Digital Commons Network^™

Development And Application Of Decision-Making Tool For Rural Spring-Sourced Gravity-Fed Community Managed Water Systems, Oswaldo Galicia

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

People all over the world still lack access to safe drinking water service. Those with access experience several issues during the first few years of installation that impede on their overall access. In order to improve water services, not only is a proper decision-making tool necessary, taking into account key factors that impact sustainable water service, but proper monitoring and evaluation is also important in ensuring service for the long term. There are several developed assessment tools used for monitoring and evaluation of water systems post-construction, applicable in various scenarios. However, there are only few tools available to facilitate the …

“What I Hadn’T Realized Is How Difficult It Is, You Know?”: Examining The Protective Factors And Barriers To Breastfeeding In The Uk, Cheyenne R. Wagi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The international recommendation for breastfeeding is that a baby should be exclusively breastfed for six months. Breastfeeding should be continued for up to two years and beyond with complementary foods (WHO, 2016). The United Kingdom exhibits some of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the world (HSCIC, 2012). The percentage of mothers who breastfed in the United Kingdom falls below 34% at six months, with only 1% of mothers breastfeeding exclusively at this point (HSCIC, 2012:31). This study sought to examine the protective factors and barriers for breastfeeding in the UK. Mums (n=28), their partners (n=6), and facilitators at breastfeeding support …

Integrated Molecular Characterization Of Lung Adenocarcinoma With Implications For Immunotherapy, Nicholas T. Gimbrone

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation covers a variety of the genetic and molecular abnormalities of lung adenocarcinoma with an emphasis on STK11 loss and its implications on immunotherapy response. Given that lung cancer is the leading cancer killer, novel therapies are in great demand. In particular, immunotherapy has shown some of the most promise in the last decade but remains limited due to nearly 80% of patients not significantly responding. This dissertation aims to molecularly characterize lung adenocarcinoma while attempting to explain the reason why patients with STK11 loss do not respond to immunotherapy.

In the first chapter we discuss the relationship between …

Understanding Immunometabolic And Suppressive Factors That Impact Cancer Development, Rebecca Swearingen Hesterberg

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The immune system is responsible for surveillance against pathogens and malignancies and adoptive transfer of antigen-specific T is a powerful new cancer treatment option. There is a clinical need to understand more about the normal regulatory processes that prevent immunosurveillance and how to manipulate this for clinical benefit. This project aims to understand T cells from three different angles. First, the biological role of the negative regulator cereblon (CRBN) was investigated in CD8+ T cells and my studies showed that higher levels of specific derivatives downstream of the amino acid glutamine may be beneficial to T cells in the immune …

Off-The-Grid In An On-Grid Nation: Household Energy Choices, Intra-Community Effects, And Attitudes In A Rural Neighborhood In Utah, Eileen Smith-Cavros, Arianna Sunyak

Journal of Ecological Anthropology

This research is an investigation of the perceived positive and negative aspects of off grid living in a middle to upper-class neighborhood in rural Utah in which no public utility grid was available for connection. Off-grid living is defined as unconnected to a public utility power grid, water, or sewer system. In the researched community, all individuals lived off-grid on minimum twenty-acre lots of land with single-household dwellings. We used surveys with closed and open-ended questions to qualitatively explore the local social effects (from individual attitudes to group identity to household economics to conservation attitudes) off-grid living had on individuals …

Essays On Cloud Computing Analytics, Vivek Kumar Singh

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation research focuses on two key aspects of cloud computing research – pricing and security using data-driven techniques such as deep learning and econometrics. The first dissertation essay (Chapter 1) examines the adoption of spot market in cloud computing and builds IT investment estimation models for organizations adopting cloud spot market. The second dissertation essay (Chapter 2 and 3) studies proactive threat detection and prediction in cloud computing. The final dissertation essay (Chapter 4) develops a secured cloud files system which protects organizations using cloud computing in accidental data leaks.

Ain't I A Woman, Too? Depictions Of Toxic Femininity, Transmisogynoir, And Violence On Star, Sunahtah D. Jones

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As the rate of the murder of Black trans women at the hands of Black cisgender men rises steadily every year (HRC, 2017), discourses regarding the detrimental impact of toxic masculinity within Black communities continue to increase within different branches of feminist literature. However, the role that Black cisgender women and toxic femininity play in the violent and systematic subjugation of Black trans women is largely ignored in feminist literature. In this thesis, I conduct a cultural analysis of the representations of the Black trans character Cotton Brown (from the Fox show Star) to examine how the show illustrates toxic …

The Weekly Challenger, March 7, 2019, The Weekly Challenger, Et Al

Weekly Challenger Newspaper Collection

The March 7, 2019, issue of The Weekly Challenger.

Using Class Pass Intervention (Cpi) To Decrease Disruptive Behavior In Children, Andrea N. Zuniga

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Finding of previous research has shown that disruptive behavior can impair students’ academic success (Pierce, Reid, & Epstein, 2004), as well as increase teacher’s stress level (Westling, 2010). Class Pass Intervention (CPI) is a Tier 2 intervention designed to decrease disruptive behavior and increase academic engagement, however, thus far research on the effects of CPI has been limited to typically developing elementary and high school students with escape and attention-maintained problem behaviors. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to replicate and extend previous research on the effects of CPI on problem behavior and academic engagement however with students whose …

Making Sense At The Margins: Describing Narratives On Food Insecurity Through Hip-Hop, Lemuel Scott

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Neoliberalism is the contemporary political and economic thought that promotes ideas of private property, individualism, and market logic as key to advancing humanity. Scholars generally link neoliberalism to poverty from a broad perspective, but few have explored how it specifically impacts food insecurity. Globally, many people impacted by poverty also experience food insecurity. Hip-hop is important to resistance and fostering my critical worldview. Existing literature primarily describes hip-hop as a critical tool giving expression to people living at the margins. However, there is a need for hip-hop to be used more often as resistance by artists doing research. First, this …

Ay 2018/2019 Sec Meeting Minutes, 2019-03-06, Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Archives

No abstract provided.

Essays On Health, Healthcare, Job Insecurity And Health Outcomes, Ichiro Nakamoto

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This doctoral dissertation proposal is comprised of three separate chapters, all of which uses the nationally representative uniform survey Health and Retirement Survey (HRS) to examine the relationship between health, insurance, health care and health outcomes. Below, the brief introduction for each section is provided:

 Chapter I: Medicare Part D and Patients' Well-being

 Chapter II: Parent's Health Insurance and Informal Care

 Chapter III: Job Insecurity and Health (with Dr. Ayyagari)

In chapter I, I explore how Medicare Part D (MD) affects the well-being of the severely sick patients both in the short- and in the long- term. …

How Mentors At Starting Right Now Build Relationships With Homeless Youth: A Qualitative Analysis, Sheena Hera

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Although research has described mentoring programs to have positive effects with youth, there are few studies that describe how mentors build relationships with homeless youth. In this study, I sought to explore how mentors of a community-based organization, Starting Right Now, built relationships with homeless youth. Starting Right Now is a multi-faceted, community-based intervention developed in 2009 in Tampa, FL. They provide services to homeless adolescents who are no longer living in the custody of a parent or guardian. The program provides residential, educational, recreational, and professional development services, as well as mental and physical health care. Additionally each youth …

Crow's Nest, March 4, 2019, Crow's Nest Staff

Crow's Nest

The March 4, 2019, issue of the Crow's Nest.

Bat Coronaviruses In China, Yi Fan, Kai Zhao, Zheng-Li Shi

KIP Articles

During the past two decades, three zoonotic coronaviruses have been identified as the cause of large-scale disease outbreaks–Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), and Swine Acute Diarrhea Syndrome (SADS). SARS and MERS emerged in 2003 and 2012, respectively, and caused a worldwide pandemic that claimed thousands of human lives, while SADS struck the swine industry in 2017. They have common characteristics, such as they are all highly pathogenic to humans or livestock, their agents originated from bats, and two of them originated in China. Thus, it is highly likely that future SARS- or MERS-like coronavirus outbreaks …

Cutr Connections [March 2019], Cutr

CUTR Newsletters

No abstract provided.

A Global View Of What Fixes Information Technology Skills Shortage: Panel Data Analyses Of Countries’ Human And Technology Resources, Benyawarath Nithithanatchinnapat, K. D. Joshi

Journal of Global Business Insights

This paper aims to provide evidence of what fixes the information technology skills shortage. The focus is on countries' workforce development factors, i.e., human and technology. The research model was tested using secondary data from multiple sources. An ordinary least square with panel corrected standard errors was used to analyze the data. The results indicate that organizations' staff training and gender parity among science, technology, engineering, and mathematics graduates relate negatively to IT talent shortage; this is consistent in both models the authors tested. This study contributes to the IT workforce literature by being the first study that empirically examines …

“Right In The Trenches With Them”: Caregiving, Advocacy, And The Political Economy Of Community Health Workers, Ryan I. Logan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

While the concept of the community health worker (CHW) has existed since the mid-20th century, their function as a legitimate branch of the broader workforce in the United States has been tenuous. Their unique roles have the potential to reduce health disparities within marginalized communities, but stakeholder development of this position risks diminishing the crucial skills of these workers. Anthropological research on these workers has typically assessed them in the developing world, while public health research has focused primarily on their ability to impact specific health outcomes through quantitative studies. As a result of the limited and predominantly quantitative assessments …

Immune System Modulation And Viral Persistence In Bats: Understanding Viral Spillover, Sonu Subudhi, Noreen Rapin, Vikram Misra

KIP Articles

Bats harbor a myriad of viruses and some of these viruses may have spilled over to other species including humans. Spillover events are rare and several factors must align to create the “perfect storm” that would ultimately lead to a spillover. One of these factors is the increased shedding of virus by bats. Several studies have indicated that bats have unique defense mechanisms that allow them to be persistently or latently infected with viruses. Factors leading to an increase in the viral load of persistently infected bats would facilitate shedding of virus. This article reviews the unique nature of bat …

A Family Histories Study Of Parents Engaging Issues Of Race And Racism, Omar J. Salaam

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This family histories research study uses life history methods to explore narratives of parents’ lives regarding ways in which they socialize their children and engage school staff around issues of race and racism. The information gathered is from interviews with the two primary participants, two focus groups; one with each primary participant and the adults with whom they are raising their elementary school (Pre-K to Grade-5) children, and follow-up interviews with both primary participants. The first finding in this study is that the family life stories in both families play a direct role in socializing their children, in that the …

Evaluation Of Novel Hemocompatible Surface Coatings For Extracorporeal Life Support: A Biocompatible Alternative To Systemic Anticoagulation, Teryn Rose Roberts

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Extracorporeal life support (ECLS) is a class of technologies used to support or replace the function of failing organs. During ECLS, blood is withdrawn from systemic circulation and circulated through an artificial organ or “treatment membrane” that performs the function of the failing organ, prior to return to systemic circulation. While ECLS provides life-saving therapy to wide patient populations from pre-term infants to combat-wounded soldiers, this therapy is limited due to secondary thrombotic and bleeding complications that result from: 1) exposure of blood to the foreign surfaces in the device circuit and 2) administration of anticoagulant drugs to prevent clot …

The Weekly Challenger, February 21, 2019, The Weekly Challenger, Et Al

Weekly Challenger Newspaper Collection

The February 21, 2019, issue of The Weekly Challenger.

Ay 2018/2019 Fs Meeting Minutes, 2019-02-20, Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Archives

No abstract provided.

Cyanobacterial And Algal Abundance And Biomass In Cave Biofilms And Relation To Environmental And Biofilm Parameters, Slađana Popović, Nataša Nikolić, Jelena Jovanović, Dragana Predojević, Ivana Trbojević, Ljiljana Manić, Gordana Subakov Simić

International Journal of Speleology

Due to life in extreme environments, cyanobacteria and algae from cave biofilms that form at the entrances or deep inside the cave around artificial lights are of increasing interest to many scientists. It is well-known that many phototrophic microorganisms are first to colonize exposed substrata and produce the organic matter on which other biofilm constituents relly. Many studies dealing with phototrophic microorganisms from biofilms focus on the diversity and community composition of cyanobacteria and algae, while quantitative assessments are rarely implemented. Biofilm sampling was conducted in Degurić and Vernjikica Cave located in Western and Eastern Serbia, respectively. Ecological parameters (temperature, …

Dry Rivers, Scary Strangers: Are Financial And Cyber Crises Alike?, Claudia Biancotti, Paolo Ciocca

Military Cyber Affairs

The internet and the financial system show crucial affinities: both are tightly interconnected global networks whose orderly functioning is a prerequisite for economic prosperity. In financial and cyber crises alike, vulnerabilities are a consequence of distorted economic incentives, contagion is fast, and the most serious risk is loss of trust. Lessons learned from financial meltdowns translate to the cybersecurity world: stability cannot be achieved until policies are in place to address all of these issues. Steps have been taken to rectify incentives, as exemplified by recent European Union legislation. Data that helps identify weak nodes are still scarce, notwithstanding recent …

Systemic Cyber Risks And Defense: Valuation, Innovation And Strategic Implications, Pythagoras N. Petratos

Military Cyber Affairs

No abstract provided.

Regaining The Technological Edge: Authoritarians, Democracies, It Innovation’S Future, Andrea Little Limbago

Military Cyber Affairs

No abstract provided.

Crow's Nest, February 18, 2019, Crow's Nest Staff

Crow's Nest

The February 18, 2019, issue of the Crow's Nest.

Spring Water Of An Alpine Karst Aquifer Is Dominated By A Taxonomically Stable But Discharge-Responsive Bacterial Community, Domenico Savio, Philipp Stadler, Georg H. Reischer, Katalin Demeter, Rita B. Linke, Alfred P. Blaschke, Robert L. Mach, Alexander K. T. Kirschner, Hermann Stadler, Andreas H. Farnleitner

KIP Articles

No abstract provided.

Mpo Regional Coordination Structure Research & Best Practices For The Tampa Bay Region, Cutr

Transportation Planning, Policy, and Processes (TP3) Final Reports

No abstract provided.