Previous studies on gambling behavior have identified the phenomenon known as a `near miss.' This phenomenon has been shown to increase gambling behavior while engage in various gambling scenarios like blackjack and slot machine play. The current study sought to show a correlation between social contingencies and verbalized near miss ratings between two players. One participant in the study served as a confederate and was aware of all experimental variables. Three other participants engaged in the study. Following each hand of play both the confederate and the participant verbalized a rating of how closely they felt they were to winning from 1 to 9. Results from the study were erratic and inconclusive. Despite getting unanticipated results, merit to the study still exists in paving the way to study the social effects of verbalizing near miss ratings.

A high rate of instructional engagement is important to maximize progress in early intensive behavioral interventions (EIBI). Teachers responsible for eliciting instructional engagement may need additional support to maintain high rates of engagement. Literature suggests that goal setting and feedback is effective in increasing performance. the purpose of this study was to evaluate whether goal setting and group feedback would increase engagement in instructional activities related to the children’s goals. Results indicate that goal setting and group feedback was successful in increasing engagement in instructional activities. the results are discussed in the context of engagement, staff performance, group contingencies and performance feedback.

The importance of the electric power infrastructure has been exposed by several blackouts throughout the world in the last decade. These blackouts were caused mainly by physical vulnerabilities, human errors and natural disasters. The power grid is becoming more and more prone to outages which affect not only the power system network, but also other infrastructures and the society in several ways. Utilities generally operate with an (N-1) security level (no violations for single outage), and blackouts are generally caused by higher order contingencies. There is lack of effective methods and analysis tools to deal with higher order contingencies. Higher order contingences include multiple line outages, multiple generator outages or a combination of both. This research work focuses on developing tools to take corrective actions based on sensitivity for these multiple outages. Algorithms developed are Multiple Line Outage Bus Sensitivity Factor (MLOBSF), Multiple Line Outage Voltage Sensitivity (MLOVS), Multiple Generator Outage Bus Sensitivity Factor (MGOBSF) and Multiple Generator Outage Voltage Sensitivity (MGOVS) algorithms based on DC and AC load flow models. These developed algorithms provide the impact on the system due to multiple contingencies and help the operator at the control center to take corrective actions in a quick and effective way. These developed algorithms were tested on three test systems; the six buses, thirty seven buses and the 137 buses actual utility test case. The test results demonstrate that given situational awareness the algorithms provide additional decision support that can be used for remedial actions and/or for recovery after an outage. Integrating these into a power system energy management system (EMS) will provide a tool for operators to have a better understanding of the system before and during an extreme condition.

Personnel departments in general have a poor reputation for power and influence, although little is known empirically about their position in Higher Education institutions (HEI). There are various factors in the HEI context that suggest that the department should be important but not necessarily powerful. Therefore, by applying existing theory (strategic contingencies theory) to examine the determinants of power and the perceived level of power of the department, a more detailed view of the power of the Personnel department in Higher Education (HE) can be observed. The strategic contingencies theory model proves to be a reliable approach to apply in this context, and demonstrates clearly how the Personnel department is consistently rated lower than other administrative departments on the indicator variables. However, in order to go beyond the static picture of structural power sources sketched from strategic contingencies theory, institutional theory is drawn upon to try to understand how the current situation of low power has arisen. Particular elements of the institutionalised HEI context are explored to discover their effect on both the determinants and levels of power. These elements include the historical status of institutions, eth extent of professionalism in departments, and the sophistication of use of information systems in service delivery; all factors discussed in existing institutional theory arguments. Based on 144 questionnaire responses from a total of 73 HEIs across the UK, the quantitative analyses show differences in the power of Personnel departments in institutions with different historical characteristics, however professionalism and the use of information systems do not show clear relationships with power. Further qualitative data collection from seventeen interviews with HEI senior managers highlights how professionalism in the HEI context has a much broader definition than professional qualification and identity for the Personnel department. the use of information systems is also shown to be equally primitive across institutions in the current HEI context, preventing an evaluation of sophistication of use from yielding conclusive results.

The use of rollback is a fundamental flaw in some existing distributed control systems because the advance in time and in external world situations means that what had been a correct state in the past may no longer be a correct state in real time and distributed systems. In such systems rollback is not restoring to a state that is consistent with the current external environment. Forward error recovery provides a potential solution to such a situation to handle exception rather than backward recovery. A contingency is an unusual but anticipated situation for which the normal flow of instructions would not produce the appropriate results that should be expected. We will discuss how to handle contingencies and exceptions in a SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) system using resumption and termination models of exception handling.

The current investigation examined the effectiveness of a metacontingency package in two experimentations. In experiment one, the metacontingency was utilized by embedding activities with interlocking behavioral contingencies to examine its effectiveness on reciprocal social interactions in two females diagnosed with an Intellectual Disability. Results demonstrated an increase of the dependent variable by the metacontingency activities. The results of experiment one were the premise for experiment two, which was to examine whether the metacontingency activities that were effective in increasing reciprocal social interactions were an effect of the metacontingency or an effect of engaging in an activity together. Experiment two utilized two activity types, parallel and metacontingency activities, to determine their relative effect on self-talk behavior, reciprocal social interactions, and conversational units in two males diagnosed with an Intellectual Disability. Results suggested that there were no relative effects demonstrated by the two activity types on self-talk behavior, however results demonstrated an increased effect by the metacontingency activities relative to the parallel activities on reciprocal social interactions and conversational units.

A number of theories attempt to explain the elements of the decision making process when one is faced with an ethical dilemma. Trevino's model (1986)posited a main effect of cognitive moral development (CMD) on ethical behavior, moderated by reinforcement contingencies. Past research has failed to examine the full spectrum of reinforcement contingencies: rewarding ethical behavior (RE), punishing unethical behavior (PU), rewarding unethical behavior (RU), and punishing ethical behavior (PE). It was hypothesized that RE and PU would encourage ethical behavior, while RU and PE would encourage unethical behavior. An additional hypothesis that has not been examined is that reinforcement contingencies would cause individuals who are at the conventional level of CMD to regress to earlier stages of moral reasoning. Support for these hypotheses was not found. Possible explanations for the results are discussed, including the nature of the task itself. / Master of Science

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Although behavioral science, due to its emphasis on the use of single-subject research design, appears to focus solely on individual behaviors, behavioral scientists have a long history of lamenting the trajectory of humans, societies, and the discipline itself. Some scholars, for instance, called for our attention to expand our focus beyond individual behaviors to generate solutions for societal issues that we face. When we attempt to develop solutions for issues that require multi-level analysis, we must be cognizant of how institutional contingencies operate at the individual level. The current study analyzed triadic interactions using an exchange task in six triads. The result of this study showed that one common pattern of interactions among participants across triads was direct reciprocation between two participants. The implications of such findings, how they inform social behavior and metacontingency experiments, and future directions are discussed.

Students may engage in behavior during instruction that impacts the acquisition of skills. Intervening on student behavior using group contingencies may be more efficacious than other intervention methods. Directly programming for generalization of treatment effects may increase the durability of behavior change and further increase the efficacy of group contingencies. The current study examined the effect of a randomized dependent group contingency and programming common stimuli on levels of academic engagement and problem behavior for second-grade participants receiving small-group reading and writing instruction. The results showed that a randomized dependent group contingency increased the academic engagement of primary participants and several of the other participants during small-group instruction. The findings also showed that high levels of academic engagement were maintained when common stimuli were present and the dependent group contingency was withdrawn.