Digital Commons Network^™

Do Spoilers Change A Person's Enjoyment Of A Television Show?, Olivia M. Leal

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

Previous research has demonstrated that story spoilers - explaining how a story ends before the person has had a chance to discover it themselves - can either make the story more enjoyable or less enjoyable. This study examined the potential moderating effects of individual differences regarding need for cognition and need for affect. In this study, participants complete 2 individual difference measures and watched an episode of TI1e Twilight Zone. Participants were randomly assigned into one of four conditions: spoiler and explicit, no spoiler and explicit, spoiler and not explicit, no spoiler and not explicit. There was no effect found …

Free Speech And Defamation In Kuwait And U.S. Law: Historical Dimension Of Jurisdictions And Law In A Social Context, Ahmad Shehab Alshehab

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

This legal comparative study aims to explore how the U.S. and Kuwaiti legal formants, such as legislators and judges, achieve balance with individuals' reputational rights and freedom of speech and the press. It also examines the factors contributing to their differing views about defamation and free speech limitations. The law-in-context method and the Theory of Legal Formants were applied to achieve the study objectives. Traditional, religious, and historical factors have made significant impacts on Kuwaiti laws. The results show some contradiction between the laws as written, as interpreted, and as applied in the country. The first step in reforming these …

Factors Affecting Hiv Testing Among Youth In Kenya, Allison Nall

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

With the high prevalence of HIV among youth in sub-Saharan Africa, it is vital to better understand factors affecting HIV testing among this population; this is the first step in the HIV treatment cascade. Using existing data from the SEERs (Stigma-reduction via Education, Empowerment, and Research) Project, a community-based participatory research program targeting 13-24 year olds in Kenya, the purpose of this study was to examine factors related to behavioral intentions regarding HIV testing. It was hypothesized that HIV knowledge, social support, subjective well-being, and mental health would serve as facilitators to HIV testing while projected stigma and substance use …

Mos2 Doped Tio2 Nanomaterial And The Enhancement Of Photocatalytic Properties For Solar Disinfection, Timothy Mccolgan

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

This research project focused on the synthesis, characterization, and environmental application of a photocatalytic nanomaterial composed of molybdenum (IV) disulfide [MOS2] doped titanium dioxide [TiO2]. Extensive research has been conducted on the electronic uses of nanocrystalline MoS2 as a phototransistor and absorptive species (Yin et al., 2012), as well as the photocatalytic effects of TiO2 (Diebold, 2003). Research has also been performed into the generation of oxidizers from TiO2 nanocomposites (Zhang et al., 2015), but as of yet no research has been conducted on a practical application of this material. This project fills that void by evaluating its effectiveness while …

Soil Accumulation, Accretion, And Organic Carbon Burial Rates In Mangrove Soils Of The Lower Florida Keys: A Temporal And Spatial Analysis, Amanda R. Chappel

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

This study compared the temporal variability in rates of soil accumulation, accretion, and organic carbon (OC) burial from three sites in the Lower Florida Keys using two different radiometric dating techniques (210Pb, 14C). Comparison of these rates across various timescales (decadal, centurial, and millennial) permitted examination of temporal responses and drivers. Further, spatial variability was measured for these associated site rates. Differences in geographic location and site morphologies as predicted, were supported by spatial variability in all rates across sites with the exception of centurial rates of accretion. All rates were greater when assessed over shorter (e.g. decadal) timescales. The …

Elusive Or Illusive Truth? The Role Of Sensors And Sampling Strategies In Data Collection And Its Implication For Scientific Knowledge And The Pursuit Of Truth, Christopher R. Mchan

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Binaural Beats On Emotion And Cognition, Olivera Petrovich

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

When two tones of similar frequencies are presented in each ear, the brain responds by perceiving a third tone, known as a binaural beat. Binaural beat technology is marketed as a self-improvement tool to reduce stress, improve mood, increase cognition, deepen meditation, and alter states of consciousness. The purpose of this study is to explore the effects of binaural beats with delta and theta frequencies to determine if these changes can improve mood and creativity using a pre- and post-test experimental design. Participants completed the Positive Affect and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) to measure mood by identifying how closely they …

Representations Of Transgender Murder Victims In Digital U.S. News Media: A Framing Analysis, Karlynd June

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

Transgender murder victims are routinely mis-identified, misgendered, misrepresented in news media. GLAAD (formerly the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation), the main media watchdog for LGBTQ+ rights and advocacy, reports that transgender people, particularly transgender women of color, are disproportionately affected by hate violence and these tragedies are often compounded by reporting that does not respect (or exploits) victims’ gender identity [misgendering] (2016b; June, 2016).

This project is a qualitative framing analysis of digital U.S. news media representations of transgender and non-binary (bn)/gender non-conforming (gnc) murder victims. The framing analysis was informed by a general content analysis of the artifacts. …

Historical Black Press Newspapers And Technology Adoption: The Weekly Challenger, Daytona Times, And Florida Courier, Indhira Suero Acosta

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

According to the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), there are more than 200 local and regional publications directed to the African-American community in the United States. On its website, the NNPA lists a total of 157 members from 29 states. Currently, there exists no research on how these publications have adopted technology throughout time, or if the adoption of new media contributes to their growth and survival in the publishing industry. In Florida, The Weekly Challenger, Daytona Times and Florida Courier, 3 of 13 historical newspapers directed at the African-American population, are connected in history and structure and apply different …

Between Two Empires: Life In Mid-Eighteenth Century St. Augustine On The Eve Of Evacuation, T.E. Bryant

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

St. Augustine’s 1763-64 evacuation was a ten-month event that ended Spain’s two hundred year rule in Florida. A careful review of Spanish records produced during the evacuation reveals that mid-eighteenth century St. Augustine was a cosmopolitan city, where immigration was a key component to social mobility. St. Augustine’s role as Spain’s bastion against the expanding British North American colonies meant that the city was a key piece in British and Spanish imperial maneuvering. Both St. Augustine’s strategic location and military function allowed diversity to flourish in the city. St. Augustine’s diverse community adapted to the constant immigration by developing intricate …

Florida Entanglements: The 1791 William Augustus Bowles Rebellion, Clinton Hough

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

Florida emerged from the Revolutionary War “entangled.” A pawn of the United States, British, and Spanish, Florida might have been nominally aligned politically, but was essentially a cultural and social borderland existing on the edge of empire. Historians have successfully traced individuals in Florida to demonstrate the influence of non-British Colonists living in the South during the Revolution and Early Republic. This approach uses case studies to illustrate the challenges faced, some of which include economic independence versus interdependence, loyalty, citizenship, and international diplomacy. William Augustus Bowles is one such individual who stood “entangled” in Florida, between greater Caribbean, Atlantic …

Integration Of Terrestrial Source, Landuse, And Watershed Hydrogeology In Coastal Mpa Management, Kyle Flanagan

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), important for their ecology, ecosystem services, and aesthetics, are portions of the marine environment set aside for limited or no extraction, close monitoring of resources, and protection from anthropogenic impacts. They are established based on ecological and economic characteristics and needs, and are assessed through adaptive management where success targets are set by comparison with control areas; a method considering ecological interactions within coastal MPA boundaries, but without integrating and incorporating the detrimental effects of runoff-derived inputs (sediments and nutrients) from adjacent watersheds. It is widely accepted that all organisms, humans included, live downstream of other …

Historical Sediment Record And Levels Of Pcbs In Sedimentsand Mangroves Of Jobos Bay, Puerto Rico, Lindsey Hanson

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were quantified in 18 surface sediment samples, 1 sediment core, and several mangrove tissue samples collected in Jobos Bay, Puerto Rico in September 2013. Total PCBs in surface sediments ranged from 0.42 to 1232 ng g-1 dw. Generally, higher levels were observed near the shore, close to urban and industrial areas. The levels suggest significant pollution in Jobos Bay with respect to PCBs. Two-thirds of the sites were dominated by lighter PCB congeners (tri- to penta-chlorinated PCBs) while one-third had heavy PCB congeners (hexa- to octa-chlorinated PCBs) dominant. Total PCBs in a sediment core indicated levels fluctuating …

Task-Dependent Fluency And Devaluation Of Gender-Ambiguous Faces: The Effects Of Categorization Disfluency On Hireability, Ilona Nemeth

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

The evaluation of faces is an automatic process that involves perceiving facial features. The allocation of attention towards certain facial features can enhance the processing of faces; however, previous research has shown that evaluating ambiguous features makes faces more difficult to process resulting in lower ratings of likability and trustworthiness. Our research tested the extent to which individuals, when primed to focus attention on gender, would experience difficulty in the categorization of faces with ambiguous gender. Further, we examined how cognitive fluency impacted the devaluation of these faces, especially within the context of hireability for genderstereotyped jobs. Our first prediction …

Neural Activation In Bilinguals And Monolinguals During A Word-Recognition Task, Rebecca Porzig

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

The purpose of this study was to investigate speech recognition among Spanish-English bilingual and English monolingual individuals and to examine blood-oxygenation changes in the prefrontal cortex during the speech recognition task. Twenty-six English-speaking monolingual adults and 10 fluent Spanish-English speaking bilingual adults participated in the study. All participants completed a gating task incorporating monolingual sentences and code-mixed Spanish-English sentences while wearing a functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) band to measure changes in blood-oxygenation. Bilinguals performed equally well to monolinguals when identifying words in both monolingual and code-mixed sentences. Monolinguals identified English words in monolingual sentences more quickly than English words in …

Sadomasochistic Fantasy In Dickens’S Great Expectations, Daniel G. Lauby

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations is a perpetually repetitive sequence of abjection, mastery, and failure that contrasts with Victorian wish-fulfillment cinder fantasies. As an orphaned laboring boy from the marshes, Pip begins a failed attempt to compensate for his lack by possessing Estella, a love object who equally tortures and titillates. Thus, he enters into a fantasy that appropriates the Petrarchan mode of Shakespeare’s Sonnets through masochistic disavowal, fetishization, waiting, and suspense, shaping Great Expectations into fantasy narrative that refuses resolution. As Pip attempts to refashion his identity from laborer to gentleman, he is forced to inhabit the space between past …

Who Should Manage Red Snapper (Lutjanus Campechanus) In The Gulf Of Mexico?A Study Of The Social Dynamics Of The Red Snapper Fishery, Sydney A. Alhale

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

There have been many studies of the biology of red snapper; however, there are few studies addressing the social dynamics of the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) red snapper fishery1 and its effect on stock management. The GOM red snapper fishery was in decline from the 1950s through the 1980s from years of rampant overfishing. A rebuilding plan was established in 1984 under the Magnuson-Stevens Act guidelines, placing stringent regulations on red snapper fishing. To successfully rebuild the fishery by 2032, federal seasons and quotas have been shortened to allow the stock to grow. Recreational fishermen have become increasingly unhappy with …

The Role That The Quantity Of Sampling Wells Has On The Groundwater Quality Analysis At The Savannah River Site (Srs), Jerry J. Cantrell

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

Savannah River Plant was created to produce nuclear-weapons materials during the Cold War. After the end of the Cold War, Savannah River Plant has become Savannah River Site (SRS) with emphasis on environmental stewardship. This research serves as baseline data to contribute to a better understanding of the spatial distribution of the background-groundwater system at the SRS. The methods of this study systematically linearize analyte parameters and establishes rank values, weight values, and aggregates the parameters. The aggregation value establishes a means to determine groundwater quality based on the analytes sampled as a comparison to their respectively recognized Environmental Protection …

The Polarization And Civility Of Hong Kong Political Discourse On Facebook News Pages, Leung Kiu Fok

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

This content analysis research investigated the content and quality of political discourse generated by online news media’s Facebook pages in Hong Kong. First, the focus of this study was to examine how Hong Kong’s online news media frame the political relationship between Hong Kong and China by analyzing the news postings on the Facebook pages of the top three online news media organizations in post-handover Hong Kong. The three online news media being analyzed were Stand News, Post 852, and Hong Kong 01. The results suggest that some online news media have a tendency to embed partisan, pro-democracy perspectives in …

Informant Discrepancies In Transactive Memory System Scoring, Lovia Feliscar

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

A transactive memory system (TMS) refers to a psychological phenomenon in which two or more people share, encode, and retrieve knowledge (Wegner, 1987). To develop, this system requires communication between those within the dyad or group. Through communication, individuals within dyads and groups can share their knowledge and encode new retrieved knowledge from others. The importance of a TMS lies in the fact that it reduces the labor for learning new tasks and materials by allowing each individual within a group to only memorize certain information; Hollingshead (1998a) describes it as a cooperative division of labor for joint tasks. Research …

Local And Diverse Economies As A Driver Of Sustainability: A Perspective From Us Cities, Alita M. Kane

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

Across the nation cities are currently seeking new methods of economic development that fit into the sustainable development framework. This search is due in part to the recognition that traditional methods of economic development have left many cities vulnerable to economic downturn and environmental deterioration. The question is what types of economies can foster sustainability in a city? This research explores the concept that localized and diverse economies could be a potential driver of sustainability. The ability of localized and diverse economies to increase economic autonomy and viability has been explored by many researchers but their relationship with sustainability has …

Elusive Truths: Baltasar Del Castillo, Royal Subsidies, And The 1576 Residencia Of Florida, Katherine Godfry

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

The year 1576 was tumultuous for the settlement of Santa Elena. Ten years had passed since the town’s founding, and not all of its residents were content with the colony’s state of affairs. In the fall of 1576, the Crown’s appointed investigator, Baltasar del Castillo y Ahedo, began a lengthy investigation of the tenures of Santa Elena’s royal officials. The timing and significance of these reviews was crucial as they were performed shortly after Santa Elena’s temporary abandonment in June of 1576. Castillo, a former accountant in Pedro Menéndez de Avilés’s royal armada, revealed how Santa Elena’s officials systematically abused …

Forest Community Integration And Collective Agency In Korup National Park,Cameroon: Interactions With Forest Policies And The Redd+ Mechanism, Adam E. Flanery

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

Cameroon is in the process of developing its program for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+). Two communities near the southern portion of Korup National Park in the Southwest Region were studied to understand the implications for REDD+ implementation in the area, in light of current forest policies including community forestry, agro-industry, and forest conservation. Frameworks used to understand the communities are an institutional analysis model, and the field-interactional perspective of community agency. I used qualitative methods of data collection, including a questionnaire survey, in-depth interviews with villagers and NGO (non-governmental organization) workers, and other ethnographic techniques. Various …

Analyzing Factors That Influence Success And Failure Of Conservation Practice: A Multi-Scale Study, Jessica Gruber

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

Many conservation efforts around the world have been unsuccessful in attempting to rectify the loss of biodiversity, habitat and overall destruction of the natural environment. Criteria for conservation success have primarily been measured in terms of biological factors such as the amount of biodiversity, wildlife or area conserved. Conservation efforts that include local participation have been correlated with higher degrees of conservation success, which are not shown through traditional conservation measurements. Therefore, there is a need to develop a rubric with a ranking and classification system that will incorporate a holistic approach including interdisciplinary environmental, institutional, socio-economic, conflict and traditional …

Slacker Joyce: James Joyce, Richard Linklater, And The Silent Re-Canonization Of The Masterpiece, Layne M. Farmen

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

The filmography of Austinite Richard Linklater (as in, one that comes from Austin, Texas) is incredibly Joycean, and my argument is that Linklater makes Joyce’s work contemporary in both the realms of independent and big studio film-making. He is the greatest interpreter of Joyce in the 21st century, and he never mentions his name. Linklater both introduces Joycean themes to mainstream audiences who would never dream of taking on Ulysses, and encourages those familiar with Joyce to take a second look. Whether the best way to “save” Joyce study is through a focus on the source texts or their appropriations, …

The Effect Of Value Learning On Attentional Resourcesduring Top-Down Processing: An Erp Study, Carlene Ann Horner

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

Value learning has been shown to modulate attention. The current study investigated which elements of value learning (Probability or valence) influence attention. The P3 ERP component was examined as an index of attentional resources allocated to these valued stimuli and also as an index of the speed of processing these stimuli. Novel images were given a positive or negative (valence) value with variable probabilities of outcome (probability) in a learning task. Once the associations between stimuli and their expected values were made, the same stimuli were incorporated into a perceptual discrimination task where prior value was irrelevant. During perceptual discrimination, …

Levels Of Selected Pyrethroids In The Work Environment Of Pest Control Service Technicians And The Potential For Take-Home Exposure, Upton Nickle

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

Pyrethroid insecticides are widely used in pest control where pest control service technicians (PCSTs) could be chronically exposed. Levels of six pyrethroids were quantified in air and dust inside storage depots of pest control companies and inside both service and private vehicles of PCS Ts. Levels of pyrethroids were also quantified in the socks that PCSTs wore. Samples were analyzed using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) and exposure levels in ingestible dust among the PCSTs calculated. The highest levels of individual pyrethroids found in the air samples were 363 lng/m 3 of cyfluthrin in service vehicles, 287 ng/m 3 of cypermethrin …

Some Moral Judgments May Be Immune To Hindsight Bias, Marielle G. Machacek

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

Decades of hindsight bias has shown it to be a robust phenomenon exhibited in many different hypothetical and real-world situations. Two competing models of hindsight bias, the cognitive sense-making model and the motivational model, were used to predict hindsight bias effects for a situation dealing with strongly polarized opinions. Participants read about a physician who prescribed medical marijuana to a child with self-injurious behaviors and then received a positive outcome, negative outcome, or no outcome at all (control group). Those holding a negative view of illegal drugs exhibited hindsight bias following both positive (d = 1.13) and negative outcomes (d …

Examining The Effects Of Lace Training On Cognitive Function In Older Adults : An Erp Study, Brandon D. Peacock

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

Aging is known to bring changes and decline to the human brain and body, especially in hearing. Cognition can decline with age alone, but can be accelerated when hearing is impaired. Cognitive decline can affect older adults’ everyday lives, particularly when it comes to driving. Driving cessation is also associated with mental depression, which can lead to heart disease or other serious health conditions. However, there are cognitive training programs that are designed to promote brain plasticity and create new neural pathways. Event Related Potentials (ERPs) can be used to show the neurophysiological changes in cognition that follow such training. …

Emerging Adulthood : Internal Markers Of Adulthood And Alcohol Use, Kristen L. Hannum

USF St. Petersburg campus Master's Theses (Graduate)

Emerging adulthood is the developmental period of transition between adolescence and adulthood. This period is widely associated with identity exploration as well as risk behaviors, such as alcohol use. As alcohol use is at its highest point during emerging adulthood, developmental patterns of use are also known to substantially decrease by the end of the transition. External markers of adulthood (marital status, parenthood, and career) are recognized markers of the transition and have been associated with alcohol use decline. The current study first establishes the importance of internal markers (responsibility, decision making, and financial independence) in recognizing adulthood. Research suggests …