No description available.

Cultural diversity renders those in the midst of cross-cultural encounters with rich opportunities for understanding the components of other people's conception of the world, their outlook on life, and their value orientations. There are few studies that examine the construct of Worldview as pertaining to Mexican people living in Mexico. Although research has been conducted with people of Mexican descent (i.e., Mexican Americans, Chicanos) mostly in the United States, the development of their experiences, the impact, and the meanings that such experiences represent to them, differ in many ways from the experiences of the participants in this study “An Examination of Worldview in Northeastern Mexico”. The study focuses on the experiences of nine participants, male and female, between the ages of 25 and 34, who live in Northeastern Mexico and who describe what being Mexican means to them and how they define themselves and their worldview as young Mexican individuals in relationship to five existential categories as proposed by Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck (1961). The study examines the literature with respect to worldview, in general, and its recent instrumentation in the field of multiculturalism, in particular. This study utilizes heuristic procedures and in-depth, one-to-one interviews to facilitate the emergence of people's portrayals, which were clustered and analysed always observing the five existential categories. The findings of the study endorse the value of using worldview as a socio-cultural framework for developing awareness and having a more thorough understanding about differences. McKenzie (1996) says that, “when united in a conversation in which understandings and worldviews are shared, we stand a better chance of reducing the limitations and narrowness of our existing worldviews” (p.123). Therefore, the implications for using worldview as framework might encourage individuals to reach beyond their own cultural boundaries enabling them to make reflective decisions to enhance the ability to effectively shape an environment inclusive of others from diverse cultures. / Graduate

archives@tulane.edu / 1 / Yitong Du

The purpose of this study was to develop and field test an approach based upon soft systems methodology for assessing constraints and anxieties faced by farmers utilizing recession farming. The approach in this study was based on soft systems methodology with the intent of constructing root-definitions for recession farming systems. The field testing of the approach utilized three recession farming systems in northeast Thailand. The root-definitions obtained using this approach, characterized two of the recession farming systems as capitalistic using an intensive, high input mode of production with limited land and labor. The third system was characterize as subsistent agriculture with few inputs. It was concluded that the approach developed in this study accurately identified constraints and differences between recession farming systems. The rich picture developed from the farmer's information was adequate to construct the root-definitions. It is recommended that this approach be tested in another region, using indigenous personnel trained to conduct group interviews.

No description available.

Our knowledge of climate variability in the densely populated Northeastern United States is limited to instrumental data of the last century. Most regional paleoclimate proxies reflect a mix of climate responses, which makes reconstructing historical climate a challenge. Here we analyze tree-ring chronologies from Atlantic white cedar (Chamaecyparis thyoides) as a potential regional paleotemperature proxy. We evaluate our tree-ring network for spatiotemporal climate signal strength and reconstruction skill across New England. Atlantic white cedar sites in the northern section of the species' range exhibit positive significant annual growth relationships with local and regional temperatures. Chronologies constructed from northern sites yield skillful reconstructions of temperature that reproduce centennial, multidecadal, and interannual variability in the instrumental record, providing a novel paleotemperature record for New England.

Environmental response to acidic deposition occurs through the vehicle of water movement in the ecosystem. As a part of the environmental studies for acidic deposition in the ecosystem, output-based hydrologic classification was done from basin hydrologies based on the distribution of the baseflow, snowmelt, and the direct runoff sources. Because of the differences in the flow paths and exposure duration, those components were assumed to represent distinct geochemical responses. As a first step, user-friendly software has been developed to calculate the baseflow based on the separation of annual hydrographs. It also generates the hydrograph for visual analysis using trial separation slope. After the software was completed, about 1200 stream flow gauging stations in Northeastern U.S. were accessed for flow separation and other hydrologic characteristics. At the final stage, based on the output from the streamflow analysis, cluster analysis was performed to classify the streamflow behaviors in terms of acidic inflow. The output from the cluster analysis shows more efficient regional boundaries of the subregions than the current regional boundaries used by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S.E.P.A.) for the environmental management in terms of acidic deposition based on the regional baseflow properties.

xix, 198 p. : ill. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / Due to the lack of a screening and early identification system, preschool children who live in rural areas in Northeast Thailand have no opportunity to receive specialized educational services. Most children are identified as having disabilities at school age or older. In this study, the 24-, 30-, and 36-month intervals of the Ages and Stages Questionnaires (ASQ), a parent-completed screening system, were translated and evaluated for reliability and use in Northeast Thai early childcare settings. The study purpose was to investigate the reliability and utility of the Ages and Stages Questionnaires: Thai (ASQ: Thai). Reliability studies included an investigation of internal consistency, test-retest reliability, interobserver reliability, and comparison of differences between U.S. and Thai scores. Utility studies included surveys of satisfaction of parents/caregivers and early childcare staff as well as brief interviews with parents/caregivers and early childcare staff. Subjects included 267 children who were 2-3 years old; 267 parents/caregivers; 49 early childcare staff; and 5 early childcare professor experts. The subjects were recruited through the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, the Faculty of Education, Mahasarakham University. Results addressing the reliability and use of ASQ: Thai were promising. Internal consistency (ρ = .58 -.89) results were adequate as well as test-retest agreement (ρ > .90). A comparison between the ASQ: Thai sample data and the U.S. normative sample found that there were some differences in range, mean, median, interquartile range, and cutoff scores. The back translation of the ASQ: Thai appeared to be adequate in comparison to the original version, as well as culturally appropriate. Early childcare staff and parents/caregivers felt that the ASQ: Thai was easy to use and understand and was culturally appropriate, and they gained knowledge about child development. Early childcare staff and parents/caregivers suggested that the ASQ: Thai should be used in early childcare settings with children when they enter the program. Future research on the ASQ: Thai is needed. Increased study of cultural, language, and disability issues are areas for further study. / Committee in charge: Jane Squires, Chairperson, Special Education and Clinical Sciences; Deanne Umuh, Member, Special Education and Clinical Sciences; Erin Barton, Member, Special Education and Clinical Sciences; Kathie Carpenter, Outside Member, International Studies

The story of Nanticoke, Pennsylvania from 1747 to 2006 is at the same time a look into the economic, political, and social aspects of America. From the birth of the American Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth century, Nanticoke played an important role in the economic health of the country. Profits from capital investment brought great wealth to the elite of the Wyoming Valley and financiers in New York and Philadelphia. The use of immigrant labor to maintain labor costs would presage corporate use of other groups. With the change in technology and the movement of capital elsewhere, Nanticoke faced the trauma of economic hardship and the need to address the human and social cost of the loss of coal mining. The actions taken by the local leadership failed to meet the challenge. Confronting the harsh reality of possible further decline, the community of Nanticoke must take action upon a plan that holds out a possibility of stopping the hemorrhage of its decline, and perhaps even begin a recovery. The people of Nanticoke and their problems are now one being repeated elsewhere in America. The questions raised by what happened in Nanticoke lie at the core of the economic, political, and social questions facing the United States today. Corporate responsibility, quality of life, immigration, and effective urban planning are just some of the issues that Nanticoke's story poses for the rest of America.

Sexual selection can be defined as the difference in reproductive success among individuals that is related to their ability to acquire mates and fertilizations. Mathematical models have shown that combined with natural selection, sexual selection can be an important driver for speciation. There have also been a few case studies showing that sexual selection alone can lead to speciation in nature. Over the past 30 years, the barn swallow has become a classic model animal for sexual selection. The barn swallow has at least two sexually selected traits in different subspecies: the length of tail streamers in European barn swallows, H. r. rustica and ventral plumage colour in north American barn swallows, H. r. erythrogaster. Meanwhile molecular research on barn swallows shows that these barn swallow subspecies are recently derived and thus the barn swallow becomes an ideal model animal to test the theory that sexual selection drives speciation. The Barn Swallow species complex is comprised of six closely related subspecies distributed throughout the Holarctic. Whereas experimental studies in Europe, the Middle East and North America have been conducted, little is known about populations distributed across Asia. During my PhD study I collected barn swallow samples from more than 20 locations across China and compared the difference in morphology of Chinese barn swallow populations. The results show that in the northeastern part of China the barn swallow is intermediate in phenotype between subspecies in North America (H. r. erythrogaster) and subspecies in Europe (H. r. rustica), and is characterized by rusty ventral plumage colour and medium length tail streamers. Using morphological and colour traits, northeastern Chinese swallow populations can be separated from other Chinese populations, and this pattern of phenotypic variation may form under both natural and sexual selection. I also conducted an observational and experimental study on one of these populations, aiming to determine the extent to which variation in plumage color and tail streamers is underlain by sexual selection. The observational study reveals that for male barn swallows in my study population, clutch initiation date, the number of both social and genetic offspring and the body condition of nestlings can be predicted by the colouration of their ventral plumage, while the experiment shows that the reproductive success of male barn swallows tended to increase with experimental enhancement on their plumage colouration. My research supports that the ventral plumage colour is the sexually selected trait in northeastern Chinese barn swallows, and further experiments are needed to clarify the effect of male ventral plumage colour manipulation on their breeding success with the limitation of small sample size in my study.