Digital Commons Network^™

Verbal Cues: Producing The Same Results In Stereotype Threat Research?, Tarryn E. Mcghie

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study examined the notion that stereotype threat experiments can be influenced through linguistic manipulation. The cueing of a phrase (whether stereotypical or non-stereotypical) can produce performance differences between groups, rather than cueing of a stereotype, as used in previous research. Participants (n=95) mostly Caucasian females (68%) ranging in age from 18-45 (M=22.7). The design involved three groups and participants were randomly assigned in order to control for consequential affects. The control group received no verbal cues. The stereotypical group received a stereotypical cue (i.e. men tend to do better on this test than women). The counter-stereotypical group received a …

Management Research In The Hospitality And Tourism Industry, Xu Cheng

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this study is to identify the current research trends and clarify the changing direction of scholarly studies on knowledge management. The context of this study is hospitality and tourism research with a focus on research publications between 2006 and 2010. Published scholarly studies within this period are examined through content analysis, using such keywords as knowledge management, organizational learning, hospitality, tourism, tourist destinations, travel industry, hotels, lodging, motels, hotel industry, gaming, casino hotel and convention to search scholarly research journals. All contributions found are then screened for a hospitality and tourism theme and KM as the main …

The Write Moves: An Autoethnographic Examination Of The Media Industry, Danielle Gomes

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis examines the current media environment through the use of adaptation theory, political economy theory, and media ecology theory. More specifically, this thesis is an autoethnography of this author‟s attempts to release content into the mass-media.

This thesis expects to find that in the current conglomerate controlled media environment content that has multi-media potential is preferred. Vertical integration is the standard in these massive media corporations. Consequently, the adaptation of content into multiple media is no longer an afterthought to creation, it is forethought.

Gesture As An Act Of Meaning-Making: An Eco-Social Perspective Of A Sheltered-English Second Grade Classroom, Alessandro A. Rosborough

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this sociocultural study was to investigate gesture as a mediational tool for meaning-making in learning and teaching a second language. Gesture was observed between a teacher and her immigrant students in a second grade elementary classroom designed specifically for second language learners of English. This study provides an innovative investigation in the role gesture plays as a meditational tool for meaning-making by using a SCT framework at an elementary context level.

Using sociocultural theory, particularly the Vygotskian tradition, this study views gesture as a part of image in thinking. This SCT framework views second language learning in …

The Relationship Of Snowmobile Year, Track Length, And Riding Terrain To The Occurrence Of Musculosketetal Symptoms In Recreational Snowmobile Drivers, Erica L. Heisler

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this retrospective study was to examine the occurrence of musculoskeletal symptoms in recreational snowmobile drivers and relate them to the manufacture year of the snowmobile, the length of the track, and/or the riding terrain. Participants included 186 males and 57 females (n=243), aged 18 years and older, and were all snowmobile drivers. Subjects were asked to complete either an online survey or a paper survey to gather information about the year of snowmobile they drove, the track length of that snowmobile, the typical riding terrain they drove on, and any musculoskeletal symptoms they developed from driving snowmobile. …

Application Of A Judgment Model Toward Measurement Of Clinical Judgment In Senior Nursing Students, Tiwaporn Pongmarutai

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Clinical judgment, defined as “the application of the nurse’s knowledge and experience in making decisions about client care” (The National Council of State Boards of Nursing, 2005, p. 2), has been recognized as a vital and essential skill for healthcare providers when caring for clients. Undisputedly, nurses represent the largest component of the healthcare profession and, therefore, play a major role in ensuring quality patient care in the United States. Although the concept of clinical judgment in nursing has been discussed for more than three decades, and in spite of numerous efforts to improve student clinical judgment, the recent literature …

Interclonal Variation Of Primary And Secondary Chemistry In Western Quaking Aspen And Its Influence On Ungulate Selection, Damon A. Winter

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) clones within close proximity to one another can exhibit drastically different levels of browsing by ungulates. The objectives of this study were to (1) determine interclonal differences in plant chemistry between adjacent clones exhibiting different degrees of herbivory which may influence the browsing behavior and patterns of ungulates, and (2) determine if correlation exists in the levels of salicortin and tremulacin between current year's suckers and current year's growth on older trees. This second objective was meant to indicate a protocol for land managers for identifying clones meriting increased protection from herbivory after treatment …

Recent Accelerated Second-Degree Baccalaureate Graduates’ Perceptions Of Educational Preparation, Susan Candelaria

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

As of 2008, the U.S. Department of Labor is predicting a need for greater than one million new registered nurses by the year 2016 (American Associations of Colleges of Nursing [AACN], 2008). One way that nursing schools around the country are dealing with this issue is through the creation of accelerated second-degree programs for non-nursing graduates.

The purpose of this descriptive study was to examine the perceptions of educational preparation of accelerated second-degree baccalaureate graduates, who have been out of school for at least one year, but no longer than four years. The sample consisted of 54 graduates from an …

Environmental Influence On Brain, Behavior, And Gene Expression In Drosophila, Xia Wang

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Brain development and behavior are sensitive to environmental stimuli. To gain an understanding of how and to what extent environmental variations, particularly with regard to thermal stress and sensory input, affect brain development, function, and genomic activity, in this dissertation, three interrelated studies were conducted in Drosophila melanogaster.

The first study examined the effects of ecologically-relevant hyperthermia stress on development of the Drosophila mushroom body (MB), a conserved sensory integration and associative center in the insect brain. A daily hyperthermic episode throughout larval and pupal development was shown to severely disrupt MB anatomy by reducing intrinsic Kenyon cell neuron …

Hotel Revenue Management: Investigating The Interaction Of Information Technology And Judgmental Forecasting, I-Pei Claire Chen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Traditionally, forecasting has included human judgment and/ or guessing. The process has often been described as “guesstimation.” For instance, people are easily affected by user interface issue or rewarding policies during this process. The purpose of the study is to study and understand how revenue managers and other decision makers “make noise” during forecasting, especially when utilizing the advanced RMS, and to offer constructive suggestions to overcome the issues related to human judgment. In other words, the main objective of this study is to analyze the known influential factors for the interaction of revenue managers’ judgment and RMS tools by …

Mandarin Oriental, Las Vegas: Building A Unique Brand In A Unique City, Garren Grieve

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

A marketing plan tailored toward the Mandarin Oriental, Las Vegas. The hotel’s performance has struggled along with the other two hotels at MGM Resort’s CityCenter venue since its opening in December, 2009 with lower than expected business levels. Creative marketing that focuses on the strengths of the hotel and the Mandarin Oriental brand, specifically in Las Vegas will set the young hotel up for the best success in the future. A comprehensive approach to the marketing plan includes numerous internal and external factors that will enable senior management to make sound fact based business decisions. The marketing plan for the …

Taxing Matters: How The Us Tax Code Affects Gamblers, Todd Haushalter

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

It has been said that the only sure things in life are death and taxes, and while this is most certainly true of the former, the later will require mastery of the tax code and ensuing cases before you will have a complete picture. The tax code, which started out as a 400 page document is now some 3,387 pages long with a voluminous amount of tax court cases to interpret the code, and many issuances by the Internal Revenue Service to provide further clarification of the code. Somewhere intertwined in the tax code and the ensuing court cases is …

Data Routing In Multicore Processors Using Dimension Increment Method, Arpita H. Kadakia

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

A Deadlock-free routing algorithm can be generated for arbitrary interconnection network using the concept of virtual channels but the virtual channels will lead to more complex algorithms and more demands of NOC resource.

In this thesis, we study a Torus topology for NOC application, design its structure and propose a routing algorithm exploiting the characteristics of NOC. We have chosen a typical 16 (4 by 4) routers Torus and propose the corresponding route algorithm. In our algorithm, all the channels are assigned 4 different dimensions (n0,n1,n2 & n3). By following the dimension increment method, we break the dependent route circles, …

History And Transnational Identities In Junot Díaz’S The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao, Brian Joseph Flores

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of my thesis is to analyze Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and evaluate the role literature plays within the larger context of the relationship among the different countries and cultures in the Western Hemisphere, as well as the place historical events play within this understanding. In Díaz’s novel, there is an understanding of the presence of multiple cultural identities. This awareness of multiple cultural identities leads to the difficulty the characters encounter when trying understanding themselves as individuals. On a much larger scale, the characters also try to understand their cultural, social, and historical …

Dynamic Distributed Programming And Applications To Swap Edge Problem, Feven Z. Andemeskel

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Link failure is a common reason for disruption in communication networks. If communication between processes of a weighted distributed network is maintained by a spanning tree T, and if one edge e of T fails, communication can be restored by finding a new spanning tree, T’. If the network is 2-edge connected, T’ can always be constructed by replacing e by a single edge, e’, of the network. We refer to e’ as a swap edge of e.

The best swap edge problem is to find the best choice of e’, that is, that e which causes the new spanning …

Self-Stabilizing Leader Election In Dynamic Networks, Hema Piniganti

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The leader election problem is one of the fundamental problems in distributed computing. It has applications in almost every domain. In dynamic networks, topology is expected to change frequently. An algorithm A is self-stabilizing if, starting from a completely arbitrary configuration, the network will eventually reach a legitimate configuration.

Note that any self-stabilizing algorithm for the leader election problem is also an algorithm for the dynamic leader election problem, since when the topology of the network changes, we can consider that the algorithm is starting over again from an arbitrary state. There are a number of such algorithms in the …

Can Self Service Technologies Work In The Hotel Industry In Singapore? A Conceptual Framework For Adopting Self Service Technology, Lixin Iris Ong

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The proliferation of self service technologies has changed the way customers interact with service employees and technology. More consumers are now valuing the convenience, consistency, and the control they have over the self service technologies. However, despite the growing popularity of these technologies, hotel industries in Singapore have not embraced self service technologies in their day to day operations. Self service technologies present opportunities for hotels to improve on service standards, and the wide variety of technology applications available allow hotels to choose an application that suits the customers and the hotels needs. To enable hotels to seamlessly adopt self …

Energy Efficient Led Displays, John Mani Kumar Jupalli

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In this research work, an innovative pixel architecture RGBW, consisting of red (R), green (G), blue (B), and white (W) LEDs, is designed and implemented for color generation. Energy consumption of new pixel architecture consisting of RGBW LEDs is compared to standard architecture consisting of RGB LEDs. Human perception experiments are conducted to study the differences in perception between the two architectures when the same colors are generated using RGBW vs. RGB. Measurements of power for a 32inch x 16inch LED display has proved up to 18% power savings for low saturated colors, up to 8% for high saturated colors …

Parameterizable Network-On-Chip Emulation Framework, Jaya Suseela

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Networks-on-Chip (NoCs) have been proposed as a promising solution to complex on-chip communication problems. But there is no public accessible HDL synthesizable NoC framework which connects industrial level cores and runs real applications on them. Moreover, many challenging research problems remain unsolved at all levels of design abstraction; design exploration of NoC architecture for applications, scheduling and mapping algorithms, evaluation of switching, topology or routing algorithm for efficient execution of application and optimizing communication cost, area, energy etc Solution to solve the above problem calls for the development of synthesizable, parameterizable NoC Framework that would evaluate and implement the above …

Efficiency Of Fiscal Allocations In Site-Based Empowered Schools, Jerome Jay Meyer

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study implemented a two phase concurrent mixed-methods design to generate a greater understanding of how elementary schools with increased autonomy in fiscal decision making allocated their money, how their site-based decisions affected allocative efficiency, and how increased autonomy affected site-based decision making when compared with a set of matched control schools within a large urban district.

Phase I compared school site expenditure patterns of site-based empowered schools to demographically matched control schools and to all elementary schools within a large urban district over four years, 2004-05, 2005-06, 2006-07, and 2007-08. Expenditure data were collected from the In$ite data base …

Evaluation Of Guided Visualizations And The Relationships Among Perceived Stress, Differentiation Of Self, Sense Of Coherence, Dyadic Satisfaction And Quality Of Life, Kim R. Rogers

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study focused on three main areas. These areas involved (1) the relationship among perceived stress, global orientation to life and indicators of physical, psychological and dyadic relational distress, (2) the effect of a brief CBT-based relaxation/guided visualization intervention on these outcome indicators of distress, and (3) changes in physiological indicators during the intervention sessions. The study population was drawn from couples who perceived themselves as living highly stressed lifestyles.

Results suggested that global orientation to life as reflected by differentiation of self inventory (DSI) and sense of coherence scale (SOCS) scale scores mediated the relationship between stress and distress. …

Improving Ensemble Streamflow Prediction Using Interdecadal/Interannual Climate Variability, Kenneth W. Lamb

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The National Weather Service’s (NWS) river forecast centers provide long-term water resource forecasts for the main river basins in the U.S. The NWS creates seasonal streamflow forecasts using an ensemble prediction model called the Extended Streamflow Prediction (ESP) software. ESP creates runoff volume forecasts by taking the current observed soil moisture and snowpack conditions in the basin and applying them to historical temperature and precipitation scenarios. The ESP treats every historic input year as a likely scenario of future basin conditions. Therefore improving the knowledge about how long-term climate cycles impact streamflow can extend the forecast lead time and improve …

Silence: Exploring Salvatore Sciarrino’S Style Through L’Opera Per Flauto, Megan R. Lanz

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this paper is to examine the works in Salvatore Sciarrino’s (b. 1947) collection L’opera per flauto written for solo flute and to examine Sciarrino’s compositional style, focusing on his characteristic markings, creative sonorities, and other pertinent facts about pieces in the collection. The first chapter in this paper discusses the value of silence in music and how Sciarrino provides the illusion of perceived silence. Chapter Two discusses elements of Sciarrino’s compositional style and the presence of complex notation. The final chapter provides flutists with a technical guide to the seven pieces in his L’opera per flauto collection. …

Effects Of Yellow Rectangular Rapid-Flashing Beacons And Novel Lane Markings On Motorists’ Yielding, Speed, And Headway At Multilane Uncontrolled Crosswalks, Jimmy Wayne Shurbutt

Dissertations

Several methods have been examined to increase motorists’ yielding to pedestrians and the distance at which they yield on multilane crosswalks at uncontrolled locations with relatively high average daily traffic (ADT). A series of 5 experiments were conducted to evaluate the efficacy of rectangular rapid-flashing beacons (RRFBs) as effective pedestrian crossing aides. The first experiment found that the RRFBs produced a significant increase in yielding behavior at all 26 sites located in 3 cities in the United States. Data collected over a 2-year follow-up period at 22 of these sites plus 14-month follow-up at an additional 4 sites documented the …

Performance Attribution: Are Sector Fund Managers Superior Stock Selectors?, Nicholas Scala

Business/Business Administration

Abstract:

Do equity sector fund managers outperform diversified equity fund managers? This paper examines this question during 2000-2009 by formulating simulated portfolios of Fidelity Select Sector Funds with weights similar to the sector weightings of actual multi-sector equity fund portfolios. The returns of the simulated portfolios were then netted against the actual portfolios to determine which outperforms. The results indicate that Sector Fund managers have superior stock selection ability, with one notable exception: the small-cap value investment style. Small-cap value multi-sector equity fund managers outperformed the simulated portfolios, indicating superior stock selection ability by fund managers in that category. Although …

Orientation And Mobility, Reading, And Math: Analysis Of Data For Children With Visual Impairments From The Special Education Elementary Longitudinal Study, Dawn L. Anderson

Dissertations

This dissertation research comprised three studies focused on vision-specific skills, and their association with functional and academic outcomes for school-age students with visual impairment. The studies involved analysis of secondary data for 850 students with visual impairment who participated in the Special Education Elementary Longitudinal Study (SEELS). Data in the SEELS were gathered using direct assessment and parent and teacher responses for a nationally representative sample of elementary and middle school students.

The first study used Chi Square analysis to determine if participation in Orientation and Mobility (O&M) training, or if the time when O&M instruction was received, was associated …

Composing Ourselves: Utilizing Literacy Narratives To Promote Knowledge And Reflection In Preservice Secondary English Teachers, Cheryl Henderson Almeda

Dissertations

My research entails examining and interrogating the literacy narratives written by six preservice secondary English teachers before their first semester of teaching. After writing their literacy narratives, these teachers worked together in two focus groups to consider, celebrate, and interrogate their memories they recorded in their narratives. They shared conversations which focused on their reflections, their teaching strategies, and the ideas they embraced as newly forming teachers.

This study considers claims made by Dewey (1933), Lortie (1975), Schulman (1986), and others, who emphasize the importance of learning through observation and the intuitive nature of reflective learning and teaching. It emphasizes …

An Application Of Vygotsky’S Social Learning Theory On Calculator Self-Efficacy And Calculator Achievement By Gender, Debbie M. Kohler

Dissertations, Theses and Capstone Projects (Full IR Collection)

The purpose of this study is to determine what relationships or differences exist between males and females in calculator self-efficacy and calculator achievement, and if social learning groups better support females in calculator achievement and efficacy. To accomplish this purpose, this quasi-experimental study examined pre-test and post-tests using a teacher developed Calculator Self-Efficacy Instrument and a Calculator Achievement Test. The study involved three treatment classes that were arranged into social learning groups according to Vygotsky’s social learning theory and one control class that was arranged in traditional rows. Four major findings emerged. Males scored significantly higher than females on the …

The Effect Of Classroom Bibliotherapeutic Intervention On Perceptions Of Bullying Among Teachers Of Young Children Aged Four And Five, Patricia Gail Doss

Dissertations, Theses and Capstone Projects (Full IR Collection)

This paper investigates how the application of bibliotherapeutic intervention affects teachers’ perceptions of bullying in their young students, ages four and five. Bullying has become a serious global concern that has manifested itself in school dropouts, shootings, and suicides. Bibliotherapy is one way to help children solve problems using books and is advocated by researchers for use with bullying prevention.

Little research has been done on bullying in young children. This qualitative phenomenological study will add to the body of literature regarding bullying in young children ages four and five and will examine perceptions of teachers of young children regarding …

Social Networking In Collegiate Public Relations, Leon Bracey

Dissertations, Theses and Capstone Projects (Full IR Collection)

A guide describing the importance of institutions of higher education implement social networking policies and procedures. The project includes a manual and marketing plan that will be implemented by the author of the project at his employer, Georgia Perimeter College.