Many clients with developmental and/or intellectual disabilities (ID/DD) do not tolerate routine medical or dental procedures and may require intrusive interventions, including restraint of various types (i.e. chemical, mechanical, physical, etc.) during appointments. Graduated exposure, or stimulus fading, along with reinforcement for compliance, have been shown to increase cooperation and tolerance in some clients; however, many do not respond to these types of interventions. Nine participants diagnosed with ID/DD recieved compliance/tolerance training for routine medical or dental procedures. Results of these interventions were evaluated in the context of several potential indices of readiness, such as medical diagnoses, level of disability, and presence of challenging behavior, among others. Several of the variables appeared to be correlated with program responsiveness; however, a larger sample will be necessary to draw definitive conclusions. Client characteristics and past assessments (anecdotals, preference assessments, terminal probes, and survey data) were evaluated. The analytical framework developed for this analysis may be useful to future researchers and clinicians as a model for assessing readiness for tolerance training programs.

As population increases and urbanization occurs, watershed management will be critical in the protection of water resources in North Central Texas. By 2040, Denton County will nearly double its 2010 population. The Upper Hickory Creek Watershed lies west of Denton and empties into Lake Lewisville. Lake Lewisville provides drinking water for Denton, Dallas, and other neighboring cities. Mitigation of non-point source pollutants as a result of urban and agricultural practices is essential to protecting Lake Lewisville water resources. A common best management practice used to mitigate pollutants is the protection of riparian ecotones that occupy river corridors; however, recent agricultural and urban practices are diminishing these ecosystems and their services. In this paper, the riparian buffer delineation equation (RBDE) is used to assess the current state of Upper Hickory Creek Watershed to aid in the monitoring of the riparian buffers along stream corridors. While the RBDE was used as pre-assessment tool for the riparian buffer effectiveness in the watershed, a new form of the equation was used to evaluate riparian buffer improvement potential (BP) in conjunction with Denton County parcel data to provide insights into buffer effectiveness and identify areas for improvement on a landowner scale.

Older gay men and lesbians may be at greater risk for depression than older sexual majority adults due to a lifetime of sexual minority stress. We hypothesize that aggression and being single are positively associated with depression. Resilience is negatively associated with depression. Aggression, being single and resilience account for a significant proportion of variance in depression. Resilience moderates the relationship between aggression and depression. Significant differences between older gay men and older lesbians' aggression, resilience and depression scores exist. For our older gay men and lesbian combined group, a moderation analysis indicated that in addition to aggression and resilience, being single significantly predicted depression accounting for approximately 57% of the variance in depression. Furthermore, resilience significantly moderated the relationship between aggression and depression in our model of older gay men and lesbians. For our older gay men-only group a moderation analysis (indicated that and resilience significantly predicted depression accounting for approximately 57% of the variance in depression. Furthermore, resilience significantly moderated the relationship between aggression and depression in our model, in our sample of older gay men. Four our lesbian-only group a moderation analysis indicated that being single and resilience significantly predicted depression accounting for approximately 54% of the …

During the New Deal, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) put young men to work in state and national parks across the United States. One of such parks, Big Bend National Park, is the focus of this study. The CCC had two camps within the park, one from 1934 to 1937 and another from 1940 to 1942. During their time in Big Bend, the CCC constructed many projects including a road, trails, cabins, and other various structures. The purpose of this study is to delineate the role of the CCC in creating Big Bend National Park and the experience of the CCC during their time in the Big Bend camp. This study determines the role of the CCC through a discussion of the planning done by the CCC for Big Bend National Park and the work completed by the CCC in the park. In doing so, it argues that the CCC played a substantial and significant role in the development and character of the park. This study works to understand the experience of the CCC in Big Bend through a discussion of education, safety, and an investigation of a commanding officer. Through this discussion, the role of the federal government and …

Bacteriophages are viruses that specifically infect bacteria. When a phage infects a bacterium, it attaches itself to the surface of the bacteria and injects its DNA into the intracellular space. The phage DNA hijacks the cellular machinery of the bacteria and forces it to produce phage proteins. Eventually, the bacteria cell bursts or lyses, releasing new phage. The bacteria act as a host for phage reproduction. The ability for a phage to infect multiple bacterial species is known as host range. In siphoviridae bacteriophages, host range is thought to primarily be determined by proteins at the tip of their tail fibers. These proteins act as anti-receptors to specific receptors on the surface of bacteria. In siphoviridae Gram-positive infecting phages, the genes that code these proteins are typically located between the tape measure protein gene and the endolysin gene. It is hypothesized that phages that have similar anti-receptor proteins will have similar host range. In this study, the host ranges of 12 BD1 bacteriophages were tested on 9 different Streptomyces species. In these 12 phages, the genes between the tape measure protein gene and endolysin gene were compared. The 12 phages had high levels of variability in these genes. Five genes …

In this study, a series of denim fiberboards are fabricated using two different resins, malamine urea formaldehyde (MUF) and polymeric methylene diphenyl diisocyanate (pMDI). Two experimental design factors (1) adhesive content and (2) MUF-pMDI weight ratio, were studied. All the denim fiberboard samples were fabricated following the same resin blending, cold-press and hot-press procedures. The physical and mechanical tests were conducted on the fiberboard following the procedures described in ASTM D1037 to obtain such as modulus of elasticity (MOE), modulus of rupture (MOR), internal bond (IB), thickness swell (TS), and water absorption (WA). The results indicated that the MOE was significantly affected by both factors. IB was affected significantly by weight ratio of different glue types, with 17 wt% more MDI resin portion in the core layer of the denim boards, the IB for total adhesive content 15% fiberboard was enhanced by 306%, while for total adhesive content 25% fiberboard, enhanced by 205%. TS and WA, with higher adhesive content used in denim boards' fabrication, and more pMDI portion in the core layer of the boards, the boards' TS and WA was reduced by up to 64.2% and 78.8%, respectively.

This thesis presents a multi-stage rectifier for wireless power transfer in biomedical implant systems. The rectifier is built using Schottky diodes. The design has been simulated in 0.5µm and 130nm CMOS processes. The challenges for a rectifier in a wireless power transfer systems are observed to be the efficiency, output voltage yield, operating frequency range and the minimum input voltage the rectifier can convert. The rectifier outperformed the contemporary works in the mentioned criteria.

A computerized program was designed to test whether arranging a common element in two, otherwise independent, 2-term correlations (stimulus-stimulus and response-stimulus) would result in emergent simple discriminative-stimulus properties for the antecedent stimulus relative to an arrangement with no common elements programmed. Data from 8 adult participants in this experiment indicate that common element arrangements led to relatively high rates of responding in the presence of the putative discriminative stimulus and relatively low rates or no responding in the presence of the putative s-delta during testing in extinction. Conversely, the uncommon element arrangements produced no clear discriminative control. The current data reflect a comparison of arrangements across subjects. These data support Sidman's (2000) suggestion that common elements among contingencies are sufficient to produce stimulus classes and cause class mergers. The data also have implications for thinking about the mechanism by which and the conditions under which discriminative control develops. Finally, these data have the potential to inform the programming and implementation of reinforcement contingencies in applied settings.

The participant was a 52 year-old woman, diagnosed with a profound intellectual disability, who engaged in high rates of severe self-injurious behaviors (SIB) predominantly in the forms of head banging and head hitting. A series of analyses and interventions was implemented to establish appropriate toileting behavior in the natural environment. Treatment consisted of conjugate reinforcement for optimal toilet positioning with the absence of SIB, episodic positive reinforcement of eliminating in the toilet, and programed generalization across environments and staff. Results showed the maintenance of optimal toilet positioning, decrease in SIB (under 1 instance per min), and appropriate eliminating in 96.3% of all available sessions. Direct support staff were trained to implement the program with 100% fidelity.

The Dallas Morning News is a leader in using engagement journalism to increase and retain digital subscribers. This ethnography examined the efficacy of the engagement journalism work by the News in rebuilding trust and forming relationships with its audience. This research is exceptionally timely as more newsrooms are erecting paywalls to their content and asking their audiences to offer monetary support in exchange for greater access and engagement by journalists. This work is examined through two mass communications theories: functionalism, which says a society can be viewed like an ecosystem as a "system in balance" consisting of complex sets of interrelated activities, each of which supports the others in maintaining the system as a whole; and the dual responsibility model, which says that companies should operate in the best interests of all in the community who depend on them, not only those who benefit financially. Additionally, the work is considered from a human-interaction design standpoint to evaluate whether the News has created affordances that enable the journalists and the readers to communicate, and whether the journalists are effectively practicing service design when publishing news and information for the audience.

Research is needed that examines the effects of kiosk technology on restaurant operational performance measures, such as total sales. The study employs a 2X2 between-subjects field experimental design to empirically test the hypothesized relationships proposed in the research model. The data collection site was Burger King located in the student union of a large Tier 1 research university in southwest USA. The independent variables included ordering method (kiosk vs. cashier) and operational volume (peak vs. off-peak). The dependent variables were cognitive and affective attitudes, behavioral intention, satisfaction, sales per person, and order time. Consumers at Burger King were approached before they started ordering their meal to ask for voluntary participation. If they agreed to participate, they were randomly assigned into two test groups. Participants in one test group used kiosk technology to order their meals, while those in the other test groups spoke with a cashier to order their meals. The same number of participants were recruited from peak and non-peak volumes. The seconds used to order was observed and recorded after consumer engagement with the ordering method. After participants ordered, they completed a paper survey that measured their behaviors while ordering with each method and asked participants to indicate …

Since phages use the host resources to replicate themselves after infection, the different sizes of the phage genome should influence the replication rate. We, therefore, hypothesized that the smaller genomes should burst the cell faster than the larger ones. As well, the shorter genomes would have greater burst sizes because they should replicate faster. Here, we obtained 16 phages of various genome length. All phages were isolated on Streptomyces griseus and available in our phage bank at the University of North Texas. We performed one-step growth studies for the 16 phages, as well as determined the host doubling time from its growth curve. The results show that S. griseus grown in nutrient broth has a doubling time of 5 hours and 22 minutes. This doubling time is used as a guideline for the phage growth studies. Because the filamentous nature of the host caused several difficulties during the experiment, we isolated single cells by sonication and centrifugation. After the cell number was determined by viable cell count, the cells were infected with each type of phage using a multiplicity of infection (MOI) of 0.5. The results show that phages' burst times range between 45 (±0, standard error) and 420 (±30) …

Many factors have prompted the adoption of partial-market exit strategies in retail as a means of reducing cost and minimizing risk. These mass closures have become more frequent in recent years. Marketers and economists have offered explanations for these closures linked to the rise of e-commerce, the real estate cycle and general changes in consumer taste. The research here marks an attempt to apply geospatial and econometric methods to better understand what factors explain the spatial variation of these closures across the United States. Specifically, the analysis examines the store networks of Sears, J.C. Penney and Macy's- large, established department stores that, collectively, announced over 100 closures at the beginning of 2017. By treating each store as a unit of observation, and a closure as a limited dependent variable, this analysis will attempt to quantify the relationship between place-specific factors and retail closures using Probit modeling. This application of modeling marks a deviation from traditional analyses in retail geography which, up until the early 2000s, have focused almost entirely on store development and growth. The results reveal patterns of spatial clustering of closures in and around the Rust Belt and demonstrate the strong negative effect of competitive agglomeration on the …

This project seeks to clarify the historical significance of women in the American West between 1870 and 1930 through the education, careers, and personal lives of western women physicians. The narratives presented in the work provide alternative roles for western women aside from the stereotypical images found in popular culture and history, such as the "Bad Woman," the prostitute, and the obedient homesteading wife. This collective biography additionally demonstrates how women participated in American medical culture during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, emphasizing their agency as historical actors, and countering the common misconception that Victorian women were merely passive subjects of their time and place. The lives of four physicians named Ellis Reynolds Shipp, Mary Babcock Atwater, Mary Bennett Ritter, and Mary Canaga Rowland are available through memoirs, biographies, scholarly articles, newspapers, and other sources that contextualize their careers into the broader context of Western, medical, and nineteenth-century history. Through their personal and professional experiences, a greater story of female autonomy emerges in a period understood to be inherently oppressive to and unnavigable for women.

Feedback is used in a variety of contexts to train staff and to teach individuals new skills. Despite its popularity, there is no consensus on how to deliver it. Different measures have been used to evaluate the effectiveness of feedback, such as accuracy of responses and the sequencing of feedback delivery. The purpose of this study was to compare two feedback procedures and to explore new ways to measure the effectiveness of feedback. Four undergraduate students were exposed to two conditions: feedback before + skip the opportunity to respond and feedback after an incorrect answer. Results showed that the number of correct answers and teaching time were similar in both conditions. However, session duration was lower in the feedback before + skip condition when compared to the feedback after condition. Finally, reported emotions correlated with participants' correct responding. This study demonstrates that it is more beneficial and efficient to teach learners how to engage in a correct performance, rather than to correct responses.

DC to DC converters stabilize the voltage obtained from voltage sources such as solar power system, wind energy sources, wave energy sources, rectified voltage from alternators, and so forth. Hence, the need for improving its control algorithm is inevitable. Many algorithms are applied to DC to DC converters. This thesis designs fuzzy adaptive dynamic programming (Fuzzy ADP) algorithm. Also, this thesis implements both adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) and Fuzzy ADP on DC to DC converters to observe the performance of the output voltage trajectories.

Incorporating insulation material with phase change materials (PCMs) could help enhance the insulation capability for further building energy savings by reducing the HVAC loadings. During the phase change process between the solid and liquid states, heat is being absorbed or released by PCMs depending on the surrounding temperature. This research explores the benefits of a polyurethane (PU)-PCM composite insulation material through infiltrating paraffin wax as PCM into PU open cell foam. The new PU-PCM composite provides extra shielding from the exterior hot temperatures for buildings. Through this study, it was demonstrated that PU-PCM composite insulation could potentially help building energy savings through reducing the loads on the HVAC systems based on the building energy modeling using EnergyPlus. The Zero Energy Lab (ZØE) at the University of North Texas was modeled and studied in the EnergyPlus. It is a detached building with all wall facades exposed to the ambient. It was determined that the new PU-PCM insulation material could provide 14% total energy saving per year and reduce the electricity use due to cooling only by around 30%.

This thesis study takes a mixed methods and black feminist approach to find out how black women are represented within the beauty advertisements of women's fashion magazines.

Six initial phage isolates with high titer lysates were obtained using Streptomyces toxytricini B-5426 as the host bacterium. These isolates were named Goby, Toma, Yosif, Yara, Deema, and Hsoos. However, upon completion of the sequencing, it was found that the Yara and Hsoos isolates were identical, as were Goby and Deema. As a result, final analysis was completed on only the four unique isolates. All of the phages mentioned above were isolated from soil samples from different locations. Also, they had different sizes of plaques, ranging from 0.3 – 0.9mm. Yosif had the largest plaque size. Yara's head diameter was 79nm with tail diameter of 94nm.

Life Holders is a collection of personal essays reflecting on my interactions with others concerning my military service.

Indicators of quality early intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) include comprehensive interventions, adequately trained staff, high rates of effective instruction delivery, happy interactions between children and their teachers, and socially valid outcomes. When these are in place, high quality EIBI is more likely to increase progress that children with autism make during treatment. When not in place, progress is not as likely, as rapid, or as meaningful. To date, there is limited research regarding the correlation between these indicators of high-quality EIBI and the degree to which their effects are meaningful to direct consumers. The purpose of this methodological study was to compare direct, quantitative measures of teaching interactions (child initiations, teacher initiations, child affect, teacher affect) with qualitative measures (stakeholder ratings of teacher effectiveness, amount of opportunities for interaction and interest in the child) of teaching interactions to determine what sets the occasion for expert stakeholders to describe a teaching interaction as effective, quality therapy.

Between 1947 and 1954, the Texas State Legislature enacted a series of eight highly restrictive anti-communist laws. Designed to protect political, military, and economic structures in the state from communist infiltration, the laws banned communists from participating the political process, required registration of all communists who entered the state and eventually outlawed the Communist Party. Drawn from perceptions about Cold War events, such as the Truman Doctrine and the Korean War, and an expanding economy inside of Texas, members of the state legislature perceived that communism represented a threat to their state. However, when presented with the opportunity to put the laws into action during the 1953 Port Arthur Labor Strike, the state government failed to bring any charges against those who they labeled as communists. Instead of actually curtailing the limited communist presence inside of the state, members of the state government instead used the laws to leverage political control throughout the state by attacking labor, liberals in education and government, and racial minorities with accusations of communism.

Unmanned aerial systems (UASs) have a great potential to enhanced situational awareness in public safety operations. Many UASs operating in the same airspace can cause mid-air collisions. NASA and the FAA are developing a UAS traffic management (UTM) system, which could be used in public safety operations to manage the UAS airspace. UTM relies on an existing communication backhaul, however natural disasters may disrupt existing communications infrastructure or occur in areas where no backhaul exists. This thesis outlines a robust communications alternative that interfaces a fleet of UASs with a UTM service supplier (USS) over a mesh network. Additionally, this thesis outlines an algorithm for vehicle-to-vehicle discovery and communication over the mesh network.

The thesis simulates the problem of network connectivity that occurs due to the dynamic nature of a network during flight. Nine nodes are provided with initial positions and are flown based on the path provided by leader-follower control algorithm using the server-client model. The application layer provides a point to point connection between the server and client and by using socket programming in the transport layer, a server and clients are established. Each node performs a neighbor discovery to discover its neighbors in the data link layer and physical layer performs the CSMA/CA using RTS/CTS. Finally, multi hop routing is achieved in network layer. Each client connects with server at dedicated interval to share each other location and then moves to next location. This process is continued over a period of several iterations until the relative distance is achieved. The constraints and limitations of the technology are network connectivity is lack of flexibility for random location of nodes, links established with a distant node having single neighbor is unstable. Performance of a system decreases with increase in number of nodes.