Digital Scholarship@UNLV

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  Uncovering Themes of Masculinity Within Male Friendships and Synthesizing Future Interventions

  Maria Isabelle Avenido, Valeria Aguilera, Kristin Vierra, and Diana Gutierrez

  Masculinity norms such as toughness, emotional stoicism, and homophobia are suggested to impede the formation of close male friendships. A lack of close friendships can lead to poor self-esteem and impaired psychological health. Boys and men who effectively build intimate relationships gain from peer support and companionship as well as a decrease in anxiety and depression levels. Scholars have yet to develop a data-driven intervention to assist boys and men in critically analyzing masculinity, thus the current study's findings will contribute to the development of these interventions that could encourage boys and men to properly assess harmful elements of masculinity and establish closer friendships.

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  Microbial Life in Deep-Subsurface Environments: The Role of High Pressure in Biogeochemical Cycles

  Cheyenne Brokaw

  Ocean World: An ocean world is considered any planet or moon currently with a liquid ocean. While the deepest part of the Ocean (Mariana Trench, 11,000 mbsl, 110 Mpa) and the lithosphere host microbial life, it begs the question, How?

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  Lighting Little Shop of Horrors

  Arielle Brown

  The assistant lighting designer of a musical is responsible for supporting the lighting designer as they achieve their vision. During the production process for the musical Little Shop of Horrors (produced by the Nevada Conservatory Theatre), the assistant is responsible for creating and updating the paperwork related to the production. The Scene/Song Breakdown, Cue Sheet, and Group List are produced at the beginning of the process. Preset List, Effect List, Focus Palette and Color Palette Lists are produced during cueing and technical rehearsals. During technical and dress rehearsals, changes made to the production are updated in the paperwork. Once the show opens, the paperwork is archived to provide a record of the production for future reference.

  Along with working on show documents, the assistant lighting designer is also responsible for taking notes at production meetings. This aids the lighting designer in the collaborative process with other design departments. The assistant also helps keep track of blocking and changes made to the production.

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  Is there an app for that? Social support, depression, and anxiety among users of a digital mental health app

  Bryce V. Brown, Teresa J. Walker, Christine Guardian, and Matthew Schurr

  Perceived social support has been associated with mental health. Social distancing guidelines due to COVID-19 heavily shifted social engagement to digital formats. It is important to understand the role of digital mental health interventions in mental health outcomes.

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  Who is gonna see the shrink? Anxiety and depression's relationship to openness and willingness to engage in weekly psychotherapy

  Bryce V. Brown, Teresa J. Walker, Christine Guardian, and Matthew Schurr

  Digital mental health interventions may offer an alternative to in-person psychotherapy. It is important to understand attitudes about traditional in-person psychotherapy among app users to contextualize treatment seeking and better understand treatment options.

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  A Study of Improvement in the User Experience of UNLV's Campus Safety Mobile Application

  Mayra Carrera, Mustafa Diallo, Cecilia Garcia-Leon, Khristine Le, and Kristine Monsada

  In 2019, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), reported an average of 28,000 crimes on college campuses across the United States. The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) has taken measures to address campus safety through their app, RebelSAFE. However, there is little research showing how effective such apps are in aiding students through emergencies. This study aims to evaluate the usability of RebelSAFE through usability testing and surveys.

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  The Relationship Between Misophonia Sensitivity and Musicality

  Mae Ling Catayong, Sarah Uganiza, William Smithers, Aileen Corral, Sivan Barashy, Solena Mednicoff, and Destiny Gonzales

  Misophonia is a condition characterized by negative emotional reactions to certain everyday sounds. Musicality involves Active Musical Engagement (AE), Self-reported Perceptual Abilities (PA), Musical Training (MT), Self-reported Singing Abilities (SA), Sophisticated Emotional Engagement with Music (EM), and General musical sophistication (GM). Numerous active musicians have self-reported having misophonia, while anecdotal reports have shown that music can help treat misophonia symptoms.

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  Expanding the Library of Planet Building Materials in Magrathea

  Rosalie Chaleunsouck and Tristan Benally

  Exoplanets are often modeled with fully-differentiated layers of iron, silicates, water, and gas. The large pressure and temperature ranges within each layer results in changes of phase and mineral equilibrium. MAGRATHEA is an open-course planet interior structure code with a large library of equations of state for planet building materials. This allows for the user to build detailed planet models and test differing measurements of the equation of state. We extend MAGRATHEA's library to include upper-mantle materials and various phases of iron cores. We show the impact of these materials on the characterization of rocky planet interiors.

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  Infants' Intermodal Knowledge of Gender Using Faces and Voices

  Bijoux Cheun, Christina Saliba, Alexis Rice, and Marian Espina

  Infants begin to use intermodal knowledge to match male and female faces to the corresponding voice, in their first year of life.

  Infants have more experience with female faces which should lead to greater intermodal knowledge of female faces.

  Previous studies have found inconsistent results. This could be due to the type of stimuli used.

  This study uses several pairs of static and dynamic faces to investigate how methodological differences may impact infants' performance.

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  Lesbian Visibility and Censorship in Early Twentieth Century New York City

  Aimee Clouse

  On the brisk night of February 9th, 1927, New York City Police crammed the casts of two Broadway plays, one of which Edouard Bourdet's The Captive, into the back of a paddy wagon. These arrests and the legislation that enabled them were just one step taken by institutions to hide lesbians from the public. The eclectic nature of New York City in the early twentieth century fostered a growing scene of gender and sexual expression unlike anywhere else in the United States. Here, lesbians found freedom to express their sexuality and explore a growing subculture.

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  Peripheral Blood Cell Counts as Potential Biomarkers for Alzheimer's Disease: A Look at Polygenetic Risk Scores

  Melika Cummings, Yimei Lu, Joan Manuel Cue, Neel Patel, and Jenifer Do

  Blood-based biomarkers for neurodegenerative illnesses such as Alzheimer's disease (AD) have been extensively researched. Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurological illness whose progression has been ascribed to gene expression. However, the pathophysiology of these disorders and its relationship to other abnormalities remain unknown. AD has been connected to PBCs, which include erythrocytes, platelets, and leukocytes and have a complicated interaction with the brain system. The pathogenesis of PBCs has been related to a negative influence on established neurodegenerative illnesses such as Alzheimer's. Candidate gene association studies have become more common as progress in mapping the human genome has increased their viability. The plurality of candidate genes were selected based on their function or expression in disease-related systems (e.g., dopamine neurotransmitter systems), and this strategy is crucial for defining the nature of internal disturbance. It has increasingly been postulated that, in addition to cell-cell signaling inside the brain, dynamic crosstalk between the brain and systematic mechanisms such as circulation of blood cells may be crucial.

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  An Illustrated Metamorphoses

  Alexandria Devlin

  This project was a comic consisting of five different myths from Ovid's Metamorphoses. My goal was to make it easier and more enjoyable for audiences to read classical myths, and give these stories a way to shine in the 21st century. Myths from many different cultures have been adapted into comics, but direct depictions are much less common than shaping mythological figures to fit a new story. I have yet to find a direct comic adaptation of Metamorphoses. Ovid's Metamorphoses is full of rich and interesting stories and deserves to be represented alongside other mythological tales.

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  How Children and Adults Make Judgments About Who To Trust

  Rachel E. DeWald, Jennifer L. Rennels, and Kindy Insouvanh

  "Beauty is Good Stereotype": Higher attractive individuals are thought to be more intelligent, more successful, and happier overall. They also obtain more visual attention and are deemed more trustworthy.

  Making a choice based on a person's appearance and attributes might lead to dangerous consequences and lead to being deceived.

  We investigated how the appearance of male and female experts influence whether children and adults trust statements made by the expert, establish what that expert knows and determine that expert's attributes (warmth and competence). The results of this study will help us better determine what cues children and adults use when making trustworthiness decisions.

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  The Relationship Between Masculinity & Friendships: A Thematic Analysis On The Qualities of Male Friendships

  Dulshi Fernando, Valeria Aguilera, Kristin Vierra, and Diana Gutierrez

  Certain masculinity norms such as toughness, emotional stoicism, and homophobia appear to be barriers to forming intimate friendships between boys and men.

  Boys and men who do not successfully build close connections may experience low self-esteem and impaired psychological health.

  Boys and men who effectively build intimate relationships benefit from peer support and companionship as well as a decrease in anxiety and depression levels.

  Scholars have yet to conduct a meta-synthesis exploring the relation between masculinity and friendship.

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  Portrayals of Characters of Color in Teen Media

  Janelle Ferraris, Lindsay Denecker, and Kristin Vierra

  Some teen television shows are actively addressing race and racism.

  Teen television shows are highlighting the development of ethnic-racial identity. This is promising considering scholars label the development of ethnic-racial identity to be an essential product of the development of older children and adolescents (Syed & Azmitia, 2008, Umaña-Taylor et al., 2014).

  Teen television shows are emphasizing factors in a person of colors' community or interactions with peers that may influence their overall well-being. This is encouraging considering research suggests that hearing stories from individuals of various backgrounds can help individuals better recognize systems of oppression and discrimination (Freire, 1995).

  Future research should continue to explore how race and racism are depicted in teen television.

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  A Comparative Analysis of Community College Governance in the Mountain West and Policy Proposals for Nevada

  Peter Grema

  Purpose of Research: 1) To explore the role of community colleges in workforce development. 2) To understand the current structure of higher education in Nevada. 3) To compare Nevada's community college governance and administration to neighboring Mountain West states (Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah). 4) To offer policy recommendations for updating Nevada's workforce development capacity for its community college system. 5) To present findings to Nevada policymakers during the AB450 Study Committee period.

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  The Effects of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine on Exports to Italy

  Stephen Johnson, Ryder Hankins, and Nathan Carter

  Italy imported 122,000 tons of soft wheat from Ukraine and 72,000 from Russia. During the current events international food and feed prices have increased by 8 to 22% causing mass shortages around the world. On top of the ethical and moral dilemmas of continuing business with Russia, insurance premiums have jumped 400% for doing business with the invading country.

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  The Role of Interference in Short-Term Forgetting

  Monserrat Leal-Arcos, Gabriel Hull, Francisco Sanchez, Rhiannon N. Soriano Smith, and William B. Ridgway

  Two explanations have been proposed to explain forgetting: decay (forgetting occurs as a function of time) and interference (mental activity can impinge on the consolidation of a recently acquired memory). Wickelgren (1974) proposed a model of forgetting which suggests that forgetting is a function of both decay and interference, best expressed as a power-exponential function. The present research will be the first to directly examine whether Wickelgren's model accurately predicts the observed effects of these two components on forgetting. This research will further the study of human memory by improving current models, and helping to resolve the debate surrounding decay and interference.

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  Recognition Memory for Auditory and Visual Objects

  Sharica Lee, Alexa Salomon, Kevin Mohawk, and Laura Werner

  Visual object memory is superior to auditory object memory. Our past research showed that auditory memory was less sensitive to divide attention during study, which may be attributable to representational differences between auditory memory and visual memory.

  In the present study, we attempted to equate auditory and visual memory representations in order to adequately investigate the impact of dividing attention on recognition memory.

  Recognition memory is thought to rely on two distinct processes, recollection and familiarity. Recollection involves the retrieval of precise qualitative detail and is the most sensitive to dividing attention.

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  You Never Walk Alone: How BTS Supports ARMY Mental Health and Well-Being

  Melissa Le

  BTS is a seven-membered South Korean boyband with a fandom named "ARMY." Music is generally associated with increased mental health, but not all types of music genres have been studied yet. With the current rise of Korean popular music (K-pop), it is important to understand what makes this genre popular and why fans claim it has improved their mental health. As BTS is currently the most popular K-pop group globally, they provide a unique look at how their music can help fans with depression and anxiety.

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  Biochar Hydrophilicity Characterization by a Smartphone-Based Apparatus: Design, Construction, and Measurement Calibration

  Emma Letourneau and Suraj Pochampally

  Water contact angles are used to determine hydrophilicity, which is a material's attraction to water. A water contact angle of greater than 90 degrees indicates a hydrophobic material that repels water, whereas a contact angle of less than 90 degrees indicates a hydrophilic material [Fig. 1]. Water contact angles are measured through a goniometer, which can cost between $2000 to $10,000.

  Biochar is a porous carbon material created from biological waste products, that is pyrolyzed (i.e. burned) in a low-oxygen, high heat environment. Biochar can be used to remove contaminants from water and remediate soil while reusing waste, making it an excellent environmentally-friendly material. The biochar feedstock type and pyrolysis temperature impacts the resulting biochar's material properties, including hydrophilicity.

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  Identification of lipid species: potential biomarkers for early detection of hepatocellular carcinoma

  Kit Yee Leung and KayLee Freitas

  Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common type of liver cancer. HCC is associated with cirrhosis. Poor survival rate of HCC is due to diagnosis of HCC at late stage.

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  Palm Oil and Exported Deforestation

  Anja Marcusiu and Alexis Osorio

  Palm oil is used in our everyday lives through: Beautify/hygiene products; Bioenergy; Food. Indonesia and Malaysia account for 85% of the world's palm oil production, making them the largest exporters. Because palm oil is a highly productive crop and is in high demand, how do companies integrate sustainability to limit deforestation and preserve biodiversity?

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  Forgetting in Item Recognition and Pattern Separation

  Mateo Marquez and Rhiannon Soriano Smith

  Forgetting is commonly defined as the inability to access information that was once successfully encoded and could be retrieved with a cue, but now leads to memory failure (Frankland et al. 2013).

  Memory representations based in the hippocampus engage in pattern separation and are more prone to decay than interference (Sadeh & Pertrzov, 2020).

  Extra-hippocampal representations are more prone to interference than decay (Hardt et al. 2013).

  Pattern Separation refers to keeping memory representations distinct from one another.

  Is there more decay in pattern separation and more interference in item recognition?

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  U.S./Russia Export Relationship

  Adam Nishino, Mohammad Saad Bin Shahzad, Yonathan Assefa, and Trel Lakindanum

  Russia and the United States have a long history of trading as early as 1913. Over the years, Russia has become a notable player in US imports. By using the United States Census database and the Office of the United States Trade Representative database. In short, our research will discuss the trade relationship between Russia and the United States over the last century, through history and data analytics, and its effects on trade and politics to the rest of the world.