The Barnett shale basin, the largest onshore gas field in the state of Texas, mainly produces natural gas. The basin’s oil and gas productions have dramatically increased over the past two decades with the enhancement via shale fracturing (fracking) technology. However, recent studies suggest that air emissions from shale fracking have significantly contributed to the growing air pollution problem in North Texas. In this study, air emissions from the Barnett shale basin during the production phase of the oil and gas activities (once the product is collected from the wells) are quantified. Oil and gas production data were acquired from the Texas Railroad Commission for the baseline years of 2010 through 2013. Methodology from prior studies on shale basins approved by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality was employed in this study and the emission inventories from the production phase sources were quantified. Accordingly, the counties with the most gas operations in the basin, Tarrant, Johnson, Denton and Wise, were found to be the highest emitters of air pollutants. Tarrant County was responsible for the highest emitted NOx (42,566 tons) and CO (17,698 tons) in the basin, while Montague County released the maximum VOC emissions (87,601 tons) during the study …

The overall main goal of this research is to assist with the planning and creation of an ethnobotanical addition at the Heronswood Garden, a botanical garden located in northwest Washington state recently purchased by the Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe. Methods included a three month long ethnographic study of Heronswood Garden as an official intern, and conducting a needs assessment that primarily employed participant observation and semi-structured open-ended interviews with all garden employees. Information revealed through the research includes causal issues behind a lack of community participation at the garden, elaboration on the solutions to various issues facilitated by negotiating and combining the views and opinions of the garden’s employees, and author reflections on the needs assessment report and the project as a whole. This research connects itself with and utilizes the methodologies and theories from applied anthropology, environmental anthropology, and environmental science to provide contemporary perspective into the subject of preserving or preventing the loss of biodiversity, language diversity, and sociocultural diversity.

Food selectivity exhibited by children with autism creates a myriad of barriers for families and children, ranging from social to nutritional. The typical approach to food selectivity is pathological. The pathological approach attempts to eliminate food selectivity through the use of techniques such as escape extinction. While successful in decreasing aspects of food challenges, such as food refusals, the pathological approach does not necessarily establish desired responses to foods or mealtimes (e.g., favorable affect, approach, generalized sampling, etc.). The purpose of the current study was to explore an alternative, constructional approach to food challenges presented by two children diagnosed with autism. This approach focuses on the development of favorable responses to food through the use of shaping. Furthermore, the shaping process involved a conceptual and procedural widening of the stimulus and response classes selected. The results of a non-concurrent multiple baseline experiment, suggest this approach was successful in expanding the number of food the children tasted and ate while maintaining favorable or neutral affect and child assent.

The formation of state borders is often told through the history of war and diplomacy. What is neglected is the tale of how borders of seemingly peaceful and long-extant places were set. In drawing Egypt’s borders, nineteenth-century cartographers were drawing upon a well of knowledge that stretched back into antiquity. Relying on the works of Greco-Roman writers and the Bible itself, cartographers and explorers used the authority of these works to make sense of unfamiliar lands, regardless of any current circumstances. The border with Palestine was determined through the usage of the Old Testament, while classical scholars like Herodotus and Ptolemy set the southern border at the Cataracts. The ancient cartography of Rome was overlaid upon the Egypt of Muhammad Ali. Given the increasing importance Egypt had to the burgeoning British Empire of the nineteenth century, how did this mesh with the influences informing cartographical representations of Egypt? This study argues that the imagined spaces created by Western cartographers informed the trajectory of Britain’s eventual conquest of Egypt. While receding as geopolitical concerns took hold, the classical and biblical influences were nonetheless part of a larger trend of Orientalism that colored the way Westerners interacted with and treated the people …

Throughout its current range, the Cross Timbers forest ecosystem is vulnerable to land-use change. In this study, we examined the surrounding land use matrix on the vegetation structure, composition and regeneration of six Cross Timbers forest fragments in Denton County, Texas (north of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex). Two fragments adjacent to agricultural land, two to residential neighborhoods, and two formally protected forest sites were selected. In summer 2015, five 100 m2 plots were randomly established in each fragment at least 200 meters from the edge. In each plot, all live and dead trees ≥ 3 cm diameter were identified and their height and diameter at breast height (DBH at 1.3 m aboveground) measured. Evidence of dumping (presence of trash) was recorded as an index of human frequentation. Differences in vegetation structure among the forest fragments were found. Most notably, fragments adjacent to agriculture contained 25% to 50% fewer trees per hectare than all other sites (Kruskal-Wallis, p < 0.02), especially trees <10 cm DBH. However, residential fragments had fewer trees that were ≥15 cm DBH compared to the other fragments, indicating that these are the youngest of the forest patches surveyed. Trash was observed in 60% of plots surveyed at …

In situations where information infrastructure is destroyed or not available, on-demand information infrastructure is pivotal for the success of rescue missions. In this paper, a drone-carried on demand information infrastructure for long-distance WiFi transmission system is developed. It can be used in the areas including emergency response, public event, and battlefield. The WiFi network can be connected to the Internet to extend WiFi access to areas where WiFi and other Internet infrastructures are not available. In order to establish a local area network to propagate WIFI service, directional antennas and wireless routers are used to create it. Due to unstable working condition on the flying drones, a precise heading turning stage is designed to maintain the two directional antennas facing to each other. Even if external interferences change the heading of the drones, the stages will automatically rotate back to where it should be to offset the bias. Also, to maintain the same flying altitude, a ground controller is designed to measure the height of the drones so that the directional antennas can communicate to each other successfully. To verify the design of the whole system, quite a few field experiments were performed. Experiments results indicates the design is reliable, …

A positive psychosocial intervention comprised of high autonomy support, task-involvement, and caring was implemented in physical activity classes to examine its effects on college women’s basic psychological needs (i.e. autonomy, competence, relatedness), exercise regulations (i.e. external, introjected, identified, integrated, intrinsic) and social physique anxiety (SPA). We hypothesized that at the end of the semester, participants in the intervention group (N = 73) would report greater need satisfaction, more self-determined regulations and less SPA than participants in the non-intervention group (N = 60). At T1 and T2, both the intervention and non-intervention participants reported “agreeing” with experiencing an autonomy supportive, task-involving, and caring environment. Furthermore, both groups at T1 and T2 reported moderate SPA. No significant group differences were found at T1. At T2, significant group differences were observed in the intervention and non-intervention groups’ report of external regulation and intrinsic regulation. The results suggests that group exercise instructors are capable of creating a positive psychosocial environment to enhance students’ intrinsic motivation.

Miss Kathy is a documentary film that tells the story of Kathy Griffin-Grinan, a lead recovery coach for prostitution and human trafficking with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office. Her non-profit organization —We’ve Been There, Done That – works in conjunction with law-enforcement to offer the survivors of prostitution a chance at rehabilitation. With endless enthusiasm, she mentors survivors as they struggle to escape a destructive lifestyle. This film also explores the relationship between human trafficking and prostitution, while addressing issues of victimization and exploitation.

The extensive use of global teams to develop software has prompted researchers to investigate various factors that can enhance a team’s performance. While a significant body of research exists on global software teams, previous research has not fully explored the interrelationships and collective impact of various factors on team performance. This study explored a model that added the characteristics of a team’s culture, ability, communication frequencies, response rates, and linguistic categories to a central framework of team performance. Data was collected from two student software development projects that occurred between teams located in the United States, Panama, and Turkey. The data was obtained through online surveys and recorded postings of team activities that occurred throughout the global software development projects. Partial least squares path modeling (PLS-PM) was chosen as the analytic technique to test the model and identify the most influential factors. Individual factors associated with response rates and linguistic characteristics proved to significantly affect a team’s activity related to grade on the project, group cohesion, and the number of messages received and sent. Moreover, an examination of possible latent homogeneous segments in the model supported the existence of differences among groups based on leadership style. Teams with assigned leaders …

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between the instructional outcomes in the independent school districts and charter schools in relation to the expenditure of public funds for instruction and total operating expenditures from the general fund. The study considered Texas elementary charter schools and independent school districts, whose school populations were identified as having greater than or equal to 50% of economically disadvantaged students, according to the Texas Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS). The study made use of multiple regression and was an ex post facto cross-sectional analysis utilizing production function theory. The study’s outcomes reported the difference in student achievement between elementary schools in independent public school districts and charter schools were small to negligible for math and reading achievement. The study also reported, there is no statistically significant difference in per pupil expenditure of public funds between elementary schools in independent public school districts and charter schools. Furthermore, there is no statistically significant relationship between student achievement and per pupil expenditure of public funds on elementary schools in independent public school districts and charter schools.

A creative dissertation consisting of two parts: a novel and a critical preface. The critical preface, titled “Novel without Falsehood” deals directly with David Shields’s Reality Hunger, touching on issues of reality as it pertains to truth, writing, fiction, and contemporary culture. The novel is entitled Down and Out and follows the fortunes of a small town in Arkansas before, during, and after its sole source of employment ceases to exist.

When looking at Dark Age Greece, one of the most important sites to consider is Athens. The Dark Age was a transitional period between the fall of Mycenaean Greece of the Bronze Age, and Archaic Greece of the Iron Age. This period is called the Dark Age because the palaces that ruled the Mycenaean age collapsed, and with them fell civilization in mainland Greece. Writing, fine art, massive architecture, trade, and luxury goods disappear from mainland Greece. But Athens survived the fall of the Mycenaeans. In order to understand the reason why Athens survived one must look at what the causes of the fall of the Mycenaeans were. Theories range from raiders and invasion, to natural disasters, such as earthquakes, droughts, and plagues. One must also examine Greece itself. The landscape and climate of Greece have a large impact on the settlement of the Greeks. The land of Greece also affects what Greek communities were able to do economically, whether a city would be rich or poor. It is because Athens is located in Attica that it survived. Attica had the poorest soil in the Mycenaean world, and was the poorest of the major cities, therefore, when looking at the …

Cellular materials, often called lattice materials, are increasingly receiving attention for their ultralight structures with high specific strength, excellent impact absorption, acoustic insulation, heat dissipation media and compact heat exchangers. In alignment with emerging additive manufacturing (AM) technology, realization of the structural applications of the lattice materials appears to be becoming faster. Considering the direction dependent material properties of the products with AM, by directionally dependent printing resolution, effective moduli of lattice structures appear to be directionally dependent. In this paper, a constitutive model of a lattice structure, which is an octet-truss with a base material having an orthotropic material property considering AM is developed. In a case study, polyjet based 3D printing material having an orthotropic property with a 9% difference in the principal direction provides difference in the axial and shear moduli in the octet-truss by 2.3 and 4.6%. Experimental validation for the effective properties of a 3D printed octet-truss is done for uniaxial tension and compression test. The theoretical value based on the micro-buckling of truss member are used to estimate the failure strength. Modulus value appears a little overestimate compared with the experiment. Finite element (FE) simulations for uniaxial compression and tension of octet-truss lattice materials …

Despite a substantially greater risk factor profile, Hispanics in the United States (US) consistently demonstrate better health outcomes compared to their non-Hispanic White counterparts, an epidemiologic phenomenon termed the Hispanic Mortality Paradox. Emerging hypotheses suggest cultural values regarding relational interconnectedness and social support may help to explain these surprising health outcomes. The present study sought to inform these hypotheses via two aims: the first was to examine racial/ethnic differences in perceived social support, and the second was to examine the relationship between acculturation and perceived social support among Hispanic college students. Non-Hispanic White, non-Hispanic Black, and Hispanic college students (N = 330) completed an online survey for course credit. Contrary to expectations, no racial/ethnic differences in perceived social support were observed, nor was an association between acculturation and perceived social support evident among the sampled Hispanic students. The limited sample size, homogeneity in social support levels across groups, and the restricted range of age and acculturation may have obscured relationships that may exist outside the college environment. Future work should consider a more heterogeneous sampling strategy to better assess these associations.

Since their discovery in the 1930s, polymeric foams have been widely used in the industry for a variety of applications such as acoustical and thermal insulation, filters, absorbents etc. The reason for this ascending trend can be attributed to factors such as cost, ease of processing and a high strength to weight ratio compared to non-foamed polymers. The purpose of this project was to develop an “indestructible” material made of polycarbonate (PC) for industrial applications. Due to the high price of polycarbonate, two foaming methods were investigated to reduce the amount of material used. Samples were foamed physically in supercritical CO2 or chemically with 5-phenyl-1H-tetrazole. After thermal characterization of the foams in differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), we saw that none of the foaming methods had an influence on the glass transition of polycarbonate. Micrographs taken in scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed that foams obtained in physical and chemical foaming had different structures. Indeed, samples foamed in supercritical CO2 exhibited a microcellular opened-cell structure with a high cell density and a homogeneous cell distribution. On the other hand, samples foamed with 5-phenyl-1H-tetrazole had a macrocellular closed-cell structure with a much smaller cell density and a random cell distribution. Compression testing showed …

This thesis presents the design of a communication system (PRCS) which improves on all aspects of the current state of the art 4G communication system Long Term Evolution (LTE) including peak to average power ratio (PAPR), data reliability, spectral efficiency and complexity using the most recent state of the art research in the field combined with novel implementations. This research is relevant and important to the field of electrical and communication engineering because it provides benefits to consumers in the form of more reliable data with higher speeds as well as a reduced burden on hardware original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). The results presented herein show up to a 3 dB reduction in PAPR, less than 10-5 bit errors at 7.5 dB signal to noise ratio (SNR) using 4QAM, up to 3 times increased throughput in the uplink mode and 10 times reduced channel coding complexity.

In recent years a great deal of interest has been focused on the synthesis of transitional metal (e.g. Ag, Cu, Fe, Au) nanosystems at the surface to sub-surface regions of Si and SiO2 matrices for fundamental understanding of their structures as well as for development of technological applications with enhanced electronic and optical properties. The applications of the metal nanoparticle or nanocluster (NC) systems range from plasmonics, photovoltaic devices, medical, and biosensors. In all of these applications; the size, shape and distribution of the metallic NCs in the silicon matrix play a key role. Low energy ion implantation followed by thermal annealing (in vacuum or gas environment) is one of the most suitable methods for synthesis of NCs at near surfaces to buried layers below the surfaces of the substrates. This technique can provide control over depth and concentration of the implanted ions in the host matrix. The implanted low energy metal ions initially amorphizes the Si substrates while being distributed at a shallow depth near the substrate surface. When subject to thermal annealing, the implanted ions agglomerate to form clusters of different sizes at different depths depending upon the fluence. However, for the heavier ions implanted with high fluences …

Receptive bilinguals have been in a dilemma of knowing just enough Spanish to write and aurally comprehend the curriculum at the beginning-intermediate levels of a Spanish language course. This dichotomy in classrooms with mixed-ability learners has created a need to reconsider placement and pedagogical structures tailored for these students in foreign language courses. Thus, this descriptive study examined the perceptions of receptive bilinguals, drawn from two secondary Spanish courses regarding receptive bilinguals’ language use, personal Spanish language abilities and confidence, personal beliefs about the language, and contentment with the course. For this study, 31 participants were selected from two public high schools in a suburb of a large metropolitan area in north Texas. Two surveys, a listening assessment and an online questionnaire, were administered at the end of the academic year. The Likert questionnaire items were analyzed using SPSS software, while open-ended questions were coded for recurrent themes. Analyses revealed four major findings. First, with regard to influence on language use, participants’ grandparents created the most interaction with the Spanish language when compared with the other family groups. In addition, Spanish influence through television, literature, radio, and music contributed to students’ early childhood Spanish learning. Second, as to language preference, …

The United House of Prayer was established by Marcelino Manuel da Graça (1881-1960), who is also known as Charles Manuel “Sweet Daddy” Grace, or “Daddy” Grace. He founded and developed the use of the shout bands which are charismatic gospel trombone ensembles within this church. This study explores the importance of shout bands and examines them from multiple perspectives focusing in particular on worship practices. Additionally, it examines rhythmic elements as the most important characteristic of music performed by these unique ensembles, rhythms that reflect the preacher’s personal timing and inflections that the trombones then imitate. The approach used here supports a deeper understanding of the United House of Prayer and of the trombone in church services of this denomination. Indeed, it ultimately establishes the trombone’s role in the United House of Prayer.

As video capturing devices become more ubiquitous from surveillance cameras to smart phones, the demand of automated video analysis is increasing as never before. One obstacle in this process is to efficiently locate where a human operator’s attention should be, and another is to determine the specific types of activities or actions without ambiguity. It is the special interest of this dissertation to locate spatial and temporal regions of interest in videos and to develop a better action representation for video-based activity analysis. This dissertation follows the scheme of “locating then recognizing” activities of interest in videos, i.e., locations of potentially interesting activities are estimated before performing in-depth analysis. Theoretical properties of regions of interest in videos are first exploited, based on which a unifying framework is proposed to locate both spatial and temporal regions of interest with the same settings of parameters. The approach estimates the distribution of motion based on 3D structure tensors, and locates regions of interest according to persistent occurrences of low probability. Two contributions are further made to better represent the actions. The first is to construct a unifying model of spatio-temporal relationships between reusable mid-level actions which bridge low-level pixels and high-level activities. Dense …

The “spiritual but not religious” (SBNR) are a rising social group in America in the past two decades, but social scientists and the general public know quite little about this group. Using the pooled 2006, 2008, 2010, and 2012 GSS data, this study examines who the SBNR are and who is more or less likely to be SBNR controlling for other variables. Descriptive analysis reveals that, compared to the general U.S. adult population, the SBNR group has slightly more males, is slightly younger, has fewer racial minorities, is better educated, and is slightly higher in social class. Additionally, more SBNR are from the Northeast and West than the general population, are slightly more urban, fewer are currently married, fewer have children, more have had homosexual sex, and more were religious Nones when they were 16 years old. Logistic regression analysis of the SBNR finds that, holding other variables constant, Americans who are more educated, live in Northeastern or Western regions, have homosexual sex, or had no religion at age 16 are more likely to be SBNR than their respective counterparts. Those who are racial minorities, live in the South or the Midwest, are currently married, or have children are less …

The pieces discussed throughout this dissertation provide evidence of the evolution of the fanfare and the ability of the fanfare, as a form, to accept modern compositional techniques. While Britten’s Fanfare for St. Edmundsbury maintains the harmonic series, it does so by choice rather than by the necessity in earlier music played by the baroque trumpet. Stravinsky’s Fanfare from Agon applies set theory, modal harmonies, and open chords to blend modern techniques with medieval sounds. Satie’s Sonnerie makes use of counterpoint and a rather unusual, new characteristic for fanfares, soft dynamics. Ginastera’s Fanfare for Four Trumpets in C utilizes atonality and jazz harmonies while Stravinsky’s Fanfare for a New Theatre strictly coheres to twelve-tone serialism. McTee’s Fanfare for Trumpets applies half-step dissonance and ostinato patterns while Tower’s Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman demonstrates a multi-section work with chromaticism and tritones. By applying modern compositional techniques to an older, abstract form, composers have maintained the original aesthetic while allowing for fanfares to be used as concert music. This document adds to the limited body of scholarly writing on modern fanfares.

Adolescence is a developmental period characterized by profound social and emotional changes. Counseling can serve as a protective factor for decreasing the long-term negative emotional effects. Despite this fact, counselors continue to struggle with high rates of attrition among adolescent clients. When examining trends of client persistence in counseling across the lifespan, researchers found a relationship between the presence of internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Additionally, they found that high levels of familial stress predicted premature termination from counseling. The purpose of the current study was to create a predictive model of adolescent persistence in counseling. I examined both personal and environmental characteristics of adolescents who sought counseling services (N = 72) from an on-campus university counseling clinic that serves as a training facility for master’s and doctoral students at an accredited counselor education program in the southwestern United States. Participants were predominantly White (67.6%, n = 50), with a mean age of 14.23 (SD = 1.65). Nearly 60% (n = 44) of the clients were female, and 37.8% were male (n = 28). Beyond descriptive variables, eight predictor variables were examined: adolescent involvement in their intake, time spent on the wait list, four domains of parental stress, and parent perceptions …

A recent chemical spill of 4-Methylcyclohexanemethanol (4-MCHM) in West Virginia left 300,000 people without water. Officials claimed that this compound is not lethally toxic, but potentially harmful if swallowed or inhaled, and can cause eye and skin irritation. Sittig's Handbook of Toxic and Hazardous Chemical Carcinogens reports high exposures from skin contact or inhalation may cause damage to the heart, liver, kidneys, and lungs, and may result in death. However, no quantitative data seem to exist and no references can be found on neurotoxicity. We have investigated the neurotoxicity of 4-MCHM using mammalian nerve cell networks grown on microelectrode arrays. Network spontaneous activity from multiple units (range 48 – 120 per network) were used as the primary readout. Individual units were followed based on spike waveforms digitized at 40 kHz (Plexon MNAP system). Dose response curves show the effective inhibitory concentration at 50 percent decrease (EC50) to average 27.4 microM SD±6.17. However, in the presence of 40 microM bicuculline, a competitive GABAA antagonist, the EC50 shifts to 70.63uM SD ±4.3; implying that early, low concentration exposures to 4-MCHM involve GABA activation. Initial activity loss occurs without active unit loss (defined as 10 or more template threshold crossing per min), indicating …