The objectives of this study were (1) to identify and describe task-based documentation; (2) to identify and describe any purported changes in users attitudes when IT migration was preceded by task-based documentation; (3) to suggest implications of task-based documentation on users attitude toward IT acceptance. Questionnaires were given to 150 university students. Of these, all 150 students participated in this study. The study determined the following: (1) if favorable pre-implementation attitudes toward a new e-mail system increase, as a result of training, if users expect it to be easy to learn and use; (2) if user acceptance of an e-mail program increase as expected perceived usefulness increase as delineated by task-based documentation; (3) if task-based documentation is more effective than standard help menus while learning a new application program; and (4) if training that requires active student participation increase the acceptance of a new e-mail system. The following conclusions were reached: (1) Positive pre-implementation attitudes toward a new e-mail system are not affected by training even if the users expect it to be easy to learn and use. (2) User acceptance of an e-mail program does not increase as perceived usefulness increase when aided by task-based documentation. (3) Task-based documentation …

Little empirical research has been done to examine the effects that working with traumatized individuals has had on their therapists. It is known that mental health professionals often do suffer ill effects, especially symptoms of secondary traumatic stress disorder. The present investigation tested predictors of secondary traumatic stress disorder in the therapists who provided services for the Oklahoma City bombing. Predictors were therapist social network involvement, years of counseling experience, and amount of self-reported empathy experienced from others. Indicators of secondary traumatic stress were the Frederick Reaction Index-A, the Compassion Fatigue Self-test for Helpers, and the SCL-90R. Hypotheses were tested using a series of hierarchical multiple regressions. Results demonstrated no significance for years of experience or social network, but perceived empathy accounted for 11% of the variance on the SCL-90 and the Compassion Fatigue Self-test for Psychotherapists with social network and years of experience controlled.

This follows an earlier study of the same data set, which, through its findings, presented new questions that are investigated in this study. Both studies used a prospective controlled design, wherein women receiving genetic counseling for breast cancer risk were randomized into two groups. Subjects receiving an audiotaped recording of their genetic consultation (tape group) were compared to subjects who also had a genetic consultation but did not receive an audiotaped recording of it (no-tape group). Participants were drawn from attendees at the genetic clinics of two London hospitals and included 115 women with a family history of breast cancer. Cancer worry and psychological distress were assessed before genetic consultation (baseline), and at one- and six-month follow-ups by post. Objective risk was estimated by the geneticist during the consultation, and subjective risk was assessed at one month follow-up. The goals of the current study were to investigate relationships between cancer worry, psychological distress, and recall of genetic risk for breast cancer in a sample of women receiving genetic counseling for breast cancer risk, and to investigate the role sociodemographic variables on cancer worry, psychological distress, or risk recall for these women. Results for this sample of women with a family …

A Different Drummer is a chamber opera adaptation of Donald Davis's story "A Different Drummer" from his collection Listening for the Crack of Dawn, published by August House. The opera lasts about seventy minutes, and calls for a cast of three and an orchestra of sixteen players. It contains a prologue, epilogue and four scenes in a single act. The score is prefaced by a paper describing the musical strategies employed in setting the story as an opera. Three chapters describe the adaptation from short story to opera, the essential musical elements, and details of the application of the musical elements in each scene of the opera. The libretto is presented in the fourth chapter.

This study is an investigation of the perceived attitudinal differences between administrators and faculty toward research and teaching at three Saudi Arabian universities, King Saud University (KSU), King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), and the Islamic University (IU). The researcher also investigated the effect of several variables, such as rank, university, and academic field on administrators and faculty members' attitudes toward teaching and research. Little Attention has been given to studies that examine the differences between faculty and administrators with regard to their attitudes toward the priorities of teaching and research in Saudi Arabian institutions. Also, little research has been conducted regarding the effects of rank and academic field on faculty attitudes in Saudi Arabian institutions. The author used a mail survey and collected 518 useable responses from a total of 710 questionnaires distributed. Factor analysis, MANCOVA, MANOVA, and ANOVA were the statistical methods employed in data analysis. Five attitudes were identified as a result of factor analysis: (a) attitudes toward teaching; (b) attitudes toward research; (c) mission; (d) promotion; and (e) interest. Results indicated that there was a significant difference between faculty and administrators regarding teaching and resea4rch. Administrators showed stronger attitudes toward teaching than faculty at …

Gunther Schuller is credited with coining the term Third Stream, meaning compositions where twentieth-century art music forms exist simultaneously with jazz. Furthermore, Schuller specifically states in the liner notes to the debut recording of Eine Kleine Posaunenmusik "The work is not a Third Stream piece." Yet the concerto alludes to jazz through a multitude of slide glissandi and plunger mute effects, Solotone mute passages, specific references to the jazz trombone styles of Tommy Dorsey and Lawrence Brown, musical quoting or indirect reference, and the use of a walking bass line in Movement V, Finale. What makes one piece Third Stream and another simply a modern composition with jazz implications? Is Third Stream primarily a compositional designation or a performance practice stipulation? How does a celebrated trombone soloist inspire and collaborate with a distinguished composer in the creation of a major work? The somewhat conspicuous title, Eine Kleine Posaunenmusik, seems to point towards Mozart's famous string serenade Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. What connection to Mozart, if any, does Schuller's title suggest? All of these questions are elucidated in this study through careful investigation and research of Gunther Schuller's Eine Kleine Posaunenmusik. New interviews with John Swallow and Gunther Schuller are included.

Si nanoparticles are new prospective optoelectronic materials. Unlike bulk Si cry-stals, Si nanoparticles display intriguing room-temperature photoluminescence. A major challenge in the fabrication of Si nanoparticles is the control of their size distribution. The rare-earth element Er has unique photo emission properties, including low pumping power, and a temperature independent, sharp spectrum. The emission wavelength matches the transmission window of optical fibers used in the telecommunications industry. Therefore, the study of Er-doped Si nanoparticles may have practical significance. The goals of the research described in this dissertation are to investigate vapor phase pyrolysis methods and to characterize the microstructure and associated defects, particles size distributions and photoluminescence efficiencies of doped and undoped Si nanoparticles using analytical transmission electron microscopy, high resolution electron microscopy, and optical spectroscopy. Er-doped and undoped Si nanoparticles were synthesized via vapor-phase pyrolysis of disilane at Texas Christian University. To achieve monodisperse size distributions, a process with fast nucleation and slow growth was employed. Disilane was diluted to 0.48% with helium. A horizontal pyrolysis oven was maintained at a temperature of 1000 °C. The oven length was varied from 1.5 cm to 6.0 cm to investigate the influence of oven length on the properties of the nanoparticles. …

This dissertation examines the role of "acceptable" feminine violence in Restoration and eighteenth-century drama and fiction. Scenes such as Lady Davers's physical assault on Pamela in Samuel Richardson's Pamela (1740) have understandably troubled recent scholars of gender and literature. But critics, for the most part, have been more inclined to discuss women as victims of violence than as agents of violence. I argue that women in the Restoration and eighteenth century often used violence in order to maintain social boundaries, particularly sexual and economic ones, and that writers of the period drew upon this tradition of acceptable feminine violence in order to create the figure of the violent woman as a necessary agent of social control. One such figure is Violenta, the heroine of Delarivier Manley's novella The Wife's Resentment (1720), who murders and dismembers her bigamous husband. At her trial, Violenta is condemned to death "notwithstanding the Pity of the People" and "the Intercession of the Ladies," who believe that although the "unexampled Cruelty [Violenta] committed afterwards on the dead Body" was excessive, the murder itself is not inexcusable given her husband's bigamy. My research draws upon diverse archival materials, such as conduct manuals, criminal biographies, and legal records, …

Playing Jonah's Hand: Poems is a collection of poems with a critical introduction. The introduction consists of two independent essays, both of which examine intersections between poetry and Christian theology. In the first essay I identify the imaginative faculty as the primary source of agency for the speaker in John Donne's "Holy Sonnets." Working upon Barbara Lewalski's assertion that these sonnets represent "the Protestant paradigm of salvation in its stark, dramatic, Pauline terms," I consider the role of the imagination in the spiritual transformation represented within the sequence. Donne foregrounds a Calvinistic theology that posits both humanity's total depravity and God's grace and mercy as the only avenue of transcendence. Whatever agency the speaker exhibits is generated by the exercise of his imagination, which leads him to a recognition of his sinfulness and the necessity of God's grace. In the second essay I investigate the presence of a negative theology within "Lachrimae, or Seven Tears Figured in Seven Passionate Pavans," a sonnet sequence by Geoffrey Hill. In this sequence, Hill demonstrates the possibilities that surface through an integration of negative theology with postmodern theories of language, both of which have been influenced by the philosophical writings of Martin Heidegger. The …

Unique and proprietary data of the illiquid, one-year non cancelable for three month Bermudan swaps (1Y NC 3M swaps) and one-year non callable for three months Bermudan CDs (1Y NC 3M CDs), provides evidence of market efficiency. The 1Y NC 3M swap and 1Y NC 3M CD markets efficiently reflected unexpected economic information. The 1Y NC 3M swaption premiums also followed the European one-year into three-month (1Y into 3M) swaption volatilities. Swaption premiums were computed by pricing non-optional instruments using the quoted 1Y NC 3M swap rates and the par value swap rates and taking the difference between them. Swaption premiums ranged from a slight negative premium to a 0.21 percent premium. The average swaption premium during the study period was 0.02 percent to 0.04 percent. The initial swaption premiums were over 0.20 percent while the final swaption premiums were 0.02 percent to 0.04 percent. Premiums peaked and waned throughout the study period depending on market uncertainty as reflected in major national economic announcements, Federal Reserve testimonies and foreign currency devaluations. Negative swaption premiums were not necessarily irrational or quoting errors. Frequently, traders obligated to provide market quotes to customers do not have an interest and relay that lack of …

The objective of the dissertation is to examine Young-Jo Lee's (b. 1943) musical language as exhibited in his piano composition, Variations on the theme of Baugogae. Subjects of discussion include Lee's use of direct and indirect musical borrowings from past European composers and traditional Korean folk idioms. Also included are a biographical sketch of the composer and historical overview of modern Korean composers. This dissertation investigates Lee's effort to synthesize traditional Korean music and Western music in one art form and ultimately, to create his own musical language.

Document representation is important for computer-based text processing. Good document representations must include at least the most salient concepts of the document. Documents exist in a multidimensional space that difficult the identification of what concepts to include. A current problem is to measure the effectiveness of the different strategies that have been proposed to accomplish this task. As a contribution towards this goal, this dissertation studied the visual inter-document relationship in a dimensionally reduced space. The same treatment was done on full text and on three document representations. Two of the representations were based on the assumption that the salient features in a document set follow the chi-distribution in the whole document set. The third document representation identified features through a novel method. A Coefficient of Variability was calculated by normalizing the Cartesian distance of the discriminating value in the relevant and the non-relevant document subsets. Also, the local dictionary method was used. Cosine similarity values measured the inter-document distance in the information space and formed a matrix to serve as input to the Multi-Dimensional Scale (MDS) procedure. A Precision-Recall procedure was averaged across all treatments to statistically compare them. Treatments were not found to be statistically the same and …

Sorry Guard is a collection of poems with a critical introduction on poetic form. Form in poetry can be revealed vocally (how the poem sounds), temporally (how the poem makes use of time), and spatially (how the poem is visualized, both physically on the page due to typography and imagistically due to the shape and movement of its subject matter). In this preface, I will address these three aspects of form in relation to three distinct twentieth century poets: Robert Hass, W.S. Merwin, and W.H. Auden. I am most interested in how particular formal decisions shape meaning and value in poetry. My aesthetic approach here primarily dwells on what Helen Vendler calls, "the music of what happens." The urgency of Robert Hass's spoken word is important to me because I wish to make poems that should be spoken aloud and remembered. While W.S. Merwin's rejection of punctuation is not my own aesthetic outlook, I strive to achieve through close attention to temporal form the mythic voice of his poemsthe immediacy of his lines and images, especially in his second four books. And Auden's deft use of spatial form is only a small aspect of his remarkable verse. All three poets …

The focus of this research was to ascertain the indirect effects upon activism of intervening variables and recognized exogenous influences upon activism. In addition, this research also focused upon the differences and similarities of a recruited activist model and spontaneous activist model. Regression and path analysis were used to measure the direct and indirect effects of the exogenous and intervening variables. This research found that when the intervening variables, political interest, political awareness, exposure to media, altruism, and self-interest were introduced to both the recruited and spontaneous models, the direct effects of the variables were enhanced.

This doctoral dissertation describes a research study that examined the effectiveness of an experimental Supplemental Instruction (SI) program that utilized computer-mediated communication (CMC) rather than traditional SI review sessions. During the Spring 1999 semester, six sections of an introductory computer course were offered via the Internet by a suburban community college district in Texas. Using Campbell and Stanley's Nonequivalent Control Group model, the online SI program was randomly assigned to four of the course sections with the two remaining sections serving as the control group. The students hired to lead the online review sessions participated in the traditional SI training programs at their colleges, and received training conducted by the researcher related to their roles as online discussion moderators. Following recommendations from Congos and Schoeps, the internal validity of the groups was confirmed by conducting independent t-tests comparing the students' cumulative credit hours, grade point averages, college entrance test scores, and first exam scores. The study's four null hypotheses were tested using multiple linear regression equations with alpha levels set at .01. Results indicated that the SI participants earned better course grades even though they had acquired fewer academic credits and had, on average, scored lower on their first course …

Changes in workforce demographics, employee sentiments, and working conditions have increased attention on employees' needs to balance the demands of work life and family life. Despite apparent growing interest among companies to be responsive to these needs, the number of companies demonstrating high levels of work-family responsiveness is relatively small. The frameworks of resource dependence theory and institutional theory were used to develop a model to explain differences in work-family responsiveness among for-profit companies. The theoretical models were tested on survey data collected through a stratified random sample of 692 for-profit companies. The data were further enhanced with secondary data sources. While the institutional model explained more variance in work-family responsiveness than the resource dependence model, a model combining both theories best explains work-family responsiveness among for-profit companies. High industry-region diffusion of family-friendly benefits was one of several strong predictors of work-family responsiveness. Also, the greater the proportion of professionals in a company's industry, the greater was the level of work-family responsiveness. Companies that measured effectiveness outcomes were more likely to offer family-friendly benefits. The same was true for companies with more positive assessments regarding the impact of their family-friendly benefits. Organizations that were large, publicly traded, or had human …

Most research studies of women in the college and university advancement profession measure the number of women in advancement positions, report their corresponding salaries and reflect on the differences between male and female employees in the same position. Little research explores how women achieve high ranking advancement positions and very few provide an analysis of the characteristics, influences and careers of successful female advancement professionals. This dissertation describes the life and work of Virginia Carter Smith, founding editor of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education's award winning publication CURRENTS. The career and contributions of Virginia Carter Smith are relevant and helpful to advancement professionals in colleges, universities and K-12 institutions. This study explores Smith's formative years as a child, describes her educational and extra-curricular preparation and identifies individuals who influenced her life and provided direction for her future. It also examines Smith's role in the formation and direction of CASE and CURRENTS. Smith successfully launched CURRENTS in 1975 when few women held senior-level positions in advancement-related fields. With Smith's contributions, CASE became the dominate professional organization for advancement professionals working in educational institutions, and CURRENTS continues to be an exemplary professional development periodical for individuals working in advancement. …

Atomic resolution images of hot-tungsten filament chemical-vapor-deposition (CVD) grown epitaxial diamond (100) films obtained in ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) with a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) are reported. A (2x1) dimer surface reconstruction and amorphous atomic regions were observed on the hydrogen terminated (100) surface. The (2x1) unit cell was measured to be 0.51"0.01 x 0.25"0.01 nm2. The amorphous regions were identified as amorphous carbon. After CVD growth, the surface of the epitaxial films was amorphous at the atomic scale. After 2 minutes of exposure to atomic hydrogen at 30 Torr and the sample temperature at 500° C, the surface was observed to consist of amorphous regions and (2x1) dimer reconstructed regions. After 5 minutes of exposure to atomic hydrogen, the surface was observed to consist mostly of (2x1) dimer reconstructed regions. These observations support a recent model for CVD diamond growth that is based on an amorphous carbon layer that is etched or converted to diamond by atomic hydrogen. With further exposure to atomic hydrogen at 500° C, etch pits were observed in the shape of inverted pyramids with {111} oriented sides. The temperature dependence of atomic hydrogen etching of the diamond (100) surface was also investigated using UHV STM, and …

By allowing judgments based on a small number of exemplar documents to be applied to a larger number of unexamined documents, clustered presentation of search results represents an intuitively attractive possibility for reducing the cognitive resource demands on human users of information retrieval systems. However, clustered presentation of search results is sensible only to the extent that naturally occurring similarity relationships among documents correspond to topically coherent clusters. The Cluster Hypothesis posits just such a systematic relationship between document similarity and topical relevance. To date, experimental validation of the Cluster Hypothesis has proved problematic, with collection-specific results both supporting and failing to support this fundamental theoretical postulate. The present study consists of two computational information visualization experiments, representing a two-tiered test of the Cluster Hypothesis under adverse conditions. Both experiments rely on multidimensionally scaled representations of interdocument similarity matrices. Experiment 1 is a term-reduction condition, in which descriptive titles are extracted from Associated Press news stories drawn from the TREC information retrieval test collection. The clustering behavior of these titles is compared to the behavior of the corresponding full text via statistical analysis of the visual characteristics of a two-dimensional similarity map. Experiment 2 is a dimensionality reduction condition, in …

The World Wide Web has become a significant source of medical information for the public, but there is concern that much of the information is inaccurate, misleading, and unsupported by scientific evidence. This study analyzes the validity of health claims on the World Wide Web for the herbal Opuntia using an evidence-based approach, and supports the observation that individuals must critically assess health information in this relatively new medium of communication. A systematic search by means of nine search engines and online resources of Web sites relating to herbal remedies was conducted and specific sites providing information on the cactus herbal remedy from the genus Opuntia were retrieved. Validity of therapeutic health claims on the Web sites was checked by comparison with reports in the scientific literature subjected to two established quality assessment rating instruments. 184 Web sites from a variety of sources were retrieved and evaluated, and 98 distinct health claims were identified. 53 scientific reports were retrieved to validate claims. 25 involved human subjects, and 28 involved animal or laboratory models. Only 33 (34%) of the claims were addressed in the scientific literature. For 3% of the claims, evidence from the scientific reports was conflicting or contradictory. Of …

Resonance energy transfer was employed to study the conformational changes of actomyosin during ATP hydrolysis. To calibrate the technique, the parameters for resonance energy transfer were defined. With conformational searching algorithms to predict probe orientation, the distances measured by resonance energy transfer are highly consistent with the atomic models, which verified the accuracy and feasibility of resonance energy transfer for structural studies of proteins and oligonucleotides. To study intramyosin distances, resonance energy transfer probes were attached to skeletal myosin's nucleotide site, subfragment-2, and regulatory light chain to examine nucleotide analog-induced structural transitions. The distances between the three positions were measured in the presence of different nucleotide analogs. No distance change was considered to be statistically significant. The measured distance between the regulatory light chain and nucleotide site was consistent with either the atomic model of skeletal myosin subfragment-1 or an average of the three models claimed for different ATP hydrolysis states, which suggested that the neck region was flexible in solution. To examine the participation of actin in the powerstroke process, resonance energy transfer between different sites on actin and myosin was measured in the presence of nucleotide analogs. The efficiencies of energy transfer between myosin catalytic domain and actin …

This study contributes a procedure, based on data analysis and geostatistical methods, to evaluate the distribution of chemical ratios and differentiate natural and anthropogenic contaminant sources of groundwater quality in the East Texas Basin. Four aquifers were studied, Sparta, Queen City, Carrizo and Wilcox. In this study, Carrizo- Wilcox is considered as one aquifer, and Sparta-Queen City as another. These aquifers were divided into depth categories, 0-150 feet for Sparta-Queen City and 300-600 feet and 600-900 feet for Carrizo-Wilcox in order to identify individual sources of contamination. Natural sources include aquifer mineral make up, salt domes and lignite beds. Major anthropogenic sources include lignite and salt dome mining and oil-gas production. Chemical ratios selected were Na/Cl, Ca/Cl, Mg/Cl, SO4/Cl, (Na+Cl)/TDS, SO4/Ca and (Ca+Mg)/(Na+K). Ratio distributions and their relationships were examined to evaluate physical-chemical processes occurring in the study area. Potential contaminant sources were used to divide the Basin into three areas: Area 1 to the east, Area 2 in the west and Area 3 in the center. Bivariate analysis was used to uncover differences between the areas. The waters in Area 1 are potentially impacted primarily from oil field waters. Sources present in Area 2 include lignite beds and oil …

This study examined the effect of active learning seminars and a mentoring program on the use of active learning teaching techniques by college faculty. A quasi-experimental study was conducted using convenience samples of faculty from two private Christian supported institutions. Data for the study were collected from surveys and faculty course evaluations. The study lasted one semester. Faculty volunteers from one institution served as the experimental group and faculty volunteers from the second institution were the comparison group. The experimental group attended approximately eight hours of active learning seminars and also participated in a one-semester mentoring program designed to assist faculty in application of active learning techniques. Several individuals conducted the active learning seminars. Dr. Charles Bonwell, a noted authority on active learning, conducted the first three-hour seminar. Seven faculty who had successfully used active learning in their classrooms were selected to conduct the remaining seminars. The faculty-mentoring program was supervised by the researcher and conducted by department chairs. Data were collected from three surveys and faculty course evaluations. The three surveys were the Faculty Active Learning Survey created by the researcher, the Teaching Goals Inventory created by Angelo and Cross, and the college edition of Learner-Centered Practices by Barbara …

The forest avian community of the Ray Roberts Greenbelt (Denton Co., Texas) was characterized for two years using point count station sampling, from fall 1998 to summer 2000. Richness data for both breeding seasons were correlated with two-spatial metrics: width of the riparian forest and distance to the nearest edge. There were significant correlations between forest interior species richness and both spatial metrics, for both breeding seasons. Based on these data, a minimum riparian forest width threshold of 400-meters is suggested to provide habitat for forest interior species, which have lost considerable habitat through forest fragmentation. Partners in Flight breeding bird priority concern scores were used to create a habitat priority index for the Trinity River bottomland hardwood forest system