by Jeffrey C. Chi., Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2001., Includes bibliographical references (p. 199-216).

Context can be described as the totality of ideas, situations and information that (a) related to, (b) provide the origins for, and (c) influence our response, perspective or judgment of a thing. Design always takes place in a context. However,…

The human tongue is a versatile, lithe and structurally complex muscular organ that is of paramount importance for many physiological tasks. The lingual musculature is composed of various orthogonally oriented myofiber populations. Furthermore, coupling this knowledge of tissue myoarchitecture with…

One important purpose for creating clinical practice guidelines is to improve quality of care by reducing variations in practice. In the current healthcare environment, guidelines are being advocated as a means to disseminate research findings, standardize care, improve quality of…

(cont.) as well, firms have an incentive to require coordinated investments in technology across the enterprise. Still, research in IS has also highlighted the fact that the productivity of computer investments is highly dependent on co-investment in complementary assets (for…

The decline in Pharmaceutical R&D productivity has been attributed to high clinical failure rates suggesting that targets, leads and clinical candidates may be of lower quality in recent years. Senior R&D management generally believes that a greater integration of drug…

This thesis analyzes how the Auto-ID technology and information infrastructure will change the management and distribution of pharmaceutical products within the health care industry by enabling item level product traceability functionality. The complexity of the health care industry is steadily…

This Ph.D. thesis has covered the scientific issues of defect reactions involving dopants and impurities in Si, and the applications of this knowledge to reactive ion etching (RIE) and Fe gettering processes. The reactions among self-interstitials (Sii), vacancies (V), impurities…

Background: Local adaptation of guidelines may increase compliance with guidelines that have been developed at a national level and are often not used in practice because of contextual factors. We have developed a representation scheme known as HieroGLIF, that facilitates…

Firm boundaries have been the subject of much scholarly interest in recent years, as firms increasingly hire external, "contingent" workers and outsource previously core activities. However, little empirical research has directly studied what happens differently inside the firm's boundaries, versus…