Digital Commons Network^™

Romeo Bones, Ron Paul Salutsky

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Romeo Bones is a collection of verse exclusively composed while the poet was a graduate student in the Creative Writing International Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The manuscript has three primary divisions---and two intercalary---which respectively confront otherness, subjectivity, and past/present self, each not to exclude the others' resonance.

The Reading Span Test And Its Predictive Power For Reading Comprehension Among Young And Old Adults, Paul James Schroeder

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Although many researchers appear to agree on the usefulness of both simple and complex span tasks, many disagree on the specifics of how or why they measure working memory. The following paper considers competing theories of the relationship between working memory tasks and higher order cognitive function. Consideration is given to simple and complex measures of working memory, various theories about them, and theories based on research within the cognitive aging domain. Subsequent discussion reports the findings from a new study aimed at resolving disagreements about the relationship between lower and higher level cognitive abilities in college-age and older adults.

Opihi Tales, Melissa L Llanes Brownlee

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Opihi Tales began as a geographical and psychological discovery of the Big Island of Hawaii, and has evolved into an internal exploration of the conflicts between my Hawaiian heritage and American culture, including the hypnotic sway of the "American Dream" and the heavy hand of Mormonism. Also, permeating my collection are the influences of Plantation culture. Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, and Portuguese words and ideas are woven into Opihi Tales as the people themselves have been woven into the lives of the natives they lived and worked beside in the fields. Language is an essential element of Opihi Tales. In order …

The Relationship Between Employee Tone Of Voice And Customer Attitudes, Jae Kyung Park

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

As a concierge supervisor at a five-star hotel in South Korea, I was exposed to a concept from my superiors that a higher employee's tone of voice may increase customer attitudes. In the United States, tone of voice training was also found at a pizza pub, located in Illinois. The study identifies the causal relationship between the tone of voice and customer satisfaction, by an experiment method. By manipulating tone of voice and analyzing resulting customer attitudes reveals the relationship between the two variables; In this study, the result is contrary to the reasoning that derived from the observed industry …

Prehistoric Settlement And Land Use: A Predictive Model Of The Shivwits Plateau, Northwest Arizona, Glendee Ane Osborne

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

The objective of this research is to develop, test, and utilize a Geographic Information Systems based predictive model of prehistoric site location and settlement for the Shivwits Plateau in northwestern Arizona to better understand settlement patterns and land use across the region from the Archaic to Protohistoric period. The GIS data are used to determine site location probability for specific temporal phases of Virgin Anasazi cultural activity. The database includes previously recorded sites, vegetation, elevation, aspect, slope, and water resources which are integrated to establish probable patterns of land use and settlement; My thesis examines two research questions. First, is …

On Breaking Ground: Second Language Literacy And Language Learning Through Sociocultural Practices, Ana Christina Iddings

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

This study was concerned with (a) how second language children actually learn as a result of their social interactions; (b) the learning trajectory of second language students from apprentice to full participation in communities of practice; and (c) how this learning influences, and is reciprocally influenced by, the social, cultural, and historical context as learners become members of community practice. These questions were investigated under the lens of sociocultural theory, which emphasizes leaning in relationship with others and with materials over time within the social context; This was a qualitative study involving genetic methodology (Vygostky, 1981) which aims to understand, …

Critical Introductions To Pioneering Works Of Social Realism From The Early Abbey Theatre, John C Kerrigan

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation presents a critical study of five dramatic works first performed at Dublin's Abbey Theatre in the early twentieth century. The plays considered here have often been called masterpieces by critics, yet they have received little serious scholarly attention and today are forgotten relics of the Abbey's past. Nonetheless, these plays---Padraic Colum's Thomas Muskerry (1910), St. John Ervine's John Ferguson (1915), T. C. Murray's Autumn Fire (1924), Lennox Robinson's The Big House (1926), and Teresa Deevy's Katie Roche (1936)---formed a backbone for the fledgling national theater. They were successful because they attracted and engaged their audiences, but furthermore they …

A Middle School Treasury And An Okinawan Triptych, Tracy Ann Leslie

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

In the quest to expand the repertoire for the middle school band medium, arrangements of high musical value are always in demand. The focus of this document will be the expansion of middle school repertoire by arranging three Japanese folk songs from the island of Okinawa for middle school band: Tinsagunu hana, Jin jin and Endono hana and developing a warm up method for beginning, intermediate and advanced middle school bands. Included will be a complementary presentation of the Okinawan folk songs along with detailed descriptions of the way these folk songs were adapted for middle level students. Problems associated …

The Impact Of Interactive Factors On Romanian Students' Understanding Of Place Value, Madalina Tanase

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Students' mathematics achievement is believed to be influenced by a variety of factors (Brenner, Master of Engineering (ME), Herman S., Ho, H.Z. & Zimmer, J.M., 1999; Cai, C. 2000; Huntsinger, C. & J., P.E., 2000; Ma, 1999; Miura, 1987; Stevenson, L. & Stigler, J.W. 1986). As such, the performance gap in mathematics between students from different countries was attributed in turn, to the teachers' subject matter and pedagogical knowledge (Ma, 1999, Perry, 2000), curriculum development (Li, 2000; Valverde, Bianchi, Wolfe, Schmidt, Houang, 2002), native language (Miura, 1987), as well as parental raising and teaching strategies (Dornbush, Ritter, Leiderman, Roberts, & …

Elite Public Business Schools & Social Responsibility: A Search For Exemplars, Kimberly E Stott

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Cries for change have been heard by the nation's colleges and universities and their business schools, and reform is underway. Yet many continue to challenge the academy's readiness to meet modern challenges. How responsive are America's business schools to changing social needs? What lessons can they learn from the broader academic community of which they are apart? To answer these questions, we looked at the growing body of literature in these areas and queried six of this country's premiere public business schools directly. We found evidence to suggest that this nation's business schools are engaging with society and are doing …

Communicating The Meanings Of Cultural Artifacts: An Exploratory Study Of Orientation Units, Ryan David Theroux

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Understanding the meanings of cultural artifacts on college campuses can provide new students with a way of learning an institution's culture and values. To help communicate the meanings of cultural artifacts, new student orientation is a common activity that provides institutions, particularly orientation units, with an opportunity to acculturate first-year students into a collegiate environment. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how orientation directors and orientation leaders perceive their roles in communicating the meanings of cultural artifacts to first-year students at four public universities in California. In-depth and focus groups interviews were conducted with participants over the …

Preparing Special Educators: Infusing Multicultural Educational Practices And Lesson Planning In Pre-Student Teaching Fieldwork, Tyi-Sanna Jones

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

This study was designed to explore a model of teaching multicultural principles in special education pre-student teaching fieldwork. The ultimate goal was to ascertain the impact of model components on student knowledge, attitudes, and lesson plan design. Data were collected for 13 weeks during the special education pre-student teaching seminar. The data collection instruments were the Multicultural/Diversity Content Test (Ambrosio, 2000), the Multicultural/Diversity Scale-Revised (Ambrosio, 1998), and the Lesson Plan Assessment (Ambrosio, Hogan, & Miller, 1999). The Special Education pre-student teachers participated in 13 multicultural/diversity lectures/lessons as well as 25% of the participants were observed in their pre-student teaching fieldwork; …

Efficacy Of Integral Stimulation Therapy In A Case With Childhood Apraxia Of Speech, Allison Jill Moore

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Educational Practices Of Elementary Educators With Culturally Diverse Students: A Case Study, Danielle Rae Waldrep

All ETDs from UAB

No abstract provided.

A Rhetoric Of Resolution: The Limits Of Competition, Michael Schandorf

All ETDs from UAB

The idea of competition underlies most all Western cultural practices making conflict inevitable, but understanding the world in terms of constant, perpetual competition limits the development of lasting, adaptive, and constructive solutions to human problems and conflicts. While competition serves the vital functions of quality control and the identification of best practices, the function of “Competition” as a god term betrays a misunderstanding of both the value and process of competition as an instrument, and demonstrates how human conceptualization, mediated by language, can direct the development and acquisition of knowledge into narrow channels and exclude ways of understanding that are …

Techniques For Context-Free Grammar Induction And Applications, Faizan Javed

All ETDs from UAB

Grammar Inference is the process of learning a grammar from examples, either positive (i.e., the grammar generates the string) and/or negative (i.e., the grammar does not generate the string). Although grammar inference has been successfully applied to many diverse domains such as speech recognition and robotics, its application to software engineering has been limited. This research investigates the applicability of grammar inference to software engineering and programming language development challenge problems, where grammar inference offers an innovative solution to the problem, while remaining tractable and within the scope of that problem. Specifically, the following challenges are addressed in this research: …

Distinguishing Among Recollection, Familiarity, And Uncertainty: Categorizing The Subjective Basis For Memory Retrieval, Leigh Grace Rougeou

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Building A New Generation Of Online Public History Resources: Promise And Problems Identified In The Development Of The Abraham Lincoln Historical Digitization Project, Drew Vandecreek

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

This article describes the development of the Lincoln/Net web site at Northern Illinois University Libraries. It argues that to date academic historians have largely used digital technology and the web to advance research, while ignoring their potential for reaching a large public. As a digital library project that also presents original interpretive works discussing the context in which primary source materials were created, Lincoln/Net can serve as an example of an important new form of public history.

The Role Of Community-Based Programs In Addressing Health Disparities As It Relates To Breast And Cervical Cancer In African American Women: A Systematic Review Of Studies, Rashaan Anderson

All ETDs from UAB

In an effort to extrapolate the detail intricacies of how community-based programs impact public health a systematic review of the literature was performed. This research will examine ways in which community based programs reduce health disparities in breast and cervical cancer in African American women. The primary mechanism used to identify appropriate citations for systematic review and inclusion was performed using the PubMed, CINAHL, MEDLINE, EMBASE, CancerLit and PsychINFO online databases. Key-word searches to be included for were the terms community, community based participatory research, community-based organizations, community coalitions, non for profit organizations, action plan, action research, grassroots organizations, community …

Писатели О Языке: Contemporary Russian Writers On The Language Question, Ingunn Lunde

Russian Language Journal

Post-perestroika Russian society exhibits a pronounced concern with the language question. Linguistic issues are discussed at all levels of society, and a great many people engage in these debates: politicians, philologists, teachers, journalists, writers, students, bloggers, and others. Newspapers and journals feature columns or article series devoted to language; conferences discuss “the state of the Russian language”; the state sponsors a large number of radio and television programmes on language and language culture; various centres and institutions offer programmes promoting linguistic cultivation; there are information services on linguistic questions on the Internet; many blogs deal with the language question.

The Poetics Of Paraphrase: The Positivist Postmodernism In Mikhail Gasparov’S “Experimental Translations”, Heinrich Kirschbaum

Russian Language Journal

Two years before his death, Mikhail Gasparov (1935-2005) published his “Ėksperimental’nye perevody” (2003, “Experimental Translations,” or ETs), an anthology of translated works by authors from different time periods and literary traditions. The ETs are experimental in many ways: in some of his condensed translations, Gasparov shortens the originals drastically, in some cases by 80 percent. However, the ETs are not only experimental due to Gasparov’s new “technique of translation,” but also thanks to the choice of the originals to be translated. In addition to Hölderlin and Kavafis, Gasparov translates Pushkin and Lermontov from Russian to Russian, shortening and paraphrasing them …

Преподавание Литературы В Советской Школе 1960 -70-Х Гг. И Современная Поэзия (Тимур Кибиров, Всеволод Емелин), Елена Маркасова

Russian Language Journal

Разделение функций разных гуманитарных наук, сложившееся в обществе, предполагает несовместимость объектов изучения, заявленных в названии этой работы: проблемами изучения советской школы занимаются историк, педагог, методист, психолог, социолог, антрополог, а современную поэзию исследует филолог. В связи с этим есть необходимость охарактеризовать и сам материал, и методы его анализа, и мотивы объединения в исследовании литературоведческого и социокультурного подходов.

On The Satirical Counter-Discourse Of Processed Cheese, Lara Ryazanova-Clarke

Russian Language Journal

The post-Soviet period presents an illuminating picture of competition taking place between different public discourses for meaning construction and articulation. It has been observed that after an initial period when the public narrative of the nation experienced fragmentation, and, using Pierre Bourdieu’s term, went through a period of heterodoxy during the last decade―roughly corresponding with the presidency of Vladimir Putin―it has displayed the growing characteristics of orthodoxy, with its centrally produced “common sense” meanings and assumptions.

«Не Трожь Молодежь!»: A Portrait Of Urban Youthspeak And The Russian Language In The 21st Century, Thomas J. Garza

Russian Language Journal

As the reality of a shattered Soviet empire began to enter the collective Russian consciousness in the early 1990s, the effects of a multiplicity of previously forbidden global influences began to emerge in virtually every arena of the new post-Soviet society, including within the Russian language itself. From mass media to commerce to politics, the language began to show the effects of the assimilation of previously unfamiliar lexicon and situational usage, as well as of the introduction of non-Russian neologisms in substantial numbers.

Эволюция Русской Языковой Картины Мира И Культура Речи, Алексей Шмелёв

Russian Language Journal

Среди самых разных слоев современного российского общества широко распространено мнение, согласно которому за последние два десятилетия русская речь подвергается серьезным изменениям. Когда обсуждают языковые изменения последнего времени, чаще всего говорят об изменениях речевого этикета, о том, что жаргонные и просторечные слова стали а ктивно и спользоваться в с редствах м ассовой и нформации и в публичной речи политических деятелей, о постепенном снятии табу на скверноматерную брань, о наплыве иноязычных заимствований. В связи с явлениями такого рода журналисты часто бьют тревогу по поводу «порчи языка». Лингвисты, как правило, обыкновенно занимают более взвешенную позицию и, соглашаясь с т ем, ч то н …

Failing Students Or Failing Schools?: Holding States Accountable For The High School Dropout Crisis, Deborah N. Archer

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Expanding Composition's Scope: Community-Based Literacy And Second-Language Writing, Carolina Pelaez-Morales

Masters Theses

There is little research from either Composition Studies or Second-Language Studies on the development of writing competence among English language learners, paiiicularly adult learners outside academia. In response to this need, I conducted a case study of a small group of Spanish-native speakers as they learned English through a volunteer-based community program in a small Midwestern town. This project establishes the role writing plays in a community of second-language learners-primarily motivated by economic factors to learn English-and it shows ways in which the development of writing competence can enhance overall language proficiency. Also, this study calls for further research in …

Crawford, Davis, And Way Beyond, Richard D. Friedman

Journal of Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

"I See By This Woman's Features, That She Is Capable Of Any Wickedness": Murderous Women, Public Justice, And The Social Order In London, 1674-1799, Annie Tock

Masters Theses

Crime held a certain fascination for eighteenth-century Londoners. They devoured case summaries, ballads, broadsides, pamphlets, and collections of criminal biographies. In addition, they flocked to Tyburn Tree to witness the malefactors hang for their crimes. Then, like now, murders were appalling, but murders committed by women were especially shocking. While part of the interest in murderesses is attributable to their relative rarity, eighteenth century Londoners were also concerned with the implications of deviant women on the state of their society. This was a culture that firmly believed that women's subordination to men was critical to the maintenance of order. In …

Automated Estimation Of Time Codes For Captioning Digital Media, Daniel P. Harvey Ii

Masters Theses

Captioning provides accessibility to media resources for deaf and hearingimpaired persons and is mandated by federal and state laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act. However, the process of creating synchronized captions for media is time consuming and labor intensive. Consequently, many content providers still do not incorporate captions into media presentations on the web.

In this research, algorithms were developed to automate part of the captioning process by estimating the timing of captions for web-based audio and video files using plain-text transcripts and their corresponding audio recordings. Recordings used in this study were of professional speakers/readers from American …