Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2005. / Title from PDF title page screen. Advisor: Marion O'Brien; submitted to the School of Human Environmental Sciences. Includes bibliographical references (p. 68-84).

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Delaware, 2007. / Principal faculty advisor: Bahira Sherif-Trask, Individual & Family Studies. Includes bibliographical references.

Zugl.: Bielefeld, Universiẗat, Diss., 2006.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 126-135).

Texte remanié de: Diss.--Evangelisch-Theologische Fakultät--Universität Tübingen, 1989.

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston University / It is the purpose of this thesis to find out the steps by which the agency's staff try to help children with pathological factors achieve adoption status. The writer presents the following questions: 1) What is the nature of the pathology in the parental and family background which makes adoption questionable? 2) Nature of pathology in the child? 3) What are the resources and methods used to help the child achieve adoption status? 4) What ere the factors which finally determine the chiLlds adoptability?

The purpose of this thesis is to make an exploratory study of the basic and immediate psychosocial factors which may intensify the concern which some adolescent foster children show about the natural parents from which they were permanently separated at an early age. The study includes : 1. A brief description of bow the child's concern may be intensified (a) by broad social factors which vary according to the cultural definition of the importance to the child of being reared by "biological" parents (b) by the problems of adolescence in this culture's family life. 2. A description of the intensifying factors derived from a review of relevant literature in the fields of social work, social psychology and psychiatry. 3. An identification and description of the factors in the cases of seven adolescent foster children who, according to two experienced social workers, showed Intense concern about their unknown natural parents. The review of the literature provided a tentative frame of reference for use in exploring the case records. Some factors which were described seemed related to the foster child's early developmental years, others seemed more related to the particular psychosocial problems of adolescence. Suggestions for further research and social work diagnosis were drawn from the study. The concern of the adolescent foster child about his unknown natural parents seems related to his own particular life experiences. Careful study of the individual child should be made before the matter of telling the child about the parents is approached by the social worker. Further orientation of foster parents with regard to this problem seems indicated. Special treatment for certain children with pathological life experiences of which their concern about parents seems to be symptomatic is also suggested. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

Ideally, the adopted child should be placed with parents and in a home that offers a reasonable guarantee for health and happiness. If this goal is not achieved, or is threatened, it is important to determine what factors in the placement procedure have been influential, or overlooked. With this theme in mind, this thesis makes an exploratory study of the cases of twenty-eight adopted children who attended the Vancouver Child Guidance Clinic in a period of two years (1953-1955). The social work foundations and principles of adoption practice are discussed in a preliminary chapter. Following this, the Child Guidance Clinic case records of twenty-eight adopted children are analysed, and the pertinent statistical material found therein is tabulated. Less tangible factors such as parental attitudes and feelings about the adopted child are dealt with descriptively. Case studies attempt an over-all picture of the adopted child's life experiences. The findings reveal (a) that in many of the cases studied, one parent had not been in favour of the spouse's plan to adopt a child, or that, one or both of the parents were disappointed in the child they received; (b) that many of the parents in the study group seemed to be over-demanding of the child; (c) that each adopted child presented a combination of behavious problems to the Clinic. The study underlines, for social workers responsible for placing adoptable children (1) the need for thorough investigation of the home and the prospective parents' attitudes about children as well as adults generally; (2) the responsibilities for helping prospective adoptive parents with their uncertainties about the whole adoption process; and (3) the need for supervision of the adoptive home during the adoption probation period. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

The forest sector is traditionally viewed as stagnant and non-innovative in comparison to higher-value added industries. The sector is being challenged by environmental, market and consumer changes at home and internationally. To combat these challenges, forestry firms must undergo a transformation in their activities, including their production methods by producing innovative and sustainable products and materials. This involves investing in innovation, advanced technologies and new products. The purpose of this study is to understand the impact of adoption of advanced manufacturing technologies on firm performance in the Canadian forest sector. The study is based on data from the 2007 Survey of Advanced Technology and interviews with technology adopters. The differences between technology adopters and non-adopters in terms of capital investment, R&D, training, management practices and innovation were analyzed. The findings suggest that the adoption of advanced technologies is important for the realizations of innovations. Firms which were both innovative and adopted technology were most likely to report improvements in performance post-adoption.

The situations and problems that police officers face are more complex in today’s society, due in part to the increase of technology and growing complexity of globalization. Accordingly, to solve these problems and deal with the complexities, law enforcement organizations develop and apply new techniques and methods such as geographic information systems (GIS). However, the successful implementation of a new technology does not just depend on providing perfect technical support, but effective and active interaction between the user and system. For this reason, research examining user acceptance of GIS technologies provides a valuable source to investors and designers to predict whether the results of the technology will meet user expectations; understanding the factors that influence user acceptance is vitally important to make the system more usable and preferable. This study attempts to explain Turkish National Police officers’ beliefs about and behaviors toward GIS applications by using the technology acceptance models. It contributes to the technology acceptance literature by testing the proposed model in a rarely studied organization: law enforcement. Regarding methodology, I distributed a survey questionnaire in Turkey; the unit of analysis was the law enforcement officers in the Turkish National Police (TNP). In order to analyze the data derived from the survey instrument, structural equation modeling (SEM), a multivariate statistical technique, was used to analyze the quantitative data by utilizing the AMOS 16.0 software. The analysis resulted in good model fit, and 6 of the 7 hypotheses were supported.