VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
High-Order Discontinuous Galerkin Fluid-Structure Interaction Methods

We present a high-order accurate scheme for fully coupled/nfluid-structure interaction problems. The fluid is discretized using a/ndiscontinuous Galerkin method on unstructured tetrahedral meshes, and/nthe structure uses a high-order volumetric continuous Galerkin finite/nelement method. Standard radial basis functions are used for the mesh/ndeformation. The time integration is performed using a partitioned/napproach based on implicit-explicit Runge-Kutta methods. The/nresulting scheme fully decouples the implicit solution procedures for/nthe fluid and the solid parts, which we perform using two separate/nefficient parallel solvers. We demonstrate up to fifth order accuracy/nin time on a non-trivial test problem, on which we also show that/nadditional subiterations are not required. We solve a benchmark/nproblem of a cantilever beam in a shedding flow, and show good/nagreement with other results in the literature./nIn addition, we create several simulations which are motivated by/nreal-world phenomena. First, we investigate flow around a thin/nmembrane at high-angle of attack, demonstrating the ability of the/nleading edge of the membrane to align with the incident flow. Examples/nare provided in both two and three dimensions. Next, we consider/nbiologically inspired flight, by investigating wing-like structures/ndriven in a flapping motion in both two and three dimensions./nFinally, we demonstrate how the method may be used in acoustics/nproblems, simulating a tuning fork in three dimensions. Here we/naccurately capture decay rates purely from the fluid-structure/ninteraction and without any damping coefficients built into the/nstructure model.

Advisor: Persson, Per-Olof
From Dada to Digital: Experimental Poetry in the Media Age

At least since Mallarme, if not before, poets in the Western tradition have responded to changes in media technologies by reflecting on their own relationship to language, and by reassessing the limits and possibilities of poetry. In the German- speaking world, this tendency has been pronounced in a number of experimental movements: Dada, particularly in Zurich and Berlin between 1916 and 1921; Concrete poetry, especially its Swiss and German variants in the 1950s and '60s; and finally, digital or electronic poetry, a genre that is still developing all around the world, but has roots in Germany dating back to the late 1950s. For each of these movements, the increasing dominance of new media technologies contributes to an understanding of language as something material, quantifiable, and external to its human users, and casts doubt on the function of language as a means of subjective expression, particularly in the context of poetry. However, this poetic engagement with a materialized, quantified language does not only pose a challenge to older conceptions of the lyric subject; rather, a new sort of subjectivity may emerge through the interaction of human authors and technological media. Thus by engaging with new media technologies, the experimental movements considered here have raised fundamental questions about the nature of subjectivity in a media-dominated age. This argument is developed here in the form of critical surveys of all three movements, together with case studies of works that have received relatively little scholarly attention to date. The introduction to the Dadaists' media poetics in Chapter One is followed, in Chapter Two, by a closer look at how print media and advertising fit into the Berlin Dadaists' political program, focusing on the collaboration between George Grosz and John Heartfield in the June 1917 issue of Neue Jugend. Following the survey of Concrete poetry in Chapter Three, Chapter Four focuses on the role of information theory in the works of Max Bense, particularly in his 1963 book Vielleicht zunaechst wirklich nur: Monolog der Terry Jo im Mercey Hospital, as well as the 1968 radio-play adaptation, Der Monolog der Terry Jo. The final chapter pursues this trajectory further, tracing the development of digital poetry in the German-speaking world from its earliest experimental phase in 1959 up to the present day.

Advisor: Kaes, Anton
A Limit of Economy of Material in Shell Structures

An engineering structure can be optimized to maximize its stiffness under a set/nof applied loads, or (equivalently) to ensure all stresses in the structure are at a/nlimit value. Such an optimum can be refined by including more members in the/nstructure, enlarging the solution space and allowing an improved result. Continuing/nthis process, we obtain the limit of refinement of a sequence of optimal structures./nOriginally studied by Michell, the limit consists of a continuum of infinitely dense/nmembers, and is the most optimal structure possible for a given sequence of structural/ntopologies./nIn this work, we lift the work of Michell from the plane onto curved three-/ndimensional shell structures. This is accomplished in two parts: first, we consider/noptimal continuum shells in their own terms, then we consider a sequence of optimal/ndiscrete grid shells and examine their convergence to the limit. The properties of the/ncontinuum guide our search for a correct sequence; in particular, we expect the grid/nshell to converge to the lines of principal stress of the continuum in the limit. Crucial/nto our result is the concept of a net, a discrete collection of continuous curves that/nretains the topological characteristics of a grid shell but allows us to use calculus to/nreason about structures near the limit. The continuum shell problem allows us to/ndetermine the outer geometry of the limit (the curvature), while the net allows us to/ndetermine the inner geometry (the spacing of members along the surface)./nWe examine the properties of this limit, showing that the primal version of/nMichell's dual problem is a membrane shell. Under the assumptions of a grid shell/ncomposed of planar quadrilaterals, the limit has lines of principal stress aligned with/nits lines of curvature. We derive numerical methods for solving for the shape of limit/nshells under the assumption of isotropic stresses in the shell and loads available from/na potential.

Advisor: Govindjee, Sanjay
Generalized Solovay Measures, the HOD Analysis, and the Core Model Induction

This thesis belongs to the field of descriptive inner model theory. Chapter 1 provides a/nproper context for this thesis and gives a brief introduction to the theory of AD+, the theory/nof hod mice, and a definition of KJ (R). In Chapter 2, we explore the theory of generalized/nSolovay measures. We prove structure theorems concerning canonical models of the theory/nAD+ + there is a generalized Solovay measure" and compute the exact consistency strength/nof this theory. We also give some applications relating generalized Solovay measures to the/ndeterminacy of a class of long games. In Chapter 3, we give a HOD analysis of AD+ + V =/nL(P(R)) models below ADR + Theta is regular." This is an application of the theory of hod/nmice developed in G. Sargsyan's thesis. We also analyze HOD of AD+-models of the form V = L(R; mu)/nwhere mu is a generalized Solovay measure. In Chapter 4, we develop techniques for the core/nmodel induction. We use this to prove a characterization of AD+ in models of the form/nV = L(R;mu), where mu is a generalized Solovay measure. Using this framework, we also can/nconstruct models of ADR + Theta is regular" from the theory ZF + DC + Theta is regular + omega1 is/nP(R)-supercompact". In fact, we succeed in going further, namely we can construct a model/nof ADR + Theta is measurable" and show that this is in fact, an equiconsistency.

Advisor: Steel, John R
Familial Politics of Production: Household Production in China

This dissertation elaborates a new type of factory regime---Familial Household Production---in China based on a study of Baigou bag industry. Not only household production is different from the other types of well-known production systems of SOEs (State Owned Enterprises), TVEs (Township and Village Enterprises) and FEs (Foreign Enterprises) due to its rural familial characteristics, but also what further distinguishes them is that household production always exists in a context of flexible industrial district which simultaneously promotes and reproduces familial household production. There are three sub-types of the familial household production regime: 1) patriarchal factory regime is a form of "government by the family" in which the small household factory owner relies exclusively on his family members as labor force and secures absolute loyalty from them; 2) paternalistic factory regime is a form of "government through the family" in which the median sized household factory owner mobilizes his own families and his fellow villager-worker families for self-discipline through each family and offers good welfare in exchange for workers' long-term loyalty; 3) patrimonial factory regime is a form of "government for the family" in which the big household factory owner employs workers from a job agent's rural community and decentralizes his power to his family members for factory operation, resulting in a layered loyalty structure. The easy contraction and expansion of household factories and their corresponding rapid adoption of different sub-types of familial factory regimes enhances the flexibility of both household production and the entire industrial district.

Advisor: Burawoy, Michael
Non-predictive cueing improves accuracy judgments for voluntary and involuntary spatial and feature/shape attention independent of backward masking.

Many psychophysics investigations have implemented pre-cues to direct an observer's attention to a specific location or feature. There is controversy over the mechanisms of involuntary attention and whether perceptual or decision processes can enhance target detection and identification as measured by accuracy judgments. Through four main experiments, this dissertation research has indicated that both involuntary and voluntary attention improve target identification and localization accuracy even when cues are non-predictive. The first experiment was conducted to assess the validity of the mask-dependent cueing hypothesis and to determine if involuntary attention improves target identification accuracy. A two-alternative force choice experimental procedure using the method of constant stimuli was conducted using non-predictive cues and both masked and unmasked target stimuli. The results indicated that involuntary attention improved target identification accuracy for unmasked stimuli across the entire Weibull psychometric function. The second experiment introduced multinomial modeling of observed data to assess the extent of response bias which has been shown to confound cueing experiments. In a seven-alternative force choice experiment, observers reported both the location and identification of masked stimuli presented across a range of temporal parameters spanning the time course of both voluntary and involuntary attention. The multinomial modeling removed the response bias and the results indicated a strong cueing effect for both voluntary and involuntary spatial attention./nThe third experiment used the same multinomial modeling technique to remove response bias, but stimuli were unmasked and 6 stimulus contrast levels were tested ranging from 19% to 100% contrast. Results indicated strong cueing effects across the entire psychometric function. The fourth experiment was a six-alternative force choice feature-attention task in which observers reported the identity and location of target stimuli following a feature cue. The results indicated that under both involuntary and voluntary attention, response accuracy was increased. The combined results indicate that accuracy is enhanced with voluntary and involuntary attention for both feature-based and visuo-spatial attention using non-predictive cues.

Advisor: Klein, Stanley A
Ambiguous fragment assignment for high-throughput sequencing experiments

As the cost of short-read, high-throughput DNA sequencing continues to fall rapidly, new uses for the technology have been developed aside from its original purpose in determining the genome of various species. Many of these new experiments use the sequencer as a digital counter for measuring biological activities such as gene expression (RNA-Seq) or protein binding (ChIP-Seq)./nA common problem faced in the analysis of these data is that of sequenced fragments that are "ambiguous", meaning they resemble multiple loci in a reference genome or other sequence. In early analyses, such ambiguous fragments were ignored or were assigned to loci using simple heuristics. However, statistical approaches using maximum likelihood estimation have been shown to greatly improve the accuracy of downstream analyses and have become widely adopted Optimization based on the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm are often employed by these methods to find the optimal sets of alignments, with frequent enhancements to the model. Nevertheless, these improvements increase complexity, which, along with an exponential growth in the size of sequencing datasets, has led to new computational challenges./nHerein, we present our model for ambiguous fragment assignment for RNA-Seq, which includes the most comprehensive set of parameters of any model introduced to date, as well as various methods we have explored for scaling our optimization procedure. These methods include the use of an online EM algorithm and a distributed EM solution implemented on the Spark cluster computing system. Our advances have resulted in the first efficient solution to the problem of fragment assignment in sequencing./nFurthermore, we are the first to create a fully generalized model for ambiguous fragment assignment and present details on how our method can provide solutions for additional high-throughput sequencing assays including ChIP-Seq, Allele-Specific Expression (ASE), and the detection of RNA-DNA Differences (RDDs) in RNA-Seq.

Advisor: Pachter, Lior
Exploring molecular mechanisms of itch and touch in the mammalian somatosensory system.

Unlike other sensory systems, the somatosensory system is required for encoding information about multiple sensory modalities. Somatosensory neurons can respond to a variety of different stimuli including temperature, pressure and chemical irritants. These neurons are a heterogeneous population and utilize a variety of molecular pathways to transduce somatosensory stimuli. Because of this diversity of pathways and the diversity of sensory neuron subtypes, our understanding of transduction machinery in the somatosensory system lags behind our understanding of other sensory systems./nWe have worked to establish new tools for identifying new candidate molecules involved in transducing somatosensory stimuli and to test the role of these molecules in vitro and in vivo. Our work has focused on the transduction of two types of stimuli; mechanical forces that do not cause pain and chemical irritants that elicit sensations of itch. We have shown that TRPA1 is a convergence point for multiple itch causing compounds. We have also generated a new set of putative mechanotransducers by exploiting the extreme specialization of the hypertrophied epidermis of the star organ in the star-nosed mole. We have tested the role of one of these candidates, Cnga2, in somatosensation in mice. Our data suggests that Cnga2 plays a role in texture discrimination though altering the mechanical responses of somatosensory neurons.

Advisor: Bautista, Diana M
Essays on the Economics of Crime

This dissertation considers the role that of various inputs in informing the market for crimes. Chapter 1 considers the "national" effect of immigration. Using panel data on U.S. cities and an instrument that leverages temporal variation in rainfall in different regions of Mexico and persistence in regional Mexico-U.S. migration networks, my findings indicate that Mexican immigration is associated with no appreciable change in the rate of either violent or property crimes in U.S. cities./nChapter 2 leverages a natural experiment created by recent legislation in/nArizona to estimate the impact on crime of an extremely large and discrete/ndecline in the state's foreign-born Mexican population. I show that Arizona's/nforeign-born Mexican population decreased by as much as 20 percent in the wake/nof the state's 2008 implementation of the Legal Arizona Workers Act (LAWA),/na broad-based E-Verify law requiring employers to verify the immigration status/nof new employees, coupled with severe sanctions for employer noncompliance./nIn order to isolate the causal effect/nof the passage and implementation of LAWA on crime, I leverage a synthetic/n"differences-in-differences" estimator, using a new method of counterfactual/nestimation proposed by Abadie, Diamond and Hainmuller (2010). In contrast to previous literature, I find/nsignificant and large effects of Mexican immigration on Arizona's property crime/nrate. Results are driven, in large part, by the fact that LAWA resulted in especially/ndisproportionate declines among Mexican migrants who are young and male and,/nas such, the effects are predominantly compositional./nThe final chapter, coauthored with Justin McCrary, considers the responsiveness of crime to police manpower. Using a new panel data set on crime in medium to large U.S. cities over 1960-/n2010, we show that (1) year-over-year changes in police per capita are largely/nidiosyncratic to demographic factors, the local economy, city budgets, measures/nof social disorganization, and recent changes in crime rates, (2) year-over-year/nchanges in police per capita are mismeasured, leading many estimates in the/nliterature to be too small by a factor of 5, and (3) after correcting for measurement/nerror bias and controlling for population growth, a regression of within-state/ndifferences in year-over-year changes in city crimes on within-state differences/nin year-over-year changes in police yields economically large point estimates. Our/nestimates imply that each dollar spent on police is associated with approximately/n$1.60 in reduced victimization costs, suggesting that U.S. cities employ too few/npolice.

Advisor: Raphael, Steven
Essays on the Economics of Energy and the Environment

This dissertation explores two aspects of environmental economics and the evaluation of energy policies in the buildings sector. The first chapter focuses on energy standards, and the second chapter focuses on green labels./nThe first chapter assesses whether commercial real estate market participants are willing to pay a premium for an energy efficient building that has not received a green label. I utilize a unique dataset of detailed building-level observations and a spatial semiparametric matching framework that exploits quasi experimental state-by-year variation in the implementation of mandatory building energy codes, to estimate selling price and rent premiums for a more stringent code. I find that buildings constructed under a more stringent energy code are associated with rent and selling price premiums of approximately 2.7% and 10%, respectively, compared to buildings constructed just before the code came into effect. When tenants pay directly for utilities, buildings constructed under an energy code are associated with 5.7% higher rents. While building energy codes have been promoted to address landlord-tenant informational asymmetries that would not be addressed by a carbon pricing strategy, these estimated premiums are consistent with complete capitalization of estimated building-level savings, and as such they cast doubt on the existence of an energy efficiency gap resulting from adverse selection between landlords and tenants./nIn the second chapter, I assess whether nonrandom selection affects the frequently-touted benefits of green-labeling policies in the commercial building stock. While green-labeled buildings have been found to sell at a premium compared to nearby controls with similar/nobservable characteristics, the voluntary nature of the labeling decision implies green-labeled buildings may have different unmeasured characteristics that may account for at least a portion of the premium. Therefore, it is unclear whether green-labeled building premiums are a causal effect of the labels. I use data on repeat sales transactions and detailed hedonic characteristics to test whether green-labeled office buildings were selling at a premium before they were labeled, and combine these results with post-labeling price premium estimates to identify realized cost-benefit ratios for green-labeling policies. The data suggest the causal net benefits of green labels range from $11.50-$19.95 per square foot. The estimated net benefits are smaller than previous estimates that have focused solely on the benefits and ignored the potential biases from nonrandom selection.

Advisor: Berck, Peter
Materials Synthesis and Characterization for Micro-supercapacitor Applications

Supercapacitors represent a critical energy storage device technology for applications which require higher power density and/or cycle lifetime than existing battery technologies. Micro-scale supercapacitors, in particular, can enable novel applications in autonomous, wireless microsensors and microelectronics. If these micro-supercapacitors can be fabricated in a planar, on-chip geometry, the energy storage and the devices to be powered can be integrated on a single chip, improving scalability and reducing cost. The primary components of a supercapacitor are the electrodes and electrolyte. The properties of the electrode and electrolyte materials have a significant effect on device performance, and thus, there is significant opportunity for engineering materials to improve the energy density, power density, cycle lifetime, cost, safety, manufacturability, and harsh environment performance of micro-supercapacitors. Furthermore, these properties could be intelligently tailored for specific applications./nThis manuscript provides some background on the principles underlying supercapacitor materials selection and testing, and presents several approaches to engineer these materials. Electrode materials which are investigated include photoresist derived porous carbon, vertically aligned carbon nanotubes, and 3D templated graphene. Electrolytes which are explored include various aqueous salts (and their impact on device cycle lifetime performance) as well as ionic liquid based gels (or ionogels). Furthermore, efforts to fabricate flexible micro-supercapacitors are discussed./nFor on-chip energy storage involving high temperature operation, yttria-stabilized zirconia is investigated as the electrolyte. Silicon carbide (SiC)-based material for the electrode and its metal contact stability are also investigated, as the stability of these contacts during operation is an important consideration for the performance of high temperature micro-supercapacitors. Epitaxial graphene growth on SiC thin films is presented as one approach to stabilizing metal-to-SiC contacts.

Advisor: Maboudian, Roya