Digital Commons Network^™

Characterization Of Endophytic Microbiomes Of Medicinal Plants For Their Antimicrobial Activities, Ganesh Khadka

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Emerging new infectious diseases and developing antimicrobial resistance are serious global health threats. New approaches are needed for the discovery and development of new antimicrobial compounds with novel modes of action to overcome the problem of resistant microbial pathogens. There has been increasing interest in the discovery of endophytes, an important component of plant microbiome that live within plant tissues as potential key sources of novel antimicrobial compounds. Medicinal plants are generally considered excellent sources of bioactive compounds produced by endophytes. South Florida with its unique sub-tropical humid climate has botanical gardens, private orchards, and nurseries with vast collections of …

Post-Wildfire Flood Inundation Modelling In Southern California: Implications For Dominant Processes And Parameter Identification, Francisca Olmos De Aguilera

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Wildfires produce large runoff volumes, sometimes in the form of debris flows (water-laden slurries of soil and rock that move rapidly through channels in steep landscapes) in response to moderate to severe precipitation events. For instance, in Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties following the 2017 Thomas Fire, on January 9th, 2018, an intense atmospheric river flood resulted in a series of destructive water and debris flows causing major damage to life and property. Inundation models that accurately parameterize and simulate hydrologic processes are in demand for post-wildfire flood susceptible regions like Southern California. This study utilizes the physics-based Gridded Surface …

Development Of A High-Resolution Digital Elevation Model Of A Pilot Study Area In Basin 6, Located Near The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (Wipp), New Mexico, Usa, Gisselle A. Gutierrez-Zuniga

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to develop a high-resolution DEM of a topographically representative sub-basin west of the WIPP transuranic waste repository. This will support accurate delineation of surface hydrological features and development of hydrological models to assess potential impact of climate, karst surface features and incompatible land use activities on regional groundwater recharge that may result in long-term vulnerability of the karst topography and thus the integrity and performance of the WIPP.

A UAV was used to collect over 5,000 images of a representative basin west of the WIPP. Images were processed using commercial software and methods were …

Vanguards Of Liberation: Progressive Catholicism, The Student Movement, And Political Culture In Latin America, 1960-1973, Sandra M. Londono-Ardila

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Over the 1960s, a particular form of living the Christian faith bolstered student mobilization in Latin America. The Catholic episcopate supported the expansion of Catholic student organizations to strengthen the youth’s evangelization and form a Catholic intelligentsia that might inform social change and counter the elites’ de-Christianization. Significantly, dominant conservative views saw in these organizations the opportunity to halt Marxism in universities and society. Student organizations did not follow the latter path uncritically. They had their own agendas. Students built on multiple social theory developments, progressive theology—that reached momentum at Vatican II, and a shared apostolic method—the Review of Life. …

Serverless Enabled Framework For Machine Learning Applications: Architecture, Solutions, And Evaluations, Boyuan Guan

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Over the past decade, the popularity of machine learning applications such as recommendation systems, image recognition, real-time alerts, event detection, natural language processing, and online streaming analytics has increased dramatically. However, there is a long-tail problem has been identified for the ML application. The majority of ML applications are concentrated in high-tech and high-profit areas while ML applications are still difficult to reach for local and low-profit businesses. The two factors that cause this slow growth are the domain problem barrier and the rigid infrastructure environment. Since ML application development is different than the traditional software application which consists of …

Trouble In Bibleland And Other Stories, Jordan Hill

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

TROUBLE IN BIBLELAND AND OTHER STORIES is a collection of fourteen short stories that focus on characters confronting tests of their resourcefulness, relationships, and beliefs.

As in George Saunders’ “Tenth of December,” circumstances challenge characters’ faiths, with unexpected results. In the title story, when convicts employed at a theme park enact roles in the crucifixion, the protagonist, playing a Roman Centurion, learns a lesson in self-sacrifice. A pastor questions everything he's believed after his wife's death from Covid in “Reformation Sunday.”

Point of view and tense are used for focus. “Deliver Us from Evil” uses secondperson present tense to make …

Fins & Limbs, Katherine G. Cruz

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

FINS & LIMBS is a collection of poems about the struggle to exist in places on the verge. The ocean abyss is a place where mermaids and more “real species struggle to live. On land a young mother struggles watching her newborn baby nearly die on her kitchen floor. The poems in FINS & LIMBS address anguish as they delve into our intertwined struggles with the natural world. Existential threats to the natural world turn into personal existential threats. The poems in FINS & LIMBS are part lamentation and part manifesto for survival. Many of the poems are based in …

Ecological Modeling In The Oceanic Zone: A Gulf Of Mexico Case Study, Matthew Woodstock

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ecological modeling is a popular tool to assess the functionality of marine ecosystems and quantify an ecosystem’s response to anthropogenic stressors (e.g., fishing, oil spills, climate change). However, much of the global modeling effort has been focused on coastal regions that are generally more data-rich than the area seaward of the continental shelf (i.e., oceanic zone). A concerted effort has been placed on collecting holistic, ecosystem-scale data in the oceanic, northeast Gulf of Mexico since the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill (DWHOS), particularly in the deep-pelagic zone (water column deeper than 200m depth), which has notably experienced declines in several …

An Assessment Of Climate Mobility Pressures In Response To Dynamic Sea-Level Rise, Nadia A. Seeteram

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Sea-level rise (SLR) and related flooding impacts will contribute to migration across coastal communities around the world. Differential exposure to impacts, societal vulnerability, and adaptive capacity will invariably lead to varying climate-related mobility outcomes for residents of these communities. Residents of Miami-Dade County (MDC), FL, USA are at substantial risk to the direct and indirect impacts of SLR and related flooding. As the 2nd most economically unequal metropolitan area in the U.S. according to the Gini coefficient (0.508), without strategic intervention, marginalized and vulnerable communities across MDC will disproportionately face unequal mobility pressures. This dissertation seeks to understand the potential …

Three Essays On Understanding Social And Economic Responses To Crisis And Disaster Events, Shahnawaz Mohammad Rafi

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The dissertation comprises three chapters that analyze the social and economic responses to crises and disasters. In the first chapter, I have investigated whether media affects the US official foreign aid channel or crisis related aid. I have examined natural disaster citations in four mainstream US newspapers to analyze whether they influence the Official Development Assistance (ODA) or the short-term crisis related aid need of a recipient following a natural disaster. I created three new media variables to measure the strength of media effect on US ODA, humanitarian aid, and food aid. The empirical analyses indicate that media citation only …

Behaviorally Enriched Learning Mechanism For Road Network Emergency Restoration After Disasters, Maryam Babaee

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Timely restoration of road networks plays a critical role in the response operations after disasters and helps communities turn back to their normal operations soon. Scarcity of restoration resources, uncertainty of recovery times, and behavioral variations of travelers are the major factors that highly complicate road network restoration operations. Here, these challenges are addressed by developing a Behaviorally-enriched Reinforcement Learning Mechanism (BRLM). Considering gradual adaptation of travelers, the mechanism optimizes scheduling and resource allocation decisions in the restoration process to make the highest acceleration in the post-disaster traffic movement. The performance of BRLM is tested on the road network of …

Reframing First-Year Composition: A Translingual Approach To Writing About Writing, Nicole H. Sirota

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis introduces a course design that brings together two successful approaches to teaching First-Year Writing, Writing about Writing Studies and Translingual Writing, to encourage transfer of writing knowledge and ultimately help students be the best writers they can be. The course situates translingualism within the Writing about Writing approach and suggests assignments that will allow students to recognize their language differences as resources to help create new meanings and fight against the discriminatory expectations of “standard” English often seen in academia. By the end of the course, students will gain agency in their writing allowing them to take greater …

Exploring Psychopathy Predictors In Males And Females, Teresa M. Encalada

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Psychopathy is a clinical term used to describe a personality disorder. This personality disorder presents as callousness, lack of empathy, feelings of grandiosity, impulsivity, narcissism, and a lack of guilt or remorse (Cleckley, 1951). It is noteworthy that by some estimates, those meeting the criteria of psychopathy commit 20 – 40% of violent crimes (Drislane et al., 2019) and makeup between 15% and 25% of the prison population (Kiehl & Hoffman, 2011). As such, psychopathy is one of the most significant criminal justice constructs of the present day because of the heightened and persistent levels of aggression, criminality, and financial …

Collaboration For Public Services: Explaining Outputs And Outcomes, Jennifer Hilton Montero

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation addresses a current gap in collaborative governance literature pertaining to the performance of collaborative regimes. Specifically, it conceptualizes collaborative performance as consisting of outputs and outcomes and offers a novel way to measure them consistently across policy domains. The study tests the contextual, situational, and institutional design factors that lead to enhanced outputs and outcomes of collaborative forums. The dissertation consists of three essays, and the findings of one form the base for the others. Essay 1 systematically reviews the literature (n=274) and compares the approaches to studying collaboration in public administration to those in political science and …

Molecular Level Characterization Of Dissolved Organic Matter Integrating Trapped Ion Mobility Spectrometry And Fourier Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance Mass Spectrometry, Dennys Leyva Bombuse

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Dissolved organic matter (DOM) is an extremely complex mixture of organic molecules ubiquitous in aquatic systems and a critical component of the global carbon cycle. Little is known about DOM structural composition at the molecular level. The work presented in this dissertation summarizes the development of a novel analytical toolbox based on trapped ion mobility spectrometry and Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (TIMS-FT-ICR MS) that has significantly contributed to expand our knowledge of DOM molecular complexity and diversity. The TIMS-FT-ICR MS/MS analysis provided for the first-time lower and upper estimation of the molecular isomeric diversity. The TIMS-FT-ICR MS/MS …

A Novel Power-Efficient Wireless Multi-Channel Recording System For The Telemonitoring Of Electroencephalography (Eeg), Mahmoud Sharafi

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research introduces the development of a novel EEG recording system that is modular, batteryless, and wireless (untethered) with the supporting theoretical foundation in wireless communications and related design elements and circuitry. Its modular construct overcomes the EEG scaling problem and makes it easier for reconfiguring the hardware design in terms of the number and placement of electrodes and type of standard EEG system contemplated for use. In this development, portability, lightweight, and applicability to other clinical applications that rely on EEG data are sought. Due to printer tolerance, the 3D printed cap consists of 61 electrode placements. This recording …

Imagining Costumbrismo: Connecting Image And Text In Nineteenth-Century Colombian Cuadros De Costumbres, María Sol Echarren

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Influenced by nineteenth-century scientific trends, Costumbrismo was a literary and artistic genre combining aspects of Romanticism and Realism and presenting traditional customs of autochthonous daily life. Nineteenth-century cuadros de costumbres, or “sketches of manners,” often used local color to depict national scenes, regional types, and cultural traditions. The cuadros, comprised of short but illustrative writings published as periodical pamphlets, contained visually charged descriptive language infused with a didactic objective in order to shape readers’ perspectives about the nation and present specific sociopolitical philosophies.

This dissertation analyzes the connections between literature and art through the written cuadros de costumbres …

Enhanced Methods For Utilization Of Data To Support Multi-Scenario Analysis And Multi-Resolution Modeling, Syed Ahnaf Morshed

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The success of analysis and simulation in transportation systems depends on the availability, quality, reliability, and consistency of real-world data and the methods for utilizing the data. Additional data and data requirements are needed to support advanced analysis and simulation strategies such as multi-resolution modeling (MRM) and multi-scenario analysis. This study has developed, demonstrated, and assessed a systematic approach for the use of data to support MRM and multi-scenario analysis. First, the study developed and examined approaches for selecting one or more representative days for the analysis, considering the variability in travel conditions throughout the year based on cluster analysis. …

A Numerical Investigation Of Tornado Production And Intensification In Tropical Cyclones, Marco Paredes

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The environmental conditions required for tornado formation and development in tropical cyclones (TCs) and the mechanisms underlying the intensification of TC tornadoes remain poorly understood. Previous research has suggested that low and mid-level dry air intrusion in TCs may enhance convective instability and influence the production of tornadoes. However, observations have their limitations in answering some of the key questions regarding the relationship among thermodynamic instability, dry air, and TC tornado genesis, development, and dissipation. In this study, a multiple nested Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model in a hindcasting mode is used to simulate Hurricane Ivan (2004) by resolving …

Ground Moving Target Detection For Airborne Radar Using Machine Learning Approaches, Rafi Ahmed

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Airborne radar faces many challenges to suppress unknown interferences from ground reflections to detect slow-moving targets. In this dissertation work, a feature-based machine learning approach is proposed to effectively classify target and interference such as ground clutter without actually removing them using traditional methods. Multiple features are considered for developing the target/clutter classification algorithms of airborne radars with digital arrays. The features we use for classification include the clutter proximity measures and target geometric feature.

The proximity feature is extracted to distinguish target, and clutter in location in the Doppler-angle domain for airborne radar. The Euclidean distance between a signal …

"We Need Educational Confession": A Philosophical Inquiry Of Curriculum As Confession, Christopher M. Cruz

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation theorizes curriculum as confession and attends to questions of justice, selfhood, and the pursuit of truth. An inquiry on confession is atypical among traditional educational dissertations because the practice is normally associated with religious institutions as opposed to schools or higher education. Moreover, confession is something usually associated with guilt or shame, not with traditional educational discourses of learning, teaching, or curriculum. As a result, confession is overlooked within educational discourse.

I argue, however, that confession always occurs because curriculum is the site of subjective educational experience. Taking part in the reconceptualist tradition of the curriculum field, curriculum …

Examining The Relationship Of Interoception, Self-Regulation, Eating Domains, And Eating Outcomes In College Students, Shanté Curlina Jeune

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

College student weight gain has steadily increased throughout the past decades. Issues resulting from overweight and obesity can lead to chronic disease and increased mortality risk. Inability to maintaining a healthy weight status may be attributable to unhealthy eating behaviors that often lead to poor diet quality and overeating. Recently, cognitive behaviors such as interoception and dietary self-regulation have been of great interest in order to better understand the processes of eating behaviors and their relationship with obesity.

The purpose of this study is to examine the associations of interoception, self-regulation, eating domains and body mass index (BMI) in college …

State Of Inequity: Three Essays On Disparities In Justice Provision, William T. Jackson

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Inequities in public service provision refer to disparate outputs and outcomes among social groups. This dissertation addresses inequalities in justice provision in American society and has three objectives. The first objective is to test whether the race and ethnicity of top elected law-enforcement officials mitigate disparities in juvenile justice provision among social groups. The second objective is to examine whether the gender of top elected law-enforcement officials affects the severity of justice outcomes at the street level. The third objective is to analyze institutional responses on social media platforms to police misconduct and social unrest after the death of George …

A General And Practical Framework For Realization Of Sdn-Based Vehicular Networks, Juan V. Leon

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With the recent developments of communication technologies surrounding vehicles, we witness the simultaneous availability of multiple onboard communication interfaces on vehicles. While most of the current interfaces already include Bluetooth, WiFi, and LTE, they are augmented further by IEEE 802.11p and the 5G interfaces, which will serve for safety, maintenance, and infotainment applications. However, dynamic management of interfaces depending on application needs becomes a significant issue that can be best addressed by Software Defined Networking (SDN) capabilities. While SDN-based vehicular networks have been promoted previously, none of these works deal with practical challenges. In this thesis, we propose and develop …

Novel Materials And Devices For Terahertz Detection And Emission For Sensing, Imaging And Communication, Naznin Akter

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Technical advancement is required to attain a high data transmission rate, which entails expanding beyond the currently available bandwidth and establishing a new standard for the highest data rates, which mandates a higher frequency range and larger bandwidth. The THz spectrum (0.1-10 THz) has been considered as an emerging next frontier for the future 5G and beyond technology. THz frequencies also offer unique characteristics, such as penetrating most dielectric materials like fabric, plastic, and leather, making them appealing for imaging and sensing applications. Therefore, employing a high-power room temperature, tunable THz emitters, and a high responsivity THz detector is essential. …

Body Fluid Identification Using Dna Extraction Waste Product, Rachel M. Tolces

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In many situations, the amount of DNA evidence recovered at a crime scene is at trace levels, limiting the amount of testing that can be done on the evidence. Because genetic profiling is generally considered the most imperative assay to be completed on a DNA sample, in situations where yield is low, DNA extracts may not be utilized for any other purpose. Fortunately, an alternate source of DNA may exist by utilizing the waste products resulting from DNA extraction.

The goal of this project was to a protocol for recovery of DNA from robotic extraction waste and utilizing this DNA …

Preparing To Break Barriers: A Mixed Methods Exploration Of The Knowledge, Attitudes, And Perceptions Of Hiv, Prep, And Hiv Risk Behaviors Among Women Of Color In Miami, Florida, Amanda C. Ichite

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The U.S. HIV epidemic is characterized by regional, racial, and ethnic disparities. HIV rates are disproportionately higher in the South and Black and Hispanic populations are most impacted. Moreover, the intersectional identity of being a Black or Hispanic woman living in the South has been associated with profound disparities in HIV impact. Prior to the advent of the biomedical HIV prevention tool pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in 2012, women were limited in their options for female-controlled HIV prevention strategies. Despite the proven efficacy of PrEP, utilization in women is significantly lower than other at-risk groups. In the present study, secondary analysis …

The Invisible Propaganda: A Case Study Of The Trump Administration’S And The Media’S Messaging On Sanctuary Cities, Valeriia Popova

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

How does systemic propaganda work in contemporary American democracy? The literature suggests that propaganda in its negative meaning is limited to authoritarian regimes. In democracies, it is the corporate and partisan newsrooms that acts as propaganda mouthpieces. This dissertation challenges this status quo and shifts the focus to the interaction between contemporary democratic governments and the media. This dissertation develops a model of democratic propaganda that accounts for the two- step propaganda process in contemporary democracies: the government (responsible for the original message) and the media (responsible for the final message). The project proposes an innovative eight-fold spectrum of media …

Assessing The Impact Of Intergovernmental Grant Policies In Education - The Case Of Florida, Nga (Angie) Le

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In recent decades, grant funding from federal and state governments has played an increasing role in school finance. However, prior research shows that education grants are not always effective, and the resources distributed to school districts are often not efficient. Increased federal and state funding does not always improve schools’ effectiveness but instead may trigger greater bureaucracy and a mass-production vision in local education administration.

This research aims to provide a theoretical foundation for and empirical evidence on the impact of intergovernmental aid in education and inform future policy reforms. This study investigates the effects of federal and state grant …

Insights To Protein Pathogenicity From The Lens Of Protein Evolution, Janelle Nunez-Castilla

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As protein sequences evolve, differences in selective constraints may lead to outcomes ranging from sequence conservation to structural and functional divergence. Evolutionary protein family analysis can illuminate which protein regions are likely to diverge or remain conserved in sequence, structure, and function. Moreover, nonsynonymous mutations in pathogens may result in the emergence of protein regions that affect the behavior of pathogenic proteins within a host and host response. I aimed to gain insight on pathogenic proteins from cancer and viruses using an evolutionary perspective. First, I examined p53, a conformationally flexible, multifunctional protein mutated in ~50% of human cancers. Multifunctional …