The Effects of Task Autonomy and Task Interest on Goal-Setting Behavior and Task Performance

Task autonomy and task interest have been studied in the organizational literature as main effects, demonstrating positive effects on productive work behavior and goal-setting behavior. Providing high task autonomy or an interesting task may stimulate goal setting, but the interaction of these two variables may significantly increase goal level and consequently task performance. Yet, little research has examined this interaction on individuals\u27 goal-setting behavior, when given the opportunity to self-set goals. The purpose of this research is to discover whether the effects of task autonomy on self-set goals are stronger for tasks that are more interesting. Furthermore, I assessed the relationship between goal difficulty and task performance to determine whether goal difficulty mediates the relationship between the interaction and performance. In this study, I created four separate conditions by verbally manipulating task autonomy (high, low) and task interest (interesting, uninteresting). Participants were asked to complete an assembly-type task and set a goal based on how many objects they felt they could construct in 20 minutes. Following the experiment, participants completed a six-item task questionnaire and I assessed their quantitative and qualitative performance on the task. Results contribute to the motivational and organizational literature, and the understanding of worker productivit

The Effects of Task Autonomy and Task Interest on Goal-Setting Behavior and Task Performance

Task autonomy and task interest have been studied in the organizational literature as main effects, demonstrating positive effects on productive work behavior and goal-setting behavior. Providing high task autonomy or an interesting task may stimulate goal setting, but the interaction of these two variables may significantly increase goal level and consequently task performance. Yet, little research has examined this interaction on individuals\u27 goal-setting behavior, when given the opportunity to self-set goals. The purpose of this research is to discover whether the effects of task autonomy on self-set goals are stronger for tasks that are more interesting. Furthermore, I assessed the relationship between goal difficulty and task performance to determine whether goal difficulty mediates the relationship between the interaction and performance. In this study, I created four separate conditions by verbally manipulating task autonomy (high, low) and task interest (interesting, uninteresting). Participants were asked to complete an assembly-type task and set a goal based on how many objects they felt they could construct in 20 minutes. Following the experiment, participants completed a six-item task questionnaire and I assessed their quantitative and qualitative performance on the task. Results contribute to the motivational and organizational literature, and the understanding of worker productivit

HIV Infection and TLR Signalling in the Liver

Despite the availability of effective combination antiretroviral therapy (cART), liver disease is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)-infected individuals, specifically, in the presence of viral hepatitis coinfection. HIV, a single stranded RNA virus, can bind to and activate both Toll-like receptor (TLR)7 and TLR8 in circulating blood mononuclear cells, but little is known about the effect of HIV on TLRs expressed in the liver. HIV can directly infect cells of the liver and HIV-mediated depletion of CD4+ T-cells in the gastrointestinal tract (GI tract) results in increased circulating lipopolysaccharide (LPS), both of which may impact on TLR signaling in the liver and subsequent liver disease progression. The potential direct and indirect effects of HIV on TLR signaling in the liver will be explored in this paper

MABEL at IPAC: managing address books and email lists at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center

The Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC), located on the campus of the California Institute of Technology, is NASA's multi-mission data center for infrared astrophysics. Some of IPAC's services include administering data analysis funding awards to the astronomical community, organizing conferences and workshops, and soliciting and selecting fellowship and observing proposals. As most of these services are repeated annually or biannually, it becomes necessary to maintain multiple lists of email contacts associated with each service. MABEL is a PHP/MySQL web database application designed to facilitate this process. It serves as an address book containing up-to-date contact information for thousands of recipients. Recipients may be assigned to any number of email lists categorized by IPAC project and team. Lists may be public (viewable by all project members) or private (viewable only by team members). MABEL can also be used to send HTML or plain-text emails to multiple lists at once and prevents duplicate emails to a single recipient. This work was performed at the California Institute of Technology under contract to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

SPRITE: the Spitzer proposal review website

The Spitzer Science Center (SSC), located on the campus of the California Institute of Technology, supports the science operations of NASA's infrared Spitzer Space Telescope. The SSC issues an annual Call for Proposals inviting investigators worldwide to submit Spitzer Space Telescope proposals. The Spitzer Proposal Review Website (SPRITE) is a MySQL/PHP web database application designed to support the SSC proposal review process. Review panel members use the software to view, grade, and write comments about the proposals, and SSC support team members monitor the grading and ranking process and ultimately generate a ranked list of all the proposals. The software is also used to generate, edit, and email award letters to the proposers. This work was performed at the California Institute of Technology under contract to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

MySQL/PHP web database applications for IPAC proposal submission

The Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC) is NASA's multi-mission center of expertise for long-wavelength astrophysics. Proposals for various IPAC missions and programs are ingested via MySQL/PHP web database applications. Proposers use web forms to enter coversheet information and upload PDF files related to the proposal. Upon proposal submission, a unique directory is created on the webserver into which all of the uploaded files are placed. The coversheet information is converted into a PDF file using a PHP extension called FPDF. The files are concatenated into one PDF file using the command-line tool pdftk and then forwarded to the review committee. This work was performed at the California Institute of Technology under contract to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Proposal review rankings: the influence of reviewer discussions on proposal selection

The telescope time allocation process for NASA's Great Observatories involves a substantial commitment of time and expertise by the astronomical community. The annual review meetings typically have 100 external participants. Each reviewer spends 3-6 days at the meeting in addition to one-two weeks of preparation time, reading and grading proposals. The reviewers grade the proposals based on their individual reading prior to the meeting and grade them again after discussion within the broad, subject-based review panels. We summarize here how the outcome of the review process for three Spitzer observing cycles would have changed if the selection had been done strictly based on the preliminary grades without having the panels meet and discuss the proposals. The changes in grading during the review meeting have a substantial impact on the final list of selected proposals. Approximately 30% of the selected proposals would not have been included if just the preliminary rankings had been used to make the selection

Ongoing evolution of proposal reviews in the Spitzer warm mission

The Spitzer Space Telescope is executing the seventh year of extended warm mission science. The cryogenic mission operated from 2003 to 2009. The observing proposal review process has evolved from large, week-long, in-person meetings during the cryogenic mission to the introduction of panel telecon reviews in the warm mission. Further compression of the schedule and budget for the proposal solicitation and selection process led to additional changes in 2014. Large proposals are still reviewed at an in-person meeting but smaller proposals are no longer discussed by a topical science panel. This hybrid process, involving an in-person committee for the larger proposals and strictly external reviewers for the smaller proposals, has been successfully implemented through two observing cycles. While people like the idea of not having to travel to a review it is still the consensus opinion, in our discussions with the community, that the in-person review panel discussions provide the most satisfying result. We continue to use in-person reviews for awarding greater than 90% of the observing time

Ongoing evolution of proposal reviews in the Spitzer warm mission

The Spitzer Space Telescope is executing the seventh year of extended warm mission science. The cryogenic mission operated from 2003 to 2009. The observing proposal review process has evolved from large, week-long, in-person meetings during the cryogenic mission to the introduction of panel telecon reviews in the warm mission. Further compression of the schedule and budget for the proposal solicitation and selection process led to additional changes in 2014. Large proposals are still reviewed at an in-person meeting but smaller proposals are no longer discussed by a topical science panel. This hybrid process, involving an in-person committee for the larger proposals and strictly external reviewers for the smaller proposals, has been successfully implemented through two observing cycles. While people like the idea of not having to travel to a review it is still the consensus opinion, in our discussions with the community, that the in-person review panel discussions provide the most satisfying result. We continue to use in-person reviews for awarding greater than 90% of the observing time