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open access

Community College Student Success in Developmental Mathematics Courses: a Comparison of Four Instructional Methods

Description: The student success rates for three developmental mathematics courses (prealgebra, elementary algebra, and intermediate algebra) taught through four instructional methods (lecture, personalized system of instruction [PSI], hybrid, and online) were examined. The sample consisted of 9,211 students enrolled in a large Texas community college from fall 2009 through spring 2011. Student success was defined as a grade of C or better. Chi-square tests were used to compare the three developmental ma… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Keller, Judith
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Socioeconomic Status and Prosperity Belief in Guatemala

Description: A popular belief in the exploding Pentecostal movement in the global South is the idea that if an individual has enough faith, God will bless them with financial prosperity. Although historically Pentecostalism has been identified as a religion of the poor, this study examines recent arguments that the current Pentecostal movement in Guatemala is a religion of the socially mobile middle and elite classes. Data from the Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life’s 2006 survey Spirit and Power: Surve… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Johnson, Lindsey A.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Engaging Lives: a Nomadic Inquiry Into the Spatial Assemblages and Ethico-aesthetic Practices of Three Makers

Description: This research is a nomadic inquiry into the ethics and aesthetics of three makers’ social and material practices. Deleuze’s concept of the nomad operated in multiple ways throughout the process, which was embedded in performative engagements that produced narratives of becoming. Over four months, I built relationships with three people as I learned about the ethico-aesthetic significance of their daily practices. The process started by interviewing participants in their homes and expanded ov… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Coats, Cala R.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Importance and Spatial Distribution of Phytophthora Ramorum Host Species in a Coast Redwood Forest

Description: Phytophthora ramorum, an exotic forest pathogen known as ‘sudden oak death’ (SOD), has received considerable attention in recent years because of its effects on vegetation structure, composition, and fire disturbance regimes in western U.S. coastal forests. This research examines differences in the importance (e.g., density, dominance, and frequency) and distribution of five host species of P. ramorum–– Umbellularia californica (California bay laurel), Quercus agrifolia (coast live oak), Pseudo… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Gray, Alicia E.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Idea of the “Modern”: Developing Variation in the Piano Concerto in C Sharp, Opus 17

Description: This study examines the Piano Concerto in C sharp, Op.17 (1923), by Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957), in light of developing variation, techniques that transform motivic ideas and create musical continuity in this work. The troublesome reception history of Korngold’s piano concerto derives from its complex musical features, which have created difficulties in understanding and evaluating this piece. Consequently, critics and scholars often label the highly sophisticated yet tonal musical lang… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Huang, Shu-Yuan
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Thermally Stimulated Depolarization Current Evaluation of Molding Compounds

Description: TSDC (thermally stimulated depolarization current) is one of the most important and popular technique for investigating electret materials. TSDC technique can indicate the magnitude of polarization and depolarization, relaxation time, charge-storage, glass transition, and activation energy. To fully investigate polarization and relaxation for pure epoxy and filled epoxy materials, a TSDC system was built and verified by the research. The article describes the building processes and verification… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Zhao, Shunli
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Identifying Opportunities for the Revitalization of Downtown Bloomsburg

Description: American downtowns were once the place to see and be seen, but the introduction of the shopping mall in the late 1950s challenged this notion and gave the American consumer a different place to spend their time and money. The prevalence of shopping malls has slowly been declining across the country since the beginning of this century, leaving room in the American retail landscape for downtowns to reclaim their status as community and retail centers. Towns across the U.S. are turning to nationa… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Schlieder, Victoria Mae
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Increasing the Players: Expanding the Bilateral Relationship of Conflict Management

Description: This research seeks to explore the behavior of international and regional organizations within conflict management. Previous research on conflict management primarily examines UN peacekeeping as the primary actor and lumps all non-UN actors into a single category. I disaggregate this category, examining how international and regional organizations interact when deciding to establish a peace mission, coordinate a peace mission with multiple organizations, and finally, how this interaction affe… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Stull, Emily A.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Product Management: the Decision Process

Description: This thesis builds upon several theoretical ideas. The first of which is the anthropologists’ transition into the corporate context and the particular type of skills and value that someone with anthropological training can bring to operations management. As anthropology is relatively new and unfamiliar to corporations, anthropologists are often hired without explicit knowledge of how they will address organizational problems. Frequently, this incremental relationship building between the anthro… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Pahl, Shane D.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Creating a Heterotopic Space: Reflections on Pre-service Art Educators’ Narratives

Description: My autobiographical research focuses on creating digital heterotopias through social media platforms, providing safe spaces which allow art teacher candidates the opportunity to reflect upon their practicum experiences and question the status quo of institutional myths and inherited discourses in teacher fieldwork. Functions of heterotopic space link together and reflect other pedagogical sites, including institutional spaces. Heterotopias are often designed to be temporal and hidden from publi… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Hyatt, Joana S.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Laser Surface Treatment of Amorphous Metals

Description: Amorphous materials are used as soft magnetic materials and also as surface coatings to improve the surface properties. Furthermore, the nanocrystalline materials derived from their amorphous precursors show superior soft magnetic properties than amorphous counter parts for transformer core applications. In the present work, laser based processing of amorphous materials will be presented. Conventionally, the nanocrystalline materials are synthesized by furnace heat treatment of amorphous precu… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Katakam, Shravana K.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Exploratory Analysis of Social E-health Behavior

Description: Extant literature has documented well that people seek health information via the internet as patients and consumers. Much less, however, is known about interaction and creation behaviors in the development of new online health information and knowledge. More specifically, generalizable sociodemographic data on who engages in this online health behavior via social media is lacking in the sociological literature. The term “social e-health” is introduced to emphasize the difference between seekin… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Acadia, Spencer
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Opening Doors for Excellent Maternal Health Services: Perceptions Regarding Maternal Health in Rural Tanzania

Description: The worldwide maternal mortality rate is excessive. Developing countries such as Tanzania experience the highest maternal mortality rates. The continued exploration of issues to create ease of access for women to quality maternal health care is a significant concern. A central strategy for reducing maternal mortality is that every birth be attended by a skilled birth attendant, therefore special attention was placed on motivations and factors that might lead to an increased utilization of healt… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: McLendon, Pamela Ann
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Perceptions of Family Vacation and Family Cohesion and the Moderating Effects of Parenting Style

Description: Family cohesion, or emotional bonding, is important to family functioning. Shared activities such as family vacations offer opportunities for strengthening the family unit which can improve cohesion. Additionally, parenting style has direct influence on the family unit and family cohesion. This study’s purpose was to assess to what extent the perception of the family vacation experience predicted the perception of family cohesion and whether that relationship was moderated by parenting style… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Kruenegel-Farr, Debbie S.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

A Low-cost Wireless Sensor Network System Using Raspberry Pi and Arduino for Environmental Monitoring Applications

Description: Sensors are used to convert physical quantity into numerical data. Various types of sensors can be coupled together to make a single node. A distributed array of these nodes can be deployed to collect environmental data by using appropriate sensors. Application of low powered short range radio transceivers as a communication medium between spatially distributed sensor nodes is known as wireless sensor network. In this thesis I build such a network by using Arduino, Raspberry Pi and XBee. My goa… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Ferdoush, Sheikh Mohammad
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Into the Canyons

Description: Into the Canyons is a documentary short that provides an intimate portrait of two volunteer Wilderness Rangers working and living in Zion National Park in Utah for a summer. Sarah dreams of being a Park Ranger for the National Park Service, but must wait till she earns US citizenship. Working in an office, Allen wants a change in lifestyle. Together they explore the Wilderness and learn what it means to be a Park Ranger.
Date: May 2014
Creator: Hoekzema, Abbey
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Performance Engineering of Software Web Services and Distributed Software Systems

Description: The promise of service oriented computing, and the availability of Web services promote the delivery and creation of new services based on existing services, in order to meet new demands and new markets. As Web and internet based services move into Clouds, inter-dependency of services and their complexity will increase substantially. There are standards and frameworks for specifying and composing Web Services based on functional properties. However, mechanisms to individually address non-functi… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Lin, Chia-En
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Design and Application of a New Planar Balun

Description: The baluns are the key components in balanced circuits such balanced mixers, frequency multipliers, push–pull amplifiers, and antennas. Most of these applications have become more integrated which demands the baluns to be in compact size and low cost. In this thesis, a new approach about the design of planar balun is presented where the 4-port symmetrical network with one port terminated by open circuit is first analyzed by using even- and odd-mode excitations. With full design equations, the p… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Mohamed, Younes
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

En La Frontera Entre La Vida Y La Muerte: a Study of Women Reporters on the Us–mexico Border

Description: In 2008 Ciudad Juarez erupted in a violent drug war. The Sinaloa Cartel and Juarez Cartel were in a battle for the lucrative drug route used to smuggle drugs into the United States, while President Felipe Calderon was waging his own war against all the drug cartels. During the height of the violence women journalists emerged on the front lines to tell the stories of Juarez. They risked their lives and dared to tell a story that others refused to. This mixed-method study examines frames used mos… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Guzman, Samantha
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Dual-band Microwave Device Design

Description: This thesis presents a brief introduction to microwave components and technology. It also presents two novel dual-band designs, their analysis, topology, simulation and fabrication. In chapter 2, a novel dual-band bandpass filter using asymmetric stub-loaded stepped-impedance resonators (SLSIRs) operating at 1 and 2.6 GHz is shown. This type of design applies suitable arrangements to improve the filter’s performance. Then, in chapter 3, a novel dual-band balun (transforms unbalanced input sign… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Li Shen, Andres E.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

An Exploratory Study of Restaurant Multi-unit Managers’ Development

Description: Development is important to the initial phase of a new restaurant multi-unit manager (MUM), and appropriate training should be conducted in concert with acceptance of the position. The purpose of this study is to explore the need for individual training of restaurant MUMs in order to facilitate a smoother transition between executive level management positions. The exhaustive literature review aided in the creation of three research questions to be answered through the interpretation of collect… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Lentz, Kathryn J.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Using Baroque Vocal Music to Introduce Horn Students to the Musical Concepts of Expression, Articulation, Phrasing, and Tempo

Description: Baroque music is an area largely neglected in the music education of young horn students and wind players in general. Baroque horn repertoire is very demanding primarily due to the range. Baroque composers wrote for horn using the uppermost register of the instrument. In this range the partials are closer together, allowing for more melodic writing. This music requires an advanced level of technique, endurance, and ability. Often this repertoire is not suitable for students until they are … more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Winter, Angela K.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Physiological and Psychological Effects of an Acute Stressor: Comparing Coping Strategies Among Very Physically Active and Less Active Adults

Description: The purpose of this study was to examine whether physical activity status of healthy adult males (N = 59) while in a coping strategy condition (association, disassociation, or control) influences psychophysiological responses to an acute painful stimulus. Measures of pain tolerance, state anxiety, body awareness, and salivary cortisol were investigated. Results indicated no significant differences between physical activity groups for pain tolerance, stress responses (i.e., self-reported state a… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Brandt, Grace A.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

The Changing Symbolic Images of the Trumpet: Bologna and Venice in the Seventeenth Century

Description: The trumpet is among the most ancient of all musical instruments, and an examination of its history reveals that it has consistently maintained important and specific symbolic roles in society. Although from its origins this symbolic identity was linked to the instrument’s limited ceremonial and signaling function, the seventeenth century represents a period in which a variety of new roles and identities emerged. Bologna and Venice represent the two most important centers for trumpet writing … more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Karp, Jamie Marie
Partner: UNT Libraries
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