After the failed experiment of Prohibition in the early 20th century, the 21st Amendment was passed to repeal the 18th Amendment as well as grant the power of alcohol regulation to the states. Within this power is the three-tier distribution system, where alcohol suppliers are required to sell their products to a wholesaling company, who later sell to a retailer. This system makes alcohol easy to regulate as well as encourages competition within the alcohol market. Today however, companies are finding ways through new legislation and court cases to bypass this three-tier system by shipping their products directly. This gives these companies a competitive advantage against others that have to sell their products through the three-tier system, and as a result the three-tier system is slowly starting to fade away.

Many medical imaging applications have been developed so far; however, many of them do not support collaboration and are not remotely accessible (i.e., Telemedicine). Medical imaging applications are not practical for use in clinical workflows unless they are able to communicate with the Picture Archiving and Communications System (PACS). This thesis presents an approach based on a three-tier architecture and provides several components to transform medical imaging applications into collaborative, PACS-based, telemedical systems. A novel method is presented to support PACS connectivity. The method is to use the Digital Imaging and COmmunication in Medicine (DICOM) protocol and enhance transmission time by employing a combination of parallelism and compression methods. Experimental results show up to 1.63 speedup over Local Area Networks (LANs) and up to 16.34 speedup over Wide Area Networks (WANs) compared to the current method of medical data transmission.

Many medical imaging applications have been developed so far; however, many of them do not support collaboration and are not remotely accessible (i.e., Telemedicine). Medical imaging applications are not practical for use in clinical workflows unless they are able to communicate with the Picture Archiving and Communications System (PACS). This thesis presents an approach based on a three-tier architecture and provides several components to transform medical imaging applications into collaborative, PACS-based, telemedical systems. A novel method is presented to support PACS connectivity. The method is to use the Digital Imaging and COmmunication in Medicine (DICOM) protocol and enhance transmission time by employing a combination of parallelism and compression methods. Experimental results show up to 1.63 speedup over Local Area Networks (LANs) and up to 16.34 speedup over Wide Area Networks (WANs) compared to the current method of medical data transmission.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of gender and reasoning ability on the 8th grade students&rsquo / understanding of ecological concepts and attitude toward science. All 8th grade students from public elementary school in Tosya participated in the study. Students&rsquo / understanding, attitude toward science and reasoning ability were also measured by means of the Test of Ecology Concept (TEC), the Attitude Scale toward Science (ASTS) and the Test of Logical Thinking (TOLT) respectively. In order to investigate students&rsquo / understanding deeply, interview was conducted. Results of the TEC and interview show that students have many misconceptions concerning ecosystem, population, community, decomposers, food chain, food web, energy pyramid and energy flow. Students&rsquo / understanding for the first tier (M= 55.8), combination of first two tiers (M= 27) and combination of all three tiers (M= 21.2) were calculated according to TEC results. Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) conducted to determine the effect of gender on students&rsquo / understanding of ecological concepts and attitude towards science when reasoning ability was controlled. The results indicated that there was significant gender difference in favor of girls with respect to students&rsquo / understanding of ecological concepts and attitude towards science when reasoning ability was controlled (Wilks&rsquo / Lambda=0.97 / p=.00).

The main purpose of this study was to develop a three-tier test for assessing tenthgrade students&rsquo / difficulties about kinematics graphs. In a three-tier test, first tier is classical multiple-choice question, the second tier is also classical multiple-choice question but presents reasons for answers given to the first tier and the third tier asks existence of confidence about the first two tiers. To develop a three-tier test, Turkish translation of the Test of Understanding Graphs in Kinematics (TUG-K) developed by Beichner (1994) was used. One more essay type question of asking students&rsquo / reasons of their answers and blank alternatives to write any suggestion different from choices were added to the each item of Turkish translation of this test translated by Delialioglu (2003). Finally, Kinematics Graphs Test Requesting Reasoning (KGTRR) was developed and administered to 253 students. To determine the distracters of the second-tiers of the Kinematics Graphs Three-Tier Test (KGTTT), answers on each item in KGTRR were categorized according to similarities in their meanings. Considering the frequency of these categories, the KGTTT was developed and administered to 495 students. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to determine the validity of the KGTTT. A positive correlation coefficient was calculated between student scores for the first two tiers and confidence levels for the third tiers. Also, percentages of false positives and false negatives were estimated. Cronbach alpha reliability coefficients of correct answers and difficulties of the students for all three tiers together were calculated as 0.84 and 0.69, respectively.

The main purpose of this study was developing a three-tier test for assessing 11th grade students&rsquo / misconceptions about geometric optic. The accessible population was all 11th grade science students in Bayrampasa, Istanbul. While developing the test, interviews and open-ended tests were used to collect data to create the three-tier test. An interview questionnaire was developed based on the literature review. 15 11th grade students were interviewed by this questionnaire. Then, an open-ended test was created based on the interview results and also the literature review. It was applied to 114 11th grade science students. The responses of the students for each item were categorized considering the frequencies. Then, these categories were used in the development of the Three-tier Geometric Optic Misconception Test (TTGOMT). The categories were used as the distracters of the items in the TTGOMT. Besides, some of the distracters were extracted from the interview results and the literature review even if they had no frequencies in open-ended test results. The test was applied to the 141 11th grade high school students. A factor analysis was conducted to establish the content validity of the TTGOMT and five categories were found. Also, the proportions of the false positives and false negatives were estimated to establish the content validity and found 28.2 % for the false positives and 3.4 % for false negatives. The construct validity was established by estimating a correlation between the scores of the students for the first two tiers and confidence levels for the third tier. Two reliability analyses were conducted by using Cronbach alpha. One of the reliability analyses was estimated based on the correct answers of the students for all the three tiers together and found 0.55. The other one was estimated based on the misconceptions of the students and found 0.28. Moreover, item analysis was done for each item by using Iteman program.

The purpose of this study is to develop a three-tier test for assessing high school students&rsquo / misconceptions concerning force and motion. The first tier is a traditional multiple choice item, the second tier presents several alternatives addressing the reason for the response for the first tier, and the third tier asks if examinees are confident for their responses to the first two tiers. In the process of test development, Force and Motion Test Requesting Reasoning was developed and utilized to determine the alternatives of Force and Motion Three Tier Test (FMTTT). The test was administered to 207 students, but 19 students were removed from all analyses due to too many missing items. For checking validity of the FMTTT, correlation was investigated between confidence levels and student scores on the first two tiers, and also correlation between confidence levels and student misconception scores on the first two tiers was investigated. Factor analyses were conducted using scores and misconception scores / and percentages of false negatives and false positives were estimated. The percentages of false negatives and false positives were found to be 6% and 8%, respectively. The reliability coefficients were estimated for student scores and misconception scores as 0.48 and 0.62, respectively. In conclusion, using the FMTTT as an achievement test may not be as reliable as using it as a misconception test.

Reforming pensions is necessary, because the current demographic trends are mainly characterized by aging population. Significant demographic changes are going to lead to great implications for output growth. To maintain the financial stability of pension system, reforms are necessary. The first part of this thesis deal with changes in the present Czech population and the demographic forecasts for next fifty years. The second part is devoted to analyzing the setting of the pension system. The third part describes the upcoming reform which proposes to introduce a combined pension system. The last part of my thesis is devoted to the possible benefits, risks, and fiscal capacity of implementing the combined pension system.

Shift work is commonplace in many fields that require around-the-clock employee coverage. There is ample evidence that two-tier shift work can detrimentally affect health and functioning. The purpose of this study was to understand the impact of three-tier shift schedules on physical and mental health and community functioning, a concept which refers to activities and behaviors performed by individuals or groups within a system. This study used a qualitative phenomenological design, and community functioning and recovery theory were central to the conceptual framework. In-depth interviews were used to explore the perceptions of three-tier shift workers on their functioning, relationships, mental health, physical health, and safety. Special attention was paid to sleep, using restoration theory, which indicates that sufficient sleep is necessary to avoid mental and physical breakdown. The data were organized into themes, and epoché and bracketing were used during the interviews and data analysis. The results of the study add to the literature on how three-tier shift schedules affect employees. Emergent themes included overwhelmingly negative perceptions of three-tier shift workers on their health and safety, difficulty adjusting to the three-tier shift schedule, negative impact on workers' personal lives, negative impact on workers' mental health, negative impact on workers' physical health, and negative impact on workers' performance and safety. These findings could lead to positive social change through policy creation on healthier shift schedules, which could result in healthier employees, stronger family units, and safer roads and worksites.

Problem behaviors in the school setting have become more frequent as well as challenging for teachers and faculty to decrease while attempting to help their students attain their academic goals. Within the last decade, school-wide positive behavior support (SWPBS) has become more widespread as an evidence-based practice within the school system. SWPBS uses a multi-tiered support structure in order to affect behavior change across an entire school population. Several common secondary interventions have been utilized with high success rates. However, the research conducted thus far using the Check-In/Check-Out (CICO) program, a secondary intervention, has shown a lesser degree of success in behavior change with those students whose problem behavior is maintained by negative reinforcement or escape from aversive tasks. The current study examined the effects of the CICO program, adapted to address negative reinforcement contingencies. Using a multiple baseline across participants design, students in this study were exposed to a modified CICO intervention strategy in which problem behaviors, specifically related to the escape function as determined by a routine analysis, were targeted for reduction while academic engagement were targeted for acquisition. Results provided reductions in problem behaviors and an overall increase in academic engagement across participants with teacher implementers indicating the modified CICO program as feasible and acceptable. Implications for future research are discussed.