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This thesis is an empirical and theoretical analysis of the impact of financing constraints on firm-level investment behaviour. Its primary objectives are to model this impact, and to test the restrictions these models place on the data. Chapter 1 contains a discussion of these themes, and provides an overview of the thesis. Chapter 2 addresses the empirical question of whether innovative firms are financially constrained. To answer this question, several structural investment equations are tested, and the sensitivity of physical investment expenditures to internal finance is compared across innovative and non-innovative firms. The investment expenditures of innovative firms are found to be more sensitive to cash flow than those of non-innovative firms. These results support the hypothesis that innovative firms are financially constrained. The third chapter builds a theoretical model to explain a widely reported fact in the inventory literature, which is that the variance of production exceeds the variance of sales. This fact contradicts a prediction of the standard Linear-Quadratic model of inventory investment, and for this reason is often referred to as the "excess variance of production" puzzle. In this chapter, a model of inventory investment is built. It is shown that when financing constraints are imposed on the model, it can explain the excess variance of production puzzle. In the absence of these constraints, the model does not deliver this result. The fourth chapter returns to the theme of identifying financially constrained firms. A weakness of existing tests of financing constraints is that they are not both direct and structural. This chapter addresses that criticism by constructing a model of investment from which is derived a simple and direct, structural test of the null hypothesis that a group of firms is financially constrained. The test is implemented on a panel of U.S. manufacturing firms. The results support the findings of existing tests.

The Neuropsychological Symptom Inventory (Dean, 1982) was developed to examine the neuropsychological symptomology presented by patients. It consists of 17 items that assess family/medical history that are responded to on a true/false format. In addition, there are 100 items which assess cognitive, emotional-social, sensory-perceptual, and behavioral symptomology, which are to be responded to on a Likert scale from 1 to 4.The present study investigated the validation of the Neuropsychological Symptom Inventory (NSI) (Dean, 1982). In a series of investigations the construct validity, internal consistency, and test-retest reliability of the NSI were examined. Such procedures were considered essential to investigate the utility of the NSI.The subjects numbered 826, for the factor analysis study and the internal consistency analysis, which consisted of college students from introductory psychology classes, and patients seen in both outpatient and inpatient settings. Additionally, there were 132 subjects who participated in the study for test-retest.Utilizing a varimax rotation, a four factor solution was obtained for the NSI, accounting for 47.9 % of the total variance. The results demonstrated high internal consistency for the NSI, with an overall Alpha coefficient of .967. In addition, moderate test-retest estimates were found, ranging from .3365 for Factor 3 to .6223 for Factor 4.These results showed strong psychometric properties for the NSI and suggest its use as a viable alternative to currently available measures. Results are discussed in terms of a need for further refinement of the NSI. / Department of Educational Psychology

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the construct validity of the Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory (SASSI) as a screening test for alcoholism. The study sample consisted of 238 participants. These included 50 alcoholics, 50 normals, 50 psychiatric outpatients, 50 co-dependent family members and 38 drug addicts, so classified by clinician diagnosis.All participants were administered the SASSI and also the Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test (MAST) and the MacAndrew Alcoholism-Screening Scale (AMAC). Correct classification rates for all three tests were determined using both a five-group criterion of classifying as an alcoholic, normal, psychiatric outpatient, co-dependent or drug addict, and a simpler two-group criterion of classifying as a substance abuser or non-abuser. Five null hypotheses were tested using Chi-square (alpha = .01) tests for equal proportions of classification accuracy. A sixth null hypothesis was tested using linear discriminant function analyses.Results Five-group criterion:1. The three tests differed in correctly classifying alcoholics, with the MAST statistically significantly superior to the AMAC and the SASSI.2. The three tests differed in correctly classifying normals, with the MAST and the AMAC statistically significantly superior to the SASSI.3. The three tests differed in correctly classifying psychiatric outpatients, with the AMAC statistically significantly superior to the SASSI.4. The three tests differed in correctly classifying drug addicts, with the AMAC and the SASSI statistically significantly superior to the MAST.5. The three tests did not differ to a statistically significant degree in classifying codependents.Two-group criterion (abuser/non-abuser):1. The three tests differed in correctly classifying alcoholics, with the MAST statitically significantly superior to the AMAC and the SASSI.2. The three tests differed in correctly classifying normals, with the SASSI statistically significantly superior to the AMAC and the MAST.3. The three tests differed in correctly classifying psychiatric outpatients, with the SASSI and the AMAC statistically significantly superior to the MAST.4. The three tests differed in correctly classifying drug addicts, with the MAST statistically significantly superior to the AMAC and the SASSI.5. The three tests differed in correctly classifying co-dependents, with the SASSI statistically significantly superior to the AMAC and the MAST.Employing the two-group criterion, all tests vastly improved their performance with the SASSI significantly superior to the MAST and the AMAC at author-recommended cutting scores. Increasing the cutting score for the MAST improved classification accuracy even further. Employing the linear discriminant function, the three tests differed significantly, with the MAST statistically significantly superior to all other scales.ConclusionsNone of the three scales performed adequately with the five-group criterion. The simpler two-group criterion produced an 87% classification accuracy rate for the SASSI with the study sample at author-recommended cutting scores, which was statistically significantly superior to the MAST and the AMAC. The highest classification accuracy rates of 90.3% and 91.2% respectively were produced by the MAST at elevated cutting scores of 10 and 12 in the two-group criterion. These parallelled linear discriminant function results for the MAST. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

The purpose of the study was to investigate the perceived anxiety experienced by coronary care nurses working eight- and 12-hour work shifts. It was hypothesized that length of shift work affects the before- and after-shift anxiety for nurses working eight or 12-hour work shifts. Anxiety differences between the eight- and 12-hour work shifts were examined as well as differences between the before- and after-shift anxiety for each length of shift.Thirty-two (32) coronary care nurses from a general medical and surgical hospital in the Midwest volunteered to participate in the research. The sample consisted of all females (18 Registered Nurses, nine Licensed Practical Nurses, three charge nurses, a supervisory nurse, and a rehabilitation nurse). The nurses had voluntarily selected the eight- or 12-hour length of shift work and understood that they would be committed to work that shift for one year. Twelve nurses worked the eight-hour shift; 20 nurses chose the new 12-hour shift.The State Anxiety Inventory (SAI) was used to measure the nurses' before- and after-shift anxiety. Baseline data were collected from the nurses prior to the initiation of the 12-hour shift. The Box-Jenkins Time Series Analysis was used to analyze the daily before- and after-shift anxiety scores and to establish a forecasted trend for both the eight- and 12-hour shifts.The first finding was that the before-shift anxiety scores for the eight-hour workers declined, while the anxiety scores for the 12-hour workers increased, following the implementation of the 12-hour shift. The same trend was forecast for the after-shift anxiety scores. The eight-hour nurses' after-shift anxiety scores declined while the 12-hour nurses' anxiety scores increased. A transfer function was conducted for both the eight-hour and 12-hour before- and after-shift anxiety scores. No predictive trend could be established for the eight-hour anxiety scores; however, the 12-hour after-shift anxiety scores were found to be consistently higher than before-shift anxiety scores. / Department of Educational Psychology

There is no abstract available for this dissertation. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between Eysenckian personality variables and ratings of job performance and promotion potential of a group of police officers.In order to identify differences in levels of extraversion, neuroticism and intelligence, subjects were evaluated with the Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI) and the Primary Mental Abilities Test (PMA). The EPI was used to measure differences in extraversion and neuroticism. Two PRA sub-tests, Verbal Meaning and Number Facility, were administered to each subject under both "unstressed" and "stressed" conditions. This test-retest procedure was devised to assess problem-solving abilities under varying conditions of stress and motivation.The subjects for this study were drawn from an East-Central Indiana city police department. Thirty-three patrolmen volunteered to Participate in the study. These men were members of a 50 man group which had been designated as (1) having two or more years experience with their department and (2) were currently working in positions requiring the wearing of a standard police uniform. The subjects ranged in age from 2L to 64 with a mean age of 32.9 years.Data for each subject submitted for statistical treatment included extraversion and neuroticism as measured by the EPI. Four experimental cognitive variables derived from comparisons between "unstressed" and stressed" test performance on two PMA sub-tests were also submitted. These "Stress Gain" scores represented the increase in level of difficulty attained, and the increase in speed of solution, resulting from increased stress and motivation. Two other experimental variables, "Stressed Raw Scores", were used to represent the level of difficulty attained on both PMA sub-tests under stressful test conditions. Composite standardized ratings of job performance and promotion potential obtained from three senior supervisors' ratings were also submitted for statistical analysis.Statistical treatment to ascertain the relationship between the Eysenckian variables and ratings of job performance and promotion potential included the calculation of: (1) correlation coefficients by the product-moment method for ungrouped data and (2) Fisher Z transformations for testing the significance of the computed product-moment correlations. An adjusted reliability index was derived for the job performance and promotion potential ratings through a one-way analysis of variance.Sixteen research hypotheses were formulated and tested in the study. The degree of significance necessary to reject the null hypotheses that Eysenckian personality variables were uncorrelated with ratings of job performance and promotion potential was set at the .05 level. In order to attain a practical significance a correlation of +.40 was required.The group means obtained on the EPI were 11.8 for extraversion (SD=3.5) and 7.9 for neuroticism (SD=4.5). This mean neuroticism score represents a lower mean level of neuroticism for a group than any other group reported in the EPI manual. These scores placed the sample group in the "stable introvert" quadrant of Eysenck's categorical framework.Product-moment correlations between the Eysenckian variables and job performance ratings ranged from -0.222 to 0.0575, and correlations between the Eysenckian variables and ratings of promotion potential ranged from -0.273 to 0.217. These coefficients were all found to be statistically insignificant.The adjusted reliability indices of .72 for job performance ratings and .56 for promotion potential ratings indicated that the ratings used for the study lacked adequate reliability. Analysis of the means and standard deviations of the ratings suggested that errors of leniency and central tendency had occurred.Further analysis of data revealed a coefficient of 0.29 (p<.05) existed between extraversion and Stress-Gain Time (Verbal), and a coefficient of -0.33 (p<.05) between neuroticism and Stressed Raw Verbal Scores.While it was found that there is no support for a relationship between Eysenckian personality variables and rated performance and promotion potential within the group studied, it was suggested that the dimensions of extraversion and neuroticism can interact with intelligence to effect problem-solving behavior. Recommendations for further research were made.

Risk management is one of the critical issues in supply chain management. Supply chain disruptions negatively impact on the performance and the business continuity of a firm, and the disruptions should be managed proactively if possible. One of the approaches for supply disruption management is to raise the level of inventory: supply disruptions can be reduced by simply increasing the safety stock level. However, inventory costs will be increased at the same time. Therefore it is assumed that having extra safety stock when and where needed is better than keeping a high safety stock all of the time. In this thesis, the concept of dynamic inventory management by supplier behavior monitoring is suggested and explored. Key to the concept is the assumption that out-of-control situations at a supplier can be causal triggers for stockouts, and that these triggers can be potentially predicted by using statistical monitoring tools. In the suggested approach, the statistical process control approach of using run tests is employed to monitor and evaluate the supplier behavior. The supplier’s yield rate is monitored as the performance measure, and the receiver’s safety stock level is increased when the supplier’s performance is detected to be potentially out-of-control (or about to reach an out-of-control situation). The simulation results under different yield rates indicate that stockouts can be reduced by monitoring the supplier behavior and dynamically adjusting inventory policy when production capacity is relatively loose and enough variability can be seen in the performance measure.

Typescript. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1989. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 174-184) / Microfiche. / xiii, 184 leaves, bound 29 cm

Chain of custody in the forest sector is very dependent on effectively tracking products though the supply chain and manufacturing processes, including sawmilling, drying, planing, and pulp processes. The effectiveness of a tracking system is largely influenced by the characteristics of the process it works within, the nature of the tracking system being used, and increasingly by the penetration of technologically advanced material tracking methods into on-the-ground CoC practices. A variety of CoC systems that exist in the global marketplace accommodate the use of advanced materials tracking systems as a tool for their their implementation. These advances not only offer the potential to reinforce the traceability of products in inventory, but also promote maintenance of their certified status between the various organizations that exist along the wood product supply chain, and ultimately to the end consumer. In the past, a number of different product tracking methods have been used, all of which suffer certain shortcomings in the challenging environment of the forest industry, and the extremely complex nature of Chain of Custody tracking. This work explores the development of a novel material tracking method using the innate IR signatures of polymeric compounds, varied by compound and concentration to develop millions of potential combinations, and consequently millions of unique identities. The combined variation of multiple IR peak frequencies and magnitudes provide the conceptual basis of a chemical barcode system, named "Chemi-Code", to be explored. To prove the validity of this concept, a series of polymers were assayed for suitability in such a system by tracking their IR response stability in the presence of solar UV radiation and over time. As well, the feasibility of varying polymer concentration, and subsequently identification of concentrations by DRIFT spectroscopy was explored by constructing response curves between polymer concentration and peak absorbance, and assessing associated error. Seven polymers were identified and assessed. Only two of these polymers were found to be sufficiently stable for use in the context of the forest industry, and of those two, only one behaved in a manner that would allow peak absorbance to be used as an identifiable chemical variable. Although only one of the seven polymers was suitable for use in the "Chemi-Code" system, the study did demonstrate the validity of the concept by showing that polymers can be exploited for use in such a system.