This dissertation presents findings from ethnographic research conducted with members of the Sociedad La Unión Martí-Maceo, established by segregated Black Cuban cigar workers in Ybor City in 1904. For decades, Tampa officials have initiated numerous urban revitalization projects aimed at developing a world-class tourist destination and metropolitan center. Often, these efforts have centered on highlighting the ethnic history of Ybor City, from which the participation of Black Cubans and the Martí-Maceo Society have been actively excluded or ignored. The main issues related to contemporary Afro- Cuban identity in Tampa and which will be examined in my dissertation, include the changing nature of the Afro-Cuban community in Tampa in light of increases in migration of Cubans and other Latinos of color to the area; Martí-Maceo members’ struggle to reclaim an Afro-Cuban heritage within Tampa’s larger historic preservation efforts over the past decade; and an examination of the Martí-Maceo Society as a voluntary association that appears to have outlived its usefulness in present-day Tampa despite efforts by elderly members to sustain and expand it.

ABSTRACT Eastern Equine Encephalitis virus (EEEV) is an alphavirus with high pathogenicity in both humans and horses. Florida continues to have the highest occurrence of human cases in the USA, with four fatalities recorded in 2010. Unlike other states, Florida supports year-round EEEV transmission. This research uses Geographic Information Science (GIS) to examine spatial patterns of documented sentinel seroconversions and horse cases in order to understand the relationships between habitat and transmission intensity of EEEV in Florida. Sentinel sites were categorized as enzootic, periodically enzootic, and negative based on the amount of chicken seroconversions to EEEV. Sentinel sites were analyzed based on land classification data d using the Kruskal-Wallis test to determine which habitats were associated with disease transmission. Cluster analyses were performed for the horse cases using density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise (DBSCAN). Ecological associations of EEEV were examined using compositional analysis and Euclidean distance analysis to determine if the proportion or proximity of certain habitats played a role in transmission. The research in these studies provides evidence of ecological associations for EEEV transmission in Florida that hasn't been previously analyzed. Furthermore, these studies provide the groundwork for better understanding of why there is a disproportionate number of horse and human cases of EEEV in Florida than in any other state.

In the subtropical oligotrophic ocean, nitrogen fixation is an important source of new nitrogen (N) for supporting biological production. Previous studies have found that nitrogen-fixing Diatom-Diazotroph Associations (DDAs) are in high abundance in the intermediate salinity zone of large river plumes such as the Amazon and Mekong rivers, while Trichodesmium spp. becomes more abundant at higher salinities. This recurring pattern in the Amazon River plume suggests that strong salinity and nutrient gradients within the river plumes may lead to a cascade in diazotroph communities. I hypothesized that the Mississippi River, a major source of freshwater, nutrients and sediments to the northern Gulf of Mexico, creates a similar distribution of diazotroph communities. The relationship between large diazotrophs and salinity was examined in samples collected in July 2011 during a flood outflow from the Mississippi River. The dominant DDA, Hemiaulus spp. – Richelia spp., was at greatest abundance (≈31,000 cells L-1) west of the birdfoot delta on the periphery of the plume (≈29 salinity) where bottom water hypoxia was also observed. Trichodesmium spp., a cyanobacterium genus that occurs in both colonial and free trichome morphologies, was abundant at both high (≈35) salinities east of the delta reaching 20+ colonies L-1, as well as in the fresher (≈28) waters of the plume where it reached 3,500 trichomes L-1. Diazotroph distributions were separated east and west of the Mississippi River outflow, with DDAs being most abundant over bottom water hypoxic regions to the west and Trichodesmium spp. in high abundance to the east. The diazotroph – salinity gradient relationships present within the Amazon River plume were not present within the Gulf of Mexico. This study suggests that environmental factors other than salinity, such as nutrients or hypoxia, are influencing the distribution of diazotrophs around the Mississippi River plume. The seasonal hypoxia seen in the Gulf of Mexico with the co-occurring DDA increase could appear in other river systems. / text

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

Not available / text

The dissertation analyzes the behavior of post-communist firms and business associations, and explores how business interests and organization are affected by the types of states that firms confront. Focusing on the countries of the former Soviet Union, the project seeks to further our understanding of post-communist political economy and enrich extant theory on business-state relations. I challenge conventional explanations for why business organizes, and why some firms join formal business associations, while others do not. Existing theories draw primarily from the experience of advanced industrial democracies, and thus fail to capture the dynamics of organization when business confronts a corrupt, and frequently predatory, state. Drawing on fieldwork in Russia and Ukraine, and aggregate analysis covering other transition economies, the project identifies the conditions that restructure incentives for firms to participate in business associations, and impede associations from developing as political intermediaries that facilitate interaction between public and private actors. It locates these conditions in the character and structure of the state which differentiates some post-communist states not only from their peers in the region, but also from the advanced industrial states on whose experience conventional theories are built. The presence of incapacitated and highly corrupt bureaucracies cardinally alters the traditional incentives for firms to organize collectively. When firms can expect little of the civil service with respect to public goods provision and policy continuity, but can instead expect public servants to work for private gain, they develop strong incentives to turn to private arrangements in order to lessen the uncertainty and threats bred in the absence of strong state institutions. The structure and character of the state bureaucracy also affects the opportunities for, and constraints on, engagement between business associations and public officials. Corruption within the bureaucracy is most commonly viewed as an opportunity that business can exploit. Instead, I show that the prevalence of corruption hinders the ability of business associations to obtain influence over government agencies. Precisely because corruption enables direct contacts by individual corporate giants with government agencies, it undermines the collective efforts of smaller firms that make up the majority of the private sector. There is, however, an ironic twist to the story. Under some conditions, corruption within the bureaucracy can impel political authorities to empower external, private business groups in order to divest themselves of an ineffective tool of policy implementation. This “divesture rationale” adds an additional consideration to existing arguments about how, when, and for what purposes collective, membership-based organizations emerge in the private sector. / Government

Eighty percent of all adolescents in Sweden aged 13-19 years are physically active in sports associations growing up during their childhood, however, far from everyone continues as they get older. The aim of this study is to increase the knowledge about sports associations views and perceptions regarding why adolescents quit physical activities and how they work to prevent this to occur. Furthermore, this study will examine the perceptions and opinions these sport associations have regarding recruitment of adolescents for coaching and other positions within their association. The data in this study was collected from nine semi-structured interviews with representatives from sports associations in the county of Umeå. The results from the data analysis indicates that the sport associations seems to be aware of this drop out among adolescents and that the reason for this phenomena is complex and individual. Despite this, little action seemed to be taken among these sport associations in order to try to keep young individuals physically active within the club or with recruitment of these individuals as coaches, even if the sport associations considered it as a good solution to the problem. The main conclusion of this study is that if sport associations are in need of preventing youth drop out they have to increase their activities for preventing it. Furthermore they need to start seeing adolescents as resources to the sport association.

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

Master thesis, Master's degree program Marketing, Economic School Linnaeus University, Växjö Sweden, Spring semester 2015. Author: Andersson Anthon, Guntell Robin Tutor: Soniya Billore Examiner: Anders Pehrsson Title: Advancing the COO Construct From an Affective Dimension: The Application of Projective Technique Purpose: The purpose in this article is to break from traditional research and its accompanying cognitive research methods in order to advance the COO field from a more accurate perspective that also involves an affective dimension as well. Design/methodology/approach: Drawing from prior research in the COO field, the methodology accounted for assumptions that were tested in collage technique and ad copy technique. Findings: The results shows that some people only seems to be susceptible to COO influence when communicating emotional CSAs nonverbally, whilst some people only reveal rational CSAs when being cognitively asked about COO influence in a directed manner. As a result, the present findings might suggest that prior research in the academic field might suffer from bias. Practical implications: In the light of COO, managers should bear in mind that some people cannot be targeted with solely rely on a cognitive marketing communication strategy. More specifically, the ad copy technique provides guidelines for appropriate design of advertisements when one consider to serving the brand’s origin as salient cue in consumers’ minds. Originality/value: Advancing the COO construct with using collage technique, this study is to the best our knowledge the second to account for an affective dimension as well.