VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Auto-play : the automation of performance action, writing, and control

This dissertation discusses a series of artists who, throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, have attempted to automate theatrical processes. Offering a model of "automaticity" as disintermediation and opacity, encompassing the traditions of both automatism and automation, I argue that thinkers of the theater have long juxtaposed automaticity with theatricality. However, as my case studies demonstrate, the automatic and the theatrical can indeed be integrated. Abstract action has been mechanized, dances have been computationally scored, and backstage control has been automated. I analyze performance practices of artists from the avant-garde canon, from experimental margins, and from the commercial mainstream: central figures include Raymond Roussel, László Moholy-Nagy, Jeanne Beaman, Analívia Cordeiro, Frederick Bentham, and Robert Wilson. Throughout, I explore the liberal and neoliberal politics of automaticity, consider the images of femininity and blackness attached to the automatic, and conclude that the conjunction of automaticity and theatricality is dominant within contemporary stage practice and social relations

Keywords: Theater and Performance Studies.
Advisor: Jakovljević Branislav 
Robinson Aileen 
Smith Matthew Wilson
Avian-inspired rudderless flight with morphing wings and tails

Winged aircraft typically have vertical tails and rudders for directional stability and control, but removing these vertical tails could enable flight performance improvements through weight and drag reduction. Previous approaches to rudderless flight have compromised drag, weight, or maneuverability. In contrast, birds can articulate and morph their wings and tails, continuously adjusting aerodynamic geometry for unparalleled flight performance, all with no vertical tail surface. We explore mechanisms for rudderless bird flight in two flight regimes: flapping and gliding, which are vastly unique in their aerodynamics. For flapping flight, we developed a wind tunnel study that measured the passive yaw dynamics of small ornithopters, inspired by birds that navigate 45 degree crosswinds with ease. Our results demonstrate a passive yaw sideslip suppression mechanism available to flapping wings for the first time, which can be sufficient as a flapping wing vehicle's only static directional stability mechanism for yaw stability. For gliding flight at lower angles of attack, however, birds must use a different strategy. To study how wing and tail morphing may be used for rudderless bird flight, we developed a new class of soft feathered aerial robots that underactuate feathers to generate biomimetic bird wing and tail morphing. Our experiments and analysis show how the underactuation mechanism used in these vehicles are remarkably high-bandwidth and aeroelastically stable. Through wind tunnel and flight tests, we demonstrate how birds can use finger motion to steer precisely, or wrist motion to steer coarsely in flight. We also found that without a vertical tail, many bird planforms are dynamically unstable but can use lateral tail tilt to stabilize yaw rates for stable flight. We culminate this research with a comprehensive morphing wing and tail robot composed of 52 feathers underactuated by 8 active degrees of freedom, and use it to show how birds can synergize their wing and tail morphing degrees of freedom to achieve robust flight in turbulence and aggressive maneuvers, all with inexpensive and relatively low performance actuators. We envision this work to inspire future aerial robot designs that are more stable, efficient, and maneuverable, all while remaining simple to actuate and control

Keywords: Mechanical Engineering.
Advisor: Cutkosky Mark R. 
Lentink David
Follmer Sean
Barometer falling : weather, risk, and the meteorological imagination in Bangladesh

Given its topography and deltaic landscape, Bangladesh has long been characterized as uniquely susceptible to climate change. But this vision of Bangladesh's population and landscape being particularly vulnerable to the ravages of climate is, paradoxically, nothing new. Weather-borne ecological disasters are historically recurrent hazards. Heralded as a "laboratory for development, " Bangladesh and its precursors, East Pakistan and East Bengal, were subject to massive landscape interventions in the coastal zone as colonial and postcolonial regimes attempted to control riverine incursion into villages. State attempts to manage weather and reorganize terrain have consistently catalyzed other vulnerabilities. Through multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork with state meteorologists and with multi-religious and multi-caste farming communities, this dissertation analyzes the modes by which Bangladeshis make sense of changing ecologies. I highlight the tensions between the environment, conceived of broadly, and various attempts to govern it. This dissertation explores the intersection of climate change as a newly emergent form of risk, against a dense history of dealing with multiple forms of risk, ecological and otherwise. By examining the consolidation of the Indian Meteorological Department in Calcutta in the 1860s and 70s, contemporary practices of forecasting at the Bangladesh Meteorological Department, the implementation and unraveling of development projects in southwest Bangladesh, and the way rural residents utilize networks of gossip and collective speculation, I show that the negotiation of risks coheres together the social across my field sites. This dissertation concludes with a discussion of what I call the meteorological imagination

Keywords: Anthropology.
Advisor: Thiranagama Sharika
Ferguson James
Hansen Thomas Blom
Inoue Miyako
Bayesian structural learning in decision analysis

This work presents a method of using data to facilitate the creation of influence diagrams as part of model generation. The problem that motivates this dissertation is a bottom-up modeling approach of Decision Analysis that uses expert interviews to define variables, distinctions and capture the relations between the variables that reflect the current state of information about the decision situation. Creation and parameterization of the model defined in such way is a lengthy and error-prone process that poses a significant challenge in real-life applications. The proposed method of using Bayesian Structural Learning assumes the presence of some prior data on the problem and bootstraps relevance diagrams from such dataset. This novel approach assumes a structured coordination between machine learning methods and human experts, and in return offers extended opportunities in model generation while avoiding the common pitfalls stemming from the difficulties of eliciting conditional probabilities. We demonstrate the workings of this method using synthetic and real-life examples, and describe how to take full advantage of artificial intelligence algorithms -- including unsupervised learning with neural networks -- to facilitate work in the decision modeling phase

Keywords: Management Science and Engineering.
Advisor: Howard Ronald A. (Ronald Arthur)
Tse Edison 
Shachter Ross D.
Bd in the Bay Area: Characterizing Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis Prevalence in Anurans by Physiology, Climate, and Local Environment

Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) is a parasitic waterborne fungus that has recently decimated frog populations worldwide. This Bd-induced loss of frogs has caused harm to both human and natural systems, and is considered a top priority within conservation science. However, the dynamics of Bd are still not fully understood, especially in different geographies and climates. The proportion of frogs infected with Bd –known as the infection prevalence– can vary by physiology, season, and habitat, even within a given region. One ecologically important location where frog Bd prevalence is still unknown is the San Francisco Bay Area. In this honors thesis, I begin to characterize Bd infection prevalence in the Bay Area’s frogs by exploring how the proportion of frogs infected differs by species, sex, age, body condition, month, and habitat type. The diversity of environments across Stanford University-owned lands serve as the focal region of this study. From 2013 to 2019, frogs across this region were captured and non-invasively tested to diagnose infection. My results suggest that the overall Bd infection prevalence is 21.7% within these Bay Area frogs. Among the five species studied, vulnerable Rana draytonii had the lowest infection prevalence (9.62%). Surprisingly, the invasive species Lithobates catesbeianus, known elsewhere to readily contract Bd, also had a low infection prevalence relative to other species studied. Bd-positive frogs exhibited lower mass to body length ratio, a proxy for general health, than their Bd-negative counterparts. When grouped by life stage, tadpoles were least often infected by Bd, with a prevalence of just 1.49%. When comparing habitat type, the lowest infection prevalence was in undeveloped pools (3.64%), followed by semi-urban creeks. Dammed reservoirs demonstrated the highest infection prevalence (69.23%) followed by highly developed ponds and ditches, but were not statistically significant. These findings lay the groundwork for further study and have the potential to inform targeted conservation efforts for the Bay Area’s at-risk species.

Keywords: Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis
chytridiomycosis
anurans
Bay Area
California
frogs
habitat
environment
Rana draytonii
Earth Systems
Thesis
Behavior of metastable nanomaterials

The interplay between structure and function is a central pillar of materials science. Developing and understanding methods for manufacturing new materials is key to engineering devices with desired performance. In this thesis, we explore the control of surface properties in nonequilibrium shapes and phases of metallic nanomaterials. First, we look at a simple system of copper nanoparticles. Here we demonstrate a schema for varying the shape of particles in inert gas condensation. We report one of the first syntheses of (100) face-centered cubic nanocubes made through this vapor phase method and show through both experiment and molecular dynamics modeling that shape is primarily modulated by atomic deposition rate. In the second part of the thesis we move away from the simple copper case and look at mixing two components to engineer functionality. Silver is a cheaper, more earth-abundant alternate to platinum for catalyzing the alkaline oxygen reduction reaction; however, its performance is still lagging. We show that by mixing silver and copper together, we can obtain a thin film catalyst whose activity is greater than the sum of its parts for Cu-rich compositions. In this work, we leverage x-ray diffraction and x-ray absorption spectroscopy to study the phase behavior of this Cu-Ag bimetallic system. We show that these catalysts are two-phase materials with increased metastable solid solubility in the constituent phases, from which the minority, Ag-rich phase provides the enhanced activity

Keywords: Materials Science and Engineering.
Advisor: Clemens B. M. (Bruce M.) 
Bent Stacey 
Cargnello Matteo
Beyond the test score : the role of attendance and social-emotional learning in education

Non-cognitive skills, or skills not measurable using standardized assessments, are important for student success and predictive of short- and long run outcomes. This dissertation is comprised of three papers examining the role of two non-cognitive skills in education: student attendance and social-emotional learning skills. The first paper examines the negative effects of secondary school student absences on short- and long-run outcomes. The second paper reports the results of a randomized experiment incentivizing student attendance in secondary schools. The third paper examines changes in student social-emotional skills due to English Learner reclassification using a regression discontinuity analysis. Results imply that absences are risky behaviors that have dynamic effects in the short and long run; symbolic awards for attendance can send the wrong signals, backfire and demotivate the target behavior; and reclassification into mainstream learning settings is an effective way to improve academic confidence among former English Learners. Evidence from this dissertation may inform readers of the significance of non-cognitive skills in schooling, as both inputs and outputs in the educational production function

Keywords: Education.
Advisor: Bettinger Eric 
Dee Thomas S. (Thomas Sean) 
Loeb Susanna
BIKE regulates dengue virus infection via CLINT1 phosphorylation and is a host target for broad-spectrum antivirals

The signaling pathways and functions that the four Numb-associated kinases (NAK) regulate are largely unknown. We reported that AAK1 and GAK control intracellular trafficking of RNA viruses. Nevertheless, the role of BIKE and STK16 in viral infection remained unknown. We reveal a requirement for BIKE in dengue virus (DENV) entry and assembly/egress. To identify BIKE substrates, we conducted a barcode fusion genetics-Yeast 2-Hybrid screen and retrieved publicly available data generated via affinity-purification mass spectrometry. Nineteen of 47 putative interactors were validated via mammalian cell-based protein-protein interaction assays. CLINT1, a cargo-specific adaptor implicated in bidirectional Golgi-to-endosome trafficking, emerged as a predominant hit in both screens. BIKE catalyzes phosphorylation of a threonine 294 (T294) CLINT1 residue both in vitro and in cells. CLINT1 phosphorylation mediates its binding to the DENV nonstructural 3 protein and subsequently DENV assembly and egress. CLINT1 cotraffics with DENV particles via live-cell imaging and is involved in mediating BIKE's role in DENV infection. Our data indicate that additional interactors implicated in the host immune and stress responses and the ubiquitin proteasome system are candidate phosphorylation substrates of BIKE. Lastly, pharmacological compounds with potent anti-BIKE activity suppress DENV infection both in vitro and ex vivo, exhibit activity against the unrelated Ebola virus, and their mechanism of antiviral action is in part mediated by BIKE. These findings reveal cellular substrates and pathways regulated by the understudied BIKE, mechanism for CLINT1 regulation, and control of DENV infection via BIKE signaling, with potential implications for cell biology, virology, and host-targeted antiviral design

Advisor: Einav Shirit
Felsher Dean (Dean Walton)
Glenn Jeffrey S.
Jackson Peter K. (Peter Kent)
Biodiversity monitoring, earth observations and the ecology of scale

Climate change, agricultural expansion, and population growth are dramatically altering ecosystem structure, function, and community composition worldwide. Yet our ability to measure, monitor, and forecast biodiversity change—crucial for mitigating it—remains limited. Until recently, global biodiversity monitoring systems seemed far-fetched. The sheer amount of data that would be required to map the variation in genes, species, communities, and ecosystems that comprises biodiversity is enormous, to say nothing of mapping change over time. Until recently, ecology was perceived as a data-scarce discipline, with field plots and species occurrence records sparsely and opportunistically collected, and access fragmented among research groups. But several advances in the past decade—the deployment of hundreds of earth observing sensors, the consolidation and standardization of open ecological data, and increased access to open software and computing resources—have significantly reduced the ecological data gap that biodiversity monitoring systems needed to bridge. What should we make of all this new information? Right now, the data alone are insufficient for monitoring purposes. Ecological data are subject to taxonomic, geographical, or recency biases, and satellites do not record measurements in ecological units; they're often in units of energy. But a framework that links these disparate data types—discrete, spatially-explicit species data and continuous, feature-rich, and regularly-updated earth observations imagery—could be used to precisely map species locations and habitat across large extents over time. In this dissertation, I demonstrate how concepts of pattern and scale in ecology could be used to design such a framework, as these concepts apply to both ecological and to earth observations analyses. Following a literature review of the scale-dependent challenges to linking field and earth observations data, I describe two scale-explicit machine learning approaches to species mapping: classifying species identities for individual tree crowns in high resolution airborne earth observations data, and mapping the niches and distributions of two mosquito arbovirus vectors, Aedes aegypti and Ae. albopictus, using low resolution satellite data. The tree species modeling approach identified crowns with $> 90\%$ accuracy, enabling precision species mapping over large areas. The mosquito modeling approach identified novel drivers of the spatial distributions for these arbovirus vectors, revealing that resource constraints (i.e., access to blood meals) play a central role in determining distribution patterns for these globally invasive species. These applications span several orders of biological magnitude, mapping some of the largest (trees) and smallest (mosquitoes) terrestrial macro-organisms across landscape and continental extents. This work advances the conceptual and technical basis for deploying satellite-based biodiversity monitoring systems using ecological scaling principles

Keywords: Biology.
Advisor: Daily Gretchen C.
Field Christopher B.
Mordecai Erin
Bioengineering basics, biometrology, and biocivics with ganoderma lucidum

Lignocellulosic biomass could support a greatly-expanded bioeconomy. Current strategies for using biomass typically rely on unicellular organisms or filamentous fungi in liquid bioreactors and extensive ancillary equipment to produce precursors for downstream manufacturing processes. Alternative forms of bioproduction based on aerobic solid-state fermentation (SSF) and wood-degrading fungi could enable more direct and sustainable means of manufacture, novel products, market pull for the biomaterials industry, reduced time to market, and reduced production costs. However, basic methods for cultivating wood-degrading fungi and the production of mycological materials are often ad hoc and not readily reproducible. Additionally, existing genetic engineering tools for wood-degrading fungi are not standardized or readily available. Furthermore, the global need for practitioners skilled in fungal biotechnology is outgrowing the available workforce at a time when civic engagement with the biological sciences by the general public is being poorly supported. To address the aforementioned needs, I have developed standard materials, measures, methods, and educational programs enabling bioengineering basics, biometrology, and biocivics with Ganoderma lucidum. Specifically, I developed standard materials, measures, and methods enabling simple laboratory culture of wood-degrading fungi. I established Ganoderma lucidum 10597-SS1 as a reference strain, PringlesTM as a regularized widely-available reference substrate, a simple plate-based assay for standardized radial extension measurements, and a relative extension unit framework for reducing extrinsic effects on measurements of growth that supports sharing of measurement data across locations. So established, I coordinated an interlaboratory study to enable community-based metrology for wood-degrading fungi in simple laboratory conditions and published a peer-reviewed paper describing our work. I co-authored a peer-reviewed White Paper to identify opportunities for reuse of materials, measures, and methods supporting reproducible science and reliable production with fungal biotechnology. Finally, I co-developed a culturally relevant education program, BioJam, to engage youth from underserved communities and nurture equity in biotechnology literacy and governance; and I also co-founded a public benefit organization, Xinampa, whose mission is to cultivate an equitable bioeconomy on the Central Coast of California and form nucleation points for practitioners from the community to develop public-interest biotechnologies that support their community. Taken together, my contributions should begin to advance distributed mycological production in support of all earthlings and the planet

Keywords: Bioengineering.
Advisor: Endy Andrew D. 
Brown Bryan Anthony 
Peay Kabir
Salit Marc L.
Biomaterial-based approaches for vascularization in bone tissue engineering and regenerative medicine

The fields of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine hold great promise to advance the treatment of large-scale bone defects caused by trauma and disease. However, the development of engineered tissues is held back by the challenge of reestablishing functional vascular networks throughout large defect volumes. This dissertation explores two strategies to encourage the reconstruction of large bone defects through the design and synthesis of new biomaterials for use as scaffolds to support and guide new tissue growth. The first approach explored is to incorporate a major blood vessel surrogate within large tissue engineered constructs to surgically establish a supply of blood through the regenerating tissue. Current synthetic vascular grafts used in clinic display undesirable mechanical properties and scarce tissue remodeling. A new family of elastic polyurethanes was developed to better match the complex properties required for vascular compatibility. Gradual degradation of the material in vivo enables scaffolds to be replaced by native tissues. Porous, tough, and compliant vessel grafts were fabricated using a heat cure/porogen extraction molding technique. When implanted in rats, these grafts supported robust vascular tissue redevelopment and sustained blood flow for up to four months. The second approach explores a modification to the induced membrane technique for bone reconstruction. The induced membrane is a vascularized fibrous layer of tissue that forms around poly(methyl methacrylate) bone cement spacers as part of a foreign body reaction. This membrane provides a privileged environment for bone healing in subsequent reconstructive steps, but the mechanism by which the induced membrane promotes regeneration is poorly understood. Two preclinical models are presented here to evaluate the potential of synthetic engineered membranes as alternatives to the traditional biomembrane and to investigate the biological mechanism by which the spacer material induces membrane properties. By providing models to elucidate biomaterial effects on bone healing, we believe that improved bone tissue engineering therapies may be developed

Keywords: Chemistry.
Advisor: Yang Yunzhi Peter 
Cegelski Lynette 
Heilshorn Sarah