This thesis examines how worker consent is achieved in two Japanese owned Multi National Companies (MNC) based in the North East of England: Nissan Motor Manufacturer UK and its part owned supplier company Ikeda Hoover Ltd. These companies have adopted lean, flexible work practices which proponents claim constitute a reversal of Taylorist work methods as workers are able to participate in the attainment of corporate goals. The adoption of such practices, it is claimed, will lead to a fundamental alteration in British industrial relations as worker hostility to management demands will be reduced as workers are able to 'make their own change'. This research illustrates that while Multi National companies select environments best suited to the attainment of worker consent, it cannot be assumed that the advantages they gain will be shared by component suppliers which seek to operate a Just in Time (JIT) production system through close proximity. Secondly, while large manufacturers operating JIT choose supplier companies which adopt practices similar to their own, it cannot be assumed that similarity can be maintained. This research illustrates that JIT increases pressure on suppliers and that affects work process, management style, industrial relations and worker consent within the supplier company. I will examine how through an examination of the subjective responses of workers to the political and economic environment, to employment security, to self identity, to the labour process and management style. an understanding of worker consent or resistance to self subordination can be established. Failure to discover the meanings workers attach to actions can lead to an overestimation of the genuine level of commitment to corporate goals and a failure to appreciate the heterogeneity of workers perspectives and responses and strategies. Worker consent is dependent on the legitimacy of claims that flexible, lean working practices can provide employment security.

Performance analysis is an objective method of gathering the data of performance, and generally transforms these observations into numerical data. Performance indicators, as well as a selection or elements of sucessful outcome, have often been used in order to feedback augmented information in performance analysis systems, but they have rarely been considered within the classification of performance analysis systems based on timing of analysis and feedback. The main aim of this study is to investigate performance indicators used within real-time and lapsed time systems so that the definitions of the performance indicators, the effectiveness of the performance indicators, their reliability and validity within real time analysis systems can be analyzed.

Public transit agencies often struggle with service reliability issues; when a bus or train does not arrive on time, passengers become frustrated and may be less likely to choose transit for future trips. To address reliability problems, transit authorities increasingly provide real-time vehicle location and arrival information to riders via web-enabled and mobile devices. Although prior studies have found several benefits of offering this information to passengers, researchers have had difficulty determining if real-time information affects ridership levels. Therefore, the objective of this dissertation is to quantify the impact of real-time information on public transit ridership. Statistical and econometric methods were used to analyze passenger behavior in three American cities that share a common real-time information platform: New York City, Tampa, and Atlanta. New York City was the setting for a natural experiment in which real-time bus information was gradually launched on a borough-by-borough basis over a three year period. Panel regression techniques were used to evaluate route-level bus ridership while controlling for changes in transit service, fares, local socioeconomic conditions, weather, and other factors. In Tampa, a behavioral experiment was performed with a before-after control group design in which access to real-time bus information was the treatment variable and web-based surveys measured behavior changes over a three month period. In Atlanta, a methodology to combine smart card fare collection data with web-based survey responses was developed to quantify changes in transit travel of individual riders in a before-after study. In summary, each study utilized different data sources and quantitative methods to assess changes in transit ridership. The results varied between cities and suggest that the impact of real-time information on transit travel is greatest in locations that have high levels of transit service. These findings have immediate implications for decision-makers at transit agencies, who often face pressure to increase ridership with limited resources.

Saving is viewed as deferred consumption and studied within the framework of intertemporal choice. The literature, drawn from psychology, economics and economic psychology, suggests that whilst there have been many theoretical references to the relationship between individual differences associated with intertemporal decision-making and saving, and these individual difference variables have been studied in relation to other behaviour, there is a lack of empirical research investigating their relationship with saving. The particular variables of interest are delay of gratification, time preference (impatience), self control, impulsiveness and consideration of future consequences. This thesis presents a series of empirical studies which used carefully constructed or selected measures to investigate the relationship between individual differences associated with intertemporal decision-making and saving. A variety of methods were used. The first two studies measured delay of gratification using a behavioural choice paradigm and investigated its relationship with saving. The next three studies measured a construct known as the consideration of future consequences and examined its relationship with saving. In-depth interviews, focusing on impulsiveness and impatience provided a more realistic investigation of the personality structure of delay, and aided the development of quantitative measures of impulsiveness. Secondary analysis of Dutch panel data enabled the hypotheses to be tested with a larger dataset and shifts in assets as a measure of saving. The group of studies culminated in a postal survey of married couple households, allowing a multivariate investigation of all the individual difference constructs which had been developed and investigated. This final study also addressed issues such as the relative influence of psychological data from both spouses in a decision-making unit. The results are discussed throughout the thesis in the light of their implications for psychology, economics, policy-making and marketing, as well as for economic psychology. The main contributions are some new measures of theoretically relevant individual difference constructs, which will require further testing in order to prove their worth

To investigate (1) the effect of mental rehearsal (MR) on reaction time (RT), and (2) the roles of cerebral lateralization, memory, verbal and nonverbal processes in MR effects, two experiments were conducted using a total of 300 sports participants matched on age, cerebral lateralization, imagery ability, intelligence, kinaesthesis, motivation, sex, skill level and speed of reaction. It was found that (a) MR can affect significantly RT (p/0.01) because it is a powerful cognitive activity which can directly influence the memory system and make memory comparison and/or response selection processes more efficient, and (b) that there are two separate processing systems - two separate modes of thought - for verbally and nonverbally coded information, that these processing systems might be functionally discriminated along hemispheric lines, that the non-verbal processing system considerably precedes the verbal processing system, probably because it uses a more effective processing strategy, and that MR affects significantly (p/0.01) and differently the operations of the two processing systems, probably because MR is a cognitive activity more associated with the right cerebral hemisphere than with the left. The results are discussed in the light of current cerebral laterality, imagery, memory, MR and RT findings.

In plants, flowering time is a tightly regulated process where several environmental and endogenous cues fine-tune the time of flowering. In Arabidopsis, four major genetic pathways regulate flowering time, namely photoperiod, vernalization, autonomous, and phytohormone gibberellic acid (GA) pathways. Arabidopsis is a facultative long day (LD) plant. LD promotes flowering whereas flowering is delayed in short day (SD) conditions. Here, we identified a basic-helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factor called bHLH93 that is necessary to promote flowering only in SD. Also, photoperiod plays more critical roles in regulation of flowering time of bhlh93 mutant compared to GA and vernalization pathways. Thus, bHLH93 might represent a novel transcription factor absolutely required for Arabidopsis thaliana to evolve as a facultative LD plant. bhlh93 mutants also show severe adult phenotype such as shorter stature, curly and darker green leaves, and reduced fertility compared to wild type plants. These results suggest that bHLH93 controls plant stature, fertility and chlorophyll content in Arabidopsis. bHLH93 is expressed in a tissue-specific and developmental stage-dependent manner. bHLH93-YFP protein is localized in the nucleus. bHLH93 homodimerizes in yeast, and it has strong transcription activation activity in yeast. These data suggest that, like other bHLH proteins, bHLH93 may function as a transcriptional regulator in the nucleus controlling gene expression. We have identified floral repressor MAF5 as a major target of bHLH93 to promote flowering in SD. bHLH93 binds to MAF5 promoter element in vivo and in vitro. Other than MAF5, FLC and MAF1-2 are also up-regulated in bhlh93 but at a lower level than MAF5. The activation of multiple floral repressors correlates with bhlh93 flowering phenotype. Taken together, these data suggest that bHLH93 may provide selective advantage for evolution of facultative flowering behavior under varying environmental conditions for reproductive success. / text

published_or_final_version / Applied Statistics / Master / Master of Social Sciences

published_or_final_version / Statistics / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Statistics / Master / Master of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Mathematics / Master / Master of Philosophy