I argue that Hershey adopted the industrial-foundation organizational form based on the donor-agency theory which assures donors that their donations are not redistributed as profits to residual claimants. I further argue that the non-distribution constraint in the Hershey Trust Company prevents dividends (donations) from being redistributed to residual claimants, and that the non-distribution constraint makes more sense for Hershey because its founder, Milton Hershey, expressed his preference to leave a long lasting legacy.

I likewise review the empirical evidence on the performance of family-owned firms vis-à-vis that of non-family owned firms. I argue that Mars has chosen a family-controlled organizational form based on the competitive advantage theory which postulates that firm value is maximized when families retain control, benefitting both family and nonfamily shareholders. The Mars family’s greater commitment to the company, its long-term investment horizon, and the amenity potential associated with a traditional family name are consistent with the theory and made Mars more successful than most other family firms.

The second essay analyzes the effect of TV advertising and in-store displays on the sales of chocolates. I examine which method is more effective in gaining customers and in increasing total sales. Also, I look at the evidence to see whether the lack of advertising by a firm will hurt the industry as a whole. In this essay, I use a nested logit model on scanner data obtained by the Zwick Center for Food and Resource Policy at the University of Connecticut’s Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics to examine the effect of TV advertising on chocolate sales.

In the second chapter, I further study the effects of the Facts Up Front style FOP labels by using a rich data set that combines households weekly purchases, product-level advertising exposure data and detailed products' packaging and nutrition information. Starting with a discrete choice demand model that allows for consumer heterogeneity and incorporates context effects, I develop an empirical framework for understanding the effects of different labeling schemes on consumers' food choices, market outcomes, manufacturers' product development, and firms' strategic adoption of FOP labels.

In practice, consumers regularly make multiple purchases of different RTEC products in a shopping trip. In the third chapter, I examine the commonly neglected modeling assumption in the existing economic and marketing literature that only one product being purchased in a choice occasion. I employ a Multivariate Bayesian approach to study such contemporaneous within-category purchasing behavior and investigate factors that determine the fundamental dependencies among differentiated storable products.

This study investigated the use of sulfonated polyethersulfone (SPES) as a new material for thin film composite membranes. Four degrees of sulfonation were examined. Asymmetric membranes were cast with polymer loadings between 12-20 % by weight using n-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) as the solvent and precipitated in water. Membranes films were characterized using a variety of techniques to analyze the physical, chemical and thermal properties. Select polymers were interfacially polymerized using m-phenylenediamine (MPD) and 1,3,5-benzenetricarbonyltrichloride (TMC) to create a polyamide layer on top of the membrane supports. The thin-film composite membranes were tested in both reverse osmosis (RO) and forward osmosis (FO) systems. The sulfonated polymers on average performed just as well or better than the unmodified polyethersulfone (PES) polymer in RO applications. With respect to the FO testing, wetting negatively affected the performance of the SPES. The base PES exhibited much greater fluxes and wetting than the SPES. It was determined that sulfonated polymers are a promising new material for thin film composite membranes, particularly for RO applications.

Saccades are very fast eye movements that allow the eyes to quickly move from one target or image to another. A saccadic eye movement can be triggered by either visual or auditory stimuli. In this work, saccades induced by visual, auditory and auditory-visual bisensory stimuli that provided in a horizontal plane were recorded and analyzed. Human saccade data was collected using a high speed eye tracking system, and analyzed with a program written in FORTRAN, which computed parameter estimates using system identification technique for a saccadic eye movement model. Saccade characteristics were investigated, and the results of saccadic eye movements elicited by the three different stimuli types were compared. Post saccade phenomena, which were caused by the post-inhibitory rebound burst of the antagonist motoneurons, were also explored.

METHODS: The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2001-2006 were utilized. Three measures of PA (i.e., intensity level, the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) guidelines for frequency, intensity, and time/duration (FIT) of PA, and ACSM recommendations for MET-Mins Per Week) were analyzed in relation to elevated waist circumference, homeostatic model assessment for insulin resistance (HOMA), and immune system cells. In addition, the sample was stratified according to body mass index to determine if excess body weight reduces the benefits of PA.

RESULTS: Normal and overweight individuals engaging in the highest levels of PA in all three measures displayed inverse associations with elevated waist circumference. Inverse relationships between PA and HOMA were insignificant. Engagement in vigorous intensity and the ACSM FIT guidelines produced inverse correlations with white blood cell count (WBC) and segmented neutrophil percent and number, while percent lymphocyte, monocyte, and basophil had direct correlations with MET-Min Per Week .

CONCLUSIONS: Normal weight individuals engaging at the highest levels of PA had a decreased likelihood of an elevated waist circumference. Positive relationships between WBC and Elevated Waist Circumference were only seen in normal weight females. Future research using objective measures of PA is recommended to confirm our findings, and to clarify divergent results regarding immune system cells.

The nature of the interaction between prolactin and the prolactin receptor has been the subject of several studies, but results have been ambiguous. In an effort to clarify the lingering questions the formation of prolactin-prolactin receptor complexes in solution was studied using NMR and the wild type of prolactin and the extracellular domain of the prolactin receptor. It was shown that wild type prolactin is capable of forming both the binary and ternary complex with the extracellular domain of the prolactin receptor in solution, and it was determined which of the proposed binding affinities apply to wild type prolactin. It was demonstrated that the properties observed for the truncated and altered prolactin variants are shared by wild type prolactin. Lastly conformational entropy was ruled out as the driving force of the proposed allosteric effect.

Furthermore, metal binding by members of the growth hormone family has been suggested to play a role in facilitating reversible packing in secretory granules. Paramagnetic metal titration and chelation experiments on recombinant prolactin monitored by NMR relaxation were performed and unambiguously determined two metal binding sites on prolactin. The relative orientation of the two distinct metal binding sites, together with aggregation studies of hPRL mutants at biologically relevant pH values, enabled the proposal of a mechanism for metal-induced aggregation entailing intermolecular bridging between the metal binding sites.

The research problems were addressed using conceptual and mathematical models, GIS, and a physical model. The conceptual and mathematical models were applied in three dimensions, using integration to obtain numerical solutions for original kettle volume, apparent kettle volume, and basin fill volume. The GIS-based model combined the volumes of three digital elevation models (DEM’s) to arrive at total basin volume. Original kettle volume, apparent kettle volume, and basin fill volume were also computed from the DEM’s. The numerical and GIS-based volume analyses yielded similar results. The physical model was created to observe the how the location of the underground ice mass affects the development of the slope profile inside the kettle. 97% of the data indicated that the midpoints of hillslopes are aligned with the edges of buried ice masses.

The void created through ablation of stagnant ice can be constrained using the mathematical and GIS methods because they converge on roughly the same answer. The conceptual model clarifies the relationships between variables even though they were limited by several factors. Future research includes model improvements and exploration of collapse structures.

The present work described experimental approaches to measure expansion forces of in-house self-expanding TAV stents, investigate aortic tissue behaviors, and examine rupture potential after the TAV stents were deployed into ovine and porcine hearts. In this research effort, we established a methodology to study TAV device/aortic root interactions by quantifying important tissue-stent contact parameters during deployment. It is hoped that the established methodology will help us understand characteristics of tissue-stent interactions and provide insight into TAVR device design improvements.

In addition to completing the ITBS measure, treatment students completed researcher-developed pretests and posttests for each of the three units to measure learning gains on specific content within the curricular units. The present study used multilevel models to clarify to what extent student-level factors (quantitative ability, gender, prior mathematics achievement, and status as a “high learning potential” nominee) and contextual factors (class average quantitative ability, class average prior mathematics achievement, teacher responses to the curriculum, and school aggregate SES) predicted treatment students’ outcomes on the researcher-developed tests. Student scores on composite unit pretests, unit posttests, and on the difference scores from pretest to posttest were regressed on these predictors in a series of two-level models. Further, three-level models were tested with a measurement model at level-1 that examined each unit test as a subscale component of the composite test.

Results indicate that quantitative ability, prior achievement, and being nominated as having high learning potential were predictive of composite pretest and posttest scores, but gender was not. Student gains were predicted by quantitative ability and nomination status, but not by gender and prior achievement. Classroom mean gains from pretest to posttest varied across the classrooms in the study, but only one relationship between a student-level variable and an outcome varied significantly. Consequently, no significant cross-level interactions were apparent from the two-level models. The three-level hierarchical multivariate linear models confirmed the standard HLM covariance structure was appropriate for the posttest, but suggested the pretest was more adequately modeled with heterogeneous level-1 variances. Several student-level and cluster-level predictors explained the variance in particular subscales even though these effects were not found when modeling the composite measures.

Early modern writers produced a vision of collaborative authorship by establishing themselves as imitators of Christ, modeling their texts on biblical antecedents, and claiming divine inspiration. Together, these tactics became a form of “mimetic participation,” drawing on René Girard’s argument that while mimetic behaviors usually produce competition, Christianity requires imitators of Christ to avoid competition in favor of participation and collaboration. Early modern writers used authorship to try to imitate Christ and participate in his redemptive actions. Divine collaboration granted authority to writers who invoked it, but it was more than simply an ethos-building trope: it was a complex way of structuring Christian identity that accommodated an increasingly diverse cultural practice—writing—employed by individuals of different classes, genders, and political and religious affiliations.

This project exposes the extent to which collaboration permeated English writers’ imaginations beyond the contexts of the theater and the publishing industry, the traditional sites where scholars have studied authorial collaboration. Authorship was conceived and developed as a simultaneously collaborative but intensely personal act, even as the metaphors writers used were derived from the material culture that structured the production of books.

Elite triathletes’ sweat volume and electrolyte losses during exercise can be detrimental in a warm environment. PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to investigate urine and sweat electrolyte losses of male and female triathletes during endurance exercise in a warm environment. METHODS: Thirty five Timex sponsored triathletes (n = 20♂, 15♀: age 39 ± 12yr, 33 ± 6 yr; height 181 ± 6 cm, 171 ± 6 cm; weight 76.1 ± 7.0 kg, 60.1 ± 5.4 kg; fast half Ironman time 4:30 ± 0:40 hr:min, 5:09 ± 0:32 hr:min, respectively) completed a 43.4 ± 3.8 minute treadmill run or friction resisted cycle ergometer bike at their predicted half Ironman race pace in a heated environment (28.0 ± 0.5 ºC, 27.2 ± 4.9 % relative humidity). Before exercise each subject provided a urine sample and skin fold measures were taken. Percent dehydration was calculated using pre- and post-exercise nude body weights. Whole body wash-down (WBW) was performed using distilled, deionized water to determine sweat electrolyte content. Twenty-four hour urine was collected to calculate sodium and potassium losses. Twenty-four hour diet intake was recorded to calculate net balance. RESULTS: Sweat electrolyte losses during exercise differed between genders. Men had higher sweat rates and sweat loss than women (1.88 ± 0.38 L·h-1 vs 1.34 ± 0.36 L·h-1, p ≤ 0.001; 1.39 ± 0.31 L vs 0.95 ± 0.27 L, p ≤ 0.001), respectively. Men had greater sweat sodium loss (p=0.004; men: 60.3 ± 19.9 mEq vs women: 39.4 ± 19.9 mEq) and a greater rate of sweat sodium loss (p=0.010; 82.4 ± 26.6 mEq·hr-1 vs women: 56.5 ± 30.1 mEq·hr-1). Concentrations of sweat sodium and potassium did not differ between genders. Men had higher urine sodium mass than women (196.2 ± 80.1 mEq vs 117.5 ± 49.5 mEq, respectively, p=0.002). Net Balance differences were not found between male and female intake and loss of fluid and electrolytes. During the 24 hour dietary consumption, women consumed less water than men (3.026 ± 1.216 L vs 4.594 ± 2.824 L, respectively, p=0.036) and Na+ content (3588.7 ± 1004.7 mg vs 5081.2 ± 2277.2 mg, respectively, p=0.017). CONCLUSION: Sweat volume, electrolyte loss, urinary sodium loss and diet intake differed between male and female elite triathletes. When determining fluid and sodium replacement requirements in warm conditions for high level triathletes, men may need to replace more fluids and sodium at greater rates than women to remain homeostatic.

NMR spectroscopy was used to determine a high-resolution structure of this domain. Here, the domain is called the ‘insertion’ domain (I-domain). The structure is a six-stranded β-barrel with a small helix and belongs to a reductase/isomerase/elongation factor folding family.

Compared to the previous cryo-EM reconstructions, the NMR structure bears both similarities and differences. The core fold is different, but the NMR structure does resemble the 8 Å structure in its significant β-sheet content, and the 4 Å structure in the existence of a large loop (the D-loop). The function of the domain is still unresolved, although structural homology to domain II of eiF2-γ (a transcription factor that may bind tRNA) may be significant.