VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Socialism and feminism in East German opera [electronic resource] : the cases of director Ruth Berghaus and composer Ruth Zechlin
Keywords: Music

The focus of this dissertation is the two most prominent female figures in the German Democratic Republic's musical community, opera director Ruth Berghaus (1927--1996) and composer Ruth Zechlin (1926--2007). In particular, it explores how their status as women and as East Germans informed their creative output, as well as their self-image as artists, the creative opportunities available to them, and expectations and responses to their art. Like all artists, they were required to adhere to the tenets of socialist realism. As women, they were expected to reject gender differences, in accordance with the gender-neutral worldview set forth by the GDR's constitution. Drawing on a large amount of archival material, I reconstruct Berghaus's and Zechlin's relationships to GDR cultural and gender politics, showing how these changed through time. In doing so, my dissertation provides an in-depth examination of how political and gender tensions animated the musical environment and, more generally, the arts in the GDR. My study is divided into three parts, each of which contains two chapters. Part I centers on Zechlin's and Berghaus's works from the 1960s and 1970s. Chapter one examines Zechlin's opera "Reineke Fuchs" (1968) and chapter two Berghaus's stagings of Paul Dessau's "Einstein" (1974) and Wagner's "Rheingold" (1979), both with an emphasis on Zechlin's and Berghaus's relationships with socialist politics. In these works and their reception, gender issues did not play a central role, since Berghaus and Zechlin, as well as their audiences and critics, subscribed to state-supported view of gender equality. Part II focuses on the 1980s, a decade that saw a new generation of female artists who began to critique both the failings and the unintended consequences of state-mandated gender equality and the erasure of difference between masculine and feminine values and social roles. This strain of GDR "feminism" appeared namely in East German literature, particularly the works of renowned novelists Christa Wolf and Irmtraud Morgner. In the two chapters of this section, on Zechlin's ballet "La Vita" (1985) and Berghaus's stagings of Berlioz's "Les Troyens" (1983) and Mozart's "Don Giovanni" (1984, 1985), I show how Zechlin and Berghaus responded to the rise of this new, difference-validating type of feminism in GDR literature, in part by foregrounding themes of women's sexual repression and exploitation, vulnerability to male violence, and motherhood in their works. In fact, Berghaus went so far as to borrow from Wolf's novels. Reviewers situated both Berghaus and Zechlin in this new trend and started emphasizing their gender. Part III addresses selected works from the post-Wende period, namely Berghaus's staging of Wolfgang von Schweinitz's "Patmos" (1990) and Zechlin's operas "Die Reise" (1998) and "Elissa" (2005). In this section, I illustrate how GDR politics and tensions between gender-neutral and feminine worldviews continued to shape their production and reception even after German Reunification.
Soft limits and color-kinematic dualities in perturbative quantum gravity [electronic resource]
Keywords: Physics

This thesis is a study of the perturbative behavior of quantum gravity through explicit tree- and loop-level supergravity calculations. First, I discuss how using universal soft limits could allow us to reconstruct tree-level amplitudes. Second, I obtain loop-level results in non-maximal (N < 8) supergravity using the double-copy prescription for generating gravity amplitudes from gauge-theory amplitudes, which follows from the recently discovered Bern-Carrasco-Johansson (BCJ) duality in gauge theory. I combine N = 0,1,2 super-Yang-Mills (sYM) amplitudes with N = 4 sYM amplitudes to obtain N = 4,5,6 supergravity amplitudes. I show how the double-copy prescription reproduces known one-loop amplitudes, which correspond to the first explicit demonstration of the validity of the double-copy prescription in non-maximal supergravity. I then present and discuss new amplitudes at two loops in N = 4,5,6 supergravity.
Solid state cavity quantum electrodynamics with quantum dots coupled to photonic crystal cavities [electronic resource]
Keywords: Electrical Engineering

Quantum dots (QDs) coupled to optical cavities constitute a scalable, robust, on-chip, semiconductor platform for probing fundamental cavity quantum electrodynamics. Very strong interaction between light and matter can be achieved in this system as a result of the eld localization inside sub-cubic wavelength volumes leading to vacuum Rabi frequencies in the range of 10s of GHz. Such strong light-matter interaction produces an optical nonlinearity that is present even at single-photon level and is tunable at a very fast time-scale. This enables one to go beyond fundamental cavity quantum electrodynamics (CQED) studies and to employ such e ects for building practical information processing devices. My PhD work has focused on both fundamental physics of the coupled QD-nanocavity system, as well as on several proof-of-principle devices for low-power optical information processing based on this platform. We have demonstrated the e ects of photon blockade and photon-induced tunneling, which con rm the quantum nature of the coupled dot-cavity system. Using these e ects and the photon correlation measurements of light transmitted through the dot-cavity system, we identify the rst and second order energy manifolds of the Jaynes-Cummings ladder describing the strong coupling between the quantum dot and the cavity eld, and propose a new way to generate multi-Fock states with high purity. In addition, the interaction of the quantum dot with its semiconductor environment gives rise to novel phenomena unique to a solid state cavity QED system, namely phonon-mediated o -resonant dot-cavity coupling. We have employed this effect to perform cavity-assisted resonant quantum dot spectroscopy, which allows us to resolve frequency features far below the limit of a conventional spectrometer. Finally, the applications of such a coupled dot-cavity system in optical information processing including ultrafast, low power all-optical switching and electro-optic modulation are explored. With the light-matter interactions controlled at the most fundamental level, the nano-photonic devices we implemented on this platform operate at extremely low control powers and could achieve switching speeds potentially exceeding 10 GHz.
Some analyses of markov chains by the coupling method [electronic resource]
Keywords: Mathematics

This thesis is concerned with the non-asymptotic convergence rates of various Markov chains, and consists of two main sections. In the first section, I investigate the properties of random birth and death chains with fixed stationary distributions. The main results include a proof of the fact that random birth and death chains are in some sense less likely to exhibit cutoff than a certain natural family of birth and death chains, and conversely a proof that several natural families of random birth and death chains do exhibit cutoff. In the second section, I find accurate bounds for the convergence of Gibbs samplers on continuous state spaces. This includes a resolution of Aldous' conjecture on the mixing time of a sampler on the unit simplex, a generalization of work by Randall and Winkler on a related Gibbs sampler associated to a graph, and improvements on existing bounds on the convergence rates of Kac's walk on the sphere and a Gibbs sampler on narrow matrices with fixed row and column sums.
The song of love [electronic resource] : the afferent auditory pathway in Drosophila melanogaster
Keywords: Biology.

This thesis encompasses three projects at the intersection of genetics, behavior, and neurobiology in the fruitfly, Drosophila melanogaster. The major work presented is an investigation of the afferent auditory system in D. melanogaster. The afferent auditory system of D. melanogaster arises from the Johnston's Organ in the second antennal segment, from which mechanosensory neurons project to a protocerebral region known as the Antennomechanosensory and Motor Complex (AMMC). The antennal mechanosensory system in Drosophila is used in multiple contexts, including vestibular mechanosensation, wind sensitivity, and courtship hearing. During courtship, male flies present a stereotypic pulse song as well as a hum-like sine-song to female flies; these stimuli are species-specific and critical to female receptivity. Using a large enhancer-Gal4 collection, I identify 12 candidate cell types within the AMMC, divided into 7 types of projection neurons as well as 5 types of local AMMC interneurons. I tested each of these cell types for its effect on courtship hearing by testing the effect of neuronal silencing on a) female receptivity, and b) a male locomotor response (Song-Induced Locomotion). These tests reveal that the activity of one class of projection neuron (aPN1), and one class of local interneuron (aLN(al)) are critical to courtship hearing in both male and female flies. Other cell types appear to be dispensable for courtship hearing, and may play a role in non-courtship related mechanosensation. To help confirm that these phenotypes are not specific to neuronal silencing, I also hyperactivated each cell type using the temperature-sensitive dTrpA1 reagent; these results confirm that aPN1 and aLN(al) alone are necessary for courtship hearing. Overall this work identifies a set of parallel pathways from the AMMC leading to the ventrolateral protocerebrum (VLPR), but reveal that only one of these pathways is necessary for courtship hearing. The structure of this circuit is analogous to the multi-lineage projection identified in D. melanogaster olfaction, in which a parallel pathways share a common projection but carry independent information. In addition to this work, I also discuss an investigation of the role of abnormal-chemosensory jump 6 (acj6) on escape behaviors, as well as an investigation of the expression of doublesex (dsx) in the nervous system.
Source region characteristics of magnetospheric ELF/VLF banded chorus emissions [electronic resource]
Keywords: Electrical Engineering

Geomagnetically trapped electrons with relativistic energies in the Earth's radiation belts may cause serious damage to spacecraft systems through their interactions with onboard electronics. Natural electromagnetic plasma waves, known as extremely low frequency/very low frequency (ELF/VLF) chorus, can increase the flux of relativistic electrons by accelerating electrons with energies in the keV range to energies in the MeV range. Chorus, observed in the magnetosphere outside the plasmapause, often appears in two distinct frequency bands separated by an emission gap, which occurs where the wave power exhibits a minimum. This configuration, known as banded chorus, consists of an upper band (UB) of chorus located above the emission gap and a lower band (LB) of chorus located below this gap. This dissertation explores the source region characteristics of magnetospheric banded chorus emissions using data from the Cluster spacecraft and the Polar spacecraft to advance our fundamental understanding of the properties of these waves. A new theory suggests that the emission gap between the upper and lower bands of chorus is due to ducting effects. To test this theory, plasmaspheric electron densities with the highest spatial resolution to date are determined for accurate identification of whistler-mode ducts. Wave normal angle distributions near the magnetic equator demonstrate that banded chorus can be generated within, and likely guided by, enhancement and depletion ducts and that lower band chorus emissions can be uniformly excited over an extended region. Further analysis of the wave normal angle distributions in the equatorial and off-equatorial regions shows lower band chorus tends to be quasi-field-aligned and upper band chorus tends to have oblique wave normal angles. Finally, the intensity of banded chorus is determined to have an exponential spatial dependence on distance away from the magnetic equator, providing a new boundary condition for chorus generation models.
The spectacle of the self [electronic resource] : the power of the press to make us be by telling us who we are
Keywords: Communication.

This project proposes an understanding of press power that focuses on the formation of the individual self and explores the role the press plays in crafting our sense of what it means to be a person. It argues that cultural approaches to the study of American journalism (which emphasize journalism's story-telling and common-sense-making roles over its role in information-transfer role) don't currently have an effective way of understanding press power. The model of power I propose to fill this gap is closely connected to the work of Michel Foucault and focuses on the intersection of visibility, truth, and the individual subject. The project's empirical investigation investigates seven news stories from major metropolitan newspapers in the U.S. and brings interviews with journalists and readers together with textual analysis of the stories themselves, emails written by readers directly to the journalist and published letters to the editor about the stories. The analysis reveals the importance of culpability questions as a mechanism for constructing the personhoods of the people in the paper and suggests that the these questions along with the righteous indignation they trigger function as tools that help make people available as recognizable subjects to the workings of power.
A stable and conservative framework for detailed numerical simulation of primary atomization [electronic resource]
Keywords: Mechanical Engineering

Energy conversion devices often rely on the combustion of high energy-density liquid fuel to meet weight and volume restrictions. The efficiency of the conversion and the emission of harmful pollutants depend directly on the mixing of the fuel and oxidizer, which itself results from a cascade of mechanisms initiated by the atomization of a coherent liquid stream. Despite existing investigations, the effects of nozzle design, surface tension, turbulence, and cavitation on atomizer performance are still poorly understood. The challenges found in experimental studies caused by the multi-scale and multi-physics aspects of such flows have motivated the development of numerical strategies to simulate the atomization process. In the direct numerical simulation approach considered in this work, the physics of the flow are all solved for directly. In the presence of complex topologies, the underlying equations are stiff, and, therefore, the development and improvement of numerical methods has been an area of active research. Among algorithms that have emerged, sharp interface methods including Volume-of-Fluid and Level Set have been shown to give reasonable performance. Applications of these methods to study primary atomization of turbulent jets have been documented, but the rare convergence studies available show strong grid dependence, suggesting the need for further developments. The present work focuses on two novel developments: an unsplit Volume-of-Fluid interface capturing algorithm designed to improve conservation on arbitrary grids, and a robust flow solver for incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in two-phase flows involving large density ratios. The resulting approach is shown to be stable and second order accurate. The framework is then assessed in a set of validation cases. In particular, the effect of mesh resolution is studied, and the ability of the method to accurately retain under-resolved structures is shown. Finally, computations of a large scale atomizer for varying operating conditions are presented. The excellent computational efficiency of the algorithm motivates the use of such a framework for simulating industrially relevant configurations.
The state in training [electronic resource] : European Union accession and the making of human rights in Turkey
Keywords: Anthropology

This dissertation traces the route and a key mechanism through which human rights continues to infuse into the state domain in Turkey. At its focus are the human rights training programs for state officials and government workers, held in line with Turkey's pending accession to the European Union (EU). In this ethnographic study of those training programs, I aim to scrutinize both the everyday governmental configurations of Turkey's accession to the EU and the effects of the particular framing of human rights engendered by the accession process. Built around these two main pillars, this study emerges in conversation with both the anthropological studies of transnational governance and the anthropology of human rights. Human rights training programs are part of a larger process to transform the national governmental field in line with good governance in Turkey. They are complementary to the legal amendments, and they aim to bring about attitudinal and behavioral transformation in the everyday agents and practitioners of governance. The contradiction between these agents' professional socialization, reflecting the nationalist imaginary that dominates the Turkish governmental realm, and the country's obligations arising from its EU candidacy designates training programs as highly contested sites. These sites, as such, display the complex everyday dynamics of transnational standardization processes. Integration of human rights into the governmental domain requires disassociating human rights from their established political connotations, and re-framing them instead as relevant to and compatible with practices of national governance. This is achieved by formulating human rights as a requirement of expertise and professionalism to which all state officials should subscribe in order to better perform their jobs. My work focuses on how this re-framing is administered, and how it is received by the state officials and government workers who participate in human rights training programs. By analyzing the wider implications, and both the intended and unintended consequences of human rights training programs, this dissertation also seeks to understand the constitutive terms and building blocks of the governmental sphere in Turkey, which an attention to the re-framing of human rights and its reception by the state officials helps illuminate.
STM and STS studies of electronic states near macroscopic defects in topological insulators [electronic resource]
Keywords: Physics

Bi2Te3 and Bi2Se3 have been argued to be 3D topological insulators, exhibiting a bulk gap and a single, non-degenerate Dirac fermion surface band topologically protected by time-reversal symmetry. In this dissertation we will discuss the physics of topological insulators. We will show that scanning tunneling spectroscopy studies on high-quality Bi2Te3 and Bi2Se3 crystals exhibit perfect correspondence to ARPES data, hence enabling identification of different regimes measured in the local density of states. Unique to Bi2Te3, we will discuss observation of oscillations of LDOS near a step. Within the main part of the surface band we found that the oscillations are strongly damped, supporting the hypothesis of topological protection. At higher energies, as the surface band becomes concave, oscillations appear which disperse with a particular wave-vector that results from an unconventional hexagonal warping term in the surface-state-band Hamiltonian. For both systems, a "bound state" was observed in the bulk gap region that runs parallel to the edge of the defect and is bound to it at some characteristic distance. An expression that fits the data, and provides insight into the general properties of the surface band near strong structural defects, can be obtained using the full three-dimensional Hamiltonian of the system. In the case of Bi2Se3 whose band structure doesn't exhibit warping we studied the effect of local defects (impurities) on the local density of states. Although no visible interference pattern was detected we observed resonances localized around the defects. Such resonances agree quantitatively with a theory due Biswas and Balatsky which treats impurities as local potential wells interacting with a 2D Dirac gas which models the surface state of a topological insulator.
Stochastic control via chance constrained optimization and its application to unmanned aerial vehicles [electronic resource]
Keywords: Aeronautics and Astronautics

Automation has had a strong presence in manufacturing for centuries, however its use in society has been very limited. The most ubiquitous robot in everyday life is the Roomba which has sold over 6 million, but the vacuuming task of this robot is simple in comparison with the difficult tasks performed in the manufacturing sector. Automation is successful in manufacturing because the task and environment can be well-defined to simplify the problem, whereas for automation to penetrate into society, it needs to safely operate in the presence of significantly greater uncertainty. Applications that could benefit from increased autonomy include: robot-assisted surgery, energy efficient control of buildings, autonomous control of vehicles, robotic assistance for elderly and disabled people, routing aircraft around weather, and home automation for tasks such as folding laundry, loading and emptying a dish washer, or tidying up a room. All of the above applications are examples of stochastic systems which contain three sources of uncertainty: process uncertainty, sensing uncertainty, and environment uncertainty. In order to safely operate in the intended domains, the system must account for all three types of uncertainty in generating a safe control strategy. This problem of generating control inputs for systems under uncertainty is commonly referred to as the stochastic control problem. One way of formulating this problem is as a chance constrained optimization problem that restricts the risk of violating the system's constraints to be below a user supplied threshold. This thesis develops several extensions over existing chance constrained programming solutions. The feedback controller is used to shape the uncertainty of the system to facilitate the satisfaction of the stochastic constraints, enabling previously infeasible solutions. Systems with component failures are also studied, and the computational complexity is drastically reduced over previous solution methods. The chance constrained framework is also extended to handle systems operating in uncertain environments. A novel hybrid approach is developed that uses a combination of sampling and analytic functions to represent the uncertainty. This approach results in a convex optimization program, guaranteeing the optimal solution and reducing the complexity over other methods. The formulation is further extended to incorporate future measurements of the uncertain environment to increase the performance of the system. The proposed stochastic control methods are solved in real-time to plan trajectories for a quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle navigating in a three-dimensional cluttered, uncertain environment. The solution method enables the quadrotor to explore the environment to gather more information, allowing it to successfully complete its objective.