Digital Commons Network^™

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 …

Exploring Teachers’ Perspectives On Digital Storytelling As A Tool In Saudi Kindergarten Classrooms: A Qualitative Multicase Study, Ouhuud Alahmdi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 emphasizes the importance of integrating digital technologies into early childhood education, with the goal of developing children’s skills for the 21st century from an early age and preparing them for the future. Digital storytelling is an effective and interactive multimodal strategy to enhance young children’s skills in the classroom. However, there is limited research examining how kindergarten teachers design and utilize digital storytelling in their classrooms. This qualitative multicase study aimed to explore how Saudi kindergarten teachers perceived and implemented digital storytelling as a tool to promote engagement and comprehension among young children. The study focused …

Literacies Of Resistance: How Florida Teachers Story Policy Navigation And Response, Katharine E. Hull

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Teachers are inundated with education legislation and the policy texts and discourses that surround them. Over nine months beginning in March 2024, I collaborated with three Florida P-12 teachers to explore their literacy practices and stories as they engaged with policy in a state that has recently passed an astounding amount of education legislation. This study explored how (1) teachers story the current policy context and their roles within it; (2) teachers use literacy practices to understand and respond to P/policies that impact their labor/working lives; and (3) teachers’ literate identities, agency, and collectivity intersect and shape one another. Guided …

A Multi-Faceted Study Of Antibiotic-Resistant, Opportunistic Pathogens In Wastewater And Environmental Water, Jeanette Calarco

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

More than 2.8 million infections due to antibiotic-resistant bacteria occur annually in the United States, and more than 35,000 people die as a result. Domestic wastewater (sewage), which contains antibiotic-resistant bacteria and antibiotic resistance genes, is collected at treatment plants for removal of contaminants, e.g. pathogenic microorganisms and nutrients. While wastewater treatment is designed to remove antibiotic-resistant bacteria and other microorganisms through treatment and disinfection, some bacteria may escape treatment. Treated wastewater effluent is generally discharged into surface waters; however, some fraction of the effluent may be used as recycled water. Compromised wastewater collection infrastructure and sewage spills can disseminate …

Enhancing Nitrogen Removal In High Permeability Bioretention Media: The Combined Role Of Biochar, Wood Chips And Hydraulic Design, Joshelyn Guimaray

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Urban stormwater runoff can transport high nutrient loads to receiving waters, leading toeutrophication, harmful algal blooms, and the formation of hypoxic zones. Bioretention systems are a form of green infrastructure designed to mitigate these impacts, but their application in dense, ultra-urban environments is often limited by large land area requirements. This has led to the adoption of high permeability media (HPM) to accommodate higher hydraulic loading rates (HLRs) and reduce the system footprint. However, conventional HPM systems often show inconsistent removal of dissolved nitrogen species due to short hydraulic retention times (HRTs), a lack of organic carbon, and insufficient anoxic …

Improving Coral Restoration Outcomes Through Novel Molecular Applications, Matthew H. Gamache

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Coral reef ecosystems are declining globally from numerous stressors, including localized pollution, disease, and marine heatwaves induced by climate change. To preserve these ecosystems, it is critical to identify corals that can withstand stressors—primarily future marine heatwaves—and prioritize them for coral restoration efforts until these stressors are mitigated. Coral responses to thermal stress can be influenced by several partners, including mutualistic microalgae and a vast prokaryotic community. Here, I use advanced molecular techniques to examine which partners (coral host, algal symbiont, and microbial communities) are associated with coral health, how they contribute to holobiont physiology, and their potential to increase …

Struggle For Economic Plurality; Economies Of Belonging: Subsistence, Indigneity, And The Contradictions And Margins Of Capitalism In The Andean Highlands, Mario Renato Cavani Quevedo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the collective-oriented economy of the Viacha Highlands, a Quechua community in Cusco, Peru, to show how subsistence agriculture, reciprocity, and ritual practices constitute a coherent non-capitalist system of provisioning and belonging. Drawing on one year of ethnographic immersion, the study situates Viacha’s economy within the Community Economies framework, foregrounding its three commitments: anti- essentialism, pluriversality, and ethical–political praxis. Findings reveal that practices such as ayni-ayni (reciprocal labor exchange) and faina (communal work) resist reduction to wage labor, coexist alongside monetary and capitalist dynamics, and ground social reproduction in responsibility and care. At the same time, capitalist schooling, …

Mosquito Classification And Explainability From Image Data Via Deep Learning Techniques, Farhat Binte Azam

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mosquitoes are the deadliest animals on Earth, responsible for more human deaths annually than any other species. Mosquito-borne illnesses continue to pose severe risks to global health. In 2015 alone, there were an estimated 214 million malaria cases worldwide. Similarly, a 2016 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed that Puerto Rico’s Department of Health received over 62,500 suspected cases of Zika, with 29,345 confirmed positive cases. In 2019, Southeast Asia experienced its worst dengue outbreak in recorded history. Of the approximately 4,500 mosquito species distributed across 34 genera, …

Dissecting The Intrinsic And Extrinsic Regulators Of Prostate Cancer Dormancy In The Bone Microenvironment, Mostafa M. Nasr

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Metastatic disease is the primary driver of cancer-related mortality. In prostate cancer (PCa), patient survival decreases dramatically once the disease spreads to distant organs, with over 80% of metastases occurring in the bone. This dissemination is often followed by a clinically silent period of tumor dormancy that can last for years, creating a critical reservoir of cells poised for lethal relapse. A significant barrier to understanding and targeting this dormant phase has been the lack of robust experimental models. This thesis first addresses this challenge by establishing a novel stress-induced model of PCa dormancy, validated across multiple murine and human …

Promoting Sophomore Progression: Academic Advocates’ Perceptions Of Holistic Interventions And Data Analytics, Sarah Angela Wray Marshall

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study explored academic advocates’ perceptions regarding holistic student interventions and data analytics utilization to enhance sophomore success at their institution. This study contributes to the literature on sophomore success by providing an academic advocacy perspective and to the emerging literature using data analytics to enhance retention, persistence, and graduation rates in higher education. Multiple methods of data collection were employed, including four academic advocate interviews, document analysis, and reflexive journaling. A hybrid thematic analysis approach was used to analyze the data. By exploring practitioners’ narratives, the research addressed a gap in scholarship on how academic advocates enact their …

Rattlesnakes And Enlightenment Science: An Unlikely Epistemology Of Early American Herpetology, Sahir Hismiogullari

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the hybrid epistemologies developed by early American naturalists, such as Hans Sloane, Pehr Kalm, John and William Bartram, and Benjamin Smith Barton that blended empirical observation, spiritual frameworks, and Indigenous ecological knowledge. These figures, implicitly or explicitly challenging the dominant mechanistic and reductionist models of Enlightenment science, pioneered a more holistic ecological thinking, even as they operated within colonial power structures.

Through historical and textual analysis based on letters, natural histories, and other written sources, the study reveals how these naturalists synthesized multiple ways of knowing, particularly in their encounters with New World peoples and environments. Within …

“From Bars To Becoming”: Exploring Identity Change Across Prison Programming, Evan W. Saunders

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Self-identity plays a pivotal role in one’s day-to-day life, impacting their behaviors and ambitions, but what is conducive to a change in identity is often underdeveloped. Mechanisms that lead incarcerated individuals to both a shift in identity and desistance away from crime are both underdeveloped as well. The current study examines the impact of programming on identity and the relationship between identity and recidivism. A sample of individuals participating in a reentry prison program responded to 16 statements that evaluated their perceptions of their Overall Self-Identity, Current Self, Feared Self, and Positive Possible Self at the beginning and end of …

A Political Ecological Exploration Of The Caracol Road Project In Belize, Lorenzo A. Pantano

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Caracol Road Project is a new BZ$148,100,000 (US$74,050,000) road infrastructure development in the Cayo District of Belize and financed largely by foreign sovereign wealth funds. The areas adjacent to the road, broken into two phases include: communities, forest reserves, national parks, recreational areas, private lands and estates, and archaeological sites. This paper seeks to ask the questions: (i) For whom is the CRP being developed? (ii) For what is the CRP being developed? (iii) What visual evidence exists of sacrifice zones because of the production of the CRP? I sought to answer these questions through ethnographic observations, interviews, and …

Metabolic Insights Into Cyst Fluid Composition And The Role Of Taurine In Polycystic Kidney Disease, Vineetha Garimella

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Polycystic kidney disease (PKD) is the most common genetic disorder affecting kidneys and the fourth leading cause of kidney failure. It occurs in two major forms, autosomal dominant PKD (ADPKD), and autosomal recessive PKD (ARPKD). ADPKD is typically adult-onset and caused by mutations in the PKD1 and PKD2 genes, and ARPKD generally manifests in utero and is caused by mutations in the PKHD1 gene. Despite the severity of the disease, only one FDA-approved drug, tolvaptan, is currently available for ADPKD and remains under clinical investigation for ARPKD. However, its use is limited by adverse side effects including polyuria, polydipsia, and …

Oxygen Supply Capacity Of The Atlantic Horseshoe Crab,, Marty Sims

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The horseshoe crab, Limulus polyphemus, inhabits shallow bays and estuaries where it encounters variable oxygen levels. Moreover, each year, the biomedical industry harvests hemolymph from hundreds of thousands of horseshoe crabs to use in bacterial contamination testing, yet the effects of bloodletting on their physiology are relatively unknown. This study aims to determine the oxygen supply capacity of Limulus polyphemus in relation to environmental hypoxia and biomedical bloodletting. Study animals were collected from the intertidal waters of Tampa Bay, Florida. Experiments included a control group that did not undergo substantial blood-volume reduction and a treatment group from which 10% of …

Marigold-Silver Nanoparticles (Agnps) Complex: Characterization, Therapeutic Potential, And Future Approaches For Lung Injury Via Antioxidant And Anti-Inflammatory Effects, Navdeep Kaur

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Chronic respiratory diseases (CRDs) and other lung conditions are a key cause of the problems facing global health, as they greatly increase morbidity, death, and the financial burden. In order to achieve the third Sustainable Development Goal of the United Nations, which is to reduce premature mortality from non-communicable illnesses by one-third by 2030, updated epidemiological statistics are crucial for directing prevention, control, and treatment measures. One of the major reasons of illness and death globally is chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Lung damage and the emergence of CRDs, such as asthma, emphysema, COPD, and other respiratory disorders, are largely …

Fort Brooke After 200 Years: A Public Heritage Approach, Alex F. Fawbush

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Fort Brooke, established in 1824 at the mouth of the Hillsborough River, shaped the growth of Tampa and Florida’s west coast for nearly sixty years and served as the nucleus for the forced removal of Indigenous people. Though the Fort itself has long since vanished beneath the modern city, archaeology has preserved its legacy. Excavations since the 1970s have uncovered rich assemblages of ceramics, glass, military equipment, faunal remains, and domestic refuse. These materials reveal daily life at the post, highlighting the interactions of soldiers, Seminoles, African Americans, white settlers, and Cuban fishermen, while also uncovering the deeper prehistoric, referred …

Proteomic Characterization Of The Neuronal Bin1 Interactome In Homeostatic And Alzheimer’S Disease Mouse Brains, Joseph Mcmillan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The gene BIN1 is the second-largest genetic risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (LOAD). It is expressed in neurons and glia in the brain as cell-type specific and ubiquitous isoforms. BIN1 is an adaptor protein that regulates membrane dynamics in many cell types. Previously, we reported that BIN1 predominantly localizes to presynaptic terminals in neurons and regulates presynaptic vesicular release. However, the function of neuronal BIN1 in relation to LOAD is not yet fully understood. A significant gap in the field is the unbiased characterization of neuronal BIN1-interacting proteins and proximal neighbors. To address this gap and help define the …

Untangling The Roles Of Pulmonary Vagal Afferent Subsets With Inhaled Irritants, Teresa Darcey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The sensory nerves in the airways directly regulate critical defenses and indirectly regulate vital gas exchange. Airway function is largely controlled by the autonomic nervous system, and our understanding of its sensory regulation is directly connected to our ability to treat respiratory and cardiovascular pathologies. Airway sensory afferents are heterogeneous with respect to their electrophysiological properties, peptidergic capacity, and stimuli sensitivity, which at least in part dictate some of their various functions. There is evidence that embryological origin impacts reflex function: activation of the neural crest-derived population of sensory afferents has been shown to evoke the cough reflex whereas activation …

Human Adipose Stem Cell-Derived Small Extracellular Vesicles Modulate Glial Cell Response In Aged And Young Tbi Mouse Models, Salma S. Abdelmaboud

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a leading cause of long-term neurological impairment, with aging significantly increasing vulnerability and worsening outcomes. Older individuals experience greater cognitive and motor deficits after TBI and often show diminished responses to therapeutic interventions. Both aging and TBI independently promote heightened neuroinflammation and cognitive dysfunction, increasing susceptibility to poor recovery. This study investigated the therapeutic potential of small extracellular vesicles (sEVs) derived from human adipose-derived stem cells (hASCs) to promote neurological recovery and modulate neuroinflammation in a mouse model of TBI. Male C57BL/6 mice aged 3, 15, and 20 months underwent controlled cortical impact (CCI) and …

He’S The Kid That No One Wanted: An Autoethnographic Examination Of Preschool Suspensions And Expulsions From A Mother’S Lens, Lisa M. Smith

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This autoethnographic research examines the personal and professional journey of advocating against preschool suspensions and expulsions through the lens of a Black mother. Titled He’s The Kid That No One Wanted: An Autoethnographic Examination of Preschool Suspensions and Expulsions from a Mother’s Lens, " it dives into the complicated challenges faced while confronting exclusionary disciplinary practices in early childhood education. This research aims to illuminate the societal and institutional roadblocks encountered when navigating systems of power and to explore the impact of these challenges on both personal identity and professional advocacy. Using a blend of social media artifacts and memory …

Concentration And Composition Of Organic Contaminants In Blackfin Tuna, Yellowfin Tuna, And The Common Clubhook Squid In The Western Gulf Of Mexico, Lisa Rose-Mann

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cephalopods are an important component of pelagic food webs. They play ecological roles not only as predators but also as prey. However, their role as prey in the trophic transfer of organic contaminants to apex predators such as tunas in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) is not well known. To investigate the importance of cephalopods in tuna diets, stomach samples were collected in February 2020 from tunas caught by rod and reel aboard the F/V Gulf Eagle near two large offshore floating oil/gas platforms in the northwestern GoM. Cephalopod samples were obtained from gut content analysis of 41 tunas caught …

Edge-Streamer: A Lightweight, Self-Supervised Event Segmentation Model, Lucas Miller

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Event segmentation is the practice of autonomously detecting the boundaries of semantically connected sequences of actions within a video. It is connected to many areas of computer vision, including action recognition and event understanding. Nearly all current work requires the entire video to be stored in memory to be processed in multiple passes. This takes up valuable resources, increases processing time, prevents the use of low-power, low-memory devices, and precludes long-form content and live videos from undergoing event segmentation.

This thesis introduces EDGE-STREAMER, a real-time, lightweight, self-supervised, transformer architecture capable of performing event segmentation in a single pass. EDGE-STREAMER uses …

Conflicting Social Information And Its Impact On Sentence Comprehension In Young Adults With Dld: An Eye Tracking Study, Ansley Davis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Individuals must recognize linguistic and non-linguistic social cues to resolve contextual ambiguities in their conversations. When the linguistic and social cues match, sentence processing is facilitated. However, conflicts between linguistic and social stimuli (i.e., incongruency) can lead to prediction errors which slow sentence processing. Limited research has explored the social cognition conflict resolution skills in individuals with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) despite their documented emotion processing deficits. This study considers the role of social prediction processing in adults with DLD as they engage in a social cognition conflict resolution task.

Young adults with DLD (n=29) and typically developing (TD) peers …

The Synthesis Of A Photo-Affinity Probe Library For The Fatty Acid Amide Proteome And The Endocannabinoid System Within, Robert E. Feeney Iii

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Fatty acid amides are a large family of endogenous metabolites with significant biological activity, including that of the endocannabinoid system. Currently little is known about how this system of tightly regulated compounds works within humans. This work lays the foundation to explore the structure-activity relationship driving the selectivity of ligand-protein interactions involved with fatty acid amides. A library of activity-based proteomic profiling probes for fatty acid amides has been synthesized to this end. Additionally, progress towards phytocannabinoid probes has been made as well.

Digital Resistance And The Political Economy Of Authoritarian Decline And Economic Liberalization In Ethiopia, Anaol Dalle

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation aims to examine the impact increased consumption of digital technologies, like social media and the internet, has on the stability and autonomy of low-capacity authoritarian countries. By using Ethiopia (2015-2021) as a case study, the dissertation argues that the sudden adoption and proliferation of digital platforms serves as an exogenous shock that pushes the state into a critical juncture that unravels institutional equilibria and transforms domestic incentive structures and institutions. This creates a power vacuum, which triggers a period of intense, and often violent, competition between elite groups, significantly destabilizing the state. In the absence of a cohesive …

Teaching Word Combinations Using Matrix Training Via Serious Gaming In Minimally Verbal Children, Nataly Innamorato

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation addresses the communication challenges faced by minimally verbal children who use Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC), often limited to one-word expressions. The approach used involves gamifying matrix training, an empirically supported method for teaching word combinations and promoting the generalization of language skills. Across three studies, the development of an instructional game is described and evaluated with two populations, typically developing children and children who are minimally verbal. First, it introduces a gamified application of matrix training that provides training in an interactive digital environment. Second, a proof-of-concept was obtained via a multiple baseline across participants with typically …

Algorithms Of Eversion: Contemporary States And Digital Sovereigns, James Libengood

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI), the internet of things (IoT), and digitization have pushed digital sovereignty to the top of the governance agenda in the 21st century. This notion is expanded upon in this work through seven chapters encompassing theoretical underpinnings, methodological frameworks, and real-world case studies. It shows how multinational corporations dominate digital coloniality, and how the merge of physical and digital reality or eversion poses challenges. The study compares contrasting governance approaches, such as the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), geared to ethical AI and data protection, versus BRICS nations’ stance on data localization …

Cinematic Abuse: A Critical Analysis Of Disney’S “Happily Ever After” In The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, And The Princess And The Frog, Erin Michelle Gough

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the manner in which three animated Disney princess films cultivate stereotypes and gendered behaviors consistent with domestic violence and thereby encourages viewers to accept and tolerate abuse against women. I argue that due to the dangerous, constricting, and sexist gender roles encouraged by the Walt Disney Corporation, films prime young girls and boys to react to social situations and encounters in a way that mirror the characters’ reactions. Because of the films’ entertainment value, most of the characters’ inappropriate, stereotypical, and often violent behaviors either go unnoticed or are passively accepted. The violence does not have to …

Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning (Hrl) In Multi-Goal Spatial Navigation With Autonomous Mobile Robots, Brendon Johnson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Hierarchical reinforcement learning (HRL) is hypothesized to be able to take advantage of the inherent hierarchy in robot learning tasks with sparse reward schemes, in contrast to more traditional reinforcement learning algorithms. In this research, hierarchical reinforcement learning is evaluated and contrasted with standard reinforcement learning in complex navigation tasks. We evaluate unique characteristics of HRL, including their ability to create sub-goals and the termination function. We constructed experiments to test the differences between PPO and HRL, different ways of creating sub-goals, manual vs automatic sub-goal creation, and the effects of the frequency of termination on performance. These experiments highlight …