Browsing by Subject "Preferences"
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Item God save this honorable court : religion as a source of judicial policy preferences(2012-05) Blake, William Dawes; Perry, H. W.; Brinks, DanIf Supreme Court behavior is structured largely by the policy preferences of the justices, political scientists ought to consider the source of those preferences. Religion is one force that can strongly shape a judge’s worldview and therefore her votes. In this paper, I examine the effect of religion on U.S. Supreme Court votes in 11 issue areas plausibly connected to religious values. Catholic justices vote in ways that more closely adhere to the teachings of the Catholic Church than non-Catholic justices even after controlling for ideology. These results may indicate that Catholic theology is different from Protestant or Jewish theology. It is also possible that on some issues there is not much of a theological difference, but religious values play a more prominent role in public life for Catholic justices.Item Informational alchemy : an exploration of the ambition lying at the intersection of statistics, optimization, psychology, and wishful thinking to transform inexpensively crowdsourced opinions into golden labels and human-like experiences(2023-04-21) Dreher, Andrew Francis; Fussell, Donald S., 1951-; Vouga, Paul Etienne; Grauman, Kristen; Geisler, Wilson SComputer science has long been fascinated with making algorithms mimic humans. Creating human-like experiences requires understanding concepts from statistics, optimization, and psychology; it also relies on a significant degree of wishful thinking. We are interested in modeling perceptual problems where the final evaluator may be unknown, such as assessing the aesthetic quality of a billboard. These problems require considerable amounts of data sourced from human subjects. Because there is no innate ground truth, this data is often sourced as pairwise preferences to reduce bias. Unfortunately, acquiring this data is time-consuming and expensive, even through crowdsourcing platforms like Amazon Mechanical Turk, because redundant labels are required to estimate the distribution of responses and because the quality of the work produced varies greatly. The quality of the work is of particular concern because it affects the reliability of the final estimates and the number of samples required. Invariably, some workers are very diligent and provide thoughtful responses, but many are random, and others are potentially trolls. Various methods have been proposed to weigh these responses, with a goal akin to modern alchemy: turning noisy, raw responses of non-experts into refined, golden labels similar to expert opinions. We show that many algorithms have a hidden feedback loop that causes them to perform an unrelated, counter-productive task instead of measuring reliability. We also address the embedded assumption that human subjects are diligent and apply slow, logical reasoning by conducting experiments on how human subjects view sets of decisions. These results help decide how to combine different user opinions and may yield optimization improvementsItem Physical activity attitudes and preferences of adults with opioid use disorder receiving methadone maintenance treatment : a mixed methods study(2020-04-29) Simonton, Amanda Jean; Calloway, Cara Suzanne; Brown, Richard Allen; García, Alexandra A; Bartholomew, John BThe prevalence of opioid use disorder (OUD) has grown exponentially, contributing to a significant increase in overdose deaths, and a public health crisis. Methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) is an effective treatment for OUD; yet, retention in MMT and relapse rates are still high. Physical activity (PA) has been shown to improve treatment retention and relapse rates among those with substance use disorders, however little research has examined PA interventions among those in MMT. Therefore, this dissertation study, guided by the Health Promotion Model, explored PA attitudes (i.e., perceived benefits, perceived barriers, self-efficacy, and PA enjoyment), and PA preferences (i.e., type, structure, and delivery) of adults with OUD in MMT. A mixed-methods designed was used to examine PA attitudes and preferences, level of PA, and experiences with and perceptions of PA. Adults (N=100) with OUD accessing MMT clinics in central Texas were recruited to complete a battery of standardized instruments assessing primary study variables; twenty participants participated in one-on-one interviews. Thematic content analysis was used to explore experiences with PA. On average, participants were 37.5 years old (SD= 9.2). A majority were male (55%) and white (75%). Those with higher levels of self-efficacy had fewer recovery attempts (p = .004), and methadone dose was inversely associated with PA level (p=0.03); significant effects were identified between current pain and psych symptoms on interest in discussing or participating in a PA intervention and between gender and PA preferences for interest, supervision, length of engagement, and type of PA. Qualitative data found primary issues to PA engagement are due to population specific barriers. Specifically, significant issues with the side effects of MMT (e.g., fatigue, sweating) and motivation were unique barriers to engaging in PA. Study findings suggest assessing motivation toward PA and increasing PA motivation through motivational interviewing may be fruitful areas of future research for those in MMT. Finally, continuing to utilize mixed-method approaches appears to hold great value and provides meaningful insight that may have been lost with a purely quantitative approach. Incorporating qualitative methods to assess preferences of unique populations or interventions with adherence issues is encouraged in future research.Item Shared decision-making about breast reconstruction : a decision analysis approach(2013-12) Sun, Clement Sung-Jay; Markey, Mia Kathleen; Reece, Gregory P.An ongoing objective in healthcare is the development of tools to improve patient decision-making and surgical outcomes for patients with breast cancer that have undergone or plan to undergo breast reconstruction. In keeping with the bioethical concept of autonomy, these decision models are patient-oriented and expansive, covering a range of different patient decision-makers. In pursuit of these goals, this dissertation contributes to the development of a prototype shared decision support system that will guide patients with breast cancer and their physicians in making decisions about breast reconstruction. This dissertation applies principles in decision analysis to breast reconstruction decision-making. In this dissertation, we examine three important areas of decision-making: (1) the options available to decision-makers, (2) the validity of probabilistic information assessed from reconstructive surgeons, and (3) the feasibility of applying multiattribute utility theory. In addition, it discusses the influences of breast aesthetics and proposes a measure for quantifying such influences. The dissertation concludes with a fictional case study that demonstrates the integration of the findings and application of decision analysis in patient-oriented shared breast reconstruction decision-making. Through the implementation of decision analysis principles, cognitive biases and emotion may be attenuated, clearing the decision-maker’s judgment, and ostensibly leading to good decisions. While good decisions cannot guarantee good outcomes at the individual level, they can be expected to improve outcomes for patients with breast cancer as a whole. And regardless of the outcome, good decisions yield clarity of action and grant the decision-maker a measure of peace in an otherwise uncertain world.