Digital Commons Network^™

From A Bird's Eye View: Using Satellite Imagery To Map And Analyze The Forest Islands Of The Llanos De Mojos, Bolivia, Stephanie Boothby

HIM 1990-2015

Recent discoveries about pre-Columbian societies in the Amazon have revolutionized the way researchers think about the environment, and the degree of interaction that humans have with their surroundings. New evidence indicates that ancient Amazonian populations were not only much larger and more complex than previously thought, but they were also modifying their environment and creating artificial landscapes. Although information about pre-Columbian cultures can be gained from archaeological excavations and historical accounts, the advent of new technology allows archaeologists to conduct research remotely.

Earthworks were constructed by pre-Hispanic peoples to create higher ground for occupation and agriculture, as an adaptation to …

Swine Flu, Drug Wars, And Riots: Media And Tourism In Oaxaca, Mexico, Joshua Crosby

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how travelers evaluate and process mass media news stories about local events. Thanks to its colonial architecture, white sand beaches, and indigenous history, the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca receives millions of foreign and domestic visitors each year. Between 2006 and through 2009 Oaxaca has received a great deal of negative international media coverage, including stories of street riots, drug violence, and the fall out of the H1N1 flu virus. The overall impact of these unfavorable reports, and the resulting decline in the local tourism industry, has been predictable and severe. This thesis is based on anthropological …

Interactive Text-Image Conceptual Models For Literary Interpretation And Composition In The Digital Age, Beth Nixon Weaver

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on text-image conceptual models for literary interpretation and composition in the digital age. The models investigate an interactive blend of textually-based linear-sequential approaches and visually-based spatial-simultaneous approaches. The models employ Gestalt-inspired figure-ground segregation models, along with other theoretical models, that demonstrate the dynamic capabilities of images as conceptual tools as well as alternate forms of text. The models encourage an interpretative style with active participants in openended, multi-sensory meaning-making processes. The models use the flexible tools of modern technology as approaches to meaning-making with art strategies used for research strategies as well as a means to appreciate …

Computer Based Intervention And Its Effect On Benchmark Test Scores Of English Language Learners, Gabriel Berrio

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Florida Department of Education’s (FLDOE) Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) Report (2007) listed and defined students who are in the process of learning English as a second language as English Language Learners (ELL). The graduation rate of English Language Learners in Florida is consistently smaller than the graduation rate of the total population of students (Echevarria, Short and Powers, 2006) in part due to the requirement for students to pass the FCAT in order to graduate. ELL students face the challenge of having to learn a different language, learn the subject area content in that language, and often-times pass a …

From Shadowmourne To Folk Art Articulating A Vision Of Elearning For The 21st Century, Christina Kapp

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines mass-market applications for some of the many theories of eLearning and blended learning, focusing most closely on a period from 2000-2010. It establishes a state of the union for K-12 immersive eLearning environments by using in-depth cases studies of five major mass-market, educational, and community-education based products—Gaia Online, Poptropica, Quest Atlantis, Dimenxian/Dimension U, and Folkvine. Investigating these models calls into play not only the voices of traditional academic and usability research, but also the ad hoc voices of the players, commentators, developers, and bloggers. These are the people who speak to the community of these sites, and …

Foreign Language Oral Assessment Practices In Florida Middle And High Schools, Grace Kerr Kellermeier

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Current foreign language pedagogy encourages a communicative approach to language learning. Instead of the reading and writing focus of the past, this communicative approach requires instruction in all skills, which include reading, writing, listening, speaking and having knowledge of associated cultures. A random sample of Florida foreign language teachers was surveyed to establish whether or not the goals and actual instructional practices were aligned. Respondents were asked to identify how much of a typical class period is dedicated to each of the five skills and how much of a typical unit test is dedicated to the same five skills. The …

The Relationship Between Thinking Maps And Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test Reading And Math Scores In Two Urban Middle Schools, Anna Diaz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine what difference, if any, exists between the implementation and use of Thinking Maps® and students' academic achievement in Reading and Mathematics as measured over time by the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test® (FCAT). Thinking Maps® is a registered trademark of Thinking Maps, Inc. The data were examined after three years of Thinking Maps® implementation and instruction. The design of this study was quantitative, with a nonrandomized control group, pretest-posttest design (Ary, Jacobs, & Razavieh, 2002) that examined the effects on student Reading and Mathematics FCAT scores in one middle school that implemented Thinking …

What's In A Name? Genocide Early Warning Model For Humanitarian Intervention, Alexandria Lewis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There is much debate among genocide scholars as to the causes and even accurate definitions of genocide. Early warning developed to address the increasing need for humanitarian intervention in violent conflicts around the world. As a subset of genocide studies, early warning seeks to go beyond explaining the causes of genocide. The early warning model created here uses six indicator variables - government, leaders/elites, followers, non-followers/bystanders, outsider group, and environment - to detect the likelihood of genocide within a given case study. Four cases were chosen - Kenya, Nigeria, Yemen, and Ethiopia - and analyzed using the indicator variables to …

Enterprise Business Alignment Using Quality Function Deployment, Multivariate Data Analysis And Business Modeling Tools, Diala Gammoh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation proposes two novel ideas to enhance the business strategy alignment to customer needs. The proposed business alignment clock is a new illustration to the relationships between customer requirements, business strategies, capabilities and processes. To line up the clock and reach the needed alignment for the enterprise, a proposed clock mechanism is introduced. The mechanism integrates the Enterprise Business Architecture (EBA) with the House of Quality (HoQ). The relationship matrix inside the body of the house is defined using multivariate data analysis techniques to accurately measure the strength of the relationships rather than defining them subjectively. A statistical tool, …

Episodic Memory Model For Embodied Conversational Agents, Miguel Elvir

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Embodied Conversational Agents (ECA) form part of a range of virtual characters whose intended purpose include engaging in natural conversations with human users. While works in literature are ripe with descriptions of attempts at producing viable ECA architectures, few authors have addressed the role of episodic memory models in conversational agents. This form of memory, which provides a sense of autobiographic record-keeping in humans, has only recently been peripherally integrated into dialog management tools for ECAs. In our work, we propose to take a closer look at the shared characteristics of episodic memory models in recent examples from the field. …

Multi-Modal Reading For Low Level Readers, Jamie O'Neal

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The value of this research hinges on the idea that exchanging illustrations for descriptive text can provide appropriate schemas for students with reading difficulties and thereby improve their comprehension and vocabulary acquisition. The research in this dissertation is based on theories and earlier research in the fields of psychology, education, reading, and narratology. A review of these fields offers a variety of perspectives on the processes involved in reading and comprehension. These processes range from the physical systems involved in reading (e.g., early childhood development, eye movement) to the psychological systems, which include cognitive load theory as well as image …

A Screen Of One's Own The Tpec And Feminist Technological Textuality In The 21st Century, Amy J. Barnickel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I analyze the 20th century text, A Room of One's Own, by Virginia Woolf (2005), and I engage with Woolf's concept of a woman's need for a room of her own in which she can be free to think for herself, study, write, or pursue other interests away from the oppression of patriarchal societal expectations and demands. Through library-based research, I identify four screens in Woolf's work through which she viewed and critiqued culture, and I use these screens to reconceptualize "a room of one's own" in 21st Century terms. I determine that the new "room" is …

The Influence Of High School Dramatic Arts Classes On Remedial Readers On The Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, Michelle Backel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This is the age of accountability in public schools. The public wants to know that the schools are producing high achieving students who are ready for the future. With this push for accountability the rise in standardized testing should not be surprising. However, it is difficult to test an abstract course such as the arts. With the increase of standardized testing and the recent tough economic times, it is no wonder that performing arts classes in our public schools are often the first to be pared down or dissolved (Mendels, 2008). It is the presiding feeling that these courses, while …

But This Is What I See; This Is What I See: Re-Imagining Gendered Subjectivity Through The Woman Artist In Phelps, Johnstone, And Woolf, Heather Wayne

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Since the publication of Laura Mulvey's influential article 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,' in which she identifies the pervasive presence of the male gaze in Hollywood cinema, scholars have sought to account for the female spectator in her paradigm of gendered vision. This thesis suggests that women writers have long debated the problem of the female spectator through literary depictions of the female artist. Women writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries'including Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Edith Johnstone, and Virginia Woolf'recognized the power of the woman artist to undermine the trope of the male gazing subject and a passive female object. …

Designing For Multicultural And International Audiences: Creating Culturally-Intelligent Visual Rhetoric And Overcoming Ethnocen, Bridget Moore

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Various cultures interpret visual rhetoric differently; therefore, technical communicators must adjust their rhetoric accordingly by creating effective visual rhetoric for their international and multicultural audiences. Although there is a great deal of research in the field regarding how to create effective visual rhetorical rhetoric, this research often fails to take into international and multicultural audiences into consideration. Many visual rhetoric solutions proposed in technical communication involve 'catch all' approaches that do little to communicate to people of non-Western cultures and can even serve to offend or confuse international and multicultural audiences. These solutions are generated by a globalization mindset, but …

Source Representation And Framing In Childhood Immunization Communication, April Raneri

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research has indicated a strong interest in knowing who is being represented and how information is being represented in the communication about childhood immunization. This study uses a two-part analysis to look at source representation and framing in childhood immunization communication. A quantitative analysis of articles from the New York Times and USA Today were examined for their source representation, their use of fear appeals, through the Extended Parallel Processing Model (EPPM), and the use of frames, through the application of Prospect Theory. A qualitative semiotic analysis was conducted on 36 images that appeared on www.yahoo.com and www.google.com to find …

The Effects Of Power Distance, And Gender On The Use Of Nonverbal Immediacy Behaviors In Symmetrical And Asymmetrical Power Cond, Vincent Santilli

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Previous cross-cultural research in nonverbal immediacy indicates that nonverbal immediacy behavior varies across cultures, and some researchers have suggested that power distance might serve as a moderating variable, however no research has systematically set out to determine whether that is the case. This study assessed the perceived use of nonverbal immediacy under symmetric and asymmetric power conditions, as well as gender, in three cultures: Brazil, Kenya, and the United States. Quantitative data was collected from 527 participants who completed a nonverbal immediacy measure and an individual power distance measure under either a symmetric or an asymmetric power condition. Results related …

Perceptions On The Social Status Of Papiamentu In Contrast To Its Offical Significance In Aruba And Curacao, Keisha Wiel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many creole languages have been studied by linguists and anthropologists alike in order to gain a better understanding as to their formations and social status within their respective cultures. Theories such as the Language Bioprogram hypothesis created by Derek Bickerton researched explicitly the genesis of creoles, primarily the creoles in Guyana and Hawaii. Although many creole languages are the main vernaculars of many cultures, they are often seen as having a lower status than the official language, usually a European language. Papiamentu, a language spoken in Aruba, Curacao, and Bonaire, has carried a prestige that many other creoles do not …

Understanding Terrorism: Religious & Political Dimensions, Christopher Cusano

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Terrorism in the twenty-first century has had one of greatest effects on the status quo of international relations, peace and war. It has become the 'specter' of our era and in many instances, it has been referred to as the predominant threat of modern civilization. Furthermore, it has the potential to drastically change the world we live in. For these reasons it has rightfully earned our attention and focus. Many efforts to understand terrorism have fallen short of recognizing the underlying causes. In many cases, acts of terror have either been of purely political motivation or have had socioeconomic conditions …

The Impact Of Universal Design For Learning-Representation Practices On Concept Maps And The Development Of Quality Scientific Explanations, Lisa A. Finnegan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this action research project was to determine how my practice of implementing Universal Design for Learning-Representation (UDL-R) principles influenced my students’ understanding of content and enhanced their ability to organize their knowledge using concept maps. A secondary purpose of this action research project was to determine if student created concept maps served as a useful tool to enrich students’ written scientific explanations. Students in this study completed concept maps and wrote explanations about adaptations before and after participating in lessons enriched with UDL-R principles that included the use of multimedia sources, website searches, and trade books. The …

Issues In Validity Generalization The Criterion Problem, Raquel Hodge

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Schmidt and Hunter‟s validity generalization model poses seven sources of error variance affecting validation studies. Of the seven sources of error variance, only four sources have been tested. This study looks at an additional source of error variance, the difference between studies in the amount and kind of criterion contamination and deficiency, as proposed by Schmidt and Hunter. The current study proposes a method of evaluating criterion contamination and deficiency in criterion measures in order to minimize their effects on the relationship between criterion and predictor measures. Two unique criteria are used including a traditional subjective measure of current performance …

The Academic Word List Reorganized For Spanish-Speaking English Language Learners, Robert W. Bushong Ii

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Published in TESOL Quarterly a decade ago, the Academic Word List (AWL) (Coxhead, 2000) has become increasingly influential in the field of TESOL. With more than 82% of the AWL comprised of words of Latin and Greek, much of this important list logically consists of English-Spanish cognates because Spanish originated from Latin. In order to serve Spanishspeaking English language learners (SSELLs) better, their teachers need to know which AWL words are cognates. Using published sources and linguistic analysis of the 570 items in the AWL, the research in this thesis has resulted in a newly reorganized AWL divided into four …

Developing The Individual To Strengthen The Whole: The Application Of Viewpoints Training To Impact The Social Cognitive Development Of Actors In A High School Ensemble, Elizabeth Horn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research explores the application of Viewpoints and Composition training with a cast of high school students to measure changes in the social cognitive development (SCD) of individuals and the collective group. The research centers on the writing of Michael F. Mascolo and Deborah Margolis, which takes a coactive approach to the relationship between one's social cognitive development and how it is manifested in his or her actions within a social group. Using this framework, the researcher assesses the personality types within the cast and analyzes how utilizing Viewpoints training creates shifts within these personalities. The researcher approaches this study …

Sharing The True Colors: An Exploration Of Theatre Created By Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, And Transgender Youth, Nicholas Bazo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

True Colors: Out Youth Theater at The Theater Offensive is a Boston based program that focuses its theatrical and social mission on engaging Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered (GLBT) at-risk, youth and the community that surrounds them. Through the process of generating an original touring production, True Colors employs theatre as a tool for personal, social, and artistic expression, empowerment, and activism. The program's balance of both process and product focused goals creates an environment of multifaceted engagement and provides an example of how art can thrive in a structure of youth outreach. Though directors and facilitators guide the process …

Central Florida Future, Vol. 41 No. 90, November 23, 2009

Central Florida Future

UCF earns spot at bowl game 49-0; Service to give rides to students; Education bill will improve grants, loans; Weezer to play free show; Some push for new sign design.

Central Florida Future, Vol. 41 No. 71, September 10, 2009

Central Florida Future

UCF wants to end cans; Uncover Thursdays; The hole deal; Plus: Elijah Wood counts down 'til 9; Fowler than the Rest: Animals that don' deserve the respect; Transfer students set record for fall '09; Deployed alumna utilizes degree as group historian; Late start didn't deter turnout.

University Of Central Florida Undergraduate Catalog, 2009 - 2010, University Of Central Florida

UCF Catalogs

No abstract provided.

A Burkean Method For Analyzing Environmental Rhetoric, John Stewart

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The work of Kenneth Burke provides a method of rhetorical analysis that is useful in terms of bringing features of texts to the surface that are not readily apparent, such as how they produce identification in their audiences, and in revealing rhetorical factors related to but outside the text, for example the authors' motives. Burke's work is wide-ranging and open to many interpretations, so it can be difficult to apply. This study condenses some of his more important concepts into a simplified method which has several practical applications; it focuses on how Burke's theories can be applied to analyzing environmental …

Bloudy Tygrisses: Murderous Women In Early Modern English Drama And Popular Literature, Alexandra Hill

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines artistic and literary images of murderous women in popular print published in sixteenth and seventeenth-century England. The construction of murderous women in criminal narratives, published between 1558 and 1625 in pamphlet, ballad, and play form, is examined in the context of contemporary historical records and cultural discourse. Chapter One features a literature review of the topic in recent scholarship. Chapter Two, comprised of two subsections, discusses representations of early modern women in contemporary literature and criminal archives. The subsections in Chapter Two examine early modern treatises, sermons, and essays concerning the nature of women, the roles and …

Cultural Competence In Long Term Care : A Qualitative Phenomenological Study Of Nursing Home Administrators' Knowledge And Perception Of Cultural Competence, Sashai A. Green

HIM 1990-2015

This qualitative phenomenological study examined central Florida's nursing home administrators' knowledge and perception of cultural competence and how they perceive that their knowledge and perceptions impact residents, families, and healthcare. The theoretical framework for this study was explained through Campinha-Bacote's interdisciplinary model of The Process of Cultural Competence in the Delivery of Healthcare Services. The theoretical framework was used to guide research questions, and individual interview questions to obtain nursing home administrator's knowledge and perception of cultural competence. The study explored the level of cultural competence reported by nursing home administrators, their individual perception of cultural competence, their degree of …