Soil salinity, a yield-limiting condition, has plagued crop production for centuries by reducing crop productivity. Research has introduced methods for successfully managing soil salinity. This research discusses the adaptation of established management methods to create new soil salinity management techniques. One adapted technique is an automated crop screening apparatus. A new design was created and successfully used in rapidly screening two strawberry cultivars to determine their tolerance to salinity. Screening crops and determining their tolerance to yield-limiting conditions are essential in managing soil salinity. Another salinity management tool used in this research was electromagnetic induction (EMI). EMI was used to complete a basin-scale inventory over an 18,000 ha study area in Cache County, Utah. The data obtained during the inventory were used to create EMI calibration models and a basin-scale map showing the spatial distribution of apparent soil electrical conductivity (ECa). These new methods for crop tolerance screenings and basin-scale salinity inventories will assist in successfully managing soil salinity and decrease its effect on the global food supply.

Chronic back pain is a serious problem in the U.S. for which about 10% of back pain sufferers will undergo elective surgery. Unfortunately, back surgery is not successful in alleviating back pain in a substantial number of surgery patients. Various psychological and psychosocial variables have a demonstrated relationship to back surgery outcome. The most widely used personality test used to predict back surgery outcome is the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPJ). Past research has shown that elevations on three MMPI clinical scales (Hs, D, and Hy) are positively correlated with poor back surgery outcome. The current prospective study shows a similar pattern using the MMPI-2 to predict surgery outcome for 60 low back pain patients. It appears that past MMPI research in this area is applicable to the use of MMPI-2. These results also suggest that when MMPI-2 variables are combined with demographic and surgical variables, patients more likely to experience poor surgical outcome can be identified. There is evidence that elevations of the conversion V profile of the MMPI-2 may prospectively differentiate between successful and nonsuccessful surgery outcomes.

The airline industry is facing unprecedented challenges in generating sufficient revenues to stay in business. Airlines must capture the greatest revenue yield from every flight by leaving no seats unsold and not over filling the cabin with discount fares. To succeed in doing the above airlines must be able to accurately forecast each of their market segments, manage product andprice availability to maximize revenue and react quickly to competitive changes in the market place. Thus seat inventory control and ticket pricing form the two major tools of revenue management. The focus of this paper is to consolidate the ideas of seats inventory control and pricing in order to maximize the revenues generated by an airline network. A continuous time yield management model for a network with multiple legs, multiple fare classes and dynamic price changes for all fare classes is considered. Each fare class has a set of fares from which the optimal fare is chosen based upon the Minimum Acceptable Fare (MAF) which performs the critical role in the decision process. A machine Learning based algorithm, EMSRa based and EMSRb based algorithm for obtaining dynamic policies for combined pricing and allocation. The algorithms are implemented for a sample network with eight cities, eleven logs, thirty origin-destinations(ODs), three fare classes, three levels of fares in each class and ninety itineraries.

Jay B. Starkey Wilderness Park, located in southwestern Pasco County, Florida, contains nearly 7,689.06 hectares (19,000 acres) and includes 18 natural communities. A floristic inventory was conducted on approximately 404.69 hectares (1,000 acres) within Jay B. Starkey Wilderness Park which included 11 community types. A comparison of those 11 communities in the study area with the rest of the park shows that the dominant community types do occur within the study site, making it representative of the entire park. The objective of this study conducted from May 2003 to October 2004 was to compile a list of the vascular plant taxa found within the study area to be used by the Southwest Water Management District to help in their management regimes. A total of 475 taxa were collected, representing 104 families, and 269 genera. Of these 436 are native taxa, 16 endemic taxa, 39 non-native taxa, 32 county records, 7 listed taxa, and 5 commercially exploited taxa. Each natural community is described and an annotated list of the vascular plant taxa is presented.

Bakgrund: 1997 introducerade den amerikanske läkaren och psykologen Steven Bratman Orthorexia Nervosa (ON), vilket är en relativt ny form av ätstörningsbeteende som kretsar kring en ohälsosam fixering kring hälsosam mat och naturlig föda. Sedermera har  ON övergått till att gestaltas som ett fenomen istället för ett begrepp, där träningsberoende (EA) kommit att utgöra ett påtagligt segment i fundamentet och definitionen av Orthorexia Nervosa. Syfte: Undersöka prevalens, ålders- respektive könsskillnader samt korrelationen mellan ON och EA hos deltagare som frekvent tränar på gym. Metod: Kvantitativ tvärsnittsundersökningen. En enkät, med EAI & ORTHO-15 som tillhörande mätinstrument, användes i studiedesignen. Datainsamlingen ägde rum hos tre separata gym vid fem tillfällen under en veckas tid. Totalt medverkade 112 deltagare i studien: 49 män (44 %) och 63 kvinnor (56 %) i åldrarna 18 -  79 år. Resultat: Åtta deltagare (7 %) låg inom riskzonerna för EA samtidigt som 44 (39 %) deltagare låg inom riskzonen för ON. Ålder spelar en påtaglig faktor gällande förhållningssättet till kosten, då det förekommer skillnader mellan olika åldersgrupper: gruppen Under 30 år visar i synnerhet högre andelar för ON (p= 0.005). Det råder en negativ korrelation (– 34 %) mellan mätinstrumenten EAI och ORTHO-15, vilket symboliserar ett destruktivt attribut gällande hälsan. Konklusion: Föreliggande studie ligger i linje med tidigare forskningsresultat inom samma område; det tycks finnas ett samband mellan mätinstrument gällande förhållningssättet till kosten och träningen, vilket mynnar ut i en ohälsosam strävan efter en perfekt hälsa.

The first purpose of the study described in this thesis was to provide validation information of three questionnaires that were modified and translated into the Thai language, namely, the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI), the Science Laboratory Environment Inventory (SLEI), and the Attitude to Biology Class (ABC). A second purpose was to determine students' perceptions of teacher-student interactions and laboratory learning environments and their attitudes to biology classes in secondary schools in Thailand. A sample of 1,194 students from 37 biology classes in 37 schools completed the three questionnaires. The results of the study showed that most students in secondary schools of Thailand have moderately positive attitudes to their biology class. Students perceived their teachers as having good leadership, being helping/friendly, and understanding, but seldom uncertain, dissatisfied or admonishing. They also perceived that sometimes their teachers were strict, however allowing students responsibility and freedom. In biology laboratories, they perceived the environments as employing good student cohesiveness, less open-endedness and integration of the theory and practical, the rules were not clear and the materials were not good and insufficient. There were differences between students' actual and ideal perceptions of classroom interactions and laboratory learning environments. Students preferred teachers who showed strong leadership, were more helping and understanding, who gave their students more responsibility and freedom, and who were less uncertain, dissatisfied, admonishing and strict. / Also, students preferred a biology laboratory environment with higher levels on the scales of Open-Endedness, Integration, Rule Clarity, and Material Environment but not Student Cohesiveness. Some commonality between the QTI and the SLEI scales was found in their contributions to the variance in student attitudes to biology classes. So now the QTI and the SLEI can be used by biology teachers and other science teachers in secondary schools who wish to improve science teaching and learning in Thailand.

The purpose of this evaluation study was to compare students' perceptions of their science classroom environment when using science kits, textbooks or a combination of science kits, textbooks and teacher-created materials. This year-long study involved using a learning environment questionnaire, namely the My Class Inventory (MCI), interviews and observations to assess which of the three treatments leads to a more positive learning environment. Three questions investigated were whether (1) the learning environment can be reliably and validly assessed among Grade 3-5 students in Texas, (2) instruction using textbooks, science kits, or a combination of textbooks and science kits is more effective in terms of changes in student attitudes and learning environment perceptions, and (3) there are associations between student attitudes toward science classes and the classroom environment? Administrators and teachers in Texas are searching for ways to improve the scores received on standardized tests. For more than 40 years, research has shown that positive classroom environments can lead to improvement in achievement. Therefore 1 chose to investigate the above questions using a learning environments framework. This study was conducted in three urban elementary schools in North Texas. There were a total of 588 students in 28 classrooms with 16 different teachers involved in this research. The schools were similar in demographic features such as ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Analyses of data collected with the My Class Inventory (MCI) supported the instrument's factorial validity, internal consistency reliability, and ability to differentiate between the perceptions of students in different classrooms. / Also, simple correlation and multiple regression analyses indicated reasonably strong and positive associations between each classroom environment scale and the students' satisfaction. The Satisfaction scale was used as an outcome variable, following the lead of Majeed, Fraser and Aldridge (2002). Results h m the MCI, interviews and observations indicated that students preferred a more positive classroom environment in terns of Cohesiveness, Competition, and Friction. Importantly, the group of students using science kits experienced greater pretest-posttest changes in satisfaction and classroom cohesiveness than did either the textbook group of the combination group. This study supports previous research that combined qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection. Qualitative methods suggested that students preferred a more hands-on presentation of science lessons rather than a textbook presentation. This was suggested in interviews with students and teachers and by observations of students in their science classes. This research evaluated three educational methods to determine which instructional method would produce a more positive learning environment and student satisfaction. These results suggest that the utilization of science kits achieves this goal as measured by student satisfaction and cohesiveness.

This study explores the issues involved in the theoretical bases, rationale and implementation of practical work in junior secondary science programs. The part that practical work has played in science education, both internationally and in Australia, is reviewed. Links are made between statements made by science educators more than 200 years ago to those made by modern day researchers into science teaching and learning. The study draws together the research traditions of the philosophy of science, science curriculum development, learning environments, and educational psychology. The researcher has carried out a multi-stage field study using both qualitative and quantitative methods to achieve the objectives of the study. Developments in the philosophy of science as they impinge on science education are reviewed. Science practicals are defined for the purposes of this study and a new Theoretical Model for Science Practicals is proposed. The model enables the description and statement of purpose of eight types of science practicals. The target population of the study is Australian science teachers and students. The model provides a theoretical basis for the development of the survey instrument, Science Practicals Inventory (SPI), to investigate students’ perceptions of the use of practicals in science learning. The eight types of practicals described in the model were used as the scales for the SPI. Qualitative data collected during separate group interviews of science teachers and students supported the development of the SPI together with quantitative data from three pilot studies. The SPI was validated using samples of high school students from Tasmania and Western Australia. / Using statistical procedures involving factor analyses, alpha reliability, discriminant validity, and ANOVA, a valid, reliable, efficient, eight scale, 50 item instrument has been developed. Analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data in this study enabled issues involved in the theoretical bases, rationale and implementation of practical work in junior secondary science programs to be clarified and better understood. The results of this study include implications for science curricula and recommendations for further research and are generalizable to science teachers and students in Australia. The SPI is available for further application in action research, science program evaluation, science teacher professional learning and science program renewal.

Although there are numerous instruments available for assessing classroom learning environments at the tertiary level, no instrument has been specifically designed and validated for measuring the business management education learning environment (Brennan & Ahmad, 2005). My aims were (1) to design, develop and validate an instrument, the Business Management Education Learning Environment Inventory (BMELEI), for assessing business management students’ perceptions of the psychosocial learning environments of university seminars and tutorials and (2) to relate learning environment to attitudes towards the subject and attitudes towards the case study teaching strategy. This study is distinctive in that it involved both quantitative and qualitative methods. The BMELEI and two attitude scales were administered to 480 final-year undergraduate and postgraduate business studies students in 30 classes at both Curtin University of Technology and Edith Cowan University in Perth, Australia. The qualitative component of the study involved semi-structured interviews with 42 randomly-selected participants from the above universities. Factor analysis supported a six-factor structure (Student Cohesiveness, Teacher Support, Involvement, Task Orientation, Cooperation and Equity) with scale alpha reliabilities ranging from 0.78 to 0.90 for the actual form and from 0.80 to 0.92 for the preferred form using the individual as unit of analysis. Students’ attitudes were found to be positively associated with classroom learning environment. / Also differences were found between students’ perceptions of the actual and preferred classroom environment, and between male and female students’ perceptions of the actual and preferred classroom environment. Findings suggested that students preferred a more positive and favourable classroom learning environment than they perceived as being actually present.

This study investigated whether the conditions in which the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory was administered had any effect on subjects' scores on the Inventory. The study also examined normative and reliability scores in the ACT, the effect of various demographic variables and the relationship between happiness scores and self-esteem. The Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory was administered to groups of year seven students from a Canberra high school under two different conditions: friendly and impartial. After five weeks the Inventory was readministered to rearranged groups under the different conditions. No significant differences were found in the scores from the students in the different conditions. No significant differences were found on an indication of student happiness under each condition. A normative value was calculated combining scores from the first testing sessions and a test-retest reliability correlation calculated from combined scores from the first and second testing sessions. The validity of the lie scale and the use of the Inventory in Australia are discussed. With a few reservations it appears that the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory measures a relatively stable trait and is a reliable measure of overall self-esteem. A summary of recent literature using the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory is included. Mean self-esteem scores on the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory were compared with students grouped by sex, socio-economic status, birth order, whether they came from a single parent family or whether their mother worked. Significant differences were found with SES and birth order but recent literature shows that these variables are often interrelated and results may be instrument dependent. New self-concept tests (based on a sound theoretical framework) are being developed which acknowledge the multidimensionality of self-concept and appear more able to detect variation in facets of self-concept.