This thesis deals with the characteristic of the Vysočina region and with a project of founding an educational natural trail "Povodím Blažejovického potoka". The thesis consists two parts. The first theoretic part describes the Vysočina region in light of geomorphological, biological, geological, natur protection and in which chapter is emphasization the area, in which is situated the lane of educational trail. It is compilatory text, which is composion like guide book to the Vysočina region for teachers, who decide for visit with their students not only this education trail, but another places in the Vysočina region too. They can find in the text another interesting places to visit. On the end of theoretic part are two chapters, historical interests and explication the concept of the education trail. The second, practical part include individual information boards with thematic content and their graphic layout. The education trail has 7 km with 12 information boards. It is the combination education trail, it has 1 introductory board, 3 boards with historical informations, 1 geological board, 2 botanical board, 1 zoological board, 2 ecological boards and 1 board about technical memory. The education trail goes on well walkable terrain along the metalled road. It started at Rachyně, throught Blažejovice and...

Trail running is thriving as a niche sport and lucrative sport tourism concept around the world. Whether it is for personal conquer, the experience of pure nature or just to stay healthy it is growing as a sport. The purpose of this exploratory study is to give an insight to the essence of trail running and what regulates the sport in Sweden. It also aims to investigate the impact of sport tourism and analyze trail race organizers perception of trail running as a potential lucrative business in Swedish mountain areas.     Data was collected and interviews were held with six different trail race organizers. This study gives an insight to the sport trail running itself, what rules regulate it, the impact of sport tourism on local tourism and investigate trail running event organizers  perception of trail running as a potentially successful niche of sport tourism in Swedish mountain areas.    This study show that trail running is an autonomous sport practiced in diverse terrain with not more than 20% hardened surface. The sport is regulated by ITRA and as a niche sport it can benefit both tourism and society. The interviews performed indicate that most of the organizers believe in trail running as a potentially successful niche of sport tourism when the right conditions are in place. Tough there are several indications why this could be difficult in certain areas in northern Sweden. This study is valuable for the development of niche sport tourism, like trail running, in Swedish mountain areas.

Parks and protected areas are often created to protect important social, ecological, or cultural resources from impairment. In the United States, a large majority of these parks and protected areas are also public land where recreational activities such as hiking or scenic driving are allowed. Managers of many parks and protected areas must therefore try to protect resources while also allowing for recreation use that may put these resources at risk for damage. The field of recreation ecology is interested in understanding how recreation use in parks and protected areas can sometimes cause ecological impacts to vegetation, soil, wildlife, water, air, and soundscapes. This information is then used to help managers prevent undesirable ecological change. When visitors to parks and protected areas leave designated sites such as trails or roads, there is a greater chance that ecological impacts will occur. The studies presented here are designed to help managers better understand how visitor behavior off of designated trails may result in damage to plant communities. These studies examine data on both the social aspects of recreation use (such as visitor behavior and the number of visitors recreating) and the ecological aspects (specifically the plant communities found at popular recreation destinations). By looking at social and ecological data together, these studies can predict locations in parks or protected areas where ecological impact may occur as a result of recreation use. Managers can use these predictions to better allocate resources and time to managing recreation use at locations that are most at risk of impairment.

The advance and ubiquitous use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) have changed how humans learn and reform the education sector. Although related topics have been studied in other disciplines (e.g., behavioral science, economics, psychology, etc.), IS researchers have paid less attention to the impacts of information communication technology on education (IICTE). Recently, education in the post-pandemic world calls for further investigation on this topic since most of the traditional on-site teaching around the world have moved online. The proposed two studies aim to contribute to the IS and the economics research on the role of technology in education and the underlying mechanisms of how ICT affects learning through a series of field experiments and data mining methods. The first study examines in-class mobile device use effects on students’ learning performance via a field experiment. It explores students’ attention allocation at an individual level with live video feed data. We collaborated with a vocational school in China to examine the effect of using smartphones in the classroom on students’ academic performance. We randomly allocated students taking one lecture in Chinese verbal into three experimental conditions: (i) smartphone banned; (ii) smartphone allowed and used at will by students, and (iii) smartphone allowed, used at will by students and relied upon by teachers to assist instruction. We measure the performance gain of students by the change in the scores they obtained in identical tests taken at the beginning and the end of the lecture. We find that allowing students to use smartphones during the lecture at will reduced performance by 12% (6.3 points on a 100-point scale) compared to when students could not take the smartphones into the classroom. However, allowing smartphones into the classroom and asking teachers to actively use them to assist instruction increased their performance by 20% (10.6 points). These results are driven mainly by already strong students and students in IT-related majors. To unravel the underlying mechanisms that drive the observed effects, we use video feeds collected during our experiment, allowing us to code the time students spent learning versus being distracted, with or without their smartphones. We observed that students spent a similar amount of time learning versus being distracted across all three experimental conditions. Thus, the time students allocate to learning in each condition does not predict performance. Instead, what matters for their performance is the relative time they spent learning versus being distracted when using their smartphones. We show that the increase in performance when smartphones are used to assist instruction comes from students spending a larger percentage of the time learning during the lecture. Our findings contribute to the literature on technology-assisted learning and offer practical and policy implications that teachers and schools can follow to cautiously allow smartphones in the classroom to improve student success. The second study investigates the effects of different Internet access policies on student performance via a field experiment and examines the underlying mechanisms of its impact by mining students’ online and offline behaviors. While universities invest a considerable amount to keep up with the increasing demand for Internet connectivity on campus, sufficient doubt exists on the overall efficacy of information communication technologies (ICTs) in enhancing learning. Therefore, it is essential to understand how the Internet is used on campus and whether educational institutions can design their ICT policies to improve education. To answer this question, we seek to investigate the effects of different Internet policies on educational outcomes (i.e., grades, other evaluation results, etc.) by conducting a randomized field experiment at a national public university in China. Specifically, we randomly assigned students to five experimental conditions for a whole semester: low bandwidth and limited data, low bandwidth with unlimited data, high bandwidth with limited data, high bandwidth with unlimited data, and high-quality access (high bandwidth without data limit) yet limited data to entertainment. We then collect and compare the educational outcomes and each student’s online and offline behaviors across all five conditions. With our unique context and micro-level data, we investigate the overall effect of different policies as well as the dynamics of students’ online and offline learning behaviors (i.e., online learning time, online-offline behavior change, etc.) to understand the underlying mechanisms (i.e., online/offline learning patterns on performance). Our study is the first to investigate the effect of ICT policy design on educational outcomes using a randomized controlled trial (RCT). We also offer practical guidelines to policymakers and educational institutions on optimizing campus Internet access to help improve students’ learning with the proper use of ICT. Ultimately, studies in this dissertation attempt to explore how ICT could boost learning and thus extend the boundary of IS research to the education sector. Results demonstrated in the dissertation offer clear and straightforward evidence for educators, parents, and students to make their own ICT use policies. / Business Administration/Management Information Systems

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / In this thesis, I investigated the preclinical utility and antitumor efficacy of TRAIL delivered by Ad-IU2, a prostate-specific replication-competent adenovirus (PSRCA), against androgen-independent prostate cancer. Through transcriptional control of adenoviral early genes E1a, E1b and E4, as well as TRAIL by two bidirectional prostate-specific enhancing sequences (PSES), expression of TRAIL as well as adenoviral replication was limited to prostate-specific antigen and prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSA/PSMA)-expressing cells. Ad-IU2 replicated efficiently in and was restricted to PSA/PSMA-positive prostate cancer cells and induced 5-fold greater apoptosis in androgen-independent CWR22rv and C4-2 prostate cancer cells than the PSRCA control not expressing TRAIL. Ad-IU2 exhibited superior killing efficiency in PSA/PSMA-positive prostate cancer cells at doses 5 to 8-fold lower than that required by a non-TRAIL expressing PSRCA to produce a similar effect. This enhanced cytotoxic effect was not observed in non-prostatic cells, however. As an enhancement of its therapeutic efficacy, Ad-IU2 exerted a bystander effect through either direct cell-to-cell contact or soluble factors present in conditioned media from Ad-IU2-infected cells. In vivo, Ad-IU2, as compared to a control PSRCA, markedly suppressed the growth of subcutaneous CWR22rv xenografts at six weeks post-treatment (3.1 vs. 17.1-fold growth of tumor). The treatment of androgen-independent prostate cancer with Ad-IU2 prior to external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) significantly reduced clonogenic survival with dose reduction factors of 4.91 and 2.43 for CWR22rv and C4-2 cells, respectively. Radio-sensitization by Ad-IU2 was restricted to PSA/PSMA-positive cells. Combinatorial radio-gene therapy resulted in accumulation of cells in G1 phase and a perturbation of the radiation-induced G2 phase arrest. This multi-modal approach combining viral lysis, apoptosis-inducing gene therapy, and radiation therapy could have great impact in achieving complete local tumor control while reducing radiation dose and associated treatment morbidities. This would result in improvement of the clinical outcome of patients with high risk prostate cancer.

When the Mormon people began evacuating Nauvoo, Illinois, in February 1846, they intended to leave the United States and build a home for themselves in the West, where they could practice their religion without persecution. However, as Brigham Young led thousands through severe rain and mud that spring, he soon decided that too many of the Saints were unprepared for the long journey to the mountains. Mormons built way stations across Iowa, places where they planted crops, raised log cabins, and obtained the necessary food and supplies. After the Saints moved on to Utah in following years, many of these way stations became permanent towns in Iowa. As the first way station Mormons established in Iowa, Garden Grove created a pattern for the other way stations that followed. An exhaustive study of over three hundred sources has provided the information necessary to create a database of the settlers of the town from 1846 to 1852. This study has found that the mortality rate was high the first year, but death was not a significant problem later. The fertility rate was exceptionally high, demonstrating that the way stations were heavily populated by families awaiting the birth of a child. The nativity of the people showed that the LDS and non-LDS settlers came from the same cultural background, mostly New England and the Midwest, and further study revealed that those not of the Mormon faith were friends and family of the Saints. Economically, the original Garden Grove settlers were the poorest of the Mormons coming out of Nauvoo, but by 1870, their mean wealth was above the average wealth of pioneers in Utah. The Garden Grove Saints created a settlement to help themselves and other Mormons. In the process, they improved trails and supplied food and services to overlanders that assisted in the settlement of the American West.

In this study investigation was made concerning the etiology of the foot trails that thread their way through Wasatch Forest lands in Salt Lake county. The time delimitation was 1847 to 1975.The origin of the majority of these trails dates back to the nineteenth century and is closely tied to the efforts of pioneers who labored to wrest a living from semi-arid land. Early lumbering, livestock operations, mining activities, water collection systems, and pioneer recreation all provided impetus for trail development. In a sense these trails are a kind of anthology of human endeavor.Passing into the twentieth century it was found that with the exception of emergency relief programs, particularly the Civilian Conservation Corps, very little development has occurred and trail maintenance has been inadequate.Trail prestige increased in the wake of the surge of interest that found legislative expression in the National Trails System Act of 1968. However, in recent years they have been subordinated in the face of what are considered to be matters of great urgency.

site of the High Coast area. The area spans from Örnsköldsvik down to Härnösand. In this area, a hiking trail called The High Coast Trail extends through almost the entire World Heritage. The trail is 130 km long and is one of Sweden’s 14 signature trails. The environment along the trail varies a lot and shifts between deep forests, mountain tops, sandy beaches, steep cliffs, and green meadows. My work has been focused around the trail and the hiking possibilities. I started this project by analyzing and mapping the trail distances, the current amenities, and the nature to find suitable locations for my cabins. The mapping has been done by hiking the trail, meeting with people involved in the trail, as well as examining maps. Through my research and interviews, seven nature experiences were extracted. These were then paired with my seven chosen sites to shape the seven cabins. The cabins are designed to accommodate eight people and operate in the same way as the Norwegian DNT self-service cabins, requiring advance booking and a special key for access. Produced in local wood, the cabin elements are built in a factory located in the heart of the High Coast area. The materials are transported close to the site by helicopter or snowmobile and then assembled by hand. The cabins are anchored to the ground using one of three methods: on stilts attached to the mountain, floating on steel pontoons, or suspended from trees. The walls of the seven cabins are all constructed of the same system with stackable elements. The weight of the elements is limited to 45 kg and can be lifted by two workers and assembled by hand. 1.5 m or 2 m long wall elements are stacked and connected with wooden joints. The joints lock together without nails or screws and can be disassembled, moved, and stacked in new configurations, providing greater flexibility for future modifications.

The Paradox Basin is a northwest-southeast trending intracratonic basin that formed in southwestern Colorado, southeastern Utah and adjacent parts of Arizona and New Mexico during the late Paleozoic Era. During rise of the adjacent Uncompahgre Uplift (Ancestral Rocky Mountains), the rapidly subsiding basin was filled with over 2000 m of Permo-Pennsylvanian sediments that reflect a complex interplay of changing tectonic, paleoecological, and climatic conditions that resulted in cyclic packages of mixed lowstand and non-marine siliciclastics and highstand shallow-platform carbonates. The 150 m-thick Honaker Trail formation straddles the transition from mostly marine carbonates to mostly non-marine siliciclastics on the southwest shelf of the Paradox Basin during late Moscovian to early Gzhelian (late Desmoinesian to early Virgilian) time. The carbonate-dominated lower 70 m of the formation were divided into two 4th-order sequences and thirteen 5th-order cycles by Goldhammer et al. (1991). We subdivide the remaining overlying 80 m of the Honaker Trail Formation, up to the top of the Shafer Limestone into an additional five 4th-order sequences named, from lowest to highest, the Raplee Limestone (named herein as a replacement for "unnamed limestone" of previous literature), Little Loop Limestone, W"“130 Limestone, Mendenhall Sandstone, and Shafer Limestone sequences and provide a detailed sequence stratigraphic framework of the Raplee, Little Loop, and W-130 sequences. In addition, we provide a conodont sequence biostratigraphic framework for the southwestern (carbonate) shelf of the Paradox Basin to correlate these sequences to Midcontinent (eastern Kansas) cycles using Idiognathodus and Streptognathodus-dominated conodont faunas. From the conodont fauna described herein, the Raplee Limestone sequence likely correlates with the Dennis major cycle of the Midcontinent, and suggests a correlation between the Little Loop Sequence and the minor Hogshooter cyclothem. We also propose the extension of these species' biostratigraphic zones within the Paradox Basin: I. swadei, I. papulatus, I. eccentricus, and I. sulciferus; all of which have been defined by Barrick and Rosscoe (2013) and others as extinct in the Midcontinent Basin at the end of the Swope cyclothem.

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