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College Of Engineering Senior Design Competition Spring 2017, University Of Nevada, Las Vegas

Fred and Harriet Cox Senior Design Competition Projects

Part of every UNLV engineering student’s academic experience, the senior design project stimulates engineering innovation and entrepreneurship. Each student in their senior year chooses, plans, designs, and prototypes a product in this required element of the curriculum. A capstone to the student’s educational career, the senior design project encourages the student to use everything learned in the engineering program to create a practical, real world solution to an engineering challenge. The senior design competition helps focus the senior students in increasing the quality and potential for commercial application for their design projects. Judges from local industry evaluate the projects on …

Survey And Analysis Of Android Authentication Using App Locker, Akshitha Reddy Chintalaphani

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Android Smart phones have gained immense popularity over the years and is undoubtedly more popular than other operating system phones. Following the similar lines android wear was introduced. Steadily android wear is making its way into our daily lives. It helps keep track of the sleep you have, helps you reach fitness goals, keeps track of phone and helps users have easy authentication. Due to the usage of smart lock which enables phone to be unlocked as long as connected to the android wear, this leads to almost no security on both the ends as android wear before Android 5.0 …

Scalability Analysis Of Blockchains Through Blockchain Simulation, Sneha Goswami

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The past decade has witnessed a surge of cryptocurrencies such as bitcoins, litecoin, dogecoin, peercoin, bitcoin being the most popular amongst them. Enthusiasts and skeptics have debated and come up with disparate opinions to contest both the success and failures of such currencies. However, the veracity of such opinions can only be derived after true analysis of the technological breakthroughs that have occurred in this domain. Blockchains being the backbone of such currencies is a broad subject that encompasses economics, law, cryptography and software engineering. Most of these technologies are decentralized and are open source algorithms. Blockchains popularity is largely …

Thermal And Developmental Ecology Of Pupfish, Cyprinodon, Alexander Jones

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Pupfish from the genus Cyprinodon are among the most endangered groups of fishes on the planet, with nearly 40% of species being threatened with extinction. These pupfishes are often assumed to be the most temperature tolerant of all fish, coping with temperatures as low as 0 °C and as high as 44 °C. However, conflicting data exist and certain measures of thermal tolerance are not markedly higher in pupfish compared to common game fish. Pupfish egg production and growth has been known to be hampered at temperatures well below what they apparently experience in nature. I addressed why eggs fail …

Effectiveness Of St Math In College Remedial Mathematics Students Of Learning Fraction Concepts, Taro Ito

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study examined the extent to which the iPad app, Spatial Temporal Mathematics (ST Math), diminished college remedial mathematics students’ natural number bias and deepened their fraction conceptual understanding. In this quasi-experimental study one class played the ST Math fraction games for 8 weeks, and they were compared to a control class who were taught without technology. The frameworks for this study included the framework theory of conceptual change, the reorganization theory, the microworld and the Lesh Translation Model. Pre and post- tests were used to examine the fraction conceptual understanding of the students in the ST Math class and …

Cli-Fi Cinema: An Epideictic Rhetoric Of Blame, Chloe Louise Powell

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis analyzes the symbolic mechanisms of guilt-redemption as developed by Kenneth Burke within two climate fiction (cli-fi) films: The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008), and Interstellar (2014). In doing so, this thesis offers an account of: (1) each film’s role in providing their audience temporary assuagement of climate change related guilt, and (2) each film’s role in transmitting values and “attitudes” to build and strengthen communities. Because cli-fi films begin from a dystopic vision of a possible future, it fulfills the "blame" function of epideictic discourse to provoke and inspire the "ecological imagination." Through this provocation, the audience …

Calibration Of Microscopic Traffic Flow Models Enabling Simultaneous Selection Of Specific Links And Parameters, Kul Prasad Shrestha

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study proposes a methodology for the calibration of microscopic traffic flow simulation models by enabling simultaneous selection of traffic links and associated parameters. That is, any number and combination of links and model parameters can be selected for calibration. Most calibration approaches consider the entire network without enabling a specific selection of location and associated parameters. In practice, only a subset of links and parameters are used for calibration based on a number of factors such as expert local knowledge of the system. In this study, the calibration problem for the simultaneous selection of links and parameters was formulated …

Instructional Math Technology In Secondary Special Education: Teacher-Reported Practices And Perceptions, Joice M. Higa

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Students with disabilities often have difficulty meeting established math proficiency levels. Without these skills, students may face increased challenges in transitioning to adulthood, including fewer post-secondary educational opportunities, limited career options, and decreased long-term income. Addressing low math skills is important to improving options for students with disabilities. Research indicates that technology-based interventions have the potential to improve academic outcomes.

The purpose of this study was to examine the math instructional technology used in secondary math classrooms with students with disabilities. The study also examined teacherperceived barriers and desired supports related to the integration of technology. A three-round Delphi method …

Measurement Of Anterior Translation Of The Mandibular Condyle Using Ultrasonography, Brooke Laskowski, Danielle Hahn, Christensen J. Hardy

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Study Design: Reliability of clinical measurement. Objectives: To establish a standardized ultrasonographic approach to quantify anterior translation of the mandibular condyle during mouth opening by examining the reliability of imaging acquisition and processing. Background: Restricted mouth opening is a common limitation in individuals with temporomandibular dysfunction (TMD), however the arthrokinematics of the temporomandibular joint (TMJ) during mouth opening have not been studied thoroughly. Furthermore, how anterior translation of the mandibular condyle contributes to mouth opening remains unclear. Methods: Twenty-eight subjects without TMD participated. During day 1 of data collection, all subjects performed maximal mouth opening while an examiner placed a …

Acute Effects Of Walking On The Deformation Of Femoral Articular Cartilage, Jayson Mcclaren, Skyler Sudweeks

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Background and Purpose: Knee osteoarthritis (OA) is characterized by a progressive loss of the articular cartilage, increasing the amount of friction in the joint, resulting in pain and decreases in mobility and function. Additionally, it has been demonstrated that frontal plane lower extremity (LE) malalignment (e.g., varus, valgus) is associated with onset and progression of OA. Previous studies showed that static loading of 50% body weight at the knee results in more cartilage deformation in those with knee OA compared to healthy controls. As walking produces forces in the knee that are 2-3 times body weight, it may result in …

Non-Blocking Priority Queue Based On Skiplists With Relaxed Semantics, Ashok Adhikari

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Priority queues are data structures that store information in an orderly fashion. They are of tremendous importance because they are an integral part of many applications, like Dijkstra’s shortest path algorithm, MST algorithms, priority schedulers, and so on.

Since priority queues by nature have high contention on the delete_min operation, the design of an efficient priority queue should involve an intelligent choice of the data structure as well as relaxation bounds on the data structure. Lock-free data structures provide higher scalability as well as progress guarantee than a lock-based data structure. That is another factor to be considered in the …

High School Gardens Program Across The Nation: Current Practices, Perceived Benefits, Barriers, And Resources, Noehealani Cierra Bareng- Antolin

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

School garden programs in the United States emerged near the end of the 19th century. The use and purpose of school gardens are multifaceted and is dependent on the school and individuals involved. Current research on school garden programs suggests positive benefits for student academic achievement, nutrition knowledge, and dietary behaviors. Research on school garden programs is predominately conducted at the elementary and middle school levels. High school garden programs do exist; however, there is limited research on the current practices, perceived benefits of, barriers to, and resources necessary for high school garden programs. The purpose of this study was …

Reality And Nature In Robinson Jeffers, Joshua D. Bartee

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Synonyms are the key to understanding Robinson Jeffers’s poetry and his philosophy of inhumanism. Reality, nature, and God are words Jeffers uses to communicate monistic feelings. These words are difficult to define on their own. When used interchangeably by the poet, a sense of oneness with the universe is generated in the reader. This is how Jeffers gives value to the natural world, and his environmental ethic is inextricably tangled up with the numinous as much as the real. A belief in immanence, or that God is present in the material world, guides Jeffers’s philosophy of inhumanism. Reality becomes the …

Phosphate Release: The Effect Of Prebiotic Organic Compounds On Dissolution Of Merrillite, Whitlockite, Chlorapatite, And Fluorapatite, Courtney Lea Bartlett

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Phosphate is an essential nutrient on Earth, used by life for ATP, DNA, RNA, and phospholipid membranes. Therefore, if life is or ever was present on Mars, phosphorus may have played an important role in determining the habitability of an environment. Phosphorus does not have a significant volatile phase; its release from minerals is consequently critical to phosphorus availability and prebiotic chemistry. Phosphate release from Mars-relevant minerals such as merrillite and chlorapatite has been previously found to differ significantly from phosphate release from fluorapatite, the dominant phosphate phase on Earth. However, the environments in which phosphate release would have been …

Preschool Teacher Knowledge And Skills: Phonemic Awareness And Instruction, Cecilia Anne Billow

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The extent of phonemic awareness knowledge and skills early childhood teachers bring to beginning literacy instruction lays the foundation upon which reading success is built for preschool children in their care. A significant number of preschool children receive their first literacy instruction in community-based or Head Start preschools. Phonemes are the individual sounds that make up spoken words and developing the ability to attend to the sounds that letters represent is the first step in learning to read. No published studies were found assessing the ability of teachers in these two settings to provide effective instruction in phonemic awareness.

The …

Em Wave Interaction With A Bounded Plasma Column Supporting An Electron Beam, Asmelash Teshome Beshah

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In this thesis, the disruption of an incoming external transverse electromagnetic wave by an inhomogeneous plasma with energetic electron beam is examined. The plasma-beam characteristics are motivated by theory and experiment. Wave-plasma interactions and wave propagation and reflection in and from a plasma medium is studied. Physical sources such as the plate current density are considered. The inhomogeneity of the plasma slab supporting the energetic electron beam is partially built into the supported fields. The wave-plasma-beam interaction is examined over a wide parameter space. Absorption or reflection of electromagnetic waves can be achieved by changing the plasma number density, collision …

Volatile Technetium Oxides: Implications For Nuclear Waste Vitrification, Bradley Covington Childs

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

From 1943 to 1987, the Hanford site was the primary location for the production of Pu for military applications in the United States. Decades of Pu production have been accompanied by generation of large amounts of liquid and solid radioactive waste. One of radioelements present in the Hanford wastes is Tc, principally the isotope 99Tc (1500 kg). In the waste, it is primarily present in the heptavalent state as TcO4 - . One option for the management of Tc at the Hanford site is its vitrification into a borosilicate glass. The behavior of Tc during vitrification is problematic, as it …

Determining The Effects Of Social Media Monitoring To Identify Potential Foodborne Illness In Southern Nevada, Lauren Diprete

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Foodborne illness, commonly referred to as food poisoning, affects an estimated 1 in 6 Americans every year, despite the fact that it is entirely preventable. Many cases of foodborne illness go unreported; however, better reporting leads to faster health department response and containment. Social media monitoring, using software to identify trends in social media posts, is a novel new tool that has been tested in a variety of public health fields with promising preliminary results. The Southern Nevada Health District (SNHD) has employed social media monitoring software to identify potential foodborne illness within Southern Nevada. The purpose of this study …

Finding Top-K Dominance On Incomplete Big Data Using Map-Reduce Framework, Payam Ezatpoor

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Incomplete data is one major kind of multi-dimensional dataset that has random-distributed missing nodes in its dimensions. It is very difficult to retrieve information from this type of dataset when it becomes huge. Finding top-k dominant values in this type of dataset is a challenging procedure. Some algorithms are present to enhance this process but are mostly efficient only when dealing with a small-size incomplete data. One of the algorithms that make the application of TKD query possible is the Bitmap Index Guided (BIG) algorithm. This algorithm strongly improves the performance for incomplete data, but it is not originally capable …

Understanding College Preparedness Of First-Semester College Students, Kimberly Marie Florence

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The college preparedness of first-year, first-semester, undergraduate students was researched and analyzed in this study. The research entailed a purposeful selection of 10 first-year, first-semester, undergraduate student participants that transitioned into a four-year public university, University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), from a Nevada public high school. Participants who graduated from a Nevada public high school were chosen because Nevada exhibits low-performing K-12 public education trends. Using qualitative methods (i.e., a phenomenological approach), students were interviewed using semi-structured and open-ended interview questions. The interviews were used to ascertain student participants’ perceptions of their academic lived experiences transitioning from high school …

Living On The Edge: Assessing The Effects Of Catastrophic Fire On Plants Utilized By Two Endemic Subspecies Of Spring Mountains Butterflies, Charles Ryan Herrmann

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In the past few decades there has been an increase in catastrophic, high-intensity, large-scale wildfires globally due to the combination of climate warming with more than a century of fire suppression policy. One region that has been drastically affected is the Western United States, as there has been an increase in ‘mega-fires’ in the past few decades. The 2013 Carpenter 1 Fire in the Spring Mountains, Nevada was the largest fire in recorded history in these mountains, spreading out over 11,137 hectares. Catastrophic fire like the Carpenter 1 Fire can have potentially devastating effects on endemic species inhabiting refugia on …

Late Cretaceous Extensional Collapse Of The Southern Cordillera: Evidence From The Bristol And Granite Mountains, Se California, Lee Hess

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Demonstrating the regional extent of Late Cretaceous extensional collapse of western North America’s southern Cordillera is important to understanding the tectonic evolution of the Sevier-Laramide orogens, and the geodynamics of ancient and modern orogens and synconvergent extension. Documenting Late Cretaceous extension in the southern Cordillera requires looking through the extensive overprint by Cenozoic structures. Late Cretaceous extension in the eastern Mojave region has been inferred from geochronology and thermochronology studies, which document Late Cretaceous cooling of Mesozoic granitoid rocks, some of which were emplaced in the middle crust. Cooling histories from these rocks have also been interpreted to be a …

Investigation Of Determinacy For Games Of Variable Length, Emi Ikeda

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Many well-known determinacy results calibrate determinacy strength in terms of large cardinals (e.g., a measurable cardinal) or a "large cardinal type" property (e.g., zero sharp exists). Some of the other results are of the form that subsets of reals of a certain complexity will satisfy a well-known property when a certain amount of determinacy holds. The standard game tree considered in the study of determinacy involves games in which all moves are from omega and all plays have length omega (i.e. the game tree is omega^

Examining The Affordances Of Dual Cognitive Processing To Explain The Development Of High School Students’ Nature Of Science Views, Luke Jackson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This mixed method study was aimed at examining the influence of dual processing (Type 1 and Type 2 thinking) on the development of high school students’ nature of science (NOS) views. Type 1 thinking is intuitive, experiential, and heuristic. Type 2 thinking is rational, analytical, and explicit. Three research questions were asked: (1) Do the experiential process (Type 1) and the logical process (Type 2) influence the development of students’ NOS views? (2) If there is an influence on students’ NOS views, then what is the nature of relationship between the experiential process (Type 1) and the development of NOS …

Behavioral Paleoecology Of Lower Cambrian Deposit Foragers: Reinterpreting Looping And Meandering Traces Using Optimal Foraging Theory And Quantitative Analysis, Zachary Andrew Jensen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The early Cambrian was a period of transition during which the seafloor environment was changing from a microbial-mat-dominated environment to a bioturbation-dominated environment. The result was a patchy landscape of variable food resources for foraging burrowers to exploit. Looping trace fossils, such Psammichnites gigas and Taphrhelminthopsis nelsoni, appear in strata worldwide during this transitional period, and the ecological niche they filled is a subject of debate among ichnologists. The objectives of this study are (1) to determine the foraging strategies preserved by looping traces through the application of optimal foraging theory and quantitative analysis, and (2) use those results to …

Influence Of Sustainability Reward Program On Meeting Planners’ Site Selection Decision And Perceived Value-For-Money, Shinyong (Shawn) Jung

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Many types of voluntary sustainable programs have been integrated into the hospitality industry standards and been examined to measure their effectiveness by research firms and institutions (Giebelhausen & Chun, 2016). However, there is a lack of research examining how the benefits received by participating in green meetings influence perceptions and behavioral intentions on environmentally sustainable meetings. Consequently, this research investigates how incentivizing tools such as incorporating sustainability reward points for choosing sustainable venues and participating in environmental programs can affect planners’ perceived value for money and site-selection intention. The results of the three-way repeated measure analysis of variance (ANOVA) did …

Analysis Of The Temporal Response Of Coupled Asymmetrical Zero-Power Subcritical Bare Metal Reactor Systems, Kimberly Lynn Klain

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The behavior of symmetrical coupled-core systems has been extensively studied, yet there is a dearth of research on asymmetrical systems due to the increased complexity of the analysis of such systems. In this research, the multipoint kinetics method is applied to asymmetrical zero-power, subcritical, bare metal reactor systems. Existing research on asymmetrical reactor systems assumes symmetry in the neutronic coupling; however, it will be shown that this cannot always be assumed. Deep subcriticality adds another layer of complexity and requires modification of the multipoint kinetics equations to account for the effect of the external neutron source. A modified set of …

Evaluation Of A Fluorescence Method For Quantifying Bioaerosol Concentrations On Air Quality Filter Samples, Rachel Kolberg

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Airborne particulate matter (PM) in outdoor environments contains many components that cause adverse human health effects. The size of the particulates determine in what manner the particles would bypass the body’s defense mechanisms to enter the respiratory system and is directly related to their health impacts. Currently the United States Environmental Protection Agency is enforcing the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) to regulate the annual and 24-hour average concentrations of PM2.5 and PM10 in the air. PM2.5 are fine particles with aerodynamic diameter <2.5μm, small enough to reach the deepest parts of the bronchi and lungs. PM10 include PM2.5 and larger particles with aerodynamic diameter of 2.5-10μm. Both PM2.5 and PM10 contain multiple components from multiple sources. Bioaerosols are an important component of PM, but there is limited knowledge about how bioaerosols contribute to PM2.5 and PM10 concentrations. There is also a lack of research about the incidence and prevalence of disease caused by bioaerosols and about the limits of exposure to bioaerosol particulates. The main barrier to assess bioaerosol concentrations and health-related effects is the absence of quick and inexpensive methodology for quantifying bioaerosols. This study explored the feasibility of using fluorescence microscopy to quickly quantify bioaerosols in PM2.5 and PM10 collected on polycarbonate filters. Bioaerosols were stained with a DNA marker directly on a filter, followed by fixation, microscopic imaging, and automatic counting. The method was first validated using reference samples prepared by depositing different known concentrations of E. coli onto blank polycarbonate filters. The results indicated a linear response over two orders of magnitude (R2 = 0.9) and an accuracy within ±25%. E. coli were also deposited onto selected ambient PM10 and PM2.5 filter samples to determine if pre-loaded particles would interfere with bioaerosol imaging and counting. It was found that despite an increase in uncertainty (variability), the calibration slope remained within ±10% of unity for both PM2.5 and PM10 samples. Bioaerosol concentrations in ambient samples, as quantified by this method, were on average 14% higher for PM10 than for PM2.5 acquired concurrently in a desert environment of Las Vegas, Nevada. The application of this method to other types of compliance filters, such as Teflon filters and tapes of a Beta Attenuation Monitor (BAM) were also explored in this study. By means of a high-yield approach this method is expected to facilitate bioaerosol research, support exposure and health assessments, and help refine NAAQS for PM2.5 and PM10.

Does Educational Level Influence Postmenopausal Breast Cancer Mortality Among Asians In U.S.?, Sfurti Maheshwari

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Studies on mortality from postmenopausal breast cancer (PMBC) by education level have not shown consistent results among US women. For US Asians, often seen as a “model” minority in terms of affluence and education this relationship has never been studied despite PMBC being the most common cancer in the country.

We analyzed 2008-2012 California Vital Statistics data and population data from the American Community Survey 2012 to compute age and education adjusted mortality ratios using negative binomial regression model for White (as a reference category) and Asian women. In total 3,277,106 (80%) White women and 852,376 (20%) Asian women died …

Environmental Changes Across The Early Mississippian Carbon Isotope Excursion, Dev Krishna Maharjan

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The Early Mississippian K–O (Kinderhookian-Osagean) δ13C excursion or TICE (mid-Tournaisian carbon isotope excursion) is characterized by an anomalous carbonate carbon isotope value of ≥5‰ that has been documented from numerous stratigraphic sections across the globe. This δ13C excursion coincides with global cooling and sea-level fall and predicts a significant change in seawater chemistry. However, sulfate sulfur isotope data across the K-O δ13C excursion reported in previous studies seem not to be responsive to the carbon cycle. Likewise, a recent study has documented a unidirectional increase in nitrogen isotopes across this excursion, which is not anticipated considering the amount of organic …