Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Us Coast And Geodetic Survey Aerial Photos From 1927, 1928, 1932, 1935, 1952 And 1954 Covering South Florida, Peter Harlem

Sea Level Rise Collection

Summary of the Dr. Harold R. Wanless collection of film copies and scanning project.

Paris Talks: The Art Of Climate Communication, Phaedra Pezzullo

Sea Level Rise Collection

No abstract provided.

Santeria As An Informal Psychosocial Support Among Latinas Living With Cancer, Adelaida M. Rosario

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Among Latinos, Santería functions as both a religion and a health care system in occurrences of health versus illness within various Latino sub-groups in the U.S. This exploratory study offers a comprehensive analysis of the function of the folk healing tradition Santería as a culturally congruent informal mental health support that assists with coping with the psychosocial sequelae of living with cancer among Latinas in Miami-Dade County, FL. It (a) determined the attitudes of Latinas living with cancer towards Santería as an informal mental health support and (b) explored how Santería offers Latinas effective mental health support that assists in …

Understanding Immigrants' Travel Behavior In Florida: Neighborhood Effects And Behavioral Assimilation, Nishat Zaman

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this study was to develop Multinomial Logit models for the mode choice behavior of immigrants, with key focuses on neighborhood effects and behavioral assimilation. The first aspect shows the relationship between social network ties and immigrants’ chosen mode of transportation, while the second aspect explores the gradual changes toward alternative mode usage with regard to immigrants’ migrating period in the United States (US). Mode choice models were developed for work, shopping, social, recreational, and other trip purposes to evaluate the impacts of various land use patterns, neighborhood typology, socioeconomic-demographic and immigrant related attributes on individuals’ travel behavior. …

Access To Better Education: The School Choice Experience Of Families Served By Low-Performing Elementary Public Schools In Miami-Dade County, Letania Severe

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Public school choice education policy attempts to create an education marketplace. Although school choice research has focused on the parent role in the school choice process, little is known about parents served by low-performing schools. Following market theory, students attending low-performing schools should be the primary students attempting to use school choice policy to access high performing schools rather than moving to a better school. However, students remain in these low-performing schools. This study took place in Miami-Dade County, which offers a wide variety of school choice options through charter schools, magnet schools, and open-choice schools.

This dissertation utilized a …

Gnosticism, Transformation, And The Role Of The Feminine In The Gnostic Mass Of The Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica (E.G.C.), Ellen P. Randolph

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Gnostic Mass of the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica (E.G.C.) suggests a heterosexual gender binary in which the female Priestess seated on the altar as the sexual and fertile image of the divine feminine is directed by the male Priest’s activity, desire and speech. The apparent contradiction between the empowered individual and the polarized gender role was examined by comparing the ritual symbolism of the feminine with the interpretations of four Priestesses and three Priests (three pairs plus one). Findings suggest that the Priestess’ role in the Gnostic Mass is associated with channeling, receptivity, womb, cup, and fertility, while the Priest’s …

The Effect Of Rapport Building In Police Interrogations: Can Rapport Improve The Diagnosticity Of Confession Evidence?, Daniella K. Villalba

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Police investigators rely heavily on eliciting confessions from suspects to solve crimes and prosecute offenders. Therefore, it is essential to develop evidence-based interrogation techniques that will motivate guilty suspects to confess but minimize false confessions from the innocent. Currently, there is little scientific support for specific interrogation techniques that may increase true confessions and decrease false confessions. Rapport building is a promising possibility. Despite its recommendation in police interrogation guidelines, there is no scientific evidence showing the effect of rapport building in police interrogations. The current study examined, experimentally, whether using rapport as an interrogation technique would influence participants’ decisions …

Assessing Organizational Image: Triangulation Across Different Applicant Perceptions, Website, And Facebook Features, Alejandra Matamala

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the role of corporate websites and company Facebook profiles in shaping perceptions of organizational image in the recruitment context.

A primary purpose of this research was to determine whether or not perceptions of organizational image vary across different web-based recruitment methods, specifically examining corporate websites and social networking (SNW) sites, such as company Facebook profiles. A secondary goal was to determine how these perceptions of image are shaped by the objective components of websites and Facebook profiles. Finally, this study sought to determine the most influential components of websites and Facebook profiles, in terms of impacting image, …

Cultural Intelligence: Extending The Nomological Network, Ena Sawhney

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three independent studies, which study the nomological network of cultural intelligence (CI)—a relatively new construct within the fields of cross-cultural psychology and organizational psychology. Since the introduction of this construct, CI now has a generally accepted model comprised of four codependent subfactors. In addition, the focus of preliminary research within the field is on understanding the new construct’s correlates and outcomes. Thus, the goals for this dissertation were (a) to provide an additional evaluation of the factor structure of CI and (b) to examine further the correlates and outcomes that should theoretically be included in its …

Menopause, Rurality, And Obesity In Rural African American Women, Colleen Kilgore

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the US, one in every eight deaths is due to an obesity-related chronic health condition (ORCHC). More than half of African American women (AAW) 20 years old or older are obese or morbidly obese, as are 63% of menopausal AAW. Many have ORCHC that increase their morbidity and mortality and increase health care costs. In 2013, 42.6 percent of AAs living in South Carolina (SC) were obese. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to identify the cognitive, behavioral, biological, and demographic factors that influence health outcomes (BMI, and ORCHC) of AAW living in rural SC. A sample of …

Effects Of Altered Prenatal Sensory Stimulation On Postnatal Contingency Learning In Bobwhite Quail Neonates (Colinus Virginianus), Namitha Raju

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Preterm infants are exposed to high levels of modified early sensory experience in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Reports that preterm infants show deficits in contingency detection and learning when compared to full-term infants (Gekoski, Fagen, & Pearlman, 1984; Haley, Weinberg, & Grunau, 2006) suggest that their exposure to atypical amounts or types of sensory stimulation might contribute to deficits in these critical skills. Experimental modifications of sensory experience are severely limited with human fetuses and preterm infants, and previous studies with precocial bird embryos that develop in ovo have proven useful to assess the effects of modified perinatal …

Hacking The Curriculum: Creating Collaborative Classrooms, Robert E. Gutsche Jr.

Sea Level Rise Collection

Description of collaboration between FIU faculty students and high school students.

La Representación De La Masculinidad Y La Violencia De Género En La Novela Española De La Posguerra, Alfredo M. Pastor

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While it may be argued that aggression against women is part of a culture of violence deeply rooted in Spanish society, the gender-related violence that exists in today’s Spain is more specifically a legacy of Franco’s dictatorship (1939-1975). Franco’s Spain endorsed unequal gender relations, championed patriarchal dominance and power over women, and imposed models of hegemonic and authoritarian masculinities that internalized violence by rendering it a feature inseparable from manhood and virility.

This dissertation provides a comprehensive analysis of masculinity and gender violence in Franco’s Spain, by analyzing the novel as the primary cultural vehicle of social criticism and political …

Valuation Of Ecosystem Services For Environmental Decision Making In South Florida, Nadia A. Seeteram

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Greater Everglades system imparts vital ecosystem services (ES) to South Florida residents including high quality drinking water supplies and a habitat for threatened and endangered species. As a result of the altered Everglades system and regional dynamics, restoration may either improve the provision of these services or impose a tradeoff between enhanced environmental goods and services and competing societal demands. The current study aims at understanding public preferences for restoration and generating willingness to pay (WTP) values for restored ES through the implementation of a discrete choice experiment. A previous study (Milon et al., 1999) generated WTP values amongst …

Life Experiences Of Youth Who Were Born With Hiv Infection In Puerto Rico: The Voices Of Young Survivors, Georgina Silva-Suarez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The effectiveness of antiretroviral therapy (ART) transformed the pediatric HIV epidemic. The disease changed significantly over the course of three decades: while early in the epidemic it was almost always fatal, it has become a chronic condition.

This study examined how perinatally-infected youth experience the impact of HIV in their lives. A qualitative study using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) was conducted. Twenty in-depth interviews were carried out among 12 women and 8 men aged 18 to 30 years in Puerto Rico. These were conducted in Spanish, audio-recorded, transcribed and translated into English. While narrating their experiences, participants were interpreting what …

Fall Update: See What We've Been Doing, Robert E. Gutsche Jr.

Sea Level Rise Collection

This post includes text related to the required October Interim Report for the Online News Association, which was submitted on October 28, 2014.

Three Essays On The Economics Of Defense Contracting, Output And Income Inequality, Edward M. Decambra

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes both the economics of the defense contracting process and the impact of total dollar obligations on the economies of U.S. states. Using various econometric techniques, I will estimate relationships across individual contracts, state level output, and income inequality. I will achieve this primarily through the use of a dataset on individual contract obligations.

The first essay will catalog the distribution of contracts and isolate aspects of the process that contribute to contract dollar obligations. Accordingly, this study describes several characteristics about individual defense contracts, from 1966-2006: (i) the distribution of contract dollar obligations is extremely rightward skewed, …

Household Preferences For Financing Hurricane Risk Mitigation: A Survey Based Empirical Analysis, Damon Fitzgerald

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

After a series of major storms over the last 20 years, the state of financing for U.S. natural disaster insurance has undergone substantial disruptions causing many federal and state backed programs against residential property damage to become severally underfunded. In order to regain actuarial soundness, policy makers have proposed a shift to a system that reflects risk-based pricing for property insurance. We examine survey responses from 1394 single-family homeowners in the state of Florida for support of several natural disaster mitigation policy reforms. Utilizing a partial proportional odds model we test for effects of location, risk perception, socio-economic and housing …

Effects Of Prenatal And Early Postnatal Exposure To Aversive Stimuli On Fearfulness And Exploratory Behavior In Bobwhite Qauil Neonates (Colinus Virginianus), Michael Suarez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Neophobia, the fear of novelty, is a behavioral trait found across a number of animal species, including humans. Neophobic individuals perceive novel environments and stimuli to have aversive properties, and exhibit fearful behaviors when presented with non-familiar situations. The present study examined how early life exposure to aversive novel stimuli could reduce neophobia in bobwhite quail chicks. Experiment 1 exposed chicks to a novel auditory tone previously shown to be aversive to naïve chicks (Suarez, 2012) for 24 hours immediately after hatching, then subsequently tested them in the presence of the tone within a novel maze task. Postnatally exposed chicks …

Revisiting King Tide Day, Robert E. Gutsche Jr.

Sea Level Rise Collection

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Prenatal Auditory Enrichment On Perceptual Narrowing In Bobwhite Quail Neonates, Briana O'Dowd

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The development of species-typical perceptual preferences has been shown to depend on a variety of socially and ecologically derived sensory stimulation during both the pre- and postnatal periods. The prominent mechanism behind the development of these seemingly innate tendencies in young organisms has been hypothesized to be a domain-general pan-sensory selectivity process referred to as perceptual narrowing, whereby regularly experienced sensory stimuli are honed in upon, while simultaneously losing the ability to effectively discriminate between atypical or unfamiliar sensory stimulation. Previous work with precocial birds has been successful in preventing the development of species-typical perceptual preferences by denying the organism …

Students Meet King Tide: Take To Streets Oct. 9, Robert E. Gutsche Jr.

Sea Level Rise Collection

No abstract provided.

Eyes In The Sky: Alta Partners Begin To Capture Rising Seas, Robert E. Gutsche Jr.

Sea Level Rise Collection

FIU-ALTA Partnership Captures High-Resolution Images of SLR.

Buzz: Students Sound-Off With Water Sensors, Robert E. Gutsche Jr.

Sea Level Rise Collection

FIU School of Journalism & Mass Communication Prepares for Oct. 9 Event on Miami Beach.

Media Alert: Students Build Water Sensors In Prep For King Tide Day, Robert E. Gutsche Jr.

Sea Level Rise Collection

Announcement of collaborative work between the MAST@FIU BBC and FIU's School of Journalism and Mass Communication for King Tide Day events on October 9, 2015.

Rtv 3260 Multimedia Production I Special Topic: Sea Level Rise In South Florida, Kate Macmillin

Course Syllabi

Multimedia Production I is designed to introduce students to the basic elements of multimedia production: audio recording and editing, basic photography, video production and editing, interactive infographics, and the basic functions of a Web platform. These will be presented on a comprehensive multimedia Website (in this course, we will be using Wordpress). During the first two weeks of the semester, we will be discussing the many facets and opportunities presented by multimedia storytelling; at the end of these two weeks, each student will be responsible for turning in a one-page proposal for their website, which will focus on a sea …

Mmc 4936 Web Gis For Journalists, Susan Jacobson, Zhaohui Fu, Boyuan Guan

Course Syllabi

Web GIS is a special topics course designed to give students a solid foundation in Web publishing and Web GIS. By the end of the semester, students will:

• Learn the basics of HTML5 and CSS3.
• Learn the basics of JavaScript and JQuery
• Produce a new layout for the Zen Garden project.
• Participate in a crowdsourced project on King Tide Day.
• Produce an interactive photo slideshow with HTML5/CSS3.
• Participate in a mobile-social reporting project on Election Day.
• Produce a multimedia map story with HTML5/CSS3.
• Learn how to give and receive constructive criticism.

Jou 4001 Visual Storytelling Production, Susan Jacobson

Course Syllabi

Visual Storytelling Production is designed to enhance the skills that students learned in Multimedia Production 1. By the end of the semester, students will:

• Understand some of the legal and ethical issues facing journalists and other communication professionals who work with digital tools on the Internet.
• Learn how to give and receive constructive criticism.
• Further their understanding of audio-visual production techniques.
• Improve their abilities to research multi-media news stories
• Produce an extended infographic on the class theme.
• Produce an audio slideshow on the class theme.
• Produce multi-source video with B-Roll on the class theme.
• Participate in a crowdsourced reporting project …

Rtv 4101 Advanced Writing For Television, Kate Macmillin

Course Syllabi

This course is intended to introduce the student to various types of writing for television and Internet/Journalism videos. This will include storytelling for short videos and short documentaries. Class time will be divided between lectures, guest speakers, shooting and video editing workshops. This course will be devoted to various approaches to ONE TOPIC: Sea Level Rise. There will be all kinds of opportunities for serious reporting on this issue.

Rtv 3260 Multimedia Production: Eyes On The Rise, Robert E. Gutsche Jr.

Course Syllabi

This course is designed to introduce students to tell stories through multimedia, regardless of whether those stories are for journalistic, advertising, or public relations purposes. This particular course section is also designed to produce content for Eyes on the Rise (eyesontherise.org).