Digital Commons Network^™

Panel Data Models With Interactive Fixed Effects And Multiple Structural Breaks, Degui Li, Junhui Qian, Liangjun Su

Research Collection School Of Economics

In this article, we consider estimation of common structural breaks in panel data models with unobservable interactive fixed effects. We introduce a penalized principal component (PPC) estimation procedure with an adaptive group fused LASSO to detect the multiple structural breaks in the models. Under some mild conditions, we show that with probability approaching one the proposed method can correctly determine the unknown number of breaks and consistently estimate the common break dates. Furthermore, we estimate the regression coefficients through the post-LASSO method and establish the asymptotic distribution theory for the resulting estimators. The developed methodology and theory are applicable to …

Perceived Leadership Practices Across Two Generations Of Community College Deans: “Baby Boomers” And Generation Xers”, Donna J. Mccauley

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this research study was to examine what Illinois community college academic deans perceive to be important leadership practices to enhance faculty effectiveness. A sequential mixed-method study was performed with academic deans at Illinois community colleges across the state. In Phase I of the study, 70 of the 164 academic deans in Illinois completed an anonymous online survey ranking importance of leadership practices that enhance faculty effectiveness. Eight of the academic deans who are Generation X volunteered to participate in the second phase of the study which consisted of in-depth, one-on-one interviews to identify what leadership practices they …

Cross-Language Community Engagement: Assessing The Strengths Of Heritage Learners, Elise Dubord, Elizabeth Kimball

Faculty Work

This article reports on university students’ learning outcomes stemming from their work as language partners in a community-based learning project in an English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) class with adult Spanish-speaking immigrants. We present a rubric designed to assess student learning in the collaborative, cross-language nature of the partnership that moves beyond notions of language acquisition. The rubric was used to score the reflective writing of students in two university classes who participated in this off-campus partnership, one in Spanish for majors, and one in English for general education students. Our analysis focuses on correlations between students’ language …

Approaching Individual Differences Questions In Cognitive Control: A Case Study Of The Ax-Cpt, Shelly Cooper

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Investigating individual differences in cognition requires addressing questions not often thought about in standard experimental designs, especially those regarding the psychometrics of a task. The purpose of the present study is to use the AX-CPT cognitive control task as a representative case study example to address four concerns that may impact the ability to answer questions related to individual differences. First, the importance of a task's true score variance for evaluating potential failures to replicate predicted individual differences effects is demonstrated. Second, evidence is provided that Internet-based studies (e.g., MTurk) can exhibit comparable, or even higher true score variance than …

Indoor Scene Localization To Fight Sex Trafficking In Hotels, Abigail Stylianou

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Images are key to fighting sex trafficking. They are: (a) used to advertise for sex services,(b) shared among criminal networks, and (c) connect a person in an image to the place where the image was taken. This work explores the ability to link images to indoor places in order to support the investigation and prosecution of sex trafficking. We propose and develop a framework that includes a database of open-source information available on the Internet, a crowd-sourcing approach to gathering additional images, and explore a variety of matching approaches based both on hand-tuned features such as SIFT and learned features …

Benefits Of Implementing Journaling Activities In Physical Education At The Elementary School Level, Ivy Ottmar

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Physical Education (P.E.) is at a risk of becoming obsolete at the elementary school level. This is an important problem that needs to be addressed because children need a daily physical outlet. But, it goes beyond just getting outside and moving. If journaling is integrated into the physical education curriculum, students can use this tool to reinforce what they are learning when they are exercising as well as communicate their feelings about physical education. After conducting literature reviews, interviewing elementary school staff, and implementing a journaling activity, the researcher found that journaling about P.E. was positive and beneficial for the …

Recidivism In The State Of California, Berenice Carcano

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Recidivism in the State of California.

A Theoretical Analysis Of Isis Indoctrination And Recruitment, Trevor Hawkins

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This paper is an attempt to use various theories in the social sciences as a tool to understand the mechanisms employed in ISIS indoctrination and recruitment tactics. There is a discussion of theories that have been developed in the field of influence psychology, rationalizing the context of indoctrination within this area of study. There is a discussion of proposedly relevant materials in philosophy, specifically simulacrum and linguistic deconstruction. These components are extrapolated to interpret a first person account of ISIS indoctrination, the first-ever ISIS recruitment film, and a Radical-Islamist periodical Inspire Magazine. Using a form of propaganda film analysis, and …

Professional Development On Bullying And Impacts On Social And Emotional Growth Of Elementary School Students, Nicolas M. Salgado

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Bullying in elementary schools is a social and emotional issue that affect many young children in today’s society. Professional development for teachers on bullying today is not effective because they lack the proper training. After interviewing elementary school teachers and researching literature reviews, research supports that professional development on bullying is not benefiting students socially and emotionally. Unfortunately, without the proper professional development training, the student’s needs cannot be met. To solve this issue, there are three possible solutions that could be used. Those three solutions include enhancing teacher professional development,

improve disciplinary actions, and provide information/resources for students. Due …

Importance Of Accommodating Elementary School Students With Learning Disabilities, Angelica R. Rivera

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This senior capstone examines the rationale why it is important to accommodate the students with learning disabilities at the elementary schools. Mainstreaming students with disabilities with those in regular general education classrooms remains a very important issue for principals and teachers. Through the use of literature review and interviews with a principal and a teacher from their respective schools in the Monterey County area, the results show that there is a gap between the services provided to students with learning disabilities.

The Role Of Principals In Creating A Healthy Environment For Teachers And Students, Mirel T. Mejia

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

When one observes high or low student achievement, teachers’ performance seems to be the focus. Do we ever observe or question how leadership affects a schools environment? This senior capstone research project examines the role principals play in creating a healthy environment for teachers and students. Through the use of interviewing principals, teachers and surveys with students, the results show that when teachers feel supported by their principals, they perform better and students do well academically and socially. This senior capstone shed some light on the role of principals that help us understand the effects of good and bad leadership …

Words Are Sometimes Mightier Then Weapons, Edward M. Perez

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

I have chosen for my senior capstone the Research Project Option. As a Human Communication major with a concentration in Practical and Professional Ethics, I will be using this research to show how previous works and theories written in the past and the present can be cross correlated to begin future vision. I will show how intellectual endeavors coupled with an ethical practice will prevail over past ways of being, especially in Western Civilization.

On The Trope Of Identity, Elizabeth Contreras-Garibay

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

I intend for my project to comprise of different literary genres from poetry and a creative nonfiction pieces. My project will focus on the struggle of searching for one's own identity, and the acceptance of bracing one’s own individuality. I will be discussing on issues such as: gender norms, assimilation, and cultural identity.

Who Is Really Behind The Username? (Re)Affirming Oneself In The Digital Age, Taylor Dixon

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

I am going to study authenticity and see the fluidity of the word over the passing decades and see if the meaning has changed due to societal changes. I am then going to study the digital age and show the progression of the internet. Starting from when at home computers were created to present day. After researching those topics I’m going to see if social media users are about to be authentic and true to their identities while using these online platforms. I want to look at case studies that represent authentic identities as well as inauthentic identities.

Safe And Sustainable Commutes, Mariana Del Valle Prieto Cervantes, Ian Deville, Darlenne Guerra, Giovanni Ibarra, Victoria Mcclellan, Rebecca Ortega

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

A group of six undergraduate students worked with a local city government, their professor, and other university leaders to develop a research project related to sustainable community transportation. A city road project was analyzed to understand the sustainability implications to a changing transportation system. By taking a closer look at the city and the adjacent residential community, the project was examined. Additionally, a university project was undertaken to investigate the adoption of an alternative transportation resource on campus. With this information gathered, the campus community has the ability to further utilize new resources to improve campus transportation sustainability.

Reading Strategies Used By High School Japanese Language Learners, Tomoki Kuwana

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

World Readiness Standards emphasize the importance of language learners' proficiency in literacy as well as life skills in contemporary society and future. Implementing authentic materials into language instruction is encouraged due to its benefits. Yet adaption of authentic materials for reading is usually delayed until higher-level classes in Japanese instruction at secondary levels. This is often due to the Japanese writing system, which is a combination of hiragana, katakana, and kanji and configures meaning of a sentence. The present study investigated to what extent Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) high school learners use reading strategies when they read authentic …

Which U.S. Households Use Education Loans?, Chungwen Hsu, Patti J. Fisher

Journal of Student Financial Aid

This empirical study uses the 2013 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) to investigate the characteristics of households that hold at least one loan for educational expenses. The benefit of using household-level data is that a single household may have education loans for multiple people in the household, including the household head, spouse/partner, and children. In studies of the education loan debt of individuals, the true effect on households may be overlooked. The present results show that the respondent’s age, respondent’s marital status, having at least one dependent child under the age of 18, net worth, home ownership, stock ownership, being …

Time, Death, And Retribution, Chad Flanders

All Faculty Scholarship

The heart of a Lackey claim is that when a death row inmate is kept waiting too long for his execution, this delay can amount to cruel and unusual punishment — either because they delay is itself cruel and unusual, or because the execution on top of the delay is. All Lackey claims brought by death row inmates have failed, but not for want of trying. The usual complaint against Lackey claims is that those who, by their own appeals, delay their execution date cannot turn around and use that delay as an argument against their death sentences. I agree …

A Traders Guide To The Predictive Universe- A Model For Predicting Oil Price Targets And Trading On Them, Jimmie Harold Lenz

Doctor of Business Administration Dissertations

At heart every trader loves volatility; this is where return on investment comes from, this is what drives the proverbial “positive alpha.” As a trader, understanding the probabilities related to the volatility of prices is key, however if you could also predict future prices with reliability the world would be your oyster. To this end, I have achieved three goals with this dissertation, to develop a model to predict future short term prices (direction and magnitude), to effectively test this by generating consistent profits utilizing a trading model developed for this purpose, and to write a paper that anyone with …

Hands, And Numbers, And Dots Oh My! Examining The Effect Of Nearby-Hands On Counting And Subitizing, Gabriel Allred

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The “nearby-hand” effect (Tseng, Bridgeman, & Juan 2012), an alteration of performance caused by the presence of our hands in the visuospatial area, has been found in learning, attention, and working memory tasks (Brockmole, Davoli, Abrams, & Witt, 2013a). However, no work to date has been published demonstrating a relationship between the nearby-hand effect and judgments of magnitude, including subitizing and counting. It is suggested by Tseng, Bridgeman, and Juan (2012) that nearby-hands affect attentional disengagement, yet little experimental evidence is available to support this notion. Given the serialized nature of counting, which requires attentional disengagement from item to item …

Improvement Of Security In Uas Communication And Navigation Using Ads-B, Vedadatta Gouripeddi

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In this thesis, we congregate the security threats on UAS and suggest solutions using ADS-B device. UAS ground and intercommunication is prone to availability, confidentiality and integrity attacks. UAS communication has three layered wireless Ad-Hock network which comprises of Complex group key exchange. Loss of one layer in the Ad-hock network leads to a complete loss of communication in the network. Current UAS navigation methods include complete reliance on on-board sensors, radars and GPS. This research proposes solutions for UAS communication, navigation and collision avoidance using ADS-B. ADS-B acts as a back-up when there is a loss in any one …

Differential Cbct Analysis Of Collum Angles In Maxillary And Mandibular Anterior Teeth In Patients With Different Malocclusions, Erin Shane Wan Ma

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Background: The collum angle is an angular measurement of the difference between the longitudinal axis of the crown and the longitudinal axis of the root. The aim of this study was to determine the mean collum angles for all maxillary and mandibular anterior teeth. In addition, the collum angles of different molar and skeletal classifications were compared for each anterior tooth.

Methods: Based on patient records obtained from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Department of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics, 326 CBCT scans were selected and divided into four molar and skeletal classifications. The patients were divided into Class I, …

Assessing A Potential Paleothermal Anomaly Near A Salt Wall Using (U-Th)/He Thermochronology And Silica Cementation Analysis, Onion Creek, Utah, Richard Gregory Ness

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The Onion Creek salt wall in Fisher Valley, Utah is an exposed salt structure that lies adjacent to sandstones of the Permian age Cutler Group. The thermal conductivity of salt is two to four times greater than other sedimentary rocks and has been shown to act as a regional conduit for heat flow which has implications for petroleum systems in hydrocarbon exploration. Numerical models predict that thermal anomalies should extend 1.5 times the radius of a salt structure into adjacent strata. I hypothesized that an elevated paleothermal anomaly exists in sandstones of the Cutler Group where they are located near …

Simulation Of Online Bin Packing In Practice, Kalpana Rajagopal

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The bin packing problem requires packing a set of objects into a finite number of bins of fixed capacity in a way that minimizes the number of bins used. We consider the online version of the problem where items arrive over tine and a decision has to be made as soon as an element is available. Online algorithms can be analyzed in terms of competitiveness, a measure of performance that compares the solution obtained online with the optimal offline solution for the same problem, where the lowest possible competitiveness is best. Online processing is difficult due to the fact that …

Should Neonatologists Give Opinions Withdrawing Life-Sustaining Treatment?, J S. Blumenthal-Barby, Laura Loftis, Christy L. Cummings, William Meadow, Monica Lemmon, Peter A. Ubel, Laurence Mccullough, Emily Rao, John Lantos

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

An infant has a massive intracranial hemorrhage. She is neurologically devastated and ventilator-dependent. The prognosis for pulmonary or neurologic recovery is bleak. The physicians and parents face a choice: withdraw the ventilator and allow her to die or perform a tracheotomy? The parents cling to hope for recovery. The physician must decide how blunt to be in communicating his own opinions and recommendations. Should the physician try to give just the facts? Or should he also make a recommendation based on his own values? In this article, experts in neonatology, decision-making, and bioethics discuss this situation and the choice that …

Cataract Surgery In Children From Birth To Less Than 13 Years Of Age: Baseline Characteristics Of The Cohort., Michael X. Repka, Trevano W. Dean, Elizabeth L. Lazar, Kimberly G. Yen, Phoebe D. Lenhart, Sharon F. Freedman, Denise Hug, Bahram Rahmani, Serena X. Wang, Raymond T. Kraker, David K. Wallace, Pediatric Eye Disease Investigator Group

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

OBJECTIVE: To describe baseline characteristics, initial postoperative refractive errors, operative complications, and magnitude of the intraocular lens (IOL) prediction error for refractive outcome in children undergoing lensectomy largely in North America.

DESIGN: Prospective registry study of children from birth to enrollment.

PARTICIPANTS: Total of 1266 eyes of 994 children; 49% female and 59% white.

METHODS: Measurement of refractive error, axial length, and complete ophthalmic examination.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Eye and systemic associated conditions, IOL style, refractive error, pseudophakic refraction prediction error, operative and perioperative complications.

RESULTS: Mean age at first eligible lens surgery was 4.2 years; 337 (34%) were(59%). Additional …

Obey, Consume, Gerry Canavan

English Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Sickle Cell Disease With Cyanotic Congenital Heart Disease: Long-Term Outcomes In 5 Children, Glen J Iannucci, Olufolake A Adisa, Matthew E Oster, Michael Mcconnell, William T Mahle

The Texas Heart Institute Journal

Sickle cell disease is a risk factor for cerebrovascular accidents in the pediatric population. This risk is compounded by hypoxemia. Cyanotic congenital heart disease can expose patients to prolonged hypoxemia. To our knowledge, the long-term outcome of patients who have combined sickle cell and cyanotic congenital heart disease has not been reported. We retrospectively reviewed patient records at our institution and identified 5 patients (3 girls and 2 boys) who had both conditions. Their outcomes were uniformly poor: 4 died (age range, 12 mo-17 yr); 3 had documented cerebrovascular accidents; and 3 developed ventricular dysfunction. The surviving patient had developmental …

Minority Middle And High School Students' Interest In Science: An Exploration Of Teachers' Perceptions, Caroline Makere

Dissertations

A high school teacher conducted a study about minority middle and high school students’ interest in science. The problem was to find out why African American and Hispanic students were showing very little interest in science. The researcher used four middle school science teachers and nine high school science teachers, all from inner city schools in a big city of the Midwest United States except for one middle school teacher from a nearby suburb. The participants answered a survey questionnaire followed with a face-to-face recorded interview. The findings of the study confirmed that students showed little interest in science due …

An Exploration Of Student Views On Grading And Learning In An Alternative School Setting, Lisa Heipp

Dissertations

Reducing barriers to learning is vital. High school teachers focus tirelessly on how best to engage students in learning; however, grading, which is a fundamental aspect of a teacher’s responsibilities, may be a significant barrier to learning. This dissertation examines students’ views on grading and learning in an alternative high school setting. The twelve students who are the focus of this research have experienced traditional school settings and an alternative charter school setting, thus they offer a perspective on grading and learning that is more widely informed than the majority of students in schools. This study is motivated by three …