Immediacy is a topic that has been frequently explored in communication and education research; however, it is not understood if perceptions of immediacy are related to certain behaviors or trait-based similarities between teachers and students. For this study, nine Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) were observed and 76 undergraduate students surveyed in order to understand which factors are associated to perceptions of immediacy. Findings indicate that behaviors and perceived similarity are related to perceptions of GTAs being high in immediacy. No significant results were found with trait-based similarities. Students were also found to be more motivated to learn when they perceived their GTA as high in immediacy.

"Socializing influences in the elementary school have been a major concern of educators in all ages. It is universally accepted that during the first six grades of a child's life in school that his patterns of interaction with his home, with other children in the community and in the classroom, and with the adults who guide him, as well as his health and study habits are formed. Years of observing, reading, and studying the factors and influences in the lives of boys and girls and their teachers and principals have served to increase the interest in and the appreciation for those activities, conditions, and characteristics which bring about desirable socialization and individuation of the learner"--Introduction. / "August, 1950." / Typescript. / Advisor: H. W. Dean, Professor Directing Paper. / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts under the Plan II." / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 52-55).

The major theme of this research has been to understand the South African banking sector’s response to environmental sustainability. The research was both qualitative and quantitative in nature. To elicit understanding of these responses, semi-structured interviews were undertaken with representatives from seven South African banks. The research interviews revolved around four core themes; the environmental drivers, environmental strategy implementation, the corresponding practices undertaken and their frame of reference according to the sustainable value framework, together with the relevant benefits and costs realised. The key research findings of the study include: all of the banks have either formalised or are in the process of formalizing a response to the pursuit of environmental sustainability; the banks either have or are in the process of developing a sustainability strategy; the growing environmental concerns and credit risks are currently the primary drivers of pursuing environmental sustainability. Furthermore, the practices adopted by the banks to pursue environmental sustainability were currently internally focused with priority for operational quick wins addressing risk and cost reduction. Based on the research findings, recommendations have been made to further enhance the pursuit of environmental sustainability. These include: integration of environmental sustainability factors in performance reporting for all business units; integration of environmental sustainability criteria in all business case assessments. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Bibliography: p. 134-137. / The past three years (1987 -1990) have seen an increase in environmental coverage and a widening of the press' interest to include broader environmental issues. This increase raises the question of the way in which the press is presenting environmental issues, since the press could play an important role in the development of environmental awareness among the public. The aim of the study was to identify factors that could be influential in encouraging or discouraging environmental coverage, and the type and extent of coverage. The study identified factors influential in the coverage of three environmental issues, global warming, atmospheric ozone depletion, and the Sappi paper mill effluent spill into Eastern Transvaal rivers (1989), in two South African daily newspapers, The Star and The Citizen. A combination quantitative-qualitative content analysis was undertaken on reports by these newspapers to assess the nature of the news values operating during coverage (to determine what made the issues newsworthy), and the existence of editorial bias toward or against the environment. Interviews were conducted with a small sample of news personnel and individuals active in the Sappi effluent spill issue to contextualise the results of the content analyses. The study method was undertaken within the theoretical frame of newspaper agenda-setting. The results showed that despite differences in editorial bias and source use, the newspapers on the whole displayed the same news values in covering the issues. The main news values operating were a focus on the dangerous and controversial aspects, a preference for 'hard news' events, the relevance of an issue for readers and the activities of elite persons or nations in the issue. This indicated event-orientation by the press, and a tendency to sensationalise environmental issues. Some over-simplification of the full ramifications of the issues, particularly the atmospheric issues, was found to be operating. The implications of these approaches for environmental reporting and the reader's perception of the environment were discussed. Logistical factors (intra- and extra-organisational constraints) were also found to play a part in coverage. A wide range of factors were identified that operate, to a greater or lesser degree at different times, in press coverage of environmental issues. These were : - the newspaper perception of its role in society, - editorial policy, resources of the newspaper, area of distribution, the 'hardness' of news, the complexity of the issue, - the availability of accredited sources, the health of the national economy, international economic trends, the amount and type of other news, 'competitive bind', public awareness of environmental issues, and the role of an environmentally-committed individual in the newspaper organisation.

Heat has a history, both because temperatures changed and the way humans understand and experience those temperatures changed. This dissertation excavates that history by examining how southern heat—heat considered distinct to the subtropical American South—affected the social, economic, and political development of the United States. This dissertation argues that southern heat proved consequential for the nation as both a physical force and human construct, and that only by keeping the materiality of relatively high temperatures in conversation with the idea of heat does a full history of southern heat emerge. By looking at how humans interacted with southern heat, both mentally and physically over the course of southern history, it becomes clear that arguments about the climate of the southeastern United States, and disagreements about the essential nature of southern heat, were less debates about actual climatic conditions and the effects of high temperatures on the human body than they were contestations of values, manifestations of competing politics, divergent economic ambitions, and different visions of American society. Thus, over the course of American history, heat possessed a unique ability to cleave the South apart from the nation and place physical and biological distance between racialized bodies. Beginning at the end of the last Ice Age and ending with the widespread acceptance of anthropogenic climate change via greenhouse gas emissions in the 1980s, this dissertation traces how southern heat partitioned the American South from the rest of the country while also separating southerners from each other and other Americans by matters of degree.

Marketers have made attempts to understand the disconnect between consumers’ expressed desire to engage in sustainable behavior and their lack of adoption of sustainable products with ambiguous results. Because companies that engage in sustainability initiatives often focus on either environmental or social sustainability, the broader impact of sustainability is not always understood. When a company makes a promise to be socially sustainable, consumers may also think that the company is environmentally sustainable and vice versa. Moreover, consumer evaluations of companies that make promises to be either socially or environmentally sustainable may be different if the company later delivers a success along the same versus the other dimension of sustainability. A success along a sustainability dimension that matches the initial sustainability promise is referred to here as a paired success. Alternatively, complementary successes incorporate both sustainability dimensions, where a company first promises to be sustainable along one dimension of sustainability but later delivers a successful outcome along the other sustainability dimension. Attitudes are expected to be enhanced when a company delivers a complementary because the company has accounted for consumers’ interconnection of the sustainability dimensions. A failure to be sustainable along either dimension is predicted to diminish consumer evaluations of the company. Four experiments were conducted to explore the interconnection between social and environmental sustainability and its effect on consumer evaluations of the company. Study 1 first examines the prediction that consumer perceptions of social and environmental sustainability are interconnected in consumers’ minds. Study 2 then examines how consumers’ attitudes towards companies that make either social or environmental sustainability promises compare to companies that do not make sustainability promises. Additionally, study 2 investigates how consumer attitudes towards companies are impacted by paired and complementary successes and sustainability failures. Study 3 explores the psychological mechanisms of perceived sincerity and competence. Finally, study 4 is a behavioral choice experiment used to generalize the findings to actual behavior, exploring how the interconnectedness of social and environmental sustainability influence consumer product choices. The findings from these studies offer insights into how consumers perceive companies that consider both the social and environmental dimensions of sustainability.

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The space environment contains many harsh characteristics that are harmful to spacecraft and threaten the success of space missions. Atomic oxygen (AO) and outgassing are among the chief concerns that spacecraft engineers must design for in order to ensure the safety of a spacecraft. AO is monatomic oxygen (O1) that is created when Ultraviolet (UV) radiation photochemically disassociates diatomic oxygen (O2) in space. AO is the dominant atmospheric constituent between 175 and 600 km, and is a great concern in low earth orbits. Orbital AO has an average impact energy of 4.5 ± 1 eV with orbiting spacecraft and is also very reactive; this makes AO very corrosive to spacecraft materials. Outgassing is the process by which trapped and adsorbed gases are expelled from materials. The high temperatures and low pressure of the spacecraft environment exacerbate the process of outgassing. Outgassing is problematic for spacecraft because outgassed material can condense on sensitive surfaces such as optical and thermal surfaces, or the material can create clouds that impede sensors ability to observe their target. While it has been shown that many aspects of the spacecraft environment act synergistically together to further degrade spacecraft performance, there is very little information and data available on the interactions between AO and outgassing. Cal Poly’s Space Environments Lab is equipped with an AO simulation vacuum chamber (MAX) and an outgas testing chamber (Micro-VCM) which is capable of testing materials for total mass loss (TML) and collected volatile condensable mass (CVCM) outgassing values. MAX and Micro-VCM were used in tandem to test different spacecraft materials in order to determine if AO exposure had any effect on the respective materials TML and CVCM values. Prior to conducting testing, Micro-VCM was refurbished and validated since it was recently donated to Cal Poly and was not in working order upon arrival. Three Sheldahl materials were tested: aluminum coated 1.0 mil Kapton tape, 2.0 mil Kapton film coated with ITO on one side and aluminum on the other, and 2.0 Kapton film coated with aluminum. The materials were exposed to an average AO fluence of 1.33 ± 0.130 × 1021 atoms/cm2 for AO testing. The TML and CVCM results from four of the six tests did not show any significant changes between AO samples and control samples, partially due to large error bars that stem from using a semi-microbalance instead of a full microbalance. However, the AO exposed ITO-Kapton-Al did show an increase in TML from -0.03 ± 0.09% to 0.19 ± 0.08% for one procedure, while the aluminum Kapton tape CVCM decreased from 0.81 ± 0.12% to 0.63 ± 0.12% for another procedure. These results show that two materials exhibited a change in their outgassing properties after AO exposure. More testing on the subject is warranted and should be conducted in order to collect more data points and begin defining trend lines that can further describe the effects of AO on outgassing.

Although individuals have limited directed attention capabilities, it has been shown that exposure to natural environments elicit cognitive restoration (i.e. Berman, 2008). It has also been shown that individuals prefer blue and green colors because they are relaxing and prompt happy feelings (Guilford & Smith, 1959; Mahnke, 1996; Wexner, 1954). The question however, is what aspects of nature elicit these effects: is it the natural colors, the environmental setting, or both? The present experiment will examine the effects of color (Blue, Green, Black and White, & Natural) and environmental setting (Urban, Foliage, & Aquatic) on measures of attention, short term memory, and mood. Additionally, this study was designed to replicate the findings of Berman et.al 2008, all while rigorously controlling for the pictorial content of its manipulation. Due to the exploratory nature of this study, no specific hypotheses were made. However, the goal of this research was to “tease apart” the effects of color and environment on the restoration of cognitive abilities. One hundred and nineteen non-color blind individuals completed pre and post tests for the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (Form Y-1), Backwards Digit Span, and the Attention Network Task and viewed one of the twelve color/environmental setting picture sets between the pre and posttests. Results of the 2x3x4 Mixed ANOVAs do not support past research which suggests that natural environments are restorative in nature.