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2008

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The Ghost Of Godwin: Intertextuality And Embedded Correspondence In The Works Of The Shelley Circle, James C. Stewart Jan 2008

The Ghost Of Godwin: Intertextuality And Embedded Correspondence In The Works Of The Shelley Circle, James C. Stewart

All ETDs from UAB

The members of the Shelley Circle attempted to live their lives by and produce works consistent with an arguably unrealistic and utopian political value system. Thematically, the writers show remarkable similarity in attempting to render the ideal real. During the period between 1816 and 1819, Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley, and William Godwin were struggling with living their ideals in a harsh reality. I examine two major works from each author: Godwin’s Political Justice and Caleb Williams, Percy Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound and The Cenci, and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Mathilda. In each case (with the exception of Godwin), when moving from …

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Success Rates Of Temporary Anchorage Devices Placed In An Orthodontic Clinic, Alex C. Schreiber Jan 2008

Success Rates Of Temporary Anchorage Devices Placed In An Orthodontic Clinic, Alex C. Schreiber

All ETDs from UAB

In recent years, the use of a variety of temporary placed implants to attain absolute anchorage has been described in the orthodontic literature. The use of temporary implants, fixed to bone, overcomes some of the limitations of traditional anchorage and their reliance on patient compliance. The purpose of this study was to evaluate factors relating to the successful placement of miniscrew temporary anchorage devices in an orthodontic clinic. The orthodontic records of patients who had miniscrews placed during their treatment at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Dentistry Postgraduate Orthodontic Clinic were selected. After application of the inclusion …

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Traffic Responsive Signal Systems To Address Rain-Related Congestion, Suman Reddy Surabhi Jan 2008

Traffic Responsive Signal Systems To Address Rain-Related Congestion, Suman Reddy Surabhi

All ETDs from UAB

Rainy conditions typically have an impact on the behavior of drivers and in turn can affect traffic flow characteristics in transportation networks. As a result, signal timing plans developed for dry conditions may be unsuitable or sub-optimal during periods of rain, and changes in such plans may be desirable to account for changes in environmental conditions. Current technology in the field of traffic signal control and communications make it possible to change the signal controller settings remotely, a capability that offers opportunities for signal timing adjustments during rain conditions. This study explores the feasibility and benefits of implementing alternative signal-timing …

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Perioperative Music And Its Effects On Anxiety, Hemodynamics, And Pain In Women Undergoing Mastectomy, Pamela Gail Binns-Turner Jan 2008

Perioperative Music And Its Effects On Anxiety, Hemodynamics, And Pain In Women Undergoing Mastectomy, Pamela Gail Binns-Turner

All ETDs from UAB

The study purpose was to examine the effects of a perioperative music intervention on changes in mean arterial pressure (MAP), heart rate (HR), anxiety, and pain in women with a diagnosis of breast cancer undergoing mastectomy surgery. The convenience sample included 30 women between the ages of 42 and 70 who were undergoing mastectomy in a large urban hospital in the southern United States. Exclusion criteria included male gender, psychiatric disorder, use of psychotropic medications, cognitive mental disability, and American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) status 4 or greater. In a quasiexperimental, repeated measures design, participants were randomized equally into music …

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Evaluation Of Pre And Post Treatment Filtration Performance Of Kinetico Macrolite® Ceramic Media Compared To Traditional Sand/Anthracite And Gac Filters In Drinking Water Treatment Process, Jeff Cochran Jan 2008

Evaluation Of Pre And Post Treatment Filtration Performance Of Kinetico Macrolite® Ceramic Media Compared To Traditional Sand/Anthracite And Gac Filters In Drinking Water Treatment Process, Jeff Cochran

All ETDs from UAB

This study was conducted in conjunction with the Birmingham Water Works Board to evaluate Kinetico ceramic filter media against GAC (Granular Activated Carbon) and Sand/Anthracite filters. The Birmingham Water Works Board Water Treatment Pilot Plant was located and operated on the Shades Mountain Filter Plant (SMFP) premises. The evaluation was conducted in three phases: plant matching, plant optimization, and pre-filter testing. The initial phase called for determining the best combination of Kinetico Macrolite Ceramic media to match or outperform the existing Sand/Anthracite dual media filters located at SMFP. At the end of the testing it was determined that 18 inches …

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Human-Centered Semantic Retrieval In Multimedia Databases, Xin Chen Jan 2008

Human-Centered Semantic Retrieval In Multimedia Databases, Xin Chen

All ETDs from UAB

The research described in this dissertation has proposed a human-centered retrieval framework that can automatically retrieve multimedia data based on their semantic content. In particular, the framework queries and searches images and videos in a multimedia database according to their visual content. In order for computers to understand the semantic contents of images and videos, human guidance is necessary. By incorporating the user’s Relevance Feedback (RF) on the retrieval results into the learning and retrieval mechanism, the semantic gap between humans and computers can be gradually bridged. High-dimensional feature vectors of multimedia data can cause a dramatic increase in computation …

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Fatigue And Environmental Behavior Of Long Fiber Thermoplastic (Lft) Composites, Ashutosh Goel Jan 2008

Fatigue And Environmental Behavior Of Long Fiber Thermoplastic (Lft) Composites, Ashutosh Goel

All ETDs from UAB

In the present work we have characterized the mechanical behavior of long fiber thermoplastic (LFT) composites (21% E-glass fiber/polypropylene) under different conditions. We start by comparing the elastic modulus of LFT predicted by a microstructure-based approach called Object Oriented Finite (OOF) element method, and compare the result with prediction from various models commonly used in the literature and the experimental value. The predictions from the models used currently in the literature did not agree well with the experimental value due to the assumptions inherent in the models. The prediction by OOF was the closest to the experimental value because of …

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Analysis Of The Role Of Fcrl5 And Figlers In B Cell Development, Signaling, And Malignancy, Christopher L. Haga Jan 2008

Analysis Of The Role Of Fcrl5 And Figlers In B Cell Development, Signaling, And Malignancy, Christopher L. Haga

All ETDs from UAB

The regulation of signaling and migration is critical to B lymphocyte development, activation, and proliferation. This dissertation reports a functional role for Fc receptor-like molecule 5 (FCRL5), a B cell specific member of the Fc receptor-like family of molecules, and the discovery of a novel family of conserved transmembrane proteins with fibronectin, immunoglobulin, and leucine-rich repeat domains (FIGLER) expressed in bone marrow and B lineage cells. Until now, the signaling potential of FCRL5 was unknown. A panel of FcRIIB/FCRL5 chimeric receptors were created and expressed in a B cell line lacking endogenous FcRIIB. Coligation of the chimeric receptor with the …

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Developmentally Appropriate Practice And No Child Left Behind: A Phenomenological Study Of Teachers' Experiences, Linda Marie Hogue Jan 2008

Developmentally Appropriate Practice And No Child Left Behind: A Phenomenological Study Of Teachers' Experiences, Linda Marie Hogue

All ETDs from UAB

The authorization of The Elementary and Secondary Act—No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 provided new federal guidelines for accountability in the United States. As a result, schools are required to provide statistical data through standardized test scores to measure adequate yearly progress benchmarks set by each state. The agenda of the federal government was to force school equity for all children. Since the inception of NCLB, teachers have begun the struggle of meeting the demands of federal, state, and local guidelines that impose harsh penalties if benchmarks are not attained by their students. The National Association for the …

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Techniques For Context-Free Grammar Induction And Applications, Faizan Javed Jan 2008

Techniques For Context-Free Grammar Induction And Applications, Faizan Javed

All ETDs from UAB

Grammar Inference is the process of learning a grammar from examples, either positive (i.e., the grammar generates the string) and/or negative (i.e., the grammar does not generate the string). Although grammar inference has been successfully applied to many diverse domains such as speech recognition and robotics, its application to software engineering has been limited. This research investigates the applicability of grammar inference to software engineering and programming language development challenge problems, where grammar inference offers an innovative solution to the problem, while remaining tractable and within the scope of that problem. Specifically, the following challenges are addressed in this research: …

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Performance Characterization And Reconfiguration Of Wireless Sensor Networks, Parag P. Joshi Jan 2008

Performance Characterization And Reconfiguration Of Wireless Sensor Networks, Parag P. Joshi

All ETDs from UAB

Some attributes of a wireless sensor network (WSN) are its large scale of deployment, possible harsh ambient conditions, and limited resource budgets. Therefore, minimizing the demand placed on resource utilization is vital. WSN applications that require binary or quantized information are of interest owing to the resulting savings in bandwidth and power. Two very important applications of binary WSNs are target localization and target detection. Optimizing a multi-modal surface to estimate a target’s location and power is a highly complex problem. Deterministic and stochastic approaches are computationally intensive and sluggish or converge to local minima, causing large estimation errors. This …

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Mechanism Of Interferon-Beta-Mediated Inhibition Of Il-8 Gene Expression, Travis Laver Jan 2008

Mechanism Of Interferon-Beta-Mediated Inhibition Of Il-8 Gene Expression, Travis Laver

All ETDs from UAB

Interleukin-8 (IL-8) is a potent chemoattractant of numerous cells, particularly neutrophils, in the innate immune response. In addition to immune functions, IL-8 is known to contribute to the pathogenesis of a number of diseases, including cancer. Interferon-β (IFN-β), a Type I interferon, inhibits the expression of IL-8, but the details of this effect are not known. In this study we investigate transcriptional control of the IL- 8 gene and the mechanism by which IFN-β exerts inhibitory effects on IL-8. Herein we show that stimulation of U87-MG glioma cells with phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate (PMA) results in a rapid recruitment of NF-κB …

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Distinguishing Among Recollection, Familiarity, And Uncertainty: Categorizing The Subjective Basis For Memory Retrieval, Leigh Grace Rougeou Jan 2008

Distinguishing Among Recollection, Familiarity, And Uncertainty: Categorizing The Subjective Basis For Memory Retrieval, Leigh Grace Rougeou

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

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Air Pollution And Preterm Births In Atlanta, Georgia, Corey Masuca Jan 2008

Air Pollution And Preterm Births In Atlanta, Georgia, Corey Masuca

All ETDs from UAB

Exposure to ambient outdoor air pollution exposure is one of the many extraneous factors associated with preterm births. Many epidemiological studies involving preterm births and ambient air pollution have repeatedly indicated positive associations. However, for many such studies, results may be statistically significant but weakly associated or inconclusive. Such results may be primarily attributable to the fact that most studies include only single or multiple criteria air pollutants but not the total air pollution mixture of criteria air pollutants and air toxic pollutants (e.g., PAHs) to which people are actually exposed. This study assessed associations between pollutant classes, including criteria …

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Reading Teachers' Attitudes Toward Scripted Reading Programs: A Multiple Case Study, Holly G. Morgan Jan 2008

Reading Teachers' Attitudes Toward Scripted Reading Programs: A Multiple Case Study, Holly G. Morgan

All ETDs from UAB

In the aftermath of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act (2002), reading teachers have been faced with new challenges and pressures, including reading curricula. Many schools have scrambled to purchase materials that are labeled as being scientifically researched (Vogt & Shearer, 2007). As a result of the influx of scripted reading programs, the educational field has been flooded with primarily quantitative research that was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of a specific program. In addition, much of this research regarding the effectiveness of scripted reading programs has been promoted by the publishing companies themselves. The reading teachers’ attitudes toward …

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Building A New Generation Of Online Public History Resources: Promise And Problems Identified In The Development Of The Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project, Drew Vandecreek Jan 2008

Building A New Generation Of Online Public History Resources: Promise And Problems Identified In The Development Of The Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project, Drew Vandecreek

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

This article describes the development of the Lincoln/Net web site at Northern Illinois University Libraries. It argues that to date academic historians have largely used digital technology and the web to advance research, while ignoring their potential for reaching a large public. As a digital library project that also presents original interpretive works discussing the context in which primary source materials were created, Lincoln/Net can serve as an example of an important new form of public history.

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Expression Patterns Of Arabidopsis Drg Genes: Promoter-Gus Fusions, Quantitative Rt-Pcr And Patterns Of Protein Accumulation In Response To Environmental Stresses, Joel P. Stafstrom Jan 2008

Expression Patterns Of Arabidopsis Drg Genes: Promoter-Gus Fusions, Quantitative Rt-Pcr And Patterns Of Protein Accumulation In Response To Environmental Stresses, Joel P. Stafstrom

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

DRGs are very highly conserved GTP-binding proteins. All eukaryotes contain DRG1 and DRG2 orthologs. Arabidopsis has three DRGs: AtDRG1 (At4g39520), AtDRG2 (At1g17470), and AtDRG3 (At1g72660). DRG2 and DRG3 encode proteins that are 95% identical; identity between DRG1 and DRG2/3 is 55%. The focus of this article is expression of Arabidopsis DRGs. DRG1 and DRG2 promoter-GUS constructs showed similar spatial expression in seedlings and mature organs, but gene-specific differences were noted. Quantitative real-time PCR experiments indicated similar levels of DRG1 and DRG2 mRNA accumulation in most tissues. DRG3 transcripts were very low in all tissues. Heat stress at 37 C led …

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Žižek And The Real Hegel, David J. Gunkel Jan 2008

Žižek And The Real Hegel, David J. Gunkel

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

Žižek's reading of Hegel is, as he and many of his readers explicitly recognize, distinctly unorthodox. Efforts to appraise these readings often make reference to and mobilize the "real Hegel," a recognized standard and authorized understanding of Hegelian philosophy against which a particular interpretation may be compared and evaluated. This concept of "the real" is rooted in fundamental ontological assumptions that are at least as old as Plato. Žižek's critical interventions in the ontology of the real expose these assumptions and contest their procedures and outcomes. In doing so, Žižek not only questions the metaphysical foundations of traditional forms of …

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Representations Of The Interregnum And Restoration In English Drama Of The Early 1660s, David Bywaters Jan 2008

Representations Of The Interregnum And Restoration In English Drama Of The Early 1660s, David Bywaters

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

The plays staged in London immediately after the Restoration are often said to reflect an unqualified royalism. In fact these plays are guarded and ambivalent in their politics, so that they may appeal to spectators who occupied various social levels and held often opposed political opinions. Where the Restoration appears specifically, it appears within the ordinary world of comedy, and always accompanied by some qualifying element that would have provided comfort to its victims.

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Concurrent Cloud-To-Ground Lightning And Precipitation Enhancement In The Atlanta, Georgia (Usa) Urban Region, M.L. Bentley, L.S. Rose, J.A. Stallins Jan 2008

Concurrent Cloud-To-Ground Lightning And Precipitation Enhancement In The Atlanta, Georgia (Usa) Urban Region, M.L. Bentley, L.S. Rose, J.A. Stallins

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

This study explores how the Atlanta, Georgia (United States), urban region influences warm-season (May through September) cloud-toground lightning flashes and precipitation. Eight years (1995–2003) of flashes from the National Lightning Detection Network and mean accumulated precipitation from the North American Regional Reanalysis model were mapped under seven different wind speed and direction combinations derived from cluster analysis. Overlays of these data affirmed a consistent coupling of lightning and precipitation enhancement around Atlanta. Maxima in precipitation and lightning shifted in response to changes in wind direction. Differences in the patterns of flash metrics (flash counts versus thunderstorm counts), the absence of …

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Fatalities Associated With Nonconvective High-Wind Events In The United States, Walker S. Ashley, A.W. Black Jan 2008

Fatalities Associated With Nonconvective High-Wind Events In The United States, Walker S. Ashley, A.W. Black

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

A database was compiled for the period 1980–2005 to assess the threat to life in the conterminous United States from nonconvective high-wind events. This study reveals the number of fatalities from these wind storms, their cause, and their unique spatial distributions. While tornadoes continue to cause the most wind-related fatalities per year, nonconvective high winds (defined as phenomena such as downslope and gap winds, gradient winds, dust storms, and winds associated with midlatitude cyclones) have the potential to fatally injure more people than thunderstorm or hurricane winds. Nonconvective wind fatalities occur more frequently in vehicles or while boating. Fatalities are …

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Carbon Nanotube/Epoxy Nanocomposi Tes: Effect Of Interfacial Chemistry And Processing On Molecular Mobility, Cure Behavior, Morphology And Properties, Mohamed A. Abdalla Jan 2008

Carbon Nanotube/Epoxy Nanocomposi Tes: Effect Of Interfacial Chemistry And Processing On Molecular Mobility, Cure Behavior, Morphology And Properties, Mohamed A. Abdalla

All ETDs from UAB

No abstract provided.

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The Impact Of Feedback On Self-Rated Driving Ability Among Older Adults, Michelle Lynn Ackerman Jan 2008

The Impact Of Feedback On Self-Rated Driving Ability Among Older Adults, Michelle Lynn Ackerman

All ETDs from UAB

No abstract provided.

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Establishing A High-Technology Knowledge Transfer Network: The Practical And Symbolic Roles Of Identification, Edward U. Bond Iii, Mark B. Houston, Yihui Tang Jan 2008

Establishing A High-Technology Knowledge Transfer Network: The Practical And Symbolic Roles Of Identification, Edward U. Bond Iii, Mark B. Houston, Yihui Tang

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

Knowledge transfer networks (KTNs) are composed of interconnected firms, government entities, and research organizations that play a critical role in the funding, development, and dissemination of knowledge in high-technology industries. Despite the common use of KTNs in situations that require technology inputs spanning multiple firms, little research has examined the start-up of KTNs and the marketing literature has essentially ignored them. Using social network, social identity, and relevant attribution and motivation theories, the authors build a conceptual model that explains key outcomes of start-up KTNs. A preliminary empirical investigation of a UK-wide KTN start-up finds evidence that social identification with …

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Ex Parte Domestic Violence Orders Of Protection: How Easing Access To Judicial Process Has Eased The Possibility For Abuse Of The Process, David H. Taylor Jan 2008

Ex Parte Domestic Violence Orders Of Protection: How Easing Access To Judicial Process Has Eased The Possibility For Abuse Of The Process, David H. Taylor

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

This article explores how state domestic violence statutory schemes that grant temporary ex parte orders have inadvertently lead to the abuse of orders of protection. Part I introduces how domestic violence statutes came to be, and describes how the typical statutory scheme works when it comes to granting ex parte orders. Part II examines the problems that occur when ex parte relief is easily obtained. Part III looks at the factors that contribute to the ability to misuse orders of protection. Part IV discusses due process and ex parte orders of protection. Part V is a survey of the state …

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Systemically Screwing Dads: Out Of Control Paternity Schemes, Jeffrey A. Parness Jan 2008

Systemically Screwing Dads: Out Of Control Paternity Schemes, Jeffrey A. Parness

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

In 1983 in Lehr v. Robertson, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that paternity opportunity interests for biological fathers in children born to unwed mothers usually implicate federal constitutional life, liberty or property interests and thus warrant guarantees of fair procedures in adoptions. In 1989 in Michael H. v. Gerald D., the court reiterated that for any such father, there is the unique opportunity to develop a relationship with his offspring, though a similar paternity opportunity may be unavailable where the child is born to a mother married to another. Under Lehr and Michael H., when paternity schemes systematically and unfairly …

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Concert Recording 2008-10-14, Øystein Baadsvik, Kristin Harwell, Benjamin Pierce Jan 2008

Concert Recording 2008-10-14, Øystein Baadsvik, Kristin Harwell, Benjamin Pierce

Concert Recordings & Programs

Anitras dance ; A dream ; Norwegian dance / Edward Grieg ; arr. Baadsvik -- Concerto / Arild Plau -- Encounters II / William Kraft -- Milonga del angel ; Invierno porteno ; Adios nonino / Astor Piazzolla ; arr. Sivelov ; arr. Baadsvik -- Song / Erlend Skomsvoll -- The city / David Uber -- Variations on the carnival of Venice; Fnugg / Jean-Baptiste Arban ; arr. Baadsvik

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Using Wheelchair Sports To Complement Disability Awareness Curriculum Among College Students, Neil R. Lundberg, Ramon Zabriskie, Kevin M. Smith, Keith W. Barney Jan 2008

Using Wheelchair Sports To Complement Disability Awareness Curriculum Among College Students, Neil R. Lundberg, Ramon Zabriskie, Kevin M. Smith, Keith W. Barney

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a campus-wide intramural wheelchair sports program on attitudes toward people with disabilities. The sample consisted of 126 participants at a large, western university. A quasi-experimental pre-post design was used. Results indicated that there was a significant decrease in discomfort in interaction with people with disabilities after participation in the program. Additional findings indicated that recreation majors who were required to have some disability awareness training in their coursework had statistically lower pre- and post-test scores than other majors and demonstrated the greatest change in attitude toward people with disabilities. …

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The Importance Of Default Options For Retirement Savings Outcomes: Evidence From The United States, John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian Jan 2008

The Importance Of Default Options For Retirement Savings Outcomes: Evidence From The United States, John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian

Faculty Publications

This paper summarizes the empirical evidence on how defaults impact retirement savings outcomes. After outlining the salient features of the various sources of retirement income in the U.S., the paper presents the empirical evidence on how defaults impact retirement savings outcomes at all stages of the savings lifecycle, including savings plan participation, savings rates, asset allocation, and post-retirement savings distributions. The paper then discusses why defaults have such a tremendous impact on savings outcomes. The paper concludes with a discussion of the role of public policy towards retirement saving when defaults matter.

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How Are Preferences Revealed?, John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian Jan 2008

How Are Preferences Revealed?, John Beshears, James J. Choi, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian

Faculty Publications

Revealed preferences are tastes that rationalize an economic agent's observed actions. Normative preferences represent the agent's actual interests. It sometimes makes sense to assume that revealed preferences are identical to normative preferences. But there are many cases where this assumption is violated. We identify five factors that increase the likelihood of a disparity between revealed preferences and normative preferences: passive choice, complexity, limited personal experience, third-party marketing, and intertemporal choice. We then discuss six approaches that jointly contribute to the identification of normative preferences: structural estimation, active decisions, asymptotic choice, aggregated revealed preferences, reported preferences, and informed preferences. Each …

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