Abstracts written by Lynn Gosnell

Restoring Homes, Sustaining Hope

UTSA students traveled to New Orleans to help restore parts of the hurricane-ravaged Lower Ninth Ward.

Parts of New Orleans’ hurricane-ravaged Lower Ninth Ward were recently restored, courtesy of a volunteer effort called Historic Green.

Eight students from the College of Architecture, along with faculty members Shelley Roff and William Dupont, were among the 350 volunteers nationwide who dedicated their spring break to this effort.

The purpose of the Historic Green event was to define, practice and promote “sustainable preservation” in the historic Holy Cross neighborhood of the Lower Ninth Ward. The area features shotgun-style houses, Creole cottages and bungalows. Although many of the homes survived hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the area was left in tremendous need of cleaning, repair and restoration.

Neighborhood residents, volunteer professionals and students from all over the country worked together to integrate sustainable practices into specific historic preservation projects. The UTSA crew participated in demolition and salvage work on the site of a future neighborhood center, cleaned playgrounds and constructed “rain gardens,” which are landscapes designed to soak up storm water runoff, improving drainage and flood control.

In 2007, the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association formed the Lower Ninth Ward Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development. A long-term goal of the center is to make this historic district the nation’s first carbon-neutral community by 2030. A carbon-neutral community balances the release of greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, into the air with strong conservation standards designed to reduce the production of these gases.

Dupont, whose recent work has focused on merging concepts of sustainability and historic preservation, was one of a dozen organizers for the project, which stretched over two weeks in March.

For Joshua de la Fuente, a senior interior design major, the task that made the biggest impression was working on Green Light New Orleans, where volunteers replaced incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent lamps in homes in the area.

“One day we went to six families’ houses. It was really amazing to hear their stories,” de la Fuente said. “Then, we got to sit down and explain how much money and energy they’d be saving. We figured out that it is $500 in a five-year span.”

Dupont is already making plans for UTSA to have a bigger presence at next year’s Historic Green event.

“It’s all about being sustainable, but also being respectful of the historic context and seeing where those two things have common ground,” he said. “There’s years of work remaining to be done in the Lower Ninth Ward and the rest of New Orleans as well.”

Partners in Innovation

Each semester, engineering students pair up with business students to create new technology ventures with the hopes of securing a patent. It’s part of UTSA’s New Technology Venture Startup Competition, sponsored by the Center for Innovation and Technology Entrepreneurship (CITE).

“The goal is to select the projects which have the most business viability, create the business development plan and secure patents on these projects,” said CITE Director Cory Hallam. “This gives students hands-on experience as early-stage entrepreneurs, brings in additional revenue for the UT System through technology licensing and lends prestige to the university’s efforts in entrepreneurism.”

In May, 33 students participated in the contest. The winning team, LiveLynx Enterprises, developed a wearable glove-based cursor control device called The Palma. Other projects included a low-cost biodiesel manufacturing system, a telemetry system for model rockets, an athletic swimming monitoring device, a wireless electronic coaster for restaurants that would notify servers when a customer’s drink needed refilling, and oil and gas cleaning equipment.

“If you look at it, most universities train their students to work for other people, but most of the wealth creation and the new job creation in the country is by the entrepreneurs—over 60 percent of the new jobs in the country are small businesses or entrepreneurial businesses,” Hallam said. “One of our goals for the center is to help unlock the entrepreneur in both faculty and students through education and experiential activities.”

Educator Directs Innovative South African Literacy Program

The paperback booklet with bright orange trim is sized just right for a child’s hands. On the cover, a young boy wearing a backpack walks along a road as the sun comes up over nearby hills. Just How Long, How Far? tells the tale of Tshego, a young black South African who lives in a village with his grandparents, but wants very badly to visit his parents’ home in far-away Johannesburg.

The book, titled Ke boleele bo bokae. Go bokgakala bo bokae in the Setswana language, is one of 137 original storybooks created from a unique partnership called the Ithuba Writing Project. These books, the first to be created in South Africa’s nine official indigenous languages, will be used as the basis for lessons in language, math and natural sciences.

Since 2005, the College of Education and Human Development has received $5 million in grant monies from the United States Agency for International Development for the project, which is directed by Misty Sailors, associate professor in the Department of Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching. Project collaborators include the Republic of South Africa Department of Education, the University of Pretoria, the University of Limpopo and two South African non-governmental organizations.

Ithuba, which means “opportunity” in IsiZulu, another indigenous language, is a multilayered effort to promote literacy and learning among South African students and professional development among their teachers. More than 120 teachers have gone through three book-development workshops to date. At these workshops, teachers learn to write high-interest stories for children based on their own lived experiences, said Sailors. The workshops will result in the production and distribution of more than 2 million books in South Africa by next year. The project is part of the $600 million Africa Education Initiative to increase access to quality education in 30 sub-Saharan countries through scholarships, textbooks and teacher training programs.

Sailors, who holds a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction and who is also a reading specialist, served as an internal evaluator on a multimillion-dollar educational reform effort in South Africa before taking on this current project. As part of her earlier work, she documented the scant text resources available in classrooms to serve the literacy development of children.

Study on San Antonio Women Reveals “Good–News, Bad–News” Trends

The first-ever study of challenges faced by women and children in the San Antonio area was recently completed by Juanita Firestone, professor of sociology in the Department of Criminal Justice, and Richard Harris, professor of sociology in the Department of Social Work.  

The Report on the Status of Women and Girls in the San Antonio Metropolitan Area was funded with a $68,000 grant from the Mayor’s Commission on the Status of Women. A preliminary report was given to the commission in late May.

“What we wanted Dr. Firestone to do was to take a snapshot of how women are doing in San Antonio,” said Sonia Rodriguez, a local attorney and chair of the commission. Rodriguez said the commission will use Firestone’s findings as a basis for proposals to take to the city “to encourage funding for projects and programs that will elevate the status of women in San Antonio.”

Firestone and student researchers analyzed data in seven areas: demographics, economics and employment, education and training, family and community, politics and voting, health, and crime and safety. Primary sources included data from the 2006 San Antonio Survey, which Firestone’s students designed and carried out, as well as information gathered during town hall meetings held in conjunction with the 2008 International Women’s Day. Secondary sources included the U.S. Census Bureau, the Texas Department of State Health Services, the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District and the San Antonio Police Department.

What Firestone and the researchers discovered could be summed up as “good-news, bad-news” trends. For example, Firestone sees “a clear increase of women in managerial and professional jobs,” but these jobs tend to be in lower-status, lower-paying occupations. In sales and clerical occupations, 72 percent of the jobs are held by women; in sales, women tend to hold positions dealing with lower-end items instead of high-dollar merchandise such as cars or major equipment.

Also, women are becoming more politically active, she found, but they tend to hold volunteer positions. They’re also more likely to hold positions at the municipal level rather than the state or national level. Still, said Firestone, “they’re gaining political experience and knowledge.”

In education, women and men in San Antonio are almost equally represented in a number of categories—those lacking high school degrees (women, 38.5 percent; men, 40.3 percent), those with bachelor’s degrees (women, 10.7 percent; men, 10.6 percent) and those holding graduate degrees (women, 5.2 percent; men, 5.9 percent). Yet despite these parallels, men on average still earn more than women.

In addition to providing a foundation for action, Firestone’s data will be released to the public so that other researchers can use it to develop grants, projects and other initiatives. A preliminary report will be released this summer.

 “If you elevate the status of women, you also elevate the status of families in San Antonio,” Rodriguez said.

The Tools of the Trade

UTSA’s acquisition of three Bloomberg terminals is one step toward launching a comprehensive Financial Studies Center in the College of Business.

UTSA junior Sergio Silva is bearish about his future as an investment manager—even as the markets he follows reel and churn with the latest economic news. Silva was one of just 10 students in finance professor Yiuman Tse’s spring course, FIN 4953: Trading and Analysis of Financial Instruments.

“The lab introduces students to the atmosphere and environment of trading,” Tse said. “Financial training and analysis using tools such as Bloomberg are quickly becoming a requirement for students pursuing careers in financial institutions.”

Tse’s students added to their professional knowledge through certification in the use of the lab’s three Bloomberg terminals.

“There is a wealth of information in the Bloomberg system,” said Silva, who founded the UTSA Investment Society in 2007. “The certification process teaches you how to maximize its use.”

Providing the means to complete the Bloomberg Certification Program is yet another milestone on the path toward launching a comprehensive Financial Studies Center in the College of Business. As envisioned by Dean Lynda de la Viña, the center will be “student-oriented, faculty-oriented and community-oriented. It fits all three of our stakeholders.” Construction has begun on the center, which will be located on the Business Building’s first floor.

A prominent feature planned for the new center will be a larger and fully functioning trading lab that will be used for both student education and faculty research.

“Our ultimate hope is that we’ll have the students run their own fund—a real dollar fund, not simulated—much like is done at business schools across the country,” de la Viña said.

Another key component of the center is community outreach. For example, the center will house UTSA’s Latino Financial Issues Program, a yearlong course open to undergraduate and graduate students that promotes financial literacy and entrepreneurship in Latino communities while teaching students about personal finance. The program integrates classroom instruction, service learning and paid summer internships in community economic development organizations.

“Students leave the LFI program with a strong understanding of how their financial decisions can affect their future,” said Lisa Montoya, program faculty director and associate dean for undergraduate studies in the College of Business.

Not only have UTSA students benefited from the program, but also, to date, more than 60 local high school students have received training in financial planning for college. The center will also be promoted as an executive education resource to the South Texas business community, offering customized programs on topics ranging from capital budgeting to portfolio optimization.

The timing is right for the creation of a Financial Studies Center at UTSA, de la Viña said. According to a recent study by the Finance San Antonio Ad Hoc Committee, the finance industry registers an economic impact of $20.5 billion in San Antonio, the largest of any local industry.

“San Antonio is slowly becoming a real financial center in Texas … so I believe we have to have students trained in this area,” said de la Viña.

Support for the Bloomberg terminals for the UTSA College of Business Financial Studies Center was generously provided by Jeanie Wyatt, M.B.A. '86, CEO and Chief Investment Officer, South Texas Money Management; and Frank Holmes, CEO and Chief Investment Officer, U.S. Global Investors, Inc. The Volney E. Dibrell Trust generously provided the center's seed funding.

UTSA Hosts Energy Summit, Announces New Institute

UTSA’s first North American Energy Summit, held in May, brought together experts from the United States, Mexico and Canada to discuss the future of energy on the continent.

“Energy is becoming a challenge for our society,” said Stathis Michaelides, chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and conference organizer. “We have to do something about increasing the amount of energy we produce and also using the energy we have in more thoughtful ways.”

The two-day conference, which featured 31 speakers and 128 participants, showcased expertise from academia, business, industry and government. Panel topics included the short-term future of energy; global environmental change; energy production; energy efficiency; the path to sustainability; emerging technologies; and social, policy and educational challenges.

The conference served as a prototype event for UTSA’s planned Institute for Conventional, Alternative and Renewable Energy, a consortium of industry, government and academic representatives that will focus on energy practice and policy.

During the summit’s plenary session, UTSA President Ricardo Romo stressed the importance of collaboration to find solutions to “the impending energy crisis.”

“Energy efficiency is of critical importance and will require new solutions and major investment,” he said. “Additionally, we need to pay more attention to cleaner, renewable and sustainable energy sources. … One cannot just address energy shortage through technological breakthroughs, because technology, policy, education and business are closely tied together in the energy arena.

“We want to convey to you that we are ready to step up and commit our efforts to help address the challenges we face in the energy industry.”

Psychologist to Collaborate on Study Examining PTSD in Veterans

A UTSA research psychologist is participating in a $33 million study to investigate the detection, prevention and treatment of combat-related post-traumatic stress disorder.

Deborah Mangold, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology, will focus on the neurobiology of stress as part of the five-year project funded by the Department of Defense. The study involves physicians and researchers from universities around the country as well as the military and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. 

“My interest in this grant is examining how changes in the brain’s response to stress occur over time following exposure to traumatic events,” Mangold said. She will partner with the genomics team of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, headed by psychiatrist Michael Escamilla, to help identify biological markers that confer a risk for PTSD.

Mangold’s graduate training was in clinical psychology and biopsychology, and included postdoctoral training in neuroendocrinology. Her ongoing program of research focuses on the role of psychiatric disorders and personality factors in the brain’s response to stress. For this project, she will work with soldiers at military bases in the San Antonio area.

“One of the purposes of looking at biological markers would be that we would ultimately be able to identify people at greatest risk,” Mangold said. “This could lead to the development of potential pharmaceutical interventions that might be targeted at these specific brain systems.”

In addition to researching a genomic component, the consortium will evaluate various methods for assessing the disorder as well as treatments for PTSD, using neuro-imaging to document how treatment methods affect the brain. The multi-institutional project is led by Alan L. Peterson, professor in the department of psychiatry at the UT Health Science Center.

It is estimated that PTSD occurs in 12 to 20 out of 100 veterans of the war in Iraq and between six and 11 out of 100 veterans of service in Afghanistan, according to the Department of Veteran Affairs’ National Center for PTSD.

Take Your Medicine Exactly as Prescribed…

Senior psychology major Lavelda Bradley and David Pillow, associate professor of psychology, are investigating why some ADHD patients stop taking their medication.

Have you ever stopped taking medicine prescribed by your doctor—even though the medicine actually made you feel better? Senior psychology major Lavelda Bradley is researching this paradox as part of her Honors College thesis. Under the direction of David Pillow, associate professor of psychology, Bradley has been investigating why some people diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder decide to stop taking their meds.

A lot of information has been published about ADHD, including the efficacy of stimulant medications (73 percent of patients see improvement), as well as how long the average regimen lasts before a patient stops taking this medicine (34 months). But few studies examine why patients stop taking medicine that has been reported to be highly effective.

For the pilot study, Bradley and Pillow interviewed eight UTSA undergraduates who had a history of ADHD and who were not taking stimulant medication on a regular basis. Next, an online survey was administered to 82 students in an introductory psychology course at UTSA that addressed their experiences with ADHD as well as their beliefs and perceptions.

Pillow and Bradley analyzed the data using psychologist Icek Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior, which seeks to explain the relationship between attitudes, intentions, control and actual behavior. Bradley’s data set is extremely complex, Pillow said, exploring 50 beliefs as they relate to the expression of general attitudes.

“If students with ADHD have positive attitudes toward using stimulant medications, then [we would predict that] they should adhere to their medication regimen,” Pillow explained. “Of course, there will be exceptions to this rule, and the theory points to two important exceptions: family or friends feel that they should not use medication, and/or the individual does not perceive that he/she can maintain the regimen given lack of insurance or other barriers,” he said.

“[Bradley’s] thesis explores what these students believe about stimulant medication, and how they weigh the consequences.”

Recently, Bradley presented her findings, “Applying the Theory of Planned Behavior to ADHD Medication Intentions,” to two research symposia: the UTSA Honors College Undergraduate Research Symposium and the National Conference on Undergraduate Research in Salisbury, Md. She was one of 11 UTSA honors students invited to present at the national conference.

Governor Names Eschbach Texas State Demographer

Karl Eschbach, UTSA associate professor of demography, was named state demographer by Gov. Rick Perry. Eschbach will serve as director of the Texas State Data Center. The center, which is housed at UTSA, distributes census information for the state, as well as Texas population estimates and projections, and information from federal, state and other government sources.

Eschbach replaces Steve Murdock, who was appointed director of the census at the Department of Commerce last year.

“UTSA is proud to be the home of the Texas state demographer, and I wish Karl continued success,” said UTSA President Ricardo Romo. “By selecting Dr. Eschbach, the governor chose an outstanding professional and brilliant researcher and also has provided educational opportunities for graduate students in our applied demography doctoral degree program.”

Eschbach is the interim director of the UTSA Institute for Demographic and Socio-economic Research. He is a past board member of the Texas Economic and Demographic Association and past caucus chair of the American Public Health Association.

“This is a great honor and I look forward to serving the state of Texas and working with the extraordinary staff that has assembled at UTSA,” Eschbach said. “Because the state is growing and in the midst of dramatic demographic transformation, I look forward to the opportunity to provide access to the highest quality information and analysis to business and civic leaders so they can respond to the implications of these changes.”

State Sen. Leticia Van de Putte said the move will benefit UTSA, the city and the state.

“San Antonio provides the state demographer a superb location for collecting data that is critical for forging good public policy,” she said. “Because San Antonio is a predominantly Hispanic city, our demographic profile is reflective of the trends we are seeing in countless cities across America.”

Eschbach is a member of the Population Association of America, Southwest Social Science Association and Gerontological Society of America. He also is a member and volunteer with the Galveston Historical Foundation. He received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania, a master’s degree and doctorate in sociology from Harvard University, and a postdoctoral fellowship in demography from the University of Wisconsin.

Froggie Went a Courtin’

The “cocktail party effect” is one of the most famous phenomena in auditory research. In a crowded, noisy setting, humans are able to pick out and pay attention to one single voice. How does the brain accomplish this neurological feat?

It turns out that frogs and toads are also experts at this party trick. When the sun sets on any spring or summer evening, males begin calling to find mates and to defend their territories. The calls enable females to find mates of their own species. The chorusing goes on amid a variety of amphibious calls.

Rama Ratnam, assistant professor of neurobiology, is developing technologies to measure acoustic communication and sound perception among anurans (frogs and toads). Along with research collaborator Douglas Jones, professor of engineering at the University of Illinois, Ratnam is using a sophisticated signal analysis technique called beamforming to create space-time maps of chorusing anurans. Space-time maps chart the spatial locations of individual subjects over time. Acoustic beamforming has been put to use in hearing aids, enabling humans with hearing loss to extract some sounds and block out others.

The research will provide acoustical and behavioral data that will help guide future studies of sound perception in natural habitats, Ratnam said.

At his field site at the Cibolo Nature Center in Boerne, Texas, northwest of San Antonio, Ratnam has recorded and analyzed hours of melodic chorusing from Gulf Coast toads, cricket frogs and leopard frogs.

The long-term goal is to develop and package wireless microphones, so that scientists can study specific environments remotely, allowing more efficient and less intrusive monitoring over time of animal populations and how they are affected by changing environmental conditions.