Thesis (M.S.)--University of Texas at Dallas, 2007. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 38-41)

Thesis (M.P.A.)--Bowling Green State University, 2007. / Document formatted into pages; contains ix, 125 p. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Tech.: Human Resources Management)-Dept. of Human Resources Management, Durban University of Technology, 2008. ix, 132 leaves / The research outlines the statement of the problem, motivation for the study and the related legislated requirements for all research in the field of psychological assessment. It will also take a closer look at related issues supporting the background of psychometric testing and present day themes and trends that are becoming prevalent in contemporary practice. There is an in-depth discussion on Personality which is one of the main foundation components of the Discus Behaviour Profiling System which is personality. Points on, ethics, translation, validity, reliability, test construction and cross cultural matters are also discussed.

This qualitative study explores microaggressions in the online natural hair community. Using a thematic analysis, it specifically analyzes conversations about natural hair texture discrimination and /or biases, also known as curlism, in natural hair online spaces such as blogs and YouTube videos. This study concludes that hair texture biases and the ways in which Black women with natural hair experience difference in hair texture is multifaceted; therefore, natural hair companies, women in the natural hair community, and the natural hair community are not individually responsible. Each plays a different role in the perpetuation of hierarchy and difference within this community. The themes developed in this research are as follows: The Kink Vs. The Curl, Curlism as Colorism, Insurgence of Hair Texture Biases, and Empowerment of the Natural Hair Community.

Online equity crowdfunding is a way for entrepreneurs to raise capital that has exploded in popularity in recent years. Information asymmetry and poor investor protection are threats for the long-term legitimacy of equity crowdfunding. In this study we examine the quality of the financial information shared on the crowdfunding platforms, since it is what investors have to rely on when making investment decisions. We evaluate the financial information both quantitatively and qualitatively to assess the quality in terms of accuracy and adequacy. More specifically we examine the financial forecasts primarily with quantitative methods and valuation primarily with qualitative. In total, we examine 22 companies on the Swedish equity crowdfunding platform FundedByMe. The financial forecasts are compared with the outcome from the income statements to find out if they are systematically biased. The results show that the financial forecasts are systematically overestimated. Based on previous research we have suggested two explanations for the overestimations; either overconfidence bias and/or strategic behavior. We also find the information regarding assumptions and methods used in the valuation to be inadequate. We perceive that investors needs higher quality financial information in terms of accuracy and adequacy to make well-formed investment decisions. Our recommendations are therefore to regulate equity crowdfunding further and impose higher demands on information quality. Otherwise equity crowdfunding will possibly end up as a market of “lemons”.

Research into human disease has classically been 'bottom-up', focussing on individual genes. However, the emergence of Systems Biology has prompted a more holistic 'top-down' approach to decoding life. Less than a decade since the complete draft of the human genome was published, we are increasingly in a position to model the interacting constituents of a cell and thus understand molecular perturbations. Given biological systems are rarely attributable to individual molecules and linear pathways, we must understand the complex dynamic interplay as cellular components interact, combine, overlap and conflict. The integrative approach afforded by Network Biology provides us with a powerful toolset to understand the vast volumes of omics data. In this thesis, I investigate both infectious disease, specifically HIV infection and heritable disease. HIV, the causative agent of AIDS, represents an extensive perturbation of the host system and results in hijacking of cellular proteins to replicate. I first introduce the HIV-interaction data and then characterise HIV's hijack, revealing the ways Network Biology can greatly enhance our understanding of host-pathogen systems and ultimately the systems itself. I find a significantly greater propensity for HIV to interact with ''key'' host proteins that are highly connected and represent critical cellular functions. Unexpectedly, however, I find there are no associations between HIV interaction and inferred essentiality and genetic disease-association. I hypothesise that these observations could be the result of ancestral selection pressure on retroviruses to minimise interactions with phenotypically crucial proteins. Investigating inherited disease, I apply a similar integrative approach to determine the relationships between inherited disease, evolution and function. I find that 'disease' genes are not a homogenous group, and that their emergence has been ongoing throughout the evolution of life; contradicting previous studies. Finally, I consider the consequence of bias in literature-curated interaction datasets. I develop a novel method to identify and correct for ascertainment bias and demonstrate that failure to do this weakens conclusions. correct for ascertainment bias and demonstrate that failure to do this weakens conclusions. The aim of this thesis has been to explore the ways Network Biology can provide an integrative biological approach to studying infectious and inherited disease. Given billions of people around the world are susceptible to disease, it is ultimately hoped that a Systems Biology approach to understanding disease will herald new pharmaceutical interventions.

Magnetic, magnetocaloric, magnetotransport and magnetoelastic properties of Ni-Mn-X (X = In, and Ga) Heusler alloys and La-Fe-Si based rare earth compounds have been synthesized and investigated by x-ray diffraction, magnetization, strain, and electrical resistivity measurements. The phase transitions, magnetic, magnetocaloric, magnetotransport and magnetoelastic properties strongly depend on the composition of these systems. In Ni50Mn50-xInx with x = 13.5, magnetocaloric and magnetotransport properties associated with the paramagnetic martensitic to paramagnetic austenitic transformation were studied. It was shown that magnetic entropy changes (SM) and magnetoresistance (MR) associated with this transformation are larger and the hysteresis effect is significantly lower when compared to that associated with paramagnetic-ferromagnetic transitions or ferromagnetic-antiferromagnetic/paramagnetic transitions in other systems. The Hall resistivity and the Hall angle shows unusual behavior in the vicinity of the martensitic phase transition for Ni50Mn50-xInx with x = 15.2. The observed Hall resistivity and Hall angle are 50 μ*cm and , respectively. It was observed that the presence of Ge, Al and Si atoms on the In sites strongly affects the crystal structure, and the electric and magnetic behaviors of Ni50Mn35In15. It was found that the partial substitution of In atoms by Si in Ni50Mn35In15 results in an increase in the magnetocaloric effect, exchange bias and shape memory effect. In Ni50Mn35In15-xSix, the peak values of positive SM for magnetic field changes H = 5 T were found to depend on composition and vary from 82 Jkg-1K-1 for x = 1 (at T = 275 K) to 124 Jkg-1K-1 for x = 3 (at T = 239 K). The partial substitution of Ni by Co in Ni50Mn35In15 significantly improves the magnetocaloric effect and MR in the vicinity of martensitic transition. In addition, significantly large inverse SM and MR were observed at the inverse martensitic phase transitions of the Ga-based magnetic shape memory Heusler alloys Ni50-xCoxMn32-yFeyGa18. The phase transition temperatures and magnetic properties were found to be correlated with the degree of tetragonal distortion in these samples. In LaFe11.57Si1.43Bx the crystal cell parameters and Curie temperatures were found to increase linearly with increasing B concentration up to ~ 0.1 % and 9 %, respectively. It was found that the characteristics of the magnetocaloric effect of LaFe11.57Si1.43 can be adjusted by a change in B concentration in the LaFe11.57Si1.43Bx system. A study of the influence of a small substitution of Ni, Cu, Cr, and V for Fe in LaFe11.4Si1.6 revealed that the magnetic, magnetocaloric, and magnetovolume coupling constant is related to an increase in the average Fe-Fe interatomic distances, leading to a change in the d-d exchange interaction.

The purpose of this doctoral thesis is to deepen theoretical understanding of the role that hindsight plays in foresight. The thesis argues that the past is not an isolated static state, but one that is intimately connected with the future. However, there are several biases that influence our perceptions and conceptions of the past. These biases act as constraints on strategic learning by limiting our ability to understand the driving forces that emerge from the past, play out through the present and become critical uncertainties in the future. They can result in misperceptions about events or processes, and as such, may impair foresight methodologies such as scenario thinking. Such foresightful thinking flaws are characterised by a combination of hindsight biases and creeping determinism, which result in searching for information that corresponds to people's views about both the past and the future, logical path-dependencies, misaligned dominant logics, routines, recipes and paradigms, and over-confidence and defensive pessimism. Drawing on received research in psychology, the role of counter-to-factual reasoning as a heuristic is discussed and analysed as a possible antidote to foresightful thinking flaws. The judicious use of such a heuristic device as counterfactual reasoning, both as a sense-making process and as an analytical reasoning tool applied to the analysis of historical data, the thesis concludes, is a method for investigating and discovering the past and fortifying foresightful strategic thinking.

Businesses nowadays tend to ask their customers to grade a product or a service they have experienced, usually that grading is a number of stars on a scale of 5. When an individual grades a product, that grade goes into a system that calculates the average of all given grades and expose it to the next individual, and so on. Through primary data we estimated what could be a realistic distribution of uninfluenced grades as well as a realistic degree of social influence. This thesis aims to understand the social influence on individual grades and to what extent the order in which graders come may bias the aggregate grade. In addition, we aim to apply mathematical analysis and simulations to examine the social influence of a planted grade on aggregate grade, depending on the strength of social influence and the total number of graders. It was concluded that ordering the same set of individuals in different ways will give different aggregate grades, mostly biased when ordering from largest to smallest and the other way around. In addition, we presented a perception on how large a planted grade can affect the aggregate grade, studying different main factors such as the degree of social influence and total number of graders.

Standard methods of assessment for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) involve retrospective report of symptoms over a prior period of interest (e.g., a week, a month, etc.). However, such accounts may be subject to recall biases, leading to inaccurate assessments of symptoms. Recall biases present in two domains of symptom severity (distress and interference) were examined. The following study applied experience-sampling methods (ESM) to OCD symptom assessment. Using a modified form of the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale, twenty-one adults with a primary diagnosis of OCD rated distress and interference of their principle obsession and compulsion four times daily for approximately one week. At the end of the experience-sampling period, participants provided retrospective estimates of distress and interference of principle obsessions and compulsions experienced during the course of the ESM period. Results found that participants retrospectively overestimated OCD ratings, compared to their real-time ratings. Two proposed reasons for such overestimates (peak-end evaluation and symptom variability) were examined though not supported based on current study results. Implications and future directions are discussed.