VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Strong Macdonald Theory and the Brylinski Filtration for Affine Lie Algebras

The strong Macdonald theorems state that, for L reductive and s an odd variable, the cohomology algebras H*(L[z]/zN) and H*(L[z, s]) are freely generated, and describe the co-homological, s-, and z-degrees of the generators. The resulting identity for the z-weighted Euler characteristic is equivalent to Macdonald's constant term identity for a finite root system. The proof of the strong Macdonald theorems, due to Fishel, Grojnowski, and Teleman, uses a Laplacian calculation for the (continuous) cohomology of L[[z]] with coefficients in the symmetric algebra of the (continuous) dual of L[[z]]./nOur main result is a generalization of this Laplacian calculation to the setting of a general parahoric p of a (possibly twisted) loop algebra g. As part of this result, we give a detailed exposition of one of the key ingredients in Fishel, Grojnowski, and Teleman's proof, a version of Nakano's identity for infinite-dimensional Lie algebras./nWe apply this Laplacian result to prove new strong Macdonald theorems for H*(p/zNp) and H*(p[s]), where p is a standard parahoric in a twisted loop algebra. We show that H(p/zNp) contains a parabolic subalgebra of the coinvariant algebra of the fixed-point subgroup of the Weyl group of L, and thus is no longer free. We also prove a strong Macdonald theorem for H*(b; S* n* ) and H(b /zN n) when b and n are Iwahori and nilpotent subalgebras respectively of a twisted loop algebra. For each strong Macdonald theorem proved, taking z-weighted Euler characteristics gives an identity equivalent to Macdonald's constant term identity for the corresponding affine root system. As part of the proof, we study the regular adjoint orbits for the adjoint action of the twisted arc group associated to L, proving an analogue of the Kostant slice theorem./nOur Laplacian calculation can also be adapted to the case when g is a symmetrizable Kac-Moody algebra. In this case, the Laplacian calculation leads to a generalization of the Brylinski identity or affine Kac-Moody algebras. In the semisimple case, the Brylinski identity states that, at dominant weights, the q-analog of weight multiplicity is equal to the Poincare series of the principal nilpotent filtration of the weight space. This filtration is known as the Brylinski filtration. We show that this identity holds in the affine case, as long as the principal nilpotent filtration is replaced by the principal Heisenberg. We also give an example to show that the Poincare series of the principal nilpotent filtration is not always equal to the q-analog of weight multiplicity, and give some partial results for indefinite Kac-Moody algebras.

Advisor: Teleman, Constantin
Spatio-temporal point process models for the spread of avian inﬂuenza virus (H5N1)

An outbreak of the devastating avian influenza virus (H5N1) was first observed in China in 1996. The explosive re-emergence of the virus after 7 years of its debut is estimated to be responsible for 14 million poultry deaths globally. Our research aims to identify the key factors (such as promixities to cities and roads and temperature) that are associated with the spread of H5N1 in Turkey and quantify their relationships to the virus dispersal. Our statistical model, the EAI (Epidemic Avian Influenza) model, is based on self-exciting/npoint processes inspired by Hawkes and Ogata. A self-exciting point process can incorporate spatial and temporal dependencies of H5N1 outbreaks by specifying a branching structure among the outbreaks. In addition to quantifying the relationship between the virus spread and the key factors, the estimation result of the EAI model is used to predict future flu occurences.

Advisor: Yu, Bin
Kaufman, Cari
Incorporating Supervision for Visual Recognition and Segmentation

Unsupervised algorithms which do not make use of labels are commonly found in computer vision and are widely applicable to all problem settings./nIn the presence of expert-labeled ground truth information, however, these algorithms are not optimal. Altering the unsupervised models to include labels/nis not always a straight forward modification. In this dissertation, we explore various ways to incorporate human supervision./nWe first start with the task of visual sequence recognition and demonstrate ways to effectively make use of temporal information. Next, we tackle the problem of scene segmentation and/ndevise a novel framework to discriminatively train a generative hierarchical model with nonparametric Bayesian priors; the methodology can be easily applied/nto other nonparametric Bayesian models. Finally, we approach the difficult problem of object segmentation and describe how shape priors can be infused into/na generative Bayesian segmentation model. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our models and algorithms on datasets which are widely used by the research community and universally/nregarded as difficult. The dissertation concludes with active venues for future research.

Advisor: Jordan, Michael I
The List as Treasury in the Greek World

Abstract/nThe List as Treasury in the Greek World/nby/nAthena E. Kirk/nDoctor of Philosophy in Classics/nUniversity of California, Berkeley/nProfessor Leslie V. Kurke, Chair/nSome of the earliest written records in the greater ancient world are lists of objects: we find catalogues of gods, kings, jewels, archaic vocabulary items, and exotic birds in Sumerian, Egyptian, Akkadian and Hittite, and many scholars surmise that a penchant for this kind of record-keeping fueled the very invention of writing. The Greeks, however, have long been considered distinct from other literate peoples both for their innovations with regard to the writing system they borrowed from the Phoenicians and for their application of that system, as they (a) were the first to denote vowels with stand-alone symbols, and (b) seem to used the alphabet to record poetry, not archival information, before anything else. In fact, it is not until several hundred years after these first `literary' texts that the alphabetic Greeks begin to produce the government inventories, war memorials, or tribute lists akin to those of their Near Eastern and Mycenean predecessors./nIn this project, I study these kinds of official epigraphic written lists alongside lists from Archaic and Classical Greek literature in an effort to reorient the discourse surrounding the Greeks' literacy and use of writing, and its purported uniqueness. I work specifically with those lists that enumerate physical objects, beginning from the assertion that we can trace a tradition of listing objects in the Greek world that exists independent of the literacy versus orality binary invoked by most scholarship for the last several decades. By looking at, e.g., a catalogue of gifts in the Iliad alongside an inventory of dedications from an Athenian sanctuary, I suggest that lists themselves are the salient phenomenon to be identified and analyzed, rather than the medium (written or oral) in which we find them./nMy central thesis is that Greek object-lists in their disparate contexts--oral poetry, narrated prose history, publicly displayed records, performed drama--all share a common function vis-à-vis the objects they represent, namely, that when they are presented to their various audiences, they serve as surrogates for the objects in question and in many cases take on an authority beyond that of any physical collection, which ultimately perishes. In their role as extant text-monuments, I argue, they embody and preserve the details of remote times and spaces./nI present four case studies of texts that contain lists from the archaic through the classical period, and one later example of the same tradition. The chronological progression emphasizes how the Greek literary and documentary traditions build upon and interact with one another, and by attending to the two together, I begin to build a more comprehensive portrait of the listmaking meme.

Advisor: Kurke, Leslie V
Toward a Reconceptualization of Mathematical Learning Disabilities: A Focus on Difference Rather Than Deficit

Students with mathematical learning disabilities (MLDs) experience persistent challenges learning even the most elementary mathematics. While prior research on MLDs has classified students on the basis of test scores and documented performance differences between groups, this dissertation focuses on the qualitative differences in individual students with MLDs as each student attempted to learn. This study extends the understanding of MLDs by (1)focusing on the mathematical domain of fractions, (2)selecting for study students whose difficulties with mathematics are clearly due to an MLD and not other factors, (3)conducting detailed diagnostic analyses of video-taped tutoring sessions, and (4)contrasting the difficulties that the students with MLDs experience to data collected with five typically achieving fifth grade control students. The two case study students, "Lisa" (19-year-old community college student) and "Emily" (18-year-old high school student) each participated in a pretest, four weekly tutoring sessions, and a posttest focused on fraction concepts. Achievement test scores, interviews, and videotaped tutoring session data were used to establish that Lisa and Emily met classic MLD qualifications, and more stringent response-to-intervention criteria. Both students demonstrated unexplained persistent low math achievement and neither student benefited from a tutoring protocol that had been effective for typically achieving fifth grade students. The tutoring sessions were analyzed using microgenetic methods. Analysis indicated that each student relied upon a unique collection of atypical understandings, which reoccurred across the sessions, were resistant to standard instructional approaches, and proved to be highly consequential for the student's ability to understand more complex fraction concepts. A cross case analysis revealed surprising similarities in the atypical understandings displayed by both case study students. These atypical understandings stemmed from and contributed to the student's inability to conceptualize and manipulate representations of fractional quantity. These atypical understandings were not similarly problematic for the fifth grade control students, but did appear in one additional student with an MLD. This suggests that there are qualitative differences in the difficulties experienced by students with MLDs and that it may be possible to design screening measures to identify these indicators of atypicality. In addition, remediation approaches should take into account and specifically target these atypicalities.

Advisor: Schoenfeld, Alan H
Generation of small RNA complexity requires specialization of RNA-dependent RNA polymerase 1 and RNA silencing protein 1 by shared protein partners

RNA-dependent RNA polymerases (RdRPs) induce sequence-specific gene silencing through the production of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) from a single-stranded RNA template. In Tetrahymena thermophila, dsRNA products are synthesized by the only genome-encoded RdRP (Rdr1) and then cleaved by an associated Dicer endonuclease (Dcr2) into 23-24 nt small RNAs (sRNAs). These sRNAs accumulate constitutively, dependent on Rdr1 activity. They are derived from endogenous transcripts and map in clusters to specific genomic loci. Rdr1 activity is robust on all templates in vitro, yet the silencing process remains selective in the sequences it targets in the cell. RNA targeting specificity is likely an absolute requirement for cell viability, and, until now, the factors controlling it have not been clearly defined./nThis dissertation details (1) the roles that Rdr1- interacting proteins play in the biogenesis of multiple classes of 23-24 nt sRNA, (2) the in vitro template selectivity and initiation mechanisms by distinct Rdr1 complexes (RDRCs) and (3) the identification of a new RNA silencing protein (Rsp1) that, along with Rdr1, is required for bulk sRNA accumulation. Rsp1 shares several protein partners with Rdr1, including the uridyltransferase Rdn1 and two factors (Rdf1 and Rdf2) that control RNA target specificity in vivo through an unknown mechanism. Characterization of Rdn1, Rdf1 and Rdf2 functions in vitro revealed that Rdf1 and Rdf2 are adaptors that activate the polyuridylation of RNA by Rsp1-bound Rdn1. The data suggest that Rsp1 functions upstream of Rdr1 in sRNA generation, as discussed in greater detail in Chapter 3. These findings demonstrate that sRNA generation requires the coordination of a complex array of protein machines. Future studies on how these proteins mediate RNA targeting in vivo will offer exciting insights into the molecular mechanisms that are central to controlling the specificity of RNA fates in the cell.

Advisor: Collins, Kathleen
The Poetic Superstructure of the Babylonian Talmud and the Reader It Fashions

This dissertation proposes a poetics and semiotics of the Bavli (Babylonian Talmud)--how the Bavli, through a complex network of linguistic signs, acts on its implied reader's attempt to find meaning in the text. In doing so, I advance a new understanding of how the Bavli was composed, namely as a book written by its own readers in the act of transmission. In the latter half of the twentieth century, Bavli scholarship focused on the role of the Stam (the collective term for those people responsible for the anonymous voice of the Bavli) in the construction of individual Bavli passages (sugyot). Stam theory details how sugyot were crafted out of pre-existing sources and how the Stam works to control those sources in the service of a particular worldview. This dissertation locates a different force at work in the construction of the Bavli as a single unified book, an authorship that is above and against the work of the Stam--a Superstam./nBy examining the effect of the Bavli's use of rare and ambiguous terminology, I expand the unit of inquiry from the individual Bavli passage (sugya) to the Bavli in its entirety. I argue that, for the Bavli's implied reader, meaning is not found in the work of the Stam. While the Stam conveys meaning for a local reader, the global reader I explore does not artificially divide the Bavli into its constituent parts. For this reader, the Superstam acts to subvert the controlling work of the Stam through the placement of key words throughout the book. These words, when rare or ambiguous, direct the reader to other sugyot in which they appear. These sugyot, when read simultaneously, work to convey, for the reader, an expression of ambivalence on the part of the Superstam toward those moments of Stammaitic certainty. I conclude that Super-stammaitic activity itself is the result and product of readers who are trained how to read by the Bavli's own expectations. In this way, the Bavli is a text authored by its own readers who, in transmitting the text, become writers again and again./n

Advisor: Boyarin, Daniel
Toward a Genealogy of Mestizaje: Rethinking Race in Colonial Mexico

The history of race in Latin America is commonly glossed as mestizaje, a phenomenon itself defined as the movement from original purity into increasing racial or cultural mixing. This dissertation tells a different story: it investigates and historicizes particular formations of mixing and purity, the operations through which they are produced and rationalized, and the political logics according to which they are deployed. I examine three historical moments marked by the specter of racial insurgency: "Indian" uprisings (1692), "mestizo" rebellions (1566-1567), and "black" conspiracies (1612). As eruptions of racialized paranoia, these episodes of political crisis in and around what Ángel Rama calls the colonial "lettered city" generate a rich archive of discourse on bodies and boundaries. By analyzing these moments, I argue that racial discourse is always already mediated by and articulated through particular categories of mixing and purity which, like race, are themselves contested and contingent. At times, race is best seen through sideways glances that reveal the mechanisms of its production at the margins. Mixing and purity are two modalities of a single operation, and it is in the play between them that racial formations emerge./nColonial actors perceived, organized, and intervened in the world around them through a grid of intelligibility structured by categories of mixing and purity. These categories were embedded in, permeated, and tied together the human body and the material world. Divergent formations of mixing and purity filled and in many ways structured debates over the chemical composition of beverages like pulque, a traditional indigenous alcohol made from the fermented juice of the maguey plant; the built environment and segregated layout of the cityscape; the Colegio de Niños Mestizos in Mexico City, dedicated to converting mestizo boys into missionary priests fluent in indigenous languages; and the nature of black blood and Nahua conceptualizations of lineage. These debates, intensified by crisis, demonstrate that mixing and purity were far from self-evident but emerged only through conflict, even among "lettered" elites. They also generate particular modes of engaging with the colonial world, from state interventions and regulatory mechanisms to alternative solidarities rooted in different kinds of political projects and imaginaries. Mixing and purity operate as tactics and strategies, and the genealogy of mestizaje maps the field of conflict on which they are deployed.

Advisor: Rabasa, José
Activating Democracy: Political Participation and the Fate of Regime Change in Russia and Indonesia

What contributes to democracy's survival after initial elections? Scholarship on democratization and regime change suggests several factors conducive to democracy's survival, including higher levels of socioeconomic development, stronger parliaments and weaker presidents, and a history of independent statehood. These factors, however, do not explain the political trajectories of two of the world's largest countries--Russia and Indonesia. In both countries, democratizing systems replaced authoritarian regimes in the 1990s. Yet after almost a decade of reform, early democratic gains eroded in Russia, while they survived in Indonesia. According to existing theories of democratization, Russia's levels of socioeconomic modernization and its long history of independent statehood would lead one to predict a much higher level of democracy than exists twenty years after the fall of communism. Indonesia deviates from democratization theory at the other end of the spectrum--it is more democratic than its low levels of socioeconomic modernization and short post-colonial history of independent statehood would have predicted./nThis project analyzes the empirical puzzle presented by Russia's and Indonesia's experiences with democratization. Through a multi-level research design, I engage comparisons between the two countries, within each country over time, across sub-national units within each country, and between individuals. I find that these two cases' deviation from the global norm and divergence from each other can be explained by patterns of political participation and popular involvement in new political institutions. While Russians retreated from civic and political participation and remain wary of political institutions, Indonesians became accustomed to applying pressure on political elites and learned to use new democratic institutions to manage conflict and channel public preferences for governance./nIn particular, I find that variation in patterns of political participation in these two cases derives from engagement in civil society, a sense of political efficacy, and political trust. Individuals who engage in civil society, believe in their ability to influence political outcomes, and trust political institutions are more likely to become involved in non-voting forms of political participation, such as campaigning, political party development work, and protest activities. Sustained and ongoing political participation, particularly between electoral cycles, constrains elites in a manner that promotes clean and competitive elections and safeguards civil liberties, as has happened in post-Suharto Indonesia. In Russia, the absence of such engagement leaves political elites with more latitude to manipulate elections, constrict rights and freedoms, and repress real and imagined would-be oppositionists.

Advisor: Fish, M. Steven
Modern Woman, Loving Marriage, and the Promises of Advancement

This study analyzes the literary construct of modern womanhood in Japan and Korea in the early twentieth century. The texts examined include prose fiction, religious prose, and poetry written in both Japanese and Korean during the decade immediately after Japan's colonization of Korea in 1910. They are taken from magazines produced for an educated female audience: Seito (Bluestockings; 1911-1916), Yoja gyae (Women's world; 1917-1921), and Sin yoja (New Women; 1920)./nThe discourse on womanhood was intimately tied to that of marriage, which in turn connected to family (typically represented as the microcosm of a nation). Within this scheme, the idea of love as the instigator of marriage became of paramount importance, for a nation could be “modern” only if its citizens engaged in an appropriately "modern" marriage leading to a “modern” lifestyle (including a modern way of childrearing). Many of the texts I examine show a female protagonist struggling with the idea and realities of marriage and family. The chapters trace modern woman figures who appear as the authoritative narrators of stories of the “traditional” woman, as the modern schoolgirl figure, and as the modern woman figure./nThe focus on women's literature in early imperial Japan and colonial Korea highlights the importance of the then new phenomenon of women's education--a subject closely related to modernity, gender, and nationalism. Education was an important part of the national project for both Korea and Japan in order to foster native-born “civilized” citizens. It was through teaching women the ideology of modern womanhood and instructing them in methodologies of modernizing that women learned how to be “modern” in terms recognizable by Westerners. However, the way in which education functioned in each context differed: the Korean modern woman came to embody the hope for the postcolonial future, whereas the Japanese modern woman was depicted as disappointed in the empty promises made to her by modern men about new interpersonal relationships. Looking at the significance of the educational site for Japanese and Korean women figures, we begin to understand the heavy stake that women had in becoming “modern” in order to join the collective and national march toward “advancement.”

Advisor: O'Neill, Daniel C.