Objectives. The objective of this project was to ascertain and quantify the effects of gender, age, payment method, and practice size on clinical output of GP/FPs. While the identification of these effects has been undertaken previously, this study is the first attempt to quantify the proportion of variance in physician output explained by this group of variables.<p>Background. The question is of vital importance to academics, health professionals, and citizens. The physician population is aging and feminizing while physicians are softening their opposition to fixed remuneration methods and displaying a greater predilection to group practice. Implications exist for the supply of physician services as gender, age, payment method, and practice size have been found to influence physician output, and therefore the availability of primary care services. <p>Methods. The study employed self-reported data obtained from 1006 Canadian general and family practitioners in 2004. Respondents provided their gender, age, payment method, and practice size, as well as the number of patient visits they conducted (both during regular hours and while on call) and the number of hours they worked in an average week. These data were used to measure the effects of the four independent variables on GP/FP output and to quantify their total collective affect. <p>Results. By and large, the analysis confirmed the prevailing view of the literature, as female physicians; physicians in the youngest and oldest age categories; physicians remunerated mainly through fixed payment methods; and physicians in group practice reported lower levels of output than their counterparts. Despite the presence of obvious trends in the data, in some cases the analysis was unable to uncover statistically significant differences in output between groups of physicians.<p>In terms of the contribution made by these four variables to the variance in GP/FP output, significant and parsimonious models contributed 16.2% of the variance in total patient visits, 19.3% of the variance in patient visits during regular hours, 2.5% of the variance in patient visits while on call, 11.1% of variance in hours worked per week, and 8.9% of the variance in patient visits per hour worked. <p>Conclusion. The four factor variables explained less than one fifth of the variance in all output categories. This first attempt to quantify their contribution identifies an important question: what accounts for the remaining variance? If the unidentified factors are measurable, perhaps they can be added to these models in the future in order to increase our understanding of the forces behind GP/FP output of primary care services.

Learning in reptiles has been studied with a variety of methods and included numerous species. However, research on learning in lizards has generally focused on spatial memory and has used only a few species. No research has specifically investigated and documented the use of visual discrimination in monitor lizards. The ability of monitor lizards (Varanus spp.) to discriminate between visual stimuli was investigated. Subjects were tested on acquisition and two reversals of a discrimination task between black and white stimuli. A food-choice procedure was used to determine if consistent rankings of food items could be determined using a multiple-stimulus choice procedure. The functional value of the rankings was assessed using a progressive ratio technique. The subjects formed stable food preferences, which were reflected in increased response requirement completed for preferred items and subjects did successfully learn the initial discrimination task and the following reversals.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of internal and external focus feedback and their preference on skill learning at age of 12-13 years. Internal focus feedback related with body movements, whereas external focus feedbacks related with movement effects. As a task &ldquo / tennis&rdquo / service in volleyball was used for both acquisition and retention measurements. The subjects (N=78) were randomly assigned to three groups which were internal focus feedback group (IFF), external focus feedback group (EFF) and preference groups (PF). To promote learning three practice days and to assess learning one retention day was applied. Also, during these days, both technique of the skill and targeting was tried to measure. In technique measure the IFF group performed better than EFF group in acquisition and retention phases. PF group had similar scores with IFF group in acquisition phase whereas it did not show better performance than IFF group in retention phase. PF group performed better than EFF group in both phases. In product measure, significant differences between attentional focus feedback groups in acquisition and retention phases. This study indicated that for young children with limited amount of knowledge about a skill internal focus feedback is more appropriate compared to external focus feedback in terms of retention. Being able to choose among internal and external focus of attention also seems to make a difference in retention performance of novice children indicating that active participation on the learning variables is an important concept.

Due to the complexity of multi-objective combinatorial optimization problems (MOCO), metaheuristics like multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEA) are gaining importance to obtain a well-converged and well-dispersed Pareto-optimal frontier approximation. In this study, of the well-known MOCO problems, single-dimensional multi-objective knapsack problem and multi-objective assignment problem are taken into consideration. We develop a steady-state and elitist MOEA in order to approximate the Pareto-optimal frontiers. We utilize a territory concept in order to provide diversity over the Pareto-optimal frontiers of various problem instances. The motivation behind the territory definition is to attach the algorithm the advantage of fast execution by eliminating the need for an explicit diversity preserving operator. We also develop an interactive preference incorporation mechanism to converge to the regions that are of special interest for the decision maker by interacting with him/her during the optimization process.

In this study, we propose two biobjective mathematical models based on PROMETHEE V method for project selection problems. We develop an interactive approach (ib-PROMETHEE V) including data mining techniques to solve the first proposed mathematical model. For the second model, we propose NSGA-II with constraint handling method. We also develop a Preference Based Interactive Multiobjective Genetic Algorithm (IMGA) to solve the second proposed mathematical model. We test the performance of NSGA-II with constraint handling method and IMGA on randomly generated test problems.

The aim of the current study was to investigate the impact of psychotherapists&rsquo / Emotional Intelligence (EI) on adolescent patients&rsquo / perceptions about psychotherapists&rsquo / success and on adolescent patients&rsquo / preference about psychotherapists to consult. In order to examine EI level of psychotherapists who are represented in selected movies, the Scale for Evaluating Psychotherapist&rsquo / s Emotional Intelligence was created for specific to this study. 50 high school students aged between 16 and 18 were participated in the study. The participants watched two movies of which one is representing high EI psychotherapist and the other representing low EI psychotherapist. Then they completed the Scale for Evaluating Psychotherapist&rsquo / s Emotional Intelligence for each movie. Since the experimental group sample size was small, non-parametric tests were conducted in data analysis. According to results, adolescents evaluated high EI psychotherapist as more successful than the one who has low EI. Accordingly, adolescents preferred to consult high EI psychotherapist when needed rather than the one who has low EI.

This dissertation consists of two central parts. Part one of the dissertation examines the impact of interactive restructuring on decision processes and outcomes. Five experimental studies show that consumers examine less information and engage in more compensatory decision processes when interactive restructuring tools are available. Consumers also increase their use of restructuring tools in cognitively challenging choice environments. The availability of a sorting tool improves objective and subjective decision quality when attributes are positively correlated, or when the number of alternatives in a choice set is large, but not when attributes are negatively correlated or choice sets are small. Greater use of interactive restructuring tools has deleterious effects on decision quality when attributes are negatively correlated. Under time pressure the availability of an interactive restructuring tool improves decision quality, even when attributes are negatively correlated, since time pressure limits tool overuse. Finally, the effects of multiple interactive restructuring tools on decision making vary by the types of tools that marketers make available to consumers. Part two of the dissertation explores the effects of visual design on consumer preferences and choice. Experiment 1 demonstrates preference reversals when visual separators are between product alternatives versus between product attributes. Experiment 2 shows that when product attributes are negatively correlated, visually separating alternatives improves decision quality but visually separating attributes hurts decision quality. Visual separators do not affect decision quality when attributes are positively correlated. Experiment 3 extends experiment 2 to show that visual separators enhance decision-making efficiency and can limit the extent to which consumers adapt to contextual changes in choice environments. Finally, experiment 4 shows that, under time pressure, both visual separators between attributes as well as visual separators between alternatives improve decision quality when attributes are negatively correlated.

For decades scientists believed that herbivory had minimal impact on freshwater ecosystems. We now know that herbivory in freshwater systems equals or exceeds herbivory in terrestrial and marine systems. In extreme cases, herbivores can change clear, macrophyte dominated ecosystems into turbid plankton dominated ecosystems. Even though research on plant-herbivore interactions in freshwater systems has increased, there is still much that is unknown. This thesis is comprised of four studies investigating freshwater plant-herbivore interactions across multiple spatial scales. The first study investigated how induced chemical defenses in Cabomba caroliniana suppress herbivore consumption and growth as well as how this herbivore-generated change in plant chemistry affects the growth of plant associated microbes. At the spatial scale of individual ponds or lakes, consumers that induce their host plants may also be indirectly affecting other consumers and microbial pathogens via changes in this shared resource. The second study moves to an ecosystem scale and investigates how exotic versus native apple snails may impact Everglades' habitats. We investigated plant preference, consumption, growth and conversion efficiencies in the singly native apple snail to occur in the U.S. (Pomacea paludosa) versus four introduced species (P. canaliculata, P. insularum, P. haustrum and P. diffusa). We found that even though plant preferences are similar, invasive snails tend to eat more, grow more rapidly, and sometimes more efficiently than natives. This suggests that invasive species could have a large impact on the environment, especially the abundance of submerged plants. The third study investigated how palatability of freshwater plants varies with latitude (i.e. geographic scale). Increased herbivory at lower latitudes is hypothesized to select for increased plant defenses, which has been shown to be true for tropical forests, salt marshes, and seaweeds. When we contrasted eight confamilial plants collected in Indiana versus Southern Florida, three of four herbivores significantly preferred northern plants. When we evaluated a second set of plants collected from Indiana versus Central Florida, only one of three herbivores preferred the northern plants. Overall, our results suggest a preference for northern plants, but the strength of this relationship was variable. We hypothesize that this variability may be driven by 1) local variance in herbivore pressure that creates variance in plant defenses, and/or 2) the effect of winter length on the survival and feeding rate of herbivores. The final study expanded to a world scale, and investigated herbivore preference for native vs exotic plants. We found that both N. American crayfish and S. American snails preferred exotic plants over confamilial natives, despite responding to different plant characteristics. The single species of apple snail that occurs in N. American showed no preference for native or exotic plants from a N. American perspective, but instead exhibited preferences that correlated with its history of evolution in S. America. As the N. American species is a sister species of the S. American snails, feeding by the N. American snail appears more affected by its S. American lineage than its recent history in N. America. This suggests that phylogenetic legacy will affect choices of the herbivore as well as resistance or susceptibility of plants.

Natural populations exhibit a non-random mating behavior and it is assumed that mate preferences causing the non-random mating behavior play a role in sympatric speciation. In my thesis, I have proposed a new model of a mate preference that is based on ecological performance and I have named it fitness-based mating. Individuals that express this mate preference choose primarily fit partners. Fitness-based mating is modelled for haploid, diallelic populations. Individuals are distributed across two niches, and genomes are simplified to two loci. The first locus is subject to natural selection, and the second-locus genotype gives the strength of the mate preference. The population is separated into females and males, among which only females exhibit the mate preference. Ecological selection acts on both sexes alike. With the model I have investigated how female choosiness based on direct advantages offered by their partners can cause and maintain a polymorphic population. Fitness-based mating is an evolutionary successful mating strategy. It spreads in a population due to its amplifying effect on the reproductive success and on the attractiveness of its carriers. A polymorphism arises naturally in the model. The emergence of a stable polymorphism of traits underlying ecological selection is of special interest, because a polymorphism can be a precursor of speciation.

The attribution of incentive salience to cues that become associated with drugs of abuse is a critical characteristic of individuals who may be vulnerable to drug addiction. Rodents with the propensity to sign track are thought to be vulnerable to drug abuse. The goal of the current work was to investigate whether sign trackers (STs) would acquire cocaine conditioned place preference (CPP) to a discrete cue using an avian species. In Experiment 1, sign and goal trackers (GTs) were first identified using a one third rank order split. Following identification, cocaine-CPP was conducted with a discrete cue in each end chamber. Contrary to previous research, results showed that GTs showed a CPP to the discrete cue but STs did not. Experiment 2 was conducted to determine whether sign and GTs had been misclassified with the rank order split. Experiment 2 compared the rank order method with a t-test method (absolute criterion). Misclassification of both sign and GTs occurred using the rank order split. The findings indicated that use of a more accurate method to identify sign and GTs may have led to different results for Experiment 1. The t-test method may be useful for models that require identification of STs.