Mixed emotions, defined as the experience of having positive and negative emotions concurrently, can occur in a variety of consumer contexts, ranging from common consumption episodes to important life events. However, while there have been many studies demonstrating the occurrence of mixed emotions, little is known about the downstream consequences...
Particulate methane monooxygenase (pMMO) is a membrane-bound metalloenzyme that oxidizes methane to methanol in methanotrophic bacteria. The nature of the pMMO active site and the overall metal content are controversial, with spectroscopic and crystallographic data suggesting the presence of a mononuclear copper center, a dinuclear copper center, a trinuclear center,...
There is a growing interest in both marketing and economics in the dynamics of decision-making. Researchers have proposed richer behavioral models of consumers and firms with the purpose of learning behavioral primitives that static models cannot capture. In these studies, models move away from stylized views of decision-making by explicitly...
The extensive amount of maintenance expenditures on transportation infrastructure systems and their broad impacts in terms of economic and social development has emerged the interests in maintenance management of transportation infrastructure systems. This dissertation contributes an optimization framework for management of transportation systems that comprise of interdependent facilities.
Existing stochastic,...
Hedge funds' existence and activity have a dramatic impact on both financial markets and the real economy. The first chapter of this thesis analyzes the tradeoff between access to financing and disclosure of valuable trading information hedge funds are facing when interacting with their brokers. The next two chapters model...
This study examines how Cape Verdean theatre artists construct transformative performances of race, gender, language, and colonial history at the Mindelact International Theatre Festival on the Cape Verde Islands. The aim is to understand how international theatre festivals participate in the production and shaping of new social imaginaries about nationhood....
Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is a highly heterogeneous and pervasive developmental disorder that affects nearly 1 in 150 children. A primary indicator of ASD is behavioral language impairment with respect to social communication, but the neurophysiology behind this impairment is not well understood. Both the perception and production of prosody...
Process scaling has enabled the production of integrated circuits with millions of transistors. System-on-a-Chip becomes feasible as more functionalities can be packed into a single chip. As the human brain power is limited, the design process of such sophisticated systems should be automated in order to meet the stringent design...
The rat whisker (vibrissal) system provides rats with an exquisitely acute tactile sense that has helped allow them to thrive all over the world. By actively rotating their whiskers back-and-forth ("whisking") against objects, rats can extract a rich variety of information including position, size, shape, orientation and texture. Today, however,...
I study the problem of choice between two treatments for a population of observationally identical individuals based on statistical evidence about average treatment effects that does not reveal the best treatment with certainty. I approach the problem from the perspective of statistical decision theory, derive treatment rules that minimize maximum...