Materials for and implementation of a course in government nutrition education programs taught by personalized system of instruction (PSI) is described. Twenty-four students learned by progressing through nine units of written objectives, reading assignments and tests at their own pace. Ninety percent mastery was required to pass unit tests and tests were retaken without penalty until the criterion was met. Three course assistants, called proctors, provided immediate individualized scoring of unit tests. Twenty-two students received an A for the course; one student, a B; one student completed only one unit and received an F. Course evaluations reflected positive student and proctor attitudes toward course material and the PSI method. Four factors correlated with final exam performance: quality cumulative average (QCA), the number of unit test retakes, total unit test errors and working rate. High ability students out-performed low ability students on the final exam. Students with fewer test retakes and errors generally did better on the final exam than students who took more tests to achieve the 90 percent mastery criterion or who made more test errors. Those who began taking tests early in the term had higher final exam grades than those who began later in the term. / Master of Science

Fifteen healthy preadolescent girls served as subjects in this 34-day study. The subjects were equally divided into 3 groups which were rotated through a feeding schedule enabling each subject to consume 30, 60, and 90 grams of protein for periods of 10 or 11 days. All urine was collected daily throughout the experiment and analyzed for nitrogen and creatinine. On the third day of each period, urine was collected from 8 - 12 a.m., 12 - 4 p.m., and 8 p.m. - 8 a.m. The mean amounts of creatinine excreted daily by subjects consuming 30, 60, and 90 grams of protein differs significantly at the 1% level. There was also significant diurnal variation at the 5% level in the urinary nitrogen/creatinine ratio among subjects consuming both 30 and 90 grams of protein. The heaviest group of excreted the greatest amount of creatinine, and the lightest group of subjects, the lowest mean of creatinine, in each period. The greatest mean diurnal creatinine excretion of subjects on Day 3 of each period occurred from 8 - 12 a.m. In the author’s opinion, urinary nitrogen/creatinine ratio is insufficiently constant from voiding to voiding serve as a reliable index of protein nutriture in metabolic studies. The apparent contribution of lean body mass to creatinine excretion points to the need for experimental diets which are controlled for preformed creatine and creatinine in order to gain a greater understanding of the true effect of dietary protein level on creatinine excretion. / Master of Science

Strict anaerobic culture techniques were used to enumerate the anaerobic bacteria present in three soil sites located along a drainage catena near Blacksburg, Virginia. An anaerobic cooked meat plus 0.5% glucose medium cultured the largest number of anaerobes from the poorly drained soil. The population of obligate anaerobes ranged from 10⁶/ g dry weight soil on the poorly drained soil (% moisture = 112.06) to 10⁵/g dry weight soil on the intermediate soil (% moisture = 34.51) to 10⁴/g dry weight soil on the well drained soil (% moisture 20.81). The population of organisms able to grow anaerobically (facultative plus obligate) ranged from 10⁶/g dry weight soil on the poorly drained site to 10⁵/g dry weight soil on the well drained site. This same population on the poorly drained site was relatively constant over a nine month period with the exception of a sharp rise in early spring. The clostridia constituted at least one third of the obligately anaerobic bacteria present on the poorly drained soil. A sizeable percentage of the obligate anaerobic isolates on this site were either clostridia which formed spores unable to germinate in the medium employed, clostridia which were very pleomorphic in cell shape and gram reaction, or nonsporeforming obligate anaerobes. These results indicate that strict anaerobes and possibly nonsporeforming strict anaerobes exist in soils of different drainage character even though facultative organisms appear to be more successful competitors on the more well drained sites. / Master of Science

Detta examensarbete beskriver i detalj hur ICC-profiler fo¨r utskriftsmedier, i detta fall fo¨r storformatskrivare, skapas. Examensarbetet omfattade framtagande av ICC-profiler fo¨r substrat till storformatskrivaren Mutoh Toucan PJ-1614NXE (Mutoh Toucan) hos BEMI REKLAM AB (BEMI), Borla¨nge. Fo¨retaget har tidigare anva¨nt en standardlinja¨risering till samtliga substrat fo¨r storformatskrivaren, dock utan att applicera na°gon ICC-profil fo¨r utenheter. Samtliga substrat till Mutoh Toucan a¨r avsedda fo¨r utomhusbruk.