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open access

The Preparation of Academic Library Administrators

Description: The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine the preparation methods experienced by academic library deans and which methods they perceived to be most valuable. Rosser, Johnsrud, and Heck (2000, 2003) defined the theoretical constructs of effective academic leadership upon which this study is based. The instrument—a modified version of Greicar's (2009) Professional Preparation of Academic Deans Questionnaire—was administered online. The population was the chief administrators of acad… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Hoffman, Starr
open access

Rational Design of Metal-organic Electronic Devices: a Computational Perspective

Description: Organic and organometallic electronic materials continue to attract considerable attention among researchers due to their cost effectiveness, high flexibility, low temperature processing conditions and the continuous emergence of new semiconducting materials with tailored electronic properties. In addition, organic semiconductors can be used in a variety of important technological devices such as solar cells, field-effect transistors (FETs), flash memory, radio frequency identification (RFID) t… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Chilukuri, Bhaskar
open access

Relationships Among Self-esteem, Psychological and Cognitive Flexibility, and Psychological Symptomatology

Description: Previous findings on the relationship between self-esteem and psychological outcomes are inconsistent. Therefore it appears that self-esteem, while related to crucial variables, does not provide a clear, direct, and comprehensive prediction of psychological symptoms. Thus, it was hypothesized that the relationship between self-esteem and symptomatology would be moderated by broader measures of how one interacts with emotional and cognitive stimuli.The purpose of this study was to examine the in… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Al-Jabari, Rawya M.
open access

The Rise of the Republicans: Party Realignment in Twentieth Century Texas

Description: This dissertation is a study of the political transformation of Texas during the twentieth century from a predominantly Democratic to a two-party state. It is commonly asserted that the fundamental conservatism of Texas voters led them to abandon the national Democratic Party as it embraced more liberal reforms. This shift led to a rise in support in Texas for the Republican Party, which continued to advocate a more conservative agenda. But this change demands a more thorough explanation at t… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Antle, Michael L.
open access

A Schoolwide Tiered Intervention for Increasing Fruit and Vegetable Consumption

Description: Childhood obesity rates in the U.S. are increasing. Increasing intake of fruits and vegetables is one method to combat obesity. The purpose of this study was to examine a tiered approach to fruit and vegetable consumption with 26 children in an inclusive preschool. The first tier included ongoing availability and opportunity to eat fruits and vegetables (exposure). The second tier included programmed consequences (a reward system). A multiple baseline across children and classrooms was use… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Mendoza, Blanca L.
open access

Semi-supervised and Self-evolving Learning Algorithms with Application to Anomaly Detection in Cloud Computing

Description: Semi-supervised learning (SSL) is the most practical approach for classification among machine learning algorithms. It is similar to the humans way of learning and thus has great applications in text/image classification, bioinformatics, artificial intelligence, robotics etc. Labeled data is hard to obtain in real life experiments and may need human experts with experimental equipments to mark the labels, which can be slow and expensive. But unlabeled data is easily available in terms of web pa… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Pannu, Husanbir Singh
open access

The Sex Offender Registry in Collin County, Texas: a Descriptive Analysis of Sex Offenders

Description: The primary goal of this study was to analyze the characteristics of current registered sex offenders in Collin County, Texas, as well as to compare age and gender of the victims of these offenders in order to know who sex offenders primarily target in these crimes. The study also sought to discover geographic patterns of where the registered sex offenders reside for the purpose of keeping communities aware. Participants consisted of 175 registered sex offenders (N = 175) in Collin County, Texa… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Valenzuela, Priscilla
open access

Shifting Paradigms, Changing Fortunes: Fundraising at Makerere University

Description: Fundraising for higher education is a recent phenomenon in Uganda where the government has supported education for decades. Recent structural adjustment and liberalization policies mandated by the World Bank and the IMF and internal financial exigencies have necessitated funding diversification in higher education in Uganda and increased the need for private financial support. In developed countries like the United States, Canada, and increasingly, the United Kingdom, private support from alumn… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Niwagaba, Lillian Katono Butungi
open access

Sibling Relationship Quality: Associations with Marital and Coparenting Subsystems

Description: Marital relationships play an important role in family functioning and in the development of sibling relationships. From a family systems perspective, other subsystems within the family, such as coparenting interactions, could explain the effects of the marital relationship on sibling bonds. Specifically, the quality of the coparenting relationship may mediate the association between marital functioning and sibling relationship quality. The current study examined relationships between these … more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Guinn, Megan D.
open access

A Silent Cry: Visualizing Data on Sex Trafficking

Description: In this era of globalization, human trafficking is emerging as a major theme, with rapid movement of information, capital and people across international borders. Despite the red alert over the issue, the crime of human trafficking remains highly unreported even in the most developed countries like United States of America. This silence over the issue in this country can be attributed to the lack of awareness about its prevalence in our own back yard and the measures available against it. This … more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Singh, Arvind Daman
open access

Similarities and Differences in Borderline and Other Symptomology Among Women Survivors of Interpersonal Trauma with and Without Complex Ptsd

Description: Women interpersonal chronic trauma survivors are frequently misdiagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD) or post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which often results in mistreatment. Neither PTSD nor BPD adequately describes the unique character alterations observed among those exposed to prolonged early childhood trauma.  Researchers suggest survivors of interpersonal and chronic trauma should be subsumed under complex PTSD (CPTSD)(MacLean & Gallop, 2003).  The primary purpose of t… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Marchesani, Estee Simpkins
open access

Slogans and Opposition Political Culture: Online Discourse in Iran's Green Movement

Description: In this study I investigate the Iranian Green Movement supporters' use of slogans as political discourse on the Persian-language opposition website www.kaleme.com. Data was collected from the website's Kaleme section in the form of 22 articles and 3,500 user comments. A coding scheme was constructed to measure the presence of categories and themes in the site's comments section. Findings support the propositions of narrative theorists (e.g. Franzosi, 1998; Benford, 1993) that frequent use of sl… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Ryan, Trent
open access

Solid Lubrication Mechanisms in Laser Deposited Nickel-titanium-carbon Metal Matrix Composites

Description: A Ni/TiC/C metal matrix composite (MMC) has been processed using the laser engineered net shaping (LENS) process from commercially available powders with a Ni-3Ti-20C (atomic %) composition. This processing route produces the in-situ formation of homogeneously distributed eutectic and primary titanium carbide and graphite precipitates throughout the Ni matrix. The composite exhibits promising tribological properties when tested in dry sliding conditions with a low steady state coefficient of fr… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Mogonye, Jon-Erik
open access

Somatostatin Receptors on Neuronal Cilia: Evidence for Neuroprotection

Description: Primary cilia are essential in brain development, as mediators of sonic hedgehog signaling. However, their role in mature neurons remains elusive. One means to elucidate their function may be to investigate the function of the somatostatin type 3 receptor (SstR3), which is concentrated on the primary cilia of neurons. The inhibitory and anticonvulsant properties of somatostatin suggest that ciliary SstR3 might protect neurons against excitotoxicity, as seen in epileptic seizures. C57BL/6 wi… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Evans, Shakila K.
open access

Source and Channel Coding Strategies for Wireless Sensor Networks

Description: In this dissertation, I focus on source coding techniques as well as channel coding techniques. I addressed the challenges in WSN by developing (1) a new source coding strategy for erasure channels that has better distortion performance compared to MDC; (2) a new cooperative channel coding strategy for multiple access channels that has better channel outage performances compared to MIMO; (3) a new source-channel cooperation strategy to accomplish source-to-fusion center communication that reduc… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Li, Li
open access

Spatio-temporal Variation of Nitrate Levels in Groundwater in Texas, 1970 to 2010

Description: This study looks at spatial variation of groundwater nitrate in Texas and its fluctuations at 10 year increments using data from the Texas Water Development Board. While groundwater nitrate increased in the Ogallala and Seymour aquifers across the time period, the overall rate in Texas appears to be declining as time progresses. However, the available data is limited. Findings show that a much more targeted, knowledge based strategy for sampling would not only reduce the cost of water qualit… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Rice, Susan C.
open access

Staying Connected: Technology Use in Grandparent-grandchild Relationships

Description: Despite the distance that often separates grandparents from their young adult grandchildren, the abundance of new technologies provides numerous means of connection for the grandparent-grandchild (GP-GC) dyad. The purpose of this study was to understand how grandparents use technology, namely text messaging and Facebook, in relationships with their young adult grandchildren. Specifically, the aim was to understand grandparents' purposes for using these technologies with their grandchildren, the… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Novak, Hannah R.
open access

The Structural Determinants of Americans' Justice Perceptions Toward Inequality in the U.S.

Description: In accordance with structural theory and distributive justice theory, this study investigates if Americans' personal encounters with the opportunity structure and their existing reward conditions will influence their perceptions toward distribution outcomes in the U.S. I argue that higher-status individuals possessing various "attributes of structural privilege" will exhibit less support for regulating income inequality in society than lower-status individuals. Upward mobility should also be ne… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Ong, Corinne
open access

Student Facilitation and Predictors of Engagement in Peer-Led Literature Circle Discussions

Description: The purpose of this research was to examine the relation between students' personality traits and the extent of their engagement and facilitation in peer-led literature circle discussions. The research was guided by two questions. To what extent do reading ability, gender, and personality traits predict the quality of verbal engagement in literature circles? and How do highly engaged participants facilitate discussion in the circles? The researcher video-taped 17 fourth-grade students' literat… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Young, Chase
open access

Students' Attitudes Towards Rapport-building Traits and Practices in Online Learning Environments

Description: This research was a triangulated study of student attitudes towards instructors' rapport-building traits and their preferences amongst instructors' rapport-building practices in online learning environments. Participants were undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in courses within an educational technology program at a central Texas university. The study employed a mixed-methods approach involving the Likert-item assessment of learners' attitudes, the identification and prioritization of… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Wright, Robert Demmon
open access

Study of Novel Ion/surface Interactions Using Soft-landing Ion Mobility

Description: Preparative mass spectrometry is a gas-phase ion deposition technique aimed at deposition of monodisperse ion beams on a surface. This is accomplished through the implementation of a soft-landing ion mobility system which allows for high ion flux of conformationally selected ion packets. The soft-landing ion mobility system has been applied to a number of unique chemical problems including the deposition of insulators on graphene, the preparation of reusable surface enhanced Raman spectroscop… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Hoffmann, William Darryle
open access

The Success Of A Nation's Soccer Team: A Bellwether Regarding A Nation's Electronic Information Infrastructure, The Legal Regulations That Govern The Infrastructure, The Resulting Citizen-Trust In Its Government And Its E-Readiness In Nigeria, The DPRK, China, Japan, South Korea, The Netherlands And The United States

Description: This article discusses a bellwether regarding a nation's electronic information infrastructure, the legal regulations that govern the infrastructure, the resulting citizen-trust in its government and its e-readiness in seven countries.
Date: December 1, 2012
Creator: Helge, Kris
open access

Sustainable Environmental Identities for Environmental Sustainability: Remaking Environmental Identities with the Help of Indigenous Knowledge

Description: Early literature in the field of environmental ethics suggests that environmental problems are not technological problems requiring technological solutions, but rather are problems deeply rooted in Western value systems calling for a reorientation of our values. This dissertation examines what resources are available to us in reorienting our values if this starting point is correct. Three positions can be observed in the environmental ethics literature on this issue: 1. We can go back and rei… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Parker, Jonathan
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