VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The Morphosyntax of Discontinuous Exponence

This thesis offers a systematic treatment of discontinuous exponence, a pattern of inflection in which a single feature or a set of features bundled in syntax is expressed by multiple, distinct morphemes. This pattern is interesting and theoretically relevant because it represents a deviation from the expected one-to-one relationship between features and their morphological expressions. I consider cases of discontinuous exponence in verb agreement, TAM morphology, pronoun formation, and negation, showing the relationships among these various types and arguing that a unified analysis is in order./nThe empirical foundation of the work is a typological survey of discontinuous exponence in the inflectional systems of 40 genetically and geographically diverse languages. This study establishes discontinuous exponence as a robust phenomenon, worthy of study in its own right, and brings to light new generalizations about the behavior of agreement features./nWorking within the framework of Distributed Morphology I develop an analysis of discontinuous verb agreement that accounts for both the robustness and the noncanonicality of the phenomenon and extends naturally to other types of discontinuous exponence. My theory of Cyclic Insertion includes substantial revisions to Distributed Morphology; it rejects key assumptions such as the idea that feature insertion is feature discharge and it offers a view of vocabulary insertion that is compelled and constrained in very different ways than those assumed in the standard theory. Specifically, I assume that morphological insertion operates relative to meaning targets: insertion is motivated when it brings a form closer to its target meaning and is blocked if it cannot do so. The modifications I propose push Distributed Morphology in the direction of deriving discontinuous exponence more naturally. The noncanonicality of the phenomenon is explained with reference to greater complexity in its characteristic derivations./nI argue throughout the thesis for a view in which phi-features (agreement features) are bundled into sets. This view combines two independently motivated ideas -- that feature categories stand in hierarchical relations with one another and that categories themselves can be decomposed -- to develop a rich, two-dimensional phi-set structure. Along one dimension are the fine-grained primitive features and entailments within feature categories, and on the other are hierarchical relations among the categories. These phi-sets have both descriptive and explanatory power; viewed as meaning targets they derive the patterns of discontinuous exponence, and within the system I propose they predict the phenomenon's cross-linguistic tendencies./nA thorough study of discontinuous exponence can illuminate much about the typology and theory of agreement. I will show that a commitment to accounting for the syntax and morphology of an agreement system -- and the interface between the two modules -- can lead to some very interesting insights about the necessary features of a good theory of agreement.

Advisor: Mikkelsen, Line
Design of the Adaptive Cruise Control Systems: An Optimal Control Approach

Modern automobiles are equipped with various driver assistance functions which enhance safety and relieve driver fatigue. With the recent development of sensor technology, the Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) system has been put into practice. This thesis investigates several aspects for the ACC system including (1) smooth reaction of the host vehicle to the cutting in and out of lead vehicles, (2) real-time optimal profile generation for stop-and-go motions, (3) optimal feedback controller design, and (4) extension to Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) systems./nThe ACC system should maintain an appropriate relative distance to the lead vehicle and should also maintain the desired speed set by the driver if there is no lead vehicle or if the speed of the lead vehicle is faster than the desired speed. Also, it should react smoothly when the lead vehicle cuts out or if a new lead vehicle cuts in from a side lane. This thesis introduces the virtual lead vehicle scheme to prevent the switching between the distance control and the speed control. By controlling the motion of the virtual lead vehicle to be smooth, the scheme could provide smooth reaction of the host vehicle to the cutting in and out of lead vehicles. Linear Quadratic (LQ) optimal control scheme is utilized to find the control gains for the virtual lead vehicle and the host vehicle. Variable weights are utilized in LQ for the virtual lead vehicle. With the variable weights, the motion of the virtual lead vehicle is controlled to be smooth when there is no safety threat while ensuring that the virtual lead vehicel is still responsive and fast when a dangerous situation occurs. ACC with Stop-and-Go and the Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) system are extensions of the conventional ACC system. Stop-and-Go system is targeted to be used in urban driving situation where the lead vehicle can stop completely. In that case, the Stop-and-Go system should have a capability to stop the host vehicle completely. The constant time-headway policy used to find the appropriate relative distance causes undesirable motion for a complete stop. In this thesis a sliding controller is utilized to control the complete stopping motion. To find the optimal stopping trajectory, a constrained Quadratic Programming (QP) problem is solved. A constrained QP is also used to find the optimal velocity profile when the stopped vehicle is to resume motion. Multi-resolution formulations and the Lemke algorithm are utilized to find the optimal trajectories in real time. The CACC system utilizes wireless communication so that the vehicles in the network can share information with other vehicles. In this thesis, a centralized controller is designed by LQ optimal control scheme and potential benefits and problems are addressed. A Kalman filter with variable measurement noise covariance is introduced to compensate the lost data through the wireless network associated with the CACC system. The proposed control schemes have been verified through simulations.

Advisor: Tomizuka, Masayoshi
Engineering the Synthesis of Five-Carbon Alcohols from Isopentenyl Diphosphate and Increasing its Production Using an Adaptive Control System

Concerns over the sustainability and environmental impact of current processes that rely heavily on nonrenewable petroleum feedstock have created a need for developing alternative processes. Bioprocesses that use enzymes or whole cells to transform renewable biomass feedstock into commercial products are an alternative that could be more sustainable and environmentally friendly. Here, I present three novel frameworks for designing, assembling, and optimizing biological pathways that could be utilized in bioprocesses. The first framework uses enzyme families as libraries for identifying enzymes able to catalyze novel reactions. I used the framework to assemble a synthetic biological pathway that produces 3-methyl-3-butenol, 3-methyl-2-butenol, and 3-methyl-butanol from isopentenyl diphosphate. I also developed a novel colorimetric assay using N-methylbenzothiazolinone-2-hydrazone to rapidly quantify these three five-carbon alcohols. The second framework is called feedback-regulated evolution of phenotype (FREP), and describes a system that dynamically regulates the mutation rate in the cell based on the level of a particular phenotype. I used the FREP framework to engineer increased tyrosine production in Escherichia coli. Finally, the third framework describes the construction of synthetic transcription factors using metabolic enzymes. I used the framework to assemble four different transcription factors, all of which generate a transcriptional change as a result of a change in isopentenyl diphosphate concentration. By combining the FREP and synthetic transcription factor assembly frameworks, I implemented an adaptive control system that increased isopentenyl diphosphate production in Escherichia coli.

Advisor: Keasling, Jay D
The Development and Psychometric Modeling of an Embedded Assessment for a Data Modeling and Statistical Reasoning Learning Progression

Data modeling is an approach that helps students to transform initial, and often misguided, understandings of variability and chance to forms of reasoning that coordinate chance with variability by designing learning environments that support this reasoning by allowing students to invent and revise models. The Assessing Data Modeling and Statistical Reasoning (ADMSR) project is a collaborative effort between measurement and learning specialists that has developed a curricular and embedded assessment system based on a framework of seven constructs that describe the elements of statistical learning. Taken together, the seven constructs described above form a single learning progression./nThere are different ways to conceive and measure learning progressions. The approach used by the ADMSR project followed the "four building blocks" approach outlined by the Berkeley Evaluation and Assessment Research (BEAR) Center and the BEAR Assessment System. The final building block of this approach involves the application of a measurement model. This research applies different measurement models to the data from the ADMSR project. Unidimensional item response (IRT) models are applied to aid in construct development and validation to see if the proposed theory of development presented by the construct map is supported by the results from an administration of the instrument. Longitudinal and multilevel IRT models are applied to model the change in students' abilities to see if students improved on the constructs after instruction. Finally, multidimensional IRT measurement models are applied to examine the relationships between the seven constructs in the ADMSR learning progression. When applying the multidimensional model, specific links between levels of the constructs are analyzed across constructs after the application of a technique to align the seven dimensions.

Advisor: Wilson, Mark
Alternative polymerase genome regulation in Zea mays

In maize, mouse, and other eukaryotes, paramutation refers to a process by which heritable changes in gene regulation are facilitated by interactions between alleles on homologous chromosomes. As typically described, alleles conferring relatively high gene action invariably change to a repressed expression state when heterozygous with specific alleles or allelic states. Operationally, paramutation violates the first law of Mendelian inheritance that alleles segregate unchanged from a heterozygote and thus has important implications for normal genome function and evolution./nBy mutation selection and positional cloning, I show in this thesis that the largest subunit of the presumed maize Pol IV is involved in paramutation and normal maize development as well as in the biogenesis of small interfering RNAs (siRNAs). Nuclear run-on transcription assays indicate that Pol IV does not engage in efficient RNA synthesis typical of the three major eukaryotic DNA-dependent RNA polymerases. Additionally, I show that specific haplotypes of the purple plant1 (pl1) locus, encoding an anthocyanin pigment regulator, acquire and retain a spatially expanded expression domain in the kernel aleurone following transmission from siRNA biogenesis mutants. This conditioned expression pattern is progressively enhanced over generations in Pol IV mutants and remains heritable after restoration of Pol IV function. pl1 expression in kernels is associated with promoter-proximal transposable element (TE) fragments, but is independent of sequences required for paramutation. These results indicate that trans-generational Pol IV action defines the expression patterns of haplotypes using co-opted transposon-derived sequences as regulatory controlling elements. Finally, I present nascent RNA libraries of Pol IV mutants and wild-type siblings that represent the first global, transcription-based analyses in plants. The transcription profiles of both endogenous genes and TEs in the maize genome are altered in Pol IV mutants in both the sense and antisense orientation. The results presented in this thesis indicate that Pol IV employs abnormal RNA polymerase activities to achieve genome-wide silencing and that disruption of its function by mutation affects both heritable epigenetic changes to gene regulation and maize development.

Advisor: Hollick, Jay B
An Analysis of Personal Rapid Transit

Personal rapid transit (PRT) is a concept in which a fleet of automated vehicles operate on a network of grade-separated guideways, accessible on-demand at a fixed number of stations. The questions this research addresses include: How can merge-induced congestion be modeled and controlled? How do station configurations influence delay? How large must fleets be to accommodate a given demand profile? How should empty vehicles be dispatched to rebalance inventories at stations? While current literature on PRT tends to rely on simulation, this thesis uses queueing theory as an analytical framework.

Advisor: Daganzo, Carlos F
Regulation of Clathrin-Mediated Endocytosis by Dynamic Ubiquitination/Deubiquitination of Ede1

Clathrin-mediated endocytosis in budding yeast requires the regulated recruitment and disassociation of over 60 proteins at discreet plasma membrane puncta. Post-translational modifications, such as phosphorylation and ubiquitination, may play important regulatory roles in this highly processive and ordered process. However, while ubiquitination plays an important role in cargo selection, functions for ubiquitination of the endocytic machinery are not known. We identified the deubiquitinase (DUB) Ubp7p as a late arriving endocytic protein. Deletion of the DUBs Ubp2p and Ubp7p resulted in elongation of the lifetimes of endocytic coat proteins at the plasma membrane and recruitment of endocytic proteins to internal membranes. These phenotypes could be replicated by expressing a permanently ubiquitinated version of the early endocytic adaptor Ede1p, the yeast Eps15 homolog, which is implicated in the initiation of endocytic sites. However, Ede1p absence did not fully suppress the deubiquitinase deletion phenotype, suggesting that Ede1p is not the only endocytic target whose deubiquitination affects coat formation and disassembly.

Advisor: Drubin, David G
"Our Dissolution:" Subjectivity, Collectivity, and the Politics of Form in 1960s Japan

This dissertation argues that conceptions and representations of subjectivity in the Japanese 1960s negotiated a precarious balance between social critique and an extremism embracing violence against others and one's self. I define subjectivity as the modes of perception, affective responses, and self-consciousness that shape identity and motivate human beings to act. At one extreme, reflections on subjectivity in 1960s Japan revealed how individuals were complicit with social structures and institutions of power. At another, it led thinkers and artists to call for the rejection of the self so as to undermine the very structures shaping and limiting personal agency./nThe conflicts of 1960s Japan grew out of Japan's history of capitalist modernization and the global relations, economic developments, and social transformations specific to the postwar era. Japan's rapid recovery from the end of the Pacific War through the 1960s required mobilizing the Japanese citizenry to rebuild social institutions and to compete within a thriving global economy. For artists and thinkers alike, I argue, the exploration of perception, affect, and shifting grounds of consciousness held the potential to disrupt individuals' assimilation into dominant narratives of personal and social development compelled by Japan's domestic expansion and global aspirations./n/nMy first chapter examines how the critic Yoshimoto Taka'aki, in his theories of language, argued for a notion of political agency rooted not in abstract ideas or theories of revolution, but unsystematic visceral experience. I then consider in the second chapter how the poet, playwright, and raconteur Terayama Shūji's ideas and representations of "action poetry" corresponded to a form of collective social revolt based in the emotions and affective experience. The third chapter analyzes how the New Wave filmmaker Yoshida Kijū considered the "objecthood" of narrative cinema - sensuous perception, the body, and the image - as the basis for creating a form of cinema that treated filmmaker, actors, and spectators as autonomous agents. In the last chapter, I examine two films by the filmmaker Adachi Masao to show a shift from representing subjectivity as a means to critique 1960s capitalism to forging a revolutionary subjectivity, or consciousness, aimed at overthrowing capitalist imperialism at this time. Together, these chapters show how subjectivity was a vital and contradictory concept across media and political inclinations throughout the 1960s.

Advisor: Tansman, Alan
Inelastic X-ray Scattering Measurements of Ionization in Warm, Dense Matter

In this work we demonstrate spectrally resolved x-ray scattering from electron-plasma waves in shock-compressed deuterium and proton-heated matter. Because the spectral signature of inelastic x-ray scattering is strongly dependent on the free electron density of the system, it is used to infer ionization in dynamically heated samples. Using 2-6 ns, 500 J laser pulses from LLNL's Janus laser, we shocked liquid deuterium to pressures approaching 50 GPa, reaching compressions of 4 times liquid density. A second laser produced intense 2 keV x-rays. By collecting and spectrally dispersing forward scattered photons at 45 degrees, the onset of ionization was detected at compressions of about 3 times in the form of plasmon oscillations. Backscattered x-rays bolstered this observation by measuring the free electron distribution through Compton scattering. Comparison with simulations shows very close agreement between the pressure dependence of ionization and molecular dissociation in dynamically compressed deuterium./nIn a second set of experiments, a 10 ps, 200 J Titan laser pulse was split into two beams. One created a stream of MeV protons to heat samples of boron and boron-nitride and the other pumped 4.5 keV K-alpha radiation in a titanium foil to probe the hot target. We observed scattered x-rays 300 ps after heating, noting a strong difference in average ionization between the two target materials at temperatures of 16 eV and very similar mass densities. Comparison with electron structure calculations suggests that this difference is due to a persistence of long-range ion structure in BN resulting in high-temperature band structure./nThese results underscore the importance of understanding the complex electron structure of materials even at electron-volt temperatures and gigapascal pressures. Our results provide new data to guide the theoretical modeling of warm, dense matter important to understanding giant planets and inertial fusion targets.

Advisor: Falcone, Roger W
Adjusting the Thermometer of Race Relations: Physical Warmth Reduces Bias

Extending recent research suggesting that interpersonal warmth is metaphorically and experientially rooted in physical warmth, I conducted three experiments to examine the hypothesis that physical warmth can temporarily improve implicit attitudes toward negatively stereotyped outgroup members. In Experiment 1, a group of primarily European-American participants were randomly assigned to wear either a warm or cool compress on their forearm (ostensibly part of a product evaluation), then completed an Implicit Association Test (IAT) designed to assess implicit attitudes toward African-Americans relative to European-Americans. Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1 using an additional neutral temperature control condition as well as two single-target IATs, permitting the assessment of absolute rather than relative implicit attitudes toward African- and European-Americans. In Experiment 3, a punishment decision measure was used to assess attitudes toward African- and European-Americans. The results of Experiment 1 supported the hypothesis that warmth leads to reduced bias, whereas the results of Experiment 2 did not support hypotheses. Experiment 3 yielded mixed results. Theoretical implications and future directions are discussed.

Advisor: Chen, Serena
MONETARY SANCTIONS IN FEDERAL CRIMINAL SENTENCING: SIGNIFICANCE, PRISON, AND POLICY

This series of papers investigates money as a criminal sanction using a variety of approaches. Paper 1, "Money As A Criminal Penalty: Its Uses and Meanings," explores the theoretical underpinnings and empirical use of monetary penalties, providing a thorough assessment of the complexities entailed in the fair and efficient use of these sanctions. Paper 2, "Substitute & Supplement: The Multiple Functions of Monetary Penalties in Federal Sentencing," uses an innovative approach of focusing on severity and likelihood for both sanctions. The results of hierarchical linear modeling suggest that monetary penalties are used as both a substitute and supplement to incarceration. The main contribution is a more accurate characterization of the relationship between prison and monetary penalties. Paper 3, "Assessing the Effect of Booker on Monetary Penalties and Prison," explores the effect of the Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Booker (2005) on the use of monetary penalties and incarceration in federal sentencing. This analysis uses a matching algorithm to create comparison groups with more balanced observable characteristics. The result is consistent evidence that race and gender continue to be quite influential in sentencing outcomes and that greater post-Booker judicial discretion is associated with more volatility in the use of monetary penalties than prison. By providing a thorough, multi-faceted, and methodologically rigorous account of monetary penalties, these papers significantly advance our understanding of a ubiquitous and complex criminal sanction.

Advisor: MacCoun, Robert J
Some Periodic Solutions of the Two-Dimensional Stokes-Oldroyd-B System with Stress Diffusion

We use a limited memory BFGS optimization method to seek time-periodic solutions of the Stokes-Oldroyd-B system of equations with a 4-roller forcing field and periodic boundary conditions. The gradient of the objective function for the optimization is found using a method which is based on the calculus of variations, and employs a pseudo-spectral implicit-explicit Runge-Kutta scheme. Once solutions are found, their asymptotic stability is calculated via an eigenvalue method. A variety of stationary and periodic solutions are found, plotted and systematized in a manner that suggests a global structure of periodic solutions.

Advisor: Wilkening, Jon A