Project FOCUS

Project FOCUS is an inclusive, accessible, and productive career education program for college-aged students with intellectual disabilities in the Las Vegas area.https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/educ_sys_202/1057/thumbnail.jp

Remote Survey of Herpetofaunal Habitat in Western Kansas

Ground surveys are the primary means of conducting habitat assessments and landscape monitoring. However, these methods are temporally and financially expensive, and can be difficult to conduct in remote areas. Aerial photographs overcome some of these issues, but there are problems associated with poor resolution and are produced at too low of frequency for proper analysis and monitoring. With the introduction of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and high resolution sensors, monitoring efforts of landscapes can be obtained at high frequencies with high image resolution. Texas horned lizards (P. cornutum) and Lesser earless lizards (H. maculata) are ideal organisms to study habitat composition within a landscape due to their low mobility and occupy a specific habitat niche. The objective of this study is to monitor herpetofauna communities in western Kansas, and gather data using UAS technology to characterize microhabitat structure and presence patterns

An Aerial Perspective: Using Unmanned Aerial Systems to Predict Presence of Lesser Earless Lizards (Holbrookia Maculata)

Implementation of unmanned aerial system (UAS) in conservation biology has allowed researchers to extend their surveying range for monitoring wildlife. Wildlife biologists have started using UAS technology for detecting large species (i.e. elk, manatees) within their surveying range and monitoring changes and disturbance in the landscape. Despite this technological advancement, there are few studies that target smaller species (reptiles, rodents, amphibians) for UAS surveys. The primary reason for this is that these organisms are simply too small for detection for aerial surveying. However, certain species are restricted in their range because they have specific environmental requirements, and the target for UAS survey could change focus from detection of species to detection of their habitat. The Lesser Earless lizard (Holbrookia maculata) is smaller species of lizard that inhabits arid, rocky regions in the southwest United States, which is known to occupy areas of sparse vegetation and rocky or loamy soils. Although this species would be difficult to detect in aerial surveys, their habitat can easily be distinguished in aerial imagery. For this project, aerial surveys performed by UAS technology and ground surveying of H. maculata were analyzed in combination to generate a predictive model of H. maculata presence within a landscape. Three survey areas were assigned for this project: one to generate the predictive model from data collected from ground and aerial surveys, and two were assigned to assess the accuracy of the predictive model based off ground and aerial surveys

'War is a snake that bites us with our own teeth' : reading war in Southern African literature from 1960 to 2002.

1960 marked the beginning of a profoundly violent and unstable period in southern Africa’s history. Central to the fundamental socio-political changes that took place in the region and many of its countries during this period were a number of wars, the last of which only ended in 2002. While the specific reasons for each of these wars were complex and varied, according to each country, the central roles these wars have played in the creation of the countries they affected – and the region as a whole – are evident to this day. It is, therefore, important to look at the position the writing of war holds in southern Africans’ attempts to represent, define and imagine southern Africa and its component countries during and after the experience of war. With this in mind, this study examines the manner in which the texts under scrutiny form a web of creative engagement in the context of a violent and unstable region. The aim of the work is to illustrate that the region’s writing of war can be seen to respond to both national and regional concerns and, in doing so, form a platform for an imagining of both nation and region. Methodologically, the research presented in this study is based on a close reading, through extensive contextualisation, of the selected primary texts with a view to understanding the similarities, commonalities and differences present in the region’s war writing. It is divided into six chapters which, aside from the Introduction and Conclusion, include readings of texts from Angola, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Mozambique. The study finds war to be central to the selected texts’ presentation of their imaginings of nation and, importantly, to the realisation, defence or dissolution of that imagined nation. Two factors are found to be key to these imaginings: the role of the moment in which the texts are written and the depiction of the role of the hero, in various forms, in the attainment or illustration of the nation. In terms of the study’s contentions relating to southern Africa as a region, the readings illustrate that war is central to the manner in which the region is also imagined by the texts’ authors. Additionally, the study reveals imaginings of region that change over time and thus map the shifting configurations of southern Africa formed as political allegiances between countries were transformed, or restructured, by the experience of war. In response to these findings, the study suggests that as a region, southern Africa owes much of its current configuration to the shared experience of war between 1960 and 2002. Paradoxically, therefore, war in southern Africa, as the primary texts show it to function, can be seen to have been socially developmental through the forced creation of a sense of region. This view has implications for the manner in which regions are viewed in other areas of the African continent because, by way of a similar use of war as a point of focus through which to read region in primary texts, the imaginings of other African regions, such as that created by wars in Somalia and Sudan, can be conceptualised and configured

Examining the Link Between Pledging, Hazing, and Organizational Commitment Among Members of a Black Greek Fraternity

Black Greek-Letter Organization (BGLO) members hold strong opinions about the purposes and efficacy of pledging and hazing as a means of member initiation. Those who argue in favor of the pledge process claim it is needed to help remove those not genuinely interested in membership, develop appreciation for and pride in the organization, and generate longterm organizational commitment and sustained participation. Those who call for an end to pledging argue that whatever benefit might be gained from such bonding experiences is overshadowed by the mortal, legal, reputational, emotional, and financial risks posed for both the associations and the individuals involved. Despite decades of conjectural debate on the efficacy of pledging and hazing, to the authors’ knowledge, no empirical study has examined its impact on BGLO alumni-level membership continuance. To address this deficiency, the researchers conducted a logistic regression analysis of survey responses from alumni members of a BGLO fraternity (n = 285). Results revealed no statistically significant relationship between participation in a pledge process and alumni level membership. The implication of these findings for BGLOs and their members and leaders are discussed

Panel: Brown University Redux - Effects of Unionization on Graduate Student Employees: Faculty-Student Relations, Academic Freedom, and Pay

In cases involving unionization of graduate student research and teaching assistants at private U.S. universities, the National Labor Relations Board has, at times, denied collective bargaining rights on the presumption that unionization would harm faculty--student relations and academic freedom. Using survey data collected from PhD students in five academic disciplines across eight public U.S. universities, the authors compare represented and non-represented graduate student employees in terms of faculty--student relations, academic freedom, and pay. Unionization does not have the presumed negative effect on student outcomes, and in some cases has a positive effect. Union-represented graduate student employees report higher levels of personal and professional support, unionized graduate student employees fare better on pay, and unionized and nonunionized students report similar perceptions of academic freedom. These findings suggest that potential harm to faculty--student relationships and academic freedom should not continue to serve as bases for the denial of collective bargaining rights to graduate student employees

The Springer Morphism, Polynomial Representation Rings, and the Cohomology Ring of Grassmannians

To any almost faithful representation of a complex, connected, reductive algebraic group $G$ of highest weight $\\lambda$ one can associate a dominant morphism from the group to its Lie algebra $\\fg$. This map enjoys many nice properties. In particular, when restricted to a maximal torus it maps to the Cartan subalgebra. This map can be used to give a natural definition of polynomial representations for the classical groups of types B, C, and D. Given a parabolic subgroup $P\\subset G$, Kumar showed there is a surjective algebra homomorphism from the polynomial representations of a Levi subgroup of P to the cohomology of G/P which extends a classical result relating the polynomial representations of GL(r) and the cohomology of the Grassmannian of r-planes in n-space $H^*(Gr(r,n))$. In this work we give an explicit determination of the map \\theta_\\lambda for simple groups and consider Kumar's map for types B, C, and G.Doctor of Philosoph

seniority_list: A Tool to Address the Challenge of Airline Mergers and Labor Integration

Integrating employee groups from separate firms into a combined, well-functioning workforce presents one of the most difficult challenges in a corporate merger. This has particularly been the case in the recent airline mergers in the U.S. that have left three large legacy airlines, namely, American, Delta, and United. Carriers in these mergers have, in some cases, seen years of arbitration and litigation, employee turmoil and labor union decertification, and delays in operational integration and the realization of anticipated merger synergies. In response to this situation, this report introduces seniority_list, a computer-based tool that can be used by unions, employee groups, arbitrators, airlines, and consultants in their workforce integration efforts, analyses, and recommendations. The report demonstrates how the tool addresses such variables as employee tenure, jobs available, and furlough recall schedules, together with ordering and conditions on integration alternatives, to comprehensively assess the short- and long-term impact of workforce integration strategies. The purpose of seniority_list is to help speed up post-merger labor integration, enhance outcome fairness for merged employee groups, reduce conflict, and allow airlines to more quickly realize the operational and financial benefits expected from a merger

Effects of Unionization on Graduate Student Employees: Faculty-Student Relations, Academic Freedom, and Pay

In cases involving unionization of graduate student research and teaching assistants at private U.S. universities, the National Labor Relations Board has, at times, denied collective bargaining rights on the presumption that unionization would harm faculty-student relations and academic freedom. Using survey data collected from PhD students in five academic disciplines across eight public U.S. universities, the authors compare represented and non-represented graduate student employees in terms of faculty-student relations, academic freedom, and pay. Unionization does not have the presumed negative effect on student outcomes, and in some cases has a positive effect. Union-represented graduate student employees report higher levels of personal and professional support, unionized graduate student employees fare better on pay, and unionized and nonunionized students report similar perceptions of academic freedom. These findings suggest that potential harm to faculty-student relationships and academic freedom should not continue to serve as bases for the denial of collective bargaining rights to graduate student employees