VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Becoming “Hawaiian”: World War II War Heroes and the Rise of Japanese American Power, 1941-1963

Becoming “Hawaiian”: World War II War Heroes and the Rise of Japanese American Power, 1941-1963 examines the most celebrated Asian American war heroes in US history—the Japanese American WWII GIs—to reveal how those soldiers from Hawai‘i became racialized and legitimated as “Hawaiian” war heroes. I introduce a concept of “Hawaiian” racialization as a process by which various racial and ethnic communities ascribed qualities and characteristics of Hawai‘i, such as exotic, friendly, and feminine, onto the non-native men while the soldiers themselves actively created an heroic “Hawaiian” identity. During WWII from their mobilization to their return home from battle, the soldiers were racialized and celebrated as “Hawaiian” war heroes in the US South, in the Japanese American incarceration camps, in liberal white spaces across the US mainland, in Hawai‘i, and internationally in the European campaign. This resulted in cementing an image of “Hawaiian” war heroes as worthy representatives of the Territory and Japanese America to both US mainland and local audiences. I show that this process supported these men’s stakes as inheritors and as future patriarchal leaders of Hawai‘i, Japanese America, and Asian America in the postwar. The heroic racialization facilitated the passage of Hawai‘i Statehood in 1959 and the successful election of two “Hawaiian” war heroes into Congress in 1963. Using extensive multi-site archival research, my historical analysis relies on racial, gendered, and sexuality theories and frameworks from ethnic studies, settler colonial studies, feminist studies, and Asian American studies. This project illustrates Asian Americans creating a celebratory American identity through their racialization as indigenous. The power of non-natives to become the “new” natives is central to US Empire, which supports foundational claims to land, home, family, and nation. My research historicizes Asian American alignment with US Empire, spotlights a power dynamic between Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and reveals how Japanese Americans legitimated themselves as “Hawaiians” through the vehicle of the US war hero.

Advisor: Choy, Catherine C
Correlation functions of the two-periodic weighted Aztec diamond in mesoscopic limit

A dimer model is a probability distribution on the set of perfect matchings on a planar graph. In this thesis we study the two-periodic weighted dimer model on the Aztec diamond graph in what we call the mesocopic limit./nIn the thermodynamic limit when the size of the graph goes to infinity while edge weights are fixed, the model exhibits three different regions characterized by the rate of decrease of correlation functions. At the center is the ordered region, where two-point correlation functions between dimers decrease exponentially. We show that in the mesoscopic scaling limit, when weights scale in the thermodynamic limit such that the size of the ordered region is of the same order as the correlation length inside the ordered region, fluctuations of the correlation functions are described by a new process. We compute asymptotics of the inverse Kasteleyn matrix for vertices in a local neighborhood in this mesoscopic limit, and use this to find the one-point correlation functions. We then conclude with an experimental study of two-point correlation functions between pairs of dimers that grow further apart in the mesoscopic limit.

Advisor: Reshetikhin, Nicolai
Structural Diversification of Saturated Cyclic Amines Through Photo- and Metal-Mediated Ring Opening

This dissertation describes studies toward the core modification of cyclic aliphatic amines aimed at late-stage structural diversification. The main strategy involves oxidative C–N and/or C–C bond cleavage to open the cyclic amine core, and this work explores mild methods for ring opening in order to provide wide functional group tolerance, as well as opportunities for bond formation following ring opening. These investigations are contingent on the use of peroxydisulfate (persulfate) as a versatile oxidant that can be paired with metal or non-metal oxidative mediators for a set of distinct outcomes involving transformation of the cyclic amine framework. Specifically, Chapter 1 discusses mild, oxidative ring opening of cyclic amines to access linear aldehydes using flavin-derived photoredox catalysis. Linear carboxylic acids are also accessed with copper salts as a mediator. The mechanisms of these two reactions are investigated by computation. The computations suggest that the flavin-mediated oxidation is initiated by hydrogen-atom transfer from the cyclic amine to the photocatalyst, whereas the copper-mediated process begins instead with single-electron oxidation of the cyclic amine with concomitant reduction of persulfate. Chapter 2 describes ring opening of cyclic amines and subsequent C–C and C–O bond formation in one-pot reactions, enabled by the intermediacy of a primary alkyl radical. Ring opening followed by radical decarboxylation with Ag(I) and persulfate enables a Minisci-type Csp3–Csp2 coupling to form alkylamine-substituted pyridines. Additionally, Cu(II) oxidation of the alkyl radical arising from N-acylated cyclic amines leads to a C–O bond-forming cyclization event producing oxazines, constituting a heterocycle replacement of the cyclic amine core. While Cu(II) oxidations of radicals typically favor elimination pathways leading to olefins, computational studies into the cyclization indicate that cyclization is kinetically preferred over elimination in this instance.

Advisor: Sarpong, Richmond
Hybrid Switched-Capacitor Converter Design: State-Space Dynamical Modeling and Passive Device Characterization

Power electronics design best configures available electrical devices—transistors, inductors, and capacitors—to realize a theoretical power conversion function in the smallest, lightest, cheapest, and most efficient manner. In particular, hybrid switched-capacitor converters are a contemporary and high-performance class of circuit topology utilizing both inductors and capacitors. To better understand how these converters behave and are realized in practice, this manuscript will explore several contributing design aspects—modeling, passive devices, and practical printed circuit board layout—applied to a particular circuit topology of active research interest./nFirst, the thesis will explore the results of a comprehensive survey of commercial passive components and how their figures-of-merit might be used to inform converter design. The survey explores the capabilities of prominent types of discrete capacitors and inductors. Then this manuscript applies this survey to the design of an aluminum electrolytic capacitor bank on the dc-link of a single-phase power conversion system./nSecond, this thesis analyzes dynamical modeling for the flying capacitor multilevel (FCML) power converter, a topology with nearly inexhaustible switching state combinations. It presents a simplified derivation and abstraction of a conventional averaged Fourier-derived model for this FCML switching-circuit topology, and it provides extensions to existing work and explores design implications. Next, this manuscript outlines a methodology for deriving a functional, accurate, and computationally efficient discrete-time state-space dynamical model for the FCML converter; this model is validated with results measured from a high-performance hardware prototype./nFinally, the thesis investigates the usage of multilevel converters to demonstrate the underlying feasibility of the single-stage buck-type power factor correction (PFC) rectifier. A high-performance multilevel converter prototype is developed with an especial focus on compactness, high efficiency, and low-inductance layout in the switching commutation loops. Then the theoretic input current harmonics, power factor, and total harmonic distortion of the buck PFC are derived and compared to the prevailing regulatory IEC current emission standards.

Advisor: Pilawa-Podgurski, Robert C. N.
Experimental Frequency Response Methods for the Demonstration of Thermal Hydraulic Similitude Between Molten Fluoride Salt and Surrogate Fluid Scaled Experiments

This dissertation presents the design, development, and experimental results of the Scaled Heat Exchange Frequency Response Analysis (SHEFRA) experiment, which aimed to investigate the use of frequency response methods for measuring quasi-steady Nusselt number values in forced convection of a surrogate fluid for molten fluoride salt in circular ducts. The dynamic response in the flow channel was initiated by a periodically-varying fluid temperature at the inlet. Initial experimental results obtained from the SHEFRA experiment suggest that quasi-steady conditions are achievable for laminar flow conditions, showing good agreement with steady-state analytical predictions. The theoretical modeling and frequency scaling analysis provided insights into the relevant dimensionless parameters and their impact on the system’s behavior, allowing for optimal experimental parameters and conditions to be determined. Quasi-steady state heat transfer conditions are best approximated at high or low values of a dimensionless parameter, b*, defined as the dimensionless frequency multiplied by the ratio of wall thermal capacitance and fluid thermal conductivity. At the limit of high frequency, the quasi-steady regime approximates the analytically-predicted steady state heat transfer with an isothermal wall temperature boundary condition. Meanwhile, at the limit of low frequency, the quasi-steady state conditions approximate steady state pre- dictions for a constant flux boundary condition. In comparison, high frequency tests resulted in a better approximation of quasi-steady state near the inlet of the test section. The most deviation in the instantaneous Nusselt number exists in the middle frequency range. The results suggest that additional experimental data, covering a range of Prandtl and Reynolds numbers of interest for molten fluoride salt reactor operation, can be used to create Nusselt number correlations that can be compared with prototypical molten salt experiment data and hence qualify the use of surrogate fluids in scaled experiments. Additionally, frequency response parameter estimation techniques presented in this dissertation offer promising av- enues for future research in improving the accuracy of Nusselt number measurements with the potential of estimating other system parameters such as thermophysical properties. The SHEFRA experiment demonstrates the potential of using surrogate fluids and frequency response methods to obtain high-fidelity heat transfer data measurements relevant for molten salt reactor development.

Advisor: Peterson, Per F
Exploiting Phase Boundaries for Near-Unity CsPbBr3 Nanocrystals and Elucidating Coupling in 2D Assemblies

This dissertation will introduce a new synthetic method toward near-unity photoluminescence quantum yield CsPbBr3 nanocrystals. The synthesis of high quality CsPbBr3 was achieved through the exploitation of the delicate phase boundaries between the lead bromide phase stabilities. By stochiometrically exploring the complex and rich phase map associated with the lead bromide perovskites, deep suppression of non-radiative recombination of excitons generated upon photexcitation was achieved. In doing so, a critical ratio between bromide and lead in solution is established to reduce non-radiative recombination while maintaining phase purity. This dissertation provides additional evidence that halide vacancies are the primary contributor to non-radiative recombination in sub-stoichiometric synthesis of CsPbBr3 nanocrystals. Furthermore, it is proposed that lead vacancies are responsible for non-radiative recombination in when exceeding stoichiometric ratios. The various phase stabilities responsible for the lead deficient CsPbBr3 phase were identified via UV-VIS signatures. In the process, a new lead bromide magic-sized cluster was identified. Transformations of this magic-sized cluster were investigated. A ligand-mediated transformation from magic-sized cluster to an intermediate species was identified. Consequently, further comprehension of the formation of larger lead bromide perovskites was achieved. Exciton diffusion measurements of 2D arrays of the optically efficient CsPbBr3 suggest high inter-nanocrystal coupling. This was achieved through the investigation of the diffusivity of the charge transfer process as a function of temperature. Non-Arrhenius like behavior proves signatures of exciton delocalization over multiple quantum dots.

Advisor: Alivisatos, Armand P
Leveraging the Primary and Secondary Coordination Sphere of Molecular Catalysts Towards Electrocatalytic and Photocatalytic Carbon Dioxide Reduction

Industrialization and urbanization have encouraged rapid population increases, improved standards of living, access to education, and advanced technological development in large economies across the globe. Simultaneously, these events have strained our natural resources, which over time has drawn attention to their scarcity as well as the secondary environmental consequences of their exploitation. In particular, the combustion of fossil fuels, a non-renewable source of energy, is directly correlated to increased concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2). Since the beginning of industrialization, we have monitored rising anthropogenic carbon dioxide and the resulting effects of increased global surface temperatures, including stronger and more frequent heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and hurricanes. Changes to the Earth’s climate disproportionately affect marginalized communities such as people of color, non-European immigrants, people with disabilities, and low-income groups— as well as populations outside of the Western purview, such as the Philippines, Madagascar, and India. In light of this, scientists are propelled to develop alternatives to petroleum-based energy sources, especially those with carbon-neutral footprints. The capture of atmospheric CO2 and its conversion to chemicals currently derived from petroleum is under investigation as an approach to remove CO2 pollution while providing a net-zero carbon source. The goal of this thesis is to study the use of artificial photosynthesis, specifically, molecular photocatalysis and electrocatalysis, to study the CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) as a method of transforming CO2 into useful chemical feedstocks using sustainable energy inputs such as electricity, which can be derived from wind or solar power. To understand and optimize molecular systems with atomic-level tunability in their activity towards CO2RR, our work involves the investigation of primary and secondary coordination sphere modifications to molecular catalysts based on transition metal complexes of polypyridine and supramolecular porphyrin ligands. The ability to modulate both the primary and secondary coordination sphere of molecular species provides insight into the fundamental properties that are important in optimizing selectivity and rates in electro- and photocatalysts for CO2RR. We hope this work highlights the value of molecular chemistry in the future development of large-scale CO2 capture and conversion for sustainable and renewable energy.

Advisor: Chang, Christopher J
Safe Online Decision-Making for Non-Stationary Systems

Despite several progresses of control-theoretic techniques in the past decade, these methods still struggle to bridge the widening gap between theory and reality, which is exacerbated by the increasing complexity, uncertainty, and safety requirements. Consequently, the creation of online control algorithms for safety-critical applications in non-stationary environments could pave the way for a new chapter in modern control theory, substantially enhancing the reliability of intelligent systems as they function in dynamic, uncertain, and potentially hostile conditions subject to physical and computational limitations. Safe non-stationary decision-making not only encompasses the core challenges of traditional decision-making but also presents new hurdles, such as (i) fast adaptation under the non-stationary environments, (ii) global optimality convergence of the non-convex optimization, (iii) continual balancing of objective and constraints. The above challenges go beyond current capabilities in computation and theory and manifest in various aspects of practical and theoretical interests, from sample complexity and non-convergence issues to computational tractability and enforcement of safety constraints for real-time control. This thesis aims to pioneer system operation at the nexus of reinforcement learning, online learning, statistical learning, and nonlinear optimization. The design of provably efficient and safe online decision-making algorithms that exploit prediction and prior knowledge while grappling with the effects of dynamic feedback and non-stationary environment will push the frontiers of computational verification and synthesis of control policies for safety-critical systems./nTo overcome these challenges and realize the full potential of online decision-making approaches for adaptability and performance gains, this thesis aims to extend the foundational knowledge in systems and control and broaden our understanding of performance limits and engineering trade-offs when the system must operate outside of the assumptions of known models and needs to adapt to its environment in real-time. In particular, we develop a new mathematical foundation and a set of computational tools for the design of safe online decision-making algorithms that can be deployed in environments that undergo changes. Along this line, we will address the following objectives: (i) escaping spurious local minimum trajectories in online time-varying non-convex optimization, (ii) provably efficient primal-dual reinforcement learning for CMDPs with non-stationary objectives and constraints, (iii) non-stationary risk-sensitive reinforcement learning with near-optimal dynamic regret, adaptive detection, and separation design.

Advisor: Lavaei, Javad J.L.
In Search of the Political: How Social Movements Enter Liberal Social Change Projects

Left critiques of professionalized liberal social change actors such as human rights groups, development organizations, and philanthropic foundations accuse them of depoliticizing or coopting radical social movements. But what happens when the professionals in these third sector institutions take up these critiques and reimagine human rights, development, and philanthropy in their light while maintaining and rearticulating their liberal commitments? This dissertation locates and investigates a search for a more ambitious and political kind of liberal social change by elite progressive civil society professionals in the first two decades of the 21st century. By examining the discourses, tools, and practices these professionals construct to support social movements, it considers the epistemological assumptions, elite self-fashioning, and metaphorical structures that underwrite the entrance of movements into liberal social change projects. The dissertation finds that the terms for progressive third sector elite to support social movements involve assimilating them to ‘civil society’, which they imagine as an ‘ecosystem’ made up of different kinds of organizations and actors, each with a role to play. The function of movements, as the actor assumed to be most insulated from and oppositional to the encroachment of market and state power on civil society, is to provide cohesion, direction, and legitimacy to the other, more professionalized and compromised, actors. To avoid coopting movements, these professionals argue that grassroots activists possess privileged knowledge of social problems, while simultaneously fashioning themselves as neutral instruments used by movements to realize their solutions. The dissertation thus analyzes tools including participatory grantmaking and the social change ecosystem framework that third sector professionals develop to secure a non-coopting solidarity relationship with movement actors. These tools are ultimately designed to ensure the autonomy of social movements from elite influence so that the movements can redeem a civil society sphere in crisis. In the process, however, these tools and discourses engender a distinction between elite and ‘authentic’ political actors, cede responsibility for securing social change to the latter, while framing the telos of that action as the redemption of a space (civil society) that exists alongside rather than as a fundamental challenge to the power of capital and state. The dissertation theorizes this set of discourses and practices as a key aspect of ‘movement liberalism’, and argues that it remains to be seen the extent to which actually existing movements are conscripted to its project, but that critiques of liberalism nonetheless need to account for both its enchantment with and aversion to ‘the political’.

Advisor: Constable, Marianne
Prediction and Statistical Inference in Feedback Loops

Classical machine learning and statistics are built on the paradigm that there is a fixed quantity that we want to learn about a population, such as the best predictor of outcomes from features or the average effect of a treatment. In modern practices, however, predictions and inferences beget other predictions and inferences, causing the quantity of interest to change over time and drift away in a feedback loop. The feedback poses challenges for traditional methods, calling for new solutions. This thesis introduces new principles for prediction and inference in the presence of feedback loops./nThe first part focuses on performative prediction. Performative prediction formalizes the phenomenon that predictive models—by means of being used to make consequential downstream decisions—often influence the outcomes they aim to predict in the first place. For example, travel time estimates on navigation apps influence traffic patterns and thus realized travel times, stock price predictions influence trading activity and hence prices. We examine common heuristics such as retraining, as well as more refined optimization strategies for dealing with performative feedback. At the end of the first part, we identify important scenarios where the act of prediction triggers feedback loops that are not explained by the framework of performativity, and we develop theory to describe and study such feedback./nThe second part discusses principles for valid statistical inference, i.e., valid p-values and confidence intervals, in the presence of feedback. We consider two types of feedback: the first is due to data snooping, i.e., the practice of choosing which results to report only after seeing the data; the second arises when machine-learning systems are used to supply cheap predictions to augment or supplant high-quality data in future scientific analyses. In both cases, ignoring the feedback and naively applying classical statistical methods leads to inflated error rates and false discoveries; we provide alternative approaches that guarantee valid inferences in the face of feedback.

Advisor: Jordan, Michael I.
Hardt, Moritz