The climate of the reception of immigrants to the United States has soured, and circumstances are becoming increasingly difficult for persons seeking to gain residency. Reasons often given for the reversal in this practice are that immigrants are poor, uneducated,…

The first two chapters of this thesis investigate a possibly fundamental aspect of technological progress. If knowledge accumulates as technology progresses, then successive generations of innovators may face an increasing educational burden, forcing them to spend longer periods in education…

A real-time motion engine for interactive synthetic characters, either virtual or physical, needs to allow expressivity and interactivity of motion in order to maintain the illusion of life. Canned animation examples from an animator or motion capture device are expressive,…

Characterization of defect is one of the important objectives of nondestructive evaluation (NDE) for condition assessment of structures. Among many other NDE techniques, ultrasonic methods play a prominent role in the both quantitative and qualitative assessment of discontinuities in reinforced…

This dissertation investigates how rapid learning occurs in high technology industries, many of which operate in what Bourgeois and Eisenhardt (1988) term "high velocity environments." The dissertation consists of three empirical studies, which follow the method of extended case study…

Understanding the biological signals encoded in a genome is a key challenge of computational biology. These signals are encoded in the four-nucleotide alphabet of DNA and are responsible for all molecular processes in the cell. In particular, the genome contains…

This thesis explores how doctors and nurses use documents to share their knowledge within and across healthcare settings. In addressing this question I draw on a 15-month, multi-sited ethnographic study in several pediatric health care settings, following patients from primary…

"En la actualidad, a pesar de la importancia económica que ha representado el cultivo del camarón en las últimas décadas, no se conoce mucho acerca de su organización genómica básica. Entre las tecnologías de la bioquímica aplicables a la acuicultura…

The Embrapa Agricultural Instrumentation Center, one of the thematic centers of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, is an institution of science and technology in instrumentation. Its purpose is to promote Brazilian agribusiness through the generation, adaptation, and transference of knowledge…

ABSTRACT: Participatory plant breeding uses a concept that joint formal (official researches institutions) and informal sector (farmers communities), combining the capabilities and the knowledge of both, and farmer's experiences, practices, and preferences. The goal is to join the yield improvement…