1983 research outputs found
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Kneading the Dough Together: The Application of Strategic Empathy Among American National Security Professionals
No full textThe term “strategic empathy” in national security affairs sounds appealing. Ask practitioners what it means, though, and they will all provide a different answer. Is it Sun Tzu’s “know your enemy?” Is it a tool for Machiavellian manipulation? Is it morally superior to empathize with the adversary? Is it ethically bereft to use that knowledge intentionally to gain advantage? These are questions that national security practitioners wrestle with when attempting to pin down a buzzword in a beltway. Yet, humanity’s history of conflict suggests that there may be a place for strategic empathy to create improved outcomes for national security practitioners when it is employed vis-à-vis a foreign counterpart. This research investigates how national security practitioners can effectively employ strategic empathy to create improved national security outcomes.
Six national security practitioners interviewed for this research shared their lived experiences engaging empathically with foreign counterparts through phenomenological interviews. The qualitative, interdisciplinary data they provided resulted in a process for how to conduct strategic empathy in two phases, analysis and implementation. Woven among the process are themes and best practices related to imagination, dialogue, intersubjectivity, and value salience. The strategic empathy process resulting from this research, along with its best practices, represents a starting hypothesis for national security practitioners to test during their own professional experiences, and a new venture for additional research.Extension Studie
Shades of Sunshine: Adaptation of Contract Completeness in Florida Public Procurement
No full textPublic procurement contracts often fail, leading to cost overruns and amendments negotiated ex post. We examine how government agencies modify successive contract completeness—the degree to which all contingencies are specified in a contract—in response to contract failures. Utilizing a novel preprocessing methodology that extends previously developed measures of completeness to produce more granular insights, we measure the completeness of 7,725 construction and maintenance contracts from the Florida Department of Transportation between 2008 and 2024. The findings show a rise in contract completeness and a corresponding decline in contract failures in the long term. No adaptation of contract completeness to failures is found in the short term. Furthermore, we observe evidence of a discounting mechanism for transaction costs associated with writing complete contracts, which allows completeness levels to remain high even during months with a high volume of contract drafting.Applied Mathematic
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
Involvement of Transient Receptor Potential Ankyrin 1 (TRPA1) in Inflammatory Dental Pulp Pain
No full textTRPA1 is a cation channel involved in pain detection and inflammatory signaling in
multiple cell types within the dental pulp. However, its role in pulpitis remains unclear. This
study investigates the contribution of TRPA1 to dental pain and pain-like behaviors in a mouse
model. Wild-type (WT) and TRPA1 knockout (KO) mice underwent pulp exposure, followed
by multiple applications of either LPS or saline forming four experimental groups. Then pulp cap
material placed. Pain-like behaviors were assessed on days 1, 3, and 7 post-op using the Nesting
Test, Mouse Grimace Scale (MGS), and Von Frey Filament Test (VFF). Additionally, c-Fos
expression in the trigeminal nucleus of the brainstem was quantified to assess neural activation.
LPS administration in wild-type (WT) mice resulted in a significant increase in pain-
like behaviors compared to TRPA1 knockout (KO) mice (p 0.05), underscoring the role of
TRPA1 in inflammatory pain responses. The most pronounced differences were observed
between WT and KO groups under both LPS and saline treatment. However, differences
between LPS and saline treatments within each genotype were minimal, and the absence of
TRPA1 more substantially attenuated behavioral responses. Consistent with the behavioral data,
c-Fos expression was significantly elevated in WT mice but markedly reduced in KO-LPS mice,
indicating decreased neuronal activation in the trigeminal nucleus in the absence of TRPA1.
These findings demonstrate that TRPA1 plays a critical role in activating the
nociceptive dental pain and triggering pain like behaviors in mice. Further investigations are
needed to explore the therapeutiEndodontic
Common Threads: The Value of Threading Salons in South Asian Diaspora
No full textThis thesis explores how South Asian–owned and operated eyebrow threading salons function as critical sites of capital, culture, and community for South Asian women living in diasporic contexts. This study addresses a lack of academic attention to personal care businesses as spaces of cultural, social, and economic value. It centers around the question: How do eyebrow threading salons serve as cultural, economic, and social infrastructure among South Asian diasporic communities? Using Jackson Heights, Queens, as a case study, I employ a mixed-methods approach including interviews and community surveys, participant observation, and spatial analysis. This study suggests that these salons serve not only as low-barrier pathways to entrepreneurship and employment, but also as informal hubs of social support and cultural identity formation. This project contributes to planning and immigrant labor scholarship by centering the everyday spaces that sustain women’s lives and livelihoods through intimate, affective, and often undervalued forms of work.Department of Urban Planning and Desig
How to Grow a Bamboo House
No full textHawai’i stands at a crossroads. Natural disasters—from the 2023 wildfires on Maui to the 2018 Lower Puna lava flows and historic flooding on Kauai—have exposed the limitations of conventional construction methods in Hawaii’s volatile ecosystem. In a place where flash floods, drought, and eruptions strike without warning, reliance on conventional construction and imported materials has left thousands unhoused with no clear path toward recovery.
This thesis proposes living bamboo housing as a model for inhabiting Hawai’i’s unpredictable ecosystems. Bamboo, one of the fastest-growing and strongest biogenic materials, has been cultivated for construction for over a millennium. However, the opportunities of designing with living bamboo remain a largely unexplored but promising frontier. As bamboo grows, it bends to form new shapes, stiffening over time to retain its form and support structural loads. In a single growing season, new bamboo culms reach their full height, providing perpetual construction material that allows dwellings to expand over time. Its underground rhizome system provides a rigid yet non-invasive natural foundation, resilient to both drought and flood conditions, while benefiting local ecology through erosion control and moisture retention. By embracing these processes, living bamboo housing can evolve in response to both environmental changes and increasing housing demand.
Three proposals for living bamboo housing respond to unique disaster conditions across the islands: wildfires on Maui, flash flooding on Kauai, and volcanic eruptions on the Big Island. Together, these designs illustrate how living bamboo can grow and adapt in the face of disaster to safeguard the livelihoods and well-being of their inhabitants.Department of Architectur
Scaling and Ruling: The Measuring Passion in Ancient China
No full textThe changing understanding of truth and information in the history of ancient technology invite the search for new and justifiable ways of measure. Part I In Chapter 1 I offer an overview of the problems of past and current scholarship, laying the ground for introducing a new concept techno-onto-poiesis, foregrounding the prevailing, manifest importance of the technical ingenuity and process upon the end-product itself, in comparison to teleologically determined technopraxis largely governing today’s technological production. In Chapter 2 I argue that the approach via ontological poiesis and “movements” in action is the most successful to studying the specificities of ancient Chinese measurement (arithmetic and non-arithmetic) in transmitted and excavated literature and technical practice. Part II. In Chapter 3 I use this analysis to set up a new narrative based on the standards which any complex and more elusive ways of “measure” must meet if they were to be considered by this method. In Chapter 4 I apply this method respectively to a dual system of cosmological measurement that eventually gave rise to the formal yin-lü-shu-liang-du in Imperial period. Part III. Chapter 5 is comprised of a series of case studies of ancient techniques (woodworking, handcrafting, and handling), developing a theory of somaesthetics of technics that serve as new tools for further analysis for the survival of poiesis. Chapter 6 is a study of early Chinese texts and practice, specifically those linked to the Han period shu (“number”) or xiangshu (“pattern/image and number”) manner of interpreting the divination methods in the Book of Changes [henceforth Yishu]), and their material expression in standardized measuring vessels.Religion, Committee on the Study o
Break Glass: Structural Safeguards For Social Media
No full textAs of early 2025, the challenges of social media governance are back in the headlines. Some countries are embracing an ‘anything goes’ approach, emphasizing freedom of speech and the absence of censorship. Other countries are doubling down on protections to minimize online harm and offensive content. While each country sorts out its own path for the near future, the importance of this decision is not in any doubt. Social media channels are a hugely powerful force driving many societal outcomes, which we have witnessed repeatedly over the past decade. Social media has been instrumental in connecting family and friends, sharing art, rescuing lost loved ones, forming new high-growth businesses, informing people, globalizing culture, enabling bullying of children, deepening partisan divides, influencing electoral outcomes, causing riots, toppling governments, enabling criminals and fomenting genocide. It’s a mixed record, to say the least.
Social media is now the planet’s most prevalent method for sharing information. As of 2024, more than 5 billion users spend an average of 2 hours and 23 minutes per day on these platforms (more time than with traditional TV or any other form of media). In the next two years, social commerce—the process of selling products directly on social media platforms or within social-first commerce marketplaces—is projected to surge to $1.2 trillion, making it the 17th largest economy in the world.
Despite many social benefits, this rapidly expanding ecosystem is fertile ground for misinformation, hate speech, fraud, varied harms to youth and many other issues. The rise of AI generated content, and AI-powered human-like agents are further amplifying these risks. In response, some governments have taken measures to combat online harm, typically by requiring platforms to take protective measures. As an initial 'stop-gap' approach, these requirements have helped reduce harm, but have not been entirely successful. The regulatory approach has several shortcomings such as:
Empowering any regulator to (directly or indirectly) dictate acceptable speech raises the specter of government censorship.
Platforms use varied thresholds for harm, and define harmful content differently than regulators do, creating legal and operational disputes.
Placing the onus on platforms fails to adequately account for the responsibility of the individual - both creators and consumers - in enabling harm.
Ensuring online safety imposes significant costs on platforms which inadvertently reinforces platform monopolies as only the largest networks can afford compliance.
Can we do better? How can we allow free information while limiting harms? How should we balance conflicting rights such as freedom of speech, privacy and personal safety and security? How should we better protect youth? What expectations can we reasonably put on platforms, regulators, content producers or consumers? How can we decide any of this in a fractured global regulatory environment, where governments take significantly different views on these issues, yet information flows are globalized?
In our view, the technological changes coming demand not just incremental changes to oversight, but a bold reimagination of our online safeguards. Instead of tightening the regulatory grip on social media (or taking a hands-off approach!) we need a smarter solution—one that focuses on improving the experiences of users themselves, and lets them ultimately manage the boundaries of their online experience.Version of Recor
LLM-based Proxies for Preference Elicitation in Combinatorial Auctions
No full textElicitation in combinatorial auctions is challenging as bidder preferences may be inherently difficult to describe and consequently communicate to an auctioneer. Classical work in elicitation focuses on using query-based techniques inspired by proper learning—often via proxies that interface between bidders and an auction mechanism—to incrementally learn bidder preferences as needed to compute efficient allocations. Although such elicitation mechanisms enjoy theoretical query efficiency, the amount of communication required may still be too cognitively taxing for bidders in practical
scenarios.
Significant recent advancements in natural language processing, particularly Large Language Models (LLMs), suggest the use of natural language for eliciting preferences. In this thesis, we propose an efficient LLM-based proxy design for eliciting preferences from bidders in a combinatorial auction setting where communication is limited. Our proposed mechanism combines LLM pipelines and DNF-proper-learning techniques to quickly approximate preferences with limited communication. To validate our LLM-based approach to proxy design, we create a testing sandbox for evaluating elicitation mechanisms that make use of natural language as a means of communication.
Additionally, we address the scalability of our approach by demonstrating how we can ensure complexity that is polynomial in the number of items, in both simulating bidder responses and the inference process of the proxy. By leveraging sparse preference representations and restricting inference to smaller bundle sizes, our simulation remains faithful to the ground-truth preferences and our proxy sustains high efficiency for the auction, respectively, while ensuring polynomial complexity. Reaching approximately efficient outcomes five times faster than classical proper-learning-based elicitation mechanisms, our LLM-based approach demonstrates the potential of natural-languagebased elicitation approaches. Moreover, the LLM-based proxies provide outcomes that converge, with sufficient communication, to those arising from DNF-proper-learning techniques.Applied Mathematic