In dieser Arbeit wird untersucht, wie eine theoriegeleitete Bewertung der Auslagerungseignung von Geschäftsprozessen erfolgen kann und welche Ansatzpunkte für profitables Wachstum von Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)-Anbietern in Deutschland sich aus der Nutzung einer entsprechenden Methodik ableiten lassen. Dazu wird in drei Schritten vorgegangen. In einem ersten Schritt wird ein theoretisch-konzeptionelles Bewertungsmodell zur Bestimmung der Auslagerungseignung von Geschäftsprozessen entwickelt. In einem zweiten Schritt werden Möglichkeiten einer konzeptionellen Übertragung dieses Modells auf Praxisanwendungen geprüft. Im abschließenden dritten Schritt wird gezeigt, wie die Verwendung des in dieser Arbeit entwickelten Bewertungsmodells im Rahmen der Marktbearbeitungsaktivitäten von BPO-Dienstleistern einen Beitrag zum profitablen Wachstum dieser Anbieter leisten kann.:1 Einführung: Organisationen im Wandel 1.1 Problemstellung 1.2 Zielsetzung der Arbeit und wissenschaftliche Vorgehensweise 1.3 Stand der Publikationen 2 Business Processs Outsourcing: Entwicklung, Systematisierung und Definition 2.1 Entwicklung des Business Process Outsourcing 2.2 Systematisierungsansätze für die Begriffe Sourcing und Outsourcing 2.3 Definition und Abgrenzung des Business Process Outsourcings 3 Entwicklung eines theoretisch-konzeptionellen Modells zur Bedarfsermittlung an BPO-Leistungen 3.1 Grenzen der Theorieauswahl 3.2 Vorstellung ausgewählter theoretischer Ansätze 3.3 Klassifizierung von Entscheidungsmodellen 3.4 Multikriterielle Entscheidungsmodelle 3.5 Eingrenzung der theoretischen Elemente zur Entwicklung eines BPO-Entscheidungsmodells 3.6 Entwicklung eines BPO-Entscheidungsmodells 4 Ansätze zur konzeptionellen Übertragung des BPO-Entscheidungsmodells auf Praxisanwendungen 4.1 Entwicklung einer individuellen Bewertungsmethodik 4.2 Entwicklung einer Gesamtbewertungsmethodik 4.3 Zwischenfazit 5 Ansätze für profitables Wachstum von BPO-Dienstleistern 5.1 Marktbegriffe 5.2 Marketing und Marketing-Wissenschaft 5.3 Entwicklung von Marketingansätzen für BPO-Dienstleister 6 Fazit und Ausblick 6.1 Fazit 6.2 Ausblick / In this thesis it is studied how a theory-based assessment of business processes regarding their adequacy for outsourcing can be carried out and what starting points for profitable growth of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) providers in Germany can result from the application of such a methodology. For this purpose a three step approach is taken. As a first step a theory-based concept of an assessment model to determine the adequacy of outsourcing business processes is developed. As a second step possibilities for transferring the concept of this model to real life applications are examined. In a final third step it is shown how the assessment model developed here can be used as part of the marketing activities of BPO companies to contribute to their profitable growth.:1 Einführung: Organisationen im Wandel 1.1 Problemstellung 1.2 Zielsetzung der Arbeit und wissenschaftliche Vorgehensweise 1.3 Stand der Publikationen 2 Business Processs Outsourcing: Entwicklung, Systematisierung und Definition 2.1 Entwicklung des Business Process Outsourcing 2.2 Systematisierungsansätze für die Begriffe Sourcing und Outsourcing 2.3 Definition und Abgrenzung des Business Process Outsourcings 3 Entwicklung eines theoretisch-konzeptionellen Modells zur Bedarfsermittlung an BPO-Leistungen 3.1 Grenzen der Theorieauswahl 3.2 Vorstellung ausgewählter theoretischer Ansätze 3.3 Klassifizierung von Entscheidungsmodellen 3.4 Multikriterielle Entscheidungsmodelle 3.5 Eingrenzung der theoretischen Elemente zur Entwicklung eines BPO-Entscheidungsmodells 3.6 Entwicklung eines BPO-Entscheidungsmodells 4 Ansätze zur konzeptionellen Übertragung des BPO-Entscheidungsmodells auf Praxisanwendungen 4.1 Entwicklung einer individuellen Bewertungsmethodik 4.2 Entwicklung einer Gesamtbewertungsmethodik 4.3 Zwischenfazit 5 Ansätze für profitables Wachstum von BPO-Dienstleistern 5.1 Marktbegriffe 5.2 Marketing und Marketing-Wissenschaft 5.3 Entwicklung von Marketingansätzen für BPO-Dienstleister 6 Fazit und Ausblick 6.1 Fazit 6.2 Ausblick

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / CD4 T helper cells control immunity to pathogens and the development of inflammatory disease by acquiring the ability to secrete effector cytokines. Cytokine responsiveness is a critical component of the ability of cells to respond to the extracellular milieu by activating Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription factors that induce the expression of other transcription factors important for cytokine production. STAT4 is a critical regulator of Th1 differentiation and inflammatory disease that attenuates the gene-repressing activity of Dnmt3a. In the absence of STAT4, genetic loss of Dnmt3a results in de-repression of a subset of Th1 genes, and a partial increase in expression that is sufficient to observe a modest recovery of STAT4-dependent inflammatory disease. STAT4 also induces expression of the transcription factors Twist1 and Etv5. We demonstrate that Twist1 negatively regulates Th1 cell differentiation through several mechanisms including physical interaction with Runx3 and impairing STAT4 activation. Following induction by STAT3-activating cytokines including IL-6, Twist1 represses Th17 and Tfh differentiation by directly binding to, and suppressing expression of, the Il6ra locus, subsequently reducing STAT3 activation. In contrast, Etv5 contributes only modestly to Th1 development but promotes Th differentiation by directly activating cytokine production in Th9 and Th17 cells, and Bcl6 expression in Tfh cells. Thus, the transcription factors Twist1 and Etv5 provide unique regulation of T helper cell identity, ultimately impacting the development of cell-mediated and humoral immunity.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / It has traditionally been posited that women show a "telescoped" development of alcohol use disorders (Kuhn, 2011). In particular, a number of clinical studies support striking sex differences in the progression from initial use of alcohol to dependence on the compound; with women showing a faster progression through landmark events associated with the development of alcohol addiction (Randall et al., 1999). However, recent studies have challenged this tenet (Keyes et al., 2010). The work presented herein was designed to determine whether females are indeed more vulnerable to the development of behavioral maladaptations following binge drinking and whether sex differences in GABA(A) receptor regulation might underlie this vulnerability. Using a mouse model of binge drinking this dissertation established that, compared to males, females escalate their binge drinking at a faster rate and maintain altered responsivity to the locomotor effects of alcohol after extended abstinence from binge drinking. Female mice also displayed significant increases in ethanol preference and intake in a continuous, two-bottle choice protocol following a shorter history of binge drinking than males. The final goal was to determine if binge drinking results in unique patterns of anxiety- or depressive-like symptoms in males and females and whether these behaviors would be associated with the dimorphic regulation of GABAA receptor subunits across the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. Male binge drinkers displayed anxiety-like behavior during early withdrawal that dissipated after 2 weeks of abstinence. There were no significant changes in the expression of delta or gamma2 GABAA receptor subunit mRNA at this time point in the regions analyzed. Females also showed temporary anxiety-like behavior during early withdrawal from binge drinking. Additionally, females displayed significant depressive-like behavior after 2 weeks of abstinence from binge drinking. In particular, diestrus-phase females displayed significantly greater immobility in the forced-swim test after ethanol exposure and no longer maintained the reduced swim-time behavior associated with this phase of the cycle at baseline (when compared to the estrus-phase). qPCR analysis of hippocampal tissues from diestrus females supported a significant reduction in expression of gamma2 GABA(A) subunit mRNA after binge drinking. This effect was not noted for RNA isolated from hippocampal tissues taken during the estrus phase of bingers. These final data suggest possible interaction of estrous-cycle and binge drinking history that may result in the unique expression of deficits following binge drinking for females. Taken together, this work supports sex and estrous dependent effects of binge drinking on behavior and gene regulation.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / In recent years, magnesium alloys, due to their high strength and biocompatibility, have attracted significant interest in medical applications, such as cardiovascular stents, orthopedic implants, and devices. To overcome the high corrosion rate of magnesium alloys, coatings have been developed on the alloy surface. Most coating methods, such as anodic oxidation, polymer coating and chemical conversion coating, cannot produce satisfactory coating to be used in human body environment. Recent studies demonstrate that micro-arc oxidation (MAO) technique can produce hard, dense, wear-resistant and well-adherent oxide coatings for light metals such as aluminum, magnesium, and titanium. Though there are many previous studies, the understanding of processing conditions on coating performance remains elusive. Moreover, previous tests were done in simulated body fluid. No test has been done in a cell culture medium, which is much closer to human body environment than simulated body fluid. In this study, the effect of MAO processing time (1 minute, 5 minutes, 15 minutes, and 20 minutes) on the electrochemical behaviors of the coating in both conventional simulated body fluid and a cell culture medium has been investigated. Additionally a new electrolyte (12 g/L Na2SiO3, 4 g/L NaF and 4 ml/L C3H8O3) has been used in the MAO coating process. Electrochemical behaviors were measured by performing potentiodynamic polarization and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy tests. In addition to the tests in simulated body fluid, the MAO-coated and uncoated samples were immersed in a cell culture medium to investigate the corrosion behaviors and compare the difference in these two kinds of media. The results show that in the immersion tests in conventional simulated body fluid, the 20-minute MAO coated sample has the best resistance to corrosion due to the largest coating thickness. In contrast, in the cell culture medium, all MAO coated samples demonstrate a similar high corrosion resistance behavior, independent of MAO processing time. This is probably due to the organic passive layers formed on the coating surfaces. Additionally, a preliminary finite element model has been developed to simulate the immersion test of magnesium alloy in simulated body fluid. Comparison between the predicted corrosion current density and experimental data is discussed.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Adaptive-optics optical coherence tomography (AOOCT) is a technology that has been rapidly advancing in recent years and offers amazing capabilities in scanning the human eye in vivo. In order to bring the ultra-high resolution capabilities to clinical use, however, newer technology needs to be used in the image reconstruction process. General purpose computation on graphics processing units is one such way that this computationally intensive reconstruction can be performed in a desktop computer in real-time. This work shows the process of AOOCT image reconstruction, the basics of how to use NVIDIA's CUDA to write parallel code, and a new AOOCT image reconstruction technology implemented using NVIDIA's CUDA. The results of this work demonstrate that image reconstruction can be done in real-time with high accuracy using a GPU.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The islet beta cell is unique in its ability to synthesize and secrete insulin for use in the body. A number of factors including proinflammatory cytokines, free fatty acids, and islet amyloid are known to cause beta cell stress. These factors lead to lipotoxic, inflammatory, and ER stress in the beta cell, contributing to beta cell dysfunction and death, and diabetes. While transcriptional responses to beta cell stress are well appreciated, relatively little is known regarding translational responses in the stressed beta cell. To study translation, I established conditions in vitro with MIN6 cells and mouse islets that mimicked UPR conditions seen in diabetes. Cell extracts were then subjected to polyribosome profiling to monitor changes to mRNA occupancy by ribosomes. Chronic exposure of beta cells to proinflammatory cytokines (IL-1 beta, TNF-alpha, IFN-gamma), or to the saturated free fatty acid palmitate, led to changes in global beta cell translation consistent with attenuation of translation initiation, which is a hallmark of ER stress. In addition to changes in global translation, I observed transcript specific regulation of ribosomal occupancy in beta cells. Similar to other privileged mRNAs (Atf4, Chop), Pdx1 mRNA remained partitioned in actively translating polyribosomes during the UPR, whereas the mRNA encoding a proinsulin processing enzyme (Cpe) partitioned into inactively translating monoribosomes. Bicistronic luciferase reporter analyses revealed that the distal portion of the 5’ untranslated region of mouse Pdx1 (between bp –105 to –280) contained elements that promoted translation under both normal and UPR conditions. In contrast to regulation of translation initiation, deoxyhypusine synthase (DHS) and eukaryotic translation initiation factor 5A (eIF5A) are required for efficient translation elongation of specific stress relevant messages in the beta cell including Nos2. Further, p38 signaling appears to promote translational elongation via DHS in the islet beta cell. Together, these data represent new insights into stress induced translational regulation in the beta cell. Mechanisms of differential mRNA translation in response to beta cell stress may play a key role in maintenance of islet beta cell function in the setting of diabetes.

[ES] El aprovechamiento de la tecnología de Quinta Generación (5G) para impulsar a la Industria 4.0 ha marcado un hito significativo en la evolución histórica de las redes celulares. Este desarrollo tiene como objetivo respaldar a las fábricas inteligentes con estrictos requisitos de comunicación, ya que su operatividad se centra en cumplir con los estándares de Calidad de Servicio (QoS), lo que hace que las aplicaciones del Industrial Internet de las cosas (IIoT) sean susceptibles a un rendimiento de red inestable. Además, estas aplicaciones suelen ocurrir en interiores, donde la alta densidad de obstáculos presenta desafíos adicionales. Estructuras metálicas grandes, robots y vehículos en movimiento obstruyen la propagación de la señal y pueden degradar significativamente el rendimiento de las comunicaciones. El primer modelo de canal estandarizado para fábricas interiores (InF) fue introducido por el Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) en la Release 16 para estudiar y abordar estas particularidades ambientales. Esta tesis se centra en esta base y examina el procedimiento de modelado, identificando limitaciones como la caracterización imprecisa de parámetros y la capacidad limitada para capturar toda la complejidad geométrica de tales entornos. Preocupado por estas limitaciones, este trabajo da un paso significativo hacia adelante al proponer una nueva tecnología para abordar los desafíos en el modelado industrial. Este enfoque abre la puerta a explorar una de las tendencias emergentes clave en la Sexta Generación (6G) para aplicaciones IIoT: los sistemas de Integrated Sensing and Communications (ISAC). Los sistemas ISAC tienen un gran potencial para superar no solo los desafíos existentes, sino también para introducir mejoras adicionales y valiosas. Dado que ISAC es una tecnología novedosa, aún no se ha diseñado un modelo de canal específico para ella. Para cubrir esta necesidad, esta tesis presenta el desarrollo de un modelo de canal ISAC como un paso fundamental para avanzar en esta tecnología. Durante dicho avance, se han identificado características fundamentales para construir un modelo de canal ISAC, las cuales suelen ser pasadas por alto en la literatura. En respuesta a esto, este trabajo motiva el desarrollo de directrices técnicas para el modelado ISAC, formando una metodología de evaluación. Una metodología de evaluación es importante para ISAC o cualquier sistema, ya que es esencial para evaluar el rendimiento y orientar futuras mejoras. Actualmente, no existe una metodología de este tipo para ISAC. Esta tesis aborda estos desafíos al enfatizar la importancia de considerar las características principales para construir un canal ISAC: correlación entre el canal de sensado y el de comunicación y consistencia espacial. Basándose en el desarrollo inicial del marco ISAC, el siguiente paso consiste en probar ISAC en entornos cuasi-realistas. Esta tesis presenta un caso de uso industrial que aplica entrenamiento de haz asistido por sensado, demostrando cómo ISAC puede abordar el problema de las múltiples obstrucciones en tales entornos. Específicamente, explora la técnica de sustracción de fondo en un algoritmo de formación de haces predictiva, que aprovecha la información relacionada con el usuario obtenida a través del sensado. Bajo estas consideraciones, los hallazgos indican una mejora sustancial en el rendimiento de la comunicación, particularmente en lo que respecta a la relación señal a ruido (SNR) y la tasa de datos efectiva. En otras palabras, los resultados destacan el potencial de ISAC para abordar eficazmente las complejidades geométricas del entorno de interés. Esta tesis no solo es pionera en la técnica de sustracción de fondo, sino que también muestra su impacto, allanando el camino para futuras aplicaciones a otros algoritmos de sensado dentro del marco ISAC y la fábrica del futuro. / [CA] L'aprofitament de la tecnologia de Cinquena Generació (5G) per a impulsar la Indústria 4.0 ha marcat un fita significativa en l'evolució històrica de les xarxes cel·lulars. Aquest desenvolupament té com a objectiu donar suport a les fàbriques intel·ligents amb estrictes requisits de comunicació, ja que el seu funcionament depén de complir amb els estàndards de Qualitat de Servei (QoS), cosa que fa que les aplicacions de l'Internet Industrial de les Coses (IIoT) siguen susceptibles a un rendiment de xarxa inestable. A més, aquestes aplicacions solen produir-se en interiors, on la gran densitat d'obstacles presenta desafiaments addicionals. Grans estructures metàl·liques, robots i vehicles en moviment obstrueixen la propagació del senyal i poden degradar significativament el rendiment de les comunicacions. El primer model de canal estandarditzat per a fàbriques interiors (InF) va ser introduït pel Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) en la Release 16 per a estudiar i abordar aquestes particularitats ambientals. Aquesta tesi es centra en aquesta base i examina el procediment de modelatge, identificant limitacions com ara la caracterització imprecisa dels paràmetres i la capacitat limitada per a captar tota la complexitat geomètrica d'aquests entorns. Preocupat per aquestes limitacions, aquest treball fa un pas significatiu cap endavant en proposar una nova tecnologia per a abordar els desafiaments en el modelatge industrial. Aquest enfocament obri la porta a explorar una de les tendències emergents clau en la Sisena Generació (6G) per a aplicacions IIoT: els sistemes d'Integrated Sensing and Communications (ISAC). Els sistemes ISAC tenen un gran potencial per a superar no sols els desafiaments existents, sinó també per a introduir millores addicionals i valuoses. Com que ISAC és una tecnologia innovadora, encara no s'ha dissenyat un model de canal específic per a ella. Per a cobrir aquesta necessitat, aquesta tesi presenta el desenvolupament d'un model de canal ISAC com un pas fonamental per a avançar en aquesta tecnologia. En el marc d'aquest avanç, s'han identificat característiques fonamentals per a construir un model de canal ISAC, les quals solen ser passades per alt en la literatura. En resposta a això, aquest treball motiva el desenvolupament de directrius tècniques per al modelatge ISAC, formant una metodologia d'avaluació. Una metodologia d'avaluació és important per a ISAC o per a qualsevol sistema, ja que és essencial per avaluar el rendiment i orientar futures millores. Actualment, no existeix una metodologia d'aquest tipus per a ISAC. Aquesta tesi aborda aquests desafiaments en destacar la importància de considerar les característiques principals per a construir un canal ISAC: correlació entre el canal de sensat i el de comunicació i consistència espacial. Basant-se en el desenvolupament inicial del marc ISAC, el pas següent consisteix a provar ISAC en entorns quasi-realistes. Aquesta tesi presenta un cas d'ús industrial que aplica un entrenament de feix assistit per sensat, demostrant com ISAC pot abordar el problema de les múltiples obstruccions en aquests entorns. Específicament, explora la tècnica de sostracció de fons en un algoritme de formació de feixos predictiva, que aprofita la informació relacionada amb l'usuari obtinguda a través del sensat. Dins d'aquestes consideracions, les troballes indiquen una millora substancial en el rendiment de la comunicació, particularment pel que fa a la relació senyal-soroll (SNR) i la taxa de dades efectiva. En altres paraules, els resultats destaquen el potencial d'ISAC per a abordar eficaçment les complexitats geomètriques de l'entorn d'interés. Aquesta tesi no sols és pionera en la tècnica de sostracció de fons, sinó que també mostra el seu impacte, obrint el camí a futures aplicacions en altres algoritmes de sensat dins del marc ISAC i la fàbrica del futur. / [EN] Leveraging Fifth Generation (5G) technology to advance Industry 4.0 has marked a significant milestone in the historical evolution of cellular networks. This development aims to support smart factories with stringent communication requirements, as their operation is focused on meeting Quality of Service (QoS) standards, making the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) applications susceptible to unstable network performance. Moreover, these applications frequently occur indoors, where high-density clutter poses additional challenges. Large metal structures, robots, and moving vehicles obstruct signal propagation and can significantly degrade communication performance. The first standardized channel model for Indoor Factory (InF) was introduced by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) in Release 16 to study and address these environmental particularities. This Thesis builds on this foundation and examines the modeling procedure, identifying limitations such as imprecise parameter characterization and a limited ability to capture the full geometric complexity of such environments. Concerned about these limitations, this work takes a significant step forward by proposing a new technology to address challenges in industrial modeling. This approach opens the door to exploring one of the key emerging trends in Sixth Generation (6G) for IIoT applications: Integrated Sensing and Communications (ISAC) systems. ISAC systems hold the promising potential to overcome not only existing challenges but also introduce additional, valuable enhancements. As ISAC is a novel technology, no channel model has been specifically designed for it so far. To fill this need, this Thesis presents the development of an ISAC channel model as a foundational step in advancing this technology. During this progress, fundamental features for building an ISAC channel model have been identified, which are often overlooked in the literature. In response, this work motivates the development of technical guidelines for ISAC modeling, forming an evaluation methodology. An evaluation methodology is important for ISAC or any system, as it is essential for assessing performance and guiding future upgrades. Such a methodology does not exist for ISAC. This Thesis tackles these challenges by emphasizing the importance of considering the main features to construct an ISAC channel: Correlation between the sensing and communication channel and spatial consistency. Building on the initial development of the ISAC framework, the next step involves testing ISAC in quasi-realistic environments. This Thesis presents an industrial use case that applies sensing-assisted beam training, demonstrating how ISAC can deal with the issue of multiple obstructions in such environments. Specifically, it explores the background subtraction technique in a predictive beamforming algorithm, which leverages target-related information obtained through sensing. Under these considerations, the findings indicate a substantial improvement in communication performance, particularly regarding signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and effective data rate. In other words, the results highlight ISAC's potential to tackle the geometrical complexities of the environment of interest effectively. This Thesis not only pioneers the background subtraction technique but also showcases its impact, paving the way for future applications to other sensing algorithms within the framework of ISAC and the factory of the future. / Thanks to the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation, and University, which funded this Thesis under Project Grant No. RTI2018-099880-B-C31 / Ramos Pillasagua, AF. (2024). 6G Integrated Sensing and Communication System for the Factory of the Future [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/214344

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / In medical research, data analysis often requires complex statistical methods where no closed-form solutions are available. Under such circumstances, Monte Carlo (MC) methods have found many applications. In this dissertation, we proposed several novel statistical models where MC methods are utilized. For the first part, we focused on semicompeting risks data in which a non-terminal event was subject to dependent censoring by a terminal event. Based on an illness-death multistate survival model, we proposed flexible random effects models. Further, we extended our model to the setting of joint modeling where both semicompeting risks data and repeated marker data are simultaneously analyzed. Since the proposed methods involve high-dimensional integrations, Bayesian Monte Carlo Markov Chain (MCMC) methods were utilized for estimation. The use of Bayesian methods also facilitates the prediction of individual patient outcomes. The proposed methods were demonstrated in both simulation and case studies. For the second part, we focused on re-randomization test, which is a nonparametric method that makes inferences solely based on the randomization procedure used in clinical trials. With this type of inference, Monte Carlo method is often used for generating null distributions on the treatment difference. However, an issue was recently discovered when subjects in a clinical trial were randomized with unbalanced treatment allocation to two treatments according to the minimization algorithm, a randomization procedure frequently used in practice. The null distribution of the re-randomization test statistics was found not to be centered at zero, which comprised power of the test. In this dissertation, we investigated the property of the re-randomization test and proposed a weighted re-randomization method to overcome this issue. The proposed method was demonstrated through extensive simulation studies.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Our connections to the digital world are invoked by brands, but the intersection of branding and interaction design is still an under-investigated area. Particularly, current websites are designed not only to support essential user tasks, but also to communicate an institution's intended brand values and traits. What we do not yet know, however, is which design factors affect which aspect of a brand. To demystify this issue, three sub-projects were conducted. The first project developed a systematic approach for evaluating the branding effectiveness of content-intensive websites (BREW). BREW gauges users' brand perceptions on four well-known branding constructs: brand as product, brand as organization, user image, and brand as person. It also provides rich guidelines for eBranding researchers in regard to planning and executing a user study and making improvement recommendations based on the study results. The second project offered a standardized perceived usability questionnaire entitled DEEP (design-oriented evaluation of perceived web usability). DEEP captures the perceived website usability on five design-oriented dimensions: content, information architecture, navigation, layout consistency, and visual guidance. While existing questionnaires assess more holistic concepts, such as ease-of-use and learnability, DEEP can more transparently reveal where the problem actually lies. Moreover, DEEP suggests that the two most critical and reliable usability dimensions are interface consistency and visual guidance. Capitalizing on the BREW approach and the findings from DEEP, a controlled experiment (N=261) was conducted by manipulating interface consistency and visual guidance of an anonymized university website to see how these variables may affect the university's image. Unexpectedly, consistency did not significantly predict brand image, while the effect of visual guidance on brand perception showed a remarkable gender difference. When visual guidance was significantly worsened, females became much less satisfied with the university in terms of brand as product (e.g., teaching and research quality) and user image (e.g., students' characteristics). In contrast, males' perceptions of the university's brand image stayed the same in most circumstances. The reason for this gender difference was revealed through a further path analysis and a follow-up interview, which inspired new research directions to unpack even more the nexus between branding and interaction design.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / A sizeable body of research has attempted to examine the interaction between government spending and private giving known as the crowd-out effect. Most researchers reported that increases of government spending cause decreases of philanthropic giving to different types of nonprofits. However, few studies have attempted to indicate the interaction between government welfare expenditures and private giving to human service organizations even though human service organizations are the most sensitive to the changes of government spending. Additionally, the estimated crowd-out effects with a simple crowd-out model have been criticized for potential endogeneity bias. This paper investigates the total effect of federal government welfare spending on state government expenditures and philanthropic giving to human service organizations (known as joint crowd-out). I used the 2005 wave of the Center on Philanthropy Panel Study (COPPS) to estimate the effect of federal human service grants on state government spending on, and donations to human services. From these reduced-form estimates I infer the levels of simple and joint crowd-out. I found that indicate federal spending on public welfare crowds out private giving to human service organizations while holding control variables constant in the donations equation. However, federal government spending on public welfare crowds in state government spending on public welfare.