VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Giftedness and Race at Lowell High School: Ho v. San Francisco Unified School District (1998)
Keywords: Graduate School of Education
desegregation
integration
philosophy
Anderson
San Francisco
Lowell
Lowell High School
Asian American
Chinese American
gifted
Thesis

Lowell High School is often viewed as one of San Francisco’s most academically gifted and selective schools. In the wake of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), a nationwide movement to desegregate public schools called Lowell’s GPA and test-based admissions process was called into question, resulting in the addition of a race-conscious admissions policy in 1983. I focus on a court case that successfully challenged this affirmative action measure, Ho v. San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) , in which two Chinese-American families accused the district of discriminating against their children through the use of race-conscious admissions. The result of this case was the elimination of race-conscious policies in the district altogether and the creation of a race-neutral “diversity index” for Lowell High School admissions specifically. My project is a historical study that analyzes the Ho v. SFUSD court documents, the demographic data of Lowell High School and the SFUSD, and Elizabeth Anderson’s philosophical framework of social equality to determine the effectiveness of the diversity index. My results demonstrate that the elimination of explicitly race-conscious policies led to a sharp decrease in the Black and Latinx student populations in Lowell. While the Latinx population was able to recover to its original percentage in the school before Ho v. SFUSD after twenty years of the diversity index, the Black population was not. Both remain disproportionately low for the city of San Francisco. This case study shows that we must understand the role that gifted schools and race-neutral admissions play in demonstrating and perpetuating racial inequality.
Girls ∈ Math: An Investigation of Middle School Girls' Sense of Belonging in Mathematics
Keywords: Graduate School of Education
Undergraduate Honors Thesis
secondary mathematics education
equity
gender
women in STEM
compulsory education
mindset
belonging
youcubed
identity
learning
mathematics
Thesis

This thesis addresses the quest for equity in mathematics education through the lens of female students’ experiences of belonging before, within, and after an 18-day, algebra-based summer camp. The curriculum and teaching practices employed in the intervention were intentionally designed around open, visual mathematics combined with explicit growth-mindset messaging. Seven middle school girls from the same summer classroom were analyzed through numerous interviews and artifacts. Building on previous literature and the major takeaways from the data as a whole, I propose a framework for understanding the dynamics and interactions of a student’s development of learning identity and relationship to mathematics. Specifically, the framework represents my interpretation of Markus and Conners’ “Culture Cycle” applied to the context of the math classroom. Analyzed in light of this model, the seven case studies illustrate unique ways in which each girl negotiated her realtive sense of belonging to mathematics. The research suggests that what Dr. Jo Boaler has termed a “mindset mathematics” curriculum and teaching practice provides multiple pathways to belonging and success, significantly impacting students at varying achievement levels and backgrounds. While focusing specifically on female students due to the explicit systemic barriers facing women in mathematics, this thesis establishes that the curriculum and teaching practices employed in the youcubed summer camp effectively promoted equity in developing students belonging, which logically extends beyond the experiences of just girls.
Glimpsing the narco monster : Mexico's horror and the anachronism of narrative
Keywords: Iberian and Latin American Cultures.

The central argument of "Glimpsing the Narco Monster" is that the story of the narco violence ravaging contemporary Mexico is a horror story. That is, as a necessary condition it implies the presence of a monster. In traditional works of horror, the humans regard the monsters they meet as abnormal, as disturbances of the natural order. However, in this present study I argue that the particular monster in this particular work of horror can and must be understood as a product of the specific environment (historical, economic, socio-political) that bred it; its "ecology". With what I heuristically term the Narco Monster, the goal of this project is to reveal aspects of both the monster and the ecology of its production. Accordingly, each of the three chapters in this study describes one formal feature of this construction: the monstrous, the neoliberal, and the spectacular. When Pontecorvo shot The Battle of Algiers (1966), detailing the Algerian struggle for independence from the occupying French in the 1950s, he used a pseudo-documentary style that offered a case study of modern warfare, achievable because the content and the form were near contemporaries. This is no longer the case. As such, the present approach is to analyse various types of film and visual media paratactically; that is, to study individual scenes as fragments (or events) that dialogue not with the rest of the narrative of the specific film but instead function as glimpses of the ecology of the Narco Monster and its horror story. It is through his methodology that I will offer new readings of key Mexican (and Mexican-American) cinematic productions of the current century: Señorita extraviada (2001), Backyard: El traspatio (2009), Miss Bala (2011), Heli (2013), El infierno (2010).
Global and seasonal effects of lightning-induced electron precipitation
Keywords: Electrical Engineering.

Surrounding the Earth are two shells of high-energy electrons and ions known as the Van Allen Radiation Belts, the dynamics of which are governed by a complex balance of sources and loss processes, collectively resulting in populations which persist between days and months. The global distribution of lightning discharges has been theorized to be an important loss function for radiation belt electrons through a process known as Lightning- Induced Electron Precipitation (LEP). However, a lack of in situ measurements has precluded a quantitative global study. We present an investigation of the spatial and temporal morphology of lightning-induced electron precipitation. We seek to quantitatively determine the regions in space, time, and electron energy, where LEP may be of importance, using a combination of numerical raytracing and resonant interaction modeling, driven by a realistic measurement of global lightning activity from the GLD360 lightning detection network. First, using cold plasma numerical raytracing, we provide an estimate of the persistent radio energy in the near-Earth space environment due to whistler-mode, VLF waves generated by terrestrial cloud-to-ground lightning flashes. Variation is explored with respect to L-shell, longitude, frequency, and geomagnetic activity using the Kp index. We include updated ionospheric absorption curves and an improved 4-dimensional interpolation algorithm. We find that the persistent energy decays logarithmically with increasing L-shell and frequency. We then apply our raytracing and interpolation apparatus to simulate the precipitating electron flux resulting from single lightning strokes, and extrapolate over the GLD360 dataset to determine estimated locations of elevated electron precipitation. We compute the estimated lifetime of geomagnetically trapped electron populations, subject solely to LEP-induced losses, as a function of L-shell and electron energy. Our estimates are consistent with measurements in the 100keV -- 1 MeV energy range; however our results suggest that LEP may be a substantial loss mechanism for lower energy, suprathermal electrons in the 100 eV -- 10 keV range. We do not find any notable enhancement in the slot region, suggesting that resonant interactions with lightning-generated whistlers are not a significant contributor to slot region morphology. Finally we present a design for a VLF radio receiver, intended for deployment on a 3-unit CubeSat bus, which can be used in conjunction with an onboard electron energy spectrometer to make direct, in situ measurements of precipitating electrons and their causative whistler waves. The receiver is designed with radiation tolerance in mind, and includes a novel onboard data processing system, implemented entirely in an field-programmable gate array (FPGA) using the Verilog hardware description language.
Golden Dawn, Dark Horizon: Exploring the Rise of Greece’s Ultra-Right Party In the Context of Simultaneous Crises
Keywords:  Center for Democracy
Golden Dawn
Greece
xenophobia
ultra-right
Center for Democracy
Development
and the Rule of Law
CDDRL
Thesis

Over the past decade, Greece has undergone two simultaneous crises. The first is economic, triggered by the global financial crisis of 2008. Since then, gross domestic product has shriveled by a quarter, and the average Greek has become forty percent poorer. The second crisis is related to immigration: Greece has, over the past decade, become the favored point of entry for most illegal migrants seeking to reach Europe, resulting in an ongoing demographic shift in a previously homogenous country. It is in this climate of political and social upheaval that the Golden Dawn, a far-right, neo-Nazi political party, has risen to national prominence, becoming the country’s third most-popular party in the 2015 elections. In this thesis, I seek to determine whether either or both of these crises have influenced Golden Dawn’s sudden electoral success. I argue that, although the economic crisis laid a foundation for the party’s rise, Golden Dawn’s success is not simply a function of its ability to garner support from the country’s most economically disadvantaged. Instead, the party has found success by campaigning on a platform that promises the return of Greek society to its pre-crisis status quo, both economically and demographically. Specifically, the Golden Dawn shapes itself as a response to the cultural threat imposed by both the economic and immigration crises, as both have induced feelings of status loss among the Greek electorate.
Greco-Roman urban form in its global context
Keywords: Classics.

The grid plan has long been considered the hallmark of the Classical city, but grid plans are common to cultures around the world. This misconception arises from the fact that the Classical city is often studied in cultural isolation. To remedy this, the arrangements of Greek and Roman cities are compared with those of other ancient societies, with an eye towards how plans delimit space and control movement and how the forms of cities reflect the balance of power between centralized authorities and individual residents to shape and maintain the urban space. This reveals distinctive spatial organizational characteristics underlying the forms of Classical sites: street networks that allow for free circulation and a lack of large-scale zones of restricted access between public and private spaces. On the basis of this new urban morphological model, the Greco-Roman grid plan is recast not as a defining feature of the Classical city, but as a preferential feature implemented in select contexts.
Guides to Abstraction: Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, and Adonis
Keywords:  Department of Comparative Literature
Comparative Literature
Division of Literatures Cultures and Languages
Arabic Literature
American Literature
World Literature
Abstraction
Modernism
Poetry
Wallace Stevens
Marianne Moore
Adonis
Thesis

What is poetic abstraction? This thesis attempts a partial answer to this question by teasing out some criteria for why one poetic gesture of abstraction holds richer speculative possibilities than the next. Through readings of three modernist poets, Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, and Adonis, I identify two general modes of abstraction, which I call immanent and a priori abstraction, placing Stevens and Moore in the former category and Adonis in the latter. These methods of constructing and exploring poetic worlds are linked to the different ways they treat the real, which here designates poetry’s impasses or horizons of possibility. Beyond its contributions to studies of each individual poet, this paper's original methodology--based on the axiom that all poetry participates in a generic activity of abstraction--opens doors to a reconceptualization of "world literature."
Guns, Rubles, and Oil: A Statistical Approach to Understanding Russia’s Military Modernization Programs
Keywords: Russia’s defense modernization
oil
defense budget
Russia’s oil-based economy
Thesis

By using oil prices as a simple economic proxy, this research attempts to assess the future of Russia’s defense modernization programs through a basic statistical regression between defense spending and oil prices. From there, it builds 5 potential oil price scenarios and examines how overall defense spending might react in each of the 5 scenarios. Additionally, the analysis is extrapolated to 2 primary defense projects — the Borei and Yasen submarines. The financial burden of both programs on the Naval defense budget is then used to assess the feasibility that Russia will be able to successfully complete either project within the scope of the next 10-year modernization plan given each of the 5 budget scenarios. The research then attempts to contextualize the statistical results within the contemporary Russian landscape. This landscape includes a background of Russia’s oil-based economy, its Soviet legacy, and its highly centralized administration. Ultimately, the goal is to assess the probability that Russia will meet its military spending objectives over the next 10 years in each of the 5 budget scenarios while using the specific examples of the two submarine projects to demonstrate how budget constraints and prioritization might take place.
Habit analysis : using decision analysis to take control of habits
Keywords: Management Science and Engineering.

Every person has hundreds and thousands of habits that they rarely think about having. Every time a person exercises a habit, they automatically choose a course of action. Every time that choice is made is an opportunity to apply decision analysis. However, normal decision analysis is too costly to use for all of a person's habits. In this dissertation I look at ways that decision analysis can be applied to a person's habits to ensure they are good ones. If they are not, they must be updated to match an ever-changing environment, new information, and preferences that evolve over time. Expanding decision analysis to include the numerous tiny decisions that are made with habits opens up the opportunity for massive gains in value when each tiny improvement is aggregated over many habits and a lifetime of use.
Hacking the retinal code to restore sight to the blind: localizing current spread in the retina
Keywords:  Department of Biology
Biology
Artificial Retina
Electrophysiology
Retinal Ganglion Cells
Epiretinal Stimulation
Blindness
Thesis

Epiretinal prostheses are designed to restore vision in people blinded by photoreceptor degenerative diseases, by directly activating retinal ganglion cells (RGCs) using an electrode array implanted on the retina. However, in present-day clinical devices, large current spread to distant grounds often results in the activation of many cells. Achieving greater acuity of artificial vision may require the ability to control RGC activity more finely. In this study, the ability to selectively activate individual RGCs using local return stimulation was evaluated. A custom multi-electrode array was used to simultaneously stimulate and record from hundreds of RGCs in isolated primate retina. Stimulation with a single electrode and a distant ground was compared to stimulation in which the ground was provided by neighboring electrodes. Local return stimulation allowed activation of cells near the central electrode while avoiding activation of cells farther away. This made it possible to more reliably activate a target cell without activating a non-target cell. These results suggest that a device that restricts the electric field through local returns could optimize activation of target neurons at cellular resolution, potentially improving the quality of artificial vision.
Haptic feedback system design for MR-guided needle intervention [electronic resource]
Keywords: Mechanical Engineering.

Advances in imaging are leading to new opportunities for medical diagnosis and treatment, including the possibility to perform procedures such as biopsies while a patient is undergoing imaging. Along with these new opportunities come new challenges. In particular, for patients undergoing magnetic resonance (MR) imaging, the geometry of the MR machine makes it difficult to perform procedures. One solution is to provide robotic or teleoperated equipment that can fit in the remaining space between a patient and the inner walls of the MR bore and manipulate tools such as biopsy needles. A physician stands near the MR machine, viewing live images and controlling the robotic equipment within. However, in this scenario the physician lacks the tactile sensitivity that she would have if manipulating a needle with her own hands. This thesis presents technology to provide haptic feedback to a physician operating a master device that controls a robotic system for MR-guided procedures. The first part of the solution is a new biopsy needle instrumented with optical fibers with Bragg gratings. The needle is equipped with features to enhance its sensitivity to forces applied at the tip of the needle. The optical fibers are unaffected by the intense MR field, and the needle produces no imaging artifacts beyond those of a standard biopsy needle. The second part of the thesis introduces two different types of haptic displays that present the radial and axial forces, respectively, from the instrumented needle. The radial forces provide guidance to users attempting to target small, compliantly-supported objects (e.g. tumors) in tissue. The axial forces provide users with the ability to detect when the tip of the needle has contacted bone or punctured a membrane. In both cases, the displays use materials and actuators that are MR-compatible. Controlled experiments confirm that human subjects can use the information provided by the displays to improve targeting accuracy and to detect membrane contact. An additional experiment shows that force information provided by the needle can reveal changes in tissue texture, for example, when passing through healthy or fibrotic liver tissue.
Harry Bertoia and postwar American design culture
Keywords: Art and Art History.

This dissertation investigates the confluence of art, design, and corporate interests in the career and oeuvre of Harry Bertoia (1915-1978). Since the Industrial Revolution, modernist art has labored to distinguish itself from design and the associated threat of being dismissed as 'merely' commercial, decorative, or craft. The decades following World War II saw an amplification of this modernist anxiety. Alongside the rise of Abstract Expressionism, a new design culture flourished in postwar America, bolstered by the powerful economic and political interests of big business. Design assumed unprecedented prominence as a central means of relating to increasingly abstract systems and institutions. Bertoia occupied a fraught position in this cultural landscape. In the course of his four-decade-long career, his practice routinely crisscrossed the categories of fine art, design, and craft. His extensive output includes hollowware, jewelry, monotypes, furniture, welded and cast metal sculpture, and sound recordings. This study demonstrates how his work dramatized the competing aims and claims of modernist art and design in the Cold War period.
Have abstraction and eat performance too [electronic resource] : optimized heterogeneous computing with parallel patterns
Keywords: Electrical Engineering.

High performance in modern computing platforms requires programs to be parallel, distributed, and run on heterogeneous hardware. However programming such architectures is extremely difficult due to the need to implement the application using multiple programming models and combine them together in ad-hoc ways. High-level programming frameworks based on parallel patterns have recently become a popular solution to raise the level of abstraction and provide implicitly parallel execution on a variety of architectures. Portable performance is often still difficult to achieve however due to the system's inability to optimize programs across data structure abstractions and nested parallelism. In this dissertation, I introduce the Delite Multiloop Language (DMLL), a new intermediate language based on common parallel patterns that captures the necessary semantic knowledge to efficiently target distributed heterogeneous architectures. Combined with a straightforward array-based data structure model, the language semantics naturally capture a set of powerful transformations over nested parallel patterns that restructure computation to enable distribution and optimize for heterogeneous devices. These transformations enable improved single-threaded performance, greater parallel scalability, smaller memory footprints, transparently targeting distributed memory architectures, and automated data movement and distribution. I also present experimental results for a range of applications spanning multiple domains and demonstrate highly efficient execution compared to manually-optimized counterparts in alternative systems.
Header Bidding and Auctions with Intermediaries
Keywords: ads
auctions
digital display advertising
header bidding
real-time bidding
Thesis

Widespread usage of real-time bidding to sell digital display advertising has ush- ered in new auction formats such as header bidding. Instead of ad exchanges directly auctioning ad slots, header bidding makes multiple ad exchanges compete in a unified auction run by the publisher. We model this “auction on auctions” and analyze the intermediary and bidder incentives to choose between different auction formats. First, we show that when an intermediary does not commit to a pricing rule but has certain restrictions on what it can charge, the optimal strategy for the bidders is the same as that in the first price auction. Second, when there are direct deals, there are also clear incentives for intermediaries to choose a first price auction. Finally, when the bidder can choose between participating with a first price intermediary and a second price intermediary, we give a condition on the private value distribution that induces participation with only the first price intermediary. These findings help explain a recent shift towards first price auctions in the real-time bidding industry.
Health Impacts of Non-Functioning Water Points in Uganda
Keywords: development economics
development
community health
diarrhea
childhood mortality
sanitation
WASH
Thesis

22% of water points in Sub-Saharan Africa are estimated to be non-functional on any given day (Banks 2016). This paper asks whether a non-functioning water point has an effect on the health of the individuals living nearby. I utilize variation in the location, type, and functionality of wells throughout the Republic of Uganda, as recorded in the Water Point Data Exchange (WPDx). Individual-level data from the Ugandan Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) is employed to examine how differences in exposure to non-functioning water points affect the prevalence of diarrhea, stunting, and mortality for children under the age of 5. This paper finds that increased exposure to a non-functional water point increases the prevalence of caregiver-reported under 5 diarrhea in rural areas. There is no significant effect of either newly constructed improved water points or non-functional water points on stunting or child mortality. I discuss policy recommendations and suggest new areas of research.