The relation between temperament and happiness in children aged 8-12 was examined. Participants included 311 students in Grades 4-6 and their parents, recruited from public and private schools in the Central Okanagan. Parents rated their children’s temperament using the Emotionality, Activity, and Sociability (EAS) Temperament Survey (Buss & Plomin, 1984) and rated their children’s happiness using a single-item measure. Children rated their own temperament using the EAS Temperament Survey and the Piers- Harris Self Concept Scale for Children, Second Edition (Piers-Harris 2) (Piers & Herzberg, 2002). Children also rated their own happiness using a single-item measure, the Oxford Happiness Scale, Short Form (Hills & Arygle, 2002), and the Subjective Happiness Scale (Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1999). Confirmatory factor analyses established that parent and child ratings on the EAS Temperament Survey conformed to the four-factor structure proposed by Buss and Plomin (1984). Multiple regression analyses revealed that temperament accounted for between 9-29% of the variance in children’s happiness depending on the rater (i.e., parents vs. children) and the measure of happiness. Individual temperament variables that predicted a unique amount of the variance of children’s happiness over and above the combined effect of all temperament variables varied with the rater of children’s temperament (i.e., parents vs. children) and with the measure of happiness. Children who were more social, less shy, less emotional, and more free from anxiety rated themselves, and were rated by others, as happier. Children who scored higher on the activity temperament rated themselves, and were rated by others, as happier. The results of the current study parallel results of research investigating the relation between happiness and personality in adults. It establishes a strong relation between temperament and happiness, and iii supports the use of self-reports with children. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.

The relation between temperament and happiness in children aged 8-12 was examined. Participants included 311 students in Grades 4-6 and their parents, recruited from public and private schools in the Central Okanagan. Parents rated their children’s temperament using the Emotionality, Activity, and Sociability (EAS) Temperament Survey (Buss & Plomin, 1984) and rated their children’s happiness using a single-item measure. Children rated their own temperament using the EAS Temperament Survey and the Piers- Harris Self Concept Scale for Children, Second Edition (Piers-Harris 2) (Piers & Herzberg, 2002). Children also rated their own happiness using a single-item measure, the Oxford Happiness Scale, Short Form (Hills & Arygle, 2002), and the Subjective Happiness Scale (Lyubomirsky & Lepper, 1999). Confirmatory factor analyses established that parent and child ratings on the EAS Temperament Survey conformed to the four-factor structure proposed by Buss and Plomin (1984). Multiple regression analyses revealed that temperament accounted for between 9-29% of the variance in children’s happiness depending on the rater (i.e., parents vs. children) and the measure of happiness. Individual temperament variables that predicted a unique amount of the variance of children’s happiness over and above the combined effect of all temperament variables varied with the rater of children’s temperament (i.e., parents vs. children) and with the measure of happiness. Children who were more social, less shy, less emotional, and more free from anxiety rated themselves, and were rated by others, as happier. Children who scored higher on the activity temperament rated themselves, and were rated by others, as happier. The results of the current study parallel results of research investigating the relation between happiness and personality in adults. It establishes a strong relation between temperament and happiness, and iii supports the use of self-reports with children. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed. / Graduate Studies, College of (Okanagan) / Graduate

The problem with which this investigation is concerned is that of determining perceived attitudes of self-concept of educationally disadvantaged students in special vocational environments, other vocational students, and academic students as measured by the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale. The hypotheses formulated to carry out this study included: 1. There is no significant difference in the mean attitude self-concept score of vocational education students, academic students, and educationally disadvantaged students (CVAE) as measured by the Piers-Harris ChildrenIs SelfConcept Scale. 2. There is no significant difference in the mean attitude self-concept scores as measured by the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale between vocational education students, academic students, and CVAE students and number of years of placement in a vocational program, academic program and CVAE program. The Piers-Harris Children1s Self-Concept Scale was administered to 311 students from the CVAE, vocational, and academic programs in the Birdville Independent School District, Fort Worth, Texas and Denton Independent School District, Denton, Texas.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate post-burn adjustment in light of the self-esteem of child burn survivors. The study attempted to assess the viability of using a single, explicit self-report measure of self-esteem (Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale) as an index of post-burn adjustment. It appears that pediatric burn patients do not suffer a compromised self-concept secondary to the burn injury and, rather, are successful in incorporating their post-burn state, physically and psychologically, into a positive self-concept. It is suggested that evaluation of overall self-esteem incorporate a comprehensive picture of post-burn adjustment, based upon psychological and physiological parameters. Further research is justified and suggestions for future examinations are presented.

This dissertation explores the use of romance across religious poetry in late medieval England. Medieval devotional poems frequently borrow motifs and devices from romance; they might, for example, figure Jesus as a knight jousting with the devil or adopt the romance technique of interlace to narrate the Passion. Critics most frequently read these borrowings as a popularizing method, arguing that the poets of these religious texts turn to romance in order to appeal to their secular audience. I argue instead that late 14th century Middle English poets use romance to explore difficult theological paradoxes and Christian practices. In Pearl, the romance descriptio personae helps articulate the paradoxes of divine reward, at once hierarchical and egalitarian. In Piers Plowman, the romance incognito demonstrates the shifting and multivalent nature of the Trinity. In St. Erkenwald, the slow indulgence of romance wonder stands in contrast to God’s time, which is simultaneously immediate and drawn-out. In the Canterbury Tales, the romance parody of Thopas primes the reader for the prudential lessons of Melibee. This dissertation adds to a growing body of scholarship that reads medieval romance, and in particular Middle English romance, as a genre that does not simply entertain audiences but also interrogates, challenges, or reiterates medieval values and ideas. However, this project adds to current scholarship by examining romance out of its native context and inside or beside religious genres instead. In the first three chapters, I argue that by triggering a romantic reading, the Middle English poems Pearl, Piers Plowman, and St. Erkenwald enact and demonstrate the conceptual difficulties of certain theological paradoxes. In these poems, romance serves as a contemplative tool by demonstrating the reader’s comprehensive limits in the face of the divine. My fourth chapter, which explores Chaucer’s romance parody Sir Thopas alongside his pedagogical treatise Melibee, instead considers the Christian virtue of prudence; here, the exaggerated romance tropes of Sir Thopas prepare the pilgrims to pay penance prudentially by feeling and contemplating time in daily Christian life. While romance does not articulate a paradox about God in Thopas-Melibee, it still prompts contemplation about a difficult Christian virtue, prudence. In all four chapters, I find that romance serves as a vehicle for spiritual contemplation because of its own modes of thinking, whether that be social, economic, or temporal. Whether romance is set within or beside devotional texts, the secular genre allows the reader to contemplate difficult Christian theology and practices and to experience them as difficult in contemplation. Romance, I argue, is a critical tool in the vernacular theologian’s toolkit.

In between the Oceans and the Earth (The cities by Oceans) Projects in between the oceans and the earth For studies of towns on the seashores in magister studies under leadership of Ing. Arch Jan Mlecka I was impacted by two basic factors: firstly by my three years of studies and internships in Lisbon – a metropolis on the shore of Atlantic ocean, which became written into Lisbon’s DNA, into its light, tempo, priorities, historz, courage, strength, eternity, simplicity, sailing boats and elegance. And secondly I was influenced by a workshop organized by AA of London in February 2011 in Dubrovnik with lectures of Vedran Mimica and John Palmesino about towns, growth, quality of town life, policies and by studies of Southern Croatian coast under leadership of Krunoslav Ivanišin, where a floating platform was proposed to simultaneously solve several problems of this region. The more I become involved with oceans, the more I am fascinated by shorelines. This rare, dangerous, fractal line is the theatre of the biggest changes and dramas, but it also presents the greatest possibilities. (This is why I call my work not Towns by Oceans but In Between The Oceans and The Earth). When I was mapping shorelines, I have come across several findings: 1. The principles of constructions on shorelines are similar all over the world. 2. There are similar evolutionary stages in usage of shoreline – it is both physical and functional stages. 3. In many cases the potential of ocean is impaired by human interventions. Taking into account these facts, I was searching for further evolutionary stages of shorelines. In Lisbon I visited Ocean Energy Systems where 30 young engineers work on im-provements of machines designed to extract energy from oceans. In order to be effi-cient, these machines have to have giant dimensions. Immediately after seeing a generator on the island of Pico, I realized that such machines should not be put behind fences, creating an obstacle on the rare shoreline in between the sea and the land, but that they must be adopted by architecture – so that we will be able to live with them in symbiosis on the shoreline.

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Accurately predicting the response of complex bridge structures to strong earthquake ground motion requires the use of sophisticated nonlinear dynamic analysis computer programs not generally available to the bridge design engineer. The analytical tools that have been developed are generally applicable to bridges whose substructures can be idealized as beam-columns. Bridges with wall piers do not belong to this category The major objective of this study is to develop an analysis tool capable of simulating the effects of earthquakes on monolithic concrete wall pier bridges. Thus, after surveying the literature, a mathematical model is developed for the geometrically nonlinear earthquake analysis of wall pier bridges. Mixed plate elements are used to model the wall pier. The plate element has eight nodes and the degrees of freedom per node are three displacements and three moments. Beam elements are used to model the bridge deck. The beam element accounts for shear deformation and it has two nodes with three displacements and three rotations as degrees of freedom per node. A transitional element is used to join the beam elements to the plate elements. The equation of dynamic equilibrium is solved using the Newmark method with modified Newton-Raphson type iteration at each time step. The mixed plate element is used to model two plate structures and the results are compared with analytical and other finite element solutions. A two span wall pier bridge is modeled using the structural elements developed in this study. The digitized time history for the N-S component of the El Centro Earthquake of May 18, 1940, is used to seismically excite the bridge model. / Ph. D.

The problem of this study was to determine if there was a difference in the self-concept of two groups of ninth-grade students when one group received the services of junior and senior students in a Peer Assistance and Leadership class. The results of the Piers-Harris Children's—Self—Concept Scale were used to determine the difference between the mean self-concept scores of the two groups and also to determine if there was a relationship between the criterion variable of the total self-concept score and eight predictor variables as identified by House Bill 1010: Limited English proficiency, age, school attendance, achievement scores two or more years below grade level in reading and mathematics on a norm-referenced test, failure to master any portion of the Texas Educational Assessment of Minimum Skills, failure in two or more subjects, grade retention, and eligibility for free or reduced-price lunch. A total of 105 students, 50 in the experimental group and 55 in the control group, participated. The findings revealed that there was no significant difference in the mean self-concept scores of the two groups. The correlation revealed that there were significant differences between self-concept and the variables of mathematics achievement scores, failing grades, and eligibility for free lunch.