Many companies use product families in order to offer product variants that appeal to different market segments while minimizing costs. Because the market demand is generally not uniform for all possible product variants, during the design phase a decision must be made as to which variants will be offered and how many. This thesis presents a new approach to solving this problem. The product is defined in terms of performance parameters. The market demand is captured in a preference model and applied to these parameters in order to represent the total potential market. The number and placement of the product variants are optimized in order to maximize percentage of the potential market that they span. This method is applied to a family of mountain bikes and a family of flow-regulating disks used in industrial applications. These examples show that usage of this method can result in a significant increase in potential market and a significant reduction in production costs.

This study was conducted in order to examine two questions: 1) Does free movement while listening to classical music influence a preschooler's preference for the music?; and 2) Does free movement while listening to classical music influence a preschooler's ability to answer recognition questions relative to the music? Subjects (N = 34) were 4- to 5-year-old students from two intact classrooms at the BYU Child and Family Studies Laboratory Preschool. After being involved in six lessons utilizing two different classical pieces, each identified by a prominent instrument and experienced either Actively (with free movement) or Passively (while sitting or lying down), the students were interviewed relative to their music preferences and recognition. To strengthen the results, the process was repeated (termed Wave 1 and Wave 2) with different pieces in different experience orders. Results of a Chi-Squared test of independence indicated no effect for Active or Passive exposure on piece preference in either wave. However, in Wave 1, pieces experienced Passively were significantly preferred to those experienced Actively, while the reverse was true in Wave 2. The Active exposure had no significant effect on the overall accuracy of recognition responses. Observational data is also included, which corroborates and extends statistical results.

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Considerable media research has established that much of mainstream, United States based news is historically rife with content that both implicitly and explicitly reinforces popular cultural norms. Combined with a history full of inequities towards marginalized groups, many of which were based on race, consumption of mainstream news has been linked to increased hostility and more negative attitudes towards non-Whites in the United States. That said, much of this work views news from a monolithic perspective of news programming, irrespective of the differences in political orientation or broadcast integrity. By using quantitative assessments of how various mainstream news programs score on both left/right and fact/opinion-based dichotomies, the purpose of the present study is to address these gaps. As models for how mainstream news consumption is related to existing race-related attitudes, theoretical foundations of cultivation theory (how long viewers watch), the motivation and opportunities model (if viewers are motivated in their viewing) and social ecology theory (who viewers are), were used in relation to these dichotomies. However, overall results suggest that, while time spent with news, race, and gender appear to affect news consumption's relationship with race-related attitudes, preference for left vs. right wing news and fact vs. opinion-based was less relevant, with marginal effect sizes at best. Implications and future directions considering these results are discussed.

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<p> The study seeks to derive a spatial preference model for urban places, based on a farm population's spatial choices of urban places for retail expenditure. Specifically, the study tests for the similarity in households' preference orderings of urban places, and finds a high degree of similarity. This is achieved using a model with only two simple variables, namely town population and distance to town. Tests indicate no major variable is omitted in the model. The information on households' preference orderings enables the aggregate preference order to be defined. </p> <p> Tests are inconclusive as to whether households also assign worths to urban places which indicate their awareness of the amount by which different places are preferred. </p> <p> The second part of the analysis seeks to determine if different types of households have different spatial preferences. Differences are revealed in the value different types attach to the locational convenience of places. Farm households with members working off the farm reveal a lower than average preference for convenient shopping places. Smaller, more affluent households display a stronger preference for convenient locations and a lower preference for large towns than less affluent households with young children. </p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Det krävs planering för tid, ekonomi och andra resurser när det kommer till sjukvård. För att sjukvård ska fungera behövs det olika verktyg och hjälpmedel. Dessa verktyg och hjälpmedel är till för att ta reda på vilka patienter som ska prioriteras och vilka behandlingar som ska finansieras. Detta görs genom att undersöka exempelvis hur stor skillnad det är på kvalité och kostnad mellan olika behandlingar. Kostnadseffektanalys är ett verktyg som används för att mäta de övergripande hälsofördelarna av behandlingar, med hänsyn till deras kostnader. Det finns olika mätverktyg för att ta reda på vilka behandlingar som bör finansieras och ett av de verktygen är QALY (kvalitetsjusterande levnadsår), där vi kombinerar livslängden och livskvaliteten. Många har kritiserat QALY eftersom de menar att ramverket av QALY leder till diskriminering av patienter med funktionsnedsättning. Dock anser Whitehurst och Engel att diskriminering uppkommer av frågeformuläret som används och inte av ramverket. Frågeformulär används inom forskning och sjukvård för att ta reda på hur patienter värderar sitt hälsotillstånd med hjälp av kryssfrågor om deras psykiska och fysiska mående. Utifrån det jag har läst visar det sig trots att frågeformulären behöver förbättras inom vissa avseenden att problemet ligger på QALY som ramverk. En av kritikerna, Sean Sinclair, anser att vi bör använda oss av patient preference theory om vi vill minska risken för diskriminering av patienter med funktionsnedsättning.  Enligt Sinclair diskriminerar standard QALY- ramverket dem som har funktionsnedsättningar. Detta gäller oavsett om vi använder oss av undersökningar som frågar endast/huvudsakligen personer med funktionsnedsättning eller allmänheten. Sinclair anser att problemet bäst löses genom att göra en strukturell förändring av hur vi värderar hälsotillståndet hos patienter med funktionsnedsättningar med hjälp av ett nytt, relativiserat ramverk. Jag kommer att visa att Sinclair har rätt i att diskriminering av patienter med funktionsnedsättning kan förekomma oavsett hur vi justerar frågeformulären eller vem vi frågar. Men även som Sinclair föreslår, borde sjukvården använda sig av patient preference theory och inte av standard QALY på grund av att oavsett om frågeformuläret förbättras så kommer det fortfarande uppstå diskriminering av människor med funktionsnedsättning.

Landscape visual preference research has indicated many potential indicators of preference; however a comprehensive framework concerning the relationship between visual preference and perception has not been solidified. Gestalt psychology, the predecessor to visual perception, proposes certain visual grouping tendencies to explain how humans perceive the world. This study examines if Gestalt grouping principles are reliable indicators of preference, and if they may be used to develop a broad context for visual assessment. Visual preference for 36 landscape scenes testing the proximity and similarity of landscape elements were ranked one through five by 1,749 Mississippi State University undergraduate, graduate, and faculty members in a web-based preference survey. Using a two-way between groups analysis of variance (ANOVA) to analyze responses, the results indicate that the proximal and similar configuration of landscape elements within a scene does significantly affect visual preference.

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