Digital Commons Network^™

Composite Mechanical Property Enhancement Through The Use Of Y-End Shaped Short Fibers, Jin Tan

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This study uses Finite Element Analysis (FEA) to predict the mechanical property enhancement of the composites reinforced by end-shaped short fibers with different aspect ratios and volume fractions at microscale. Fibers used include conventional straight short fibers (CSSF), dumbbell-end shaped short fibers (DSSF), bone-end shaped short fibers (BSSF) and Y-end shaped short fibers (YSSF) with various lengths and angles. The critical distances between neighboring fiber ends for FEA modeling were theoretically deduced and numerically verified. This study has never been done before and the results fill a gap to this field.

In conclusion, planar-end Y-shaped short fiber reinforced composites showed …

How Optional Usage Of The Web Affects Reading Comprehension, Jocelyn K. Tenorio

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The purpose of this investigation is to consider whether using web-enhanced material improves proportionally students' reading comprehension skills. In addition student attitudes are considered. Two groups of students at the University of Montemorelos, Nuevo Leon, Mexico were chosen as a census: a group of nursing students taking a course on reading comprehension of nursing articles in English and a group of students studying to be teachers of English as a foreign language. Reading selections were uploaded on the internet using the WebCT platform. The students were to read the selections and answer quizzes. The students took a pre- and post-test …

An Improvement And A Generalization Of Zippel's Sparse Multivariate Polynomial Interpolation Algorithm, Michael D. Brazier

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The algorithm most often used for the problem of interpolating sparse multivariate polynomials from their values is Zippel's probabilistic algorithm (1988). The algorithm evaluates the function to be interpolated at a significant number of points, and for many problems of interest processing evaluations dominates the running time. This thesis presents an improvement of Zippel's algorithm, which decreases the number of evaluations needed for an interpolation by using transposed Vandermonde systems for the univariate interpolation step of Zippel's algorithm. The technique also allows a more general form of the algorithm: it becomes possible to interpolate more than one variable within a …

From “Separate But Equal,” To Tracking To “Choice”: Perceptions Of Different Stakeholders On The Impact Of Magnet Schools On High School Students, Minerva Medrano Villarreal

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The purpose of this research was to examine and compare the impact of magnet-vocational high schools on the perceptions of seniors from the magnet schools and on those from the comprehensive/host schools. Additionally, the study examined the perceptions that several stakeholders of those schools and of the services and opportunities presented to the students were also investigated. Finally, the perceptions or parents were also investigated.

The Mixed-Methods Design study used several instruments as the primary sources of self-reported data: school district course listing guides, annual progress reports, official district Web sites and literature about district magnet schools. The second component …

Improving The Performance Of Nested Loop Algorithm Using Separators, Nachiappan N. Nachiappan

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This thesis studies the properties of distance-based outliers and a better detection method for large multi-dimensional datasets. Outlier detection is an important task to find out the objects that deviate in a high ratio from the rest of the objects. The proposed algorithm breaks the data set into divisions and sets the area of access for each division, thus reducing the unnecessary access for a major set of elements. This algorithm reduces the run time of the existing algorithm by using separators. Datasets of varying sizes have been tested to analyze the empirical values of these procedures. Effective data structures …

Producing “The Diary Of Anne Frank” In The 21St Century, Nancy Camina

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This thesis is a Creative Study involving the directing of The Diary of Anne Frank . Three basic areas are addressed: Preplanning, Production and Evaluation. The Preplanning chapter entails discovering every aspect of the play through an external an internal analysis of the script. The external analysis examines various historical events that preceded and are concurrent to the action of the play. The internal analysis looks at various elements within the play that may be unfamiliar to both the actors and the audience. The production chapter details every phase involved in producing the play. The last chapter, Evaluation, uses both …

The Effects Of A Redirecting Strategy On Self Injurious Behavior Manifested By A Subject With Multiple Disabilities, Maria Estevanes Strickland

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The purpose of this investigation was to determine if a strategy involving redirection would reduce or extinguish self-injurious behavior (SIB). The subject, a ten-year-old girl, diagnosed with a seizure disorder, functioned at as eight month old level is confined to a wheel chair and is completely dependent on others for transportation and self-care needs. A single subject, ABAB design was used. The study was aimed at measuring SIB episodes during the baseline and treatment phases. A communication board was used during the treatment phases. The results indicate that the use of the communication board successfully reduced the episodes of self-injurious …

Moving And Stationary Target Acquisition Radar Image Enhancement Through Polynomial Windows, Rajarajeswari Devarajulu

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The Fourier transform involved in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging causes undesired sidelobes which obscure weak backscatters and affect the image clarity. These sidelobes can be suppressed without deteriorating the image resolution by smoothing functions known as windowing or apodization. Recently, the theory of orthogonal polynomials has gained considerable attention in signal processing applications. The window functions that are derived from the orthogonal polynomials have interesting sidelobe roll-off properties for better sidelobe apodization, hence it can be used for radar image enhancement. In this work, a new window is constructed from Jacobi orthogonal polynomials and its performance in SAR imaging …

Entropy-Based 2d Image Dissimilarity Measure, Meng-Hung Wu

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Traditional histogram or statistics based 2D image similarity/dissimilarity metrics fail to handle conjugate pair of black and white images, due to the lack of spatial information in the measurement. Recently proposed Compression-based Dissimilarity Measure (CDM) [1] based on the concept of Kolmogorov complexity has provided a different paradise for similarity measurement. However, without a clear definition how to “concatenate” two 2D images, CDM has difficulties to directly apply with 2D images. In this thesis, an entropy -based 2D image dissimilarity measure is proposed within the same Kolmogorov complexity paradise. The spatial relationship between images is embedded in our metric, and …

Field Force Dynamics, Policy Adoption, And Educational Change: Formulating A Heuristic Model, Timothy E. Jordan

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This research investigated factors that influence secondary teacher decisions on policy adoption. Adoption, as used in this study, is defined to include both the decision to adopt a policy and the action of implementing the policy, a process that requires changes in teacher behavior as well as classroom and school culture. One of the major difficulties with policy implementation is the failure to achieve effective behavioral changes in school sites and actual classrooms. It is anticipated that the results of this research will be useful to teachers as well as developers and administrators of future policies. The theoretical foundation for …

The Effects Of Ethnicity, Gender, And Urgency Of A Message On Prosocial Behavior, Orlando Rodriguez

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

A study by Christensen et al. (1998) looked at prosocial behavior toward strangers via responses to wrong-number messages on a telephone answering machine and found a higher than anticipated prosocial response. However, additional research was required in order to determine whether or not manipulation of gender and ethnicity would have produced different results. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of gender (male or female) of the caller, ethnicity (white-non Hispanic or Mexican American) of the caller, and urgency ("low," "medium," "high," & "high with prod") of a message on telephone helping behavior. One hundred …

Searching For Wisdom Through Art, Maria A. Gonzalez

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Wisdom is virtue humanity has sought since the beginning of its creation. Humanity will continue to search for wisdom throughout their lives. The book of Proverbs is a collection of ample advice and words of wisdom for those who seek it. It is a book that can be followed throughout our lives. My artwork is a collection of offerings inspired by the proverbs of Solomon. They are created to open up the minds of those who seek wisdom, it offers a visual interpretation of moral value that many time become lost in society.

Lizards And Bugambilias, Jose A. Rodriguez

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This is a creative-writing thesis, a collection of poetry. The poems are divided into three sections, which share thematic content. In this collection, the poetry explores issues of place, family and identity, all closely tied to the geographic/cultural area of South Texas. The critical introduction explains both the organization of and the influences on the poems.

Naboh System: Gathering Intelligence From Traffic Patterns, Angelica M. Delgado

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Network traffic anomalies are important indicators of problematic traffic over a network. Network activity has patterns associated with it depending on the applications running on the local hosts connected to the network. There are traffic parameters into which network traffic of a local host can be divided: bandwidth usage, number of remote hosts that a local host is connecting to and vice versa, and number of ports used by the local host. This thesis develops a system for detecting and profiling network anomalies by analyzing traffic parameters using intelligent computational techniques. The developed system gathers intelligence by examining only the …

John Millington Synge And The Irish Women's Suffrage Movement, Nicholas A. Ewen

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

John Millington Synge is considered to be among the greatest playwrights of the English language. During his lifetime, however, his plays caused controversy and even riots. Of particular interest is the fact that much of the controversy surrounded Synge's portrayal of Irish women. Because of the radical Irish nationalism that developed in the early 20 th century, much of Synge's work has been interpreted in light of this movement. This thesis, however, explores the theory that Synge was more closely connected with an another movement that was taking place in the early 1900's: women's suffrage. His sympathies for the enfranchisement …

Ethnic Conflict In South Texas: 1860–1930, Alberto Rodriguez

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

South Texas ethnic conflict has been documented as a White/Brown struggle excluding the many Blacks that came to the border from 1860–1930. Blacks that came to South Texas faced legal segregation by Anglos and a Mexican caste system that dated back to Spanish colonial times. Alliances with both Anglos and Mexican caused both social mobility and conflict for South Texas Blacks. This research argues that Blacks have been marginalized by both Anglos and Mexicans on the South Texas border. It describes the different waves of Black migration to South Texas and their interaction with the Anglo ruling class and the …

The Impact Of Cultural And Religious Values On Television And Newspaper Advertising Content And Appeal: A Cross-Cultural Study Of The United States And The Arab World, Morris A. Kalliny

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Standardization versus adaptation of advertising has been a subject of great controversy that has been debated for more than 50 years. Scholars have pointed out the increasing demand for more cross-cultural research on advertising content that can contribute to the standardization versus adaptation debate. Scholars have also pointed out that although the Arab world offers great opportunities for multinational corporations, the Arab world has been severely neglected in academic research. To comply with this demand, this study investigates the similarities and differences of the manifestation of cultural and religious values in the U.S. and the Arab world (Egypt, Lebanon, Kuwait, …

Three Essays On International Transmission Mechanism, Volatility And Spillovers On American Depositary Receipt Returns, Priti Verma

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This dissertation is a collection of three inter-related essays that examine spillovers from interest rates, exchange rates, regional markets, and the U.S. market to the American Depositary Receipt (ADR) returns. The ADRs investigated in this study are from Brazil, Chile, Mexico (Latin America), U.K., Germany, France, Italy (Europe), and Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan (Asia).

Essay 1 investigates the price and volatility spillovers as well as the asymmetric impact of positive and negative innovations from interest and exchange rates to ADR returns. Unlike previous studies which use bivariate statistics, the multivariate extension of Nelson's (1991) Exponential Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity …

A Study Of Self-Imposed Silence And Perceived Listening Effectiveness, Cynthia Marroquin-Baldwin

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This study examines the affects of self-imposed silence on perceived listening effectiveness. The subjects used in this study were 15 males and 17 females from the McAllen area (n = 32). These subjects were nonsystematically approached at the Lark Community Center/Library to solicit participation in the study. Four tests were performed to test the possible affects that 12 hours of self-imposed silence may have on listening. The independent t-test used to analyze differences in posttest scores between the treatment group and the control group revealed that no significant difference was found. The independent t-test used to analyze differences in pretest …

Re-Envisioning George Washington Gómez: A Historical And Biographical Verification Of A South Texas Novel, Diana Noreen Rivera

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The late Dr. Américo Paredes, in addition to his exemplary scholastic contributions to Mexican American scholarship, has achieved critical acclaim for his fiction. While scholars proclaim Paredes' fictional texts, which were written and set amidst a racially intensified social structure during the first half of the twentieth century, as remarkable portrayals of South Texas life, this paper calls for a “re-envisioning” of his literary works. Rather than a mere portrayal of South Texas society, using Paredes' most influential novel, George Washington Gómez , I explore the work's autobiographical content and assert that, because of its factual basis, scholars re-access his …

The Effects Of The No Child Left Behind Act Of 2001 On The Current Educational System, Morahima Villanueva

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This research study presents a historical view of the United States Federal Government's initial involvement in the country's educational systems and the motives behind these educational reforms. It explores the impact these reforms have had in the country's schools and how the implementations lead to the passing of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) under President George W. Bush. It discusses the role of the four pillars under NCLB and the changes that it has brought about in the current educational system. This study also focuses on the impact that NCLB has had on a small rural …

Empirical Performance Analysis Of Two Algorithms For Mining Intentional Knowledge Of Distance-Based Outliers, Enbamoorthy Prasanthi

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This thesis studies the empirical analysis of two algorithms, Uplattice and Jumplattice for mining intentional knowledge of distance-based outliers [19]. These algorithms detect strongest and weak outliers among them. Finding outliers is an important task required in major applications such as credit-card fraud detection, and the NHL statistical studies. Datasets of varying sizes have been tested to analyze the empirical values of these two algorithms. Effective data structures have been used to gain efficiency in memory-performance. The two algorithms provide intentional knowledge of the detected outliers which determines as to why an identified outlier is exceptional. This knowledge helps the …

Design And Performance Evaluation Of Switching Architectures For High-Speed Internet, Alvaro Munoz

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The motivation for this thesis is the desire to build faster and scalable routers that efficiently handle the exponential traffic growth in the Internet. The Internet forwards information through a mesh of routers and switches, which has to keep up with the increasing demands of traffic. Shared-memory based switches are known to provide the best throughput-delay performance for a given memory size. In this thesis performance of commonly used memory-sharing schemes for the shared memory switches are evaluated under balanced and unbalanced bursty traffic. The scalability of shared-memory switches has been a research issue for quite sometime. One approach is …

Collection, Isolation And Evaluation Of Nitrogen Fixing Bacteria In The Rio Grande Valley Of Texas, Thomas M. Eubanks

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Isolation from local soil samples with Phaseolus vulgaris (L.) produced 20 samples from which pure cultures were obtained. A commercial strain of Rhizobium #132 was obtained from Becker Underwood and included as a standard in the experiment. The results demonstrated that a variety of infective and effective of strains of Rhizobium nodulating Phaseolus vulgaris (L.) exist in the native soils of the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. A cluster of effective bacteria was identified and can serve as a basis for recommendations to inoculant industry in the Valley. An isolate collection has been established to serve as a source of …

Apocalyptic Surrealism, John Michael Bazan

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

My artistic philosophies and vision of the world are highly influenced by Surrealism, Symbolism, Romanticism, and the fantasy genre. My work is mainly Symbolic and Surrealistic, applied impressionistically and graphically, and made relative to the modern world by using religious and Apocalyptic Symbolism mixed with cosmic psychological dreamscapes of the universe. My vision of the real world is a symbolic “nightmare enigma”—like Dali's psychotic world of chaos and disorder. My imagery is associated with themes of chaos, war, death, and modern history. The academic term of Apocalyptic Surrealism is the broad mixture of religious Symbolism, political Symbolism, and historical Symbolism …

The Matamoros “Drug Cult” Murders: Borderland Perceptions And The Shaping Of Belief, Victor Gomez

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Media coverage of the Matamoros “drug cult murders” highlighted the abduction and murder of twenty-one year old college student, Mark Kilroy, while enhancing negative images of Mexican people. What makes the Kilroy coverage a watershed in history is how racism played a part during and after print media coverage of the discovery at Santa Elena. Through U.S. media especially, Anglo beliefs of cultural backwardness, Mexican police corruption, and religious misrepresentation are expressed by way of stereotypes held about Mexican border people. In this day and age, U.S. media uses these superficial beliefs to portray one group of people, and enhances …

Factors Of Placement Decisions Of Students With Learning Disabilities, April C. Yetsko

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This study looked at the factors that are involved in determining the placement decision of a child with a learning disability. Reading level, previous placement, initial placement, intelligence quotient, English proficiency and behavior were the factors examined in the study. Data was collected by examining the school files of children labeled as learning disabled in two school districts in south Texas. The different placement factors were studied to see which ones were most predictive of the number of hours a week that a student spent in a special education classroom. The research design utilized was a descriptive analysis, a correlation …

The Death Of The Subject-Impossible: An Analysis Of The Subject In Deconstruction And Psychoanalysis, Melinda Mejia

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Referring mainly to works of Jacques Derrida and Jacques Lacan, but also drawing from other major theorists of deconstruction and psychoanalysis, this study focuses on the role of language in the formation of the subject. It also addresses prevailing arguments which call into question the political dynamism of poststructuralist theories of the subject.

The Southeastern Ceremonial Complex: The Evolution Of A Concept, Brett J. Millan

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Since the late 19 th century, anthropologists and archaeologists have attempted to explain and interpret an artistic phenomenon that flourished in the southeastern United States. For years explorations in that area unearthed exquisite examples of unique objects with bewildering motifs, and in 1945, Antonio Waring, Jr. and Preston Holder defined the art style as an expression of a ceremonial complex that swept through that region around the 15 th century. The interpretation took fifty years to evolve into the “Southeastern Ceremonial Complex,” and since then, new discoveries, methodologies and theories have changed the concept even further, and in the future, …

Medication Mismanagement Among Elderly In Starr County, Romeo Garcia Jr.

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Given the current and projected rises in prescription drug use among the elderly in the United States and the current and projected rises in prescription drug costs, this research attempts to examine this national trend within the specific context of poverty and rurality manifested in Starr County, Texas. Starr County offers an ideal naturalistic laboratory for examining demographic predictors for improper medication use in the United States, poverty and rural residence. Hence within this context of poverty and rural location, the following questions are posited for investigation in Starr County. To what extent do high drug costs and low incomes …