VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Scalable Platform for Malicious Content Detection Integrating Machine Learning and Manual Review

This thesis examines the design, implementation and performance of a scalable analysis platform for the detection of malicious content. To reflect the deployment of actual production systems, we design our platform to explicitly model the passage of time and the involvement of human supervisors in the analysis process. This thesis shows how our platform can operate efficiently at a large scale. The thesis presents and evaluates our platform in the context of a case study focused on malware detection./nTo model the passage of time while still allowing for batch training methods our platform discretizes time into a series of retraining periods, allowing updated samples and labels to emerge during each period. During each retraining period, our platform combines the presently deployed model with externally available information about newly emerged samples to select samples for submission to a human labeling oracle. To support a large volume of data over successive timeframes, our platform uses advanced techniques to manage the size of data including compression and selective data retention. These operations support efficient feature extraction./nOur platform is implemented in Python, allowing use of both the Python scientific stack (Numpy, Scipy, Scikit-Learn) and IPython for interactive, distributed computation. In the interest of scalability our system uses HDFS and Apache Spark to manage distributed data and computation. This thesis discusses our implementation as well as the hardware and software configuration supporting our system./nThis thesis presents an evaluation of our work using a malware dataset containing over 1 million samples collected over a period of 2.5 years. It begins by characterizing our dataset, including an examination of label shift over time motivating our work. It presents evidence demonstrating that by submitting a small fraction of samples for human review we are able to appreciably increase detection outcomes./nWe have released our code along with 3% of our case study data, allowing replication of our results on a single node. Note that detection performance will vary due to the decrease in available training data.

Advisor: Joseph, Anthony D.
Tygar, J. D.
Science and the Public Good in the American Research University

This study uses the public controversy that erupted around the research partnership between the University of California, Berkeley and British Petroleum founding the Energy Biosciences Institute as an entry point into a three-part analysis in the sociology of knowledge, broadly defined. A systematic reconstruction of the controversy and review of existing scholarship on changes in the American science regime, transformation of public research universities and the politics of emerging technologies indicate that both lay and scholarly accounts on these related phenomena can be organized roughly under two headings. Under one heading, observers draw on an implicit or explicit attachment to the Enlightenment ideal of reason to wage critiques that are not adequately attentive to the conditions of production of science and technology. Under the other, observers offer detailed accounts of university-industry research relations, changes in universities and developments in technoscience, but without adequate critique./nTo move beyond this impasse, I propose to resuscitate Robert K. Merton’s proposal to theorize science as an institution in relation to its societal context, but dispense with the idea of “relative autonomy” that informs both his and Pierre Bourdieu’s theories of science. Taking the Energy Biosciences Institute as a signpost for key forces shaping science and technology today, I argue that the production of reliable knowledge is strongly interdependent with economic capital and technology, and that this interdependence renders the stipulation of autonomy obsolete. Combining this argument with insights from science and technology studies regarding (i) the variety of products of research, (ii) the dissolution of the boundary between science and technology; and (iii) how technoscience is inherently political, I argue that it is the nature of associations and engagements that shapes science’s perils and promise for different constituencies. In this framework, the basis for critique is no longer the loss of autonomy, but the lack of democracy resulting from inequalities of various forms of capital. This proposed shift in the basis of critique helps advance the definition and defense of the public interest in debates on universities and on technoscience.

Advisor: Lie, John
Fast and Effective Approximations for Summarization and Categorization of Very Large Text Corpora

Given the overwhelming quantities of data generated every day, there is a pressing need for tools that can extract valuable and timely information. Vast reams of text data are now published daily, containing information of interest to those in social science, marketing, finance, and public policy, to name a few. Consider the case of the micro-blogging website Twitter, which in May 2013 was estimated to contain 58 million messages per day: in a single day, Twitter generates a greater volume of words than the Encyclopedia Brittanica. The magnitude of the data being analyzed, even over short time-spans, is out of reach of unassisted human comprehension./nThis thesis explores scalable computational methodologies that can assist human analysts and researchers in understanding very large text corpora. Existing methods for sparse and interpretable text classification, regression, and topic modeling, such as the Lasso, Sparse PCA, and probabilistic Latent Semantic Indexing, provide the foundation for this work. While these methods are either linear algebraic or probabilistic in nature, this thesis contributes a hybrid approach wherein simple probability models provide dramatic dimensionality reduction to linear algebraic problems, resulting in computationally efficient solutions suitable for real-time human interaction./n/nSpecifically, minimizing the probability of large deviations of a linear regression model while assuming a $k$-class probabilistic text model yields a $k$-dimensional optimization problem, where $k$ can be much smaller than either the number of documents or features. Further, a simple non-negativity constraint on the problem yields a sparse result without the need of an $\ell_1$ regularization. The problem is also considered and analyzed in the case of uncertainty in the model parameters. Towards the problem of estimating such probabilistic text models, a fast implementation of Sparse Principal Component Analysis is investigated and compared with Latent Dirichlet Allocation. Methods of fitting topic models to a dataset are discussed. Specific examples on a variety of text datasets are provided to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed methods.

Advisor: El Ghaoui, Laurent
Drilling on Mars – Mathematical Model for Rotary-Ultrasonic Core Drilling of Brittle Materials

The results from the Phoenix mission led scientists to believe it is possible that primitive life exists below the Martian surface. Therefore, drilling in Martian soil in search for organisms is the next logical step. Drilling on Mars is a major engineering challenge due to the drilling depth requirement. Mars lacks a thick atmosphere and a continuous magnetic field that shield the planet’s surface from solar radiation and solar flares. As a result, the Martian surface is sterile and if life ever existed, it must be found below the surface. In 2001, NASA’s Mars Exploration Payload Advisory Group proposed that drilling should be considered as a priority investigation on Mars in an effort of finding evidence of extinct or extant life./nOn August 6, 2012, the team of engineers landed the spacecraft Curiosity on the surface of Mars by using a revolutionary hovering platform. The results from the Curiosity mission suggested the next logical step, which is drilling six meters deep in the red planet in search of life. Excavation tools deployed to Mars so far have been able to drill to a maximum depth of 6.5 cm. Thus, the drilling capabilities need to be increased by a factor or approximately 100 to achieve the goal of drilling six meters deep. This requirement puts a demand on developing a new and more effective technologies to reach this goal. Previous research shows evidence of a promising drilling mechanism in rotary-ultrasonic for what it offers in terms of high surface quality, faster rate of penetration and higher material removal rate./nThis research addresses the need to understand the mechanics of the drill bit tip and rock interface in rotary-ultrasonic drilling of brittle materials. A mathematical model identifying all contributing independent parameters, such as drill bit design parameters, drilling process parameters, ultrasonic wave amplitude and rocks’ material properties, that have effect on rate of penetration is developed. Analytical and experimental results are presented to show the effect of the variation of different parameters on rate of penetration performance.

Advisor: Pruitt, Lisa
Johnson, George
Canted-Cosine-Theta Superconducting Accelerator Magnets for High Energy Physics and Ion Beam Cancer Therapy

Advances in superconducting magnet technology have historically enabled the construction of new, higher energy hadron colliders. Looking forward to the needs of a potential future collider, a significant increase in magnet field and performance is required. Such a task requires an open mind to the investigation of new design concepts for high field magnets. Part I of this thesis will present an investigation of the Canted-Cosine-Theta (CCT) design for high field Nb3Sn magnets. New analytic and finite element methods for analysis of CCT magnets will be given, along with a discussion on optimization of the design for high field. The design, fabrication, and successful test of the 2.5 T NbTi dipole CCT1 will be presented as a proof-of-principle step towards a high field Nb3Sn magnet. Finally, the design and initial steps in the fabrication of the 16 T Nb3Sn dipole CCT2 will be described./nPart II of this thesis will investigate the CCT concept extended to a curved magnet for use in an ion beam therapy gantry. The introduction of superconducting technology in this field shows promise to reduce the weight and cost of gantries, as well as open the door to new beam optics solutions with high energy acceptance. An analytic approach developed for modeling curved CCT magnets will be presented, followed by a design study of a superconducting magnet for a proton therapy gantry. Finally, a new magnet concept called the "Alternating Gradient CCT" (AG-CCT) will be introduced. This concept will be shown to be a practical magnet solution for achieving the alternating quadrupole fields desired for an achromatic gantry, allowing for the consideration of treatment with minimal field changes in the superconducting magnets./nThe primary motivation of this thesis is to share new developments for Canted-Cosine-Theta superconducting magnets, with the hope this design will improve technology for high energy physics and ion beam cancer therapy.

Advisor: van Bibber, Karl
Local Production, Territorial Governance: The Political Economy of Subnational Industrial Policies in Brazil

This dissertation explores the emerging political economies of industrial policies undertaken at the subnational level in Brazilian cities since the mid-1990s, which became targets of economic development initiatives by the Federal government in the early 2000s. Contrary to the statist industrial policies of the post-World War II era, this new generation of industrial policies are implemented through collaborative relationships between private sector actors organized in governance networks made up of trade associations, labor unions, non-governmental organizations, and a constellation of public sector actors from all levels of government. Analyzing fourteen clusters in distinct industries in Brazil, this dissertation investigates these governance networks, and argues that their structure plays an important role in the implementation of subnational industrial policies. Specifically, I analyze the ways in which the motivation for forming such governance networks among entrepreneurs, local and state governments, and other actors lead to policies designed to generate developmental spillovers, or whether they are narrowly targeted towards a small segment of firms. Although the analysis focuses on regions within the peculiar case of Brazil, it draws insights from regions exhibiting a broad range of socioeconomic conditions, whose economies are driven by several different types of industries, and in which local and state governments vary widely in their capacity to implement their policy agenda. In this regard, the analysis provides insights to debates on economic development in other contexts; particularly middle-income countries where cluster-based policies have become fashionable in recent decades.

Advisor: Chapple, Karen
Revealing the Pathway from Couple Relationship to Children’s Social Competence: The Role of Life Stress, Parenting Self-Efficacy, and Effective Parenting

Parenting is an intricate matter influenced by multiple processes and elements within the family. Drawing from the earlier work, I this study aims to examine the effects of supportive couple relationships on mothers’ ability to engage in competent parenting, which helps promote children’s self-regulation development conducted comparative path analysis with a sample of 335 mothers drawn from a larger study of families of first- and second-grade children in public elementary schools in an urban school district in Northern California (n=130) and in the Tokyo metropolitan area (n=157) and 58 teachers (38 teachers in the United States, 20 teachers in Japan),. The results indicated a consistency in the association between mothers’ satisfaction in couple relationships and their parenting competence across groups in both the United States and Japan. The result also indicated the uniqueness in the couple relationship-parenting competence link across the two nations, especially in terms of the domains of parenting vulnerable to couple relationship quality and its effects upon parenting self-efficacy. The benefits that supportive couple relationships project onto child rearing may be a universal feature of family life. Nevertheless, the values and practices specific to various cultural models of parenting determine which domains of parenting are vulnerable to the quality of couple relationships./nThe purpose of the present research is to uncover the cross-national generalizability and differences of the psychological process that links supportive couple to mothers’ psychological well-being and parenting competence.

Advisor: Holloway, Susan D
Alcohol Use and Policy Responses in Modern China: New Developments in a Changing Society

Excessive alcohol consumption is a worldwide social problem that has greatly contributed to the global burden of disease, disability and death. Overall volume of alcohol consumption and prevalence of alcohol-related problems in China have remained relatively low in comparison to many western countries until recent years. Since the liberal economic reforms of the early 1980s, China has witnessed an alarmingly increasing rate of alcohol consumption, and as a result, increasing incidence of alcohol-related injuries and morbidity. However, comprehensive alcohol policy and public health infrastructure to address the problems associated with these changes have not yet been established. Using data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey, this dissertation - comprised of three papers - utilizes quantitative methods to examine alcohol consumption behaviors in China, in order to identify alcohol policies and interventions that are both applicable to and appropriate for the Chinese context and to recommend next steps for alcohol control policy and intervention areas in China. The first paper explores the socio-demographic and other factors that are associated with alcohol consumption behaviors in order to identify populations that are at risk for problem alcohol use and that may be targeted for prevention/public health education programs. The second paper establishes evidence regarding alcohol consumption behaviors and its association with community-level alcohol access characteristics, such as proximity of alcohol outlets and price of different types of alcohol. The third examines the association between alcohol consumption and healthcare utilization, in order to identify health policy needs for persons at risk for the development of costly chronic diseases. The three principal conclusions from the three papers are: (1) there is strong evidence of a closing gender gap in problematic alcohol consumption behaviors between men and women - although men are still more likely to consume more alcohol and be frequent and heavy drinkers than women, alcohol consumption levels and rates of heavy drinking among women are significantly increasing; (2) absence of alcohol vendor availability is associated with decreased alcohol consumption, and cost of beer and aged liquor is inversely associated amount of alcohol consumed and heavy drinking; and (3) problematic drinkers in China appear to under-utilize preventive healthcare services and possibly formal medical care in general.

Advisor: Chow, Julian
Berrick, Jill D.
The Crude Urban Revolution: Land Markets, Planning Forms and the Making of a New Luanda

This dissertation examines the relationship between petro-capitalism and urban development in contemporary Luanda. Focusing on the last two decades of intense urban transformation, the dissertation advances the notion of “the crude urban revolution” as a placeholder for the decisive role that petroleum plays in shaping the city. Making sense of how this powerful configuring arrangement has been unfolding on different realms of officialdom, three interrelated stories are told./nThe first is about the formation of an official market for land and real estate. Providing an analysis of the Luanda Sul Program, a public-private initiative aimed at stimulating formal land transactions, this story maps out the establishment of its main private partner – the Brazilian firm Odebrecht – in Angola. This provides a vantage point to see how oil enabled the real estate market to be introduced as a means for promoting urban development, and to make sense of what arguably became a crucial reference model for subsequent state sanctioned interventions in Luanda./nThe second story focuses on the creation of the Luanda Institute of Planning and Urban Management. Delving into the vicissitudes of planning forms and institutions, the ensuing analysis offers a reflection on law, planning and the practices of the state. Luanda’s planning realm is considered here as a heterogeneous and highly contested arena where bureaucratic complication becomes a mode of rule and oil emerges as a key agent for dissolving the entrapments of official planning processes./nThe third and final story of this dissertation is about the emergence of a new mode of city making. Examining the urban development apparatus that led to establishment of Luanda’s New Centralities, this story traces the intricate ensemble of oil deals, financial transitions, urban developmental ambitions and modes of planning expertise that connect the undersea of the Angolan coastline to the rise of new cities in the periphery of Luanda, via circuitry threads that extend to Beijing and Hong Kong.

Advisor: Caldeira, Teresa
Essays in Matching

In this dissertation, I study the properties of and propose the use of a family of random mechanisms for a large class of problems where agents need to be matched to objects or to each other without the use of monetary transfers./nIn the first chapter, I study the problem of kidney exchange under strict ordinal preferences and with constraints on the length of the trading cycles. The requirement of individual rationality in this setting incentivizes patient-donor pairs who are compatible with each other to participate in the kidney exchange, thus increasing the match rate for incompatible pairs. I show that deterministic mechanisms have poor properties in this environment. Instead, I explicitly define an individually rational, efficient and fair random mechanism for the case of pairwise kidney exchange. Finally, I show that individual rationality, efficiency and weak strategyproofness are incompatible for the cycle-constrained case making the proposed mechanism, called the 2-Cycle Probabilistic Serial (2CPS) mechanism, a second-best mechanism./nIn the second chapter, I extend the idea behind the 2CPS mechanism to arrive at a constrained efficient mechanism for a general matching environment and regardless of what the ex-post constraints on the outcome are, including individual rationality, limits on the cycle lengths, maximizing the number of proposed matches etc. Several mechanisms from the existing literature are special cases of this mechanism, called the Generalized Constrained Probabilistic Serial (GCPS) mechanism./nIn the final chapter, I consider two natural notions of strategyproofness in random matching mechanisms based on ordinal preferences. The two notions are stronger than weak strategyproofness but weaker than strategyproofness. I demonstrate that the two notions are equivalent and provide a geometric characterization of the new intermediate property which I call convex strategyproofness. I then show that the probabilistic serial mechanism (a special case of the GCPS mechanism) is, in fact, convexly strategyproof. I finish by showing that the property of weak envy-freeness of the random serial dictatorship can be strengthened in an analogous manner.

Advisor: Ergin, Haluk I.
Easier Said Than Done: Talking Identity in Late Twentieth-Century American Concert Dance

This dissertation examines how choreographers Bill T. Jones, Joe Goode, and Wallflower Order Dance Collective mobilize auditory, visual, and kinesthetic modes of communication to underscore the unstable relationship between talk, dance, and gesture. I argue that this very instability affords dance theater its power to perform alternative racialized and gendered subjectivities. The project departs from dance studies’ long-standing investment in the notion of choreography as bodily writing to examine theories and ideologies of dance’s status as a form of speech./nThis dissertation is about how a generation of dance artists dealt with their anxiety around (modern, contemporary, postmodern, American, concert, art, stage) dance’s status as a language that could speak for them so that they could be heard—not only as individuals (hear my story) but as representatives, public figures of underrepresented groups, experiences, lifestyles. The works I have chosen best exemplify or perform a productive tension between talking, dancing, and gesturing that illuminates the historical terms and contexts, the very history itself, of western concert dance practice and its autonomizing discourses. These works show us how the tension between talking, dancing, and gesturing expose related tensions between “high” and “low,” art and street, art and social/popular dance practices; black and white; and between hearing and non-hearing cultural contexts.

Advisor: Jackson, Shannon