The problem of this study was to determine the relationship between dropout rates of the high schools of Arkansas and certain school practices.

The problem with which this study is concerned is the description of the past and present trends in the process of urbanization in Nigeria. In addition, the study explores tribal practices and perspectives in Nigeria's urban areas, giving special attention to the bases for the continuous existence of these phenomena. The data used in the study are obtained from books, government documents of both the United States and Nigeria and the. United Nations demographic analysis documents. The study is divided into five chapters. Based on findings and research of this study, the conclusion is drawn that adaptation to Nigeria's urban life proceeds through modification of the traditional institutions and their combination with Western cultural values, technology and economic practices into a new social structure.

The problem under consideration is to determine the effect of certain prevailing environmental conditions of a distracting nature upon the process of study in the first grade. The conditions selected, those which are common to the schoolroom or home environment, were chewing gum, physical education classes, room confusion, rhythm band, singing, and recorded music. This study attempted to determine to what degree, if any, each of these distracting environmental conditions affect the process of study in the first grade.

Many farms in the United States impose negative externalities on society. Population growth and the accompanying increase in demand for food further promote this trend of environmental degradation as a by-product of food production. The USDA's Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) provides financial assistance to farmers who wish to address natural resource concerns by making structural improvements or implementing best management practices (BMPs) on their farms. Regional examinations of program implementation and incentive levels are needed to evaluate the effectiveness of EQIP at both the farm and environmental level. This research addresses this need in the following two ways. First, conjoint analysis was used to calculate the willingness to accept incentive levels desired by Vermont farmers for implementing three common BMPs and the relative importance of each attribute in their adoption decisions. Next, a survey was conducted to document Vermont farmers' experiences, or choices not to engage, with EQIP. The results of the conjoint analysis indicated that farmers' adoption decisions are most heavily influenced by the available implementation incentives and that the higher the incentive level offered, the more willing farmers are to adopt a practice. The survey results triangulated these findings as cost was the most frequently cited challenge farmers face when implementing BMPs and one third of respondents felt the cost-share amount they had received was inadequate. Although 46% of respondents reported receiving nonmonetary benefits, 43% had encountered challenges when enrolling or participating in EQIP. In addition, though contracts are designed to address specific resource concerns, 30% of respondents had not fully fixed the original issues with their contracts. This also indicates that the incentive levels offered in EQIP contracts may be lower than Vermont farmers' preferred incentive levels, affecting the adoption rate of BMPs and subsequently the environmental health and long term sustainability of Vermont's agricultural systems. Program areas ripe for improvement, key points for farmers weighing the costs and benefits of program participation, and future research opportunities are discussed in order to guide efforts to improve the effectiveness of EQIP in Vermont. This research also raises awareness of how much it costs to simultaneously support environmental health and food production in our current food system and who ultimately should bear this financial burden.

This qualitative study focuses on the faculty engaged in the preparation of secondary teachers at North East University (NEU). It seeks to discover how they see themselves as professionals and assess their work preparing future teachers in "Best Practices" of teaching so that they can effectively teach all students, particularly low achievers. To achieve the goal of this study, I conducted semi-structured individual interviews with those faculty who are engaged in preparing teachers at the secondary program. Eight participants were interviewed for this study, among them six participants were fully engaged in the teacher preparation. Once I collected the data from the interviews, then I transcribed, coded, analyzed the data, and identified similarities, differences, patterns, and themes from the interviews. The findings of this study indicate that these faculty have a strong commitment to preparing outstanding teachers that is rooted in their belief in social justice and equality. They expressed they have dreams about their teaching, about their student-teachers and about their program. The faculty are highly confident of their ability to educate secondary teachers and believe that they make a difference in the academic performance of those children their graduates serve in the schools. This study also concluded that the teacher educators at NEU's secondary program think they are successful in introducing "Best Practices" of teaching, especially helping their student-teachers in differentiating instructions, dealing with disabilities, teaching ELL students, employing technology in teaching, understanding diversity, culture and traditions, and preparing their student-teachers in examining issues relating to prejudice, discrimination, stereotyping, race, poverty, gender, social class and ethnicity.

This descriptive, non-experimental, quantitative study was designed to answer the broad question, “What do grades mean?” Core academic subject middle school teachers from one large, suburban school district in Virginia were administered an electronic survey that asked them to report on aspects of their grading practices and assessment methods for one class taught during the 2008-2009 school year. The survey addressed the following topics: 1) primary purposes for grades, 2) attitudes toward grading, 3) assessment method, and 4) grading practices. Additionally, the study examined the relationship between teachers’ reported assessment and grading methods and student achievement. Overall results and results disaggregated by subject area, grade level, and student ability level suggest that teachers are consistent in what they consider the primary purposes for grades. The vast majority indicated that grades should communicate student levels of mastery of content and skills. However, sizable percentages of teachers reported that they also considered non-academic indicators such as effort, attendance, and paying attention in class when determining student grades, suggesting a lack of alignment between their reported beliefs and practice. The study examined the extent to which teachers’ reported grading and assessment practices were consistent with those recommended in the literature on measurement and assessment. The study findings are consistent with those of findings from previous studies suggesting that teachers engage in “hodgepodge grading,” a practice which incorporates non-academic factors into student grades. The results also show that teachers use a variety of assessment methods and types of questions when measuring student achievement. The results indicate that projects, student exhibits, essays, inclusion of zeros, and extra credit were associated with higher levels of student achievement. Conversely, norm-referencing, classwork, participation, and matching were negatively correlated with student grades and test scores.

Resumé v anglickém jazyce This thesis is focused on the legal regulation of unfair competition, unfair commercial practices and on the misleading and unlawful comparative advertisement. The legal regulation was a subject of the major changes under the influence of European union's regulation. The thesis' aim is to analyse and describe the regulation, bring it closer and by using of the partial comparisons contemplate it with the Czech legal arrangements. The structure of the thesis is divided into the introduction, three consecutive chapters and final summary. The introduction chapter is mainly focused on the European's legal regulation version of Unfair Commercial Practices Directive and Misleading and Comparative Advertising Directive. Chapter is focused on consumer protection in English legal regulation prior to implementing of the new European law and further to the form of such implementing and harmonisation. Thesis' task to interpret the main legal regulations' fundamental alterations, which acts as starting basis for the part as follows. The crucial part is listed in the second part, which is divided into the two subchapters. The subchapters follows the directives legal regulation structure. The more extensive subchapter deals with the unfair commercial practices and its task is to interpret the...

Cette thèse porte sur les pratiques funéraires royales et privées dans le royaume de Napata, entre les VIIIe et IIIe siècles av. J.-C. Elle constitue une synthèse de l'ensemble des connaissances ayant trait aux structures funéraires ainsi qu'aux rituels qui avaient lieu lors de l'enterrement du défunt ou après. Commençant par l'architecture funéraire, elle présente les traces des cultures locales et celles de la tradition égyptienne de manière à faire ressortir le fait que les éléments indigènes sont plus enracinés chez les communautés les plus isolées et probablement non sédentaires, alors que les tombes royales, d'inspiration pharaonique, témoignent d'une appropriation d'éléments décoratifs et de textes largement utilisés dans les nécropoles élitaires de Thèbes Ouest. Ensuite , cette thèse classifie les objets du mobilier funéraire afin de fournir la base d'un régionalisme culturel par le biais des emprunts des deux traditions. Dans la dernière partie, elle dresse une étude des coutumes funéraires napatéennes, en traçant un essai de hiérarchisation des sépultures selon leur contenu et le type de tombe, pour aborder finalement les rites funéraires et le phénomène de l' "acculturation" analysé dans ses différents aspects à travers les composantes funéraires étudiées précédemment. / This PhD thesis deals with the royal and non royal funerary practices in the Napatan Kingdom between VIIIe and IIIrd century BCE. It consists of an overview on the funerary architecture and of the rituals performed along or after the funeral. Starting from the funerary architecture, it presents the cultural traces coming from local cultures and those of the Egyptian tradition, suggesting that the indigenous elements are more rooted among the isolated groups perhaps non sedentary, while royal tombs, under the pharaonic inspiration, testify the adoption of decorative elements and texts widely used in the elitist necropolises in Western Thebes. Then, this research classifies the objects coming from the funerary equipment such to offer the outlines of a cultural regionalism by the loans of both the two cultures. In the final part, an investigation on the funerary customs of Napatan Period has been made, offering an attempt of a hierarchical organization of the burials on the basis of the contents and of the type of the tomb, to finally discuss the funerary rituals and the phenomenon of "acculturation" analyzed within different aspects by the funeray components discussed before.

Master of Science / Department of Agronomy / Phillip W. Stahlman / Kochia [Kochia scoparia (L.) Schrad.] is an invasive weed that is common in cropland, pastures and rangeland, rights-of-way, and disturbed areas throughout the western and northern United States and southern Canada. This species aggressively competes with crops, especially in no-till cropping systems, and has evolved resistance to multiple herbicide modes of action. Thus, it has become highly problematic and is difficult to manage. Roundup Ready 2 Xtend™ (Monsanto Co.) soybeans with resistance to dicamba herbicide are expected to be commercialized in 2016, and will offer a new management practice for controlling kochia and other susceptible broadleaf weeds in soybeans. Objectives of this research were to (1) determine whether greenhouse-grown plants from various kochia populations from the central Great Plains differ in susceptibility to postemergence-applied dicamba; (2) compare preemergence versus postemergence control of kochia with dicamba in a greenhouse environment; and (3) investigate various management practices in a systems approach to control kochia in soybeans. GR[subscript]50 values (dose required to reduce plant biomass by 50%) indicated at least an 8-fold difference among 11 kochia populations in susceptibility to postemergence-applied dicamba. Additionally, dicamba at 210 g ha[superscript]-1 applied preemergence caused 95, 88 and 84% mortality and reduced plant biomass (fresh wt.) of the most susceptible and two least susceptible kochia populations from a previous dicamba dose-response study by 99, 68 and 60%, respectively. In comparison, <10% of kochia plants from those populations died and biomass was reduced only 39, 15 and 7%, respectively, when dicamba was applied postemergence. Field experiments demonstrated that preplant conventional tillage followed by nine different in-crop herbicide treatments, and shallow early-spring tillage followed by preplant herbicides (reduced-till) along with the same in-crop herbicides provided greater kochia control than three no-till systems involving early preplant herbicide treatments followed by the same in-crop herbicides. However, despite greater kochia control with the tillage-based systems in 2013, soybean yields were less compared to the three no-till systems. Consequently, in some years the most effective kochia control practices may not result in the highest soybean yields.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Agronomy / P.V. Vara Prasad / Sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] is a relatively drought- and heat-tolerant cereal crop. Global demand and consumption of agricultural crops for food, feed, and fuel is increasing at a rapid pace. To satisfy the growing worldwide demand for grain, production practices must be well optimized and managed. The objectives of the present study were: to optimize sorghum production by determining the best management practices (planting date, row spacing, seeding rate, hybrid maturity) for growth and yield, to evaluate the agronomic responsiveness of grain sorghum genotypes to nitrogen (N) fertilizer and to develop a partial financial budget to N fertilizer application based on best management practices. In order to meet these objectives, field experiments were conducted in 2009, 2010 and 2011 at Manhattan, Belleville, Ottawa, Hutchinson, Hays, at KSU Experiment Stations and Salina, and Randolph at Private Farms. Results indicated that early planting date (late May) and narrow row spacing (25 cm) providing the most equidistant spacing, produced better plant growth, light interception, yield components (number of grains per panicle, 300-grain weight), and biological yield. Results indicated that with increasing N rate, there was a proportional increase in chlorophyll SPAD meter reading, leaf color scores and number of green leaves. There was a significant difference among hybrids for N uptake, NUE and grain yield. However, there was no effect of N and no interaction between N and hybrid on grain yield. Over all, the genotypes with high NUE also had higher grain yield. Economic analysis using partial budget indicated that all N levels had positive gross benefit greater than control at all locations. However, the response varied across locations. Our research has shown that sorghum responds to changing management practices and opportunities exist to increase grain yield by optimizing planting date, seeding rate, row spacing, N application and selection of genotypes.