VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Inroads into the Global Cyberspace: The Visions and Prospects of China's Digital Silk Road
Keywords:  Stanford Global Studies
Stanford Global Studies
East Asian Studies
Belt and Road Initiative
Digital Silk Road
China
Southeast Asia
Technology
Foreign Policy
International Relations
Trade
Security
Thesis

The thesis aims to understand the visions for China’s Digital Silk Road and its prospects for success in engaging other countries in this initiative. The Digital Silk Road (DSR) is a recent extension of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), aimed at the non-physical aspects of China’s “Going Out” and the establishment of trade networks and infrastructure. The DSR is a clear departure from the BRI and physical infrastructure, with its emphasis on the development and export of digital technologies. There are three broad categories of DSR projects: Digital Infrastructure; Smart City Development; E-Commerce. As Chinese technology develops, we are likely to see the scope of DSR projects increase as more disruptive technologies become products of Chinese export. It is clear that the DSR constitutes the technological thrust of the BRI and China’s “going out” policy. This global policy of exporting technology is also a rather unprecedented move by China and deserves scholarly attention. The DSR offers an insightful avenue to understand China’s international goals and aspirations with respect to the BRI and in the global cyberspace. This thesis focuses on Southeast Asia as a case study to understand the prospects of foreign engagement in such initiatives. It is concerned with these fundamental questions: What are China’s visions and goals with respect to the DSR? Why and how are these vision(s) attractive to other countries? Does China have the political, economic, and technological capacity to accomplish all this on a sustained basis?
In-situ adaptive reduction of nonlinear multiscale structural dynamics models
Keywords: Mechanical Engineering.

A computational framework of the in-situ, adaptive Projection-based Model Order Reduction (PMOR) is proposed for solving a general nonlinear dynamic multiscale problem. This framework focuses on the reduction at the microscale by using the method of database of local Reduced-Order Bases (ROBs), which is constructed and updated on-the-fly to avoid the weakness of extrapolation in the conventional non-adaptive training. Instead of performing a classical offline-online training approach, an online algorithm is designed for this adaptive process. The proposed framework treats the deformation gradient, defined at each macroscale material point, as a vector parameter domain. This characterization enables it to locate each discrete boundary value problem of the microscale Representative Volume Element (RVE) in the database and assign to it online the most appropriate local ROB, by computing the distance from the query point to the centroid of ROB in the parameter domain. Excessively large local ROB will be split into two new local ROBs to achieve a computational efficiency. The model accuracy is controlled by sampling new information from a High Dimensional Model (HDM) and updating the existing local ROB. Performance results obtained for two computationally intensive nonlinear, dynamic, two-level multiscale applications reveal that the proposed computational framework for the in-situ, adaptive microscale projection-based model order reduction is capable of delivering wall-clock time speedup factors while maintaining a desired level of accuracy
Integrated stabilization and collision avoidance for automated vehicles in emergency scenarios
Keywords: Mechanical Engineering.

As automated vehicles become more prevalent and capable, venturing out of research labs and onto public streets, they present an opportunity to further improve the safety of their passengers and other road users. This dissertation focuses on safety through the lenses of lateral stabilization and collision avoidance. First, a steering controller that integrates both of these responsibilities is developed, enabling the controller to deviate from a reference path to satisfy stabilization criteria while ensuring such deviations are made safely with respect to obstacles and road edges. Next, this concept is expanded to develop a controller that simultaneously plans lateral and longitudinal forces directly for the purposes of collision avoidance. Finally, the sensitivity of the stability of system to disturbances is analyzed, motivating a controller which models this sensitivity by propagating uncertain disturbances along a prediction horizon in the lateral velocity states. By minimizing this open-loop velocity uncertainty, the controller can plan and execute necessarily aggressive collision avoidance trajectories while reducing its sensitivity to modeling error
Interferometric imaging of electrical signaling in biological cells
Keywords: Electrical Engineering.

Electrical signaling in biological cells is an important mediator of physiological functions, ranging from graded potentials in sensory neurons and other cells to action potentials in motor- and other neurons in the nervous system. The action potential constitutes the basic unit of neural information, and it is of particular interest to detect. Classically, this is done using invasive electrical measurements, such as a single-cell patch clamp or arrays of extracellular electrodes. More recent optical methods require exogenous markers, such as fluorescent calcium indicators, or genetically encoded transmembrane voltage sensors, and are thus still invasive. Truly non-invasive optical methods based on single-point laser interferometry have demonstrated nanometer-scale cellular deformations that accompany electrical events. This phenomenon can be exploited as an all-optical method for detection of action potentials and other electrical signaling. Here, I report full-field imaging of cellular deformations accompanying the action potential in mammalian neuron somas (-1.8 nm to 1.4 nm) and neurites (-0.7 nm to 0.9 nm), using high-speed common-path quantitative phase imaging with a temporal resolution of 0.1 ms and an optical path length sensitivity of < 4 pm per pixel. Spike-triggered averaging, synchronized to electrical recordings, demonstrates that the time course of the optical phase changes closely matches the dynamics of the electrical signal. Utilizing the spatial and temporal correlations of the phase signals across the cell, the detection and segmentation of spiking cells can be enhanced compared to the shot-noise limited performance of single pixels. These full-field observations of the spike-induced deformations shed light upon the electromechanical coupling mechanism in all electrogenic cells and open the door to non-invasive label-free imaging of neural signaling. Such electrically-induced cellular deformations can also be seen in photoreceptors during phototransduction in the human retina. Thus, wide-field label-free optical monitoring of neural activity using fast interferometry is an imminent diagnostic tool for noninvasive assessment of retinal function, and might find broader applications in neuroscience in general
Interpreting contact interactions to overcome failure in robot assembly tasks
Keywords: Mechanical Engineering.

A key challenge towards the goal of multi-part assembly tasks is finding methods for robust sensorimotor control in the presence of uncertainty. In contrast to previous works that rely on a priori knowledge on whether two parts match, we propose a method to learn this through physical interaction. This method involves a hierarchical approach that enables a robot to autonomously assemble parts while being uncertain about part types and positions. In particular, the method's probabilistic approach learns a set of differentiable filters that leverage the tactile sensorimotor trace from failed assembly attempts to update a robot's belief about part position and type. This enables the robot to overcome assembly failure. Through experiments, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach on a set of object fitting tasks. The experimental results indicate that the proposed approach achieves higher precision in object position and type estimation, and accomplishes object fitting tasks faster than baselines
The intersections of education with housing and affordability : essays on impacts to schools, students, and teachers
Keywords: Education.

This dissertation explores the question of how housing policy and the availability of affordable housing affect education. It consists of three papers that collectively provide evidence on the ways that shortages of affordable housing impact students and teachers, as well as examine the effects that policies addressing these shortages can have on educational equity and opportunities for disadvantaged students. In the first chapter, I examine the effect that low-income housing development has had on the racial, ethnic, and economic diversity of neighborhood public schools using evidence from the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), the most important federal policy instrument incentivizing the supply of affordable housing. Using a regression discontinuity design, I find that LIHTC development did not result in a change in school composition on the nationwide level, but significantly increased minority student enrollment in predominantly white areas. In the second chapter, I estimate the short- and medium-term impacts that a rapid rehousing and homelessness prevention program has on homeless students, focusing on the outcomes of school and district mobility, attendance, and behavioral referrals. I use generalized difference-in-difference and event study models to find, among other results, that participation in the program had positive behavioral impacts but increased absences for students rehoused to faraway cities. In the final chapter, I and co-authors explore the prevalence and implications of economic anxiety among teachers in a high cost urban district using a combination of survey and administrative data. We find that economic anxiety is widespread among surveyed teachers and that it is highly predictive of teacher departure from the district, increased teacher absences, and more negative attitudes toward their jobs
The inter-subject variability of ventral visual cortex
Keywords: Psychology.

The human ventral visual stream is a processing stream in the human brain that is involved in visual perception and recognition. This stream contains a multitude of brain regions spanning the occipital lobe and the ventral aspect of the temporal lobe. An unanswered question is: How consistent are functional and microanatomical characteristics of the ventral visual stream across individuals? In study 1, I quantified if and how cytoarchitectonic areas, defined as areas that vary significantly in their cell density across the 6-layered cortical ribbon, of the ventral stream are linked to macroanatomical landmarks and if they are consistent across people. In study 2, I quantified the degree to which functional regions in ventral temporal cortex (VTC) and lateral occipito-temporal cortex (LOTC) are consistent across individuals. In study 3 I tested how responses in functional re- gions processing faces and bodies in VTC relate to behavioral judgements of ambiguous images and to what degree this relationship is consistent across individuals. Results of studies 1 -- 3 revealed strik- ingly high consistency of functional regions and cytoarchitectonic areas relative to macronanatomical landmarks and across people, and a consistent relationship of responses in face- and body-selective regions to behavioral judgements. These findings led me to ask in study 4: what principles drive this organization? Thus, in study 4, I investigated the role of experience in shaping the functional layout of the ventral stream by studying the functional organization of VTC in congenital blind partici- pants. I found that without visual input, the functional organization of VTC is substantially more heterogeneous in congenitally blind than sighted participants. This discovery suggests that common experience in sighted people contributes to their common functional organization of VTC. Together, results of these studies suggest that both the function and cytoarchitectonic organization of VTC is much more consistent across individuals that previously thought, and that visual experience plays an important role in shaping its functional organization. These data provide an important foundation for future studies that investigate both innate and experience-related organizational principles of the human ventral stream
Intimate radicals and radical intimacies : East European Jewish women in the early twentieth-century Anglo-American Imaginary
Keywords: History.

This dissertation tells the story of romantic ties between a handful of East European Jewish women and patrician-born, Anglo-American intellectuals on the radical left in the early twentieth century. Through the use of personal archives, published and unpublished book manuscripts, memoirs, and poetry, the English and Yiddish press, and oral histories, it adds a much needed chapter to existing scholarship about Jews and modern American discourses of race, class, and gender. I argue that these interclass and interethnic relationships were an attempt on both sides to transcend the provincial trappings of their births - whether it be the East European shtetl or victorian America - and lay claim to new modern, cosmopolitan identities. My research demonstrates that young, Anglo-American intellectuals and writers articulated a sense of crisis about the United States by exploring emerging racial paradigms, shifting definitions of masculinity, and new modes in American culture through their desires for young East European Jewish women. At the same time, I challenge existing models of Jewish women's Americanization that rely on traditional feminine roles of marriage, domesticity, and motherhood. I argue instead that the romantic interests of these East European Jewish women in Anglo-American men were an attempt to meld class aspirations and a desire to integrate with deeply felt political views rooted in foreign revolutionary traditions and cosmopolitan identities. As committed socialists, American-born men and East European Jewish women hoped to put ideological principles into practice at the most intimate level
Intimate strangers : cross-cultural exchanges between Indian and Western musicians, 1800-1950
Keywords: Music.

In my dissertation, I examine the ways in which musical practices in two different geographical spaces, Europe and South Asia, changed as a result of cross-cultural encounters with each other's musical traditions from the nineteenth century onwards. I combine a relational approach—one that highlights the interconnectedness of such exchanges—with insights provided by adaptation theory, which enables such practices to be located "thickly" in their cultural, historical, and social contexts, and reveals parallels between Indian and European strategies for incorporating non-autochthonous elements. Starting with Abbé Vogler and Carl Maria von Weber, pioneers with regard to European engagements with non-European musical traditions, and ending with the South Asian musicians Qazi Nazrul Islam and Baba Allauddin Khan (the guru and mentor of Pandit Ravi Shankar, the internationally-acclaimed sitar maestro), I examine some key figures from Europe and India, notably Rabindranath Tagore, John Foulds, Maurice Delage, and Albert Roussel, and assess their contributions to the development of their own musical traditions through their engagement with and incorporation of foreign musical elements. By doing so, my dissertation also seeks to examine how music contributed to the development of local cosmopolitanisms in South Asia and Europe, and to determine the long-term impact of such exchanges. It focuses on the challenges faced by musicians, both European and South Asian, in incorporating elements from outside their own traditions. These include the examination of the difficulties involved in transmitting music across cultures when sound recordings could not be made; the interpretive obstacles posed by non-autochthonous music to composers, performers, and audiences of the receiving culture; and the limits to incorporating different techniques of performance, whether vocal or instrumental. Analyses of cross-cultural exchanges also call for the judicious use of an approach that Mantle Hood has termed "bi-musical." The methodology adopted in this dissertation pays especial attention to all these aspects in the project of reassessing the cross-cultural exchanges that took place between Indian and European musicians in the colonial era. The dissertation, thus, draws attention to the challenges and constraints within which numerous agential choices and adaptive decisions that go into the making of august musical traditions, often erroneously assumed to be pure and whole, but which are, actually, profoundly shaped by productive contacts with non-autochthonous traditions. Without at all ignoring the question of power relations, this dissertation also seeks to highlight the necessity of examining the material and semiotic dimensions of cross-cultural exchanges, through the study of the contributions of some of the most important European and Indian musicians from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries
Investigating Allopregnanolone’s Effect on α3-NKA and GABAR-delta Subunit Through BDNF-TrkB Pathway in Undercut Model of Injury in Mice
Keywords:  Department of Biology
Biology
Traumatic brain injury
Allopregnanolone
BDNF
NKA
GABA receptor
Epilepsy
Thesis

Post-traumatic epilepsy is a recurrent seizure disorder marked by over-excitation in the brain after injury. Allopregnanolone (ALLO), a metabolite of progesterone, has previously been used as an anticonvulsant, though not as the first line of treatment. It has also been shown to have neuroprotective effects in other neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). It has not been extensively studied as a possible neuroprotectant in epilepsy. Currently, little is known about allopregnanolone’s mechanism of action. Using the undercut (UC) model of injury in mice, this study demonstrates allopregnanolone’s anatomical effects on post-traumatic brain tissue and further explores its mechanism of action. After partial neocortical isolation (UC injury) several allopregnanolone injections were given and immunohistochemistry was used to visualize and compare density of molecules relevant to inhibition in the brain amongst treatment groups, namely BDNF, Na+/K+ ATPase (NKA), and the GABA receptor (GABAR) delta subunit. It was originally proposed to assess the expression of BDNF, a neurotrophic factor known to be decreased after brain trauma; but, this was not possible due to time constraints. However, a literature review, past studies in this lab and preliminary images suggest that BDNF does decrease after undercut injury. As expected, the density of NKA in UC tissue significantly decreases compared to naïve tissue. Interestingly, in these experiments ALLO did not increase the expression of NKA and even slightly decreased it further in injured tissue. It was originally thought that the increased presence of NKA should make the membrane potentials of inhibitory interneurons less negative and promote inhibition in the brain, protecting against epileptogenesis. In the presence of ANA 12, a TrkB receptor blocker, there were small decreases in NKA that did not reach statistical significance. This indicates that ALLO’s mechanism of action may not primarily involve NKA. As another potential target of allopregnanolone, the GABA receptor (GABAR) delta subunit was studied as a modulator of inhibitory activity. There was an insignificant decrease in the subunit after injury and a slight recovery after treatment with ALLO. These results highlight the complicated nature of the possible targets and mechanism of action for allopregnanolone as a potential protectant against post-traumatic epilepsy.
Investigating mechanisms of repeat-associated non-aug translation in neurodegenerative disease
Keywords: Biology.

A novel form of translation has been discovered in several neurodegenerative and muscular diseases which contain causative microsatellite expansions. This Repeat-Associated Non-ATG translation (RAN translation) occurs in the absence of a canonical AUG codon at disease-causing expansions. Expansion-harboring transcripts form com-plex secondary structures such as hairpins or G-quadruplexes. The protein products of RAN translation are toxic in cell culture and disease models ranging from yeast to mice and are found to accumulate in disease-relevant patient tissues. The basic mechanisms of RAN translation initiation have not been thoroughly investigated. The inhibition of RAN translation to prevent toxic protein production has been proposed as one therapeutic option for this class of diseases. Thus, a comprehensive characterization of machinery involved in and molecular mechanisms underlying RAN translation are of utmost importance in designing therapeutic strategies. Understanding how these mechanisms differ from AUG-initiated translation will broaden our understanding of non-canonically initiated translation. In Chapter 2, I perform a genetic screen in yeast in order to identify novel trans regulators of RAN translation. I found that RPS25 specifically regulates the efficient RAN translation of GGGGCC repeat expansions in the C9orf72 gene. Moreover, I found that RPS25 can also regulate the RAN translation of ATXN2 and HTT CAG expansions. Importantly, the reduction of RPS25 in patient-derived cell lines reduced the amount of DPRs detected and extended survival in a c9ALS Drosophila model. The result in Drosophila provides further evidence to support the model that DPRs are the predominant toxic species driving neurodegeneration. I provide data for one of the first protein factors identified to be involved in RAN translation and future work will delve into the precise mechanisms by which RPS25 coordinates an increase in efficiency of RAN translation. Ribosomal protein deficiencies are known to cause a whole host of consequences including ribosomal biogenesis defects and subsequent nucleolar stress. The effect of the deletion of RPS25 in cells is investigated in Chapter 3. I find that in our system, RPS25 is likely not functioning through a p53 axis to account for the effects seen in Chapter 2. Furthermore, I generate two mouse models: one strain harbors a deletion of exon 2 in the mouse RPS25 gene and the second strain is an RPS25 exon 2 floxed strain. I dis-cuss phenotypes observed in a small cohort of the RPS25 knockout strain mice and end with a discussion of future studies that will utilize these two strains