VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Science in popular television [electronic resource] : comparing perspectives of middle school students, university students, and media makers

Popular media influences the ideas about science constructed by the public, affecting outcomes such as scientific knowledge, the pipeline of future scientists, and the public engagement with science. A growing recognition of the impact of entertainment media has resulted in public policy organizations promoting the use of science consultants to influence television and film. Yet, even as the overall connection from consultants to popular media to public outcomes can be broadly inferred, the specifics of this chain of influence are not well understood. This study contributes to building this understanding though an integrated examination of the messages and plot intended by the media makers and consultants for one show and how these were 'read' and received by a range of audiences. To achieve this goal, focus groups were conducted with middle school students and non-science university students watching selected clips of Eleventh Hour -- a television show about a fictional scientist. Interviews were also conducted with both the creator and the consulting scientist of the show. Analysis of the data showed that the show creator and university students discussed the cultural contexts of science, whereas the consultant and middle school students did not. This suggests the consulting scientist missed an opportunity to influence the portrayal of these aspects. It also suggests middle school students may be reading the cultural aspects of media uncritically, a deficiency educators could address in the classroom. In contrast, all groups discussed the science content and practices of the show, indicating that the scientific facts of the program were salient to both media makers and audiences. This suggests that popular media may be influencing public scientific knowledge, supporting the concerns of scientists and science consultants about the accuracy of science in television and film.

Keywords: Education.
Advisor: Osborne Jonathan primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Ardoin Nicole M. (Nicole Michele) advisor. Thesis advisor
Brown Bryan Anthony advisor. Thesis advisor
Willinsky John
Screening for Novel Colon Cancer Oncogenes in Primary Intestinal Organoid Culture

Online databases like TCGA are useful sources for finding an enormous amount of information about specific cancers; unfortunately, there is a lack of tools capable of traversing such large datasets. MethylMix is one answer to this problem. The algorithm correlates differential methylation patterns with relevant transcriptional elevation or depletion and has the potential to discover new oncogenes. Differential methylation is a novel mechanism of cancer initiation and this MethylMix has yielded a list of potential candidates displaying oncogenic behavior. This list shows a clear correlation of alternate methylation and transcriptional aberration with cancer, but there is a need to screen these genes in order to determine whether they are merely passenger mutations, or if they’re actually contributing to the oncogenic phenotype. One of the genes, ELF5, is significantly hypomethylated and overexpressed in a subset of CRCs. Using in vitro analysis in three dimensional organoid culture, ELF5 is shown to induce hyperproliferation and dysplasia. Furthermore, clinical samples with increased ELF5 expression show a decrease in ELF5 promoter methylation, confirming the correlation found by MethylMix and supporting ELF5’s clinical significance. The mechanism for ELF5-overexpression tumorigenesis is unknown and does not follow the canonical mechanism in breast cancers with the ELF5 mutation; however, the data presented here suggests that ELF5 interacts with the Wnt-signaling pathway to initiate oncogenic behavior.

Keywords:  Department of Biology
Molecular Biology
methylation
organoids
ELF5
CRC
Thesis
Advisor: Kuo Calvin
Nelson W. James
Search for low-mass dark matter with superCDMS Soudan and study of shorted electric field configurations in CDMS detectors [electronic resource]

The area of dark matter is one of the most interesting and exciting topics in physics today. Experiments such as SuperCDMS are built to detect dark matter in the lab by looking for low-energy nuclear recoils produced by collisions between dark matter particles and atoms in terrestrial detectors. SuperCDMS Soudan is particularly well-suited to follow up on possible hints of low-mass dark matter seen by other recent experiments because of its low thresholds and excellent background discrimination. Analyzing SuperCDMS Soudan data to look for low-mass dark matter comes with particular challenges because of the low signal-to-noise very near threshold. However, with a detailed background model developed by scaling high-energy events down into the low-energy signal region, SuperCDMS Soudan produced world-leading limits on the existence of low-mass dark matter. However, a few SuperCDMS Soudan detectors experienced cold hardware problems that can affect the data collected. Of particular interest is one detector considered for the low-mass WIMP search that has one of its charge electrodes shorted to chassis ground. The data collected by the shorted detector may have been compromised since an electrode shorted to ground will modify the electric field in the detector. A new model of the expected backgrounds in the low-mass WIMP search is developed using the SuperCDMS Detector Monte Carlo to try to explain how the short may have affected the data collected. Finally, the consequences of a new effective field theory of dark matter-nucleon scattering are examined in the context of current and future dark matter direct detection experiments.

Keywords: Physics.
Advisor: Cabrera Blas primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Partridge Richard
Wechsler Risa H. (Risa Heyrman) advisor. Thesis advisor
A search for non-standard model Higgs bosons produced in association with b-quarks at the ATLAS experiment [electronic resource]

With the discovery of a Standard-Model-like Higgs boson at the LHC in 2012, the particle content of the Standard Model has been fully verified experimentally, and the focus turns even more fully to searches for physics beyond the Standard Model. One interesting class of theories, supersymmetry, predicts (at least) 4 additional Higgs bosons. This is a search for two of those SUSY Higgs particles, A0 and H0, in production states including additional b-quarks and in final states where A0 and H0 are decaying to a b-bbar final state. Using data-driven estimations to understand and model the large multi-b-quark QCD backgrounds at the LHC, we set limits on the production cross section times b-bbar branching ratio of 1.79-0.25 pb in the range 450 GeV < mA0 < 800 GeV. No statistically significant excess is observed in the data relative to the background-only expectations. This is the first resonance search in this final state at ATLAS, and the highest-mass search for A0 and H0 decaying to b-bbar that has yet been performed.

Keywords: Physics.
Advisor: Su Dong
Burchat P. (Patricia) advisor. Thesis advisor
Dixon Lance
Searching for the QCD axion with black holes and gravitational waves [electronic resource]

Advanced LIGO may be the first experiment to detect gravitational waves. Through superradiance of stellar black holes, it may also be the first experiment to discover the QCD axion with decay constant above the grand unification scale. When an axion's Compton wavelength is comparable to the size of a black hole, the axion binds to the black hole, forming a ``gravitational atom.'' Through the superradiance process, the number of axions occupying the bound levels grows exponentially, extracting energy and angular momentum from the black hole. Axions transitioning between levels of the gravitational atom and axions annihilating to gravitons can produce observable gravitational wave signals. The signals are long-lasting, monochromatic, and can be distinguished from ordinary astrophysical sources. We estimate up to order one transition events at aLIGO and up to ten thousand annihilation events. In the event of a null search, aLIGO can constrain the axion mass for a range of rapidly spinning black hole formation rates. Axion annihilations are also promising for much lighter masses at future lower-frequency gravitational wave observatories; the rates have large uncertainties, dominated by supermassive black hole spin distributions. Our projections for aLIGO are robust against perturbations from the black hole environment and account for our updated exclusion on the QCD axion suggested by stellar black hole spin measurements.

Keywords: Physics.
Advisor: Dimopoulos Savas
Graham Peter (Peter Wickelgren) advisor. Thesis advisor
Senatore Leonardo
Secrets, lies, and fiction [electronic resource] : genesis of individuation in Rousseau's autobiographical texts

This dissertation examines the relationship between deceptive and near-deceptive rhetorical structures (such as secrets, lies, and fiction) and the process of individuation in Rousseau's autobiographical works. Individuation starts as a realization of the separation that exists between the mind of a subject and the minds of other social agents. This cognitive ability is called separation of consciousness: it is the belief that our own mind and inner-self are not readily available to others. The opposite of this belief is the illusion of transparency. In Rousseau's texts, deception is often impelled by separation of consciousness, which is a fundamental step in the process of formation of the self. The ability to deceive depends on how well a person can realize the separation of consciousness and also how well one can manipulate symbolic representations. Chapter One and Two analyze individuation grounded in the principle of transparency and the way in which Rousseau's autobiographical project conveys a new idea of individuation based on the notions of separation and difference. Chapter Three describes in detail the different situations in Rousseau's self-referential texts in which self-individuation does or does not take place. Chapter Four brings together two perspectives — the social and cognitive phenomenon of self-individuation and the issues of representation — in order to expose how self-individuation relates to the abilities to keep secrets, lie, and fictionalize oneself. This dissertation studies the relationship between deception and self-individuation in works that were among the first self-referential texts to actualize this link: Rousseau's autobiographical texts, primarily Les Confessions (1764-1770), Rousseau juge de Jean-Jacques (1772-1775), and Les Rêveries du promeneur solitaire (1776-1778).
Security empire [electronic resource] : building the secret police in communist Eastern Europe, 1944-1952

This dissertation explores how and why three countries with different histories and political cultures—Poland, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany—came to adopt communist political systems in the period following the Second World War. Through a comparative study of one institution, the communist secret police, it explores the people, sentiments, debates, and motivations that turned post-war chaos into centrally organized communist states. It argues that secret police forces in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and East Germany were never as homogenous and unified as historians have commonly assumed. In fact, Eastern European secret police forces developed different institutional forms depending on the social conditions, geography, and experiences of war of each country.

Keywords: History.
Advisor: Naimark Norman M. primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Herzog Tamar advisor. Thesis advisor
Holloway David
Jolluck Katherine R.
Weiner Amir
Seeing the Edges: How Art Museums Access the Educational Values of Storage Objects

This undergraduate honors thesis explores how education officers at American art museums seek to provide visitors with meaningful experiences that access the educational values of their storage collection. How do art museums tap into the educational value of the objects and artifacts kept in storage to provide the meaningful learning experiences for visitors? To whom do museums provide these experiences? Where are these storage interactions taking place and what values do they have, if any, that are different from gallery experiences? Where is there general agreement among museum educators and where do their perceptions differ? These questions are addressed, through interviews, by educators at 8 different art museums that represent a diverse range of size, visitor demographic, collection type, and location on the East and West coasts of the U.S. I present results that discuss the two types of storage experiences museums are providing: Formal Interactions and Informal Interactions; their values, including increased object visibility, new contexts and new questions, and personal connections; their challenges in preserving the objects and preserving the preciousness of the storage experience; and the counter-narratives that present different perspectives on opening access to storage. This research fills a current gap in our understanding of museum learning while opening and encouraging a conversation among museum educators.

Keywords: arts education
museum education
museum storage
museum educators
informal learning
Graduate School of Education Honors Thesis Stanford University
Thesis
Advisor: Kelman Ari
Willinsky John
Seeking justice in the courtroom and beyond [electronic resource] : confronting mass atrocity in law and literature

Seeking Justice takes as its starting point the growing prominence of legal mechanisms in censuring war and conflict related atrocities. It considers 1945 and the establishment of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg as a watershed moment that ushered in a new era in humanity's quest for post-atrocity justice. The historic decision, however, did not end the search for justice. Attempting to balance the scales of justice, legal institutions faced a crisis of incommensurability between the extraordinary crimes and basic elements of ordinary legal justice -- the goals of the process, especially retribution, its procedural form, and its resolution in a final judgment. In the process of overcoming these challenges of incommensurability, legal institutions -- the Nuremberg tribunal, the Israeli Court in the Eichmann trial and the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission - imagined anew what justice is and should be in the aftermath of atrocity. Producing new notions of justice: enlightenment as justice, narrative as justice, and storytelling as justice, these institutions highlighted some aspects of justice, while marginalizing others. Stepping beyond the boundaries of the legal field, Seeking Justice examines cultural narratives that react - directly or explicitly - to the work of legal mechanisms of justice. The turn to the literary, from journalistic reports on legal proceedings to novels, plays, and films that fictionally engage with the pursuit of justice, my work sheds light on those elements of justice that remain absent, unaccounted for or marginalized in process of metaphorization: the desire for revenge, the dangers of omniscient narrative about the past, and the longing for conclusion and resolution. Bringing together the legal and the literary, Seeking Justice explores humanity's deep belief or desire to believe in the possibility of delivering justice in the aftermath of atrocity and the ongoing challenges it must face as it confronts extraordinary crimes in the courtroom and beyond.

Keywords: Comparative Literature.
Advisor: Eshel Amir primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Gumbrecht Hans Ulrich advisor. Thesis advisor
Meyler Bernadette advisor. Thesis advisor
Naimark Norman M. advisor. Thesis advisor
Shemtov Vered Karti advisor. Thesis advisor
Seismic wave velocity and attenuation in rocks with mesoscopic-scale heterogeneity [electronic resource]

This dissertation describes theoretical developments, numerical simulations, and a field case study on the effect of mesoscopic-scale medium heterogeneity on seismic velocity and attenuation. We focus on the relationship between the wave properties and water saturation. There are three approaches for the study of the effect mesoscale heterogeneity: regular geometry models, branching approaches, and statistical approaches. We develop a hybrid model providing velocity dispersion and attenuation in partially saturated rocks based on the last approach. It will be called Bounds-Averaged Dynamic-Equivalent-Medium Approach (BA-DEMA) and the variable characteristic length model. The developed model has advantages of both the branching and the statistical approaches; it has the appropriate low and high frequency limits; it has an analytical interpolation function which gives appropriate frequency dependence both in low and high frequency regimes, the interpolation function is defined with measurable parameters; and most of all, the mathematical expression is quite simple. These features are the advantages of the new model that would be enough to be recommended for the future use to predict seismic velocity and attenuation in multiphase-fluid saturated media. Forward seismic modeling is an inevitable step to connect rock's properties and their spatial distribution with observable seismic signatures. We describe a practical workflow to evaluate the effects of wave-induced fluid flow. It will serve as a practical guide in forward seismic attenuation modeling. Compared to classical forward seismic modeling procedures, two additional steps are required in attenuation modeling: permeability modeling and estimating dry rock heterogeneity scale. Many authors are trying to develop sophisticated algorithms to extract reliable attenuation information, and broad band seismic data is increasingly available even in exploration projects. The quantitative use of attenuation information derived from surface reflection seismic data is still quite challenging; however, it will become reality in the near future, where forward attenuation modeling discussed in this dissertation will become important. Not only surface reflection seismic but also other techniques such as vertical seismic profile or cross-well seismic profile are utilized to infer subsurface elastic properties and provide the useful information across a target reservoir or the overburden. The latter techniques use high frequency seismic pulse and transmitted waves, which are preferable in attenuation studies and open the possibility of extracting attenuation information more accurately. Recently, attenuation of full-waveform sonic data is also attracting attention. Procedures for the forward attenuation modeling shown in this dissertation can also help the analyses and the interpretations of the different seismic surveys.

Keywords: Geophysics.
Advisor: Mavko Gary
Lawrence Jesse advisor. Thesis advisor
Mukerji Tapan
Seismological constraints on the mechanics of intermediate-depth earthquakes in the Bucaramanga Nest [electronic resource]

For all the progress that seismology has made in the last century, intermediate-depth earthquakes are a relatively poorly understood phenomenon. They occur at depths 50-300 km, where high temperatures and pressures prohibit traditional brittle shear failure. Intermediate-depth earthquakes frequently occur in concentrated regions of seismicity called "earthquake nests". One such nest, the Bucaramanga Nest, beneath northern Colombia, is the focus of this work. It is the smallest and densest cluster of intermediate-depth seismicity in the world. This clustered region of seismicity produces thousands of events each year. While the nest does not pose the hazard other intermediate-depth earthquake nests might (e.g. the Vrancea Nest, Romania), the nest is capable of producing moderate shaking such as in the M 6.2 event that occurred in the nest in early 2015. This high level of seismicity provides an opportunity to study characteristics of the nest and its earthquakes as a natural laboratory. This dissertation utilizes the tools of observational seismology to expand on processes of intermediate-depth seismicity with particular emphasis on constraining the underlying failure mechanism. To maximize the observations of nest seismicity, I develop a new and novel earthquake detection method that bridges the gap between general and specific earthquake detection algorithms. Through observations of these events, I find repeating and reverse-polarity repeating signals and explain how the timing and relative locations of these earthquakes are indicative of subduction processes at intermediate-depths. I am also able to perform a comprehensive search for small magnitude earthquakes and find the Bucaramanga Nest deviates from traditional Gutenberg-Richter magnitude-frequency distributions at the small end magnitude of the magnitude spectrum. I find multiple lines of evidence that support a thermal shear instability failure mechanism for these intermediate-depth nest earthquakes.

Keywords: Geophysics.
Advisor: Beroza Gregory C. (Gregory Christian) primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Lawrence Jesse advisor. Thesis advisor
Warren Jessica
Selective inference and learning mixed graphical models [electronic resource]

This thesis studies two problems in modern statistics. First, we study selective inference, or inference for hypothesis that are chosen after looking at the data. The motiving application is inference for regression coefficients selected by the lasso. We present the Condition-on-Selection method that allows for valid selective inference, and study its application to the lasso, and several other selection algorithms. In the second part, we consider the problem of learning the structure of a pairwise graphical model over continuous and discrete variables. We present a new pairwise model for graphical models with both continuous and discrete variables that is amenable to structure learning. In previous work, authors have considered structure learning of Gaussian graphical models and structure learning of discrete models. Our approach is a natural generalization of these two lines of work to the mixed case. The penalization scheme involves a novel symmetric use of the group-lasso norm and follows naturally from a particular parametrization of the model. We provide conditions under which our estimator is model selection consistent in the high-dimensional regime.

Keywords: Computational and Mathematical Engineering.
Advisor: Hastie Trevor primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Taylor Jonathan
Mackey Lester advisor. Thesis advisor