VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Three Essays on Applied Microeconomics

This dissertation consists of three essays on applied microeconomics. The first and second essays focus on the impacts of market power and the estimation of markups. The third one focuses on behavioral economics and the impacts of variety changes./nIn the first chapter, coauthored with Jeffrey M. Perloff, we analyze double markups. Because prices exceed marginal costs in many upstream and downstream industries, downstream prices often reflect a double markup. We are the first to estimate the size of double markups across many industries taking account of direct and indirect upstream markups. The double markups in many U.S. manufacturing industries are large both because of large upstream and downstream markups and increasing returns to scale./nRecent papers show that market power has increased in the US economy in the last decades. There is a large variability on the magnitude of the estimated markups. Different methods, data, and periods have been used. Focusing on methods that use industry-level data, the second chapter analyzes how sensitive estimated markups are to the estimation strategy, data, and the period selected./nAs the number of varieties increases, do sales increase or fall? In the third chapter, coauthored with David McLaughlin, Jeffrey M. Perloff, Tiffany Shih, and Sofia B. Villas-Boas, we test the conflicting predictions of the following two theories. The matching theory says that the more varieties, the greater the chance that a consumer will find a desirable one, so the quantity demanded increases. The overload theory holds that excess choice overwhelms a consumer, so demand drops. A national chain ́s quasi-experimental rollout of new varieties of ice cream and removal of some old varieties allows us to simultaneously identify both effects of changes in varieties. We find support for both theories, and that the matching and overload effects tend to offset each other, except for variety-preferring households.

Advisor: Perloff, Jeffrey M.
Fast and Accurate Machine Learning on Distributed Systems and Supercomputers

The past ten years have seen tremendous growth in the volume of data in Deep Learning (DL) applications. As a result, the long training time of Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) has become a bottleneck for Machine Learning (ML) developers and researchers./nFor example, it takes 29 hours to finish 90-epoch ImageNet/ResNet-50 training on eight P100 GPUs./nIt takes 81 hours to finish BERT pre-training on 16 v3 TPU chips./nThis thesis is focused on fast and accurate ML training./nAlthough production teams want to fully utilize supercomputers to speed up the training process, the traditional optimizers fail to scale to thousands of processors./nIn this thesis, we design a series of fundamental optimization algorithms to extract more parallelism for DL systems./nOur algorithms are powering state-of-the-art distributed systems at Google, Intel, Tencent, NVIDIA, and so on./nThe focus of this thesis is bridging the gap between High Performance Computing (HPC) and ML./nThere was a huge gap between HPC and ML in 2017./nOn the one hand, we had powerful supercomputers that could execute 2x10^17 floating point operations per second./nOn the other hand, we could not even make full use of 1% of this computational power to train a state-of-the-art machine learning model./nThe reason is that supercomputers need an extremely high parallelism to reach their peak performance./nHowever, the high parallelism led to a bad convergence for ML optimizers./nTo solve this problem, my co-authors and I proposed the LARS optimizer, LAMB optimizer, and CA-SVM framework. These new methods enable ML training to scale to thousands of processors without losing accuracy./nIn the past three years, we observed that the training time of ResNet-50 dropped from 29 hours to 67.1 seconds./nIn fact, all the state-of-the-art ImageNet training speed records were made possible by LARS since December of 2017./nLARS became an industry metric in MLPerf v0.6./nMoreover, our approach is faster than existing solvers even without supercomputers. If we fix the training budget (e.g. 1 hour on 1 GPU), our optimizer can achieve a higher accuracy than state-of-the-art baselines.

Advisor: Demmel, James
On the Table: Episodes in the Political Life of an Early Modern Object

This is a dissertation about tables. More specifically, it is an exploration of different ways in which tables came to play new and vital roles in Europe during the seventeenth century in relation to the articulation of political and territorial relationships. As objects, tables are often overlooked in two senses. On one hand, they are so commonplace that we scarcely take note of them. They have become part of an everyday landscape in which their surfaces seem to effortlessly cater to our (unconscious) needs. On the other hand, tables are literally overlooked in the sense that we generally look over and across them. In this regard, they provide a kind of contained almost cartographic landscape. The table can intensify the ways in which we perceive either the objects arranged upon it, or the faces seated around it since it isolates them and places them into sets of relationships that can be examined in a concentrated fashion. Tables, thus, offer a special kind of terrain — one that often escapes notice today precisely because it is so omnipresent.“On the Table” brings tables and their significance back into focus by examining the ways in which social and political changes in the early modern period manifested themselves in the form and materiality of three specific tables. Detailed case studies offer close readings of a table from Elizabethan England (1567), the table that features in Dutch painter Gerard Ter Borch’s seminal painting of the Treaty of Münster during the Westphalian peace conference of 1648, and a pietra dura table presented to Louis XIV in 1684 in order to examine different aspects of the formative roles that early modern tables played as spatial and political agents. In the English context, the dissertation examines one woman’s table and enquires into how her table played a role in staking a Tudor woman’s claims over space, place, and dynasty. Moving from the table as an instance of self-portraiture, the analysis shifts to reading the table as an agent for building a group portrait in the context of modern multinational peace conferences. The final chapter, at Versailles, interrogates what it meant to create a portrait of the state at the Sun King’s court. Along the way, shorter interludes explore table-culture further by examining, for instance, how tables brokered meetings across cultures (e.g. Habsburg-Ottoman negotiations) and how the rectangular table relinquished its hegemony to new, flexible round forms in the seventeenth century. This dissertation argues that tables did not simply reflect changing political and social imperatives, but participated actively in producing physical, social, and political realities. It further stakes a claim for attending to the vital roles that seemingly simple objects like tables have played historically – and continue to play – in shaping our lives.

Advisor: Honig, Elizabeth A
Lovell, Margarretta M
Problems on Large Sparse Graphs

In this thesis, we study two category of problems involving large sparse graphs, namely the problem of compression for graphical data, and load balancing in networks. We achieve this by employing the framework of local weak convergence, or so called the objective method. This framework provides a viewpoint which enables one to make sense of a notion of stationary stochastic processes for sparse graphs./nBy employing the local weak convergence framework, we introduce a notion of entropy for probability distributions on rooted graphs. This is a generalization of the notion of entropy introduced by Bordenave and Caputo to graphs which carry marks on their vertices and edges. Such marks can represent information on real-world data. This notion of entropy can be considered as a natural counterpart for the Shannon entropy rate in the world of sparse graphical data. We illustrate this by introducing a universal compression scheme for sparse marked graphs. Furthermore, we study distributed compression of graphical data. In particular, we introduce a version of the Slepian-Wolf theorem for sparse marked graphs./nIn addition to studying the problem of compression, we study the problem of load balancing in networks. We do this by modeling the problem as a hypergraph where each hyperedge represents a task carrying one unit of load, and each vertex represents a server. An allocation is a way of distributing this load. we study balanced allocations, which are roughly speaking those allocations in which no demand desires to change its allocation. Employing an extension of the local weak convergence theory to hypergraphs, we study certain asymptotic behaviors of balanced allocations, such as the asymptotic empirical load distribution at a typical server, as well as the asymptotic of the maximum load./nProblems studied in this thesis should be considered as examples showing the wide-range applicability of the local weak convergence theory and the above mentioned notion of entropy. In fact, this framework provides a viewpoint of stationary stochastic processes for sparse marked graphs. The theory of time series is the engine driving an enormous range of applications in areas such as control theory, communications, information theory and signal processing. It is to be expected that a theory of stationary stochastic processes for combinatorial structures, in particular graphs, would eventually have a similarly wide-ranging impact.

Advisor: Anantharam, Venkat
Identification of Systems Regulating Specialized Metabolism in the Bacterium Streptomyces coelicolor during Interspecies Interactions

Streptomyces coelicolor is a soil-dwelling prokaryote representative of an order of Gram-positive filamentous bacteria designated Actinomycetales, the richest known bacterial source of bioactive natural products. These specialized / secondary metabolites (including macrolides, aminoglycosides, tetracyclines, cephalosporins and polyketides) often have potent anti-microbial activity and, hence, have been a staple of modern medicine. Genome sequencing has revealed that a given actinomycete genome encodes the potential biosynthetic capacity to produce from 10 to 30, or even more, distinct natural products. S. coelicolor is a model organism for studying actinomycete development, genetics, and specialized metabolism. However, in its natural environment, S. coelicolor must engage with a heterogenous and complex collection of other microorganisms, as well as with abiotic factors in soil. Therefore, in the research described in this dissertation, I explored the role of interspecies interactions in regulating the production of specialized metabolites by S. coelicolor. To obtain insight about how production of these compounds is induced, I exploited the fact that S. coelicolor produces two, readily visualized, red-colored antibiotics (actinorhodin and undecyl-prodigiosin), but only when placed in close contact to certain other bacterial genera. I used extensive analysis of gene expression (RNA-seq) during interspecies interactions and, thereby, identified involvement of conservon8 in controlling induction of the red-colored antibiotics. A conservon is an operon so named because it encodes a characteristic set of four proteins and the S. coelicolor genome encodes 13 such cassettes that are highly homologous to each other. I constructed single-gene deletions in conservon 8 and determined, using transcriptome analysis, that CvnA8 and CvnF8 seem to function together. On the basis of my data, combined with bioinformatic analysis, I propose that CvnA8 is a membrane-bound signaling protein and CvnF8, a GAF domain-containing protein (an element that typically binds ligands and allosterically regulates proteins), serves as a sensor for CvnA8. From the gene expression patterns of deletion mutants, I deduce that CvnC8 and CvnD8 likely function together and hypothesize that CvnC8 is a transcription factor that is negatively regulated by CvnD8, which resembles a small RAS-like GTPase. Similarly, I observed that a ∆cvnB8 mutation has an intermediate effect on red pigment production and genome wide expression patterns, suggesting that it may connect CvnA8/F8 and CvnC8/D8, perhaps through regulation of the CvnD8 GTPase. Finally, my expression data additionally demonstrate that these conservon 8 factors also control expression of the gene clusters for at least two other specialized metabolites aside from the two red pigments, including a cryptic cluster that is predicted to encode a lanthipeptide.

Advisor: Traxler, Matthew F
Mechanisms of RNA sorting into distinct extracellular vesicle sub-populations

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) encompass a variety of vesicles secreted into the extracellular space. EVs have been implicated in promoting tumor metastasis, but the molecular composition of tumor-derived EV sub-types and the mechanisms by which molecules are sorted into EVs remain mostly unknown./nIn the work described herein I used biochemical and genetic tools to fractionate distinct EV sub-populations and dissect their mechanisms of miRNA sorting. I report the separation of two small EV sub-populations from a metastatic breast cancer cell line, with biochemical features consistent with different sub-cellular origins. I then characterized their RNA content and observed that the EV sub-types use different mechanisms of miRNA sorting (selective and non-selective). Using a cell-free reaction I identified the Lupus La protein as the mediator of miR-122 in vitro packaging. I next showed that the La protein is required for the secretion of selectively sorted miRNAs and 5’ TOP mRNAs in vivo. Finally by using proximity labeling I sought to understand how the La protein is recognized for sorting in the endosomal membrane. I found that the La protein is recognized for sorting by the sequestosome-1 protein. Its secretion is dependent on the presence of LC3-II in the endosomal compartment. In sum, this work provides a mechanistic understanding of miRNA sorting into EVs derived from cancer cells. Moreover I provide preliminary data on how RNA binding proteins might be recognized for secretion in endosomal compartments.

Advisor: Schekman, Randy
Creating Creation: Francisco de Holanda between Theory and Practice

Portuguese manuscript illuminator and art theorist Francisco de Holanda (1517-1585) is the focus of this monographic study. Holanda stands in an ambiguous place within modern art historical scholarship as his treatise, Da Pintura Antigua (1548), is largely utilized as a source in Michelangelo studies. This dissertation aims to expand studies of Holanda into a number of new contexts. It addresses the novel format of Da Pintura Antigua and suggests that this format contributes to how the larger theses and aim of that treatise should be considered, specifically in the context of the reform of religious art in the years between the Reformation and Counter- Reformation. I also address the imperial context of Da Pintura Antigua written as it was within the court of João III. While Holanda’s written and depictive artistic productions are usually addressed within the relatively insular disciplines of aesthetics and art theory, I explore larger geographic contexts. Holanda’s images and texts are tied into the history of science, the activity of navigation and its technologies. Lastly, Holanda’s hexaemeral imagery is placed within the context of medieval traditions of depiction and contemporary cosmological and natural-scientific concerns.

Advisor: Olson, Todd P
An Examination of Pronoun Usage in Dementia Patients and their Spousal Caregivers

Pronoun usage can be a powerful way of studying individuals and their relationships with others. While much of this research has examined the use of pronouns in healthy populations, few studies have focused on more vulnerable populations like persons with dementia (PWDs) and their spousal caregivers. Dementia is a debilitating disease that can affect the socio-emotional functioning of the individuals afflicted as well as their spousal caregivers. Depending on the neural circuits of the brain impacted, PWDs can develop different patterns of impairment in cognitive, language, and socio-emotional domains. In the present study, objective measures were used to examine diagnostic differences in pronoun usage in PWDs and their spousal caregivers and the associations between pronoun usage and caregiver mental health. The sample was composed of 311 dyads (254 PWD-caregiver dyads and 57 healthy aged controls). The first aim examined diagnostic differences in the types of pronouns used and found an interaction effect between diagnostic group (behavioral-variant frontotemporal dementia; bvFTD), Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and healthy controls) and partner type (PWD, caregiver, healthy partner) in that PWDs with bvFTD used significantly more I-words than all other groups while caregivers of bvFTD patients used significantly fewer I-words than all other groups. Additionally, PWDs with bvFTD used significantly fewer you-words than all other groups while caregivers of bvFTD patients used significantly more you-words than all other groups. A marginally significant interaction effect for we-words was found with PWDs with AD using the most we-words and PWDs with bvFTD using the fewest we-words. The second aim addressed in this study examined whether the types of pronouns used by PWDs and their spousal caregivers were associated with caregiver mental health at the time of caregiving. No significant association with caregiver mental health at the time of caregiving were found for any of the three pronoun types used by PWDs and caregivers. The third aim examined the association between types of pronouns used by PWDs and their spousal caregivers and caregiver mental health post-death. Hypotheses related to the third aim were not supported. This study extends our understanding of the socio-emotional impact of neurodegenerative disease on PWDs and their spousal caregivers and contributes important new information to the literature on diagnostic differences in interpersonal functioning.

Advisor: Levenson, Robert W
Essays on Race and Health in the US

Racial disparities in health outcomes in the US are large, persistent and for black Americans, largely due to chronic conditions that can be managed by primary care. Researchers have proposed many sources of these disparities, including the lingering impacts of America’s racist public health policies, the lack of racially concordant providers and the differential treatment of patients based on their race, even when holding providers constant. In this dissertation, I explore each of these topics./nIn the first chapter, I estimate the causal impact of the racial integration of hospitals on agricultural productivity in the American South. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 legally mandated that all hospitals have fully-integrated healthcare facilities. Using counties with hospitals that accepted black patients prior to the passage of the Act as a control group, I leverage a difference-in-differences design to show that integrating hospitals caused an increase in agricultural productivity of 15 to 20 percent. Further, estimating a production function with flexible inputs shows that this impact was due to an increase in a county’s labor share of production./nIn the second chapter, co-authors and I conduct a field experiment in Oakland, California, in which we randomize black men to black or non-black male medical doctors. We use a two-stage design, measuring decisions before (pre-consultation) and after (post-consultation) meeting their assigned doctor. Subjects select a similar number of preventives in the pre-consultation stage, but are much more likely to select every preventive service, particularly invasive services, once meeting with a racially concordant doctor. Our findings suggest black doctors could reduce the black-white male gap in cardiovascular mortality by 19%./nIn the third chapter, I utilize administrative data for the universe of primary care patients in the Veterans Health Administration to test if primary care provider quality explains racial disparities in health outcomes. First, I show that disparities in healthcare utilization are not explained by patients of different races being treated by different primary care providers. Second, I show using a two-way fixed effect model that a given PCP’s quality is not constant across their black and white patients. I do this by developing a novel measure of PCP quality, predicted one-year survival. Further, I show that PCPs of low quality for black patients are more likely to practice at healthcare facilities where more black patients seek care. However, conditional on a facility, PCPs that treat more black patients are of higher quality for these patients.

Advisor: Hoynes, Hilary
Handel, Benjamin
Charge Pumping with Human Capacitance for Body Energy Harvesting

The proliferation of Internet-of-Things (IoT) systems and human body sensors is rapidly transforming the way we interact with our surroundings. As these devices increase in number and longevity, there grows a critical need to find sustainable and convenient power sources. Shrinking consumer electronics have generated a demand for battery-less power sources for some applications. Significant interest in studying energy harvesting techniques exists as a solution to power these devices. In particular for interactive electronics meant to exist on and around the human body, kinetic energy of human movement is a popular energy scavenging source./nThis dissertation presents an electrostatic, charge-pumping energy harvesting system capable of scavenging energy from capacitive changes induced by the human body. As is well known for touchscreen devices, the proximity of a finger alters the effective value of small capacitances. These capacitance changes drive a current which is rectified to charge an energy storage component. This technology is fabricated in a standard CMOS process, and is also compatible with other mediums such as printed circuit boards, conductive fabrics, and paper. These systems transduce the kinetic energy of a human finger tap to electrical energy in the range of pico- to nano- joules, depending on the size, material, and design of the capacitive touch-sensing electrodes. We highlight the harvester's ability to power low-power applications such as light-emitting diodes and ring oscillators. This system illustrates one solution for powering the growing number of electronic devices with on-demand, user-generated interactive human movement.

Advisor: Maharbiz, Michel M