Digital Commons Network^™

Empowering Educators To Improve Social Emotional Behaviors Among K-8 Students: Quality Improvement Project, Paige Yael Bister

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Social and emotional learning (SEL) encompasses essential skills for effectively managing and expressing emotions. Studies have shown that SEL strengthens early education while supporting students' lifelong success by fostering positive behaviors within and beyond the classroom. In school settings, occupational therapists (OTs) aim to empower children to thrive as students and as social beings through targeted interventions and educational support for parents and teachers. In private school settings, limited access to occupational therapy services may impact teachers' ability to implement SEL strategies effectively.This capstone project addressed gaps in teachers' knowledge and confidence in applying the Zones of Regulation SEL curriculum …

Highways To Hell: How The Intersections Of Cinema, Rock Music And The Resurgence Of Evangelicalism Influenced The 1985 Senate Hearing On Rock Music, David J. Fewell

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The Senate hearing on the “Contents of Music and the Lyrics of Records, held on September 19, 1985, was as much a popular culture event as a public airing of concerns about explicit content in music. Much has been written about the significance of the Parents’ Music Resource Center (PMRC), the Senate hearing and the issues it engaged in, and how it colored conversations about censorship of the arts, the effectiveness of rating systems to police popular media and the effects of media on children’s behavior and development. The thesis will explore aspects of formative trends that influenced the PMRC’s …

Efficacy Of Dorsal Application Of Kt For Carpal Tunnel Syndrome In Esport Gamers: A Randomized Clinical Trial, Anthony Foreman

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This doctoral study investigated the impact of the dorsal application of kinesiotape on carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) symptoms and performance among Esport gamers. The study was conducted in controlled environments at the UNLV Esports Lounge, Black Fire Innovation, and the Musculoskeletal Lab using a randomized two-group pretest-posttest design. To maintain ecological validity, participants were permitted to use personally owned gaming peripherals (e.g., computer mouse), and all received brief instruction on proper body mechanics to promote consistency during testing. Participants (n = 11) were systematically assigned by order of registration to either an intervention group receiving dorsal application of kinesiotape on …

Capturing The Intersection Of Black-American, Muslim Males And Education: Exploring Their Attitudes, Perceptions, And Lived Experiences Within An Islamic Consciousness, Kirk A. Talib-Deen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation explored the lived realities of Black-American, Muslim males and their attitudes, perceptions, histories, and endurances toward higher learning in America. It attempted to join and contribute to the more significant, historical, and extant conversations and literature on Black-American males and education, as well as their successes and failures. This dissertation adds to the dearth of literature on the intersection of Black-American, Muslim males, and education, and using jazz as an epistemological way of navigating and organizing the content, the research works to uncover, locate, and define an Islamic consciousness. While negating racist histories concomitant with the American narrative …

Piloting The Inclusion Of Dollar Stores In The Modified Retail Food Environment Index (Mrfei) In Urban Clark County, Nevada, Tiana T. Tu

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Food insecurity is the condition of having limited or uncertain access to adequate food. It contributes to poor diet-related health outcomes which are in turn influenced by the food environment. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) developed the Modified Retail Food Environment Index (mRFEI) to characterize food environments by measuring the proportion of healthy and non-healthy retailers. The CDC mRFEI considers a variety of establishments but fails to include dollar stores, which contribute to the food environment by offering food and, in some cases, fresh produce. This study proposed an “expanded mRFEI” that modified the CDC mRFEI methodology …

Gotta Be Fresh: Comedy Central’S Workaholics, Masculinity, And Paratextual Decay, Adamandrew Lenox

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis examines social media marketing materials for Workaholics, a sitcom aired on Comedy Central from 2011 to 2017, to study paratextual temporality/ephemerality, the “brand as friend” social media strategy, and how masculinity is articulated through paratexts. The project incorporates theories from the fields of social media and internet marketing studies, television content and industry studies, and promotional paratext studies. Research centered on 100 Workaholics X (formerly Twitter) posts, published from January 2012 to March 2017. Posts were collected using Google Chrome extension TwExportly. Qualitative textual and content analysis of these paratexts results in three categories of findings. First, I …

Quick And Easy Method For The Determination Of Cocaine And Six Metabolites In Postmortem Hair, Samantha C. Mulkeen

Student Theses

Hair testing is increasing in popularity in toxicology because of its long window of detection and ease of collection and sample storage. However, it has its limitations largely due to external contamination of drugs. In particular, cocaine (COC) is a common offender of this as it has several routes of consumption. Analyzing metabolites of COC may be the key to distinguishing between consumption and external contamination. The aim of the present study was to develop a quick, easy, and sensitive method for the detection and quantification of COC, benzoylecgonine (BE), norcocaine (NCOC), cocaethylene (CE), anhydroecgonine methyl ester (AEME), meta-hydroxy-cocaine (m-OH-COC), …

Women And Stem − A 2025 Update, Robyn C. Blackburn, Susan R. Madsen

Marketing and Strategy Faculty Publications

Although the term STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) was coined in 2001 by Judith A. Ramaley of the National Science Foundation and had been used informally in the previous decade,¹ the push for STEM in the US began in the 1950s with Russia launching Sputnik and the US subsequently pouring billions of dollars into educating students to ensure the nation became a technological global power. However, the gender gap in STEM fields today reduces the innovation that could be achieved with more unique perspectives contributing to the field. Closing the gender gap in STEM is vital because scientific …

Unheard Voices: A Poetic Inquiry Into The Menace Of Child Abuse In Nigeria, Folajimi Kalejaye

Masters Theses, 2020-current

My project explores poetic inquiry as an arts-based methodology for evocatively representing stories and voices of survivors of child violence in Nigeria from 2013 – 2024. More specifically, I explore poetic inquiry for personal reflection and re/mediation of news stories, editorials, and documentaries that present child violence. Remediation is a practice of representing existing media content through affective forms so as to evoke a deeper meaning and encourage critical reflection of lived experiences. As such, rather than narrating these children's experience from conventional storied standpoints of pain, abuse, trauma, and violence, I poetically interpret their stories to amplify children's voices …

Collisions: The Enlivened Entanglements Of The Object-Self, Grace P. Smith

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This piece is a performance collage centered around objects and our entanglements with them. Through unpacking five objects in my life and their histories and interrogating three interwoven levels of narrative (the historical, the personal, and the aesthetic), I playfully displace the subject/object hierarchy to contribute to broader theoretical discussions regarding the agency of objects, resulting in novel insights through the collisions produced from the performance collage.

Sundown In Indiana: A Midwest Story Of Racism, Exclusion, And Memory, Kelsey A. Snyder

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Sundown towns were a prominent aspect of the northern life from the early 1900s till in some places till the 1970s but they have been lost to history. These towns have been silenced and erased not just from the history books but from public memory. Indiana is my home state and the three towns that will be discussed have all had an impact on my personal development especially in understanding race. Decatur and Huntington places I have called home, both have been classified as sundown towns. The third, Marion was the location of the one the last known lynchings in …

Grief As Slip: (How Little I Show) An Exploration In Clay, When Words Are Not Enough, Michelle A. Smith

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Grief as Slip (how little I show) implies that even as we acknowledge our mortality and the fleeting nature of life, we still only reveal a fraction of our true selves or our deeper realities. The ceramic artwork in this exhibition carries and conveys a journey through the present and remembered emotions of the artists’ personal narrative. By juxtaposing the tactile nature of clay with the ethereal quality of human experience, Smith contemplates the profound interplay between material transformation and emotional resilience. The exhibition’s intent is to translate the essence of complex emotional states into abstracted forms so they can …

Sacral Glitch, Kareena Naresh Solanki

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Growing up in a multifaith environment in Mumbai, I witnessed many religious sites and people with diverse beliefs. My parents always remained open-minded to other faiths, and my house remained replete with idols of deities of different religions. I studied Nichiren Buddhism, particularly the Lotus Sutra, as my mother began practising it along with her faith in Hinduism. Philosophical studies became a part of my life at the age of nine. Catholic prayers turned into rituals in my convent school days, and Islamic prayers resonated from afar. I often reflect on the influence of multiple religions in shaping my approach …

Exploring Arabic, Russian, And Spanish Native Language Teachers’ Perceptions Of The Flipped Classroom Model Through The Lens Of The Technology Acceptance Model (Tam2), David I. Daoud

Doctoral Dissertations

The flipped classroom has become increasingly popular across various educational settings over the last two decades. In the flipped classroom model (FCM), the teacher spends less time on traditional in-classroom activities like lecturing and giving tests, which are instead assigned as homework, and more time on hands-on learning. Although research has shown the FCM is effective in a variety of learning settings, little is known about native language teachers' perceptions of the FCM. This study explored the perceptions of 41 native Arabic, Russian, and Spanish foreign language instructors regarding the FCM at a college-level language institution. The study aimed to …

Towards A Sustainable Construction Industry: A Fuzzy Synthetic Evaluation Of Critical Barriers To Entry And The Retention Of Women In The South African Construction Industry, Olugbenga Oladinrin, Abimbola Windapo, Joao Alencastro, Muhammad Rana

School of Art, Design and Architecture

Over the past few decades, numerous efforts have been made to increase the proportion of women in the construction industry, coupled with various calls for legislation and rules to prohibit gender discrimination. Despite these efforts, minimal progress has been noticed in the construction industry. While recruitment remains crucial, the current culture in construction reveals a knowledge gap in recruitment and retention in employment—a concept known as a ‘leaky pipeline’. Lack of awareness of career options and the challenges of working in a male-dominated, occasionally discriminatory workplace are some of the significant barriers to attracting and keeping women in the construction …

Improving Independent Living And Quality Of Life For Dementia Patients With Open-Interface Sensor-Based Home Monitoring, Harish Kambampati, Damon Berry, Julie Doyle, Orla Moran, Jonathan Turner, Michael Wilson, Suzanne Smith, Dympna O'Sullivan

Research Outputs: 2025-Present

Living with dementia is a challenging journey for both those with dementia and their families. Besides memory loss and cognitive decline, persons with dementia often face challenges of independent living and loss of quality of life. To enhance and extend the period of independent living, an open-source software and commercial sensor-based home monitoring system is being developed. These sensors are relatively compatible with home environments, can be personalized for different users, and provide constant support including reminders, also allowing for early identification of physical or behavioural changes. They assist not only in managing everyday activities of people with dementia but …

Improving The Readability Of Dementia Information Documents Using Chatgpt, Jonathan Turner, Damon Berry, Julie Doyle, Harish Kambampati, Orla Moran, Suzanne Smith, Michael Wilson, Dympna O'Sullivan

Research Outputs: 2025-Present

There is much information available on dementia, but information may not be written at an appropriate level for a lay reader. One aim of the CoDESIGN project is to simplify information available for those who have lower levels of literacy. We investigate the potential to simplify documents to reflect the literacy abilities of the reader. We report on the ability of ChatGPT to modify documents to such target reading levels while retaining the accuracy and completeness of the documents, while avoiding the introduction of errors. Results suggest that human supervision is required before documents can be made available to readers.

The Banality Of Crimmigration—Can Immigration Law Recover Itself?, Catherine Dauvergne

All Faculty Publications

This article argues that criminal law has overtaken immigration law to such an extent that the notion of “crimmigration” is no longer shocking. In Canada, where the population has long been supportive of immigration and where national politics have been remarkably consensual in matters of immigration, crimmigration now forms the basis of a new form of bipartisan consensus. By looking back on the Justin Trudeau Liberal government, we see that most of the Harper-era crimmigration measures were left in place, and the advance of crimmigration continued unabated. If we are to make any progress in recovering space for values other …

Post-Fire Delayed Tree Mortality In Mesic Coniferous Forests Reduces Fire Refugia And Seed Sources, Alec S. Dyer, Sebastian Busby, Cody Evers, Matthew Reilly, Aaron Zuspan, Andres Holz

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

Context Ecological functions provided by fire refugia are critical for supporting conifer forest resiliency under increased fire activity across the western United States. The spatial distribution and persistence of fire refugia over time are uncertain as fire-injured trees continue to die over subsequent years post-fire. Objectives We examined how post-fire delayed tree mortality affects the spatial distribution and attributes of fire refugia at patch and landscape scales following high-severity wildfires. Methods To explore changes in fire refugia patch size, isolation, and fragmentation over time, we used high-resolution satellite imagery (3 m pixel size) following high-severity fires in Oregon’s western Cascades …

Acute Kidney Injury Triggers Hypoxemia By Lung Intravascular Neutrophil Retention That Reduces Capillary Blood Flow, Yohei Komaru, Liang Ning, Carine Lama, Anusha Suresh, Eirini Kefaloyianni, Mark J. Miller, Shinichi Kawana, Hailey M Shepherd, Wenjun Li, Daniel Kreisel, Andreas Herrlich

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Sterile acute kidney injury (AKI) is common in the clinic and frequently associated with unexplained hypoxemia that does not improve with dialysis. AKI induces remote lung inflammation with neutrophil recruitment in mice and humans, but which cellular cues establish neutrophilic inflammation and how it contributes to hypoxemia is not known. Here we report that AKI induced rapid intravascular neutrophil retention in lung alveolar capillaries without extravasation into tissue or alveoli, causing hypoxemia by reducing lung capillary blood flow in the absence of substantial lung interstitial or alveolar edema. In contrast to direct ischemic lung injury, lung neutrophil recruitment during remote …

Systems And Methods For Binaural Audio Reproduction, Kellie Shaw

Defensive Publications Series

A computer-implemented method for binaural audio reproduction may include (i) retrieving binaural audio data captured by a device that comprises at least one microphone and at least one camera, (ii) isolating a subset of the binaural audio data that represents audio captured from objects within a field of view of the at least one camera, and (iii) balancing audio levels for the binaural audio data such that the subset of the binaural audio data is more clearly audible than data that is not within the subset and spatial cues for the binaural audio data are preserved. Various other methods, systems, …

Too Hot, Too Cold: The Search For Just-Right Platform Liability For Recommendation Algorithms, Hannah May

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

.Com Or .Gov: Should The First Amendment Care? A Proposed Alternative To Moody V. Netchoice, Llc's Editorial Discretion Rule, Jt Degrinney

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Paper Houses: Identifying The Housing Remedies Gap And How To Close It, Shannon Price

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ncaa Women Athletes And Nil Pay Disparities: Are They Students Under Title Ix, Employees Under Title Vii, Or Both?, Michael H. Leroy

University of Cincinnati Law Review

Title IX requires schools to eliminate gender disparities in financial benefits and publicity for athletes. This Article shows that men’s basketball players in major National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) conferences were paid an average of $171,272 in 2024, compared to $16,222 for women. Analysis of a prominent basketball program shows that it coordinates with its Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) collective to monetize NIL donor access in favor of men.

This Article provides legal arguments to show that NIL pay disparities create Title IX liability for NCAA schools: (1) Congress intended Title IX to end sex discrimination against students, (2) …

The Joy Of Quitting [Book Review], Jj Pionke

Disability in LIS (DisLIS)

The Joy of Quitting is a day in the life kind of comic of Keiler Roberts where she focuses on child-rearing, relationships, her art, multiple sclerosis, depression, and many other topics.

The Haunting Of Alejandra [Book Review], Amanda Boyer

Disability in LIS (DisLIS)

This review explores V. Castro’s The Haunting of Alejandra as a powerful portrayal of postpartum depression and generational trauma through the lens of horror and magical realism. Drawing on personal experience, the review highlights how the novel offers an unflinching look at the emotional weight of motherhood and the lasting impact of inherited pain.

Educational Broadcasting

Communication Research Trends

Pioneers of new communication technologies such as Edison and Marconi hoped that one of the major uses of their inventions would be to bring education to the masses. Lord Reith, the founder of the BBC public service concept of broadcasting, emphasized education in his famous triad, summarizing the aims of the BBC: 'to educate, to inform and to entertain'. The biggest markets and returns on capital investment were to be found in providing entertainment, however, and the less regulated broadcasters moved steadily in that direction. Today, broadcasting is firmly fixed in the minds of the public as primarily a means …

Being In Community With Children And Engaging Their Full Range Of Civic Capabilities. A Response To "Learning To Talk And Listen In Elementary Social Studies: Exploring A Third-Grade Teacher’S Decision To Use Classroom Talk For Community Building", Katherina A. Payne

Democracy & Education

Early childhood social studies should open opportunities for children to make sense of their social world; the civic question of how we live together is central to the social world. Elementary classrooms are uniquely positioned to support democratic civic education given the amount of time children and adults spend together, the emphasis placed on cultivating a positive classroom community, and children’s capabilities to cultivate relationships full of care and concern for people from outside their close familial relations. In response to Lo’s (2025) examination of a third-grade teacher’s use of discussion to engage in contentious topics while cultivating a sense …

The Roles Of Productivity, Emotions, And Identities In Classroom Discourse. A Response To "Productive Discussion Across Political Differences: Understanding Students’ Experiences With Comfort And Discomfort Within Structured Discussions Of Public Policy Issues", Anne-Lise Halvorsen, Thomas (Tomás) Aviles

Democracy & Education

“Productive Classroom Discussion across Political Differences: Understanding Students’ Experiences of Comfort and Discomfort within Structured Discussion Strategies” offers a fresh perspective on high school classroom discussions by centering the role of emotions–in particular comfort and discomfort–and their relationship to students’ identities. In this response, we describe how this perspective on emotions and identities is vital and humanizing. We then build on the study’s considerations of emotions and identities in discussion, particularly for students from marginalized backgrounds, and offer additional perspectives about the purpose, format, and framing of these kinds of discussions.