VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The Effect of Interpersonal Relationships on Intervention: A Case Study on United Kingdom and United States Heads of State

The relationship between the United States and United Kingdom has long been referred to as “The Special Relationship,” a remarkable alliance based upon a shared language, an interwoven history, and largely homogeneous traditions. Historically, the U.S. President and the U.K. Prime Minister have enjoyed a distinctive personal relationship of their own, and the nuances of their rapport may impact how the two states interact in substantive ways. For example, during the Iraq War, many argued that British Prime Minister Tony Blair sent British troops into Iraq largely in order to preserve Britain’s special relationship with the United States and due to Blair’s affinity for President George W. Bush. This raises the central question of this thesis: Does the personal relationship between the U.S. President and the U.K. Prime Minister affect the likelihood of joint military intervention? To analyze that question, this thesis examines the effects of the interpersonal relationship on four cases of military interventions during the post-World War II era: Vietnam, the Falklands, Bosnia, and Iraq.

Keywords:  Program in International Relations
Department of International Relations
interpersonal relationships
relationships
personal
United Kingdom
Prime Minister
United States
President
Vietnam War
Iraq War
Bosnian War
Falklands Crisis
Thesis
Advisor: Rakove Robert
The Effect of Surface Complexation on Quartz and Amorphous Silica Dissolution

The geochemical process of adsorption facilitates chemical reactions between ions in solution and reactive surfaces at the mineral-fluid interface. Variations in surface disorder (e.g., crystallinity) and porosity can alter the structural properties of a substrate surface and influence both the propensity for adsorption to occur and the rate at which the substrate dissolves. Though crystallinity has been studied extensively as a property of surfaces, the direct effect of crystallinity on adsorption and the formation of surface complexes remains unclear. In addition, the surface complexes that form at the mineral-fluid interface and their unique properties may influence the dissolution of the material. In order to better understand dissolution and the interplay between dissolution and adsorption, careful examination of the types of surface complexes that form must be performed. A tool to understand these interfacial reactions is the construction of sorption isotherms associated with metals adsorbing onto surfaces across a spectrum of properties. Here, we examine the adsorption of cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc, and lead onto quartz, macroporous amorphous silica, and nanoporous amorphous silica surfaces using experimentally produced pH-titrated sorption isotherms. At low pH, we infer that metals form outer-sphere complexes on quartz surfaces and at high pH, metals form inner-sphere complexes. In comparison, only inner-sphere complexation occurs on amorphous silica surfaces. Though the presence of outer-sphere complexes slightly increases the rate at which the material dissolves, the presence of inner-sphere complexes strongly inhibits dissolution through an inferred passivation effect. By examining these variables, we are able to further our understanding of how the structural properties of mineral surfaces alter adsorption and, in turn, dissolution in natural and anthropogenic systems.

Keywords:  Department of Geological Sciences
School of Earth Energy &amp; Environmental Sciences
Geological Sciences
Stanford University
Stanford
Geochemistry
Geology
Dissolution
Silica
Adsorption
Surface complexation
Department of Geological Sciences
Thesis
Advisor: Maher Katherine
Bird Dennis
The Evolution of Hero Portrayal in Professional Wrestling

This ethnography chronicles a shift in the presentation of hero characters within professional wrestling. After a brief history of professional wrestling, content analysis and fan interviews demonstrate a change in how hero characters are being portrayed within the unique form of entertainment. Driving forces behind this shift and applications to other areas of society are discussed.

Keywords:  Department of Communication
Communication
Media Studies
Hero
Professional Wrestling
Stanford University Department of Communication
Thesis
Advisor: Hamilton James
THE GEOLOGY OF THE HAWKS VALLEY — LONE MOUNTAIN VOLCANIC CENTER: THE OLDEST KNOWN CALDERAS ASSOCIATED WITH THE YELLOWSTONE HOTSPOT

Benson et al. (2017) interpret the time-space progression of Mid-Miocene silicic calderas along the Oregon/Nevada border in the High Rock Caldera Complex (HRCC) and McDermitt Volcanic Field (MVF) as marking the propagation of massive flood basalt dike swarms away from the initial impingement of the Yellowstone plume near Steens Mountain. New geological mapping at the Hawks Valley— Lone Mountain (HVLM) volcanic center north of HRCC, coupled with new 40Ar/39Ar geochronology, has identified two previously unknown calderas, the Hawks Mountain and Buck Buttes Calderas, as sources for the oldest ignimbrites in the region: the 16.51 Ma (FCs = 28.02 Ma) lithic-rich trachytic Tuff of Juniper Spring and the 16.48 Ma pumice-rich low-silica alkali rhyolite Tuff of Robbers Roost. These tuffs are easily distinguished from the younger, mostly peralkaline ignimbrites of HRRC and MVF by their metaluminous compositions and conspicuous biotite phenocrysts.
Eruption of the 16.51 Ma Tuff of Juniper Spring truncated trachytic and low-silica alkali rhyolite lavas, and resulted in collapse of the 9-km-diameter Hawks Mountain Caldera. Nested within it is the slightly younger 7-km-diameter Buck Buttes Caldera, which collapsed on eruption of the 16.48 Ma Tuff of Robbers Roost. Locally preserved within the Buck Buttes Caldera are diatomaceous lake sediments intruded by perlitized crystal-rich rhyolitic lava domes at ~16.46 Ma.
The 40Ar/39Ar ages of the Tuffs of Juniper Spring and Robbers Roost are consistent with their stratigraphic position below the oldest ignimbrite of the MVF, the 16.47 Ma Tuff of Oregon Canyon, in exposures on the western flank of the southern Pueblo Mountains (Mahood and Benson, 2017). In addition, the oldest ignimbrite from HRCC, the 16.38 Ma Idaho Canyon Tuff, laps post-caldera lavas associated with the Juniper Spring and Buck Buttes Calderas, confirming their designation as the oldest known calderas associated with the Yellowstone plume. The location of the two calderas ~14 km north of the northernmost and oldest caldera of HRCC, the Virgin Valley Caldera, supports the conclusions of Coble and Mahood (2016) and Benson et al. (2017) that the younging of silicic calderas away from Steens Mountain reflects crustal melting caused by the intrusion of dike swarms of flood basalt that propagated southward with time from a focus beneath Steens Mountain.

Keywords:  Department of Geological Sciences
School of Earth Energy &amp; Environmental Sciences
Volcanology
Geology
Department of Geological Sciences
Thesis
Advisor: Mahood Gail A
Miller Elizabeth L
The Impact of Asian Patient Race/Ethnicity on Satisfaction Scores

Background
Patient satisfaction is increasingly being used to assess and financially reward provider performance. Previous studies suggest that patient race/ethnicity (R/E) may impact satisfaction, yet few practices adjust for it.
Objective
To examine R/E differences in patient satisfaction ratings and how they impact provider rankings.
Design
A cross-sectional study of patient satisfaction data linked to electronic health records in two large outpatient centers in northern California – a non-profit organization of community-based clinics (Site A) and an academic medical center (Site B).
Participants
Adult patients who received outpatient care at Site A (2010-2014) and Site B (2013-2014) and completed Press-Ganey Medical Practice Survey questionnaires (N=216,392 and N=30,690, respectively). Self-reported non-Hispanic white (NHW), Black, Latino, and Asian patients were studied.
Main Measures
For six questions each representing a survey subdomain, favorable ratings were defined as top-box (“very good”). Using multivariable logistic regression with provider random effects and adjusting for patient age and sex, we assessed whether the likelihood of giving favorable ratings differed by patient R/E.
Key Results
Asian, younger and female patients were less likely to give favorable ratings on patient satisfaction surveys than other R/E, older and male patients. The odds of top-box rating by Asian patients was significantly lower than that by NHW patients in both study sites (Site A: OR 0.56, 95% confidence interval: 0.54-0.57; Site B: OR 0.54, 95% CI: 0.49-0.59). The effect sizes for Asian R/E (OR 0.54-0.56) were greater than the effect sizes for older age (OR 1.43-1.52, OR 1.52-1.62) and female sex (OR 1.03-1.08). An absolute 3% decrease in mean composite score between providers serving different percentages of Asian patients translated to an absolute 40% drop in national ranking.
Conclusions
Scores may need to be adjusted for patient R/E, particularly for providers caring for high panel percentages of Asian patients.

Keywords: Palaniappan, Latha
Stanford School of Medicine Department of Health Research and Policy Division of Epidemiology
patient satisfaction
race/ethnicity
cultural differences
Thesis
The Impact of the World Trade Organization: Evidence from China

Since David Ricardo developed his theory of comparative advantage, it is a staple of elementary Economics that free trade between countries leads to all parties benefiting. General support for international trade has over time developed into the creation of organizations such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and its successor World Trade Organization (WTO), which were created to encourage trade between partner countries. While there have been a multitude of economic studies about the value of such organizations, there is limited research about how they impact developing economies. As China joined the WTO in 2001, looking at how various industries and firms were differentially impacted by the WTO allows us to identify the winners of increased integration into the global economy. This paper will analyze the relevance of capital-intensiveness in how Chinese firms responded to the WTO. Using an immense database of firm level data in China, I determine that capital-intensive companies benefitted more from the WTO than their peers that depended on labor. More importantly, I call into question the prevailing belief in Western economic literature that labor intensive firms in China benefitted the most from greater global trade.

Keywords:  Department of Economics
Stanford Department of Economics
China
WTO
Capital
Thesis
Advisor: Klenow Pete
The Influence of Anti-LGBT Discrimination Laws on SchoolClimate and Outcomes for LGBT Youth

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender high school students face challenges that impede their
academic, social, and emotional wellbeing. School policies that provide resources and
protections for LGBT students mitigate these challenges, and lead to better outcomes for LGBT
students. LGBT adults face challenges in sectors like employment protection and hate crime
prevalence, and many states have passed laws that expand protections for these adults. This
thesis aims to investigate the relationship between state-level, anti-LGBT discrimination policies
and high-school student wellbeing by analyzing patterns of policy diffusion and the policies’
effects on schools. Using a mixed methods approach that combines linear regression analysis
with qualitative social research of two school district case studies, this analysis will provide
evidence on the social benefit of expansive civil rights legislation for LGBT individuals and the
spread of its externalities to schools.

Keywords: Anti-Discrimination Laws
LGBT Rights
School Climate
Policy Diffusion
LGBT Education
Text
Thesis
Advisor: Wotipka Christine
The Nigga Word: A Black Millennial Perspective on Its Healing, Usage, and Continuity

For some the word nigga is a term of endearment and for others this word reminds them of the shackles and chains still pressed upon them by white America. However, no matter how the word is perceived, one thing is indisputable: it's for and by us. This paper attempts to come at the NIGGA word from an angle that prioritizes and centers a black perspective on what people are doing with the word in our community – as opposed to engaging in the tired argument of who should say it and who shouldn't. I have attempted to explore the way in which the nigger and nigga words have permeated the social culture and interactions of Black Millennials. I believe us, the Black Millennials, to be doing something intentionally different with this word than any group before us has, and the motivation behind this thesis is to discover exactly what that difference is. To achieve a substantive and downright interesting exploration of the topic and its nuances, my research is an amalgamation of real time, lived experiences and thoughts of Black Stanford Millennials in combination with data derived directly from the mouths, minds and fingers of the Black Millennials worldwide. I studied the Black Twitter trending conversation #NiggerNavy, and engaged in focus groups of Black Millennials here at Stanford, to ultimately discover the usage patterns of the nigger and nigga words and gauge their – what I believe to be – healing power, through solidarity and understanding, in our Black Millennial Community. I hope this thesis succeeds to open up more conversations of this nature in cross-cultural communities. I also want it to be an avenue that asks what this freedom that Black people express on Twitter says about the future of the merging of Black Culture and digital/technological culture.
What follows this abstract is their...OUR nigga story.

Keywords:  Department of Science
nigger
nigga
nigger experience
millennial
Black Twitter
Nigger Navy
tweets
hashtags
black
Thesis
The Pain Sale: An Analysis of the Socio-cultural, Political, and Industrial Frameworks that Contributed to The Opioid Crisis, as Epitomized by Purdue Pharma

In the fall of 2017, President Donald Trump declared the opioid crisis a national public health emergency. Mounting overdose rates and their financial burdens on medical resources pressured Trump to verbally address the crisis, but it has yet to be substantiated by significant action. Without funding for necessary entities like treatment programs, prescription opioid abuse continues to affect the nation. Common literature surrounding the crisis implicates Purdue Pharma, one of the leading prescription opioid producers, and the inventor of OxyContin, as the primary force behind the opioid crisis. Analysis of existing industrial frameworks, however, sheds light on the ways in which Purdue Pharma epitomizes the pharmaceutical industry (Big Pharma) and the legacy of the tobacco industry (Big Tobacco) primarily through deceptive marketing and exculpation strategies. This is not to say that Purdue Pharma is blameless, but instead relates their role in the opioid crisis to other factors, including social perceptions of pain and its management, understandings of addiction, and the manipulation of the consumer and public. With a focus on content analysis, this examination primarily draws from investigative journals and reports, which are complemented by scientific studies and academic knowledge. I hope to establish a more profound understanding of what allowed for the crisis to occur and gain traction by delineating the industrial infrastructure that characterizes Purdue Pharma as a product and consequence of the aforementioned aspects. This focus on Purdue Pharma is intended to provide a concrete example of industrial greed and the reuse of deceptive rhetorical strategies for commercial gain, similar to those implemented by Big Tobacco. The resulting synthesis identifies patterns of similarities between Big Tobacco and Big Pharma which are epitomized by the misleading marketing of Purdue Pharma’s product, OxyContin.

Keywords:  The Program in Science
Opioid Crisis
Pain Management
OxyContin
Purdue Pharma
Addiction
Overdose
Abuse
Big Pharma
Big Tobacco
Deception
Thesis
Advisor: Proctor Robert
Sato Kyoko
The Political and Physical Infrastructures in Jordan and Turkey: An Analysis of the Syrian Refugee Crisis and Refugee Access to Infrastructure

“A slaughterhouse, a complete meltdown of humanity, the apex of horror.”
Since it began six years ago, the Syrian civil war has resulted in over 13.5 million people in Syria needing humanitarian assistance, 6.1 million people displaced within Syria, and 4.9 million Syrian refugees seeking asylum in foreign countries. The majority of these refugees remain in the Middle East, where Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, and Jordan have accepted millions of them. As of February 2015, Jordan’s population has increased approximately 10% due to the influx of 622,000 Syrians since 2012 (United Nations High Commission for Refugees). Scholars and policy analysts have asserted that Jordan’s infrastructure lacks the capacity to accommodate the influx of Syrian refugees (Berti, Zetter, Yazgan). However, there is little research that examines how this lack of infrastructural support impacts the Syrian refugees’ ability to integrate into the various countries that host them in the Middle East. This research project analyzes and compares how the political and physical infrastructures of Jordan and Turkey are shaping the processes of the integration of Syrian refugees in each respective country.

Keywords: Syrian
Refugees
Infrastructure
Science Technology and Society at Stanford
Thesis
Advisor: Paul Edwards
The Potentialities of a Middle Power's Public Diplomacy: Studying the Centralized ROK Public Diplomacy System and Network Power

This thesis seeks to understand the current status of Korean public diplomacy based on the thorough examination of various kinds of power concepts such as soft power, smart power, and network power. Given that Korea is perceived as a middle power in international relations, the paper begins with diagnosing whether concepts of soft and smart power coined by Joseph Nye for the better outcomes of the U.S. public diplomatic activities can be applied to the public diplomacy of middle powers like Korea. On the basis of the existing Korean scholars' works on Korean public diplomacy, it has become clear that a middle power needs different kinds of power concepts and the optimal alternative can be network-related power. Thus, this thesis analyses the features of the current Korean public diplomacy system after the enactment of the ROK Public Diplomacy Act and the first master plan which is supposed to be designed every five years by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In conclusion, the centralized system generated by the Public Diplomacy Act can be conducive to improving Korean public diplomacy on the whole by overcoming the problems caused by the absence of control tower and helping to obtain stronger network power. However, there are still substantial shortcomings in the first master plan. The thesis suggests some ideas to improve the current system as well as the master plan.

Keywords:  Stanford Global Studies
Korean Public Diplomacy
Network Power
Middle Powers
Soft Power
the ROK Public Diplomacy Act
Stanford Global Studies
East Asian Studies
Thesis
Advisor: Stephens Kathleen
The Role of Macrophages in Tumor Cell Recurrence Following Radiation Therapy

Radiotherapy is an effective treatment modality for more than fifty percent of all cancer patients. However, pre-clinical evidence suggests that radiotherapy may increase the risk for tumor recurrence. This process may be mediated through the recruitment of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) by radiation-induced expression of the cytokine granulocyte macrophage colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF). The pathway by which GM-CSF recruits these CTCs continues to be an area of study. GM-CSF is known to promote the proliferation and recruitment of monocytes to a given location and induce their differentiation into macrophages. Macrophages have a variety of interactions with cancer and may promote tumor development or facilitate tumor cell death depending on the context. The goal of this project is to elucidate the role macrophages may have in the recruitment of CTCs in response to irradiation. To test this hypothesis, transwell invasion assays were performed to investigate the migration of different cell lines after irradiation as a proxy for CTC infiltration of cancerous tissue. We found an increased recruitment of tumor cells following irradiation of either macrophages (Raw 264.7) or tumor cell lines (4T1). However, no significant relationship was found for the recruitment of macrophages following irradiation of either macrophages or tumor cell lines. This suggests that tumor cells were attracted in response to irradiation, which is in line with previous literature showing irradiation of normal tissue inducing a similar recruitment of CTCs. To investigate the systemic effects of macrophage content on tumor growth, we also studied a cohort of mice bearing a single orthotopic breast tumor that is irradiated and injected with macrophages. We found a tumor-suppressive effect in mice with intravenous injections of macrophages when compared to the subcutaneous (control) injection of macrophages. Finally, we perform a pilot study which demonstrates tail-vein injected macrophage localization after radiotherapy. Overall, this study demonstrates evidence that macrophages play a role in tumor recurrence induced by radiation and suggest potential therapeutics through manipulation of macrophage content.

Keywords:  Department of Biology
macrophages
CTCs
Mestastasis
Radiation therapy
Cancer
Thesis
Advisor: Graves Edward
Feldman Marcus
The Role of the Posterior Paraventricular Thalamic Nucleus in Processing and Memory of Emotional Salience

To survive and reproduce, rodents must be able to efficiently associate environmental cues with the potential presence of a predator or mate. While the neural circuitry for associations, learning, and memory is the subject of a great deal of study, these studies often employ stimuli such as experimenter administered drugs or electric foot shocks. In order to study more ethologically relevant associations I developed two novel mouse paradigms, and I assessed the importance of the paraventricular thalamic nucleus (PVT) in the formation and retrieval of these associations. The PVT has been implicated in arousal and emotion, with the posterior region of the PVT (pPVT) specifically involved in the learning and memory for appetitive and aversive states. In this study, I explore the role of the pPVT in the contextual learning and memory expression of ethologically relevant mouse behaviors using two novel conditioned place preference paradigms. The first novel paradigm involves conditioning male mice to associate a specific bedding cue with exposure to a female, and the second paradigm involves associating the visual and tactile cues of a traditional conditioned place preference chamber with exposure to a threatening predator odor. I demonstrate the efficacy of these two assays in analyzing desirable social interaction and threat for wildtype mice, and show that silencing the pPVT sessions significantly suppresses memory retrieval and has potentially moderate effects on memory encoding. The data from this study contributes to a body of literature implicating the pPVT’s role in the memory of appetitive and aversive stimuli in laboratory settings, and provides new data on the pPVT’s important role in the ability to recognize and remember environments for ethologically relevant stimuli.

Keywords:  Department of Biology
Biology
Memory
Neuroanatomy
Thesis
Advisor: Chen Xiaoke
Heller Craig