VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Die Suche nach dem Glück [electronic resource] : Gottfried Keller's psychology of flourishing
Keywords: German Studies.

Is it possible to live a flourishing life in modern post-industrial society? Self-cultivation has a rich and enduring history in humanistic discourse since the Renaissance. In the last century, however, "flourishing" has increasingly become the domain of the social sciences—psychologists and educators. This dissertation seeks to articulate how the humanities contribute to this vital cultural discourse. The project aims to integrate literary and social scientific models of flourishing into a cohesive framework through an interdisciplinary case study. It outlines Gottfried Keller's nineteenth-century model of human flourishing and demonstrates its pertinence to twenty-first century educational psychology. It argues that Keller prefigures key frameworks of contemporary psychological complexity. A close analysis of the novella cycle, "Die Leute von Seldwyla, " demonstrates that Keller's educational psychology prefigures key frameworks of contemporary psychological complexity, including adolescent development (Chapter I), resilience (Chapter II), attachment (Chapter III), and post-traumatic stress (Chapter IV). The first two chapters highlight the ongoing dialogue between literary and empirical approaches to individual growth. Chapter I situates Keller in the historical trajectory from organic vitalism in the Age of Goethe to the emergence of empirical psychology in the late 19th century, with close readings of "Pankraz der Schmoller" and "Frau Regula Amrain und ihr Jüngster" and parenthetical readings of Bildungs-narratives by Goethe and the Jena Romantics. Chapter II focuses on Keller's depiction of resilience and self-directed learning, demonstrating his uniqueness among his contemporaries, through analysis of "Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe" and "Kleider machen Leute" in the context of a survey of German, French, English, and Russian realism. The third and fourth chapters reevaluate the last two novellas of the "Seldwyla" cycle in light of Keller's educational psychology. Chapter III, focusing on "Das verlorne Lachen, " considers the mingling of romantic love and religion as analogous frameworks for spiritual meaning-making in modernity. Chapter IV traces Keller's portrait of trauma and the violence of history in "Dietegen." This project argues that Keller's educational psychology posits story-telling as the core prerequisite skill that enables flourishing in modern society and makes self-actualization democratically accessible.
Digital Attachments to Life After Death: Grieving in the Age of Technology
Keywords:  Department of Science
Science Technology and Society
Stanford University
grief
bereavement
digital media
profile
chatbots
death
evolution of mourning
cremation
virtual afterlife
grief work
continuing bonds
Thesis

As technology continues to expand, so does the presence of digitization in society. With the ease and accessibility of digitization, individuals of Western society have begun to assume a virtual presence. The countless hours of curating online profiles have created digital shadows of real lives. If digital profiles become embedded with the “spirits” and memories of their users, what happens to their virtual existence after death? America’s cremation movement demonstrates society’s complex perception of life and death. As the scattering of ashes displaces a person, what becomes of the role of the body? What becomes the role of a virtual presence? Researchers have observed how the bereaved have used technology, but there is limited study of the implications of these digital tools. This thesis examines the role of technology on the ways in which society grieves. Case studies are analyzed to identify the patterns and characteristics of grieving in the age of technology. These first hand accounts from the bereaved support the thesis that digital profiles allow the bereaved to maintain a connection to the departed, and social networks help them realize the impact the deceased had on others. However, some of the bereaved believe that when the person is gone, so too should their profile fade. If digital profiles prolong the relationship between the deceased and the bereaved, is the ability to visit the deceased online helpful to the bereaved? Through meta-analysis of psychology studies, the innate attachment style of the bereaved is the essential marker for the value of the digital presence of the deceased. By Freudian logic, social media profiles would inhibit successful mourning as they prolong detachment. However, according to Bowlby and the continuing bonds theory, digital profiles can be used as helpful tools to reconstruct a relationship with the deceased.
Digital Editing Theory in Practice: Matthew Parker’s A Testimonie of Antiquitie
Keywords:  Department of English
Department of English
scholarly editing
matthew parker
archbishop parker
parker
digital humanities
digital editing
digital edition
testimonie of antiquitie
old english
anglo-saxon
early print
Thesis

This thesis examines theoretical issues in the field of digital scholarly editing, and the execution of that theory through the creation of a digital edition of Archbishop Matthew Parker's 1566 book "A Testimonie of Antiquitie".
The digital learning ecosystem [electronic resource] : finding a path toward innovation in a land of stagnation
Keywords: Education.

This dissertation seeks to explain whether and how technology could be better utilized to support learning by underserved students. It affords readers with actionable information about optimizing technology to support learning by underserved students in US public schools. The sum total of these learnings, read against the backdrop of our history, tells a grim story about the likelihood of an equitable school system fueled by technology. While this illusion plays a role in structuring the conversation about of what is possible in American education, in reality, the potential for technology to systemically improve equitable access to high quality education is profoundly limited by the constraints of our fundamentally broken school system.
Digitally-assisted if-sampling ADC with background-calibrated dynamic distortion compensation [electronic resource]
Keywords: Electrical Engineering.

Modern digital-beamforming phased-array systems enable cost-efficient common technology platforms that can be quickly deployed in many airborne or ground radar and communication applications. At the heart of the phased array receiver chain, multi-channel IF-Sampling Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADCs) serve the important purpose of down-converting the Intermediate Frequency (IF) signal to baseband and digitizing it for post-processing. The main design challenge of such ADCs is maintaining a good linearity performance across a wide input signal bandwidth while minimizing power consumption. In this thesis, we present an IF-Sampling ADC that consumes less power in the performance-limiting frontend and leverages the power of modern digital technology to post-correct the signal distortion in the digital domain. To satisfy the requirement of the target phased-array system, the ADC converts signals with 8-bit resolution at 1.25 GS/s sample rate. Our digital post-distortion filter uses a compact, derivative-based dynamic distortion model and enables ADC SFDR improvements of 10 dB for 2.5 GHz inputs. This ADC is the first to demonstrate correction model update in the background, in order to adapt to environmental variations (e.g., temperature variation). This continuous background calibration is enabled through a low sampling rate, on-chip auxiliary ADC that acquires high-linearity reference samples in real-time. Temperature sweeps from 10 °C to 80 °C confirm the scheme's robustness.
Digitized Cultural Production and Its Effects on Diversity and Innovation in Popular Music
Keywords:  Technology and Society
Music
Diversity
Innovation
Stanford
Science Technology &amp; Society
Thesis

Internet technologies, from Napster to Spotify, have changed the musical tastemaking process dramatically over the past fifteen years. Popular narrative assumes that these platforms have democratized musical tastemaking by diminishing major record labels’ monopoly over mass distribution. This same narrative predicts that the democratic forum afforded by these platforms should foster diversity and innovation in popular music, relieving us from the typical formulaic, standardized fare. But is this really true? Have these platforms enabled democracy, or have technology companies usurped the hegemonic power that major labels once held? Furthermore, have these new platforms diversified popular music and eliminated barriers to entry for marginalized artists, or do these platforms hold biases of their own? By conducting interviews with top executives, and mapping trends in key indicators of diversity and innovation across Billboard charts, viral charts, human-curated Spotify charts, algorithmic recommendations, and record label rosters, I examine the impact of digitized tastemaking on popular music. In my interviews, I found that music executives unanimously sense a loss of power, but are conflicted about the effect of streaming platforms on diversity and innovation. They remain skeptical of streaming as a democratic tool, fearing that streaming statistics can be manipulated, and that online platforms may advantage certain artists and consumers over others. In my statistical analysis, I find mixed results: increased representation for specific demographics (Asian men, Scandinavian bands, and openly gay performers), but decreased representation for others (African-American, Hispanic, and Female performers). Biases within Internet communities, curators, and algorithms, have created barriers, rather than eliminated them, for certain artists. Most notably for Female artists, representation appears to decrease significantly as labels rely more on streaming and social media statistics. Innovation—measured by number of genres represented, as well as standard deviation of tempo and chord structures—has increased in the 2010’s, but has yet to fully recover from massive declines in the 2000’s, which are likely linked to risk-averse scouting required by dramatic declines in music revenues. Meanwhile, the types of innovation most rewarded by the Internet, including shock-value and aggressive self-meming, are considered by some to be a step backward in product quality.
Disavowing attachments [electronic resource] : maladjustment in trans[masculine] thought
Keywords: Modern Thought and Literature.

"Disavowing Attachments" identifies and thinks with forms of trans maladjustment in twentieth and twenty-first century literature and theory. Whereas work in transgender studies has long emphasized agency, self-sameness, and contentment in order to untangle trans identity from mental illness, I argue that this tactic has limited trans studies' ability to respond to the very lives and texts that early trans scholars sought the authority to interpret. Consequently, this project returns to texts central to the field—including the Brandon Teena archive, the secluded life of early trans man Michael Dillon, and Sandy Stone's inaugural manifesto—in order to argue for and model trans theory that thinks with, rather than against, the bad feelings that persist in transphobic discourse and trans cultural production alike. To that end, the project opens with an account of the entanglement of trans and disability history in the nineteenth to twentieth-century United States, in order to put forward maladjustment as a resource for doing trans theory. Each subsequent chapter meditates on how prevalent, disavowed narratives of trans maladjustment—the depressed transsexual, the raped transgender man, and the trans recluse—allow for imaginative routes around old theoretical impasses, as well as offer a version of trans theory that is more able to engage with other minority discourses, especially feminist, disability, and critical race theory, to which it is indebted and indelibly attached.
Discourse and Deceit: Native Advertising, Influencer Marketing, and the Increasing Corrosion of Public Trust
Keywords:  Department of Communication
marketing
deception
influencer
ethics
native advertising
FTC
regulation
Thesis

This thesis analyzes the deceptive promotional practices of native advertising and influencer marketing, examining how existing literature on the former may be applied to the understudied latter. The thesis argues that both practices engender public skepticism towards public discourse, thus undermining democratic self-governance. Building on this argument, the thesis suggests influencer marketing may be an even more pernicious threat to public discourse than native advertising by virtue of undermining public trust not only in media content but also in the common person. Turning to the issue of regulation, the thesis argues that given the severity of the threat these deceptive promotional practices pose to public discourse, the Federal Trade Commission both can and should take a significantly more prescriptive regulatory approach. To conclude, the thesis emphasizes the dangers of failing to adequately address novel forms of commercial deception as technology advances.
Discovery of a novel protein complex essential for toxoplasma effector transport into the host cell [electronic resource]
Keywords: Microbiology and Immunology.

The ability of Toxoplasma to infect and successfully manipulate its host is dependent on its ability to transport "GRA" proteins that originate in unique secretory organelles called dense granules into the host cell in which they reside; however, the essential transport machinery has not been identified. GRAs have diverse roles in Toxoplasma's intracellular lifecycle including co-opting crucial host cell functions and proteins such as the cell cycle, c-Myc and p38 MAP kinase. To identify proteins necessary for the transit of GRAs across the parasitophorous vacuole (PV) membrane, we screened mutants defective in c-Myc upregulation for their ability to export GRA16 and GRA24 to the host cell nucleus as well as modulate host cell processes associated with this and other proteins. This led to the discovery that novel proteins MYR1 (Myc regulation 1), MYR2, and MYR3 play a crucial role in translocation of a subset of GRAs into the host cell. MYR1 is cleaved by ASP5 into two fragments that interact with each other in a disulfide-dependent manner and associate with the PV membranes; interestingly, cleavage is dispensable for MYR1 function. MYR3 likewise associates with PV membranes and co-localizes and interacts with MYR1. Finally, MYR2 is secreted into the PV and associates with PV membranes. Overall, MYR1-3 are the first identified membrane-localized components in Toxoplasma that are required for effector transport across the PVM, and may constitute a novel protein translocon that is essential for hijacking host cell pathways.
The disease of commerce [electronic resource] : yellow fever in the Atlantic world, 1793-1805
Keywords: History.

In 1793 an outbreak in Saint Domingue (modern Haiti) grew into a global crisis. The violent illness swept through the West Indies, the United States, and southern Europe traveling as far as Livorno, Italy. The scourge was a viral, hemorrhagic fever known as yellow fever. This outbreak was not the first attack of yellow fever, but it was the largest up to that date. The pandemic lasted twelve years (1793-1805) and killed tens of thousands of people situated on the Atlantic rim. This dissertation is the first study of the crisis from a global perspective. While taking a broad view, it centers on the United States and explores the impact of yellow fever on American trade, politics, and diplomacy.
Dissecting genes and signals controlling pancreatic islet morphogenesis and differentiation [electronic resource]
Keywords: Developmental Biology.

The pancreas is a mixed endocrine and exocrine organ associated with the digestive tract. Pancreatic islets are spheroid endocrine micro-organs dispersed throughout the pancreas which secrete hormones into the bloodstream, whereas acinar and ductal cells form a branched epithelial network which transmits digestive enzymes into the intestine. During development, islets, ducts, and acinar cells originate from common progenitors. Islet cells begin to differentiate, exit the ductal epithelium, migrate outward, and cluster to form islets. Genes and signals controlling islet cell differentiation and islet morphogenesis in space, time, and lineage remain to be discovered. Additionally, whether the functions of genes and signals characterized in model organisms are conserved in human pancreas biology is frequently difficult to assess. This thesis presents findings and methods that advance knowledge of mechanisms of islet morphogenesis and differentiation at the cellular and tissue levels. In Chapter 2, we address discordance between mouse and human mutant phenotypes by assessing the functional consequences of human gene mutations associated with clinical disease. In Chapter 3, we define a radial axis in islet morphogenesis encoded by the Semaphorin signaling through Neuropilin receptors. In Chapter 4, we identify the transcriptional corepressor ETO as a regulator of islet progenitor development, and in Chapter 5, we develop tools for genetically labeling human α cells. Along with these findings, we describe methods for single-cell resolution live imaging of developing islet cells, somatic delivery of transgenes to intact developing pancreatic tissue cultured ex vivo, and whole-organ high resolution confocal imaging. Overall, the work here contributes to the study of pancreas organogenesis, defining genes and signals that act at regulatory points in development to enable the formation of pancreatic islets.
Dissecting proton delocalization and the electrostatic contribution to catalysis in ketosteroid isomerase with non-canonical amino acids [electronic resource]
Keywords: Chemistry.

The origin of enzymes' catalytic power is a long-standing and still largely unsolved problem in biochemistry. To compare and evaluate the role of various catalytic strategies, I have turned to a model protein ketosteroid isomerase (KSI). Low barrier hydrogen bonds (LBHB) and electrostatic stabilization are two popular theories proposed to explain KSI's catalytic proficiency. The primary difference between the two hypotheses lies in the nature of the interaction between the transition state (TS) of the reaction and the extended H-bond network in KSI's active site, which preferentially stabilizes the TS to contribute to catalysis − in a LBHB formulation, the TS would enjoy an additional energetic benefit from the presumed covalent (delocalized) nature of a strong H-bond. To enable a side-by-side comparison of the two hypotheses, I utilized amber suppression and prepared a set of 'conservative mutants' by incorporating noncanonical amino acid 3-chlorotyrosine to each of the three tyrosine residues (Y16, Y57, Y32, denoted as 'tyrosine triad') within the extended H-bond network of KSI. The site-specific incorporation enabled the incremental and simultaneous tuning of the proton affinities and the electrostatic properties of KSI's active site, as suggested by small but systematic changes in KSI's catalytic rate. Moreover, X-ray crystal structures of the mutants verified the preservation of the extended H-bond network with minimal structural perturbation. The series of conservative mutants allows me to (1) dissect the quantum delocalization of protons within the extended H-bond network of apo-KSI; (2) critically test the linear correlation between KSI's electric field and its catalytic proficiency, reinforcing the dominant contribution of electrostatics in KSI catalysis; (3) and elucidate the functional connection between the strength of the active site H-bond and the electric field it exerts, suggesting a potential unification of the two hypotheses on the origin of enzymes' catalytic power.
Distinct mechanisms of multisite phosphorylation of the transcriptional inhibitor Whi5 regulate the budding yeast cell cycle [electronic resource]
Keywords: Biology.

Budding yeast cells link their rate of division to growth via the transcriptional inhibitor Whi5. Cell growth dilutes, and thereby partially inactivates, Whi5, allowing the expression of two cyclins, Cln1 and Cln2. Cln1 and Cln2, in complex with cyclin-dependent kinase (Cdk1), further inactivate Whi5, completing a positive feedback loop that drives cells into S-phase by inducing expression of hundreds of genes. An additional cyclin-Cdk1 complex, Cln3-Cdk1, has been thought to contribute to the initial inactivation of Whi5 through phosphorylation. Using phos-tag SDS-PAGE to assay the phosphorylation state of Whi5 in vivo, we show that, although Cdk1 activity is required at S-phase entry, Whi5 phosphorylation during G1 does not require Cdk1. We identify the specific residues on Whi5 that are phosphorylated during G1 and show that their ablation has a moderate effect on cell cycle progression, as assayed by cell size. We also find that two of these phosphosites match the consensus motif for PKA, suggesting a possible additional Whi5 regulatory mechanism. We show that rapid Whi5 phosphorylation at S-phase entry depends on the phospho-threonine binding activity of the cyclin-Cdk1 subunit Cks1. Finally, we find that blocking Cks1 binding to Whi5 phospho-threonines yields a size phenotype equivalent to blocking all Whi5 phosphorylation by cyclin-Cdk1. This suggests that Cks1 binding to Whi5 phospho-threonines is essential to the function of Whi5 phosphorylation by cyclin-Cdk1.
DNA fragility in the parallel evolution of pelvic reduction in threespine stickleback fish (Gasterosteus aculeatus) [electronic resource]
Keywords: Biochemistry.

Evolution generates a remarkable breadth of living forms, but many traits evolve repeatedly, by mechanisms that are still poorly understood. A classic example of repeated evolution is the loss of pelvic limbs in stickleback fish (Gasterosteus aculeatus). Repeated pelvic loss has been mapped to independent deletions of a pelvic enhancer upstream of Pitx1, an essential transcription factor. Here, we identify molecular features that contribute to this unusual spectrum of adaptive deletions. We find that Pitx1 enhancer sequences form non-canonical DNA structures in vitro and increase DNA double-strand breaks ~50-100 times in vivo. The fragility of the enhancer also depends on DNA replication direction and is caused by (TG)-dinucleotide repeats. Modeling shows that high mutation rates aid evolution under widespread demographic conditions, including those relevant for sticklebacks and humans. Our results suggest that DNA fragility is an important mechanism for generating adaptive alleles in natural populations.
Does Welfare Reduce Mortality? Evidence from the Supplemental Security Income Program
Keywords:  Department of Economics
welfare
Supplemental Security Income
crime
health
Stanford Department of Economics
Thesis

In this thesis, I analyze whether transfer payments from the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program result in a reduction in infant mortality or homicide rates in U.S. counties. SSI is a government program that provides payments to low-income people who are either aged (65 or older), blind, or disabled. In 1990, in it’s Sullivan v. Zebley decision, the Supreme Court relaxed medical eligibility criteria for children on SSI.
This resulted in a dramatic rise in child enrollment rates and a large influx of income
into some of the poorest areas in the U.S. I use an instrumental variable strategy,
exploiting geographical variation in the expected treatment effect of this federal policy change, to determine whether this increase in child SSI enrollment had a causal impact on infant mortality or homicide rates. I find that a 1 percentage point increase in child SSI enrollment leads to a 1.45 percentage point reduction in infant mortality rates and an insignificant change in homicide rates.