The Full Marginal Cost of Vehicle Travel on US Roadways

In this research, models primarily based on the Highway Economic Requirements System (HERS) are retrofitted to calculate six component marginal costs: Safety, Travel Time, Vehicle Operations, Agency, Emissions, and Noise. Each of these marginal costs is separately obtained for both peak and off-peak periods for seven different vehicle types. By combining these component costs, the true marginal cost to society of each vehicle is obtained for each roadway segment reported in the Highway Performance Monitoring System. This full marginal cost can be applied in future policy analysis in defining appropriate vehicle miles traveled (VMT) fee structures. In addition to calculating segment marginal costs, this report conducts a section level revenue analysis that compares the revenue generated by the current gas tax system employed by the United States versus a revenue system based on vehicle mile fees developed from marginal vehicle cost analyses

The Recall of Completed and Noncompleted Tasks Through Daily Logs to Measure Procrastination

For five consecutive days, participants listed daily tasks they intended to complete. Recall of listed tasks served as the primary dependent variable. Characteristics of the task, including whether or not the task was actually completed, did not, in general, predict recall. The one exception was that the rated importance of the task to one\u27s family did increase the likelihood of recall. Individual differences in avoidant procrastination were negatively related to the likelihood of recalling listed tasks. Avoidant procrastination also was related (positively) to false positive rates, the degree to which individuals recalled tasks that they had not listed the previous day. These findings suggest that procrastinators may have general cognitive processing strategies that are different from non-procrastinators. However, further research is needed to explore the information processing abilities of people who delay completing tasks

The Recall of Completed and Noncompleted Tasks Through Daily Logs to Measure Procrastination

For five consecutive days, participants listed daily tasks they intended to complete. Recall of listed tasks served as the primary dependent variable. Characteristics of the task, including whether or not the task was actually completed, did not, in general, predict recall. The one exception was that the rated importance of the task to one\u27s family did increase the likelihood of recall. Individual differences in avoidant procrastination were negatively related to the likelihood of recalling listed tasks. Avoidant procrastination also was related (positively) to false positive rates, the degree to which individuals recalled tasks that they had not listed the previous day. These findings suggest that procrastinators may have general cognitive processing strategies that are different from non-procrastinators. However, further research is needed to explore the information processing abilities of people who delay completing tasks

Agency or Structure? Community and Individual Level factors impacting Recycling Behaviors

The present study combined Ajzen Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1991) and Schwartz’s Value Theory (1992) with socio-demographic factors to analyze their impact on intention to recycle. The variables were classified into two categories, namely individual level determinants and contextual level determinants and utilized a hierarchical analysis to determine whether greater predictive power was obtained when combining individual level predictors (personal values, perceived behavioral control and attitude) with contextual level predictors (subjective norms and demographics). Our findings indicate that socio-demographics, personal values, perceived behavioral control and attitude all predict recycling behavior with significantly greater predictive power obtained when combining individual level and community level predictors of recycling behavior. Implications for community psychology are discussed

Assessing Risks in Insulation Retrofits Using Hygrothermal Software Tools

The greatest difference between buildings of traditional and non-traditional construction design lies not so much in the building materials used, but in the way they are used to construct the external envelope of a building – in the way they are assembled. One may say that the defining approach of traditional construction is the management of moisture and, in contrast, one can say that modern construction systems generally (but not always) depend on blocking, not managing, moisture. The deterioration and decay that occurs in buildings almost always involves moisture. Three relevant moisture sources are identified in this report: indoor vapour, rain water (including wind driven rain) and ground water. Since heat, water vapour and liquid water are all driven by different forces, they can ‘move’ in different directions at different times within the same wall. However, because the forces driving these transport phenomena are coupled, retrofit strategies to address one issue may have unexpected effects on another. Retrofitting building elements to improve thermal performance can carry an unestablished level of risk of moisture-related damage occurring, to the detriment of existing and newly installed portions of the building fabric as well as for occupants. The report discusses two available methodologies for conducting hygrothermal risk assessments: steady-state condensation risk assessments, using the Glaser method, and transient hygrothermal performance analysis, using numerical simulation. In Ireland and the UK, construction guidance and practice are still heavily influenced by the diffusion paradigm, a reductionist but deeply held view that vapour diffusion is the only relevant moisture transport mechanism in building fabric and the use of a vapour barrier to control it is always best practice. The case study in this report has demonstrated, by comparing Glaser method and numerical simulation assessments (using BuildDesk U and WUFI software respectively), that (a) their results can be diammetrically opposed, (b) moisture transport in solid, unrendered stone walls is predominantly in the form of liquid migrating through the materials’ capillaries, due to capillary action and surface diffusion. The report demonstrates that choosing the most appropriate risk assessment method is important to ensure that retrofits are durable, sustainable and create healthy environments

Perceptions of Self-concept and Self-presentation by Procrastinators: Further Evidence

Two samples of university students completed self-report measures of chronic procrastination and either self-concept variables (Sample 1, n = 233) or self-presentational styles (Sample 2, n = 210). Results indicated that procrastination was significantly related to a self-concept of oneself as dominated by issues related to task performance, and to self presentation strategies that reflected a person as continually justifying and excusing task delays and being “needy” of others’ approval. It seems that men and women procrastinate in order to improve their social standing by making their accomplishments seem greater than they really are.Dos muestras de estudiantes universitarios completaron auto-informes de procrastinación crónica y de variables de auto concepto (Muestra 1, n = 233) o de estilos de autopresentación (Muestra 2, n = 210). Los resultados indicaron que la procrastinación se relaciona significativamente con el auto-concepto de una persona que se siente dominada por los asuntos relacionados con la ejecución de tareas, y con estrategias de autopresentación que reflejan una persona que constantemente justifica y excusa los retrasos en las tareas y necesita la aprobación de los demás. Parece que los hombres y las mujeres procrastinan para mejorar su estatus social haciendo que sus logros parezcan más importantes de lo que realmente son

GRAPH THEORETIC CONNECTIVITY ANALYSIS OF THE MID-ATLANTIC REGION OF THE UNITED STATES

Connectivity is critical for persistence of species in the face of anthropogenic habitat destruction and fragmentation. Graph theory is a relatively new method for quantifying connectivity that has tremendous potential, but landscape graph applications to date are limited to specific conservation situations with static proportions of habitat (P). This study provides a uniform evaluation of graph metrics across wide gradients in P in both random neutral landscapes and real, forested landscapes from the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Such an analysis provides a background that will be valuable for future interpretation of graph metrics. Results indicate that graph metrics have characteristic forms when plotted against P that can be exploited for conservation management