Electronic Thesis or Dissertation

Theft and fraud within family firms can have a significant impact on local, national, and international economies, given that most businesses operating throughout the world are family firms. According to familybusiness.com, 62% of the US workforce is employed by family businesses. Yet, we do not know much about how family firms respond to theft and fraud committed within their firms or the factors that influence their responses. The goal of this dissertation is to better understand a family firm owner’s decision to report theft and fraud committed by family and non-family employees, and whether kinship strength and race/ethnicity have any discernable effects on these reporting intentions. To achieve that goal, this study integrates insights from family firm, sociology, and psychology literatures. It presents a conceptual model and three sets of hypotheses that were tested in this empirical study. The results extend previous literature by providing support that kinship not only influences family employee theft intentions, but family owner reporting intentions as well. In addition, egalitarianism, or race avoidance, was shown to interact with kinship to influence owner reporting intentions.

This thesis employs graphic design to envision the present and future scenario of humanity adapting to artificial intelligence and the current state of continuous data harvesting by organizations and platforms that lack transparency with the public. Explored topics include the impact of AI on families and the importance of gaining awareness regarding the potential negative and positive consequences of uncontrolled data collection about individuals. These themes converge in my exhibition to depict the current and potentially future reality of living in a family with the constant presence of AI and the associated dangers it entails.
The concept of data harvesting, depicted through artists books and web design, serves as a visual commentary on the current situation within families, seen as microcosms of the broader community and humanity as a whole. This situation highlights the notion that we are already residing in the Brave New World envisioned by Aldous Huxley.
AI possesses the capacity to profoundly influence all artistic genres, including artists books, introducing an additional dimension to their expression. From generating storytelling and art to facilitating collaborations between artists and artificial intelligence, the applications of AI are boundless. Utilizing Chat GPT and Adobe Firefly, I aim to create one of my artists books primarily generated by AI. This endeavor seeks to redefine a family portrait, illustrating the integration of artificial intelligence into the lives of families and humanity overall. By focusing on the family portrait genre within artists books and incorporating the latest family member, AI, I intend to prompt social awareness, fostering a deeper understanding of contemporary reality and inviting a dialogue.

Blood Drive and Other Stories is a collection of fictional works. It includes stories that take place in South Florida or are inspired by the landscape of it. The themes within each vary from the limits one is willing to go to enact small-town justice, the need to conserve consciousness, adapting to age, living with medication, and the desire to burn everything down.

Background Structure Functions (BSFs) are wavefront distortion metrics, functions of Sound Speed Profiles (SSPs) that are functions of depth. Use of these BSFs is a synthesis form of Matched Field Processing (MFP) that detects signals that are otherwise lost to receivers. Underwater Acoustics (UWA) can use these models to forecast communication and imaging performance and to reduce power radiated into the sea. This reduction of Transmission Loss (TL) occurs because the commercial wavefront control has an input format that accepts BSFs. The BSF plots represent the purely statistical distortion for communications and remote sensing. Another source of TL reduction comes from the enclosed BSF-based phase and phase variance forecasting that protects equalizers from losing phase-lock. Protecting the equalizers protects the Signal To Noise (SNR) ratios. This dissertation derives the UWA version of these metrics and applies them to the following locations of our SSPs: The BSFs use measured, corrected, and verified SSP groups for 132 different locations in the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico from a Navy Ocean Atlas, as well as 64 SSPs in two areas in the littorals, Port Everglades, and Saint Andrew Bay, plus tidal variations. Since BSFs digitize the propagation into one or more segments, our purely statistical phase screen model uses only 3 or 4 degrees of freedom (DOFs) per segment compared to many dozen DOFs for conventional structure functions. The BSFs forecast communications and imaging performance, including range, in locations where acoustic measurements are not available, but SSPs are. A separate algorithm forecasts Gouy phase anomalies from background SSPs, which otherwise requires a priori knowledge of anomaly location and use of Catastrophe theory due to ray theory failure at focuses. Avoiding these anomalies and loss of Phase-Locked Loops (PLLs) also helps maintain SNR and lowers transmission power requirements. Combining with phase parameters and performance forecasts improves UWA propagation efficiency using the background (SSPs). In a spatial version of delay equalization, BSF analysis also produces the enclosed Shear Distortion Ratios (SDRs) for the same locations mentioned above, to allow optimum selection of image enhancement algorithms that mitigate image shear distortion.

Significant efforts are being made to understand and treat cancer, though methods are costly, invasive, and detrimental to healthy surrounding tissues. Techniques in optical imaging assess cancer cells’ state in response to treatments. The purpose of this study is to employ non-ionizing radiation as a potential safer therapeutic option and use timelapse fluorescence microscopy to monitor and quantify treatments to lung cancer cells. This thesis (1) measures and visualizes effects of a combinatory repurposed drug treatment through monitoring cellular metabolic state with time-lapse fluorescence microscopy and (2) develops a non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation system as a possible therapy modality. Results obtained demonstrate the effectiveness of a combinatory drug treatment and promising capability of non-ionizing radiation treatment, determined by an increase in fluorescence intensity correlated with metabolic state. In the future, different irradiation doses and drug combinations will be used for additional cancer cell lines, such as prostate and breast cancer.

Euclidean lattices have attracted considerable research interest as they can be used to construct efficient cryptographic schemes that are believed to be quantum-resistant. The NTRU problem, introduced by J. Hoffstein, J. Pipher, and J. H. Silverman in 1996 [16], serves as an important average-case computational problem in lattice-based cryptography. Following their pioneer work, the NTRU assumption and its variants have been used widely in modern cryptographic constructions such as encryption, signature, etc.
Let Rq = Zq[x]/ (xn + 1) be a quotient polynomial ring. The standard NTRU problem asks to recover short polynomials f, g E Rq such that h - g/ f (mod q), given a public key h and the promise that such elements exist. In practice, the degree n is often a power of two. As a generalization of NTRU, the Module-NTRU problems were introduced by Cheon, Kim, Kim, and Son (IACR ePrint 2019/1468), and Chuengsatiansup, Prest, Stehle, Wallet, and Xagawa (ASIACCS '20).
In this thesis, we presented two post-quantum Digital Signature Schemes based on the Module-NTRU problem and its variants.

Endometriosis is an inflammatory metastatic disease that affects the endometrium of one in ten women. Endometrial tissue grows outside the uterus causing severe discomfort and pain. This disease is estrogen dependent, driving the invasion and migration of endometrial lesions to form the ectopic uterus. Due to the hormonal imbalance of increased estrogen, there is progesterone resistance leading to a decrease in progesterone receptors. This study determined if the combination of Melatonin, a naturally occurring hormone, and Calcitriol, the active form of vitamin D, had a synergistic or additive effect on the growth and migration of endometrial cells. The experiments utilized the immortalized endometriotic epithelial (12 Z) cell lines to conduct cell viability, wound closure, and clonogenic growth and growth curves. Results revealed that a combination of Melatonin and Calcitriol had an additive effect in reducing cell viability, inhibiting migration, and decreasing proliferation.

The purpose of this study was to assess the levels of posttraumatic growth (PTG) and ease and examine the relationship between PTG and ease among the Bahamian population who experienced a trauma cluster. A descriptive, cross-sectional, quantitative design was conducted on the island of Grand Bahama, Bahamas, nearly 4 years after the trauma cluster of Hurricane Dorian and the Coronavirus disease pandemic. A convenience sampling method was adopted, and 208 adult survivors of the trauma cluster completed the survey. The 21-item Post-traumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI) scale and Ease Measure were used in the assessment of PTG and ease, respectively.
The mean total score for the PTGI was 73.68 (SD = 21.38), and the percentage of individuals with moderate-to-high PTGI scores was 77.4%. A general linear model repeated measures test (within-subjects factor) was used to compare the average total mean scores (range 0–5) of each of the five PTG subdomains. Results revealed there was a significant difference between each of the five subdomains [F(1, 207) = 180.37, p < .001] except for the difference between “appreciation of life” (M = 3.97, SD = 1.11) and “spiritual changes” (M = 3.94, SD =1.32) which had the highest average mean scores followed by “personal strength” (M= 3.73, SD = 1.10) “new possibilities” (M = 3.26, SD = 1.20) and “relating to others” (M = 3.19, SD =1.15). The mean score for ease was 59.72 (SD = 9.25). A Pearson’s correlation revealed there was a significant but weak, positive correlation between the PTGI-total and ease r(206) = .266, p < .001. Further investigation into the relationship between PTG and ease revealed there were no significant findings for PTG according to different sociodemographic characteristics or trauma cluster outcomes. However, there were significant findings for ease according to different age groups and multiple trauma cluster outcomes. Further research is needed to continue to uncover the conditions and approaches that give rise to PTG and ease. The knowledge gained can be used to create interventions to promote positive responses that lead to improved well-being, life satisfaction, and the ability to thrive after these disastrous events.

This study integrates visual art with a public speaking assignment to explore participants’ experiences and perceptions of engagement in the Teacher-Researcher’s course at Lynn University. Using an action research design and with informed consent, seven students volunteered as participants. This study investigates these seven participants’ experiences and perceptions of emotional engagement with the visual art integration implementation, consisting of instruction, activities, and assignments. Participants’ prior academic experiences and perceptions of art and public speaking frames the analysis of their perceptions and experiences of emotional engagement with this art integration implementation. Emotional engagement is operationalized as participants’ experiences and perceptions of art, public speaking, immersion, artistic mindset, and benefits. The Teacher- Researcher analyzes participants’ art making processes and products for experiences and perceptions of emotional engagement. The art integrated implementation involved participants learning about art and belief systems (religion and philosophy) and public speaking through art. Participants created visual art, which served as a focal point of a presentation they delivered. The Teacher-Researcher is interested in learning about emotional engagement with the art integrated presentation assignment to refine future research and practice.

This thesis explores interactions between the native Florida plant Coccoloba uvifera (sea grape) and the gall-inducing midge Ctenodactylomyia watsoni. Galls are tumor-like structure that form on the surface of the leaf. Galled leaves are common on sea grape foliage, with the oviposition of C. watsoni potentially contributing to or being associated with early leaf senescence. Despite its significance, the life cycle of this galling midge remains a largely unexplored topic in the literature. This research also investigates the potential oviposition and gall formation on another Florida coastal plant, Coccoloba diversifolia, commonly known as pigeon plum. Given the taxonomic proximity and potential for hybridization of the two plant congeners, it was suspected that pigeon plum may serve as a potential host for C. watsoni. This thesis aimed to expand understanding of the life cycle and population dynamics of C. watsoni. The study was successful in providing insight into the population composition, periodicity, and trait differentiation between both its host plants of the galling midge C. watsoni.