VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Prevalence and Impact of Peer Victimization Among Gifted Adolescents

Few studies directly examine the relationship between giftedness and peer victimization. Despite the limited available data, there is an abundance of prescriptive advice addressing the unique challenges for gifted students. Such advice derives from research on the psychosocial characteristics of gifted youth (at best) or outdated misperceptions of gifted youth as inherently vulnerable (at worst). The purpose of this dissertation was to elucidate the giftedness-victimization link by utilizing measurement and sampling that improve upon research to date. The first goal was to assess victimization frequency of gifted youth and make comparisons to similar non-gifted peers. The second goal was to examine whether victimization was more strongly tied to self-worth, anxiety, and depression for gifted youth compared to their non-gifted peers. At the outset of the study, it was hypothesized that no discernible differences would emerge between gifted and non-gifted students./nData for this dissertation were collected as part of the UCLA Middle School Diversity Project, a multisite longitudinal study of California middle school students from diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds (N = 6,058). The analytical sample in the current study consisted of 2,888 students in Grade 6, 50% of whom had been identified for gifted and talented education (GATE) programs. The other 50% consisted of non-GATE students matched on potential covariates using propensity score analysis. Data were collected using surveys in which students reported their experiences with victimization, their self-perceptions, and symptoms of anxiety and depression./nContrary to the stated hypotheses, the results indicated that gifted students were victimized significantly less than non-gifted peers for almost every form of victimization. The exception was physical victimization, and several potential interpretations are offered. Analyses examining the impact of victimization were mixed. Victimization was more strongly linked to depressive symptoms for gifted students (b = .049), but significant differences did not emerge on measures of self-worth or anxiety. Although the need for future research is clear, these findings represent a meaningful expansion of knowledge in this area and help to refute simplistic characterizations of gifted youth.

Advisor: Worrell, Frank C.
Provincial Urbanity: Intellectuals and Public Life in Patna, 1880-1930

Scholarly and popular discussions of cities tend to concentrate on the largest exemplars—Bombay and Calcutta, in the case of South Asia—and to neglect the smaller cities and towns where most urban people live. This dissertation examines the history of Patna, a small city in the north Indian region of Bihar, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Patna had been a bustling center of trade, culture, and administration for much of the early modern period but, like many cities in the Gangetic plains, it was marginalized by the political and economic changes of the nineteenth century. To many observers, it seemed to have become part of the provincial hinterland or, to use the term that developed under colonial rule, the "mofussil."/nEven a diminished and demeaned Patna, however, remained a major center. Despite the city's apparent decline, it sustained its connections with other mofussil towns and with the rest of the world, and maintained ways of being urban and urbane that distinguished it from larger cities as well as from more rural places. Patna was still Bihar's economic and political hub and a central node in the dynamic public culture that linked Patnaites with readers and writers in nearby towns and distant cities. Questions of the "backwardness" of Patna and Bihar entered national politics when activists based in the city began to call for Bihar to be separated from Bengal and established as a new province with Patna as its capital. When they succeeded in 1912, the city itself was reshaped along with its forms of community and authority. The same transformations that seemed to reverse Patna's decline also weakened its links with the networks that had defined its public culture./nThis dissertation documents Patna's distinctiveness and vitality by combining several approaches. First, it is a cultural history of provinciality and urbanity that shows how these concepts were formed through social practice. Secondly, it is an urban history that examines the city's politics and social geography together with its relationships with its region. And thirdly, it is a social history of intellectuals that locates their literary and scholarly activities within their urban community. Ultimately, it argues, Patna's urbanity was inextricably linked with its provinciality.

Advisor: Bakhle, Janaki
Clonal Diversity, Patterns, and Structure in Old Coast Redwood Forests

Coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens (D. Don) Endl.) is a valuable endemic and/nimportant source of timber and carbon storage in California. This species is unique among/nconifers in its ability to reproduce clonally through prolific sprouting. Due to extensive/ntimber harvesting, only ~5% of the native range of old growth redwood forest remains/nuncut. Knowledge about clonal diversity and patterns throughout the range of coast/nredwood may allow us to better understand the reproductive ecology of this species and/nidentify populations that may be at risk due to low genetic or genotypic diversity. In this/ndissertation, clonal diversity and patterns are described in two paired one-hectare plots at/neach of three old-growth redwood forests located at different latitudes within the native the/nrange of coast redwood. The impacts of clonal reproduction on spatial patterns in old/nredwood forests are also explored. High levels of genetic and genotypic diversity were/npresent at all three study sites. Clonal diversity and structure did not seem due vary by/ngeographic location. Instead, variation between study plots may have been due to a/ncombination of local environmental factors and disturbance history. Clones were spatially/naggregated at all study plots, and clonal reproduction generally led to significant spatial/nclustering at scales less than 10 m. The finding of high genotypic diversity suggests that/ndespite prolific sprouting, sexual recruitment still plays an important role in the reproductive/necology of coast redwood. In order to emulate old forest reference conditions, second/ngrowth forests should be managed to maintain high levels of clonal diversity. Additionally,/nforest managers seeking to restore old forest characteristics should plant and thin to create/nspatial patterns that mix single seed-origin trees and clonal clusters.

Advisor: O'Hara, Kevin L
Influences in Voting and Growing Networks

This thesis studies problems in applied probability using combinatorial techniques. The first part of the thesis focuses on voting, and studies the average-case behavior of voting systems with respect to manipulation of their outcome by voters. Many results in the field of voting are negative; in particular, Gibbard and Satterthwaite showed that no reasonable voting system can be strategyproof (a.k.a. nonmanipulable). We prove a quantitative version of this result, showing that the probability of manipulation is nonnegligible, unless the voting system is close to being a dictatorship. We also study manipulation by a coalition of voters, and show that the transition from being powerless to having absolute power is smooth. These results suggest that manipulation is easy on average for reasonable voting systems, and thus computational complexity cannot hide manipulations completely./nThe second part of the thesis focuses on statistical inference questions in growing random graph models. In particular, we study the influence of the seed in random trees grown according to preferential attachment and uniform attachment. While the seed has no effect from a weak local limit point of view in either model, different seeds lead to different distributions of limiting trees from a total variation point of view in both models. These results open up a host of new statistical inference questions regarding the temporal dynamics of growing networks.

Advisor: Mossel, Elchanan
Reliability Studies of Micro-Relays for Logic Applications

The semiconductor industry is now struggling with an integrated-circuit “chip” power density crisis due to the non-scalability of the thermal voltage (kBT/q), which sets the minimum subthreshold swing (SS) of a metal-oxide-semiconductor transistor and hence limits reductions in transistor threshold voltage and hence chip operating voltage. In contrast to electronic switches, mechanical switches (“relays”) operate by making/breaking physical contact and therefore offer the ideal characteristics of zero off-state leakage current and abrupt transition between on/off states, which provide for zero static power dissipation and (in principle) lower operating voltage, so that they potentially can provide a means for overcoming this crisis. In order to fully realize their promise, however, miniaturized relays must operate with sufficient reliability to be viable for ultra-low-power digital logic applications./nIn this work, the reliability of micro-relays designed for digital logic applications is systematically investigated. Contact resistance (Ron) instability is identified as the limiting factor for micro-relay endurance. Due to surface oxidation, Ron of prototype relays with tungsten (W) contacting electrodes increases with the number of operating cycles. This phenomenon is affected by relay operating conditions, including switching frequency and contact force. Larger contact force is found to be beneficial for stable operation, possibly due to breakdown of the insulating oxide layers. An alternative contact electrode material, ruthenium (Ru), is demonstrated to ameliorate the problem of metal surface oxidation; however, friction polymer formation and material transfer become dominant contact reliability issues, which eventually degrade Ron. An inkjet-printed micro-shell encapsulation process is used to provide an isolated ambient environment for the logic relays, and demonstrated to result in improved Ron stability by 100× as compared to devices tested in atmospheric conditions./nIn complementary logic circuits, slower switch turn-off than turn-on results in undesirable "crowbar” current, causing transient power dissipation during signal transitions and potential reliability issues. The effects of the contact electrode material mechanical properties, relay design parameters, and relay operating conditions on contact detachment delay (τCD) are experimentally studied and theoretically explained. Specifically, τCD is compared for logic relays with tungsten, ruthenium or nickel contacting electrode materials, and tungsten is found to provide for the smallest τCD.

Advisor: King Liu, Tsu-Jae
Communication-Optimal Loop Nests

Communication (data movement) often dominates a computation's runtime and energy costs, motivating organizing an algorithm's operations to minimize communication. We study communication costs of a class of algorithms including many-body and matrix/tensor computations and, more generally, loop nests operating on array variables subscripted by linear functions of the loop iteration vector. We use this algebraic relationship between variables and operations to derive communication lower bounds for these algorithms. We also discuss communication-optimal implementations that attain these bounds.

Advisor: Demmel, James
Integrating Resource Access, Livelihoods and Human Health around Lake Victoria, Kenya

While ecosystem and human health have been closely linked, the mechanisms through which natural and social systems interact to support human health are rarely understood. Yet the rapid transformation of Earth’s natural systems makes appreciating the drivers and ramifications of environmental change for human health particularly critical. To illuminate these links, I analyze the effects of changing resource access on household livelihoods, food security, health and nutrition. Specifically, I use the case of Lake Victoria, Kenya, to examine ways individuals and households respond to and affect fish availability. I employ both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, including a longitudinal household survey, ecological monitoring of fish catch, and qualitative in-depth interviews. My analyses examine a bi-directional relationship between fish availability and the health of people who depend on fish resources. First, I analyze how participation in fishing livelihoods affects fish consumption and food security. Next, I examine the bounds of resource availability in time and space in affecting household fish consumption. Further, I assess the impact of illness in fishers on fishing methods, and thereby fishery sustainability. Finally, I analyze how fish declines affect women’s access to fish, and, in particular, the power dynamics of transactional fish-for-sex relationships and HIV risk. Through these analyses, I aim to illuminate both the extensive effects of environmental change and mechanisms that tie the health of people and their environment.

Advisor: Brashares, Justin S.
Development of a Unified Strategy to the C18-, C19-, and C20-Diterpenoid Alkaloids

Chapter 1 of this dissertation lays the foundation for understanding the role diterpenoid alkaloid natural products could play in the development of novel pharmaceuticals and probes for chemical biology applications. The chapter describes ethnomedical uses of Aconitum plants, the bioactivities of select diterpenoid alkaloids, and successful total syntheses of the diterpenoid alkaloids./nChapter 2 details our ‘family-oriented’ strategy for developing a unified route to the C18-, C19-, and C20-diterpenoid alkaloids. By identifying the common fragments comprising the structural complexity of the diterpenoid alkaloids, we have been able to expedite our retrosynthetic analysis centered on a divergent strategy towards accessing members in each of the families./nChapter 3 describes our efforts at employing the AE ring fragment for the synthesis of the diterpenoid alkaloids. Key to this strategy is the use of a meta-π-arene photocycloaddition reaction for directly constructing the [3.2.1] bicycle of the C18- and C19-diterpenoid alkaloids. Efforts toward accomplishing this objective are detailed herein along with an improved methylenation sequence of the hydrindanone core, a single-step lactone to lactam chemical transformation, and aryl addition attempts to AE bicycle containing substrates./nChapter 4 focuses on our efforts at employing the AEF tricycle in the synthesis of the C18- and C19-diterpenoid alkaloids using cycloaddition strategies. Various meta-π-arene photocycloaddition precursors were synthesized, and a successful substrate was identified. The major differences between the successful and unsuccessful substrates are described in the chapter, as well as efforts towards employing alternative cycloaddition strategies for forging the targeted [3.2.1] bicycle./nChapter 5 details our unified strategy to the diterpenoid alkaloids. Described in this chapter are the rearrangement of the C20-denudatine type [2.2.2] bicycle to the [3.2.1] bicycle of the C18 and C19 natural products, the use of the rearrangement in the synthesis of liljestrandinine (C19), and current work towards the synthesis of weisaconitine D (C18).

Advisor: Sarpong, Richmond
Engineered Transport in Microporous Membranes for Clean Energy Technologies

Selective transport is a key component in many cutting edge clean technologies, including reverse osmosis, carbon capture and energy storage. At the center of these processes there is typically a membrane that preferentially selects for one of the constituents in the analyte mixture, at a fraction of the cost of the status quo technologies financially and energetically. The rapid developments of new classes of microporous materials within the last two decades have yielded a vast arsenal of building blocks poised to make an impact on membrane separation. Sporting pores that are less than 2 nm in size and approaching or commensurate with the molecular dimensions, microporous materials are capable of selecting for molecules based on sizes and shapes, and affecting transport by confinement. As a result, in many cases, properly designed molecular sieves can markedly improve both the selectivity and flux of the parent membrane. In this dissertation, I aim to discuss three classes of microporous materials – cyclic peptide nanotubes (CPNs), metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), and polymers of intrinsic microporosity (PIMs). Specifically I will elaborate upon the synthetic strategies to access interior functionalized CPNs and MOFs from metal oxide precursors; membrane fabrication involving MOFs and PIMs; and PIM membrane performance as applied to Li-S batteries. Using materials chemistry to precisely design and apply microporous molecular sieves, the work presented here spans the realms of both ion and gas selective transport, and technologies such as carbon capture and energy storage. At the same time I intend to offer a new general perspective on membrane component design.

Advisor: Helms, Brett A
Muller, Susan J
College Student Suicide: How Students at Risk Use Mental Health Services and Other Sources of Support and Coping

College suicide rates are stable, but up to 10% of students experience suicidal ideation each year, and most do not access mental health services. Little is known about campus mental health service structure and delivery. In a mixed model, quantitative-to-qualitative design, this study examined the link between suicidal ideation, mental health service use, and suicide attempt using archival survey data of over 25,000 college students from 70 campuses, collected in 2006 by the UT Austin-based National Research Consortium of Counseling Centers in Higher Education. Survey respondents had lower levels of 12-month suicidal ideation (6%) than typical national rates, and almost half of those with ideation had accessed mental health services. The quantitative analysis included multiple psychosocial and demographic variables known to affect suicide risk – an extension of prior college suicide research. Bivariate and regression tests of association found that several health service variables, for example seeing a counselor, were significantly associated with higher rates of suicide attempt. This seemingly counter-intuitive finding was mostly driven by a group of “high reactors” - students with both significant distress and a higher tendency to access services. The qualitative analysis sought to expand knowledge of what resources students use to cope with ideation, including formal healthcare or informal sources of support, and how this differed on two variables: whether students had accessed services and whether they had made a suicide attempt. Survey respondents’ open-ended descriptions of what they found helpful or unhelpful during their suicidal crises were analyzed for common themes. Social support from friends and loved ones was more often reported by service users than non-service users, and was associated with lower attempt rates. Social interaction increased attempt rates if students described receiving unhelpful feedback, such as shaming or minimization of their emotional state, and this risk was greater for those students who also did not see any mental health provider. Another common theme that was associated with lower suicide attempt rates, regardless of service use, was the use of coping behaviors and skills, such as talking problems through with a friend. These findings suggest areas of focus for future research and intervention; for example, mental health providers can guide students in recruiting appropriate social support. This study contributes to the understanding of how and whether suicidal students utilize campus mental health services and other sources of support, which is needed for guiding policy on suicide prevention efforts and directing future research on service effectiveness. Campus-level variables were also examined for differences in suicidal behaviors and service use, with few differences found across the 70 campuses.

Advisor: Snowden, Lonnie
Of Maras and Mortal Doubt: Violence, Order, and Uncertainty in Guatemala City

Everyday brutality in Guatemala City shocks and numbs a society that has suffered generations of war and bloodshed. Much of this violence is blamed on maras, gangs bearing transnational signs and symbols, that operate in prisons and poor urban communities. I will explore how the maras' evolution in post-war Guatemala has made them what they are today: victim-perpetrators of massive and horrifying violence, useful targets of societal rage, pivotal figures in a politics of death reigning over post-war society. However, while maras and mareros play starring roles in this account of extreme peacetime violence, they are not the problem. They are a hyper-visible expression of a problem no one can name, a deafening scream, a smokescreen obscuring innumerable and diffuse sources of everyday brutality./nThe maras will be my entry-point into a world defined by mortal doubt, and my guides as I navigate the rumors, fantasies, fears, and trauma swirling about criminal violence in post-war Guatemala City. The specter of violence has become so utterly entwined with the making of lived and symbolic landscapes that it cannot be extricated from the very fibers of everyday life. I will illuminate the myriad of spaces violence infiltrates and reorders to expose the existential uncertainty haunting efforts to confront, contain, and overcome violence. In the process, I provide an alternative, intimate understanding of the violence and suffering for which maras speak, or are made to speak, and the ways this violence and suffering affects individual consciousness and communal life, orders urban space, and circulates in public discourse. The veins of uncertainty fracturing this account are meant to rupture the pretense of knowing, and so break through into the treacherous and largely unmapped territory that is life lived in the shadow of constant violence.

Advisor: Kosek, Jake G
Tools, strategies, and applications of synthetic biology in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Synthetic biology is founded on the idea that cells are living machines that execute genetically encoded programs, and that we as engineers can reprogram them to perform new functions. Unlike man-made machines that are designed from the ground up, cells have been shaped and molded by evolution, and this makes them much more difficult to engineer. As synthetic biology has grown and matured, the field has shifted from focusing primarily on simpler bacterial chassis to engineering more complex and more powerful eukaryotic hosts, especially the budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Here we present technologies and strategies for efficiently engineering yeast, with an emphasis on metabolic engineering. First, we describe a practical framework for designing and constructing DNA for expression in yeast. This framework standardizes--and as a consequence, accelerates--the process of building new strains, enabling more rapid iteration and experimentation. We then develop a strategy for optimizing metabolic pathways by assembling combinatorial libraries that simultaneously titrate the expression of many genes. We identify strains with improved pathway flux for violacein biosynthesis and xylose utilization using mathematical modeling and selection, respectively. Finally, we attempt to alter the specificity of a native hexose transporter to exclusively import xylose without inhibition by glucose. In summary, this work is a combination of developing fundamental tools for engineering yeast and the application of those tools for lignocellulosic biomass fermentation.

Advisor: Dueber, John E