VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Development and Validation of a Student Self-Report Screener of Social-Emotional Well-Being

Many children in the United States suffer from mental health issues, and an even larger number have milder social-emotional difficulties that require support (Blanchard, Gurka, & Blackman, 2006; Child Mind Institute, 2011; Knopf, Park, & Mulye, 2008). Although school-based interventions to address these issues can be effective (Mills et al., 2006), the systems used to identify and treat children are lacking. Current research and trends in education, such as the Response to Intervention (RTI) model, support the use of broad screeners that are efficient and accessible, and that solicit young children's own reports of their well-being. In the current study, a self-survey of social-emotional problems, the How Am I Feeling Survey (HAIFS) was constructed, piloted, analyzed, and revised, with many promising results. The HAIFS was administered to students (N = 392) in Grades 1 through 3, across 31 classrooms in 5 schools. Student responses on the HAIFS demonstrated high levels of internal consistency, structural integrity, and concurrent validity. Parent and teacher reports of child functioning had small positive correlations with child reports and small to moderate correlations with one another. Child self-reports on the HAIFS did not predict performance on standardized tests, which can be explained by a number of factors. Implications of these findings for practice and policy and areas for further research are also explored.

Advisor: Cunningham, Anne E
Spatio-mechanical regulation of Eph receptors at the cell-cell interface

Spatial organization and movement of receptors and ligands at a cell-cell interface is emerging as a key regulatory component of signal transduction. We are particularly interested in understanding the regulation of the EphA2 receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) movement and spatial reogranization. EphA2 is a unique receptor tyrosine kinase in that it signals in a juxtacrine geometry--EphA2's cognate ligand, ephrinA1, is expressed on the surface of an apposing cell. This unique protein arrangement not only provides a mechanism by which the receptor may experience extracellular forces, but also renders the system challenging to decode. Misregulation of EphA2 often occurs in many aggressive cancers and our lab has recently discovered that EphA2 is sensitive to spatial and mechanical aspects of the cell's microenvironment. We have developed a unique experimental platform in which we use a synthetic supported lipid membrane on a glass substrate to replace the ephrinA1 ligand-expressing cell in a cell-cell contact. This membrane is interfaced with living MDAMB231 breast cancer cells overexpressing EphA2, which effectively mimics a cell-cell junction. The advantage of this approach is the ability to study receptor-ligand interactions using high-resolution microscopy in a live-cell setting as well as modify not only the biochemical content of the membrane, but also the mobility of lipids and proteins. By introducing nanoscale barriers, such as grids patterned on the glass substrate, lipid and protein mobility can be redefined to specific micron-scale features. These diffusion barriers pattern the ligands in the synthetic membrane and allow us to study how spatial organization regulates signaling events. We have developed unique imaging assays to reveal that EphA2 signaling is sensitive to the mechanical properties of a breast cancer cell's microenvironment, which might have direct implications in physical aspects of tumor biology. We have expanded this work to study the structural contributions of Eph receptor clustering at the single molecule level and how this might regulate proper Eph signaling. Finally, we are also probing the cross-talk between membrane-bound ephrinA1 and soluble, secreted ephrinA1 signaling and how EphA2 signaling can be triggered in mechanically-dependent and mechanically-independent mechanisms. Together, these studies provide insight into the regulation of EphA2 signaling and how different aspects of this signaling might be altered in cancer progression.

Advisor: Groves, Jay T
Drubin, David
The Place, Space, and Practice of Andrew Wyeth's Hay Ledge

The works of the American painter Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009) have for many decades been subjects of contentious debate among historians and critics of art. The great majority of these scholars have tacitly agreed, however, that Wyeth's works are simple matters--that be they good or bad, "artistic" or "illustrative," innovative or apish, "modern" or "traditional," they are obviously or self-evidently so. Such beliefs are implied, at least, by the practice of withholding from publication the concrete observations about individual works upon which broad, totalizing claims about Wyeth and his practice have been reached./nIntending to correct this mistaken belief about the simplicity and uniformity of Wyeth's work, this dissertation enacts a sustained encounter with a single painting—Hay Ledge (1957)—working at length over the course of three close-knit chapters to demonstrate 1) the formal, conceptual, and sentimental depth of this particular work, 2) the fact that Wyeth's art practice changed over time, and 3) the complexity of the cultural contexts to which that practice responded and in which Wyeth's works in general, and Hay Ledge specifically, have been received and appraised. It thereby begins to bring Wyeth's practice into a more stable, balanced light, thus enabling scholars of art and culture more broadly to reconsider an historically significant phenomenon that they might previously have found too opaque or too polarizing to engage.

Advisor: Lovell, Margaretta M
Language Emergence in the Seattle DeafBlind Community

This dissertation examines the social and interactional foundations of a grammatical divergence between Tactile American Sign Language (TASL) and Visual American Sign Language (VASL) in the Seattle DeafBlind community. I argue that as a result of the pro-tactile movement, structures of interaction have been reconfigured and a new language has begun to emerge. Drawing on 18 months of ethnographic research, more than 190 hours of videorecordings of interaction and language use, 50 interviews with members of the community, and more than 14 years of involvement in a range of capacities, I analyze this social transformation and its effect on the semiotic organization of TASL./nI identify two processes as requisite for the emergence of TASL: deictic integration and embedding in the social field. Deictic integration involves the coordination of grammatical systems with modes of access and orientation that are reciprocal across a group of language-users. Embedding in the social field involves: (1) the legitimation of the language for taking up valued social roles, along with the embodied knowledge necessary for doing so, and (2) authorization of some language-users to evaluate linguistic forms and communicative practices as correct or not./nIn this dissertation, I track these processes among DeafBlind people and I show how they are leading to new mechanisms for referring to the immediate environment and tracking referents across a stream of discourse (Chapter 7), new rules for the formation of lexical signs (Chapter 8), and a new system for generating semiotically complex signs, which incorporate both linguistic and non-linguistic elements (Chapter 9). In order to understand the social and interactional foundations of these emergent systems, I examine the history of two institutions around which the Seattle DeafBlind community was built (Chapter 3). In Chapter 4, I show how social roles, given by the history of those institutions, were reconfigured by DeafBlind leaders and how this led to changes in modes of access and orientation (Chapters 5 and 6). I argue that as relations between linguistic, deictic, and social phenomena grew tighter and more restricted, a new tactile language began to emerge. I therefore apprehend language emergence not as a process of liberation or abstraction from context, but as a process of contextual integration (Chapter 1).

Advisor: Hanks, William F
Developmentally Appropriate Sexuality Education: Theory, Conceptualization, and Practice

It is widely agreed that sexuality is an important aspect of adolescent development, and the combination of developmental transitions can leave adolescents vulnerable to negative sexual health outcomes. Sexuality education has the potential to positively support sexuality development and influence sexual health outcomes. However, evidence suggests that current approaches to sexuality education are not adequately meeting adolescent sexual health and development needs. The incorporation of a more clearly defined developmentally-appropriate approach may be one way to strengthen these programs./nThrough this dissertation, I aim to inform future directions for sexuality education by assessing and analyzing current understandings of the construct of developmentally-appropriate sexuality education and highlighting where gaps exist between the scientific knowledge base on adolescent development and current practice in sexuality education./nIn the first paper, "Developmentally appropriate sexuality education: Implications of adolescent development research," I broadly review the research pertaining to adolescent development, adolescent sexuality development specifically, and adolescent motivation, and note the limitations of this research. Finally, I discuss the implications of this research for sexuality education, including determining developmentally appropriate content and educational strategies, and making accommodations for developmental diversity./nIn the second paper, "Conceptualizing developmentally appropriate sexuality education: Perspectives from the field," I report on findings from 18 in-depth interviews with sexuality educators and sexuality education materials developers. Four aspects of developmentally appropriate sexuality education that emerged consistently across interviews are discussed: (1) addressing developmentally relevant topics, (2) adapting content to cognitive development, (3) accommodating developmental diversity, and (4) facilitating the internalization of sexual health messages. In addition, challenges and barriers to the institutionalization of a more comprehensive and integrated approach to developmentally appropriate sexuality education are described./nAnd finally, in the third paper, "Is current sexuality education developmentally appropriate? A content analysis of popular curricula," I identify the extent to which 5 popular sexuality education curricula, designated for middle and high school aged adolescents, use developmentally appropriate educational strategies according to the criteria discussed in papers 1 and 2./nAs a whole, this dissertation highlights the need for further attention to the concept of developmental appropriateness and its application to sexuality education.

Advisor: Constantine, Norman
Deardorff, Julianna
Social Support as a Shaper of our Physiological Responses to Stressors: Implications for the Relationship between Socioeconomic Status and Health

Theoretical and empirical work suggests that social support is an important predictor of both psychological and physiological responses to stressors. A separate line of research shows that early life socioeconomic status programs physiological responses to stressors later in life. Bridging these two lines of research, I designed a series of studies to examine the ways in which the reception of social support can moderate physiological reactivity and emotional responses as a function of early life experience. In Study 1, I examined these questions in the context of an interpersonal interaction, while Study 2 utilized a social evaluative task. In Study 3, I used the same social evaluative task as in Study 2 and let social support vary freely by using two participants, and randomly assigning one to be the actor, and the other to be the evaluator. I found that early life socioeconomic status in interaction with the presence or absence of social support strongly predicted inflammatory responses (Study 1 and 2) and changes in oxytocin following an interpersonal interaction (Study 1). Finally, in Study 3, I found that perceptions of the evaluator's subjective social status and the speaker's subjective social status interacted to predict inflammatory responses. Together these studies show that the significance of social support as a predictor of changes in oxytocin and inflammation varies as a function of the nature of the stressor. In addition, these findings show that with regards to social evaluative threat, the actor's perception of their evaluator's social class matters more than their objective social class or that of their evaluator.

Advisor: Mendoza-Denton, Rodolfo
Mauss, Iris
People, Places and Technological Spaces: Sexual Risk Taking in the Digital Age

New technologies, such as mobile phones and the Internet, have created digital environments that may alter the social and environmental factors that contribute to sexual behavior. To date, sexual health research has largely focused on participation in digital environments as risk factors for sexual behavior, with relatively little exploration of their possible contribution to protective sexual behavior. This research explores the possibility of a more fluid association of digital environments with sexual behavior, with the capacity to contribute to either risky or protective sexual behavior. We present three analyses to make connections between digital environments and sexual behavior more explicit among populations who are traditionally sexually stigmatized, hidden, and at high risk for adverse sexual health outcomes in resource-limited settings. The populations studied included female sex workers (FSWs), men who have sex with men (MSM), and adolescents./nThe first analysis examined the use of mobile phones as a platform to solicit clients among FSWs, and the association between this behavior and inconsistent condom use with clients in two diverse areas in South India. The second analysis tested the extent to which sex work income moderates the relationship between mobile phone solicitation and condom use with clients among South Indian FSWs. Finally, a systematic review of sexual health studies in naturalistic situations, i.e., in the absence of technology-based sexual health interventions, among three hidden populations (e.g., FSWs, MSM, and adolescents) was conducted. Existing evidence was examined to identify patterns linking findings of risk versus protective factors that may inform the relationship between sexual behavior and the digital environment./nThese findings demonstrated--for the first time in the literature on Indian FSWs-a protective association between client solicitation via mobile phone and condom use with clients as well as evidence that sex work income moderates this association. Both findings were dependent on the type of mobile phone method applied. These empirical findings and existing evidence from adolescent and MSM populations suggest utilization strategies, the way in which digital environments are employed for sexual interactions, may provide a concrete approach to help clarify differential risk/ protective effects between digital environments and sexual behavior. These findings offer new insights to help inform a next generation of technology-based sexual health interventions targeting hidden populations in resource-limited settings.

Advisor: Deardorff, Julianna
Ekstrand, Maria
Studies in Gold-Heteroatom Bonds: Synthesis, Reactivity, and Application to Catalysis

Understanding the interaction between gold and its ligands is essential in exploiting this versatile metal in many areas of chemistry. Organogold chemistry and the reactivity of gold-carbon bonds, particularly in the context of catalysis, have been extensively investigated over the past two decades. Markedly less research has been dedicated to gold-heteroatom bonds. A desire to understand these bonds has resulted in four studies with vastly different goals and conceptual underpinnings, but that are unified by utilizing gold's interaction with X-type heteroatom ligands.

Advisor: Bergman, Robert G
Toste, Dean F
Traces in the Desert: The Poetics of Sand, Dust, and Ash in German Literature

In this dissertation, I investigate literary, philosophical, and religious texts from the German tradition which use the figure of the desert to reflect on the conditions of their own possibility, and on larger questions of textual production, memory, and forgetting. I examine these works in four case studies that span the medieval period and the modern era: 1.) The anonymous 14th century mystical song Granum sinapis and several sermons by Meister Eckhart; 2.) Hölderlin's late hymn Der Einzige and novel Hyperion; 3.) Stifter's short story Der Hagestolz; and 4.) Nietzsche's Also sprach Zarathustra. I pay particular attention to the ways in which the images of the desert in these texts function as figures [figurae] whose material and figural properties are deployed to interrogate language and memory, and to guide the reader into a landscape of experiential or speculative possibility. After sketching the rhetorical and semiotic relationship between the figure of the desert, memory, and writing in Western literary, cultural, and intellectual discourses, I investigate how the texts in my case studies reshape and redeploy this inherited tradition for their own purposes. Despite their significant differences, all of these texts engage in what I call "desert writing." This "arid" poetics reflects upon its own unstable, "sand-like" qualities through the explicit and implicit use of the desert figure, and through the metonyms of sand, dust, and ash to produce cognitive and experiential landscapes of possibility that push the limits of language and thought. Often represented as "deserts" themselves, these landscapes simultaneously produce hermeneutic meaning and non-hermeneutic effects of perception and sensation. In its unique ability to contain a non-binary "both/and" logic, to simultaneously evoke fullness and emptiness, positivity and negativity, literalness and figurality, the desert is one of the most productive figures for generating new forms of poetry, thought, and experience. This dissertation contributes to established criticism on the desert's poetological and speculative dimensions by synthesizing existing research and forming a new textual constellation that uncovers unacknowledged correspondences between medieval and modern texts.

Advisor: Largier, Niklaus
Kudszus, Winfried
Studies of Inter-and Intra-Molecular Coordination in Cytoplasmic Dynein

Cytoplasmic dynein is one of the principle motors in eukaryotic cells, responsible for most microtubule (MT) minus end-directed motility and force generation processes, including vesicular and organelle transport, and mitotic spindle MT organization. Despite being essential to the maintanence of cellular structure in higher eukaryotes, many aspects of dynein's stepping mechanism have remained enigmatic. In this Dissertation, I directly observe several fundamental aspects of dynein's mechanism, and build a strong framework for future studies. I outline in detail the methods for the fluorescent tracking of motor proteins, including advanced two-color and super-resolution techniques. To study cytoplasmic dynein, I developed a two-color fluorescent tracking assay to simultaneously measure the positions of both heads of the motor while it walks along the MT. The results of this experiment clearly show that dynein steps through a unique mechanism: the heads remain widely separated, and do not appear to coordinate with each other to a significant extent. However, the leading head is less likely to take a step at large inter-head separations, indicating some degree of residual coordination remains. I hypothesized that tension along the linker connecting the two heads is the source of this coordination. Using a high-speed two-color assay, I examined the motility of a homodimeric dynein with a flexible linker between the two heads that decreases inter-molecular tension. Despite this alteration, this homodimer has identical stepping and overall motility properties to wild-type dynein, but has reduced coordination, indicating that coordination is dispensable to motility. Coordination could be achieved by gating one of the heads. I investigated gating using a heterodimeric dynein with a wild-type head and an inactive, tightly-bound head. In this heterodimer, we find that the WT head is gated when widely separated from its inactive partner, but becomes un-gated when immediately behind it, indicating that the gating is caused by extension-dependent changes in linker tension as predicted. I next I turned from inter- to intra-molecular communication. Dynein has six distinct AAA subdomains on its motor head, of which only two AAA1 and AAA3, are essential to robust motility. By reducing MT affinity with added salt, I found that AAA3 is required for robust MT release, and that MT release in turn promotes hydrolysis at AAA1. To investigate coordination between AAA1 and AAA3, I analyzed motility in the presence of a slowly-hydrolyzable ATP analog, ATPγS. I found that ATPγS selectively inhibits the AAA3 site. In the presence of saturating analog, the motor can still take long runs of fast motility, indicating that the hydrolysis cycle of AAA3 is much shorter than AAA1. These results show that AAA1 and AAA3 do not coordinate. Instead, AAA3 acts as a "switch" that controls AAA1-directed release from the MT.

Advisor: Yildiz, Ahmet
Large-Scale, Low-Latency State Estimation Of Cyberphysical Systems With An Application To Traffic Estimation

Large physical systems are increasingly prevalent, and designing estimation strategies for them has become both a practical necessity and a complicated problem. Their sensing infrastructure is usually ad-hoc, and the estimate of interest is often a complex function of the data. At the same time, computing power is rapidly becoming a commodity. We show with the study of two estimation tasks in urban transportation how the proper design of algorithms can lead to significant gains in scalability compared to existing solutions./nA common problem in trip planning is to make a given deadline such as arriving at the airport within an hour. Existing routing services optimize for the expected time of arrival, but do not provide the most reliable route, which accounts for the variability in travel times. Providing statistical information is even harder for trips in cities which undergo a lot of variability. This thesis aims at building scalable algorithms for inferring statistical distributions of travel time over very large road networks, using GPS points from vehicles in real-time. We consider two complementary algorithms that differ in the characteristics of the GPS data input, and in the complexity of the model: a simpler streaming Expectation-Maximization algorithm that leverages very large volumes of extremely noisy data, and a novel Markov Model-Gaussian Markov Random Field that extracts global statistical correlations from high-frequency, privacy-preserving trajectories./nThese two algorithms have been implemented and deployed in a pipeline that takes streams of GPS data as input, and produces distributions of travel times accessible as output. This pipeline is shown to scale on a large cluster of machines and can process tens of millions of GPS observations from an area that comprises hundreds of thousands of road segments. This is to our knowledge the first research framework that considers in an integrated fashion the problem of statistical estimation of traffic at a very large scale from streams of GPS data.

Advisor: Bayen, Alexandre M