Yes / In the past it has been found that the maximum pass-by noise for the most noisy of vehicles can be 6-8 dB(A) above the average for the sample. It is therefore useful to consider the types of vehicle that make excessive noise and their condition and to reach some conclusions on how best to reduce the problem. Measurements of maximum noise, pass-by speed together with video footage were taken on a busy dual carriageway road (A34) in the UK carrying a high percentage of heavy vehicles. The intention was to collect sufficient information on light, medium heavy and heavy vehicles to enable typical characteristics of noisy vehicles to be identified. Peak noise levels produced by vehicles under normal operating conditions of steady speed were recorded and not of vehicle being driven in an aggressive manner e.g. under harsh acceleration. This paper reports on the characteristics of excessively noisy vehicles that were identified under these cruising conditions in free flow traffic conditions. / The work described in this report was carried out in the Noise and Vibration Team of TRL Limited under funding from the Transport Research Foundation.

No / Increasing mail survey response using monetary incentives is a proven, but not always cost-effective, method in every population. This paper tackles the questions of whether it is worth using monetary incentives and the size of the inducement by testing a regression model of the impact of prepaid monetary incentives on response rates in consumer and organizational mail surveys. The results support their use and show that the inducement value makes a significant impact on the effect size. Importantly, no significant differences were found between consumer and organizational populations.

The purpose of this study was to determine food safety knowledge and practices of older adult participants in the Food Stamp Nutrition Education Program (FSNEP) in Virginia. One hundred and sixty-five FSNEP participants were assigned to two possible intervention groups, group one received the food safety lesson from the Healthy Futures Series currently used in FSNEP, while group two received the food safety lesson plus an additional food safety video. FSNEP participants completed food safety knowledge and practices questionnaires at baseline and at the end of FSNEP program. Observations of some FSNEP participants were also made. Results of this study indicate the FSNEP program was effective in making positive changes in participants' food safety knowledge and practices. However, FSNEP participants have inadequate food safety practices in the areas of proper storage of leftovers and raw ground meat, maintenance of refrigerator temperatures and use of meat thermometers. These areas should be emphasized in future food safety lessons used in FSNEP. In addition, participants who received only the current food safety lesson used in FSNEP had higher gains in food safety knowledge and practices, than participants who received both the current lesson food safety lesson and the instructional food safety video. Also, no strong relationships between demographic variables and FSNEP participants' food safety knowledge and practices were found. / Master of Science

Yes / Child safeguarding and the appropriate identification of suspected victims represents a global phenomenon. Diagnostic imaging is acknowledged as a contributory diagnostic service but the role of the radiographer in the identification and escalation process is less well understood. Method: A Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) survey was constructed to evaluate knowledge base in the context of the patient–radiographer interaction, the shaping of attitude towards child safeguarding and attitudes held towards their role plus the actual practical experiences of managing child safeguarding concerns. Results: Respondents demonstrated a inconsistent knowledge base with respect to physical, social and radiographic signs and symptoms of child safeguarding concern. A positive attitude towards the role of the radiographer in child safeguarding was demonstrated but one that was shaped more by experience than pre-registration education. Assessment of concerns was chiefly influenced by clinical history and appreciation of aetiology. Practically, radiographers have infrequent involvement with the identification and escalation of concerns. Whilst some statistically significant relationships between responses and demographics did exist, these were either sporadic or argued to be a result of natural variation. Conclusion: Assessment of physical and social signs of child safeguarding concern are argued to be becoming more challenging. Radiological signs continue to be visible to radiographers but with increasing use of other imaging modalities these signs are becoming more varied in nature and are providing new challenges. Radiographers are capable of escalation when required to do so. Implications for practice: To maximise the contribution of the profession, education needs to account for imaging modality worked with, in combination with an understanding of related aetiology. Previously existing concerns with respect to escalating processes are no longer in evidence and radiographers are both willing and able to contribute to that process.

The paper analyses the sources of income measurement error in surveys with a unique data set. We use the Austrian 2008-2011 waves of the European Union "Statistics on income and living conditions" survey which provide individual information on wages, pensions and unemployment benefits from survey interviews and officially linked administrative records. Thus, we do not have to fall back on complex two-sample matching procedures like related studies. We empirically investigate four sources of measurement error, namely social desirabil- ity, sociodemographic characteristics of the respondent, the survey design and the presence of learning effects. We find strong evidence for a social desirability bias in income reporting, whereas the presence of learning effects is mixed and depends on the type of income under consideration. An Owen value decomposition reveals that social desirability is a major expla- nation of misreporting in wages and pensions, whereas sociodemographic characteristics are most relevant for mismatches in unemployment benefits.

Thesis (M.Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 151-156) Also available in print.

Thesis deals with modern ways of surveys using advancing information technology and internet which makes surveys using web applications more effective. After a short review of public opinion history the summary of principal czech and forign survey organizations engaged in determination of survey rules are presented. Thesis follows with description of classic and modern data collecting methods. Main attention is devoted to on-line survey method. The description of method, possibilities of realization, positives and negatives and use of on-line questionnaire survey are presented. Final part of thesis si focused on on-line survey applying. The quality of this method is considered by sociological survey.

In the context of organizational development, surveys are important tools for learning about employees’ experiences in the organization. Organizational practice is faced with two main challenges to the successful implementation of surveys. First, the increasing use of surveys may lead to survey fatigue potentially negatively impacting employees’ motivation to engage in surveys. Second, survey results serve as a basis for strategic decision-making in organizations and thus need to be adequate for linkage research or benchmarking practices. The presented research aims to address these two challenges by taking a respondent-centered approach focusing on motivational and cognitive aspects of employees’ experiences while taking surveys. First, it introduces the new construct of survey experience as a respondent- centered criterion of successful survey design (Paper 1). A short-scale is theoretically developed based on user experience theory (Hassenzahl, Platz, Burmester, & Lehner, 2000) and empirically tested and validated in two studies. It, therefore, contributes to the understanding of survey design influences on participant’s motivational processes of survey response. Additionally, the short-scale equips practitioners with a reliable and economic lever to counter possible effects of survey fatigue by creating enjoyable and usable surveys tailored to specific target groups. Second, the presented research addresses cognitive and motivational aspects of survey processing and potential implications for the comparability of results. It, specifically, examines item-wording effects on response behavior on the example of intensifiers in Likert-type item stems of employee attitude surveys (Papers 2 and 3). It, further, considers the role of the organizational setting in determining employees’ response behavior (Krosnick, 1991) in the response process (Tourangeau & Rasinski, 1988) of employee attitude surveys (Paper 3). It, thereby, contributes to the understanding of employees’ response processes in this particular setting and provides practical advice for item-wording practices in organizations. Overall, the three papers bridge the previous literature by considering the survey itself, participants’ motivational and cognitive processes of survey response, and the survey setting in the context of employee attitude surveys together. The results of the presented research highlight the need for a contextual approach to researching and designing surveys that considers interactions between the survey, the participants, and the setting. It, thereby, contributes starting points to enable a more sophisticated approach to understanding survey response in employee attitude surveys.

No description available.

The main campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) has a current parking inventory of approximately 14,310 parking spaces in 88 surface lots. Of the available parking spaces 92% are designated for the use of Virginia Tech students, faculty and staff members. The share of visitor usage of these parking spaces is approximately 2%. The objective of this thesis is to evaluate the current visitor parking system and develop techniques to enhance the parking facility operations. The current visitor parking demand is determined by conducting a field evaluation of the visitor parking in five parking lots. Personal and follow-up interviews were conducted with university visitors to determine their satisfaction levels with the existing parking facilities. While the survey results demonstrated that 52% of visitors rated the parking services to be good or very good, the study also showed that approximately 28% of the visitors did not know the location of the most convenient parking lot to access their destination and almost 6% were not satisfied with the parking services offered by Virginia Tech. Apart from this, about 32% of the visitors had to visit at least 2 parking lots before finding a parking space. These figures clearly demonstrate a need for a better management of the parking lots to serve the visitors in an efficient way. In an attempt to enhance the visitor parking system a web-based interactive framework is proposed. This framework identifies the best possible parking lot(s) for a selected destination considering various factors like - distance of the parking lot to the destination and typical occupancy of the parking lot at specific times of the day and other relevant factors. The web-based interactive system is designed to provide the visitor with two or more choices for the parking in order to arrive at their desired destination. / Master of Science