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Doctoral Recital: 2023-05-06 – Daniel Salls, tenor

Recital presented at Reynolds Hall, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degree.
Date: May 6, 2023
Creator: Salls, Daniel
Object Type: Video
System: The UNT Digital Library
12 Études Caractéristiques, Opus 2, by Adolf von Henselt: A Pedagogical Guide with Practical Exercises on Selected Etudes (open access)

12 Études Caractéristiques, Opus 2, by Adolf von Henselt: A Pedagogical Guide with Practical Exercises on Selected Etudes

Adolf von Henselt (1814–1889) was one of the most renowned German pianists and composers of his day. The majority of his compositions are for the piano, one of his most successful being the set of Piano Études, Op. 2. It consists of twelve etudes, each of which is designed for developing a particular technique. Henselt's etudes are as demanding as Chopin's and Liszt's, so this pedagogical guide is designed for advanced-level students. Henselt uses many finger extensions and stretches larger than an octave, which may be difficult for smaller hands to play, but proper flexibility and relaxation should enable all students to play them. This dissertation describes the specific technique for six selected etudes and provides exercises to help students learn each technique effectively. The selected etudes—Nos. 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, and 11—were chosen to cover all three technical levels of less-advanced, advanced, and very advanced as well as a variety of musical styles and technical challenges.
Date: May 2023
Creator: Kim, Hyunsuk
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library

An Analysis of Dependent Contingencies in a Triadic Interaction Using an Exchange Task to Understand Dynamic Concurrent Contingencies under Independent and Reciprocal Conditions

Although behavioral science, due to its emphasis on the use of single-subject research design, appears to focus solely on individual behaviors, behavioral scientists have a long history of lamenting the trajectory of humans, societies, and the discipline itself. Some scholars, for instance, called for our attention to expand our focus beyond individual behaviors to generate solutions for societal issues that we face. When we attempt to develop solutions for issues that require multi-level analysis, we must be cognizant of how institutional contingencies operate at the individual level. The current study analyzed triadic interactions using an exchange task in six triads. The result of this study showed that one common pattern of interactions among participants across triads was direct reciprocation between two participants. The implications of such findings, how they inform social behavior and metacontingency experiments, and future directions are discussed.
Date: May 2023
Creator: Kazaoka, Kyosuke
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
An Analysis of Federico Alvarez del Toro's Marimba Concerto "El Espiritu de la Tierra" (open access)

An Analysis of Federico Alvarez del Toro's Marimba Concerto "El Espiritu de la Tierra"

In this paper, I analyze the musical content in Federico Alvarez del Toro's marimba concerto El Espiritu de la Tierra. This dissertation represents my analysis of features I hear in the composition, and does not reflect the composer's original compositional process. Commissioned by the governor of Chiapas, the piece was composed in collaboration with internationally renowned marimba virtuoso Zeferino Nandayapa and premiered in 1984 with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Mexico City at Festival Cervantino in Guanajuato. The work has not been published and has been mentioned only briefly in scholarship. Particular attention in the analysis is given to indigenous and folk idioms from the southern region of Mexico combined with post-modern compositional techniques. My primary argument within the dissertation is that I believe the piece demonstrates a respect for tradition and heritage while concurrently utilizing non-traditional and contemporary compositional techniques. Analytically, I argue that two basic shapes are used throughout the piece, and I argue that the many cultural references within the piece solidify a preoccupation with the lineage of southern Mexico.
Date: May 2023
Creator: Hastings, Tyree
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Annihilators of Irreducible Representations of the Lie Superalgebra of Contact Vector Fields on the Superline (open access)

Annihilators of Irreducible Representations of the Lie Superalgebra of Contact Vector Fields on the Superline

The superline has one even and one odd coordinate. We consider the Lie superalgebra of contact vector fields on the superline. Its tensor density modules are a one-parameter family of deformations of the natural action on the ring of polynomials on the superline. They are parameterized by a complex number, and they are irreducible when this parameter is not zero. In this dissertation, we describe the annihilating ideals of these representations in the universal enveloping algebra of this Lie superalgebra by providing their generators. We also describe the intersection of all such ideals: the annihilator of the direct sum of the tensor density modules. The annihilating ideal of an irreducible non-zero left module is called a primitive ideal, and the space of all such ideals in the universal enveloping algebra is its primitive spectrum. The primitive spectrum is endowed with the Jacobson topology, which induces a topology on the annihilators of the tensor density modules. We conclude our discussion with a description of the annihilators as a topological space.
Date: May 2023
Creator: Goode, William M.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library

Antecedents to Reliance on Artificial Intelligence and Predictive Modeling

Artificial intelligence (AI) and predictive modeling are tools used to diagnose a disease, determine how much a home is worth, estimate insurance risks, and detect fraud. AI and predictive modeling are so ubiquitous that they can be why one gets spam and why spam is automatically deleted. Information science integrates interdisciplinary elements of data-driven, behavioral, design, interpretive, and analytical research methodologies to design and understand interactions between digital media, information systems, and humans. This research focuses on the interaction between humans, AI, and predictive models. This research proposes a theoretical framework and a conceptual research model to understand the antecedents to reliance on AI and predictive modeling. The dissertation follows a traditional format that includes three studies. Study 1 employed a deductive quantitative research approach as a survey to model the relationship between trust in science and reliance on formal news sources. Study 2 employed a deductive quantitative research approach as a survey to understand the impact of framing questions and consider an alternative method of measuring society's reliance on science using predictive models. Study 3 employed a deductive quantitative research approach in the form of a survey to posit a new model based on the first two studies. This …
Date: May 2023
Creator: Randall, William Vincent, II
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Antonio María Valencia's "Dúo en forma de sonata": An International Approach to Colombian National Music (open access)

Antonio María Valencia's "Dúo en forma de sonata": An International Approach to Colombian National Music

Antonio María Valencia (1902-1952) was one of the leading Colombian composers, pianists, and educators of his generation. His Dúo en forma de sonata (1926) for violin and piano serves as an early example of the composer's aesthetic. According to the programmatic description he sent to his mother, the Dúo depicts Valencia's "indelible impressions" of his homeland. Through structural and harmonic analysis, I examine the piece in relation to the composer's informal programmatic description. The analysis argues that the work poetically re-creates the landscape of Valencia's birthplace region through an international language, devoid of Colombian folk rhythms and melodies. Valencia proposes a different perspective on Colombian music as an alternative to the use of folk-based music elements that were predominant to Colombian music during his lifetime.
Date: May 2023
Creator: Villamil Gómez, Diego Esteban
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Arsenal of the Red Warriors: U.S. Perceptions of Stalin's Red Army and the Impact of Lend-Lease Aid on the Eastern Front in the Second World War (open access)

The Arsenal of the Red Warriors: U.S. Perceptions of Stalin's Red Army and the Impact of Lend-Lease Aid on the Eastern Front in the Second World War

Through the U.S. Lend-Lease program, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sought to keep Joseph Stalin's Red Army fighting Adolf Hitler's forces to prevent a separate peace and Nazi Germany's colonization of Soviet territory and strategic resources during the Second World War. Yet after the Red Army's 1943 counterattacks, Roosevelt unnecessarily increased Soviet Lend-Lease aid, oversupplying Stalin's soldiers with more armament than they required for the Soviet Union's defense and enabling their subsequent conquest of East Central Europe and large parts of East Asia. Roosevelt's underestimation of the Red Army's capabilities, his tendency to readily rely on Soviet-influenced advisers, and his unquestioning acceptance of Stalin's implicit threats to forge a separate peace all contributed to his excessive arming of Moscow from 1943 forward. Expanding on the findings of other scholars, this work identifies and explains the impact of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty on Roosevelt's reasoning, the key role of the Arctic convoys in delivering material to the Red Army, and how the unnecessary aid routes through Iran and Alaska resulted in the oversupplying of Stalin's troops. Had Roosevelt not opened these unnecessary routes, the Arctic convoys could have continued to sufficiently supply the Red Army's defensive efforts without empowering it to aggressively spread …
Date: May 2023
Creator: Fancher, James Reagan
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Asymptotic Formula for Counting in Deterministic and Random Dynamical Systems (open access)

Asymptotic Formula for Counting in Deterministic and Random Dynamical Systems

The lattice point problem in dynamical systems investigates the distribution of certain objects with some length property in the space that the dynamics is defined. This problem in different contexts can be interpreted differently. In the context of symbolic dynamical systems, we are trying to investigate the growth of N(T), the number of finite words subject to a specific ergodic length T, as T tends to infinity. This problem has been investigated by Pollicott and Urbański to a great extent. We try to investigate it further, by relaxing a condition in the context of deterministic dynamical systems. Moreover, we investigate this problem in the context of random dynamical systems. The method for us is considering the Fourier-Stieltjes transform of N(T) and expressing it via a Poincaré series for which the spectral gap property of the transfer operator, enables us to apply some appropriate Tauberian theorems to understand asymptotic growth of N(T). For counting in the random dynamics, we use some results from probability theory.
Date: May 2023
Creator: Naderiyan, Hamid
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library

Beyond Moses, Circumcision, and Pork: What Romans Knew about Jews and How That Knowledge Shaped Imperial Rule

Previous researchers of Jewish history in the Roman Empire have imperfectly employed Greco-Roman sources to describe Roman perceptions of Jews and Judaism by relying on a handful of Greek and Latin written and visual components without attempting to quantify or comprehensively explore this abundant material. Utilizing both quantitative and qualitative methodologies, this dissertation analyzes the vast array of Greco-Roman written and visual sources about Jews and Judaism from the first century BCE to the end of the third century CE. While qualitative reviews of Greek and Latin texts help eliminate potential inconsistencies in the data, computational tools like text-mining analysis quantify the information into calculable results. The addition of visual source material into the framework helps further refine the quantified textual material. Reviews of this data reveal the general traits imperial leaders within the Roman Empire knew about the geography and history of Judaea, Jewish religious beliefs and cultural practices, and Jewish communities in general. Further reviews of the data note regional and, more importantly, temporal variations connecting them to changes both in imperial rule and Judaism. This process presents a more detailed and coherent conception of Roman knowledge of Jews and Judaism than scholars have previously recognized. In addition …
Date: May 2023
Creator: Bocchine, Kristin Ann
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Blurring the Boundaries of Chinese and Western Musical Language: A Harmonic and Form Analysis of Chen Qigang's "La joie de la souffrance" (2017) in Reference to the Compositional Influence of Olivier Messiaen (open access)

Blurring the Boundaries of Chinese and Western Musical Language: A Harmonic and Form Analysis of Chen Qigang's "La joie de la souffrance" (2017) in Reference to the Compositional Influence of Olivier Messiaen

Chen Qigang (b. 1951) is one of today's most representative and prolific Chinese composers. His works are regarded as setting a standard of excellence among Chinese composers in the twenty-first century. Like many Chinese composers of his generation, Chen combines in his works the traits of both Chinese traditional music and Western musical language. La joie de la souffrance (The Joy of Suffering) for violin and orchestra, composed for the Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition in 2016–17, is one of his mature works that not only represents one of the great achievements of fusing Chinese and Western musical languages, but is also a major addition to the venerable tradition of Chinese concertos. By analyzing La joie de la souffrance as the nexus of old and new, East and West, I hope to provide not only insight into a valuable work of the twentieth-century violin concerto repertoire, but also a glimpse into some of the musical influences of a Chinese composer working in France in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. By extension, I hope to shed light on some of the factors, trends, and developments that have influenced Chinese composers in the early twenty-first century.
Date: May 2023
Creator: Xiong, Hanbin
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Brazilian Adaptations of Baroque and Classical Elements in the Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 9, by Alberto Nepomuceno (1864–1920) (open access)

Brazilian Adaptations of Baroque and Classical Elements in the Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 9, by Alberto Nepomuceno (1864–1920)

Alberto Nepomuceno was one of the leading figures in developing Brazilian art music at the turn of the twentieth century. He became widely known for his Brazilian art songs and kept promoting Brazilian music and the use of Portuguese as an "art language" throughout his life. Nepomuceno has widely been seen as a nationalist composer, yet some of his works adopt a more European style. In this study, I argue that Nepomuceno incorporates European musical languages in his Piano Sonata in F Minor, Op. 9. I display the rich interaction of Brazilian national identity and European influence within Nepomuceno's musical life. I also provide a thorough formal analysis of this piano sonata to argue that in some of his music he adopted a distinctively European musical language, including baroque and classical elements. In addition to analyzing the sonata-form and rondo-form elements, this dissertation discusses the use of several important topics in the work, including the Siciliano rhythm, contrapuntal writing, pedal points with organ effects, and impact of Brahms on Nepomuceno's piano writing. Moreover, I analyze how Nepomuceno assimilated European musical styles as the basis for his own compositions, as well as the innovations with which he augmented those styles. An …
Date: May 2023
Creator: Wu, Qifan
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library

Chicana Decolonial Feminism: An Interconnectedness of Being

Chicana decolonial feminism asks us to re envision a world that allows for various forms of beings, creating identities based on political coalitions, having an active compassion that translates into direct action that seeks to dismantle binaries that reinscribe colonialism. Chicana decolonial feminist thought actively seeks to dismantle sexism, to dismantle racism, to focus on personal experience as theory, to focus on the body as knowledge, reconceptualize knowledge, envision new ways of being, and writing that is accessible to all. I use two concepts active compassion and interconnectedness of being that are central to chicana decolonial feminism. Chicana feminist texts and newspaper articles from the 1970s are analyzed to demonstrate how chicana decolonial feminism is seen in these texts.
Date: May 2023
Creator: Gómez, Maricruz Yvette
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library

Cleaner Futures: Covalent Organic Frameworks for Sustainable Degradation of Lignocellulosic Materials

As countries pledge their commitment to a net-zero future, much of the previously forgotten climate change research were revitalized by efforts from both governmental and private sectors. In particular, the utilization of lignocellulosic materials saw a special spotlight in research interest for its abundance and its carbon removal capability during photosynthesis. The initial effort in mimicking enzymatic active sites of β-glucosidase will be explored. The crystalline covalent organic frameworks (COFs) allowed for the introduction of a variety of noncovalent interactions, which enhanced the adsorption and the catalytic activity against cellobiose and its glycosidic bonds. The physical processes associated with this reaction, such as the kinetics, equilibrium, and activation energies, will be closely examined and compared with existing standard materials and comparable advanced catalysts. In addition, several variants of COFs were synthesized to explore the effect of various noncovalent interactions with cellobiose. A radical-bearing COF was synthesized and characterized. The stability of this radical was examined by electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy (EPR) and its oxidative capability tested with model lignin and alcoholic compounds. The reaction products are monitored and identified using gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy (GC-MS). An oxidative coupling of phenol was explored, and its initial results are presented in chapter 5.
Date: May 2023
Creator: Lan, Pui Ching
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Consideration of Dynamic Assessment to Identify Gifted, Emerging Bilingual Latinx Students: Lessons for School Leaders (open access)

Consideration of Dynamic Assessment to Identify Gifted, Emerging Bilingual Latinx Students: Lessons for School Leaders

Little, if any, research exists that provides guidance for educators on the use of a dynamic assessment as a tool for better identifying Latinx students for gifted programs. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the perceptions of campus principals and elementary teachers as dynamic assessment was being considered as part of the gifted and talented identification protocol. Data were collected through teacher and principal interviews and focus groups, along with an analysis of current practices and protocols within the studied district. The findings revealed several key themes that emerged from educator perspectives on the ability of emergent bilingual students to be placed in gifted programs and how dynamic assessment could or could not play a part in the assessment process. The study provides support and context for future research about dynamic assessment as applied to gifted and talented identification of Latinx students, including (a) the development of a dynamic assessment, (b) the implementation of a dynamic assessment with presentation of data that supports or do not support its use, (c) training to support the implementation of a dynamic assessment, (d) the human capital and time associated with implementing a dynamic assessment, and (e) educator mindset associated …
Date: May 2023
Creator: Toy, Adam P.
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library

Corporate Environmental Litigations: Peer Effects and Its Relationship to Firm Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Performance

The dissertation analyzes three issues related to corporate environmental performance. In the first essay, I analyze the stock price reactions of the defendant firms and their peer firms to environmental lawsuits. Empirical evidence finds that the defendant and their peer firms experience negative and significant cumulative abnormal returns to the announcement of environmental lawsuits. Additionally, cross-sectional analyses find certain firm characteristics, such as profitability, growth opportunities and leverage can influence the market reaction. Furthermore, if the plaintiffs are government agencies or corporations instead of individual citizens, the defendant and peer firms experience higher negative market reactions. The second essay examines if a firm's environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance can moderate the negative market response to environmental lawsuits. The results are mixed. The overall sample of the defendant and their peer firms show that ESG performance is not a significant factor in mitigating the negative market response. However, an interesting finding shows, for defendant and peer firms in the environmentally sensitive industries, better ESG ratings help reduce the adverse market reactions. The final essay investigates whether the defendant and peer firms improve their ESG performance in the next two years following the lawsuits. The results indicates that firms generally experience …
Date: May 2023
Creator: Farjana, Ashupta
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Culturally Proficient Leadership: A Study in the Correlation of School Leaders' Perceived Levels of Cultural Proficiency and Discipline Rates of Black Students in 5A and 6A High Schools in North Texas (open access)

Culturally Proficient Leadership: A Study in the Correlation of School Leaders' Perceived Levels of Cultural Proficiency and Discipline Rates of Black Students in 5A and 6A High Schools in North Texas

The aim of this quantitative study was to explore the connection between self-perceived cultural proficiency among school leaders and the discipline gap for Black students in high schools in North Texas. The study sought to achieve this by (a) identifying the level of cultural proficiency perceived by school leaders, (b) examining the disciplinary rates of Black students in each participating high school, and (c) exploring how school administrators' beliefs regarding cultural proficiency impacted the disciplinary rates of Black students on their campuses. To assess their implementation of cultural proficiency practices, Hine's cultural proficiency leadership framework was utilized. The study found a significant positive correlation between the total cultural proficiency score and the number of out-of-school suspensions for Black students, while a negative correlation was observed for White students. Additionally, a positive correlation was observed between the total cultural proficiency score and the number of in-school suspensions for Black students, while no statistically significant correlation was found for White students. The participants in the study met three criteria: (a) working at a 5A or 6A UIL-identified campus in North Texas, (b) having at least 9% of the student population identified as Black and African American, and (c) serving as school leaders …
Date: May 2023
Creator: Malcolm, Cory Denard
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library

Deep Learning Methods to Investigate Online Hate Speech and Counterhate Replies to Mitigate Hateful Content

Hateful content and offensive language are commonplace on social media platforms. Many surveys prove that high percentages of social media users experience online harassment. Previous efforts have been made to detect and remove online hate content automatically. However, removing users' content restricts free speech. A complementary strategy to address hateful content that does not interfere with free speech is to counter the hate with new content to divert the discourse away from the hate. In this dissertation, we complement the lack of previous work on counterhate arguments by analyzing and detecting them. Firstly, we study the relationships between hateful tweets and replies. Specifically, we analyze their fine-grained relationships by indicating whether the reply counters the hate, provides a justification, attacks the author of the tweet, or adds additional hate. The most obvious finding is that most replies generally agree with the hateful tweets; only 20% of them counter the hate. Secondly, we focus on the hate directed toward individuals and detect authentic counterhate arguments from online articles. We propose a methodology that assures the authenticity of the argument and its specificity to the individual of interest. We show that finding arguments in online articles is an efficient alternative compared to …
Date: May 2023
Creator: Albanyan, Abdullah Abdulaziz
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Definable Structures on the Space of Functions from Tuples of Integers into 2 (open access)

Definable Structures on the Space of Functions from Tuples of Integers into 2

We give some background on the free part of the action of tuples of integers into 2. We will construct specific structures on this space, and then show that certain other structures cannot exist.
Date: May 2023
Creator: Olsen, Cody James
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Designing Archival Collections to Support Language Revitalization: Case Study of the Boro Language Resource (open access)

Designing Archival Collections to Support Language Revitalization: Case Study of the Boro Language Resource

Indigenous communities around the world are losing their languages at accelerating rates to the effects of the climate crisis and global capitalism. To preserve samples of these languages facing endangerment and extinction, samples of language use (e.g., audio-video recordings, photographs, textual transcriptions, translations, and analyses) are created and stored in language archives: repositories intended to provide long-term preservation of and access to language materials. In recent years, archives of all kinds are considering their origins and audiences. With the emergence of the community paradigm of archiving framework, the roles of archivists, communities, and institutions are under re-examination. Language archives too are reflecting this trend, as it becomes more common for speakers of Indigenous languages (also known as language communities) to document and archive their own languages and histories. As the landscape of language archiving expands, we now see increased emphasis on the re-use of archival material, particularly to support language revitalization—efforts to increase and maintain the use of the language. There are calls for language documentation (and, by extension, language archiving) to prioritize revitalization efforts. This dissertation is a case study of one language archive collection: the Boro Language Resource in the Computational Resource for South Asian Languages (CoRSAL) archive. …
Date: May 2023
Creator: Burke, Mary
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library

Development and Utilization of Big Bridge Data for Predicting Deck Condition Rating Using Machine Learning Algorithms

Accurately predicting the deck condition rating of a bridge is crucial for effective maintenance and repair planning. Despite significant research efforts to develop deterioration models, a nationwide model has not been developed. This study aims to identify an appropriate machine learning (ML) algorithm that can accurately predict the deck condition ratings of the nation's bridges. To achieve this, the study collected big bridge data (BBD), which includes NBI, traffic, climate, and hazard data gathered using geospatial information science (GIS) and remote sensing techniques. Two sets of data were collected: a BBD for a single year of 2020 and a historical BBD covering a five-year period from 2016 to 2020. Three ML algorithms, including random forest, eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost), and Artificial Neural Network (ANN), were trained using 319,404 and 1,246,261 bridge decks in the BBD and the historical BBD, respectively. Results showed that the use of historical BBD significantly improved the performance of the models compared to BBD. Additionally, random forest and XGBoost, trained using the historical BBD, demonstrated higher overall accuracies and average F1 scores than the ANN model. Specifically, the random forest and XGBoost models achieved overall accuracies of 83.4% and 79.4%, respectively, and average F1 scores of …
Date: May 2023
Creator: Fard, Fariba
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library

Development of Biomimetic Human Lung Alveolus Chip

The potential of physiologically relevant in vitro cell culture models for studying physiological and pathophysiological phenomena has been widely recognized as replacements for animal and conventional in vitro models. To create models that accurately replicate the structure and function of tissues and organs, it is essential to comprehend the biophysical and mechanical features of the extracellular matrix (ECM) and incorporate them into the in vitro cell culture models. Therefore, we first aimed to investigate how nanotopography can modulate cell behaviors by studying cell behaviors on nanostructures of various aspect ratios on a cobalt-chromium-molybdenum (CoCrMo) alloy surface. We also explored the impact of nanofibrous membranes on the formation of alveolar epithelium, which is critical for lung alveolar interstitium chips. In addition, we investigated the effect of mechanical stretch on cell behaviors and focused on how the dimensionality of the stretch affects cell behaviors. To create physiologically relevant in vitro models based on our findings, we engineered a stem cell niche using a combination of nanofibrous membranes, mechanical stretch, and a soft substrate, and evaluated its impact on stem cell behaviors. Finally, we created a biomimetic human lung interstitium chip for application in physiological and pathophysiological in vitro studies.
Date: May 2023
Creator: Man, Kun
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library
Dimensions of statistically self-affine functions and random Cantor sets (open access)

Dimensions of statistically self-affine functions and random Cantor sets

The subject of fractal geometry has exploded over the past 40 years with the availability of computer generated images. It was seen early on that there are many interesting questions at the intersection of probability and fractal geometry. In this dissertation we will introduce two random models for constructing fractals and prove various facts about them.
Date: May 2023
Creator: Jones, Taylor
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusive Behaviors of School Librarians: Perceptions during Times of Crisis

School librarians create an atmosphere where learners feel empowered. Moreover, school library programming should support diversity, equity, and inclusive learning opportunities to facilitate student success. Thus, school librarians are expected to model and advocate for equitable learning spaces while considering the universal design for learning approach to improving accessibility, utilization, and relevance for all library patrons. Although it has been established that school library standards support diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), more is needed to know about the impact of a crisis on school library programming and services. In addition, extensive research has not been conducted to determine school librarians' responsiveness and strategies to provide services for their school communities during disruptive times. This study examines school librarians' perceptions of the opportunities and challenges encountered while endeavoring to engage in DEI practices during crises.
Date: May 2023
Creator: Gill, Diane
Object Type: Thesis or Dissertation
System: The UNT Digital Library