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This thesis includes a review of scientific studies of tree injuries following mechanized thinning. Interviews have been made with drivers of single grip harvesters and forwarders in forest thinning and a number of essential factors have been identified as the most important to take into account in order to minimize and/orprevent injuries to stems and roots of remaining trees.

The purpose of this creative project was to develop suitable design tools and language of behavioral analysis which could be employed in environmental design with regard to the related human behavior. The interaction of human activity and the built environment was considered as a common ground on which a basic architectural design process could be founded. To achieve a clearer understanding of the role of integrated graphic representation of the interaction of human behavior and environment, three concerned aspects were explored. These are: Pattern of the interaction between people and the built environment, Design tool and language, and Communication in the design process. As for the first aspect, three kinds of interactions of people and environment were distinguished. For the second aspect, design language was enriched with the exploration of integrated graphic representation of architectural space and human behavior. For the third aspect, the focus of graphic communication in the traditional design process was shifted from physical form to the pattern of interrelationship of people and environment. The design of the proposed International Student Center at Ball State University was completed to demonstrate the above aspects. / Department of Architecture

This research set out to examine the barriers to a secondary private school in implementing dyslexia-friendly practice and responding to different needs, through an in-depth case study of a girls’ school where this was an acknowledged aim. Data were collected through participant observation, interviews with staff, pupils and other key informants. Adolescent girls were chosen as the focus in relation to issues of self-esteem. Before looking at potential barriers, perspectives of pupils in three different private schools for girls were examined in order to investigate how significant practices designated as dyslexia friendly were in the experience of adolescent girls. This suggested that there was no significant difference in the practices and teaching strategies found helpful by dyslexic or non-dyslexic pupils. What was significant was the strength of reaction to teaching strategies that were perceived as patronising or critical, despite often being intended as helpful. Examinations of teachers’ beliefs about the nature of difficulties showed that even where there appeared to be an interventionist perspective, this was diluted in the case of pupils who did not fit the profile of the ‘right sort of dyslexic’ who would reflect well on staff and school. Three significant barriers to the development of more inclusive practice were identified: the culture of autonomy in the classroom and suspicion of collaborative work; a high level of dependence on ability grouping; lack of consensus over the role of the Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCO). Significance of the findings in relation to the current dichotomy in the wider educational setting between league table pressures on one hand and inclusive ideology on the other is discussed and suggestions are made about areas for further investigation.

Life expectancy in countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CCEE) is substantially shorter than in Western Europe, and similar divide exists in self-rated health. The project described in this thesis was set up to study the effects of socio-economic factors (such as material deprivation, education and inequalities) and psychosocial factors (perceived control, psychosocial work environment) on self-rated health (a predictor of mortality in prospective studies). Cross-sectional surveys were conducted in seven CCEE: Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary. Data were collected by interviews in randomly selected national samples in all seven countries (total 7,599 subjects), and by questionnaires in random community samples in 4 countries (total 6,642 subjects). The data included socio-economic and psychosocial factors, self-rated health (SRH) and behavioural risk factors. Overall, 17% of men and 23% of women rated their health as worse than average. In the national samples, perceived control, material deprivation and education were strongly related to poor SRH. In the pooled data, adjusted odds ratio (OR) of poor health for 1 standard deviation (SD) increase in perceived control was 0.59 (95% Cl 0.54-0.63). The OR for 1 SD increase in the material deprivation score was 1.35 (95% Cl 1.26-1.46). The ORs for vocational, secondary and university education, compared with primary education, were 0.75,0.58 and 0.53, respectively. We also examined the ecological effects of income inequality; the OR for the most versus the least unequal populations (using the Gini coefficient of income inequality) was 1.88 (95% Cl 1.55-2.28). In multivariate analyses, however, the effect of inequality was eliminated by adjustment for material deprivation and perceived control. In the community samples, the results were similar. Among psychosocial factors at work, the effort-reward imbalance appeared to be the strongest predictor of self-rated health; work variety was also a predictor of self-rated health. Job strain was not associated with SRH. Our results suggest that (a) the prevalence of poor SRH in CCEE is high, and (b) socioeconomic and psychosocial factors are strongly related to self-rated health in these populations. The gradients were present in all populations, and were of the same direction and similar magnitude as in the West. Prospective studies are needed to address the problems of temporality and reporting bias, which are the major problems of these results.

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited / Experts believe that draft would require a larger number of accessions, since draftees and draft-motivated volunteers are more likely to leave military service than volunteers at their first opportunity. This thesis presents evidence on this issue. We are able to compare retention behaviour and service lengths of draftees and volunteers in the same cohort by using data files consisting of enlistees during lottery draft years. / http://archive.org/details/retentionbehavio00gurk / Lieutenant, Junior Grade, Turkish Navy