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Title: List of undergraduate programs in English & Librarianship, History & Librarianship, English or History, and Teaching School Librarianship.
Creator: Florida State University. College of Arts and Sciences
Date Issued: 1959
Identifier: 2683154, FSDT2683154, fsu:354
Format: Document (PDF)

Title: A Climatology of U.S. Tropical Cyclone Rainfall, Its Use in a Statistical Forecasting Technique and an Analysis of Global Forecast System Tropical Cyclone Rainfall Forecast Environments.
Creator: Hall, Tristan J., Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science
Abstract/Description: While advances in tropical cyclone (TC) track forecasting have been substantial over the past few decades, and modest advances in intensity forecasting have occurred more recently, the quality of TC rainfall forecasts has not undergone the same rigorous verification. This is despite the 27% of total TC-related deaths being due to rainfall-induced flooding and that rainfall-related deaths occur more frequently than those due to any another weather-related hazard. A continual effort is needed...
Show moreWhile advances in tropical cyclone (TC) track forecasting have been substantial over the past few decades, and modest advances in intensity forecasting have occurred more recently, the quality of TC rainfall forecasts has not undergone the same rigorous verification. This is despite the 27% of total TC-related deaths being due to rainfall-induced flooding and that rainfall-related deaths occur more frequently than those due to any another weather-related hazard. A continual effort is needed to understand and better-forecast TC rainfall. This dissertation research seeks to contribute to this endeavor. A climatological dataset is created using 6-h Stage IV rainfall accumulations combined with Best Track 6-h locations for all TCs within 300 km of the U.S. Gulf and Atlantic coastlines during years 2004 - 2013. Stage IV data are used due to their higher spatiotemporal resolution, their extension to high latitudes, and because they have been found to be the superior option when compared to other TC rainfall data sources. The 6-h Stage IV rainfall accumulations are composited by shear magnitude and storm intensity in earth-, motion-, and shear-relative reference frames. Additionally, a full composite comprised of all storms is created. This compositing is done for TCs impacting the U.S. Gulf and Atlantic coastlines. Seven geographical regions are created within this domain to further composite the rainfall. The geographical regions are determined based on 2004 - 2013 Best Track (HURDAT2) landfall locations. Results show that some Stage IV rain rate characteristics, especially those in specific regions, are different when compared to prior findings based on satellite-derived rain rates. Results from the Stage IV-derived climatological datasets then are used together with track forecasts from the Global Forecast System (GFS) during years 2014 - 2016 to create 72-h TC rainfall forecasts. Separate forecasts are created for each 6-h TC position forecast based on shear magnitude, storm intensity, and the all-storms composites in earth-, motion-, and shear-relative reference frames. This yielded 1,290 verifiable forecasts during the 3-yr period. These statistical rainfall forecasts along with forecasts from the GFS and an R-CLIPER created from Stage IV data are verified using the Fractions Skill Score (FSS) metric. Results show that the statistical method based on shear magnitude in a shear-relative reference frame that used regional rainfall composites is the best performing of the methods. Additionally, FSSs from the statistical model are shown to be larger than those from R-CLIPER. The preliminary results from the statistical model show that this method is a viable candidate to supplement R-CLIPER as a statistical baseline TC rainfall forecast method. GFS analysis and forecast environmental parameters are composited based on the skill (FSS) of each forecast. Three categories are created: Top (FSS > 0.6), Bottom (FSS < 0.3), and Middle (0.3 < FSS < 0.6). This methodology is based on the desire to provide "guidance on guidance," i.e., suggesting to a forecaster whether the TC's environment is conducive to a skillful or not-skillful GFS rainfall forecast, and to help determine possible factors to increase the FSS of the statistical model. Results show that some aspects of the mean sea level pressure, 1000 - 500 hPa thickness anomalies, eddy flux convergence, and upper-level winds and divergence differ between skillful and non-skillful TC rainfall forecasts.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Fall_HALL_fsu_0071E_15343
Format: Thesis

Title: Pyquery: A Search Engine for Python Packages and Modules.
Creator: Imminni, Shiva Krishna, Kumar, Piyush, Haiduc, Sonia, Ackerman, Margareta, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Computer Science
Abstract/Description: Python Package Index (PyPI) is a repository that hosts all the packages ever developed for the Python community. It hosts thousands of packages from different developers and for the Python community, it is the primary source for downloading and installing packages. It also provides a simple web interface to search for these packages. A direct search on PyPI returns hundreds of packages that are not intuitively ordered, thus making it harder to find the right package. Developers consequently...
Show morePython Package Index (PyPI) is a repository that hosts all the packages ever developed for the Python community. It hosts thousands of packages from different developers and for the Python community, it is the primary source for downloading and installing packages. It also provides a simple web interface to search for these packages. A direct search on PyPI returns hundreds of packages that are not intuitively ordered, thus making it harder to find the right package. Developers consequently resort to mature search engines like Google, Bing or Yahoo which redirect them to the appropriate package homepage at PyPI. Hence, the first task of this thesis is to improve search results for python packages. Secondly, this thesis also attempts to develop a new search engine that allows Python developers to perform a code search targeting python modules. Currently, the existing search engines classify programming languages such that a developer must select a programming language from a list. As a result every time a developer performs a search operation, he or she has to choose Python out of a plethora of programming languages. This thesis seeks to offer a more reliable and dedicated search engine that caters specifically to the Python community and ensures a more efficient way to search for Python packages and modules.
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Date Issued: 2015
Identifier: FSU_2015fall_Imminni_fsu_0071N_12969
Format: Thesis

Title: Trophic Ecology and Bioaccumulation of Mercury in the Three Hagfish (Myxinidae) Species from the Gulf of Mexico.
Creator: Mickle, Alejandra, Chanton, Jeffrey P., Landing, William M., Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science
Abstract/Description: Hagfishes (Myxinidae) are common in deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico (GOM). Two of the species found in the GOM are endemic to the area and potentially provide key ecosystem services (e.g. generate substrate turnover and recycling of organic matter by consuming carrion falls) to the deep environments of the Gulf. Yet, very little is known about hagfish life histories and ecology. I investigated inter and intraspecific variations in trophic structure of Eptatretus springeri, Eptatretus minor,...
Show moreHagfishes (Myxinidae) are common in deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico (GOM). Two of the species found in the GOM are endemic to the area and potentially provide key ecosystem services (e.g. generate substrate turnover and recycling of organic matter by consuming carrion falls) to the deep environments of the Gulf. Yet, very little is known about hagfish life histories and ecology. I investigated inter and intraspecific variations in trophic structure of Eptatretus springeri, Eptatretus minor, Myxine mcmillanae, including variations along relevant environmental gradients. At the time of this study, the Gulf of Mexico had recently experienced an environmental disaster with the Deep Water Horizon (DWH) oil spill. As a result, I also investigated the potential effects of the DWH oil spill on hagfish trophic structure, and the potential for higher bioaccumulation of mercury (Hg) in their muscle tissue. Feeding ecology and trophic structure were investigated using nitrogen (δ15N), carbon (δ13C) and sulfur (δ34S) stable isotopes and variability in the lipid content (Δδ13C) of each species was used as an indicator of periods of feeding and fasting. I was able to differentiate the isotopic niche of each of the species and determine the different feeding ecologies of E. springeri and M. mcmillanae. The isotopic niche of E. minor overlaps with that of E. springeri and M. mcmillanae. The most depleted mean δ15N values were observed in E. springeri (12.8‰), followed by E. minor (13.9 ‰) and M. mcmillanae (14.9‰). Eptatretus springeri had the highest (Δδ13C), lowest trophic level (δ15N) and exhibited the most isotopic variation with depth. This could suggest this species is an active predator that feeds regularly, and potentially relies on scavenging only to supplement its diet. Eptatretus minor had slightly higher Δδ13C, intermediate but depleted δ15N, and higher δ15N isotopic diversity. These characteristics suggest a more opportunistic foraging behavior for this species, potentially feeding on prey items from several trophic levels. Myxine mcmillanae had the highest δ15N but lowest Δδ13C, and no variation in δ15N with depth. These trends indicate this species could be experiencing irregular feeding with periods of fasting, potentially due to a mostly scavenging behavior and occasionally feeding on larger but infrequently available carrion falls of large animals. Spatial analysis showed all hagfish species displayed enriched δ15N and δ13C, and depleted δ34S values on the continental slope off Louisiana than along the North Florida Slope and in DeSoto Canyon. These shifts in isotopic signatures could be attributed to influx from riverine sources from the Mississippi River. Temporal variations were also correlated to the seasonality of nutrient discharge from the river. Isotopic shifts seemed to be a consequence of riverine inputs rather than as a result of changing environmental conditions from the DWH oil spill. This study also determined Total Hg (THg) and Hg species (Methyl-Mercury-MeHg, inorganic Hg-IHg) concentrations in hafish muscle tissue. There was significant intra and interspecific variation in THg concentrations of all three hagfish species. Enriched δ15N and much higher THg concentrations were observed in M. mcmillanae (11.9 ppm) when compared to E. minor (2.1 ppm) and E. springeri (1.1 ppm). Mean MeHg concentrations were highest in M. mcmillanae (10.9 ppm), followed by E. minor (1.4 ppm) and E. springeri (0.8 ppm), while mean IHg concentrations were 1.3 ppm, 0.7 ppm, and 0.4 ppm , respectively. However, Hg species displayed a wide range of variation, with IHg concentrations in muscle tissue accounting for up to 75% to 95% of the THg content for some individuals. THg concentrations were studied in relation to several biological and environmental factors (stable isotopes, depth, total, length, body weight and lipid content, spatial and temporal variations) but most of these relationships were not significant for one or more species, which suggests that more than one uptake and depuration pathway or factors could contribute to the bioaccumulation of Hg in hagfishes.
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Date Issued: 2016
Identifier: FSU_2016SP_Mickle_fsu_0071N_13275
Format: Thesis

Title: A Comprehensive Study of Portability Bug Characteristics in Desktop and Android Applications.
Creator: Clow, Jonathan Alexander, Nistor, Adrian, Haiduc, Sonia, Whalley, David B., Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Computer Science
Abstract/Description: Since 2008, the Android ecosystem has been tremendously popular with consumers, developers, and manufacturers due to the open nature of the operating system and its compatibility and availability on a range of devices. This, however, comes at a cost. The variety of available devices and speed of evolution of the Android system itself adds layers of fragmentation to the ecosystem around which developers must navigate. Yet this phenomenon is not unique to the Android ecosystem, impacting...
Show moreSince 2008, the Android ecosystem has been tremendously popular with consumers, developers, and manufacturers due to the open nature of the operating system and its compatibility and availability on a range of devices. This, however, comes at a cost. The variety of available devices and speed of evolution of the Android system itself adds layers of fragmentation to the ecosystem around which developers must navigate. Yet this phenomenon is not unique to the Android ecosystem, impacting desktop applications like Apache Tomcat and Google Chrome as well. As fragmentation of a system grows, so does the burden on developers to produce software than can execute on a wide variety of potential device, environment, and system combinations, while the reality prevents developers from anticipating every possible scenarios. This study provides the ﬁrst empirical study characterizing portability bugs in both desktop and Android applications. Speciﬁcally, we examined 228 randomly selected bugs from 18 desktop and Android applications for the common root causes, manifestation patterns, and ﬁx strategies used to combat portability bugs. Our study reveals several commonalities among the bugs and platforms, which include: (1) 92.14% of all bugs examined are caused by an interaction with a single dependency, (2) 53.13% of all bugs examined are caused by an interaction with the system, and (3) 33.19% of all bugs examined are ﬁxed by adding a direct or indirect check against the dependency causing the bug. These results provide guidance for techniques and strategies to help developers and researchers identify and ﬁx portability bugs.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Su_Clow_fsu_0071N_14798
Format: Thesis

Title: Deep: Dependency Elimination Using Early Predictions.
Creator: Penagos, Luis G., Whalley, David B., Yuan, Xin, Yu, Weikuan, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Computer Science
Abstract/Description: Conditional branches have traditionally been a performance bottleneck for most processors. The high frequency of branches in code coupled with expensive pipeline flushes on mispredictions make branches expensive instructions worth optimizing. Conditional branches have historically inhibited compilers from applying optimizations across basic block boundaries due to the forks in control flow that they introduce. This thesis describes a systematic way of generating paths (traces) of branch-free...
Show moreConditional branches have traditionally been a performance bottleneck for most processors. The high frequency of branches in code coupled with expensive pipeline flushes on mispredictions make branches expensive instructions worth optimizing. Conditional branches have historically inhibited compilers from applying optimizations across basic block boundaries due to the forks in control flow that they introduce. This thesis describes a systematic way of generating paths (traces) of branch-free code at compile time by decomposing branching and verification operations to eliminate the dependence of a branch on its preceding compare instruction. This explicit decomposition allows us to move comparison instructions past branches and to merge pre and post branch code. These paths generated at compile time can potentially provide additional opportunities for conventional optimizations such as common subexpression elimination, dead assignment elimination and instruction selection. Moreover, this thesis describes a way of coalescing multiple branch instructions within innermost loops to produce longer basic blocks to provide additional optimization opportunities.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Su_Penagos_fsu_0071N_14784
Format: Thesis

Title: The Influence of Correlated Traits in the Process of Reproductive Character Displacement in the Upland Chorus Frog, Pseudacris feriarum.
Creator: Ralicki, Hannah Felice, Lemmon, Emily C., Steppan, Scott J., Beerli, Peter, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Biological Science
Abstract/Description: Behavioral interactions among individuals can have complex effects on trait evolution. In this study I quantify the strength of correlation between aggressive and advertisement calls in the chorus frog, Pseudacris feriarum, to assess whether male-male aggressive interactions may have contributed to observed patterns of reproductive character displacement (RCD) in the advertisement call. Male frogs use aggressive vocal signals in defense of calling sites and to facilitate spacing in breeding...
Show moreBehavioral interactions among individuals can have complex effects on trait evolution. In this study I quantify the strength of correlation between aggressive and advertisement calls in the chorus frog, Pseudacris feriarum, to assess whether male-male aggressive interactions may have contributed to observed patterns of reproductive character displacement (RCD) in the advertisement call. Male frogs use aggressive vocal signals in defense of calling sites and to facilitate spacing in breeding choruses. Males that successfully defend their calling site likely benefit from higher reproductive success. Consequently, intrasexual selection may act on the evolution of aggressive signals. Selection acting on one call type (aggressive or advertisement) could promote evolution of other calls in the vocal repertoire via indirect selection. If call types are evolving together, selection on aggressive signals may indirectly cause RCD of advertisement calls. Given the similarities of aggressive call characteristics to the displaced traits of advertisement call characteristics in Pseudacris feriarum, I hypothesize that male-male aggressive interactions may have influenced the observed RCD in advertisement signals. To assess whether this is a possible mechanism of observed RCD in populations of P. feriarum, I compare aggressive and advertisement vocalizations among individuals and across populations to determine if call types covary and may be evolving together. Both advertisement and aggressive calls were recorded from the same individual and an average of 15 individuals were recorded per population. Populations targeted include those where RCD has been observed (FL, GA and SC - sympatry) and where it has not been observed (AL, NC, VA and SC - allopatry). I find that all homologous signal traits measured between call types are positively correlated, and that patterns of character displacement are largely consistent between call types. Furthermore, evidence suggests strong selection on both signal types, supporting a role for intrasexual selection in contributing to character divergence in this species. This research has important implications for our understanding of the mechanisms of character displacement and the evolution of vocal signals in anuran amphibians. Intra- and intersexual selection may not be mutually exclusive forces driving character divergence (Berglund 1996). This research contributes to our understanding of the mechanisms of character displacement by exploring an understudied potential agent of selection in promoting signal divergence: intrasexual selection via male-male competition. Research in reproductive character displacement has long focused on inter-species interactions. Few studies have examined the role of aggression in reproductive character displacement (but see Adams 2004; Grether 2009 for interspecific aggression studies) and to my knowledge no study has probed the role of intraspecific competition in influencing reinforcement. If traits contributing to RCD exhibit correlated evolution with other secondary sexual traits, then it becomes necessary to re-evaluate the target(s) of selection. This system is ideal for addressing these questions because it has multiple lines of evidence in support of RCD via reinforcement, asymmetric character displacement resulting in study populations of high variability in the traits of interest, a lek breeding system in which it is likely that both female choice and male-male competition play a role in mating success, and structurally similar secondary sexual characteristics used in mate choice and conspecific competition (acoustic signals) which may evolve together given the likelihood of constraints on anuran call production.
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Date Issued: 2015
Identifier: FSU_migr_etd-9431
Format: Thesis

Title: Enhancing Infiniband with Openflow-Style SDN Capability.
Creator: Lee, Jason, Yuan, Xin, Zhang, Zhenghao, Yu, Weikuan, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Computer Science
Abstract/Description: InfiniBand is the de facto networking technology for commodity HPC clusters and has been widely deployed. However, most production large-scale InfiniBand clusters use simple routing schemes such as the destination-mod-k routing to route traffic, which may result in degraded communication performance. In this work, I investigate using the OpenFlow-style Software-Defined Networking (SDN) technology to overcome the routing deficiency in InfiniBand. I design an enhanced InfiniBand with OpenFlow...
Show moreInfiniBand is the de facto networking technology for commodity HPC clusters and has been widely deployed. However, most production large-scale InfiniBand clusters use simple routing schemes such as the destination-mod-k routing to route traffic, which may result in degraded communication performance. In this work, I investigate using the OpenFlow-style Software-Defined Networking (SDN) technology to overcome the routing deficiency in InfiniBand. I design an enhanced InfiniBand with OpenFlow-style SDN capability and demonstrate a use case that illustrates how the SDN capability can be exploited in HPC clusters to improve the system and application performance. Finally, I quantify the potential benefits of InfiniBand with OpenFlow-style SDN capability in balancing the network load by simulating job traces from production HPC clusters. The results indicate that InfiniBand with SDN capability can achieve much better network load balancing than traditional InfiniBand for HPC clusters.
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Date Issued: 2016
Identifier: FSU_FA2016_Lee_fsu_0071N_13520
Format: Thesis

Title: There & Never Back Again: A Walk-on-Subdomains Tale.
Creator: Hamlin, Preston William, Mascagni, Michael, Haiduc, Sonia, van Engelen, Robert, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Computer Science
Abstract/Description: Simulation software is used in a multitude of industry and academic fields, in an assortment of scopes. One might be interested in gravitation of celestial bodies, or field structures of molecular interactions. The scale to which these simulations can grow demands an equally scalable computational mechanism. Traditional and even accelerated solvers suffer from a lack of general scalability, depending on multiple input aspects and recursive refinement. Monte Carlo solvers offer a highly...
Show moreSimulation software is used in a multitude of industry and academic fields, in an assortment of scopes. One might be interested in gravitation of celestial bodies, or field structures of molecular interactions. The scale to which these simulations can grow demands an equally scalable computational mechanism. Traditional and even accelerated solvers suffer from a lack of general scalability, depending on multiple input aspects and recursive refinement. Monte Carlo solvers offer a highly scalable computational mechanism, as it is not prone to the curse of dimensionality and the error can be driven down simply by taking more samples. In the course of refactoring such a Monte Carlo simulation software artefact, several anomalies were noted in its implementation structure. Through attempts at remediating the undesirable behaviour, a general problem of susceptibility was discovered for the Walk-on-Subdomains family of algorithms.
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Date Issued: 2016
Identifier: FSU_FA2016_Hamlin_fsu_0071N_13643
Format: Thesis

Title: The Role of Biocrusts in Coastal Dune Plant Communities.
Creator: Lauck, Marina, Miller, Thomas E., Winn, Alice A., Inouye, Brian D., Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Biological Science
Abstract/Description: Biocrusts have been shown to affect the ecological conditions in a variety of habitats, involving abiotic mechanisms such as soil moisture retention, nitrogen-rich biomass additions, changing soil physical properties, as well as direct biotic mechanisms such as impeding seedling growth. In coastal dunes, low-lying interdune habitats experience occasional flooding, which promotes the formation of microbial biocrusts. While storm patterns are known to be effective drivers of coastal dune plant...
Show moreBiocrusts have been shown to affect the ecological conditions in a variety of habitats, involving abiotic mechanisms such as soil moisture retention, nitrogen-rich biomass additions, changing soil physical properties, as well as direct biotic mechanisms such as impeding seedling growth. In coastal dunes, low-lying interdune habitats experience occasional flooding, which promotes the formation of microbial biocrusts. While storm patterns are known to be effective drivers of coastal dune plant community composition, the interaction between microbial communities and vegetation in the context of storm patterns is not well understood. I investigated the role of biocrusts on native coastal dune community, how environmental conditions, particularly storm patterns, affect interactions between crusts and vegetation, as well as how the presence of crusts affects plant-plant interactions. To explore correlative patterns between biocrusts, plants and abiotic factors in the field, I analyzed a long term dataset of a coastal dune plant community on St George Island, FL. The presence of several plant species was correlated with crust, and included both negative and positive associations. Additionally, I found correlative relationships with crusts and total plant cover, as well as soil moisture; the latter supports previous research in other systems on the effects of crusts on soil characteristics. To test the effect of crusts on plant species, I conducted a greenhouse experiment that simulated various environmental conditions, including several water and salt treatments, with and without biocrust in a factorial design. Crusts did have an effect on the growth and survival of some of these species, and this effect varied from negative to positive depending on the species. Additionally, I found trends in the data which suggest that crusts may interact with rain and salt, and this interaction may change the effect of crust on plant species in various environmental conditions. Lastly, I performed a target-neighbor competition experiment using four dominant coastal dune plant species in a full factorial design to test the effect of crusts on plant-plant interactions. I found that the selected species often strongly compete, and these competition interactions vary among species. I also found a significant effect of crust on one species, Schizachyrium maritimum.
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Date Issued: 2016
Identifier: FSU_2016SU_Lauck_fsu_0071N_13466
Format: Thesis

Title: Preventing Cyber-Induced Irreversible Physical Damage to Cyber-Physical Systems.
Creator: Yang, Jaewon, Liu, Xiuwen, Kim, Daekwan, Burmester, Mike, Duan, Zhenhai, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Computer Science
Abstract/Description: With the advancement information and communication technologies, networked computing devices have been adopted to address real-world challenges due to their efficiency and programmability while maintaining scalability, sustainability, and resilience. As a result, computing and communication technologies have been integrated into critical infrastructures and other physical processes. Cyber physical systems (CPS) integrate computation and physical processes of critical infrastructure systems....
Show moreWith the advancement information and communication technologies, networked computing devices have been adopted to address real-world challenges due to their efficiency and programmability while maintaining scalability, sustainability, and resilience. As a result, computing and communication technologies have been integrated into critical infrastructures and other physical processes. Cyber physical systems (CPS) integrate computation and physical processes of critical infrastructure systems. Historically, these systems mostly relied on proprietary technologies and were built as stand-alone systems in physically secure locations. However, the situation has changed considerably in recent years. Commodity hardware, software, and standardized communication technologies are used in CPS to enhance their connectivity, provide better accessibility to costumers and maintenance personnel, and improve overall efficiency and robustness of their operations. Unfortunately, increased connectivity, efficiency, and openness have also signiﬁcantly increased vulnerabilities of CPS to cyber attacks. These vulnerabilities could allow attackers to alter the systems' behavior and cause irreversible physical damage, or even worse cyber-induced disasters. However, existing security measures cannot be eﬀectively applied to CPS directly because they are mostly for cyber only systems. Thus, new approaches to preventing cyber physical system disasters are essential. We recognize very diﬀerent characteristics of cyber and physical components in CPS, where cyber components are ﬂexible with large attack surfaces while physical components are inﬂexible and relatively simple with very small attack surfaces. This research focuses on the components where cyber and physical components interact. Securing cyber-physical interfaces will complete a layer-based defense strategy in the "Defense in Depth Framework". In this research we propose Trusted Security Modules (TSM) as a systematic solution to provide a guarantee to prevent cyber-induced physical damage even when operating systems and controllers are compromised. TSMs will be placed at the interface between cyber and physical components by adapting the existing integrity enforcing mechanisms such as Trusted Platform Module (static integrity), Control-Flow Integrity (dynamic integrity) to enhance its own security and integrity. Through this dissertation we introduce the general design and number of ways to implement the TSM. We also show the behaviors of TSM with a working prototype and simulation.
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Date Issued: 2016
Identifier: FSU_2016SP_Yang_fsu_0071E_13064
Format: Thesis

Title: Reproductive Interference Explains the Competitive Disparity Between Congeneric Beanweevils Callosobruchus Maculatus and Callosobruchus Chinensis.
Creator: Takacs, Peter, Inouye, Brian D., Underwood, Nora, Travis, Joseph, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Biological Science
Abstract/Description: The system including the congeners C. maculatus and C. chinensis has long been a model for competition studies. Members of these two pest species often cohabit facilities designed for the storage of dried legumes, a crucial nutritional resource for the larvae of both species. In both natural and laboratory settings it has been observed that C. chinensis routinely drives C. maculatus to extinction. These observations convinced many ecologists that the trophic relationship between the two...
Show moreThe system including the congeners C. maculatus and C. chinensis has long been a model for competition studies. Members of these two pest species often cohabit facilities designed for the storage of dried legumes, a crucial nutritional resource for the larvae of both species. In both natural and laboratory settings it has been observed that C. chinensis routinely drives C. maculatus to extinction. These observations convinced many ecologists that the trophic relationship between the two species presents an unequivocal case of competitive exclusion. Several predictively successful mathematical models based on resource competition alone accordingly estimated the competitive disparity between these two bean beetle species, suggesting that individual C. chinensis are approximately four times better competitors for a shared resource than their average C. maculatus counterparts. Recent studies (Kishi et al. 2009; Kyogoku and Nishida 2012, 2013; Kishi and Nakazawa 2013; Kishi and Tsubaki 2014) have called into question this apparently straightforward conclusion since there are few if any characteristic life history traits or behavioral mechanisms associated with exploitative or interference competition that would explain the competitive disparity. The authors of these studies contend that reproductive interference—a negative interspecific sexual interaction that reduces the fitness of at least one of the species involved—is a largely ignored but equally consequential factor when it comes to explaining interspecific population dynamics. This study tests for the presence and explanatory importance of reproductive interference on per capita female fitness by simultaneously manipulating conspecific density and operational sex ratio in the presence (and absence) of heterospecific males. The experimental design also reveals the operative mechanism(s) behind reproductive interference. Results of this study clearly support outstanding claims for the causal significance of reproductive interference in this system.
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Date Issued: 2016
Identifier: FSU_2016SP_Takacs_fsu_0071N_13173
Format: Thesis

Title: The Tagless Access Buffer: Improving Data Access Efficiency with Minimal ISA Changes.
Creator: Sanchez, Carlos Ronald, Whalley, David B., Tyson, Gary Scott, Yuan, Xin, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Computer Science
Abstract/Description: Energy efficiency is an important design consideration in nearly all classes of processors, but is of particular importance to mobile and embedded systems. The data cache accounts for a significant portion of processor power. We have previously presented an approach to reducing cache energy by introducing an explicitly controlled tagless access buffer (TAB) at the top of the cache hierarchy. The TAB reduces energy usage by redirecting loop memory references from the level-one data cache (L1D)...
Show moreEnergy efficiency is an important design consideration in nearly all classes of processors, but is of particular importance to mobile and embedded systems. The data cache accounts for a significant portion of processor power. We have previously presented an approach to reducing cache energy by introducing an explicitly controlled tagless access buffer (TAB) at the top of the cache hierarchy. The TAB reduces energy usage by redirecting loop memory references from the level-one data cache (L1D) to the smaller, more energy-efficient TAB. These references need not access the data translation lookaside buffer (DTLB), and can sometimes avoid unnecessary transfers from lower levels of the memory hierarchy. We improve upon our previous design to create a system that requires fewer instruction set changes and gives more explicit control over the allocation and deallocation of TAB resources. We show that with a cache line size of 32 bytes, a four-line TAB can eliminate on average 31% of L1D accesses, which reduces L1D/DTLB energy usage by 19%.
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Date Issued: 2015
Identifier: FSU_2016SP_Sanchez_fsu_0071N_12812
Format: Thesis

Title: MAR: Mobile Augmented Reality in Indoor Environment.
Creator: Alahmadi, Mohammad Neal, Yang, Jie, Mascagni, Michael, Haiduc, Sonia, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Computer Science
Abstract/Description: For decades, augmented reality has been used to allow a person to visualize an overlay of annotations, videos, and images on physical objects using a camera. Due to the high computational processing cost that is required to match an image from among an enormous number of images, it has been daunting to use the concept of augmented reality on a smartphone without significant processing delays. Although the Global Positioning System (GPS) can be very useful for the outdoor localization of an...
Show moreFor decades, augmented reality has been used to allow a person to visualize an overlay of annotations, videos, and images on physical objects using a camera. Due to the high computational processing cost that is required to match an image from among an enormous number of images, it has been daunting to use the concept of augmented reality on a smartphone without significant processing delays. Although the Global Positioning System (GPS) can be very useful for the outdoor localization of an object, GPS is not suitable for indoor localization. To address the problem of indoor localization, we propose using mobile augmented reality in an indoor environment. Since most smartphones have many useful sensors such as accelerometers, magnetometers and Wi-Fi sensors, we can leverage these sensors to locate the phone’s location, the phone’s field of view, and the phone’s angle of view. Using Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR) based on processing data from several smartphone sensors, we can achieve indoor localization with reduced processing time. We tested MAR in simulated environments, and deployed the system in the Love building (LOV) at Florida State University. We used 200 images in the simulated environment, and compared the matching processing time between multiple object recognition algorithms and reduced the matching time from 2.8 seconds to only 0.17 second using a brisk algorithm.
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Date Issued: 2017
Identifier: FSU_FALL2017_Alahmadi_fsu_0071N_13939
Format: Thesis

Title: Numerical Simulation of Seawater Intrusion in a Well-Developed Costal Karstaquifer by Using VDFST-CFP Model.
Creator: Xu, Zhongyuan, Hu, Bill X., Wang, Yang (Professor of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science), Kish, Stephen A., Ye, Ming (Professor of scientific computing), Florida State...
Show moreXu, Zhongyuan, Hu, Bill X., Wang, Yang (Professor of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science), Kish, Stephen A., Ye, Ming (Professor of scientific computing), Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science
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Abstract/Description: Well-developed karst aquifers contain high permeability limestone matrix and much higher conductive conduits, this dual porosity system behaves totally different from other kinds of aquifers and becomes a challenging task for modern hydrogeological study. High permeable conduit system provides idea pipes for contaminant transporting in rapid flowing groundwater, this effect may cause wide range pollution in a short time. One of these serious problems is seawater intrusion. Seawater intrusion...
Show moreWell-developed karst aquifers contain high permeability limestone matrix and much higher conductive conduits, this dual porosity system behaves totally different from other kinds of aquifers and becomes a challenging task for modern hydrogeological study. High permeable conduit system provides idea pipes for contaminant transporting in rapid flowing groundwater, this effect may cause wide range pollution in a short time. One of these serious problems is seawater intrusion. Seawater intrusion has been found in many coastal aquifers, produced contaminated fresh groundwater resources and induced ecosystem problems. Seawater intrusion in a well-developed karst aquifer such as Woodville Karst Plain (WKP) is simulated by Dr. Zexuan Xu (Xu and Hu, 2017a), he developed a new model VDFST-CFP (Variable-Density Flow and Solute Transport - Conduit Flow Process) which considers the variable density flow in dual porosity system. VDFST-CFP provides an accurate simulation of seawater intrusion in a coastal karst aquifer with conduit networks. It couples the variable density flow field and the density function of salinity in the porous medium and non-laminar groundwater flow within karst conduits. Currently, the VDFST-CFP model is used to simulate seawater intrusion condition at a synthetic level, the present numerical simulation only considered the idea circumstance that is one conduit in a 2D model, and data analyses mainly focused on the horizontal source. In this study, an improvement of VDFST-CFP will concentrate on the vertical source model in the WKP, the roughness of conduit wall and multiple pipes will be considered. Two improvement are implemented in the new model: (1) multi-conduit networks in the domain; (2) micro- and macro-structures on the conduit wall (conduit wall roughness). The simulation results show that dual-pipe system produced a larger contaminant plumes than single-pipe system. Meanwhile, rougher micro-structures and more macro-structures on conduit wall slow down the velocity of seawater intrusion in conduit system, however, have a limited affect salinity distribution in the matrix. In addition, local sensitivity analysis and global sensitivity analysis of seven parameters (conductivity, diameter, dispersivity, exchange permeability between conduit and matrix, effective porosity, mean roughness height and specific storage) are conducted in this study. Sensitivity results indicate that conductivity, diameter and porosity are more important to head and salinity distribution simulations than other four parameters. Diameter is the most important parameter to the conduit simulation, while matrix simulations is more sensitive to effective porosity. Furthermore, scenarios study about variation of boundary conditions is conducted, the result shows that a decreasing of salinity at submarine spring or a decreasing on sea level moves seawater intrusion backward both in conduit and matrix, while the intrusion in conduit and matrix have different sensitivities to the change of boundary conditions.
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Date Issued: 2017
Identifier: FSU_SUMMER2017_Xu_fsu_0071N_13953
Format: Thesis

Title: Dependency Collapsing in Instruction-Level Parallel Architectures.
Creator: Brunell, Victor J., Whalley, David B., Tyson, Gary Scott, Yuan, Xin, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Computer Science
Abstract/Description: Processors that employ instruction fusion can improve performance and energy usage beyond traditional processors by collapsing and simultaneously executing dependent instruction chains on the critical path. This paper describes compiler mechanisms that can facilitate and guide instruction fusion in processors built to execute fused instructions. The compiler support discussed in this paper includes compiler annotations to guide fusion, exploring multiple new fusion configurations, and...
Show moreProcessors that employ instruction fusion can improve performance and energy usage beyond traditional processors by collapsing and simultaneously executing dependent instruction chains on the critical path. This paper describes compiler mechanisms that can facilitate and guide instruction fusion in processors built to execute fused instructions. The compiler support discussed in this paper includes compiler annotations to guide fusion, exploring multiple new fusion configurations, and developing scheduling algorithms that effectively select and order fusible instructions. The benefits of providing compiler support for dependent instruction fusion include statically detecting fusible instruction chains without the need for hardware dynamic detection support and improved performance by increasing available parallelism.
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Date Issued: 2017
Identifier: FSU_SUMMER2017_Brunell_fsu_0071N_14109
Format: Thesis

Title: Evaluation of a Bispectral Fog Detection Technique with a Low Earth Orbiting Satellite for Fog Events in Florida.
Creator: Swearingen, Aaron, Ray, Peter S., Liu, Guosheng (Professor of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science), Misra, Vasubandhu, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences,...
Show moreSwearingen, Aaron, Ray, Peter S., Liu, Guosheng (Professor of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science), Misra, Vasubandhu, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science
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Abstract/Description: According to the United States Department of Transportation (US DOT), an average of over 28,000 crashes and almost 500 deaths annually occurred as a result of fog-related vehicular accidents. In Florida, the January 2008 and January 2012 fog-related multi-car accidents claimed the lives of four and eleven people, respectively. A more effective fog warning system could include the use of remote sensing. The ground observation sites used to detect fog statewide are both widely and unevenly...
Show moreAccording to the United States Department of Transportation (US DOT), an average of over 28,000 crashes and almost 500 deaths annually occurred as a result of fog-related vehicular accidents. In Florida, the January 2008 and January 2012 fog-related multi-car accidents claimed the lives of four and eleven people, respectively. A more effective fog warning system could include the use of remote sensing. The ground observation sites used to detect fog statewide are both widely and unevenly dispersed. Many high-traffic areas affected by fog are not monitored by ground equipment, leading to poor forecasting and detection of fog in these areas. A combination of both ground observations and remote sensing may lead to better statewide fog detection and forecasting. A bispectral nighttime fog detection technique is used to determine the presence of fog across the state of Florida. This technique uses brightness temperature differences (BTD) between two infrared (IR) channels. The performance of the technique is validated through the use of six months of observation data from AWOS/ASOS sites across the state. An optimum fog detection threshold is found based on the BTD values. Both the optimum threshold and the skill of the optimum threshold are compared to a previous study which used a geostationary satellite for fog detection. The bispectral technique shows little skill, with a large amount of misses and false detections of fog. The low skill can be attributed to the fact that MODIS makes only one nighttime pass which may not necessarily be when fog has formed. The increased spatial resolution of the MODIS sensor over the previous generation GOES Imager does not make up for the decreased number of nighttime satellite passes in a given day.
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Date Issued: 2017
Identifier: FSU_SUMMER2017_Swearingen_fsu_0071N_14009
Format: Thesis

Title: An Examination of El Niño and La Niña Teleconnections to Sahel and Guinea Coast Rainfall in the Context of the 1968 Rainfall Regime Change.
Creator: Vaughan, Thomas Ashley, Nicholson, Sharon E., Sura, Philip, Liu, Guosheng (Professor of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science), Florida State University, College of Arts and...
Show moreVaughan, Thomas Ashley, Nicholson, Sharon E., Sura, Philip, Liu, Guosheng (Professor of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science), Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science
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Abstract/Description: The Sahel and Guinea Coast regions of Africa have long been the subject of studies on interannual and intraseasonal rainfall variability. The unique geography, monsoon circulation regime, and a variety of climatic teleconnections produce large variations in year-to-year rainfall across the region. These large fluctuations in rainfall can have devastating effects on the inhabitants of West Africa, who rely on the rainfall for both agriculture and human consumption. Thus, a better understanding...
Show moreThe Sahel and Guinea Coast regions of Africa have long been the subject of studies on interannual and intraseasonal rainfall variability. The unique geography, monsoon circulation regime, and a variety of climatic teleconnections produce large variations in year-to-year rainfall across the region. These large fluctuations in rainfall can have devastating effects on the inhabitants of West Africa, who rely on the rainfall for both agriculture and human consumption. Thus, a better understanding of the nature of rainfall variability in the area is warranted. The El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO), one of the most studied climate phenomena, is known to have far-reaching impacts on weather across the globe. This study provides one of the most comprehensive and complete analyses of the relationship between ENSO and rainfall across the Sahel and Guinea Coast to date. Several previous studies have found little connection between Sahel rainfall and ENSO phase, while others have suggested that ENSO can result in changes within the monsoon circulation and cause a reduction in Sahel rainfall during El Niño years. By utilizing the largest and longest dataset of rainfall gauge data available, this study provides an analysis of rainfall anomalies experienced during El Niño and La Niña years from 1921-2012 in the context of a major shift in the rainfall regime that occurred around the year 1968. This research finds that before 1968, rainfall during the peak Sahel rainy season in El Niño years was below normal, but above normal in the Guinea Coast. The same is observed after 1968, but the anomalies are of stronger magnitude than before 1968, suggesting an increased ENSO-Sahel rainfall teleconnection after 1968. Similar intensifications of the El Niño signal are observed in other seasons as well. In general, opposite rainfall anomalies were observed during La Niña years when compared to El Niño years. An increase in La Niña influence in more recent years is also detected. An analysis of the consistency of the ENSO signal suggests that the ENSO rainfall response is most consistent in areas of the Sahel during the JAS (-1), OND (-1), JAS, and OND seasons. Evidence also suggests that there was a weakening of the Sahel/Guinea Coast dipole after 1968. Finally, an analysis of upper air circulations shows few differences in zonal winds during El Niño and La Niña years versus non-ENSO years, suggesting the relationship between ENSO and Sahel rainfall may be fairly weak. There are some subtle differences seen, however, when comparing years before 1968 to years afterwards that were consistent with the observed rainfall anomalies in certain seasons. This study concludes that the rainfall response to El Niño and La Niña events in the Sahel and Guinea Coast as a whole is relatively inconsistent, but there was some meaningful connection found between ENSO and rainfall in the Sahel during certain seasons outlined above. This relationship intensified after the 1968 rainfall regime change, consistent with findings from previous studies.
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Date Issued: 2017
Identifier: FSU_SUMMER2017_Vaughan_fsu_0071N_14087
Format: Thesis

Title: On the Obscured Relationship between Size and Intensity of Tropical Cyclones: A Preliminary Study.
Creator: Hathaway, Nikki Marie, Cai, Ming, Hart, Robert E. (Robert Edward), Liu, Guosheng (Professor of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science), Florida State University, College of Arts...
Show moreHathaway, Nikki Marie, Cai, Ming, Hart, Robert E. (Robert Edward), Liu, Guosheng (Professor of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science), Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science
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Abstract/Description: Both intuition and previous statistical analysis suggests that in general, hurricane size tends to increase with intensity. However, such statistical correlation, including the statistical significance and even the sign of the correlation, between hurricane size and intensity strongly depends on the sample hurricanes in the data pool for the correlation analysis. For example, there are ample instances when a hurricane at different times can have a similar size but differ in terms of intensity...
Show moreBoth intuition and previous statistical analysis suggests that in general, hurricane size tends to increase with intensity. However, such statistical correlation, including the statistical significance and even the sign of the correlation, between hurricane size and intensity strongly depends on the sample hurricanes in the data pool for the correlation analysis. For example, there are ample instances when a hurricane at different times can have a similar size but differ in terms of intensity and vice versa. Therefore, predictions based on intuition or statistics often fail when considering an individual hurricane. In this thesis research, we attempt to apply a theoretical model in conjunction with observational case studies to gain insight on the main factors that make the relationship between both hurricane size and intensity, obscured. This theoretical model will apply an analytical analysis of the inertial instability neutral radial profile of an isolated gradient-wind balanced circular vortex in an f-plane shallow water equation model, which shows that the relationship between the size and the maximum tangential wind speed is not unique, because the size also depends on the radius of maximum wind. The radial profile of wind under neutral conditions of inertial instability reveals that hurricane size and intensity can have either a positive, near-zero, or negative correlation depending on the sample of hurricanes in the dataset from which such correlation is obtained. The main conclusion derived from the theoretical model is that the relationship between hurricane size and intensity can be obscured due to only one specific factor (i.e., the radius of maximum wind) that also influences the size. The theoretical model also predicts that the latitudinal position only weakly obscures the relationship, as long as the hurricane is not too close to the equator. We have examined whether the size inferred from the radial profile of inertially neutral wind would be able to capture its observational counterparts. Specifically, we examined five selected hurricanes derived from the Extended Best Track (EBT) Data, namely Katrina (2005), Ike (2008), Gustav (2008), Sandy (2012), and Joaquin (2015). We have performed a correlation analysis on the observed size and the size predicted by the simple theoretical model by using the information of maximum wind speed and its radius of each of the five hurricanes throughout the phases of each tropical cyclone’s (TC) life cycle. We found that the size obtained from the barotropic inertially neutral radial profile underestimates the size of observed hurricane by a factor of 2-2.5. This suggests that the observed hurricane wind’s radial profile does not follow angular momentum conservation or an air parcel would lose angular momentum as it converges towards the eyewall, mainly due to surface drag and eddy-mixing processes. This finding also implies that there are other parameters besides these three factors (intensity, radius of maximum wind, and latitude) that influence an individual hurricane size. This implies that the relationship between size and intensity is more complex than that predicted by the simple theoretical model. Our analysis suggests that about 1/3 (48 out of 174) of the observed cases show that other factors may strongly affect hurricane size. By removing these 48 data points that are indicative of possible strong impacts from the external factors, the R-squared value of the linear regression line between the observed size and the size predicted by the theoretical model increases substantially (from R2 = 46.3% to 71.5% on average). The inspection of the timing and location of these “external” data points indicate that they often occur in situations when (i) encountering big islands or land mass (e.g., Cuba for Ike) and (ii) undergo a very rapid weakening/intensifying transition (Joaquin). Therefore, the size information predicted by the simple theoretical model does capture the size record for most the track records (126 out of 174), suggesting that the most important factors that influence hurricane size are both maximum wind speed and the radius of maximum wind speed.
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Date Issued: 2017
Identifier: FSU_SUMMER2017_Hathaway_fsu_0071N_13990
Format: Thesis

Title: Non-Aqueous Transuranic Coordination Complexes.
Creator: Galley, Shane S., Dobrosavljević, Vladimir, Hanson, Kenneth G., Shatruk, Mykhailo, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Abstract/Description: As of 2014, there is an expected 69,000 metric tons of nuclear waste sitting in storage in the U.S. Little efforts have been made to deal with the radiotoxicity of the spent nuclear fuel (SNF). The problem arises from the complex mixture of the SNF and highly radioactive actinides. Due to the high radioactivity of the minor actinides (Pu-Cm), there is a lack of understanding the fundamental chemistry of the actinides. The focus of this work is to prepare coordination complexes that can be...
Show moreAs of 2014, there is an expected 69,000 metric tons of nuclear waste sitting in storage in the U.S. Little efforts have been made to deal with the radiotoxicity of the spent nuclear fuel (SNF). The problem arises from the complex mixture of the SNF and highly radioactive actinides. Due to the high radioactivity of the minor actinides (Pu-Cm), there is a lack of understanding the fundamental chemistry of the actinides. The focus of this work is to prepare coordination complexes that can be used as probes for elucidating changes in the structure and bonding across the actinides series Most coordination chemistry that has been studied with the actinide series has only utilized ligands stable to oxygen and moisture due to the difficulties of handling the transuranium actinides. The chemistry of non-aqueous ranium has made great progress, while, the non-aqueous chemistry of the transuranic elements is relatively unexplored and offers a wider platform for exploring methods of deducing electronic structure and information about the actinide-ligand bond. Such information can be very useful for discovering trends in the whole series. The beginning chapters focus on simple coordination compounds using soft N and S donor ligands for complexing Am-Cf. Since very little structure data is known for these elements and softer donor ligands have shown to have a preference over trivalent actinides than lanthanides, we focus on these systems to understand the trends in bonding across the 5f series. Chapter 4 focus on a series (U-Cf) of complexes using the redox active ligand 2,4,6,8-tetrakis(tert-butyl)-9-hydroxyphenoxanone (HDOPO) were synthesized in non-aqueous conditions under an inert atmosphere and have been fully characterized by X-ray, optical, magnetic, and computational techniques. Spectroscopic data reveals the An(DOPO)3 complexes of the earlier actinides being the tetravalent state, in contrast to the later actinides, they are in the trivalent state. Furthermore, the Cf(III) complex disrupts the tris-chelate trend due to radiolysis. It is also shown that the ligand undergoes redox transitions to stabilize the higher oxidation states of the earlier actinides. The results will help contribute toward gaining foundational knowledge of structure and bonding in non-aqueous transuranic chemistry as well as give insight into the participation of f-orbitals in bonding. The ending chapters are out of the scope of non-aqueous chemistry but projects that pertain to the nature of the actinide series. As the first focuses on the effects of radiolysis. As we go to the heavier actinides, radiolysis affects the crystallization of our targeted products. In this case, an aged thorium source produces peroxide over time changing the result of the product. Lastly, is an example of driven degeneracy covalency in an americium chromate system. It was thought the later actinides tend to be more ionic, however we are finding small amount of covalent character partakes in the bonding. Collectively, this body of work primary focus is elucidating the structure and bonding of the f-elements through coordination complexes utilizing various techniques.
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Date Issued: 2017
Identifier: FSU_FALL2017_Galley_fsu_0071E_14279
Format: Thesis

Title: The Perception of the Interdental Fricative in Second Language Spanish.
Creator: Hanson, Stacey, Leeser, Michael J., Reglero, Lara, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics
Abstract/Description: The interdental fricative /θ/, present in North-Central Spain, has proven to be difficult for second language learners to acquire, even after time spent abroad in Spain (Geeslin& Gudmestad, 2008; Knouse, 2012). Explicit pronunciation training helps to improve learners' pronunciation of the L2 (Ausín & Sutton, 2010; González-Bueno & Quintana-Lara, 2011), as does increased exposure to dialectal variation (Schmidt, 2018). Previous research, however, has only focused on the production of the...
Show moreThe interdental fricative /θ/, present in North-Central Spain, has proven to be difficult for second language learners to acquire, even after time spent abroad in Spain (Geeslin& Gudmestad, 2008; Knouse, 2012). Explicit pronunciation training helps to improve learners' pronunciation of the L2 (Ausín & Sutton, 2010; González-Bueno & Quintana-Lara, 2011), as does increased exposure to dialectal variation (Schmidt, 2018). Previous research, however, has only focused on the production of the interdental fricative /θ/. Contradictory evidence related to the order in which sounds are perceived versus produced, calls for further investigation of the link between perception and production (Nagle, 2017; Chan, 2011). The current study investigates the perception of the Spanish /θ/, and the impact of explicit training, proficiency level, and instructor dialect on its acquisition. One discrimination and three identification tasks were designed to examine learners' perception of the fricative /θ/. Learners were tasked with identifying two stimuli as sounding the same or different, listening to stimuli and writing down what they heard, identifying words as native or not native to Spain, and listening to a list of words and choosing the correct response from a provided list. Consistent with previous studies, it was hypothesized that more advanced learners would better perceive the fricative /θ/ than beginners (H1), that learners who received explicit training would better perceive the fricative /θ/ than learners without explicit training (H2), and that learners with an instructor speaking a Peninsular accent would better perceive the fricative /θ/ than learners with instructors from other dialectal areas (H3). A total of 102 L2 participants were recruited from beginner, low-intermediate, intermediate, and advanced Spanish courses; approximately half received explicit training on the use of the /θ/ in Spanish. Half of the participants also had an instructor with a Peninsular accent. xiv In addition, 5 native Spanish speakers also participated in the study to provide a baseline. The study used a pretest, posttest design and repeated measures ANOVAs; significance was set at p≤.05.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Summer_Hanson_fsu_0071N_15322
Format: Thesis

Title: Yes-No Question Intonation in Puerto Rican Spanish and Beijing Mandarin.
Creator: Zhang, Linxi, González, Carolina, Reglero, Lara, Muntendam, Antje, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics
Abstract/Description: The intonation of Yes-No questions in Puerto Rican and other Caribbean varieties of Spanish has provoked great interest of the investigators, partly because of its unique circumflex contour that is different from the final rising contour common in other dialects (Sosa 1999; Armstrong 2010, 2012). Previous researches have also shown that in PR Spanish, the nuclear accent in echo-Yes-No questions that express surprise or ask for confirmation are represented with different tones than the...
Show moreThe intonation of Yes-No questions in Puerto Rican and other Caribbean varieties of Spanish has provoked great interest of the investigators, partly because of its unique circumflex contour that is different from the final rising contour common in other dialects (Sosa 1999; Armstrong 2010, 2012). Previous researches have also shown that in PR Spanish, the nuclear accent in echo-Yes-No questions that express surprise or ask for confirmation are represented with different tones than the information-seeking questions (Armstrong 2010). On the other hand, the Yes-No questions in Mandarin Chinese have been studied more for its syntactic variations. Two syntactic structures are believed to be alternative in the formation of Chinese information-seeking Yes-No questions: 1) the use of the sentence-final particle ma, known as the question marker and 2) the A-Not-A structure (Huang et.al, 2009). Nonetheless, little is known about syntactic variation across pragmatic contexts and the intonation of the questions (Lee 2000, 2005). The present study aims to investigate, above all, the intonational differences in Yes-No questions of four different pragmatic purposes: information-seeking, echo-surprise, confirmatory, and echo-repetition, in PR Spanish and Beijing Mandarin Chinese. It also considers any syntactic variation across the question types, especially in Chinese. Lastly, it considers the effect of different degrees of bilingualism of the participants on their intonation. For the study, an elicitation task with visual and audio guidance by means of a PowerPoint is used. The task has a Spanish section and a Chinese section. Each section consists of 20 contexts triggering Yes-No questions. Target items are divided into 4 blocks corresponding to the four contests. Spanish results show that as expected, most of the utterances were realized with falling intonation. At the same time, there are intonational differences among questions of different pragmatic contexts. Contradicting previous literature on PRS intonation (Armstrong 2010, Sosa 1999), the ´circumflex ´structure is preferred in information-seeking, confirmatory, and echo-repetition contexts, while echo-surprise context favors H*LL% final contour. In terms of bilingualism, the Spanish dominant speaker shows greater intonational variation across questions types. Some instances of rising intonation are attested probably due to influence of English or other varieties of Spanish. Chinese results show syntactic variations in the questions of different pragmatic contexts. The ma particle structure is favored in information-seeking and echo-repetition contexts, while A-not-A structure is preferred in confirmatory context. Yes-no question is scarcely found in echo-surprise context. In terms of intonation, there are effects of presence of particle and narrow focus. .
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Date Issued: 2017
Identifier: FSU_2017SP_Zhang_fsu_0071N_13873
Format: Thesis

Title: Degradation of MC252 Agglomerates Buried in a Gulf of Mexico Sandy Beach.
Creator: Bociu, Ioana, Huettel, Markus, MacDonald, Ian R., Wang, Yang, Mason, Olivia Underwood, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Earth, Ocean and...
Show moreBociu, Ioana, Huettel, Markus, MacDonald, Ian R., Wang, Yang, Mason, Olivia Underwood, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science
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Abstract/Description: After the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) blowout, MC252 crude oil was washed onto the shores of the northeastern Gulf of Mexico. Weathered oil was buried in sandy Florida beaches in the form of sands covered by oil films, small oil particles, large agglomerates and oiled sand layers. While oil films and oil particles were observed to degrade relatively quickly, larger buried sand and oil agglomerates (SOA) can persist in the dry beach sand, where they are protected from photodegradation and...
Show moreAfter the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) blowout, MC252 crude oil was washed onto the shores of the northeastern Gulf of Mexico. Weathered oil was buried in sandy Florida beaches in the form of sands covered by oil films, small oil particles, large agglomerates and oiled sand layers. While oil films and oil particles were observed to degrade relatively quickly, larger buried sand and oil agglomerates (SOA) can persist in the dry beach sand, where they are protected from photodegradation and mechanical stress. To determine the degradation of such large agglomerates, a time series study was initiated that quantified the weight loss and compositional changes of MC252 standardized sand and oil agglomerates (sSOAs) buried at 5, 15, 25, 35, and 45 cm depths in dry beach sand at Pensacola Beach, Florida. Sets of 10 experimental, standardized SOAs were removed at 2 - 6 month intervals over a time period of 3 years. Analysis of the sSOAs revealed a total weight loss of 10.85% or 3.66 g per sSOA volume and a loss in petroleum hydrocarbons of 59% or 2.85 g per sSOA/ over the three-year burial period. Decay rate constants for saturated hydrocarbons (C15-C40) of the surface layer of the sSOAs averaged 0.0043 d-1 (SE = 0.0017) for initial 181-day period, and 0.0027 d-1 (SE = 0.0004) for the thee-year observation period (C15-C40). PAH initial decay was 0.022 d-1 (SE = 0.004) for the initial (181-day) decay and 0.005 d-1 (SE = 0.001) for three-year period for the compounds that could be detected in the sSOA surface layer (biphenyl, acenaphthylene, acenaphthene, fluorine, dibenzothiopene, phenanthrene, pyrene, benzo(c)phenanthrene, chrysene, 7,12-dimethylbenz(a)anthracene, benzo(b,j,k)fluoranthene, benzo(a)pyrene, and benzo(g,h,i)perylene) in the surface lay. The results indicate that buried larger SOAs persist in the dry beach sands for years despite access to oxygen in contrast to oil films on sand grains and buried small oil particles that at Pensacola Beach disappeared within a year. Causes for the slow degradation of larger SOAs in the beach include the lack of photodegradation, the protection from mechanical disintegration, as well as low nutrient and moisture concentrations in the sand.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Su_Bociu_fsu_0071N_14808
Format: Thesis

Title: Environmental Controls on Organic Carbon Productivity in the Midland Basin.
Creator: Bandy, Terryl L. (Terryl Lynn), Owens, Jeremy D., Young, Seth A., Wang, Yang, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric...
Show moreBandy, Terryl L. (Terryl Lynn), Owens, Jeremy D., Young, Seth A., Wang, Yang, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science
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Abstract/Description: The Kasimovian (late Pennsylvanian) to early Roadian (middle Permian) is an interval of Earth history that experienced relatively stable climatic conditions highlighted by significant glaciation, which might represent an analog for current and future climate dynamics. The carbon isotope (δ13C) record during this interval is relatively stable with a few minor but relatively unexplored fluctuations of ~2‰, suggesting stable global OC burial even as peat and/or coal deposits declined at the end...
Show moreThe Kasimovian (late Pennsylvanian) to early Roadian (middle Permian) is an interval of Earth history that experienced relatively stable climatic conditions highlighted by significant glaciation, which might represent an analog for current and future climate dynamics. The carbon isotope (δ13C) record during this interval is relatively stable with a few minor but relatively unexplored fluctuations of ~2‰, suggesting stable global OC burial even as peat and/or coal deposits declined at the end of the Permian. This suggests that carbon burial may have increased elsewhere, or changes in the inputs would be required to maintain a constant isotope record. One possibility is that marine OC burial increased to balance the waning peat and/or coal deposits. Enhanced marine OC productivity can possibly lead to increased burial, which would drive a global positive δ13C excursion. For example, the Midland Basin in Texas is characterized by significant Permian hydrocarbon source rocks, which may have affected the global carbon cycle and therefore isotope record. It is possible that there are other substantial marine sinks of OC during this time, but global distributions are not well-constrained. These deposits, however, may have been manifested as organic-rich black shale, or a small but widespread increase of OC globally, which could have accounted for the stability of the carbon isotope record. Resolving the potential mechanisms that may be driving local and global OC burial is imperative for understanding the Earth system feedbacks associated with ancient and potentially future climate perturbations. This research constrains local and potentially global marine redox conditions using a multi-geochemical proxy approach. Total OC contents and isotopes were analyzed to constrain local to global burial, respectively. Iron speciation and δ34Spyr were utilized to constrain local redox conditions – including local anoxic and euxinic (anoxic and sulfidic water-column) conditions and pyrite burial. Redox-sensitive trace metals were measured to interpret local conditions, which are best utilized in combination with Fe speciation, and under certain circumstances can help to decipher basin restriction or global trace metal drawdown due to widespread euxinia. Last, thallium isotopes have been analyzed on anoxic to euxinic samples to determine the global extent of oxic bottom waters and the basin’s connectivity to the open ocean. The combination of these traditional and novel geochemical redox proxies provide new context to interpret the local depositional environment of the Midland Basin. The collected results show that the black shales in the Midland Basin were deposited under low oxygen conditions and at a few points verging on euxinic. The data suggest that eustatic sea levels increased during sediment deposition. Associated with this sea level rise was an increase in bioessential nutrient availability (e.g., trace metals), which led to increased organic carbon drawdown and preservation within the basin.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Spring_Bandy_fsu_0071N_15141
Format: Thesis

Title: Investigation of Changes in Paleoceanographic Redox State as a Driver for Early Silurian Extinction Events Using Multiple Geochemical Proxies in the Baltic Basin.
Creator: Benayoun, Emily, Young, Seth A., Owens, Jeremy D., Wang, Yang, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science
Abstract/Description: Two mudstone-dominated early Silurian drill cores from the Baltic Basin were analyzed for pyrite sulfur isotopes (δ34Spy), organic matter carbon isotopes (δ13Corg), as well as iron speciation and trace metal chemostratigraphy to reconstruct the marine redox state during the early Silurian (Llandovery to earliest Wenlock). Three globally correlated positive carbon isotope excursions (+ 2 to + 3‰ magnitude shifts) are recorded within the Baltic Basin. The late Aeronian CIE and coincident...
Show moreTwo mudstone-dominated early Silurian drill cores from the Baltic Basin were analyzed for pyrite sulfur isotopes (δ34Spy), organic matter carbon isotopes (δ13Corg), as well as iron speciation and trace metal chemostratigraphy to reconstruct the marine redox state during the early Silurian (Llandovery to earliest Wenlock). Three globally correlated positive carbon isotope excursions (+ 2 to + 3‰ magnitude shifts) are recorded within the Baltic Basin. The late Aeronian CIE and coincident positive δ34Spy (~ + 22‰ magnitude) shift are recorded in the proximal shelf and distal slope sections within the Lituigraptus convolutus- Sprirograptus guerichi Graptolite Zones. The rising limb of the Valgu CIE and coincident positive δ34Spy (+ 10‰ magnitude) shift are recorded in the distal slope section within the Streprograptus crispus Graptolite Zone. Additionally, the rising limb of the Ireviken CIE and coincident positive δ34Spy (+ 8‰ magnitude) shift are recorded in the proximal shelf section within the Cyrtograptus murchisoni- Monograptus firmus Graptolite Zones. These parallel isotope trends can be explained by changes in marine redox state that resulted in increases in microbially mediated pyrite formation and burial along with enhanced organic matter burial rates. Iron geochemistry independently constrains euxinic deposition (i.e., anoxic and sulfidic bottom waters) during the rise of the late Aeronian CIE with the possibility of similar reducing conditions during the rise of the Valgu and Ireviken CIEs. Coincident enrichments in vanadium (V) and molybdenum (Mo) concentrations during the rising limb of the late Aeronian CIE suggest the expansion from oxygen-deficient but non-sulfidic waters to fully euxinic within the Baltic Basin. Sedimentary iron and trace element enrichment trends are broadly consistent with oxygen minimum zone (OMZ)-type redox conditions in the water column and sediments porewaters with additional contributions from a manganese (Mn)- and Fe- shuttle. Intermittent expansion of an OMZ was likely controlled by local fluctuations in sea-level and provides a reasonable explanation for graptolite and conodont extinction events that occur during the late Aeronian and Valgu CIE intervals. An expansion of reducing conditions would have reduced habitable environments for marine organisms and geochemical evidence for reducing conditions is broadly consistent with extinction events recorded in the Baltic Basin during this period of the early Silurian.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Spring_Benayoun_fsu_0071N_15112
Format: Thesis

Title: Diabatic Processes Modifying the Structure and Evolution of Idealized Baroclinic Life Cycle Simulations.
Creator: Glasser, Daisy, Chagnon, Jeffrey M., Cai, Ming, Liu, Guosheng, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science
Abstract/Description: Diabatic processes including latent heating and radiation are parameterized in numerical weather prediction (NWP) models and constitute a major source of error. Isolating the extent of diabatic modification in an extratropical cyclone in observational atmospheric data is difficult. This study analyzes four idealized Advanced Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF-ARW) model sensitivity experiments in which radiation or moisture are either included or withheld. The experiments consist of the...
Show moreDiabatic processes including latent heating and radiation are parameterized in numerical weather prediction (NWP) models and constitute a major source of error. Isolating the extent of diabatic modification in an extratropical cyclone in observational atmospheric data is difficult. This study analyzes four idealized Advanced Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF-ARW) model sensitivity experiments in which radiation or moisture are either included or withheld. The experiments consist of the following: no radiation and no moisture (NRNM), radiation and no moisture (RNM), moisture and no radiation (NRM), and radiation and moisture (RM). Simulations are of an idealized baroclinic wave in the midlatitudes. Because baroclinic waves are associated with synoptic scale weather events, these WRF-ARW simulations are the ideal platform to better understand the interactions of diabatic and dynamic processes. Inclusion of moisture and radiation has a significant impact on baroclinic wave structure and evolution. On the synoptic scale, the RM experiment demonstrates greatest amplification/depth, earliest growth, and was the only experiment with cyclonic breaking in the troposphere and high amplitude anticyclonic breaking in the lower stratosphere. On the sub-synoptic scale, vertical dipoles in isentropic potential vorticity (IPV) and cloud-scale anomalies developed in the middle to upper troposphere as the wave matured. While radiation alone yields no anomaly, and moisture alone yields a small anomaly, the inclusion of radiation and moisture together yields a significantly larger IPV anomaly. Anomalies may be due to constructive interference or nonlinear feedbacks between radiative cooling and latent heating. Results of this study have important implications for NWP, especially in the representation of physical processes via parameterization schemes. Knowledge gained about physical processes and their feedbacks on resolved flow might help to better understand error and bias in NWP models.
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Date Issued: 2016
Identifier: FSU_2016SU_Glasser_fsu_0071N_13462
Format: Thesis

Title: The Impact of Microstructure on an Accurate Snow Scattering Parameterization at Microwave Wavelengths.
Creator: Honeyager, Ryan Erick, Liu, Guosheng, Gunzburger, Max D., Ahlquist, Jon E., Ellingson, R. G., Wu, Zhaohua, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of...
Show moreHoneyager, Ryan Erick, Liu, Guosheng, Gunzburger, Max D., Ahlquist, Jon E., Ellingson, R. G., Wu, Zhaohua, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science
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Abstract/Description: High frequency microwave instruments are increasingly used to observe ice clouds and snow. These instruments are significantly more sensitive than conventional precipitation radar. This is ideal for analyzing ice-bearing clouds, for ice particles are tenuously distributed and have effective densities that are far less than liquid water. However, at shorter wavelengths, the electromagnetic response of ice particles is no longer solely dependent on particle mass. The shape of the ice particles...
Show moreHigh frequency microwave instruments are increasingly used to observe ice clouds and snow. These instruments are significantly more sensitive than conventional precipitation radar. This is ideal for analyzing ice-bearing clouds, for ice particles are tenuously distributed and have effective densities that are far less than liquid water. However, at shorter wavelengths, the electromagnetic response of ice particles is no longer solely dependent on particle mass. The shape of the ice particles also plays a significant role. Thus, in order to understand the observations of high frequency microwave radars and radiometers, it is essential to model the scattering properties of snowflakes correctly. Several research groups have proposed detailed models of snow aggregation. These particle models are coupled with computer codes that determine the particles' electromagnetic properties. However, there is a discrepancy between the particle model outputs and the requirements of the electromagnetic models. Snowflakes have countless variations in structure, but we also know that physically similar snowflakes scatter light in much the same manner. Structurally exact electromagnetic models, such as the discrete dipole approximation (DDA), require a high degree of structural resolution. Such methods are slow, spending considerable time processing redundant (i.e. useless) information. Conversely, when using techniques that incorporate too little structural information, the resultant radiative properties are not physically realistic. Then, we ask the question, what features are most important in determining scattering? This dissertation develops a general technique that can quickly parameterize the important structural aspects that determine the scattering of many diverse snowflake morphologies. A Voronoi bounding neighbor algorithm is first employed to decompose aggregates into well-defined interior and surface regions. The sensitivity of scattering to interior randomization is then examined. The loss of interior structure is found to have a negligible impact on scattering cross sections, and backscatter is lowered by approximately five percent. This establishes that detailed knowledge of interior structure is not necessary when modeling scattering behavior, and it also provides support for using an effective medium approximation to describe the interiors of snow aggregates. The Voronoi diagram-based technique enables the almost trivial determination of the effective density of this medium. A bounding neighbor algorithm is then used to establish a greatly improved approximation of scattering by equivalent spheroids. This algorithm is then used to posit a Voronoi diagram-based definition of effective density approach, which is used in concert with the T-matrix method to determine single-scattering cross sections. The resulting backscatters are found to reasonably match those of the DDA over frequencies from 10.65 to 183.31 GHz and particle sizes from a few hundred micrometers to nine millimeters in length. Integrated error in backscatter versus DDA is found to be within 25% at 94 GHz. Errors in scattering cross-sections and asymmetry parameters are likewise small. The observed cross-sectional errors are much smaller than the differences observed among different particle models. This represents a significant improvement over established techniques, and it demonstrates that the radiative properties of dense aggregate snowflakes may be adequately represented by equal-mass homogeneous spheroids. The present results can be used to supplement retrieval algorithms used by CloudSat, EarthCARE, Galileo, GPM and SWACR radars. The ability to predict the full range of scattering properties is potentially also useful for other particle regimes where a compact particle approximation is applicable.
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Date Issued: 2017
Identifier: FSU_2017SP_Honeyager_fsu_0071E_13726
Format: Thesis

Title: Gulf of Mexico Recovery and Organic Matter Variability: A Tale of Two Sources.
Creator: Rogers, Kelsey, Chanton, Jeffrey P., Zhao, Tingting, Mason, Olivia Underwood, Montoya, Joseph, Wang, Yang, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of...
Show moreRogers, Kelsey, Chanton, Jeffrey P., Zhao, Tingting, Mason, Olivia Underwood, Montoya, Joseph, Wang, Yang, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science
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Abstract/Description: The Deepwater Horizon (DWH) blowout of 2010 released an estimated 4.5-4.9 million barrels of oil and 500,000t of methane into the Gulf of Mexico (GOM). Some of this oil rose to the surface, forming oil slicks, while an estimated 30% of the smaller particles and gasses formed a deep-water hydrocarbon plume between 1000-1200m (Ryerson et al., 2013; Valentine et al., 2010). The oil slicks at the surface covered a total area of 149,000km2 (MacDonald et al., 2015), but less than 0.01% of the...
Show moreThe Deepwater Horizon (DWH) blowout of 2010 released an estimated 4.5-4.9 million barrels of oil and 500,000t of methane into the Gulf of Mexico (GOM). Some of this oil rose to the surface, forming oil slicks, while an estimated 30% of the smaller particles and gasses formed a deep-water hydrocarbon plume between 1000-1200m (Ryerson et al., 2013; Valentine et al., 2010). The oil slicks at the surface covered a total area of 149,000km2 (MacDonald et al., 2015), but less than 0.01% of the gaseous hydrocarbons reached the surface (Kessler et al., 2011; Yvon-Lewis et al., 2011). After capping the wellhead and following natural and human remediation efforts, an estimated 11-30% of the oil was left unaccounted (Lehr et al., 2010). Studies of δ13C and Δ14C tracers in particulate organic carbon (POCsusp) in the water column and in sediments have shown the accumulation of fossil carbon in these pools. This dissertation explores the POC and sedimentary organic carbon pools using δ13C and Δ14C to characterize and track the recovery of these carbon pools following the DWH blowout. Due to the small particle size, residence time, and sensitivity to inputs, POCsusp provides a link between microbial processes in dissolved organic carbon and larger particles that pass carbon up the food web. Through this link we can evaluate the incorporation of hydrocarbons using δ13C and Δ14C. POCsusp was collected over 6 years from 43 sites across the Northern GOM. At the time of collection these sites were classified as seep or non-seep. We observed a wide range of natural variability in both δ13C (-17.8 to -35.4‰) and Δ14C (+71 to -755‰) throughout the water column. We found that deep-water POCsusp of the GOM was always more depleted than POCsusp from the euphotic zone. POCsusp collected from seeps was more depleted in Δ14C than non-seep sites. Endmember modeling indicated that in these particles, as much as 73% of the carbon was incorporated from oil. Four years following the blowout, we observed recovery in the Δ14C of deep-water POCsusp settling at a baseline of Δ14C=-164.4±18.9‰. We found the δ13C of POCsusp from the euphotic zone became more depleted over time, potentially due to the continuous incorporation of hydrocarbons. The deposition of oil in the sediments of the GOM has been estimated to be up to 14% of the total oil released (Valentine et al., 2014; Chanton et al, 2015), with marine oil snow as the primary mode of deposition. We employed inverse distance weighted interpolation to the surface sediment δ13C and Δ14C data. From these interpolations, we calculated the area affected by petrocarbon and followed its quantity through time. The area affected by petrocarbon decreased each year at a rate of -2x108 g/yr. Our maps indicated an east-west trend in depletion of both δ13C and Δ14C likely caused by the increasing importance of output from natural seeps and the Mississippi River. We also found significant differences between the sediment of the northern and southern GOM, with the north being much more depleted in δ13C and Δ14C than the south. Ramped pyrox paired with δ13C and Δ14C was used in previous studies of oil contaminated marsh sediments, showing the evolution of the thermostability and isotope signatures as the oil was transformed and the system recovered. We used ramped pyrox paired with δ13C and Δ14C measurement of the evolved fractions to explore the recovery of two DWH affected time-series sites, GIP07 and GIP17, and one site that had high PAH levels in 2010. We found differences in the thermographs and δ13C and Δ14C of the evolved CO2 between crude oil and the seep and control sediment. We observed shifts in the CO2 evolution over time from lower to higher-temperature at GIP17 (~16km from the wellhead), followed then by a loss of higher temperature peaks at GIP07 (~90km). At both sites we observed recovery going from bulk Δ14C=-491‰ in 2010 to almost background by 2015, Δ14C=-264‰ at GIP17. Our study supports ideas from Bagby et al. (2016) and Stout and Payne (2016) indicating a relationship between degradation rate and distance travelled in the water column. The further the hydrocarbons traveled in the water column, the faster they degraded before being sedimented. Following sedimentation, degradation rates were much slower than while the oil was in the water column. The level of contamination also affected the degradation rate, with high contamination recovering at slower rates (20‰ y-1) than sites with lower contamination (46‰ y-1).
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Su_Rogers_fsu_0071E_14610
Format: Thesis

Title: A Comparative Study between a Single Sorption Constant Model and a Humic Ion Binding Model.
Creator: Pham, Serena Otsuka, Ye, Ming, Shanbhag, Sachin, Huang, Chen, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Scientific Computing
Abstract/Description: Software packages that model geochemical speciation and complexation are useful for predicting how different materials such as heavy metals and organic matter interact with the environment. The East Fork Poplar Creek (EFPC) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee suffers from extensive mercury pollution as a result of post-WWII activities to develop thermonuclear weapons. A current model that predicts the speciation of mercury and methylmercury species treats dissolved organic matter (DOM) as a single entity...
Show moreSoftware packages that model geochemical speciation and complexation are useful for predicting how different materials such as heavy metals and organic matter interact with the environment. The East Fork Poplar Creek (EFPC) in Oak Ridge, Tennessee suffers from extensive mercury pollution as a result of post-WWII activities to develop thermonuclear weapons. A current model that predicts the speciation of mercury and methylmercury species treats dissolved organic matter (DOM) as a single entity instead of a multidimensional and multisite molecule. The Humic-Ion Binding Model VII is a discrete multisite model implemented by default in the WHAM7 software that represents binding behavior between protons, metal cations, and humic substances. Implementing Model VII into the current EFPC model using the PHREEQC speciation program can predict site interactions of organic matter with mercury and methylmercury. Adding surface complexation to the model shows a substantial increase in the amount of methylmercury bound to DOM compared to the original model. Thus, when appropriate, employing a surface complexation model in geochemical simulations should be considered.
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Date Issued: 2017
Identifier: FSU_FALL2017_Pham_fsu_0071N_14265
Format: Thesis

Title: The Home Math Environment and Math Achievement: A Meta-Analysis.
Creator: Daucourt, Mia Cristina, Hart, Sara, Ganley, Colleen M., Meyer, Alexandria, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Psychology
Abstract/Description: Mathematical thinking is in high demand in the global market, but compared to their international peers, U.S. school children fail to meet math performance benchmarks. This is especially problematic, given that early math skills predict later success in math and reading, beyond the effects of early reading skills and that math difficulties prior to formal schooling make it unlikely that children who start off behind will catch up. The home math environment (HME), which includes all math...
Show moreMathematical thinking is in high demand in the global market, but compared to their international peers, U.S. school children fail to meet math performance benchmarks. This is especially problematic, given that early math skills predict later success in math and reading, beyond the effects of early reading skills and that math difficulties prior to formal schooling make it unlikely that children who start off behind will catch up. The home math environment (HME), which includes all math-related activities, attitudes, expectations, resources, and interactions between parents and children in the home, provides a potentially promising way to promote children's early math development. In order to understand the role played by the HME in children's math abilities, the a pre-registered meta-analysis was conducted to estimate the average weighted correlation coefficient, r between the HME and children's math achievement and the sample, assessment, and study features that contribute to study heterogeneity. A multilevel correlated effects model was run on 51 studies and a total of 456 effect sizes, which found a positive, significant average weighted correlation of r = .14, p < .0001. Although the association found was low in magnitude, our combined sensitivity analyses showed that the present findings were robust, and that the sample of studies has evidential value. Interestingly, moderator analyses revealed that all moderators tested contributed to study heterogeneity and when the HME component moderation analyses were run, no significant between-study heterogeneity remained.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Summer_Daucourt_fsu_0071N_15441
Format: Thesis

Title: The Processes Underlying Ran Predicting Reading Fluency.
Creator: Edwards, Ashley Ann, Schatschneider, Christopher, Hart, Sara, Cabell, Sonia Q., Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Psychology
Abstract/Description: Previous research has shown rapid serial naming to be predictive of reading fluency, although the mechanisms underlying this connection are much less established. Despite the strong relationship with rapid serial naming (RAN), oral reading fluency is much less predicted by isolated naming (IN). Since the requirements involved in completing these tasks are similar, yet differ in their predictive abilities, the sources of this predictive power must lay in the differences between these tasks....
Show morePrevious research has shown rapid serial naming to be predictive of reading fluency, although the mechanisms underlying this connection are much less established. Despite the strong relationship with rapid serial naming (RAN), oral reading fluency is much less predicted by isolated naming (IN). Since the requirements involved in completing these tasks are similar, yet differ in their predictive abilities, the sources of this predictive power must lay in the differences between these tasks. The present study investigates these differences to attempt to determine the specific underlying processes that make rapid serial naming predictive of reading fluency. Results showed no significant difference in correlation with the addition of an underline to a RAN task to help keep track of the current location and location tracking did not mediate the relationship between RAN and ORF suggesting that individual differences in location tracking abilities may not explain the relationship between RAN and ORF. Furthermore, no significant difference in correlation was observed between ORF and IN and ORF and either of the cluttered IN tasks. This suggests that the cluttered visual scene may not explain the difference in ability to predict ORF between IN and RAN. Lastly, no difference in correlation with ORF was observed for three different IN gap sizes. Implications of these unexpected findings are discussed.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Summer_Edwards_fsu_0071N_15289
Format: Thesis

Title: On the Structure and Frequency of Secondary Eyewall Formation in HWRF Simulations of Tropical Cyclone Harvey (2017).
Creator: Di Catarina, Federico, Chagnon, Jeffrey M., Hart, Robert E., Sura, Philip, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric...
Show moreDi Catarina, Federico, Chagnon, Jeffrey M., Hart, Robert E., Sura, Philip, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science
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Abstract/Description: Hurricane Harvey (2017) spawned from a westward propagating tropical wave in the Atlantic and then tracked across the southern Caribbean Sea, the Yucatán Peninsula, and lastly over the Gulf of Mexico, where it quickly intensified into a category 4 (on the Saffir-Simpson Scale) tropical cyclone. As a mature hurricane, Harvey underwent an eyewall replacement cycle which led to structural and intensity changes hours before making landfall over the Texas central coast. This study investigates the...
Show moreHurricane Harvey (2017) spawned from a westward propagating tropical wave in the Atlantic and then tracked across the southern Caribbean Sea, the Yucatán Peninsula, and lastly over the Gulf of Mexico, where it quickly intensified into a category 4 (on the Saffir-Simpson Scale) tropical cyclone. As a mature hurricane, Harvey underwent an eyewall replacement cycle which led to structural and intensity changes hours before making landfall over the Texas central coast. This study investigates the structure and frequency of secondary eyewalls in 20 forecast simulations of Tropical Cyclone Harvey (2017) as produced by the 2017 operational Hurricane Weather Research and Forecast (HWRF) System. To understand the predictability of secondary eyewalls, the secondary eyewall-producing simulations must be distinguished from the non-secondary eyewall-producing simulations. Thus, a diagnostic method of subjectively detecting secondary eyewalls in forecast data is developed. The diagnostic method identifies specific secondary eyewall traits that have been studied and documented in literature. The results show that most of the simulations (~80%) produce a secondary eyewall. While the all secondary eyewall-producing simulations are initialized over the ocean, the unsuccessful simulations, on the other hand, are initialized over or just west of the Yucatán Peninsula. To study the relationship between land-storm interaction and secondary eyewall simulation, a comparison is made between the successful simulations initialized over the Caribbean Sea (which tracked over the Yucatán Peninsula) and the unsuccessful runs. For both sets of simulations, the effect of land-storm interaction led to temporary storm weakening while over the Yucatán Peninsula. However, this interaction has respectively a greater negative effect on vortex spin-up and organization on those simulations initialized over land. A comparison between the over land evolution of a non-SE producing and aSE-producing simulation is made. The results show that both storms maintain a similar dynamic structure as they move west over the Yucatán Peninsula. However, the SE-producing simulation is in a more favorable thermodynamic environment with higher RH values above the storms and more convective activity near its center when compared to the non-SE producing simulation. Based on these results, it is speculated that deep moist convective feedback processes enhanced by a thermodynamically favorable conditions within and near the Caribbean Sea initialized storms act as an additional intensification mechanism which lacks in the over land initialized storms. The relatively drier air mass and less convective activity associated with the land simulations produces a less favorable environment and limits the intensification rate of these storms over once over water. It is speculated that slower intensification rates inhibit these storms from reaching an adequate TC intensity and structure conducive for SEF before making landfall over Texas/Mexico and weakening.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Fall_DiCatarina_fsu_0071N_14783
Format: Thesis

Title: Using Thallium Isotopes in the ~2.63 Ga Jeerinah Formation from Hamersley Basin, Western Australia, to Constrain Ancient Seafloor Oxygenation.
Creator: Holdaway, Brett James, Owens, Jeremy D., Young, Seth A, Salters, Vincent J. M., Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Earth, Ocean, and...
Show moreHoldaway, Brett James, Owens, Jeremy D., Young, Seth A, Salters, Vincent J. M., Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science
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Abstract/Description: Understanding the chemical and biological innovation and evolution of the global ocean is pivotal in understanding the processes involved in the evolution and proliferation of early life on Earth and potentially habitable exoplanets. Previous research on early-Earth oxygenation has revealed a rise in atmospheric [O2] ~2.32 billion years ago, coined the Great Oxidation Event, or GOE. Several tenuous lines of evidence, however, suggest continental oxidative weathering (whiffs of O2) as early as...
Show moreUnderstanding the chemical and biological innovation and evolution of the global ocean is pivotal in understanding the processes involved in the evolution and proliferation of early life on Earth and potentially habitable exoplanets. Previous research on early-Earth oxygenation has revealed a rise in atmospheric [O2] ~2.32 billion years ago, coined the Great Oxidation Event, or GOE. Several tenuous lines of evidence, however, suggest continental oxidative weathering (whiffs of O2) as early as ~3.0 Ga, with possibilities of complementary ocean oxygenation. Modeling of the geochemical data suggests small oxygen "oases" prior to whiffs of O2, or even widespread oxygen-rich margins in shallow oceans. However, constraining the extent and timing of oceanic oxygenation has been elusive as traditional geochemical proxies cannot detect either the global extent or the earliest changes of oceanic oxygenation. Importantly, the formation, preservation, and burial of manganese (Mn) in the form of manganese-oxides requires an oxygenated water-column that penetrates the sediment-water interface. Until recently, tracking the global burial of Mn-oxides were very difficult, largely compounded by an incomplete ancient geological record and geochemical proxies that respond to multiple unconstrained parameters. Here we use thallium (Tl) isotopes, a new and novel proxy, to better constrain marine [O2], specifically by constraining the global burial of Mn-oxides. Recently, it has been shown that modern seawater Tl isotope composition is faithfully recorded in anoxic to euxinic (anoxic and sulfidic water-column) sediments. Nearly all isotopic inputs: riverine, dust, volcanic, hydrothermal, and benthic recycling of Tl into the ocean are generally close to the upper continental crust, with ɛ205Tl of -2. In contrast, the two dominate outputs impart significant fractionations, these outputs being the burial of Mn-oxides (ɛ205Tl +9.7) and altered oceanic crust (ɛ205Tl -7.8). Thus, seawater is mainly dictated by the mass balance of the outputs (Mn-oxides and altered oceanic crust), which is likely driven by the amount of Mn-oxide burial. It should be noted that the fractionation factors, difference between seawater and the output, are dramatically different as Mn-oxides is ɛ205Tl 15.7 and altered oceanic crust is ɛ205Tl -1.9. Tl isotope analyses of the dominantly euxinic ~2.5 Ga Mt. McRae Shale from the Hamersley Basin, Western Australia, suggests short and punctuated oceanic oxygenation penetrated the sediment-water interface, coeval with a "whiff" of O2 at ~2.5 Ga. Here we probe deeper into the ancient rock record prior to the "whiff", applying high resolution Tl and Mo isotope measurements to the anoxic and euxinic ~2.63 Ga Roy Hill Shale. Results suggests an increase in marine [O2] at ~2.68 Ga.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Fall_Holdaway_fsu_0071N_14826
Format: Thesis

Title: Atmospheric Mercury Wet Deposition along the Northern Gulf of Mexico: Seasonal and Storm-Type Drivers of Deposition Patterns and Contributions from Local and Regional Emissions.
Creator: Krishnamurthy, Nishanth, Landing, William M., Miller, Thomas E., Holmes, Christopher D., Fuelberg, Henry E., Salters, Vincent J. M., Florida State University, College of Arts...
Show moreKrishnamurthy, Nishanth, Landing, William M., Miller, Thomas E., Holmes, Christopher D., Fuelberg, Henry E., Salters, Vincent J. M., Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science
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Abstract/Description: Continuous event-based rainfall samples were collected at three sites throughout the Pensacola airshed from 2005 - 2011. Samples were analyzed for total mercury (Hg), a suite of trace metals (TMs), and major ions in order to understand how thunderstorms aﬀected their wet deposition and concentrations in rainfall, estimate the contributions from regional coal combustion and other anthropogenic sources to Hg and TMs in rainfall along the Gulf Coast, and investigate the possible inﬂuence that a...
Show moreContinuous event-based rainfall samples were collected at three sites throughout the Pensacola airshed from 2005 - 2011. Samples were analyzed for total mercury (Hg), a suite of trace metals (TMs), and major ions in order to understand how thunderstorms aﬀected their wet deposition and concentrations in rainfall, estimate the contributions from regional coal combustion and other anthropogenic sources to Hg and TMs in rainfall along the Gulf Coast, and investigate the possible inﬂuence that a local 950 megawatt coal-ﬁred power plant had on rainfall chemistry in the Pensacola airshed. Mercury was measured with a Tekran 2600 using a method that was a variation of the standard method used by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to measure total Hg in water which allowed for the analysis of TMs from the same bottle without having to worry about contamination from reagents during sample preparation. Trace metals were measured used an Agilent 7500cs quadrupole inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS) while utilizing an octopole reaction cell (ORC) which allowed for the detection of key coal-combustion tracers like arsenic (As) and selenium (Se). Our ﬁndings show that summertime rainfall Hg concentrations are higher compared to other months despite higher rainfall amounts. In contrast, other measured pollutant TMs and ions did not show a consistent seasonal pattern. By incorporating Automated Surface Observing System data from nearby Pensacola International Airport and WSR-88D radar data from Eglin Air Force Base, we were able to classify the storm type (thunderstorms or non-thunderstorms) and analyze altitudes of hydrometeor formation for individual rain events. This showed that mid-altitude and high-altitude composite reﬂectivity radar values were higher for both thunderstorm and non-thunderstorm ”warm season” (May - Sept) rain events compared to ”cool season” (Oct - Apr) events including cool season thunderstorms. Thus, warm season events can scavenge more soluble reactive gaseous Hg from the free troposphere. Two separate multiple linear regression analyses were conducted on log-transformed data using interaction and non-interaction terms to understand the relationship between precipitation depth, season, and storm-type on sample concentrations. The regressions without interaction terms showed that the washout coeﬃcients for more volatile TMs like Hg and Se were less pronounced compared to other pollution-type elements and that their concentrations were therefore less diluted for a given increase in precipitation depth, but otherwise displayed similar coeﬃcients for season and storm-type. The regression model with interaction terms revealed a more interesting dynamic where thunderstorms caused enhanced Hg concentrations in rainfall regardless of season or precipitation depth while showing a more volume-dependent relationship with TM concentrations as concentrations increased with increasing rainfall amounts relative to non-thunderstorm events. This suggests a vacuum cleaner eﬀect such that for increasing storm strength, non-Hg aerosol TMs in the boundary layer are further entrained into a storm cell. With this understanding, a positive matrix factorization (PMF) analysis was conducted using the EPA PMF 5.0 software to estimate the contribution of diﬀerent sources to Hg deposition. Our results suggest that approximately 84% (72 - 89%; 95% CI) of Hg in rainfall along the northern Gulf of Mexico is due to long-range transport from distant sources while a negligible amount (0 - 21%; 95% CI) comes from regional coal combustion. However, we found that anthropogenic sources like regional coal combustion and ore smelting were signiﬁcant contributors to rainfall concentrations of other pollution-type TMs like copper, zinc, As, Se, and non-sea salt SO42-. Using modeled wind proﬁles via the HYSPLIT trajectory model, we assessed whether plumes from a local coal-ﬁred power plant (”Plant Crist”) could be detected in the rainfall chemistry of rain events occurring downwind of the plant. We limit this analysis to cool season rain events between June 2007 (when the model began) and December 2011 (when the study ended) because modeled wind proﬁles showed better agreement with observations during this time period compared to the warm season. We also limit this analysis to cool season events since the spatial distribution of rainfall throughout the area is more even during this time which makes sample comparisons between sites easier since Hg/TM concentrations are aﬀected by precipitation depth. Furthermore, we focus on Hg and other pollution-type TMs and major ions such as As, Se, and non-sea salt SO42- in this analysis as they serve as tracers of coal combustion. For our ”unpaired-site” analysis, we analyzed, for each individual site, the rainfall chemistry in a given sample as a function of the proportion of rain events associated with that sample that occurred downwind of Plant Crist. Using this method, we were not able to ﬁnd evidence that the plant had a signiﬁcant inﬂuence on Hg/TM concentrations or Hg/TM:Al enrichment ratios in rainfall. Similarly, for our ”paired-site” analysis, we consider the diﬀerences in rainfall chemistry between two sites - an upwind and downwind site pair - that were impacted by the same rain event where the downwind site was exposed to plumes from Plant Crist while the upwind site was not. As with the unpaired-site analysis, we did not ﬁnd signiﬁcant diﬀerences in the rainfall chemistry between upwind-downwind site pairs with regards to sample concentrations or enrichment ratios. A multiple linear regression analysis was then conducted using interaction terms to understand the relationship between the operation of a wet ﬂue-gas desulfurization system (which began operation at the plant during the middle of the study), the relative exposure a rainfall sample had to the plumes coming from the plant, and the log-transformed precipitation depth on log-transformed sample concentrations. Besides for As, the ﬁrst regression analysis did not ﬁnd coeﬃcient values of any statistical signiﬁcance for any of the variables that would indicate that the scrubber aﬀected the rainfall chemistry at the two urban sites nearest to the plant. The calculations for As gave mixed results as the coeﬃcients for the non-interaction terms suggested that the scrubber and the plumes emanating from Plant Crist aﬀected the concentration of As in rainfall while the interaction terms suggested that they did not. We perform another multiple linear regression analysis, but remove the complicating eﬀects of precipitation depth on Hg/TM concentrations and instead analyze the eﬀects that the scrubber and the plumes coming from the plant might have had on Hg/TM:Al ratios. Again, these results were inconclusive as the regression coeﬃcients suggested that the scrubber helped reduce Hg and TM emissions from the plant while also suggesting that samples with more exposure to the plant’s plumes had lower enrichment ratios. We propose that we were unable to detect a chemical signal from Plant Crist in our rain samples due to a few possible reasons including quick scavenging of TMs from the plume at the onset of a rain event before reaching our sites, the reliance on radar data to determine start and stop times for rain events at the sites as opposed to on-site measurements, and relatively low spatiotemporal resolution for the wind trajectory model.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Su_Krishnamurthy_fsu_0071E_14732_comp
Format: Set of related objects

Title: Fate of Mc252 Crude Oil from the Deepwater Horizon Accident in Northern Gulf of Mexico Permeable Sandy Beaches.
Creator: Kaba, John, Huettel, Markus, Miller, Thomas E., Chanton, Jeffrey P., Dewar, William K., Mason, Olivia Underwood, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences,...
Show moreKaba, John, Huettel, Markus, Miller, Thomas E., Chanton, Jeffrey P., Dewar, William K., Mason, Olivia Underwood, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science
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Abstract/Description: In the spring of 2010, the MC 252 Deepwater Horizon well blow out lead to nearly five million barrels of Gulf of Mexico light sweet crude to be released into the northern Gulf at a depth of 1500 meters. Dispersant injected into the plume at the wellhead helped little to keep the oil below the surface. This dispersant inefficiency, coupled with the limited effectiveness of sea surface mitigation, allowed an estimated 150,000 barrels to impact the shores of the Northern Gulf of Mexico, from...
Show moreIn the spring of 2010, the MC 252 Deepwater Horizon well blow out lead to nearly five million barrels of Gulf of Mexico light sweet crude to be released into the northern Gulf at a depth of 1500 meters. Dispersant injected into the plume at the wellhead helped little to keep the oil below the surface. This dispersant inefficiency, coupled with the limited effectiveness of sea surface mitigation, allowed an estimated 150,000 barrels to impact the shores of the Northern Gulf of Mexico, from East Texas to the Western Florida Panhandle. Nearly half of the impacted coastline is comprised of permeable sandy beaches. The surface oil took several months to reach the shore, and over that time it was degraded by heat, UV light, oxygen, and microbes. The weathered oil final reached the shores of Pensacola Beach, Florida on June 22, 2010. In the surf zone, the weathered oil was mixed with sand to form Sediment-Oil-Aggregates (SOA) that sank in the swash zone between the beach and longshore bar. This SOA material was transported with longshore currents, and repeatedly buried and exhumed. The weathered oil also came ashore at the same time as Tropical Storm Lee, whose increased wave action cause some of the SOA material to be deposited and buried into the dry beach sediment above the high-water line. The goal of this dissertation is to investigate the fate of MC252 crude oil from the Deepwater Horizon accident on Northern Gulf of Mexico permeable sandy beaches. Sampling trips to Santa Rosa Island, Florida were performed monthly from July 2010 to July 2011, where sediment cores from the dry beach above the high-water line were taken. These cores were sectioned and incubated to measure microbial activity in response to the buried oil, using oxygen as a proxy, over the year after the oil came ashore. On these trips, SOA material on the beach and in the surf was collected, homogenized, and use for lab incubations to investigate the role of microbes, temperature, and mechanical stress due to wave action, on the degradation of SOA material in the surf zone. Column experiments were also performed to investigate the aerobic decomposition of SOA material in the coastal water column and permeable sediments. The time series incubations showed that clearly oiled sections of sediment had significantly higher oxygen consumption rates, compared to sections that were visibly clean. In October of 2010, beach cleaning crews used heavy machinery to exhume the top meter of beach, sieve out the large SOAs, and in the process homogenized the smaller oil particles throughout the top meter of beach sand, increasing the surface area available to microbes for degradation. By April of 2011, a clearly oiled layer in the beach was no longer visible. Along with decreasing visible oil in the dry sediment, SOA material in the swash zone also decreased during the year. In laboratory incubations, it was found that microbes play a large part in the degradation of the SOA material, with microbes accounting for 80% of the oxygen consumption in SOA incubations. Higher temperatures increased the rate of oxygen consumption, with warmer summer temperatures causing a 4-fold increase in oxygen consumption rates over winter temperatures. The mechanical stress of wave action also causes the SOA material to quickly fall apart. In incubations, SOA material was rotated at 0.5rpm, and SOAs were disintegrated within 24 hours. In column experiments, it was found that increased fluid front velocity increased the oxygen consumption rates of sediment with artificially weathered crude oil. In columns amended with SOA material, there was no difference in oxygen consumption compared to sediment with no SOA material. There was also very little DOC release in SOA columns where the water was amended with Corexit 9500®, suggesting that the small surface area to volume ratio of larger, intact SOAs buried in the sediment develop a tough crust of highly degraded hydrocarbons, protecting the more labile inside from microbial degradation. This research shows the importance of microbial activity, wave action, and temperature on the degradability of the Deepwater Horizon oil. The wave energy of the environment, coupled with the permeable sandy sediments and warm temperature of the Florida summer, all contributed to the rapid degradation of the oil.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Spring_Kaba_fsu_0071E_15186
Format: Thesis

Title: The Effects of Beach and Species Management Actions on the Nesting and Incubation Environment of Sea Turtles in the Northern Gulf of Mexico.
Creator: Ware, Matthew, Fuentes, Mariana, Miller, Thomas E., Chanton, Jeffrey P., Burgess, Scott C., Grubbs, R. Dean, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department...
Show moreWare, Matthew, Fuentes, Mariana, Miller, Thomas E., Chanton, Jeffrey P., Burgess, Scott C., Grubbs, R. Dean, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science
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Abstract/Description: Sandy beaches are unique environments which offer billions of dollars’ worth of ecosystem services, including among others: storm protection, sediment storage and transport, habitat space for beach-dwelling and nesting species, nutrient cycling, and tourism. Management of coastal systems tends to be anthropocentric – adjusting the coastal environment to suit the needs of human development and use. However, management actions can have important consequences for the natural functioning of these...
Show moreSandy beaches are unique environments which offer billions of dollars’ worth of ecosystem services, including among others: storm protection, sediment storage and transport, habitat space for beach-dwelling and nesting species, nutrient cycling, and tourism. Management of coastal systems tends to be anthropocentric – adjusting the coastal environment to suit the needs of human development and use. However, management actions can have important consequences for the natural functioning of these systems, particularly on the species who live or breed on sandy beaches. It is crucial that future management actions balance the economic, aesthetic, and recreational value of these ecosystems to coastal communities and their ecosystem services. Sea turtles offer an excellent case study in this balance. Changes to nesting or incubation conditions from anthropogenic alterations (e.g., artificial lighting, beach renourishment, marine debris) can result in the abandonment of nesting, suffocation or drowning of the embryos, increased feminization or hyperthermia, or death from exhaustion, desiccation, or predation. Understanding how the nesting and incubation environment may change under different beach- or species management actions is critical to ensuring their appropriate use in sea turtle population recovery. This dissertation investigated how two management actions affect the nesting and reproductive output of sea turtles: 1) sea turtle nest relocation (Chapter 2) including the assessment of inundation risk (Chapters 3 and 4) and 2) Leave No Trace ordinances (Chapter 5). Nest relocation is a common approach used to reduce losses due to inundation, erosion, poaching, and other terrestrial threats; however, there are concerns that this strategy may alter the incubating environment of the developing embryos, and thus affect proper hatchling development and fitness. In Chapter 2, I examined potential differences in inundation exposure, sand temperature, moisture content, and grain size between paired original-relocated nest sites as well as hatchling production between in situ and relocated nests. The incubating environment between original-relocated pairs were comparable, though relocation offered a minimal net benefit as it decreased emergence success and did not reduce the likelihood of inundation. More nests were being moved than are necessary, indicating additional information is needed to identify high-risk nesting sites. To better identify nests at-risk of wave exposure which are suitable for relocation, a wave runup model was developed using historical beach elevation, offshore wave, and tide data (Chapter 3). Wave runup modeling proved effective at identifying washed over nesting sites (83%). The best choice of beach slope used in the assessment varied depending on whether the user was interested in presence of wash-over or the frequency of wave wash-over at a site. An updated digital elevation model (DEM) was not necessary as the time-averaged DEM performed better than, or comparable to, those using the most recent LiDAR survey. A more complete understanding of sea turtle embryonic tolerance to inundation would improve high-risk site identification. HOBO U20L-04 water level loggers were tested in situ to evaluate their potential to provide this inundation tolerance information versus existing PVC-based equipment at paired experimental sites and when deployed adjacent to nests (Chapter 4). The HOBO loggers could provide high resolution observations of inundation frequency, duration, and severity which can inform nest productivity; however, their high cost will limit the scale of their deployment. In a complementary role, the low-cost PVC-based design can be mass-produced and deployed across a wide spatial scale but at a reduced data resolution – the balance between the use of these equipment will depend on the resources of the monitoring agency and the specific research question. Sea turtle population recovery is predicated not just on our ability to reduce losses of developing embryos, but on the continued availability of suitable nesting habitat itself. Leave No Trace ordinances are increasingly being used to combat the issue of marine debris including abandoned beach equipment (Chapter 5). Nesting success and obstructed crawl frequency were compared before and after the implementation of the ordinance at control and treatment beach segments in a BACIPS design. The ordinances had mixed success – though obstructed crawls did decline after the ordinance in Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, the presence of an obstruction did not influence a turtle’s decision to nest and nesting success declined after the ordinance across the study area due to natural variation. More time and/or increased compliance may be necessary for improvements in nesting success to materialize. These management actions appeared to have only small effects on sea turtle hatchling production and population growth rates in the northern Gulf of Mexico. But as charismatic megafauna and valuable ecosystem service providers, their continued conservation based on the provision of suitable environmental conditions serves as an important example of the need to balance anthropocentric coastal zone management with ecosystem function.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Spring_Ware_fsu_0071E_15028
Format: Thesis

Title: Analysis of Microbial Abundance, Metabolic Potential, and Transcriptional Activity in the Gulf of Mexico "Deadzone" Reveals an Ammonia-Oxidizing Archaeal Hotspot.
Creator: Campbell, Lauren Gillies, Mason, Olivia Underwood, Miller, Thomas E., Chanton, Jeffrey P., Huettel, Markus, Knapp, Angela Noel, Florida State University, College of Arts and...
Show moreCampbell, Lauren Gillies, Mason, Olivia Underwood, Miller, Thomas E., Chanton, Jeffrey P., Huettel, Markus, Knapp, Angela Noel, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science
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Abstract/Description: The northern Gulf of Mexico (nGOM) is home to one of the largest eutrophication-driven seasonal hypoxic zones in the world. These hypoxic zones are also known as “dead zones” because dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations of ≤ 2 mg L-1 are inhospitable to economically valuable fisheries. However, microorganisms flourish in “dead zones” because of their ability to utilize diverse metabolic pathways and/or by carrying out metabolic function at low oxygen concentrations. Decades worth of...
Show moreThe northern Gulf of Mexico (nGOM) is home to one of the largest eutrophication-driven seasonal hypoxic zones in the world. These hypoxic zones are also known as “dead zones” because dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations of ≤ 2 mg L-1 are inhospitable to economically valuable fisheries. However, microorganisms flourish in “dead zones” because of their ability to utilize diverse metabolic pathways and/or by carrying out metabolic function at low oxygen concentrations. Decades worth of geochemical data has provided fine-scale resolution on nutrient and oxygen dynamics in the nGOM, however little is known about microbial community structure and activity despite the implication that microbial respiration is responsible for forming low DO conditions. To begin to fill this knowledge gap, water column samples collected across the nGOM shelf for two consecutive hypoxic seasons in July 2013 (Y13) and 2014 (Y14) were analyzed using 16S rRNA gene iTag sequencing, quantification of bacterial and thaumarchaeal 16S rRNA genes and archaeal ammonia-monooxygenase (amoA) genes using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) assays, as well as shotgun metagenomic and metatranscriptomic sequencing of a subset of Y13 samples. In chapter two of this dissertation, analysis of the microbial community16S rRNA gene sequence data (iTag) in Y13 water column samples showed that ammonia-oxidizing Thaumarchaeota (100% similar to Nitrosopumilus maritimus) abundances were significantly enriched in hypoxic samples and inversely correlated with DO concentrations. In agreement with the iTag data, subsequent analyses of the absolute abundance (qPCR) of Thaumarchaeota 16S rRNA and amoA gene copy numbers revealed these data to be significantly more abundant in hypoxic samples and inversely correlated with DO concentrations. These results of significantly higher Thaumarchaeota abundances and amoA gene copy numbers in hypoxic samples were confirmed with analyses of Y14 data, as shown in chapter three. For both Y13 and Y14 samples, further analysis of thaumarchaeal microdiversity using oligotyping of iTag sequence data showed single nucleotide variation among Nitrosopumilus 16S rRNA gene sequences. One oligotype was significantly more abundant in hypoxic compared to oxic samples and significantly correlated with low DO, revealing a low DO adapted Nitrosopumilus oligotype in the nGOM. To better understand the ecological significance of the high thaumarchaeal abundances in the hypoxic zone shown in chapters two and three, shotgun metagenomic and metatranscriptomic sequencing was carried out on a subset of samples from Y13. Annotation of unassembled metatranscriptomic reads revealed that functional genes involved in nitrification and ammonia assimilation were some of the most abundant transcripts in both hypoxic and oxic samples, with urease enzymes being significantly more abundant in hypoxic samples. Chapter four described the physiological and metabolic activity of two novel Thaumarchaeota metagenome assembled genomes (MAGs) (estimated 79% and 96% complete). The 16S rRNA gene sequence of one MAG had a 98% identity with Nitrosopumilus maritimus SCM1 and was 100% similar to the dominant Thaumarchaeota (OTU4369009) in the Y13 nGOM. Bioinformatic analyses of these MAGs revealed that one contained transcripts coding for urea utilization, consistent with the analysis of unassembled metatranscriptomic sequences. Both MAGs recruited more metatranscriptomic reads derived from hypoxic samples (≤ 2 mg L-1) compared to oxic samples, revealing an active Thaumarchaeota population in the hypoxic zone where archaeal ammonia oxidation may be influenced by local changes in DO concentrations. Collectively, analyses of the datasets in this dissertation that include data from iTag sequencing, qPCR assays, and meta-omics sequencing, found that seasonal hypoxic conditions influenced Thaumarchaeota abundance, activity and diversity, with the annual nGOM “dead zone” emerging as a niche for low DO-adapted, cosmopolitan ammonia-oxidizing archaeal (AOA). Overall, the findings in this dissertation provided significant new insights into the ecology and biogeochemical contributions of marine Archaea, particularly in regards to the nitrogen cycle during a eutrophication-driven hypoxic event.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Spring_Campbell_fsu_0071E_15095
Format: Thesis

Title: Developing New Datasets to Evaluate Tropospheric Photochemistry and the Effects of Ozone Uptake in the Biosphere.
Creator: Ducker, Jason Alexander, Holmes, Christopher D., Miller, Thomas E., Misra, Vasubandhu, Bourassa, Mark Allan, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department...
Show moreDucker, Jason Alexander, Holmes, Christopher D., Miller, Thomas E., Misra, Vasubandhu, Bourassa, Mark Allan, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science
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Abstract/Description: In the presence of water vapor, photolysis of tropospheric ozone (O3) produces the hydroxyl radical (OH), which is a strong oxidant that directly and indirectly controls a host of greenhouse gases and air pollutants. When tropospheric O3 reaches the surface, its oxidative effects perturb plant transpiration and photosynthesis. Although these effects have been included in climate and air quality models, there are limited observational datasets to constrain key aspects of atmospheric...
Show moreIn the presence of water vapor, photolysis of tropospheric ozone (O3) produces the hydroxyl radical (OH), which is a strong oxidant that directly and indirectly controls a host of greenhouse gases and air pollutants. When tropospheric O3 reaches the surface, its oxidative effects perturb plant transpiration and photosynthesis. Although these effects have been included in climate and air quality models, there are limited observational datasets to constrain key aspects of atmospheric photochemistry and O3 deposition on regional to global scales. This dissertation develops and uses two new datasets to better understand the ozone photochemistry and impacts. Photolysis, the breaking of chemical bonds by sunlight, is the engine for reactive atmospheric chemistry. It controls production of atmopsheric oxidants, especially O3 and OH, which then influence the lifetimes of other air pollutants and climate forcing agents. Global chemistry and climate models differ in their estimates of these photolysis rates and there have been datasets capable of discriminating among different models. Here, we integrate satellite-retrivals of clouds and aerosols into a photolysis code and produce a 3-D global photolysis dataset called Sat-J. We show that Sat-J is tightly correlated with in-situ measurements of pholysis rates from airborne chemistry campaigns, with errors (4-20%) mainly attributed to differences in nonuniform cloud sampling and time match differences. By comparing regional, not necessarily collocated, averages of aircraft data, SatJ, and a chemistry model (GEOS-Chem); we demonstrate that SatJ provides a representative climatology of photolysis rates across the globe and can serve as a benchmark for photochemistry models. Using surface micrometeorological fluxes and surface O3 monitoring networks, we also develop and evaluat a method to estimate O3 deposition and stomatal O3 uptake across networks of eddy covariance flux tower sites where O3 concentrations and O3 fluxes have not been measured. This method, called SynFlux, reproduces the variability in daily stomatal O3 uptake at sites with O3 flux measurements, with a modest bias (21% or less) attributed to gridded O3 concentrations. Across SynFlux sites, we highlight environmental factors controlling spatial patterns in O3 deposition and showed that previous O3 concentration-based metrics for plant damages did not correlate with SynFlux O3 uptake, which is a better predictor for plant damage than ambient concentration in air. SynFlux has dramatically expanded the the available data on surface O3 deposition, which can now be used for performing ecosystem impact studies across a species and climates in the US and Europe. Past controlled experiments involving single plant species have shown that O3 uptake can degrade water-use efficiency (WUE), which is the ratio of carbon uptake in photosynthesis (GPP) to water loss in plant transpiration (T). Using SynFlux sites, we can quantify this effect for whole ecosystems under natural environmental variability, which has not been previously studied. Across 74 SynFlux sites, we find a significant negative relationship (–0.02% per μmol m-2 d-1) between daily cumulative O3 uptake (CUO) and WUE anomalies, with the largest impacts occurring at forest sites. Past controlled studies of selected individual species also observed a similar O3 reduction of WUE over the growing season, indicating a consistent response to O3 across multiple species with an ecosystem. When we analyze the relationships between daily CUO and GPP or T anomalies, we also find that CUO degrades GPP and increases T over the growing season. We postulate that O3 degrades WUE through O3 non-stomatal biochemical factors, which result in a reduction of GPP or an increase in T. Our SynFlux results here provide climate models the ability to incorporate O3-dose response relationships between O3 uptake and ecosystem carbon and water vapor fluxes across ecosystems that have not previously been studied. For chapters 2-4, we have separate supplementary documents for each chapter.
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Date Issued: 2019
Identifier: 2019_Fall_Ducker_fsu_0071E_15515_P
Format: Set of related objects

Title: Do Children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) Have Set Shifting Deficits?.
Creator: Irwin, Lauren N. (Lauren Nicole), Kofler, Michael J., Meyer, Alexandria, Schatschneider, Christopher, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of...
Show moreIrwin, Lauren N. (Lauren Nicole), Kofler, Michael J., Meyer, Alexandria, Schatschneider, Christopher, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Psychology
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Abstract/Description: Shifting, or cognitive flexibility, is a core executive function (EF) involving the ability to flexibly shift back and forth between tasks or mental sets (Miyake et al., 2012). Meta-analysis suggests that shifting may be impaired in ADHD (d = .46-.55; Willcutt et al., 2005). However, this conclusion may be premature because 100% of studies reviewed used shifting tasks that have been criticized for poor construct validity and may better reflect general EF rather than shifting specifically ...
Show moreShifting, or cognitive flexibility, is a core executive function (EF) involving the ability to flexibly shift back and forth between tasks or mental sets (Miyake et al., 2012). Meta-analysis suggests that shifting may be impaired in ADHD (d = .46-.55; Willcutt et al., 2005). However, this conclusion may be premature because 100% of studies reviewed used shifting tasks that have been criticized for poor construct validity and may better reflect general EF rather than shifting specifically (Snyder et al., 2015). The aim of the current study was to examine set shifting in children with ADHD, using an experimental design that provided robust control for non-shifting processes involved in completing shifting tasks. It was hypothesized that shift costs would be significantly higher during a criterion shifting task relative to two counterbalanced control tasks that were identical except for the primary dependent variable (shifting). We further expected shift costs would be significantly larger in the ADHD group (i.e., ADHD-related impairments in shifting). The current study used the global-local task (Miyake et al., 2000) and two non-shifting control variants (global-global, local-local) to provide systematic examination of shifting in a well-characterized sample of children ages 8-13 with ADHD (n=43) and without ADHD (n=34). RT shift costs were calculated separately for each task by subtracting mean reaction times (RT) on no-shift trials from mean RT on shifting trials. Performance shift costs were calculated by subtracting number of errors on no-shift trials from number of errors on shift trials. Results of the 2x3 ANOVA for RT shift costs revealed that the experimental manipulation was successful (task main effect, p < .001, ω2 = .16), such that the global-local task elicited greater RT shift costs than did the control conditions. However, there was no evidence of shifting deficits in ADHD as demonstrated by a non-significant group main effect (p = .53, ω2 = -.01) and a non-significant interaction between task and group (p = .26, ω2 = .003). In contrast, the 2x3 ANOVA for performance shift costs revealed a significant group by task interaction (p = .01; ω2 = .04). Contrasts revealed that the ADHD group demonstrated significantly more errors than the Non-ADHD group, but only during the shifting task (p = .01; p = .04). Taken together, there was no significant evidence to suggest that ADHD is associated with set shifting deficits based on speed and that children with ADHD’s impaired performance on the criterion global-local set shifting task is attributable to difficulties in maintaining competing rule sets and/or inhibiting the currently active rule set prior to shifting to the competing rule. When these higher-order processes are executed successfully, there is no significant evidence to suggest a unique set shifting deficit in ADHD.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Su_Irwin_fsu_0071N_14697
Format: Thesis

Title: Monte Carlo Scheme for a Singular Control Problem: Investment-Consumption under Proportional Transaction Costs.
Creator: Tsai, Wan-Yu, Fahim, Arash, Atkins, Jennifer, Zhu, Lingjiong, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Mathematics
Abstract/Description: Nowadays free boundary problems are considered as one of the most important directions in the mainstream of partial differential equations (PDEs) analysis, with an abundance of applications in various sciences and real world problems. Free boundary problems on finance have been extended in many areas, such as optimal portfolio selection, control credit risks, and different American style products etc. To modelling these financial problems in the real world, the qualitative and quantitative...
Show moreNowadays free boundary problems are considered as one of the most important directions in the mainstream of partial differential equations (PDEs) analysis, with an abundance of applications in various sciences and real world problems. Free boundary problems on finance have been extended in many areas, such as optimal portfolio selection, control credit risks, and different American style products etc. To modelling these financial problems in the real world, the qualitative and quantitative behaviors of the solution to a free boundary problem are still not well understood and also numerical solutions to free boundary problems remain a challenge. Stochastic control problems reduce to free-boundary problems in partial differential equations while there are no bounds on the rate of control. In a free boundary problem, the solution as well as the domain to the PDE need to be determined simultaneously. In this dissertation, we concern the numerical solution of a fully nonlinear parabolic double obstacle problem arising from a finite time portfolio selection problem with proportional transaction costs. We consider optimal allocation of wealth among multiple stocks and a bank account in order to maximize the finite horizon discounted utility of consumption. The problem is mainly governed by a time-dependent Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation with gradient constraints. We propose a numerical method which is composed of Monte Carlo simulation to take advantage of the high-dimensional properties and finite difference method to approximate the gradients of the value function. Numerical results illustrate behaviors of the optimal trading strategies and also satisfy all qualitative properties proved in Dai et al. (2009) and Chen and Dai (2013).
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Date Issued: 2017
Identifier: FSU_FALL2017_Tsai_fsu_0071E_14174
Format: Thesis

Title: Estimation of Nitrogen Load from Septic Systems to Surface Waterbodies in Indian River County, FL.
Creator: Lei, Hongzhuan, Ye, Ming, Wang, Xiaoqiang, Shanbhag, Sachin, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Scientific Computing
Abstract/Description: Excessive nitrogen loading to surface water bodies has resulted in serious environmental, economical, ecological, and human health problems, such as groundwater contamination and eutrophication in surface water. One important source of nitrogen in the environment, especially in densely populated coastal areas in Florida, is due to wastewater treatment using onsite sewage treatment and disposal systems (OSTDS) (a.k.a., septic systems). Moreover, due to the population expansion, nitrogen loads...
Show moreExcessive nitrogen loading to surface water bodies has resulted in serious environmental, economical, ecological, and human health problems, such as groundwater contamination and eutrophication in surface water. One important source of nitrogen in the environment, especially in densely populated coastal areas in Florida, is due to wastewater treatment using onsite sewage treatment and disposal systems (OSTDS) (a.k.a., septic systems). Moreover, due to the population expansion, nitrogen loads from septic systems are expected to increase. Therefore, sustainable decision-making and management of nitrogen pollution due to septic systems are urgently needed. In this thesis, two software are used to simulate the whole process of nitrogen (ammonium and nitrate) transport starting from septic systems to finally reach the surface waterbodies. One software is VZMOD, and the other one is the ArcGIS-based Nitrogen Load Estimation Toolkit (ArcNLET). VZMOD is seamlessly integrated with ArcNLET in the way as follows. VZMOD is firstly used to simulate the flow and nitrogen transport in the vadose zone, which is between drain field infiltrative surface and water table, based on the assumption of steady-state, one-dimensional vertical reactive transport with constant incoming fluxes of water, ammonium, and nitrate. The ammonium and nitrate concentrations, given by VZMOD at the water table, are then used as the inputs to the modeling of ammonium and nitrate fate and transport in groundwater in ArcNLET, considering heterogeneous hydraulic conductivity and porosity as well as spatial variability of septic system locations, surface water bodies, and distances between septic systems and surface water bodies. In addition, the key mechanisms controlling nitrogen transport, including advection, dispersion, and denitrification, are also considered in ArcNLET. The study sites of this thesis research are the Main-South Canal (MSC) drainage basin and the City of Sebastian located in Indian River County in southeast Florida. Surface water bodies (e.g., rivers and streams) and groundwater at the two site discharge to the Southern Indian River Lagoon, where the ecological and biological integrity has deteriorated in the last several decades due to the decline in water quality caused in part by nitrogen pollution. There are in total 12,741 septic systems in the MSC area, while in the City of Sebastian, the number of septic systems is 4,883. The process of simulating nitrogen reactive transport from septic tanks to surface water bodies consists of the following three steps: (1) based on the site-specific data, such as DEM, waterbodies, septic locations, hydraulic conductivity and porosity, forward models of VZMOD and ArcNLET is developed, (2) based on the measured data of system state variables, such as water level and nitrogen concentration, the forward models are calibrated, and (3) the calibrated models are used to simulate nitrogen plumes and to estimate nitrogen load from the septic systems to surface water bodies. Considering the modeling ability and the site complexity, two questions, (1) what are the nitrogen characteristics of these two sites, (2) can my model be able to capture these nitrogen characteristics, have been investigated in this study, and the major findings are as follows: (1) The simulated nitrogen plumes and load estimates exhibit substantial spatial variability in the both sites, and the depth from drainfields to water table is important to nitrogen reactive transport, especially the ammonium nitrification to nitrate. (2) Ammonium and nitrate loads for the Main-South Canal drainage basin are largely located in the south to the South Canal drainage basin. Along the ditches and canals, the ammonium concentration is lower due to the small distance between water table and drainfields. There exists a region located in the southeast drainage basin where ammonium loading is high. (3) Incomplete nitrification process is exposed under the vadose zone while the denitrification process is mostly complete in the saturated zone in the Main-South Canal area. (4) The nitrification process is largely complete under the unsaturated zone while the denitrification process is incomplete in the saturated zone in the City of Sebastian area. (5) Reduction ratio is lower while nitrogen loading to surface waterbodies per septic system is larger in the City of Sebastian area than in the Main-South Canal area. (6) The flow model calibration in the City of Sebastian area is not as satisfactory as in the Main-South Canal area, because of the simplified assumption that water table is a subdued replica of topography used in ArcNLET is not satisfied at the study site. These results can be used to support the on-going Basin Management Action Plan. More efforts, such as investigating the soil condition (e.g. micro-bacteria content, dissolved oxygen or dissolved organic carbon and pH) and specific septic system environment, are also needed to verify these results and to develop more insights about the nitrogen processes in the study areas.
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Date Issued: 2017
Identifier: FSU_FALL2017_Lei_fsu_0071N_14260
Format: Thesis

Title: The Effects of Military Service Experience on Psychiatric Symptoms among U.S. Firefighters.
Creator: Gai, Anna R., Joiner, Thomas, Ganley, Colleen M., Franklin, Joseph, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Psychology
Abstract/Description: Individuals employed in first responder professions are at risk for the development of psychiatric symptoms. Two of these professions, firefighting and military service, demonstrate a strong overlap of employees. Prior research has demonstrated increased prevalence rates of psychiatric symptoms, including suicide-related behaviors among firefighters. Subpopulations within this occupation provide an opportunity to inform tailored prevention and intervention tactics. One such subpopulation are...
Show moreIndividuals employed in first responder professions are at risk for the development of psychiatric symptoms. Two of these professions, firefighting and military service, demonstrate a strong overlap of employees. Prior research has demonstrated increased prevalence rates of psychiatric symptoms, including suicide-related behaviors among firefighters. Subpopulations within this occupation provide an opportunity to inform tailored prevention and intervention tactics. One such subpopulation are firefighters with military service history (concurrent and prior). The current study looks to investigate psychiatric symptom differences between firefighters with and without military service history. We hypothesized an additive effect of military service, such that firefighters with a history of military service will be at increased risk for various psychiatric symptoms compared to their civilian-only counterparts. In addition, potential theoretically-based explanatory constructs will be used to investigate mechanisms of significant relationships between military service and psychiatric outcomes. Results did not support an additive effect of military service history within the firefighting profession, as firefighters with military service history were not more likely to endorse various psychiatric symptoms. Military service history was found to be significantly related to career NSSI, such that firefighters with a history of military service were 2.52 times more likely to report a career history of NSSI. Emotion dysregulation did not explain this relationship. Further investigation into the type of military service history suggests firefighters who are also reservists in the armed forces are at particular risk for suicide-related behaviors. Compared to civilian-only firefighters, firefighters with a history of active duty service and national guard service also demonstrated increased risk for suicide-related behaviors. The present study’s results indicate the type of military service, rather than military service in general, is particularly relevant for suicide-related behaviors within a firefighter population. Future directions for further investigation into this unique population are discussed.
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Date Issued: 2017
Identifier: FSU_FALL2017_Gai_fsu_0071N_14210
Format: Thesis

Title: The Need to Belong and Motivated Gratitude: Social Exclusion Increases Gratitude Among People Low in a Sense of Psychological Entitlement.
Creator: Mackenzie, Michael J., Baumeister, Roy F., Conway, Paul, Li, Wen, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Psychology
Abstract/Description: Recent research has demonstrated that social exclusion can increase the motivation to develop new affiliative bonds with others. The primary goal of the paper was to examine the effect that social exclusion would have on gratitude toward a novel person. An additional goal was to test how social acceptance would influence gratitude toward a novel other. Across two studies, social exclusion increased self-reported gratitude for a small gift among people low in a sense of entitlement compared to...
Show moreRecent research has demonstrated that social exclusion can increase the motivation to develop new affiliative bonds with others. The primary goal of the paper was to examine the effect that social exclusion would have on gratitude toward a novel person. An additional goal was to test how social acceptance would influence gratitude toward a novel other. Across two studies, social exclusion increased self-reported gratitude for a small gift among people low in a sense of entitlement compared to those in a control condition. Social exclusion also increased perception of the benefactor's interpersonal warmth among less entitled participants. Perception of the benefactor's warmth mediated the increase in gratitude among low entitlement participants in both studies. Additionally, socially excluded low entitlement participants were perceived as being more grateful in hand written thank-you notes compared to nonexcluded participants (Study 2). These findings suggest that, upon feeling socially excluded, people low in entitlement had a heightened motivation for social affiliation that led them to overperceive warm intentions in the benefactor. The overperception of warmth is what caused gratitude to increase among socially excluded low entitlement people. Social acceptance increased gratitude compared to control conditions and was not moderated by psychological entitlement. Unexpectedly, social acceptance also increased the perceived value of the benefit. The heightened perception of gift value was found to mediate the increase in gratitude in both studies.
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Date Issued: 2015
Identifier: FSU_2015fall_MacKenzie_fsu_0071N_12854
Format: Thesis

Title: Error-Informed Likelihood Calculations for More Realistic Genetic Analyses.
Creator: Bricker, Justin, Beerli, Peter, Meyer-Baese, Anke, Lemmon, Alan R., Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Scientific Computing
Abstract/Description: Next generation sequencing can rapidly analyze entire genomes in just hours. However, due to the nature of the sequencing process, errors may arise which limit the accuracy of the reads obtained. Luckily, modern sequencing technologies associate with their reads, a quality score, derived from the sequencing procedures, which represents our confidence in each nucleotide in the sequence. Currently, these quality scores are used as a criteria for the removal or modification of reads in the data...
Show moreNext generation sequencing can rapidly analyze entire genomes in just hours. However, due to the nature of the sequencing process, errors may arise which limit the accuracy of the reads obtained. Luckily, modern sequencing technologies associate with their reads, a quality score, derived from the sequencing procedures, which represents our confidence in each nucleotide in the sequence. Currently, these quality scores are used as a criteria for the removal or modification of reads in the data set. These methods result in the loss of information contained in those sequences and rely on parameters that are somewhat arbitrary; this may lead to a biased sample and inaccurate analyses. I propose an alternative method for incorporating the error of the sequences without discarding poor quality reads by including the error probabilities of the reads in the likelihood calculations used for sequence analysis. It was found that, despite introducing variability, using the error-informed likelihood method improved analyses compared with those which ignored the error altogether. While this method will likely result in analyses with less definite results compared with those in which the data was treated with a preprocessing technique, these results will utilize all of the provided data and will be more grounded in reality as we take into account the uncertainty that we have in our sequenced samples.
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Date Issued: 2015
Identifier: FSU_2015fall_Bricker_fsu_0071N_12977
Format: Thesis

Title: A Multiple Mediator Model for the Association Between Religiosity and Suicidal Behavior.
Creator: Podlogar, Matthew C., Joiner, Thomas, Patrick, Christopher J., Wagner, Richard K., Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Psychology
Abstract/Description: Religiosity has repeatedly been shown to be associated with reduced suicidal behavior. Proposed explanations for this effect have alluded to constructs related to the interpersonal theory of suicide (i.e., Perceived Burdensomeness, Thwarted Belongingness, and Acquired Capability), as well as to two other predictors of suicidal behavior (i.e., Meaning in Life and Hopelessness). This study examined in 424 participants, whether the above-mentioned constructs mediated the negative relationship...
Show moreReligiosity has repeatedly been shown to be associated with reduced suicidal behavior. Proposed explanations for this effect have alluded to constructs related to the interpersonal theory of suicide (i.e., Perceived Burdensomeness, Thwarted Belongingness, and Acquired Capability), as well as to two other predictors of suicidal behavior (i.e., Meaning in Life and Hopelessness). This study examined in 424 participants, whether the above-mentioned constructs mediated the negative relationship between religiosity and suicidal behavior in single-mediator path analysis models as well as in a competitive multiple mediator model. Results indicated that Thwarted Belongingness, Acquired Capability, Presence of Meaning in Life, and Hopelessness in combination with religiosity, age, gender, and race predicted 24.9% of the variance in suicidal behavior. The combined indirect effect of the proposed mediating constructs accounted for more than 50% of the total association between religiosity and suicidal behavior, reducing the direct association between religiosity and suicidal behavior to non-significance (i.e., full mediation). In follow-up single-mediator tests, Meaning in Life was the only construct that fully mediated the association between all dimensions of religiosity and suicidal behavior. Hopelessness and Thwarted Belongingness were additional partial mediators. All of the above proposed mediators were predictive of suicidal behavior; however, only Hopelessness and Meaning in Life were associated with all dimensions of religiosity. Thwarted Belongingness was associated with intrinsic religiosity only. For this population, individual constructs (i.e., Meaning in Life and Hopelessness) accounted for the protective association between religiosity and suicidal behavior. Interpersonal constructs (i.e., Thwarted Belongingness and Acquired Capability) were generally not related to religiosity; however Thwarted Belongingness was a contributing partial mediator of intrinsic religiosity.
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Date Issued: 2015
Identifier: FSU_2015fall_Podlogar_fsu_0071N_12955
Format: Thesis

Title: Individual Differences: Accounting for Variation in Embodied Language Processing Effect.
Creator: Carranza, Julie, Boot, Walter Richard, Borovsky, Arielle A. (Arielle Ann), Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Psychology
Abstract/Description: Many researchers have attempted to replicate different embodied language processing effects, with varying degrees of success. We wanted to know what, if any, individual differences might account for the observed variance for these embodied effects. Using the Action-sentence Compatibility Effect (ACE) paradigm from Sell and Kascahk (2012) as our dependent measure, individual differences measures of personality (Big Five Personality Traits, Morizot, 2014) and cognitive abilities (Need for...
Show moreMany researchers have attempted to replicate different embodied language processing effects, with varying degrees of success. We wanted to know what, if any, individual differences might account for the observed variance for these embodied effects. Using the Action-sentence Compatibility Effect (ACE) paradigm from Sell and Kascahk (2012) as our dependent measure, individual differences measures of personality (Big Five Personality Traits, Morizot, 2014) and cognitive abilities (Need for Cognition – Short Form, Cacippo, Petty, and Kao, 1984; Modified Metacomprehension Scale, Mcginnis, Saunders, and Berns, 2007) were first correlated, and then investigated through linear mixed models regression. In both experiments presented, the dependent measure failed to replicate. However, in Experiment 2, we were able to explain the observed variance through a model building approach. From the personality measures, conscientiousness was found to interact with part of the ACE measure. Of the cognitive measures, Need for Cognition was found to significantly interact with the ACE measures, while regulation from the Modified Metacomprehension Scale and conscientiousness from the Big Five interacted with part of the ACE measures. A discussion about the findings follows the presented work.
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Date Issued: 2015
Identifier: FSU_2015fall_Carranza_fsu_0071N_12839
Format: Thesis

Title: Life Histories of Four Chinese and Taiwanese Immigrants in Tallahassee, Florida.
Creator: Duan, Yiran, Dowell, Kristin L., Thorner, Sabra G., Joos, Vincent Nicolas, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Anthropology
Abstract/Description: This thesis explores the life stories of four Chinese and Taiwanese immigrants in Tallahassee by collecting detailed narratives. There are three aspects that this thesis focused on: 1) motivations for emigration from their home countries to the United States and changes in their socioeconomic status afterwards; 2) cultural, political, and religious shifts of identity after immigration; and 3) the religious conversion of three of them and the roles that the Chinese Church plays in their daily...
Show moreThis thesis explores the life stories of four Chinese and Taiwanese immigrants in Tallahassee by collecting detailed narratives. There are three aspects that this thesis focused on: 1) motivations for emigration from their home countries to the United States and changes in their socioeconomic status afterwards; 2) cultural, political, and religious shifts of identity after immigration; and 3) the religious conversion of three of them and the roles that the Chinese Church plays in their daily lives. Narrative analysis of an ethnographic method used with this study. The findings of this project suggest that there were various factors motivating my participants to immigrate to the U.S. and all of them have experienced upward mobility. However, they have also encountered structural social inequalities that cannot be solved by individual actors. In terms of the shifts in their identities, the narratives collected from the participants show that there is a complex relation between their cultural identities and citizenship. Further, Christianity and the Chinese Church also play important roles in three of the participants’ lives, which offer them a different perspective discussing their identities. Overall, this thesis has filled a gap in the academic literature; no scholars have previously explored this immigrant group in Tallahassee. additionally, I provided information for future anthropological studies that relate to diasporic immigrants’ lives in the U.S.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Sp_Duan_fsu_0071N_14603
Format: Thesis

Title: Boys & Girls & God: Essays.
Creator: Symanovich, Alaina Janelle, Stuckey-French, Elizabeth, Ribo, John, Shacochis, Bob, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of English
Abstract/Description: Boys & Girls & God: Essays concerns itself with the intense and needless loneliness of the human experience. As David Shields writes (or, given the project of his book, likely (mis)quotes) in his genre-bending treatise Reality Hunger: “I’m interested in knowing all the secrets that connect human beings. At the deepest level, all our secrets are the same” (27). I believe that secrets—my secrets, your secrets, your enemy’s secrets—are unnecessary, banal, and not nearly as earth-shattering or as...
Show moreBoys & Girls & God: Essays concerns itself with the intense and needless loneliness of the human experience. As David Shields writes (or, given the project of his book, likely (mis)quotes) in his genre-bending treatise Reality Hunger: “I’m interested in knowing all the secrets that connect human beings. At the deepest level, all our secrets are the same” (27). I believe that secrets—my secrets, your secrets, your enemy’s secrets—are unnecessary, banal, and not nearly as earth-shattering or as well-hidden as you or I or your enemy like to think. Therefore, my thesis aims to flout secrecy. Whether I’m writing against my or other people’s impulses to hide, I seek to create art that discomfits. I like to risk something when I write; in fact, risky writing is the only kind I elect to read. Practically speaking, my anti-secrets thesis takes the form of personal essays that run the gamut of social taboos; I tackle everything from masturbation to religion (sometimes in the same essay), and I strive to let each essay’s content dictate its form. Some essays, for example, abide by the conventional narrative style; I look to works such as Marguerite Duras’ The Lover and Mary Karr’s Cherry for inspiration on those works. Other essays, though, demand more dynamic forms: collage, quotations from outside sources, lists, text messages, and more. I love to juxtapose dissimilar genres and topics—for example, to examine sexual fetishes through an academic lens, as I do in my essay “Me, Myself & Matthew Gray Gubler,” or to muse upon missing children alongside moving to Las Vegas in “Parallel (Intersecting) Lives.” For these quirky works, I look to contemporary writers such as Elissa Washuta, author of My Body Is a Book of Rules; Roxane Gay, author of Hunger and Bad Feminist; and Maggie Nelson, author of Bluets and The Art of Cruelty; the eclectic work of these writers reflects the same fearless anti-secrecy that undergirds this project.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Sp_Symanovich_fsu_0071N_14369
Format: Thesis

Title: Business, Life, and Bourbon: R.P. Drake of Madisonville, Kentucky.
Creator: Gamblin, Katherine, Marrinan, Rochelle A., Peres, Tanya M, Halligan, Jessi J, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Anthropology
Abstract/Description: Bourbon has been distilled in Kentucky throughout the history of the Commonwealth and has influenced how cities in Kentucky have grown, both physically and economically, over time. Throughout the 1870s until Prohibition, a large boom in the number of distilleries in Kentucky occurred with bourbon barons purchasing small, family-run distilleries and expanding them into a large-scale, booming industry that aimed to answer the demand for bourbon throughout the United States. In the mid-1890s and...
Show moreBourbon has been distilled in Kentucky throughout the history of the Commonwealth and has influenced how cities in Kentucky have grown, both physically and economically, over time. Throughout the 1870s until Prohibition, a large boom in the number of distilleries in Kentucky occurred with bourbon barons purchasing small, family-run distilleries and expanding them into a large-scale, booming industry that aimed to answer the demand for bourbon throughout the United States. In the mid-1890s and early 1900s, R.P. Drake owned and operated a distillery and a number of taverns that added a new industry to Madisonville and Hopkins County, bringing in revenue, shaping social practices, and testing the limits of legislation that had been passed to limit the ways in which bourbon could be produced. In this thesis, I analyze the R.P. Drake Distillery and associated artifacts in order to provide new information on how this small-scale, spring-based distillery was able to find success in the bourbon industry. Particular attention will be paid to how R.P. Drake adapted to legislation that placed limitations on his distillation and distribution methods.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Sp_Gamblin_fsu_0071N_14556
Format: Thesis

Title: Aquatic Resource Management on the Gulf Coast: Examining the Mound Field Site (8Wa8) as a Woodland Period Fishery.
Creator: Merrick, Megan D., Peres, Tanya M, Marrinan, Rochelle A., Halligan, Jessi J, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Anthropology
Abstract/Description: The Northwest Coast of Florida is dotted by Woodland Period sites that speak to the richness and complexity of the populations in that region. Mound Field (8Wa8), located in Wakulla County, is a Woodland Period site whose faunal assemblage is indicative of a maritime-adapted society that relied heavily on aquatic resources. Through an examination of the vertebrate faunal remains recovered from the site, this research investigates Mound Field as a Woodland Period fishery that was actively...
Show moreThe Northwest Coast of Florida is dotted by Woodland Period sites that speak to the richness and complexity of the populations in that region. Mound Field (8Wa8), located in Wakulla County, is a Woodland Period site whose faunal assemblage is indicative of a maritime-adapted society that relied heavily on aquatic resources. Through an examination of the vertebrate faunal remains recovered from the site, this research investigates Mound Field as a Woodland Period fishery that was actively managed by the population. This thesis contributes to the zooarchaeological research on the importance of aquatic resources for prehistoric populations, and the potential ways in which those populations modified and managed their environments.
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Date Issued: 2018
Identifier: 2018_Su_Merrick_fsu_0071N_14781
Format: Thesis

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