Digital Commons Network^™

“[B]Oth In Body And Mind”: Gothic, Affect, And Power In Eliza Parsons’S The Mysterious Warning (1796), Rayna Rosenova

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

Drawing on recent enquiries into how affect theory could enhance our understanding of eighteenth-century fiction, this article offers a reading of Eliza Parsons’s Gothic novel The Mysterious Warning (1796) to examine how affective resonances in the text are used to codify relations of power. It therefore argues that the power dynamics between the characters are enacted through encounters with human agents and material objects, such as letters and haunting (dis)embodied voices. The article further suggests that affective intensities in the novel, articulated through the language of sensibility typical of mid- and late eighteenth-century writing, generate an ensuing imbalance of power, …

Association, Affect, And Material Reading Practices Of Anna Laetitia Barbauld, Renee Harris

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

At the end of the eighteenth century, reading practice was shifting from an embodied, affective exercise to a detached cognitive one. This essay examines how debates about truth and knowledge diverged along disciplinary and gender lines during this critical transition. The essay traces the influence of association psychology—particularly the theories of David Hartley and Joseph Priestley—on Romantic-era poets including Anna Laetitia Barbauld and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Through Feminist Formalist Analysis attuned to affect and cognition, this essay demonstrates how Barbauld's poetic montages challenge the period's scientific discourse. Her "Inventory of the Furniture in Dr. Priestley's Study" and two "Hill of …

The Gendered Duality Of Coldness In The Portrayals Of Eliza Hayley, Francesca Blanch-Serrat

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

In the eighteenth century, coldness was defined, on the one hand, in relation to the body and the senses (a body that is lacking in heat) and on the other, to emotion (an individual lacking in passion). It was linked to illness and disability (Turner, 2012), equated to death, seen as both a cause and effect of physical decline and older age, and used as a synonym for low libido and infertility (Toulalan, 2015). In contrast to these negative connotations, coldness was also regarded as a remedy to temper the passions and to ensure longevity (Yallop, 2015), and taking cold …

Managerial Forms: Narrative, Information, And Household Government In The Diaries Of Sarah Cowper, Robert Stearn

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

The diary of Sarah Cowper (written 1700-16) is characterized by elaborate techniques of information management and a sustained attention to the fractious emotional dynamics of her household. Bringing together historical scholarship on domestic service and literary analyses of organizing practices in print and manuscript, the article argues that the finding devices in Cowper’s seven-volume diary disclose a practical knowledge both textual and social—one which took the affective dynamics of the household as its object, but which was also shaped by and afloat in those dynamics. The article is in two parts. The first explores how Cowper’s information management practices were …

Queer Excess And Hybrid History In Elizabeth Cary’S Edward Ii, Kelley K. Glasgow

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

Elizabeth Cary’s prose history The History of the Life, Reign, and Death of Edward II (1627) follows the fourteenth-century king of England, whose love affairs with his favorite courtiers ultimately resulted in his overthrow and execution. She identifies Edward’s queerness, and his resulting lack of emotional control, as central to his inability to govern England, and as an example of the dangers of excessive emotions for her readers. Because of Edward II’s complicated publishing and attribution history, much of the scholarly effort around this text has been spent attempting to interpret it through Cary’s personal life and political aims. …

Introduction: Affective And Emotional Encounters In/With British Women's Writing, 1600–1800, Anna-Rose Shack, Zoë Van Cauwenberg, Fauve Vandenberghe

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

This special issue explores the methodological affordances of the fields of affect theory and the history of emotions in the study of women’s writing from the early modern period, the long eighteenth century and the Romantic period. It posits that the vocabularies of affect theory and the history of emotions offer a productive critical framework to approach historical women’s writing. In reading women’s writing through this lens, this special issue aims to model a theoretically flexible and historically informed approach to affect and emotions that may be taken up across and beyond traditional literary periodizations and in different forms of …

Hard Hats And Second Chances: A Phenomenological Study Of Employer Support In Construction-Based Reintegration, Christofer M. Pacheco

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative phenomenological study examines how formerly incarcerated individuals perceive and experience employer support during workplace reintegration in the construction industry. Although employment is widely recognized as a protective factor against recidivism, post-hire experiences from the perspective of justice-involved employees remain underexplored. Grounded in an interpretivist paradigm and informed by Social Support, Social Learning, and Identity perspectives, the study investigated how structure, self, and environment interact to influence retention, growth, and desistance.

Nineteen interviews were completed with six construction workers in New Mexico who had maintained employment for at least one year following incarceration. Through the use of Seidman’s three-interview …

Correlation Analysis Of Factors Associated With Students’ Numeracy Skills Using Decision Tree Algorithms, Yenita Roza, Arisman Adnan, Zul Indra, Tuti Alawiyah

Numeracy

Numeracy is a critical competency for academic and everyday functioning. This study investigates the key factors associated with students’ numeracy skills by employing decision tree algorithms as a data mining technique. The dataset used in this study is educational assessment data from Indonesia. Utilizing a dataset comprising 6,953 entries and 60 variables from Education Report, the research adopts an exploratory approach involving data preprocessing, exploratory data analysis, and decision tree model construction. The findings reveal that students’ literacy skills serve as the most dominant predictor of numeracy proficiency, emerging as the root node in the decision tree structure. Additional associated …

Considering Context In Latent Models Of Externalizing: Measurement Invariance By Environmental And Systemic Disadvantage In System-Involved Youth, Kendall D. Smith

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Externalizing forms of psychopathology are said to result from a general liability towards impulsive and disruptive behaviors, including substance use, conduct problems, aggression, and antisocial behavior (Krueger et al., 2021). While the field often focuses on dispositional explanations of externalizing behaviors, there is a notable lack of attention to the contextual factors that contribute to these behaviors, beyond immediate environmental influences. This study uses Ecological Systems Theory (Bronfenbrenner, 2005) as a framework to address such gaps in the context of behavioral indicators of the latent externalizing (EXT) construct, an analysis with implications for understanding racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities. The present …

Teaching Numeracy For Social Justice: Educational Equity, Esther Isabelle Wilder, Crystal C. Rodriguez, Caterina Shost, Eduardo Vianna, Frank Wang

Numeracy

The special collection, “Teaching Numeracy for Social Justice: Educational Equity,” focuses on how quantitative reasoning (QR) can function as a vehicle for equity, empowerment, and democratic participation. Building on a longstanding tradition that treats numeracy as inseparable from social justice, these contributions highlight how progressive pedagogies (e.g., active learning, authentic research, and equity-oriented assessment) have the potential to broaden access for students historically excluded from quantitative fields. The studies span a variety of conceptual frameworks, introductory and advanced quantitative instruction, and interdisciplinary applications, showcasing how inclusive QR practices can build confidence, agency, and real-world understanding. These articles demonstrate that when …

A Comparison Of First- And Continuing-Generation Students Completing A Project-Based Introductory Statistics Course, Susan A. Dumais, Naomi J. Spence, Lisa Dierker

Numeracy

Traditional introductory statistics courses that focus on techniques are not engaging for many college students; this may be especially true for first-generation college students, who generally have more difficulty engaging in the college environment than continuing-generation students. We study first-generation college students’ experiences in a course-based undergraduate research experience called Passion-Driven Statistics. Passion-Driven Statistics is a multidisciplinary, project-based introductory statistics course where students develop their own research topics, analyze publicly available quantitative data, and focus on conceptual understanding of statistics rather than hand calculations. Using pre-course and post-course surveys from students taking Passion-Driven Statistics in colleges throughout the United States, …

Designing For Engagement: A Comparison Of Canvas And A Visual Peer Review Dashboard, Alon Friedman, Md Dilshadur Rahman, Ly Dinh, Paul Rosen

School of Information Faculty Publications

Peer review is an underutilized yet potentially powerful strategy for fostering evaluative judgment and design literacy in visualization education. Critiquing visual work requires domain-specific competencies that extend beyond generic peer feedback; however, widely adopted platforms such as Canvas provide limited support for the cognitive and visual demands of visualization critique. We introduce VisPeerReview, a visualization-specific learning analytics dashboard (LAD) designed to scaffold peer feedback through an integrated visualization display, rubric-guided prompts, and inline annotation tools. We evaluated VisPeerReview through a three-phase mixed-methods study conducted in an undergraduate data visualization course, comparing it with Canvas’s default peer-review workflow. Drawing on interaction …

Full Issue 19.2

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Guiding Principles For Teaching About Genocide And Other Difficult Pasts, Kerry E. Whigham

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This article outlines guiding principles for teaching “difficult pasts”—episodes of large-scale, identity-based violence such as genocide, crimes against humanity, colonialism, and enslavement—in ways that promote peace, human rights, and the prevention of future atrocities. Drawing from the fields of Holocaust and Genocide Education (HGE), Global Citizenship Education (GCED), Peace Education (PE), and Human Rights Education (HRE), it argues that instruction should move beyond the memorization of historical facts toward developing students’ socio-emotional and behavioral capacities to recognize and resist processes of othering, discrimination, and violence. The brief presents three main areas of guidance: curricular content, emphasizing conceptual understanding over rote …

Book Review: Victim-Centred Peacemaking: Colombia’S Santos–Farc-Ep Peace Process, Patricia M. Rodriguez

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Arts & Literature: Impotent Witness: A Tale Of Two Genocides, And Counting, Lisa M. Simeone

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This essay draws on memory, ethnography, and theory to consider a scholar’s personal and political responsibility as witness.

Psychiatric Symptom Severity And Performance Monitoring: Intraindividual Variability In Neural Responses And Behavioral Adjustments To Errors, Bohyun Park

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Performance monitoring is a cognitive process that involves evaluating one’s own performance and adjusting behavior accordingly. Atypical neural and behavioral indices of performance monitoring are commonly observed in individuals with psychopathology and have led to hypotheses that perturbed performance monitoring may contribute to functional impairment. However, neural and behavioral indices of performance monitoring are often examined in isolation, so it remains unclear how error-related neural activity relates to subsequent behavioral adaptation on a trial-by-trial basis, and whether this coupling varies across different levels of internalizing and externalizing symptoms. The present study examined trial-level relationships between error monitoring event-related brain potentials …

Bloom: A Low-Cost, Open-Source, Companion Social Robot, Deekshita Senthil Kumar, Sebastian Ramirez-Vallejo, Xiangfei Kong, Zhao Han

Bellini College REU Symposium (BCREUS)

The rapid growth of the aging population has increased rates of loneliness, depression, and cognitive decline among older adults, particularly those living alone or with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD). Socially assistive robots such as Paro have demonstrated therapeutic and emotional benefits; however, existing systems remain costly and inaccessible. This project introduces Bloom, a low-cost, physically interactive social robot designed to provide emotional companionship and cognitive engagement.

Built on a Raspberry Pi 5 platform and inspired by the open-source Blossom robot, Bloom features a durable 3D-printed hard-shell design with motor-driven expressive movements that support tactile interaction. The system integrates …

Integrated Perspectives: Florida Ems Workforce And Agency Synthesis 2025, Michael Lozano

Florida Center for Emergency Medical Services Research Reports

The Florida Center for Emergency Medical Services (FL-CEMS) integrated findings from the 2024 EMT and Paramedic Renewal Survey (49,200 clinicians), the 2025 EMS Provider Survey (260 agencies), and 2024 NREMT Cognitive & Certification exam outcomes to provide a comprehensive picture of Florida’s EMS workforce and training environment.

The Effects Of Grading Equity Professional Development On Student Outcomes, Sarah R. Morris, Sarah Mckenzie, Jonathan Wai, Robert A. Maranto

Journal of Global Education and Research

This study examines the impact of a 6-hour professional development (PD) program on grading equity and student outcomes. The PD aimed to enhance teachers’ grading practices to foster fairness and inclusivity, based on the growing advocacy for reform to address systemic inequities in traditional grading systems. Utilizing a randomized control trial, the study compared student perceptions of grading equity, academic achievement, and psychosocial outcomes between groups whose teachers either received or did not receive the training. Results indicated no significant improvements in student outcomes post-PD, suggesting the duration of the intervention may be insufficient for substantial changes in grading practices. …

A Secret Society Of Readers: College-Age Mentors’ Literacy Experiences With Young Adolescent Mentees, Lindsay Persohn, Dulcey B. Hunter, Chelsea Rivera, Karyn Z. Mendez, Cheryl R. Ellerbrock, Lucy Monette

Journal of Global Education and Research

This study occurred within Year One and Year Two of an ongoing literacy initiative designed to build reader identities among underserved middle school students. Using a near-peer mentoring model, mentees were paired with college-student mentors to interact weekly around books and reading. Reader interests and identities are influenced by affective and relational approaches through mentored reading experiences and a variety of texts. This qualitative case study (n = 11 of 24 Year One and n = 13 of 37 Year Two mentors) aimed to identify the ways mentor/mentee relationships affect reader interests, attitudes, and skills, and to evaluate the …

Internationalization Of Indian Higher Education: Mapping The Origins And Academic Choices Of International Students, Sanjeev Kumar Jha

Journal of Global Education and Research

This study explores the geographical origins, academic preferences, and key factors influencing the enrollment of international students in Indian higher education institutions. Drawing on primary data from interviews with 25 international students and secondary data from All India Survey on Higher Education reports, it provides an in-depth analysis of student mobility trends and factors shaping their choices. The results indicate that the international student enrollment is significantly below the Indian government’s target of 500,000 by 2024. Students come from Nepal, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Bhutan, and Nigeria, with Karnataka and Punjab emerging as the most preferred states within India. Engineering, particularly …

Self-Determination And Its Role In The Foster Care Environment: A Three-Part Investigation, John Martin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Youth have multiple pathways to adulthood and for some of those youth that journey takes them through the foster care system either temporarily or until emancipation. A vital part of the foster care system is to protect and care for children in a variety of circumstances including unsafe and traumatic experiences. However, a history of foster care has been tied to certain risks like substance use. The focus of this dissertation is to investigate the strength of the relationship between self-determination and substance use through the lens of Self-Determination Theory (SDT) in foster care in three phases. In Study I …

When Shame Leads To Silence: Leadership Style Moderates Shame, Silence, And Job Satisfaction, Andrew M. Lyman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT Shame is a fundamental self-conscious emotion that shapes behavior and communication in the workplace. This study examined how shame interacts with leadership styles to influence employee silence and job satisfaction. Survey data were collected from 1,500 professionals across diverse industries, and statistical analyses were conducted to test nine hypotheses. Three hypotheses were assessed through direct linear regression while six moderation hypotheses were evaluated using moderated multiple linear regression models to capture leadership style as a contextual influence.

Findings indicated that shame significantly predicted higher levels of silence and lower levels of job satisfaction. Silence was also negatively associated with …

Crow's Nest, November 16, 2025, Crow's Nest Staff

Crow's Nest

The November 16, 2025 issue of Crow's Nest.

Evaluating Student Proficiency In Quantitative Reasoning, Gabriel Chavez, Jennifer Clinkenbeard, Tolga Tezcan, Celine Pinet, Jennifer Duggan, George Beckham, Sumadhur Shakya, Christina Zhang

Numeracy

Quantitative Reasoning (QR) competencies are increasingly vital for academic and professional success across disciplines. This study examines the QR proficiency of over 400 undergraduates through a mixed-methods approach, integrating survey-based self-assessments (n = 469) with direct evaluations of final exams (n = 80). This study took place at a public, primarily undergraduate, four-year state university in Northern California with approximate enrollment of 7,500 students. Although students reported frequent engagement in foundational QR tasks— such as calculation and interpretation—rubric-based scoring revealed inconsistent levels of mastery, particularly on higher-order skills like evaluation and coherence. Regression analyses linked confidence to calculation …

“For Haitian Culture, Being Older [Is] A Blessing”: Perceptions Of Aging, Elderhood, And Dementia In A Haitian Born Sample, Melissa K. Eustache

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates how first-generation Haitian immigrants in the United States understand and interpret dementia within the intersecting contexts of culture, migration, and biomedicine. While dementia is constructed as a pathological “loss of self” and a public health epidemic, in American biomedical and popular discourse, this study examines how Haitian-born individuals—socialized within a non-Western cultural and spiritual framework—make sense of cognitive decline and impairment in ways that diverge from Western biomedical narratives. Guided by theoretical orientations from medical anthropology, including Mark Nichter’s idioms of distress, Margaret Lock’s local biologies, and neuroanthropology, this research explores how cultural models of illness, aging, …

Reducing Data Requirements In Polymer Science: Deep Neural Networks For Predicting Surface Tension Of Copolymer Compatibilizers, Md Mushfiqul Islam

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In polymer chemistry, compatibilization involves adding a substance often a block or graft copolymerto stabilize polymer blends that would otherwise not mix well, leading to rough structures and weak me- chanical properties. Compatibilizers improve miscibility and reduce interfacial tension, which is critical for applications such as mixed-waste polymer recycling. Sequence-controlled polymers offer unique potential by combining the tunable chemistry of synthetic polymers with the precise, function-driven design of biological macromolecules, but unlike proteins, they lack large, evolution-shaped datasets to guide discovery. This research develops a deep learning framework to predict the surface tension of sequence-controlled copolymer compatibilizers across varying concentrations. …

Role Conflict And Burnout: How Can Employed Graduate Students Thrive, Not Just Survive?, Eric M. Douthirt

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates several of the multifaceted challenges faced by employed graduate students, a growing demographic within U.S. higher education. Against a backdrop of intensifying technological change, evolving labor market dynamics, and increased educational attainment, these individuals encounter pronounced school-work-family conflict (SWFC), resulting in a heightened risk for personal burnout (PB).

Building upon the job demands-resources theory, this research explores whether school-work facilitation (SWF) and student emotional engagement (EE) might attenuate the deleterious relationship between school-work-family conflict (SWFC) and personal burnout (PB), with gender and number of children included as controls.

Data from 489 participants, collected via a single cross-sectional …

The Characterization Of Sleep Quality In Pediatric Cancer Survivors With Overweight/Obesity, Erin M. Brennan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Advances in cancer treatment have improved survival rates among pediatric cancer survivors (PCS), shifting the focus toward long-term quality of life. Despite this progress, PCS remain at elevated risks of chronic health issues, including disrupted sleep and obesity. The purpose of this study was to characterize the sleep of PCS with overweight/obesity and to identify predictors of sleep quality. Guided by Merz and Tomfohr-Madsen’s (2018) conceptual framework for sleep disruption in children impacted by cancer, this secondary analysis of data examined disease parameters, family and environmental factors, and physical activity as potential predictors of sleep quality. Participants were enrolled between …