FIU White Coat Ceremony 2013

FIU White Ceremony marks the beginning of 122 students' transitions into physicians. Ceremony held at Herbert and Nicole Wertheim Performing Arts Center on August 9, 2013.

FIU College of Medicine Match Day 2013

Herbert C. Wertheim College of Medicine hosts their First Annual Match Day, where graduating seniors reveal their acceptances to medicine residency programs across the country. March 15, 2013

FIU Hispanic Scholarship Fund Event

Florida International University hosts an information session for the Hispanic Scholarship's Fund Steps for Success program. The program assists students and parents by providing workshops on financial aid and the college application process. January 21, 2012 at the Graham Center Ballroom, Modesto Maidique Campus, Florida International University

FIU College of Law Graduation Ceremony May 2013

Florida International University College of Law Commencement Ceremony held on May 24, 2013 at the U.S. Century Bank Arena at Modesto Maidique Campus.

FIU College of Law Graduation Ceremony May 2010

Florida International University College of Law Commencement Ceremony held at the U.S. Century Bank Arena at Modesto Maidique Campus.

FIU College of Law Graduation Ceremony May 2011

Florida International University College of Law Commencement Ceremony held at the U.S. Century Bank Arena at Modesto Maidique Campus. Among the speakers was US Senator Marco Rubio.

FIU College of Law Graduation Pre-Ceremony May 2011

Montage of photos of FIU Law Students on display before the start of the College of Law Commencement Ceremony, May 2011. Event held at US Century Bank Arena

Effects of invasive Africanized honey bees (Apis mellifera scutellata) on native stingless bee populations (Meliponinae) and traditional Mayan beekeeping in central Quintana Roo, Mexico

The Maya of the Yucatan region have a long history of keeping the native stingless bees (subfamily Meliponinae). However, market forces in the last few decades have driven the Maya to favor the use of invasive Africanized honey bees (Apis mellifera scutellata) for producing large quantities of high quality honey that has an international market. Furthermore, the native bees traditionally used by the Maya are now disappearing, along with the practice of keeping them. ^ An interdisciplinary approach was taken in order to determine the social factors behind the decrease in stingless beekeeping and the ecological driving forces behind their disappearance from the wild. Social research methods included participant observation with stingless beekeepers, Apis beekeepers, and marketing intermediaries. Ecological research methods included point observations of commonly known melliferous and polliniferous plants along transects in three communities with different degrees of human induced ecosystem disturbance. ^ The stingless bee species most important to the Maya, Melipona beecheii, has become extremely rare, and this has caused a breakdown of stingless beekeeping tradition, compounded with the pressure of the market economy, which fuels Apis beekeeping and has lessened the influence of traditional practices. The community with the heaviest amount of human induced ecosystem disturbance also had the highest degree of dominance of Apis mellifera, while the area with the most intact ecosystem had the highest diversity of stingless bees, though Apis mellifera was still the dominant species. Aggressive competitive behavior involving physical attacks by Apis mellifera against stingless bees was observed on several occasions, and this is a new observation previously unreported by science. ^

2014 FIU Cuba Poll: How Cuban Americans in Miami View U.S. Policies Toward Cuba

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The 1993 FIU Cuba Poll

Results from the 1993 FIU Cuba Poll

Beyond Swastika and Jim Crow- FIU reception

Reception for the Coral Gables Museum exhibit of "Beyond Swastika and Jim Crow" held at Florida International University on October 26,2014

The knowledge and use of critical thinking teaching strategies of faculty in associate degree nursing education programs

The purpose of this study was to determine the knowledge and use of critical thinking teaching strategies by full-time and part-time faculty in Associate Degree Nursing (ADN) programs. Sander's CTI (1992) instrument was adapted for this study and pilottested prior to the general administration to ADN faculty in Southeast Florida. This modified instrument, now termed the Burroughs Teaching Strategy Inventory (BTSI), returned reliability estimates (Cronbach alphas of .71, .74, and .82 for the three constructs) comparable to the original instrument. The BTSI was administered to 113 full-time and part-time nursing faculty in three community college nursing programs. The response rate was 92% for full-time faculty (n = 58) and 61 % for part-time faculty (n = 55). The majority of participants supported a combined definition of critical thinking in nursing which represented a composite of thinking skills that included reflective thinking, assessing alternative viewpoints, and the use of problem-solving. Full-time and part-time faculty used different teaching strategies. Fulltime faculty most often used multiple-choice exams and lecture while part-time faculty most frequently used discussion within their classes. One possible explanation for specific strategy choices and differences might be that full-time faculty taught predominately in theory classes where certain strategies would be more appropriate and part-time faculty taught predominately clinical classes. Both faculty types selected written nursing care plans as the second most effective critical thinking strategy. Faculty identified several strategies as being effective in teaching critical thinking. These strategies included discussion, case studies, higher order questioning, and concept analysis. These however, were not always the strategies that were used in either the classroom or clinical setting. Based on this study, the author recommends that if the profession continues to stress critical thinking as a vital component of practice, nursing faculty should receive education in appropriate critical teaching strategies. Both in-service seminars and workshops could be used to further the knowledge and use of critical thinking strategies by faculty. Qualitative research should be done to determine why nursing faculty use self-selected teaching strategies.

Deadlift

Up till now, Florida detective fiction has prowled through the hot, sexy, slightly bizarre babel of South Florida. Deadlift reveals a different Florida. DEADLIFT, set in the mid-1980s, is situated in central Florida in Winter Haven, located between Orlando and Tampa. DEADLIFT reveals Bubba Simms, a Sheriff's Department sergeant, who kills the man who raped his wife and, then, conceals the crime. He leaves the police community to become a private detective. While he searches for truth in his detective work, he is compelled to face the reality of his crumbling marriage. Bubba Simms begins to find the isolation of Sam Spade and Phillip Marlowe. While the novel is action-driven, DEADLIFT depicts the humor, character, and community of a Florida that clings to the traditional South while being changed by the influx of others.

Digital signal processing implementation for near real-time wavelet transformation system for binary images

Communication has become an essential function in our civilization. With the increasing demand for communication channels, it is now necessary to find ways to optimize the use of their bandwidth. One way to achieve this is by transforming the information before it is transmitted. This transformation can be performed by several techniques. One of the newest of these techniques is the use of wavelets. Wavelet transformation refers to the act of breaking down a signal into components called details and trends by using small waveforms that have a zero average in the time domain. After this transformation the data can be compressed by discarding the details, transmitting the trends. In the receiving end, the trends are used to reconstruct the image. In this work, the wavelet used for the transformation of an image will be selected from a library of available bases. The accuracy of the reconstruction, after the details are discarded, is dependent on the wavelets chosen from the wavelet basis library. The system developed in this thesis takes a 2-D image and decomposes it using a wavelet bank. A digital signal processor is used to achieve near real-time performance in this transformation task. A contribution of this thesis project is the development of DSP-based test bed for the future development of new real-time wavelet transformation algorithms.

The Church of Our Blessed Redeemer Who Walked Upon the Waters

The Church of Our Blessed Redeemer Who Walked Upon the Waters is a collection of short stories about Elwyn Parker, a devout pianist who becomes a worldly car salesman. "Thirty Fingers," "My Father's Business," and "Apostate" introduce Elwyn, a saint at church and a trouble-making evangelist at school, who nevertheless finds himself in a love affair with an older woman, Sister Morrisohn. In "Captivity," Elwyn, a college freshman, experiences worldliness, then grows to resent and ultimately reject Sister Morrisohn. In "The Leap," Elwyn is back at the piano, but unemployed and unhappily married. He finds comfort only in his decade-old affair. In "The Lord of Travel," Elwyn, a car salesman, appears bereft of his former morals until he hoodwinks Ida, who reminds him of the now deceased Sister Morrisohn. Elwyn repairs Ida's car, redeeming himself in the process.