The National Labeling and Education Act of 1990 (NLEA) mandates that the Food and Drug Administration overhaul existing food labeling regulations and provide the consumer with a standardized, informative food-labeling policy. The intended benefit is the elimination of the confusion currently surrounding food labeling and an improvement in the dietary practices of the American public. The aim of this study was to measure the differences in the food-label reading habits, attitudes, and understanding of low-income women participating in the Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and of women from the general population. All subjects were the primary household food shoppers. In both groups, 90% "almost always" or "sometimes" read a food label. The food label influenced a purchase decision "a great deal" for 47% of the WIC group and 56% of the control group. Of the two groups, a significant number of WIC participants found the food label significantly easier to understand yet scored significantly lower on the test of nutrition knowledge and label understanding than the control group, particularly on the subject of dietary fat. In addition to calories, the WIC group looked for iron, vitamins, calcium, and protein information, while the control group was more interested in fat, sodium, and cholesterol. Both groups relied upon the media, doctors and food labels for nutrition information. This study suggests that the education component of the NLEA must address the nutrition needs of low-income WIC participants (who are pregnant or have small children). This nutritionally at-risk population would greatly benefit from the education portion of the forthcoming labeling reform. / Master of Science

The contemporary American welfare state is a highly controversial institution plagued with tremendous deficiencies. There is agreement over the entire political spectrum that the current welfare system needs an overhaul, but there is considerable disagreement on how this should or could be accomplished. Neither liberal nor conservative reform proposals can be understood as solutions to the problem because they lack an appropriate analytical framework. This thesis tries to contribute to the current welfare debate by developing an analytical framework by which we can judge welfare policies. It is based upon contemporary theories of the welfare state and the concept of equality, by which we can judge welfare policies. This framework will be used to reveal how and why existing policies fail to achieve the central purpose of the welfare state and to re-introduce a policy proposal that might be able to avoid the difficulties that have plagued existing policies. / Master of Arts

Researchers have shown that certain demographic variables and parenting strategies can predict the degree of potential for child abuse that a mother may experience with her children. The major objective of this study was to determine the specific characteristics and traits that identify mothers who have the greatest potential to abuse or neglect their children by determining whether parenting strategies, age of the mother, educational attainment, and isolation indicated by place of residence and marital status are predictive of the potential for child abuse. T-tests were performed to see if there significant differences in scale means for the subscales of parenting strategies in urban and rural groups of the sample. All subscale’s scores were significantly different when the urban and rural groups were compared. T-test and Chi square tests were computed on the relationship between demographic variables including educational attainment, age and marital status and urban and rural groups. Significant differences were found on all three demographic variables. Four variables were found to be predictive of the potential for child abuse. Four parenting strategies (i.e., spank, reason, allow, and praise) were tested for their power in predicting the potential for child abuse. Only allow was found to be a significant predictor for the potential for child abuse. Educational attainment, support group (which is a combined variable representing marital status and living arrangements) and urban vs. rural residence were found among the demographic variables to be predictors of the potential for child abuse. These results suggest that although a demographic like educational attainment may be important, the context of parenting (urban vs. rural and support group) and parenting style (allow) are the best predictors of the potential for child abuse. / Master of Science

Many American families are experiencing a high degree of stress. Without sufficient resources to counteract this stress, these families ultimately become dysfunctional. Not only do they find it difficult to function in the home setting, but they also find it difficult to function in other social contexts, such as the school community. It was hypothesized that family stress and insufficient resources can have a negative impact on home-school relations in general and parent involvement in particular. It was the purpose of this study to (a) assess the level of parent involvement of a group of Headstart parents, (b) assess the family stress level and resources of these parents; (c) determine if there is a relationship among stress, resources, and parent involvement, as well as to determine the effect race and family structure have on parent involvement; and (d) identify support resources to assist parents in coping with the stressful events in their lives. Fifty-three parents from a large, Virginia Headstart program were used in this study. Parental involvement was assessed by collecting data from Headstart records. In addition, parents were asked to respond to two inventories. These inventories-Family Inventory of Life Events (FILE) and Family Crisis Oriented Personal Scales (F-Copes)-were used to determine the stressful life events families faced while their children were enrolled in Headstart and to assess the resources available to these families for meeting the demands of these stressful events. The raw data from the parent involvement assessment and the inventories were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSSX). Specifically, descriptive statistics, simple and multiple regression, and analysis of variance were used to analyze the selected variables and the interrelationships between these variables. The results indicated that there is a negative relationship between stress and resources. Parents with fewer resources generally had higher stress levels. Family stress and resource levels had opposite effects on parent involvement. High stress levels were associated with low parent involvement, while high resource levels were associated with high parent involvement. Race and family structure had no effect on parent involvement for this sample. / Ed. D.

Spatial analysis of species for which there is limited quantity of data, termed as the data-poor species, has been challenging due to limited information, especially lack of spatially explicit information. However, these species are frequently of high ecological, conservation and management interest. In this study, I used two empirical examples to demonstrate spatial analysis for two kinds of data-poor species. One example was seabird bycatch from the U.S. Atlantic pelagic longline fishery, which focused on rare events/species for which data are generally characterized by a high percentage of zero observations. The other example was endangered white abalone off the California coast, which focused on endangered species whose data are very limited. With the seabird bycatch example, I adopted a spatial filtering technique to incorporate spatial patterns and to improve model performance. The model modified with spatial filters showed superior performance over other candidate models. I also applied the geographically weighted approach to explore spatial nonstationarity in seabird bycatch, i.e., spatial variation in the parameters that describe relationships between biological processes and environmental factors. Estimates of parameters exhibited high spatial variation. With the white abalone example, I demonstrated the spatially explicit hierarchical demographic model and conducted a risk assessment to evaluate the efficacy of hypothetical restoration strategies. The model allowed for the Allee effect (i.e., density-dependent fertilization success) by using spatial explicit density estimates. Restoration efforts directed at larger-size individuals may be more effective in increasing population density than efforts focusing on juveniles. I also explored the spatial nonstationarity in white abalone catch data. I estimated the spatially explicit decline rate and linked the decline rate to environmental factors including water depth, distance to California coast, distance to land, sea surface temperature and chlorophyll concentration. The decline rate showed spatial variation. I did not detect any significant associations between decline rate and these five environmental factors. Through such a study, I am hoping to provide insights on applying or adapting existing methods to model spatial dynamics of data-poor species, and on utilizing information from such analyses to aid in their conservation and management. / Ph. D.

There is a need to counteract economic injustice in the world. As an architect, as a creator, it is my responsibility to make the world a better place. I want to help people to help themselves by concentrating their efforts in a constructive way. I desire to create a prototypical solution for a village in an area with high unemployment and desperate poverty as a means to give work to people and to serve as an example for other groups of people wanting to do the same. The site I've chosen to illustrate this concept of self-help housing is a 300 x 500 meter plateau in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. / Master of Architecture

The United States teen birth rate has been declining since 1991, but the teen pregnancy rate remains one of the highest in the developed world outside the former Soviet Bloc. There is no current national strategy to implement comprehensive sexuality education in schools, and states have varying sex education and abortion policies. There are various effective programs designed to prevent teen pregnancies that share common characteristics of effective programs. Given the widespread reach and number of users, YouTube has the potential to be an education resource for teen pregnancy prevention. At the time of this study, there were no studies describing the content of videos that relate to teen pregnancy. This study is intended to fill this gap in the literature. YouTube was searched with the key words “teen pregnancy,” and the results were sorted by view count. The most widely viewed 100 videos meeting inclusion criteria were included in the study. The most widely viewed videos received 434,423,558 cumulative views. These videos were coded for their source, format, and the inclusion of content variables. The content variables were also organized to fit Kirby’s model of characteristics of effective programs. The majority of videos were sources and formats that depicted teens’ experience with pregnancy, including documentaries, reality TV programs, talk shows, and vlogs uploaded by consumers. Notably, there were no videos uploaded by professionals. The content most covered in the videos were the pregnancy outcome, how the teen mother found out she was pregnant, the teen mother’s reaction to the pregnancy, and the involvement of various family members. YouTube is an opportunity to reach a larger number of viewers, but the teen pregnancy videos in the study are missing key elements of teen pregnancy that are present in the literature, like the relationship between poverty and teen pregnancy, teen abortion rates, and repeat pregnancies. The videos were also lacking in elements of Kirby’s characteristics of effective programs. Recommendations for health education practice include the need for professionals to utilize the true stories of teen pregnancies and popular influencers to create engaging, accurate content.

Using Patricia Cross's Chain of Response model as a guide, this research sought to understand the complex socio-economic and environmental factors that inhibit public housing residents from participating in educational activities. The Chain of Response model developed by Patricia Cross assumes that participation in educational activities by adults whether in an organizational setting, or self-directed is not a single act, but a result of chain of responses, each based on an evaluation of the position of the individual in relation to his or her environment. The design method for the study is the qualitative case study approach. First, an interview-dialogue technique was used to gather information from 24 public housing residents. The interview questions were structured according to the elements of the conceptual model. The interview-dialogues were taped in a microcassette recorder and then transcribed. The second part of the data gathering process was accomplished by the use of a survey questionnaire instrument which was administered to 27 different public housing residents. The purpose of the questionnaire was to further explore emerging themes from the interview-dialogue. Findings show that a majority of the public housing residents in this sample are single adult females raising their children without a spouse. Among the barriers identified by respondents that inhibit their participation in educational activities include: situational barriers such as lack of child care and lack of time; institutional barriers such as high tuition costs; psychological barriers such as lack of interest and being tired of schooling. Findings also indicate that the sample public housing residents are interested in learning Cosmetology, Child Care Provider, Secretarial and Computer skills. Further, findings suggest that respondents prefer on the job training as the best way of getting training in their desired job skills. The implication of this study is that in order to encourage participation in educational activities by this population, the barriers to participation should be removed. Of greater significance is that public housing providers and policy makers may use information generated in this study to design job training programs in the identified areas of interest of public housing residents. / Ed. D.

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Title: “The letters jump”- to struggle with decoding and still understand what you are reading.Author: Maria EkUniversity of UmeåDepartment of EducationSupervisor: Asbjörg WestumExaminer: Fredrik KarlssonKeywords: Poor readers, Structured text talks, Reading strategies, Reading comprehension, Commitment and Motivation.During the past decades, Swedish studies show that reading comprehension and skills in reading strategies have decreased. In secondary school for individuals with learning disabilities there has been a focus on care-taking rather than on comprehension in general, and on reading comprehension in particular.The purpose of this study was to investigate whether Reciprocal Teaching would increase reading comprehension and motivation among upper secondary school for individuals with learning disabilities. The study presents how three 17-year-old pupils and their teacher, discussed expository fact texts during twelve lessons using the reciprocal method combined with power point-presentations to get the students to read more actively with interferences and reflections. The ambition was to make the structured text talks as interesting as possible with texts easy to read, technical aids, structure to make the students feel security when reading and to get committed pupils with an increased interest in reading.The results show an increase in motivation in reading, and the students were more prone to take an active part in discussions.