B.F. Skinner and Operant Conditioning Research Paper

B.F. Skinner and Operant Conditioning - Research Paper Example Subjects opt for alternatives that result to low risks. Choice introduces self-control where the subject learns how to wait for better rewards instead of settling on immediate smaller rewards. A reinforcement schedule delivers reinforcement to an organism according to a predefined rule. Food is a common reinforcement used to condition hungry rats and pigeons. The schedule delivers the food for a switch closure as a result of a lever press or a peck. Similar experiments have been conducted on humans and the results are similar to those from animals. However, human beings have resulted into a wider range of adopted behavioral strategies compared to animals. A time-based schedule is the most effective where the reinforcement is delivered after a fixed or variable time period. A time marker or the reinforcement is utilized in time-based schedules. Trial-by-trial versions are also utilized during conditioning. For example, in the fixed interval schedule, an inter-trial interval precedes e ach trial and extra-empty trials where no food is given to the rats. In operant conditioning, the acquired behavior is reversible and can only be repeated when the reinforcement is available. ... This is evident in different results from subsequent results of the experimental history. This indicates that the animal has undergone some internal transformation, but the learned behavior is reversible. Several researchers have encountered problems when uncovering the reversible behavior and the nonreversible internal state of the animal. Skinner is concerned with the reversible behavior and not the internal state of the subject. This makes it difficult to draw a plausible conclusion on the cause of the reversible behavior when a second reinforcement is withdrawn after a short exposure. During conditioning, the organism is exposed to the reinforcement at timed intervals. Doubling the interval time doubles the wait time after a learning period. The organism develops an approximation to the interval to be timed. In some procedures, the organism can be exposed to a stimulus and different responses are expected after an absolute or relative duration. The subject can be exposed to two s timuli that confront it with two choices. For example, a rat can be given food after either a press on the left or right lever. After a learning period, the subject is presented with the two stimuli in lieu, which introduces the question of how it distributes the responses. The subject has to develop an intermediate duration in order to differentiate between the two stimuli. Other factors such as the degree of hunger can influence the response during a fixed interval procedure. A time discrimination procedure can mitigate this problem. The subject is exposed to food after a fixed time followed by a longer period of no food. This helps the subject learn to wait then respond until the behavior has been learnt properly. Interval timing is widely used by

Play and Learning in Early Childhood (A comparative study between Dissertation

Play and Learning in Early Childhood (A comparative study between Scotland and Saudi Arabia) - Dissertation Example In order to accomplish these research objectives, the researcher selected primary and secondary data collection methods. Primary research was conducted in the form of interviews at Cranstonhill Nursery School, Glasgow involving two staffs. On the other hand, secondary data was collected through past research papers, academic journals and newspaper articles. Primary data revealed that early year education based on learning through playing activities is a good step to improve the cognitive abilities of children. Secondary data analysis also confirmed the fact as majority of academicians and researchers agreed that in spite of exposing children to direct education; it is important to make them a part of early year education offering good amount of exposure and learning experiences. On the basis of these findings, it was concluded that countries like Scotland and Saudi Arabia has been offering great attention to develop more numbers of early year education but lacks uniformity. ... the end based on acknowledgement- Ludwig Wittgenstein The purpose and importance of every research is enhanced by the cooperation and support of many people. The research starts with a general idea and thought that further becomes a complete work showcasing results and analysis pertaining to a particular subject. Results and analysis is dependent on the efforts and cooperation of many people. The researcher would like to express his deep gratitude towards his supervisor†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ for guiding him and supporting him the research process. His compassionate approach of offering guidance and support helped in conducting the research in a systematic and zealous manner. The researcher would also like to thank his professors for supporting and guiding him through their knowledge and skills that helped in gaining confidence and clear insights over the research topic. The University also helped in allowing the researcher to access the library and other internet sources that further helped in collecting valuable information and data pertaining to the research subject. The researcher feel blessed to be part of the University of†¦.. where class mates and faculties helped in developing critical insights over the research topic. The role of family is of great importance in initiating any activity and the researcher was guided and supported by his family in a positive manner that helped in achieving the goals and objectives of the research. The role of the family and friends proved to be more impactful in gaining mental toughness while the role and support of the supervisor and professors helped in developing cognitive abilities to deal with the research topic. Overall, the researcher would like to thank everybody who supported and guided him in the research process along with

How Would You Develop a Safety and Health Management System That Coursework

How Would You Develop a Safety and Health Management System That Achieves Managements Objectives - Coursework Example Additionally, improvement of the safety and health management systems within the organization will improve productivity of working by reducing fears that are usually impacted on them from severely injured workmates. Therefore, the main purpose of initiating and implementing SHMS to its totality is to reduce costs related to injuries at workplace. Notably, saving a crewed by effective implementation of SHMS will definitely exceed the SHMS workplace costs (American National Standard, 2005). The effective SHMS’s critical elements includes the commitment of the management and the employees’ involvement, prevention and control of hazards, supervisors, managers, and employees’ training, worksite analysis. The culture of the organization can have direct influence on safety and health management system successes within the organization. Therefore, this organization must play vital role in ensuring its success in relation to the SHMS (Czerniak and Ostrander, 2005). The management is the first organ of the organization that will be required to manage SHMS just like it would manage other organizational duties and concerns. In other words, the management must integrate safety and health management systems into all organs or departments of the organization (American National Standard, 2005). Moreover, all the departmental heads must be involved personally in establishing safety and health accountabilities within their departments. â€Å"The workplace must be safe and healthful to every employee. All employees must follow and adhere to safe and healthful work practices and outline in each work practice’s safety and healthy rules and regulations.† It is worth noting that working with each departmental head, SHM rules and regulations will be established for every work practice towards ensuring that all the workplaces are safe and healthy for all workers at all

Three year strategic digital marketing plan Essay

Three year strategic digital marketing plan - Essay Example g the fact that Gap 360 is a relatively new company in this market, the success achieved by the company in its first and second year of trading is noteworthy. Having enjoyed a successful stint over the past two years, the company should aim to achieve a higher ground that provides robust foundation to become an undisputed leader in the market. In order to be able to reach the pinnacle in this market, Gap 360 must aim to attain a higher customer satisfaction index. This is precisely because a widening base of satisfied customers will serve as a sustainable source of profit for the independent travel service provider. However, the objective of higher customer satisfaction level can only be achieved if the company is able to increase its base of potential passengers which in actuality is the second objective that is specific to the requirement of the company. The objectives are very closely associated to each as one can only be attained if the other is accomplished. The fact can be evid enced with the third objective of the company which is to widen its products and service offerings (in terms of increasing number of destinations and types of trips) within five years of its launch. By doing so the company endeavours to attract greater number of passengers which in turn will provide them with the opportunity to offer superior quality services and hence, increase their customer base to a further level. Measureable: Gap 360 has to focus on increasing the amount of bookings done every year. In addition to that, they will also have to implement appropriate strategies in order to attain growth in the level of repeat sales per annum. As far as measurability of this objective is concerned, a target of 11,000 booking has been set which is to be achieved by 2016. On the other hand, a measurable target of 10% of the total bookings has been placed for repeat sales. Attainable: Given the size of the market in UK, the target that has been set in the section above is attainable.

UNO Peace Keeping Operation in Middle East Research Paper

UNO Peace Keeping Operation in Middle East - Research Paper Example Earlier after First World War, League of Nation was established for this purpose but it failed and Second World War started. In 1941 Franklin D. Roosevelt, the President of United States of America had a meeting with Winston Churchill, the Prime Minister of United Kingdom of Great Britain. It paved the way to Atlantic Charter, which referred to a set of principles to maintain global peace and cooperation among the comity of nations. After two years in 1943, both the leaders, along with Joseph Stalin of Russia, emphasized to establish an organization to maintain international peace. In 1944, at Dumbarton Oaks conference in Washington D.C., the first sketch of UN was drawn and in February 1945, these three leaders established a voting process for the United Nations (Webel and Galtung 2007, 95)1. In 1945, in San Francisco, legislative body of 50 countries had a joint agreement to save the world from the barbaric consequences of war. In addition, to maintain security UNO charter includes poverty reduction, providing health and education facilities and provide financial assistant to needy members (Barash and Webel, 2008) . To maintain peace in the world UNO has established special subsidiary known as United Nation peace keeping operation it help countries to deal with disturb and quarrelling areas. The major division of the United Nations for peacekeeping is Security Council. It has 15 members out of which five permanent member nations have the power to veto any kind of decision even if most of the members agree to a resolution. These permanent five members having power to veto any resolution are: France, Russia, China, United Kingdom, and United States of America. These countries took part in the formation of United Nations and defined certain norms for United Nations to be followed (Durch 1993, 23-85)3. Therefore, an entire change in their biased approach is strongly needed and their mistakes of past should not be repeated again. This revolutionary change can only take place if the members of the UN make proper and unbiased use of their veto power beyond any prejudice and ambiguity and merely in favour of justice. As per statistics of December 31,2010, there are about 1,23000 troops working at 16 sites under the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations(DPKO) in the four continents directly impacting hundreds and millions of people by saving their lives and providing security to the instable areas of the world. The UN peacekeeping operation does not have the troops of its own; instead it depends on the contribution by Member states, therefore, 115 countries have engaged their military and police personnel in line with UN peacekeeping mission (Collier and Hoeffler, 2004)4. The first task UNPKO took was during 1950’s .In 1960 one of complex and controversial task assign to UNPKO was Congo mission which lasted till June 1964.UN was successful in its mission but committed some mistakes ( Sitkowski 2006, 206-96)5. The UN peacekeeping force entered Congo as a neutral entity to enact law and order. After two years it started to support actively the Congolese government for the secession of the province of Katanga. The transformation of UN from a neutral peace keeper to an evident quarrelsome was observed. Although UN was succeeded in achieving its basic mission in Congo, but at the end of crisis it was not crowned as true peace keeper force (Barash and Webel 2008, 506)6. Similarly when the Beirut force was established, principles of

How Pizza Has Evolved Essay Example for Free

How Pizza Has Evolved Essay As of late, pizza throughout the United States is consumed on a daily basis. Each year, the pizza market is a $30 billion industry. However, during the early years of our country pizza could only be found in high Italian populated neighborhoods located in big cities like Chicago, New York City, and Philadelphia. Due to the increase in popularity and marketing strategies to compliment it, pizza went from peasant food in the 1700s to what it has become today. Marketing for pizza was born in 1993 by a pizzeria named Patsy’s. Patsy had the idea of having someone walk down the street eating a slice of their pizza to expose their product. It was genius because as a country our culture is very big on convenience and consistency. Since then marketing for pizza never looked back. Slices at the time were not considered normal but slowly changed peoples attitude about the whole idea. Since then marketing for pizza never looked back. Still the pizza market was small and not extremely profitable. It didn’t really take off until WWI when some troops returned home and expressed in the paper how handy and delicious it was over in Italy. This was great publicity because if the troops, who were stationed in Italy, say it is good it must have some truth in it. In our culture it is socially acceptable to be creative and an individual. So a couple troops created the deep dish pizza which was invented at a place called Pizza Uno in Chicago and they are still serving out pizzas today. As the country was growing and pizza was in more demand, the way about preparing and serving it had to evolve so it would be able to satisfy the consumer’s needs and wants. In 1958 two brothers created a Pizza place like none before. Pizza Hut today is an international franchise with over 6000 stores nationwide. In the beginning Pizza Hut only had one store, but as soon as they realized their business was doing well they expanded. Understanding what the consumers wanted out of their pizza parlor made it easy to branch out and provide their product to people all around the area as consistently as if it were at the original location. Dominos pizza took this idea further and then some. Since time is money and people are always on the go, Dominos was able to satisfy these demanding needs with several strategies. Instead of having to drop everything at that moment and go pick the pizza up, Dominos was able to bring the pizza right to the doorstep for free. To make their brand as consistent as possible and not have one person making a pizza differently from another store Dominos created a strong system for their company. Dominos was able to make a dumbed down process of constructing a pizza, and NASA’s hot air oven to give it that perfect cook every time. All of this was great but there was still a problem with the temperature upon arrival at someone’s house. So to fulfill the customer’s needs of warm pizza, thermal bags were created to sustain the heat for the ride in the car. Finally to push their product and service even further Dominos began to advertise to the customers about their new delivery in 30 minutes or less strategy. It showed that their product was consistent, reliable, and convenient. These two companies have perfected taste and how to serve it promptly to the customers but may be a little pricey at times. A fast and cost effective way to obtain a pizza other than ordering it from a pizzeria is picking one up at the local grocery store. This was just another way of eliminating the intermediaries and giving the people a more simplified choice. Kids have a strong influence in what their parents purchase for them. By placing the take home pizzas at eye level for kids in the freezer section, inclines parents to purchase them more unlike if they were placed up higher where kids would not notice them as much. In recent years customizing has really caught on in American society. Pizza is just another way people are able to express themselves and accomplish the status of individuality. California Pizza Kitchen was able to execute this on a nationwide scale and establish the title of a â€Å"nontraditional pizza co. † giving people the choice to make their pizza any way they like it. Pizza has been molded to form our culture and based off of that culture is how we were able to effectively satisfy the everyday needs and wants of consumers.

Conditions Under Which Decisions Are Made Essay Example for Free

Conditions Under Which Decisions Are Made Essay In that way you already have measures in place knowing that should you be in an accident you will have an alternative transport whilst your car is being fixed. Also when you buy a TV, you are usually given one year guarantee and you can get more years at an extra cost. In this instance you know that should the year be over and you had added two years more, and your TV has a problem maybe in the second year, you can take it back as it will still be under guarantee because you would have added more years to cover it. Risk This is when individuals can define a problem, specify the probability of certain events, identify alternative solutions, and state the probability of each solution leading to the desired result. Like in the case of construction, the construction cost overrun risk has a possibility that during the design and construction phase, the actual project costs will exceed projected costs as a result of weather, supplier’s shortage, labour and subcontractor performance. In this case the probability that this will happen will be dependent on past weather records, and experience of the contractor. A decision is made under risk when a supervisor or superior can list all possibilities of outcomes with the decision that has been made and state the probability of each outcome. There are two types of probabilities, there is an objective probability whereby the supervisor or manager assigns probability based on experience or similar situations and there is a subjective probability whereby the supervisor or manager has little experience with a the decision made or no data at all. This type of probability is based on personal experience or gut feel. For example, a manager decides to spend R2500. 00 on a shoe advertisement believing there are three possible outcomes for the advertisement, a 30% chance the advertisement will have only a small effect on sales, a 50% chance of a moderate effect, and a 20% chance of a very large effect. This decision is made under risk because the manager can list each potential outcome and determine the probability of each outcome occurring. Uncertainty This is when an individual does not have the necessary information to assign probabilities to the outcomes of alternative solutions. In cases of uncertainty the alternative solutions and problems are both unclear. Uncertainty exists when a decision maker cannot list all possible outcomes and/or cannot assign probabilities to the various outcomes. When faced with uncertainty, a manager would know only the different decision options available and the different possible states of nature. The states of nature are the future events or conditions that can influence the final outcome or payoff of a decision but cannot be controlled or affected by the manager. An example of a decision made under uncertainty would be, for a company in South Africa to open a branch say in Zambia producing products that have never been sold in that country. In this instance the is uncertainty as to whether the product will sell or not because they are not sure how the people of that country will receive hence a lot of money will be put in that project.