The 1989 Eastern European revolutions produced systematic failures in which various social, economic, and political players to coordinate on mutually beneficial solutions. The old institutional grid--political, economic, and social--was destroyed and the new institutions were still in the making. The collective action problems born in this institutional vacuum contributed to political instability, economic under-performance, and social inefficiencies. This paper examines the cooperation and lack of cooperation among Polish political parties in the 1990s as examples of the failure to reach agreement among political actors.

This study examined 4-year-old children’s understanding of the successor function, the concept that for every positive integer there is a unique next integer. Children were tested in the context of cardinal numbers and ordinal numbers. The results suggest that knowledge of the successor for cardinal numbers precedes that for ordinal numbers. In addition, for both cardinal and ordinal numbers, children generally failed to demonstrate understanding that the successor of a given number is unique

We discuss the relationship between principles of rule of law, such as due process, and transitional justice, especially truth revelation procedures. We argue that the traditional understanding of rule of law is ill-suited for evaluating lustration laws and truth commissions, and that the levels of false conviction and false acquittal are more adequate normative criteria. We distinguish between two types of truth revelation procedures: ITRs induce perpetrators and secret agents of the authoritarian regime to reveal the truth about their past while ETRs rely exclusively on preserved evidence and victims’ testimonies, without requiring any activity from the defendant. We demonstrate with a decision-making model that while both procedures are sensitive to the problem of falsified evidence, an ITR performs better with respect to revealing the identity of collaborators whose files were destroyed. Finally, we explain the connection between ITRs and endogenous transitional justice making an argument for the latter over exogenous modes of coming to terms with the past.

This dissertation consists of three chapters demonstrating novel applications of social choice and game theory concepts to Formula 1 racing. Chapter 1 explores the history of the sport, focusing on early connections to national politics in Europe, strategic manipulation of rules as the sport grew, and politics within the sport, including collective action and negotiations between competitors and various stakeholders. Also addressed is the evolution of scoring rules in the sport, what inspired early scoring systems, and the overall trajectory of historical changes to scoring. Chapter 2 looks at various strategic dilemmas faced by competitors and other parties involved in Formula 1. Particular attention is paid to cases in which an action, on the surface, appears counterintuitive. Hidden incentives are revealed, then used to explain the strategic thinking behind what is observed. Cases are classified according to their salient features, and parallels are drawn to other sports. Chapter 3 is dedicated to scoring in Formula 1. Scoring in the sport uses a variation of Borda count, and parallels traditional elections. Drivers are the equivalent of candidates and races play the role of voters, with the season-long championship being the election. Within this context I identify several examples of voting paradoxes and other concepts from social choice theory. Collectively, these three chapters examine a global, influential sport from multiple angles, including the political influence of the sport, politics within the sport, and the scoring of the sport as it relates to elections.

CD8+ T cells fight viral infections and other intracellular pathogens by identifying and destroying infected cells. CD8+ T cells, like all cells, take on different cell states which determine their behavior. This dissertation examines how epigenetic mechanisms such as chromatin accessibility and transcription factor binding regulate transcription, and consequently CD8+ T cell state. The particular CD8+ T cell states that I examine in this dissertation are: Naive (quiescent cells), Effector (cells actively fighting infection), Memory (cells that remain after infection is cleared, ready to fight recurrence of same infection), and Exhausted (cells with weakened cytotoxic function due to prolonged encounter with a particular antigen).

Chapter One introduces CD8+ T cells, regulation of transcription, and some of the high-throughput sequencing assays used later in the text to study CD8+ T cells. Chapter Two describes some of the computational tools I developed to process and infer useful information from high-throughput sequencing data. Chapter Three presents evidence that the chromatin of Exhausted CD8+ T cells differs from that of normal T cells, and demonstrates that these differences have functional consequences by validating an exhaustion-specific enhancer for PD-1, an important immunotherapy target. Chapter Four presents evidence that Batf and Irf4 work together to remodel chromatin and affect the binding of key CD8+ T cell transcription factors during the transition from naive to effector cell state.