VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Essays on Quantitative Marketing

The dissertation has three chapters. In the first chapter, I estimate consumer search cost with purchase outcome data. I analyze a model where consumers search sequentially for the best option based on advertised price and partial product information. I verify the model's ability to recover the structural parameters by a numerical experiment. Then using Nielsen Consumer Panel Data, I estimate the product-specific search costs for the top five brands in 32oz refrigerated yogurt market. I find that after controlling for the prices, the private label brand has the lowest search cost. Counterfactual analysis shows that eliminating the search cost increases overall purchase and decreases the price sensitivity. Incorrectly ignoring search frictions leads to an overestimation of own-price elasticity./nIn the second chapter, we state conditions under which choice data suffices to identify preferences when consumers may not be fully informed about attributes of goods. Our approach can be used to test for full information, to forecast how consumers will respond to information, and to conduct welfare analysis when consumers are imperfectly informed. In a lab experiment, we successfully forecast the response to new information when consumers engage in costly search. In data from Expedia, our method identifies which attribute was not immediately visible to consumers in search results, and we then use the model to compute the value of additional information./nIn the third chapter, we study consumers' variety-seeking preferences and explore their implications for targeted marketing using proprietary data from a food delivery platform. We document that a substantial fraction of consumers have variety-seeking preferences. Consumers, on average, are willing to pay 20% more to switch to a different seller. In the counterfactual analysis, we find that optimizing rankings by taking into account variety-seeking preferences increases revenue, consumer welfare, and purchase probability. Furthermore, we find that consumers' variety-seeking preferences soften price competition. Optimal targeted pricing implies an increase in prices for rival sellers' consumers and a decrease in prices for the sellers' own consumers.

Advisor: Jeziorski, Przemyslaw
Villas-Boas, J.Miguel
Design, Fabrication and Analysis of Bending-active Hybrid Gridshells

Concrete is the most widely used material in the world and architecture would be hard to imagine without it. It is valued for its durability, strength, and minimal maintenance and it handles almost every climate. However, the production of concrete and its excessive use for a wide variety of applications in the construction sector is also responsible for 8% of global CO2 emissions. This number is alarming and calls for an urgent rethink towards a more economical, intelligent, and environmentally conscious use of concrete. However, architectural history, and in particular the development of concrete shells, has shown that it is possible to build efficiently and achieve large spans even with minimal material. While this approach offers tremendous potential for more sustainable construction in the future, shell structures also present some challenges. They typically require excessive scaffolding and labor, resulting in high building costs and significant waste of scaffolding materials, limiting their successful implementation in the construction industry. A renaissance of concrete shells and thus a possible solution for more sustainable construction depends on whether these challenges can be overcome./nMotivated by these pressing questions, this dissertation focuses on the development and analysis of a novel method for the design and fabrication of concrete shells using a stay-in-place bending-active formwork. As part of this dissertation, a feasibility study is conducted to validate the constructability of shells and gridshells using this method. Furthermore, by conducting physical tests, this study shows how the use of CFRP as stay-in-place formwork affects the structural performance of the built shells. Another contribution of this work is a digital study on the influence of the geometrical parameters of such hybrid gridshells produced using bending-active formwork on their structural performance, both from a local and a global point of view. The findings presented in this dissertation provide valuable insights that can be incorporated into the design and early decision-making process of hybrid gridshells. By addressing the challenges associated with the sustainability and design of concrete shells, and by introducing the novel approach of using bending-active CFRP formwork for the design of concrete gridshells, this research contributes to promoting and facilitating the adoption of these material-efficient structures in the construction industry.

Advisor: Schleicher, Simon
Measurements of jet substructure in pp and Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}} = 5.02$ TeV with ALICE

Jet substructure observables are powerful tools to search for new physics and test theoretical descriptions of perturbative and non-perturbative processes in QCD. In heavy-ion collisions, jet substructure observables are used to elucidate the structure and dynamics of the quark-gluon plasma. One substructure observable is jet mass, which probes the virtuality of hard-scattered partons and their modified fragmentation. Additionally, generalized jet angularities allow differential measurements of the jet shower and its modification, as two parameters independently vary the weight of the jet constituents’ relative angle and transverse momentum. Previous measurements of the jet mass and jet angularities show conflicting deviations when compared with models. This thesis presents new measurements of the jet mass and jet angularities to resolve this conflict, using charged-particle tracks in pp and Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_\mathrm{NN}} = 5.02$ TeV and jet resolution parameters $R = 0.2$ and $0.4$. The results from this work are compared to ALICE measurements of heavy-flavor jets, which provide a high-powered probe of perturbative QCD at low transverse momentum. Jet angularities in jets containing a charm meson are compared to the inclusive measurements of this thesis, revealing a significant narrowing due to the QCD dead cone modifying jet fragmentation. Jet angularity results are also compared to QCD predictions using both folding and shape function corrections for nonperturbative effects. Jet grooming can be used to isolate specific splittings inside the jet fragmentation history, and ALICE measurements of the groomed-jet splitting angle and momentum fraction with soft drop and dynamical grooming are also compared to QCD predictions to test parton branching. The high-precision tracking system of ALICE enables these measurements over a broad range in transverse momentum, with a low-transverse momentum reach that is unique at the LHC.

Advisor: Jacak, Barbara V.
Covalent Targeting of Glutamate Cysteine Ligase to Inhibit Glutathione Synthesis

Cancer is a complex disease with high incidence and mortality rates. Conventional therapies, such as radiation or chemotherapy, often come with harmful side effects and have limited effectiveness against aggressive forms of cancer. Newer approaches, including immunotherapy and targeted therapy, have shown promise in improving therapeutic outcomes and sparing normal healthy cells from damage. While advanced sequencing technologies and research have uncovered cancer-driving molecular targets, specifically modulating those targets have remained challenging. Many proteins lack robust biochemical characterization or obvious binding pockets that traditional drugs target, rendering them “undruggable”. Chemoproteomics and fragment-based covalent ligand libraries have emerged as innovative tools for addressing these challenges, offering a more efficient and rational path to drug discovery. Furthermore, covalent drugs provide pharmacological advantages such as enhanced potency, selectivity, and prolonged duration of action./nDysregulated oxidative stress plays a major role in cancer pathogenesis, offering a unique vulnerability for intervention. Targeting glutamate-cysteine ligase (GCL) to inhibit the synthesis of the major antioxidant glutathione (GSH) may be a promising therapeutic strategy for certain cancer types that are particularly sensitive to oxidative stress. In this dissertation, I use fragment library screening and chemoproteomic approaches for identifying new covalent inhibitors against GCL. We have discovered an acrylamide-containing cysteine-reactive ligand, EN25, that covalently targets cysteine C114 on GCLM, the modifier subunit of GCL. We show that EN25 allosterically reduces GCL activity, lowers cellular GSH levels, and impairs cell viability in ARID1A-deficient cancer cells that are particularly sensitive to glutathione depletion. We also performed a small-scale SAR study and identified additional covalent ligands with moderately enhanced binding affinity in vitro. Our studies reveal a new ligandable site within GCLM that can be targeted to inhibit the GSH synthesis in vulnerable cancer cell types.

Advisor: Nomura, Daniel K
A State-Specific Complete Active Space Self-Consistent Field Approach for Strongly Correlated Electronic Excited States

Chemistry is teeming with light-driven processes such as photosynthesis and molecular switches, where electronically excited states are paramount to understanding the underlying mechanisms at play. Nevertheless, the appropriate treatment of effects such as strong electron correlation and orbital relaxations are beyond the simplifying assumptions of linear response theory and remains a challenge for theoretical modeling, consequently hampering the theory’s ability to provide meaningful predictions and inform experiment. In this thesis, we present a novel approach with the flexibility and precision to overcome these obstacles./nTo contextualize this work, we first discuss current excited state ansatzes and optimization methods, demonstrating their strengths and weaknesses in handling the challenges of modeling multi-reference systems like excited states. Using a generalized variational principle, we construct a fully excited-state-specific wave function optimization algorithm and demonstrate both its resilience to common optimization problems such as root flipping and its ability to locate and tightly converge excited state stationary points. Exhibiting both accuracy and reliability in calculating states with strongly correlated character and strong orbital relaxations, this approach is capable of providing state-specific insight in scenarios which elude existing methods, including some core, charge transfer and double excitations. We expand our study to explore the effect of these methodological improvements in comparison to a prominent traditional approach for geometry relaxations and potential energy surfaces for a photochemically relevant system, helping to elucidate the complexity of excited state energetics. The realization of this novel method constitutes significant steps forward for state-specific multi-reference approaches for the precise, accurate and robust modeling of electronically excited states.

Advisor: Neuscamman, Eric
Examining the Causes and Consequences of the Misperception that Equality Harms Advantaged Groups

Inequality persists even though it stifles the prosperity of disadvantaged and advantaged groups alike. In this dissertation, we integrate research from social identity theory, social comparison theory, and zero-sum thinking, to theorize that group status itself motivates individuals’ perception of equality-enhancing policies. Across five studies (N=4,191), we examine whether advantaged group members misperceive equality policies as necessarily harmful to advantaged groups’ resource access and necessarily beneficial to disadvantaged groups’ access to resources. We found that advantaged group members misperceived equality-enhancing policies as harmful to their group even when policies did not affect their groups’ access to resources (Pilot Study and Study 1a). Disadvantaged groups members, however, accurately perceived such policies as not harming the advantaged group. Conversely, we found no effect of group status when equality policies reduced resources to the advantaged group without changing resources to the disadvantaged group––all perceived equality as necessarily beneficial to disadvantaged groups (Study 1b). To test whether group status-based motivations contribute to misconstrued perceptions equality policies, we experimentally manipulate contexts wherein policies enhance equality between relevant or non-relevant groups (Study 2), and by incentivizing participants to either enhance equality or to maintain an unequal status quo (Study 3). Across each study, we investigate whether fairness judgments causally explain why disadvantaged group members perceive equality-enhancing policies more accurately than advantaged groups. We also examine whether the predicted effects persist even when controlling for perceptions of common fate and ideological beliefs around hierarchy, prejudice, and political conservatism across studies. Finally, we discuss how this misperception that equality is a zero-sum game can explain why inequality prevails even as it exacts a toll on everyone in society.

Advisor: Jacoby-Senghor, Drew S
Modulating electrochemical, electronic, and optical properties of van der Waals heterostructures with a solid-state electron acceptor

Atomically thin van der Waals (vdW) materials are sensitive to their surrounding environment, and the properties they exhibit can be significantly affected by changing this environment. By placing two atomically thin layers together with different work functions, charge will transfer between the two materials. Appreciable hole doping (on the order of 1013 holes/cm2) is realized in graphene, MoS2, and WSe2 interfaced with α-RuCl3 as a result of this charge transfer. α-RuCl3 has a relatively large work function that allows it to accept a large density of electrons. The charge transfer to α-RuCl3 can be modified by increasing the distance between the vdW material and α-RuCl3 with a hBN spacer layer.The electrochemical intercalation of lithium ions in graphene and TMD heterostructures is shown to change significantly in the presence of α-RuCl3. Raman spectroscopy and electrical transport measurements are used to monitor the intercalation reactions in situ. The main finding is that α-RuCl3 significantly lowers the driving force needed to electrochemically insert lithium ions into vdW heterostructures. It is hypothesized that the hole doping induced by α-RuCl3 increases the favorability of electron reduction in the other layer that is concomitant with lithium intercalation. In addition, the intercalation driving force and the intercalation amount can be tuned with the doping in these heterostructures using hBN spacers. The control α-RuCl3 offers for ionic charge accumulation could potentially inform future battery technologies. The control over electronic charge accumulation in α-RuCl3 heterostructures also has interesting applications. The transport of graphene interfaced with monolayer α-RuCl3 is shown to exhibit an anomalous, dynamic response to gate voltages when observed by low temperature magnetotransport measurements. While the origin of this behavior is unknown, the characteristics of the transport in the presented graphene/α-RuCl3 devices could be useful for next generation electronic devices. When TMDs are interfaced with α-RuCl3, their trans- port properties are also significantly impacted. WSe2 doped with α-RuCl3 is metallic and its pristine photoluminescence (PL) response is quenched, which could have significant implications if utilized in optoelectronic devices. In addition, lateral heterojunctions of pristine WSe2 and WSe2 on α-RuCl3 exhibit pP type diode junction behavior, with direction dependent current responses. This study demonstrates the versatility of α-RuCl3 heterostructures, and documents the progress we have made towards honing our ability to control electronic and ionic charge in vdW heterostructures.

Advisor: Bediako, D. Kwabena
On the Brauer groups of fibrations

Let $C$ be a smooth projective geometrically connected curve over a finite field with function field $K$ or the spectrum of the ring of integers in a number field $K$. Let $X$ be a smooth projective geometrically connected curve over $K$. Let $\pi:\mathcal{X}\longrightarrow C$ be a proper regular model of $X/K$. Artin and Grothendieck proved that there is an isomorphism $Sha(\Pic^{0}_{X/K})\cong \mathrm{Br}(\mathcal{X})$ up to finite groups. As a result, this implies that the BSD conjecture for $\Pic^{0}_{X/K}$ is equivalent to the Tate conjecture for the surface $\mathcal{X}$ when $K$ is in positive characteristic. In this thesis, we generalize this result to fibrations $\pi:\mathcal{X}\longrightarrow C$ of arbitraryrelative dimensions fibered over $C$, where $C$ is a smooth projective curve over arbitrary finitely generated fields or the spectrum of the ring of integers in a number field. As a consequence, we reprove the reduction theorem of the Tate conjecture for divisors due to Andr\'e and Ambrosi, and give a simpler proof of a theorem of Geisser who proved it using the \'etale motivic cohomology theory. We also reduce Artin's question on the finiteness of Brauer groups of proper regular schemes to dimension at most $3$.

Advisor: Yuan, Xinyi
An Investigation of the Prerequisites to Goal-Directed Control: Toward a Revision of the Habit Hypothesis of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is characterized by intrusive and unwanted thoughts followed by specific patterns of behavior or mental acts that function to ‘neutralize’ those thoughts. These behaviors and mental acts, referred to as compulsions, share qualities with habits, responses triggered by a cue and independent of outcome values. In recent years, a number of studies have linked OCD to habit learning and failures in goal-directed control. It has been suggested that OCD, and disorders of compulsivity in general, are characterized by a bias toward learning habits and/or over-relying on habitual control at the expense of goal-directed control over behavior. The aim of the present study was to address two remaining gaps in our understanding of the relationship between OCD and failures in goal-directed control: first, to distinguish habit-related response styles from non-habit-related deficits in goal-directed control by modifying a commonly used slips-of-action test, and second, to examine more specific relationships between task performance and core motivational dimensions of OCD proposed to drive compulsive behavior. To address these goals, a sample of U.S.-based adult participants with symptoms of OCD were recruited from a mixture of undergraduate and community sources. One hundred fourteen participants completed an instrumental learning task with a subsequent slips-of-action test, and 82 of these also completed clinical self-report measures and a diagnostic clinical interview. The results support an alternative possibility to the habit hypothesis: that OCD is more strongly associated with failures in execution of goal-directed action than habit-related insensitivity to outcome devaluation. Further, results show that a commonly used task-based measure of habit-driven failures in goal-directed control in fact reflects multiple learning-related processes unrelated to habitual control, and what can appear as an increase in habitual control as measured by insensitivity to outcome devaluation on a slips-of-action test is strongly influenced by failures of learning implicit and explicit representations of causal relationships between stimuli, actions, and outcomes. These results implicate a need to investigate the intermediate cognitive processes between initial instrumental learning and execution of goal-directed control as they relate to OCD and related disorders.

Advisor: Johnson, Sheri L
The Impact of Disease-Specific Health Insurance Reform on Mortality and Healthcare

This dissertation examines the impact of a healthcare reform that aimed to provide universal access to care for a specific set of diseases in Chile. By investigating the impact of the Explicit Health Guarantees program on mortality and health care outcomes, we hope to contribute to understanding the effectiveness of alternative health reforms and their potential for improving health outcomes in Latin America and beyond. The findings are based on Chile’s complete death and inpatient records and a difference-in-differences research design. The study reveals a 4.4% decline in deaths from the diseases covered by the reform, with a more significant effect observed in diseases that are more responsive to healthcare, declining by 7.1%. The reform resulted in over 1,000 deaths averted per year. Furthermore, the reform led to a 16.3% increase in surgeries and a 6.9% decrease in in-hospital deaths related to the covered conditions. Falsification models find no significant mortality effects on these covered diseases in other Latin American countries in these same years, thus strengthening the causal interpretation of our findings. Finally, we focus on socioeconomic, demographic, and geographic patterns of the reform’s effects. The study found that public healthcare providers’ patients benefited more than private clinics, which helped narrow some of the well-known socioeconomic disparities. Although the reform targeted sex-specific diseases, the study found no significant differences in the mortality reduction by sex, but important differences between age groups. Notably, and despite the fact that the increase in surgeries is similar for those between 0 and 49 and those above 80, the proportionate decrease in deaths between ages 0 and 49 was almost four times larger than the decrease in deaths among those above 80. In addition, the study found that the reform did not significantly affect deaths in the Capital city, which had the best pre-reform access to care but decreased deaths elsewhere. Overall, the reform led to a 0.29-year increase in life expectancy.

Advisor: Dow, William H