A model of social stressor variables, social integration variables and demographic control variables was tested to assess their impact on alcohol use among the elderly. A secondary analysis of a survey on alcohol use among the elderly in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, was conducted to test the major hypotheses of the study. Contingency table analysis, using gamma and partial gamma as correlation coefficients, was utilized in the data analysis. The first hypothesis, in regard to the positive relationship of social stressors with alcohol use, was confirmed. The best predictors of alcohol use among the social stressor variables were usual occupation, length of retirement, annual income, and subjective health status. The second hypothesis, that the social integration variables would be negatively related to alcohol use, received only moderate support. The results of the analysis indicated that six of the ten social integration variables were negatively related to alcohol use. Only three of these variables, retirement status, religious participation, and marital status, were statistically significant. Hypothesis three also was not confirmed. The introduction of the social integration variables did not substantially decrease the strength of the relationship between social stressors and alcohol use. Gender and age were also introduced as control variables for …

This work includes two unrelated areas of research. The first portion of this work involved combusting densified refuse derived fuel (dRDF) with coal and studying the effect that Ca(0H)2 binder had on reducing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) and polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) emissions. The second area of work was directed at developing nondestructive infrared techniques in order to aid in the analysis of postage stamp adhesives. With Americans generating 150-200 million tons a year of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) and disposing of nearly ninety percent of it in landfills, it is easy to understand why American landfills are approaching capacity. One alternative to landfilling is to process the MSW into RDF. There are technical and environmental problems associated with RDF. This work provides some answers concerning the amount of PAH and PCB emissions generated via the combustion of RDF with coal. It was found that the Ca(OH)2 binder greatly reduced both the PAH and the PCB emissions. In fact, PAH emissions at the ten-percent level were reduced more by using the binder than by the pollution control equipment. If the Ca(0H)2 binder can reduce not only PAH and PCB emissions, but also other noxious emissions, such as acid gases or dioxin, …

The use of arguments containing increasingly technical materials has grown significantly in the recent years. Specifically, arguments that are used to justify military expenditures or to allege violations of international agreements are becoming more sophisticated. This study examines the dissemination and use of technical argument in claims made by the United States government that the Soviet Union violated chemical and biological treaties in Southeast Asia and Afghanistan. This study employs the Jowett-O'Donnell method for analyzing propaganda to determine the extent and effectiveness of the government's claims. The study concludes that propaganda was used extensively by the government in order to justify new weapons programs and that the propaganda campaign was effective because of the technological orientation of its claims.

The primary purpose of this study was to compare regular classroom instruction which used Guided Mental Imagery (GMI) to a non-GMI teaching method. This comparison was expected to yield data which would provide insights relating to the potential of GMI as a useful and effective instructional strategy. Quasi-experimental research methods were followed. The experimental design was a modified "post-test only control group design." Two-hundred-four students in naturally occurring in tact classes formed the experimental and control groups. All groups received instruction in identical science/health content. Two parallel post-tests were administered to all students. Post-test "A" was given immediately after instruction to measure learning acquisition. Post-test "B" was given four weeks later to measure retention of learning. Means for test scores were grouped according to treatment and sub-grouped by the variables: IQ, handedness, identified learning disability, and intellectual giftedness. T_ tests for differences between independent means were conducted. Students' acquisition of basic academic content, when instructed with GMI methodology, was found to differ significantly from students' acquisition of the same content with non-GMI instruction. No statistically significant differences based on instructional methodology were found for content retention. The investigator concluded that GMI instruction may increase learning. Although measures of retention did …

This document identifies elements of a stylistic change which occurred in several of the pieces Rachmaninoff wrote during the last years of his life. These elements reflect a progressive trend in his music, which certainly maintained in spite of the change, its characteristic sound. The Variations on a Theme of Corelli, Op. 42 illustrate these new developments in their lean, angular unison sonorities, stripped of chordal padding and virtuosic display, in their percussive, staccato and incisive ostinato rhythmic figures, astringent chromatic harmony and modern air of detachment. The Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43 confirms this stylistic development in its remarkable similarity to the Corelli Variations. In the last twenty-six years of his life in exile from his homeland, making his way around the world as a concert pianist, Rachmaninoff wrote only six major works. Perhaps his increasing age, separation from homeland, and the musical revolutions surrounding him in the Western world produced this stylistic development.

In leading up to the proof, methods for constructing fields and finitely additive set functions are introduced with an application involving the Tagaki function given as an example. Also, non-absolutely continuous set functions are constructed using Banach limits and maximal filters.

The C Navigational System (CNS) is a proposed programming environment for the C programming language. The introduction covers the major influences of programming environments and the components of a programming environment. The system is designed to support the design, coding and maintenance phases of software development. CNS provides multiple views to both the source and documentation for a programming project. User-defined and system-defined links allow the source and documentation to be hierarchically searched. CNS also creates a history list and function interface for each function in a module. The final chapter compares CNS and several other programming environments (Microscope, Rn, Cedar, PECAN, and Marvel).

The purposes of this study were to determine the career paths of women superintendents in the state of Texas and their school board members' perceptions of their levels of success. All women currently serving as superintendents of public schools in Texas, as well as all school board members of districts with women serving as superintendents were surveyed. The findings of this study indicate that the "typical" woman superintendent was hired from inside the district, with a master's degree. She was 48.3 years of age. Her first administrative position was the principalship and she moved directly from the principalship to the superintendency. The typical woman served in one district as superintendent. Her teaching and prior administrative experience was at the elementary level. Women superintendents perceived the position of teacher as the most beneficial experience prior to the superintendency. Women superintendents perceived leadership as the most important area of her professional development. School finance was the area perceived by women superintendents as needing to be more extensive in their professional development. Of the women superintendents who responded to this survey, 68.1 percent reported that they did not perceive discrimination in attaining the superintendency. Of the school board members who responded to this …

A 17.1 Kb genetic element encoding for mercury resistance (OCT-Hg^r) was shown to translocate from its original location on the OCT plasmid to the resistance plasmid, RPl, in Pseudomonas putida. Analysis of RPl-Hg^r recombinant plasmids revealed that insertion of mercury resistance genes into RPl could occur at a variety of sites, with all recombinants having common EcoRI restriction fragments of 9.4, 3.8, 2.3, and 1.6 Kb, derived from the insertion. Hybridization analysis suggested the existence of extensive homology between this insertion and the prototypic mercury resistance transposon, Tn501, as well as the location of a similar merA sequence. Although the overall size was shown to be quite different from Tn501, striking physical similarities are shared between these two elements.

Different family structures and levels of parental and financial stress were investigated in relation to children's overtly expressed fears, and secondarily, covertly measured fears and concerns. The family structures consisted of divorced and remarried families divided into those divorced less than two years and those divorced greater than two years. Intact families were used as the control group. One-hundred-twenty-one children from six to eleven years of age and their biological mothers from a semirural, southwestern town comprised the sample. The children were administered five instruments assessing overt fears, covert fears/concerns, and positiveness in family relationships. Mothers were given eight self-report measures which included a questionnaire, a report of their child's overt fears, and an indication of the positiveness in family relationships. Results indicated that the children of divorced, single mothers tended to report greater overt fears than remarried and intact families. Indications of covert fears of death and separation were also suggested. This was especially true for those single mothers divorced less than two years. Children of intact families did not generally differ from remarried groups although there were implications that remarriage too soon after divorce may impact covert fears as well as positive feelings toward the stepfather. Children of …

The purpose of this study was two-fold. First, this study compared the performance of children on the WPPSI-R with their performance on the Slosson Intelligence Test. Secondly, this study explored the comparability of minority and non-minority students' scores on the WPPSI-R. Seventy five children between 3 and 7 years of age were administered the WPPSI-R and Slosson. Of this sample, 25 children were White, 25 children were Black, and 25 children were Mexican American. Low, but significant correlations were found between WPPSI-R and Slosson scores. The Vocabulary subscale of the WPPSI-R correlated highest, while the Geometric Design subscale correlated the lowest with the Slosson test scores. Further analyses indicated that White children obtained significantly higher scores on the WPPSI-R than both Black and Mexican American children.

One purpose of this study was to determine whether any differences in immediate achievement or retention existed between students using manipulatives and students not using manipulatives. Also addressed in this study is whether or not the use of manipulatives is more beneficial for girls than boys and whether the use of manipulatives is more beneficial for low-ability students than for high-ability students. Students selected for this study were from a large suburban school district in Texas. The students were from eight intact classes, four of which were designated as the experimental group and the other four as the control group. The sample consisted of one hundred eighty-seven students. All students were tested with a test developed by the researcher. This same test was administered as a pretest, posttest, and retention test. The following supplemental data were also gathered on the students: mathematics scores from the California Test of Basic Skills and scores from the mathematics section of the Texas Educational Assessment of Minimum Skills test. Analysis of the data revealed no statistical difference in the mean scores of students instructed with or without manipulatives when the test was administered immediately after instruction. Nor was there any statistical difference in the …

The problem of this study was the needed administrative competencies of administrators in teacher training colleges in Kenya as perceived by administrators and faculty. A questionnaire (Inventory of Administrative Competencies) was mailed to principals, vice-principals, and four faculty members selected at random from sixteen teacher training colleges in Kenya. Ninety-six questionnaires were returned, yielding a return rate of 100 percent. Responses were analyzed using t-tests and one-way analyses of variance utilizing the F-test of the statistical test. A series of post hoc comparisons was made using Duncan's New Multiple Range Test to locate significant differences. Based on the analysis of data, it was concluded that both administrators and faculty considered the desired status of the competency very high. The administrators were performing below the desired status. Size of college was the major factor for the differences in perceptions of the respondents. Years of experience and educational background had little or no effect on the respondents' responses to the questionnaire. The following recommendations were made: A future study should investigate the perceived desired status and present performance ratings assigned to a validated set of competency statements of those levels of administrative activities not included in this study. Such a study would …

This study explored the importance attached to and the degree of satisfaction with 53 job aspects in the work environment of cooperative research center directors. A survey instrument was mailed to the 105 individuals identified as directors of research units that are (a) committed to multidisciplinary or engineering research, (b) organized as integral units of a university, and (c) supported and funded by industry and other sources. Responses were categorized into two groups: directors involved in NSF (National Science Foundation) Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers (I/UCRC), and directors involved in other types of cooperative research endeavors. A 69% response rate was obtained. One purpose of this study was to measure: (a) factors that influence job satisfaction; (b) factors likely to influence center performance; and (c) success factors in industry/university cooperative research. This study was also designed to: (a) compare job attitudes between the two groups of directors; (c) determine the relationship between measures of importance and satisfaction for each group; and (d) develop predictive models of centers' performance using collected data; Directors assign a high degree of importance and a low degree of satisfaction to the majority of the job aspects; and they tend to be somewhat dissatisfied with those factors …

During the 1930s, the Republic of Czechoslovakia endeavored to construct a system of modern fortifications along its frontiers to protect the Republic from German and Hungarian aggression and from external Versailles revisionism. Czechoslovakia's fortifications have been greatly misrepresented through comparison with the Maginot Line. By utilizing extant German military reports, this thesis demonstrates that Czechoslovakia's fortifications were incomplete and were much weaker than the Maginot Line at the time of the Munich Crisis in 1938. The German threat of war against Czechoslovakia was very real in 1938 and Germany would have penetrated most of the fortifications and defeated Czechoslovakia quickly had a German-Czech war occurred in 1938.

The problem. --The problem in this study was to describe the issues arising in employment decisions appealed to the Texas Commissioner of Education. Decisions made in courts are binding on school officials, and they are published in law reporters found in most libraries. The Commissioner's decisions are also binding on school officials, but they are not published or widely reported. Thus, this important body of information may not reach those who are responsible for its application. Methods. --The decisions of the Commissioner were examined to determine the issues and the underlying rationale used by the Commissioner in the process of deciding the appeals. A series of data reductions allowed a determination of patterns found in the outcomes of the decisions which favored the employee and those which favored the school districts. The analysis produced a set of data from which implications for decision making could be drawn.

The objective of the completed research was to characterize the morphology of individual neurons within monolayer networks of fetal mouse spinal tissue via intraperikaryal injections of horseradish peroxidase (HRP). Thirty labelled neurons were reconstructed via camera lucida drawings and morphometrically analyzed.

This paper presents the results of a study dealing with a number of issues regarding real estate investment. Utilizing a data set consisting of real estate transactions, questions relative to the impact of certain variables on the sale price are addressed. This analysis addresses the question of the impact of financial, physical, and location characteristics on the sales price of commercial grade real estate.

Subjects, 432 convenience store cashiers, were divided into long-tenure and short-tenure groups. Chi-square analysis of application blank information for a weighting sample drawn from both groups revealed two items which significantly (p < .05) differentiated between the long tenure and short-tenure groups: number of previous jobs and full-time/part-time preference. Response weights were computed for these two items and used to calculate composite scores for the remaining holdout sample. A significant reduction in turnover would have occurred at the highest composite score level, if used as a hiring cut off. Results were tempered by several considerations, including a high percentage of false negatives and an insignificant linear relationship between composite scores and tenure.

Ten caucasian male quadriplegics were compared with eight sedentary caucasian male controls in regards to left ventricular dimensions and mass obtained from echocardiograrns. The interventricular septum (IVS), left ventricular posterior wall (LVPW) and left ventricular internal diameter (LVII) were within normal limits for both groups. However, the INS in the SCI were significantly thicker than controls (p <0.05). Myocardial thickness was larger in SCI subjects (p <0.05). Absolute left ventricular mass (LVM) and total left ventricular volume was not different ( p > 0.05), but SCI subjects had significantly greater LVM to lean body mass ratios. Echocardiographically, SCI patients demonstrate concentric hypertrophy. This suggests adaptive response to chronic increase in afterload pressure secondary to their daily activities and muscle spasticity.

A survey instrument was mailed to a random sampling of wives of graduates of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas, from 1982 to 1986. The purpose of the survey was to determine if wives of seminary graduates have ministry-related educational needs during the first five years of professional ministry that can be met by an educational program. Furthermore, demographic and attitudinal variables were investigated as potential contributing factors. Finally, suggestions were sought from the wives themselves for the implementation of an education program. For each wife, a total educational need score was calculated from her responses. Of the 240 respondents who completed the entire survey document, almost 42% of the respondents indicated a high educational need score with 5% producing a very high need score. Of the top twenty educational needs, only one was from the Theological/Christian Education category; the top three were all from Self Needs regarding stress management, dealing with criticism, and conflict resolution. The Chi Square Test for Independence was used to identify contributing factors, both demographic and attitudinal. The following were validated at the .05 level (unless indicated otherwise) as having a relationship to the wives' scores: Year of Husband's Graduation, Husband's Degree, Size of …

This study investigated the use of biofeedback as part of stress-management training program with head injured adults. The single cases examined were four males with head injuries of moderate severity who were in the post-acute stages of recovery. Treatment involved bi-weekly relaxation training, using EMG biofeedback in combination with deep breathing, autogenic training and/or imagery. Individual subject response to relaxation training was examined during treatment sessions, as was the frequency of stress-related symptomatology outside of sessions, and overall functional adaptation. While all subjects showed evidence of relaxation during treatment sessions, such factors as the nature of the functional disturbance and personal motivation appear to be related to the degree of carryover to the external environment.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of "game" and "test" instructions on the intelligence test performance of high- and low-test-anxious children. Eighty-one subjects diagnosed as learning disabled were given the Test Anxiety Scale for Children (TASC) to determine their level of test anxiety. Based on TASC scores, 44 subjects were classified as either fljgj- or low- test-anxious. These subjects were given the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) using either game or test instructions to introduce the test. The resulting 10 and subtest configuration scores were used to compare high- and low-test-anxious subjects by the type of instructions they received prior to testing. This comparison yielded no significant differences between high and low-test-anxious subjects, indicating that the way the WISC-R is Introduced does not play a significant role in the WISC-R performance of high- and low-test-anxious children.

This study examined the effects of self-monitoring behavior and health locus of control on improvement in a work hardening program. The subjects included 22 male and 18 female outpatients in a hospital-based rehabilitation program. Subjects were classified as having an internal or external health locus of control, and were randomly assigned to either a self-monitoring or a non-self-monitoring group. Improvement was assessed via objective performance data and self-ratings of perceived improvement. The results indicated that individuals identified as having an internal health locus of control did not show greater gains in physical functioning or perceived improvement relative to externally oriented individuals. Additionally, those subjects participating in self-monitoring activities were no different from non-self-monitoring subjects in terms of improvement in exercise activities or perceived improvement. The results also indicated no interaction between health locus of control and the presence or absence of self-monitoring. It was suggested that other factors such as workman's compensation, pain patient characteristics, low self-concept, and severe stress may have proved more powerful influences on patient improvement than internal health locus of control or self-monitoring. It was also suggested that rehabilitation programs might benefit from creating structured environments in which patients receive frequent staff feedback and reinforcement for …