Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Quantitative Reasoning And Sustainability, Corrine H. Taylor

Numeracy

Quantitative Reasoning and Sustainability have much in common. Both are complex, nuanced concepts with rather long definitions that have evolved over time. Both subjects are “everybody’s business” on college campuses, and must be approached in courses across the curriculum, not merely in one course on QR or in one course on Sustainability. The growing, wider presence of both QR and Sustainability on college campuses is due to their applicability in individuals’ personal, professional, and public lives. Moreover, QR and Sustainability support and enhance each other in and out of the classroom. Sustainability is an important, authentic, relevant context for lessons …

Citizen Action, Power Relations And Wetland Management In The Tampa Bay Urban Socio-Ecosystem, Cornelius Owusu Adjei

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Wetlands are vital ecosystems that provide ecological, economic and social benefits to societies. In the Tampa Bay region in West Central Florida, a growing population has put immense pressure on wetlands. The situation has not gone unnoticed in the public domain with concerns raised about the need to formulate policies that would protect them. However, it has been difficult to ascertain the level of citizen involvement in the decision making process.

This study aimed at investigating whether the perceptions and concerns of citizens drove them to influence local water policy. Questionnaires were used to collect data from residents living in …

Fishermen, Politics, And Participation: An Ethnographic Examination Of Commercial Fisheries Management In St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, Cynthia Grace-Mccaskey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Currently, there is widespread debate regarding the overall status of the world's fisheries, with some researchers projecting their total collapse in only a few decades, and others concluding the situation is not quite as bleak. Additional debates include what strategies should be used to manage fisheries at various scales, and further research is needed to determine which strategies are most appropriate for use in particular situations and locales, as context is critical.

Recently, prominent common pool resources scholars have expressed the need for ethnographic approaches to studying resource management institutions in order to move beyond the current focus of simply …

A Spatially Explicit Agent Based Model Of Muscovy Duck Home Range Behavior, James Howard Anderson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Research in GIScience has identified agent-based simulation methodologies as effective in the study of complex adaptive spatial systems (CASS). CASS are characterized by the emergent nature of their spatial expressions and by the changing relationships between their constituent variables and how those variables act on the system's spatial expression over time. Here, emergence refers to a CASS property where small-scale, individual action results in macroscopic or system-level patterns over time. This research develops and executes a spatially-explicit agent based model of Muscovy Duck home range behavior. Muscovy duck home range behavior is regarded as a complex adaptive spatial system …

Mapping And Assessing Urban Impervious Areas Using Multiple Endmember Spectral Mixture Analysis: A Case Study In The City Of Tampa, Florida, Fenqing Weng

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The advance in remote sensing technology helps people more easily assess urban growth. In this study, the utility of multiple endmember spectral mixture analysis (MESMA) is examined in a sub-pixel analysis of Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) imagery to map urban physical components in Tampa, FL. The three physical components of urban land cover (LC): impervious surface, vegetation and soil, were compared using the proposed MESMA with a traditional spectral mixture analysis (SMA). MESMA decomposes each pixel to address the heterogeneity of urban LC characteristic by allowing the number and types of endmembers to vary on a per pixel basis. This …

Economic Culture And Trading Behaviors In Information Markets, Khalid Nasser Alhayyan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There are four main components for influencing traders' behaviors in an information market context: trader characteristics, organizational characteristics, market design, and external information. This dissertation focuses on investigating the impact of individual trader characteristics on trading behaviors. Two newly-developed constructs, highly relevant to information market contexts, were identified to increase our understanding about trading behaviors: trader's economic culture and trader independence. The theory of planned behavior is used as the theoretical basis to postulate hypotheses for empirical testing. Data collected from subjects through a series of web-based experiments shows that trader participation can be fostered through recruiting individuals who are …

Global Csr And Photographic Credibility: Exploring How International Companies Portray Efforts Through Photographs In Csr Reports, Janel Lynn Norton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

We are living in the age of the visual. Imagery is an important element in constructing and deriving meaning through symbols, colors, and context. Images may hold persuasive power, be used as evidence, or simply provide a moment of beauty. Organizations rely on photographs to help them convey an image to their stakeholders within annual reports. Telling an organizations' story through photographs has become an intrinsic part of their efforts to convey sustainability. We live in the age of transparency, and organizations that construct an image that is not truthful will face consequences in today's socially connected and conscious world. …

Mangroves, Mudbanks And Seawalls: Political Ecology Of Adaptation To Sea Level Rise In Suriname, Ravic Nijbroek

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study seeks to understand how global discourses of sea level rise (SLR) and mangrove ecology influence national climate change adaptation policy to reduce coastal vulnerability in Suriname. A majority of the Surinamese population lives along the low elevation coastal zone and is highly exposed to projected SLR. Failure by the international community to reach agreement on climate change mitigation means that vulnerable coastal communities must adapt. The Suriname coast is predominantly shaped by mudbanks and mangroves which together provide protection against coastal erosion and trap sediments resulting in coastal accretion. Knowledge claims of mangrove ecology and utility in SLR …

Good Men Grow Corn: Embodied Ecological Heritage And Health In A Belizean Mopan Community, Kristina Linda Baines

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recent developments in land rights and land use in the Toledo district, Belize has generated anthropological and activist interest surrounding traditional ecological knowledge and practice, and the role of heritage in communities. This study explores the connection between ecological knowledge and practices, and the concurrent construction of heritage, and community health and wellness, broadly defined. Developing and using the concept of "embodied ecological heritage," this dissertation takes a phenomenological approach to understanding the convergence of ecological heritage and health in multiple realms of everyday life, arguing that lived experience of participating in "traditional" practices is fundamentally connected to wellness in …

Tagline: Information Extraction For Semi-Structured Text Elements In Medical Progress Notes, Dezon K. Finch

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Text analysis has become an important research activity in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Statistical text mining and natural language processing have been shown to be very effective for extracting useful information from medical documents. However, neither of these techniques is effective at extracting the information stored in semi-structure text elements. A prototype system (TagLine) was developed as a method for extracting information from the semi-structured portions of text using machine learning. Features for the learning machine were suggested by prior work, as well as by examining the text, and selecting those attributes that help distinguish the various classes …

"Planting Wholesome Seeds": Organic Farming And Community Supported Agriculture At Sweetwater Organic Community Farm, Philip R. Mcnab

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Sweetwater Organic Community Farm is an organic farm and environmental education center located in Tampa, Florida. The farm employs the community supported agriculture (CSA) model, in which members pay a single fee before the growing season begins and receive a weekly or biweekly share of the ongoing harvest in return. Using multiple ethnographic methods, this research aimed to understand the daily operations at Sweetwater as well as the perceptions of staff and CSA members. Findings indicated that there were myriad perceived advantages of organic agriculture but also imposing challenges that needed to be overcome. Moreover, staff members acknowledged the challenges …