VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The hermeneutics of conversion [electronic resource] : fiction and apologetics in François Mauriac and Jean-Paul Sartre

This dissertation analyzes key texts from the 1930s in light of recent scholarly work on secularization. I maintain that conversion novels by Jean-Paul Sartre and François Mauriac function not only as sites for interrogating the credibility of religious forms in the modern world, but also as apologetic tools that train readers in hermeneutic strategies, preparing them for specific modes of engagement in society. For both authors, "the secular" comes to be imagined as a practice of reading guided by a hermeneutic of suspicion. Likewise, a hermeneutic of faith represents a sacred mode of reading. By giving readers hermeneutic training, these texts give credence to Pascal's claim that sustained practices can prepare an individual for conversion, or, as the case of Sartre demonstrates, to prepare an individual to resist conversion.

Keywords: French and Italian.
Advisor: Landy Joshua
Alduy Cécile advisor. Thesis advisor
Apostolidès Jean-Marie advisor. Thesis advisor
Wittman Laura advisor. Thesis advisor
Heroes on the make [electronic resource] : in the name of Martín-Santos' silence, destruction, and beyond

My thesis proposes a new reading of the fictional work of the 20th century Spanish psychiatrist and writer Luis Martín-Santos (Larache, Marruecos, 1924--Vitoria, España, 1964) in which the political drive⎯prevalent in current criticism⎯is not the main guideline to its interpretation. Instead, I propose a reading based on the impact of Martín-Santos' psychiatric essays on his work in fiction⎯mainly in his novel Tiempo de silencio (1962) and in his posthumous fragment Tiempo de destrucción (1975). I analyze the influence of Sartre, Heidegger and Freud in Martín-Santos' non-fictional writings to further apply the latter to his fictional ones. I proceed then to focus on the effects that hegemonic masculinity, in its Contemporary Western patriarchic form, has on the novels' characters as an illustration of Martín-Santos' concept of literature as "desacralizadora" and "sacro-genética." This reading draws on crucial aspects of Luis Martín-Santos' writings in which he was contesting not just the Franco regime but, moreover, it reflects on the patriarchal system and functions of masculinity as one of the most important resonances of his works in the 21st century. I defend a reading of Martín-Santos' creative works as an attempt to destroy the prevalent masculine myths of Western patriarchy, and as a proposal to create the new ones for the future, rendering the spectrum of Martín-Santos' writings relevance far greater than that of a critical political portrait of the Spain of the 1950's.

Keywords: Iberian and Latin American Cultures.
Advisor: Gumbrecht Hans Ulrich primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Predmore Michael P. advisor. Thesis advisor
Ruffinelli Jorge advisor. Thesis advisor
High-fidelity simulations and modeling of compressible reacting flows [electronic resource]

Scramjets are air-breathing propulsion devices and have long been recognized as suitable for hypersonic propulsion. Because of the high speed in scramjet combustors, the flow has a very short residence time before leaving the engine, during which air and fuel must mix on a molecular level and chemical reactions have to be completed. Although some ground and flight experiments have successfully demonstrated the feasibility of supersonic combustion, experimental testing requires a large investment and presents numerous difficulties. Computational tools are thus a key element toward the development of an efficient, high-performance scramjet engine, and because mixing and heat release are at the heart of a scramjet operation, the development and use of accurate combustion models for supersonic combustion are critical. The open questions in supersonic combustion span the spectrum from scientific pursuit, e.g., shock/flame interactions, to engineering applications like prediction of unstart phenomena in scramjets. In this study, direct numerical simulations (DNS) of a compressible reacting mixing layer with finite rate chemistry are performed. The DNS databases are used to explore the physics of supersonic combustion. An efficient combustion model based on the flamelet/progress variable is then introduced. In this approach, only two or three additional scalar transport equations need to be solved, independently of the complexity of the reaction mechanism. The proposed combustion model is validated using DNS databases. Finally, the compressible flamelet/progress variable model is applied to the case of an under-expanded hydrogen jet in a supersonic cross-flow and HIFiRE scramjet.

Keywords: Mechanical Engineering.
Advisor: Pitsch Heinz
Ihme Matthias
Moin Parviz advisor. Thesis advisor
High-resolution small animal positron emission tomography system based on 3-D position-sensitive cadmium zinc telluride photon detectors [electronic resource]

A description of the development of the world's first 1 mm resolution, adjustable field of view small animal positron emission tomography (PET) system is presented. The system uses cadmium zinc telluride (CZT) 3-D position sensitive photon detectors comprising CZT crystals measuring 40 mm x 40 mm x 5 mm, and metalized with a cross-strip electrode pattern. High photon sensitivity is achieved by adopting a box geometry for the field of view (FOV) (maximum extent of 100 mm x 100 mm x 80 mm) and an "edge-on" orientation of photon detectors, so that annihilation photons traverse a minimum of 40 mm through CZT. Based on both simulation and experimental investigations, a CZT photon detector was developed capable of resolving the 3-D position of individual photon interactions, making possible a range of new imaging algorithms for random coincidence rejection, line of response (LOR) placement, etc. Comprehensive characterization studies of single-crystal CZT photon detector demonstrated an (x, y, z) spatial resolution of 1 mm x 5 mm x ~0.5 mm and energy resolution of ~3% FWHM at 511 keV . This work further produced a full data acquisition (DAQ) chain for the PET system, comprising front-end boards based the RENA-3 ASIC capable of 50 Mbps data transmission, 48:1 fan-in boards connecting the front-end to the backplane, and a daisy chain backplane bus capable of 800 Mbps data transmission, connected to a DAQ computer via a 1 Gbps Ethernet connection. A software tool suite was developed to incorporate novel time and energy measurement calibration techniques and a new time coincident event identification algorithm for semiconductor photon detectors. The system's mechanical gantries and housings were fabricated, along with detector assembling and testing equipment. A prototype of the small animal PET system built to facilitate integration testing and troubleshooting yielded preliminary system-wide FWHM energy and coincidence time resolutions of 8.02 +/- 0.96% and 3.12 +/- 0.15 ns, respectively. Further system-level characterization experiments are on-going to validate these initial results, and subsequently, to assess the system's PSF, and reconstructed image resolution and contrast.

Keywords: Electrical Engineering.
Advisor: Levin Craig primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Pelc Norbert J. advisor. Thesis advisor
Widrow Bernard
High-speed multimodal microscopy for studying structural dynamics of biomolecular machines [electronic resource]

Single molecule tracking and manipulation is now an established approach for interrogating the dynamics of biomolecular systems, both in vivo and in vitro. By reporting nanoscale displacements of functioning complexes, constraints can be placed on structural rearrangements (such as in motor activity) as well as transition kinetics. This information is obtained directly from individual molecules, permitting branched pathways and statistical distributions to be observed rather than bulk means. However, single molecule experiments can exhibit low dimensionality and poor signal-to-noise. In particular, the spatiotemporal resolution of DNA twist measurements has been limited by the use of angular probes with high rotational drag, which prevents detection of short-lived intermediates or small angular steps. We introduce gold rotor bead tracking (AuRBT), which yields > 100× improvement in time resolution over previous techniques. AuRBT employs gold nanoparticles as bright low-drag rotational and extensional probes, which are monitored by instrumentation that combines magnetic tweezers with objective-side evanescent darkfield microscopy. Our analysis of high-speed structural dynamics of the enzyme DNA gyrase using AuRBT revealed an unanticipated transient intermediate. AuRBT also enables direct measurements of DNA torque with > 50× shorter integration times than previous techniques; we demonstrated high-resolution torque spectroscopy by mapping the conformational landscape of a Z-forming DNA sequence. Additionally, we have augmented our system with synchronous single fluorophore imaging, in order to detect the binding of DNA, proteins, or ligands to mechanochemical substates identified by highspeed tracking. We have validated the use of FRET in combination with rotor bead tracking as a tool to probe intramolecular dynamics simultaneously with mechanical degrees of freedom, generating multidimensional data that reports on the highspeed structural dynamics of functioning molecular machines.

Keywords: Applied Physics.
Advisor: Bryant Zev David primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Mabuchi Hideo primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Greenleaf William James advisor. Thesis advisor
High-speed tracer-based PLIF imaging for scramjet ground testing [electronic resource]

The scramjet engine holds much promise for hypersonic atmospheric flight. In a scramjet engine, fuel is injected into a supersonic stream of air, and this fuel must mix and burn with the air before exiting out the back of the engine. Achieving stable, reliable combustion in a scramjet has been a technical challenge throughout the development of scramjet powered vehicles. The coupling of turbulence and combustion results in a complex non-linear system, prone to several catastrophic failure modes. To better understand the mixing and combustion processes in a scramjet, ground testing facilities are needed to reproduce the extreme conditions in a scramjet combustor, and advanced diagnostics are needed to probe these flow fields. This thesis describes a hypersonic ground testing facility as well as the extension of a laser-based imaging diagnostic to supersonic flows generated in impulse facilities. The thesis is divided into three sections: 1) (Chapter 2) the first section describes the Stanford Expansion Tube Facility, details of its operation, capabilities, and conventional diagnostic capabili- ties, including high-speed schlieren and high-quality pressure measurements; 2) (Chapters 3 and 4) the second section describes the development of toluene planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) temperature imaging in an expansion tube and a rigorous method to correct for background signals in PLIF imaging; 3) (Chapters 5 and 6) the third section describes the application of new, kHz-rate pulsed light sources for tracer-based PLIF imaging, culminating with the demonstration of the technique by visualizing a jet in sonic crossflow in the expansion tube at 20 kHz. An overview of additional scramjet studies conducted at the Stanford Expansion Tube Facility and the application of the diagnostics described within this thesis can be found in the appendices.

Keywords: Mechanical Engineering.
Advisor: Hanson Ronald primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Cappelli Mark A. (Mark Antony) advisor. Thesis advisor
Levin Craig advisor. Thesis advisor
Mungal Mark Godfrey advisor. Thesis advisor
Hollywood opera [electronic resource] : envisioning opera for the movies, 1926-1938

While the phenomenon of operatic singing in classical Hollywood cinema is well known, the topic has been marginalized in opera / film studies of the past twenty-five years. Indeed, the very fact that, between 1926 and 1938, all of the Hollywood studios announced plans for full- and feature-length movie operas has escaped historical notice. During the same period, various studios experimented with introducing operatic performances in the context of conventional narrative pictures, as a means of preparing cinema audiences for fully sung opera on screen. Drawing on hundreds of previously unexamined sources, this study reveals the full extent of Hollywood's operatic ambitions during the early sound era, illuminating a phase of cultural development during which opera, in various Hollywood forms, reached a wider audience than ever before. The dissertation consists of five chapters and an epilogue, which proceed in more or less chronological order. Chapter 1 traces the early history of American cinema's relationship with opera, from the visionary projections of Thomas Edison in the late-1880s through the early years of sound. Here I examine the conceptual origins of Hollywood opera, and the various technological and aesthetic barriers to the production of full-length operas on film. Chapter 2 focuses on The Rogue Song (1930), and considers how MGM and various other studios, believing American cinema audiences to be unready for fully sung opera on film, set about cultivating appreciation for the operatic voice in movies. Chapter 3 treats Columbia Pictures' One Night of Love (1934), and the ensuing "opera boom" of 1935-1938, during which Hollywood filmmakers employed opera as a dramatic element in conventional narrative pictures. Chapter 4 explores the emergence of "imaginary" opera—custom-made opera sequences commissioned by the studios to fulfill specific dramatic needs, and as a supplement to the repertoire of well-known and popular (genuine) operatic arias, many of which, by 1936, had already been filmed. Chapter 5 discusses the revival of Hollywood's plans to produce full-length movie operas in 1935, and the subsequent abandonment of those plans with the end of the opera boom in February 1938. In an epilogue I briefly survey the continued presence of operatic performances in Hollywood movies 1939-1962, highlighting two films—Serenade (1956) and My Geisha (1962)—which, respectively, anticipate the techniques of New Hollywood and "art" films, post-1970.

Keywords: Music.
Advisor: Grey Thomas S.
Hinton Stephen
Ma Jean
Holography beyond AdS/CFT [electronic resource] : quantum cosmology and black holes

Inspired by the successes of AdS/CFT, this dissertation is devoted to the study of holography in non-AdS spacetimes resembling patches of our universe. We will consider the universe on large scales and near spinning black holes. In the case of black holes, we will show that holographic entanglement entropy techniques from AdS/CFT prove quantitatively successful when adapted to the spacetime near spinning black holes. In the context of three-dimensional de Sitter spacetime, we will propose a microscopic derivation of the cosmological horizon entropy. For four-dimensional de Sitter spacetime, we shall compute wavefunctionals within a proposed higher-spin holographic duality, in addition to proposing a one-parameter extension to the duality. We will end by analyzing the sharply ultrametric state space of a massless scalar in an FRW background and will propose a holographic duality which relates FRW cosmologies to hyperscaling-violating field theories.

Keywords: Physics.
Advisor: Susskind Leonard primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Hartnoll Sean advisor. Thesis advisor
Kachru Shamit
Hopf algebras and Markov chains [electronic resource]

This thesis introduces a way to build Markov chains out of Hopf algebras. The transition matrix of a Hopf-power Markov chain is (the transpose of) the matrix of the coproduct-then-product operator on a combinatorial Hopf algebra with respect to a suitable basis. These chains describe the breaking-then-recombining of the combinatorial objects in the Hopf algebra. The motivating example is the famous Gilbert-Shannon-Reeds model of riffle-shuffling of a deck of cards, which arise in this manner from the shuffle algebra. The primary reason for constructing Hopf-power Markov chains, or for rephrasing familiar chains through this lens, is that much information about them comes simply from translating well-known facts on the underlying Hopf algebra. For example, there is an explicit formula for the stationary distribution (Theorem 3.4.1), and constructing quotient algebras show that certain statistics on a Hopf-power Markov chain are themselves Markov chains (Theorem 3.6.1). Perhaps the pinnacle is Theorem 4.4.1, a collection of algorithms for a full left and right eigenbasis in many common cases where the underlying Hopf algebra is commutative or cocommutative. This arises from a cocktail of the Poincare-Birkhoff-Witt theorem, the Cartier-Milnor-Moore theorem, Reutenauer's structure theory of the free Lie algebra, and Patras's Eulerian idempotent theory. Since Hopf-power Markov chains can exhibit very different behaviour depending on the structure of the underlying Hopf algebra and its distinguished basis, one must restrict attention to certain styles of Hopf algebras in order to obtain stronger results. This thesis will focus respectively on a free-commutative basis, which produces "independent breaking" chains, and a cofree basis; there will be both general statements and in-depth examples.

Keywords: Mathematics.
Advisor: Diaconis Persi primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Bump Daniel
Marberg Eric
Hormonal Regulation of Prostaglandin F2α Receptor Expression: Identifying Mechanisms of Female Reproductive Behavior in a Cichlid Fish

Several hormones work in concert to mediate female reproduction, a behavior that drives evolution. Previous studies in mammals have identified the ovarian steroids estradiol and progesterone as hormones that act together to induce female mating. In other organisms, the identity of and relationship between reproductive hormones can vary, and this divergence is informative from an evolutionary and molecular standpoint. For example, though ovarian steroids are involved in the reproduction of teleost fish, the post-ovulatory hormone prostaglandin F2α (PGF2α) is sufficient to induce spawning (mating) behavior in females of many teleost species. PGF2α thus activates a distinct, important pathway for reproduction. However, the regulation of this pathway has yet to be defined. Here, we sought to address whether and how ovarian steroids regulate PGF2α-mediated female reproductive behavior. To do so, we used the African cichlid fish Astatotilapia burtoni, a model organism for the study of social behaviors and neural plasticity. In female A. burtoni, the PGF2α receptor (Ptgfr) is expressed in a behaviorally relevant brain region, the preoptic hypothalamus (POA), and increases expression during spawning. This spatio-temporal expression pattern implicates the POA as a locus of PGF2α signaling during reproductive behaviors. We investigated the mechanism of PGF2α-mediated spawning by searching for the regulators of POA Ptgfr expression in female A. burtoni. We hypothesized that ovarian steroids account for the observed variation in Ptgfr mRNA expression. Using in situ hybridization, we demonstrated upregulated POA Ptgfr expression in ovariectomized females treated with teleost progesterone 17α,20β-dihydroxy-4-pregnen-3-one (DHP). We further demonstrated that DHP receptors are expressed in the POA, suggesting DHP directly regulates Ptgfr expression in that region. These results are consistent with a model where DHP-regulated PGF2α signaling mediates reproductive behavior. This model can help identify conserved PGF2α pathways in other vertebrates or track the diversification of PGF2α’s reproductive role over evolutionary time.

Keywords:  Department of Biology
Biology
prostaglandin F2α (PGF2α)
receptor
social behavior
reproductive regulation
teleost
17α
20β-dihydroxy-4-pregnen-3-one (DHP)
Thesis
Advisor: Fernald Russell
Heller Craig
How Toxoplasma gondii induces c-Myc, a pivotal host oncogene [electronic resource]

Regulation of host transcription is a common strategy of intracellular microorganisms to control their host cell. The obligate intracellular parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, secretes specific effectors that alter host transcription and regulate various cellular processes. This thesis explores a novel interaction of this apicomplexan with its host that involves the induction of one of the most pivotal host transcription factors, c-Myc. Given the far-reaching role of c-Myc in essential host processes, e.g. cell cycle, apoptosis, metabolism, and immune function, it is likely that the regulation of this protein has profound consequences on the cell and is therefore one of the factors determining the outcome of Toxoplasma infection. This thesis presents evidence that Toxoplasma dramatically increases the expression of host c-Myc in infected cells and that this induction likely alters the host transcription program as numerous c-Myc targets are regulated during Toxoplasma infection. Moreover, a genetic screen that led to the isolation of Toxoplasma mutants defective in c-Myc induction and subsequent identification of a novel Toxoplasma effector, MYR1 (MYc Regulator 1), is described here. The data strongly suggest that MYR1 controls not only the expression of c-Myc, but also carries an additional function in regulating the expression of Major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II in infected cells. Remarkably, MYR1 mutants (although derived from a highly virulent strain of Toxoplasma) exhibit decreased virulence in mice showing that this parasite factor has an evident effect on the outcome of the infection. Finally, an intriguing observation that the infection by a closely related parasite Neospora caninum leads to a completely opposite effect on c-Myc levels is presented, offering an insight into how these two parasites have evolved to control their cell and revealing a potential explanation for their distinct host range and immunopathology.

Keywords: Microbiology and Immunology.
Advisor: Boothroyd John C. primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Felsher Dean (Dean Walton) advisor. Thesis advisor
Monack Denise M. advisor. Thesis advisor
Sarnow P. (Peter) advisor. Thesis advisor