VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Paleteros: A History of Mexican Ic eCream Street Vendors in the San Francisco Bay Area
Keywords: Ice cream industry
Street-food vendors
Emigration and immigration
Immigrants > Social conditions
Seasonal labor
Latin Americans
Mexicans
Paleteros
Paleterias
Informal sector (Economics)
Ethnic groups
Text
Thesis

A common strategy for many recent migrants is the clustering around a particular locale
with other co-ethnic members as a way to make living in their new environment much more
palatable. This includes the formation of certain ethnic enclaves, common in many urban centers
that include Chinatowns, Little Mexicos, or Little Italys, that serve as a necessary cultural hub
that provides information on resources like housing, job opportunities, or support networks for
other arriving co-ethnic migrants. In some cases, migrants even cluster around a particular
profession that often become synonymous with said groups. In my thesis, I focus on Mexican
Ice-Cream street vendors, colloquially known as Paleteros, in order to better understand the
history of recent Mexican immigration and the social conditions by which these migrants choose
street food vending, an otherwise highly visible profession. I play close attention to the
inception, growth, and proliferation of the Ice-Cream street vending business by interviewing
both street vendors and ice-cream street vending business owners located throughout the San
Francisco Bay Area. In doing so, the ensuing thesis strives to add to the growing literature on
studies pertaining to small, informal businesses that are largely operated by Latinx immigrants as
well as examining the historical and social conditions that promulgated an otherwise
understudied topic
The paradoxes of aesthetic individualism : fashioning communities and selves in fin-de-siècle France and Spanish America
Keywords: Humanities and Sciences.
Comparative Literature.

Nietzsche's famous call to "give style to one's character" exemplifies the phenomenon at the center of this dissertation, a constellation of ethical and aesthetic ideals prominent in three literary movements of the mid-to-late nineteenth century: Decadence, Symbolism, and Modernismo. I call this constellation "aesthetic individualism," by which I mean (1) the intrinsic valorization of individual difference, self-determination, and self-coherence; and (2) the belief that aesthetic objects and practices can model, express, and cultivate these ideals. This dissertation identifies a series of figures representative of aesthetic individualism -- Charles Baudelaire's génie, Rubén Darío's raro, Joris-Karl Huysmans' and José Asunción Silva's collectors, Arthur Rimbaud's damné, and José Martí's hombre natural -- and argues that their creation is paradoxically motivated by desires and anxieties about collective identity at the different yet related scales of class, nation, and region. Decadence, Symbolism, and Modernismo have conventionally been seen as a "turn away from the world of public interest into the interiority of the private self." Since the late 1990s, however, scholars have become interested in these movements' communal dimensions, both in terms of the socialities they promoted and of the social and geopolitical identities they defined. But there have been few attempts to give an extended, comparative account of how French and Spanish American fin de siècle writers conceived of the relation between the individual and the collective, the aesthetic and the political. This gap is partly due to a differential in prestige between French and Latin American literary traditions, which produces myths about the exceptionality of French literary modernity and results in the dismissal of Modernismo as derivative. This dissertation goes against the grain of the Eurocentrism that still underlies much of the scholarship on these movements. Viewing modernity as multiple and aspirational, my dissertation aims to provide a comparative account of the formal and ideological diversity of the French and Spanish-American literary fin de siècle. I do so by showing how the values of aesthetic individualism betray idiosyncratic and locale-sensitive views on what modernity is, both as a historical fact and as a set of communal aspirations, sometimes progressive, sometimes reactionary. These divergent configurations of the modern challenge preconceptions that have guided Anglo-European theorizations of literary modernity: the autonomy of art and its concomitance with the rise and fall of romantic individualism.
A parameterized adams spectral sequence for applied topology
Keywords: Humanities and Sciences.
Mathematics.

Given an environment that changes over time, under what conditions can it be navigated? From a prescient AI seeking strategies for Frogger to museum thieves trying to avoid the Night Watch (with The Night Watch safely in tow), this is a present and interesting mathematical question. In topological terms, we are interested in the space of sections of a map of spaces X -> I. More broadly, we are interested in describing and computing good invariants for parameterized spaces, which is to say, spaces X equipped with a map to a base space B. We record a number of invariants for such spaces, in the form of sheaves on the base space B, and discuss how these invariants can help us answer the original problem of navigating a changing space. Our main result is the construction of a Bousfield--Kan spectral sequence to aid in computing the "best" of our invariants, the parameterized homotopy groups of a parameterized space. We reinterpret this as an unstable Adams-type spectral sequence, and then give some computations which, in nice cases, computes the homotopy group of the space of sections of a map
Partisan Interests or Values-Based Reasoning: An Analysis of Legislator Support for Electoral Reform
Keywords: Electioral Reform
Electoral System
Partisan Interests
Values-Based Reasoning
Text
Thesis

Why do some electoral systems change, and others stagnate? This question has seen many answers in literature, the two that have garnered the most focus being partisan interest and accordance with certain values. The partisan interest is that where a legislator is pursuing a
change, or not, to maximize their caucuses gains and minimize their losses. The pursuit of reform to remain in accordance with certain values is when a legislator pursues a reform, or not, to bring the electoral system in line with values that they see as central in the system and
society. These values, according to Virgin (2021), were under the umbrella of the “common good”. Some examples that Virgin pointed to were that of egalitarianism and self-reliance.
Passive and active particles in viscoelastic fluids
Keywords: Engineering.
Chemical Engineering.

Particles suspended in viscoelastic fluids appear in a variety of settings, both industrial and biological. Understanding particle-fluid interactions is a key building block in predicting the behavior of these systems, as the material properties of the particle and fluid affect stress distributions in a suspension under flow, or the motion of a swimming microorganism. We first examine capsules suspended in viscoelastic fluids for two different flows of rheological significance that appear in many applications. In shear flows, we find that increasing the suspending fluid elasticity leads to a non-monotonic trend in the suspension shear viscosity, decreasing the particle deformation, and decreasing tensions in the capsule membrane. For pressure-driven flow of dilute spherical capsules and RBCs through ducts at high confinement, increasing fluid elasticity leads to a monotonic increase in the particle deformation, while the suspension extrusional viscosity exhibits non-monotonic behavior. Replacing the spherical capsules with a red blood cell gives similar trends in the suspension rheology and particle deformation, but weaker trends in the membrane tension distributions, due to the reduced volume of the red blood cells. Finally, we study "swirlers": swimmers propelled by normal stresses in viscoelastic fluids. We show how the steady swim speed under weakly elastic conditions can be calculated for general arbitrary axisymmetric geometries, via the reciprocal theorem and the solution of two Newtonian flow problems, and derive the unsteady swim speed as an analytic function of a specified unsteady tail rotation rate and the material properties of the suspending fluid. This study expands upon the design space for a ``swimming rheometer'' by increasing its functionality to make and interpret rheological measurements.
Patent incentives and university scientists : a case study of the Bayh-Dole model in Taiwan
Keywords: Law.

The Mertonian Norms (also known as CUDOS, an acronym for Communalism, Universalism, Disinterestedness, and Organized Skepticism) support and reinforce cooperative behaviors among scientists. CUDOS has economic and social efficiency properties for the advancement of science. However, they are not necessarily incentive-compatible for professional scientists who depend on financiers to conduct research and make a living. Traditionally, nation-states have been regarded as an ideal financier for open science. But the interests of national-states and the need to hold public-sponsored scientists accountable can be at odds with CUDOS. In the past several decades, many countries have emulated the U.S. Bayh-Dole model, encouraging academic scientists to patent public-funded discoveries. Another global development is the New Public Management to make the public services (such as the higher education system) more "customer-oriented." These developments together have created a new economics of academic science. Based on interview data of 44 faculty scientists in Taiwan, this thesis formulates two ideal types of academic entrepreneurs: traditionalists and commercialists. Traditionalist-inclined academics and commercialist-inclined ones have different research propensities. They assign various weights to reputational and financial patent rewards and, as a result, engage in academic patenting differently. However, individual academic entrepreneurs position themselves at various points between the two ends of the spectrum. Moreover, academic entrepreneurs' positions, power, and resources affect how they take advantage of the commercialization opportunity that may come with scientific discovery and whether there is a tradeoff between them. Future academic entrepreneurship policies should be implemented with the mind of the heterogeneity of academic entrepreneurs
Patterns and predictors of principal turnover
Keywords: Education.

Prior research offers little guidance about the factors that drive principal turnover, as well as how these factors vary depending on a school's characteristics or a principal's attributes, including their pathway out of their current position. Using statewide student- and staff-level data from California, I explore how the patterns and predictors of principal turnover vary depending on more granular measures of student, school, and principal characteristics. I find that California principals leave their schools at higher rates compared to the national average, with nearly one in four California principals leaving their school each year compared to one in five in the rest of the United States. Rural students and schools experience the highest rates of turnover in the state, especially rural schools with the highest concentrations of students from low-income families. In addition, I identify potential mechanisms that predict principal turnover, including teacher turnover and the implementation of the Local Control Funding Formula. The descriptive results from these analyses shed light on how future research might continue to identify the drivers of principal turnover so that policymakers can better support stable school leadership for America's children.
Performance of Variable Stiffness Structures Under Compressive Force
Keywords: Composite materials
Metamaterials
Variable stiffness
Aerospace engineering
Text
Thesis

With currently available materials, designers of lightweight deployable and adaptable
spacecraft are forced to make a choice. Because most available materials have fixed mechanical
properties, designers can either optimize their structures for flexibility and the ability to change
shape, or they can prioritize their ability to withstand high loads. To combat this problem and
pave the way for future space technologies, materials are being developed with variable
mechanical properties. These materials allow for on-demand control of properties like bending
stiffness, enabling structures to continually adapt to their environments. As part of this effort, the
Stanford Reconfigurable & Active Structures Lab has been developing variable stiffness hinges
made of fiber reinforced polymer and silicone dry adhesive layers. These hinges can switch
between a bonded (stiff) and debonded (soft) state on command. And, when they are integrated
into a larger structure, the hinges will enable the structure to also switch between states. Having
multiple hinges in the same structure will yield even more distinct stiffness states. The goal of
this project is twofold. First, to better understand and characterize the behavior of the hinges by
creating software that can analyze their shape and their performance during experimental testing. Second, to integrate multiple hinges into different structures in order to determine the best configuration for controlling the hinges and yielding different stiffness states. To meet the first goal, MATLAB code was developed that could track the shape of a hinge throughout a testing
video. A new test setup process was also developed to yield videos that were most compatible
with the software. The MATLAB analysis revealed several differences in performance between
the experimental and simulated hinges, suggesting that further work needs to be done on building more consistent and resilient hinges and on improving the simulation model. To meet the second goal, many different geometries were explored and several different structures were tested under compressive force on a universal testing machine. Different problems with each of these structures manifested during testing, and in the end, only a structure containing a single hinge showed promising results. The primary conclusion is that these hinges do not perform reliably under compressive force and that a different approach to hinge integration is needed in the future.
Performative propaganda engagement : how celebrity fandom engages with state propaganda in China
Keywords: Humanities and Sciences.
Communication.

Established research on authoritarian information control has extensively examined the top-down dissemination of political propaganda and its impact on public attitudes and behaviors. This research introduces a novel theory, performative propaganda engagement, which focuses on individuals who engage with state propaganda in a performative manner to benefit an individual or a group they align with, rather than genuinely endorsing or promoting propaganda. Through mixed methods research approaches, this research empirically investigates performative propaganda engagement within the realm of Chinese online celebrity fandom, a rising cultural force on Chinese social media. The findings reveal that celebrity fans in China actively incorporate the promotion of state propaganda into their daily activities, aiming to enhance the visibility and reputation of their celebrities. I find that celebrity fans performatively engage with state propaganda through three mechanisms — celebrity mobilization, direct state mobilization, and algorithmic visibility manipulation. By exploring the manifestations of performative propaganda engagement, this research contributes to a deeper understanding of the downstream effects of authoritarian information control, contemporary fandom culture in China, the metrics-driven nature of social media ecosystem, and authoritarian resilience in the digital age
Permutation-based inference in time series analysis
Keywords: Humanities and Sciences.
Statistics.

Permutation testing is a widely used tool for performing robust and nonparametric inference in a variety of settings. Given observations from a stationary time series, permutation tests allow one to construct exactly level alpha tests under the null hypothesis of an independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) or, more generally, exchangeable distribution. However, in a general time series setting, the null hypothesis permits distributions which are not i.i.d., in which case permutation tests are not necessarily level alpha, nor are they approximately level alpha in large samples. In this thesis, we present a general framework for restoring the validity of the permutation testing procedure in large samples in a time series context, while retaining the exact rejection probability alpha in finite samples when the observations are i.i.d. Under weak assumptions on the mixing coefficients and moments of the sequence, we show that appropriate studentization of the test statistic leads to asymptotically valid inference in a permutation testing context. In particular, we describe explicitly the permutation testing procedure for three problem applications: testing for dependence in time series, permutation tests based on ordinary least squares regression, and permutation testing for detection of monotone trend
Petcoil : a second-generation RF-penetrable TOF-PET insert for simultaneous brain PET/MRI
Keywords: Engineering.
Electrical Engineering.

Simultaneous positron emission tomography/magnetic resonance imaging (PET/MRI) has shown promise in acquiring complementary multiparametric information of diseases. However, designing these hybrid imaging systems is challenging due to the propensity for mutual interference between the PET and MRI sub-systems. In addition, the current high cost of permanently-integrated PET/MRI systems limits their long-term development and deployment, as well as patient accessibility. To overcome these limitations, we explored a brain-dedicated PET insert for an existing MRI system to achieve simultaneous PET/MRI. Because of its brain-dedicated design, this insert also provides superior spatial resolution and sensitivity compared to whole-body scanners. The second-generation prototype builds upon the success of the first-generation prototype, which demonstrated radio-frequency (RF)-penetrability and MR-compatibility. The new design includes additional features such as a longer axial field of view, time-of-flight (TOF) functionality, and improved portability, resulting in improved PET performance but presenting greater technical challenges for MR-compatibility. This thesis presents the development of the second-generation brain-dedicated PET insert for simultaneous PET/MRI. Our objective is to achieve high levels of both PET performance and MR-compatibility. The detailed design, architecture, experiment setup, results and analysis of the second-generation brain-dedicated PET insert are presented, highlighting the progress towards realizing a cost-efficient and effective simultaneous PET/MRI system for neurological imaging
Photonic frequency engineering for efficient thermal energy and computation hardware
Keywords: Engineering.
Electrical Engineering.

As information explosion and climate change bring increasingly detrimental impacts, my research is committed to sustainability goals to develop clean energy sources, sustainable building materials, and efficient computation hardware. This goal lies at the intersection of electromagnetics, thermal management, and photonic computing. Achieving these goals would significantly impact multiple fields such as carbon neutralization and artificial intelligence. However, it faces fundamental limitations such as unpredictable environments, inflexible controls, and spatial footprints to build photonic systems that can preserve energy sustainably and process information intelligently. During my Ph.D., to achieve these goals, my research focused on 1. passive radiative cooling-based nighttime power generation, smart buildings, and water harvesting and 2. photonic frequency dimension-based computational hardware that is compact and consumes minimum control energy. Driven by sustainable energy applications, I also bridged disciplines to solve fundamental scientific problems in near-field heat transfer and optical-mechanical control, which provide implementable and scalable solutions to thermal transport and light sails. Even though achieving these goals can bring a significant difference in overcoming the technological barriers, we are well aware that, many challenges remain unsolved before we could design energy generation and building systems in real-time at a large scale, to prevent information overload and climate crisis before it even occurs, and deploy scalable photonic computing architecture. This is the promise of my Ph.D. research: I integrate analysis, simulation, and experiment methods from materials and control for light and heat to generate and preserve high-grade energy, to enable compact high-speed photonic computation hardware, to comprehensively understand and rationally design multiscale and multimodal energy systems
Photovoltaic subretinal prosthesis for high visual acuity : design, fabrication, and in vivo assessment
Keywords: Humanities and Sciences.
Physics.

Retinal degenerative diseases, such as atrophic age-related macular degeneration (AMD), are the leading cause of incurable blindness due to the irreversible loss of photoreceptors. Photovoltaic subretinal prostheses have shown promise in restoring vision by electrically stimulating the second- order retinal neurons, specifically the bipolar cells. Clinical trials in AMD patients have demonstrated prosthetic vision with an acuity of up to 20/438, closely matching the 100 μm pixel size of the implant. To further improve and broaden the adoption of this technology, pixel sizes need to be reduced to below 50 μm, surpassing the US legal blindness threshold of 20/200. However, scaling down the pixels of the current design to below 75 μm in patients is not feasible, as the local return electrodes excessively confine the electric field, precluding the stimulation of bipolar cells within a safe charge injection range. In this thesis, I present two alternative pixel design strategies aimed at optimally shaping the electric field with smaller pixels. The objective is to enable effective stimulation of retinal neurons without compromising safety, contrast, or resolution. The first strategy involves a monopolar pixel array with current steering, replacing the circumferential local return electrodes in each pixel with a transient return path through neighboring dark pixels. This design allows for deeper field penetration while maintaining high spatial contrast. The second strategy employs 3-dimensional electrodes, such as honeycomb-shaped walls and pillars, to vertically shape the electric field. Anatomical and electrophysiological studies of these 3D arrays in vivo demonstrate their feasibility and long-term biocompatibility. Grating acuity tests with these new implants - planar and 3D - in blind rats have shown that the prosthetic acuity matches the sensor pitch with 40 μm pixels, while with 20 μm pixels, prosthetic acuity reaches the 28 μm limit of natural resolution in rats. Unlike stimulation mediated by bipolar cells, direct activation of third-order neurons, the ganglion cells, by subretinal implants does not yield high spatial resolution. Therefore, an electric field that is carefully optimized for effective and selective stimulation of bipolar cells is crucial for achieving a high visual acuity of up to 20/80 in AMD patients.