This dissertation aims at developing and testing a new method that can better capture preferences for multistate health profiles. The motivation arose from the failure of the QALY (Quality-Adjusted Life Year) model in adequately capturing preferences in multistate health profiles. The current QALY-based technique captures preferences for multistate health profiles by evaluating each health state in the profile independently of other states. As the past literature showed, this additive independence condition does not hold in practice and hence such approach is inadequate. To address this issue, this study proposes a novel approach to measure preferences for multistate health profiles by looking at two consecutive health states at a time. It hypothesizes that an evaluation of the future health state is dependent or "conditioned" on the level of the preceding, or current, health state. Characteristics of the current health state that are suspected to impact the resulting conditional preference scores for future health state are systematically explored in a carefully designed empirical study. The interested factors include duration of the current health state, direction of change and amplitude of change between the current and future health states. A 2

In 2009 Ministry of Economic Affairs promoted Local Progressive Business District Programme, and the Department of Commerce of this ministry supervises the first Image Business for aboriginal, the Paiwan, in Sandimen Township. With regard to research motivation, the research project is designed to study this case to understand the marketing strategies of the Image Business District for aboriginals to match the purpose of bettering the current programme. The research consists of three main variables¡Xthe concept of local marketing strategies (including public participation, label strategies, promotion strategies, and chain strategies), the concept of the image business district (including official planning, the appearance of town, the characteristic of product, and festival), and the consumer¡¦s preference. In addition, this research is applied Delphi to carry out mock survey for the experts in the beginning to test the quality of questionnaire, and disseminate it to visitors to start off real survey later. Visitors to the Image Business District for aboriginal in Sandimen Township will be requested to fill in questionnaire, and this research disseminate 300 questionnaires, and 160 of them are returned. The percentage of questionnaires returning reaches 53.3%. This study employs the statistic software, SPSSI 12.0, to carry out Analysis Reliability, T test, One-Way ANOVA Analysis, and Regression Analysis, and the empirical results appear as following: 1. Visitors, who fill in questionnaire, agree with public participation and promotion strategies, and accept the official planning as well. 2. Visitors, who fill in questionnaire, agree with public participation and promotion strategies, and accept the appearance of town as well. 3. Visitors, who fill in questionnaire, agree with label strategies, production strategies, and chain strategies, and accept the appearance of town as well. 4. Visitors, who fill in questionnaire, agree with public participation, promotion strategies, label strategies, production strategies, and chain strategies, and accept and support festival better. 5. Visitors, who fill in questionnaire, agree with the official planning, the appearance of town, and the characteristic of product, and accept consumer¡¦s preference better. 6. Visitors, who fill in questionnaire, are categorised into different research groups by reason of their age, marital status, education, income, and occupation. No doubt, their different backgrounds are research variables. Furthermore, their attitudes toward the concept of local marketing strategies are various significantly. The hypothesis exists. 7. Visitors, who fill in questionnaire, are categorised into different research groups by reason of their age, marital status, education, income, and occupation. No doubt, their different backgrounds are research variables. Furthermore, their attitudes toward the concept of image business district are various significantly. The hypothesis exists. 8. Visitors, who fill in questionnaire, are categorised into different research groups by reason of their age, marital status, education, income, and occupation. No doubt, their different backgrounds are research variables. Furthermore, their attitudes toward the consumer¡¦s preference are various significantly. The hypothesis exists.

Addiction is a chronic disease that characterize as habitual or compulsive involvement in an activity despite it¡¦s bring negative consequences. Some of psystimulants such as cocaine or amphetamine cause a strong reinforcing effects even after prolonged abstinence periods. Such illegal drugs not only hurt on the adult health but also result in fetal physiological damage. For example, that babies born to mothers who abuse with cocaine bring prematurely delivered, low birth weights, smaller head circumferences and increased heart disease in adult offspring. Mesolimbic dopamine system include nucleus accumbens (NAc) and ventral tegmental area (VTA) are critical regions for the neural adaptations that contribute to addiction. VTA that receives inputs from a large number of brain regions. For example, it receives glutamatergic inputs from prefrontal cortex, or GABAergic inputs from NAc. It has been known that VTA play a major role in the acquisition and expression of learned addictive behaviors. Results from many neuropharmacological studies in animal models indicate that exposure to cocaine or some other drugs of abuse seems to induce long-term potentiation (LTP) ¢w like changes of synaptic plasticity among neurons in VTA region. LTP was first described in hippocampus, a region that associated with memory formation, and were found widespread events in many mammalian brain sites. In the present time, theories and investigation indicated that memory and addiction might shared the similar neural circuitry and signal pathways. In general, LTP can be separate into two main phases : induction and maintenance phases. Many of molecules participate in induction phase such as calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII), cyclic AMP (cAMP), phosphatidylinositol 3-kinases (PI3K) and protein kinase C (PKC). However, until now there was only one molecule has been found associated with LTP maintenance¡Xprotein kinase M£a (PKM£a). PKM£a is a brain specific, constitutively active form of PKC that does not need Ca2+ or diacylglycerol (DAG) for its activation. Molecular evidences showed that PKM£a is translated uniquely by PKM£a mRNA which is generated under the control of an internal promoter in the PKC£a gene. Recently, investigators introduced a PKM£a selective inhibitor¡XZIP, to hippocampus or insular cortex both successful to eliminate long-term spatial memory or conditioned taste aversion (CTA) behavior, respectively, on rat. Therefore, exclude PKM£a by specific inhibitors and then result in abolish long-term synaptic potentiation which had already established seem to be a leading candidate for cure addiction. Here we showed that blocked of PKM£a activity in VTA dopaminergic neuron eliminated mEPSCs or AMPAR/NMDAR ratio increment elicited by cocaine. Otherwise, our results also presented that myristoylatedinhibitory peptide¢wZIP had no effect on spike timing-dependent long-term potentiation in rats previously injected with saline but remarkably restored spike timing-dependent long-term potentiation in VTA dopamine neurons in slices prepared from rats that received single or multiple cocaine exposure. Furthermore, our western blot analyses showed that both single and five consecutive cocaine injections induced a significant increase in PKM£a level in VTA or NAc. Moreover, our ex vivo cocaine incubation results indicated that multiple kinases activation or de novo protein synthesis was required for PKM£a increment. The most important, our data provided the first physiological evidence between PKM£a and drug addiction when intracranial administered specific PKM£a inhibitors to VTA reversed cocaine-induced conditioned-place preference (CPP) behavior. Finally, we investigated the behavioral effect of cocaine-induced locomotor sensitization in an open field apparatus. Our data showed that peri-adolescent (P21) rats exhibited prominently increased in either acute or repeated cocaine-induced locomotor activity than mid-adolescent (P28) and post-adolescent (P41). Interestingly, applied to high dosage cocaine (30 mg/kg) rescued the acute locomotor response in P28 rats but not behavioral sensitization. We further examined the locomotion on rats that were exposed to cocaine in utero after single or multiple cocaine injection. However, cocaine-induced increase in locomotor activity was lower in P21 rats which exposed to cocaine during pregnancy but no significantly difference in P28 rats. Surprisingly, single high dose cocaine treatment caused a marked reduction in locomotor activity on P21 rats prenatally exposed to cocaine. Otherwise, we also provided the first evidences that repeated cocaine injection in pregnant rats induced a significant decreased to KCC2 level in PFC regions prepared from P20 rat. In conclusion, results from our current studies demonstrate for the first time that persistently active PKM£a is necessary in (1) mEPSC facilitation induced by single cocaine exposure; (2) cocaine-induced enhancement in AMPAR/NMDAR ratio; (3) single or repeated cocaine-induced LTP but not in LTP induced by spike-timing stimulation; and (4) cocaine conditioned place preference in the VTA. In addition, our results also present evidence that the expression of PKM£a is increased by either single or repeated cocaine exposure. Furthermore, our behavioral or Western blotting consequence of cocaine treatment in utero was reflected by the diminishion in the sensitivity of locomotor activity in postnatal rats to cocaine and KCC2 level in PFC regions.

A wager is a one time bet, staking money on one among a collection of alternatives having uncertain reward. Wagers represent a common class of engineering decision, where “bets” are placed on the design, deployment, and/or operation of technology. Often such wagers are characterized by alternatives having value that evolves according to some future cash flow. Here, the values of specific alternatives are derived from a cash flow modeled as a stochastic marked point process. A principal difficulty with these engineering wagers is that the probability laws governing the dynamics of random cash flow typically are not (completely) available; hence, separating the gambler’s preference among wager alternatives is quite difficult. In this dissertation, we investigate a computational approach for separating preferences among alternatives of a wager where the alternatives have values that evolve according to a marked point processes. We are particularly concerned with separating a gambler’s preferences when the probability laws on the available alternatives are not completely specified.

This dissertation, which consists of three essays, studies online auctions both theoretically and empirically. The first essay studies a special online auction format used by eBay, “Buy-It- Now” (BIN) auctions, in which bidders are allowed to buy the item at a fixed BIN price set by the seller and end the auction immediately. I construct a two-stage model in which the BIN price is only available to one group of bidders. I find that bidders cutoff is lower in this model, which means, bidders are more likely to accept the BIN option, compared with the models assuming all bidders are offered the BIN. The results explain the high frequency of bidders accepting BIN price, and may also help explain the popularity of temporary BIN auctions in online auction sites, such as eBay, where BIN option is only offered to early bidders. In the second essay, I study how bidders’ risk attitude and time preference affect their behavior in Buy-It-Now auctions. I consider two cases, when both bidders enter the auction at the same time (homogenous bidders) thus BIN option is offered to both of them, and when two bidders enter the auction at two different stages (heterogenous bidders) thus the BIN option is only offered to the early bidder. Bidders’ optimal strategies are derived explicitly in both cases. In particular, given bidders’ risk attitude and time preference, the cutoff valuation, such that a bidder will accept BIN if his valuation is higher than the cutoff valuation and reject it otherwise, is calculated. I find that the cutoff valuation in the case of heterogenous bidders is lower than that in the case of homogenous bidders. The third essay focuses on the empirical modeling of the price processes of online auctions. I generalize the monotone series estimator to model the pooled price processes. Then I apply the model and the estimator to eBay auction data of a palm PDA. The results are shown to capture closely the overall pattern of observed price dynamics. In particular, early bidding, mid-auction draught, and sniping are well approximated by the estimated price curve.

No description available.

Always, researchers are trying to use different ways to describe the concept ¡§Motivation¡¨. Different definition of motivation will develop different theory. However, there are two points under below at least: First is the fitness of the culture, the concept of the Western would have the specific background, will not fit in the individual person with other culture. Second, to ease the verifying of the science, most of the researches only discuss the relationship of immediate variables but neglect the influence of individual personality in different points of time. This study will combine the concepts of motivation and creativity through integrating work motivation theories and following up Teresa M. Amabile¡¦s research to build up the ¡§Personal Creative Process Model¡¨. The research model includes: the environment of organization, the process of perception, motivation, behavior and outcome. Especially, process of perception includes personality, criterion and response. ¡§Criterion¡¨ refers to personal need and value which are influenced by social environment and culture in country. Addition, ¡§Response¡¨ refers to attitude and emotion which are influenced by time. In this study, I use the concepts, ¡§Criterion¡¨ and ¡§Response¡¨, to compensate the loss of old motivation theories. Supposing the variable, ¡§Criterion¡¨, is determined, this study¡¦s purpose will find out the relationship of other variables and how these variables influence creativity. Next, using questionnaire to capture responses of college student and work adult will help us to understand the relationship of these responses. The questionnaire, this study uses, includes: ¡§Cognitive Style Instrument¡¨, ¡§What Is Happening in This Class? Questionnaire¡¨, ¡§KEYS¡¨ and ¡§The Work Preference Inventory¡¨. In addition, this study uses the grade of students to represent personal creativity and analyze the relationship between creativity and other constructs. The conclusion shows cognitive style indeed affects creativity, but the relations are different from theory. Furthermore, cognitive style and response/motivation are almost independent. To infer, the response and motivation are intervening variables between personality and creativity. Finally, regression analysis by students, this study got the result: ¡§Close by the factor is the key element of the creativity performance¡¨.

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The purpose of this research was to investigate the behavior trouble of elementary & junior navy officers, help them turn to and arrange for counseling requirements, while inquiring into differences in junior navy officers¡¦ behavior troubles, attitudes and requirements for counseling. This research adopted a method of questionnaire surveys and targeted all the ensign and lieutenant junior grade naval officers of the Republic of China as the subjects. A sample of 1363 was selected through stratified random sampling and 1363 valid questionnaires was collected by the survey tool of ¡§Questionnaires on Behavior Troubles of Elementary & Junior Navy Officers, Help Them Turn to, and Arrange for Counseling Requirements¡¨ written by author himself. The data collected was analyzed through statistics processing package software for mean, average, standard variation, t-test, etc. the reached conclusion contains the following: For junior officers, there is no significant difference in physical & psychological health, adaptation to and liking to military environment. But there exist considerable differences compared with the counterparts in different ranks, services, education level & degrees and units. There are no significant differences in attitudes towards counseling for genders among junior officers. But there exist considerable differences compared with the counterparts in different ranks, services, education level & degrees and units. Among the behavior troubles for junior officers, ¡§work overload ¡¨ troubles most, next comes the ¡§career planning¡¨, and ¡§emotional imbalance & disorder¡¨. As for personal-related counseling preference for elementary navy officers, families will be their first option; while turning to military colleagues for consultations if faced with service-related troubles. Encountered with either situation, the subjects prefer the way of ¡§one on one ¡§. The most urgent need in counseling for junior officers stands as the ¡§curriculum on emotional quotients and stress arrangement¡§, and second to that is ¡§curriculum arrangement of career planning¡§. Based on the conclusion, this research has proposed the following suggestions: I. Practice of Psychological Counseling: (1). Help junior officers adapt themselves to military environment, while enhancing their physiological & psychological health. (2). Help junior officers take recognizance of psychological health, attitudes towards counseling and turn to required consultation. (3). Comprehend junior officers¡¦ behavior troubles and enthusiastically bring about satisfactory solution for them. (4). Provide appropriate and efficient counseling service in response to different subjects. II. Policy regarding psychological counseling: (1). Provide well staffed establishment with sufficient numbers of professional psychological counselors for the expected purposes. (2). Cultivate professional, qualified personnel and attach much importance to psychological development. (3). Integrate overall resources and strengthen the conception of preventive measures. (4). Combine with technological development and make the best use of website. III. Future Research: (1). Increase the subjects of research. (2). Increase the variables of research. (3). Adopt qualitative research method.

Effective knowledge management of proliferating volume of documents within a knowledge repository is vital to knowledge sharing, reuse, and assimilation. In order to facilitate accesses to documents in a knowledge repository, use of a knowledge map to organize these documents represents a prevailing approach. Document clustering techniques typically are employed to produce knowledge maps. However, existing document clustering techniques are not tailored to individuals¡¦ preferences and therefore are unable to facilitate the generation of knowledge maps from various preferential perspectives. In response, we propose the Preference-Anchored Document Clustering (PAC) technique that takes a user¡¦s categorization preference (represented as a list of anchoring terms) into consideration to generate a knowledge map (or a set of document clusters) from this specific preferential perspective. Our empirical evaluation results show that our proposed technique outperforms the traditional content-based document clustering technique in the high cluster precision area. Furthermore, benchmarked with Oracle Categorizer, our proposed technique also achieves better clustering effectiveness in the high cluster precision area. Overall, our evaluation results demonstrate the feasibility and potential superiority of the proposed PAC technique.