Computer simulations are increasingly recognized as educational tools that facilitate students' learning in a safe environment. However, the way in which the simulations are used can have considerable impact on learning outcomes. Some have argued that exploratory learning is an effective strategy for learning new materials; but others have expressed concern that allowing free exploration may result in less efficient, or even inaccurate, learning and therefore encourage more guided exploration. The purpose of this research is to compare learning outcomes of nursing students in a critical care course when using an interactive computer simulation designed to teach fundamentals of oxygenation management under two exploratory learning methods (free versus guided exploration). The conceptual framework for the study was derived from the Informatics Research Organizing Model. The experimental study used a pretest-posttest design. Students in an existing or just finished critical care course were invited to participate in the study. Following a pretest that included a paper and pencil assessment of students' oxygenation management knowledge and two computer-generated clinical scenarios, students were encouraged to learn about the simulation using either guided or free exploration. The Guided Exploration group was given tasks to achieve, while the Free Exploration group was asked to learn about the instructional oxygenation management simulation without any specific tasks. Students then completed a posttest that was identical to the pretest with the addition of one novel clinical scenario to assess knowledge transfer. The results of data analysis using paired t-tests showed no significant differences in learning in the post test for the total group. The independent t-test showed no differences in the mean score between the Free and Guided Exploration groups.

Žemės ūkis yra ir visada buvo esminė ekonomikos dalis. Taip yra visose šalyse visame pasaulyje. Daug kas siekia būti savarankiški, bet tai pavyksta ne visais atvejais. Lietuva yra šalis, apdovanota derlingomis žemėmis, be to, mes gyvename toje pasaulio dalyje, kur klimatas vis dar yra palankus žemės ūkiui. Ūkininkavimo metodai ir maisto produktų gamyba smarkiai keitėsi laikui bėgant. Susirūpinimas aplinkos apsauga ir svarstymai dėl gyvulių gerovės Lietuvoje plinta kaip ir visoje Europoje. Ekologinis ūkininkavimas - tai tausojančiosios ūkininkavimo sistemos dalis ir gyvybinga alternatyva tradiciniam ūkininkavimui. Ekologinis ūkininkavimas skiriasi nuo įprasto, nes atsisakoma sintetinių pesticidų, herbicidų, cheminių trąšų, augimą skatinančių hormonų ar manipuliavimo genais. Ekologiniai ūkiai naudoja įvairią techniką, padedančią palaikyti ekosistemas ir sumažinti taršą. Laikantis būtinų produkcijos kokybės standartų, gaunamas mažesnis pirminės produkcijos kiekis, palyginti su tradiciniu ūkininkavimu, tad išauga ekologiškos produkcijos gamybos kaštai. Augalinės produkcijos ekologiniame ūkyje pagrindas - dirvožemio struktūros ir derlingumo gerinimas. Ekologiniu būdu gali būti auginami ne tik grūdai, vaisiai bei daržovės, kopiamas medus. Galvijai ir paukščiai ekologiškai auginami, laikantis gyvulių gerovės standartų bei šeriant juos natūraliais produktais. / Agriculture is and has always been an essential part of the economy. This is all the countries around the world. Many who seek to be independent, but this is not successful in all cases. Lithuania is the country awarded the fertile earth, in addition, we live in that part of the world where the climate is still favorable for agriculture. Farming methods and food production has changed over time. Concerns about environmental protection and animal welfare considerations for the spread of Lithuania and throughout Europe. Ecological farming is a part of sparing farming system and viable alternative for traditional farming. Ecological farming differs from the traditional one because this farming refuses synthetic pesticides, herbicides, chemical manure, hormones that stimulate growing or manipulate genes. Ecological farms use various techniques that help to maintain ecosystems and reduce pollution. Bearing all these necessary standards of production quality there is received smaller amount of original production in comparison with traditional farming. It causes bigger expenses of ecological production. The basis of vegetative production in the ecological farming is development of soil structure and fertility. Not only grain, fruits, vegetables and honey are received in the ecological way. Cattle and birds are grown ecologically, bearing standards of welfare of livestock, feeding them in natural products.

Environmental heterogeneity has often been suggested as a general explanation for patterns of diversity at scales ranging from individuals within populations to communities within landscapes. I evaluate this proposition using laboratory experiments with two microbial species, the unicellular chlorophyte Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and the common bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens. These experiments contrast the fate of diversity following selection in heterogeneous and homogeneous environments. Specifically, I show that (1) an individual's breadth of adaptation evolves to match the amount of environmental variation, specialists evolving in environments that remain constant through time and generalists evolving in environments that vary through time irrespective of the scale at which environmental variation occurs relative to the lifetime of an individual; (2) the maintenance of diversity in a spatially heterogeneous environment is context-dependent, diversity being more readily maintained when environmental conditions are very different and genotypes are widely divergent; (3) selection in heterogeneous environments represents a plausible mechanism for two well-known patterns of diversity at large spatial scales, namely that between species diversity and both productivity and disturbance. This thesis thus demonstrates that environmental heterogeneity is a plausible, and perhaps very general, factor responsible for the diversity of natural communities.

The conception of environmental quality is common used in our society. Ecological farming is one of the most quality orientated agricultural system. The experiment was conducted in the Kazliskiai ecological farm of Lithuanian University of Agriculture. There were different kind of investigation determined earlier on the farm, but there were no investigation made on the influence of weedy trench to winter-wheat field. The aim of this work is to determine how weedy trench influences segetic flora and its botanical structure in winter- wheat agrophytocenozis. The tasks, which help to gain the aim: 1. To analyze how the amount of weeds change receding from weedy trench; 2. To analyze how the botanical structure of weeds change receding from weedy trench; 3. To evaluate interrelationship between amount of weeds and their botanical structure due to weedy trench. The object of the research work – the winter-wheat field segetic flora of Kazliskiai ecological farm. The following methods were used in this work: • The analysis of scientific literature; • The calculation of segetic flora amount and its botanical structure in workspaces; • The statistical analysis using EXCEL, DISPERS programs. The results of this work show: The weedy trench has a positive influence on the amount of segetic flora. It is 2-4 times bigger nearby weedy trench than in the middle of the field. The botanical structure changes only in autumn but not numerously.

Background: Globally tuberculosis (TB) is one of the leading causes of mortality. There is scientific evidence of sociodemographic, behavioral and health risk factors associated with TB infection and TB disease. In the United States (US), there is a low endemicity of TB and a goal of TB elimination. Objective: The primary objective of the study was to examine the correlation of TB risk factors at the state level in the US to obtain insights specific to the state of TB in the US. The risk factors examined were diabetes rates, smoking rates, alcohol abuse rates, AIDS rates, foreign-born vs. US-born, poverty as expressed by GINI and per capita income and race/ethnicity. Methods: Secondary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and US Census Bureau on line databases were used. Simple linear regression, bivariate correlation and multiple linear regression were carried out. Results: Significant correlations were found at the state level between TB disease rates and being non-Hispanic White (r=-0.856, p<0.001), foreign-born (r=0.649, p<0.001), GINI (r=0.588, p<0.001) and AIDS diagnosis rates (r=0.579, p<0.001). No significant associations were found between TB disease rates and diabetes rates, smoking rates and alcohol abuse rates. Conclusion: The focus of the fight against TB in the US should be on minority communities, those populated by the foreign-born and those with high rates of AIDS particularly where a large degree of income inequality is present.

In their book, Gigerenzer and Selten (2001) described human being as an organism that adaptively reacts to its environment by selecting ecologically rational heuristics that are contingent on task demands; that is, adaptivity assumption. Empirical evidence of the adaptivity assumption is, however, mixed. In this paper, I review prior experiments related to testing the adaptivity assumption and criticize some of the past findings. From this criticism, the research questions are formed. The research objective of this paper is to test whether or not people choose their decision strategy as a reaction to environmental conditions. In this dissertation, the use of the take-the-best (TTB) heuristic is investigated for different treatments, which are information structure, information cost, and social rationality. Participants go through 180 trials of a pair comparison task. Using the proportion of TTB trials as a dependent variable, three hypotheses regarding the effects of three treatments are tested. The results of the experiments indicate that only the social rationality is a significant factor in promoting the TTB heuristic. Besides the test of the hypothesis, an exploratory analysis of participants’ data is presented.

In an increasingly urbanized world, how cities are designed and built affect how urbanites connect to the natural world and develop an ecological consciousness. Findings indicate that people value different urban landscapes for unique reasons but that urban trees provide numerous aesthetic, psychological, social, educational, ecological, moral and economic benefits. Many urban forest values are interwoven across these value categories. How people defined nature, what emotional states the landscape engendered and how they were able to actively engage with natural elements within urban landscapes all influenced participants? sense of belonging to a broader natural community. Overall, findings support the notion that naturalized spaces, even small spaces, can invoke a sense of connectedness with nature within participants. Yet, many respondents suggest that urban nature experiences may not be enough for the general population to develop an ecological consciousness, rather that they require additional educational support.

The fishery for Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) has received considerable attention in recent years, owing largely to the possibility of its significant expansion and the ecological implications of increased extraction of a keystone species. This thesis employed Ecological Footprint (EF) analysis and life cycle assessment (LCA) to measure the resource use, energy use, and emissions associated with three krill-derived products: meal and oil for aquaculture feeds, and omega-3 krill oil capsules for the nutraceutical market. The product supply chains of one krill fishing and processing company, Aker BioMarine, were used as a case study to examine Antarctic krill-derived products. Antarctic krill products were compared to products from similar fisheries targeting other species for reduction into meal and oil, including Peruvian anchovy (Engraulis ringens), Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus), blue whiting (Micromesistius poutassou) and Gulf menhaden (Brevoortia patronus), on the basis of marine footprint, carbon footprint, and fuel use intensity.

The concept of environmental justice captures the notion that particular communities characterized by, for example, ethnicity or socioeconomic status, may be disproportionately affected by harmful environmental hazards. There is also evidence indicating that these same environmental hazards threaten non-human species, causing (sometimes irreversible) changes to the fundamental ecological services that support all life on earth. This study merges social and ecological determinants of health, two principles that should but rarely do intersect, by incorporating the concept of ecological integrity into a new environmental justice framework. A systematic review of 104 articles was carried out to analyze how environmental justice is currently defined in the literature. Study findings indicate that environmental justice discourse is anthropocentric and fragmented, that current approaches are reactive, and that environmental injustice requires participatory solutions. These findings guided the development of a new environmental justice model founded on the social-ecological concepts of resistance, resilience and restoration. The study further applies the concepts of the model through the processes of appreciation, assessment and action in a toolkit. The model and toolkit aim to improve human and non-human health outcomes by ultimately highlighting the interdependence between human and ecosystem health.

Nature has an effective approach to cycling materials and energy flows to promote life. This thesis aims to expose urbanite users to nature’s way of cycling materials. The seawall is the largest public space in Vancouver at the edge of land and sea. A neighbourhood community centre along the edge called the Conservatory for Community Matters is created to nurture environmental stewardship by mimicking natural cycles in its function. By conveying architectural systems and form in a cyclical and organic approach, an architectural intervention can address the daily environmental impact of urbanites while rooting people in place and nature in the city. The community centre’s program connects the individually focused daily rituals of eating, making, and exercising to benefit the larger community where urbanites can reintegrate their organic ‘wastes’ into usable by-products. This promotes a paradigm shift transforming the apathetic consumer into an active member of the urban ecosystem.