Through ethnography influenced by public health and anthropological theory, I explored the cultural perceptions of autism among eight caregivers whose children received services from a local Dallas-Fort Worth autism treatment organization. Participant observations and semi-structured interviews with caregivers and program employees provided a rich and nuanced view into the state of care currently available in the DFW area while also highlighting areas for improvement. This research will be used to not only identify the barriers faced by North Texas Families while seeking out care,but also the strategies the organization uses when connecting with families from different backgrounds.

This exploratory research focuses on identifying the roles and perspectives of community gardens in the Dallas area. Results from semi-structured interviews reveal the social and political makeup of the neighborhoods where the garden projects in this study are located. While these findings highlight the benefits of gardening in the city, they can also be contested spaces. In advocating for the proliferation of garden projects in the city, community organizations would benefit from understanding the nuances of garden initiatives and the way in which they are perceived by members of the garden, nearby residents, and policy makers.

The purpose of the present study was to discern a symptom pattern for environmentally ill patients and provide evidence of the uniqueness of the resultant pattern to this population. Patients' environmental exposure was confirmed by the presence of toxins in the blood serum. All patients were administered psychological and physical symptom checklists, the Clinical Analysis Questionnaire, and a standardized intermediate neuropsychological examination. Results indicate a response pattern of symptoms including fatigue, low energy, weakness, poor concentration, poor memory, poor comprehension, headaches, aches and pains, clumsiness, sinus discomfort, mucus, eye problems, restlessness, and present performance inferior to prior level of functioning. Presence of these symptoms, as well as the uniqueness of this symptom pattern was supported by comparisons of the patient and standardization groups on the two standardized tests.

Sexual abuse of children has profound negative effects on psychological development. This study examined the effects of sexual abuse on object relations functioning by using the Mutuality of Autonomy Scale (MAS, Urist, 1977) to score Rorschach protocols of 63 abused children and 60 non-abused clinical controls. The hypothesis that abused children would have less developed object relations than their non-abused counterparts was not supported. Neither was the hypothesis that children who experienced greater severity of sexual abuse would exhibit more malevolent object relations. The hypothesis that mean and modal MAS scores would be highly intercorrelated and interchangeable as research variables was supported. Comparisons of this sample to a normative sample are discussed.

The purpose of this study is to examine I. M. Pei and his partner Harry Cobb's downtown Dallas architecture within the context of their overall stylistic development. This paper explores the structure of five buildings within the framework of the city, and addresses their possible influence on the city's future architectural direction. The thesis is divided into six chapters. Chapter I introduces and states the problem as it discusses the fabric of Dallas architecture. Chapter II outlines a brief biography of I. M. Pei, looking to those who have influenced him, while discussing the key public buildings of his stylistic development. Chapter III is devoted to Pei's first structure in the city, the Dallas Municipal Administration Center. Chapter IV explores the concepts of his planned Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center. Chapter V outlines a brief biography and focuses on the work of Harry N. Cobb: One Dallas Centre, ARCO Tower, and the Allied Bank Tower. Chapter VI summarizes the contributions of Pei and Cobb by placing them within the context of twentieth century architecture, and pointing out their specific achievements with their additions to the fabric of Dallas architecture.

Mental imagery is a common theme in research that clarifies how musical thought relates to musical performance. Unfortunately, minimal information exists regarding mental imagery and singers. The purpose of this study was to probe the role, if any, mental imagery plays in the conceptualization of pitch and vowel. By interviewing singers at differing levels of expertise, basic information was obtained about the mental processes used by singers. Through evaluations of the singers' mental processes, it was concluded that 95% of the singers in the study employed mental imagery. All singers described using kinesthetic imagery, while the majority implemented sensory and auditory imagery. Viso-spatial imagery was implemented among the more experienced singers. The majority of singers also reported: imaging pitch and vowel interactively; imaging from an internal perspective; and utilizing mental rehearsal. Less than half of the singers described using methods other than mental imagery to conceptualize pitch and vowel.

This study investigated the effect of cost-of-escape on helping among children. Forty-four children between the approximate ages of six and twelve served as subjects. The experiment was performed in a natural setting using an ice cream truck. The driver (experimenter) manipulated the cost-of-escape and then had an "accident." The easy-to-escape group received their ice cream before the driver spilled 300 spoons on the ground. The difficult-to-escape group had paid for their ice cream but had not received it before the "accident" occurred. The number of spoons picked up by each condition and the lapse time before a member of each group began to help was recorded. No differences were found between the groups (all ps > .05). Implications for cost-of-escape were discussed.

The Bonton and Ideal neighborhoods in Dallas Texas, developed in the early 1900s, experienced physical and social decay throughout the 1980s. Neighborhood organizations and resident activism were vital to the rebirth of the community in the 1990s. Current revitalization efforts taking place there have been a source of contention as the neighborhood continues to overcome inequalities created by decades of racialized city planning initiatives. This thesis focuses on how the structuring structure of whiteness has historically affected, and continues to affect, the neighborhoods of Ideal and Bonton, as well as acts to identify how black residents have navigated their landscape and increased their collective capital through neighborhood activism.

Chorine is used by the Village Creek Waste Water Treatment Plant to kill pathogenic microorganisms prior to discharge of the effluent into the Trinity River. The residual chlorine in the river impacted aquatic life prompting the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in December 1990 to require dechlorination using sulfur dioxide. One pre-dechlorination and four post-dechlorination assessments of phytoplankton, periphyton, and zooplankton communities were conducted by the Institute of Applied Sciences at the University of North Texas. Dechlorination had no effect on the phytoplankton community. The periphyton community exhibited a shift in species abundance with a more even distribution of organisms among taxa. No change occurred in zooplankton species abundance, however, there was a decrease in zooplankton density following dechlorination.

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Over a period of two decades, Raymond D. Nasher, a Dallas-based real estate developer, and his late wife Patsy amassed a collection of significant modern sculptures. For years, pieces from the private collection--numbering over 300 as of 1990--were on display in various museums and civic institutions, and they were installed on a rotating basis at Northpark Center, a Dallas shopping mall developed by Nasher. Since the 1987 Dallas Museum of Art exhibition, the collection has been shown in several major international museums. This study documents the formative period of the collection, the Nashers' collecting and exhibiting philosophies, and four early exhibitions of the sculptures. It includes a chronology of the Nashers and major acquisitions of sculpture.

This study traces the history of debutante presentations in Dallas, Texas, from 1884 to 1976. Manuscript materials, organizational collections, interviews, and published sources were used to document and establish past and present information. The problem is organized topically and treated in chronological order within each subject. The role of four bachelors' clubs, Idlewild, Terpsichorean, Calyx, and Dervish, is emphasized and the influence of a business known as Party Service is considered. The evidence gathered for this work suggests the following conclusions: that a complicated and lavish process has evolved, that the influence of heritage and family prominence has gradually eroded, that emphasis centers now on the recently financially successful families, and that despite these changes, the ritual of debutante presentations in Dallas remains strong.

The purpose of the study was to explore specific buying practices of teenage girls and to determine the influence of age and employment on shopping patterns. The buying practices investigated included use of credit, apparel purchase price, purchasing of reduced merchandise, brand name preferences, utilization of store personnel and stores patronized. The data were collected by questionnaires administered to 205 high school girls in grades 9 through 12 enrolled in the two public high schools in Carrollton, Texas. Chi square tests of independence were computed along with descriptive statistics. Buying patterns of Carrollton teenagers were found to be similar to girls in other areas of the United States. A positive correlation was found between shopping patterns and student age and employment.

This thesis describes, classifies, analyzes and evaluates the rhetoric of resistance to forced busing to desegregate the Dallas Independent School District during the 1975-1976 school year. This thesis also applies the characteristics of social, protest and agitational movements to the antibusing movement in Dallas to determine the effectiveness of the resistance rhetoric. The findings of this case study demonstrate that, although the Dallas protesters did not achieve all of their goals, their resistance rhetoric did accomplish specific, effective results. However, this thesis also concludes that, in the American system of government, neither violent nor non-violent resistance can prevent implementation of court-ordered busing.

Racial residential segregation in Dallas public housing projects is analyzed before and after the implementation of the "central tenant assignment plan," adopted in May of 1975, Among the socioeconomically segregated population served by public housing, the effects of race and the nondiscrimination policy are investigated using project occupancy data. Indexes of dissimilarity are used to measure racial segregation, and the racial compositions of the communities in which the projects are located are described using 1970 U.S. census and 1976 Dallas City Profile Survey data. The findings indicate that the nondiscrimination policy was not effective in reducing the high levels of racial segregation. A small decline in segregation was noted after a change in project administrative personnel late in 1974.

The purpose of this study was to examine the attitudes of journalism students in Dallas high schools toward the meanings and images of journalism careers. Eleven out of eighteen Dallas high schools participated. A total of 211 respondents, 145 females and 66 males, completed the questionnaire. The first part of the analysis involved the comparison through percentage tables illustrating the similarities and differences of the groups. The second part of the analysis involved the semantic differential scales and the mean profile comparisons for the groups. Although the seven branches of journalism did differ significantly from one another, the male and female subjects did not differ significantly in their meanings of the concepts.

Analysis of larval fish collected at four stations in a 330-ha cooling reservoir indicated Dorosoma spp. were most numerous at all stations, followed by Lepomis spp. and Percina Macrolepida. Largest numbers and greatest diversity of larval fish were found at the station least affected by thermal effluent; the mid-lake station provided the smallest numbers and least diversity. The two warmwater stations were intermediate, with similar numbers and diversity. Diversity and abundance of zooplankton between stations were similar to those of fish. The most abundant zooplankter (Bosmina) was generally selected against by Dorosoma, Lepomis and Micropterus spp. larvae except when the larvae were quite small ((10mm). Cyclopoid copepods were most often selected by all larvae.

The problem of this study was to determine if the sex role identification, age, education, and income of employed married couples were related to their perception of who should and does perform household tasks. The forty-five couples were volunteers from organizations for working women. Each spouse completed a Bem Sex Role Inventory and a Household Task Inventory. Using Chi-square and t-tests no significant differences were found between sex role identification, education level, income level, and the sharing of household tasks. When a Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient was used, age and sharing of household tasks were found to have an inverse relationship with the young sharing more tasks. The study concluded that couples expect household tasks to be shared but females tend to perform the traditional feminine tasks and males the traditional masculine tasks.

The purposes of this study were to determine whether intramural sports programs are available to senior high school students in the four largest metropolitan school districts in Texas and to determine reasons why schools may not offer intramural programs. Questionnaires were mailed to eighty-four high schools in the Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and San Antonio Independent School Districts. Data obtained from this survey revealed that a majority of the responding schools do not sponsor intramural sports programs for their students. The factors cited most often as the reasons for not sponsoring intramural programs were lack of facilities, inadequate number of personnel, lack of transportation, and conflict with interscholastic sports.

This research project concerns changes in hydrology resulting from urbanization of the upper sub-basin of the White Rock Creek Watershed in Collin and Dallas Counties, Texas. The objectives of this study are: to calculate the percent watershed urbanized for the period of 1961 through 1968 and the period of 2000 through 2005; to derive a 1960s average unit hydrograph and a 2000s average unit hydrograph; and, to use the two averaged hydrographs to develop a range of hypothetical storm scenarios to evaluate how the storm response of the watershed has changed between these two periods. Results of this study show that stormflow occurs under lower intensity precipitation in the post-urbanized period and that stormflow peaks and volumes are substantially larger compared to the pre-urbanized period. It is concluded that changes in watershed surface conditions resulting from urbanization have lowered the precipitation-intensity threshold that must be surpassed before storm run-off is generated.

The incidence of sexual assault inundates the courts with many cases each year. Given the unique nature of the crime, judges and juries are faced with an array of different scenarios to which they are required to make fair, justifiable and consistent decisions. I examine child sexual assault cases of Dallas County 1999-2005, I look at both legal and extralegal factors including case characteristics, institutional characteristics and characteristics of the defendants and the victims. First, I examine the impact of the independent variables on sentence length using regression analysis to determine influences on sentencing for judges and juries. Second, I examine the same factors using Probit analysis to determine which characteristics make a life sentence more probable for those decision-makers.

Disease maps are powerful tools for depicting spatial variations in disease risk and its underlying drivers. However, producing effective disease maps requires careful consideration of the statistical and spatial properties of the disease data. In fact, the choice of mapping method influences the resulting spatial pattern of the disease, as well as the understanding of its underlying population characteristics. New developments in mapping methods and software in addition to continuing improvements in data quality and quantity are requiring map-makers to make a multitude of decisions before a map of disease burdens can be created. The impact of such decisions on a map, including the choice of appropriate mapping method, not been addressed adequately in the literature. This research demonstrates how choice of mapping method and associated parameters influence the spatial pattern of disease. We use four different disease-mapping methods – unsmoothed choropleth maps, smoothed choropleth maps produced using the headbanging method, smoothed kernel density maps, and smoothed choropleth maps produced using spatial empirical Bayes methods and 5-years of zip code level HIV incidence (2007- 2011) data from Dallas and Tarrant Counties, Texas. For each map, the leading population characteristics and their relative importance with regards to HIV incidence is identified …

The U.S. citizenship application process is a legal and symbolic journey shaped by many cultural processes. This research project aims to bring to light the experiences of immigrants and citizenship applicants living in Dallas, Texas, to promote a better understanding of Dallas' increasingly diverse population. In addition, the purpose of this project is to provide insights to a specific client, the office of Dallas Welcoming Communities and Immigrant Affairs, about Dallas' lawful permanent residents who are eligible for citizenship and their reasons for pursuing citizenship status. The data for this project was collected through observation at various citizenship workshops and community events, as well as through semi-structured interviews with 14 U.S. citizenship applicants. Reasons for applying for U.S. citizenship discussed in this project include a desire for membership in U.S. society, access to better educational and economic opportunities, improved ease of travel and the desire to vote. Barriers to the citizenship process discussed in this project include the amount of time one must dedicate to the application, lack of clear knowledge about the process and the financial cost of the application. Other themes include the effects of capital on applicant's experience with the citizenship process, symbolic meanings of citizenship, transnationalism …

This thesis analyzes the training and perceptions on mental health of a particular population. Through the use of previous research and literature, a survey was generated and distributed to the population. The findings were used to generate policy implications for the specific population that was analyzed.