VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Weak universality of interacting particle systems [electronic resource]
Keywords: Mathematics.

In this dissertation we consider random growth phenomenon related to the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) equation. We focus particularly on the weak universality of interacting particle systems. That is, under suitable scalings, a certain class of one-dimensional, weakly irreversible interacting particle systems converge to the KPZ equation. Our discussion emphasizes on both the inter- and intro-model universality. For the former, we derive the exact microscopic Hopf--Cole transformation for the 4-parameter family of Higher Spin Exclusion Processes (HSEPs) introduced by Corwin and Petrov (2016). This is done by exploiting the close relationship between Hopf-Cole transformation and duality. As the HSEPs sit above most of the known integrable models in the KPZ class, we thus obtain the exact microscopic Hopf-Cole transformation for all lower-level models. To demonstrate the weak universality, we further consider a particular weak scaling of the HSEPs, and show the convergence to the KPZ equation. This expands the relatively small number of systems for which weak universality of the KPZ equation has been demonstrated. As for intro-model universality, we analyze a class of non-nearest-neighbor exclusion processes and the corresponding growth models. Our approach is to exploit an approximate Hopf-Cole transformation, to which end we identify the main nonlinearity and eliminate it by imposing a gradient type condition. For hopping range at most 3, using the generalized transformation, we prove the convergence of the exclusion process toward the KPZ equation.
What can deep sequencing reveal about bacterial evolution? Diversity and dynamics in a biofilm [electronic resource]
Keywords: Applied Physics.

This thesis explores the genetic variability of Synechococcus cyanobacteria found in a Yellowstone National Park hot spring with the aim of better understanding the evolutionary and ecological processes that give rise to bacterial diversity. The primary data used was deep, amplicon sequencing reads, and as these contain numerous sources of errors, the first chapter introduces an error model and a novel error correction algorithm. Using this algorithm, the second chapter describes statistical features of the diversity that suggest that this population is quasi-sexual — having a high rate of homologous recombination. The final chapter examines the diversity in greater detail, finding many puzzles and contradictory results, and ultimately concluding that this population reveals dynamics too rich -- a mixture of recombination, hitchhiking, deleterious mutations, epistasis, and dispersal in a meta-population -- to be adequately modeled by current population genetic theory.
What is Community College For? An Analysis of President Obama's Discursive Framing of Community Colleges
Keywords: community college
equality of opportunity
democracy
higher education
postsecondary
President Obama
Barack Obama
presidential discourse
political theory
philosophy of education
Thesis

Objective: The project of the thesis is to understand the social and political role community colleges play in the American higher education system through the policy commitments of President Obama’s administration, 2009-2016. To do this, I conduct an analysis of President Obama’s rhetoric about higher education and specifically community colleges in his State of the Union Addresses. Method: I borrow rhetorical analysis strategies from scholars who have previously studied the President’s discourse. From Robert Terrill’s analysis in Double Consciousness and the Rhetoric of Barack Obama, I borrow his practice of centering the discursive analysis on pre-selected political concepts like democracy and equality of opportunity. From Mark Ferrara’s work, Barack Obama and the Rhetoric of Hope, I borrow his tactic of chronological, close-readings, and his emphasis on identifying narratives commonly found in the American social imagination. Speech and Political Theory Analysis: When President Obama calls upon the United States Congress to help realize a free, public postsecondary system, specifically a zero-tuition community college system, he is advocating for what he labels, “the opportunity agenda.” In making his case, the President draws on a limited version of the philosophical principle of equality of opportunity for welfare. Two motivating factors drive Obama’s opportunity agenda: public and private interests. I conclude there is reason for thinking these interests overlap. Conclusions: Obama’s discursive framing of community colleges paints for us a world in which realizing equality of opportunity toward economic ends is a necessary process for fostering a healthy democracy. The President’s discursive framing of community colleges omits language describing the civic purposes of a community college education. The omission contributes to a stagnant, underdeveloped national narrative about the civic ends of higher education.
Where Asexual and Queer Meet: Quotidian and Communal Experiences among Bay Area Queer Aces
Keywords:  Department of Anthropology
queer
asexual
identity
community
Department of Anthropology
Thesis

This thesis examines the intersection of queerness and asexuality, particularly for people who identify as both asexual and queer in the San Francisco Bay Area. Asexuality is most commonly and most simply defined as not experiencing sexual attraction. I am here using “queer” to refer to the personal individual identity (how someone refers to themself), which can have meanings ranging from any non-normative sexual orientation to a particularly politicized kind of pansexuality to a synonym for gay or lesbian. During the summers of 2014 and 2015, when I conducted my research, I engaged with people online and in person in the Bay Area about how they defined asexuality and queerness and their experiences with different kinds of communities. My basic research question is: how do asexual-and-queer people, particularly in the Bay Area and also in certain online communities, think about, talk about, and experience these identities? In particular, how do they experience their queerness, and define queer identity more broadly? In my thesis, I discuss this question through three layers: how individual asexual-and-queer people experience their identities on (inter)personal levels, how asexual-and-queer community organizing is done online and in person, and how and with whom asexual-and-queer people form ties of solidarity across different identities. I will argue that asexuality offers a critical intervention into both mainstream queer discourse and dominant discourse in the U.S. more generally by decoupling rigorous associations of romance with sex and sex with liberation, and that greater acknowledgement of the diversity of attractions, desires, and ways of loving would tremendously benefit asexual people and society at large.
Why those who shovel are silent [electronic resource] : local labor, unrecognized expertise, and knowledge production in archaeological excavation
Keywords: Anthropology.

This dissertation examines the role that locally-hired laborers play in the production of archaeological knowledge through their involvement in excavation. Based on two years of ethnographic and oral history research at Petra in Jordan and at Catalhoyuk in Turkey, I demonstrate the expertise that site workers on these projects have developed from their years of participation in excavation. I use the visualization and statistical capabilities of social network analysis to systematically compare the workers' oral historical record to the site archives from the two sites, illustrating in which ways the two bodies of information overlap, conflict, or complement one another. Despite the evident professional knowledge and skills that locally-hired laborers at Petra and Catalhoyuk possess regarding archaeological finds, methods, and analysis, however, I argue that the economic realities of how archaeological labor is organized make it financially beneficial for local community members to disavow their privileged expertise about archaeological work. They are instead rewarded for pretending to know less, to be-- in their words-- "simple workers." In this dissertation, I contextualize this set of circumstances within the history of archaeology in the Middle East, showing how lasting colonial and Orientalist legacies and the way that they continue to structure archaeological labor relations impact the production of knowledge through archaeological excavation.
The will and normative judgment [electronic resource]
Keywords: Philosophy.

This dissertation focuses on the nature of intention and the scope of the kinds of objects it can take as contents. Contrary to the established opinion, I argue that human beings have the capacity to intend ends that go well beyond what they believe they can do or control. If we think of the will as the faculty by which we come to adopt and be committed to ends in practical deliberation, then what I argue for is a broader conception of the will. I think this broader conception provides us with new and fertile theoretical resources to account for dimensions of human agency that remain inaccessible to a theory of intention that restricts its possible objects to states of aﬀairs the agent believes she can control. Here, I begin to explore the theoretical potential of this conception by showing how it can be employed by certain non-realist views in metanormativity to present attractive accounts of the nature of normative judgment. More specifically, I argue that Expressivist, Contextualist and Relativist metanormative views can appeal to the notion of an intention that takes as contents appropriately general principles of action—principles that concern what people in general are to do, or what everyone is to do in a given situation—to present a model of normative judgments that would help them deal, among other things, with one of the most pressing problems they currently face: that of accounting for interpersonal disagreement.
The winner's paradox [electronic resource] : how successful students at a top university become "failures"
Keywords: Education.

While previous researchers investigating the competitive environment at the highest levels of academic scholarship (e.g., Deresiewicz, 2014; Pope, 2001) have concluded that students buckle under an unbearable amount of stress as a result of over-achievement and narrow conceptions of success, they have left the construct of success itself unexamined. Building upon the work of George Herbert Mead (1934/2015) and Erving Goffman (1959; 1963; 1967; 1978/1981), this dissertation argues that the buckling of students at a top university may be best understood as a response within the culture of success, a set of generalized attitudes which together comprise the American cultural ideal of the extraordinarily successful individual. To understand what underlies the general malaise affecting these students, I first lay out the discourse surrounding the college admissions process at the most highly selective institutions of higher education and then demonstrate how understanding that discourse helps explain the everyday anxieties that students experience. Next, I report on the results of a two-year qualitative study a top-tier American institution, Wellborne University. These materials, gathered through participant observation, interviews, focus groups, written testimonials and information on web sites and university-published brochures, demonstrate that students suffer from their perceptions of the various ways they fail to embody the traits that they have internalized as necessary for success. The discourse examined frames success as the social act of winning, a process by which individuals are selected over their peers based on their ability to project certain desirable abilities or character traits. The individual admitted to a top school is often described in terms of being a total winner: the ideal self-made individual who excels without effort, confidently demonstrating genuine intellectual passion and desire to make a difference in the world, while effectively harnessing resources to realize increasingly greater achievements. This discourse creates the conditions for individuals admitted to Wellborne University to report seemingly countless contexts for failure, as they become aware of the ways their behavior—and projected identities—deviate from what is expected of a "total winner." This work seeks to unify students' descriptions of stress, insecurity, and self-criticism into one core issue: the fear of social exclusion due to perceptions of failure within the culture of success, where failure is unacceptable and, for many students, seemingly ever-present.
A wireless MRI system using millimeter wave transmission [electronic resource]
Keywords: Electrical Engineering.

Conventional MRI relies on a wired connection between a receiver coil array and an external processing circuitry to generate accurate images. To improve image quality, the number of receiver coil elements are increased and separate receiver coil arrays are used for different parts of the body. This while improving image quality also increases cabling complexity. Furthermore, baluns and radio frequency (RF) traps are required for each channel, and cables must be routed carefully to minimize coil interactions. This increases the operation and maintenance costs. Moreover, these receiver coil arrays are heavy and cumbersome and can be intimidating and ill-fitting for children. The coil setup time can occupy a significant fraction of the total exam time. Consequently, removing these cables from the receiver coils will lead to a more cost effective and time efficient system. In the past, a number of architectures have been proposed to enable wireless MRI for minimizing or eliminating the use of cables. All of these past efforts used microwave frequencies up to 3 GHz, and generic protocols such as 802.11b or MIMO that are intended for long-range communication over distances of 10 m to 100 m. Such generic long range communication protocols are sub-optimal solutions for wireless MRI in terms of power consumption and size. This is because typical MRI bore diameters vary from 60 cm to 70 cm. And, depending on a patient's physical attributes and the part of the body to be imaged, the distance between the coil array and the magnet bore/edge can vary from 10 cm to 50 cm. A millimeter (mm) wave radio for wireless MRI data transmission is presented in this work. High path loss and availability of wide bandwidth make millimeter (mm)-waves ideal for short range, high data rata communication required for wireless MRI. The proposed system uses a custom designed integrated chip (IC) mm-wave radio with 60 GHz as radio frequency carrier. We assess performance in a 1.5T MRI field, with the addition of optical links between the console room and magnet. The system uses ON-OFF keying (OOK) modulation for data transmission and supports data rates from 200 Mb/s to 2.5 Gb/s for distances up-to 65 cm. The presence of highly directional, linearly polarized, on-chip dipole antennas on the mm-wave radio along with time division multiplexing (TDM) circuitry allows multiple wireless links to be created simultaneously with minimal inter-channel interference. This leads to a highly scalable solution for wireless MRI.
Women's history, attitudes, and life experiences with computing [electronic resource]
Keywords: Education.

It is widely acknowledged that women are underrepresented in computing. A number of solutions have been developed to try to solve this problem, particularly the introduction of camps and clubs designed to appeal to middle and high school girls in the hopes of increasing their interest in computing and computing careers. However, there is little evidence of the efficacy of these interventions and even less research into the long-term effects of short-term programs. Recently the "CSForAll" initiative and new Advanced Placement Computer Science course have provided opportunities for increased school-based computer science, but these initiatives are too new for longitudinal results. This dissertation provides some insight into the factors associated with women's long-term interest in computing careers by investigating two populations: girls who had attended a middle school where computer science courses were mandatory, and women who had achieved computing careers. The first paper reports on an initial survey of girls at the end of eighth grade. Approximately one-third of the participants were open to a computing career. While all participants described computer scientists similarly, the "CS Career" group saw themselves as more similar to this description, and also indicated higher interest and confidence in computing. The second paper is a longitudinal follow up with the same participants at the end of high school. Participants who had been open to computing careers in middle school demonstrated increased interest and positive attitudes towards computing as compared to their middle school responses. They were more likely to have programming as a hobby than their "No CS Career" peers, but otherwise did not engage in substantially more computing activities while in high school, suggesting a disconnect between attitudes and activities. The third paper is an interview study of working female computer scientists, investigating their paths to their careers and what they think the typical path to a computing career looks like. These women had commonly engaged in early computing activities such as classes, clubs, or independent learning. Frequently they had not engaged in computing in high school, but had returned to it in college, often choosing computer science as a major. They identified two typical paths: majoring in computer science and having a "single track mind" in which one is born with talent and interest in computing. The single track mind was seen as a masculine path and none of the participants identified similarities between her own experience and that path. Together these studies suggest the importance of early computing experience on career interest. While not all girls who engage in computing will become interested, for those who have early experience, once they are captured, the interest seems resilient despite a lack of high school computing experiences.
The workings of democracy [electronic resource] : voter attention, long-term policies, and party collusion
Keywords: Business.

How are good, long-term policies produced in competitive democracies when voters reward politicians for the more easily observable benefits of short-term policies? In Chapter 1, I develop a theoretical model to address this question and show how, and under what conditions, the government and the opposition cooperate with each other to implement good, long-term policies, even though these policies are unpopular and the parties have divergent policy interests on other issues. A problem of this cooperation is that it can also be used by the government and the opposition to implement policies that benefit only the political elite and are not in the public interest. In Chapter 2, I investigate when voters prefer to---and how voters are able to---prevent this cooperation; respectively, party collusion against the voters. In Chapter 3, I explore the consequences of how voters allocate their limited attention to different policy issues, showing how voter attention can result in some good reforms to be avoided by purely office-seeking politicians, even though a majority of voters prefer the reforms. This is because these reforms take attention away from other---electorally more beneficial---reforms and because the losers of the reforms would pay the most attention to them.
A world society perspective of corporate social responsibility [electronic resource] : the utility of normative over strategic accounts
Keywords: Sociology.

This dissertation consists of three, standalone empirical papers on the global corporate social responsibility (CSR) movement, papers that are inspired by, but do not necessarily address individually, the world society perspective. The CSR movement advances the idea that business should seek, not only profits, but also positive social impacts. The movement has expanded globally in dramatic fashion in the last three decades. It now includes dozens of international voluntary initiatives with participation from thousands of companies in scores of nations, including initiatives that promulgate broad CSR principles (e.g., the United Nations Global Compact), that promote the reporting of CSR practices (the Global Reporting Initiatives), that certify labor practices (the SA800), and that govern the ethical sourcing of commodities (the Fair Trade Association). This rapid, multi-level, pan-industry expansion of the CSR movement remains poorly understood in extant CSR research. In seeking explanation, the first paper of this dissertation is a meta-study that gathers and analyzes 200 individual surveys of business leaders on their motivations for CSR engagement. Contrary to prevailing strategic and political accounts of CSR engagement within academic research, the paper finds that business leaders claim to engage in CSR activities mostly for normative reasons (in the sense, that they consider CSR to morally and socially needful and appropriate). Further, the normative reasons are remarkably consistent worldwide, suggesting the rise of a transnational prosocial managerial value-system. The second paper tests whether CSR activities improve company brand equities. To do so, the paper conducts a panel study of the CSR activities and brand equities of the world's largest 700 companies over the years 2001-2014. It finds that CSR activities, contrary to prevailing strategic accounts within the academic research, have no relationship with brand equity. The third paper tests whether CSR activities are followed by advertising campaigns to raise consumer awareness and thereby to increase consumer purchases. This paper also uses panel study methodology for the world's largest 700 companies. Contrary to prevailing strategic accounts in the academic research, the paper finds that CSR activities do not generate advertising campaigns. In the introductory section to the dissertation that follows this abstract, the dissertation interprets the totality of the above findings in light of an emergent world society in which CSR behaviors are cultural expectations, rather than strategic or political endeavors. This emergent world society explains the convergence of managerial CSR perceptions across national borders and the apparent missing link between CSR and narrowly conceived strategic benefits such as increases in brand equity.
Writing on the wind [electronic resource] : composing nature and the supernatural
Keywords: Music.

Writing on the Wind: Composing Nature and the Supernatural encompasses two works, The Four Winds and Chant Etudes. The Four Winds, a vocal quartet for three sopranos and mezzo-soprano, is a collection of five pieces inspired by scientific and mythological incarnations of the wind. Chant Etudes, a collection of solo pieces for voice and makeshift wind instruments, was developed over the course of a year through ritual improvisation.