VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Andre Breton and the modern art of collecting

While André Breton's (1896-1966) literary contributions to Surrealism have long been recognized within scholarship, his multifaceted collecting practices have generally been overlooked. Over the course of his career, Breton would assemble a private collection that consisted of more than 10,000 diverse and multivalent objects within his atelier at 42 rue Fontaine, where he lived for more than forty years. My dissertation, "André Breton and the Modern Art of Collecting, " adjusts the terms by which Breton is traditionally understood by tracing the evolution of his personal collection and his activities as a collector, beginning with his leadership of the Surrealist movement in the 1920s and 1930s; through his relationship during World War II with anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss; and culminating with Breton's imagined exploratory "voyage" around his densely packed atelier in 1966. Collecting—as an aesthetic practice, a set of material processes, and a method—emerges as a principal lens through which to interpret Breton's vital and interrelated activities as a poet, critic, curator, and creator of objects. Drawing from unpublished archival material and supported by object-based research and literary analysis, this study offers new ways to understand the role of collecting within Breton's creative production, Surrealism, and, by extension, the historical avant-garde

Keywords: Art and Art History.
Advisor: Troy Nancy J. 
Marrinan Michael 
Meyer Richard
Nemerov Alexander
Antibody approaches to enable hematopoietic stem cell and organ transplant

Clinical care has been greatly advanced by precision medicine, which has been represented by antibodies, chimeric antigen receptor T-cells, small molecule inhibitors to mutant proteins, and many other therapies. The mainstay of this progress has been the purification of the target of interest. As we move into a new era in medicine, therapies should aim to fix the clinical problem at hand while leaving the rest of a patient's body unperturbed. In the case of a tissue or organ system, the identification of the stem cell can allow for either targeted removal or repopulation of that tissue. The former is best exemplified by the identification of cancer stem cells (CSCs), which represent a rare, self-renewing population of malignant cells that have the capacity to differentiate and recapitulate the entire makeup of a bulk tumor. Targeted therapies to CSCs have long been desired as non-specific therapies that work by attacking rapidly dividing cells may cull a large mass but if they leave quiescent CSCs untouched, there may be a chance of recurrence. The following body of work will dive further into this topic and describe a study that yielded a putative CSC population in pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors, as well as potential targeted therapies. The latter scenario of tissue repopulation is best exemplified by bone marrow transplantation, where one's entire hematopoietic system can be replaced by donor blood forming stem cells. This technique is utilized for curing hematopoietic malignancies and genetic disorders; however, its use is limited by side effects related to the non-specific drugs used to prepare a patient for transplant and the impure donor cell grafts that are infused. This dissertation will also discuss work that outlines a novel approach for specifically ablating and engrafting hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) that was made possible by the purification and subsequent characterization of this population by others

Advisor: Weissman Irving L.
Mackall Crystal 
Majeti Ravindra
Roncarolo Maria-Grazia 
Shizuru Judith Anne
A’ole TMT: Environmental Justice and Indigenous Resistance in Hawaiʻi

Lilli Carlsen’s capstone project provides a human rights centered analysis on the Aʻole TMT movement led by Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) in opposition to the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on Mauna Kea, the tallest mountain on the big island of Hawaiʻi. Through a multifaceted analysis, Lilli demonstrates how this current struggle touches on a myriad of topics including scientific progress, cultural revitalization, and settler colonialism. Furthermore, she asserts Kanaka Maoli are not protesting TMT, they are protesting the construction of TMT on their sacred mountain and, by doing so, they are continuing a long history of Native Hawaiian resistance to settler colonialism. Lilli hopes to demonstrate the ways in which the A’ole TMT movement connects to the larger Hawaiian sovereignty movement and highlights a unique way that environmental justice can intersect with indigenous rights activism on Hawai’i.

Keywords: Environmental justice
Indigenous Rights
Hawaii
Text
Thesis
Application of multiple imputation in propensity score methods with partially observed covariates

Since its introduction in the 1980s, propensity score (PS) methods have been widely used. They have been particularly prevalent in the field of causal inference in order to draw valid inference from observational data. Specifically, PS matching and weighting strategies have been applied to a variety of studies. PS weighting has also been adapted to many other contexts, including the recent methodological developments in generalizing and transporting randomized clinical trial (RCT) results to target populations of interest, referred to as inverse probability of sampling weighting (IPSW). Application of the aforementioned approaches is not straightforward in the presence of missing data, which threatens their statistical validity. Unfortunately, missing data is inevitable in almost all biomedical studies, multiple imputation (MI) is a flexible solution for handling missing data with good statistical properties that is easily accessible in many mainstream computational software. However, one has to make a number of key choices to implement MI in applying PS-based methods that greatly impact the statistical properties of resulting estimators. The choices include which imputation model to use (variables or subpopulations), how to impute PS, how to integrate PS into analysis, and how to estimate the uncertainty of the estimated relationship of interest. We built upon previous work to evaluate novel MI strategies for two key contexts through extensive simulation studies. Specifically, we have designed and implemented Monte Carlo simulations to illustrate the heterogeneity of findings and to develop guidelines for applied methodologists. We additionally illustrated principles using two studies, the Diet Intervention Examining The Factors Interacting with Treatment Success (DIETFITS) and the Frequent Hemodialysis Network (FHN) Daily Network Trial. For both PS matching in the context of classic causal inference and PS weighting in the context of transporting RCT results to target populations of interest, we recommend 1) adopting MI-derPassive and deriving the PS after applying MI 2) implementing INT-within and conducting PS matching or weighting within each imputed dataset before averaging the treatment effects into one summarized quantity 3) estimating the uncertainty of the relationship of interest through a bootstrapped variance estimator for PS matching and a robust variance estimator for IPSW and 4) including key auxiliary variables in the imputation model when possible

Advisor: Desai Manisha 1970- 
Baiocchi Michael
Chertow Glenn M.
Tian Lu
Applications of large-scale and high-resolution topographic data in tectonic geomorphology

Many discoveries in geomorphology have been driven by new platforms for acquiring elevation data and new methods for measuring landscape characteristics and change in these datasets over the past two decades. This dissertation addresses three problems: detecting and measuring attributes of tectonic landforms in elevation data at scale, filtering point clouds to improve representations of the ground surface, and detecting change due to near-surface deformation in high-resolution datasets. It uses two sources of "big data" common in tectonic geomorphology: regional-scale, airborne light detection and ranging (lidar) data and small footprint, ultra-high density photogrammetric data. Geomorphic indicators of faulting, such as fault scarps and topographic lineaments, provide important evidence of fault zone extent, maturity, and activity beyond the observational timescales of instrumental or historical data. In Chapter 1, a template matching method to detect tectonic landforms including earthquake fault scarps is developed and applied at scale to a regional lidar dataset imaging over 2500 square kilometers of the northern San Andreas fault system. The method is evaluated against field-based morphologic dating and improvements to semi-automated fault mapping methods are discussed. Chapter 2 focuses on classification of ground and vegetation points, an important prerequisite to mapping landforms or measuring topographic change. Color-based classification and a multi-scale curvature method using relative height are combined to efficiently classify point clouds, exploiting the color attributes of these data. The new method captures rills, small channels, and tree fall in a photogrammetric dataset that are not visible in lidar data and produces consistent elevation models and topographic derivatives from each data source. Change detection applied to pre- and post-event elevation data has recently enabled inversions of shallow slip in large, surface-rupturing earthquakes. Chapter 3 systematically explores how subtle displacements due to near-surface deformation might be resolved by applying these techniques to photogrammetric data. A series of synthetic experiments is performed by deforming photogrammetric point clouds according to an elastic dislocation model and measuring the resulting displacements. The results indicate a minimum of 0.5 m of dip slip (1-2 m strike slip) is resolved at 100 m depth, consistent with the baseline variability of these data. They also document a survey-specific horizontal bias at large window sizes that provides important information for future applications, especially imaging of strike-slip earthquakes or propagating sills. Potential improvements to the level of detection using a higher frequency time series of displacements are discussed

Keywords: Geological Sciences.
Advisor: Hilley George E.
DeLong Stephen B. 
Lapôtre Mathieu
Archaeology of austerity : the effects of the economic crisis on heritage in Greece

Greece's identity is inseparable from its archaeological heritage. The legacy of western civilization feeds this identity, which is bolstered by classical archaeology and the tourism industry. Since the start of the global financial crisis, the emblems of ancient history have been deployed by politicians, news outlets, and others to bring recognition to the problems of the country in an attempt to create either international solidarity with the Greek people or outline their transgressions and misappropriations (Hamilakis 2016; Hanink 2017; Plantzos 2012). The expense of preserving archaeological sites and managing museums has become a drain on the government's already crippled budget. The failing financial situation has placed the security of artifacts at risk, witnessed by museum robberies and the looting of artifacts at undocumented sites (Howery 2013). Recognizing the socio-political use of heritage during the economic crisis, I demonstrate the ways archaeology is expected to operate for the good of the nation, which keeps intact the main ideological premise along with its guiding strategies and policies. My fieldwork is based upon a grounded ethnography focused on the significance of archaeological heritage sites and shows the alienation of the people who are expected to connect to them. I analyze the infrastructure that produces sites, the nature of assumptions regarding archaeology, and the perspectives of residents with respect to their nationally defined heritage. In addition to this qualitative research, I examine the income and expenditures amassed within the heritage industry to determine the socio-economic impact of archaeology. This crucial juncture of crises has the potential to induce a transformation for the improvement of the organization, management, and practice of archaeology

Keywords: Nanoglou, Stratos degree committee member.
Anthropology.
Advisor: Meskell Lynn
Hodder Ian
The art of not governing : local politics in postwar Lebanon

This dissertation examines how local government institutions reinforce or undermine the stability of predatory democracies -- regimes where free and fair elections coincide with high levels of elite rent-seeking and non-inclusive social policies. It focuses on one type of predatory democracy, the party cartel system. In party cartel systems, dominant political factions form a pact following elections with the aim of eliminating competition in subsequent electoral cycles. Like most predatory democratic regimes, such systems inevitably invite outside challengers to run for office and overthrow the cartel. In Lebanon and elsewhere, however, party cartels often enjoy remarkable resilience even while enacting unpopular policies. The dissertation argues that local governments constitute key institutions upon which party cartels rely to reinforce their power. The dissertation provides evidence for these claims through a single-country study of Lebanon, where a post-war party cartel oversaw extraordinarily high levels of elite predation and low levels of welfare provision. It relies on local electoral data; an original municipal elite survey conducted after the latest local elections; a national survey conducted before and during the 2019-20 protests; and 142 interviews collected during 2016-2020 fieldwork in Lebanon. The analysis combines large-N statistical analysis of local elections and governance outcomes with comparative analysis of a smaller set of municipal case studies. Three key findings emerge. First, the Lebanese civil war constituted a formative period during which members of the soon-to-be party cartel began coopting local government institutions. This process occurred unevenly, and was only partially complete by the end of the war. Following the war's end, party cartel members gradually began to consolidate control over municipalities, uniting to compete against vestiges of the pre-war elite class. Crucial to this process was the withholding of public goods from competitive municipalities and rewarding of them to loyal cartel strongholds. Finally, because the spread of cartel control over municipalities across Lebanon gradually extinguished electoral opposition, the cartel inadvertently laid the groundwork for more contentious, extra-electoral mobilization, culminating in protests that began in October 2019

Keywords: Political Science.
Advisor: Blaydes Lisa
Laitin David D.
Fearon James D.
Rodden Jonathan
Artifacts of encounter : contested geographies in Polynesia and the American Pacific

Since American ships began to enter the Pacific Ocean frontier at the turn of the nineteenth century, Pacific Islanders and voyagers from the West have engaged in increasingly complex forms of cross-cultural contact and exchange. The artifacts from these encounters exist in many forms: travelogues, maps, ethnographic accounts, works of popular literature, embodied practices such as tattooing, as well as a wide range of material culture, examples of which have entered museums around the world. In "Artifacts of Encounter, " I examine this circulation and exchange of people, ideas, and things—all of which take on multiple lives as they become embedded in the transnational circuits that link the Pacific with a modernizing world. The world of the Pacific becomes a constant site of negotiation, where indigenous and foreign conceptions of place and geography intersect and come into conflict as the scope of these encounters stretches across the last two centuries. The disciplines of anthropology, archaeology, history, and literature are brought to the fore to understand the complexity of these "Artifacts of Encounter." The dissertation's chapters are organized around four kinds of mapping that interweave indigenous and Western perspectives: early nineteenth-century American military exploits (1813); American "cultural" mapping of the Pacific by popular authors (1840-1851); the professionalization of anthropological accounts from the nineteenth into the early twentieth century; and finally, geographies of indigenous protest in the contemporary Pacific

Advisor: Moya Paula M. L.
Jones Gavin Roger
Melillo Edward D.
Aspects of the half-filled Landau level

This thesis examines the paradigmatic integer quantum Hall to insulator transition (IQHIT) from the perspective of composite-fermions. A treatment of the disorder faithful to the flux attachment constraint is shown to be crucial in obtaining a composite-fermion description of this quantum critical point and explaining the phenomenology. The disorder in composite-fermion coordinates is a combination of flux and potential disorders. In the simplest mean-field approximation, these two are proportional in space leading to a Hamiltonian analogous to a spin-1/2 in a random magnetic field with a Zeeman term that has a gyromagnetic ratio of g = 2. The breaking of average time-reversal symmetry by such a disorder is shown to be of critical importance. Using this approach, we show how the traditional Halperin-Lee-Read theory of the half-filled Landau level can be consistent with the particle-hole symmetry either with or without disorder. For the former, a reinterpretation of the IQHIT in electron coordinates between the filling fractions ν = 1 and ν = 0 in terms of a transition between the composite-fermion filling fractions ν_cf = −1 and ν_cf = 0 is crucial. Further, this suggests that the IQHIT is self-dual under flux attachment with just a change of sign. We corroborate this using an effective field theory approach and numerical calculations of the critical properties at a mean-field level. Such a self-duality can be then used to obtain the universal critical resistivity tensor. Going beyond the mean-field theory, we study the leading effects of gauge fluctuations. We find that the experimentally observed dynamical scaling exponent of z = 1 can be obtained from the gapless plasmon modes due to the finite conductivity at the critical point. The characteristic scale of this effect is shown to be similar to what's seen in the experiments. Further, by extending this theory to fractional quantum Hall transitions, we show how the Debye screening effects in the presence of Coulomb interactions can lead to an explanation for the conjectured superuniversality of quantum Hall transitions. Finally, we propose an RG-flow as suggested by a perturbative study in the gauge fluctuations and the inverse conductivity of composite-fermions

Keywords: Physics.
Advisor: Raghu Srinivas
Kivelson Steven
Manoharan Harindran C. (Harindran Chelvasekaran)
Assessing China's unconventional carbon pricing system

Currently, China is the world's largest emitter of CO2, accounting for about 28 percent of global emissions. At the time of this writing, China just announced that it aims to have CO2 emissions peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060. Achieving this target requires dramatically reducing the reliance on fossil fuel. One of the biggest efforts China is planning is the nationwide carbon emissions trading system that has been piloted in several provinces since 2013. Once implemented, this system will become the world's largest emissions trading system. This dissertation assesses the economic impacts of China's forthcoming nationwide carbon emissions trading system. China's emissions trading system differs from a conventional cap and trade (C&T) system and a carbon tax, the carbon pricing instruments used elsewhere. This nation will employ a tradable performance standard (TPS). A key property of TPS is its rate-based allowance allocation approach. The rate-based approach makes TPS implicitly subsidize output as an implicit output subsidy, which has significant consequences for cost-effectiveness and distributional impacts. This dissertation aims at assessing the economic impacts of this unconventional emissions trading system. It considers the first phase of the system that covers only electricity sector and the second phase that covers electricity, cement and aluminum sectors, offering theoretical analysis and numerical simulations. In Chapter 2, with matching analytically and numerically solved models, we assess the cost-effectiveness and distributional impacts of China's forthcoming TPS for reducing CO2 emissions from the power sector. In Chapter 3, I extend the single-sector partial equilibrium model employed in Chapter 2 to a multi-sector general equilibrium model to examine the impacts of China's TPS across the whole economy. A general equilibrium model is also necessary for the assessments of China's TPS that potentially will be implemented in multiple sectors. In Chapter 4, I examine the impacts of market power on the cost-effectiveness of TPS and C&T. To the best of my knowledge, this chapter is the first study that focuses on the impacts of market power on a rate-based allowance trading system. I consider two types of market power: the market power in the carbon allowance market and the market power in the electricity market. I show how the two types of market power affect TPS and C&T differently

Keywords: Management Science and Engineering.
Advisor: Goulder Lawrence H. (Lawrence Herbert)
Sweeney James L.
Weyant John P. (John Peter)
Assessing expertise in mechanical engineering design

This work introduces a novel assessment of expertise in mechanical engineering design that is more authentic, complete, and scalable than current alternatives. Results from this assessment provide a repeatable measurement of a test-takers level of expertise in the discipline. In addition to providing an absolute measure of one's expertise, such an assessment also allows for quantified comparisons of the relative effectiveness of different educational experiences. Such comparisons can be used as feedback for teacher training to improve student outcomes. This is part of a larger effort to transform the perception of university teaching as a disciplinary expertise that can be measured and quantifiably improved. A course planned around authentic expert decision making in mechanical engineering design was developed. Students of that course were provided the opportunity to refine their command of this set of expert decisions in ways that are consistent with industry practice. The student outcomes, as measured by this novel assessment, show dramatic improvement when compared with the outcomes of conventional university courses

Keywords: Beach, David W., degree supervisor.
Mechanical Engineering.
Advisor: Kenny Thomas William 
Wieman C. E. (Carl Edwin)