VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Learning, decision-making, and inference with limited experimentation

Over the last decade, machine learning techniques have revolutionized a variety of disciplines including medicine, natural language processing, computer vision, and finance. With this central role that machine learning has in our lives, there exists a vital need to fully investigate the applicability of these techniques, especially in human-centered domains. Indeed, many assumptions behind the theoretical analysis of machine learning algorithms are not satisfied in practice, which can lead to harmful consequences in sensitive applications. One example is in medical decision-making, where the impact of wrong decisions may be severe and irreversible. Furthermore, despite these huge advances in machine learning, the traditional randomized controlled trials are still the gold standard for testing the efficacy of various treatment and policy interventions. Although these trials are very robust and valid with minimal (or no) assumptions, they are very expensive and difficult to run, especially in medical applications. Thus, it is also important to carefully design and customize machine learning techniques that under a mild set of assumptions can provide meaningful and valid guarantees about the treatment effects using observational data. Observational data are usually more accessible and have the advantage of bypassing the burden of running experiments. This doctoral dissertation focuses on designing and analyzing data-driven methods with limited experimentation, focusing on three different settings. First, we study the online setting, where the decision-maker needs to personalize treatment decisions sequentially and wishes to reduce the amount of experimentation (randomization). In the rest of this dissertation, we consider the offline setting where the decision-maker has access to some observational data and wishes to estimate and draw inference about treatment effects. Specifically, we consider panel data models and discuss the treatment effect estimation using matrix completion methods. Moreover, we analyze personalized (non-parametric) inference from observational data with high dimensional covariates and combine non-parametric estimators with sub-sampling techniques to provide valid confidence intervals that are able to adapt to a priori unknown lower-dimensional structure of data.

Keywords: Electrical Engineering.
Advisor: Bayati Mohsen 
Johari Ramesh
Montanari Andrea 
Weissman Tsachy
Learning or herding? Understanding social interactions and the distribution of success on a social music sharing platform

Digital sharing platforms like YouTube and SoundCloud crowdsource the process by which users can discover high quality new products among an increasingly vast flow of new products, acting as on-going digital test markets. Social features on these platforms can accelerate the discovery process by encouraging sharing of information and facilitating learning, thereby reducing the number of people sampling poor quality products. This may more quickly concentrate platform traffic on higher quality alternatives. Social features may also include a feedback loop if people care about consuming the same products as their peers. Given previous research showing that social feedback loops can distort or even invert the relationship between product quality and product popularity, if such feedback loops exist, the discovery and filtering capabilities of crowdsourcing may be compromised, emphasizing the need to understand the nature of social interactions on such platforms. Utilizing data from SoundCloud, a music sharing and streaming site, I develop an approach to separately identify and measure these two separate endogenous social effects with and without feedback loops. Results suggest that the platform's social features do have informative effects but that the feedback loop plays a dominant role for the most successful songs.

Keywords: Business.
Advisor: Hartmann Wesley R. (Wesley Robert)
Nair Harikesh S. (Harikesh Sasikumar)
Bronnenberg Bart J. 
Reiss Peter C. (Peter Clemens)
Learning to Learn: Metaplasticity Improves the Temporal Precision of Motor Learning

In order to facilitate motor learning, the brain is thought to implement a supervised learning process whereby errors in performance are incrementally compensated for through the adjustment of the neural synapses that were responsible for causing the error. While artificial neural networks can easily perform these adjustments, the brain faces the difficult problem of receiving reports about performance errors at a nontrivial delay, thus requiring that rules governing the induction of synaptic plasticity are in place to ensure that only the synapses that caused the error are adjusted. Recently, our lab has shown that the cerebellum, the brain region that supports motor learning, solves this problem for oculomotor learning by selectively adjusting the strengths of synapses that were active 120ms prior to the report of an error – the same amount of time necessary for error feedback to reach the cerebellum. Recent findings from our lab further suggest that this temporal rule for the induction of plastic changes is not genetically hard-coded, but rather that the brain must actively learn it through experience of the 120ms visual feedback delay.
Here, we report two fundamental findings. First, we show that this metaplasticity, or the tuning of the synaptic plasticity rules, affects the timing of oculomotor learning. Using a well-characterized form of oculomotor learning, we show that without visual experience, and thus without experience of the visual feedback delay, animals adjust eye movements at a delay relative to animals with normal visual experience. Second, we provide first evidence for adult metaplasticity using this behavioral correlate. We show both that dark-reared animals are able to significantly improve the timing of oculomotor learning after adulthood rehabilitation to visual experience, and that eliminating adulthood visual experience in normally-reared animals impairs the timing of learning.

Keywords:  Symbolic Systems Program
Symbolic Systems
Metaplasticity
Motor Learning
Cerebellum
Thesis
Advisor: Raymond Jennifer
Jayabal Sriram
Legal innovation in archaic Greece : the case of monumental written laws

This dissertation examines legal innovation in archaic Greece, through the lens of monumental written laws. Adopting a quantitative approach of the existing corpus of archaic legal inscriptions, I strengthen the case that absence of evidence is evidence of absence and subsequently challenge the traditional narrative about the uniform spread of monumental written laws. I show both that there were several paths of legal innovation, notably in Crete where most our inscriptions are from, and that monumental written laws are the odd phenomenon that must be explained. In so doing, I offer new perspectives on the conditions of possibility of such monumental written laws. Lastly, I use innovation theory to study both the diffusion patterns revealed by this dissertation and the likely causes and consequences of legal innovation in the form of monumental written laws.

Keywords: Classics.
Advisor: Ober Josiah 
Morris Ian
Scheidel Walter
Let's not see open access as a threat : convergence and divergence among research librarians and academic publishers on public access to the scholarly literature

The now widespread recognition of the benefits of open access (OA) to research and scholarship has brought the global system of scholarly publishing to a historic turning point, as well as an impasse as the key stakeholders differ on how best to achieve the goal of universal OA. This thesis builds on quantitative work measuring the progress of OA by analyzing the positions and values of research librarians and scholarly publishers around this topic. Utilizing a survey of librarians (n = 188) and interviews with commercial and nonprofit publishers (n = 20), participants were asked to respond to a model of OA involving "subscription-equivalent transition" in terms of library costs, to solicit what was valued and what was most concerning. It was found that librarians and nonprofit publishers generally agreed that OA is integral to the future of scholarship; which was not the case among commercial publishers, who were qualified in their support, to the point of seeing it as potentially detrimental to scholarly publishing. Both sets of stakeholders recognized the dangers posed by library free ridership under OA publishing models. Librarians viewed subscription-equivalent arrangements more favorably than other dominant OA models. Both commercial and non-commercial publishers considered the subscription-equivalent model not an attractive option, but with varying justifications: nonprofits perceived greater risk due to their smaller market share, while commercial publishers sought to preserve their profit-making and growth imperatives. Librarians and publishers were mixed in their perceptions of the prevailing article processing charges (APC) model: it was recognized among some librarians as a viable transition path for some disciplines, and by others as inefficient and unscalable. Some publishers saw APCs as desirable an OA for providing authors with a choice. These results suggest, in the short term, opportunities for cooperation between librarians and nonprofit publishers to engage in cooperative models—that leverage mission alignment, financial transparency, and assurance contracts to sustain revenues—to transition from selling content to OA publishing service models. Despite findings of damaged trust between both parties, librarians indicated their willingness to enter into financially neutral models. Rather than seeing OA as a threat, the vastly greater potential for open science to address global issues suggests we are at a historic moment: where, through mutual compromise and reconciliation, we may achieve a digital information commons through cooperation.

Keywords: Education.
Advisor: Willinsky John
Antonio Anthony Lising
Labaree David F.
Lifely: Help your aging loved ones plan for the lives they want

Many families struggle with end-of-life planning conversations for a variety of personal, cultural, and religious reasons. Those who want to have such conversations can be uncertain about how to approach the topic; this difficulty can be further exacerbated when there is a generational gap. As a result, many families avoid these conversations altogether. However, putting off the conversation until it cannot be avoided (e.g., in times of medical emergency), makes the conversation and necessary decisions even more stressful. Having these vital discussions earlier helps ensure people can live life the way they want, through the end. It also lowers the burden on caretakers and other loved ones.
This report describes Lifely, a new website (planwithlifely.com) designed to help adults in their mid 20s to late 30s prepare for, have, and reflect on end-of-life planning conversations with their parents. Lifely provides a suite of exercises to help families come to the best possible conversations and solutions for everyone. Lifely leverages expert perspectives and helps users focus on how people want to live (rather than on death). By encouraging users to have these conversations sooner, Lifely makes having end-of-life planning conversations more personal and joyful.

Keywords: Stanford Graduate School of Education
Learning Design and Technology
LDT
end-of-life
end of life
dying
difficult conversations
Lifely
Thesis
Lights, Camera... Asians: Hollywood’s Quest for Success in the “Asian Box Office”

This thesis analyzes Hollywood’s attempts to create films that succeed in Asian markets, while still achieving success within the domestic box office. Through analysis of 2018 global box office information of South Korea, Japan, and China and 13 case studies on specific films from the past two decades, I examine whether two strategies have been effective in generating cross-cultural success: 1) the use of actors and directors of Asian descent; and 2) cross-cultural content that attempts to appeal to both American and Asian audiences.
In my quantitative analysis of the 2018 box office data, I found that the most consistently successful Hollywood films in Asia were action/superhero movies. For the most part, these top- ten Asian market films do not have significant Asian characters and were nevertheless extremely successful in China, Japan, and South Korea. The case studies reveal that the use of Asian talent and cross-cultural content has been successful for some films, but largely when targeted toward specific Asian countries. I conclude that for many studios and production companies, a more financially viable strategy may not be to attempt to succeed in the “Asian Box Office” because of the diversity and segmentation the various Asian populations. Instead, the most effective and financially lucrative strategy may be to target the needs of smaller subsets of the “Asian Box Office,” such as a national or ethnic identity. Furthermore, I found that Asian diasporic audiences (such as Asian Americans) may have more shared cultural identity across ethnic differences than Asian populations in Asia. This trend is corroborated by the financial and critical success of films like Searching and Crazy Rich Asians, not only in subsets of Asian audiences, but also in ethnically diverse American audiences.

Keywords:  Department of Communication
Communication
Movie
Film
Box Office
Asia
China
South Korea
Japan
Hollywood
Asian American
Thesis
Advisor: James Hamilton
Linguistic belonging : how teacher-student interactions about language use shape elementary students' experiences of belonging

We use language constantly—to communicate our desires, to show our competencies, and to present who we are to the world. In American classrooms, White and wealthy ways of using language often dominate. These ways of using language are sometimes considered right, standard, and professional. Yet our students bring a rich diversity of language use to our classrooms, a richness that often goes undervalued in educational settings in which teachers feel they must, and do, emphasize dominant ways of using English. The ways in which teachers interact with students about their language use can influence the linguistic belonging of students from nondominant linguistic backgrounds—their sense of being valued, included, and recognized in positive ways for how they use language. This study explores the instantiation of linguistic belonging for students in two Bay Area elementary classrooms, including examining teachers' plans and perspectives, interactions about language use themselves, and students' reactions to these interactions. I find that the ways in which teachers give feedback to their students, the perspectives teachers hold about students' language use, and instances in which teachers instruct dialogically—that is to say when they value student input and accept multiple answers from students—influence the linguistic belonging of students who speak in nondominant ways in these two classrooms. Additionally, I find that conversations about the relationship among language, race, and power hold untapped potential in terms of linguistic belonging in these settings. The findings of this study develop the construct of linguistic belonging, contributing to theoretical work in educational linguistics and social psychology. They also suggest practical classroom applications—ways that teachers can enhance the linguistic belonging of their students in real classrooms on a daily basis.

Keywords: Education.
Advisor: Aukerman Maren (Maren Songmy)
Valdés Guadalupe 
Lit Ira W. 
Martínez Ramón
Linguistic fundamentals in earnings press releases

I re-examine the information content of earnings press releases (EPRs) by distinguishing tone, which captures optimism and pessimism and is the focus of prior research, and linguistic fundamentals (LF), which captures information content in non-tone language. I find after controlling for standard firm characteristics, LF positively predicts future cash flows, unlike tone, which generally negatively predicts future cash flows. I document a return continuation in LF, in contrast to the return reversal in tone documented in prior literature. My findings distinguish informative content in LF and misleading content in tone in EPRs.

Keywords: Business.
Advisor: Lee Charles M.
Barth Mary E.
Blankespoor Elizabeth
McNichols Maureen
Liquid geography : the Yalu River and the boundaries of Empire in East Asia, 1894-1945

This dissertation examines imperial Japan's efforts to transform and control the Yalu River boundary between Korea and Manchuria (Northeast China) during the period 1894-1945. Following the Japanese colonization of Korea in 1910, the Yalu River, together with the neighboring Tumen River, formed the longest formal, non-maritime border of the Japanese Empire until its dissolution in 1945. Yet despite the Yalu's strategic significance in the imperialist politics of early twentieth-century Northeast Asia, its modern history has been surprisingly overlooked. I address this historiographical gap while making three key interventions in the larger scholarship on borders, climate history, and Japanese imperialism. First, by drawing on archival materials in Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and English, I argue that dynamic environments like the Yalu are more than mere backdrops to border histories, but co-agents of border creation and contestation alongside local human residents. A focus on what I call the liquid geography of the Yalu border shows how the transnational flow of people, goods, and the river itself exposed the limits of the colonial state even while providing the material underpinnings for further imperial expansion. Second, in analyzing the river as an agent of history, I propose a new, seasonal approach to history. Controlling the movement of peoples and goods across the Yalu meant contending with winter ice, summer floods, and other aspects of a seasonally changing riparian geography. Third and finally, I challenge conventional understanding of the political unity of the Japanese empire in Asia. I show how the internal contradictions of Japan's imperial project, as well as its external challenges, were most glaringly exposed along fault lines like the Yalu River border.

Keywords: History.
Advisor: Uchida Jun 
Moon Yumi 
Mullaney Thomas S. (Thomas Shawn) 
Wigen Kären
Wolfe Mikael
The listener in language change

Language changes constantly, in ways that can be influenced by factors both language-internal, such as word frequency, and language-external, such as social organization and attitudes. A major challenge for linguistic theory is to give a unified explanation of these constraints on language change. In this dissertation, I argue that this challenge can be addressed by looking to spoken language perception, where passive but powerful perceptual biases give rise to many similar constraints on how listeners update the cognitive representations they draw upon for language use. I present an approach to language change in which perceptual biases in the listener play a central role. I ground this approach in an exemplar-based computational model, which is able to recreate empirically-observed general properties of sound change. I then test the approach by integrating experimentally-supported perceptual biases with computational modeling and novel corpus methods across two studies. In the first study, I apply the computational model to simulate word-frequency effects in sound change. I show that different word-frequency effects in different kinds of sound change follow from a single perceptual bias, whereby high-frequency words are recognized more easily than low-frequency words when acoustically ambiguous. In the second study, I extend the listener-based approach to the effect of improving interethnic social attitudes on the spread of lexical items across ethnic groups in New Zealand. Drawing on biases in the perception of 'other-accented' words, I make specific predictions for the spread of the tag "eh" from indigenous Māori to White Pākehā, which I test with novel corpus methods. Taken together, these two studies highlight how passive but powerful perceptual biases in the listener can give a unified explanation of different constraints on language change.

Keywords: Linguistics.
Advisor: Jurafsky Dan
Sumner Meghan 
Hay Jennifer
Living still : John F. Peto and the artist across time

This dissertation focuses on turn-of-the-century American still life painter John F. Peto, who painted in near obscurity in his studio home on the New Jersey shore until his death in 1907. His strange, trompe l'oeil paintings obsessively depict old, discarded objects including books, doors, pipes, mugs, letters, photographs, and likenesses of Abraham Lincoln. In the decades after Peto's death, twenty-one of his paintings were passed off—some with forged signatures—as the work of his more successful contemporary, William Harnett. These paintings were only brought to light as Peto's work in 1947. My project rejects Peto's marginal status, taking him out of a limited temporal and genre context to suggest that he might radically exist across time. I consider the afterlife and predestiny of Peto's paintings as integral to his practice. Across my four chapters and conclusion, I explore Peto's philosophy of posthumous success, his historical confusion with Harnett and subsequent discovery, gender and authorship in Peto's photographic practice, Peto's obsession with the Civil War president Abraham Lincoln, and Peto's resurfacing in the work of Jasper Johns.

Keywords: Art and Art History.
Advisor: Nemerov Alexander 
Kwon Marci 
Meyer Richard
Living up to Responsibilities: UN Humanitarian Interventions and the Impact of R2P

The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine, which was unanimously signed by UN member states in 2005, declared that states have a responsibility to protect their citizens from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. R2P was revolutionary for the time given that previously the UN considered domestic state sovereignty as inviolable and was only allowed to intervene if the state threatened international peace and security. Fourteen years later, R2P has been invoked in humanitarian interventions in Libya and Côte d’Ivoire but has been ignored in other cases of mass atrocities such as in Syria. This thesis examines how R2P has changed the way the UN performs interventions in conflicts and whether it has succeeded in preventing and abating mass atrocities. Specifically, this thesis takes a quantitative approach in analyzing how R2P and other factors have affected how fast the UN intervenes in civil wars and then examines these causal mechanisms qualitatively using three case studies of Libya, Côte d’Ivoire, and Syria.

Keywords:  Department of International Relations
United Nations
Responsibility to Protect
Human Rights
Security Council
Intervention
International Relations
Thesis
Advisor: Stedman Stephen J.
Local and global variation in the human gut microbiome

We increasingly appreciate the role of microbes that live in our gut, collectively referred to as the gut microbiome, in modulating human health and disease. However, translating findings to the clinic has presented challenges, as many studies of the microbiome in health and disease are associational and therefore difficult to translate to meaningful therapies. This thesis focuses on using high-throughput whole-genome sequencing of our gut microbes and computational genomic tools to understand host-microbe dynamics on the strain-specific level, identify opportunities for concrete clinical interventions, investigate the efficacy of existing interventions, and turn our attention to populations who have not been comprehensively studied to establish a baseline for further inquiry toward the microbiome in health and disease. The work herein contributes to our understanding of the microbiome as an influencer of disease outcome and both suggests and informs future microbiome-targeted therapies.

Keywords: Genetics.
Advisor: Bhatt Ami (Ami Siddharth) 
Fire Andrew Zachary 
Sherlock Gavin 
Winslow Monte