VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The vegetation of the anthropocene : at the confluence of climate change, wildfire, and conservation ethics

Across much of the earth's surface, the strong relationship between environmental conditions (climate, disturbances, etc.) and species' distributions has been eroded by recent anthropogenic impacts. The use of carbon-based fuels and short-sighted land management practices over the last two centuries have led to a world with 1.2°C warmer temperatures, an increased frequency in extreme weather events, altered precipitation regimes, and a cascade of other impacts. Scientists have identified a globally coherent redistribution of plant species in response to these environmental changes——with range shifts often poleward or upward in elevation towards cooler, wetter climates. Western North America, in particular, has witnessed a dramatic increase in the frequency of severe drought and wildfire events. Changes like these drive fundamental shifts in the structure, composition, and resilience of vegetation communities that are valued for recreational, cultural, and instrumental purposes. Understanding the compounding impacts of these drivers on the rate and trajectory of the spatial reorganization of vegetation is critical for our transition towards a sustainable future. After an introduction in Chapter 1 to the sensitivity of plant distributions to recent anthropogenic environmental change, I present two projects that further our understanding of ongoing plant redistribution in western North America. Chapter 2 investigates the role of wildfires on the rate of range expansion for montane and coastal tree species, and finds that two species——Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) and canyon live oak (Quercus chrysolepis)——keep closer pace with the rate of climate change in areas that have recently burned. Chapter 3 concerns range contraction——the grim alternative to expansion where populations become locally extinct——in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains. We find that up to 20% of conifer forests are expected to transition to different vegetation in the near future, primarily along the warmer, drier, and lower-elevation western slope. The final chapter focuses on the challenges that shifting vegetation pose for land managers and discusses the classical conservation paradigm more broadly. I examine the decreasing utility of the "native" concept in guiding decisions about where species belong, and introduce an updated understanding of nativeness that allows for a more complete assessment of the value of species outside their historical range

Keywords: Biology.
Advisor: Field Christopher B.
Fukami Tadashi
Hadly Elizabeth Anne
Vibrations & lattices : structural control and characterization of two-dimensional materials

The exfoliation of graphene in 2004 marked the experimental beginning of a new group of materials: two-dimensional materials. Tens of two-dimensional (2D) materials have since been discovered with over one thousand more theoretically predicted. Within these, my doctoral work has focused on the structure-function characterization of the layered transition metal dichalcogenides, specifically MoTe2 and MoS2. Analyzing the crystalline vibrations of MoTe2 with Raman spectroscopy, I demonstrated reversible electrochemical phase change between MoTe2's semiconducting and metallic states for applications in phase change memory. Using synchrotron X-ray diffraction to measure the lattice spacings of MoS2, I developed processes to accurately identify strain in MoS2 embedded under device-like layers for next generation electronics. Concurrently with the above work, I collaborated on several projects where I used Raman and X-ray diffraction to provide structural insight into a variety of materials. This work adds to the growing body of 2D material literature, inspiring work in tungsten alloying of MoTe2 to lower the transition voltage necessary for the 2H to 1T' phase change. It also enables X-ray diffraction workflows that can be used to structurally characterize future, yet to be discovered 2D materials

Keywords: Materials Science and Engineering.
Advisor: Salleo Alberto
Jornada Felipe
Pop Eric
Virtual treatment planning and numerical fluid-structure interaction methods for congenital heart disease

Despite profound medical advances, congenital heart defects (CHD) remain a leading cause of birth defect-associated infant illness and death in the United States. As gold-standard interventions continue to be met with troubling complications, there is a pressing need to quantitatively model, assess, and predict the performance of medical devices and procedures. Cardiovascular hemodynamic modeling requires consideration of fluid-structure interaction (FSI), a multiphysics phenomenon giving rise to the propagation of pressure and flow waves. Dichotomous solid and fluid formulations have conventionally been employed to couple a deformable structural problem to a fluid problem posed on a domain moving in accordance with the deforming structure. These dichotomies, which become readily apparent in the incompressible limit, were recently bridged in a unified continuum formulation for FSI. In this work, we first demonstrated the predictive capability of a virtual treatment planning platform for patients of two CHD populations with peripheral pulmonary artery stenosis. We then improved upon existing finite element solver technologies in aspects including spatiotemporal discretization, structural dynamics, preconditioner design, and the use of higher-order elements. Derived from the unified continuum model with assumptions invoked for vascular FSI, our novel reduced unified continuum formulation achieves computational efficiency on the same order as rigid-walled computational fluid dynamics simulations and demonstrates notable agreement with analytical solutions in a benchmark verification. It additionally achieves higher-order accuracy for quantities of clinical interest and exhibits enhanced linear solver robustness compared to alternative preconditioners. We further developed practical modeling techniques, including vascular wall prestressing and in-plane wall motion at model inlets and outlets. To assess performance in settings of practical clinical interest, we validated our numerical methods against 4D-flow MRI scans of a compliant 3D-printed vascular phantom embedded in an in vitro flow circuit. The improved spatiotemporal accuracy, computational efficiency, and solver robustness of our validated suite of FSI techniques may prove critical to a future in which patient-specific modeling of cardiovascular disease becomes routine across preventive care, diagnostic care, and treatment planning

Keywords: Bioengineering.
Advisor: Marsden Alison (Alison Leslie)
Feinstein Jeffrey A.
Iaccarino Gianluca
Visual motion generates predictive inhibition in the retina

Prediction is a central function of the nervous system with few known mechanisms. Retinal motion anticipation is one example, whereby ganglion cells predictively shift their activity in the direction of motion. I directly measured how salamander amacrine cells contribute to motion processing using simultaneous intracellular and multielectrode recording. By dynamically manipulating the gain of single amacrine cells, I found that inhibition itself anticipates motion, shifting predictively such that inhibition matches excitation of the target ganglion cells. Consequently, sustained amacrine cells control the response gain of nonlinear ganglion cells during motion. This finding strongly deviates from effects predicted by measuring amacrine transmission during other stimulus types, showing the critical need to match perturbations to specific stimuli in order to correctly interpret neural function. A computational model indicates that fast release and depletion of synaptic vesicles could underlie the predictive shift of inhibition, suggesting a general simple mechanism for prediction of changing stimuli

Advisor: Baccus Stephen A.
Clandinin Thomas R. (Thomas Robert)
Huberman Andrew
Raymond Jennifer L.
Voicing places : Maya-Mam youth navigating race, language, and labor in East Oakland

This dissertation portfolio is composed of three stand-alone papers that all study the formation of Maya-Mam diaspora across Oakland, California and Mam municipalities in Guatemala. These papers are based on participant observation carried out in schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods across Oakland across three years, as well as shorter field trips in San Juan Atitán and Todos Santos Cuchumatán, Huehuetenango, and San Miguel Ixtahuacán, San Marcos in Guatemala. Across the three papers I argue that forms of Maya-Mam identity were composed, recomposed, and transposed across national borders through linguistic, municipal, and educational practices and perspectives. The implications of these transnational compositions, recompositions, and transpositions of highlight how ethnoracial identities are articulated through linguistic, educational, and municipal discourses

Keywords: Education.
Advisor: Martínez Ramón
Rosa Jonathan
Valdés Guadalupe
Vrinda M. Suresh's NSC ePortfolio

This document is an archive of an electronic portfolio (ePortfolio) produced as a capstone requirement for the Notation in Science Communication. In their ePortfolios, NSC students demonstrate how they have met the NSC learning outcomes. These learning portfolios detail students’ growth and development as scientists and science communicators rather than showcasing only their best work. ePortfolios are reviewed and approved by faculty, earning students a special designation on their official Stanford transcript that reflects their science communication acumen.

Keywords: Communication in science
Climatic changes
Ecology
Environment (Art)
Environmental protection
Environmental policy
Biodiversity conservation
Nature conservation
Mixed materials
Image
Sound
Text
Article
Essay
Interview
Photograph
Podcast
Policy brief
Poster
Presentation slides
Story
Syllabus
Thesis
Essays
Interviews
Photographs
Podcasts
Posters
Fiction
Syllabi
Advisor: Savelson Kim
McConnell Susan
Watching feeling : emotional data from cybernetics to social media

This dissertation tells the story of how emotion was made computable. It traces a series of exchanges between the psychological sciences and computer science from the mid-20th century to the present, ranging from debates around cybernetic models of emotion at post-war interdisciplinary conferences, through early applications of computing to mental health at state hospitals, to the development of empathic AI agents at the MIT media lab. The history uncovered here tracks the development and mainstreaming of emotional data, by which is meant the result of the combination of psychological models of emotion and methods for recording emotional experiences, and paradigms for automating and algorithmically analyzing those recordings. The reconfiguration of emotion into data subject to algorithmic observation and intervention has ushered in a new biopolitical regime, one where these data give rise to new forms of knowledge, power, and value. The deep history in this dissertation reveals that emotion was a technical object long before contemporary algorithms learned to recognize it. At the same time, it demonstrates that the pursuit of artificial intelligence was an emotional endeavor from the earliest days of computer science, a field often considered the epitome of technical rationality

Keywords: Communication.
Advisor: Turner Fred
Christin Angèle
Denson Shane
Li Xiaochang (Researcher in communication)
Water hydrogen bond structure and dynamics in ionic and polymeric aqueous systems

Water is a simple molecule with many unique physical properties that are critical to life on earth. Its properties arise from its extended hydrogen-bonded network, in which water-water hydrogen bonds are constantly breaking and forming. However, in many biological systems and materials, the water network is impacted by the presence of solutes and interfaces. In this thesis, the structure and dynamics of the hydrogen bond network are examined in technologically relevant materials where water plays a key role. The systems studied include fuel cell membranes, hydrogels and concentrated salt solutions. Nonlinear infrared spectroscopy can be used to experimentally observe ultrafast motions of water as well as its structural configurations within complex chemical systems. Polarization-selective pump-probe experiments on the OD stretch of dilute HOD in water provide information on both orientational and vibrational relaxation. Orientational relaxation describes the reorientation dynamics of water molecules in the hydrogen bond network. If angular diffusion is restricted, orientational relaxation also provides insight into how water may be sterically hindered within its environment. Vibrational relaxation describes coupling of vibrational energy absorbed by the HOD molecules to its surrounding media. The vibrational lifetime provides details on the local interactions of HOD and may allow separation of distinct dynamics near different species. Two-dimensional vibrational echo experiments on HOD molecules observe the time scales for structural evolution of the surrounding environment through ultrafast vibrational frequency fluctuations. With these experimental techniques, a holistic picture of the structure and motions of the water hydrogen bond network can be acquired

Keywords: Chemistry.
Advisor: Fayer Michael D.
Markland Thomas E.
Zare Richard N.
Wave propagation and earthquake rupture dynamics in coupled earth, ocean, and ice systems

From interpreting data to scenario modeling, computer simulations have been essential to study past events and assess a region's potential hazard. We rely on computer simulations that closely represent the real world, but with more data collected in areas where hazards originate, it can become evident that past model assumptions limit the model's applicability. In this dissertation, I examine coupled systems with differing material properties utilizing computer simulations and analytical solutions to assess wave propagation and earthquake rupture dynamics. First, I examine sliding behavior between two materials of differing stiffness, focusing on how frictional properties at their interface change the sliding behavior from steady sliding to earthquake-like cycles. I focus primarily on Antarctic ice streams' earth-ice interaction, as the project's motivation comes from unusual twice-daily slow slip events on the Whillans Ice Plain. However, this project extends to similar problem geometries, such as landslides and subduction zones. Second, I examine models for earthquake-driven tsunami generation. Most numerical models utilize two-step methods with one-way coupling between the separate earthquake and tsunami models. These models use approximations that might limit the applicability and accuracy of the resulting solution. Previous methods do not capture ocean acoustic or seismic waves, motivating more advanced methods that capture the full wavefield. The fully-coupled method, recently incorporated into the 3D open-source code SeisSol, simultaneously solves earthquake rupture, seismic wave propagation, and ocean response (including gravity). In this work, I verify the implementation of the fully-coupled method, analytically show how the three modeling techniques are derived from the fully-coupled method, compare the modeling methods through numerical simulation and examine how ocean depth influences the expression of oceanic Rayleigh waves. Third, using an extension of the fully coupled method, I investigate how incident ocean waves (such as tsunamis and ocean swells) impact an ice shelf, converting into two wave types: flexural-gravity and extensional Lamb waves. Previous models have focused exclusively on the flexural response; I show the first simulations of the transmission of extensional Lamb waves into ice shelves highlighting how these guided waves impact ice shelf stability

Keywords: Geophysics.
Advisor: Dunham Eric
Ellsworth William L.
Segall Paul
We See History Through a Glass, Abjectly, in Infinite Jest

David Foster Wallace’s 1996 novel Infinite Jest presents a version of postmodern myth that is mediated through film, television, and other commercial entertainments. This media landscape is hostile, grotesque, and self-referencing. Its recursivity corrupts the chain of narrativization that transforms reality into history into myth. In the novel, the newly formed Organization of North American Nations coopts the preexisting culture industry in order to create a new, updated mythos and identity in service of its nationhood. The myths that it manages to produce are bizarre, non-linear, and illegible. This myth-making machine, using (fictional) history as its source material, seems unable to make meaningful or unifying narratives about the North American people of Infinite Jest. This is because the nascent government coopts the culture industry as the medium for myth, which leads the North American people to understand the culture industry itself to be their new mythic inheritance. This situation resembles Francis Fukuyama’s proposed End of History. An important characteristic of post-History is the loss of art. Individuals in this post-Historical position are at risk of losing the ability to describe their historical context or understand their identity as one among a collective of people. I argue that this landscape can be described through abjection, as defined by Julia Kristeva and elaborated by N. Katherine Hayles. I additionally use Roland Barthes’ definition of myth, Marshall McLuhan’s definition of media, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s critique of the culture industry, and Mikhail Bakhtin’s formalist method to aid my analysis of mythic entertainments that appear in the novel, which I term intratexts.

Keywords: English
Infinite Jest
Wallace, David Foster
Kristeva, Julia, 1941-
End of History
Fukuyama, Francis
McLuhan, Marshall, 1911-1980
Adorno, Theodor W., 1903-1969
Horkheimer, Max, 1895-1973
Bakhtin, M. M. (Mikhail Mikhaĭlovich), 1895-1975
Barthes, Roland
Hayles, N. Katherine, 1943-
Abjection in literature
Mass media in literature
Television in literature
Motion pictures in literature
Formalism (Literary analysis)
Narratology
Myth in literature
Myth in mass media
Semiotics and literature
Liberalism in literature
Television advertising
Commercial art
Ideology in literature
Motion picture industry in literature
Culture Industry
Text
Thesis
Advisor: Algee-Hewitt Mark
McGurl Mark
Well but unwanted : backlash against mental wellbeing prioritization in organizations

We are in a mental-health crisis. The majority of U.S. employees (75%) report struggling with their mental health, and, consequently, organizations are investing more into mental wellbeing initiatives than ever before. Yet in a society where the "ideal worker" norm demands full devotion to one's job, many employees may hesitate to use these initiatives over fear of backlash. In this dissertation, I demonstrate across three chapters and six studies (N = 3,757) that fear of backlash for mental health prioritization negatively affects employees' willingness to prioritize their mental wellbeing (Chapter 1; Study 1) and that such fear of backlash is warranted (Chapter 2; Studies 2-4). I further show that the way in which this backlash manifests (overtly or subtly) depends on evaluators' concerns about the way they will be perceived in a/the (?) workplace (i.e., image risk)¬¬. I conclude by exploring how shifting organizational norms can mitigate or exacerbate the expression of backlash towards employees who prioritize their mental wellbeing at work (Chapter 3; Studies 5-6). I discuss the theoretical implications of my work for scholarship on mental health and wellbeing at work, backlash, and workplace normative change, as well as comment on the practical implications of my findings for organizations and their employees

Keywords: Business.
Advisor: Martin Ashley
Neale Margaret Ann
Flynn Francis J.
"What does it mean to be both Indian and, like, American?" Representation in Contemporary South Asian American Young Adult Literature

This thesis studies the contemporary landscape of South Asian American Young Adult Literature through its relationship with a specific set of emic readers, namely, young, wealthy South Asian Americans living in suburban ethnic enclaves. It explores how the bildungsroman format privileges uniquely South Asian generational conflicts and inherited traumas that craft a hybrid, mutable sense of identity. The answer to the question the title poses, “What does it mean to be both Indian and, like, American?” is simply a slew of related questions that signify different things to each individual. Using the case studies of three recent releases in the genre, this thesis endeavors to illustrate that second-generation immigrant identity conflicts are not a power struggle between two binaristic identities, but instead create a generative space that embraces different parts of any identity.

Keywords: South Asian literature
Young adult fiction
Identification
Symbolism in literature
Emigration and immigration
South Asian American teenagers > Ethnic identity
South Asian Americans in literature
Text
Thesis
Advisor: Kantor Roanne
Staveley Alice
What does it take to teach teachers? A mixed-methods investigation of district-based teacher educators' knowledge and practices

The offering of professional learning experiences (PLEs) for teachers to support and strengthen teaching quality is a widely adopted educational policy across different countries (Davis et al., 2011; Garet et al., 2001; Loyalka et al., 2019, Popova et al., 2018). However, even programs that are designed to incorporate features associated with effective teacher learning might no yield to change in teachers practices and student learning. Among several aspects that differentiate effective programs from those with few or no results, one seems to be a constant: the facilitator's profile. More specifically, the experience and knowledge of facilitators seem to matter. To advance the knowledge about preparing and supporting proficient facilitators, the first step is to investigate what they know and what they already do in their workshops with teachers. This dissertation aims to contribute to the knowledge in the field by investigating one element in this myriad of aspects that is usually less studied: the facilitator of the professional learning experiences. Leaning on the vast literature and knowledge produced in the field, I investigated the knowledge and practices facilitators in two large Brazilian departments of education have and how they use this knowledge and enact those practices to teach teachers. I used a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative data from a survey (N=285) and qualitative data from an interview with a simulated task (N=15). The results of this investigation show that facilitators working in these two departments of education, on average, do not demonstrate specialized facilitation knowledge. They draw heavily on their classroom experiences and knowledge developed as teachers. However, facilitators do not have robust specialized facilitation knowledge, do not use practices associated with the research on teacher learning systematically and coherently, and have few or no opportunities to learn about these aspects in their workplaces

Keywords: Education.
Advisor: Carlson Janet (Associate research professor of education)
Carnoy Martin
Borko Hilda
Levine Sarah (Sarah R.)