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2006

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No Fine End For A Modern Day Alice In Transit, Lisa Brooks Markowitz Jan 2006

No Fine End For A Modern Day Alice In Transit, Lisa Brooks Markowitz

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

To the reader---; How I live is a giant writing thing, even when I'm not writing. There is always breath, both shallow and deep, and somewhere, wet jackets, sides of the same world. It is about the blob, mostly because all of this has been written and said but for the ghost that follows me around. What matters most finds us when we are open, the way a flower opens up for the Sun I write because I don't have a choice, the way Alice had to go through Wonderland before she could get out. What is left, having left …

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Estimating The Indirect Gaming Contribution Of Poker Rooms: Is Poker Room Volume A Peripheral Driver Of Slot Revenue?, Bruce Warren Ollstein Jan 2006

Estimating The Indirect Gaming Contribution Of Poker Rooms: Is Poker Room Volume A Peripheral Driver Of Slot Revenue?, Bruce Warren Ollstein

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

This paper examines the effect of poker room volume on slot revenue. Using data from a destination market casino on The Las Vegas Strip, slot coin-in and poker room rake are compared over a 212 day period. With rake as the independent variable and coin in as the dependent variable, a causal model is established that demonstrates a statistically significant connection between the two. Somewhat surprisingly, poker room volume does serve as a legitimate driver of slot revenue. This study advances the literature by establishing this relationship and determining that poker room volume has an indirect income effect on at …

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Tensile Properties, Fracture Toughness And Crack Growth Study Of Alloy C-276, Joydeep Pal Jan 2006

Tensile Properties, Fracture Toughness And Crack Growth Study Of Alloy C-276, Joydeep Pal

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

The results of tensile testing involving austenitic Alloy C-276 indicated that this material is capable of maintaining adequate structural strength at temperatures relevant to the H2SO4 decomposition process related to the nuclear hydrogen generation. This alloy exhibited a unique phenomenon known as dynamic strain aging, which has been studied as a function of both temperature and strain rate. An average value of 55 KJ/mole has been determined to be the activation energy for plastic deformation under tensile loading at different temperatures. Increased crack extension was observed in wedge-loaded double-cantilever-beam specimens exposed to an acidic solution and subjected to higher initial …

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Robust Speaker Identification Using Artificial Neural Networks, Madhavan Sivathanu Pillai Jan 2006

Robust Speaker Identification Using Artificial Neural Networks, Madhavan Sivathanu Pillai

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

This research mainly focuses on recognizing the speakers through their speech samples. Numerous "Text-Dependent" or "Text-Independent" algorithms have been developed by people so far, to recognize the speaker from his/her speech. In this thesis, we concentrate on the recognition of the speaker from the fixed text i.e. "Text-Dependent". Possibility of extending this method to variable text i.e. "Text-Independent" is also analyzed. Different feature extraction algorithms are employed and their performance with Artificial Neural Networks as a Data Classifier on a fixed training set is analyzed. We find a way to combine all these individual feature extraction algorithms by incorporating their …

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Security Protocol Based On Random Key Generation For An Rfid System, Karthik Raghavan Jan 2006

Security Protocol Based On Random Key Generation For An Rfid System, Karthik Raghavan

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a technology, which describes the transmission of unique information by a wireless device, over Radio waves, when prompted or read by a compatible reader; The basic components in implementing RFID are RFID tags which are small microchips attached to a radio antenna, mounted on a substrate, and a wireless transceiver/reader that queries the RFID tags; This thesis deals with research issues related to security aspects in the communication between an RFID tag and its reader. More precisely, it deals with a new, simple and efficient security protocol based on an encryption that uses the concept …

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The Forgotten Chinese Cemetery Of Carlin Nevada: A Bioanthropological Assessment, Ryan William Schmidt Jan 2006

The Forgotten Chinese Cemetery Of Carlin Nevada: A Bioanthropological Assessment, Ryan William Schmidt

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

The investigation of historical cemeteries enables direct assessment of biological variability, health and disease, and additional insights into populations that have gone relatively undocumented in North America and elsewhere. This thesis examines a historic cemetery located in northern Nevada, in the town of Carlin. A total of 13 well-preserved skeletal individuals were excavated in 1996, all buried within coffins and whose Chinese origin has been confirmed through historical documentation and associated artifacts (Chung et al. 2005). Although the sample size is small, it provides a number of important insights into the health and behavior of early Chinese-American communities, including dental …

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Converting Ccsd Prototype Elementary School Into Leed(Tm) Rated Building, Jagandeep Singh Jan 2006

Converting Ccsd Prototype Elementary School Into Leed(Tm) Rated Building, Jagandeep Singh

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

The study focuses on researching whether CCSD Prototype Elementary School can be turned into a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) building without major design modifications, to the materials and orientation of the builDing The study discusses the need for a prototype building, which might not be suitable for the site. The study discusses the need of green building, the major green building rating systems in use today and the reasons for choosing LEED. LEED rating system was studied in detail and the prototype elementary school building was evaluated over the LEED criteria. Then the school building was recommended …

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The Presidential Performance Of George W. Bush As A Visual Construct, Kristen Allen Stetzenbach Jan 2006

The Presidential Performance Of George W. Bush As A Visual Construct, Kristen Allen Stetzenbach

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine George W. Bush's performance as President of the United States through mediated visual messages. In this paper performance will be conceptualized using a content analysis method. This paper presents the notion that presidential performance and the job of being president are linked. The study is meant to watch President Bush and document his appearances as seen through mediated images. The New York Times' front pages from George W. Bush's first inauguration in January 2001 up to his re-election and second oath of office in 2005 were analyzed for six categories of visual …

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Identification And Comparison Of Crash Risk For Older Drivers, Vamsi K Surapaneni Jan 2006

Identification And Comparison Of Crash Risk For Older Drivers, Vamsi K Surapaneni

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

The focus of this research is to identify risk factors for older drivers (drivers of age greater than 65 years) involved in motor vehicle crashes and compare the risk factors with those for other age groups. Developing such risk factors helps in better understanding the causes of crashes involving older drivers. The risk factors are developed based on analyses of network characteristics and other related factors which have an impact on rate of crashes involving older drivers. The factors evaluated include crash severity, collision type, contributing factors, functional class and road class. Other information included in the analyses includes demographic …

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Interference Reduced Routing For Sensor Networks, Min-Kyaw N Tun Jan 2006

Interference Reduced Routing For Sensor Networks, Min-Kyaw N Tun

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Construction of interference reduced routes is an all-important problem in sensor network. We propose a model for extracting a small size backbone network from a given background network. The extracted network possesses the property of reduced static interference. A backbone structure, constructed on the top of a planar sensor network can be used to route message with lower interference. We propose two centralized algorithms for constructing the backbone network. The first algorithm is based on the spanning tree construction of inner holes of sensor network. The second algorithm builds the backbone network by using the Delaunay triangulation of the center …

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Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Rumble Strips In Reducing "Ran-Off-Roadway" Vehicle Crashes, Vinay Kumar Vanapalli Jan 2006

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Rumble Strips In Reducing "Ran-Off-Roadway" Vehicle Crashes, Vinay Kumar Vanapalli

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Single vehicle ran-off-roadway crashes are of significant concern in Nevada. The research efforts presented in this report summarize the evaluation of the effectiveness continuous shoulder rumble strips to reduce such crashes in Nevada. The efforts evaluated safety records on roadways in Nevada on which Continuous Shoulder Rumble Strips had been installed. Specifically, crash records involving "Single-Vehicle Ran-off-Roadway" crashes were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the Continuous Shoulder Rumble Strips treatment. The roadways studied include Interstate freeways, US Routes, and State Routes: 306 individual segments corresponding to a total of 1,303 centerline miles of roadways. Data for the period from …

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Design Of Personalized Location Areas For Future Pcs Networks, Radhika Varadarajan Jan 2006

Design Of Personalized Location Areas For Future Pcs Networks, Radhika Varadarajan

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

In Global Systems for Mobile Communications (GSM), always-update location strategy is used to keep track of mobile terminals within the network. However future Personal Communication Networks (PCS) will require to serve a wide range of services (digital voice, video, data, and email) and also will have to support a large population of users. Under such demands, determining the exact location of a user by traditional strategies would be difficult and would result in increasing the signaling load imposed by location-update and paging procedures. The problem is not only in increasing cost, but also in non-efficient utilization of a precious resource, …

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The Etiological Role Of Susto In Diabetes Among Hispanics In Southern Nevada, Carin K Wallace Jan 2006

The Etiological Role Of Susto In Diabetes Among Hispanics In Southern Nevada, Carin K Wallace

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

This thesis explores the association between susto, a Hispanic folk explanation of disease, and type 2 diabetes. This association is explored through a focus group and semi-structured interviews, with participants recruited from a population of 300 diabetes patients under treatment by a local non-profit group. Results show that not only is susto thought to be an important cause of diabetes among Hispanic diabetics and their family members, but that the meaning of susto may be changing; no longer thought of as solely a frightful event, it is a description of the resulting emotions as well. The role of emotions such …

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Broadway In The Desert: Defining Success For The Broadway Musical On The Las Vegas Strip, Jane C Walsh Jan 2006

Broadway In The Desert: Defining Success For The Broadway Musical On The Las Vegas Strip, Jane C Walsh

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

This thesis will focus on the Broadway musical and its introduction onto the Las Vegas Strip, its growth in popularity as a viable entertainment choice for the tourist industry, and its current affiliation with specific resorts. Several Broadway musicals will be examined in an effort to discover elements contributing toward their success. I will briefly reflect upon the history of Broadway musicals as related to the Las Vegas Strip. Next I will explore the recent trend of resort casinos investing in venues aimed at housing a specific musical. The majority of my research information will be obtained from interviews, local …

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Statistical Modeling Via Empirical Recurrence Rate, Hui Wang Jan 2006

Statistical Modeling Via Empirical Recurrence Rate, Hui Wang

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

A key parameter, most sought after by the modelers of reliability, is the failure rate of a targeted repairable system. Popular modeling techniques based on a point process such as the Power-law process often are handicapped by the requirement of a monotonic failure rate. In this thesis, we show the potential of building a linking bridge between the traditional homogeneous and nonhomogeneous Poisson processes and the classical time series via a sequence of the empirical recurrence rates, calculated at equally spaced intervals of time. The distinctive signature, marking the unique failure pattern of a repairable system, is displayed with an …

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An Improved Algorithm For Deinterlacing Video Streams, Christopher Weiss Jan 2006

An Improved Algorithm For Deinterlacing Video Streams, Christopher Weiss

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

The MPEG-4 standard for computerized video incorporates the concept of a video object pLane While in the simplest case this can be the full rectangular frame, the standard supports a hierarchical set of arbitrary shaped planes, one for each content sensitive video object. Herein is proposed a method for extracting arbitrary planes from video that does not already contain video object plane information; Deinterlacing is the process of taking two video fields, each at half the height of the finalized image frame, and combining them into that finalized frame. As the fields are not captured simultaneously, temporal artifacts may result. …

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Answers The Dog Whispered, Allison Marie Wilkins Jan 2006

Answers The Dog Whispered, Allison Marie Wilkins

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

A woman writing must learn to fuse all of her identities in order to be true to herself and her writing. She must think about the issues that affect all women, and then she must decide how to handle them herself. These issues are what make up the body of poetry in "Answers the Dog Whispered". The poems are about answering the questions that life asks of a woman; The poems range in topic from motherhood to grief, erotic love to family, relationships to writing. Their common unifying theme is a strong woman's voice that pushes the boundaries between the …

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Literature Based Discovery: Techniques And Tools, Ramalakshmi Sundar Jan 2006

Literature Based Discovery: Techniques And Tools, Ramalakshmi Sundar

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Literature Based Discovery (LBD) was initially proposed by Don R. Swanson in 1980 as a method to establish relationships between disease and remedy from disjoint science literature. Consequently, he established a link between magnesium and migraines. Since then literature based discovery has been a subject of research and development for discovery in online medical publications. It has further been investigated in both chemistry and mathematics; In this thesis, we give an overview of LBD and the software tools necessary to automate this technique. We further provide an implementation of this technique that is intended to be used for computer science …

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The Struggle For Dignity: Mexican-Americans In The Pacific Northwest, 1900--2000, James Michael Slone Jan 2006

The Struggle For Dignity: Mexican-Americans In The Pacific Northwest, 1900--2000, James Michael Slone

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

This thesis explores the struggle for political, social, and labor rights waged by the Mexican and Mexican-American people in the Pacific Northwest. Drawing on earlier histories, social studies, census materials, interviews and newspapers articles spanning the twentieth century, the paper locates the roots of the community in the early twentieth century and details the organizing activities of farm workers, the direct political action of students, and the efforts of the whole community to attain political representation, economic power, and some measure of hard earned dignity. This study is equal parts political history, social history, and labor history, ultimately indicting an …

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Jesus' Shadow, Meredith Lee Stewart Jan 2006

Jesus' Shadow, Meredith Lee Stewart

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

The poems in this collection are mainly drawn from personal experience, especially the experience of place as seen through the perspective of the "I." Many of the poems have overtly spiritual themes. I envision even those poems that aren't overtly spiritual as being prayer-like because both prayer and poetry require a connection to something outside the self as well as deep honesty about the self; There are some poems in this collection that are inspired mainly by research rather than personal experience. I focused much of this research on women's issues and bringing to light women who have been overlooked …

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Alpha Particle Transport In Voxelized Trabecular Bone Images, George Tabatadze Jan 2006

Alpha Particle Transport In Voxelized Trabecular Bone Images, George Tabatadze

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Alpha particles are of current interest in radionuclide therapy due to their short range and high rates of energy transfer to target tissues. Published values of alpha-particle absorbed fractions in skeletal tissues do not vary with particle energy, cellularity or skeletal site. To correct for this, absorbed fractions are calculated using Monte Carlo techniques in 3D voxelized images. In this study absorbed fraction values are acquired for deep marrow (TAM), shallow marrow (TAMS), and trabecular bone volume (TBV) targets for a broad energy spectrum of alpha particles originating in the TAM, TAMs, and TBV of 33 voxelized images. Additionally the …

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Ubiquitous Health Monitoring System For Seniors, Kamesh Khanna Andisamy Vijayakumar Jan 2006

Ubiquitous Health Monitoring System For Seniors, Kamesh Khanna Andisamy Vijayakumar

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

The Ubiquitous Health Monitoring System for Seniors is a prototype for an implantable module that is designed to eliminate critical delays in receiving medical attention upon the development of a heart attack. In particular, the prototype is to detect the onset of heart attacks in real time, and to use a Bluetooth wireless link to signal the patient's mobile phone to dial emergency personnel in the event of an abnormality. The unit also records and logs the temperature of the user. Since the unit holds a GPS in it the current position of the user can be constantly monitored and …

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Application Of Computational Fluid Dynamics For High Energy Efficiency Design With Human Comfort Of Cad-Vav And Ufad Systems, Bhanu Rekha Bandhakavi Jan 2006

Application Of Computational Fluid Dynamics For High Energy Efficiency Design With Human Comfort Of Cad-Vav And Ufad Systems, Bhanu Rekha Bandhakavi

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

This thesis deals with the numerical simulation of the ceiling air distribution (CAD) system and the Under Floor Air Distribution (UFAD) system based on the dimensions of BTLab at UNLV. Ceiling Air Distribution (CAD) with variable air volume (VAV) and Under Floor Air Distribution (UFAD) systems have been widely used in different countries. CAD-VAV and UFAD systems designs have been influenced by increasing emphasis on indoor air quality (IAQ), energy conservation, environmental effects, safety, and economics. So, 3-D Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis technique was applied to design high energy efficiency and human comfort CAD-VAV and UFAD systems. The goal …

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Acculturation And Sexuality: Investigating Gender Differences In Erotic Plasticity, Lorraine Benuto Jan 2006

Acculturation And Sexuality: Investigating Gender Differences In Erotic Plasticity, Lorraine Benuto

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Baumeister's theory on female erotic plasticity is supported by a significant body of data that suggests that female sexuality is more malleable than male sexuality and thus more greatly influenced by external factors. Seeking to test Baumeister's theory, this study examined the potential differential impact of the acculturation process on the sexual attitudes and experiences of 188 college men and 310 college women. Sexual attitudes and experiences were measured using the Derogatis Sexual Functioning Inventory and acculturation level was determined using the General Ethnicity Questionnaire. Between-gender analyses revealed that the acculturation process did not have more of a liberalizing effect …

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Residential Lead Hazards, Nutritional Deficiencies, And Socio-Cultural Factors Related To Hispanic Children With Blood Lead Levels Greater Than Or Equal To Five Micrograms Per Deciliter, Elena E Cabb Jan 2006

Residential Lead Hazards, Nutritional Deficiencies, And Socio-Cultural Factors Related To Hispanic Children With Blood Lead Levels Greater Than Or Equal To Five Micrograms Per Deciliter, Elena E Cabb

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

One of the most significant public health successes during the late 20th century was the reduction of blood lead levels among children in the United States. However, lead continues to be a public health issue because it often affects minority children of lower socioeconomic status, who live in older homes. Young children are especially susceptible to the harmful affects of lead due to their vulnerable developmental state. According to research, the most common sources of lead exposure for U.S. children are lead-based paint and lead-contaminated dust in the home; This study examined residential lead hazards, nutritional deficiencies, and socio-cultural factors …

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Arima Models For Forecasting Poisson Process Observations: Application To The Volcanoes Worldwide, Heng-Wei Cheng Jan 2006

Arima Models For Forecasting Poisson Process Observations: Application To The Volcanoes Worldwide, Heng-Wei Cheng

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

A nonhomogeneous Poisson process (NHPP) is often appropriate for the modeling of a series of events that occur over time in a nonstationary fashion. A major difficulty with the NHPP is that it has infinitely many forms for the intensity function. In this thesis, we propose a linking bridge between a point process and the classical time series via a sequence of the empirical recurrence rates (ERR), calculated sequentially at equidistant time intervals. The distinctive technique is demonstrated with an ERR-plot, designed to fingerprint the temporal pattern of a point process. Moreover, Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) models are presented …

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Gambling Behavior And The Five Factor Model Of Personality, Edward W Crossman Jan 2006

Gambling Behavior And The Five Factor Model Of Personality, Edward W Crossman

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Recent research has correlated gambling with age, gender, ethnicity and various specific personality traits. No previous research has examined the predictive value that the Five-factor model of personality may lend to level of gambling. The Five-factor model argues that variation in human personality can be largely captured along five dimensions: Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness (Costa & McCrae, 1992). The current study examined the relationship between level of gambling and the Five-factor model of personality in a sample of college students. Regression analysis was used to determine if any of the dimensions of the Five-factor model predict …

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Evaluating Educational Web Sites, Denber Rey S Cruz Jan 2006

Evaluating Educational Web Sites, Denber Rey S Cruz

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

A rubric was created to compare and contrast Web sites based on four criteria: (a) technical aspect, (b) types of content available, (c) authority and, (d) accessibility. The rubric was designed to compare sites to one another. The sites were also grouped into categories: (a) higher education sites, (b) content sites, (c) commercial sites, (d) school districts. The categories were also compared to each other; To compare the sites to each other, a percentage score was given for each of the four criteria. A total percentage score was also given to each site. The score for all of the sites …

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Analysis And Evaluation Of Field Retroreflectivity Performance Of Pavement Marking Materials At Various Test Deck Locations In The Us, Siddharth David Jan 2006

Analysis And Evaluation Of Field Retroreflectivity Performance Of Pavement Marking Materials At Various Test Deck Locations In The Us, Siddharth David

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Pavement markings are one of the most important elements of traffic control on roadways. They are lines used on a roadway to warn and direct drivers and to control traffic operations on highways and streets. Pavement markings are typically white and yellow in color depending on usage. Different types of materials are used in the manufacture of pavement markings, including paint, tape, epoxy, thermoplastic, and preformed thermoplastics. Performance measures used to evaluate pavement markings include retroreflectivity, color, and durability; In the US, the National Transportation Product Evaluation Program (NTPEP), administered by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials …

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A Doctor's Conscience: Conventional And Reflective Morality In Clinical Decision Making, John Elliot Delap Jan 2006

A Doctor's Conscience: Conventional And Reflective Morality In Clinical Decision Making, John Elliot Delap

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

This work examines ethical theories of deontology, teleology, internal and external morality as applied in conventional and reflective moral methods towards equilibrium among eight normative values for healthcare including: autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, justice, privacy, confidentiality, veracity and fidelity. Upon critical analysis of conventional and reflective moral praxis's both are found to be insufficient in accommodating value pluralism. This work concludes by outlining a hybrid model for ethical decision making complementing both theories by bringing together conventions and reflection to more effectively guide professional medical practice toward the teleological aim of medicine.

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