Broadly speaking, this dissertation project seeks to address the following question: how do religious people think about the cultural authority of science, and to what extent does this vary across different contexts? Despite the predictions of classical modernization theorists, religious institutions continue to significantly shape public discourse—and rule-making—in the vast...
Plant life history traits influence the extent and degree of gene flow across a species range. The resulting genetic neighborhood size can influence population differentiation and the scale of local adaptation, with implications for species response to environmental change and sourcing of plant materials for ecological restoration. To assess the...
From colonial practices designed to civilize indigenous communities, to counter-terrorism initiatives aimed at de-radicalizing dissidents in the wake of the War on Terror, to controversies over blasphemy and religious harm cases in international law, religious passions have been cast as a specter of unreason, treason, and radicalization. These assumptions sustain...
In this dissertation, I provide insight into different aspects of the law and politics of trade secrecy at four levels of analysis. Part I examines trade secrecy from an international and comparative perspective. It encompasses Chapters 2 and 3 and focuses on (#1) international law and (#2) comparative national policy....
SAMDI-MS, which stands for self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) for matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometry (MS), is a powerful tool that has enabled the development of novel high-throughput screening and experimentation methods for decades. SAMDI-MS works by immobilizing analytes to functionalized SAMs prior to MS analysis and is capable of...
The commitment of resources to coaching almost always occurs in interaction with other district-wide efforts to improve instruction. Given this probable situation, it’s concerning that the field lacks the ability to provide guidance regarding how coaches might reasonably be integrated within overall plans for the coordination and improvement of instruction....
Numerous insights into the sensorimotor systems that guide the control of voice have been garnered by observing how the system responds to manipulations of its auditory feedback. However, current approaches may be limited in the exploration of more complex parameters of volitional and adaptive voice control due to their limited...
In this dissertation I examine how the government should respond to sovereign risk and show that it has implications on the optimal behavior of the government. In Chapter 1, I look into international reserve management. In Chapter 2, I analyze the effects of sovereign risk on the size of fiscal...
Bitcoin is a decentralized payment system proposed in 2008 by Nakamoto, who remains anonymous to date. It offers an effective alternative to fiat money or centralized payment systems with advantages on privacy, anonymity, and low international remittance fees. The transactions in Bitcoin payment system are sent through a peer-to-peer network,...
This dissertation studies three distinct problems in econometrics. Chapter 1 proposes an adaptive randomization procedure for two-stage randomized controlled trials. The method uses data from a first-wave experiment in order to determine how to stratify in a second wave of the experiment, where the objective is to minimize the variance...