Online networking and virtual communities of practice have proven to be successful in providing teachers with feelings of professionalism and with improving teacher performance. For a virtual community of practice to be successful, members must be able to use certain computer and Internet technologies and they must be willing to both share information and to use the resource as source of information. This study builds on the body of knowledge in this area by specifically assessing the attitudes of nutrition education paraprofessionals towards the adoption and use of an online networking and virtual community of practice resource. The participants for this study were nutrition education paraprofessionals currently working with The University of Tennessee Extension as Program Assistants with the Tennessee Nutrition Consumer Education Program (TNCEP). The study had three objectives: (a) to assess the participants’ comfort level with various computer and Internet technologies, (b) to assess the participants’ attitudes towards motivations and barriers for sharing information, and (c) to assess the participants’ attitudes towards potential uses of a virtual community of practice and how the use of such a resource might affect efficiency and effectiveness of nutrition education program programming. An online survey instrument was used to collect data. Analysis of the results indicated that the study participants were comfortable using the computer and Internet technologies needed to participate in a virtual community of practice. Data also reflected a positive attitude towards both sharing information through a virtual community of practice and towards using the resource as a source of information.

In this thesis, a model to analyze land use in a multi-county region of the Southeastern United States is presented. Farmer planting decisions are assumed to follow a non-stationary first order Markov decision process. The non-stationary transition probabilities are estimated as a function of the prior year‟s land usage and a set of exogenous variables using annual county level data from 1981 to 2005 using the maximum entropy method suggested by Golan et al. (1996). The transition probabilities are applied to each county‟s prior period crop production to estimate crop production in the current period. The model is graphically validated. A discussion is included on difficulties encountered in estimation of the model. Acreage elasticities are estimated and used to analyze the marginal effects of the explanatory variables on crop land use.

This thesis deals with two related topics under the theme of ―Analyzing Poverty in the Southern United States‖. The first part explores the role of government healthcare and education expenditure for poverty reduction, focusing particularly on how these relationships change over space and time in the Southern United States. It is found that healthcare expenditure is a significant contributor to poverty alleviation in both 1990 and 2000. The healthcare expenditure has a relatively high poverty-reducing effect in the Texas cluster and in the west part of the Mississippi Delta cluster in both years, while the poverty-reducing effect of healthcare expenditures disappears in 2000 in the Central Appalachia cluster. The effect of government expenditures on education decreased over time in the west part of the Mississippi Delta cluster but the education expenditure began to have a poverty-reducing effect in the Central Appalachia cluster in 2000. The second part focuses on disentangling the relationship between urban sprawl and poverty in the Southern United States. Results show that an increase in urban sprawl, as measured by wildland-urban interface (WUI), is associated with an increase in the urban poverty rate. The positive interrelationship between urban poverty and area of sprawl in metro counties supports the theoretical framework that urban poverty is both cause and effect of urban sprawl. With no other direct or indirect association between the poverty rate and urban sprawl, the positive interrelationship is explained by the movement of business centers to the suburban areas by sprawl development and immobility of the poor and the middle and upper class households‘ preference for the neighborhoods with lower poverty rates.

The 2004 Fair and Equitable Tobacco Reform Act, commonly referred to as the Tobacco Buyout Program, ended the federal tobacco program. This act ended price supports and quotas, and also ended reporting requirements. The tobacco industry is now faced with new challenges in tobacco production as they have scant information to base production decisions on. The 2006 Burley Tobacco Survey provides an initial outlook of future production, challenges, trends and expectations. The results from the survey were used to analyze future production decisions. An ordered logit model reveals that producers who received prices of $1.65/lb or more, have farms in excess of 250 acres, received less than 10 percent of total gross farm receipts from tobacco, are 34 years old or younger, or have a graduate or professional degree are more likely to continue burley tobacco production in 2007. Farmers with gross agricultural receipts of $9,999 or less, those who make higher amounts in terms of net household income, and those producers who are from North Carolina are less likely to continue production in 2007.

The purpose of this study is to examine burley tobacco growers decision making processes as they pertain to labor usage during the harvest of their crop and adoption rates of mechanical harvesting technology in order to create a laudable document that could be used by those who disseminate knowledge in agricultural communities. This study sought to compare current conventional harvesting methods to mechanical harvesting methods to determine efficiency and affordability of each of the two methods for the tobacco grower. This study incorporated both survey data and focus group data in order to develop the findings herein. Survey data were used to examine burley tobacco growing regions in order to effectively site focus groups and to collect descriptive statistics on burley tobacco growers. Focus groups were conducted in Kentucky and Tennessee, the two major burley tobacco producing states in the southeast. There were 41 growers who participated in the focus groups with burley acreages ranging from 9 – 350 acres and years experience of tobacco production ranging from 3 – 60 years. The study revealed overall that growers were very satisfied with their conventional labor practices. The growers were reluctant to invest in mechanical harvesting technology due to uncertainty about the future of the burley tobacco market, inefficiency of the machines, cost of the harvesters and the availability of migrant labor. Survey data that were collected directly correlate with focus group findings, and recommendations for further study are provided in this thesis.

Under the theme of ¨DRezoning Decisions Associated with Housing Price, Land Use Plan, and Urban Sprawl: Empirical Estimations¡¬, this thesis consists of two research with two related topics. The first part analyzes the dynamics of zoning structure and accommodates the neighborhood spillover effects associated with the real estate market, focusing particularly neighborhood spillover effects between rezoning of vacant parcels and housing price. It is found that the price of a house is positively influenced by the prices of other houses in its neighborhood but the rezoning status of a vacant parcel in a neighboring location plays an insignificant role in explaining the price of a house. The contrasting results of neighborhood spillover effects between rezoning and housing price clarify the direction of association between rezoning and housing price. The second part examines whether the manipulation of land use plan influences spatial development patterns in Knoxville area. It is hypothesized that rezoning approvals from undevelopable land classifications to developable land classifications are affected by the area currently designated for agricultural-rural residential use. The results show that the average distances between the closest parcels identified as preexisting development and parcels predicted to be approved for developable land classification drop under the hypothetical land use plan scenarios with expanded area designated for agricultural-rural residential use. The drops of the average distances are due to the increases in the frequency of denials of rezoning petitions for development in the area expanded for agricultural-rural residential uses. These results indicate that a manipulation of agricultural-rural residential use areas encourages rezoning for development closer to the area of preexisting development, and thereby reduces urban sprawl.

This thesis is an analysis and description of pollution problems caused by large feedlots in Utah. A description of pollution caused by cattle feedlots is undertaken as part of the study. The 26 feedlots analyzed had a capacity to/or did feed over 1,000 head. They were broken down into four groups on the basis of their pollution problems: those having no apparent pollution problem, those having minor problems, those having major problems, and those requiring relocation. The cost impact of meeting environmental standards with regard to runoff control was found to be very slight for the cattle feeding industry as a whole - only 18 cents per head fed on the average. The feedlots with minor problems averaged costs of slightly over 2 cents per head fed. The feedlots with major problems averaged costs of almost 5 cents per head fed using the least cost method of natural evaporation ponds and mechanical disposal systems. The feedlots requiring relocation were most affected, as they averaged $1.15 per head fed loss in value of assets through relocating.

This thesis considered the potential benefits of employing linear programming in cheese manufacturing plant as a decision tool for management. Its potential has been enhanced by the recent approval of acid orange 12 as a chemical for testing the percent protein in milk; therefore , a practical test is now available for monitoring protein as well as milk fat in milk manufacturing and fluid milk plants. Seven models , each one differing only in the milk fat and protein percentages or means of standardizing the cheese milk, were manipulated individually and simultaneously to test the managerial benefits of linear programming under various plant and market conditions. Each model consisted of five cheese activities or variables , two butter activities, three powder activities, and a selling activity for each product produced. The maximum price that could be paid the farm producer per hundred weight of milk and the minimum wholesale price per pound of manufactured product , to cover variable costs were determined for each variety of cheese and composition of milk. 7nere ·~as a cie;'ini t.e int.eract.ion between eacn of the activities. ~n~s causea the cos~ to nroduce a pound of cneese to vary according to t.ne alternative uses for milk, cream, ski~,ilk, and whey, ,J,ocn the simulated plant was beinl' utilized at or near full capacity and the cheese milk was standardized with non fat dry milk powder , total cheese yield increased as did tot.al profits , Wnen the plant was not beinl' utilize to :ull capacity, profits were hi~ner by not standardizing.

This study estimated the 1972 costs and returns, and analyzed the physical response and economic relationships of corn hybrids for silage and grain production in some counties of Utah. Average size of enterprise, land value and equipment value were estimated for silage and grain corn production in Utah. Labor requirements for land preparation, growing and harvesting of silage and grain corn production were averaged. Net returns a nd costs (variable and fixed) for s ilage and grain corn production were computed in 30 farms of 15 counties of Utah to find the total production cost. Yields, total cost, total revenue and economic profit for the hybrid seed varieties for silage and grain corn trials established in 1971 and 1972 are presented in the corresponding tables.

Through the use of a regionalized Linear Programming model, a profit maximized optimal solution was obtained for livestock feed and product production for a selected base year (1979). Production data, seasonality, transfer activities, and herd liquidation are developed for ten feeds and seven livestock products and incorporated within the model. Two drought induced simulations were imposed affecting feed production and feed prices, procuring new optimal results. Drought is simulated by the use of crop-weather indexes and range response equations. Results are discussed and presented in tables for the base year and drought simulations. Results include profits, costs, feed and livestock production, transfer activities , and herd liquidation. Seasonality of feeds, allocation of f eeds, and shadow prices are also analyzed. Policy implications and recommendations are presented.