VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Richard Wagner's Political Ecology

Central to this dissertation is the theory of “breathable” music that composer and political revolutionary Richard Wagner introduces in his little-known essay, “Art and Climate” (1850). Musing on the relationship of art to politics, he suggests that his operatic spectacles would not follow contemporary artistic conventions and standards, but would instead embody the climate of the primeval German forest and cultivate primeval, Teutonic values in bourgeois audiences. This project explores the origins of this idea in period writings on climatic determinism—the theory that climate embeds difference into our genetic material—and examines how Wagner animated it in the theater through dramas that connect nature with identity and stagings that simulated specific climates for listeners, a form of indoor climate control I link to period greenhouse design, physiological thought, and atmospheric science. In demonstrating the primacy of climatic thought to Wagner’s social aesthetic paradigm and practices, this project implicates Wagnerian artistry as prefiguring later ideologies of sound, space, and spectatorship that locate social, cultural, and even bodily transformation in audiovisual engagement.

Advisor: Smart, Mary Ann
Entanglement, Complexity, and Holography

It was found, by studying black holes, that the compatibility of the theory of gravity and the laws of quantum mechanics demands that the universe must act like a hologram. That is, all the information inside a region of the universe should be encoded on a so-called holographic screen of one-lesser dimension. This is termed the holographic principle. In a generic spacetime, such as an expanding universe, holographic screens depend on the choice of an observer, which is consistent with the notion that the observer is part of the system in cosmology. In the first part of this dissertation, we study the observer-dependence of holographic screens. This will help us understand how the fundamental description of the universe depends on the choice of the observer. Furthermore, we study the dynamics of the holographic screens and their geometry in the first part of this dissertation./nAn example where the holographic principle is manifest is the AdS-CFT correspondence. This correspondence connects quantum information quantities, like entanglement and complexity, to geometric quantities, like area and volume, respectively. In the second and the third part of this dissertation, we use the AdS-CFT correspondence as a tool to calculate the entanglement entropy and the computational complexity of a quenched CFT state. Studying the time evolution of the entanglement entropy following a quantum quench teaches us how a CFT state thermalizes. On the other hand, studying the time evolution of the computational complexity allows us to check the validity of various recent conjectures involving black holes and complexity.

Advisor: Bousso, Raphael
Testing Models of Cognition at Scale

The explosion of data generated during people's interactions online presents an opportunity for cognitive scientists to evaluate their models on real-world tasks outside the constraints of the psychology laboratory. In addition, new internet-based experimental paradigms and crowd-sourcing tools have reduced the challenge of data collection, offering researchers the opportunity to apply powerful new data-driven modeling techniques in domains which were previously limited to hand-tuned theoretic models. In this thesis I illustrate the opportunity internet-scale data offer cognitive scientists using three in-depth case-studies. Each study focuses on a different fundamental question in cognitive science -- search in associative memory, generalization, and risky-choice behavior, respectively -- and demonstrates how larger datasets and new online experimental methods make analyses which would otherwise prove difficult or impossible using traditional in-lab techniques feasible.

Advisor: Griffiths, Thomas L
The United State in Kamakura Law

What did the Kamakura bakufu (c. 1180-1333), Japan’s first so-called “warrior government” actually do? How did its “warrior” authority and role in governance change and expand over time? This dissertation examines the administration of the Kamakura bakufu through the its legal and administrative documents. It finds that these sources are critical to understanding how the warriors of the bakufu governed themselves, and to the process of expansion of “warrior” authority well beyond military matters. From 1199, the bakufu began to formalize and systemize its political, legislative, and judicial processes. By 1249, it had issued the List of Precedents on Judgment (Goseibai shikimoku), which outlined and standardized the basic principles of Kamakura justice in the vernacular, as well as 265 supplemental laws (tsuika-hō) to update and expand Kamakura policy. It had established new conciliar structures for governance and judgment, and added procedures and supporting organizations to increase the efficacy and reliability of the legal process as Kamakura’s jurisdiction expanded./nThese sources show that the Kamakura bakufu consistently adapted to changing circumstances, taking on more authority and responsibilities as required by political exigency. This pattern of slow, uneven expansion further provides insight into the bakufu’s relationship with the imperial court and government. This dissertation argues that the bakufu operated as part of a “united state,” working as an (increasingly powerful) agency within the imperial government and under imperial authority. The bakufu actively worked to maintain the structures of the united state, and frequently reinforced the authority and jurisdiction of the imperial court and major religious institutions while limiting its own authority and the powers of its warriors. This arrangement allowed for the bakufu to continue to enjoy imperial legitimacy, and for undertaking sometimes substantial reforms without fundamentally altering or separating from the state. The bakufu was thus a complex and dynamic organization that resists easy categorization. It was not a separate or independent “warrior government,” nor merely one of several cooperative “powerful houses” (kenmon). The bakufu adapted and expanded to fill the space left by a retreating imperial court and provincial governments, drastically enlarging and refining its administration over time, changing to fit the needs of the moment. These findings further challenge the traditional conception of “warriors” as a distinct and separate social category, as well as the periodization and meaning of Japan’s “medieval” era. This work argues that overlooking the nature of the early development of the Kamakura bakufu obscures the broader development of “warrior” authority over the next 400 years, as the legal order originating under Kamakura became the basis for total warrior rule as later warrior administrations completely eclipsed the imperial government.

Advisor: Berry, Mary E
Representing linguistic knowledge with probabilistic models

The use of language is one of the defining features of human cognition. Focusing here on two key features of language, productivity and robustness, I examine how basic questions regarding linguistic representation can be approached with the help of probabilistic generative language models, or PGLMs. These statistical models, which capture aspects of linguistic structure in terms of distributions over events, can serve as both the product of language learning and as prior knowledge in real-time language processing. In the first two chapters, I show how PGLMs can be used to make inferences about the nature of people's linguistic representations. In Chapter 1, I look at the representations of language learners, tracing the earliest evidence for a noun category in large developmental corpora. In Chapter 2, I evaluate broad-coverage language models reflecting contrasting assumptions about the information sources and abstractions used for in-context spoken word recognition in their ability to capture people's behavior in a large online game of “Telephone.” In Chapter 3, I show how these models can be used to examine the properties of lexicons. I use a measure derived from a probabilistic generative model of word structure to provide a novel interpretation of a longstanding linguistic universal, motivating it in terms of cognitive pressures that arise from communication. I conclude by considering the prospects for a unified, expectations-oriented account of language processing and first language learning.

Advisor: Griffiths, Thomas L
Lyapunov Arguments in Optimization

Optimization is among the richest modeling languages in science. In statistics and machine learning, for instance, inference is typically posed as an optimization problem. While there are many algorithms designed to solve optimization problems, and a seemingly greater number of convergence proofs, essentially all proofs follow a classical approach from dynamical systems theory: they present a Lyapunov function and show it decreases. The primary goal of this thesis is to demonstrate that making the Lyapunov argument explicit greatly simplifies, clarifies, and to a certain extent, unifies, convergence theory for optimization./nThe central contributions of this thesis are the following results: we/n• present several variational principles whereby we obtain continuous-time dynamical systems useful for optimization;/n• introduce Lyapunov functions for both the continuous-time dynamical systems and discrete-time algorithms and demonstrate how to move between these Lyapunov functions;/n• utilize the Lyapunov framework as well as numerical analysis and integration techniques to obtain upper bounds for several novel discrete-time methods for optimization, a few of which have matching lower bounds.

Advisor: Jordan, Michael I
Recht, Benjamin
I Think I Can: The Relations Among Parenting Self-Efficacy, Parenting Context, Parenting Practices, and Preschoolers' Socio-Emotional Development Among Low Income Immigrant Families

Parenting self-efficacy has been shown to influence parenting practices and children’s developmental outcomes. However, little is known about how cultural orientation and parenting stress shape parenting self-efficacy and parenting practices, and how parenting self-efficacy and parenting practices uniquely shape children’s socio-emotional development in low-income, immigrant families. In a sample of 88 Mexican American (MA) and Chinese American (CA) low-income, immigrant mothers and their preschoolers, the present study examined the concurrent associations among mothers’ cultural orientation, parenting stress, parenting self-efficacy, parenting practices, and children’s socio-emotional adjustment. All constructs were measured by mothers’ self-reports. First, I examined how family demographic characteristics (family income, mothers’ education, mothers’ years in the US), mothers’ cultural orientation to heritage and American culture, and parenting stress (parental distress and parent-child dysfunctional interactions) were associated with mothers’ parenting self-efficacy. Results indicated that mothers’ heritage and American cultural orientations were both associated with greater parenting self-efficacy. In contrast, parenting stress—specifically, dysfunctional parent-child interaction—was associated with less parenting self-efficacy. Second, I examined the associations between parenting self-efficacy and parenting practices (authoritative and authoritarian parenting). Mothers’ parenting self-efficacy was uniquely associated with greater authoritative parenting. In addition, parenting self-efficacy mediated the associations between a) mother’s heritage cultural orientation, American cultural orientation, and parent-child dysfunctional interaction, and b) mothers’ authoritative parenting. Third, I examined how parenting self-efficacy was uniquely associated with children’s socio-emotional adjustment. Parenting self-efficacy was associated with more prosocial behaviors and less externalizing problems. Furthermore, authoritative parenting mediated the association between parenting self-efficacy and children’s prosocial behaviors. Last, I explored potential differences between cultural groups. Results indicated that MA mothers reported greater parenting self-efficacy compared to CA mothers. I also found cultural group differences in correlations among variables. Overall, the findings highlight the benefits of parenting self-efficacy for children’s socio-emotional adjustment and the complex contextual factors that shape parenting self-efficacy in immigrant families. Implications of findings for the development of parenting interventions for low-income immigrant families are discussed.

Advisor: Zhou, Qing
Chemical removal of nitrogen oxides from the atmosphere: Impacts on air quality and effects of temperature

The concentration of nitrogen oxides (NOx ≡ NO + NO2) regulates the concentrations of all major atmospheric oxidants and the formation of secondary air pollutants, with consequences for climate, human health, and ecosystems. The chemical cycling between NOx and its oxidation products controls the concentration and transport of NOx and affects the spatial extent of air pollution. Previous studies have shown that permanent loss of NOx occurs both through production of HNO3 and through production of alkyl and multifunctional nitrates (RONO2). Despite their importance to atmospheric chemistry, significant uncertainties remain in the relative importance of these pathways and in the fates of RONO2 and HNO3 in the atmosphere./nI use observations from two intensive field studies, the Southern Oxidant and Aerosol Study (SOAS) in Centreville Alabama and the Korea-United States Air Quality Study (KORUS-AQ) over South Korea, to provide new constraints on the lifetimes and fates of NOx oxidation products. I show that RONO2 compounds produced from isoprene oxidation have a lifetime under three hours and are lost both by gas-phase chemistry to re-release NOx to the atmosphere and by aerosol-phase hydrolysis to form HNO3. In contrast, observations of HNO3 and NOx over the Yellow Sea between China and South Korea confirm that HNO3 is nearly chemically inert in the troposphere. This finding contradicts recent proposals that HNO3 undergoes photolysis extremely rapidly in the aerosol phase./nI apply these findings to investigate how the chemistry of NOx oxidation products affects the lifetime of NOx and the production of O3 in different environments. I show that, in general, the formation of short-lived NOx reservoirs extends the lifetime of NOx by sequestering NOx in less reactive forms. Furthermore, I show that in areas where the formation of RONO2 is the dominant pathway for NOx loss, ozone production efficiency no longer increases with temperature, changing the response of air quality to meteorology. Finally, I show that over the past decade, NOx chemistry has shifted in the United States towards a regime where RONO2 chemistry plays a greater role in the loss of NOx.

Advisor: Cohen, Ronald C
The Ionocraft: Flying Microrobots With No Moving Parts

Enabling a future full of insect-scale robots will require progress on a huge number of fronts, one of which is the development of mobility platforms designed to operate beyond the scaling frontier of commercially available solutions. The vast majority of researchers seeking to create functional centimeter-scale flying robots have turned towards biomimetic propulsion mechanisms, specifically flapping wings. In this work I take a very different tack, investigating a propulsion mechanism with no natural analogue --- electrohydrodynamic thrust./nElectrohydrodynamics (EHD), specifically in the context of corona discharge based systems, has been a long studied and, until relatively recently, often poorly understood phenomenon. The beginning of this dissertation focuses on the theoretical underpinnings of the thrust mechanism. The bulk of my work has focused on developing proof of concept demonstrators for EHD at the meso-scale. Starting with rapidly prototyped materials and quickly moving to microfabricated electrodes, a series of prototypes elucidate the potential for EHD to yield high thrust-to-weight ratio fliers. Initial demonstrations have been backed up by more rigorous investigations of electrode geometric and density effects./nQuadrotor systems begin to suffer from decreased performance at and below the centimeter scale, especially with regards to increasing demands on durability of rotory components (which may not exist at scale), efficiency of available DC motors, and propeller figures of merit. Simply replacing the rotors with EHD thrusters, however, allows us to sidestep some of the unfavorable scaling laws of propeller-based propulsion while maintaining the ability to transfer domain knowledge from the rich world of quadcopter design and control. Demonstrating repeatable takeoff and rudimentary (open-loop) attitude control is trivial with external power supplied to the simple quad-thruster design. Through a combination of design and methodology (e.g., with regards to assembly) improvements, functional EHD-based ``ionocraft'' can now be built in about half an hour, with near 100% success rate. Controlled flight is now within reach./nMerely hovering with tethered power and an off-board controller is only the beginning. The final sections of this work outline a variety of paths forward, towards better performance of a meso-scale ionocraft, autonomous operation, and further miniaturization. Ultimately, I believe the future is bright for ionocraft. While electrohydrodynamics may not be the most power efficient mechanism, nor the easiest to grasp conceptually, it is certainly the simplest to design; put two asymmetric electrodes close to eachother, apply a high voltage, and away it goes! In the words of a respected professor, how hard could it be?

Advisor: Pister, Kristofer S J
Understanding and Reducing Bias among Political and Social Elites

This dissertation considers the biases that exist in the American political system. The first chapter presents a field experiment on the under-representation of women and people of color in American politics, finding that politicians may condition responsiveness and helpfulness on the ethnicity of their constituents, but not the gender of their constituents. The second chapter conducts a field experiment to study whether state legislators are responsive to public opinion and finds that most state legislators do not care about learning public opinion and therefore mis-perceive what their constituents believe. The final chapter then studies pediatricians and whether their incentives may explain low vaccination rates.

Advisor: Sekhon, Jasjeet
Part I. Oxidative Syntheses of the Illicium Sesquiterpenes Part II. Three-Step Synthesis of the Quassinoid Core Architecture

In this two-part dissertation, strategic and tactical advances are disclosed in service of the total syntheses of complex natural products. The first part (Chapters 1-3) chronicles the development of oxidative strategies toward the synthesis of the Illicium sesquiterpenes – advances that have led to total and formal syntheses of a dozen natural products. Beginning with an introduction (Chapter 1) of prior art in the field, from structural elucidations and biological studies to previous synthetic works, we seek to contextualize the notion of an oxidative synthesis and argue that it not only represents a significant departure from that precedent but also stands as an inherently logical approach to these natural products. In Chapter 2, the path to the first successful iteration of this strategy is traced for the synthesis of the moderately-oxidized pseudoanisatinoids from the terpene feedstock chemical, cedrol. Multiple interesting oxidative transformations discussed in detail along the way. In particular, a novel copper(II) bromide-mediated oxidative lactonization is developed and its mechanism studied. Additionally, an exceptionally challenging directed non-heme mononuclear iron(oxo)-catalyzed oxidation of an unactivated C(sp3)–H bond is discussed in detail. The chapter concludes with the successful synthesis of multiple pseudoanisatinoids. Chapter 3 addresses the shortcomings of the work described in Chapter 2 and extends the notion of an oxidative synthesis to the more highly oxidized majucinoid Illicium sesquiterpenes. Through multiple directed and non-directed C(sp3)–H oxidations, the majucinoid core is assembled rapidly, leading to the total and formal syntheses of over a half dozen more natural products. The chapter concludes with a unification of the majucinoid and pseudoanisatinoid routes, providing a persuasive argument for the rational extension of oxidative strategies in complex natural product synthesis./nThe second part (Chapter 4) describes burgeoning efforts in the synthesis of quassinoids, degraded triterpene lactone natural products. In this sole chapter, a background on quassinoids is given first, including a history of these compounds’ structures, biological activities, and prior syntheses. That discussion then leads into our synthetic work in the area. Drawing on those lessons, we envision a strategy leveraging elements of hidden symmetry in the natural products’ structures. In order to execute this strategy, a novel copper-catalyzed double-coupling of epoxy ketones is designed. The strengths and limits of this highly regio- and diastereoselective transformation are explored. Finally, the chapter concludes with an application of this methodology to a three-step synthesis of the full quassinoid ring system, creating a solid foundation for future work in this area.

Advisor: Maimone, Thomas J
Tail-Augmented Self-Righting and Turning of a Dynamic Legged Millirobot

Small-scale folded legged robots have demonstrated exceptional mobility in laboratory environments. However, in real-world applications, these robots require added robustness. This thesis introduces LoadRoACH, a 54.8 g palm-sized folded legged robot that carries a protective shell and an active tail (totaling 27.2 g). These added components enable LoadRoACH to survive high drops, rapidly self-right, and turn with enhanced maneuverability. First, a thermoforming manufacturing process is developed for integrated shells that protect folded legged robots from impacts and water/granular media. Next, design details are presented for LoadRoACH that enable dynamic running while carrying significantly larger payloads than previous folded legged robots. Then, dynamic self-righting with tail/terrain pushing is analyzed and tested using a modified VelociRoACH robot, which is a precursor to LoadRoACH. VelociRoACH can dynamically self-right on low-friction, high-friction, and granular terrain in as little time as 256 ms. In an autonomous self-righting experiment, VelociRoACH detects inversion and rapidly self-rights while walking over an obstacle with multiple step drops. Finally, two novel turning strategies that leverage tail/terrain contact during forward running are analyzed and implemented using LoadRoACH. The first strategy drags the tail against high-friction terrain to produce sustained turns with comparable maneuverability to differential drive turns. The second strategy impacts the tail against low-friction, high-friction, and granular terrain to produce rapid point turns with a heading change of up to 90 deg in 0.8 s. In an aggressive corner steering maneuver, a combination of tail drag and tail impact turning on a carpet surface enable the robot to advance further along the desired heading when compared to differential drive turning.

Advisor: Fearing, Ronald S
O'Reilly, Oliver M