A novel PCR based DNA microanalyzer system for detection of viral genome

The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file.Title from title screen of research.pdf file viewed on (April 25, 2007)Vita.Thesis (Ph.D.) University of Missouri-Columbia 2006.A micro-fluidic assay to quickly analyze microscopic samples of DNA is being developed for field applications. It consists of a micro-PCR chamber, micropumps, and micro-heaters. Additional components of the device include gel electrophoresis microchannels and solid core waveguide fluorescence collectors. The intended analyzer is a micro-fluidic platform that is principally based on the three-step polymerase chain reaction (PCR) mechanism. Currently, all off chip control is executed using a labview code. The micro-pumps, PCR chamber and capillary electrophoresis system have been designed fabricated and tested. For fabrication of the device, a regime has been developed for bonding PDMS surfaces to a variety of substrates (silicon in the present case). We have successfully achieved a compression in the cycle time by a factor of ten in our on chip PCR reactor as compared to the conventional PCR system and also amplify samples with pico-gram concentration. Fluorescent studies indicate negligible non-specific binding to our chip which has been a major problem in earlier assays. A working electrophoretic capillary and new biphasic gel material with extremely low background and high signal to noise ratio have been developed. We have further achieved low voltage capillary electrophoresis by doping different gel materials with conducting nano-particles. We envision this assay as a highly sensitive field deployable analyzer tool.Includes bibliographical reference

Joint product improvement by client and customer support center: The role of gain-share contracts in coordination

We study the role of different contract types in coordinating the joint product improvement effort of a client and a customer support center. The customer support center's costly efforts at joint product improvement include transcribing and analyzing customer feedback, analyzing market trends, and investing in product design. Yet this cooperative role must be adequately incentivized by the client, since it could lead to fewer service requests and hence lower revenues for the customer support center. We model this problem as a sequential game with double-sided moral hazard in a principal-agent framework (in which the client is the principal). We follow the contracting literature in modeling the effort of the customer support center, which is the first mover, as either unobservable or observable; in either case, the efforts are unverifiable and so cannot be contracted on directly. We show that it is optimal for the client to offer the customer support center a linear gain-share contract when efforts are unobservable, even though it can yield only the second-best solution for the client. We also show that the cost-plus contracts widely used in practice do not obtain the optimal solution. However, we demonstrate that if efforts are observable then a gain-share and cost-plus options- based contract is optimal and will also yield the first-best solution. Our research provides a systematic theoretical framework that accounts for the prevalence of gain-share contracts in the IT industry's joint improvement efforts, and it provides guiding principles for understanding the increased role for customer support centers in product improvement. </jats:p

A comparison of milestone-based and buyout options contracts for coordinating R&D partnerships

We analyze optimal contractual arrangements in a bilateral research and development (R&amp;D) partnership between a risk-averse provider that conducts early-stage research followed by a regulatory verification stage and a risk-neutral client that performs late-stage development activities, including production, distribution, and marketing. The problem is formulated as a sequential investment game with the client as the principal, where the investments are observable but not verifiable. The model captures the inherent incentive alignment problems of double-sided moral hazard, risk aversion, and holdup. We compare the efficacy of milestone-based options contracts and buyout options contracts from the client's perspective and identify conditions under which they attain the first-best outcome for the client. We find that milestone-based options contracts always attain the first-best outcome for the client when the provider has some bargaining power in renegotiation and identify their applicability to different R&amp;D partnerships. This paper was accepted by Yossi Aviv, operations management. </jats:p