B.F. Skinner\u27s Theory of Performance Excellence: A Radical Behavioral Perspective

Burrhus Frederic (B.F.) Skinner was a revolutionary in the field of psychology, particularly noted for his development of a philosophy of science and an approach to psychological study labeled radical behaviorism (Rachlin, 1995). To Skinner, psychology was synonymous with an organism\u27s interactions between its environment and its own behavior - and behavior was defined accordingly. This way of studying psychology differed greatly from preceding behavioral iterations in psychology and kept up with advances in ·established fields of science. Due to the deficiencies of the behavioral tradition coming before Skinner, misunderstandings by many psychologists and scientists of the Skinnerian approach were gross and frequent. This was especially true when it came to Skinner\u27s take on the free will of humans, how behavior can and should be guided, and the overall goals of science. Yet through conceptualizing psychology as a functional process and by focusing on the study of behavior as its subject matter, Skinner developed an influential and useful body of work that awarded him the National Medal of Science award and the first honoring for the Outstanding Lifetime Contribution by the American Psychological Association (Morris, 2008). Specifically, Skinner coined the term operant behavior, which, in being different from reflexes triggered directly by identifiable stimuli (respondents), has been misconstrued as voluntary action (Baars, 2003), but actually refers to behaviors that operate on the environment and are affected by consequences. It is a term and a type of behavior that is inextricably linked to his definition of psychology and was well-suited to Skinner\u27s talents as a scientist. Cleverness and ingenuity were common in Skinner\u27s design of experiments and his creation of various apparatuses for experimenting with operants. With this style and with a focus on operant behavior, Skinner\u27s eyes were turned toward how an organism\u27s behavior was shaped over the course of its lifespan by its environment and the consequences of its behavior. Perhaps the key take-away when reflecting on Skinner\u27s way of thinking is that he saw human life as a worthy subject of scientific study (Rachlin, 1995) and he saw human behavior as selected by consequences, analogous to the selection of genes by environments (Skinner, 1981). The maxim may go: Regard no practice as immutable. Change and be ready to change again. Accept no eternal verity. Experiment (Skinner, 1979, p. 346). In this doctoral paper, I am presenting B. F. Skinner\u27s theory of performance excellence for use in the field of performance psychology consulting as if for a chapter in Aoyagi and Poczwardowski\u27s (2012) Expert Approaches to Sport Psychology: Applied Theories of Performance Excellence

Leveling the Playing Field: Applying Federal Corporate Charging Considerations to Individuals

The American prison system is grappling with a well-publicized carceral crisis. In the words of former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, “too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long, and for no truly good law enforcement reason.” And, as a result of developments in federal law over the past few decades, the power of federal prosecutors to decide when and how to charge individuals with crimes is crucial to when and how American citizens go to prison. Many ideas have been proposed to revise prosecutorial discretionary powers, but few have been heeded by the Department of Justice (DOJ). However, this Note posits that the DOJ has already paved the way to enhanced guidance for federal prosecutors when charging individuals with crimes. This is because the DOJ’s prosecutorial guidance for charging corporations with federal crimes is more robust than the guidance for charging individuals. In particular, a discussion on collateral consequences is included in the corporate charging guidance, yet lacking in the individual charging guidance. This enhanced corporate guidance has had the purposeful impact of curtailing the prosecution of corporate crime. This Note argues that a similar discussion of collateral consequences in the individual charging guidance could have important and far-reaching effects on the federal criminal regime. Perhaps more importantly, such a discussion could remedy some of the unfairness presented by the current system in which federal prosecutors are guided to consider a superior set of factors before charging corporations with crimes

Economic conditions at the time of birth and cognitive abilities late in life: evidence from eleven European countries

With ageing populations and a stronger reliance on individual financial decision-making concerning asset portfolios, retirement schemes, pensions and insurances, it becomes increasingly important to understand the determinants of cognitive ability among the elderly. To study effects of the early-life economic environment, macro-economic fluctuations may be used. In European countries, about three to four economic recession and boom periods occurred between 1900 and 1945. The timing of these periods differs across countries. We apply data from the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) among elderly individuals. This survey is homogeneous across countries. We use almost 20,000 respondents from 11 countries. We examine several domains of cognitive functioning at ages 60+ and link them to the macro-economic deviations in the year of birth, controlling for demographic, socioeconomic and health status. We find that economic conditions at birth significantly influence cognitive functioning late in life in various domains. The effects are particularly pronounced among the less educated. Recessions negatively influence numeracy and verbal fluency as well as the score on the omnibus cognitive indicator. The results are robust; controlling for current characteristics does not change effect sizes and significance. We discuss possible causal pathways.Cognition; economic business cycle; developmental origins; health; long-run effects; dementia; numeracy; memory; decision-making

Economic conditions at the time of birth and cognitive abilities late in life: Evidence from eleven European countries

With ageing populations and a stronger reliance on individual financial decision-making concerning asset portfolios, retirement schemes, pensions and insurances, it becomes increasingly important to understand the determinants of cognitive ability among the elderly. Macro-economic recession and boom periods provide a unique opportunity to study the effect of changes in the early life economic environment on late life cognition. In European countries, about three to four economic recession and boom periods can be identified between 1900 and 1945. The timing of these periods differs between the countries, which makes a cross-country study design particularly powerful, as it is insensitive to country-specific confounding factors. We use data from the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) among elderly individuals. This survey is homogeneous across countries. We use almost 20,000 respondents from 11 countries. We examine several domains of cognitive functioning at ages 60+ and link them to the macro-economic deviations in the year of birth, controlling for current demographic, socioeconomic and health status. We find that being born during a recession or boom period significantly influences cognitive functioning late in life in various domains. The effects are particularly pronounced among the less educated. Boom periods positively influence numeracy and verbal fluency as well as the score on the omnibus cognitive indicator. The results are robust; controlling for current characteristics does not change effect sizes and significance. We conclude that cognitive functioning late in life is influenced by economic conditions in the year of birth, and we discuss possible causal pathways

Electronic excitations stabilized by a degenerate electron gas in semiconductors

Excitons in semiconductors and insulators consist of fermionic subsystems, electrons and holes, whose attractive interaction facilitates bound quasiparticles with quasi-bosonic character. In the presence of a degenerate electron gas, such excitons dissociate due to free carrier screening. Despite their absence, we found pronounced emission traces in the below-band-edge region of bulk, germanium-doped GaN up to a temperature of 100 K, mimicking sharp spectral features at high free electron concentrations (3.4E19–8.9E19 cm−3). Our interpretation of the data suggests that a degenerate, three-dimensional electron gas stabilizes a novel class of quasiparticles, which we name collexons. These many-particle complexes are formed by exchange of electrons with the Fermi gas. The potential observation of collexons and their stabilization with rising doping concentration is enabled by high crystal quality due to the almost ideal substitution of host atoms with dopants.DFG, 43659573, SFB 787: Semiconductor Nanophotonics: Materials, Models, Device

Electromechanical losses in carbon- and oxygen-containing bulk AlN single crystals

Bulk single-crystalline aluminum nitride (AlN) is potentially a key component for low-loss high-temperature piezoelectric devices. However, the incorporation of electrically active impurities and defects during growth of AlN may adversely affect the performance of piezoelectric resonators especially at high temperatures. The electrical conductivity and electromechanical losses in bulk AlN single crystals are analyzed in the temperature range of 300–1200 K with respect to various contents of growth-related impurities in them. For AlN with [O]/[C] ≤ 1, an increase of electrical conductivity due to thermal activation of charge carriers in the temperature range of 850–1200 K has been observed and was determined to be a major contribution to electromechanical losses Q−1 rising up to maximum values of about 10−3 at 1200 K. As the oxygen content in AlN increased, the magnitude and the activation energy of high-temperature electrical conductivity increased. In oxygen-dominated AlN, two major thermally activated contributions to electromechanical losses were observed, namely, the anelastic relaxations of point defects at temperatures of 400–800 K and electrical conductivity at T > 800 K

Research-Data Management Planning in the German Mathematical Community

In this paper we discuss the notion of research data for the field of mathematics and report on the status quo of research-data management and planning. A number of decentralized approaches are presented and compared to needs and challenges faced in three use cases from different mathematical subdisciplines. We highlight the importance of tailoring research-data management plans to mathematicians' research processes and discuss their usage all along the data life cycle

GALEV evolutionary synthesis models – I. Code, input physics and web interface

‘The definitive version is available at: www3.interscience.wiley.com '. Copyright Blackwell / Royal Astronomical Society. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2009.14717.xgalev (GALaxy EVolution) evolutionary synthesis models describe the evolution of stellar populations in general, of star clusters as well as of galaxies, both in terms of resolved stellar populations and of integrated light properties over cosmological time-scales of ≥13 Gyr from the onset of star formation shortly after the big bang until today. For galaxies, galev includes a simultaneous treatment of the chemical evolution of the gas and the spectral evolution of the stellar content, allowing for what we call a chemically consistent treatment: we use input physics (stellar evolutionary tracks, stellar yields and model atmospheres) for a large range of metallicities and consistently account for the increasing initial abundances of successive stellar generations. Here we present the latest version of the galev evolutionary synthesis models that are now interactively available at http://www.galev.org. We review the currently used input physics, and also give details on how this physics is implemented in practice. We explain how to use the interactive web interface to generate models for user-defined parameters and also give a range of applications that can be studied using galev, ranging from star clusters, undisturbed galaxies of various types E–Sd to starburst and dwarf galaxies, both in the local and the high-redshift Universe.Peer reviewe