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 …

The Historical And Cultural Influences Of Gagok 가곡 (Korean Art Song): A Musical Guide, Sarah Kim

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This document explores what Gagok (Korean Art Song) consists of, the origins and history of it and how one may approach it musically, vocally and interpret it textually. The main questions I answer in this document include: What makes these art songs distinctly Korean? What significance does the role of Eastern Asian history have in order to closely tie the inspiration of writing Gagok? How does the text and music express these important historical events? The answers to these questions are essential to understanding Gagok by analyzing and interpreting the songs also in relation to approach learning them.

The research …

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 …

Alkali-Silica Reactivity Of Mortars Containing Natural Pozzolan, Arash Kian

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Alkali-silica reactivity is one of the most recognized deleterious phenomena in Portland cement concrete resulting in cracks, spalling, and other deleterious mechanisms.

The aim of this study was (i) to assess the extent of reactivity of the aggregates, quarried from seven different sources, suspected of being conducive to ASR, and (ii) to compare the effectiveness of industrial (Class F fly ash) and natural pozzolans in mitigation of alkali-silica reactivity of the studied aggregates. To this end, seven aggregate sources, four natural pozzolan sources, and one source of Class F fly ash were used. ASTM Type V Portland cement was replaced …

Lifting The Veil: Do Health Care Price Transparency Laws Actually Lower Costs?, Nora Michelle Irene Langendorf

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this research is to determine whether or not health care transparency laws, in the form of price transparency, lower the rate of increase paid out in health care expenditures in those states that have enacted these laws compared to those states that have not. By controlling for factors such as poverty, age, chronic illnesses, and income that may play a part in lowering or raising health care costs, the primary explanatory variable – health care price transparency laws – can determine if there is a strong relationship with the dependent variable (the rate of increase on health …

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 …

Visual Attention And Emotion Regulation In Schizophrenia, Bern Lee

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Emotion regulation and emotion processing deficits cut across the varying symptom presentations of schizophrenia. Emotion processing deficits are inadequately treated by pharmacologic interventions and are related to real-world functional impact and disability. This study investigated behavioral and psychophysiological responses to a series of emotion regulation tasks while concurrently collecting eye tracking data as an index of visual attention. A brief neurocognitive assessment was also completed in order to examine potential cognitive determinants of emotion. Participants completed tasks designed to assess cognitive change and directed attention strategies for down-regulation of unpleasant and pleasant emotion. For each of our two unpleasant emotion …

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 …

Moisture Dynamics Of A Near-Surface Desert Soil, Yuan Luo

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Desert soils cover about one third of the Earth’s land surface. Despite their large extent, however, our understanding of desert soil hydraulic processes and properties is still rather limited. In particularly with respect to the near-surface (top centimeters) of the soil profile, which play a critical role for infiltration, redistribution and evapotranspiration of rainwater, the limiting resource for life in desert environments, but also hosts most of the biologic activity and controls runoff, erosion as well as the emission of dust (Nannipieri et al.,2003; Bradford et al.,1987). Additionally, deserts are ideal locations for electricity generation with solar energy using large-scale …

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 …

Design Of Efficient Carbon-Based Adsorbents For The Removal Of Organic And Inorganic Water Contaminants, Sayedeh Soroosh Mortazavian Dehkordi

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Granular activated carbon (AC) and biochar (BC) are two carbon-based adsorbents commonly used for water and wastewater treatment. However, these adsorbents have drawbacks that suppress their aqueous contaminants removal efficiency. Their major disadvantages are that AC has low selectivity and reusability potential, and BC has a hydrophobic nature.

The scope of this dissertation is to enhance the performance of commonly-used carbon-based adsorbents for the removal of organic and inorganic water contaminants and to understand the interactive mechanism of contaminants’ ions/molecules with adsorbents. Hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI)) and trichloroethylene (TCE) are two types of inorganic and organic water contaminants, respectively, which are …

Development Of Natural Perlite Based Concrete For Sustainable Construction, Seyedmahmoud Motaharikarein

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study aimed to partially replace Portland Cement (PC) with environmentally friendly binders capable of improving the longevity of concrete. The new binders consisted of different proportions of natural pozzolan (perlite) with various fineness and particle size distributions. A step-by-step research program was designed to: (1) discover the optimum fineness of perlite powder and its optimum replacement level with cement; (2) investigate the rheological properties of the perlite-containing mixtures, and examine whether this binder can be used in selfconsolidating concrete; and (3) assess the weaknesses of the new binder, and improve its deficiencies by using nanomaterials such as nano-silica. The …

A Highly-Sensitive Global-Shutter Cmos Image Sensor With On-Chip Memory For Hundreds Of Kilo-Frames Per Second Scientific Experiments, Konstantinos Moutafis

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In this work, a highly-sensitive global-shutter CMOS image sensor with on-chip memory that can capture up to 16 frames at speeds higher than 200kfps is presented. The sensor fabricated and tested is a 100 x 100 pixel sensor, and was designed to be expandable to a 1000 x 1000 pixel sensor using the same building blocks and similar architecture.

The heart of the sensor is the pixel. The pixel consists of 11 transistors (11T) and 2 MOSFET capacitors. A 6T front-end is followed by a Correlated Double Sampling (CDS) circuitry that includes 2 capacitors and a reset switch. The 4T …

The Effect Of Pleistocene Glacial - Interglacial Cycles On Patterns Of Genetic Diversity And Differentiation Of Populations Of Leptodactylus Albilabris (White-Lipped Frog) In The Puerto Rican Bank, Andre Nguyen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The historical distributional shifts of various species have been attributed to the glacial-interglacial cycles of the Pleistocene Epoch (2.6 mya – 10,000 ya). Sea level changes caused by Pleistocene glacial-interglacial cycles impacted the total area of landmasses, particularly in island systems. Cooler, glacial periods increased emergent (subaerial) island area via lower sea levels. Adjacent islands may have become connected through emergent land bridges, resulting in a larger subaerial landmass. Warmer interglacial periods led to higher sea levels, which in turn reduced island area, and in some cases, submerged land bridges, fragmenting larger islands into separate, smaller units. The Puerto Rican …

Sizing A New Bike Sharing System For The University Of Nevada, Las Vegas, Nesley Orochena

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The strategic planning objectives for a novel Bike Sharing Systems (BSS) are to locate the BSS stations, size the stations, and determine the bicycle fleet size, among others. Current guidelines to design BSS programs are tailored to city centers with large coverage areas and high bicycle to population ratios, and thus not directly transferable to a university setting. An ordered probit model was created using data from a university online stated preference survey to determine the key factors that affect the uptake rates for the UNLV BSS program and to estimate the potential demand. The demand analysis was incorporated into …

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 …

Carbon Management And Volatile Fatty Acid Production In Primary Clarifiers At A Wastewater Treatment Plant, Brittany Nicole Radke

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

An increasing number of treatment plants are required to remove nutrients from domestic wastewater to lessen the impact of nutrient loading to water bodies. Enhanced Biological Phosphorus Removal (EBPR) is one of the processes commonly used to remove phosphorus from domestic wastewater. The presence of an adequate quantity of volatile fatty acids (VFA) in the wastewater influent to EBPR is important for process efficiency and stability. The objective of this research was to investigate the production of VFAs through fermentation of sludge in primary clarifiers as it related to improving nutrient removal, primarily targeting phosphorus.

The research tested, in full-scale, …

Examination Of Maskelynite Through Static Recompression And Dynamic Compression, Justin James Reppart

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This is an experimental study that aims to clarify the possible formation mechanisms of maskelynite. Maskelynite is a diaplectic glass, that forms during shock compression of feldspar far below the melting point, and without fusion. Maskelynite also paramorphises precursor feldspar grains. Maskelynite is an important probe of shock-pressures at terrestrial impact sites and in many meteorites. Two mechanisms of formation of maskelynite are examined here: 1) maskelynite is result of a pressure-induced amorphization of feldspar compressed beyond its mechanical stability where the formation of thermodynamically stable phases is kinetically inhibited [1, 2]. 2) Feldspar transforms upon dynamic compression into a …

An Evaluation Of Factors Associated With The Perceptions Of Diabetes In A Filipino American Sample Residing In Clark County, Nevada, Lawrence Nartatez Sagadraca

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study assessed beliefs about the contribution of the Filipino diet and genetics to diabetes burden and its ability to control it without medical interventions. The data from a need’s assessment survey of 200 Filipino Americans residing in Clark County, Nevada, were analyzed by using the logistic regression model. A significant proportion of the participants believed that diabetes is a problem in the Filipino community (79%) and is related to the Filipino diet (75%) and genetics (69.0%), and that it can be controlled without medical intervention (52.4%). In univariate analyses, age (Odds ratio [OR]: 1.03, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.01 …

Application Of Data-Driven And Process-Based Modeling Approaches For Water Quality Simulation In Lakes And Freshwater Reservoirs, Ali Saber Sichani

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Lakes and freshwater reservoirs often serve as the primary drinking and irrigation water sources for surrounding communities. They provide recreational and tourism opportunities, thereby promoting the prosperity of neighboring communities. Reliable estimates of water quality in lakes and reservoirs can improve management practices to protect water resources.

Seasonal water temperature and solar shortwave radiation variations, and their subsequent interactions with water column aquatic life, combined with seasonal variations of mixing intensity throughout the water column, result in variations of water quality constituents with depth during the annual cycle. The complexity of these variations entails the use of advanced water quality …

Cfd Simulation Investigating The Effects Of Groove Geometry On Heat Transfer For Internally Grooved Tubes, Richard Zaven Saroukhanoff

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This numerical study investigates the thermal performance of internally grooved tubes used in heat exchangers. In order to enhance the performance of heat exchangers, turbulence promoters are inserted along the streamwise flow. The use of inserts, grooves, and augmentations along the axial length of the tube creates disturbances that improve the overall heat transfer due to enhanced fluid mixing and greater surface contact boundary walls. However, the implementation of tube wall augmentations creates an increase in pressure drop across the tube which must be compensated for with additional pumping power for the working fluid. Therefore, in order to analyze the …

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 …

A Community Of Care: Patterns Of Pathology And Trauma With A Focus On The Bioarchaeology Of Care At Carrier Mills, Il (10,000 – 1000 Bp), Alecia Schrenk

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Illness and injury are universal human experiences which are endowed with cultural meaning. Bioarchaeology has only recently begun to engage with the socioeconomic impacts of illness, injury, impairment, and healthcare provisioning in the past. This study examines how the Middle Archaic (6000 – 300 BC) and Early Woodland (1000 – 200 BC) hunter-gatherer community of Carrier Mills, Illinois was affected by and managed the socioeconomic burdens of poor health. The data presented in this study used bioarchaeological analyses to reveal patterns of poor health and healthcare provisioning within the Carrier Mills community. Bioarchaeology is ideally situated for such investigations since …

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 …

Balys Dvarionas: A Brief History, Analysis Of His Concerto For Horn And Orchestra, And The First Recording Of The Concerto, Jonathan Lewis Snyder

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This document will concentrate on the currently unpublished and incomplete manuscript of the orchestral version of Concerto for Horn and Orchestra [Koncertas valtornei su orkestru], composed by Lithuanian composer Balys Dvarionas (1904–1972). Despite his popularity and importance in Lithuania, Dvarionas’s music is not as well known throughout the rest of the world. This document aims to redress this situation.

The document provides a more thorough English-language biography about the composer than those that currently exist in print. It discusses various aspects of the concerto, including its place in Dvarionis’s output and a brief analysis, a core aspect of which is …

Evaluation Of Titanosilicate Materials For The Sorption Of Cesium And Strontium From High Level Wastes, Matheus Tolentino Lauar

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Treatment of high-level waste (HLW) stored in the U.S. Department of Energy (U.S. DOE) sites of Hanford and Savannah River involves the separation of radioactive cesium (137Cs) and strontium (90Sr). Challenges in treating the liquid HLW includes high alkalinity or acidity, and high salt content, many orders of magnitude above Cs and Sr concentrations. Ion exchange is the preferred process for removing these compounds, due to the availability of selective media and large volume-processing capacity by column operations. The crystalline silicotitanate (Na2Ti2O3SiO4·2H2O), i.e. CST, which structure is analog to the mineral sitinakite, is considered the reference material for this application. …

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 …