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open access

Optimal design of Dutch auctions with discrete bid levels.

Description: The theory of auction has become an active research area spanning multiple disciplines such as economics, finance, marketing and management science. But a close examination of it reveals that most of the existing studies deal with ascending (i.e., English) auctions in which it is assumed that the bid increments are continuous. There is a clear lack of research on optimal descending (i.e., Dutch) auction design with discrete bid levels. This dissertation aims to fill this void by considering … more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Li, Zhen
open access

An Assessment of Undergraduate Course Syllabi in the Departments of English at Universities in Taiwan

Description: This exploratory, qualitative research explored the extent that course syllabi in the Departments of English in 13 public and 9 private universities in Taiwan reflect the inclusion of syllabus components to promote learning as recommended in the literature in the United States. Research questions included: what components can be inferred from the literature in the U.S. for the recommended components of a course syllabus, for the components for a learning-centered syllabus, and for a model to an… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Lin, Baysan
open access

Maleic anhydride grafted polypropylene coatings on steel: Adhesion and wear.

Description: Polymeric coatings are being used in a growing number of applications, contributing to protection against weather conditions and localized corrosion, reducing the friction and erosion wear on the substrate. In this study, various polypropylene (PP) coatings were applied onto steel substrates by compression molding. Chemical modification of PP has been performed to increase its adhesion to metallic surfaces by grafting of maleic anhydride (MAH) onto PP in the presence of dicumyl peroxide (DCP). … more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Mahendrakar, Sridhar
open access

Breaking Accidental Behavior Chains.

Description: Accidental behavior chains are a common problem in dog training. Many handlers inadvertently reinforce undesirable behaviors. The behavior analytic literature already contains articles describing methods of breaking chains; however, those methods either are not used in dog training for practical purposes or are ineffective in dog training. This experiment investigated two ways to break a behavior chain, including extending the chain and introducing a delay into the chain. The results of extendi… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: McKnight, Debra Gayle
open access

The Khan Variations for Solo Marimba by Alejandro Viñao: Musical Analysis and Performance Practice

Description: The Khan Variations is the first work for solo marimba by Argentinean composer Alejandro Viñao (b.1951). Since publication in 2001, Khan Variations has been performed at many international percussion festivals and is often a repertoire choice for performers in the final round of numerous marimba competitions. This thesis and accompanying lecture recital provide a supplemental guide to Alejandro Viñao's Khan Variations, focusing on analytical and structural theory, as well as performance practic… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Roberts, John Francis
open access

United States Psychological Operations in Support of Counterinsurgency: Vietnam, 1960 to 1965.

Description: This thesis describes the development of psychological operations capabilities, introduction of forces, and the employment in Vietnam during the period 1960-1965. The complex interplay of these activities is addressed, as well as the development of PSYOP doctrine and training in the period prior to the introduction of ground combat forces in 1965. The American PSYOP advisory effort supported the South Vietnamese at all levels, providing access to training, material support, and critical advice.… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Roberts, Mervyn Edwin, III
open access

Making the Connection: How Mentors Choose Protégés in Academic Mentoring Relationships

Description: Among other things, mentoring research is concerned with how mentors go about the process of choosing who they should mentor. Even when mentoring relationships are assigned, mentors need to feel that the efforts they are putting forth are worth the time and energy. What protégé attributes best attract the attention of a mentor? What mentor attributes make some protégés more attractive to them than others? This study looks at 3 explanations for mentor-protégé attraction, shedding light on the me… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Robertson, Tip M. A.
open access

Daughters of the King and Founders of a Nation: Les Filles du Roi in New France

Description: The late seventeenth century was a crucial era in establishing territorial claims on the North American continent. In order to strengthen France's hold on the Quebec colony, Louis XIV sent 770 women across the Atlantic at royal expense in order to populate New France. Since that time, these women known as the filles du roi, have often been reduced to a footnote in history books, or else mistakenly slandered as women of questionable morals. This work seeks to clearly identify the filles du roi t… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Runyan, Aimie Kathleen
open access

Evaluation of the Easter Seals North Texas Autism Treatment Program: Progress in Meeting Program Mission

Description: Applied behavior analysis (ABA) remains at the forefront of effective interventions for children with autism. In some cases, the high cost of treatment and other environmental factors limit families from accessing services. The Easter Seals North Texas (ESNT) Autism Treatment Program (ATP) was created to reach high risk, underserved families in the North Texas area by providing early intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) services to children with autism. This evaluation was conducted to anal… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Pritchett, Malika Naomi
open access

The Counterinsurgency Dilemma: The Causes and Consequences of State Repression of Human Rights in Civil Wars

Description: In this project a theory of adaptive differential insurgency growth by the mechanism of repression driven contagion is put forth to explain variation in the membership and spatial expansion of insurgencies from 1981 to 1999. As an alternative to the dominant structural approaches in the civil war literature, Part 1 of the study proposes an interactive model of insurgency growth based on Most and Starr's opportunity and willingness framework. The findings suggest that state capacity, via its imp… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Quinn, Jason Michael
open access

Love Poem with Exiles

Description: Love Poem with Exiles is a collection of poems with a critical preface. The poems are varied in terms of subject matter and form. In the critical preface, I discuss my relationship with poetry as well as the idea that we inherit poems, and that if we are inspired by them, we can transform them into something new.
Date: May 2010
Creator: Quintanilla, Octavio
open access

On Their Own: How Thirty-One Tribal Colleges Address Five Educational Concepts

Description: This qualitative research, specifically a content analysis of 31 tribal colleges' mission statements and curricula, examined how the colleges' curricula aligned with the five educational concepts suggested in the colleges' mission statements. Cajete's (1994) seven foundations to indigenous thinking proved to be a major theoretical framework which provided a worldview for tribal learning. The study concluded that whereas the five educational concepts aligned between mission statements and curr… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Riding In, Leslie D.
open access

Design and Implementation of Large-Scale Wireless Sensor Networks for Environmental Monitoring Applications

Description: Environmental monitoring represents a major application domain for wireless sensor networks (WSN). However, despite significant advances in recent years, there are still many challenging issues to be addressed to exploit the full potential of the emerging WSN technology. In this dissertation, we introduce the design and implementation of low-power wireless sensor networks for long-term, autonomous, and near-real-time environmental monitoring applications. We have developed an out-of-box solutio… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Yang, Jue
open access

The Determinants and Consequences of Empathic Parenting: Testing an Expansion of Belsky's Model of Parenting Using SEM

Description: An understanding of factors that enhance empathic parenting behaviors is of considerable importance to the study of child development and to the development of parenting interventions to promote child adjustment. Moreover, gaining a better understanding of the factors that predict empathic parenting with older children is of interest since most research examining parental empathy focuses on infants. These were the goals of the current study. Guided by Belsky's 1984 process model of the determ… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Morse, Margaret K.
open access

A Performer's Analysis of Dominick Argento's Miss Havisham's Wedding Night

Description: Dominick Argento's Miss Havisham's Wedding Night is the least explored of his artistic output. A monodrama in one act for soprano, Miss Havisham's Wedding Night contains some of Argento's most beautiful and challenging music of his compositional output. The purpose of a detailed analysis of the structure and content of Argento's Miss Havisham's Wedding Night is to facilitate the solo vocal performer's interpretation. Argento's setting of Miss Havisham's Wedding Night is unique in that he musica… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Mott, Jammieca D.
open access

The Effects of Jackpots on Responding and Choice in Two Domestic Dogs

Description: The current study investigated the impact of delivering a jackpot on response rate and response allocation in two domestic dogs. For the purpose of this research, a jackpot was defined as a one-time, within-session increase in the magnitude of reinforcement. Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of delivering a jackpot in both single-operant and concurrent schedule procedures. Experiment 1 investigated the impact of a one-time, within-session increase in the magnitude of … more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Muir, Kristy Lynn
open access

Political Identity of First-Year College Students: An Analysis of Student Characteristics Using Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) Data

Description: This quantitative study utilized secondary self-reported data from the 2008 administration of the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) Freshman Survey from two Texas public universities to investigate the pre-college demographic, academic, attitude, behavioral, and familial factors that may relate to students' self-reported political identities. The study design was correlational regarding the relationship of the demographic, academic, attitude, behavioral, and familial independent… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Mulberry, Stella L.
open access

Virulence Factor Production in PyrE Mutants of Pseudomonas Aeruginosa

Description: It has been shown previously in our lab that mutations in the pyrimidine pathway reduced the ability of Pseudomonas aeruginosa to produce virulence factors. Knockout mutations in pyrB, pyrC and pyrD genes of the pyrimidine pathway showed that virulence factor production was decreased. Pyoverdin, pyocyanin, hemolysin, iron chelation, motility, and adherence are all considered virulence factors. Here I further investigate the effects of mutations in the pyrimidine pathway by studying a pyrE mutan… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Niazy, Abdurahman
open access

Effects of Tasks on Information-Seeking Behavior in a Police Work Environment in the Context of Criminal Intelligence

Description: Although dominant effects of tasks on individuals' information-seeking behavior is accepted by many scholars, a limited number of studies has been conducted to reveal the nature of the relationship between tasks and information-seeking behavior. In their studies, some earlier researchers categorized tasks according to their complexity while others did the same according to the specifications of tasks. Two of the groundbreaking researchers in this area are Katriina Byström and Kalervo Järvelin w… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Tatil, Serkan
open access

An Experimental Study on Situated and Dynamic Learning Assessment (SDLA) Environment

Description: The current supplementary web based English learning in Taiwan provides online learning resources and gives assessments at the end of each lesson to evaluate learners' online learning results. Based on the testing results, instructors may adjust their in-class instructional method to focus on the students' weaknesses. For the average classroom size of 40 students with one instructor, it is extremely difficult to provide individual learning content for each learner's needs because each student h… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Lee, Zeng-Han
open access

Sensitization of Lanthanides and Organic-Based Phosphorescence via Energy Transfer and Heavy-Atom Effects

Description: The major topics discussed are the phosphorescence sensitization in the lanthanides via energy transfer and in the organics by heavy atom effects. The f-f transitions in lanthanides are parity forbidden and have weak molar extinction coefficients. Upon complexation with the ligand, ttrpy (4'-p-Tolyl-[2,2':6',2"]-terpyridine) the absorption takes place through the ligand and the excitation is transferred to the lanthanides, which in turn emit. This process is known as "sensitized luminescence." … more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Arvapally, Ravi K.
open access

EEG, Alpha Waves and Coherence

Description: This thesis addresses some theoretical issues generated by the results of recent analysis of EEG time series proving the brain dynamics are driven by abrupt changes making them depart from the ordinary Poisson condition. These changes are renewal, unpredictable and non-ergodic. We refer to them as crucial events. How is it possible that this form of randomness be compatible with the generation of waves, for instance alpha waves, whose observation seems to suggest the opposite view the brain is … more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Ascolani, Gianluca
open access

Comparing the Readability of Text Displays on Paper, E-Book Readers, and Small Screen Devices

Description: Science fiction has long promised the digitalization of books. Characters in films and television routinely check their palm-sized (or smaller) electronic displays for fast-scrolling information. However, this very technology, increasingly prevalent in today's world, has not been embraced universally. While the convenience of pocket-sized information pieces has the techno-savvy entranced, the general public still greets the advent of the e-book with a curious reluctance. This lack of enthusiasm… more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Baker, Rebecca Dawn
open access

Networking of North and West Texas Superintendents

Description: This study examined the professional networking of North and West Texas public school superintendents. It looked at how these superintendents professionally network, use professional organizations in networking, and how they extend opportunities beyond the organizations to gain knowledge and information about their demanding and stressful responsibilities. Lastly, it looked at superintendents in the field on whom others rely for knowledge and understanding. Surveys were mailed out to 443 North … more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Barber, Glenn E.
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