VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Optical absorption control in two-dimensional materials with nanophotonic structures [electronic resource]

We investigate the control of optical absorption in two-dimensional materials such as graphene and monolayer molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) by the use of nanophotonic structures. Why do we care? For two reasons: speed and energy efficiency. Modern societies run on computers, and these computers use a huge amount of energy. The less electricity or light that needs to move to carry information from one place to another, the faster and more energy-efficient the transfer of that information can be. Electronic circuits can only operate at the highest speeds when they're very small (much smaller than optical wavelengths), and because the chip designers have already hit the wall on Moore's Law they can't get any smaller with silicon. So next-generation electronics designers are looking for new materials -- and in particular, there has been huge interest in atomically-thin materials such as graphene and MoS2. The excellent electronic, mechanical, and thermal properties of graphene (a layer of carbon one atom thick) make it a particularly attractive material for high speed opto-electronics. However, it's single-pass optical absorption is low. To use graphene for a high-efficiency photodetector or modulator, we need to increase the absorption to 100%. This thesis presents two schemes for achieving total absorption in graphene. On the other hand, when we consider solar photovoltaic energy generation speed isn't a factor, but energy efficiency most certainly is: we want to absorb as much of the light as we can, preferably using as small of a device as we can. (In retrospect, it's obvious why 70's-80's solar never took off: the panels were simply too big and ugly!) For this task, we turn to MoS2, which has a direct bandgap (important for making a solar cell), and has its band edge at the red end of the spectrum, allowing it to absorb throughout the visible. This thesis discusses the nanophotonic design rules to make an optimized broadband absorption in atomically thin layers such as MoS2.

Keywords: Electrical Engineering.
Advisor: Fan Shanhui
Fejer Martin M. (Martin Michael) advisor. Thesis advisor
Miller D. A. B. advisor. Thesis advisor
Optical coherence tomography endoscope design and complementary image reconstruction techniques for bladder cancer management [electronic resource]

Bladder cancer is the most costly cancer to treat as the high rate of recurrence necessitates lifelong surveillance. White light cystoscopy (WLC) — the standard tool used for diagnosis and surveillance — has three limitations, which reduce the effectiveness and efficiency of managing patients with recurrent bladder cancer. First, WLC cannot accurately detect all tumors, causing some to go untreated. Second, WLC cannot gauge the penetration depth of tumors, an important factor for determining the course of treatment. This means that any detected lesions must be biopsied in a more costly and risky follow-up procedure. Third, it is difficult to review cystoscopy images, making it easy to overlook signs of cancer due to workflow challenges or insufficient annotations. To overcome these limitations, I developed novel techniques to improve cystoscopy examinations. Specifically, I developed a miniaturized, rapid-scanning optical coherence tomography (OCT) endoscope that can augment WLC during clinical examinations. OCT is a promising complementary imaging technique whose ability to visualize the subsur- face appearance of the bladder wall reveals early stage tumors better than WLC alone and makes it possible to stage cancers. Additionally, to improve the review of the cystoscopy data, I developed techniques that can enable a more comprehensive review among and be- tween WLC and OCT imaging data. These techniques include (1) a volumetric mosaicing algorithm to extend the field of view of OCT, (2) 3D reconstruction technique to generate models with the shape and appearance of the bladder, and (3) a registration approach that registers OCT data to the 3D bladder model. Taken together, the new OCT endoscope and image reconstruction algorithms I describe can have a substantial impact on the future of cystoscopy.

Keywords: Electrical Engineering.
Advisor: Bowden Audrey
Liao Joseph
Solgaard Olav advisor. Thesis advisor
Optimization and analytics for air traffic management [electronic resource]

The air traffic management system is important to the United States' economy and way of life. Furthermore, it is complex and largely controlled by human decision makers. We studied and learned from these expert decision makers to facilitate the transition to an increasingly autonomous air traffic management system that leverages the strengths of both computer systems and humans to provide greater value to stakeholders. In particular, we constructed decision models and corresponding solution algorithms that enable decision-support tool development. Our approach to building the decision models and algorithms leveraged expert input and feedback, operational decision data analytics, fast-time simulations, and human-in-the-loop simulations. We utilized and extended techniques from optimization, dynamic programming, and machine learning both for developing solution algorithms and for making inferences about decisions based on operational data. In this dissertation we discuss our research on three types of decisions in the air traffic management system. The first is faced by supervisors of air traffic controllers: how to configure available airspace, controllers, and other resources to ensure safe and efficient operations in a region of airspace over a period of time. The second type of decision is faced by airlines: how to assign a set of flights to a set of slots in an Airspace Flow Program. The third type of decision is faced by air traffic flow managers: when to implement a Ground Delay Program.

Keywords: Management Science and Engineering.
Advisor: Bambos Nicholas primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Alonso Juan José
Ye Yinyu advisor. Thesis advisor
Optogenetic control of neurons beyond the brain [electronic resource]

Optogenetic tools have immense value in targeting genetically specified excitable cells with high temporal precision throughout the body, and have been used extensively to investigate circuits of the brain. Optogenetics has great potential to analyze the neural circuitry of the peripheral nervous system (PNS) and spinal cord in freely moving animals, but has been limited by the technical difficulties of delivering opsins and light to these heterogeneous systems. In this thesis, I present novel optogenetic tools for use throughout the nervous system in freely moving animals. Included are viral strategies to target opsins to cutaneous C-fiber nociceptors and peripheral motor neurons as well as methods to deliver light via optical fiber to peripheral nerves, and wirelessly to cutaneous nerve terminals, spinal cord, and motor cortex of the brain. Using these optogenetic tools, we investigated pain and motor control in awake and freely moving mice and rats and provided proof-of-concept for potential therapies for neuropathic pain and paralysis. This technology opens the door for therapeutic development and more advanced investigations of the nervous system.

Keywords: Bioengineering.
Advisor: Delp Scott primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Deisseroth Karl advisor. Thesis advisor
Poon Ada Shuk Yan
Organic transistors based on Van der Waals heterostructures [electronic resource]

Organic semiconductor devices have been actively investigated due to their potential use in low-cost, large-area, transparent, and flexible electronics. The highly efficient charge transport in polycrystalline organic films is crucial for achieving high performance devices and extending the scope of their applications. The charge transport in polycrystalline organic films is mainly limited by scattering at grain boundaries and trap sites at semiconductor-metal and semiconductor-dielectric interfaces. We demonstrate the use of van der Waals heterostructure of an organic semiconductor and 2D materials to minimize interface traps for efficient charge transport in this dissertation. In addition to high efficient charge transport, both n- and p-channel transistors are required to implement complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) circuits that are considered as desirable due to their scalability, high noise immunity, and low static power dissipation. In this dissertation, we show that both n- and p-channel transistors can be obtained with a single organic semiconductor by using doping method.

Keywords: Electrical Engineering.
Advisor: Nishi Yoshio
Bao Zhenan advisor. Thesis advisor
Saraswat Krishna advisor. Thesis advisor
Oscillatory data analysis and fast algorithms for integral operators [electronic resource]

This dissertation consists of two independent parts: oscillatory data analysis (Part I) and fast algorithms for integral operators in computational harmonic analysis (Part II). The first part concentrates on developing theory and efficient tools in applied and computational harmonic analysis for oscillatory data analysis. In modern data science, oscillatory data analysis aims at identifying and extracting principle wave-like components, which might be nonlinear and non-stationary, underlying a complex physical phenomenon. Estimating instantaneous properties of one-dimensional components or local properties of multi-dimensional components has been an important topic in various science and engineering problems in resent three decades. This thesis introduces several novel synchrosqueezed transforms (SSTs) with rigorous mathematical, statistical analysis, and efficient implementation to tackle challenging problems in oscillatory data analysis. Several real applications show that these transforms provide an elegant tool for oscillatory data analysis. In many applications, the SST-based algorithms are significantly faster than the existing state-of-art algorithms and obtain better results. The second part of this thesis proposes several fast algorithms for the numerical implementation of several integral operators in harmonic analysis including Fourier integral operators (including pseudo differential operators, the generalized Radon transform, the nonuniform Fourier transform, etc.) and special function transforms (including the Fourier-Bessel transform, the spherical harmonic transform, etc.). These are useful mathematical tools in a wide range of science and engineering problems, e.g., imaging science, weather and climate modeling, electromagnetics, quantum chemistry, and phenomena modeled by wave equations. Via hierarchical domain decomposition, randomized low-rank approximations, interpolative low-rank approximations, the fast Fourier transform, and the butterfly algorithm, I propose several novel fast algorithms for applying or recovering these operators.

Keywords: Mathematics.
Advisor: Ying Lexing primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Candès Emmanuel J. (Emmanuel Jean) advisor. Thesis advisor
Ryzhik Leonid advisor. Thesis advisor
Overgeneral autobiographical memory in major depressive disorder is associated with abnormal neural activity during retrieval [electronic resource]

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a psychiatric mood disorder that is associated with abnormal cognitive processes, including overgeneral memory (OGM) for autobiographical events. When asked to produce memories from their own lives, depressed individuals produce fewer specific memories than do their nondepressed peers. The neural basis of OGM in MDD, however, is not yet clear. Specifically, we do not know if depressed individuals exhibit normal memory-related neural activation during encoding; we also do not know if individuals with MDD show neural signatures that have been found to be related to retrieval of content, i.e. cortical reinstatement. To address these questions, depressed and nondepressed adults completed a standard measure of autobiographical memory specificity and, inside a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner, a paired-associates learning task. At the behavioral level, depressed individuals showed evidence of decreased specificity of autobiographical memory relative to healthy controls, but did not exhibit impairment in associative learning. At the neural level, depressed and nondepressed participants did not differ during encoding. During retrieval, a predicted difference between depressed and nondepressed participants in neural activity in the hippocampus was also not obtained. Importantly, however, compared to their nondepressed peers, depressed individuals showed less activity in the right prefrontal cortex during the successful retrieval of images. In addition, and also counter to hypotheses, there was robust evidence of cortical reinstatement of image category information in both depressed and nondepressed individuals. Together, these findings suggest that OGM in MDD is not related to an inability to reactivate visual information or to an inability to form or encode associative memories. Instead, it seems that if OGM in MDD is related to some systematic aberrant neural function, this abnormality is a subtle difference between depressed and nondepressed individuals in retrieval processes that is mediated by the prefrontal cortex.

Keywords: Psychology.
Advisor: Gotlib Ian H.
Knutson Brian advisor. Thesis advisor
Wagner Anthony David advisor. Thesis advisor
The "Paris school" of Russian poetry [electronic resource]

The dissertation is dedicated to the literary phenomenon of the "Paris School of Russian Poetry." The author borrows this concept from a seminal article of André Warnod to describe the artistic activities of a group of young poets from different parts of the Russian Empire who emigrated to Paris and wrote in Russian. They exerted their biggest impact on the Russian culture and Russian literary life abroad in a very short period of time, between 1919 and the end of 1925. These young poets were close to the French avant-garde writers and artists, the representatives of Dada movement and Surrealism. They worked together with innovative painters from Montparnasse, wrote non-traditional poetry and published unconventional books. The author presents characteristic features of these poets, both as a group and individually, and creates a collective portrait of the "Paris School of Russian Poetry.".

Keywords: Slavic Languages and Literatures.
Advisor: Fleĭshman Lazarʹ primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Freidin Gregory advisor. Thesis advisor
Safran Gabriella
Skakov Nariman
Parodies of Paideia [electronic resource] : prose fiction and high learning in the Roman empire

This dissertation analyzes three works of ancient prose fiction, the Life of Aesop, the Story of Apollonius of Tyre, and the Alexander Romance, in order to determine whether prose fiction was a "popular" literary genre in antiquity and to illuminate how prose fiction engaged the "elite" authors of the classical canon. Investigating literacy rates, the economics of book production, and access to education in the Roman Empire, I argue against the existence of any popular literary texts in Imperial period and introduce a new paradigm of authorized and unauthorized cultures that derive their status from institutionalized cultural capital. Furthermore, I demonstrate that the "unauthorized" fictions of Aesop, Apollonius, and Alexander had a close and confrontational relationship with the "authorized" literature of the canon, especially the Greek and Latin authors at the center of the school curriculum. While classical scholarship often addresses how the most elite writers of the Greco-Roman world interpreted the classical tradition, this research reveals how similar negotiations with the canon took place in aspiring intellectual communities.

Keywords: Classics.
Advisor: Krebs Christopher B. primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Stephens Susan A. primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Gleason Maud W.
Parker Grant Richard
Part one: investigations of voltage-gated sodium channels in the central and peripheral nervous systems; Part two: carbocyclization of unsaturated thioesters under palladium catalysis [electronic resource]

Voltage-gated sodium channels (NaVs) are membrane-bound proteins responsible for the initiation of action potentials in electrically excitable cells. Naturally occurring guanidinium toxins, including (+)-saxitoxin (STX), target the outer pore of NaVs with remarkable selectivity and potency. Inspired by a growing interest to understand the role of NaVs in healthy and aberrant biological functioning in neurons, we have synthesized fluorescent analogues of STX and applied them to the visualization of NaVs in primary cell cultures and tissue. Of these fluorophores, STX-coumarin (STX-Cou) has distinguished itself for its potency and utility in live neurons; studies with STX-Cou in primary neuronal cultures represent the first reported imaging of NaVs in such cells. Our work to synthesize and evaluateSTX-Cou binding as well as to assess the utility of this fluorophore for selective NaV imaging in neurons through fluorescence microscopy is described herein. We have initiated efforts to study NaVs in the peripheral nervous system. Our work, conducted in collaboration with Prof. Ben Barres' lab (Dept. of Neurobiology), has revealed a form of NaV regulation in dorsal root ganglion neurons mediated by the surrounding glial cell network. The characterization of this interaction as well as key mechanistic insights are presented. Finally, inspired by the complex polycyclic architectures of STX and other guanidinium toxins, we have developed and introduced new synthetic strategies for the construction of carbo- and heterocycles from the appropriate linear precursors. In particular, we describe the palladium-catalyzed, copper- and zinc-mediated cyclization of thioesters with pendant olefins and alkynes to form the corresponding ketone products. This work offers new synthetic methods for the preparation of cycloalkanone compounds and also provides additional impetus for the continued discovery of methods for late-stage cyclization of acyclic molecules.

Keywords: Chemistry.
Advisor: Du Bois Justin primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Chen James
Kanan Matthew William
Parts in building construction projects [electronic resource] : definition and case study

The Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry's productivity rate is lower than the manufacturing industry. One primary cause is the limitation in understanding of detailed input products. This thesis intends to help construction project teams apply successful manufacturing experience and manage construction projects from a basic input product point of view. It points out the importance of building parts and defines a part as "any entity that requires an act of installation to become a component in the final building product". This definition emphasizes the LEAN concept of value and focuses on on-site installations, which are direct value-adding activities. The author categorized parts into discrete and non-discrete parts to quantify parts and conducted a case study to estimate the number of parts in a seven-floor hotel. The result showed a range of 3.2 to 4.6 million parts with more than 90% of the parts not identified in Building Information Models (BIMs). This discrepancy makes it difficult for construction crews to plan and be efficient every day since they need the detailed information about the input products to ensure availability of all materials needed. This thesis points out that identifying and quantifying parts will help the AEC industry understand its projects and their parts. This knowledge of parts is also necessary in evaluating prefabrication benefits, or adopting manufacturing strategies such as LEAN for the production of detailed parts to improve productivity. In the next step, the author plans to study different part attributes, such as temporary work needed and part-related productivity data, to support construction teams using the parts concept in project management.

Keywords: Civil and Environmental Engineering.
Advisor: Fischer Martin
Patterns and symmetries for discourse particles [electronic resource]

Discourse particles provide important signals in conversation, by helping speakers and hearers coordinate on the course of an interaction. Therefore, a precise understanding of discourse particles will provide new insights into the pragmatics of conversation. In this thesis, I will present a framework based on questions under discussion that allows us to capture the key information-theoretic structures in conversation that seem to affect the use of discourse particles: the presence or absence of presuppositions, the issues guiding a conversation, and how interlocutors move between these issues. I present two case studies of German discourse particles that highlight central aspects of the QUD framework: überhaupt and doch. These raise a challenge found in particle systems in many languages: lexicalized focus. Many languages possess particles that can occur with or without focus, and the meanings associated with the unfocused and focused variants are often very different. Since intonation can have discourse-managing functions similar to that of discourse particles, the effect of having or lacking focus marking directly on a particle is different from the effect of focus on regular content words. I will identify patterns that allow us to systematically distinguish the meanings of focused and unfocused particles in a focused/unfocused pair. This serves as a stepping stone towards understanding the interplay of grammar, intonation, and interaction.

Keywords: Linguistics.
Advisor: Potts Christopher
Condoravdi Cleo A.
Lassiter Daniel advisor. Thesis advisor
Performing shapes [electronic resource] : composing the gap between performer and image

My dissertation is located within the field of performance phenomenology, with an emphasis on the practice of the performer. Examining the works of three contemporary artists in dance and theatre -- Claudia Contin Arlecchino, Virgilio Sieni, and Ann Carlson -- who make performance in conversation with visual arts, I focus on the phenomenon of the performer's gesture, or aesthetic movement, considering it as a bridge between performing arts and visual arts. By working on images, these artists establish a relationship between form and the act of perFORMing. The passage that I propose from the word performance to the word performing emphasizes the process of making as thinking -- that is, the role of the performer as the designer of her action and the perceiver of its processual phenomenon. Using images from distinct traditions to elaborate innovative techniques in acting and dancing, each of these artists presents a different approach to the image -- literal, structural, and reenacted -- and provides new methodologies for directing and choreography. Their practice, which I define as figural performing, constitutes an important subject of investigation for performance theory and phenomenology, for it locates the performer at the true center of thinking and making performance. Based on a formal use of the image, figural performing offers an alternative to methods of performing in dance and theatre based on the dramatic text or the body. My study's exploration of the figural builds on a minor lineage in need of further examination -- from commedia dell'arte and biomechanics, to Isadora Duncan and Oskar Schlemmer, to Happenings and action painting. By emphasizing gesture as a connection between performance and visual arts, my study also fosters an interdisciplinary analysis and historicization of performance.

Keywords: Theater and Performance Studies.
Advisor: Jakovljević Branislav primary advisor. Thesis advisor
Brody Jennifer DeVere advisor. Thesis advisor
Paris Helen
Ross Janice advisor. Thesis advisor