I examine how consumers' purchase' decisions and intentions of purchases are affected by uncertainty about future deals (temporary price cuts or sales) for a product and how these results affect retailers' optimal pricing and marketing strategies. First I look at the effects of uncertainty about the timing of deals (i.e....
In this thesis we study protein folding with external force. In Part I we simulate the folding or unfolding procedure based on the two-state model. For constant-velocity experiments, the simulation results fit the experimental results. For constant-force experiments, we introduce cooperativity between domains to explain the different behavior between single...
Inflammasomes are signaling complexes that link the recognition of pathogen and danger associated molecular patterns (PAMPs and DAMPs) by cytosolic pattern-recognition receptors (PPRs) to the activation of Caspase-1, leading to the release of the pro-inflammatory cytokines interleukin (IL)-1 and IL-18, and the induction of pyroptosis. In addition to the canonical...
Various methods for solving the partial contact of surfaces with regularly periodic profiles-- which might arise in analyses of asperity level contact, serrated surfaces or even curved structures--have previously been employed for elastic materials. A new approach based upon the summation of evenly spaced Flamant's solution is presented here to...
On 6 February 2007, President Bush announced that the United States would
create a new military command for Africa, to be known as Africa Command or Africom.
Throughout the Cold War and for more than a decade afterwards, the U.S. did not have a
military command for Africa; instead, U.S....
In 2008, the term "remix culture" is widely understood to refer to mash-up videos and movie parodies, distributed on websites such as YouTube and authored primarily by white male teenagers. This dissertation argues that digital remix was invented primarily by African American men, who, in the mid-1980s, began using digital...
Desmosomes are adhesive complexes found at sites of intercellular contact that are essential for mediating cell-cell adhesion. These junctions undergo regulated assembly and reorganization during processes such as embryogenesis and wound healing. Plakophilins (PKPs) are armadillo family members related to the classic cadherin-associated protein p120ctn. PKPs localize to the cytoplasmic...
Chapter 1: (Bounds on the Counterfactual Revenue Distributions in Auctions with Reserve Prices) In first-price auctions with interdependent bidder values, the distributions of private signals and values cannot be uniquely recovered from bids in Bayesian Nash equilibria. Non-identification invalidates structural analyses that rely on exact identification of the model primitives....
Coronary magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) is emerging as a promising method for noninvasive diagnosis of coronary artery diseases. Nonetheless, acquisition of large-coverage high-resolution coronary artery images requires free-breathing acquisition. Accurately measuring and correcting respiratory motion has been one of the major challenges to coronary MRA. Diaphragmatic navigator (NAV), the current...
ABSTRACT This dissertation moves work on school discipline into the digital era by filling a gap in the literature which has largely ignored how data from digital student ecosystems are mined and processed by school authority. My dissertation interrogates the role youth of youth online behavior in school discipline decision-making....