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Democratization As A Peacekeeping Strategy: A Comparative Analysis Of The United States And The European Union, Gabrielle Orphali Jan 2021

Democratization As A Peacekeeping Strategy: A Comparative Analysis Of The United States And The European Union, Gabrielle Orphali

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The purpose of this study is to determine whether democratization should be utilized as a method of peacekeeping. This is determined by studying both the United States and the European Union's efforts to spread democracy globally. The historic framework is studied to understand the unique perspective each body has formed in defining democracy, and the method through which it should be spread. The definition of power, democracy, and the state are studied. The concepts are applied to the case studies of Iraq and Turkey in order to make a determination.

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Reviving The Treason Charge, Hannah Snyder Jan 2021

Reviving The Treason Charge, Hannah Snyder

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Can Americans who join terrorist organizations and fight against United States troops be charged with treason? Does the January 6th riot in Washington D.C. constitute “levying war”? Despite ongoing acts of levying war, and providing aid and comfort to enemies, the United States has not had a treason conviction since the 1950's. Courts and prosecutors actively avoid the charge, leading to a substantial lack of case law and legal guidance. Today, legal scholars disagree on how the Treason Clause should be applied. In this thesis, I discuss the disappearance of treason, and analyze opposing views on how the treason charge …

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Antihaitianismo Analyzed: The Development Of A Community And Underlying Social Issues In The Dominican Republic, Raphael J. Merritt Jan 2021

Antihaitianismo Analyzed: The Development Of A Community And Underlying Social Issues In The Dominican Republic, Raphael J. Merritt

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Discrimination manifests itself in an unending variety of forms and can be observed in nearly every society the world has seen up to the present. What is often overlooked, however, are the ways in which discriminatory behaviors form as a result of complex history and cultural relations. This is no less clear than it is with the case of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, two countries that share a small island in the Caribbean. This thesis places its focus in breaking down the complex history and attitudes that have, in turn, led to the creation and espousing of antihaitianismo in …

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Prosthetic Identity: Understanding The Relationship Between The Self, Prosthetic Design, And Society, Remy Marasa Jan 2021

Prosthetic Identity: Understanding The Relationship Between The Self, Prosthetic Design, And Society, Remy Marasa

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This manuscript will explore the intersection of perceived disability due to limb loss and self-identity. The research is centered around the work in the Limbitless Solutions laboratory, where clinical research is providing children with customized prostheses. This research applies a focus on how customization can lead to positive identity construction. By facilitating active engagement in the design process a stronger connection is formed between the participant and their prosthetic device.

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For Consumption: Observations Of Paint, Food, & Culture, Annette Tojar Jan 2021

For Consumption: Observations Of Paint, Food, & Culture, Annette Tojar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

This thesis is a visual documentation of my story. In it, I discuss the urgency which drives the creation of my work. Unable to speak the same language, my grandmother and I used food and paint as means of communication, thus instilling my love of food, my desire to paint, and my need to investigate my Cuban culture. As a former professional pastry chef, my understanding of the physicality of food informs how it is portrayed on a two-dimensional surface for visual indulgence. I explore loss, objectification, transculturation, and the pandemic through images of food, while experimenting with the properties …

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Captivating Bubbles: Creating Lasting Children's Stories Using Animation, Rhythm And Life Experience, Ronald Hargrove Jan 2021

Captivating Bubbles: Creating Lasting Children's Stories Using Animation, Rhythm And Life Experience, Ronald Hargrove

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

This work examines the inclusion of social values in children's stories and the visual and auditory techniques implemented in animation. It explores personal encounters and experiences in my life which shape the content and mission of my story. This work also touches on my role in presenting family and social values to children using rhyme as style and animation as a medium. Furthermore, in discussing my animated film, this work will delve into the decision to incorporate rhythmic poetry, evaluate the composition of the film's score and touch on the purpose of visual devices. Finally, this work will highlight the …

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Rules For Living And How I Began To Break Them: The Influence Of Creative Practice And Cognitive Dissonance On Personal Growth, Timothy Reid Jan 2021

Rules For Living And How I Began To Break Them: The Influence Of Creative Practice And Cognitive Dissonance On Personal Growth, Timothy Reid

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

I create experimental films and installations that challenge the belief system I inherited from well-intended people who believed they furnished me with the "right" answers, behaviors, and expectations for a good and proper life. Applying the theory of cognitive dissonance as a philosophical framework to this formative and enforced messaging helps me appreciate why it is so difficult to accept new information incongruent with one's previously held beliefs. Through parallel efforts of self-reflection, research, and creative practice, I have begun to reexamine my upbringing and the ensuing insecurities, contradictions, and feelings of hypocrisy they engendered. My work aspires to transform …

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Camp Lejeune Digital Community Archive Project: An Analysis Of Digital Public History Efforts To Achieve Social Justice For The Camp Lejeune Drinking Water Contamination 1999-2017, Michael Partain Jan 2021

Camp Lejeune Digital Community Archive Project: An Analysis Of Digital Public History Efforts To Achieve Social Justice For The Camp Lejeune Drinking Water Contamination 1999-2017, Michael Partain

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

This digital thesis seeks to evaluate the impact of the digitization of analog record archives in environmental justice activities for the Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune Community. The details of the Camp Lejeune contaminated drinking water issue are firmly rooted in the analog era of record keeping and were all but forgotten by the affected community when the base was listed as a National Priority site in 1989. However, government public health activities at the Agency of Toxic Substances and Disease Registry in the late 1990s and early 2000s resulted in the digitization of records from the military and the …

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From Screen To Shining Screen: Representations Of Youtube As A Democratic Platform For A Community Of Authentic Creators, Emily Tarvin Jan 2021

From Screen To Shining Screen: Representations Of Youtube As A Democratic Platform For A Community Of Authentic Creators, Emily Tarvin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

This dissertation analyzes representations of the social media platform YouTube, as described by its community and the company, in order to understand how the platform fits within American narratives of democratic technology. I argue that throughout different descriptions of YouTube, such as the corporate branding of the platform as democratic and the communal understanding of YouTube as outside of mainstream media, the language of democracy functions as a balancing act. The YouTube company, content creators, and regular viewers use democratic rhetoric to negotiate the ideals of community on the platform and capitalist endeavors, such as advertising and brand deals. I …

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Mechanical Properties And Spectral Vibrational Response Of Si-O-C With And Without Graphene Toughening, Anthony Vozza Jan 2021

Mechanical Properties And Spectral Vibrational Response Of Si-O-C With And Without Graphene Toughening, Anthony Vozza

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The mechanical behavior of silicon oxycarbide polymer derived ceramics (SiOC-PDC) without and with a graphene toughening phase was studied under uniaxial compressive load with zero dwell time and with 200 second dwell time step loading in combination with in-situ Raman spectroscopy to determine spectral vibrational response of SiOC under compressive stress. SiOC without and with graphene ceramic samples were produced through the replica templating technique. The compressive strengths of SiOC without and with a graphene toughening phase measured with zero dwell time was determined to be equal to 165.65 (SD 54.21) and 163 (SD 24.2) MPa, respectively, while compressive strengths …

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Long Short-Term Memory With Spin-Based Binary And Non-Binary Neurons, Meghana Reddy Vangala Jan 2021

Long Short-Term Memory With Spin-Based Binary And Non-Binary Neurons, Meghana Reddy Vangala

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Research in the field of neural networks has shown advancement in the device technology and machine learning application platforms of use. Some of the major applications of neural network prominent in recent scenarios include image recognition, machine translation, text classification and object categorization. With these advancements, there is a need for more energy-efficient and low area overhead circuits in the hardware implementations. Previous works have concentrated primarily on CMOS technology-based implementations which can face challenges of high energy consumption, memory wall, and volatility complications for standby modes. We herein developed a low-power and area-efficient hardware implementation for Long Short-Term Memory …

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Computational Study Of Target Gene Interactions - Enhancers And Micrornas, Amlan Talukder Jan 2021

Computational Study Of Target Gene Interactions - Enhancers And Micrornas, Amlan Talukder

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Gene expression is an essential mechanism for physical and mental development of human. Aberrant regulation of gene expression creates abnormality in human body than can lead to complicated diseases. Gene expression can be regulated at any stage from the chromatin unfolding stage to post-translation stage of protein. In this study, we focused on two important factors of gene expression regulation that participate in the gene expression process at the transcription and the post-transcriptional stages; enhancer-promoter interactions and miRNA-mRNA interactions. The enhancer-promoter interactions are difficult to detect due to the large distance between the enhancer and promoter region and cell-specific activity …

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Representative-Based Big Data Processing In Communications And Machine Learning, Mohsen Joneidi Jan 2021

Representative-Based Big Data Processing In Communications And Machine Learning, Mohsen Joneidi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The present doctoral dissertation focuses on representative-based processing proper for a big set of high-dimensional data. Compression and subset selection are considered as two main effective methods for representing a big set of data by a much smaller set of variables. Compressive sensing, matrix singular value decomposition, and tensor decomposition are employed as powerful mathematical tools to analyze the original data in terms of their representatives. Spectrum sensing is an important application of the developed theoretical analysis. In a cognitive radio network (CRN), primary users (PUs) coexist with secondary users (SUs). However, the secondary network aims to characterize PUs in …

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Evaluating Augmented Reality Tools For Physics Education, Corey Pittman Jan 2021

Evaluating Augmented Reality Tools For Physics Education, Corey Pittman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

While we are in the midst of a renaissance of interest in augmented reality (AR), there remain a small number of application domains that have seen significant development. One domain that often benefits from additional visualization capabilities is education, specifically physics and other sciences. This paper summarizes interviews with secondary school educators about their experience with AR and their most desired features. Three prototypes were created which were used to collect usability information from students and educators about their preferences for AR applications in their physics courses. Additionally, we introduce the concept of Environmental Integration, a novel method of defining …

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The Roles Of Groundwater Table In Catchment Hydrology, Lili Yao Jan 2021

The Roles Of Groundwater Table In Catchment Hydrology, Lili Yao

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The main goal of this dissertation research is to investigate catchment hydrological processes including infiltration and saturation excess runoff generation with consideration of groundwater table. For the infiltration process, an infiltration Péclet number was proposed to quantify the relative effects of gravity and capillary force on the evolution of infiltration capacity in the special case of the presence of a shallow water table, and a power law functional form of Time Compression Approximation was developed whose exponent was found to vary with the Péclet number. For the saturation excess runoff process, a new probability distribution model based on the SCS …

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On The Information Content In Unresolved Imaging, Zhean Shen Jan 2021

On The Information Content In Unresolved Imaging, Zhean Shen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Imaging is almost synonymous with optics. Imaging is the process of using light to form a tangible or visible representation, an imitation (imitari) of a material property. There are many situations, however, where one can only aspire to 'sense making' rather than forming an image per se. In other words, objects cannot be directly resolved by conventional intensity-based imaging, a situation commonly referred to as 'unresolved imaging'. However, there is still information retained in other properties of light, which can be exposed by other means. In this thesis I will discuss two typical situations: subwavelength and multiple scattering, which are …

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Strategies For Successful Mangrove Living Shoreline Stabilizations In Shallow Water Subtropical Estuaries, Rebecca Fillyaw Jan 2021

Strategies For Successful Mangrove Living Shoreline Stabilizations In Shallow Water Subtropical Estuaries, Rebecca Fillyaw

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Mangrove living shorelines are an effective alternative to hard-armoring, which combat erosion while also increasing habitat. To improve the success of future mangrove deployments, an experimental Rhizophora mangle living shoreline was deployed within Mosquito Lagoon, FL. A factorial design was used to test the impact of mangrove age, breakwater presence, and mangrove placement on mangrove survival and growth. Environmental factors were monitored to isolate the reason for mangrove mortalities. Mangrove age was represented by 3 developmental stages: "seedlings" at 11-months-old, "transitionals" at 23-months-old, and "adults" between 35 and 47-months-old. Mixed mangrove age groups were included to identify if seedling survival …

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It Happened Centuries Ago: Using Gis And Spatial Analysis To Map The Quilombo Dos Palmares, Charlotte Mills Jan 2021

It Happened Centuries Ago: Using Gis And Spatial Analysis To Map The Quilombo Dos Palmares, Charlotte Mills

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

In Brazil, the largest escaped slave community in the Americas incorporated multiple settlements into a united federation. This was Palmares, named for the palm forests where community members sheltered in the Captaincy of Pernambuco. Encompassing nine individual villages at its height in the mid-1600s, only one known settlement has been extensively studied by archaeologists. The remaining eight have not been definitively located. Through historiography, spatial analysis, and remote sensing techniques, the locations of the eight unknown sites of Palmares may be estimated using geographic information science. Introducing spatial analysis into the current body of Palmares literature offers new insights and …

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Social Media Use And Safe Sex Practices Among Chinese Gay Men, Hang Zheng Jan 2021

Social Media Use And Safe Sex Practices Among Chinese Gay Men, Hang Zheng

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

With the number of Chinese gay men affected by HIV rising annually and social media serving as popular information sources, this study aims to examine the information channels used by Chinese gay men to acquire safer sex knowledge and to test the effect of safer sex knowledge, information channel use, safe-sex communication with sexual partners on Chinese gay men's safer sex practices. Due to the sensitive topic and hard-to-reach population, a snowball sampling method was used to recruit eligible participants. Specifically, an online survey was designed and distributed to three LGBT-NGO-related WeChat groups. A total of 191 valid data points …

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Understanding The Mechanisms Of Surface Chemical Reactions By Tracking Unstable Intermediate Species, Md Afjal Khan Pathan Jan 2021

Understanding The Mechanisms Of Surface Chemical Reactions By Tracking Unstable Intermediate Species, Md Afjal Khan Pathan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The detection of intermediate species formed during surface chemical reactions is essential because it can provide critical information about the reaction mechanisms at surfaces and interfaces. Therefore, the overarching goal of this research was to understand the mechanisms of surface catalytic, photocatalytic, and photoinduced reactions by monitoring the intermediate species formed during these reactions. To understand the initial steps of the carbon monoxide hydrogenation reaction on two-dimensional (2D) MoS2 and TaS2 materials, temperature programmed desorption and reaction are employed. Large-area 2D-MoS2 and 2D-TaS2 were prepared on a Cu(111) substrate under ultra-high vacuum conditions via physical vapor deposition. The highly crystalline …

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Interactions Between Gold Nanoparticles And Immunoglobulin Isotypes, Rick Hassan Jan 2021

Interactions Between Gold Nanoparticles And Immunoglobulin Isotypes, Rick Hassan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Gold Nanoparticles have piqued interest for use in a wide range of diagnostic and therapeutic applications including biosensors, assays, vaccine development, drug delivery, and photothermal therapy. While extensive research has been conducted, the applications of gold nanoparticles have yet to see the same level of commercial success as well-established methods such as ELISA and lateral flow immunoassays. Studies analyzing the efficacy of gold nanoparticle technologies in vivo and in vitro provide seemingly conflicting results that reflect a further need for investigation into the biological response of gold nanoparticles. A large factor in the variation is the nature of the interaction …

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The Predictability Of Children Of Military Families' Levels Of Resilience, Help-Seeking Attitudes, And Caregiver Relationships To Their Suicidality Scores Using Structural Equation Modeling, Jessica Jones Jan 2021

The Predictability Of Children Of Military Families' Levels Of Resilience, Help-Seeking Attitudes, And Caregiver Relationships To Their Suicidality Scores Using Structural Equation Modeling, Jessica Jones

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

This study explores the experiences of suicidality (e.g., suicidal behavior risk and suicide ideation) of adults who were raised in military families in relation to their levels of potential protective factors of resilience, help-seeking attitudes, and perceptions of caregiver relationships. There is limited research exploring suicidality among individuals raised by military caregivers, with most of the literature focused on individuals in childhood and using national or statewide datasets. Prior to this investigation, only one study was identified that examined suicidality of adults of military families, with a focus on international military families rather than those associated with the U.S. military. …

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Sex Differences In Peripheral Fat Detection And Metabolism, Naima Dahir Jan 2021

Sex Differences In Peripheral Fat Detection And Metabolism, Naima Dahir

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The current epidemic of obesity is driven, at least in part, by excessive caloric intake and fat intake has been implicated as a major contributing factor. The mammalian taste system displays marked plasticity, and it has been shown that the detection of fatty acids, the prototypical fat taste stimulus, leads to reduced sensitivity upon prolonged exposure to a high-fat diet. Increased obesity and metabolic disorders in postmenopausal females indicate that the female steroid hormone, estrogen, may contribute to metabolic homeostasis. Sex differences in the taste system were explored using a multidisciplinary approach to examine the ways in which estrogen influences …

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The Reciprocal Effect Of Gastrointestinal Health On Psychological Distress And Disability In Emerging Adults, Emily Ross Jan 2021

The Reciprocal Effect Of Gastrointestinal Health On Psychological Distress And Disability In Emerging Adults, Emily Ross

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The gut-brain connection refers to the bidirectional communication pathway between the brain and gastrointestinal (GI) system. Recent epidemiological research has suggested incidence rates of Disorders of Gut Brain Interaction (DGBI) in emerging adults are increasing. The goal of the study was to investigate the associations between the latent variables of GI health, psychological distress, and impairment in general functioning (disability) across two time points. Although the gut-brain connection has been established, research on its directionality and association with functioning in emerging adults remains an understudied area. A repeated measures design was used to collect data via an online survey in …

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Queer Arab American Experiences: Navigating Cross Cultural Expectations Of Gender And Sexuality, Gabriela Mansour Jan 2021

Queer Arab American Experiences: Navigating Cross Cultural Expectations Of Gender And Sexuality, Gabriela Mansour

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The understanding of the experiences of queer Arab Americans and the ways in which they navigate cross cultural expectations of gender and sexuality is limited in the anthropology or social sciences scholarship. The available scholarship focuses primarily on queerness in juxtaposition to Islam, which is not relatable to all Arab Americans as they are a religiously diverse group. Through an intersectional approach, this research, conducted from April 2020 to May 2021, explores the lived experiences of queer Arab Americans from across the United States (U.S.) while seeking to identify potential commonalities that could encompass a more general queer Arab American …

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Between Fighting And Serving: How Existential Motivations Shaped Combat Participation In The Donbas War In Ukraine, Miroslav Shapovalov Jan 2021

Between Fighting And Serving: How Existential Motivations Shaped Combat Participation In The Donbas War In Ukraine, Miroslav Shapovalov

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The project studies enlistment into Pro-Government Militia groups (or PGMs) in the context of modern armed conflicts. While PGMs as armed groups are getting an increased attention, very little insight has been generated regarding the circumstances under which pro-government combatants choose to join PGMs over the army. I develop survey tools, a survey experiments and a series of semi-structured interviews to study individual-level factors affecting recruitment dynamics in Ukraine, the country that successfully employed PGMs to defend itself against Russian hybrid aggression. The inquiry tests for the role of such factors as trust in the army, emotions, and subjective individual …

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Ground Movements And Vibrations Caused By Impact Pile Driving Of Prestressed Concrete Piles In Central Florida, Jorge Enrique Orozco Herrera Jan 2021

Ground Movements And Vibrations Caused By Impact Pile Driving Of Prestressed Concrete Piles In Central Florida, Jorge Enrique Orozco Herrera

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The process of pile driving has been a commonly used method for the installation of deep foundations in Central Florida due to the soil conditions that consist mainly of medium-dense silty sands. Pile driving can generate large vibration levels that might potentially trigger ground deformations in the surrounding soils and cause damage on nearby structures. Currently, design and construction standards provide guidance in terms of ground vibration levels expected during pile driving and establish vibration thresholds to avoid damage on important infrastructure. However, little insight has been given into the amount of ground deformations that soils experience due to pile …

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The Mechanics And Multiphysics Of Biomimetic Discrete Exoskeleton Substrates, Hessein Ali Jan 2021

The Mechanics And Multiphysics Of Biomimetic Discrete Exoskeleton Substrates, Hessein Ali

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Biological structures have inspired synthetic materials with unparalleled performances such as ultra-lightweight design, tunable elasticity, camouflaging, and antifouling. Among biological structures, exoskeletal scales that cover the exterior surfaces of fishes, fur, and many reptiles. These exoskeletal scales had appeared in the earliest stages of evolution of complex multicellular life and continued their existence in spite of millions of years of evolutionary pressures. This makes them an attractive candidate for biomimicry to produce high performance multifunctional materials with applications to soft robotics, wearables, energy efficient smart skins, antifouling surfaces and on-demand tunable materials. Canonically speaking, biomimetic samples can be fabricated by …

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Photoluminescence Properties Of Polycyclic Aromatic Sulfur Heterocycles And Their Sorption And Desorption Onto Microplastics., Sadia Arif Jan 2021

Photoluminescence Properties Of Polycyclic Aromatic Sulfur Heterocycles And Their Sorption And Desorption Onto Microplastics., Sadia Arif

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Polycyclic aromatic sulfur heterocycles (PASHs) are sulfur analogues of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) commonly found in environmental samples exposed to oil contamination. The determination of PASHs in complex samples is far more difficult than PAHs because of the sulfur atom in the heterocyclic ring, which increases the total number of possible isomeric compounds. Since their toxicological properties vary considerably from isomer to isomer, the unambiguous determination of specific isomers in environmental samples is crucial for ecotoxicological purposes and human safety. GC-MS has been the primary analytical technique for the determination of PASHs in environmental samples. Unfortunately, as the number of …

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The Effects Of Critical Micelle Concentration And Environmental Factors On Oil Separation In Simulated Bilgewater Emulsions, Kelsey Rodriguez Doran Jan 2021

The Effects Of Critical Micelle Concentration And Environmental Factors On Oil Separation In Simulated Bilgewater Emulsions, Kelsey Rodriguez Doran

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Improved bilgewater treatment is necessary because of technological challenges often faced when meeting existing ocean discharge criteria regulations. Since bilgewater is a waste mixture including hydraulic oils, cleaning agents, and seawater, the success of its management is largely attributed to understanding oil-in-water emulsion characterizations. However, the study of bilgewater emulsions is complex due to the multivariate nature of real-shipboard samples. The objective of this study is to develop the relationship between parameters commonly found in bilgewater and emulsion stability. This work is a continuation of a 3-year research project supported by the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP). Previous …

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