Le succès écologique de la souris domestique, Mus musculus domesticus, repose en partie par sa capacité à adapter son régime alimentaire aux ressources disponibles. La transmission sociale des préférences alimentaires (TSPA) est un apprentissage observé chez les rongeurs, leur permettant d’élargir leur répertoire alimentaire à moindre risque en obtenant des informations olfactives surde nouveaux aliments à partir des congénères. Cet apprentissage social s’observe directement,lors d’une rencontre avec un congénère ou indirectement, via des marques odorantes. Ce travail a pour but de déterminer comment les souris utilisent leur environnement socio-olfactif pour réaliser des choix alimentaires. Nos résultats ont révélé que l’absence du congénère lors de laTSPA indirecte réduit les contraintes sociales associées à une rencontre et permet l’acquisition de la TSPA entre femelles inconnues. Cependant, certaines contraintes physiques associées à la perception des informations dans les fèces peuvent réduire la disponibilité des informations alimentaires. Enfin, nous avons montré que les différentes préoccupations sexuelles des individus affectent la hiérarchisation des informations présentes dans les fèces et limitent, chez les mâles,l’acquisition de la TSPA. Nos résultats suggèrent que l’utilisation d’informations alimentaires chez les souris varie selon leur contexte social et écologique et implique différents processus tels que l’émotion et l’attention. En conditions naturelles, les voies directe et indirecte de la TSPA pourraient être complémentaires, chacune élargissant les conditions de transmission de l’information alimentaire chez les rongeurs. / The ecological success of the house mouse, Mus musculus domesticus, implies a great capacity to adapt its diet to available food resources. The social transmission of food preference (STFP) is an adaptive type of learning observed in rodents allowing them to enlarge their food repertoire at lower risk by getting olfactory information on novel food sources from conspecifics. This social learning takes place directly, during an encounter with a conspecific or indirectly, via olfactory marks. The objective of this thesis work was to determine how mice use their socio-olfactory environment to make food choices. Our results revealed that the absence of the conspecific during the indirect STFP reduces the social constraints associated with an encounter and allows the acquisition of STFP between unfamiliar conspecifics. However, some physical constraints associated with the perception of information in feces may reduce the availability of food information. We also showed that different sex concerns of individuals may affect the prioritization of information present in feces and limit, in males, the acquisition of STFP. Our results suggest that the use of food information in mice varies according to their social and ecological context and involves different processes such as emotion and attention. Under natural conditions, the direct and indirect STFP could be complementary, each of them extending the conditions for the transmission of food information in rodents.

he Department of Energy names executing and integrating high-performance sustainable design and green building best practices a Strategic Sustainability Performance Plan goal under the Executive Order 13514 (U.S DOE, 2009). As sustainability becomes a primary goal for engineers, a decision making framework is needed to guide their choice of materials and processes; and then to carry out the evaluation of their chosen design. Sustainable design process, and the products developed through its application, work concurrently with functionality and sustainability evaluation methodologies to cultivate a continuous loop of design, implementation, assessment and improvement. In this context, an alternative insulation prototype exploring the use of evacuated packets of pyrogenic silica substituting for conventional insulation for refrigeration applications was developed and assessed. Assessment criteria included experimental comparison of heat transfer characteristics and the energy efficiency of the new insulation as well as its life cycle as it related to environmental sustainability. Results indicate that by utilizing alternative insulation design, heat flux decreased by an average of 36%, and energy efficiency improved by 5.1% over a 24 hour period. The new insulation design also resulted in improved environmental sustainability, resulting in a savings of 0.257 metric tons of CO2e over 20 years for a single unit. Results provide an alternative insulation design for use in commercial insulation applications, and a framework by which to assess the efficiency and environmental performance of similar products.

No description available.

Nursing is essentially a practical discipline and as such, clinical practice plays an important part in the nursing curriculum. Clinical education is a vital component in the curricula of pre-registration nursing courses and provides student nurses with the opportunity to combine cognitive, psychomotor, and affective skills. Clinical field placement is an integral element in the overall pre-registration nursing program. Clinical practice enables the student to develop competencies in the application of knowledge, skills, and attitudes to clinical field situations. However, the time allocation for the clinical component of pre-registration nursing courses can be rather limited. It is, therefore, vital that the short but valuable clinical time be utilised effectively and productively.One of the objectives of this study was to develop and validate an instrument, the Clinical Learning Environment Inventory (CLEI), to assess nursing students' perceptions of hospital learning environment during clinical practice. Data were collected from 138 second year nursing students in a major university school of nursing in South Australia. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected. The study confirmed the reliability and validity of the CLEI for use in the hospital learning environment.A second objective was to investigate associations of the CLEI with outcomes. Students' perceptions of the outcome of their clinical placement were found to be strongly associated with all five scales of the CLEI namely; Individualisation, Innovation, Involvement, Personalisation, and Task Orientation. The quantitative and qualitative findings reinforced each other. A third objective was to determine whether there were any differences in students' perceptions of the actual learning environment provided and that preferred by students. It was found that there were significant differences in ++ / students' perceptions of the actual clinical learning environment and their preferred clinical learning environment. Findings from the study suggested that students preferred a more positive and favourable clinical environment than they perceived as being actually present.

Gold and nickel mining are a common land use in the semiarid Eastern Goldfields region of Western Australia,, A frequent outcome of mining activity is highly saline landforms that result from the widespread use of hypersaline (> 50 g L(subscript)-1 NaCl) groundwater for mineral processing and hydraulic tailings reclamation, and from saline horizons in soils, subsoils and mullock. Under State government legislation, all mined land must be rehabilitated to a stable and sustainable landform at the completion of mining activities.There was little land rehabilitation carried out in the mining industry until the mid1980s. At that time, legislation was introduced and, in due course, guidelines were issued on recommended approaches to rehabilitation. Today, rehabilitation of disturbed areas is usually integrated into the mining program and has become the rule rather than the exception. There has, however, been limited innovation in recent years and the established methods are not suitable for every land rehabilitation scenario, especially those where very high salinity is an important factor. The aims of this thesis were to make a contribution towards a better understanding of the ecology of halophytes suitable for use in revegetation and the likely physical requirements for their sustainable establishment on post-mining landforms.In terms of germination, many of the halophytes currently used for rehabilitation of saline substrates are well suited in that they are able to germinate in solutions of up to 20 g L(subscript)-1 NaCl. Furthermore, when higher salinities are encountered, seed dormancy is induced until salinity is reduced to a level at which germination can occur. There were differences observed between germination of annual and perennial chenopods that reflected their successional roles where annual chenopods tend to have a higher salt tolerance and germinate more ++ / rapidly. I developed a tolerance index to enable different germination responses to be readily compared. Values for the tolerance index ranged from 5.7 to 25.3 for the halophytic species compared with a value of 0.2 for the glycophytic Secale cereale. Values for saltbushes (Atriplex) and bluebushes (Maireana) ranged from 6.5 to 9.8 while values for samphires (Halosarcia) were higher (10.7-17.4).Germination and early growth of taxa in the succulent genus, Halosarcia, were also studied. Though a member of the Chenopodiaceae, with a number of species occurring commonly throughout the region, Halosarcia spp. are not widely used in rehabilitation. This is in part attributable to the poor level of knowledge of germination and growth characteristics compared with saltbushes and bluebushes, many of which are widely used. Two species studied, H. halocnemoides subsp. halocnemoides and H. pruinosa, are more salt-tolerant for germination than some other chenopods more widely used. Furthermore, in terms of their early growth, each taxon continued to grow in salinities up to 40 g L(subscript)-1 NaCl, although root .Production and mass were reduced at that concentration. Another taxon, H. pergranulata subsp. pergranulata, was found to have a partial physical dormancy attributable to the testa, a phenomenon rare among halophytes. Dormancy was alleviated by scarification but was most effective where this occurred near the micropyle.Field trials were conducted to assess methods of rehabilitating severely salt-affected surfaces (EC(subscript)e > 50 dS m(subscript)-1). In the initial trial, a number of surface treatments, including ripping, rock mulching and mounding, were shown to reduce soil EC, in loam soils over a long period of time (seven years) compared with the control. In a subsequent trial, the use of good quality waste water, in conjunction with ponding banks, strongly ++ / promoted the establishment of vegetation by supplementing soil moisture and enhancing soil P although a reduction in soil EC(subscript)e was not observed. The depth and duration of ponding influenced the species that established and the cover achieved. Methods by which a soil cover could be established over hypersaline tailings surfaces were also investigated. The absence of a capillary break layer resulted in severe salinisation (EC(subscript)e > 100 dS m(subscript)-1) of a non-saline clay loam soil cover and likely severe difficulties in establishing and maintaining vegetation on the cover. Two types of capillary break layer, a synthetic membrane and a layer of coarse iron fayalite granules (nickel slag), were both effective at preventing the capillary rise of salts into the soil cover.The physical and biological characteristics of the shores of Lake Lefroy, a large salt lake in the Eastern Goldfields region, were analysed using multivariate techniques.Physical characteristics were strongly influenced by the orientation of the shore relation to the predominant winds, and by depth to the saline groundwater table. Plant species were distributed in zones across the lake shores with small changes in elevation resulting in substantial changes in species distributions. Those plant species occurring at the lowest elevations (Zone I), including Halosarcia spp., exhibited a very high tolerance of saline soil and groundwater through an ability to accumulate Na+ and Cl- and make the necessary osmotic adjustments, and a capacity to tolerance high groundwater levels. Under certain conditions, the lake shore environment could be a useful model for a rehabilitated landform.

This study comprises three parts. First, to validate the Oral Individualized Classroom Environment Questionnaire (OICEQ) which is used to assess students perceptions of the learning environment in secondary chemistry classes in the U.S.A. The OICEQ is a modified version of the actual and preferred versions of the Individualized Classroom Environment Questionnaire (ICEQ) (Fraser, 1990). Second, to investigate associations between three types of science educational assessments; predictors of performance, perceptions of the classroom environment, and chemistry academic performance. Third, to address the following two questions:1. Are chaos and constructivism allies of adversaries to assessments (predictors, perceptions, and performance)?2. Is action research a valid process of evaluating a constructivist chemistry classroom (examining associations between chaos and constructivism)?A sample of 473 students from 21 chemistry classes took the Test of Logical Thinking (TOLT), the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), the Individualized Classroom Environment Questionnaire (OICEQ), pretests, post-tests, and final examinations. The statistical analyses confirmed the reliability and validity of the OICEQ and ICEQ when used with senior chemistry students. Investigation of associations between predictors, perceptions, and performances revealed 29 significant associations with OICEQ and 21 significant associations with the ICEQ. Findings from the study indicated that: (1) chaos is an adversary to social assessment and personal constructivism is an ally to personal assessment; (2) action research is a valid process for evaluating a constructivist chemistry classroom it is a unifying concept for constructivism, chaos, and assessment; (3) through an action research-constructivist process and a cyberchaos research perspective, the impact of a constructivist teaching paradigm and chaos ++ / distort the assessment of data in a chemistry classroom.

Asthma is a common chronic disorder in Western countries and is increasing in prevalence in both children and adults. Although genetic risk for atopy is an important factor for the development of asthma, it does not explain the tremendous increase in prevalence seen in recent decades. Environmental exposures in early life that affect immune maturation appear to be the key factors for the development of asthma. The indoor environment is a likely candidate since infants spend 90% of the time indoors at a time when immune deviation usually occurs. Exposure to indoor pollutants represents a potentially modifiable cause of allergic sensitization and asthma. In this context, it becomes important to establish which environmental factors might influence the development of asthma in predisposed individuals. Allergic reactions to certain environmental allergens such as house dust mites, cats, and cockroaches, have shown a high level of association with asthma prevalence, but in the last five years increasing attention is being paid to indoor environmental factors, other than allergens, that may be involved in the development of this disorder. The potential irritants include nitrogen dioxide, environmental tobacco smoke, formaldehyde, volatile organic compounds, and particulate matter (PM[subscript]2.5;10).The aim of the study was to examine the nature of the relationship between asthma and environmental exposure to indoor environmental irritants.A population based case-control study had been carried out in Perth, Western Australia. The study population consisted of young children (N = 192) aged between 6 months and 3 years old. Cases (n = 88) were asthmatic children who attended the Accident and Emergency Department at Princess Margaret Hospital for Children and were discharged with asthma as a primary diagnosis. Controls (n = 104) were children in the same age group as cases ++ / who had never been diagnosed with asthma, identified from birth records accessed through the Health Department of Western Australia. Information, regarding the respiratory conditions experienced by the study children and characteristics of the home, was collected using a standardised questionnaire. The questionnaire consists of questions about potential risk factors for asthma and these factors were grouped in three categories. The first category included information on personal and social factors such as age and gender of the child, and mother's and father's educational level. The second category was related to personal susceptibility factors such as child's allergy, parental and sibling's asthma, eczema and hay fever. The last category included environmental exposure in the house such as parental and visitors smoking inside the house, exposure to gas heating and cooking, kerosene space heaters, open fireplaces, and pets. Other questions related to environmental exposure were the presence of air conditioning, humidifiers, and type of floor covering in the child's bedroom and the living room. Measurements of indoor nitrogen dioxide (NO[subscript]2), formaldehyde (HCHO), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), particulate matter (PM[subscript]10), and house dust mite exposure were made on two occasions over one year, winter (middle June through September 1998) and summer (December 1998 through March 1999), Indoor temperature and relative humidity were also measured. The atopic status of the children was assessed by skin prick tests to common allergens.The study results indicated that age, gender, family history of asthma, atopy and domestic exposure to indoor environmental factors were significant predictors of asthma early in life. The study found that indoor exposure to formaldehyde, volatile organic compounds and house dust mite significantly increased the risk of ++ / having asthma. Presence of air conditioning appeared to be a protective factor for asthma.In conclusion, the study results confirmed the role of susceptibility factors in asthma and show that indoor environmental factors contribute as risk factors for asthma in early stage of fife. The observation that exposure to indoor air pollutants in early childhood is associated with asthma suggests the possibility that irritants in indoor air might be involved in the initiation phase of asthma. Since the quality of the indoor environment is potentially modifiable there might be opportunities for intervention to reduce asthma symptoms. In order to counteract the increasing prevalence in asthma, the significance of the indoor environment where children grow and spend most of their time need to be given greater attention.

There are convincing arguments for the integration of computer applications into school programmes to support the learning of students. After more than 30 years of increasing investment in educational computing researchers are concerned that there has been very little impact on the experiences of students in schools. In the 1990s, a significant development in computer technology has been the emergence of low-cost, high-powered portable computers which some schools have introduced into classrooms. It is not clear what the impact of this development might be.This study addressed issues concerning the impact of student-owned, portable computers on students, teachers, the curriculum, and the classroom learning environment. It considered the classroom learning environment as the complex set of relationships between students, teachers, the curriculum, and the technology (principally computer hardware and software) within the physical confines of a classroom.The three year study was carried out at one girls' school, which progressively introduced portable computers into its secondary education program-me. The study used an interpretive methodology involving the collection of a range of qualitative and quantitative data. In each year of the study, data were collected about students, teachers and a selection of classrooms using observations of lessons, interviews, questionnaires, and a range of data obtained from the school's administration. As the study progressed, it focussed on those features of the psycho-social environment of the school which emerged as important from interpretation of data collected earlier.The study found that, apart from isolated teacher-class combinations, there was very little change at the classroom level which could be attributed to the presence of the computers. Very few teachers implemented substantial computer use and many of those who did, ++ / supported only a very limited role for the computers. While most students expressed a range of concerns, only a perceived lack of use of the computers appeared to have a consistent negative influence on their attitudes and behaviours.It is argued that the lack of use of the computers is largely related to teachers' preferred pedagogy, their lack of experience and knowledge in using computers in the classroom, and a lack of time to experiment with computer applications. Increasingly, the teachers who chose to facilitate the use of the computers did so to support predominantly student-centred learning environments. The study proposed a model to describe and explain teachers' responses to the portable computer program in terms of their facilitation of computer use by considering sets of forces and obstacles experienced by them.The findings of this study have important implications for educational policy makers, administrators and teachers, and enable a clearer understanding of the factors which determine the successful implementation of computers into school programmes to support student learning.NOTE: Referencing style used throughout this thesis report comes from the American Psychological Association's manual, fourth edition (1994).

The present research examined whether teachers in South Africa could use feedback from a learning environment instrument to help them to increase the degree to which they emphasised constructivist-oriented teaching strategies in their classroom. The study also investigated the validity of a widely-applicable classroom environment questionnaire, as well as associations between attitudes and classroom environment. The study involved a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods and was carried out in two phases. In the first phase of the study, data were collected using the Constructivist Learning Environment Survey (CLES), to assess learners' perceptions of the constructivist learning environment, and an attitude scale to assess learners' attitudes towards their mathematics classroom. The instruments were administered to 1864 learners in 34 intermediate (Grades 4 - 6) phase and senior phase (Grades 7 - 9) classes. Data were analysed to determine whether (a) the CLES is valid and reliable for use in South Africa and (b) relationships exist between learners' perceptions of the learning environment and their attitude toward their mathematics classes. Descriptive analysis was used to generate feedback information for teachers based on graphical profiles of learners' perceptions of the actual and preferred learning environment for each class. Analyses of data collected from 1864 learners in 34 classes supported the factor structure, internal consistency reliability (Cronbach alpha coefficient), and discriminant validity of the CLES, as well as its ability to differentiate between classes. The results suggest that researchers and teachers can be confident about using the modified version of the CLES in mathematics classes in South Africa in the future. / Simple correlation and multiple regression analyses were conducted to examine whether associations exist between learners' attitudes towards their mathematics class and their perceptions of the learning environment. The results indicated that student attitudes were associated with more emphasis on all four CLES scales used. Two scales, Uncertainty and Student Negotiation, were found to contribute most to variance in student attitudes in mathematics classes in South Africa when the other CLES scales were mutually controlled. Descriptive analysis was used to provide information about the constructivist nature of mathematics classes in the Limpopo Province of South Africa. The results indicate that students would prefer a learning environment that is more positive than the one that they perceive as being present in terms of emphasis on all four CLES scales used. The second phase involved a 12-week intervention period during which two teachers used the pretest profiles of actual and preferred classroom environment means to assist them to develop strategies aimed at improving the constructivist orientation of their classroom learning environments. The teachers implemented the strategies and maintained daily journals as a means of reflecting on their teaching practices. Throughout the 12-week period, the researcher made regular support visits that included classroom observations, reviews of daily journals, discussions with teachers and interviews with learners. / As well, the researcher had the opportunity of giving support to the teachers in the implementation of their strategies. At the end of the 12 weeks, the CLES was re-administered to learners to determine whether their perceptions of the constructivist emphasis in their classroom learning environments had changed. The posttest graphical profiles indicated that there was a sizeable improvement in teachers' emphasis on CLES dimensions in their classrooms. Apparently, teachers using action research are able to use learners' responses to the CLES to develop and implement strategies for improving their learning environment. The study suggests that journal writing, as a tool used by teachers on a daily basis, can improve their professional expertise as reflective practitioners.

The study involved the evaluation of anthropometric activities for high school science. The activities actively engaged students in the process of gathering, processing and analyzing data derived from human body measurements, with students using their prior knowledge acquired in science, mathematics and computer classes to interpret this information. Quantitative (survey) and qualitative (interview) methods were used to provide answers to the research questions. The quantitative portion of the study involved students' achievement, students' attitudes to science and students' perceptions of the classroom learning environment. A pretest/posttest design was used with achievement outcomes, however, only a single assessment of student attitudes and classroom environment was made. The sample size used to gather data on students' attitudes to science and students' perceptions of the leaming environment was 726 students. Five hundred and ninety-eight (598) students tools the biology test. However, analyses were restricted to the subsample of 158 students who had experienced the anthropometric laboratory activity. Twenty-four students (24) were interviewed for the qualitative part of the study. Data generated from the interviews were used to complement information provided in the surveys. The main purpose of this research was to evaluate these student-centered activities in terms of students' achievement, students' attitudes and students' perceptions of the science classroom environment. Other aims included: to validate generally-applicable measures of classroom learning environments and students' attitudes to science; to investigate gender differences in students' achievement, attitudes and perceptions of classroom environment; and to investigate associations between the classroom learning environment and the student outcomes of performance and attitudes. / Some of the important findings of this study included: 1. In reference to the survey instruments, the item analyses supported the internal consistency reliability and ability to differentiate between classrooms of the learning environment questionnaire and the analyses of attitude data supported the factorial validity, internal consistency reliability and discriminant validity of the attitude questionnaire. 2. Substantial differences between the pretest and posttest scores for the achievement measures in Biology and anthropometric activities were found. These findings were supported by statistically significant t-test scores and effect sizes. 3. There was a positive influence of using anthropometric activities on both students' attitudes and their perceptions of the classroom learning environment. The findings based on qualitative information (interviews, which involved twenty-four students) were consistent with patterns emerging from our quantitative information (surveys, which involved 760 students) and they supported the effectiveness of the anthropometric activities. 4. The analysis of gender differences in students' achievement, attitudes and perceptions of classroom environment revealed that boys have more positive attitudes to science than girls do and is in agreement with past studies. However, females' students demonstrated more favorable perceptions of the learning environment than mates, primarily with Student Cohesiveness and Rule Clarity. 5. The association between student attitudes and their perception of the leaming environment indicated that students' attitudes to science are most likely to be positive in laboratory classes where student perceive a strong integration between the concepts and principles covered in theory classes and in laboratory classes. These findings are consistent with results in other countries. / 6. The association between achievement and student perceptions of their learning environment, suggest that integration of theoretical concepts with laboratory activities (Integration), a cohesive student group (Student Cohesiveness) and using appropriate laboratory materials and equipment (Material Environment) are likely to lead to student achievement. This finding replicates the results of previous studies. 7. I found stronger outcome-environment associations for attitudes than for achievement. This finding is consistent with results from past research. The contributions and significance of this study can be summarized as follows: 1. One of the key components of this study was the development and implementation of the innovative anthropometric laboratory activity, which was especially designed for this research. 2. Another contribution of this study is to the field of integrated curriculum instruction. While most instructional curricular activities are subject specific, this study is interdisciplinary in nature because it effectively links concepts and skills from science, mathematics, statistics, and technology (graphing calculators and computers). 3. A unique feature of this research is that it had an evaluation component involving student performance, student attitudes, and the nature of the classroom learning environment. Therefore, the study contributes to the field of learning environment research by adding another study to the limited research that has employed the classroom environment as a criterion of effectiveness in evaluating educational innovations. The study has the potential to help other science teachers to apply these ideas in their classrooms.