In the first part of the dissertation I study mechanism design under limited communication. Chapter 1 offers a detailed analysis of auctions with simultaneous limited communication. I solve for both welfare and revenue maximizing equilibria. The striking feature of optimal equilibria is that they are asymmetric even when the setup...
Motivated by performance requirements of future medical stent applications, experimental research addresses the design of novel TiNi-based, superelastic shape-memory alloys employing nanoscale precipitation strengthening to minimize accommodation slip for cyclic stability and to increase output stress capability for smaller devices. Using a thermodynamic database describing the B2 and L21 phases...
Nitrogen (N) deposition can alter belowground microbial communities, especially ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi, resulting in a reduced ability of associated trees to access organic nutrients. This study tested whether N addition decreases ECM species richness and shifts ECM species composition across spatial scales in a subtropical slash pine (Pinus elliottii) plantation...
I show that the speed of price adjustment to aggregate technology shocks is substantially larger than to monetary policy shocks. In the context of large Bayesian Vector Autoregression models, I establish that aggregate and disaggregate prices adjust very quickly to technology shocks, while they only respond sluggishly to monetary policy...
The object of this working paper is to present a new explanation for the behavior of rebel groups in relation to host communities. This study, which represents the main argument and ideas of my forthcoming dissertation, accounts for the change in rebel group behavior, from coercive to contractarian and vice...
Most scholars think of courts as a single category of adjudicative bodies or triadic dispute adjudication. But courts play a variety of roles in the domestic political system. Increasingly, the roles and tasks delegated to International Courts (ICs) mimic in form and content the roles and tasks delegated to courts...
From peacekeeping to telecommunication standards, the number, level of detail, and subject matter of international agreements have grown exponentially in recent decades. What are the consequences of the sheer complexity of international governance today? This symposium suggests a new framework to understand this proliferation of international accords: "international regime complexity."...
The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was the first step in the process of European integration. Its founders had lofty aspirations that integration in the coal and steel would spill into a larger endeavor, and early scholarly analyses suggested that coal and steel integration was spurring more fundamental political...
Sufficient vocal fold superficial hydration is indispensable to maintain normal vocal function and protect vocal fold epithelium against invasion of pathogenic agents. Vocal fold surface hydration is probably regulated by its electrophysiological properties. We hypothesized that the tight junction (TJ)-related paracellular barrier contributes to the maintenance of those properties. Therefore,...
Tissue engineering offers a promising approach for the replacement of diseased or injured tissues, and is based upon the premise that cells can be induced to form new tissues when presented with the appropriate set of environmental cues. Polymer scaffolds play a central role in most tissue engineering strategies by...