Digital Commons Network^™

The Impact Of Virtual Presence On Willingness To Book: The Moderating Role Of Self-Construal And Gender, Sung Jun Joe

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Social influence is not limited only to interactive situations but also includes those that occur without a direct interaction such as the mere presence of others (Argo, Dahl, & Manchanda, 2005). Although there is wide agreement that the mere presence of others influences one’s decision-making process, little research is conducted to understand whether the effect of the presence of others influences consumer behaviors in an online context (Naylor, Lamberton, & West, 2012). To address this gap, this study suggests that mere virtual presence (MVP) provides social cues to the customer and influences the customer’s willingness to book (WTB). Specifically, the …

Mental Accounting And Unplanned Purchases In Online Booking: The Role Of Discount, Impulse Buying, And Thinking Style, Esther L. Kim

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

To minimize the high cost of commissions of online travel agencies (OTA), the majority of hospitality operators provide member only exclusive rates to encourage consumers to book on their websites directly. However, the revenue cannot be maximized due to the amount of discount. This dissertation suggests that hospitality operators may maximize their profit with the adoption of surprise discount to increase consumers’ unplanned purchases. Applying the mental accounting principle, this dissertation examines how consumers respond to a surprise discount when they make unplanned purchases, such as purchasing add-on items online. This dissertation utilized three experiments in an online hotel booking …

A Binding Sisterhood Of Transnational Feminism: A Close Look At Iran And Argentina, Bernadette Mary Lazar

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation examines the impact of transnational feminism in Iran and Argentina. Specifically, it focuses on the role of the diaspora and international communities and their interactions with social movements in these two countries. Although the study of transnational feminism is not a new phenomenon, very little research has been dedicated towards distinguishing the effects and differences in outcomes when either the diaspora or the broader international network is involved. By filling this gap in the literature, this dissertation will shed light on whether the diaspora community, NGOs, or the international community is necessary for success or favorable outcomes in …

Discovering Motor Phenotypes In Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Cross-Syndrome Approach, Daniel Edwin Lidstone

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder with a behavioral phenotype characterized by persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction accompanied by restricted, repetitive patterns of behaviors, interests, or activities. Currently in the US, approximately 2.5% of children have a diagnosis of ASD. The etiology of ASD is complex, however the disorder does have a strong genetic basis. Specific genetic mutations can lead to neuroanatomical and neurophysiological changes during development resulting in a behavioral phenotype that falls along the ASD spectrum and may result in a diagnosis of ASD. The severity of ASD-specific behaviors falls on a continuum …

Improving Community College Students' Interest, Utility-Value, And Performance: How Does Future Time Persective Influence A Utility-Value Intervention?, Elsa Maria Mason

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The economic benefits of academic success and completion are long-lasting. Students who attend community colleges can stand to benefit a great deal by completing a 4-year degree or even a 2-year degree. Unfortunately, these students often begin their higher education journey not fully prepared for college-level coursework. Students often fail to see how their college coursework relates to their lives and in turn, don’t hold interest or perceive value for the course and consequently do not perform well. Using Eccles et al. (1983) expectancy-value theory this study tested how community college students would respond to a utility-value intervention in which …

On Algebraic Structures And Automaton For Optimal Computer Network Design And Performance Study, Xiangrong Ma

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

For decades, study of computer networks has been concentrated on the use of the well-established OSI or TCP/IP reference models that have found tremendous success in the actual implementation of various network structures and protocols. Lack of theoretical foundation, this implementation-driven, empirical approach, however, is experiencing insurmountable difficulties in delivering, tuning for, and sustaining the promised peak performance of a computer system that is so heavily dependent on the performance of the underline computer networks. This issue is becoming particularly prevalent in today’s cloud-based high-performance computing environment where CPU-time-extensive computation loads need to get distributed among computing machines through high-speed …

On Action Quality Assessment, Paritosh Parmar

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In this dissertation, we tackle the task of quantifying the quality of actions, i.e., how well an

action was performed using computer vision. Existing methods used human body pose-based features to express the quality contained in an action sample. Human body pose estimation in actions such as sports actions, like diving and gymnastic vault, is particularly challenging, since the athletes undergo convoluted transformations while performing their routines. Moreover, pose-based features do not take into account visual cues such as water splash in diving. Visual cues are taken into account by human judges. In our first work, we show that using …

Impact Of Design Cost Percentage On Cost Growth, Schedule Growth, And Construction Intensity Of Road Construction Projects, Elina Prajapati

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The performance of construction projects is measured in terms of cost and schedule variation. Studies have identified that such variations are mainly due to design changes, which are more frequent on projects executed through the design-bid-build (DBB) delivery method. Thus, the design factor is identified as one of the major parameters affecting the performance of DBB projects. Despite the majority of road projects being constructed following the DBB method, the impact of design cost on the performance of road projects has not been sufficiently studied yet. Therefore, this study focuses on determining the effect of design cost on the performance …

Benson’S Relaxation Response: Psychological And Physiological Responses Among Patients With Copd, Crista Reaves

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the third leading cause of death in the United States. In patients with COPD, distress is significantly prevalent and can have adverse psychological and physiological effects. Considering the increased rate of COPD, a mind-body intervention focusing on the reduction of both psychological and physiological responses such as anxiety, elevated blood pressure (BP), heart rate (HR), dyspnea, and respiratory rate must be integrated into the patient’s plan of care. The relaxation response (RR) is a term coined by Dr. Herbert Benson in the 1970s describing the body’s ability to counter the fight-or-flight response to decrease …

Neural Network In Hardware, Jiong Si

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation describes the implementation of several neural networks built on a field programmable gate array (FPGA) and used to recognize a handwritten digit dataset – the Modified National Institute of Standards and Technology (MNIST) database. A novel hardwarefriendly activation function called the dynamic ReLU (D-ReLU) function is proposed. This activation function can decrease chip area and power of neural networks when compared to traditional activation functions at no cost to prediction accuracy.

The implementations of three neural networks on FPGA are presented: 2-layer online training fully-connected neural network, 3-layer offline training fully-connected neural network, and two solutions of Super-Skinny …

Living On The Move: The Digital Nomad Mobile Phenomenon Identity And Practice, Virginia Rachele Smercina

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The following exploratory project used a qualitative mixed method approach by means of a preliminary blog analysis of thirty-seven blogs and twenty-five semi-structured interviews for data collection on individuals known as digital nomads. The theoretical foundations of this study are centered on practice theory, structuration theory, as well as discussions surrounding cultural identity. The project’s aim is to increase our understanding of the digital nomad phenomenon by asking four research questions: Who are the digital nomads? How is digital nomadism practiced? Why choose to live on the move? Is digital nomadism sustainable? The discussion includes how the digital nomad identity …

On The Human Factors Impact Of Polyglot Programming On Programmer Productivity, Phillip Merlin Uesbeck

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Polyglot programming is a common practice in modern software development. This practice is often considered useful to create software by allowing developers to use whichever language they consider most well suited for the different parts of their software. Despite this ubiquity of polyglot programming there is no empirical research into how this practice affects software developers and their productivity. In this dissertation, after reviewing the state of the art in programming language and linguistic research pertaining to the topic, this matter is investigated by way of two empirical studies with 109 and 171 participants solving programming tasks. Based on the …

Minimizing The Dangers Of Air Pollution Using Alternative Facts: A Science Museum Case Study, David H. Lee

Publications and Research

A science museum exhibition about human health contains an exhibit that minimizes health impacts of air pollution. Relevant details, such as the full range of health risks; fossil fuel combustion; air quality statutes (and the local electrical utility’s violations of these statues), are omitted, while end users of electricity are blamed. The exhibit accomplishes this, not through outright falsification, but through selected “alternative facts” that change the focus and imply misleading alternate explanations. Using two classical rhetorical concepts (the practical syllogism and the enthymeme) allows for the surfacing of missing evidence and unstated directives underlying multimodal rhetoric. By stating multimedia …

Maloca-Escola: Transformations Of The Tukanoan House, Melissa S. Oliveira

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This paper aims to demonstrate how, by combining the foundation of an indigenous school with the construction of a longhouse (maloca), the Tukano indigenous association of the Hausirõ and Ñahuri Porã clans, Middle Tiquié river, produces social relations proper to Tukanoan House societies as described by Hugh-Jones (1991, 1993). Through "indigenous research" and the celebrations that mark the school calendar, internal subdivisions of clan, hierarchy, age and gender are marked in space, while, at the same time, this new space allows for interdependence and articulation with other indigenous groups and outsiders (especially NGO professionals, scientists and politicians). In …

Cosmology And Practice In Amazonia: The Inspiring Career Of Stephen Hugh-Jones, Chloe Nahum-Claudel, Olivier Allard

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Stephen Hugh-Jones’s ethnographic and collaborative engagement with the peoples of the Pirá-Paraná and, more widely, the Vaupés and Upper Rio Negro today spans 50 years. In this Introduction we chart the evolution of Hugh-Jones’s hybrid identity as iconoclast scholar, knowledgeable elder, and long-term collaborator. A biographical sketch identifies phases in this anthropological life: that of the ethnographer and initiate, steeped in the intellectual world of Barasana shaman-priests; that of lecturer and theorist in anthropology; and that of areal specialist, developing a synthesis of the ethnography of North West Amazonia through an engagement with Brazilian and indigenous intellectuals. We characterize the …

Project F.O.C.U.S, Justin Munoz

Second-Year Seminar Posters (COE 202)

No abstract provided.

St. Norbert College Students Participate In Trips Program Over Winter Break, St. Norbert College

Press Releases 2019

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Organization Of Local Languages ​​"A Comparative Analytical Study", Bassem Mohsen Nayef Praiseworthy

Uruk Journal of Human Sciences

The drafting of the constitution in the language adopted by the people has become a fait accompli to represent its identity and demonstrate its autonomy and unify its societies. This requires their use of the language with the same art, craft, methodology and standard to preserve them in a way that reaches the people, And in order to reach the content of the Constitution to others committed to it so as not to be difficult to recognize the purpose, whether in terms of the Inclusiveness, or in terms of detailed analysis of its texts, because it is an integral part …

The Impact Of The Internet On Children And Adolescents, Israa Mahdi Abdul Khafaji, Sanaa Ali Jabr

Uruk Journal of Human Sciences

The term information revolution and modern technology has emerged as a broad term to include the integration of traditional media such as films, pictures, music, spoken and printed words with the interactive ability of computers and communication technology, and the applications of the scientific revolution in the field of communication and information.

2019-December-15-Etsu Is 'All In', University Marketing And Communications, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

No abstract provided.

Group A: Asme Student Design Challenge, Dakshi Jindal, Ashley Perry, Ben Liao

Mechanical Engineering Design Project Class

This year's student design competition is termed "Building to the Sky." Student teams are required to build a compact engineering system capable of manufacturing a tower made of only standard-sized sheets of paper.

External Voting In Developing Countries: Strategic Bargaining And The Role Of Remittances, Hafthor Erlingsson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study and numerous prior works have argued that remittances increase the likelihood that states will implement external voting. However, quantitative studies have generally failed to find a relationship between reliance on remittances and the adoption and implementation of external voting. In this study it is argued that the pooling of observations from developed and developing countries as well as autocracies and highly consolidated democracies has altered previous results. Most studies have also not investigated possible non-linearities in the relationship between remittances and external voting. The results of this study illustrate the non-linear influence remittances have on non-autocratic developing countries …

Galena Creek Bridge Structural Health Monitoring Instrumentation And Modeling, Leopold Falkensammer

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Structural health monitoring (SHM) of an instrumented structure provides numerous benefits when assessing the long-term condition of the structure against degradation, or the short-term condition after an extreme event, such as an earthquake. The Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) has an interest in expanding the use of SHM for such assessments. Accordingly, the objective of the current study is to develop and implement a permanent SHM system for the Galena Creek Bridge, the largest concrete cathedral arch bridge in the world, to monitor its response to routine traffic and seismic activity. Completed in 2012, the bridge connects Reno and Carson …

Utility Of Bench Scale Sand Tank Experiments At Assessing Permeable Reactive Barrier Design, Brandon Meier

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The objective of this work was to evaluate the utility of bench scale sand tank experiments at assessing permeable reactive barrier (PRB) design. Our criteria for meeting this goal was that differences between PRB designs could be identified solely by measuring concentration in outflow from the sand tank models. For our PRB designs (funnel-and-gate, staggered wells, and parallel bars), numerical simulations clearly showed that PRB design had a quantifiable effect on outflow concentration, provided that the solute reacted with the PRB materials. Conversely, use of a conservative (non-reactive) solute did not allow us to discern between PRB design alternatives. Employing …

The Effects Of Background, Classroom Assessment Competence, Self-Efficacy, And Self-Perceived Assessment Skills On Classroom Assessment Practices Of Teachers In India, Manognya Murukutla

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Teacher-conducted assessments are necessary to gather important information to facilitate student learning and academic success. Unfortunately, there is an inconsistency in teacher knowledge of assessment and assessment practices. While previous research identified a gap in teacher competence and teacher perceptions of their competence, and this affects classroom assessment practices that then impact student learning, the research is limited, outdated, and not grounded in any theoretical framework. This study addresses gaps in literature and establishes self-efficacy as a theoretical framework in which classroom assessment can be studied. Data were collected in India, and a path analysis and a Kruskal Wallis non-parametric …

Assessing The Morphology Of Vesicles In Inhibitory Symmetric Synapses In Safety And Fear Conditions In The Rat Lateral Amygdala, Valerie Kress

Honors Scholar Theses

There is a significant lack of research on vesicle morphology in inhibitory synapses in the rat lateral amygdala. Published research focuses heavily on excitatory synapses in different parts of the rat brain and even this research rarely focuses on the different vesicle types in axons. It is reported that in these axons, synaptic vesicles traditionally contain neurotransmitters while small dense core vesicles contain active zone proteins and large dense core vesicles contain neuropeptides. This study aims to find correlations between vesicle morphology, location, contents, and potential function of each of the different types of vesicle in inhibitory axons.

After reviewing …

First-Personal Body Aesthetics As Affirmations Of Subjectivity, Madeline Martin-Seaver

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

This paper redirects some of the philosophical discussion of sexual objectification. Rather than contributing further to debates over what constitutes objectification and whether it is harmful, I argue that aesthetic experience is a useful tool for resisting objectification. Attending to our embodied experiences provides immediate evidence that we are subjects; aesthetically attending to that evidence is a way of valuing it. I consider the human body as an aesthetic site, then as an ethico-aesthetic site, and finally as a site of resistance. In addition to deepening accounts of body aesthetic experience, this paper helps frame human bodies as integral to …

Analyzing Sentiments To Improve Transportation Services Using Nlp, Abdulnasser Ahli

Theses

In the 21st century, social media apps like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Waze, Instagram, etc. are used by people to post their activities, sentiments, and feedback. Likewise, people are posting their experiences either positive or negative feedback or recommendation to improve the existing services of public transportation such as Buses, Tram, Metro, Taxis, Marines. Moreover, people are also posting about traffic conditions and accidents on the social media. However, at present most of the authorities depend on surveys and customer complaints to improve to knew people sentiments. This has very limited information because they cannot reach to all customers. Therefore, in …

Volunteering With Project F.O.C.U.S., Brooke Knoles

Second-Year Seminar Posters (COE 202)

No abstract provided.

Project F.O.C.U.S, Tatiana Tonga

Second-Year Seminar Posters (COE 202)

No abstract provided.