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The success of state fish and wildlife agency conservation efforts depends highly on their engagement with wildlife recreationists, ranging from those with consumptive (i.e., hunters and anglers) to nonconsumptive (i.e., birders, wildlife viewers) interests. However, declines in their historic constituent base of consumptive recreationists, coupled with an increasingly diverse and interconnected group of nonconsumptive recreationists, has placed new pressures on state fish and wildlife agencies. Human dimensions research into recreationists' behaviors and perceptions can help these agencies determine how best to serve and involve wildlife recreationists, including developing services that fit their interests, engaging them in conservation activities, and providing them with a suite of funding and support mechanisms to contribute to conservation. Developing this understanding can be complicated though, due to the range of behaviors and perceptions wildlife recreationists have regarding conservation and the role of state fish and wildlife agencies. Given this need to better understand how state fish and wildlife agencies can successfully engage their growing and changing wildlife recreation constituency in order to advance conservation, we investigated the perceptions, behaviors, and interactions of Virginia wildlife recreationists relative to the state fish and wildlife agency, the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR). Using a mixed-methods research design, we first looked into the intersection of wildlife recreation identities, to gain a clearer understanding about the implications of individuals who identify as multiple types of recreationists (i.e., consumptive-only, nonconsumptive-only, consumptive-viewers, and comprehensive recreationists). We also used recreation identity to explore how participation in conservation behaviors differs among recreationists. Next, to compare findings from our focus groups and survey, we explored how wildlife recreationist groups (i.e., birders or viewers, hunters or anglers, and multi-recreationists) felt served by a state fish and wildlife agency relative to agency services received by other recreation groups. Lasty, we investigated how recreation groups and level of familiarity with DWR predicted recreationists' future likelihood to financially contribute to the agency via voluntary and user-pay funding mechanisms. Our results highlight the opportunity that wildlife recreationists present for the future success of state fish and wildlife agencies, and the complex conservation challenges these agencies face in engaging with their growing and changing recreation constituencies. Wildlife recreationists are multidimensional in their recreational pursuits, and differ in their familiarity with and perceptions of state fish and wildlife agencies, which has implications for their future support of these agencies. Our findings illustrate the need for state fish and wildlife agencies to develop engagement strategies that provide multiple entry points into and interests in their conservation programs, while also working to enhance agency familiarity among nonconsumptive recreationists, and ensuring that all wildlife recreation groups feel valued in relation to one another. / Doctor of Philosophy / State fish and wildlife agencies play a critical role in the conservation and management of wildlife and their habitats in North America. To successfully carry out their conservation and management goals, state fish and wildlife agencies rely on support from the general public. Specifically, people who view and harvest wildlife provide valuable support to these agencies, in the form of funding, participating in conservation programs, reporting wildlife sightings, and providing wildlife habitat. However, groups like hunters and anglers are declining in participation levels, while groups like birders and other wildlife viewers are growing in number. The changing levels of participation in these groups may consequently place new expectations on state fish and wildlife agencies. Gaining a deeper understanding of recreationists' behaviors and thoughts can help state fish and wildlife agencies determine how best to serve and engage these groups. We used focus groups and a survey to explore whether people view themselves as participating in and as being a member of multiple wildlife recreation activities and how that may affect their participation in conservation. Next, we explored how different wildlife recreation groups view the level of services they receive from a state fish and wildlife agency compared to what they believe others receive from the agency. Lasty, we studied how the level of familiarity recreation groups had in a state fish and wildlife agency influenced their future likelihood to financially support the agency. Our results highlight the important role that people who view and harvest wildlife have in the future success of state fish and wildlife agency conservation efforts. Many people view themselves as being a member of multiple wildlife-oriented activities, which can influence their familiarity with and thoughts of state fish and wildlife agencies, and has implications for their future support of these agencies. Our findings suggest the need for state fish and wildlife agencies to develop engagement strategies that provide multiple opportunities for people of different wildlife interests to participate in conservation, while also working to enhance agency awareness among wildlife viewers and ensuring these groups feel valued in relation to one another.

Curriculum-making is a political exercise in which various groups in a society struggle over whose knowledge and values will be perpetuated through the school curriculum. As such, curriculum-making sometimes creates controversy. Controversy often accompanies the development of social studies curriculum because the purpose of social studies education is the preparation of the young for citizenship. Individuals disagree over what characteristics define the good citizen, as well as what knowledge and skills are necessary for effective citizenship. This study examines the political dimensions of social studies curriculum making in the controversy surrounding the development of the Virginia Standards of Learning for History and the Social Sciences. Using historical and qualitative methodology, the researcher collected and analyzed data from public documents, meetings of the Virginia Board of Education and its Advisory and Editing Committees, news articles, and transcripts from semi-structured interviews with eight key participants in the development of the social studies Standards of Learning. Analyses of these data sources showed that two primary groups struggled over control of the process of developing the standards, Governor Allen's education team and the professional social studies community under the leadership of the Virginia Consortium of Social Studies Specialists and College Educators. A third important force in the debate was the Virginia Board of Education, from which a small group of its members authored the final standards document. Further, this study showed two contextual influences on the Virginia social studies standards. The first was the Reagan rhetoric on academic crisis and educational reform through the establishment of tougher academic standards based on the traditional curriculum. The second was the recent controversy in Virginia over outcomes-based education. These two contextual influences combined to create a distrust of professional expertise. Three reciprocally related themes emerged from the data. Participants used power, rhetoric, and ideology to define the boundaries of the debate, control the process, name who could participate, and determine the outcome of the development process. Disagreements between the two major sides in the debate involved ideological differences over the nature of knowledge and learning and the nature of social studies education. There were also ideological differences among major participants over social issues like civil rights, gender issues, religion, and religious conflicts. / Ph. D.

Previous research examining the link between parenting and identity have either indirectly assessed a single dimension of parenting or explored the degree of achievement rather than the process of identity development. The present study examines the influence of maternal and paternal parenting behaviors on the identity formation process in late adolescence. Participants (N = 1134), ranging in age from 18 to 25, completed questionnaires to assess their perceptions of parental behaviors and their current identity status. The results indicate an association between maternal acceptance and identity achievement, and moratorium was correlated with lax control and psychological control. Parental acceptance and psychological control were linked with foreclosure, and all three dimensions of parenting were found to be associated with identity diffusion. The findings are discussed from an intervention standpoint as to which specific parental behaviors can protect against the unachieved identity statuses and facilitate the identity formation process. / Master of Science

Achieving long-term conservation gains through conservation incentive programs on agricultural lands requires a deep understanding of landowner needs and interests. However, social science research related to private lands conservation programs authorized by the United State farm bill lags behind biological research, limiting our knowledge about how to best design these programs to ensure they are effective. Given this need to better understand the human dimensions of habitat conservation on agricultural lands, we used two research projects to investigate landowner considerations related to land management decisions as well as how to effectively engage landowners in the conservation process. First, using two landowner-led workshops, we looked at what factors ranchers in the Intermountain West consider in deciding to continue or discontinue flood irrigation, an irrigation practice that sustains historically flooded wet meadows across the region. We also evaluated these landowner-led workshops as a form of participatory research. Our second project included three focus groups of landowners currently enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program, the largest private lands conservation program in the United States, and a survey of landowners with fields currently enrolled or no longer enrolled with expiration dates from 2011 to 2017. Our results highlight the role of agricultural landowners in habitat conservation and the complex social-ecological considerations that they face in making management decisions. Many landowners are interested in conservation programs that meet the context of their specific operation. Our findings suggest the need to better incorporate landowner needs into conservation program design and implementation that promote both operation and habitat sustainability. / MS / Agricultural lands across the American West play a critical role in conserving both agricultural operations and wildlife habitat. Conservation programs that provide incentives to landowners for various conservation efforts are available to aid in the protection of these lands and communities. Gaining a deeper understanding of the considerations of agricultural landowners for their land management decisions can help inform conservation programs and policy to more effectively meet the needs of landowners. We used two research projects to investigate landowner considerations related to land management decisions as well as how to effectively engage landowners in the conservation process. First, we looked at what factors ranchers in the Intermountain West consider in deciding to continue or discontinue flood irrigation, an irrigation practice that sustains historically flooded wet meadows across the region. We also evaluated these landowner-led workshops as a form of participatory research. Our second project included three focus groups of landowners currently enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program, the largest private lands conservation program in the United States, and a survey of landowners with fields currently enrolled or no longer enrolled with expiration dates from 2011 to 2017. Our results highlight the role of agricultural landowners in habitat conservation and the complex environmental and social considerations that they face in making management decisions. Many landowners are interested in conservation programs that meet the needs of their specific operation. Our findings suggest the need to better incorporate landowner needs into conservation program design and implementation that promote both agricultural and environmental conservation.

No / The finite element simulation of a selection of two- and three-dimensional flow problems is presented, based upon the use of four different constitutive models for polymer melts (Oldroyd-B, Rolie-Poly, Pom-Pom and XPP). The mathematical and computational models are first introduced, before their application to a range of visco-elastic flows is described. Results demonstrate that the finite element models used here are able to re-produce predictions made by other published numerical simulations and, significantly, by carefully conducted physical experiments using a commercial-grade polystyrene melt in a three-dimensional contraction geometry. The paper also presents a systematic comparison and evaluation of the differences between two- and three-dimensional simulations of two different flow regimes: flow of an Oldroyd-B fluid around a cylinder and flow of a Rolie-Poly fluid into the contraction geometry. This comparison allows new observations to be made concerning the relatively poor quality of two-dimensional simulations for flows in even quite deep channels.

The exponential growth of the human population has contributed to the overuse and degradation of common pool resources. Using science as a tool for informed policy-making can improve the management of our common pool resources. Understanding the conditions that influence groups of individuals to make ethical self-controlled choices may help solve problems related to the overuse and degradation of common pool resources. Ethical self-control involves the conflict of choice between one that will benefit the individual versus one that will benefit the group. The cumulative effect of many individuals behaving in an ethically self-controlled manner with common resource use may offset some of the harm posed by overuse of common pool resources. Metacontingency arrangements involving ethical self-control may provide some insight as to if and how groups may cooperate to manage a common pool resource. This manuscript proposes an experimental preparation and methodology to evaluate the effects of competing magnitudes of cultural consequences on culturants and their cumulative effect on common pool resources; and provides an analysis and discussion of five trends that might result from such a line of research.

Cette thèse vise à explorer et expliciter les images mentales du leader idéal au travail que les sujets de France, des États-Unis et du Vietnam se font. Elle a pour cadre les théories du leadership, les théories implicites du leadership et les dimensions culturelles prévalant dans les pays étudiés. Elle dresse un portrait prototypique du leader idéal au travail dans chaque pays et procède à une comparaison interculturelle en en identifiant les différences et les similarités. Elle vérifie par ailleurs les attributs «universels » du leader idéal, ceux qui sont unanimement rejetés par tous les pays interrogés ainsi que ceux qui sont recherchés et valorisés. Les résultats ont montré une congruence certaine avec les recherches internationales menées précédemment à quelques écarts près selon les pays. Ils assoient en outre l’impression que malgré une mondialisation galopante, les spécificités et les valeurs culturelles intrinsèques à chaque pays sont profondément enracinés dans la vision du monde et persistent face aux évolutions idéologiques et temporelles.Cette thèse contribue à inclure le Vietnam dans une recherche interculturelle qui jusqu’à présent s’est surtout intéressée à des pays à économie libérale, plus ouverts et plus accessibles aux chercheurs. Elle permet d’esquisser des contours de la vision duleadership des individus d’un pays peu étudié sous cet angle et ainsi d’anticiper et d’adopter un comportement approprié pour des expatriés au Vietnam. / The present dissertation explores and specifies the images of the ideal leader at work held mentally (Implicit Leadership Theories) by participants from France, the USA and Vietnam. It is based on the theoretical framework of leadership theories,implicit theories and cultural dimensions prevailing in the countries of the study. Prototypes of the ideal leader were established for each country and compared under the cross-cultural perspective. Differences and similarities between the respective portraits were identified. Furthermore, universally endorsed attributes of the ideal leader were explored, those unanimously rejected as well as those valued by all participants. Results suggest a certain convergence with those from previous international studies, except for a few discrepancies according to the culture considered. They strengthen the impression that, despite the galloping phenomenon of globalisation and in the face of ideological and temporal changes, specificities and values intrinsic to each culture are still deep-rooted into the beholder’s conception of the world andthe way it should appear. This work includes Vietnam in a cross-cultural research endeavour that, up to now, has been focused mostly on liberalised countries, more open and accessible to researchers. It helps outline the characteristics of leadership held by individuals of a country less studied and consequently helps anticipate and adopt the behaviour mostappropriate for expatriates who happen to work in Vietnam.

The vast majority of experiments in particle physics can be described by the Standard Model of particle physics (SM). However, there are indications for physics beyond it. The only experimentally demonstrated problem of the model is the difficulty to describe neutrino masses and leptonic mixing. There is a plethora of models that try to describe these phenomena and this thesis investigates several possibilities for new models, both full theories and effective frameworks.   The values of the parameters in a model are dependent on the energy scale and we say that the parameters run. The exact behavior of the running depends on the model and it provides a signature of the model. For a model defined at high energies it is necessary to run the parameters down to the electroweak scale in order to perform a comparison to the known values of observed quantities. In this thesis, we discuss renormalization group running in the context of extra dimensions and we provide an upper limit on the cutoff scale. We perform renormalization group running in two versions of a non-supersymmetric SO(10) model and we show that the SM parameters can be accommodated in both versions. In addition, we perform the running for the gauge couplings in a large set of radiative neutrino mass models and conclude that unification is possible in some of them.   The Higgs boson provides new possibilities to study physics beyond the SM. Its properties have to be tested with extremely high precision before it could be established whether the particle is truly the SM Higgs boson or not. In this thesis, we perform Bayesian parameter inference and model comparison. For models where the magnitude of the Higgs couplings is varied, we show that the SM is favored in comparison to all other models. Furthermore, we discuss lepton flavor violating processes in the context of the Zee model. We find that these can be sizeable and close to the experimental limits. / <p>QC 20170221</p>