Digital Commons Network^™

The Extended Parallel Processing Model (Eppm) And Risk Perceptions Of Twitter Messages Related To Covid-19, Muhammad E. Rasul

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Since its genesis, the novel coronavirus or COVID-19 has claimed millions of lives across the world and has infected many more. The population in the US experienced one of the worst outbreaks of COVID-19 in the world, with the number of deaths rising monolithically at one point. Although the development and inoculation of a large number of the public has helped, newer variants threaten to revitalize the growth and spread of COVID-19. Scholars have extensively studied health messages related to COVID-19 in a variety of contexts. However, little attention has been paid to the risk perceptions of health messages related …

Career Development And Workforce Experiences Of Trans People In Their Workplaces, Rene Ragmett Alvarez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Existing research concerning trans people is sparse, and even less research exists regarding their career development and workforce experiences. Hence, I explored the career development and workforce experience stories of trans people. I used a conceptual and theoretical framework in this study to inform my general approach to trans scholarship leading to the specific examination of the career development and workforce experiences of trans persons. The conceptual and theoretical framework included Hale's (1997) suggested guidelines for non-trans people writing about trans people, constructivism, social cognitive career theory, and minority stress theory and informed the qualitative vehicle of this study to …

“Here Come The Crackers!”: An Ethnohistorical Case Study Of Local Heritage Discourses And Cultural Reproduction At A Florida Living History Museum, Blair Bordelon

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project explores the complex roles of power and heritage in the reproduction ofcultural and ethnic identities in the context of a local living history museum called Cracker Country. Throughout this thesis, I demonstrate how discourses of Florida heritage are constructed, reproduced, or contested in various ways among all the museum’s different communities of stakeholders. Using Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s (1995) theory of historical silences and expanding on Laurajane Smith’s (2006) notion of the Authorized Heritage Discourse, I explore the ways that heritage “works” at a local level, and the multitude of meanings it can hold within particular communities. I analyze the …

The Weekly Challenger, June 24, 2021, The Weekly Challenger, Et Al

Weekly Challenger Newspaper Collection

The June 24, 2021, issue of The Weekly Challenger.

Transparent Planar Micro-Electrode Array For In-Vitro Electric Field Mediated Gene Delivery, Raj Himatlal Shah

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Gene delivery is the process of delivering the modified gene into the human cell. There are two types of gene delivery depending on where the target cells are. The in-vivo gene delivery deals with delivering the altered genes into the cells while still in the host body. While another approach is to extract the cells from the host body, transfer the modified gene into cells and then put these cells back into the host body, this approach is called the ex-vivo method.

A vector is a carrier that carries the modified gene to the host cell or body. Hence, depending …

Assessing The Feasibility Of Microbially Managed Biological Filtration In U.S. Drinking Water Systems For Removal Of Contaminants Of Emerging Concern, Andrew J. Black

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The future of water security in the U.S. is clouded by the progression of anthropogenic climate change and the increasing number of households unable to afford access to safe drinking water, while advances in detection and potential health risks of trace organic contaminants are constantly moving the water treatment finish line. There is a need for sustainable, economically feasible technology to provide the means to meet increasingly stringent water quality regulations while also ensuring current standards are met for all communities. Biologically active filtration, combined with an operational approach designed to optimize contaminant removal by the biofilm, may enable water …

Designing Targeted Mobile Advertising Campaigns, Kimia Keshanian

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With the proliferation of smart, handheld devices, there has been a multifold increase in the ability of firms to target and engage with customers through mobile advertising. Therefore, not surprisingly, mobile advertising campaigns have become an integral aspect of firms’ brand building activities, such as improving the awareness and overall visibility of firms' brands. In addition, retailers are increasingly using mobile advertising for targeted promotional activities that increase in-store visits and eventual sales conversions. However, in recent years, mobile or in general online advertising campaigns have been facing one major challenge and one major threat that can negatively impact the …

Students’ Perceptions Of Factors Contributing To Enrollment In Arabic Courses At A College Level, Qays Q. Majeed

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this evaluation was to investigate the factors that contribute to students’ recruitment and retention in the Arabic program at my college. The two questions guiding this evaluation were: (1) what factors influence students to join the Arabic program at my college and (2) what factors influence students to continue to enroll in subsequent higher-level Arabic courses? To accomplish this evaluation, I conducted interviews with six former students --four women and two men--in the Arabic program. Eight themes emerged following analysis of data. The findings show that students joined the Arabic program for a variety of reasons. Several …

Cytoplasmic Polyadenylation Element Binding Protein 2 Alternative Splicing Regulates Hif1Α During Chronic Hypoxia, Emily M. Mayo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Chronic pulmonary hypoxia commonly results in the sustained expression of HIF1 (hypoxia inducible factor 1), a heterodimeric transcription factor, that, if unrestrained, can result in dramatic vasculature remodeling, pulmonary arterial hypertension, and right-sided heart failure. Together, these pulmonary disorders cost approximately $100 billion annually to treat due to the limited therapeutic targets designed to inhibit HIF1 expression. In this study, we introduce a translational regulator of HIF1 expression, known as Cytosolic polyadenylation element binding proteins 2 (CPEB2). Our lab has previously demonstrated in cancer cells that alternatively spliced isoforms of CPEB2 regulate the translation of the HIF1 oxygen-dependent subunit, HIF1α, …

Presenting Selves And Interpreting Culture: An Ethnography Of Chinese International Tourism In The United States, Fangheyue Ma

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

I situate my dissertation research within cultural sociology, specifically the cultural phenomenon of international tourism, and social psychology, particularly the subfields of identity, interaction, and emotion. I conducted a qualitative study of participants in international package tourism and individual travelers, more specifically, Chinese tourists who travel to the United States. Main topics of exploration included tourists’ experience of their trips and package tours, how they interpreted American culture and compared it to their own, how they constructed and performed identities both as tourists and as Chinese nationals, their emotional experiences and how they made sense of an environment that they …

A New Age Of Telehealth: Pediatric Speech-Language Pathology Services During The Covid-19 Pandemic And Beyond, Deborah R. Campbell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The COVID-19 pandemic potentially changed the landscape of how speech-language pathologists provide services. Prior to March 2020, pediatric speech-language therapy provided via telehealth was limited; however, the COVID-19 pandemic caused a worldwide conversion from in-person care to a remote service delivery model. This conversion brought to the fore possible benefits and utility of telehealth use. Yet, clinicians potentially experienced barriers to its use, including the lack of validity and reliability evidence for remote administration of several pediatric assessments. For the viability of remotely delivered speech-language services to continue and evolve in a post-pandemic world, further research is needed to identify …

“Be Valiente”: Investigating Ethnic Identity Through Digital Storytelling With Latinx Fourth-Grade Students, Jennifer Michelle Barreto

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Multilingual and multicultural students face the challenge of understanding where their ethnic identity lies in learning. The education system in the United States lacks inclusivity in classrooms, continuing monocultural views and monolinguist ideals as the norm and encouraged in curriculum and standards (Flores, 2020). This dissertation study seeks to break cultural and linguistic ideologies to better understand the development of ethnic identity in three Latinx fourth-grade students by creating a digital story. Through a sociocultural lens that includes a bioecological model (Bronfenbrenner, 1977; Vélez-Agosto et al., 2017) and multimodality (NGL, 1996) framework the study emphasizes all funds of knowledge (Moll …

Montage Music Videos: Racial Utopianism Vs. Abstract Cowboys And The Question Of Cultural Montage, Alan E. Blanchard

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Along with the explosion of consumer goods in America over the past century came the human impulse to alter these objects to produce new meanings the manufacturers never intended: commercial products become amateur artists’ raw material. We see this with custom cars and the curious blending of clothes. Inevitably, digital commercial products, like music videos, would undergo a similar treatment as seen in DJ Cummerbund’s “mashup” videos “Old Staind Road” and “Blurry in the USA” where he is painting with audio tracks and sculpting with video clips to create new digital art with new meanings uncoupled from industry’s original intent …

Low-Cost Device For Laser Phacoemulsification: A Preliminary Study, Mitchell Harrah

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The current gold standard of cataract removal surgery is phacoemulsification systems. These are divided based on the type of devices used; both are considered equal but with different delivery modes. These delivery methods are either acoustic or light-based. However, these devices pose two hurdles for impoverished areas: high costs and heavy resource usage. This thesis proposes a novel phacoemulsification system is based on the low-cost, off-shelf laser diodes that implement light-based phacoemulsification of cataracts. The system is tested for viability over two methods: finite element analysis and experimentation on various phantoms. Simulations on the device have occurred on the COMSOL …

Making A Home Away From Home: A Qualitative Study Of African Students’ Practices Of Integration In The United States, Alphonse O. Opoku

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Over the last two decades, the population of international students in the world has significantly increased. More and more students from diverse backgrounds cross national borders to study. The observed increase in numbers and diversity has led to an uptick in scholarly research that focuses on the adaptation and experiences of international students. Most of these studies, particularly in the US, are informed by the acculturation theories and assimilationist frameworks of the 1900s. Also, an exclusive focus is placed on the host country, with few studies acknowledging the impact of the origin country on the international student experience. Such approaches …

Mitigating Negativity Bias In Media Selection, Gabrielle R. Jarmoszko

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A growing body of research explores implicit negativity bias and how it influences news selection processes of media consumers. However, very little, if any, research exists exploring how negativity bias in the news selection process can be mitigated. Informed by experimental designs that have proven effective in mitigating other types of implicit bias, this study aimed to investigate whether having consumers commit themselves to definitions of their preferred type of news before engaging in the selection process alters manifestations of negativity bias in the selection. This study tested two hypotheses: H1, that non-committed individuals will have a higher selection frequency …

Feasibility Of A Virtual Group Nutrition Intervention For Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Acadia W. Buro

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Background: Youth with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have an increased likelihood of being overweight or developing obesity. As children and adolescents with ASD exhibit problematic eating behaviors and may consume more energy-dense foods and fewer fruits and vegetables than typically developing youth, nutrition represents a modifiable obesity risk factor for adolescents with ASD, yet there is a lack of interventions to improve healthy eating and reduce the risk of obesity in this population.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of a virtual implementation of BALANCE (Bringing Adolescent Learners with Autism Nutrition …

Green Business And The Culture Of Capitalism: Constructing Narratives Of Environmentalism, Julia S. Jester

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There are widespread colloquial arguments claiming that any actions taken to combat climate change will be bad for business and the economy, scaring people into continuing their support for the status quo for fear of their financial security. Alternatively, those attempting to combat ecological destruction have subsequently made transitions to sustainable development of products and shifting consumer behavior within this system. There is one core argument that both sides have, albeit in different ways – capitalism and environmentalism are seemingly incompatible; one cannot be successful without the eradication of the other. While it may appear there are only strict binary …

A Longitudinal Examination Of Coping And Subjective Well-Being Among High School Students In Accelerated Curricula, Hannah L. Gilfix

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

High school students in accelerated curriculum, which include Advanced Placement (AP) and International Baccalaureate (IB) programs, face greater amounts of academic stress than those in the general education curriculum (Suldo & Shaunessey, 2013). It is crucial to understand how these students cope with their academic demands and the impact that their use of various coping factors has on their overall subjective well-being. This study utilized a longitudinal non-experimental design to a) examine the stability of coping factors, b) examine the relationship between individual coping factors and subjective well-being, c) investigate the impact of socioeconomic status on the relationship of coping …

The Role Of Antecedent Music In The Running Routines Of Experienced Runners, Jennifer L. Cook

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Promoting running as an accessible and cost-effective form of exercise is important because persistent runners have a 29 to 50% lower risk of cardiovascular mortality compared to those who never run (Lee et al., 2014). Although there is a body of research on music and running, the results have been inconclusive across the literature. This may be due to a reliance on self-report measures and the averaging of results employed with group designs. To address these issues, the current study measured performance (pace) as the primary dependent variable in a series of within-subject designs. First, an online cross-sectional survey (Study …

Florida Environment And Natural History Collections News Bibliography, University Of South Florida Libraries

Environment and Natural History Publications

As part of the USF Libraries ongoing efforts to collect information and research materials for their Florida Environment and Natural History initiative, this bibliography of news coverage has been gathered. Specific areas of focus include stories such as the Piney Point phosphate incident and the controversy around the possible development of the USF Forest Preserve.

The Ring Of Gyges 2.0: How Anonymity Providing Behaviors Affect Willingness To Participate In Online Deviance, Cassandra E. Dodge

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Anonymity has long been discussed as a source of disinhibition. The myth of the Ring of Gyges illustrates how a person may act immorally solely because they know they will not be caught (Plato, 375/2017). Incorporating perspectives of rational choice and deterrence, anonymity serves as a form of risk reduction within hedonistic calculus (Beccaria, 1764/1963; Bentham, 1781/2000). Analogous to the myth of the Ring of Gyges (Plato, 375/2017), techniques of anonymity “hide” users from others while online. These techniques serve as a form of risk reduction, reducing the certainty of punishment (Becarria 1764/1963). Additionally, there are many ways by which …

Investigating The Relationship Between Vocabulary Size Level, Informal Exposure, Motivation, And The Efl Learners’ Collocational Knowledge In Saudi Arabia, Amal Barzanji

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The current study investigated the correlation between English collocation test scores and three independent variables including vocabulary level, informal language exposure, and motivation. The study also examined which independent variable was the most influential in predicting the collocation tests scores. Data was collected using, Gyllstad’s (2007) COLLEX and COLLMATCH tests, Webb et al.’s (2017) Form A of the updated Vocabulary Levels Test, Luk and Bialystok’s (2013) Language and Social Background Questionnaire (LSBQ), and Moskovsky et al.’s (2016) L2 Motivational Self-System Questionnaire (L2MSS). Participants (N = 136) from a Saudi university completed the questionnaires. The results indicated that although there were …

Evacuation Decision Making And The Role Of Social Connections Across Evacuation Statuses During Hurricane Irma, Nathan D. Shull

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to examine the evacuation decision-making process during Hurricane Irma in 2017. Special consideration was given to the role of an individual’s social connections (SCs). Additionally, the dependability, density (i.e., social network size and number of connections), and diversity of SCs were compared between those who: (a) evacuated to a shelter in Pinellas County, (b) evacuated to somewhere outside of the Tampa Bay area, and (c) did not evacuate. Data for evacuees and non-evacuees from Collins et al. (2018) were used to perform this comparison, while the data for shelter evacuees were acquired via a …

The Weekly Challenger, June 11, 2021, The Weekly Challenger, Et Al

Weekly Challenger Newspaper Collection

The June 11, 2021, issue of The Weekly Challenger.

Turkic Interlingua: A Case Study Of Machine Translation In Low-Resource Languages, Jamshidbek Mirzakhalov

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Machine Translation (MT) has the potential to bridge the gap between the developed world and the marginalized communities by making information more accessible in real-time. While there are over 7000 spoken languages in the world, only about a hundred have access to high-quality MT systems and even fewer enjoy the benefits of more advanced language technologies. Unfortunately, resource scarcity and the lack of digital infrastructure are only some of the many challenges associated with globalizing NLP. Many large-scale multilingual studies and datasets often get little to no feedback from native speakers or linguistic experts of the languages involved, leading to …

Chorine Conversion: Biological And Water Quality Impact On Activated Carbon Block Point Of Use Filters, Horace S. Jakpa

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Point-of-use (POU) activated carbon (AC) filters are ubiquitous in many U.S. households. AC can reduce concentrations of lead, other heavy metals, and mitigate taste and odor issues. However, AC filters also remove residual disinfectants, thus allowing for the proliferation of microbes in the filter. In chloraminated systems, this can lead to localized, filter-induced nitrification. Most notably, high nitrite and nitrate in drinking water can cause methemoglobinemia (blue baby syndrome) in children under the age of three, raising public health concerns.

As a control measure for nitrification within distribution systems, utilities practice periodic, short-term secondary disinfectant switches from chloramine to free …

American Military Service And Identity: From The Militia To The All-Volunteer Force, Andrew C. Sparks

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this project is to examine the growth of the American military service regimes along with how the American State used those regimes to construct American identity. To accomplish this, this project looks at the length of American war as a dependent variable from the types of war fought and the military service regimes. Over the course of this study, we examine four distinct eras: the militia regime, the coercive regime, the Peacetime Draft, and the All-Volunteer Force. Each of these correspond to various types of identity development, which include individual state, regional/national, international, and retrospective identity, respectively. …

Health Risk Assessment Of Local Populations Ingesting Water With Naturally Occurring Arsenic And Fecal Related Contaminants In Lake Atitlan, Guatemala, Marisol Alvarez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Lake Atitlan, Guatemala acts as a sink for wastewater discharge and as a source of drinking water. The populations living in the lake basin are primarily indigenous with a large percentage (70%) living in poverty. Wastewater effluent entering the lake poses an immediate health risk to those using it as a drinking-water source. Additionally, the lake is surrounded by three volcanoes and the water has concentrations of naturally occurring arsenic above the recommended reference level of 10 µg/L. Arsenic is acutely poisonous at high concentrations and has carcinogenic and neurological effects when chronically exposed at low concentrations.

The goal of …

An Examination Of Covid-19 Health Behaviors And Public Health Messaging Using The Health Belief Model And Organization-Public Relationship Quality, Aaron L. Nichols

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the context of the most severe pandemic in over 100 years, this study examined public health behavior and public health messaging using the health belief model (HBM) and organization-public relationships (OPR) as frameworks. The study employed a cross-sectional survey of students (N = 288) and employees (N = 203) at a large public university in the southeastern United States. First, the study empirically tested the components of the HBM as determinants of engaging in public health behaviors meant to slow or prevent the spread of COVID-19 and found all components of the model to be significantly related to engaging …