This thesis analyzes how college major choices are affected by race over an 18 year time period. In particular, the focus on the decision to major in STEM, humanities, or business fields. I find that every race had a disproportionate amount of students in each of the major categories, and that in some cases there was a significant trend in those proportions. Additionally, there were significant changes in the percentage within races for all three major categories. In particular, the trends with Asian students were significantly different from those of other races. While the reasoning behind the disparities in major choices across races could not be formally analyzed due to limitations on the available data, possibilities are discussed.

Abstract The goal of this paper is to provide insight into the development and execution of the short film, Timelocked. I will focus on the complete process of the film’s creation, from the first inspiration of the idea through its planning, its production and, finally, its use beyond submission to my thesis committee for consideration. The most significant challenge for this project was remaining true to the story’s genre, tone, and theme throughout each iteration of its development. Therefore, the structure of the paper will serve to describe the entire process with respect to the preservation of these three aspects. My goal is to prove mastery in the fine art of film production by creating a film which effectively shows deep understanding of the time-travel sub-genre of science-fiction films, while subverting that sub-genre in a unique way, causing an emotional effect in the audience.

Many Days Many Nights is a body of work that examines the notion of place, highlighting the complex relationship between a psychological state of mind and the experience of geographical location. The work incorporates a hybrid documentary photography practice combined with experimental video to construct narrative and is underpinned by a phenomenological inquiry into the relationship between memory, time, and the experience of place, and collectively, how these concepts pervade the subjective photographic frame. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.F.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2019. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

This research project focuses on how social workers can improve the healthcare experience for people who are homeless. The twelve participants in this study were recruited from a homeless shelter located in Southern California. Data was collected for this study using qualitative methods by means of interviews. Interviews were conducted in person, audio recorded, and then transcribed for data analysis. Findings from this study indicated that the concepts of time, perception of needs being met, service connection, staff interaction, social work intervention, and potential social work intervention were all connected to whether participants viewed their healthcare visit as a negative experience or a positive experience. In addition, findings from this study revealed a low percentage of reported social work encounters at healthcare facilities among study participants. Results from this study have implications for social work practice in regards to location of social work intervention at healthcare facilities and extension of social work roles in healthcare settings.

We have constructed a new finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method in this project. Our new algorithm focuses on the most important and more challenging transverse electric (TE) case. In this case, the electric field is discontinuous across the interface between different dielectric media. We use an electric permittivity that stays as a constant in each medium, and magnetic permittivity that is constant in the whole domain. To handle the interface between different media, we introduce new effective permittivities that incorporates electromagnetic fields boundary conditions. That is, across the interface between two different media, the tangential component, Er(x,y), of the electric field and the normal component, Dn(x,y), of the electric displacement are continuous. Meanwhile, the magnetic field, H(x,y), stays as continuous in the whole domain. Our new algorithm is built based upon the integral version of the Maxwell's equations as well as the above continuity conditions. The theoretical analysis shows that the new algorithm can reach second-order convergence O(∆x2)with mesh size ∆x. The subsequent numerical results demonstrate this algorithm is very stable and its convergence order can reach very close to second order, considering accumulation of some unexpected numerical approximation and truncation errors. In fact, our algorithm has clearly demonstrated significant improvement over all related FDTD methods using effective permittivities reported in the literature. Therefore, our new algorithm turns out to be the most effective and stable FDTD method to solve Maxwell's equations involving multiple media.

Retention of 1st-year students is a challenge facing higher education and remains relevant for all stakeholders. Low persistence negatively affects individual students, institutions, and society as a whole. Nationally, a significant number of students have reported working while in college, particularly 1st-generation, low socioeconomic status (SES), and racial and ethnic minority students, those same groups who are at higher risk of experiencing low retention rates. Guided by Tinto's interactionalist model of student departure, binary logistic regression analyses of archival data were used in this retrospective prediction study. The focus was to determine how on-campus employment (OCE), 1st-generation, low-SES, and racial and ethnic minority student status were related to retention to the 2nd year for 1,582 first-time full-time students who entered a 4 year institution in the fall semesters of 2013 to 2015. Students who worked on campus during their 1st year of college were nearly twice as likely to be retained as those students who did not work on campus. Although living on campus was found to be a significant predictor of retention for students who did not work on campus during their 1st year in college, it was not a significant predictor of retention for students who did work on campus. Based on the findings, a white paper was developed, recommending that student employment practices on campus be modified such that 1st-year students, especially those who may not be living on campus, be made more aware of OCE opportunities. Creating a better understanding of the role OCE plays in student retention has positive social change implications for students, faculty members, staff members, and administrators needing to make informed decisions that increase student retention.

When we begin to investigate the persistence of objects through time, we find immediately that the sort of concerns embodied in Leibniz's Law cause philosophers to divide themselves into the two major camps of Purdurantists and Endurantists. What is required according to each for a given object at a given time to be identified with a given object at another time is held to be dramatically different, even while both often look to the same general sort of indicators for their answers to identity questions: identity or similarity of physical properties, including relational properties like spatial location. I believe, however, that logically prior to the problem of the persistence of objects through time will be questions regarding the composition of objects--we must have coherent notions of what an object is, what it means for parts to compose an object, and what is required for an object to be considered to exist at a single time before we can discuss the continued existence of objects at other times. I believe that posing the problem of temporal gaps for both the Perdurantist and Endurantist to solve can help us uncover reasonable answers to these more basic questions, and thereby help us judge the comparative coherence of the parent theories. Towards this goal, we investigate here some of the assumptions of persistence theories--that Perdurantists are four-dimensionalists and Endurantists are Presentists, for example--before moving on to find reasonable explanations of the composition of objects from within each theory. Important at this stage is clarifying such concepts as parthood and the present. When we at length turn our attention to the problem of gaps, it becomes useful to distinguish two sorts of gaps, each with their own difficulties: a 'gap' as a length of time during which the proper parts of an object are scattered through space, and a 'gap' as a length of time during which the proper parts of an object do not exist in space at all. My contention here is that Perdurantism, paired with four-dimensional spacetime, provides the most coherent answers to the challenges presented throughout.

The purpose of this study was to measure the influence of an ambient peppermint aroma on participants' time-on-task and performance while using FACTOR, an open-source e-Learning application. I proposed time-on-task was moderating between olfactory stimulation and performance. A 2x2 research design measured interaction of group (nonscented, scented) and gender of participants (N = 65). The learning content consisted of 28 African countries. Two methods for measuring time-on-task were employed: participant self-report at six learning intervals, and second, video recordings captured by, and stored on each participant's computer. Independent samples t tests were used to measure group and gender differences in time-on-task and performance. Relationships between time-on-task and performance were assessed using bivariate correlation and were reported as r values. Time-on-task differences between groups were not significant but garnered ES =.53. After 24 minutes of learning time, control females spent more time-on-task than control males (ES =.71), which was a statistically significant result. There was a weak to almost neutral correlation between time-on-task of all participants and performance (r =.1) where controls showed a weaker relationship (r =.05) than treatments (r =.26). The correlation between observed time-on-task and posttest performance was neutral for controls (r = .008) but moderate for treatments (r =.38). During the 40-minute learning session, the relationship between observed time-on-task and performance was r =.04 (females) and r =.55 (males), which was statistically significant. When examining time-on-task at the six measured intervals, the relationship with performance was strongest for treatments after 16 (r =.39) and 24 (r =.39) minutes of learning time. The direct influence of olfactory stimulation on performance was weak as the peppermint scent had a greater influence on time-on-task. Significant differences and notable effect sizes were not achieved by examining these variables. Analysis of the entire model showed the variables (condition, time-on-task, performance) were weakly correlated (r =.19) and that only 4% of the variance in the model was explained by its variables. As such, I failed to reject the null hypothesis, which was that time-on-task did not act as a moderator between condition and performance.

Appraisal theories of emotion assert that guilt arises from the evaluations one ill makes about one's behavior. Perpetrators experience guilt when they view themselves as responsible for harm caused to their victims. Interpersonal theories of emotion hold that guilt is a function of relational factors, including the need to repair relationships. Theorists argue that guilty feelings often arise in spite of appraisals, and that perpetrators feel guilty because of a need to communicate reconciliatory messages to their victims. These two views of guilt are generally seen as mutually exclusive. This study proposed integrating both views of guilt into a single, interactive theory of guilt that includes both appraisals and interpersonal concerns and that asserts that guilt varies as a function of the appraisals one makes about one's own and others' behavior, the nature of the relationship between perpetrators and victims, the perspective from which one views events, and the passage of time. The main question asked was: when taking into account these factors, is guilt better accounted for by an appraisal, interpersonal , or the newly proposed integrative view of guilt? One-hundred forty-seven male and 168 female university students were presented with scenarios depicting the interaction of two people who were friends or enemies and were directed to adopt the perspective of perpetrators, victims, or were not given instructions to adopt a perspective. In each scenario, a perpetrator acted to inflict harm that was either unintentional or angrily intended. Participants then rated perpetrators' responsibility appraisals, emotional responses, and forgiveness needs. Additionally, participants were asked to rate how responsible perpetrators believed their victims believed them to be. Correlational analyses and AN OVA were used to test the effects of the factors in the proposed model on ratings of guilt. Although partial support was found for both the appraisal view and the interpersonal view of guilt, results provided the strongest support for the interactive view of guilt. Discussion focused on the role of appraisals, relational factors, perspective, and time in guilty feelings and the implications of these findings for further research.

Three macroeconomic issues are examined in separate self-contained studies. The first study tests the business cycle theory with application of an enhanced Augmented Dickey-Fuller test on the U.S. time series of real gross national product. Unlike previous studies, the null hypothesis of a unit root is rejected. The second study tests for IS-LM conditions in the U.S. during the post-Bretton Woods era by combining the Johansen's approach to cointegration with bootstrap algorithms. The estimated model produces a dynamic version of the IS-LM that permits short-term evaluations of fiscal and monetary policies. The third study seeks to explain the observed persistence in the Bolivan dollarization process. It is found that dollarization is now an irreversible process, with the Bolivian economy in transition toward equalization with U.S. prices and interest rates.