Electronic Thesis or Dissertation

Sea turtle hatchlings face a variety of obstacles as they crawl down the beach to the ocean after emergence. One of these obstacles is Sargassum, a floating brown macroalgae, that washes up in large quantities on beaches from Florida to South America. This study examined the physiological response and physical performance of three species of sea turtle hatchlings (D. coriacea, C. caretta, and C. mydas) after crawling over various heights of Sargassum. In all three species, the addition of Sargassum significantly increased the amount of time it took to crawl down the pathway. There was no significant difference in righting response, blood glucose levels, or plasma corticosterone concentrations between different crawling treatments. During periods of high Sargassum accumulation, hatchlings will spend more time on the beach trying to navigate through the algae, leaving them vulnerable to predation for longer periods of time.

Within Deep CNNs there is great excitement over breakthroughs in network performance on benchmark datasets such as ImageNet. Around the world competitive teams work on new ways to innovate and modify existing networks, or create new ones that can reach higher and higher accuracy levels. We believe that this important research must be supplemented with research into the computational dynamics of the networks themselves. We present research into network behavior as it is affected by: variations in the number of filters per layer, pruning filters during and after training, collapsing the weight space of the trained network using a basic quantization, and the effect of Image Size and Input Layer Stride on training time and test accuracy. We provide insights into how the total number of updatable parameters can affect training time and accuracy, and how “time per epoch” and “number of epochs” affect network training time. We conclude with statistically significant models that allow us to predict training time as a function of total number of updatable parameters in the network.

Newark, Asbury Park, and Paterson all suffered in the second half of the 20th century due to the failure of city governments to begin to remedy decades of racism and discrimination and respond to the causes of the 1960s riots. The history of racism and discrimination in New Jersey informed the riots that occurred across the state in the 1960s and 1970s. After the riots, local governments misunderstood or ignored the driving causes and attempted urban renewal projects that either did not work or were never built. While the 21st century has seen these three cities bring in new investment and attractions, those developments may hurt lower-income and minority residents as rents rise.

Urban heat islands present a significant public health threat for cities. A confluence of warming climate and increasing urbanization should exacerbate urban heat health risks since hotter temperatures result in heat-induced morbidity and mortality. Southeast Florida, the only region in the continental United States with a tropical climate, embodies these trends with a growing regional urban population and climbing heat index. Despite this growing threat, only a few studies have explored urban heat islands there, while urban heat vulnerability has been neglected as well. Thus, assessment of the contributing factors to increasing urban temperatures as well as identifying susceptible populations to UHI effects is imperative to mitigate environmental threats posed by heat islands.
Analysis was first conducted to understand regional heat island geospatial characteristics and intensity then correlation analysis performed to understand the influence of meteorological variables. Furthermore, the influence of land use orchestration and surface characteristics (e.g., imperviousness) was analyzed using a spatial regression process. Additionally, a composite index blending dimensions of physical exposure, sensitivity (socioeconomic, health), and adaptive capacity was constructed to gauge vulnerability from hotter temperatures associated with UHIs. Principal Component Analysis weighting was used to group and weight variables then an assessment conducted evaluating composite performance compared to alternative models.

This study examined drug court participants’ lived experiences with addiction and recovery from the southern part of the U.S.. Results of the study answered the following: how do drug court participants discuss their lived experiences with each of the following key recovery concepts: accountability, unmanageability, and relapse?
Recorded focus groups explored the a priori recovery concepts. Focus groups were used for identifying themes, and how participants apply these themes to recovery. Audio files were transcribed and coded using NVivo 1.5 software for data analysis.
The findings also present emergent themes which allowed participants to articulate their lived experiences as more than a disease, but as a recovery process. Drug court programs must prioritize the curriculum to reflect on the experiences depicted to effectively aid in recovery. Lastly, conducting the same focus groups throughout the duration of the program may be beneficial to properly track progress.

In this manuscript, I present two essays which examine the role of diversity within the corporate boardroom.
The first essay determines that board compensation practices at competing firms influence the remuneration arrangements of directors. Consistent with the observational learning perspective, directors mimic the behavior of peer firms in setting their own compensation, but that diversity, in the form of gender, race/ethnicity, education, and experience moderates this relationship. Diversity also leads to better board performance measured through its impact on excess CEO compensation and CEO turnover sensitivity.
In the second essay, I document the presence of peer influence in diversity hires. As firms within an industry hire more women and minority directors, others will do the same. This type of herding behavior has both positive and negative outcomes. Firm stock and operating performance is worse in the years after a peer-driven diversity hire, yet board performance is better. I conclude that peer-driven decisions may be suboptimal, but that diversity can promote better governance in the boardroom.

In this thesis, an augmented reality device was coupled with motion sensor units to function as a system of cooperative technologies for usage within exercise science and neurorehabilitation. Specifically, in a subfield of exercise science called biomechanics, the assessment and analysis of movements are critical to the evaluation and prescription of improvements for physical function in both daily and sport-specific activities. Furthermore, the systematic combination of these technologies provided potential end-users with a modality to perform exercise within, and correlated feedback based upon the end-user’s exercise performance. Data collection specific to biomechanics can provide both the end-user and their evaluators with critical feedback that can be used to modify movement efficiency, improve exercise capacity, and evaluate exercise performance. By coordinating both technologies and completing movement-based experiments, the systems were successfully integrated.

The intangible nature of the border leads to a wide array of implications for Latinx migrants. By dissociating borders from the literal space that commonly defines the word, borders can be put into conversation along with the institution of the university. By situating this paper in the larger scholarly discussion of the border and university critique it is possible to see how these intersections result in violent realities for Latinx migrants. Roberto Bolaño’s novel, 2666 provides a means to map out the violent realities that universities manifest for Latinx migrants. The feminicide pandemic in the fictional town of Santa Teresa mirrors the very real violence that happens toward Latinx among these border cultures. In the shadow of the university, violence against Latinx prospers to unknowable heights and a question emerges. Is it possible to determine the extent of damage the university causes Latinx migrants? The answer is unthinkable, but this paper is a means not to answer this difficult question in complete but to begin assessing the damage.

This research consists of the numerical model development and simulation of two prototype Wave Energy Convertor designs (WECs) across three simulation types. The first design is an oscillating body WEC called the Platypus designed to capture wave energy as three paddle arms actuate over the surface of the waves. The second design is an overtopping type WEC called the ROOWaC which captures and drains entrained water to generate power. Modeling of these systems was conducted using two techniques: the Morison load approach implemented using hydrodynamic response coefficients used to model the Platypus and a boundary element method (BEM) frequency-domain approach to model both WEC designs in the time domain. The BEM models included the development of hydrodynamic response coefficients using a discretized panel mesh of the system for calculation of added mass, excitation, and radiation forces. These three model families provided both performance predictions and power output information to WEC developers that supply important data for future full-scale designs. These models were used to predict power generation estimates for both WECs as follows: the Platypus WEC was predicted to have a maximum efficiency range between 14.5-35% and the ROOWaC WEC was predicted to generate a maximum peak average power of 19 W upon preliminary results.

Steven Erikson’s Gardens of the Moon (1999) is a well-received novel grounded in the Secondary World traditions of both epic and grimdark fantasy, that may – upon a first read – appear like any other fantasy novel set in its own world – featuring humans and nonhuman characters, giants and dragons, swords and sorcery, floating castles and continent-spanning empires. The use of these fantasy elements creates a wonderfully immersive first novel for the wonderfully evocative Malazan Book of the Fallen series, but the series accomplishes more than that; Erikson’s novel is set in a Secondary World that is distinct from the other grimdark and epic fantasy settings that came before it in that the Malazan world is a setting in which patriarchal norms and misogyny have never existed. Furthermore, Erikson’s text, as both epic fantasy and participating in grimdark fantasy tropes, acts to distance these subgenres from the critiques sometimes leveled at earlier such works. Where pre-Erikson (and still some post-Erikson) epic fantasy has been critiqued as misogynistic and entrenched in notions of patriarchal hierarchies – and pre-Erikson (and still much post-Erikson) grimdark fantasy has been critiqued for subjecting the female characters therein to excessive violence, often sexual in nature, and wallowing in graphic depictions of said violence -- Erikson reverses course and reintroduces women into epic fantasy as human beings rather than objects of male domination. This reintroduction allows for notions of class conflict to permeate the text.