VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Funding our Future: Investing in School-Based Health

Despite the link between health and learning, school districts typically do not have the resources or incentives to address the health conditions that influence academic performance. Although most educators understand that health is a condition of learning, they are often reluctant to reallocate limited education dollars from the classroom to invest in student health, which may have the unintended consequences for academic outcomes. Recognizing the reciprocal relationship between health and education, this dissertation explores strategies for and outcomes of funding for school-based health initiatives in an effort to identify practical opportunities to reduce health and education disparities among current and future generations of US children./nUsing cases from around the country, Paper 1 reviews successful strategies that education stakeholders have used to fund school health initiatives that address “educationally-relevant” health disparities. These cases share three common facilitators: 1) a local champion, 2) alignment with district priorities, and 3) nontraditional funding mechanisms, including: “braiding” education dollars; local tax revenue; Medicaid; and cross-sector partnerships./nPaper 2 investigates whether California school districts are investing in Physical Education (PE), which has been cut disproportionately in schools serving predominately low-income students, and what characteristics are associated with those districts that do invest in PE. California, which in 2013 overhauled its school finance formula and now provides additional funding to districts serving more “disadvantaged” students, offers a unique opportunity to examine how school districts serving low-income students prioritize funding for health given more funding and flexibility for how it is spent. Controlling for other district-level characteristics, the paper concludes that districts with high percentages of disadvantaged students had greater odds of investing in PE compared to districts with lower percentages of disadvantaged students./nPaper 3 examines whether PE investments are associated with changes in students’ cardiovascular fitness levels. Controlling for other district-level characteristics, this paper finds that PE investments are associated with modest increases in student fitness levels among districts with fewer than 6,350 students (75th percentile of mean statewide enrollment), while among districts with 6,350 students or more, PE investments are associated with modest decreases in fitness levels. Consistent with prior research, this study also documents persistent and troublesome disparities in fitness levels between students in low- and high-income districts. Finally, the study finds great variability in the cardiovascular fitness data over time, particularly among small districts, which raises important questions regarding the value of the FITNESSGRAM aerobic capacity test to reliably monitor student health outcomes.

Advisor: Madsen, Kristine A.
Neural Regulation of Hunger and Thirst in Drosophila melanogaster

Eating food and drinking water are fundamental requirements for animal survival. Understanding how animal nervous systems regulate these behaviors has been a focus of neuroscience research for over a century. Until recently, however, a lack of experimental tools has made it challenging to identify the molecules and neurons that orchestrate food and water ingestion behaviors. Here, I use the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster as a model to identify such molecules and neurons. I find that a group of four neurons regulates both food and water ingestion in Drosophila, and that they accomplish this by co-expression of molecules that confer on them sensitivity to internal signals of both hunger and thirst./nIn the first part of this dissertation (chapter 2), I describe the discovery of a novel group of neurons in the Drosophila brain, and show that they are regulators of both food and water ingestion. This work is presented in the form of a published co-first author manuscript. Using genetic tools, behavioral assays, and calcium imaging, I show, together with co-authors Brendan Mullaney and Kevin Mann, that these neurons, which we name ISNs (Interoceptive SEZ Neurons), are sensitive both to an internal signal of nutrient deprivation, the glucagon-like peptide adipokinetic hormone (AKH), and an internal signal of water abundance, extracellular osmolality. We further show that this dual sensitivity arises because ISNs co-express a G-protein coupled receptor, the adipokinetic hormone receptor (AKHR), and a conserved TRPV channel, Nanchung (Nan), which act as molecular sensors of AKH and osmolality, respectively. Finally, we show that ISN activity is sufficient to regulate both sugar and water consumption in a manner that promotes homeostasis./nIn the second part of this dissertation (chapter 3), I use a combination of behavioral genetics and calcium imaging to characterize neural circuits downstream of ISNs. I show that ISNs likely express and release the peptide dILP-3, an insulin-like peptide, and determine the anatomy of neurons post-synaptic to ISNs. Finally, I use large-scale calcium imaging to characterize how AKH (and, by extension, ISN activity) modulates neural responses to the taste of sugar and water./nIn the final part of this dissertation (chapter 4), I place the above results in the context of mammalian studies of food and water ingestion. I argue that understanding how nervous systems regulate the ingestion of food and water will require a deeper understanding of the interactions between neural regulators of these behaviors. This work is presented as a published first author manuscript.

Advisor: Scott, Kristin
Field methods for collection of spatially distributed, hydrologic watershed data

During Northern California's dry season, the summer months are characterized by a water resource bottleneck that affects both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Though the sensitivities of these summer-dry watersheds to environmental variability are frequently studied, spatiotemporal improvements in monitoring of watershed variables are undoubtedly beneficial in the context of ongoing climate change./nThis dissertation presents innovative field methods to observe and record spatially heterogeneous and distributed watershed data that are essential for accurate evaluation of a Northern California watershed's water budget and thermal regime. This work focuses on two hydrologic fluxes providing dry season relief to vulnerable vegetation and freshwater species: fog water in the atmosphere and groundwater in streams. For each flux, a new field method employing a combination of commercially available sensors, remote sensing, and robotics is first developed and tested; the method is then used to describe or quantify the flux in a case study. Where appropriate, field studies are followed by modeling approaches that allow extensive analysis of a broader range of conditions than could be observed in the field. The direct observations made by employing the new field methods and subsequent analyses presented indicate the importance of improving accuracy of measurements of these hydrologic fluxes in understanding their watershed-scale effects. This dissertation also identifies operational and system constraints of the new methods, as well as key areas for further development, such that these methods may eventually be generally applied across all seasonally-dry, Mediterranean-type climate watersheds.

Advisor: Thompson, Sally
Modeling Consumer Behavior in Electricity Markets - Theory and Applications

This thesis models consumer behavior in electricity markets from both a theoretical and practical perspective. The main underlying theme of this thesis is residential demand response, which is enabled by the development of smart grid technologies and the subsequent collection of large amounts of data. The work in this thesis touches on themes at the intersection of machine learning, economics, and game theory./nIn the first part of this thesis, we seek to analyze the interaction between different players in the modern smart grid. Topics discussed include the incentivization of residential users to elicit their private information, how peer effects affect residential energy consumption, as well as hedging strategies against quantity and price risks in the electric market. To support these expositions with even more fundamental analyses, a framework for budget-constrained and combinatorial multi-armed bandits is introduced. The motivation behind including this rather generic topic lies in the sequential and repetitive nature of interactions between different players in the smart grid, which - under certain assumptions - could be captured with this methodology./nThe second part of this thesis is concerned with the estimation of a residential Demand Response program carried out by OhmConnect, Inc. during a 14-month period. To evaluate the effects of monetary (and non-monetary) incentives on the reduction in electricity consumption, we first develop a short-term load forecasting method and compare various estimators. The estimation accuracy is further improved by incorporating mixtures of Gaussians and Hidden Markov Models into the estimators under consideration. Next, we develop a two-stage estimation framework to estimate individual treatment effects of Demand Response and compare the aggregated effect, namely the Average Treatment Effect, to the outcome of a randomized controlled trial. The ability to estimate individual treatment effects allows us to design an adaptive targeting framework, which seeks to maximize cost efficiency of this program. Lastly, the effect of moral suasion (non-monetary incentives) that only appeal to the environmental consciousness of users is explored.

Advisor: Tomlin, Claire J
Kiezdeutsch, Kiezenglish: English in German Multilingual/-ethnic Speech Communities

This study characterizes the role of English in multilingual/-ethnic speech communities in urban Germany. Drawing on both existing corpus data and new data from a multimodal fieldwork study, this dissertation demonstrates that English plays a far greater role in these speech communities than has previously been recognized. I argue that this is especially true with respect to the Kiezdeutsch speech community, exploring how the social meanings and formal linguistic features of English are reflected in Kiezdeutsch (and vice-versa)./nFurthermore, I explore the role of English in contact between the current wave of refugees, many of whom speak better English than German upon arrival in Germany, and pre-existing multilingual speech communities. As the older, largely Turkish-speaking population of Germans with migrant backgrounds absorbs the new refugees, many of whom speak unrelated languages and non-mutually intelligible dialects of Arabic, English has become a lingua franca both for daily communication and as a shared second language in German classrooms. Drawing on my fieldwork data collected in refugee language classrooms, I argue that understanding and navigating this new contact situation will require taking seriously the role of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) in urban Germany. Furthermore, I argue that this contact between new migrant communities and established speakers of Kiezdeutsch necessitates rethinking assumptions about Kiezdeutsch as a “native dialect” of German./nFollowing an overview of the study in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 summarizes the existing literature on ethnolects in Germany. I give a historical overview of the field and, ultimately, illustrate possible reasons that English has largely been ignored in this work. Chapter 3 demonstrates that English does indeed play a role in the existing data by analyzing the influence of English on data from the Kiezdeutsch corpus (KiDKo). Chapters 4 and 5 present new data from my ethnographic-linguistic fieldwork study. Chapter 4 characterizes the influence of English on the repertoires of post-migrant youth associated with the Kiezdeutsch speech community. Chapter 5, on the other hand, examines the role of English among refugee youth, arguing that English constitutes an important point of connection between post-migrant and migrant speech communities. Chapters 4 and 5, taken together, suggest the emergence of a new German-English hybrid repertoire which I term “Kiezenglish.” Finally, Chapter 6 concludes the study by offering implications of the increasing presence of English for descriptive linguistic study of ethnolects such as Kiezdeutsch, as well as for language acquisition, pedagogy and language policy.

Advisor: Rauch, Irmengard
Design Rules Governing Architecture–Transport Relationships in Microporous Materials

The rational design of microporous membrane materials enables exceptional control over the pore-network architecture, pore-wall chemistry, and structural rigidity that together dictate selective mass transport. These materials, which vary in structure from randomly packed microporous polymers to highly ordered porous crystals, discriminate between permeating species based on their size as well as their chemical and physical properties. Microporous membranes are not only a promising answer to the economic and environmental costs associated with industrial chemical separations but also a means to enhance the feasibility of incipient clean-energy technologies from carbon capture to electrochemical energy storage. In this dissertation, I discuss the chemical synthesis, membrane fabrication, and performance of state-of-the-art membrane materials to investigate the underlying structure-property relationships tying chemical design to selective mass transport./nIn the first part of this dissertation, I describe my work advancing pure polymer membranes through the production of exceptionally rigid backbone chemistries. I present novel thermally rearranged polymer membranes that feature Tröger’s base units as highly rigid sites of contortion along the polymer backbone. This rigidity enhances diffusive selectivity without sacrificing flux, challenging the permeability-selectivity tradeoffs inherent to polymer membranes. The Tröger’s base thermally rearranged polymer membranes exhibit state-of-the-art performance for air separations./nIn the second part of the dissertation, I discuss metal-organic framework (MOF)/polymer composites towards overcoming the permeability/selectivity tradeoffs inherent to pure polymers. First, I demonstrate an alternative synthesis of M2(dobpdc), a family of phase-change adsorbent MOFs, that allows for control over the crystal size down to the nanoscale. Then I demonstrate that incorporating the amine-appended nano mmen-M2(dobpdc) into a polymer membrane selectively increases the CO2 permeability. Subsequently, I describe the growth of sub-micron MOF films at a porous polymer surface through the chemical conversion of sacrificial metal-oxide nanocrystals. Layered membranes can access the full potential of the molecular-sieving crystalline components without sacrificing the processability of the underlying polymer layer./nIn the final part of this dissertation, I discuss my work characterizing polyelectrolyte binders for controlled ion transport in sulfur cathodes. In this system, unwanted mass transport of polysulfide components is hindered through strong attractive interactions with an ionically charged polymer binder. I ascertain the nature of those interactions through the use of synchrotron X-ray absorption spectroscopy which, when coupled with predictive molecular dynamics simulations, reveals that the polysulfides ring open to crosslink the binder chains.

Advisor: Helms, Brett A
Long, Jeffrey R
Monolithic Wireless Transceiver Design

Recently, there has been an increasing push to make everything wireless. In contrast to high-performance cellular communication, where the demand for enormous quantities of data is skyrocketing, these small wireless sensor and actuator nodes require low power, low cost, and a high degree of system integration. A typical CMOS system-on-chip requires a number of off-chip components for proper operation, namely, a crystal oscillator to act as an accurate frequency reference, and an antenna. The primary goal of this thesis is to address the hurdles associated with operating without these components at as low a power level as possible. This is a step towards the ubiquitous presence of wireless communication./nIn this work, an evaluation of transceiver performance is performed with power, performance, and physical size in mind. Operation of a low-power standards compatible 2.4 GHz transmitter (TX) is demonstrated without the use of an off-chip frequency reference. These 2.4 GHz transceivers (TRX), called the single chip motes, operate at low power levels without an off-chip frequency reference. The first single chip mote demonstrated RF chip-to-chip communication in the presence of local oscillator drift caused by temperature variation. It used a free-running LC tank oscillator that was calibrated against drift with periodic network traffic. The next single chip mote was a 2.4 GHz, 802.15.4 TRX, BLE advertising TX system-on-chip with integrated digital baseband and a Cortex M0. Once again, the chip uses no off-chip frequency reference. Finally, a design of high frequency transceiver with integrated antenna is presented, paving the way for a fully on-chip solution.

Advisor: Pister, Kristofer S.J.
Investigations of Structural Effects on Supramolecular Self-Assembly and Function

The work presented in this dissertation describes the influence of structural modifications on supramolecular structure and function. Investigations focused on an M4L6 tetrahedral structure self-assembled in solution, which is known for its wide applicability in the stabilization of reactive species and enzyme-like microenvironment catalysis of reactions./nChapter One offers context for this work, including an overview of the field of supramolecular chemistry, focusing on catalysis and on coordination frameworks such as the M4L6 tetrahedron discussed herein. A brief historical perspective of supramolecular chemistry, with emphasis on molecular machines, catalysts, and ion binders is discussed. Parallels to biological systems, from which supramolecular chemists often draw inspiration, are also emphasized throughout the introduction. Examples in which noncovalent forces are crucial to structure as well as function of a supramolecular system are highlighted./nIn Chapter Two, the synthesis and reactivity of two pyrene-based supramolecular assemblies is reported. The modification of conditions resulted in the synthesis of an “empty,” or solvent-containing, supramolecular assembly with a modified polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon core, allowing access to the use of a larger cavity for supramolecular catalysis and enabling size comparison experiments for the first time. In size comparison experiments, changing the aromatic core of the assembly significantly impacted the selectivity of two reactions, a Prins cyclization and a nucleophilic substitution with stereoretention. These results demonstrate the importance of substrate–host size matching in selective supramolecular catalysis, while reactivity was effected by peripheral changes to the supramolecular assembly. Further attempts to examine the nucleophilic substitution reaction using new substrates were explored within the context of supramolecular catalysis./nChapter Three describes the impact of ligand modification on the process of self-assembly. The introduction discusses the design principles that govern the stoichiometry, shape, and size of metal–ligand coordination assemblies, with an emphasis on symmetry considerations. Secondary factors not accounted for in these design principles are also discussed, as well as examples in which those secondary factors alter the supramolecular architecture of a set of metal and ligand subcomponents. With these design principles in mind, modifications to an M4L6 supramolecular tetrahedron were explored. The periphery, core, and chirality of ligands that make up the tetrahedron were modified. Studies showed that extending the core of the ligand and adding sterically bulky groups to the periphery hinder tetrahedron formation, enabling formation of the entropically favored M2L3 helicate instead. Impacts of reaction conditions on the sensitive equilibria between these two species were explored, as well as attempts to circumvent this equilibrium through templation of a guest followed by its removal.

Advisor: Toste, F. Dean
Raymond, Kenneth N.
Interactions between barrel cortex and primary somatosensory thalamus in the mouse

In order to fully understand how thalamus and cortex work together to process sensory information, we need to examine not only the well-known feedforward connections between them but also the numerous feedback projections that originate in cortex and terminate in the thalamus. Specifically, we are interested in the thalamic contribution to the construction and processing of spatial representation in a sensory space, as well as the somewhat more basic question of the effect of cortical activity on thalamic activity that underlies any kind of representation. In this dissertation, I detail my foray into these questions using the whisker system in an awake mouse model./nIn Chapter 1, I will provide a broad overview and introduction to the questions at hand, giving a framework in which to understand both the motivation and results of the following studies. Chapter 2 focuses on examining how representation of space emerges in cortex and how that is different from thalamus. This is presented via a reproduction of a co-authored manuscript. Chapter 3 focuses on presenting a set of experiments utilizing cortical modulation and electrophysiology to probe the function of corticothalamic feedback in the awake animal. To this point, I include a first-author manuscript in preparation. Finally, Chapter 4 provides closing thoughts.

Advisor: Adesnik, Hillel