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Peacekeeping For Peace: Effectiveness And Impacts, Santosh Sapkota

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

This dissertation examines three aspects of peacekeeping research within the overall framework of peacekeeping effectiveness and its impacts on troop-contributing countries (TCC). This dissertation comprises three different papers that employ three different methodological approaches. The first paper investigates why the military failed to achieve its primary mandate of the protection of civilians (POC) in the wake of continued killings of civilians despite the presence of peacekeepers. The general expectation from the military is to contain or eliminate violent incidents and civilian deaths in areas of responsibility (AOR). Utilizing a case study of Beni, DRC —a highly violent and militarized area …

It Takes A Village: An Examination Of Educational Achievement For Transition-Age Youth In Foster Care, Khalilah Louis Caines

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

For the 20,000 youth that exit the foster care system each year in the United States, educational achievement is difficult to attain as they navigate the transition into adulthood with limited supports and resources (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2021). These youth are three times more likely to drop out of high school than their counterparts. Only 50% graduate from high school, and only 3% obtain a college degree (Courtney et al., 2011). Current efforts to support this population primarily focus on individual, relational, and economic factors with less consideration for the impact of community characteristics on educational …

Exploring Regional Dynamics: States, International Civil Society, And Regional Interstate Cooperation, Ozgur Kayaalp

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Regional cooperation is widely acknowledged as a crucial element in fostering peace and prosperity among nations, yet few systematic studies have investigated the forces that promote and sustain it. This dissertation examines regional cooperation through the lens of states, state-led institutions, and non-state actors. In order to achieve this, the study first aims to undertake a systematic analysis of the correlates associated with regional cooperation, using country pairings to analyze where cooperation takes place. Second, I explore the role of international civil society in promoting regional cooperation. To gauge international civil society, a new dataset on International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs) …

Assessing The Barriers To Reintegration Among Returnees In Nigeria, Itunu Ilesanmi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Reintegration for internally displaced returnees in Nigeria needs improvement due to the barrier returnees encounter when returning to their communities of origin. As a path to recovery following the unsettling experiences of generalized violence caused by Boko Haram terrorist attacks in Northeastern Nigeria, there is a need for best practices to mitigate challenges during reintegration for internally displaced returnees. With an estimated 2.5 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Northeastern Nigeria at the end of 2022, 1.98 million have returned to their prior residence, where they must cope and survive while attempting to reintegrate without effective and efficient support to …

Utilization And Costs Of Home Hemodialysis, In-Center Hemodialysis, And Peritoneal Dialysis Among Patients With End-Stage Renal Disease (Esrd) In The United States, Andres Mauricio Garcia Sierra

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a condition that requires access to renal replacement therapies (RRTs) to enable patients to live. The use of such therapies has been continuously researched due to the high cost to payers and their patients. This dissertation aimed to analyze the incidence, prevalence, and mortality of renal replacement therapies in patients with end-stage renal disease (ESRD), and document cost trends and analyze possible inequalities in access to these therapies. Based on an integrated health risk management (IHRM) model, this study examined patient characteristics associated with renal replacement therapies in ESRD patients through a pooled cross-sectional study …

Exploring Risk Factors Associated With Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Symptomatology In Police, Lori Camacho

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Mental health outcomes, especially post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), in police have become more of a concern for law enforcement administrators, peers, family and friends. Using culture as a theoretical framework, the current cross-sectional, convergent mixed methods study explored the relationship between personal cumulative exposure to different types of critical incidents and likelihood of reporting PTSD symptoms in a sample of officers (n=71) from one municipal police department. This study also examined how personal cumulative exposure to different types of critical incidents and likelihood of reporting symptoms of PTSD may be moderated by the degree of perception of social support from …

Social Equity Through Vaccinations During Covid-19: A Study Of Equitable Utilization Of Resources During Emergencies And Crises, Rebecca Entress

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Governments provide resources that enable people and neighborhoods to return to normalcy after emergencies, which enhances community resilience. Past research found that such resources are not always equitably utilized by communities, where oftentimes communities with high social vulnerability receive fewer resources. COVID-19 was one of the largest and most widespread public health emergencies. In response to the emergency, the United States (U.S.) government sponsored the creation and administration of COVID-19 vaccines. COVID-19 vaccines reduce the probability of severe illness and death, making them an important resource for community resilience. This study uses an explanatory sequential mixed methods research design to …

Network Structure And Network Effectiveness In Thailand's Provincial Covid-19 Response Networks, Ruechagorn Trairatananusorn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Health and well-being are key focuses for international organizations and governments around the world as one of the United Nations' (UN) Sustainable Developmental Goals (SDGs). The emergence of COVID-19 pandemic since late 2019 has led to not only substantial life losses, but also negative social and economic impacts that are relatively comparable to the "Spanish Flu" pandemic. The insights from public administration literature suggested that emergency and crisis management require collaborative efforts from various stakeholders across sectors and levels. However, the existing literature that studied the COVID-19 pandemic response under network perspective is still scarce in developing countries, especially in …

Social Media-Based Crisis Communication: Analysis Of Twitter Data From Local Agencies During Hurricane Irma, Naiyara Noor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

As social media platforms have become vital means of communications, it has become imperative for emergency managers and policy makers to understand how people are interacting with different agencies on these platforms for enhancing community response coordination during disasters. Although many public agencies have already adopted social media platforms for crisis communication purposes, empirical evidence on whether and how these agencies are effectively engaged on these platforms is lacking. This research aims to examine crisis communication activities of a variety of agencies on Twitter in response to Hurricane Irma in 2017. In this study, we analyzed 13,353 hurricane-related tweets posted …

Exploring Stakeholder Experiences To Co-Design Policy Alternatives For The Bright Futures Scholarship Program, Sherry Paramore

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

Despite decades of research and promising strategies to ensure educational equity for all students, a significant disparity persists between the racial majority and marginalized students in the United States. Attaining educational equity is a complex problem illustrated by state-funded merit-based scholarships, including the State of Florida Bright Futures Scholarship. Since Florida's merit-based Bright Futures Scholarship Program's (BFSP) inception, the average percentage of black scholarship recipients has been minimal compared to other races. The equitable distribution of scholarship funds is critical to investigate since attaining a post-secondary education advances social mobility consequently breaking the cycle of poverty for lower socioeconomic students …

Leadership And Military Power – Can A Leadership Approach Provide A Competitive Advantage?, Lawrence E. Skelly Iii

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

Leadership and Military Power – Can a Leadership Approach Provide a Competitive Advantage? When does a military commander's leadership approach give his or her unit a performance advantage? U.S. Army senior leaders have asserted that forces led using the mission command approach will have an edge in future combat. Mission command decentralizes decision-making to empower subordinates to react more successfully and seize battlefield opportunities. American forces have struggled to employ mission command partly because of a lack of understanding of the approach. This study applied two concepts from organizational psychology, empowering leadership and directive leadership, to better define and examine …

An Experimental Mixed Methods Pilot Study For U.S. Army Infantry Soldiers - Higher Levels Of Combined Immersion And Embodiment In Simulation-Based Training Capabilities Show Positive Effects On Emotional Impact And Relationships To Learning Outcomes, Fred Martin, Jr

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

This pilot study examines the impact of combined immersion and embodiment on learning and emotional outcomes. The results are intended to better enable U.S. Army senior leaders to decide if dismounted infantry Soldiers would benefit from a more immersive simulation-based training capability. The experiment's between-subject design included a sample of 15 participants randomly assigned to one of three system configurations representing different levels of combined immersion and embodiment. The control group was a typical desktop, and the two experimental groups were a typical configuration of a Virtual Reality headset (VR) and a novel configuration using VR supported by an omnidirectional …

It Is Time To Change The Way We Change, Thane Keller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Seventy percent of organizational change initiatives fail. Among organizations where change and adaptation are necessary for survival, the U.S. military stands at the top. The disparity between desired health and fitness behaviors and actual behaviors is a glaring reminder that change is difficult to implement and that current change systems struggle. Merit-based systems offer a solution by rewarding and reinforcing good behavior to generate lasting change. This paper evaluates Kotter's Change Model and Nudge Theory and found them insufficient because they do not sufficiently address reinforcement learning or the temporal tie between behaviors and rewards for reinforcement. This paper then …

An Advocacy Resource Guide To Address The Growing Reality Of Youth Homelessness: Identifying Interventions For Education, Healthcare, And Housing In Central Florida, Venerina M. Costanza

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Today, there are children sleeping under bridges with no food to eat and nowhere to go. Without our help someone's daughter will continue to cry herself to sleep as she sleeps in the woods with only a blanket, someone's son will feed himself with trash from a dumpster, someone's granddaughter sleeping under a bridge will be raped and someone's grandson will commit suicide because he lost all hope. These children need our help. (Enough is Enough, 2022). Although there are some government agencies and organizations that try to identify what can be done to help the homeless youth population, minimal …

The Direct And Indirect Effects Of Strategic Displacement On Territorial Control In Conventional Civil War, Jennifer Hudson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Which strategies contribute towards a belligerent's ability to shift territorial control in its favor more quickly than others? This dissertation advances a theory of territorial control dynamics in conventional civil war that places the civilian population at the center of the analysis. Existing scholarship explaining territorial control in conventional civil war has emphasized the role of relative military capabilities, direct military confrontations aimed at territorial conquest, and the existence of established zones of control, with civilians generally residing in areas clearly dominated by one party or another, not in contested areas. As such, theory holds that this makes the civilian …

Using Simulation For Law Enforcement De-Escalation Training, Julie Kent

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Law enforcement needs simulation practice tailored to de-escalation skills. Law enforcement officers spend most of their training time practicing how to use force appropriately and very little time practicing how to avoid using force. There is little research into the best ways for law enforcement to reduce their use of force and the best ways to provide training to individuals to coach them to avoid using force. There are many training programs promoting de-escalation techniques, but there is little research into the effectiveness of these programs beyond the ability of individuals to perform the skills that are trained. There is …

Struggling For Security: The Complexity Of Nato Burden-Sharing, Tad Schnaufer Ii

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Since the founding of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), US administrations have criticized their European allies for not meeting security burden-sharing goals. This study aims to gain insight into what factors motivate alliance members to contribute to the burden-sharing objectives they have agreed to achieve. From a US perspective, the need for its European allies to reach these goals will allow the United States to shift resources to more pressing strategic challenges like the rise of China. Informed by Mancur Olson's theory of collective action and Glenn Snyder's concept of the security dilemma in alliances, this project tests the …

Decentralization And Violence, Alexander Norat

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

How does the political environment that a group operates affect whether they engage in terrorism? My research is concerned with how political opportunities, which I conceptualize in terms of political decentralization, affect how groups engage with the state, and whether they will engage in terrorism. Previous research has indicated that decentralization can reduce violence but can pose stability problems in other countries. I hypothesize that states with higher levels of decentralization will have lower levels of violence. I believe this works by allowing minority groups more access to power. Because they have access to political power, there is less incentive …

Financial Sustainability Of Florida Cities: Comparative, Retrospective Modeling For Prospective Municipal Financial Health, Terry Henley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

The Great Recession produced rising debt, deficits, and exposed vulnerabilities for municipalities in a globalist economy. The two-month COVID recession in 2020 accelerated these burdens; a lagging downturn recently added pressures of reduced economic activity, record inflation, and rising costs in 2022. This dissertation studies how local financial sustainability (FS) and financial condition (FC) approaches can work in concert towards a set of indicators with internal and external categorization to explain municipal financial health (MFH). Unassigned fund balance plus select formal stabilizations measure MFH, are conceptually supported in having retrospective (FC) and prospective (FS) value as an intergenerational resource and …

The Need To Enact Federal, Environmental-Friendly Incentives To Facilitate Infrastructure Growth Of Electric Automobiles, Vamsikrishna Karanam

Honors Undergraduate Theses

As newer technological advancements are developed and introduced, a question regarding their adoption into society has become known. If such advancements in technology mutually benefit the people using them as well as the environment we live in, should there not be provisions in place to incentivize the creation and purchase of these technological advancements.

Electric vehicles are an advancement of technology that is currently available for widespread adoption in the transportation sector of our country. However, questions as to why EVs should be adopted will be asked by critics. That is the question this thesis attempts to answer. Our global …

How Adolescents In The Child Welfare System Seek Support For Their Sexual Risk Experiences Online, Taylor L. Moraguez

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Youth in the foster care system experience unique and challenging situations online, such as higher risks of inappropriate messaging (e.g., sexting) and unwanted solicitations from strangers. As a vulnerable group of adolescents, foster youth often use online platforms as a resource to express themselves and seek support over their sexual experiences online. This thesis analyzes how foster youth seek support online for their sexual risk experiences, including sexual abuse, sexting, and sexuality. To understand how adolescents (ages 13-17) in the child welfare system seek support for these experiences, we conducted a thematic analysis of 541 individual posts made by 121 …

Public Transportation In Central Florida: Setting The Tone For Public Rail Use, Zoe Johnson

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The purpose of this research is to analyze the use of the public train usage in Central Florida to determine the feasibility of high-speed rail usage in the future. This study will be split into parts and expanded upon. The first part will observe rider perspective, values, and issues regarding rail transportation as is available in Central Florida. In further installations, which will be conducted separately from this thesis, there will be an analysis of the providers of rail transportation. It is hypothesized that there will be a moderate demand for rail transportation used by the public.

Original: The main …

Exploring The Predictors Of And The Relationship Between Evidence Cultures And Flood Risk Management Performance, Jenna Tyler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Over the past two decades, public organizations have been encouraged and, at times, required to incorporate evidence in their decision-making processes. Evidence broadly refers to data and or knowledge that is gathered, analyzed, and used to generate a conclusion. Despite arguments and the intrinsic assumption that using evidence to inform decisions will improve organizational performance, there is limited empirical research to support this assertion. The proposed study addresses this gap in research and others in the context of local flood risk management. Specifically, using primary data gathered from local floodplain managers and secondary data from the US Census and the …

Impacts Of Covid-19 On Health Promotion Within Higher Education: Exploring Organizational Resilience, Maureen Hawkins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

The close proximity of students learning, living, socializing and working on university and college campuses presents a unique setting to understand organization responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. This concurrent, mixed methods qualitative study explored how one institution of higher education demonstrated resilience and how its health promotion activities pivoted and adjusted to reduce virus transmission and maintain safety while continuing to promote learning and education. Based on the organizational resilience conceptualization developed by Duchek (2020), data collection methods combined individual interviews with university leaders, self-interview and reflection, and a review of organization documents a connection between health promotion, organization resilience, …

Defunding Law Enforcement: Fire Departments' Perspective On Implementing The National Fire Protection Association 3000 Standard When Preparing For An Active Shooter Mass Casualty Incident, Anthony Rios

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

This study applied the policy window theory through punctuated equilibrium and resource dependency theories to analyze the perception of nationwide fire service leaders and the impact that defunding law enforcement can have on the fire service in managing an active shooter mass casualty incident (ASMCI). As police reform remains the center of discussion throughout the nation, many community leaders have explored ways to re-appropriate police funding. This comes at a time when the paradigm of law enforcement and Fire/Emergency Medical Services (EMS) interdependency has become the standard response to ASMCIs as defined by the National Fire Protection Association 3000 Standard …

Citizen Trust And Governments' Response To Disasters, Berenice Belizaire

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The purpose of this descriptive study is to determine if there is a difference in citizen trust in Orange County government regarding the handling of disaster. Various dimensions like competence, benevolence, and integrity can determine a citizen's trust within its government. Disasters, such as man-made and natural, are described as a disruption to society through widespread damage to people and material. Counties experience man-made and natural disasters. Depending on its response to the incidents, counties can determine if the citizens view the county as a trustworthy and responsible government body. This study explored if there were differences in citizen trust …

The Effects Of A Tactile Display On First Responder Performance, Michael Schwartz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Firefighting is a dangerous and difficult task. Simulation affords researchers and practitioners the ability to examine performance and training in adverse conditions while preserving life, offering repeatable scenarios, and reducing costs. Multiple Resource Theory is used in this study as a model for assessing alternate sensory channels for information delivery when the optimal channel is not available. Specifically, this study tests the influence of a waist-worn vibrotactile display to assist navigation when visibility is reduced in a firefighter simulation. The present study measures participants' objective performance and self-reported workload while navigating a simulated fireground. Results from 70 research participants revealed …

Trauma, Resilience, And Empowerment: Post-Genocide Experiences Of Yezidi Women, Tutku Ayhan Ergin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Under what conditions do women become more resilient and empowered in post conflict settings? Utilizing data from multi site fieldwork in northern Iraq, Germany, and the U.S. involving over 160 in depth interviews, this dissertation addresses this question by studying the experiences of Yezidi women who were subject to genocidal violence by the Islamic State in Iraq in 2014. By adopting an intersectional approach, it contributes to feminist research on post conflict dynamics and suggests that how women cope with trauma and achieve positive changes in their lives depends on a variety of factors. Age, history of sexual violence and …

The Relationship Between Campus Involvement And Civic Engagement, Sheina L. Koolik

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The purpose of this study is to investigate if campus involvement, either in high school or college, has a relationship with civic engagement after college. Current UCF students, who have at least finished their first year, will be surveyed about their high school involvement to determine if it is related to their college engagement; and, recent UCF Alumni, graduated between 2014-2018, will be surveyed to determine if there is a relationship between campus engagement and civic life after graduation. As well, the data will review other key aspects like campus location, race, gender, international status, motivations, religious affiliations, etc. The …

The Australian Paradox: Politics Of An Energy Transition, Lindsay H. Bushing

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The 1973 oil shock was the first energy crisis modern industrialized economies experienced. The disruption exposed the limitations of energy systems that rely on fossil fuels, creating a demand for experimentation of energy alternatives. In their book, Renewables: The Politics of a Global Energy Transition, Michaël Aklin, and Johannes Urpelainen provide a framework to analyze this transitionary period for selected countries, as well as the events that provoke the need for change in the form of the 1970s external shocks in oil prices. In this paper, for the first time, Aklin & Urpelainen's framework will be applied to Australia …