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2006

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Examining The Stability Of Goal Orientation, Ordene V Edwards Jan 2006

Examining The Stability Of Goal Orientation, Ordene V Edwards

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Two studies were conducted to examine whether students' achievement goal orientations change as tasks change. These studies examined whether goal orientations are stable personality traits; Sixty-six undergraduate students at a large southwestern university enrolled in introductory educational psychology classes participated in these studies. Students self-reported goal orientations using the Patterns of Adaptive Learning Scale (PALS; Midgley et al., 2000) were collected five times over the course of a semester: general context and before two assignments and two exams; A 3 (goal orientation subscale) x 4 (time) doubly multivariate repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted. Students' performance scores were …

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Photodynamic Therapy Induces Oxidation In Breast And Brain Cancer Cell Lines, Sarah Ann Ziegler Jan 2006

Photodynamic Therapy Induces Oxidation In Breast And Brain Cancer Cell Lines, Sarah Ann Ziegler

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Photodynamic Therapy (PDT) is a cancer treatment modality that utilizes both a photosensitizing drug and light irradiation. To better understand how PDT induces cell death, four human breast cancer (DC4, DB46, MCF7 and MDA-MB-435) and two rat glioma (BT4C and F98) cell lines were treated with 635 nm light from a diode laser following incubation with either PhotofrinRTM or aminoleuvilinic acid (ALA). Cellular responses were evaluated by: clonogenic survival, cell cycle distribution, fluorescent microscopy, protein oxidation and lipid oxidation assays. PDT was able to induce both apoptosis and necrosis as well as protein and lipid oxidation. Even though breast cancer …

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Recent Developments In Federal-State Relations: Selected Cases In Federalism, Michael James Stamcoff Jan 2006

Recent Developments In Federal-State Relations: Selected Cases In Federalism, Michael James Stamcoff

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

An interesting moment in Supreme Court history was the rise of William Rehnquist to Chief Justice in 1986. Under Rehnquist, the Court for the first time in nearly sixty years issued decisions that limited federal power. However, were the decisions indicative of the destruction of cooperative federalism and the Constitutional Revolution of 1937 or merely exercises limiting the excesses of federal power? This paper argues the latter. Recently, the Court further cemented their belief in cooperative federalism, while limiting its excesses where necessary in the cases of Nevada Department of Human Resources v. Hibbs (2003), Granholm v. Heald (2005), Gonzales …

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Development Of An Integrated Process Simulation System Model For Spent Fuel Treatment Facility (Sftf) Design, Matthew S Hodges Jan 2006

Development Of An Integrated Process Simulation System Model For Spent Fuel Treatment Facility (Sftf) Design, Matthew S Hodges

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Major issues concerning nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain are that of safety and long term disposal. Approximately one percent of the content of spent nuclear fuel is that which is responsible for nearly all the long-term associated health risks. The removal and transmutation of this content will render the toxicity of the remaining waste to that of natural uranium within a few hundred years. The research contained in this thesis details several simulations that are involved in the overall removal process. The first objective was to test the feasibility of the design of a distillation column that will separate …

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Habitat Selection By The Relict Leopard Frog (Rana Onca): Assessment Of Vegetation Use At Two Scales, Sean Moran Harris Jan 2006

Habitat Selection By The Relict Leopard Frog (Rana Onca): Assessment Of Vegetation Use At Two Scales, Sean Moran Harris

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

In recent years, two populations of the rare Relict Leopard Frog (Rana onca) have gone extinct. These population extinctions occurred concomitantly with the encroachment of native emergent vegetation into pools in which frogs were usually observed. In order to determine if adult Rana onca prefer more vegetatively open habitats, a radio-telemetry study was conducted. A total of 809 radio telemetry observations were made on 34 frogs from April 2 through December 7, 2004. Binary Logistic Regression was used with both macrohabitat and microhabitat data to compare habitat characteristics between low-use and high-use segments of the spring. A more traditional multiple …

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Self-Stabilizing Cache Placements In Manets, Narenda Ganguru Jan 2006

Self-Stabilizing Cache Placements In Manets, Narenda Ganguru

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

In ad-hoc networks mobile nodes communicate with each other using other nodes in the network as routers. Each node acts as a router, forwarding data packets for other nodes. There are many dynamic routing protocols to find routes between the communicating nodes. The bandwidth and power are limited in MANETs. Although routing is important in MANETs, the final task of MANETs is Data accessing. So, there is need to implement new techniques apart from routing for data access to save bandwidth and power. If some of the nodes in MANET is provided some of the services from internet Service Provider, …

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Design And Optimization Of Joints To Mitigate Shock In Military Vehicles Under Blast And Impact Loading, Umakanth Sakaray Jan 2006

Design And Optimization Of Joints To Mitigate Shock In Military Vehicles Under Blast And Impact Loading, Umakanth Sakaray

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Shock from a blast loading may risk the lives of the occupants of a military vehicle and damage the sensitive electronic components within it. The objective of this work is to develop an approach to mitigate shocks due to mine blast loading and impact loading by proper design of joint(s) in the military vehicles. Two types of vehicle configurations are studied for this purpose. The first vehicle is studied to examine ways to mitigate shock due to mine blast while the second vehicle is studied to mitigate shock due to projectile impact load. The proposed research includes design of joints …

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Computational Fluid Dynamics (Cfd) Analysis Of Decomposition Reaction Inside The Solar Fluid Wall Reactor, Vijaykaartik Kumar Jan 2006

Computational Fluid Dynamics (Cfd) Analysis Of Decomposition Reaction Inside The Solar Fluid Wall Reactor, Vijaykaartik Kumar

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

A solar thermo-chemical reactor has been designed and modeled to study the flow of decomposition reactions. The reaction considered in this case is the thermal reduction of metal oxide, as part of a two-step water splitting cycle for hydrogen generation and methane decomposition, which directly generates hydrogen in a single step reaction. The reaction takes place at 2000 K to 2500 K using concentrated solar energy as the source. In this model, the reactor is comprised of two concentric cylinders, which are made of graphite. The input zinc oxide is assumed to be uniform in particle size during the simulation. …

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Permanent Record, Jonathan Bauch Jan 2006

Permanent Record, Jonathan Bauch

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Permanent Record is a collection of loosely connected short stories, told primarily in the first person (framed by a prologue and epilogue in other points of view), taking place on Staten Island; New York, during the 1980s. Tracing the character's development from his bar mitzvah through college, the stories deal primarily with a young man's attempt to reconcile his feelings of rebellion---against his parents, teachers, tradition, etc.---with his growing awareness of the Judaism instilled in him as a child. As much as the character tries to distance himself from his parents and their religious values, he becomes increasingly aware how …

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Perceptions Of Discharge Instructions By The Emergency Department Patient, Darlene Brown Jan 2006

Perceptions Of Discharge Instructions By The Emergency Department Patient, Darlene Brown

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Patient education is an essential part of the nursing process and is part of every nurse-patient interaction. A better patient outcome is the combination of teaching completeness and patient comprehension. When the nurse-patient interaction takes place in the emergency department (ED), the instruction is taking place in a less than conducive environment; The ED's have become a health care safety net for people with a variety of available resources and literacy levels. An indicator of how well patient education is accomplished by looking at this teaching through the patient's eyes. A sample of 30 adult patients was surveyed one week …

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Electric Banana, Mongolian Sky, Stacey Abbott Jan 2006

Electric Banana, Mongolian Sky, Stacey Abbott

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Although these poems stretch from Las Vegas to Mongolia---two peculiar and exotic places---and a few points in between, they remain tethered to the quotidian of life. They illustrate familiar details of the human experience such as love, learning, distance, and change. The poems of Electric Banana, Mongolian Sky aim to, as William Wordsworth states in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads: choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them, as far as [is] possible, in a selection of language really used by men; and at the same time to throw over them a certain coloring of …

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The Romance Of Self-Surrender In Four Historical Novels Of Helen C White, Joyce Ahn Jan 2006

The Romance Of Self-Surrender In Four Historical Novels Of Helen C White, Joyce Ahn

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Helen C. White (1896--1967), a long-time professor of English at the University of Wisconsin Madison, was also an accomplished historical novelist. Although her six novels met with popular and critical success on publication, they seem to be largely forgotten today, and all are currently out of print. This study examines four of White's six novels, A Watch in the Night, Not Built with Hands, Dust on the King's Highway, and Bird of Fire, in light of the romance of self-surrender they portray. Each of the novel's protagonists---Jacopone da Todi, Countess Matilda of Tuscany, Father Francisco Garces, and St. Francis of …

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Kinematic Comparison Of Running Barefoot And In The Nike Free 50, Janet R Griffin Jan 2006

Kinematic Comparison Of Running Barefoot And In The Nike Free 50, Janet R Griffin

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if knee and ankle kinematics during running were similar when running with bare feet and while running in a shoe designed to mimic barefoot running. Ten footfalls per subject-condition were evaluated kinematically using a 12-camera Vicon motion capture system (120 Hz) for 9 female runners (26.9 +/- 4.0 yrs, 63.7 +/- 5.9 kg, 168.0 +/- 7.5 cm) at 4 times within two 8 minute conditions (barefoot and test shoes) on a treadmill. Seven knee and ankle variables representing impact (knee angle, ankle angle, and knee angular velocity) and stance (peak knee angle, …

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Bootstrap Estimation Of Standard Error Of Ridge Estimates, Mira Capur Jan 2006

Bootstrap Estimation Of Standard Error Of Ridge Estimates, Mira Capur

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

In multiple linear regression (MLR) the parameter estimates based on the method of least squares are typically unsatisfactory if the predictors are highly correlated. Ridge regression proposes a remedy to multicollinearity problems by modifying the method of least squares to allow biased estimation of the regression coefficients. This is a procedure that involves adding a small positive constant to the diagonal elements of X'X before numerically inverting it. The ridge regression method typically yields biased estimates with smaller mean square error. This thesis deals with estimating the standard errors of ridge estimates using bootstrap resampling. With code developed in R …

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Characterization Of Residual Stress And Defects In Welded Specimen, Srinivas Chanda Jan 2006

Characterization Of Residual Stress And Defects In Welded Specimen, Srinivas Chanda

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

The residual stresses developed at different locations of welded specimens consisting of austenitic Type 304L stainless steel (SS) and/or martensitic Alloy EP-823 has been characterized in terms of S-, W- and T-parameters based on a classical positron annihilation spectroscopy (PAS) technique. The resultant data indicate that the magnitude of residual stress was higher near the fusion-line (FL) compared to that of the base region of the welded specimen consisting of similar materials on both sides. However, for welded specimens of dissimilar materials on opposite side, the extent of residual stress was somewhat lower at the FL compared to that of …

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Molecular Phylogenetics Of Trogon: Exploring Patterns Of Diversification In A Widespread Neotropical Avian Genus, Jeffrey M Dacosta Jan 2006

Molecular Phylogenetics Of Trogon: Exploring Patterns Of Diversification In A Widespread Neotropical Avian Genus, Jeffrey M Dacosta

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Study of Neotropical avian biodiversity have generally been focused on South American taxa. As a result, the contribution of Central America to overall Neotropical diversity remains under-studied. The Great American Interchange (GAI) between North and South America is a biogeographic event known to impact biodiversity throughout the Neotropics, linking the evolutionary history of these land masses. Here I show that genetic diversity in the well-known and widespread Neotropical avian genus Trogon greatly exceeds previously recognized biodiversity in this group. Results also invoke a Central American center of origin for the genus, with multiple independent dispersals into and subsequent diversification within …

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Hierarchical Approach For Character Recognition, Koushik Reddy Damera Jan 2006

Hierarchical Approach For Character Recognition, Koushik Reddy Damera

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

This research mainly focuses on recognizing the handwritten character. Several efficient algorithms have been developed by us so far to separate: the handwritten characters from printed text character, the lines, the words, and each character. In this thesis, we concentrate on how to increase the efficiency of recognition of segmented handwritten characters. Certain characters share common features unique to each other, different from the rest of characters. These subsets of characters with common features are then further analyzed by the classifier thereby reducing the number of comparisons that are required. This results increasing the speed of character recognition.

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The Long Term Effects Of Divorce On Professional Adult Dancers, Brent Fladmo Jan 2006

The Long Term Effects Of Divorce On Professional Adult Dancers, Brent Fladmo

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

The most dramatic change in family life in contemporary society is the divorce rate (Amato, 2000), with numerous studies analyzing and examining divorce and its implications (Rao, 2002). According to the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly 50% of marriages are terminated (Bowles, 2005). In addition, Martin, Specter, Martin, and Martin (2003) reported that the United States has the highest remarriage rate in the world, and second marriages account for nearly half of all current marriages (Wallerstein, 2005). Children who experience divorce are subjected to more stressful life changes, such as relocation (Harris, 1995), economic decline (Hetherington, 1989; Nelson, 1993), a decrease …

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Study Of Document Clustering Using The K-Means Algorithm, Meghna Sharma Gummuluru Jan 2006

Study Of Document Clustering Using The K-Means Algorithm, Meghna Sharma Gummuluru

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

One of the most commonly used data mining techniques is document clustering or unsupervised document classification which deals with the grouping of documents based on some document similarity function; This thesis deals with research issues associated with categorizing documents using the k-means clustering algorithm which groups objects into K number of groups based on document representations and similarities; The proposed hypothesis of this thesis is to prove that unsupervised clustering of a set of documents produces similar results to that of their supervised categorization.

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Micro-Raman Spectroscopic Study Of The Corrosion Of Stainless Steel By Lead-Bismuth Eutectic, Brian D Hosterman Jan 2006

Micro-Raman Spectroscopic Study Of The Corrosion Of Stainless Steel By Lead-Bismuth Eutectic, Brian D Hosterman

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Lead-Bismuth Eutectic (LBE) has been proposed as a possible coolant and/or spallation target for the transmutation of nuclear waste. The corrosion of stainless steel from exposure to LBE must be understood if any transmutation scheme is to move forward. Annealed 316L, cold-rolled 316L, and D9 stainless steels corroded in a LBE environment were studied using Raman spectroscopy. Raman spectroscopy will allow identification of oxides within the corrosion layer. A micro-Raman system was constructed for these studies. The resulting Raman spectra, from annealed 316L samples show evidence for the formation of Fe3O4, instead of Fe2O3, within the corrosion layer. The main …

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Effects Of Global Change On Mojave Desert Annual Plant Communities, Stacy Marie Irvin Jan 2006

Effects Of Global Change On Mojave Desert Annual Plant Communities, Stacy Marie Irvin

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

The objective of this research was to investigate the potential effects of global change on Mojave Desert annual plant communities. The predicted changes of increased summer precipitation, increased nitrogen deposition, and biological soil crust disturbance were simulated in a full factorial design, and the effects on species composition, plant density, plant size, and nitrogen content were measured. Added summer rain decreased community-level biomass and diversity the following spring, while increased nitrogen deposition and biological soil crust disturbance increased community-level biomass and diversity. However, biomass responses at the species level were highly variable and individualistic, consistent with the episodic nature of …

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Technetium And Rhenium In Volcanic Soils By Icpms, Clifton Lee Jones Jan 2006

Technetium And Rhenium In Volcanic Soils By Icpms, Clifton Lee Jones

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Technetium-99 (99Tc) and rhenium (Re) were determined in volcanic tuff muck rock, from the potential repository at Yucca Mountain and in nuclear bomb cavity samples from the Nevada Test Site (NTS). These analyses were performed in order to test the feasibility of using high resolution inductively couple plasma mass spectrometry (HR-ICPMS) for the determination of 99Tc. Six 20 gram tuff samples were analyzed in duplicate for 99Tc and Re following separation using an anion exchange resin to remove potential interferences. Four nuclear bomb cavity samples were analyzed using one gram samples. A 99Tc method detection limit (MDL) of 33 pg/kg …

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Dose Comparison Of Multi-Slice Computed Tomography Scanners, James J Kelley Jan 2006

Dose Comparison Of Multi-Slice Computed Tomography Scanners, James J Kelley

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

The rapid technological advances in CT over the past 30 years have resulted in a steady increase in the number of CT scans being performed annually, making it the major source of exposure to the population via diagnostic x-rays. With this increased utilization, the concerns over patient radiation doses from CT have also grown. Although CT studies only amount to about 5% of all X-ray examinations, it contributes approximately 40% of the collective dose from diagnostic radiology to the population. This fact has made CT dosimetry an important topic in diagnostic radiology today. The introduction of multislice scanners has focused …

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Performance Of Plate Fin Compact Heat Exchangers, Ibrahim Mohamed Khalil Jan 2006

Performance Of Plate Fin Compact Heat Exchangers, Ibrahim Mohamed Khalil

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Heat exchangers design includes the consideration of both the heat transfer rates between two fluids and the pumping power required to overcome fluid friction and push the fluids through the heat exchangers. In gas flow heat exchangers, the friction power limitations force the designer to select moderately low mass velocities. Low mass velocities with low thermal conductivities will result in low heat transfer rate per unit of the surface area. Thus a large surface area is a typical characteristic of a gas flow heat exchanger; The problem of a large required area can be solved by using large area density …

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Analysis Of Determinant Factors Of A Convention And Visitors Bureau Website Service Quality: Perspectives Of Meeting Planners, Min Sook Kim Jan 2006

Analysis Of Determinant Factors Of A Convention And Visitors Bureau Website Service Quality: Perspectives Of Meeting Planners, Min Sook Kim

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Website service quality is widely accepted as one of the key determinants of online business success. Several studies identified key factors that determine the website service quality factors appropriate for online business environments (Kaynama & Black, 2000; Van Riel, Liljander, & Jurriens, 2001). A convention and visitors bureau (CVB) website is a service portal that delivers information online about a destination so users can develop an overall image of the location; CVBs struggle to deliver positive destination images because the competition among destinations to host conventions is intense. In spite of the important role of CVBs and the beneficial spillover …

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Characterizaton Of Nb75ta For Hix Decomposition Process, Venkateswarlu Kondur Jan 2006

Characterizaton Of Nb75ta For Hix Decomposition Process, Venkateswarlu Kondur

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Nb7.5Ta, a candidate refractory material for use in the HI, decomposition process, has been tested for evaluation of its tensile properties and corrosion resistance. The results of tensile testing within a temperature range of ambient to 400°C revealed a gradual drop in tensile strength with increasing temperature. However, reduced failure strain was observed at temperatures up to 300°C, suggesting the occurrence of dynamic strain aging (DSA) behavior. The characterization of the tensile specimens by transmission electron microscopy showed somewhat higher dislocation density at 300°C that could be the result of the DSA effect. Corrosion studies under a slow strain rate …

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Optimization Of Parameters To Obtain Desired Size Nanocluster, Rani Krishna Jan 2006

Optimization Of Parameters To Obtain Desired Size Nanocluster, Rani Krishna

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Nanoclusters, owing to their unusual chemical and physical properties, are much sought after in optoelectronics, electromagnetic sensors, and in many biological applications. Synthesizing of uniform cluster size, however, is not easy in many cluster source generators; This thesis proposes a methodology of parameter variation to optimize the desired size cluster so as to obtain uniform and narrow cluster distribution in a typical plasma gas condensation type cluster source. Theoretical modeling of parameters affecting the cluster growth is analyzed for silicon, copper, and cadmium sulphide, and it is experimentally verified by determining distribution of cluster sizes.

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An Arima-Model-Based Approach With Hazard Area For The Probability Of Volcanic Disruption Of The Proposed High-Level Radioactive Waste Repositiory At Yucca Mountain, Nevada, Usa, Xiaojuan Liu Jan 2006

An Arima-Model-Based Approach With Hazard Area For The Probability Of Volcanic Disruption Of The Proposed High-Level Radioactive Waste Repositiory At Yucca Mountain, Nevada, Usa, Xiaojuan Liu

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

An interesting extension of advanced time-series analysis techniques is introduced into the domain of volcanological data exploration. A new and innovative use of the well-known ARIMA method for modeling the recurrence rate of volcanism ranging from simple Poissonian volcanoes to those showing cyclic trends is presented. Specifically, we propose a new tool to fingerprint the eruptive behavior of a volcano, which also links some modeling tools of two of the most developed areas in the literature of statistics: stochastic processes and time series. Valuable modeling and computing insights are discussed using a data set from the volcanic database at Yucca …

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Adaptive Design Of Delta Sigma Modulators, Gregory Kenneth Lull Jan 2006

Adaptive Design Of Delta Sigma Modulators, Gregory Kenneth Lull

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

In this thesis, a genetic algorithm based on differential evolution (DE) is used to generate delta sigma modulator (DSM) noise transfer functions (NTFs). These NTFs outperform those generated by an iterative approach described by Schreier and implemented in the delsig Matlab toolbox. Several lowpass and bandpass DSMs, as well as DSM's designed specifically for and very low intermediate frequency (VLIF) receivers are designed using the algorithm developed in this thesis and compared to designs made using the delsig toolbox. The NTFs designed using the DE algorithm always have a higher dynamic range and signal to noise ratio than those designed …

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Maximize Our Missions Mui Tsai, Missionaries And Material Representation, Michelle A Lettieri Jan 2006

Maximize Our Missions Mui Tsai, Missionaries And Material Representation, Michelle A Lettieri

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

This study sheds light on the contributions of American Protestant missionaries in parlaying their experiences gleaned from overseas Chinese assignments in establishing domestic mission programs in America aimed at "saving" Chinese girls. In doing so, female missionaries built institutions and launched social programs that used the mui tsai (Chinese domestic servants), their experiences, and their transformation from "heathen to Christian" as a material representation of the success and necessity of domestic and overseas Chinese missionary ventures. In doing so, missionary women constructed national and transnational networks armed with the goal of maximizing their missions and Christianizing China. Although this study …

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