71446 research outputs found
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QuTiE: Universal, Declarative, and Differentiable Physics Simulation
No full textAs physical experiments and theories increasingly venture into regimes that are difficult to construct regularly, but nevertheless essential for scientific progress, a need is identified for a physics-focused domain-specific language (DSL) which can fully specify general physical systems, and translate the specification into efficient machine code to simulate the results of otherwise cost-prohibitive experimental setups. A novel, declarative language “QuTiE” for describing physical systems is presented. It is shown to be universal, by being able to simulate all quantum physics on an n-dimensional stratified manifolds, including quantum field theory and General Relativity. A reference implementation is also provided, which is able to simulate all quantum mechanical systems that previous simulators can, with the addition of automatically resizing spaces so that boundaries do not need to be known a priori and transparent, automatic multithreading which needs no intervention from the physicist.Computer Scienc
Cross-Market Signals: Economic Spillovers Across Markets
No full textThis thesis explores the growing interconnectedness of global markets, with a focus on the explanatory power U.S. and China macroeconomic factors have on each other's stock market returns. Using the JKP Global Factors Dataset with 13 themes and 153 factors, we model this relationship using linear regressions, sparse additive models, and kernel regressions. The analyses were conducted using the Wilshire 5000 and Shanghai Composite returns.
Across all models, U.S. economic data consistently improved the predictions of Chinese market returns, but Chinese economic data rarely added improved the predictions of U.S. market returns. Linear regressions revealed decent R^2 values using domestic data, with 0.70 R^2 0.80 for the U.S. market and 0.55 R^2 0.60 for the Chinese market. Sparse additive models and kernel regressions achieved higher R^2 values in the data. They were more likely to overfit to the data, with the partial dependence plots sometimes not following economic intuition. Future directions include accounting for interaction effects, attempting rolling-window methods, and exploring sector-level analyses to obtain more granular insights into market spillovers.Computer Scienc
Transforming Housing for Individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities In New York State: A Study on AI Technology and Cost-Benefit Analysis
No full textThe lack of accessible, affordable housing for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) remains a significant challenge, exacerbating existing social, economic, and healthcare disparities. This thesis explored the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and modular construction as a potential solution to improving housing accessibility, affordability, and quality of life for adults with IDD in New York State. I used a mixed-methods approach to analyze traditional affordable housing models alongside innovative AI-integrated solutions, evaluating their financial feasibility and long-term impact on residents and caregivers.
A comparative cost-benefit analysis (CBA) revealed that while traditional affordable housing projects require significant upfront investment, they fail to address ongoing care inefficiencies and accessibility barriers. By contrast, AI-enhanced housing, incorporating smart monitoring, automated care systems, and adaptive living environments, demonstrated significant cost savings and quality-of-life improvements. The AI-integrated model I developed reduced caregiver turnover, minimized medical errors, and lowered legal liabilities associated with neglect and injury, leading to an estimated per-resident annual savings of 28,730 for level 2, and 12,885,519, far exceeding the $963,019 NPV of the traditional model. These findings highlight the urgent need for policy reform to support AI-driven innovation in affordable housing.
Ultimately, this research underscores the critical role of technology in bridging the accessibility gap between current housing options and new affordable housing for disabled individuals, ensuring that adults with IDD can live with dignity, independence, and the support they need to thrive. Integrating AI and modular construction can build a more inclusive and financially viable future for housing for individuals with disabilities.Extension Studie
Plasma treatment to remove titanium surface contaminants and improve implant biocompatibility: an in vitro study
No full textPlasma technology is an emerging treatment with potential for implant surface decontamination and surface modification. Our in vitro study evaluates the effects of plasma treatment on fibroblast and osteoblast adhesion, proliferation, and differentiation on titanium surfaces. Plasma treatment was applied to machined and rough-surface titanium discs, and surface characterization was conducted using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and hydrophilicity tests. Cell adhesion and proliferation were assessed through SEM imaging, viable cell assays, and immunohistologic staining. Statistical comparisons between control (no plasma) and test (plasma) groups were performed using an independent two-sample t-test (α = 0.05). While SEM imaging showed no significant changes, XPS analysis revealed a substantial reduction (p .001) in carbon content, indicating decreased hydrocarbon buildup. Plasma treatment significantly increased surface hydrophilicity in both machined (p 0.0001) and rough (p 0.0001) surfaces, suggesting potential benefits for implant osseointegration. SEM and IHC imaging of fibroblast and osteoblasts showed a higher prevalence of cells in the test group. Cell viability assays indicated significantly greater live cell attachment in plasma-treated groups for both osteoblasts and fibroblasts at early time points, though the differences were not observed after 12 hours. In conclusion, plasma treatment of titanium surfaces, 1) reduce hydrocarbon buildup, 2) enhances surface hydrophilicity, and 3) improve early-stage fibroblast and osteoblast attachment to titanium surfaces. Further research is needed to explore whether these findings are clinically significant through clinical trials, and whether the technology can be used in the treatment of peri-implant disease.Periodontolog
Zealots of Justice: Coercive Officials in Late Medieval Italy
No full textThis dissertation considers how, between about 1200 and 1350, cities in the upper half of the Italian peninsula experimented with a new kind of official whose primary task was coercion. There is a rich scholarship on institutions of public justice in the self-governing “communes” of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Italy, but little of it has engaged with the coercive apparatus that served the courts and their users. It was easily the most sophisticated in Europe since the fall of the western Roman Empire. Italy’s coercive officials originated as messengers—comparable to process servers in the modern American legal system—in the years around 1200. But as communal courts sponsored new procedures that enabled creditors to swiftly recover debts, court messengers were tasked with coercive services for which creditors could pay—namely, the seizure of debtors’ property or, if necessary, the arrest and incarceration of debtors themselves.
The earliest coercive officials, although known by different terms from city to city, closely resembled one another by the end of the thirteenth century. I call this prototypical coercive official a “sergeant.” Sergeants had their analogues elsewhere in the medieval Mediterranean, even in northern Europe, but the surpassingly rich archives of a few Italian cities make it possible to study sergeants at a near-ethnographic level of detail. I use one such city in western Tuscany, Lucca, as my central case study. Drawing upon the tools of institutional history, prosopography, anthropology, and social network analysis, I seek to explain why coercive officialdom took an especially brutal turn in Lucca, and possibly other cities like it, in the decades after 1300.
Chapter 1 examines the legislative compendia, or “statutes,” that defined coercive officialdom in sixty-five Italian cities between about 1175 and 1360. These reveal how the office became increasingly brutal as it responded to the demands of creditors and communal administrations. Chapter 2 turns to the case of Lucca, concentrating on the 1330s and early 1340s. Here, we can see how the dictates of the office could be tempered by the social environment in which sergeants—called “heralds” (nuntii) in Lucca, as in other Tuscan cities—were embedded. However, the Lucchese evidence also reveals how the technology of coercive officialdom could directly serve the state. In Lucca, the exaction of taxes, fines, and other debts owed to the commune itself was not left to sergeants, but to officials called “retainers” (familiares). I use digital techniques to study the social networks that formed among sergeants, retainers, and the sureties they presented for office, showing that these two communities of coercive officialdom experienced the city around them in fundamentally divergent ways. Retainers, unlike sergeants, were largely excluded from Lucchese society and free to be shaped into “zealots of justice,” to use the memorable expression that one retainer applied to himself and his colleagues. In practice, “zeal” often meant brutality.
Chapter 3 delves into the world of retainers and their culture of brutality, which I argue was fostered by the institutions they served. Indeed, even as the Lucchese commune made a show of condemning the worst of this brutality, a regime of impunity prevailed. Chapter 4 shifts perspective and considers the resistance that brutality engendered, especially in Lucca’s countryside. Examining a decade of resistance, from 1334 to 1344, I show that the Lucchese commune authorized techniques of coercion that evoked the predatory tactics of marauding armies. Brutality of this kind often met with collective, organized resistance. While this dissertation charts the intensification of state-sponsored violence in the cities of late medieval Italy, it also shows that the trend toward brutality was far from inevitable or sustainable.Histor
Regenerative Farming From the Margins in Andhra Pradesh, India: An Analysis of Policy and the Intersectionality of Caste and Gender
No full textRegenerative agriculture is emerging around the world as an alternative to environmentally degrading conventional farming practices, while producing enough food to feed the ever-growing world population (Lemke et al., 2024; McLennon et al., 2021). However, farmers marginalized by race, caste, or gender face barriers in shifting to regenerative agriculture due to factors such as limited access to information and credit (Day & Cramer, 2022; Karthick & Madheswaran, 2018).
Caste and gender oppression are openly practiced across India, including in the agriculture sector in the state of Andhra Pradesh (Teltumbde, 2010). In Andhra Pradesh, the average landholding of farmers from the Scheduled Caste (SC), Backward Caste (BC), and female farmers is less than two ha, while the average landholding of the Other Caste (OC) male farmers is more than 10 ha (Department of Agriculture, 2021). Since issuing the Swaminathan Report in 2006 that made several agriculture-related policy recommendations, the Government of India and the state government of Andhra Pradesh have enacted public policies to support farmers and promote regenerative agriculture (PRS Legislative Research, n.d.; Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare [MAFW], 2024). Assessing gaps that still exist would help in designing policies that support the well-being of all farmers as they transition to regenerative farming (Chopra, 2019).
My research aimed to examine how policies that promote regenerative farming in Andhra Pradesh are accessible to marginalized farmers, and how they improve their socioeconomic conditions. To address this, my research tested the following hypotheses: 1) between 2006-2024, a higher percentage of male OC farmers shifted to regenerative farming compared to other farmers; 2) between 2006-2024, a higher percentage of male OC farmers accessed public policies compared to other farmers; and 3) public policies that exclusively support marginalized farmers improved their socioeconomic conditions.
To test these hypotheses, I developed a survey instrument to collect data on the socioeconomic conditions of the farmers in Miduturu and Pagidyala villages in Nandyal District. Statistical analysis was conducted by creating various cross-tabulations of caste-gender categories of farmers in the two villages, comparing them against their socioeconomic conditions, as well as their accessibility to and use of public policies.
The survey revealed that compared to other categories, OC male farmers shifted to regenerative agriculture at a lower percentage or with an insignificant percent difference. A similar result was found for the accessibility of policies, with OC male farmers accessing policies at a rate not significantly different from other categories. The study found that Jagananna Jeeva Kranthi (JJK) scheme is the only scheme exclusively available to SC and BC female farmers, but it was not adequately accessed, mainly due to a lack of awareness about the scheme, with caste and gender biases reported by few farmers. However, shifting to regenerative farming led to improvement in the socioeconomic conditions of the farmers.
Farmers identified support for inputs and labor required for regenerative agricultural practices, as well as marketing support, as key policy changes needed to facilitate their shift to or continuation of regenerative agricultural practice. Policymakers need to create opportunities to educate the farmers on the availability and applicability of policies, as this would motivate them to shift to regenerative agriculture.Extension Studie
Coastal Tools: Walking the Soundscape of Pleasure Bay
No full textAs waters rise and sediments shift, individuals and communities must connect with their coasts as stewards of cherished yet changing landscapes. In a moment when tools for monitoring and measuring frequently distance designers from the environments in which we live and work, “Coastal Tools” deploys existing and imagined tools to foster landscape engagement. This thesis focuses on sound as a means of engaging with the elemental through close listening and meaningful interactions with soundscapes of the harbor in South Boston. How do the tools landscape architects carry, physical and cognitive, affect our perception of sound in the landscape? The design, deployment, and performance of environmental instruments animate fieldwork and introduce aids in navigating constantly moving human-environment relations. Soundwalks serve as both a descriptive and prescriptive process, where design proposals draw on sensorial phenomena to craft new tools and landscape interventions to engage the shifting sounds of the shore.Department of Landscape Architectur
Frame to Foreground: Translating Documentary Landscapes in Braddock, PA
No full textThe project posits that critical photography should be adopted as a design methodology – starting from the representation of a diagnostic relationship between a subject and their setting to grasp at the ineffable affect that artists capture beautifully, and often revealing social issues, left in tension within the frame through photographic techniques. This thesis project argues the translation of critical photography into spatial elements is crucial for our understanding of place. Furthermore, this new methodology reveals the concept of defining landscape as a set of relationships between living beings.
The project is about preserving what every local in Braddock, Pennsylvania holds—a strong relationship to place. Using Frazier’s framing techniques, this thesis injects photography directly into the method of design. The project imagines a system of public landscapes that are centered in belonging, gathering, and reclaiming space. A riverfront park, a gathering pavilion, a public plaza, and a garden work as one to knit together a post-industrial steel mill town that has been disinvested for forty years.
This thesis is advised by Sara Zewde.Department of Landscape Architectur
Toward Transformation: A Regenerative Recovery Approach to Post-Disaster Planning
No full textBy weaving together regenerative development and post-disaster recovery frameworks, this thesis develops an original theory of regenerative recovery. This framework guides forward-thinking planners and built environment practitioners to thread the needle between net-positive climate development, resiliency, and cultural transformation.
The key findings anchor the theoretical framework in a real-world scenario. In so doing, the piece addresses challenges of scale, timing, and critical decision-making practices that must be considered when facing acute pressures in a post-disaster context. Ultimately, the work demonstrates that if planners hone these tools for anticipating crisis, regenerative cultural transformations can become an active part of a global strategy to combat ongoing climate disaster.Department of Urban Planning and Desig
A Bouquet of Petals
No full textThis thesis includes opening chapters from an adult literary novel set three years in the future and tentatively titled A Bouquet of Petals. Told in retrospect, the fictional work follows fifteen-year-old Josie Benner as she navigates coming-of-age at a time when the U.S. birthrate has plummeted by thirty-three percent. In the shadow of her mother—a renowned sociologist—Josie begrudgingly relocates from Maine to Cambridge where she becomes privy to university students analyzing the links between fertility and forever chemicals in the soil, microplastics in the water, global warming and
our nation’s food supply. Everyone talks of consequence. No one speaks of choice.
But as violence against women increases, so does Josie’s awareness. A trusted new friend helps Josie realize what’s at stake for women—and children—when healthcare is metered out by politics before medicine. And Josie can’t help notice
something more. Resistance? And a secret language? One without words, but manifested in quiet brushes on the subway, petals of paper tucked under a tip at a café. So much like the small note she’d found in her home by the shore.
As Josie comes to understand the discreet, hushed correspondence of women and the true revolution it’s inspired, she can’t help think her father’s disappearance might have something to do with the rebellion of women banding together in the silent solidarity of protest and empty wombs—a new kind of choice—in a quest to protect their human (and reproductive) rights.Extension Studie