VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The Deconstruction of American White Womanhood: A Transhistorical Textual Examination

This multi-textual transhistorical character-driven analysis considers how the representation of American white women in popular cultural texts has shifted over time. It examines Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, Native Son by Richard Wright, and Get Out by Jordan Peele.

Keywords:  Department of English
white womanhood
cultural studies
Jordan Peele
Get Out
Richard Wright
Native Son
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Stowe
Wright
Peele
whiteness
critical race theory
racialization
post-racialism
whiteness
African American literature
Thesis
Advisor: Jones Gavin
Richardson Judith
The Effect of Stricter State-level Firearm Legislation on Youth and Female Suicides

For her capstone project, Alanna Flores wrote a fascinating research paper that considered the effect of fourteen categories of state firearm laws enacted by different states at different times from 1991 through 2018. Her research further analyzed the causal connection between firearm laws, specifically background checks, child laws, trafficking regulation, possession for those convicted of domestic violence crimes, and gun-inflicted suicide rates of women and children. She hopes her work in the subject of firearm legislature will further an understanding of how laws work to preserve livelihood and consider the effectiveness of the government in protecting its people from harm, especially its most vulnerable communities.

Keywords: Firearms > Law and legislation
Text
Thesis
The Healing Power of Nature: Increasing Access to East Bay Regional Park's Health Benefits for Diverse Oakland Residents

The East Bay Regional Park system (EBRP) is an expansive natural space in Oakland, a racially and economically diverse urban community in California. This study interviewed local park visitors to understand the perceived health and wellness benefits of Reinhardt Regional Park (a park location within the EBRP system) as well as visitors’ perception of the park’s engagement with the local community. Study participants (n=15) noted extensive physiological and psychological health and wellness benefits of the park, and also noted potential barriers to access, which hinder some community members from experiencing these benefits. EBRP’s position as the largest regional park system in the United States, its location within a diverse urban community, and its history and current vision for community engagement create a nexus of opportunity for EBRP to be leveraged as a powerful public resource for health and wellness.

Keywords: Stanford Graduate School of Education
Policy Organization Leadership Studies
Environment
Nature
Parks
Environmental Justice
Access
Inclusion
Equity
Health
Mental Health
Public Health Wellness
Mental Health Disparities
Health DisparitiesEast Bay
Oakland
Thesis
The Impact of Online Food Delivery Services on Restaurant Sales

The rapid growth of online food delivery services has disrupted the traditionally offline restaurant industry. This study presents empirical evidence on the crowding-out effects and market expansions induced by the staggered entry of online food delivery services. Difference-in-differences methodology reveals that 30-50 cents of every dollar spent on online food delivery services are incremental, while the rest is drawn away from brick-and-mortar sales. These findings are statistically significant at the zip code-level and are heterogeneous across different types of consumption, suggesting that convenience and pre-existing spending habits drive the level of substitution. Conducting analyses on a year-by-year basis suggests that there is an increasing level of cannibalization of brick-and-mortar restaurant sales. Back-of-the-envelope calculations show an increase in restaurants' revenues but a decrease in profitability.

Keywords: Department of Economics
e-commerce
online food delivery
sales cannibalization
market expansion
Thesis
Advisor: Einav Liran
The Influence of Microfinance in Rural Karnataka on Female Social Capital

Social capital accumulation is critical for improving the status of women in India. Diverse and high-quality social contacts promote financial freedom and autonomy in local communities. This study evaluates whether exposure to microfinance loans targeted at women increases female social capital. I implement a difference-in-difference framework to evaluate changes in social and financial networks by gender after the Bharatha Swamukti Samsthe (BSS) microfinance bank extended loans in rural Karnataka. In the first wave, no villages of 75 surveyed were exposed to microfinance. By the second wave, BSS entered 43 villages. I find that for both financial and social relationships, individuals in villages exposed to microfinance experienced a greater probability of losing links, for both female and male networks. Microfinance also decreased clustering, the probability that an individual’s links were also linked to each other but increased gender homophily. These results suggest potentially adverse consequences for female loan recipients, and spillover benefits for men in villages exposed to microfinance.

Keywords:  Department of Economics
Microfinance
financial networks
social networks
female empowerment
Department of Economics
Thesis
Advisor: Jackson Matthew
The Last Column: A Critical Perspective on Architecture, Memory, and the Modern Memorial

The fall of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 shook the world’s understanding of security and permanence, and cast the role of the architect as the creator of large buildings in a new and uncertain perspective. In the aftermath of the attacks, the skeletal remains of architecture were not only cleared away, but were used to process the trauma of the attacks. This is most explicitly seen in the funeral proceedings conferred upon the Last Column, a structural steel column that became an impromptu memorial for the workers and first responders at Ground Zero. This puzzling event raises urgent questions about the role of architecture as it pertains to memory and memorial.
This paper explores the funeral of the Last Column through the lens of the ruin, the body, and the superimposition of the self onto the built environment, taking a critical look at the intersection of memory and architecture. Through a critical analysis of more permanent memorials such as Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial and Michael Arad’s Reflecting Absence, in contrast to improvised and bottom-up forms of memorialization, this paper posits that the Last Column was the first of a new memorial typology: the modern memorial as a timely object instead of a timeless one. In light of the improvised and fleeting nature of this new typology, it is also posited that the architect must find a new niche to occupy in this memorial space, as permanence becomes less and less certain in the modern era.

Keywords:  Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
architecture
memorial
World Trade Center
September 11
Last Column
Stanford Architectural Design Program
Thesis
Advisor: Barton John
Beischer Thomas
The Phenomenology of Zoom

This thesis involves a phenomenological analysis of Zoom, a currently popular videoconferencing technology, particularly engaging with the philosophers Don Ihde and Alfred Schutz. This thesis will show that the experience of direct connection via Zoom is characterized essentially by both the illusory sense of a shared environment and the accuracy of Zoom’s representations of participants, leading to many misperceptions and false experiences, as well as the constant breakdown of this illusion, wherein users gain awareness of the limits of Zoom, but in the process lose connection to others. The necessity of illusion in Zoom, this thesis argues, is a result of a fundamental material distance between participants that cannot be overcome by technology.

Keywords:  Symbolic Systems Program
zoom
videoconferencing
phenomenology
philosophy
technology
Don Ihde
Alfred Schutz
Symbolic Systems Department
Thesis
Advisor: Bukatman Scott
Jackson Gabrielle
The Question of Kosovo: A Comparison of National Identity in Kosovo’s Albanian and Serbian History Textbooks

Though Kosovo formally declared independence from Serbia in 2008, latent tensions between majority Albanians and non-majority Serbians complicate political, economic, and educational spaces. This study aims to answer what national identity is created in the Albanian and Serbian school systems in Kosovo and explore how the resulting national identities contribute to or hinder the development of a unified Kosovar national identity. Using a qualitative document analysis of six history textbooks from Kosovo primary schools, I find that Albanian textbooks promote a national identity that is ethnically Albanian, while Serbian textbooks promote an ethnic Serbian national identity. This research suggests that if post-conflict Kosovo is to have an integrated national identity, then (1) the parallel system, with each branch emphasizing its own peculiar nationhood is not effective, and (2) an integrated system is needed to teach Kosovo’s status as a nation such that it spans both Albanian and Serbian ethnic identities.

Keywords: Kosovo
Serbia
national identity
qualitative document analysis
history textbooks
ethnic identity
Stanford Graduate School of Education International Education Policy Analysis
Thesis
The Reconfiguration of Homosexuality in Beijing Comrades

Beijing Comrades (1998) by Beitong is among mainland China’s earliest, best known, and most influential contemporary gay novels. It narrates the intricate romance between two men, Chen Handong and Lan Yu, whose love for one another is constantly challenged by various biases against homosexuality in postsocialist China. In this paper, I argue that Beijing Comrades reconfigures homosexuality through the self-seeking narrative of Handong, who transforms from an elite cadre’s son, a successful businessman, and an adventurous conqueror into a man who loves another man. This paper demonstrates that Beijing Comrades challenges the institutionalized, biased knowledge of homosexuality in postsocialist China.
This paper addresses the following questions through a detailed textual analysis of Beijing Comrades, based on the novel’s English version translated by Scott E. Myers. What are the deep-seated biases against homosexuality in Beijing Comrades? How does the story challenge these biases? Realizing his love for Lan Yu, how does Handong’s view on homosexuality change? What kinds of struggles does he experience in his self-seeking process? Furthermore, what is the core message behind Handong’s self-seeking narrative?

Keywords:  Stanford Global Studies
Stanford Global Studies
East Asian Studies
Homosexuality
Queer Literature
Gay Literature
Beijing Comrades
China
Thesis
Advisor: Wang Ban
The Repatriation Dilemma: European Countries and Islamic State Foreign Terrorist Fighters

Why have some European countries repatriated Islamic State foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs) while others have not? Following the territorial defeat of the Islamic State (IS), the United States urged its allies and partners in Europe to take back their citizens who travelled to Syria and Iraq to fight for the caliphate. This thesis is the first study to explain the variation in responses to this request. Using an original dataset of FTF repatriation across 16 European countries, I apply a nested analysis research design to evaluate four explanatory variables: a country’s history of jihadist attacks, the quality of a country’s legal system, a country’s NATO aspirations, and the prevalence of anti-Muslim views in a country’s population. I test these hypotheses through a medium-N cross-national analysis and case studies of the United Kingdom and the Republic of North Macedonia. I find that NATO aspirants are more likely to repatriate FTFs and that evidentiary challenges in the domestic prosecution of FTFs present a hurdle to repatriation. This thesis expands the counterterrorism scholarship to address an unresolved question regarding a salient policy debate and offers policy suggestions to improve the handling of FTFs.

Keywords:  Center for International Security and Cooperation
Center for International Security and Cooperation
foreign terrorist fighters
foreign fighters
repatriation
Islamic State
ISIS
Thesis
Advisor: Grzymala-Busse Anna
Felter Joseph
The Role of Rabid Competition Adaptive Mindset in Stress Level and Coping Strategies among Chinese International Students in an American University

There is consensus among researchers and university administrators that support for international students require improvements. To enhance their support, we need to know more about how students’ cultural backgrounds shape the way they perceive and cope with stress. In spring 2020, six undergraduate and graduate Chinese international students at an elite American university participated in a study that examined how their native cultural backgrounds impacted their stress levels and coping strategies while studying abroad. Evidence from semi-structured interviews suggests that participants exhibited a Rabid Competition Adaptive Mindset (RCAM). Those who expressed deeper connections with Chinese culture manifested greater degrees of RCAM. RCAM was exemplified in students’ statements that they were motivated academically by a desire to be competitive on the job market. Evidence also suggests that attendance at American universities made these students more open about their stress-related issues, possibly because they had been exposed to Western individualist mindsets.

Keywords: Chinese International Students
Higher Education
Coping
Mindset
Stanford Graduate School of Education International Comparative Education
Thesis
The Role of Socioeconomic Status in Subjective Social Mobility andSocial Mobility Beliefs: Evidence from Urban China

Socioeconomic status (SES) is regarded as a key factor influencing people’s thinking about themselves and the world around them. This paper takes an interdisciplinary perspective borrowing elements from sociology and psychology to investigate how SES is associated with subjective social mobility and social mobility beliefs for people in urban China. The dialogue between the two disciplines provides a macroscopic picture of subjective social mobility patterns and a glimpse of potential cognitive processes behind it. By analyzing existing data collected through the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) 2010 (Study 1) and original survey data of 309 Chinese adults (Study 2), we find that higher-SES individuals not only subjectively perceive more social mobility than lower-SES individuals, but also hold more positive general beliefs towards social mobility as a whole. Furthermore, we find that income is the strongest predictor of social mobility beliefs, compared to education and occupation.

Keywords: Subjective social mobility
Social mobility beliefs
Socioeconomic status (SES)
Urban China
Stanford Graduate School of Education International Comparative Education
Thesis
The Semantics and Pragmatics of Gringo

Different cultural backgrounds can lead to the intention of a speaker being misunderstood by a listener. My study aimed to answer the following research questions: Is there a cultural gap in the way the term gringo is perceived? And, more broadly: How does culture affect the way language is perceived and intended? To answer these questions, I began by surveying people in Mexico, the USA, and Spain about how offensive they regarded the word. The results showed that the word by default has a derogatory connotation. However, my personal experiences had shown me that the term had a neutral, and oftentimes positive, connotation. I then proceeded to take a step back and get a sense of what people really thought this word meant. To do this, I used a process called “word association” (asking participants what are five words that come to mind when they think of the word gringo). I surveyed again Spanish, Mexican and American participants, as well as participants from two new groups: Central and South America. The results showed that the majority of people surveyed from Latin America and South America used words related to “geography & language” (e.g., English, US Citizen, American) when describing gringo. This was definitely not as noticeable for Americans and Mexicans, who used more negative or racially loaded words (e.g., offensive, bad, white, blond). Then, I decided to look for instances of the word gringo in the media, in Costa Rican newspapers. The paper concludes that the term gringo is considered in American culture a primarily racial term, and this is not the case for any other countries that participate in the exchange of such.

Keywords: Symbolic Systems Program
Department of Linguistics
Slurs
Semantics
Pragmatics
Culture
Thesis
Theory and applications of time-resolved spectroscopies

Time-resolved spectroscopies of materials provide a wealth of information on material dynamics, and have been a focus of study for decades. With increasing energy and time resolution, time-resolved spectroscopies have been able to detect quasiparticle dynamics, details of electron transport, and ultrafast phase transitions. More recently, as a novel technique, time-resolved resonant inelastic x-ray scattering (trRIXS) is developed and used to investigate spin and charge orders in strongly correlated materials. In this dissertation, I will review the theories of equilibrium and nonequilibrium spectroscopies, with an emphasis on the development of trRIXS theory. Numerical simulation of trRIXS is performed on a single-band tight binding model under the high frequency limit and low frequency limit, revealing Floquet physics and real-time charge oscillation respectively. I will also give examples of applications of time-resolved spectroscopies, especially trRIXS: detecting photoinduced chiral edge states in a graphene nanoribbon and investigating charge excitations in a pumped Mott insulator. Specifically, for the graphene nanoribbon, trRIXS has the potential to selectively probe certain edge states at given energies, providing a conclusive answer to the existence of photoinduced chiral edge states. Finally I will discuss some technical aspects in my implementation of trRIXS code for noninteracting systems. I hope this dissertation can deepen the understanding of pump-probe spectroscopies, especially the novel trRIXS, and provide resources to help design future experiments

Keywords: Applied Physics.
Advisor: Devereaux Thomas Peter
Shen Zhi-Xun
Lee Young Sang
Therapeutic targeting of AXL/Gas6 signaling in metastatic and primary cancer

AXL is a receptor tyrosine kinase shown to be involved in driving metastasis and disease progression in many of solid and hematologous human cancers. Our lab has previously shown that inhibiting the activation of AXL by trapping its only ligand, Gas6, can reduce metastatic disease burden in several aggressive cancer models. Using engineered high-affinity AXL decoy receptors, we show that inhibiting AXL downstream signaling by preventing the binding of Gas6 to native AXL receptors can halt disease progression in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). Collectively, these results validate AXL as a therapeutic target in metastatic disease and highlight the potential clinical value of the engineered AXL decoy receptors as novel anti-metastatic therapies. We further examine the validity of AXL as a therapeutic target in canine melanoma, an alternative model of melanoma that mirrors many of the features of human melanoma

Advisor: Giaccia Amato J.
Ford James M. (James Matthew)
Graves Edward (Edward Elliot)
Rankin Erinn
Thermal transport in two-dimensional and wide band gap materials

The semiconductor industry has seen much interest in materials beyond silicon. Among these, two-dimensional (2D) nanomaterials are known to exhibit distinct evolution of chemical and physical properties as the material thickness is scaled from bulk to atomic layers. Wide band gap (WBG) materials have also attracted attention due to their promising applications in power electronics and short wavelength photonics. This work begins by summarizing the thermal properties of 2D materials, including thermal conductivity, thermal boundary conductance, and thermoelectric properties. We then study thermal and electrical transport in WTe2, which is a semimetallic 2D material. Thermal properties of WTe2 devices are extracted from the device electrical characteristics using an analytical model. We also use finite element simulations to estimate the current density improvements by novel heat dissipation structures, including capping layers such as hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN). This work demonstrates that WTe2 can carry high current density despite its low thermal conductivity, which shows its potential applications as a thermal barrier or electrode in phase-change memory. Next, we discuss thermal conductivity of crystalline AlN and the influence of atomic-scale defects. AlN plays a key role in modern power electronics and deep-ultraviolet photonics. In these devices, heat dissipation is important during high-power and high-temperature operation. Using the 3ω characterization method, we measure temperature dependent thermal conductivity of AlN single crystals, between 100 and 400 K. Experimental data are compared with analytical models. We also investigate size effects and accumulated thermal conductivity of AlN thin films, which are widely used as buffer layer or capping layer in power electronic devices or light-emitting diodes. This work improves the understanding of AlN thermal conductivity and demonstrates how this material influences heat dissipation in wide band gap devices. We also study the temperature reduction of GaN devices with polycrystalline diamond top capping layer by Raman thermometry. Experimental results are compared with an analytical model and finite element simulations. These results provide a fundamental understanding of how to improve heat dissipation in GaN transistors. Combined, these studies shed light into the fundamental thermal properties of 2D and WBG materials. In addition, these results also serve as the foundations to design 2D and WBG devices and systems with better heat dissipation capabilities

Keywords: Electrical Engineering.
Advisor: Pop Eric 
Chowdhury Srabanti 
Saraswat Krishna
Thoughts on the Field of Obstetrics’ Response to COVID-19: A Qualitative Research Project

Background: COVID-19 has affected the delivery of healthcare across the globe, including pregnancy care and childbirth, which are essential and cannot be deferred. Furthermore, pregnancy care has historically involved frequent ultrasounds and other procedures that require in-person visits. Implementing telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic to minimize in-person contact has affected these and other aspects of pregnancy care.
Objective: To gain insights into obstetric providers’ perceptions of how COVID-19 has affected pregnancy care from preconception to postpartum based on their experiences in their practices.
Methods: One-on-one semi-structured qualitative interviews with seven obstetric providers who have been practicing in the Bay Area during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Results: Seven major topics were identified from the interviews and themes were identified within each major topic. The following are the primary themes within each major topic presented as “primary theme (corresponding major topic)”: patient anxiety (concerns about patients), providers contracting COVID-19 (concerns about providers), increased use of telehealth (future of obstetrics), receptive and understanding responses (patient behavioral responses), communication (provider behavioral responses), positives (thoughts on changes to care), and positives (thoughts on telehealth).
Conclusions: Overall, the interviewed providers were content with the changes made to pregnancy care and were mostly concerned about patient anxiety and their own occupational risk. These results could inform how obstetric units handle any future disease outbreaks and the factors they should consider in doing so.

Keywords: Community Health and Prevention Research
COVID-19
pregnancy
obstetrics
maternal care
OBGYN
telehealth
Thesis
Advisor: Stefanick Marcia