VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The delivery of water services through public-private partnerships

Globally, approximately 1.8 billion people, mainly in low- and middle-income countries, use a source of drinking water that suffers from microbial contamination. This includes piped water supplies (Bain et al., 2014). There exists an urgent need to improve access to water supply services and to replace aging water and sanitation network infrastructure. In an effort to do so, private sector participation, mainly in the form of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), has been increasingly used to help improve efficiency, access to, and quality of water services. The first wave of PPPs led by multinational operators was met with a fair amount of backlash. The growth in PPPs since has seen a significant shift towards PPPs led by local private water operators. However, extant research has used theoretical frameworks and constructs that were developed during the multinational era and are failing to explain and predict PPP outcomes today. For the prevailing local-dominated context, a new theoretical framework is developed and suggests more relevant constructs and indicators, such as operator localness, informal renegotiations, and contract transfers, to assess contract fate in water sector public-private partnerships. Grounded theory, cross-case comparison, and fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) are used to build theory and suggest potential causal combinations leading to contract persistence and cancellation in water PPPs. Counter to the dominant theory in the literature, the analysis finds that a combination of operator localness, informal contractual supports, and contract transfers impact persistence. The findings build on our understanding of the viability of water PPPs and has implications for structuring, managing, and assessing private sector engagement in water service delivery in low- and middle-income countries. This dissertation focuses on Latin America as it has comparatively high levels of PPP experience globally and has been a focus of extant literature on water PPP renegotiations, cancellations, and performance (Andres, Guasch, Haven, & Foster, 2008; Guasch et al., 2017, 2008, 2003; Marin, 2009a; Marin et al., 2010). Argentina, especially, has implemented an ambitious water PPP program with variation in operator localness and in contract outcomes.

Advisor: Levitt Raymond E. 
Davis Jenna (Professor)
Vives Antonio
Democracy for Some or Democracy for None? The Effects of Disenfranchisement on Public Education in the Jim Crow South

Between 1890 and 1910, the eleven states of the old Confederacy each passed a series of disenfranchising reforms that would deny blacks and poor whites in the South their right to vote for the next 75 years. Recently, some political scientists have sought to characterize the South of this time period not just as a democracy for whites only, but rather as a set of subnational authoritarian enclaves within the democratic United States. This subnational authoritarian thesis of Southern politics immerses itself in the larger historical debate over the extent to which disenfranchisement in the Jim Crow South was either class motivated or race motivated. This thesis attempts to inform that debate by assessing the effects of Southern disenfranchisement on government support for black and white public education between 1891 and 1919. Previous work on the effects of disenfranchisement in the South has shown that it suppressed both black and white political participation. However, the work on the policy effects of disenfranchisement fails to test whether disenfranchisement led to less favorable policy outcomes for poor whites like it did for blacks. This project seeks to fill this hole in the literature by comparing student/teacher ratios in black and white schools in Kentucky to student/teacher ratios in black and white schools in a sample of 4 disenfranchising states. The incorporation of Kentucky as a case of a Southern ‘border state’ that never enacted disenfranchisement represents a new approach to the study of the effects of disenfranchisement in the South. I find that disenfranchisement had no discernible impact on student/teacher ratios in black or white schools, but explain why and how it still likely impacted government support for public education overall.

Keywords: Disenfranchisement
Jim Crow
Public Education
Economics
Political Science
Democracy Development and the Rule of Law
Thesis
Advisor: Wrigtht Gavin
Democratization in Divided Nations: Comparing the Impact of National Identity on Democratic Development between Taiwan and South Korea

Taiwan and South Korea are ideal cases for the most similar comparative design. First, the two countries experienced similar democratic transitional processes, and today are regarded as the most successful third-wave democracies in East Asia. Second, they share common historical experiences, including Japanese colonial rule, national divisions caused by the Cold War, the rule of anti-communist authoritarian regimes, and state-led modernization. Among these commonalities, the divided nationhood and the legacy of authoritarianism have shaped identity political cleavages in Taiwan and South Korea, but the two countries have diverged in regard to their national identities and identity politics. In Taiwan, the contending identity between the Taiwanese and Chinese and the division between Taiwan independence and Chinese unification are salient debates between the KMT and the DPP. In contrast, South Korea lacks sharp cleavages over national identity and unification, yet the political divisions based on South Korea-U.S. and North Korea–South Korea relations still plays an important role in South Korea’s identity politics.
Based on this difference in identity politics, my study hypothesizes that national identity cleavages in Taiwan are more irreconcilable than in South Korea and uses two approaches to investigate whether such nonnegotiable cleavages will bring Taiwan’s democratic development more challenges than South Korea. First, a comparative historical approach will explain the divergent development of national identity cleavages, comparing the role of national identity in Taiwan’s and South Korea’s democratic developments. Second, a quantitative approach will analyze if national identity cleavages correlate with political polarization in Taiwan and South Korea by testing their effect on democratic values.

Keywords:  Stanford Global Studies
Divided Nations
National Identity Cleavages
Identity Politics
Democratic Developments
Political Polarization
Thesis
Advisor: Diamond Larry Jay
Demographic engineering

Under what conditions do states coercively alter their demography by expelling minorities and settling peripheral lands? To answer this question, I compiled geolocated data on the incidence of ethnic cleansing and settler colonialism from around the world in the late 20th century. I also collected sub-national data tracking the incidence of demographic engineering in 20th century China, the former USSR, Australia and Rwanda. Rather than be explained by domestic politics, international norms, land availability, or ethno-racial ideologies, I find that patterns of demographic engineering are shaped by the value of frontier territory and the military concerns of states. States disproportionately cleanse and settle strategically important areas: non-natural frontiers and areas populated by rebellious and fifth column minorities. Crucially, however, industrialization lowers the value of land to potential settlers and so reduces the capacity of states to settle contested areas. As such, as states industrialize, I find that they are no longer able to alter the distribution of ethnic groups through migration. Rather, all states go through what I call a colonial transition with industrialization — industrialized states are are both less likely to try to resettle populations and less likely to have success when doing so. Settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing are thus best understood as the outcome of an equilibrium that characterizes state building in less industrialized states. Methodologically, this dissertation is the first to use sub-national panels to test the conditions under which states alter the distribution of ethnic groups, and in doing so, prompts a reconsideration of findings that have treated the distribution of ethnic groups as exogenous. More generally, by bringing the state back into the study of migration, I open up new directions for study in the nascent subfield of political demography.

Keywords: Political Science.
Advisor: Laitin David D. 
Oi Jean C. (Jean Chun) 
Rodden Jonathan 
Saperstein Aliya 
Weinstein Jeremy M.
Demystifying the Chinese Social Credit System - Orwellian or Something Else?

This thesis aims to examine the Chinese Social Credit System (SCS), 社会信用体系, that is currently in its pilot phase and is planned to go into full operation in 2020. The Chinese state have called it a modern method of economic and social governance that utilizes trust-related laws and regulations, trust monitoring, a rewards and punishments system, and a trust culture amongst many others. The program has drawn immense flak from mainstream Western media with parallels being drawn to a totalitarian surveillance system that monitors every aspect of one’s life such as the ones in George Orwell’s book 1984 or recent Netflix series Black Mirror’s Nosedive episode. This thesis thus seeks to add to existing scholarship by challenging the mainstream media perception of the SCS, offering an updated take on the Chinese Social Credit System and proposing projections on its future. Analysis indicates that the SCS is much more than a tool of political oppression, but a complex series of efforts aimed at overhauling the social, economic and political landscape of China with broad sweeping implications for Chinese society and potentially the world. However, achieving the intended goal of a nationwide SCS by 2020 is unlikely and in its present state, the system is more Kafkaesque – fragmented, poorly-operating and potentially error filled – than Orwellian.

Keywords:  Stanford Global Studies
Stanford Global Studies
East Asian Studies
Social Credit System
Social Control
Credit
Trust
China
East Asia
Asia
Thesis
Advisor: Walder Andrew
Design and characterization of wireless implant systems with ultrasonic power and data links

Implantable medical devices (IMDs) provide precise physiological monitoring and effective treatment by directly interfacing with specific organs and pathways. Current implants generally use large batteries for power and long wires to reach locations of interest, which makes them bulky and invasive; as a result, they are typically reserved for last resort treatments only. Miniaturization of IMDs down to millimeter-sized or smaller can mitigate undesirable immune response and operate in deep tissue for more targeted treatments. In addition, many of the medical applications of these implant systems, like neuromodulation can benefit from wireless data communication and networking capability for adaptive therapy and further improve treatment efficacy in a closed-loop fashion. To address these challenges and enable next-generation miniaturized wireless implant systems, we utilize ultrasound (US) for wireless power and data communication with a network of implantable devices. US has several advantages for powering and communication to miniaturized IMDs because it offers superior transduction efficiency and energy focusing due to its millimeter (mm) wavelength, low tissue attenuation through the body, and high safety limit which allows more power to be delivered for medical applications demanding more power. To provide design insights and optimize the performance of wireless implant systems using US, we present an analytical framework for optimizing end-to-end US link efficiency from transmitters to receivers to enable IMDs scaled down to mm or sub-mm dimensions. Key design objectives and trade-offs are considered for various parameters including the operating frequency, the transmission depth, the size of the transmitter, the impedance and the aperture efficiency of the miniaturized receiver, and the interface between the receiver and the power recovery chain on the implant. The design considerations and modeling for miniaturized US receivers using piezoelectric materials are then examined to obtain efficient scaled receivers. With the understanding of optimizing link performance, a mm-sized proof-of-concept implant for simultaneous US wireless power and bi-directional communication is designed and discussed. The fully packaged implant measures just 2.6 x 6.5 x 1.8 mm3, and it is the first such mm-sized implant that is able to operate with more than 6 cm in tissue. Finally, the system functionality and the networking aspect of the wireless implant systems are demonstrated at a large depth of more than 6 cm in tissue or tissue phantom with the customized US transmitter array.

Keywords: Electrical Engineering.
Advisor: Arbabian Amin 
Khuri-Yakub Butrus T.
Rivas-Davila Juan
Design and modeling of soft growing robots

Soft and bioinspired robots often take inspiration from the forms and behaviors of organisms found in nature. Robots have been designed that imitate caterpillars, amoebas, elephants, octopuses, and more, leveraging the adaptability of the organism's features. Yet few designs have considered the behavior of continuous, indeterminate growth seen in plants and some cells. This dissertation examines one such design, a soft robot that extends from the tip using a continuous stream of material everted by internal pressure, allowing the robot to increase in length. This robot essentially grows by adding new material at the tip. Because artificial growth in this form is relatively unstudied, this thesis focuses on the design, modeling, and application of the robot in order to understand the benefits and constraints in a system like this. We first looked at growth as a new degree of freedom. Unlike other forms of movement, growth is achieved by transporting new material to the tip so that it can be added to the length. To understand this difference, we develop a quasi-static model relating the driving force to the resulting growth. We show that environment friction has little to no effect on growth and that cost of material transport is a function of the previous path. Building on this model, we then demonstrate two key capabilities of growth: movement through constrained, sticky, or slippery environments and construction of usable structures to transport materials, guide tools, or create supports. Next, we consider shape change of the robot and develop a new kinematic model derived from geometric constraints that describes the robot motion and body shape given the shape of a tendon actuator. We validate the model on static and active shapes, and show how the model can be used to design actuators to match a target shape. Finally, we use the learned models and features of robotic growth to inform the design of soft growing robots for reconfigurable and deployable antennas. We use robotic growth to create a monopole antenna can change frequency by changing its length, and we create polarization change in a helical antenna using tendon actuation.

Keywords: Mechanical Engineering.
Advisor: Okamura Allison 
Cutkosky Mark R. 
Follmer Sean 
Hawkes Elliot
Design and understanding of dynamic polymer networks and polyelectrolyte complexes

Rational design of hydrogels and charged polymers is important for understanding the underlying principles that govern complex mechanical and phase behaviors of biomacromolecular systems. Mimicking and capturing such behaviors in synthetic polymer systems are highly desired for many biomedical and technical applications. Biological tissues exhibit complex dynamic mechanical properties. To capture and control dynamics in synthetic hydrogel scaffolds, I developed a hyaluronic acid (HA)-based dynamic hydrogel system crosslinked by dynamic covalent hydrazone bonds. The HA hydrogels and collagen I generated an interpenetrating network, which exhibited both well-controlled mechanical tunability and fibrillarity, thus providing an adaptable platform to study the cell-matrix interactions. A biocompatible catalyst that accelerates the exchange of hydrazones was then incorporated into the HA-hydrazone hydrogel to modulate the dynamics of crosslinks without affecting network structures. This approach was used to develop injectable hydrogels for cell delivery with high injectability and stability enabled by temporal catalyst controlled hydrogel dynamics. The catalyst control of network dynamics also enabled quantitative and unambiguous correlation between the network parameters and mechanical properties of dynamic polymer networks. In the second part, I investigated the fundamental study on liquid-like polyelectrolyte complexes (PECs) formed by oppositely charged polyelectrolytes. PECs are important in biological systems for membraneless compartments, however the understanding of the mechanism and structure-property relationship is limited. I developed a series of well-defined polymers with tunable structural parameters to modulate the microenvironment of PECs and clearly revealed the importance of local polarity and polyelectrolyte composition on PECs.

Keywords: Materials Science and Engineering.
Advisor: Heilshorn Sarah 
Xia Yan
Chaudhuri Ovijit
The design of implicit pedestrian-autonomous vehicle interactions

Automotive manufacturers and researchers have posited that pedestrians will feel uncomfortable crossing in front of driverless vehicles—autonomous vehicles that lack visible human operators. This belief is often based on the lack of driver-related cues such as eye contact and hand waves that can communicate when it is safe for a pedestrian to cross. As such, interface concepts based on explicit communication such as displays, lights, or projections have been developed to indicate to pedestrians when it is safe to cross. However, the underlying need for such interfaces, and their efficacy, have not been thoroughly explored in on-road settings. It is likely that autonomous vehicles can simply depend on legacy behaviors, such as slowing appropriately, to interact with pedestrians. This dissertation explores the design of motion and engine sound as implicit communication between autonomous vehicles and pedestrians. We begin by investigating motor sound's subtle influence on human-robot interactions, working towards identifying characteristics of sound that contribute to particular subjective experiences. We show that changing the timbre of sound alone, while leaving all other dimensions constant, can change someone's perception of a robot. We then apply these findings in the context of autonomous vehicles, where engine sound could implicitly cue that the vehicle will yield for a pedestrian, particularly in electric vehicles that will soon be required to project artificial engine sound while moving at low speeds. Through a field study, we demonstrate how a visibly driverless vehicle's motion and engine sound can communicate to pedestrians that it is safe to cross. During these studies, we drove a simulated driverless vehicle in everyday traffic, and researchers standing by interviewed unsuspecting pedestrians who interacted with the vehicle. We then analyzed video of each interaction to evaluate responses to the vehicle. While the novelty of a driverless vehicle did surprise some, many did not even notice its autonomous nature. Most pedestrians reported positive experiences, and all crossed in front of the vehicle without the need for explicit communication. While not inclusive of all crossing situations, this work challenges the assumption that driverless vehicles will need explicit displays to replace driver-pedestrian communication at crosswalks. In addition, it contributes design requirements for socially appropriate stopping behavior and artificial engine sound for autonomous electric vehicles. In doing so, we bring automotive design a step closer to solving a critical human factors problem that could hinder the widespread adoption of autonomous vehicles.

Keywords: Mechanical Engineering.
Advisor: Leifer Larry J. 
Sirkin David Andrew
Cutkosky Mark R. 
Ju Wendy
Shanks Michael
Design optimization of highly flexible aircraft with aeroelastic constraints

With the need to drastically reduce aircraft emissions and fuel burn, there have been significant strides towards the design of fuel-efficient aircraft. This has involved moving towards extremely high aspect-ratio wings that need to be aeroelastically tailored and unconventional aircraft configurations. However aeroelastic stability of such configurations is a major challenge. In order to ensure that the fuel-burn improvements predicted in the conceptual or early preliminary design phase are attained in reality, it is essential to ensure that aeroelastic constraints are enforced early on in the design phase itself. However inexpensive yet accurate computation of transonic aeroelasticity especially transonic flutter predictions is quite a challenge due to the non-linearity in the flow at transonic regimes which requires non-linear fluid dynamics approaches that are generally too expensive for the early design phases. In this work we attempt to address this issue by first developing a two-dimensional parametric transonic low-order model that accurately predicts unsteady flow results for airfoils. A set of airfoil agnostic parameters for this model are obtained that permit accurate two-dimensional transonic aeroelastic simulations. This approach is then extended into three dimensions using the ASWING Weissinger model formulation. Next a set of in-house capabilities are developed that permit the inclusion of this approach into a conceptual design loop. Finally a number of flutter constrained optimizations are performed to understand the impact of imposing flutter constraints in an aircraft design/sizing loop.

Keywords: Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Advisor: Alonso Juan José
Jameson Antony
Kroo Ilan