Friedrich Armand Strubberg’s semi-autobiographical novel Friedrichsburg, published in Germany in 1867, is a fountain of information about the German settlements in the Hill Country of Texas established in the years 1844-1848 by a corporation of German noblemen. The noblemen safely ensconced in their comfortable estates in Germany attempted to live up to their responsibilities and supply the settlers with basic needs, but their efforts fell woefully short. In consequence, the immigrants often were thrown upon their own devices and compelled to live from what they could learn to grow or hunt in a new land with unfamiliar climate, plants, and animals. Many hundreds perished from disease, exposure, and malnutrition. But after a painful period, the German settlements took root and began to prosper; lending a Germanic stamp to the Hill Country area of Texas that persists to the present day. In Friedrichsburg, the reader encounters many dramatic stories attendant to the foundation years of Fredericksburg, Texas, 1846/1847 when Friedrich Armand Strubberg, under the assumed name Dr. Schubbert, served as the first colonial director of the town. The situations are presented vividly and entertainingly, and although the book offers a romanticized and, in this sense, a sanitized version of the immigrants’ travails, I maintain that it contains historically accurate depictions of people and events that have been largely overlooked in other accounts of the period. The dissertation offers the first complete translation of the novel. An introduction provides an overview of German immigration in Texas, a short biography of Friedrich Armand Strubberg, and a discussion of his place in literature about Texas published in Germany in the nineteenth century. Extensive endnotes document names and episodes as they appear in the text and distinguish between what is fact and what is fiction in the novel. A bibliography of works published about Texas in the nineteenth century is supplied as an appendix. / text

ecorative lighting strips could be used to the backlight of furniture, to creating a modern interior design. From an architectural point of view, this design is very difficult and requires a strong sense of aesthetics. More easier is to use the LED strips to the advertising trailers or to backlighting car parts. RGB strip will be powered by switching power supply with galvanic isolation. Colour will be changed by the combination of basic colours RGB, by using 3-channel PWM of Atmel microcontroller, controlled via a wireless module, providing two-way communication..

Religion is a deeply important tradition in many people's lives, especially for those forced to leave abruptly their homes and loved ones and resettle in a foreign land. Religion not only provides spiritual guidance but also social networks, comfort, and moral standards, among many others things. I chose to study the beliefs and practices of Vietnamese American Buddhists and Catholics as well as the relationship between those two groups in the U.S. The Vietnamese present an interesting case because of their collective status as a well-publicized immigrant, formerly refugee, population that is now well-established in this country. With my research, I was able to test five hypotheses. I wanted to determine the degree of transnationality, tension between the religious groups, conversion, and ancestor worship. Secondarily, I assessed any differences regionally. In order to test my hypotheses, I conducted 60 quantitative surveys. I sampled from the Houston and Minneapolis-St. Paul Vietnamese communities. Transnationality, or ties to the homeland, was more prevalent for Buddhists than Catholics as I had hypothesized. There was a minute degree of tension present, however, generally with older members of the first generation cohort. Traditional Vietnamese ancestor worship was not more prevalent with Buddhists than with Catholics. I was unable to sample enough religious converts in order to test my conversion hypothesis. In terms of differences across regions, all variables other than national identity as well as an indicator of transnationality were statistically insignificant. This data helps fill a nearly 30-year gap in the research in this area and focuses specifically on the Vietnamese population which many studies have been unable to do. In addition to my quantitative study, I also conducted qualitative fieldwork at four primary research and three secondary research sites in the Minneapolis-St. Paul and Houston metropolitan areas. Twenty-five to thirty hours were spent at each primary location observing the members, volunteers, dress, interactions, normative and deviant behaviors during services, socialization, languages spoken, attentiveness, racial diversity, and additional activities provided by the religious organization to the membership. This fieldwork gave me a better understanding of this community in a religious context.

Light Rail Transit (LRT) has been getting more attention in U.S. cities due to its socio-economic benefits, such as reducing pollution and congestion, as well as promoting regional economic development. However, huge capital costs remain an obstacle to the construction of a new light rail system. For this reason, cities in the planning phases of LRT want to use value capture tools to finance transit construction and operation. In theory, any improvement in a transportation structure that increases accessibility and reduces transportation cost can be capitalized into property values in an area. In turn, governments levy taxes on a portion of the additional value of adjacent properties. This study, however, aims to empirically examine whether value capture is possible in the recession when property and land values continue to decrease. The study uses the case of the DART Green Line, which started to run in 2009 just after a financial crisis in the U.S. The 5745 residential parcels are analyzed with using a hedonic price model in order to detect the Green Line’s influence on residential values before and after the recession. To enhance the proficiency of the regression, this study includes several structure and neighborhood characteristics. The statistical results found the Green Line’s benefits on residential values both in the pre-Green Line period (before the recession) and the post-Green Line period (during the recession). It is noteworthy there are still positive influences of transit accessibility on residential values even in the unstable housing market, although the magnitude of the variable has diminished compared to the pre-Green Line period. / text

The purpose of the study was to determine customer perceptions of fairness concerning pricing policies charged by the hotel industry, and to examine how different outcomes in pricing policies affect customer perceptions of fairness. Convenience-Interception survey sampling was used to collect 460 sample data at the Dallas Love Field Airport. After analyzing data, one can infer that when revenue management information was provided, customers are satisfied. Further, age, education, Airline FFP enrolled and redeem miles, and pricing based on marketing channels plays an imperative role in this study.

Periodic releases from an upstream dam cause rapid stage fluctuations in the Colorado River near Austin, Texas. These daily pulses modulate fluid exchange and residence times in the hyporheic region, where biogeochemical reactions are pronounced. We installed two transects of wells perpendicular to the river to examine in detail the reactions occurring in this zone of surface-water and groundwater exchange. One well transect recorded physical water level fluctuations and allowed us to map hydraulic head gradients and fluid movement. The second transect allowed for water sample collection at three discrete depths. Samples were collected from 12 wells every 2 hours for a 24-hour period and were analyzed for nutrients, carbon, major ions, and stable isotopes. The results provide a detailed picture of biogeochemical processes in the bank environment during low flow/drought conditions in a regulated river. Findings indicate that a pulse that causes a change in river stage of approximately 16-centimeters does not cause significant mixing in the bank. Under these conditions, the two systems act independently and exhibit only slight mixing at the interface. / text

Commonly referred to as “red tide”, harmful algal blooms (HABs) formed by Karenia brevis occur frequently in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM). A bloom is defined as cell abundances >105 cells L-1. This thesis will focus primarily on Karenia brevis, formerly known as Gymnodinium breve, in the Gulf of Mexico. K. brevis is harmful because it produces brevetoxin, a ladder-frame polyether that acts as a potent neurotoxin in vertebrates. K. brevis commonly causes fish kills, respiratory irritation in humans, and Neurotoxic Shellfish Poisoning (NSP) if ingested. Blooms of K. brevis occur almost annually along the West Florida Shelf (WFS) in the late summer and early fall, when the coastal current is favorable for bloom initiation. Along the Texas-Louisiana shelf (TLS) however, blooms of K. brevis are infrequent and sporadic. While much is known of the blooms along the WFS due to their frequent presence, little is known of the mechanisms driving the blooms along the TLS due to their inconsistent presence. To understand the stochastic nature of HABs along the TLS, historical data of bloom occurrences from 1996 to present were compared with NOAA station PTAT2 wind, sea-level pressure, air and water temperature data and NCEP NARR-A sea-level pressure data. The difference in the monthly-mean along-shore component of the wind was statistically significant between bloom and non-bloom years in September (p<<0.001) and April (p=0.0015), with bloom years having a strong downcoast current. Monthly mean water temperature values yielded similar results between bloom and non-bloom years. Both March and September monthly-mean water temperature values were lower during non-bloom years with p-values of 0.01 and 0.048, respectively. These results suggest the possibly of forecasting for HABs along the TLS with currently measured, publicly available data.

With the explosive growth in wireless applications, the last decade witnessed an ever-increasing test challenge for radio frequency (RF) circuits. While the design community has pushed the envelope far into the future, by expanding CMOS process to be used with high-frequency wireless devices, test methodology has not advanced at the same pace. Consequently, testing such devices has become a major bottleneck in high-volume production, further driven by the growing need for tighter quality control. RF devices undergo testing during the prototype phase and during high-volume manufacturing (HVM). The benchtop test equipment used throughout prototyping is very precise yet specialized for a subset of functionalities. HVM calls for a different kind of test paradigm that emphasizes throughput and sufficiency, during which the projected performance parameters are measured one by one for each device by automated test equipment (ATE) and compared against defined limits called specifications. The set of tests required for each product differs greatly in terms of the equipment required and the time taken to test individual devices. Together with signal integrity, precision, and repeatability concerns, the initial cost of RF ATE is prohibitively high. As more functionality and protocols are integrated into a single RF device, the required number of specifications to be tested also increases, adding to the overall cost of testing, both in terms of the initial and recurring operating costs. In addition to the cost problem, RF testing proposes another challenge when these components are integrated into package-level system solutions. In systems-on-packages (SOP), the test problems resulting from signal integrity, input/output bandwidth (IO), and limited controllability and observability have initiated a paradigm shift in high-speed analog testing, favoring alternative approaches such as built-in tests (BIT) where the test functionality is brought into the package. This scheme can make use of a low-cost external tester connected through a low-bandwidth link in order to perform demanding response evaluations, as well as make use of the analog-to-digital converters and the digital signal processors available in the package to facilitate testing. Although research on analog built-in test has demonstrated hardware solutions for single specifications, the paradigm shift calls for a rather general approach in which a single methodology can be applied across different devices, and multiple specifications can be verified through a single test hardware unit, minimizing the area overhead. Specification-based alternate test methodology provides a suitable and flexible platform for handling the challenges addressed above. In this thesis, a framework that integrates ATE and system constraints into test stimulus generation and test response extraction is presented for the efficient production testing of high-performance RF devices using specification-based alternate tests. The main components of the presented framework are as follows: Constraint-driven RF alternate test stimulus generation: An automated test stimulus generation algorithm for RF devices that are evaluated by a specification-based alternate test solution is developed. The high-level models of the test signal path define constraints in the search space of the optimized test stimulus. These models are generated in enough detail such that they inherently define limitations of the low-cost ATE and the I/O restrictions of the device under test (DUT), yet they are simple enough that the non-linear optimization problem can be solved empirically in a reasonable amount of time. Feature extractors for BIT: A methodology for the built-in testing of RF devices integrated into SOPs is developed using additional hardware components. These hardware components correlate the high-bandwidth test response to low bandwidth signatures while extracting the test-critical features of the DUT. Supervised learning is used to map these extracted features, which otherwise are too complicated to decipher by plain mathematical analysis, into the specifications under test. Defect-based alternate testing of RF circuits: A methodology for the efficient testing of RF devices with low-cost defect-based alternate tests is developed. The signature of the DUT is probabilistically compared with a class of defect-free device signatures to explore possible corners under acceptable levels of process parameter variations. Such a defect filter applies discrimination rules generated by a supervised classifier and eliminates the need for a library of possible catastrophic defects.

Thermal mass can be successfully implemented in the hot‐humid region of Austin, TX especially when well designed and with supplementary aids like nightcooling and day‐lighting. This study shows that in some situations thermal mass can be actually more beneficial at reducing electricity demands in hot‐humid regions than in the hot‐dry regions that are so emphasized in the literature. / text

Nesta pesquisa foi utilizado o método eletromagnético no domínio do tempo (TDEM) em apoio à exploração de águas subterrâneas, visando o mapeamento de aquíferos sedimentar e cristalino na bacia sedimentar do Paraná. Os dados foram adquiridos por meio da técnica de caminhamento TDEM usando o loop transmissor (Tx) fixo e a bobina receptora (Rx) 3D móvel, também conhecida como técnica fixed-loop. A análise dos dados do campo magnético secundário proveniente de medidas com a bobina Rx 3D teve como objetivo principal entender como estes campos se dissipam em subsuperfície e relacioná-los com os sedimentos e com as estruturas presentes dentro da camada de basaltos da Formação Serra Geral na bacia do Paraná. A interpretação de estruturas com geometrias variadas na subsuperfície foi feita por meio de inversões individuais dos dados da componente-z (Bz) e os modelos geoelétricos na forma de perfis foram obtidos por meio de um processo de interpolação lateral. As componentes individuais forneceram informações adicionais sobre o comportamento do campo magnético induzido e sua dissipação na subsuperfície. Resultados de medidas da resistividade elétrica por meio da técnica de caminhamento elétrico foram correlacionados com os perfis TDEM com a finalidade de fazer uma interpretação integrada, aliada com informações litológicas de poços disponíveis na região de estudos, e com isso dar mais confiabilidade na interpretação. Os resultados são promissores e contribuíram para o mapeamento do aquífero sedimentar raso (Formação Adamantina) e do aquífero cristalino caracterizado pela presença de zonas de fraturas nos basaltos da Formação Serra Geral que podem estar preenchidas com água. Os resultados terão aplicações diretas em estudos hidrogeológicos na região de Termas de Ibirá, Estado de São Paulo. / In this research, the time domain electromagnetic method (TDEM) was used for groundwater exploration aiming to map the sedimentary and crystalline aquifers in the Paraná Basin. The TDEM acquisition data was made through fixed transmitter loop technique (Tx) and a mobile 3D-coil receiver (Rx). The data analysis of the secondary magnetic field from measurements with 3D Rx coil aimed to understand how these fields dissipate in the subsurface and relate them to the sediments and the structures present within the basalt layer of the Serra Geral Formation in the Parana basin. The interpretation of varied subsurface geometries and structures was made through individual inversions of the z-component data (Bz) and the geoelectric models obtained by a process of lateral interpolation. The individual components provided additional information on the induced magnetic field behavior and its dissipation in the subsurface. Results of resistivity measurements by electric tomography technique were correlated with the TDEM profiles in order to make an integrated interpretation, together with lithological information from available wells in the study area. The results are promising and contributed to the mapping of shallow sedimentary aquifer (Adamantina Training) and the crystalline aquifer characterized by the presence of fractures in the basalt layer in the Serra Geral formation that can be filled with water. This research will have direct applications in hydrogeological studies in the area of Ibirá, state of São Paulo.