VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Virtual Reality: Worth The Investment?
Keywords:  Department of Communication.
Virtual Reality
Stanford University
Department of Communication
Media Studies
Thesis

This essay will walk one through the history, current state and future of Virtual Reality technology. It will include a detailed analysis of Virtual Reality in comparison to the Smartphone along with a detailed illustration of some of the major applications of Virtual Reality Technology: Education, engineering, health care, live events, military, real estate, retail, sports and Video Games. Similarly, it will outline some of the most recent hardware and software developments. And finally, it will address the constraints and limitations of the technology and how these shortcomings could act as hurdles to the success of Virtual Reality. Through its entirety one will be able to gain a comprehensive understanding of the technology- what it does, what it will do and why it is worth investing in. Beyond its monetary value, the conclusion of this piece will touch on the important role that Virtual Reality can have in creating a more empathetic and skilled society.
Visual computational sociology [electronic resource] : computer vision methods and challenges
Keywords: Electrical Engineering.

Targeted social and economic policies require an understanding of a country's demo- graphic makeup. Thus, countries like the United States spend more than 1 billion dollars a year gathering survey based census data such as race, education, occupation and unemployment rates. In this work, we explore the use of publicly available digital imagery to measure demographics without the high costs incurred by surveys. These results can then be inputs to critical socioeconomic policies. In particular, we apply computer vision methods to 50 million Google Street View images from 200 cities and show that a wide range of characteristics such as income, education levels, voting patterns, race, CO2 emission per capita and other market research results can be accurately inferred from these images. We specifically use fine-grained image recognition techniques to detect and classify approximately 21.8 million cars and use them to predict demographics. One can imagine using multiple objects such as trees, clothes, houses or people themselves to further extend this analysis and improve its accuracy. However, scal- ing these methods to other objects such as trees, clothes, houses or other objects using current supervised methods is infeasible. Fine-grained datasets are notoriously expensive to collect and it is not possible to annotate images of objects in every pos- sible form they can appear in the world. We present scalable methods of collecting synthetic fine-grained datasets and present an attribute based fine-grained domain adaptation method to perform data efficient classification.
Voltage enhancement in multijunction solar cells and the application to water splitting [electronic resource]
Keywords: Electrical Engineering.

Over the past 50 years, cost has been the primary obstacle to the generation of electricity by solar cells. Two major obstacles have now emerged that limit further scaling and installation of photovoltaics (PVs): first, the reduction of material cost of solar devices is approaching its limit while "soft cost" is becoming the limiting factor; second, the intermittency of solar power puts an increasing burden on the power grid and increases the cost of solar electricity. Therefore, further advances of PV technology must focus on improving the PV module efficiency as well as finding efficient energy storage solutions. Among the different methods of solar energy storage, solar hydrogen generation through water splitting is one of the most promising approaches and has attracted significant research interest in the past three decades. Meanwhile, hydrogen is also considered as an ideal fuel due its zero emission, elemental abundance and ultrahigh mass energy density. However, high-efficiency solar-to-hydrogen conversion is very challenging due to the absolute voltage requirement for water splitting. Although various solar hydrogen generation technologies have been demonstrated in the past two decades, the solar-to-hydrogen efficiencies in all previous works are much lower than the typical efficiency of PV solar cells. Therefore, voltage enhancement becomes key to not only high PV efficiency, but also high solar-to-hydrogen efficiency for energy storage. On the other hand, multijunction solar cells have become increasingly interesting for water splitting applications due to not only the intrinsically high voltage, but also the potential for further voltage enhancement as well. Among the different voltage enhancement techniques, luminescent coupling has recently drawn a lot of research attention since it allows cell performance improvement by simply changing the design, incurring trivial additional cost. In addition, luminescent coupling effects are also demonstrated to mitigated efficiency loss due to non-ideal illumination spectrum, improving PV module efficiency in real operation conditions. Therefore, my research focuses on the design techniques in voltage enhancement with luminescent coupling effects, and the application of voltage-enhanced multijunction solar cells to high-efficiency water splitting. The first half of this dissertation focuses on solar cell design, modeling and characterization with the presence of luminescent coupling effects. We demonstrated a 3D distributed equivalent-circuit model that allows the modeling of luminescent coupling effects in 3D, as well as novel methods to model and measure luminescent coupling efficiency more accurately then traditional methods. The second half of this dissertation demonstrates a PV-electrolysis system that couples two electrolyzers with a triple-junction solar cell at the optimal operation point, and achieves a solar-to-hydrogen efficiency of 30%, which is significantly higher than that previously reported by any water-splitting system.
Voting Determinants of Brexit: How Trade and Immigration Affected the Vote Share for Brexit across the UK
Keywords:  Department of Economics
Stanford Department of Economics
Brexit
referendum
voter behavior
immigration
trade
trade vulnerability
unemployment
economic adversity
rational ignorance
European Union
United Kingdom
Scotland
England
Wales
Greater London
Thesis

On June 23rd, 2016, the UK shocked the world when 52% of voters decided the country should leave the EU. The referendum results reverberated through the country, the EU, and around the world. Prime Minister David Cameron stepped down in the referendum’s wake and the UK political elite has found itself having to almost exclusively focus on Brexit. As a string of surprising election results shock the globe, it becomes clear that a new trend of voter behavior appears to be emerging in many countries. This paper hopes that analyzing the determinants of the Brexit Referendum can illuminate this new trend in voter behavior. The hypothesis presented is that within a Local Authority District, the ‘Leave’ vote share is more related to subjective feelings towards immigration than objective hardships faced due to unemployment from immigration and trade vulnerability. Further, the flow of immigrants will have a heterogeneous effect across regions of the UK, with increased immigration increasing the Leave vote share in
England and Wales, while decreasing the Leave vote share in Scotland. These hypotheses are confirmed by the data analysis and regressions, as there are positive relationships between both the change in the foreign-born population share and the trade integration level and the Leave vote share across the UK. However, in Scotland alone the relationship between the change in the foreign-born population share and the Leave vote share is negative.
"Wait for it" [electronic resource] : toward optimal emergency department wait time prediction
Keywords: Business.

This thesis explores two problems in the field of Healthcare Operations Management, specifically in the emergency department (ED) setting. We first study the problem of how to accurately estimate the wait times of incoming patients to an ED. We introduce the Q-Lasso method for wait time prediction, which combines statistical learning with fluid model estimators. We implement Q-Lasso on an external website and in a partner ED's triage room, and observe that it achieves over 30% lower mean squared prediction error than would occur with the best rolling average method. Next, we study the problem of how to quantify and mitigate the extra waiting imposed on high-acuity patients by low-acuity patients in an ED, or "ExWAH." We find that an arriving low-acuity patient on average increases the subsequent aggregate wait times of high-acuity patients by 55 minutes. We investigate what operational mechanisms drive this effect, and propose managerial interventions EDs can use to reduce it.
We Do The Best We Can: Implementation of the McKinney-Vento Act by San Francisco Social Workers
Keywords: McKinney-Vento Act
homeless youth
social worker
San Francisco
Thesis

Subtitle VII-B of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act (MVA) was designed to ameliorate the negative academic and social effects experienced by homeless students. While researchers agree the MVA has created policies and programs that are beneficial to homeless youth, there is little evidence on the actual or perceived implementation of the program’s provisions within schools. This study recorded the perceptions of San Francisco Unified School District school social workers on their perceived implementation of certain MVA mandates in their respective schools. The results indicate that school social workers play a critical role in identifying and supporting homeless students, but their perception of the level of implementation of certain MVA provisions within their school varies. Overall, San Francisco school social workers agreed that the District has MVA-related policies in place to work with homeless students, but disagreed when it comes to the effectiveness and availability of these policies at a school level.
"What are you doing here?" [electronic resource] : stylistic variation in the construction of a preaching woman persona
Keywords: Linguistics.

This study establishes the importance of persona in structuring variation in discourse. It examines the speech of African American preacher Dr. Claudette Copeland, as she speaks to an audience of several thousand women at a national conference for Women in Ministry. Dr. Claudette engages her audience in the well-known African American speech event, having church. This particular event is well known as a site for complex, multi-layered African American preaching, thus it provides the opportunity to examine the use of variation in stylistic performance. Dr. Claudette constructs a unique authoritative persona as a preacher, by combining the resources of pre-existing personae: the saintly woman, the seminary-trained preacher, and the black folk preacher. Each of these personae contributes a particular kind of authority and authenticity in the church. But her particular style profits from the inclusion of an additional, non-church persona, sistah-friend. This persona adds authenticity and solidarity as an equal and a sister, providing solidarity and authority with the particular trials, tribulations and interests of women in the church, allowing her to speak from a position of familiarity, strengthening her argument and legitimating her critique. I examine three quintessential features of African American Vernacular English (AAVE): (ay) monophthongization, rhoticity, and zero copula as they occur throughout the speech event. I compare alternative models of discursive organization as constraints on the use of these variables. I compare earlier models of black sermon structure as predictors of variation with the structure of persona structure. Specifically, the four personae that constitute Dr. Claudette's style are interspersed throughout the speech event, precluding a linear analysis. Employing Polanyi's Linguistic Discourse Model, I break the sermon down into Basic Discourse Units, and assign a persona to each unit based on criteria independent of the variation under study. Using regression analyses combining linguistic constraints with discourse models, I show that while the linear structure of the sermon does account for some patterns, the persona structure provides a more robust analysis overall.
What Aspects of Phonological Awareness Predict Later Reading Skills in a Shallow Orthography? The Case of Kinyarwanda
Keywords: phonological awareness
reading skills
orthography
Kinyarwanda
Stanford Graduate School of Education International Comparative Education
Thesis

The importance of phonological awareness in understanding reading development can hardly be overstated. Phonological awareness has been seen as a key to unlocking the complex process by which children learn the relationship between spoken and written words. Findings across a wide range of studies have shown that phonological awareness and – in particular, phonemic awareness – is essential to learning to read in English. There is growing evidence, however, that linguistic and orthographic features of different languages affect the relationship between phonological awareness and children’s reading development. In this paper, I use a fixed effects approach to examine what aspects of phonological awareness are predictive of later reading skills in a shallow orthography. Employing longitudinal reading data from one district of Rwanda, my study tests the assumptions about the importance of phonemic awareness in Kinyarwanda, a highly syllabic, Bantu language. Results from my analysis suggest that syllabic awareness is a better predictor of later reading skills than phonemic awareness among Kinyarwanda-speaking children. These findings deepen our understanding of the various linguistic and orthographic aspects of reading – knowledge that can be used to improve our ability to support students on the path to becoming literate.
"What I Kept Watch On": The Psychology of Heartbreak in Anne Carson's "The Glass Essay"
Keywords: melancholia
mourning
Anne Carson
psychoanalysis
poetry
Department of English
Thesis

An honors thesis in English literature that applies psychoanalytic theory to a reading of Anne Carson's prose poem "The Glass Essay." Through analysis informed by thinkers like Freud and Winnicott, I interpret the poem as a documentation of the work of mourning, outlining the speaker's journey from acute heartbreak towards independent survival.
What the HECM? Evaluating the Effect of Reverse Mortgages on Bequest and Budgetary Decision-Making in Retirement
Keywords: Reverse Mortgage
HECM
Bequest
Intergenerational Wealth Transfer
Text
Thesis

Reverse mortgages (RM) are an increasingly attractive means for the largely cash-strapped but
house-rich Baby Boomer generation to meet basic liquidity demands in retirement. Given the
importance of bequest in life-cycle models of wealth generation, though, and the outsize role
home equity plays in most Americans’ estates, reverse mortgages’ requirement that the borrower
transfer his or her home to the lender at death could prove disruptive. I investigate the effect of
RMs on seniors’ allocations across saving and consumption in retirement, and subsequent
impacts on realized bequests. I find that the availability of RMs leads those who would get one to
bequest 71% less than they would otherwise, even when accounting for savings financed by the
new liquidity a reverse mortgage provides, and that those who would choose RM bequest 64%
less than those who would not. I find additional implications for the most financially vulnerable,
and that RM could exacerbate inequality among Millenials by singularly diminishing bequests
among middle-class Boomers. Further, I find that the hypothetical event of Social Security trust
fund insolvency would heighten each of these effects and increase RM take-up 27%.
When attempts to express gender equality backfire [electronic resource]
Keywords: Psychology.

On the surface, it seems as if "Zebras are like horses" and "Horses are like zebras" should have the same meaning, since both express similarity between horses and zebras. Yet, adults and children consistently prefer "Zebras are like horses". This is because statements with this syntactic structure (which I will call subject-complement statements) frame the item in the subject position as the less typical, less important variant and the item in the complement position as the more typical, more important reference point. In four studies, I explore the consequences of subject-complement statements intended to express gender equality (e.g., "Girls are as good as boys at math"). I show that such statements not only reflect preexisting stereotypes about gender, but perpetuate them. The statement "Girls are as good as boys at math", for instance, subtly reinforces the stereotype that boys are naturally more talented by framing boys as the reference point for girls. To promote gender equality, then, it is not enough to express equality explicitly. We must also consider the information that we implicitly communicate in our statements.
When best practices fall short [electronic resource] : gender equality initiatives in organizations
Keywords: Sociology.

Despite the vast amount of resources organizations have devoted to achieving gender equality, inequality persists. In this dissertation, I explore the barriers to successful gender equality initiatives. More specifically, I examine how individuals within organizations conceptualize inequality and change, and I analyze how these ideologies impact successful implementation of gender equality initiatives. Existing research has revealed that an organizational commitment to diversity is a crucial component of successful initiatives, yet we lack a clear understanding of what fosters an individualistic vs. organizational orientation toward diversity efforts. I find that employees in elite, high-status industries tend to maintain an individualistic approach to organizational change, in contrast with the structural approach common among sociologists of gender. Ultimately, the potency of the individualistic mindset causes larger structural barriers to diversity to remain entrenched. On a practical level, this dissertation offers insight into ways of fostering an organizational approach to change and improving the effectiveness of diversity initiatives.
When governments lobby [electronic resource]
Keywords: Political Science.

What happens when governments hire lobbyists? In the U.S., governments are among the most active lobbying groups. Local governments frequently lobby their state capitols, and both state and local officials lobby the federal government. But despite the ubiquity of intergovernmental lobbying, we lack systematic evidence about the conditions under which local governments lobby and the effects of this behavior on public policy. This book begins to answer these questions. Marshaling original quantitative and qualitative evidence from dozens of sources---including newly compiled longitudinal data on lobbying disclosures in all 50 states---I argue that intergovernmental lobbying allows local governments to purchase advocacy when their needs are not met through formal channels of representation. While this ability to pay for representation can help local officials communicate their needs to the state government, it also raises equity concerns. In this volume, I demonstrate that affluent municipalities are more likely to lobby and experience greater monetary returns when they do. One of the empirical puzzles in the literature on federalism is that wealthy areas often secure more funding from the central government, even when transfer systems are designed to redistribute revenue to less advantaged regions. My results suggest that one reason why states have been so ineffective at reducing local revenue inequality is because rich cities are able to translate their economic advantage into political power through lobbying.
When Little Makes Big: Exploring Synthesis Techniques for High-Throughput Enzymology Using Microfluidics
Keywords:  Department of Biology
Biology
Enzymology
Biophysics
Microfluidic
Thesis

Enzymes are the best catalysts we know of: they not only perform all the chemical reactions required for life, but they enhance the rates of these reactions by orders of magnitude. Most of what is known about enzyme function has focused on the roles played by a small subset of active site residues. These have been shown to form “functional networks,” or groups of residues that enhance reaction rates in a highly cooperative manner. Residues outside of the active site (within the enzyme scaffold) are almost certainly connected to these functional groups. To date, however, limitations in current technologies have prevented us from mapping functional connections between scaffold residues and the active site. To address this challenge, the Fordyce lab has reengineered second-generation MITOMI (Mechanically Induced Trapping of Molecular Interactions) microfluidic devices to create a unique microfluidics assay capable of quantitatively measuring reaction rates for thousands of enzyme mutants simultaneously. Here, we explored several gene and protein synthesis techniques to make the process of preparing enzymatic DNA for the microfluidic assay both faster and cheaper. The most promising strategy explored was coupling a new yeast-based library generation and parsing technique, Recombinase Directed Indexing (REDI), followed by colony yeast PCR. These technologies will be used to conduct parallelized mutant cycles throughout the entire structure, thereby quantitatively mapping (for the first time for any enzyme) functional networks that connect distal residues to the active site to affect catalysis. This, in turn, will give us a more complete understanding of how enzymes achieve proficient catalysis, and suggest new routes to the design of novel enzymes.
When Things Are Not As They Seem: Explaining the Success of Countering Violent Extremism in Los Angeles
Keywords:  Center for International Security and Cooperation
CVE
terrorism
Los Angeles
Obama Administration
Stanford University
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Thesis

Under the Obama Administration, “countering violent extremism” (CVE) described efforts to prevent violent extremism by addressing root causes that lead individuals to radicalize. These efforts promoted community engagement, local prevention programs, and counter- messaging to combat extremism ideology. The local focus of American CVE also led to the creation of pilot programs in Los Angeles, Boston, and the Twin Cities. The American government viewed the Los Angeles program as widely successful and incorporated practices from the Los Angeles framework into the national CVE framework.
This thesis proposes three theories to explain Los Angeles’s success in implementing an effective CVE program. First, Los Angeles has a long history of addressing violent extremism in the form of rioting and gang violence; this allowed for the application of previous experience in law enforcement and community building to CVE efforts. Next, Los Angeles incorporated successful community-based organizations that combat systemic social issues, such as poverty reduction, into their CVE framework. Finally, there is no problem of violent extremism in Los Angeles because there is no population that is statistically vulnerable to violent extremism in the form of Sunni extremism. These findings suggest that Los Angeles appeared successful at CVE because of programs and experiences that existed before initiatives to counter violent extremism. Therefore, can these successes be replicated outside of Los Angeles and is our national CVE model – one that incorporates Los Angeles’s programs – valid?