This research is undertaken to improve innovation prediction. Similarities and differences between physical goods innovation and service innovation are highlighted in order to discover more universal predictors of innovation than those currently available. To do so, this dissertation focuses on the overarching importance of knowledge to any form of innovation. As a result, predictors are employed that emphasize knowledge generation and acquisition. Specifically, internal drivers of innovation based on investments in human capital (i.e. employees) are investigated along with investments in external strategic partnerships vis-à-vis positions of firms in strategic networks. The effectiveness of these predictors is compared to traditional predictors such as research and development and marketing expenditures across three essays and 53 industries. In the first essay, investments in human capital are identified as superior predictors of innovation as compared to research and development and marketing expenditures. In the second essay, position in a network of strategic partners (i.e. centrality, constraint, and range) is assessed as an external predictor of innovation. The results of the second essay suggest that having many strategic partners (being central) and controlling the flow of knowledge among those partners (being unconstrained) are positively related to innovation. Finally, in the third essay, internal and external predictors are combined with the characteristics of strategic partners in a network analysis. The results support the findings of the first two essays and further suggest that firms should consider the resources of both their direct and indirect strategic partners when attempting to innovate. Taken together, the results of the three essays highlight the value of more universal predictors of innovation and suggest that managers and researchers focus on the basics of knowledge creation and acquisition when pursuing innovation. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Marketing in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2009. / April 10, 2009. / Strategic Partnerships, Knowledge, Innovation, Networks / Includes bibliographical references. / J. Joseph Cronin, Jr., Professor Directing Dissertation; William A. Christiansen, Outside Committee Member; Michael J. Brusco, Committee Member; Jeffery S. Smith, Committee Member.

Elfriede Jelinek's play Wolken.Heim. explores German identity. Through her use of the "montage" technique she arranges quotes from German thinkers—among others, Hölderlin, Hegel, Fichte, Kleist, Heidegger, and the "Rote Armee Faktion" ("RAF")—in such a way that one can see commonalities, contradictions and interesting points made by these authors about German identity as it progresses through eighteenth-, nineteenth- and twentieth-century German thought. Jelinek's selection, placement and slight alterations of the quotes speak to the type of theatre that she desires—a world in which the actor's physical presence and the import of the lines that he speaks meld into a unified whole. In the case of Wolken.Heim., as both text and play, this unification is only possible through the imagination of the reader and audience member. The following paper explores her theory of unifying one's body with language, and the various ways in which the theory manifests itself in her writing of Wolken.Heim. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Fall Semester, 2006. / November 6, 2006. / Austrian Theater, Elfriede Jelinek, Wolken.Heim / Includes bibliographical references. / Winnifred Adolph, Professor Directing Thesis; Birgit Maier-Katkin, Committee Member; John Simons, Committee Member.

William Grant Still (1895-1978), Florence B. Price (1888-1953), and William Levi Dawson (1899-1990) were all black composers writing in a time of rebirth in the black literary arts called "The Harlem Renaissance" or "The Black Renaissance." Black artists of all mediums—writers, poets, painters, and musicians—were encouraged by black leaders to draw upon their own African cultural heritage and events of recent black history, including lynchings, riots, segregation, and discrimination, for inspiration in their own respective artistic media. Young African-American composers were also influenced, ironically, by the Czech composer Antonín Dvorák (1841-1904), who recognized and promoted the wealth of American material found in the melodies and harmonies of the blues, spirituals, and jazz for use in concert music. Though their conservatory training focused primarily on traditional Western music compositional techniques, Still, Price, and Dawson are recognized for incorporating these "black" musical styles into their classical compositions. Many scholars, such as Rae Linda Brown, Eileen Southern, Samuel Floyd, and Teresa Shelton [Reed] have analyzed works by these composers. While their analyses addressed traditional Western aspects of these works, they do not account for the bifurcated roots of the musical style of these three composers. This study will fuse four analytical techniques: a semiotic analysis based on the literary theory of Henry Louis Gates in his book The Signifyin(g) Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism, traditional formal analysis, linear reductions and voice-leading graphs, as well as an identification of musical traits associated with African or black music. In so doing, I hope to provide a clearer understanding of the black musical narrative in Sill's Afro-American Symphony, Price's E minor Symphony, and Dawson's Negro Folk Symphony, to shed light on the critical role they played in the development of a unique American style. / A Dissertation submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2007. / March 27, 2007. / Blues, Semiotics, Signifying, African American Music, William Levi Dawson, William Grant Still, Florence Price, Jazz, Spirituals, Topics, Tropes / Includes bibliographical references. / Jane Piper Clendinning, Professor Directing Dissertation; Maxine D. Jones, Outside Committee Member; Michael Buchler, Committee Member; Matthew R. Shaftel, Committee Member.

Effects of acute bouts of continuous versus accumulated exercise of isocaloric energy expenditure on blood lipids, lipoproteins and related enzyme activities. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine if exercise, whether continuous (CE: completed all in one session) or intermittent (completed in either two (IE 2) or three (IE 3) exercise sessions) expending the same number of calories produced similar changes in the lipid/lipoprotein profile as well as transport enzymes. Methods: Sixteen healthy (22±2.1 year old) men (VO2 max = 37.0±3.3 mL∙kg∙min-1) randomly completed three exercise trials, CE, IE 2 and IE 3, expending 450 calories. Baseline data were collected in the evening and included anthropometric measurements, diet records and venous blood samples. The CE trial was done during one continuous time period and the intermittent trials were separated by 4-5 hrs all over the course of one day between the hours of 7 am and 9 pm. In addition to baseline blood samples were drawn immediately post exercise (IPE) and 24 and 48 hours following exercise. Each exercise trial sample was analyzed for total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides (TG), low density lipoprotein (LDL-C), high density lipoprotein (HDL-C) and subfractions (HDL-C2, HDL-C3). Samples were also analyzed to determine LDL-C particle size, lecithin cholesterol acyl transferase activity (LCATa) and cholesterol ester transfer protein activity (CETPa). Results: While no significant alterations in HDL-C and LDL-C were observed HDL-C2 was shown to increase compared to baseline by 44% for CE 48 hours post exercise, 44% for IE 2 48 hours post exercise, 39% for IE 3 IPE and continued to rise for IE 3 48 hours post exercise by 66%. Furthermore, LCATa was significantly increased compared to baseline by 12% for CE 48 hours post exercise and 12% IE 3 48 hours post exercise. Furthermore, there was a 10% increase when comparing CE IPE to CE 48 hours post exercise, a 3% increase between IE 2 24 hours post exercise and IE 2 48 hours post exercise, a 2% increase between IE 3 IPE and IE 3 24 hours post exercise and an 11% increase when comparing IE 3 24 hours post exercise and IE 3 48 hours post exercise. No other significant differences were found. Conclusions: The results of this study indicate that whether the exercise is continuous or intermittent, keeping calorie expenditure the same, causes significant changes in the HDL-C2 subfraction, which was augmented by an increase in LCATa. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Nutrition, Food and Exercise Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2007. / February 26, 2007. / Lipoproteins, Lipids, Acute Exercise, Lipid Enzymes / Includes bibliographical references. / Robert J. Moffatt, Professor Directing Dissertation; David M. Quadagno, Outside Committee Member; Lynn B. Panton, Committee Member; Robert Brooks, Committee Member.

Adolescent smoking and tobacco use has been linked to a variety of adverse and long-term health consequences, and thus represents a behavior that is an important target of a large number of past and current health communications campaigns bent on inhibiting its growth. "Susceptibility" is an important predictor of adolescent smoking behavior. Until now, most studies pertaining to "susceptibility" to smoking have treated the construct as a dichotomous measure, one classifying adolescents as either "Susceptible" or "Not Susceptible." This study proposes an adolescent susceptibility to smoking hierarchy in which the construct is divided into distinct degrees of susceptibility: adolescents low on the hierarchy may be expected to be less susceptible than those higher on the hierarchy and those who have Never Smoked may be expected to be less susceptible than those who are Former Smokers. It is initially proposed here that variables commonly used to predict susceptibility will be systematically related to a hierarchical measure of susceptibility. It is also proposed that multivariate models and the relationships between the predictor variables and susceptibility to smoking will be stronger when using the hierarchical measure of susceptibility than the traditional construct. Six commonly used predictor variables of susceptibility (age, household member smoking, best friends' smoking, exposure to pro-tobacco media messages, and receptivity to pro-tobacco promotional items) were used to examine how relationships between these variables and the traditional and hierarchical models changed. Results suggested that household smoking, best friends' smoking, exposure to pro-tobacco media messages, receptivity to owning pro-tobacco promotional items, and receptivity to wearing pro-tobacco promotional items were all positively related to the hierarchical level of adolescent susceptibility to smoking. Furthermore, multinomial regression procedures revealed that the multivariate model of the hierarchy of susceptibility featured stronger relationships with certain of these predictor variables among adolescents who were susceptible than did the traditional, 2-level susceptibility construct, as evidenced by both overall model fitting information as well as multivariate odds ratios and their confidence intervals. Finally, it was discovered that the percentage of adolescents at either of the four level hierarchical of susceptibility (No, Low, Intermediate, and High) decreased from 2000 to 2002 and from 2002 to 2004 and the percentage of adolescents who were Not Susceptible increased significantly during this time. These findings differed from those obtained when the traditional construct was examined over this time period. The above findings show that specific risk variables of susceptibility are systematically related to an adolescent's degree or level of susceptibility and are more strongly related to a hierarchy of susceptibility than they are to the traditional and widely used dichotomous susceptibility construct. These findings are important to health communicators and social marketers. They show that a hierarchy of susceptibility can be predicted by common predictor variables, allowing for the segmentation of adolescents into various audience groups based on their degree of susceptibility. Such segmentation should allow for the more efficient targeting of adolescents for anti-tobacco media messaging and should allow more persuasive messages to be directed at those adolescents most in need (or most susceptible to smoking behavior). / A Dissertation submitted to the College of Communication in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2007. / June 13, 2007. / Tobacco, Adolescent Tobacco Use, Adolescent Susceptibility To Tobacco, Health Communication / Includes bibliographical references. / Gary R. Heald, Professor Directing Dissertation; J. Joseph Cronin, Jr., Outside Committee Member; Vicki B. Eveland, Committee Member; Felipe Korzenny, Committee Member.

Esta investigación examina la representación temática de la esclavitud en Puerto Rico antes de la abolición en 1873. El estudio argumenta, que contrario a la crítica, existen textos que documentan el pensamiento decimonónico sobre la esclavitud y la sociedad puertorriqueña colonial por lo cual forma parte de la literatura sobre la esclavitud de Puerto Rico. El enfoque es el punto de articulación entre el subalterno y el poder hegemónico que se observa por medio de las estructuras de poder tales como el sistema de esclavitud, el colonialismo y el patriarcado, mecanismos que silenciaron al sujeto negro. Los estudios históricos muestran que el régimen esclavista en Puerto Rico se conformaba a los modelos universales de la esclavitud. Usando un marco teórico poscolonial esta dinámica se puede analizar en varios textos decimonónicos como: el poema "Día vendrá" (1863) de Salvador Brau, el texto dramático La juega de gallo o El negro bozal (1852) de Ramón C.F. Caballero, "Diálogos Grotescos" de Benito Vilardell que aparecieron en el periódico El Ponceño (1852-1853) y la obra teatral La cuarterona (1867) de Alejandro Tapia y Rivera. Mediante estos textos se observa la compleja relación entre los conflictos en la cultura y la sociedad puertorriqueña durante el siglo XIX. Estos revelan las distintas corrientes ideológicas del periodo sobre el proyecto colonial que suscitan con la institución esclavista tales como: la condición del esclavo, la resistencia, la posición social de la mujer, el prejuicio racial, la falta de justicia hacia el esclavo, los conflictos entre las distintas castas y la decadencia moral de la sociedad puertorriqueña. La literatura decimonónica de Puerto Rico manifestó el tema de la esclavitud, y, a través de ella, se puede analizar la causa de la omisión o silencio del sujeto negro en la producción cultural de esa época. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2005. / June 7, 2005. / Puerto Rico, El Negro, Esclavitud, Siglo XIX / Includes bibliographical references. / José Gomáriz, Professor Directing Dissertation; Matt Childs, Outside Committee Member; Roberto G. Fernández, Committee Member; Delia Poey, Committee Member.

Music regularly accompanies dance performances, but the relationship of sound and movement has been under-investigated in academic circles. This neglect may be a reflection of the opinion that music created for dance is not serious. The lack of communication between music and dance scholars may also be a contributing factor. Neither side speaks the other's language. This thesis seeks to address that situation by considering two works by Vivian Fine, The Race of Life (1937) and Alcestis (1960). These pieces were composed for modern dance choreographers Doris Humphrey and Martha Graham respectively and represent two different approaches to creating American modern dance. For The Race of Life Fine composed for an existing dance text, while for Alcestis, she provided music to which the dance would be set. The influence of the order of composition and choreography in inspiring these very different scores is impossible to determine without clear documentation from Fine, which does not exist. Nevertheless, the two scores provide the opportunity to evaluate her musical thinking and values as they relate to dance in works separated by more than twenty years. / A Thesis submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Music. / Spring Semester, 2013. / March 25, 2013. / Alcestis, Doris Humphrey, Martha Graham, Race of Life, Vivian Fine / Includes bibliographical references. / Denise Von Glahn, Professor Directing Thesis; Michael Broyles, Committee Member; Tricia Young, Committee Member.

This study explored secondary English Language Arts teachers' experiences using digital technologies in their classrooms, as presented in two key journals in the English Education field: the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy (JAAL), sponsored by the International Reading Association, and English Journal, sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English. Specifically, this study examined and analyzed the published narratives of teachers who had written about their experiences integrating digital technologies into their curriculum. These teachers were defined as the "early adopters" of digital technology use in the secondary English Education discipline in that they played an integral role in the diffusion of innovative teaching practices regarding classroom digital technology use through the writing and publishing of their experiences in the field's major journals. This study utilized a textual analysis of the articles published in the two key journals from 2008-2012, a time period selected due to NCTE's formal position on 21st century literacies published in 2008. One issue per journal per year was randomly selected for analysis, as well as any special editions focused on secondary ELA teachers' experiences with digital technology use in the classroom. All articles were coded using an open coding scheme to allow themes to emerge from the data. Next, an inter-coder agreement session consisting of four outside coders was conducted to ensure the researcher's developed coding scheme accurately reflected the data. Furthermore, grounded theory was used to construct a theory of how narratives of teachers' experiences with technology contribute to the diffusion of technological innovations in the 21st century classroom. Four themes emerged from the data in this study: Power Dynamics, Interconnectedness, Shifting Perspectives, and Challenges. These themes illustrated the purposes as well as challenges for secondary ELA teachers' integration of digital technologies into their classrooms. Combined, these themes depicted the current trends regarding secondary ELA teachers' digital technology integration efforts in their classrooms. / A Dissertation submitted to the School of Teacher Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2013. / February 25, 2013. / diffusion of innovations, English Language Arts, secondary education, teacher education, technology / Includes bibliographical references. / Shelbie Witte, Professor Directing Dissertation; Melissa Gross, University Representative; Lawrence Scharmann, Committee Member; Kathy Froelich, Committee Member; Pamela Sissi Carroll, Committee Member; Don Latham, Committee Member.

The Florida Big Bend region in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico contains both spawning sites and nursery habitats for a variety of economically valuable marine species. One species, the gag grouper (Mycteroperca microlepis), relies on the shelf circulation to distribute larvae from shelf-break spawning grounds to coastal seagrass nurseries each spring. Therefore, identifying the dominant circulation features and physical mechanisms that contribute to cross-shore transport during the springtime may provide valuable insight into the variation of the abundance of this reef fish. The physical mechanisms by which cross-shelf movement is possible, and the pathways by which materials may be transported onshore are examined. More specifically, variable wind stress and the conservation of potential vorticity are investigated for their role in setting the net across-shelf transport, using a very high horizontal resolution (800—900 m) numerical ocean model. The simulations demonstrate that the mean springtime shelf circulation is set by the rectification of flow during northwesterly or southeasterly directed wind stress, and significant cross-shelf flow may be generated during winds from the northwest. The springtime flow is mostly barotropic and tends to conserve potential vorticity over time scales shorter than about 12 hrs. For longer time scales, the nonconservation of potential vorticity enables movement of particles inshore. Particle advection experiments demonstrate that a primary pathway exists south of St. George Island by which particles are able to reach the nearshore environment, and that preferred release locations for particles to successfully arrive inshore coincide with known gag spawning aggregation sites. The results provide, for the first time, a description of the mechanisms by which onshore transport is possible from gag spawning sites at the shelf break to seagrass nurseries at the coast. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2013. / February 1, 2013. / Coastal physical oceanography, gag grouper, larval transport, Numerical modeling / Includes bibliographical references. / Eric Chassignet, Professor Directing Dissertation; Mark Bourassa, University Representative; Allan Clarke, Committee Member; Felicia Coleman, Committee Member; William Dewar, Committee Member; Markus Heuttel, Committee Member; Steven Morey, Committee Member.

The brain is one of nature's greatest mysteries. The mechanism by which the folds of the brain's cerebral cortex, called gyri (hills) and sulci (valleys), are formed remains unknown. Existing biological hypotheses that attempt to explain the underlying mechanism of cortical folding conflict. Some hypotheses, such as the Intermediate Progenitor Model, emphasize genetic chemical factor control. Others, such as the Axonal Tension Hypothesis, emphasize the influence of physical tension due to axonal connections. To bring mathematics into this debate, this dissertation presents two biomathematical models of cortical folding that utilize a Turing reaction-diffusion system on an exponentially or logistically growing prolate spheroidal domain. These models are used to investigate the validity of the Intermediate Progenitor Model, thereby investigating the role of genetic chemical factor control of the development of cortical folding patterns. We observe that the presence of domain growth drives the patterns generated by our growing prolate spheroidal Turing systems to become transient. An exponentially growing prolate spheroidal domain generates a pattern that continually evolves, while a logistically growing prolate spheroidal domain generates a pattern that evolves while the domain is growing but then converges to a final pattern once the domain growth asymptotically stops. Patterns generated by the model systems represent genetic chemical prepatterns for self-amplification of intermediate progenitor cells, which may be correlated to cortical folding patterns according to the Intermediate Progenitor Model. By altering system parameters, we are able to model diseases of cortical folding such as polymicrogyria where the cortex possesses too many folds as well as diseases where the cortex has too few cortical folds such as Norman-Roberts Syndrome (microcephalic lissencephaly) and normocephalic lissencephaly. Our ability to model such a variety of diseases lends support to the role of genetic control of cortical folding pattern development and therefore to the Intermediate Progenitor Model. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Mathematics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2013. / March 18, 2013. / cortical folding, growing domain, pattern formation, reaction-diffusion system, Turing system / Includes bibliographical references. / Monica K. Hurdal, Professor Directing Dissertation; Oliver Steinbock, University Representative; Richard Bertram, Committee Member; Nick Cogan, Committee Member; Brian Ewald, Committee Member.