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open access

Children's Experiences in Child-Centered Play Therapy: An Artwork-Based Phenomenological Investigation

Description: Child-centered play therapy (CCPT) is an empirically endorsed approach for children facing specific clinical concerns and life circumstances alike. The majority of research to date has accrued data about clients from secondary sources, such as adult report and observation. The purpose of this study was to explore children's perceptions of participating in CCPT by implementing a developmentally accessible interview medium, allowing children to share their experiences directly. Ten children betwe… more
Date: July 2023
Creator: Quinn, Carol
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Hypoxia-Induced Cardiac Arrest Alters Central Nervous System Concentrations of the GLYT2 Glycine Transporter in Zebrafish (Danio rerio)

Description: Hypoxia as a stressor has physiological implications that have been a focal point for many physiological studies in recent years. In some studies, hypoxia had large effects on the organ tissue degeneration, which ultimately effects multiple ecological processes. These organ tissue studies played a part in the development of new fields like neurocardiology, a specialty that studied the relationship between the brain and the heart. This thesis focuses on how hypoxia-induced cardiac arrest alte… more
Date: July 2023
Creator: Auzenne, Alexis
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Deep Learning Approaches to Radio Map Estimation

Description: Radio map estimation (RME) is the task of predicting radio power at all locations in a two-dimensional area and at all frequencies in a given band. This thesis explores four deep learning approaches to RME: dual path autoencoders, skip connection autoencoders, diffusion, and joint learning with transmitter localization.
Date: July 2023
Creator: Locke IV, William Alexander
Partner: UNT Libraries

Novel Phase-Chance Soft Actuators Controlled via Peltier

Description: Soft actuation methods are a developing field of robotics deemed suitable for physical human-robot interactions due to the adaptability of materials and compliant structures. Thermo-active soft actuators are a subset of these which convert thermal energy to mechanical work in the form of elongation, bending, or twisting to conform to the environment. This study is divided into three major studies that all use actuators with a working principle of phase-change fluid vaporizing for expansion with… more
This item is restricted from view until February 1, 2024.
Date: July 2023
Creator: Johnson, Daniel Cody
Partner: UNT Libraries

Implementing the Difference in Differences (Dd) Estimator in Observational Education Studies: Evaluating the Effects of Small, Guided Reading Instruction for English Language Learners

Description: The present study provides an example of implementing the difference in differences (DD) estimator for a two-group, pretest-posttest design with K-12 educational intervention data. The goal is to explore the basis for causal inference via Rubin's potential outcomes framework. The DD method is introduced to educational researchers, as it is seldom implemented in educational research. DD analytic methods' mathematical formulae and assumptions are explored to understand the opportunity and the cha… more
This item is restricted from view until February 1, 2024.
Date: July 2023
Creator: Sebastian, Princy
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

β, β'-π-Extended Porphyrins: Exploration of Functionalization and Aromatic Character

Description: Seventeen new dithiophenyl- and napthodithiophenyl- fused porphyrins were synthesized; from these an additional 7 porphyrin oligomers were also synthesized. Additionally freebase 2,7-dimethoxytriphenylene fused porphyrin was also synthesized from a freebase precursor. Aromatic indices NICS and AICD were used to evaluate these new molecules.
Date: July 2023
Creator: Cooper, Courtney Taylor
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Accessibility and Pedagogical Value in Virtuosic American Trombone Solo Literature: A Performance Guide to "Divertimento for Trombone and Band" (2012) by Jack Stamp

Description: This dissertation is an examination of Divertimento for Solo Trombone and Wind Band by renowned wind band composer and conductor Jack Stamp. The result of this study is the illumination of a 21st-century composition for solo trombone and band that is made accessible for future performers, accomplished by constructing original musical exercises that are influenced by current trombone pedagogical materials that have either been edited, annotated or created by current performers and pedagogues s… more
Date: July 2023
Creator: Umholtz, Jeremiah L.
Partner: UNT Libraries

Blockchain for AI: Smarter Contracts to Secure Artificial Intelligence Algorithms

Description: In this dissertation, I investigate the existing smart contract problems that limit cognitive abilities. I use Taylor's serious expansion, polynomial equation, and fraction-based computations to overcome the limitations of calculations in smart contracts. To prove the hypothesis, I use these mathematical models to compute complex operations of naive Bayes, linear regression, decision trees, and neural network algorithms on Ethereum public test networks. The smart contracts achieve 95\% predict… more
This item is restricted from view until February 1, 2024.
Date: July 2023
Creator: Badruddoja, Syed
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The University for Who? Student Narratives of Native Identity, Belonging, and Navigating a Racialized Organization

Description: This qualitative case study aims to understand the ways in which students identifying as Native American, American Indian, and Indigenous navigate attending a university informed by their identities. Through semi-structured interviews with Indigenous students and participant observation with a Native American student organization, this study identified how this demographic of students navigate and conceptualize their identities as Native and Indigenous peoples, the benefits of joining a Native … more
Date: July 2023
Creator: Gaston, Emilia Morgan
Partner: UNT Libraries

Small Scale Fracture Mechanisms in Alloys with Varying Microstructural Complexity

Description: Small-scale fracture behavior of four model alloy systems were investigated in the order of increasing microstructural complexity, namely: (i) a Ni-based Bulk Metallic Glass (Ni-BMG) with an isotropic amorphous microstructure; (ii) a single-phase high entropy alloy, HfTaTiVZr, with body centered cubic (BCC) microstructure; (iii) a dual-phase high entropy alloy, AlCoCrFeNi2.1, with eutectic FCC (L12) -BCC (B2) microstructure; and (iv) a Medium-Mn steel with hierarchical microstructure. The micro… more
This item is restricted from view until August 1, 2025.
Date: July 2023
Creator: Jha, Shristy
Partner: UNT Libraries

Three Essays on Collective Privacy and Information Security

Description: In Essay 1, we seek to expand the insights on an individual's decision to share group content. Social networking sites (SNS) have become a ubiquitous means of socializing in the digital age. Using a survey, we collected data from 520 respondents with corporate work experience to test our research model. Our analysis highlights the complex interplay between individual and group factors that shape users' risk-benefit analysis of sharing group content on social networking sites. Furthermore, the r… more
This item is restricted from view until August 1, 2024.
Date: July 2023
Creator: Memarian Esfahani, Sara
Partner: UNT Libraries

Ready for Primetime: The American First Army at St. Mihiel, 1918

Description: The American's battle of St. Mihiel in September 1918 has long been a marginalized battle in an almost forgotten war. In the historiography of American World War I involvement, the battle is relegated to a side-show that was little more than a distraction from the Meuse-Argonne. This stance needs to be re-evaluated as St. Mihiel proved an essential training ground for the US Army. The army rapidly expanded and participated in a major offensive, completed the complicated planning process, undert… more
This item is restricted from view until August 1, 2028.
Date: July 2023
Creator: Jameson, Sarah
Partner: UNT Libraries

An Assessment and Intervention Model for Establishing Observational Learning during Tact Trials

Description: Observational learning (OL) allows an individual to acquire novel responses by observing others' behavior and the corresponding consequences. The complexity of skills involved with OL may vary with the learning context. A learner may observe modeled responses to both trained (known) and untrained (unknown) stimuli or they may observe both reinforced (correct) and nonreinforced (incorrect) responses. The purpose of this study was to develop assessment and training procedures for OL component ski… more
This item is restricted from view until August 1, 2028.
Date: July 2023
Creator: Sansing, Elizabeth McKay
Partner: UNT Libraries

Differentiating Cardiac Organoids with Chamber Formations

Description: Considering that both cardiovascular disease (CVD) and congenital heart diseases (CHD) are still the leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, there is a need for a robust and reliable cardiac model. Cardiac organoids are complex, three-dimensional cellular constructs that recapitulate the processes of the human embryonic heart. However, certain vital morphological features within the fetus are not yet replicable with cardiac organoids. Here we report our investigation to generate car… more
This item is restricted from view until August 1, 2024.
Date: July 2023
Creator: Seddoh, Percyval Prince-Danny
Partner: UNT Libraries

The Governor and the Gangster: Dewey, Luciano, Commutation, and Controversy

Description: Thomas E. Dewey and Charles "Lucky" Luciano became household names during a 1936 vice trial in which Dewey successfully prosecuted Luciano, a prominent Mafioso, who received a thirty-to-fifty-year prison sentence. Later, Dewey became the Governor of New York and a perennial Republican presidential candidate while Luciano, still in prison, took part in a joint Navy-Mafia intelligence operation in World War II. In 1946, Governor Dewey commuted Luciano's sentence on the condition that he be depo… more
This item is restricted from view until August 1, 2028.
Date: July 2023
Creator: Rzeppa, Joseph
Partner: UNT Libraries

Design and Synthesis of Gold (I) Acyclic Diamino Carbene Complexes as Metallodrugs for Cancer and for Asymmetric Catalysis

Description: Many previous studies have demonstrated that gold compounds possess successful results in catalysis and in medicinal chemistry. The central aim of this dissertation is the design and synthesis of novel gold (I) acyclic diamino carbene complexes as a chemotherapeutic agent for triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) and for catalysis. In this study, a series of chiral neutral and cationic gold (I) acyclic diamino carbene (ADC) complexes and neutral gold (I) bis- ADC complexes have been synthesize… more
This item is restricted from view until August 1, 2025.
Date: July 2023
Creator: Asuramana Pedi Durayalage, Roshani
Partner: UNT Libraries

Ambient Darkness and Consumer Behavior

Description: Ambient lighting has emerged as a key atmospheric factor influencing how consumers process environmental cues and their behaviors. However, surprisingly little research has examined how people think and feel in the dark (lower than 15 lux). This is particularly relevant given that consumers routinely work, pay bills, relax, consume and make purchases in settings with little or no light. My dissertation addresses this gap by examining how consumers regulate their goals and process information wh… more
This item is restricted from view until August 1, 2025.
Date: July 2023
Creator: Vo, Khue Ho Thuc
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Community College Presidents and Their Role in American Democracy: A Narrative Inquiry

Description: The American democracy is experiencing strain from the erosion of democratic norms and its political, judicial, social, and economic institutions. In short, the American democracy shows signs of democratic deconsolidation. Community colleges are higher education institutions that help consolidate the U.S. democracy by representing democratic values such as equality and opportunity. The purpose of my study was to explore how selected community college presidents understand and articulate the res… more
Date: July 2023
Creator: Sanders, Jonathon Mark
Partner: UNT Libraries

Supply Chain Transparency from a Stakeholder's Perspective: Analyzing the Risks and Benefits of Supply Chain Information Disclosure

Description: Supply chain transparency is principally focused on a company's efforts toward disclosing information about their products, and their supply chain operations to the public. Essay 1 is a conceptual paper that examines the risks of disclosing supply chain mapping information to consumers and proposes an approach to developing risk mitigation strategies. This essay also develops a set of supply chain mapping conventions that support the development of an agility-focused supply chain map. Essay 2 e… more
This item is restricted from view until August 1, 2025.
Date: July 2023
Creator: Porchia, Jamie Montyl
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Adoption of Innovation in a Community College Environment: User Perceptions of Virtual Reality (VR) Technology among Students Studying Emergency Medical Service (EMS)

Description: This research study examined the implementation of an extended reality (XR) lab on a community college campus to facilitate student and faculty access to immersive learning resources. The study, conducted during one skills day, involved 46 students and was designed to understand if integrating immersive VR into emergency medical technician (EMT) education could enhance learner confidence and motivation, develop problem-solving and analytical thinking skills, and thus connecting the classroom le… more
Date: July 2023
Creator: Das, Anila
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Paradigm Shift from Vague Legal Contracts to Blockchain-Based Smart Contracts

Description: In this dissertation, we address the problem of vagueness in traditional legal contracts by presenting novel methodologies that aid in the paradigm shift from traditional legal contracts to smart contracts. We discuss key enabling technologies that assist in converting the traditional natural language legal contract, which is full of vague words, phrases, and sentences to the blockchain-based precise smart contract, including metrics evaluation during our conversion experiment. To address the c… more
Date: July 2023
Creator: Upadhyay, Kritagya Raj
Partner: UNT Libraries

Behavioral Transportation: The Role of Psychological, Cognitive, and Social Factors in Distracted Driving Behavior

Description: Logistics 4.0 suggests that increased automation can enhance performance, while Logistics 5.0 emphasizes the advantages of a modern workforce that combines humans and emerging technologies. However, the logistics industry needs a deeper understanding of human factors, an area that has been overlooked so far. To bridge this research gap, this dissertation investigated distracted driving behavior among individuals involved in transportation and logistics-based applications. This investigation emp… more
This item is restricted from view until August 1, 2025.
Date: July 2023
Creator: Gabaldon, Janeth
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Reinforcement Learning-Based Test Case Generation with Test Suite Prioritization for Android Application Testing

Description: This dissertation introduces a hybrid strategy for automated testing of Android applications that combines reinforcement learning and test suite prioritization. These approaches aim to improve the effectiveness of the testing process by employing reinforcement learning algorithms, namely Q-learning and SARSA (State-Action-Reward-State-Action), for automated test case generation. The studies provide compelling evidence that reinforcement learning techniques hold great potential in generating tes… more
Date: July 2023
Creator: Khan, Md Khorrom
Partner: UNT Libraries

Global Techno-Capitalism and the Production of Hate: Understanding Political-Economic and Ideological Utility on YouTube and Gab

Description: The production of Hate, albeit a historical, long-existing, and relentless process, has been reinvigorated by the simultaneously globalizing and localizing power of cyberspace. Techno-capitalism, often perceived as the actuating force of neoliberal globalization, has emanated novel formations of social interaction, community formation, the dissemination of ideology, and political mobilization. Far-right ideology is being globalized throughout popular social cyberspaces like YouTube by thought l… more
This item is restricted from view until August 1, 2025.
Date: July 2023
Creator: Esmonde, Jonathan Spencer
Partner: UNT Libraries
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