The Effect of Distractions on Task Performance and Enjoyment as Moderated by Regulatory Fit

Every day, distractions keep people from maintaining focus and productivity. Music, in particular, is a distraction that can easily disrupt individuals mentally and physically. However, what if common distractions like music had the power to motivate people towards a goal rather than deter them from it? Regulatory Focus Theory offers an explanation for how this is possible. It posits two motivational foci: promotion and prevention. If individuals are promotion-focused, they seek positive outcomes, and if individuals are prevention-focused, they try to avoid negative outcomes. The current study tested the assumption that avoiding distractions during goal pursuit matched the behavior of someone with a prevention focus better than someone with a promotion focus and simply being in a prevention focus when completing a task could increase an individual’s task enjoyment and performance when distractions were present. Participants were first given a questionnaire to determine their regulatory focus. Then their task was to solve math problems in the presence or absence of music which served as the distraction. The results of 150 participants did not support the hypotheses and showed that, regardless of whether a distraction was present or not, promotion-focused participants performed better and enjoyed the task more than their prevention-focused counterparts

Dynamic behavior of a smart device on a surface subjected to earthquake motion

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/144310/1/eqe3048_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/144310/2/eqe3048.pd

Special Summer Instruction

Each summer Mary Livermore Library conducts research sessions for young people enrolled in a variety of UNCP enrichment programs. In July 2014, the Library welcomed over 40 rising third through eighth graders, attendees at one of the two Junior Braves programs offered by the Office of Engaged Outreach and the Regional Center. Customized research instruction was also provided for 30 students from the Transportation Institute and 40 select freshmen attending a four-week summer bridge program

The Voltage Regulation of Boost Converters using Dual Heuristic Programming

In this paper, a dual heuristic programming controller is proposed to control a boost converter. Conventional controllers such as proportional-integral-derivative (PID) or proportional-integral (PI) are designed based on the linearized small-signal model near the operating point. Therefore, the performance of the controller during start-up, load change, or input voltage variation is not optimal since the system model changes by varying the operating point. The dual heuristic programming controller optimally controls the boost converter by following the approximate dynamic programming. The advantage of the DHP is that the neural network–based characteristic of the proposed controller enables boost converters to easily cope with large disturbances. A DHP with a well-trained critic and action networks can perform as an optimal controller for the boost converter. To compare the effectiveness of the traditional PI-based and the DHP boost converter, the simulation results are provided

Montana Kaimin, November 3, 1995

Student newspaper of the University of Montana, Missoula.https://scholarworks.umt.edu/studentnewspaper/9910/thumbnail.jp