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Redistribution of mechanical output from the ankle to the hip during walking occurs with advanced age. Changes to tissues spanning the ankle may limit the joint from performing mechanical functions necessary to walk at fast speeds and older adults may redistribute work proximally to compensate. Older adults with Parkinson’s disease (PD) do not exhibit the distal-to-proximal redistribution and may therefore be limited in reaching fast walking speeds. We tested whether advanced aging, regardless of the presence of PD, limits the ability to increase motor-like behavior of the ankle as walking speed increases. We also tested whether healthy older adults—but not PD patients—would compensate for reduced motor-like behavior at the ankle with disproportionately larger mechanical redistributions at faster speeds. The 16 young, 16 older, and 8 PD-diagnosed adults walked at 0.8, 1.2, and 1.6 ms−1 on a treadmill. We used joint functional indexing to quantify motor-like behavior of the ankle and a hip-to-ankle mechanical work ratio to quantify mechanical redistribution. We found a significant group x speed interaction (p < 0.05) for motor-like behavior of the ankle, with younger adults increasing motor index more than the older and PD groups as walking speed increased. Contrary to our second hypothesis, we found a significant main effect of speed (p < 0.001) on redistribution ratios, indicating that all three groups decreased redistribution ratios as walking speed increased, but not a significant interaction.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the research propositions set out by Harrison-Walker (2012) with regard to the relationships between the perceived cause of a service failure and the resulting consumer emotions. The premise is that when a service failure occurs, the customer's specific emotional reaction depends on the customer's perception of why the service failure occurred in the first place. This paper examines six perceived causes and their relationship to six specific emotions.

To establish criterion and construct validity of a novel, clinically feasible assessment of lower-extremity dexterity for PD patients.Thirty-three PD patients performed a unilateral lower-extremity dexterity task "off" and "on" dopaminergic medications with each leg. The task involves iteratively tapping targets with the foot in a specified pattern, and the measured outcome is the time to complete the movement sequence, with longer times indicating worse performance. We correlated leg movement time with standard, validated measures of gait (comfortable and maximal walk speeds), general mobility (timed up and go), upper-extremity dexterity (9-Hole Pegboard), and elements of the Unified Parkinson Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS).We found significant relationships between lower extremity dexterity and each of these tasks "off" and "on" medications. Task performance also captures known features of PD, including dopamine-mediated improvement in performance and asymmetrical symptom presentation.This task provides a simple assessment of lower extremity function that correlates with validated measures of dexterity, gait, and mobility. It provides objective, continuous data, is inexpensive, requires little technical expertise/equipment, has a small physical footprint, and can be administered quickly. These features increase the feasibility of implementing this assessment tool in clinical settings.Implications for rehabilitationWe introduce a novel task that captures lower extremity dexterity in individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD).The task is validated against gold standard measures of upper extremity dexterity, gait, and general mobility.Performance on the task is sensitive to known features of PD, including dopamine-mediated improvements and asymmetrical symptom presentation.The task is easy to implement and provides higher quality data compared to other common clinical assessments (e.g., MDS-UPDRS).

When performing a demanding cognitive task, internal distraction in the form of task-irrelevant thoughts and mind wandering can shift our attention away from the task, negatively affecting task performance. Behaviorally, individuals with higher executive function indexed by higher working memory capacity (WMC) exhibit less mind wandering during cognitive tasks, but the underlying neural mechanisms are unknown. To address this problem, we recorded functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from subjects performing a cued visual attention task, and assessed their WMC in a separate experiment. Applying machine learning and time-series analysis techniques, we showed that (1) higher WMC individuals experienced lower internal distraction through stronger suppression of posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) activity, (2) higher WMC individuals had better neural representations of attended information as evidenced by higher multivoxel decoding accuracy of cue-related activities in the dorsal attention network (DAN), (3) the positive relationship between WMC and DAN decoding accuracy was mediated by suppression of PCC activity, (4) the dorsal anterior cingulate (dACC) was a source of top-down signals that regulate PCC activity as evidenced by the negative association between Granger-causal influence dACC→PCC and PCC activity levels, and (5) higher WMC individuals exhibiting stronger dACC→PCC Granger-causal influence. These results shed light on the neural mechanisms underlying the executive suppression of internal distraction in tasks requiring externally oriented attention and provide an explanation of the individual differences in such suppression.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of emotions that consumers experience following service failures and to assess the effects of each of these emotions on important behavioral outcomes. Design/methodology/approach This paper extends the work of Wetzer et al. (2007) and draws upon the existing literature to test a series of research hypotheses tying emotions to four important behavioral outcomes primarily using stepwise regression. Findings When a service failure occurs, customers experience any of a variety of negative emotions. The effect on behavioral outcomes depends on the specific emotion experienced by the consumer. The current research, which benefits by using retrospective experience sampling, finds that frustration is the predominant emotion experienced by customers following service failure, but that anger, regret and frustration affect behavioral outcomes. Uncertainty also plays a role. Research limitations/implications Future research should investigate the antecedents of propensity for emotions and predisposition toward industries, as well as the consequences of word-of-mouth (WOM) praise and WOM activity. Additionally, emotions could be examined by service stage. Several other moderators could be investigated, including severity, complaining behavior, repeat occurrence, service importance, remedies and forgiveness, product vs process failures, tenure, gender and age. Practical implications The current research emphasizes the importance of understanding which emotion is being experienced by a customer following service failure to identify the behavioral outcomes that will be most impacted. The specific managerial implications depend upon the specific emotional response experienced by the customer and are discussed separately for anger, regret and frustration. Service personnel must be trained to recognize and address specific customer emotions rather than to provide a canned or generalized response. Originality/value To date, there has been little, if any, systematic research into the effects of multiple discrete negative emotions on multiple desirable behavioral outcomes. The current study examines six discrete emotions. Predominant emotions are differentiated from emotional intensity. The behavioral outcomes of reconciliation and reduced share-of-wallet are added to the traditional outcomes of repatronage intentions and negative WOM. While existing research tends to rely on a scenario approach, this study uses the retrospective experience sampling method. The authors distinguish between mixed emotions and multiple emotions. The relative effects of disappointment and regret are examined for each of the four outcomes. Finally, importance-performance map analysis was applied to the findings to prioritize managerial attention. Numerous managerial and research implications are identified.

In recent years, there have been concerns about research practices in basic and preclinical biomedical research. There have been problems with non-replicable results, and experimental designs lacking internal validity or external or translational validity. The Experimental Design Accelerator (XDA) is Internet-based, interactive software designed to help those trying to design, conduct and document rigorous, replicable and relevant experiments. It leads the investigator step-by-step through a series of decisions that will define the experimental design. It provides background regarding the significance of each decision and the advantages and disadvantages of each possible choice. For example, it leads the researcher to address issues such as choosing a research model, developing testable hypotheses, identifying extraneous variables, dealing with random and systematic error, picking appropriate sample size and picking appropriate statistical analyses. There are also sections to help conduct the experiment consistent with its design and to document the study to facilitate accurate replication. Helpful features include access to an online statistics book and provisions for rapid contact with consulting experts. A number of potential uses for such novel interactive software tools will be discussed.

Service failures occur when the service provided is less than adequate or fails to live up to the customer's expectations. When service failures inevitably occur, providers implement recovery strategies such as apologizing, offering compensation, or allowing customers to voice their concerns. However, such strategies do not always lead to desired outcomes such as repatronage intentions, reduced negative WOM, or reconciliation. The current research explores the very rich concept of forgiveness with regard to service recovery and empirically examines the links among recovery strategies, customer forgiveness and recovery outcomes. Although differences in terms of optimal recovery strategies depend on industry type, forgiveness is demonstrated to mediate the relationship between recovery strategies and desirable outcomes, suggesting that forgiveness be included in all future models of service recovery.

PurposeThe primary purpose of this paper is to explore the role of emotions that consumers experience as a result of assigning causal attributions to service failures. The secondary purpose is to consider the effects of each of these emotions on behavioral outcomes.Design/methodology/approachThis paper extends the work of Wetzer, Zeelenberg, and Pieters regarding emotions and draws upon the existing literature to present a series of research propositions tying attributions to emotions and emotions to behavioral outcomes.FindingsWhen a service failure occurs, customers experience any of a variety of negative emotions. The particular emotional reaction depends on the customer's perception of why the service failure occurred in the first place. Behavioral outcomes associated with service recovery therefore depend directly on the negative emotion and indirectly on the customer's perception of the cause.Practical implicationsTo the extent that marketing managers can frame the cause of the service failure in their post‐failure communications, recovery satisfaction may be increased leading, in turn, to more positive customer response outcomes. The specific managerial implications depend upon the emotional response experienced by the customer.Originality/valueResearch to date looking at causal attributions in service failure is limited to attributions based on stability and controllability and ties them to very few emotions; this paper identifies six attributions and ties each to a specific emotion. The behavioral outcomes of reconciliation and share‐of‐wallet are added to the traditional outcomes of repatronage intentions and negative word‐of‐mouth.

Marketing plays a significant role in the value of a company, and thus has an impact on the value of the common stock. Yet, the significance of marketing in determining the value of a company and its common stock is not clearly recognized in finance. While financial theory relies heavily on estimates of future revenue streams to predict the firm's ability to cover operational costs and generate profits for shareholders, financial theory usually takes marketing as a ‘given’ in financial analysis. The ability of marketing to generate various revenue streams for the firm (depending on strategic objectives) is often over‐simplified. This paper examines the role and significance of marketing in determining the value of the firm, and the price of its common stock.