Digital Commons Network^™

Restructuring Of The Axon Initial Segment In Mouse Models Of Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Rachel Ali Rodriguez

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) affect more than 36% of children in countries with low- and middle- incomes (Boivin, 2015; McCoy, 2016). Interestingly, these heterogeneous disorders share a high incidence of epileptic seizures, suggesting a shared pathology. Seizures result when neuronal firing activity becomes disturbed and neurons fire excessively or in unregulated patterns. A key site in the control of neuronal firing patterns is the axon initial segment (AIS), where the local density of proteins and the morphology of the AIS in part determine the firing of neurons. We hypothesized that a disruption in the morphology and/or composition of the AIS can …

Chatting Online: An Ethnographic Case Study Of Educator Discourse On Social Media, Lindsay J. Russell

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study sought to examine the online discussions of teachers located in the Southwestern area of the United States regarding social justice issues on social media. Specifically, it looked to discover how educators in this region are attempting to assert agency when faced with socially inequitable situations. Teachers in this region are hired as public employees in a state that penalizes public workers for exhibiting opinions (SRS § 288.260, 1969).

The study utilized Cultural Historical Activity Theory along with Critical Multiculturalism to demonstrate that our present actions are culturally and historically situated while illuminating hegemonic forces. The study found that …

High-Speed Radhard Mega-Pixel Cis Camera For High-Energy Physics, Wenlan Wu

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation describes the schematic design, physical layout implementation, system-level hardware with FPGA firmware design, and testing of a camera-on-a-chip with a novel high-speed CMOS image sensor (CIS) architecture developed for a mega-pixel array. The novel features of the design include an innovative quadruple column-parallel readout (QCPRO) scheme with rolling shutter that increases pixel rate, its ability to program the frame rate and to tolerate Total Ionizing Dose effects (TID). Two versions of the architecture, a small (128 x 1,024 pixels) and large (768 x 1,024 pixels) version were designed and fabricated with a custom layout that does not include …

The Parallel Security Apparatus: Examining The Cases Of Baathist Iraq, Syria, And Iran, Donald Utchel

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation examines the phenomena of the parallel security apparatus in the cases of Baathist Iraq, Syria, and Iran. Parallel security structures are often limited to books and articles published on secret police organizations in the broader security literature. Their research often focuses on one branch of the parallel security apparatus rather than examining all the parallel security institutions of that particular regime. This body of research attempts to bring further light to this particular phenomenon by examining all the parallel security institutions in a particular case and to connect and trace the various parallel security institutions to see if …

Evaluating Parents Sociodemographic Factors And Childhood Vaccine Decisions, Mehret Girmay

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Vaccination is considered one of the most successful public health achievements of the 20th century. However, with increasing vaccine skepticism emerging over the past decades, there is a threat to the ongoing sustainment of vaccine coverage within all US communities. This study evaluated and compared parents’ sociodemographic factors associated with childhood vaccine decisions. This study is a secondary analysis of 893 parents/guardians, age 18-55 years with child(ren) < 7 years living in the U.S.

Predictive analysis was conducted using multinomial logistic regression modeling was used to examine vaccine decisions (accept, hesitant, and refuse) in relation to parents’ sociodemographic factors. Overall, (66.6%) of parents accepted recommended vaccines, while …

‘Weill Auchtyn Eldris Exemplis Ws To Steir’: Aeneas And The Narrator In The Prologues To Gavin Douglas’S Eneados, P. J. Klemp

Studies in Scottish Literature

Discusses the translation of Virgil's Aeneid into Middle Scots by Gavin Douglas (1474-1522), the first translation of a major classical work into either Scots or English, analyzing the role of the narrator/translator in the prologues Douglas wrote, and arguing that by blurring the boundary between his own prefatory material and the Virgil text he was translating, Douglas brought the two elements into relationship to form a unified epic masterpiece.

Books Noted And Received, Patrick Scott

Studies in Scottish Literature

This list covers a first group of the books received or noted since publication of SSL 43:2; this preliminary proof version will be expanded shortly, and further titles from this period will be noticed in a future issue. Inclusion in this list need not preclude possible subsequent discussion in a more formal review.

Role Of Echocardiography In Diagnostic Evaluation Of Patients Admitted To Observation Unit., Muhammad Arslan Cheema, Hafez Mohammad Ammar Abdullah, Waqas Ullah, Yasar Sattar, Shujaul Haq, Khadija Cheema, Asrar Ahmad, Zain Ali, Asoka Balaratna

Abington Jefferson Health Papers

BACKGROUND: Syncope is a transient loss of consciousness due to transient decrease in cerebral perfusion. Syncope accounts for a 3-6% of all emergency department visits. Etiology of syncope can be neural, cardiogenic, or vascular. Previous studies have evaluated the types and management of syncope. Echocardiography is a commonly used test in the evaluation of causes of syncope. Whether the benefit compared to financial burden of this diagnostic study is in all subsets of syncope cases remains unclear.

AIM: To evaluate the impact of echocardiography in the diagnostic evaluation of syncope and to evaluate the subset of patients that would benefit …

Corrosion-Resistant Non-Carbon Electrocatalyst Supports For Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells, Cheng He

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) are a promising portable power source due to their low operating temperature, minimal pollutant generation and fast startup. However, several challenges remain concerning lifetime, reliability, and cost. A critical issue is PEMFC component durability. Platinum supported on high surface area carbon has been one of the most widely used electrocatalysts in PEMFCs. However, carbon corrosion over the course of normal PEMFC operation occurs due to the relatively low standard electrode potential for the carbon dioxide/carbon redox couple (0.207V vs. standard hydrogen electrode). Considering this challenge, it is imperative to identify alternative support materials to …

The Image Of Politicians In Tony Kushner’S Play Homebody/Kabul; A Corpus Critical Stylistic Analysis, Hadeel Falah Hasan, Sarab Khalil Hameed

Alustath Journal for Human and Social Sciences

This article discusses the Critical Stylistic analysis of the politicians’ images in corpora of Tony Kushner’s play Homebody/Kabul. The study adopts Jeffries model with the aid of corpus linguistic methods to show how text might be said to perform ideologies. It investigates how the image of war and politicians are presented. By using Naming and Describing tool, the analysis shows that the overall image of politicians is that they were aggressive when it comes to conduct war depending on what have they declared to be done.

A Critical Discourse Analysis Of The Language Of Persuasion Used In The Election Campaigns By American Parliaments, Iman Jebur Janam

Alustath Journal for Human and Social Sciences

Persuasion can be defined as a scientific art which is closely connected with our life .Linguistically speaking, persuasion is achieved through many techniques termed "persuasive devices". These persuasive devices are covered in different domains of life. Accordingly, persuasion has been defined in various methods according to communication as ''a communication process in which a communicator searches to draw out a desired response from his receiver''. This paper investigates different strategies of persuasion used by different people in different domains of life and how those strategies differ when used in election parliament. The aim of this paper is to find out …

Gender Differences In Early Communication, Language Acquisition And Development: A Descriptive Study, رشا عبد الرضا سعيد, رشا عبد المنعم عزيز

Alustath Journal for Human and Social Sciences

Parents pay a significant attention to the first words children utter. However, first words are not the actual beginning of communication. Much earlier, babies begin to communicate their feeling via making eye contact, pointing, crying, squealing, and other gestures. Furthermore, they perceive language earlier than making others understand them. The aim of this paper is to tackle the variations between the two sexes starting from the stages of language acquisition in normal children, the differences between the two genders in language vocalization within each stage. Next, the distinctions in acquiring a particular communicative competence and the causes behind this difference …

Dramatizing Modern American And Arabic Poetry A Study In Selected Poems By Kenneth Koch And Yousif Al-Sayegh, Haitham K. Eidan Al-Zubbaidi

Alustath Journal for Human and Social Sciences

The interrelatedness of drama and poetry introduces one of the most exceptionally robust examples of trans-genre literature. It is further characterized by a deep-rooted tradition that dates back to ancient Greek and Roman drama, as well as a sense of circumstantial and ad hoc necessity-driven, age-oriented adaptability. The present paper assumes that this well-established sensitive relation of poetry and drama rests upon some circumstantial time-specific cultural forces or motivators that impact the ebb and flow, the expansion-contraction movements which are directly related to the temporal necessities and requirements of the textual and contextual poetic discourse. To this end, and to …

The Effect Of Using Pbla On Iraqi Efl Academic Students` Learning Achievement, ايلاف رياض خليل

Alustath Journal for Human and Social Sciences

Assessment should give more attention on the learning achievement of the curriculum. Portfolio- based learning assessment (PBLA) is utilized in language learning materials recently .It is assessment tools to test the learners’ learning for instance open-ended problem solving, and creative and critical thinking, imaginative, reflective, have the capacity to apply their information in new issues, and to express oral and composing. This paper aims to discover the impact of utilizing (PBLA) on students’ performance at College of Education (Ibn –Rushd) in English Department the third stage. To fulfill the aim, a sample of the study is (64) EFL students of …

Revolution And Modernity In Nazim Hikmet’S “The Epic Of Sheikh Bedridden”, Mahmood Rakan Ahmed

Alustath Journal for Human and Social Sciences

This paper aims to prove that the poem “The Epic of Sheikh Bedridden” by the first Turkish modernist poet Nazim Hikmet expresses a political unconscious of modernity by incarnating and adopting modernist, rebellious and revolutionary ideas in his poem in both form and content in order to subjugate repression and oppression. Throughout his didactic poem he urges his people for a better Turkey whose freedom of thought and expression and liberty are essential ideals. Hikmet’s proposal for a more tolerant and open Turkey becomes undeniable truth after a long history of contestation through the power of the words

Aggression In August Wilson’S King Hedley Ii, Asma’A Mohannad Saad, Muthanna Mohammad Sultan

Alustath Journal for Human and Social Sciences

The need for investigating the stereotypical image of the African American males as aggressive, criminal individuals brings this research to address this sensitive issue. But the stereotypes of the African American have drawn the attention of many black writers and psychiatrists who tried to dismantle these images by revealing the social, psychological, and socioeconomic factors which contribute in this phenomenon. This paper highlights the reasons that drive the black males to adopt aggression through analyzing August Wilson’s King Hedley II (1999). In this play, Wilson portrays the widely spread aggression and its negative consequences. He also goes a step further …

The Split Identity In Brain Friel’S Play Philadelphia, Here I Come! ), Razaq Jumaah Khalaf, Sabah Atallah Diyaiy

Alustath Journal for Human and Social Sciences

Colonized people suffer due to cultural struggle and identity loss. Brian Friel (1929–2015) dealt with the consequences of British colonisation of Ireland. This paper explores the fragmented identity in Friel’s Philadelphia, Here I Come!. It depicts the contradicting feelings of a young man who decides to leave his country. Still, he is unable to overcome his emotional loyalty to his past. Friel divides the protagonist into two characters played by two actors on the stage. The memories in the play form an integral part of identity being live images that satisfy inner needs. The characters’ inner conflicts and personal …

Marina Oswald & Kathleen Wade: Wives Involved In A Political Ambition, رشا عبد المنعم عزيز

Alustath Journal for Human and Social Sciences

“I’m no psychiatrist, but if you ask me, politicians in general are pretty insecure people” (O’Brien, 1994, p. 97). This quotation describes politicians as insecure people, and the word “insecure” has more than one implication. It may mean that politicians are insecure to themselves or to people around them. It can also mean that politicians’ actions are not trustworthy. This description indicates that one must fear or be aware of politicians in general. A politician’s wife may need also to have this caution. According to such description, does a politician’s wife feel happy or secure with her husband? This paper …

Comedy Of Menace In Harold Pinter’S The Birthday Party Instructor: Basaad Maher Mhayyal, بسعاد ماهر محيل

Alustath Journal for Human and Social Sciences

Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party (1957) clearly portrays the condition of modern man where there is a real communication failure among the characters. Through this play, Pinter tries his best to reflect this fact. He uses a lot of pauses and silences, i.e., the usage of language is no more significant to modern man. Pinter considers silence to be more powerful than the words themselves. That’s why long and short pauses can be seen throughout all Pinter’s plays. Modern man has been living in a state of alienation. All the characters are isolated by their own desire not to communicate …

Rhetorics In Mahwi’S Poem "Sea Of Light", حسن علي عمر

Alustath Journal for Human and Social Sciences

Mahwi is one of the most prominent classical Kurdish poets. He is one of the most prolific poets in the rhetorical arts, and it shows its mark through their poetic productions. In this research, marvelous in the poem “sea of light” (Bahr noor), he is (Mahwi) a fundamental pillar, of the creative poets on which the classical school was founded in the Kurdish poetry after the pioneers of classical Kurdish poetry such as Nali, Salem and Kurdi. The research is divided into three sections. In the first section, we define the rhetoric science and rhetorical sciences, in which we refer …

Development Of High-Speed Photoacoustic Imaging Technology And Its Applications In Biomedical Research, Yun He

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Photoacoustic (PA) tomography (PAT) is a novel imaging modality that combines the fine lateral resolution from optical imaging and the deep penetration from ultrasonic imaging, and provides rich optical-absorption–based images. PAT has been widely used in extracting structural and functional information from both ex vivo tissue samples to in vivo animals and humans with different length scales by imaging various endogenous and exogenous contrasts at the ultraviolet to infrared spectrum. For example, hemoglobin in red blood cells is of particular interest in PAT since it is one of the dominant absorbers in tissue at the visible wavelength.The main focus of …

Longitudinal Acoustic Traps: Design, Fabrication, And Evaluation For Biological Applications, Michael Moore Binkley

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Acoustofluidics combine ultrasonic actuation with small-volume microfluidic channels to enable precise, contactless object manipulation for a range of applications from serial chemical processing to blood component separation and single-cell analysis. Micron- to millimeter-scale vibrational waves generate reproducible pressure fields within the microfluidic channels and chambers. By exploiting the material property mismatch between a particle (polymeric and silica beads, cells, etc.) and a suspending fluid, the acoustic radiation force is used to move particles toward regions of low (nodes) or high pressure (antinodes). An understanding of these field-particle interactions is applied to design and implement complicated channel architectures for preferential segregation …

Towards Interpretable Machine Learning With Applications To Clinical Decision Support, Zhicheng Cui

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Machine learning models have achieved impressive predictive performance in various applications such as image classification and object recognition. However, understanding how machine learning models make decisions is essential when deploying those models in critical areas such as clinical prediction and market analysis, where prediction accuracy is not the only concern. For example, in the clinical prediction of ICU transfers, in addition to accurate predictions, doctors need to know the contributing factors that triggered the alert, which factors can be quickly altered to prevent the ICU transfer. While interpretable machine learning has been extensively studied for years, challenges remain as among …

A Microfluidic Platform To Investigate The Mechanism By Which Gdnf Overexpression In Schwann Cells Causes Neuronal Axon Entrapment, Ze Zhong Wang

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Twenty million Americans suffer from peripheral nerve injury (PNI) caused by trauma and medical disorders, with approximately $150 billion spent in annual health-care dollars in the United States. Even with proper surgical reconstruction, less than 50% of the patients achieve satisfactory functional recovery. The gold standard surgical repair for long gaps (>3cm) is the autologous nerve graft, despite its disadvantages such as donor site morbidity, risk of infection, and increased cost. Alternative methods, such as acellular nerve grafts (ANA), are ineffective for large lesion gaps because of the lack of cells and regeneration factors. Recent efforts have been focused …

Structural And Tissue-Level Adaptations Of Lumbar Intervertebral Discs In Humans With Inducible Low Back Pain Symptoms, Christian Isaiah Weber

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Low back pain (LBP) is a devastating musculoskeletal ailment that impacts majority of the global population. Up to 95% of cases are considered nonspecific where the origin is unclear. Although there is a diagnosis with these cases, there lacks specificity that would help individuals with treatment and pain management. Imaging techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are primarily utilized in the diagnosis of LBP as it illuminates internal structures of the spine. One important structure clearly identified with MRI is the intervertebral disc (IVD) that is susceptible to injury and disease. Further, diagnostic imaging is performed lying down where …

Graph Deep Learning: Methods And Applications, Muhan Zhang

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

The past few years have seen the growing prevalence of deep neural networks on various application domains including image processing, computer vision, speech recognition, machine translation, self-driving cars, game playing, social networks, bioinformatics, and healthcare etc. Due to the broad applications and strong performance, deep learning, a subfield of machine learning and artificial intelligence, is changing everyone's life.Graph learning has been another hot field among the machine learning and data mining communities, which learns knowledge from graph-structured data. Examples of graph learning range from social network analysis such as community detection and link prediction, to relational machine learning such as …

Physiologic And Pathologic Profiling Of Clonal Variations, Wing Hing Wong

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

This thesis sought to provide a better understanding of clonality in various malignant and non-malignant settings using a variety of genomic analytical tools. Clonality is pre-defined as the presence of a mixed population of cells in which each sub-population has distinct somatic mutation profile. It is a common feature in cancers where subpopulations of cells arise as a result of independent, yet continual acquisition of somatic mutations. The clonal architecture of cancers can be used as a diagnostic and prognostic biomarker as well as to monitor disease progression or resolution. Besides cancer, clonal variability and expansion is also implicated in …

Young Children’S Knowledge About The Role Of Print In Reading, Molly Farry-Thorn

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Children begin to learn about the print in books and the role it plays in reading well before the onset of formal literacy instruction. Young children’s knowledge about precisely what readers are reading when they read books and who is able to read books has been studied primarily through interviews, but conclusions from this research are limited by methodological concerns. Three experiments examined whether pre-readers understand what part of a book is read and whether they distinguish between the skill of reading and the activity of reading. Although pre-readers were typically able to locate the print in a book, they …

Crip Time In Fin-De-Siècle Spain: Disability, Degeneration, And Eugenics, Erika Rodriguez

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

A period of intense nation-building, the late nineteenth century was marked by the search for medical and legal solutions to the increasing number of bodies that did not align with culturally constructed expectations of productivity and reproduction in Spanish modernity. Authors of this time used representations of disability to engage in urgent political questions about population control and the rights of individuals in the face of increasing medical intervention. In carrying out this analysis, I raise the question of how representations of disability created a space to reconfigure the social values that determined what lives matter. Focusing on canonical realist …

Cyclotron Resonance In Graphene Heterostructurescyclotron Resonance In Graphene Heterostructures, Billy Jordan Russell

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

We present observations of cyclotron resonance in graphene Van der Waals heterostructure devices. Such devices provide dramatic improvements in sample quality and allow for ad- vanced electronic control, opening windows on previously inaccessible physics. The design and construction of a dedicated system for the measurement of electronic transport and infrared magnetospectroscopy in microscopic samples of atomically thin materials at cryogenic temperatures is presented. In high-mobility encapsulated monolayer graphene, electron- electron interaction effects are unambiguously observed to impact the interband cyclotron resonance as the Landau level filling factor is varied in a quantizing magnetic field. Additionally, a splitting of transitions involving …