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The Influence Of The Physical Environment And Sociodemographic Characteristics On Children's Mode Of Travel To And From School, Kristian Larsen, Jason Gilliland, Peter Hess, Patricia Tucker, Jennifer Irwin, Meizi He

Geography & Environment Publications

Objectives: We examined whether certain characteristics of the social and physical environment influence a child's mode of travel between home and school.

Methods: Students aged 11 to 13 years from 21 schools throughout London, Ontario, answered questions from a travel behavior survey. A geographic information system linked survey responses for 614 students who lived within 1 mile of school to data on social and physical characteristics of environments around the home and school. Logistic regression analysis was used to test the influence of environmental factors on mode of travel (motorized vs "active") to and from school.

Results: Over 62% of …

Identity And Diversity Of Agaricomycetes (Fungi: Basidiomycota) In Temperate Agricultural Soils, Barbara D. Bahnmann

Digitized Theses

The objectives of this study were to identify and to compare the species richness, community composition and genetic diversity of Agaricomycetes in Michigan agricultural soils. Ribosomal DNA sequences were obtained from soils in four treatments: conventional till monocrop, no-till monocrop, historically tilled grassland and never-tilled grassland. The Agaricales dominated the community, with 85 % of all detected taxa. The taxonomic composition of conventional till plots was different from other plots due to the high prevalence of Pneumatospora (Cantharellales) and Lachnella/Calathella (Agaricales) clades and the absence of Hygrocybe (Agaricales) and Polyporales clades. These latter clades dominated less disturbed treatments. Genetic diversity …

Evaluating Ecological Studies In Epidemiology, Brenden T. Dufault

Digitized Theses

The purpose of this research was twofold. The first objective was to assess the quality of modern cross-sectional ecological studies with a bibliometric review. The second objective was to investigate via simulation study the reliability of common ecological regression models for analysing count data.

The bibliometric review found that the quality and areas of application of the ecological literature is quite diverse. However, a large proportion of studies exhibited poor statistical practice and provided insufficient amounts of justification and information.

Linear, weighted linear, Poisson, and negative binomial regression were included in the simulation study based on their prevalence in the …