VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Cosmology and galaxy formation [electronic resource] : using the galaxy-halo connection to probe cosmology
Keywords: Physics.

The primary goal of this dissertation is to examine the relationship between galaxies and their dark matter halos. Understanding this relationship is instrumental to using modern galaxy surveys as probes of cosmology and to teasing out the details of galaxy formation. I will focus on methods relating to dark matter only simulations and large area surveys, and the use of galaxy clusters. I begin with an exploration of subhalo abundance matching, a commonly used empirical method for relating galaxies to dark matter halos in dark matter only simulations. The most obvious approach is to simply place the most massive, or most luminous, galaxy into the most massive dark matter halo. Nonetheless, there are several possible variations that I explore within the general class of subhalo abundance matching models. Results from these models are then validated against measurements drawn from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. These models are used to test a method for obtaining cosmology while marginalizing over the details of the galaxy-halo relationship. This method combines two-point clustering measurements with a measurement of cluster mass and richness to provide constraints on the density of dark matter in the universe. The additional cluster statistics are essential to breaking degeneracies between the galaxy-halo relationship and the cosmology that occur when fitting to the two-point clustering alone. While this method had previously been used in the literature, this dissertation adds by performing a fully consistent analysis of multiple galaxy models, demonstrating that so long as the galaxy-halo connection can be adequately modeled by a halo occupation distribution that the cosmology can be estimated in an unbiased manner. Returning to observations, I examine the clusters obtained using the redMaPPer cluster finder applied to SDSS. The trends found are generally consistent with previous cluster catalogs, but take advantage of the reduced scatter in the mass-richness relationship. The results have significant implications for the formation of clusters, particularly the importance of recent mergers on the galaxy statistics and for redshift evolution. This analysis is also applied to early data from DES, showing the evolution of red cluster galaxies up to z=0.9. Finally, I discuss the potential for future work. This includes application of redMaPPer and the M/N formalism to DES and future surveys, as well as directions for using galaxy cluster catalogs as a tool for understanding the formation of the most massive galaxies and their dark matter halos.
Critical publicity [electronic resource] : Candida Höfer's public space photographs, 1968-present
Keywords: Art and Art History.

This dissertation analyzes the photographic production of the German, contemporary artist Candida Hoefer (b. 1944). Starting with her earliest projects from the 1960s and 1970s like "Liverpool, " "Flipper, " and Tuerken in Deutschland, " and moving to her famed public interior photographs from 1979 to the present, "Critical Publicity" analyzes the work as an artistic response to contemporaneous discussions about the public sphere and democracy by social theorists like Juergen Habermas, Oskar Negt and Alexander Kluge, Nancy Fraser, and Seyla Benhabib.
Crowdsourcing structured data [electronic resource]
Keywords: Electrical Engineering.

Crowdsourcing can be used to incorporate human computation into a variety of data-intensive tasks that are difficult for computers alone to solve well. Crowd-powered algorithms treat humans as processing units, while crowdsourced data uses humans as a data source. We present two different approaches to the second problem: collecting data from the crowd. We first present Deco, a system for "declarative crowdsourcing." Given a declarative query posed over a relational database, Deco uses the microtask approach to ask specific questions to the crowd, augmenting existing data to produce the query result. After briefly describing Deco's data model and query language, we focus on how Deco's query execution engine and query optimizer work together to produce high-quality query results while minimizing monetary cost and reducing latency. Second, we present CrowdFill, an alternative approach for collecting structured data from the crowd. Instead of posing specific questions as microtasks, CrowdFill shows a partially-filled table to all participating workers; these workers contribute by filling in empty cells, as well as upvoting and downvoting data entered by other workers. We describe how the system uses our primitive operations to guide data collection towards prespecified constraints while providing an intuitive data entry interface. We also describe CrowdFill's compensation scheme that encourages useful work while adhering to a monetary budget.
Cultivating the growth of complex engineered systems using emergent behaviours of engineering processes [electronic resource]
Keywords: Mechanical Engineering.

This dissertation develops a new type of model to analyze the design and construction of mega-systems, based on combining an organization network-model with an information-transfer link-model. Analysis of previous efforts within the Design Research and the System Engineering communities shows three major shortcomings: they assume efficient network connectivity, they assume static networks, and they assume loss-less data transfer. This dissertation overcomes these shortcomings by applying information theory, genetic computing, and chaos theory to product development within a large distributed organization. A new model type is developed and exercised to examine methods and techniques to improve mega-system design and construction, and then validated in a three-year
Cultural Factors in the Survival of Stingless Bee Domestication (Meliponiculture) among the Yucatec Maya
Keywords:  Stanford University
Franz Boas Grant
anthropology
stanford
stingless
bees
beekeeping
melipona beecheii
maya
meliponiculture
gender
medicine
conservation
yucatan
mexico
belize
indigenous
corn
subsistence
Thesis

Recent economic and environmental changes have severely threatened the ancient practice of Maya stingless beekeeping (meliponiculture). My research in southern Mexico and northern Belize examines the factors that influence the resilience of Yucatec Maya stingless beekeeping where it still exists. The circumstances that surround the survival of this tradition involve a reliance on traditional Maya medical theory and reflect an overarching pattern of conflict and resistance that exists between indigenous subsistence and western capitalistic economies. Understanding the cultural context of stingless bee honey is critical for examining the implications of commercialization. Of special interest are the changing gender roles involved in meliponiculture.
The cultural pathway to higher education [electronic resource] : the pursuit of postsecondary aspirations for low-income, first-generation students
Keywords: Education.

Approximately 1-in-3 students on American college campuses come from families who have little to no experience in higher education. Despite their growing presence, many potential first-generation students, those without a parent who has completed a bachelor's degree, will never set foot on a college campus, and those who make it face significant adjustment and persistence challenges. Research on first-generation students has overwhelmingly portrayed this student group as uniformly disadvantaged when it come to gaining access to and achieving success in college. As a result, these students have become the target of pre-college support programs and practices that aim to improve college preparation. Critical to improving the access to and success in higher education for first-generation students is a high school environment that encourages and prepares students to pursue a college education. More specifically, studies have shown that a high school's college-going culture can have a positive impact on students' aspirations and college-going rates. Conceptually, college-going culture is useful for exploring the pathway to higher education faced by first-generation students, particularly as these students rely heavily on the school for support and guidance. However, research on college-going culture has not focused extensively on at-risk students and their aspirational development. This study follows 23 low-income, first-generation students across seven high schools in Missouri. Relying on longitudinal, qualitative data I explore how first-generation students experience the postsecondary aspiration and decision-making process in different college-going culture environments. Contrary to the majority of research on first-generation students, I find distinct variation in how these students approach and experience the postsecondary process. I argue that first-generation students fall into three distinct, yet fluid, categories based on their relationship and engagement with school, their approach to academics and the college process, their system of social supports, and their knowledge of and connection to their future aspirations. I find that the different types of college-going cultures interact with and influence these student categories in important and complex ways by providing varied levels of resources, support, and exposure to postsecondary opportunities.
Data-driven ranking of building energy efficiency utilizing stochastic energy efficiency frontiers (SEEF) [electronic resource]
Keywords: Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Quantifying building energy efficiency is essential to prioritizing investments and monitoring energy efficiency programs for utilities and large-scale facility managers. Two inherent challenges of quantifying energy efficiency are (a) energy consumption is influenced by many different factors, some of which are outside the scope of influence or interest of users to change; and (b) energy consumption is highly variable, hence energy efficiency can also considerably change over time. The contribution of my research is a computational method that utilizes smart meter data to rank buildings' energy efficiency while (a) removing the effect of factors that are outside the scope of influence and interest of users to change, and (b) accounting for the fluctuation in energy consumption, by specifying a confidence interval for energy efficiency estimates. Particularly, I extend frontier methods for energy efficiency ranking by developing Stochastic Energy Efficiency Frontiers (SEEF), a method to estimate the uncertainty in efficiency rankings and validate the functional form of the frontier. I validate the power and generality of my method using three data sets in residential and commercial settings. I demonstrate how SEEF helps identify factors that drive energy efficiency, and use its result to identify interventions that contribute to improvement to energy efficiency. For instance, in residential buildings, SEEF results validate that certain efficient features such as double-pane windows are more correlated with higher efficiency ranks, while other factors such as programmable thermostats have a smaller impact on rankings. The results of my research will enable practitioners to compare energy efficiency of buildings more accurately, and to compare them over time.
De la periferia al centro [electronic resource] : el imperio Americano y la nación Española en la obra de Mariano José de Larra, Benito Pérez Galdós y Antonio Machado
Keywords: Iberian and Latin American Cultures.

An increasing array of transatlantic approaches to Spanish and Latin American literary and cultural studies have shaped the transnational dialogue central to my research: the exploration of the imperial foundations of the Spanish nation. That is, how the process of construction of modern Spain throughout the nineteenth century is a reaction to the two moments of decolonization and loss of empire (1824 and 1898), and how this catalytic role of the American colonies is reflected in the writings of the main literary figures of the time. This dissertation offers a new view of the works of three key Spanish authors of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: Mariano José de Larra (1809-1837), Benito Pérez Galdós (1843-1920), and Antonio Machado (1875-1939). Following the recent historiographical currents that underscore the importance of the old colonies in the formation of a liberal Spain (such as the works of Christopher Schmidt-Nowara and Josep Maria Fradera), and through close readings of a selection of texts by Larra, Galdós, and Machado, this dissertation unearths the rarely studied presence of America in these texts and attempts to analyze these artistic references to the former colonies not only as historical portrayals, but also as reflections made in the former metropolis about the developing nation-state. This analysis takes into account the authors' shared understanding of literature as a tool for nation building, their concern for the development of Spain as a modern nation, and, more importantly, their awareness of the links between the potential new modern nation and the old transatlantic empire. Through an exploration of works pertaining to different literary genres (journalistic satires by Larra and Machado, novels by Galdós, and poems by Machado) and viewed as various ways to achieve a historical reconstruction of the recent past, I investigate how the authors reflect on Spain's aspirations to redefine itself as an imperial nation. Furthermore, I examine the authors' use of imperial loss as an example of how a lack of integration between metropolis and periphery (colonial and provincial) leads to the disintegration of empires and nations.
A decision analytic proposal for a self-governing contractual system [electronic resource]
Keywords: Management Science and Engineering.

Contracts are the medium facilitating the exchange of goods and services between persons in a free economy. This research was motivated by the observation that decision makers commonly view contracts as costly and ambiguous. I argue that the legal system handling of contracts is the primary reason for the increasing cost of contracting. Therefore, in this research, I propose a solution in the form of an alternative contractual system that allows contracts to be managed by private institutions in a competitive market. I call this system the self-governing contractual system. A contract in this system is defined as a transfer of the titles to properties depending on different future possibilities. I discuss the process of developing contracts and the dynamic of managing them in this system. I also discuss the competitive market for contract management, where private firms compete to provide the service of managing contracts. As part of this research, I also develop the contract flowchart as a visualization tool for contracts to help contracting parties communicate, design and negotiate contracts more effectively. I conclude this dissertation with the study of venture investment contract design problem. I take the perspective of a venture capitalist trying to choose the best contract for a given investment opportunity.
Deconstructing pancreas development using an integrated systems-based approach [electronic resource]
Keywords: Developmental Biology.

The pancreas consists of hormone-secreting endocrine cells, zymogen-producing acinar cells, and bicarbonate-secreting duct cells. Understanding their respective development is essential for developing strategies to derive precious cell types such as insulin-producing [beta] cells for treatment of diabetes mellitus. This thesis explores pancreas development using a systems-based approach to discover regulators and biological gene sets that contribute to cell differentiation, lineage specification, and endocrine-cell maturation. In Chapter 2, we describe the use of cell purification to obtain rare cell populations such as pancreatic progenitors from the native mouse pancreas. We query the transcriptome of 12 cell populations and discover previously unrecognized gene sets or modules that influence duct-cell biology and endocrine maturation. Using a reiterative approach, we identify and prioritize transcription factor regulators and their co-regulated modules. Using appropriate mutant mice, we validate the role of four novel regulators (Prdm16, Runx1t1, Etv1, and Bcl11a) and their effect on endocrine development. In Chapter 3, we describe the use of a pancreatic sphere culture system that can be scaled to phenotypically assess the effect of novel regulators on endocrine development. Lastly, we conclude with a framework for building gene regulatory networks (GRNs) from expression-based data and literature mining. Our goal is that a more global view of pancreas development will provide a framework for understanding the diversity and dynamics of pancreas formation.
(De)constructing Salome: Toward A Dialectical Critique of Transgression
Keywords:  Department of English
Wilde
Salome
feminism
aestheticism
Aesthetic Movement
Thesis

A thesis on Oscar Wilde's "Salome" (1891) that critically examines and reworks the history of criticism around the play. Against traditional feminist interpretations, it offers a new reading that rejects the view of Salome as a simply powerful or successful individual. Rather, as Salome moves toward greater feminist agency, she must also engage fundamentally with her aesthetic and social constraints. Combining the feminist and aesthetic lens, then, produces a much-needed nuance to Salome's character analysis as both a woman and transgressor.
Defining Environmental Literacy: Perspectives on Environmental Education in the Galápagos Islands School System
Keywords:  Department of Anthropology
 Goldman Honors Program
Galápagos Islands
Ecuador
Environmental Education
Environmental Literacy
Goldman Honors Program
Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment
Stanford University Department of Anthropology
Qualitative
Schools
Formal Education
Informal Education
Thesis

The Galápagos Islands are a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a popular destination for international travelers and researchers. However, the islands have often been overlooked as a center of local education in the large school system on the islands for young residents of Galápagos. This study investigates educators’ perceptions of environmental literacy as an outcome in both schools and organizations, spanning informal and formal environmental education programs. Using an ethnographic research approach, I carried out participant observation and semi-structured interviews with administrators and leaders in schools and organizations. The research included on-site observation of environmental education programs in both informal and formal settings. Through these interviews, I investigate the complications of providing environmental education for students on the islands. I also review the current state of student environmental literacy and explore how it can be supported with collaboration between schools and organizations for more frequent, comprehensive environmental education programs. The implications for adult residents living alongside a National Park and World Heritage Site are explored as well, with emphasis on the importance of environmental literacy for continued conservation and protection of the islands.
Defining Nanoproteomic Profiles of Hypoxia Signaling to Diagnose Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma
Keywords:  Department of Biology
clear cell Renal Cell Carcinoma
Nanoscale immunoassay
Hypoxia signaling
ERK 1/2
Thesis

The loss of function of the von-Hippel-Lindau (VHL) tumor suppressor gene leads to the development of clear cell Renal Cell Carcinoma (ccRCC) through activation of hypoxia signaling. ERK 1/2 is an important protein downstream of many hypoxia pathways, known to play a critical role in ccRCC disease progression. ERK activation occurs through phosphorylation. Previous studies have shown that total ERK 1/2 and phosphorylated ERK1/2 expression levels are higher in RCC cells compared to normal cells. However, ERK1/2 has two phosphorylation sites, and standard methods cannot distinguish between its different phosphorylated states. We hypothesized that ccRCC cells might exhibit selectivity for specific phosphorylated isoforms of ERK (such as mono-phospho-ERK1, denoted as pERK1). Further, we hypothesized that the relative percentage of ERK1 and ERK2 phospho-isoforms (pERK1, ppERK1, pERK2, ppERK2) can distinguish ccRCC tumor cells from adjacent normal renal parenchyma. Using a high-throughput nanoscale immunoassay (NIA), we measured the percent phosphorylation of ERK 1/2 and its respective isoforms within tumor and adjacent normal tissue in 20 ccRCC patients. For the first time, we showed that there was a significant difference in the percentage phosphorylation of each of the ERK 1/2 phospho-isoforms between ccRCC tumor and normal renal tissue. Through paired analysis, we found that the percentage phosphorylation of both mono-phosphorylated ERK1 and dual-phosphorylated ERK1 were higher in tumor tissue versus normal tissue (p<0.002 and p<0.00004, respectively). Similar results were obtained for mono-phosphorylated ERK2 and dual-phosphorylated ERK2 (p<0.01, for both). Thus, these results demonstrate that quantifying percent phosphorylation of key signaling molecules might be useful in defining signatures of ccRCC.
Democratizing opera in America, 1895 to the present [electronic resource]
Keywords: Music.

Despite opera's well-known exclusivity, the genre has in fact consistently been the target of popularizing initiatives, a point often overlooked in accounts of its history. This dissertation identifies and explains trends in efforts to democratize opera in the United States from the late nineteenth century to the present day. Examining both traditional live performance and opera's dissemination through new media formats, this research is the first to illuminate patterns in the great variation in the presentation style of popularly oriented opera in America over the last century, revealing novel source materials that challenge existing views of the genre. I argue that these little-explored democratizing initiatives have been dominated by ideals of uplift (1895-1920), integration (1920-1970), and authenticity (1970-present). Three case studies represent the prevailing trend of each era: Henry Savage's English Grand Opera Company (1895-1912), the NBC-TV Opera Theater (1949-64), and the Metropolitan Opera's Live in HD broadcasts (2006-present [2014]). I also show how changing ideologies about the role of "high culture" in society, sociodemographic shifts in the composition of the middle and upper classes and the immigrant population, and technological advances in mass media such as TV and HD satellite broadcasts have informed the emergence and character of these opera popularization strategies.