This research studies lateral transshipment of critical medical items that have low demands. Due to the high prices of medical items and their limited shelf lives, the expirations contribute significantly to the current prohibitively high cost of the healthcare system. Lateral transshipment between hospitals in a medical system provides opportunities to reduce the expiration costs. This paper studies the decision rule for lateral transshipment in a two-hospital system and extends the rule for the multiple-hospital cases. The decision rule takes the myopic best action by assuming no transshipments will be performed in the future. Numerical experiments demonstrate significant cost savings and the decision rule has a small gap from the upper bound of the total saving. The savings are more considerable when the difference of demand rates at different locations is large and the life time of the medical item is not too long or too short.

Landslides display a wide variety of behaviors ranging from slow persistent motion to rapid acceleration and catastrophic failure. Given the variety of possible behaviors, improvements to our understanding of landslide mechanics are critical for accurate predictions of landslide dynamics. Recent advances in remote sensing techniques, like satellite radar interferometry (InSAR), now enable high-resolution spatial and temporal measurements that provide insight into the mechanisms that control landslide behavior. In this dissertation, I use InSAR and high-resolution topographic data to identify 50 slow-moving landslides in the Northern California Coast Ranges and monitor their kinematics over 4 years. These landslides have similar mechanical properties and are subject to the same external forcings, which allows me to explore geometrical controls on kinematics. Each landslide displays distinct kinematic zones with different mean velocities that remain spatially fixed. Because these deformation patterns are sensitive to subsurface geometry, I employ a mathematical model to infer landslide thickness and find that these landslides exhibit a highly variable thickness and an irregular basal sliding surface. Time series analysis reveals that each landslide displays well-defined seasonal velocity changes with a periodicity of ∼ 1 year. These velocity variations are driven by precipitation- induced changes in pore-water pressure that lag the onset of rainfall by up to 40 days. Despite significant variations in geometry, I find no systematic differences in seasonal landslide behavior. To further explore how stress perturbations control landslide motion, I develop a mechanical model that reproduces both the displacement patterns observed at slow-moving landslides and the acceleration towards failure exhibited by catastrophic events. I find that catastrophic failure can only occur when the slip surface is characterized by rate-weakening friction and its spatial dimensions exceed a critical nucleation length that is shorter for higher effective stresses. These model simulations support my conclusions from the remote sensing analysis but also provide insight into the long-term evolution of landslides. This dissertation includes both previously published and unpublished co- authored material.

Application of multisource feedback (MSF) increased dramatically and became widespread globally in the past two decades, but there was little conceptual work regarding self-other agreement and few empirical studies investigated self-other agreement in other cultural settings. This study developed a new conceptual framework of self-other agreement and used three samples to illustrate how national culture affected self-other agreement. These three samples included 428 participants from China, 818 participants from the US, and 871 participants from globally dispersed teams (GDTs). An EQS procedure and a polynomial regression procedure were used to examine whether the covariance matrices were equal across samples and whether the relationships between self-other agreement and performance would be different across cultures, respectively. The results indicated MSF could be applied to China and GDTs, but the pattern of relationships between self-other agreement and performance was different across samples, suggesting that the results found in the U.S. sample were the exception rather than rule. Demographics also affected self-other agreement disparately across perspectives and cultures, indicating self-concept was susceptible to cultural influences. The proposed framework only received partial support but showed great promise to guide future studies. This study contributed to the literature by: (a) developing a new framework of self-other agreement that could be used to study various contextual factors; (b) examining the relationship between self-other agreement and performance in three vastly different samples; (c) providing some important insights about consensus between raters and self-other agreement; (d) offering some practical guidelines regarding how to apply MSF to other cultures more effectively.

Horse and buggy transportation is spreading as rapidly as its Amish and Old Order Mennonite users are, as are buggy crashes with motor vehicles. This study examines the primary causes of 76 reported horse and buggy crashes in Pennsylvania in 2006. The main crash types identified include a motorist rear-ending a forward-moving buggy, motorist failing to pass a buggy, buggy struck while crossing an intersection, and buggy struck while making a left turn. While causative factors varied for each crash type, major factors include the motorist or buggy driver incorrectly comprehending speed differentials, the motorist acting carelessly around the buggy, and miscommunication between the motorist and buggy driver. Within these crash types, buggy conspicuity was neither a major issue nor a possible cause in most.

Subject of the work is comparison between the selected Czech standards elements for the road design and the standards in selected EU Member States. Based on the comparison and in agreement with the supervisor is designed to optimize the control elements of pitch towards sustainable transport safety. The work addresses the longitudinal gradients of motorways, expressways and other roads directionally divided according to standard ČSN 73 6101.