The rat whisker (vibrissal) system provides rats with an exquisitely acute tactile sense that has helped allow them to thrive all over the world. By actively rotating their whiskers back-and-forth ("whisking") against objects, rats can extract a rich variety of information including position, size, shape, orientation and texture. Today, however,...
I study the problem of choice between two treatments for a population of observationally identical individuals based on statistical evidence about average treatment effects that does not reveal the best treatment with certainty. I approach the problem from the perspective of statistical decision theory, derive treatment rules that minimize maximum...
In the last two decades the number of innovative applications for advanced materials has been rapidly increasing. Shape memory alloys (SMAs) are an exciting class of these materials which exhibit large reversible stresses and strains due to a thermoelastic phase transformation. SMAs have been employed in the biomedical field for...
Teasing is commonplace in our social interactions (Kowalski, 2007). Due to its paradoxical nature it can be employed to produce both positive and negative outcomes (Keltner et al., 1998) however, the ambiguity and subjectivity in teasing can make it susceptible to misinterpretation (Kowalski, 2000; 2007; Kruger et al., 2006). The...
This dissertation studies the management of operations that match surplus inventory of one party to meet the need of another. The first part is concerned with the efficient and robust design of transshipment networks in a commercial environment. The second part is concerned with a sequential resource allocation problem in...
Generalized extreme value (GEV) models provide a convenient way to model choice behavior that is consistent with utility maximization theory, but the development of specific new models within the GEV family has been slow, due to the difficulty of ensuring new formulations comply with all the GEV rules. The network...
The work presented here describes investigations into the interaction of resonant molecules with metallic nanoparticles by localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) spectroscopy. The contents of this thesis include the study of the coupling mechanism between molecular resonance and plasmon resonance from experimental and theoretical perspectives and applications of this mechanism...
Late twentieth-century architecture is increasingly charged with the task of constructing sites of meaning that generate awareness and understanding in the wake of catastrophic historical events. My dissertation explores the challenges of memorializing these events, in order to recover the importance of memory for politics. Insisting on the role of...
This dissertation consists of three empirical essays on issues related to Internet-based firms entering the offline channel. Issues arising from offline entry include the potential spillovers in online revenue, online customer acquisition, and online customer activity. Over the past decade, there has been considerable research examining brick $\&$ mortar companies...
The world's aquatic food webs are currently in crisis due to the cumulative, interacting effects of anthropogenic pressures including non-indigenous species invasions, chemical contamination, overfishing, habitat disruption and global climate change. Efforts to restore or protect the integrity and sustainability of these systems are limited by a lack of knowledge...