This dissertation consists of three studies that collectively investigate the factors influencing the consumer adoption intention towards emerging healthcare technologies. Essay 1 systematically reviews the extent literature on healthcare technology adoption and serves as the theoretical foundation of the dissertation. It investigates different models that have been previously applied to study healthcare technology acceptance. Meta-analysis method is used to quantitatively synthesize the findings from prior empirical studies. Essay 2 posits, develops, and tests a comprehensive biotechnology acceptance model from the end-user's perspective. Two new constructs, namely, perceived risk and trust in technology, are integrated into the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology. Research hypotheses are tested using survey data and partial least square – structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Essay 3 extends the findings from the Essay 2 and further investigates the consumer's trust initiation and its effect on behavioral adoption intention. To achieve this purpose, Essay 3 posits and develops a trust model. Survey data allows testing the model using PLS-SEM. The models developed in this dissertation reflect significant modifications specific to the healthcare context. The findings provide value for academia, practitioners, and policymakers.

Value-added models (VAMs) have become widely used in evaluating teacher accountability. The use of these models for high-stakes decisions making has been very controversial due to lack of consistency in classifying teachers as high performing or low performing. There is an abundance of research on the impact of various student level covariates on teacher value-added scores; however, less is known about the impact of teacher-level and school-level covariates. This study uses hierarchical linear modeling to examine the impact of including teacher characteristics, school characteristics, and student demographics aggregated at the school level on elementary mathematics and reading teacher value-added scores. Data for this study was collected from a large school district in north Texas. This study found that across all VAMs fitted, 32% of mathematics teachers and 37% of reading teachers changed quintile ranking for their value-added score at least once across all VAMs, while 55% and 65% of schools changed their quintile ranking of value-added scores based on mathematics and reading achievement, respectively. The results show that failing to control for aggregated student demographics has a large impact on both teacher level and school level value-added scores. Policymakers and administrators using VAM estimates in high-stakes decision-making should include teacher- …

Children with disabilities are three to four times more likely to be abused than their non-disabled peers due to the impact of challenges related to behavior, cognition, language, social skills, and communication skills. In September of 2018, the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) specifically noted the need to establish maltreatment prevention and response curricula and promote research and advocacy surrounding maltreatment of children with disabilities. One common curriculum recommended is Kidpower®. While Kidpower® shows promise in increasing people safety skills and offers some basic accommodations for use with disabled populations, a complete accommodation plan for deaf or hard of hearing students has not been developed. The purpose of this study was to explore how Kidpower® curriculum could be accommodated to meet the unique needs of deaf and hard of hearing students from the perspective of the deaf education community, including deaf adults, deaf education teachers, deaf education teacher preparation faculty, and parents with deaf or hard of hearing children. A combination of focus groups and interviews were utilized to review lessons and homework from the Kidpower® curriculum. Participants gave feedback on obstacles and ideas for accommodations and modifications that would mediate the challenges. Data were inductively coded and analyzed for …

The purpose of this convergent mixed method study was to determine whether or not there is a difference in the perceived and actual financial literacy scores of millennials. Exploring the following research questions and hypotheses helped to expand knowledge around actual financial literacy and several other characteristics, including perceived financial literacy, especially among millennials (individuals born between 1981 and 1996): RQ1: What is the difference between millennials' actual and perceived financial literacy scores? RQ2: To what extent do socioeconomic status, gender, and having a bank account predict millennials' financial literacy scores? H0: There is no relationship between millennials' socioeconomic status, gender, banking status and their financial literacy scores. RQ3: What video delivery methods (if any) are millennials using to gain financial literacy knowledge in informal learning environments? Millennial participants (N = 207) were asked to complete a survey. Participants' perceived financial literacy scores were higher than their actual financial literacy scores. While males had higher perceived financial literacy ratings, females accounted for the majority of participants who scored four or above on a 5-point scale for actual financial literacy. Although, the null hypothesis was incorrect, the independent variables used in the ANOVA tables accounted for less than 15% of financial …

In 2018, global gross domestic product (GDP) was US$86.3 trillion, and almost a quarter of that value was due to international trade with a value of US$19.6 trillion. Air cargo accounts for about 35 percent of that trade value (approximately US$6.86 trillion). Moreover, from the perspective of the airport sector, air cargo revenue contributes between 20 to 70 percent of airport revenue. The global airport revenue for freight in 2018 was US$250 billion. Despite the interest and research activities surrounding competition and competitiveness of airports and specifically among airlines and passengers, it appears scholars have overlooked research concerning the competitiveness of airports when it comes to air cargo. This study attempts to fill the gap in the supply chain and logistics literature by putting forward a framework and ultimately operationalizing the framework highlighting the pivotal role of air cargo in the supply chain domain and within the global economy. Specifically, the framework is operationalized within the freight forwarding air cargo supply chain domain – providing insight into this important yet understudied phenomenon. The population of interest is freight forwarders from the Dubai International Airport, United Arab Emirates. The Middle East represents 18 percent of the world's air cargo volume and …

Violin repertoire composed in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries placed new demands on performers. While numerous pedagogues have written etudes and treatises analyzing traditional techniques, far fewer have thoroughly examined contemporary techniques. Many of the existing etudes and exercises inspired by contemporary violin repertoire are of a very high difficulty level and may seem unapproachable to students with little to no experience performing the music of recent decades. As a result, many violin students are unacquainted with the language of new music. This dissertation is intended to help fill a gap in the pedagogical literature by serving as a resource that familiarizes advanced students with the notation and proper execution of the non-traditional techniques commonly found in contemporary violin music. This document includes a survey of violin repertoire written since 1970, an analysis of the non-traditional techniques used most often in the works examined, methods for approaching specific technical problems that arise in them, and nine etudes originally composed by this author. The etudes focus on nine contemporary techniques, ranging from contact point variations to changing subdivisions, and are intended for study by advanced violinists interested in performing contemporary music.

The purpose of this phenomenological study is to explore the experiences of Black graduates of historically Black colleges and universities who attend graduate school at predominately White institutions as they adjust academically and socially at these institutions. In-depth interviews provide knowledge as to what this special population of students' experience. Recommendations for faculty and administrators to assist with the recruitment and retention of these graduate students is also provided.

François Couperin (1668-1733) was one of the earliest French Baroque composers to merge the Italian style into the French tradition. He had great influence on the development of French Baroque music from the end of the seventeenth century until his death. Couperin's four Concerts Royaux and the ten Concerts Nouveaux (published in 1722 and 1724) were written for the enjoyment of Louis XIV. Those suites were popular in the court before they were published, as they were requested to be performed every Sunday during the years 1714 and 1715 to give pleasure to the king. Rittrato dell'amore is the ninth suite out of the fourteen suites. The purpose of this study is to provide a performance guide and a practical edition of François Couperin's Neuvième Concert Ritratto dell' amore. It also contrasts Italian style and French tradition in the Baroque period, and how Couperin blended both styles together in his Neuvième Concert. In addition, this dissertation summarizes the general principles of Baroque performance practice that one may encounter in Neuviéme Concert, including notes inégales (unequal notes), ornamentation, over-dotting, and other issues. It is especially important for one to understand the performance style of French Baroque music in order to perform …

NASCION-type lithium-aluminum-germanium-phosphate (LAGP) glass-ceramic is one of the most promising solid electrolyte (SEs) material for the next generation Li-ion battery. Based on the crystallization of glass-ceramic material, the two-step heat treatment was designed to control the crystallization of Li-ion conducting crystal in the glass matrix. The results show that the LAGP crystal is preferred to internally crystalize, Tg + 60%∆T is the nucleation temperature that provides the highest ion conductivity. The compositional investigation also found that, pure LAGP crystal phase can be synthesized by lowering the amount of GeO2. To fill gap of atomic structure in LAGP glass-ceramic, molecular dynamic (MD) simulation was used to build the crystal, glass, and interfacial structure LAGP. The aliovalent ion substitution induced an simultaneously redistribution of Li to the 36f interstitial site, and the rapid cooperative motion between the Li-ions at 36f can drop the activation energy of LAGP crystal by decreasing the relaxation energy; furthermore, an energy model was built based on the time-based analysis of Li-ion diffusion to articulate the behavior. The glass and interfacial structure show and accumulation of AlO4, GeO4 and Li at the interface, which explains the Li-trapping on the intergranular glass phase. An in-situ synchrotron X-ray study found …

The implementation of professional learning communities (PLCs) has led to systemwide reform within school districts and campuses regarding how campus leaders support the teachers' collaborative work and continued professional learning. Current research emphasizes the importance of campus administrators cultivating an environment where PLCs can flourish and ensuring that PLC teams have the resources to work effectively. However, campus administrators simply putting these supports in place does not make them effective. This study sought to explore campus leader and teacher perceptions of administrator actions that support PLCs for teachers in core-content subjects at two suburban north Texas high schools. An explanatory sequential mixed methods research design was utilized, and three data collections tools were used: an electronic survey, interviews with campus administrators and teachers, and the analysis of campus and PLC artifacts. Survey data indicated that participating teachers had an overall positive perception of the current campus practices which support PLC teams. Teacher interview data revealed that teachers preferred that campus administrators take a neutral role in PLC team meetings, that administrators ensure PLC teams are meeting the established campus PLC expectations, and that administrators observe the team, listen, and ask questions to help the team. Campus administrators viewed their actions …

How do religions and nationalism interact in secular democracies? With its history of nationalism based on religious ideologies, and the subsequent forced separation of state and religion, Japan provides a valuable case to examine how religion and nationalism interact and affect the politics of a secular state. The purpose of this dissertation is to understand and synthesize the divide within the literature regarding the idea that Shinto is fundamentally nationalist in nature. Due to Shinto's historical ties to Japanese nationalism, it is clear that religion and nationalism played a role in Japanese politics in the past. However, with Japan's transition to democracy and the constitutional provision of the separation between religion and state, religion's effect on nationalism in Japan has become blurred contemporarily. In order to explore these relationships between Shinto, nationalism, and Japanese politics, I investigate how political groups and religious organizations influence nationalist sentiment in political institutions and public opinion in Japan using the Japanese Value Orientations survey and an original dataset. I find that even though the evidence is mounting against the accuracy around the idea of State Shinto and the fundamentally nationalist nature of Shinto, the narrative persists. The existence of nationalist circles perpetuates these narratives, …

The dissertation examines factors influencing nonprofit organizations' contribution to collaborative governance for climate change adaptation and nonprofit roles in the collaboration. Why an organization collaborates with others has long been a concern of scholars. However, in a majority of empirical studies, collaboration has been considered as a dichotomous concept. To fill the gap, this study considers organizations' contribution to collaboration, i.e., collaboration level in terms of power, joint activities, human resource, funding, and information sharing. To understand contribution of nonprofits to collaboration for climate change adaptation, this research employs the institutional collective action framework suggesting that organizations work together when expected benefits are greater than collaborative risks. Survey data from 101 nonprofit private organizations (beyoungri mingan danche) in South Korea, which are legally defined in the Assistance for Nonprofit, Nongovernmental Organizations Act, are analyzed. Finding is that government funding and social relationship are strongly associated with nonprofit contribution to collaboration, highlighting that the financial stability of nonprofit organizations and mutual trust among entities based on routine interaction are critical motives for nonprofit collaboration. Finding also reveals that Korean nonprofits mainly play a role as social capital creators in climate change adaptation. The finding also highlights that Sang Bu Sang Jo …

The dissertation seeks to rediscover Julius Schloss, a German Jewish composer victimized by the Nazis. Except for the promising start of his career in his early years, Schloss suffered a hard life as an exiled refugee. However, his unusual experiences inspired him to compose two Chinese Rhapsodies during his last years of exile in Shanghai, in which he synthesized Western composition techniques and Chinese folk materials, amalgamating influences from both Western and Eastern music cultures. Focusing on Schloss's First Chinese Rhapsody, the dissertation explores how Schloss links the new to the old, the West to the East, through an analysis of the way he employs Chinese folk song material and serial polyphonic voice-leading in his post-tonal musical language. Since the Rhapsody has both serial and polyphonic voice-leading aspects, both are analyzed, showing how they are integrated in the form.

The two fields of acousmatic music and site-specific conceptual art take strikingly different approaches to the notions of space and place. In this document, I describe how these two areas of aesthetic research diverge and relate to each other, focusing on how their unique approaches can be implemented in the practice of site-specific music composition. The first part of this document surveys the distinctive features of each of these fields, describing the particular differences between them in their approach to space and place. The contradictions between the two approaches are then briefly analyzed in reference to Georgina Born's understanding of music as fundamentally multitextual. In the second part of the document, I describe in detail how I implemented a site-specific approach when composing "…threaded through," a 16-channel audio, 6 video, site-specific installation for the UNT College of Music Main Building. In this, I describe how both the space and place of the UNT College of Music Main Building influenced my musical choices, visual content, and approach to audio and visual spatialization. The final part of the document contains a detailed score for realizing "…threaded through" in the location of the UNT College of Music Main Building.

In 2016, An estimated 15,000 people representing 400 Indigenous Nations and non-indigenous allies gathered at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in solidarity against the Dakota Access Pipeline to protect Mni Sose, the Missouri River. They became known as the Water Protectors. This dissertation analyzes the response in environmental philosophy journals to the #noDAPL protest at Standing Rock. Even though the Stand at Standing Rock became one of the most important and monumental environmental protests of the last decade, neither Standing Rock nor the Water Protectors appear in environmental philosophy journals at all--not once. Why? I suggest a possible answer by exploring the Stand of the Water Protectors as a moment in a much longer continuous history of resistance to settler colonialism. Settler colonialism attempts to facilitate the erasure of Indigenous populations by colonial ones, in order to gain access to territory—to land. The omission of Standing Rock from environmental philosophy journals represents the ease with which environmental philosophy can become complicit in the project of settler colonial erasure and replacement through absence. Drawing on Indigenous land-based philosophies of kinship, Latin American decolonial philosophy, settler colonial theory, and frameworks of Indigenous environmental justice, I show how the geo-politics of colonialism have …

Ugolino (c. 1380-1457) wrote one of the largest treatises on music theory in the first half of the fifteenth century. This work, the "Declaratio musicae disciplinae," is comprised of five books that cover everything a musician of the era would need to know, from plainchant to harmonic proportions, from musica practica to musica speculativa. However, the treatise has received contradictory interpretations by modern scholars, some viewing it as mainly practical, others as mainly theoretical. I argue that in Book 2, which deals with counterpoint, Ugolino crystallizes the relationship between theory and practice, while offering distinctive contrapuntal practices. Ugolino presents a unique view music's place in the structure of knowledge, one which is highly dependent on Aristotelian philosophy. He posits that music is a science and that it is a branch not of mathematics, as it had traditionally been categorized, but of natural philosophy. This viewpoint shapes the entire treatise and is evident in the book on counterpoint. There, he presents an Italian tradition of teaching counterpoint known as the "regola del grado." Ugolino is the first author to present this tradition entirely in Latin. In addition, he offers an unusual description of musica ficta. In it, he presents a diagram, …

The production and control of antihydrogen at very low temperatures provided a key tool to test the validity for the antimaterial of the fundamental principles of the interactions of nature such as the weak principle of equivalence (WEP), and CPT symmetry (Charge, Parity, and Time reversal). The work presented in this dissertation studies the collisions of electrons and positrons in strong magnetic fields that generate magnetobound positronium (positron-electron system temporarily bound due to the presence of a magnetic field) and its possible role in the generation of antihydrogen.

This dissertation focuses on the path planning of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarms under distributed and hybrid control scenarios. It presents two such models and analyzes them both from theory and practice. In the first method, a distributed formation control strategy for UAV swarm based on consensus law is presented. This model makes use of the fundamental concepts of leader-follower structure, social potential functions, and algebraic graph theory to jointly address flocking and de-confliction in the formation control problem. The impact of network topology on formation control is analyzed. It is shown that the degree distribution of the network representing the multi-agent system defines the rate at which formation is attained. Conditions for convergence and stability are derived. In the second method, a hybrid framework for path planning and coverage area by UAV swarms is presented. This strategy significantly improves the current labor-intensive and resource-constraint operations in aquaculture farms. To monitor the farms periodically, an optimized back-and-forth flight path based on the Shamos algorithm is utilized. A trajectory tracking strategy for UAV swarms under uncertain wind conditions is presented.

Anthony Plog's Concerto for Flute and Wind Ensemble is a substantial but relatively unknown work from the composer's early compositional period. It deserves wider exposure and recognition in the repertoire for solo flute and wind ensemble, given its accessibility for both the soloist and the ensemble.

In this work, we demonstrate the mechanism for etching exfoliated graphene on SiO2 and other technological important substrates (Si, SiC and ITO), using low-energy electron sources. Our mechanism is based on helium ion sputtering and vacancy formation. Helium ions instead of incident electrons cause the defects that oxygen reacts with and etches graphene. We found that etching does not occur on low-resistivity Si and ITO. Etching occurs on higher resistivity Si and SiC, although much less than on SiO2. In addition, we studied the degradation mechanism of MoS2 under ambient conditions using as-grown and preheated mono- and thicker-layered MoS2 films. Thicker-layered MoS2 do not exhibit the growth of dendrites that is characteristic of monolayer degradation. Dendrites are observed to stop at the monolayer-bilayer boundary. Raman and photoluminescence spectra of the aged bilayer and thicker-layered films are comparable to those of as-grown films. We found that greater stability of bilayers and thicker layers supports a previously reported mechanism for monolayer degradation involving Förster resonance energy transfer. As a result, straightforward and scalable 2D materials integration, or air stable heterostructure device fabrication may be easily achieved. Our proposed mechanisms for etching graphene and ambient degradation of MoS2 could catalyze research on realizing …

Ceramics have a wide variety of applications due to their unique properties; however, the low fracture toughness leads the formation and propagation of unpredictable cracks, and reduces their reliability. To solve this problem, self-healing adaptive oxides were developed. The aim of the work is to gain new insights into self-healing mechanisms of ceramics and their application. Binary oxide systems were investigated that are at least partially healed through the extrinsic or intrinsic addition of silver or silver oxide to form ternary oxides (e.g., Nb2O5 + Ag → AgNbO3). Sintered pellets and coatings were tested. For self-healing TBCs, model systems that were studied include YSZ-Al2O3-SiC, YSZ-Al2O3-TiC, YSZ-Al2O3-Nb2O5, and YSZ-Al2O3-Ta2O5. Laser cladded samples and sintered pellets were produced to test. The healing process occurs due to the formation of oxidation products and glassy phases depending on the self-healing mechanism. X-ray diffraction was used to explore phase evolution, chemical compositions, and structural properties of these samples. SEM equipped with EDS was used to investigate the chemical and morphological properties for the cross-sectional area. Pin-on-disc test was applied to test tribology performance for Nb2O5-Ag2O system, and infiltration test was applied to test CMAS-resistance for TBCs at elevated temperature. The improvements in the performance of …

Vietnam currently faces a social skills deficit among college graduates. This lack of sufficient social skills significantly affects Vietnam's economy where it is one of the main factors that drives higher unemployment in Vietnam. Research has shown that although social skills have been increasingly perceived by employers as one of the most important factors for graduate employability and career success, the absence of social skills training in colleges and universities have caused graduates to be ill-prepared for the workplace, which lead to dissatisfactions among employers and complications when seeking for potential hires in Vietnam. Therefore, this study aims to examine and compare perceptions of Vietnamese college graduates and employers on graduates' social skill performance. Given the objectives of this study, an online survey was distributed to potential participants across Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Analysis of the responses not only demonstrated a disconnect of perceptions between employers and newly hired graduates (NHGs) on how these two groups rated graduates' performance of interpersonal skills but also revealed a mismatch in the perceptions of the comparing groups on how they perceive the importance of social skills in graduate employment. As a result, it is recommended that Vietnam need to promote and support …

Data from this dissertation was obtained from the Texas Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). The Texas BRFSS questionnaire used a cross-sectional retrospective research design while asking questions about individuals' exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and included 11 questions. The sample included 9096 individuals over the age of 18 who had exposure to at least one ACE. An ACE score was calculated for all participants and were divided into two groups (less than 4 ACEs and more than 4 ACEs) to compare whether differences in ACE score would impact participating in routine health screening or not. Additionally, whether different kinds of ACEs would impact health screening was also examined. Logistic regression was used to assess whether different kinds of ACEs impact participation in routine health screening. This study found that individuals with a history of childhood adversities including experiencing childhood emotional abuse, living in a dysfunctional household impeded them from participating in routine health screenings. It is recommended that both primary care physicians and mental health providers to use motivational interviewing while interacting with patients with ACE histories. It is also suggested that using trauma-informed care (TIC) in primary care can help patients talk about their abuse histories and …

Korean art songs are valuable cultural assets that exhibit their own cultural spirit and ethnicity, however, they are not introduced to Western singers because of the language barrier. As there are European-language diction books for singers used in pedagogy, this dissertation introduces Korean diction for non-Korean-speaking singers by using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to pronounce Korean ‘Hangeul'. Moreover, this document aims to help singers enter into a new world of Korean art songs by introducing ten Korean art songs selected from various compositional periods, along with transcriptions using the IPA, transliterations, translations, and the musical scores.