Search Results

open access

Role Importance, Affectional Solidarity, and Depression Among Familial Caregivers for Older Adults

Description: In the United States, familial caregivers provide approximately 80% of the long term elderly care and are at risk for mental health problems. As family members provide care, relationships shift from mutual support to increasing dependency on the caregivers, who in turn often experience a shift in self-concept from their prior relational role to include identification as caregiver for the care recipient. Affectional solidarity, or emotional relationship quality, can influence how caregivers expe… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Benson, Karen M.
open access

The Role of the Actin Cytoskeleton in Asymmetric Cell Division in Maize

Description: Stomata are specialized plant structures required for gaseous exchange with the outer environment. During stomata formation, the cytoskeleton plays an important role in controlling the division of the individual cells leading to the generation of the stomata complex. Two mutants that affect microfilament and microtubule organization in subsidiary mother cells include brk1 and dcd1. While only 20% of the subsidiary cells in the brk1 and dcd1 single mutants are abnormally shaped, it was reported… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Alhassan, Hassan Hamdan
open access

Room of Windows

Description: This thesis consists of a collection of poems and a critical preface. The preface examines the collaborative process as integral to art-making. Using a range of poems and prosody essays as support, I argue that reciprocal relationships are intrinsic to poetry, providing a model for actual collaboration. I also examine my own collaboration with a visual artist, which resulted in many of the poems in this collection.
Date: August 2014
Creator: Lynch, Erin
open access

“The Scherzo for Trombone Quartet” by John La Montaine: A Performer’s Edition

Description: In 1939, during his studies at the Eastman School of Music, John La Montaine (1920-2013) composed a Scherzo for four trombones. The Scherzo was revised more than 60 years later, becoming the third movement of a three-movement trombone quartet completed in 2001. Interestingly, the same Scherzo subsequently appeared in two of his later works: first the final movement of his Piano Concerto No. 4 Op. 59 (1989) and 12 years later as the final movement of a three-movement Trombone Quartet. The thesis… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Begnoche, David J.
open access

A Scientometric Analysis of a Marketing Theoretician: “Good Will Hunting”

Description: Albert Einstein notably asserted that “It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure.” Cast against the backdrop of Einstein’s assertion, the present research critically examines the enduring yet unresolved controversy regarding marketing as a science. Consider that the marketing discipline is nearing its first-century of inception, the Journal of Marke… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Zuberi, Mel F.
open access

Secure and Energy Efficient Execution Frameworks Using Virtualization and Light-weight Cryptographic Components

Description: Security is a primary concern in this era of pervasive computing. Hardware based security mechanisms facilitate the construction of trustworthy secure systems; however, existing hardware security approaches require modifications to the micro-architecture of the processor and such changes are extremely time consuming and expensive to test and implement. Additionally, they incorporate cryptographic security mechanisms that are computationally intensive and account for excessive energy consumption… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Nimgaonkar, Satyajeet
open access

Self-determination of Military Students in Postsecondary Education

Description: The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine undergraduate military veteran students’ self-determination and academic effort in relation to their nonveteran college peers. A total of 734 undergraduates attending 4-year institutions in Texas completed a survey, including: 76 veterans (63% males, 37% females); and 658 non-veterans (26% males, 74% females). This research created a more holistic survey of self-determination by adding the 8-item New General Self-Efficacy Scale to the 10-ite… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Placido, Robert B.
open access

Sexual Behavior During the Emerging Adult Years: Attachment and Social Support Perspectives

Description: The purpose of this study was to better understand sexual development during the transition to adulthood. Previous research was extended by testing models that examined direct effects of romantic attachment and social support on emerging adults’ sexual outcomes, as well as models that examined the mediating role of sexual motivations in those associations. Undergraduate students (n = 290, 66% female) completed questionnaires that assessed romantic attachment, social support, sexual motives, … more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Stillo, Nicole D.
open access

Shall We Play a Game?: The Performative Interactivity of Video Games

Description: This study examines the ways that videogames and live performance are informed by play theory. Utilizing performance studies methodologies, specifically personal narrative and autoperformance, the project explores the embodied ways that gamers know and understand videogames. A staged performance, “Shall We Play a Game?,” was crafted using Brechtian theatre techniques and Conquergood’s three A’s of performance, and served as the basis for the examination. This project seeks to dispel popular mi… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Beck, Michael J.
open access

Shostakovich's Use of Satire in Anti-formalist Rayok with a Focus on the Music of the Character Dt Troikin

Description: In January 1989, a much-rumored work by Dmitri Shostakovich titled Anti-Formalist Rayok received its public premiere. Rayok is a single-act satirical opera/cantata for bass soloist and mixed chorus. Each character represents a prominent Soviet political figure: Joseph Stalin, Andrei Zhdanov, and Dmitri Shepilov. The text of the libretto is either taken directly from actual speeches given by these political figures or follows their idiosyncratic style of public speaking. Rayok often falls victim… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Grabowski, Gregory
open access

Significant Alphas in Real Estate Funds

Description: This study provide empirical evidence whether bias in the standard errors of Jensen’s alpha explains conflicting results in the extant literature in real estate funds. Significant alphas in real estate mutual funds and REITs are compared with heteroskedasticity consistent covariance matrix estimators (HC1, HC2 and HC3), Newey-West standard errors, a robust regression tempering the effect of high leverage points, a GARCH model, and a HC3 adjusted wild bootstrap. In the analysis of real estate mu… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Rogers, Nina
open access

Silent Voices: the Experiences of Deaf Students in Community College

Description: Most students with hearing loss attend community college, yet very little research on this population of students exists in higher education. This dissertation is one of the first to explore the experiences of mainstreamed d/Deaf students in community college. This research was conducted in order to gain a better understanding of how students who are d/Deaf interact navigate the mainstream postsecondary environment. Purposeful sampling was used to gather data from 19 individuals who attended po… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Johnson, Serena Gail
open access

Sitting Next to Bach: the Influence of Js Bach on Sven-david Sandström’s Bach Motet Project with a Focus on the Motets “Der Geist Hilft” and “Singet Dem Herrn”

Description: In many of his choral works, Swedish composer Sven-David Sandström has sought a connection with the musical masters of the past. The number of Sandström works that bear a strong connection to Bach’s music is quite extensive and includes High Mass (1994), Magnificat (2005), the six motets (2003-2008) which constitute the Bach Motet Project under current discussion, and St. Matthew Passion, which recently premiered in Germany and Sweden in 2014. This study explores the extent to which Sven-David… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Franklin, James Christopher
open access

Somebody Else’s Second Chance

Description: Charles Baxter, in his essay “Dysfunctional Narratives: or: ‘Mistakes Were Made,’” implies that all trauma narrative is synonymous with “dysfunctional narrative,” or narrative that leaves all characters unaccountable. He writes: “In such fiction, people and events are often accused of turning the protagonist into the kind of person the protagonist is, usually an unhappy person. That’s the whole story. When blame has been assigned, the story is over.” For Baxter, trauma narrative lets everyone “… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Heiden, Elishia
open access

The State of the Field of Critical Information Literacy in Higher Education

Description: The purpose of this dissertation was to explore the state of critical information literacy (CIL) in higher education as it is enacted and understood by academic librarians. This qualitative study investigated the institutional support, nonsupport, and barriers to CIL programs and the effectiveness of experiential critical pedagogy for information literacy (IL) learning as taught and studied by 19 CIL specialists. Purposeful sampling was used to gather a sample of 17 academic librarians and two … more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Downey, Annie L.
open access

A Stimulus Control Analysis of the Misinformation Effect

Description: This paper explores research on the misinformation effect and hypothesizes a new explanation for the occurrence misinformation effect. Current psychological theories states the misinformation effect occurs when memories are skewed by the presentation of new information after an initial event. This effect has been tested in a multitude of ways, including testing words lists, pictures, colors, and change blindness. Socially, the misinformation effect has been used to explain the inaccuracies of e… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Tait, Kelly M.
open access

A Structural and Psychometric Evaluation of a Situational Judgment Test: The Workplace Skills Survey

Description: Some basic but desirable employability skills are antecedents of job performance. The Workplace Skills Survey (WSS) is a 48-item situational judgment test (SJT) used to assess non-technical workplace skills for both entry-level and experienced workers. Unfortunately, the psychometric evidence for use of its scores is far from adequate. The purpose of current study was two-fold: (a) to examine the proposed structure of WSS scores using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and (b) to explore the W… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Wei, Min
open access

Student Involvement and Self-authorship Among African American Undergraduate Students at a STEM-focused University

Description: The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the association between student involvement and self-authorship among African American undergraduate students enrolled at a medium-sized, North Texas STEM-focused university. Self-identified African American undergraduate students at the university completed an online, researcher-developed survey focused on co-curricular involvement activities, degree of involvement in those activities, and perceived self-authorship indicators. From the comp… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: McNulty McCoy, Netreia Z.
open access

Supervisors, Trainees, and Client Outcomes in the Training Clinic: Toward an Understanding of Relational Factors

Description: Estimates of healthy years of life lost due to mental illness are increasing, calling greater attention to the provision of effective psychotherapy services. Hypothesized to be the key mechanism through which competencies are developed in trainee clinicians and subsequent client outcomes, clinical supervision is deserving of greater attention. Drawing on a sample of supervisors, trainees, and clients from a training clinic, the present study sought to clarify the relational factors that could f… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Rieck, Troy P.
open access

Synthesis of Tethering Group on Borylazadipyrromethene Dyes to Apply to Photogalvanic Dye-sensitized Solar Cells

Description: This is my thesis research on the preparation of borylazadipyrromethene (azaBODIPY) dyes bearing an anchoring group, such as a carboxylic acid group, at the β-pyrrolic position of the azadipyrromethene scaffold. Carboxylate groups form covalent bonds to oxide semiconductors such as TiO2 (n-type) or Cu2O (p-type) in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) or photogalvanic dye-sensitized solar cells (P-DSCs). Oxide-binding azaBODIPY dyes can be used to investigate the rate and mechanism of electron inj… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Park, Eunsol
open access

Teachers’ Perceptions of Their Responsibilities in Teaching Social Emotional Skills: a Case Study

Description: This study investigated the beliefs of teachers at a particular elementary campus in North Texas during its first year of implementation of a social emotional curriculum regarding teaching social emotional skills and the influence of those beliefs on their classroom practices. The study drew from the works of Dewey and Bandura in the development of a framework for teacher decision making. A case study design incorporating multiple cases within the case study utilized a mixed-methods approach fo… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Madueke, Nkechi A.
open access

Teaching Fundamentals of Digital Logic Design and VLSI Design Using Computational Textiles

Description: This thesis presents teaching fundamentals of digital logic design and VLSI design for freshmen and even for high school students using e-textiles. This easily grabs attention of students as it is creative and interesting. Using e-textiles to project these concepts would be easily understood by students at young age. This involves stitching electronic circuits on a fabric using basic components like LEDs, push buttons and so on. The functioning of these circuits is programmed in Lilypad Arduino… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Inampudi, Sivateja
open access

Temporal Complexity and Stochastic Central Limit Theorem

Description: Complex processes whose evolution in time rests on the occurrence of a large and random number of intermittent events are the systems under study. The mean time distance between two consecutive events is infinite, thereby violating the ergodic condition and activating at the same time a stochastic central limit theorem that explains why the Mittag-Leffler function is a universal property of nature. The time evolution of these complex systems is properly generated by means of fractional differen… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Pramukkul, Pensri
open access

Temporality and Rhythmic Structure in Thirteen Drums by Maki Ishii and Rebond a by Iannis Xenakis

Description: This dissertation will focus on the concepts of musical time of two solo multiple-percussion compositions, Thirteen Drums (1985) by Maki Ishii and Rebond A (1987-1989) by Iannis Xenakis. The aesthetic experience of musical works is tied to the perception of musical time. Performers have to understand the concepts and methods of construction of musical time in order to interpreting composer’s works. The model of cognitive process in neuroscience of music and the information processing theory fro… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Liu, Yi-Jan
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