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- Creators: Arizona State University
Description
Intuitive decision making refers to decision making based on situational pattern recognition, which happens without deliberation. It is a fast and effortless process that occurs without complete awareness. Moreover, it is believed that implicit learning is one means by which a foundation for intuitive decision making is developed. Accordingly, the present study investigated several factors that affect implicit learning and the development of intuitive decision making in a simulated real-world environment: (1) simple versus complex situational patterns; (2) the diversity of the patterns to which an individual is exposed; (3) the underlying mechanisms. The results showed that simple patterns led to higher levels of implicit learning and intuitive decision-making accuracy than complex patterns; increased diversity enhanced implicit learning and intuitive decision-making accuracy; and an embodied mechanism, labeling, contributes to the development of intuitive decision making in a simulated real-world environment. The results suggest that simulated real-world environments can provide the basis for training intuitive decision making, that diversity is influential in the process of training intuitive decision making, and that labeling contributes to the development of intuitive decision making. These results are interpreted in the context of applied situations such as military applications involving remotely piloted aircraft.
ContributorsCovas-Smith, Christine Marie (Author) / Cooke, Nancy J. (Thesis advisor) / Patterson, Robert (Committee member) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Homa, Donald (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Over the past century in the southwestern United States human actions have altered hydrological processes that shape riparian ecosystems. One change, release of treated wastewater into waterways, has created perennial base flows and increased nutrient availability in ephemeral or intermittent channels. While there are benefits to utilizing treated wastewater for environmental flows, there are numerous unresolved ecohydrological issues regarding the efficacy of effluent to sustain groundwater-dependent riparian ecosystems. This research examined how nutrient-rich effluent, released into waterways with varying depths to groundwater, influences riparian plant community development. Statewide analysis of spatial and temporal patterns of effluent generation and release revealed that hydrogeomorphic setting significantly influences downstream riparian response. Approximately 70% of effluent released is into deep groundwater systems, which produced the lowest riparian development. A greenhouse study assessed how varying concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus, emulating levels in effluent, influenced plant community response. With increasing nitrogen concentrations, vegetation emerging from riparian seed banks had greater biomass, reduced species richness, and greater abundance of nitrophilic species. The effluent-dominated Santa Cruz River in southern Arizona, with a shallow groundwater upper reach and deep groundwater lower reach, served as a study river while the San Pedro River provided a control. Analysis revealed that woody species richness and composition were similar between the two systems. Hydric pioneers (Populus fremontii, Salix gooddingii) were dominant at perennial sites on both rivers. Nitrophilic species (Conium maculatum, Polygonum lapathifolium) dominated herbaceous plant communities and plant heights were greatest in effluent-dominated reaches. Riparian vegetation declined with increasing downstream distance in the upper Santa Cruz, while patterns in the lower Santa Cruz were confounded by additional downstream agricultural input and a channelized floodplain. There were distinct longitudinal and lateral shifts toward more xeric species with increasing downstream distance and increasing lateral distance from the low-flow channel. Patterns in the upper and lower Santa Cruz reaches indicate that water availability drives riparian vegetation outcomes below treatment facilities. Ultimately, this research informs decision processes and increases adaptive capacity for water resources policy and management through the integration of ecological data in decision frameworks regarding the release of effluent for environmental flows.
ContributorsWhite, Margaret Susan (Author) / Stromberg, Juliet C. (Thesis advisor) / Fisher, Stuart G. (Committee member) / White, Dave (Committee member) / Holway, James (Committee member) / Wu, Jianguo (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Courthouse dogs (sometimes referred to as facility animals) are expertly trained canines which may be used to assist individuals with psychological, emotional, or physical difficulties in a myriad of courtroom situations. While these animals are increasingly used to assist young witness to court, the jury is still out on whether or not they are prejudicial to the defendant. No known research exists in this area, although research is necessary to determine the possibly prejudicial nature of these animals. Using a mock trial paradigm involving a child sexual abuse case, the current study employed a 2 (Witness type: victim vs. bystander) x 3 (Innovation type: courthouse dog vs. teddy bear vs. none) fully-crossed factorial design. It was hypothesized that witness type and innovation type would interact to differentially impact jurors' judgments about the trial, defendant, and child witness. In addition, it was posited that emotions, such as anger and disgust, would also affect judgments and decision-making. Results indicate that courthouse dogs and comfort toys did impact jurors' decision making in some ways. In addition, emotions and witness credibility predicted sentencing, verdict, and other trial judgments.
ContributorsBurd, Kayla (Author) / Mcquiston, Dawn E (Thesis advisor) / Salerno, Jessica M (Committee member) / Schweitzer, Nicholas J (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
A Pairwise Comparison Matrix (PCM) is used to compute for relative priorities of criteria or alternatives and are integral components of widely applied decision making tools: the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and its generalized form, the Analytic Network Process (ANP). However, a PCM suffers from several issues limiting its application to large-scale decision problems, specifically: (1) to the curse of dimensionality, that is, a large number of pairwise comparisons need to be elicited from a decision maker (DM), (2) inconsistent and (3) imprecise preferences maybe obtained due to the limited cognitive power of DMs. This dissertation proposes a PCM Framework for Large-Scale Decisions to address these limitations in three phases as follows. The first phase proposes a binary integer program (BIP) to intelligently decompose a PCM into several mutually exclusive subsets using interdependence scores. As a result, the number of pairwise comparisons is reduced and the consistency of the PCM is improved. Since the subsets are disjoint, the most independent pivot element is identified to connect all subsets. This is done to derive the global weights of the elements from the original PCM. The proposed BIP is applied to both AHP and ANP methodologies. However, it is noted that the optimal number of subsets is provided subjectively by the DM and hence is subject to biases and judgement errors. The second phase proposes a trade-off PCM decomposition methodology to decompose a PCM into a number of optimally identified subsets. A BIP is proposed to balance the: (1) time savings by reducing pairwise comparisons, the level of PCM inconsistency, and (2) the accuracy of the weights. The proposed methodology is applied to the AHP to demonstrate its advantages and is compared to established methodologies. In the third phase, a beta distribution is proposed to generalize a wide variety of imprecise pairwise comparison distributions via a method of moments methodology. A Non-Linear Programming model is then developed that calculates PCM element weights which maximizes the preferences of the DM as well as minimizes the inconsistency simultaneously. Comparison experiments are conducted using datasets collected from literature to validate the proposed methodology.
ContributorsJalao, Eugene Rex Lazaro (Author) / Shunk, Dan L. (Thesis advisor) / Wu, Teresa (Thesis advisor) / Askin, Ronald G. (Committee member) / Goul, Kenneth M (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) quantifies environmental impacts of products in raw material extraction, processing, manufacturing, distribution, use and final disposal. The findings of an LCA can be used to improve industry practices, to aid in product development, and guide public policy. Unfortunately, existing approaches to LCA are unreliable in the cases of emerging technologies, where data is unavailable and rapid technological advances outstrip environmental knowledge. Previous studies have demonstrated several shortcomings to existing practices, including the masking of environmental impacts, the difficulty of selecting appropriate weight sets for multi-stakeholder problems, and difficulties in exploration of variability and uncertainty. In particular, there is an acute need for decision-driven interpretation methods that can guide decision makers towards making balanced, environmentally sound decisions in instances of high uncertainty. We propose the first major methodological innovation in LCA since early establishment of LCA as the analytical perspective of choice in problems of environmental management. We propose to couple stochastic multi-criteria decision analytic tools with existing approaches to inventory building and characterization to create a robust approach to comparative technology assessment in the context of high uncertainty, rapid technological change, and evolving stakeholder values. Namely, this study introduces a novel method known as Stochastic Multi-attribute Analysis for Life Cycle Impact Assessment (SMAA-LCIA) that uses internal normalization by means of outranking and exploration of feasible weight spaces.
ContributorsPrado, Valentina (Author) / Seager, Thomas P (Thesis advisor) / Landis, Amy E. (Committee member) / Chester, Mikhail (Committee member) / White, Philip (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The objective of this dissertation is to investigate the association of mother's autonomy and male labor migration with child's health and education, taking into account possible differences by child's gender. The dissertation uses data from a household longitudinal survey conducted in rural southern Mozambique in 2006, 2009 and 2011 to address three main questions: 1) Is decision-making autonomy associated with child's schooling and child mortality? 2) Is father's labor migration associated with children's health outcomes? 3) If so, do these relationships change by gender of the child? The dissertation makes three main contributions to the literature. First, it finds a significant effect of mother's decision-making autonomy on child's outcomes, independent of other characteristics related to women's status. Second, it illustrates the cumulative nature of the effect of father's labor migration on the health of children left behind. And finally, the dissertation shows that women's decision-making autonomy and male migration affect children's outcomes differently depending on the gender of the child and on the outcome being analyzed. The dissertation is structured in five chapters. The first chapter gives an introductory overview of women's autonomy and male migration as determinants of children's outcomes, and presents the setting. The second chapter examines the relationship between mother's decision-making autonomy and enrollment for primary school-age children. Results show a positive association of women's decision-making autonomy with the probability of being enrolled for daughters, but not for sons. The effect of women's decision-making autonomy is net of other characteristics associated with autonomy. The third chapter analyzes the association of mother's decision-making autonomy and under-five child mortality. Results show a positive effect women's decision-making autonomy for sons' survival chances. The fourth chapter examines the effect of father's labor migration on health of children left behind. Results indicate that a proportion of child's life spent away by the father has a negative effect on the child's chances of being stunted but that it also decreases the likelihood of the child receiving age-adequate immunization. These results are gendered as the effect of father's migration on both outcomes is significant only for daughters. Chapter five presents the concluding remarks.
ContributorsSoares Luz, Luciana (Author) / Agadjanian, Victor (Thesis advisor) / Hayford, Sarah (Committee member) / Yabiku, Scott (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
This study provides an understanding of how administrative leaders make decisions regarding enrollment management within academic units at a major research university in the southwestern United States. Key enrollment management functions of recruiting, admissions, marketing, orientation, financial aid/scholarships, academic advising, student engagement, retention and career services were identified from the literature. Typically applied at the institutional level, this study provides an understanding of how leaders in academic units decide to implement enrollment management. A case study was conducted using qualitative data collection methods which emphasized interviews. Senior administrators, such as associate deans within academic units who have responsibility for enrollment management, served as the sample. Three main theoretical constructs were derived after analysis of the data: Theoretical Construct 1: To meet enrollment and retention goals, leaders strategically plan structures and manage resources for enrollment management functions in their academic units. Theoretical Construct 2: To increase retention, leaders intentionally strive to develop a sense of community through customized programs and services for students in their academic units. Theoretical Construct 3: To achieve enrollment objectives within a school-centric model, leaders build relationships with centralized enrollment management functions and other academic units. The discussion and analysis of the study suggests that academic units follow a similar evolutionary model to institutions as they develop enrollment management functions. Five recommendations on how leaders in academic units can more strategically utilize enrollment management principles in decision making are offered.
ContributorsDeBiaso, Nick (Author) / Mcintyre, Lisa (Thesis advisor) / Hesse, Marian (Committee member) / Faris, Kay (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
The present study of two hundred and seven university students examined the structural relation of future-orientation (both valence and instrumentality), career decision-making self-efficacy and career indecision (choice/commitment anxiety and lack of readiness). Structural equation modeling results indicated that while the overall proposed model fit the data well, my hypotheses were partially supported. Valence was not significantly related to career decision-making self-efficacy, choice/commitment anxiety and lack of readiness. However, instrumentality completely mediated the relation between valence and career decision-making self-efficacy, choice/commitment anxiety and lack of readiness. Instrumentality was significantly related to career decision-making self-efficacy and lack of readiness. Career decision-making self-efficacy completely mediated the relation between instrumentality and choice/commitment anxiety; however, it only partially mediated the relation between instrumentality and lack of readiness. Although the proposed model was invariant across gender, the findings indicate that women reported higher instrumentality and lower lack of readiness than did men. No differences were found for career decision-making self-efficacy and choice/commitment anxiety across gender. The findings suggest that psychologists, counselors, teachers, and career interventionists should consider the role future time perspective in university students' career development.
ContributorsWalker, Terrance (Author) / Tracey, Terence J.G. (Thesis advisor) / Robinsion-Kurpius, Sharon (Committee member) / Homer, Judith (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
In 2008, South Korea suffered a great loss of public trust in government. Since May 2, 2008, street protests against U.S. beef imports and the April 2008 beef agreement continued for more than 100 days. These public protests started with peaceful candlelight vigils but some of them turned violent in the end of May. According to a white paper on the protests published by the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, for 106 days from May 2 until Aug. 15, there were 2,398 separate rallies drawing 932,000 people. Among them, 1,476 protesters were indicted for participating in illegal and violent protests. 100 police officers suffered serious injuries and 401 light ones. 88 civilians were seriously injured. The South Korean National Assembly had to remain idle for more than 80 days due to numerous political debates and the approval rating of President Myung-Bak Lee plummeted from 40 percent range to near 20 percent during the protest period. This Dissertation started from a question of why people were so angry against their government. The whole process of the U.S.-South Korea Beef negotiation was reviewed, focusing on whether or not Korean government and its negotiators tried to make a domestic agreement with people. For the purpose, this dissertation developed an integrated framework by the combination of the two level-game theory with the advocacy coalition framework. The framework was also used to investigate the effect of external factors outside the Korean policy-making system of the beef negotiation. The framework reviewed win-set changes of both countries, especially focusing on the change of Korean win-set size. Then, the whole process of the beef negotiation in the dissertation framework was interpreted in the aspect of the New Public Service. This interpretation gave the dissertation the theoretical importance, showing the way in which the interpretation contributed to the decision-making theory. Findings in the dissertation revealed that there was a deep disagreement between what Korean government wanted and what Korean people actually desired. Finally, this dissertation considered how public administrators could increase communication with their people in the Korean policy-making system. Janet and Robert Denhardt's shared values approach to the public interest and the decision-making process would be one answer.
ContributorsJung, Yoon Seok (Author) / Denhardt, Robert B. (Thesis advisor) / Denhardt, Janet V (Committee member) / Lan, Zhiyong G (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
John Herdman provides a brief explanation for neglecting the Victorian sensational double in his work The Double in Nineteenth-Century Fiction, "Nor have I ventured into the vast hinterland of Victorian popular fiction in which doubles roam in abundance, as these are invariably derivative in origin and break no distinctive new territory of their own" (xi). To be sure the popular fiction of the Victorian Era would not produce such penetrating and resonate doubles found in the continental, and even American, literature of the same period until the works of Scottish writers James Hogg and later Robert Louis Stevenson; and while popular English writers have been rightly accused of "exploit[ing] it [the double] for sensational effects," (Herdman 19) the indictment of possessing "no distinctive new territory of their own" is hardly adequate. In particular, two immensely popular works of fiction in the 1860's, Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White (1860) and Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret (1862), employ the convention of the double for a simultaneous sensational and sociological effect. However, the sociological influence of the double in these two texts is not achieved alone: the "guise of lunacy" deployed as a cover-up for criminality acts symbiotically with the sensational double. The double motif provides female characters within these works the opportunity to manipulate the "guise of lunacy" to transgress patriarchal boundaries cemented within the socio-economic hierarchy as well as within other patriarchal institutions: marriage and the sanatorium. Overall this presentation formulates "new distinctive territory" in the land of the Victorian sensational double through the works of Collins and Braddon.
ContributorsSims, Rachel (Author) / Bivona, Dan (Thesis advisor) / Broglio, Ron (Committee member) / Lussier, Mark (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012