The Contribution of Structured Activity and Deliberate Play to the Development of Expert Perceptual and Decision-Making Skill

The developmental histories of 32 players in the Australian Football League (AFL), independently classified as either expert or less skilled in their perceptual and decision- making skills, were collected through a structured interview process and their year-on-year involvement in structured and deliberate play activities retrospectively determined. Despite being drawn from the same elite level of competition, the expert decision-makers differed from the less skilled in having accrued, during their developing years, more hours of experience in structured activities of all types, in structured activities in invasion-type sports, in invasion-type deliberate play, and in invasion activities from sports other than Australian football. Accumulated hours invested in invasion-type activities differentiated between the groups, suggesting that it is the amount of invasion-type activity that is experienced and not necessarily intent (skill development or fun) or specificity that facilitates the development of perceptual and decision-making expertise in this team sport.

A Cognitive Behavioural Therapy approach to Suicide Assessment and Intervention

An evaluation of training delivered to undergraduate nursing students on the therapeutic benefits and efficacy of the application of a basic CBT model and the use of simple CBT techniques for the assessment and intervention of service users with suicidal intent.

German consumers' attitudes and preferences with regard to organic food and food from different origins

In dieser Studie geht es darum, ein umfassendes Bild bezüglich der Konsumenteneinstellungen, Präferenzen und Zahlungsbereitschaften für ökologisch produzierte Lebensmittel und Lebensmittel verschiedener Herkünfte in Deutschland zu erhalten. Obwohl die regionale Herkunft von Lebensmitteln nicht offiziell und einheitlich geregelt ist und keiner Zertifizierung unterliegt wie die ökologische Produktion von Lebensmitteln, zeigen nationale und internationale Studien gleichermaßen, dass Konsumenten bereit sind, mehr für regionale als für ökologisch produzierte Lebensmittel zu bezahlen. Zur Erreichung des Forschungsziels wurde ein Kaufexperiment in Kombination mit einer Konsumentenbefragung, bestehend aus Fragen zum generellen Einkaufsverhalten, zu Einstellungen gegenüber regionalen und ökologisch produzierten Lebensmitteln und zu soziodemographischen Informationen durchgeführt. Im Kaufexperiment wurden die Attribute Produktherkunft, Produktionsweise und Preis anhand vier verschiedener Produkte (Äpfel, Butter, Mehl und Steaks) untersucht. Die Befragung, einschließlich des Experimentes, war durch Interviewer eines Marktforschungsinstituts initiiert, computergestützt und von den Konsumenten selbständig zu erledigen. Das Ziel war es 80 Konsumenten in jedem der acht Befragungsorte in verschiedenen Regionen Deutschlands zu befragen. Zur Auswertung des Experiments wurden RPL-Modell geschätzt, die die Konsumentenpräferenzen für die zu untersuchenden Produktattribute aufzeigen und die Berechnung von Zahlungsbereitschaften ermöglichen. Für die Gesamtheit der Konsumenten war die regionale Herkunft von Lebensmitteln wichtiger als die ökologische Produktion. Außerdem wurden Produktalternativen, die aus der Region stammen, immer stärker präferiert als Produkte aus Deutschland, aus einem Nachbarland und einem außereuropäischen Land. Weiterhin zeigte die Studie, dass Konsumentenpräferenzen produkt- und regionsspezifisch sind. Folglich wird empfohlen, in zukünftigen Studien unterschiedlich Produkte bzw. Produktgruppen und Konsumenten verschiedener Regionen einzubeziehen. Die zunehmenden Präferenzen und Zahlungsbereitschaften der Konsumenten für regionale Lebensmittel deuteten sowohl in dieser Dissertation als auch in vielen anderen nationalen und internationalen Studien darauf hin, dass es ein großes Potential für einen regionalen Lebensmittelmarkt gibt. Aus diesem Grund wird Produzenten und Vermarktern von ökologischen sowie konventionellen Produkten empfohlen, verstärkt in die Entwicklung von regionalen Versorgungsketten zu investieren.

Consumer reactions to different forms of CSR communication

Aim Companies around the world are making sizeable investments into CSR initiatives, but ensuring appropriate returns on these investments remains challenging. Therefore, it is of value to study the communication of corporate CSR efforts. The purpose of this study is to investigate how consumers react to rational versus emotional message strategies in CSR communication. Two categories of consumer reactions were considered: trust and purchase intention. Methods Qualitative research with four focus groups was conducted. Participants discussed three texts regarding a CSR project, utilising a rational, emotional and a hybrid rational-emotional message strategy respectively. The conversations focused on trust towards the communication and purchase intention. Results Trust - All of the respondents viewed the rational text over the emotional text as more trustworthy, but they most positively reacted to the combined strategy. Rational information was viewed as more reliable by many participants, with emotional cues adding value by better holding their attention. Purchase intention – Participants more positively reacted to the rational CSR communication strategy, compared to an emotional strategy. For approximately half of respondents, the hybrid strategy targeting both rational and emotional cues was the most successful in terms of purchase intention. Upon further analysis, it was identified that this division in respondents’ opinions may reflect a gender difference, where men portrayed the more task oriented and women the socially sensitive consumers. Conclusions The findings support previous research championing the use of rational strategies over emotional strategies in CSR communication. A number of managerial implications that can be used by companies in order to better communicate their CSR activities and increase returns on CSR-related investments are provided.

The Design with Intent Method: a design tool for influencing user behaviour

Using product and system design to influence user behaviour offers potential for improving performance and reducing user error, yet little guidance is available at the concept generation stage for design teams briefed with influencing user behaviour. This article presents the Design with Intent Method, an innovation tool for designers working in this area, illustrated via application to an everyday human–technology interaction problem: reducing the likelihood of a customer leaving his or her card in an automatic teller machine. The example application results in a range of feasible design concepts which are comparable to existing developments in ATM design, demonstrating that the method has potential for development and application as part of a user-centred design process.

From Aari to Zulu: Massively Multilingual Creation of Language Tools using Interlinear Glossed Text

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-08

Using Statistics to Set Priorities

In November 2015-March 2016, I assigned my Graduate Assistant, David Durden, a project to compile usage statistics and trends for digitized collections between 2013-2015 from UMD Digital Collections and our contributions to the Internet Archive between 2008-2015. The original intent of the project was to provide usage metrics to assist the Digitization Initiatives Committee in prioritizing projects or content areas. The project also uncovered trends that should impact how we think about making digital collections discoverable and accessible. For example, if 50-60% of traffic into UMD Digital Collections comes from outside the University or College Park, MD, how will this impact the potential usage of content when access is restricted to campus due to licensing, copyright, or ownership restrictions? With a growing population using mobile browsers, how will a flash-based viewer restrict users’ access to content? How might we develop content or its discoverability for a growing social media user base? In this talk, I will briefly discuss the usage trends for the represented collections, how we may use these in prioritizing future projects, and issues I will discuss with collection managers as we develop project plans and the Manager of Digital Programs and Initiatives as we develop the digital collections repository.

Key factors affecting purchase intention in Russian online context

Russian e-commerce has drawn a lot of attention in academic publications as well as in public media lately. The market is growing with a speed of rocket offering companies enormous business opportunities. However, combination of Russian culture, consumer online purchasing and decision-making process forms a subject yet completely unknown. From international online business perspective it is vital for companies to know how a culture affects consumer’s purchase decision and what are the key elements that need to be modified in order to successfully expand online operations to Russian market. Here, the main purpose is to define the key factors affecting Russian consumer’s online purchase intention. In order to answer the main research question, firstly the role of culture in purchase intention context is researched. Secondly, focus is drawn to the factors that affect online purchase intention. Lastly, it is researched how Russian culture is affecting e-commerce attributes modification. The objective is not only to expand the theoretical understanding of the subject but also to provide companies with a clear vision on how the online operations should be conducted in Russian online market. Ranganathan’s and Jha’s conceptual framework was chosen as a ground theory in this study. Here, three main categories Computer Self-Efficacy and Past Online Experience, Website Quality and Costumer Concerns form basis for the study. Various articles and academic literature supplemented this theoretical approach. Qualitative research method was adapted and the study was conducted through five expert interviews. As a conclusion it can be stated that culture forms a ground for entire purchase decision-making process in online context. Results from the interviews were grouped according to main three theoretic categories and placed with Ranganathan’s and Jha’s original framework. This formed a new theoretical framework that defines diverse factors affecting specifically Russian consumer’s online purchase intention. This study suggests that following factors need to be taking into serious consideration in Russian online context: photography style, detailed product and company information, colors, language, product variety, reviews, recommendations, strong social media presence, fast check out and minimalistic order information, counterfeit fear, cash on delivery payment, training and guidance, extensive customer service, consumers’ insecurity, inexperience, high interest for technology and their individualistic personality.

The state and known impacts of fish species transferred to or within continental Africa

Fish introductions have been made from small fish ponds to the largest lakes in Africa. The primary intent of these introductions has been to sustain or increase fish production, although some introductions have been made to develop sport fisheries and to control unwanted organisms. Some of these introductions have fulfilled their objective in the short term, but several of these "successful" introductions have created uncertainties about their long term sustainability. Lates niloticus, Oreochromis niloticus, O. leucostictus, Tilapia melanopleura and T. zilli were introduced into lakes Victoria and Kyoga in 1950s and early 1960s. By the 1980s O. niloticus and O. niloticus dominated the fisheries of these lakes, virtually eliminating a number of endemic fish species. The loss of genetic diversity of the fish in the worlds second largest lake has also been accompanied by a loss of trophic diversity. The transformation of the fish community has, in Lake Victoria coincided with a profound eutrophication (algal blooms, fish kills, hypolimnetic anoxia) which might be related to alterations of the lake's food-web structure. In contrast, the introduction of a planktivore, Limnothrissa miodon into Lake Kivu and the Kariba reservoir has established highly successful fisheries with little documented effect on the pre-existing fish community or trophic ecology of the lakes. The highly endemised species-rich African Great lakes may be particularly sensitive to species introductions and require special consideration and caution when introductions are contemplated because species extinctions, introgressive hybridization and ecosystem alterations may occur following fish introductions.

ENGINEERING DIGITAL SHARING PLATFORM TO CREATE SOCIAL CONTAGION: EVIDENCE FROM LARGE SCALE RANDOMIZED FIELD EXPERIMENTS

Peer-to-peer information sharing has fundamentally changed customer decision-making process. Recent developments in information technologies have enabled digital sharing platforms to influence various granular aspects of the information sharing process. Despite the growing importance of digital information sharing, little research has examined the optimal design choices for a platform seeking to maximize returns from information sharing. My dissertation seeks to fill this gap. Specifically, I study novel interventions that can be implemented by the platform at different stages of the information sharing. In collaboration with a leading for-profit platform and a non-profit platform, I conduct three large-scale field experiments to causally identify the impact of these interventions on customers’ sharing behaviors as well as the sharing outcomes. The first essay examines whether and how a firm can enhance social contagion by simply varying the message shared by customers with their friends. Using a large randomized field experiment, I find that i) adding only information about the sender’s purchase status increases the likelihood of recipients’ purchase; ii) adding only information about referral reward increases recipients’ follow-up referrals; and iii) adding information about both the sender’s purchase as well as the referral rewards increases neither the likelihood of purchase nor follow-up referrals. I then discuss the underlying mechanisms. The second essay studies whether and how a firm can design unconditional incentive to engage customers who already reveal willingness to share. I conduct a field experiment to examine the impact of incentive design on sender’s purchase as well as further referral behavior. I find evidence that incentive structure has a significant, but interestingly opposing, impact on both outcomes. The results also provide insights about senders’ motives in sharing. The third essay examines whether and how a non-profit platform can use mobile messaging to leverage recipients’ social ties to encourage blood donation. I design a large field experiment to causally identify the impact of different types of information and incentives on donor’s self-donation and group donation behavior. My results show that non-profits can stimulate group effect and increase blood donation, but only with group reward. Such group reward works by motivating a different donor population. In summary, the findings from the three studies will offer valuable insights for platforms and social enterprises on how to engineer digital platforms to create social contagion. The rich data from randomized experiments and complementary sources (archive and survey) also allows me to test the underlying mechanism at work. In this way, my dissertation provides both managerial implication and theoretical contribution to the phenomenon of peer-to-peer information sharing.

Desenvolvimento e caracterização do queijo Santo Giorno, típico do sudoeste do Paraná, produzido com leite cru e fermento endógeno

Two cheese formulations made from raw milk and endogenous yeasts with 30, 60 and 180 days of maturation in two dairy Paraná Southwest were studied to evaluate their quality through physical, physical-chemical, microbiological and sensorial characteristics, as one of the stages of development of a typical regional cheese. The production was accompanied from designing the flowchart processing, where the samples were collected to perform the analysis of proteins, lipids, moisture, ash, carbohydrates, total solids, fat in dry matter, calories; water activity, instrumental texture (hardness, adhesiveness, springiness, cohesiveness, resiliency and chewiness), instrumental color (CIE Lab); microbiological quality was assessed searching for total and thermotolerant coliforms, coagulase positive staphylococci and Salmonella spp.; the acceptance related to sensory characteristics of color, appearance, flavor, texture, taste and purchase intent was evaluated through the structured hedonic scale. This research contributed information relevant to the production process, such as the realization of the viability in freeze-drying lactic acid bacteria yeast isolated from milk in the Southwestern Mesoregion of Parana and the results of the analysis of the cheese showed similarity between formulations, regarding the physical, physical-chemical characterization, moreover good microbiological quality, where the differences between samples of dairy products were not perceived by sensory panelists. Adjustments in standardization related to technological quality control is an extremely important factor for the success of dairy companies and small producers involved in the project and that they have the option of producing the Santo Giorno, a fine cheese, with the great advantage of adding features of region, with high standard of sanitary conditions and with great consumer acceptance of indicative.

Desenvolvimento de indicadores enzimáticos inteligentes para monitoramento da qualidade de alimentos

A dificuldade em conhecer o histórico de temperatura de um alimento, desde sua produção até o consumo, torna difícil prever sua verdadeira vida-útil. O uso de indicadores de tempo e temperatura (ITT) pode ser uma alternativa inovadora empregada para garantir a validade de produtos de forma dinâmica. Assim, este trabalho visa desenvolver novos indicadores enzimáticos de tempo e temperatura para monitorar a qualidade de alimentos perecíveis durante o seu processamento e armazenamento, baseados na reação de complexação entre o amido e o iodo (azul), e na posterior atuação de uma enzima amilase sobre esse complexo, para causar uma redução da intensidade da cor azul a uma taxa dependente do tempo e da temperatura de armazenagem. Os sistemas inteligentes propostos possuem versatilidade de atuação em função do tipo e quantidade de amilase empregada. Desta forma, foi utilizada uma amilase termoestável para a formulação de um indicador inteligente de processamento, utilizado para o controle de tratamentos térmicos industriais (pasteurização);e uma amilase termosensível na formulação de um indicador de armazenamento, empregada para o controle das condições de temperatura durante a cadeia de frio de produtos perecíveis. Na elaboração dos ITT de processamento foram realizadas simulações em laboratório e testes em planta fabril, os quais avaliaram diferentes concentrações de amilase termoestável nos protótipos de ITT quando submetidos as condições de tempo e temperatura de pasteurização. Os resultados evidenciaram que a resposta de cor dos indicadores foi visualmente interpretada, como adaptável à medição usando equipamentos, apresentando boa reprodutibilidade em todas as condições estudadas. O ITT contendo 6,5 % de amilase termoestável (penzima/pamido) foi aquele cujo resultado melhor se adequou à utilização na validação de cozimento de presunto. Nesta condição, o protótipo anexado à embalagem primária do produto indicou o processo de pasteurização de forma fácil, precisa e não destrutiva. Já durante o desenvolvimento do ITT de armazenamento foram realizadas simulações em laboratório, testes em planta fabril e ponto de venda, os quais avaliaram o uso de diferentes concentrações de amilase termosensível nos protótipos de ITT quando submetidos a diversas condições de cadeia de frio. Os resultados evidenciaram que devido à possibilidade de definir a vida-útil destes protótipos variando as concentrações de enzima termosensível, os indicadores podem ser facilmente adaptados para controlar as condições de temperatura durante a cadeia de diversos alimentos perecíveis. O protótipo contendo 60 % de amilase termosensível (penzima/pamido) foi aquele cujo resultado melhor se adequou à utilização no controle da cadeia avícola. Assim, o ITT indicou visualmente o histórico de tempo e temperatura de produtos à base de frango de forma fácil e precisa. Os resultados obtidos na avaliação das percepções dos consumidores frente ao emprego de indicadores inteligentes em embalagens alimentícias mostraram que o uso de ITT é uma inovação receptiva, com consequente aceitação e intenção de compra elevada pela população brasileira. Assim, com este trabalho espera-se contribuir efetivamente para que o conceito de embalagens inteligentes possa ser aceito comercialmente e que sejam estabelecidas no Brasil normas que regulamentem seu uso, conferindo benefícios à conservação de grande variedade de alimentos.

Atitudes dos leitores de blogues de moda e beleza perante as publicações patrocinadas : intenção de compra e eWOM

Mestrado em Marketing

Are You Fit Enough to Make the Grade?

The intent of this project is to determine if a candidate's physical fitness impacts their success academically and physically during training at the South Carolina Criminal Justice Academy. This will be accomplished by comparing the time of the Physical Abilities Test to the numeric written tests scores and the pass rate of the proficiency tests. The averages will be compared to see if there is a trend to prove that one's physical fitness does affect success during their training .