The goal of this dissertation was to develop a relatively comprehensive and culturally de-centered measure of worldview assumptions, basic beliefs that humans have about the world and reality. A pool of 179 items was compiled from a selective review of the literature and submitted to Exploratory Factor Analysis in a US sample. The emergent 6-factor structure was submitted to increasingly stringent tests of invariance in samples from Lebanon, Singapore, and India and met the standards for factorial invariance. The 6-factors showed a diverse set of relationships with measures of the potential functions of worldview: subjective well-being, meaning in life, and tolerance for inequality.

abstract: The Rapid Eating and Activity Assessment for Participants Short Version (REAP-S), represents a method for rapid diet quality assessment, however, few studies have tested its validity. The Healthy Eating Index-2005 (HEI-2005) and the Diet Quality Index Revised (DQI-R) are tools that effectively assess diet quality, however, both are complex and time consuming. The objective of this study was to evaluate the validity of the REAP-S against the HEI-2005 and the DQI-R. Fifty males, 18 to 33 years of age, completed the REAP-S as well as a 24-hour diet recall. HEI-2005 and DQI-R scores were determined for each 24-hour recall. Scores from the REAP-S were evaluated against the HEI-2005 and DQI-R scores using Spearman rank order correlations and chi square. Modifications were also made to the original method of scoring the REAP-S to evaluate how the correlations transformed when certain questions were removed. The correlation coefficient for REAP-S and the HEI-2005 was 0.367 (P=0.009), and the correlation coefficient for REAP-S and the DQI-R was 0.323 (P=0.022). Chi square determined precision of the REAP-S to the HEI-2005 for overall diet quality at 64% and 62% for the DQI-R and REAP-S. Scores that were considered extreme (n=21) by the HEI-2005 (scores <40 and >60) had 76% precision with REAP-S. The correlation for the modified version of scoring REAP-S with the overall HEI-2005 and DQI-R were 0.395 (P=0.005) and 0.417 (P=0.003) respectively. Chi square statistics revealed the REAP-S accurately captured the diets of high quality versus low quality with 64% precision to the HEI-2005 and 62% of the DQI-R. When evaluating the modified REAP-S scores against the extreme HEI-2005 scores, precision increased to 81%. It appears the REAP-S is an acceptable tool to rapidly assess diet quality. It has a significant, moderate correlation to both the HEI-2005 and the DQI-R, with strong precision as well. Both correlation and precision is strengthened when values are compared to only the extreme scores of the HEI-2005; however, more research studies are needed to evaluate the validity of REAP-S in a more diverse population and to evaluate if changes to select questions can improve its accuracy in assessing diet quality. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Nutrition 2012

A Floresta Atlântica, principalmente sua porção localizada no interior do Estado de São Paulo, encontra-se altamente fragmentada e seus remanescentes, em sua maioria, encontram-se envoltos por uma matriz essencialmente agrícola. Este estudo foi realizado no Campus "Luiz de Queiroz", Universidade de São Paulo, localizado no município de Piracicaba, Estado de São Paulo. O mesmo encontra-se inserido no perímetro urbano da cidade de Piracicaba, tendo como limite duas rodovias e o Rio Piracicaba. A paisagem da área de estudo caracteriza-se por um mosaico de pequena áreas florestais envoltas por áreas de pastagens, agricultura e florestamento com espécies exóticas. Os objetivos principais do presente estudo foram: levantamento de mamíferos não-voadores, em escala local, incluindo sua distribuição e abundância de acordo com o mosaico de ambientes resultantes do expressivo impacto causado pelo desenvolvimento humano na área. A coleta de pequenos mamíferos ocorreu durante nove meses, entre fevereiro e outubro de 2001, com um esforço de 7056 armadilhas/dia, tendo sido amostrados sete dos ambientes mais representativos do Campus(florestamento de Eucalyptus e Pinus, fragmento florestal nativo, várzea, plantio de seringueira, área de agricultura e área de pastagem). Para o registro de mamíferos de médio e grande portes foi construída uma trilha pelo Campus, que foi percorrida durante 12 meses, entre novembro de 2000 e outubro de 2001, no período da manhã e da tarde. Em todo o Campus foram registradas 16 espécies de mamíferos não-voadores, sendo dez de médio e grande portes e seis de pequeno porte, sendo a capivara (Hydrochaeris hydrochaeris) e o coati (Nasua nasua) as espécies mais abundantes. / The remaining portion of the Atlantic Forest within the State of Sao Paulo is highly fragmented and most of the remainders are wrapped up in an essentially agricultural mosaic. This study aims local surveying of non-flying mammals, including their distribution and relative abundance within the humanimpacted environments of Campus "Luiz de Queiroz", University of Sao Paulo, Piracicaba, SP, Brazil, an urbanized area bordered by two highways and the Piracicaba River. The landscape of the study area is characterized by a mosaic of small forest fragments surrounded by pastures, agriculture, and planted forests. Small mammals were captured from February to October, 2001, with an effort of 7056 traps.day -1 , sampling seven of the most representative environments of the Campus – planted Eucalyptus and Pinus forests, native forest fragments, meadow, rubber tree plantation, agriculture and pasture areas. Occurrence of medium and large frame mammals was recorded daily (morning and afternoon) from November of 2000 to October of 2001 along a trail set up to merge the studied environments. Sixteen species of non-flying mammals were recorded, ten of medium or big frames, and six of small frame. Capybara (Hydrochaeris hydrochaeris) and coati (Nasua nasua) were the most abundant species.

No description available.

Master of Regional and Community Planning / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Gregory L. Newmark / At Kansas State University, there is not an issue of opposition to public bus services. Instead, there is a perception that taking the bus is too complicated to figure out or cannot appropriately serve the community’s needs. This, combined with dependence and attachment to the automobile, caused local buses to become unpopular mode choices. Since the service is still relatively new, it has not been engrained into campus culture and ridership is very low. This study looked at the local bus system, ATA bus, used to access the Manhattan, KS campus of Kansas State University (KSU). According to the ATA Annual Report from 2014, 75% of off-campus students at KSU and 35% of employees live within five minutes of ATA city-wide routes (FHATA 2014). Ideally, all those students and employees would take the bus to class or work, but in reality, most walk or drive. A very small minority of students use the fixed route service, and many are unfamiliar with how the system works. A campus access survey distributed in March 2017 to the KSU community aimed to ascertain familiarity with the system, current level of use, as well as attitudes towards the existing public transportation system. The data recovered from the survey contradicts the hypothesis that the disuse of the bus system was due to an active opposition to public buses. Conversely, it pointed to the conclusion that disuse resulted from a lack of information about the bus service and a deep-set attachment to private automobiles. This research aimed to increase ridership by identifying attitudes towards transit among the KSU community and suggesting strategies for improving service.

Class of 2011 Abstract / OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the pharmaceutical needs of a rural Arizona border town in order to determine the feasibility of building a pharmacy within the San Luis Walk-In Clinic. METHODS: Surveys included questions regarding general information such as education level and length of time living in the community, health literacy, household medications and medical supplies, pharmacy and prescription information, travel time to current pharmacy, level of satisfaction of current pharmacy, and interest in additional pharmaceutical clinical services. Only questions in the public health survey that were related to the pharmaceutical needs assessment were reviewed and analyzed. RESULTS: 127 pharmaceutical needs assessment surveys were collected and analyzed. Of note, 78% of survey respondents reported traveling outside of San Luis to purchase medications. 76% of households are either not satisfied or slightly satisfied with their pharmacy. Up to 65% of households are interested in additional pharmaceutical services such as medication therapy management (MTM) and education classes on various disease states. CONCLUSION: The findings from the surveys strongly suggest that the residents in San Luis would welcome an additional pharmacy to their community. Less time would be used commuting out of town to purchase medications and additional clinical services would be well appreciated within San Luis. Thus, it is recommended that a pharmacy be built within the San Luis Walk-In Clinic.

Work-related asthma surveillance is needed to improve management of occupational exposures, clinical recognition/diagnosis, and worker compensation policies. This work investigated asthma in relation to work by evaluating the utility of existing Canadian surveillance data in providing useful information about the burden of work-related asthma; estimating the burden of work-related asthma among Canada's adult population; and evaluating the effect of job risk on asthma after considering other potential risk factors for asthma. The working population formed samples from two Statistics Canada surveillance programs: Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS), 2002/03 Cycle 2.1 and National Population Health Survey (NPHS), Longitudinal Component (1994/95-2002/03). Both surveys enquired about health professional-diagnosed asthma; NPHS additionally asked age at time of diagnosis, so adult-onset versus childhood-onset asthma was determined. Both surveys enquired about current job held; corresponding job codes were linked to an asthma-specific job exposure matrix to judge job risk for occupational asthma. CCHS only provided current job information, in contrast, NPHS longitudinal data was used to determine job held at time of asthma-onset. Statistical measures for asthma in relation to job risk were estimated. CCHS results were likely biased by the healthy worker effect, as it showed the opposite effect of job risk on asthma than the NPHS; higher asthma prevalence was shown for NPHS men and women in high risk jobs. NPHS results indicated a large burden of adult-onset asthma among men (19,000) and childhood-onset asthma among women (17,000) attributed to working in high risk jobs for occupational asthma. Using NPHS, adjusted and crude prevalence odds ratio estimates were compared to further assess effect of job risk on asthma. For adult-onset asthma, there was no difference between estimates (men: 1.8, women: 1.1); for childhood-onset asthma, adjusted estimates were larger than crude, respectively (men: 1.3 v 1.2, women: 2.0 v 1.7). Age of asthma-onset and job held at time of asthma-onset is necessary surveillance information for estimating work-related asthma. There may be increased risk of work" caused" asthma among men and work "exacerbated" asthma among women in high risk jobs. Considering other risk factors for asthma did not reduce effect of job risk on asthma. / Medicine, Faculty of / Population and Public Health (SPPH), School of / Graduate

This study explored statistical equivalence of the adapted Xhosa and English version of the Woodcock-Muñoz Language Survey (WMLS) by investigating group differences on each subscale, in terms of mean scores, index reliability, and item characteristics for two language groups. A Convenience quota sampling technique was used to select 188 Xhosa (n = 188) and 198 English (n = 198) learners from Grades 6 and 7 living in rural and urban Eastern Cape. The WMLS Xhosa and English versions were administered to learners in their first languages. Significant mean group differences were found, but differences were not found on the reliability indices, or mean item characteristics. This pointed in the direction of statistical equivalence. However, scrutiny of the item characteristics of the individual items per subscale indicated possible problems at an item level that need to be investigated further with differential functioning analyses. Thus, stringent DIF analyses were suggested for future research on DIF items before the versions of the WMLS can be considered as equivalent.

The PPAK Integral Field Spectroscopy (IFS) Nearby Galaxies Survey: PINGS, a 2-dimensional spectroscopic mosaicking of 17 nearby disk galaxies in the optical wavelength range. This project represents the first attempt to obtain continuous coverage spectra of the whole surface of a galaxy in the nearby universe. The final data set comprises more than 50000 individual spectra, covering in total an observed area of nearly 80 arcmin square. The powerful capabilities of wide-field 2D spectroscopic studies areproven. The chemical composition of the whole surface of a spiral galaxy ischaracterised for the first time as a function not only of radius, but of theintrinsic morphology of the galaxy, allowing a more realistic determination oftheir physical properties. The methodology, analysis and results of thisdissertation will hopefully contribute in a significant way to understand thenature of the physical and chemical properties of the gas phase in spiralgalaxies.

In the thesis the author attempts to discover whether or not The Value Line Investment Survey shows evidence of an ability to forecast "Probable Twelve Months Market Performance Rank," a ranking of stocks according to their probable relative price performance within the succeeding twelve months. To test the ability to forecast, the author determines the significance of the correlation between the ranking of stocks according to the forecast and the ranking of stocks according to the observed relative price performance within the year. The conclusion drawn is that The Value Line Investment Survey does not show evidence of a consistent ability to forecast "Probable Twelve Months Market Performance Rank." The author also presents a model of the process which may underly the generation of stock market price changes. The author tests the assumption of the independence of price changes, a part of the model, on the data of the thesis and finds that the test results do not refute the assumption. The model, the "Random Walk Hypothesis," is related to the ability of The Value Line Investment Survey to forecast "Probable Twelve Months Market Performance Rank." It is concluded that The Value Line Investment Survey has failed to show that its forecasts are superior to forecasts based solely on past prices where the market is assumed to follow a random walk. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate