VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Nonsense and nostalgia in the Lewis Carroll settings of György Ligeti

This dissertation offers a comprehensive investigation of composer György Ligeti's (1923-2006) relationship to the work of Lewis Carroll (1832-98). Drawing on Ligeti's interviews, essays, and archival material, I locate the two Alice books (1865/71) as a node on the composer's biographical web where various strands of his life and music intersect. In parsing his memories of growing up in Transylvania—his "childhood mythos"—I evaluate Ligeti's earliest encounter with Alice's Adventures in Wonderland via a Hungarian translation by Dezső Kosztolányi. His late-life reengagement with Carroll in the six Nonsense Madrigals (1988-93), composed for the British King's Singers sextet, is indicative of a personal and stylistic strain of nostalgia in the composer's late-period oeuvre. Adopting theories on nostalgia set forth by literary scholar Svetlana Boym, I interpret Ligeti's late-life settings of Carroll and his Victorian contemporaries as a response to exile and old age.

Keywords: Music.
Advisor: Kronengold Charles (Charles Stewart) 
Hadlock Heather
Hinton Stephen
No-One Else Was in the Room Where It Happened: A legislative solution to party-switching in Malaysia

The Malaysian political crisis of 2020 threw the country into socio-political and economic chaos and highlighted the danger of party-switching, also known as party defection, to a growing democracy with a parliamentary system. Several countries across the world have sought to stop the threat of party-switching by implementing anti-defection laws. I examine the efficacy of global anti-defection laws, the prevalence of Malaysian party defections and suggest a possible legislative solution for Malaysia.

Keywords:  Public Policy Program
Stanford University
Humanities and Sciences
Public Policy Program
Malaysia
Commonwealth
anti-defection
party switching
political party
Thesis
Advisor: Cain Bruce
Cohen David
Novel algorithms for motion detection and imaging in complex scenes

This thesis focuses on data structures and algorithms used in motion detection and imaging in complex settings. The work consists of four projects, addressing different aspects of imaging with a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system or in an inverse synthetic aperture radar (iSAR) setting. In the first project, I analyzed an algorithm for the detection of moving targets in SAR using robust principal component analysis (RPCA). In the second project, I introduced an extension of the SAR data structure to tensors and a modified tensor RPCA algorithm, to improve detection of slowly moving targets. In the third project, I introduced a cross correlation data structure for iSAR imaging of low earth orbit (LEO) fast moving satellites, as well as novel imaging algorithms adapted to the cross correlation data structure. In the fourth project, I extended the problem to rotating satellites, analyzed the effect rotation has on performance, and showed how the rotation parameters can be extracted from the data. In a broad sense, all of these projects explore the effect data representation can have in imaging algorithms. The RPCA problems show that specific features in the raw data can be be exploited to detect motion. Moreover, the specific model of the data and different ways in which they are represented can significantly improve the performance of linear algebra and optimization based tools when applied to this problem. In the correlation based imaging problems, the choice of an appropriate data representation can provide insight into both improved imaging algorithms and their analysis. While these projects are distinct, they all demonstrate the importance of the choice of data structures and representations in imaging problems. The specific data structure may not only improve the applicability of previously used algorithms, but can also provide insight into extensions and modifications, as well as a rigorous mathematical analysis of the imaging algorithms

Advisor: Papanicolaou George
Montanari Andrea
Tsogka Chrysoula
Novel droplet techniques for integrative single cell analyses

The last decade has yielded transformative new methods to analyze single cells, revealing new insights into cellular diversity, tissue organization, and organism development. Droplet microfluidics, in particular, has made it possible to characterize single cells by their genome, epigenome, and transcriptome at unprecedented scale. These techniques have given rise to the first cell atlases, catalogs of hundreds of thousands of cells classified by type across tissues, systems, and even whole organisms. However, despite these advances, researchers lack an unbiased, high-throughput means to link cellular phenotype to genotype within the same cell. This capability would allow single cell analyses to move beyond simply characterizing the heterogeneity within systems and toward a more mechanistic understanding of whole-cell regulation. Here I describe the development of a new technology, Droception, that marries the three most powerful single cell analysis techniques — droplet microfluidics, flow cytometry, and next-generation sequencing — to screen and sort cells by complex phenotypes with downstream sequencing. This technology has the potential to expand our mechanistic understanding of rare biological populations, identify novel cell types unresolved by current techniques, and unlock new avenues for single cell multi-omics

Keywords: Bioengineering.
Advisor: Fordyce Polly
Covert Markus
Wang Bo (Researcher in bioengineering)
Novel methods of organic electrochemical device nanofabrication and characterization

Recent advances in the development of organic mixed ionic/electronic conductors (OMIECs) have paved the way for novel applications that harness these materials' ability to effectively transduce ionic fluxes into electronic signals, such as in the fields of biosensors and neural interfaces. With the modulation taking place throughout the bulk of the material, such organic electrochemical devices offer a volumetric advantage over their inorganic counterparts, with high-transconductance operation feasible even at low operating voltages. This unique mode of operation may be exploited by a wide variety of applications, some yet unexplored. However, while some classes of organic semiconductors have seen tremendous success in market realization, such as the multi-billion-dollar OLED industry, integration of OMIEC semiconducting polymers systems into traditional fabrication processes remains a difficult technological challenge. In this work, I lay out novel strategies to allow for the nanofabrication of previously unattainable organic electrochemical devices, as well as the characterization thereof. The first part of this dissertation provides an introductory background to both organic electrochemical materials and devices, as well as nanofabrication, with a third chapter discussing the work done to bridge the gap between the two. In the second part, I turn to focus on specific applications of nanofabricated organic electrochemical devices, first exploring the properties of an organic electrochemical transistor (OECT) comprised of a lithographically patterned semiconducting polymer and a non-aqueous electrolyte. The remainder of the dissertation focuses on utilizing OMIEC materials for acceleration of artificial neural networks, discussing the characterization and fabrication strategies developed for realizing submicron-scale, MHz addressable, fully encapsulated organic ECRAM devices

Keywords: Materials Science and Engineering.
Advisor: Salleo Alberto
Brongersma Mark L.
Hong Guosong
Novel tools for optical coherence imaging : gold nanoparticle contrast agents and high-resolution pathology registration by optical barcoding

Biomedical imaging is a vital part of preventative, diagnostic, and therapeutic medical treatment, but there are surprisingly few viable clinical tools at the microscale (1 to 100 microns; from a single to dozens of cells). Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) is a high speed and portable 3D imaging technology poised to fill this gap. This work develops on two directions that expand the capabilities of OCT imaging and set up the groundwork for new clinical applications. The first is an investigation of gold nanoparticles as contrast agents in the second near-infrared imaging window. We demonstrate that injected gold nanoprisms are highly scattering contrast agents with tune-able scattering resonances which can be used to greatly enhance the sensitivity of OCT-based vascular imaging. Postinjection OCT angiograms reveal 41% and 59% more vasculature compared to control subjects in healthy and melanoma-bearing mouse skin respectively. We then demonstrate a spectral de-mixing model for gold nanoparticles, that allows us to resolve the proportions of up to 3 different gold nanobipyramids within each voxel. With this, we demonstrate the first instance of triplex OCT contrast agent imaging, used to visualize in vivo regional dynamics within a mouse lymphatic network. The second part of this work explores a new data-centric approach to interpreting optical medical images, a task that remains challenging for clinical professionals in spite of high imaging resolution. We have developed a laser-based barcoding technology that allows us to achieve ultra-high resolution registration (down to 25 microns) of OCT images with H&E pathology images. This technology has allowed us to assemble a library of hundreds of OCT-H&E images pairs from human skin samples obtained during Mohs surgery in a dermatology clinic. We then train a generative neural network on the image library and demonstrate the ability to virtually generate realistic H&E images directly from OCT images. This opens the door to an entirely virtual and non-invasive biopsy based on OCT imaging, bypassing the traditionally labor- and time- intensive biopsy procedure

Keywords: Applied Physics.
Advisor: Doniach S.
De la Zerda Adam
Xing Lei
Nowhere to Go: Community-Based Research on Tenant Displacement and Relocation in the San Francisco Bay Area

The San Francisco Bay Area housing crisis is among the worst in the nation, with hundreds of thousands of renters facing rapid gentrification and forced displacement. In response, many Bay Area local governments are considering a variety of tenant protection policies and working to compromise amidst stifling political gridlock between tenant and landlord groups over rent stabilization. Research on residential mobility and evictions suggests that forced displacement leads to financial and health consequences and that displaced tenants face barriers to accessing housing due to discrimination and lack of information. However, few studies examine local tenant protection policies besides rent control, leaving policymakers blind to their effects. One such policy, tenant relocation assistance (TRA)—money given from landlords to tenants upon eviction—has become increasingly popular because of its general acceptance from both tenant and landlord groups. This exploratory study evaluates TRA policies in the Bay Area by considering the impacts of displacement on tenants and landlords. Using a community-based research approach, this project partners with local housing and community-based organizations and draws on (1) an overview of all TRA policies in the Bay Area, (2) quantitative analysis of two municipal-level TRA datasets, and (3) 13 semi-structured interviews with tenants and landlords. Main findings show that due to various policy eligibility constraints and unaddressed barriers to relocation, TRA does little to keep displaced tenants in their hometowns or mitigate the consequences of forced displacement. Policy recommendations suggest alternatives to TRA that proactively prevent forced displacement.

Keywords: Stanford Urban Studies
San Francisco Bay Area
tenant displacement
tenant protection policy
relocation assistance
community-based research
Thesis
Numerical studies of electron-phonon mediated superconductors

Electron-phonon interactions are ubiquitous in materials and give rise to bipolarons, charge-density wave order, and superconductivity. The Holstein model is a toy model of electrons coupled to phonons and exhibits much of the same low-energy physics observed in real materials. We study the Holstein model in two dimensions in the limit of weak-coupling through many-body perturbation theory to compute and analyze the superconducting and charge-density wave susceptibilities and various spectral properties. These calculations are performed for systems both in and out of equilibrium and make connections with angle-resolved photoemission and time-resolved angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. For systems in equilibrium, we discuss the enhancement of superconductivity driven by the renormalization of the phonon propagator and a surprising difference in two common definitions of the dimensionless electron-phonon coupling strength. Out of equilibrium, we simulate a novel method of determining electron-phonon coupling strength by analyzing electron relaxation dynamics and also characterize the Higgs excitation in a \textit{d}-wave superconductor. In the intermediate coupling limit, no perturbative apporoach or general analytic solution exists for the Holstein model. To overcome this challenge, we study the Holstein model using determinantal quantum Monte Carlo which provides a numerically exact and unbiased method to explore the superconducting and charge-density wave tendencies across a wide range of the phase diagram. We find that superconductivity is optimized at intermediate electron densities and intermediate coupling strength and the strength of the superconducting tendency monotonically increases with phonon frequency

Keywords: Physics.
Advisor: Devereaux Thomas Peter
Kivelson Steven
Shen Zhi-Xun
Of Dinners and Diplomacy: What White House State Dinners Reveal About Relationship Building and Goodwill Signaling in U.S. Foreign Policy

Behind their glamour, White House State Dinners are innately political events that put the U.S. president face-to-face with a foreign counterpart for an evening of food and entertainment, usually followed or preceded by days of bilateral meetings. This thesis explores how these Dinners fit into presidents’ diplomatic toolbox by asking How do White House State Dinners relate to U.S. Foreign Policy? It answers this question by quantitatively examining the characteristics of international states invited to Dinners since the first one in 1874 through President Obama's last Dinner in 2016. It then offers in-depth case studies of the Dinners hosted under Presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan to further illuminate why Dinners occur. This thesis finds that Dinners are used as signals and as mechanisms to improve leaders' interpersonal relationships. It further concludes that the United States invites states to Dinners to endorse U.S.-oriented behavior, to build regional influence, to maintain traditional relationships, and/or to celebrate diplomatic breakthroughs.

Keywords: Program in International Relations
International Relations
White House State Dinners
Diplomacy
Interpersonal Relationships
Goodwill
Gerald Ford
Jimmy Carter
Ronald Reagan
Thesis
Advisor: Rakove Robert
On Late Tanizaki Jun’ichirō: Transcription, Authorial Discontent, and Creative Revival

Researchers have long presented Tanizaki Jun'ichirō’s (1886-1965) late works as a trilogy: Kasanka Manganmizuno Yume (1955), The Key (1957), and Diary of a Mad Old Man (1961). They selected these three works for a thematical continuity (in a Freudian term) – personal probation of his late-year existential problems through infantile sexuality in contrast with the genital sexuality observed in his earlier works. This observation, however, overshadows a critical transition of Tanizaki’s writing technique in 1959, the year he started to have his works dictated due to neuralgia. In particular, this study focuses on Diary of an Old Man (1961) and The Maids (1962-1963), the last two novels published before his death in 1965, to examine a stylistic transition influenced by the transcription process after 1959. This paper argues that accepting transcription as writing involving two people meant to be a disillusioning loss of masculine control over his text and thus his belief in literature as art for individual cultivation. This sense of loss was represented in the multi-layered ironic device in Diary of a Mad Old Man. In contrast, the succeeding novel, The Maids, stylistically overturned the extreme ironic device in The Key to demonstrate a masochistic reception and utilization of his late-year biological dilemma. In general, this close investigation aims to complicate the previously constructed understanding of Tanizaki’s late style and to illustrate Tanizaki’s way out of the old-age disabilities and its impact on creation itself.

Keywords:  Stanford Global Studies
Modern Japanese Literature
Tanizaki Junichiro
1959-1963
Late Style
Transcription
Irony
Allegory
Freud
Paul de Man
Subjectivity
Thesis
Advisor: Reichert James
On linking of lagrangians in symplectic 4-manifolds

In this thesis, we study certain questions related to linking of Lagrangian submanifolds in symplectic 4-manifolds. In Chapter 2, we study linking of Lagrangian tori in R^4. Our main contribution is to prove that the linking properties of Lagrangian tori are closely connected to their enumerative geometry. As an application, we prove that any pair of monotone Clifford tori in R^4 (of possibly different monotonicity constant) are unlinked in an appropriate sense. The analogous result is false for Chekanov tori. In Chapter 3, which is joint work with Georgios Dimitroglou Rizell, we study linking of Lagrangian tori in T*T^2 and in certain rational symplectic 4-manifolds. We discuss various applications; in particular, we exhibit examples of pairs of totally real tori K_1, K_2 \subset T^2 − 0_{T^2} , each of which is isotopic to the zero section through totally real tori, but such that K_1 \cup K_2 is not smoothly isotopic to a Lagrangian. In chapter 4, which is also joint work with Georgios Dimitroglou Rizell, we study symplectic rigidity of cotangent fibers in open Riemann surfaces. This chapter can be seen as a generalization of the celebrated work of Eliashberg-Polterovich proving the Nearby Lagrangian Conjecture for T*R^2. As a corollary, we answer a strong form of a question of Eliashberg that was previously answered in dimensions at least 8 by Ekholm and Smith

Keywords: Mathematics.
Advisor: Eliashberg Y.
Cohen Ralph L.
Manolescu Ciprian
On Pre-Colonial Arab Queerness; Abu Nuwas's Homoeroticism as a Site of Investigation

Arab notions of sexuality are rich with literary and aesthetic explorations and representations, particularly as they exist in male same-sex romantic and sexual relations. Among such representations, and of the earliest that exist, is the homoerotic collection of poetry, Ghazal, written by the classical Abbasid period Arab poet Abu Nuwas al-Ḥasan ibn Hānī al-Ḥakamī, otherwise known as Abu Nuwas. In the 21st century, Arab Queer representations and explorations slowly migrated into other mediums of aesthetic representation, including and mostly in autobiographical novels. These include, as pertinent to the research paper at hand, Saleem Haddad’s Guapa, Mohammed Abdel Nabi’s In The Spider’s Room, and Abdellah Taïa’s Salvation Army. Recognizing this aesthetic migration, representations of homoeroticism in Abu Nuwas’s poetry might not only offer a site of investigation for a pre-colonial Arab Queer experience that is separate from Western definitions of Queerness rooted in the Gay Liberation movement of the 1960s, but might also carry forward in modern conceptions of Arab Queerness, as can be traced in the three autobiographical novels earlier mentioned.

Keywords: Arab Queerness
Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity
School of Humanities and Sciences
Joseph Massad
Abu Nuwas
Poetry
Queer
Sexuality
Comparative Literature
Jasbir Puar
Edward Said
Michael Foucault
Thesis
Advisor: Al-Saber Samer
Brody Jennifer DeVere
On relationships between cellular spatiotemporal dynamics and behavior

Biological cells are intricately organized on many length and timescales. Here, we investigate the organization of DNA and its transcription in the nucleus of human cells (Chapter 2), the translation and organization of proteins in the cytoplasm (Chapter 3), and gradual changes in the chromatin during differentiation (Chapter 4). A common thread through all of this work is the notion that precision measurement tools, especially advanced optical techniques in concert with new probes, are essential for discovering new biology. Chapter 2 explores interactions among chromatin, transcription factors, and potential 'genome organizers'. Special AT-rich protein 1 (Satb1) is a single protein important for proper mammalian development and immune system, that integrates all three functions, a transcription factor crucial for proper mammalian development, the immune system, and a potential genome organizer sits at the epicenter of these topics. Genomics, live cell single molecule imaging, and \textit{in vitro} DNA-protein binding assays help paint a detailed and dynamic portrait of Satb1 chromatin interactions and provides compelling evidence of Satb1 as a pioneer factor. Chapter 3 covers the development of a live cell imaging platform for visualization of endogenous translation forms using a CRISPR/Cas9 based genome editing strategy. This platform was employed to study endogenous paxillin isoforms in focal adhesions. Using this visualization platform in concert with high spatial-resolution imaging, we discovered preliminary evidence for nanoscale clustering and organization of paxillin isoforms in focal adhesions. Chapter 4 probes chromatin dynamics in differentiating human embryonic stem cells (hESCs). We established a human embryonic stem cell line for live cell single molecule tracking of nucleosomes harboring fluorescent H2B molecules, allowing for dynamic tracking of chromatin motion at single molecule resolution in pre and post differentiated stem cells. Together, the work demonstrates the use of novel imaging tools for understanding how cells organize two of their major components, chromatin in the nucleus and focal adhesions in the cytoplasm

Keywords: Chemical Engineering.
Advisor: Liphardt Jan 
Spakowitz Andrew James 
Greenleaf William James