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Thesis. 1976. M.S.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences. / Microfiche copy available in Archives and Science. / Includes bibliographical references. / by William A. Vagt. / M.S.

Comparisons of aging services in Canada and the United States reveal similarities and differences in the structure and function of the two systems. In both countries, adult day services (ADS) is an integral component in the array of services available to older adults. In this study, I compared structural characteristics of programs, participant characteristics, and examined the National Adult Day Services Association classification model of ADS in demographically similar areas of Canada and the United States. Directors of 47 ADS programs in demographically similar provinces and states in Atlantic Canada, Maine, and Vermont responded to a mailed survey. Adult day services programs in each province and state exhibited some unique structural and participant characteristics. Statistically significant differences emerged between ADS programs in the two countries on the following structural variables: town population, center affiliation, center location, levels of government support, participant fees, organizational structure, hours of operation, months of attendance, hours attended per day, service frequency, and service provision. Participant characteristics that significantly varied between the two countries involved educational level and functional characteristics. A minority of programs exhibited a match between participant needs and services provided. However, very few programs belonged to the most mismatched category of providing core services to intensive level participants. The findings of this study support the importance of individual programs providing services appropriate to meet the needs of participants rather than adhering to a predetermined model of care. / Ph. D.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1982. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Includes bibliographical references. / This thesis explores built possibilities for two public street corners at the Holloway Block in Burlington, Vermont The site is at the historic commercial center of the town, and consisted until recently of abandoned buildings. The author and a partner recently purchased the site and renovated the existing structures for retail and office uses. The two corners, bookends for the block, were vacant at the time of purchase. One is in reality occupied by a building designed by architect Turner Brooks. The other will be built upon in the near future, and the author anticipates the opportunity to make the design. The programs for both buildings are based on amateur analysis of marketing and growth studies made by others. The block is largely within a National Historic District, which imposes design constraints. The designs grow from a brief discussion of the geological, climatic and historical context, and from a brief attitudinal discussion of public urban streets. / by Thomas Dudley Cabot III. / M.Arch.

The primary aim of this research was to investigate cooking practices and cooking knowledge in a rural environment, as well as learn how the kitchen environment may reflect and/or shape an individual‘s process when creating a meal. Qualitative methods were implemented allowing for the data to be triangulated. The research methods used included a semi-structured interview, participant questionnaire, and videotaping dinner time meal preparations by the primary meal preparer on two separate occasions. Emergent themes about the role of the rural food environment began to develop surrounding how respondents procure food. The rural Vermonter relied on using home gardens, farmers‘ markets, and community supported agriculture to procure food. Another theme that emerged was the role of the primary meal preparer, or the ―nutritional gatekeeper.‖ The nutritional gatekeeper was a huge component in controlling family meals and portion sizes inside, and outside the home, and the ingredients used in homemade meals. All rural respondents had some degree of cooking skills that began at a young age. Their skills were honed over time by necessity and/or curiosity. Rural respondents had general nutrition knowledge that was evident by their definition of a healthy meal, and procuring the freshest ingredients. The kitchen space was less of an influential factor when creating a meal than initially anticipated, but was the processing center where procured food items were crafted into a meal. The theme surrounding the environment and local foods strengthens the 21st century‘s shift of what consumers are demanding from the Nation‘s food system. Understanding how nutritional gatekeepers choose to prepare meals, and the influence of their food environment on the meal thought process, may make the domestic home a platform to disseminate healthful cooking practices. This study concluded an ongoing ethnographic study investigating peoples cooking practices, and cooking knowledge in an urban (Boston metropolis), suburban (Burlington, VT), and rural (Franklin and Lamoille County, VT) environments as an implication towards health.

Many farms in the United States impose negative externalities on society. Population growth and the accompanying increase in demand for food further promote this trend of environmental degradation as a by-product of food production. The USDA's Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) provides financial assistance to farmers who wish to address natural resource concerns by making structural improvements or implementing best management practices (BMPs) on their farms. Regional examinations of program implementation and incentive levels are needed to evaluate the effectiveness of EQIP at both the farm and environmental level. This research addresses this need in the following two ways. First, conjoint analysis was used to calculate the willingness to accept incentive levels desired by Vermont farmers for implementing three common BMPs and the relative importance of each attribute in their adoption decisions. Next, a survey was conducted to document Vermont farmers' experiences, or choices not to engage, with EQIP. The results of the conjoint analysis indicated that farmers' adoption decisions are most heavily influenced by the available implementation incentives and that the higher the incentive level offered, the more willing farmers are to adopt a practice. The survey results triangulated these findings as cost was the most frequently cited challenge farmers face when implementing BMPs and one third of respondents felt the cost-share amount they had received was inadequate. Although 46% of respondents reported receiving nonmonetary benefits, 43% had encountered challenges when enrolling or participating in EQIP. In addition, though contracts are designed to address specific resource concerns, 30% of respondents had not fully fixed the original issues with their contracts. This also indicates that the incentive levels offered in EQIP contracts may be lower than Vermont farmers' preferred incentive levels, affecting the adoption rate of BMPs and subsequently the environmental health and long term sustainability of Vermont's agricultural systems. Program areas ripe for improvement, key points for farmers weighing the costs and benefits of program participation, and future research opportunities are discussed in order to guide efforts to improve the effectiveness of EQIP in Vermont. This research also raises awareness of how much it costs to simultaneously support environmental health and food production in our current food system and who ultimately should bear this financial burden.

Milk is something many Americans consume every day, whether over cereal, in coffee or in a cup; as yogurt, cream, cheese or butter. The vast majority of that milk is pasteurized, or heated to the point where much of the bacteria in the milk dies. Pasteurization both slows spoilage of the milk and eliminates potentially harmful bacteria. The fact that we call heat-treated dairy simply "milk" is a testament to pasteurization's widespread proliferation over the past century. Prior to the 1900s, "milk" was raw and unheated, and pasteurized milk was a radically new technology. My research delved into understandings of dairy in both the present and the past, looking in the first chapter at Vermont farmer resistance at the advent of pasteurization, and in the second at consumer resistance to pasteurization in the present time. A century ago, the dairy industry was in flux, facing pressure to change due to population shifts and rising demands. In lieu of food that could be traced to a neighbor or to a farm on the other side of town, urbanization meant that food could travel hundreds of miles before it reached its destination -- Vermont farmers could now send their fluid milk to the Boston and New York markets. Once milk got to the city, however, it was often riddled with bacteria and untraceable to its source. Cities and states struggled to regulate the safety of milk coming into their area. In 1908 the Vermont legislature passed a pasteurization law in an attempt to curb the spread of bovine tuberculosis, but farmers and creameries simply refused to follow it and the state legislature was forced to repeal the law two years later. Despite pushback to pasteurization, however, pressure from the cities forced its adoption, pushing the expense onto the middleman processors and distributors. This, in turn, helped to drive consolidation and bring about the dairy industry as we know it today -- an industry that many interviewees in my present-day research felt was deeply flawed. My second chapter focuses on raw milk consumers in Vermont. Those on each side of the raw milk discussion make broad -- and sometimes dire -- knowledge claims regarding the values and risks associated with consumption of the substance. Advocacy groups, agricultural associations, and various governmental authorities all voice divergent opinions regarding the safety and health benefits of raw milk consumption. As such, consumers navigate these contests of voices when deciding whether or not to drink raw milk. Yet raw milk consumers are not simply passive recipients of governmental, advocacy and media messaging, but rather consumers making rational decisions based on research, experience and values. In examining how raw milk consumers understand their actions and decisions, I bring this perspective to bear on the larger discussion of the risks and benefits of raw milk consumption. My investigation of the historical and present context of raw milk shed light not just on the subculture of those who choose to drink raw milk, or on the small group of farmers who fought back against pasteurization in 1909. It revealed common refrains over the course of more than a century, repeating patterns and, I hope, a lens through which to view the nuance and shifting possibilities in other issues in the food system, both past and current.

The Altona Formation represents the oldest Cambrian sedimentary unit in northern New York, recording cyclic deposition in shallow marine and fluvial environments under both fair-weather and storm conditions. Five outcrops and one well log were measured and described at the centimeter scale and the top and bottom contacts of the Altona were identified. Based on the recognition of sedimentary structures such as hummocky cross stratification, oscillatory ripples, graded bedding, trough and tabular cross stratification, and bioturbation, as well as subtle lithologic changes, six lithofacies representing non-marine, middle to upper shoreface, offshore, and carbonate ramp environments were identified. The top contact with the overlying Ausable Formation is characterized by inter-tonguing marine to non-marine siltstones and cross stratified medium sandstones. The lowermost Altona is found to lie only one meter above Precambrian basement and is interpreted to be the only non-marine facies in this unit. Throughout the 84-meter thick section, stratigraphy records a transition from upper/middle shoreface to carbonate ramp deposition and offshore muds before cycling between upper shoreface, carbonate ramp and non-marine deposits. Based on parasequence architecture, this section of rock is interpreted to represent the transition from the transgressive systems tract to the highstand systems tract. Thin sections analysis from each lithofacies quantified grain size and composition and identified a provenance. Modal analysis data from clastic lithofacies reveals subarkose to arkose sandstones with an accessory mineral suite including ilmenite, apatite, rutile, and zircon. Integrating the compositional data, particularly the accessory mineral suite, with detrital zircon dates of 1000 - 1300 Ma (Chiarenzelli et al., 2010) suggests that the Grenville Adirondacks in particular the AMCG suit and Lyon Mountain Granite are a likely source rock. Comparison with the Monkton Formations of Vermont suggest that these two units were deposited under similar sea level conditions and are therefore correlative. Provenance study suggests that they were both sourced form the Adirondack Mountains. The major difference is in their depositional environments as the Monkton represents deposition of predominantly tidally influenced deltaic environment. The environmental processes acting on the two units suggests that the paleogeography of the Iapetus margin in this area was an embayed coastline.

Increasing development like roads and houses will alter the future landscape of Vermont. Development provides important resources for people and society, but also results in consequences for wildlife and opportunities for recreation. Managing development requires information on the public's acceptability of development and how acceptability is shaped by information on various consequences. In this study, I examined three questions: 1) What is the public's acceptability of development? 2) Does wildlife information influence public acceptability of development and 3) Is the maximum amount of acceptable development influenced by views about wildlife, involvement in recreation, and demographic factors? I surveyed 9,000 households in Vermont by including a questionnaire which asked about development, wildlife, recreation, and demographics. I assessed acceptability of amount of development using social-norm curves and used parametric significance tests and mixed-effects models to examine the influence of wildlife, recreation, and demographic factors. The survey response rate was 44%. The maximum acceptable amount of development was slightly more than 32 households/km2, and not meaningfully influenced by the broader consequences of development on seven common wildlife species. The public demonstrated a strong preference for clustered development over sprawled development, which became unacceptable at 20 households per km2. Maximum acceptability of development was significantly influenced by views on some species, including bear, bobcat, and fisher, but not by others such as deer, fox, raccoon, and coyote. Similarly, those involved in common forms of outdoor recreation, including birding, ATVing, hunting, fishing and camping, were significantly less accepting of development relative to those not involved in these forms of recreation. Maximum amount of development was also affected by demographic factors, including town density, respondent age, home ownership and location of birth. The results provide a baseline measure of the public's acceptability of development, which can be used to guide decision-making about amount and pattern of development, wildlife management, and efforts to promote recreation in the state.

This thesis is a micro-history of the formation of the various identities that shaped the Revolutionary War experiences of one eighteenth-century Vermonter (Thomas Johnson) whose life is documented in a manuscript collection at the Vermont Historical Society. I break down Johnson's identities into three levels: social class, state, and national. My argument is that what it meant to be a provincial gentleman, to be a Vermonter, and to be an American were still being constructed at the time of the Revolution and were therefore in a state of flux. The fluid nature of these identities shows us how America's founding fathers' generation was full of ambiguity and a multiplicity choices. The first section of my thesis analyzes how Johnson's identity as a gentleman officer influenced his experience as a prisoner-of-war. I argue that Johnson's identity as an American patriot and his role as a double-agent can only be understood in relation to his conflicted identity as a provincial gentleman. The second section, on the identity of Vermont in the context of a new American nation, starts with historical background on the formation of Vermont first as part of New Hampshire, then as part of New York, and, finally, in negotiations with the British in Canada to rejoin the British empire, with which Johnson participated. In this section I argue that the shifting identities of colonial and revolutionary Vermont provided a backdrop of fluidity and change, as well as animosities between eastern and western residents, which influenced the identities of individual Vermonters during the war, including Thomas Johnson. For the national level, I look at how European Americans had divided loyalties during the war, with an emphasis on the Revolution as a civil war. My thesis departs from most historiography on the Revolution as a civil war, though, by examining it as a war with gray area - not just black and white, or Patriots versus Loyalists. I use this analysis to examine how Johnson's community was divided and why Johnson's neighbors reacted so diversely to the possibility that he was working with the British. In a last and brief section of my thesis, I look at how Johnson has been memorialized in his town's history, and how doubts of his American loyalty have all but disappeared over time, regardless of the intense debates they provoked during his lifetime. I aim to show that despite the consensus view that has shaped much of the historical memory of the American Revolution, the actual process of revolution was full of disorientation and turbulence.