No description available.

The purpose of this study was to explore the preferred information sources and delivery channels for farm-related information among selected northeast Texas farmers and describe these results in a manner which might enable the Texas AgriLife Extension Service and other agriculture-focused entities better position themselves to address the needs of their clientele. An instrument was developed and mailed to (N = 290) randomly selected farmers from existing Extension mailing lists in four northeast Texas counties: Bowie, Rains, Rusk and Shelby. Participants had the option of responding online or via return mail. The highest ranking interpersonal information sources were other farmers, AgriLife Extension personnel, and seminars/workshops. The lowest ranking interpersonal information sources were agricultural lenders/bankers and private consultants. The highest ranking print-based information sources were agricultural newspapers and farm magazines. The lowest ranking print-based information sources were publications from non-governmental farm organizations and daily or weekly newspapers. Respondents were neutral on the usefulness of television and radio as information sources. The Internet was the only electronic information source agreed to as useful by responding farmers. The lowest ranking electronic media source was social media. The most common type of contact between farmers and the Texas AgriLife Extension Service was reading an Extension publication monthly, followed by a yearly visit to the Extension office. Farmers were satisfied with the quality of the agriculture related materials and programs provided by the Texas AgriLife Extension Service and were likely to recommend the agency to others. The majority (91.6%) of respondents had not heard of the national Extension website eXtension and only 4 respondents (2.5%) had reported using the website before. Respondents felt that eXtension would increase the accessibility of Extension programming, should be publicized more by local Extension offices, and would make Cooperative Extension more popular. Internet use among farmers was found to be influenced by age, highest level of education attained, Internet connection type, and other electronic devices used. Perceptions about AgriLife Extension were found to be influenced by Innovativeness Category, primary occupation, gender, and other electronic devices used. Findings in this study support the Uses and Gratifications Theory of media use.

This thesis examines the ways in which active citizenship is conceptualised by a variety of actors within the Workers’ Educational Association South Wales and is the work of an ‘insider’ with experience of the organisation as both employee and Trustee. The Association is a democratically structured, voluntary organisation with a history of providing adult education in communities throughout south Wales for more than a hundred years. Its reliance on funding from the Welsh Government for the majority of its income is a significant aspect of the background to this study, particularly as one of the Association’s aims is the provision of courses that ‘will assist in the promotion of active citizenship’. The research is set within the contexts of changes in adult education policy during the Association’s lifetime and a contemporary emphasis on the economic purpose of education, the contested nature of the concepts of citizenship and active citizenship and the organisation’s historic role in relation to the Labour movement and past tensions in respect of the receipt of state funding. The study explores through semi-structured interviews with those responsible for the Association’s strategic direction, both senior staff and Trustees, as well those whose role is to implement policy as Development Workers and Part-time Tutors, how active citizenship is understood and whether or not there is a shared understanding within the Association. A picture emerges in which there appears to be uncertainty among a significant proportion of participants about the Association’s purpose as well as a lack of a shared understanding of what active citizenship means and of the kinds of active citizenship the Association could promote. The study also reveals shortcomings in organisational capacity to achieve the aim of promoting active citizenship. The thesis concludes with a series of policy recommendations for the Association to consider.

This paper will be devoted to an exposition of some of the relationships existing between a field and certain of its extension fields. In particular, it will be shown that many fields may be characterized rather simply in terms of their subfields which, in turn, may be directly correlated with the subgroups of a finite group of automorphisms of the given field.

No description available.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Agricultural Economics / Jason S. Bergtold / Timothy J. Dalton / Adoption of technological improvements are crucial to increase agricultural productiviy to help reduce poverty by obtaining higher farm incomes due to higher productivity and lower production costs. However, the introduction of new agricultural technologies has not always been successful or had diffuse adoption. Factors that determine farmers’ adoption decisions are: 1) farm and farmers' characteristics; 2) technology attributes, and 3) the farming objective. Understanding these factors and how they affect adoption of new technologies on the farm is crucial to assure higher levels of adoption. The over all purpose of this thesis is to explore the adoption process of new technologies and practices by farmers. This is accomplished through three essays to meet the objectives of the thesis. The purpose of the first essay was to evaluate whether or not farmers in the western U.S. are willing to grow specialized oilseed crops that could be used for certified hydrotreated renewable jet (HRJ) fuel production and incorporate them into existing wheat-based production systems under contract. Results indicate that providing oilseeds crops and contracts with desired attributes and features would positively affect farmers' decisions to incorporate oilseed crops into their rotation system. Preferred seed and contract attributes that may affect a farmer’ adoption decision differ across different geographic regions of the U.S. The second essay focused on identifying factors that impact participation and farmers' decision to adopt soil conservation and fertilization management practices for cassava producers in Thailand and Vietnam. Results indicate that asset ownership and cassava yield positively influence participation. Adoption of new practices was positively linked to farmers’ participation in training activities, use of fish ponds (as a measure of alternative agricultural practices), presence of a nearby starch factory, and slope of the land. Finally, the purpose of the third essay was to examine extension educators' characteristics that affect educators' selection decision of outreach methods in the U.S. This essay examines the diffusion process that impacts adoption of best management practices by farmers. The decision extension educators make for selecting a teaching method is affected by the relationship between the objectives of the learning process and the characteristics of the teaching method.

Digitized by Kansas State University Libraries

The Hot Spot effect is an issue that reduces the network lifetime considerably. The network on the field forms a tree structure in which the sink represents the root and the furthest nodes in the perimeter represent the leaves. Each node collects information from the environment and transmits data packets to a "reachable" node towards the sink in a multi-hop fashion. The closest nodes to the sink not only transmit their own packets but also the packets that they receive from "lower" nodes and therefore exhaust their energy reserves and die faster than the rest of the network sensors. We propose a technique to allow the data sink to identify nodes severely suffering from the Hot Spot effect and to move beyond these nodes. We will explore the best trajectory that the data sink should follow. Performance results are presented to support our claim of superiority for our scheme.

Devido à grande adoção por parte das empresas da estratégia de extensão de marca como base para crescimento, e também à falta de estudos específicos no Brasil sobre as variáveis que podem influenciar o desempenho das extensões de marca realizadas, este estudo se propõe a identificar os fatores críticos para a extensão de marca e suas implicações no sucesso da extensão. Para atingir este objetivo proposto, buscou-se um referencial teórico sobre diferentes temas relacionados à extensão de marca, e conduziu-se uma pesquisa exploratória, qualitativa e com uso do recurso de estudo de caso. A empresa selecionada para o estudo de caso único foi a Castelo Alimentos, onde os dados obtidos nas entrevistas foram analisados a partir de um modelo conceitual proposto sobre os fatores críticos para o sucesso da extensão de marca, formulado com base na pesquisa bibliográfica e agrupado em três tipos: fatores relacionados à empresa, fatores relacionados à marca mãe e fatores relacionados à extensão de marca. Os resultados sugerem que o grau de influência de cada fator varia conforme o tipo de extensão de marca realizada (extensão de linha, extensão de categoria similar, extensão de categoria dissimilar). Ainda, o fator considerado como mais importante para o sucesso da extensão foi o de adequação entre a extensão e a marca mãe; quanto mais similar e consistente a extensão for em relação à marca mãe, maiores chances de sucesso ela terá. Constatou-se também que o valor simbólico da marca e a sequência de realização das extensões são pouco significativos para o sucesso das extensões. Em contrapartida, o suporte para a extensão de marca foi considerado como um fator importante para seu sucesso para todas as extensões de marca analisadas. A partir das conclusões discutidas e levando-se em consideração as limitações do método de pesquisa escolhido, são propostas algumas recomendações às empresas brasileiras que buscam realizar extensões de marca. / Due to the wide adoption by business of the brand extension strategy as the basis for growth, and also to the lack of specific studies in Brazil on the variables that can influence the performance of brand extensions undertaken, this study aims to identify the critical factors for brand extension and its implications for the success of the extension. To achieve this proposed objective, a theoretical basis was sought on different topics related to brand extension, and after, an exploratory and qualitative study was conducted, using the case study method. The company selected for the one case study was Alimentos Castelo, where the data obtained in the interviews was analyzed using a proposed conceptual model on the critical factors for successful brand extension, designed based on the literature and grouped in three types: factors related to the company, factors related to the original brand and factors related to brand extension. The results suggest that the degree of influence of each factor varies depending on the type of brand extension made (line extension, extension to similar category, extension to dissimilar category). Moreover, the factor considered as the most important to the success of the brand extension was the fit between the extension and parent brand - the more similar and consistent the extension is to the parent brand, the greater the chance of success. It was also found that the symbolic value of the brand and the sequence of the extension implementation are not very significant for the success of the extensions. In contrast, support for the brand extension was considered an important factor for the success of all brand extensions analyzed. From the findings discussed and taking into account the limitations of the research method chosen, some recommendations are proposed to Brazilian companies seeking to use brand extensions.

Dans cette thèse, on étudie la structure de quelques types d'algèbres (binaires et ternaires) munies d'une forme bilinéaire symétrique, non dégénérée et associative (ou invariante). La première partie de cette thèse est consacrée à l'étude des algèbres de Leibniz quadratiques. On montre que ces algèbres sont symétriques. De plus, on utilise la T*-extension et la double extension pour montrer plusieurs résultats sur ce type d'algèbres. Ensuite, on a remarqué que l'anti-commutativité du crochet de Lie donne naissance à de nouveaux types d'invariance pour les algèbres de Leibniz : L'invariance à gauche et l'invariance à droite. Alors, on s'est intéresse à l'étude des algèbres de Leibniz (gauche et droite) munies d'une forme bilinéaire symétrique, non dégénérée et invariante à gauche (et invariante à droite). On prouve que ces algèbres sont Lie admissibles. En second lieu, on s'intéresse aux systèmes triples de Lie et de Jordan. On débute la deuxième partie de cette thèse par la description inductive des systèmes triples de Lie quadratiques au moyen de la double extension. En plus, on introduit la T*extension des systèmes triples de Jordan pseudo-Euclidien. Finalement, on donne deux nouvelles caractérisations des systèmes triples de Jordan semi-simples parmi les systèmes triples de Jordan pseudo-Euclidiens / In this thesis, we study the stucture of several types of algebras endowed with Symmetric, non degenerate and invariant bilinear forms. In the first part, we study quadratic Leibniz algebras. First, we prove that these algebras are symmetric. Then, we use the T*-extension and the double extension to prove some properties of this type of Leibniz algebras. Besides, since we observe that the skew-symmetry of the Leibniz bracket gives rise to other types of invariance for a bilinear form on a Leibniz algebra: The left invariance and the right invariance. We focus on the study of left (resp. right) Leibniz algebras with symmetric, non degenerate and left (resp. right) invariant bilinear form. In particular, we prove that these algebras are Lie admissibles. The second part of this work is dedicated to the study of quadratic Lie triple systems and pseudo-euclidien Jordan triple systems. We start by giving an inductive description of quadratic Lie triple systems using double extension. Next, we introduce the T*-extension of Jordan triple systems. Finally, we give new caracterizations of semi-simple Jordan triple systems among pseudo-euclidian Jordan triple systems