The purpose of the present study was to construct and validate a brief screening instrument to support parent(s) and preschool/kindergarten teachers in monitoring and screening for cognitive impairment and/or delay in preschoolers. The target population of interest is all preschoolers <i>at-risk</i> for poor psychosocial and school outcomes due to chronic and acute dysfunction of the central nervous system (CNS). The accessible populations of interest to the present study are pediatric cancer survivors, preschoolers with alcohol related neurodevelopmental disorder (ARND), being preterm low birth weight, and/or diagnosed with various learning disabilities. The past practice of waiting until an <i>at-risk</i> child experienced poor school outcomes before being referred for cognitive assessment toward tailoring an intervention is no longer defensible. For the present study, a 61-item screening instrument (18 memory items, 19 verbal ability items, 15 attention items, and 9 demographic items) was pilot tested with parents, playschool teachers, and kindergarten teachers to rate preschoolers on overt behaviours associated with cognitive functioning. A criterion-referenced framework was used to establish a performance standard and set a cut score based on a sample of 151 normally functioning preschoolers aged 4:0- to 5:11-years. The various empirical and substantive analyses conducted resulted in a revised scale of 28 items (10 memory, 11 verbal ability, and 7 attention) titled, <i>Screening Test for the Early Prediction of School Success</i> (STEPSS). Given the need for a future study to validate the STEPSS with clinical groups of preschoolers, the screening instrument is intended to provide the empirical evidence needed to refer <i>at-risk</i> preschoolers for assessment with more comprehensive cognitive batteries. Constructing and validating the STEPSS is important for two reasons: 1) to fill a gap in the types of instruments available for monitoring and assessing cognitive functioning in <i>at-risk</i> preschool populations; and 2) to alleviate the current delay in targeting interventions for preschoolers because of the practice of depending upon the school system to monitor and identify poor cognitive functioning.

Social justice advocacy has been a force throughout the history of Counseling Psychology and has been described as more critical to the field than any other time in its long history (Toporek & McNally, 2006). Accordingly, in 2002, the American Counseling Association endorsed the Advocacy Competencies in an effort to advance the status of social advocacy by defining competency for counselors engaged in social advocacy (Lewis, Arnold, House, & Toporek, 2002). However, at the writing of this article, these competencies had not yet been operationalized. Therefore, a comprehensive review of the multidisciplinary literature was conducted and seventy- three skills consistent with these competencies were identified and used to further describe what it means to be a competent social justice advocate. These skills were then used to create a measure of social justice advocacy. Content validity of the items was addressed through the use of expert ratings. One hundred participants were recruited to take this measure. Exploratory factor analysis yielded a four-factor model of social justice advocacy skills: Collaborative Action, Social/Political Advocacy, Client Empowerment, and Client/Community Advocacy. Evidence for construct validity was found in the expected positive correlations between the social advocacy survey and the Multicultural Knowledge and Awareness Scale (Ponterotto et al., 2002) and the Miville-Guzman Universal-Diverse Orientation Scale- Short Form (Fuertes et al., 2000). The resulting 43- item survey serves as a starting point for operationalizing and assessing counselors’ competence in social justice advocacy.

Teacher shortages are a critical issue for education, and agricultural education has not been exempt from this trend. Many factors possibly contribute to this lack of qualified teachers. Researchers suggest that retention practices, stress factors associated with agricultural education, and job satisfaction may be areas for improvement within the profession. A deeper understanding of the problems beginning teachers experience is a critical first step in raising the retention rate for new teachers. An original researcher-designed instrument based on Moir was composed of 66 items intended to measure induction-year teachers’ attitude toward teaching and was administered at six different points in time to induction-year agriculture teachers in Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico during the 2011–2012 school year. Data collection occurred via a mixed mode design following the Tailored Design Method. The overall response rate was 52.5% with 197 responses to the instrument. All 66 scale items from the original questionnaire were included in the principal component analysis (PCA) with varimax rotation; coefficients with an absolute value less than 0.45 were suppressed. The Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) of sampling adequacy was 0.787 and Bartlett’s test of sphericity was significant (p < 0.001). Factor analysis yielded a nine factor solution using varimax rotation. Forty-five items composed the Agricultural Education Induction-Year Teacher Attitudinal Scale. Descriptive names for the constructs were the product of 20 experts in the field of agricultural education: “Professional Efficacy,” “Balanced Reflection,” “Professional Commitment,” “Professional Confidence,” “Anticipated Change,” “Work-Life Balance,” “Strategic Renewal,” “Problem Solving,” and “Professional Resolve.” Overall reliability coefficient for the proposed new instrument was 0.88. Overall attitude toward teaching was not statistically significantly different across measures. No significant predictors of attitude toward teaching based on selected demographic variables were generated as a result of forced entry regression. Grand mean scores per round did not statistically differ from one round to another. A model of induction-year agricultural education teacher’s attitudes was proposed along with a scale adjusted model of agricultural education teacher attitude toward teaching. A model of all attitude constructs was presented to illustrate the effect of time on the attitude of the induction-year agricultural education teachers.

Malgré l'abondante littérature financière sur la gestion des risques financiers par les produits dérivés, il reste encore beaucoup à faire sur la question de savoir comment les entreprises choisissent entre les différents instruments financiers. Dans ce mémoire, nous proposons d'examiner cette question en choisissant d'identifier les déterminants susceptibles d'affecter la composition du portefeuille de couverture des entreprises non-financières en terme de choix entre les instruments linéaires (tels que les contrats à terme) et les instruments non-linéaires (tels que les options). Notamment, nous mesurons l'impact des caractéristiques financières et des caractéristiques de gouvernance des entreprises sur l'utilisation des instruments non-linéaires. Nous trouvons que les entreprises ont plus de chance d'utiliser les options si elles ont plus de liquidité et si leur marge de bénéfice brut est élevée. Egalement, les entreprises dont les dirigeants détiennent plus d'actions ou d'options d'achats d'actions de l'entreprise sont celles qui ont plus de chances d'utiliser les options. Ceci montre que les dirigeants peuvent influencer le choix entre les instruments de couverture de telle façon à limiter la dévaluation de leur portefeuille si la valeur de l'entreprise baisse et à garder le potentiel d'appréciation de ce portefeuille si la valeur de l'entreprise augmente. Nos résultats peuvent indiquer que certaines compagnies, notamment celles qui ont une bonne santé financière, utilisent les options pour des fins de spéculation. On trouve aussi que parmi les entreprises utilisant les options, celles qui ont plus de contraintes financières utilisent plus options. Par ailleurs, nous trouvons que les entreprises qui exhibent une forte corrélation entre le risque couvrable (le risque de quantité) et le risque non couvrable (le risque de prix), c'est à dire moins de risque de sur-couverture, ont une probabilité plus faible d'utiliser les options. ______________________________________________________________________________ MOTS-CLÉS DE L’AUTEUR : Gestion des risques financiers, Instruments linéaires, Instruments non-linéaires, Compagnies aurifères, Risque non-couvrable.

This note demonstrates that the shocks explicitly modeled as well as those implicitly present in stochastic macro-models must obey a restriction derived from Walras' law. In the standard case of statistical independence of real and monetary shocks there must be a financial shock to bond demand that mirrors those shocks, bond holdings thus acting in fact as buffer stocks. As an example the choice of the optimal monetary instrument is examined for the converse case of buffer-stock money and compared with the standard case. / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

The use of stars as a radiation source for ground-based ozone remote-sensing instruments is explored and an automated prototype instrument that measures absorption due to atmospheric ozone in stellar spectra has been designed, implemented and tested. <p> This work represents the proof-of-concept development of a low-cost, low dispersion slitless imaging spectrometer that measures Chappuis-band absorption in stellar spectra. The work presented here progresses from the initial concept to a functional calibrated prototype that is capable of nightly automated observations of visible-band spectra from mid-magnitude stars. The design and calibration of the prototype and subsequent data collection and analysis are presented. <p>A slitless imaging spectrometer has been developed and integrated with a commercial self-pointing telescope and an astronomical imager. A relative intensity calibration and the development of a dynamic wavelength calibration scheme, necessitated by the slitless nature of the instrument, is presented. The calibrated prototype has been used to collect several data sets of stellar spectra, and it is shown that the instrument can detect Chappuis absorption in stellar spectra. Several issues with both the concept and design that must be addressed in further development of the prototype are identified.

The purpose of the present study was to construct and validate a brief screening instrument to support parent(s) and preschool/kindergarten teachers in monitoring and screening for cognitive impairment and/or delay in preschoolers. The target population of interest is all preschoolers <i>at-risk</i> for poor psychosocial and school outcomes due to chronic and acute dysfunction of the central nervous system (CNS). The accessible populations of interest to the present study are pediatric cancer survivors, preschoolers with alcohol related neurodevelopmental disorder (ARND), being preterm low birth weight, and/or diagnosed with various learning disabilities. The past practice of waiting until an <i>at-risk</i> child experienced poor school outcomes before being referred for cognitive assessment toward tailoring an intervention is no longer defensible. For the present study, a 61-item screening instrument (18 memory items, 19 verbal ability items, 15 attention items, and 9 demographic items) was pilot tested with parents, playschool teachers, and kindergarten teachers to rate preschoolers on overt behaviours associated with cognitive functioning. A criterion-referenced framework was used to establish a performance standard and set a cut score based on a sample of 151 normally functioning preschoolers aged 4:0- to 5:11-years. The various empirical and substantive analyses conducted resulted in a revised scale of 28 items (10 memory, 11 verbal ability, and 7 attention) titled, <i>Screening Test for the Early Prediction of School Success</i> (STEPSS). Given the need for a future study to validate the STEPSS with clinical groups of preschoolers, the screening instrument is intended to provide the empirical evidence needed to refer <i>at-risk</i> preschoolers for assessment with more comprehensive cognitive batteries. Constructing and validating the STEPSS is important for two reasons: 1) to fill a gap in the types of instruments available for monitoring and assessing cognitive functioning in <i>at-risk</i> preschool populations; and 2) to alleviate the current delay in targeting interventions for preschoolers because of the practice of depending upon the school system to monitor and identify poor cognitive functioning.

Sammanfattning   Titel: Värderingsproblematik vid finansiella instrument: En studie ur revisorns perspektiv. Författare: David Carlsson &amp; Per-Johan Elert Handledare: Andreas Jansson Kurs: Civilekonomuppsats 30 HP, VT 2011 Seminariedatum: 31 maj Nyckelord: Revision, finansiella instrument, utan marknadsvärde, värdering.    Syfte: Vårt syfte är att belysa och skapa en förståelse för de problem som revisorerna själva anser finns vid värderingsprocessen av finansiella instrument. Vår ambition är att få fram nya aspekter på vad revisorerna anser vara svårt utöver det som litteraturen kring svårbedömda tillgångar tar upp.   Metod: Vårt syfte är inte att göra några statistiska generaliseringar utan vi vill få fram vad revisorerna själva upplever vara svårt och fånga nyanserna bakom dessa svar. Därför kommer vi att i huvudsak använda oss av en deduktiv ansats med inslag av induktion.   Teori: Teorikapitlet är uppdelat i fyra olika teman identifierade utifrån hur revisions- värderingsprocessen går till. Inom dessa teman har vi sedan tagit fram åtta stycken problemantaganden.   Empirisk metod: Vi har använt oss av en kvalitativ metod där vi genom ett subjektivt urval genomfört semi-strukturerade intervjuer med nio respondenter. Syftet med intervjun var att se om våra problemantaganden stämde in med respondenternas åsikter samt att få fram nya problem som upplevs av respondenterna.   Slutsats: Revisorer ställs inför en hel del problem i revisionsprocessen av finansiella instrument. De upplever det svårt att avgöra vad som är rätt eller fel. En revisor måste vara väldigt specialiserad för att kunna sätta sig in i de värderingsmodeller som används varvid det snarare är regel än undantag att en värderingsexpert används. Redovisningen och regelverken är den nya problematiska aspekten som framkom under intervjuerna.

This is a study of Prehistoric musical instruments from Scandinavia and the different meanings they could have had in the Prehistoric society. I have described the different types of possible music instruments and the different categories that they belong to. I have also written about their different functions that could have been for example ritual artefacts, shamanic tools or useful instruments in hunting. Two case studies are also presented in the essay, the Falköpingsflute and the Balkåkradrum.

The purpose of this study is to analyze and evaluate the suitability of the three instruments SERVQUAL, SERVPERF and Zone of tolerance to measure service quality, from the respondents' perspective. This study has been carried out by a quantitative method in which respondents answered three questionnaires, which was based on the three instruments. The SERVQUAL instrument is a revised version based on criticism by Carman (1990). It is based on the five dimensions; reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangibility, with 22 items in which each dimension is associated with a number of items. SERVPERF is the instrument most similar to SERVQUAL and is also composed of the same five dimensions. The Zone of tolerance instrument is based on a three-column format of SERVQUAL, where each items is answered in the form of respondent's minimum service level, desired service level, and the perception of SL's service performance. The Zone of tolerance questionnaire consists of eight dimensions, including three new ones (convenience, connection, comfort) and 38 items. The theoretical frame of reference that includes Grönroos model of service quality, and the three instruments form the basis of the results, analysis and conclusion. In this study, we concluded that Zone of tolerance is the most suitable instrument for measuring the quality of service in public transport according to the respondents, thus it best describes the feelings that the respondents feel about the service quality of SL. There was however no significant difference between the Zone of tolerance and the SERVPERF instrument in this regard. The Zone of tolerance instrument was the most specific of the three, but we found that the instrument may undergo additional changes to make it more suitably. Although most respondents felt that the Zone of tolerance instrument was the best descriptive of how the respondents felt regarding the service quality of SL, a large proportion of respondents (49 %) found this instrument as the one that worst describe the feelings they felt regarding the service quality of SL. A large proportion (72 %) of respondents believe that the Zone of tolerance instrument is the most difficult to understand. This may be because it includes many items and that every item must answer three times, a rather unusual format. The fact that this instrument was the last one in the scheme may have a negative effect. Since respondents in the assessment of the last instrument certainly became bored and therefore may have led to the instrument not receiving as much attention as the two previous instruments.