Photograph of a male speaker at the masters commencement ceremony for the University of North Texas, in Denton, Texas. The speaker is dressed in green and black graduation regalia. There are people seated in the background, watching the speaker.

Photograph of students at the masters commencement ceremony at the University of North Texas, in Denton, Texas. The students are wearing black robes with white and gold stoles. There are people seated in the background, watching the graduates. Several of them smile towards the stage, while others look off to the side.

Photograph of students standing at the masters commencement ceremony at the University of North Texas, in Denton, Texas. The students are wearing black graduation robes, white and gold stoles, and blue medals. There are people seated in the background, watching the ceremony.

Photograph of a male student at the masters commencement ceremony for the University of North Texas, in Denton, Texas. The student is wearing a black graduation robe with a gold, white and green stole. He is walking across the graduation stage and shaking a presenter's hand. The presenter is wearing green and black graduation regalia with a large silver medal around his neck. There are people seated in the background, watching the ceremony.

Photograph of a female student at the masters commencement ceremony for the University of North Texas, in Denton, Texas. The student is wearing a black graduation robe with a white and green stole. She is walking across the graduation stage and shaking a presenter's hand. The presenter is wearing green and black graduation regalia with a large silver medal around his neck. There are people seated in the background, watching the ceremony.

Photograph of students at the masters commencement ceremony at the University of North Texas, in Denton, Texas. The students are standing in line, waiting to walk across the graduation stage. They are wearing black robes with gold and white stoles. There are people seated in the background, watching the ceremony.

Photograph of a male student at the masters commencement ceremony at the University of the North Texas, in Denton, Texas. The student is walking across the stage and shaking hands with a presenter dressed in green and black graduation regalia. There are other academic administrators and academia dressed in colorful regalia standing on stage. There are people seated in the background, watching the ceremony.

Photograph of a student at the masters commencement ceremony at the University of North Texas, in Denton, Texas. The student is walking across the stage and shaking hands with a presenter dressed in green and black graduation regalia. The student is wearing black robes with a blue, white, green and gold stole. There are people seated in the background, watching the ceremony.

Photograph of academic administrators and academia onstage at the May 2010 masters commencement ceremony at the University of North Texas, in Denton, Texas. They are dressed in black, green, blue, red and gold academic regalia. There are people seated in the background, watching the ceremony.

Photograph of male and female students at the masters commencement ceremony at the University of North Texas, in Denton, Texas. The students are waiting in line to walk across the stage and receive their degrees. There is a member of the academic administration dressed in white and green regalia standing to the right of the photograph.

Photograph of a female student dressed in graduation regalia at the masters commencement ceremony at the University of North Texas, in Denton, Texas. She is wearing a black robe with a green and brown stole and black cords. There is a male student standing behind her.

Photograph of two female students dressed in black graduation regalia at the masters commencement ceremony at the University of North Texas, in Denton, Texas. The student on the right is wearing a brown and green stole. There are other students standing in the background.

Photograph of a female student in black graduation regalia at the masters commencement ceremony for the University of North Texas, in Denton, Texas. There are other students standing behind her.

Photograph of two female students dressed in black graduation regalia at the masters commencement ceremony for the University of North Texas, in Denton, Texas. The woman to the right looks down.

Photograph of students standing at the masters commencement ceremony at the University of North Texas, in Denton, Texas. The students are wearing black graduation robes with white and gold stoles. Friends and family members sit in the stands in the background, watching the students on the floor.

Photograph of a woman speaking at the masters commencement ceremony at the University of North Texas, in Denton, Texas. The woman is standing at a podium and wearing blue, black and gold graduation regalia. There are people seated in the background, listening to the speaker and watching the ceremony.

Photograph of a woman speaking at the masters commencement ceremony at the University of North Texas, in Denton, Texas. The woman is standing at a podium and wearing a black dress. There are students seated in the background, listening to the speaker. The photo was taken from behind the podium.

Photograph of students standing at the masters commencement ceremony at the University of North Texas, in Denton, Texas. Students are wearing black graduation robes with gold, white, green and blue stoles. Many of them watch the faculty, who wear blue and red stoles, file in front of the students.

Energy and the natural environment are central concerns among stakeholders across the globe. Decisions on this scale often require interaction among a myriad of institutions and individuals who navigate a complex variety of challenges. In Denton, Texas in 2014, voters were asked to make such a decision when tasked with a referendum to determine whether the city would continue to allow hydraulic fracturing activity within its borders. For social scientists, this situation requires further analysis in an effort to better understand how and why individuals make the decisions they do. One possible approach for exploring this process is a method of poststructuralist critical rhetorical analysis, which is concerned with how individuals’ identities change through interaction with institutions. This study reflects upon the texts themselves through a poststructuralist critical rhetorical analysis of images employed by those in favor of and those against Denton’s ban on hydraulic fracturing in an attempt to identify images that alter the grid of intelligibility for the audience. The paper includes deliberation about the relative merits, subsequent disadvantages, and possible questions for further study as they relate to the theoretical implications of critical rhetorical analysis as information science. Ultimately, the study identifies poststructuralist critical rhetorical analysis as …

Bumble bees (Bombus spp.) are adept pollinators of countless cultivated and wild flowering plants, but many species have experienced declines in recent decades. Though urban sprawl has been implicated as a driving force of such losses, urban green spaces hold the potential to serve as habitat islands for bumble bees. As human populations continue to grow and metropolitan areas become larger, the survival of many bumble bee species will hinge on the identification and implementation of appropriate conservation measures at regional and finer scales. North Texas is home to some the fastest-growing urban areas in the country, including Denton County, as well as at least two declining bumble bee species (B. pensylvanicus and B. fraternus). Using a combination of field , molevular DNA and GIS methods I evaluated the persistence of historic bumble bee species in Denton County, and investigated the genetic structure and connectivity of the populations in these spaces. Field sampling resulted in the discovery of both B. pensylvanicus and B. fraternus in Denton County's urban green spaces. While the relative abundance of B. fraternus in these spaces was significantly lower than historic levels gleaned from museum recors, that of B. pensylvanicus was significantly higher. Statistical analyses found …

Representatives of the City of Highland Village expressed concern over the risk of wildfires for their community. Anthropology provides many tools for and examples of disaster assessment of preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation. These tools combined with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can provide a holistic, cultural ecological look at how such a disaster may take place in the city. The project's methods included a detailed survey of preparedness steps which was analyzed using SPSS and also imported into ArcGIS for spatial analysis, and semi-formal, in-depth interviews with residents of the community regarding preparedness, response, and recovery. Residents fell into a middle category of preparedness, with the majority of participants considering or implementing a few recommended preparedness steps. Interview participants expressed respect for and trust of the city and first-responders, as well as a willingness to volunteer their help during response and recovery stages. Finally the American Community Survey showed that resident socioeconomic vulnerability was considerably low, and no action needed to be taken to advocate for at-risk individuals. Overall, the City of Highland Village showed a high resiliency to disaster. A wildfire likely will not have a major impact on the community as a whole, though the city may reduce …

Heat pumps are a vital part of each building for their role in keeping the space conditioned for the occupant. This study focuses on developing a model for the ground-source heat pump at the Zero Energy lab at the University of North Texas, and finding the minimum data required for generating the model. The literature includes many models with different approaches to determine the performance of the heat pump. Each method has its pros and cons. In this research the equation-fit method was used to generate a model based on the data collected from the field. Two experiments were conducted for the cooling mode: the first one at the beginning of the season and the second one at the peak of the season to cover all the operation conditions. The same procedure was followed for the heating mode. The models generated based on the collected data were validated against the experiment data. The error of the models was within ±10%. The study showed that the error could be reduced by 20% to 42% when using the field data to generate the model instead of the manufacturer’s catalog data. Also it was found that the minimum period to generate the cooling …

Daily newspaper from Denton, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.

Daily newspaper from Denton, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.