VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
“For Here or to Go”: Stanford Chinese Students in the Talent Flow between the United States and China

In 2019, there were 369,548 Chinese students in the United States, which means 33 percent of international students in the U.S. come from China. Chinese students have become the largest group of international students in the United States for ten successive years. U.S.-trained, Chinese-born talent is becoming a key force in driving Chinese companies’ global expansion and the country’s development. How do the current overseas Chinese react in their decisions to stay in the United States or return to China? What are the reasons supporting their decisions? How do the public policies such as Chinese government incentives policies and U.S. immigration policies impact the individual decision in this process? More importantly, what is the underlying relations between the current tech/trade war and the talents flow? I explore these questions by taking Stanford Chinese students group as a case study. Based on the survey and interview with more than 140 Stanford Chinese students, I found that even though 75 percent of the survey participant are interested in working in the U.S. after graduation, the majority of those who plan to stay in the States are thinking about staying in the U.S. for a short period of time (1-7 years). Better work life balance, good pay, and accumulating more experience are some main reasons they choose to work in the United States after graduation. Besides, flourishing career opportunities, familiar culture, proximity to families, opportunities on entrepreneurship as well as domestic policies are some attractions for returnees. “1000 talents plan” was one of the most prominent projects to entice returnees both in industry and academia. However, the ongoing deterioration between China and the U.S. is building obstacles to Chinese students’ study and working status in the United States as well as the implementation of China’s incentives policies. This research contributes our understanding of the dynamic relations of personal choices, public policies, and international relations.

Keywords:  Stanford Global Studies
Stanford Global Studies
East Asian Studies
Talent flow
Chinese student
International students
Thesis
Advisor: Chang Gordon
Foreign relations of the United States series, 1860-1980 : a study in new archival history

In the last couple decades of scholarship, historical research has turned primarily qualitative, firmly embedding the field into the humanities. But recent advances in computation and accessibility of digitized materials have revived an interest in quantitative methods and platforms in investigating the past. Approaches using numerical data in history have come and gone as `Cliometrics, ' `New Economic History, ' and `New Social History, ' facing critique from cultural historians. This thesis proposes `New Archival History, ' a novel approach of using digitized historical archives and modern data science methods to bring together the cultural depth and quantitative rigor of the two previously irreconcilable practices in History. Through a showcase of various techniques on a document collection of diplomatic correspondences from the Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) series, this thesis argues that while there are potential limitations, digital sources expand opportunities for historians to ask broader questions, interrogate the archive, and engage with scholarship and theory in the experimental and observational social sciences

Keywords: History.
Advisor: Frank Zephyr L.
Wright Gavin
Algee-Hewitt Mark
Holloway David
Found & Ekphrastic Poetry in the Iziko South African National Gallery and Cantor Arts Center: An Exploration of Cultural Reproduction

This work explores cultural reproduction in art museum spaces with the Iziko
South African National Gallery (ISANG) and the Cantor Arts Center as case studies. My primary methodology is embodied research, with found and ekphrastic poetry acting as vessels to translate and integrate my findings from embodied research, literature review, and interviews with museum leadership. Ultimately, there is ever-evolving nuance and variation in the cultural reproduction that happens when an artwork or a museum space meet the viewer; however, I encourage museums to take steps within their control to leverage their sites of cultural reproduction to disrupt social hierarchies rather than passively allowing them to continue or even purposefully reinforcing them.

Keywords: CCSRE
CSRE
IDA
ekphrastic poetry
found poetry
cultural reproduction
art museums
Thesis
Advisor: Roanne Kantor
Laura Nkula-Wenz
Cody Chun
From city to sea : participatory science and molecular biology for understanding fecal pollution patterns in urban environmental waters

Despite the economic and cultural importance of clean environmental waters, human pressures on water quality along the world's coastlines and rivers threaten ecosystem and human health. This thesis investigates anthropogenic impacts on environmental waters through the lens of fecal microbe pollution. Drawing on tools from molecular biology, physical oceanography, and behavioral science, I examine sources, transport, and fate of fecal pollution in fresh and marine urban surface waters. In field studies of fresh and marine waters, I find that human fecal pollution levels, measured by genetic microbial source tracking (MST) markers, vary independently of general fecal pollution levels, measured by culturable fecal indicator bacteria (FIB). I also report the first validation of crAssphage, a novel human viral fecal marker, for MST in South America. Through field and lab work in urban freshwater matrices, I show that genetic markers of human norovirus, an important waterborne pathogen, exhibit sources and fate similar to human MST markers but distinct from culturable FIB. In collaboration with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers, I report the first application of a novel human norovirus culture system to environmental waters, and preliminary estimates indicate that decay of infectious human norovirus in freshwater correlates with genome integrity and may be more rapid than previously thought. Through collaboration with volunteers in a participatory science framework, I find that safe swimming distances from a creek at a popular beach are often longer than reflected in public health guidelines. I also find that, while volunteer participation rates declined over time, there was no evidence that regularly emailing feedback to volunteers in the form of project data reports affected their retention in the study. Overall, this thesis contributes to our understanding of sources and drivers of anthropogenic fecal pollution in urban watersheds, the persistence of an important viral pathogen in environmental water, and strategies for engaging community volunteers in water quality monitoring

Advisor: Boehm Alexandria
Criddle Craig 
Davis Jenna (Professor)
From collectivism to professionalism : the struggle for the survival of social protest theatre in post-1980s latinx America

The contentious political climate of the 1960s and 1970s gave birth to an abundance of social protest theatre collectives (SPT) dedicated to illustrated the needs of marginalized communities and advocated for liberation in the United States and Latin America. By employing a hemispheric methodology, this dissertation examines how Latin American social protest collectives survived beyond this initial historical phase by surveying their work after 1980. Focusing on US-based production company El Teatro Campesino (the Farmworkers Theatre), premier Peruvian performance collective Teatro Yuyachkani, and Mexico based collective Hijas de la violencia (daughters of violence), and Chilean based collective Lastesis, I investigate how the creative output of these collectives has been affected by institutionalization, digital media interventions, and ways in which their work has been narrated and archived. I argue that academic and capital-based institutionalization alters the subversive efficacy of the (SPT) genre and tactics of social protest theatre. I propose new ways of theorizing social protest theatre to enable a fuller understanding of the intersection between politics and performance

Keywords: Theater and Performance Studies.
Advisor: Elam Harry Justin 
Looser Diana 
Huerta Jorge A.
Marino Angela (Marino Segura)
Robinson Aileen
From Farm to Fortune: Understanding the Path to Upward Mobility in Rural America

Using data from the Opportunity Insights project, Stanford Education Data Archive, and U.S. Department of Agriculture, I examine the path to upward mobility in the rural United States. I aim to understand whether factors contributing to better outcomes for low-income youth differ between rural and nonrural counties, with an eye toward tangible policy solutions. Using cross-sectional analyses, I find demographic factors, including share of single mothers and social capital, play an outsized role in rural mobility. Further, while income segregation is more detrimental to mobility in nonrural counties, single motherhood and migration are more detrimental in rural. In a fixed effects model, controlling for educational opportunity, race, and socioeconomic status, I find race and socioeconomic status explain most within-county variation in mobility, though educational opportunity remains a significant predictor, and achievement scores are relatively more important within rural counties than nonrural. Finally, I conduct a novel analysis of the relationship between agricultural subsidies and rural upward mobility. After controlling for community characteristics, I find no significant correlation between farm subsidies and mobility. The only policy factor which significantly predicts rural mobility is state Earned Income Tax Credit exposure, suggesting rural policy must focus specifically on initiatives aimed at improving outcomes for low-income rural youth.

Keywords:  Public Policy Program
Stanford University
Public Policy
rural America
upward mobility
educational opportunity
educational attainment
agricultural subsidies
rural-urban divide
Thesis
Advisor: Reardon Sean F.
From heart to word : self, other, and oneness explored by three medieval Japanese poets of the Kyōgoku school of poetry

This dissertation looks to the Kyogoku school of poetry, a select group of Jimyo-in imperials and their followers who were active during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and considers how three of its poets—Kyogoku Tamekane (1254-1332), Hanazono (1297-1348), and Kogon (1313-1364)—interpreted the poetic process of translating heart (kokoro) to word (kotoba). This process was monumentally defined by the court poets Ki no Tsurayuki and Ki no Yoshimochi in the Kokin wakashu prefaces (c. 905), which metaphorized poetry as leaves of words that have sprouted from seeds of heart, and as flowers rooted in heart that have bloomed in a grove of words. Centuries later, Tamekane, Hanazono, and Kogon recast these original literary metaphors into a religiously- and philosophically-inspired poetics that rethinks the process of translating heart (kokoro) to word (kotoba). Using poetry composition as a meditative practice informed by medieval Buddhist thought, they reshaped the assumption that a poet is always a "self" and that the poetic subject is always an "other, " and produced a new style of poetic expression that is born from the poet actualizing a state of "oneness" with the poetic subject. Each chapter respectively explores Tamekane's, Hanazono's, and Kogon's ideas on kokoro and kotoba as revealed by their poetry and writings. I argue that composing poetry was for them an experiential means of reforming their preconceptions of the self and external world. For Tamekane, it was a conceptual exercise toward questioning and transcending the boundaries of poet as "self" and poetic subject as "other, " aspiring for an experience of "oneness" that encourages the poet to reconsider what the purpose of poetic composition is. For Hanazono, it was a meditative tool for transcending conscious knowing, entering into the non-dual realm beyond the fathoming of heart/mind, and producing waka poetry that gestures toward this liminal experience. And for Kogon, it was a practice of reflecting upon and transcending the dualistic separations between himself and winter's heart. Their poetry and writings acknowledge the heart of "oneness" as ineffable. However, they also show that even while knowing that words are by their very nature incomplete, a poet can continue to strive to express their feelings and experiences with words from the heart

Keywords: East Asian Languages and Cultures.
Advisor: Carter Steven
Reichert Jim (James Robert) 
Levy Indra A.
From Taxation to Expropriation: The Politics of Excessive Extraction in China

Many countries excessively tax firms and farmers to the extent of ruining incentives. Studies on expropriation, however, focus on cross-national variation in the nationalization of land and foreign firms; as a result, we know little about how excessive extraction—a subtle but perhaps more prevalent form of expropriation—occurs. I study the case of China, where entrepreneurs frequently complain about the excessive extraction of taxes and non-tax fees by local governments. I examine how local party-state leaders’ stronger career incentives lead to increased and excessive extraction by using both qualitative and quantitative methods. I elaborate on the specific mechanisms linking local leaders’ career incentives to the extraction of taxes and that of non-tax fees, respectively. I show how excessive extraction has actually happened by analyzing qualitative materials such as newspapers and writings by finance journalists. Quantitatively, using a large firm-level dataset and firm fixed effects models, I find that the intensity of extraction from firms systematically varies with local officials’ career incentives. Prefectural governors who come to office with patronage ties to their superiors have strong career incentives and strategically increase the extraction of local taxes and fees during their early years in office. By linking taxation to expropriation, this paper sheds new light on how unchecked political power undermines property rights.

Keywords:  Stanford Global Studies
Taxation
Expropriation
Excessive Extraction
State-Business Relations
Chinese Politics
Thesis
Advisor: Oi Jean C.
From the Shadows to the Front Page: State Use of Proxies for Cyber Operations

The cyber threat environment is increasingly complex due to the proliferation of capabilities and diversity of threat actors. This thesis explores the growth of non-state entities executing cyber operations against foreign targets on behalf of Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran, and why these states elect to use them. These “cyber proxies” further obscure the environment and are utilized to conduct significant cyber-attacks, exploitations, and influence operations. Furthermore, they pose several risks to sponsoring states. Through the delegation of authority from centrally controlled government agents to non-state actors, the likelihood of information asymmetries and failures increases. I propose a framework containing four hypotheses: cyber proxies offer economic cost savings, enhanced plausible deniability benefits, greater access to skills and specializations, and finally those states that can credibly threaten cyber proxy misbehavior will be more likely to use them. Through analyzing a wide array of data sources including US government reports, statements, research from industry, think tank analyses, and notable journals, I find that the use of cyber proxies is widespread and converging among all these states. I ultimately conclude that economic costs and skills and specializations may motivate proxy use. However, the evidence does not suggest that these proxies provide enhanced plausible deniability benefits compared to government agents. Furthermore, these states all have larger degrees of internal versus external punitive power. It indicates that they may select cyber proxies within their territories to credibly threaten them for failures or mission creep, thus reducing risks. This work offers an overview of cyber capabilities within these four states and their use of cyber proxies, providing preliminary findings to suggest why they adopted cyber proxy strategies. During this period of global uncertainty, much of our everyday lives have been forced online. It is even more critical to protect our infrastructure from cyber threat actors and increase awareness of the source of intrusions within our networks. As data in this field improves, this thesis hopes to serve as a framework for future researchers to test, with more certainty, the causal links between these explanations and the use of cyber proxies within these four states.

Keywords:  Center for International Security and Cooperation
Center for International Security and Cooperation
transit
planning
international cooperation
Thesis
Advisor: Zegart Amy
Grotto Andrew
Fugitive methane in the oil and gas industry : quantifying and characterizing methane emissions from residential natural gas appliances and abandoned wells

Concentrations of methane—a potent and abundant greenhouse gas that has contributed one-quarter of the radiative forcing to date—has been increasing at alarming rates and continues to rise. In this presentation, I provide novel measurements of emissions from two less-studied sources of methane emissions from the natural gas industry: abandoned oil and gas wells in California and residential natural gas appliances. For abandoned wells, I sampled 121 wells and found small but detectable methane emissions from 34 of 97 plugged wells (mean emission: 0.286 g CH4 hr-1), 11 of 17 idle wells (mean: 35.4 g CH4 hr-1), 4 of 6 active wells (mean: 189.7 g CH4 hr-1), and one unplugged well (10.9 g CH4 hr-1) totaling 0.8% of anthropogenic methane emissions in the state. For natural gas appliances, I focus my samples on water heaters—distinguishing emissions between tankless and storage varieties—and cooking appliances. I sampled water heaters from 64 northern California homes to quantify methane emissions and characterize daily usage patterns. I found that individual tankless water heaters emit 2390 [95% CI: 2250, 2540] g CH4 yr-1 on average, 0.93% [0.87%, 0.99%] of their natural gas consumed, primarily from on/off pulses. Storage water heaters emitted 1400 [1240, 1560] g CH4 yr-1 on average, 0.39% [0.34%, 0.43%] of their natural gas consumption. Water heaters overall emit an estimated 82.3 [73.2, 91.5] Gg CH4 yr-1, 0.40% [0.35%, 0.44%] of all natural gas consumed by these appliances. I also measured methane emissions from 44 stoves and found that stoves emit 29.7 [28.3, 31.6] Gg CH4 yr-1, or 1.39% of the gas they use; about three-quarters of these emissions are during steady-state off. This amount is 9% of the current total reported by the USEPA from "stationary combustion"—emissions from appliances in residences. I also measured NOx from 32 stoves and found emissions between 15.8 and 232.6 mL NOx hr-1, depending on burner size. Normalized for burner output, emissions were 15.1 to 27.7 ng NOx Joule-1 (1.6 to 2.9 g NOx Therm-1). My work contributes critical research to the field as policies are implemented to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the coming decades

Keywords: Environmental Earth System Science.
Advisor: Jackson Rob
Brandt Adam (Adam R.) 
Michalak Anna M.
Functional neuronal defects in a human 3D cerebral cortical model of 22q11.2 deletion syndrome

22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11DS) is a common genetic cause of developmental neuropsychiatric disorders, including psychosis and autism spectrum disorders. This highly penetrant syndrome provides a unique opportunity to identify specific neuronal phenotypes and to elucidate the mechanisms underlying neuropsychiatric disorders. Here, we generated induced pluripotent stem cells from a cohort of 15 subjects carrying the canonical deletion at the 22q11.2 locus and from 15 controls, and we differentiated these cells into three--dimensional organoids resembling the developing cerebral cortex. Transcriptional profiling across 100 days of in vitro developmental time showed high reliability of organoid differentiation and revealed changes in the expression of genes associated with neuronal excitability in 22q11DS. Using electrophysiological and live imaging methods, we identified defects in excitability and calcium signaling in organoid--derived cortical neurons, as well as in glutamatergic neurons differentiated in two--dimensional cultures. Interestingly, the calcium deficit was present over 5.5 months of maturation in vitro and was related to changes in the resting membrane potential that led to abnormal inactivation of voltage gated calcium channels. Importantly, heterozygous mutations in the 22q11.2 locus gene DGCR8 recapitulated the neuronal excitability and calcium phenotypes, and overexpression of this gene restored functional defects in cortical neurons. Moreover, the calcium abnormality in 22q11DS could also be acutely restored pharmacologically by application of several antipsychotic drugs. Taken together, our study reveals that a common chromosomal microdeletion disorder conferring a high risk for neuropsychiatric disease causes functional defects in developing human cortical neurons that may be related to loss of the DGCR8 gene

Keywords: Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine.
Advisor: Pasca Sergiu
Cui Bianxiao
Palmer Theo
Porteus Matthew H.
Fundamental approaches to scale blockchain

In 2008, Satoshi Nakamoto invented Bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency. It gave birth to the field of blockchain which provides decentralized trust platforms by leveraging cryptography, distributed systems, and networks. Blockchain is touted as one of the biggest innovations in money and finance since the advent of central banking. In the last decade, this field has grown exponentially, facilitating global transactions worth trillions of dollars. This phenomenon has jump-started the application of and spurred new research in consensus protocols, payments networks, and programmable money, among many others. However, this ingenious technology, Bitcoin, can support a throughput of only 5-8 transactions per second (tps), with confirmation latency in hours due to its protocol limitations. On top of its sluggish performance, it consumes the energy equivalent of a mid-sized country like Austria. In order to take this technology mainstream we need to design and develop new protocols that are scalable, energy-efficient, secure, and lightning-fast, all at the same time. This thesis is an attempt towards achieving this goal by taking a first principle approach to design new scalable protocols. We first design Prism, a proof-of-work (PoW) consensus protocol that can simultaneously support high throughput and low confirmation latency. It achieves throughput equal to the network capacity which is optimal and obtains a confirmation latency in the order of the network delay which is near-optimal. We then implement a full-stack system for Prism in Rust that achieves a throughput of 70,000 tps with confirmation latency < 40 seconds. PoW protocols use energy to maintain their security and hence end up consuming tons of energy! Proof-of-stake (PoS) protocols are purported to solve this issue by using the internal currency instead of energy to maintain security. We design a PoS protocol to mimic the functionality and security of bitcoin's PoW protocol. Compared to the existing PoS protocols, we achieve better security against bribing and prediction attacks. The rigorously prove the security properties of this protocol and Prism, and we believe these techniques can be used to prove the security of other protocols. We continue on the path of making blockchains scalable by designing Boomerang, a protocol on top of the Lightning Network which mitigates their straggler problem by adding redundancy in payments which results in 2x improvement in both throughput and latency

Keywords: Electrical Engineering.
Advisor: Tse David 
Boneh Dan
Goel Ashish