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Spanish Migration in Contemporary Spanish Literature and Film (open access)

Spanish Migration in Contemporary Spanish Literature and Film

Spain underwent drastic social and political changes in the last decades of the twentieth century which also affected the nation’s patterns of emigration. Contemporary Spanish literature and film that portray these decades reflect the country’s fluctuating characteristics of migration. ¡Vente a Alemania, Pepe! (1971) by Pedro Lazaga, Coto vedado (1985) by Juan Goytisolo, El hijo del acordeonista (2003) by Bernardo Atxaga, and Yoyes (2000) by Helena Taberna demonstrate Spain’s migration trends during the last years of Franco’s dictatorship and the transition to democracy. The nation’s highly increased socioeconomic development in the 1970s and 1980s which eventually led to a first-world status also affected emigration, which can be seen in Carlota Fainberg (1999) by Antonio Muñoz Molina, Kasbah (2000) by Mariano Barroso, Restos de carmine (1999) by Juan Madrid, and Map of the Sounds of Tokyo (2009) by Isabel Coixet.
Date: August 2011
Creator: Arzac, Sergio
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Passage of the Comic Book to the Animated Film: The Case of the Smurfs (open access)

The Passage of the Comic Book to the Animated Film: The Case of the Smurfs

The purpose of this study is to explore the influence of history and culture on the passage of the comic book to the animated film. Although the comic book has both historical and cultural components, the latter often undergoes a cultural shift in the animation process. Using the Smurfs as a case study, this investigation first reviews existing literature pertaining to the comic book as an art form, the influence of history and culture on Smurf story plots, and the translation of the comic book into a moving picture. This study then utilizes authentic documents and interviews to analyze the perceptions of success and failure in the transformation of the Smurf comic book into animation: concluding that original meaning is often altered in the translation to meet the criteria of cultural relevance for the new audiences.
Date: August 2011
Creator: Baldwin, Frances Novier
System: The UNT Digital Library
Exposing Deep-rooted Anger: A Metaphor Pattern Analysis of Mixed Anger Metaphors (open access)

Exposing Deep-rooted Anger: A Metaphor Pattern Analysis of Mixed Anger Metaphors

This project seeks to serve two purposes: first, to investigate various semantic and grammatical aspects of mixed conceptual metaphors in reference to anger; and secondly, to explore the potential of a corpus-based, TARGET DOMAIN-oriented method termed metaphor pattern analysis to the study of mixed metaphor. This research shows that mixed metaphors do not pattern in a manner consistent with statements made within conceptual metaphor theory. These metaphors prove highly dynamic in their combinability and resist resonance between SOURCE DOMAINS used. Also shown is the viability of metaphor pattern analysis as a methodology to approach mixed metaphor research.
Date: August 2011
Creator: Barron, Andrew T.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Attracted to the Medium: An Analysis of Social Behaviors, Advertising, and Youth Culture in the Emerging Mobile Era (open access)

Attracted to the Medium: An Analysis of Social Behaviors, Advertising, and Youth Culture in the Emerging Mobile Era

This thesis is a reception study that examines potential reasons why the adolescent to college aged demographic of youth culture is embracing communicative and informational mobility. The project attests that the move to mobility is motivated by two major factors, the attraction of being an early adopter of technology and the way social behaviors are made attractive in mobile marketing. Chapter 1 explores the importance of these social behaviors, as they are very much intertwined and contribute to how youth acclimate into society. Chapter 2 demonstrates that creating social distinction and cultural capital is linked to being an early adopter of technology. The remaining portion of the document examines recent mobile advertisements and why youth would be attracted to the aesthetic and thematic elements contained in the advertisements. Chapter 3 examines how Blackberry utilizes the behavior of creating and expressing identity in their advertisements. Chapter 4 focuses on how Apple has worked to create a community centered around their brand. Finally, Chapter 5 looks at how Google/Android has highlighted the acquisition, sharing, and utilization of content through the phenomenon of applications. With this project, I hope to illustrate the rationale why youth would be attracted to communicative and informational mobility.
Date: August 2011
Creator: Battin, Justin M.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Induced “motivation” (open access)

Induced “motivation”

In the avian training community, a procedure has been utilized to maintain food reinforcer efficacy at high body weights. Elements of this procedure include limited holds and closed economies. To test this procedure, a baseline performance of keypecking on an FR 15 schedule at 80% ad lib weight for two pigeons was established. By imposing limited holds and a closed economy, rates of responding were increased compared to baseline, even while the pigeons were over 90% of their ad-lib body weights.
Date: August 2011
Creator: Becker, April Melissa
System: The UNT Digital Library
Teleport (open access)

Teleport

This collection consists of a critical preface exploring the similarities between serialized comic books, realist fiction and the author’s own writing. The principle discussion concerns continuity, the connecting tissue between ancillary works of fiction, chronology, the function of time in the narrative of related stories, and the function of characters beyond the stories they inhabit. The stories within the collection revolve around an eccentric ensemble of suburban youth whose demoralized and violent actions are heavily influenced by defining moments of their past.
Date: August 2011
Creator: Bell, C.F. Davis
System: The UNT Digital Library
Religious Coping and Experience of Body Satisfaction Among College Women (open access)

Religious Coping and Experience of Body Satisfaction Among College Women

This study examined whether religious coping moderated the effects of thin-ideal images on body satisfaction among college women. Religious (N = 178) participants met for a pre-test to complete religiosity measures. A week later, the participants reconvened and were assigned to one of two conditions: before (n = 83) or after (n = 95). Within each of these two groups, participants were randomly assigned to read a list of statements: positive religious statements, positive nonreligious statements, negative religious statements, positive body neutral religious statements, and neutral statements. Each participant was exposed to a task that included 10 images of thin-ideal models, read her list of statements, and completed the Body Dissatisfaction Scale of the EDI-3. The results revealed no significant main effect of placement, type of statement and no significant Placement X Statement Type interaction. However, when religious statements were collapsed and a subsequent 2 (Placement) X 3 (Statement type) analysis was conducted the results indicated a significant main effect for type of statement. Reading religious statements resulted in less body dissatisfaction than non-religious statements. There was no main effect for placement and no Placement X Statement Type interaction. Ethnic differences in religiosity were noted (all p’s <.05). Implications and …
Date: August 2011
Creator: Bell, Keisha
System: The UNT Digital Library
The Art-Union and Photography, 1839-1854: The First Fifteen Years of Critical Engagement between Two Cultural Icons of Nineteenth-Century Britain (open access)

The Art-Union and Photography, 1839-1854: The First Fifteen Years of Critical Engagement between Two Cultural Icons of Nineteenth-Century Britain

This study analyzes how the Art-Union, a British journal interested only in the fine arts, approached photography between 1839 and 1854. It is informed by Karl Marx’s materialism-informed commodity fetishism, Gerry Beegan’s conception of knowingness, Benedict Anderson’s imagined community, and an art critical discourse that was defined by Roger de Piles and Joshua Reynolds. The individual chapters are each sites in which to examine these multiple theoretical approaches to the journal’s and photography’s association in separate, yet sometimes overlapping, periods. One particular focus of this study concerns the method through which the journal viewed photography—as an artistic or scientific enterprise. A second important focus of this study is the commodification of both the journal and photography in Britain. Also, it determines how the journal’s critical engagement with photography fits into the structure and development of a nineteenth-century British social collectivity focused on art and the photographic enterprise.
Date: August 2011
Creator: Boetcher, Derek Nicholas
System: The UNT Digital Library
A Real-Time Electronic Sound Analysis System with Graphical User Interface (open access)

A Real-Time Electronic Sound Analysis System with Graphical User Interface

Noise-induced hearing loss is a serious problem common to musical environments. Current dosimetry technology is primarily designed for industrial environments and not suited for musical settings. At present, there are no government regulations that apply to the educational music environment as it relates to monitoring and prevention of hearing loss. Also, no system exists than can serve as a proactive tool in observation and reporting of sound exposure levels with the goal of hearing conservation. Newly proposed system takes a software based approach in designing a proactive dosimetry system that can assess the risk of sound noise exposure. It provides real-time feedback trough a graphical user interface that is capable of database storage for further study.
Date: August 2011
Creator: Brgulja, Amir
System: The UNT Digital Library
Re-Envisioning an Eighteenth-Century Artifact: A Postmodern Reading of Tristram Shandy (open access)

Re-Envisioning an Eighteenth-Century Artifact: A Postmodern Reading of Tristram Shandy

The interjection of a new and dynamically different reading of Lawrence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy is imperative, if scholars want to clearly see many of the hidden facets of the novel that have gone unexamined because of out-dated scholarship. Ian Watt’s assumption that Sterne “would probably have been the supreme figure among eighteenth-century novelists” (291) if he had not tried to be so odd, and the conclusion that he draws, that “Tristram Shandy is not so much a novel as a parody of a novel” (291), is incorrect. Throughout the thesis, I argue that Sterne was not burlesquing other novelists, but instead, was engaging with themes that are now being examined by postmodern theories of Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Jean François Lyotard: themes like the impenetrability of identity (“Don’t puzzle me” (TS 7.33.633)), the insufficiency of language (“Well might Locke write a chapter upon the imperfections of words” (5.6.429)), and the unavailability of permanence (“Time wastes too fast” (9.8.754)). I actively engage with their theories to deconstruct unexamined themes inside Tristram Shandy, and illuminate postmodern elements inside the novel. However, I do not argue that Tristram Shandy is postmodern. Instead, I argue that if the reader examines the novel outside …
Date: August 2011
Creator: Burns, Anthony Louis
System: The UNT Digital Library
Evaluating the Effects of Public Postings on Energy Conservation Behavior at a Public University (open access)

Evaluating the Effects of Public Postings on Energy Conservation Behavior at a Public University

This study evaluated the effects of public postings on energy conservation behavior at a public university, using a multiple baseline design across three settings; bathrooms break rooms, and conference rooms. The behavior of building occupants was recorded to assess the frequency at which those individuals would turn lights off upon exiting an unoccupied room. The independent variables implemented by experimenters (light-switch plate stickers and laminated signs) had little to no effects on cumulative instances of lights turned off however, the installation of motion sensor lights produced better results. Across all conditions, lights were turned off most frequently in conference rooms (65% of observations) followed by break rooms (9% of observations), and bathrooms (3% of observations).
Date: August 2011
Creator: Canisz, Eleni
System: The UNT Digital Library
Resilience and Health Outcomes in Patients with Traumatic Injury (open access)

Resilience and Health Outcomes in Patients with Traumatic Injury

Due to the increasing healthcare costs and reduced length of hospital stay it is becoming increasingly important to identify individuals who are ‘at risk’ of experiencing long-term health issues. The purpose of the study was to: (1) determine if resilience, self efficacy and depression changed from inpatient to 3-month follow up; (2) examine the relationship between resilience, self efficacy, depression, and quality of life (social roles/activity limitations) at inpatient and 3-month follow up; and (3) identify if resilience at inpatient is related to change scores in selfefficacy and depression at 3-month follow up. Results from the paired sample t-test indicated that participants did not experience a significant change from inpatient to 3-month follow up in resilience or self-efficacy, but a significant decrease in depression was observed. Findings also indicated significant correlations between resilience, self-efficacy, and depression during inpatient stay and resilience, self-efficacy, depression, and quality of life at 3-month follow up. However, there was no relationship found between resilience and change scores in self-efficacy and depression. Future resilience research should continue to identify the variables that are most strongly related to resilience so effective interventions can be developed that improve rehabilitation outcomes, decrease secondary and chronic conditions as well as …
Date: August 2011
Creator: Christensen, Megan Elizabeth
System: The UNT Digital Library
A Champion for the Chicano Community: Anita N. Martínez  and Her Contributions to the City of Dallas, 1969-1973 (open access)

A Champion for the Chicano Community: Anita N. Martínez and Her Contributions to the City of Dallas, 1969-1973

Much has been published in Chicano studies over the past thirty to forty years; lacking in the historiography are the roles that Chicanas have played, specifically concerning politics in Dallas, Texas. How were Chicanas able to advance El Movimiento (the Mexican American civil rights movement)? Anita Martínez was the first woman to serve on the Dallas City Council and the first Mexican American woman to be elected to the city council in any major U.S. city. She served on the council from 1969 to 1973 and remained active on various state and local boards until 1984. Although the political system of Dallas has systematically marginalized Mexican American political voices and eradicated Mexican American barrios, some Mexican Americans fought the status quo and actively sought out the improvement of Mexican barrios and an increase in Mexican American political representation, Anita N. Martínez was one of these advocates. Long before she was elected to office, she began her activism with efforts to improve her children’s access to education and efforts to improve the safety of her community. Martinez was a champion for the Chicano community, especially for the youth. Her work for and with young Chicanos has earned her the moniker, “Defender …
Date: August 2011
Creator: Cloer, Katherine Reguero
System: The UNT Digital Library
“Campaigns Replete with Instruction”: Garnet Wolseley’s Civil War Observations and Their Effect on British Senior Staff College Training Prior to the Great War (open access)

“Campaigns Replete with Instruction”: Garnet Wolseley’s Civil War Observations and Their Effect on British Senior Staff College Training Prior to the Great War

This thesis addresses the importance of the American Civil War to nineteenth-century European military education, and its influence on British staff officer training prior to World War I. It focuses on Garnet Wolseley, a Civil War observer who eventually became Commander in Chief of the Forces of the British Army. In that position, he continued to write about the war he had observed a quarter-century earlier, and was instrumental in according the Civil War a key role in officer training. Indeed, he placed Stonewall Jackson historian G.F.R. Henderson in a key military professorship. The thesis examines Wolseley’s career and writings, as well as the extent to which the Civil War was studied at the Senior Staff College, in Camberly, after Wolseley’s influence had waned. Analysis of the curriculum from the College archives demonstrates that study of the Civil War diminished rapidly in the ten years prior to World War I.
Date: August 2011
Creator: Cohen, Bruce D.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Psychological Maltreatment and Adult Attachment: The Protective Role of the Sibling Relationship (open access)

Psychological Maltreatment and Adult Attachment: The Protective Role of the Sibling Relationship

A positive sibling relationship may protect individuals against poor developmental outcomes associated with psychological maltreatment. The current study assessed the moderating role of a positive sibling relationship in childhood and adulthood on associations between early psychological maltreatment and adult attachment anxiety and avoidance. College students (N = 270) completed self-report measures of psychological maltreatment, sibling relationship quality, and adult attachment. Psychological maltreatment in childhood was associated with an increase in attachment anxiety and avoidance, while a positive sibling relationship was related to a decrease in levels of attachment anxiety and avoidance. As predicted, a positive childhood sibling relationship mitigated the negative effects of psychological neglect in childhood on attachment. Similarly, a positive sibling relationship decreased the levels of attachment anxiety associated with isolation in childhood.
Date: August 2011
Creator: Collier, Laura C.
System: The UNT Digital Library
¿Cuándo te Veré? “When Will I See You?” (open access)

¿Cuándo te Veré? “When Will I See You?”

This film examines the phenomenon of a family divided by the U.S.-Mexico border. Saul, the head of the family, migrated north in search of a better life for his wife and children while they stayed behind in Mexico. Not having the documents to cross the border has resulted in being apart from his family for more than ten years. This is a story about separation, pain, and the ultimate sacrifice a family makes as a means of survival.
Date: August 2011
Creator: Colunga, Elizabeth H.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Spatial Patterns in Development Regulation: Tree Preservation Ordinances of the DFW Metropolitan Area (open access)

Spatial Patterns in Development Regulation: Tree Preservation Ordinances of the DFW Metropolitan Area

Land use regulations are typically established as a response to development activity. For effective growth management and habitat preservation, the opposite should occur. This study considers tree preservation ordinances of the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area as a means of evaluating development regulation in a metropolitan context. It documents the impact urban cores have on regulations and policies throughout their region, demonstrating that the same urban-rural gradient used to describe physical components of our metropolitan areas also holds true in terms of policy formation. Although sophistication of land use regulation generally dissipates as one moves away from an urban core, native habitat is more pristine at the outer edges. To more effectively protect native habitat, regional preservation measures are recommended.
Date: August 2011
Creator: Cox, Carissa
System: The UNT Digital Library
Bipolar Disorder in the Family: Impact on Functioning and Adjustment to College (open access)

Bipolar Disorder in the Family: Impact on Functioning and Adjustment to College

Bipolar disorder is a serious mental disorder, affecting anywhere from 2 to 4 percent of Americans. Though research has indicated that this disorder can be devastating for patients, less is known about how the disorder impacts family members. There is no research that has considered impacts on family members adjusting to college. The purpose of the current study was to determine the extent to which having a family member with bipolar disorder impacts adjustment to college, as well as factors that might account for worse functioning. Two groups were recruited: students with a bipolar family member (n = 25) and students with no family history of the disorder (n = 50). Participants were interviewed regarding their own histories of a mood disorder, as well as mood disorder histories in their immediate families. They then completed surveys assessing adjustment to college, functioning, caregiving burden, parental relationship, and attachment style. Students with a family history of bipolar disorder had significantly lower social adjustment scores, lower personal-emotional adjustment scores, and lower financial functioning scores than students without this history. Lower scores were found even after controlling for psychopathology. Avoidant attachment behaviors, anxious attachment behaviors, and aspects of the paternal relationship were identified as …
Date: August 2011
Creator: Crandall, Erin
System: The UNT Digital Library
Social Capital and Delinquency among Turkish Juveniles (open access)

Social Capital and Delinquency among Turkish Juveniles

This study examined the relationship between aspects of social capital and self-reported delinquency among Turkish juveniles by using a secondary dataset, which is a part of the European Youth Survey. The survey was conducted among tenth graders in 2007 in Bağcılar, Istanbul. The dependent variable of this study, delinquency, was divided into two groups, minor and major, according to the stipulations of the Turkish Penal Code. Social capital was measured by assessing adolescents’ reports of their direct interactions with their parents, peers and community. In order to predict the likelihood of major and minor delinquency independently, two different subsets (N: 1879 and 1837, respectively) of the data set were used. The findings of the multivariate analyses suggest that a low level of social capital contributed significantly to Turkish juveniles’ engagement in major and minor delinquent activities. Among the social capital items, adolescents’ affiliation with delinquent peers had the strongest correlation with both dependent variables.
Date: August 2011
Creator: Cubukcu, Suat
System: The UNT Digital Library
Prison Productions: Textiles and Other Military Supplies from State Penitentiaries in the Trans-Mississippi Theater during the American Civil War (open access)

Prison Productions: Textiles and Other Military Supplies from State Penitentiaries in the Trans-Mississippi Theater during the American Civil War

This thesis examines the state penitentiaries of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas that became sources of wartime supplies during the Civil War. A shortage of industry in the southwest forced the Confederacy to use all manufactories efficiently. Penitentiary workshops and textile mills supplied a variety of cloth, wood, and iron products, but have received minimal attention in studies of logistics. Penitentiary textile mills became the largest domestic supplier of cloth to Confederate quartermasters, aid societies, citizens, slaves, and indigent families. This study examines how penitentiary workshops converted to wartime production and determines their contribution to the Confederate war effort. The identification of those who produced, purchased, distributed, and used penitentiary goods will enhance our knowledge of overall Confederate supply.
Date: August 2011
Creator: Derbes, Brett J.
System: The UNT Digital Library
Analysis of Micro Enterprise Clusters in Developing Countries:  A Case Study of Toluca, Mexico. (open access)

Analysis of Micro Enterprise Clusters in Developing Countries: A Case Study of Toluca, Mexico.

Businesses cluster to achieve agglomeration benefits. However, research in developing countries suggests that the economic environment limits small business’ propensity to benefit from agglomerations. The study examines the location, networking patterns, formal structures and owner characteristics of 1256 micro businesses from ten industries and thirteen sample areas in Toluca, Mexico. First, the thesis analyses whether clustering has a positive impact on the success rates of the surveyed enterprises, e.g. higher sales per employee. On an industry scale only Retail benefits from agglomerations economies. However, results of the neighborhood data show that specific areas benefit from urbanization economies. Overall, the study finds that businesses located within agglomerations, have higher levels of formalization, networking and professional training, hence constituting a more sophisticated base for economic development. Conclusions can be drawn for development policies and programs, arguing for a more differentiated approach of small business development depending on business location and cluster characteristics.
Date: August 2011
Creator: Drauschke, Kristin
System: The UNT Digital Library
Wilderness and Everyday Life. (open access)

Wilderness and Everyday Life.

I challenge the dualistic view of wilderness that has influenced wilderness philosophy, politics and experience in recent years. In its place, I offer an alternative vision that recognizes wilderness areas and working landscapes as complementary elements of a larger, inhabited landscape characterized by a heterogeneous mixture of human-land relational patterns representing various points along an urban-wilderness continuum. In chapters 2 through 4, I explore the philosophical, political and experiential implications of this wilderness-in-context vision. Experienced and understood as part of the landscape we call home, wilderness may engender, renew, and sustain an engaged and integrated wilderness practice involving regular contact with wilderness places, committed activism on behalf of wild lands and their inhabitants, and grounded reflection on the meaning and value of wilderness in our everyday lives.
Date: August 2011
Creator: Friskics, Scott
System: The UNT Digital Library
Responding to Child Sexual Abuse: Exploring the Case Files of Children Under the Age of 6 Admitted to a Children’s Advocacy Center for Evaluation (open access)

Responding to Child Sexual Abuse: Exploring the Case Files of Children Under the Age of 6 Admitted to a Children’s Advocacy Center for Evaluation

Research suggests that roughly 25% of women and 10% of men within the United States were sexually abused at some point during childhood. With such high rates of victimization affecting society, the current study explores a population of children under the age of 6 who were suspected of being sexually victimized and thus admitted to a children’s advocacy center (CAC) for evaluation. This investigation contributes to the literature concerning child sexual abuse (CSA) by exploring the characteristics of these alleged victims, the characteristics of their suspected offenders, the alleged victim’s familial demographics characteristics, and by looking at the data pertaining to the incarceration rates of the suspected offenders identified within the sample.
Date: August 2011
Creator: Glassner, Steven
System: The UNT Digital Library
NNS Use of Adverbs in Academic Writing (open access)

NNS Use of Adverbs in Academic Writing

Recent studies have begun to redefine the idea of accuracy in second language acquisition to include not only grammatical correctness, but also native-like selection. This is an exploratory study aimed at identifying areas of nonnative-like selection of adverbs, such as sentence position, semantic category preferences, frequency of use and breadth of word choice. Using corpus-linguistic methods it compares the writing of nonnative English speakers at an intermediate and advanced level to both American college students’ writing and published academic writing. It also conducts in-depth case studies of three of the most commonly used adverbs. It finds that while advanced students are grammatically accurate, there are still several ways in which their use of adverbs differs from that of native speakers.
Date: August 2011
Creator: Heidler, Linda E.
System: The UNT Digital Library