The motivational properties of Longstreth's (1970) definitions of incentive and frustrative cues were tested using 32 rats in a two phase straight alleyway experiment. During pretraining, incentive cue Ss were presented a visual cue prior to reinforcement; frustrative cue Ss experienced the visual cue simultaneously with reinforcement. Ss encountered the same cue in mid-alley during 40 CRF training trials. Significant inhibition developed as frustrative cue Ss passed through the cue and postcue segments. Significant incentive effects occurred midway through training only in the postcue segment. Differential resistance to extinction was not found. The results did not support all of Longstreth's assumed functions. The motivational effects were interpreted using Spence's and Amsel's instrumental learning paradigms.

Technology has greatly impacted how economic agents interact in various markets, including transportation and online display advertising. This calls for a better understanding of some of the key features of these marketplaces and the development of fundamental insights for this class of problems. In this thesis, we study markets for which spatial and incentive considerations are crucial factors for their operational and economic success. In particular, we study pricing and staffing decisions for ride-hailing platforms. We also consider the contract design problem faced by Ad Exchanges when buyers' strategic behavior and inherent business constraints limit these platforms' decisions. Firstly, we investigate the pricing challenges of ride-hailing platforms and propose a general measure-theoretical framework in which a platform selects prices for different locations, and drivers respond by choosing where to relocate based on prices, travel costs, and market congestion levels. Our results identify the revenue-maximizing pricing policy and showcase the importance of accounting for global network effects. Secondly, we develop a queuing approach to study the link between capacity and performance for a service firm with spatial operations. In a classical M/M/n queueing model, the square root safety (SRS) staffing rule balances server utilization and customer wait times. By contrast, we find that the SRS rule does not lead to such a balance in spatial systems. In these settings, a service firm should use a higher safety factor, proportional to the offered load to the power of 2/3. Lastly, motivated by the online display advertising market where publishers frequently use transaction-contingent fees instead of up-front fees, we study the classic sequential screening problem and isolate the impact of buyers' ex-post participation constraints. We characterize the optimal selling mechanism and provide an intuitive necessary and sufficient condition under which screening is better than pooling.

No description available.

The purpose of this study was to determine if age, gender, level of participation, onset of disability and sport classification have an impact on participation incentives (ego, fitness, social affective, social integration and task) in skiers with a disability. / One hundred seventy-seven individuals between the ages of 4 and 66 years participated. The participants were described according to gender, time of onset of disability (congenital Vs acquired), level of sport involvement (recreation, local competition, provincial competition, national competition and international competition), and sport classification (LW1-LW9, LW10-LW12, blind, deaf and other [i.e. autistic, Down's Syndrome]). All the participants were active members of the Canadian Association of Disabled Skiing (CADS). / The reasons for participation were evaluated using the Participation Reasons Scale (Brasile, 1988). MANOVA analysis indicated that significant relationships existed between age and individual items within the social affective and social integration incentive factors; gender and individual items within the ego incentive factor; level of participation and individual items within the ego, social affective, social integration and task incentive factors; onset of disability and individual items within the ego, social affective and social integration incentive factors; and sport classification and individual items within the social affective incentive factor. These results indicate that reasons for participation do differ among skiers with a disability and knowledge of these reasons may be important to be better able to design attractive and successful programs for the individual with a disability. These results are consistent with the Personal Investment Theory (Maehr and Braskamp, 1986) in that individuals will invest time and effort into physical activities that appeal to them and will be motivated by different aspects of the sport.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wyoming, 2007. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Feb. 6, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 131-141).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1998. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 269-285). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1998. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 269-285). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - University of Queensland, 2005. / Includes bibliography.

No description available.

The effects of a monetary reward and self-monitoring on reducing interdialytic weight gain (IWG) were compared for 6 hemodialysis patients in an outpatient setting. A single-subject experimental design (A-B-BC-B-BC) was used to examine each variable individually and in combination, with alternating phases to control for possible sequencing effects. Monetary reward (50 cents - $3) was administered in a titrated manner according to standardized criteria, ranging from 3 % and 4% of patients' dry weight on weekdays and weekends, respectively, to 3.5% and 4.5% for weekdays and weekends. Self-monitoring involved recording daily fluid and diet intake. Results indicated that by the end of the treatment program, the 6 participants averaged a 14% reduction in weekday IWG and a 15.45% reduction in weekend IWG; however, due to significant variability, it cannot be concluded that the reductions are treatment effects. Four out of 6 participants reduced their average IWG for both weekends and weekdays by .75 kg (1.65 lb.). The average weekend reduction for these 4 participants was .85 kg (1.87 lbs.) while the average weekday reduction was .65 kg (1.43 lb.). All 6 participants showed reductions in weekday IWG that averaged .53 kg (1.17 lb.). However, only 2 participants demonstrated IWG reductions that could be attributable to either of the 2 treatment variables. The standardized dry weight criterion for assessing fluid adherence may have posed excessively stringent demands on participants, as only 1 of the 6 participants actually met the criterion. Future research should address the role of nonspecific treatment factors, as well as patient characteristics and responsivity to particular treatment components in an effort to identify those factors responsible for behavior change in this population.