The Community Rating System (CRS) was introduced to encourage flood mitigation and increase National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) participation via premium discounts. It is not clear, however, how additional mitigation and premium discounts affect NFIP participation and damage claims payments. We employ matching methods and log-linear regression framework to estimate the impact of CRS participation (versus non-participation) on outcomes. We also analyze the effect of individual CRS mitigation activities on outcomes. We do so while controlling for key geospatial, socioeconomic, and time effects. Results show a positive and significant effect of CRS participation on NFIP participation, but no significant effect on damage claims payments. Outreach and flood data maintenance activities have positive effect on NFIP participation while floodplain mapping and flood protection have negative effect. Flood protection information and storm water management have negative effect on damage claims payments while floodplain management planning and acquisition and relocation have positive effect.

Treatments for depression are not overly effective. Thus, aptitude-by-treatment interactions (ATIs), or interactions between particular treatments and client characteristics may be key to increasing treatment outcomes. Aptitudes of particular interest are 1) emotional and 2) etiological factors. Emotional factors related to positivity (i.e., fear of happiness, fear of positive evaluation, anticipatory anhedonia) are of practical interest due to recent increases in positivity-based treatments and of theoretical interest due to reward devaluation theory, which states that depressed individuals may be motivated to be fearful/avoidant of positivity. Etiological beliefs regarding causes of depression (i.e., physical, childhood, characterological) are of interest due to budding literature boasting the treatment benefits of matching relevant treatments to etiological beliefs. In the current study, participants were provided with four depression treatment descriptions and were asked about the personal fit, preference, and effectiveness of these treatments as well as completed an online battery of questionnaires. Emotional hypotheses supported reward devaluation theory, as individuals who were highly fearful of happiness and positivity were less interested in treatments specifically targeting positivity than other treatments, differing from the overall group preferences. Some evidence from etiological hypotheses also supported use of these beliefs in treatment planning, as individuals with childhood etiological beliefs were more interested in pastocused treatments, as well as those with characterological beliefs (after accounting for other clinical variables). Thus, incorporating emotional and etiological factors into treatment planning may allow for an enhanced discussion of why treatments in direct contrast with clients’ etiological beliefs or preferences may be the treatments that they need the most.

Thesis advisor: Utku Unver / Thesis advisor: Bumin Yenmez / This dissertation consists of two chapters. Both are centered around the theory and design of markets, in which the use of money is prohibited and/or strongly undesirable. In my first chapter, I study multi-object assignment problems. Here, the assignment of graduate students to teaching assistant positions over the course of two semesters, serves as an illustrative application. In my second chapter, I propose an alternative way to distribute asylum seekers among European member states based on the preferences of both sides. Chapter 1: Multi-Object Assignment: Booster Draft In my first chapter, I ask the question of how to divide among a set of n individuals a set of n × m indivisible objects without using monetary transfers, in a way that is efficient, incentive compatible, and ex-post fair. A well known impossibility result shows that the only mechanisms that are both incentive compatible and efficient are dictatorship mechanisms. I fill a gap in the literature by describing a novel mechanism that is both incentive compatible and fair in the responsive preference domain. The mechanism is inspired by booster drafts used in competitive card game tournaments. The idea is to arbitrarily divide the set n × m objects into m \boosters" (sets) of size n and specify a priority order for each such booster. Afterwards the individuals pick objects from the boosters in order of priority. The outcome of the booster draft mechanism can be improved if additional knowledge about a particular market is incorporated into the creation of boosters. I point out a special case of multi-object assignment problems, motivated by the allocation of teaching assignments among graduate students. In this domain the creation of the boosters is straightforward. Indeed, at the Boston College economics department, graduate students are assigned exactly one fall and one spring semester task over the academic year. Here the optimal way of creating boosters is to group up all spring teaching assignments in one booster and all fall semester assignments in the other. In this case the balanced booster draft is not only strategyproof and fair, but also weakly efficient (dominance efficient). Moreover, for this restricted assignment domain I characterize the set of all booster drafts as any (strongly) strategyproof, neutral and non-bossy mechanism. In the final part of the paper I take a closer look at the teaching assistant assignment problem, using date on the submitted rankings over semester-tasks by graduate students. The simulation exercise provides additional evidence that the proposed mechanism is a sensible practical solution. In particular, I show that for a simple measure of welfare students prefer a balanced booster draft to a serial dictatorship mechanism if they are mildly risk averse. Chapter 2: An Alternative Asylum Assignment The 2015 refugee crisis has demonstrated the necessity of revising the current European asylum system. As an alternative, I propose to take into account preferences of asylum seekers as well as preferences of member states. Asylum seekers indicate how long they are willing to wait for their asylum application for any given member state, allowing them to avoid overburdened member states by opting for \less popular" member states. Within the market design literature, this is the first paper proposing to match asylum seekers as opposed to refugees. In other words, its stays much closer to the template of the Common European Asylum System. From a theoretical perspective, it turns out that the asylum seeker framework can be formulated as an application of the well-known matching with contracts model by Hatfield and Milgrom (2005a). This simplifies the analysis a great deal, as matching with contracts is a well studied framework within the matching/market design literature. I show that the standard cumulative offer mechanism (Gale and Shapley, 1962a; Hatfield and Kojima, 2010a) is asylum seeker incentive compatible and leads to stable outcomes, using the fact that the proposed choice functions have a completion satisfying substitutability and the law of aggregate demand Hatfield and Kominers (2016). Moreover, stability implies two sided Pareto efficiency, giving consideration to both preferences of member states and asylum seekers. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) systems use electromagnetic signals to wirelessly identify and track RFID-tagged objects. A reader transmits a carrier wave request signal to an RFID tag, which then transmits a unique identification signal back to the reader. Applications include supply chain inventory management, automated toll booth fee systems, sports event timing, restricted access control, pet monitoring and retail theft prevention. An RFID tag includes an antenna connected to a Radio Frequency Integrated Circuit (RFIC). RFID tags in the ultra-high frequency (UHF), industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) 902-928MHz band and global Electronic Product Code (EPC) 860‑960MHz band are powered passively (power extracted from carrier wave) and cost less than 15 cents per tag. Low cost UHF ISM RFID tags are an effective solution for tracking large inventories. UHF ISM tag antennas are typically planar dipoles printed onto a plastic dielectric substrate (inlay). Power exchange and transmit range is maximized when a tag antenna’s input impedance is conjugate matched to the RFIC input impedance. Since RFIC input impedance includes capacitive reactance, optimized antenna input impedance includes compensating inductive reactance. The T-match network adds inductive matching microstrips to conjugate match the RFIC. Narrowband (±1.5% of center frequency) and broadband (±5% of center frequency) lumped element designs also use inductive matching strips. Narrowband, lumped element design is accomplished through Smith Chart matching assuming lumped antenna elements. The broadband lumped element design is accomplished through a circuit transformation to an equivalent network and tuning the transformed circuit to resonate from 865MHz to 955MHz, with a center frequency of 910MHz. This thesis demonstrates a start-to-finish design process for narrow (±1.5% of center frequency) and broadband (±5% of center frequency) RFID tag antennas [3]. Furthermore, antenna matching element geometries are parametrically swept to characterize input impedance frequency response. Thesis accomplishments include (a) narrow and broadband antenna designs, (b) Keysight’s Advanced Design System (ADS) Momentum simulations, (c) antenna fabrication, and (d) differential probe impedance setup and antenna impedance measurements. Additional items include (e) impedance adjustments (f) tag range testing and (g) narrow vs. broadband matching technique comparisons. Antennas were fabricated in Cal Poly’s Graphic Communication Department by silk-screening silver conductive ink onto DuPont Melinix Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) plastic. Impedance simulations are compared to fabricated antenna impedance measurements and range testing results.

Symbolic dynamics, and in particular β-expansions, are a ubiquitous tool in studying more complicated dynamical systems. Applications include number theory, fractals, information theory, and data storage. In this thesis we will explore the basics of dynamical systems with a special focus on topological dynamics. We then examine symbolic dynamics and β-transformations through the lens of sequence spaces. We discuss observations from recent literature about how matching (the property that the itinerary of 0 and 1 coincide after some number of iterations) is linked to when Tβ,⍺ generates a subshift of finite type. We prove the set of ⍺ in the parameter space for which Tβ,⍺ exhibits matching is symmetric and analyze some examples where the symmetry is both apparent and useful in finding a dense set of ⍺ for which Tβ,⍺ generates a subshift of finite type.

Recent literature has emphasized the importance of changes in occupation, i.e. occupational mobility, for both personal and aggregate outcomes. In this study I examine the various causes and consequences of that important decision. I begin by developing a new, generalized, model of measurement error which can fully incorporate changes in discrete classification like occupational mobility. I then use this framework to show that occupational mobility has spuriously risen in the monthly Current Population Survey. I then study the consequences of occupational mobility using a high quality 2% sample of the German Social Security Data to study how wages change around occupation and employer transitions. The results are consistent with idiosyncratic matching at the occupation, but not the employer, level. For men, wages increase by 5.5 percent following a voluntary employer transition that does not involve an occupation transition and 10.1 percent following voluntary employer transition that does involve an occupation transition. I build a model where workers differ in their cognitive, manual, and interactive skills, which creates comparative advantage in certain occupations. I estimate this model and show that most of the wage gains for young workers following an occupational transition are due to improved matching of worker skill with occupation tasks, and not simply movements to higher paying occupations. I then use the estimated model to show that the matching of workers to their comparative advantage has worsened in Germany between 1975-2010. Finally, I examine the testable implications of models of search and models of learning to see if they are consistent with the facts I have developed about occupational mobility. I find that while search models can be consistent with a number of empirical facts they, by themselves, are not able to rationalize "back-and-forth" switching that is observed in the data.

Die Begutachtung, der Handel und das Sammeln von Kunstgegenständen findet nicht ausschließlich analog statt. Die Firma 4ARTechnologies entwickelt Softwarelösungen für das digitale Kollektionsmanagement physischer und digitaler Kunst. Mittels Applikationen auf mobilen Endgeräten können Nutzer ihre Gemälde registrieren, authentifizieren und periodisch präzise Zustandsberichte erstellen. Die Erstellung von Zustandsberichten führt jedoch aufgrund von menschlichen Limitierungen zu Problemen in der Handhabung der Applikation und soll mithilfe eines mobilen Roboters automatisiert werden. Das Ziel dieser Arbeit ist die Entwicklung einer Navigation für einen mobilen Roboter. Diese soll folgendes Problem lösen: Lokalisierung eines Gemäldes, kollisionsfreie Annäherung und horizontal-mittige Positionierung davor. Zielplattform dieser Software ist das mobile Betriebssystem iOS. Für die Lösung wurden Verfahren der Navigation mobiler Roboter und der computergestützten Erkennung von Bildern untersucht. Die Navigationssoftware nutzt zur Zielfindung das Feature-Matching aus der OpenCV-Bibliothek. Für die Schätzung der eigenen Position werden relative Lokalisierungverfahren wie Posenverfolgung und Odometrie eingesetzt. Die Abbildung der Umgebung sowie der Bewegungsverlauf des Roboters werden auf einer topologischen Karte dargestellt. Mittels implementiertem BUG3-Algorithmus werden Hindernisse umfahren.:1. Einleitung 1.1. Problembeschreibung und thematische Abgrenzung 1.2. Aufbau Roboter 1.3. Randbedingungen und Anforderungen 2. Theoretische Grundlagen 2.1. Robotik 2.1.1. Mobile Robotik 2.2. Navigation 2.2.1. Lokalisierung 2.2.2. Kartierung 2.2.3. SLAM 2.2.4. Pfadfindung 2.2.5. Augmented Reality 2.3. Computer Vision 2.3.1. OpenCV 2.3.2. Vorlagen Erkennung 2.3.3. Template-basiertes Matching 2.3.4. Feature-basiertes Matching 3. Praktische Umsetzung 3.1. Programmablauf der Navigation 3.1.1. Verbindung mit dem Roboter 3.1.2. Initiale Exploration 3.1.3. Lokalisation und Annäherung 3.1.4. Kollisionsvermeidung 3.1.5. Zielanfahrt und Positionierung 4. Tests 4.1. Störfaktoren 5. Fazit und Ausblick 5.1. Fazit 5.2. Ausblick / The appraisal, trading and collecting of art objects does not only take place analogously. The company 4ARTechnologies develops software solutions for the digital collection management of physical and digital art. Using applications on mobile devices, users can register and authenticate their paintings and periodically create precise condition reports. The creation of condition reports leads to problems in handling the application due to human limitations and should be automated with the help of a mobile robot. The goal of this work is the development of a navigation system for a mobile robot. This should solve the following problem: Localization of a painting and the collision-free arrival and horizontal-center position in front of it. The target platform of this software is the mobile operating system iOS. Several methods, including the navigation of mobile robots and the computer-aided recognition of images were examined for the solution. The navigation software uses feature matching from the Open-CV library to find the destination. Relative localization methods such as pose tracking and odometry are used to estimate the robots own position. The environment and the movement of the robot are shown in a topological map. Obstacles are bypassed using the implemented BUG3 algorithm.:1. Einleitung 1.1. Problembeschreibung und thematische Abgrenzung 1.2. Aufbau Roboter 1.3. Randbedingungen und Anforderungen 2. Theoretische Grundlagen 2.1. Robotik 2.1.1. Mobile Robotik 2.2. Navigation 2.2.1. Lokalisierung 2.2.2. Kartierung 2.2.3. SLAM 2.2.4. Pfadfindung 2.2.5. Augmented Reality 2.3. Computer Vision 2.3.1. OpenCV 2.3.2. Vorlagen Erkennung 2.3.3. Template-basiertes Matching 2.3.4. Feature-basiertes Matching 3. Praktische Umsetzung 3.1. Programmablauf der Navigation 3.1.1. Verbindung mit dem Roboter 3.1.2. Initiale Exploration 3.1.3. Lokalisation und Annäherung 3.1.4. Kollisionsvermeidung 3.1.5. Zielanfahrt und Positionierung 4. Tests 4.1. Störfaktoren 5. Fazit und Ausblick 5.1. Fazit 5.2. Ausblick

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