Considering the explanations of schizophrenia that presume schizophrenia spectrum disorders (e.g., schizotypal personality disorder, schizoaffective disorder, etc.) to be genetically related to schizophrenia, the purpose of this study was to investigate the attention and information processing abilities of individuals who have been identified as schizotypal or psychosis-prone (i.e., schizophrenia spectrum functioning in individuals who do not have schizophrenia). Research indicates that persons identified as psychosis-prone may show attention and information processing deficits similar to individuals with schizophrenia. The identification and description of individuals who later decompensate into schizophrenia would advance the understanding of schizophrenia and its causes. The Chapman's PER-MAG scale (Perceptual Aberration-Magical Ideation) was used to identify 35 hypothetically psychosis-prone college students (schizotypy group) and 42 normal college students (nonschizotypy group) out of the 806 volunteer subjects. Their attention and information processing abilities were measured by COGLAB (a multiparadigmatic cognitive test battery that represents a continuum of cognitive functions, from preattentional to attentional, to conceptual). Their social adjustment was measured by the Premorbid Adjustment Scale (PAS). The hypotheses of the study were that the hypothetically psychosis-prone subjects would perform poorer than controls on COGLAB measures and that COGLAB measures of a more molar nature would better predict social adjustment …

This study examines the events surrounding the firing of Russell Dilday at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary as a social drama. The results suggest that, for application to post-industrial cultures, adaptations need to be made to Victor Turner's original method. The addition of Thomas Farrell's anticipation phase, identification of the breach with the transgression, and examination of unique facets of post-industrial cultures such as economic factors and the role of the media are recommended modifications. In light of these differences, the study concludes that the state of affairs at Southwestern is characteristic of schism in a post-industrial culture.

Stress plays a key role in our daily lives, influencing our emotional state, productivity, and health. One particular role in life, being a parent, has attracted significant attention in the research world in terms of the amount of stress parents experience in relation to different aspects of being parents. A life change that many parents, particularly mothers, are experiencing in increasing numbers is their return to college. This study compared reports of parenting stress and perceptions of the family environment between two groups of mothers. The first is a group of 32 mothers who were working 30 or more hours a week outside the home and were not enrolled in college while the second group consists of 31 mothers who were in college full-time and working less than 10 hours a week outside the home. All of the mothers were between the ages of 25 and 45 and had at least one child between the ages 5 and 12 years old. In both groups the mothers verified that their child(ren) was (were) without any diagnosis of an emotional, behavioral, or learning problem. A series of one-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVAs) were performed. Results indicated there were no significant group …

While literary critics heretofore have subordinated Conan Doyle to more "canonical" writers, the author argues that his writings enrich our understanding of the ways in which Victorians and Edwardians constructed their identity as imperialists and that we therefore cannot afford to overlook Conan Doyle's work.

Although several studies question information technology's contribution to productivity, organizations continue to invest in client/server systems (CSSs) particularly as enablers of business process reengineering (BPR). These efforts may be wasted if they do not improve business processes. This study focused on business processes and investigated the role of workstation-based CSSs in changing business processes. A multiple case study of workstation-based CSS databases in three organizations was performed with the proposition that they moderate the relation between managerial action and changes within business processes. The research framework suggested that changes to business processes are achieved by reducing uncertainty. In order to measure change in business processes, this study categorized business process change into: (1) compressing sequential tasks across functions, (2) compressing tasks vertically within the managerial hierarchy, (3) eliminating slack resources, (4) reducing the distance between the point of decision and the point of information or eliminating intermediaries, (5) reconfiguring sequential processes to operate in parallel, and (6) linking parallel activities during the process. Data collected from questionnaires, interviews, and observations from three case studies were used to construct network diagrams, relationship matrices, reachability matrices, and task tables of business processes. The results of this research partially support the proposition that …

The purposes of this study were to (a) determine graduate students' perceptions of the effectiveness of the delivery system and their level of comfort with the delivery system, (b) determine graduate students' perceptions of the effectiveness of the delivery system and their level of comfort with the teacher, (c) determine graduate students' level of comfort with the delivery system and their level of comfort with the teacher, (d) determine differences in graduate students' ratings of the effectiveness of the delivery system before a distance education session and after a distance education session, and (e) determine differences in graduate students' level of comfort with the teacher before a distance education session and after a distance education session.

Using the National Survey of Hispanic Elderly People, 1988, this study examines the support system of the Mexican American elderly and their utilization of formal social services. Two major research questions were addressed: 1) How does the Mexican American family provide assistance to their elderly family members? and 2) How does the bureaucratic structure affect the Mexican American elderly's access and utilization of formal social services?

The purpose of this study is to examine the problems that pregnant teenagers encounter at school and at home while they are trying to complete their high school education. Data were collected by in-depth interviews. Twenty pregnant adolescents, who were between the ages of 15 through 18, and were participants in a special teen pregnancy program were interviewed. The major findings in this study included the respondents': 1) unstable family life histories, 2) denial that they were pregnant, 3) need for self-identity as an adult, 4) conflict with parents and 5) motivation to complete their high school education. This study points to the need for more research on the problems that pregnant adolescents encounter in their everyday lives.

Several studies have suggested that the effect of cultural differences among Information Systems (IS) professionals from different nations on the development and implementation of IS could be important. However, IS research has generally not considered culture when investigating the process of systems development. This study examined the relationship between the cultural backgrounds of IS designers and their process-related values with a field survey in Singapore, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and the United States. Hofstede's (1980) value survey module (i.e., Power Distance (PDI), Uncertainty Avoidance (UAI), InDiVidualism (IDV) and MASculininity/femininity) and Kumar's (1984) process-related values (i.e., technical, economic, and socio-political) were utilized in the data collection. The hypotheses tested were: whether the IS professionals differed on (H.,) their cultural dimensions based on country of origin, (Hg) their process-related values based on country of origin, and (H3) whether a relationship between their cultural dimensions and their process-related values existed. The countries were significantly different on their PDI, UAI and MAS, but not on their IDV. They significantly differed on their technical and sociopolitical values but not on their economic values. IDV and MAS significantly correlated with the process-related values in Singapore, Taiwan and the United States. In the United Kingdom, UAI significantly …

The purpose of the present study was to compare the number of perseverations on fused (no delay) versus unfused (0.5 msec delay) CV-DL tasks with measures on a battery of executive functions across three groups: Schizophrenics (SCZ), Manic-Depressives (MD), and normal controls (NC).

Prostate cancer is the most commonly occurring cancer and the second leading cause of cancer death for men in the United States. Because early prostate cancer is frequently without symptoms and data on how to prevent prostate cancer is lacking, early detection has the greatest potential for decreasing mortality. Studies have shown Hispanics/Latinos to be less likely than whites or African-Americans to utilize prostate cancer screening exams. The purpose of this descriptive study was to design a social marketing plan which could be used as a model to promote Hispanic/Latino participation at prostate cancer screenings. Information obtained through medical and marketing literature review, the author's experiences serving on the promotion committee of a community-sponsored prostate cancer screening project, and interviews with 51 Hispanic/Latino prostate cancer screening participants is described and incorporated into a guide with recommendations for future program planners.

The Programmable Logic Array (PLA) has been widely used in the design of VLSI circuits and systems because of its regularity, flexibility, and simplicity. The equivalence problem is typically to verify that the final description of a circuit is functionally equivalent to its initial description. Verifying the functional equivalence of two descriptions is equivalent to proving their logical equivalence. This problem of pure logic is essential to circuit design. The most widely used technique to solve the problem is based on Binary Decision Diagram or BDD, proposed by Bryant in 1986. Unfortunately, BDD requires too much time and space to represent moderately large circuits for equivalence testing. We design and implement a new algorithm called the Cover-Merge Algorithm for the equivalence problem based on a divide-and-conquer strategy using the concept of cover and a derivational method. We prove that the algorithm is sound and complete. Because of the NP-completeness of the problem, we emphasize simplifications to reduce the search space or to avoid redundant computations. Simplification techniques are incorporated into the algorithm as an essential part to speed up the the derivation process. Two different sets of heuristics are developed for two opposite goals: one for the proof of equivalence …

This research study attempts to analyze variables that influence the extent of faculty involvement in learning communities. A theoretical framework identifies three primary variable sets—faculty background, structural, and organizational/environmental.

The goal of this thesis is to understand the consequences of educational choice in the public school system. The research takes place in San Antonio, Texas. The research encompasses meaningful comparisons between three sets of low income students and their families: 1) those who chose to remain in their attendance-zone school, 2) those who enrolled in the multilingual program, and 3) those who applied to the multilingual program but were not admitted because of space limitations.

This comparative study assesses the state of democracy and examines the process of democratization in the Arab World between the years 1980-1993. It addresses shortcomings in the mainstream democracy literature that excluded the Arab World from the global democratic revolution on political cultural grounds. To fulfil the objectives of this study, I employ both the qualitative and quantitative research approaches to test a number of hypothesized relationships. I hypothesize that transition to democracy is negatively associated with economic development, militarism, U.S. foreign policy, the political economy of oil, and dependency. I contend that emerging civil society institutions so far have had no significant effect on democratization in the Arab World. Finally, I hypothesize that the level of democracy in the Arab World is influenced greatly by the issue of civil rights. In order to investigate the hypothesized relationships, the following data sets have been used: Gastil's Freedom House Data set, "Repression and Freedom in the 1980s" data set, and Vanhanen's 1990 data set. The findings of this study support the aforementioned hypothesized relationships. I find that Arab countries, in general have made modest progress toward democracy, making the Arab World part of the global revolution.

Aircraft maintenance training programs in the Air Force have evolved from an almost exclusively mechanical orientation to one that is largely electronic. The Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) with its four selector composites (Mechanical, Administration, General, and Electronic) has been in use for over 20 years. The mechanical (M) composite score is used to identify those who will be trained in aircraft maintenance.

Review of previous research on cultural differences in pain experience and/or pain behavior revealed that cultural affiliation affects pain perception and response. Unfortunately, the many inconsistent findings in the literature on cultural differences in pain experience and behavior have made interpretations and comparisons of results problematic. These inconsistent findings could be attributed to variations in acculturation level among cultural groups. The purpose of this study was to investigate cultural differences in pain experience (assessed by McGill Pain Questionnaire, the Box Scale, the Headache Pain Drawing, and the Headache Questionnaire) and pain behavior (measured by determining medication use and interference of daily functioning due to headaches) among Mexican (n = 43), Mexican American (n = 36), and Anglo American (n = 50) female chronic headache pain sufferers. The contribution of acculturation to differences in pain experience and behavior among cultural groups was measured by the Acculturation Rating Scale for Mexican Americans. The three cultural groups of women significantly differed on pain experience and pain behavior. Specifically, Mexican women experienced their headache pain more intensely, severely, and emotionally than Mexican American and Anglo American women. Furthermore, Mexican women were more willing to verbally express their pain than the other two groups. As …

The purpose of this study was to examine the presence of Schön's concept of reflective conversation as a defining component in the applied studio music lesson. The research problems were (1) to determine the presence of complete and incomplete reflective conversations; (2) to determine the verbally exhibited knowledge base within complete conversations in relationship to conversation length; and (3) to establish an instructional profile of stable behaviors based on reflective conversation as a distinguishing characteristic among selected teachers. Videotapes of twenty-six applied studio music lessons of thirteen university teachers were analyzed according to problem solving, on-the-spot experimentation, and evaluation. An observation form was developed and was a reliable tool to collect information concerning number and type of reflective conversations, conversation length, and the teachers' verbally demonstrated knowledge base. Knowledge base was obtained by using the procedural model of Flanagan's critical incident technique. Reflective conversations existed and were a distinguishing characteristic of the teachers. With the exception of two teachers, a stable use of both number and length of reflective conversations, and knowledge base areas, was found. A discernible difference in the teachers' knowledge base within conversation length existed, and thus established instructional profiles for the teachers. Complete reflective conversations ranged …

Surface fitting methods play an important role in many scientific fields as well as in computer aided geometric design. The problem treated here is that of constructing a smooth surface that interpolates data values associated with scattered nodes in the plane. The data is said to be convex if there exists a convex interpolant. The problem of convexity-preserving interpolation is to determine if the data is convex, and construct a convex interpolant if it exists.

This study examined the correlation between two commercially available behavior rating scales. The two scales used were the Behavior Dimensions Rating Scale (BDRS) and the Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC). Students from a special education behavior management class (primarily students with emotional disabilities) were rated on the two scales and students from a general education behavior management class (primarily students with conduct problems without disabilities) were rated on the two scales.

Methods of incorporating jazz in opera range from using simple blue notes and fox-trot rhythms, to utilizing jazz instruments, to employing elaborate passages of improvisation. Current definitions of "jazz opera" do not consider variations in the genre, which, because of their evolving nature and the varied background of their composers, are diverse. This study attempts to collectively discuss these third-stream works. Jazz rhythms and harmonies first appeared in the 1920s in the works of Gershwin, Harling, Krenek, and Freeman. In 1966, Gunther Schuller was the first composer to use improvisation in an opera, which has become the primary distinguishing factor. There has since been a tremendous interest in this genre by such jazz musicians as Dave Burrell, Anthony Davis, Duke Ellington, Max Roach, Anthony Braxton, George Gruntz, and Jon Faddis.

Research methods from both the qualitative and quantitative paradigms were used to answer the question concerning how adult readers navigate through informational text embedded in a hypermedia environment to construct meaning.

The purpose of this study was to identify indicators of quality for liberal arts colleges and universities as defined by internal and external constituents, and to compare the results of this study with those of two-year public institutions. The internal constituents included college and university presidents and faculty, and the external constituents consisted of officers of Chambers of Commerce and the Kiwanis International, representing business and industry. A survey instrument of 70 items was sent to the constituents of 148 institutions accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. A total of 592 surveys were sent with an average response rate of 56.93%. The study was limited to Baccalaureate (Liberal Arts) Colleges I and Baccalaureate (Liberal Arts) Colleges II according to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. There were 57 survey items identified as indicators of quality by agreement of all respondent group means. The highest ranked indicator of quality was faculty commitment to teaching. The Analysis of Variance revealed close agreement by constituents on 17 of the quality indicators. There was close agreement also that three of the survey items were not indicators of quality. Fisher's Multiple Comparison test revealed that various constituents rated some survey …

The problem of this study was the identification of effective and efficient means of providing quality staff development for reading instruction within a school-district setting. The study investigated the comparative effectiveness of two staff development delivery systems measured by 1) a cognitive test of a school district's reading program and 2) an affective measure of teacher attitudes toward staff development. The sample was drawn from the teacher population of a large urban school district. The 46 subjects were elementary school teachers in grades K-5 randomly divided into two groups: Group A (videotape with a trained on-site facilitator) and Group B (face-to-face live presenter). Participants in the study received training using "The Fort Worth Reading Program," a staff development program designed by the researcher. In addition to the presentation of content information, which is the central component, the program features small group discussions, off-line activities, and question and answer periods. Both groups received the same treatment with the following exception. A central component to the Group A training was the presentation of content information in a videotape format. Group B did not view the videotape, but received the same information via live presenter. Two instruments developed by the researcher were used …