The problem of evil, the difficulty of reconciling the reality of evil with an omnipotent and good God, is one of the central problems in Abrahamic theology. The central liturgical practice of traditional Judaism is the recitation of the Amidah, a prayer that (on weekdays) consists in a series of...
The first two chapters focus on the topic: how efficiently do markets reallocate capital in booms and busts, and what are the effects of policies designed to smooth out fluctuations? I exploit a novel dataset of contracts and projects in the offshore oil and gas industry to examine the role...
The epidemic of obesity and associated metabolic diseases have led to increased scrutiny of adipose tissue and its primary cell type, the adipocyte. However, studies show that regional adipose tissue distribution rather than obesity per se is a major determinant of metabolic disease risk. Despite having an obese body mass...
Inter-organelle contacts facilitate communication between organelles and impact fundamental cellular functions. Investigations into the molecular mechanisms of inter-organelle tethering are still in the early stages, and we are just beginning to appreciate the number and variety of inter-organelle tethers that exist. We have used budding yeast as a model polarized...
RNA repair pathways exist in all three domains of life. In eukaryotes, they play key roles in fundamental biological processes such as tRNA splicing and endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress induced noncanonical splicing of a master transcription factor mRNA (named XBP1 in mammalian cells). Even though most living organisms contain an...
A fundamental goal in biology is to understand how distinct cell types containing the same genetic information arise from a single stem cell throughout development. Sex determination is a key developmental process that requires a unidirectional commitment of an initially bipotential gonad towards either the male or female fate. This...
Additive manufacturing (AM) processes have advanced rapidly over the last three decades to the point where they have the potential to fundamentally change the way complex parts will be designed and fabricated in the future. Additive methods leverage the ability to join metal particles or molten droplets in a layer-by-layer...
Two recent developments in the transportation industry – shared-use mobility services and fully-autonomous vehicles (AVs) – have the potential to fundamentally transform urban mobility. Shared-use mobility services (e.g. Uber, Lyft, Via, Chariot, ZipCar, and Car2go) are already beginning to bridge the gap between personal vehicles and fixed-route transit service in...
Connected and automated vehicle (CAV) technology is a disruptive transportation development with potentially transformative impacts on society and the economy. CAV systems promise to significantly reduce human-caused road crashes, improve traffic flow performance, and lower pollutant emissions. However, realizing those benefits requires strategic planning for the deployment of CAV systems...
The heart of computational materials science lies in providing fundamental insights and understanding of materials behavior and properties across different scales. The significance of this task is highlighted by the Materials Genome Initiative and the emergence of computational tools and frameworks such as materials by design, microstructure sensitive design, and...