The current study investigated the impact of delivering a jackpot on response rate and response allocation in two domestic dogs. For the purpose of this research, a jackpot was defined as a one-time, within-session increase in the magnitude of reinforcement. Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of delivering a jackpot in both single-operant and concurrent schedule procedures. Experiment 1 investigated the impact of a one-time, within-session increase in the magnitude of reinforcement on response rate in a single-operant procedure. Results of Experiment 1 showed no clear change in response rate after the delivery of the jackpot. Experiment 2 investigated the impact of a one-time, within-session increase in the magnitude of reinforcement on response allocation in a concurrent schedule procedure. Results of Experiment 2 showed an increase in response allocation to the jackpotted contingency in both subjects. These results suggest that a jackpot, as defined here, has no effect in single-operant procedures while having an effect in concurrent schedule procedures. These effects are similar to those reported in the magnitude of reinforcement literature.

The purpose of the current study was to examine the effects of using fixed time schedules with different magnitudes of stimulus delivery as treatment for pica. A functional assessment was conducted, which indicated that pica occurred across experimental conditions and was most frequent in the absence of social stimulation or contingencies. A competing stimulus assessment was then conducted to identify stimuli that could potentially compete with pica during NCR. Subsequently, an evaluation of the effects of reinforcer magnitude on NCR as a treatment of pica was conducted. Treatment results indicated that quantity of reinforcer increased the effectiveness of leaner schedules of reinforcer delivery; however, it was not possible to fade the temporal schedule to one that would have been useful in practice. In addition, limitations and future research are outlined.

In the development of a BMJ Rapid recommendation – an international practice guideline initiative led by the MAGIC Evidence Ecosystem Foundation, and aiming to produce trustworthy, accessible and timely guidance – of plasma exchange and dosage of corticosteroids for patients with ANCA-associated vasculitis (AAV) (Chapter 2) two methodological issues arose. The first issue is related to the rating of the certainty of evidence supporting the recommendations. Reviewers experienced challenges in making an explicit statement about what it was in which they were rating their certainty (i.e., the target of the rating of certainty of evidence). Through iterative discussions and presentations at GRADE (Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluations) Working Group meetings, the research team developed new GRADE guidance (Chapter 3 and 4) to help systematic reviewers be aware of the importance of determining the target of their rating of certainty of evidence and provided practical principles to help systematic reviewers specify this target. The second issue arose from the process of moving from evidence to decisions. To help the BMJ Rapid recommendation panel interpret the magnitude of benefit and harm associated with plasma exchange, which required understanding patient values and preferences, the research team created a panel survey for eliciting the panelists’ view regarding patient values and preferences. The research team then applied the panel survey approach in some other guidelines. Based on the experience of developing panel surveys, and through iterative discussions and consensus, the research team developed a framework for using surveys to guide guideline panels in making inferences regarding patient values and preferences (Chapter 5). Using interpretive description, the team conducted a qualitative evaluation regarding the influence of the panel surveys on the panels’ understanding of patient values and preferences, interpretation of magnitude of benefits and harms, and on panels’ decision on guideline recommendations (Chapter 6). The panel surveys proved to help guideline panels explicitly consider and incorporate patient values and preferences in making recommendations. / Thesis / Candidate in Philosophy

Tempo is an important part of film, it is used by filmmakers to communicate various feelings and settings through visual media. Through research, we found shot length and motion are what primarily makes the tempo of a film. Further it was discovered that over the last 80 years the average shot length has steadily decreased while the action genre has grown over the last 30 years. With these findings the purpose of this study became to examine how the shot length and motion impact the cinematic tempo in action films. The first part of the study is about trying to estimate the tempo of a film sequence. This was done by finding suitable equations for tempo in films, the equation used needed two parameters to work, the average shot length of the video and its average motion. The motion was computed by extracting motion vectors of the movement from one frame to another, and then calculating the average motion throughout the scene’s entirety. The motion value was later combined with the average time of a shot to get the tempo of the scene. These calculations were carried out on five different actions films, two were extreme cases in regard to their average shot length. The films would later be shown to test subjects, who would answer questions about tempo, feelings, preference, et cetera. The results found from showing the films to test subjects was that shot length was the most important factor in how viewers perceive cinematic tempo. Motion on the contrary did not have as big of an impact. Ideally, we would not have included the extremes regarding shot length when showing the films, as the results would have provided more useful information. / Tempo är en viktig del av film, det används av filmskapare för att förmedla olika känslor och tonsättningar via visuell media. Tidigare forskning har visat att klipplängd och rörelse är primärt vad som bidrar till en films tempo. Vi upptäckte även att klipplängden stadigt har minskat de senaste 80 åren medan actiongenren har ökat de senaste 30 åren. Med dessa upptäckter blev studiens syfte att undersöka hur klipplängd och rörelse påverkar filmtempo i actionfilmer. Första delen av studien gick ut på att estimera tempot av en filmsekvens. Detta gjordes genom att hitta lämpliga ekvationer för tempo i film, ekvationen som användes behövde två parametrar för att fungera, genomsnittliga klipplängden samt genomsnittliga rörelsen. Rörelsen beräknades genom att extrahera rörelsevektorer mellan bildramar för att sedan beräkna den genomsnittliga rörelsen genom hela filmsekvensen. Värdet som erhölls användes senare i kombination med den genomsnittliga klipplängden för att få tempot på filmsekvensen. Dessa beräkningar gjordes på fem olika actionfilmer varav två stycken var extremfall gällande deras genomsnittliga klipplängd. Filmerna visades sedan till försökspersoner som sedan svarade på frågor angående tempo, känslor, preferenser, et cetera. Resultaten visade att klipplängden var den viktigaste faktorn för hur tittare uppfattar filmtempo. Rörelse hade däremot inte lika stor påverkan. Idealt hade vi inte inkluderat våra två extremfall när filmsekvenserna visades för försökspersonerna då resultaten hade gett mer användbar information.

Head impacts can result in various levels of brain trauma, from mild to severe, and often result in long lasting effects on human brain function (McAllister & McCrea, 2017; Sollmann et al., 2018). Over the past two decades alone the National Hockey League (NHL) has made several rule changes to the game (Marek, 2015; National Hockey League Official Rules 2010–11, 2010; National Hockey League Official Rules 2011–12, 2011; National Hockey League Official Rules 2014-15, 2014). Frequency and magnitude are needed to examine brain trauma as examining brain trauma solely on magnitude does not capture a full brain trauma profile or the long-term consequences of repetitive brain strain; higher frequencies at lower magnitudes of strain may result in long-term neurologic complications. The purpose of this study was to compare frequency of head impacts and frequency-magnitude of brain strain between the 2003-04 and 2016-17 seasons of North American professional ice hockey. Videos of head impact events from twenty 2003-04 and twenty 2016-17 regular season NHL games were analyzed. Head impact conditions were characterized by events type, inbound velocity, location and elevation, and reconstructed using physical and finite element model methods. Overall frequency of head impacts was similar between the two seasons. Head-to-glass had the highest frequency for event type in both seasons. Mann-Whitney U tests found there was a significant decrease in glove-to-head impact events in the 2016-17 season compared to the 2003-04 (U=111, p=0.009). There was also a significant decrease in the frequency of fight events in 2003-04 during regulation time when compared to 2016-17 (U=86, p<0.001). A significant increase in the frequency of head impacts within the low MPS level was found in the 2016-17 season compared to 2003-04 (U=130, p=0.050). Given the popularity of ice hockey nationally, continentally, and globally, the results of this study provide a better understanding of frequency of head impacts and magnitude of brain strain, allowing stakeholders to make informed decisions involving repetitive brain strain during the game and give insight in the effectiveness of rules involving head contact. Future studies should consider including the effect of rule changes on overtime and pre- and post-season game play compared to in-season games.

No description available.

<p>It has been observed by researchers that periodic auditory stimuli can cause the activities in different brain areas to be periodically synchronized. Fast auditory stimuli have been shown to cause the brain sources to synchronize at the rate of stimuli. Brain sources respond to them not only by increase in local synchronization, but also in the global synchronization of cortical regions often regarded as functional connectivity. Spectral power and coherence are often used to characterize such neural synchronization. Beta band oscillations have been reported to underlie the neural mechanism during repetitive auditory stimuli. Cortical generators of these underlying beta oscillations were investigated in several studies based on MEG measurements. This research is intended to investigate (1) EEG can be used to detect and localize neural sources changing in power and coherence and (2) beta oscillations underlie such neural synchronization during fast repetitive auditory stimuli based on EEG measurements. The procedure of this study consists of several steps. First, the minimum variance (MV) scalar beamformer, an adaptive spatial filter, is used to estimate the temporal signals in the brain source space, given EEG recordings. The analysis of the estimated source temporal signals then consists of two stages firstly the power analysis and secondly the coherence analysis. The dynamics of power and coherence is investigated instantaneously over time and in the lower beta frequency band [14,20Hz]. This is done by detecting the most prominent changes in the two spectral parameters through singular value decomposition (SVD). Two coherence measures imaginary component (IC) and magnitude-squared coherence (MSC) are employed and compared in terms of their performance both mathematically and experimentally. In the simulations, we show the capability of using EEG to detect and localize power co-variations and dynamic functional connectivity in the cortical regions. We also perform the procedure on the recorded real data from subjects passively listening to rhythmic auditory stimuli. Beta oscillations are found to underlie the neural activity to percept auditory stimuli. This is shown by localization of auditory cortices and detection of power co-variation in this frequency band. We demonstrate the feasibility of using EEG to identify coupled and co-activated brain sources similar to those obtained from MEG signals in the previous studies. These include auditory and motor regions which were found to be functionally coherent and have a functional role in the auditory perception. The superiority of IC over MSC measure is proven mathematically and validated in both simulations and real data experiments.</p> / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

Interpersonal trust is dynamic and can be easily changed. Understanding why and how changes in interpersonal trust occur is important because trust affects a wide range of organizational outcomes. Because employees’ attitudes and behaviors in the workplace are apt to change in response to notable events, this dissertation examines what, why, and how events cause changes in trust. More specifically, I first define negative [positive] trust-related events as events that either negatively [positively] disconfirm trustors’ prior expectation or events that confirm trustors’ prior negative [positive] expectation towards trustees, and argue that negative [positive] trust-related events can lead to decreases [increases] in trust. Moreover, building on dual-system theory (Morgeson, Mitchell, & Liu, 2015), affect infusion theory (Forgas, 1994, 1995), and the integrative model of trust (Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995), I propose that trust-related events trigger changes in trust through both changes in emotional reactions and cognitive assessments of trustees’ trustworthiness. Next, drawing from Monge’s (1990) typology of dynamic processes and event-system theory, I focus on two specific components of changes (i.e., magnitude and permanence) and propose that the effects of events on each component are contingent on the characteristics of the events (e.g., criticality, proximity, and timing). I examine all hypotheses using a trust game-based experimental study (Study 1) and a five-wave longitudinal field study (Study 2). The results of Study 1 suggest that positive trust-related events trigger increases in trust, while negative trust-related events trigger decreases in trust. Both effects are mediated through changes in emotions and trustworthiness evaluations. Further, event confirmation affects the magnitude of changes in trust transmitted through changes in trustworthiness evaluations. Specifically, changes in trust are larger when the events are considered as more disconfirming, unexpected, or surprising. Study 2 partially replicates the findings of Study 1 regarding the effects of positive events, such that trust increases in response to positive events through increases in trustworthiness evaluations. However, Study 2 fails to find support for the impact of negative events, nor the moderating roles of event confirmation or event criticality on the magnitude of change. Study 2 also extends to examine the permanence of changes in trust after trust-related events. The results suggest that the positive influence diminishes over the observed three weeks, and the trends are similar regardless of event criticality, proximity, or timing. This dissertation provides important implications to managers and organizations on how to prevent potential decreases in trust and how to enhance trust. Limitations and future directions are also discussed. / Business Administration/Human Resource Management

A robust knowledge of numbers, and their magnitudes, is thought to provide students a strong basis for later mathematics learning and achievement (see Siegler, 2016). The current study examined 7th grade students’ (N = 193) knowledge of numerical magnitudes, how this knowledge varied depending on the number’s type (integer or non-integer) and the number’s polarity (positive or negative), and the strategies that students use while estimating different types of numbers. The first experiment of the current study assessed students’ magnitude knowledge through a number line packet that used all-positive, all-negative, and bidirectional scales that spanned from negative to positive numbers; on these number line scales, students were asked to estimate whole numbers, fractions, and decimals. While prior literature has commonly assessed magnitude knowledge of positive integers (i.e., whole numbers) and non-integers (i.e., non-whole numbers), and the literature on negative numbers is growing, the current study is the first to directly explore students’ understanding of positive and negative magnitudes together with the use of all-negative and all-positive number line scales. Results from mixed linear models illustrated that a number’s polarity affects students’ estimates on the all-positive and all-negative scales, as estimates of negative and positive numbers differed in both accuracy and linearity. However, negative and positive estimates on the bidirectional scales were not significantly different from one another. Composite scores were created to reflect students’ performance on four types of number line scales, those that asked students to estimate positive integers, negative integers, positive non-integers, and negative non-integers. Analyses with these composite scores established that both polarity and number type separately affect students’ estimates—negative estimates had more error and were less linear than positive estimates, and non-integer estimates had more error and were less linear than integer estimates. The second experiment of this study used a think-aloud task to examine the strategies that students used while completing the number line task, and how these strategies differed depending on the number line’s overall scale, polarity, and the type of number being estimated (i.e., integers or non-integers). While some strategies were found to be prevalent across all types of number line scales, other strategy choices differed depending on the polarity of the scale, or the type of numbers being estimated. Findings from this study support the integrated theory of numerical development; mainly, that by the 7th grade students have integrated their knowledge of numbers into a unified system that houses both positive and negative numbers, and integers and non-integers. Educational implications are also discussed. / Educational Psychology

Fluid flow is a complex and dynamic process in the brain, taking place at the macro- and microscopic level. Interstitial fluid in particular flows throughout the interstitial spaces within the tissue, interacting with cells and the extracellular matrix. We are coming to find that this interstitial fluid flow plays an important role in both homeostatic and pathologic conditions. It helps to transport chemokines and other molecules such as extracellular vesicles within the environment, clear waste from the brain, and provide biophysical cues to cells. When this flow is disrupted however, such as in glioblastoma or Alzheimer's disease, profound events can occur, for example the build-up of plaques or an increase in tumor cell invasion. While there has recently been an up-tick in interstitial fluid flow research, there is surprisingly little known about its exact nature within the interstitial space and its effects on brain pathology such as glioblastoma. In particular, ways to manipulate and measure brain IFF magnitude at the cellular level are lacking. In this dissertation, a set of tools is created and used to explore the role that interstitial fluid flow magnitude plays in the brain through the lens of glioma invasion. We developed and implemented a flow device that is used in conjunction with an established in vitro tissue culture insert assay to manipulate fluid flow rates through a 3D matrix of tumor cells. We showed that this flow device is biocompatible and accurately recreates flow rates that have been measured previously through the use of MRI. We quantified tumor cell invasion from several glioma cell lines using this device to show a nonlinear trend of invasion in response to increasing fluid flow magnitudes. In addition, we developed a computational model to explore one potential mechanism that fluid flow magnitude might be modulating: autologous chemotaxis. Through this model we showed that increased flow magnitudes such as those seen in gliomas cause an increase in the distribution of the chemokine gradient around a cell of interest, that the morphology of the cell is important to this gradient formation, that temporal effects should not be overlooked, and that within the tumor environment, a minimum distance is required for the invading cell to develop this gradient. Finally, we developed a novel in vivo surgical technique that allows for the manipulation and measurement of interstitial fluid flow within the brain through simultaneous multiphoton imaging. We showed that this technique can be used to modulate interstitial fluid flow, as a mechanism by which to label cells of interest, and as a means to implant and monitor glioma progression. Through these means we further characterize interstitial fluid flow in the brain, allowing for its manipulation and measurement, and examine the ability of increased interstitial fluid flow magnitudes to impact glioma invasion. / Doctor of Philosophy / Fluid flows throughout brain tissue and plays an important role in creating normal conditions for proper brain function. This fluid can also play a role in brain cancer, such as glioblastoma, by causing cancer cells to travel further into the brain which is not desirable. This dissertation seeks to understand fluid flow better by studying how its speed contributes to cancer cell movement which is accomplished through the development of several tools. One tool is a new surgical technique that allows for the measurement and manipulation of fluid flow speed within the mouse brain and visualization of cells of interest, one tool is a flow device that changes fluid flow speed through cells in a gel, and the last is a computational model that predicts how a cell might move under different flow and environmental conditions. The tools were created and utilized, showing several interesting results. Using the flow device, different cancer cell lines were seen to react differently to increased fluid flow speed with two main trends: 1) increased cancer cell movement with increased fluid flow speed and 2) a peak effect where the cell movement started to increase with increasing fluid flow speed and then decreased after a certain fluid flow speed was surpassed. The surgical technique was successful at introducing fluid flow and allowed for reproducible measurements of fluid flow speed. It also was used to introduce stains that show specific cells of interest. The computational model showed that there are specific time and spatial contributions that effect cancer cell movement and that with increased fluid flow speed, cells might be able to more easily utilize a specific mechanism to move. Altogether, this work presents novel insight into fluid flow speed that can be used to further inform the field. It is our hope that the findings from this dissertation can go towards a more comprehensive treatment of a specific type of brain cancer, glioblastoma.