As human populations increase and city borders grow, many animals have to modify their foraging behaviours to exploit evolutionarily novel urban food sources that could aid their survival. Neophobia, the fear of novelty, can lead to missed opportunities in these cases. Novelty is therefore expected to elicit different responses in urban and rural populations, a difference that has been frequently studied, but with mixed results. The main objective of my thesis was to study the novelty response of wild black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) in ecologically relevant conditions while controlling for individual characteristics and potential differences in foraging group size. I predicted that urban black-capped chickadees would be more likely to initially contact novelty than rural chickadees, and that subordinates and juveniles would be more likely to first contact novelty than dominants and adults, respectively. I ran replicated experiments using three novelty types (object, colour, or food) on six sites, during which I registered feeder choice of 71 tagged individuals. I found that urban chickadees showed less neophobia than their rural counterparts, the latter initially contacting the familiar feeder before approaching the novel feeder, while the former were equally likely to contact any feeder. There was no significant effect of an individual’s dominance, age or sex on its first choice of feeder, nor was there an effect of novelty type. Overall, my results suggest that urban chickadees exhibit less neophobia than their rural counterparts, because they have generally learned to tolerate novelty in their habitat and/or they have adapted to live in an environment that rewards low neophobia.

This thesis examines the mechanisms of site-specific installation in photography, drawing on contemporary architectural debates around relationships between image and space, as well as debates in fine art around participatory practices involving installation. The project has involved a synthesis of practical research, through the production of artwork, throughout the research period. I consider the outcomes of writing, photographing and photographic installation to be at parity with one another, in the spirit of what Jane Rendell calls 'critical spatial practice'. The focus and physical context for this inquiry is the former Lilian Baylis School, built in 1964 by the Architects' Co-Partnership (ACP) for the London County Council in the Borough of Lambeth. It served its function as a school up until 2005 after which it was used for community programmes. In 2011 the site, by then Grade II listed, was restored and converted into new flats. The concept of visual memory serves as a theoretical basis of my project. I take up architect Aldo Rossi's idea of acting as a way of tracing a process of transformation, and also using these traces as a form of site-specific intervention, as an action in relation to this transformation. These aspects of transformation inform the work of making visible the memory of a place through photography and its spatial installation, engaging viewers in this process.

The environmental impact of human behaviour on the design, construction and operation of buildings is often overlooked, frequently resulting in sub optimal performance over the lifecycle of the building (credibility gap and value-action gap). An over-reliance on technological and market solutions (false positivity) throughout the design, construction and operation of sustainable buildings means changing user behaviour is not currently envisaged by all but the most sustainability-minded built environment professionals. This study aims to develop an understanding of the dynamic and complex systems by which responsible environmental, social and economic action (sustainable behaviour) emerges from the relationship between people and the built environment. The primary research question asks to what extent sustainable buildings encourage sustainable behaviour, with broader research objectives covering the need for sustainable buildings and their social, environmental and economic benefits; a clear definition of sustainable behaviour and sustainable buildings; identifying opportunities for behavioural change from current best practice and how behavioural change theory can be applied to the built environment to encourage and optimise sustainable behaviour. Literature review reveals existing theory and practice in the fields of sustainability, architecture, behavioural psychology and pedagogy applied generally to the design, construction and operation of sustainable buildings. Five exemplar sustainable buildings with pedagogical functions are also investigated. The primary empirical research methodology uses grounded theory, ethnography and phenomenology through interview and survey data analysis, highlighting common best practices and innovative approaches, as well as revealing barriers to achieving sustainable built environments that encourage sustainable behaviour. The research reveals that there are numerous opportunities for behavioural interventions at critical stages throughout the lifecycle of buildings where ‘value-action’ gaps between our intentions to be more sustainable and our often sub-optimal actions or behaviours are identified. Strategies includes education, information provision, training, experiential learning, feedback, participation and regulation. The research contributes original knowledge by relating the way building mechanisms for change can be understood through the lens of behavioural psychology and the synthesis of the three disciplines of sustainability, architecture and pedagogy.

No description available.

by Frank Wai-ming Tam. / Questionnaires in Chinese. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 192-210). / ACKNOWLEDGEMENT --- p.i / TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.ii / LIST OF TABLES --- p.v / LIST OF FIGURES --- p.vii / ABSTRACT --- p.viii / CHAPTER / Chapter 1 --- INTRODUCTION / Chapter 1.1 --- Background --- p.1 / Chapter 1.2 --- Purpose of the Study --- p.5 / Chapter 1.3 --- Significance of the Study --- p.6 / Chapter 2 --- REVIEW OF LITERATURE / Chapter 2.1 --- Introduction --- p.8 / Chapter 2.2 --- School Organization --- p.8 / Chapter 2.2.1 --- School Organization as a Social System --- p.9 / Chapter 2.2.2 --- The School Organization and its Environment --- p.12 / Chapter 2.2.3 --- Conceptualization of School Environment --- p.19 / Chapter 2.2.4 --- Elements of School Environment --- p.28 / Chapter 2.2.5 --- Conclusion --- p.65 / Chapter 2.3 --- Leadership Behavior --- p.67 / Chapter 2.3.1 --- Definition of Leadership --- p.68 / Chapter 2.3.2 --- Approaches to Leadership --- p.69 / Chapter 2.3.3 --- Conceptualization of Leadership Behavior --- p.77 / Chapter 2.3.4 --- Conclusion --- p.80 / Chapter 2.4 --- Teacher Performance --- p.81 / Chapter 2.4.1 --- Conceptualization of Teacher Efficacy --- p.82 / Chapter 2.4.2 --- Teacher's Use of Time --- p.84 / Chapter 2.4.3 --- School Environment and Teacher Performance --- p.85 / Chapter 2.4.4 --- Conclusion --- p.87 / Chapter 2.5 --- Student Performance --- p.89 / Chapter 2.5.1 --- Conceptualization of Learning Efficacy --- p.89 / Chapter 2.5.2 --- Academic Outcome --- p.90 / Chapter 2.5.3 --- School Environment and Student Performance --- p.91 / Chapter 2.5.4 --- Teacher Efficacy and Student Performance --- p.92 / Chapter 2.5.5 --- Conclusion --- p.94 / Chapter 2.6 --- Summary --- p.94 / Chapter 3 --- THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK / Chapter 3.1 --- Introduction --- p.96 / Chapter 3.2 --- School Environment --- p.96 / Chapter 3.3 --- Leadership Behavior --- p.101 / Chapter 3.4 --- Teacher Performance --- p.102 / Chapter 3.5 --- Student Performance --- p.103 / Chapter 3.6 --- School Environment and Leadership Behavior --- p.103 / Chapter 3.7 --- School Environment and Teacher Performance --- p.104 / Chapter 3.8 --- School Environment and Student Performance --- p.106 / Chapter 3.9 --- Teacher Performance and Student Performance --- p.106 / Chapter 3.10 --- Summary --- p.107 / Chapter 3.11 --- Research Questions --- p.109 / Chapter 4 --- METHODOLOGY / Chapter 4.1 --- Introduction --- p.110 / Chapter 4.2 --- Definitions --- p.110 / Chapter 4.2.1 --- School Environment --- p.110 / Chapter 4.2.2 --- Principal's Leadership Behavior --- p.112 / Chapter 4.2.3 --- Teacher Performance --- p.113 / Chapter 4.2.4 --- Student Performance --- p.113 / Chapter 4.2.5 --- School Contextual Factors --- p.114 / Chapter 4.3 --- Null Hypotheses --- p.115 / Chapter 4.4 --- Survey Instrument --- p.116 / Chapter 4.4.1 --- The Psychometric Properties of the Survey Instruments --- p.118 / Chapter 4.5 --- Sampling Method --- p.124 / Chapter 4.6 --- Statistical Tool --- p.126 / Chapter 4.6.1 --- The Multi-level Model --- p.127 / Chapter 4.7 --- Limitations of the Study --- p.132 / Chapter 5 --- RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS / Chapter 5.1 --- Introduction --- p.134 / Chapter 5.2 --- Descriptive Statistics --- p.134 / Chapter 5.2.1 --- Contextual Information About the Schools --- p.135 / Chapter 5.2.2 --- Demographic Information of Teachers and Students --- p.136 / Chapter 5.2.3 --- Descriptive Statistics of the Variables and Scales --- p.139 / Chapter 5.2.4 --- Summary --- p.142 / Chapter 5.3 --- Characteristics of School Environment --- p.144 / Chapter 5.3.1 --- Correlations among Environment Variables --- p.144 / Chapter 5.3.2 --- Relationship between School Environment and School Context at the School Level --- p.149 / Chapter 5.3.3 --- Summary --- p.154 / Chapter 5.4 --- Relationship between Teacher Performance and Student Performance at the School Level --- p.155 / Chapter 5.5 --- School Environment and Teacher Performance --- p.157 / Chapter 5.5.1 --- Multi-level Analysis of Teacher Performance --- p.157 / Chapter 5.5.2 --- Multi-level Analysis of School Environment and Teacher Performance --- p.159 / Chapter 5.5.3 --- Summary --- p.162 / Chapter 5.6 --- School Environment and Student Performance --- p.164 / Chapter 5.6.1 --- Multi-level Analysis of Student Performance --- p.164 / Chapter 5.6.2 --- Multi-level Analysis of School Environment and Student Performance --- p.166 / Chapter 5.6.3 --- Multi-level Analysis of School Environment and Student Performance by Controlling Personal Factors --- p.170 / Chapter 5.6.4 --- Summary --- p.181 / Chapter 6. --- CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS / Chapter 6.1 --- Conclusions --- p.183 / Chapter 6.2 --- Implications --- p.186 / BIBLOGRAPHY --- p.192 / APPENDICES / Chapter A. --- Survey Instrument --- p.211 / Chapter B. --- Reliability and Factor Analysis of Scales --- p.218

by Tseung Chu Man Yee, Miriam. / Thesis (M.S.W.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1987. / Bibliography: leaves 169-177.

With proposed increases in both freight and passenger railway in the United Kingdom and the European Union and the building of new high speed lines, there has been an increase in interest in recent years in the human response to vibration in residential environments. As with exposure to environmental noise, exposure to environmental vibration can result in adverse effects such as annoyance and sleep disturbance. However, unlike exposure to environmental noise, well established relationships to evaluate annoyance caused by vibration in residential environments do not exist. In order to predict and control annoyance caused by vibration from environmental sources, a better understanding is needed of how humans perceive vibration and how their perception relates to measureable, quantifiable features of the vibration exposure. In the work presented in this thesis, the human response to vibration is considered on both a community and individual level. The first major aim of this work is to develop statistically robust exposure-response relationships for the human response to railway and construction induced vibration in residential environments. This is achieved via a large scale field survey in which 1431 questionnaires were conducted with residents in their own homes along with extensive vibration measurements at internal and external positions. Analysis of the data collected through this field survey shows that all of the vibration exposure descriptors advocated in national and international standards are equally well correlated with annoyance due to railway induced vibration. Using a grouped regression model, exposure-response relationships describing the proportion of respondents expected to express annoyance above a given threshold are derived for railway and construction induced vibration in terms of a variety of vibration exposure descriptors. The second major aim of this work is to investigate the perception of railway induced vibration on an individual level by investigating the salient dimensions of the perception of whole body vibration. This is achieved via a subjective laboratory test in which paired comparisons of similarity and annoyance are conducted using fourteen measured railway vibration stimuli. Through multidimensional scaling analysis, it is shown that the perception of railway induced vibration is dependent on up to four perceptual dimensions. These dimensions relate to energy in the 16 Hz 1/3 octave band, energy in the 32 Hz 1/3 octave band, the duration of the train passage, and the modulation frequency of the envelope of the signal. These perceptual dimensions are related to single figure Perceived Annoyance Ratings (A) by the following relationship: $A=-0.40+4.57{{\ddot{X}}_{RMS,16Hz}}+3.18{{\ddot{X}}_{RMS,32Hz}}+0.02{{T}_{10dB}}+0.02f{}_{\bmod }$. Finally, the single figure Perceived Annoyance Ratings are related to categorical ratings of annoyance via a logistic regression model.

Kuwait is undergoing rapid economic growth involving substantial developments along its coastal shores and the marine environment. Many of the activities in the region are associated with oil industry, which can pollute the shores leading to contamination from oil residues, tar balls and trace metals. About 2 million barrels of oil are spilled annually from routine discharges into the Gulf, which derives mainly from dirty ballast waters and tank washing. The comprehensive literature review of hazardous substances in Kuwait’s marine environment has concluded that for the majority of these pollutants, contamination is localized around industrialised areas, and elsewhere is generally below the permitted international standards. These finding have been supported by a fieldwork. This has been conducted to assess the use of biomarkers (bile metabolites and EROD activities) for 60 fish consisting of two native species Giant sea catfish (Arius thalassinus) and (Pelates quadrilineatus) to demonstrate the potential for the concentrations of oil based contaminants present to induce detectable levels of biological effects in fish species living in Kuwait’s marine environment. Therefore, the focus of this research has shifted its attention to another anthropogenic source that chronically pollute Kuwait’s marine environment. One of the main sources of contaminants is the continuous discharge of sewage, which impacts many locations around Kuwait. Sewage is known to contain wide array of substances that could pose an ecotoxicological impact at different levels of the ecosystem. One such threat is posed by antimicrobial agents that contribute to the growing global concern surrounding the prevalence of antimicrobial resistant (AMR) bacteria. Therefore, a major theme of this research project was to conduct a novel survey of the prevalence of AMR bacteria isolated from Kuwait’s marine environment. The AMR screening, including 598 E.coli isolated from seawater and bivalves samples during summer and winter seasons against 23 frontline antibiotics, revealed that resistance was observed from a number of locations (particularly associated with sewage outlets) for the majority of antibiotics (seawater: summer 89 - 64%; winter 90 - 57% and bivalves: summer 77%; winter 88%). A baseline screening for the class 1 integron which is known to be implicated in disseminating the antimicrobial resistance among bacteria was conducted for the isolated 598 E.coli. The findings highlighted the prevalence of such molecular genetic elements especially around the sewage outlets (36% of tested E.coli). The whole genome sequencing was conducted for a representative E.coli (26 E.coli) and it showed that E.coli derived from Kuwait’s marine environment possessed a variety of genes implicated in antimicrobial resistance potential against wide spectrum of antibiotics and suggesting that genes are exchanged via the horizontal gene transfer. These observations and recording of antimicrobial resistance phenomenon support the notion that marine environment could act not only as a reservoir for antimicrobial resistance but could also play a significant role in driving it. The AMR bacteria is considered as an effective tool for monitoring the impacts of sewage pollution. Furthermore, it highlights one of the key human health risks sewage pollution poses and its assessments allows a fully integrated health assessment of Kuwait’s marine environment to be undertaken. This will ultimately lead to recommendations outlining the future monitoring and remediation requirements required by Kuwait to tackle this issue including rational antibiotics consumption and stewardship; developing effective wastewater treatment processes to improve removal efficiency of these pollutants in sewage treatment plants; more researches on this area will provide scientific information for responsible authorities to make up regulatory standards and guidelines to control environmental dissemination of these emerging contaminants.

This thesis is on competent individuals the essential organisational resource, particularly for knowledge work. Managers need to attend to the development of incompetent individuals. What constitutes individuals’ competency (IC), how can it be developed through better human resource management (HRM), and how is it implemented for knowledge management (KM) all needs theoretical explanation. There is disagreement in the research literature on the effect of factors such as education, training, personal characteristic, and environment on IC. The aim of this research is to explore these factors in the context of KM as facilitated by HRM. An exploratory sequential mixed methods and triangulation approach is used. The first phase qualitative research explores IC from employees’ perspective. The findings of this phase are used in the second quantitative phase to develop quantifiable variables. That needs to be further explored. The findings of both phases are triangulated; data consistency between the two phases indicates that the measuring instruments are accurate, which strengthened the thesis argument. The research data is collected from Kuwait, which like any other country suffers from incompetent employees. Forty one interviews were conducted for the qualitative phase and 763 survey questionnaires were collected for the quantitative phase. Knowledge of IC as revealed in the literature suggests four contentious factors that affect it: education, training, personal characteristics and environment, each of which has a prior and on-job occurrence. This thesis postulates: (a) that rather than individual factors, these four factors affect IC holistically; (b) that these four factors apply to each of the four modes of the knowledge creation model (KCM); and (c) that HRM has a significant role in developing IC for KM. Empirical results of the hypothesis show a statistically significant positive effect for each of the four factors on IC and that the effect is holistic. This finding supports the developed model of IC. Therefore, the research hypotheses are accepted and the IC model is proven to be fit. Also, when statistically operationalizing the four factors on the KCM, it was found that not all four factors are absorbed by each of the four modes of the KCM, thus revealing its limitation in practice. Finally, HRM is proven to affect IC and the KCM positively. Nevertheless, this relies on HRM being empowered by the organisation. This thesis makes several contributions. It contributes empirical evidence of the positive and holistic effect of education, training, personal characteristics and environment on IC. This leads to the second contribution that these four factors of IC, as new knowledge, cannot all be processed within a particular mode of the KCM; rather it selectively absorbs particular factors better than others. Thus, the theoretical knowledge creation argument differs from the actual empirical findings. These findings lead to significant contribution to HRM practice. For instance, in hiring or promoting individuals, managers should consider the four theoretically derived and empirically confirmed IC factors, education, training, personal characteristics (PC) and environment.

Genotype by environment interactions (GxE) can form a potential source of inefficiency in animal breeding if selection decisions are made without accounting for their effects. The UK sheep industry covers an assorted range of farming systems and environments, with each flock having a unique and diverse set of resources and management styles. As a result, what may be the best performing genotype in one environment may not necessarily be the best performing genotype in another. This thesis reports on an investigation into the presence of GxE within the UK sheep industry. Pedigree and performance data, available from both hill and terminal sire breeds, were analysed using a number of different methods. When environments were defined as 2 individual hill farms, genetic correlations were estimated between farms, for a range of Scottish Blackface ewe and lamb traits. Those found to be significantly different from 1 (P<0.05), and therefore indicating the presence of GxE, were lamb birth weight and ewe premating weight. Following on from this, fine-scale information obtained by a farmer questionnaire, from 79 different terminal sire flocks was combined with nationally-available climatic data and analysed using principle coordinate analysis and non-hierarchical clustering methods. Three distinct clusters of farm environments were identified, with grazing type, climatic conditions and the use of vitamin/mineral supplements proving to be the most distinguishing factors. The presence of GxE was then investigated by estimating genetic correlations between the clusters identified, using performance data from Charollais lambs, for 21 week old weight (21WT), ultrasound back-fat (UFD) and muscle (UMD) depths. The correlations estimated between clusters 1 and 2, which had the highest number of common Charollais sires used, were all low and significantly different from 1 (P<0.05) suggesting GxE was evident in terms of both scaling and re-ranking. Finally, the relationship between the level of concentrate feed used in each flock, as obtained from the questionnaire, and performance and climatic information available nationally for all flocks was estimated using canonical correlation analysis. This allowed the development of a farm environment scale, applicable to all flocks within the UK, and the use of reaction norm analyses to investigate the presence of GxE. The reaction norm describes the phenotype of an individual animal as a function of the environment. The environment scale developed, using data from Texel flocks only, went from low performance averages and poorer weather conditions to high performance averages and improved weather conditions. The slope of the reaction norm measures the sensitivity of an animal to a change in the environment. For each trait, (21WT, UMD and UFD), evidence of both re-ranking and scaling of sires were observed. A number of “robust” sires, with a low level of environmental sensitivity, were also identified. The findings from these analyses may have implications for future sheep breeding programmes. Providing a suitable “measure of environment” can be agreed, the identification of sires that perform well in specific environments, as well as those who perform consistently across a number of different environments, would be beneficial for farmers. This would potentially remove any unwanted effects of GxE and allow the farmer to select animals best suited to their overall farm environment.