American Studies Commons^™

Combining Natural Language Processing And Statistical Text Mining: A Study Of Specialized Versus Common Languages, Jay Jarman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on developing and evaluating hybrid approaches for analyzing free-form text in the medical domain. This research draws on natural language processing (NLP) techniques that are used to parse and extract concepts based on a controlled vocabulary. Once important concepts are extracted, additional machine learning algorithms, such as association rule mining and decision tree induction, are used to discover classification rules for specific targets. This multi-stage pipeline approach is contrasted with traditional statistical text mining (STM) methods based on term counts and term-by-document frequencies. The aim is to create effective text analytic processes by adapting and combining individual …

Friendship Networks, Perceived Reciprocity Of Support, And Depression, Ryan Francis Huff

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Using social network analysis as a theoretical framework, the current study examined the associations between self-reported egocentric network characteristics and depression among a sample of United States college students. It is important to understand factors related to depression among this population due to the severity of its potential outcomes (e.g., suicide and interpersonal problems at school). Drawing inspiration from a recent study conducted by Christina Falci and Clea McNeely (2009), the current investigation used OLS regression to test for both linear and curvilinear relationships between egocentric network size and depression. Potential interactions between network size, density, and gender were also …

Evaluating Knowledge And Attitudes Of Graduate Nursing Students Regarding Pain, Eric Bartholomew Jackson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Insufficient pain management continues to be problematic for hospitalized patients throughout the country. It significantly interferes with a person's quality of life making it an issue of great concern to nurses in any setting. However, nurses do not do a good job of managing pain. The purpose of this evaluation was to assess graduate nursing students' knowledge and attitudes toward pain management.

Forty (n=40) graduate nursing students were asked to participate in the evaluation. All students agreed and completed the Demographic Data Form, Nurses Attitude Survey and the Pain Management and Principles Assessment. Thirty-eight females and two males participated in …

An Evaluation Of The Early Steps Referral Process In Hillsborough County To Detect Delays In Access To Early Intervention Services, Jessica Fry Johnson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Early intervention services are important in obtaining better outcomes for infants with a developmental delay or a condition that may result in a delay. In Florida, a primary resource for providing these services is the Early Steps Program. This study analyzed the Early Steps referral process to identify barriers to prompt access. The guiding hypothesis was if differences exist in key outcomes of the referral process, then these differences may reveal where improvements can be made. Improving access to early intervention should produce better outcomes and reduce the costs of services required later by addressing developmental concerns earlier.

The dataset …

Techniques For Enhancing Reliability In Vlsi Circuits, Ransford Morel Hyman Jr

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Reliability is an important issue in very large scale integration(VLSI) circuits. In the absence of a focus on reliability in the design process, a circuit’s functionality can be compromised. Since chips are fabricated in bulk, if reliability issues are diagnosed during the manufacturing of the design, the faulty chips must be tossed, which reduces product yield and increases cost. Being aware of this situation, chip designers attempt to resolve as many issues dealing with reliability on the front-end of the design phase (architecture or systemlevel modeling) to minimize the cost of errors in the design which increases as the design …

Perseverative Cognition, Cognitive Load, And Distraction In Recovery From Stress, Alvin B. Jin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Perseverative cognition is the repetitive cognitive representation of a stressor, which includes the concepts of worry and rumination. These thoughts delay post-stress cardiovascular recovery, which may lead to an increased risk for cardiovascular disease. This may be due to the negative emotional content of perseverative cognition or because it involves cognitive effort. The aim of this study was to identify the unique influences of negative emotional content and cognitive effort during recovery. Participants (N = 120) were given a demanding task purportedly as a measure of intelligence and then given false negative feedback. Immediately following, participants engaged in one of …

The Conservation And Ecology Of Carnivorous Plants, David Jennings

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As discussed in Chapter 1, although our understanding of the ecology and evolution of carnivorous plants has greatly improved in recent years, many fundamental questions remain unanswered. Unfortunately, at the present time, many carnivorous plants are increasingly threatened by anthropogenic activities. Indeed, over half of the carnivorous plant species assessed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) are listed as `threatened', but the threats to carnivorous plants have not previously been quantified. In Chapter 2, I quantified the conservation threats to carnivorous plant taxa worldwide by searching peer-reviewed literature, and found data on the threats to 48 …

Exploring Instructional Strategies And Learning Goals In Undergraduate Leadership Education, Daniel Jenkins

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Leadership education has been integral to the undergraduate curriculum since the early 1990's. Today, more than 1,000 colleges and universities in the United States offer undergraduate courses in leadership studies and many offer academic credit in the form of a bachelor's degree, academic minor, or certificate. Yet, little is known about those who teach leadership studies courses to undergraduates, the instructional strategies they employ, or the learning goals they set. The purpose of this study was to identify the instructional strategies that are most frequently used by instructors when they teach academic credit-bearing undergraduate leadership studies courses, identify signature pedagogies …

Constructing Alternative Christian Identity: An Ethnography Of Jesus People Usa's Cornerstone Festival, Brian Johnston

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines processes through which alternative Christian identities are constructed, maintained, and performed at the annual Cornerstone Festival in Bushnell, Illinois. Organized and managed by Jesus People USA (JPUSA), an urban commune in Chicago, Illinois, the festival includes non-traditional methods of religious expression including rock music, making camp, play, and community-building. Cornerstone Festival attracts and includes members of the Christian faith who would not otherwise be included in traditionally organized Christian groups and fosters interaction between these less enfranchised members and more traditionally minded and socialized Christian practitioners. JPUSA appropriates the festival format as a method of religious expression …

When Does Fidelity Matter? An Evaluation Of Two Medical Simulation Methods, Nneka Joseph

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Job or task simulations are used in training when the use of the real task is dangerous or expensive, such as flying aircraft or surgery. This study focused on comparing two types of simulations used in assessments during a Clinical Performance Examination of third-year medical students: computer enhanced mannequins and standardized patients. Each type of simulation has advantages, but little empirical work exists to guide the use of different types of simulation for training and evaluating different aspects of performance. This study analyzed performance scores for different competencies as well as the reliability and validity of the different simulation types. …

Female Teachers As Sexual Predators: A Qualitative Study Of Grades 7-12 In The State Of Florida's Public Schools, Jayme Lynn Joslyn

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study's purpose was to discover commonalities and differences among female predators and Florida female teachers who are perceived and reported to harass students sexually. When perceived and reported female sexual harasser and student safety was researched, a breath of studies did not occur. When current studies were reviewed, teacher sexual harassment continued to occur. In this qualitative study, ten Florida public school female teachers who were perceived and reported to sexually harass students were randomly selected. Findings indicted that further research is still needed on female teachers who are perceived and reported to sexually harass students. When researching the …

Modeling Endogenous Treatment Eects With Heterogeneity: A Bayesian Nonparametric Approach, Xuequn Hu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the estimation of endogenous treatment effects in the presence of heterogeneous responses. A Bayesian Nonparametric approach is taken to model the heterogeneity in treatment effects. Specifically, I adopt the Dirichlet Process Mixture (DPM) model to capture the heterogeneity and show that DPM often outperforms Finite Mixture Model (FMM) in providing more flexible function forms and thus better model fit. Rather than fixing the number of components in a mixture model, DPM allows the data and prior knowledge to determine the number of components in the data, thus providing an automatic mechanism for model selection.

Two DPM models …

Oxygen Diffusion Characterization Of Frp Composites Used In Concrete Repair And Rehabilitation, Chandra K. Khoe

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Many independent studies have conclusively demonstrated that fiber reinforced polymers (FRP) slow down chloride-induced corrosion of steel in concrete. The mechanism for this slow down is not well understood but it has been hypothesized that FRP serves as a barrier to the ingress of chloride, moisture, and oxygen that sustain electrochemical corrosion of steel.

This dissertation presents results from an experimental study that determined the oxygen permeation rates of materials used in infrastructure repair. In the study, the oxygen permeation constants for epoxy, carbon and glass fiber laminates, concrete, epoxy-concrete and FRP-concrete systems were determined and a method developed to …

"Take Another Look At 'Em": Passing Performances Of Gender In The Junior-Freshman Weddings Of Florida State College For Women, 1909-1925, Sarah Lynne Jünke

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Junior-freshmen weddings were all-female mock weddings that were performed as annual traditions on college campuses throughout the U.S. in the early part of the twentieth-century. In the weddings, college women played both the men's and women's roles, and were joined as husband and wife by their college administration. This thesis focuses on the junior-freshman weddings of Florida State College for Women during the years 1909-1925 and argues that the weddings expressed the conflicted cultural contexts that college women in the Progressive Era confronted, but that, significantly, this expression was done through passing performances of gender. The women's choice of passing …

Seagrass Patch Dynamics In Areas Of Historical Loss In Tampa Bay, Fl, Usa, Kristen A. Kaufman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The study documents seagrass patch dynamics over large spatial extents in Tampa Bay, Florida. Using GIS techniques a set of fine scale seagrass maps was created within locations previously identified as "patchy" seagrass or areas of seagrass loss. Thirty randomly selected landscape windows of various extents were mapped for the years 2004, 2006, and 2008 by visualizing 0.3 m resolution color imagery on-screen at a digitizing scale of 1:500 using a minimum mapping unit of 1 m². Characteristics of seagrass patches and patterns of seagrass change were quantified using area-based and time interval metrics including total seagrass area, …

An Analysis On The Experience Of Mentoring Support In A College Alternative Teacher Certification Program, Debra Voutsinas Kilgore

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research study was to explore how college alternative teacher certification (ATC) participants experience mentoring support. The goal was to obtain a rich and deep understanding of the nature of the mentoring experience in a college ATC program through the perspectives of mentees and their mentors. The ATC program was the Educator Preparation Institute (EPI).

Semi-structured interviews were conducted. Eight individuals participated in the study, four were mentors and four were EPI students. A triangulated set of research methods for data collection and analysis was used, including member checks, validation forms, and peer reviews. All the interviews …

A Remotely Operated Multi-Tracked Vehicle For Subterranean Exploration Of Gopher Tortoise Burrows, William Keese

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The gopher tortoise is a land tortoise living in the southeastern United States. It is a species in decline and is listed as threatened or endangered in six different states. The gopher (as commonly referred) digs burrows that it uses for many reasons and spends most of its time underground. Problems occur when trying to estimate a population because a gopher tortoise digs more than one burrow. This thesis demonstrates an innovative way to survey and investigate a gopher tortoise burrow hole by using a multi-tracked remotely operated vehicle. The vehicle carried two cameras (fore and aft) and was equipped …

Teacher Commitment To The Implementation Of Ninth Grade Academies And Their Perceptions Of School Leadership, Deborah Kindel

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the commitment of teachers to the implementation of ninth grade academies and their perceptions of school leadership during the reform process. Concern for successful high school completion prompted the redesign of ninth grade into a school-within-a-school format within a Florida school district. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine the type of commitment and form of leadership evident in this reform initiative along with the relationship between them. As a mindset for change, commitment was represented as affective, normative, and continuance. Leadership styles were delineated as transformational, transactional, and passive/avoidant along with related outcomes of …

How To Get From Here To There: Poetic Connections In Tracy Letts's "Man From Nebraska," "August: Osage County," And "Superior Donuts.", Deborah Ann Kochman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, Kochman examines the textual references to poetry in contemporary playwright Tracy Letts's "Man from Nebraska," "August: Osage County," and "Superior Donuts" and explores how specific references function as a "poetic exchange" between the protagonists and the respective agents of change or moral touchstones in each play and how these "poetic exchanges" suggest a diminishment or elevation of the intrinsic value of art -- specifically, poetry -- as a force for personal and cultural renewal. While Letts's writing is hardly "poetic" and his structure closer to "narrative," he focuses on "the repressed" - both emotionally and socially --and …

Biodegradation Of Bisphenol-A And 17b-Estradiol In Soil Mesocosms Under Alternating Aerobic/Anoxic/Anaerobic Conditions, Won-Seok Kim

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Soil-aquifer treatment (SAT) has been proposed as a method for reusing treated municipal wastewater. SAT is characterized by alternating cycles of aerobic and anaerobic conditions in the subsurface, in response to alternating cycles of flooding and drainage of a surface impoundment. It is not yet known how these alternating redox conditions affect the removal of potentially harmful endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs) from treated effluent.

The overall objective of my doctoral research is to determine the fate of EDCs in alternating aerobic/anoxic/anaerobic conditions under simulated SAT conditions. To assess the fate of EDCs in simulated SAT conditions, I first had to develop …