Free weekly newspaper that includes business and classified advertising.

This paper describes international environmental governance and tries to engage leaders in prioritizing environmental issues and challenges.

Article on e-government services and how libraries can provide helpful online government resources.

Weekly newspaper from Dell City, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Weekly newspaper from Dell City, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Weekly newspaper from Dell City, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Weekly newspaper from Dell City, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

The purpose of this document is to further the current research and encourage interest in the music of the Mexican composer Ernesto García de León. This paper will advance the current research with an in-depth analysis of the first movement of Sonata No. I, Op.13, Las Campanas (The Bells) for solo guitar. The analysis will focus on the pervasive presence of the melodic and harmonic intervals of perfect fourths, perfect fifths, and tritones as constructive devises throughout the sonata. This will provide interested performers a technical understanding of the composition. In addition to the compositional aspects, the analysis will be extended to consider the programmatic elements described by García de León. Select alternative fingerings will also be given to provide the interpreter options for difficult passages.

The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the organizational factors that contribute to effective emerging information technology intelligence processes and products. Emerging information technology is defined as a technology which is little commercialized and is currently adopted by not more than twenty percent of the companies within a given industry. By definition, information technology intelligence is a subdivision of competitive intelligence and business intelligence. I discovered evidence that the information technology intelligence process includes assessment of information technology intelligence needs of consumers, collection of data from internal and external sources, analysis of the collected data and distribution of the analyzed data to the consumers. Exploratory factor analysis confirmed the existence of all the variables in the proposed research model. I found empirical evidence that the final technology intelligence product contributes to better decisions made by consumers, their better environmental scanning, and more funding to information technology departments in organizations from different industries and of different sizes.

The test scores of spatial ability for women lag behind those of men in many spatial tests. On the Mental Rotations Test (MRT), a significant gender gap has existed for over 20 years and continues to exist. High spatial ability has been linked to efficiencies in typical computing tasks including Web and database searching, text editing, and computer programming. The relationships between the components of visuospatial ability and performance are complex. However, research strongly indicates that a connection exists, and further research is necessary to determine the interactions between the variables of environment, genetics, and spatial training. Spatial experience can enhance spatial skills. However, to what extent spatial skills can be enhanced in female adolescents through a spatial curriculum to reduce the gap in scores has not been fully researched, nor has the impact of spatial skill on information seeking. This research project investigated spatial skill in adolescent females by examining (1) the extent to which the intervention of teaching a spatial curriculum in a single-sex setting could improve mental rotation test scores, and (2) the impact of spatial skills on an information seeking task in a single-sex setting. The extent to which a spatial visualization curriculum can improve MRT …

Drawing upon configurational theory, work group design research, virtualness concepts, and the software agility literature, the purpose of this study was to provide a starting point for theorizing about the successful configuration of globally distributed agile teams by exploring the dimensions of team structure, virtualness, and agility. Due to the complex nature of this topic, the need to examine the phenomenon within its natural setting, and the limited amount of research that has been conducted in this particular area, this study adopted an embedded multiple-case research design. The primary data collection method consisted of semi-structured interviews involving members of globally distributed agile teams within three U.S. based organizations with members located in distributed sights in multiple countries. Additional data were collected from archival records. Within-case and cross-analysis was conducted using qualitative data analysis software. This study provides a starting point for answering the question of how the configuration of globally distributed agile teams differs from the configuration of other types of globally distributed teams; it synthesizes past research and findings into a comprehensive theoretical framework; it provides a starting point for theorizing about the successful configuration of globally distributed agile teams; it helps practitioners to identify and address the challenges …

The amorphous fraction of semicrystalline polymers has long been thought to be a significant contributor to creep deformation. In polyethylene (PE) nanocomposites, the semicrystalline nature of the maleated PE compatibilizer leads to a limited ability to separate the role of the PE in the nanocomposite properties. This dissertation investigates blown films of linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) and its nanocomposites with montmorillonite-layered silicate (MLS). Addition of an amorphous ethylene propylene copolymer grafted maleic anhydride (amEP) was utilized to enhance the interaction between the PE and the MLS. The amorphous nature of the compatibilizer was used to differentiate the effect of the different components of the nanocomposites; namely the matrix, the filler, and the compatibilizer on the overall properties. Tensile test results of the nanocomposites indicate that the addition of amEP and MLS separately and together produces a synergistic effect on the mechanical properties of the neat PE Thermal transitions were analyzed using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) to determine if the observed improvement in mechanical properties is related to changes in crystallinity. The effect of dispersion of the MLS in the matrix was investigated by using a combination of X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). Mechanical measurements were correlated to …

A common goal for industrial manufacturers is to create a safer working environment and reduce production costs. One common method to achieve this goal is to drastically reduce cutting fluid use in machining. Recent advances in machining technologies have made it possible to perform machining with minimum-quantity lubrication (MQL). Drilling takes a key position in the realization of MQL machining. In this study the effects of using MQL in drilling AISI 1018 steel with HSS tools using a vegetable based lubricant were investigated. A full factorial experiment was conducted and regression models were generated for both surface finish and hole size. Lower surface roughness and higher tool life were observed in the lowest speed and feed rate combination.

Leadership capacity may be enhanced when school staff members work together as a professional learning community (PLC). Leadership style may impact how well a school staff work as a professional learning community. The purpose of this study was to assess the relationship between principal leadership style and the level of PLC on 18 campuses across the US that were working on becoming PLCs. Staff members answered questions from two surveys which measured the level of leadership capacity, leadership style of the principal, and level of professional learning community within the schools. Questions regarding leadership capacity and leadership style were taken from the Leadership Capacity School Survey. Questions designed to measure the level of PLC on a campus were taken from the Professional Learning Community Assessment. The product-moment correlation coefficient or Pearson r was calculated between the answers from the questions from both surveys. The results indicated that when a capacity building principal is working with staff members to create a PLC, a higher level of PLC development is evidenced. When principals used collaboration with their staff, their schools operated at a lower level as a PLC. These results encourage principals to consider building capacity among their staff members if they …

Currently available solid lubricants only perform well under a limited range of environmental conditions. Unlike them, oxides are thermodynamically stable and relatively inert over a broad range of temperatures and environments. However, conventional oxides are brittle at normal temperatures; exhibiting significant plasticity only at high temperatures (>0.5Tmelting). This prevents oxides' use in tribological applications at low temperatures. If oxides can be made lubricious at low temperatures, they would be excellent solid lubricants for a wide range of conditions. Atomic layer deposition (ALD) is a growth technique capable of depositing highly uniform and conformal films in challenging applications that have buried surfaces and high-aspect-ratio features such as microelectromechanical (MEMS) devices where the need for robust solid lubricants is sometimes necessary. This dissertation investigates the surface and subsurface characteristics of ALD-grown ZnO/Al2O3 nanolaminates and ZrO2 monofilms before and after sliding at room temperature. Significant enhancement in friction and wear performance was observed for some films. HRSEM/FIB, HRTEM and ancillary techniques (i.e. SAED, EELS) were used to determine the mechanisms responsible for this enhancement. Contributory characteristics and energy dissipation modes were identified that promote low-temperature lubricity in both material systems.

This study examined the ideograph of <collateral damage> through an analysis of the Bush Administration's rhetoric as well as visual photographs of Iraqi civilian deaths. The project argues that the psycho-dynamic rhetoric of the Bush Administration during a time of visual censorship lead to the dehumanization of Iraqi civilian deaths during the War in Iraq. The method consisted of a textual analysis of the Bush Administration's rhetoric and continued with a content analysis of news media's photographs. The author argues that critics gain a deeper understanding of the disappearing dead phenomenon of Iraqi civilians by examining ideographic fragments of psycho-dynamic rhetoric.

This thesis introduces an innovative methodology of combining some traditional dictionary based approaches to word sense disambiguation (semantic similarity measures and overlap of word glosses, both based on WordNet) with some graph-based centrality methods, namely the degree of the vertices, Pagerank, closeness, and betweenness. The approach is completely unsupervised, and is based on creating graphs for the words to be disambiguated. We experiment with several possible combinations of the semantic similarity measures as the first stage in our experiments. The next stage attempts to score individual vertices in the graphs previously created based on several graph connectivity measures. During the final stage, several voting schemes are applied on the results obtained from the different centrality algorithms. The most important contributions of this work are not only that it is a novel approach and it works well, but also that it has great potential in overcoming the new-knowledge-acquisition bottleneck which has apparently brought research in supervised WSD as an explicit application to a plateau. The type of research reported in this thesis, which does not require manually annotated data, holds promise of a lot of new and interesting things, and our work is one of the first steps, despite being a …

The education community agrees that correcting student errors is important for learning. They do not agree on the components that define successful error correcting. Some theories suggest that detailed feedback facilitates adult learning and some suggest that less detail is needed for these learners. Gilbert (1962) applied the scientifically derived methods of Behavior Analysis when designing instruction. This study attempted to develop an efficient error correction procedure for university teachers. Throughout the semester, error correction design efforts between the teachers and the experimenter became more collaborative. While error correction procedures never showed systematic effects on student grades, later versions were viewed more favorably by both teachers and students and were more likely to be implemented accurately. Decreased teacher practice opportunities, due to low student participation, may have decreased the procedure's effectiveness.

Optical current sensors (OCSs) are initially developed to measure relatively large current over a wide range of frequency band. They are also used as protective devices in the event a fault occurs due to a short circuit, in the power generation and distribution industries. The basic principal used in OCS is the Faraday effect. When a light guiding faraday medium is placed in a magnetic field which is produced by the current flowing in the conductor around the magnetic core, the plane of polarization of the linearly polarized light is rotated. The angle of rotation is proportional to the magnetic field strength, proportionality constant and the interaction length. The proportionality constant is the Verdet constant V (λ, T), which is dependent on both temperature and wavelength of the light. Opto electrical methods are used to measure the angle of rotation of the polarization plane. By measuring the angle the current flowing in the current carrying conductor can be calculated. But the accuracy of the OCS is lost of the angle of rotation of the polarization plane is dependent on the Verdet constant, apart from the magnetic field strength. As temperature increases the Verdet constant decreases, so the angle of rotation …

In the early 1990s, Robert Kaplan and David Norton introduced and developed a new performance measurement and management system called the balanced scorecard (BSC). Most studies have found that evaluators tend to ignore or are not willing to use nonfinancial measures. This study attempts to examine whether the explicit linkage between the evaluator's BSC and the subordinate's BSC makes the evaluators use nonfinancial measures in performance evaluation. This study used an experimental design where subjects were asked to evaluate two managers' performance under explicit linkage versus nonexplicit linkage conditions. The difference between performance evaluation scores of the two managers under the two linkage conditions captures the influence of explicit linkage between BSCs on performance evaluation. I used regression analyses to test my hypothesis. The results of the regression analyses support my hypothesis. This study attempts to explore one possible reason for evaluators' not using nonfinancial measures much in performance evaluation. It is the first one that studies the influence of the linkage between the BSCs on performance evaluation.

Flat dendrimers, consisting of a hexavalent aromatic core and rigid ethynyl units locked in place by ether connections were developed based upon the divergent synthetic method. Alternating functional groups were adopted on each site of the hexa-substituted benzene, in order to avoid undesired cyclization pathways. The flat structures of conjugated dendrimers would allow investigation on the discotic liquid crystal properties. In addition, these ethylnyl dendrimers are expected to show directed energy and electron transfer with a highly conjugated system, and thus are effective in the preparation of photoreactive materials such as electronic sensors or light harvesting materials. Conjugated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, consisting of naphthalene, anthracene, pyrene, and phenanthrene groups connected via 1,3,5-triethynylbenzene cores, were synthesized. These molecules exhibited luminescence properties and the π-complexation with a mercury trifunctional lewis acid are expected to enhance the phosphorescence in the presence of the heavy metal due to the spin-orbit coupling. Besides, owing to the presence of heavy metal atom in the Au (I) complexes linked by s-bonded triethynyltriphenylene luminophore, the phosphorescence occurs from a metal-centered emission. The conjugated organic luminophores have been developed to produce excellent quantum efficiencies, brightness, and long lifetimes.

This study examined the effects of a condensed parent training program on parent-child interactions in the home. Two parents participated in a positive parenting workshop that included explicit training of four skills and indirect training of two additional skills. To determine skill acquisition, both parents performed role plays and completed written exams pre- and post-training. Role play assessment results showed improvements in all skill areas for both participants. Written assessment results showed improvements for all skills directly taught except one. Multiple measures were examined in the home prior to and following the workshop to assess generalization. Results showed an increase in positive interactions and decrease in coercive interactions and undesirable child behavior for both participants.

The objective of this study was to examine if intra-racial income inequality contributes to higher infant mortality rates (IMRs) for African-Americans. The conceptual framework for this study is derived from Richard Wilkinson's psychosocial environment interpretation of the income inequality and health link. The hypotheses examined were that race/ethnicity-specific IMRs are influenced by intra-race/ethnicity income inequality, and that these effects of income inequality on health are mediated by level of social mistrust and/or risk profile of the mother. Using state-level data from several sources, the 2000 National Center for Health Statistics Linked Birth Infant Death database, 2000 U.S. Census, and 2000 General Social Survey, a number of regression equations were estimated. Results indicated that the level of intra-racial/ethnic income inequality is a significant predictor of non-Hispanic Black IMRs, but not the IMRs of non-Hispanic Whites or Hispanics. Additionally, among Blacks, the effect of their intra-racial income inequality on their IMRs was found to be mediated by the risk profile of the mother, namely, the increased likelihood of smoking and/or drinking and/or less prenatal care by Black women during pregnancy. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Using mainly quantitative methods of evaluation, as well as patient comment assessment, this study evaluated whether changing the current informed consent process for labor epidural analgesia to a longer, more informational process resulted in a more satisfied patient. Satisfaction with the labor epidural informed consent process was evaluated using a questionnaire that was mailed and also available online. Half of the patient population was given a written labor epidural risk/benefit document at their 36-week obstetric check up. All patients received the standard informed consent. Survey responses were evaluated based on three independent variables dealing with the modality, timing, amount of informed consent information and one dependent variable, whether the patient's expectations of the epidural were met, which is equated with satisfaction. Patients in this study clearly indicated that they want detailed risk/benefit information on epidural analgesia earlier in their pregnancy. A meaningfully larger percentage of patients who received the written risk/benefit document were satisfied with the epidural process as compared to those who did not receive the document.