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Alexander: A Dive Into Identity, Inspiration, And Release Of The Creative Self, Alyssa Garoogian Jan 2020

Alexander: A Dive Into Identity, Inspiration, And Release Of The Creative Self, Alyssa Garoogian

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Alexander is a story of overcoming the fear of personal artistic expression. Alexander is the son of an affluent family who was found to have musical talent at a young age. Alex grows to enjoy music, but rote exercises alone begin to disillusion the promising musician. Regardless, Alexander dutifully practices piano exercises daily, bored by the lack of creative stimulation but afraid to openly admit it. After an accidental music note sparks his imagination, Alexander escapes into fantasy: a colorful visualization of the original music he creates. Within this fantasy, a warm, supportive community leads Alexander to his most significant …

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Improving Traffic Safety And Efficiency By Adaptive Signal Control Systems Based On Deep Reinforcement Learning, Yaobang Gong Jan 2020

Improving Traffic Safety And Efficiency By Adaptive Signal Control Systems Based On Deep Reinforcement Learning, Yaobang Gong

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

As one of the most important Active Traffic Management strategies, Adaptive Traffic Signal Control (ATSC) helps improve traffic operation of signalized arterials and urban roads by adjusting the signal timing to accommodate real-time traffic conditions. Recently, with the rapid development of artificial intelligence, many researchers have employed deep reinforcement learning (DRL) algorithms to develop ATSCs. However, most of them are not practice-ready. The reasons are two-fold: first, they are not developed based on real-world traffic dynamics and most of them require the complete information of the entire traffic system. Second, their impact on traffic safety is always a concern by …

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Interactions Between Humans, Virtual Agent Characters And Virtual Avatars, Tamara Griffith Jan 2020

Interactions Between Humans, Virtual Agent Characters And Virtual Avatars, Tamara Griffith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Simulations allow people to experience events as if they were happening in the real world in a way that is safer and less expensive than live training. Despite improvements in realism in simulated environments, one area that still presents a challenge is interpersonal interactions. The subtleties of what makes an interaction rich are difficult to define. We may never fully understand the complexity of human interchanges, however there is value in building on existing research into how individuals react to virtual characters to inform future investments. Virtual characters can either be automated through computational processes, referred to as agents, or …

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Drug Availability And Disparities In Arrests, Robert Hellmuth Jan 2020

Drug Availability And Disparities In Arrests, Robert Hellmuth

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Racial disparities in arrests in the United States are well-documented. Particularly, young black males are arrested at inordinately higher rates than other demographics. In this research, we investigated whether an unresearched variable—drug availability—could explain these discrepancies found in the US criminal justice system. Research suggests race is an extralegal (unrelated to the law) factor associated with arrest rates. Until this study, no research has investigated whether an individuals' access to illegal drugs might be related to likelihood of being arrested. If illicit substances might be more easily obtained by individuals of a specific race, could this explain inequalities in arrest …

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Experimental And Numerical Investigations Of Granular Dynamics In Microgravity, Stephanie Jarmak Jan 2020

Experimental And Numerical Investigations Of Granular Dynamics In Microgravity, Stephanie Jarmak

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

During the first stages of planet formation small particles (~0.1 – 1 µm) in the protoplanetary disk collide at low relative velocities (less than 1 m/s) and tend to aggregate into cm-size "pebbles" through a combination of electrostatic interactions and gravitational streaming instabilities. Particles in this size regime also compose a layer of regolith on small, airless bodies that evolves under conditions very different than those on Earth. Characterizing the response of regolith to low-energy impacts in a microgravity environment is therefore critical to our understanding of the processes that lead to the formation of these objects and our ability …

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Incels And The Manosphere: Tracking Men's Movements Online, Annie Jones Jan 2020

Incels And The Manosphere: Tracking Men's Movements Online, Annie Jones

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Throughout history, men have responded to feminist progress with political backlash. Pre-internet men's groups used biological constructions of gender as a method of reinforcing patriarchal power by restricting the rights of women. Today, the same methods are used in a loose collection of men's rights groups online called 'the manosphere'. Within the manosphere, men who identify as involuntarily celibate (incels) blame women for their perceived loss of masculine power. Some incels have taken their anti-feminist backlash offline through acts of mass violence, suggesting an emergent need for social science research into the incel identity. This paper outlines the theoretical orientation …

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Factors Related To Physical Education Course Enrollment At The Community College Level, Jennifer Katz Jan 2020

Factors Related To Physical Education Course Enrollment At The Community College Level, Jennifer Katz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

This study was designed to evaluate the factors related to Physical Education course enrollment at a predominately two-year state college operating under a community college model in the state of Florida as it pertains to enrollment declines in electives focused on health and wellness. The mixed-methods study included a survey of current students at the college (n =177) perceptions and reasons for enrolling in physical education classes. Further, a historical data analysis (n = 87,399) of students' institutional records was conducted to investigate the relationship between student success and physical education. Groups included those who took physical education courses and …

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Life Narratives As Technologies Of Self: Explorations Of Agency In A Son Of The Forest And The Autobiography Of Malcolm X, Tiffanie Kelley Jan 2020

Life Narratives As Technologies Of Self: Explorations Of Agency In A Son Of The Forest And The Autobiography Of Malcolm X, Tiffanie Kelley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

In A Son of the Forest (1829) and The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965), the narrators describe their most formative experiences in relation to addiction and their respective religions. Though these narratives emerged at different periods (almost a century apart) in North American history, there are considerable similarities between them. As William Apess describes his struggle with alcoholism, he also appropriates both the language of popular literature and print culture in the Methodist movement, and in turn criticizes the white supremacist ideals ingrained in early American culture. Similarly, Malcolm X details his experience with substance abuse while criticizing white supremacist …

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An Investigation In To Resume Construction And Hiring Decisions: Perceptions Of Black Womens Natural Hair, Cassandra Kroon Jan 2020

An Investigation In To Resume Construction And Hiring Decisions: Perceptions Of Black Womens Natural Hair, Cassandra Kroon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

This research examined how black women's natural hair was perceived in a professional setting. Expectancy violation theory (EVT) suggests that people create patterns of communication but that these patterns can be disrupted when a person violates the established expectations. The theory was applied to perceptions of black women's natural hair in a professional setting. An experimental survey was used to assess whether participants viewed natural hair in the workplace as a positive or negative expectancy violation. Participants were asked to view a resume and complete Likert-type scale items to evaluate the resume. The items measured the candidate's professionalism, likeability, attractiveness …

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Multi-Parameter Optical Metrology: Quantum And Classical, Walker Larson Jan 2020

Multi-Parameter Optical Metrology: Quantum And Classical, Walker Larson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The insights offered by quantum mechanics to the field of optical metrology are many-fold, with non-classical states of light themselves used to make sensors that surpass the sensitivity of sensors using classical states of light. Unfortunately, this advantage, referred to often as "super-sensitivity" is notoriously fragile, and even the slightest experimental imperfections may greatly reduce the efficacy of the non-classical sensors, sometimes completely obviating their advantage. In my thesis I have shown that the performance of an otherwise ideal two-photon interferometer, which exploits entanglement between photons to make super-sensitive measurements of phase, is crippled by the slightest introduction of decoherence …

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Forests And Farmers: A Landscape Approach To Settlement Pattern Analysis In The Bolivian Amazon, Thomas Lee Jan 2020

Forests And Farmers: A Landscape Approach To Settlement Pattern Analysis In The Bolivian Amazon, Thomas Lee

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The Llanos de Mojos of the Bolivian Amazon is a domesticated landscape with a long history of management by pre-Columbian communities. This project uses a landscape approach to interpret the settlement patterns of pre-Columbian raised field farmers in west central Mojos. The pre-Columbian landscape was reconstructed by mapping the distribution of three types of landscape features: forest islands, raised agricultural fields and water systems (rivers, streams & wetlands). Previous research has identified four types of patterned clustering or 'constellations' of these landscape features in west central Mojos. These constellations and the immediate area of the landscape that surrounds them afforded …

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Video Content Understanding Using Text, Amir Mazaheri Jan 2020

Video Content Understanding Using Text, Amir Mazaheri

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The rise of the social media and video streaming industry provided us a plethora of videos and their corresponding descriptive information in the form of concepts (words) and textual video captions. Due to the mass amount of available videos and the textual data, today is the best time ever to study the Computer Vision and Machine Learning problems related to videos and text. In this dissertation, we tackle multiple problems associated with the joint understanding of videos and text. We first address the task of multi-concept video retrieval, where the input is a set of words as concepts, and the …

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Characterization Of Left Ventricular Volumes And Ejection Fraction In Patients With A Left Ventricular Assist Device, Viswajith Siruvallur Vasudevan Jan 2020

Characterization Of Left Ventricular Volumes And Ejection Fraction In Patients With A Left Ventricular Assist Device, Viswajith Siruvallur Vasudevan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

In the treatment of heart patients, as a bridge to recovery, the challenge currently in using a continuous-flow left ventricular assist device (LVAD), is to provide a method to monitor the recovery of the heart. This dissertation addresses the hypothesis that continuous monitoring of the ejection fraction of a patient implanted with an LVAD should be to examine the progress of the patient without the need for excessive in vivo measurements. Also, the ejection fraction can be used to provide a control mechanism for the pump depending on the requirements of each patient. In this dissertation, the left ventricle, in …

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Increasing Accuracy Performance Through Optimal Feature Extraction Algorithms, Genevieve Sapijaszko Jan 2020

Increasing Accuracy Performance Through Optimal Feature Extraction Algorithms, Genevieve Sapijaszko

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

This research developed models and techniques to improve the three key modules of popular recognition systems: preprocessing, feature extraction, and classification. Improvements were made in four key areas: processing speed, algorithm complexity, storage space, and accuracy. The focus was on the application areas of the face, traffic sign, and speaker recognition. In the preprocessing module of facial and traffic sign recognition, improvements were made through the utilization of grayscaling and anisotropic diffusion. In the feature extraction module, improvements were made in two different ways; first, through the use of mixed transforms and second through a convolutional neural network (CNN) that …

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A Legacy Of Community And Mourning: Aids & Hiv In Central Florida, 1983-1993, Andrew Weeks Jan 2020

A Legacy Of Community And Mourning: Aids & Hiv In Central Florida, 1983-1993, Andrew Weeks

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Given the primacy of Florida, and in particular Orlando, as an urban center with an above average rate of AIDS and HIV, this study examines how the outbreak of a deadly disease can affect a community. Complicating the response to this scourge, those who were most at-risk were marginalized groups such as those in the LGBTQ community, drug users, and often people of color. As a result, those who occupied positions of political power felt little incentive to curb the epidemic and mocked it by deeming it "the gay disease." As a result of neglect and the lack of investment …

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Party For One: A Monologue Of The Importance Of Oneself Through Book Arts, Jacob Zhefu Wan Jan 2020

Party For One: A Monologue Of The Importance Of Oneself Through Book Arts, Jacob Zhefu Wan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

This thesis explores the importance of oneself through sexuality, context, and introspection in the art of book arts. I work with memories, imagination, and consciousness in the form of book arts to express the importance of the self from my personal experience. Through the use of colors, materials, spatial compositions, and other visual components to manifest the content of my art, I want to illuminate the awareness of otherness including gender issues and an individual's vulnerability. Playing with the texts of Chinese and English, I intend to create narratives with languages, images, and other mixed media. In addition to crafting …

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Transient Mid-Ir Nonlinear Refraction In Air And Nonlinear Optical Properties Of Organometallic Complexes, Salimeh Tofighi Jan 2020

Transient Mid-Ir Nonlinear Refraction In Air And Nonlinear Optical Properties Of Organometallic Complexes, Salimeh Tofighi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

This dissertation explores two main topics: Transient nonlinear refraction of air in Mid-IR spectral range and nonlinear optical properties of organometallic complexes. For seeing a vibrational and rotational Raman response the molecule should be Raman active. The first requirement for being a Raman active molecule is that the polarizability of molecule must be anisotropic. Linear symmetric molecules do have rotational Raman spectra. Not all the vibrational mode can be excited by a femtosecond pulse. The pulsewidth of our excitation beam should be less than the half of the vibration period. In this dissertation my excitation pulsewidth is not short enough …

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Heat Transfer And Correlations Of Jet Array Impingement With Flat And Pimple-Dimpled Plate, Husam Nizar Ahmad Zawati Jan 2020

Heat Transfer And Correlations Of Jet Array Impingement With Flat And Pimple-Dimpled Plate, Husam Nizar Ahmad Zawati

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

This study compares and analyses the heat transfer between a novel jet array impingement configuration (designated as NPR) and a baseline jet orifice plate (flat) in a maximum crossflow scheme. Both jet plates feature inline arrays of 20 x 26 circular air jets that orthogonally impinge on a flat target surface consisting of 20 segments, parallel to the jet plates. The NPR plate consists of staggered semi-spherical pimples (protrusions) and dimples (imprints) with a jet-to-pimple diameter ratio (Dj,p/Dp) of 0.07 and jet length-to-pimple diameter ratio (L/Dj,p) of ~ 1 with a protrusion ratio (tp/Dj,p) of 2.78. The dimples (imprints) have …

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Transforming English As A Second Language Story Readers Into Storytellers: Examining Learners' Experiences In A Video Book Trailer Project, Shizhong Zhang Jan 2020

Transforming English As A Second Language Story Readers Into Storytellers: Examining Learners' Experiences In A Video Book Trailer Project, Shizhong Zhang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Reading is a challenging task for English as a Second Language (ESL) students (Pang, 2008; Nassaji, 2011). Instructors and researchers have explored various ways to promote ESL students' reading development. Since research on story-based pedagogy has shown benefits in the area of language development, stories can be used to promote ESL reading development. Furthermore, research on Digital Booktalk shows that when students engaged in after-reading video production activities they found a new purpose in reading (Gunter & Kenny, 2012). Additionally, digital storytelling (DST) research has revealed that DST can foster learner motivation and autonomy (Hafner & Miller, 2011; Kim, 2014). …

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Learning Transferable Representations For Visual Recognition, Yang Zhang Jan 2020

Learning Transferable Representations For Visual Recognition, Yang Zhang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

In the last half-decade, a new renaissance of machine learning originates from the applications of convolutional neural networks to visual recognition tasks. It is believed that a combination of big curated data and novel deep learning techniques can lead to unprecedented results. However, the increasingly large training data is still a drop in the ocean compared with scenarios in the wild. In this literature, we focus on learning transferable representation in the neural networks to ensure the models stay robust, even given different data distributions. We present three exemplar topics in three chapters, respectively: zero-shot learning, domain adaptation, and generalizable …

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The Precariat And The Pandemic: Assessing The Wellbeing Of Metro Orlando's Hospitality Workers During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Caroline Austin Jan 2020

The Precariat And The Pandemic: Assessing The Wellbeing Of Metro Orlando's Hospitality Workers During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Caroline Austin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

In 2018, the Orlando metro area was visited by 126.1 million tourists, a new record which the area has broken for its eighth year (Sanata 2019). As the number of visitors to the area continues to rise, so has the number of people employed by the hospitality industry which currently makes up the largest sector of the area's job market, employing 280,000 workers as of December 2019 (Bureau of Labor Statistics). Consistent growth in various insecure and unstable jobs of this kind have prompted the development of theory regarding the emergence of a new class known as the precariat. The …

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The Relationship Of Professional School Counselors' Self-Efficacy And Motivation To Their Counseling Service Delivery, Jon Borland Jan 2020

The Relationship Of Professional School Counselors' Self-Efficacy And Motivation To Their Counseling Service Delivery, Jon Borland

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between professional school counselors' perceived self-efficacy of mental health counseling skills (as measured by the School-Based Mental Health Survey; developed by A. D. Waliski & A. Barthel; adapted and published by Carlson & Kees, 2013) and level of situational motivation (as measured by the Situational Motivation Scale; Guay et al., 2000) to the extent of counseling services provided to students (as measured by the School Counselor Activity Rating Scale; Scarborough, 2005). Based on the principles of Social Cognitive Theory (SCT; Bandura, 1986) and Self-Determination Theory (SDT; Ryan & Deci, 2017), …

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Online Communities For Information Sharing And Mutual Support For Health Professionals, Meghan Budvarson Jan 2020

Online Communities For Information Sharing And Mutual Support For Health Professionals, Meghan Budvarson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

This study was conducted to explore the use of online communities for information sharing and mutual support by health professionals, in this case, oncology social workers (OSW). The characteristic traits of individuals using online listservs and reasons for use is largely under researched. The main objective of this research is to explore the nature of social exchange and use of a professional online community that occurs on the Social Work Oncology Network (SWON) listserv and the characteristics of those OSWs using the listserv. Using a researcher developed survey, associations between characteristics of listserv users and reasons for use were explored. …

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Early Host Defense Mechanisms Against La Crosse Virus Infection, Maria A. Cruz Zamora Jan 2020

Early Host Defense Mechanisms Against La Crosse Virus Infection, Maria A. Cruz Zamora

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Given the importance of innate defense mechanisms in the skin, we have examined the interactions of the arbovirus La Crosse virus (LACV) with serum factors that serve as a first line of antiviral defense, and the outcome of LACV infection of human keratinocytes, one of the main cell types present at viral entry. Incubation of LACV derived from insect cells (I-LACV) with normal human serum in vitro did not result in neutralization, but instead stabilized LACV virions and enhanced infectivity. Enhanced infectivity was also seen with heat inactivated serum devoid of complement activity and with serum from a range of …

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A Holistic Approach To Asses The Determinants Of Travel-Tracking Mobile Application Acceptance, Marcos De Medeiros Jan 2020

A Holistic Approach To Asses The Determinants Of Travel-Tracking Mobile Application Acceptance, Marcos De Medeiros

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

This thesis investigated factors affecting travelers' intention to adopt a new type of travel-focused mobile application named travel-tracking mobile applications (TTMA). In general, TTMAs enable travelers to act as travel-posters (i.e., those who use the application to record and post/share their travel routes and travel-related information and experiences), and/or travel-takers (i.e., those who use the application to access, read, and follow the travel routes and other travel-related information and experiences posted/shared by travel-posters). By adopting an extended version of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2 (UTAUT2) framework (Venkatesh et al., 2012), the first part of the …

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Modeling Flow And Nitrate Transport In Karst Groundwater Basins, Yuan Gao Jan 2020

Modeling Flow And Nitrate Transport In Karst Groundwater Basins, Yuan Gao

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Understanding the groundwater flow in karst aquifers and the effect of best management practices (BMPs) on nitrate decrease in spring discharge is critical for effective management and protection of karst water resources. However, the control on the conduit network's impacts on spring discharge and nitrate concentration is not fully understood, and the cumulative effects of BMP on reducing nitrate in karst groundwater systems have not been evaluated at the basin scale. In this dissertation, a coupled Conduit Flow Process (CFPv2) and Conduit Mass Three-Dimensional (CMT3D) model was applied to evaluate the biosorption-activated media (BAM)-based BMP on nitrate removal in Silver …

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Viscoelastic Analysis Of High Strain Composites For Deployable Structures In Space Applications, Andrew Gomez-Delrio Jan 2020

Viscoelastic Analysis Of High Strain Composites For Deployable Structures In Space Applications, Andrew Gomez-Delrio

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Thin-ply composite laminates capable of enduring high strains are currently under investigation for compliant deployable spacecraft structures. Deployable structures such as booms fabricated from these materials can be flattened and coiled to high curvatures, achieving a compact configuration for stowage. Once in orbit, they are released with minimal actuation for deployment, allowing the operational geometry to be recovered. Previous studies have shown that the viscoelastic properties of the composite epoxy matrix can negatively impact final shape accuracy due to stress relaxation during stowage. In addition, since the strain energy stored is relied upon for deployment, considerable relaxation can potentially result …

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Investigating The Inclusiveness Of Stem Courses And Reducing Barriers By Using The Universal Design For Learning Framework, Westley James Jan 2020

Investigating The Inclusiveness Of Stem Courses And Reducing Barriers By Using The Universal Design For Learning Framework, Westley James

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Students with disabilities are in postsecondary STEM courses and degree programs, but only a few studies have investigated how STEM courses can be designed to support students with disabilities. We began addressing this gap by interviewing students with diagnoses characterized by variations in executive functions about their experiences in postsecondary STEM courses. We analyzed the interviews through a social relational perspective of disability as this allowed us to identify how course structures disable students from effective engagement with STEM courses. We found STEM courses present heightened barriers compared to non-STEM courses, with common barriers including a lack of resources and …

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Two Pink Lines: Exploring Florida's Pregnancy-Associated Intimate Partner Homicides, Sonya Spence Jan 2020

Two Pink Lines: Exploring Florida's Pregnancy-Associated Intimate Partner Homicides, Sonya Spence

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Pregnancy-associated Homicides (PAHs) are homicides committed while a woman is pregnant, and recent reports from Florida's Pregnancy-associated Mortality Review (PAMR) suggest that it is a leading cause of unnatural deaths for pregnant women. However, a study has not examined the motives, characteristics, and underlying factors behind these homicides. Therefore, this study explored Florida's Pregnancy-associated Intimate Partner Homicides (PAIPHs) using a sample of women that were reportedly pregnant at the time of their mortality (n=33), as well as a comparison group of not-pregnant women (n=33). To conduct the study, reported homicide data from news sources, police reports, and other public records …

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Removal Of Heavy Metals From Landfill Leachate Using Electrospun Polyelectrolyte Complex Fiber-Laminated Ultrafiltration Membrane, Amirsalar Rabbani Esfahani Jan 2020

Removal Of Heavy Metals From Landfill Leachate Using Electrospun Polyelectrolyte Complex Fiber-Laminated Ultrafiltration Membrane, Amirsalar Rabbani Esfahani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Ultrafiltration (UF) is a low-pressure membrane process that yields higher permeate flux and saves significant operating costs compared to NF/RO. However, UF has not been applied as a primary method for landfill leachate treatment due to its large pore size. This research investigated the removal of heavy metals from landfill leachate using an UF membrane laminated with fiber mats produced from electrospinning of a polyelectrolyte complex. In this research, we modified the surface of the UF membrane with two polyelectrolytes including Polyacrylic Acid (PAA) and Polyallylamine Hydrochloride (PAH). The removal of heavy metals including Pb, Cd, and Cu from water …

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