Digital Commons Network^™

An Experimental Investigation Of Time Discounting In Strategic Settings, Cary Deck, Salar Jahedi

ESI Publications

Several studies have shown that people greatly discount future benefits and costs, but few have examined how discounting is manifested in strategic settings. This paper investigates the degree to which the timing of payments affects behavior in four commonly studied strategic settings: a Prisoners’ Dilemma, a Stag-Hunt Game, a First Price Auction, and a Second Price Auction. In general, a two week delay in the date of payment has a comparable effect on outcomes as a substantial reduction in current payoffs. A follow-up study compares individual’s own discount rates with their beliefs of others’ discount rates and finds that people …

Firing Threats And Tenure In Virtual Organizations: Incentives Effects And Impression Management, Brice Corgnet, Roberto Hernán González, Stephen Rassenti

ESI Publications

We study the effect of firing threats in a virtual workplace that reproduces features of existing organizations. We show that organizations in which bosses can fire up to one third of their workforce produce twice as much as organizations for which firing is not possible. Firing threats sharply decrease on-the-job leisure. Nevertheless, organizations endowed with firing threats underperformed those using individual incentives. In the presence of firing threats, employees engage in impression management activities to be seen as hard-working individuals in line with our model. Finally, production levels dropped substantially when the threat of being fired was removed, whereas on-the-job …

The Effect Of Cognitive Load On Economic Decision Making: A Survey And New Experiments, Cary Deck, Salar Jahedi

ESI Publications

Psychologists and economists have examined the effect of cognitive load in a variety of situations from risk taking to snack choice. We review previous experiments that have directly manipulated cognitive load and summarize their findings. We report the results of two new experiments where participants engage in a digit-memorization task while simultaneously performing a variety of economic tasks including: (1) choices involving risk, (2) choices involving intertemporal substitution, (3) choices with anchoring effects, (4) choices over healthy and unhealthy snacks, and (5) math problems. We find that higher cognitive load reduces numeracy as measured by performance in math problems. Moreover, …

Further Towards A Theory Of The Emergence Of Property, Bart J. Wilson

ESI Publications

This article explores the emergence of property as a moral convention. To understand this process I make use of several laboratory experiments on property in its nascence. These experiments illustrate how a rule of property arises from our knowledge of what is morally right, and not vice versa. I also argue that while the ultimate end of property is our interest in using things, the proximate end of property is not losing them, i.e., the end of a rule of property is to secure from morally unfounded harm.

Conflicted Emotions Following Trust-Based Interaction, Eric Schniter, Roman M. Sheremeta, Timothy W. Shields

ESI Publications

We observed reports of conflicted (concurrent positive and negative) emotions activated after interactions in the Trust game. Our analyses reveal that activation of 20 emotional states following trust-based interaction is better explained by predictions derived from a multi-dimensional Recalibrational perspective than by predictions derived from two-dimensional Valence and Arousal perspectives. The Recalibrational perspective proposes that emotions are activated according to their functional features – for example, emotions help people achieve short or long-sighted goals by up or down-regulating behavioral propensities, whereas Valence and Arousal perspectives consider simpler hedonic dimensions lacking functional specificity. The Recalibrational perspective is also distinguished from the …

Disclaiming Loyalty: M&A Advisors And Their Engagement Letters, Andrew F. Tuch

Scholarship@WashULaw

Are investment banks fiduciaries of their merger and acquisition clients? If not, what rules, if any, constrain the conflicts of interest M&A advisors may face when advising their clients? These questions are rarely asked but central to the regulation of investment banking activities. In their article Bankers and Chancellors, 93 TEX. L. REV. 1 (2014), Professors William W. Bratton & Michael L. Wachter contend that M&A advisors effectively contract out of fiduciary duties in their client engagement letters, “emerging] in practice as arm’s-length counterparties constrained less by rules of law than by a market for reputation.” They also regard recent …

Sound Attenuation Performance Of Fiber-Reinforced Polymer Composite Circumaural Hearing Protection Devices, Steven Christopher Augustine

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Personnel who work on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier are exposed to extreme levels of jet engine noise often in excess of 140 decibels (dB). The current circumaural hearing protective devices (CAHPD) employed by flight deck crewmen are inadequate for the level of protection required for these extreme levels of noise. Fiber-reinforced thermoset polymer composite (FRPC) materials such as aramid fibers used in body armor, have high theoretical values of acoustic impedance due to a fundamentally high modulus of elasticity and may offer a superior level of hearing protection over original equipment (OE) thermoplastic CAHPDs. The objective of …

An Experimental Evaluation Of The Relationship Between In-Vivo Stimuli And Attentional Bias To Smoking And Food Cues Among Female Smokers, John Bernard Correa

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Background: Cross-sectional and experimental research has shown that female smokers more frequently report using cigarettes to control negative affect, manage dietary restraint, and suppress body image dissatisfaction. However, there has been little research to identify cognitive mechanisms that may underlie these effects. Cross-stimulus attentional bias is one such mechanism.

Aims and Hypotheses: We hypothesized that, when compared to neutral stimuli, in-vivo appetitive stimuli would enhance motivation to obtain a particular substance. More specifically, in-vivo smoking stimuli would increase attentional bias to smoking-related pictorial cues, whereas in-vivo food stimuli would increase attention to smoking-related and food-related pictorial cues. We also hypothesized …

Vulnerability Of Larval Fish Populations To Oil Well Blowouts In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico, Emily Chancellor

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

On April 20th, 2010, a fire broke out on the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) offshore oil drilling rig on the Macondo prospect located off the coast of the Gulf of Mexico (GOM). This fire and resulting explosions resulted in the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon rig and the largest marine oil spill in history. An estimated 4.9 million (+/- 10%) barrels were released into the Gulf of Mexico over the ensuing 87 days. Many economically important fish species spawn in northern Gulf of Mexico waters; the spawning seasons and pelagic larval phase of many of these species occur within the temporal …

Wrestling With Angels: Postsecular Contemporary American Poetry, Paul T. Corrigan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the current “secular age,” more and more people find beliefs and behaviors associated with traditional religion intellectually and ethically untenable. At the same time, many “postsecular” writers, both believers and nonbelievers, continue to write with religious or religiously-inflected forms, themes, and purposes. In the United States, postsecular poets “wrestle with angels” by engaging constructively and deconstructively with matters traditionally considered the domain of religion and spirituality. While the recent work of Jürgen Habermas, Charles Taylor, John McClure and others puts the concept of the postsecular at the cutting edge of various fields of study, including religion, sociology, and literature, …

Examining Endorsement And Viewership Effects On The Source Credibility Of Youtubers, Stephanie Fred

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The growth of YouTube has resulted in the industrialization of a platform that redefines mainstream success. Success measures such as endorsements and viewership are serving as motivational factors for YouTubers. YouTubers and brands want more views, but are those motivations effecting perception? While much research has focused on the effects that YouTube has on the brand, this study focuses on the effects that the brand has on the YouTuber. It also determines whether viewership affects YouTuber perception and whether it‟s a success measure worth using. Using the constructs of the source credibility theory, this study assessed the main effect of …

Mindfulness Attributes As Predictors Of Treatment Outcomes In Children Who Stutter, Jenna Lee Graepel

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A recent U.S.-based survey (Boyle et al,. 2011) estimated stuttering prevalence in American children ages 3-17 years at 1.6% or 1 in 63 children. In comparison to the reported 1 in 68 school age children living with Autism Spectrum Disorder (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2010), stuttering affects nearly as many. These estimates suggest that Speech-Language Pathologist (SLPs) should increasingly develop their skill sets for identifying and providing interventions for children who stutter.

The evidence base for school-age fluency intervention, while promising, leaves much room for further development (Nippold, 2011). The majority of current interventions revolve around the traditional …

Situating Contraceptive Practices And Public Health Strategy In The Bronx: Perspectives From Female Youth, Healthcare Workers, And Reproductive Health Leaders, Hannah Louise Helmy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the United States, concerns about adolescent childbearing and its perceived corollaries – negative health outcomes for mother and child, the disintegration of the nuclear family, and “over-dependence” on public resources – began to circulate widely in policy spheres and popular media in the 1970’s, resulting in a proliferation of policies, programs, and services designed to address its prevention. Although national birth rates among adolescents are currently at their lowest since peaking in the early 1990’s, this decline masks persistent and significant disparities between groups of young people by race, ethnicity, geography, and poverty level. The concomitant existence of social …

Ucsmp Teachers’ Perspectives When Using Graphing Calculators In Advanced Mathematics, Ilyas Karadeniz

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nowadays, technology plays a fundamental role in education, in general, and in mathematics education in particular. The graphing calculator has been an important technological tool in mathematics classrooms since its invention and introduction in 1985 by Casio. As graphing calculators provided so many uses, their contribution to the teaching and learning process has been investigated by many researchers who have shown the use of such technology can have a significant effect on improving mathematics teaching and learning.

Investigating the impact of graphing calculators on student learning is important. It is also essential to research teachers’ perspectives on how using graphing …

Outcomes Of A Combined Mindfulness, Stuttering Modification, And Fluency Shaping Intervention For Children Who Stutter, Jennifer Kordell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A week-long intervention for five school-age children who stutter was implemented using techniques of fluency shaping, stuttering management, and mindfulness training. The purpose of this study was to investigate if children who stutter stuttered less frequently, stuttered with less struggle, and demonstrated changes in mindfulness measures after the completion of this week-long intervention. Pre- to post-treatment measures were analyzed by individual and group-level results. A comparative analysis between reading and narrative tasks was also performed. Findings indicate that three out of five children reduced the total number of disfluencies during the reading task, and two children reduced this total during …

The Meaning Of Stories Without Meaning: A Post-Holocaust Experiment, Tori Chambers Lockler

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Dissonance exists in efforts to communicate about suffering and despair. Showcasing common societal flawed reactions to despair begs for discourse to create a more communicatively healthy response. Attempting to communicate the suffering of others and feeling like I was failing at that goal led to my own suffering. Using writing as a method of personal healing created an intersection of personal narratives of suffering and victim’s narratives (which can arguable only allow for the co-opting of the story and narcissism). Grappling with the limits of writing to heal provided a lens to see the victim’s narratives in such a way …

A Planar Pseudo-Rigid-Body Model For Cantilevers Experiencing Combined Endpoint Forces And Uniformly Distributed Loads Acting In Parallel, Philip James Logan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation describes the development and effectiveness of a mathematical model used to predict the behavior of cantilever beams whose loading conditions include parallel combinations of evenly distributed loads and endpoint forces. The large deflection of cantilever beams has been widely studied. A number of models and mathematical techniques have been utilized in predicting the endpoint path coordinates and load-deflection relationships of such beams. The Pseudo-Rigid-Body Model (PRBM) is one such method which replaces the elastic beam with rigid links of a parameterized pivot location and torsional spring stiffness. In this paper, the PRBM method is extended to include cases …

Effects Of Solids Retention Time And Feeding Frequency On Performance And Pathogen Fate In Semi-Continuous Mesophilic Anaerobic Digesters, Nathan Daniel Manser

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Anaerobic digestion is a biochemical process in which organic carbon is biodegraded in an oxygen free environment through a microbial consortium. Engineered biological systems used for resource recovery often utilize anaerobic digestion to treat anthropogenic organic wastes by reclaiming the carbon as energy (methane gas) and a soil amendment (biosolids). Small-scale, or household, semi-continuous anaerobic digesters have been used in developed and developing countries for many decades to produce biogas from human and livestock waste, which is used for heating, lighting, and cooking. This application has been shown to improve the quality of life of the user. Although there is …

Fear Conditioning And Extinction In Childhood Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Joseph F. Mcguire

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Fear conditioning and extinction are central in the cognitive behavioral model of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), which underlies exposure-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Youth with OCD may have impairments in conditioning and extinction that carries treatment implications. The present study examined these processes using a differential conditioning paradigm. Forty-one youth (19 OCD, 22 community controls) and their parents completed a battery of clinical interviews, rating scales, and a differential conditioning task. Skin conductance response (SCR) served as the primary dependent measure across all three phases of the conditioning procedure (habituation, acquisition, and extinction). During habituation, no meaningful differences were observed between …

Tell Sir Thomas More We've Got Another Failed Attempt: Utopia And The Burning Man Project, Gracen Lila Kovacik

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Burning Man, a weeklong experience in Black Rock Desert, Nevada, has become an oasis for those looking to escape the corporatized grasp of modern culture. Burning Man serves as a reprieve from judgment and allows participants to embrace and perform their inner identities. The intensions of Burning Man have been widely debated, from scholars concentrating on the rejection of consumerism to analyzing sacred space and religious connectivity for festivalgoers. What deserves further analysis, however, is the utopian nature of the event. I will explore previous utopian attempts--literary, political, etc.--and define what characteristics from those societies were present during the inception …

Efficacy And Resistance Potential Of Jpc-3210 In Plasmodium Falciparum, Siobhan Marie Flaherty

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Combating drug resistant malaria has been historically challenging, and remains so today. Recent reports from Southeast Asia show that Plasmodium falciparum is developing resistance to even our best defenses; artemisinin-based therapies. This development threatens to become a significant challenge in controlling malaria infections worldwide, making research into developing and characterizing new antimalarial drugs increasingly important. The purpose of this study was to characterize the resistance potential of novel antimalarial compound JPC-3210 in vitro using P. falciparum clones. JPC-3210 is a new long acting drug with potential to be used in combination with fast-acting drugs like artemisinins to cure drug resistant …

A Mixed Method Study Examining Synchronous-Enhanced Learning In Distance Education, Kimberly M. Wheeler

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This mixed method study examined how integration of synchronous Web-based desktop conferencing affects undergraduate distance learning students' educational experience. Specifically, it compared students in one distance learning section of an introductory technology course delivered through a synchronous-enhanced mode (employing both synchronous and asynchronous tools) with students in a second section of the same distance learning course provided in the asynchronous only mode to examine variations in cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence through the lens of the Community of Inquiry model (Garrison, Anderson, and Archer, 2000). Additionally, this study measured perceived learning, learner-instructor interaction, and learner-learner interaction to determine …

Quantifying The Interaction Of Wildlife And Roads: A Habitat And Movement Approach, Rebecca Whitehead Loraamm

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There is a growing need to address the effects of roadway presence on wildlife. Not only do roads directly impact gene dispersal from a movement perspective, but they limit movement of the individual animal from a habitat perspective by presenting an artificial barrier between one area of viable habitat and another. For this reason it is becoming increasingly important to quantify contact between humans and wildlife and to develop better methods for mitigating these types of conflicts. Studying habitat connectivity and animal mobility in the context of roads can provide actionable information on how, where, and when these encounters might …

Development Of Orally Bioavailable 4(1H)-Quinolones And 1,2,3,4-Tetrahydroacridin-9(10H)-Ones With Potent Anti-Malarial Activity, Jordany Richarlson Maignan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Although Malaria rates are on the decline due to the efforts of the World Health Organization and other organizations dedicated to the eradication of this disease, a relaxed attitude towards the development of new antimalarial entities would be flawed. Due to the emergence of resistance in the parasite, the almost 50% world-wide reduction in malarial death rates that have been produced over the past 15 years are threatening to be lost

New drugs are urgently needed and our approach focuses on the re-evaluation and optimization of the historic antimalarial ICI 56,780. Due to its causal prophylactic activity, along with its …

Effect Of Dosage Of Non-Chloride Accelerator Versus Chloride Accelerator On The Cracking Potential Of Concrete Repair Slabs, Thomas F. Meagher

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Due to strict placement time and strength constraints during the construction of concrete pavement repair slabs, accelerators must be incorporated into the mixture design. Since the most common accelerator, calcium chloride, promotes corrosion of concrete reinforcement, a calcium nitrate-based accelerator was studied as an alternative. To replicate mixtures used in the field, commercial accelerators commonly used in concrete pavement repair slabs were used in the current study. Crack risk of different mixtures was assessed using modeling and cracking frame testing. HIPERPAV modeling was conducted using several measured mixture properties; namely, concrete mechanical properties, strength-based and heat of hydration-based activation energies, …

Attentional Allocation In Language Processing In Adults Who Stutter: Erp Evidence, Wendy Lorraine Olsen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this study was to investigate how young adults who stutterer allocate attentional resources during two linguistic stages in picture naming, specifically lemma and lexeme retrieval. This study reports on behavioral and brain electrophysiological data collected during a simple auditory oddball task and a Dual Picture-Word Interference/Tone Monitoring Task.

Statistical Modeling Of Microrna Expression With Human Cancers, Ke-Sheng Wang, Yue Pan, Chun Xu

Health & Biomedical Sciences Faculty Publications

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs (containing about 22 nucleotides) that regulate gene expression. MiRNAs are involved in many different biological processes such as cell proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis, fat metabolism, and human cancer genes; while miRNAs may function as candidates for diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers and predictors of drug response. This paper emphasizes the statistical methods in the analysis of the associations of miRNA gene expression with human cancers and related clinical phenotypes: 1) simple statistical methods include chi-square test, correlation analysis, t-test and one-way ANOVA; 2) regression models include linear and logistic regression; 3) survival analysis approaches such as …

Genetic Moderation Of Phenotypic And Neural Indicators Of Peer Influenced Risk-Taking Behavior: An Experimental Investigation, Troy Alan Webber

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Risk-taking behavior (RTB) is defined as behavior involving the probability of reward with concurrent probability of some negative outcome. Peer influence is among the most robust predictors of RTB, such that greater peer influence, particularly deviant or delinquent peer influence, is associated with increased RTB. Evidence suggests that those with genetic predispositions for RTB may also be more susceptible to peer influence as a function of genotype. Given that genetic polymorphisms within the dopaminergic system have evidenced associations with various forms of RTB and delinquent peer affiliation, it is possible that these genes may interact with peer influence to predict …

Personality As A Predictor Of Occupational Safety: Does It Really Matter?, Stephanie Anne Andel

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Past research demonstrates the high prevalence of occupational accidents and injuries, and therefore much work has gone into examining potential antecedents to such incidences. However, while some research has examined personality as a potential antecedent, results suggesting personality as a significant predictor of occupational safety remain inconclusive. Therefore, the purpose of the current work is to conduct a cross-sectional multi-source survey study that will take a closer look at the relationships between various personality variables and occupational safety. Essentially, the purpose of the current study is threefold: (1) to examine the relationships between two Big Five personality factors, safety locus …

Expectations And The Dynamic Feedback Between Foreign Direct Investment And Economic Growth, Diego Escobari, Diego E. Vacaflores

School of Economics and Finance Faculty Publications

This paper seeks to analyze the dynamic feedback between Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and economic growth – larger FDI promotes higher GDP, while higher GDP can be achieved with higher levels of FDI. We use panels and a sample of 19 Latin American countries to estimate a dynamic FDI and a dynamic GDP equation that jointly characterize the evolution of both variables. We find that the dynamics of GDP and FDI are mostly driven by the expectations. Shocks of GDP or FDI were found to play no role affecting the dynamics.