Race, Economic Development, and The Role of Transportation and Training

As Massachusetts confronts its economic future and develops strategic plans for seizing competitive advantages, accessibility promised by proposed development plans for the transportation infrastructure must not only provide commuters with the means to get to work, but also increase the opportunity for participation in the economy for all citizens of the region. Changes in the transportation infrastructure will not ensure accessibility unless workers receive adequate training for the new types of jobs being offered. According to a recent report issued by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, authored by William P. O\u27Hare, Black people who live in urbanized areas use public transportation at a higher than average rate. Thus, the issue of public transportation is an important part of black economic and community development

Radiation Damage Studied by Pulsed Ion Beams

Energetic particles propagating through crystalline materials can transfer their kinetic energy to target atoms in the form of knock-on collisions. These target atoms can then cause subsequent collisions with other target atoms, ultimately leading to the formation of a ballistic cascade of point defects. The formation and thermalization of ion cascades, which occurs at time scales up to ~ps, is thought to be reasonably well understood. However, the understanding of defect interaction after cascade thermalization, known as dynamic annealing, is quite limited, despite nearly five decades of research. Dynamic annealing often plays the dominant role in the formation of stable radiation disorder in crystalline solids. However, current models of radiation damage are essentially empirical fits to experimental data, incapable of capturing the full physics of the problem. Understanding dynamic annealing is crucial to describing radiation damage in crystalline solids of interest to electronics and nuclear materials applications. The purpose of this dissertation is to improve the understanding of dynamic annealing and radiation damage in crystalline materials. To achieve this, a novel pulsed ion beam method was developed. A major difficulty in previous attempts to describe dynamic annealing was separating the spatial and temporal variables, which are convoluted in dose rate experiments. Such experiments often required overarching assumptions to isolate the defect lifetime and diffusion length. In contrast, the pulse beam method allows separation of the temporal and spatial aspects of dynamic annealing at the experimental level. Using the pulsed beam method, a defect lifetime of ~ 0.1 − 100 ms and a characteristic diffusion length of ~ 5 − 50 nm are measured in Si, Ge, and SiC. In addition, the dynamic annealing rate shows an Arrhenius dependence in Si and Ge with activation energies in the range from _ 0.1 − 1.3 eV. Rate theory modeling, bench-marked against this data, suggests a crucial role of both vacancy and interstitial diffusion, with the dynamic annealing rate limited by the migration and interaction of vacancies. The defect lifetime, diffusion length, and dominant defect interaction mechanisms are sensitively affected by the bombarding ion mass, energy, target temperature, and pre-existing lattice defects. These studies represent a significant advancement in the understanding of radiation defect dynamics in materials. Moreover, this dissertation lays the groundwork for future studies of radiation defect dynamics in other technologically relevant materials

ESSAYS ON PRICE DISCRIMINATION AND DEMAND LEARNING

This dissertation consists of three essays examining how and why firms set prices in markets. In particular, this dissertation shows how firms may utilize nonlinear pricing to price discriminate, how firms may experiment with the prices they set to learn about the demand function in the market they serve in later periods and the effects of these pricing strategies on consumer welfare. In Essay 1, I show how firms in the milk market use nonlinear price schedules -- quantity discounts -- to price discriminate and increase profits. I find that firms have a greater ability to price discriminate on their own ``private label\u27\u27 products rather than regional branded that they sell alongside their own. Though some consumers benefit from a lower price as a result of the price discrimination, total consumer surplus is lower than if the store had to offer a fixed price per unit. Additionally, I compare my structural demand estimates, which using the Nielsen household panel data include consumer demographic information and actual household choices, to the standard approach in the literature on price discrimination that uses only market level data. By doing so I find that ignoring demographic information and actual consumer choices leads to biased parameter estimates. In the case of the milk market, the biased parameter estimates due to ignoring household demographic information and actual consumer choices lead to underestimating welfare harm to consumers on average. After finding that price discrimination harms consumers overall in this market, I quantify which consumer demographic are better off and which are worse off. I find that households with children and low income households with children are the only households to benefit from the price discriminatory practices of firms in this market. Since these groups are particularly vulnerable, I suggest that policymakers take no action to correct this market, as any action will directly hurt these consumer groups. In Essay 2, I study how firms learn about the demand in a new market by exploiting a significant change in Washington\u27s state\u27s liquor laws. In 2012, the state of Washington switched from a price-controlled state-store system of selling liquor to one in which private sellers could sell liquor with minimal restrictions on price and range of products. As a result, a heterogeneous group of firms entered the liquor market across the state with little knowledge of the regional demand for alcohol in the state of Washington across heterogeneous localities. Using the Nielsen retail scanner data I am able to observe the variation in pricing and offerings seasonally and over time to see if there is convergence in offerings and prices, and how quickly that convergence occurs across different localities depending on local demographics and competition. I also investigate the extent to which the variation is experimentation\u27\u27 by the firms, i.e., the firms purposely experimenting to learn more about demand and the extent that local demographics and competition can affect the experimentation and whether there are spill-overs from local competition (i.e. do firms learn from each other and does this effect how much they experiment and how quickly they learn). My main findings are that over time, firms within this market have learned better how to price discriminate over the holiday season; firms experiment more with prices for the pint sized products than the larger sizes; and that menu of options that firms have offered has been expanding but at a slower rate, suggesting that they are approaching a long-run steady state for the optimal menu of options

Race, Poverty and Education in the 21st Century

I am here as the president of the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts. I am here as a woman. I am here as a partner in the struggle for equal opportunity and access for - women, men, young people, the elderly, Black, white, Latino and Asian, who are not able to fully enjoy the educational, economic and social benefits of our American society. I am here as a colleague of Mary\u27s, [Mary Lassen, Executive Director, Women\u27s Educational and Industrial Union] who works with commitment and passion on these same issues and with whom I have collaborated and will continue to collaborate to make our city and state the best in the nation in which to live, work and raise a family. I am also here as a mother of two beautiful boys (although my 15 year old will tell you he is a young man), in fact Mary and I met years ago when our sons were pre-schoolers at the Dorchester YMCA pre-school program. Over the years, we have kept one another abreast of Kellen\u27s and David\u27s progress, growth, funny things they say and do, and what our hopes and dreams for them are as they develop into great young men. We are working hard to develop them into good husbands, fathers - in that order, workers, and contributors to the community and the city at large. The following is a transcript ofthe speech delivered by Joan Wallace-Benjamin at the 121st Annual Meeting of the Women\u27s Educational and Industrial Union held on September 16, 1998

CubeSat electronic power system

Cube Satellites are small satellites used by NASA and other non-governmental space companies as a cost-effective means to get a payload into space to perform research and develop new technologies. The Robotic Systems Lab at Santa Clara University has designed and launched several Cube Satellites over the last ten years. We will be continuing the design of a 3U CubeSat began by a senior design team last year. The goal of this project is to design and build an electronic power system (EPS) for the CubeSat. The EPS must be able to power all system components, including the communication board, the radio and beacon, as well as any additional customer payload. The system is designed to provide power for the satellite throughout the entire orbit, even during periods of eclipse when the satellite will be unable to generate power. In addition, this project is experimenting with a new technology, supercapacitors, to test their potential uses in space. The EPS is a hybrid system utilizing both batteries as a reliable source of power storage and supercapacitors in order to test their capabilities

Understanding the Profile and Needs of Abused Men: Exploring Call Data From a Male Domestic Violence Charity in the United Kingdom

Current understandings on service engagement by male victims of domestic violence and abuse (DVA) within the United Kingdom (UK) have generally been captured by qualitative research. As such, large-scale quantitative data detailing the profile, needs and outcomes of abused men, upon both presentation and use of services, is currently lacking. The present study analysed the client data of 719 callers to a domestic abuse helpline for men in the UK. Findings showed that the overwhelming majority of callers reported they were abused by female perpetrators, most of whom were still their current partner, and that many of the men were fathers. Vulnerable populations (GBTQ+ and disabled men) were under-represented in the sample. Most men were seeking emotional support, along with a range of practical advice and signposting to other services. The confidentiality of the helpline was crucial for many men, and almost half had struggled to access the service (suggesting a severe lack of resourcing). Findings are discussed in relation to the need for gender-inclusive services, which cater for the unique challenges and barriers experienced by abused men