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"He's a Human, You're a Mermaid": Narrative Performance in Disney's The Little Mermaid (open access)

"He's a Human, You're a Mermaid": Narrative Performance in Disney's The Little Mermaid

Disney animation represents a powerful source of economic and cultural production. However, following the death of Walt Disney, the animation division found itself struggling to survive. It was not until the 1989 release of the hugely successful animated film The Little Mermaid that Disney would reclaim its domination among children's cultural producers. Additionally, The Little Mermaid inaugurated a shift in Disney's portrayals of gender as the company replaced the docile passive princess characteristic of its previous animated films with a physically active and strong willed ambitious heroine. Grounded in an understanding of Disney's cultural significance as dominant storyteller, the present study explores gender in The Little Mermaid by means of narrative performativity. Specifically, I analyze the film's songs "Part of Your World," "Under the Sea," and "Poor Unfortunate Souls" as metonymic narrative performances of gender that are (1) embodied, (2) materially situated, (3) discursively embedded and (4) capable of legitimating and critiquing existing power relations.
Date: May 2010
Creator: Polanco, Raquel
System: The UNT Digital Library
An Historical Analysis of Rule and Policy Changes in the Texas University Interscholastic League One-Act Play Contest, 1986-2006, and the Results of Those Changes: Administrator and Teacher Perceptions (open access)

An Historical Analysis of Rule and Policy Changes in the Texas University Interscholastic League One-Act Play Contest, 1986-2006, and the Results of Those Changes: Administrator and Teacher Perceptions

The University Interscholastic League (UIL) One-Act Play Contest is a competition where similarly sized Texas schools present an 18-40 minute play usually adjudicated by a single judge. At each level of competition the judge awards individual acting awards as well as selecting two productions to advance to the next level of competition. After the awards are announced the judge gives an oral critique to each of the schools. Because of the wide participation and diversity of plays produced, certain rules and guidelines have been adopted to ensure safety, allow for equity, satisfy legal standards, and make the running of the contest practical. These rules can be modified to achieve positive outcomes and improved educational results. Changes in the rules of a UIL contest are in accordance with stated educational objectives of the UIL. Occasionally, however, modifications in procedures raise questions. The problem of this study was to determine, from the perceptions of administrators and teachers, whether significant modifications in the rules and policies for the UIL One-Act Play Contest over a time span of 20 years have had impacts on the goals and procedures of the contest. The study utilized a qualitative approach through historical analysis and a survey to …
Date: May 2010
Creator: Stevens, David Todd
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Historical Development of Tertiary Education in the Bahamas: The College of the Bahamas, Past, Present, and Future. (open access)

The Historical Development of Tertiary Education in the Bahamas: The College of the Bahamas, Past, Present, and Future.

The purpose of this study was to provide a historical overview of the development of the College of the Bahamas, and to examine the development of the College of the Bahamas in light of the College of the Bahamas Act of 1974 and the subsequent Act of 1995. The research was qualitative in nature using historical analysis. The primary means of investigation were analyses of both primary and secondary documents and interviews with key individuals who were important to the development of the College of the Bahamas since the 1960s. The methods of triangulation of data and findings were complemented by member checks to affirm the basic findings of the study. The study was limited in scope to the College of the Bahamas to the exclusion of other tertiary institutions within the country. The College of the Bahamas has advanced greatly and has largely fulfilled the directives and goals of the Act of 1974 and is currently engaged in efforts to meet the goals of the Act of 1995.
Date: May 2010
Creator: Dames, Terren L.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Ida Gotkovsky's Eolienne Pour Flute et Harpe in Theory and Practice: A Critical Analysis (open access)

Ida Gotkovsky's Eolienne Pour Flute et Harpe in Theory and Practice: A Critical Analysis

This dissertation addresses specific theoretical issues within Gotkovsky's Eolienne. She was a student of Messiaen, and his influence is evident in Eolienne, but at the same time, Gotkovsky's compositional voice is both personally distinctive and reflects l'esprit de temps of the twentieth century Parisian musical world. The research provides extensive analytical insight into Gotkovsky's musical language in Eolienne, specifically her use of symmetrical scales, emphasis on timbre, and formal constructs. Because there are limited scholarly resources available on the subject of flute and harp chamber music, and a small amount of biographical information on Gotkovsky, this dissertation is a significant contribution within the area of chamber music for flute, both historically and theoretically. It provides an analysis of Gotkovsky's musical language and the analysis gives performers access to musical-theoretical information previously unavailable.
Date: May 2010
Creator: Surman, Patricia Jovanna
System: The UNT Digital Library
Identification of highly gifted 5- and 6-year-old children: Measures to predict academic achievement. (open access)

Identification of highly gifted 5- and 6-year-old children: Measures to predict academic achievement.

Studies indicate the educational needs of highly gifted students are best met through accelerated learning. It is difficult to recognize very young children that are suited for an accelerated curriculum because younger students frequently lack school records or portfolios used to identify gifted students. This study examined the accuracy of cognitive ability and achievement tests in predicting academic achievement by the end of second grade, correlating test results and final grade averages collected from sixteen children ages five to six who entered a public school program for high-ability learners in kindergarten. A multiple regression analysis indicated the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence produced the highest mean IQ score and a strong correlation with reading achievement. The Wechsler Individual Achievement Test contributed in small part to the prediction of academic achievement. The Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test and the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test-Second Edition had negative correlations with final grade averages, indicating they are not predictors of academic achievement for these students.
Date: May 2010
Creator: Runyon, Lisa
System: The UNT Digital Library
Incorporating Flow for a Comic [Book] Corrective of Rhetcon (open access)

Incorporating Flow for a Comic [Book] Corrective of Rhetcon

In this essay, I examined the significance of graphic novels as polyvalent texts that hold the potential for creating an aesthetic sense of flow for readers and consumers. In building a justification for the rhetorical examination of comic book culture, I looked at Kenneth Burke's critique of art under capitalism in order to explore the dimensions between comic book creation, distribution, consumption, and reaction from fandom. I also examined Victor Turner's theoretical scope of flow, as an aesthetic related to ritual, communitas, and the liminoid. I analyzed the graphic novels Green Lantern: Rebirth and Y: The Last Man as case studies toward the rhetorical significance of retroactive continuity and the somatic potential of comic books to serve as equipment for living. These conclusions lay groundwork for multiple directions of future research.
Date: May 2010
Creator: Castleberry, Garret
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Influence of Japanese Composers on the Development of the Repertoire for the Saxophone and the Significance of the Fuzzy Bird Sonata by Takashi Yoshimatsu (open access)

The Influence of Japanese Composers on the Development of the Repertoire for the Saxophone and the Significance of the Fuzzy Bird Sonata by Takashi Yoshimatsu

The history of the saxophone and its development as a performance medium in Japan is short when compared with other European countries and the United States. In this short history, the saxophone performance level in Japan has increased dramatically. At the same time, compositions for the saxophone by Japanese composers have gained more popularity in the world as can be seen in the program of the World Saxophone Congress and the North American Saxophone Alliance conference. The saxophone history in Japan, including contributions of Arata Sakaguchi (1910-1997), Ryo Noda (b.1948), and Nobuya Sugawa (b.1961), is discussed in order to understand the increase of performances of pieces for saxophone by Japanese composers. The success of many original compositions, especially those that incorporate the synthesis of Eastern and Western music, is another significant element examined in this document. Yoshimatsu approaches music for classical saxophone as a new genre. He seeks all possible sounds that the saxophone can create - beautiful tone to "noise like" - in his compositions. The blending of other musical styles in one piece is one of Yoshimatsu's compositional styles, which can be observed in Fuzzy Bird Sonata; however, he does not limit himself to a single style. This …
Date: May 2010
Creator: Hanafusa, Chiaki
System: The UNT Digital Library
Information Seeking Behavior of Crime Scene Investigators in the Turkish National Police (open access)

Information Seeking Behavior of Crime Scene Investigators in the Turkish National Police

This exploratory research is the first one among occupational information seeking behavior studies that focuses on information seeking behaviors of the crime scene investigators. The data used in this dissertation were gathered via a self-administrated survey instrument from 29 cities in Turkey. Findings obtained from the data analyses show that there is a strongly positive relationship between the experience of the crime scene investigators and the use of personal knowledge and experience as a primary information source (experience is operationalized with age, service years in policing, and service years in crime scene investigation units). The findings also suggest that increasing of the level of education is negatively related to relying on immediate colleagues as an information source among the crime scene investigators. These findings are consistent with related literature and theory. The data analysis shows that crime scene investigators work in cities with higher population rates have more complaint scores than those who work in cities with lower population rates across Turkey. The findings from the data analysis may suggest valuable implications to defeat the barriers between crime scene investigators and information sources. The researcher drew a proposed theoretical framework of an information behavior concept in the context of crime …
Date: May 2010
Creator: Demircioglu, Mehmet
System: The UNT Digital Library
Instructional Leadership Responsibilities of Assistant Principals in Large Texas High Schools (open access)

Instructional Leadership Responsibilities of Assistant Principals in Large Texas High Schools

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent secondary assistant principals in large Texas high schools demonstrate behaviors consistent with what the literature describes as instructional leadership. Three hundred seventy principals and assistant principals of large Texas high schools participated in this study. The Principal Instructional Management Rating Scale (Hallinger, 1987) was used to quantify instructional leadership in 10 different job functions. The study found that (a) assistant principals perceive themselves as exhibiting instructional leadership behaviors at a high frequency, (b) principals perceive their assistant principals exhibiting instructional leadership behaviors at a high frequency, (c) the perceptions of the principals and assistant principals were similar, and (d) principals and assistant principals reported more engagement in instructional leadership responsibilities and felt more pressured over the last five years under the new accountability and rating requirements of No Child Left Behind and the state assessments. These findings suggested that the administrative roles and responsibilities in high schools should be restructured to allow assistant principals to focus on instructional leadership.
Date: May 2010
Creator: Howard-Schwind, Michelle
System: The UNT Digital Library
Jeans, Boots, and Starry Skies: Tales of a Gay Country-and-Western Bar and Places Nearby (open access)

Jeans, Boots, and Starry Skies: Tales of a Gay Country-and-Western Bar and Places Nearby

Fourteen short stories, with five interspersed vignettes, describe the lives of gay people in the southwestern United States, centered around a fictional gay country-and-western bar in Dallas and a small town in Oklahoma. Various characters, themes, and trajectories recur in the manner of a short story cycle, as explained in the prefatory Critical Analysis, which focuses on exemplary works of James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Shirley Jackson, Italo Calvino, Yevgeny Kharitonov, and Louise Erdrich.
Date: May 2010
Creator: Gay, Wayne Lee
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Khan Variations for Solo Marimba by Alejandro Viñao: Musical Analysis and Performance Practice (open access)

The Khan Variations for Solo Marimba by Alejandro Viñao: Musical Analysis and Performance Practice

The Khan Variations is the first work for solo marimba by Argentinean composer Alejandro Viñao (b.1951). Since publication in 2001, Khan Variations has been performed at many international percussion festivals and is often a repertoire choice for performers in the final round of numerous marimba competitions. This thesis and accompanying lecture recital provide a supplemental guide to Alejandro Viñao's Khan Variations, focusing on analytical and structural theory, as well as performance practice, thus filling the void of information on this piece in the percussion community. Khan Variations was jointly commissioned by twelve of the world's prominent marimba performers and educators, including: Michael Burritt, Jack Van Geem, William Moersch, Robert Van Sice, and Nancy Zeltsman. The project organizer of the Khan Variations commission was Nancy Zeltsman, Chair of the Percussion Department at the Boston Conservatory and a leader in the field of commissioning new marimba works. Utilizing William Moersch's organization New Music Marimba as the financial conduit, Zeltsman and her group issued this commission in 1999. Alejandro Viñao studied composition with the Russian composer Jacobo Ficher in Buenos Aires, and Viñao later went on to complete his doctorate in composition from City University in London. His works span the genres of …
Date: May 2010
Creator: Roberts, John Francis
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Legacy of Theodore Leschetizky as Seen through His Pedagogical Repertoire and Teaching Style (open access)

The Legacy of Theodore Leschetizky as Seen through His Pedagogical Repertoire and Teaching Style

Theodore Leschetizky's singular pianistic legacy survives to this day because of his revolutionary pedagogical methods and his compositions for the piano repertory. The amalgamation of these two aspects formed his distinctive contributions to the fields of piano and piano pedagogy and left an indelible mark on the history of the instrument. His students lead an impressive list of the greatest artists of the previous century, each influencing the evolution of pianism with their own remarkable style and personality. While Leschetizky was arguably without peer as a pedagogue, many pianists today are unaware of the vast number of compositions that he wrote. These pieces were intended not only for the concert stage, but also as a very specific pedagogical repertoire that he used within his own teaching studio. This repertoire comprises a vital component of the Leschetizky legacy, albeit one which is often slighted in comparison. It is imperative that the pianists of our current generation understand the dual aspects of his contribution to our art form, in order to fully grasp the way in which he has changed the face of pianism. The purpose of this dissertation and lecture recital is to enumerate the various aspects that constitute the dual …
Date: May 2010
Creator: Serrin, Bret
System: The UNT Digital Library
A Legal Analysis of Litigation Against Oklahoma Educators and School Districts under the Oklahoma Governmental Tort Claims Act (open access)

A Legal Analysis of Litigation Against Oklahoma Educators and School Districts under the Oklahoma Governmental Tort Claims Act

This dissertation analyzed public court decisions in cases against Oklahoma school districts and their employees involving sovereign immunity claims filed under Oklahoma's Governmental Tort Claims Act. The questions addressed were: (1) How have the Oklahoma courts interpreted the Governmental Tort Claims Act, (Okla. Stat. tit. 51 § 151 et seq.) in litigation against school districts and their employees? (2) What are the limits of immunity protection for Oklahoma school districts and their employees? (3) How has the statute of limitations in Okla. Stat. tit. 51 § 156 and Okla. Stat. tit. 51 § 157 been applied to Oklahoma educators in tort litigation? This dissertation utilized legal research as the methodology to answer the research questions. Chapter II provides a review of existing literature regarding sovereign immunity in the United States. Chapter III is a comprehensive study of Oklahoma sovereign immunity cases filed against Oklahoma school districts and educators under the Governmental Tort Claims Act with regard to negligence, corporal punishment and the statute of limitations. Chapter IV discusses the findings of the analysis of cases in Oklahoma and the amount of protection afforded to Oklahoma school districts and educators.
Date: May 2010
Creator: Lacefield, Kevin Lee
System: The UNT Digital Library
Letters from Jack and Other Cadavers (open access)

Letters from Jack and Other Cadavers

My dissertation, Letters from Jack and Other Cadavers, developed out of my interest in using persona, narrative forms, and historical details collected through thorough research to transform personal experience and emotions in my poems. The central series of poems, "Letters from Jack," is written in the voice of Jack the Ripper and set up as a series of poems-as-letters to the police who chased him. The Ripper's sense of self and his motivations are troubled by his search for a muse as the poems become love poems, contrasting the brutality of the historical murders and the atmosphere of late 19th century London with a charismatic speaker not unlike those of Browning's Dramatic Monologues. The dissertation's preface further explores my desire for a level of personal removal while crafting poems in order to temper sentimentality. Drawing on Wallace Stevens's notion that "Sentimentality is failed emotion" and Tony Hoagland's assessment that fear of sentimentality can turn young poets away from narrative forms, I examine my own poems along with those of Scott Cairns, Tim Seibles, and Albert Goldbarth to derive conclusions on the benefits distance, persona, narrative, and detail to downplay excessive emotion and the intrusion of the personal. Poems from the …
Date: May 2010
Creator: Leis, Aaron
System: The UNT Digital Library
Living-learning communities and ethnicity: A study on closing the achievement gap at Regional University (open access)

Living-learning communities and ethnicity: A study on closing the achievement gap at Regional University

This quasi-experimental study examined the impact of living-learning communities on GPA and fall-to-fall retention rates for college freshmen at Regional University (RU). The specific focus of this study was the effect of these communities on students of different ethnic groups and on the potential of these communities to reduce the academic performance gap. RU was a small public university that offered both undergraduate and graduate degree programs. RU required all freshman students to live on campus in living-learning communities beginning with the 2007-2008 academic year. This study utilized the 343 student freshman cohort class of 2008 in the living-learning communities as the treatment group. This treatment group was compared against the 193 student freshman cohort class of 2008 living off campus and against the 643 student freshman cohort class of 2006 living on campus prior to the implementation of living-learning communities. In addition, the statistics were analyzed by ethnicity to examine the impact of these communities on White, Hispanic, African American, and Native American students and their ability to reduce the academic performance gap. The research revealed that the communities implemented at RU were not statistically significant at improving academic performance or at reducing the achievement gap. The results of …
Date: May 2010
Creator: Bewley, Jason Loyd
System: The UNT Digital Library
Love Poem with Exiles (open access)

Love Poem with Exiles

Love Poem with Exiles is a collection of poems with a critical preface. The poems are varied in terms of subject matter and form. In the critical preface, I discuss my relationship with poetry as well as the idea that we inherit poems, and that if we are inspired by them, we can transform them into something new.
Date: May 2010
Creator: Quintanilla, Octavio
System: The UNT Digital Library
Lowell Liebermann's Concerto No. 1 for Piano and Orchestra, Opus 12: An Historical and Analytical Study (open access)

Lowell Liebermann's Concerto No. 1 for Piano and Orchestra, Opus 12: An Historical and Analytical Study

Lowell Liebermann, born in New York City in 1961, is one of America's most distinguished living composers. In addition, he often conducts and performs as pianist in his own works. His musical language is unique and unmistakably rooted in the grand tradition of Western music; however, his style combines old and new, simple and complex, emotional and intellectual aspects. It combines tuneful, catchy melodies with a rich harmonic language, all framed by a strong formal design. This study begins with presenting primary information on this concerto excerpted from an interview with Lowell Liebermann. This interview served as a reference for subsequent sections, and a transcript of the interview is appended to the end of this study. In the third chapter, the musical language of the composer is discussed. Chapters four and five constitute the main body of this dissertation. The goal of these two chapters is to understand the basic three-pitch motive of the work, to demonstrate how it operates at various levels, and to see how the raw material corresponds at a larger structure level. It is the author's hope that this study will guide performers to better understand Liebermann's Concerto No. 1 for Piano and Orchestra, Opus 12.
Date: May 2010
Creator: Chang, Hsiao-Ling
System: The UNT Digital Library
Making the Connection: How Mentors Choose Protégés in Academic Mentoring Relationships (open access)

Making the Connection: How Mentors Choose Protégés in Academic Mentoring Relationships

Among other things, mentoring research is concerned with how mentors go about the process of choosing who they should mentor. Even when mentoring relationships are assigned, mentors need to feel that the efforts they are putting forth are worth the time and energy. What protégé attributes best attract the attention of a mentor? What mentor attributes make some protégés more attractive to them than others? This study looks at 3 explanations for mentor-protégé attraction, shedding light on the mental processes that influence why some protégés find it easy to get mentors and why some have a much tougher time finding the right person to mentor them. Practical and theoretical implications of this study are included.
Date: May 2010
Creator: Robertson, Tip M. A.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Maleic anhydride grafted polypropylene coatings on steel: Adhesion and wear. (open access)

Maleic anhydride grafted polypropylene coatings on steel: Adhesion and wear.

Polymeric coatings are being used in a growing number of applications, contributing to protection against weather conditions and localized corrosion, reducing the friction and erosion wear on the substrate. In this study, various polypropylene (PP) coatings were applied onto steel substrates by compression molding. Chemical modification of PP has been performed to increase its adhesion to metallic surfaces by grafting of maleic anhydride (MAH) onto PP in the presence of dicumyl peroxide (DCP). Influence of different concentrations of MAH and DCP on the properties of resulting materials have been examined. The coated steel samples are characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), shear adhesion testing, FTIR and tribometry. The coatings with 3 wt. % MAH have shown the maximum adhesion strength due to maximum amount of grafting. The wear rates increased with increasing the amount of MAH due to simultaneous increase in un-reacted MAH.
Date: May 2010
Creator: Mahendrakar, Sridhar
System: The UNT Digital Library
Measurement of the \textit{CP} Violating Phase $\boldsymbol{\sin(2\beta_{s})}$ using $\boldsymbol{B^{0}_{s}\rightarrow J/\psi\phi}$ Decays at CDF (open access)

Measurement of the \textit{CP} Violating Phase $\boldsymbol{\sin(2\beta_{s})}$ using $\boldsymbol{B^{0}_{s}\rightarrow J/\psi\phi}$ Decays at CDF

A B{sub s}{sup 0} meson can oscillate into its anti-particle, the {bar B}{sub s}{sup 0} meson, before decaying. CP violation in this system is made possible by the presence of amplitudes from both mixed and unmixed B{sub s}{sup 0} meson decays. The CP violating phase {beta}s appears in the interference between the decay amplitudes. The quantity sin(2{beta}s) is expected to be small in the standard model. Thus, measuring a large value for sin(2{beta}s) would be an unequivocal sign of new physics participation in the B{sub s}{sup 0} mixing loop diagram. In this thesis, we present a latest measurement of sin(2{beta}s), using 5.2 fb{sup -1} of data collected at CDF from p{bar p} collisions at a center of mass energy of {radical}s = 1.96 TeV. A time-dependent angular analysis, with the production flavor of the B{sub s}{sup 0} meson identified with flavor tagging methods, is used to extract sin(2{beta}s) from {approx}6500 B{sub s}{sup 0} {yields} J/{psi}{phi} decays. Other parameters of interest, such as the B{sub s}{sup 0} lifetime and the decay width difference {Delta}{Lambda} between the heavy and light B{sub s}{sup 0} mass eigenstates are determined to high precision. Also, the effect of potential contributions to the final state from B{sub …
Date: May 1, 2010
Creator: Pueschel, Elisa
System: The UNT Digital Library
Medical School Admissions Across Socioeconomic Groups: An Analysis Across Race Neutral and Race Sensitive Admissions Cycles (open access)

Medical School Admissions Across Socioeconomic Groups: An Analysis Across Race Neutral and Race Sensitive Admissions Cycles

While the relationship between academic variables and admission into medical school has been well documented, the relationship between socioeconomic background and admission has not been extensively examined. In 2001, the Texas Legislature passed HB 1641, which allowed for the use of socioeconomic variables in the admission of graduate and professional school students. Additionally, the Grutter v. Bollinger decision in 2003 removed a prohibition on the use of race or ethnicity in the admission of students in the state of Texas. The study examined the role medical school admissions selectivity as it relates to the socioeconomic background during a race neutral admissions cycle in 2005 and a race sensitive admissions cycle in 2006. The results of data analysis found that in a race neutral admissions cycle socioeconomic background was a significant factor in the admission of applicants to medical school. However, it was not a significant factor for applicants from underrepresented minority groups. The analysis also found that socioeconomic background was a significant factor in the admission of applicants to medical school in a race sensitive admissions cycle as well. Finally, the study found that variances in selectivity led to differences in the socioeconomic makeup of entering students across different medical …
Date: May 2010
Creator: Kennedy, Mike
System: The UNT Digital Library
Microwave-Assisted Synthesis, Characterization, and Photophysical Properties of New Rhenium(I) Pyrazolyl-Triazine Complexes (open access)

Microwave-Assisted Synthesis, Characterization, and Photophysical Properties of New Rhenium(I) Pyrazolyl-Triazine Complexes

The reaction of the chelating ligand 4-[4,6-bis(3,5-dimethyl-1H-pyrazol-1-yl)-1,3,5-triazin-2-yl]-N,N-diethyl-benzenamine, L, with pentacarbonylchlororhenium by conventional heating method produces the complexes fac-[ReL(CO)3Cl2] and fac-[Re2L(CO)6Cl2] in a period of 48 hours. The use of microwaves as the source of heat and the increase in the equivalents of one of the reactants leads to a more selective reaction and also decreases the reaction time to 1 hour. After proper purification, the photophysical properties of fac-[ReL(CO)3Cl] were analyzed. The solid-state photoluminescence analysis showed an emission band at 628 nm independent of temperature. However, in the solution studies, the emission band shifted from 550 nm in frozen media to 610 nm when the matrix became fluid. These results confirm that this complex possess a phenomenon known as rigidochromism.
Date: May 2010
Creator: Salazar Garza, Gustavo Adolfo
System: The UNT Digital Library
Modulation of the Coelomic Fluid Protein Profile in the Earthworm, Lumbricus Terrestris, After Exposure to Copper as Copper Sulfate (open access)

Modulation of the Coelomic Fluid Protein Profile in the Earthworm, Lumbricus Terrestris, After Exposure to Copper as Copper Sulfate

Proteomic techniques were used to analyze the protein profile of earthworm, Lumbricus terrestris, coelomic fluid collected by either whole body dissection method or the coelomic cavity puncture method. Data demonstrated that collection of coelomic fluid using the coelomic cavity puncture method protocol resulted in a 32% reduction, 377 +/- 4.5 vs 253+/- 19.9 (p=0.0007), in the number of individual proteins. It was determined that the coelomic cavity puncture method yielded a "cleaner" preparation, one less contaminated with extraneous proteins from intestinal tissue, gut contents, and body wall materials. This protocol was used in all later studies. The same proteomic techniques were used to evaluate the effects that exposure to Cu (1.0 μg/cm2) as CuSO4 had on the earthworm coelomic fluid profile. Comparison of protein profile from exposed earthworms demonstrated a significant reduction in the number of proteins expressed (184 ± 2.64 vs 253 ±19.9 p=0.0192) when compared to control organisms. Cu exposure also resulted in a modulation of the protein profile with treated earthworms expressing 47 new proteins that were not identified in unexposed worm coelomic fluid. Additionally, 116 proteins found in coelomic fluid collected from normal worms were absent in Cu exposed organisms. Finally, 137 proteins were conserved or …
Date: May 2010
Creator: Herring, Reese
System: The UNT Digital Library
Music Career Opportunities and Career Compatibility: Interviews with University Music Faculty Members and Professional Musicians (open access)

Music Career Opportunities and Career Compatibility: Interviews with University Music Faculty Members and Professional Musicians

This study used a semistructured interview schedule to identify the music career opportunities available to students who graduate with an undergraduate music degree, and the skills, interests, work values, and personal characteristics that may determine a person's suitability for these music careers. Six university faculty members from each of the 11 NASM-accredited undergraduate music degree fields participated in the study (n = 66). Fourteen professional musicians who were recommended by these faculty members also participated in the study. Concerning the musical and non-musical skills that may determine a person's suitability for a music career, participants consistently noted the importance of performance skills in their respective fields. Participants also consistently cited people skills, and noted that most musicians interact with people on a daily basis, and use people skills to build social networks that may lead to employment. When asked about the interests that may lead someone to a music career, participants commonly cited the importance of good high school ensemble experiences in students' music career decisions. Concerning the rewarding aspects of music careers, many participants noted that they were more rewarded by the ability to support themselves doing what they loved, than by fame or wealth. Concerning the personal characteristics …
Date: May 2010
Creator: Branscome, Eric E.
System: The UNT Digital Library