The purpose of this study was to propose and test a motivational model of high school dropout. The model posits that teachers, parents, and the school administration's behaviors toward students influence students' perceptions of competence and autonomy. The less autonomy supportive

Abstract The aim of this study was to verify whether women with pregnancy which ended in premature delivery, were satisfied with the fact of conception or if it was conditional and therefore if it had an impact on the behavior of pregnant women. Following investigation tools have been applied

differences that exist between races contribute to this gap. In this study, biometrical genetic models are applied to a large mixed-race sample consisting of 733,339 births to measure the extent that heritable factors and environmental exposures predict the timing of birth and explain differences between

-energy description can be obtained for braneworld scenarios, allowing for a number of generalizations to the original models. This method is applied to orbifolded and uncompactified N-brane models, deriving an effective four-dimensional action. The parameter space of this theory is constrained using observational

interaction of message valence by the apparent gender of the profile owner, F(1, 339) = 6.47, p = .01, h 2 = .02. Female profile owners were rated more physically attractive when their profiles showed positive comments from friends, M = 3.98, SD = 1.29, 43 N = 80, than when the statements were negative, M = 3

Abstract — We consider minimum variance estimation within the sparse linear Gaussian model (SLGM). A sparse vector is to be estimated from a linearly transformed version embedded in Gaussian noise. Our analysis is based on the theory of reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces (RKHS). After a

This report focuses on the evidence about the health.consequences of smoking for women, and is intended to serve.the public health and medical communities as 'a unified source of existing scientific research. The major issues about tobacco use and women's health are examined, including trends in consumption, biomedical evidence, and determinants of smoking ititiation, maintenance, and cessation. The biomedical aspects ofsmoking are presented in terms of mortality, morbiplity, cardiovasculaidiseases, cancer, pregnancy and infant,health,, Teptic ulcer disease, drug reactions and, interactions, food constituents, and responses to,diagnostic tests. The psychosocial and behavioraj. aspects, of smoking in women are discussed, along with the docffiented increases in- the risk of contracting lung cancer, heart,disease, or lung disease. The harmful effects of pregnant mothers smoking behaviors, are also docudented. Adhitionally, recent data are enumerated to indicate a trend of,decreasing tobacco usage among women in response to the warnings of the gavernMent, voluntary agencie, and physicrins. (Author /NRB)' DOCUMENT RESUME cc 015 465

then extend this approach to the collaborative case, where a set of simultaneously coded signals share the same sparsity pattern at the higher (group) level, but not necessarily at the lower (inside the group) level, obtaining the collaborative HiLasso model (C-HiLasso). Such signals then share the same

I would like to thank my parents for always believing in me. I would also like to thank my supervisors Richard Lindner and Johannes Buchmann for their useful comments and suggestions on how to improve the queality of the thesis. Not on last place I would like to thank Vadim Lyubashevsky and Luis Carlos Coronado Garcia for their kindness and readiness to answer my questions. Warranty I hereby warrant that the content of this thesis is the direct result of my own work and that any use made in it of published or unpublished material is fully and correctly referenced. I also warrant that the presented work has

Responses of soil biological processes to elevated atmospheric [CO2] and nitrogen addition in a poplar plantation