Metal and bimetallic nanoparticles are of interest and are widely used in various applications because of their unique optical, electronic, and catalytic properties, which differ from those of their bulk counterparts. Better understanding of the thermodynamic and kinetic properties of nanoparticles and their underlying growth mechanisms can serve as a...
Both chapters of this dissertation relate to the aggregate value of corporations in an economy. In particular, they relate to the ratio of the aggregate total market value of corporations over the replacement cost of their recorded capital. The first chapter introduces a model that can explain why this ratio...
Mobile traffic is expected to grow tenfold by 2019, topping 24 exabytes of monthly traffic and accounting for nearly half of all Internet traffic. This growth is driven by the increasing number of smart phones and tablets, and the data demands of high bandwidth services enabled by next-generation cellular networks...
The concept of deportation has become increasingly important in recent years, as states more and more turn to removal as a technique of control over population and territory. But within the field of political theory the concept of deportation has not yet received the attention it deserves. This dissertation helps...
Achievement gaps between students from different SES and racial/ethnic backgrounds stubbornly persist despite decades of policy interventions. My dissertation focuses on several unexpected sources of stress and disruption that may be related to the achievement gap: sunlight exposure, a sister’s teen childbearing, and nearby violent crime. I demonstrate that these...
Changing economic activities bring significant cultural, epidemiological, and nutritional transitions. These transitions have important and lifelong effects on the health of populations experiencing them. Infancy represents a critical period when rapid growth and metabolic programming occur, making infants particularly vulnerable to long-lasting biological changes due to such transitions. The objective...
This dissertation contains two studies. In Chapter 1, I implement a randomized intervention to measure the effect of reminders for timely payment of credit cards. While I find an 13% reduction in the cost of late payment fees paid, 31% of the users that avoid credit card late payments, incur...
Freeze casting is a technique for processing porous materials that has drawn significant attention for its effectiveness in producing a variety of tailorable pore structures for ceramics, metals, and polymers. With freeze casting, pores are generated based on a solidification process where ice crystals act as a sacrificial template which...
This work is concerned with the Laudau-Ginzburg $A$-model, or the Fukaya-Seidel category, associated with a Laurent polynomial $f: (\C^*)^n \ o \C$. We use constructible sheaves on a real $n$-dimensional torus to describe the Lagrangian thimbles associated to $f$. Then we discuss the application to Homological Mirror Symmetry for smooth...
We often criticize others for beliefs that are dogmatic, biased, or wishful. What, exactly, are we criticizing? Many epistemologists accept that such believing is problematic because it is not appropriately responsive to epistemic reasons. But why care about that? Or, to put it another way, why are epistemic norms authoritative...