There has been an influx of funding in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) allocated to adapting educational systems that engage, motivate and train learners with new and innovative techniques. This exploratory research project investigated the student outcomes associated with undergraduate biology learner' engagements in the ER Project. Thirty-one students interacted in small groups within an inquiry-learning environment supported by an innovative technology that introduced a database of images of green florescent endoplasmic reticulum and golgi apparatus. The aim of the ER Project was to increase learners' conceptual understanding of cell structure and movement and engage in scientific processes in an authentic inquiry setting. To identify relationships between and among independent and dependent variables in a causal model hypothesizing relationships among Prior Knowledge, Learning Preference, Attitudes toward Computers, Inquiry Task Performance and Conceptual Understanding were tested using path analysis. The study found that while prior knowledge was a strong predictor for conceptual understanding, it was not as effective for observing the inquiry task performance. But, the Motivation towards Computers and their Inquiry Task Performance indicated that learners understood the scientific processes and were able to communicate their results.

The procedure for developing a new product, in general, is as follows. First, the design engineer must have a thorough understanding regarding the encountered problem. And, he must produce some design concepts based on the perceived requirements. Finally, some solutions are then achieved according to the prescribed design concepts. Unfortunately, few researchers have been able to explain, in a specific rather than abstract manner, the process of generating pertinent design concepts. However, this process has to be a very critical link in the chain. Without obtaining a good design concept the entire design procedure will fall, not to mention to find a suitable solution. In this research we use an interesting analogy between the design procedure and the well-familiarized Sun/Water-cycle system, to concretely describe the task of inspiration of innovative concepts particularly in engineering design. The use of this analogy, we believe, will guide engineers to more effectively and more efficiently go through the stages of conceptual design. Consequently, the entire product development time can be reduced.

The objectives of this work were to evaluate the vegetative parameters used to estimate crop N demand and to estimate the accuracy and precision of the conceptual model of fertilization using an error propagation method. Corn plants were collected throughout the entire crop life cycle to determine the fresh and dry weight of the aboveground biomass and roots, root index, plant height, and corn grain yield. Three experiments were conducted, two under field conditions and one under greenhouse conditions. In the first field experiment in 2002, three sites were selected. The first site was the Texas A&M University (TAMU) Agricultural Experiment Station Research Farm in which a Ships clay soil was used. The second site was a cooperative farmer's land on a Weswood silt loam soil in Burleson County. These first two sites used Pioneer 32R25 as the corn hybrid. The third site was also a Ships soil in the TAMU Farm, but Dekalb 687 was the corn variety. In 2003, the second experiment was on a Ships soil in the field of TAMU Farm, and the third experiment was conducted in a greenhouse using Ships and Weswood soil. No differences in the root index and harvest index were observed, even when the Dekalb 687 hybrid was included. Variations in plant N concentration, moisture content, and yield were noted, but followed predictable patterns with time over the season. These parameters were consistent throughout the entire life cycle of the crop. The linear relationship between the fresh weight of aboveground biomass and fresh weight of roots was R2 = 0.92, the moisture content of corn plants over time was fit to a second grade polynomial with R2 = 0.98, and plant N content had a close linear relationship (R2=0.90) with the total plant dry weight, including roots, at harvest. The accuracy of the conceptual model was low under field conditions (55%), but high under greenhouse conditions (90%). Precision of the conceptual model was low both in the field (194%) and the greenhouse (115%) conditions.

<p>The purpose of this thesis is to explore the concept of environmental security. A concept that have made way on to the international arena since the end of the Cold War, and have become of more importance since the 1990’s. The discussion regarding man-made environmental change and its possible impacts on the world is very topical; especially with the Nobel Peace Prize winners in 2007 the Intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) and Al Gore.The concept of environmental security is examined through a conceptual investigating study. The reason for this type of study is due to the complexity of the concept and a hope to find a ‘best’ definition to it. A conceptual investigating study is said to help create order in an existing discussion of a social problem, hence the reason for it in this thesis. The outcome of this thesis is that it is near impossible to find a ‘best’ or one definition to the concept of environmental security and that another method to deal with the concept might have presented another result.</p> / <p>Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka konceptet environmental security. Detta koncept har gjort sin väg till ett internationellt erkännande sedan Kalla kriget, och har sedan 1990-talet blivit allt mer aktuellt. Diskussionen gällande människans inverkan på klimatförändringarna och klimathotet är ständigt aktuellt, i synnerhet med tanke på vinnarna av Nobels Freds Pris 2007, med Al Gore i spetsen.Konceptet environmental security är i denna uppsats undersökt genom en begreppsutredande studie. Anledningen till denna typ av studie är att konceptet är såpass komplext men även baserat på hoppet av att hitta en ’bästa’ möjliga definition. Begreppsutredande studier sägs kunna skapa ordning i en existerande diskussion vilket kan ses som den främsta anledningen valet av den i denna uppsats.Resultatet av studien och denna uppsats är att det är i stort sett omöjligt att etablera en bästa definition av begreppet environmental security, samt att en annan metod förmodligen hade presenterat ett annat resultat.</p>

Thesis (MA--Art and Design) -- AUT University, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references. Also held in print ( 1 v. (unpaged) : col. ill. ; 30 cm. + 1 DVD-ROM) in the Archive at the City Campus (T 709.2 TUR)

Pelagic ecosystems are inherently complex in coastal inlets where they are controlled by physical processes and influenced by biogeochemical and foodweb interactions. Meteorological events are important drivers of this ecological variability. This thesis investigates their effect on the plankton dynamics of Lunenburg Bay, an inlet on the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia (Canada). In this region, meteorological events are dominated by upwelling in summer, which are a dominant source of flushing and nutrient variability for the inlets. Despite these events, which induce phytoplankton blooms in other regions, the concentration of phytoplankton as chlorophyll remains relatively low throughout the summer in Lunenburg Bay. To reveal the underlying processes limiting the development of phytoplankton biomass, and therefore to improve our understanding of the factors regulating plankton dynamics in this inlet, the objectives of this thesis are to determine the main drivers of variability in phytoplankton biomass and plankton community structure, and to identify the factors limiting the development of phytoplankton biomass in Lunenburg Bay. For that, I use a dataset collected at a coastal observatory located in Lunenburg Bay that covers the years 2003–2006, complemented by a series of transects carried out in summer 2006. The dataset covers physical, chemical and biological properties of the bay, including plankton taxonomy. Two types of physical-biological coupled models are developed: a low-resolution box model of Lunenburg Bay with steady-state wind forcing, and a high-resolution nested model of Lunenburg Bay using the Regional Ocean Modelling System (ROMS) to hindcast a series of upwelling events in 2006. The results reveal that four factors regulate the phytoplankton response to upwelling events in Lunenburg Bay, namely (1) the duration of an upwelling event, (2) the low nitrate concentration in source waters, (3) the flushing rate of the inlet (hence transport), and (4) the bathymetry along the inshore-offshore axis of the bay. In addition, (5) the occurrence of upwelling and (6) the inshore-offshore gradient of increasing depth influence the structure of respectively phytoplankton and zooplankton communities, indicating a dissimilarity in the processes structuring plankton communities in the lower food web. A conceptual model is then developed to describe the role of transport and nitrate concentration in source waters in controlling plankton dynamics in an inlet.

No description available.

Everyday life revolves around the discovery and curation of digital information. People search the Web continuously, from quickly looking up the information needed to complete a task, to endlessly searching for inspiration and knowledge. A variety of studies have modeled information seeking strategies and characterized information seeking and curation activities on the Web. However, there is a lack of research on how existing Web applications support the discovery and curation of information, especially concerning the motivations behind them and how different approaches can be compared. In this thesis, I present a study of information discovery tools and how they relate to the nature of information seeking. I propose a conceptual framework that deals with Web application design elements that support different aspects of information discovery and curation. This framework can be used when designing, evaluating or updating Web applications. / Graduate / 0984

This dissertation consists of two essays on the influence of affect on consumer intentions and behavioral responses. In the first essay, the influence of negative affect on consumer satiation is investigated. In the second essay, the influence of conceptual fluency, a positive affective response of “feeling right” during advertising evaluations, evoked by the structural properties of memory networks, is identified. In the first essay, how anticipated consumption variety influences consumers’ affective responses to slow satiation in the present is investigated. Prior research has focused on how cognitive appraisals of present variety influence consumers’ satiation rates. However, in addition to cognitively attending to the present, consumers also generate affective information regarding future consumption events (e.g. thinking about dessert while eating an entrée). Results indicate that more anticipated consumption variety reduces the amount of negative affect consumers experience during recurrent consumption, which is found to extend consumers’ present consumption enjoyment (reduced satiation rates). Further, the moderating roles of vice and virtue product perceptions and consumer emotional intelligence are also investigated, providing additional evidence of the proposed affective process mechanism while identifying boundary conditions for the effect. In the second essay, how the structural nature of semantic memory can produce affective responses, in the form of conceptual fluency, to influence consumers’ product behavioral intentions is investigated. Memory activations, generated by key words in advertising, can provide a temporary boost to the perceived desirability of a given product. However, memories are not activated in isolation. Rather, an entire network of interrelated concepts is activated along with the focal memory through various learned associations. Despite a great deal of knowledge detailing the phenomena of memory spreading activations, research has primarily focused on which memories are connected to each other, rather than on how activated memories are connected to their surrounding networks. This essay identifies consumers’ responses to the betweenness centrality (e.g. providing mediated access to other concepts in memory via the shortest path) of a focal word in advertising, rather than the activation of specific associations, as critical for advertising success.

No description available.