Thesis (M.Ed.)--Regis University, Denver, Colo., 2006. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Feb. 14, 2007). Includes bibliographical references.

To overcome the limit of topography and manpower, vegetation prediction is an important method in vegetation mapping. There can be used in model prediction that concern about environment factor or in data interpolation that only consider about spatial distribution. In this research, indicator kriging was used to predict the spatial distribution of the vegetation of Laonong river basin. The distributions of associations were combined from the species in these associations which had been selected by Cluster analyst and TWINSPAN. Indicator kriging used presence/absence data to calculate the distribution pattern of these species, and the each species predicted raster had its own distinctly distribution. The distribution pattern of associations were related to species distribution directly. The stability of prediction pattern were evaluated by jackknife method. All standard errors of the prediction were under 0.01, with no significant difference in 4 different sampling measures.

The purpose of this correlational study was to determine if specific personality characteristics existed between groups of psychologists who identified themselves as operating within behavioral (N = 14) or psychoanalytic (N = 13) theoretical principles.Previous studies of this nature have resulted in mixed findings regarding Personality-theory relationships. Major weaknesses in these studies were found to include the use of theoretically immature psychologist-subjects, poor deliniation of subject theoretical orientation and one-sided (i.e. continuous or categorical) treatment of Myers-Briggs type Indicator data. The present study attempted to improve on these three weaknesses in order to provide stronger evidence for theory-Personality relationships.The subjects in the present study were randomly selected from two theoretically oriented professional directories. All of the subjects held doctorates in psychology for at least two years. The settings from which the subjects were drawn varied widely while the study itself was conducted from a midwestern university of approximately 19,000 students.Subject personality variables were measured using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator - MBTI (Form G). A Theoretical Orientation Form was developed to assess the psychological theory from which subjects operated. This form required subjects to 1) endorse theoretically-bound techniques in response to case vignettes, and 2) endorse one of two labels of theoretical orientation. Only those subjects who endorsed all the vignettes and the respective label were included in the experimental group.Four null hypotheses were posed for those subjects meeting criteria: 1) no statisticallysignificant (p. <.05) differences would be found between groups (beavioral versus psycholanalytic) on the MBTI measure of extraversion - introversion, 2) no statistically significant differences would be found between these groups on the MBTI measure of sensing-intuition, 3) no statistically different differences would be found between these two groups on the MBTI measure of thinking-feeling, and 4). no statistically different differences would be found between these two groups on the MBTI measure of judgement-perception.Continuous scores of those subjects meeting criteria were examined via desriptive and inferential statistical procedures. Beyond the more common descriptive findings (i.e., means and standard deviations) the use of multidimensional scaling allowed for appreciation of both the categorical and continuous properties of the MBTI data.The data was also subjected to a MANOVA which yielded both multivariate and univariate F tests. The multivariate F (2,27) = p. < .10 allowed for further analysis with univariate F tests. A significant difference was found on only the third test of group comparisons on the thinking feeling dimension where F (2,27) = p..025.The analysis desribed above allowed for rejection of only the third null hypothesis which questioned group differences on the thinking-feeling dimension. In this group of psychologists, behaviorists were much more likely to prefer the thinking mode of judgement while psychoanalytic psychologists showed definite preference for the feeling dimension. This finding is supported by previous research as well.A secondary finding of the present study was that the perceptive process of intuition did not prove do be as important to this sample of psychologists as previous writers would contend. Although the presence of the intuitive preference was found in the majority of the subjects, its level of importance was of an auxiliary nature to most of these individuals.

Due to the fast change of globalization marketing, the shortened product life-cycle, and the uncertainty of marketing demand, enterprises have to become more agile, flexible in order to adapt to the fast change of the marketing. The SCM (Supply Chain Management) is the method to integrate the enterprise partnership of networks efficiently, the products will be produced and delivered with the right quantity to the right place at the right timing, it will help to reduce the cost of total supply chain and fulfill customer requirement with satisfaction. In past decades, the enterprises have introduced the balanced scorecard as the foundation of management system, and the method for alignment to business strategies. In this paper, through the combination of SCM practice and balanced scorecard by the Modified Delphi Method to develop the practical and effective performance indicators. The case study of this paper would take the performance indicators as the review on IDM (Integrated Device Manufacturers) company, in order to verify whether the SCM performance measurement of the company was balanced from each perspectives of the SCM balanced scorecard.

This study is to explore literature through domestic, building mental health assessment indicators, the use of Delphi method by the domestic psychology, counseling, education, counseling, mental health-related scholars and practitioners of view, construction of national mental health indicators, and view the people the importance of mental health indicators distribution. The results showed that the national mental health assessment indicators include the "interpersonal", " resistance to stress", and "work ability", "disease", "emotional", "conduct", "cognitive," "Sleep," "religion" , "sex" in ten dimensions, a total of 25 questions the subject. Indicators of the importance of distribution to compression of the dimension of "I can quickly adjust and adapt to the pressure felt in life," experts agreed that the importance of access to the highest, indicating the pressure adjustment and adaptation is affecting mental health of the most important factor. The religious dimension in this study, the three indicators are all experts in assessment is the importance of low, appear in this dimension for the mental health impact far as other dimensions.

Government reorganization movement around the world and public management theories put foci on ¡§Government Performance¡¨ in order to attain an ideal government. In such government, people can have the best government performance output while using the least public resources. Due to the characteristics that the administration scope of local governments is shrinking and that local governments are able to adapt to local conditions, performance appraisal might be easier. But with the ambiguous accountabilities among government organizations, the performance itself is still hard to be judged. Furthermore, differences between quantitative indicators and qualitative standpoints make it much challenging in the development and establishment of the important tool of local government performance appraisal-performance indicators. This research attempts using the establishment experiences and results of the performance indicators by the U.K., the U.S. and the Japan governments, contrasting the current domestic methods, and conducting in-depth interviews of experts, scholars, and representatives of government agents. This research not only considers the difficulties and plights while developing performance indicators of domestic local governments, but also provides possible directions and suggestions as references for the development of performance indicators of local governments in our country, for the propellant of government reorganization as well as for the increase of national competition.

Prior to 1960, most countries over the world used traditional economic indicators to represent their social status. Economists mostly used Gross National Product, GNP, as a measurement of the social welfare standard of a country or a society. However, with the progress of the development, the traditional economic indicators were unable to follow the progress of social welfares. Therefore, it made economists hard to measure the status of social welfares. Sen (1977) thought that the development of human beings is not restricted to the increase of average disposable incomes only. He thought that people should use the indicators with more information to measure the distinctive diversity of welfares. Bauer (1966) first stated the social indicators as a measurement of social status and trends. Then, the so-called ¡§Social Indicators Movement¡¨ was aroused by Bauer¡¦s theory. As a result, to measure the development of a society entirely, people could determine the development from the medicine, health, economy, environment, and welfare aspects. In the researches about social developments, there were many discussions in building indicators of social welfare, quality of living, basic fulfillment, and development of welfare. The research is trying to establish a system of social indicators to measure the development from every aspect and selecting the social indicator index with representative indicators as a measurement of society development. Moreover, this research would analyze the systems of social indicators in Taiwan from 1982 to 2002 to see if the government made an appropriate allocation of resources in the executions of related policies. The research refers to 20 related indicator systems in Taiwan and overseas as their times of quotes and principles of selecting indicators to sum up 9 probable indicators. Then, the Principal Component Analysis method and the Varian method are adopted as research methods to abstract factors. Moreover, there are two abstracted factors. One is economic and environment factor and another one is medical welfare and unemployment factor. The research uses weighted method to find out the synthetic indicators in Taiwan from 1982 to 2002. The weighted multiple gained from factor analysis for the two factors is 0.8353 and 0.1647. Based on the data mining and analysis from second information, three scores were acquired, economic and environment factor, medical welfare and unemployment factor, and entirely performance. Each of these three scores shows the trend and the change year by year. The last, according the result from this analysis, the policy and recommendation was brought up.

The purpose of this research was to construct the indicators of elementary school principal evaluation by the Delphi technique. The research goals were: (1)Discussing the domestic and foreign correlation theories and the studies of principals'evaluation, to be the reference of establishin- gquestionnaire of this research. (2)Construct evaluation items that were suitable for principals'evaluat ion in Kaohsiung. (3)By Delphi technique, the questionnaire survey through the whole city principals established the appropriate evaluation indicators and dimentions. (4)This research proposed the concrete suggestions, providing refere- nces for the educational administration institute¡C This research implemented two times of Delphi questionnaire survey and a whole city elementary school principals' general survey. The first questionnaire based on the literature discussion, collecting the entire domestic and foreign studies and evaluation indicators of various counties that had implemented principals' evaluation. The content of the questionnaire divided into five dimentions, 14 evalua- tion items and 35 evaluation indicators. After consulting with Delphi committee members, the revision showed 6 dimentions, 15 evaluation items and 55 evaluation indicators, developping for the second edition questionnaire. After two times of Delphi committee mem bers' survey, the third revision developped 5 dimentions, 14 evaluation items and 42 evaluation indicators. Survey to elementary school incumbent princip- als sent out 85 questionnaires, recycled 82 questionnaires, and the returns-ratio was 96.47%. Based on analysis of the data obtained, conclusions of the study were as follows 1.Construct evaluation indicators that suitable for principals'evaluation in Kaohsiung.¡G5dimentions (A, policy execution; B, administration management; C, curriculum and teaching leadership; D, professional re sponsibility; E, public relation), 14evaluation items and 40 evaluation indicators 2.¡§A, policy execution¡¨devided into 2 evaluation items and 5 evalu- ation indicators. 3.¡§B, administration management¡¨devided into 4 evaluation items and 12 evaluation indicators. 4.¡§C, curriculum and the teaching leadership¡¨ devided into 3 evalu- ation items and 10 evaluation indicators. 5.¡§D, professional responsibility¡¨ devided into 2 evaluation items and 5 evaluation indicators. 6.¡§E, public relation¡¨devided into 3 evaluation items and 8 evalua- tion indicators. 7.The principals in Kaohsiung. expressed the general acceptance to this research . Based on the conclusions, this research proposed suggestions: First, suggestions to educational administration institute. 1.Using evaluation indicators constructed by this research to underst- and systematically the achievements of the principals. 2.Hold the public hearings and the explanation meetings, in order to improve the understanding of principal evaluation. 3.Training evaluation experts to guarantee the value of principal evaluation. Second, suggestions to elementary school principals. 1.Principal evaluation is the current educational trend, everybody should embrace the enthusiastic manner. 2.Based on evaluation indicators, the principals should regularly or non-periodically comments conduct self-evaluation. 3.Paying much attention on communication and the public relation, the principals should establish good interaction with the colleague, the students and the community. Third, suggestions to future studies. 1.The following research may simultaneously survey in weight of evaluation dimentions, items and indicators. 2.May coordinate between principal and the school background to construct the common and different evaluation indicators

During project execution, the status of the project is periodically evaluated, using traditional methods or standard practices. However, these traditional methods or standard practices may not adequately identify certain issues, such as lack of sufficient identification of warning signs that predict potential project failure. Current methods may lack the ability to provide real time indications of emerging problems that impact project outcomes in a timely manner. To address this problem, the Construction Industry Institute (CII) formed a research team to develop a new tool that can forecast the potential risk of not meeting specific project outcomes based on assessing leading indicators. Thus, the leading indicators were identified and then the new tool was developed and validated. A screening process was conducted through industry surveys after identifying potential leading indicators. Each time, industry professionals were asked to evaluate the negative impact of leading indicators on project outcomes that were identified to measure the impact of leading indicators on project health. Through this process, forty-three leading indicators were acquired finally. Using descriptive statistics, the amount of negative impact of each leading indicator on project outcomes was identified after the analysis of the survey results. Based on these impacts, the tool development was initiated. The tool concept is that no indication of problems based on assessing leading indicators results in the tool output score high. To comply with this concept, specific weights were assigned to each leading indicator to reflect the impact on each project outcome. By this procedure, the Project Health Indicator (PHI) tool was developed. The validation process of the PHI tool was conducted using completed projects and finally negative correlation was observed between project outcomes and health scores generated by the PHI tool.

Flash droughts refer to those droughts that intensify rapidly in spring and summer, coupled with a strong increase in summer extreme temperatures, such as those that occurred over Texas in 2011 and the Great Plains in 2012. Climate models failed to predict these flash droughts in 2011 and 2012 and are ambiguous in projecting their future changes, largely because of models’ weaknesses in predicting summer rainfall and soil moisture feedbacks. In contrast, climate models are more reliable in simulating changes of large‐scale circulation and temperatures during winter and spring seasons. Thus, we developed and tested a physical climate indicator of the risk of “flash” droughts in summer by using the large-scale circulation and land surface conditions in winter and spring based on observed relationships between these conditions and their underlying physical mechanisms established by previous observational studies and numerical model simulations. My master research focuses on the spatial distribution of this indicator globally to see how broadly it could be applied. We also compare the different factors to see which one is the dominant contributor to drought in different area. We find that the indicator performs well at capturing the development and termination of a drought. There is much opportunity to develop and improve the indicator further. / text