Dissertations, Academic -- Florida Atlantic University

Elevated yolk progesterone has been shown to impair prenatal, but facilitate
postnatal auditory learning in bobwhite quail chicks. Elevated yolk testosterone has
facilitated prenatal learning, but its effects on postnatal auditory learning in quail are
unknown. Either testosterone or an oil vehicle was injected into bobwhite quail eggs prior
to incubation. Control eggs were unmanipulated. Following hatching, chicks were
exposed to a conspecific maternal call (A or B) for 240 min. At 48 hr, chicks were tested
for their preference for the familiarized vs. novel call. All groups demonstrated a
preference for the familiar call (p < .05), but minimal between group difference were
found. Contrary to previous research, elevated yolk testosterone neither facilitated nor
impaired postnatal auditory learning in bobwhite quail chicks. Further research will
examine underlying mechanisms responsible for differential effects and explore if similar
systems are involved in other species-typical processes such as social motivation.

Lolita fashion is a small youth fashion that originated in Japan but is inspired by
historical western clothing. The clothing is not sexual in nature. Most studies look at the
style in Japan, but the fashion has also found popularity overseas. This paper takes an
ethnographic approach to studying the Lolita community in the United States by
comparing two regional communities, Houston and South Florida. The research found
that the largest difference between the two groups was size and community involvement,
with Houston as the larger group and the smaller South Florida group being more
concerned with group activity. The study found that compared to the strong subversive
element of the wearers in Japan, the United States community at large appears to be
motivated by Lolita as a creative outlet. There was no support of the idea that aging
played a role in what kind of Lolita fashion was worn.

Climate change will expose sea turtle nests to higher temperatures and more
storms; both may negatively impact sea turtle nest success. In this study, unhatched eggs
were collected from the Boca Raton, Florida beach and developmental stage at
embryonic death determined. Elevated nest temperatures increased embryonic mortality,
and the most significant relationship was between mortality and the percent of time
embryos were exposed to temperatures above 34°C. Loggerhead turtles exhibited higher
rates of mortality compared to green turtles at temperatures above 34°C. Only loggerhead
nests were exposed to inundation, but embryonic mortality did not differ from noninundated
nests. Beach profiles across the nesting season were also determined. A major
storm altered the beach more in areas of coastal development; however, this was
impacted by a nourishment project and the presence of a structured inlet. Future management strategies may need to protect sea turtle nests from extended periods at
elevated temperatures.

Toni Morrison’s later novels Love and Home bring forth an issue of identity
anxiety for those involved in the narrative: author, narrators, and readers. Featuring both
first-person and third-person narrators, these works offer conflicting narratives in which
the writer, Morrison, allows her characters to question her own authorial voice. Greater
agency is given to the first-person narrators through which they deconstruct the
traditional objectivity of third-person narratives. As such, this thesis argues, the structures
of Love and Home extend their inside conversations to the real world of readers who must
reconsider where their narrative trust has been. Moreover, Morrison’s challenge to her
authorial voice becomes the means through which she questions the hegemony of U.S.
historical narratives. In the end, it is the subjective voices of the first-person narrators
which offer a more reliable, counter narrative of not only Morrison’s fictional stories, but
that of the nation’s historical past.

Collegiate leadership development opportunities that enhance student’s leadership
skills are on the rise. This study sought to understand how students perceive their own
leadership development prior to entering college and at an institution that has prioritized
leadership development in recent years. Through this single-case study, 51
undergraduate student leaders completed a questionnaire that resulted in a descriptive
student leader profile and open-ended responses. From those 51 students, 14 were a part
of focus groups. There were three focus groups in total with four, seven, and three
participants respectively. From the 14 participants, five volunteered for individual
interviews to identify their perceptions of their leadership development in their own
words. The research questions for this study were: What are the inputs and
environmental influences that shape college students’ leadership development output
from the student perspective; and, how do college students describe and understand their leadership development? The descriptive profile and close-ended responses are reviewed
in chapter four and report four major findings. The first finding was “Mom made me do
it”: The Influence of Family and Experiences Precollege, and the second finding was The
What and Who Behind These Students’ Leadership Development in College: Purposeful
Experiences and People. The third finding was The Why Behind These College
Students’ Engagement in Leadership Development, which encompassed four themes to
describe the reasons these students’ are interested in leadership development:
encouragement from others, aspirations, self-development, and motivation to support
causes they have grown to want to serve and for which they want to develop. The fourth
finding was Soft Skills - Not Clear in the Terminology of These Student Leaders, Clear in
Their Behaviors and included ways of defining soft skills and the exemplification of
student leaders’ soft skills. Conclusions and recommendations are offered in chapter six
including the proposal of a new model, Closing the Loop in College, developed from the
pattern of findings that emerged in this study inclusive of reflective meaning making in
college as essential for these leaders’ development.

The internal architecture of a beach system can provide clues into the processes
involved in its formation, including depositional processes, and/or driving mechanisms
(Billy et al., 2014). Several unique events such as cold fronts or Hurricane Irma caused
conditions that resulted in erosion and accretion changes in Red Reef Beach - Boca Raton,
throughout the year of 2017. Since the lateral extent of these changes is difficult to evaluate
using traditional methods such as coring, a Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) was tested,
which allows for a good lateral resolution (cm scale), to image the distribution and
evolution of these sediments. The objectives of this study were to 1) explore the lateral
variability in the internal architecture of sediments in Red Reef beach in Boca Raton (FL)
using an array of ground penetrating radar (GPR) measurements constrained with coring
and sediment analysis; 2) explore how dynamics of erosion and accretion induced by
changes in wave activity and related to tide variation and storm events, may affect surface topography and the sedimentary internal architecture of beach deposits, using RTK GPS
and GPR time-lapse measurements; 3) to explore changes in the lateral extent of the freshsaltwater
interface along the beach profile in relation to tide variation and storm events.
Reflectors identified in the GPR images showed some evidence of erosional and
accretionary surfaces preserved in Red Reef beach. These measurements were repeated
over time coinciding with certain events (such as Hurricane Irma) to explore their effects
in terms of sediment erosion and accretion as reflected in changes in topography (using
time-lapse GPS-RTK measurements), and changes in the internal sedimentary architecture
(using time-lapse GPR measurements). The datasets collected also revealed the temporal
evolution of the salt-freshwater interface, showing how the lateral extent of saltwater
saturated sediment (inferred from areas of GPR signal attenuation along the profiles)
evolved over time. This study shows the potential of GPR to provide information about
beach sediment processes and dynamics at resolutions beyond traditional measurements
(such as coring). It also shows the importance of combining methods that are
complementary, such as the use of RTK GPS to explore changes in topography, and GPR
that provides information on subsurface sedimentary architecture and the mechanism of
change such as post-storm recovery. This study has implications for better understanding
changes in coastal sedimentary deposits and processes, both at the subsurface, particularly
after high-energy events, such as hurricanes, that result in rapid changes in erosion and/or
accretion of sediments.

The purpose of this collective case study was to discover the decision-making
processes used by senior student affairs officers when making wicked decisions related to
the retention of specialized, at-risk student populations. Wicked decisions are complex,
resistant to resolutions, lead to other problems, and are essentially unique. In this study,
decisions related to retention of Black males; students with mental health issues; and
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer student retention fall within the wicked
problem category and were the focus of this study. These decisions are usually the
responsibility of divisions of student affairs in higher education settings and the senior
student affairs officer. Hence, the senior student affairs officer is tasked with making
responsible and effective decisions that foster the success of all students. This
dissertation focused on the decision-making processes, practices, and procedures student affairs officers use to support the retention of select special populations served in higher
education.

The majority of HIV prevalence is found in Sub-Saharan Africa with 36.9 mil-
lion living with HIV/AIDS. The cultural implications such as patient non-compliance
or denial of available routine medical care can potentially cause limitations on the ef-
fectiveness of detecting such virulent pathogens and manage chronic disease. The lack
of access to healthcare and further socioeconomic impacts hinder the ability to ade-
quately diagnose and treat infection in resource-limited settings. Intervention through
diagnosis and treatment helps prevent the spread of transmission, where pre-exposure
prophylaxis or active disease prevention measures are not readily available. The cur-
rent gold standard for HIV detection is by molecular detection; Reverse-Transcription
Polymerase Chain Reaction is widely used that employs cycles of temperature condi-
tions that require a thermal cycling platform and typically laboratory space for RNA
extraction separate from RT-PCR space required. Serological detection can be ad-
vantageous for surveillance and screening, Lateral Flow Assays and Enzyme-Linked
Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) can detect a viral protein (antigen) or antibodies.
The ELISA can require at least 12 hours of assay preparation and takes a diagnostic
laboratory many resources to run. There is need to develop Point-of-Care (POC) testing that can potentially be used for decentralized testing that can leverage ex-
isting technologies such as smart phone capability and routine medical or diagnostic
tests with cutting edge applications leveraging micro
uidics, nanotechnology and in-
tegrated circuit design. Such technologies allow for automated, rapid turnaround
and cost-e ective diagnosis of HIV, where these assays could potentially be read-
ily deployed. It is such technology that can potentially change the way diagnostics
are performed, as POC technology can be rapidly disseminated, enable decentralized
testing and, is user-friendly. A novel smart phone-enabled automated magnetic bead-
based platform was developed for a micro
uidic ELISA for HIV-1 detection at the
POC to meet this demand.

Public officials at the state level currently are called upon to create, evaluate, and
implement policies that assess the effectiveness of teacher performance and hold teachers
accountable for student achievement. Therefore, understanding the social construction of
the teaching profession among those public officials is crucial to understanding the
impact of the policy agenda on the work of teachers as well as being essential to
exercising influence on the policy process itself. This study was an analysis of legislation
regarding teacher accountability in an effort to provide insight into how the Florida State
Legislature socially constructs the teaching profession. This study used a qualitative
methodology to place teachers, as a group, in Schneider and Ingram’s (1993) typology of
target populations and made use of historical analysis to trace the changes that have
occurred in the social construction of teachers during the period from 1984-2015. In
doing so, it found teachers are negatively constructed with a positive power component, correspondingly labeled contenders, on Schneider and Ingram’s typology. Ultimately, the
effect of the pressures placed upon teachers has been to create projections of ongoing
teacher shortages and to discourage potential candidates from pursuing the profession.

Objects in a scene are likely to occlude other objects partially and are itself likely
to be partially occluded. A central question, therefore, is how the visual system resolves
the resulting surface correspondence problem by successfully determining which surfaces
belong to which objects. To this end, a recently developed dynamic grouping
methodology has determined whether pairs of adjacent surfaces are grouped (Hock &
Nichols, 2012). The grouping of adjacent surfaces, which depends on their affinity state,
is indicated by the direction of perceived motion across one surface when its luminance is
perturbed. In the current stimuli, which consists of a horizontal surface partially occluded
by a vertical bar, dynamic grouping also can occur for nonadjacent surfaces, providing
they are linked in two-dimensions by a connecting surface. Results indicate that the
dynamic grouping motion is stronger for amodal completion entailing the perceptual
grouping of nonadjacent surfaces behind an occluder.