This dissertation examines the relationship between the structural, phonemic properties of vowel inventories and their acoustic phonetic realization, with particular focus on the adequacy of Dispersion Theory, which maintains that inventories are structured so as to maximize perceptual contrast between their component vowels. In order to assess…

The linguistic relativity hypothesis proposes that speakers of different languages perceive and conceptualize the world differently, but do their brains reflect these differences? In English, most nouns do not provide linguistic clues to their categories, whereas most Mandarin Chinese nouns provide explicit category information, either…

This exploratory, qualitative research explored the extent that course syllabi in the Departments of English in 13 public and 9 private universities in Taiwan reflect the inclusion of syllabus components to promote learning as recommended in the literature in the United States. Research questions included: what components can be inferred from the…

Questioning is an essential and generative studying practice for prospective teachers (PTs) as they develop their mathematical content knowledge needed for teaching. This study examines PTs' questioning interactions by describing the types of questions they ask during small group discussions in a required mathematics content course and how their…

English Language Learners (ELLs) are the fastest growing group of students in American public schools. According to Payan and Nettles (2008), the ELL population doubled in 23 states between 1995 and 2005. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that by 2050, the Hispanic school-age population will exceed the non-Hispanic white school-age public school…

This dissertation seeks to understand the interplay between informal articulations of social categories and formal instantiations of those categories in official language. Specifically, it explores the process of social categorization as it is used to identify threats to national security. The research employed a qualitative, document-based,…

This study determined what levels of thinking were included in Christian publishers' elementary reading textbooks and if there was a statistically significant difference between the levels of thinking in different textbooks. A proportional random sample of reading comprehension questions was drawn from the fifth grade teacher's editions of reading…

The present study investigated longitudinal changes of the reading achievement among schools populated with English learners. It also examined the heterogeneity in the English learners group in terms of students' performance in high stakes reading tests. Historically, English learners have often been considered the students who are in the process…

National communications systems (NCS) are critical elements of a government's infrastructure. Limited improvements to the non-functional requirements (NFR) of NCS have caused issues during national emergencies such as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. The literature indicates that these issues result from a deficiency in understanding the roles NFRs and…

This document covers the data terms used in the Apprentices and trainees December quarter 2009 report and its associated data tables. The primary purpose of this document is to assist users of the report to understand the specific data terms used within it. Terms that appear in the report are listed in alphabetical order with the following…

Data relating to occupations has been collected in the national apprentice and trainee collection since 1994. The coding used conforms to classifications endorsed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). The latest version issued from the ABS is the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO). The classification…

Surveillance video recording is becoming ubiquitous in daily life for public areas such as supermarkets, banks, and airports. The rate at which surveillance video is being generated has accelerated demand for machine understanding to enable better content-based search capabilities. Analyzing human activity is one of the key tasks to understand and…

The present mixed-methods study examined the opinions of industry practitioners related to the implementation of environmental compliance requirements into design and manufacturing processes of mechatronic and electromechanical products. It focused on the environmental standards for mechatronic and electromechanical products and how Product…

Three schemes for assessing stuttering were compared. They differed with respect to whether they included whole-word repetitions as characteristics more typical of stuttering. Persistent and recovered groups of children were examined to see whether: (1) one of the schemes differentiated the groups better than others; (2) more and less typical of…

Beginning in 2005, a five-year survey of cultural resources began to unfold in southeastern Utah along a prominent sandstone rock formation known as Comb Ridge. This visually dramatic monocline stretches a considerable distance from the southwestern corner of Blue Mountain (Abajos) in Utah to Kayenta, Arizona, approximately one hundred miles to…