Digital Commons Network^™

Tourist Responses To Tourism Experiences In Saudi Arabia, Faisal Mohammed Aldakhil

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A decade ago, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) was not perceived to be a popular tourism destination except for religious purposes, the government of KSA has been proactive in recent years building new destinations, changing longstanding policies, focusing on tourism and hospitality education, and renovating its image to attract domestic and international tourists. Tourism contributed to almost 9% of the Kingdom’s GDP in 2018, around 65 billion dollars (WTTC, 2019). The purpose of this paper is to understand the sentiment that tourists have regarding the new tourism campaigns in KSA, to have transparent feedback about the experiences and services …

Disaster Aid, Non-Governmental Organizations (Ngos), And Development: A Critical Analysis Of The Post 2010-Disaster Aid In Haiti, Jean Max Charles

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates both the effectiveness and the limitations of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) aid as it relates to efforts to provide sustainable development outcomes in the wake of disasters. Focusing on the case of Haiti, and the billions of dollars of disaster aid that the country received through NGOs for relief and reconstruction of the country in the wake of the 2010 magnitude 7.0 earthquake, this dissertation explores ways in which the delivery and management of disaster aid can be organized to produce long-term sustainable results. My research is formulated around the argument that, to produce long-term outcomes, disaster aid …

Latina Youth And Suicidality: A Cross-Sectional And Longitudinal Analysis, Janice J. O'Driscoll

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: This study aimed to understand which factors correlated to a likelihood of suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts in Latina youth and how that may or may not differ from female youth of different racial/ethnic groups. Additionally, this study sought to explore which predictors increased the likelihood of suicide attempts as youth aged into adulthood.

Method: The study was a secondary data analysis of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) using binomial logistic regression and generalized estimating equations. The sample consists of 10,480 youth at Wave 1, who were followed with repeated measures 1, 6, …

The Initial Development And Validation Of The Youth Gun Violence And Voice Survey: The Classroom Experience, Diana E. Santangelo

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Community violence surrounding children and youth affects a variety of developmental outcomes, including social-emotional, behavioral, physical, and cognitive domains. Adolescents who are exposed to continual community violence can respond with aggression, anxiety, behavioral issues, academic problems, and truancy. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a survey instrument that measures the youth perspective of the classroom experience following the loss of a schoolmate due to homicide by firearm. Youth perspectives challenge normative perspectives and can critique common policies and practices, and such findings can inform instruction and policy.

An exploratory sequential mixed methods research design was used …

Informants' Memory For Conversations: The Examination Of The Investigative Utility Of The Cognitive Interview, Danielle Sneyd

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In human-intelligence-gathering contexts, informants or persons of interest are often interviewed about a conversation they overheard. The information gathered from these conversations may be important for national security, and therefore, the most accurate information needs to be elicited. The current project consisted of two studies that extended the previous literature on the Cognitive Interview (CI). Study 1 (1) tested the CI (compared to a structured interview, SI) in the context of memory for conversations and (2) investigated the effects of modality by comparing in-person interviews to telephone interviews. The CI is a theory-based interview protocol that has been shown to …

Representative Bureaucracy In Government Contracting: Examining Supplier Diversity Policy Implementation, Evelyn Trammell

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Government organizations have struggled to balance democratic values of inclusiveness and equity with an efficient and effective bureaucracy since the early years of the administrative state. A representative bureaucracy offers a solution where effective and efficient public service delivery can be achieved while reflecting the interests of historically underrepresented social groups in policy decisions. The theory of representative bureaucracy states that organizational actors that share characteristics with constituents are more likely to respond to their interests through policies and implementation activities. Employing a mixed methodology, this study examines whether and how representativeness of local government decision-makers affects contracting policy implementation …

Stakeholder Value Dynamics Analysis In Hurricane Michael: Towards Collaborative Decision Making In Building Disaster Resilient Communities, Aishwarya Pathak

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Despite a growing acknowledgment of shared responsibilities in emergency management, one of the hidden and overlooked issues in the disaster literature is the identification and integration of multi-sector stakeholder values: the things that are of importance, merit, and utilities to the stakeholders. Stakeholders (e.g., public, private and non-profit sectors, and the communities) hold numerous values with varying degrees of importance, forming a system of value priorities. Stakeholder values and value priorities—referred to as value systems—are not static in a disaster context; they are dynamic, time-sensitive and event-driven. A more in-depth understanding of the dynamics of stakeholder value systems is crucial …

Sexual Offender Residency Issues And Recidivism In South Florida, Joelle A. Lee-Silcox

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper explores registered sexual offender (RSO) residency restrictions, unintended consequences of these restrictions, including clustering, shared sub-culture, and recidivism within the Tri-County area of Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties of Florida. While Florida Statute 775.215 (FLRR) bans RSOs from living within 1,000 feet of any school, childcare facility, park, or playground, individual county and municipal ordinances add-on to these boundaries, effectively banishing some RSOs to slivers of land in clusters. These clusters often settle in socially disorganized neighborhoods that lack informal control, needed treatment and rehabilitative services, and are located away from family and employment opportunities. Through the …

Towards Uav Assisted 5g Public Safety Network, Abhaykumar Kumbhar

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ensuring ubiquitous mission-critical public safety communications (PSC) to all the first responders in the public safety network is crucial at an emergency site. The first responders heavily rely on mission-critical PSC to save lives, property, and national infrastructure during a natural or human-made emergency. The recent advancements in LTE/LTE-Advanced/5G mobile technologies supported by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) have great potential to revolutionize PSC.

However, limited spectrum allocation for LTE-based PSC demands improved channel capacity and spectral efficiency. An additional challenge in designing an LTE-based PSC network is achieving at least 95% coverage of the geographical area and human population with …