Policies to avert the threat of dangerous climate change focus on stabilizing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations by drastically reducing anthropogenic emissions of carbon. Such reductions require limiting the use of fossil fuels-which supply the bulk of energy to economic activity,…

We strain our eyes, cramp our necks, and destroy our hands trying to interact with computer on their terms. At the extreme, we strap on devices and weigh ourselves down with cables trying to re-create a sense of place inside…

The thesis comprises three essays on various aspects of the development and diffusion of pharmaceutical innovations, woven together by the idea that the production of clinical knowl- edge influences organizational design, pricing, and advertising decisions in the pharmaceutical industry -…

Integration of daylight availability in time and architectural space is a critical element in achieving optimal comfort and productivity, as well as in minimizing energy consumption. In recent years, there has been an increase in the demand of the better…

A multiobjective, multidisciplinary design optimization methodology for mathematically modeling the distributed satellite system (DSS) conceptual design problem as an optimization problem has been developed to advance the state-of-the-art in complex distributed satellite network design. An increasing number of space missions…

his dissertation analyzes how local knowledge improves environmental decisions. The premise is that controlling pollution and addressing public health disparities are not problems that professionals alone can solve. Concerned lay publics, especially low-income populations and people of color that experience…

We develop a qualitative method for understanding and representing phase space structures of complex systems and demonstrate the method with a program, MAPS --- Modeler and Analyzer for Phase Spaces, using deep domain knowledge of dynamical system theory. Given a…

Automated Program Analysis is the process of discovering decompositions of a system into sub-units such that the behavior of the whole program can be inferred from the behavior of its parts. Analysis can be employed to increase the explanatory power…

Consider a world of 'objects.' Our goal is to place these objects into categories that are useful to the observer using sensory data. One criterion for utility is that the categories allow the observer to infer the object's potential behaviors,…

There has been a long-standing desire in computer science for a way of collecting and using libraries of standard software components. The limited success in actually doing this stems not from any resistance to the idea, nor from any lack…