The affordable housing crisis in Austin : how we got here, what it means, and what we need to do

Affordable housing availability and cost-burden rates for low-income and middle-income households in Austin, Texas are worse than both the national and state averages. As population growth has outpaced housing development, the subsequent rise in property value has created higher housing costs that impede the ability for households to accrue social safety net savings and meet basic needs such as food, shelter, and medical care. This report aimed to examine the history of public and private policy that impacted non-white residents’ ability to accrue wealth and achieve homeownership. In addition, this report examined current affordable housing within the city and its geospatial location in relation to coexisting social service need data within Austin zip codes. The findings of this report show that affordable housing development has primarily occurred in historically African American neighborhoods East of Highway I35. Furthermore, analysis of United Way 2-1-1 caller data of unmet social serviced need indicates high levels of unmet service need existing within these areas. In light of these findings, recommendations to improve affordable housing include: expansion of Pay-for–Success financing for creating Permanent Supportive Housing; push for legislation to create redevelopment zones as well as tax abatements for low-income home owners; funding towards the affordable housing strike fund; and expansion of wraparound services amongst affordable housing providers.Public AffairsSocial Wor

Can women "sound gay"?: A sociophonetic study of /s/ and pitch of gay and straight British-English speaking women

This thesis presents a third wave variationist project, influenced by queer linguistics, that considers the idea of a “gay voice” for female English speakers in Yorkshire, England. This work demonstrates the complexity of identity and why it is important that researchers look past macro-social categories alone, and consider the nuance of local communities. Two studies were conducted to investigate the relationship between women’s sexual orientation and speech: a production study and a perception study. The production study analysed data from 22 participants, from Yorkshire, who identified as female, white, between the ages of 21 and 46, and 12 identified as gay and 10 as straight. It was found that while there were some significant differences between gay and straight speakers based on F0 and /s/ centre of gravity measurements, there were more substantial differences between participants that were both gay and part of a local football team than participants that were either straight or not on the team. The second study on the perception of a “gay voice” for women asked participants to rate qualities such as “homosexual” and “feminine” in order to understand how stimuli with digitally altered F0 would be perceived. Data reveals that sentences with a lowered F0 were perceived as sounding more “homosexual” than stimuli with a raised F0, indicating that a lower F0 may be associated with a “gay voice” for women. However, the nuance of the participants had a significant impact on how they rated these characteristics. This in-depth analysis of how speakers may perform their sexual orientation and how listeners may perceive sexual orientation demonstrates the complexity of language and identity. It was found that local communities are significant in presenting a specific gay identity and how important it is to look at the intersection of many factors to fully understand linguistic variation

The Counterfactual History Novel in Nineteenth-Century British Literature

Although scholarship has long since established the history novel’s general course, few critical readings of the history novel address the innovative means through which writers could manipulate the use of history within these novels. Nor, for that matter, have many scholars considered the relationship between the slow decline of this form of literature as a consequence of the combined effect of the rise of historical studies as a serious academic discipline during the 1830s, and the growing trend for the realist novel throughout the following decades. My dissertation explores how Britons’ fascination with history not only shaped the progress of the history novel throughout the nineteenth century, but also directly influenced a specific type of narrative within this developing subgenre: the counterfactual history novel. As the precursor to the alternative history novel, the counterfactual history novel asks readers to consider plausible alternative outcomes to a historical event but goes no further than requesting that act of contemplation

Signal Processing

Contains reports on one research project.Clarence J. LeBel Fun

Contributions of gas-phase plasma chemistry to surface modifications and gas-surface interactions: investigations of fluorocarbon rf plasmas

2012 Summer.Includes bibliographical references.The fundamental aspects of inductively coupled fluorocarbon (FC) plasma chemistry were examined, with special emphasis on the contributions of gas-phase species to surface modifications. Characterization of the gas-phase constituents of single-source CF4-, C2F6-, C3F8-, and C3F6-based plasmas was performed using spectroscopic and mass spectrometric techniques. The effects of varying plasma parameters, including applied rf power (P) and system pressure (p) were examined. Optical emission spectroscopy (OES) and laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) spectroscopy were employed to monitor the behavior of excited and ground CFx (x = 1,2) radicals, respectively. Mass spectrometric techniques, including ion energy analyses, elucidated behaviors of nascent ions in the FC plasmas. These gas-phase data were correlated with the net effect of substrate processing for Si and ZrO2 surfaces. Surface-specific analyses were performed for post-processed substrates via x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and contact angle goniometry. Generally, precursors with lower F/C ratios tended to deposit robust FC films of high surface energy. Precursors of higher F/C ratio, such as CF4, were associated with etching or removal of material from surfaces. Nonetheless, a net balance between deposition of FC moieties and etching of material exists for each plasma system. The imaging of radicals interacting with surfaces (IRIS) technique provided insight into the phenomena occurring at the interface of the plasma gas-phase and substrate of interest. IRIS results demonstrate that CFx radicals scatter copiously, with surface scatter coefficients, S, generally greater than unity under most experimental conditions. Such considerable S values imply surface-mediated production of the CFx radicals at FC-passivated sites. It is inferred that the primary route to surface production of CFx arises from energetic ion bombardment and ablation of surface FC films. Other factors which may influence the observed CFx scatter coefficient include the surface with which the radical interacts, the vibrational temperature (ΘV) of the radical in its gas phase, and radical interactions in the gas phase. The analyses of ΘV in particular were extended to diatomic radicals from other plasma sources, including nitric oxide and fluorosilane systems, to gauge the contributions of vibrational energy to surface reactivity. In general, a monotonic increase in S is observed for CF, NO, and SiF radicals with increasing ΘV. Preliminary results for mixed plasma precursor systems (i.e. FC/H2, FC/O2) indicate that the choice of feed gas additives has a profound effect on surface modification. Hydrogen additions tend to promote FC film deposition through scavenging of fluorine atoms, whereas oxygen consumes polymerizing species, thus favoring etching regimes. Time-resolved optical emission spectroscopy (TR-OES) studies of gas-phase species elucidate the mechanisms by which these processes occur. Ultimately, the work presented herein expands the fundamental chemical and physical understanding of fluorocarbon plasma systems