ABSTRACT: For colleges and universities, the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act (Clery Act) presents a significant set of challenges in pursuit of campus safety. The namesake of this law followed the tragic death of Jeanne Clery, a Lehigh University Student, who was sexually assaulted and murdered in her on-campus dormitory in 1986. Within the Clery Act, and under the umbrella of Title IX, exists a series of responsibilities and compliance regulations applicable to all institutions of higher education (IHEs) that receive federal financial aid. While there are significant benefits within Clery, its application to all IHEs comes with a great number of challenges exacerbated by tremendous penalties for noncompliance. Many of the challenges of Clery compliance have been heavily studied in the university system, though little research exists when it comes to community colleges. The purpose of this study was to explore both the challenges and the benefits of Clery compliance for Florida's 2-year postsecondary institutions. There are 28 IHEs that make up the Florida College System and while many community colleges share a great number of attributes, they also each have unique characteristics which impact their Clery compliance efforts. This qualitative research used an exploratory case study methodology and was bounded in the Florida College System's (FCS) 28 colleges that make up its membership. To select a sample, first, the institutions were grouped into size categories based on student enrollment and categorized as small, medium, or large. From there, a purposeful criterion-based sample of 9 institutions was selected using a combination of random and network sampling. Included in this sample of 9 institutions were 3 residential campuses (1 from each size category) to encompass the additional requirements those institutions have under the Clery Act. Once the sample of institutions was selected, interviews were scheduled with the primary Clery Compliance Officer (CCO). They were asked a series of characteristic-based questions followed by the primary research questions in an open-ended format. Follow-up questions utilizing a convergent-question strategy were then used to fully explore the participants' responses as a means of ensuring rich data was collected for each research question. From there, a cyclical and inclusive approach to data analysis was conducted following each round of interviews. Line-by-line coding was used to identify the primary codes before additional rounds of analysis were used to identify themes. Research Question 1 focused on the challenges CCOs faced in pursuit of Clery compliance. Form the data collected a total of 46 responses were coded for this question. From the 46 responses, 9 themes were identified with the top 3 representing a lack of training (n = 11), lack of clarity (n = 10), and lack of dedicated Clery Compliance Officer/Staff (n = 7). Research Question 2 focused on what CCOs do to remain compliant. From the data collected here a total of 29 responses were coded for this question. From the 29 responses, 6 themes were identified with the top 2 representing Training of Staff (n = 9) and Creating a Clery Team (n = 5). Though lack of training was cited as the number one challenge, it is evident that CCOs are attempting to compensate for this by developing their own training regimen and the same was found for lack of dedicated Clery staff. Research Question 3 took a different approach and sought to answer what CCOs viewed as the most beneficial aspect of Clery compliance. From the data collected in reference to this question, 28 responses were coded into 6 themes. The top three themes identified here were Transparency (n = 12), followed by an even number of responses for both Identification of Issues (improved safety) and No Increased Benefit to Campus Safety (n = 5). The third most repeated theme was Increased Communication (n = 3) which included both internal and external channels. The data collected as part of this research provided a different perspective as to what challenges CCOs faced, how they met those challenges, and the benefits of Clery compliance in their institutions. While none of the CCOs interviewed suggested that Clery be rescinded, the challenges they experience are both real and difficult, but not insurmountable. CCOs acknowledge the benefits of Clery and subscribe to its intended goal, but they cannot easily overcome the challenges inherent in its compliance requirements. They are not (in general) asking for more, they simply want better resources—more accessible training, better clarity, and available staff, to maintain compliance and safe campuses.
NOTE (Submitted Note): A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education.
NOTE (Date of Defense): March 4, 2022.
NOTE (Keywords): campus safety, Clery, community college, compliance officer, Florida College System
NOTE (Bibliography Note): Includes bibliographical references.
NOTE (Advisory Committee): Carolyn Herrington, Professor Directing Dissertation; Kelly Whalon, University Representative; Christine Mokher, Committee Member; Lara Perez-Felkner, Committee Member.
SUBJECT: Education, Higher
DEGREE: Doctoral
FILENAME: Thompson_fsu_0071E_17092.pdf
TITLE: A Black Curriculum for a Black School: A Case-Study Exploring Black Students' Attitudes Towards Culturally Sensitive Curriculum and Its Impact on Black Student Engagement
AUTHOR: Thompson, Anthony,
MEMBER (professor directing dissertation): Milligan, Jeffrey Ayala
MEMBER (university representative): McDowell, Stephen D., 1958-
MEMBER (committee member): Jones, Tamara Bertrand
MEMBER (committee member): Park, Toby J.
CORPORATE NAME: Florida State University
CORPORATE NAME: College of Education
CORPORATE NAME: Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
PUBLICATION: Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University, 2022
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 1 online resource (87 pages)
ABSTRACT: Predominantly Black schools may struggle with ways to keep their students engaged. When Black students are not engaged in class, it could lead to low academic performance, which may reflect the lack of culturally relevant content in the curriculum. Student engagement is increasingly viewed as one of the keys to addressing problems such as low achievement, boredom and alienation, and high dropout rates (Martin & Torres, n.d.). Even if the school has predominantly Black teachers, one must not assume that the students will have an automatic academic advantage (Gay, 2010). When teachers lack cultural understanding of their students, it may have a negative impact on their students' academic achievement (Lin & Bates, 2014). This paper explores the attitudes of students in a United States History at an all-Black high school once they been taught under a culturally relevant curriculum such as an Afrocentric curriculum, or a curriculum that centers the students African and African American heritage and culture at the center of the content to which is being taught. The research concluded that students had positive feelings learning and an increase in engagement toward learning all content in United States history class, but only after learning about and appreciating their own history and culture. However, toward the end of the semester, the student's engagement leveled equally, but did not falter below engagement prior to the insertion of the Afrocentric Curriculum. BibliographyGay, G. (2010). Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice. New York: Teachers College Press. Lin, M., & Bates, A. (2014). Who is in my classroom? Teachers preparing to work with culturally diverse students. International Research in Early Childhood Education, 27-42. Martin, J., & Torres, A. (n.d.). WHAT IS STUDENT ENGAGEMENT AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT? National Association of Independent Schools, 1-3.
NOTE (Submitted Note): A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education.
NOTE (Date of Defense): March 28, 2022.
NOTE (Keywords): Afrocentric Curriculum, Black Students, Culturally Relevant Teaching, High School, Social Studies, United States History
NOTE (Bibliography Note): Includes bibliographical references.
NOTE (Advisory Committee): Jeffery Milligan, Professor Directing Dissertation; Stephen D. McDowell, University Representative; Tamara Bertrand Jones, Committee Member; Toby Park Gaghan, Committee Member.
SUBJECT: Education
SUBJECT: African Americans--Study and teaching
SUBJECT: Social sciences--Study and teaching
DEGREE: Doctoral
FILENAME: ThompsonPlunkett_fsu_0071E_16962.pdf
TITLE: They Serve, Too! Supporting Military-Connected Children in Civilian Run Public Schools
AUTHOR: Thompson-Plunkett, Olivette,
MEMBER (professor directing dissertation): Zuilkowski, Stephanie Simmons
MEMBER (university representative): McDowell, Stephen D., 1958-
MEMBER (committee member): Park, Toby J.
MEMBER (committee member): Milligan, Jeffrey Ayala
CORPORATE NAME: Florida State University
CORPORATE NAME: College of Education
CORPORATE NAME: Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
PUBLICATION: Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University, 2022
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 1 online resource (112 pages)
ABSTRACT: In recent years, there has been an increased interest in studying military-connected children (Aronson & Perkins, 2012; Chawla & Solinas-Suanders, 2011; DePedro et al., 2011). Despite being the subject of much research, there exists a significant gap in the research literature concerning the voices of military-connected children. The 2019 Demographic Profile of the Military Community indicated approximately 1.6 U.S. million military-connected children worldwide, with 55.7% of the 1.6 million representatives of school-age children (DoD Demographics Report, 2019). As such, relocations resulting in frequent transitions for military-connected students have become commonplace. On average, military-connected students move at least 30% more than their civilian peers (Bradshaw et al., 2010). These frequent transitions were represented at Belvedere High School (pseudonym), located near Fort Powell (pseudonym) with a high military student population in the Northeastern United States. This study utilized semi-structured, in-depth interviews to explore the challenges experienced by military-connected children due to frequent transitions and their perceptions of the support they receive to mitigate those challenges. Six themes developed from a thematic analysis: Military-Connected Children Experienced Various Challenges During Frequent Transitions; Military-Connected Children Displayed Resilience Amidst Frequent Transitions; Military-Connected Children Perceived Counseling Support Programs as Beneficial in Addressing Academic and Social Issues; Military-Connected Children Perceived the School Administration at Belvedere to be Responsive to Their Needs; Military-Connected Children Perceived Parents and Siblings as the Most Significant Support System, and Military-Connected Children Appreciated Peer Support in Navigating the New School. Study participants perceived the available support programs at Belvedere adequate for meeting their needs and provide insights and recommendations on additional support programs that they believe could improve their overall experiences.
NOTE (Submitted Note): A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education.
NOTE (Date of Defense): February 11, 2022.
NOTE (Keywords): Challenges, Civilian-run schools, Highly-mobile, Military-connected children, Resilience, Transitions
NOTE (Bibliography Note): Includes bibliographical references.
NOTE (Advisory Committee): Stephanie Zuilkowski, Professor Directing Dissertation; Stephen McDowell, University Representative; Toby Park-Gaghan, Committee Member; Jeffrey Milligan, Committee Member.
SUBJECT: School management and organization
DEGREE: Doctoral
FILENAME: Tillet_fsu_0071E_17103.pdf
TITLE: Revenue Recognition Comparability
AUTHOR: Tillet, Andrea,
MEMBER (professor directing dissertation): Bozanic, Zahn
MEMBER (university representative): Harmeling, Colleen M
MEMBER (committee member): Billings, Bruce K.
MEMBER (committee member): Mauler, Landon M.
MEMBER (committee member): Pierce, Spencer
CORPORATE NAME: Florida State University
CORPORATE NAME: College of Business
CORPORATE NAME: Department of Accounting
PUBLICATION: Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University, 2022
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 1 online resource (75 pages)
ABSTRACT: I examine whether the FASB's revenue recognition guidance (codified as ASC Topic 606) increases revenue comparability across firms and industries, and whether revenue comparability provides decision useful information to analysts. I extract firms' revenue policy disclosures from 10-K filings to measure the textual similarity of these disclosures in order to compare revenue recognition policies across firms and industries. I find an increase in revenue comparability for economically similar firms in different industries upon adoption of ASC 606, which is consistent with the FASB meeting its objective to improve cross-industry revenue comparability with the new revenue model. In contrast, I find a decrease in revenue comparability for economically similar firms in the same industry. Further, I find evidence consistent with revenue comparability reducing analysts' information processing costs and improving their forecasting performance when covered firms are economically similar, but the benefits of revenue comparability are diminished upon adoption of ASC 606. This finding suggests that the common revenue framework under ASC 606 reduces the usefulness of revenue comparability in the initial years after adoption.
NOTE (Submitted Note): A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Accounting in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
NOTE (Date of Defense): March 22, 2022.
NOTE (Bibliography Note): Includes bibliographical references.
NOTE (Advisory Committee): Zahn Bozanic, Professor Directing Dissertation; Colleen Harmeling, University Representative; Bruce K. Billings, Committee Member; Landon M. Mauler, Committee Member; Spencer Pierce, Committee Member.
SUBJECT: Accounting
DEGREE: Doctoral
FILENAME: Tobias_fsu_0071E_16978.pdf
TITLE: Imperial Players: Theatre, Culture, and Power in the British Empire, 1850-1950
AUTHOR: Tobias, Taylor R.,
MEMBER (professor directing dissertation): Upchurch, Charles, 1969-
MEMBER (university representative): Faulk, Barry J.
MEMBER (committee member): Culver, Annika A., 1975-
MEMBER (committee member): Sinke, Suzanne M.
MEMBER (committee member): Wood, Laurie M. (Laurie Marie) (Laurie Marie)
CORPORATE NAME: Florida State University
CORPORATE NAME: College of Arts and Sciences
CORPORATE NAME: Department of History
PUBLICATION: Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University, 2022
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 1 online resource (310 pages)
ABSTRACT: Over the course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, theatrical performance rose to become a significant component of British imperial culture. The proliferation of English performance styles and practices was largely due to the expansion of theatrical business during this era, which facilitated strolling players and their companies to reach audiences across Britain's formal and informal empire. Theatrical managers utilized new technologies of transportation and ideologies of economic and political liberalism in furthering the influence and scope of theatrical business in British imperial spaces. This dissertation examines the records surrounding Anglophone theatrical performance in the British empire to reassess the role that theatre played in traditional narratives of imperialism as well as more recent narratives that have been written on British transitions toward modernity. In doing so, it argues that unique elements of theatre as an art form made it especially significant to the operations of imperial power overseas and to the development of narratives of imperial significance to audiences at home and abroad. As recognition of the significance of theatre to British imperial objectives became more prevalent, and developments in the wartime era of the twentieth century brought new challenges to the operations of touring companies, theatrical business followed an arc of increasing formalization and institutionalization. In order to maintain theatrical touring as a tool of British cultural influence and propaganda in the twentieth century, new institutions, including the British Council, had to be developed to regulate and subsidize its proliferation. Ultimately, this had the effect of transforming Anglophone theatrical culture from a component of imperial popular culture supported by the market in the nineteenth century, to a state subsidized representative of English national culture in the twentieth.
NOTE (Submitted Note): A Dissertation submitted to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
NOTE (Date of Defense): March 8, 2022.
NOTE (Bibliography Note): Includes bibliographical references.
NOTE (Advisory Committee): Charles J. Upchurch, Jr., Professor Directing Dissertation; Barry J. Faulk, University Representative; Annika Alexis Culver, Committee Member; Suzanne M. Sinke, Committee Member; Laurie Marie Wood, Committee Member.
SUBJECT: Europe--History
SUBJECT: Theater--History
SUBJECT: Performing arts
DEGREE: Doctoral
FILENAME: Tommasone_fsu_0071N_17199.pdf
TITLE: The Punished Woman Collects Her Body
AUTHOR: Tommasone, Isabella,
MEMBER (professor directing thesis): Wilson, L. Lamar, 1979-
MEMBER (committee member): Hamby, Barbara, 1952-
CORPORATE NAME: Florida State University
CORPORATE NAME: College of Arts and Sciences
CORPORATE NAME: Department of English
PUBLICATION: Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University, 2022
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 1 online resource (69 pages)
ABSTRACT: "The Punished Woman Collects Her Body" is a collection of poems that center the queer femme's experience, featuring a speaker who quests to reassemble her body after trauma and to discover the self through her senses and intellect with imaginative re-telling. The collection's investment with the contemporary poetic tradition consists of intentional remembering, providing the speaker the agency to recount her narrative. The poems delineate the speaker's journey as she navigates queerness, arriving at a place in which she has redefined family as it suits her and developed strategies for connecting her once polarized experiences of body and mind.
NOTE (Submitted Note): A Thesis submitted to the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts.
NOTE (Date of Defense): March 22, 2022.
NOTE (Keywords): Poetry
NOTE (Bibliography Note): Includes bibliographical references.
NOTE (Advisory Committee): Leroy Lamar Wilson, Professor Directing Thesis; Barbara L. Hamby, Committee Member; Pablo Maurette, Committee Member.
SUBJECT: Sociology
DEGREE: Masters
FILENAME: Tsang_fsu_0071E_17073.pdf
TITLE: Strongly Correlated Electronic Systems Beyond the Half-Filled Hubbard Model
AUTHOR: Tsang, Pak Ki Henry,
MEMBER (professor directing dissertation): Dobrosavljević, Vladimir
MEMBER (university representative): Albrecht-Schmitt, Thomas E.
MEMBER (committee member): Bonesteel, N. E.
MEMBER (committee member): Balicas, Luis
MEMBER (committee member): Reina, Laura
CORPORATE NAME: Florida State University
CORPORATE NAME: College of Arts and Sciences
CORPORATE NAME: Department of Physics
PUBLICATION: Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University, 2022
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 1 online resource (125 pages)
ABSTRACT: Strong electron-electron correlations in physical systems can leadto phenomena that are not trivial composition of constitutent parts, that the collective behavior lead to emergence of exotic phases and behaviors. To describe exotic phases such as Mott insulators (MI) within transition metal oxides, they must be treated as strongly correlated systems, which can pose significant theoretical challenges unlike their non-correlated counterparts. For the latter well-established methods such as density-functional theory (DFT) is available, while for the correlated problem a variety of approximate methods are employed, as it is not immediate clear if there exists an universal recipe. Dynamical mean field theory (DMFT) and Hartree approximations are some of the many approximate methods that could be used to describe correlated electron problems, and for the former there exists a subset of methods such as iterated perturbation theory (IPT), rotationally-invariant slave bosons (RISB) and continuous-time quantum Monte Carlo (CTQMC). The selection of theoretical tools and whether a useful result can be obtained often depends heavily on the approximate hamiltonian that is proposed to model the physical system as well as capabilities of the applied method. Therefore, in order to make successful theoretical predictions, the robustness of a proposed model and the method applied must be checked against a myriad of empircal evidences and physical intuitions. In this dissertation, we first studied theoretically the correlated physics in hydrogenic lattices using a variety of approaches, followed by the emergence of Wigner-Mott crystallization in moire heterostructures. This dissertation composes of four chapters as well as appendices.The first two chapters are related to our study of hydrogenic lattices: in the first, by applying methods of slave bosons and DMFT (SB+DMFT) to the simplest charge-transfer model known as the Anderson lattice model (ALM), we uncovered and remedied a formerly unknown limitation of the SB approximation; in the second we modelled hydrogenic lattices with charge-transfer ALM instead of non charge-transfer single-band Hubbard model - our IPT and CTQMC calculations indicate that charge-transfer not only the affects the nature of Mott transition, it also largely suppresses the metal-insulator phase coexistence region. In the third chapter we studied Wigner-Mott crystallization in moir\'{e} heterostructures by solving the extended Hubbard model on a triangular lattice using Hartree approximation in concert of DMFT. Our results are in good agreement with experiments and we predict that: 1. fermi-liquid is found when doped away from MI; 2. around the point that charge-order disappears bad metal behavior is found. In the last chapter we present our work using GPU and distributed computing to develop a IPT impurity solver that offer drastic speed advantage over existing codes. We find that the GPU implementation is significantly more efficient and thus the superior implementation. Finally in the appendices we can find detailed derivations of results for main chapters and a fast root-search algorithm useful for DMFT calculations.
NOTE (Submitted Note): A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Physics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
NOTE (Date of Defense): April 4, 2022.
NOTE (Bibliography Note): Includes bibliographical references.
NOTE (Advisory Committee): Vladimir Dobrosavljevic, Professor Directing Dissertation; Thomas Albrecht-Schonzart, University Representative; Nicholas Bonesteel, Committee Member; Luis Balicas, Committee Member; Laura Reina, Committee Member.
SUBJECT: Condensed matter
DEGREE: Doctoral
FILENAME: Varga_fsu_0071E_17010.pdf
TITLE: Reviving the Search for Life: Astrobiology, NASA, and the Politics of Science in the Late Twentieth-Century United States
AUTHOR: Varga, Ian J.,
MEMBER (professor directing dissertation): Doel, Ronald Edmund
MEMBER (university representative): MacDonald, Ian R. (Ian Rosman)
MEMBER (committee member): Harper, Kristine
MEMBER (committee member): Creswell, Michael, 1958-
CORPORATE NAME: Florida State University
CORPORATE NAME: College of Arts and Sciences
CORPORATE NAME: Department of History
PUBLICATION: Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University, 2022
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 1 online resource (279 pages)
ABSTRACT: This dissertation describes the political origins and history of the scientific field of astrobiology, a discipline founded by NASA in the mid-1990s and whose practitioners search for and study extraterrestrial life and its potential evolution and origins. It argues that, despite the claims of scientists and past historians that astrobiology formed primarily because of new scientific developments, the field and the subsequent institution NASA created, the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI), were political products representative of changes in the relationship between space science and the American federal government in the 1990s. According to this dissertation, I argue astrobiology was a neoliberal science, born in an era in which the federal government expected sciences it funded to focus on the effect deficit cutting, balancing the federal budget, and connections with private industries. This political dynamic differed from the Cold War period when the government invested heavily in NASA to produce science and technology for national defense or competition with the Soviet Union. This emphasis on of neoliberal and fiscal and budgetary politics contrasts with how scholars have described NASA or astrobiology before. Overall, the dissertation asserts that astrobiology, while a singular example, is indicative of the differences in American scientific patronage and NASA's national identity from the Cold War to the post-Cold War era.More specifically, astrobiology also reflected the constant financial, political battles NASA had faced since the 1970s when the agency tried to establish long-lasting relevance after the Apollo program. With Congress and the White House in the 1990s insisting the agency downsize or face potential closures and privatization, NASA administrator Daniel Goldin attempted to reinvent the agency and reassert its commitment to basic but cost-effective scientific research, including on extraterrestrial life. NAI was thus an instrument to appease the federal government and advance NASA's larger goal of stabilizing its funding. In terms of research, the project employs a mixture of NASA archival resources at the NASA History Office in Washington, DC, and NASA Ames History Archives in Mountain View, California, as well as published primary and secondary sources. It also uses a series of oral histories I conducted with relevant astrobiologists.
NOTE (Submitted Note): A Dissertation submitted to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
NOTE (Date of Defense): March 25, 2022.
NOTE (Bibliography Note): Includes bibliographical references.
NOTE (Advisory Committee): Ronald E. Doel, Professor Directing Dissertation; Ian R. MacDonald, University Representative; Kristine C. Harper, Committee Member; Michael Creswell, Committee Member; Steven J. Dick, Committee Member.
SUBJECT: History
DEGREE: Doctoral
FILENAME: Verity_fsu_0071E_17070.pdf
TITLE: Effects of Application Components in Holistic Admissions Review: A Mixed Methods Study
AUTHOR: Verity, Erin,
MEMBER (professor directing dissertation): Jeong, Allan C.
MEMBER (university representative): Perez-Felkner, Lara
MEMBER (committee member): Dennen, Vanessa P., 1970-
MEMBER (committee member): Ke, Fengfeng
CORPORATE NAME: Florida State University
CORPORATE NAME: College of Education
CORPORATE NAME: Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems
PUBLICATION: Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University, 2022
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 1 online resource (117 pages)
ABSTRACT: Many institutions have turned to individualized holistic review to make admissions decisions, which is meant to take a comprehensive view of the quantitative and qualitative elements that comprise a single application. Prior research shows holistic review lacks a common definition and the gap between theory and practice has not been thoroughly addressed, particularly at institutions with high application volume. This study explored how the presence of holistic review components such as standardized test scores and contextual data affect first-time-in-college (FTIC) admission decisions at a large selective public institution. Additionally, it addressed the question of how holistic review can be more efficiently implemented. This study used a mixed-methods approach: a randomized controlled experiment followed by a think-aloud protocol. The main implications for practitioners based on the experimental results are that there were no significant decision differences between applications that included test scores but there were significant group differences in application review time. The shortest review time for applications that only presented test scores within the high school and neighborhood contextual data. Additionally, the overall average application review time was only two minutes. Results from the think-aloud protocol showed that participants did notice when application components were missing. High school transcripts were the most viewed and discussed, whereas test scores were more often overruled by other application components. Contextual information accounted for 30% of the shifts in cognitive decision-making. A qualitative content analysis of the think-aloud protocol showed three primary themes: context (external control), review (admissions staff control), and student effort (applicant control). Additional findings on the definition of holistic review and how it can be more feasibly implemented were also discussed. The results from this exploratory study identify many avenues for more future targeted research on holistic review that can help increase transparency and close the gap between theory and practice.
NOTE (Submitted Note): A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education.
NOTE (Date of Defense): April 1, 2022.
NOTE (Keywords): Holistic admissions, Holistic review
NOTE (Bibliography Note): Includes bibliographical references.
NOTE (Advisory Committee): Allan Jeong, Professor Directing Dissertation; Lara Perez-Felkner, University Representative; Vanessa Dennen, Committee Member; Fengfeng Ke, Committee Member.
SUBJECT: Instructional systems--Design
SUBJECT: Information technology
SUBJECT: Education, Higher--Administration
DEGREE: Doctoral
FILENAME: Waddell_fsu_0071N_17215.pdf
TITLE: Cri De Coeur
AUTHOR: Waddell, Luke,
MEMBER (professor directing thesis): Callender, Clifton
MEMBER (committee member): Ugay, Liliya
MEMBER (committee member): Jones, Evan Allan
CORPORATE NAME: Florida State University
CORPORATE NAME: College of Music
CORPORATE NAME: Department of Music
PUBLICATION: Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University, 2022
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 1 online resource (79 pages)
ABSTRACT: Cri de coeur is French for "cry from the heart," and indeed this work has an expressive intensity previously unseen (so far as I can tell) in my oeuvre. It would be cheap for me to say that this work, composed in the autumn of 2021, is a reflection of the disruptions caused by the pandemic. In truth, I have gotten through about as well as can be expected, but perhaps there was something stuck inside of me that needed to get out. The initial inspiration for this piece came from Franz Schubert's fifteenth and final string quartet in G major, D. 887, a work of great originality, and power that, like so much of late Schubert, belies the image of the composer as a naive tunesmith. The opening idea of the quartet is reproduced quite faithfully at the beginning of this work, translated into a more post-tonal harmonic idiom but otherwise recognizable. This combination, Schubert's gesture and a harmonization that is wholly un-Schubertian, makes up the main thematic material of the piece. The other idea that stuck in my head from Schubert's quartet was the ghostly tremolo we first hear about a minute in, over which the first violin soars with a delicate melody. This idea, too, found its way into the first section of my work.
NOTE (Submitted Note): A Thesis submitted to the Department of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Music.
NOTE (Date of Defense): April 6, 2022.
NOTE (Bibliography Note): Includes bibliographical references.
NOTE (Advisory Committee): Clifton Callender, Professor Directing Thesis; Liliya Ugay, Committee Member; Evan A. Jones, Committee Member.
DEGREE: Masters
FILENAME: Walsh_fsu_0071N_17043.pdf
TITLE: Reward Responsiveness and Reward Valuation in Bulimic Syndromes
AUTHOR: Walsh, Margaret Christine,
MEMBER (professor directing thesis): Keel, Pamela K., 1970-
MEMBER (committee member): Proudfit, Greg Hajcak
MEMBER (committee member): Williams, Diana L.
CORPORATE NAME: Florida State University
CORPORATE NAME: College of Arts and Sciences
CORPORATE NAME: Department of Psychology
PUBLICATION: Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University, 2022
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 1 online resource (59 pages)
ABSTRACT: Bulimic syndromes (BN-S) capture a range of DSM-5 eating disorders characterized by binge eating and may be accompanied by low weight or inappropriate compensatory behaviors. Emerging models have attributed the development and maintenance of BN-S to dysfunctional reward systems, including abnormalities in reward responsiveness and reward valuation as defined by the Research Domain Criteria. The present study investigated the relationship between a neural measure of reward responsiveness, a behavioral measure of reward valuation, and severity of eating pathology in women with a history of BN-S (n=52) and non-eating disorder controls (n=14) enrolled in a longitudinal study. Participants were recruited to complete an electroencephalogram (EEG) session in which they completed a standard version and a modified version of a guessing task to measure the reward positivity when receiving food (RewPM&M) or monetary rewards (RewPmoney) while in a satiated state. As part of the parent study, participants completed progressive ratio tasks for food and non-food reward in fed and fasted conditions to measure reward valuation. BN-S and control participants did not demonstrate significant differences in RewP amplitudes for monetary or food rewards. Reward sensitivity measured by RewPmoney and RewPM&M was not significantly associated with reward valuation for either progressive ratio task. Finally, reward sensitivity was not significantly associated with eating pathology severity. The lack of findings prompts questions of whether reward sensitivity is a relevant construct for understanding BN-S and methodological factors that might impact the ability to detect its relevance. Methodological changes in participant inclusion criteria, nutritional status during tasks, and calculation of RewP are discussed for the RewP tasks to enhance future determinations of potential disruption of reward sensitivity in BN-S.
NOTE (Submitted Note): A Thesis submitted to the Department of Psychology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science.
NOTE (Date of Defense): February 23, 2022.
NOTE (Bibliography Note): Includes bibliographical references.
NOTE (Advisory Committee): Pamela K. Keel, Professor Directing Thesis; Greg Hajcak, Committee Member; Diana Williams, Committee Member.
SUBJECT: Clinical psychology
DEGREE: Masters
FILENAME: WANG_fsu_0071E_16875.pdf
TITLE: A Discrete-Time Self-and Mutual-Exciting Model
AUTHOR: Wang, Haixu,
MEMBER (professor directing dissertation): Zhu, Lingjiong
MEMBER (university representative): He, Zhe
MEMBER (committee member): Gallivan, Kyle A., 1958-
MEMBER (committee member): Fahim, Arash
CORPORATE NAME: Florida State University
CORPORATE NAME: College of Arts and Sciences
CORPORATE NAME: Department of Mathematics
PUBLICATION: Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University, 2022
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 1 online resource (112 pages)
ABSTRACT: This thesis studies a novel self- and mutual-exciting stochastic model to capture two essential features underlying a general type of discrete-time event data motivated by the practice: the dependence on the past event arrivals and associated sizes (i.e., self-exciting) and the behavioral interdependence between multiple activities (i.e., mutual-exciting). Despite the technical challenges in capturing these two features under a general discrete-time framework, we are able to fully characterize the probability distribution for the proposed model (i.e., the closed-form characteristic functions), theoretically quantify customer performance measures, and establish efficient maximum likelihood estimation. To illustrate the applicability of our model and validate its performance, we calibrate it with a customer deposit and withdrawal data set from one leading online money market fund. We analytically quantify the churn probability and expected activity level of customers as an illustration of performance measures and then compare our model with classic time-series and machine-learning models and show that our model can achieve high prediction accuracy. The theoretical tractability and predictive accuracy of the proposed framework enable us to build optimization models to improve firm performance, and we illustrate one application through a personalized interest-rate optimization problem. On a broader note, our model framework is generally applicable to characterize any discrete-time event data with self and mutual excitation in nature and to inform optimal policies for decision-makers.
NOTE (Submitted Note): A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Mathematics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
NOTE (Date of Defense): March 7, 2022.
NOTE (Keywords): behavioral interdependence, customer behavior, discrete-time, mutual-exciting, path-dependence, self-exciting
NOTE (Bibliography Note): Includes bibliographical references.
NOTE (Advisory Committee): Lingjiong Zhu, Professor Directing Dissertation; Zhe He, University Representative; Kyle A. Gallivan, Committee Member; Arash Fahim, Committee Member.
SUBJECT: Applied mathematics
DEGREE: Doctoral
FILENAME: Wang_fsu_0071E_16968.pdf
TITLE: Teaching Emergent Literacy to Preschoolers with Autism: an Exploration of Teachers' Expertise
AUTHOR: Wang, Xiaoning,
MEMBER (professor directing dissertation): Whalon, Kelly J.
MEMBER (university representative): Phillips, Beth M.
MEMBER (committee member): Cabell, Sonia Q.
MEMBER (committee member): Fleury, Veronica
MEMBER (committee member): Hanline, Mary Frances
CORPORATE NAME: Florida State University
CORPORATE NAME: College of Education
CORPORATE NAME: School of Teacher Education
PUBLICATION: Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University, 2022
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 1 online resource (222 pages)
ABSTRACT: Emergent literacy skills including alphabetic knowledge, print knowledge, oral language, phonological awareness, and emergent writing are foundational for future reading development. Many children with ASD are at risk for future reading difficulties (e.g., Brown et al., 2013; McIntyre et al., 2018; Nation et al., 2006). To support the emergent literacy development of children with ASD, preschool teachers need to have adequate pedagogical content knowledge. This study investigated public preschool teachers' expertise related to teaching emergent literacy skills to children with ASD. Results from quantitative questionnaires and qualitative interviews revealed that the 10 participating teachers were generally knowledgeable about many aspects of emergent literacy content and teaching practices as well as characteristics of learners with ASD although there were certain subareas (e.g., phonemic awareness) in which they demonstrated a lack of knowledge. Interview and survey data generally corroborated each other. Despite this knowledge, teachers indicated a lack of capacity to effectively address the emergent literacy skills of children with ASD and expressed a desire for more training. Teachers reported differentiating delivery method, learning environment, and dosage of instruction for children with ASD to help them participate and learn more. Concrete supports, visual schedule and incorporating personal interests were perceived by teachers as useful strategies. However, teachers did not report to incorporate specific emergent literacy teaching strategies shown to be effective for learners with ASD. Teachers did not report emphasizing certain emergent literacy skills over others. But some teachers mentioned that they prioritized basic social skills for children with ASD over emergent literacy. These findings suggest the need for more training and research to guide emergent literacy instruction in preschool settings.
NOTE (Submitted Note): A Dissertation submitted to the School of Teacher Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
NOTE (Date of Defense): March 31, 2022.
NOTE (Keywords): autism, emergent literacy, preschool, teacher knowledge
NOTE (Bibliography Note): Includes bibliographical references.
NOTE (Advisory Committee): Kelly Whalon, Professor Directing Dissertation; Beth Phillips, University Representative; Sonia Cabell, Committee Member; Veronica Fleury, Committee Member; Mary Hanline, Committee Member.
SUBJECT: Special education
DEGREE: Doctoral
FILENAME: Wang_fsu_0071E_17007.pdf
TITLE: Dimension Reduction and Regression for Tensor Data and Mixture Models
AUTHOR: Wang, Ning,
MEMBER (professor directing dissertation): Zhang, Xin
MEMBER (university representative): Huang, Chen, (Professor of Scientific Computing)
MEMBER (committee member): Huffer, Fred W. (Fred William)
MEMBER (committee member): Mai, Qing
CORPORATE NAME: Florida State University
CORPORATE NAME: College of Arts and Sciences
CORPORATE NAME: Department of Statistics
PUBLICATION: Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University, 2022
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 1 online resource (181 pages)
ABSTRACT: In modern statistics, many data sets are of complex structure, including but not limited to high dimensionality, higher-order, and heterogeneity. Recently, there has been growing interest in developing valid and efficient statistical methods for these data sets. In my thesis, we studied three types of data complexity: (1) tensor data (a.k.a. array valued random objects); (2) heavy-tailed data; (3) data from heterogeneous subpopulations. We address these three challenges by developing novel methodologies and efficient algorithms. Specifically, we proposed likelihood-based dimension folding methods for tensor data, studied the robust tensor $\td$ regression by a proposed tensor $\td$ distribution, and developed an algorithm and theory for high-dimensional mixture linear regression. My work on these three topics is elaborated as follows. In recent years, traditional multivariate analysis tools, such as multivariate regression and discriminant analysis, are generalized from modeling random vectors and matrices to higher-order random tensors (a.k.a.~array-valued random objects). Equipped with tensor algebra and high-dimensional computation techniques, concise and interpretable statistical models and estimation procedures prevail in various applications. One challenge for tensor data analysis is caused by the large dimensions of the tensor. Many statistical methods such as linear discriminant analysis and quadratic discriminant analysis are not applicable or unstable for data sets with the dimension that is larger than the sample size. Sufficient dimension reduction methods are flexible tools for data visualization and exploratory analysis, typically in a regression of a univariate response on a multivariate predictor. For regressions with tensor predictors, a general framework of dimension folding and several moment-based estimation procedures have been proposed in the literature. In this essay, we propose two likelihood-based dimension folding methods motivated by quadratic discriminant analysis for tensor data: the maximum likelihood estimators are derived under a general covariance setting and a structured envelope covariance setting. We study the asymptotic properties of both estimators and show using simulation studies and a real-data analysis that they are more accurate than existing moment-based estimators. Another challenge to statistical tensor models is the non-Gaussian nature of many real-world data. Unfortunately, existing approaches are either restricted to normality or implicitly using least squares type objective functions that are computationally efficient but sensitive to data contamination. Motivated by this, we adopt a simple tensor $\td$-distribution that is, unlike the commonly used matrix $\td$-distributions, compatible with tensor operators and reshaping of the data. We study the tensor response regression with tensor $\td$-error, and develop penalized likelihood-based estimation and a novel one-step estimation. We study the asymptotic relative efficiency of various estimators and establish the one-step estimator's oracle properties and near-optimal asymptotic efficiency. We further propose a high-dimensional modification to the one-step estimation procedure and showed that it attains the minimax optimal rate in estimation. Numerical studies show the excellent performance of the one-step estimator. In the last chapter, we consider the high-dimensional mixture linear regression. The expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm and its variants are widely used in statistics. In high-dimensional mixture linear regression, the model is assumed to be a finite mixture of linear regression forms and the number of predictors is much larger than the sample size. The standard EM algorithm, which attempts to find the maximum likelihood estimator, becomes infeasible. We devise a penalized EM algorithm and study its statistical properties. Existing theoretical results of regularized EM algorithms often rely on dividing the sample into many independent batches and employing a fresh batch of sample in each iteration of the algorithm. Our algorithm and theoretical analysis do not require sample-splitting. The proposed method also has encouraging performances in simulation studies and a real data example.
NOTE (Submitted Note): A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Statistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
NOTE (Date of Defense): March 25, 2022.
NOTE (Keywords): Dimension Reduction, Mixture Models, Tensor Data
NOTE (Bibliography Note): Includes bibliographical references.
NOTE (Advisory Committee): Xin Zhang, Professor Directing Dissertation; Chen Huang, University Representative; Fred Huffer, Committee Member; Qing Mai, Committee Member.
SUBJECT: Statistics
DEGREE: Doctoral
FILENAME: Wang_fsu_0071E_17058.pdf
TITLE: Mixed-Anion Thiophosphate Fast Ion Conductors
AUTHOR: Wang, Pengbo,
MEMBER (professor directing dissertation): Hu, Yan-yan
MEMBER (university representative): Yu, Zhibin
MEMBER (committee member): Shatruk, Mykhailo
MEMBER (committee member): Hanson, Kenneth G.
CORPORATE NAME: Florida State University
CORPORATE NAME: College of Arts and Sciences
CORPORATE NAME: Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
PUBLICATION: Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University, 2022
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 1 online resource (156 pages)
ABSTRACT: Fast ion conductors (FICs), also known as solid electrolytes, are a key component of all-solid-state batteries (ASSBs), one of the most promising next-generation energy storage technologies. Among them, thiophosphates, such as Li10GeP2S12 and Li-argyrodites, have shown conductivities greater than 10 mS/cm, which are desirable for high-power applications. Cation doping is the common strategy to induce structural disorder for enhancing ion transport. However, cations such as Ge4+ and Ti4+ introduce unwanted redox centers and compromises electrochemical stability window. To leverage structural disorder for fast ion conduction without introducing undesirable redox reactions in solid electrolytes, the less traveled path of engineering the anion sublattice is explored. The viability and effectiveness of this method are examined across several thiophosphate-based FICs: Br-argyrodites (Li6-xPS5-xBr1+x), Br/Cl-mixed argyrodites (Li5.3PS4.3Cl1.7-xBrx), BH4-containing argyrodites (Li5+xPS4+y(BH4)2-z) and their glass-type analogues, (Li5PS4(BH4)2) and I-doped structures (Li5PS4(BH4)2-xIx). Advanced characterization methods including X-ray and neutron diffraction, solid-state NMR spectroscopy and relaxometry, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, in conjunction with ab-initio molecular dynamics simulations, are employed to investigate the composition-structure-property correlations. The results from this dissertation research have shown that the impact of anion doping on ion conduction is profound and manifested in four aspects: 1) changing the bottleneck size of ion transport channels, 2) altering the concentration/spatial distribution of charge-carrying cations, 3) shaping the energy landscape, and 4) inducing dynamical disorder via incorporating mobile polyanions into the structural framework. Several of these solid electrolytes have been tested in practical battery cells, which demonstrates exceptional compatibility with electrodes and long-term cycling stability. In summary, this dissertation comprises novel compositional design, optimal synthesis, and comprehensive characterizations of FICs, and integrating these FICs into practical all-solid-state batteries. This work provides a panoramic view of high-performance FIC development, and the yielded fundamental insights will help overcome the barriers associated with technological applications of lithium thiophosphates in energy storage.
NOTE (Submitted Note): A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
NOTE (Date of Defense): March 30, 2022.
NOTE (Bibliography Note): Includes bibliographical references.
NOTE (Advisory Committee): Yan-Yan Hu, Professor Directing Dissertation; Zhibin Yu, University Representative; Michael Shatruk, Committee Member; Kenneth Hanson, Committee Member.
SUBJECT: Chemistry
DEGREE: Doctoral
FILENAME: Wang_fsu_0071E_17127.pdf
TITLE: Material and Structural Characterization of Shock Impingement on Elastic Surfaces
AUTHOR: Wang, Jingfan,
MEMBER (professor co-directing dissertation): Kumar, Rajan, (Professor of Mechanical Engineering)
MEMBER (professor co-directing dissertation): Oates, William
MEMBER (university representative): Shanbhag, Sachin
MEMBER (committee member): Krick, Brandon
MEMBER (committee member): Shoele, Kourosh
CORPORATE NAME: Florida State University
CORPORATE NAME: FAMU-FSU College of Engineering
CORPORATE NAME: Department of Mechanical Engineering
PUBLICATION: Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University, 2022
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 1 online resource (95 pages)
ABSTRACT: Fluid dynamic characterization of shock impingement on a flat surface has been studied extensively, whereas the material behavior induced by the shock has largely been ignored. The focus of this study is mainly on the material and structural characteristics of the deformable flat surfaces in the presence of shock impingement. Two structures, including a semi-infinite half-space and a flat plate, have been investigated.This study first investigates the elastic surface of a semi-infinite half-space subjected to surface tractions across an ideal inviscid shock. Anisotropic elasticity of material under the shock-induced discontinuous surface loading is evaluated using Stroh formalism. We find that a shear stress jump across an idealized shock impingement causes a stress singularity, while a pure pressure jump without shear does not produce a singularity. Theoretical solutions of the idealized discontinuous surface loads are compared to finite element modeling. Besides the stress components induced by the surface tractions, these analyses also include the investigation of the contributions of an arbitrary vector h, which is constrained by the prescribed far-field conditions, to the solutions of Stroh formalism. In the cases of uniform loads and a pure pressure jump acting on the surface, the stress components using Stroh formalism have good agreements with those by the finite element method. However, in the case of a shear stress jump acting on the surface, there are some stress mismatches between the results of the two techniques. Additional constraints are needed to solve the vector h in the Stroh method. Up to this point, Stroh formalism is further employed to study the case of an ideal Mach 5 shock by neglecting the stress mismatches caused by the jump in the shear components across the shock since those values are much smaller compared to the associated pressure components. The results illustrate that the highly localized stress singularity in the resultant von Mises stress \sigma_H can be treated as negligible, and the aluminum structure remains well within the elastic regime given inviscid Mach 5 flow conditions. Although the aluminum surface remains elastic under the selected Mach 5 conditions, potential stress concentration or large deformation may occur in the structure involving more complex geometries, i.e., elastic plates. Keep this in mind, further investigations of the characterization of a flat plate surface are carried out when the plate is subjected to a typical wall pressure with no intermediate plateau using the techniques of two-dimensional isotropic elastic theory and Fourier sine series expansion. Various shock impingement points are studied. The results indicate that the normal stress in the span direction is the dominant stress component contributing to the resultant von Mises stress \sigma_H. As the shock impingement point is near the two ends, the wall pressure acts more like a uniform load, which causes a more symmetric distribution of the \sigma_H. In these cases, the maximum of \sigma_H is also near the edge midpoint. More asymmetric distributions of \sigma_H are obtained as the shock impinges at the positions away from the ends. The \sigma_{Hmax} moves towards the right end of the plate until its location reaches an upper bound. Meanwhile, the \sigma_{Hmax} keeps decreasing due to the fact that the average pressure loading goes down as the shock impingement point moves from the left end of the plate to the right. However, the isotropic elastic theory is limited to the isotropic material properties and lacks the convenience to calculate the deflection of the plate. An extension of Stroh formalism is further introduced to investigate the deflections of the plates with relatively general anisotropic elastic properties. This work also provides the derivation process of the extended Stroh formalism by taking advantage of the material eigenrelation and other elegant mathematical treatments involved in the Stroh formalism, as well as the previous isotropic model. Notably, choosing appropriate functions for the stress potentials is critical when applying the Stroh formalism to the elastic problems. By taking the geometric boundary conditions of the plate problems into consideration, an exponential function of the thickness coordinate has been chosen. Furthermore, by employing the stress-strain constitutive law and the equations of equilibrium, a modified eigenrelation can be obtained with a relatively general anisotropic elastic tensor. Finally, the material and structural characterization of an aluminum plate subjected to the shock impinging at various locations on its upper edge are studied using the Stroh-type formalism. Three back pressures are also involved. Here the von Mises stress \sigma_H and the transverse displacement {\widetilde{u}}_3 of the flat plate are employed to evaluate these effects of the different shock impingement points. In general, the shock-induced pressure loading on the plate acts more like a uniform load when the shock impingement point is near the two ends of the plate. As the shock impinges away from the plate ends, the distributions of \sigma_H and {\widetilde{u}}_3 become more asymmetric. Particularly, there is a mismatch between the locations of the maximum of \sigma_H and {\widetilde{u}}_3. When p_{back} is no greater than the mean pressure value after the shock, the associated \sigma_H and {\widetilde{u}}_3 of the plate gradually decrease as the shock impingement point shifts from the left end to the right. In contrast, in the case of p_{back}=1 atm, the associated \sigma_H and {\widetilde{u}}_3 of the plate gradually increase. Variations of the safety factors of the plate are further investigated with various span-to-thickness ratios P under the combined conditions with different back pressures p_{back} and the shock impingement positions {\widetilde{x}}_0. The cases with p_{back}=1 atm have the lowest safety factors compared to other cases with the same P. The associated safety factors are below 1 when the ratios P increase to 100 or greater. When p_{back}=0 and p_1, a smaller {\widetilde{x}}_0 causes a lower safety factor. Notably, the combination of p_{back}=p_1 and {\widetilde{x}}_0=0.75 leads to the highest safety factors compared to other cases with the same P. Even when P = 300, the safety factor is still greater than 1. However, a high span-to-thickness ratio may lead to a violation of the small strain assumption of the elastic model. Therefore, further investigations are suggested on the limitations of the elastic model in this Stroh-type formalism.
NOTE (Submitted Note): A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Mechanical Engineering in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
NOTE (Date of Defense): March 29, 2022.
NOTE (Keywords): Anisotropic Elasticity, Shock Impingement, Stroh Formalism, Stroh-type Formalism, Structural and Material Characterization, Von Mises Stress
NOTE (Bibliography Note): Includes bibliographical references.
NOTE (Advisory Committee): Rajan Kumar, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; William S. Oates, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Sachin Shanbhag, University Representative; Brandon Krick, Committee Member; Kourosh Shoele, Committee Member.
SUBJECT: Mechanical engineering
DEGREE: Doctoral
FILENAME: Warnick_fsu_0071N_17236.pdf
TITLE: Possibilistic Hierarchical Task Networks
AUTHOR: Warnick, Braeden,
MEMBER (professor directing thesis): Schwartz, Daniel G.
MEMBER (committee member): Haiduc, Sonia
CORPORATE NAME: Florida State University
CORPORATE NAME: College of Arts and Sciences
CORPORATE NAME: Department of Computer Science
PUBLICATION: Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University, 2022
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 1 online resource (61 pages)
ABSTRACT: Behavior selection is a problem that AI development has faced for years, whether it be in video games or crowd-simulation software. While video game studios use methods like hierarchical task network (HTN) planners to control the behaviors of their non-playable characters (NPCs), different crowd-simulation software implement various forms of crowd model, some even recently proposing using utility-based behavior models. In this paper, I propose a framework for designing complex behavior structures that can be adapted for individual NPCs, groups of NPCs, or crowds of other AI agents that more closely mimic how people would naturally behave in almost any situation. This framework is achieved through combining the ability to compute the possibility of a future event with the ability to decompose abstract tasks into a plan of action through the use of HTN planners.
NOTE (Submitted Note): A Thesis submitted to the Department of Computer Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science.
NOTE (Date of Defense): April 6, 2022.
NOTE (Keywords): Hierarchical Task Networks (HTNs), Non-playable characters (NPCs), Possibility Theory, Simulations, Utility function, Video games
NOTE (Bibliography Note): Includes bibliographical references.
NOTE (Advisory Committee): Daniel Schwartz, Professor Directing Thesis; David Gaitros, Committee Member; Sonia Haiduc, Committee Member.
SUBJECT: Computer science
DEGREE: Masters
FILENAME: West_fsu_0071E_17141.pdf
TITLE: Strengthening Child Care Training Curriculum and Credentialing: A Case Study of the Child Care Apprenticeship Program of Pinellas
AUTHOR: West, Suzanne,
MEMBER (professor directing dissertation): Cox, Bradley E.
MEMBER (university representative): Whalon, Kelly J.
MEMBER (committee member): Jones, Tamara Bertrand
MEMBER (committee member): Perez-Felkner, Lara
CORPORATE NAME: Florida State University
CORPORATE NAME: College of Education
CORPORATE NAME: Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
PUBLICATION: Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University, 2022
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 1 online resource (79 pages)
ABSTRACT: The Child Care Apprenticeship Program of Pinellas (CCAP) was created by an advisory committee made up of local childcare facility directors, in 1989, in response to the need for better training in the community. CCAP is a two-year program that emphasizes 4000 hours of on-the-job-training and 288 hours of classroom instruction credentialing working preschool teachers. The program is designed for apprentices to complete only 2000 on-the-job training hours and 144 hours of classroom instruction when they pass an assessment during the orientation of the program. Upon completion of the program, apprentices receive the Florida Staff Credential for children ages birth to five years old and are eligible to teach voluntary prekindergarten (VPK) classes as part of the kindergarten readiness initiative through the Office of Early Learning (2019). This program is held online and face-to-face at two campuses in Pinellas County located in Clearwater and St. Petersburg, Florida. Overall, there are about 100 apprentices enrolled in the program between the two campuses. Currently, CCAP is in the implementation stage of providing a higher level and highly sought out credential, the National Child Development Associate (CDA). The program is also in review of the curriculum to update the framework standards by the Summer of 2022, as required by the Florida Department of Education Registered Apprenticeship office. The purpose of this case study is to strengthen child care training and credentialing needs in Pinellas County through a case study of the Child Care Apprenticeship Program (CCAP) at Pinellas Technical College. CCAP has not updated its framework standards since 2007. In the fall of 2020, after an audit of the program by a representative from the Florida Department of Education Registered Apprenticeship Office, the coordinators were asked to formally update the program framework. Enhancing the CCAP curriculum will strengthen the early childhood education workforce in Pinellas County when the program is able to provide high-quality training for the enrolled apprentices by updating the program standards. This evaluative case study explores the following two research questions: 1. What are the perceptions of the current CCAP curriculum? 2. What are the perceptions regarding the National CDA versus the Florida Staff Credential? Semi-structured interviews were conducted on eleven participants to include all six of the CCAP staff members, as well as five of the six advisory committee members. These interviews gathered their perceptions of the program curriculum and credentials. Transcripts and program documents were analyzed through two cycles using NVivo software and an inductive approach to create themes to identify recommendations for program improvement based on the perceptions of the participants in the study. There were two dominant themes interpreted from the analysis of initial codes and phrases that were determined through a word frequency count. However, these themes translated into differing meanings within the perceptions of the participants. As such, four sub-themes were developed to further clarify the data. The analysis from the data found that there is a perception that the child care industry is constantly evolving, and therefore an opportunity exists to review the current curriculum and make appropriate changes. Specifically, the data showed that the participants felt there were opportunities to fill the gaps in the curriculum related to three of the five current course components to include classroom management, leadership, and guidance. Additionally, an analysis of the data also revealed that there are opportunities outside of changes to the curriculum standards that can better support the apprentices, such as delivery method and preparation into the program. In conclusion, there are very few studies on apprenticeship models in the early childhood education field. The opportunity for free high quality professional development and credentialing for the field is a positive attribute for Pinellas County. Thus, the need for ensuring that CCAP has a strong and robust curriculum, that meets the needs of the local community child care workforce in Pinellas County, is crucial for maintaining the integrity of the program and attracting more apprentices in the field. This case study provides an opportunity for CCAP to potentially strengthen the current early education workforce in Pinellas County and in-turn provide additional high-quality preschool options for the local community by updating its curriculum framework to best serve the industry needs. As such, further research, to include the perceptions of the past and current apprentices, would be beneficial to better determine which types of supports would be best suited the program needs, as well as specific content updates to the curriculum.
NOTE (Submitted Note): A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education.
NOTE (Date of Defense): March 30, 2022.
NOTE (Keywords): Apprenticeship, Child Care, Early Childhood, Training
NOTE (Bibliography Note): Includes bibliographical references.
NOTE (Advisory Committee): Bradley Cox, Professor Directing Dissertation; Kelly J. Whalon, University Representative; Tamara C. Bertrand Jones, Committee Member; Lara Perez-Felkner, Committee Member.
SUBJECT: Educational evaluation
SUBJECT: Early childhood education
DEGREE: Doctoral
FILENAME: Westervelt_fsu_0071E_17140.pdf
TITLE: An Exploration of the NBDY Gene and the Significance of XIST for X Inactivation
AUTHOR: Westervelt, Natalia E.,
MEMBER (professor directing dissertation): Chadwick, Brian P.
MEMBER (university representative): Li, Hong, (Chemistry and Biochemistry)
MEMBER (committee member): McGinnis, Karen M.
MEMBER (committee member): Dennis, Jonathan Hancock
MEMBER (committee member): Yu, Hong-Guo
CORPORATE NAME: Florida State University
CORPORATE NAME: College of Arts and Sciences
CORPORATE NAME: Department of Biological Science
PUBLICATION: Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University, 2022
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 1 online resource (120 pages)
ABSTRACT: Select silencing of gene expression in one X chromosome in female mammals provides a means to overcome X-linked gene expression imbalances with males. Central to establishing gene silencing on the inactivated X chromosome are the actions of the long non-coding RNA XIST that triggers the repackaging of the chosen X into facultative heterochromatin. Additionally, microscopic and high throughput sequence-based studies have established that the mammalian inactive X chromosome (Xi) adopts an alternate conformation relative to the active X chromosome. Organized into several multi-megabase chromatin loops called superloops, the human Xi bears anchors at the base of these loops that are composed of large tandem repeat DNA, including DXZ4, Functional Intergenic Repeating RNA Element (FIRRE), and Inactive-X CTCF-binding Contact Element (ICCE). Furthermore, ICCE is nestled within the intronic region of a micropetide expressing gene established as NBDY, a novel protein that has been implicated to interact with components of nonsense mediated decay (NMD). Little else is known about the properties or origins of ICCE or NBDY and the role that XIST plays in maintaining chromatin at the human inactive X chromosome (Xi) has remained elusive. Here, we used bioinformatical tools to elucidate the nature of the ICCE repeat and observe the localization of NDBY with fluorescent microscopy under lentivirally induced overexpression conditions. With genome engineering, we were able to delete the promotor of XIST to knockout expression in non-cancerous diploid human somatic cells. We find that primary DNA sequence conservation of ICCE is only retained in higher primates, but that ICCE orthologs exist beyond the primate lineage. Like DXZ4, what is conserved is organization of the underlying DNA into a large tandem repeat, the physical location within the NBDY locus and short DNA sequences corresponding to specific CTCF and Yin Yang 1 binding motifs that correlate with female-specific DNA hypomethylation. Unlike DXZ4, ICCE is not common to all eutherian mammals, but analysis of certain ICCE CTCF motifs reveal striking similarity with the DXZ4 motif. Further examination of NBDY itself led to successful overexpression of the gene in RPE1 cells which was visualized as a diffuse signal in the nucleus and as pinprick cytoplasmic foci through fluorescent microscopy. Additionally lentiviral induction time trials revealed a shift in NBDY localization from the cytoplasmic to nuclear at the six-hour mark, with a strong signal detected overlapping with promyelocytic leukemia protein (PML) bodies. In XIST knockout cells, some heterochromatin features exhibit limited change at the Xi, but two of those assessed showed significant reductions including histone H2A monoubiquitylation at lysine 119 and histone H3 trimethylation at lysine 27, both of which are covalent histone modifications catalyzed by the polycomb repressive complexes 1 and 2 respectively. Coupled with these reductions, we observed an occasional gain of euchromatin signatures on Xp, but despite these signs of chromatin instability, we did not observe appreciable changes in the reactivation of genes from the Xi. Collectively, these data reveal several novel insights about the NBDY gene and ICCE; the findings imply a further role for NBDY in PML body association and senescence and support an evolutionary relationship between DXZ4 and ICCE. Additionally, the data compiled on the absence of XIST are consistent with maintenance of dosage compensation at the Xi involving multiple redundant layers of gene silencing.
NOTE (Submitted Note): A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Biological Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
NOTE (Date of Defense): March 30, 2022.
NOTE (Keywords): Histone modifications, ICCE, NBDY, XIST
NOTE (Bibliography Note): Includes bibliographical references.
NOTE (Advisory Committee): Brian Chadwick, Professor Directing Dissertation; Hong Li, University Representative; Karen McGinnis, Committee Member; Jonathan Dennis, Committee Member; Hong Guo Yu, Committee Member.
SUBJECT: Molecular biology
DEGREE: Doctoral
FILENAME: Westman_fsu_0071N_17242.pdf
TITLE: Experiments on the Ability to Remotely Detect Submerged Precontact Archaeological Material Using a Sub-Bottom Profiler
AUTHOR: Westman, Therese,
MEMBER (professor directing thesis): Halligan, Jessi J.
MEMBER (committee member): Mehta, Jayur M. (Madhusudan)
MEMBER (committee member): Leppard, Thomas P.
MEMBER (committee member): Smith, Morgan F.
CORPORATE NAME: Florida State University
CORPORATE NAME: College of Arts and Sciences
CORPORATE NAME: Department of Anthropology
PUBLICATION: Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University, 2022
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 1 online resource (107 pages)
ABSTRACT: Site discovery is critical to submerged archaeology's contribution to theoretical reconstructions of past peoples. Remote sensing tools help locate human activity and targets, and scientists are continuously devising new methods. Remote sensors primarily use an emitted signal as a method of detecting anomalies underwater due to the speed and accuracy of sound's propagation through water. Understanding this and how different materials respond aid in the identification of underwater targets and potential sites. Preliminary research shows that material type of a knapped lithic has little effect on its resonant frequency. Its excitation frequency, shape, size, and volume do have an effect. With this information, it may be possible to detect knapped lithics at frequencies from as low as 2 kHz resting on the seafloor and embedded within. These data was subsequently used to develop the Human-altered Lithic Detection (HALD) method that uses acoustic excitation and remote sensing to detect lithics on and within the seafloor. The experiments conducted in this thesis tested factors affecting the HALD technique and can help archaeologists better understand how remote sensing aids in discovering and mapping submerged precontact sites (and others) and enhance preservation efforts by identifying archaeologically relevant sites more rapidly. We found that 38 out of 233 material samples tested positive for haystacks. This is just one new approach scientists have devised for potentially locating underwater precontact sites using geoacoustics.
NOTE (Submitted Note): A Thesis submitted to the Department of Anthropology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science.
NOTE (Date of Defense): March 11, 2022.
NOTE (Keywords): HALD method, lithic artifacts, precontact archaeology, remote sensing, sub-bottom profiler, underwater archaeology
NOTE (Bibliography Note): Includes bibliographical references.
NOTE (Advisory Committee): Jessi J. Halligan, Professor Directing Thesis; Jayur M. Mehta, Committee Member; Thomas P. Leppard, Committee Member; Morgan F. Smith, Committee Member.
SUBJECT: Archaeology
DEGREE: Masters
FILENAME: Wilhelmy_fsu_0071N_17213.pdf
TITLE: A Group of Individuals or a Singular Team?: Examining the Moderation Effect of Team Type on the Relationships between Previous Season Success, Team Tenure and Group Size and Cohesion over Time
AUTHOR: Wilhelmy, Taylor,
MEMBER (professor directing thesis): Wolf, Svenja Anna
MEMBER (committee member): Eccles, David W.
MEMBER (committee member): Roehrig, Alysia D., 1975-
CORPORATE NAME: Florida State University
CORPORATE NAME: College of Education
CORPORATE NAME: Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems
PUBLICATION: Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University, 2022
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 1 online resource (82 pages)
ABSTRACT: A multitude of research has already been conducted on the concept of cohesion in sport with the majority of research looking at the relationship between cohesion and performance. It has been found that the correlation between cohesion and performance is moderately strong and positive; however, little research has been conducted on potential antecedents and moderators that influence the development of cohesion. Three potential environmental inputs that have been scarcely found in the sport literature include previous success, tenure and group size. Usually analyzed at the same time as other variables of interest, research on success and cohesion in sport has found that for winning teams, cohesion remained consistent throughout the sport season while those on losing teams saw a decrease in cohesion over this same time period. Concentrated in the business domain, increased tenure has been shown to provide greater overall team stability and greater social cohesion. Research on group size has found that increases in the number of individuals on a sport team decreases cohesion while small to medium sized exercise classes provide enough social opportunities but larger classes see these opportunities decrease. When used as a moderator, the type of team has been found to not moderate the cohesion-performance relationship. With limited knowledge on antecedents of cohesion along with the potential moderation effect of team type and the changes in cohesion over time, the purpose of this study is to examine the relationships between previous season success, team tenure and group size and cohesion, see if team type moderates these relationships and explore how cohesion changes over time. It is hypothesized that the relationship between group size and cohesion will be negative while the relationships between previous success and cohesion along with tenure and cohesion will be positive. Additionally, the relationships between the three environmental variables of interest and cohesion will be stronger for those on coactive teams compared to interactive teams. A total of 118 current NCAA student-athletes partook in this study of which 57 were from coactive teams and 61 were from interactive teams. Participants completed an online Qualtrics composed of three sections: demographics, environmental inputs and the Group Environment Questionnaire (GEQ) to assess cohesion. At the end of this questionnaire, participants were asked if they were willing to partake in an additional questionnaire, containing only the GEQ, to contribute to the exploration of cohesion over time. Of the 118 total participants, 86 agreed to partake in the second questionnaire four weeks later with 37 responses recorded. Multiple regression analyses, the PROCESS macro and a paired samples t-test were conducted to see if there are any relationships between the environmental inputs and cohesion, if team type moderates these relationships and to explore changes in cohesion over four weeks respectively. Analyses found that previous success was a positive predictor for both Group Integration subscales of cohesion. Additionally, team type was found to moderate the relationship between tenure and both ATG cohesion subscales with tenure being found to be a significant predictor for the task cohesion subscales (ATG-T and GI-T) and team type being an additional predictor of ATG-T. While no significant relationships were found between tenure and ATG-S for both coactive and interactive teams along with the relationship between tenure and ATG-T for interactive teams, there was a significant negative relationship found between tenure and ATG-T for coactive teams. It was also found that cohesion did not significantly differ between the initial questionnaire and the second questionnaire administered four weeks later. Keywords: cohesion; NCAA; previous success; tenure; group size; moderation; team type; longitudinal; coactive; interactive
NOTE (Submitted Note): A Thesis submitted to the Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science.
NOTE (Date of Defense): April 5, 2022.
NOTE (Keywords): cohesion, group size, NCAA, previous success, team type, tenure
NOTE (Bibliography Note): Includes bibliographical references.
NOTE (Advisory Committee): Svenja A. Wolf, Professor Directing Thesis; David W. Eccles, Committee Member; Alysia D. Roehrig, Committee Member.
SUBJECT: Educational psychology
DEGREE: Masters
FILENAME: Wilkins_fsu_0071E_17200.pdf
TITLE: Exclusionary Discipline: Black-White Racial Disparities in Elementary Schools in a Large District
AUTHOR: Wilkins, Aja,
MEMBER (professor directing dissertation): Akiba, Motoko
MEMBER (university representative): Ke, Fengfeng
MEMBER (committee member): Jones, Tamara Bertrand
MEMBER (committee member): Herrington, Carolyn D.
CORPORATE NAME: Florida State University
CORPORATE NAME: College of Education
CORPORATE NAME: Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
PUBLICATION: Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University, 2022
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 1 online resource (66 pages)
ABSTRACT: There is an issue occurring in public schools that is not often addressed and that is the Black-White disparity in exclusionary discipline. The conversation often centers around the "achievement gap" or more recently the "opportunity gap". But what are some of the factors that can be addressed in schools that are leading to these gaps? The main concept is first, students need to be in the schools to learn. Exclusionary discipline removes the students from their learning environment. In fact, exclusionary discipline affects Black students nationwide. According to the K-12 Civil Rights Data Collection's (2017) 2015-2016 nationwide report where Black students made up 15.4% of enrollment while 48.9% of the students were White. That same collection period nationwide identified 37.2% of the students receiving one out-of-school suspension were Black, while 33.6% of students were White. These disparities align with historical research as well as the research conducted for this study which focused on elementary schools and non-violent behaviors in a large school district in the Southeastern United States, the research states that Black students are underrepresented in the district, yet over represented in exclusionary disciplinary outcomes. This led to the purpose of this research which was to examine the degree of Black-White disparity in exclusionary discipline based on non-violent behaviors and to identify school characteristics such as school size, poverty level, and racial diversity level, that are associated with Black-White disparity in exclusionary discipline based on non-violent behaviors of elementary students. A quantitative approach was taken for this research due to the fact that the goal was to solely identify the elementary schools with the greatest Black-White disparity and determine if a commonality of characteristics exists between them. A Pearson r correlation analysis was conducted and was determined that there was no significant association between suspension rate of any type and school background characteristics that were examined in this study. It was identified however that lower severity level non-violent behaviors had a Black-White disparity level as great as 48.4%.
NOTE (Submitted Note): A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education.
NOTE (Date of Defense): February 22, 2022.
NOTE (Keywords): Black-White disparity, Discipline disparity, Elementary school, Exclusionary discipline, Non-violent behavior, Racial disparity
NOTE (Bibliography Note): Includes bibliographical references.
NOTE (Advisory Committee): Motoko Akiba, Professor Directing Dissertation; Fengfeng Ke, University Representative; Tamara Bertrand Jones, Committee Member; Carolyn Herrington, Committee Member.
SUBJECT: Education, elementary
DEGREE: Doctoral
FILENAME: Williams_fsu_0071E_17243.pdf
TITLE: Bridging the Opportunity Gap: Implications of a School-to-College Pipeline Program on Post-Secondary Readiness for Marginalized Youth
AUTHOR: Williams, Inika,
MEMBER (professor directing dissertation): Jones, Tamara Bertrand
MEMBER (university representative): Jones, Ithel
MEMBER (committee member): Mokher, Christine G.
MEMBER (committee member): Perez-Felkner, Lara
CORPORATE NAME: Florida State University
CORPORATE NAME: College of Education
CORPORATE NAME: Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
PUBLICATION: Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University, 2022
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 1 online resource (71 pages)
ABSTRACT: Only 11% of students who are Pell-eligible and the first in their family to attend college graduate with a bachelor's degree. Upward Bound is a federal-funded project that seeks to 1) improve the motivation and skills of disadvantaged students and 2) increase students' likelihood of success at two- and four-year institutions. The study sought to understand how a specific Upward Bound program helped facilitate college readiness for economically marginalized Black students through the lens of the participants. The data for this project was collected through interviews with current and former participants. The findings revealed that familial-like relationships between the staff and students were the pillars of the program's success. Having adult mentors created a climate of empowerment and high self-esteem for the students aspiring to attend and be attain success in their collegiate pursuits. Pairing mentorship with the financial means to remove structural barriers in education through grant funds, cultivated outcomes that produced college entry and completion. These findings indicate a need for intentional college-to-career efforts that support post-secondary goals of students to include: identifying adults and college students to serve as mentors, training staff to embrace ideologies that work to combat structural barriers in education, and building relationships with local colleges and universities to utilize free resources and be abreast on admission trends.
NOTE (Submitted Note): A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Education.
NOTE (Date of Defense): March 2, 2022.
NOTE (Keywords): college access, TRIO
NOTE (Bibliography Note): Includes bibliographical references.
NOTE (Advisory Committee): Tamara Bertrand Jones, Professor Directing Dissertation; Ithel Jones, University Representative; Christine Mokher, Committee Member; Lara Cristina Perez-Felkner, Committee Member.
SUBJECT: School management and organization
DEGREE: Doctoral
FILENAME: Willmann_fsu_0071E_17081.pdf
TITLE: The Perceived Value and Frequency of Vocalization Techniques in Instrumental Ensemble Rehearsals
AUTHOR: Willmann, Thomas,
MEMBER (professor directing dissertation): Dunnigan, Patrick, 1957-
MEMBER (university representative): Parks, John Will, 1971-
MEMBER (committee member): Kelly, Steven N.
MEMBER (committee member): League, Panayotis
CORPORATE NAME: Florida State University
CORPORATE NAME: College of Music
CORPORATE NAME: College of Music
PUBLICATION: Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University, 2022
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 1 online resource (113 pages)
ABSTRACT: This study aimed to determine the perceived value and frequency of singing, chanting, and additional vocalization techniques in school instrumental ensembles. Vocalization tools are meant to enhance student musicians' concepts of music. Music directors, both band and orchestra, in a southeastern American state completed a questionnaire that asked: (1) the frequency of vocalization techniques used with instrumental students, (2) the frequency of modeling vocalization techniques with students, (3) the frequency of listening and discussion exercises with students, (4) the frequency of other rehearsal exercises, (5) the perceived importance of vocalization tools, (6) reasons for using singing exercises, (7) reasons for using rhythm-counting systems, (8) open responses for the goals of using singing exercises, and (9) open response for the goals of using rhythm-counting tools. The questionnaire included demographic questions to identify ensemble type (band or orchestra), educational level (elementary, middle, and high school), teaching experience (years), personal experience with choirs, singing comfort, and background. The study analyzed the primary teaching tools of directors' overall importance of vocalization techniques: singing with notes names, neutral syllables, solfege, and chanting rhythm. The 148 survey participants ranged in experience from 1 to 20 years of teaching. For singing techniques, the survey determined that the frequency of neutral syllable singing had the highest frequency of use and is used more than solfege or pitch-name singing. For rhythm techniques, the survey determined that chanting rhythm (rhythm-counting) had the highest frequency of use followed by sizzle/tizzle/bop. Chanting pitch names and multiple systems were infrequent and had the highest percentage of responses with at no rehearsals. The frequency of the modeling techniques (singing, chanting, playing) had at every rehearsal as the highest percentage of responses, and a low percentage (less than 10%) of directors used modeling at few or no rehearsals. For non-performance exercises, the survey determined the frequency of guided listening to a band or orchestra recordings and open dialogue/discussion about repertoire had at some rehearsals as the highest percentage of responses, whereas listening to vocal ensemble recordings had at few rehearsals as the highest percentage of responses. For other techniques, the survey found that the frequency of clapping rhythms had at most rehearsals as the highest percentage of responses, while breathing exercises/breathing gym and student-led sectionals had at some rehearsals as the highest percentage of responses, and silent rehearsals had at few rehearsals as the highest percentage of responses. The perceived value of pitch/melody and rhythm-counting vocalizations had very important as the highest percentage of responses. The most common response directors gave for using vocalization (pitch/melody and rhythm-counting) in rehearsal was the choice "I know from experience it works." Surveyed directors indicated 94.6% were comfortable singing for their students, 51% had experience singing in a choir, and 78% had experience teaching a choir. The majority of directors responded that vocalization was important for instrumentalists, but the frequency of vocalization techniques indicated a difference in actual practice.
NOTE (Submitted Note): A Dissertation submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
NOTE (Date of Defense): March 30, 2022.
NOTE (Keywords): Audiation, Instrumental, Singing, Vocalization
NOTE (Bibliography Note): Includes bibliographical references.
NOTE (Advisory Committee): Patrick Dunnigan, Professor Directing Dissertation; John Parks, University Representative; Steven Kelly, Committee Member; Chandler Wilson, Committee Member; Panayotis League, Committee Member.
SUBJECT: Music--Instruction and study
DEGREE: Doctoral
FILENAME: Wu_fsu_0071E_16823.pdf
TITLE: Skewed Pivot-Adaptive Modeling with Applications to Semicontinuous Outcomes
AUTHOR: Wu, Xiaoqiang,
MEMBER (professor co-directing dissertation): She, Yiyuan
MEMBER (professor co-directing dissertation): Sinha, Debajyoti
MEMBER (university representative): Sang, Qing-Xiang
MEMBER (committee member): Slate, Elizabeth H.
CORPORATE NAME: Florida State University
CORPORATE NAME: College of Arts and Sciences
CORPORATE NAME: Department of Statistics
PUBLICATION: Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University, 2022
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 1 online resource (88 pages)
ABSTRACT: Data skewness widely occurs in present-day statistical applications. Various distribution families have been recently proposed to model skewed data, many enforcing different scales in reference to the median or the mode. We argue that the pivotal point to incur unsymmetrical scales is not identical to a location shift parameter in the presence of skewness, and propose a framework of Skewed Pivot-adaptive Estimation with Unsymmetrical Scales (SPEUS). SPEUScan construct a skewed density family with continuity given any density function that may be nonsymmetric and nonunimodal, and includes many previously proposed skewed distributions as special cases. The framework allows us to simultaneously estimate the pivot, location, and scale parameters, and can be adapted to a skewed hurdle model with joint variable selection to cope with semicontinuous outcomes that contain with excessive zeros and skewed positive values, in addition to a large number of predictors. The computational issues brought by nonconvexity and nonsmoothness are tackled with a surrogate constructed by linearization and blockwise coordinate descent, the resulting algorithm having both implementation ease and guaranteed convergence. Moreover, we also perform finite-sample analysis to provide provable guarantees for the obtained estimators which, though not necessarily globally optimal, enjoy the desired order of statistical accuracy at the occurrence of skewness Experiments and real-life data applications to the medical expenditure panel survey data (MEPS) illustrate the excellent performance of the proposed method.
NOTE (Submitted Note): A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Statistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
NOTE (Date of Defense): April 7, 2022.
NOTE (Keywords): Hurdle models, Semicontinuous outcomes, Skewed distributions
NOTE (Bibliography Note): Includes bibliographical references.
NOTE (Advisory Committee): Yiyuan She, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Debajyoti Sinha, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Qing-Xiang Sang, University Representative; Elizabeth Slate, Committee Member.
SUBJECT: Statistics
DEGREE: Doctoral
FILENAME: You_fsu_0071E_17080.pdf
TITLE: Working Dragon Mothers: Motherhood and Labor Market Participation of Women Faculty with Leadership Positions in an Adult Higher Education Institution in Liaoning Dalian in China
AUTHOR: You, Jingyi,
MEMBER (professor directing dissertation): Khurshid, Ayesha
MEMBER (university representative): Myers, John P. (John Patrick)
MEMBER (committee member): Jones, Tamara Bertrand
MEMBER (committee member): Milligan, Jeffrey Ayala
CORPORATE NAME: Florida State University
CORPORATE NAME: College of Education
CORPORATE NAME: Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
PUBLICATION: Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University, 2022
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 1 online resource (191 pages)
ABSTRACT: From the foundation of the People's Republic of China (in 1949) until now, Chinese women's social status has been improved and their identities have been shifted with the changes in the social system. However, in the new century, they are experiencing a hard time in balancing careers and domestic work. Although Chinese women proactively contributed to the nation's formation, construction and development, the traditional gender norms still confine women's roles as "ideal mothers". Through in-depth interviews, this study explores how motherhood is understood by highly educated female faculty with leadership positions within a higher education institution in China. By analyzing faculty mothers' experiences and perspectives of motherhood, the findings investigate how motherhood as a negotiated identity is constructed and reconstructed by the social, cultural, economic and political context. Motherhood is understood as a process of becoming and evolving, and not something that is static, despite being shaped by the broader social structures and gendered ideologies.
NOTE (Submitted Note): A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
NOTE (Date of Defense): March 31, 2022.
NOTE (Keywords): Chinese women, Female labor market participation, Gender, Motherhood, Motherhood experience
NOTE (Bibliography Note): Includes bibliographical references.
NOTE (Advisory Committee): Ayesha Khurshid, Professor Directing Dissertation; John Myers, University Representative; Tamara Bertrand Jones, Committee Member; Jeffrey Ayala Milligan, Committee Member.
SUBJECT: Education
DEGREE: Doctoral
FILENAME: Zeng_fsu_0071E_16958.pdf
TITLE: High-Dimensional Methodologies for Sufficient Dimension Reduction, Discriminant Analysis, and Tensor Data
AUTHOR: Zeng, Jing,
MEMBER (professor co-directing dissertation): Zhang, Xin
MEMBER (professor co-directing dissertation): Mai, Qing
MEMBER (university representative): Park, Chiwoo
MEMBER (committee member): Srivastava, Anuj, 1968-
MEMBER (committee member): Bradley, Jonathan R.
CORPORATE NAME: Florida State University
CORPORATE NAME: College of Arts and Sciences
CORPORATE NAME: Department of Statistics
PUBLICATION: Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University, 2022
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 1 online resource (192 pages)
ABSTRACT: Thanks to the advancement of data-collecting technology in brain imaging, genomics, financial econometrics, and machine learning, scientific data tend to grow in both size and structural complexity, which are not amenable to traditional statistical analysis. In this dissertation, we developed novel high-dimensional methodologies for dimension reduction, discriminant analysis, and tensor data. In the first chapter, we proposed a unified framework, called subspace estimation with automatic dimension and variable selection (SEAS), to extend many existing low-dimensional sufficient dimension reduction (SDR) methods to the high-dimensional setting. The flexibility of SEAS considerably widens the application scope of many SDR methods. Our proposal only relies on a double-penalized convex formulation, which can be solved efficiently. From the theoretical perspective, we established a satisfactory convergence rate for our proposal, which is optimal in a minimax sense. In the second chapter, we established a population model for the reduced-rank linear discriminant analysis (LDA) problem, which arises naturally in many scenarios. We also developed an efficient algorithm and derived the non-asymptotic results in the high-dimensional setting. In the last chapter, we studied how two data modalities associate and interact with each other given a third modality, which is a crucial problem in multimodal integrative analysis but has no available statistical solution. We formulated this problem as a tensor decomposition problem and proposed a novel generalized liquid association analysis (GLAA) method. A high-order orthogonal iteration algorithm is provided accordingly. Furthermore, we established the non-asymptotic results for the proposed estimators.
NOTE (Submitted Note): A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Statistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
NOTE (Date of Defense): April 4, 2022.
NOTE (Bibliography Note): Includes bibliographical references.
NOTE (Advisory Committee): Xin Zhang, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Qing Mai, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Chiwoo Park, University Representative; Anuj Srivastava, Committee Member; Jonathan R. Bradley, Committee Member.
SUBJECT: Statistics
DEGREE: Doctoral
FILENAME: Zhang_fsu_0071E_16946.pdf
TITLE: Strongly Correlated Insulators for High-Efficient Photovoltaics
AUTHOR: Zhang, Biwen,
MEMBER (professor directing dissertation): Beekman, Christianne
MEMBER (university representative): Siegrist, Theo
MEMBER (committee member): Adams, Todd
MEMBER (committee member): Manousakis, Efstratios
MEMBER (committee member): McGill, Stephen Adrian
CORPORATE NAME: Florida State University
CORPORATE NAME: College of Arts and Sciences
CORPORATE NAME: Department of Physics
PUBLICATION: Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University, 2022
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 1 online resource (99 pages)
ABSTRACT: Strongly correlated insulators (SCIs) are proposed as a promising material for photovoltaics because the strongly correlated \textit{d} electrons can facilitate the creation of multiple electron-hole pairs per incoming photon through a process called \textit{impact ionization}, which would lead to increased device efficiency. The material of interest in this document LaVO$_3$ is among the SCIs that are shown to have a fast impact ionization rate with a narrow bandgap. In this dissertation, we report the growth of off-stoichiometric LaVO$_3$ thin films using pulsed laser deposition, and the characterizations that are to study how deviating La:V stoichiometries affect the electronic properties of LVO thin films. We find that the off-stoichiometry clearly alters the physical properties of the films. Structural characterization shows that both La-rich and V-rich films have different levels of structural distortion, with La-rich (V-rich) films showing a larger (smaller) out-of-plane lattice parameter compared to what one would expect from epitaxial strain effects alone. Both types of films show deviation from the behavior of bulk LVO in optical measurement, i.e., they do not show signatures of the expected long-range orbital order, which can be a result of the structural distortions or the presence of structural domains. In transport measurements, La-rich films display clear signatures of electronic phase separation accompanying a temperature-induced metal-insulator transition, while V-rich films behave as Mott insulators. The out-of-plane lattice parameter plays a crucial role in determining the transport properties, as the crossover from Mott-insulating to disorder-induced phase-separated behavior occurs around a lattice parameter value of 3.96~\AA, quite different from what has been previously reported. This dissertation also includes the study on strongly correlated metal SrVO$_3$, which is planned to work as electrodes in the prototype photovoltaics. We successfully grow SrVO$_3$ thin films at different thicknesses. We find it maintains good conductivity at a thickness of 15 nm. These studies have laid the foundation for future research on designing heterostructures of strongly correlated oxides for photovoltaics.
NOTE (Submitted Note): A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Physics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
NOTE (Date of Defense): January 19, 2022.
NOTE (Bibliography Note): Includes bibliographical references.
NOTE (Advisory Committee): Christianne Beekman, Professor Directing Dissertation; Theo Siegrist, University Representative; Todd Adams, Committee Member; Efstratios Manousakis, Committee Member; Stephen McGill, Committee Member.
SUBJECT: Condensed matter
DEGREE: Doctoral
FILENAME: zheng_fsu_0071E_16974.pdf
TITLE: A Transport and Optical Study on Topological Semimetals and 2D Materials
AUTHOR: Zheng, Wenkai,
MEMBER (professor co-directing dissertation): Balicas, Luis
MEMBER (professor co-directing dissertation): Manousakis, Efstratios
MEMBER (university representative): Sang, Qing-Xiang
MEMBER (committee member): Xiong, Peng
MEMBER (committee member): Piekarewicz, Jorge
CORPORATE NAME: Florida State University
CORPORATE NAME: College of Arts and Sciences
CORPORATE NAME: Department of Physics
PUBLICATION: Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University, 2022
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 1 online resource (134 pages)
ABSTRACT: This thesis is mainly focus on the 3D topological semimetal and 2D materials. If you ask a physicist to name the most significant discovery in solid-state physics over the recent 50 years, and highly likely, if not high-temperature superconductivity, will be topological materials or 2D materials. The study of them has profoundly impacted our understanding of the solid-state system, as recognized by four Nobel prizes. Chapter 1 is a brief introduction of topological semimetal and 2D materials. Chapter 2 focuses on a quantum oscillatory study on the Dirac type-II semimetallic candidates PdTe2 and PtTe2. In high-quality single crystals of both compounds, i.e. displaying carrier mobilities between 10^3 and 10^4 cm2/Vs, we observed a large non-saturating magnetoresistivity (MR) which in PtTe2 at a temperature T = 1.3 K, leads to an increase in the resistivity up to 5*10^4% under a magnetic field μ0H = 62 T. These high mobilities correlate with their light effective masses in the range of 0.04 to 1 bare electron mass according to our measurements. For PdTe2 the experimentally determined Fermi surface cross-sectional areas show an excellent agreement with those resulting from band-structure calculations. Surprisingly, this is not the case for PtTe2 whose agreement between calculations and experiments is relatively poor even when electronic correlations are included in the calculations. Therefore, our study provides a strong support for the existence of a Dirac type-II node in PdTe2 and probably also for PtTe2. Band structure calculations indicate that the topologically non-trivial bands of PtTe2 do not cross the Fermi-level (εF). In contrast, for PdTe2 the Dirac type-II cone does intersect εF , although our calculations also indicate that the associated cyclotron orbit on the Fermi surface is located in a distinct kz plane with respect to the one of the Dirac type-II node. Therefore it should yield a trivial Berry-phase. Chapter 3 presents a study on the Fermi-surface of the Dirac type-II semi-metallic candidate NiTe2. In contrast to its isostructural compounds like PtSe2, band structure calculations predict NiTe2 to display a tilted Dirac node very close to its Fermi level that is located along the Γ to A high symmetry direction within its first Brillouin zone (FBZ). The angular dependence of the dHvA frequencies is found to be in agreement with the first-principle calculations when the electronicbands are slightly shifted with respect to the Fermi level (εF ), and therefore provide support for the existence of a Dirac type-II node in NiTe2. Nevertheless, we observed mild disagreements between experimental observations and density Functional theory calculations as, for example, nearly isotropic and light experimental effective masses. This indicates that the dispersion of the bands is not well captured by DFT. Despite the coexistence of Dirac-like fermions with topologically trivial carriers, samples of the highest quality display an anomalous and large, either linear or sublinear magnetoresistivity. This suggests that Lorentz invariance breaking Dirac-like quasiparticles dominate the carrier transport in this compound. Chapter 4 describes a study on a 2D superconductor. The superconducting α-phase thin molybdenum carbide flakes were first synthesized, and a subsequent sulfurization treatment induced the formation of vertical heterolayer systems consisting of different phases of molybdenum carbide— ranging from α to γ′ and γ phases—in conjunction with molybdenum sulfide layers. These transition-metal carbide/disulfide heterostructures exhibited critical superconducting temperatures as high as 6 K, higher than that of the starting single-phased α-Mo2C (4 K). We analyzed possible interface configurations to explain the observed moire patterns resulting from the vertical heterostacks. Our density-functional theory (DFT) calculations indicate that epitaxial strain and moire patterns lead to a higher interfacial density of states, which favors superconductivity. Suchengineered heterostructures might allow the coupling of superconductivity to the topologically nontrivial surface states featured by transition-metal carbide phases composing these heterostructures potentially leading to unconventional superconductivity. Moreover, we envisage that our approach could also be generalized to other metal carbide and nitride systems that could exhibit high-temperature superconductivity. In chapter 5, We introduce a new moire system: InSe/GaSe hetero-structure. To date, the moire physics has been constrained mainly by two factors i) the dimensionality, defined by the stacking of monolayers, and ii) the twist angle ϕ which unveils novel phases only at quite precise values (e.g. superconductivity, orbital magnetism, correlated insulator states). Here, we overcome these practical limitations through a new class of heterostructures composed of strongly coupled layers of γ-InSe on ϵ-GaSe revealing compelling evidence for the moire potential even in thick stacked layers and at arbitrary values of ϕ. We detect a pronounced interlayer exciton (Xi) of very small radius according to the Stark effect, that is composed of several superimposed emissions uniformly spaced in energy ΔE displaying a pronounced ϕ-dependence. In the interfacial area, similar behavior is also shown by the intralayer exciton of GaSe (X0(Ga)). The strong correlation between ϕ and δEimplies localization of excitations at the moire potential minima. In contrast to transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), the moire potential modulates the multi-component Xi over the entire range of ϕ due to their direct band-gap at the center of the Brillouin zone. Therefore, γ-InSe/ϵ-GaSe interfaces offer an unprecedented level of moire exciton tunability not yet achieved in other vans der Waals heterostructures. Our results unveil clear pathways for quantum optoelectronics while offering opportunities to study electronic correlations over a broad range of moire periodicities and layer thicknesses.
NOTE (Submitted Note): A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Physics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
NOTE (Date of Defense): February 28, 2022.
NOTE (Bibliography Note): Includes bibliographical references.
NOTE (Advisory Committee): Luis Molinuevo Balicas, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Efstratios Manousakis, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Qing-Xiang Amy Sang, University Representative; Peng Xiong, Committee Member; Jorge Piekarewicz, Committee Member.
SUBJECT: Physics
DEGREE: Doctoral
FILENAME: Zhou_fsu_0071E_17163.pdf
TITLE: Algorithms for Factoring Linear Recurrence Operators
AUTHOR: Zhou, Yi,
MEMBER (professor directing dissertation): Van Hoeij, Mark
MEMBER (university representative): Sura, Philip
MEMBER (committee member): Aldrovandi, Ettore
MEMBER (committee member): Aluffi, Paolo, 1960-
CORPORATE NAME: Florida State University
CORPORATE NAME: College of Arts and Sciences
CORPORATE NAME: Department of Mathematics
PUBLICATION: Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University, 2022
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: 1 online resource (80 pages)
ABSTRACT: In this thesis we develop a few algorithms that are useful for factoring linear recurrence operators. We approach the factorization problem from three directions. First, considering reduction modulo a prime leads to the study of recurrence operators in positive characteristic in Chapter 3, where we prove an unexpected relation between the singularities and the $p$-curvature. The result suggests desingularization accelerates the algorithm for computing the characteristic polynomial of the $p$-curvature. Useful information about factorization of a recurrence operator can be obtained by factoring the characteristic polynomial of its $p$-curvature. In particular, the irreducibility of the characteristic polynomial implies that of the operator. The second strategy is to imitate the Beke-Bronstein algorithm for factoring differential operators. This requires solving recurrence systems for hypergeometric solutions, which can be done by a generalization of Petkovšek's algorithm. We work out the details in Chapter 4 and add several improvements, such as minimizing the number of candidates that the algorithm needs to consider. Third, we consider solutions of recurrence operators. Some solutions of an operator are also solutions of a proper factor but most are not, even when the operator is reducible. We present an heuristic algorithm for constructing certain sequence solutions that likely lead to non-trivial factors in Chapter 5. This method raises the question of how to find the operator with the minimal order that a solution satisfies, which is solved in Chapter 6 by bounding degrees of factors.
NOTE (Submitted Note): A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Mathematics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
NOTE (Date of Defense): April 8, 2022.
NOTE (Bibliography Note): Includes bibliographical references.
NOTE (Advisory Committee): Mark van Hoeij, Professor Directing Dissertation; Philip Sura, University Representative; Ettore Aldrovandi, Committee Member; Paolo Aluffi, Committee Member.
SUBJECT: Mathematics
DEGREE: Doctoral