Digital Commons Network^™

Inheriting The Library: The Archon And The Archive In George Macdonald's Lilith, Lauran Ray Fuller

Theses and Dissertations

George MacDonald's novel Lilith relates the story of a young man inheriting his deceased father's estate and coming in contact with its remarkable library and mysterious librarian. The protagonist's subsequent adventures in a fantastical world prepare the young Mr. Vane to assume authority over his inherited archive and become an archon. Jacques Derrida's exposition of the responsibilities of the archon including archival authority, domiciliation, and consignation illuminate the mentoring role of the elusive librarian Mr. Raven in Vane's adventures. By using Derrida's deconstruction of archives to unpack the intricacies of knowledge transfer in MacDonald's novel, the lasting impact of the …

Performance Of Beef Cattle Grazing Native Warm-Season Grasses In An Integrated Forage/Biofuels System In The Mid-South, William Matthew Backus

Masters Theses

Early season (ES) and full season (FS) grazing strategies were used to evaluate performance of stocker steers grazing native warm-season grasses (NWSG) in 2010, 2011 and 2012 in two experiments. Experiment one was conducted at the Research and Education Center (REC) at Ames Plantation near Grand Junction and experiment two was conducted at Highland Rim REC near Springfield in which Angus and Angus cross steers (268±25kg) were used in completely randomized design with three forage treatments: 1) switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.); 2) a combination of big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii Vitman) and indiangrass (Sorghastrum nutans); and 3) …

Design And Implementation Of An Instruction Set Architecture And An Instruction Execution Unit For The Rez9 Coprocessor System, Daniel Spencer Anderson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

While the use of RNS has provided groundbreaking theory and progress in this field, the applications still lack viable testing platforms to test and verify the theory. This Thesis outlines the processing of developing an instruction set architecture (ISA) and an instruction execution unit (IEU) to help make the first residue based general processor a viable testing platform to address the mentioned problems.

Consider a 32-bit ripple adder. The delay on this device will be 32N where N is the delay for each adder to complete its operation. The delay of this process is due to the need to propagate …

A Competency Model For Catering And Event Professionals Using A Modified Delphi Technique, Donnell G. Bayot

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

As the market for face-to-face meetings and events has grown to one of the largest private sector industries, so has the market for catering, which is the largest budget line item for a meeting or event. Clients have become more demanding and at the same time more price-conscious. This has caused catering professionals and meeting and event planners' job responsibilities to change. Caterers and planners now have more crossover responsibilities and over more varied functional areas than ever before. In response, the National Association for Catering and Events (NACE), as the oldest and largest catering association in the world, formally …

High Strength Steel Fiber Reinforced Flow-Able Or Scc Concrete With Variable Fiber By Volume Fractions For Thin Plate And Shell Structures, Abebe Berhe

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this study is to incorporate discrete, short, mechanically deformed, small diameter steel fibers into high strength concrete with f'c > 70 MPa (10 ksi) in an attempt to reduce and partially eliminate the need for steel rebar in concrete construction. By introducing steel fibers to high strength concrete mixture, the overall tensile, compressive and shear strength of the mixture can be improved immensely thus, replacing portions or major parts of the longitudinal, temperature and shrinkage reinforcements. The reduction or elimination of longitudinal and transverse reinforcements in the construction of structural or non-structural members can result in savings in …

International City/County Management Association 1999 Revenue Estimation Survey Revisited, Benjamin Bond

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In 1899 the National Municipal League declared that it was the duty of the Mayor to submit to the Council the annual budget of current expenses of the city, for almost as long, the budgeting process has been researched (Hou, 2006). Researching budgets is important and needed but comparatively little attention has been paid to revenue forecasts or to those responsible for the generation of revenue forecasts. Professional public administrators responsible for generating revenue forecasts have largely been overlooked in research. Judging by the lack of scholarly material available in academic journals, it appears the political process in which budget …

Speciation Of Pentavalent Technetium Complexes With Aniline And Thiobenzene Derivatives, Kyle E. Childs

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The reaction of bidentate aniline oligomers with pentavalent technetium has been investigated previously through the reaction of (n-Bu4N)TcOCl4 with o-phenylenediamine (PDA). The initial studies found that PDA reacted in a 1 to 2 molar ratio with pentavalent technetium in in ethanol. This study was expanded by the examination of a second aniline derivatives, 2-aminophenol (AMP)) and two thiobenzene derivatives (2-mercaptophenol (MP) and thiosalicylic acid (TSA)) to evaluate the kinetic formation of these complexes with pentavalent technetium. The pentavalent technetium complexes all showed reactivity with technetium having a coordination numbers of 5 with all ligands reacting in a 1 to 2 …

Oppositional And Anxiety Behavior Profiles In A Clinical Sample Of Youth With Selective Mutism, Rachele Diliberto

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Children with selective mutism often present as a very heterogeneous population, with both anxious (APA, 2000; 2013; Kristensen 2000; Manassis et al., 2007; Steinhausen & Juzi, 1996; Yeganeh et al., 2003) and oppositional symptoms (APA, 2013; Andersson & Thomsen, 1998; Kolvin & Fundudis, 1981; Krohn, Weckstein, & Wright, 1992). This study sought to identify anxiety and oppositional behavior profiles in a clinical sample of children with selective mutism. Also, this study sought to determine both discriminant and concurrent validity for these profiles and examine their association with family expressiveness, conflict and control. Participants (n=57) included youth receiving treatment at the …

Validation Of A Personality Scale: A Factor Analytic Approach, Leslie Forbush

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Researchers and clinicians alike make use of various assessment instruments to investigate variables of interest. These instruments include affective assessments, which require individuals to make judgments about themselves. To make these judgments individuals reflect upon their attitudes, interests, values, and personality traits and choose the corresponding response option that they feel best represents their current status with regards to the variable of interest for each question. The optimal number of response options to be included in such affective measurement scales has been greatly debated over the past several decades (Cox, 1980; Foddy, 1993; Jacoby & Matell, 1971; Jones & Loe, …

Ore Classification And Breccia Formation In The 144 Zone Gold Deposit: A Chemical Replacement Model, Bare Mountain Range, Nevada, William Thomas Fischer

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The 144 Zone is an oxidized, breccia-hosted, disseminated gold deposit that formed along the contact between Early Cambrian Carrara Formation limestone and overlying Bonanza King Formation dolomite within the Bare Mountain range in southern Nevada. Gold mineralization occurs within a breccia body that contains a variety of breccia types. Research goals of this project included classifying clay, oxide and other minerals as well as breccia types to identify the habits of gold mineralization and the minerals associated with gold. Research was also aimed at determining the paragenesis of Au mineralization and brecciation in the 144 Zone. Underground mapping provided spatial …

Designing A Process To Reliably Split Extracted Teeth To Access The Dental Root Canal, Happy Singh Ghag

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Introduction

Mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) research is a contemporary topic in modern healthcare. These cells have the ability to divide and generate progeny, which then become committed to specific and distinctive end-stage phenotypes, such as cartilage or bone (Caplan 1991). MSCs have been isolated from a variety of tissues such as the umbilical cord, bone marrow, adipose tissue (Ding, Shyu & Lin 2011) and dental pulp (Takeda et al 2008). Although dental pulp is a viable source for MSCs, peer reviewed research has given limited attention to its retrieval process through intentional tooth splitting of extracted teeth. The purpose of …

Designing A Mechanical Linkage Capable Of Decreasing Force Transfer From The Facemask To The Protective Helmet When Loading Occurs, Levi Hansen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Introduction

Sports that involve extensive personal contact have a high incidence of injury. The introduction of regulations mandating the use of personal protective equipment in these sports is the most common injury control strategy (Marshall et al., 2002). Negligible attention has been paid to the mechanical linkage between the facemask and helmet as a means of reducing force transfer from the facemask, through the helmet, and to the head and or neck of the athlete.

Methods

A novel prototype mechanical linkage of reasonable simplicity that provides 360° of freedom in motion capable of decreasing force transfer from the facemask to …

Li+ Ion Transport In Select Lithium-Rich Antiperovskites, John William Howard

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Lithium-Rich Antiperovskites (LiRAPs) have been shown to possess relatively high ionic conductivity at room temperature, and become superionic conductors at elevated temperatures. These materials generally have a stoichiometry Li3BX, where B is a doubly deficient anion, and X is a monovalent anion. Ideally they belong to the high symmetry space group Pm-3m where lithium atoms occupy octahedral corners, B anions occupy octahedral centers, and X anions occupy the interstitial centers between the octahedra. LiRAPs were synthesized using several different methods and characterized by XRD, EIS, DSC, TGA, FTIR, and INS techniques. Chemical analyses were performed to determine the stoichiometries of …

Postural Sway And Brain Hemispheric Power Spectral Density Under Different Attentional Focus Conditions, Sharon Jalene

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this study was to determine the differences, if any, in the root mean square error (RMSE) of postural sway and hemispheric power spectral density (PSD) in the alpha and beta bands (8-12Hz and 12-25Hz) during different conditions of attentional focus (i.e., internal focus (IF), and external focus (EF) and a control condition (C)). Previous studies have shown that the adoption of IF and EF significantly alter motor performance and that EF promotes automaticity (Wulf, 2013). Sports performance and balance studies utilizing EEG spectral analyses report increased alpha oscillations during expert performance and stable balance and increased beta …

Modeling And Analysis Of Pedestrian Flows, Romesh Khaddar

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

According to the Traveler Opinion and Perception Survey of 2005, about 107.4 million Americans regularly use walking as a mode of transport during their commute, which amounts for 51% of the total American population. In 2009, 4092 pedestrian fatalities were reported nationwide, out of 59,000 pedestrian crashes. This amounts for 12% of the fatalities in the total traffic accidents recorded, and shows an over-representation of pedestrians incidents. Thus, it is imperative to understand the causes behind such statistics, and conduct a comprehensive research on pedestrian walking behavior and their interaction with surroundings.

A lot of researches on pedestrian flows have …

Songs By Hsiao Tyzen: The Interaction Between His Music And Taiwan, Pei-Ning Ku

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this document is to understand Taiwanese composer Hsiao Tyzen's artistic persona through analysis of the textual and musical characteristics of his songs. This document is comprised of: 1) an historical overview of Taiwan, 2) a history of Taiwanese vocal music, 3) a description of Hsiao Tyzen's life and career, 4) an introduction to Taiwanese diction, 5) an examination and analysis of musical components (melody, rhythm, accompaniment and form) of four of Tyzen's songs, and 6) a conclusion based upon sociological factors, historical influences and musical devices to define what constitutes the stylistic characteristics of the songs of …

Maritime Piracy And Armed Robbery Confrontations Across The Globe: Can Crew Action Shape The Outcomes?, Justin Stewart Lewis

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Abstract

The recent tightening of military budget constraints has called into question the feasibility of costly multilateral naval intervention used to combat maritime piracy off the eastern coast of Africa. Though past studies agree that the transformation of the Somali economy and government is crucial for a long-term solution to piracy in this part of the world, short to medium-run solutions are needed to bridge the gap. Such solutions should be fiscally sensible and serve as effective deterrents, as well as be applicable in addressing the problem of piracy and maritime armed robbery in other parts of the globe.

In …

The Lived Experience Of Nursing Students During Their Psychiatric Nursing Education: Does It Influence View Of Psychiatric Nursing As A Career Choice?, Lisa Mcconlogue

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Using a van Manen phenomenological approach combined with a Colaizzi step-wise data analysis procedure, this study seeks to describe the lived experience of recent nursing school graduates during their psychiatric didactic and clinical education and how the experience influenced their view of psychiatric nursing as a specialty choice.

Inclusion criteria for participants were registered nurses (RN) who graduated from their entry level nursing program within the last three years; graduated from a United States RN program; and are currently working as an RN in an inpatient setting. Two groups of participants were selected; one group of nurses who chose psychiatric …

Global Climate Change: The Political Impact Of Global Warming On Developing Countries. The Case Studies Of Egypt And Oman, Eugene Thomas O'Neal

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The discourse of climate change has become important in the field of political science, as well as in the policy-making community. Climate change has become a political phenomenon that has and will greatly impact political stability regionally and globally. Using the ecological security theory as a framework, I explored the relationship between climate change and political stability in developing countries.

This study utilizes both qualitative and quantitative analyses to investigate the relationship between climate change and its effects on political volatility in developing countries. Using regression models, the author examined all non-OECD countries (140 countries) and their relationship to political …

Modeling Pavement Distress Rates Within U.S. Air Force Airfields, Lauren Sahagun

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Through the review of Pavement Condition Index (PCI) surveys completed at Air Force installations scattered across the continental United States, pavement engineers at the Air Force Civil Engineer Center propose that the predominant factor contributing to pavement distress development is climate. They suggest that within each pavement distress type (i.e. alligator cracking, rutting, spalling, etc.) a geographic pattern exists that is strongly correlated to the conventional climate zones within the US. Knowledge of these geographic patterns would equip pavement engineers and asset managers with a powerful tool to develop purposeful maintenance strategies specific to each distress type.

The following approach …

Client Selected Music Based Effects On Marital And Couples Therapy, Kevin Matthew Smith

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study was designed to examine the interaction of music-based interventions in the therapeutic process of Martial and Couples Therapy. The use of pre-recorded music was found to be under researched within the literature and created a void within the knowledge that clinicians have about how music might enhance effectiveness of treatment. The inclusion of music in this process is not currently known, which led to this study being conducted. Through a phenomenological lens, the awareness and understanding of how clients react and experience pre-recorded music during the therapeutic process, while still having a selection of options to preserve autonomy, …

An Examination Of Implicit Values In Cornerstone Student Affairs Textbooks, Nathan Slife

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The field of student affairs is properly cautious about indoctrination. Indoctrination, after all, clearly contradicts the field's ethical statements and standards. These cautions have led student affairs researchers to investigate explicit values in the field to prevent explicit forms of indoctrination. However, recent investigations of implicit values in the discipline of psychology have revealed a potential new source of indoctrination not currently studied in student affairs. Specifically, psychological researchers have identified a system of implicit values called liberal individualism that has been found to be pervasive throughout the psychological discipline. Given the widely acknowledged link between student affairs and psychology, …

The Untold History Of Nevada's Shield Statute, Matthew Travis Ward

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The history of American journalism is replete with anecdotes about news reporters enduring jail and other penalties to protect the identities of confidential sources of information. Since as early as the American Revolution journalists have often found themselves at odds with established authority. In the political cauldron of the late 1960s and early 1970s, U.S. government intrusion into the news gathering process was widespread. The notion the First Amendment protected journalists from revealing sources was invalidated by the Supreme Court's 1972 decision in Branzburg v. Hayes. Many states throughout the nation reacted by codifying a reporter's privilege. Nevada did so …

Chinese Outbound Tourists Food Consumption In The U.S.: An Extension Of The Theory Of Planned Behavior, Kaiyang Wu

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Although Chinese outbound tourists made enormous economic contribution to the U.S. restaurant industry, they seem to have the tendency to consume Chinese cuisine solely during their international trips. This study applies structural equation modeling (SEM) to evaluate different behavioral beliefs' impact on the intentions of Chinese outbound tourist unfamiliar ethnic food consumption in the U.S. Additionally, this research combines the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and food neophobia, a food-related personality trait to better explain Chinese outbound tourists' food rejection behavior in the U.S.

Results of this study showed safety concern, acceptance of table manners, perceived communication gap and food …

Physical Therapy Non-Treatment Of The Acute Hospital Inpatient, Daniel Lee Young

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The detrimental effects of inactivity and mobility extend to the most ill and injured patients in the acute hospital setting. Facilitating the activity and exercise of these most critical patients often requires the skill and expertise of a physical therapist. When physical therapists are involved in the care of hospital inpatients they experience significant benefits; patients experience fewer secondary complications related to their primary illness or injury, they spend less time in critical care units and less time in the hospital overall, and when they leave they go to less restrictive environments and more comfortable care settings. These known benefits …

Developing Seamless Connections In The Urban Transit Network: A Look Toward High-Speed Rail Interconnectivity, Tingting Yu

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In the past, the studies in the U.S. on high speed rail have been on economic impact. Recently, there are a few studies on the multimodal connectivity at high speed rail stations. High speed rail stations are viewed as hubs that are connected by different modes of public transportation by which passengers are transported to their destinations. How and in which way these different modes are connected to high speed rail stations influence the ridership of high speed rail stations. As the development of high speed rail system in the U.S. has come to the stage for actual design and …

An Importance-Performance Analysis Of Multigenerational Preferences In Guestroom Technology, Sidian Lan

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study focuses on generational preferences in terms of guestroom technology. The hospitality technology industry has indicated guestroom technology as their highest priority in terms of hospitality technology investment. Previous studies have investigated in-room technology amenities and ranked them in order of importance and performance. However, it is uncertain which guestroom specific technologies should they invest in when it comes to different generations. Each generation is fundamentally different from the others because each generation was born in different eras with different societal changes. These generations have different values, ideas, needs, and communication skills. Hoteliers are investing time and money into …

Using Spectral Analysis To Evaluate Flute Tone Quality, Ron Yorita

Master's Theses

Many skilled flutists place a high priority on "good" tone quality, or timbre. Timbre can be defined as the audible difference in character that a listener perceives for two notes played at the same pitch. Different timbres are determined by the combination and balance of harmonics that comprise a note. Unlike pitch and rhythm, timbre is difficult to objectively quantify. This project explores (1) how tone quality is described by skilled flutists, (2) whether the harmonic spectrum has some correlation with tone quality, (3) whether certain harmonic spectra are preferred, or considered "good".

Thirty-one flutists ranging from high school students …

The Effect Of Artery Bifurcation Angles On Fluid Flow And Wall Shear Stress In The Middle Cerebral Artery, Zachary Ramey Jones

Master's Theses

Saccular aneurysms are the abnormal plastic deformation of veins and arteries that can lead to lethal thrombus genesis or internal hemorrhaging. Medication and surgery greatly reduce the mortality rates, but treatment is limited by predicting who will develop aneurysms. A common location for saccular aneurysm genesis is at the main middle cerebral artery (MCA) bifurcation. The main MCA bifurcation is comprised of the M1 MCA segment, parent artery, and two M2 segments, daughter arteries. Studies have found that the lateral angle (LA) ratio of the MCA bifurcation is correlated with aneurysm formation. The LA ratio is defined as the angle …

Investigation Of Dairy Wastewater Using Biowish, Ada Mingwah Chan

Master's Theses

Various bacterial products from BiOWiSH^TM Technologies have been tested in dairy wastewater experiments to determine the bacterial mixes’ ability for enhanced degradation of biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), solids, and nitrate concentrations. The dairy wastewater was augmented with various bacterial composition obtained from BiOWiSH^TM. The bacterial mixes experimented were US Aqua, Thai Aqua, BMT, Osprey, Fruit Wash, KLB, LCM1, and MDG. Method development was a crucial process to optimize and test the effects of the BiOWiSH^TM Technologies bacterial mixes.

After 5 experiments, the BOD tests showed that for some of the tests, the redosage of bacteria helped …