Digital Commons Network^™

Do Industries' Political Profiles Affect Their Portfolio Return Performance?, Shaddy S. Douidar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The political profiles of an industry influence its performance due to its impact on industry-level investor sentiment and idiosyncratic risk. I form eight comprehensive political profile portfolios after double sorting on industry-level: (1) political geography proxied by political alignment, (2) corporate political strategies (CPS), proxied by donations to political action committees & lobbying expenditures, (3) and government interference, proxied by dependence on procurement contracts & federal regulations, and exhibit that an industries’ political profiles impact its returns. Industries with high political alignment, concentrated corporate political strategies, and low government interference, deemed the high-performance portfolio, earn an annualized alpha of 10.3428%, …

Defining Intercultural Competence: How Four Pre-Service Teachers Developed A More Complex Understanding Of Icc, Elizabeth C. Barrow

Journal of Global Education and Research

This manuscript is one part of a larger exploratory collective case study of pre-service teachers who participated in a student teaching abroad program for one-month in Germany. The objective was to ascertain if and how pre-service teachers with no prior training in intercultural competence (ICC) developed both their understanding and conceptualization of ICC. Data was collected before, during, and after the experience via focus groups, individual interviews, journal entries, and program evaluations. Data was analyzed using a priori codes compiled from Bennett’s (2008) characteristics of affective, cognitive, and behavioral competencies of ICC. Findings from this study indicated that a short-term …

The Weekly Challenger, February 23, 2023, The Weekly Challenger, Et Al

Weekly Challenger Newspaper Collection

The February 23, 2023, issue of The Weekly Challenger.

Let The Devil Speak For Itself: Should Chatgpt Be Allowed Or Banned In Hospitality And Tourism Schools?, Faizan Ali, Chatgpt Openai, Inc

Journal of Global Hospitality and Tourism

Since the inception of Open AI’s ChatGPT, its usage has been a polarizing topic. This is particularly true for the higher education sector, specially disciplines such as hospitality and tourism. As such, this opinion paper provides a balanced stance and outlines the benefits and limitations of using ChatGPT by students and faculty members in hospitality and tourism schools. This paper also outlines some ethical aspects revolving arounds usage of ChatGPT in hospitality and tourism schools.

Artificial Intelligence, Basic Skills, And Quantitative Literacy, Gizem Karaali

Numeracy

The introduction in November 2022 of ChatGPT, a freely available language-based artificial intelligence, has led to concerns among some educators about the feasibility and benefits of teaching basic writing and critical thinking skills to students in the context of easily accessed, AI-based cheating mechanisms. As of now, ChatGPT can write pretty convincing student-level prose, but it is still not very good at answering quantitatively rich questions. Therefore, for the time being, the preceding concerns may not be shared by a large portion of the numeracy education community. However, as Google and WolframAlpha are definitely capable of answering standard and some …

Exploring The Relationship Between Quantitative Reasoning Skills And News Habits, Bennett Attaway, John Voiklis, Jay Barchas-Lichtenstein, Eric Hochberg, Jim Hammerman, Uduak Grace Thomas, Nicole Lamarca, Laura Santhanam, Patti Parson

Numeracy

Because people are constantly confronted with numbers and mathematical concepts in the news, we have embarked on a project to create journalism that can support news users’ number skills. But doing so requires understanding (1) journalists’ ability to reason with numbers, (2) other adults’ ability to do so, and (3) the attributes and affordances of news. In this paper, we focus on the relationship between adults’ news habits and their quantitative reasoning skills. We collected data from a sample of 1,200 US adults, testing their ability to interpret statistical results and asking them to report their news habits. The assessment …

Investiture Ceremony- Inauguration Of Rhea F. Law, Tampa Campus, January 19, 2023, University Of South Florida

USF Graduation and Convocation Programs

Program for the investiture of the eighth President of the University of South Florida, Rhea F. Law

2023 Annual Undergraduate Research Conference Program, Usf Office Of High Impact Practices And Undergraduate Studies

USF Tampa Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Vice Versa [Transcript], Dion Boucicault

Vice Versa

No abstract provided.

Section Iii: Collections (Evidence), Usf Libraries

SACSCOC 2025

No abstract provided.

Engineering Emotion Sustainably: Affective Gendered Organizing Of Engineering Identities And Third Space, Patrice M. Buzzanell, Colleen Arendt, Rebecca L. Dohrman, Carla B. Zoltowski, Prashant Rajan

Communication Faculty Publications

The questions of why there are so few women in engineering and how to change engineering cultures to be more inclusive have garnered much social scientific research and considerable funding. Despite numerous findings and interventions, no studies to our knowledge have analyzed how difference is constituted discursively, materially, and affectively in ways that are deeply embedded in engineering occupational and societal cultures. This study takes an affective gendered organizing approach to analyze how affect is constituted through emotions/talk, interactions, and materialities. Using constructivist grounded theory, we explored our interview data of 69 engineers (45 women and 24 men) to find …

Foster Child Of The Family: An Autoethnography Of An International Minority Teacher Educator In A U.S. University, Yiting Chu

Language, Literacy, Ed.D., Exceptional Education, and Physical Education Faculty Publications

In this chapter, I used critical autoethnography to document my experiences as a minority teacher educator in a predominantly White institution (PWI) of higher education in the United States and examined how my intersectional identities as a foreign-born, non-White, non-native English speaking, teacher educator of Asian descent had influenced my practices as a multicultural educator and researcher. I used tenets of the critical race theory (CRT) and Asian critical theory (AsianCrit), in particular counterstorytelling and intersectionality, as analytic lens to frame my explorations of what it meant to be a minority educator in a foreign cultural and institutional context. Data …

Entwined African And Asian Genetic Roots Of Medieval Peoples Of The Swahili Coast, Esther S. Brielle, Jeffrey Fleisher, Stephanie Wynne-Jones, Kendra Sirak, Nasreen Broomandkhoshbacht, Kim Callan, Elizabeth Curtis, Lora Iliev, Ann Marie Lawson, Jonas Oppenheimer, Lijun Qiu, Kristin Stewardson, J. Noah Workman, Fatma Zalzala, George Ayodo, Agness O. Gidna, Angela Kabiru, Amandus Kwekason, Audax Z. Mabulla, Fredrick K. Manthi, Emmanuel Ndiema, Christine Ogola, Elizabeth Sawchuk, Lihadh Al-Gazali, Bassam R. Ali, Salma Ben-Salem, Thierry Letellier, Denis Pierron, Chantal Radimilahy, Jean-Aimé Rakotoarisoa, Ryan L. Raaum, Brendan J. Culleton, Swapan Mallick, Nadin Rohland, Nick Patterson, Mohammed Ali Mwenje, Khalfan Bini Ahmed, Mohamed Mchulla Mohamed, Sloan R. Williams, Janet Monge, Sibel Kusimba, Mary E. Prendergast, David Reich, Chapurukha M. Kusimba

Anthropology Faculty Publications

The urban peoples of the Swahili coast traded across eastern Africa and the Indian Ocean and were among the first practitioners of Islam among sub-Saharan people1,2. The extent to which these early interactions between Africans and non-Africans were accompanied by genetic exchange remains unknown. Here we report ancient DNA data for 80 individuals from 6 medieval and early modern (ad 1250–1800) coastal towns and an inland town after ad 1650. More than half of the DNA of many of the individuals from coastal towns originates from primarily female ancestors from Africa, with a large proportion—and occasionally more than half—of the …

Icons And Metaphors In Visual Communication: The Relevance Of Peirce’S Theory Of Iconicity For The Analysis Of Visual Communication, Martin Thellefsen, Alon Friedman

School of Information Faculty Publications

In this paper we adopt Charles Sanders Peirce’s concept of iconicity to analyse pictural communication. While visual semiotics has a well-developed structural school, the concepts of visual semiotics stemming from Peirce’s pragmatic sign theory are often overlooked. The specific purpose of this study is to explore the semiotics of visual signs, exemplified by two prominent pictures of former US President Donald Trump. We argue that Peirce’s semiotic framework for iconicity in visual signs (the image, the diagram, and the metaphor) offers a useful framework for discussing how the meaning of visual signs is motivated. On this basis, we propose that …

Review Of The Life And Legend Of Catterina Vizzani: Sexual Identity, Science And Sensationalism In Eighteenth-Century Italy And England, By Clorinda Donato, Ula E. Lukszo Klein

ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640–1830

Review of The Life and Legend of Catterina Vizzani: Sexual Identity, Science and Sensationalism in Eighteenth-Century Italy and England, by Clorinda Donato, written by Ula Lukszo Klein. Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment, Liverpool University Press, 2020, 347 pp., 3 b/w images. ISBN: 978-1-789-62221-8

System Of Language Learning With Augmented Reality, Sara Ashley Smith, Maria Soledad Carlo, Sanghoon Park, Howard Kaplan

USF Patents

Education curricula materials include encoded indicia such as a QR code that contains information related to identifying requested augmented reality image data from a server over a network. By scanning the QR code, a computer uses its decoding software to create a data set for transmitting to the server. The data set may include an identifier for selected augmented reality image data associated with the user's curriculum, information about the curriculum at issue, the academic level of the user, and any other data necessary to ensure that the most appropriate augmented reality image data is transmitted back to the computer. …

Fascism In The Age Of The Internet: Stormfront.Org And The Capitol Insurrection, Grace Ruth Blackard

USF St. Petersburg campus Honors Program Theses (Undergraduate)

This thesis investigates the relationship between online white supremacist discourse and the January 6, 2021, Capitol Insurrection by examining user behavior on Stormfront.org, one of the oldest and most influential white nationalist forums on the internet. Using a mixed-methods approach, the study analyzed posts from Stormfront’s “Politics and Continuing Crises” and “Lounge” boards during periods before and after the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Drawing on threat assessment literature, the research evaluated the presence of warning behaviors, including leakage, fixation, and identification, while also assessing user interactions, self-presentation, and major discussion themes. Quantitative findings revealed that political discussion boards contained significantly …

Encountering American Higher Education: First-Year Academic Transition Of International Undergraduate Students In The United States, Masha Krsmanovic

Journal of Global Education and Research

This study explored how international undergraduate students perceive their academic transition into American higher education. Schlossberg’s (1984) 4S Transition Theory served as the framework for exploring what academic challenges, if any, international students experience during their first year of undergraduate studies in a new cultural and educational setting. The findings revealed that students’ academic transition into the U.S. higher education was characterized by difficulties in understanding the academic system of their new environment; overcoming educational, instructional and pedagogical differences; building social relationships with domestic students; and receiving the support necessary from the appropriate institutional services.

Immigrant Students And Global Education, Felipe A. Filomeno, Christopher Brown

Journal of Global Education and Research

Research on immigrant students in higher education often articulates a deficit narrative emphasizing the challenges immigrant students face in comparison to their native-born peers. In education for global competence, however, immigrant students’ life experiences give them a potential advantage. This study investigated whether project-based learning designed to take advantage of immigrant students’ intercultural life experiences could contribute to the development of global competence among undergraduate students. Developing and teaching a collaborative, project-based course where undergraduate students researched the intercultural experiences of their immigrant peers, researchers measured specific learning outcomes using quantitative and thematic analysis of student research papers and reflective …

Refugee-Background Students In New Zealand And The United States: Roots And Results Of Educational Policies And Practices, Jody L. Mcbrien, Maria Hayward

Journal of Global Education and Research

Both the United States (US) and New Zealand (NZ) have been resettling refugees since the Second World War. As such, and because of several international treaties signed by both countries, they must concern themselves with the education of resettled refugee students in their nations. In this study, the researchers examine the international agreements and national resettlement policies that shape these nations’ refugee education policies. Second, educational practices for refugee students in the US and NZ using phenomenological qualitative research based on observations, interviews, and focus groups with teachers and refugee students are examined. The researchers conclude that the more systematic …

Evaluating The Effect Of Public Health Governance Structure And Public Opinion On Covid-19 Disease Control Interventions, Daniel Chacreton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Background

Since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, the responses to the pandemic varied greatly from nation to nation. In the US, state-level variance in responses has likely contributed to the disparate COVID-19 infection-related state-level outcomes such as incidence and case fatality rates. The large variances in national and sub-national responses to COVID-19 when combined with the abundance of factors that influence disease transmission rates has created a number of important research opportunities.

Methods

In this vain, this research study aims to describe the relationship that exists between public health governance structure and public sentiment and COVID-19 control measure effectiveness …

Community Heritage: A Source Of Health/Medical Aspirational Capital For Black Males, Lafrance Clarke Jr.

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There is a recognized need for more Black male healers who pursue careers in medical fields.Thus, the purpose of this study was twofold: to explore historical documents to tell the histories of men of African descent who practiced healing in Florida and, from those histories, create a virtual heritage tour to support teaching about leadership through African American history and narratives of healing. The research questions were: How does the heritage curriculum history about Black men healers of FL provide a historical counter-narrative about Black men and their leadership in connection to health/medicine?How do historical counter-narratives about Black men support …

Saudi Pre-Service Teachers’ Beliefs And Practices Regarding Digital Technology In Early Years Education: A Qualitative Case Study, May Mohammed Alyaeesh

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated Saudi pre-service teachers’ beliefs and practices regarding digital technology in early years classrooms. It sought to determine whether participants were prepared to employ such technology to meet the objectives of the Saudi Vision 2030 national development program. This topic was viewed through the lens of the TPACK framework. The study found that the student teachers were not sufficiently prepared to infuse digital technology. They held positive beliefs about digital technology infusion but were concerned about young children’s use of this technology. There was an absence of effective practices, participants’ technical competence was very basic, and their recognition …

Minecraft In Language Teacher Education: Acceptance And Integration In Practice, Kristen E. Fung

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In today’s technological era, understanding if and how teachers’ acceptance and integration of technology evolves is critical to understanding their needs. Technology creates complicated demands on educators and research shows various factors may contribute to their limited success at integrating it (Bustos & Nussbaum, 2009). Research also shows that teachers’ perceptions and attitudes towards pedagogical innovations and information and communication technologies are prominent factors that impact adoption and integration (Tejedor & Muñoz-Repiso, 2006), and the perceptions teachers develop as pre-service teachers influence their classroom performance as in-service teachers (Moon et al., 2016). While research shows plentiful evidence of the educational …

Towards More Task-Generalized And Explainable Ai Through Psychometrics, Alec Braynen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this work, we propose that adopting the methods, principles, and guidelines of the field of psychometrics can help the Artificial Intelligence (AI) community to build more task-generalizable and explainable AI. Three arguments are presented and explored. These arguments are that psychometrics can help by providing 1) a framework for formulating better datasets, 2) psychometric AI data that can lead to models of generalization in AI, and 3) explainable AI through more informative evaluations.

A review of psychometrics and psychological generalization is performed, along with an overview of evaluation, generalization, and explainability in AI. Various ideas are presented throughout for …

Comparison Study Of Consumer’S Perception Toward Urban Air Mobility In The United States And Rest Of The World Using Social Media Information, S M Toki Tahmid

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is a wide concept that will enable access to on-demand air mobility, cargo delivery, medical applications, and emergency services that is run through a connected and integrated transportation system. This study aims to investigate social media data to compare the major topics discussed in the United States and rest of the world and perform a sentiment analysis to see if the comments are positive, negative, or neutral. Twitter was the primary source of information that was used in this thesis, as it is a place where people interact, create, and share information and ideas online. In …

Heidegger And The Origin Of Authenticity, John J. Preston

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Since the publication of Sein und Zeit in 1927, scholars have coupled Martin Heidegger’s reflections on authenticity with a rich tradition of thought which reminds us that philosophy can, from time to time, function as a catalyst for self-discovery. While this function is an undeniable feature of Heideggerian authenticity, I would like to suggest that it is secondary to the role that authenticity plays in Heidegger’s philosophical investigations. By analyzing the full phenomena of authenticity and tracing its first technical uses back to Heidegger’s early lectures on Aristotle, I show that Heidegger’s methodological breakthrough in the early 1920s, the development …

Community Scholars: A Diversity Pipeline Program To Promote Equity, Diversity, And Inclusion For People With Disabilities, Laura M. Rodríguez López

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation in practice documents the program evaluation of the Community Scholars (CS) program at the Florida Center for Inclusive Communities (FCIC), a University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD) at the University of South Florida (USF). CS is part of a diversity pipeline program that recruits youth with disabilities to engage in paid on-the-job training (OJT) with FCIC. Scholars are community members (youth with disabilities) that are enrolled as FCIC trainees and receive mentoring, development of basic administrative competencies, individualized career coaching, college counseling, and disability policy and self-advocacy training. Through the OJT experience, scholars gain skills that …

From Practitioner To Scholarly Practitioner: Exploring The Perceptions Of Edd Students "Becoming", Caridad M. Gibson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Doctoral students who engage in a Professional Doctorate of Education degree program (EdD) are expected to experience a transformative shift from practitioner to scholarly practitioner. Through their engagement in the EdD program, they enter as practitioners, who become equipped to transfer and reintegrate their knowledge within their practice and field, and through this transformative process, they become scholarly practitioners. The EdD becoming represents the critical learning events, dialogues, and reflections experienced by doctoral students. Researchers have conducted studies to examine various aspects of the EdD degree including the credibility of the degree, the effectiveness of programmatic elements, rigor within programs, …

Impact Of Language Sampling Context On Language Productivity And Complexity, Trina J. Tolentino

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Language sampling is a familiar tool in the speech-language pathologist’s (SLP’s) repertoire, used to assess a student’s language ability and inform treatment targets. The current literature has several studies comparing various dimensions of language sampling context, but with relatively small samples. The goal of this study was to identify what sampling contexts elicit the most productive and complex language, thereby contributing insight into what conditions may yield the most accurate representation of a child’s language skill, as well as the resulting intervention focus.

One-thousand thirty-seven kindergarten, first-, second-, and third-grade students (mean age [years; months] ≈ 7;5; range = 5;0-10;9), …