Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Data-Driven State Estimation For Improved Wide Area Situational Awareness In Smart Grids, Md Jakir Hossain

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Wide area situational awareness (WASA) in smart grids includes automatic monitoring, perception and detection of anomalies in these systems. The goal of WASA is to make smart grids aware of their physical and operational state for more effective operational decisions and control. As such, tracking the system's state or state estimation is one of the key objectives of WASA. The extensive integration of cyber elements into smart grids, such as large deployment of various monitoring and measurement devices, provides new opportunities to improve WASA. However, the tight coupling of power grids with cyber components introduces vulnerabilities to cyber and physical …

A Multiple Input Multiple Output Framework For The Automatic Optical Fractionator-Based Cell Counting In Z-Stacks Using Deep Learning, Palak Dave

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Quantifying cells in a defined region of biological tissue is critical for many clinical and preclinical studies, especially in pathology, toxicology, cancer, and behavior. Unbiased stereology is the state-of-art method for quantification of the total number and other morphometric parameters of stained objects in a defined region of biological tissue. As part of a program to develop accurate, precise, and more efficient automatic approaches for quantifying morphometric changes in biological tissue, our group has shown that both deep learning-based and hand-crafted algorithms can estimate the total number of histologically stained cells at their maximal profile of focus in extended depth …

Quantifying A 21-Year Surface Water And Groundwater Interaction In A Ridge And Valley Lake Environment Using A Highly Constrained Modeling Approach, Richard T. Bowers Jr.

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Karst lakes are ubiquitous in ridge terrain settings in limestone aquifer coastal plain environments. In west-central Florida, these lakes are frequently connected to the Upper Floridan aquifer and have unique aquifer recharge characteristics. They have been selectively studied because they commonly have no or very limited surface water discharge and limited drainage areas, have appreciable surface water and groundwater interaction and leak to the deep aquifer. An innovative modeling approach was developed to collectively understand and more precisely quantify this vertical leakage, both from a lake-specific and regional water budget standpoint, for a 21-year study period (2000-2020). A unique, calibrated …

Volcano And Tectonic Hazard Modeling Using Interdisciplinary Geophysical And Geodetic Methods, Mitchell Scott Hastings

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Volcanic and tectonic hazards such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis present risks to about ~45% of the global population. They have caused at least 1.5 trillion dollars in damages worldwide since the start of the 20th century, and the costs are accelerating as population increases. In this dissertation, new data are combined with existing information and novel modeling approaches to quantify volcanic, earthquake and tsunami hazards.

The Blackfoot Reservoir Volcanic Field (BRVF) is a bimodal volcanic field on southeastern margin of the Eastern Snake River Plain in Idaho. In the BRVF, gravity anomalies reveal two shallow silicic intrusions that …

Surviving A Broken System: Synergies Between Solidarity Economies And Sustainable Development Goals, Julie Beach

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Capitalism has created problems including wealth polarization, rapid depletion of natural resources, and pervasive systemic societal issues. Hard work is not enough to solve the unequal distribution and barriers preventing access to necessities. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were created to remedy the harsh reality of global inequities and negative environmental impacts by working towards a more just and equitable future for all. Solidarity Economies (SE) offer an alternative framework to achieve these goals.

This research used multiple qualitative methods to investigate the synergies between SE and SDGs in a growing urban environment. St. Petersburg, FL struggles with affordable housing, food …

Farmer Adoption Of Advanced Technology In Agribusiness, Justin W. Belcher

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Normally, family-owned farms are slow to adopt advanced technologies though these technologies can provide several benefits to the farm and have the potential to increase farm production volumes to help meet future population growth. The goal of this study was to document the factors that influence the adoption decision of advanced technologies by family-owned farms and what strategies can be used to motivate adoption. Case study research was conducted to gather data in a more structured way from family-owned farms typically excluded from past research for the purpose of comparing similarities across similar and dissimilar farms. For generalizing similarities, a …

Designing A Messaging Strategy To Improve Information Security Policy Compliance, Federico Giovannetti

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Lack of employee compliance with information security policies is a key factor driving security incidents. Information security practitioners struggle to enforce policy compliance while employees try to curtail safeguards in favor of expediency and other perceived business goals. Several studies have shown individual and organizational factors influencing this type of employee behavior. However, few have recommended management-level interventions that can be used as a solution framework by information security practitioners.

This research utilized the Design Science Research (DSR) methodology to develop a management-level intervention based on a messaging strategy that aims to help information security practitioners improve the information security …

Development Of An Automated Platform For Sensing And Differentiating Vapor-Phase Btex Constituents, Jonathan Samuelson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Light aromatic hydrocarbons are an inevitable byproduct of fossil fuel extraction, refinement, distribution, and use. The four lightest and most prevalent of these are benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene, which are known collectively as BTEX. In spite of their chemical similarity these species have markedly different effects on human health and substantially different concentrations are permitted by OSHA in workplaces and by the EPA in ambient air and groundwater. Real-time detection, identification, and quantification of these species is therefore of great importance wherever they see industrial use.This work represents the continuation and advancement of a line of research in which …

Task Progress Assessment And Monitoring Using Self-Supervised Learning, Sainath Reddy Bobbala

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Robotic manipulation for cooking requires a thorough understanding of the cooking environment. The robot must understand the cooking objects and their states at each intermediate level as the process continues. To understand these states, we need frame-level annotations. To overcome this frame-level dependency, we introduce a self-supervised learning method to obtain the frame-level state representation with ”temporal video alignment” and ”contrastive learning.”In this work, we use self-supervised learning to train a model using multiple videos of the same action being performed in various settings. This model can extract frame-level embedding space and align videos via simple distance-based matching. We show …

Generative Spatio-Temporal And Multimodal Analysis Of Neonatal Pain, Md Sirajus Salekin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Neonates can not express their pain like an adult person. Due to the lacking of proper muscle growth and inability to express non-verbally, it is difficult to understand their emotional status. In addition, if the neonates are under any treatment or left monitored after any major surgeries (post-operative), it is more difficult to understand their pain due to the side effect of medications and the caring system (i.e. intubated, masked face, covered body with blanket, etc.). In a clinical environment, usually, bedside nurses routinely observe the neonate and measure the pain status following any standard clinical pain scale. But current …

Study On New Strategy Toward Gold(I/Iii) Redox Catalysis, Shuyao Zhang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation mainly contains three parts: 1) the study of ligand assisted gold oxidative addition toward aryl iodide to achieve the alkene difunctionalization. 2) The selective arylation reaction via electrochemical anode oxidation promoted gold redox chemistry. 3) The π acid reactivity of gold redox chemistry under electrochemistry conditions.

In the first part, the gold-catalyzed intermolecular oxyarylation of alkene is reported. This work employed the oxidative addition of aryl iodide to Me-DalphosAu+ for the formation of Au(III)-Ar intermediate. The better binding ability of alkene over O nucleophiles ensured the success of intermolecular oxyarylation, giving desired products with broad substrate scope and …

Preventing Variadic Function Attacks Through Argument Width Counting, Brennan Ward

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Format String attacks, first noted in June 2000 [1], are a type of attack in which anadversary has control of the string argument (the format string) passed to a string format function (such as printf). Such control allows the attacker to read and write arbitrary program memory. To prevent these attacks, various methodologies have been proposed, each with their own costs and benefits. I present a novel solution to this problem through argument width counting, ensuring that such format functions cannot access stack memory beyond the space where arguments were placed. Additionally, I show how this approach can be expanded …

Sports And Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Building A Better Framework For Sustainable Sports Operations, Austin Anahory

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the approach to sustainability of American soccer leagues and provides a Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Inventory of the Tampa Bay Rowdies. Sustainability and climate change are rising concerns for most industries, especially the sports industry as it will face many immediate and long term impacts. To address these issues, a sustainability analysis was done of each USL Championship team to assess prominence of sustainability topics from their website. To conduct the GHG inventory, the GHG Protocol was followed and resulted in assessing Scope 1, 2, and 3 of the given soccer team. Assumptions were used to estimate missing …

Measurement In Chemistry, Mathematics, And Physics Education: Student Explanations Of Organic Chemistry Reaction Mechanisms And Instructional Practices In Introductory Courses, Brandon J. Yik

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The work in this dissertation is presented in two parts. The first part (Chapters 3 and 4) details work relating to students’ explanations of reaction mechanisms in organic chemistry. The second part (Chapters 5 and 6) details work relating to the evaluating the uptake of research-based instructional practices in introductory chemistry, mathematics, and physics courses.

To evaluate learning of organic chemistry reactions, instructors must ask students to construct written explanations of reaction mechanisms. Written assessments should focus on what is happening and why it is happening to promote deeper student understanding. However, for instructors to gain insight into students’ understanding, …

Accelerating Multiparametric Mri For Adaptive Radiotherapy, Shraddha Pandey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

MR guided Radiotherapy (MRgRT) marks an important paradigm shift in the field of radiotherapy. Superior tissue contrast of MRI offers better visualization of the abnormal lesions, as a result precise radiation dose delivery is possible. In case of online treatment planning, MRgRT offers better control of intratumoral motion and quick adaptation to changes in the gross tumor volume. Nonetheless, the MRgRT process flow does suffer from some challenges that limit its clinical usability. The primary aspects of MRgRT workflow are MRI acquisition, tumor delineation, dose map prediction and administering treatment. It is estimated that the acquisition of MRI takes around …

Social Media Time Series Forecasting And User-Level Activity Prediction With Gradient Boosting, Deep Learning, And Data Augmentation, Fred Mubang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the overall history of technological innovations, social media has only existed for a brief time, however its influence is undeniable. Researchers have found that it can be used to influence elections, spread health misinformation, and aid with financial pump-and-dump schemes. Keeping all this in mind, it is clear that more research is needed to predict the spread of information on social media in order to combat its malicious use.

To that end, in this dissertation, we explore the use of Machine Learning algorithms to perform time series forecasting and user-level activity prediction in social media. We address the different …

Association Between Use Of Remdesivir And Bradycardia, Gibret Umeukeje

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Remdesivir received the first emergency use authorization from the FDA for the treatment of COVID-19. Multiple adverse drug reactions (ADR) have been reported since its approval in October 2020. Bradycardia, defined by a decrease in heart rate has been reported as an adverse event for patients receiving remdesivir for COVID-19 treatment. The purpose of the research is to systematically investigate the frequency of occurrence of bradycardia in adults receiving remdesivir using clinical data derived from the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) database. Patients receiving remdesivir were compared to those receiving Paxlovid, Regen-Cov, and Dexamethasone for COVID-19 treatment to see …

Adaptive Multi-Scale Place Cell Representations And Replay For Spatial Navigation And Learning In Autonomous Robots, Pablo Scleidorovich

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Place cells are one of the most widely studied neurons thought to play a vital role in spatial cognition. Extensive studies show that their activity in the rodent hippocampus is highly correlated with the animal’s spatial location, forming “place fields” of smaller sizes near the dorsal pole and larger sizes near the ventral pole. Despite advances, it is yet unclear how this multi-scale representation enables navigation in complex environments.

In this dissertation, we analyze the place cell representation from a computational point of view, evaluating how multi-scale place fields impact navigation in large and cluttered environments. The objectives are to …

Towards High Performing And Reliable Deep Convolutional Neural Network Models For Typically Limited Medical Imaging Datasets, Kaoutar Ben Ahmed

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is “The science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs”. Artificial Intelligence has been applied in a wide range of fields including automobiles, space, robotics, and healthcare.

According to recent reports, AI will have a huge impact on increasing the world economy by 2030 and it's expected that the greatest impact will be in the field of healthcare. The global market size of AI in healthcare was estimated at USD 10.4 billion in 2021 and is expected to grow at a high rate from 2022 to 2030 (CAGR of 38.4%). Applications of AI in …

An Enterprise Risk Management Framework To Design Pro-Ethical Ai Solutions, Quintin P. Mcgrath

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The effective use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has immediate business benefits for an organization and its stakeholders through efficiency and quality gains, and the potential to explore and implement new business models. However, there are risks of unintended ethical consequences. Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) focuses on managing risk while maximizing business value from exploiting opportunities. Using applied ethics as a basis and the perspective that ethics includes both enabling human flourishing and not violating accepted norms, I argue that greater business value is achieved when an organization simultaneously targets the maximization of benefits and the minimization of harms for the …

Coupling 210Pb And 14C To Constrain Carbon Burial Efficiency Of Blue Carbon Ecosystems, Tynisha R. Martin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Blue carbon ecosystems cover a small global area but have the potential to sequester large amounts of organic carbon (OC) from the coastal ocean in the sediment. Organic carbon is continually remineralized and exported in the dissolved form, which is currently only poorly accounted for in blue carbon budgets. Constraining carbon cycling in blue carbon systems is complicated by the range of carbon sources and sinks in the system and high export rates from the system. By coupling 14C and 210Pb chronometers to ascertain the amount of primary production stored within peat, it is possible to study carbon transport through …

Functional Morphology And Taphonomy Of Ordovician–Silurian Diploporan Echinoderms, Stephen Ashley Hill

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Diploporan echinoderms were one of the most speciose groups of stemmed echinoderms during the Ordovician. Despite this widespread abundance, the fossil record of diploporan fauna consists primarily of incomplete specimens, with complete specimens being rare. While the theca, or body, is more commonly preserved, the feeding appendages and the attachment structures (i.e. stems or holdfasts) are seldomly preserved. Insight into these features is highly valuable to the understanding the paleoecology, like the feeding and respiratory strategies, of these enigmatic creatures.

One group of diploporan echinoderms which does have an extensive fossil record, is the Holocystites Fauna, primarily known from the …

Inland Tropical Cyclone Intensity Decay In The Continental United States, Yijie Zhu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Tropical cyclone (TC) hazard preparation is mostly focused on coastal cities with less attention typically paid to inland regions. The impact of TCs that propagate far inland is often underestimated and can cause unexpected loss of life and economic loss. This dissertation aims to understand the decay process of TCs during the post-landfall stage by answering three main research questions: (1) What are the general patterns of inland tropical cyclones, including spatial variations, decay rates, and translation speeds? (2) Are there temporal changes in the intensity decay from inland moving hurricanes? (3) How is the hurricane post-landfall dissipation related to …

The Effects Of Temperature And Oxygen Availability On Aerobic Performance In Three Coastal Shark Species; Squalus Acanthias, Carcharhinus Limbatus, And Carcharhinus Leucas, Alyssa M. Andres

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Anthropogenically driven climate changes are altering marine habitats globally. Rising sea surface temperatures and coastal eutrophication, arising from global warming and coastal nutrient loading, have resulted in progressive ocean deoxygenation. This may restrict available habitat of marine organisms as studies suggest that the balance between metabolic oxygen demand and environmental supply plays an important role in limiting viable habitat and species fitness. As ectothermic predators, with temperature-dependent metabolism and high metabolic demands, coastal shark species may be susceptible to shifts in ocean temperature and oxygen. Such environmental changes may alter metabolic performance and ultimately success and survival within shark habitat. …

Zooplankton Biodiversity In The Northeast Gulf Of Mexico And On The West Florida Shelf From 2005 - 2014, Megan Ferguson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Zooplankton abundance and biodiversity was measured in the northeast Gulf of Mexico (NEGoM) and on the West Florida Shelf. Bongo net samples were collected between May 2005 to September 2009 through the SEAMAP program, and between July 2010 to August 2014 through the C-IMAGE program. Calanoid copepods were the most abundant zooplankton group in most of the samples collected, but ostracods, larvaceans, and chaetognaths were also abundant. Shannon and Inverse Simpson indices were calculated for all zooplankton samples and generally showed similar trends, but only Shannon indices were used for statistical analyses. In the winter and spring there were significant …

A Protein-Based Therapeutic Combination For The Treatment Of Hard-To-Heal Wounds, Graham L. Strauss

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Chronic wounds present many clinical challenges in relation to the successful treatment and closure of the damaged tissue. Most current treatment methods focused on one or two aspects to drive wound closure, while most chronic wounds are multifactorial environments with many of those dependencies relying on the termination of one another to effectively gain tissue construction, closure, and full skin thickness and composition. Natural wound healing processes allude to potential biologics that can impede the chronic breakdown of tissue, while restoring deposition of new tissue, and effectively leading to a healed wound. Proteases secreted by the body’s immune system lay …

Elucidating The Sources Supplying Aerosol Iron, Zinc, And Cadmium To The Surface Of The North Pacific Ocean With Stable Isotopes, Zach B. Bunnell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Transition metals, such as iron (Fe), zinc (Zn) and cadmium (Cd), are found at just trace amounts within the global oceans yet are vital for many biological functions of phytoplankton. As a result, these metals influence the ocean’s efficacy for carbon sequestration. Atmospheric dust is the primary input of Fe to various surface waters and may also supply Zn and Cd to oligotrophic surface waters. Here, I present Fe, Zn, and Cd isotope data from the US North Pacific GEOTRACES Section GP15 (Alaska-Tahiti) from the low-dust season (Sept. – Nov. 2018). Using this data and aerosol enrichment factors, I show …

Interdisciplinary Communication By Plausible Analogies: The Case Of Buddhism And Artificial Intelligence, Michael Cooper

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Communicating interdisciplinary information is difficult, even when two fields are ostensibly discussing the same topic. In this work, I’ll discuss the capacity for analogical reasoning to provide a framework for developing novel judgments utilizing similarities in separate domains. I argue that analogies are best modeled after Paul Bartha’s By Parallel Reasoning, and that they can be used to create a Toulmin-style warrant that expresses a generalization. I argue that these comparisons provide insights into interdisciplinary research. In order to demonstrate this concept, I will demonstrate that fruitful comparisons can be made between Buddhism and Artificial Intelligence research.

Assessing The Human-Health Risk Of Exposure To Pathogens From Beach Sands, Javier Federico Gallard-Góngora

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Fecal contamination at recreational beaches impacts the health of beachgoers, through the introduction of disease-causing microorganisms, and the well-being of communities dependent on income from recreational beach activities. Beach ecosystems are also impacted by sewage through the introduction of nutrients that can cause abnormal increases in autochthonous microorganisms which can impact the population of larger organisms in the ecosystem. Fecal contamination is introduced into sand via untreated sewage, direct deposition of human feces into sand, runoff, and deposition of animal feces into sand. The introduction of fecal contamination into sand exposes individuals to pathogens (disease causing microorganisms) which can result …

Boundary Behavior Of Analytic Functions And Approximation Theory, Spyros Pasias

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this Thesis we deal with problems regarding boundary behavior of analytic functions and approximation theory. We will begin by characterizing the set in which Blaschke products fail to have radial limits but have unrestricted limits on its complement. We will then proceed and solve several cases of an open problem posed in \cite{Da}. The goal of the problem is to unify two known theorems to create a stronger theorem; in particular we want to find necessary and sufficient conditions on sets $E_1\subset E_2$ of the unit circle such that there exists a bounded analytic function that fails to have …