The major purposes of the current research are twofold. The first purpose is to present a composite approach to the general classification problem by using outputs from various parametric statistical procedures and neural networks. The second purpose is to compare several parametric and neural network models on a transportation planning related classification problem and five simulated classification problems.

The purposes of this study were (a) to analyze whether any significant differences exist in students' satisfaction among the 11 composite scales/satisfaction measures of the SSI (retention programs); (b) to determine whether significant differences exist in satisfaction among students of the institution based on their demographic characteristics of gender, age, ethnicity, class load, and employment; and (c) to record findings, draw conclusions, and make recommendations from the study. The research was conducted using a questionnaire, The Student Satisfaction Inventory (SSI), developed by Juillreat and Schreiner in 1994. The instrument measures, among other matters, students' perceptions and satisfaction. The population of the study comprised all students at the institution during the 1996-1997 school year. A total of 312 students was sampled, with 182 (58%) returns received. Statistical treatments used to analyze the collected data included frequencies, percentages, means, standard deviation, multiple analysis of variances (MANOVA), one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), and Tukey's Post Hoc t-test for multiple comparison.

The purposes of this study were to: (a) determine the effects of Senate Bill 7 on expenditures in Texas school districts, (b) compare similarities and differences in expenditures among property-poor, medium-wealth, and wealthy-districts, (c) analyze spending patterns in light of equalization efforts, and (d) provide useful data to researchers in the area of equalization and adequacy.

The management style being used by school personnel in Texas and across the nation today is predominately that of a bureaucracy. This model was organized around the industrial revolution that was exercising authority at the turn of the century. Writers and researchers have pointed out that such a model is not capable of providing students the knowledge and skills they will need to enter an increasingly demanding society. One management style relatively new to the educational arena today is that of Total Quality Management. This study reports the results of the impact of the training in those principles by measurement of student test scores.

Previous research has shown that accountants may be inadequate moral reasoners. Concern over this trend caused the Treadway Commission (1987) and the Accounting Education Change Commission (1990) to call for greater integration of ethics into the student's training. Ponemon and Glazer (1990) found a difference in cognitive moral development (CMD) between accounting students at a public university and a private university with a liberal arts emphasis. This study expands Ponemon and Glazer's research by examining two liberal arts universities, one a private, secular institution and one a Catholic institution. The primary research question asks if Catholic university accounting students manifest greater CMD growth than secular university accounting students. Additionally, this study examines and compares the priority that accounting students from the different institutions place on ethical values versus economic values. It was expected that Catholic university accounting students would manifest both greater CMD growth and a greater concern for ethical values over economic values when compared with non-Catholic university accounting students. The study utilized a two-phase approach. In the first phase, an organizational study of two institutions was made to determine how each strives to integrate moral development into their accounting students' education. In the second phase, lower-division and senior …

The purpose of this study was to compare the self-efficacy of two groups of first year teachers working in a large urban school district in North Texas. Twenty-eight of the participants were certified teachers. Ten participants held college degrees unrelated to teaching and were undergoing an alternative certification process. The Teacher Efficacy Scale was administered at the beginning and the end of the school year. Data from this scale was analyzed to determine if there were differences between the regular certification teachers and the alternative certification teachers at the beginning and the end of the school year, and to determine if their sense of efficacy changed over the course of the school year.

This study investigated the use of interdisciplinary computer-based simulations compared to traditional teaching methods. The academic intrinsic motivation of gifted and non-gifted students was analyzed using a quasi-experimental design, similar to a pretest/posttest design.

There are three main results in this dissertation. They are PLS-completeness of discrete Hopfield network convergence with eight different restrictions, (degree 3, bipartite and degree 3, 8-neighbor mesh, dual of the knight's graph, hypercube, butterfly, cube-connected cycles and shuffle-exchange), exponential convergence behavior of discrete Hopfield network, and simulation of Turing machines by discrete Hopfield Network.

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) can result in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as events related to illness act as traumatic stressors. This study tested some basic hypotheses of Sewell and Cromwell's personal construct model of PTSD in HIV+ women both with and without diagnoses of PTSD. Trauma-related constructs of HIV+ women with PTSD with HIV+ non-PTSD controls at varying stages of illness were compared. The elaboration, rankings, and valence of trauma-related constructs were examined using the Life Events Repertory Grid (LERG) procedure. Findings provided evidence that a clinical diagnosis of PTSD in women was not associated with the degree of construct elaboration. These findings may imply a qualitative difference in cognitive processing of social stressors and violent stressors.

Sofia Gubaidulina is one of the leading composers in the contemporary music world. Her compositional interests have been stimulated by the exploration of and improvisation with rare folk and ritual instruments, and by a deep-rooted belief in the mystical properties of music. Gubaidulina is the author of orchestral and choral works, compositions for solo instruments, chamber music, as well as electronics music. Gubaidulina's Piano Sonata sums up the composer's thinking within her piano music, and at the same time projects the development of her spiritual vision within other genres that are to come. The analytical approach in this paper is based on the correlation between each of the elements of the musical material (form, rhythm, sound, etc.) and its contextual meaning in terms of musical dramaturgy. Set-theory is applied to the analysis of motivic components of the work. The traditional form is just the basis for the original intonational structure within a modern musical idiom. Varieties of rhythmic patterns, as well as an unconventional sound production, make this work breath with an impetuous power. The examination of the Sonata's musical language and content should give some insight not only into Guabaidulina's piano music, but also into a consequent development of …

Recently, multi-source feedback has been a popular way of providing performance-related feedback to individuals in many organizations. Many who use multi-source feedback consider Rating Convergence, others seeing target individuals as they see themselves, to be a positive outcome of this process. However, the variables that account for Rating Convergence are not known. This study investigated whether the personality factor Extroversion and Behavioral Consistency, acting as a moderator variable, could account for Self-other Rating Convergence, particularly the Convergence between self and peer Ratings. The sample consisted of 235 mid-level managers from a variety of industries who were participants in individual career development workshops. Using structural equation modeling, the results indicated that a model consisting of a single Extroversion factor could account for the convergence of self-peer ratings. This finding calls into question the significance of Rating Convergence when using multi-source rating instruments that provide feedback on trait characteristics since it may be heavily influenced by a single personality factor rather than observers' comprehensive understanding of the ratee's performance.

N-Acylphosphatidylethanoiamine (NAPE) is synthesized in the microsomes of cotton seedlings by a mechanism that is possibly unique to plants, the ATP-, Ca2+-, and CoA-independent acylation ofphosphatidylethanolamine (PE) with unesterified free fatty acids (FFAs), catalyzed by NAPE synthase. A photoreactive free fatty acid analogue, 12-[(4- azidosalicyl)amino]dodecanoic acid (ASD), and its 125I-labeled derivative acted as substrates for the NAPE synthase enzyme.

Many historians have acknowledged the temptation to portray people as they see themselves and wish to be seen, blending history and ideology. The result is "mythistory." Twentieth century Texas writers and historians, remarking upon the exceptional durability of the Texas mythistory that emerged from the nineteenth century, have questioned its resistance to revision throughout the twentieth century. By placing the writing of Texas history within the context of American and European intellectual climates and history writing generally, from the close of the eighteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth, it is possible to identify a pattern that provides some insight into the popularity and persistence of Texas mythistory.

By measuring interactions among and between anxiety and the independent variables of country of origin, gender, level of education, and age, this study attempted to gain insight into how students from different countries experience anxiety on a U.S. college campus. Results of the Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) and the univariate test(ANOVA) indicated that the gender and level of education of the subjects made no significant difference. However, when it came to country of origin, there were significant differences between two of the cultural groups and respective anxiety level. Findings also support a positive correlation between age and anxiety levels, with the youngest participants having the lowest anxiety levels.

A publication by the National Academy of Sciences, USA (1979) outlined some of the research need for a great variety of economically important woody species whose remaining genetic resources need urgently to be collected and conserved. A viable regeneration system was established via tissue and cell suspension culture for Albizia falcataria and A. lebbeck, two important wood yielding leguminous tree species. The culture medium was standardized after several trials to obtain callus from the leaflet explants of these two tree species. The optimum use of casein hydrolysate (w/v) and coconut milk (v/v) in addition to 6-Benzylaminopurine and Indole-3-butyric acid could induce morphogenesis and somatic embryogenesis in the cultured tissue. This reports the first observation on somatic embryogenesis ofA. lebbeck using leaflets as the explants. Scanning Electron Microscopy and histological studies were done on the different stages plant development following standard techniques. Embryogenesis in suspension culture followed regeneration of plantlets in A. lebbeck. In A.falcaaria the regenerative process followed via organogenesis from the shoot buds developed on the leaf explants. After hardening the regenerated plants were transferred to the greenhouse. Some of the trees grew more than 25 feet tall within a few months outside the greenhouse. Karyotype of the three …

This study explores beliefs and practices about standards of quality in Texas public prekindergartens as viewed from various perspectives, including prekindergarten teachers, administrators of prekindergarten programs, and families of prekindergarten students. These beliefs and practices are compared with widely-accepted national standards of quality for preschool programs.

Recital presented at the UNT College of Music Recital Hall in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degree.

Recital presented at the UNT College of Music Recital Hall in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degree.

Recital presented at the UNT College of Music Recital Hall in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degree.

Recital presented at the UNT College of Music Recital Hall in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) degree.

The problem of this study concerned illicit psychoactive drug use among community college students. A non-experimental design methodology, a survey, was used in this study. The population consisted of 149 students at 14 randomly selected public community college institutions throughout the United States. Three waves of mailings took place to increase response rate. Community college students appear to be knowledgeable regarding the deleterious physical and mental impact upon those who use drugs. Community college students appear to have a negative attitude toward drug use and toward those who use them. Community college students have an aversion to actual drug use. The illicit psychoactive drug of choice among community college students is marijuana.

This study investigated the problem that educators have throughout the state of Texas. The problem educators have is that reading scores continue to fall short of state expectations. This study investigated the effectiveness of 90 minutes of class time given for reading to students who use the Electronic Bookshelf Program and the effectiveness of the Electronic Bookshelf Program, which is being sold to school districts throughout the nation. The literature review focused on the effectiveness of independent reading on reading achievement, and the effectiveness of using computer-based reading programs to increase reading achievement.

The study examined the effects of a study skills training intervention course on U.S. Air Force Aeromedical Apprentices with five main purposes. The first was to examine the relationship between study skills training and the number of times students required academic interventions outside of normal class time. The second purpose was to examine the relationship between study skills training and end of course averages. The third was to determine the relationship between study skills training and the amount of additional instruction, measured in time, students required. The fourth purpose examined the relationship between study skills training and graduation rates. The final purpose was to recommend areas for further research.

The purpose of this study was to determine if extended periods of time out of the training environment has an effect on the retention of training. The rationale for conducting this study was based on the fact that little research has been done in this area. The findings of the study indicated that extensive periods of time out of training do significantly influence the amount of training retained fromone loadmaster course to the other. Additionally, there was a significant relationship between the number of days out of training and the posttest scores. The optimum training break between courses appears to be between 10 and 20 days. Training retention is apparently affected by time.