The cerebellar cortical system is an extensively studied circuit which is critical for motor learning. While multiple monoamines, such as norepinephrine and serotonin, modulate cerebellar cortical output, the mechanistic details of dopaminergic signaling in the cerebellum remain poorly understood. Additionally, neuronal cell types residing within the cerebellum remain relatively under-characterized....
This dissertation consists of three chapters that each study the interaction between government policy and real estate markets. All three chapters are connected by a broad interest in renters, landlords, and rental markets. Chapter 1 investigates the relationship between place-based policies and real estate and rental markets empirically by studying...
Macrophages are innate immune cells that are traditionally thought to be specialists in phagocytosis. More recent evidence suggest that macrophages reside in nearly every organ and readily adapt to local microenvironmental signals, leading to highly plastic phenotypes across and within tissues. Therefore, rather than treating it as a homogenous cell...
Children acquire linguistic competence via social interactions with adults and learn to converse in accordance with the norms of their communities. The present dissertation examined the communicative patterns of Thai-English bilingual mothers and children in their two languages, as well as compared the bilinguals’ conversations to each of their monolingual...
This dissertation provides an introduction to the diffraction and scattering theory for the Aharonov--Bohm Hamiltonian with one or multiple poles on $\mathbf{R}^2$. It shows the propagation of diffractive singularities of the wave equation with the magnetic Hamiltonians with singular vector potential, which is related to the so-called Aharonov--Bohm effect. Based...
As the interest in rational synthesis for solid-state materials accelerates, there is an urgent need to understand the design principles concealed within these reactions. In situ material synthesis provides such an avenue to not only uncover these assembling rules, but also for finding new materials even in seemingly familiar phase...
The three essays composing this dissertation are unified by their focus on the macroeconomic aspects of economic development. In Chapter one titled "Land Property Rights, Financial Frictions, and Resource Allocation in Developing Countries'', I study the effects of weak land property rights and limited access to finance on aggregate productivity...
Part I: Evaluating the relationship between Crosslink Kinetics and Thermodynamics with the hydrogel mechanics. The past two decades have witnessed a surge of applications built upon dynamic covalent chemistry (DCC), both attributed to the scope of developed reactions as well as their modularity.1-3 These reactions have comparable strengths to their...
This dissertation leverages methodologies from computer science to understand sources of complexity in economic theory. Chapter 1 considers time complexity: how much time is needed to make a decision. Chapters 2 and 3 consider informational complexity: how much and what kind of data is needed to make a decision. I...
“Coalitional Aesthetics” argues that leftist literary works of the 1930s enacted bonds of solidarity across racial, linguistic, and geographic divides, modeling alternative, non-hierarchical modes of social cohesion. Building on Gramsci’s concept of the coalitional, coalitional aesthetics refers to a set of formal characteristics that insist on the specificity of the...