Divisions and Administrative Offices
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://hdl.handle.net/10877/16445
Texas State University divisions, administrative offices, and interdisciplinary project teams across.
Browse
Browsing Divisions and Administrative Offices by Department "Sponsored Programs"
Now showing 1 - 20 of 169
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item A Community History of Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico: Recovering the Maya Past(2004-01) Juarez, Ana M.I propose to write a community history of early twentieth century Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico. Tulum was a Maya village that became a key political and religious site for Mayas during the mid nineteenth century Caste War of Yucatan (1847-1901). Although the archeological ruins adjacent to the village are now one of Mexico's leading archeological sites and tourist attractions, the history of the adjacent village and its residents remains largely unwritten and unrecorded. Local residents, especially elders, have significant knowledge of the early twentieth century in Tulum, and it is crucial to recover this knowledge as soon as possible. This knowledge will contribute to understanding Maya culture and the socio-political relations that Santa Cruz Mayas had with Mexicans and other outsiders during the first half of the twentieth century. I propose to use oral histories of community elders, members of Tulum's founding families, and a broad range of other people familiar with the region to reconstruct the early twentieth century history of Tulum. I will further use historical photographs to supplement the interviews and evoke memories about socio-political relations and cultural practices. I will ask about a variety of topics, including socio-political relations and military roles, religious structures and ideology, work and economic production, kinship, marriage and family, and education. This research will make a significant contribution to understanding the socio-cultural and political-economic processes that defined and shaped Santa Cruz Maya communities during the first half of the twentieth century.Item A Nation of Friends: Diffusion of Online Social Networking(2008-01) Royal, Cindy L.The purpose of this study is to understand the diffusion patterns of online social networks. The past five years have seen the growing popularity of these spaces. Several companies have emerged on the forefront of this phenomenon, attracting millions of users. But, some have waned in popularity. Users, who were once enthusiastically loyal to one site, easily change their allegiances to another. After speaking with multiple students about their social media habits, the PI chose to do a content analysis of social networking sites to understand the diffusion within media. Data has been collected and PI is writing up results for conference submission and publication.Item A Study of Consolidations between Banks and Non-Banks: Motivations and Consequences(2008-01) Yi, Ha ChinThis study focuses on the reasons for and the implications of banks' decisions to acquire non- bank financial service firms (non-banks). The choice to acquire non-banks is driven by both external forces such as deregulation and regulatory capital and by internal forces such as a diversification strategy and efforts to enhance revenue and return to equity holders. We find that whereas the impact of acquiring non-banks increases their non-interest income, it also increases their non-interest expense. The net effect of choosing non-bank acquisitions lowers their subsequent return on assets, market value, and stock returns, as well as increasing their risk. However, the non-bank acquisitions do significantly increase the acquiring banks top executives' subsequent compensation. We conclude that non-bank acquisitions are driven by both regulatory and strategic forces within the banking industry. However, such acquisitions manifest into agency problems.Item A Study of Organizational Culture in South Texas(2004-01) Wardrope, William; Minifie, JanaHispanics or Latinos are the largest minority of the United States population. The majority of these minorities are concentrated in the Southwest, in which Texas is located. With the continued immigration and the close proximity of Hispanics with Mexico and other Latin American countries, Mexican-Americans have shown retention of their ethnic culture and social forms. This research effort is to determine to what extent Hispanic culture is being incorporated into American organizations. A survey was developed and administered to small businesses in the South Texas region. Based on these results, suggestions are provided to assist American-based cultures in incorporating Hispanic cultures within their organization.Item An Economic Analysis of the Factors Affecting the U.S. Chile Pepper Production(2009-01) Gandonou, Jean-MarcTwenty-four novelty varieties (Mexican and Asian) of hot peppers were grown in field and hydroponic conditions on the campus of Texas State University. Peppers were evaluated for suitability for production in Central Texas based on quantity and quality characteristics. Peppers were evaluated quantitatively by measuring overall yield of both field and greenhouse production for individual cultivars as measured in fresh weight and cumulative fruit production, average individual fruit size, as well as individual pepper cultivar characteristics such as average time to fruit and average length of fruit bearing time. Qualitative attributes of peppers were measured by rating pepper cultivars regarding insect and disease resistance, drought tolerance, pepper quality/aesthetics and pepper taste using a Likert scale system that allowed growers to rate characteristics of the plant on a 1-5 scale. Twenty-four varieties were narrowed to 15 based on growth and quality characteristics from the first season to the second season. Fifteen varieties are currently being grown and tested at this time. Peppers grown were evaluated by local restaurant owners/managers in San Marcos, Austin and San Antonio. Those included were asked to complete a survey asking if they recognize the products offered and if they value/would purchase the product in a dried or fresh state. Restaurant owners also estimated the price that they would be willing to pay for the peppers. Research is on-going. Results will be presented in the relevant journals.Item An Exploratory Qualitative Study of Parenting the Asperger Child(2005-08) Lasser, Jon S.The core concept that emerged from the qualitative data, constructing normalcy, refers to both the parents' process of meaning-making as well and efforts to create adaptive outcomes for their children. Understood in a cultural context of socially constructed normalcy, the research participants' narratives illustrate a dynamic model of what it means to raise a child with Asperger's Disorder (AD). Parents reported that constructing normalcy was complicated by the fact that, unlike children with many other disabilities, children with AD often appear normal to outsiders until their behavior suggests otherwise. Parents experience critical moments in social settings that result in a second variety of normalcy construction. These critical moments, called normalcy incongruities, occur in social settings in which an individual that does not know the child with AD and assumes that he is non-disabled begins to notice the characteristics of the disability emerge. Parents of children with AD work hard to help their children be successful in home, school, and community settings. As parents look to the future, they work toward creating the means by which their child with AD can develop the skills needed to be successful in the real world after high school. While for some independent living is possible, others may have more significant support needs. Nevertheless, parents are mindful of their responsibility to construct normalcy for their child.Item An Investigation into Cause of Death and the Controversial Phenomenon of Pink Teeth(2008-01) Hamilton, Michelle D.Project is dependent on cooperative work with the Travis County Medical Examiner's Office, and data has been slow to accumulate on that end. Project is still in data collection phase, and is anticipated to take another year for meaningful data to gather. In the meantime, the scanner purchased with the REP has been utilized by my graduate student in another project, assessing age variation in tooth dentine in Hispanic populations. Co-authored presentation of this project will be a paper submitted for presentation by Marrero I. and Hamilton M.D. at the 2010 American Academy of Forensic Sciences meeting.Item Between the Arcades and Arcadia(2004-01) Housefield, JamesThis project, which began as an investigation of art and geography in Paris, expanded to become a broader study of the interrelationships between art, geography, and geology. As a result of the research sponsored by this grant, the P.I. has prepared a book prospectus detailing the first extended study to evaluate the historical importance that the city of Paris played in the simultaneous development of modern geographic thought and modern art. In addition, this grant supported research into the importance of geography and geology for a number of American artists ranging from the nineteenth-century painter Thomas Cole to the modern and contemporary artists Joseph Cornell, Roxy Paine, and Robert Smithson. Three conference presentations and one book prospectus resulted from this grant. Four scholarly essays were made possible by this grant three are under review, and one will appear in an edited volume.Item Biography of Celeste Parrish(2006-06) Montgomery, RebeccaDuring the second summer session of 2006, I completed the program of research on the life of progressive educator Celeste Parrish for which I received funding through the Research Enhancement Program. In addition to visiting the libraries and archives listed in the grant proposal (Averett College, Longwood University, Randolph-Macon Women's College, Pittsylvania County, and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill), I also conducted several days of research at Hampton University and the Library of Virginia. This research enabled me to flesh out the details of Parrish's early life in southern Virginia, including her childhood and experiences as student and educator. My findings also brought important details to light regarding Parrish's personal and professional connections with the Southern Education Board (SEB) and the northern philanthropists who funded its campaign for southern educational reform. This research has been invaluable in developing a presentation and several publication projects. Information collected on Parrish’s professional career is central to a paper, Battling Reactionary Racism: Celeste Parrish and the Promotion of Black Education in the South, 1898-1904, which I will present at the April 2008 meeting of the Organization of American Historians. This summer I will use many of these sources to complete an article for submission to the special edition on feminist biography of the Journal of Women’s History, and the SEB papers will be used in a future article that takes a regional look at women’s participation in the organization’s reform campaigns (something heretofore not examined). Moreover, the sources on Parrish’s early life will help me to complete the first two chapters of her biography.Item Boron Containing Polymers for use as Materials for Radiation Capture(2006-06) Booth, ChadThis project is still underway. There appears to be much interest from the US Navy. Additionally, new discoveries have opened up the potential use of this material for drug delivery. We have recently discovered that the polymer is "reversible". When placed into slightly basic water, the polymer breaks down to the monomer. Upon removal of the water, the polymer reforms and retains all of its original properties. Currently there is one graduate student working on the project. He will complete his M.S. degree in August 2007. Beyond that, I plan to continue the project with a new graduate student and/or undergraduate students. Finally, I am continuing to seek increased and continued funding for this, and related, projects.Item Cager: Cross-page Web Search(2009-01) Gao, JuUnder the umbrella of "new paradigms in web search", there are three related projects. They investigate mass-collaboration-based web search with a wiki-interface, two-box search for disambiguation, and cross-page web search. The three are investigated in different phases and to be integrated into one eventually. Currently, for part I, a prototype system has been developed, a paper has been published (see below) and presented. For part II, a prototype system has been developed and a paper has been submitted. For part III, a system is under development, and a corresponding paper is also under preparation.Item Characterization of new genes mediating exchange of DNA(2007-01) Lewis, Kevin L.This REP grant was funded to pursue two major Aims, involving application of DNA repair assays developed in my lab to identify new genes required to fix broken chromosomes during normal cell growth and also in meiosis. Two graduate students, Rachel Roberts and Jennifer Summers, with some assistance from undergraduate Jasmine Joseph, performed these experiments and many more during this past year. They screened over 100 genetic mutants that we previously found to be sensitive to killing by gamma radiation and chemical DNA damaging agents to identify which of them were specifically defective in DNA double-strand break repair. Rachel used the plasmid: chromosome homologous recombination assay described in the proposal (after a lot of work to make it more efficient) plus a new assay for sensitivity to in vivo expression of the DNA endonuclease HO. This nuclease creates a break in yeast chromosome III at a single site that cannot be repaired if cells are defective in intrachromosomal DNA recombination. She identified 10 previously unrecognized genes that cause cells to become hypersensitive to HO endonuclease expression. Two of these genes also had strong defects in her plasmid: chromosome recombination assay. Jennifer screened the same set of over 100 mutants looking for those that died when a different endonuclease, EcoRI, was expressed in vivo. EcoRI has many recognition sites and breaks chromosomes at many places inside the cell. She found 33 new mutants that were EcoRI-sensitive. She subsequently showed that 14 of these genes were also essential for resistance to the chemicals bleomycin and MMS. These 14 genes had not previously been linked to DNA double-strand repair. These and many other results were all performed after receipt of this REP award in spring 2007.Item Classification Accuracy of the WAIS-III for Detecting Pain-Related Malingering(2007-01) Etherton, Joseph L.Thirty volunteers were administered the WAIS-III while instructed to believably fake pain-related impairment. Results indicated that the 14 subtest scores, 4 composite index scores, and Full-scale IQ scores were substantially lower than expected for college students, reflecting general performance impairment. These data will be integrated with clinical patients who are (1) clearly injured and not malingering; (2) clearly malingering and with minimal evidence of injury. A manuscript has been written and awaits final data cleaning of clinical patients for final analyses and discussion of results. Manuscript is to be submitted to Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology.Item Closyd Withynne the Ston Wallys: Legal Representation of Cloistered Nuns in England, 1300-1500(2007-01) Makowski, Elizabeth M.My project concerns the relationship between late medieval cloistered nuns and the lawyers they hired to plead cases for them in royal and ecclesiastical courts. Like all substantial property owners in England at the time, these nuns engaged in nearly constant litigation to defend their holdings. Because cloistered nuns could not litigate in person, and because the practice of the law was rapidly becoming the exclusive preserve of professionals, retained lawyers were crucial to the economic vitality of nunneries. The role of these professionals in safeguarding monastic assets has never been studied. I proposed to identify counsel acting on behalf of nuns, and to investigate related questions of recruitment patterns and legal fees. I also proposed to collect specific court cases. I anticipated that my research would result in a journal article. Two professional conference papers have resulted instead, (see below) both of which showcase my work on what I now envision as a full-length monograph. I received very favorable peer reactions to that project at the International Congress of Medieval Studies, May 2008.Item Cognitive Processing Abilities Associated with Successful Sports Performance(2006-06) Oberle, CrystalFor this project, static and dynamic measures were used to assess attentional styles of basketball players varying in expertise. In Experiment 1, 34 undergraduates (18 with high school experience, 16 with no experience) completed the Group Embedded Figures Test (GEFT) as a static measure of attentional style, and attempted 50 jump shots with or without defenders present. In Experiment 2, for 15 NCAA and 15 NBA games, data were collected on the outcome and defenders of every jump shot. GEFT scores did not differentiate novice and expert players. However, with the dynamic measure based on susceptibility to distraction, players with high school experience were more field dependent than novices, whereas the NCAA and NBA players did not differ. These results suggest that dynamic measures of attentional style have greater predictive validity in sports, and that field-dependent processing abilities develop early and then plateau in basketball.Item Collapse, Migration, and Reorganization of Prehistoric Society in Nasca Peru(2006-06) Conlee, ChristinaThis grant provided summer salary and funded strontium analysis on seven burials from the archaeological site of La Tiza in Peru. Strontium analysis provides information on where a person lived as a child (through analysis of teeth) and where they lived before they died (through analysis of skeletal material). The results indicated that four individuals were born and lived locally and three were from outside the region. One non-local individual was a decapitated male and provided insight into the taking of trophy heads in this region. He may have been captured in territorial or ritual warfare (or a combination of the two), sacrificed at the site or someplace else, and then buried at La Tiza. The other two non-local individuals were a woman and child buried together with a male and a second child. They all date to a period of occupation after the collapse of the Wari empire. This may suggest exogamous marriage practices in this period or new migration into the region during this post-collapse period. The results of this study were presented in a paper and a poster at the Society for American Archaeology Annual Meetings, the largest archaeological conference in North America. In addition, information on the strontium analysis was briefly addressed in a paper that is being published in Current Anthropology, one of the major journals in the discipline. Lastly, the results of this preliminary study are being incorporated into grant proposals that will be written and submitted in Fall 2007.Item Communication in the Classroom: Effects on Teachers and Students(2005-08) Mottet, TimothyMy 2005 research enhancement program (REP) grant funded a series of research studies that examined communication in the classroom and the effects on teachers and students. The grant yielded three publications in peer-reviewed journals (2 published in a national journal,1 published in a regional journal) and three conference presentations (1 international, 1 national, 1 regional). The grant allowed me to fund two graduate students as research assistants whose names (Parker-Raley, Cunningham) appear on the publications. The first correlational study examined how an instructor's communication style is related to how students perceive instructor course workloads demands and instructor availability. The second experimental study, which is an extension of the first study, tested the effects of instructor communication style on tempering students' reactions to instructor course workload demand violations and student tolerance for instructor unavailability. The third correlational study examined how student communication style is related to how instructors evaluate students subjective and objective work. Abstracts and research publications are accessible at http://tracs.txstate.edu (enter “mottet” using lowercase for User ID and Password).Item Comparison of 3 Methods to Diagnose Obstructive Sleep Apnea(2007-01) Russian, Christopher J.; Harkins, Lynda T.Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) affects 2% of the adult female population and 4% of the adult male population. A report provided to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality estimated that 80-90% of this population remains undiagnosed and therefore untreated. The consequences of OSA range from excessive daytime sleepiness to sudden death and patients experiencing sleep apnea are at an increased risk of drowsy driving and motor vehicle accidents. There are several tools, subjective and objective, available to assist with the diagnosis of OSA. The Berlin questionnaire is a subjective assessment tool that evaluates the risk for OSA based on age, appearance of snoring, and BMI. Research is available but questionable on the reliability of such subjective devices. The development of portable or home-based devices, e.g. Stadurst II, to diagnose OSA has made objective assessment of sleep issues more accessible. To date research is lacking in the assessment of such devices as an objective diagnostic tool. The objectives of the project include (1) determine if a subjective evaluation of obstructive sleep apnea can accurately and reliably screen for the presence of obstructive sleep apnea, and (2) determine if a portable home-based device can accurately and reliably predict the presence of obstructive sleep apnea compared to overnight, laboratory-based polysomnography.Item Comparison of Arc Hydro and SWAT models used in watershed analysis(2004-01) Bryan, Deborah; Curran, JoannaThis project examined the applicability of two of the most common models used in hydrological modeling today: ArcHydro (ArcGIS Hydro Data Model) and SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) model. The models are similar in that each advertises itself as a watershed model with an interface to GlS. The models differ in their choice of governing equations and the way each deals with actual data that may be collected in the watershed. The purpose of the proposed research was to determine which model provided the best representation of a watershed. Data was collected for the Blanco and Guadalupe watersheds and imported into each model. Once the models were run, the results were compared to actual field data to test the accuracy of the models and ease of use. Both models permitted us to simultaneously study various parameters acting on the watersheds. The SWAT model allowed the researchers to incorporate more physical data than the ArcHydro model, resulting in a more accurate depiction of the watershed, especially for smaller watersheds like the Blanco. ArcHydro excels at data management, making it a better choice when large amounts of data need to be collected and included in the model (such as with larger watersheds like the Guadalupe). We found that SWAT better replicates field information. In addition, it allows the researcher more control over the physical processes being modeled. SWAT is easier to use for researchers with little GIS experience. However, for those researchers with GIS programming capabilities, ArcHydro is more flexible.Item Comparison of Hip and Knee EMG and Ground Reaction Forces Between the Unilateral and Bilateral Squat(2007-01) McCurdy, Kevin W.The data comparing the muscle activation of the hamstrings, gluteus medius, and quadriceps between the single-leg and two-leg squat has been collected and analyzed. A manuscript was submitted in April to the Journal of Sport Rehabilitation for review. The review process takes 6-8 weeks for the first review. The data was also accepted for presentation at the National Strength and Conditioning Association annual national conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. The conference is July 12-14th.