Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Three Square, Kamal Jenkins

Second-Year Seminar Posters (COE 202)

Three Square is an organization that helps people who are food insecure.

Cardio-Metabolic Disease Risk Factors Among South Asian Labour Migrants To The Middle East: A Scoping Review And Policy Analysis, Shiva Raj Mishra, Saruna Ghimire, Chandni Joshi, Bishal Gyawali, Archana Shrestha, Dinesh Neupane, Sudesh Raj Sharma, Yashashwi Pokharel, Salim S. Virani

School of Public Health Faculty Research

This paper aims to explore the burgeoning burden of cardiovascular and metabolic disease (CMD) risk factors among South Asian labor migrants to the Middle East. We conducted a qualitative synthesis of literature using PubMed/Medline and grey literature searches, supplemented by a policy review of policies from the South Asian countries. We found a high burden of cardio-metabolic risk factors among the migrants as well as among the populations in the home and the host countries. For example, two studies reported the prevalence of diabetes mellitus (DM) ranging between 9 and 17% among South Asian migrants. Overweight and obesity were highly …

Project 150: High School’S Tough Enough, Lorena Altabaz

Second-Year Seminar Posters (COE 202)

Project 150 addresses the issue of youth homelessness in the Clark County School District. Project 150 currently serves more than 6,000 disadvantaged high school students at 58 schools in Southern Nevada.

Friends Of Sloan Canyon, Nicole Nitschke

Second-Year Seminar Posters (COE 202)

Sloan Canyon, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization providing community support and educational resources that enhance the conservation, protection and public enjoyment of Sloan Canyon National Conservation Area, one of your National Conservation Lands.

Project F.O.C.U.S, Chelsea Rogers

Second-Year Seminar Posters (COE 202)

Project FOCUS addresses the lack of inclusion within the higher education environment.

Three Square, Jessica Smith

Second-Year Seminar Posters (COE 202)

Three Square is an organization that helps people who are food insecure.

Service Learning, Thanh Nguyen

Second-Year Seminar Posters (COE 202)

Helping the community through service.

Developing Stem Identity Of Nez Perce Students: Identifying Entry-Level Competencies For Forestry And Fire Management, Raymond A. Dixon, Karla Eitel, Yudi Zhu

Journal of Research in Technical Careers

The purpose of this study was to identify the competencies that are required for entry-level forestry and fire management technicians. The strategy is a part of a larger goal to develop the STEM identity of Nez Perce students through the integration of relevant competencies in middle and high school curriculums. The DACUM process was used. Through this groupware process, nine experts from the Nez Perce Natural Resources produced a competency profile consisting of 12 duties and 79 tasks, along with general knowledge and skills, attitudes, tools, and future trends. Findings indicate that the experts view relevant cultural competencies as central …

Discover A New World Of Reading: Making The Case For Graphic Novels As "Real" Books In Secondary Education, Amanda Melilli

Library Faculty Presentations

No abstract provided.

Engaging Student Veterans As Researchers: Libraries Initiating Campus Collaborations, Mark N. Lenker Iii, Melissa Bowles-Terry

Library Faculty Presentations

No abstract provided.

Model-Free Implied Volatility Under Jump-Diffusion Models, Seungmook Choi, Hongtao Yang

Department of Finance Faculty Research

The model-free implied volatility (MFIVol) is intended to measure the variability of underlying asset price on which options are written. Analytically, however, it does not measure exactly the variability under jump diffusion. Our extensive empirical study suggests that the approximation error can be as much as about 3%--5% although most samples over the data period exhibit less than 1% errors. Even with the non-negligible errors, the MFIVol may be still considered a valid volatility measure from the perspective of risk-neutral return density, in the sense that it is bounded by the two variability measures as well as reflecting the shape …

Project 150: High School’S Tough Enough, Korina Czajka

Second-Year Seminar Posters (COE 202)

Project 150 addresses the issue of youth homelessness in the Clark County School District. Project 150 currently serves more than 6,000 disadvantaged high school students at 58 schools in Southern Nevada.

Project 150, Edith Garibay

Second-Year Seminar Posters (COE 202)

Project 150 addresses the issue of youth homelessness in the Clark County School District. Project 150 currently serves more than 6,000 disadvantaged high school students at 58 schools in Southern Nevada.

University Methodist Church, Michael Malikian

Second-Year Seminar Posters (COE 202)

Helping the community through service.

Analysis Of Spheno-Occipital Synchondrosis (Sos) Fusion In A Contemporary Southern Nevada Subadult Hispanic Population Using Archival Cone-Beam Computerized Tomography (Cbct) Images, Megan Baker

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study employs the three-dimensional visualization capability of cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) to investigate the relationship between chronological age and timing of fusion of the spheno-occipital synchondrosis in a male/female subadult Hispanic population of Southern Nevada. The sample includes cross-sectional data of 374 orthodontic patients (166 males and 208 females) aged 8-20 years. The SOS is scored by a four-stage scoring system as completely open (stage 0), less than half fused (stage 1), more than half fused (stage 2), or completely fused (stage 3) as visualized in the midsagittal plane in the CBCT image. The relationship between SOS fusion stage …

Trauma And Its Shadow: The History Of Flashbacks, David Becker

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The flashback is a concept born in cinema, adopted by science and embraced by popular culture as a metaphor for memory—everyday recollections, psychedelic illusions, and traumatic intrusions—that informs and influences our relationship to the past. This creative thesis traces the one-hundred-year timeline of the concept of flashbacks, focusing on its expansion into the field of psychology. How did a film term end up in the pages of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the primary tool used by psychologists to diagnose mental illness, such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)? Flashbacks gained psychological complexity in Hollywood during the …

State Law And Child Welfare Policy Role In Nonparental Family Composition, Laura Alison Caliendo

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Children in nonparental care have worse outcomes than children in the general population, Federal child welfare policy has prioritized kinship care in an effort to improve outcomes for children; however, it is unclear if the intended child outcomes are achieved. Research shows outcomes vary depending on the type of nonparental family with whom a child lives, due in part to relationship but also to access to services and child welfare system supports. This research defines first five nonparental family types and then uses the framework of ecological systems theory to examine if state laws and child welfare policy influence the …

Police Use Of Force And Officer Injury: A Closer Examination Of The Impact Of Taser Deployment And Contextual Factors, Jason Kuzik

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Using secondary data from the Henderson Police Department (NV), a study was conducted to explore the contextual relationships of officers, subjects and situational characteristics related to use of force encounters. A series of research questions examine the combinations of contextual factors (i.e., officer demographics, subject demographics, and event-specific characteristics) that are associated with different types of police use of force (e.g., Taser, non-Taser), officer injuries and subject injuries. Univariate analysis, Bivariate analysis and Conjunctive Analysis of Case Configurations examine the data and identify contextual profiles associated with police use of force. The analysis shows that there is variation in the …

Beyond Right Or Wrong: The Influences Of Thinking Disposition And Item Difficulty On Student Behavior During High-Stakes Testing, Kristina Lindquist

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

A hallmark of clinician decision making is the ability to know when to make quick decisions and when decision making should be slowed to account for complicating factors. Throughout the physician training process, multiple choice test items are used to assess student knowledge however, these items do not assess the process used by a student to arrive at the answer choice. If an important characteristic of decisions in clinical practice is timing, then decision timing could be an important consideration for medical school assessments. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to investigate factors that may affect the amount of …

From Deviant Symbol To Cultural Icon? Understanding Pit Bull Stigma, Genevieve Minter

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This research draws from twelve months of ethnographic data using Las Vegas as a case study to understand how pit bull owners experience and negotiate stigma in various social settings. The human-dog relationship, long rooted in utility, transformed in the modern era as animals were promoted from worker to companion. The world’s first dog register, The American Kennel Club, created breed standards and encouraged selective breeding, which influenced the idea of certain dogs being more physically “dangerous” than others. Though the pit bull is not the first dog “breed” to be the object of discrimination, it is the first dog …

Elucidating The Lasting Influence Of Early Pubertal Timing On Disordered Eating Symptoms, Megan Marie Shope

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Objective: Extant data indicate that girls who mature earlier than their peers are at increased risk for disordered eating symptoms. Nonetheless, whether early pubertal timing exerts differential effects across key disordered eating symptoms (e.g., body weight/shape concerns vs. binge eating) and whether pubertal timing effects are present after the completion of puberty (i.e., in adulthood) remains relatively unclear. Additionally, leading theories posit that pubertal increases in adiposity and psychosocial factors (e.g., perceived pressures for thinness) likely underlie the predictive effects of earlier maturation on disordered eating risk, yet few studies have empirically tested this possibility. The current study aimed to …

Beyond Suffrage: Intermarriage, Land, And Meanings Of Citizenship And Marital Naturalization/Expatriation In The United States, Shiori Yamamoto

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation investigates how the laws of marital naturalization/expatriation, namely the Citizenship Act of 1855, the Expatriation Act of 1907, and the Cable Act of 1922 and its amendments throughout the 1930s, impacted the lives of women who married foreigners, especially in the American West, and demonstrates how women directly and indirectly challenged the practice of marital naturalization/expatriation. Those laws demanded women who married foreigners take the nationality of their husbands depending on the race of women and their husbands, making married women’s citizenship dependent on that of their husbands. Particularly under the Expatriation Act of 1907, all American women …

Disordered Eating And Body Dysmorphic Concerns In Asian American Women: Sociocultural And Culture-Specific Predictors, Liya Akoury

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The sociocultural idealization of thinness and Eurocentric features (e.g., lighter skin) is ubiquitous in Westernized cultures, yet only some women internalize these ideals and/or perceive heightened pressures to conform to such ideals. Elevated internalization and perceived pressures to obtain thinness and Eurocentric features may contribute to disordered eating and unique types of body dysmorphic concerns (e.g., dissatisfaction with skin color, eye size/ shape), respectively. Such difficulties may be particularly relevant for ethnic minority women; however, little research exists examining such effects. Further, few studies have comprehensively examined the intersection between sociocultural and culture-specific (e.g., ethnic identity; biculturalism) predictors on disordered …

Virtually Healthy: Using Virtual Ethnography To Survey Healthcare Seeking Practices Of Transgender Individuals Online, Rogelio Arenas

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The use of digital spaces becomes more prevalent as technologies improve and more individuals become connected online. For many, the virtual world may become the primary means by which they engage socially and commercially with larger society. For individuals who identify as transgender or gender nonconforming, the virtual world serves as an environment where the fluidity of identity construction, the security of anonymity, and the physical separation provided by using a digital medium allows for the creation of a secure space for social engagements that may otherwise be discriminatory or infeasible in physical interactions. The stigma, discrimination, and prejudice experienced …

Face Affect Perception In Schizophrenia And Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Lisa Beckman

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Schizophrenia (SZ) and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are often comorbid psychological disorders. Separately, research has previously demonstrated deficits in social cognition, including affect recognition impairment in both disorders; however, less is reliably known about the specific deficits unique to a comorbid diagnosis of SZ and PTSD. This study examined the ability to correctly identify facial expressions in individuals diagnosed with SZ (n = 38) and PTSD alone (n = 20), comorbid SZ and PTSD (n = 26), and healthy controls (n = 28). Participants were administered a test battery to establish diagnoses of of schizophrenia and PTSD, and to evaluate …

Identifying Risk Factors For Youth Hospitalization In Crisis Settings: A Classification And Regression Tree Analysis, Yen-Ling Chen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Traditionally, treatment option for psychiatric crises was limited to psychiatric hospitalization. However, psychiatric hospitals are expensive and little evidence supports their utility. Youth returning from psychiatric hospitalizations often have difficulties readjusting to everyday life which can increase risk for negative outcomes. Alternative treatment options such as mobile crisis services might be useful for stabilizing youth in the community and garnering better long-term outcomes. For alternative treatment options to work, clinicians must be able to efficiently and accurately distinguish youth in need of psychiatric hospitalization and youth who could be served via an alternative service. Therefore, the purpose of the present …

Encyclopedia Of My Body, Alice Hastings

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This creative thesis project is a culmination of the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing degree at UNLV. The thesis—titled Encyclopedia of My Body—was composed entirely during my graduate semesters at UNLV. As a hybrid collection book of poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction, it explores the different bodies that create and shape human people. Included within these bodies are of course the temporal, organic bodies human people inhabit; using my own body as the focus, I explore the intersections of gender, pain, and transness. This collection however seeks to trouble the idea of bodies, and therefore explores the bodies …

Reconsolidation: Unique Cognitive Process Or State Dependent Learning?, Chris Kiley

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Accessing a previously consolidated memory trace brings it back into a labile state where it must then undergo a re-stabilization process known as reconsolidation. During this process memories are susceptible to interference and may be updated with new information. Reconsolidation has been demonstrated in animals as well as in the procedural and episodic human memory systems. However, it is still unclear when the effect will occur. Some studies suggest that reconsolidation is only necessary when new information is presented in the same spatial context or when prediction error occurs. More recent work has provided evidence that reconsolidation could be due …

Attitudes Toward Marijuana Legalization: Temporal And Thematic Trends, Daniel James Krystosek

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation examines historical changes in marijuana legalization attitudes between 1974 – 2018, using a qualitative study of pro-legalization social movements in marijuana culture and quantitative analyses of measures from the General Social Survey (GSS). The main research question asks what themes have been prevalent in pro-legalization social movements (e.g., libertarianism, anti-establishment and anti-drug-war, medical/cancer patient advocacy, market incentives), how these themes have changed over the past several decades, and whether they connect to trends in legalization attitudes in the (GSS).

The first part of this study is qualitative, employing thematic content analysis of the most prominent national pro-marijuana publication. …

Modeling Driver-Pedestrian-Infrastructure Interactions At Signalized Midblock Crosswalks, Boniphace Kutela

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Cities and metropolitan areas are increasingly facilitating pedestrians’ movement by the provision of pedestrian walking facilities. As pedestrian traffic increases, the risk of crash involvement increases, especially at midblock locations, where pedestrians are exposed to unsafe interactions with vehicular traffic. To improve pedestrians’ safety at midblock locations, various countermeasures are provided, which include signalized crosswalks. Several studies have analyzed driver-pedestrian interactions, as well as pedestrian-infrastructure interactions at signalized midblock crosswalks. However, more in-depth studies are necessary, due to shortfalls of study assumptions, which have led to the application of improper statistical models, as seen in the literature. Improved models are …