Digital Commons Network^™

Emergent Magnetism And Hyperthermia In Phase- And Size-Tunable Iron Oxide Nanostructures, K Mudiyanselage Tharindu Supun Bandara Attanayake

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs) hold immense potential across diverse fields, from spintronics, magnetic hyperthermia to drug delivery, biodetection, and magnetic resonance imaging. Unlocking these applications hinges on our ability to tailor the magnetic properties of IONPs, and this dissertation presents novel and powerful approaches for enhancing magnetic and hyperthermic responses of multiphase iron oxide nanostructures. This is achieved by manipulating their phase volume fraction, size, and shape with a focus on the magnetic tunability of nanostructures via strategic control over structural and environmental parameters. The aforementioned has been achieved by the following three key approaches: (i) phase-tunability of iron oxide …

Subtropical Estuarine Ecosystems Display Both Long-Term Stability And Change, Garrett L. Miller

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Subtropical estuaries often support abundant and diverse faunal assemblages, but it is unclear how these productive ecosystems are responding to climate change. In the eastern Gulf of Mexico, estuarine faunal assemblages have been sampled for decades as part of a fisheries-independent long-term monitoring program. I assessed trends in submerged aquatic vegetation, water temperature, and the abundance, richness, and structure of faunal assemblages over more than two decades in four estuarine systems using this dataset. I used both univariate and multivariate analyses to quantify and describe the dynamics of these habitat and faunal variables. Further, I separated my analyses for summer …

Classifying Traumatic Brain Injury: Associations With Executive Functioning And Externalizing Behavior, Lauren F. Fournier

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) involves a head injury that is, for some individuals, associated with long-term behavioral difficulties, including externalizing behaviors. The literature on TBI and its links to externalizing is limited in several important ways. First, there is evidence that current classification system of mild, moderate, or severe is imprecise and contains important variation within TBI categories. Second, TBI and externalizing are understudied among high functioning individuals, such as undergraduate students, despite rates of TBI among this population that are similar to those of the general population. Third, while it is theorized that executive functioning deficits explain the association …

Essays On Machine Learning And Corporate Disclosure, Zicheng (Leo) Xiao

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation contains two essays that shed new light on the dynamic of information disclosure on the capital market. For both two essays I leverage computational linguistics and 20 million turns of dialogues from earnings conference calls from 2006-2022. In the first essay, I introduce a novel measure that quantifies the disparity in narrative focus between managers’ disclosures and analysts’ questions during these calls, denoted as Topic Attention Divergence (TAD). A higher level of TAD indicates a higher level of firm-investor asymmetry and lower information quality. My results confirm that higher TAD in earnings conference calls inversely (positively) predict firms’ …

Us Elementary Teachers’ Perspectives With The Use Of Rubrics In Elementary Classrooms: A Shift From Traditional Assessment To Alternative Assessment, Roaa Adel Alajaji

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study was conducted to explore US elementary teachers’ perceptions of their experiences using rubrics as a tool for student self-assessment and metacognition (assessment for learning) to improve elementary students’ achievement and their instructional decision-making at a private American elementary school in South Florida. The constructivist learning theory by Piaget (1970) and Vygotsky (1978), which emphasized that knowledge is best gained through the interaction of experiences and ideas in one’s mind and the interaction with others, framed the study. Three semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight elementary teachers: three third-grade teachers, three fourth-grade teachers, and two fifth-grade teachers. Using thematic …

Did I Do That?: Lived Experience And Media Representation Of The Awkward Black Girl, Kendra Williams

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

For my thesis project I will introduce the Awkward Black Girl as a new race gender script. Though there are minor nuances of the Awkward Black Girl within television, Issa Rae’s performance of the Awkward Black Girl in Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl and the HBO hit series Insecure remains prevalent to contemporary media representations. Though there is limited scholarship within the field of Communication available about the Awkward Black Girl, most of the scholarship consists of analysis and discourse centering Rae’s portrayal in her web series and television show. I explore Quinta Brunson’s portrayal of the Awkward Black Girl …

Modeling And Optimization Of Time Delay Unit Network Architectures For Reducing Complexity Of Ultra- Wideband Phased Antenna Arrays, Daniel A. Ramirez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents a systematic technique for modeling and optimization of the hierarchical time delay unit (TDU) architectures of ultra-wideband (UWB) phased antenna arrays (PAAs). The first major contribution of this dissertation is the optimization of a linear PAA by casting the problem in the standard form of integer linear programming (ILP) optimization with an objective function that targets minimizing the total number of TDUs within the RF feed network fanout while maintaining phase error and manufacturability constraints. This optimization can significantly reduce the cost, power, and complexity of UWB PAAs in contrast to prior methods that iteratively converge on …

Quality Of Life Factors In Children With Dual Diagnosis Stuttering And Autism Spectrum Disorder, Kristen N. Rollins

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Addressing quality of life is a critical part of speech-language pathology. Understanding quality of life deficits and challenges in our patients’ lives allows us to provide well-rounded treatment. Quality of life in children who stutter and children with autism spectrum disorder has been heavily researched (children with autism spectrum disorder to a lesser extent). However, despite approximately 1 in 1000 children being dually diagnosed with stuttering and autism spectrum disorder (Briley & Ellis, 2018), quality of life in this population has never been researched. This thesis aims to determine whether children diagnosed with both conditions experience similar quality of life …

Effects Of Intercultural Interactions In 3d Virtual World On Efl Students’ Intercultural Communicative Competence, Foreign Language Anxiety, And Motivation, Umi H. Saidah

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Virtual worlds (VWs) as emerging technologies have been perceived as positive by students for foreign language (FL) learning. VW affordances of presence and immersion have enabled FL researchers and practitioners to design and develop classroom-like environments in virtual settings, allowing authentic intercultural interactions from different geographical locations, in a variety of languages. This study conducted mixed methods research to deliver English lessons via an immersive 3D VW for avatar-context-avatar interactions via voice chat with a view to improving ICC necessary for effective intercultural interaction. The avatar-avatar interactions were between a native English-speaking instructor and English as a foreign language (EFL) …

Developing Cultural Humility Through The Arts: Evaluating An Arts Intervention For Healthcare Provider Leaders, Katie L. Nickel

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

At all levels of healthcare, providers are experiencing rising levels of professional burnout. For healthcare provider leaders, burnout is particularly critical since leaders must maintain healthy and trusting relationships with patients and their teams of healthcare professionals. This utilization-focused evaluation study explores an arts intervention program designed to promote cultural humility among healthcare providers. Increased cultural humility may provide coping tools for healthcare providers to ward off burnout. The arts intervention took place over three sessions: one at a museum, one virtual, and one at a hospital. Four types of data were collected including a quantitative pre- and post-survey, observation …

A Phase-1 Trial Of Intensive Hybrid Stuttering Modification/Fluency Shaping Therapy, Jessica Smith

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to analyze changes in frequency stuttering behaviors, speech rate, and feelings/attitudes following the University of South Florida Program for Advanced Treatment of Stuttering (USF-PATS), a hybrid stuttering modification/fluency shaping program intended for teenagers and adults who stutter moderately to very severely.

Method: Baseline and post-treatment speech samples for participants (N = 3) were analyzed for speech rate and presence of stuttering behaviors (repeated movements, fixed postures, and superfluous behaviors) across conditions (monologue and reading). An abbreviated thematic analysis was completed to analyze feelings/attitudes post-treatment.

Results: Results revealed a decrease to zero and near-zero …

Uprooted, Displaced, Resilient: Kosovar Women’S Narratives Of Organizing For Survival During The Kosovo War, Erjona Gashi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this dissertation is to foreground Kosovar women’s narratives and organizing properties during the Kosovo War. I examine the overlooked gendered roles and day-to-day lived experiences of Kosovar women, survivors of the Serb genocide, political violence, and oppression, and investigate their organizing properties during the Kosovo War (1998-1999). In acknowledging women’s plurality of experiences and perspectives, I challenge the currently pervasive and monolithic narrative of women as passive victims of war present in scholarship in organizational communication and instead make overt the narrative of women as critical organizational actors that sustain lives during and after the war. Using …

The Friendship Train: Peas, Politics, And Propaganda, Miller Scott

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

On a brisk fall night in November 1947, more than 100,000 people packed the streets of Hollywood to celebrate the launch of the Friendship Train. High-ranking government officials, business leaders, and a galaxy of film stars all attended the send-off ceremony. Over the next eleven days, the train traveled across the country, gathering essential foodstuffs to send to hungry Europeans. In small towns and big cities, the train received enthusiastic receptions. Its journey ended in New York City with a ticker-tape parade down the iconic Canyon of Heroes. Along the way, it collected more than 200 boxcars of food, worth …

Organizing Queer Civil Rights Movements: Pride Parades And Communicative Dilemmas, David J. Dooling

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Pride parades (“Pride”) are sites of communicative tension for the queer community. While the political origins of queer civil rights practiced widespread resistance to institutional heteronormativity and homophobia, Pride is a space where business owners, community stakeholders, and activists debate the political utility of queerness. This dissertation employs queer and sociomaterial theoretical traditions, and autoethnographic methodological approaches to explore the communicative strategies of Pride organizers—individuals who create, coordinate, and conceptualize the display of sexuality and gender in the public sphere. I draw on tension-centered approaches to organizational communication, feminist dilemmatic theorizing, and co-sexuality to investigate power-laden structures and decision-making in …

“A Second Chance Citizen Reintegration Program Through The Lenses Of Black And Brown Participants And Case Managers.”, Bobbie Straughter

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recidivism has been linked to a lack of education opportunities, heightened surveillance, a lack of housing stability, and limited access to resources for assistance. Because Black and Brown communities are facing mass incarceration, there is a growing concern about recidivism, as they are affected by several factors that may make them more likely to re-offend upon release. These include a lack of mental health outreach, their socioeconomic status, environmental influences, and the challenges they face regarding their masculinity and role in fatherhood. To both reduce recidivism and provide a solution to the obstacles presented above, the literature suggests providing re-entry …

Abc It's Easy As...: Clarifying Alphabet Knowledge Development In Preschool Populations, Lauren Arielle Mckeever

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Alphabet Knowledge (AK) is a critical precursor to literacy development. Despite a clear linkage between AK and childhood reading and later academic success, the progression of how this skill is acquired remains unclear. Through a series of investigations, this dissertation examined the assessment and intervention of AK in preschool populations.

The first study was a systematic review to delineate aspects of AK, focusing on instructional practices, measurement techniques, and how they align. This study synthesized existing literature on AK through a systematic review of 32 studies to identify common themes related to AK definitions, instructional content, and measurement approaches. The …

Differences In Speech Patterns Produced By Spanish-English Language Learners During Single-Language And Mixed-Language Remote Academic Vocabulary Instruction, Ester Garcia

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Individuals with lower proficiency in a second language tend to produce more disfluent speech patterns in the second language. Speech disfluencies refer to interruptions in the forward flow of speech and are distinct from the colloquial use of “fluency,” to characterize knowledge of a language. Prior research indicates that some speech disfluency patterns may be more common among Spanish-English bilingual children, who tend to produce more mazes (fragments of an utterance) and syllable repetitions than their monolingual peers. These patterns have been attributed to 1) acquiring a new language; 2) the influence of Spanish as a first language (L1) on …

De La Escuela Al Hogar: Centering Latine And Hispanic Student Perspectives On Caregiver Involvement In The Well-Being Promotion Program, Nicole G. Pacateque Rodriguez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Latine students often face systemic barriers to accessing appropriate mental health support, highlighting the importance of culturally responsive school-based interventions to address mental health disparities (Gonzalez et al., 2022; Jackson, 2021). Although many interventions incorporate caregiver involvement, limited research has explored how Latine youth experience and make meaning of caregiver engagement in school-based mental health programs (Hansen et al., 2021; Wildmon et al., 2024). This mixed-methods study centers Latine student voices by examining how Latine students experienced and interpreted caregiver engagement in the Well-Being Promotion Program (WBPP), a school-based positive psychology intervention implemented during the 2023–2024 school year across six …

Mathematics Teacher Preparation Reimagined: The Exploration Of Preservice Teachers Planning Culturally Responsive Mathematics Lessons Using Culturally Relevant Mathematics Tasks, Lakesia L. Dupree

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Equipping teachers with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions deemed necessary to work with students from diverse populations is a documented need that plagues teacher education. Furthermore, the influx of students from diverse backgrounds enrolled in United States schools intensifies the need to prepare the future generation of teachers to be equipped to provide learning opportunities for each and every student in their classroom. This paper highlights the importance of culture and the integral place it holds when supporting current and future teachers with planning and subsequently enacting culturally responsive mathematics and culturally relevant mathematics tasks in their middle grades mathematics …

The Effect Of Fixed Time Delays On The Synchronization Phase Transition, Shaizat Bakhytzhan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nature is full of synchronization phenomena, which are essential to many scientific fields like biology, chemistry, physics, and neuroscience. The Kuramoto model is a well-known theoretical model that helps explain the fundamental ideas behind synchronization dynamics [6]. Nevertheless, in practical situations, systems frequently display intrinsic latency, which can greatly impact their behavior during synchronization. This insight inspired our work, which looks at the results of adding temporal delays to the Kuramoto model. In particular, we investigate how the system’s synchronization dynamics are affected by delays. We shed light on the mechanisms underpinning synchronization in the face of temporal delays and …

Modeling The Human Learning Process Using An Industrial Steam Boiler Analogy To Design A Psychophysiological-Based Hypermedia Adaptive Automation System, Liliana María Villavicencio López

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation aims to address the existing gap in the integration of various dimensions within the student learning system, encompassing cognitive, emotional, and physical variables. The primary objective is to construct a Personalized Learning Adaptive Automation model using Electroencephalography (EEG) technology.

To provide deeper insight into the intricate nature of the Human Learning Process, this study introduces a novel analogy with an Industrial Steam Boiler. This analogy serves as a distinctive contribution to research in the field.

The research methodology involved the collection of brainwaves data from engineering students while they undertook educational tasks of varying levels of difficulty, categorized …

Context-Aware Affective Behavior Modeling And Analytics, Md Taufeeq Uddin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Affective computing (AC) is a sub-domain of AI that has the potential to assist people by assessing mental states and making appropriate recommendations to patients, loved ones, caregivers, and domain experts. Humans usually produce an enormous amount of data (such as face videos) every day. One of the major challenges for affective computer vision is to efficiently deal with high volumes of data to facilitate automated model development. To cope with this challenge, we developed computer vision algorithms that measure the expressivity of the human face from video data. More precisely, the developed algorithms can map complex affect information from …

Seminoles, Soldiers, And Settlers: Identity And Power On The Florida Frontier, Jean Louise Lammie

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project uses an historical archaeological approach to analyze the processes of cultural negotiation between disparate social groups living in a remote borderland in the early to mid-nineteenth centuries. Florida, first colonized by the Spanish in the 1500s was passed to the United States in 1821 as part of the young nation’s nascent Manifest Destiny. The Seminoles experienced multiple colonial conflicts, dealt with new diseases, and selected aspects of European culture to incorporate into their daily practices of lifeways.

Archaeological studies of culture change tend to focus on the product of colonial interactions rather than the processes of change that …

Narrative Language Assessment And Intervention: Applications With Children With And Without Disabilities, Norah M. Almubark

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Narrative is the art of conveying a sequence of causally and temporally linked events through monologic telling. Various functions can be served through narratives including sharing experiences, expressing ideas, providing entertainment, and imparting cultural or social values. Narrative language represents an authentic type of language that is useful for assessment and intervention because it can be analyzed according to content and form. The ability to use complex narrative language and produce quality narratives is associated with long-term academic and social benefits (Uccelli et al., 2019; Suggate et al, 2018). Given this crucial link, narrative language is suitable for child language …

Local Ecological Knowledge, Education, And Bilingualism: Ethnography Of A Stem Program For Elementary Students In Southwestern Florida, Barbara D. Herrera

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In response to the limited inclusion of cultural relevant pedagogy in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) centered educational programs, this study illustrates dynamics that encourage inclusivity and provide a space for minority students to develop self-efficacy while also exposing them to formal modes of STEM knowledge. Elementary level English/Spanish speaking children were taught local ecological knowledge (LEK) during a STEM summer program in a city in Southwestern Florida. The use of participant observation, group interviews with the students, and interviews with the educators allowed for an in-depth analysis of the program and the established goals. This study provides insight …

Rate Of Latine Caregiver Involvement In The Well-Being Promotion Program Using Culturally And Linguistically Responsive Communication Practices, Nicole G. Pacateque Rodriguez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Latine and Hispanic youth tend to have higher rates of mental health disturbances in school compared to non-Latine youth, yet they are less likely to receive support (Alegría et al., 2008). Additionally, Latine families are more likely to terminate treatment for youth early due to negative stigma, lack of culturally appropriate mental health care, racial and ethnic discrimination, and linguistic and cultural barriers involving care (Kapke & Gerdes, 2016). Best practices in school-based mental health services often involve including caregivers in care (Hoover et al., 2019) as it can benefit outcomes of treatment for the child (Richards et al., 2007). …

Advancing Text Summarization And Classification: Deep Insights From Transformer-Based Statistical Learning, Kun Bu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a part of human's daily life nowadays. Machine Learning (ML) as one aspect from AI has been rapidly developing during the past two decades, especially from the statistical learning approaches, which emphasized the use of probability and statistics to model data, such as Support Vector Machines (SVMs) for classification and regression tasks to the ensemble learning techniques, such as Random Forest, Gradient Boosting Machine (GBM), and stacking. Ensemble learning has evolved into a pivotal concept in contemporary machine learning, empowering practitioners to amalgamate multiple models to enhance generalization, accuracy, and robustness. As the field of machine …

Effectiveness Of Contact-Based Strategies On Improving Mental Illness Stigma And Help-Seeking Behaviors Within Families, B. Michelle Wilks

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Adolescence is a developmental period that often involves extreme physical, psychological, and emotional changes and sometimes the experience of significant personal and social challenges. In addition to these challenges, youth are trying to find their place in the world and developing their identities, which depend heavily on their relationships with others. Adolescents who struggle with their mental health and also fail to develop meaningful connections with others, tend to have poor self-esteem, self-isolate, are ostracized by others, and have a poor social self-concept, all of which are associated with poor mental health and increased risk for suicidal ideation. The impact …

It's Real, It Just Hasn't Happened Yet: A Three-Article Dissertation On Emerging Technologies In Higher Education, Jeanette Abrahamsen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this three-article dissertation is to better understand the role emerging technologies are playing in learning. This dissertation explores tools on a spectrum of reality from fully immersive virtual reality (VR), semi-immersive VR, non-immersive VR, augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and extended reality (XR). Three studies focus on emerging technologies from the student, educator, researcher perspectives to develop a holistic picture of emerging technologies in higher education. I explore factors that impact new technology adoption, which includes advantages and disadvantages to deploying different digital tools. This dissertation begins with a systematic literature review of 20 research studies …

Stereotyped Non-Stereotypicality: Exploring Positive Effects Of Non-Stereotypical Gender Portrayals On Consumer Perceptions, Veronika Ponomarenko

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research attempts to identify contexts where non-stereotypical gender portrayals may have positive effects on consumer perceptions. It tests the perceived self-expressiveness of non-stereotypical gender portrayals as the mediating mechanism behind these effects as well as other alternative mechanisms in a comprehensive experiment. The analysis results show that an interpretation of gender through the theoretical lens of extravagance rather than self-expressiveness seems to be more appropriate. This study also introduces an overarching theoretical framework of metacognitive experiences that may explain the processes driving the effects of non-stereotypical gender portrayals on consumer perceptions. Finally, this research explores different types of gender …