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Title: The Effect of Game Day Promotions on Consumer Behavior in the East Coast Hockey League (ECHL).
Creator: Pruegger, Brian Edmund, Pitts, Brenda, Kamata, Akihito, Clement, Annie., Kent, Aubrey, Department of Sport Management, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Factors associated with attendance at sporting events has been well documented in recent literature. Numerous studies have been conducted in college and professional sports, yet little work to date has examined factors associated with attendance in the minor leagues. Very few studies have specifically investigated special game day promotions at the minor league level. Based on the absence of some of the potential drawing factors associated with college and professional sports, these...
Show moreFactors associated with attendance at sporting events has been well documented in recent literature. Numerous studies have been conducted in college and professional sports, yet little work to date has examined factors associated with attendance in the minor leagues. Very few studies have specifically investigated special game day promotions at the minor league level. Based on the absence of some of the potential drawing factors associated with college and professional sports, these promotional activities at the minor league level become of greater interest. Specifically, game day promotions utilized in minor league hockey were of interest in the current study. The purpose of this study was to investigate factors associated with attendance in the East Coast Hockey League (ECHL) in the 2001-2002 season and specifically the game day promotions and their affect on attendance. Data was collected using the feedback from a survey of fourteen marketing personnel of ECHL franchises during the summer of 2002. The survey was adapted from a previous questionnaire (Branvold & Bowers, 1992) utilized to assess factors related to attendance. Other questions were added to the Branvold and Bowers tool in order to address other factors of interest. Results indicated that several factors including promotions were correlated with attendance. Those factors contributed more than 45% of the variance in predicting attendance. Specific promotions such as "Puck Night", "Scouts Night" and "Fan Appreciation Night" were identified as the most successful in increasing attendance. Weekend promotions were more related to an increase in attendance than weekday promotions and children were the most popular target group. Attendance based on promotional games versus non-promotional games varied greatly among the fourteen teams of interest. The findings are similar to previous research on promotions and attendance. Promotions have been associated with a discernible increase in attendance for most markets.
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Date Issued: 2003
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0464
Format: Thesis

Title: Evaluating Urban Deployment Scenarios for Vehicular Wireless Networks.
Creator: Potnis, Niranjan, Gopalan, Kartik, Wang, An-I Andy, Duan, Zhenhai, Department of Computer Science, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Vehicular wireless networks are gaining commercial interest. Mobile connectivity, road safety, and traffic congestion management are some applications that have arisen with this networking paradigm. Existing research primarily focuses on developing mobility models and evaluating routing protocols in ideal open-field environments. It provides limited information of whether vehicular networks can be deployed in an urban setting. This thesis evaluates the practicality of deployment scenarios for...
Show moreVehicular wireless networks are gaining commercial interest. Mobile connectivity, road safety, and traffic congestion management are some applications that have arisen with this networking paradigm. Existing research primarily focuses on developing mobility models and evaluating routing protocols in ideal open-field environments. It provides limited information of whether vehicular networks can be deployed in an urban setting. This thesis evaluates the practicality of deployment scenarios for a vehicular ad hoc network with a wireless mesh infrastructure support. The deployment scenarios include: (1) a mesh-enhanced peer-to-peer ad hoc routing deployment model where both the mobile nodes and static wireless infrastructure nodes participate in routing, (2) a mesh-enhanced infrastructural routing deployment model where only the static wireless infrastructure nodes participate in routing and (3) a scenario where static wireless infrastructure nodes in deployments (1) and (2) have the ability to communicate over multiple wireless channels. These deployment scenarios are evaluated with a mobility model that restricts the movement of vehicles to street boundaries based on real world maps and imposes simple traffic rules. This study also proposes a method of capturing the effect of obstacles on wireless communication based on empirical experiments in urban environments. The results indicate that (1) the mesh-enhanced infrastructural routing deployment yields significantly better performance compared to mesh enhanced peer-to-peer ad hoc routing deployment; (2) in the mesh-enhanced infrastructural routing deployment scenario increasing the density of infrastructure nodes is beneficial while increasing the density of mobile nodes has no significant effect; (3) in the mesh-enhanced peer-to-peer ad hoc routing deployment scenario, higher density of infrastructure nodes as well as mobile nodes can lead to decreased performance; (4) using multiple channels of communication on infrastructure nodes yields highly increased performance; and (5) the effect of obstacles could be represented in simulations through parameters, which could be set based on empirical experiments.
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Date Issued: 2006
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0465
Format: Thesis

Title: The Microbiology and Pathology of Shell Disease in the Florida Spiny Lobster, Panulirus Argus with a Comparison to Shell Disease in the American Lobster, Homarus Americanus.
Creator: Porter, Lauren, Reeves, Robert H., Kostka, Joel, Herrnkind, William, Keller, Laura, Quadagno, David, Department of Biological Science, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Shell disease is a common affliction in marine crustaceans. It manifests as necrotic lesions on the exoskeleton that are caused by bacteria producing extracellular enzymes capable of degrading crustacean cuticle. Prior to 1998, shell disease was not reported in the Florida spiny lobster, Panulirus argus. Since that time it has been seen in P. argus in the Florida Keys. In 1999, an outbreak of severe shell disease occurred in the American lobster, Homarus americanus. Shell disease has been...
Show moreShell disease is a common affliction in marine crustaceans. It manifests as necrotic lesions on the exoskeleton that are caused by bacteria producing extracellular enzymes capable of degrading crustacean cuticle. Prior to 1998, shell disease was not reported in the Florida spiny lobster, Panulirus argus. Since that time it has been seen in P. argus in the Florida Keys. In 1999, an outbreak of severe shell disease occurred in the American lobster, Homarus americanus. Shell disease has been reported in this species for almost a century. To determine if shell disease etiology is the same between the species, a comparative study was undertaken. Healthy and shell-diseased cuticle was sampled in P. argus and H. americanus to determine if a consistent culturable bacterial flora exists on the exoskeleton, and if it the same flora found in lesions. Bacteria were identified by 16S ribosomal DNA sequencing. At least 600 bases of the ribosomal RNA gene were aligned with sequences of identified marine bacteria and phylogenetic relationships were determined. Seven groups of bacteria, six of which are in the gamma proteobacteria, emerged consistently on healthy and diseased cuticle. No primary pathogen was isolated from either species. Six of the groups were isolated from both lobster species and one group was isolated only from P. argus. The association of the bacterial groups with both healthy and shell-diseased cuticle suggests that the normal bacterial flora is in part responsible for shell disease lesions. For each lobster species, histological, scanning electron microscope, and transmission electron microscope observations were made of lesions. In both species, Gram-negative rods were the predominant bacterial morphology present, but cocci and pleomorphic bacteria were also seen. The pathology of the disease appeared to be very different between the lobster species. In P. argus, lesions appear to spread laterally via formation of an extracellular matrix that encapsulates the bacteria. The bacteria seem to secrete degradative enzymes into the matrix, which breaks down surrounding cuticle. Many lesions appeared to be initiated by trauma in P. argus. In H. americanus, the lesions appear to spread by direct bacterial contact with and degradation of the cuticle.
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Date Issued: 2004
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0475
Format: Thesis

Title: Application of Workforce 2000/2020 Analysis to a Southern Rural Community.
Creator: Zuokemefa, Pade, Easton, Peter, Jones, Maxine, Herrington, Carolyn, Biance, Michael, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Since publication of the Hudson Institute report on Workforce 2000: Work and Workers in the 21st Century in 1987 and the appearance of its sequel, Workforce 2020, a decade later, a popular form of analysis of economic trends and adult education needs has emerged and its conclusions have been widely cited. The approach has, however, been developed and almost entirely applied at the "macro" level of regions, States and the country as a whole. This dissertation assesses the applicability and...
Show moreSince publication of the Hudson Institute report on Workforce 2000: Work and Workers in the 21st Century in 1987 and the appearance of its sequel, Workforce 2020, a decade later, a popular form of analysis of economic trends and adult education needs has emerged and its conclusions have been widely cited. The approach has, however, been developed and almost entirely applied at the "macro" level of regions, States and the country as a whole. This dissertation assesses the applicability and utility of a Workforce 2000/2020 type of analysis for a rural Southern minority community by performing a "double diagnosis" that involves 1) using the Workforce 2000/2020 framework to examine the learning challenges, needs and opportunities facing a small Southern rural community (Gretna, Florida) as it enters the 21st century; and 2) at the same time assessing the strengths and weaknesses of Workforce 2000/2020 as an approach to these issues in local rural and minority communities by observing and analyzing the results of this "experiment" with local stakeholders. The methodology used for this study was a "mixed method" procedure that combined an "embedded" case study framework with action research. Sampling was done at the community level (City of Gretna), and within-case (or local sampling scheme). Within-case or local sampling used elite, snowball and key informants strategies to identify stakeholder groups and choose participants within each group. The study was performed in three sequential phases. In the first phase, a Workforce 2000/2020 study was conducted of demographic and economic trends in the city of Gretna and their impact on labor supply and demand using both qualitative and quantitative data. In the second phase, these substantive results were analyzed with local stakeholder representatives and the patterns compared to those characteristics of "macro" Workforce 2000/2020 studies. Finally, the experience of the Gretna analysis itself was assessed and compared to the methodology of macro Workforce 2000/2020-type studies to examine the applicability of this approach to a rural minority community and the modifications required. The macro Workforce 2000/2020 analysis suggests that, nationwide, the skill level of our workforce is insufficient to meet the competitive challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. In short, there is a growing mismatch (or at least a growing risk of one) between a high level of demand for skilled labor and an inadequate supply of existing workers or new job entrants having those qualifications. Analysis of the situation in Gretna, however, suggests something rather different. There appears to be much less mismatch. The demand for skilled labor is very low and the supply of human resources is almost equally low. In fact, the picture for Gretna is more one of a region mired in low-level equilibrium of supply and demand than one of a disequilibrium created by unmet opportunity. The Workforce 2000/2020 approach offers several strengths and weaknesses. As a principal strength, the effort to line the supply of human resources against the demand for it provides some unique insight into the situation of the community and serves to assemble types of data and groups of actors, like educators and business people that are not often or as systematically brought into dialogue. On the other hand, however, the approach pays little attention to historical and social context, does not prescribe participatory measures designed to include the voices of those concerned, and puts preponderant emphasis on supply-side factors to the detriment of a critical understanding of the roots of demand. An attempt was made to remedy these principal shortcomings in the approach used for this study.
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Date Issued: 2003
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0473
Format: Thesis

Title: A Novel In-Situ Method for Inhibiting Surface Roughening during the Thermal Oxide Desorption Etching of Silicon and Gallium Arsenide.
Creator: Pun, Arthur Fong-Yuen, Zheng, Jim. P., Gielisse, Peter J., Perry, Reginald J., Foo, Simon Y., Xin, Yan, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: A method inhibiting surface roughening of silicon and gallium arsenide wafers during the thermal desorption of their native oxide layers is proposed and tested experimentally, with silicon results indicating a 75% reduction in surface roughness from an averaged value of 2.20 nm to 0.56 nm, and gallium arsenide results indicating a 76% reduction from an averaged surface roughness of 1.6 nm to 0.4 nm. This method does not significantly alter the semiconductor crystalline surface, thus retaining...
Show moreA method inhibiting surface roughening of silicon and gallium arsenide wafers during the thermal desorption of their native oxide layers is proposed and tested experimentally, with silicon results indicating a 75% reduction in surface roughness from an averaged value of 2.20 nm to 0.56 nm, and gallium arsenide results indicating a 76% reduction from an averaged surface roughness of 1.6 nm to 0.4 nm. This method does not significantly alter the semiconductor crystalline surface, thus retaining suitability for subsequent epitaxial growth, as demonstrated experimentally. The method is readily implementable in currently utilized deposition systems, subject to the requirements of material growth, substrate heating, and producing a non-oxidizing environment, either inert atmosphere or reduced pressures. The technique involves depositing a thin sacrificial film directly onto the native oxide surface at lower temperatures, of which the thickness is dependent on both the native oxide thickness and the oxide stochiometry initially present within the oxide layer, but has been found experimentally to be on the order of 0.5 nm – 4 nm for a 2 nm to 4 nm air-formed native oxide layer. Upon heating this structure to high temperatures, the native oxide preferentially reacts with the sacrificial deposited film instead of the bulk wafer, resulting in the chemical reduction to volatile components, which are evaporated at these temperatures. This method is developed for silicon and gallium arsenide and examined experimentally utilizing atomic force microscopy and reflection high-energy electron diffraction. Different native oxide preparation techniques are theorized to yield varying chemical stochiometries, with experimental results elucidating information regarding these differences. Further, a modified tri-layer implementation, in which the deposited film is re-oxidized, is tested for applicability as a novel wafer pacification technique.
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Date Issued: 2005
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0474
Format: Thesis

Title: Alternative Education and Juvenile Delinquency.
Creator: Prior, Nicole M., Blomberg, Thomas G., Rutledge, Stacey, Bales, William, College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: The purpose of this mixed methods longitudinal study was to explore the connection between the quality of alternative education and juvenile delinquency. The study examined two alternative education disciplinary schools in the state of Florida over six academic years. The study's goals were twofold. The first goal was to determine the impact of the implementation of quality assurance (QA) in alternative education disciplinary schools. Specifically, the study focused on determining if the QA...
Show moreThe purpose of this mixed methods longitudinal study was to explore the connection between the quality of alternative education and juvenile delinquency. The study examined two alternative education disciplinary schools in the state of Florida over six academic years. The study's goals were twofold. The first goal was to determine the impact of the implementation of quality assurance (QA) in alternative education disciplinary schools. Specifically, the study focused on determining if the QA program increased the schools' use of best practices and, as a result, positively affected the likelihood that exiting students would return to mainstream public education after exiting an alternative education school. Study findings suggest that full implementation of the QA program increased students' likelihood of returning to their home schools after being released from the alternative education disciplinary school. Furthermore, the quantitative results indicate that the implementation of QA at an alternative education school does not increase students' attendance in their home schools after their return. The second goal of this study was to determine if a high quality alternative education school would improve students' positive school experiences, thus increasing their social capital and resulting in a reduction of crime as measured by a decrease in the possibility that a student would be arrested within 12 months after being released from the alternative education school. The quantitative results indicate that partial QA implementation decreased the likelihood that students would be arrested within twelve months after exiting an alternative education disciplinary school, but full and post QA implementation did not. Overall, the findings suggest that QA does not significantly impact the likelihood of an arrest within twelve months after a student exits from an alternative education school. The study concludes with discussion of the problem of youth returning to but not remaining in their regular school because of poor regular school experiences versus positive alternative education school experiences. The policy recommendations based on the results of this study are that students at alternative education schools be allowed to remain in these schools until their graduation from high school.
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Date Issued: 2010
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0461
Format: Thesis

Title: Prelude to Disaster: Defending Confederate New Orleans.
Creator: Zwilling, Andrew, Jones, Jim, Grant, Jonathan, Hadden, Sally, Department of History, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: This thesis examines the defense of Confederate New Orleans during American Civil War, specifically during the year 1861 and the first four months of 1862. The importance of New Orleans to the South is first analyzed in order to give context for its defense. Then both the Confederate military perspective and the city's perspective are taken into account, resulting in the conclusion that the defense can be seen as an inevitable microcosm of the problems that generally plagued the Confederacy....
Show moreThis thesis examines the defense of Confederate New Orleans during American Civil War, specifically during the year 1861 and the first four months of 1862. The importance of New Orleans to the South is first analyzed in order to give context for its defense. Then both the Confederate military perspective and the city's perspective are taken into account, resulting in the conclusion that the defense can be seen as an inevitable microcosm of the problems that generally plagued the Confederacy. Lack of material resources and manpower, confusion and division between the local population and Confederate authority, disorganized and compartmentalized leadership and overwhelming Federal industrial advantage are all issues that can be seen both in the defense of New Orleans and the Confederacy as a whole.
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Date Issued: 2009
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0471
Format: Thesis

Title: Study Abroad: Educational and Employment Outcomes of Participants versus Non Participants.
Creator: Posey, James T., Beckham, Joseph C., Easton, Peter B., Dalton, Jon C., Schwartz, Robert A., Gaston, Joy, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, Florida State...
Show morePosey, James T., Beckham, Joseph C., Easton, Peter B., Dalton, Jon C., Schwartz, Robert A., Gaston, Joy, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, Florida State University
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Abstract/Description: Many educators and business people are awakening to the growing need to better equip students with an international perspective and understanding. One common method to promote these goals is accomplished via a variety of study abroad programs offered through colleges and universities. The most often cited gains or benefits related to study abroad participation are in the areas of maturity, language proficiency, increased knowledge of a specific culture, and global-mindedness. Existing...
Show moreMany educators and business people are awakening to the growing need to better equip students with an international perspective and understanding. One common method to promote these goals is accomplished via a variety of study abroad programs offered through colleges and universities. The most often cited gains or benefits related to study abroad participation are in the areas of maturity, language proficiency, increased knowledge of a specific culture, and global-mindedness. Existing theories of learning, student development, and human capital suggest that participation in study abroad could theoretically lead to increased psychological and skill growth, thereby leading to positive educational and employment outcomes. Using archival Florida state system databases, this study investigated educational and employment outcome differences between study abroad participants and non participants. The study found common characteristics among gender, race, and high school academic achievement for study abroad participants. Although claims of causality cannot be made between study abroad and various outcomes, several significant associations were found particularly for educational outcomes. For example, 93.2% of study abroad participants received some type of degree compared to only 64% of the non study abroad group. The study abroad group also had a higher mean college GPA of 3.19 compared to the 2.74 for the non study abroad group. The non study abroad group was found employed in Florida at higher rates; however, the data was limited to those found employed only within Florida and did not account for those who might have found employment in other locations. The non study abroad group also had a higher mean wage than the study abroad group. However, when controlled by degree program and study abroad location, this wage difference dissipated suggesting degree program is the stronger indicator of wage outcomes. Implications for policy development and future study include more detailed examination of the study abroad experience as a recruitment tool, as well as a retention/graduation best practice. Institutions should also examine methods to increase minority participation in study abroad.
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Date Issued: 2003
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0469
Format: Thesis

Title: Characterization of Microfluidic Channels for Biodiagnostics.
Creator: Zwolinski, Andrew Michael, Haik, Yousef, Chen, Ching-Jen, Shih, Chiang, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Characterization of fluid with suspended nanoparticles in microchannels has been studied as a part of a microfluidic based acute myocardial infarction (AMI) detection device. The AMI detection process uses heat stabilized human serum albumin (HSA) magnetic microspheres and specific antibodies to create a magnetic immunoassay used in the detection of AMI. Microanalysis systems have several advantages over conventional analysis systems due to their sensitivity, reliability and the amount of...
Show moreCharacterization of fluid with suspended nanoparticles in microchannels has been studied as a part of a microfluidic based acute myocardial infarction (AMI) detection device. The AMI detection process uses heat stabilized human serum albumin (HSA) magnetic microspheres and specific antibodies to create a magnetic immunoassay used in the detection of AMI. Microanalysis systems have several advantages over conventional analysis systems due to their sensitivity, reliability and the amount of anlaytes needed for the test. The microchannels used in this work were fabricated at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) using a SwIFTâ¢ microfabrication surface micromaching process. Micro channels made of Poly(dimethylsiloxane)-glass (PDMS-glass) designed and fabricated at the Department of Chemistry at the Florida State University were also used in this work. The SwIFTâ¢ microchannels had dimensions of 6µm in height, 20µm in width and 200µm in length where as the PDMS-glass microchannels had dimensions of 40µm in height, 200µm wide and 13mm in length. Characterization of the microchannels was accomplished using a variety of techniques. The first method used to characterize the microchannels was to used a head pressure-flow set up to determine the pressure and flow characteristics of the SwIFTâ¢ microchannels with the different fluids that the biodiagnostic process calls for, with average mass flow rate being 1.9x10-2 µg/s and Reynolds number of 1.45 at a pressure of 23kPa for a typical channel, these values approach the upper limit of the work accomplished. Since the HSA microspheres, 1µm in diameter and less, play a critical role in the detection protocol their compatibility to the SwIFTâ¢ microchannels was investigated. Results showed the HSA microspheres agglomerated and adsorbed to the walls of the channels. Fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) was attempted on the SwIFTâ¢ microchannels with 200nm and 40nm beads and the same conclusion of agglomeration and adsorption was reached which made these channels not suitable for adaptation in the microanaylsis system considered for AMI detection. PDMS-glass microchannels head pressure-flow rates were also investigated showing an average mass flow rate of 1.76x10-1µg/s and a Reynolds number of 1.03 at a pressure of 4.5kPa. FCS was preformed on these channels successfully without any signs of agglomeration, though some adsorption of the beads to the walls of the channel was evident. FCS measured max velocity was equal to approximately 6.6 cm/s. Thus it is concluded that microchannels of similar sizes of the PDMS-glass will be needed in the microanalysis system that is being developed to detect for AMI markers.
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Date Issued: 2004
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0470
Format: Thesis

Title: Transborder State Reterritorialization in Eastern Europe: The Lower Danube Euroregion.
Creator: Popescu, Gabriel, Leib, Jonathan, Smith, Dale, Warf, Barney, O'Sullivan, Patrick, Department of Geography, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: This dissertation examines the relationships between the state and reterritorialization of social life by examining the role transborder regions, commonly known as Euroregions, play in the reterritorialization of the international state system. Europe is currently experiencing an unprecedented process of state reterritorialization in the context of European Union integration. In the territorial state system that has characterized Europe for the past four centuries, borders have been the...
Show moreThis dissertation examines the relationships between the state and reterritorialization of social life by examining the role transborder regions, commonly known as Euroregions, play in the reterritorialization of the international state system. Europe is currently experiencing an unprecedented process of state reterritorialization in the context of European Union integration. In the territorial state system that has characterized Europe for the past four centuries, borders have been the central locus of state territoriality. Euroregions, created across state borders, are crucial to the European reterritorialization process aimed to redefine centralized state territoriality that has proven inadequate in a world of flows. This research investigates the ways in which traditional state territoriality is changing in Eastern Europe by the establishment of Euroregions. In the context of the European Union's enlargement it is as yet less evident how the State-Euroregions-European Union nexus will play out in Eastern Europe where EU membership has not yet been achieved by all states. I examine this process through an intensive case study of the Lower Danube Euroregion, created between Romania, Ukraine, and Moldova. Findings drawn from the experience of the Lower Danube Euroregion show that the capacity of Euroregions to reterritorialize social life in East European borderlands unfolds through a series of dimensions including institutional, political-territorial, legal, and cultural. However, state transborder reterritorialization in Euroregions is a highly contingent process that is imbued with power relations structured around supranational, national, and subnational scales. Transborder reterritorialization takes place at the juncture of these scales which generates a multiscalar geopolitics of Euroregions where Euroregions are used as tools in international politics to advance the interests of states, the European Union, and subnational actors. Under these circumstances, transborder reterritorialization in Eastern Europe remains a top-down enterprise that does not penetrate deep enough into the civil society to allow the emergence of sustainable transborder spaces of living. So far, the significance of Euroregions resides more in their territorial potential rather than in their achievements.
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Date Issued: 2006
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0479
Format: Thesis

Title: Effects of an Emergent Literacy Intervention for Children with Language Impairments from Low Income Environments.
Creator: Ziolkowski, Robyn Alane, Goldstein, Howard, Al Otaiba, Stephanie Dent, Torgesen, Joseph, Scott-Trautman, Lisa, School of Communication, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: National Research Council statistics indicate that 40% to 75% of preschoolers with early language impairment develop later reading difficulties (RD). Children exhibiting decreased language abilities need ample opportunities to acquire the early foundations of literacy before entrance into formal education. This study explored the feasibility and effectiveness of an explicit phonological and print awareness intervention embedded within repeated (i.e., three times per week) shared book reading...
Show moreNational Research Council statistics indicate that 40% to 75% of preschoolers with early language impairment develop later reading difficulties (RD). Children exhibiting decreased language abilities need ample opportunities to acquire the early foundations of literacy before entrance into formal education. This study explored the feasibility and effectiveness of an explicit phonological and print awareness intervention embedded within repeated (i.e., three times per week) shared book reading with preschool children from low income backgrounds with and without language impairments. A multiple baseline design across behaviors demonstrate that embedded phonological awareness practice was related to changes in emergent literacy skills in preschool children at risk for RD. Specifically, rhyme intervention resulted in improvements in weekly rhyme production and rhyme identification tasks. Initial sound intervention resulted in improvements in alliteration and initial sound fluency tasks. Replications were demonstrated within and across all 23 participants (10 considered at risk and 13 considered high risk). Additionally, this study examined novel word-learning abilities in the same cohort of preschool children at risk for RD. Children with and without language impairments demonstrated the ability to learn novel words after incidental exposure. Words exposure was carefully controlled to contrast one vs four exposures during repeated shared book reading without adult highlighting or discussion. An alternating treatments design indicated there were no differences in the amount of words learned when exposed one-time vs. four-times per reading. In addition, an examination of the levels and degrees of word learning based on book-specific receptive, expressive, and decontextualized vocabulary assessments revealed significant pre-post differences in word learning on all measures. Children with language impairments demonstrated the ability to learn novel words incidentally after three repeated shared book readings, but children with higher language abilities learned more words. Gains on standardized measures of receptive and expressive vocabulary were also demonstrated. Findings confirm that embedding an explicit phonological and print awareness intervention into the context of repeated storybook reading results in gains in emergent literacy skills for children at risk for RD. Further, children with and without language impairments can increase their level of vocabulary knowledge by simply listening to stories containing novel words even with relatively few exposures.
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Date Issued: 2004
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0482
Format: Thesis

Title: Modal Concepts in the Biological Sciences.
Creator: Zinser, Jason, Ruse, Michael, Travis, Joseph, Rawling, Piers, Department of Philosophy, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: "Modality" refers to the concepts (and surrounding controversies) of "possibility" and "necessity." Recently, a great deal of attention paid to these concepts in metaphysics. Not surprisingly, this literature has not been adopted in the field of philosophy of biology. In this work, I ague that there is a need to understand how modal concepts function in biology. Biologists already employ modal concepts in a variety of contexts. However, they do not explain how these concepts function or ought...
Show more"Modality" refers to the concepts (and surrounding controversies) of "possibility" and "necessity." Recently, a great deal of attention paid to these concepts in metaphysics. Not surprisingly, this literature has not been adopted in the field of philosophy of biology. In this work, I ague that there is a need to understand how modal concepts function in biology. Biologists already employ modal concepts in a variety of contexts. However, they do not explain how these concepts function or ought to function within the biological domain. From a philosophical perspective, there is a framework for how modal concepts operate in physics. But this framework cannot be adopted by the biological sciences. Since work on modality is relatively new to philosophy of biology, I spend the first three chapters justifying, defining, and restricting the project of creating a modal framework in biology. In the penultimate chapter, I present and criticize the single account of "biological possibility" found in the literature, which is offered by Daniel Dennett. Finally, I provide a positive account of how we should apply modal concepts in the biological sciences.
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Date Issued: 2007
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0484
Format: Thesis

Title: Graphic Resonance Through Time: Patterns in Representation and Their Relevance to Contemporary Design Communication.
Creator: Zorn, Sarah Kathryn, Koenig, Peter, Pable, Jill, Myers, Karen, Department of Interior Design, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: The purpose of this research is to explore the relevance of a base of knowledge in the history of architectural drawing in aiding creative design decisions today. A select study of the history of interior design reveals that design drawing conventions changed just as frequently as period styles themselves. Abundant studies on the architecture of the past have always considered the question of style, yet they seldom looked into the question of changes in drawing conventions (Gebhard & Nevins,...
Show moreThe purpose of this research is to explore the relevance of a base of knowledge in the history of architectural drawing in aiding creative design decisions today. A select study of the history of interior design reveals that design drawing conventions changed just as frequently as period styles themselves. Abundant studies on the architecture of the past have always considered the question of style, yet they seldom looked into the question of changes in drawing conventions (Gebhard & Nevins, 1977). Additionally, this study seeks to identify the relationship between chosen drawing style and communication—that is, how have designers throughout time resolved elusive concepts harmoniously, and how have their choices of convention aided them? To further understand this relationship, a closer look into the overall history surrounding development of design drawing is imperative. Once an understanding of the history of architectural drawing and its connection to these forces have been established, this study will then make the case for its relevance in interior design today. The advantages and disadvantages of certain drawing conventions, as revealed in this research, can then be used in assisting today's designer in deciphering which technique can most appropriately convey his/her creative vision.
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Date Issued: 2008
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0480
Format: Thesis

Title: Excited States and Electrical Properties of Fe (III) and V (IV) Clusters.
Creator: Zipse, David, Dalal, Naresh, Molnár, Stephan von, Goldsby, Kenneth, Steinbock, Oliver, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: This dissertation describes the characterization of the magnetic and electrical properties of a unique class of transition metal complexes known as single-molecule magnets (SMMs). The experimental work of this dissertation is focused on the SMMs [(C6H15N3)6Fe8O2(OH)12]Br7(H2O)Br •8H2O (Fe8Br8), K6[V15As6O42(H2O)] • 8H2O (V15), as well as the analogous cluster compounds [NH(C2H5)3]4[V84.5+V44+As8O40(H2O)]•H2O (V12) and [(C6H15N3)4Fe4O(OH)5]I7 • 2.5 H2O (Fe4). SMMs are transition metal cluster...
Show moreThis dissertation describes the characterization of the magnetic and electrical properties of a unique class of transition metal complexes known as single-molecule magnets (SMMs). The experimental work of this dissertation is focused on the SMMs [(C6H15N3)6Fe8O2(OH)12]Br7(H2O)Br •8H2O (Fe8Br8), K6[V15As6O42(H2O)] • 8H2O (V15), as well as the analogous cluster compounds [NH(C2H5)3]4[V84.5+V44+As8O40(H2O)]•H2O (V12) and [(C6H15N3)4Fe4O(OH)5]I7 • 2.5 H2O (Fe4). SMMs are transition metal cluster complexes that exhibit single-molecule hysteresis and quantum tunneling of the magnetization (QTM). Fe8Br8 is one of the best characterized SMMs with its ground state spin S = 10, while V15 exhibits SMM behavior with a spin of S = ½. The foci of our investigations were the single-spin model in Fe8Br8, the basic electrical properties of V15 and V12, and the synthesis and characterization of the analogous cluster compound Fe4. Chapter 2 describes the characterization (magnetic parameters and energetic location) of the S = 9 excited state in Fe8Br8 by high field electron paramagnetic resonance, while Chapter 3 focuses on the measurement of the unpaired electron density distribution in Fe8Br8 as determined by 81Br solid state NMR. Both of these chapters bring into question the validity of the currently accepted single-spin model for Fe8Br8. Chapter 4 details the dielectric relaxation properties of V15 as determined by an ac impedance method. The semiconductive behavior of both V15 and V12 is described in Chapter 5, along with its comparison to optical absorption measurements, while the synthesis and magnetic characterization of the new cluster compound Fe4 is described in Chapter 6. The summary and main conclusions are presented in Chapter 7. The results presented herein should make a significant contribution to the fundamental understanding of the mechanism of quantum tunneling in Fe8Br8 and the basic electrical properties of SMMs for their potential use in future applications.
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Date Issued: 2004
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0481
Format: Thesis

Title: Antecedents and Consequences of Personal Reputation in Organizations.
Creator: Zinko, Robert, Ferris, Gerald R., Brady, Michael K., Perrewé, Pamela L., Humphrey, Stephen E., Hall, Angela T., Department of Management, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: This dissertation involves an exploratory investigation that examined the antecedents and consequences of personal reputation in organizations. Using existing scales, this examination inspected personality, social effectiveness, expertise, and time as antecedents of personal reputation, and analyzed power, autonomy, and career advancement as consequences. A structural equation model was used to analyze the data in order to further our understanding of personal reputation in organizations. A...
Show moreThis dissertation involves an exploratory investigation that examined the antecedents and consequences of personal reputation in organizations. Using existing scales, this examination inspected personality, social effectiveness, expertise, and time as antecedents of personal reputation, and analyzed power, autonomy, and career advancement as consequences. A structural equation model was used to analyze the data in order to further our understanding of personal reputation in organizations. A revised model, driven by theory and improved fit, supported the proposed antecedents and consequences, with personal reputation partially or fully mediating the two groups (i.e., antecedents and consequences). Furthermore, additional analysis furthered our understanding of the reputation construct as it related to self and other reports. Strengths and limitations of this dissertation, and directions for future research are discussed.
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Date Issued: 2007
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0485
Format: Thesis

Title: Experimental Investigation of Supersonic Cavity Flows and Their Control.
Creator: Zhuang, Ning, Alvi, Farrukh S., Shih, Chiang, Tam, Christopher, Annaswamy, Anuradha, Collins, Emmanuel G., Department of Mechanical Engineering, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: The study of supersonic cavity flows is of interest both from fundamental fluid dynamics and practical perspectives. The complex nature of this flowfield, consisting of compressible shear layers, compression/expansion waves, and fluid-acoustic interactions, makes it a rich problem to study. A detailed experimental study of supersonic flow (M=1.5 to 2) over a range of three-dimensional rectangular cavities (L/D=1 to 5.2) was conducted. The measurements included unsteady surface pressure...
Show moreThe study of supersonic cavity flows is of interest both from fundamental fluid dynamics and practical perspectives. The complex nature of this flowfield, consisting of compressible shear layers, compression/expansion waves, and fluid-acoustic interactions, makes it a rich problem to study. A detailed experimental study of supersonic flow (M=1.5 to 2) over a range of three-dimensional rectangular cavities (L/D=1 to 5.2) was conducted. The measurements included unsteady surface pressure measurements, particle image velocimetry, and flow visualization using shadowgraph and schlieren. Large-scale structures in the shear layer and a large recirculation zone in the cavity was observed. Spatial and temporal mode switching was also observed, the nature being different for short and long cavities. The shear layer characteristics of the two cavities are very different in term of curvature and growth. Supersonic microjets were used at the leading edge of the cavities to suppress the resonance in the flow. With a minimal mass flux (0.15%), the activation of microjets led to a large reduction in cavity tones (20 dB) and overall sound pressure levels (9dB). In addition, the microjet injection enhanced the shear layer mixing and reduced the velocity fluctuation in the cavities. The significant reductions together with the low mass flux requirements make this a potentially viable technique for full-scale, practical applications.
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Date Issued: 2007
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0508
Format: Thesis

Title: Health Communication Campaigns: Targeting Adolescents with Clusters of Health-Compromising Behaviors.
Creator: Esquibel, Monica Adriann, Heald, Gary R., McDowell, Stephen D., Mayo, John K., School of Communication, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Historically the preventable risks affecting morbidity and mortality among adolescents and young adults have largely been thought of as independent behaviors. However, a growing body of evidence has shown that many of these adolescent risk behaviors are often interrelated. Traditionally public health communication campaigns and audience segmentation strategies have been designed to address "individual" unhealthy lifestyles and behaviors among youth in the United States. In recent years,...
Show moreHistorically the preventable risks affecting morbidity and mortality among adolescents and young adults have largely been thought of as independent behaviors. However, a growing body of evidence has shown that many of these adolescent risk behaviors are often interrelated. Traditionally public health communication campaigns and audience segmentation strategies have been designed to address "individual" unhealthy lifestyles and behaviors among youth in the United States. In recent years, public health researchers have recommended that campaigns should be identifying clusters of behaviors for intervention. This shift requires health campaign professionals to alter communication audience segmentation strategies in order to identify the characteristics of individuals who exhibit combinations of unhealthy lifestyle and risky behaviors. This study is a secondary analysis examining the co-occurrence of health risk behaviors among adolescents with the objective of developing profiles that can be used in segmentation strategies to help target youth audiences in communication campaigns. Building on previous research, this study focused on seven adolescent health-compromising behaviors simultaneously. This study identified four meaningful clusters of risky behaviors and health- compromising lifestyles. Three of these clusters contain adolescents reporting above average co-occurring risks. Furthermore, this study used demographic, BMI scores, self-perceptions, and leisure activity measures to profile and predict membership in the four cluster groups. The results of this study identified a few common re-occurring patterns. Similar to previous research, the findings show that the majority of adolescents in grades 9-12 have low-risk profiles while the highest risk group had the lowest number of adolescents. Gender was found to be an inconsistent measure of membership in the risk profiles. Age predicted group membership in one of the clusters. Race/ethnicity variously predicted membership in the three risk profiles. Number of days missed due to perceived threats predicted membership in two profiles. Health perception predicted membership in all three profiles. The results of this study support the stance that prevention/intervention efforts can justifiably and meaningfully focus on multiple risk behaviors simultaneously. Differences among the risk profiles are important to note and should be highlighted in prevention/intervention efforts.
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Date Issued: 2008
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0509
Format: Thesis

Title: Spatiotemporal Variability and Prediction of Rainfall over the Eastern Caribbean.
Creator: Pologne, Lawrence, Cai, Ming, Krishnamurti, T. N., Hart, Robert, Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Recent, recurrent, and extreme weather events have been a cause for concern over the Eastern Caribbean (EC). Given the dependence on rainfall of agriculture, the main stay of the fragile economies throughout the region, accurate and timely forecasts of seasonal rainfall need to be issued to facilitate decision making in Water Resource Management. Understanding the causes of climate variability can lead to the development of more robust models for climate prediction. So as a diagnostic...
Show moreRecent, recurrent, and extreme weather events have been a cause for concern over the Eastern Caribbean (EC). Given the dependence on rainfall of agriculture, the main stay of the fragile economies throughout the region, accurate and timely forecasts of seasonal rainfall need to be issued to facilitate decision making in Water Resource Management. Understanding the causes of climate variability can lead to the development of more robust models for climate prediction. So as a diagnostic approach, different techniques are employed. Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) analysis is performed in order to isolate the different modes of rainfall variability as well as investigating their amplitudinal modulations. The evolution of external forcing mechanisms that impact on precipitation extremes is also investigated with the use of composites. Based on the strength of the relationship between Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies (SSTA) and EC rainfall, a statistical model is subsequently developed using multivariate Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA) to predict rainfall over the region on seasonal time scales. The CCA model demonstrated useful skill in predicting seasonal rainfall over the EC up to six months lead. The highest average predictive skill is realized for the June-July-August (JJA) season at one-month lead, while the lowest average skill is realized for the March-April-May (MAM) season at five months lead. The December-January-February (DJF) season maintained steady skill throughout six months lead. Below normal conditions are forecasted by the CCA model for the 2004/2005 dry season (DJF/2004-05, MAM/2005). This outlook is in part, verified from seasonal rainfall totals at two stations within the EC. The outlook for the coming rainy season is for above normal conditions.
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Date Issued: 2005
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0510
Format: Thesis

Title: Institutionalized Piracy and the Development of the Jamaica Sloop, 1630-1743.
Creator: Evans, Amanda Michelle, Ward, Cheryl A., Leshikar-Denton, Margaret, Parkinson, William, Herrera, Robinson, Department of Anthropology, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: English colonists on the island of Jamaica in the seventeenth century struggled with adversity while attempting to establish a permanent settlement. At the time, England lacked the infrastructure necessary to support a prolonged military presence in the Caribbean and English colonists were left to defend themselves amidst hostile neighboring islands. Privateers and pirates operating from Tortuga were lured to Port Royal, Jamaica, and their presence provided a source of security to the colony....
Show moreEnglish colonists on the island of Jamaica in the seventeenth century struggled with adversity while attempting to establish a permanent settlement. At the time, England lacked the infrastructure necessary to support a prolonged military presence in the Caribbean and English colonists were left to defend themselves amidst hostile neighboring islands. Privateers and pirates operating from Tortuga were lured to Port Royal, Jamaica, and their presence provided a source of security to the colony. Money spent by the privateers also supported the local economy. As the economy of Jamaica stabilized, pirates who once protected the island began preying upon Jamaican shipping. Colonists, influenced by the geophysical environment, economics and politics, were stimulated by piracy to improve upon inadequate ship designs and create an adapted design to mitigate their vulnerability to piratical attack at sea. The resulting ships, known as Jamaica sloops, became renowned for speed and maneuverability.
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Date Issued: 2005
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0488
Format: Thesis

Title: Intentional Binding of Negative Items in Memory.
Creator: Zimmerman, Carissa A., Kelley, Colleen, Eklund, Robert, Charness, Neil, Kaschak, Michael, Plant, Ashby, Department of Psychology, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Memory for individual negative items, such as words and pictures, is consistently superior to memory for individual neutral items; however, recent research has found that relational memory for pairs of negative items is not enhanced relative to their neutral counterparts. The current experiments investigated the boundary conditions for this lack of negative associative memory enhancement and repeatedly found that memory for negative word pairs was not better than memory for neutral word pairs...
Show moreMemory for individual negative items, such as words and pictures, is consistently superior to memory for individual neutral items; however, recent research has found that relational memory for pairs of negative items is not enhanced relative to their neutral counterparts. The current experiments investigated the boundary conditions for this lack of negative associative memory enhancement and repeatedly found that memory for negative word pairs was not better than memory for neutral word pairs. In fact, cued recall of negative stimuli exceeded that of neutral stimuli only when word pairs were encoded holistically, as in the case of adjective-noun pairs. Findings are discussed in terms of the important dissociation between item and associative memory, and the implications of this distinction for theories of emotional memory in general. Finally, a discrete-emotion approach to emotional memory is introduced as one fruitful avenue for exploration.
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Date Issued: 2010
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0487
Format: Thesis

Title: Bcq a Bin-Based Core Stateless Packet Scheduler for Scalable and Flexible Support of Guaranteed Services.
Creator: Purnachandra, Karthik P., Duan, Zhenhai, Yuan, Xin, Gopalan, Kartik, Department of Computer Science, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: IP Networks have become an integral part of our daily lives. As we become more dependent on this technology, we realize the importance and use of networks that can be configured to cater to various classes of services and users. Given the potential scalability in providing Quality of Services (QoS), core-stateless packet scheduling algorithms have attracted lot of attention in recent years. Unlike traditional stateful packet schedulers that require routers to maintain per-flow state and...
Show moreIP Networks have become an integral part of our daily lives. As we become more dependent on this technology, we realize the importance and use of networks that can be configured to cater to various classes of services and users. Given the potential scalability in providing Quality of Services (QoS), core-stateless packet scheduling algorithms have attracted lot of attention in recent years. Unlike traditional stateful packet schedulers that require routers to maintain per-flow state and perform per-flow operations, core-stateless packet schedulers service packets based on some state carried in packet headers (such as reservation rate of a flow), and as a consequence, no per-flow state needs to be maintained at core routers, and no per-flow operations performed, which significantly reduce the complexity and improve the scalability of the packet scheduling algorithms. On the other hand, although core-stateless packet schedulers remove the requirement of per-flow state and operations, they aim to emulate the scheduling operations of the corresponding stateful packet schedulers. An important implication of this emulation is that they need to sort packets according to the control state carried in the packet headers and service packets in that order. This sorting operation can be quite expensive when the packet queue is long, which may not be acceptable in high-speed backbone networks. In this thesis, we present a bin-based core-stateless packet scheduling algorithm, BCQ, to overcome this problem. Like other core-stateless packet scheduling algorithms, BCQ does not require core routers to maintain per-flow state and perform per-flow operations. It schedules packets based on the notion of virtual time stamps. Virtual time stamps are computed using only some control state that can be carried in packet headers (and a few constant parameters of the scheduler). However, unlike current core-state packet scheduling algorithm, a BCQ scheduler maintain a number of packet bins, each representing a range of virtual times. Arriving packets at a BCQ scheduler are classified into the packet bins maintained by the BCQ, based on the virtual time stamps of the packets. Bins are serviced according to the range of virtual times they represent, packets in bins with earlier virtual times are serviced first. Packets within each bin are serviced in FIFO order. We formally present the BCQ scheduler in this thesis and conduct simulations to study its performance. Our simulation results show that BCQ is a scalable and flexible packet scheduling algorithm. By controlling the size of bins (therefore the cost of BCQ), BCQ can achieve different desirable performances. For example, when the bin size is sufficient large, all arriving packets will be falling in one bin, and no packet sorting is conducted (BCQ becomes a FIFO scheduler). On the other hand, as we gradually decrease the bin size, BCQ can provide different QoS performance (at greater cost). When the bin size is sufficient small, BCQ can provide the same end-to-end delay performance as other core-stateless schedulers.
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Date Issued: 2005
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0486
Format: Thesis

Title: "Teaching in the Eyes of Beholders": Preservice Teachers' Reasons for Teaching and Their Beliefs About Teaching.
Creator: Pop, Margareta Maria, Turner, Jeannine E., Rutledge, Stacey, Roehrig, Alysia, Keller, John, Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: The purpose of the present study was to investigate Preservice Teachers' (PT) reasons for teaching and their beliefs about teaching. Specific reasons of PTs for entering the teaching career, and typologies (clusters) of PTs based on their reasons for teaching were investigated. Further, across the clusters of PTs, their beliefs about teaching were examined, in the context of PTs' understanding of their goals to become teachers. Mixed methods were used for data collection: survey and...
Show moreThe purpose of the present study was to investigate Preservice Teachers' (PT) reasons for teaching and their beliefs about teaching. Specific reasons of PTs for entering the teaching career, and typologies (clusters) of PTs based on their reasons for teaching were investigated. Further, across the clusters of PTs, their beliefs about teaching were examined, in the context of PTs' understanding of their goals to become teachers. Mixed methods were used for data collection: survey and interviews. Participants were undergraduate students enrolled in the EDF 4210 Educational Psychology and EDF 4430 Classroom Assessment courses for the Spring semester 2007. The study was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, 215 participants completed a survey about PTs' demographic data, PTs' reasons for teaching and their beliefs about teaching. An initial quantitative analysis of participants' responses for the Reasons for Teaching Questionnaire (RTQ) was made using factor analysis and cluster analysis to establish groups/clusters of individuals displaying similar patterns regarding their reasons for teaching. For the second phase of the study, a selected number of participants (n=25) from the three clusters were recruited for an in-depth interview. The purpose of the interviews was to explore more deeply PTs' understanding of their goal to become a teacher, as well as similarities and differences across the clusters. Overall, the study results indicated a variety of reasons for teaching and beliefs about teaching expressed by PTs in their survey and interview responses. Survey results indicated six main categories of reasons (i.e., factors) as influential to PTs' career choices. These were reasons related to PTs' identity issues, reasons related to PTs' subject matter, reasons related to PTs' meaningful relationships, reasons related to the teaching job benefits, reasons related to PTs' holistic views of profession and reasons related to job opportunities through teaching. Three different clusters of PTs were obtained by conducting a cluster analysis, and specific reasons were found to be relevant for each cluster as related to their teaching career choices. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and post hoc tests, conducted to further explore the differences across clusters of PTs regarding their beliefs about schooling and beliefs about the teaching career, showed significant differences across the three clusters of PTs. The interview results provided more support to understanding the interplay among PTs' motivation and beliefs about teaching in the context of their understanding of the teaching goal development. A grounded theory model was developed to represent PTs' understanding of their teaching goal development as related to four major categories: Motivators, Beliefs, Context, and Strategies. Results from this study showed that PTs' understanding of their goal development was related to different types (or combination) of motivators for teaching, specific beliefs about the teaching career, all these applied to a specific context (i.e., past school experiences, emotions etc). How PTs perceived themselves as teachers, and how they perceived teaching represented a major influence in their career choices. Research from this area can bring a significant contribution to understanding PTs' beliefs in connection with their reasons for teaching as related to their attitudes toward teaching and their future professional practices. From this perspective, the issue of teacher education quality programs can be addressed, and stress the importance of studying PTs' views of teaching as related to their future instructional practices. Findings from such research may also bring a contribution to understanding motivational aspects for continuing teaching and job satisfaction, and indirectly may provide support to understanding various teacher attrition issues.
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Date Issued: 2008
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0498
Format: Thesis

Title: Classical Saxophone Transcriptions: Role and Reception.
Creator: Etheridge, Kathryn Diane, Seaton, Douglass, Glahn, Denise Von, Meighan, Patrick, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Transcriptions occupy a fundamental place in Western musical development, having been created used since the Middle Ages Composers, performers, and arrangers are still constantly adapting music in order to learn various musical styles and to bring variety to their programs. Besides the advantages to composers, musicians, and students of music, transcriptions allow audiences to hear repertoire that would be unavailable to them in its original format. Transcriptions may also permit listeners to...
Show moreTranscriptions occupy a fundamental place in Western musical development, having been created used since the Middle Ages Composers, performers, and arrangers are still constantly adapting music in order to learn various musical styles and to bring variety to their programs. Besides the advantages to composers, musicians, and students of music, transcriptions allow audiences to hear repertoire that would be unavailable to them in its original format. Transcriptions may also permit listeners to hear familiar works through fresh interpretations that can illuminate aspects of the music not heard in the original instrumentation. Classical saxophonists, in particular, use transcriptions for various purposes, including those previously mentioned. This study of saxophone transcriptions raises three overarching points: • Transcriptions have been and remain an important component of classical saxophone performance and recording. • Recorded saxophone transcriptions range from high art to popular music, their material borrowed from the last nine centuries or more of Western music history—and these works are reviewed differently in different journals. • The key to a successful programming of transcriptions lies in historical and performance practice research, and in awareness of one's audience. A study of transcriptions within the context of the saxophone's history, how these pieces are interpreted by the performers and organized on recordings next to—or instead of—original works for the saxophone, and reviews of these recordings were all employed in the present study in order to determine how transcriptions represent the instrument. Analysis of saxophone recordings and reviews, including four case studies that take a closer look at individual saxophone CDs, demonstrates how saxophone transcriptions portray the classical saxophone to various audiences. The study of this repertoire, and of saxophonists performing it, must go hand in hand with a study of the saxophonists themselves and the ways in which they view these works. Most saxophonists are arrangers; many of the pieces they perform and record were created by them, as well. The choice to perform these transcriptions should prompt more decision-making on the part of the saxophonist than does that of completely original works, especially if the performer is also the arranger. This study shows that, whether practiced by a saxophonist or any other performing musician, creation and performance of transcriptions are multi-faceted activities. Transcriptions remain an important and valuable component of the recorded saxophone repertoire. They offer to audiences the opportunity to hear a stylistically appropriate rendition of music that adds variety and broader appeal to the mostly twentieth-century classical saxophone repertoire, thus opening the way for more listeners to discover and enjoy this sound resource.
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Date Issued: 2008
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0499
Format: Thesis

Title: Investigating the Alternating Periods Monopoly.
Creator: Zillante, Arthur L., Isaac, R. Mark (Robert Mark), Cronin, Joe, Zuehlke, Tom, Salmon, Tim, Department of Economics, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: An oft-neglected pattern of behavior in the industrial organization literature occurs when firms time the release of their products so that they are not released on the same date. Because of the potentially collusive nature of this practice, there may be legitimate antitrust concerns. This paper presents a model of this behavior which will be called the alternating periods monopoly (APM). Industry characteristics that increase the likelihood of the APM are developed and conditions are derived...
Show moreAn oft-neglected pattern of behavior in the industrial organization literature occurs when firms time the release of their products so that they are not released on the same date. Because of the potentially collusive nature of this practice, there may be legitimate antitrust concerns. This paper presents a model of this behavior which will be called the alternating periods monopoly (APM). Industry characteristics that increase the likelihood of the APM are developed and conditions are derived in a stochastic demand environment to show when firms would prefer to use the APM to other sustainable methods of collusion. A detailed description of the post World War II baseball card industry is presented using the standard industrial organization structure-conduct-performance paradigm as a guide. The characteristics of the baseball card industry closely parallel those characteristics discussed in the theoretical model. This parallel between the theory and the industry suggests that data from the baseball card industry may be used to determine if the manufacturers are using an APM. Current methods of detecting potentially collusive behavior are discussed in the fourth chapter. The data from the baseball card industry do not meet the assumptions needed to effectively use the current methods, rendering them useless in this particular industry. I propose a new empirical test based on duration analysis to determine if firms are using the APM. Using the time between product release data from the baseball card industry, I estimate hazard rates that show positive duration dependence. I also estimate hazard rates for data sets constructed using the same parameters (number of releases and number of days over which those releases occur) as the baseball card industry, but forcing the firms to release in ways that would not be considered to match the APM. The hazard rates for the constructed data show negative duration dependence, which provides evidence that the data from the baseball card industry is consistent with an APM hypothesis. The fifth chapter of the dissertation uses an economic experiment to determine if the APM can arise without free-form communication between subjects. The existence of practices that facilitate collusion has generated a large discussion in the antitrust arena. This experiment allows subjects to communicate their future intentions of entering a market in a particular time period by means of a binary signal, where 1 signals enter and 0 signals exit. The overwhelming evidence provided by the experiment is that subjects cannot use the binary signals to coordinate on an APM, even though it is clear that some subjects are both signaling a willingness to participate in an APM and making entry decisions consistent with an APM. These experiments show that the practice of sending non-binding communication is not enough to foster collusion among all subjects, although the treatments with fewer subjects and higher costs show some evidence that an APM may arise under these conditions.
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Date Issued: 2004
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0500
Format: Thesis

Title: Evaluating the Effect of a Nutrition Intervention on Fruit and Vegetable Choices by Students in Elementary, Middle, and High Schools, Through the Use of Daily Production Records.
Creator: Medina-Zimmerman, Jennifer Belen, Cook, Laura R., Abood, Doris, Zahn, Doug, Department of Nutrition, Food, and Exercise Science, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: The rising prevalence of obesity in the United States is a serious health concern. The increased prevalence of obesity in children has motivated researchers and health professionals to work in the community to educate and implement interventions to improve the dietary habits of American children. Schools provide an excellent setting for nutrition interventions aimed at children. Increasing fruit and vegetable (FV) consumption among children is an effective way to promote and teach healthy...
Show moreThe rising prevalence of obesity in the United States is a serious health concern. The increased prevalence of obesity in children has motivated researchers and health professionals to work in the community to educate and implement interventions to improve the dietary habits of American children. Schools provide an excellent setting for nutrition interventions aimed at children. Increasing fruit and vegetable (FV) consumption among children is an effective way to promote and teach healthy food habits and to reduce obesity by substituting FV for foods high in fat, cholesterol, sodium, and sugar. The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of a nutrition intervention on FV choices by students using daily production records. Daily production records (DPR) were evaluated from three Florida districts during two consecutive school years. There were nine schools in the three districts who implemented interventions. Intervention activities included addition of salad bars, promotion of FV, sampling of FV, increasing variety and quantity of FV available, and improved merchandising of FV. Data measured were FV servings chosen by students since consumption could not be determined without additional observations or plate waste data. The total number of FV servings chosen per student per lunch period per school was determined by subtracting the number of leftover FV servings from the number of FV servings prepared. Numbers of servings of different types of FV were added together for each day. FV servings were divided by the total number of students who participated in the National School Lunch Program for each lunch period at each school. FV servings were compared pre- and post-intervention to evaluate any changes. Results showed an increase from 1.44 to 1.65 servings per student. Data were also analyzed by district and school type. Two of the three school districts showed significant increases in FV servings chosen per student. Elementary and Middle schools also showed significant increases in FV choices. It can be concluded from these results that the use of DPR is a useful method for measuring FV servings to assess interventions in a school setting when the aim of the intervention is focused on promotion of FV and increasing FV choices and consumption.
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Date Issued: 2004
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0492
Format: Thesis

Title: An Item-Specific and Relational Processing Account of Emotional Memory Enhancement.
Creator: Zimmerman, Carissa Ann, Kelley, Colleen M., Kaschak, Michael, Plant, E. Ashby, Department of Psychology, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Two experiments tested the competing item-specific and semantic cohesion hypotheses of emotional memory enhancement. The item-specific hypothesis predicts that emotional words receive more item-specific and less relational processing than neutral words, whereas the semantic cohesion hypothesis posits more relational processing of emotional words. In both experiments, emotional words were better remembered than neutral words. However, Experiment 1 found no support for either hypothesis;...
Show moreTwo experiments tested the competing item-specific and semantic cohesion hypotheses of emotional memory enhancement. The item-specific hypothesis predicts that emotional words receive more item-specific and less relational processing than neutral words, whereas the semantic cohesion hypothesis posits more relational processing of emotional words. In both experiments, emotional words were better remembered than neutral words. However, Experiment 1 found no support for either hypothesis; emotional and neutral words did not differ in the amount of either item-specific or relational processing, as measured by item gains and losses across repeated tests. Experiment 2 found that the memory advantage of emotional over neutral words did not differ as a function of the type of orienting task in which participants engaged. Several methodological explanations for the absence of the hypothesized findings are discussed along with future directions for research.
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Date Issued: 2008
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0490
Format: Thesis

Title: From Mosquito Clouds to War Clouds: The Rise of Naval Air Station Banana River.
Creator: Euziere, Melissa Williford, Jones, James P., Conner, V.J, Green, Elna C., Department of History, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Naval Air Station Banana River was created as a result of increased military appropriations to defend the Atlantic Coast of the United States of America. The Hepburn Board was charged with finding appropriate sites for new naval installations that could better protect American citizens from attacks along the coastline. After an exhaustive study, a site in Brevard County was selected to become a naval patrol sea plane base. County and city leaders in Brevard rallied around the construction of...
Show moreNaval Air Station Banana River was created as a result of increased military appropriations to defend the Atlantic Coast of the United States of America. The Hepburn Board was charged with finding appropriate sites for new naval installations that could better protect American citizens from attacks along the coastline. After an exhaustive study, a site in Brevard County was selected to become a naval patrol sea plane base. County and city leaders in Brevard rallied around the construction of the Naval Air Station Banana River that they had lobbied the Hepburn Board to bring to their county. They threw their support behind the station throughout its construction and celebrated its commissioning in October 1940. Pearl Harbor brought changes to NAS Banana River as German U-boats stalked the Florida coast and the station's mission was expanded to include patrol duty, search and rescue, bombardier training, sea-plane pilot training, and communications research. Buildings sprang up in response to the increase in personnel needed to fill all of the programs. Brevard County welcomed the sailors into their towns, homes, and lives. Although the base itself was isolated, there were a number of activities on and off base to keep the sailors busy. The county was felt the economic impact of the base with an increased number of employment opportunities, a rise in retail and food service profits, and a demand for additional infrastructure to support the station. Naval Air Station Banana River was deactivated in 1947 to the dismay of the people in Brevard County. Their disappointment did not last long when a few years later the base was reactivated to serve as the headquarters of the newly formed Joint Long Range Proving Ground, a testing site for the American rocket and missile program. The existence of the Naval Air Station Banana River and the infrastructure created to support it helped to bring missile program, and a few years later the space program, to Brevard County.
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Date Issued: 2003
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0489
Format: Thesis

Title: The Validation of A Measure of Competency in the Use of Psychological Assessment in Career Counseling: A Piagetian Framework.
Creator: Etheridge, Roy L., Peterson, Gary W., Tate, Richard L., Proctor, Briley, English, R William, Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Based on the results of a prior field study, it was determined that an instrument that borrows from Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development could be constructed and reliably used to measure assessor competence in the use of a career counseling assessment instrument in career counselor training. This research further explores the feasibility of validating this instrument. If successful, a training template could be created to provide competency measurement for the remediation of...
Show moreBased on the results of a prior field study, it was determined that an instrument that borrows from Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development could be constructed and reliably used to measure assessor competence in the use of a career counseling assessment instrument in career counselor training. This research further explores the feasibility of validating this instrument. If successful, a training template could be created to provide competency measurement for the remediation of counselors in training and the improvement of counselor training models. The theoretical model upon which the instrument is based is the Piagetian Matrix of Test User Competence (PMTUC). The competency assessment instrument based on this theoretical matrix was named A Measure of Assessor Competence (AMAC). The AMAC produces one global score based on six test items. The long-term intent of this line of research is to promote the utility of the PMTUC in the creation of a variety of measures of competency (AMACs) across many psychological assessments. The PMTUC theory and the resulting AMAC instruments could be applicable to all instruments. The specific intent of this study was to validate the use of the AMAC in the creation of a measure of competency in the use of a career counseling instrument. The instrument selected for this validation research was the Career Thoughts Inventory (CTI) because experts in the use of this instrument were readily available. Therefore, the measure of assessor competency for this specific research study is the AMAC-CTI. Future studies might attempt to build measures of competency in the use of the MMPI-2 (AMAC-MMPI-2), Rorschach (AMAC-Rorschach), or perhaps the WISC-IV (AMAC-WISC-IV). To validate the AMAC-CTI instrument, five studies were conducted. Study 1 involved expert ratings of the importance of the six items in the AMAC-CTI using an Expert Content Rating Form. The experts in the field of counseling and career development were identified by the Director of Clinical Training in a Combined Doctoral Program in Counseling Psychology and School Psychology at a large university in the southeastern United States. For this study, persons were considered experts if they had at least 10 years experience in the field of career counseling, held faculty positions, currently supervised graduate students in career counseling, and had served as a supervisor for the student administration of at least two hundred Career Thoughts Inventories. All five experts agreed that the items on the AMAC-CTI were important to critically important. Studies 2, 3, and 4 involved expert raters, graduate students, and professionals in the field of counseling and career development. The graduate students were enrolled in a Combined Counseling Psychology and School Psychology doctoral program or the Mental Health Counseling masters program at a large southeastern university who have been trained in the use of the CTI. The professionals work in the field of counseling psychology and have also been trained in the use of the CTI. Participants were approached via face-to-face request, e-mail request, or telephone by either the primary investigator of this dissertation or the aforementioned Director of Clinical Training about volunteering for a study of trainee competency using assessments. Once persons agreed to participate, they were contacted via e-mail by the primary investigator and were directed via e-mail to access a web link provided by www.surveymonkey.com. Once participants accessed the link, they were introduced to the survey and presented with an electronic consent form and, upon agreeing to participate, a background questionnaire. Participants provided responded to six open-ended format questions which were assumed to correspond to the 6 primary determinants of test user competence. At the conclusion of the survey collection process, responses to surveys were redacted of personal identification information and given to expert raters to perform ratings using the AMAC-CTI. For Study 2, inter-rater reliability coefficients and measures of internal consistency were derived to confirm the reliability of the instrument. An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) determined that the AMAC-CTI is a uni-dimensional instrument. Study 3 was conducted to examine the difficulty of the instrument. The open-ended portion of the survey required respondents to answer six detailed questions that corresponded to the six items that make up the AMAC-CTI. Based on the results of this research project, the performance tasks were determined to be somewhat difficult. Study 4 assessed convergent validity by asking the student participants' clinical supervisors to rate their respective students' competency in the use of the CTI. Supervisors used the same evaluation criteria as the AMAC-CTI to assess their students. The student participants' overall AMAC-CTI scores were then correlated with the overall ratings provided by their respective clinical supervisors. It was hypothesized that these scores would be correlated, but statistical analyses failed to show a significant relationship. For Study 5, analyses were performed to examine the relationship between AMAC-CTI scores and education and between AMAC-CTI scores and experience in the use of the CTI. AMAC-CTI ratings were positively correlated with experience in the use of the CTI, but were not correlated with education level and the number of assessment courses completed by participants. Implications for further test development and counselor training of assessment skills are discussed.
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Date Issued: 2008
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0491
Format: Thesis

Title: Slugger or Slacker: A Sabermetric Assessment of Free Agency on Major League Baseball Player Performance.
Creator: Estes, Brent Cullen, James, Jeff, Travis, Joseph, Imwold, Charles, Mondello, Michael, Department of Sport Management, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: This study analyzed Major League Baseball player performance using sabermetric measurements of offensive productivity in order to determine how player production was impacted as a result of free agency. The theoretical framework for this research is based on two competing theories of social and organizational behavior: J. S. Adams' Equity Theory and Victor Vroom's Expectancy Theory. Both equity theory and expectancy theory were developed to predict worker performance under conditions of...
Show moreThis study analyzed Major League Baseball player performance using sabermetric measurements of offensive productivity in order to determine how player production was impacted as a result of free agency. The theoretical framework for this research is based on two competing theories of social and organizational behavior: J. S. Adams' Equity Theory and Victor Vroom's Expectancy Theory. Both equity theory and expectancy theory were developed to predict worker performance under conditions of inequity in terms of under-reward and over-reward. In conjunction with both theories, this study assumed the following: (1) that players in the final year of their contracts, just prior to becoming eligible for free agency, perceived inequitable conditions of under-reward, and (2) that players who signed a new multi-year free agent contract perceived inequitable conditions of over-reward in the first year of a new contract. Sabermetric measurements, OPS, Runs Created, and Win Shares, were utilized to assess performance improvements or decrements for players in each of the following three years: (1) pre-option year- the year prior to a player becoming a free agent, (2) option year- the last year of a player's contract, and (3) post-option year- the first year of a player's new contract. Subjects consisted of Major League Baseball free-agents who signed multi-year contracts of at least two years or more with a their current team or another major league franchise between the years of 1976 and 2003 (n = 234). In order to qualify for inclusion, players must have had a minimum of 250 at-bats in each of the three individual years being examined: pre-option year, option year, and post-option year. Covariates, age and team winning percentage, were incorporated into this study in an attempt to control for specific factors thought to impact individual player performance. Results of multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA) revealed that free agency had a significant impact on each of the three performance measures. Follow-up univariate analyses of variance (ANOVA) indicated that player performance significantly declined for each of the dependent variables following free agency. When controlling for age, multivariate analyses of covariance (MANCOVA) revealed no significant effects with regards to the impact of free agency on player performance. When controlling for team winning percentage, however, multivariate and univariate analyses indicated that post-option year team winning percentage significantly affected the impact of free agency on player productivity. For each of the dependent variables, significant findings were consistent with expectancy theory predictions.
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Date Issued: 2006
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0501
Format: Thesis

Title: Informal Number-Related Mathematics Skills: An Examination of the Structure of and Relations Between These Skills in Preschool.
Creator: Purpura, David J., Lonigan, Christopher J., Foorman, Barbara, Kistner, Janet, Schatschneider, Christopher, Cougle, Jesse, Department of Psychology, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Validating the structure of early numeracy skills is critical to understanding the developmental trajectories of mathematics skills at early ages. However, little research has been devoted to construct evaluation of the Counting, Numerical Relations, and Arithmetic Reasoning domains. This study was designed to address this gap in the literature by (a) developing a broad and deep measure of Counting skills, Numerical Relations skills, and Arithmetic Reasoning skills, (b) examining the...
Show moreValidating the structure of early numeracy skills is critical to understanding the developmental trajectories of mathematics skills at early ages. However, little research has been devoted to construct evaluation of the Counting, Numerical Relations, and Arithmetic Reasoning domains. This study was designed to address this gap in the literature by (a) developing a broad and deep measure of Counting skills, Numerical Relations skills, and Arithmetic Reasoning skills, (b) examining the structure of these three skill domains, and (c) examining the relations between these three domains. In Phase 1 of this study, measure development was conducted using a sample of 306 children (50.5% girls; 46.9% White, 41.0% African American, and 12.1% other). In Phase 2, further measure development was conducted as well as evaluation of the structure of and relations between the three domains using Confirmatory Factor Analysis. Three hundred ninety-three children from the Tallahassee and Panama City areas in Florida participated in Phase 2 (51.7% girls, 55.7% White, 33.8% African American, and 10.5% other). Results indicated that the relations between the early numeracy skills were best explained by a three-factor model of Counting, Numerical Relations, and Arithmetic Reasoning. The findings from this study provide a strong foundation upon which to build future research in early numeracy skills.
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Date Issued: 2010
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0502
Format: Thesis

Title: The Development of the Transition Readiness Scale for Female Inmates.
Creator: Etheridge, Mary Anne, English, R. William, Peterson, Gary W., Railey, Michael, Tate, Richard L., Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: While there has been an increase in research concerning female offenders in recent years, there is no current standard for the comprehensive assessment of readiness for transition from a correctional environment into the community for this population. Most of the literature on female offenders focuses on factors contributing to criminal behavior and factors that predict recidivism risk with little focus on assessing readiness for transition from incarceration into society. Assessing and then...
Show moreWhile there has been an increase in research concerning female offenders in recent years, there is no current standard for the comprehensive assessment of readiness for transition from a correctional environment into the community for this population. Most of the literature on female offenders focuses on factors contributing to criminal behavior and factors that predict recidivism risk with little focus on assessing readiness for transition from incarceration into society. Assessing and then addressing the special needs of women during incarceration may help them successfully re-enter society, live a quality life, and thus avoid recidivism. This study represents the first steps in the construction of a reliable and valid needs assessment, the Transition Readiness Scale, to pinpoint and target the needs of female inmates and enhance readiness for release. The Transition Readiness Scale was based on a theory of readiness involving two dimensions: complexity and capability (Sampson, Peterson, Reardon, & Lenz, 2000). Complexity refers to readiness factors relating to an individual's environment or circumstances. Capability refers to factors relating to an individual's abilities or competencies. Upon review of the literature concerning female inmates, nine content areas were chosen to represent the most salient readiness areas in female inmates: substance abuse, physical health, mental health, education, employment, support, spirituality, life skills/resources, and parenting. The instrument was developed in three phases. During the first phase, the items on the Transition Readiness Scale were written to assess the domains of complexity and capability across the nine content areas listed above. An average of five items per content area were written to represent each domain of complexity and capability, for a total of one hundred initial items. The items underwent professional critique and serial revisions. Data collection to refine the instrument was conducted utilizing female correctional inmates at a large southeastern federal women's prison. The second phase, Tryout, involved fifty subjects completing the 100-item Transition Readiness Scale. Items on the instrument were eliminated if they did not meet certain inclusion criteria or demonstrate significant statistical variability, resulting in an 85-item instrument. Also during this phase, a team of expert judges was asked to sort the items into the domains of "complexity" and "capability" for the purpose of assessing content validity. During the third phase, Field Trial, three hundred and fifty inmates completed a reduced version of the instrument, producing 324 valid data sets. These subjects also completed a background questionnaire for the purpose of describing the development sample. The data for this phase were analyzed using a confirmatory factor analysis. Background information was compiled and used to describe the sample. The results of this research indicate that the items on the Transition Readiness Scale represent the constructs of capability and complexity. Support was found for many of the content domains to be considered subscales of the measure, but such support was not found for some. The TRS can be considered a screening tool for the assessment of female inmates' capability and complexity needs to promote readiness for release into community living. Further development of the instrument is needed for all content domains to be considered subscales, and further reliability and validity studies need to be conducted.
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Date Issued: 2005
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0497
Format: Thesis

Title: Model Characteristics and Properties of Nanorobots in the Bloodstream.
Creator: Zimmer, Michael Makoto, Owusu, Yaw A., Roberts, Rodney G., Parker, Reginald, Zhang, Chun, Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Many researchers have various visions and concepts about what the nanorobot will be like and what they will do. Most people see nanorobots doing a lot of functions in the medical field, having ideas of them doing cell repair, seek-and-destroy harmful diseases, clean arteries of cholesterol buildup, and much more. There are many questions that need to be answered as to what exactly is needed for the nanorobot to perform these medical functions. This project is not interested in the design of...
Show moreMany researchers have various visions and concepts about what the nanorobot will be like and what they will do. Most people see nanorobots doing a lot of functions in the medical field, having ideas of them doing cell repair, seek-and-destroy harmful diseases, clean arteries of cholesterol buildup, and much more. There are many questions that need to be answered as to what exactly is needed for the nanorobot to perform these medical functions. This project is not interested in the design of the nanorobot, but focuses on the characteristics and parameters that should be considered for a nanorobot to function through the bloodstream of a human body, specifically. To do this, a mobile robot was being used to traverse through a scaled model of the bloodstream. The scale model consisted of clear tubing or piping enclosed in a loop filled with liquid to nearly the exact viscosity of blood. The liquid had particles to emulate the various obstacles that a nanorobot would encounter like red blood cells and other molecules. The simulation had a continuous flow at the appropriate rate and pressure expected in the bloodstream. The pipe size was calculated setting the ratio of the diameter of a particular blood vessel over the diameter face of the assumed size of a nanorobot (DBV / DNR) equaling the diameter of the pipe (unknown variable) to the diameter face of the mobile robot (DPipe / Dsub). The pipe size came to be 6.66 inches, however pipe sizes come in increments of 2 inches larger than 4 inch pipes. It was settled to use 6 inch pipes. With this variable, the Reynolds number is the diameter of pipe times the velocity of the fluid over the kinematic viscosity of the fluid (R = (DPipe * ν) / υ). Setting the Reynolds value of the bloodstream equal to the Reynolds value of the model, the velocity of the pipe could be isolated. With that the flow rate was evaluated by multiplying the velocity to the cross-sectional area of the pipe (Flow Rate was equal to 0.2021392 gallon/minute). With all conditions met for an accurate model of the bloodstream, the physical model was designed and constructed then testing with the mobile robot was done to determine how the robot functions in the simulated environment. The results of the experiment showed that the mobile robot is influenced by the environment. The speed it travels decreases as viscosity of the fluid increases. The particles in the fluid also affect the speed along with the flow of the fluid. Mobility and control of the mobile robot were hindered with the increase of viscosity and the presence of particles. When traveling against the flow of the fluid it was further hindered. Stability of the craft increased along with viscosity but was chaotic traveling with particles. The performance of the mobile robot was affected by the conditions and parameters involved in the bloodstream.
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Date Issued: 2005
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0496
Format: Thesis

Title: Improving Design of the BNR Process in Wastewater Treatment Plants from an Operations Perspective.
Creator: Zickefoose, Brie, Leszczynska, Danuta, Hilton, Amy Chan, Dzurik, Andrew, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Sole nutrient removal from wastewater discharges has become an increasing challenge, as regulatory authorities tighten discharge standards to avoid eutrophication problems in receiving waters. Engineers have become aware that there is a need for new engineering design of standard wastewater treatment plants that should include removal of nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) in an efficient and cost effective manner. This need led to the development of biological nutrient removal (BNR) process,...
Show moreSole nutrient removal from wastewater discharges has become an increasing challenge, as regulatory authorities tighten discharge standards to avoid eutrophication problems in receiving waters. Engineers have become aware that there is a need for new engineering design of standard wastewater treatment plants that should include removal of nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) in an efficient and cost effective manner. This need led to the development of biological nutrient removal (BNR) process, which is a distinctive modification of the basic activated sludge process. The BNR process is controlled in bioreactor with separate zones that create different biochemical environments, which allow the system to remove a high degree of nitrogen and phosphorus from the wastewater. There are many uncertainties and uncontrollable factors in the BNR process, therefore achieving high reliability depends heavily on knowledgeable operators and engineers. Operators and start-up engineers can help design engineers become more knowledgeable about uniqueness in design by passing on key information that becomes available during operations. This information was collected and used to improve design's layout of BNR bioreactor to accommodate all observed operational deficiencies. The deficiencies found during operations were related to start-up conditions, climate, process related issues and equipment spacing. Start-up conditions, climate and equipment need to be considered more closely during design. Engineers can learn from the process related deficiencies found during operations to improve the process design.
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Date Issued: 2004
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0507
Format: Thesis

Title: El Gato Montés: A Victim in Spain's Struggle to Establish A National Operatic Identity.
Creator: Esquivel, Karen, Darrow, Alice Ann, Gerber, Larry, College of Music, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: The task of creating Spanish opera in a musical environment which was hostile and critical has been a consternation and challenge for almost every Spanish composer with a desire to create a Spanish national operatic identity. The opera El Gato Montés, by composer-librettist Manuel Penella Moreno (1880-1939) premiered in 1916. The work achieved great public success in and outside of Spain, including a 10 week sold-out performance run in New York City in 1920. Penella's talent for composing...
Show moreThe task of creating Spanish opera in a musical environment which was hostile and critical has been a consternation and challenge for almost every Spanish composer with a desire to create a Spanish national operatic identity. The opera El Gato Montés, by composer-librettist Manuel Penella Moreno (1880-1939) premiered in 1916. The work achieved great public success in and outside of Spain, including a 10 week sold-out performance run in New York City in 1920. Penella's talent for composing lovely melodies is manifest in the music for El Gato Montés. The libretto is dramatic and effective. Its appeal to the public at large was demonstrated with its triumphant premiere and following successful performances. Ultimately, this opera met the same fate as the great majority of Spanish operas. It was set aside and forgotten. The only exception to this pattern was Manuel de Falla's (1876-1946) La vida breve (1913). The purpose of this study is to present Penella's El Gato Montés as an exceptional example of Spanish opera and present a brief history of the development of this genre, from its birth with the opera La púrpura de la rosa by Juan Hidalgo de Polanca in 1660, through the premiere of El Gato Montés in 1916. An analysis of the work will identify and discuss the variety of characteristics of Spanish society, culture and music which are incorporated in the opera, and make the opera a distinctly Spanish work. These characteristics include: the representation of Catholic morality and customs, machismo, familial aspects of a matriarchal society, the gypsies of Southern Spain and their cante flamenco, and the bullfight with its associated musical form, the pasodoble. Several of the criticisms that appeared at the time of the opera's premiere will be discussed, including the accusation that the opera was nothing more than an "españolada," an artificial caricature of the true Spain. It is the author's opinion that El Gato Montés is a work worthy of consideration as an important contribution to Spanish music and the operatic repertoire.
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Date Issued: 2009
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0506
Format: Thesis

Title: Garden and Museum: History and Paradigm.
Creator: Esposito, Susan F., Weingarden, LaurenS., Wager, Walter W., Martinez, Maricarmen, Thompson-Wylder, Viki, Program in Interdisciplinary Humanities, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Michel Foucault's structures of knowledge define meaning in history. In the museum, meaning is made through the material evidence of people and their environment. This study examines how Foucault's classification paradigm established in The Order of Things: An Archaelogy of Knowledge assigns meaning and order in two historical and one contemporary museum. Foucault's Renaissance episteme is analyzed in the Palazzo Medici, his Classical episteme is examined through the Studio Aldrovandi, and...
Show moreMichel Foucault's structures of knowledge define meaning in history. In the museum, meaning is made through the material evidence of people and their environment. This study examines how Foucault's classification paradigm established in The Order of Things: An Archaelogy of Knowledge assigns meaning and order in two historical and one contemporary museum. Foucault's Renaissance episteme is analyzed in the Palazzo Medici, his Classical episteme is examined through the Studio Aldrovandi, and Foucault's Modern episteme is analyzed in the Walker Art Center. Specific attention is given to the gardens attached to each museum. This study will help individuals interested in museums to more fully realize the shifts and ruptures in the construction of knowledge in the museum from the fifteenth to the modern era.
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Date Issued: 2005
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0514
Format: Thesis

Title: Deconstruction and Analysis of Email Messages.
Creator: Zhu, Zhenghui, Aggarwal, Sudhir, Duan, Zhenhai, Medeiros, Breno de, Department of Computer Science, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Phishing scams have grown in frequency and developed in sophistication, and in recent years emails have been misused by scammers to frequently launch criminal attacks. By using phishing emails, scammers can make money in a very short time and generally avoid prosecution. Although it is typically easy for them to implement fraudulent plans with little cost, it is normally hard for law enforcement to catch them. On the other hand, victims can often face severe property loss or loss due to...
Show morePhishing scams have grown in frequency and developed in sophistication, and in recent years emails have been misused by scammers to frequently launch criminal attacks. By using phishing emails, scammers can make money in a very short time and generally avoid prosecution. Although it is typically easy for them to implement fraudulent plans with little cost, it is normally hard for law enforcement to catch them. On the other hand, victims can often face severe property loss or loss due to identity theft. Research focusing on detecting and preventing phishing attacks has thus become a hot topic in the area of computer and network security and a variety of tools have been developed to address aspects of this problem. However, there is currently not much software that can be used to detect and analyze phishing crimes efficiently. When investigating incidents of phishing and the related problem of identity theft, law enforcement investigators need to spend a lot of time and effort but they often get only few clues or results. We have developed the Undercover Multipurpose Anti-Spoofing Kit (UnMASK) to help solve this problem. This thesis presents the idea and the design of the deconstruction and analysis of email messages, which is used in UnMASK to help law enforcement in investigating and prosecuting email based crimes. It addresses the following problems: how can we parse a raw email message and find the information for investigation? What kind of information can we gather from the Internet? And which UNIX tools can be used for our investigation? In contrast to other work in this area, this research comprehensively considers exploits in phishing emails and defines a well-provided raw email parser for law enforcement investigations. And we also design and implement a new protocol used in the UNIX tool system. It not only tries to identify suspicious emails, but also emphasizes the gathering of evidence of crime. To the best of our knowledge, UnMASK is the first system that can automatically deconstruct email messages and present related forensic information in a convenient format to law enforcement. Test results show that the parser and the UNIX tool system of UnMASK are stable and useful. It can correctly extract information that law enforcement officers want to check in raw emails and it also correctly gathers information from the Internet. It generally takes a couple of minutes for our system to complete the report for one raw email message. Compared to the hours investigators spent to do the same work, our system greatly improves their efficiency
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Date Issued: 2007
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0515
Format: Thesis

Title: A Spectral Element Method to Price Single and Multi-Asset European Options.
Creator: Zhu, Wuming, Kopriva, David A., Huﬀer, Fred, Case, Bettye Anne, Kercheval, Alec N., Okten, Giray, Wang, Xiaoming, Department of Mathematics, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: We develop a spectral element method to price European options under the Black-Scholes model, Merton's jump diffusion model, and Heston's stochastic volatility model with one or two assets. The method uses piecewise high order Legendre polynomial expansions to approximate the option price represented pointwise on a Gauss-Lobatto mesh within each element. This piecewise polynomial approximation allows an exact representation of the non-smooth initial condition. For options with one asset under...
Show moreWe develop a spectral element method to price European options under the Black-Scholes model, Merton's jump diffusion model, and Heston's stochastic volatility model with one or two assets. The method uses piecewise high order Legendre polynomial expansions to approximate the option price represented pointwise on a Gauss-Lobatto mesh within each element. This piecewise polynomial approximation allows an exact representation of the non-smooth initial condition. For options with one asset under the jump diffusion model, the convolution integral is approximated by high order Gauss-Lobatto quadratures. A second order implicit/explicit (IMEX) approximation is used to integrate in time, with the convolution integral integrated explicitly. The use of the IMEX approximation in time means that only a block diagonal, rather than full, system of equations needs to be solved at each time step. For options with two variables, i.e., two assets under the Black-Scholes model or one asset under the stochastic volatility model, the domain is subdivided into quadrilateral elements. Within each element, the expansion basis functions are chosen to be tensor products of the Legendre polynomials. Three iterative methods are investigated to solve the system of equations at each time step with the corresponding second order time integration schemes, i.e., IMEX and Crank-Nicholson. Also, the boundary conditions are carefully studied for the stochastic volatility model. The method is spectrally accurate (exponentially convergent) in space and second order accurate in time for European options under all the three models. Spectral accuracy is observed in not only the solution, but also in the Greeks.
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Date Issued: 2008
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0513
Format: Thesis

Title: Modeling the Folding Pattern of the Cerebral Cortex.
Creator: Striegel, Deborah A., Hurdal, Monica K., Steinbock, Oliver, Quine, Jack, Sumners, DeWitt, Bertram, Richard, Department of Mathematics, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: The mechanism for cortical folding pattern formation is not fully understood. Current models represent scenarios that describe pattern formation through local interactions and one recent model is the intermediate progenitor model. The intermediate progenitor (IP) model describes a local chemically-driven scenario, where an increase in intermediate progenitor cells in the subventricular zone (an area surrounding the lateral ventricles) correlates to gyral formation. This dissertation presents...
Show moreThe mechanism for cortical folding pattern formation is not fully understood. Current models represent scenarios that describe pattern formation through local interactions and one recent model is the intermediate progenitor model. The intermediate progenitor (IP) model describes a local chemically-driven scenario, where an increase in intermediate progenitor cells in the subventricular zone (an area surrounding the lateral ventricles) correlates to gyral formation. This dissertation presents the Global Intermediate Progenitor (GIP) model, a theoretical biological model that uses features of the IP model and further captures global characteristics of cortical pattern formation. To illustrate how global features can effect the development of certain patterns, a mathematical model that incorporates a Turing system is used to examine pattern formation on a prolate spheroidal surface. Pattern formation in a biological system can be studied with a Turing reaction-diffusion system which utilizes characteristics of domain size and shape to predict which pattern will form. The GIP model approximates the shape of the lateral ventricle with a prolate spheroid. This representation allows the capture of a key shape feature, lateral ventricular eccentricity, in terms of the focal distance of the prolate spheroid. A formula relating domain scale and focal distance of a prolate spheroidal surface to specific prolate spheroidal harmonics is developed. This formula allows the prediction of pattern formation with solutions in the form of prolate spheroidal harmonics based on the size and shape of the prolate spheroidal surface. By utilizing this formula a direct correlation between the size and shape of the lateral ventricle, which drives the shape of the ventricular zone, and cerebral cortical folding pattern formation is found. This correlation is illustrated in two different applications: (i) how the location and directionality of the initial cortical folds change with respect to evolutionary development and (ii) how the initial folds change with respect to certain diseases, such as Microcephalia Vera and Megalencephaly Polymicrogyria Polydactyly with Hydrocephalus. The significance of the model, presented in this dissertation, is that it elucidates the consistency of cortical patterns among healthy individuals within a species and addresses inter-species variability based on global characteristics. This model provides a critical piece to the puzzle of cortical pattern formation.
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Date Issued: 2009
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0394
Format: Thesis

Title: Assessment of Groundwater Discharge to Lake Barco via Radon Tracing.
Creator: Stringer, Christina Elaine, Burnett, William C., Chanton, Jeffrey P., Sturges, Wilton, Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Groundwater-surface water interactions in lakes have been gaining attention in recent years as scientists have recognized the potential significance that groundwater has as a source of nutrients and contaminants to aquatic ecosystems. Such interactions need to be understood in order for us to protect important ecosystems and quantify nutrient loading into lakes. This project set out to test the idea that good estimates could be made of groundwater inputs into Florida lakes using a simple...
Show moreGroundwater-surface water interactions in lakes have been gaining attention in recent years as scientists have recognized the potential significance that groundwater has as a source of nutrients and contaminants to aquatic ecosystems. Such interactions need to be understood in order for us to protect important ecosystems and quantify nutrient loading into lakes. This project set out to test the idea that good estimates could be made of groundwater inputs into Florida lakes using a simple geochemical tracer technique. We hypothesize that a relatively small number of measurements would be sufficient to provide a reasonably good (a factor of 2) estimate of groundwater discharge. Naturally occurring 222Rn makes an ideal tracer because it exists in enriched concentrations in groundwater relative to surface water. We used Lake Barco, a small seepage lake in the Katherine Ordway Preserve, for a detailed pilot study in order to test this hypothesis. The preserve is located about 34 km east of Gainesville, Florida and makes an excellent research site because it is maintained in a pristine state as it is closed off to public access. Two intensive samplings were completed, one in the "dry" season (March 2002) and one in the "wet" season (August 2003). In addition, periodic sampling trips were made to the lake every few weeks to evaluate the spatial and temporal patterns of radon distribution. A 222Rn mass balance was constructed for the lake to evaluate radon fluxes. Once the 222Rn fluxes were determined, groundwater inputs were estimated by dividing these fluxes by the concentration of radon in the water seeping into the lake. The radon concentration is estimated by sediment equilibration experiments using grab samples of sediment and radon activity measurements from monitor wells. We also constructed a traditional hydrologic water budget for Lake Barco. All hydrological variables were either measured or estimated and substituted into a water balance equation, which was then solved for the net groundwater flow term. These estimates were then compared to those from the 222Rn model. Our 222Rn measurements show little discernible spatial variation of radon inventories in the lake on any given day of sampling. Inventories measured at five different stations during the two different intensive sampling trips were all within ±13% of the mean value for each sampling. This amount of variation is considered insignificant, as the estimated analytical variation for the radon measurements is ±10%. We also found that we can estimate the lake inventory at any one station by collecting triplicate samples approximately one meter over the bottom at a single central sampling station. However, our results did display significant temporal variability, responding to rainfall trends that can influence the recharge rates. So, in a lake the size of Lake Barco (12 ha), reasonable groundwater discharge estimates at any given time can be made by triplicate analysis of radon in near-bottom waters and collection and processing of a few sediment samples. The estimations of groundwater discharge to the lake over the period of our study were, on average, 13,000 m3/month and 18,000 m3/month for the radon model and hydrologic budget, respectively. The water balance based estimate might be somewhat low due to differences in hydrogeologic movement under such dry conditions or the large error associated with budget estimations. Considering the large uncertainties in estimating groundwater flow via a hydrologic budget, agreement within a factor of two is considered satisfactory.
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Date Issued: 2004
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0395
Format: Thesis

Title: Evaluation of Engineering Properties of Hot Mix Asphalt Concrete for the Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design.
Creator: Xiao, Yuan, Ping, Wei-Chou V., Niu, Xufeng, Abichou, Tarek, Sobanjo, John, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) is a viscoelastic material and has been broadly used in pavement structures. It is important to understand the mechanism of complex behaviors of HMA mixtures in field for improving pavement mechanical performance. Aggregate gradation and asphalt binder are two key factors that influence the engineering properties of HMA. The asphalt binder plays a significant role in elastic properties of HMA and it is the essential component that determines HMA's viscous behavior. Many...
Show moreHot Mix Asphalt (HMA) is a viscoelastic material and has been broadly used in pavement structures. It is important to understand the mechanism of complex behaviors of HMA mixtures in field for improving pavement mechanical performance. Aggregate gradation and asphalt binder are two key factors that influence the engineering properties of HMA. The asphalt binder plays a significant role in elastic properties of HMA and it is the essential component that determines HMA's viscous behavior. Many research works suggest that Styrene-Butadiene-Styrene (SBS) polymer is a promising modifier to improve the asphalt binder, and hence to benefit the HMA viscoelastic properties. The specific beneficial characteristics and appropriate polymer concentration need to be identified. In addition, aggregate gradation requirements have been defined in Superpave mix design criteria. However, a potentially sound coarse mixture with the gradation curve passing below the coarse size limit may be disqualified from being used. There is a need to evaluate the Superpave gradation requirements by studying mixtures purposely designed exceeding the control limits. Moreover, the mechanical parameters adopted by AASHTO to characterize HMA properties are shifting from indirect diametral tensile (IDT) test to dynamic modulus test (DMT), because the DMT has the ability to simulate real traffic conditions and to record more viscoelastic information of HMA. Thus, the DMT and the IDT test for implementing the AASHTO Mechanistic-Empirical Design Guide (M-E PDG) are needed to be discussed. The primary objective of this research study was to evaluate the fracture mechanics properties of HMA concrete and to study the correlation between the DMT and the IDT test for Superpave mixtures. An experimental program was performed on asphalt mixtures with various types of materials. The laboratory testing program was developed by applying a viscoelastic fracture mechanics-based framework that appeared to be capable of describing the whole mechanical properties of HMA according to past research studies. The goals for these experiments are to evaluate the effect of aggregate type, the effect of gradation adjustment to control mix designs, and the effect of SBS polymer on fracture mechanics properties of HMA mixtures. Two standard coarse mixes were selected as control levels for fracture mechanics tests: one granite mixture and one limestone mixture. Each control mix design was modified to two different gradation levels with the control asphalt binder (PG 67-22) and three SBS polymer content levels (3.0%, 4.5%, and 6.0%) with the original aggregate gradation. The experimental program for dynamic complex modulus test involved 20 Superpave asphalt concrete mixtures commonly used in Florida with a range of aggregates and mix designs. Data evaluation of the test results indicated the increase of nominal maximum size aggregate amount by 5% to 15% to the standard coarse mix designs had negligible effect on HMA fracture mechanics properties. The SBS polymer-modified asphalt binder improved the fracture mechanics behavior of asphalt mixtures comprehensively. The limestone materials hold advantages over granite materials in improving the performance of thermal cracking at low service temperatures and the rutting resistance at high service temperatures. The master curve construction and linear regression analysis indicated that the total resilient modulus increased with an increase in dynamic modulus at a specific loading frequency. The resilient modulus values were comparable with the dynamic modulus values at the loading frequency of 4 Hz. A correlation relationship was developed for predicting the dynamic modulus from existing resilient modulus values of the asphalt concrete mixture in implementing the mechanistic-empirical pavement design.
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Date Issued: 2009
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0411
Format: Thesis

Title: How Goal Orientations, Perceived Competence, and Strategy Training Affect College Students' Use of Self-Regulated Learning Strategies and Achievement in Learning Foreign Languages.
Creator: Xiao, Ling, Keller, John, Lan, Feng, Reiser, Robert, Wager, Walt, Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: The purpose of this study was to examine how goal orientations, perceived competence, and strategy training affect college students' use of self-regulated learning strategies and achievement in learning foreign languages. One hundred seventeen undergraduates participated in the study. The students came from 8 introductory Arabic, Chinese, German, and Japanese classes, with 2 classes from each language. Students were categorized as either having task-involved goal orientation or ego-involved...
Show moreThe purpose of this study was to examine how goal orientations, perceived competence, and strategy training affect college students' use of self-regulated learning strategies and achievement in learning foreign languages. One hundred seventeen undergraduates participated in the study. The students came from 8 introductory Arabic, Chinese, German, and Japanese classes, with 2 classes from each language. Students were categorized as either having task-involved goal orientation or ego-involved goal orientation. A median split method was used to categorize students into either with high perceived competence or with low perceived competence. One of the two classes of the same foreign language was randomly selected to receive self-regulated language learning strategy training. Students' use of self-regulated learning strategies was measured by a strategy inventory for foreign language learning. Students' achievement was measured by course-related tests. The results showed that students with task-involved goal orientation scored significantly higher than students with ego-involved goal orientation on self-regulated strategy use, but there was no significant difference in achievement. No interaction effect was found with student ego-involved goal orientation and perceived competence. The results showed no significant difference between students who received training and those who did not. The reasons for these findings were discussed. Implications of the findings as related to foreign language instruction were discussed. Implications for further research that might yield significant findings were also discussed.
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Date Issued: 2006
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0410
Format: Thesis

Title: Sleeping with an Insomniac.
Creator: Stewart, Steven J., Kirby, David, Galeano, Juan Carlos, Bickley, Bruce, Kimbrell, James, Department of English, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: A collection of original poetry which often engages the twentieth-century American poetic strands of neo-surrealism and language writing.
Date Issued: 2003
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0392
Format: Thesis

Title: First Measurement of Top Quark Pair Production Cross-Section in Muon Plus Hadronic Tau Final States.
Creator: Sumowidagdo, Suharyo, Adams, Todd, Aldrovandi, Ettore, Wahl, Horst, Reina, Laura, Capstick, Simon, Department of Physics, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: This dissertation presents the first measurement of top quark pair production cross-section in events containing a muon and a tau lepton. The measurement was done with 1 fb−1 of data collected during April 2002 through February 2006 using the DØ detector at the Tevatron proton-antiproton collider, located at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), Batavia, Illinois. Events containing one isolated muon, one tau which decays hadronically, missing transverse energy, and two or more...
Show moreThis dissertation presents the first measurement of top quark pair production cross-section in events containing a muon and a tau lepton. The measurement was done with 1 fb−1 of data collected during April 2002 through February 2006 using the DØ detector at the Tevatron proton-antiproton collider, located at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), Batavia, Illinois. Events containing one isolated muon, one tau which decays hadronically, missing transverse energy, and two or more jets (at least one of which must be tagged as a heavy flavor jet) were selected.Twenty-nine candidate events were observed with an expected background of 9.16 events. The top quark pair production cross-section is measured to beσ (t¯t) = 8.0+2.8 −2.4 (stat)+1.8−1.7 (syst) ± 0.5 (lumi) pb.Assuming a top quark pair production cross-section of 6.77 pb for Monte Carlo signal top events without a real tau, the measured σ × BR isσ (t¯t) × BR(t¯t μ +τ + 2ν + 2b) = 0.18+0.13−0.11 (stat)+0.09−0.09 (syst) ± 0.01 (lumi) pb.
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Date Issued: 2008
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0407
Format: Thesis

Title: SO(10) Supersymmetric Grand Unified Theories: from Cosmology to Colliders.
Creator: Summy, Heaya Ann, Baer, Howard, Sussman, Mark, Reina, Laura, Wahl, Horst, Manousakis, Efstratios, Department of Physics, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Simple SUSY GUT models based on the gauge group SO(10) require t-b-t Yukawa coupling unification, in addition to gauge coupling and matter unification. The Yukawa coupling unification places a severe constraint on the expected spectrum of superpartners, with scalar masses ~ 10 TeV while gaugino masses are quite light. For Yukawa-unified models with μ > 0, the spectrum is characterized by three mass scales: i). first and second generation scalars in the multi-TeV range, ii). third generation...
Show moreSimple SUSY GUT models based on the gauge group SO(10) require t-b-t Yukawa coupling unification, in addition to gauge coupling and matter unification. The Yukawa coupling unification places a severe constraint on the expected spectrum of superpartners, with scalar masses ~ 10 TeV while gaugino masses are quite light. For Yukawa-unified models with μ > 0, the spectrum is characterized by three mass scales: i). first and second generation scalars in the multi-TeV range, ii). third generation scalars, μ and mA in the few-TeV range and iii). gluinos in the ~ 350−500 GeV range with chargino masses around 100−160 GeV. In such a scenario, gluino pair production should occur at large rates at the CERN LHC, followed by gluino three-body decays into neutralinos or charginos. Discovery of Yukawa-unified SUSY at the LHC should hence be possible with only 1 fb−1 of integrated luminosity, by tagging multi-jet events with 2–3 isolated leptons, without relying on missing ET . A characteristic dilepton mass edge should easily be apparent above Standard Model background. Combining dileptons with b-jets, along with the gluino pair production cross section information, should allow for gluino and neutralino mass reconstruction. A secondary corroborative signal should be visible at higher integrated luminosity in the X1±1X20 → 3l channel, and should exhibit the same dilepton mass edge as in the gluino cascade decay signal. A problem generic to all supergravity models comes from overproduction of gravitinos in the early universe: if gravitinos are unstable, then their late decays may destroy the predictions of Big Bang nucleosynthesis. We also present a Yukawa-unified SO(10) SUSY GUT scenario which avoids the gravitino problem, gives rise to the correct matter-antimatter asymmetry via non-thermal leptogenesis, and is consistent with the WMAP-measured abundance of cold dark matter due to the presence of an axino LSP. To maintain a consistent cosmology for Yukawa-unified SUSY models, we require a re-heat temperature TR ~ 106−107 GeV, an axino mass around 0.1−10 MeV, and a Peccei-Quinn breaking scale fa ~ 1012 GeV.
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Date Issued: 2008
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0405
Format: Thesis

Title: Pairing Correlations and Phase Transitions in Mesoscopic Systems.
Creator: Sumaryada, Tony Ibnu, Volya, Alexander, Li, Hong, Piekarewicz, Jorge, Rogachev, Grigory, Dobrosavljevic, Vladimir, Department of Physics, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Pairing correlations and phase transitions in mesoscopic or small systems are studied through out this dissertation. We start our discussion by showing the importance of short range correlations and their role in forming bound Cooper pairs. For a model Hamiltonian, we solved the Schr¨odinger equation in the harmonic oscillator basis analytically, the concept of self consistency is used to get the whole energy spectrum. Using variational methods applied to a trial wave function, we derived the...
Show morePairing correlations and phase transitions in mesoscopic or small systems are studied through out this dissertation. We start our discussion by showing the importance of short range correlations and their role in forming bound Cooper pairs. For a model Hamiltonian, we solved the Schr¨odinger equation in the harmonic oscillator basis analytically, the concept of self consistency is used to get the whole energy spectrum. Using variational methods applied to a trial wave function, we derived the BCS equations, which again should be solved self consistently with particle number to produce the total energy. Some examples of BCS calculations in realistic case like in the Sn isotopes are shown. Various approximations such as one level, two levels and five levels systems are discussed. In the five levels model calculations, we compare our results with the previous works by other authors. We also find a good agreement with the experimental data. We extend our BCS calculations by adding the three body interaction term. This additional term is unlikely to improve our results compared to the experiment. In a separate work, using numerical and analytical methods implemented for different models we conduct a systematic study of thermodynamic properties of pairing correlations in mesoscopic nuclear systems. Various quantities are calculated and analyzed using the exact solution of pairing. An in-depth comparison of canonical, grand canonical, and microcanonical ensemble is conducted. The nature of the pairing phase transition in a small system is of particular interest. We discuss the onset of discontinuities in the thermodynamic variables, fluctuations, and evolution of zeros of the canonical and grand canonical partition functions in the complex plane. The behavior of the Invariant Correlational Entropy is also studied in the transitional region of interest. The change in the character of the phase transition due to the presence of magnetic field is discussed along with studies of superconducting thermodynamics.
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Date Issued: 2007
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0406
Format: Thesis

Title: Search for Resonances in the Photoproduction of Proton-Antiproton Pairs.
Creator: Stokes, Burnham Edward, Eugenio, Paul, Riccardi, Gregory, Adams, Todd, Dennis, Larry, Ostrovidov, Alexander, Piekarewicz, Jorge, Weygand, Dennis, Department of Physics, Florida...
Show moreStokes, Burnham Edward, Eugenio, Paul, Riccardi, Gregory, Adams, Todd, Dennis, Larry, Ostrovidov, Alexander, Piekarewicz, Jorge, Weygand, Dennis, Department of Physics, Florida State University
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Abstract/Description: Results are reported on the reaction gamma p -> p p anti-p with beam energy in the range 4.8-5.5 GeV. The data were collected at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in CLAS experiment E01-017(G6C). The focus of this study is an understanding of the mechanisms of photoproduction of proton-antiproton pairs, and to search for intermediate resonances, both narrow and broad, which decay to p anti-p. The total measured cross section in the photon energy range 4.8-5.5 GeV is sigma =...
Show moreResults are reported on the reaction gamma p -> p p anti-p with beam energy in the range 4.8-5.5 GeV. The data were collected at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in CLAS experiment E01-017(G6C). The focus of this study is an understanding of the mechanisms of photoproduction of proton-antiproton pairs, and to search for intermediate resonances, both narrow and broad, which decay to p anti-p. The total measured cross section in the photon energy range 4.8-5.5 GeV is sigma = 33 +/- 2 nb. Measurement of the cross section as a function of energy is provided. An upper limit on the production of a narrow resonance state previously observed with a mass of 2.02 GeV/c^2 is placed at 0.35 nb. No intermediate resonance states were observed. Meson exchange production appears to dominate the production of the proton-antiproton pairs. p p anti-p with beam energy in the range 4.8-5.5 GeV. The data were collected at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in CLAS experiment E01-017(G6C). The focus of this study is an understanding of the mechanisms of photoproduction of proton-antiproton pairs, and to search for intermediate resonances, both narrow and broad, which decay to p anti-p. The total measured cross section in the photon energy range 4.8-5.5 GeV is sigma = 33 +/- 2 nb. Measurement of the cross section as a function of energy is provided. An upper limit on the production of a narrow resonance state previously observed with a mass of 2.02 GeV/c^2 is placed at 0.35 nb. No intermediate resonance states were observed. Meson exchange production appears to dominate the production of the proton-antiproton pairs.
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Date Issued: 2006
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0391
Format: Thesis

Title: A Comparison of Pole Assignment & LQR Design Methods for Multivariable Control for Statcom.
Creator: Xing, Liqun, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: The static synchronous compensator (STATCOM) is increasingly popular in power system application. In general, power factor and stability of the utility system can be improved by STATCOM. Specifically, STATCOM can stabilize a given node voltage and compensate for the power factors of equipment serviced by that node. The dynamic performance of STATCOM is critical to these performance and stability function. STATCOM is a multiple input and multiple output system (MIMO), which can be presented by...
Show moreThe static synchronous compensator (STATCOM) is increasingly popular in power system application. In general, power factor and stability of the utility system can be improved by STATCOM. Specifically, STATCOM can stabilize a given node voltage and compensate for the power factors of equipment serviced by that node. The dynamic performance of STATCOM is critical to these performance and stability function. STATCOM is a multiple input and multiple output system (MIMO), which can be presented by a mathematic model. Recently, full MIMO state feedback by pole assignment has been shown to be an improvement over classical PI control. In this thesis, an optimal linear quadratic regulator (LQR) design is a compared to the pole assignment design for transient dynamic performance of STATCOM. It was found that LQR controllers do not offer significant performance improvement to pole assignment. However, as a design method the determination of state feedback gains is easier using the LQR method
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Date Issued: 2003
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0413
Format: Thesis

Title: Study of the Magnetic Field Dependence of the Critical Current of Bi2Sr2Cacu2O8+X and (Bi,Pb)2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10+X Superconducting Tapes.
Creator: Xu, Bin, Schwartz, Justin, Hruda, Simone Peterson, Luongo, Cesar, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: The magnetic field dependence of critical currents are studied in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x and (Bi,Pb)2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10+x multifilamentary superconducting tapes. The critical current was measured in the magnetic fields up to 5 T, at 4.2 K, with several orientations of the applied magnetic field relative to the tape. The critical current is determined by the normal (c-axis) component of the applied magnetic field over a wide range. At low magnetic fields, the field dependence of the critical current is...
Show moreThe magnetic field dependence of critical currents are studied in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x and (Bi,Pb)2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10+x multifilamentary superconducting tapes. The critical current was measured in the magnetic fields up to 5 T, at 4.2 K, with several orientations of the applied magnetic field relative to the tape. The critical current is determined by the normal (c-axis) component of the applied magnetic field over a wide range. At low magnetic fields, the field dependence of the critical current is mainly dominated by weak-links, while at the higher fields it is determined by the strong-links current path limited by intragranular flux pinning. Two-dimensional behavior of the critical current in Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+x and (Bi,Pb)2Sr2Ca2Cu3O10+x multifilamentary tapes is observed. From 2D behavior it is possible to calculate the average misalignment angle of the grains from critical current measurements in a magnetic field oriented perpendicular and parallel to the tape plane. The results are compared with a reported model that describes the angular dependence of critical currents [*]. The model is based on a Gaussian distribution of the misalignment angles of the grains. With this model it is possible to calculate the standard deviation of the misalignment angle of the grains from critical current measurements in a magnetic field oriented perpendicular and parallel to the tape plane. This model is confirmed experimentally. The angular dependence of the critical current of the measured tapes can be described at 4.2 K in the region between 0 and 5 T by using a standard deviation. [*] O. van der Meer, B. ten Haken, and H.H.J. ten Kate, "A model to describe the angular dependence of the critical current in a Bi-2223/Ag superconducting tape," Physica C 357-360, 1174 (2001).
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Date Issued: 2004
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0415
Format: Thesis

Title: Computational Analysis of the U2 Snrna-Intron Duplex.
Creator: Xu, Darui, Greenbaum, Nancy L., Li, Hong, Alabugin, Igor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: Pairing of a consensus sequence of the precursor (pre)-mRNA intron with a short region of the U2 small nuclear (sn)RNA during assembly of the eukaryotic spliceosome results in formation of a complementary helix of seven base pairs with a single unpaired adenosine, whose 2' OH initiates the nucleophilic attack at the pre-mRNA 5' splice site during the first step of splicing. The structure of the spliceosomal branch site solved by Newby and Greenbaum showed that a highly conserved pseudouridine...
Show morePairing of a consensus sequence of the precursor (pre)-mRNA intron with a short region of the U2 small nuclear (sn)RNA during assembly of the eukaryotic spliceosome results in formation of a complementary helix of seven base pairs with a single unpaired adenosine, whose 2' OH initiates the nucleophilic attack at the pre-mRNA 5' splice site during the first step of splicing. The structure of the spliceosomal branch site solved by Newby and Greenbaum showed that a highly conserved pseudouridine residue in U2 snRNA induces a dramatically altered structure compared with that of its unmodified counterpart. In this study, both modified and unmodified U2 snRNA-intron duplexes were analyzed using computer simulations including preliminary molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, electrostatic potential, surface area, and solvation free energy calculations. The preliminary MD simulations produce stable trajectories of the RNA duplexes in solution. The surface electrostatic potentials were calculated using finite difference Poisson-Boltzmann algorithm and a hybrid boundary element and finite difference Poisson-Boltzmann approach. Results show a region of exceptionally negative potential near the 2' OH of the branch site adenosine. The two RNA duplexes have similar solvent accessible surface areas, whereas the surface accessible area of the 2' OH of the branch site adenosine of the modified RNA duplex is considerably smaller than that of the unmodified RNA duplex. The solvation free energy calculation indicates that the unmodified RNA duplex is favored over the modified RNA duplex.
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Date Issued: 2003
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0414
Format: Thesis

Title: Making Sense of Students' Understanding of Fractions: An Exploratory Study of Sixth Graders' Construction of Fraction Concepts Through the Use of Physical Referents and Real World Representations.
Creator: Stewart, Veon, Jakubowski, Elizabeth, Bunea, Florentina, Aspinwall, Leslie, Fernandez, Maria L., Department of Middle and Secondary Education, Florida State University
Abstract/Description: This study was an investigative, whole class descriptive research, on the development of twenty sixth graders' understanding of fractions as they interacted with physical referents, hands-on task-based activities and activities that model real life situations during eight weeks of a teaching sequence. The study was conducted in a metropolitan school situated in southeast Florida. The teaching sequence consisted of 12 task-based activities that spanned 20 sessions with each session lasting for...
Show moreThis study was an investigative, whole class descriptive research, on the development of twenty sixth graders' understanding of fractions as they interacted with physical referents, hands-on task-based activities and activities that model real life situations during eight weeks of a teaching sequence. The study was conducted in a metropolitan school situated in southeast Florida. The teaching sequence consisted of 12 task-based activities that spanned 20 sessions with each session lasting for approximately 60 minutes. Data was collected through audio- and video-recording, in addition to the numerous written tasks. The task-based activities that the students were involved with during this study were analyzed to gain an insight into their understanding of fractions in the context of subdividing, comparing and partitioning of continuous and discrete models and the connections they made with the fraction ideas generated through these activities. The study also examined how these students make sense of fractions and investigated how their performance differed when fractions were presented using different models. Herscovics and Bergeron's (1988) extended model of understanding, and the partitioning strategies identified by Charles and Nason (2000) and Lamon (1996) provided the theoretical framework through which the investigation was explored. Results from the study revealed that the participants exhibited an understanding of unit and non-unit fraction based on the components of the above-mentioned model of understanding. The students also displayed a number of different partitioning strategies. The knowledge growth that was evident in the whole class confirms earlier studies as to the significant role that partitioning plays in the basic development of the fraction concept. Although discrete models were used by the students, a majority of the students exhibited a preference for using continuous models as forms of reference for given fractions. The students appreciated working with fractions that model real world situations. Preliminary findings from this study seem to indicate that students should be introduced to fraction concepts via partitioning activities. The partitioning activities should be introduced in grades earlier than sixth grade. Further research can be undertaken to investigate the role partitioning activities play in the development of students' ability to add, subtract, multiply and divide fractions.
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Date Issued: 2005
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-0390
Format: Thesis

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