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The current study obtained teacher and parent ratings of callous unemotional (CU) traits and aggression of 118 low socio economic middle school children at Time 1 and investigated the extent to which these variables individually and combined were able to predict school disruptive behaviours as by rated their teachers in Time 2 using multiple regression. Other Time 2 school variables were also assessed for their ability to add to the predictive model using stepwise hierarchical regression. The results showed both aggression and CU traits were predictive, but that CU traits did not explain additional variance over and above aggression. Two school variables were found to also explain additional variance over and above aggression at a statistically significant level. The first, that subtracted the total number of antisocial peers from total number of prosocial peers, was a stronger predictor than antisocial peers. The second, caregiver’s involvement in assisting their child with school homework, was assumed to represent parental support. Interpretations, limitations and areas for future research are discussed.

One of the principle factors that limits the areas to which seeded bermudagrass can be adapted is low temperature. Therefore, increasing the winter tolerance of seeded bermudagrass cultivars has been a goal of turfgrass breeders for many years. Design of an efficient breeding method for developing cultivars with increased tolerance to cool and freezing temperatures could be enhanced by having heritability estimates for cold tolerance traits. Additionally, the identification of correlated traits can be useful in improvement of cultivar development. Heritability estimates for winter tolerance can be obtained from cold treatments imposed artificially or from observations made in the field. Parental clones and their respective polycross half-sib families were established in a randomized complete block design with four replications in 2004 in Lexington, KY. Differences in spring green up and fall dormancy measured in 2006 were detected between genotypes within the progeny and parental groups. These same lines were subjected to 15 replications of a freezing treatment in a freeze chamber. Differences in spring green up and fall dormancy were detected between genotypes within the progeny and parental groups. Differences in freeze response were also detected using the artificial freeze treatment. Broad-sense heritabilities were estimated to be 0.895 and 0.573 for spring green-up and fall dormancy respectively. Narrow-sense heritability estimates were found to be 0.885 and 0.265 for these same traits. These results indicate that this population could be improved for cold tolerance using phenotypic recurrent selection. Freeze response was found to be positively correlated to winter hardiness and seed yield in the parent group.

Organizational culture can be defined as a set of values and behavior that contribute to the unique social and psychological environment of an organization. It is the major contributing factor in determining the progress of an organization towards the desired objectives. The importance of organizational culture for successful Lean transformation has been emphasized prior research. Lean implementation is based on continuous improvement, the achievement of which is based on problem solving practices. For sustained continuous improvement, problem solving must be done in a repeatable and disciplined way. However, not many organizations follow a structured approach towards problem solving. Some preliminary research indicates that organizational culture appears to be an important factor that influences the nature of problem solving practices used in an organization. This research, therefore, is focused towards establishing whether a relationship exists between these two aspects, namely, organizational culture and problem solving practices in relation to an organization’s success with Lean transformation. A comprehensive survey was developed to evaluate these two aspects. The survey was then administered to employees at different organizations, designations, various sectors and geographical regions. The survey results were analyzed to evaluate if an organization’s culture influences the problem solving practices used.

Previous research has suggested that there is a strong and positive relationship between being an entrepreneur and possessing a high degree of subjective well-being as well as job satisfaction. The big five personality traits have also been argued to be significantly related to both subjective well-being and job satisfaction. Little is however known if personality affects entrepreneurs and regular employees differently. In this paper the impact of personality traits on the cognitive part of subjective well-being as well as job satisfaction are investigated separately among entrepreneurs and regular employees. This is done through OLS-regressions using a Swedish nationally representative survey Employment, Material Resources, and Political Preferences (EMRAPP), where entrepreneurs were oversampled in order to be able to compare entrepreneurs (N = 2483) and regular employees (N = 2642). The findings suggest that there is no substantial difference between entrepreneurs and regular employees when looking at the relationship between personality traits and subjective well-being. Findings on job satisfaction on the other hand showed that the personality trait openness to experience had no impact on job satisfaction, and that the personality trait emotional stability (neuroticism reversed) was equally beneficial for both entrepreneurs and regular employees. Extraversion had a positive relationship with job satisfaction among both entrepreneurs and regular employees, although the relationship was twice as strong among entrepreneurs. The personality traits agreeableness and conscientiousness on the other hand were only related to job satisfaction among entrepreneurs. Personality traits are thus much more important for job satisfaction among entrepreneurs.

Tidigare forskning visar att personlighet har betydelse för individens stressupplevelse. Särskilt individer högt i Fem-Faktor modellens personlighesdimension neuroticism tenderar att upplevd högre stressnivåer än övriga fyra personlighetsdimensioner extraversion, samvetsgrannhet, öppenhet och sympatiskhet. Denna studie undersökte relationen mellan samtliga personlighetsdimensioner, samt en del övriga variabler, och stress. Detta skedde utifrån fyra frågeställning med fyra tillhörande hypoteser. 152 högskolestudenter deltog genom att besvara en enkät som bestod av översatta versioner av Shafer’s Five-Factor Personality Scale samt Cohen, Kamarck och Mermelsteins Perceived Stress Scale. Samt nio övriga bakgrundsvariabler. Insamlad data undersöktes med korrelationer, regressionsanalys, t-test och variansanalys. Resultatet visade, i linje med tidigare studier, att personlighet har betydelse för upplevd stress. Högt neurotiska individer upplever mest stress. I denna studie kunde 36 % av variationen i stressupplevelse förklaras av personlighet.

The personality theory expounded by R.B. Cattell and his collaborators is one of the most influential models of personality in modern-day psychology. The central and most controversial elements of this theory are the sixteen primary source traits, which make up the model. This thesis describes research into the primary source traits as represented by Cattell's Sixteen Personality Factor Questionaire (16FF). From the responses of a large sample of general population British adults (N: ≈ 2,000) evidence is presented to suggest that: - 1. inconsistencies exist between the relationships of Cattell's personality scales with variables such as age and social class and the relationships postulated from his model. 2. the precision of measurement afforded by certain scales is extremely low, especially in lower social class subjects. 3. the model as represented in the scales of the 16PF is untenable in terms of its internal consistency. 4. Cattell's personality scales are not in fact the most parsimonious description of the personality domain.

The Cerrado is a biodiversity hotspot undergoing land conversion with need of broad-extent quantification of species and associated ecosystem function. The effects of species on ecosystems can be tested when functional traits are related to ecosystem properties. The patterns of ecophysiologically-linked leaf traits were characterized with the goals of understanding functional diversity of the above ground biomass for ecosystem characterization and discrimination of this status using remote sensing spectroscopy data. Functional groups of plant life form had more consistently different trait status than taxonomy based groups. Specific leaf area and leaf water content were the most significant traits distinguishing functional groups. Spectral indices from a handheld spectrometer were insufficient to capture the variation of these key traits. Future studies integrating remote sensing to understand the effects of Cerrado functional diversity on ecosystem properties would benefit from incorporating life form functional groups, specific leaf area and leaf water content.

<p>A well designed metal-based removable partial denture (MBRPD) is a cost-effective and a conservative method of rehabilitating a partially edentulous mouth. The MBRPD demands that the abbutment tooth provides support and/or retention while the abutment tooth, in turn, expects the MBRPD to transmit the forces axially and to be passive when fully seated. For vertical forces to be transmitted axially, occlusal rest seats have to be prepared on the abutment teeth to receive a cast metal rest of the MBRPD. The&nbsp / objective of this study was to compare occlusal rest seat preparations for metal-based removable partial dentures (MBPRD) prepared by dental students at the UWC Oral Health centres, to the corresponding cast metal rests and to determine action taken in response to discovered discrepancies between the rest seat preparation depth and the cast metal occlusal rset thickness.</p>

Proefschrift--Taalwetenschap--Leiden, 1981. / Bibliogr. p. 307-315. Index. Résumé en anglais.