VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Matching driver state with persuasive message in cars [electronic resource] / : effects on pro-environmental attitude and behavior

This dissertation work examines the effects of matching an individual's psychological state (i.e., cognitive or experiential information processing) with a message coming from an in-car interface in order to promote eco-friendly attitudes and behaviors. In Study 1, followed by experimental priming to activate rational or experiential driving orientation, participants were exposed to either self-benefit or world-benefit images while driving the car simulator. In Study 2, followed by the same system activation manipulation, participants heard ecological driving tips framed in terms of either the message source's thoughts or its feelings. Two laboratory studies using a car simulator demonstrated that providing information consistent with the driver's driving orientation (rational or experiential) significantly enhanced driver attitudes and eco-safe driving performance. This finding suggests the importance of a consistency effect for persuasion in cars.

Keywords: Communication.
Advisor: Iyengar Shanto primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Bailenson Jeremy advisor. Thesis advisor
Frank Michael C. (Professor of human biology) advisor. Thesis advisor
Reeves Byron
Material contexts [electronic resource] : the first editions of modern Spanish poetry, 1909-1931

In this dissertation, I argue for a return to first editions. Much of today's criticism on turn-of-the-century Spanish poetry is based on modern editions, which strip poems from their original pages and from their original bindings. This dissertation, however, contends that both a poem's space on the page and its space within a book are critical for understanding the meaning of a poem. By overlooking the materiality of first editions, literary critics have lost some of the meaning and nuance that existed when fin-de-siècle poems were originally published. Drawing on theories of textual materiality and on contemporary book history, I provide close readings of three works: Antonio Machado's poems published in the Spanish journal La Lectura (1909-1910), Juan Ramón Jiménez's Diario de un poeta recién casado (1917), and Federico García Lorca's Poema del cante jondo (1931). Each chapter examines the ways in which the poems' physical contexts—from their typography to their paratextual elements to their paper quality—shaped meaning. Furthermore, each chapter studies how modern print editions have changed the meaning of the poems by altering the typography and by removing paratextual elements. To conclude, this dissertation addresses the transition from print books to digital books. As of the time of writing this dissertation, both Machado's poems from La Lectura and Jiménez's first edition of the Diario have been scanned and included in the Google Books archive. I contemplate how this change of materiality (or medium) affects meaning and whether this change is worthy of lamentation, as scholars like Nicholas Carr are wont to do.

Keywords: Iberian and Latin American Cultures.
Advisor: Surwillo Lisa primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Barletta Vincent advisor. Thesis advisor
Predmore Michael P. advisor. Thesis advisor
The material lives of ivory and elephants [electronic resource] : a historical anthropology of the 19th-century ivory trade

This interdisciplinary and multiscalar project, utilizing historical archaeology, anthropology and history, traces a longue durée of the ivory trade between East Africa and New England. In the mid-19th century, the ivory trade between East Africa and western centers of manufacture expanded rapidly to accommodate a booming industry of manufactured ivory in the form of billiard balls, piano keys, cutlery handles and hair combs. This ivory was obtained via caravan trade in the East African interior in exchange for glass beads, cotton cloth, guns and brass wire. Using an assemblage of ivory objects located in the Ivoryton Library in Essex, Connecticut, I trace the commodity chain of ivory from the East African interior to the Indian Ocean entrepôt of Zanzibar to the ivory-cutting factories of the Connecticut River Valley. These ivory objects embody an array of material histories that weave through grand meta-narratives of global expansion and capitalist circulation, revealing, ultimately, how material culture comes to anchor asymmetrical power relationships, across both time and space. My dissertation follows these objects through their ultimate recasting in local heritage discourse in Ivoryton, concerning New England complicity in the 19th-century slave trade, industrial nostalgia and contemporary elephant conservation in East Africa.

Keywords: Anthropology.
Advisor: Meskell Lynn primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Hodder Ian advisor. Thesis advisor
Lane Paul
Voss Barbara L.
A mathematical model of tumor-immune interactions following oncogene inactivation [electronic resource]

The genesis of a wide variety of cancers is the expression of an oncogene, a damaged gene that can drive malignant tumor growth. Molecularly targeted therapy can inactivate the oncogene, which has been shown in many cases to lead to tumor regression. However, in many patients, there is tumor recurrence where the tumor becomes resistant to the targeted therapy. Understanding the complex interactions of the tumor's multi-faceted response to oncogene inactivation is key to tumor regression. The mathematical model that I have developed captures the cellular mechanisms that determine whether or not tumors recur, leading to directed hypotheses about how to design more effective therapeutic regimens. This novel model integrates different mathematical frameworks including differential equations and Galton-Watson branching processes in order to capture the stochastic fluctuation in subclonal populations of tumor cells. My work simultaneously incorporates multiple cellular fates for tumor cells and immune-mediated responses critical in determining tumor recurrence. This approach builds upon established theoretical models and adds newly established biological mechanisms of tumor physiology and the immune system specific to oncogene inactivation. My mathematical model will allow prediction and optimization of various therapeutic strategies that improve outcomes in cancer patients.

Keywords: Electrical Engineering.
Advisor: Paik David primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Gill John T.
Pauly John (John M.) advisor. Thesis advisor
Meaning and Purpose: A Study of Spiritual Quest Amongst Stanford Students

The college years can be a critical period of self-formation for some students, as they develop their sense of identity, values and independence. For some students, major life events provoke pressing questions of meaning and purpose, which may be interpreted as spiritual questions. Against a backdrop where topics of spirituality and faith are seen as taboo and anti-intellectual, there was a gap in our understanding of how Stanford students engaged in questions of meaning and purpose. This study interviewed 39 students and 4 members of the Stanford faculty and staff with the intention of understanding the process by which students undertook Spiritual Quest, defined and informed by reference to a nation-wide longitudinal study undertaken by Astin, Astin and Lindholm (2011). Student participants also took a short survey that determined their level of Spiritual Quest, using the measure validated by Astin et al. (2011). Generally, the results weakly suggested that this sample of convenience of Stanford students underperformed the national norm established in the 2007 Astin et al. (2011) study for reasons unknown. High Spiritual Quest scores were associated with participants for whom questions of meaning and purpose where highly salient. This study also identified patterns in events that catalyzed questing; these events were largely negative, such as the death of a loved one or major injury. Major Stanford-related factors that supported and obstructed quest included conversations with good friends and a culture of busyness, pressure, stress, and materialism respectively. There was a complex and highly variable relationship between Quest and students’ mental and psychological well- being, adding to the conclusion that individuals undertook Quest in vastly different ways and so needed many flexible points of support. When asked what could be improved at Stanford in order to better facilitate Spiritual Quest, participants suggested more secular spaces and communities where questions of meaning and purpose could be discussed, and better access to existing resources.

Keywords: Graduate School of Education
Stanford University
Spiritual Quest
Spirituality
Meaning
Purpose
Thesis
Advisor: Damon William
Stipek Deborah
The meanings of capitalism [electronic resource] : Chinese bankers in post-1997 Hong Kong

This dissertation aims to understand the meanings of capitalism among Chinese bankers in post-1997 Hong Kong. I found that Chinese bankers of Mainland and Hong Kong backgrounds articulate capitalist meanings in different ways, both in relation to work and everyday life, and to more abstract notions such as the relationships between the government and society. In addition to making these generalizations, this dissertation also portrays the wide spectrum of capitalist meanings that are in circulation among Chinese bankers in Hong Kong. By describing the meanings of capitalism, and also by exploring the cultural and historical specificities of these meanings, this dissertation aims to addressing a gap in scholarly literature: that most studies of capitalism focus on what capitalism is, rather than what it means.

Keywords: Anthropology.
Advisor: Luhrmann T. M. (Tanya M.)
Walder Andrew G. (Andrew George)
Yanagisako Sylvia Junko
Measurement of in-situ combustion reaction kinetics with high fidelity and consistent reaction upscaling for reservoir simulation [electronic resource]

In-situ Combustion is widely accepted as an enhanced oil recovery method that is applicable to various types of oil reservoirs. Prediction of the likelihood of a successful in-situ combustion field project from first principles, however, is unclear. Historically, combustion tube tests of a crude-oil and rock are used to design an in-situ combustion process and to infer whether one expects the process to work at reservoir scale. Ideally, such tests are completed in combination with simulation for prediction and design of combustion recovery processes. Fairly sophisticated reaction models for formation of crude-oil intermediates and their oxidation have been proposed based on kinetics studies. Conventionally, kinetics cell experiments are used to find the reaction parameters for the suggested models. Clearly, the number of crude-oil components and their potential reaction intermediates is very large thereby suggesting the use of pseudo-components. Direct implementation of the detailed reaction models based on pseudo-components in full field simulation of in-situ combustion is not currently feasible because fine spatial grids are needed to resolve the details of combustion front propagation accurately. Hence, a rigorous reaction upscaling procedure for in-situ combustion is an open area of study. In addition, the accuracy of reaction models that are tuned to kinetics cell experiments is questionable when they are used to simulate the combustion process. The heating rate (10's ◦ C/min) as the combustion front propagates is much larger than the current working limits of conventional furnaces employed in kinetics measurements. This thesis presents the design, verification, and validation of a new reactor for use in measuring crude-oil oxidation kinetics. The reactor is able to cover a range of heating rate from 1 to 30 ◦ C/min and is, thus, capable of reaching the heating rate of the combustion front. The new reactor allows rapid experimentation allowing measurements at a large number of distinct heating rates. A novel method for simulation of in-situ combustion is proposed that uses such kinetics cell measurements. The method naturally upscales reactions in a technique that is free of a reaction model. Results of the ramped temperature oxidation experiments are used directly to predict the oxidation profile for any arbitrary temperature history. The predictability of the technique is tested using results from two synthetic reaction models and experimental results from crude-oil samples. The applicability of the technique to flow simulation is demonstrated in one and two dimensions. Flow simulation results using the upscaling procedure are compared directly to a commercial simulator that implements full reaction kinetics. In all cases, good prediction of combustion dynamics is obtained.

Keywords: Energy Resources Engineering.
Advisor: Kovscek Anthony R. (Anthony Robert) primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Castanier Louis M. advisor. Thesis advisor
Gerritsen Margot (Margot G.) advisor. Thesis advisor
Measurements of nonreciprocity in materials with a sagnac interferometer [electronic resource]

A modified Sagnac Interferometer has historically been used as an elegant technique for detecting non-reciprocal phenomena, such as rotation and magnetism. I will discuss how its function relies on the concept of reciprocity, and how it may be employed as a strategy for high-precision measurements testing a variety of broken symmetries. Previous designs of the interferometer have incorporated free-space components that are bulky and difficult to align. We have improved upon this technique by using all fiber-optic coupled components and demonstrate operation at a new wavelength, 820 nm, with which we can achieve better than 1 microradian resolution. Mounting the system on a piezo-electric scanner allows us to acquire diffraction limited images with 1.5 micrometer spatial resolution. This thesis discusses, in detail, the fundamental principles behind the interferometer, with emphasis on reciprocity, and the fine points of its construction. We report measurements of several magnetic materials. In addition, several observations of a nonlinear magneto-optical Kerr Effect have been noticed, and we report on these. Furthermore we discuss how chiral materials, or in general, materials which break mirror-symmetry can not give rise to a Kerr effect. Finally, we discuss extensions to the Sagnac Interferometry metrological technique and that allow the instrument to measure other optical effects which test for other broken symmetries.

Keywords: Physics.
Advisor: Kapitulnik Aharon primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Beasley Malcolm advisor. Thesis advisor
Kivelson Steven advisor. Thesis advisor
Measurements of vibrational relaxation and dissociation of oxygen with laser absorption spectroscopy with applications for energy transfer in nonequilibrium air [electronic resource]

The vibrational relaxation times of oxygen were measured using laser absorption spectroscopy behind incident and reflected shocks in a shock tube. The Bethe-Teller equation was used to model the vibrational relaxation, which along with the shock jump relations were used to model the gasdynamic conditions throughout the nonequilibrium relaxation process. The absorbance was modeled based on these gasdynamic conditions while adjusting the vibrational relaxation time to fit the model to the measured oxygen absorbance time-history at wavelengths 210 - 230 nm in the Schumann-Runge system. Undiluted oxygen was studied behind incident shocks at initial post-shock translational/rotational temperatures from 1000 - 3300 K and pressures from 0.05 to 0.7 atm while a mixture of 2% oxygen in argon was studied behind incident and reflected shocks at initial translational/rotational temperatures from 1000 - 4000 K and pressures from 0.2 to 1 atm. Good agreement was found with prior experimental work by White and Millikan, Losev and Generalov, and Camac, though the current relaxation time data have less scatter and reduced uncertainty. The current results are also in excellent agreement with the well-known relaxation time recommendations of Millikan and White. The dissociation rate coefficient for oxygen in argon, O2 + Ar < => O + O + Ar, was measured using laser absorption near 216 nm in the Schumann-Runge system in a shock tube. A mixture of 2% oxygen in argon was studied behind reflected shocks at initial equilibirum temperatures from 4400 - 7900 K and pressures from 0.2 to 1 atm. The dissociation was modeled de-coupled from vibrational relaxation, as dissociation was evident only after the test gas mixture was near vibrational equilibrium. The dissociation rate coefficient was determined by fitting the measured oxygen absorbance time-history for each experiment using temperatures based on the incident shock speed and the shock relations and adjusting the A-factor of the dissociation rate coefficient. Good agreement was found with the prior experimental work and model of Camac and Vaughan. Consistent results were also obtained for measurements with constant pressure as well as increasing pressure, validating our method to account for pressure changes by including the pressure profile in the dissociation model.

Keywords: Mechanical Engineering.
Advisor: Hanson Ronald advisor. Thesis advisor
Measuring conformational dynamics of biological molecules with single-molecule tracking and fluorescence correlation spectroscopy [electronic resource]

The past two decades have seen great advances in single-molecule techniques capable of probing biomolecular systems with spatial resolution down to the nanometer level. However few techniques are specifically designed to measure larger scale organization between a few tens and a few hundreds of nanometers, especially when other figures of merit are considered, such as high time-resolution or the possibility to do measurements in bulk and without immobilization. Such features would be particularly useful in the study of molecular structures like chromatin or other nucleoprotein complexes, that exhibit organizational details and dynamics across a broad range of time and length scales. I present how the combination of fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) and single molecule tracking can be used to measure the conformational dynamics of molecules that diffuse freely in solution, at the scale of a few tens of nanometers. I discuss some aspects of the instrumentation as well as the parameters that define the spatial and temporal resolution. I describe other advantages of the technique such as the possibility to bypass a common difficulty associated with fluorescence correlation measurements and obtain a signal that is not convolved with the blinking dynamics of the fluorescent probe itself. Finally I present an experimental proof-of-principle where tracking-FCS was applied to measure the end-to-end Brownian dynamics of short DNA fragments in the semilflexible regime.

Keywords: Applied Physics.
Advisor: Mabuchi Hideo primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Spakowitz Andrew James advisor. Thesis advisor
Straight Aaron
Measuring the interaction rate and characterizing the temporal interaction distribution of red harvester ants in foraging colonies

Ant colonies operate without central control. Individual ants respond to local interactions with other ants, and in the aggregate, this allows colonies to regulate their behavior and respond to changing conditions. Dr. Gordon’s lab investigates how red harvester ants (Pogonomyrmex barbatus) use the rate of interactions in task decisions. Previous work shows that the rate of incoming, successful foragers determines the rate of outgoing foragers (Greene et al. 2013) and that ants experience an increase in interactions shortly before they choose to forage (Pinter-Wollman et al. 2013). However, it had not been shown that ants that choose to forage experience a different rate of interactions from ants that choose to stay in the nest. By directly observing and recording interactions, I demonstrated that ants that chose to forage experienced a significantly higher rate of interactions than ants that did not forage. Additionally, these foraging ants spent significantly less time interacting with other ants than ants that ultimately chose not to forage. These conclusions were based on observing and recording all interactions experienced by 90 outgoing foragers and 44 non-foragers from three nests across three days. For each colony and day, I also quantified what percentage of ants that left the deeper nest ultimately engaged in foraging, nest maintenance, or neither, and I found similar outcome distributions among the colonies. Finally, I attempted to measure the decay rate of the effect of an interaction for foraging harvester ants of different colonies. Restraint in foraging is a heritable trait that contributes to reproductive success, so I hypothesized that I would find consistent differences in the decay rate of the experience of an interaction in ants of different colonies and that these differences may suggest a mechanism for differences in foraging regulation (Gordon 2013).

Keywords:  Department of Biology
Biology
Behavioral Ecology
Ant Colonies
Networks
Decision Making
Foraging
Thesis
Advisor: Gordon Deborah
Fukami Tadashi
Measuring the polarization of the cosmic microwave background with the Keck Array and Bicep2 [electronic resource]

Inflation, the theory that the early universe underwent a brief period of exponential expansion, extends the standard model of cosmology to resolve the isotropy, flatness, entropy, and monopole problems. Quantum fluctuations in the inflationary field set the initial seeds of matter which became the temperature anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and later formed the large scale structures of the universe. Quantum fluctuations of the gravitational field during inflation are predicted to produce a stochastic background of gravitational waves which would leave an imprint in the B-mode (curl) component of the polarization of the CMB, with an amplitude dependent on the energy scale of inflation. Bicep2 and the Keck Array are telescopes designed specifically to measure the B-mode polarization at degree-angular scales. They are a set of cryogenically cooled telescopes with refracting, on-axis optics with an aperture of 26.4 cm. The Keck Array has a combined imaging array of 2500 antenna-coupled TES bolometers read with a SQUID-based time-domain multiplexing system. All five of the Keck Array telescopes observed a 400 square degree patch from the South Pole at 150 GHz in 2012-2013, with an achieved sensitivity of 9 micro-K/rt(s) for the 2013 season. This thesis will focus on the optimization and characterization of the Keck Array, as well as the combined cosmology results from the Keck Array with Bicep2. The Keck Array data are consistent with the Bicep2 detection of B-mode polarization at degree-angular scales and increases the sensitivity of the measurement by a factor of 2.

Keywords: Physics.
Advisor: Kuo Chao-Lin (Physics professor) primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Cabrera Blas
Church Sarah Elizabeth advisor. Thesis advisor
Mechanism of Furosemide on GABAergic Circuits

Enhancement of GABA-mediated synaptic inhibition is one of the mechanisms by which inhibition of central nervous system is controlled. This appears to be achieved through a potentiation of postsynaptic GABA receptor activity. Among two types of GABA receptors (GABA-A and GABA-B), GABA-A signaling enhancement has been found to be an important contributor to nervous system depression by several anesthetics The aim of proposed research was to specify the effect of GABAA Antagonist furosemide on epileptic brain slice. For this objective, we use several in vitro epileptic conditions which accurately reflect the physiological ionic and pH changes associated with epileptic condition. We tested what change happened after introduction of furosemide and qualified the mechanism in which part of the brain this drug acted on and proposed the further aspects of use of anesthetics on epilepsy.

Keywords:  Department of Biology
Epilepsy
Furosemide
GABA
Electrophysiology
Neuroscience
Biology
Stanford
Thesis
Advisor: MacIver M. Bruce
Heller H. Craig