Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

New Yarmouth, Eastern Neck, Maryland: Resistance To Town Building From The Colonial Period To The Present, Brynn Torelli

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The work presented in this thesis is an attempt to shed light on the early colonial development of Maryland's Eastern Shore and its possible relationship with current settlement patterns in the region, with particular interest in Kent County. Traditional interpretations of the lack of urban development on the Eastern Shore, both in the Colonial era and the present, have tended to focus on environmental and geographical factors. This research seeks to examine this trend toward rural living in newer and broader ways by incorporating human agency and investigating the possibility that the lack of town development during the Colonial era …

Analysis Of Flaked Stone Lithics From Virgin Anasazi Sites Near Mt. Trumbull, Arizona Strip, Cheryl Marie Martin

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis examines flaked stone tools that were used by the Virgin Anasazi and the debitage resulting from their manufacture at six sites in the Mt. Trumbull region in order to infer past human behavior. The behaviors being examined include activities carried out at sites, the processing and use of raw stone materials, and patterns of regional exchange. I have applied obsidian sourcing technology and an analysis of flaked stone attributes. The research indicates a range of activities occurred at habitation sites at Mt. Trumbull, and toolmakers did not need to expend large amounts of time and energy on acquiring …

A Validation Study Of Risk Management Systems, Bridget Kelly

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this study was to examine the predictive validity of Risk Management Systems (RMS) as a risk assessment instrument. To date, a published validation study does not exist for the RMS. The study employs secondary data analysis to examine the predictive validity of RMS recidivism and violence scores on three outcomes: arrest, unsuccessful termination from supervision, and technical violations. The study sample consisted of 830 probationers from the United States Probation Office, District of Nevada. The analyses showed that RMS recidivism and violence scores were moderately predictive of all three outcomes.

A Perspective Of Global Capitalism, James Soller

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Since the 1970s, the political-economic structure of global society has undergone drastic restructuring. International political economy is concerned with providing explanations for these changes. This thesis will provide an alternative view of international relations that is often marginalized in the mainstream literature. It will be argued that global society needs to be understood under the historical context of capitalism and the class relations that stem from it. Central to this argument is a Gramscian derived articulation of hegemony. Thus, hegemony will be conceptualized in this thesis as a transnational class that governs over global society through consent and coercion. While …

A Palestinian State, Jennifer A. Hileman-Tabios

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Should an independent, sovereign state of Palestine have the right to exist? The establishment of an independent Palestinian state is important because it could possibly end an extended period of violence with Israel, where civilian casualties have been high, and it could help to solidify a foundation of political tolerance and acceptance in the Middle East. Under the proposed two-state solution, an independent Palestinian state is possible. However, to determine if a Palestinian state is viable, it will be necessary to examine internal political struggles, economic resources, systems of communication, political systems and internal and external political policies. This qualitative …

Perspectives On Timeshare Ownership: An Exploratory Study Of Markets In China, Kai-Li Chi

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study aims to explore the attitudes of prospective customers in China about timeshares, and to identify potential marketing opportunities for timeshare companies targeting China. This exploratory study is the first of its kind and it intends to provide valuable information about the consumer potential for the timeshare industry in China. The findings indicate that consumer acceptance of timeshares in China is high. Six socio-demographic variables were identified as keys in predicting those with statistically significant likelihood of purchasing a timeshare within the next three years: age, occupation, marital status, annual household income, vacation frequency, and attendance at a previous …

Eminent Domain: The Unintended Consequences Of Kelo, Tracy Lynn Bower

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In recent years, local governments in the United States have increasingly used eminent domain to promote economic development, raising concerns among property-right advocates over what those advocates view as unlawful, or what should be unlawful, takings of private property in order to benefit another private property owner. This philosophical and legal dispute reached a crisis point in the 2005 United States Supreme Court decision in Kelo v. City of New London. In that decision, the court narrowly upheld a Connecticut Supreme Court ruling granting the City of New London permission to redevelop land that had been seized from existing homeowners …

Send For Success: A Descriptive Look At Prescriptive Manuals For Email, Jean Reid Norman

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Email has existed for almost forty years, but in the past ten, it has become a dominant form of communication in the business world. A sign of the maturation of email and its dominance in commerce is the rise of how-to books on writing effective emails. This paper analyzes six of those recent texts to develop a taxonomy of current prescriptive advice for email. It examines contextual issues as well as issues of content, such as structure and tone; format, such as length of paragraphs, forms of salutation and farewell, and use of emoticons and abbreviations; and grammar and correctness. …

Optimization Of The Microprecipitation Procedure For Nuclear Forensics Applications, Lyndsey Renee Kelly

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Microprecipitation has become one of the most widely used sample preparation techniques for alpha spectroscopy. Many factors during the precipitation process can affect the yield and energy resolution by adding unwanted mass to the sample. Current applications in nuclear forensics call for an optimization of energy resolution and yield in order to improve identification and quantify specific radionuclides. The purpose of this research is to determine the optimal parameters used for microprecipitation. The optimal solution temperature, precipitation time, carrier amount, and hydrofluoric acid amount are used to investigate the influence of varying the type of carrier, as well as, the …

Functions And Correlates Of Deliberate Self-Harm Among Adjudicated Male Adolescents, Jenna Silverman

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Deliberate self-harm (DSH) is self-inflicted physical injury without suicidal intent. Recent studies indicated that more adolescent males engage in DSH than previously identified. Research demonstrated that DSH is common in forensic settings and highly correlated with several mental health disorders. This study included 103 adjudicated male adolescents assessed for DSH and mental health concerns. Twenty-two participants with DSH history and 21 controls were interviewed about coping skills, mental health problems, and DSH functions. Results indicated that 66%, especially African American and Hispanic participants, reported DSH history. Participants with DSH history reported more aggression, emotional lability, alienation/boredom, and internalizing disorders but …

Diversity Issues In Recruitment And Retention Of Clients For Parenting Classes, Rachel Elizabeth Davis

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Parenting skills classes are an effective means of preventing and remediating juvenile delinquency, youth violence, and child maltreatment. In particular, juvenile delinquency and child maltreatment disproportionately affect low-income African American families. Unfortunately, data from most parenting classes suggest dismal attendance and participation rates for racial- and ethnic-minorities from low-income backgrounds. The lack of effective recruitment may be due, in part, to the level of cultural competency inherent in the design, content, and implementation of existing parenting classes. Using semi-structured interviews and the qualitative methodology of grounded theory, this study explored the self-reported parenting beliefs, values, and struggles of a sample …

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder And Other Consequences Of A Picu Admission, Stephanie Ann Stowman

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Currently, there is a paucity of literature regarding children's experiences in a pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) relative to caregivers' experiences. Children admitted to a PICU and their caregivers are at risk for various psychopathology. Disorders commonly identified in seriously ill children include depression, anxiety, acute stress disorder, and posttraumatic stress disorder. Caregivers of seriously ill children are at increased risk of depression, generalized anxiety disorder, acute stress disorder, and posttraumatic stress disorder. Researchers often fail to examine all relevant psychopathology and contributing factors and stressors, such as family environment, in seriously ill children and their caregivers. This study assessed …

Illegal Immigration And Worldview Defense: Distaste For Human Migration In The Context Of Tmt, John Matthew Bergen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study examines the impact of mortality salience on opinions about illegal immigrants. Participants were asked to write about their own death or a control subject and then presented with scenarios of illegal immigration to the United States. The scenarios included a defendant who was either of Latin American or European origin and had or had not learned to speak English. However, the European condition had to be dropped due to unreliable identification of the origin of the European defendant. The results indicate that mortality salience caused an increase in the preference for deportation of an illegal immigrant who was …

Race Stereotypic Crimes And Juror Decision Making: Hispanic, Black, And White Defendants, Joseph Francis Boetcher

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

A race stereotypic crime is a crime that most people tend to associate with a certain race. This is a type of racial bias that affects juror decision making by undermining the presumption of innocence and lowering the prosecution's burden of proof. Two studies investigated race stereotypic crimes. Study 1 used a new scale to identify race stereotypic crimes for black, Hispanic, and white males. Study 2 used a mock juror paradigm with a realistic stimulus and sensitive measures to focus on the influence of this type of bias on mock juror decision making. Study 1: Participants were 143 undergraduate …

Brothers Are Better Than Sisters: A Semiotic, Feminist Analysis Of Hbo's "Rome", Patricia Mamie Peers

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In 2005, the Home Box Office and British Broadcasting Corporation partnered to produce Rome , a television series that retells the Roman histories of Julius Caesar, Marc Antony and Augustus through the lives of two centurion soldiers, Titus Pullo and Lucious Vorenus. The show's producers endeavored to bring Roman streets to life and included more storylines of women, men and children of all classes. At first considered a more egalitarian approach to history, Rome 's women are said to "challenge expectations" (Vu, 2005) and "forge a new path" (Ragalie, 2007, p. 2). But does this new representation challenge the old …

Communication Technologies: Diffusion Of Online News Use And Credibility Among Young Web Users In The Information Age, Chee Youn Kang

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The increasing popularity and extensive usage of communication technologies, particularly the Internet and online news, makes it important to obtain an insightful perception of the new media. The purpose of this study is to examine the diffusion of online news use and credibility among young web users in terms of how these main users adopt, use, and trust the new media. This study attempts to find which online news sites are widely used by this group, based on the credibility of online news adopted among undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), in which demographic …

Disease In The Desert: Las Vegas As A Case Study Of How First Responders And Emergency Managers Understand Novel Threats To Human Health And Plan To Respond During Biological Emergencies, Monique Williamson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Over recent years it has become clear that technological advancements, globalization, and ecological change, combined with the onset of increased terrorist incidents, are all currently working to create an extremely hazardous environment in terms of pathogenic invasion. Realizing that infectious diseases are both newly emerging and re-emerging in many parts of the world, the question of how prepared an expansive United States will be in the face of an oncoming global pandemic is easily raised. Using Las Vegas as an example of just how unequipped a largely visited U.S. city may be in the face of such a situation, this …

On-Board Three-Dimensional Object Tracking: Software And Hardware Solutions, Ajay Kumar Mandava

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

We describe a real time system for recognition and tracking 3D objects such as UAVs, airplanes, fighters with the optical sensor. Given a 2D image, the system has to perform background subtraction, recognize relative rotation, scale and translation of the object to sustain a prescribed topology of the fleet. In the thesis a comparative study of different algorithms and performance evaluation is carried out based on time and accuracy constraints. For background subtraction task we evaluate frame differencing, approximate median filter, mixture of Gaussians and propose classification based on neural network methods. For object detection we analyze the performance of …

Nevada Interagency Volunteer Program: Helping Hands Across Public Lands – Phase Ii: Quarterly Progress Report, Period Covering October 1 – December 31, 2008, Margaret N. Rees

Get Outdoors Nevada

• The number of records in the volunteer database increased 8% over last quarter. The database now contains 6,431 records.
• Website activity increased, recording an average of 56,013 hits per month, an increase of 6% from last quarter, with an average of 5,211 pages viewed per month.
• Volunteer fall training has been completed.
• Three National Public Land Day and National Family Events have been completed.
• Two hundred and five people attended the Volunteer Recognition Event.

Southern Nevada Agency Partnership Cultural Site Stewardship Program – Program Expansion And Steward Retention: Quarterly Progress Report, Period Ending December 31, 2008, Margaret N. Rees

Cultural Site Stewardship Program

• The Cultural Site Stewardship Program reports the first decrease in reported cultural site impacts since program inception.

• Total cultural site stewards trained is 382 for 2008 calendar-year-end.

• Two new Regional Coordinators assigned to Sloan and Eldorado Valley.

Bibliolinking: An Adaptation Of Bibliotherapy For University Students In Transition, K. M. Becker, D. Pehrsson, P. S. Mcmillen

Library Faculty Research

A team composed of one student and two faculty members worked in concert to develop and evaluate a training model for personnel who work with university students in transition. This model utilizes “Bibliolinking” (a newly coined word developed during this research) which is an adaptation of bibliotherapy. The primary purpose for using Bibliolinking is to establish and nourish relationships among Resident Assistants (RAs) and student residents (SRs) via a shared experience with a text such as a novel, short story, article or self-help book. Although, RAs play an important, often counselor-like role, they receive no or little formal preparation for …

Inside Unlv, Diane Russell, Michelle Mouton, Mamie Peers, Shane Bevell

Inside UNLV

No abstract provided.

I Found Goffman Talented, Original, Rewarding To Read, But Basically Problematic, Victor Lidz

Bios Sociologicus: The Erving Goffman Archives

Dr. Victor Lidz, Professor of Sociology at the Hahnemann University, wrote this memoir at the invitation of Dmitri Shalin and gave his approval for posting the present version in the Erving Goffman Archives.

The Environmental And Economic Benefits Of Highway Access Management: A Multivariate Analysis Using System Dynamics, Dan Andersen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Better management of highway operations can be achieved, in part, by controlling vehicular access to adjacent properties and cross streets. This tactic, referred to as access management, has proven safety and operational benefits. However, doubts remain regarding its environmental and economic benefits.

I hypothesize that one environmental indicator, carbon emissions, will decrease with proper access management. Controlling access increases the speed at which vehicles travel, improving fuel efficiency and reducing carbon emissions. My hypothesis relative to financial impacts is that access management will neither help nor harm businesses. Controlling access can reduce travel time which has the effect of increasing …

Camping: A Positive Developmental Context For Youth With Disabilities/Serious Illness, Christopher T. Troxell

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The paper will examine how elements of youth development can enhance the camp experience, so that new camps for youth with disabilities and/or serious illness, such as Flying Horse Farms, can start with a solid knowledge base of what works and why it works. Also, even though the paper is geared toward these specific types of camps, part of its recommendation could be modified to fit the purpose of any camp.

Having Been Goffman's Student I Am Drawn To Voltaire’S Dictum, "To The Living We Owe Respect, To The Dead We Owe Only The Truth", Sherri Cavan

Bios Sociologicus: The Erving Goffman Archives

This interview with Sherri Cavan, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the San Francisco State University, was recorded over the phone on November 30, 2008. Dmitri Shalin transcribed the interview, after which Dr. Cavan edited the transcripts and gave her approval for posting the present version in the Erving Goffman Archives. Breaks in the conversation flow are indicated by ellipses. Supplementary information and additional materials inserted during the editing process appear in square brackets. Undecipherable words and unclear passages are identified in the text as “[?]”. The interviewer’s questions are shortened in several places.

Dmitri Shalin Interview With Eviatar Zerubavel About Erving Goffman Entitled "Studying With Erving Goffman", Eviatar Zerubavel

Bios Sociologicus: The Erving Goffman Archives

This interview with Eviatar Zerubavel, Board of Governors Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University, was recorded on August 2, 2008, during the ASA meeting in Boston. After Dmitri Shalin transcribed the interview, Dr. Zerubavel corrected the transcript and gave his approval for posting the present version in the Erving Goffman Archives. Breaks in the conversation flow are indicated by ellipses. Supplementary information appears in square brackets. Undecipherable words and unclear passages are identified in the text as “[?]”. The interviewer’s questions are shortened in several places.

Then Maurice Janowitz Came Over And Said To Goffman, “Cut It Out, Erving”, Jeffrey Goldfarb

Bios Sociologicus: The Erving Goffman Archives

This interview with Jeffrey Goldfarb, professor of sociology at the New School for Social Research, was recorded at the ASA meeting in Boston on August 3, 2008. Dmitri Shalin transcribed the interview, after which Dr. Goldfarb corrected the transcripts and gave his approval for posting the present version in the Erving Goffman Archives. Breaks in the conversation flow are indicated by ellipses. Supplementary information appears in square brackets. Undecipherable words and unclear passages are identified in the text as “[?]”. The interviewer’s questions are shortened in several places.

Remembering Gregory Stone, David Franks

Bios Sociologicus: The Erving Goffman Archives

This interview with David Franks, professor emeritus of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University, was recorded at the ASA meeting in Boston on August 2, 2008. Dmitri Shalin transcribed the interview, after which Dr. Franks corrected the transcripts and gave his approval for posting the present version in the Erving Goffman Archives. Breaks in the conversation flow are indicated by ellipses. Supplementary information appears in square brackets. Undecipherable words and unclear passages are identified in the text as “[?]”. The interviewer’s questions are shortened in several places.

Dmitri Shalin Interview With Rodney Stark About Erving Goffman Entitled "Goffman Was Trying To Get Away With The Descriptions Of Those Fairly Sane People As He Laid Out His Notion Of Mental Illness", Rodney Stark

Bios Sociologicus: The Erving Goffman Archives

This interview with Rodney Stark, Distinguished Professor of the Social Sciences and Co- Director of the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University, was recorded over the phone on November 25, 2008. Dmitri Shalin transcribed the interview, after which Dr. Stark edited the transcripts and gave his approval for posting the present version in the Erving Goffman Archives. Breaks in the conversation flow are indicated by ellipses. Supplementary information appears in square brackets. Undecipherable words and unclear passages are identified in the text as “[?]”. The interviewer’s questions are shortened in several places.