Digital Commons Network^™

A Silent Dilemma: The Challenges Black Collegiate Women Face Disclosing Sexual Victimization, Lawrence William Henry

Department of Conflict Resolution Studies Theses and Dissertations

This study focused on Black women, who were sexually assaulted in college, and the dilemmas they faced with disclosure between 1989 to 1999. The purpose of this study was to conduct an interpretative phenomenological analysis on the experiences of how Black women, who were sexually assaulted as college undergraduates, understood reasons for their non-disclosure while in college. Interviewing eight research participants, the researcher sought to identify, through one’s lived experience, the factors that created disclosure dilemmas for Black women who were sexually assaulted as college undergraduates. Through this effort, the researcher identified several intrinsic and extrinsic reasons and the leading …

Presidential Authoritarianism In The United States And Russia During The Metamodern Era, Christopher Davis

Department of Conflict Resolution Studies Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examined the public language of U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin to assess how they frame modern crises. Both the United States and Russia have experienced internal turmoil, social discord, political and economic instability, and international conflict since the termination of their hostilities three decades ago. Helming the presidential offices of these great powers, self-described strongmen Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin nostalgically promise to restore the lost glories of their respective countries while making mawkish appeals to tribal identities to build popular support for authoritarian tendencies and practices; preying on popular yearning for stability in …

2020-2021 Nsu Undergraduate Student Catalog, Nova Southeastern University

Undergraduate Programs Course Catalogs

No abstract provided.

Deep Neural Networks For Sentiment Analysis In Tweets With Emoticons, Mutharasu Narayanaperumal

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Businesses glean meaningful feedback in regard to products and services from social media posts in order to improve the quality of products and services, as well as to meet customer expectations. Sentiment analysis is increasingly being used to help businesses by assigning positive or negative polarity to such posts. Although methods currently exist to determine the polarity of sentiments, such methods are unreliable when posts contain terms that are not typically part of a standard dictionary used for sentiment analysis, such as slang and informal language. This dissertation has aimed to empirically investigate alternative methods to improve the classification accuracy …

A Covid-19 Induced Shift: From Introducing High School Females To Computing Careers To An Assessment Of Technological Readiness Among Stem Teachers, Jareau Almeyda

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Prior to the global COVID-19 pandemic, this study aimed to explore how exposure to information systems (IS) project management impacts perceptions of computing careers among high school female participants. Given the demand for computing professionals continues to grow, enrollment in some computing disciplines across institutions of higher education have experienced declining enrollments. Studies have shown that one of the reasons high school students do not enroll in computing disciplines is because they perceive computing as difficult, boring, and irrelevant.

As a computing discipline, information systems is focused on developing professionals who are able to integrate technologies into systems that run …

2020 F1rst Look, Nova Southeastern University

First Look

No abstract provided.

Shark Parent Summer 2020, Nova Southeastern University

NSU Parent Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Happy Tears: An Evocative Autoethnography On An Adoptee’S Development Of Identity Through Reunification, Jessica Popham

Department of Family Therapy Dissertations and Applied Clinical Projects

The story of adoption reunions is a story of many others. With the invention of the internet and DNA profiling websites, what was once impossible, or very difficult, is now as simple as submitting saliva to a DNA profiling company. This easier way to explore family backgrounds has created new experiences for adoptees. After a reunification, adoptees can reevaluate their identity with the new information to help develop a broader and deeper view of themselves (Henze-Pederson, 2019; Kiecolt & LoMascolo, 2003; Palmer, 2011; Schooler & Norris, 2002). In this study, I looked at how my adoptive identity changed after reunification …

Sin Papeles: The Experiences Of Undocumented Central American Immigrants In The United States, Elizabeth Jarquin

Department of Family Therapy Dissertations and Applied Clinical Projects

In the United States, the topic of immigration represents a source of intense debate, which has escalated in recent years. Research indicates that Latinx immigrants are negatively impacted by current immigration policies— they are feeling afraid, angry, exhausted, defeated, overwhelmed, and concerned about themselves and their family (Castrellón, Rivarola, & López, 2017; Wray-Lake et al., 2018). This research, however, has largely neglected the Central American subgroup and the experiences of undocumented immigrants. The purpose of this study was to understand the experiences of undocumented Central American immigrants and their families within the current sociopolitical context. I utilized interpretative phenomenological analysis …

Appreciative Inquiry Of An Exemplary Trauma Informed Wellness Center Created For The Community And Families Affected By A School Shooting, Halle Solomon

Department of Family Therapy Dissertations and Applied Clinical Projects

Gun violence has flooded our society with human-caused disasters, making mass shootings an unfortunate new normal. In the wake of large- scale shootings, the United States Government and other agencies provide financial support and resources to the affected community in hopes of bringing solidarity to the fractured system. This financial reinforcement and other funding sources have been utilized to build resiliency centers within a certain distance of the unnerving events. Resiliency facilities play a pivotal role in helping communities recover from human-caused disasters such as mass shootings. These resources are becoming customary across the country, with resiliency centers in Newton, …

The Conundrum Of Both/And In A World Of Either/Or: An Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis Of Resilience And Intersectional Identities In Queer Women Of Afro-Caribbean Descent, Stephane Louis

Department of Family Therapy Dissertations and Applied Clinical Projects

Queer people of color are more at risk for bias and brutality than other sexual or racial minority groups (Follins, Walker, & Lewis, 2014). Homophobic violence is embedded in Afro-Caribbean culture and even substantiated by some of those countries’ laws (Calixte, 2005). While more research is being increasingly done on LGBTQ+ black lived experiences, studies have focused more on discriminatory trauma than everyday triumph. Movements like Black Girls Rock (Bond, 2018) and intersectional black feminism (Nash, 2018) celebrate women of color surviving and thriving the compound effects of racism and sexism. In addition to misogynoir, this research gave consideration to …

White Marriage And Family Therapy Students’ Experiences In Diversity Courses: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, Porshia Cunningham

Department of Family Therapy Dissertations and Applied Clinical Projects

American minority racial groups are on the rise and the majority racial group (White) will decrease in size (Vespa, Medina, & Armstrong, 2018). The U.S. population is becoming progressively diverse and projections indicate that by 2050, the elderly population will be 42% minority for the first time in history (U.S. Census Bureau, 2002). Racial minority experiences and needs are uniquely influenced by race due to systematic structures historically constructed in the United States (Cole, 2019; Sue, 2019). For many marriage and family therapy (MFT) students, particularly White students, the culture and diversity course is the primary mechanism for exposure to …

Portrait Of A Novice Medical Family Therapist, Working In A Medical Setting With Head And Neck Cancer Patients Observed Through A Bowen Family Systems Theory’S Lens, Venetia Bennett

Department of Family Therapy Dissertations and Applied Clinical Projects

Each year, approximately 43,000 people in the United States, receive a diagnosis of cancer of the head and neck (American Cancer Society 2019). A diagnosis of cancer, regardless of its location can be overwhelming for patients, their caregivers, and their family system. Receiving such a diagnosis causes a reaction of heightened emotions and anxiety. With that, there is a growing need for medical familytherapists. Medical family therapy has been documented as an effective approach for aiding medical providers to increase the quality of care for patients. Traditionally, medical family therapy is associated withgeneral practitioners, pediatricians, and such medical environments. This …

Stakeholder Perceptions On Transitioned Foster Youth Work Outcomes: A Mixed Methods Study In San Antonio, Bonnie Inkel

Occupational Therapy Program Student Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Purpose: This examination of stakeholder perceptions on transitioned foster youth work outcomes is a crucial step to identify service strengths and barriers, characteristics of successful/unsuccessful outcomes, and opportunities for occupational therapy collaboration in San Antonio, Texas.

Method: A mixed-methods approach identified perceptions from two groups of stakeholders. Group I included transitionedfoster youth ages 18–24, and group II involved public/private agency professionals working with youth. Small sample sizes prevented traditional statistical analysis, but the Excel VARA (variance) statistical function analyzed numerical spread combinations from collected data, thus providing quantitative analysis.

Results: Participants confirmed they had not completed a similar survey on …

Nsu Florida Student Handbook 2020-2021, Nova Southeastern University

College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Course Catalogs

No abstract provided.

Organizational Culture And Knowledge Transfer In Enterprise Social Media, Garry Blackstock

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Enterprise social media (ESM), digital platforms used within organizations to facilitate knowledge sharing and collaboration, are valuable tools that can help organizations gain a competitive advantage. Efficient retention, dissemination, and transfer of knowledge is an industry differentiator, and companies are spending a tremendous amount of resources on ESM to achieve this discriminating advantage. The behavior of transferring knowledge, especially tacit knowledge, can be a challenging task. Discordant organizational culture has been identified as a barrier to efficient knowledge transfer, whether it is explicit or tacit. Despite ESM’s positive track record of promoting communication, it lacks the efficiency to facilitate knowledge …

Sns Use, Risk, And Executive Behavior, Andrew Green

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Andrew Green April 2020 Personal social networking sites (SNS) are popular outlets for people to share information about themselves, their family and friends, and their personal and professional lives. On the surface, the information shared may seem to be innocuous or nonthreatening. However, prior studies have shown that cybercriminals can take information shared via personal SNS and use it to conduct attacks against organizations. Organization executives are of particular interest to cybercriminals because they have access to sensitive data, and they also have the ability to command actions from their subordinates. The purpose of this study was to explore what …

Smart Privacy For Iot: Privacy Embedded Design For Home Automation Systems, Love James

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

The emerging paradigm shift in technology to make everyday devices more intelligent than previously considered also known as internet of things (IoT) has further elevated the importance of privacy not only in theory but also in practice. The intrusive nature of these devices and in particular, the home automation system is also beginning to raise privacy concerns which might impact their usage either by deterring potential users from adopting the technology or discouraging existing users from the continued use of these home automation systems.

This study was an empirical and quantitative study that evaluates the impact of users’ behavior when …

An Empirical Assessment Of Audio/Visual/Haptic Alerts And Warnings To Mitigate Risk Of Phishing Susceptibility In Emails On Mobile Devices, Molly Marie Cooper

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Phishing emails present a threat to both personal and organizational data. Phishing is a cyber-attack using social engineering. About 94% of cybersecurity incidents are due to phishing and/or social engineering. A significant volume of prior literature documented that users are continuing to click on phishing links in emails, even after phishing awareness training. It appears there is a strong need for creative ways to alert and warn users to signs of phishing in emails.

The main goal of the experiments in this study was to measure participants’ time for recognizing signs of phishing in emails, thus, reducing susceptibility to phishing …

Sns As An Educational Tool: Effect On Academic Performance And Learners’ Perceptions, Nawwaf Mohssen Altalhi

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

With Social Networking Sites (SNSs) being extensively used by students, there has been extensive research in relation to their ability to enhance students’ academic performance in various learning environments, although the advent of research on online learning is a recent development.

Studies regarding the use of SNSs indicated that there was a negative relationship between students’ use of SNSs and students’ academic performance. However, it is unknown whether the implementation of an instructional training course utilizing SNSs as an educational tool might lead to improvements in students’ academic performance. Many students have admitted to not knowing how to properly use …

A Hierarchical Temporal Memory Sequence Classifier For Streaming Data, Jeffrey Barnett

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Real-world data streams often contain concept drift and noise. Additionally, it is often the case that due to their very nature, these real-world data streams also include temporal dependencies between data. Classifying data streams with one or more of these characteristics is exceptionally challenging. Classification of data within data streams is currently the primary focus of research efforts in many fields (i.e., intrusion detection, data mining, machine learning). Hierarchical Temporal Memory (HTM) is a type of sequence memory that exhibits some of the predictive and anomaly detection properties of the neocortex. HTM algorithms conduct training through exposure to a stream …

An Approach To Twitter Event Detection Using The Newsworthiness Metric, Jonathan Adkins

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Detecting Rogue Manipulation Of Smart Home Device Settings, David Zeichick

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Smart home devices control a home’s environmental and security settings. This includes devices that control home thermostats, sprinkler systems, light bulbs, and home appliances. Malicious manipulation of the settings of these devices by an outside adversary has caused emotional distress and could even cause physical harm. For example, researchers have reported that there is a rise in domestic abuse perpetrated via smart home devices; victims have reported their thermostat settings being unwittingly manipulated and being locked out of their house due to their smart lock code being changed. Rapid adoption of smart home devices by consumers has led to an …

Unix Administrator Information Security Policy Compliance: The Influence Of A Focused Seta Workshop And Interactive Security Challenges On Heuristics And Biases, John Palmer Mcconnell

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Information Security Policy (ISP) compliance is crucial to the success of healthcare organizations due to security threats and the potential for security breaches. UNIX Administrators (UXAs) in healthcare Information Technology (IT) maintain critical servers that house Protected Health Information (PHI). Their compliance with ISP is crucial to the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of PHI data housed or accessed by their servers. The use of cognitive heuristics and biases may negatively influence threat appraisal, coping appraisal, and ultimately ISP compliance behavior. These failures may result in insufficiently protected servers and put organizations at greater risk of data breaches and financial loss. …

The Social Media Machines: An Investigation Of The Effect Of Trust Moderated By Disinformation On Users’ Decision-Making Process, Zulma Valedon Westney

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Social media networking sites (SMNS) have become a popular communications medium where users share information, knowledge, and persuasion. In less than two decades, social media's (SM) dominance as a communication medium can't be disputed, for good or evil. Combined with the newly found immediacy and pervasiveness, these SM applications' persuasive power are useful weapons for organizations, angry customers, employees, actors, and activists bent on attacking or hacking other individuals, institutions, or systems. Consequently, SM has become the preferred default mechanism of news sources; however, users are unsure if the information gathered is true or false. According to the literature, SMNS …

Protecting The Protector: Mapping The Key Terrain That Supports The Continuous Monitoring Mission Of A Cloud Cybersecurity Service Provider, Chris Bush

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

Key terrain is a concept that is relevant to warfare, military strategy, and tactics. A good general maps out terrain to identify key areas to protect in support of a mission (i.e., a bridge allowing for mobility of supplies and reinforcements). Effective ways to map terrain in Cyberspace (KT-C) has been an area of interest for researchers in Cybersecurity ever since the Department of Defense designated Cyberspace as a warfighting domain. The mapping of KT-C for a mission is accomplished by putting forth efforts to understand and document a mission's dependence on Cyberspace and cyber assets. A cloud Cybersecurity Service …

Incorporating Intellectual Freedom And Information Literacy Into Programming, Meagan Albright, Ashley J. Brown

Staff Publications

Raising awareness of intellectual freedom and information literacy is important, and not just during Banned Books Week. Just like sneaking healthy food into a kid’s meal, these techniques for incorporating these topics will enrich the work you already do as a librarian without disrupting your programming routine.

Psychometric Evaluation Of The Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory In An Ethnically Diverse Sample, Elizabeth Machado

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation was designed to confirm the factor structure and to assess the psychometric functioning of the Eyberg Child Behavior Inventory (ECBI) in an ethnically diverse clinical sample using Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Rasch modeling. The sample included 221 children and adolescents (72% male and 28% female) whose mothers completed the ECBI. Related to ethnicity, 43.4% of the sample was Hispanic American (HA), 41.2% was European American (EA), 12.2% was African American, and 3.2% identified as “other.”

Dimensionality of the ECBI was explored using CFAs and by evaluating model fit criteria. An Andrich Rating Scale Model was employed to …

A Brand New Narrative: Social Attitudes Toward Conflict Resolution And Inefficiency In Marketing And Branding, Emily Skinner

Department of Conflict Resolution Studies Theses and Dissertations

This study aimed to bring to light infield internal assumptions, expectations, and knowledge that may influence limitations on fostering an environment that can increase a social demand for conflict resolution services, knowledge, and practices. The research explored if the field’s marketing is influenced by the macro social norms, assumptions, and expectations of conflict and if they influence how the field communicates with its market. The study’s goal was to investigate if the marketing and the branding of conflict resolution are influenced by the social fact of conflict as negative. This study explored conscious and unconscious broad patterns of common-sense knowledge, …

Prostitution In Havana, Cuba, A Conflict Analysis Of “The Phenomenon Of Jineterismo In Havana, Cuba.” A Narrative Study, Nery Roman

Department of Conflict Resolution Studies Theses and Dissertations

This narrative inquiry discovered the phenomenon of jineteras and jineterismo in Havana, Cuba. Jinetera (single) or jineterismo (group) refers to female prostitution in Cuba. Thus, the study examines the life experiences of jineteras, including the causes and influences. This dissertation provided an opportunity for women currently involved in jineterismo to voice their narratives in a natural and safe environment. The study involved seven jineteras who engaged in the research through informal interviews. This narrative inquiry protects individuals’ social situations and circumstances. The researcher examined the interview data through a holistic – content, the life story of an individual, and the …