VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Hostile Environment? The Development of Sexual Harassment Law in the United States 1971-1991

Abstract/nHostile Environment?/nThe Development of Sexual Harassment Law in the United States 1971 - 1991/nby Pamela Coukos/nDoctor of Philosophy in Jurisprudence and Social Policy/nUniversity of California, Berkeley/nProfessor Lauren B. Edelman, Chair/nHow did the sexual harassment litigation campaign succeed in defining a new antidiscrimination principle in the midst of the Reagan-era backlash against civil rights? In 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court definitively established sexual harassment as a violation of Title VII. Meritor v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57 (1986). This unanimous conclusion, with an opinion drafted by conservative jurist William Rehnquist, capped a series of victories for sexual harassment plaintiffs in the federal appellate courts. This feminist revolution gained steam at the same moment as the Reagan-era conservative backlash against civil rights law began. Legal accountability for sexually hostile work environments seemingly developed in a hostile political environment./nMy aim is to use this case to ask when and how organized rights mobilization can be effective despite a seemingly hostile political climate. In particular, I explore the role of litigants, who make important decisions about how rights are contested in our legal system. The work of parties in general, and social movements in particular, remains both relatively under-theorized in public law, and frequently absent from prominent empirical works./n/nWorking from findings of socio-legal literatures on claims mobilization, law and organizations, and law and social movements, I identify and assess potential explanatory factors: (1) characteristics and strategies of the individuals, lawyers, and movement organizations who engaged the legal system for and against this claim; (2) the political opportunity structure; (3) networks and resources provided by organizations and professionals, which act to construct and diffuse legal meaning and engage the legal system and (4) how law itself serves as a resource to movements and individuals mobilizing rights. While this literature, taken together, provides a potential theoretical framework, little prior work specifically addresses how social movements use law to overcome politically hostile opponents./nIn a multi-method study I ultimately conclude that a combination of historically fortuitous timing, differences in organization and engagement between proponents and opponents, and the effect of path-dependent legal decisionmaking made it possible to defend a liberal legal expansion during a period of civil rights retrenchment. I also find evidence that the shift in partisan control had a lagged negative effect on plaintiff success rates.

Advisor: Edelman, Lauren B
Hats off, Galileo: Early Richard Serra

This dissertation examines the first decade of Richard Serra's career, beginning with the European travels that followed his graduation with a Masters of Fine Arts from Yale and continuing through the mid-1970s. This period is especially interesting because it was during these years that Serra initiated the sculptural practice for which he is now best known, yet he was not so single-mindedly devoted to it as he would become - he was also very actively involved in the production of film, video, photo essays, conceptual proposals, and occasional ephemeral works. This dissertation studies these projects in conjunction with Serra's sculpture, arguing that they are in some respects parallel investigations, and arguing further that it therefore becomes necessary to find language that allows us to address the possibility that Serra's sculpture has some kind of content - whether psychological, political, or philosophical - despite the artist's assiduous avoidance of representation./nI begin with a discussion of Serra's movement into "process art." Tracing a line through the visually very dissimilar sculptures that Serra made just prior to his process works, I argue that the tendency of Serra's earliest sculpture to privilege logical contradiction and perversity sets it apart from contemporary minimalist literalism, and opens it up to models of meaning found in the writings of the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead and the psychologically-minded art educator Anton Erhrenzweig, both of whom Serra was reading at the time. Then I turn to Serra's Props, lead sculptures propped up with no fixed joints that have often prompted viewers to focus on their threatening aspects. Tying these sculptures to works in other media that took the Vietnam War and Cold War technocratic theories as their materials, I argue that the Props did not simply (literally) enact violence but communicate about it. Finally I address the earliest of Serra's large-scale steel sculptures and landscape works, tying them to contemporaneous films, photo projects, and videos in order to argue that Serra's approach to sculpture here, while very much focused on embodiment, is more mediated by the mechanical image than has previously been acknowledged.

Advisor: Wagner, Anne M
Discrete-Time H2 Guaranteed Cost Control

In this dissertation, we first use the techniques of guaranteed cost control to derive an upper bound on the worst-case H2 performance of a discrete-time LTI system with causal unstructured norm-bounded dynamic uncertainty. This upper bound, which we call the H2 guaranteed cost of the system, can be computed either by solving a semi-definite program (SDP) or by using an iteration of discrete algebraic Riccati equation (DARE) solutions. We give empirical evidence that suggests that the DARE approach is superior to the SDP approach in terms of the speed and accuracy with which the H2 guaranteed cost of a system can be determined./nWe then examine the optimal full information H2 guaranteed cost control problem, which is a generalization of the state feedback control problem in which the H2 guaranteed cost is optimized. First, we show that this problem can either be solved using an SDP or, under three regularity conditions, by using an iteration of DARE solutions. We then give empirical evidence that suggests that the DARE approach is superior to the SDP approach in terms of the speed and accuracy with which we can solve the optimal full information H2 guaranteed cost control problem./nThe final control problem we consider in this dissertation is the output feedback H2 guaranteed cost control problem. This control problem corresponds to a nonconvex optimization problem and is thus "difficult" to solve. We give two heuristics for solving this optimization problem. The first heuristic is based entirely on the solution of SDPs whereas the second heuristic exploits DARE structure to reduce the number of complexity of the SDPs that must be solved. The remaining SDPs that must be solved for the second heuristic correspond to the design of filter gains for a estimator./nTo show the effectiveness of the output feedback control design heuristics, we apply them to the track-following control of hard disk drives. For this example, we show that the heuristic that exploits DARE structure achieves slightly better accuracy and is more than 90 times faster than the heuristic that is based entirely on SDP solutions./nFinally, we mention how the results of this dissertation extend to a number of system types, including linear periodically time-varying systems, systems with structured uncertainty, and finite horizon linear systems.

Advisor: Horowitz, Roberto
Optimal Control of Hybrid Systems in Air Traffic Applications

Growing concerns over the scalability of air traffic operations, air transportation fuel emissions and prices, as well as the advent of communication and sensing technologies motivate improvements to the air traffic management system. To address such improvements, in this thesis a hybrid dynamical model as an abstraction of the air traffic system is considered. Wind and hazardous weather impacts are included using a stochastic model. This thesis focuses on the design of algorithms for verification and control of hybrid and stochastic dynamical systems and the application of these algorithms to air traffic management problems./nIn the deterministic setting, a numerically efficient algorithm for optimal control of hybrid systems is proposed based on extensions of classical optimal control techniques. This algorithm is applied to optimize the trajectory of an Airbus 320 aircraft in the presence of wind and storms. In the stochastic setting, the verification problem of reaching a target set while avoiding obstacles (reach-avoid) is formulated as a two-player game to account for external agents' influence on system dynamics. The solution approach is applied to air traffic conflict prediction in the presence of stochastic wind. Due to the uncertainty in forecasts of the hazardous weather, and hence the unsafe regions of airspace for aircraft flight, the reach-avoid framework is extended to account for stochastic target and safe sets. This methodology is used to maximize the probability of the safety of aircraft paths through hazardous weather./nFinally, the problem of modeling and optimization of arrival air traffic and runway configuration in dense airspace subject to stochastic weather data is addressed. This problem is formulated as a hybrid optimal control problem and is solved with a hierarchical approach that decouples safety and performance. As illustrated with this problem, the large scale of air traffic operations motivates future work on the efficient implementation of the proposed algorithms.

Advisor: Tomlin, Claire J
Hedrick, Karl J
Connected Worlds: Communication Networks in the Colonial Southeast, 1513-1740

<&ldquo>"Connected Worlds: Communication Networks in the Colonial Southeast, 1513-1740" <&rdquo> is a study of the struggle to acquire and control information in a pre-postal, pre-printing press colonial world. This dissertation focuses on the period between 1513 and 1740 in the American Southeast. It argues that the acquisition and transmission of news was crucial to the creation, development and growth of colonial spaces. Secondly, this study examines the different groups and individuals who traversed and traded in the region, the routes that Spanish, English, French, Indian and African individuals followed and constructed, and the changing interpretations and values assigned to news./nThe dissertation addresses a simple, yet often overlooked concern with how people in the colonial world came to know what they knew. The principal questions therefore explore both the practical as well as conceptual aspects of information. How was news acquired and transmitted in the colonial Southeast? What do these networks of communication reveal about the relations within and between the different groups that inhabited this geopolitical region? To answer these questions, the dissertation draws upon a wide range of sources, such as official dispatches, newspaper articles, personal reports, and other governmental records from Spanish, British, and North American archives./nPart I of the dissertation analyzes early definitions and understandings of news in the exploration and settlement of Florida. Part II turns to the practical aspects of information spread, providing an examination of Spanish networks of communication. Part III shifts the focus to the English, detailing how South Carolina used information networks to establish and define its authority in the region. And Part IV examines how changes to the economy, demography, and political structure of the Southeast in the 1730s altered the value and emphasis placed on news.

Advisor: Peterson, Mark
Contact Metamorphism and Decarbonation in the Gangdese Arc: A Petrological, Geochemical, and Phase Equilibria Study

The potential correlation between long-term climate changes on Earth and the intensity of continental arcs, particularly their considerable CO2 emissions, implies considerable climatic impacts from these petro-tectonic processes. Contact metamorphism of sedimentary carbonates converts the country rocks into calcsilicate and releases substantial CO2. The widespread carbonate sequences deposited on major continental margins where arc activities culminated in the Cretaceous to Paleogene give rise to a hypothetical causal relationship between the magma-carbonate interaction and the Cretaceous Thermal Maximum. While isotopic and modeling evidence supports this hypothesis, direct field-based studies constraining the extents and rates of decarbonation would help assess aureole-scale CO2 fluxes. A wide range of lithology within contact aureoles, from calcsilicates to marble, in the Cretaceous Gangdese Arc in southern Tibet reveals distinctive behaviors of contact metamorphism. The first step to approach the question is the understanding of phase relations. Current phase diagrams detailing metacarbonate systems can be further refined to include additional components and minerals at lesser pressures. Metamorphic conditions such as pressure, temperature and the fluid composition can be estimated from the phase diagrams provided in this thesis. This thesis then presents comprehensive data obtained from the study of two exemplary endmember cases from the Lhasa terrane in southern Tibet. In the case of calcsilicate aureole, diffusion modeling across compositional zones within garnet and diopside suggests brief metamorphic alteration. As these calcsilicate samples demonstrate a large fraction of carbon loss, the corresponding carbon fluxes could be enormous, comparable to fluxes from other contemporary tectonic units. In contrast, studies on marble aureoles suggest fluid behaviors can vary according to rock rheology, thereby affecting the extent of carbon release. Thermobarometric and isotopic measurements from veins surrounded by recrystallized marble suggest that brittle carbonate country rock adjacent to short-lived intrusions facilitates rapid fluid migration and minimal decarbonation reactions. We speculate that, in comparison, ductile country rocks in the vicinity of long-lived intrusions seem to promote extensive fluid-rock interactions, leading to the creation of calcsilicate aureoles. Collectively, this thesis adds to our understanding of decarbonation processes through contact metamorphism from various perspectives, such as the duration and degree of decarbonation, fluid-rock interactions, and phase relations in metacarbonate rocks.

Keywords: Carbon flux
Contact metamorphism
Decarbonation
Metacarbonate
Phase equilibria
Southern Tibet
Advisor: Chu, Xu
The Cosmopolitans: International Students’ Identity Negotiations, Past and Present, at an Ontario University

This research highlights the superdiversity (Blommaert, 2013; Vertovec, 2007) of undergraduate students in a university located within a large urban area in Ontario. Almost one-quarter of the total student body comprises international students, primarily from Asia. This superdiversity has created the cosmopolitans, a by-product of globally mobile students who are in pursuit of an Inner Circle English (Kachru, 1985) education. To theoretically frame the second-language socialization experiences of mobile students in English-speaking contexts, scholars have positioned cosmopolitanism at the junction of identity, language, culture, capital, and ideology (Darvin & Norton, 2016). Cosmopolitanism is a philosophy and a disposition that emphasizes openness and recognizes diversity while respectfully engaging in critical dialogue about difference (Appiah, 2006; Delanty, 2009). This study seeks to examine the role of cosmopolitanism in international students’ identity negotiations, past and present, as reflected in their dispositions and experiences while studying at a university in Ontario as well as in their recollections of their high school experiences. Elements of ethnographic and phenomenological approaches are blended with a case study method, and data have been collected and analyzed using qualitative, interpretivist methodologies. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 12 university students (focal participants) and two of their peers (non-focal participants), during which a Venn Diagram was used as a heuristic to discuss hybrid identity negotiations (Bhabha, 1994). Some students also completed journals. In addition, interviews were conducted with seven educational professionals to gain multiple perspectives. The research findings highlight the ways in which early study abroad experiences shape students’ identities and future choices. This study also expands the use of a tool that can be used to collect data about participants’ identities, specifically by using the Venn diagram. This dissertation provides educators with a deeper understanding of international students’ experiences. It has the potential to promote third space (Bhabha, 1994) for international students to negotiate their identities in the classroom and beyond, including those students who participate in early study abroad as adolescents.

Keywords: cosmopolitanism
early study abroad
hybrid identity
identity negotiation
international students
superdiversity
Advisor: Kerekes, Julie
Understanding Modern Machine Learning Models through the Llens of High-dimensional Statistics

Deep neural networks have become an indispensable component of artificial intelligence as seen in a wide range of impressive applications, yet many of their properties remain mysterious. For instance, the non-convex loss landscape may conflict with efficient optimization by standard gradient-based methods, and the common practice of overparameterization (i.e., large number of trainable parameters) seemingly goes against good generalization performance. The empirical success of deep learning has motivated the following important theoretical questions: 1. How does overparameterization interact with the selection of hyperparameters, such as L2 regularization? 2. How does the implicit bias of optimization algorithms (e.g., gradient descent) lead to favorable generalization properties? 3. How does neural network benefit from representation learning, and outperform classical machine learning models such as kernel methods? In this thesis, we study the above questions from a high-dimensional viewpoint, that is, we consider the regime where the data and model size tend to infinity. As we will see, when the problem dimensionality becomes large, certain “macroscopic” statistics of the studied system admit a deterministic limit and can be exactly solved using mathematical tools such as random matrix theory, which is the study of large-dimensional matrices with certain random structures. This thesis is divided into three chapters, addressing questions 1-3 respectively. 1. In Chapter 2 we consider the generalized ridge regression estimator in the overparameterized regime. We derive the precise formulae of the asymptotic generalization error, and study the optimal choice of (weighted) L2 regularization. Our analysis leads to surprising findings including: (i) the optimal ridge penalty can be negative, but only in the overparameterized setting, (ii) regularization can suppress “multiple descent” in the risk curve. 2. In Chapter 3 we study the implicit bias of preconditioned gradient methods in the interpolation setting. The asymptotic formulae allow us to precisely compare the generalization performance of first- and second-order optimizers, and identify factors that affect this comparison. Our results challenge the common perception that second-order methods does not generalize, and demonstrate that the benefit of implicit bias heavily depends on structures of learning problem. 3. In Chapter 4 we go beyond linear estimators and characterize the benefit of representation (feature) learning via gradient descent in a (nonlinear) two-layer neural network. By studying the precise performance of ridge regression on the optimized neural network features, we prove that representation learning results in a considerable advantage over the initial random features model (and a wide range of kernel models); our analysis also highlights the role of large learning rate scaling in the initial phase of gradient descent.

Keywords: Deep learning theory
High-dimensional statistics
Advisor: Ba, Jimmy
Erdogdu, Murat
Conservation Properties of Finite-Difference Time-Domain Methods for the Maxwell and Schrödinger Equations With Application to the Development of New Schemes with Guaranteed Stability

The finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method is a popular technique for solving the Maxwell equations. The method works by updating unknowns in a leap-frog manner, starting with initial conditions. The update equations are explicit, and hence have relatively low computational requirements. However, the explicit nature comes at the cost of conditional stability, which makes it substantially harder to create new FDTD-based methods, compared to implicit or frequency-domain methods. Methodologies for stability analysis exist, but can lead to lengthy derivations when applied to complex problems. FDTD has also been applied to solving the Schrödinger equation. Research related to this scheme, along with other numerical methods for quantum mechanical problems, is becoming increasingly important. Another type of FDTD methods that were recently inspired by quantum applications are schemes that use potentials as unknowns in order to facilitate modelling of light-matter interaction. Much like in the conventional FDTD, the difficulty of stability analysis poses a significant challenge in advancing these schemes. This thesis draws inspiration from results in control theory in order to facilitate stability analysis of these FDTD methods based on the concepts of energy conservation and dissipation, as well as probability conservation in the case of FDTD for the Schrödinger equation. For the fields-based FDTD, expressions are proposed to quantify the energy stored in a region and the energy entering the region through the boundary. Based on these expressions, we formulate rigorous conditions under which the region is unable to generate spurious energy. These results provide a way to create new schemes by coupling the FDTD equations for the region to other dissipative or energy conserving models. As an example we develop a subgridding scheme by coupling two FDTD grids of different resolution in an energy-conserving manner. The theory is extended to FDTD for the Maxwell equations written in terms of potentials and a subgridding scheme with potentials is developed as a demonstration of application. Furthermore, this thesis extends the approach to propose a similar framework for FDTD for the Schrödinger equation, based on the concept of probability conservation. Conditions for the energy conservation of the scheme are also derived, motivated by the possibility of extending the results to the coupled Maxwell-Schrödinger system of equations in the future.

Keywords: dissipative systems
energy conservation
finite-difference time-domain
probability conservation
stability
Advisor: Triverio, Piero