Development of a compact high-current repetitive pulsed x-ray system.

Pulsed x-rays are crucial for various applications such as radiography, biological effects, and the system-generated electromagnetic pulse effect. X rays with a higher dose rate and a higher total dose can generate more significant radiation effects and more effective radiography. However, most pulsed sub-100 keV x-ray systems with high dose rates operate in the single pulse mode with limited total dose, and most repetitive pulsed x-ray systems have a low dose rate. This paper develops a compact high-current repetitive pulsed x-ray system with a low-impedance diode to generate high dose rate pulsed x-rays with an average energy below 100 keV. A diode with a double-ring cathode is designed and tested to produce uniform pulsed x-rays. In order to investigate the x-ray intensity and the pulse number of repetitions for different anode thicknesses, five typical thicknesses are tested. The experimental results show that this system can operate stably at a repetitive rate of 0.2 Hz with a peak voltage of about 200 kV and a peak current of about 100 kA. The dose rate is about 2.4 × 105 Gy(LiF)/s, and the average x-ray energy is about 55 keV with the 40 µm thick tantalum anode. The x-ray uniformity is better than 2:1 over the measuring plane.

Preference Reversals Between Joint and Separate Evaluations With Multiple Alternatives and Context Effects.

Most research on preference reversal (PR) focuses on the evaluability hypothesis with one or two alternatives. However, people normally encounter more than two options in daily life. In this research, a third option was added to the PR effect choice sets in the traditional joint-separate evaluations mode to create a context effect. Three studies were conducted. Studies 1 and 2 showed that adding a third option to the choice sets changed the PR effect; either the attributes were both important or one was important and the other was not. Study 3 showed that the PR effect reappeared when a third option was added to the choice sets that had no PR effect with just two attributes that were difficult to evaluate independently in traditional evaluations modes. The three studies confirmed that preferences changed in multi-alternative evaluation modes, contradicting Hsee's (1996) work and showing that the context effect is stronger than that of the attribute's importance in the PR effect.

Burger or yogurt? Indulgent consumption in impression management contexts.

We conducted three studies to investigate indulgent choice in settings with and without impression management by public-private manipulation with evaluation. Study 1 showed that the participants were less indulgent under public scrutiny due to the employment of impression management. Study 2 focused on the impression management context to test the moderate effect of self-consciousness in two impression managed contexts. Study 3 focused on context without impression management to test the moderate effects of self-awareness on choices. We found that depending on differences in primed personality, individuals tended to make choices other than those they favoured privately when anticipating that others might form impressions of them based on the decisions made. The findings of all three studies support our basic prediction that people are less indulgent under impression management and suggest that people tend to manage their impression by eating healthier (less indulgently) in public.

The effects of valence-based and discrete emotional states on aesthetic response.

There is increasing recognition that consumer aesthetics--the responses of consumers to the aesthetic or appearance aspects of products--has become an important area of marketing in recent years. Consumer aesthetic responses to a product are a source of pleasure for the consumer. Previous research into the aesthetic responses to products has often emphasized exterior factors and visual design, but studies have seldom considered the psychological aesthetic experience of consumers, and in particular their emotional state. This study attempts to bridge this gap by examining the link between consumers' emotions and their aesthetic response to a product. Thus, the major goal of this study was to determine how valence-based and discrete emotional states influence choice. In Studies 1 and 2, positive and negative emotions were manipulated to implement two different induction techniques and explore the effect of emotions on participants' choices in two separate experiments. The results of both experiments confirmed the predictions, indicating that aesthetic responses and purchase intention are functions of emotional valence, such that both are stronger for people in a positive emotional state than for those in a negative emotional state. Study 2 also used a neutral affective state to establish the robustness of this observed effect of incidental affect. The results of Study 3 demonstrate that aesthetic response and purchase intention are not only a function of affect valence, but also are affected by the certainty appraisal associated with specific affective states. This research, therefore, contributes to the literature by offering empirical evidence that incidental affect is a determinant of aesthetic response.

The impact of self-confidence on the compromise effect.

This research reports an investigation into whether the personality aspect of self-confidence affects the compromise effect. We hypothesize that highly self-confident people have greater certainty in making decisions and are more attracted to risk-taking, which makes them less likely to choose the safe or middle option in a large choice set. The three studies involved are conducted using between- and within-subjects experimental designs. Various product categories are used to generalize the findings. Study 1 looks at purchasing decisions and utilizes three scales of self-confidence, risk preference, and uncertainty; it demonstrates that consumers with high self-confidence are less likely to choose a compromise option due to high certainty in their decision-making. Study 2 discovers that people with low self-confidence are more likely to choose the middle option in a risky condition than in a nonrisky condition. Study 3 decomposes self-confidence into general and specific self-confidence, and reveals that people with low general self-confidence and low specific self-confidence are more likely to choose the middle option.