Digital Commons Network^™

Flocking To The Fold: Pope Francis De/Reterritorialization Of Catholicism, Eric Stephens

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

According to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, from 2004 to 2008 the number of Catholics worldwide who reported that they rarely or never attend mass increased from 25% to 32%; however, within the past year, several countries report congregational increases as high as 20%. On March 13, 2013, the papal conclave elected Pope Francis whose rhetoric has since changed the world’s perception of Catholicism. Since then, he has made rhetorical moves that differ from other popes that may continue to draw people back to Catholicism. In this article, I use Michel Foucault’s panopticon theory and Deleuze and …

Improving Establishment Of Seeded Buffalograss, Luqi Li

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Buffalograss [Buchloë dactyloides (Nutt.) Engelm.] is a warm-season grass native to the North American Great Plains. Buffalograss is drought resistant, heat resistant and cold tolerant, and thus is well-adapted to many uses in areas that require low maintenance or erosion control. Since buffalograss is slow-growing, one challenge of establishing seeded buffalograss is to maximize seedling maturation and establishment before winter. We evaluated dormant seeding buffalograss in late fall and winter, when germination is not expected until soils warm in spring. We successfully dormant seeded ‘Sundancer’, ‘Bowie’ or ‘Cody’ buffalograss at 146 kg ha^-1 from late November though …

Liberty, Equality, Indebtedness: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams And The Problem Of Debt In A Revolutionary Age, Martha Salazar Cantu

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis I examine how the issue of debt contributed to the political tensions between the New England region and the Chesapeake region during the Revolutionary Age. The merging of the two regions’ economies into one federal union caused political divisions, which remained beyond the period of the Early Republic. Examining the cultural attitudes of each region towards debt provides a better understanding of the political problems between these two regions. The integration of the consignment culture of the Southern states with the Puritan ethic of the New England states caused economic difficulties for the young Republic. The research …

Racial Intolerance During The California Gold Rush, Raul David Lopez

Theses and Dissertations

The California Gold Rush started in 1848 and lasted to the mid-1850s. Though short in duration, the impact the Gold Rush had in the United States, along with populations from many areas in the rest of the world, proved detrimental to many different ethnic groups that arrived to the mines and came into contact with various cultures, principally the white Anglo-American culture. This thesis focuses on themes such as race, gender roles, free labor versus unfree labor, extra-legal violence, and informal laws passed in the mines to exclude foreigners. It addresses why certain nationalities were taxed and targeted as foes, …

Re: Publics: Woman Of Color Feminist Rhetorical Process Shaping Safe Spaces For A Rehumanizing Discourse, Eloisa E. Moreno

Theses and Dissertations

The discourse of women of color feminists over the last thirty years follows what I refer to as woman of color feminist rhetorical process in three recursive phases: location, deliberation, and restoration. The process is a significant contribution to rhetorical theory in the form of woman of color consciousness. This way of knowing considers complex identities at the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexual identity. The woman of color feminist rhetorician asks us to view self, community, and our notions of love as political constructs. By doing so, we are able to move beyond identity politics and build new …

Enhancing Academic Achievement And Satisfaction By Flipping The Teacher Preparation Classroom, Rene R. Zuniga

Theses and Dissertations

This study compared flipped classrooms versus online courses to study the effects of the two instructional methodologies on student achievement and satisfaction in an undergraduate Introduction to Education, EDUC 1301, course. Students self-matriculated in either traditional EDUC 1301 courses which were flipped or in EDUC 1301 online courses. Students' final grades were used to assess student achievement in both teaching methodologies. An end-of-course student evaluation of instructor performance was used to assess students' satisfaction in the courses. A casual comparative research design was used to examine the effectiveness of both teaching methodologies. There was no differences between the two instructional …

Predicting Outcomes In Investment Treaty Arbitration, Susan D. Franck, Lindsey E. Wylie

Duke Law Journal

Crafting appropriate dispute settlement processes is challenging for any conflict-management system, particularly for politically sensitive international economic law disputes. As the United States negotiates investment treaties with Asian and European countries, the terms of dispute settlement have become contentious. There is a vigorous debate about whether investment treaty arbitration (ITA) is an appropriate dispute settlement mechanism. While some sing the praises of ITA, others offer a spirited critique. Some critics claim that ITA is biased against states, while others suggest ITA is predictable but unfair due to factors like arbitrator identity or venue. Using data from 159 final cases derived …

Rethinking Janus: Preserving Primary-Participant Liability In Sec Antifraud Enforcement Actions, Greg Gaught

Duke Law Journal

The Securities and Exchange Commission relies heavily on the securities laws’ antifraud provisions in fulfilling its role as watchdog of the U.S. securities markets. But the Supreme Court’s decision in Janus Capital Group, Inc. v. First Derivative Traders has frustrated the SEC’s efforts to keep fraud at bay. There the Court drastically narrowed the scope of actors who can qualify as primary participants in misrepresentations perpetrated in connection with the purchase or sale of securities under Rule 10b-5(b). This Note argues that Janus’s holding creates an incongruence in the SEC’s ability to enforce the securities laws’ misrepresentation provisions, with …

Systematic Review Of The Global Epidemiology, Clinical And Laboratory Profile Of Enteric Fever, Asma Azmatullah, Farah Naz Qamar, Durrane Thaver, Anita Km Zaidi, Zulfiqar A. Bhutta

Department of Paediatrics and Child Health

Background: Children suffer the highest burden of enteric fever among populations in South Asian countries. The clinical features are non-specific, vary in populations, and are often difficult to distinguish clinically from other febrile illnesses, leading to delayed or inappropriate diagnosis and treatment. We undertook a systematic review to assess the clinical profile and laboratory features of enteric fever across age groups, economic regions, level of care and antibiotic susceptibility patterns.
Methods: We searched PubMed (January 1964-December 2013) for studies describing clinical features in defined cohorts of patients over varying time periods. Studies with all culture-confirmed cases or those with at …

Simulation Of An Air Cooled Single-Effect Solar Absorption Cooling System With Evacuated Tube Collectors, Mohsen Jahandardoost

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Consistently increasing CO2 emission and ozone depletion from synthetic refrigerants are serious environmental issues challenging the scientific community. Absorption cooling systems give scope of utilizing low grade energy source for generating cooling effect. Solar energy is one of these low grade energy sources and with considering the fact that cooling demand increases with the intensity of solar radiation, solar refrigeration has been considered as a logical solution.

This thesis consists of two different simulation stages, in the first stage, a single effect lithium bromide absorption cooling system with constant cooling capacity is modeled and the effect of ambient and generator …

Television Consumption And Child Obesity: Linking Children's Contemporary Television Use, Physical Activity, And Advertising To Putnam's Displacement Hypothesis, Brittany L. Altamirano

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study observed the relationship between television consumption and child obesity through the theoretical construct of Putnam’s displacement hypothesis. It did so by updating the previous research through the investigation of the displacement of both physical activity and advertisements on contemporary television platforms. The inclusion of Putnam’s displacement hypothesis was to provide a foundational framework, not found in previous literature, to study two important paradigms that were represented in previous research: 1) the displacement of physical activity; and 2) the displacement of traditional advertisement exposure.

Several trends became apparent within previous literature. Previous literature did not include an explicitly stated …

High Pressure X-~Ray Absorption Spectroscopy Studies Of Heavy-~Fermion Cerium And Uranium Compounds, Daniel Antonio

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Investigations into f- electron heavy-fermion materials have revealed a wide range of novel behavior. Hydrostatic pressure is a valuable "clean" non-thermal parameter that can be used to systematically study them by tuning their ground state properties. The rare earth compound CeCu2Ge2 shows an unusual two-domed region of unconventional superconductivity under pressure, similar to its isostructural counterpart CeCu2Si2. While the lower pressure dome at about 10 GPa is caused by a magnetic quantum critical point (QCP), the higher one at about 16 GPa is less well understood. Previous structural measurements have indicated that it may be caused by critical valence fluctuations, …

Sound Attenuation Of Fiberglass Lined Ventilation Ducts, Jacob Albright

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Sound attenuation is a crucial part of designing any HVAC system. Most ventilation systems are designed to be in areas occupied by one or more persons. If these systems do not adequately attenuate the sound of the supply fan, compressor, or any other source of sound, the affected area could be subject to an array of problems ranging from an annoying hum to a deafening howl. The goals of this project are to quantify the sound attenuation properties of fiberglass duct liner and to perform a regression analysis to develop equations to predict insertion loss values for both rectangular and …

Nevada Legal Services: The Legal Services Corporation Restrictions And The Diminishing Capacity Of Access To Justice For The Poor, William Todd Ashmore

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The lofty idea of equal justice for all is not the reason legal aid began in the United States. Legal aid was born from the indignation over injustices committed against the poor. Unable to afford an attorney, the poor could not effectively assert their rights within the criminal and civil justice system. Without access to justice through the courts, the extralegal activities required to defend oneself and exact justice such as personally forcing an employer to pay rightful wages, are deemed criminal in most cases. By providing legal resources to the poor, legal aid not only brought order to society …

Models For Beethoven's An Die Ferne Geliebte, Op. 98: A Stylistic Analysis, William George August Mccullough

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This document argues that the defining stylistic features of Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte, Op. 98 can be directly traced through an evolution of style in the following works: Christian Gottlob Neefe’s “Das Todtenopfer” from Bilder und Träume (1798); Beethoven’s “Busslied” from Sechs Lieder von Gellert (1803); and Beethoven’s An die Hoffnung, Op. 94 (1815). This document focuses primarily on the stylistic features of fermati, modulations, changes in tempo and texture, and text setting. These features are examined through comparative musical analysis within the historical context of single affect poetry and Lieder composition of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth …

Object Detection And Tracking In Wide Area Surveillance Using Thermal Imagery, Santosh Bhusal

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The main objective behind this thesis is to examine how existing vision-based detection and tracking algorithms perform in thermal imagery-based video surveillance. While color-based surveillance has been extensively studied, these techniques can not be used during low illumination, at night, or with lighting changes and shadows which limits their applicability. The main contributions in this thesis are (1) the creation of a new color-thermal dataset, (2) a detailed performance comparison of different color-based detection and tracking algorithms on thermal data and (3) the proposal of an adaptive neural network for false detection rejection.

Since there are not many publicly available …

A Performer's Guide To Dean Gronemeier's Nature Alley, Lonny James Benoit

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This document is a resource designed to aid performers in preparation of Dean Gronemeier’s Nature Alley, an advanced four-mallet solo for marimba. A biographical sketch of Dean Gronemeier, general overview of the composition, and the seven main themes of Nature Alley are presented within this document. Specific attention will be given to the musical and technical considerations associated with each of the seven themes.

Generalized Catalan Numbers And Some Divisibility Properties, Jacob Bobrowski

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

I investigate the divisibility properties of generalized Catalan numbers by ex-

tending known results for ordinary Catalan numbers to their general case. First, I define the general Catalan numbers and provide a new derivation of a known formula. Second, I show several combinatorial representations of generalized Catalan numbers and survey bijections across these representation. Third, I extend several divisibility results proved by Koshy. Finally, I prove conditions under which sufficiently large primes form blocks of divisibility and indivisibility of the generalized Catalan numbers, extending a known result by Alter and Kubota.

The Painted Motifs Of Cypriot Ceramic Art: A Study Of Iconography & Identity, Paige Bockman

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The aim of this master’s thesis is to explore the iconography of Chalcolithic (c. 3900-2300 cal. BC) Cyprus using ceramic motifs and identify their potential use in revealing differences between the cultural identity present at archaeological sites, as well as the possible causes of such variation. By exploring the existence and origins of subtle differences between the iconographic repertoires of related sites, the study seeks a better understanding of the movement of both ideas and symbols, and how the meaning of symbols developed within the context of a site.

Currently, Cypriot Chalcolithic sites are believed to be largely homogeneous in …

Inner Experience While Reading Fiction: A Descriptive Experience Sampling Exploration, Vincent Peter Brouwers

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Reading is ubiquitous. In Western culture, childhood education places a strong emphasis on acquiring the ability to read. Whereas many studies have examined the cognitive processes underlying reading ability, no previous studies have used a high-fidelity method of sampling inner experience to examine the direct, momentary inner experience while reading. The current study used the Descriptive Experience Sampling Method (DES) to explore the inner experience of 17 undergraduates, who had been trained in DES, while reading classical short stories. We found that participants while reading often innerly saw a visual depiction of the story, though the congruency of these depictions …

Fast Transient Digitizer And Pcb Interface, Kevin Thomas Buck

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis outlines the design, layout and characterization of an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) and a printed circuit board (PCB) designed to discretize an input signal and read out the data at a user desired interval to replicate the input signal at a lower frequency or pulse rate with no quantization error. The ASIC for this task utilizes 128 individual capacitive storage cells to capture data at approximately 200 ps intervals, thus the chip can capture approximately 25 ns of an input signal. The read out rate can be adjusted to the desired rate by the user by changing …

The Influence Of Iron On Arctic Thule Migration Patterns, Alina T. Aquino

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Arctic scholars have yet to fully understand the reasons behind the migration of Thule culture from the western to the eastern Arctic. This rapid movement across such a vast area into environmentally diverse regions marks a critical period of cultural change that is usually summarized by two theoretical positions. Ecological theories postulated environmental changes placed selective pressures on traditional food sources that required Thule hunters to follow migrating prey. Theories that focused on material acquisition alternately proposed the Thule followed the trail of meteoric iron eastward into northwestern Greenland.

This research sought to examine the eastward Thule migration from another …

Understanding Employee Work Attitudes: An Integration Of Psychological Contract Theory And Organizational Support Theory, Wen Chang

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Employee motivation and retention are critical concerns for the hospitality industry. The purpose of this study was to understand employees’ work attitudes and emotional affect through a social exchange perspective by integrating employee psychological contract theory and organizational support theory. Affective event theory provided the theoretical foundation for this study. Data was analyzed using exploratory factor analysis and path analysis. The results showed that employees’ psychological contract fulfillment was a strong predictor of their perceived organizational support. In addition, psychological contract fulfillment and perceived organizational support together explained employee affect at work as well as other work attitudes. Affect at …

Electronic Dance Music: From Deviant Subculture To Culture Industry, Christopher T. Conner

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Utilizing a mixed qualitative research methods design, including interviews, ethnographic field work, and analyzing historical documents, I examine the Electronic Dance Music (EDM) subculture, since its inception in the late 80s as a deviant subculture. Previous studies of raves and other music subcultures focus almost exclusively on the role of popularity in transforming the subculture. In this research, I found, in the case of EDM at least, a more complicated process in which structural factors such as mass media, public officials (politicians and law enforcement), and major music corporations played a prominent role in the transformation. Media coverage focused on …

Literacy And Social Justice: Understanding Student Perceptions And Conceptions About Literature, Jennifer Marie Crosthwaite

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Literacy and learning is a social process, one that is both transformative, empowering, and can often lead to social change. The following study is based on the idea that literacy can be used as a tool not only to teach the basic skills of reading, but the skills for individuals to learn to be compassionate towards others, understand their individuality, and envision how their self can alter their community for a more just world. The frameworks that support these concepts are socio-cultural theory, reader response theory, and critical literacy theory. The intersection of these three theories highlight the importance of …

Examining Resilience In Relation To Ptsd Symptomatology In Maltreated Youth, Timothy Day

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Resilience following exposure to adverse life situations is an ongoing process that reduces the impact of traumatic experiences and opens potential for posttraumatic growth (Fincham, Altes, Stein, & Seedat, 2009; Luthar, Cicchetti, & Becker, 2000). The relationship between resilience and risk for PTSD in maltreated youth, however, remains unclear. This study sought to explore this relationship by examining a sense of mastery, a sense of relation to others, and emotional reactivity in youth endorsing a history of maltreatment related trauma. Participants were recruited from a Las Vegas Department of Family Services affiliated clinic and were administered the Children’s PTSD Inventory …

Perceptions Toward The Value Of Higher Education For Hotel Professionals In Las Vegas: A Case Study, Gary Lee Deel

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study concerns a qualitative investigation of the views toward higher education and its importance to hospitality career success among hotel professionals in the Las Vegas, Nevada area. Existing literature supported the premise that education may be important to professional career success in several different ways, and that values concerning education may be passed from one person to another via social learning. However, the relevant theories had not previously been evaluated within the context of the hospitality industry. Professionals in reporting relationships at two Las Vegas hotels were interviewed to determine perceptions about higher education, the sources of those perceptions, …

Chemical And Electronic Structure Of Surfaces And Interfaces In Cadmium Telluride Based Photovoltaic Devices, Douglas Arthur Duncan

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The surface and interface properties are of the upmost importance in the understanding, optimization, and application for photovoltaic devices. Often the chemical, electronic, and morphological properties of the films are empirically optimized, however when progress slows, a fundamental understanding of these properties can lead to breakthroughs. In this work, surfaces and interfaces of solar cell-relevant films are probed with a repertoire of X-ray analytical and microanalysis techniques including X-ray photoelectron (XPS), X-ray excited Auger electron (XAES), X-ray emission (XES) spectroscopies, and atomic force (AFM) and scanning electron (SEM) microscopies.

Silicon-based devices currently dominate the solar market, which is rather inflexible …

The Impact Of Environmental Factors On Policy Decisions As It Relates To Community Development Block Grant Allocations, Al G. Gourrier

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

For decades urban centers across the country have experienced significant transition in demographics, population, composition of workforce, and the industries that constitute their economic base. The Federal Government has sought to address the issues of urban cites through a series of urban polices. This study explores one of the more prominent and sustained urban policies, the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program and evaluates a series of political factors on local decision making in the allocations of Community Development Block Grant dollars.

Using path analysis, the research explores the statistical significance of social, economic and political factors combined with historical …

Fall Detection By Using Video, Robert J. Gripentog

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Cameras have become common in our society and as a result there is more video available today than ever before. While the video can be used for entertainment or possibly as storage it can also be used as a sensor capturing crucial information, The information captured can be put to all types of uses, but one particular use is to identify a fall. The importance of identifying a fall can be seen especially in the older population that is affected by falls every year. The falls experienced by the elderly are devastating as they can cause apprehension to normal life …