American Studies Commons^™

Effects Of Random Cross-Sectioned Distributions, Fiber Misalignment And Interphases In Three-Dimensional Composite Models On Transverse Shear Modulus, Jarrett Zitko

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Finite element analysis was implemented to evaluate the transverse shear modulus of a unidirectional glass/epoxy fiber-matrix composite based on pure shear displacement boundary conditions. Unit cells consisting of three-dimensional glass cylinders surrounded in square-cuboid epoxy matrices were modeled to represent "Representative Volume Element" (RVE) configurations in periodic and random-periodic square cell arrangements of variable size. Three RVEs were constructed and analyzed: A single unit cell, a 9-cell (3 x 3) array, and a 25-cell (5 x 5) array. Additionally, the unit cell was modeled to include an interphase. Three sets of cell arrangements were constructed and evaluated: a periodic square …

Synthesis And Physical Properties Of Group 14 Intermetallic Clathrates, Stevce Stefanoski

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The search of materials relevant for thermoelectric and magnetocaloric applications, as well as materials that interact with light, is an important aspect of the materials science. Such materials can be used for solid-state power generation and refrigeration, as light sources, detectors, or controllers. Intermetallic clathrates have long been of interest for the materials science research. The promise these materials hold for useful applications ranges from thermoelectrics to photovoltaics and optoelectronics to potentially ultra-hard materials and magnetic cooling applications. Their unique physical properties are intimately related to their intriguing structural properties. Thus a fundamental understanding of the chemistry and physics of …

The Mediating Role Of Regulatory Focus In The Relationship Between Transformational/Transactional Leadership And Follower Work Outcomes, Erin J. Walker

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to integrate the areas of leadership and motivation by examining how leaders' behaviors affect their followers' regulatory foci. Specifically, a separate laboratory experiment and field survey were conducted to determine whether leader transformational and transactional behaviors shape followers' work-based promotion and prevention regulatory foci, which in turn affect followers' outcomes at work. Overall, there was limited evidence that inspirational motivation and contingent reward leader behaviors were related to follower work-based regulatory focus, and work-based regulatory focus was related to several work-related outcomes. The moderating role of chronic regulatory focus on the relationship between leader …

Paleo-Indian To Spanish Occupation Around Choctawhatchee Bay, Northwest Florida, As Documented In A Private Artifact Collection, Deena Woodward

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project documents and analyzes a substantial private collection of artifacts from archaeological sites around Choctawhatchee Bay, northwest Florida. The goals are to determine what the materials can contribute to the archaeological record, how they enhance our knowledge of the people who lived there over the past 2000 years, and how this information can be used to expand or contradict models of prehistoric lifeways in this region. This is done by comparing artifact assemblages, looking at site distribution patterns, and using pXRF trace-element analysis to compare Late Archaic clay objects with those from elsewhere along the Gulf.

Examination of the …

"People Aren't Mind Readers": A Study Of Sexual Self-Concept, Partner Communication, And Sexual Satisfaction, Heather Blunt

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Sexual health is an important component to overall well-being and quality of life. Yet so much of sexual health research is focused solely on the negative consequences of sexuality, such as unintended pregnancy and transmission of sexually transmitted infections. Recently, the need for a positive, health promotion focused framework for research and understanding sexual health has received attention, including from the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This transition of public health research and practice from a disease-based framework to a positive, health promotion framework necessitates exploring what factors are associated with positive sexuality and …

The Impact Of Socioscientific Issues Based Curriculum Involving Environmental Outdoor Education For Fourth Grade Students, Karey Burek

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There is a divide between what students are being taught within the science classroom and what they experience out in the real world. This study sought to explore possible relationships between a socioscientific issues embedded curriculum and outcome variables addressing environmental attitude and knowledge, oral and written argumentation and critical thinking skills. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to examine both within and between class differences as well as individual differences between the beginning and end of a semester of elementary school. Results indicated that socioscientific issues assist students in developing their critical thinking skills while also providing students …

Direct Verification Of The Locking Of Liquid Locking Compounds In Threaded Fasteners, Ryan Hunter

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The motivation of this research is to explore the viability of a method to directly verify whether or not an anaerobic adhesive within a threaded fastener assembly has cured sufficiently to provide secondary locking. Direct verification was implemented via the application of a test torque in the loosening direction of a fastener assembly with Loctite (given a 24 hour cure time). A three phase test plan was developed with the intent of identifying and utilizing this verification torque value which is unique to a given fastener assembly.

It was proved that the direct verification method, as outlined in the test …

A Commentary On Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's Discourse On Metaphysics #19, Richard Lamborn Samuel Lamborn

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This commentary on article #19 of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's Discourse on Metaphysics is for the purpose of promoting the understanding of Leibniz on the role of teleology in physics. Understanding Leibniz on final causes is crucial to understanding his overall natural philosophy. If one approaches Leibniz with a bias regarding either final causes or protestant Christian theology, such that they ignore these aspects of Leibniz, such a person is in danger of completly misunderstanding this philosopher. Leibniz is a mix of natural philosophy, mechanical physics, and protestant Christian theology. The rationale behind this study is to cause the student of …

Federal Neighborhood Stabilization Policy Deployment In Select Florida Jurisdictions, Kevin Carl Mccarthy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In 2008 the Federal government enacted a Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP) to address the neighborhood effects of the late-2000s foreclosure crisis. Congress subsequently funded a second and third NSP. This research employs mixed methods to examine the effectiveness of the first round of the NSP in three Florida jurisdictions. The results are analyzed within the larger context of substantive housing theory and federal housing policy. The success of the program is evaluated using a mixed-scanning procedural planning theoretical framework.

Ontogeny And Littoral Structure Of Lakes Created On Phosphate Mined Lands Of Central Florida, Chrysoula Mitraki

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Created lakes are an end product of phosphate mining in Florida. Beginning in 1975, Florida reclamation rules set criteria for phosphate created lakes aiming to approximate the structure of natural lakes, and emphasizing extensive littoral zones with both emergent and submersed vegetation.

Lake development relative to lake age and design were examined for 22 phosphate lakes representing a 40-year age trajectory, utilizing water quality and benthic invertebrate communities from littoral and deep-water locations (Chapter 1). The relative importance of morphometry and lake age in the development of littoral plant communities was examined using multiple vegetation surveys throughout the year, in …

A Historical Narrative Of The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee's Freedom Schools And Their Legacy For Contemporary Youth Leadership Development Programming, Leslie K. Etienne

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

During what became known as the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) established alternative temporary summer "Freedom Schools" in communities throughout the state. SNCC was a civil rights organization led by young, mostly African American college students and ex-students that worked against racial discrimination during the Civil Rights Movement. In 1963, they were poised to lead Freedom Summer, a massive effort that aimed to transform the brutal white dominated power structure of Mississippi, a stronghold of extremely violent southern racism. During the planning for Freedom Summer, SNCC field secretary Charles Cobb suggested that the summer …

"You Are Safe": Black Maternal Politics Of Resistance And The Question Of Community Consensus In African American Women's Literature, Daniela Marinova Koleva

Theses and Dissertations

The study focuses on a number of African American women's literary texts that employ the figure of the black mother and the motif of infanticide to engage in critical statements about system arrangements, repressive practices, and theory designs with direct effect upon black people's choices for organizing their lives and existence. Such critical statements are inevitably political and their construction is offered in a most provocative and startling way given the choice of maternal infanticide to make the claims.

Angelina Weld Grimke's "The Closing Door" (1919), Georgia Douglas Johnson's Safe (c.1929), Shirley Graham's It's Morning (c. 1938-1940), and Toni Morrison's …

“Reckoning” With America’S Past: Robert Penn Warren’S Later Poetry, Joan Romano Shifflett

Robert Penn Warren Studies

Robert Penn Warren’s later poetry, specifically Rumor Verified and Altitudes and Extensions, deserves closer critical attention to the function served by the American past. Whether it is facing the bloody reality of westward expansion or acknowledging the alienation and dehumanization that results from the Industrial Revolution, Warren’s poems suggest a method of self-reflection that yields a fuller sense of American identity and, consequently, an awareness and knowledge of how to live in this modern world. A close study of the poetic techniques in “Going West” serves as a model for how Warren uses historical backdrops to employ his underlying philosophy …

Oscar James Dunn: A Case Study In Race & Politics In Reconstruction Louisiana, Brian Mitchell

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The study of African American Reconstruction leadership has presented a variety of unique challenges for modern historians who struggle to piece together the lives of men, who prior to the Civil War, had little political identity. The scant amounts of primary source data in regard to these leaders’ lives before the war, the destruction of many documents in regard to their leadership following the Reconstruction Era, and the treatment of these figures by historians prior to the Revisionist movement have left this body of extremely important political figures largely unexplored. This dissertation will examine the life of one of Louisiana’s …

The Operation Was Successful But The Patient Died: The Politics Of Crisis And Homelessness In Post-Katrina New Orleans, Evan Casper-Futterman

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

On July 4^th, 2007, a small group of housing activists set up a tent city encampment in a plaza adjacent to New Orleans City Hall. The action resulted in the creation of Homeless Pride, a small group of politicized Plaza residents. Six months later, hundreds of homeless people were moved from the park, and it was fenced off. Using archival videos, interviews, and news media, this thesis analyzes the opportunities and constraints that activists, service providers, and local officials faced in light of two intersecting and overlapping contexts. The first context is the immediate crisis of the levee …

Black Policemen In Jim Crow New Orleans, Vanessa Flores-Robert

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Although historians have done in-­‐depth researched on Black police in the South, before the Civil War and during Reconstruction, they seldom assess black policemen’s role in New Orleans between the Battle of Liberty Place and 1913. The men discussed here argue that despite the hardening racial attitudes in Post-­‐ Reconstruction South, in New Orleans opportunity still existed for Blacks to serve in positions of authority, perhaps a heritage of the city’s earlier tri-­‐partite racial order. The information obtained from primary sources such as police manuals, beat books, and newspapers, counters the widely held belief that African American presence in the …

Racism Recognized And The Reformation Of The South In Ernest Gaines‘, La Toya Session

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

According to Ernest Gaines‘ personal experiences as a Southerner, without addressing the history of slavery, the quest for human dignity becomes meaningless. The discourses and the ideologies of the characters in AGathering of Old Men represent a call for social change. A Gathering of Old Men is however, more than just a novel about whites dominating blacks; it is a novel about the fight for humanity in spite of the threat of a new social order. The social repercussions of slavery and the denial of black manhood are central issues in A Gathering of Old Men, but Gaines also exhibits …

Staebell, Sandra L., B. 1958 (Fa 572), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 572. Compact disc of Sandra L. Staebell’s December 2011 interview with June McGuyer, discussing Elizabeth Richardson (McGuyer’s mother), her interest in quilting, and her collecting related to quilts and quilting.

Aging Of Florida Blue Crabs, Callinectes Sapidus, Through The Biochemical Extraction Of Lipofuscin, Claire Elizabeth Crowley

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The blue crab, Callinectes sapidus, represents an ecologically and economically important component of marine and estuarine ecosystems. In Florida, blue crab landings accounted for $9.6 million dollars during the 2010 fishing season. Accurate stock assessments for this valuable fishery are essential. Age is a critical biological component of accurate stock assessments; however, blue crabs and other crustaceans are especially difficult to age because of the complex nature of discrete growth. Biochemical extraction of an aging pigment, lipofuscin, was developed using blue crab eyestalks. The current study investigated the effects of freezing preservation on lipofuscin extracts and examined whether the …

Engineering Of A Knowledge Management System For Relational Medical Diagnosis, Maria Carolina Herrera-Hernandez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The increasingly high costs of health care in the U.S. have led the general public to search for different medical approaches. Since the 1990's, the use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) has radically increased in the U.S. due to its approach to treat physical, mental, and emotional causes of illness. In 2009, the National Health Statistics reported the impact of CAM in the U.S. health care economy, with population expenditures of $14.8 billion out-of-pocket on natural Medicine and $12.4 billion out-of-pocket on visits to CAM providers as a complement to Western Medicine care.

CAM interconnects human functions to reach …