This project examines the relationship between graphic design and public life in an effort to understand how graphic design functions as a mode of communication, how visual images present interpretive problems for communication scholarship, and how the increasing presence of visual images in public space inform and are informed by...
This dissertation considers price indices in the context of two rapidly growing markets. The first is the emerging market for Internet Service Providers in the mid-1990s. The second is the emergence and growth of the DVD hardware market. In both, we examine indices ranging from the most rudimentary to quality...
Across a broad spectrum of mathematical models, problems arise that have irregular domains or contain embedded interfaces. The complexity due to the introduction of these interfaces makes it more difficult to develop efficient and accurate numerical methods for their solutions.
This thesis discusses modifications to the eXtended Finite Element Method...
This dissertation argues that theatre was a vital element of postcolonial culture in Ireland in the years 1919-1932, the period in which the Irish nation emerged from revolutionary war to become a stable postcolonial state. Although critics have bemoaned the rising dominance of conservative, anti-modernist playwriting and production in Ireland's...
My dissertation explores the rational and emotional foundations of ethical decision making. Traditional research has associated ethical superiority with an analytic, rational decision making process and has suggested that emotions (e.g., empathy or anger) undermine ethics because they lead people to breach ethical principles such as the norm of impartiality....
After nearly 100 years of research, the function of sleep is unknown, prompting the desire to examine its regulation in a simpler model organism. In 2000, <em>Drosophila</em> was described as a novel model system to investigate sleep. These early studies defined features of normal sleep in <em>Drosophila</em>, and presented evidence...
Interfaces and surfaces are ubiquitous in the environment. Heterogeneous binding events and reactions control the transport and speciation of dissolved pollutants in groundwater. Many heterogeneous processes occur at mineral oxide/water interfaces, and can be controlled either by the mineral oxide, or organic molecules bound to the surface. The prevalent natural...
Child maltreatment and violence are two major public health concerns in the United States. The relationship between maltreatment and subsequent violent behavior, also referred to as the "cycle of violence", is not well understood. The present study examines whether a history of maltreatment predicts violent behavior in a sample of...
This dissertation explores price differences observed in the market. While some differences are necessitated by market conditions, the others are strategic. I illustrate the former in a study of electricity spot markets in Italy and the latter for the video rental industry.
The first project examines the welfare gains from...
The dissertation research examines the evolution of EU social and employment policy in regard to gender equality in the labor market and analyzes how EU guidelines of the European Employment Strategy (EES) and EU directives on social policy have different effects on political processes in the United Kingdom and Germany....