Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Handshapes In Afghan Sign Language, Justin Power

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents aspects of handshapes in Afghan Sign Language [afg]. Afghan Sign Language is a Deaf sign language found in Afghanistan (Lewis, Simons, and Fennig 2014).

Signs in Afghan Sign Language contrast based on the handshape parameter. Furthermore, handshapes contrast based on selected fingers, thumb configuration, arrangement, and aperture. The thesis gives evidence for the selected fingers features [one], [two], [three], and [four]; for the thumb configuration features [opposed], [radial], and [contacting]; for the arrangement features [spread], [joined], and [crossed]; and for the aperture features [open] and [closed].

Of the 22 expected feature combinations, 18 are found in the …

Kant's Apophaticism Of Finitude: A Grammar Of Hope For Speaking Humanly Of God, Philip J. Rossi

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Exploring Empathy In Music Therapy, Jessica Haviland

Theses & Dissertations

This following research is a phenomenological inquiry exploring the role of empathy in the clinical work of music therapists. Three board-certified music therapists were interviewed about their personal and clinical experience with empathy, and the role empathy has played in their clinical work. Data are analyzed according to procedures associated with transcendental phenomenology methodology, and overall themes are discussed. Related literature is reviewed, and implications for future research in relation to this phenomenon are discussed.

Using The Spatial Variability Of Lead In Urban Soils And Demographic Variables To Predict Exposure Risks: An Environmental Justice Analysis In Terre Haute, Indiana, Heather A. Foxx

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Terre Haute, Indiana, is similar to many older cities throughout the United States with a history of manufacturing and industry that relied on extensive road and rail networks. This industrial history has resulted in the presence of over 20 brownfields and even a Superfund Site within the city today. Historic neighborhoods and abundance of pre-1950’s homes is another characteristic of the city. Unfortunately, improper removal and deterioration of lead (Pb) paints, as well as high Pb solder used in gutters, appear to be significant sources of soil Pb in Terre Haute. Despite the fact that most new environmental sources of …

Moderating Effects Of Religious Orientation On The Relationship Between Sexual Self-Discrepancies And Guilt And Anxiety, Ann E. Jones

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The current study examined the moderating effect of religious orientation on the relationship between sexual self-discrepancies and guilt. There is some evidence of a positive correlation between sex-guilt and higher levels of religiosity. In this study it was proposed that sex-guilt in religious individuals is partially driven by discrepancies between actual sexual behaviors and how the individual thinks that they ought or ideally should behave. In order to test this idea a survey was administered to 151 undergraduate students to assess religious orientation, actual, ought, and ideal sexual behaviors, and sex guilt. Gender differences were found in reporting intrinsic religiosity, …

Urban Flash Flood Risk Assessment And Inundation Model Utilizing Gis For Terre Haute, Indiana, Zachary Scott Ishman

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Use of ArcGIS to examine flash flooding variables and produce a flash flood risk assessment and inundation model for Terre Haute, Indiana. Risk assessment, produced within ArcGIS, indicates that an increase in developed area leads to an increase in very high flash flood risk area and majority of very high risk area resides in developed areas of Terre Haute. Inundation model, produced using ArcGIS and Python, indicates that the proposed model can determine locations of flash flooding, but spatial extent of model predicted flooding is not reliable based on field validation.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, And Disorders Of Extreme Stress, Not Otherwise Specified; A Vignette Study Exploring Va And Private Sector Clinicians’ Diagnostic Perceptions, Sara B. Lacy

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Due to the role of trauma in the etiology of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), borderline personality disorder (BPD), and disorders of extreme stress, not otherwise specified (DESNOS), and noted similar clinical pictures, it is important to explore differential diagnosis. There is evidence that gender influences the diagnosis of PTSD and BPD and of an “anchoring effect” in which disclosure of childhood trauma early versus late in a case vignette results in more diagnoses of PTSD or BPD, respectively. Additionally, as many veterans seek care within the private sector, it is important to understand possible diagnostic differences between VA and private …

From Pretending To Supposing: Redeeming The Madwoman In Frances Hodgson Burnett's A Little Princess, Alexie Mcpherson

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This thesis demonstrates how the emergent genre of girls’ literature in the Victorian period served to destabilize and challenge contemporary restrictive depictions of women. It revises the theory of Gilbert and Gubar in The Madwoman in the Attic, which posits that in nineteenth-century literature, women could only function as diseased, insane prisoners or else as angelic rulers of the domestic sphere; this thesis employs examples from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess to prove that even during the height of Victorian literature, books written for and about young girls were already troubling the dichotomy set up by the literature of …

Exploring Naxi Baisha Xiyue, Nicholas Kircher

Masters Theses

"Exploring Naxi Baisha Xiyue" is a qualitative research descriptive paper delving into the origin of the Baisha Xiyue music style among the Naxi people based in northwest Yunnan province of the People's Republic of China. A brief historical background of Baisha Xiyue includes the Yuan dynasty (AD 1279-1368) invasion by Kublai Khan when he and his army entered Yunnan province in AD 1253. The topic of the remaining eight songs is a Naxi historical conflict with a neighboring tribe. As musical instruments are essential in the performance of this genre, each of the commonly used instruments are introduced and described. …

New Beginnings: A Discussion Guide Adaptation For Living With Diabetes Among An Urban American Indian Community, Eudora Lynette Claw

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Diabetes is a chronic disease where the body has the inability to control the sugar levels in the blood to convert into to usable energy needed to fuel the body's cells. Some common diabetic complications include heart disease, stroke, amputations, and possibly blindness. It can be successfully managed with routine care of monitoring of sugar levels, eating a healthy diet, and daily exercise. The occurrence of type 2 diabetes is rising rapidly worldwide, but is a burden for AI/ANs (American Indian/Alaska Natives) at a substantially disproportionate rate. The purpose of this pilot study was to participate in a one-day curriculum …

Technology In The Fashion Industry: Designing With Digital Media, Adima Cope

Theses

The fashion industry has advanced new technologies in the twenty-first century that has made producing apparel more cost effective with faster time-to-market capabilities and greatly reduced steps in the manufacturing process. The reasons for these improvements can be linked to new apparel computer-aided-design (CAD) technologies that have come about in the market as computers have advanced and grown in processing power and reduction in size since the 1980s. Computers are revolutionizing many industries and the way business is conducted in today’s modern workplace. The fashion industry has yet to convert all processes to digital means but advancements have been growing …

Anna Karenina: A Full Length Play, Serena Mccarthy

Theses

Anna Karenina: A Full Length Play brings Leo Tolstoy’s classic novel to life on the theatrical stage. This classic addresses issues of gender roles, social hierarchies, and the nature of love in the Russia of the 1860’s. The unforgettable themes in Anna Karenina such as love and destiny have thrilled readers and audiences for years.

Notes From The Field: Delivering Trauma And Disaster Mental Health Services In Dangerous Places, Rodger K. Bufford, George F. Rhoades

Faculty Publications - Doctor of Psychology (PsyD) Program

The second presentation will describe findings from a series of empirical studies conducted in zones of persistent and cumulative exposure to traumatic stress. The zones under examination include Sri Lanka, India, Sudan, Haiti, Japan, and the West Bank of the Jordan River. The findings are discussed in terms their implications for public health (both “physical” and “mental”), spiritual and emotional wellbeing, and the reciprocal influences of culture and traumatic experiences.

Hotel Bukovyna, Rebecca Ann Bosshart

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This collection of short stories and first chapter of a novella take place in the historical area of Bukovyna, the beech tree land, partly located in Chernivetska region, western Ukraine. On the edge of it, or under it, or traveling to and from it, in contemporary time. I've been occupied with "the outsider," represented here, and where the seven stories reside, by the giant grande dame tourist hotel on Main Street, across from Shevchenko Park, in Chernivtsi, the region's city center. The occupants: the outsider looking in and around. Outsiders looking at other outsiders. An outsider being welcomed in. Most …

Detecting Arguments: The Rhetoric Of Evidence In Nineteenth--Century British Detective Fiction, Katherine Anders

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

My dissertation argues that within the mid- to late-nineteenth-century British detective novel, the abductive arguments used to build circumstantial evidence (indirect evidence), or "clues," form the method of the detective, but those arguments are not logically certain. In order to resolve the mystery of the detective novel, to discover how the crime was committed and who committed it, circumstantial evidence proves insufficiently conclusive, so confessions, a more logically conclusive (direct) form of evidence, begins to appear frequently in detective novels. Confessions conclusively confirm the events of the crime, the guilt of the criminal, and reveal the inner workings of the …

The Percussionist Bodybuilder: Optimizing Performance Through Exercise And Nutrition, Anthony Joseph Merlino

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Do preventive therapies have the potential to help avoid common injuries among percussionists? This document investigates physiological therapy and nutrition in relation to percussion performance. My interest in this subject matter is derived from my personal experiences with injuries related to the performance of percussion. Although I have studied and played percussion professionally for more than a decade, I was unaware of certain methods of rehabilitation that were available to me prior to my injuries. As I learned about the rehabilitation process through first hand experience, I discovered that my injuries were very common among percussionists. This raised the question: …

Social Capital Of Last Resort: The Role Of Religion, Family, And Trust Among People With Low Socio-Economic Status, Jean Reid Norman

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This qualitative study finds evidence that poverty and homelessness undermine primary social relationships for many low-income people, eroding social capital, and that generalized trust may not be a good proxy for social capital, at least among a largely homeless population. This study also finds a surprising number of references to God, religion and spirituality among largely homeless populations when talking about their social networks, which addresses literature suggesting that church affiliation and religion may be unique in the formation of social capital. Twelve focus groups were conducted with a total 46 participants self-identified as low-income to explore social capital. A …

Intersectionality And Labor Market Outcomes: Women's Racial And Ethnic Variations In Stem Fields And Professional Fields, 2001 To 2011, Anna Smedley

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Although theories of group threat and racialized social systems can help explain labor market outcomes across racial and ethnic groups, they fail to account for gender differences in labor market outcomes. Intersectionality, the dominant feminist framework, suggests that identities such as race, ethnicity, and gender interlock to create a system of "multiplicative" disadvantage for minority women in the workplace. Additionally, contemporary changes in the labor force have witnessed increasing numbers of immigrant women entering the workplace - thus adding new challenges to the multiplicative disadvantages for some women. This study explores the changing pattern of Intersectionality barriers on labor market …

The Influence Of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick On Cormac Mccarthy's Blood Meridian, Ryan Joseph Tesar

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

While many works exert an influence on Cormac McCarthy's 1985 novel Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West, I argue in this thesis that Herman Melville's Moby-Dick stands above them all in importance. I examine some areas where Melville's influence on McCarthy's work can be most notably located. I argue that Melville's importance to McCarthy can be seen in the latter's use of several characters from Moby-Dick in his own novel. I also examine the parallels that arise when one examines the confluences between the two novels' structures, vocabularies, and settings. I also consider how Melville's violent aesthetics …

Composing College And Career : Mobility, Complexity And Agency At The Nexus Of High School, College And Work., Brice Nordquist

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation offers and theorizes findings of a two-year mobile ethnography investigating the complexity of students’ movements within and among secondary and tertiary educational institutions and the labor market. The project illustrates the lateral and recursive natures of students’ educational and occupational trajectories and thereby reveals the mutually constitutive relations among scenes of writing across space and time. While the study follows eleven students moving from different tracks of high school English through their first years at research universities, colleges and full-time jobs, this text focuses specifically on the mobilities of three students: Nadif, Katherine and James. I draw upon …

The Problem Of The Twenty-First Century In The Cherokee Nation Is The Problem Of The Color-Line : How The Cherokee Freedmen Have Articulated A Sense Of Cultural Identity And Citizenship Claims Over Time., Shannon Spears

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research investigates the Cherokee Freedmen, who are people of African-American descent and peoples of mixed African-American and Native American descent, who were once enslaved by Cherokees in the Cherokee Nation, and who have articulated their identity and tribal citizenship status as Cherokee Natives in the Cherokee Nation. Upon emancipation, the Cherokee Nation adopted the Cherokee Freedmen as equal citizens in the Cherokee Nation under article nine from the Treaty of 1866, but this changed after citizens were recorded on the Dawes Rolls based upon blood quantum. The theoretical framework of this research is Antonio Gramsci’s theoretical perspective of cultural …

Historic Preservation In Quito, Ecuador : Tangible And Intangible Heritage., Meredith Alison Maple

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Historic preservation efforts in the colonial centro histórico of Quito, Ecuador span the past century. A more recent development in the world of heritage preservation is concern with the safeguarding of intangible heritage. This thesis looks at case studies from the centro histórico of Quito and seeks to identify what should come next for Quito in terms of historic preservation, the safeguarding of intangible heritage, and the creation of a constructive and inclusive tourism industry in the centro histórico.

Critical Thinking Structures For Business Ethics., Brian G. Barnes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is an original synthesis of the critical thinking system developed by Richard Paul (“Paulian CT”) and business ethics classroom teaching in the discipline of Philosophy. The project offers a full textbook for a 16-week college course in business ethics taught through the lends of Philosophy. This textbook is intended to teach business ethics in a critical manner, something often claimed by Philosophy textbooks but, according to this dissertation's literature review, never delivered upon. This textbook is the first business ethics textbook structured for criticality, to teach in ways that are supported by critical approaches, which set up the …

Yours, Mine, And Ours : Confronting The Originality Burden Through Remix And Intertextuality., Barrie Olson Harvey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation contributes to ongoing conversations regarding the goal of composition instructors “to empower students to take responsibility for their ideas and their texts while developing their curiosity and persistence in the pursuit of knowledge” (Carpenter, 2014, par. 4). In particular, this dissertation, a classroom ethnography, examines how the originality burden-an encumbrance wherein students feel overwhelmed by the need to write an “original” paper-operates in one second-semester first-year composition course dedicated to relieving students from feeling like they must write “original” texts. More specifically, this study examines the potential of two concepts, remix and intertextuality, to help show students that …

"My Watch Begins" : Identification And Procedural Rhetoric On Second Screens And Social Networks., K. Shannon Howard

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Digital rhetoric creates opportunities for examining rhetoric as it evolves daily. This evolution may be described in terms of network circulation and immediate opportunities for publishing and creating. This project analyzes mobile applications and live feeds used during television broadcasts, where rhetoric is closely tied to the work of identifying with another point of view. Producers and designers of dual-screen applications prompt us to answer how we would act if we assumed the role of protagonist and saw the world through her or his eyes. These questions support the idea that identification is not just a relative of empathy or …

The Influence Of Religion On Attitudes Toward Alcohol Use In Jewish Adolescents, Toby R. Levin

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Historically, the Jewish faith has used alcohol in rituals and religious holidays in which adolescents are permitted to fully participate and this exposure to alcohol may influence attitudes and beliefs about underage drinking among Jewish adolescents. The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a relationship between the Jewish religion and attitudes toward alcohol among Jewish adolescents. The theoretical frameworks, on which this study was based, were the social bond theory and the social development theory. Each of these theories indicates that community is important to the individual. Using a cross sectional study design, 160 adolescents participated …

The British Women’S Land Army: Gender, Identity, And Landscapes, Hilary M.K. Anderson

Masters Theses

The land girls who comprised the Women’s Land Army in Great Britain during the Second World War challenged cultural assumptions regarding gender and femininity. Through their work in agriculture, social anxieties were provoked regarding proper notions of femininity and separate spheres, which left these women in conflicting positions as they carved a spot for themselves in a war torn society. In order to carry out their work in the Women’s Land Army, land girls operated at the convergence of private and public spheres in a conjoined space. Living and operating in this conjoined space enabled them to blur the ideological …

Gesture-Sensing Technology For The Bow: A Relevant And Accessible Digital Interface For String Instruments, Zachary Boyt

Masters Theses

Technological advances in powerful, miniaturized electronics have created a growing potential to continue the evolution of string instruments through an accessible digital interface. Although many new types of instruments and controllers have explored this goal, gesture-sensing technology, when paired with the expressive nature of the bow, has provided the most eligible solution towards bridging technology and tradition. Through a selective showcase of technical development, artistic application, and future possibilities, this thesis traces the evolution of gesturesensing bow technology as an accessible digital interface in string instrument performance.

The Pagan Pudicitia Of Early Christian Roman Women, Iris Rebecca Petty

Masters Theses

Accessing the everyday experiences of late antique non-elite Roman women in the Latin west is limited by sources and issues of authorship. Interdisciplinary scholarship, however, has opened up new avenues in recent years through which these women’s experiences may be studied. When literary-historical questions are asked of these sources’ authors, audiences, motives and intents, the answers provide insight into the roles women and femininity played in early Christianity. By examining an array of late antique Roman representations of good classical women, a unique continuity is seen in the transition from pagan to Christian Rome. The Latin patristic writers capitalized on …

Gladys-On-The-Prairie: The Effect Of Social And Environmental Forces On The Identity And Life Of Dr. Gladys C. Galligar, Desiree M.E. King

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Twentieth century Americans recognized problems created by both the subjected status women held by society and the harmful impact humanity had on natural resources and domains. America’s search for realization and solutions for the inherent problems associated with the devaluation of women and nature did not come quickly or easily; it took a path that wound around both traditional concepts and progressive insights. I argue in this thesis that the biography of Dr. Gladys C. Galligar demonstrates, on an intimate level, America’s dawning awareness of the necessity of a healthier environment and a more egalitarian society. As a biology researcher …