American Studies Commons^™

Extending The Principal Stratification Method To Multi-Level Randomized Trials, Jing Guo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Principal Stratification method estimates a causal intervention effect by taking account of subjects' differences in participation, adherence or compliance. The current Principal Stratification method has been mostly used in randomized intervention trials with randomization at a single (individual) level with subjects who were randomly assigned to either intervention or control condition. However, randomized intervention trials have been conducted at group level instead of individual level in many scientific fields. This is so called "two-level randomization", where randomization is conducted at a group (second) level, above an individual level but outcome is often observed at individual level within each group. …

Prospects For Nuclear Non-Proliferation: An Actor-Oriented Case Study Of Iran’S Future, James Martin Lockwood

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study is designed to assess the effectiveness of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime and analyze theories for effectively analyzing countries that are a risk for proliferating nuclear armaments. The initial phase of my research is designed to assess the existing literature and primary theoretical approaches for analyzing nuclear non-proliferation initiatives and potential nuclear proliferators. My main means of analysis will be to examine the national and international actors involved in each case. With this method, I plan to analyze a government at the level of each of its ruling institutions. Each of these institutions will be analyzed in the context …

The Psychometric Validation Of The Physical Body Experiences Questionnaire, Jessie E. Menzel

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Embodiment is defined as a state in which one experiences one's body as an essential and loved aspect of one's lived experiences, a potential protective factor against body image and eating disturbance. While qualitative studies have been conducted to examine the nature of embodiment, a quantitative measure has not yet been created. The Physical Body Experiences Questionnaire was rationally derived as a measure of embodiment based on focus groups, literature reviews, and expert review. These qualitative methods resulted in a 32-item scale measured on a 7-point Likert scale. Based on the results of a pilot study conducted with 670 female …

Local Environmental Perceptions And Cognitive And Affective Learning In A Rural, Andean Community In Mollepata, Peru, Luisella Mazzone De Angelis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the linkages between environmental field trips and cognitive and affective gains in two groups of homogenous elementary-aged students in Mollepata, Peru. One group participated in an environmental field trip to a local, non-profit farm (Aprodes) to explore watershed and agricultural issues. The second group received the same content within the classroom setting. The research also examines the environmental perceptions of local residents via semi-formal open-ended interviews to assess their environmental awareness and their willingness to receive environmental education services from an outside organization.

Data were collected both quantitatively and qualitatively via pre and post tests containing science …

Differential Decomposition Patterns Of Human Remains In Variable Environments Of The Midwest, Melissa A. Pope

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Where do people die alone when they remain undiscovered for extended periods of time? Estimation of the postmortem interval (PMI) is critical to reconstructing the events surrounding a person's death and this is an area in which forensic anthropologists have played a leading role. This thesis applied an anthropological framework that takes a comprehensive approach to analyzing the demography of unaccompanied deaths, the relationships and timing of decomposition in multiple depositional contexts, and created a model for the prediction of accumulated degree days (ADD) for bodies within enclosures.

While there have been extensive experimental and case study reviews on decomposition …

The Female Colonizer And Othered Woman In Isak Dinesen's Out Of Africa, Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea, Tayeb Salih's Season Of Migration To The North, And Paule Marshall's The Chosen Place, The Timeless People, Lindsay L. Sloan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The central issue of this thesis is the complicated relationship between the colonized individual and the constitutive as well as emblematic female colonizer in Isak Dinesen's Out of Africa, Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea, Tayeb Salih's Season of Migration to the North, and Paule Marshall's The Chosen Place, The Timeless People. Each of these novels displays colonization by a female (or females) and relates back to historical colonialism, but each characterizes the relationship between the oppressors and oppressed differently. Dinesen's and Rhys's works stem from historical colonization in which European colonizers conquered and ruled other territories; …

Synthesis And Physical Properties Investigations Of Intermetallic Clathrates, Stevce Stefanoski

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Intermetallic clathrates have long been of interest for 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 inorganic clathrates offers the possibility to assess their potential for use in the various applications mentioned above.

The purpose of the current work is to expand the current knowledge of the synthetic routes for obtaining clathrate materials, their structural, chemical, and physical properties, particularly …

Statistical Idealities And Expected Realities In The Wavelet Techniques Used For Denoising, Eric-Jan D. Denooyer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the field of signal processing, one of the underlying enemies in obtaining a good quality signal is noise. The most common examples of signals that can be corrupted by noise are images and audio signals. Since the early 1980's, a time when wavelet transformations became a modernly defined tool, statistical techniques have been incorporated into processes that use wavelets with the goal of maximizing signal-to-noise ratios. We provide a brief history of wavelet theory, going back to Alfréd Haar's 1909 dissertation on orthogonal functions, as well as its important relationship to the earlier work of Joseph Fourier (circa 1801), …

Synthesis And Physical Properties Investigations Of Intermetallic Clathrates, Stevce Stefanoski

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Intermetallic clathrates have long been of interest for 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

inorganic clathrates offers the possibility to assess their potential for use in the various

applications mentioned above.

The purpose of the current work is to expand the current knowledge of the

synthetic routes for obtaining clathrate materials, their structural, chemical, and physical

properties, particularly …

Walking Box Ranch Custodianship Quarterly Progress Report: Period Ending April 10, 2010, Margaret N. Rees

Walking Box Ranch

• UNLV provides stewardship of Walking Box Ranch (WBR) by providing a caretaker who oversees the property, facilitating use of the property by researchers and educators, developing a use and research policy for the property, and coordinating these activities with BLM and in accordance with TNC restrictions.
• UNLV currently addresses security issues for the property through the presence of the caretaker and three Metro Officers who reside on the property in two recreational vehicles, in rotation. UNLV has prepared a draft document outlining this agreement that will be signed by UNLV and participating officers. This agreement is currently under review by …

The Waiting Unknown: Stories, James R. Miller

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

These collected stories are a narrative exploration of a collective life in middle‐class suburbia. Here the reader is introduced to a troop of characters who share a community but yet they are adrift in the atmosphere between identity and memory. At times, as in “When to Lie” and “Afraid of the Question” we see conflict arise when the suburban religious dogma alters character identity, leaving behind haunting memories and scar tissue. Memory and identification play an important roll when, as in “Rx” the protagonist is faced with the sudden loss of his family as he struggles to keep their memories …

Empowered For Practice: The Relationship Among Perceived Autonomy Support, Competence, And Task Persistence Of Undergraduate Applied Music Students, Julie F. Troum

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships among undergraduate applied music students' perceptions of autonomy support, competence, and task persistence. One assumption of self-determination theory was that competence would increase when social environment supported self-organization. A motivational-cognitive framework designed to promote sustained motivation in undergraduate applied music students was proposed.

Three self-report scales administered in the form of a web survey were completed by undergraduate applied music students (N = 366) at six Florida universities. The scales were designed to measure perceived autonomy support, perceived competence, and perceived persistence in practice in the applied music studio setting. …

Functional Connectivity And Responses To Chemoreceptor Stimulation Of Medullary Ventrolateral Respiratory Column Neurons, Mackenzie M. Ott

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ventrolateral medullary neurons have important roles in cardiorespiratory coordination. A rostral extension of the ventral respiratory column (RVRC), including the retrotrapezoid nucleus (RTN), has neurons responsive to local perturbations of CO2 / pH. Respiratory-modulated firing patterns of RVRC neurons are attributed to influences of more caudal (CVRC) neurons. These circuits remain poorly understood. This study addressed the hypothesis that both local interactions and influences from the CVRC shape rostral neuron discharge patterns and responses. Spike trains from 294 rostral and 490 caudal neurons were recorded with multi-electrode arrays along with phrenic nerve activity in 14 decerebrate, vagotomized cats. Overall, 214 …

Accurate Localization Given Uncertain Sensors, Jeffrey A. Kramer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The necessity of accurate localization in mobile robotics is obvious - if a robot does not know where it is, it cannot navigate accurately to reach goal locations. Robots learn about their environment via sensors. Small robots require small, efficient, and, if they are to be deployed in large numbers, inexpensive sensors. The sensors used by robots to perceive the world are inherently inaccurate, providing noisy, erroneous data or even no data at all. Combined with estimation error due to imperfect modeling of the robot, there are many obstacles to successfully localizing in the world. Sensor fusion is used to …

Splicing Systems For Studying Signaling To The Spliceosome, Hercules S. Apostolatos

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Alternative splicing is a major contributing factor to protein diversity. The human genome project validated that there are about 25,000 genes, but over 100,000 proteins. Genes contain numerous exons that are specifically regulated; thus, elucidating alternative splicing mechanisms of pre-mRNAs is an immense undertaking. Two basic tools are used to study this mammoth task. For in vitro studies, usually in vitro transcription followed by splicing assays is used. For in vivo studies, the main technique is the construction of minigenes. These techniques enable one to study the mechanisms/conditions that explain an exon's inclusion or exclusion in the mature mRNA.

In …

Translating Neil Simon‘S The Dinner Party: A Linguistic Approach, Brigitte Philippe

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Translation is a challenge. More than just words, languages are ways of looking at the world and these unique perspectives make it hard to talk about a reality which might not exist in the language in which we are trying to express it. It becomes a greater challenge when one tackles theater as it is not a genre translation theories have studied extensively, which means the translator cannot rely on tradition. And the challenge reaches a new level when it comes to translating humor: humor is linguistically and culturally determined. Indeed, languages do not express humor using the same tools …

Mubarak’S Machine: The Durability Of The Authoritarian Regime In Egypt, Andrea M. Perkins

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Egyptian authoritarian regime is a mammoth machine created and headed by President Hosni Mubarak as an instrument for the exercise of his own power. His ability to influence every facet of the character of Egypt lies in his previous career experience, the involvement in politics of his immediate family, his commitment to unpopular but lucrative foreign policies, and the bureaucratic obstacle course he created for opposition entities to navigate.

Through persistent efforts to prepare himself for national leadership prior to gaining power, then to consolidate his power in the institutions of Egypt, Mubarak has built a state organization with …

Unamuno's Concept Of The Tragic, Ernesto O. Hernandez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis focuses in presenting Miguel de Unamuno’s concept of the tragic. Historically this concept has suffered various changes of meaning and application. If successful the project shall provide the distinct connotation, features, and characteristics that Unamuno attributes to the tragic. His special treatment of the tragic harnesses a way for the will to become aware of its existential condition. This awakening of consciousness evokes an arousal of dichotomies that the will must confront. Faith against reason, religion against science, heart against intellect, are amongst these conflicting predicaments. The will’s constant struggle between these opposing forces constitutes for Unamuno the …

Sachs, Emanie (Nahm), 1893-1981 (Sc 2241), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2241. Letters of Emanie Nahm Sachs, written from New York City and Bowling Green, Kentucky, to John Wilson Townsend, Lexington, Kentucky. Sachs discusses research for her (never published) history of Kentucky and comments on Kentucky authors. Includes Sachs's newspaper advertisement soliciting information for her history. Also includes a letter from Townsend's widow regarding donation of the letters.

Exploratory Analysis Of Maintenance In Behavioral Parent Training, Claudia Villari

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A two-part study explored the maintenance effect of Behavioral Parent Training (BPT) featuring multi-component treatments by examining one year follow-up data from a larger study. Participants were ten parents of children (ages 3-5) with developmental disabilities and severe problem behaviors. Parents were also identified as having high levels of pessimism. BPT featuring multi-component treatments was provided in two conditions: Positive Behavior Support (PBS) and Positive Family Intervention (PFI). PBS included a standardized protocol to teach parents how to conduct a functional assessment, develop and implement a multi-component treatment, which includes the following strategies: prevention, teaching replacement skills, and managing consequences. …