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Current research on network use in the labor market focuses primarily on network morphology. In this dissertation, I use hierarchical regression to examine the influence of macro-level context on network use in job search.This study relies on a unique data set that combines individual job history data for years 1985 through 2001 collected by the Survey of Social Dynamics and Migration in Russia (SSMDR) in 40 regions in 2001-2002 and corresponding regional macro-economic data published by Goskomstat, the State Statistical Committee of the Russian Federation.The first question of this study focuses on what accounts for the temporal and regional variation in personal network use in the Russian labor market. I find that, for the post-Soviet period, increase in network use in job search can be attributed to the growth of the private sector: Russian employers are becoming "social capitalists" who take advantage of the resources personal connections can offer. I also find that the chances of finding a new job through personal ties are higher in the regions with larger small business sectors and in the regions with lower economic performance.Next I examine how regional economic performance and unemployment affect workers' chances of getting new jobs in the private sector and in smaller size organizations by means of personal networks. The analysis shows that social networks do lead to employment in the private sector and that this relationship is positively affected by regional economic performance, but not by unemployment rate. I also find here that social ties are likely to lead to new jobs in small organizations, but that this relationship does not vary by region.Finally, I investigate how regional economic performance and unemployment rates affect wages for jobs found through personal networks in the private sector and in small organizations. I find that while the private sector rewards network use, small organizations do not. The relationship between network use and wages does not vary by region. That is, regional economic performance does not have an effect on this relationship.

This study examined, for the first time, specific links between parents' memory and children's diabetes behaviors and metabolic control. Data revealed that parental memory and responsibility predicted children's percentage of calories from fat and carbohydrates, and metabolic control, accounting for 7.3% of the variance in calories from fat and 18.5% of the variance in metabolic control for the total sample. These effects were stronger when limited to dietary behaviors of younger youth; parental memory accounted for 30.3% and 33.6% of the variance in percentage of calories from fat and carbohydrates, respectively, for younger children. Level of parent responsibility, with memory, moderated younger children's percentage of calories from fat and carbohydrates, and children's metabolic control. Parents with higher memory scores and more responsibility had disease indictors that were closer to ADA recommendations. Results suggest intervention to enhance parent memory may improve diabetes care and health status for youths with IDDM.

The aim of this study was to examine the association between personality and risk taking in a sample of 461 older adults from the Charlotte County Healthy Aging Study (CCHAS). The personality factors of openness to experience, extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness and conscientiousness were measured with the NEO Five Factor Inventory. Risk-taking was measured with an 8-item questionnaire and a single-item question that assessed subjects' participation in sensation seeking behaviors. Spearman correlation coefficients, hierarchical linear regression and hierarchical logistic regression were used to assess the association. As consistent with past research, high scores on openness to experience (beta = 0.16, P<.0001) and low scores on neuroticism (β = -0.14, P<.01) and agreeableness (β = -0.16, P<.01) were associated with the total score of the 8-item risk taking questionnaire. The single-item risk question was also associated with openness [OR = 1.09; 95% CI: 1.05-1.13], neuroticism [OR = 0.94; 95% CI: 0.90-0.97] and agreeableness [OR = 0.95; 95% CI: 0.92-0.99]. After stratifying by gender, only openness was still significantly associated with risk-taking. Interaction terms including gender and personality factors were added to the models to test if gender was an effect modifier. Although personality differences existed between men and women, none of the interaction terms were statistically significant.

A major criticism of the environmental behavior literature is the nearly exclusive focus on the role of attitudes and individual-level characteristics. Despite this concentration on individual-level causes, variation in environmental behavior remains. As individual behavior becomes an increasingly significant source of pollution, a better understanding of the influences individual behavior is critical to addressing environmental degradation. This research re-directs the focus on individual-level influences on environmental behaviors by building models examining the varying dimensions of environmental behaviors as influenced by community characteristics. This is accomplished by testing a series of hypotheses under the auspices of two theoretical frameworks: the neoclassical economic theory and a social contextual model of environmental actions. Using individual-level data from the 1993 and 2000 General Social Survey and MSA data from the U.S. Census and the Environmental Protection Agency, I estimate two-level hierarchical models for three environmentally sensitive behaviors (environmentally sensitive food consumption, environmentally sensitive automobile use, and environmental activism). Multi-level analyses yield models revealing significant associations between MSA measures and individual environmental behaviors. Objective environmental conditions, region of MSA and MSA education level are significantly associated with environmentally sensitive food consumption behaviors, environmentally sensitive automobile use, and environmental activism behaviors, though their influence assumes diverse forms. Among the community measures, MSA education level is the primary social process that produces change in all environmental behaviors. In each of the models, MSA education level exhibits effects on all three behavioral measures and significant cross-level effects on automobile use behaviors. Living in a well educated MSA, particularly in the West or Northeast suggests higher environmental participation. Region of MSA is also a characteristic that must be considered when evaluating environmental behaviors, particularly for those living in the West and Northeast. Theoretical conclusions suggest that individual environmental behavior decision making is not simply a market exchange, but social forces are at work in the individual decision-making process.

This study explored the relationship between several variables known to influence achievement in Canadian Grade 6 students with Learning Disabilities (LD) who received instruction in either a regular class or specialized program placement. The main independent variable was program placement while the influence of four other independent variables was explored (i.e., level of academic need; prior achievement; socioeconomic status and sex). The dependent variable was a standardized, large-scale assessment of achievement. Hierarchical multiple regression was conducted on a secondary data file in order to address the following research questions: i) Does placement in a regular or specialized program influence the educational outcomes for Grade 6 students with LD, after controlling for the influence of prior achievement in Grade 3?; ii) Is there a relationship between the sociodemographic variables of sex and/or socioeconomic status and achievement for students with LD placed in either a regular or specialized program?; and iii) What influence does the student’s level of academic need have on achievement, beyond program placement, and after controlling for the influence of the other variables in the model? Results revealed that the variables of program placement and prior achievement were significant predictors of scholastic success only when the level of academic need variable was not taken into account. When the follow-up analysis focused on a relatively matched group of students with similar academic need, none of the predictors in the regression model significantly influenced achievement -- including program placement. These results provide important insight into the nuanced relationship of the ecological variables known to affect learning in students with LD placed in regular or specialized programs for instruction. Implications are discussed for stakeholders in Ontario’s public education system in terms of the optimum service delivery model for students with LD, and the inclusive education debate in Canada and abroad.

Thesis (DPhil (Environmental Health))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2016. / Informal caregivers play an important role in the well-being of dependent members in a household. The burdens of these caregivers are multiple and pervasive and may contribute to mental health epidemiology as a result of worry, grief, anxiety and stress. The literature review revealed that studies in caregiving and its various facets began from a pragmatically applied interest rather than from theoretical and intellectual curiosity. The majority of the research on caregiver burden involves meta-analysis of qualitative studies with little quantitative research. Also, many of these studies are concentrated on caregivers of chronically ill patients, such as those suffering from dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, and heart disease, without much attention to care burden resulting from caring for those who are not necessarily ill. Similar studies by other researchers did not consider the impact of the physical health of the care recipients or the environmental factors that are critical in the study of female caregiver burden in low-income settings. In addition, existing studies did not adequately evaluate the many potential factors that may vary and influence the lives of the caregivers, especially in a single, comprehensive model. This study attempted to provide a more complete picture of these relationships in low-income and culturally diverse settings. The study population consisted of black/African and coloured populations living in subsidised or low-cost housing settlements. In each of the two different cultural communities, 100 black/African and 100 coloured female caregivers were selected through a systematic random sampling procedure. In addition, data were also collected from caregivers in Tamale, Ghana to assess differences between the socio-demographic profiles of the caregivers in Cape Town, South Africa and Tamale, Ghana. The theoretical paradigm used in this study is the Stress Process Model by Pearlin et al., (1990). The study instrument assessed caregiver burden with both objective and subjective measures through the use of a fully structured questionnaire. The information that was collected according to the constructs of the Stress Process Model included personal and role strains and incorporated the physical health of the care recipients and environmental factors such as kitchen and toilet hygiene. Inclusion criteria for the respondents in both Cape Town and Tamale were the principal female caregivers who were present, willing, and able to give informed consent. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS Version 22) was used for the analyses. The Chi-square test was used to assess the relationships between environmental health, the socio-demographics of the female caregivers and the health status of the care recipients. The hierarchical regression analysis in the form of a General Linear Model was used to model caregiving burden. iv The results showed that the majority of the female caregivers were in the age group 40 – 49 years and in both Cape Town and Tamale, a large proportion was in the low-income group. Also, the majority of the informal caregivers in the two samples were in care tasks as a full-time job, providing more than 40 hours of care per week. Regarding the length of time in caregiving, a large proportion of the caregivers in both Cape Town and Tamale had been in the care role for more than three years preceding the survey, and almost all the caregivers in the Cape Town sample (98.4%) did not use any form of caregiving programme to ameliorate the negative effects of caregiving. Further, the results showed statistically significant relationships between the socio-demographic characteristics of female caregivers (age, education, population group and income status) and the diarrhoea status of the care recipients. Also, a significant relationship was shown between environmental health variables of the home (kitchen hygiene and toilet hygiene) and the physical health of the care recipients. The major predictors of female caregiver burden in the samples were the physical health of the care recipients and access to social grants. On the basis of the analyses, it was recommended that the government should recognise the importance of the physical health of the care recipients and increase the amounts of social grants to the caregivers since this could improve the circumstances of both the caregivers and the care recipients. In addition, this could aid in improving the standard of living of caregivers in these households. Future research in similar settings should disaggregate the data to compare the burden of caring for caregivers of physically strong care recipients with physically ill care recipients.

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Effective and efficient air transportation systems are crucial to a nation's economy and connectedness. These systems involve capital-intensive facilities and equipment and move millions of people and tonnes of freight every day. As air traffic has continued to increase, the systems necessary to ensure safe and efficient operation will continue to grow more and more complex. Hence, it is imperative that air transport analysts are equipped with the best tools to properly predict and respond to expected air transportation operations. This dissertation aims to improve on those tools currently available to air transportation analysts, while offering new ones. Specifically, this thesis will offer the following: 1) A model for predicting arrival runway occupancy times (AROT); 2) a model for predicting departure runway occupancy times (DROT); and 3) a flight planning model. This thesis will also offer an exploration of the uses of unmanned aerial vehicles for providing wireless communications services. For the predictive models of AROT and DROT, we fit hierarchical Bayesian regression models to the data, grouped by aircraft type using airport physical and aircraft operational parameters as the regressors. Recognizing that many existing air transportation models require distributions of AROT and DROT, Bayesian methods are preferred since their output are distributions that can be directly inputted into air transportation modeling programs. Additionally, we exhibit how analysts will be able to decouple AROT and DROT predictions from the traditional 4 or 5 groupings of aircraft currently in use. Lastly, for the flight planning model, we present a 2-D model using presently available wind data that provides wind-optimal flight routings. We improve over current models by allowing free-flight unconnected to pre-existing airways and by offering finer resolutions over the current 2.5 degree norm. / Ph. D.

This study aims to investigate the relative contribution of tangible and intangible resources, and capabilities on firm performance based on the measures of market share, sales turnover and profitability and explore the complex interaction and foundation of different resource sets and capabilities in the process of performance creation within the context of resource-based theory. In order to address these objectives, a mixed-methods research approach incorporating both qualitative and quantitative components was utilised. Hence, a sequential explanatory design is employed, commencing with qualitative methods including in-depth interviews along with the literature review to define and organise resources and capabilities in a coherent system that will form the basis of survey instrument, leading to quantitative methods which empirically test a series of hypotheses regarding the contribution of resources and capabilities on firm performance. Whilst qualitative data analysis indicated organisational culture, reputational assets, human capital, business processes and networking capabilities as the most important determinants of firm performance, the survey that was conducted on a total of 243 questionnaires obtained from 951 firms revealed that intangible resources and capabilities contributed more greatly to firm performance compared to tangible resources. However, in contrast to the proposition of resource-based theory that views capabilities as the most important skills that underpin the development and deployment of both tangible and intangible resources, capabilities offered rather limited additional explanatory power to the prediction of firm performance only with respect to profitability against the combined effects of tangible and intangible resources. All findings were explained especially within the context of Turkish business environment that shows typical emerging market characteristics. Moreover, some noteworthy results were elaborated based on the developed and emerging market differences. Overall, the study raises some questions with respect to resource contributions on firm performance and offers a fruitful avenue for further research.