metric space and estimating the probability of each scenario given particular data helps to quantify the geological scenario uncertainty. Secondly, combining multiple-points geostatistics and seismic data in Bayesian inversion, we have studied some geological scenarios and forward simulations for seismic data. Due to various practical issues such as the complexity of seismic data and the computational inefficiency, this is not yet well established, especially for actual 3-D field datasets. To go from generating thousands of prior models to sampling the posterior, a faster and more computationally efficient algorithm is necessary. Thus, this dissertation proposes a fast approximation algorithm for sampling the posterior distribution of the Earth models, while maintaining a range of uncertainty and practical applicability. Lastly, the proposed workflow has been applied in an actual reservoir. The field, still in the early stage, has limited well data, seismic data, and some geological observations. Accordingly, the proposed workflow can guide several processes, from selecting geological scenarios to suggesting a set of models for decision makers. The case study, applied in a turbidite reservoir in West Africa, demonstrates the quantitative seismic reservoir characterization constrained to geological scenarios. It contains a well log study, rock physics modeling, a forward simulation for generating seismic responses, and object-based prior modeling. As the result, we could pick some promising geological scenarios and its geological parameters from seismic data using distance-based pattern similarity. Next, based on the selected geological scenarios, Metropolis sampler using Adaptive Spatial Resampling (M-ASR) successfully sampled the posterior conditioned to all available data and geological scenario uncertainty.
Quantum bose and Fermi gases of dysprosium [electronic resource] : production and initial study
Keywords: Applied Physics.

Advancements in quantum manipulation of ultracold atomic gases are opening a new frontier in the quest to better understand strongly correlated matter. By exploiting the long-ranged and anisotropic character of the dipole-dipole interaction in ultracold gases, we hope to simulate or create novel forms of quantum matter. Quantum dilute gases of the most magnetic element, dysprosium, provide an important platform to study this dipolar physics. We present details of experiments that produce strongly dipolar Bose-Einstein condensates of Dy164 and Dy162, as well as the first dipolar degenerate Fermi gas of Dy161 (0.2 x Fermi temperature) in low magnetic field. Particularly, we demonstrated for the first time the direct evaporative cooling of single component ultracold fermions (Dy161) to Fermi degeneracy, predicted by universal dipolar scattering theory. Due to its large spin multiplicity in the ground state, large effective gauge fields for simulating, e.g., the quantum Hall effect, may be synthesized by exploiting the Dy atomic structure. Moreover, as a non-S-state atom, Dy is predicted to be an ideal candidate for spin-orbit coupling experiments in ultracold gases since the Raman dressing would be largely free from the incoherent scattering problems induced by the additional laser beams.
Quantum networking with quantum dot spins and telecom photons [electronic resource]
Keywords: Electrical Engineering.

An outstanding challenge in quantum information processing is the harnessing of entanglement on a large scale and across long distances. Semiconductor quantum dot spins are promising building blocks for large-scale quantum information processors because of their short gate times and scalability using fabrication technology. Telecom photons carry information for the long-distance telecommunications because of their low propagation loss in silica optical fibers. For extensive quantum information processing, however, quantum dot spins and telecom photons need to be synergized with a set of quantum networking operations. We have demonstrated the following set of quantum networking operations: wavelength translation, quantum erasure, encoding, and standardization. First, single photons from quantum dots are wavelength translated from 910 nm to the telecom wavelength band while preserving photon statistics and coherence. Second, the energy difference between spin branches, potentially leaking which-path information to the environment, is quantum erased to verify quantum-dot spin-photon entanglement. Third, the entanglement is encoded into a time-bin basis, such that the spin-photon correlation can persist over 2 km of propagation distance in optical fibers. Fourth, 900- and 910-nm single photons from disparate, remote quantum emitters are standardized to show two-photon interference in the telecom wavelengths. The combination of these four operations could entangle solid-state quantum information processors across tens of kilometers.
Race, parenting, disability and special education [electronic resource] : three papers
Keywords: Sociology.

This dissertation features three papers examining race, parenting, and special education. The first paper, a version of which is published in The Modern American, is an essay that challenges the parental participation mandate in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ("IDEA"). The second paper is an analysis of the Procedural Safeguards Notice, a document that explains to parents their rights under IDEA. The third paper reports on similarities and differences between the socialization processes of black middle class parents and white middle class parents of children with disabilities. All three provide insights into the legal and sociological processes involved in parenting Black children and children with disabilities.
Rapid breast MRI with low distortion [electronic resource]
Keywords: Electrical Engineering.

Spiral imaging has the potential to improve the temporal resolution of dynamic contrast-enhanced breast MRI. Malignant lesions are highly vascularized and appear bright on contrast-enhanced images. Echo-planar imaging facilitates the rapid acquisition of diffusion-weighted images, which are useful for identifying malignant lesions based on their high cellular density. High-resolution images are desired to facilitate morphological assessment of lesions. However, breast imaging suffers from susceptibility-induced magnetic field inhomogeneity. Rapid imaging techniques typically use k-space trajectories that vary in two dimensions. In the presence of inhomogeneity, such trajectories suffer from blurring, which reduces the effective image resolution and can obscure useful morphological features, such as spiculations. This thesis presents techniques for rapid breast MRI with low distortion. A multi-frequency reconstruction reduces blurring in spiral images by reconstructing each voxel at the optimal resonance frequency. The double-echo steady-state sequence is modified to facilitate diffusion-weighted imaging using a Cartesian trajectory, which is less sensitive to field inhomogeneities than echo planar imaging. These techniques improve the image quality while providing diagnostically useful contrast in clinically feasible scan times.
Rapidly evaluating damage using high density networks in noisy urban environments [electronic resource]
Keywords: Geophysics.

Rapidly determining the extent of damage as soon as possible after a major earthquake is of utmost importance to saving lives and downtime costs. Earthquake Early Warning (EEW) systems are being developed using traditional seismometers, but with costs of millions of dollars, they are cost prohibitive for many countries. By incorporating low-cost micro-electro-mechanical-systems (MEMS) sensors, it is possible to create a working seismic network that has the potential for EEW and creating maps of estimated shaking for a fraction of the cost of a traditional network. The Quake-Catcher Network (QCN) has roughly 2000 MEMS sensors around the world, with particularly dense arrays in New Zealand, Chile, and the San Francisco Bay and Los Angeles areas. When testing the possibility of using QCN as an EEW system, it was clear that traditional rapid magnitude estimation techniques, like those used in other EEW systems, would not work with the QCN dataset due to their lower quality data. In this thesis, I explore the use of these new devices in combination with new and old seismic methods. Following a major earthquake, a potentially damaged building must be inspected before it is reoccupied. With tall buildings, however, it may be difficult to determine the extent of the structural damage. By utilizing urban networks located in buildings, I show that it is possible to use ambient vibrations of the building to obtain a building response in less than a day, and using a single station alone.
Reconciling laboratory studies and field-scale flow inferences of turbidity currents using numerical modeling [electronic resource]
Keywords: Geological and Environmental Sciences.

This thesis examines turbidity current dynamics, and how inferences of flow processes at the laboratory-scale might affect our understanding of turbidity current dynamics at the field-scale, using numerical modeling. Turbidity currents flow due to the excess density provided by suspended sediments. Measurements of turbidity currents in natural systems have proven difficult due to the destructive nature of the flows. As a result, researchers have primarily investigated turbidity current dynamics using physical models at the laboratory-scale, and numerical models at the field-scale to understand the processes that control the excess density of the flows. Given the difficulties inherent in scaling the turbulent behavior of these flows in physical models, my thesis focuses on the empirical relationships that describe how sediment and clear-water entrainment rates relate to flow turbulence. Additionally, I expand the widely-used four-equation model for turbidity currents to account for previously neglected processes that exchange mass and momentum between the flow and its surroundings, allowing for a more complete description of turbidity current dynamics. To examine the processes that exert primary influences on the excess density, I began by quantifying the uncertainties within the empirical relationships that describe sediment and clear-water entrainment. The range of statistically sampled relationships, particularly the clear-water entrainment relationships, obscured turbidity current evolution beyond 200-500 m, suggesting that consideration of a wide range of entrainment parameters might be necessary to accurately predict the range of plausible field-scale flow dynamics. I then simulated flows through a series of well-studied natural systems and found that all modeled turbidity currents reached physically unrealistic flow heights (10-200x the channel depth) when laboratory-derived clear-water entrainment rules were used. This suggests that the net-clear-water entrainment rate is too high, either due to the neglect of alternate processes that remove mass and momentum from the flow, or due to improper parameterization of the clear-water entrainment relationship at the field-scale. I completed this thesis by expanding the numerical model to account for flow stripping and overspill processes that remove fluid and sediment mass from the flow and help regulate flow height and velocity. Simulated flows not only maintained more realistic flow conditions, but reached a dynamic equilibrium. This dynamic equilibrium, particularly Richardson sub-critical equilibrium, might help elucidate the long runout distances of turbidity currents on low slopes inferred from extensive natural systems.
Reducing contact resistivity in Ge-rich SiGe modulators for optical interconnects
Keywords: Optical interconnect
scaling
interconnect bottleneck
modulators
Silicon
Germanium
CMOS
SiGe
Silicon Germanium
contact resistivity
Tranfer Length Method
TLM
Titanium
Titanium Dioxide
TiO2
Depinning
Fermi level pinning
Quantum confined stark effect
MIS
MIGS
Dopant segregation
Quantum Wells
ALD
fabrication
nanotechnology
Thesis

This thesis discusses reducing contact resistivity in Ge-like SiGe modulators through two methods: Dopant segregation and Metal-Insulator-Semiconductor (MIS) approach. We first discuss the challenges associated with implementing the dopant segregation technique because of the requirement of a high temperature anneal step.
We then discuss the techniques that were used to fabricate the MIS based SiGe modulators that used TiO2 as the insulator layer. Using this technique, we managed to almost completely depin the Fermi level and reduce the contact resistivity by 25x and two orders of magnitude.
Reframing the Iraq war through erformance [electronic resource] : politics, rhetoric, and resistance
Keywords: Theater and Performance Studies.

In 2003 the United States government launched a war against Iraq, a country that had not attacked it first. The Bush administration rallied support for this war using aesthetic, discursive, and performative devices that framed the war as necessary for national security and an ethical imperative for humanitarian intervention. At a time when the government relied on the tools of performance to justify and wage war, artists struggled to find new aesthetic and political approaches to theater, protest performance, and the media. Marked by a lack of formal innovation, performance during the war was variously a methodology for historicizing war as it happened, an embodied means of resistance, and an attempt to understand the effects and affects of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. Although trapped in the same political logic and capitalist systems they attempted to critique, performances about the Iraq War nonetheless reframed the war, enabling the public to see it differently. "Reframing the Iraq War through Performance: Politics, Rhetoric, and Resistance" argues that performance genres such as documentary, tragedy, and satire challenged the logic and emotional appeal of the government's call for war in order to create space for resistance. This project analyzes the relation between form and content in order to argue that particular modes of performance are uniquely positioned to reconceptualize specific frames of war. I examine the ways in which personal narratives in documentary plays reveal problems with the freedom agenda, adaptations of Greek tragedies to the Iraq war demonstrate contradictions embedded in American exceptionalism, and the satirical performances in The Daily Show and The Colbert Report challenge the manipulation of truth by the government and media.
Regulation of Meiotic Division Numbers During Spermatogenesis by the COP9 Signalosome through a Cyclin/CDK Inhibitor
Keywords:  Department of Biology
Developmental biology
csn
rux
chromosome segregation
meiosis
Biology
Thesis

Strict control over meiotic division numbers is crucial for gamete generation and conservation of genetic material in sexually reproducing eukaryotes. Although much has been learned about how homologous chromosomes pair, recombine, and segregate in meiosis I, much less is known about the cell cycle regulatory events that lead to two rapid divisions without an intervening S-phase necessary for production of haploid gametes. This project focuses on cell cycle regulation of the two meiotic divisions in the male germ line of Drosophila melanogaster. Previous work in the lab discovered meiotic defects in germ cells lacking function of the COP9 signalosome (csn), which is involved in regulating activities of the Ubiquitin Proteasome System (UPS), which in turn marks proteins for degradation by the 26S proteasome. The failure to undergo meiosis II observed after loss of csn function in spermatocytes is reminiscent of the phenotype caused by over-expression of a previously reported cyclin/CDK inhibitor, roughex (rux), suggesting that csn might negatively regulate rux activity to allow progression of germ cells to meiosis II in the male germ line. Roughex had previously been shown to act as a dosage-dependent regulator of entry into meiosis II via inhibition of cyclin A and B activity. Here, I probed the regulatory relationship between csn and rux using genetic, cell biology, and biochemical approaches. Over-expression of cyclin A and cyclin B1 partially restored chromosome segregation in meiosis II to csn loss of function. Consistent with the hypothesis that csn allows meiosis II by inhibiting rux, I found that knock down of rux in csn mutants showed significant restoration of meiosis II as well. In addition, Western blot analysis showed visibly higher levels of rux protein in csn RNAi testis extracts compared to wild-type controls. My data suggest that csn may be required at a critical time during meiosis II for chromosome segregation by inhibition of rux activity to ensure sufficient cyclin activity.
Regulation of the centriole life cycle by MDM1 [electronic resource]
Keywords: Biology.

Centrosomes are composed of microtubule based structures called centrioles surrounded by a proteinaceous pericentriolar material. They serve as the primary microtubule organizing center in mammalian cells and also nucleate cilia formation. Mutations in centrosome and cilium protein coding genes are implicated in ciliopathy-related diseases and cancer. Thus, understanding functions of these proteins can aid understanding the development of these diseases. Here we study Mdm1, which we previously identified as being transcriptionally upregulated in mouse tracheal epithelial cells (MTECs). We show that MDM1 is a centriole protein with microtubule binding and stabilizing properties that localizes to newly replicated procentrioles beginning in mitosis, coincident with the end of centriole duplication. Depletion and overexpression of MDM1 results in phenotypes consistent with the protein acting as a negative regulator of centriole duplication. We also examine the role of MDM1 in MTECs, showing that it does not appear to be deuterosome-associated, but does localize to centrioles upon their formation. We further show that MDM1 disperses from centrioles upon ciliation in mature multiciliated cells. MDM1 depletion in MTECs did not block entry into the multiciliated cell fate program, but did cause a ciliation defect, suggesting MDM1 depletion may cause a delay in the development pathway of these cells.