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...
The purpose of this dissertation study was to build on scholarly work in the area of critical mathematics by such scholars as Gutstein (2003) and Gutierrez (2002). Critical pedagogy is designed to foster political agency and critical consciousness in students (Freire, 1971). That is the aim of critical mathematics in...
Three critical problem areas pertinent to the development of precision high-speed spindles for meso-scale machine tools (mMTs), driven by air turbines, constitute the focus of this work. These are the development of the spindle, of a new tool clamping device, and of a measurement system for spindle error motions.
For...
The electronic transport and magnetoresistive properties of the ferromagnetic semiconductor In1-xMnxAs were investigated in order to determine the nature of the transport and ferromagnetism in the films. p-InMnAs/n-InAs and metal/oxide/InMnAs heterojunctions were fabricated and characterized to elucidate the transport and magnetoresistance mechanisms at these technologically important interfaces.
The electronic transport...
The dissertation consists of three self-contained papers. In Chapter 1, we study the inventory management problem in a dual sourcing system, where there are two supply sources or modes with different sourcing costs and lead times. We provide closed-form solutions to a robust optimization model for inventory management in a...
Humans are prodigious learners. One of our most powerful learning tools is the ability to detect and transfer relational similarities between items and events, despite their perceptual differences. Previous research has found that the roots of this ability extend into infancy. As early as three months of age, infants can...
My research at northwestern with Dr. Christina Zelano focused on the human amygdala subnucleithat receive monosynaptic input from the olfactory bulb. Surprisingly little is known
about these brain regions, including their potential roles in olfactory and nonolfactory
processing. During my PhD, I completed three projects aimed at furthering our understanding...
Russia and Turkey occupy a significant portion of current global news as the rest of the world analyzes the trajectories of these countries. Most scholars focus on the socio-political landscapes of the two while disregarding cultural and literary studies. Such a top-down approach fails to consider the profound identity crises...
This project studies the formal experimentations with color in postwar cinema as a paradigm for exploring larger theoretical and political questions relating to postwar aesthetics. Borrowing from an understudied concept of Gilles Deleuze’s theory, “the color-image,” my first chapter shifts the conversation away from reading color as strictly symbolic or...
Flexibility can be created in manufacturing and service operations by using multipurpose production sources such as cross-trained labor and flexible machines/factories. We focus on control and design issues in systems with flexible resources. In Chapter 2, we consider optimal scheduling of a fully cross-trained server in a finite-population queueing system...
