Digital Commons Network^™

Companion Planting: Effects Of Radishes On Squash Bugs, Daniel Dejong

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

Throughout history, humans have continuously looked for easier and improved ways of growing our food. Over centuries of hybridizing crop varieties and more recently the invention and implementation of genetically modified (GM) seeds, we have created a food system that is dependent on chemical and seed companies to provide protection from environmental pests. The purpose of this thesis is not to discredit or dissuade someone from using GM seeds, but to take a look at some methods that could protect crops from environmental pests naturally, either for organic farmers or home gardeners. Specifically this review will examine methods of controlling …

Companion Planting: Effects Of Radishes On Squash Bugs, Daniel Dejong

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

Throughout history, humans have continuously looked for easier and improved ways of growing our food. Over centuries of hybridizing crop varieties and more recently the invention and implementation of genetically modified (GM) seeds, we have created a food system that is dependent on chemical and seed companies to provide protection from environmental pests. The purpose of this thesis is not to discredit or dissuade someone from using GM seeds, but to take a look at some methods that could protect crops from environmental pests naturally, either for organic farmers or home gardeners. Specifically this review will examine methods of controlling …

Zika Virus Encoding Nonglycosylated Envelope Protein Is Attenuated And Defective In Neuroinvasion, Arun S. Annamalai, Aryamav Pattnaik, Bikash R. Sahoo, Ezhumalai Muthukrishnan, Sathish Kumar Natarajan, David Steffen, Hiep Vu, Gustavo Delho, Fernando Osorio, Thomas M. Petro, Shi-Hua Xiang, Asit K. Pattnaik

School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences: Faculty Publications

Zika virus (ZIKV), a mosquito-transmitted flavivirus responsible for sporadic outbreaks of mild and febrile illness in Africa and Asia, reemerged in the last decade causing serious human diseases, including microcephaly, congenital malformations, and Guillain-Barré syndrome. Although genomic and phylogenetic analyses suggest that genetic evolution may have led to the enhanced virulence of ZIKV, experimental evidence supporting the role of specific genetic changes in virulence is currently lacking. One sequence motif, VNDT, containing an N-linked glycosylation site in the envelope (E) protein, is polymorphic; it is absent in many of the African isolates but present in all isolates from the recent …

Understanding And Finding Solutions To The Problem Of Sedimentation In The National Wildlife Refuge System, Max Post Van Der Burg, Karen E. Jenni, Timothy L. Nieman, Josh D. Eash, Gregory A. Knutsen

United States Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center: Publications

The National Wildlife Refuge System (Refuge System) is a collection of public lands maintained by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for migratory birds and other wildlife. Wetlands on individual National Wildlife Refuges (Refuges) may be at risk of increased sedimentation because of land use and water management practices. Increased sedimentation can reduce wetland habitat quality by altering hydrologic function, degrading water quality, and inhibiting growth of vegetation and invertebrates. On Refuges negatively affected by increased sedimentation, managers have to address complex questions about how to best remediate and mitigate the negative effects. The best way to account for these …

Anatomía Comparada De La Representación De La Muerte En La Literatura Española Transatlántica Durante El Ocaso De La Edad Media Y El Renacimiento, Miguel Ángel Albújar Escuredo

Department of Modern Languages and Literatures: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The main goal of this project is to dissect how death is represented during the Late Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the beginning of the phenomenon of colonization of America carried out by the Spanish Empire, all of it by means of reviewing the representations in Spanish literary works of those times. This is accomplished by comparing works diachronically in order to reveal the main thematic variations between them. To that effect, representative models are taken from the literary canon in Spanish that involves texts since the Late Middle Ages until the first modernity, also known as the Renaissance. This …

Notes: Range Extension Of The Virginia Opossum (Didelphis Virginiana) In North Dakota, Lisa L. Walsh, Robert Seabloom, Cody W. Thompson

The Prairie Naturalist

The Virginia opossum (Didelphis virginiana) is broadly distributed across North America from Costa Rica in the south to southern Ontario in the north and from the southern Great Plains in the west to the eastern United States. The Virginia opossum also was introduced multiple times to thePacific Coast beginning in the late 1800s and has established populations in that region. This species is a habitat generalist known to frequent wetland and hardwood habitats but also can be found in grasslands, along forest edges, and in agricultural and suburban settings throughout its range. However, the Virginia opossum is adapted …

Coding The Discourse And Translingual Strategies Of Collaborative Writing Of Secondary Education Students, Zane Lee Arredondo

Theses and Dissertations

Kenneth Bruffee used collaborative writing pedagogy to help reacculturate students’ discoursal identities to help them adhere to the expectations of the academic community. Although studies have shown that reacculturation may not exactly happen, Collaborative writing pedagogy still has maintained its presence within Composition studies since then and has been adapted into being implemented into digitally shared spaces. However, one aspect has been overlooked about physical shared spaces, the conversations themselves being studied. This study explores Kenneth Bruffee’s constructive conversations among secondary students within collaborative writing pedagogy. The collaborative sessions are recorded and viewed with a translingual lens applying Johnny Saldana’s …

A Study Of Perceived Leadership Styles As It Affects The Decision-Making Process Employed By Eleven Catholic School Principals In South Texas, Mary Olivia Agbakoba

Theses and Dissertations

Catholic School principals play an important role in the development of students' spiritual, social, and academic wellbeing. Consequently, in order to improve students' spiritual, social, and academic skill, it is vital to study the perceived leadership styles and decision-making of Catholic School Principals. Research questions include: "Is there a relationship between Catholic School Principals and teachers' perceptions on principals' leadership styles?", and "Is there an association between decision type and decision-making style used?" 11 Catholic School Principals and 179 Catholic School Teachers completed a paper and pencil survey that assessed the perceived leadership styles of principals. Data was analyzed using …

You're A Genius All The Time: Analyzing The Effectiveness Of Kerouac's Spontaneous Prose On Empowering English Language Learners, Robert Casas

Theses and Dissertations

The engineer of the Beat Movement, Jack Kerouac, began his writing career as an ELL. Kerouac’s Spontaneous Prose helped him navigate through language acquisition to establish rhetoric in English, and empowered other Beat Writers to expressively develop their thoughts. Spontaneous Prose can also help other ELLs develop their own rhetorical agency. For ELL writers, writing in English often makes them feel disenfranchised, disempowered, and discouraged. However, Spontaneous Prose as a pedagogical tool empowers ELL writers to begin the process of transculturally repositioning themselves in using writing as a form of rhetorical expression. This study investigates the pedagogical effectiveness of Spontaneous …

The Smuggler Journals: Transgressing And Policing The Border In The Rio Grande Valley, Lupe Alberto Flores

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis summarizes recent human smuggling scholarship and provides ethnographic insights into migrant smuggling in a border zone that is my home. Through exploring my own experiences and observations of smuggling and militarized border policing, and those of other interlocutors in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, I advance nuanced understandings of the symbiotic processes of irregular migration and of the people who brokerage a great deal of these journeys across militarized borders. I analyze fieldnotes that highlight the quotidian realms in which gender and power play out when irregular migration takes place and argue that acts of border …

Aristotle, Redemption, And The Conquest Of The Americas, Luis Angel Buentello

Theses and Dissertations

The central question addressed in my thesis is the claim that the even though the conquest of the Americas by the Spaniards was a brutal and murderous process, the Spanish imperial project in the Americas, based on Aristotelian ideology, resulted in the most beneficial and least harmful form of conquest conceivable in comparison to the next great empire of the age, the British Empire.

The founding pillars of Spain’s overseas empire in the Americas, based on an Aristotelian framework, produced a synthesis of political thinking that brought about greater benefits to the native populations, and slave populations, subsumed under the …

Utilizing Accelerometer Telemetry Tags To Compare Red Snapper (Lutjanus Campechanus) Behavior On Artificial And Natural Reefs, Ethan T. Getz

Theses and Dissertations

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Artificial Reef Program has deployed over 2,800 hectares of reefing area composed of petroleum platforms, steel vessels, and concrete. Artificial reefs have been shown to support many important reef fishes such as red snapper (Lutjanus campechanus), however, few studies have compared fish behavior on artificial reefs and natural habitats. We examined activity levels, behavioral patterns and habitat preferences of red snapper over natural reefs, oil platforms and submerged ships. Telemetry tags (Sonotronics model MTT) with tri-axial acceleration range, average depth, and average temperature were programmed to optimize data collection and tag life. …

Effect Of Land Use Change On South Texas Bats, Katharine Leigh Jones

Theses and Dissertations

Bats were acoustically recorded in South Texas over the summer of 2017. Nine species of bats were recorded and identified.

Regression-Discontinuity Analysis Of The Effects Of Government Housing Policies, Alejandro Rojas

Theses and Dissertations

An influential literature has applied regression-discontinuity (RD) analysis to investigate the effects of government housing policies. This literature has failed to identify substantial effects of these policies, but may also suffer from various biases and limitations. This dissertation carefully examines what, if any, issues face RD analysis in this context. Chapter II considers the Affordable Housing Goals (AHGs) and Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), affordable housing policies that compel Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (F&F) and depository institutions, respectively, to increase access to mortgage credit for borrowers perceived by some as “underserved” by the mortgage market. Chapter III considers the overall …

Hablando De Negocios: Three Rio Grande Valley Businesses During The Great Depression, 1929-1939, Karla A. Lira

Theses and Dissertations

The Rio Grande Valley is in the South most tip of Texas and borders Northern Mexico, it includes Willacy, Cameron, Hidalgo, and Starr Counties. Scholars have focused on gender, agriculture, and labor of the area. However, historians have failed to research the region through a business perspective during the Great Depression. This thesis then seeks to analyze ways in which the Great Depression affected the Rio Grande Valley through the research of two stores and one business in the area: The Manuel Guerra Store, Edelstein’s furniture store, and John Shary’s land selling business. Its objective will fill an existing gap …

Voice Of A “Seasoned” Ob Professor, Fred Luthans

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

I will be making some highly personalized comments on the Aguinis et al. article* concerning rigor vs. relevance, renaming/rebranding I-O psychology, and I-O psychology vs. business school OB. Before commenting, however, I feel compelled to briefly frame my remarks from the perspective of my 50-year academic career. For example, I think it is important to note that I go back to the early 1960s at the University of Iowa, College of Business. I was studying for my Ph.D. in the just emerging field of management and organizations (nothing was offered called organizational behavior or strategic management). However, and very unusual …

Three Flute Chamber Works By Alberto Ginastera: Intertwining Elements Of Art And Folk Music, Breta L. Neel

Glenn Korff School of Music: Dissertations, Theses, Student Creative Work, and Performances

Alberto Ginastera’s output includes three chamber works containing the flute, all composed within the period of objective nationalism (1934-1947), a designation provided by the composer to encompass those works that present folk elements in an overt manner in a largely tonal framework. Impresiones de la Puna and Cantos del Tucumán, written in 1934 and 1938 respectively, contain salient folk elements and are thus representative pieces of this stylistic period. In addition to folk characteristics, these early works also contain pitch-class sets which serve to unify the pieces, thereby suggesting future elements of the composer’s style. The Duo for Flute …

Volume 101, Number 4 (Winter 2017)

Judicature

No abstract provided.

Meeting Real-Time Constraint Of Spectrum Management In Tv Black-Space Access, Zhongyuan Zhao

School of Computing: Technical Reports

The TV set feedback feature standardized in the next generation TV system, ATSC 3.0, would enable opportunistic access of active TV channels in future Cognitive Radio Networks. This new dynamic spectrum access approach is named as black-space access, as it is complementary of current TV white space, which stands for inactive TV channels. TV black-space access can significantly increase the available spectrum of Cognitive Radio Networks in populated urban markets, where spectrum shortage is most severe while TV whitespace is very limited. However, to enable TV black-space access, secondary user has to evacuate a TV channel in a timely manner …

Aquifers Of Nebraska Ii: The Niobrara Aquifer, Dana Divine, Robert Matthew Joeckel, Sue Olafsen Lackey

Conservation and Survey Division: Faculty and Staff Publications

The marine shale, chalk, marl, and chalky limestone of the Niobrara Formation directly underlie Quaternary sediments in 23 counties from south-central to northeastern Nebraska. Nevertheless, the formation serves as an aquifer only in and around Cedar, Madison, and Nuckolls counties. Niobrara aquifer wells mostly supply irrigation, domestic, and livestock needs. Two hundred of the approximately 230 active registered wells in Nebraska that are screened entirely in the Niobrara aquifer are in Cedar County and environs. About another 200 wells in this area are screened in both the Niobrara aquifer and overlying Quaternary sediments. Wells screened entirely in the Niobrara aquifer …

A Content Analysis Of Beauty Brands’ Use In China Of Sina Weibo To Improve Marketing And Customer Engagement, Mengling Cao

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to explore how beauty brands use social media to meet customer’s needs and improve customer engagement through social media posts. The development of social media helps brands to extend their marketing areas and gain various benefits. Based on the uses and gratification theory and literature about customer engagement, this study proposes several aspects about posts include posting day, message originality, medium t ype, post content, and all affect customer engagements online. In this study, the researcher content analysis 2,676 posts from the Top 10 beauty brands on Sina Weibo, the biggest micro blogging website …

Attitudes And Perceived Legitimacy Of Police: Crises, Responses, And How Race Influences Perceptions, Brigitte Bonaci

Theses and Dissertations

Public relations is a strategic field because an organization may need to structure a message with the intent of persuading the public and making it respond to a crisis and a message in a certain way. This study will help introduce the concept of a lingering crisis that is hardly present in research and could be put under the public relations umbrella. Using a survey of communications students, this study will compare the public attitudes and perceptions of perceived legitimacy of a police department after it experiences one of three crisis types, one of which being a lingering crisis. Attitudes …

Effects Of Cultural Factors In Sports-Related Concussion Testing Performance Of Collegiate Athletes, Gabriela Andrea González Torres

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the current study was to explore potential differences in preseason baseline concussion testing between an ethnically and linguistically diverse sample of Division 2 NCAA collegiate student-athletes. A value-added second aim was to create awareness regarding the implications of multiculturalism as it relates to neuropsychological testing of sport related concussions. This study is part of a, slow yet steady, growing body of research concerning diversity issues within the sport setting. 479 Division II collegiate athletes from the Florida Institute of Technology were assessed during mandatory preseason baseline testing. The Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing, the Sports Concussion …

Ancient Amazonian Populations Left Lasting Impacts On Forest Structure, Michael W. Palace, Crystal H. H. Mcmichael, Bobby H. Braswell, Stephen C. Hagen, Mark B. Bush, Eduardo Góes Neves, Eduardo K. Tamanaha, Christina Herrick, Steve E. Frolking

Ocean Engineering and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Amazonia contains a vast expanse of contiguous tropical forest and is influential in global carbon and hydrological cycles. Whether ancient Amazonia was highly disturbed or modestly impacted, and how ancient disturbances have shaped current forest ecosystem processes, is still under debate. Amazonian Dark Earths (ADEs), which are anthropic soil types with enriched nutrient levels, are one of the primary lines of evidence for ancient human presence and landscape modifications in settings that mostly lack stone structures and which are today covered by vegetation. We assessed the potential of using moderate spatial resolution optical satellite imagery to predict ADEs across the …

Variability Of Paralarval-Squid Occurrence In Meter-Net Tows From East Of Florida, Usa, Carrie A. Erickson, Clyde F.E. Roper, Michael Vecchione

Ocean Engineering and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

We attempted to determine cross-shelf, diel, and seasonal distribution patterns of paralarval cephalopods off eastern Florida during a 5-year study that employed both open-net and discrete-depth closing-net sampling. Based on our 303 samples, abundant and common squid taxa included the squid Doryteuthis spp., which tended to be in coastal and intermediate waters, and Abralia cf veranyi (Eye-Flash Squid), Illex spp. (shortfin squid), and Ommastrephidae Type A (which could include Ommastrephes bartramii [Neon Flying Squid] and Ornithoteuthis antillarum [Atlantic Bird Squid]), mostly in intermediate and Florida Current waters. Species diversity and abundance were usually greatest in Florida Current waters versus coastal …

Education Leadership Perspectives: Positve Ways, Iwasan D. Kejawa Ed.D

Department of Educational Administration: Faculty Publications

Are outdated traditional education, information technological infrastructure, problematic issues in providing quality leadership education in many of our instittutions today? With this into considerations, are these issues vital in order to stabilize the political and economic embroidery of our institutions or organizations, and its psychological and sociological awareness? What are really to be taught in our institutions to educate the present and the future leaders in the society? It is found that education may be the training of the mind to perform desire functions or to perpetuate the modality of obtaining an end or result. Actually, the accessibility of leadership …

The “Singapore Model” In Gaming: Applications In South Korea, Young Gi Lee

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The gaming governance system in Singapore is a very well-known and internationally renowned model. Singapore began to launch their gaming regulation system in 2005 by establishing a national framework on gambling prior to opening two integrated resorts in the country in 2010 (Winslow, Cheok, & Subramaniam, 2015). In contrast, the South Korean “model” is much less renowned. Though there have been discussions about introducing full-scale integrated resorts, the government currently allows South Korean citizens to gamble in only one property - Kangwon Land (Research, 2016). However, Kangwon Land’s situation is controversial in South Korea, with concerns about problem gambling issues …

Remember The Country And The Age In Which We Live": The British Gothic Novel In The Age Of Enlightenment, 1764-1798, Garland David Beasley

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Remember the Country and the Age in Which We Live” argues that the British Gothic novels produced in the late eighteenth century were not, as has traditionally been assumed, written in reaction against Enlightenment values in the face of rising political and social discord. Instead, I contend that eighteenth-century Gothic novels take part in a larger tradition of the novel that sought to impart the values of Enlightenment into a modernist genre still on the rise. By exploring the influence of Samuel Richardson on the development of the Gothic novel, the role of formal and informal educational structures, representations of …

"Already Writers": A Case Study In Assessment And Visual Rhetoric Connections In Digital Multimodal Composition, Fawn Elise Canady

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

English language arts must respond to shifts in literacy practices that reflect changes in ‘college and career ready’ that are more than technologically mediated, but also emphasize creative and social skills. The case study in this dissertation is a small part of a larger, ongoing formative experiment in digital multimodal composition (DMC). A formative experiment is a methodological approach that favors a collaborative, iterative research process that is centered on an instructional goal in authentic classroom settings (Reinking & Bradley, 2008). The intention of the larger research study was to support students’ learning through DMC. This dissertation explored one of …

Reverse Migration: Documenting How The Educational Experiences Of Transnational Youth In Mexican Schools Are Shaped By Parental Deportation, Sandra Lourdes Candel

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Research Problem

Over 500,000 U.S.-born children are living in Mexico –some due to parental deportation– experiencing a decrease in their quality of life, the stress of an unfamiliar language and culture, and difficulty accessing education. In order to support them in their transition to Mexico, and to reincorporate them into U.S. society as adults, their struggles and educational trajectories should be of great concern to the Mexican and U.S. governments, as well as higher education institutions.

Purpose

The purpose of this qualitative study was to document the educational experiences of transnational students attending schools in a border city in northern …