<p>Problems associated with traffic, such as traffic congestionand pollution, have occurred in major urban areas in particulardue to the increased use of cars. One possible way to reducethe use of cars is to replace commuter trips by car with othermodes of transport, such as a combination of car and publictransport called Park&Ride. The aim of this thesis was tounderstand more about factors influencing the choice of modeand to find measures that could attract car drivers to Park&Ride. A stated preference survey has been conducted inorder to quantify some standard factors. The factors used inthis stated choice experiment were: security at the lot,availability of spaces at the parking lot, costs at the parkinglot and walking distances between the parking space and thestation. The results indicate that security at the Park&Ride facility is important. Both sexes assign a high value tosecure parking, but women are more willing to pay for lights atan unguarded parking lot. The results reveal that parkingfacilities, such as free parking and short distance betweenparking place and work at work, influence people’s choiceof mode. A general conclusion is that there is potential forincreasing the use of Park&Ride facilities, especiallyamong women and respondents over 30 years.</p><p><b>Key words:</b>Mode choice, valuation, traffic reduction,stated preference, factors, Park&Ride</p>

Den arena där socker och sötma förstärs har förändrats i och med att socker har gått från en global handelsvara, endast tillgänglig ett fåtal, till en lokal som når de stora massorna. Detta kanske kan ses som en mindre revolution i mathållningen. Men varför äter människan socker och varför finner hon smaken så åtråvärd? Syftet med studien var att ur ett evolutionärt samt kulturellt perspektiv undersöka varför människan finner den söta smaken åtråvärd. Metoden som har använts i föreliggande studie var en litteraturstudie av vetenskapliga artiklar där artiklar som berör hälsoaspekter som socker och sötma orsakar diskuteras emot bakgrundens evolutionära samt kulturella aspekter. Resultatet visade att människan fann den söta smaken åtråvärd baserat både på medfödda samt kulturellt inlärda preferenser. Av diskussionen framgick att det fanns en medfödd preferens för sötma men att den kulturellt betingade preferensen tog över genom den inlärning hon får från sin första måltid av modersmjölk och framåt. Människan förknippade därför sött med både trygghet, lugn, belöning, tröst men framförallt med mat. För om sötma endast vore evolutionärt betingat skulle människan kunna äta socker direkt ur påsen. / B-uppsatser

One of the most important challenges facing us today is to personalize services based on user preferences. In order to achieve this objective, the design of Recommender Systems (RSs), which are systems designed to aid the users through different decision-making processes by providing recommendations to them, have been an active area of research. RSs may produce personalized and non-personalized recommendations. Non-personalized RSs provide general suggestions to a user, based on the number of times an item has been selected in the past. Personalized RSs, on the other hand, aim to predict the most suitable items for a specific user, based on the user’s preferences and constraints. The latter are the focus of this thesis. While Recommender Systems have been successful in many domains, a number of challenges remain. For example, most implementations consider only single criteria ratings, and consequently are unable to identify why a user prefers an item over others. Many systems classify the user into one single group or cluster which is an unrealistic approach, since in real world users share commonalities in different degrees with diverse types of users. Others require a large amount of previously gathered data about users’ interactions and preferences, in order to be successfully applied. In this study, we introduce a methodology for the creation of Personalized Multi Criteria Context Aware Recommender Systems that aims to overcome these shortcomings. Our methodology incorporates the user’s current context information, and techniques from the Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) field of study to analyze and model the user preferences. To this end, we create a multi criteria user preference model to assess the utility of each item for a specific user, to then recommend the items with the highest utility. The criteria considered when creating the user preference model are the user’s location, mobility level and user profile. The latter is obtained by considering the user specific needs, and generalizing the user data from a large scale demographic database. We present a case study where we applied our methodology into PeRS, a personal Recommender System to recommend events that will take place within the Ottawa/Gatineau Region. Furthermore, we conduct an offline experiment performed to evaluate our methodology, as implemented in our case study. From the experimental results we conclude that our RS is capable to accurately narrow down, and identify, the groups from a demographic database where a user may belong, and subsequently generate highly accurate recommendation lists of items that match with his/her preferences. This means that the system has the ability to understand and typify the user. Moreover, the results show that the obtained system accuracy doesn’t depend on the user profile. Therefore, the system is potentially capable to produce equally accurate recommendations for a wide range of the population.

Consumer brand preference is an essential step to understand consumer choice behaviour, and has therefore always received great attention from marketers. Brand preferences reveal the type of attributes a brand possesses, to strengthen its position and increase its market share. Moreover, it forms a critical input in developing a company’s successful brand strategy, and gives insight for product development. However, the shift to experiential marketing broadens the role of the brand from a bundle of attributes to experiences. Experiential marketing also considers both, the rational and irrational assumptions of consumer behaviour. The technological advancement helped increasing the similarities between the brands attributes and product commoditisation. Consequently, consumers cannot shape their preferences among brands using rational attributes only. They seek the brand that creates experience; intrigue them in a sensorial, emotional, and creative way. Companies’ competitiveness in such market has, therefore become increasingly difficult. Their survival requires building their competitive advantage by delivering memorable experiences, which would influence consumers’ brand preferences, and consequently stimulate consumers’ purchase decisions. In the marketing literature, the traditional models are uni-dimensional, and addressing the brand preferences by consumers’ cognitive judgement of brand attributes on a rational basis. The role of experience is limited to the impact of its type on shifting preference level. Most of prior studies are partial and focusing on one or two antecedents of brand preferences. In addition to these drawbacks, the studies also ignore consequences determining the consumer purchase decisions. Based on these limitations in the literature, a lack of understanding of how consumers develop their brand preferences was identified. Accordingly, the aim of this study is to develop a model that provides an understanding of how brand knowledge and brand experiences determine brand preferences and to investigate its impact on brand repurchase intentions. In this model, the brand knowledge is defined by attribute-based beliefs, referring to consumers’ salient beliefs about the brand intrinsic cues, and non-attribute beliefs, reflected in the price, appearance, brand personality, and self-congruity. Therefore, the relative importance of brand knowledge factors contributing to brand preference is determined. Furthermore, the model addresses the interactions between the brand knowledge and brand experience in shaping brand preference. Thus, addressing how the experiences reflect embedded value in the brand offerings influencing consumer preferences. To achieve the aim of this study, a sequential mixed-method methodology combining both qualitative and quantitative research was adopted. The aim of the first qualitative phase is exploratory, using focus groups, to refine the proposed model and generate items for questionnaire development. The second phase, quantitative research, is the survey conducted using self-administrated questionnaires. The structural equation modelling (AMOS) software is used to analyse the data. The findings confirm that brand knowledge and brand experience are key sources of brand preferences. In addition, all the factors of brand knowledge have a direct positive impact on brand preferences. However, the role of brand personality on brand preference is realised through brand experience. The findings also support that the impacts of the general brand attributes and appearance on brand preference are partially mediated by brand experience. Furthermore, brand preference positively impacts repurchase intentions. The ultimate contribution of this study stems from revealing that both cognitive information processing and experiential responses form the bases of developing brand preferences, which form the link to future psychological reactions. Methodologically, the study measures the multi-dimensional constructs, brand experience and brand personality, at the aggregate level. In addition, it validates the “big-five personality” as a measure of brand personality. Pragmatically, the study suggests three levels for building brands of technological products to win consumer preferences. At the first level lies the brand functional attributes, at the second level, are the brand symbolic attributes reflected in the imagery associations and aesthetic appearance while at the third level is the brand experience. Noteworthy, these experiences are private in nature and cannot be commoditised. This model extends the notion of brand experience on preference development and can be extended in future research to build long-term consumer-brand relationship.

Brazil is renowned worldwide for its remarkable reforms in pharmaceutical regulation, which have enhanced access to essential medicines while lowering drug costs. As part of these reforms, the Generic Drug Act was introduced in 1999. This policy mandates that pharmaceutical products that are no longer protected by a patent must be interchangeable with an innovator (reference) drug. This thesis examines how and why Brazil promoted this large-scale regulatory policy. The literature on pharmaceutical policy often invokes international guidelines that inspire countries to reformulate their regulatory regimes or argues that regulations emerge in order to serve the interests of powerful interest groups. In contrast, this thesis examines how changes in the regulatory environment affect actors’ policy preferences. It argues that as actors adapt and respond to new regulatory environments, they also push the policy path further along the way. This historical qualitative case study relies on in-depth interviews and documentary research to trace the policy process of generic drug regulation in Brazil. It finds that Brazil’s generic drug reform can be attributed to a convergence of the evolution of pharmaceutical regulation, unexpected events (AIDS epidemic and scandal of fake medicines) and political activity of the Minister of Health. In turn, this study demonstrates that the new regulatory development altered the preferences of local pharmaceutical firms, who now support and uphold a policy they once opposed because of the high costs associated with adapting their industrial plants and processes. The regulation of generic drugs has also culminated in other unintended consequences. Public pharmaceutical factories were still unable to fully adjust to the new regulatory environment and patient groups slowly became aware of these limitations. Paradoxically, the generic drug regulation introduced in the name of patients and opposed by local pharmaceutical firms, is today opposed by important patient advocacy groups but solidified by the strong support of local and multinational pharmaceutical firms. These findings suggest although pharmaceutical firms strongly support the generic drug regulation today; they did not control the policy process that created it. Although Brazil’s norms resemble international guidelines, they were developed locally. Brazil’s case demonstrates that evolution of domestic political institutions were the most important determinant of the timing and direction of the regulatory policy. Thus, this thesis concludes that the state still matters for pharmaceutical regulation and that pharmaceutical regulation is only partially influenced by non-state actors.

Pollinator-driven selection is thought to drive much of the extraordinary diversity of flowering plants. Plants that produce floral traits preferred by particular pollinators are more likely to receive conspecific pollen and to evolve further adaptations to those pollinators that enhance pollination and ultimately generate floral diversity. Two mechanisms in particular, sensory bias and learning, are thought to explain how pollinator preference can contribute to divergence and speciation in flowering plants. While the preferences of pollinators, such as bees, flies, and birds, are frequently implicated in patterns of floral trait evolution, the role of learning in generating reproductive isolation and trait divergence for different floral types within plant populations is not well understood. Floral color polymorphism in particular provides an excellent opportunity to examine how pollinator behavior and learning might maintain the different floral morphs. In this study we asked if bumble bees showed innate preferences for different color morphs of the pollen-only plant Solanum tridynamum, whether bees formed preferences for the morphs with which they had experience collecting pollen from, and the strength of those learned preferences. Using an absolute conditioning protocol, we gave bees experience collecting pollen from a color polymorphic plant species that offered only pollen rewards. Despite initially-naïve bees showing no apparent innate bias toward human-white versus human-purple flower morphs, we did find evidence of a bias in learning. Specifically, bees learned strong preferences for purple corollas, but learned only weak preferences for hypochromic (human-white) corollas. We discuss how our results might explain patterns of floral display evolution, particularly as they relate to color polymorphisms. Additionally, we propose that the ease with which floral visual traits are learned—i.e., biases in learning—can influence the evolution of floral color as a signal to pollinators.

The problem consists of investigating relationships between the Wechsler Bellevue Intelligence Scale, Form I, and the Kuder Preference Record-Personal.

The purpose of this study was to determine differences between the same subjects' music preferences at the elementary and high school levels, and the relationship between these findings and the following variables: peer preferences, musical training, excerpt familiarity, grade, gender, and race.

Previous research has found that hand preference can be detected reliably in infants as young as 6 months of age through the use of reach-grasp tasks. While many studies have targeted their efforts at discerning hand preference in infants younger than 12-months of age, a lack of knowledge about hand preference during the ages of 1-2 years remain. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether 12-month-old infants demonstrate a clear hand use preference during unimanual reaching and grasping. Participants consisted of 54 healthy, full term 12-month-old infants (+2/-2 weeks). Goal objects were placed at a reachable distance, in front of the infants and randomly allocated to either left, midline or right positions. Infant hand choices and the success of each grasp were coded offline from video recordings made of the reach-grasp sessions and an overall lateralisation index (LI) was calculated later for each infant. The results demonstrated that the 12-month-old infants were generally right-preferred. Additionally, almost double the frequency of grasps were accounted for by right hand grasps. Further, a significant right hand preference was found when children reached across the midline to grasp objects. The findings imply that hand preference may be readily observed in the prehension activities of 12-month-old infants, and particularly prominent when reaching across the midline.

Abstract ESTHETIC PREFERENCES FOR MAXILLARY INCISOR LABIOLINGUAL INCLINATION ACROSS RACES by Elvi Marie Barcoma, D.D.S. A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Dentistry at Virginia Commonwealth University Virginia Commonwealth University, 2015 Major Director: Bhavna Shroff, D.M.D., M.Dent.Sc, Program Director, Orthodontics Objective: To determine if people of different racial backgrounds prefer different amounts of maxillary incisor labiolingual inclination from a smiling profile view. Materials and Methods: An electronic survey was created with smiling profile images of an African-American female and a White female with varying degrees of maxillary incisor labiolingual inclination. Images were ranked from most attractive to least attractive. Results: There was no statistically significant difference in the overall preference for maxillary incisor labiolingual inclination between African-American and White evaluators or between genders. The estimated optimal incisal inclination across races was -8.1°. Conclusions: There was no clinically significant difference in the estimated optimal inclination across races or between genders. The average of the top three maxillary incisor inclinations ranged between -10° and -5°. The majority of evaluators preferred retroclined maxillary incisors over proclined maxillary incisors.