<p>Longitudinal surveys have revolutionized empirical research and our understanding of the dynamic processes that affect the economic prosperity, health and well-being of the population. This dissertation explores and provides evidence, through three empirical applications, on the costs and benefits of designing, implementing and using data from a new, innovative longitudinal survey, the Mexican Family Life Survey (MxFLS). The survey, which is representative of the Mexican population living in Mexico in 2002, is designed to follow movers within Mexico and also those who move to the United States. This design lies at the center of the contributions of my research to the scientific literature.</p><p>Attrition is the Achilles heel of longitudinal surveys. The first essay of the dissertation focuses on the cost of attrition for scientific knowledge. Following the same individual through time allows a researcher to trace the evolution of a respondent's behaviors and outcomes in a dynamic framework; however, if attrition is selected on unobserved characteristics, the advantage of using panel data could be severely hindered. Exploring different methods to adjust for attrition, this essay provides evidence of limitations of standard post-survey adjustments strategies that are the standard in the literature. These approaches, exploit only baseline characteristics of the respondents and, conditional on those characteristics, treat attriters as missing at random. I provide evidence that this assumption is substantively important and rejected in the MxFLS in spite of the fact that attrition in that survey is low relative to other nationally-representative surveys conducted in the United States and abroad. </p><p>The second essay in this dissertation exploits the fact that MxFLS follows movers within Mexico and those who move across the Mexico-US border to provide new insights into the mechanisms that underlie the selectivity of migrants within Mexico, how they differ from migrants who move from Mexico to the U.S. and how those who return contrast with the migrants who remain in the U.S. more permanently. The results provide evidence that human capital is predictive of migration within Mexico and to the United States, but that there is little indication that the decision to stay in the United States is highly correlated with education. In contrast, having relatives in the United States is not only a powerful predictor of migration to the United States, but it is also predictive of successful economic assimilation. </p><p>The third essay exploits a different dimension of the longitudinal survey in order to address an important question regarding the impact of unanticipated crime and violence on population well-being. To wit, the essay rigorously examines the impact of the recent surge in violent crime in Mexico on the labor market outcomes, migration, and wealth of the Mexican population. The timing of the last two waves of the MxFLS paired with the panel nature of the survey, allows the comparison of outcomes of the same individual in periods of low and high violence, which removes the potentially endogenous time-invariant unobserved heterogeneity between respondents. Moreover, due to the fact that the MxFLS was designed to follow migrant respondents, this study is able to directly test whether there is a systematic migratory response to crime. The results from this analysis find that crime predicts migration and it negatively affects the labor outcomes of self-employed individuals. In addition, the negative effects on the labor outcomes have translated into reductions in per capita expenditure at the household level, which suggests that the recent wave of violence in Mexico may have long-term consequences on the wealth and well-being of Mexican households.</p> / Dissertation

Seismic survey design methods often rely on qualitative measures to provide an optimal image of their objective target. Fold, ray tracing techniques counting ray hits on binned interfaces, and even advanced 3-D survey design methods that try to optimize o?set and azimuth coverage are prone to fail (especially in complex geological or structural settings) in their imaging predictions. The reason for the potential failure of these commonly used approaches derives from the fact that they do not take into account the ray geometry at the target points. Inverse theory results can provide quantitative and objective constraints on acquisition design. Beylkin??s contribution to this ?eld is an elegant and simple equation describing a reconstructed point scatterer given the source/receiver distribution used in the imaging experiment. Quantitative measures of spatial image resolution were developed to assess the e?cacy of competing acquisition geometries. Apart from the source/receiver con?guration, parameters such as the structure and seismic velocity also in?uence image resolution. Understanding their e?ect on image quality, allows us to better interpret the resolution results for the surveys under examination. A salt model was used to simulate imaging of target points located underneath and near the ?anks of the diapir. Three di?erent survey designs were examined. Results from these simulations show that contrary to simple models, near-o?sets do not always produce better resolved images than far-o?sets. However, consideration of decreasing signal-to-noise ratio revealed that images obtained from the far-o?set experiment are degrading faster than the near-o?set ones. The image analysis was performed on VSP ?eld data as well as synthetics generated by ?nite di?erence forward modeling. The predicted image resolution results were compared to measured resolution from the migrated sections of both the ?eld data and the synthetics. This comparison con?rms that image resolution analysis provides as good a resolution prediction as the prestack Kirchho? depth migrated section of the synthetic gathers. Even in the case of the migrated ?eld data, despite the presence of error introducing factors (di?erent signal-to-noise ratios, shape and frequency content of source wavelets, etc.), image resolution performed well exhibiting the same trends of resolution changes at di?erent test points.

Seismic survey design methods often rely on qualitative measures to provide an optimal image of their objective target. Fold, ray tracing techniques counting ray hits on binned interfaces, and even advanced 3-D survey design methods that try to optimize o?set and azimuth coverage are prone to fail (especially in complex geological or structural settings) in their imaging predictions. The reason for the potential failure of these commonly used approaches derives from the fact that they do not take into account the ray geometry at the target points. Inverse theory results can provide quantitative and objective constraints on acquisition design. Beylkin??s contribution to this ?eld is an elegant and simple equation describing a reconstructed point scatterer given the source/receiver distribution used in the imaging experiment. Quantitative measures of spatial image resolution were developed to assess the e?cacy of competing acquisition geometries. Apart from the source/receiver con?guration, parameters such as the structure and seismic velocity also in?uence image resolution. Understanding their e?ect on image quality, allows us to better interpret the resolution results for the surveys under examination. A salt model was used to simulate imaging of target points located underneath and near the ?anks of the diapir. Three di?erent survey designs were examined. Results from these simulations show that contrary to simple models, near-o?sets do not always produce better resolved images than far-o?sets. However, consideration of decreasing signal-to-noise ratio revealed that images obtained from the far-o?set experiment are degrading faster than the near-o?set ones. The image analysis was performed on VSP ?eld data as well as synthetics generated by ?nite di?erence forward modeling. The predicted image resolution results were compared to measured resolution from the migrated sections of both the ?eld data and the synthetics. This comparison con?rms that image resolution analysis provides as good a resolution prediction as the prestack Kirchho? depth migrated section of the synthetic gathers. Even in the case of the migrated ?eld data, despite the presence of error introducing factors (di?erent signal-to-noise ratios, shape and frequency content of source wavelets, etc.), image resolution performed well exhibiting the same trends of resolution changes at di?erent test points.

An expert elicitation is a method of eliciting subjective probability distributions over key parameters from experts. Traditionally an expert elicitation has taken the form of a face-to-face interview; however, interest in using online methods has been growing. This thesis compares two elicitation modes and examines the effectiveness of an interactive online survey compared to a face-to-face interview. Differences in central values, overconfidence, accuracy and satisficing were considered. The results of our analysis indicated that, in instances where the online and face-to-face elicitations were directly comparable, the differences between the modes was not significant. Consequently, a carefully designed online elicitation may be used successfully to obtain accurate forecasts.

Transit agencies at all levels of government monitor trends in services, operations, and ridership using performance indicators. Federal and state agencies use these performance indicators in the appropriation of funds to transit agencies. Public transportation is subsidized through federal, state and local programs while only a portion of the operating expenses are covered through rider fares. In order to gather information on riders and travel patterns, transit agencies primarily focus on current transit riders, many of which are transit dependent populations. By definition, these populations use public transit services as the primary or only means of transportation. As a result, this offers limited opportunity for ridership growth among transit dependent populations. One segment of a population that offers high opportunity for ridership growth is commuters. A commuter is considered a worker that travels from home to work on a regular basis. However, in the case of commuter oriented transit services, it is important to survey non-riders so that any new services will have the greatest potential of increasing ridership among commuters. This report explores the potential commuter demand for additional or express bus services provided by San Luis Obispo Regional Transit Authority (RTA). RTA operates countywide fixed-route bus services and para-transit services for San Luis Obispo County. This report focuses on RTA’s Route 9, which operates between the North County and the Central County. In order to collect data from non-riders, electronics survey instruments were created and distributed using employer e-mail addresses. The survey instruments were sent to three major employers in San Luis Obispo County: California State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly), the City of San Luis Obispo, and the County of San Luis Obispo. A link to one of the surveys instruments was also included on San Luis Obispo Council of Government’s (SLOCOG) Rideshare’s March 2013 e-newsletter as a way to reach additional non-riders. Analysis of the survey responses resulted in the recommendations to RTA. Recommendations are separated into two categories: (1) Expansion of RTA Route 9 services and (2) Future RTA non-rider outreach.

Geophysical imaging methods significantly enhance our knowledge of subsurface characteristics and their use has become prevalent over a range of subsurface investigations. These methods facilitate the detection and characterization of both metallic and nonmetallic subsurface targets, and can provide spatially extensive information on subsurface structure and characteristics that is often impractical to obtain using standard drilling and sampling procedures alone. Electrical imaging methods such as electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) have proven to be particularly useful in hydrogeologic and geotechnical investigations because of the strong dependence of the electrical properties of soils to water saturation, soil texture, and solute concentration. Given the available geophysical tools as well as their applications, the selection of the appropriate geophysical survey design is an essential part of every subsurface geophysical investigation. Where investigations are located in an area with subsurface information already available, this information may be used as a guide for the design of a geophysical survey. In some instances, no subsurface information is available and a survey must be designed to cover a range of possible circumstances. Yet, in other instances, there may be significant subsurface information available, but because of subsurface complexities, a geophysical survey must still be designed to cover a broad range of possibilities. Demonstrating the application and limitations of ERT in a specific field application, the first investigation presented in this document provides guidance for developing methods to improve the design and implementation of ERT surveys in a complex subsurface environment. The two investigations that follow present the development of a relatively simple optimization approach based on limited forward modeling of the geophysical response for both static and mobile surveys. This process is demonstrated through examples of selecting a limited number of ERT surveys to identify and discriminate subsurface target tunnels (with a simple cylindrical geometry). These examples provide insights into the practical application of the optimization process for improved ERT survey design for subsurface target detection. Because of their relative simplicity, the optimization procedures developed here may be used to rapidly identify optimal array configurations without the need for computationally expensive inversion techniques.

Individuals experiencing a mental illness are often stigmatized. Children also stigmatize those who experience a mental illness. There is national interest in reducing the negative effects of stigma, especially in children. Unfortunately, children anti-stigma interventions are being used without being empirically tested for their effectiveness. A goal of the Opening Minds Anti-stigma initiative of the Mental Health Commission of Canada is to identify programs and resources that have been empirically tested and found to be effective in reducing stigma. This study was funded by the Opening Minds Initiative of the Mental Health Commission of Canada to: First, investigate the effectiveness of providing children ages 11-14 with mental illness education using a storybook in order to reduce their mental illness stigma; and, second, to examine children’s perceptions of the anti-stigma book used to provide the education. A quasi-experimental design was used to test the effectiveness of the mental illness educational storybook in reducing mental illness stigma. The Youth Opinion Survey for Stereotype and Social Distance measurement was used to obtain baseline information before the education was provided. A pre-test, post-test process was used. Several qualitative questions, embedded in the post-test questionnaire, were provided to the children participating with an opportunity to use their own words to describe what they thought about mental illness before and after the education, what they learned from the educational storybook and whether or not they liked the education they received. The results show that the exposure to an educational storybook about children mental illness stigma was effective in reducing the percentage of negative responses at post-test. The participants used less negative words to describe someone “with a mental illness”. An improvement in the overall scores at post-test was seen for both stereotype and social distance. After the study was completed, the feasibility of conducting a study of this type was evaluated. Recommendations for the possibility of using this method for future studies are included. / Thesis (Ph.D, Nursing) -- Queen's University, 2013-07-03 11:39:54.603

The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of acquiescence on both positively and negatively worded questions, both when unidimensionality was assumed and when it was not. To accomplish this, undergraduate student responses to a previously validated survey of student engagement were used to compare several models of acquiescence, using a priori goodness-offit statistics as evidence for model fit, in order to develop a model that adequately accounted for acquiescence bias. Using a true experimental design, undergraduate students from a variety of classes at a large, urban university were randomly assigned to one of three versions of the same survey of student engagement (all positively worded items, all negatively worded items, an equal balance of both positively and negatively worded items). Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the results. Although the presence of acquiescence was confirmed for both positively and negatively worded items, it was not consistent by content scale or item polarization. This suggests that there may be an interaction between item polarization and content that may cause acquiescence to be present or absent. The scales that did not show acquiescence on the balanced survey portrayed a split factor loading based upon item polarization. Further, the splitting of factor loadings by item polarization was not due to acquiescence, suggesting that something other than acquiescence is causing the loadings to split. Further research is needed to develop models and/or methods to better assess and control for acquiescence. Although demographic groups were compared by gender and race/ethnicity to assess if different groups acquiesced differently, using multi-group confirmatory factor analysis, many of the models did not converge. The findings of this study were limited by the nature of the sample size. Additional research is needed to determine if acquiescence differs by group membership.

Financial elder abuse is gaining increasing attention from researchers and policy makers. Such abuse can include theft of money as well as misuse of assets such as property. This research applied judgement analysis methodology to explore professional decision making in the context of such abuse and to identify the nature of the cues used to detect and prevent abuse. Participants included social care, health and banking professionals, who were established as key decision makers. In Phase I, semi-structured interviews (n = 63) were conducted. The critical incident technique was used to identify cue use and decisions taken in the most recent case experienced. Key cues for both social care and health professionals included the nature of the 'financial problem suspected', the older persons 'mental capacity' and the 'identifier of the abuse', this being whether the abuse was directly observed or instead reported by a third party. A separate cue used by health professionals was the individual's 'physical capacity'. Banking professionals did not use physical or mental capacity as cues, but independently considered 'who was in charge of the money'. Decisions made by social care professionals included determining whether safeguarding procedures should be implemented. In Phase II, a factorial survey approach was applied whereby social care, health and banking professionals (n=223) were presented with case scenarios incorporating the cues from Phase I in addition to cues from literature review. Multiple regression analysis and incremental F-tests identified the cues that explained a significant amount of the variance in judgements of certainty of abuse and likelihood of taking action. For example, for social care and health professionals this included the older person's mental capacity, and the nature of the financial problem suspected. The findings could be used to develop a training tool to enable other professionals to improve their strategies for detection and prevention of financial elder abuse.

Companies increasingly believe that sponsorship, and in particular sport sponsorship, can help them achieve their respective strategic objectives. Achieving sales objectives are especially important in the context of sport sponsorship, given that managers are under increasing pressure to justify their sponsorship expenditure, and that over two-thirds of all sponsorships are directed towards sports properties. However, isolating a sponsorship s contribution to a company s sales figures is difficult to accomplish, and even if this were possible, understanding the mechanisms behind consumers behavioural responses to that respective sponsorship would still constitute a challenge. Hence, understanding consumers behavioural purchase intentions, and what drives these intentions within sponsorship contexts, is of paramount importance. That said, little is known about what drives consumers purchase intentions in sponsorship settings. A greater understanding of consumers behavioural intentions within concurrent sponsorship settings is necessary. Concurrent sponsorships involve multiple brands sponsoring a property at the same time. As such, they are a more realistic and common sponsorship context than simple sponsor-sponsee dyads are. It is important to examine concurrent sponsorships because a collective is formed when multiple sponsors are involved. In turn, social psychology highlights that a collective is characterised by the degree to which its a priori members are perceived as a group. Groups are perceived qualitatively differently to dyads, and can also be perceived differently to the sum of their respective constituent parts. Moreover, the extent to which people perceive a collective as a group can impact upon their subsequent evaluations of that group and that group s actions. Consequently, consumers evaluations of a sponsee s concurrent sponsors and the sponsee itself may be affected by how concurrent sponsorships are perceived, which in turn may affect consumers behavioural intentions. Hence, it is imperative that concurrent sponsorship contexts are investigated. That said, there is scant literature investigating concurrent sponsorships, with sponsorship research historically focussing on sponsor-sponsee dyadic settings. This thesis contributes to our understanding of concurrent sponsorship settings of major sporting events by examining how people s perceptions of concurrent sponsors entitativity influence both their purchase intentions towards a focal concurrent sponsor and their sponsee equity evaluations. An online questionnaire, utilising sponsorship vignettes (scenarios) as part of a factorial survey design, was sent to respondents of a mid-sized UK-based university. Scenarios were used to manipulate respondents into perceiving two concurrent sponsorship settings: a concurrent official providers sponsorship setting and a concurrent official financers sponsorship setting. Hypotheses were tested through Lisrel 8.71 where confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM) were performed. The results in both sponsorship contexts (concurrent official providers and concurrent official financers ) appear to be very similar. Specifically, the results suggest that people s entitativity perceptions are positively related to their sponsee equity evaluations, which in turn are positively associated with people s purchase intentions. Entitativity is also positively associated with consumers intentions to purchase from a concurrent sponsor but only when consumers attribute high levels of sincerity towards that sponsor. The one significant difference between the two sponsorship types (official providers and official financers) in the study concerns how sincerity affects the entitativity-sponsee equity relationship. People s attributions of sincerity moderate the relationship between entitativity and sponsee equity in the official provider concurrent sponsorship context, such that the entitativity-sponsee equity relationship becomes stronger. However, people s attributions of sponsor sincerity do not affect the entitativity-sponsee equity relationship in the official financer concurrent sponsorship context. A post-hoc examination of repondents entitativity ratings also suggests people perceive official providers as being significantly more entitative than they do official financers. This study makes a number of contributions to both theory and management practice. For example, the study demonstrates how the entitativity concept, found within social psychology, can be applied to concurrent sponsorship settings, such that people s behavioural intentions towards a sponsee and a concurrent sponsor, are influenced by their concurrent sponsor entitativity perceptions. Following this, concurrent sponsors and sponsee rights holders should consider how sponsors can foster people s entitativity perceptions whilst at the same time communicate sincere motives for their respective sponsee sponsorships, as sincerity perceptions are important too. This would not only help the sponsee s rights holder by increasing sponsee equity but the results also suggest that people are more likely to purchase from a concurrent sponsor. That said, this may lead to further difficulties between sponsors and sponsees rights holders. For example, sponsees rights holders may be perceived as needing sponsorships as opposed to being able to command them, which in turn could lead to difficult sponsorship negotiations between rights holders and potential sponsors. Second, the business and marketing acumens of sponsees rights holders are generally regarded to be lower than that of sponsors . In fact, sponsors often act independently of sponsees rights holders when making sponsorship leveraging decisions and investments, and this is partly because sponsees rights holders are not proactive enough in working with the sponsors. Therefore, if sponsees rights holders do not have the capabilities to help sponsors foster entitative and sincere sponsorship contexts, sponsors may be unwilling to renew their sponsorship deals or even set up their own events.