Stranger Species is a collection of interconnected personal and lyrical essays that illustrate and dissect the biological and psychological forces that drive humans to act. While essays in the collection prove the narrator's need to believe that we are animals first and human beings second and that sex and persistence to survive are proof of our animalism, essays simultaneously counter-argue that humans-our emotions, weaknesses, and consciousness-are unique to our species, separating us from the animal world. Throughout the collection, fear resonates that we do not control our desires and ultimately our lives, that biology and our deep seeded psychological inadequacies drive us blindly and often recklessly towards our species' survival never asking for our permission, leaving us to wonder why we do the strange things that we do. The narrator uses research and her experience to explore genetics, reproduction, desire, loneliness, binding societal constructions, control, and loss.

This research demonstrated the effectiveness of Transit Signal Priority (TSP) in improving bus corridor travel time in a simulated environment using real world data. TSP is a technology that provides preferential treatment to buses at signalized intersections. By considering different scenarios of activating bus signal priority when a bus is 3 or 5 minutes behind schedule, it was demonstrated that bus travel times improved significantly while there is little effect on delays for crossing street traffic. The case of providing signal priority for buses unconditionally resulted in significant crossing street delays for some signalized intersections with only minor improvement to bus travel time over both scenarios of Conditional priority. Evaluation was conducted by using micro-simulation and statistical analysis to compare Unconditional and Conditional TSP with the No TSP scenario. This evaluation looked at performance metrics (for buses and all vehicles) including average speed profiles, average travel times, average number of stops, and crossing street delay. Different Conditional TSP scenarios of activating TSP when a bus is 3 or 5 minutes behind schedule were considered. The simulation demonstrated that Conditional TSP significantly improved bus travel times with little effect on crossing street delays. The results also showed that utilizing TSP technology reduced the environmental emissions in the I-Drive corridor. Furthermore, field data was used to calculate actual passenger travel time savings and benefit cost ratio (7.92) that resulted from implementing conditional TSP. Conditional TSP 3 minutes behind schedule was determined to be the most beneficial and practical TSP scenario for real world implementation at both the corridor and regional levels.

The effectiveness of modifying a conventional toll plaza for implementation of an open road tolling concept with express ETC lanes was evaluated in this thesis. Speed controlled dedicated ETC lanes were replaced with express ETC lanes at the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority (OOCEA) University Mainline Toll Plaza. This evaluation was accomplished by utilizing collected field data and simulated scenarios using Toll Plaza SIMulation (TPSIM) software developed by the University of Central Florida. The speed controlled dedicated ETC lanes were located within toll lanes (contained within a toll plaza canopy) with widths ranging between 10 to 14 ft. These types of lanes required all vehicles to reduce their speed from the highway speed to 35 mph. Express ETC lanes (sometimes referenced as open road tolling or non-stop tolling) allow vehicles to pass through the plaza at high speeds. Open road tolling is a concept that employs high speed toll lanes. A before and after study of the University toll plaza was conducted. Benefits in the form of reduced delays and increased capacities were observed when making the comparison between the before and after studies. Since we expect the capacity of an express ETC lane to be greater than the dedicated ETC lanes (due to an increase in free-flow speed), further analysis using equations and car-following theory proved that if the ETC speed was increased, then the capacity would increase as well. Using equations derived from the Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) and car-following theory, the capacity was increased from 2016 to 2314 vph when the ETC speed increased from 31 mph to 65 mph. This indicated an increase in capacity of 14.8 percent (based on the conversion from dedicated to express ETC lanes). The field data was also used as input for TPSIM (a computer simulation model) in order to perform a sensitivity analysis of the express ETC lanes by varying the type of ETC lane, number of approach lanes, and plaza configurations (the addition of an ACM lane) between scenarios. Results that were observed during the after study were verified using the TPSIM scenarios. Reductions in delays for the entire plaza were observed using the TPSIM model when making similar improvements to the plaza as in the after study. The changes made to the University Mainline Toll Plaza after construction was completed resulted in benefits by reducing delays and increasing the capacity of the toll plaza (by converting dedicated ETC lanes to express ETC lanes and adding an additional A/ETC lane per direction). These benefits were measured using field data and confirmed when performing the TPSIM scenarios. A customer's travel time along the toll facility will be reduced by using the express ETC lanes (since they are not required to decelerate at the toll plaza). In addition, weaving maneuvers downstream of the plaza are no longer required by customers using the express ETC lanes due to the location of the downstream travel lanes in relation to the express ETC lanes. These benefits may have led to changes in the number and percentage of ETC users in each of the toll lanes. Changes in ETC usage in the conventional mixed-use lanes directly impacted the throughput and delays for each of these lanes, since ETC equipped vehicles have a service time of zero seconds. In addition to the operational benefits, other possible benefits for express ETC lanes were identified and recommended for further evaluation and research. The re-distribution of customers at the plaza due to the implementation of open road tolling, in the form of express ETC lanes, was a great benefit to the overall traffic operations for the University Mainline Toll Plaza in Orlando, Florida.

A Clutch, A Pride, A Murder is a linked collection of seven short fiction pieces and one novella that examine a world much like our own, but with the cover revealed—a world laid bare, exposed by its desires, its emotions, its beauties, and all its machinations. All of the stories involve, either directly or indirectly, the fictional Ohio city of Milton. Some of the stories take place within this seemingly typical American city, while others only involve characters coming from or in some cases returning to this unassuming location. Regardless, the events of these stories either in cause or effect all have their roots in Milton. The world at large also plays a part within these pages. While the stories themselves are completely fictitious, many of the peripheral events that happen beyond the principle storylines are pulled from today’s real-world headlines: a series of increasingly devastating tornadoes in the American heartland; a mysterious suicide of a wealthy industrialist; the amazing technological feats of a nation’s space program; the heinous crimes of a serial kidnapper. These events, each a worthy story in their own right, filter into the events of this collection, much as they do in our world—through the media. Television, radio, newspapers, social media all are outlets of information and current events making the stories of others part of our lives as we all live out our own personal adventures. I utilize these true-life events to add scope and breadth to the world of my fictions so that these events might at times inform and offer new perspective on the principle narratives. And while these true-life stories unfold in the backgrounds of their fictitious hosts, the hope is that the reader will be able to have a better sense of the timeline as the events unfold over the days, months, and years that these stories inhabit. iv Humanity in all its wonder and woe is on full display within this collection. From the journey of idyllic love to tragic romance, and the thin line that turns passion to obsession, we will see all the places theses complex emotions lead: a young botanist travels half-way around the world for a chance to reconnect with a lost love; a young girl’s love for her family pushes her to extremes to protect her brother; a man’s love for his city challenges his morality; the bond between brothers is put to the test; and a young man’s reverence for history, and his love of family leads him down a dark path. How far will someone go to protect themselves? Their loved ones? Or even their way of life? The lengths these characters will go, or in some cases will not go, are central to the stories in this collection. I intend to show those lengths and tell my characters’ all too human stories

Moonflowers and Other Stories is a collection of short stories focusing on complex relationships among characters who are estranged from their families and their pasts; some seek to reestablish connections, while others decide to simply walk away. All of the stories are set in Florida. In "Stained Glass," Abby returns home after seventeen years to help care for the father who disowned her. In "Blue Green Red," Melaney is compelled to find her brother after years of lying about his existence. Selina, the protagonist of "Fatty Walsh" is so embarrassed by her family she will not tell her friend Alucia where she lives, although she must ultimately choose between her younger brother and her friendship with Alucia. All of the stories in this thesis find characters desiring to establish or restore relationships despite past mistakes and grievances, evidence of their innate longing for human connection.

The global positioning system (GPS) makes use of extremely accurate measures of the time to determine position. The times required for electronic signals to travel at the speed of light from at least four orbiting satellites to a receiver on earth is measured precisely and used to calculate the distances from the satellites to the receiver. The calculated distances are used to determine the position of the receiver through triangulation. This research takes an approach opposite the original GPS research, focusing on the use of position to determine the time at which events occur. Specifically, this work addresses the question: Can the information pertaining to position and speed contained in a GPS record be used to autonomously identify the times at which critical events occur within a production cycle? The research question was answered by determining the hardware needs for collecting the desired data in a useable format an developing a unique data collection tool to meet those needs. The tool was field evaluated and the data collected was used to determine the software needs for automated reduction of the data to the times at which key events occurred. The software tools were developed in the form of Time Identification Modules (TIMs). The TIMs were used to reduce data collected from a load and haul earthmoving operation to duration measures for the load, haul, dump, and return activities. The value of the developed system was demonstrated by investigating correlations between performance times in construction operations and by using field data to verify the results obtained from productivity estimating tools. Use of the system was shown to improve knowledge and provide additional insight into operations analysis studies. / Ph. D.

Understanding police use of lethal force requires the collection of reliable data. Due to bias present in police-use-of-lethal-force databases, researchers typically triangulate using multiple data sources to compensate for this bias; however, triangulation is restricted when the bias present in each database is unknown. This study investigates three government-funded and three independent police-use-of-lethal-force databases to identify methodological sources of bias present in the major U.S. data-collection systems. Bias was coded based on nine categories, including misclassification bias, broad conceptualization, narrow conceptualization, overlap bias, coverage bias, voluntary response bias, observer bias, gatekeeping bias, and self-report response bias. Findings suggest that all six databases had at least three different types of methodological bias present. Generally, public, government-sponsored databases exhibit bias through data self-reporting by law enforcement and varying victim race determination methods. Private databases reveal bias through media-based reporting and the triangulation of data from multiple sources, which is further complicated by lack of transparency in the databases' design and administrative procedures. All six databases have a unique position to the State, which should also inform researcher data selection. I argue that selecting data sources that complement each other based on these identified biases will produce a more complete image of police-use-of-lethal-force and enhance finding accuracy in future research. / Master of Science / Understanding incidents where a civilian dies due to the actions of police officers requires the collection of reliable data. Due to bias—flaws in the data collection methods or data presentation—which lead to varying results when using different databases, researchers typically use multiple data sources to make up for these flaws; however, this method is restricted when the bias present in each database is unknown. This study investigates three government-funded and three independent police-use-of-lethal-force databases to identify sources of bias present in the major U.S. data-collection systems. Findings suggest that all six databases had at least three different types of flaws present. Generally, public, government-sponsored databases exhibit bias through police self-reporting lethal force, where an officer's department reports the officer's actions and there is no individual or group outside of the police reporting these incidents. Additionally, there is a flaw in how police record the race of a victim, who dies through police use of lethal force; Varying procedures in how race is recorded, whether recorded based on the officer's opinion or where a victim self-reports their own race prior to death on a government data system such as the Department of Motor Vehicles, also impacts the race data included in public databases. Private databases reveal bias through collecting incident data from news reports and using data from multiple sources such as law enforcement reports, medical examiner reports, and media reports simultaneously; this is further complicated by lack of transparency in the databases' design and administrative procedures, where there are no documents detailing the steps databases take in collecting and presenting data. All six databases have a unique position to the U.S. Government, where some are funded by the Government and where some are motivated by recent high profile police killings, which should impact researcher data selection. Ideally, the databases used should hold multiple perspectives or positions to the Government to provide an more complete image of lethal force. I argue that selecting data sources that complement each other based on these identified biases will produce a more complete image of police-use-of-lethal-force and enhance finding accuracy in future research.

The Summer of Gators is a collection of nine short stories that explore the ways we process, think about, and interact with loss. / MFA

Of the many aspects of the composition of poetry, the most common component of the form involves emotional response. There is an infinite number of ways to write a poem, and likewise an infinite number of forms which a poem can be structured according to. In writing this collection of poems composing my thesis, I set out to write poetry in as many ways as I could to explore how different forms, devices, voices, points of view, sounds, tones, and as many other variables as I could think of affect poetry as stimulus. The poems in this collection cover a range of classic poetic forms and styles as well as variations of free verse and contemporary forms. My hope is that the readers of these poems will be able to experience a wide range of emotional responses and gain the same insight into the vast abilities inherent in poetry that I gained in writing them.

The intent for each poem in this thesis: To write without intent. I, ironically, intended to approach the writing process without considering the outcome of each poem. Some of the poems spiraled out of control, while others spiraled into focus. I do not always know what I’m thinking. It may be unfair to impose clarity on poems when clarity is not always part of experience. Each poem took self-examination to understand in the context of my own life. The proposal for this thesis, entitled, “The Unintended Approach,” did not mention the unintended consequences of writing poems in such a way. Bursts of energy found their way into the writing. Only in reflection, did I realize that these bursts of energy were understandable in the context of personal memory. This experiment in crafting poems, at times, left me confused. There are images I still can’t seem to decipher. I have kept my belief that concise meaning in poetry is not the most important aspect of verse. With rapid urbanization, increased distortion created by fast-paced leaps in technology, and the evolution of celebrity awareness, the world we write in, is not the world we were written into. I have written each poem into their own place on page—allowed them their own discoveries without my approval. People behave in a way that is often erratic. My experience is intrinsic to what I have observed in my life; a schizophrenic cousin, a slurred maternal mouthing, uncles addicted to drugs or hope, for fame. My life has been a series of disjointed events. This thesis is a composite, not a copy. Genetic code is also a composite. Each poem has a life unlike my own. The goal of this collection was to allow these poems their own struggle to understand.