Customer loyalty in services is the focus of the research. The research problem sought to determine both indirect and indirect effects of relational outcomes on customer loyalty, conceptualised as a psychological state. Relational outcomes are defined as: the thoughts, feelings, and relationships perceived by customers arising from the interaction with a service employee. This class of variable is differentiated from other relational factors such as the characteristics of the actors in the interaction and their behaviours. The effects of relational outcome antecedents were compared to service evaluation antecedents such as customer satisfaction, quality, and value. Customer loyalty was modelled as a psychological state and grounded in the unique characteristics of services. The pioneering work of Kingstrom (1983) was used as a basis for extending the literature. Customer loyalty is an important variable for both services marketing researchers and industry. Accordingly, the research was justified on both theoretical and managerial grounds. Four factors inspired the identification of the research gap: a lack of service loyalty research grounded in service characteristics, lack of studies that conceptualised loyalty as a psychological state, inadequacy of service evaluation measures to predict customer loyalty, and the perceived importance of social interaction to service outcomes. Data collection included pilot studies, re-analysis of published literature, and three major studies. In the first major study, 23 informants provided insights into the nature of three specific relational outcomes: friendship, social comfort, and social regard. The second study was a cross-sectional survey of 190 hair-dressing customers. The specific relationships between friendship, social regard, social comfort, value for money, service encounter satisfaction, perceived core service quality, and customer loyalty were established in this study. New scales were also developed for friendship, social regard, social comfort, and customer loyalty. A third study collected survey data from 406 customers of hairdressing salons, cafes, and naturopathic clinics. Hypothesised relationships were tested through three nested structural equation models. The results indicate that relational outcomes in general are important to customer loyalty. Their effects on loyalty as a psychological state are both direct and indirect. The strength of the effects of relational outcomes on loyalty compares favourably with the effects of service evaluation measures on loyalty. The construct of friendship between individual customer and service employee was found to be related significantly and positively with customer loyalty. The effect of personal friendship appears to have as strong an effect as perceptions of core quality and service encounter satisfaction. Another major finding was that the two relational outcomes of social comfort and social regard both had an indirect influence on customer loyalty. This effect was mediated through the service evaluation constructs of perceived core service quality and service encounter satisfaction. Social comfort affected both quality and satisfaction whereas social regard only influenced quality. However, the impact of social regard on core quality was substantial. Friendship was not found to have a significant relationship with either quality or satisfaction. These findings suggest that there is a temporal dimension to the influence of relational outcomes. Both social regard and social comfort appear to be more important in the early stages of customer-service provider interaction. It also appears that customers evaluate the core quality of everyday services such as hair salons, cafes, and naturopaths using social cues such as feeling well regarded. A further major finding was the lack of a significant relationship between value for money and psychological loyalty in both quantitative studies. Effects of quality, satisfaction, and friendship appear to be important to loyalty development whereas customer value is not. This finding suggests that value for money may be related directly to actual purchase behaviour or repurchase intentions rather than mediated through psychological feelings of loyalty. Hence, evaluations which reflect pricing considerations are less likely to be associated with psychological loyalty than more relationally oriented constructs. The findings indicate important implications for both marketers and researchers. Marketing strategists need to be clear about pursuing either a loyalty or a value for money strategy. The former may not result from the latter. Relational outcomes lead to psychological loyalty but their interactive effects operate differently. Friendship with a service employee provides a direct contribution to loyalty development. Whereas social regard and social comfort affect customers' evaluation of the service. Pursuing a relational strategy will have implications for the way frontline staff are selected and trained. Theoretical implications include: using the relational outcomes as a basis for middle range theory development, support for the linear-additive measurement approach, use of laddering techniques to determine relevant influencing variables, and additional explanatory power to the service recovery literature. In conclusion, a unidimensional construct of psychological loyalty, grounded in service characteristics, was developed, tested, and evaluated for wide application to service industries. Three specific relational antecedents: Friendship, social regard, and social comfort were found to be important to the development of customer loyalty. The research highlighted how these relational outcomes interacted with service evaluation measures to produce loyal customers. Accordingly, Kingstrom's (1983) work has been extended.

<p>In modern heavy vehicles low fuel consumption as well as good ride comfort and driveability is desired. Assuming that the road altitude ahead of the vehicle is known the optimal control regarding fuel and time consumption can be calculated. However this results in a bang-singular-bang control which decreases the ride comfort by introducing high jerk levels and oscillations in acceleration as well as jerk originating from the dynamics in the driveline.</p><p>In this thesis several methods to supress these behaviours are presented. A qualitative study of the methods impact on ride comfort as well as fuel and time consumption is carried out. A driveline model is implemented in Simulink and used for the evaluations. The aim is not to find a optimal strategy but rather to suggest methods and evaluate these as far as can be done in simulation to enable for future test runs.</p>

The study emphasizes changing light conditions in architectural spaces as a major factor on human eye adaptation, which represents a potential case for a visual shock. This visual shock is experienced when occupants encounter a sudden field of light whose intensity is above or below the limit of human eye adaptable range. To examine this condition, a new methodology is developed and outlined. It identifies the visual shock within transitional spaces and allows architects to investigate strategies that influence visual comfort. The physiological field of vision analysis is used to first critique, then to adjust, and finally to interpret scenes within transitional spaces. The methodology begins by using a 180° angle fish-eye lens camera to capture 3-D photographs along a selected pedestrian pathway. The photographs are overlaid by a “field of view” diagram to deduct areas obstructed by human facial features (eyebrows, cheeks, and nose). Area weighted percentages of the net view profile is then calculated using an overlay hemispherical radial grid. These percentages represent the cut-off vision (0%), the one-eye vision (12.5%), the peripheral vision (25%), and the central vision (50%). Image metamorphosis is done by the aid of the Adobe Photoshop software to restrict the image to four monochromatic contrasts of shade. Parallel to photographs, actual light intensity readings are collected and calibrated to each assigned contrast on the images. To illustrate the methodology, a case of a person experiencing an extreme discomfort by walking in the direction of a blinding sunlight source has been chosen and investigated. 3-D Computer modeling is then adopted to investigate the different architectural daylight solutions as suggested by the modified design and predicts a visual comfort. This method provides a successful tool for investigating light in transitional spaces as well as contributes to enhancing pedestrian awareness of their surrounding environment and clarity of visual information.

In modern heavy vehicles low fuel consumption as well as good ride comfort and driveability is desired. Assuming that the road altitude ahead of the vehicle is known the optimal control regarding fuel and time consumption can be calculated. However this results in a bang-singular-bang control which decreases the ride comfort by introducing high jerk levels and oscillations in acceleration as well as jerk originating from the dynamics in the driveline. In this thesis several methods to supress these behaviours are presented. A qualitative study of the methods impact on ride comfort as well as fuel and time consumption is carried out. A driveline model is implemented in Simulink and used for the evaluations. The aim is not to find a optimal strategy but rather to suggest methods and evaluate these as far as can be done in simulation to enable for future test runs.

There has been a rapid growth in the vehicle industry market, companies are expected to provide comfortable and safer products, improving with every new model. Hence, the interest on developing Digital Human Modelling (DHM) tools that are focused on their needs. The aim of this project is to suggest a standard seating posture that could be used with ergonomic software like IMMA, to address the research an initial literature study was performed to understand existing methods used in the industry and previous posture studies. In order to visualize the extent of the topic, it was required to acquire information from the vehicle industries and make an investigation on preferred postures by real drivers. Comparisons are made between the different categories of observed vehicles, and literature found for ideal postures. The results were also used to implement suggestions for the ergonomic IMMA software development / Virtual Driver Research

Syftet med detta examensarbete var att undersöka MEMS och elektretmikrofoner för att finna vilken typ som lämpar sig bäst för företaget Comfort Audio AB och deras hörselhjälpmedelsprodukter. Utöver detta undersöktes möjligheter att kontrollera upptagningskarakteristik med hjälp av en teknik vid namn end-fire. Resultaten har erhållits genom att undersöka ett antal elektroakustiska egenskaper hos olika mikrofoner, som sedan har jämförts med respektive tillverkares tekniska specifikationer. Upptagningskarakteristiken har undersökts genom konstruktion av en mikrofonuppsättning där den summerade signalen undersökts. Analys av signalstyrka och frekvensinnehåll har sedan resulterat i polärdiagram, där upptagningskarakteristik visas. Specifikationer samt egna beräkningar och mätningar visar att MEMS kan vara ett alternativ till elektretmikrofoner. Riktad upptagning kunde påvisas i end-fire konstruktionen. / The purpose of this study was to investigate MEMS and electret microphones to find the best suited microphone type for the company Comfort Audio AB and their hearing aid products. The study also investigated the possibilities to control microphone polar pattern by using a method called end-fire. The results have been obtained by examining a number of electro-acoustic properties of different microphones, which have been compared with the manufacturer's specifications. Polar patterns have been studied by construct an end fire array. Analysis of the signal content has resulted in polar diagrams, where characteristics are displayed. The specifications of the manufacturer’s, our own calculations and measurements shows that MEMS could be an alternative to electret microphones. Difference in polar characteristics was proved in the end-fire array.

The main objective of the study was to analyze the thermal comfort of a naturally ventilated building in Kampala – Uganda. CEDAT building in Makerere University was selected as the case study representing an educational center which is a naturally ventilated building. DesignBuilderEnergyPlus simulation program was used to model and perform simulations. Simulations for thermal comfort were done on the baseline model with a WWR of 30 % to attain the baseline model comfort data based on Simple ASHRAE 55-2004 throughout the year. Simulations for different natural ventilation improvement strategies were then done through parametric analysis. The strategies simulated for improving occupancy thermal comfort were lighting control, mechanical ventilation without cooling (fans), mechanical ventilation with cooling and variation of window to wall ratio from 0% to 100% to establish its effect on the thermal comfort of the building occupants.   Results for predicted thermal comfort sensation of occupants revealed that baseline thermal comfort sensation was between hot and slightly warm with 35.15% discomfort hours against 64.85% comfort throughout the year. Lighting control thermal comfort sensation improved to between hot and neutral with 0.55% improvement in baseline occupancy thermal comfort hours.  Mechanical ventilation without cooling registered a negligible improvement in occupancy thermal comfort while on application of scheduled cooling thermal comfort improved between slightly warm and slightly cool with a 12% improvement in comfort hours. Variation of WWR revealed that thermal comfort generally increased negligible with increase in WWR.    It can be concluded that mechanical ventilation with cooling combined with lighting control can be great strategies and opportunity for improving the case study thermal comfort.

Effective communication is just one of the many skill sets nursing students must master to be effective in their field. A nurse’s role goes far beyond that of medical care. In addition, Today’s nurses should be equipped with a working knowledge of medical management, communication skills, ethical/legal issues, end-of-life care, and team collaboration, among others (e.g., Ferrell, Dahlin, Campbell, Paice, Malloy, & Virani, 2007).Wittenberg-Lyles, Goldsmith, Sanchez-Reilly, and Ragan (2010) contend nurses need to have specialized training protocols focused on developing effective communication skills . The current study employed one such protocol, the COMFORT curriculum, as a tool to teach nursing students how to break bad news (BBN) using a social cognitive theory approach. To clarify, when individuals feel confident about their abilities (self-efficacy), they are more likely to reach their goals (Bandura, 1986). Hence, this study posited that nursing students would become more confident about their communication knowledge and skills through the modeling and interactive adaptive learning exercises taught in the COMFORT curriculum. Although no significant increase was reported by students with regard to perceived self-efficacy or attitude about communication skills training, students did demonstrate sufficient to excellent cognitive understanding of the communication skills taught in the lesson.

The purpose of this comparative study was to investigate the effect of coaching, as a nursing intervention, on comfort levels and blood sugar levels of individuals with diabetes. The hypothesis of the study was that individuals with diabetes who received coaching at specified intervals of time would have higher levels of comfort, as measured by the Diabetes Mellitus Comfort Questionnaire (DMCQ), and lower blood sugar levels, as recorded on the individual’s personal glucometer, than individuals with diabetes who did not receive coaching. Prior to conducting the study, approval of the university review board and hospitals was obtained. Participants were solicited from two accredited hospital-based diabetic education programs in a Midwestern city. Participation in the study was voluntary. The participants solicited from one hospital-based diabetic education program received coaching as a nursing intervention throughout the study while the participants from the other hospital-based diabetic education program did not. The participants were enrolled in the study the last day of the diabetic education program and completed a demographic data form, the DMCQ, and the Self Care InventoryRevised (SCI-R) to measure compliance. They also documented the average of their daily blood sugar levels from the past seven days as recorded on their personal glucometer. Two and four weeks after enrolling in the study participants from each group repeated the process of completing the DMCQ, the SCI-R, and documenting the average daily blood sugar levels over the past seven days as recorded on their glucometers. One hospital-based diabetic education group received coaching from the researcher via a telephone call two and four weeks after completing the formal diabetic education program and prior to completing the DMCQ, the SCI-R, and documenting their average daily blood sugar from the next seven days. Confidentiality of data collected from the participants was maintained. There was no risk of harm. Of the participants enrolled in the study, there were 30 participants who completed the study for one group and 35 participants who completed the study for the other group. Analysis of variance was used to analyze the data. Results showed no significant difference in comfort levels, compliance scores, or blood sugar levels between the two groups. The hypothesis of the study was not supported. Nonetheless, the information obtained from this study is valuable to nursing by contributing to the growing body of knowledge for developing cost-effective education and supportive strategies for individuals with diabetes to manage their condition. / Department of Educational Studies

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2009. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 185-205).