VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
A True-Triaxial Laboratory Seismic Velocity Experiment Under In Situ Stress Conditions: A Comparison With In Situ 3D Stress and Velocity
Keywords: 3D Stress Measurements
Borehole Geophysics
Experimental Laboratory Seismology
Seismic Velocities
Space Mining
True-triaxial Stress

The purpose of this thesis is to develop a greater understanding of borehole perturbation on the in situ 3D stress field, including observations of the stress field made from a borehole, with a specific focus on seismic velocity surveys. Commonly overlooked concepts of material anisotropy, nonlinear elastic constants, and the effects of σ2 on rock failure are investigated in the laboratory and are subsequently applied to field data. Beginning with an isotropic mine possessing a known 3D velocity structure and in situ stress field of the unexcavated rock mass, an elastic true-triaxial test is used to replicate the in situ stress path of a rock sample from a tunnel designed to maximize excavation damage. Velocity surveys were conducted along the tunnel roof and sidewalls with calibrated sensors and are comparable to laboratory frequencies. However, tensile stresses present in the tunnel sidewall are not replicated during this experiment, therefore acoustoelastic theory is used to describe some of the nonlinearity of the in situ sidewall velocities. In situ P-wave velocities are reproduced experimentally within the associated uncertainties. Another true-triaxial test is performed replicating the stress path of a rock sample located in the tunnel’s roof. Identifying which stress magnitudes and ratios result in significant acoustic emission while focusing on the experimentally elusive σ2. Seismic velocity surveys along all three axes and polarizations are taken at every significant stress path step, giving insight into the influence of crack density and orientation on seismic surveys. These results are then applied to borehole breakouts for interpretation of 3D stress in an anisotropic environment. Using televiewer breakout data, unconfined compression strengths (UCS) and velocities from hydrostatic triaxial experiments on core samples from two boreholes in a deep mine. Additionally, an analytical solution for borehole stress concentrations produced in Python is used to perform a study on the effects of pivotal borehole parameters such as inclination, deviation, and material anisotropy. The results prove the commonly used isotropic assumption is incorrect, and considering material anisotropy, in addition to the role of axial (σ2) stresses, explains breakouts seen along highly anisotropic heterogeneous boreholes.
Inference of Computational Models of Alternative Polyadenylation and Splicing
Keywords: computational biology
deep learning
genomic medicine
machine learning
polyadenylation
splicing

Instructions from the genome are first copied to make messenger RNAs, which are then translated to make proteins. To expand the repertoire of these instructions, cells can modify the messenger RNAs in different ways. Two such modifications are alternative polyadenylation and alternative splicing. Using RNA-Seq data and deep learning, we trained computational models that can be applied to sequences in the genome to predict tissue-specific polyadenylation and splicing patterns. Presented with multiple alternative polyadenylation sites, the polyadenylation model can predict the probability each site would be selected for cleavage and polyadenylation. Similarly, given alternative exons, the splicing model can predict which exon would more likely be included. The performance of these models in predicting polyadenylation and splicing patterns for genomic regions not observed during training is evaluated, and an analysis of what the models have learned reveals sequence elements that are known to influence these cellular processes. Importantly, these computational models are trained on genome-wide patterns based on the reference genome but can generalize to individual variations. Each model can thus be viewed as a simulator, where the genotype of an individual can be fed in as an input, and the output describes how the individual's mutations affect the mechanisms of polyadenylation and splicing in different tissue types. The relevance of these models for problems in genomic medicine is described, and proof-of-concept applications are demonstrated.
Personality, Incorporated: Psychological Capital in American Management, 1960-1995
Keywords: Business History
Critical Management Studies
History of Capitalism
History of Psychology
Personality Testing
Science and Technology Studies

Personality, Incorporated traces the history of personality testing in American corporate management from 1960 to 1995. Through three case studies, this dissertation takes up the twinned history of psychological techniques, as deployed by a cadre of “consulting psychologists,” and the psychological capacities conjured by these techniques. Personality, Incorporated make two core arguments. First, it argues that personality tests aimed to incite and channel employees’ psychological capacities as forms of economic value. Psychological tests did not simply measure static traits, but they also actively elicited and mobilized affects, subjectivities, and differences, that they then harnessed for corporate value production. Second, this dissertation argues that late twentieth-century corporations were not just sites for the application and circulation of psychological knowledge, but they also served as important experimental laboratories for investigating human’s interpersonal, emotional, and cognitive capacities. A core contribution of this dissertation is to identify, investigate, and interrogate the specific form of value mobilized at this intersection of personality tests and management practices: “psychological capital. As an analytic category, psychological capital names how human beings’ psychological capacities are enlisted into circuits of economic value, with the aid of psychological techniques that can measure and incite these capacities. Psychological capital circulates as an intangible yet nonetheless measurable form of capital that was made visible, measurable, and valuable through psychological techniques of personality testing and training amidst economic, social, and cultural changes of the knowledge economy. This dissertation offers a new way to think about psychological tests: as tools designed to mobilize and channel psychological capacities, to elicit and cultivate the very characteristics that they purported to measure. In weaving together histories of psychology, science and corporate capitalism with critical scholarship on affect and value, this dissertation excavates how psychological tests have become corporate techniques that shape contemporary selfhood.
Novel Insights in Ankylosing Spondylitis Biology: Mouse and Human Studies
Keywords: ank/ank mouse
Ankylosing Spondylitis
lipocalin 2
treatment outcome

Little is known about the mechanisms underlying the clinical overlap of ankylosing spondylitis (AS) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). There is also a lack of reliable serological biomarkers to guide AS management. AS is a complex, male-dominant disease with HLA-B27 being the strongest genetic association. The ank/ank mouse is a murine model with serological and pathological features similar to human AS. Lipocalin 2 (murine Lcn2/human LCN2) is a secreted anti-microbial glycoprotein produced in multiple tissues including joint and gut. Given the functions of lipocalin 2 in infection, inflammation and bone remodeling, our aim is to assess whether lipocalin 2 is a key mediator of the gut-joint axis in AS and whether it would serve a better marker for treatment outcomes. The association of LCN2 with HLA-B27 and sex in patients is also analyzed. Chapter 2 shows that aberrant levels of Lcn2 are associated with ankylosis and gut pathology in ank/ank mice, indicating a potential mechanism underlying the overlap of AS and IBD. The interplay of gut inflammation and ankylosis in contributing to elevated Lcn2 levels suggests that the ank/ank mouse is a relevant animal model for the gut-joint interactions, as seen in AS. Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPARγ) plays a role in aberrant Lcn2 pathway in this AS model. Chapter 3 confirms the elevation of serum LCN2 in AS patients. Levels of LCN2 are associated with coexisting IBD and with the degree of ankylosis. The relationship of HLA-B27 positivity and sex with LCN2 implicates a host-microbe interaction underlying the gut-joint axis in AS. Chapter 4 demonstrates that normalization of LCN2 could be viewed as a treatment target in AS. Serum LCN2 served a more sensitive biomarker for treatment outcome in 89% of AS patients. HLA-B27 status and sex does affect LCN2 as a readout for assessing treatment outcome. The discovery of aberrant Lcn2/LCN2 reveals a relevant mechanism underlying the gut-joint axis in AS. The effect of PPARγ on aberrant Lcn2 pathway sheds lights on novel therapeutic targets for the disease. More knowledge of the dysregulation of Lcn2/LCN2 pathways will contribute to better AS management and more effective treatment strategies.
Insurgency in Ethnically Divided Authoritarian-led Societies: A Comparative Study of Rebel Movements in Ethiopia, 1974-2014
Keywords: Collective violence
Ethiopia
Foreign leverage and interest
Insurgency
Organizational capacity
Rebel groups

Current literature on collective violence and civil war has emphasized underlying structural, psychological, geographic, informational, international and other variables in explaining insurgency. Some of these variables are indeed important to understand the phenomenon in question, but explaining level of insurgency requires putting emphasis on other variables that the literature either neglects or downplays. This dissertation amplifies the significance of rebel organizations as well as the nature of their foreign relations (foreign state leverage and interest, in addition to foreign support, a variable the existing literature stresses) in accounting for the great divergence in the intensity and durability of insurgency in authoritarian-led ethnically divided societies. In its quest for comprehending rebel organizations, it further explains the origins of organizational strength and weakness by a resort to societal and voluntarist variables, in addition to social-institutional ones that the literature already acknowledges. These arguments are illustrated by an in-depth comparative study of several insurgent groups in post-1974 Ethiopia that varied widely in their intensity and durability—both across regions and time-periods. Since the outbreak of the Ethiopian Revolution in 1974, Ethiopia has been engulfed by numerous armed movements that fought the state and one another with varying degrees of violence and persistence. The Dergue’s period witnessed high intensity, high durability; high intensity, low durability; and low intensity, high durability insurgencies. The regime that came after it, in sharp contrast to its predecessor, enjoyed relative peace, despite the physical existence of armed groups, most of which however fought low intensity, low durability insurgencies. Holding many variables more or less constant and de-emphasizing the value of others, this study underscores the significance of the internal structure of rebel organizations--whose determinants it also traces—in explaining these variations. It also equally highlights the degree of leverage foreign states have over the rebels they support and their agenda towards the state/regime that the rebels fight, besides the mere amount of support rebels get from those states.
Design, Modelling, and Control of Soft-Bodied Magnetic Miniature Robots
Keywords: magnetic elastic composite
microfluidic sorting
micrograsping
microrobotics
miniature locomotion

Miniature robots promise radical improvements in microengineering and disease diagnosis and therapy. Their microscopic sizes allow them to access small and constrained workspaces that cannot be reached previously and perform tasks with accuracy and delicacy. However, their minute bodies also prevent them from carrying on-board components, such as electronics, batteries, and sensors. Thus, there exist a number of unique open problems in miniature robotics, which require novel strategies other than the conventional ones for robots at a larger size scale. In particular, the design, modelling, and control of soft-bodied magnetic miniature robots, which deform in magnetic fields to realize functionalities, have not been well studied, whilst their potential significant impacts have been shown on several areas. In this research, I design, fabricate, model, and control soft-bodied magnetic miniature robots to achieve functionalities at the millimeter and submillimeter scale. A microgripper, a miniature swimmer, and a microobject sorter are developed for cargo picking-and-placing, microscopic propulsion, and microobject sorting, respectively. A global magnetic field serves as the sole medium to deliver power and signals to these small-scale devices that work as robotic end-effectors. The magnetization pattern of each robot is programmed such that it exhibits the desired reactions in the magnetic field. Models are derived to explain and predict the behavior of these devices. Feedback controllers are developed to manipulate them in autonomous robotic tasks. Moreover, novel schemes are formulated to independently and simultaneously control two devices of the same kind using a single magnetic field without additional inputs. The successful realizations of these fundamental functionalities at (sub)millimeter scale using soft-bodied magnetic miniature robots indicate their promising potentials of achieving a large variety of complex capacities and being applied to a wide range of applications. The knowledge obtained from this research could provide insights for designing miniature robots with respect to specific task requirements. Preliminary biocompatibility tests reveal no negative effect on living cells from these robots, suggesting a promising outlook of these devices in bio-related areas. Potential applications of the proposed miniature robots include targeted drug delivery, minimally invasive surgery, on-chip cell diagnosis, microassembly, and generic laboratory operations.
Building Home/Land: Jewish Summer Camps as Architecture of Zionism in America
Keywords: America
Camp
Jewish
Nationalism
Summer
Zionism

Since its inception in the late 19th century, summer camping has become one of the most quintessential American activities. Jewish summer camps (camps attended by mostly Jewish patrons with varying degrees of religious and cultural programming) emerged during the same moment in American history. These camps and the culture they have produced have become so cemented in American consciousness, that even those who have not had first hand experience with Jewish summer camping, still understand its weight. This dissertation looks at the rise of the American Jewish summer camp movement in order to investigate what the role of the summer camp has been in forging a specifically American version of Jewish ethno-nationalism and identity. By looking into three aspects of Jewish summer camping – the precise relationship built to nature (both within the summer camp in the US and the Kibbutz movement in Palestine), the importance of intimacy for forging an intensity of group bonding and community-building, and the use of camp aesthetics as a disciplinary framework, rather than a liberatory one – this dissertation outlines the ways the Jewish summer camp has become an ideal site for Jewish nation-building, serving to strengthen the bonds Jewish Americans feel to the US and Israel simultaneously.
Solution-Processable Boron Subphthalocyanines for Organic Photovoltaics
Keywords: chemistry
organic
photovoltaics
solution deposited

Organic photovoltaics (OPVs) are cheaper, less energy intensive manufacturing, and solution- printable options compared to current for solar energy generation technologies and can provide solutions to the growing global energy demand. Boron subphthalocyanines (BsubPcs) are an organic material of interest for OPVs due to their strong absorption near the maximum irradiance from the Sun and ability to fine-tune their properties, such as electronic and solubility, using various straightforward organic chemistry techniques. For example, substituents in the axial (to the boron center atom) and peripheral (outside aromatic groups) positions can be altered to improve solubility for solution-deposition methods and to lower the frontier energy levels, enabling BsubPc to function as a non-fullerene acceptor. Typical fullerene electron acceptor derivatives have weak absorption in the visible spectrum, require high energy and low yielding synthetic steps, and lack the ability to fine-tune the energy levels for OPV performance optimization. By screening both soluble polymer and small molecule versions of BsubPc with the optimal energy levels, electrochemical and absorbance stability, polymer electron donor pair, and OPV device architecture type, it was found that small molecule BsubPc electron acceptors in solution-deposited BsubPcs hold promise, with performance close to a fullerene baseline. In particular, a BsubPc derivative with a phenoxy or chlorine axial ligand and peripheral chlorine substituents demonstrated ideal solubility, electrochemical oxidation and reduction reversibility, and overall OPV device results when paired with high performing benzodithiophene-based polymer electron donors in orthogonally solution-printed OPVs. These conclusions pave the way for future developments in device processing conditions for solution-deposited BsubPcs as well as for the overall OPV field.
Efficient Algorithms on Cocomparability Graphs via Vertex Orderings
Keywords: Cocomparability Graphs
Efficient Algorithms
Graph Searching
Graph Theory
Optimization
Posets

In this thesis, we give new structural and algorithmic results on cocomparability (ccp) graphs; particularly, by connecting structural properties of graph searching to those of ver- tex ordering characterizations and linear extensions of posets. To do so, we present new tools that we hope will prove useful on other applications – especially a new graph parti- tion refinement technique, and a new graph parameter that captures the linear structure exhibited by certain graph classes. The thesis consists of two main parts. In the first half, we give the first linear time algorithm to compute a LexDFS ordering of ccp graphs. Doing so, we overcome a bottleneck to achieving certifying linear time Hamilton path, max independent set and max matching algorithms on this graph class. Building on this result, we give a new simple and elegant algorithm to the classical minimum bump problem on posets. Lastly, we introduce a new graph invariant, LexCycle, which measures how linearly structured certain graph classes are, this linear structure has been a driving factor to a number of efficient algorithms. In the second half of the thesis, we lift our results to weighted ccp graphs. In particular, we give the first linear time robust algorithm for the weighted max independent set problem on this graph class; we then build on this result to give the fastest (O(mn) time) algorithm for the weighted induced matching problem on ccp graphs. In this latter work, we also give a unifying framework that captures graphs, characterized by forbidden orderings, which are closed under L2(·), the operation of computing the square of the line graph. We conclude by presenting structural properties on AT-free graphs, a superclass of ccp graphs, that we hope can be used to lift some of these results to this larger graph class.
Examining compositions, hydration mechanisms and properties of supersulfated cement for use in concrete
Keywords: alklai-lactates
Concrete
Freeze thaw
Low-alumina slag
slag-cement
Supersulfated cement

Supersulfated cement (SSC) is potentially an attractive alternative to portland cement for use in concrete as it is mainly composed of industrial by-product slag and calcium sulfate. However, SSC is currently under-utilized because of its slow early-strength development. The low-alumina content (
Mechanical Characterization of Red Blood Cells Using Microfluidic Devices
Keywords: Microfluidics
Red blood cell
Stiffness

The mechanical properties of red blood cells (RBCs) have been proven to play important roles in the regulation of various biological activities and have shown clinical significance. During the past few decades, a number of research studies have been conducted to understand the relationship between RBC mechanical properties and diseases. The work described in this thesis focuses on characterizing mechanical properties of RBCs from sickle cell trait (SCT) carriers and the degradation/recovery of stored RBCs in transfusion medicine. The mechanical properties and changes of SCT RBCs under deoxygenated and acidic environments, two typical conditions present in the circulation of athletes undertaking strenuous exercise, were measured. The results revealed that SCT RBCs are inherently stiffer than RBCs from non-SCT healthy subjects, and a lower pH further stiffens the SCT cells. Furthermore, at both normal and low pH levels, deoxygenation was found to cause no change of SCT RBCs stiffness. In transfusion medicine, compromised RBC deformability can lower the transfusion efficiency or intensify transfusion complications. This thesis reports microfluidic mechanical measurement of stored RBCs under the physiological deformation mode. The results revealed that the effective stiffness of RBCs increases over the storage process. RBCs stored for one week already started to show significantly higher stiffness than fresh RBCs, and stored RBC stiffness degraded faster in the last three weeks than in the first three weeks. Although the stiffness of stored RBCs degrades over the storage process, whether the stiffness of stored RBCs can be reversed after transfusion remains unknown. A microfluidic platform was used in this thesis to measure the evolution of RBC stiffness recovery under in vivo-like conditions. RBCs stored up to 6 weeks (42 days) in the blood bank were measured, revealing that the degraded stiffness of RBCs over the storage process can be recovered in human serum within 120 minutes. However, the recovered stiffness of older RBCs (stored for 4-6 weeks) is still 1.6 – 2.1 times higher than that of fresh RBCs. Furthermore, ATP, which provides energy to keep RBC membrane mechanically functional, was also measured. The ATP concentration in stored RBCs was found to increase in human serum.