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In the next five years, millions of jobs in STEM-related occupations will be available, but with only twenty percent of college graduates earning bachelor's degrees in STEM fields, the pipeline problem persists. Research has demonstrated that students' career awareness significantly influences consideration of STEM careers. According to cognitive and career development theory, career awareness (knowledge of the requisites, routines, and rewards of jobs) develops primarily during the elementary school years. Because early detection of low-level career awareness can facilitate programming changes that will minimize premature circumscription of STEM career choices, an instrument that measures a student's level of career awareness at the early adolescent stage of development is warranted. Building on the conceptual framework of the Career Awareness Inventory developed in 1973, the new Early Adolescent Career Awareness Inventory (EA-CAI) was developed to reflect the contemporary context and constructs for measuring the career awareness of early adolescent learners. The viability of the EA-CAI instrument for use in contemporary educational settings was examined in this research. Results from the research showed that the EA-CAI instrument demonstrated correct terminology, content and construct validity, readability, and reliability. Moreover, the research results showed that early adolescent learners could demonstrate aspects of career awareness in response to EA-CAI items, and that the EA-CAI instrument could measure the career awareness of early adolescent learners on a continuum. / Doctor of Philosophy / Millions of jobs in STEM-related occupations are available, but comparatively few college graduates are earning bachelor's degrees in STEM fields. Research has demonstrated that students' awareness of these career options significantly influences consideration of STEM careers. Career awareness (knowledge about the requirements, routines, and rewards of jobs) develops primarily during the elementary school years. Because early detection of low-level career awareness can lead to educational programming changes that will minimize students' elimination of STEM career choices, an instrument that measures a student's level of career awareness at the early adolescent stage of development is warranted. Building on the conceptual framework of the Career Awareness Inventory developed in 1973, the new Early Adolescent Career Awareness Inventory (EA-CAI) was developed to reflect the contemporary context and constructs for measuring the career awareness of early adolescent learners. This research examined the viability of the EA-CAI and showed that the instrument consistently measured what it was designed to measure--the career awareness of early adolescent learners.

There is literature available on the characteristics of good teachers and there is also literature that shows teaching differences by gender and by level of experience. Additionally, there are models of instruction that relate to distance education, as well as a model of good practice in undergraduate education. There is, however, a lack of research on whether those who teach distance education classes use these principles of good practice. There is also a lack of research on whether there are differences in the degree to which they use these practices by gender or by level of teaching experience. This study attempted to address the gap in the existing literature by examining whether distance educators use the principles of good teaching practice. Additionally, this study attempted to examine whether there are differences of use by teaching experience and by gender of instructor. For purposes of this study, one instructional design model was used (Chickering & Gamson, 1987). A 52-item survey, the Online Teaching Practices (OTP) Inventory, was developed specifically for this study. The OTP consisted of seven sections that measured the extent to which instructors implemented the seven principles in the design of their course curricula. The response options asked participants to numerically rate how well each item described their online class. Mean scores were used to assess the degree to which the principles were being used in general. Then ANOVAs were run to determine if differences existed between/among groups. Finally, in cases where there were three or more groups, independent t-tests were used to determine where those differences lay. Results revealed that instructors are implementing the seven principles into course curricula design. Additionally, a significant difference was found between males and females on one scale. Three significant differences were found based on level of teaching experience and three more differences by discipline were identified. / Master of Arts

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In the warehouse of a large cosmetics company, a mechanized order picker is restocked from nearby shelving, and the shelving is restocked from bulk storage, forming a three-tier inventory system. We consider such multi-tier inventory systems and determine the storage areas to which to assign items, and the quantities in which to store them, in order to minimize the total cost of picking items and restocking storage locations. With this research, we increase the number of inventory systems for which simple search algorithms find a provably near-optimal solution. The model and method were tested on data from the Avon Products distribution center outside Atlanta; the solution identified by the model reduced picking and restocking costs there by 20%. The sales forecasts of items stored in the warehouse may change, however, and new items will be introduced into the inventory system and others removed. To account for these changes, some warehouses may periodically reassign items to storage areas and recompute their storage quantities. These reassignment activities account for additional costs in the warehouse. The second focus of this research examines these costs over several time periods in a simple multi-tier inventory system. We develop heuristics to determine the storage areas to which to assign items and the quantities in which to store them in each time period, in order to minimize the total cost of picking items, restocking storage locations, and reassigning skus over multiple periods.

Eine depressive Erkrankung kann sich mit unterschiedlicher Geschwindigkeit innerhalb weniger Stunden oder über Monate hinweg ausbilden. Zur Erfassung dieses bisher wenig untersuchten klinischen Merkmals wurde das Onset of Depression Inventory (ODI), ein standardisiertes klinisches Interview, entwickelt. Die vorliegende Studie prüfte die Test-Retest-Reliabilität des Onset of Depression Inventory und betrachtete die Frage nach dem optimalen Zeitpunkt der Durchführung des Interviews im Krankheitsverlauf. Es konnte gezeigt werden, dass die Patientenangaben zur Geschwindigkeit des Depressionsbeginns über den Beobachtungszeitraum zwischen zwei Untersuchungszeitpunkten stabil sind und auf hohem Niveau signifikant korrelieren. Im Weiteren zeigte sich keine Beeinflussung der Angaben zur Geschwindigkeit des Depressionsbeginns durch die Schwere der depressiven Symptomatik. Die hohe Übereinstimmung der Patientenangaben resultiert in einer hohen Test-Retest-Reliabilität und spricht für die Verlässlichkeit der mit dem ODI erhobenen Daten. Damit ist mit dem ODI ein geeignetes Instrument für die reliable Erfassung der Geschwindigkeit des Depressionsbeginns gegeben, was gleichermaßen für die klinische Arbeit als auch für wissenschaftliche Zwecke anwendbar ist und vor allem im klinischen Kontext eine frühe Differenzierung zwischen Unipolarer Depression und Bipolarer Affektiver Störung ermöglicht.

The Product Life Cycle (PLC) is based upon the biological life cycle. Through the period of development it is introduced or launched into the market, and the change of sales, the product will experience sprout, maturity, shrink and even die out. The classic product life cycle has four stages: Introduction; Growth; Maturity and Decline. In the complex and rapid variation of business environment, PLC is even shorter than before; the well sell product today maybe is the unsalable stocks tomorrow. Demand volume of product is constantly changing in every PLC stages; what¡¦s the impact for financial performance in inventory cost under different inventory strategy and profit variations, there are dynamic complexities inside with some special properties like non-linear, interconnected, time delay and counter-intuitive, etc. Therefore, this research is using System Dynamics which has been normally used to resolve dynamic complexity problems as the study method to build up a model to simulate all of the inventory strategy in inventory theory that consider the trade off between all kinds of inventory cost to probe into the impact of financial performance in different PLC stage for different product types to figure out the variation developments of all inventory costs. Some conclusions were generalized from the study as following: 1. This study builds up a developmental systemic model which is able to analysis the variation developments between inventory strategy and inventory cost for retail industry. The model includes all of inventory related molds like inventory,inventory strategy, all cost related to inventory, inventory performance measurement, etc. 2. The development systemic model is a very effective tool to support policymaker to measure inventory strategy and financial performance within a short time, to improve the management performance by using the best inventory strategy. 3. The development systemic model built up by this study can different products in different PLC stages and also considering their cost structure to analysis the impact between inventory strategy and inventory cost and variation developments of it.

Abstract In many business management policies, the inventory management and decision - makings have been the very important of the business administration. The object of the inventory management is satisfy the customer demand with minimum inventory cost; and the inventory policy is how to decide the quantity or timing of every order times, that can reach the object of the inventory management. Today aims at the supervision strategy of the business inventory system, is still to make use of mathematics and statistics computational method, compute the most economic order quantity (EOQ), the best opportune moment of reorder point (ROP). However the item of the inventory cost that have got trade off relation, inventory service level setting that also have got trade off relation with the total inventory cost. The different inventory policy relates to the different stockholding cost assemble, all operators of the business practice is looking for the balance point between service and cost, the complex relation in this dynamic state, is not a general intuition thinking, simple computing criterion, can acquire among the best solution. So this paper makes use of the System Dynamics simulation tool that is good to solve of the complex problem tool, establish the System Dynamics (SD) model, and aim at the inventory policy, inventory cost, service level setting and out-of-stock strategy to do the system simulation analysis application. Through the study of this paper, can induce following research results: 1. This paper create a System Dynamics (SD) model that can analyze the dynamic relationship between the inventory policy and inventory cost , this model includes the fundamental inventory policy, each related cost of inventory, evaluation the performance of the inventory policy etc. 2. The dynamic model that via this paper create, among the different inventory policy, explore the situation of change of the individual of inventory cost, and analyze the dynamic state of the inventory cost assemble, service level setting and businesses to operate the performance change. 3. Study of that none shortage cost and make use of the stockout strategy to reduce other inventory costs, under the different scenario of the sales, the different ABC class of the goods, applied different inventory cost combine and the setting strategy of the service level, do the dynamic state simulation analysis for business performance. 4. Study of the impact of the business, when the business at the service level set and stockout strategy usage is not appropriate. Keyword: System Dynamics, Inventory Policy, Inventory Cost, Service level, Stockout Strategy

Uncertainty is a norm in business decisions. In this research, we focus on the inventory decisions for companies with uncertain customer demands. We first investigate forward buying strategies for single stage inventory decisions. The situation is common in commodity industry where prices often fluctuate significantly from one purchasing opportunity to the next and demands are random. We propose a combined heuristic to determine the optimal number of future periods a firm should purchase at each ordering opportunity in order to maximize total expected profit when there is uncertainty in future demand and future buying price. Second, we study the complexities of bundling of products in an Assemble-To-Order (ATO) environment. We outline a salvage manipulator mechanism that coordinates the decentralized supply chain. Third, we extend our salvage manipulator mechanism to a two stage supply chain with a long cumulative lead time. With significant lead times, the assumption that the suppliers all see the same demand distribution as the retailer cannot be used.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 1988. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 55-57). Also available on the World Wide Web.