Digital Commons Network^™

Kinematic And Experimental Evaluation Of Commercial Wheelchair-Mounted Robotic Arms, John William Capille Jr.

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Commercially available wheelchair-mounted robotic arms (WMRAs) are becoming more prevalent internationally but have yet to be largely developed and approved by the Food and Drug Administration in the United States. The purpose of this study was to experimentally evaluate commercially available WMRAs in a controlled test environment. The goal was to quantitatively compare each device through a standardized testing protocol. The study produced theoretical manipulability measurements as well as efficacy ratings of each device based on Denavit-Hartenberg kinematic parameters and physical testing, respectively. Both the manipulator and control devices of WMRA systems were evaluated. The iARM WMRA system was presented …

Report, General Education Assessment, June 30, 2010, James M. Krest

Institutional Research Assessment Materials

A report prepared by James Krest assessing general education at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg

Walters Creates Center For Scientists And The Mass Media, May 21, 2010, Melanie Marquez

USF St. Petersburg Campus News and Press Releases

No abstract provided.

Journalism At Usf St. Petersburg Earns Re- Accreditation, May 12, 2010, Melanie Marquez

USF St. Petersburg Campus News and Press Releases

No abstract provided.

Re-Tooling An American Metropolis, Robert Shawn Hott

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Re-tool:

v.tr. re-tooled, re-tooling, re-tools

1. To fit out (a factory, for example) with a new set of machinery and tools for making a different product.

2. To revise and reorganize, especially for the purpose of updating or improving.

The American ideals inherent in the suburbs are the promise of space, affordability, convenience, and traditional family life; conversely the public realms of the suburban typology become disconnected from each other as well as the larger city. The Generic City condition in which the periphery is no longer captivated by the center from which it was created is pervasive in the …

Report, Graduating Senior Survey: Summary Of Items Relating To General Education Fall 2008 And Fall 2009, February 12, 2010, University Of South Florida St. Petersburg. Institutional Research Office, Kelli Tahaney

Institutional Research Assessment Materials

A report with summaries of items relating to general education from the Graduating Senior Survey in Fall 2008 and Fall 2009.

Public Service Television Policy And National Development In Morocco, Bouziane Zaid

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Like many developing countries, and for many years, Morocco has sought the help of television to disseminate development ideas to its citizens. The Moroccan government has recently given policy considerations to regulate the use of television and radio airwaves as important outside sources for promoting its development objectives. The newly assigned importance of television in Moroccan developmental policies makes a study on the relationship between television and development interesting and crucial. This study investigates the extent to which the Moroccan public service television meets the challenges of effectively contributing to the development objectives of the nation. It focuses on the …

Fourth Monitoring Report, April 1, 2009, University Of South Florida St. Petersburg, Norine E. Noonan

Academic Learning Compacts

The fourth monitoring report sent to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools after the University of South Florida St. Petersburg was put on probation in 2008.

Report, Fourth Monitoring Report, April 1, 2009, Norine E. Noonan

SACS Documentation

The fourth monitoring report from the University of South Florida St. Petersburg for reaccreditation purposes by the Southern Associations of Colleges and Schools' Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC).

Mitigating Escalation Of Commitment: An Investigation Of The Effects Of Priming And Decision-Making Setting In Capital Project Continuation Decisions, Ann C. Dzuranin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research examines escalation of commitment in capital investment decisions and the extent to which it can be mitigated using a cognitive prime. Specifically, I examine the use of a cognitive prime as a way to mitigate escalation in three decision-making settings: (1) individual, (2) face-to-face team, and (3) computer-mediated team. Continued investment in failing projects is costly for firms. The use of a cognitive prime to reduce escalation would provide a low cost way to mitigate escalation. In this study, participants are primed to think about sunk costs. The expectation is that priming individuals to think about sunk costs …

Exploring Efficient Design Approaches For Display Of Multidimensional Data To Facilitate Interpretation Of Information, Chitra S. Pathiavadi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Prescriptions for effective display of quantitative information involving more than two variables are not available. To explore the effectiveness of retinal variables in facilitating the interpretation of information and decision making when used in conjunction, a study with 135 participants was conducted. The study involved the use of color shape, color value, and value shape as retinal variables in interactive displays that required participants to answer nine questions in three levels of complexity (identification of data points, analyses of local comparisons and global trends). Time-on-task scores and performance scores were measured. In addition, a View Clamp eye tracker system was …

Commencement Convocation Program, St. Petersburg Campus, December 14, 2008, University Of South Florida St. Petersburg

USF St. Petersburg Graduations and Commencements

King O'Neal Award: Clarisse Barbier, Jennifer Dion Fox; Outstanding Graduate: Jessica Morgan; Regional Chancellor's Award for Civic Leadership: Andrew H. Hines, Jr.

School As A Center For Community: Establishing Neighborhood Identity Through Public Space And Educational Facility, Fred Goykhman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

“Safety is an opportunity for people to open their minds” -Jin Baek, 2008

For my thesis I will design an education facility. That education facility will strive to meet with today's security needs and will provide a safe-feeling place for growth. In identifying the problem, I found two main causes for the described conditions in today's schools. They are improper adaptation and uniform building type.

Improper adaptation has to do with surface applications, rather than integrating with the social fabric of the school's communal requirements. Unfortunate incidents have caused the solutions to heightened security around schools to be fortressing and …

Reconstructions: The Contemporary Southern Landscape By Its Photographers, Natalie Kersey Gillis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the work of landscape photographers living and working in the Southern region of the United States and to explore what their images visually communicate about their relationship to the Southern land and its distinctive history. This objective is accomplished through an analysis of the work of three contemporary landscape photographers who reside in the South, and work primarily within their local hometowns.

This thesis examines the work of photographers William Christenberry, Sally Mann, and John McWilliams. Each is a photographer who is native to the American South and has used his or …

Factors Affecting Message Intelligibility Of Cued Speech Transliterators, Katherine Pelley

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

While a majority of deaf students mainstreamed in public schools rely on interpreters, little research has investigated interpreter skills and no research to date has focused on interpreter intelligibility (Kluwin & Stewart, 2001). This thesis is the second in a series of experiments designed to quantify the contribution of various factors affecting the intelligibility of interpreters (transliterators) who use English-based communication modes. In the first experiment, 12 Cued Speech transliterators were asked to transliterate an audio lecture. Two aspects of these transliterated performances were then analyzed: 1) accuracy, as measured as the percent-correct cues produced, and 2) lag time, the …

Commencement Convocation Program, St. Petersburg Campus, May 4, 2008, University Of South Florida

USF Graduation and Convocation Programs

King O'Neal Scholars - Jacquelyn Renee Hicks, Ashley Nicole Hopping, and Zoe Rita Placiotis; Outstanding Graduate - Susan M. Herbert

Fashion Advertising, Men’S Magazines, And Sex In Advertising: A Critical-Interpretive Study, Jennifer Ford

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examines sexualized portrayals of women in fashion advertising found in metro-sexual men's magazines as visual rhetoric. Historically, studies on sexual images of women in advertising have focused on content analyses of these images and how they affect women. This study asks how sexualized imagery of women functions rhetorically as part of a branding message designed to sell products. The exemplar advertisements were chosen specifically for their sexual imagery from an earlier study by the researcher on sexual images of women in fashion advertisements found in men's magazines.

The messages interpreted within the visuals of this study reveal a …

Commencement Convocation Program, St. Petersburg Campus, December 18, 2007, University Of South Florida St. Petersburg

USF St. Petersburg Graduations and Commencements

Regional Chancellor's Award for Civic Leadership: Roy Harrell

Commencement Convocation Program, St. Petersburg Campus, December 18, 2007, University Of South Florida

USF Graduation and Convocation Programs

Regional Chancellor's Award for Civic Leadership - Roy Harrell; Outstanding Graduate - Brenda Mettetal

Situating The Perception And Communication Of Flood Risk: Components And Strategies, Heather M. Bell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Loss prevention and distribution must begin well before a flood event at multiple levels. However, the benchmarks and terminology we use to manage and communicate flood risk may be working against this goal. U.S. flood policy is based upon a flood with a one percent chance of occurring in any year. Commonly called the "hundred year flood," it has been upheld as a policy criterion, but many have questioned the effectiveness of hundred year flood terminology in public communication.

This research examined public perceptions of the hundred year flood and evaluated the comparative effectiveness of this term and two other …

Commencement Convocation Program, St. Petersburg Campus, May 6, 2007, University Of South Florida

USF Graduation and Convocation Programs

King O'Neal Scholars - Brian Christian and Judith Winter

Wing Color And Mating Preferences Of Heliconius Sara, May 2007, Emily Loew

Monteverde Institute: Tropical Ecology and Conservation

Convergence in aposematic coloration of chemically-protected butterflies, or Müllerian Mimicry, improves advertisement of unpalatability to predators. Heliconius sara (Heliconiinae) has two races in Costa Rica, each matching a different Müllerian model, one with and the other without a yellow stripe on the bottom edge of the hindwing. Color switching in Heliconius spp. is common but may involve a conflict between natural selection for convergence to models and sexual selection for maintenance of the original color pattern. Here, I manipulate the color pattern of H. sara to determine the degree to which sexual selection constrains color pattern switching. This study was …

Body Size And Sexual Selection In Heliconius Charitonius And Heliconius Melpomene (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae), May 2007, Megan Petrie

Monteverde Institute: Tropical Ecology and Conservation

The role played by body size in sexual selection was investigated in captive populations of Heliconius charitonius and Heliconius melpomene butterflies. Mean fore-wing lengths of the entire population were compared to those of individuals participating in mating and pre-mating behaviors. It was predicted that because fitness in butterflies often increases with size (Klingenberg and Spence 1997), Heliconius spp. should choose larger mates. Sexes did not differ in size for either species (H. charitonius: Males = 41.14 mm ± 2.41, n = 57; Females = 41.28 mm ± 3.40, n = 48. H. melpomene: Males = 36.29 mm ± 2.54, n …

I'M Not Who I Was Then, Now: Performing Identity In Girl Cams And Blogs, Katherine Bzura

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The task of documenting the evolution of the self over time has been attempted by women artists throughout history. The practice of this documentation has been greatly enhanced in the last several years by the progression of new technologies for the capture of digital images, the advent of the internet as a common textual and visual communication device, and the availability of free resources to publish and disseminate the resulting constructions. Women artists now have the tools needed to document the life of the self, and to publish it immediately to an audience.

Most of the women documenting their lives …

Commensal Feeding Of Great Egrets With Black-Tailed Deer, Garth Herring, Heidi K. Herring

Western Birds

No abstract provided.

Do You See What I Mean? Measuring Consensus Of Agreement And Understanding Of A National Weather Service Informational Graphic, Lorna M. Geggis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Media use of hurricane graphics to apprise populations vulnerable to severe weather provides a persuasive demonstration of the importance and complexity of visual communication. Surprisingly little research, however, has explored how audiences interpret weather graphics. This study examined whether the general public and the National Weather Service share a common understanding of selected weather related terms and meaning of a NWS informational graphic. Using a coorientation model, general public responses to a questionnaire were compared to definitions prescribed by the NWS. Additionally, the public were asked questions to measure trust of the NWS as a credible and reliable source of …

Commencement Convocation Program, St. Petersburg Campus, December 17, 2006, University Of South Florida St. Petersburg

USF St. Petersburg Graduations and Commencements

Regional Chancellor's Award for Civic Leadership: Frances L. Stavros

Commencement Convocation Program, St. Petersburg Campus, December 17, 2006, University Of South Florida

USF Graduation and Convocation Programs

Regional Chancellor's Award for Civic Leadership - Frances L. Stavros

Crow's Nest, December 5, 2006, Crow's Nest Staff

Crow's Nest

The December 5, 2006, issue of the Crow's Nest.

The Effect Of Wing Color On Heliconius Melpomene Mating Behavior And Its Implications On The Evolution Of Mimicry, December 2006, Ellen Thompson

Monteverde Institute: Tropical Ecology and Conservation

Wing color is important to butterflies both for social signals and protection from predators. Butterflies gain protection from predators by having aposematically colored wings that warn the predator that the butterfly is distasteful. Some butterflies are also part of Mullerian mimicry complexes in which two distasteful species converge on the same color pattern to enhance their aposematic protection. Heliconius erato and Heliconius melpomene are Mullerian mimics that exhibit a wide variety of wing patterns throughout Central and South America. Their wing patterns have greatly diverged within each species, but between the species they are almost perfect mimics in each area. …