The purpose of the present study was to determine the effect of two music interventions on preschool at-risk children's story comprehension. Participants were children (N=20; n =8 boys, n=12 girls) ages 4-5 years old, enrolled in a pre-kindergarten class at an early intervention center for at-risk children. Each participant was read six stories (approximately two minutes each) under three conditions. Participants heard two stories per condition. The control condition was teacher reading the story without music (SNM). The experimental music conditions were teacher reading the story with sung text (SST), and teacher reading the story incorporating instrumental play (SIP). After each story, the children were asked a series of questions about the story. Data were taken and analyzed on the number of correct responses per condition, per story, and by gender. Results revealed no significance difference in the number of correct responses under the three conditions. Participants overall scored highest under the control (SNM) and instrument play (SIP) conditions, and female participants outperformed male participants for all six stories. The condition of sung text (SST) produced the lowest comprehension scores. Most participants attempted to sing along with the teacher as she sang the lyrics. As result, they were inattentive to the lyrics and unable to respond to the questions. These findings suggest that instrument play may serve as a better music strategy for maintaining children's attention during story time. Additional implications for practice and future research are discussed. / A Thesis submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Music. / Fall Semester, 2013. / September 9, 2013. / At-Risk, Preschool / Includes bibliographical references. / Alice-Ann Darrow, Professor Directing Thesis; Dianne Gregory, Committee Member; Jayne M. Standley, Committee Member.

This phenomenological study identifies key morphological properties of spatial configurations in two contemporary educational buildings--the William Johnston Building at Florida State University (Tallahassee, Florida) and the Mandel Center for the Humanities at Brandeis University (Waltham, Massachusetts)--and analyzes, through the combined use of Space Syntax and ethnographic research methods, how spatial structure and its permeability, and visibility properties affect educational and learning activities, social interactions, and ultimately shape users' [learning] experiences. At present, these buildings are representative of the prevailing academic and educational paradigms, which include: interdisciplinarity; decreasing importance of hierarchies between academic disciplines and academic activities; a de-emphasis on hierarchical divisions between faculty and students; and an increased role of hybrid social/learning environments for student and faculty use. In keeping with these trends, the design of the two buildings reflects a shift towards accessorizing the traditional classroom and office components of educational buildings with physically and functionally flexible spaces with under-defined programmatic designations. Although these two buildings share some significant syntactic qualities--voluminous atria, overall linearity, and high levels of visual accessibility in the most public spaces--the structures differ to an extent sufficient to draw conclusions about the import of a range of spatial characteristics on learner responses. The quantitative analysis of the spatial properties of the two buildings combined with the consideration of observational and user interview data collected at each facility yielded a number of significant findings, including: (1) that spatial morphology strongly influences the types of programmed or un-programmed educational, social or scholarly activities taking place; (2) that space users' activities and learning experiences are framed and directed by properties of permeability and visibility within educational buildings' spatial configuration; (3) that visibility effects space users on three essential levels--spatial awareness, navigation, and in decision-making about appropriate uses of spaces; (4) that highly visible structural elements (atria) play a major role in shaping visibility relations, while having little effect on permeability; (5) that the more morphologically divided and dispersed spaces are, or less permeable and less visually accessible they are, the greater chance that the space users will also be divided into smaller groups; (6) that the level of face-to-face interaction among space users is heavily determined by spatial factors, programmatic and functional factors, and extracurricular event programming; and (7) the separation of functional zones (i.e. spaces in which intended activities and uses are well defined) creates conditions for greater flexibility within those zones. These formal findings combine to substantiate a number of observations about the influence of spatial characteristics on educational experience, central of which are: (1) the premise that spaces that invite and support unintentional individual and social experiences in learners facilitate the formation of 'transitional environments' wherein the learner may unintentionally and involuntarily transition into a learning state; and (2) that a building's spatial configuration, including visibility and permeability characteristics, can play an important role in supporting and forming social communities within that building, thus realizing the idea that educational environments may be open-ended and encouraging to social interactions, or may inhibit the formation of communities. In sum, through the merging of computational spatial analysis data with the personal perceptions, assessments, feelings and experiences of study participants, this investigation explores the potential for introducing the qualitative data of the learner and the learner's social milieu into alignment with the quantitative data achieved through space syntax analysis, and thereby provides a new methodological resource with which to consider the design of educational architecture. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Art Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2013. / October 31, 2013. / Academic, Architecture, Experiences, Learning, Relationality, Space Syntax / Includes bibliographical references. / Aniina Suominen-Guyas, Professor Directing Dissertation; Lisa Waxman, University Representative; David Gussak, Committee Member; Tom Anderson, Committee Member.

There comes a time in 1963/4 when many in the New Left/SDS start to perceive that the movement is high on analysis and low on action. They have ample idealism, but it's never acted upon. Harnessing this desire to act tangibly, SDS splits into two distinctive and opposing factions, the Political Education Project (PEP) and the Economic Research and Action Project (ERAP). PEP recognizes the threat posed by Barry Goldwater's nomination as the Republican Party's presidential candidate in 1964 as the beginning of a shift in American culture and politics that could seriously inhibit "leftward" politics. PEP leaders (Steve Max and Jim Williams) try to mobilize support for the Democratic Party, much to the chagrin of the rest of SDS, who view these acts as adhering to the "old way" of fostering change. Instead, SDS focuses on ERAP, a multi-city organization that aims to bring about an interracial movement of the poor through community organizing. This study argues that historians have too often focused on the community organizing faction of SDS in an effort to continue a narrative that leads the most active part of the organization, the Vietnam War protests in the later 1960s. In doing so, they have incorrectly ignored that the actual tenets of the New Left were carried on by PEP. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Fall Semester, 2013. / November 12, 2013. / 1960s, New Left, Political Education Project, Sixties, Students for a Democratic Society / Includes bibliographical references. / Neil Jumonville, Professor Directing Thesis; James P. Jones, Jr., Committee Member; Kristine C. Harper, Committee Member.

This dissertation work is aimed at improving the capability and confidence in a modernized and improved version of Los Alamos National Laboratory's coupled atmospheric and wild- land fire dynamics model, Higrad-Firetec. Higrad is the hydrodynamics component of this large eddy simulation model that solves the three dimensional, fully compressible Navier- Stokes equations, incorporating a dynamic eddy viscosity formulation through a two-scale turbulence closure scheme. Firetec is the vegetation, drag forcing, and combustion physics portion that is integrated with Higrad. The modern version of Higrad-Firetec incorporates multiple numerical methodologies and high performance computing aspects which combine to yield a unique tool capable of augmenting theoretical and observational investigations in order to better understand the multi-scale, multi-phase, and multi-physics, phenomena in- volved in coupled atmospheric and environmental dynamics. More specifically, the current work includes extended functionality and validation efforts targeting component processes in coupled atmospheric and wildland fire scenarios. Since observational data of sufficient quality and resolution to validate the fully coupled atmosphere-wildfire scenario simply does not exist, we instead seek to validate components of the full prohibitively convoluted pro- cess. This manuscript provides first, an introduction and background into the application space of Higrad-Firetec. Second we document the model formulation, solution procedure, and a simple scalar transport verification exercise. Third, we perform a validate model results against observational data for time averaged flow field metrics in and above four idealized forest canopies. Fourth, we carry out a validation effort for the non-buoyant jet in a crossflow scenario (to which an analogy can be made for atmosphere-wildfire interactions) comparing model results to laboratory data of both steady-in-time and unsteady-in- time metrics. Finally, an extension of model multi-phase physics is implemented, allowing for the representation of multiple collocated fuels as separately evolving constituents lead- ing to differences resulting rate of spread and total burned area. In combination these efforts demonstrate improved capability, increased validation of component functionality, and unique applicability the Higrad-Firetec modeling framework. As a result this work provides a substantially more robust foundation for future new, more widely acceptable investigations into the complexities of coupled atmospheric and wildland fire behavior. / A Dissertation submitted to the Program in Geophysical Fluid Dynamics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2013. / November 12, 2013. / Atmospheric, Collocated Fuels, Fuel Heterogeneity, Numerical Modeling, Wildfire / Includes bibliographical references. / Doron Nof, Professor Directing Thesis; Eric Chicken, University Representative; Rodman R. Linn, Committee Member; Ming Ye, Committee Member; Ruby Krishnamurti, Committee Member.

The concept sustainability has grown to include concerns about social equity as well as economic and environmental. This thesis investigates commuting in Leon County, Florida using a jobs-housing balance/excess commuting framework. Excess commuting has been a popular kind of commuting research for over thirty years. However a dataset from the U.S. Census Bureau offers new opportunities for insight as it is highly spatially disaggregate and available annually for the years 2002-2011. This thesis uses spatially disaggregate measures to analyze whether commuters with different income commuting differently over the course of the recent U.S. recession 2006-2011. To this end, jobs clusters are identified in the region and commuting into these areas is compared to the regional averages. Lastly a relative commuting burden metric is devised to contextualize monetarily what these commuting patterns mean for the different groups. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Geography in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Fall Semester, 2013. / July 15, 2013. / Includes bibliographical references. / Mark Horner, Professor Directing Thesis; Joseph Pierce, Committee Member; Michael Duncan, Committee Member.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the experience of uncertainty in illness for couples in the post-treatment phase of a cancer diagnosis. More specifically, the study sought to determine if lower levels of cancer uncertainty could lead to higher satisfaction with life, lower depression, and lower anxiety for both members of the couple. The additional influence of coping skill usage and relationship satisfaction was also examined in the context of the couple relationship. Symbolic interactionism was the theoretical framework guiding this study. Data was collected through the Midwestern Site of the Cancer Treatment Centers of America and their volunteer participant program called Cancer Fighters as well as through Facebook recruitment. Data analyses involved using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM) as well as path analysis using AMOS (Arbukle, 2006) software to examine the hypotheses. Results indicated a direct relationship between partners uncertainty and depression, anxiety, and satisfaction with life. Survivors results indicated a direct relationship between their uncertainty and anxiety. Finally, a direct relationship was indicated from partner's uncertainty to survivor's depression and anxiety. These findings suggest that a partner's level of uncertainty during the survivorship stage can function as the most influential aspect of the adjustment to post-treatment life. Implications for researchers and practitioners are discussed. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Family and Child Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2013. / November 1, 2013. / Cancer, Couples, Survivorship, Uncertainty / Includes bibliographical references. / Wayne Denton, Professor Directing Dissertation; Mary Gerend, University Representative; Lenore McWey, Committee Member; Carol Darling, Committee Member.

Objectives. Cognitive decline (CD) is rapidly becoming the most pressing health problem in the U.S., with rates of dementia even greater in African Americans than whites. Biological and environmental factors are thought to contribute to its development. Having the APOE ε4 allele is the greatest known genetic risk factor; however, it influences some but not all individuals with the allele. The extent to which environmental factors, specifically stress, influence the relationship between the allele and CD and whether this relationship is stronger for African Americans compared to Caucasians is the focus of the current study. These relationships will be examined in a large epidemiological bi-racial sample of older adults over sampled for African Americans. We hypothesized that (1) stress would influence CD, (2) recent stressful life events would moderate the influence of the APOE ε4 allele on CD, (3) stressful life events would have a greater impact on African Americans than Caucasians, and (4) the combined effects of stress and the APOE ε4 allele would be more potent in African Americans. Methods. Participants consisted of community-dwelling older adults from the Duke Established Populations for Epidemiologic Studies of the Elderly (EPESE; N = 1,847). Data were drawn from Waves 1 and 2, which were three years apart. Cognitive functioning was assessed at both waves such that change in cognitive status was examined over time, and cognitive status was controlled at baseline. Results. Whereas there was no main effect of stress, there was a significant interaction between APOE status and stressful life events, β = .045, p = .016, such that increased stress in individuals with an ε4 allele lead to greater CD than individuals with no allele. Inconsistent with predictions, there was a significant interaction between stress and race such that increased stressful events predicted CD in Caucasians but not African Americans, β = -.047, p = .011. Further, there was no three-way interaction among these variables, β = -0.006, p = .749. Conclusions. Stressful late-life events had a greater impact on CD for individuals with an ε4 allele. This finding highlights the important influence potentially modifiable environmental risk factors may have on latent genetic vulnerabilities. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Psychology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Fall Semester, 2013. / July 16, 2013. / APOE, Cognitive decline, Dementia, Race, Stress / Includes bibliographical references. / Natalie Sachs-Ericsson, Professor Directing Thesis; Colleen Kelley, Committee Member; Jesse Cougle, Committee Member.

African American brothers, Hodges and Rogers Glenn taught art in Frenchtown, in Tallahassee, Florida during the tumultuous 50s and 60s. In spite of its marginalization, the community of Frenchtown was a thriving self-sustaining mecca for African American culture. The Glenn brothers were an integral part of the vitality of this community. The purpose of this study was to situate their works within a community based art education framework and explore their roles in community construction. In defining community construction, three theoretical perspectives emerged: Dewey's (1900) ideas of social progress, Selznick's (1992) elements of community construction (historicity, identity, mutuality, plurality, autonomy, participation, and integration), and McMillan's (1996; 2011) argument that a sense of community can be framed as art. The historical methodology entailed primarily gathering a number of interviews with those who knew the Glenn Brothers and the community supplemented by secondary sources mostly from local archives. The data were evaluated in relation to the theoretical foundations described above and in light of the theory of social interactionism. The findings were drawn from an historical narrative centered primarily on the Glenn brothers' ten years of teaching art at two rival African American high schools. Analysis of the data showed evidence of the presence of each of Selznick's (1992) elements of community construction and a preponderance of evidence that the Glenn brothers greatly contributed to this community. For example, the infusion of signage and artwork in and on the buildings contributed to the community's identity, their many professions strengthened its plurality, and mentoring students before and after school showed their commitment to ready their students for community improvement and equip them with the autonomy to fend for themselves. This giving back to the community seemed to drive the Glenn brothers in their teaching philosophies. Also, emerging themes of mentorship and art connections showed that the Glenn brothers were influential not only in the classroom, but throughout the community. As father figures, they gave direction and exemplary leadership while the city, state, and nation were experiencing unrest and transition. Their low key but high energy commitment and calm consistency served as proof that alternatives for social change, other than confrontations and protests, do exist. Members of the community described a sense of community that became art when they framed it with comments like "Frenchtown was a decent place" (M. Rush, personal communication, April 4, 2007) and "it was like heaven" (P. Houzell, personal communication, June 5, 2013). Social Interaction between the Glenn brothers and others in the community brought about meaning in their environment. This meaning extended even to the present the author, too, discovered connections to the Glenn brothers. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Art Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Fall Semester, 2013. / October 7, 2013. / Art Education, Community, Frenchtown, Glenn, Tallahassee / Includes bibliographical references. / Tom Anderson, Professor Directing Dissertation; Maxine Montgomery, University Representative; David Gussak, Committee Member; Pat Villeneuve, Committee Member.

The American Army's first encounter during World War II with the German Army in North Africa at the Battle of Kasserine Pass resulted in a tactical defeat. Lloyd Fredendall, the II Corps commander, did not lead from the front and instead preferred to remain at a safe distance in his man-made command post cut into a mountain over one hundred miles from his forward positions. After the Wehrmacht launched its attack on 14 February 1943, the American positions quickly disintegrated and headquarters elements fled to the rear stranding entire infantry units on mountaintops. As the senior leaders were running for their lives, they ordered field grade officers to conduct counterattacks against a superior German armor force. These battalion commanders fought valiantly, but were overmatched and their units became combat ineffective. Finally, two days into the fight, British General Kenneth Anderson released a substantial reinforcement element to bolster the lines and slow down the German thrust enough to allow the American 9th Infantry Division artillery forces to be brought 735 miles to eventually stop Field Marshall Erwin Rommel's offensive. Following the defeat, General Dwight Eisenhower replaced senior generals who had made glaring tactical mistakes throughout the battle with capable leaders. The new commanders instilled discipline within the ranks which would play a critical role in future battles in North Africa. Eisenhower realized that the men under his command made mistakes throughout the battle and he was inspired to create changes in combat training. First, lessons had to be collected from the men at the frontlines. "Ike" issued training directives based on combined arms lessons to the units under his command, but he also had a bolder plan to influence the training cycles of basic training and unit predeployment training in the United States. Armed with combat experience, Eisenhower flooded the War Department with recommendations to intensify training to better prepare the units for war. The bureaucracy of the War Department prevented immediate modifications to existing training cycles, but by late summer 1943 training regiments were infused with battle lessons. The ability of the American Army to change training based on the lessons it received from the frontlines of North Africa was decisive to success in the North African, Mediterranean, and European theater of operations. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Fall Semester, 2013. / October 29, 2013. / Kasserine Pass, Training / Includes bibliographical references. / G. Kurt Piehler, Professor Directing Thesis; James Jones, Committee Member; Jonathan Grant, Committee Member.

The advent of geometric morphometrics and the revitalization of artificial neural networks have created powerful new tools to classify morphological structures to groups. Although these two approaches have already been combined, there has been less attention on how such combinations perform relative to more traditional methods. Here we use geometric morphometric data and neural networks to identify from which species upper-jaw teeth from carcharhiniform sharks in the genus Carcharhinus originated, and these results are compared to more traditional classification methods. In addition to the methodological applications of this comparison, an ability to identify shark teeth would facilitate the incorporation of shark teeth's vast fossil record into evolutionary studies. Using geometric morphometric data originating from Naylor and Marcus (1994), we built two types of neural networks, multilayer perceptrons and radial basis function neural networks to classify teeth from C. acronotus, C. leucas, C. limbatus, and C. plumbeus, as well as classifying the teeth using linear discriminate analysis. All classification schemes were trained using the right upper-jaw teeth of 15 individuals. Between these three methods, the multilayer perceptron performed the best, followed by linear discriminate analysis, and then the radial basis function neural network. All three classification systems appear to be more accurate than previous efforts to classify Carcharhinus teeth using linear distances between landmarks and linear discriminate analysis. In all three classification systems, misclassified teeth tended to originate either near the symphysis or near the jaw angle, though an additional peak occurred between these two structures. To assess whether smaller training sets would lead to comparable accuracies, we used a multilayer perceptron to classify teeth from the same species but now based on a training set of right upper-jaw teeth from only five individuals. Although not as accurate as the network based on 15 individuals, the network performed favorably. As a final test, we built a multilayer perceptron to classify teeth from C. altimus, C. obscurus, and C. plumbeus, which have more similar upper-jaw teeth than the original four species, based on training sets of five individuals. Again, the classification system performed better than a system that combines linear measurements and discriminate function analysis. Given the high accuracies for all three systems, it appears that the use of geometric morphometric data has a great impact on the accuracy of the classification system, whereas the exact method of classification tends to make less of a difference. These results may be applicable to other systems and other morphological structures. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Scientific Computing in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Fall Semester, 2013. / November 8, 2013. / Artificial Neural Network, Carcharhinus, Classification, Geometric Morphometrics, Linear Discriminate Analysis, Teeth / Includes bibliographical references. / Dennis E. Slice, Professor Directing Thesis; Anke Meyer-Baese, Committee Member.