VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The thin brown line [electronic resource] : re-indigenizing inequality in aotearoa New Zealand

This study critically examines inequality within New Zealand's indigenous Māori population. Specifically it asks whether strong ties to Māori identity incur higher socio-economic costs. Historical expository analysis is undertaken in concert with statistical analyses of data from the New Zealand Census of Population and Dwellings (1996, 2001, 2006), and a longitudinal study of Māori households. I find strong evidence of ethnic and socio-economic segmentation within the Māori population. In each census, individuals identified exclusively as Māori by ethnicity are the most disadvantaged across a wide range of socio-economic indicators. Those identified as Māori solely by ancestry are the least disadvantaged. Pronounced differences in Māori language ability and intra-Māori partnering are also evident, indicating that the association between Māori identification and disadvantage may be partially explained by ties to Māori identity. Regression analyses of multi-wave survey data reveal a complex set of relationships. Changing patterns of identification suggest self-designation as a Māori is best conceived as a fluid, contingent process rather than a stable, individual trait. Māori identification is generally a less salient predictor of disadvantage than specific ties to Māori identity, expressed through network ties, language, and practices. However, while some ties to Māori identity appear to incur high socio-economic costs, other ties are inconsequential, or advantageous. Taken together, the analyses contribute new insights into patterns of inequality between Māori, and highlight the need for more careful theorizing and interpretation of ethnicity variables in empirical analysis.

Keywords: Sociology.
Advisor: Snipp C. Matthew primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Cunningham Chris
McDermott Monica
"The things they carried" [electronic resource] : a study of learning to teach across activity settings

The study described here examines the practices of 7 beginning English-Language Arts teachers in two schools over the course of an academic year. The analysis of classroom observations and data on the preparation for teaching highlighted the elements of learning settings in both pre-service and in-service settings that supported appropriation of subject specific tools for teaching. The common features across settings that supported appropriation were a foundation of conceptual tools for teaching, the enactment or unpacking of practical tools through explicit modeling or collaboration, and opportunities to enact tools within and/or across learning settings. The study also highlighted the importance of the reinforcement of tools across settings for promoting not only appropriation of practices but depth of appropriation. The cases suggest that it was the features of the individual and overlapping settings for teacher learning such as the availability of models, norms around practical tools, opportunities to enact tools, and the access to these features across settings that best explain the teaching practice of these 7 teachers. The study reveals a more complicated and nuanced picture of the development of teaching practices across settings in which teachers learn to teach their subject matter. The findings suggest that in addition to considering how to better scaffold tool appropriation in their respective settings, teacher educators, professional developers, departmental leadership, and policy makers should work together to provide support for tool appropriation that spirals across settings.

Keywords: Education.
Advisor: Darling-Hammond Linda
Grossman Pamela L. (Pamela Lynn)
Lotan Rachel A. advisor. Thesis advisor
Thinning and skeletonizing grayscale cubical complex images of any dimensionality [electronic resource]

In this thesis, we present a practical, flexible, and theoretically rigorous method of extracting a sparse skeletal representation of higher-intensity shapes in a grayscale image of any dimensionality. Our approach assumes that the input d-dimensional image belongs to the newly-defined subclass of cubical complex images (CCIs), whose superlevel sets are equivalent to a nested family of cubical complexes. Though the fraction of images that fall into this category is small, we show that every image can be easily transformed into a CCI whose linear dimensions are double those of the original, so our skeletonization scheme remains applicable to all images. The majority of this thesis is devoted to a new grayscale image thinning algorithm, applicable only to CCIs, which reduces the higher-intensity points in an image to a much smaller representative subset. We introduce the algorithm in three stages. In the first stage, we assume that the image is binary, and we use this simple case to clearly explain the underlying thinning mechanism, the unique geometric structure that generalizes to images of any dimensionality, and the many new guarantees we can make on the thinned foreground shape including thinness, centeredness, and topological equivalence to the original foreground set. In the second stage, we generalize the binary image technique into one for grayscale images. We show how the incompatible shapes represented by different gray levels of the image can be reconciled, including an elegant framework for mitigating the effects of low-contrast noise while preserving high-contrast image features. In the final stage, we consider the possibility that thinning might only be performed along a subset of the image axes. We explore the resulting thinning behavior, and we offer an optimized version of the thinning algorithm that capitalizes on the great opportunities for parallel processing that appear under these conditions. After fully developing the thinning algorithm, we study how to best select a sparse subset of points in the thinned image to serve as a representative of the underlying shape. We explore three possible approaches that balance skeletal sparsity with the preservation of image topology. Finally, we address a shortcoming of our grayscale thinning algorithm: it runs in time proportional to the number of distinct values in an input image. To improve the computation time of the thinning routine, we explore an image quantization scheme that attempts to reduce the number of distinct image values while limiting changes in image contrast which affect the behavior of our thinning algorithm.

Keywords: Electrical Engineering
Advisor: Guibas Leonidas J. primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Girod Bernd advisor. Thesis advisor
Napel Sandy advisor. Thesis advisor
Three barriers to more useful education research [electronic resource]

Many conceptual barriers stand in the way of more useful educational research. This dissertation examines three such barriers. The first intellectual barrier is an unproductive distinction between "scientifically based" research and other forms of educational inquiry—a distinction that, thanks to recent federal acts, now carries the weight of law. The second barrier is a failure to draw meaningful distinctions between "basic" and "applied" educational knowledge. Neither researchers nor federal funding agencies have outlined a clear definition of educational knowledge in these domains, nor have they offered a compelling account of how research aimed at one domain produces knowledge gains in the other, though a connection is frequently implied. And a third barrier is confusion about the relationship between what might be called the "positive" (or descriptive) and the "normative" (or prescriptive) dimensions of educational inquiry. Researchers often exhibit either too much comfort openly incorporating value judgments into research or too little, and the traditional distinction offers scant guidance to researchers wanting to directly engage practical educational problems.

Keywords: Education.
Advisor: Callan Eamonn primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Phillips D. C. (Denis Charles)
Longino Helen E. advisor. Thesis advisor
Shavelson Richard J.
Three essays on teacher labor markets in Thailand [electronic resource]

The first essay of this dissertation examines the role of teacher characteristics in schools on student outcomes using datasets from TIMSS 1999 and TIMSS 2007 international tests. Taking an advantage that students have to take both mathematics and science subjects from different teachers, I use the method of First Difference (FD) analysis in order to remove the potential biases between teacher attributes and unobserved student characteristics. The findings show some contradictory outcomes between the FD analysis and ordinary least squares (OLS) analysis. The second essay looks into the problem of recruitment of well-qualified high school and college graduates to work as primary and secondary school teachers. I compare teacher salaries and benefits vis-à-vis other mathematics and science-oriented professions namely medical professions, engineers, accountants, scientists and nurses. In addition, I compare incomes between people who graduate from teacher colleges and non-teacher colleges. Using data from Thailand Labor Force Survey from 1985 to 2005, I find that teachers are the most poorly paid of all professions, including nurses. The difference in terms of an opportunity cost between male and female teachers is also striking. Among the graduates from teacher colleges, male graduates earn more than their peers if they chose other occupations whereas female graduates earn less if they make other choices. The third essay looks at the reasons teachers choose part-time jobs, the type of jobs they choose, and the amount of income they receive from these jobs, as well as factors influencing these decisions. I find that approximately 20-25% of Thai teachers participated in moonlighting activities. The majority of them have part-time jobs including tutoring, selling food and other products, and farming. Low salaries and high level of indebtedness are the most important factors associated with the increased likelihood of having a part-time job. However, economic status does not correlate significantly with their decision to tutor as their part-time job.

Keywords: Education.
Advisor: Carnoy Martin primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Bettinger Eric advisor. Thesis advisor
Darling-Hammond Linda
Ramirez Francisco O. advisor. Thesis advisor
Three essays on the cognitive effects of categorization processes in markets [electronic resource]

Categorical boundaries serve to partition continuously differing social actors into groups that are perceived to be alike. The work in economic and organizational sociology often draws upon findings in cognitive psychology to understand how these categorization processes impact organizational and individual outcomes. In particular, researchers have recently focused their attention on the finding that these social mechanisms of categorization lead actors who straddle multiple categories to suffer a disadvantage. Those who span multiple categories defy clear categorization and are subsequently devalued because they are difficult to understand. In the three essays to follow, I aim to contribute to the work on understanding the cognitive aspects of categorization processes in markets. In the first essay, I use a natural experiment to provide a more solid empirical foundation as to the existence of a cognitively driven penalty for multiple-category membership. In my second essay, I theorize on whether the sequence of categorical affiliations affects how one is evaluated. I propose that those social actors who display a history of moves between less cognitively associated categories will be seen as being less credible. In my third essay, I examine how heterogeneity in audience experiences affects their ability to communicate with potential market participants. I hypothesize that audience with greater depth of expertise are able to attract more accurate offers from more focused producers, while those audience members with greater breadth of experiences attract less accurate offers from less focused producers.

Advisor: Rao Hayagreeva
Hannan Michael
Sørensen Jesper
Three essays on the cognitive effects of categorization processes in markets [electronic resource]

Categorical boundaries serve to partition continuously differing social actors into groups that are perceived to be alike. The work in economic and organizational sociology often draws upon findings in cognitive psychology to understand how these categorization processes impact organizational and individual outcomes. In particular, researchers have recently focused their attention on the finding that these social mechanisms of categorization lead actors who straddle multiple categories to suffer a disadvantage. Those who span multiple categories defy clear categorization and are subsequently devalued because they are difficult to understand. In the three essays to follow, I aim to contribute to the work on understanding the cognitive aspects of categorization processes in markets. In the first essay, I use a natural experiment to provide a more solid empirical foundation as to the existence of a cognitively driven penalty for multiple-category membership. In my second essay, I theorize on whether the sequence of categorical affiliations affects how one is evaluated. I propose that those social actors who display a history of moves between less cognitively associated categories will be seen as being less credible. In my third essay, I examine how heterogeneity in audience experiences affects their ability to communicate with potential market participants. I hypothesize that audience with greater depth of expertise are able to attract more accurate offers from more focused producers, while those audience members with greater breadth of experiences attract less accurate offers from less focused producers.

Keywords: Business.
Advisor: Rao Hayagreeva
Hannan Michael
Sorensen Jesper B.
The three sovereigns tradition [electronic resource] : talismans, elixirs, and meditation in early medieval China

This dissertation attempts to elucidate the origins and nature of the lost Sanhuang wen (Writ of the Three Sovereigns), and identify its surviving fragments in the Daoist Canon. Through a close examination of these fragments, this study reconstructs various stages in scripture's transmission and traces its development from a single text to a fourteen-scroll corpus replete with mantic methods, cosmological speculations, and elaborate liturgies. The present study pushes beyond conventional views of the Sanhuang by underscoring the pivotal role of alchemy and meditation alongside talismans as defining components of the tradition. It analyzes key notions, such as "true form" (zhenxing), in the sophisticated conceptual apparatus that governs Sanhuang talismanic, alchemical, and meditative practices. In so doing, this dissertation reveals the profound impact of the Sanhuang wen on the religious landscape of Six Dynasties Jiangnan, and in a larger framework, on the development of Daoism.

Keywords: Religious Studies
Advisor: Bielefeldt Carl primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Faure Bernard primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Pregadio Fabrizio advisor. Thesis advisor
"Through the same lens but from a different angle" [electronic resource] : Latino ethnic identity formation in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1968-1974

In the politically charged atmosphere of the 1960s and 1970s in the Bay Area of northern California, many Latino and Chicano youth formed multiple and fluid identities influenced by their experiences in schools and community organizations and encounters with adults in their neighborhoods. This study examines ethnic identity formation for immigrant and native-born school-age youth as well as adults and college-age students by drawing comparisons between the diverse Latino population in San Francisco and the predominantly Mexican-American population in the East Bay. This contrast highlights the complexities within the story of Latino ethnic identity formation and how this identity is often layered and situational depending on the context.

Keywords: Education.
Advisor: Labaree David F.
Camarillo Albert advisor. Thesis advisor
Gordon Leah N. advisor. Thesis advisor
Williamson-Lott Joy Ann
Time-changed birth processes, random thinning, and correlated default risk [electronic resource]

Credit risk pervades all nancial transactions. The credit crisis has indicated the need for quantitative models for valuation, hedging, rating, risk management and regulatory monitoring of credit risk. A credit investor such as a bank granting loans to rms or an asset manager buying corporate bonds is exposed to correlated default risk. A portfolio credit derivative is a nancial security that allows the investor to transfer this risk to the credit market. In the rst part of this thesis, we study the valuation and risk analysis of portfolio derivatives. To capture the complex economic phenomena that drive the pricing of these securities, we introduce a time-changed birth process as a probabilistic model of correlated event timing. The self-exciting property of a time-changed birth process captures the feedback from events that is often observed in credit markets. The stochastic variation of arrival rates between events captures the exposure of rms to common economic risk factors. We derive a closed-form expression for the distribution of a time-changed birth process, and develop analytically tractable pricing relations for a range of portfolio derivatives valuation problems. We illustrate our results by calibrating a tranche forward and option pricer to market rates of index and tranche swaps. A loss point process model such as a time-changed birth process is speci ed without reference to the portfolio constituents. It is silent about the portfolio constituent risks, and cannot be used to address applications that are based on the relationship between portfolio and component risks, for example constituent risk hedging. The second part of this thesis develops a method that extends the reach of these models to the constituents. We use random thinning to decompose the portfolio intensity into the sum of the constituent intensities. We show that a thinning process, which allocates the portfolio intensity to constituents, uniquely exists and is a probabilistic model for the next-to-default. We derive a formula for the constituent default probability in terms of the thinning process and the portfolio intensity, and develop a semi-analytical transform approach to evaluate it. The formula leads to a calibration scheme for the thinning processes, and an estimation scheme for constituent hedge sensitivities. An empirical analysis for September 2008 shows that the constituent hedges generated by our method outperform the hedges prescribed by the Gaussian copula model, which is widely used in practice.

Keywords: Management Science and Engineering
Advisor: Giesecke Kay primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Lai T. L. advisor. Thesis advisor
Primbs James advisor. Thesis advisor
To talk or to fight? [electronic resource] : collective effects of strategic, cultural, and institutional factors on investors' renegotiation approach in public-private concessions

High renegotiation rates have been observed in infrastructure concession agreements. Two recent studies found close to half of infrastructure concessions were renegotiated (Guasch and Straub 2006, Woodhouse 2006). While previous studies have offered different explanations for the occurrence of renegotiations, relatively few have written on the renegotiation process itself. Moreover, most infrastructure investment research has studied renegotiations from a rational "calculating" perspective, but has generally overlooked other non-strategic factors that may influence stakeholder decisions. This research addresses these two gaps in the literature by investigating the integrative and collective effects of three sets of variables—strategic factors, cultural dimensions, and institutional environment—on the renegotiation process. Specifically, the study investigates how these three sets of variables affect investors' renegotiation strategy, ranging from relational bargaining to legalistic arbitration or litigation, in responding to government-initiated renegotiations. Data assembled through archival research on project histories of 14 privatized transportation and power projects are analyzed using the Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fs-QCA) method and software. The fs-QCA analysis finds that combinations of strategic, cultural and institutional variables interact in three different ways that cause investors to adopt a relational renegotiation versus a legalistic response. Specifically, the three combinations that lead to a relational approach are (1) high future business and low rule of law; (2) high current investment and high assertiveness; (3) high current investment and high collectivism and high future orientation and high humane orientation. Furthermore, the net effect of any one variable can be offset by a combination of other factors that influence investors' renegotiation approach. For example, the effect of high rule of law, which promotes a legalistic approach, can be offset by favorable cultural dimensions and yield a relational approach when a high current investment level is also present. It is thus imperative to consider multiple causal factors and their interactive effects in the analysis of renegotiation strategy. This interdisciplinary research serves as a building block for other researchers to continue integrating engineering and social science to find effective measures to set up and manage Public-Private Partnership delivery of infrastructure projects.

Advisor: Levitt Raymond E. primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Garvin Michael J. (Michael Joseph) advisor. Thesis advisor
Markus Hazel Rose advisor. Thesis advisor
Topics in unsupervised learning [electronic resource] : feature selection and multi-modality

Often in the unsupervised setting one clusters data attempting to learn the unobserved latent class variable. Proper inference requires determining both the correct number of clusters and the subset of features dependent on the class variable. In the supervised setting one has prediction error to guide the decision making process. An analog for unsupervised data is prediction strength, Tibshirani and Walther (2005), whereby one attempts to estimate this error by measuring cluster stability. Originally proposed as a method for determining the number of clusters, we will show that prediction strength can also be used for feature selection. Additionally, one can compute the likelihood a feature depends on the latent variable when feature selection is posed as a model selection problem. As the dimensionality of the problem gets large sampling models must be approached with care, motivating a survey of various sampling methods. The second part of the thesis considers low-dimensional projections of the data via principal curves, Hastie and Stuetzle (1989), as a vehicle for determining the number of clusters. In the low-dimensional setting (often a single dimension) multi-modality investigation is simplified resulting in flexible estimation of the actual number of clusters.

Keywords: Statistics
Advisor: Walther Guenther primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Lai T. L. advisor. Thesis advisor
Tibshirani Robert advisor. Thesis advisor