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2008

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Romeo Bones, Ron Paul Salutsky Jan 2008

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.

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Brand Personality And Destination Image Of Istanbul: A Comparison Across Nationalities, Safak Sahin Jan 2008

Brand Personality And Destination Image Of Istanbul: A Comparison Across Nationalities, Safak Sahin

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

This study is intended to measure brand personality and destination image of Istanbul (Istanbul, Turkey) and compare the perceived image and personality across different nationalities. A representative sample of 334 tourists was surveyed while visiting Istanbul and 272 usable surveys were analyzed in SPSS 15. The survey instrument included quantitative and qualitative (open ended) items to better grasp the visitors' individual perceptions. Respondents were grouped into four segments depending on the geographic and cultural proximity of their nationalities: USA, UK, Europe, and East Asia. Factor analysis was conducted to find underlying image and personality dimensions. Next ANOVA was conducted to …

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Thermal Modeling Of A High Concentration Photovoltaic System, Aaron M Sahm Jan 2008

Thermal Modeling Of A High Concentration Photovoltaic System, Aaron M Sahm

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

A two-dimensional numerical model was developed to simulate a single chamber with an array of cells for a high concentration photovoltaic system. Gambit was used to generate the computational mesh and Fluent was used to obtain the numerical simulation results. The cells were treated as heat sources with efficiencies that change as a function of temperature. Initially a simulation was run with an assumed cell efficiency of 25%. After the maximum temperature was determined, the cell efficiency was calculated and input into the model to recalculate the temperature solution. Radiation and convection modes of heat transfer were the primary focus …

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Using Mortality Salience To Increase Procedural Fairness In The Penalty Phase Of Capital Trials, Jared A Shoemaker Jan 2008

Using Mortality Salience To Increase Procedural Fairness In The Penalty Phase Of Capital Trials, Jared A Shoemaker

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Previous research suggests that jurors are more likely to emphasize aggravating circumstances and disregard mitigating circumstances during the sentencing phase of capital cases. This is not only contrary to the ideals of procedural fairness espoused in most death penalty statutes, but it also increases a capital defendant's likelihood of receiving the death penalty; The current study explores whether mortality salience and worldview defense, key components of terror management theory, can increase procedural fairness in capital cases by increasing jurors' attention to mitigating circumstances. This is achieved through a factorial-design jury simulation in which mock jurors are exposed to varying levels …

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The Reading Span Test And Its Predictive Power For Reading Comprehension Among Young And Old Adults, Paul James Schroeder Jan 2008

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.

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Veterinary Technology Graduates' Perception Of Preparedness And Utilization In The Workforce, Melissa Ann Schalles Jan 2008

Veterinary Technology Graduates' Perception Of Preparedness And Utilization In The Workforce, Melissa Ann Schalles

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

This is a descriptive study to determine the perceptions of the Associate of Applied Science graduates of the Veterinary Technology program at the College of Southern Nevada on their preparedness for and utilization in the veterinary workforce. These graduates complete an accredited program which follows the guidelines on the essential and recommended skills list identified and approved by the American Veterinary Medical Association's Committee on Veterinary Technician Education and Activities (AVMA/CVTEA); This study allowed the researcher to review the current curriculum at the College of Southern Nevada by reporting data from annual graduate follow-up surveys to confirm the curriculum complements …

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Efficient Broadcasting By Selective Forwarding, Balaji Ashok Sathyanarayanan Jan 2008

Efficient Broadcasting By Selective Forwarding, Balaji Ashok Sathyanarayanan

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

A major challenge faced in MANETs is locating the devices for communication, especially with high node mobility and sparse node density. Present solutions provided by the ad hoc routing protocols range from flooding [1] the entire network with route requests, to deploying a separate location management scheme to maintain a device location database. Many applications as well as various unicast routing protocols such as Dynamic Source Routing (DSR), Ad Hoc On Demand Distance Vector (AODV), Zone Routing Protocol (ZRP), and Location Aided Routing (LAR) use broadcasting or a derivation of it. Flooding, which is often deployed to achieve the above …

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A Mathematical Model For Computerized Car Crash Detection Using Computer Vision Techniques, Dawn Marie Strianese Jan 2008

A Mathematical Model For Computerized Car Crash Detection Using Computer Vision Techniques, Dawn Marie Strianese

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

My proposed approach to the automatic detection of traffic accidents in a signalized intersection is presented here. In this method, a digital camera is strategically placed to view the entire intersection. The images are captured, processed and analyzed for the presence of vehicles and pedestrians in the proposed detection zones. Those images are further processed to detect if an accident has occurred; The mathematical model presented is a Poisson distribution that predicts the number of accidents in an intersection per week, which can be used as approximations for modeling the crash process. We believe that the crash process can be …

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Cognitive Processing In Women With Dyspareunia: What Is More Salient, The Pain Or The Sex?, Lea Thaler Jan 2008

Cognitive Processing In Women With Dyspareunia: What Is More Salient, The Pain Or The Sex?, Lea Thaler

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

A debate exists in the literature over whether dyspareunia should be classified as a sexual dysfunction or as a pain disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. We do not know, however, the extent to which women with this disorder experience it as more of a pain problem, or more of a sexual problem, or whether both aspects are equally salient. Cognitive methodologies have been informative in the study of sexual information and stimulus processing. By examining visual attention and basic memory for pain- and sex-related words, this study aimed to elucidate whether there was a differential …

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Viewing The Opposite Sex Through Lifestyle Magazines: An Exploratory Study, Danielle M Thorsen Jan 2008

Viewing The Opposite Sex Through Lifestyle Magazines: An Exploratory Study, Danielle M Thorsen

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

This study is an exploratory study examining the use of traditional stereotypical gender roles and themes projected in the problem pages of Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Maxim, and Men's Health from 2007. This study is grounded in functionalist feminist media theory and is supplemented by normative theory. The findings show that women's lifestyle magazine problem pages lean more heavily towards traditional gender stereotypes, whereas men's lifestyle magazine problem pages rely on less traditional gender stereotypes. This is partially attributed to a similar formula used in both genders' problem pages, encouraging a traditionally stereotypical female approach to both men's and women's problems.

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Overlapping Layers For Prolonging Network Life Time In Multi-Hop Wireless Sensor Networks, Hongyan Wang Jan 2008

Overlapping Layers For Prolonging Network Life Time In Multi-Hop Wireless Sensor Networks, Hongyan Wang

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Wireless sensor networks have been proposed as a practical solution for a wide range of applications due to their benefits of low cost, rapid deployment, self-organization capability, and cooperative data-processing. Many applications, such as military surveillance and habitat monitoring, require the deployment of large-scale sensor networks. A highly scalable and fault-tolerant network architecture, the Progressive Multi-hop Rotational Clustered (PMRC) structure has been proposed, which is suitable for constructing large-scale wireless sensor networks. However, similar to other multi-hop structures, the PMRC structure also suffers from the bottleneck problem; This thesis is focused on solving the bottleneck problem existing in the PMRC …

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The Social Uses And Gratifications Of Text Messaging, Shayler Kimball White Jan 2008

The Social Uses And Gratifications Of Text Messaging, Shayler Kimball White

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

This study examines the social uses and gratifications of text messaging. The study consisted of a seventeen item survey that was given to 150 students on the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas between the ages of 18--31; I tested four hypotheses suggested that females were more likely than males to edit their messages before sending them (H1), use text because it is less engaging (H2), and use it to avoid an extended verbal conversation (H3) and that females use text messaging more than males (H4). A fifth hypothesis tested that text messaging is used more for personal …

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Analysis Of Stacked Retaining Walls, Layne David Weight Jan 2008

Analysis Of Stacked Retaining Walls, Layne David Weight

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Not much literature is available which addresses the analysis of stacked retaining walls. Many designers have developed undocumented and informal methods of analysis based on geotechnical theory, practical experience and intuition; This thesis presents and compares results from eight common methods of analysis: four methods based on limit equilibrium, three based on elastic theory, and one that is a combination of limit equilibrium and elastic theory. These eight different methods were used to analyze 64 different configurations of double-stacked cantilever retaining walls, including a double-stacked configuration that failed in 1992. In all, results from a total of 512 separate analyses …

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Activation Of Platelet-Activating Factor Acetylhydrolase By Proinflammatory Mediators, Mohammed Abdel-Al Jan 2008

Activation Of Platelet-Activating Factor Acetylhydrolase By Proinflammatory Mediators, Mohammed Abdel-Al

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Inflammation is a highly complex and beneficial response of the host innate immune system often characterized by redness or swelling of the infected area as a result of an injurious stimulus. The principal purpose of the inflammatory response is to rid the infected area of the noxious stimulus and hasten host recovery. Though the inflammatory response is both necessary and beneficial, if left unregulated, it can exact a devastating toll on the host. Thus, an understanding of the various mediators that are able to evoke an inflammatory response and the signaling of these mediators is crucial. One such mediator, central …

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Estimating The Effect Of The 2003 Illinois Gaming Tax Restructuring On Riverboat Gaming Volume, Mikael Ahlgren Jan 2008

Estimating The Effect Of The 2003 Illinois Gaming Tax Restructuring On Riverboat Gaming Volume, Mikael Ahlgren

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

This thesis analyzed the effect of the 2003 Illinois gaming tax increase on the states gaming demand. Slot machine coin-in was chosen to best represent gaming demand. Coin-in data was retrieved from Illinois Gaming Commission reflecting the period from January 2000 to December 2005; Multiple regression analysis with dummy variables was used to model both the tax increase and account for seasonality in the data. Because of autocorrelation issues, a Box Jenkins model was employed to address correlation of error terms; The findings revealed that Illinois experienced a decrease in gaming demand when the tax increases took effect. In spite …

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Which Way Does Your Beard Point Tonight? Ginsberg's Quest To Resurrect Whitman's America, James Altman Jan 2008

Which Way Does Your Beard Point Tonight? Ginsberg's Quest To Resurrect Whitman's America, James Altman

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Throughout his poetry, Allen Ginsberg is in continual dialogue with Walt Whitman. This thesis focuses on prominent differences in the evolving American character which made these two kindred spirits nevertheless different from each other. In Whitman's time the United States was concerned with the expansion of, and pushing back of, borders of all kinds. To Whitman, America was a collection of states less concerned with dominating the world than with welcoming it in, in every possible respect. By contrast, Ginsberg's America had gained a position of unimaginable world power. Yet to maintain that power, Cold War America had to close …

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Adult Autism Policy: An Analysis Of Current Policy And Legislation In The Us, Maren A Bennett Jan 2008

Adult Autism Policy: An Analysis Of Current Policy And Legislation In The Us, Maren A Bennett

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

The topic of autism has been gradually emerging as a primary focus for research, education, charities, etc. Much of the attention has been centered on children; however, the subject of adults with autism has long been overlooked. Adults with autism need policy improvements to help gain as much independence in their daily lives as possible. It is the purpose of this thesis to identify deficiencies in service delivery and recommend policies to improve the quality of life of adults with autism. I will utilize a cross-sectional multiple case study design. Three private foundations are utilized as the case studies, along …

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Monitoring And Modeling The Performance Of A Solar Powered Hydrogen Filling Station, Mark R Campbell Jan 2008

Monitoring And Modeling The Performance Of A Solar Powered Hydrogen Filling Station, Mark R Campbell

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

A hydrogen filling station (HFS) has been constructed in Las Vegas to demonstrate how solar energy can be used to generate and store hydrogen as an energy carrier for transportation. This thesis presents a description of the station and the data acquisition system used to monitor its performance. Energy consumption by the hydrogen generation and storage equipment and energy production from a solar photovoltaic (PV) array were measured, and based on the characteristics of the different system components, a computer model was created to predict the amount of hydrogen that could be produced from the solar array. The hydrogen produced …

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Evaluation Of Photodynamic Therapy-Induced Edema In The Rat Brain Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging, David Chighvinadze Jan 2008

Evaluation Of Photodynamic Therapy-Induced Edema In The Rat Brain Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging, David Chighvinadze

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Failure of treatment for high-grade gliomas is usually due to local recurrence at the site of surgical resection indicating that a more aggressive form of local therapy should be used. Photodynamic therapy (PDT) shows promising results in the treatment of gliomas as it has been shown to cause significant destruction of tumor cells through localized necrosis and/or apoptosis. An unfortunate complication of this therapy is the induction of cerebral edema which causes increased intracranial pressure and associated morbidity. A potential solution is the administration of steroids to reduce PDT-induced edema, associated morbidity, and mortality in treated animals. In the research …

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Public Advocacy By The Roman Catholic Church And The United States Conference Of Catholic Bishops In The Twenty-First Century, Michele L Cannella Jan 2008

Public Advocacy By The Roman Catholic Church And The United States Conference Of Catholic Bishops In The Twenty-First Century, Michele L Cannella

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

The Roman Catholic Church has engaged in moral criticism throughout history and continues to do so today through movie reviews published by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). The history of the Roman Catholic Church's censorship of moral content includes controlling the amount and type of media available. This rhetorical analysis of both the USCCB and New York Times movie reviews for the top ten grossing movies of 2006 discusses rhetoric as an expression of meaning that emerges through a texts' historical and cultural situation. Both sets of reviews are found on the Internet and this analysis argues …

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Effects Of Pavement Macrotexture On Pm(10) Emissions From Paved Roads, Swarup China Jan 2008

Effects Of Pavement Macrotexture On Pm(10) Emissions From Paved Roads, Swarup China

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

This study compares two methods for measuring pavement macrotexture and investigates the influence of paved road macrotexture on paved road PM 10 emissions originating both from soil erosion and deposition, and from tire, brake and asphalt wear. Macrotexture was measured using the ASTM Sand patch method and the Digital Surface Roughness Meter (DSRM). PM 10 emissions were estimated using AP-42 sampling and measured with a Mini-PI-SWERL(TM); DSRM and sand patch mean texture depths (MTDs) were well-correlated. Silt-normalized ambient PM10 emissions variations were partially explained by pavement macrotexture. PM10 emissions experiments using controlled silt loadings showed good correlations with pavement macrotexture. …

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An Estimation Of The Performance Limits And Improvement Of Dry Cooling On Trough Solar Thermal Plants, Huifang Deng Jan 2008

An Estimation Of The Performance Limits And Improvement Of Dry Cooling On Trough Solar Thermal Plants, Huifang Deng

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

A model of a fairly typical, but simplified, solar trough plant has been developed and simulated to determine its thermodynamic performance using the software GateCycle. The energy generation and cycle efficiency of the plant have been examined for the Las Vegas vicinity with conventional wet cooling and conventional dry cooling cases considered separately using this software. TMY2 data are used for this location for this purpose. Similarly, the same studies are carried out for "ideal" cooling systems as a compariSon It turned out that the ideal dry cooling system would significantly outperform the conventional wet cooling system, indicating the possibility …

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Colonization And Invasion Of A Lake Drawdown In The Mojave Desert, Stephanie Dianne Gayvert Jan 2008

Colonization And Invasion Of A Lake Drawdown In The Mojave Desert, Stephanie Dianne Gayvert

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

I examined the colonization patterns of plants in the drawdown zone of Lake Mead. There was an increase in the mean number of species over time as well as differences in the colonization patterns of two non-native plant species, Brassica tournefortii and Tamarix ramosissima. I also examined the impact of germination order on competition between B. tournefortii and four native species under controlled environmental conditions and found effects of germination order on both aboveground and belowground biomass for all species in the study. These results can aid management of the Lake Mead drawdown zone by providing an overview of how …

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Implementation Of Jpeg Compression And Motion Estimation On Fpga Hardware, Ramakrishna Gopalakrishnan Jan 2008

Implementation Of Jpeg Compression And Motion Estimation On Fpga Hardware, Ramakrishna Gopalakrishnan

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

A hardware implementation of JPEG allows for real-time compression in data intensivve applications, such as high speed scanning, medical imaging and satellite image transmission. Implementation options include dedicated DSP or media processors, FPGA boards, and ASICs. Factors that affect the choice of platform selection involve cost, speed, memory, size, power consumption, and case of reconfiguration. The proposed hardware solution is based on a Very high speed integrated circuit Hardware Description Language (VHDL) implememtation of the codec with prefered realization using an FPGA board due to speed, cost and flexibility factors; The VHDL language is commonly used to model hardware impletations …

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Learning In The Context Of Math Anxiety, Michelle Melissa Guillaume Jan 2008

Learning In The Context Of Math Anxiety, Michelle Melissa Guillaume

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Previous studies have examined the effects of math anxiety on working memory and performance. It has been shown that having a high level of math anxiety not only decreases performance, but also interferes with working memory such that the anxiety competes for working memory resources, decreasing the amount of working memory resources available to work on a math task. Previous research has focused on the semantic memory approach, i.e., testing people on what they already know. The current study took this research one step further and looked at learning, specifically stimulus learning, in the context of math anxiety. A well …

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Interleukin-10 Inhibits Cytokine-Mediated Synergistic Release Of Interleukin-6 In Astrocytoma Cells, Liliya V Harizanova Jan 2008

Interleukin-10 Inhibits Cytokine-Mediated Synergistic Release Of Interleukin-6 In Astrocytoma Cells, Liliya V Harizanova

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Astrocytes respond to pro-inflammatory cytokines such as, interleukin-1 (IL-1beta) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF-alpha). However, the mechanisms in which IL-1beta and TNF-alpha mediate cell's signaling need further investigation; In previous research, the effects of y-aminobutyric acid (GABA) on IL-1 and TNF-alpha signaling pathway were studied. GABA was unable to suppress IkappaB-alpha degradation and the phosphorylation of p38 by IL-1beta and TNF-alpha. However, it was suggested that GABA may be able to inhibit IL-6 release by reducing the rate of IkappaB-alpha degradation; Another cytokine, IL-10, which is well known in literature to have anti-inflammatory effects, is investigated in this study. This …

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Optimal Foraging Theory And Early Archaic Plant Use At North Creek Shelter, Sara C Hill Jan 2008

Optimal Foraging Theory And Early Archaic Plant Use At North Creek Shelter, Sara C Hill

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Optimal Foraging Theory has received considerable intellectual criticism since its use as an archaeological tool for understanding human behavior. In this thesis, I will evaluate Optimal Foraging Theory with an empirical test from North Creek Shelter, an archaeological site located in the Escalante Basin on the northern portion of the Colorado Plateau. This test will focus on plant utilization by the early Archaic occupants of the site. An environmental reconstruction for the Escalante Basin will be used to determine the range and quantity of plant resources available to the early Archaic occupants of North Creek Shelter. Then a botanical assemblage …

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Xml-Based Implementation Of A Bibliographic Database And Recursive Queries, Kirankumar Jayakumar Jan 2008

Xml-Based Implementation Of A Bibliographic Database And Recursive Queries, Kirankumar Jayakumar

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

Structured Query Language (SQL) of relational database model does not have the expressive power to implement recursive queries. Consequently, recursive queries are implemented as an application program in the host language. The newly developed XML schema provides a different setting for database design and query implementation; In this thesis, we design and implement an XML schema and a set of associated queries for a bibliographic database. We will investigate and demonstrate the shortcomings of both Xpath and Xquery as standard query languages for XML-based databases. We then show an efficient implementation of the recursive queries in XSLT programming language.

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Irony As A Mode Of Political Engagement, Daniel Ladislau Horvath Jan 2008

Irony As A Mode Of Political Engagement, Daniel Ladislau Horvath

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

In the context of an estranged public sphere, irony, as dissonance between the literal meaning of the utterance and the latent one, becomes a new standard for political sincerity. What Linda Hutcheon calls irony's "edge," involving "the attribution of an evaluative, even judgmental attitude," cannot be divorced from (political) attitudes and emotion. Despite irony's popular reputation of being a humorous disengaged trope, my analysis follows its deployment in increasingly politically engaged artifacts and performances. Matt Stone and Trey Parker's South Park, Michael Moore's documentaries, and Stephen Colbert's performance at the 2006 WHCA dinner, provide ample evidence of irony as politically …

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Opihi Tales, Melissa L Llanes Brownlee Jan 2008

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 …

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