This thesis argues that Chinese firms can catch up with the technological frontier in the scope of new climate friendly energy technologies and provides a detailed study of the case of wind power.

Existing surveys demonstrate that in the United States, most homeowners believe that their home insurance coverage will cover the complete costs to rebuild their home in the event of a total loss. Yet, most dwellings are insured for an amount…

This research looks at the efficiency and effectiveness of the United States Child
Welfare System. Specifically, it focuses on the lack of standardization in the system
as well as the relationship between the two main institutions involved in the
system—Child…

The current state of science education in the United States is evolving to building a skills-based, rather than content-based, knowledge in its students, grades K-12. To this end, I have integrated my experience and understanding of molecular biology and educational…

GPUs are flexible parallel processors capable of accelerating real applications. To exploit them, programmers rewrite programs in new languages using intimate knowledge of the underlying hardware. This is a step backwards in abstraction and ease of use from sequential programming.…

The
welfare
system
in
the
United
States
has
seen
great
changes
over
the
course
of
the
last
century,
moving
us
away
from
“charity”
and
towards
a
system
that
considers
cash
assistance
to
be
a
temporary,
support
system
as
people
get

Yes or no is perhaps the most common answer we provide each day. Indeed, binary answers to well structured questions are the building blocks of our knowledge. I started my research career in drafting such answers in various circumstances within…

The use of concepts underlies the most basic cognitive processes. Consequently, psychologists have long been interested in understanding the behavioral and neural correlates of conceptual knowledge and its manipulation. This has led to a rich set of research results that…

To investigate the influence of input from fellow group members in a constrained decision-making context, we develop four 2-armed bandit tasks in which subjects freely select one of two options (A or B) and are informed of the resulting reward…

This dissertation concerns itself with the effects of education and wealth on health in Africa. The first two chapters focus on the impact of adult education levels on the HIV epidemic in four sub-Saharan countries. The last chapter turns to…