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How Political Violence Helps Explain Organized Crime: A Case Study Of Mexico's "War On Drugs", Alanna Fulk Jan 2019

How Political Violence Helps Explain Organized Crime: A Case Study Of Mexico's "War On Drugs", Alanna Fulk

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines research from the disciplines of political science and criminal justice to develop a theory that explains geographic variation in violence related to organized crime. Large-scale organized crime violence exhibits characteristics of both ordinary crime violence and political violence, but these subjects are generally analyzed separately. However, as large-scale organized crime has become more prevalent and violent in recent years, most notably in Latin America, studies, including this one, have attempted to cross disciplinary boundaries in order to better explain trends in organized crime onset, termination and violence. This thesis argues that although the overall goal of organized …


Government Respect For Human Rights And Their Relation To Shadow Economic Activity, Christopher Gahagan Jan 2019

Government Respect For Human Rights And Their Relation To Shadow Economic Activity, Christopher Gahagan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Shadow economic activity can have detrimental effects on many aspects of a society including trust in government policies, quality of public institutions, government revenues, and economic growth. Empirical studies have generally employed a rational actor approach and focused on economic factors. Most studies in this literature claim that when individuals do not receive the right economic stimuli from the government, it damages the relationship between individuals and the state and citizens opt to move into the shadow economy. A small but growing body of research, however, suggests that certain political factors can also lead to shadow economic activity because of …


Comparative Analysis Of The Relationship Between State Security And Ethnic Minority Oppression, Grayson Lanza Jan 2019

Comparative Analysis Of The Relationship Between State Security And Ethnic Minority Oppression, Grayson Lanza

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research investigates the relationship between the state economic outlook, state security apparatus and the presence of ethnic minority oppression within the state's borders. Modern states have developed extensive security apparatuses as they have developed their economies and this research intended to identify the possibility of a connection between the development of these aspects of the state in relation to ethnic minority repression. The research is broken up into a research design and introductory section, a case study section, and a final analysis and conclusion section. Each of the four case studies studied a and ethnic minority relationship, and in …


Exogenous Shocks And Political Unrest, Didara Nurmanova Jan 2019

Exogenous Shocks And Political Unrest, Didara Nurmanova

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the role of exogenous shocks such as economic shocks and natural disasters in producing political unrest in the form of anti-government protests and ethnic riots. It is integrated by three articles, each covering a different topic. The first article argues that economic shocks play a crucial role in protest mobilization in rentier states conditional on weaker repressive capacity or higher taxation. Empirically, it conducts a cross-national study of high resource-dependent states in the period of 1995-2014. The second article contends that there is a variation in the degree to which a country's regions are exposed to economic …


Power To The People: Responsible Facilitation In Co-Creative Story-Making, Amanda Hill Jan 2019

Power To The People: Responsible Facilitation In Co-Creative Story-Making, Amanda Hill

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Power to the People: Responsible Facilitation in Co-Creative Story-Making describes and applies a tool for recording and analyzing the co-productive creation process of digital storytelling (DST) workshops to be used by project facilitators for the purposes of reflection and for developing an ethics of responsibly in story-making practices. It provides a method for analyzing digital storytelling practices that focuses on the rhetorical, dialogic, co-productive, creative story-making space rather than the finished stories or the technologies. Looking through a new media lens, this dissertation aligns the DST genre and practice in relation to alternative media broadly, and tactical media specifically, to …


An Investigation Of Science Of Reading And Learning Representation In Undergraduate Elementary Education Reading Courses In The State University System Of Florida, Jessica Camara Jan 2019

An Investigation Of Science Of Reading And Learning Representation In Undergraduate Elementary Education Reading Courses In The State University System Of Florida, Jessica Camara

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the extent to which the science of reading instruction components and five science of learning principles were addressed in undergraduate elementary education required reading courses in the State University System (SUS) of Florida institutions. A document analysis of textbooks and syllabi was completed and evidence recorded in The Matrix for State University System (SUS) of Florida Scoring©. The results were reported in summary tables and an analysis of the data was conducted on the extent to which each science of reading component and science of learning principle were labeled explicitly, indirectly stated, or not present in syllabi …


Structure Of Reflectin Protein Probed By Solid-State Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Tommy Boykin Jan 2019

Structure Of Reflectin Protein Probed By Solid-State Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Tommy Boykin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

An unusual protein found in squids, termed reflectin, possesses the unique ability for optical reflectivity and proton conductivity. Reflectin has the potential to become optically and electronically tunable, however, the molecular structure of reflectin has yet to be determined. Previous literature has considered using reflectin proteins as diffraction gratings, protonic transistors, and substrates for neural stem cell growth. Applying recombinant protein techniques, we purified the reflectin 4Ax4 protein. We determined the leucine, tryptophan, and threonine amino acids are in an ordered state by solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). Knowing these ordered amino acids is possibly the key to understanding reflectin's …


National Security And Political Polarization, Joseph Funderburke Jan 2019

National Security And Political Polarization, Joseph Funderburke

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores how partisan polarization among the political elites (the President and key Members of Congress) impacts national security decision-making. The research examines the relationship over time beginning at the start of the Cold War through 2014. In doing so, the research tests several hypotheses to determine the nature of the relationship and what the implications might be for future U.S. national security policy-making. There are three different approaches used in the research centered on the same theory of partisan polarization. The first approach examines changes in the level of polarization and defense budgets each year. The second explores …


Legends Of The Fabricated Wild: An Experimental Representation Of Natural Landscapes Through The Utilization Of Analog Film Techniques, Nicholas Twardus Jan 2019

Legends Of The Fabricated Wild: An Experimental Representation Of Natural Landscapes Through The Utilization Of Analog Film Techniques, Nicholas Twardus

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Legends of the Fabricated Wild is a feature-length body of work of landscape films. Voice-Destroy, Self-Portrait: Impermanence and the titular Legends of the Fabricated Wild are the experimental films that comprise my body of work. Keep your Distance, a single-channel installation, is a supplemental piece. Legends of the Fabricated Wild frames the complex interaction between a filmmaker and the collective unconsciousness of the natural environment, a theory outlined by Carl Jung, considering the implications and discoveries along the way. Subtle movement and precise compositions provide a transcendental perspective on the natural Florida landscape. Images of landscapes devoid of human figures …


Kindergarten Is Not Child's Play: An Exploration Of Pedagogical Approaches Related To Learning In A Play-Based And A Contemporary Classroom At A Title I Elementary School, Karyn Allee-Herndon Jan 2019

Kindergarten Is Not Child's Play: An Exploration Of Pedagogical Approaches Related To Learning In A Play-Based And A Contemporary Classroom At A Title I Elementary School, Karyn Allee-Herndon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is divided into three separate, related, naturalistic, quasi-experimental research studies, all using data from two kindergarten classes at Gator Elementary, a public Title I elementary school in Sunshine District in Central Florida. Each of these studies tested hypotheses that kindergarten children, especially those from low socioeconomic backgrounds, will show greater gains in receptive vocabulary, executive function, and academic achievement when purposeful play is used as a pedagogical approach than similar children in typical, contemporary kindergarten classrooms. The first study explored the effects of play-based and contemporary pedagogical approaches on students' receptive vocabulary using the PPVT-4, the second explored …


The Effects Of Presence And Cognitive Load On Episodic Memory In Virtual Environments, Paul Barclay Jan 2019

The Effects Of Presence And Cognitive Load On Episodic Memory In Virtual Environments, Paul Barclay

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Episodic memory refers to an individual's memory for events that they have experienced in the past along with the associated contextual details. In order to more closely reflect the way that episodic memory functions in the real world, researchers and clinicians test episodic memory using virtual environments. However, these virtual environments introduce new interfaces and task demands that are not present in traditional methodologies. This dissertation investigates these environments through the lenses of Presence and Cognitive Load theories in order to unravel the ways that basic technological and task differences may affect memory performance. Participants completed a virtual task under …


Spectral Properties Of The Finite Hilbert Transform On Two Adjacent Intervals Via The Method Of Riemann-Hilbert Problem, Elliot Blackstone Jan 2019

Spectral Properties Of The Finite Hilbert Transform On Two Adjacent Intervals Via The Method Of Riemann-Hilbert Problem, Elliot Blackstone

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, we study a self-adjoint integral operator $\hat{K}$ which is defined in terms of finite Hilbert transforms on two adjacent intervals. These types of transforms arise when one studies the interior problem of tomography. The operator $\hat{K}$ possesses a so-called "integrable kernel'' and it is known that the spectral properties of $\hat{K}$ are intimately related to a $2\times2$ matrix function $\Gamma(z;\lambda)$ which is the solution to a particular Riemann-Hilbert problem (in the $z$ plane). We express $\Gamma(z;\lambda)$ explicitly in terms of hypergeometric functions and find the small $\lambda$ asymptotics of $\Gamma(z;\lambda)$. This asymptotic analysis is necessary for the …


Modeling Disease Impact Of Vibrio-Phage Interactions, Christopher Botelho Jan 2019

Modeling Disease Impact Of Vibrio-Phage Interactions, Christopher Botelho

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Since the work of John Snow, scientists and medical professionals have understood that individuals develop cholera by means of consuming contaminated water. Despite the knowledge of cholera's route of infection, many countries have experienced and still experience endemic cholera. Cholera is caused by the Vibrio cholerae (V. cholerae) bacterium and presents with acute diarrhea and vomiting. If untreated, infected individuals may die due to dehydration. Cholera is a disease that most commonly affects countries with poor infrastructure and water sanitation. Despite efforts to control cholera in such countries, the disease persists. One such example is Haiti which has been experiencing …


Hurricane Maria: A Qualitative Study Of Recently Displaced Students To The State Of Florida, Esmeralda Cabrera Jan 2019

Hurricane Maria: A Qualitative Study Of Recently Displaced Students To The State Of Florida, Esmeralda Cabrera

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Over the past ten years Puerto Rico has been experiencing a severe economic crisis that was worsened when Hurricane Maria made landfall on September 20, 2017. Maria hit Puerto Rico as a category 4 storm, devastating the whole island and its 3.4 million residents. Many students were left with minimal educational choices after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico. Research on Latino/a students shows that they are met with unique experiences and challenges as they pursue higher education. The current study uses qualitative data to investigate what are the unique challenges and needs of displaced students from Puerto Rico? and what …


Hybrid Integration Of Second- And Third-Order Highly Nonlinear Waveguides On Silicon Substrates, Guillermo Fernando Camacho Gonzalez Jan 2019

Hybrid Integration Of Second- And Third-Order Highly Nonlinear Waveguides On Silicon Substrates, Guillermo Fernando Camacho Gonzalez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In order to extend the capabilities and applications of silicon photonics, other materials and compatible technologies have been developed and integrated on silicon substrates. A particular class of integrable materials are those with high second- and third-order nonlinear optical properties. This work presents contributions made to nonlinear integrated photonics on silicon substrates, including chalcogenide waveguides for over an octave supercontinuum generation, and rib-loaded thin-film lithium niobate waveguides for highly efficient second-harmonic generation. Through the pursuit of hybrid integration of the two types of waveguides for applications such as on-chip self-referenced optical frequency combs, we have experimentally demonstrated fabrication integrability of …


Motivational Factors And Barriers Affecting Seniors' Decision To Relocate To A Senior Living Facility, Suja Chaulagain Jan 2019

Motivational Factors And Barriers Affecting Seniors' Decision To Relocate To A Senior Living Facility, Suja Chaulagain

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study aimed to explore factors affecting seniors' intention to relocate to a senior living facility. More specifically, the purpose of this study was to examine the influence of push and pull motivational factors and perceived barriers on seniors' intention to relocate to a senior living facility (SLF). In addition, the mediating role of perceived barriers on the relationships between push motivational factors and intention to relocate and pull motivational factors and intention to relocate were explored. The data of the study was collected from 363 seniors. Structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis was conducted to test the study hypotheses. The …


The Invisible Men: Analyzing The Virtual Subculture Of England's Punters, Ashley Christensen Jan 2019

The Invisible Men: Analyzing The Virtual Subculture Of England's Punters, Ashley Christensen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research on prostitution has flourished over the last few decades with a new emphasis on the online sex market. To study the online market, researchers have utilized qualitative methods to investigate escort review websites. Coding for violent rhetoric and perceived intimacy are two conventional techniques that have been utilized using qualitative methods. Other areas investigated include the overall characteristics of sex buyers, price variation, and socialization of buyers. What has lacked in current literature has been the use of quantitative methods to study what factors influence the presence of positive reviews. To expand on limited existing literature utilizing quantitative methods, …


Victimization And Health Experiences For Tgnc Individuals In Women's Prisons, Kristina Davis Jan 2019

Victimization And Health Experiences For Tgnc Individuals In Women's Prisons, Kristina Davis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This text examines the health-related experiences of transgender and gender nonconforming persons assigned female at birth within the criminal justice system. It moves through a transgender-centric approach to explore the ways gender nonconformity relates to experiences of violence and healthcare disparities for those interacting with law enforcement and incarcerated in women's prisons. The study utilized statistical analyses of nationally representative data in the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey carried out by the National Center for Transgender Equality. Multivariate analyses suggested significant connections between race and education and experiences of harassment and assault within the criminal justice context. There were largely mixed …


Semi-Analytical Solutions Of Non-Linear Differential Equations Arising In Science And Engineering, Mangalagama Dewasurendra Jan 2019

Semi-Analytical Solutions Of Non-Linear Differential Equations Arising In Science And Engineering, Mangalagama Dewasurendra

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Systems of coupled non-linear differential equations arise in science and engineering are inherently nonlinear and difficult to find exact solutions. However, in the late nineties, Liao introduced Optimal Homotopy Analysis Method (OHAM), and it allows us to construct accurate approximations to the systems of coupled nonlinear differential equations. The drawback of OHAM is, we must first choose the proper auxiliary linear operator and then solve the linear higher-order deformation equation by spending lots of CPU time. However, in the latest innovation of Liao's "Method of Directly Defining inverse Mapping (MDDiM)" which he introduced to solve a single nonlinear ordinary differential …


Preservice Teachers And Perceived Stress: A Comparative Study, Kelsey Evans Jan 2019

Preservice Teachers And Perceived Stress: A Comparative Study, Kelsey Evans

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Teachers are being pushed to the brink of burnout and leaving the profession, placing teachers' health and wellness in jeopardy (Daniels & Strauss, 2009; Maslach & Leiter, 2008; Stephenson, 2012; Vladut & Kallay, 2010; Wilkerson, 2009). Yet, it has become increasingly clear teacher stress may start prior to entering the profession (Brown & Ryan, 2003, Darling-Hammond, 2006). The researcher used a non-experimental design to evaluate the perceived stress among pre-service teachers enrolled in internship, and if the coping style of mindfulness had any correlation on self-reported stress levels. The quantitative study surveyed 332 student interns using the Perceived Stress Survey …


Factors Contributing To Victim Employment, Victim Income Status, And Intimate Partner Violence In Jamaica, Marsha Fraser Jan 2019

Factors Contributing To Victim Employment, Victim Income Status, And Intimate Partner Violence In Jamaica, Marsha Fraser

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Using 166 IPV police reports in Jamaica, this mixed-methods study (a) explored the utility of routine activities theory and control balance theory for explaining the relationship between victim employment and IPV; (b) explored risk factors for IPV; and (c) examined the relationships between victim employment and victim income status with IPV murder and IPV severity in the Jamaica. Content analysis of the narratives of the police reports supported both theories suggesting an integration of the two theories may be most fitting. Estrangement and infidelity emerged as bold themes. Infidelity was identified as an additional risk factor in the Jamaican context. …


Mathematical Investigation Of The Spatial Spread Of An Infectious Disease In A Heterogeneous Environment, Arielle Gaudiello Jan 2019

Mathematical Investigation Of The Spatial Spread Of An Infectious Disease In A Heterogeneous Environment, Arielle Gaudiello

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Outbreaks of infectious diseases can devastate a population. Researchers thus study the spread of an infection in a habitat to learn methods of control. In mathematical epidemiology, disease transmission is often assumed to adhere to the law of mass action, yet there are numerous other incidence terms existing in the literature. With recent global outbreaks and epidemics, spatial heterogeneity has been at the forefront of these epidemiological models. We formulate and analyze a model for humans in a homogeneous population with a nonlinear incidence function and demographics of birth and death. We allow for the combination of host immunity after …


An Exploration Of The Relationship Between Work Climate, The Utilization Of Support Resources, And Compassion Fatigue Level In Child Protective Investigators, Shannon Holliker Jan 2019

An Exploration Of The Relationship Between Work Climate, The Utilization Of Support Resources, And Compassion Fatigue Level In Child Protective Investigators, Shannon Holliker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The impact of child maltreatment is far reaching, affecting the abused child, the family system, and the professionals tasked with providing support during the moments of crisis. As child protective investigators (CPIs) provide care and support to others, they are at high risk of experiencing secondary traumatic stress and/or burnout, both aspects of compassion fatigue. Researchers suggest that work climate, utilization of resources, and worker characteristics can impact CPI compassion-fatigue level. Drawing on extant literature, this study examined three research questions and seven hypotheses aiming to explore the relationship between work climate, resource utilization, CPI characteristics, and CPI compassion-fatigue level. …


Atp Induced Molecular Disassembly Of Cytolethal Distending Toxin's B/C Heterodimer, George Huhn Jan 2019

Atp Induced Molecular Disassembly Of Cytolethal Distending Toxin's B/C Heterodimer, George Huhn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cytolethal distending toxin (CDT) is a virulence factor produced by many Gram-negative bacteria, including Haemophilus ducreyi. This fastidious pathogen is the causative agent of genital cancroid. CDT is a heterotrimeric toxin with an AB2 structure consisting of a cell-binding "B" domain (CdtA + CdtC) and a catalytic "A" domain (CdtB) that has DNase activity. This toxin assembles in the bacterial periplasm that lacks ATP and is secreted into the extracellular environment. After cell binding, CDT is internalized by endocytosis and travels through the endosomes and Golgi before arriving in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). CdtA is lost from the holotoxin before …


Factors Influencing Nurse Practitioners' Weight Management Practices In Primary Care, Suzanne Hyer Jan 2019

Factors Influencing Nurse Practitioners' Weight Management Practices In Primary Care, Suzanne Hyer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

More American adults are overweight or obese than ever before. Nurse practitioners (NPs) play a critical and expanding role in primary care, which is an ideal setting for the assessment and management of weight loss. NPs can make a significant contribution to tackling the obesity crisis. The study presented here seeks to close the gap in data related to how NPs approach weight management with their primary care patients. This study focused on a comprehensive examination of the current practice patterns of NPs related to weight management, a theoretical concept analysis of weight bias among healthcare providers, along with the …


Frames And Phase Retrieval, Ted Juste Jan 2019

Frames And Phase Retrieval, Ted Juste

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Phase retrieval tackles the problem of recovering a signal after loss of phase. The phase problem shows up in many different settings such as X-ray crystallography, speech recognition, quantum information theory, and coherent diffraction imaging. In this dissertation we present some results relating to three topics on phase retrieval. Chapters 1 and 2 contain the relevant background materials. In chapter 3, we introduce the notion of exact phase-retrievable frames as a way of measuring a frame's redundancy with respect to its phase retrieval property. We show that, in the d-dimensional real Hilbert space case, exact phase-retrievable frames can be of …


It Takes Two To Tango: The Toxin-Chaperone Relationship, Alisha Kellner Jan 2019

It Takes Two To Tango: The Toxin-Chaperone Relationship, Alisha Kellner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cholera toxin (CT) enters the cell via receptor-mediated endocytosis and travels in a retrograde fashion to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). The catalytic A1 subunit (CTA1) is then displaced from the rest of the holotoxin, unfolds, and is exported to the cytosol where it regains an active conformation for the ADP-ribosylation of its G-protein target. We have shown that the cytosolic chaperones Hsp90 and Hsc70 are required for CTA1 translocation to the cytosol. We have also shown that both are able to independently bind and refold CTA1. Using libraries of CTA1-derived peptides, we have identified a single Hsc70 binding site, YYIYVI …


I Decide When You Die: A Mixed-Methods Analysis Of Prior Reporting Of Physical Violence For Intimate Partner Homicides By Heterosexual Spouses In Florida, Donna King Jan 2019

I Decide When You Die: A Mixed-Methods Analysis Of Prior Reporting Of Physical Violence For Intimate Partner Homicides By Heterosexual Spouses In Florida, Donna King

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

It is generally believed that a victim of an intimate partner homicide, who faced ongoing physical violence prior to the killing, would have contacted authorities for assistance or protection some time prior to their death. However, the results of this study show that this notion that a victim of ongoing abuse will, more than likely, request help is a misconception. Through qualitative and quantitative methods analysis, this study reveals the dearth of prior reporting of physical violence to law enforcement or the court when an intimate partner homicide takes place between heterosexual spouses in Florida between 2006 and 2016. Additionally, …


Holographic Optical Elements For Visible Light Applications In Photo-Thermo-Refractive Glass, Fedor Kompan Jan 2019

Holographic Optical Elements For Visible Light Applications In Photo-Thermo-Refractive Glass, Fedor Kompan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation reports on design and fabrication of various optical elements in Photo-thermo-refractive (PTR) glass. An ability to produce complex holographic optical elements (HOEs) for the visible spectral region appears very beneficial for variety of applications, however, it is limited due to photosensitivity of the glass confined within the UV region. First two parts of this dissertation present two independent approaches to the problem of holographic recording using visible radiation. The first method involves modification of the original PTR glass rendering it photosensitive to radiation in the visible spectral region and, thus, making possible the recording of holograms in PTR …


Science Occupational Images And Aspirations Of African American/ Black Elementary Students, Saron Lamothe Jan 2019

Science Occupational Images And Aspirations Of African American/ Black Elementary Students, Saron Lamothe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Within the United States, more than a million jobs in science and engineering (S&E) are projected over the next few years; yet, the Nation lacks the workforce to meet these demands. Despite the need for a more diverse, qualified workforce, African Americans/Blacks remain disproportionately underrepresented in science occupations, science degree attainment, and in science postsecondary majors. The lack of science participation is reflective of how minority secondary students view science and science occupations as many consider the pursuit of a science career as unfavorable. Moreover, minority secondary students, who do choose to pursue science occupations, seem to possess inaccurate (or …