The marimba is rapidly achieving greater importance as a solo percussion instrument. Solo compositions for the marimba have been commissioned and performed only in the last sixty years. The 1986 National Endowment for the Arts Solo Marimba Commission is considered one of the most important commissioning projects in the history of marimba literature. Two compositions created through this project, Velocities by Joseph Schwantner and Reflections on the Nature of Water by Jacob Druckman have become two of the most influential works in contemporary marimba music. This thesis will focus on a historical perspective of the project, as well as theoretical aspects and performance issues related to these two compositions. The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) issued a consortium commissioning grant through the Percussive Arts Society (PAS) in 1986 to three internationally renowned marimbists, William Moersch, Leigh Howard Stevens and Gordon Stout. Three Pulitzer Prize winners were brought together to compose three new works for the marimba. The resulting pieces were: Reflections on the Nature of Water by Jacob Druckman, Velocities by Joseph Schwantner, and Islands from Archipelago: Autumn Island by Roger Reynolds. A brief history of the classical concert marimba and the development of solo marimba literature is provided …

Charles I, King of Spain, or Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, was the most powerful ruler in Europe since Charlemagne. With a Germanic background, and speaking French, Charles became King of Spain in 1516. Yet secondary sources and available sixteenth century Spanish sources such as Spanish Royal Council records, local records of Castro Urdiales in Castile, and Charles's correspondence show that he continued the policies of his predecessors in Spain, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. He strove to strengthen his power and unify Spain and his empire using Castilian strength, a Castilian model of government, Roman law, religion, his strong personality, and a loyal and talented bureaucracy. Charles desired to be another Charlemagne, but with his base of power in Spain.

Concerto for Solo Percussion and Concert Band was commissioned by Staff Sergeant Rone Sparrow, a percussionist with the West Point Military Academy Band. Funding for the project was provided by the Barlow Foundation. The piece was premiered April 13, 2005 in the Eisenhower Hall Theater at West Point, New York. Rone Sparrow performed with the USMA band, and Colonel Thomas Rotondi Jr., Commander/Conductor, conducted the piece. The concerto consists of three movements, and each movement features a different instrument: the first features marimba, the second, vibraphone, and the third movement features the drum kit together with a rhythm section (piano, bass, and drums). In addition to the piece, the dissertation paper discusses important technical detail related to the piece, including: harmony, form, rhythm, programmatic ideas as they relate to motivic strands, and the process of generating and discarding material. The paper also focuses on a number of factors that were influential to the piece, such as postmodern philosophy.

From 1930 to 1955, Amon Carter, publisher of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, exerted his power to create modern Fort Worth. Carter used his stature as the publisher of the city's major newspaper to build a modern city out of this livestock center. Between 1930 and 1955, Carter lobbied successfully for New Deal funds for Fort Worth, persuaded Consolidated Aircraft to build an airplane plant in the city, and convinced Burlington Railways to stay in the city. He also labored unsuccessfully to have the Trinity River Canal built and to secure a General Motors plant for Fort Worth. These efforts demonstrate that Carter was indeed the founder of modern Fort Worth.

This study has two purposes. First is to dispel myths that there are no residence halls at community colleges. Second is to discuss the ways in which these residence halls are administered, the amenities offered to students, the benefits of residence halls, and their future in community colleges. The study is based upon the Katsinas, Lacey and Hardy 2004 classifications and divides community colleges into 7 categories: Urban multi campus, Urban single campus, Suburban multi campus, Suburban single campus, and Rural small, medium and large. Included in the study are tables of data received from an original survey sent to 232 community college CEOs who reported to the US Department of Education that they had residence halls at their campus. The results indicate that a significant number of community colleges with residence halls exist, particularly at rural community colleges, that they bring significant financial gain to the colleges, and they append numerous benefits to students and to student life at these colleges. Residence halls are housed in divisions of student services and directed by experienced student affairs professionals. The study concludes with recommendations for policy as well as practice, the most important of which calls for more accurate data collection …

This study analyzes the remaining suitable habitat of the one-horned rhinoceros, Rhinoceros unicornis, in Royal Chitwan National Park of Nepal. An April 2003 Landsat image was classified into eight land cover types: wetland, sand, water, mixed forest, sal forest, agriculture, settlement, and grassland. This image was converted into habitat suitability maps using cover, food, and water. The rhinoceros prefers grassland habitat with oxbow lakes and closed canopy during the monsoon season. Nominal values of five parameters were used to create a map of habitat suitability index. The map was categorized into four habitat classes: highly unsuitable, unsuitable, moderately suitable habitat, and suitable. Landscape metrics, patch metrics and class metrics associated with habitat were determined through the use of FRAGSTATS.

In recent years, few laws have had greater impact on public education than Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. As a result of this legislation, participation levels of female athletes have risen dramatically. Conducted in the Texas Education Agency's Region XI, this study sought to ascertain the perceptions of high school principals, the lead coaches of male athletes, and the lead coaches of female athletes with regard to their schools' compliance with the components of Title IX. The study centered on the results of a survey instrument that included twenty Likert-scale questions as well as several demographic questions. The research questions sought to determine: (1) respondents' overall perception of compliance; (2) any differences in perceptions of compliance based upon the role of the individual; (3) any differences in perceptions based upon the percentage of students qualifying for free and reduced lunch; (4) any differences based upon the state classification of the schools; (5) any differences based upon the gender of respondents; (6) whether complaints filed via OCR result in a perception of increased compliance; and (7) the program component areas in which respondents view their schools to be most compliant. Descriptive and causal-comparative methods were used to analyze …

In this study the author addresses the problem of finding quality repertoire for young college-level saxophonists. By examining graded repertoire lists from a variety of college and university saxophone instructors, the author has compiled a list of 180 works for alto saxophone and piano. Twenty-four well-known works of a difficulty-level appropriate for freshman and sophomore players are identified and annotated. Each annotation consists of bibliographical information, a biographical sketch of the composer, a difficulty rating of eight elements of performance, a discussion of performance considerations, and a bibliography of available recordings. The eight elements of performance included in the difficulty rating are: Meter, key signatures, tempo, note-values, rhythm, articulation, range, and dynamic levels. Each of these facets is graded using a six-point difficulty scale. One work from the select list, Yvon Bourrel's Sonate Pour Saxophone Alto et Piano, has been analyzed in greater detail with regard to thematic material and key areas to provide in-depth information that, hopefully, will help the student gain a deeper understanding of that work and as a result perform the piece with greater artistry.

Banach's contraction principle is probably one of the most important theorems in fixed point theory. It has been used to develop much of the rest of fixed point theory. Another key result in the field is a theorem due to Browder, Göhde, and Kirk involving Hilbert spaces and nonexpansive mappings. Several applications of Banach's contraction principle are made. Some of these applications involve obtaining new metrics on a space, forcing a continuous map to have a fixed point, and using conditions on the boundary of a closed ball in a Banach space to obtain a fixed point. Finally, a development of the theorem due to Browder et al. is given with Hilbert spaces replaced by uniformly convex Banach spaces.

This thesis identifies and analyzes gendering in the art writing devoted to Lee Bontecou's metal and canvas sculptures made from the 1959 - 1964. Through a careful reading of reviews and articles written about Bontecou's constructions, this thesis reconstructs the context of the art world in the United States at mid-century and investigates how cultural expectations regarding gender directed the reception of Bontecou's art, beginning in 1959 and continuing through mid-1960s. Incorporating a description of the contemporaneous cultural context with description of the constructions and an analysis of examples of primary writing, the thesis chronologically follows the evolution of a tendency in art writing to associate gender-specific motivation and interpretation to one recurring feature of Bontecou's works.

This study examined allied health and nursing career and technical education (CTE) teacher beliefs and attitudes about reading. Since beliefs and attitudes influence the way teachers teach, it is important to understand what those beliefs and attitudes are, especially in relationship to reading in subject matter classrooms. One hundred twelve individuals responded to a written survey concerning their attitudes and beliefs about reading. A four-factor solution was achieved with a principal components factor analysis. A significant number of variables were associated with the factor labeled Reading Apathy, which appears to be indicative of the condition known as aliteracy among faculty who participated in the study. Professional development activities grounded in novice-to-expert theory are suggested as a way of overcoming the phenomenon. Recommendations for future research involve a more detailed study to further characterize the condition of aliteracy and its impact on student learning.

The No Child Left Behind Act and National Council of Teachers of Mathematics' Principles and Standards both had a significant impact on the format and content of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) math test. Content analysis of the 2004 TAKS eighth grade math test identified the prevalence of linguistic complexity, mathematical rigor, and visual presentation factors and explored their relationship to student success on individual test items. Variables to be studied were identified through a review of literature in the area of reading comprehension of math word problems. Sixteen variables of linguistic complexity that have been significantly correlated with student math test performance were selected. Four variables of visual presentation were identified and ten variables of mathematical rigor. An additional five variables of mathematical rigor emerged from preliminary study of the 2003 TAKS math test. Of the 35 individual variables, only four reached a significant level of correlation with the percent of students correctly answering a given test item. The number of digits presented in the problem statement and number of known quantities both exhibited a significant positive correlation with the dependent variable. The number of times a student had to perform a multiplication operation had a …

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of play materials on the interactions between a child with autism and her sibling. Three conditions were assessed: open choice, materials chosen by the child with autism, and materials chosen by the typically developing sibling. Within each activity, measures of social interactions were assessed. Results of the assessment showed that more interactions occurred with a material chosen by the child with autism. After sibling training (targeting specific teaching skills), social interactions remained highest in the condition with materials chosen by the child with autism. The results are discussed in terms of a material assessment to optimize sibling training conditions and the importance of sibling relationships.

During the spring 2004 a pilot school recycling program was implemented within Robert E. Lee Elementary. The primary goal of the program was to determine how recycling education in the school would affect curbside recycling rates within the surrounding community. The program was a cooperative effort between the University of North Texas, City of Denton Solid Waste Department and Keep Denton Beautiful. Throughout the first months of the study during the spring 2004, an increase in curbside recycling within the Robert E. Lee Elementary attendance zone was observed, with a dramatic decrease in participation over the summer and a rapid increase once again during the second full semester of the study. In a survey conducted with 3rd and 5th grade students at the pilot project school, most students expressed positive attitudes about recycling. Students whose survey responses indicated a high level of knowledge about what could be recycled were 37% more likely to claim to recycle regularly, than those students that scored low on the knowledge portion of the survey. Although the total amount of waste generation (recyclable and non-recyclable) at Robert E. Lee Elementary did not decrease during the study, the campus was able to divert recyclable material from …

The purpose of this study was to develop an effective formal instrument to assess the Adlerian personality priorities. The development of the Allen Assessment for Adlerian Personality Priorities, AAAPP, seeks to provide a strong comparability to assessing the Adlerian construct of personality priorities as the counselor interview. One hundred and seven participants were given the 1st administration of the AAAPP, Social Interest Scale and a demographic survey. Sixty-four participants completed a 2nd administration of the AAAPP two weeks later. Twenty participants experienced a counseling interview following the 2nd administration. The methods used to evaluate the validity and effectiveness of the AAAPP included: face validity, predictive validity, construct validity, test-retest reliability, multiple regression, Guttman split-half reliability and the Spearman Brown reliability.

Assessing the impact of climate variability on water resources is one of the difficult tasks in planning the future growth of North-Central Texas. This study defined twelve extreme climate scenarios. Data from each scenario was input to a hydrological model (HEC-HMS) to calculate watershed runoff to Lake Ray Roberts. Model parameters are determined using Geographic Information System (GIS). The water balance was calculated for current and future water demand and resulting change in the volume and level of this reservoir. The results indicate certain climate scenarios decrease in volume. Thus, local governments should plan alternative water management strategies during droughts.

Although Turkey is a country with strong social cohesion, figures of runaway children in Turkey are increasing dramatically. This research focused on the factors that cause children to run away and on interaction programs to intervene and/or prevent this problem. Until recently, Turkish family life was able to avoid such problems, but with the effect of westernization and social mobility in Turkey, the basic family structure has become more like the family structure in the western countries. Studies reveal that runaway episodes happen in all families regardless of such factors as economic, race, or geographic situations. Teenagers run away for several reasons; however, early intervention is highly suggested by studies to mitigate the problem. Although, parent-child conflict plays a significant role as a reason for youth leaving home, on the other hand family interaction still remains the best alternative to the problem.

Longitudinal methods have become an improved and essential means of measuring intra-individual change over time. Yet one of the greatest and most hazardous drawbacks studying participants over multiple sessions can be the loss of participants over time. This study attempts to illuminate the problem of attrition in longitudinal research by estimating the mean effect sizes for participant loss across 57 studies published in 13 prestigious journals which regularly use older participants. Results estimate overall attrition to be around 34% of the original sample. The subsequent break down of attrition into its subtypes yield mean effect sizes for attrition due to Refusal (8%), Loss of contact (10%), Illness (6%), and Death (14%) in studies sampling from adults 50 years or older. Analyses were then conducted via meta-analytic one-way ANOVA and weighted regression to identify possible moderators of overall attrition and their four subtypes.

Worms have caused significant destruction over the last few years. Network security elements such as firewalls, IDS, etc have been ineffective against worms. Some worms are so fast that a manual intervention is not possible. This brings in the need for a stronger security architecture which can automatically react to stop worm propagation. The method has to be signature independent so that it can stop new worms. In this thesis, an automated defense system (ADS) is developed to automate defense against worms and contain the worm to a level where manual intervention is possible. This is accomplished with a two level architecture with feedback at each level. The inner loop is based on control system theory and uses the properties of PID (proportional, integral and differential controller). The outer loop works at the network level and stops the worm to reach its spread saturation point. In our lab setup, we verified that with only inner loop active the worm was delayed, and with both loops active we were able to restrict the propagation to 10% of the targeted hosts. One concern for deployment of a worm containment mechanism was degradation of throughput for legitimate traffic. We found that with proper …

Most studies of the Mass in B Minor deal with the history of the work, its reception history, primary sources, performance practice issues, rhetoric, and even theological and numerical symbolism. However, little research focuses on an in-depth analysis of the music itself. Of the few analytical studies undertaken, to date only a limited number attempt to explain Bach's use of parody technique or unity in the whole composition. This thesis focuses on understanding three primary concerns in regards to the Mass in B minor: to comprehend how preexistent material was adapted to the context of the Mass, how this material functions in the network of the entire composition, and how unity is achieved by means of large-scale voice leading. The results of this study not only provide new information about this monument of Western music, but also provide insight to the deep sense of large-scale structure in Bach's work.

Bad Poetry and Other Short Stories is a collection of social, political, and religious commentary. The last three stories are also commentary from a non-fiction perspective.

This study examines the interaction between religious and national affiliations within a Dissenting denomination. Linda Colley and Jonathan Clark argue that religion provided the unifying foundation of national identity. Colley portrays a Protestant British identity defined in opposition to Catholic France. Clark favors an English identity, based upon an Anglican intellectual hegemony, against which only the heterodox could effectively offer criticism. Studying the Baptists helps test those two approaches. Although Methodists and Baptists shared evangelical concerns, the Methodists remained within the Church of England. Though Baptists often held political views similar to the Unitarians, they retained their orthodoxy. Thus, the Baptists present an opportunity to explore the position of orthodox Dissenters within the nation. The Baptists separated their religious and national identities. An individual could be both a Christian and a Briton, but one attachment did not imply the other. If the two conflicted, religion took precedent. An examination of individual ministers, specifically William Winterbotham, Robert Hall, Mark Wilks, Joseph Kinghorn, and David Kinghorn, reveals a range of Baptist views from harsh criticism of to support for the government. It also shows Baptist disagreement on whether faith should encourage political involvement and on the value of the French Revolution. Baptists …

Pat M. Neff served as governor of Texas from 1921 to 1925, a period marked by political conflict between rural conservatives and urban progressives. Neff, a progressive, found himself in the middle of this conflict. Neff supported prohibition, declared martial law in the oil boomtown of Mexia, and faced the rise of the Ku Klux Klan as a political force in Texas. Though often associated with the Klan, Neff did not approve of the organization and worked against it whenever possible. During the Railroad Shopmen's Strike of 1922, Neff stalled the federal government in its demand he send troops to Denison just long enough to win re-nomination. William Jennings Bryan mentioned Neff as a possible candidate for the presidency in 1924, but he pursued a back-door strategy that alienated his political base among Texas Democrats.

Ecological restoration is quickly becoming a major approach to how humans interact with the natural world. Some view restoration as another land management technique on par with conservation and preservation. Others view it as a way to make reparations for our misdeeds and to reincorporate humans into the natural world. Ideas regarding restoration from key academics and restorationists are evaluated here. Their views have set the stage for the contemporary paradigm. Values that may be attributed to restoration and received from it are evaluated. I discuss my own reservations regarding potential problems with the product and practice of restoration. What is at stake regarding the involvement of people in restoration is examined, focusing on the different impacts volunteers and paid workers have on the value of the practice and outcome of the product.