The purpose of my dissertation is to understand the structural and magnetic properties of the newly discovered FeAs-based superconductors and the interconnection between superconductivity, antiferromagnetism, and structure. X-ray and neutron scattering techniques are powerful tools to directly observe the structure and magnetism in this system. I used both xray and neutron scattering techniques on di#11;erent transition substituted BaFe2As2 compounds in order to investigate the substitution dependence of structural and magnetic transitions and try to understand the connections between them.

This dissertation focuses on techniques for (1) increasing ethanol yields from saccharification and fermentation of cellulose using immobilized cellulase, and (2) the characterization and classification of lignocellulosic feedstocks, and quantification of useful parameters such as the syringyl/guaiacyl (S/G) lignin monomer content using 1064 nm dispersive multichannel Raman spectroscopy and chemometrics.

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Despite socioeconomic disadvantages, less acculturated Mexican Americans tend to exhibit better mental health than their more acculturated counterparts. However, in the case of older Mexican American adults, research has demonstrated the opposite to be true (Gonzalez, Haan, & Hinton, 2001). A variable of interest potentially responsible for this difference is social support. Thus, the current study proposed to investigate the mediation and moderation effects that social support has on the relationship between acculturation and depression in older Mexican American adults age 60 or older. Data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) was analyzed. Results showed that the mediating effect of contact with one’s children (-.109*) and the moderating effect of total social support and contact with one’s children (-.127*; -.103*) were statistically significant in the relationship between acculturation and depression. Although these effects are small they may still hold important implications for better understanding this population.

Studies of affective forecasting examine people’s ability to predict (forecast) their emotional (affective) responses to future events. Affective forecasts underlie nearly all decisions people make and the actions they take. However, people engage in systematic cognitive errors when making affective forecasts and most often overestimate the intensity and duration of their emotional responses. Understanding the mechanisms that lead to affective forecasting errors (e.g., immune neglect) and examining the utility of methods for improving affective forecasting errors (e.g., surrogation) can provide highly valuable information for clinicians as they assist clients in determining their goals both for therapy and for life. The first purpose of the current study was to determine if affective forecasting errors due to immune neglect lead to misjudgments about the relative emotional impact of minor versus moderate negative experiences (i.e., trauma severity). The second purpose was to examine the utility of surrogation for improving affective forecasts. Potential interaction effects between these two variables were also examined. The current study utilized a 2 (Trauma Severity: minor, moderate) X 3 (Prediction Information: surrogation information only, simulation information only, both types of information) experimental design. Undergraduates were recruited via the SONA system and randomly assigned to one of the six experimental …

This dissertation contains two parts: Part I, which discusses the elegy of possessive intent, a subgenre of the contemporary American elegy; and Part II, Antigravity, a collection of poems. English elegies have been closely rooted to a specific grief, making the poems closer to occasional poems. The poet—or at least the poet’s speaker—seeks some kind of public consolation for (often) a private loss. The Americanized form does stray from the traditional elegy yet retains some of its characteristics. Some American elegies memorialize failed romantic relationships rather than the dead. In their memorials, these speakers seek a completion for the lack the broken relationship has created in the speakers’ lives. What they can’t replace, they substitute with something personal. As the contemporary poem becomes further removed from tradition, it’s no surprise that the elegy has evolved as well. Discussions of elegies have never ventured into the type of elegy that concerns itself with the sort of unacknowledged loss found in some contemporary American poems of unrequited love. These poems all have speakers who willfully refuse to acknowledge the loss of their love-objects and strive to maintain control/ownership of their beloveds even in the face of rejection.

An experiment was conducted at Jefferson Lab's Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility to develop a beam-based technique for characterizing the extent of the nonlinearity of the magnetic fields of a beam transport system. Horizontally and vertically oriented pairs of air-core kicker magnets were simultaneously driven at two different frequencies to provide a time-dependent transverse modulation of the beam orbit relative to the unperturbed reference orbit. Fourier decomposition of the position data at eight different points along the beamline was then used to measure the amplitude of these frequencies. For a purely linear transport system one expects to find solely the frequencies that were applied to the kickers with amplitudes that depend on the phase advance of the lattice. In the presence of nonlinear fields one expects to also find harmonics of the driving frequencies that depend on the order of the nonlinearity. Chebyshev polynomials and their unique properties allow one to directly quantify the magnitude of the nonlinearity with the minimum error. A calibration standard was developed using one of the sextupole magnets in a CEBAF beamline. The technique was then applied to a pair of Arc 1 dipoles and then to the magnets in the Transport Recombiner beamline to …

This auto-ethnographic study focuses on Houston’s art car community and the grassroots movement’s 25 year relationship with the city through an art form that has created a sense of community. Art cars transform ordinary vehicles into personally conceived visions through spectacle, disrupting status quo messages of dominant culture regarding automobiles and norms of ownership and operation. An annual parade is an egalitarian space for display and performance, including art cars created by individuals who drive their personally modified vehicles every day, occasional entries by internationally renowned artists, and entries created by youth groups. A locally proactive public has created a movement has co-opted the cultural spectacle, creating a community of practice. I studied the events of the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art’s Art Car Weekend to give me insight into art and its value for people in this community. Sources of data included the creation of a participatory art car, journaling, field observation, and semi-structured interviews. The first part is my academic grounding, informed by critical pedagogy and socially reconstructive art practices. The second part narrates my experiences and understandings of the community along with the voices of others. Dominant themes of exploration include empowerment, community, and art. I …

Childhood obesity in America is reaching epidemic proportions. This study explored whether daily online lunch menu information was sufficient to enable parents to advise their children about healthy and unhealthy menu choices in 350 Texas middle schools and whether online menu information strongly correlated with the descriptions of the offerings given by 52 school cafeteria managers in telephone interviews. Although schools are making efforts to describe their offerings, they are not vigorously taking advantage of the opportunity to aggressively inform or educate. They are not coding their descriptions in such a way as to explicitly brand food as healthy or unhealthy. They are also not labeling food as generally required by law for consumer services that provide food (except for the fresh produce that lines supermarket shelves). Instead, they only briefly describe what they are serving in the way of fruit in one or two word snippets. Finally, cafeteria managers’ online descriptions were inconsistent with what they described in interviews. Online and verbal descriptions were sometimes contradictory, raising questions about the accuracy of either type of description.

Globally distributed software teams are widespread throughout industry. But finding reliable methods that can properly assess a team's activities is a real challenge. Methods such as surveys and manual coding of activities are too time consuming and are often unreliable. Recent advances in information retrieval and linguistics, however, suggest that automated and/or semi-automated text classification algorithms could be an effective way of finding differences in the communication patterns among individuals and groups. Communication among group members is frequent and generates a significant amount of data. Thus having a web-based tool that can automatically analyze the communication patterns among global software teams could lead to a better understanding of group performance. The goal of this thesis, therefore, is to compare automatic and semi-automatic measures of communication and evaluate their effectiveness in classifying different types of group activities that occur within a global software development project. In order to achieve this goal, we developed a web-based component that can be used to help clean and classify communication activities. The component was then used to compare different automated text classification techniques on various group activities to determine their effectiveness in correctly classifying data from a global software development team project.

While advancements in treatment have made HIV a more manageable disease, only recently have psychosocial variables associated with the health of persons living with HIV (PLH) began to receive increased scrutiny. HIV-related stigma, considered by some researchers to be a “second epidemic,” is one such psychosocial variable and is associated with negative physiological and psychological health outcomes. In an effort to alleviate the effects of stress, increased research attention has focused on forgiveness as a teachable coping strategy. Current forgiveness interventions demonstrate encouraging results in decreasing anger and neutralizing stress but have not been applied to HIV-positive populations. In this study, Lazarus and Folkman’s transactional model of stress and coping (1984) and Prochaska and Velicer’s transtheoretical model of health behavior (1997) were utilized as theoretical frameworks to inform a randomized clinical trial that examines coping skills, particularly forgiveness, in PLH and perceived HIV-related stigma. An ethnically diverse sample of HIV-positive adults (n = 57) was randomized into a treatment or control group. The treatment group participated in six weeks of cognitive-behavioral group therapy that focused on the teaching of forgiveness as an effective coping tool while the control group was psychoeducational in nature and did not involve mention of forgiveness. …

In 1863, Fort Bascom was built along the Canadian River in the Eroded Plains of Territorial New Mexico. Its unique location placed it between the Comanches of Texas and the Comancheros of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. This post was situated within Comanchería during the height of the United States Army's war against the Southern Plains Indians, yet it has garnered little attention. This study broadens the scholarly understanding of how the United States Army gained control of the Southwest by examining the role Fort Bascom played in this mission. This includes an exploration of the Canadian River Valley environment, an examination of the economic relationship that existed between the Southern Plains Indians and the mountain people of New Mexico, and an account of the daily life of soldiers posted to Fort Bascom. This dissertation thus provides an environmental and cultural history of the Canadian River Valley in New Mexico, a social history of the men stationed at Fort Bascom, and proof that the post played a key role in the Army's efforts to gain control of the Southern Plains Indians. This study argues that Fort Bascom should be recognized as Texas' northern-most frontier fort. Its men were closer to …

Blood Brothers as a media project works as a diptych. There are two – seemingly identical – pieces of the project that must both be experienced to understand the project as a whole. The first piece of the project is the linear documentary. This part captures the experience as it exists in the past. It exists as a master copy of the original story of mine and my foster brother’s relationship. This version of the story will always exist in the past. The second part is the live-cinema documentary performance. In this version of the story, my foster brother and I are no longer only images on a screen; we are living, breathing, and emotional subjects in the present. Our presence alters how the audience consumes the material.

This dissertation examines the role of Cardinal Giovanni Battista de Luca in the reform of nepotism in the seventeenth-century Catholic Church. Popes gave very large amounts of money to their relatives and the burden of nepotism on the Catholic Church was very onerous. The Catholic Church was crippled by nepotism and unable to carry out its traditional functions. Although Cardinal de Luca and Pope Innocent XI worked tirelessly to end nepotism, they were thwarted in their attempts by apprehension among the Cardinals concerning conciliarism and concerning the use of reform measures from the Council of Trent; by Gallicanism and the attempts of the French King to exercise power over the French Church; and by the entrenchment of nepotism and its long acceptance within the Church. Cardinal de Luca and Innocent XI were not able to push through reforms during their lifetimes but Pope Innocent XII was able to complete this reform and pass a reform Bull. This dissertation has two complementary themes. First, a confluence of circumstances allowed for the unfettered growth of nepotism in the seventeenth-century Church to the point of threatening the well-being of the Catholic Church. Reform was not undertaken until the threat to Church finances was …

The dissertation examined family caregivers’ perceptions of wandering behavior after their loved one has been diagnosed with ADRD (Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias). Semi-structured in-depth face-to-face interviews of a convenience sample of 22 caregivers in the Dallas metropolitan area were conducted. Responses were analyzed using a grounded theory approach. The use of qualitative methods facilitated the study of how caregivers of a loved one with ADRD understood and explained in their own voice the wandering behavior associated with the disease and how their views of the behavior informed the caregiving process. In particular, this research examined why some caregivers tend to recognize wandering behavior as significant early on while the ADRD patient is still living in the home (and community) and modifications can be made to keep him or her there despite the behavior, and why some caregivers do not. Findings indicated that caregivers were concerned about the general safety of their loved one. Precautions were taken within the home for conditions related to frailty, but were much less likely to be taken to address wandering behavior and its negative consequences. Three groups of caregivers emerged: (a) those who primarily reacted to their loved one’s problem behaviors including wandering, and …

This collection of personal essays about incest, abuse, and depression explores the lasting effects of an invisible childhood. The essays follow the protagonist from the age of five to her early twenties. Her brother, at a young age, becomes sexually abusive of her and her sisters, and her parents fail to protect their daughters. The family is divided as the older girls strive to defend their little sisters, while their parents attempt to excuse their son. When her brother is finally sent away, the protagonist is left to salvage what remains of her relationships with her parents.

A novel application of ionic liquid as a charge carrier for the analysis and detection of neutral organometallic complexes using a mass spectrometer has been presented. The mass spectrometer detects only charged compounds which raise a difficulty in analyzing a neutral molecule that lacks a basic site to associate with charge. Therefore, an effective way of providing charge has always been an area of keen interest in the field of mass spectrometry. Ionic liquids have a very fascinating property of forming a cation-? interaction with other molecules to give a charged complex. In order to take advantage of this, it is important to know the geometric structure of the complex. Advanced methodologies like hydrogen-deuterium exchange and computational calculations have been used assisting in better understanding of the structure of the ionic liquid complexes.

The phenomenon of rescue organizations that devoted themselves specifically to hiding and saving Jewish children appeared throughout Nazi-occupied Western Europe (France, Belgium, and the Netherlands). Jewish and non-Jewish rescuers risked their lives to save thousands of children from extermination. This dissertation adds to the historiographical understanding of Holocaust resistance by analyzing the efforts of these child rescue organizations as a form of “survival resistance.” Researching the key aspects of traditional resistance (conscious intent, extensive organization, and effective turn-out) demonstrates that, while child rescue did not present armed resistance, it still was a form of active resistance against the Nazi Final Solution. By looking at rescuers’ testimonies and archival sources (from Yad Vashem, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Centre de documentation juive contemporaine, and Kazerne Dossin), this dissertation first outlines the extensive organization and intent of Jewish rescue groups, such as the Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants (OSE) and Comité de défense des Juifs (CDJ), in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. The second part looks at rescue organization and intent by Catholic, Protestant, and humanitarian groups. The dissertation concludes by discussing the effectiveness of organized child rescue. In the end, the rescue groups saved thousands of children and proofs that Child …

This exploratory study examined the effectiveness of child teacher relationship training (CTRT) with at-risk preschool children exhibiting disruptive behavior. The participants included a total of 23 Head Start teachers and their aides, and children identified by their teachers as exhibiting clinical or borderline levels of externalizing behavior problems. Teacher participants included 22 females and 1 male; demographics were reported as 56% Hispanic ethnicity, 17% Black American, and 22% European American. Child participants included 15 males and 5 females; demographics were reported as 60% Hispanic, 30% Black American, and 10% European American. A 2 by 3 (Group x Repeated Measures) split plot ANOVA was used to analyze the data. According to teacher reports using the Teacher Report Form (C-TRF) and blinded raters’ reports using the Direct Observation Form (DOF) to assess disruptive behaviors, children whose teachers received the CTRT intervention demonstrated statistically significant decreases (p < .05) in externalizing behaviors on the C-TRF and total problems on the DOF from pre- to mid- to post-test, compared to children whose teachers participated in the active control group. The CTRT intervention demonstrated large treatment effects on both measures (C-TRF: ?p2 =.173; DOF: ?p2=.164) when compared to CD, revealing the practical significance of the …

This study investigated the impact of child teacher relationship training (CTRT) on teachers’ ability to provide emotional support in the classroom, teachers’ use of relationship-building skills, and teachers’ level of stress related to the student-child relationship. Teachers and aides from one Head Start school were randomly assigned to the experimental group CTRT (n = 11) or an active control Conscious Discipline group (CD; n = 12). Overall, 21 females, 11 (CTRT) and 11 (CD), and one male (CD) participated in the study. Participating teachers and aides identified themselves as the following: 13 Hispanic/Latino, 5 Black American, and 5 European American. Teachers and aides identified children with clinical levels of disruptive behavior problems for the purpose of selecting children of focus for the study. The children’s mean age was 3.63 for CTRT group and 3.36 for CD group. Overall, 9 females, 2 (CTRT) and 7 (CD), and 10 males, 6 (CTRT) and 4 (CD) participated in the study. Teachers reported children’s ethnicity: 13 Hispanic/Latino, 5 African American, and 1 other. A two-factor (Treatment x Group) repeated measures split plot ANOVA was utilized to analyze the data with an alpha level of .05. According to objective raters blinded to the study using …

The construction of Southeastern Europe in Western imagination is the result of assertions of imperial power from some of the first recorded histories onward to modern time. Instead of providing alternative narratives gaping differences in time period, literary genres and geographical origins ballast stereotypical racist tropes and derogatory images of the countries of Southeastern Europe. For example, Roman histories, secondary historical works, twentieth century travel literature, and Central Intelligence Agency estimates all exhibit the same perception. The narrative created by these accounts is limited, remarkably racist and counterfactual. While there has been an abundance of new scholarship aimed at debunking the myths surrounding the area, much of the revisionist histories focus on placing blame, proving ethnogenesis, and serving political purposes. Understanding how the sources continue to influence perception is a pivotal step to understanding Southeastern Europe.

Claude Bolling’s Toot Suite for Trumpet and Jazz Piano that was premiered by French virtuoso trumpeter Maurice Andre in 1980 is an important work in the trumpet repertoire. At present, there is limited research regarding Toot Suite. Almost all of the six movements within Toot Suite are performed on a different instrument: C trumpet for Allegre, Eb trumpet for Mystique, Bb cornet for Rag-Polka, Bb piccolo trumpet for Marche, Bb flugelhorn for Vesperale and Bb piccolo for Spirituelle. Chapter 1 examines the life and musical background of the composer. It also exposes the history surrounding the origin of Toot Suite. Chapter 2 discusses the musical influences of the composer that are found in Toot Suite. Chapter 3 provides an analysis of existing studio recordings. Chapter 4 offers specific suggestions regarding preparation and performance of Toot Suite. Chapters 5 and 6 conclude the guide with interviews with the composer and prominent trumpet performers and pedagogues that have recorded and/or have performed Toot Suite live.

Clustering techniques are important for gene expression data analysis. However, efficient computational algorithms for clustering time-series data are still lacking. This work documents two improvements on an existing profile-based greedy algorithm for short time-series data; the first one is implementation of a scaling method on the pre-processing of the raw data to handle some extreme cases; the second improvement is modifying the strategy to generate better clusters. Simulation data and real microarray data were used to evaluate these improvements; this approach could efficiently generate more accurate clusters. A new feature-based algorithm was also developed in which steady state value; overshoot, rise time, settling time and peak time are generated by the 2nd order control system for the clustering purpose. This feature-based approach is much faster and more accurate than the existing profile-based algorithm for long time-series data.

The pyrimidine biosynthetic pathway is essential and similar in all bacteria. The pathway from Pseudomonas is regulated by nucleotides which bind to the upstream region of the pyrBC’ gene complex. Work in our lab mapped the genes and showed that the pyrB and pyrC’ were part of an overlap complex. The Pseudomonas aeruginosa has one circular chromosome. A former Pseudomonas now called Burkholderia cepacia is similar to P. aeruginosa except that it contains three circular chromosomes (CI, CII, CIII) and one large plasmid. The primary chromosome named CI contains the pyrBC’. To our knowledge there has been no report of the activity of ATCase in Pseudomonas and contrasted with that of Burkholderia. Here, we compare the activity of ATCase in P. aeruginosa and B .cepacia. Cells of both organisms were grown in Pseudomonas minimal medium and in Enriched medium. The ATCase was extracted and partially purified from each sample. It is hypothesized that the B. cepacia has greater activity for ATCase than do the Pseudomonas.