Search Results

open access

An 8-Step Program: Shaping and Fixed-Time Food Delivery Effects on Several Approximations and Undesired Responses in Goats.

Description: This study investigated the effects of a shaping program for halter training across 8 steps in the program and 4 trial-terminating, or "undesirable," responses. Three La Mancha goats (Capra hircus) located at the Frank Buck Zoo in Gainesville, Texas were used for the study. A fixed-time 15 s (FT-15 s) was used during the baseline conditions, to examine the effects of response contingent and response-independent food deliveries, as well as to examine what preliminary steps might not necessarily … more
Date: May 2003
Creator: Fernandez, Eduardo J.
open access

Agent-Based Architecture for Web Deployment of Multi-Agents as Conversational Interfaces.

Description: Agent-based architecture explains the rationale and basis for developing agents that can interact with users through natural language query/answer patterns developed systematically using AIML (artificial intelligence mark-up language) scripts. This thesis research document also explains the architecture for VISTA (virtual interactive story-telling agents), which is used for interactive querying in educational and recreational purposes. Agents are very effective as conversational interfaces when… more
Date: May 2003
Creator: Pothuru, Ranjit Kumar
open access

Agent Extensions for Peer-to-Peer Networks.

Description: Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks have seen tremendous growth in development and usage in recent times. This attention has brought many developments as well as new challenges to these networks. We will show that agent extensions to P2P networks offer solutions to many problems faced by P2P networks. In this research, an attempt is made to bring together JXTA P2P infrastructure and Jinni, a Prolog based agent engine to form an agent based P2P network. On top of the JXTA, we define simple Java API prov… more
Date: December 2003
Creator: Valiveti, Kalyan
open access

Analysis and expression of the cotton gene for the D-12 fatty acid desaturases 2-4 (FAD2-4)

Description: A genomic clone containing a 16.9-kb segment of cotton DNA was found to encompass a D-12 fatty acid desaturases (FAD2-4) gene. The FAD2-4 gene has a single, large intron of 2,780 bp in its 5'-untranslated region, just 12 bp upstream from the ATG initiation codon of the FAD2-4 opening reading frame. A number of prospective promoter elements, including several light-responsive sequences, occur in the 5'-flanking region. The coding region of the gene is 1155 bp with no introns, and would encode… more
Date: August 2003
Creator: Park, Stacy J.
open access

Analysis of Japanese Exports and Imports of Rice

Description: This research shows that the Japanese rice policy has affected the volume of exported and imported rice; moreover, multilateral and bilateral agreements have also affected Japanese rice policy. Japan's institution of subsidies and trade barriers has made its rice products too expensive for foreign trade and its domestic consumers. Since the WTO agreement has forced Japan to open its market gradually over six years, Japan may be unable to compete internationally because of its limited land, high… more
Date: May 2003
Creator: Shiraiwa, Toshio

An Analysis of Motivational Cues in Virtual Environments.

Description: Guiding navigation in virtual environments (VEs) is a challenging task. A key issue in the navigation of a virtual environment is to be able to strike a balance between the user's need to explore the environment freely and the designer's need to ensure that the user experiences all the important events in the VE. This thesis reports on a study aimed at comparing the effectiveness of various navigation cues that are used to motivate users towards a specific target location. The results of this s… more
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Date: December 2003
Creator: Voruganti, Lavanya
open access

Applications of Remote Sensing and GIS to Modeling Fire for Vegetative Restoration in Northern Arizona

Description: An accurate fire model is a useful tool in predicting the behavior of a prescribed fire. Simulation of fire requires an extensive amount of data and can be accomplished best using GIS applications. This paper demonstrates integrative procedures of using of ArcGIS™, ERDAS Imagine™, GPS, and FARSITE© to predict prescribed fire behavior on the Kaibab-Paiute Reservation. ArcGIS was used to create a database incorporating all variables into a common spatial reference system and format for the FARSIT… more
Date: August 2003
Creator: Hardison, Tanya
open access

The Appropriate Use of Human Intelligence in Combating Terrorism

Description: When we looked at different issues in terrorism such as definitions, descriptions and motivations, groups and supporters, tactics, strategies, and victims of terrorists and terrorist activities, we see that terrorism is an issue that can occur at any time, and in any place, and it seems that the terrorism threat will still exist in the future. It is almost impossible to stop all terrorist activities all over the world, but it is possible to formulate an anti-terrorism policy that can keep terro… more
Date: August 2003
Creator: Koseli, Mutlu
open access

The aquatic insect communities of Holbrook Creek and Cochetopa Creek in Colorado.

Description: The first objective for this problem in lieu of thesis project was to gather, identify to the lowest practical taxonomic level and organize all available aquatic insects collected from high altitude Colorado aquatic systems during the summers of 1994, 1996, 1998, and 2002 for the University of North Texas Environmental Science Field Course (BIOL 5650). The curated collection will be housed in the Elm Fork Natural History Museum, located at the University of North Texas. The second objective was… more
Date: December 2003
Creator: Wallace, Mark Allen
open access

Assessing Measurement Equivalence of the English and Spanish Versions on an Employee Attitude Survey Using Multigroup Analysis in Structural Equation Modeling.

Description: The study utilized the covariance structure comparison methodology - Multigroup Analysis in Structural Equation Modeling - evaluating measurement equivalence of English and Spanish versions of an employee opinion survey. The concept of measurement equivalence was defined as consisting of four components: sample equivalence, semantic equivalence, conceptual equivalence and scalar equivalence. The results revealed that the two language versions of the survey exhibited acceptable measurement equiv… more
Date: August 2003
Creator: Koulikov, Mikhail
open access

Assessment of Resident and Staff Activity in a State Residential Setting

Description: Previous studies have demonstrated the use of momentary time-sampling methods for the objective measurement of naturally occurring events (Zarcone, Iwata, Rodgers & Vollmer, 1993; Shore, Lerman, Smith, Iwata & DeLeon, 1995). These studies have provided information about observed levels and characteristics of direct care services, supervision, resident activity and facility conditions. The present study evaluated the utility of these assessment procedures in a residential facility for developmen… more
Date: December 2003
Creator: Galletta, Katharine Lena
open access

Attentional Focus Strategies of Multi-Sport Athletes.

Description: The purpose of this study was to determine (a) the attentional focus strategies used by triathletes during the three stages of an Olympic distance triathlon, (b) if level of experience influences the attentional focus strategies used by triathletes, and (c) whether there is a relationship between athletes finishing times and the attentional strategies used in each stage of the race. Triathletes (N = 160) completed the Triathlon Attentional Focus Inventory, which measured association and dissoci… more
Date: August 2003
Creator: Werner, Sara M.
open access

Ballistic Deposition: Global Scaling and Local Time Series.

Description: Complexity can emerge from extremely simple rules. A paradigmatic example of this is the model of ballistic deposition (BD), a simple model of sedimentary rock growth. In two separate Problem-in-Lieu-of Thesis studies, BD was investigated numerically in (1+1)-D on a lattice. Both studies are combined in this document. For problem I, the global interface roughening (IR) process was studied in terms of effective scaling exponents for a generalized BD model. The model used incorporates a tunable p… more
Date: December 2003
Creator: Schwettmann, Arne
open access

Benchmark-based Page Replacement (BBPR) Strategy: A New Web Cache Page Replacement Strategy

Description: World Wide Web caching is widely used through today's Internet. When correctly deployed, Web caching systems can lead to significant bandwidth savings, network load reduction, server load balancing, and higher content availability. A document replacement algorithm that can lower retrieval latency and yield high hit ratio is the key to the effectiveness of proxy caches. More than twenty cache algorithms have been employed in academic studies and in corporate communities as well. But there are so… more
Date: May 2003
Creator: He, Wei

Bounded Dynamic Source Routing in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Description: A mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a collection of mobile platforms or nodes that come together to form a network capable of communicating with each other, without the help of a central controller. To avail the maximum potential of a MANET, it is of great importance to devise a routing scheme, which will optimize upon the performance of a MANET, given the high rate of random mobility of the nodes. In a MANET individual nodes perform the routing functions like route discovery, route maintenance … more
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Date: August 2003
Creator: George, Glyco
open access

British and Indian Influences in the Identities and Literature of Mark Tully and Ruskin Bond

Description: With globalization and modernization, increasingly people are influenced by multiple cultures. This paper examines the case of two authors, Mark Tully and Ruskin Bond, who were born in India shortly before India's Independence (1947). Both had British parents, but one considers himself Indian while the other has retained his British identity. The focus of this paper is how and why this difference has occurred and how it has influenced their writing. Both Tully and Bond write short stories about… more
Date: August 2003
Creator: Lakhani, Brenda
open access

Building an Intelligent Filtering System Using Idea Indexing

Description: The widely used vector model maintains its popularity because of its simplicity, fast speed, and the appeal of using spatial proximity for semantic proximity. However, this model faces a disadvantage that is associated with the vagueness from keywords overlapping. Efforts have been made to improve the vector model. The research on improving document representation has been focused on four areas, namely, statistical co-occurrence of related items, forming term phrases, grouping of related words,… more
Date: August 2003
Creator: Yang, Li
open access

Case-Based Reasoning for Children Story Selection in ASP.NET

Description: This paper describes the general architecture and function of a Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) system implemented with ASP.NET and C#. Microsoft Visual Studio .NET and XML Web Services provide a flexible, standards-based model that allows clients to access data. Web Form Pages offer a powerful programming model for Web-enabled user interface. The system provides a variety of mechanisms and services related to story retrieval and adaptation. Users may browse and search a library of text stories. Mor… more
Date: December 2003
Creator: Hu, Demin

Characterization of Iron Oxide Deposits Formed at Comanche Peak Steam Electric Station

Description: The presence of deposits leading to corrosion of the steam generator (SG) systems is a major contributor to operation and maintenance cost of pressurized water reactor (PWR) plants. Formation and transport of corrosion products formed due to the presence of impurities, metallic oxides and cations in the secondary side of the SG units result in formation of deposits. This research deals with the characterization of deposit samples collected from the two SG units (unit 1 and unit 2) at Comanche P… more
Access: Restricted to the UNT Community Members at a UNT Libraries Location.
Date: May 2003
Creator: Namduri, Haritha
open access

Coaching Behavior Preferences of Interscholastic Athletes

Description: The purpose of this study was to determine whether coaching behavior preferences of interscholastic athletes differ as a function of gender and type of sport. The Coaching Behavior Questionnaire (CBQ; Martin & Barnes, 1999) was administered to 372 interscholastic athletes. The mean scores of the participants' responses to each subscale on the CBQ were the dependent variables and gender and type of sport were the independent variables. Descriptive statistics revealed that female and male intersc… more
Date: May 2003
Creator: Kravig, Seth Dayton

Combating Corruption: A Comparison of National Anti-Corruption Efforts

Description: The primary goal of this thesis is to provide a comparative analysis of the institutional and organizational mechanisms designed to monitor and control political corruption at the national level. The paper will provide comparisons of these arraignments and control systems across three nations. The thesis will identify differences across countries in terms of organizational and institutional political corruption control mechanisms, and use the CPI index to suggest and identify those control mech… more
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Date: August 2003
Creator: Turer, Ahmet

Comparative Bioavailability of Dietary and Dissolved Cadmium to Freshwater Aquatic Snails

Description: Heavy metal bioaccumulation in aquatic organisms may occur through direct or indirect uptake routes. Research indicates that the significance of uptake route varies with contaminant and organism exposed. The relative importance of different metal sources in aquatic systems was investigated by exposing freshwater snails to dietary or dissolved sources of cadmium. Snails were exposed to control, contaminated food only, contaminated water only, and contaminated food and water treatments. During… more
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Date: December 2003
Creator: White, Jessica C.
open access

A Comparison of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering Frameworks and Methodologies

Description: Agent-oriented software engineering (AOSE) covers issues on developing systems with software agents. There are many techniques, mostly agent-oriented and object-oriented, ready to be chosen as building blocks to create agent-based systems. There have been several AOSE methodologies proposed intending to show engineers guidelines on how these elements are constituted in having agents achieve the overall system goals. Although these solutions are promising, most of them are designed in ad-hoc man… more
Date: December 2003
Creator: Lin, Chia-En

The Concept of Dignity in the Early Science Fiction Novels of Kurt Vonnegut.

Description: Kurt Vonnegut's early science fiction novels depict societies and characters that, as in the real world, have become callous and downtrodden. These works use supercomputers, aliens, and space travel, often in a comical manner, to demonstrate that the future, unless people change their concepts of humanity, will not be the paradise of advanced technology and human harmony that some may expect. In fact, Vonnegut suggests that the human condition may gradually worsen if people continue to look fur… more
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Date: May 2003
Creator: Dye, Scott Allen
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