VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Strategies for discovering new physics at the LHC [electronic resource]

The Large Hadron collider has recently discovered a particle that has properties similar to the Standard Model Higgs boson. The LHC experiments will continue to collect data to measure the properties of the Higgs-like boson more accurately to determine if it is the Standard Model Higgs. The Higgs-like particle that was observed also suggests that there are new colored states with masses that can be within reach of the Large Hadron Collider. In this thesis, I discuss the idea of simplified models, which seeks to better guide experimental searches for new states beyond the Standard Model, as well as new techniques to improve the sensitivity of current searches for colored particles. Finally, I discuss the implications of the Higgs on searches for new physics at the LHC and other experiments.

Keywords: Physics
Advisor: Wacker Jay primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Peskin Michael Edward
Silverstein Eva
Strategies to enhance anti-tumor immunity [electronic resource] : translating preclinical models

Purpose: The immune modulatory effects of total lymphoid irradiation (TLI) for graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) protection and transplantation tolerance following allogeneic bone marrow and organ transplantation have been studied for years in animal models. In preclinical models non-myeloablative TLI conditioning alters residual host T cell subsets to favor regulatory natural killer (NK) T cells that suppress GVHD and prevent organ allograft rejection. These preclinical models have been recently adapted to human transplantation. Recent findings: Patients receiving allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) for hematological malignancies conditioned with TLI and depletive T cell antibodies showed sustained donor chimerism, a reduced incidence of acute GVHD yet retained graft anti-tumor activity. As in the pre-clinical models, nonmyeloablative TLI conditioning significantly altered residual host T cell subsets favoring NK T cells, and the low incidence of GVHD was associated with increased IL-4 secretion by chimeric donor T cells. The TLI regimen used in cancer patients was modified to determine conditions for stable mixed chimerism and tolerance induction following combined hematopoietic cell and kidney transplantation. Summary: This review summarizes the evolution of the pre-clinical TLI protocols and their recent translation to clinical trials, and discusses the mechanisms involved in protection from GVHD and the induction of tolerance following mixed chimerism.

Advisor: Strober Samuel
Clarke Michael F.
Levy Ronald
Sunwoo John B. advisor. Thesis advisor
Stratifications and equivariant cohomology of a spaces of upper-triangular square-zero matrices [electronic resource]

Given an irreducible component X of the variety of square-zero upper-triangular matrices, a combinatorial formula developed by Rothbach gives a stratification of X into orbits of the Borel group. Specializing to the complex numbers and imposing a rank condition motivated by the Halperin-Carlsson conjecture on the free ranks of products of spheres, we consider a coarser stratification into orbits of the parabolic group. After illustrating the use of the singular value decomposition theorem to describe the topology of the strata, we then compute their equivariant cohomology. We conclude with applications to the Herzog-Kühl equations and their role in obstruction theory arguments motivated by the aforementioned conjecture.

Keywords: Mathematics
Advisor: Carlsson Gunnar
Cohen Ralph L.
Vakil Ravi advisor. Thesis advisor
String constructions and cosmological spacetimes [electronic resource]

We study connections between the macroscopic features of cosmological spacetimes and the underlying microscopic description. String theory provides a useful toolkit for addressing high energy problems and conceptual issues in gravitational theories, but the questions we hope to address are not necessarily confined to this framework. Models of cosmology derived from string theory generically include additional fields that may affect cosmic inflation and its observables, and they provide a top-down perspective for organizing the predictions of inflationary models. We also use brane constructions to gain a microscopic perspective on dual 'holographic' descriptions for de Sitter and Friedmann-Robertson-Walker spacetimes, and we express the horizon entropy in terms of microscopic parameters. Such constructions also motivate more general studies of time-dependence in field theories and its effect on renormalization group flow. Finally, we construct an oscillating universe at the level of general relativity using sources satisfying the null energy condition and analyze its stability to linear order, and we discuss the implications for singularity theorems.

Keywords: Physics
Advisor: Silverstein Eva
Kachru Shamit
Shenker Stephen Hart
Structural analyses of emission permit auctions under cap-and-trade programs in the United States [electronic resource]

This dissertation conducts empirical studies on emission permit auctions under cap-and-trade programs in the United States. My dissertation for the first time conducts structural analyses using the actual auction data from the Acid Rain Program for SO2 and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) program for CO2. With detailed bidder-level bidding data of the 17 discriminatory auctions of SO2 allowances held by the EPA from 1993 to 2009, I estimate bidders' marginal valuation functions using the resampling method proposed by Hortacsu (2002b) and Kastl (2011). I follow their econometric approaches to calculate the efficiency loss caused by the discriminatory format, and test its effectiveness in raising revenue compared to a truthful-bidding uniform price auction. Compared to a best-case scenario of truthful-bidding uniform price auction, the counterfactual results show that the discriminatory format may not necessarily raise more revenue to compensate the efficiency loss in the SO2 allowance auctions. To analyze the RGGI program, I modify a uniform price auction model built by Vives (2011) to characterize emission permit auctions with the presence of secondary trading. Based on the symmetric linear Bayesian demand function equilibrium (LBDFE), I analyze the interaction between the primary auction market and the secondary trading market of emission permits. I then propose a statistical procedure to calibrate model parameters using aggregate level data for the RGGI CO2 allowance auctions during August 2008 to June 2010. With a counterfactual simulation, I discuss the underpricing issue of the uniform price auction relative to the allowance prices in the trading market, and conclude that it is beneficial to open the auctions to general public to increase competition. Based on the empirical results for emission allowance auctions in these two programs, I propose several policy suggestions in designing future emission auctions.

Keywords: Economics
Advisor: Goulder Lawrence H. (Lawrence Herbert) primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Boskin Michael J. advisor. Thesis advisor
Hong Han advisor. Thesis advisor
The structure and function of the Chinese copular construction [electronic resource]

This thesis examines the structure and function of the Chinese copular construction within the framework of Construction Grammar (Goldberg 2006; Croft 2001; etc.) and Constructionalization (Trousdale 2010; Traugott and Trousdale 2011; etc.). My analysis begins with the argument that shì is the systematic copula verb in Chinese. After identifying problems with previous accounts, I outline my own, original analysis of the syntax and semantics of the copular construction. I define the Chinese copula as an invariant non-inflectional verb that co-occurs with certain lexemes when they together form the predicate of a copular sentence. I propose that the copular construction is a form and meaning pairing: [(XPi) COP XPj] (XP=NP/VP/S)←→[SEMi copulative linking SEMj] with [NP COP NP] as the prototype. The copular construction has two subschemas: specificational and predicational. A cleft sentence is a special specificational copular sentence. The Chinese cleft construction is a form and meaning pairing: [NPi COP NOMj] (NOM=(ADV/TP/PP) NP/VP/S de)←→[SEMi specificational+contrastive SEMj]. I suggest shì is consistently the copula verb in the cleft construction and signals the immediate post-copula element as contrastive focus. The cleft construction also has two subschemas: cleft-obj and cleft-sbj. My constructional analysis improves on similar accounts of the cleft sentences in two ways. First, my analysis helps understand the grammatical status of shì and provides a schematic framework to understand the commonality and distinction between cleft sentences and copular sentences. Second, my analysis allows for a straightforward account of the relationship between the two subschemas of the cleft construction, and of the relationship among variations of the cleft-sbj. The thesis also examines the constructionalization processes of the copular construction and the cleft construction. I suggest that the Old Chinese (500 BCE- 200 CE) topic-comment construction, in which the demonstrative pronoun shì occurred at the subject position of the comment clause functioning as an anaphor, was reanalyzed as a subject-predicate construction via analogization to the construction of the Old Chinese verb wéi 'to be.' As the copular construction was entrenched and conventionalized in Middle Chinese (200 CE -1000), it gave rise to the emergence of the cleft construction through host-class expansion, syntactic expansion (the nominalization was recruited into the predicate position of a copular sentence), and semantic-pragmatic expansion. Together, my synchronic and diachronic analyses add up to a maximally explanatory account of the copula shì and the copular construction.

Keywords: East Asian Languages and Cultures.
Advisor: Sun Chao primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Traugott Elizabeth Closs primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Matsumoto Yoshiko
Wang John C. Y. (John Ching-yu)
The structure of jets at hadron colliders [electronic resource]

Jets are collimated, high energy streams of particles that are ubiquitous at hadron colliders such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. It has been recognized that jets are a feature of the strong force, quantum chromodynamics (QCD). QCD predicts an approximate scaling behavior at high energies. Due to the very high energies made available by the LHC, the decay products of heavy, unstable particles can also be collimated into a narrow cone and these are observed as jets by the LHC experiments. Recently, there has been significant interest in studying the substructure of jets with the goal of discriminating QCD jets from jets initiated by heavy particle decay. In this thesis, I will describe the modeling of jets in QCD as well as the pattern of radiation from heavy particles, such as the top quark. This will lead to a discussion of a correlation function on the constituents of a jet that is useful in understanding jet substructure. This correlation function encodes angular scaling properties of jets and its behavior in QCD will be studied.

Keywords: Physics
Advisor: Peskin Michael Edward
Hewett JoAnne L. advisor. Thesis advisor
Kachru Shamit
Student peer networks [electronic resource] : a study of tie formation and the impact of diversity in higher education

Social scientific research on racial/ethnic diversity in higher education finds positive links between diversity of student interactions and a wide range of educational outcomes. Previous research, however, fails to characterize beneficial peer relations and the factors that influence interaction, thus leaving little practical guidance for colleges and universities to maximize the benefits of diversity. In this study, I map concepts from network theory and organizational sociology onto a theory of the impact of race and ethnicity in higher education to better specify the microsociological contexts of diverse interaction. With this conceptual framework I analyze network data on undergraduates living in six dormitories on a single college campus to identify factors that influence tie formation and network characteristics of ties that are associated with diversity benefits. Using exponential random graphs to model tie formation and regression to model the impact of diverse ties on educational outcomes previous associated with diversity, I find that net of homophily, other pre-college factors and organizational memberships, informal activity foci are the key determinants of tie formation, while strong tie diversity is related to the availability of cross-race partners. I further find that the racial/ethnic diversity of strong ties is associated with affective outcomes including democratic values, and the experience of difference in peer relations. Finally, weak tie diversity is positively associated with GPA measures.

Keywords: Education.
Advisor: Antonio Anthony Lising
Gumport Patricia J. advisor. Thesis advisor
McFarland Daniel (Daniel A.) advisor. Thesis advisor
Study of charge transport through zinc oxide nanowire networks for transparent electrodes [electronic resource]

Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) is a transparent conductor widely used for fabricating transparent electrodes in solar cells, OLEDs, flat screen displays, touch screens and electro-chromic windows. In recent years the demand for these electronic devices has shown a double digit growth. Since Indium is a rare element, the rising demand for transparent electrodes will drive up the cost of ITO multi-fold. Thus it is the need of the time to find a suitable alternative low cost transparent conductor that can replace ITO in transparent conducting electrodes. ZnO is a wide band gap semiconducting oxide (Eg ~ 3.4eV) that has the potential to replace ITO as a cheap and flexible transparent electrode material. ZnO nanowires (NWs) can be easily synthesized and n-doped using a solution based synthesis process. The solution processed ZnO NW thin films however have a high sheet resistance (~1k[ohm]/[cube] post annealing) that needs to be reduced further. Hence charge transport in ZnO NW thin films has been studied using various experimental and simulation based techniques to reveal the factors causing high sheet resistance. The effect of ZnO NW orientation on thin film sheet resistance has been studied by aligning ZnO NWs in-plane on substrates. 2D NW network simulations coupled with aligned ZnO NW thin film electrical measurements have revealed that the NW-NW junction resistance is the dominating factor affecting charge transport. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) characterization has experimentally confirmed the presence of high NW junction resistance and revealed that annealing affects NW junctions. TEM characterization of in-situ annealed NW junction and micro-Raman spectroscopy of annealed ZnO NW mat film have uncovered a fascinating picture of the effect of annealing on ZnO NW junctions. Furthermore a versatile E2D methodology has been developed by combining the EIS measurement technique with 2D NW network simulations for extracting individual NW junction resistance i.e. extracting nano-scale electrical properties from macro-scale EIS measurements. NW junction resistance predicted by E2D has been verified by fabricating and measuring individual ZnO NW junction and single ZnO NW devices. The E2D methodology has been shown to be promising to study charge transport in other 1D nano-structured transparent conducting ensembles. Various applications of ZnO NW thin film electrodes have been discussed and research work on further reducing the ZnO NW thin film sheet resistance has been presented.

Keywords: Mechanical Engineering
Advisor: Prinz F. B. primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Salleo Alberto
McGehee Michael
Study of CP violation in Dalitz-plot analyses of B-Meson decays to three kaons [electronic resource]

This thesis presents studies of CP violation in the decays B0--> K+K-Ks, B+--> K+K-K+, and B+--> KsKsK+, using a Dalitz plot amplitude analysis. These studies are based on data from the BaBar experiment at PEP-II at SLAC. Among the significant results are the world's most precise measurements of time-dependent CP-violation in B0--> phi Ks and direct CP violation in B+--> phi K+. The latter is measured to deviate from zero by 2.8 standard deviations, in tension with the Standard Model expectation. We also study the resonant and nonresonant substructure of B--> KKK decays, and find evidence against the previously hypothesized resonance dubbed the "fX(1500).".

Keywords: Physics
Advisor: Roodman Aaron J. (Aaron Jay)
Dixon Lance
Lüth Vera
Wojcicki Stanley G.
A study of organizational advice giving [electronic resource]

Despite the fact that advice giving is prevalent in the social world, that, before making an important decision, most of us will consult with advisers (Meltsner 1990), the activity of advice giving has been under-studied and under-theorized (Bonaccio and Dalal 2006). I seek to fill the gap. I show, in particular, that the concerted action of advisers may lead to unexpected outcomes: Even though individual advisers are beset by professional habits, a team of advisers may still provide adequate solutions to problems. The forces of habit may be counterbalanced if the team is composed of both senior and junior advisers organized according to the leverage model, if there is a high rate of turnover among junior advisers, and if advisers collaborate with clients. My findings are based on a four-month ethnography of a leading management consulting firm, as well as 60 interviews with management consultants and 40 interviews with clients. So, my research sheds light on the activity of giving advice. It makes, in addition, a theoretical contribution to the new-institutional perspective in sociology. According to this perspective, management consulting firms play an important role in spreading different institutional elements (e.g., DiMaggio and Powell 1983; Campbell 2004). My findings point to the circumstances under which these institutional elements will and will not spread. Furthermore, studies of expertise show that experts are not particularly good at conveying their knowledge and skill to novices (Hinds 1999; Hinds et al. 2001). My findings suggest that the social structure of work has a significant impact on the application of expert knowledge.

Keywords: Management Science and Engineering
Advisor: Barley Stephen R. primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Pfeffer Jeffrey advisor. Thesis advisor
Sutton Robert advisor. Thesis advisor
Zelditch Morris
A study on the feasibility of lunar farside radio observations using a small satellite based telescope [electronic resource]

Radio astronomers have been able to observe extensively from 300 GHz to 100 MHz in the last sixty years, however observations at lower frequencies are sparse, mainly due to Earth-based interference and noise. There are intriguing scientific questions that have the potential to be answered by observing at these long wavelengths, especially in the field of cosmology, although solar physics, planetary studies, black hole physics, and the possibility of new discoveries are also exciting areas. This thesis looks at radio telescopes currently observing and proposed, and suggests that a lunar orbiting telescope mounted on a small satellite (such as a cubesat) could be a cost effective approach to answering some of these open questions. The specific goal of this study is to determine an orbit that would enable a small satellite to complete such a mission. Starting with analytical models developed in the literature that predict quasi-stable or 'frozen' orbits, high fidelity numerical simulations are run that narrow the orbital parameters to determine a satisfactory solution. The results show that a near circular, 28.5° inclination orbit at 150 km is stable enough over at least two, and up to five years in orbit, giving at least 6400 hours of quiet sky observation time. Finally, studies are performed to determine how accurate orbital insertion must be to meet requirements.

Keywords: Aeronautics and Astronautics
Advisor: Rock Stephen M. advisor. Thesis advisor
Studying zebrafish development and regeneration with chemical probes [electronic resource]

Embryonic development and tissue regeneration are regulated by complex genetic programs that are dynamically executed in a stereotypic manner, and deciphering these molecular mechanisms requires the ability to control gene function with spatial and temporal precision. Synthetic chemistry has been increasingly used to create reagents that can enable such genetic manipulations. In this thesis I describe the development and application of caged morpholino (cMO) oligonucleotides and small molecules to study zebrafish embryonic development and larvae tail regeneration. In Chapter 1, we survey how chemical tools and engineered proteins have been used to perturb developmental processes at the DNA, RNA, protein, and cellular levels. We discuss the design principles, experimental capabilities, and limitations of each method, as well as future challenges for the chemical and developmental biology communities. In Chapter 2, we describe optimized methods for the design and synthesis of hairpin cMO oligonucleotides incorporating a dimethoxynitrobenzyl (DMNB)-based bifunctional linker that permits cMO assembly in only three steps from commercially available reagents. Using this simplified procedure, we have systematically prepared cMOs with differing structural configurations and investigated how the in vitro thermodynamic properties of these reagents correlate with their in vivo activities. Through these studies, we have established general principles for cMO design and successfully applied them to several developmental genes. Our optimized synthetic and design methodologies have also enabled us to prepare a next-generation cMO that contains a bromohydroxyquinoline (BHQ)-based linker for two-photon uncaging. Collectively, these advances establish the generality of cMO technologies and will facilitate the application of these chemical probes in vivo for functional genomic studies. In Chapter 3, I first describe our genome-wide microarray analysis and whole-mount in situ hybridization studies that led us to the identification of 18 genes, including hyaluronan synthase 3 (has3), that were expressed during zebrafish larvae tail regeneration. I also report the functional studies of hyaluronan (HA) synthesis using small molecule inhibitor 4-methylumbelliferone (4-MU), in which we showed that 4-MU inhibited tail regeneration by preventing injury-induced cell proliferation. In addition, 4-MU also reduced the expressions of dlx5a and junbb, markers of the wound epithelium and blastema-like mesenchymal cells. We also illustrated that simultaneous dosing of Gsk3[beta] inhibitor BIO and 4-MU could rescue the 4-MU-induced regeneration defects. Our results indicated that the crosstalk between hyaluronan synthesis and Gsk3[beta] signaling played an important role in regulating tail regeneration.

Keywords: Chemical and Systems Biology.
Advisor: Chen James
Longaker Michael T.
Mochly-Rosen Daria advisor. Thesis advisor
Wandless Thomas advisor. Thesis advisor