Existence and Uniqueness of the Solution of a Traffic Flow Partial Differential Equation on Multi-Lane Freeways

In this dissertation, we shall prove the existence of a solution of the stochastic partial differential equation describing the density of cars on a multi-lane freeway using the operator splitting method. Furthermore, we shall prove the uniqueness of the solution of the stochastic differential equation which forms when we apply the operator splitting method to the traffic flow stochastic partial differential equation

The Way Work Should Be™ Fostering a Stigma-Free Workplace for Mainers

The proposed program, The Way Work Should Be ™, aims to enhance Mental Health & Illness education and establish a Stigma-Free Workplace. NAMI Maine, a leader in mental health advocacy, will partner with organizations throughout Maine to provide essential resources, including mental health toolkits, training for recognizing and addressing mental health issues, and strategies to create supportive work environments. The urgency for mental health training in Maine\u27s business community is clear. Employers and employees require resources to effectively manage mental health issues, which can lead to immediate and lasting positive outcomes. This project includes a comprehensive Program Evaluation to establish the effectiveness of The Way Work Should Be ™ in Maine. The Evaluation Proposal will provide an evidence-based foundation for success, allowing NAMI\u27s national branch to implement the program nationwide. Guided by the CDC evaluation framework, the data collected will demonstrate the program\u27s impact on workplaces, the return on community stakeholders\u27 investment, and identify which training and strategies are most effective

The History of Nazi Neuroscience: Tracing Evidence Through Voids

During the Holocaust (1933-1945), voids were created by the destruction of ethics, morality, and human life. We can detect this absence because of material traces of the events. My paper applies the theory of relational ontology of absence to a collection of empty jars on display at the Josephinum, a medical history museum in Vienna. The jars once contained human remains of children murdered in the “euthanasia” program at Am Spiegelgrund, a psychiatric clinic in Vienna where 789 were killed during the Nazi era. These victims were not commemorated until the early 2000s, when the specimen jars were emptied and displayed as a memorial. Their public viewing prompted further debate on the ethics of handling and displaying human remains, privacy laws for the victims, and the curatorial technique of absence as commemoration. Treating absence as a “thing” acknowledges the missing, destroyed or hidden, making the invisible victim, visible

An ODE-Based Analytical Approach to Rayleigh Flow of Kelvin–Voigt Fluid

We present some results from a project carried out in the Under- graduate Research in Mathematics (MATH 4380) course at TAMIU. The main goal of this study is to demonstrate that analytical solutions for a system of partial differential equations (PDEs) can be obtained using methods typically taught in an undergraduate ordinary differential equations (ODE) course, such as power series, undetermined coefficients, and Laplace transforms. In this study, we provide semi-analytical solutions for Rayleigh flow type problem utilizing the Kelvin-Voigt fluid model, which describes the behavior of vis- coelastic materials by incorporating both elastic and viscous properties. Heat transfer analysis is also considered under the assumption of local thermal equilibrium. The mathematical formulation is established based on funda- mental conservation laws, leading to a system of partial differential equations. To obtain approximate analytical solutions for the governing equations, we apply the Laplace transform and regular perturbation techniques. SAE 5W-30 Castrol Edge Engine Oil is considered as the working fluid for the simulations. We analyze how the Prandtl, Grashof, and Kelvin-Voigt numbers affect the flow pattern features. Our findings indicate that increasing the dimension- less Grashof number enhances the velocity fields, while the dimensionless temperature field decreases to zero more rapidly for larger Prandtl number

Components of Evolutionary Psychology are Falsifiable, But Does That Make It a Good Theory? Commentary on Costello et al. (2025)

At the center of narrow evolutionary psychology’s theory lies the assumption that many human behavioral mechanisms evolved via natural selection. Although some components of this theory are falsifiable, its Lakatosian framework protects its core assumptions from falsifiability, even though most human behaviors probably do not require evolutionary explanations. Crucially, falsifiability is a necessary but insufficient quality of a good scientific theory, and the value of narrow evolutionary psychology (NEP) can be questioned on other grounds. NEP holds that only natural selection can create complex, functional adaptations, but natural selection is not a creative force; this process merely functions as a sieve that influences phenotype frequencies in descendant populations. Instead, only developmental processes can create the adaptations observed in individuals. Evolutionary explanations for behaviors will always be less useful than developmental explanations, given the context-dependent, emergent, and plastic nature of development. Evolutionary explanations will often be superfluous

The Women’s Legal Rights Index: A New Approach to Measuring Women’s Autonomy

Existing indicators of women’s empowerment focus on women’s educational attainment. Yet theories of women’s empowerment in politics, in particular their role in democratization, extend beyond the consequences of education to require agency and autonomy in their lives. In the first chapter of this dissertation, I argue that in an effort to measure women’s citizenship and standing in their respective societies, access to legal rights should be measured and considered. My theoretical framework builds on literature that demonstrates that while education is critical to women’s prosperity in many facets of life, other measures related to their legal rights can provide a deeper understanding of their level of autonomy and substantive equality. In the second chapter, I create an index that measures women’s equality and citizenship based on the aggregation of a set of legal rights. The Women’s Legal Rights Index is made up of fundamental legal rights through which women gain independence, make individual life-changing choices and the ability for social, political and economic mobility without being dependent on men but through guarantees by the state. The Women’s Legal Rights Index is made up of 10 variables for which data is collected and computed to generate an index for 18 Middle East and North African (MENA) countries. I then correlate the Women’s Legal Rights Index with the Gender Inequality Index (GII) to determine the substantive level of agency and autonomy women have in MENA, showing that this new measure provides explanatory power. In the third and final chapter, I use the Women’s Legal Rights Index to showcase that high levels of education and access to the labor market in Iran and Tunisia produce different results for women. Both countries prioritize education for their population. Both have low mortality rates, and both provide women with access to the labor force. Their universities are made up of mostly women students – around 60 percent in both countries – and yet the lives of women in both non-democratic nations look very different. Women in Tunisia are considerably empowered through legal rights that are guaranteed through the constitution and numerous laws that took place decades ago and were strengthened overtime through various governments and legislations. Meanwhile, despite their long-standing educational achievements, women in Iran have little agency and independence. In comparing Tunisia and Iran, I make the case that measuring women’s autonomy and independence must include their access to legal rights and that substantive change is realized through the law. My dissertation contributes theoretically and empirically to the literature by providing an additional mechanism of measuring women’s autonomy and empowerment

Selective Scrutiny: Evidence from FIRRMA and Cross-Border Tech M&A

This paper examines the effects of the 2018 Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (FIRRMA) on global cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the technology sector. Using an event study framework and firm-level data from 2013 to 2023, it analyzes whether the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States\u27 (CFIUS) expanded regulatory authority disproportionately deterred investment from strategic competitors like China while leaving U.S. allies relatively unaffected. The findings suggest that FIRRMA had a highly selective impact: Chinese firms sharply reduced their U.S. tech-sector acquisitions post-FIRRMA, while firms from allied countries in the Five Eyes and Fourteen Eyes alliances maintained or even increased their M&A activity. These results imply that FIRRMA functioned as a targeted national security tool rather than a broad protectionist barrier, though the contraction in Chinese investment raises questions about the long-term innovation costs of selective deterrence

Evolution of Bolivia’s Current Account Trajectory 1990-2024

This thesis assesses the evolution of Bolivia’s Current Account dynamics from 1990 to 2024 within the Trehan and Walsh (1991) and Husted (1992) stationarity and cointegration frameworks. Using quarterly data from 1990 to 2024 and applying break-robust methods, including Bai–Perron, Zivot-Andrews, ADF, KPSS, Johansen, and Gregory-Hansen tests, the analysis proposes three distinct external adjustment regimes aligned with major policy and commodity shocks. During the liberalization and crawling-peg era (1990–2003), the Current Account exhibits mean-reversion around a deficit and strong export–import cointegration, suggesting disciplined external adjustment. The gas-boom phase (2003–2014) produces record surpluses, but the underlying trade dynamics weaken, and the long-run link between exports and imports deteriorates once structural breaks are accounted for. Under the post-2014 hard peg, results suggest increasing external fragility as the Current Account loses mean-reversion properties, and trade flow cointegration collapses. These findings reveal that treating the full period as a single process would mask the transition from adjustment to vulnerability. Policy implications emphasize restoring exchange-rate flexibility, promoting export diversification, and rebuilding reserves to strengthen Bolivia’s external position

Equity in Education: How High School Attributes determine an Admission into Elite Colleges

This thesis seeks to answer the question “Does the type of high school and location affect one’s admission to the three elite colleges: Claremont McKenna College (CMC), Pomona College (Pomona), and University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)?” I used a dataset of high schools from five counties in Southern California, San Diego, Imperial, San Bernardino, Riverside, Orange, and Los Angeles, to create a regression model that determines whether students from charter, magnet, private, or public schools, and where one’s high school is located neighborhood’s income levels have different rates of admission. This study found that attending public high school negatively impacts admission to CMC and Pomona, yet positively affects admission to UCLA. When looking geographically, location is a stronger predictor of admission across all three institutions. Although both CMC and Pomona use holistic admissions processes, Pomona places a greater emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts. These results emphasized the socioeconomic inequalities that take place in college admissions. I suggested that colleges should implement more targeted outreach programs and high schools implement structural reform that provides access for students in underserved communities. By implementing more outreach programs, colleges would be a more equitable, diverse space. Low income students should feel that they have a viable chance to be admitted to an elite university

Alliance in Flux: Oil and the US-Saudi Strategic Bargain Reconsidered

This thesis examines the historical development and future trajectory of the longstanding relationship between the United States and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It traces its roots back to the early twentieth century, during which the Kingdom was established officially and the United States was on the hunt for a substance that quickly became one of the world’s most precious commodities–oil. Since then, oil has both acted as a binding force and a point of contention between the two nations. However, through ups and downs in the partnership, oil has remained at the heart of the arrangement. This study follows the development of US-Saudi ties over the past century with a particular focus on the transformational shifts of the past two decades. It uses economic data and diplomatic negotiations to suggest that the once-cozy relationship will continue becoming more transactional rather than steadfast as it was historically. Recent developments like the rise of Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s increased international relevance, and shifting US narratives are a special focus. This thesis argues that the US-Saudi bargain is at a turning point, undergoing a fundamental change that will have enormous consequences in the future considering the tumultuous geopolitical environment of the mid-2020s