VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Austronesians in Papua: Diversification and change in South Halmahera-West New Guinea

This dissertation presents a new subgrouping of South Halmahera-West New Guinea (SHWNG) languages. The 38 SHWNG languages form a small, poorly known branch of Austronesian. The Austronesian family originated in Taiwan and later spread into Indonesia, across New Guinea, and to the remote Pacific. In New Guinea, approximately 3500 years ago, Austronesian speakers first came into contact with so-called Papuan languages -- the non-Austronesian languages indigenous to New Guinea, comprising more than 20 families. The Austronesian languages still extant from this initial spread into New Guinea fall into two branches: SHWNG and Oceanic. In great contrast to Oceanic, only a few SHWNG languages are well-described, and almost nothing has been reconstructed at the level of Proto-SHWNG. Contact with Papuan languages has given the SHWNG languages a typological profile quite different from their linguistic forebears./nChapter 1 puts the SHWNG languages in context, describing their significance for Austronesian and their broader relevance to historical linguistics. It outlines the theoretical framework of the work, covering models of language diversification, diagnostic features for subgrouping, and language contact. A scale is proposed for ranking innovation types from most to least diagnostic for subgrouping. Morphological innovations are ranked above phonological innovations in this scale./nChapter 2 gives an overview of the Austronesian family, focusing on the aspects most crucial to understanding the rest of the work: an outline of Proto-Austronesian phonology and the history of the branches ancestral to Proto-SHWNG./nChapter 3 summarizes previous work on SHWNG languages, covering language membership, environmental and social characteristics, descriptive sources, shared innovations, subgrouping, reconstruction, and contact-induced change./nChapters 4-6 are the main empirical contribution. Chapter 4 covers segmental sound change in 25 SHWNG languages and dialects. Chapter 5 covers tonogenesis in the Raja Ampat languages Ma'ya and Magey Matbat and the Cenderawasih Bay languages Moor, Yaur, and Yerisiam. Chapter 6 covers subject agreement and inalienable possessive morphology in 37 SHWNG languages and dialects. In these chapters, the goal is to identify shared innovations and determine their usefulness for establishing subgrouping relationships among SHWNG languages. Morphological innovations are found to be more diagnostic than phonological innovations, confirming the scale proposed in chapter 1./nChapter 7 proposes a new subgrouping for SHWNG languages, synthesizing the results of chapters 4-6. The homelands of Proto-SHWNG and its branches are also discussed. The homeland of Proto-SHWNG is located in southern Cenderawasih Bay./nChapter 8 concludes by considering the contributions of SHWNG languages to models of language diversification and change, and laying out questions for future research./nThe Appendix contains the complete database of SHWNG cognate sets from which the analysis in chapters 4 and 5 is drawn.

Advisor: Garrett, Andrew
Next Generation Wireless Receiver Architecture Design in Deep-Sub-Micron CMOS Technology

Current advances in wireless receiver technologies are primarily driven by the need for cost reduction through (1) integration of a radio, an ADC and a digital processor on a single CMOS die, and (2) the design of low-power multi-standard capable receivers. However, due to the spectrum scarcity, future wireless standards, such as LTE, present a whole new set of challenges for radio system design. For example, LTE's highly fragmented spectrum requires multiple chipsets for support. Due to this cost overhead, there is no global LTE-enabled device available in the market now. Moreover, while carrier aggregation (CA) added to LTE brings unparalleled data rate improvement, it seriously complicates the RF frontend design. Modern commercial LTE solutions include multiple chipsets to support various scenarios of CA, which is not cost effective./nThis work focuses on novel receiver architectures that address the design challenges associated with LTE-Advance from two perspectives: (1) a receiver that is capable of wide-frequency range of operation to cover all the LTE bands and (2) a single highly linear RF frontend to support non-contiguous-in-band CA. A novel sigma-delta-based direct-RF-to-digital receiver architecture is introduced in this work as an example of a complete integrated RF-to-digital frontend design capable to cover all the LTE bands. The design is implemented in 65 nm CMOS technology and the SNDR of the receiver exceeds 68 dB for a 4 MHz signal, and is better than 60 dB over the 400 MHz to 4 GHz frequency range. In a different example, we propose a passive-mixer-first receiver system to provide CA support in a cost-effective and power-efficient manner. Mixer-first receiver's superb linearity performance enables the possibility of a single receiver processing the entire LTE RX band, while most of the signal conditioning can be pushed into DSP to enjoy the benefit of process scaling. This design has been demonstrated in a 28 nm bulk CMOS technology, and the overall system achieves <3 dB NF, >15 dBm IIP3 and 35 dB gain with 60 mW of power.

Advisor: Nikolic, Borivoje
Cluster Algebras and Integrable Systems

We present a series of results at the interface of cluster algebras and integrable systems, discussing various connections to the broader world of representation theory, geometry, and mathematical physics./nIn chapter 3 we develop a rigorous theory of Poisson-Lie structures on ind-algebraic groups and treat the case of symmetrizable Kac-Moody groups within this framework. We use this as a setting for the construction of integrable systems on Hamiltonian reductions of symplectic leaves of affine Lie groups, providing generalizations of the periodic relativistic Toda chain to all affine types./nIn chapter 4 we formulate and prove a precise relationship between the Chamber Ansatz of Fomin and Zelevinsky and the general phenomenon of duality between cluster varieties. We also extend the construction of cluster structures on double Bruhat cells of algebraic groups to the setting of symmetrizable Kac-Moody groups, in particular encompassing the examples considered in chapter 3./nIn chapter 5 we realize the cluster structures associated with Q-systems as amalgamations of those on double Bruhat cells of simple algebraic groups. We use this to identify Q-system dynamics with those of a factorization mapping, thus deducing their integrability in a uniform way for various Dynkin types, and relate them to the Fomin-Zelevinsky twist automorphism. In the process we also provide cluster realizations of twisted Q-systems./nIn chapter 6 we identify the Hamiltonians of the open relativistic Toda system (equivalently the conserved quantities of the Q-systems studied in chapter 5) as cluster characters, certain generating functions of Euler characteristics of quiver Grassmannians. Heuristically this means the Hamiltonians should be interpreted as generalized canonical basis elements, and we explain how such an expression is predicted by the appearance of the relevant cluster structures in supersymmetric gauge theory.

Advisor: Reshetikhin, Nicolai
Essays in Empirical Macroeconomics

This dissertation consists of two chapters which study questions at the intersection of macroeconomics, trade, and finance. The first chapter investigates the role of trade for the geographic spread of the 2007-09 recession within the U.S.. The second chapter, co-authored with Mauricio Larrain, studies the role of financial market reforms for changes in aggregate productivity, using the example of Eastern European countries in the late 1990s and early 2000s./nIn the first chapter, I use the large spatial variation in consumer demand shocks at the onset of the Great Recession to study the mechanisms behind the ensuing geographic spread of the crisis. While the initial increase in unemployment was concentrated in areas with housing busts, subsequently unemployment slowly spread across space. By 2009, it was above pre-crisis levels in almost all U.S. counties. I show that trade was an important driver of this geographic spread of the crisis. To identify the trade channel empirically, I make use of heterogeneity in the direction of trade flows across industries in the same state: Industries that sold relatively more to states with housing boom-bust cycles grew by more before the crisis and declined faster from 2007-09. These results cannot be explained by a collapse in credit supply. I then link the reduced form empirical evidence to a formal model of contagion through trade. In a quantitative exercise, the model delivers a cross-sectional effect of similar magnitude as the one found empirically and reveals that the trade channel can explain roughly a third of the overall spread./nThe second chapter analyzes the microeconomic channels by which financial sector reforms affect aggregate productivity. We use a large firm-level dataset to study the episode of financial market liberalization in 10 Eastern European countries starting in the late 1990s. We exploit cross-sectoral differences in external financial dependence and find that financial reform increases productivity disproportionately in industries heavily dependent on external finance. We show that this productivity increase is driven entirely by improvements in the within-industry allocation of resources across firms, as opposed to within-firm productivity improvements. According to our results, reform allows financially-constrained firms to take on new debt, increase market share, and produce closer to optimal level. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that financial reform increases aggregate manufacturing productivity by 17%. Our results highlight financial markets' key role in improving the within-industry allocation of capital.

Advisor: Gorodnichenko, Yuriy
Mian, Atif
Seeing Difference: The Ethics and Epistemology of Stereotyping

When we call something a stereotype, we tend to mean it as a criticism.  If someone says, "Asians are good at math" or "women are empathetic," for example, I might interject, "You're stereotyping" in order to convey my disapproval of their utterance.  But why is stereotyping wrong?  One tempting idea is that stereotyping fails to treat persons as individuals.  Yet this idea itself is puzzling.  How should we understand it?  One possibility, to which many people are drawn, is to articulate the wrong in epistemic terms: we see the world in an incorrect way when we stereotype.  Call this the epistemic hypothesis about the wrong of stereotyping. Another possibility is that the relevant failure is moral in nature: stereotyping is always morally wrong.  In this dissertation, I consider both the epistemic and moral hypotheses and show that neither is defensible.  Actually, stereotyping can be morally and epistemically permissible.  One upshot is that we must give up the idea that stereotyping as such is wrong and think more carefully about how to distinguish permissible and impermissible cases.  I argue that there will be no simple way to make this distinction, as there is no one wrong--epistemic or moral--that unifies all bad cases. So we must be pluralists about what's wrong with stereotyping. Moreover, we must recognize that the wrongs of stereotyping are purely extrinsic in nature, i.e., due to bad causes or consequences rather than due to features intrinsic to the very act of stereotyping. A second upshot is that we must think of stereotyping as normatively diverse: sometimes epistemic and moral norms prohibit it; other times, they do not.  Epistemic and moral norms also have the potential to conflict in specific cases: a person might be epistemically rational to stereotype even if stereotyping is seriously objectionable from a moral point of view.  I examine cases of alleged conflict and argue that, in fact, bona fide conflicts between moral and epistemic norms are far rarer than one would expect. Moreover, I demonstrate that--despite first appearances--they do not present tragic normative dilemmas in which people are forced to choose between morality and epistemic rationality.  People can do the right thing without being irrational.

Advisor: Munoz-Darde, Veronique
Wallace, R.J.
Cosmogenic Activation of TeO2 in the Neutrinoless Double-Beta Decay Experiment CUORE

The Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events (CUORE) is an experiment that will search for neutrinoless double-beta (0&nu&beta&beta) decay of 130Te and other rare processes. Observing 0&nu&beta&beta decay would establish that neutrinos are massive Majorana fermions, demonstrate that lepton number is not conserved, and constrain the neutrino mass scale and hierarchy. The CUORE detector, currently being constructed underground at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy, is an array of 988 high-resolution TeO2 bolometers. Each bolometer is comprised of a thermistor and a TeO2 crystal that serves as both the source and the detector of 0&nu&beta&beta decay. The 0&nu&beta&beta decay signature for 130Te is a peak at the Q-value 2528 keV. Observation of 0&nu&beta&beta decay requires that the background at the peak be ultra-low. Background-source identification and characterization are therefore extremely important./nOne source of background that is poorly characterized is activation of the TeO2 crystals by sea-level cosmic-ray neutrons. This process, known as cosmogenic activation, produces long-lived radioisotopes that can obscure the 0&nu&beta&beta peak. Existing cross-section data is insufficient to estimate this background; therefore, an additional cross-section measurement has been performed in which a TeO2 target was irradiated with a neutron spectrum similar to that of cosmic-ray neutrons at sea-level. Analysis of the radionuclides produced reveals that 110mAg will dominate the cosmogenic activation background in CUORE. Estimations using the measured cross section for 110mAg indicate this source will be negligible compared with other contributions to the CUORE background.

Advisor: Norman, Eric B
Mediators and markers of mammalian lifespan extension: Proteomic, proliferative and hormonal adaptations in mouse models of extended lifespan

Aging is broadly defined as the deterioration of bodily tissues over time. Excluding death due to infectious disease or accidents, aging is what ultimately places finite limits on lifespan and healthspan, the time in which in individual remains active and in good health. Although healthspan and lifespan are intimately linked, it is the extension of human healthspan that is a major goal of gerontological research. Such an achievement would have broad social and economic benefits and importantly would mitigate the dire consequences of the predicted future rise in the prevalence of age-related diseases due to the growing proportion of the population that is of advanced age (65yr and over). A broad understanding of the physiological, metabolic, hormonal, cellular and molecular factors that contribute to aging and lifespan determination will allow for the development of strategies to extend healthspan./nThe work presented herein describes the use of three unique mouse models of extended healthspan and maximum lifespan, including calorie restricted (CR), Snell Dwarf and rapamycin-treated mice, to investigate several factors linked to healthspan and lifespan determination in mammals. These factors include reduced insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) expression, reduced cell proliferation, reduced protein synthesis and enhanced proteome stability. Using these three models the following conclusions have been drawn: 1) Physiological adaptations to CR previously suggested to confer the healthspan and lifespan benefits of CR in rodents cannot account for the global cell proliferation rate-lowering effect of CR; 2) Fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) is not necessary for the reduction in IGF-1 or the reduction in global cell proliferation rates in response to moderate CR in adult mice; 3) A reduction in global cell proliferation rates is not a consistent predictor of maximum lifespan extension in mice; 4) A reduction in hepatic protein replacement rates is a sensitive and early predictor of maximum lifespan extension in mice and likely reflects a more stable and functional proteome.

Advisor: Thompson, Airlia C S
Disappearing Walls: Architecture and Literature in Victorian Britain

From Discipline and Punish and The Madwoman in the Attic to recent work on urbanism, display, and material culture, criticism has regularly cast nineteenth-century architecture not as a set of buildings but as an ideological metastructure. Seen primarily in terms of prisons, museums, and the newly gendered private home, this "grid of intelligibility" polices the boundaries not only of physical interaction but also of cultural values and modes of knowing. As my project argues, however, architecture in fact offered nineteenth-century theorists unique opportunities to broaden radically the parameters of aesthetic agency. A building is generally not built by a single person; it is almost always a corporate effort. At the same time, a building will often exist for long enough that it will decay or be repurposed. Long before literature asked "what is an author?" Victorian architecture theory asked: "who can be said to have made this?" Figures like John Ruskin, Owen Jones, and James Fergusson radicalize this question into what I call a redistribution of intention, an ethically charged recognition of the value of other makers. Reading novels by Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, George Eliot, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, and theory and history by John Ruskin and Thomas Carlyle, I show how authors use architecture to explore the deep kinship between textual and material production, and in doing so admit unsupervisable agencies--both human and natural--into their work./nAs I demonstrate, Ruskin and other prominent theorists imagine architecture as a set of dynamic surfaces which are open to the marks not only of humble workmen but also of everyday users and natural processes. Seen from the perspective of his architectural writing, I argue, Ruskin's theories of literary and artistic vision locate the imaginative ground of literary representation not in unmarked nature but rather in a multiply authored object world. In the theory of the design reform movement and the daringly experimental architecture displays of the Sydenham Crystal Palace, I recover an understanding of creative work as embodied thought that opens itself up to transformative reconstruction and alteration over time. As Hardy struggles textually to embody architectural processes (in Jude the Obscure) and Dickens discovers utopian social possibilities in the failure of architectural planning (in Martin Chuzzlewit), I show how Victorian literature understands the work of the author as a participation, across time and space, in communal and material acts of making.

Advisor: Duncan, Ian
Image patch modeling in a light field

Understanding image content is one of the ultimate goals of computer vision, and effectively and efficiently extracting features from images is a key component of all vision research. This thesis discusses methods related to an image-patch based approach to this feature analysis. Image-patch based methods have attracted a lot of interest for the analysis of a single images in application areas such as visual object recognition, image denoising, and super-resolution computation. The basic idea is to treat a single image as a collection of independent image patches, each of which can be encoded by, for example, a sparse coding model. The global characterization of that image is attained by aggregating the patch codes, which brings some level of shift-invariance and robustness to image noise and signal degradation./nIn this thesis, a new scheme, \textit{scene geometry-aware image-patch modeling}, based on the concept of a \textbf{patch-cube}, is proposed to model image patches in a light field, rather than in a single image. A light field is a collection of images all acquired at the same instant, providing a set of perspectives on the scene as though observing all of the light information that passes through a windowing portal (clearly with some discretization and sampling). The scene geometric information is implicitly incorporated in our modeling process, including depth and occlusion, without explicit knowledge of 3D scene structure. These extra constraints on the scene geometry empower our learned features to be less affected by image noise, lighting conditions, etc. As demonstration, we apply our method to joint image denoising and joint spatial/angular image super-resolution tasks, where its use of the light field will be seen to permit it to outperform its image-patch based counterparts. Here, a 2D camera array with small incremental baselines is used to capture the light field data, and this analysis is the majority of what we report. Additionally, working with real data from real light-field cameras, we present novel and highly effective methods for the calibration of these camera arrays./nIn common with the single-image model, learning a good "dictionary" plays a very important role in our work -- selecting an appropriate set of features that can provide succinct representations of a scene. Inspired by the success of the image patch-based method \cite{NGSingle}, we show that feature extraction for image patches is closely related to the low-rank kernel matrix approximation using the Nystrom method. The dictionary in sparse coding, or cluster centers in K-means clustering, are actually landmark points which can better capture the underlying higher-dimensional (manifold) structure of the data. Based upon this observation, our contribution is two fold: 1) an efficient algorithm to perform Kernel Principle Component Analysis feature extraction using landmark points, and 2) an alternative method for finding better landmark points based on \textit{Generalized Extreme Value distribution}s, GEV-Kmeans.

Advisor: Bajcsy, Ruzena
Working memory and choice encoding in medial prefrontal cortex of rats performing a spatial double alternation task.

Neural correlates of working memory, errors, and response choice were identified in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) of rats performing a spatial delayed double alternation task. The mPFC of rats has been associated with attention, working memory, emotional control, and other executive functions. Lesioning or inactivation of mPFC, the prelim- bic (PL) and infralimbic (IL) areas in particular, have been shown to produce significance decreases in performance of delayed response tasks. Previous recording experiments have found examples of neurons in mPFC that have elevated and selective activity during the delay period. However, these experiments have been quite simple compared to experiments in monkeys. For instance, many experiments in rats have used spatial alternation tasks but none have been able to successfully separate coding for past spatial goals from coding for future spatial goals. The aim of the experiment reported here was to develop a task with complexity similar to what is found in primate research and to record from mPFC as the rats performed the task. We developed a delayed double alternation, in which rats must respond in a left-left-right-right pattern. This task requires the rats to store and recall at least two items of information to receive rewards. After training rats to perform the task, we recorded from mPFC of awake behaving rats using chronically implanted tetrodes. We found groups of neurons encoding past goals, future goals, switch-stay strategy, and response errors. Encoding for past goals and future goals are performed by two separate, but over- lapping, ensembles of neurons. Anatomically, the mPFC is involved in neural circuits which serve to integrate internal and external stimuli into behavioral actions. Our results reveal a functional integration of the past, present, and future into action.

Advisor: DeWeese, Michael