Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Nonprofit Organizations And The Ever-Changing Culture Of The American Society: An Analysis Of Values And Support, Crystal Money

Dissertations, Theses and Capstone Projects (Full IR Collection)

No abstract provided.

Bridging The Gap Between Commercial Sexual Exploitation Of Children And Responses From Law Enforcement, Ruth Y. Kasalwe

Dissertations, Theses and Capstone Projects (Full IR Collection)

Commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) has become a growing crime in most cities in the United States, particularly Atlanta. There seems to be a gap between these types of crime and how law enforcement responds to them. This paper discussed why Atlanta has attracted such a crime and how local law enforcement is dealing with the issue, as well as current laws that are in place to combat this crime. In particular, this study will answer two main questions: (1) Why is Metro Atlanta a hotspot for CSEC? (2) How can local law enforcement better respond to CSEC? The …

Dialectic Of Enlightenment: Fragments From The Past For Contemporary Communication Studies, Saša Kampič

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The book Dialectic of Enlightenment is relevant to the study of communication in society. Originally written in the 1940s, its twenty-first century reissue is re-edited and newly translated with the subtitle “Philosophical Fragments.” The book is explored in the thesis as a contribution to a reinterpretation of the study of communication in society. As a defining work of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, it shows that reason guides practice and the culture of the social world through distorted, illusionary operations, operations that are reductive, instrumental practices supported by conceptions of them. Reason-in-practice is an instrumental logic inherited from the …

Using X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometry To Assess Variance In Obsidian Source Distribution In Southern Idaho, Marielle Loryn Pedro Black

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the use of portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometry to assist in associating artifacts with geological sources of obsidian from Southern Idaho. XRF spectrometry measures trace element abundance within obsidian artifacts, which is then compared, using a variety of statistical techniques, with known obsidian source geochemical profiles. Results from previous obsidian provenance studies have been used in archaeology as a proxy in measuring prehistoric hunter-gatherer mobility. Artifacts from 11 site assemblages were measured using pXRF to augment data for previously analyzed sites and to collect artifact geochemical data from previously unanalyzed sites. Using pXRF …

An Assault On Liberty: The 2012 National Defense Authorization Act And The Indefinite Military Detention Of Us Citizens Without Charge Or Trial, Matthew M. D'Angelo

Political Science

In the wake of 9/11 the U.S. Government has passed a host of counter-terrorism laws that provide the Executive Branch and the President of the United States frightening levels of authority. The Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists of 2001 (AUMF) and the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 (NDAA) include provisions or have been interpreted to allow the President to indefinitely detain terrorism suspects in military custody without charge or trial. This includes the potential application of these laws to American citizens. This thesis will analyze these statutes and relevant jurisprudence on the subject of …

Ideophones In Manyika Shona: A Descriptive Analysis Of Ideophones And Their Function In Manyika (Bantu), Genevieve E. Franck

Linguistics

Ideophones are a class of words which occur in many languages throughout the world, but are relatively uncommon in English. Though often mimetic, ideophones are not to be confused with onomatopoeia since they extend well beyond the narrow scope of sound only symbolism. In the past, ideophones have been difficult for linguists to categorize and understand due to their limited usage in many of their native European languages. These words are marked due to their divergent phonology, morphology, syntax, or all of the above. Ideophones often vividly depict one or more sensory events, ranging from sight to emotion. This paper …

Adjectives, Be Verbs, And Derterminers In Manyika Shona, Grace Teubl

Linguistics

Manyika is a dialect of Shona, a Bantu language spoken in Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Like many Bantu languages, Manyika has a noun class system, which affects the morphology and phonology of many parts of speech including nouns, verbs, adjectives, and determiners. In this paper, noun class is studied in relation to adjectives, stative verbs, and determiners. In addition, there is a section on the use of the be-verb in Manyika Shona, and a section on combinations of determiners and the syntax of the determiner phrases.

Posttraumatic Stress Disorder In Maltreated Multiracial Youth, Harpreet Kaur

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Lemos-Miller and Kearney (2006) first identified depression as a meditator of (1) dissociation and posttraumatic cognitions and (2) PTSD in maltreated children. In addition, they found that African American status weakened the mediating relationship, whereas multiracial status strengthened the mediating relationship. Multiracial youth in Lemos-Miller and Kearney's study experienced a stronger relationship between depression and PTSD than other ethnic groups.

The present study evaluated the Lemos-Miller and Kearney (2006) model of PTSD among a larger sample of multiracial youth. The present study sought to identify whether the Lemos-Miller and Kearney (2006) finding regarding multiracial youth could be replicated. The presented …

Cognitive Differences Between High And Low Responders Of A Tier Ii Reading Intervention, Jillian Cohen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study evaluated a population of young students with potential reading disabilities who participated in a large western school district's Reading Skills Development project from October 2012 to May 2013. The following questions were addressed: Are there cognitive differences between students who respond well to an intense Tier II reading intervention and those who make little progress? If so, which cognitive skills best discriminate between high and low responders? De-identified data was collected from 171 struggling readers in 1st through 3rd grade who participated in the Reading Skills project. After controlling for English proficiency level, high and low responders were …

Observability In Traffic Modeling: Eulerian And Lagrangian Coordinates, Sergio Contreras

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Traditionally, one of the ways traffic flow has been studied is by using the kinematic wave model. This model is studied in the Eulerian framework. Recently, the kinematic wave model has been transformed into Lagrangian coordinates. This model of traffic flow together with the concept of observability for linear time invariant discrete time systems is applied to study the observability of four sections of a freeway in both Eulerian and Lagrangian coordinates. A system with densities in four sections of a freeway is designed, and the observability of the system is studied with different situations for sensors. When the system …

"I Got Shot Five Times And I Got Crucified To The Media": Tupac Amaru Shakur -- Moral Panic, Media Crucifixion And Resurrection, Lucas Jerome Combs

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis looks at why the media had and continues to have a fascination with the late rap artist Tupac Amaru Shakur. A content analysis of coverage from twelve newspaper publications was used to better understand the nature of the coverage on Shakur. Analysis of coverage after Shakur's death determines the tone of coverage varied from the coverage when the rapper was alive. The concept of moral panic explains media attitude.

Attributions And Coping Behaviors Communicated Among Bullied Students: An Analysis Of Bullying Blogs, Carly Marie Danielson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Student bullying is a growing and damaging problem in society today. This study investigates the role of bullied students' attributions and coping strategies through Heider's (1958) attribution theory (AT) and Crick and Dodge's (1994) social information processing model (SIP). Rich data are obtained from bullying blogs that showcase how bullied individuals make sense of their experiences online. The important findings that emerge from this investigation relate to similarities in men's and women's attributions and differences in their coping strategies and resources to manage victimization. Additionally, both men and women experienced similar negative outcomes with particular coping strategies and resources, suggesting …

A Spatial Analysis Test Of Decennial Crime Patterns In The United States, Kristina R. Donathan

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Crime in the United States has steadily been decreasing since the 1990s. Social disorganization theory states that breakdowns of social institutions were the root causes of juvenile delinquency. Using exogenous variables of poverty, residential mobility, and ethnic heterogeneity, this study aims to investigate the impacts and magnitude of these variables on violent and property crime committed in the United States for adults and for juveniles. By comparing adult crime rates to juvenile delinquency rates, these findings will guide policy makers to develop effective policy tools that will provide a safer environment for the community. Using annual crime datasets, this thesis …

Walt Disney And The Propaganda Complex: Government Funded Animation And Hollywood Complicity During Wwii, Amanda Michelle Cunningham

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The focus of this proposed thesis will be on the animated propaganda films the studios of Walt Disney produced for the government during World War II, analyzing three of the most widely viewed animated features: The New Spirit (1942), Der Fuehrer's Face (1943), and Education for Death: The Making of the Nazi (1943). These government-financed films were used to encourage Americans to pay their taxes; they generally depicted Germany as a threatening enemy and encouraged support for America's effort and involvement in the war. Using a semiotics theoretical approach, the thesis will analyze these films as propaganda to demonstrate how …

Presidential Epideictic Rhetoric During Times Of Crisis: Barack Obama's "9/11" Moment, Michael Eisenstadt

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Epideictic or ceremonial rhetoric, in its most basic and essential function, praises or blames an object. Ceremonial speakers seek to articulate why those particular objects are worthy of honor or the reverse. In the unfortunate event of a national tragedy, citizens may be confused or troubled, presenting the need for clarification and reassurance. Often times, concrete political solutions do not satisfy these needs because they do not explain what has occurred in terms the public can understand and proceed from. Presidents often inject memories of the past into public address to define these troubling situations in ways that broad, national …

The Formation Of Situation Models In Multimedia, Kris Gunawan

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

When people read traditional text-based stories, they construct mental representations of the described state of affairs, called situation models, to connect various details of events (e.g., time, space, entity) in memory (Zwaan & Radvansky, 1998). According to the cognitive theory of multimedia learning (Mayer, 2005; 2011), stories presented as pictures and text generate independent channels of mental representations that can work hand-in-hand or separately to acquire and remember the materials presented. This dissertation consisted of two experiments that were used to further explore how the two modalities affect what is being mentally represented in memory. In Experiment 1, participants were …

Using The Web 1t 5-Gram Database For Attribute Selection In Formal Concept Analysis To Correct Overstemmed Clusters, Guymon Hall

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Information retrieval is the process of finding information from an unstructured collection of data. The process of information retrieval involves building an index, commonly called an inverted file. As part of the inverted file, information retrieval algorithms often stem words to a common root. Stemming involves reducing a document term to its root. There are many ways to stem a word: affix removal and successor variety are two common categories of stemmers. The Porter Stemming Algorithm is a suffix removal stemmer that operates as a rule-based process on English words. We can think of stemming as a way to cluster …

Highway Routine Maintenance Cost Estimation For Nevada, Monika Hagood

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

State highway agencies are obligated to maintain existing roads for the highway systems to work efficiently and with greater longevity. Every year NDOT is responsible for approximately 13,150 lane miles of existing infrastructure. With that in mind, resources need to be provided to maintain the highway system.

The purpose of this research was to estimate annual routine maintenance cost for several typical treatment methods of highways. Five prioritization categories of highways used by NDOT were considered. Linear regression models were developed that present the relationship between costs including total maintenance cost and five maintenance cost components: labor, equipment, materials, manpower …

School Climate, Absenteeism, And Psychopathology Among Truant Youth, Marisa Charlene Hendron

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

School refusal behavior has become highly problematic for schools worldwide. Researchers have focused efforts on examining many factors related to absenteeism, including child, parent, family, peer, school, and community variables. Many previous researchers examined absenteeism between groups (i.e. truants vs. nontruants, truants vs. school refusers). The present study investigated percentage of absenteeism in relation to contextual variables in a diverse sample of truants referred to programs designed to improve attendance. First, a model of school climate (Sharing of Resources, Order and Discipline, Parent Involvement, Student Interpersonal Relations, and Student-Teacher Relations) contributing to severity of absenteeism was tested via structural equation …

The Effect Of Early Life Stress On Methamphetamine Damage In The Striatum, Emily Hensleigh

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Methamphetamine (METH) abuse impacts the global economy through costs associated with drug enforcement, emergency room visits, and treatment. Hyperthermia is a leading cause of METH induced emergency room visits and may lead to neural damage. Previous research has demonstrated early life stress, such as childhood abuse, increases the likelihood of developing a substance abuse disorder. However, the effects of early life stress on neuronal damage induced by chronic METH administration are unknown. We aimed to elucidate the effects of early life stress on METH induced dopamine damage in the striatum. Animals were separated three hours per day during the first …

A Model Of Hospitality Employee Engagement, Hee Jung Kang

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study focuses on employee's state-like psychological resources by investigating individual and organizational antecedents to employee engagement and valued human resource outcomes. The purpose of this study was to develop and test a theoretical model that explains the interrelationships among six constructs and to explore the mediating effects of employee engagement. Structural Equation Modeling using AMOS (18.0) statistical software was used to test the full structural model (measurement and structural model) of the hypothesized relationships among the variables with a sample of hospitality employees. The findings supported all hypothesized relationships except the direct relationship between employee engagement and turnover intention. …

The Mental Organization Of People's Permanent And Situational Attributes, Kathleen Larson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis investigated whether readers would integrate physical descriptions of characters into one coherent mental representation or if they would keep mental representations separate. The integration of multiple concepts has been examined in the context of the fan effect, which is the finding that an increase in the number of learned associations for a concept can result in an increase in retrieval times and error rates (Anderson, 1974). However, there is typically not a fan effect when people are able to organize the related information into a single integrated situation model (Radvansky & Zacks, 1991). Previous studies investigating the fan …

High Stakes Of Media Messages: Decoding Visual Narratives From The Iraq War In The U.S. And British Presses, Jennifer Liese

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This research analyzes media coverage of the Iraq War from the perspective of the invading forces, the United States and the United Kingdom. The New York Times and The Guardian were chosen to represent news from their respective countries because of their high circulation rates and international prestige for journalistic reporting. The study focuses on how the Iraq War was visually represented after the Iraq invasion of 2003, examining periods in 2006 and 2011. There were significant differences in how The New York Times and The Guardian visually portrayed the war in 2006, especially in terms of Iraqi civilian and …

The Rhetoric Of Gay Christians: Matthew Vines And Reverend Nancy Wilson As Exemplars, Joshua Holman Miller

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

There is a view of gay rights debates that pits Christians against gay rights advocates. According to this perception, Christians oppose gay rights, because the Bible condemns homosexuality as a sin, and those who support gay rights do so using purely secular arguments. However, this perception of the gay rights debate is flawed and overly simplistic because not all Christians oppose gay rights. In fact, there are multiple interpretations of biblical texts that support homosexuality and have caused a gay rights debate within the church that is as complex and intricate as gay rights debate outside of the church. This …

What's Age Got To Do With It? Examining How The Age Of Stimulus Faces Affects Children's Implicit Racial Bias, Erica Cheree Noles

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Discrepant results regarding the emergence of children's implicit racial bias suggest additional research is needed to understand the developmental timeline of racial bias. Investigations using established explicit racial bias measures and the implicit association task with children demonstrate racial bias in young children (Aboud, 1988; Baron & Banjai, 2006). These findings do not corroborate the only known developmental use of the affective priming task (APT) to measure racial bias, which suggests implicit racial bias does not emerge until adolescence (Degner & Wentura, 2010). Variations in the task demands, the types of stimuli used to represent the construct of race, and …

Sex In The Brain: The Relationship Between Event Related Potentials And Subjective Sexual Arousal, Taylor Lynn Oliver

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Research investigating the relationship between subjective sexual arousal and physiological arousal has focused primarily on measures of genital arousal and has yielded only modest concordance rates between genital and subjective sexual arousal in men, and low concordance rates in women. One of the nagging confounds in the literature, however, has been the fact that different assessment methods are necessitated by men and women's differing genital physiology (i.e., vaginal photoplethysmography in women and penile plethysmography in men). This study sought to investigate the relationship between subjective sexual arousal and a different type of physical arousal (brain activation) that could be measured …

Scholarly Publishing & Open Access Within Cuny: One Faculty Looks At Changing The Paradigm, Philip Pecorino

Urban Library Journal

The author reports on what brought him as a CUNY faculty member to the position that he holds on Open Access as a new paradigm for scholarly publication and dissemination of information, knowledge and creations. He relates his experiences in bringing this topic to the attention of his CUNY colleagues and his understanding of what may happen in the future at CUNY as a response to the open access model. He will also relate his current efforts related to the archiving of the academic creations of faculty and of governance materials.

He presents his views on tenure and promotion review …

Advocacy Begins At Home: Methods Of Promoting Faculty Awareness Of Open Access Publishing At The Brooklyn Campus Of Long Island University, Edward Keene

Urban Library Journal

The paper reports on efforts of the Periodicals Librarian at Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus, a mid-sized urban institution, to measure the awareness of open access (OA) publishing among faculty and document methods that proved effective in raising awareness of the advent of, and debate over, OA publishing. The author reports his survey findings; interprets their implications; reports on the means available at LIU to promote OA and those that proved worthwhile; notes the departmental and committee relationships integral to the process; proposes ideas for future initiatives at LIU/Brooklyn. The findings in the paper will add to the body of …

Open Access And The Association Publisher, Summary Of A Presentation By Dr. Martin Blume, Jill Cirasella, Martha Corpus

Urban Library Journal

The American Physical Society (APS) publishes eight titles along with Physical Review Focus (a free service that provides lay-person explanations of selected articles from the other APS journals) and two open access journals, Physical Review Special Topics: Accelerators and Beams (funded with institutional sponsorship) and Physical Review Special Topics: Physics Education Research (funded by author charges). ...

Open Access And The Public Library Of Medicine, Summary Of A Presentation By Dr. Harold Varmus, Michael J. Miller

Urban Library Journal

Dr. Varmus opened his comments with a vignette regarding his own foray into the publishing world. Based upon his exposure to Cornell's arXiv.org, (the evolutionary result of Ginsbarg's "e-print archives" for electronic research publications for physics materials), he eventually pursued similar means of electronic research publishing in the areas of biology and medicine. Though challenged by the academy, these efforts guided by accompanying constructive criticisms led to the development of PubMed Central(tm). ...