VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
An architecture for integrated decision-making, motion planning, and control of automated vehicles

Automated vehicles have immense potential to improve the safety of our roadways. In order to handle the complex task of driving, they need the ability to make decisions regarding other road users, plan a trajectory, and control the vehicle, responding online to an evolving environment. For model-based control, it is important to use models that capture the full range of the vehicle's dynamics. We develop a tire model that is computationally tractable and useful in scenarios ranging from a stop-and-go maneuver to driving at the limits of road-tire friction. A model-based steering controller successfully demonstrates the efficacy of this tire model even when the vehicle is sliding on low-friction surfaces. In addition to being able to control the vehicle, an AV architecture must also be able to make discrete decisions regarding obstacles in the environment. Ultimately, these decisions are carried out by a controller commanding steering and longitudinal inputs, which motivates building a system that makes decisions based on the capabilities of the underlying controller. Our novel architecture partitions the drivable space into discrete options, solves a nonlinear optimization in each option in parallel, and then picks the solution that best satisfies high-level objectives such as safety and efficiency. Finally, frameworks for automated vehicles need to be designed with human values in mind. Safety is a top priority and is codified in legal texts as duty of due care. By leveraging the architecture described above to realize these human values, the vehicle drives safely and comfortably in an overtaking maneuver with oncoming traffic

Keywords: Mechanical Engineering.
Advisor: Gerdes J. Christian
Kochenderfer Mykel J.
Sadigh Dorsa
Artificial Consciousness: Why is matters and how to approach it

Despite the rapid development in artificial intelligence, machines are nowhere close to the cognitive capabilities of humans. What could we be missing? This paper explores the idea that consciousness is the key to intelligence and the missing ingredient to artificial general intelligence. Any intelligence as advanced as humans or more advanced will have to be conscious, even though their consciousness may look different from ours. That consciousness is necessary for intelligence, including artificial intelligence should not be taken to mean that there is a hard cap for how advanced artificial intelligence can be. While consciousness as a concept appears to be extremely elusive, particularly the subjective, phenomenal aspect of consciousness, I claim that consciousness, if it exists, simply is the physical process that enables non-reflexive behavior. I support an eliminativist approach to understanding consciousness in the hopes of demystifying the idea of building artificial consciousness.

Keywords: Artificial intelligence
Consciousness
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Assessing Compound Flood Risk for the San Francisco Bay Area, California

As climate change causes sea levels to rise, increases precipitation variability, and leads to larger, more frequent storms, communities are faced with ever increasing risks from flooding. Communities require reliable assessment of the compound risk they face now and how that risk changes in the future to decide how to mitigate their flood risk. Many of the San Francisco Bay Area’s planning around climate hazard mitigation efforts focus on the threat faced by sea level rise. However, coastal, riverine, and pluvial (surface runoff) flooding can happen concurrently leading to a compound hazard that is rarely taken into account. The goal of this study is to integrate the effects of coastal, riverine, and pluvial hazards by using preexisting hazard models to develop a map of the compound flood hazard for San Mateo County California. Our research expands upon San Mateo County’s previous work combining coastal and pluvial flooding through Cal Adapt using 2-D Hydrologic Engineering Center- River Analysis System (HEC-RAS) models that project flood hazard data into the future for 2030 and 2070 using changes in predicted precipitation data and sea level rise. We found that compared to flood maps from FEMA and the USGS the added effects of fresh water to the coastal flooding and sea-level rise increased the inundation depth and extent along the coast by up to 7 feet by 2070. Further inland, the 2030 storm scenarios were deeper, but in some areas were less extensive while the 2070 storm scenarios had more extensive and deeper flood inundation in some areas by up to 2 feet. This highlights the importance of compound hazard in assessing flood risk as some risks would otherwise not be accounted for.

Keywords: Flooding, Compound Hazards, Hydraulic Modeling, Climate Change, Sea-level Rise, Precipitation
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Thesis
Advisor: Ouyang Derek
Serafin Katherine
Suckale Jenny
Assessing Red Lines in the US-China-Taiwan Trilateral Relationship

The idea of “red lines” has become a favorite catch-all term to discuss coercion, grey area tactics, and escalation. Particularly in the case of the US-China relationship over Taiwan, policymakers and scholars use red lines as a shorthand to conceptualize crisis thresholds, a point where ambiguity ends, and the stakes are highest. But there is limited consensus on the definition of red lines, and even less consensus on where red lines are between the US and China. This thesis creates a theoretical framework for understanding red lines and applies to it to the US-China-Taiwan case to explore how the US and China treat red lines in practice, and why some red lines fail where others succeed. Drawing on a set of case studies of Taiwan-centered red lines, I analyze how their integrity has evolved, contextualizing violations and enforcement through a typology. I assess red lines based on four main components: a situational threshold, demand, threat, and justification, and suggest that the strength of a red line is highly dependent on having all four components. Particularly in an era of grey area conflict between the US and China, understanding how to draw red lines most effectively, and which red lines are de jure versus de facto, is essential for preventing miscommunication and unwanted escalation.

Keywords: Center for International Security and Cooperation
red lines
Deterrence (Strategy)
grey zone
China
Taiwan
International relations
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Thesis
Advisor: Mastro Oriana
Assisting walking in individuals with chronic stroke using exoskeletons

Stroke often results in hemiparesis and gait asymmetries, such as spatial, temporal, or kinematic asymmetries between the paretic and nonparetic legs. Asymmetric gaits have been correlated with higher metabolic cost, slower walking speeds, and lower mobility. These gaits can also cause joint pain due to repetitive high loads on the nonparetic limb. For these reasons, physical therapists try to decrease gait asymmetries, and their interventions have been shown to be effective. However, sessions are expensive, limiting access. More automated rehabilitation techniques have been developed, but they have not been more effective than conventional physical therapy. A better understanding of the mechanisms driving gait asymmetry could allow for the development of more targeted, effective, and accessible gait interventions. In my doctoral research, I first studied the correlation between step length asymmetry and metabolic cost in individuals with chronic stroke and in unimpaired participants. Participants were tasked with altering their step length asymmetry using biofeedback. All participants were able to significantly alter their step length asymmetry. Unimpaired participants self-selected a symmetric step length asymmetry that correlated to the lowest energy cost. However, for individuals with chronic stroke, metabolic cost minimization did not explain self-selected step length asymmetry. I then built a unilateral knee-ankle exoskeleton emulator that can actuate knee flexion, knee extension, and ankle plantarflexion. I designed a knee position controller to track desirable knee kinematics and demonstrated the mechatronic capabilities of the emulator system on one unimpaired participant and one participant with chronic stroke. The knee position controller was able to prevent negative impacts at the knee when plantarflexion torques were applied, and the position controller could track different desired knee trajectories with low tracking error. The results from these studies could better inform the design of future rehabilitation tools and assistive devices. Our results suggest that metabolic energy consumption probably will not be a barrier to therapists who seek to improve step length asymmetry. Additionally, we found that active ankle plantarflexion assistance can cause increased knee extension which might lead to long-term tissue damage with constant use. Assistive devices simultaneously assisting the ankle and knee could prevent these poor knee responses. This might allow for a more comfortable application of larger magnitude ankle torques which could potentially improve metabolic reductions. These projects have led to a new experimental tool that can be used to discover beneficial participant-specific assistance strategies for individuals with chronic stroke

Keywords: Mechanical Engineering.
Advisor: Collins Steve (Steven Hartley)
Okamura Allison
Torres-Oviedo Gelsy
Astrophysical signatures of axion-like particles

Axion-like particles generically couple to electromagnetism through the E.B operator, allowing for electromagnetic production of axions and axion-to-photon conversion in the presence of background fields. Neutron stars are excellent candidates to look for axion production and conversion as they possess some of the largest magnetic fields in the Universe, some in excess of 10^15 Gauss. In this thesis I will discuss two axion scenarios leading to detectable electromagnetic signatures. I will first discuss a new production mechanism for axions near the surfaces of actively pair-producing neutron stars (pulsars). Pulsar magnetospheres admit non-stationary vacuum gaps that are characterized by non-vanishing E.B. The vacuum gaps play an important role in plasma production and electromagnetic wave emission. I show that these gaps generate axions whose energy is set by the gap oscillation frequency. The density of axions produced in a gap can be several orders of magnitude greater than the ambient dark matter density. In the strong pulsar magnetic field, a fraction of these axions may convert to photons, giving rise to broadband radio signals. Another scenario considers the possibility that axion dark matter forms dense sub-structures (stars) on very small scales. When axion stars collide with neutron stars they convert very efficiently to electromagnetic waves, giving rise to bright flashes. I will discuss the detectability of such flashes using existing and planned radio telescopes

Keywords: Physics.
Advisor: Dimopoulos Savas
Graham Peter (Peter Wickelgren)
Silverstein Eva
ASWIM IN A SEA OF POPPIES: OPIUM CHALLENGES THE ENGLISH EMPIRE, 1827-1910

In this thesis, I argue that the very phenomena which are thought of as products of British hegemony were instead the outcome of the limits of British imperial power: firstly, the vast scale of the nineteenth century opium trade between India and the Qing Empire; secondly, the First Opium War; and finally, the historiography of British power itself.

Keywords: Malwa
Opium trade
Opium
Malwa opium
Opium war
Sassoon family
Sassoon, David, 1792-1864
Sassoon, Elias Victor, 1881-1961
Jardine, Matheson & Co.
Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy, 1783-1859
Jardine, William
Matheson, James, 1796-1878
India > Mumbai
Bombay
Qing Empire
China
Shanghai
Hong Kong
East India Company
British East India Company
Scottish history
monopoly
Cotton
Cotton textile industry
Baghdadi Jew
John Crawfurd
anti-opium
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At that time : using the sounding body in composition, as composition

At That Time (2021) is a twenty-minute audiovisual chamber opera composed for the Decoder Ensemble, directed by Heinrich Horwitz, and premiered at the Music Biennale Zagreb in July 2021. I will discuss my artistic priorities and working process as they appear in this piece and connect to my recent research and composition

Keywords: Music.
Advisor: Alessandrini Patricia
Applebaum Mark
Kapuscinski Jaroslaw
Ulman Erik
Attosecond channel-coupling in molecular photoionization delays

Molecular and chemical physics rely heavily on the use of approximations and simplifying models to deal with the complex reality of many-body electronic interactions. Although these models are essential, they have their limitations. One important area where simplifying models break down is in the examination of electronic channel-coupling. Photoionization channel-coupling is defined as mixing multiple continuum channels of the scattering photoelectron, caused by attosecond-scale multielectron interactions. Channel-coupling in photoionization is challenging to measure and model because it is a time-dependent phenomenon. Most models will simplify out the dynamic electronic environment, and experimental observables similarly cannot access the intermediate states at attosecond timescales. The photoionization time delay, an interferometric measurement of the group delay of the scattering electron wavepacket, offers a solution to this problem. Although it is not a time-dependent quantity, it is highly sensitive to the intermediate states and their interactions, since phase is accumulated throughout the entire half-scattering process of photoionization. This sensitivity can be leveraged to discriminate between models with various levels of electronic approximations, identifying the relevant electronic interactions and determining the correct level of detail needed to accurately describe the system. I measured the photoionization time delay in a variety of molecular systems that showcase different continuum channel-coupling phenomena. In each system, I show that analyzing the photoionization time delay in the context of models gives insight into the relevance of various interactions at the attosecond timescale. Through these experiments, I demonstrate that photoionization delays are an effective model discriminator for continuum channel-coupling induced by attosecond-scale electron interactions

Keywords: Applied Physics.
Advisor: Bucksbaum Philip H.
Cryan James
Reis David A.
Schleier-Smith Monika
Automated discovery of novel gene-trait/disease hypotheses

Advances in genome sequencing technology gives us unprecedented access to read and study the genetic material that encode every living organism. Despite continuous research efforts to fully understand the genome, our gene function knowledge is still widely incomplete. This poses many problems especially in clinical settings. It is estimated that over 7 million births each year are affected by genetic disorders worldwide, and even with genome sequencing being available and even affordable, many patients remain undiagnosed. Identifying the genetic cause is a labor intensive task especially for disorders that are caused by genes with unknown functions or pathogenicity. This dissertation describes machine learning approaches to improve the discovery rate of novel gene functions in two domains: monogenic disorder diagnosis and mouse inbred strains analysis. These methods highlight novel gene-phenotype hypotheses that are most likely true to inspire further experimental validation and ultimately expand our gene function knowledge for clinical applications. To offer potential novel diagnosis hypotheses for monogenic disease patients who cannot be diagnosed with current patient-oriented knowledgebase, I introduced InpherNet. InpherNet is a gene prioritization classifier that ranks candidate genes based on phenotypic annotations of their biological neighbors.It aims to propose novel pathogenic, disease-causing genes when previously diagnosed patient-based annotation is missing or partial. Inbred mouse strains are carefully maintained populations of mice that have gone through successive sibling mating for over 20 generations. Through this repetitive inbreeding process, each strain homogenized genetically while developing strain specific, distinctive genotypes and phenotypes. Many genetic factors have been discovered by mapping the inter-strain genotype differences against their phenotype differences. To facilitate the acceleration of novel functional discoveries using mouse inbred strains, I built AIMHIGH (Analysis of Inbred Mouse strains' High-Impact Genotype-phenotype Hypotheses). AIMHGIH uses experiments that measure phenotypic differences among different inbred strains to automatically select trait-relevant candidate genes. Any undiscovered gene-phenotype hypotheses are ranked by a literature-based discovery classifier to propose the most promising candidates. Together, these methods employ machine learning to suggest the most exciting testable hypotheses to accelerate novel gene trait discovery and improve diagnostic rate for patients with genetic disorders

Advisor: Bejerano Gill
Bernstein Jonathan A.
Kundaje Anshul
Automatic interpretative seismic image-focusing analysis

The focusing of a seismic image is directly linked to the accuracy of the migration velocity model. Therefore, a critical step in a seismic imaging workflow is to perform a focusing analysis on a seismic image to determine errors within the migration velocity model. While the residual curvature information provided within the offset/angle axis is commonly used to assess velocity errors, the focusing within the physical (i.e., midpoint) axes of a seismic image is often neglected. This is due to the highly interpretative nature of the focusing of geological features within seismic images, therefore making focusing analysis within the physical space difficult to automate. In this dissertation, I present an automatic data-driven approach that makes use of a convolutional neural network (CNN) equipped with high-dimensional convolutional operators to automate seismic image-focusing analysis. Training the CNN on focused and unfocused geological faults within synthetic and real prestack seismic images, I demonstrate this approach can make use of both spatial and offset/angle focusing information to robustly estimate velocity errors within seismic images. To test effectiveness of the approach, I apply it to an unfocused 2D limited-aperture image from the Gulf of Mexico and an unfocused 3D image from the Dutch Sector of the North Sea and show that it can robustly estimate velocity errors in the presence of limited illumination and coherent noise. For both applications, I show that performing a refocusing correction using the estimated velocity errors leads to an improved focusing in the unfocused images and consequently, improves the automatic detection of the faults within the images

Keywords: Geophysics.
Advisor: Biondi Biondo
Clapp Robert G. (Robert Graham)
Dunham Eric
Avenues to miniaturize optical gyroscopes

This thesis studies different avenues to miniaturize fiber-optic gyroscopes for navigation applications. In particular, a gyro was built using a 5.8-mm radius ring resonator on a chip with a quality factor of 100 million by using ultra-low-loss silicon-nitride waveguides. A record angular random walk per unit area was set for on-chip optical gyroscopes in the literature. Methods for enhancing the Sagnac phase were also studied, in particular by using exceptional points and loss compensation. Although operation at an exceptional point provides an enormous enhancement in the Sagnac frequency splitting, no enhancement was found in rotation sensitivity or precision. However, a very large enhancement in rotation sensitivity (a factor of 2400) was predicted in a coupled-ring gyro with gain, thereby showing great promise as a new architecture for which to build much smaller gyros

Keywords: Physics.
Advisor: Digonnet Michel J. F.
Fan Shanhui
Kasevich Mark A.
Back on Track: Thailand's High-Speed Rail within China's Belt and Road Initiative

In 2013, President Xi Jinping unveiled his Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a global development strategy involving infrastructure projects worth over one trillion USD. For the People’s Republic of China (PRC), opaque negotiations are the norm and result in deals that must use Chinese financing, Chinese workers, and Chinese materials, and in exchange, the host country receives infrastructure development. The “win-win” scenario provides countries that are short on technical expertise and financial resources the means to develop infrastructure and leaves the PRC obtaining a strategic resource. This study focuses on how Thailand broke away from high-speed rail (HSR) negotiations with China and forged a new path forward in BRI project implementation. Thailand is the first BRI country in which Beijing has permitted the host county to self-fund the project, train the host country's engineers, forgo the use of Chinese workers for local Thai contractors, utilize Thai materials, and transfer HSR technology to the host country. The study answers questions such as, why did the PRC make huge concessions to Thailand? How can middle-power countries develop agency in relation to China? What structural changes did Thailand implement in order to self-fund and assume control of a HSR project? And what lessons from this case can be extracted and used by other less powerful countries within BRI? The research method involves a qualitative approach that draws on open-source information from across the Thai government. The study coalesces and analyzes stove-piped information that contributes to the broader BRI literature that less powerful states can devise financial alternatives to lessen their reliance on Chinese financing.

Keywords:  Stanford Global Studies
Belt and Road Initiative
China
East Asian Studies
High-Speed Rail
Public-Private Partnership
Stanford Global Studies
Thailand
Turkey
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Advisor: Emmerson Donald
Bacteriophage and antibacterial innate immunity in health and disease

Bacteriophages—viruses produced by bacteria—are among the most abundant and well-studied organisms on earth. However, the phages within the human body are only beginning to be explored. Despite extensive explorations of other components of the microbiome, the human phageome—our endogenous bacteriophages—remains a scientific frontier. The phageome is only beginning to be characterized for many organs and disease states. Direct interactions between phages and human immune responses are similarly just beginning to be systematically investigated. Here, we explore the interplay between our endogenous phages and their interactions with the mammalian innate immune system during bacterial infection

Keywords: Microbiology and Immunology.
Advisor: Bollyky Paul
Engleman Edgar G.
Milla Carlos E. 
Monack Denise M.