This thesis proposes a practical approach to defining flexible design and development strategies for maximizing the expected value of engineering systems. Specifically, the approach deals with the fact that it is generally computationally impractical to explore all the possible ways a system...

This thesis discusses ensemble forecasting, a promising new weather forecasting technique, from various viewpoints relating not only to its meteorological aspects but also to its user and policy aspects. Ensemble forecasting was developed to overcome the limitations of conventional deterministic...

This thesis assesses fare payment technologies for Transport for London in 2015. Based on a survey of technical literature, feasible payments technologies in 2015 include current smartcard technology, contactless bankcards and near-field communication (NFC) mobile phones. Five fare payment...

Globalization is changing the way in which the world is organized. The world trade regime is increasingly the dominant mode of organizing international relations. Within this context of globalization and liberalization of trade, empirical examples of a race to the bottom co-exist with examples...

Online service providers (OSPs) such as Google, Yahoo!, and Amazon provide customized features that do not behave as conventional experience goods. Absent familiar metaphors, unraveling the full. scope and implications of attendant privacy hazards requires technical knowledge, creating...

In recent years, a debate has ensued regarding the role of long-term power purchase agreements for securing investments in power generation capacity in organized wholesale markets. This thesis illuminates the issues surrounding the debate and provides a framework for understanding the nature and...

This research focuses on two specific research problems in the context of innovation in the biotech industry. These research problems map to the two phases of innovation process--creation of new scientific expertise (Phase I) and commercialization of that new expertise (Phase II). The research...

Over the past five years, mobile Internet services in Japan have seen major expansion as a result of collaboration between mobile operators acting as mobile portal providers, and their complementors, namely, content providers. However, the content business is currently under pressure to become...

(cont.) payoff IT investments. When the North American Aerospace Industry invests less than any other industry in the high risk investments, its foreign counterpart invests more than any other industry. The second major finding is that the governance mechanisms in place are similar in the two...

A defining feature of modern industry is operating in a context of nearly continuous technological change. Nevertheless, industrial decision-makers must select technologies and implement production strategies even in the face of known-to-be-incomplete information and environmental uncertainties....