The LAIR at East Texas A&M
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Black Flight in the Capital of Texas: Urban Stagnation, Unruly Nature and the Roots of Segregation in Austin
No full textThis paper investigates the interplay between environment and economics in the early development of Austin, Texas, focusing on how the city’s failures to mitigate the limits of environment resulted in economic challenges which were a major factor in the decline of the African American population in Austin. More specifically, this paper analyzes how city leaders from President Lamar through early twentieth century boosters failed to control and harness Austin’s watershed, thereby limiting the city’s ability to position itself as a seat of empire within the short-lived Republic or to attract manufacturing during the post-Civil War period of urbanization and industrialization across the South. These dual failures led to an Austin that lacked the economic opportunity sought by newly emancipated African Americans. Against this backdrop of a struggling economy, African Americans also had to contend with discriminatory racial policies aimed at minimizing the visibility of minority neighborhoods. Austin’s leaders consistently enacted laws and policies that pushed African American neighborhoods into the least desirable areas of the city. Early freedman communities had to settle into low lying, flood prone areas or locations so far from the city they were effectively rural communities. Infrastructure services, including sanitation, clean water and paved roads, were reserved for White neighborhoods. Constrained by lack of economic opportunity, lack of services and environmental hazard, African American residents left Austin behind in favor of other Texas cities with growing minority neighborhoods and economic opportunity. This thesis synthesizes original interpretations of primary sources with existing historiography of Austin and comparable cities to establish a narrative on how the history of the decline of Austin’s African American population was tightly linked to its early economic and environmental history
Preoperative Diagnosis of Thyroid Nodule Malignancy Using Machine Learning with a Feature Selection Approach
No full textThyroid cancer is prevalent worldwide and presents a significant diagnostic challenge, particularly in distinguishing between malignant and benign nodules within the thyroid gland. Accurate identification of malignant nodules in preoperative stage is crucial for effective clinical treatment. This study used a machine learning approach to develop a predictive model that detects malignant nodules with higher accuracy. We used a comprehensive dataset that includes demographic and clinical information of 1232 nodules collected from 724 patients. Using feature selection techniques, we developed a reduced model after eliminating redundant features. To handle data imbalance, we used Synthetic Minority Oversampling Technique (SMOTE). We also utilized ten-fold cross validation and performance metrics such as accuracy, precision, recall, specificity, and area under the receiver operating characteristic (AUROC) curve to assess the performance of the model. Finally, we conducted a comparative study between our reduced model with the selected features and the full model with all features available in the dataset. The reduced model achieved a more balanced performance compared to the full model
An Economic Analysis of Ryegrass and Soybean Forage Production in Northeast Texas
No full textThis study investigated the economic feasibility of integrating soybean forage into a no-till annual ryegrass production system in Texas. The research was conducted over five seasons (2019-2023) at the Texas A&M System University farm using a randomized complete block design. The experiment evaluated the effects of various herbicide treatments, ryegrass clipping timings (grazing simulation and hay production), and soybean harvest strategies (grain and forage) on profitability. Annual ryegrass provided effective weed suppression throughout the study, with forage yields ranging from 663 kg ha-1 to 2,764 kg ha-1 depending on clipping time. The results suggest that ryegrass can be a valuable forage source for livestock producers while also controlling weeds. Soybean grain yield data was collected in 2020 and 2021. Soybean forage yield data was collected in the 2022-2023 season to assess the economic potential of soybean forage production. Soybean forage yield ranged from 4,451 kg ha-1 to 5,848 kg ha-1. Our findings suggest that integrating soybeans into a ryegrass production system can be profitable for Texas farmers, with profits going from 40/acre for soybean seed sale. This innovative cropping system offers benefits such as weed control, additional forage production, and potentially increased income from soybean forage sales
Restorative Leadership: Secondary Principals\u27 Perceptions of Restorative Practices on Discipline, Safety, and Campus Culture
No full textRestorative practice is a community-building program promoted as a tool to provide educational leaders with alternatives to zero-tolerance policies, as well as provide a safer environment for students and faculty. Zero-tolerance and exclusionary discipline strategies have plagued education since their inception during the 90s, and little research supports the effectiveness of these strategies as best practice. This interpretive qualitative study seeks to interpret the impact of restorative practices on the decisions school leaders make involving discipline and school safety. The research will take an in-depth look at the framework of restorative practices and how those principles correlate to the school setting. Because restorative programs are diverse by design, the structure of the restorative program and level of implementation play a significant role in the impact of administrative decision-making involving exclusionary practices. Interviews with administrators were conducted to analyze the impact of the program and its influence on campus leadership. The data retrieved from observations, interviews, and campus data informed researchers on how the restorative framework influenced administrative decision-making in the areas of discipline, campus culture, campus climate, and overall school safety. Analysis of this data will provide insight into the framework of restorative practices and its influence on campus leadership. This study will add to the overall research surrounding the restorative practices framework, educational leadership, disciplinary strategies, and school safety
Exploring the Factors that Determine the Presence and Absence of Minytrema melanops in East Texas Using Environmental DNA
No full textThis study examines the presence and distribution of the spotted sucker, Mintrema melanops, a rare fish species, in the Cypress, Sabine, and Neches Rivers of East Texas, utilizing Environmental DNA (eDNA) technology. Traditional sampling methods often fail to detect rare species, making eDNA a valuable, non-invasive alternative. Water samples were collected from 49 sites across the three river basins and then analyzed using a qPCR assay with species-specific mitochondrial COI primers and hydrolysis probe. These primers were designed from a consensus sequence of 21 available sequences for the target species, and tested against a sequence database of 101 fish species from the region. Results of assay validation methods indicated a detection sensitivity of 1:1,000,000 dilution of positive control sample from fish tissue extraction, with a primer efficiency of 96%. Environmental parameters including width, substrate, flow, dissolved oxygen, pH, TDS, ORP, and temperature were collected in the field during eDNA collections. Correlation between presence of M. melanops eDNA was tested with logistic regressions, with model selection based on AIC score. Substrate was the most significant predictor of M. melanops presence in the dataset, with higher presence of the species in sites with more coarse substrates. ORP was also an important factor in the dataset, with increased presence at lower ORP sites, which may be related to water chemistry and degradation of eDNA (longevity of eDNA in systems). A regional analysis by Fisher’s exact test showed that the species did not have longitudinal clustering in abundance in the Cypress and Neches drainage, but did have significant clustering in the middle sections of the Sabine drainage. These findings not only confirm the utility of eDNA for detecting M. melanops in East Texas, but also contribute to insights for future research in conservation and habitat management strategies in these aquatic ecosystems
School Leader Tenure and Discipline in Texas: A Quantitative Study
No full textLeadership turnover, one of the many challenges faced by rural schools, has the potential to impact student outcomes, including student discipline (Robinson et al., 2008). Principal tenure has been shown to have positive impacts on school culture, climate, and student achievement (Brockmeier et al., 2013; Xu, 2018). However, minimal research exists on how assistant principal (AP) tenure factors into those outcomes, especially school discipline—a primary part of their duties. This gap is even more pronounced in rural settings where leadership teams are small, duties are shared, and turnover is high (W. Edwards et al., 2023; Pendola & Fuller, 2018). To address this gap, this study examined the relationship between principal and assistant principal tenure and in-school suspension (ISS) rates in rural Texas school districts.A quantitative, cross-sectional correlational research design was used to analyze publicly available leadership tenure and discipline data from 340 rural school districts collected during the 2023-2024 school year from the Texas Education Agency (TEA). Regression analyses were employed to determine the relationship between leadership tenure and ISS outcomes. Principal tenure was not a significant predictor of total in-school suspension rates. Assistant principal tenure, on the other hand, had a statistically significant relationship with in-school suspension rates. The relationship between principal tenure and race/ethnic ISS rates became stronger which indicates patterns of discipline disproportionalities exist while the relationship between assistant principal tenure and race/ethnic ISS rates became stronger only for African American students—suggesting that discipline patterns for African American students are deeply engrained into school culture over time. The result of this study suggests that an increase in leadership tenure is associated with a reduction in overall ISS placements. However, leadership tenure alone is not sufficient to combat disproportionate discipline patterns. Principals appear to impact school discipline culture while assistant principals influence the daily enforcement of discipline, particularly for African American students. This study emphasizes the value of strategies aimed at retaining and recruiting school leaders while also providing equity-driven leadership development and mentoring. Similarly, this study provides direction for rural school leaders and policymakers looking to create equitable discipline practices
Couple in Period Costume
No full textA black and white negative of people in period costume to celebrate the centennial of East Texas State University.https://lair.etamu.edu/scua-univ-photos-browse-all/2696/thumbnail.jp
The Effects of Diverse Bitter Gourds on Newly Formed MCF-7/G1P3 and MCF-7/Vector Cancer Cells
No full textBreast cancer has become one of the deadliest cancers to affect women worldwide. Although treatments have been developed, no cure has been found for this disease. An emerging field with cancer treatments shows how isoflavones can be critical to limiting hormone-related cancers. In this study, the effects of Momordica charantia (bitter gourd) extracts will be investigated in two separate cell lines. These cell lines include MCF-7 and G1P3 with the G1P3 cell line being the more aggressive cancer. Bitter gourd, which is mainly harvested in Asia, has been shown to display apoptotic features when contracting cancer. Although it is unknown how apoptosis is caused, a possible explanation could be due to their isoflavone composition. Bitter gourd is a diverse plant with many strains, specifically, this experiment deals with the observation of the Indian, Mara, and Hybrid strains. Despite each of these being a type of bitter gourd, their effects when being in the presence of breast cancer vary. The experimentation will deal with treating both cell lines with varying amounts of bitter gourd concentration across all three strains. After experimenting with these different strains, there is a conclusion that the Indian composition proves to be the most effective. Therefore, closer observation of the composition of isoflavones in Indian in comparison to the other strains must be made. As of now, it can be concluded that the Indian extract is the most effective in treating breast cancer cells. However, further research must be conducted to understand why this specific strain is more effective and how it could lead to the development of new cancer therapies
Methodological Comparison of Convolutional Neural Networks and Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks in Melanoma Detection
No full textDetecting melanoma, a deadly skin cancer, is crucial for improving patient outcomes. This study compares two popular contemporary methods of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) and Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks (KANs) for melanoma detection. CNNs, widely used in image analysis, can automatically learn and extract features from large datasets. KANs are a newer architecture designed to enhance the ability of CNNs to model long-range dependencies and complex patterns in images. They incorporate attention mechanisms directly into the kernel operations used in convolutional layers. This study compares the accuracy, computational time, and network structure of these models using a standardized melanoma dataset, a subset of large database supported by ISIC consortium. It is hypothesized that newly introduced KANs model is trained faster with low number of neurons to obtain similar results of CNN models. Experiment result showed that KAN cannot outperform in many skin lesion classification tasks, having similar or slightly worse accuracies. in addition to melanoma detection, we would also like to evaluate both algorithms and compare them in general classification and recognition problems. Therefore, we compared both algorithms in flower recognition, a different problem. This research contributes to the development of automated melanoma detection systems and provide insights into the trade-offs between different neural network architectures for medical image analysis. Future studies will focus on comparison on other medical image domains, such as ultrasound and radiology images of other diseases
Writing Assessment Bridge: The Journey to Pass the TSIA2 Essay and Navigate from High School Over to College Courses
No full textThis dissertation investigates writing instruction alignment from high school to college by examining an assessment designed to bridge the two realms of education. This exam, called the Texas Success Initiative Assessment 2.0 (TSIA2), is a college placement test required by institutions of higher education in Texas as a gauge of student readiness for college-level writing. I examine the nature of the test by looking closely at rubrics, scoring guides, and example essay score rationales alongside standards taught in high school and college classroom settings. I look at three areas for alignment including high school writing instruction, college writing instruction, and the TSIA2 as the intended connection in the following methods: • Texas Education Agency (TEA) and the STAAR End of Course (EOC) assessments as insight into high school writing instruction • Five Dallas area colleges including East Texas A&M University (ETAMU), the University of North Texas (UNT), the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD), Baylor University (BU), and Austin College (AC) for insight into college writing instruction • Accuplacer and College Board information over the TSIA2 to gain a better understanding of the bridge intended to connect high school and college The study provides valuable insights into writing pedagogy and measurement through analysis of rubrics, prompts, example essays, score rationale, syllabi, writing programs websites, and other publicly available information to identify the disconnect in the current system, using foundational scholarship in the fields of composition and rhetoric, supported by others in education, linguistics, and research methods. I begin with the history and context of writing instruction and assessment followed by analysis of related documents mentioned. As a result, I present test prep materials which I created as a writing instructor to help students overcome the challenges presented by the Accuplacer essay. This portion presents a multi-modal approach by providing the website link and figures of the materials created to share the writing “boot camp” designed to help students decode the essay rubric, write to the computer-scored platform, and successfully earn a passing score, thus passing over the bridge from high school to college