Investment Of Effort Research Articles

Veterinary communities

Veterinary surgeons with dyslexia have set up an online discussion group to provide advice and support for colleagues in practice and at vet school with neurological differences. Fiona Nouri is an expert in this field having run student welfare offices at the Royal Veterinary College and other leading educational institutions. She told John Bonner how young veterinarians can be helped to deal with their difficulties in reading and processing text and why this investment of time and effort can reap huge dividends.

Evolutionary game analysis of low‐carbon effort decisions in the supply chain considering fairness concerns

As global environmental problems are becoming more severe, how to efficiently reduce carbon emissions has become an urgent problem to be solved. Manufacturers and retailers can effectively reduce carbon emissions through low‐carbon efforts, and doing so is important for the sustainable development of low‐carbon supply chains. This paper develops a general framework that considers how bounded rationality and fairness concerns affect the manufacturer's and retailer's low‐carbon effort decisions and discusses the evolutionary stable strategy (ESS) and the evolution process of the manufacturer's and retailer's low‐carbon efforts. The ESS shows that the manufacturer and the retailer will increase their low‐carbon efforts when the initial unit profit is higher. Otherwise, a smaller initial unit profit will reduce their low‐carbon efforts. This paper also analyzes different attributes of fairness concerns and finds that advantageous fairness concerns increase low‐carbon efforts, whereas disadvantageous fairness concerns reduce low‐carbon efforts. In addition, fairness concerns will speed up the manufacturer's and retailer's low‐carbon efforts to ESSs. When the manufacturer and retailer choose the “no effort” strategy, they will stop investing quickly, but when they choose the “effort” strategy, they will not invest quickly. This paper can provide decision support for using the low‐carbon effort investment strategy by supply chain members.

Spurious correlations in research on ability tilt

Ability tilt refers to a within-individual difference between two abilities (X-Y), e.g. differences between tech and verbal or verbal and math abilities. Studies have found associations between ability tilts and their constituent abilities (X or Y). Here we show that such associations may be spurious due to the non-independence of the two measures. Using data from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97), we find that associations between ability and ability tilt may simply be due to more positive associations between two measures of the same or similar abilities compared to two measures of different or dissimilar abilities. This finding calls into question theoretical interpretations that have proposed that ability tilt correlations are due to differential investment of time and effort in one ability at the expense of the other ability.

Health Economics in the Field of Prosthetics and Orthotics: A Global Perspective.

The rapid advancement of prosthetic and orthotic (P&O) technology raises the question how the industry can ensure that patients have access to the benefits and providers get paid properly and fairly by healthcare payers. This is a challenge that not only P&O but all areas of health technology face. In many areas of medicine and health products, such as drugs and medical devices, health-technology assessments (HTA) have become a standard procedure in the coverage and reimbursement process. In most countries, P&O is lagging behind that development, although some countries have already formalized HTA for prosthetic and orthotic products and may even use cost-effectiveness analyses to determine pricing and payment amounts. This article gives an overview on the coverage and reimbursement processes in the United States, Canada, Germany, France, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Poland, Japan, and China. This selection reflects the variety and diversity of coverage and reimbursement processes that the P&O industry faces globally. The paper continues with an overview on the necessary research and investment efforts that manufacturers will have to make in the future, and contemplates the likely consequences for the manufacturer community in the market place. Health economics may help support the transition from price-based to value-based coverage and reimbursement but will come at considerable costs to the industry.

Public Acceptance and Support of Renewable Energy in the North-East Development Region of Romania

Concern about energy in the European Union (EU) has been a recurrent issue from the very beginning. Though initially addressed at the state level, energy is now a shared competency as stressed by article 194 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. New challenges, added from time to time, need public support in order to be properly addressed. Such is the case of substituting traditional energy production with renewable energy sources. Our paper seeks to determine whether the Romanian public opinion favors such an evolution, which is traditionally associated with significant investment efforts. The study is focused on the north-east development region, which has the highest population and registered the fastest economic growth in 2019. The topic was explored through a survey applied to a sample of 649 household respondents. The results suggest strong support for introducing renewable energy sources, serious concerns about climate change, and a preoccupation for energy saving. Concerns regarding climate change or various economic factors, behaviors oriented towards reducing energy waste, as well as perceived knowledge on the matter are the factors with the biggest impact on supporting electricity production based on renewable energy sources. However, TV and online exposure have a negative impact on support. Demographics, along with social and political values remain mostly not significant.

Career Concerns and Financial Reporting Quality*

ABSTRACTManagerial career concerns could affect firm efficiency through financial reporting quality, but this important link has received relatively little attention in the literature. The present study examines this link by developing a model that has the following elements. A risk‐neutral manager provides effort to increase the market value of the firm and to favorably influence the market assessment of the manager's ability. Depending on the magnitude of career concerns, the manager either underinvests or overinvests effort relative to an efficiency‐maximizing level. The analysis identifies conditions under which higher‐quality reporting induces the manager to invest more effort. Under these conditions, the model is extended to a setting in which the manager also chooses the quality of financial reporting at some cost. In doing so, managers seek to reduce distortion in their effort investment. The equilibrium reporting quality and effort investment are determined by a trade‐off between them. In the presence of high uncertainty about the firm's future cash flows, if the manager's career concerns exceed a threshold the manager underinvests in reporting quality and overinvests effort. The empirical implication is a negative relation between managerial career concerns and financial reporting quality. To a large extent, this is consistent with findings in prior empirical studies. Thus, the present study offers a theoretical explanation for the empirical findings as an equilibrium outcome.

Orchard Level Assessment of Irrigation Performance and Water Productivity of an Irrigation Community in Eastern Spain

Over the last three decades, a great investment effort has been made in the modernization of irrigation in the Valencian Community (Spain). The initial change from distribution networks to pressurized ones and the shift towards drip irrigation systems was followed by improvements in irrigation scheduling, based on agrometeorological data, soil water content sensors, and remote sensing. These improvements are considered adequate for increasing irrigation water use efficiency, but it is difficult to find systematic measurements to assess its impacts on irrigation adequacy along with irrigation productivity in fruit orchards. This work presents the results of a four year assessment of irrigation water and energy use efficiency along with water productivity of a recently established irrigation community in the province of Valencia (Spain). The study was carried out at the orchard level and focused on two fruit crops: persimmon and peach trees. Six irrigation performance indicators, relative water supply (RWS), relative irrigation supply (RIS), yield performance (Yp), global water productivity (WPoverall), output per unit irrigation water (OUI), and the percent of nitrogen fertilization obtained by irrigation water, were defined and calculated for years 2017 to 2020 in 104 persimmon and peach orchards. The results showed that most of the farmers irrigated below the crop water requirements, showing RWS and RIS values less than 1, and there was great variability among farmers, especially in WPoverall and OUI indicators.

Optimistic expectations have benefits for effort and emotion with little cost.

The present investigation examined the potential benefits and costs of optimistic expectations about future events through the lens of error management theory (EMT). Decades of evidence have shown that optimism about the likelihood of future events is pervasive and difficult to correct. From an EMT perspective, this perpetuation of inaccurate beliefs is possible because optimism offers benefits greater than the costs. The present investigation examined this possibility for controllable important life events with a known time at which they would occur. College students taking their first exam (n = 1,061) and medical students being matched with residency placements (n = 182) reported their expectations and emotions weeks before the event and their responses after they knew the outcome of the event. Optimistic expectations predicted the quality of effort investment before an event occurred-students were more satisfied with their studying, medical students were more satisfied with their decision making, and optimism predicted better performance. Optimistic expectations also predicted less emotional distress before the event. There was no evidence that optimistic expectations related to longer-term greater distress when participants experienced an unexpected negative outcome; the valence of the outcome itself predicted distress. These results are consistent with the EMT-derived hypothesis that optimistic expectations have benefits for effort and emotion before an event occurs, with little cost after the outcome occurs. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The divergent impact of reward magnitude on goal eagerness and effort investment

When attempting to motivate an individual, does increasing the magnitude of the reward always have a positive impact on one’s effort investment? Through six experiments, we demonstrate that although individuals working for a large (vs. small) reward are more eager to commence the task (Studies 1–5) and more likely to persist when encountering an opportunity to terminate the pursuit (Study 2), the intensity of their effort investment in the goal remains relatively unchanged regardless of the magnitude of the reward (Studies 1–5). The insensitivity of effort investment to the magnitude of the reward disappears in the following contexts: when the participants are reminded of the reward size during the goal striving phase (Study 3), when individuals make a plan prior to commencing the task (Study 4), and when a partial reward is allocated to each goal-directed action (Study 5). This divergent impact appears because the psychological processes and information that govern pre-initiation goal eagerness may differ from those that control post-initiation effort investment.

A closed-loop supply chain inventory model with stochastic demand, hybrid production, carbon emissions, and take-back incentives

This paper considers a two-echelon inventory model for a closed-loop supply chain system containing a manufacturer and a retailer under a stochastic environment with carbon emission reductions. Production and remanufacturing are performed simultaneously in a manufacturer's hybrid production system involving green production and regular production. To encourage the manufacturer to reuse products, the government offers a take-back incentive operating under a collection rate target. Motivated by this offer, the manufacturer significantly improves the system and makes an investment to increase the number of used products collected from the customers. The emissions generated from transportation, production, and storage activities are incorporated into the model and intended to be reduced by a carbon tax regulation. To achieve this, a mathematical inventory model that aims to minimize the joint total cost is built and solved using an efficient procedure. The results show that by controlling the collection rate and the production allocation, the system can minimize the cost and the emissions. Further, the take-back incentive and the manufacturer's investment in collection efforts can effectively increase the return rate of used products, but these policies will lead to an undesirable increase in total emissions.

Motivational and emotional effects of social comparison in sports

The comparison to other athletes and the resulting effects on emotion, motivation and effort investment are a natural and integral part of sports performance. The current study tested a bias toward upward comparison in athletes. Further it tested how comparison processes influence motivation (i.e., self-improvement motivation, coasting, disengagement), emotion (e.g. happiness and shame) and performance improvement as a behavioral measure of effort. Freshmen from an elite sport university volunteered to participate in an experience sampling study conducted over one semester (6 months). Contrary to our predictions, athletes did not generally compare more upward than downward, and only few subscales of the two sport-specific dispositional measures (sport-specific achievement motivation and sport orientation) predicted upward comparison. As hypothesized, upward comparison to moderately better standards was associated with greater motivation while extreme upward comparison was related to a drop in motivation and increased disengagement. Still, upward comparison during the semester significantly predicted performance at the end of the semester. Downward comparison was related to coasting motivation and lower levels of performance. Happiness decreased with upward and increased with downward comparison. The opposite was true for feelings of shame. This research emphasizes the role of the social environment in sports and how training partners depending on their inferiority or superiority can boost or hinder motivation and performance in athletes.

Observation delays in teams and effort cycles

This paper studies the dynamics of effort provision in teams when there are exogenous observation delays between partners. Agents are engaged in a common project whose duration is uncertain and yields no benefit until one of them has completed it. All it takes to complete the project is one success, which can be obtained after the investment of costly effort. An agent learns immediately when he succeeds but learns whether his partners succeeded after some delay. In equilibrium, players alternate between periods in which they exert the maximal effort and periods in which they make no effort at all. Better information transmission leads to shorter and more frequent rest periods. The size of the team has a positive impact on the players' payoff. Finally, introducing a small observation delay increases the average effort of patient players and makes them complete the project faster in expectation.

The lost history of managed retreat and community relocation in the United States

Managed retreat refers to the relocation of population or infrastructure to address sea-level rise, climate-driven flood risk, and other threats. One variety of managed retreats involves the wholesale relocation of communities. The focus of retreat and relocation projects is to make the retreating communities more resilient to future losses; add-on benefits may include environmental enhancement and broad potential social goals such as promoting equity. Facing spiraling flooding and other climate-change impacts, the United States has been planning and implementing new retreat projects, but without full awareness of past relocations. This study reviews more than 50 relevant community relocations in U.S. history. These endeavors represent millions of taxpayer dollars and enormous investment of personal effort, leadership, triumph, and frustration by residents. And these case studies represent real-world, context-specific expertise needed to guide future U.S. retreat and relocations efforts. This study reviews U.S. relocation history as a resource for scholars of managed retreat, disaster management professionals, and local stakeholders contemplating retreat.

The effort investment theory of power

AbstractThe powerful are often more successful in pursuing their goals, as shown in many studies. Does this mean that the powerful try harder? Current theories on power do not provide a clear answer to this question. Based on recent findings in the power literature and integrating theories from motivation psychology and neuroscience, the present paper presents the effort investment theory of power. The effort investment theory proposes that power determines the investment of effort following a resource conservation principle; that is, power affects people’s evaluation of a goal in terms of its importance and feasibility, and based on their evaluation, they mobilize effort. Importantly, the theory also considers a time perspective. It highlights the role of experiences during the process of pursuing a goal (i.e., facing signals of success and failure) as well as previous experiences (i.e., performing a different task/goal before) in the power effect on effort investment, and argues that such experiences affect individuals’ judgments of importance and feasibility. Finally, the theory discusses possible consequences of the power effect on effort investment for performance and efficiency. The relevance of these propositions for theory and practice are discussed, as well as ideas for future research.

The effects of plant structure and flow properties on the physical response of coastal dune plants to wind and wave run-up

Vegetation is an important feature of coastal dunes and is often managed to stabilize restored dunes and provide coastal protection. Despite a high investment in planting and management efforts, little is known about how vegetation is affected by wind and wave run-up. The objectives of this study were to 1) investigate the lift forces and drag moments experienced by coastal dune vegetation from wind and wave run-up and 2) relate them to flow properties and plant morphology. Panicum amarum, Ammophila breviligulata, A. arenaria and Cakile maritima were subjected to laboratory wind and wave run-up conditions. Measurements were taken of fluid velocity, run-up depth, Reynolds number, and plant biophysical properties. The plant lift and drag responses were recorded with the use of a novel sensor designed to address the complexities induced by the flexibility and morphology of real vegetation under varying conditions. Regression analysis was used to describe the relationships between plant response and plant structure and flow properties. Experiments showed that wind induced a constant lift force and drag moment on plants over time, whereas run-up induced plant response was time-dependent. Plant height (R2 = 0.64, p < 0.001) and number of leaves (R2 = 0.67, p = 0.30) were the most important predictors of drag moment from wind and run-up experiments, respectively. Plant drag coefficients from wind (5.0 × 10−4 to 3.6 × 10−2) and run-up (2.7 × 10−3 to 1.7) were negatively correlated with flow turbulence, indicating that coastal dune plants likely have biophysical adaptations to the induced forces, such as a propensity for streamlining. In particular, our data suggests that tall and thin dune grasses are best adapted and used on the dune crest and fronts to mitigate wind energy, while low shrubby plants are best used on the backbeach or dune toe to reduce run-up energy. Our study provides valuable information on the ability of dune vegetation to interrupt flow, such that modelers and managers can better understand how to best protect coastlines.

Investigating green investment payoff in China

PurposeThis study aims to use Porter’s hypothesis (PH), which tests whether corporates’ green investment has an impact on their economic performance (EP). The study argues that corporates’ environmental strategy should allow for a “win-win” situation concerning regulatory compliance.Design/methodology/approachThe quantitative methodology used PH to test empirically the economic consequences of corporates’ green investment in China.FindingsThis study indicates that there is a U-shaped relationship between green/environmental investment (EI) and EP. When EI is less, corporates’ EP follows a downward sloping curve until the scale of EI increases and exceeds the “threshold.” From this turning point, EP follows an upward-sloping curve as EI increase. This relationship is more significant in high-polluting companies and state-owned companies.Research limitations/implicationsThe empirical results extend the research field of EI and EP for listed companies in China and cover 1,324 observations over the period 2008–2017.Practical implicationsFirst, the authors expand the research on green/EI and EP using firm-level data. Second, the study empirically tests the economic consequences of corporates’ green investment. Third, this study finds a non-linear relationship between green investment and EP due to the heterogeneity of industry attributes and property rights. These findings provide better explanations for the different research conclusions regarding the economic consequences of green investment.Originality/valueCompared to global research, China’s research on EI has mainly focused on the macro and industry levels. There is still a lack of micro-level research. The paper addresses this research gap as the authors use firm-level EI data to capture companies’ green investment efforts in environmentally sustainable development and its subsequent impact on EP.

Social observation increases the cardiovascular response of hearing-impaired listeners during a speech reception task

Certain cardiovascular measures allow for distinction between sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system activity. Applied during listening, these measures may provide a novel and complementary insight into listening effort. To date, few studies have implemented cardiovascular measures of listening effort and seldom have these included hearing-impaired participants. These studies have generally measured changes in cardiovascular parameters while manipulating environmental factors, such as listening difficulty. Yet, listening effort is also known to be moderated by individual factors, including the importance of performing successfully. In this study, we aimed to manipulate success importance by adding observers to the traditional laboratory set-up. Twenty-nine hearing-impaired participants performed a speech reception task both alone and in the presence of two observers. Auditory stimuli consisted of Danish Hearing in Noise Test (HINT) sentences masked by four-talker babble. Sentences were delivered at two individually adapted signal-to-noise ratios, corresponding to 50 and 80% of sentences correct. We measured change scores, relative to baseline, of pre-ejection period, two indices of heart rate variability, heart rate and blood pressure (systolic, diastolic, and mean arterial pressure). After each condition, participants rated their effort investment, stress, tendency to give up and preference to change the situation to improve audibility. A multivariate analysis revealed that cardiovascular reactivity increased in the presence of the observers, compared to when the task was performed alone. More specifically, systolic, diastolic, and mean arterial blood pressure increased while observed. Interestingly, participants’ subjective ratings were sensitive only to intelligibility level, not the observation state. This study was the first to report results from a range of different cardiovascular variables measured from hearing-impaired participants during a speech reception task. Due to the timing of the observers’ presence, we were not able to conclusively attribute these physiological changes to being task related. Therefore, instead of representing listening effort, we suggest that the increased cardiovascular response detected during observation reveals increased physiological stress associated with potential evaluation.

Improving smoking cessation support for Quebec's smokers: an evaluation of Quebec's telephone quitline.

Quitlines are an important and widespread intervention that support smokers in their efforts to quit smoking and engage them into treatment services. Quebec's quitline, called "la ligne J'ARRÊTE", has been in operation since 2002. The objectives of this study were to evaluate treatment reach, provide a description of caller characteristics and to provide results on cessation outcome measures for Quebec's smoking cessation quitline. We collected data at intake, assessing new caller volume, caller characteristics and treatment reach. We used a one-group quasi-experimental design to assess 30-day and six-month quit rates, at six-month follow-up. Intake data were collected for 1292 new quitline callers, 18 years of age and older, over a one-year period. Results indicated that the service reached 9 in 10 000 Quebec smokers. With respect to the total population of smokers in Quebec, the quitline reached proportionately higher numbers of smokers who were women, were 55 years of age and older and had a high school diploma or less. At follow-up, the 30-day point prevalence abstinence rate was 26.7%, while the six-month prolonged abstinence rate was 18.8%. These results indicate that the quitline contributed to helping callers quit smoking. They are in line with findings for other quitlines in Canada and the United States. However, quitline reach is comparatively limited, suggesting that additional investment in promotional efforts and research into ways of recruiting underserved populations into the service would increase public health impact.

Quantifying the costs of pre- and postcopulatory traits for males: Evidence that costs of ejaculation are minor relative to mating effort.

Although it is widely stated that both mating behavior and sperm traits are energetically costly for males, we currently lack empirical estimates of the relative costs to males of pre‐ versus postcopulatory investments. Such estimates require the experimental separation of the act of mating from that of ejaculation, which is a nontrivial logistical challenge. Here, we overcome this challenge using a novel morphological manipulation (gonopodium tip ablation) in the eastern mosquitofish (Gambusia holbrooki) to tease apart investment in mating effort from that in sperm replenishment following ejaculation. We quantified the relative cumulative costs of investing in mating effort and ejaculation by comparing somatic traits and reproductive performance among three types of males: ablated males that could attempt to mate but not ejaculate; unablated males that could both mate and ejaculate; and control males that had no access to females. We show that, after eight weeks, mating investment significantly reduces both body growth and immunocompetence and results in a significant decline in mating effort. In contrast, cumulative investment into sperm replenishment following ejaculation has few detectable effects that are only apparent in smaller males. These minor costs occur despite the fact that G. holbrooki has very high levels of sperm competition and multiple mating by both sexes, which is usually associated with elevated levels of sperm production. Crucially, our study is the first, to our knowledge, to experimentally compare the relative costs of pre‐ and postcopulatory investment on components of male fitness in a vertebrate.

The societal impact puzzle: a snapshot of a changing landscape across education and research

The term ‘impact’ is everywhere. Organizations and individuals want to fund projects for impact, measure impact, and showcase the impact of effort, expertise and financial investment, but clear definitions and understandings of what having an impact really means for people and institutions appear lacking or ad-hoc. This paper explores ‘impact’ in the areas of education and research into government practice. For governments, the impact agenda involves operating in increasingly tight fiscal environments with mounting pressure to articulate and demonstrate return on investment. For education providers, there are increasing calls to justify and prove why investment in education is an efficient and effective endeavor. For universities, this includes a shift from a traditional publication-focused research impact culture to a wider societal impact one that demonstrates direct and indirect benefits to society. This paper conceptualizes impact as a “puzzle” with many pieces, with education and research making up key pieces that can and need to fit together better. In doing so, the paper identifies four problem areas to help guide thinking toward clarity about what ‘impact’ entails. To aid collective progress in this space, we detail key issues facing the education and research sectors. Based on our analysis we arrive at a set of questions intended to help guide thinking and actions toward collectively increasing the ability to generate and demonstrate the impact of both into government practice and society at large.