This dissertation focuses on corporate contributions to state-level politicians. Scholars have devoted significant attention to the antecedents of corporate political activity, often invoking resource dependence logic to explain managerial motives. Just as managers seek to protect their firms from dependencies on other firms, so too do they seek to protect their firms from dependencies on government. Resource dependence theory is, indeed, an appropriate tool for understanding some of the antecedents of corporate political activity. However, the application of resource dependence theory in the context of corporate political activity can be improved. Dependence on government has been explained as arising from regulatory intensity faced by the firm (i.e., the degree to which the firm's industry is regulated). The argument for regulatory intensity as a source of dependence is inconsistent with the core logic of resource dependence theory. A firm must have a relationship with a government for any firm dependence on government to exist. A state's regulatory environment does not constitute a relationship with any firm. In this dissertation I argue that it is firm operations in a government's jurisdiction that constitutes a relationship between the firm and the government. Because governments possess tremendous power to influence the institutional environment, firms operating in a government jurisdiction are dependent on that government for a predictable institutional environment. I hypothesize that firm political activity in a state will increase as the firm becomes more dependent on that state as a location for its operations. Furthermore, I hypothesize that factors with the potential for disrupting the institutional environment activate the threat posed by the firm's dependence on the state, thus strengthening the relationship between operational dependence and political donations. I test these hypotheses in a cross-classified multilevel model in which firm-state subsidiaries are nested within 78 firms and the 50 US states. The findings provide strong support for most of the hypotheses. I provide a discussion of the results as well as their impacts on theory and practice, the limitations of the study, and ideas for future research directions. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Entrepreneurship, Strategy, and Information Systems in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2015. / April 10, 2015. / Institutions, Political Activity, Resource Dependence, Social Movements, Strategic Management / Includes bibliographical references. / Bruce T. Lamont, Professor Directing Dissertation; Jeffery S. Smith, University Representative; R. Michael Holmes, Jr., Committee Member; Chad H. Van Iddekinge, Committee Member.

This thesis proposes a new variation propagation modeling and group EWMA control chart method for quality improvement in multistage process that aims to detect and isolate the largest variation propagation and faulty stages in a multistage process. Since, it is computationally difficult to estimate the variation propagation, this model can provide important estimation for quantifying the variation in each stage. Also it is crucial to develop a control chart that enables to detect the faulty product quickly and isolate the faulty stage effectively in sequential process. A test statics of control chart is proposed. Two different case studies are used to illustrate the proposed approach. Error are estimated using linear and logistic regression equation and EWMA parameters are calculated for in control dataset. The result of the case study from automotive hood assembly and Healthcare Performance Monitoring shows that, group EWMA can achieve quicker detection than traditional EWMA in later stages of multistage process / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Industrial & Manufacturing Engineering in partial fulfillment of the Master of Science. / Spring Semester, 2015. / April 16, 2015. / ARL, Detetction, EWMA, Statistical Pocess Control / Includes bibliographical references. / Arda Vanli, Professor Directing Thesis; Samuel A. Awoniyi, Committee Member; Hui Wang, Committee Member.

People receiving residential mental health treatment are legally entitled to exercise their rights and freedoms to the extent that is safe and that does not interfere with recovery (Americans with Disabilities Act, 1990; Ford, Rosenberg, Holsten, & Boudreaux, 2003). Despite this, sexual activity in residential treatment settings is often prohibited through both formal and informal means (Buckley, Hogan, Svendsen, & Gintoli, 2013; Wright, McCabe, & Kooreman, 2012). One barrier to lessening restrictions on the sexual liberties of residential clients is the lack of guidelines for determining the capacity to consent to sexual activity (Buckley & Wiechers, 1999; Parker & Abramson, 1995). Providing guidelines for assessing the capacity to consent could provide opportunities for some clients to engage in dignified sexual expression and could help practitioners to identify others who may not be capable of making safe sexual decisions. In a preliminary step toward the creation of such guidelines, this qualitative study explores how administrators, staff, and former clients of residential facilities define and conceptualize the capacity to consent to sex. These stakeholder-endorsed definitions might later serve as frameworks from which guidelines and methods of assessment could be developed. This study also explores factors identified by administrators, workers, and former clients of residential facilities as impacting the capacity to consent, as they define it. This is another important preliminary step toward creating best practices for determining the capacity for sexual consent among clients of residential mental health programs. Nonprobability sampling was used to recruit 15 participants, 5 from each stakeholder group: administrators, staff people, and former clients. An in-person, semi-structured interview with each participant was conducted. Interviews averaged 69 minutes and elicited information about how participants define and conceptualize the capacity to consent to sexual activity as well as the factors perceived to enhance or reduce that capacity. Analysis of interview data used a hierarchical coding process based on Strauss and Corbin's (1990) constant comparative method and Scott's (2004) conditional relationship guide. To enhance the rigor of analysis, a variety of reflexive writing practices were used, and researcher analysis was shared with participants, who were invited to provide statements about where the analysis diverged from their opinions and experiences. The common themes observed in participant definitions of capacity for sexual consent were that capacity for consent includes the ability to give and receive communication about consent, that capacity for consent includes an understanding of contextual information about the sexual encounter, and that capacity for consent includes an understanding of one's own internal desires. Factors identified by stakeholders as affecting residential clients' capacity for sexual consent were intelligence or sexual knowledge, intoxication, confusion, delusions, general mental status, difficulty refusing others, having vacillating feelings about sexual encounters, and using sex as a tool. Participants considered many of these factors transient, indicating that capacity to consent is not viewed as a stable trait. In addition to information directly pertinent to the research aims, stakeholders identified several practical barriers to allowing sex in residential treatment settings. These include the perceived responsibility of providers for the consequences of sex, the lack of private space, the potential to disrupt the treatment environment, and the potential for sex to result in retraumatization or interfere with recovery. This work concludes with recommendations for practice and further research. In particular, the definitions of capacity for sexual consent identified by participants in this study should be evaluated by a representative group of stakeholders in residential mental health to determine their salience and legitimacy more broadly. Further, factors proposed to enhance or reduce the capacity for consent in the study should be empirically investigated to determine whether they do have actual impact on sexual decision making. / A Dissertation submitted to the College of Social Work in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2015. / March 2, 2015. / capacity to consent, mental health, psychiatric social work, sexual behavior / Includes bibliographical references. / Tomi Gomory, Professor Directing Dissertation; Amy Burdette, University Representative; Jean Munn, Committee Member; LaTonya Noël, Committee Member.

Limited research exists exploring how music therapists address parent-related needs and concerns in the NICU. The purpose of the study was to expand existing knowledge and literature regarding how music therapists work with parents and their infants in the NICU, to address parent-related needs, and to provide suggestions for future directions for music therapy with parents of infants in the NICU. The principal investigator sent out an invitational email to music therapists who currently or have previously worked in the NICU. A total of 54 responses (n=54) were received-- respondents (n=50) completed the survey entirely and 4 partially (n=4) via Surveymonkey.com®. Data were collected over a four-week period and were analyzed using descriptive statistical measures. Results support the use of music therapy to address both parent and infant goals and the expansion of ways in which music therapy/music therapists can serve as an extension of family-based NICU care. Results indicated that music therapists spend a relatively equal amount of time with parents and their infants (jointly and separately) and receive both medical and non-medical referrals for parent-related needs. Grief counseling, general counseling techniques, music therapy techniques specific to parent needs, and cultural sensitivity training were areas in which music therapists desired more training. Future implications for research include expansion of knowledge regarding how to work with parents of infants with neonatal abstinence syndrome and other complex medical issues. / A Thesis submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Music. / Spring Semester, 2015. / April 15, 2015. / music therapists, music therapy, neonatal intensive care unit, parent needs, premature infants, survey / Includes bibliographical references. / Jayne M. Standley, Professor Directing Thesis; Clifford K. Madsen, Committee Member; Alice-Ann Darrow, Committee Member.

Stalagmites, or speleothems, are secondary cave deposits that record the isotope and trace element composition of the parent dripwaters within their crystal matrix. Changes in dripwater oxygen and carbon isotopes (δ18O and δ13C) and trace element to calcium (X/Ca) ratios are controlled by a number of parameters, including changes in rainfall intensity, vegetation regime, and hydrology above the cave. Cave and speleothem studies over the last fifteen years have demonstrated that in order to generate quantitative climate reconstructions, it is necessary to understand the transfer function between changing weather, and changing cave dripwater chemistry above the speleothem being used for reconstruction. In an effort to develop a deeper understanding of these transfer functions, three caves in Marianna, FL were instrumented for several years to monitor rainfall amount, ventilation, temperature, drip rates, dripwater chemistry, and calcite chemistry farmed atop stalagmites that had potential to yield a Holocene rainfall record. In two of the three caves it was found that dripwater X/Ca ratios increase during dry periods and decrease during wet periods, while drips in the third cave exhibited muted variations in X/Ca ratios. A mathematical model was developed to demonstrate that X/Ca ratios are a function of (1) mixing between dissolved limestone and dissolved dolomite, and (2) subsequent evolution away from the dissolved bedrock signature to higher X/Ca ratios as calcium is removed from solution by prior-calcite-precipitation (PCP) upstream of the speleothem. This model provides a diagnostic framework to judge whether dripwaters at each location are entirely controlled hydrologic saturation, and are thus suitable recorders of wet-versus-dry conditions. Timeseries measurement of rainfall amount and changing calcite chemistry allowed quantitative calibration of the transfer function between weather and the speleothem proxy record, a term dubbed 'speleochemical rainfall response'. This speleochemical rainfall response was then applied to stalagmite HRC2 to generate the first quantitative record of rainfall amount in the southeastern United States. The record shows that over the last 1,200 years there have been two significant dry periods. Rainfall in Marianna decreased by up to -60 mm month-1 during the Little Ice Age (650-150 years BP). An equivalent decrease in rainfall amount is only observed during the last 60 years. This record suggests that trends in modern climatic influence over Marianna rainfall have the potential to deliver north Florida into severe drought conditions within the next several decades. / 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, 2015. / February 25, 2015. / Florida, Isotope, Paleoclimate, Rainfall, Speleothem, Trace Element / Includes bibliographical references. / Munir Humayun, Professor Directing Dissertation; James Elsner, University Representative; William Burnett, Committee Member; William Landing, Committee Member; Harley Means, Committee Member; Vincent Salters, Committee Member; Thomas Scott, Committee Member.

Over the past sixty years, many cities in the United States have experienced the evaporation of independently owned neighbourhood grocery stores and the proliferation of large, full-service suburban supermarkets, leaving behind 'grocery gaps' in central cities. This phenomenon, influenced by powerful economic forces, has made access to healthy food a challenge for some in these food insecure areas. In addition, easy access to fast-food restaurants, higher food prices, lower quality food and the lack of transportation has contributed to glaring health disparities where higher incidences of diet-related diseases are evident in low income and largely minority communities. Often policies designed to address the negative health outcomes and co-related 'grocery gaps' focus on availability, affordability and quality of food in neighbourhoods. Few address other psychosocial components of food access. This mixed-methods study extends our understanding of access by exploring five dimensions of access: acceptability, accessibility, accommodation, affordability and availability in a study of four neighbourhoods in Louisville, Kentucky. Through spatial analysis, analyses of stakeholder interviews and ANOVA tests of questionnaire results, I found that the neighbourhood and living in an initiative area affected residents' perception of availability of fruits and vegetables. In addition, residents' perception of accommodation was affected by age. Race, sex, income, food cost, receiving food assistance and vehicle access did not significantly affect access as perceived by participants. Furthermore, access is enhanced through cultural norms and relationships, including relationships among corner stores, corner stores and families, and among neighbourhood residents. Successful corner store initiatives to improve access to healthy food in urban areas should include objective and perceived components of access as well as a temporal component that incorporates inter- and intra-community relationships among neighbourhood residents, corner stores and wider community stakeholders. This relationship amongst the objective, perceived and temporal components of access is conceptualised as the 'Three Pillars of Access'. Finally, this study also holds saliency for communicative action in critical theory of urban planning as a path to move us towards authentic and qualitatively deeper perspectives concerning healthy food access. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Urban and Regional Planning in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2015. / April 9, 2015. / critical theory of urban planning, five dimensions of access, food desert, healthy corner store, objective access, perceived access / Includes bibliographical references. / Timothy Chapin, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; William Butler, Professor Co-Directing Dissertation; Keith Ihlanfeldt, University Representative; Christopher Coutts, Committee Member.

The flow field of supersonic impinging jets is known to be highly unsteady particularly for S/VTOL aircraft configuration. This can have adverse effects such as high noise levels, unsteady acoustic loads and sonic fatigue on the aircraft and surrounding structures, pavement erosion, ingestion of hot gases into the engine nacelle and lift loss of the aircraft. Jet noise from an aircraft has been a problem that significantly impacts aircraft operational procedures and adversely affects the health and safety of the personnel operating nearby and the communities surrounding airports / airbases and flight paths. In the present study, control of the highly resonant flow field associated with supersonic impinging jet by acoustic treatment at the impingement plane has been experimentally investigated. Measurements were made in the supersonic impinging jet facility at the Florida State University for a Mach 1.5 ideally expanded jet. Measurements included unsteady pressures on a surface plate near the nozzle exit and impingement plate, acoustics in the near field and beneath the impingement plane, and velocity field using particle image velocimetry. The passive control involves appropriately designed resonator panel to target discrete impinging tones and broadband noise. Results show that this technique is very effective in attenuating impinging tones and their harmonics in addition to significant broadband reduction. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Mechanical Engineering in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. / Spring Semester, 2015. / April 3, 2015. / Acoustic Feedback Loop, Acoustic Treatment, Impinging Jet, Passive Control, STOVL / Includes bibliographical references. / Rajan Kumar, Professor Directing Thesis; Chiang Shih, Committee Member; William Oates, Committee Member.

Our work builds on that of Barbot and Fenley to generalize Bonatti and Langevin's famous construction of a graph manifold with pseudo-Anosov flow in which all Seiftert fibered pieces of the torus decomposition are periodic. We provide infinitely many new examples of such graph manifolds, as well as a complete classification -- up to Seifert invariant -- in the case that each Seiftert fibered piece is orientable and the flow is Anosov. We further demonstrate that the singularities of the flow are not rigid but can rather be "rearranged", or even removed, without affecting the ambient manifold. To build our graph manifolds and model the pseudo-Anosov flows that they support, we define and construct combinatorial objects known as flow graphs. We study these flow graphs and the surfaces, called fat graphs (or ribbon graphs), that retract onto them. In particular, we study flow graphs with the additional conditions needed to generate pseudo-Anosov flows from the combinatorial data that the flow graphs provide, and classify the surfaces that admit flow graphs with these additional requirements. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Mathematics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2015. / March 18, 2015. / fat graph, graph manifold, pseudo-Anosov flow, ribbon graph / Includes bibliographical references. / Sergio Fenley, Professor Directing Dissertation; Laura Reina, University Representative; Eriko Hironaka, Committee Member; Wolfgang Heil, Committee Member; Washington Mio, Committee Member.

This study explores whether or not tropical cyclone (TC) structure information may be retrieved from satellite total ozone observations and how to link total ozone with analysis fields for potential application to TC vortex initialization schemes. Satellite total ozone retrievals from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS), the second Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME-2), the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI), and the Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) are used in this study. The study is divided into two portions: updating the quality control (QC) scheme for the AIRS total ozone data and examining applications of total ozone data in TC analyses. A modified QC scheme for AIRS total ozone is proposed to identify erroneous data while avoiding removal of potential useful data, as well as to keep the data consistent with a numerical prediction model. The modified QC scheme produces smaller bias and standard deviation of total ozone relative to the original AIRS QC scheme with less data being removed. Since ultraviolet (UV) retrieved total ozone generally suffers less cloud contamination, GOME-2 total ozone is used to examine possible TC structures captured by the data. All the TCs in the 2010-2012 Atlantic Hurricane seasons are used. Detailed comparisons of total ozone from GOME-2 and geopotential heights on isentropic surfaces from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Interim Reanalysis are carried out for the representative case of Hurricane Earl (2010). It is shown that GOME-2 total ozone can capture the characteristics of the storm center including the eye region and spiral bands. Changes in total ozone can also reveal the variations of the storm intensity. Alternatively, locally elevated total ozone in the hurricane eye region can be used to identify the upper tropospheric storm center, depending on the stage and the radius of the maximum winds of the storm. Further, the distribution of total ozone shows that the isentropic geopotential heights may have misplaced the vortex center. Total ozone and the 'aligned' geopotential heights at isentropic levels tend to form a linear relationship. Total ozone and geopotential heights correlate better in isentropic level range of 330K to 345K than at other isentropic levels, indicating better inference of the geopotential heights from total ozone at these isentropic levels. Stronger storms tend to have larger correlations of total ozone and geopotential heights at nearly all isentropic levels examined in this study. Inter-satellite calibration is shown to be necessary for better use of ozone observations in TC applications. A general inter-satellite total ozone calibration is carried out during August of 2012 with total ozone data from the four instruments. Total ozone from different instruments shows a dependence on cloud fraction, solar zenith angle (SZA), geo-location, and possibly aerosols. Overall, GOME-2, OMI and OMPS ozone observations agree well globally for both clear-sky and cloudy conditions, whereas AIRS shows large relative differences in both the southern Polar Regions and in the 30S-30N tropical regions. The large relative errors in the southern Polar Regions are associated with large AIRS SZAs, while the large relative errors in the 30S-30N zone may be caused by aerosol contamination and high cirrus clouds. Latitudinally varying coefficients are derived to remove large, zonally varying biases. Hurricane Michael (2012) is chosen to illustrate the resulting impacts of the inter-satellite total ozone calibrations on an individual TC's structure information. It is shown that the transformed observations are more comparable spatially and radially than the original ones. The impacts of the calibrated total ozone on the regression models linking isentropic geopotential heights and total ozone formed from all the TCs are examined. The calibration improves the performance of AIRS regression models at nearly all isentropic levels by increasing the explained variance and decreasing the root-mean-square-error (RMSE), while it does not change much with the regression models for OMI and GOME-2. Overall, stronger storms tend to have larger inference of geopotential heights at all the isentropic levels from these total ozone observations before and after the inter-satellite calibration. The inter-satellite total ozone calibration improves the comparability among different regression models. The resulting more consistent regression models based on TC's intensities can provide more consistent initial analysis fields from different total ozone observations for potential hurricane vortex initialization application. / 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, 2015. / April 9, 2015. / Includes bibliographical references. / Robert Ellingson, Professor Directing Dissertation; Xiaoming Wang, University Representative; Robert Hart, Committee Member; Vasubandhu Misra, Committee Member; Guosheng Liu, Committee Member.

Precise knowledge of parton distribution functions (PDFs) is necessary to the accurate calculation of QCD observables initiated by hadrons. The deep inelastic scattering (DIS) and lepton pair production (LPP) processes are primary sources of information on PDFs. Recent global fits for PDFs have used DIS data from the large Bjorken $x$, moderate $Q^{2}$ region. It is known that there are large logarithms in this kinematic region that can be resummed using threshold resummation techniques. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of simultaneously including DIS and LPP threshold resummation in the determinations of PDFs. The analysis includes a study of the effects of the choice of resummation prescription and of current resummation methods used in the LPP rapidity and $x_{F}$ distributions. It is demonstrated theoretically and phenomenologically that the current resummation methods for such distributions are approximations that lose accuracy at high rapidities or $x_{F}$. The unapproximated resummation formalism is extended to the $\overline{\mathrm{MS}}$ scheme in the minimal and Borel prescriptions and used in conjunction with resummation in DIS to perform a global fit. The resultant PDF sets that correspond to two choices of resummation prescription are analyzed to determine the effect of threshold resummation on PDF fits and its theoretical uncertainties. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Physics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Spring Semester, 2015. / April 1, 2015. / PDF, Prescription, Resummation, Threshold / Includes bibliographical references. / Joseph F. Owens, III, Professor Directing Thesis; Ettore Aldrovandi, University Representative; Laura Reina, Committee Member; Susan Blessing, Committee Member; Winston Roberts, Committee Member.