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Transnational Social Movements And The War On Drugs, Ben Mostyn

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis discusses the growing body of work on transnational social movement theory. Transnational social movement theory is an attempt to adapt social movement theory to the changing nature of international relations. To further this theory, I test the hypothesis that "a transnational social movement has caused drug law reforms at the local and state level".

To test this hypothesis I undertake a case study of one local and one national drug law reform. The drug laws in the state of New South Wales, Australia were reformed in 1999 to allow heroin addicts to use a medical center to inject …

On The Color Of The Orinoco River Plume, Ana L. Odriozola

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In situ measurements were used to study the bio-optical properties of marine waters within the Gulf of Paria (GOP, Venezuela) and in the Southeastern Caribbean Sea (SEC) as they are affected by the seasonal discharge of the Orinoco River plume. The main purpose of this study was to determine the impact of colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM) (also known as Gelbstoff), phytoplankton, and total suspended matter (TSM) in the color of the Orinoco River plume. This information is essential for regional ocean color algorithms development.

Salinity and silica values indicate that the GOP and SEC waters were under the …

A P300-Based Brain-Computer Interface: Testing An Alternative Method Of Communication, Eric W. Sellers

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The current study evaluates the effectiveness of a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) system that operates by detecting a P300 elicited by one of four randomly presented stimuli (i.e., YES, NO, PASS, END). Two groups of participants were tested. The first group included three ALS patients that varied in degree of disability, but all retained the ability to communicate; the second group included three Non-ALS controls. Each participant participated in ten experimental sessions during a period of approximately 6 weeks. Sessions were conducted either at the participant's home or in the lab. During each run the participant's task was to attend to …

Road Crack Condition Performance Modeling Using Recurrent Markov Chains And Artificial Neural Networks, Jidong Yang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Timely identification of undesirable pavement crack conditions has been a major task in pavement management. Up to date, myriads of pavement performance models have been developed for forecasting pavement crack condition with the traditional preferred techniques being the use of regression relationships developed from laboratory and/or field statistical data. However, it becomes difficult for regression techniques to predict the crack performance accurately and robustly in the presence of a variety of tributary factors, high nonlinearity, and uncertainty. With the advancement of modeling techniques, two innovative breeds of models, Artificial Neural Networks and Markov Chains, have drawn increasing attention from researchers …

Globalization, Ecotourism, And Development In The Monte Verde Zone, Costa Rica, Edgar Allan Amador

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ecotourism has been promoted globally as a model for sustainable development because it simultaneously benefits the environment and the residents of the given destination. However, many conservationists have questioned the long term sustainability of ecotourism as it is difficult to mitigate the impact of even low levels of tourism on a particular ecosystem. Further, social scientists including anthropologists have similarly questioned whether most residents of a particular destination actually benefit significantly from the alternative tourism economy.

The Globalization Research Center in cooperation with the Monteverde Institue in the Monte Verde Zone, Costa Rica, is undertaking a longitudinal study -- dubbed …

Building A Case For The Unfamiliar Cause In Cause-Related Marketing: The Importance Of Cause Vested Interest, Charles G. O'Brien

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Marketing and advertising practitioners are currently matching up a brand with a cause and broadcasting the association to consumers in a practice called cause related marketing (CRM). Scholars are building a stream of academic research which seeks to understand the relationship between a brand and a cause (a.k.a., alliance) in relation to the final outcome of a CRM campaign. Ostensibly, both partners benefit from this alliance, although many CRM studies seek to understand how to optimize this relationship for each partner.

In professional practice and academic research both practitioners and researchers have focused on established, popular, well-known causes in consideration …

The Effects Of Militant Press On Nigeria's Democratic Evolution, Oluwaniran Malaolu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This is an in-depth study of the Nigerian press, the ubiquitous behemoth which called itself the "defender" of Nigeria's national independence and the last "hope" of the common man. It's a bold attempt to critically examine its antecedents, its evolution or development especially the historical, political, technological and socio-economic events that had impacted its growth, its world views and ideologies. It's a thorough assessment of the press' influence on Nigeria's socio-economic and political development, as well as the suitability of its tactics and posturing toward attaining its set goals of economic and political emancipation of Nigerians. Most importantly, this study …

High Voltage Conversion For Mems Applications Using Micromachined Capacitors, Puneet Khanna

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores high voltage converter circuits for MEMS applications using micromachined devices. A novel MEMS based tunable DC-DC converter has been developed. Conventional high voltage converters based on charge pumps are unable to convert voltages to higher than few tens of volts due to power handling limitations of the CMOS components. In order to overcome this limitation a high voltage circuit has been proposed, which when integrated with micromachined switches will generate output voltages in the range of 100 Volts. The converter is based on a two phase switched capacitor circuit, and allows regulation of voltage conversion ratio. Three …

Development Of A Sensitive And Specific Biosensor Assay To Detect Vibrio Vulnificus In Estuarine Waters, Robert M. Ulrich

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Biosensor development has the potential to meet the need for rapid, sensitive, and specific detection of pathogenic bacteria from natural sources. An antibody-based fiber-optic biosensor assay to detect low levels of Vibrio vulnificus in estuarine waters following an enrichment step was developed. The principle of the sensor is based on an immuno-sandwich assay where an anti-V. vulnificus polyclonal capture antibody preparation was first immobilized on a polystyrene fiber-optic waveguide using a biotin-avidin association. The capture antibody is responsible for binding the target cells to the waveguide. Cyanine-5-conjugated anti-V. vulnificus polyclonal antibodies are subsequently allowed to bind to immobilized …

Chemical And Photolytic Degradation Of Polyacrylamides Used In Potable Water Treatment, Peiyao Cheng

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Polyacrylamides (PAMs) are a class of polymers formed from acrylamide alone or copolymerized with other monomers. PAMs have been used in drinking water treatment as flocculants or coagulants in the highest volume among all the polymer types. In potable water treatment processes, polyacrylamides are often exposed to oxidants (e.g. chlorine and permanganate) and UV irradiation from sunlight or artificial sources. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the possible degradation of PAMs caused by chemical oxidation and/or UV irradiation.

Three types of PAM products (nonionic, cationic and anionic) were studied under free chlorine and permanganate oxidation, UV irradiation, and …

Examining The Current U.S. Beef Trade Policies Concerning The Testing For Mad Cow Disease, David C. Miller

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite existing mad cow disease surveillance efforts in the United States, in place since the 1980s, a cow that tested positive for mad cow disease was granted entrance into the U.S. in December, 2003. The cow that tested positive, according to witnesses, displayed no symptoms that are synonymous with advanced bovine spongiform encephalopathy, BSE. This occurrence had detrimental effects on the U.S. beef export market, as many countries banned American beef. Estimates of the damage inflicted reach into the billions of dollars. BSE in the U.S. has the potential of causing damages in other aspects as well. Aside from the …

Examining The Handbooks On Environmental Journalism: A Qualitative Document Analysis And Response To The Literature, Lisa Rademakers

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis addressed the question, "How should journalists cover the environment, according to the conversation between the scholarship on environmental journalism and the handbooks on environmental journalism?" Do the handbooks, written for practicing journalists, agree with the academic scholarship on environmental journalism?

The conversation between the literature and handbooks is important to examine, as the handbooks are tools journalists may use when reporting on the environment. The handbooks could influence a journalist, who influences the public, who make decisions in a democracy. As well, examining the conversation between the literature and the handbooks reveals whether or not the academy and …

Modeling Alternate Strategies For Airline Revenue Management, Kapil Joshi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ever since the deregulation of the airline industry in 1978, fierce competition has made every airline try and gain a competitive edge in the market. In order to accomplish this, airlines are turning to advanced optimization techniques such as revenue management. Revenue management is a way for airlines to maximize capacity and profitability by managing supply and demand through price management.

Over the last few years research in the field of revenue management has steadily progressed from seat inventory control techniques such as single leg seat inventory and network inventory control to ticket pricing techniques. Ticket pricing techniques involve setting …

Gait-Based Recognition At A Distance: Performance, Covariate Impact And Solutions, Zongyi Liu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

It has been noticed for a long time that humans can identify others based on their biological movement from a distance. However, it is only recently that computer vision based gait biometrics has received much attention. In this dissertation, we perform a thorough study of gait recognition from a computer vision perspective. We first present a parameterless baseline recognition algorithm, which bases similarity on spatio-temporal correlation that emphasizes gait dynamics as well as gait shapes. Our experiments are performed with three popular gait databases: the USF/NIST HumanID Gait Challenge outdoor database with 122 subjects, the UMD outdoor database with 55 …

Low Power Technology Mapping And Performance Driven Placement For Field Programmable Gate Arrays, Hao, Li

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As technology geometries have shrunk to the deep sub-micron (DSM) region, the chip density and clock frequency of FPGAs have increased significantly. This makes computer-aided design (CAD) for FPGAs very important and challenging. Due to the increasing demands of portable devices and mobile computing, low power design is crucial in CAD nowadays. In this dissertation, we present a framework to optimize power consumption for technology mapping onto FPGAs. We propose a low-power technology mapping scheme which is able to predict the impact of choosing a subnetwork covering on the ultimate mapping solution. We dynamically update the power estimation for a …

Modelling Distance Functions Induced By Face Recognition Algorithms, Soumee Chaudhari

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Face recognition algorithms has in the past few years become a very active area of research in the fields of computer vision, image processing, and cognitive psychology. This has spawned various algorithms of different complexities. The concept of principal component analysis(PCA) is a popular mode of face recognition algorithm and has often been used to benchmark other face recognition algorithms for identification and verification scenarios. However in this thesis, we try to analyze different face recognition algorithms at a deeper level. The objective is to model the distances output by any face recognition algorithm as a function of the input …

The Stress Response, Psychoeducational Interventions And Assisted Reproduction Technology Treatment Outcomes: A Meta-Analytic Review, Karen Rose Mumford

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The psychological impacts of infertility have been well documented in the literature, providing evidence to support that at least some women who confront infertility are at risk for heightened distress and depressive symptoms. In response to this accumulated evidence, it has been argued that psychoeducational interventions may provide an important component to the treatment of infertility. While several theoretical models postulate the effects of stress on infertility treatment outcomes, results of these investigations have led to conflicting conclusions. However, a synthesis of the accumulated data examining the effects of stress on ART treatment outcomes was nonexistent until the conduct of …

Bayesian Inference In Forecasting Volcanic Hazards: An Example From Armenia, Jennifer N. Weller

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Scientists worldwide are increasingly faced with the need to assess geologic hazards for very infrequent events that have high consequence, for instance, in siting nuclear facilities for volcanic hazards. One of the methods currently being developed for such assessments is the Bayesian method. This paper outlines the Bayesian technique by focusing on the volcanic hazard assessment for the Armenia Nuclear Power Plant, (ANPP), which is located in a Quaternary volcanic field. The Bayesian method presented in this paper relies on the development of a probabilistic model based on the spatial distribution of past volcanic events and a geologic process model. …

Modeling Of Qe, I-V Characteristics Of Msm (Metal-Semiconductor-Metal) Mercuric Iodide Thin Films With MediciTm, Vikram Rupavatharam

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Mercuric Iodide is the most promising of all semiconductor materials currently under investigation for use as radiation detectors at room temperature. While substantial studies have been conducted on single crystal HgI₂, polycrystalline HgI₂ remains a comparatively less studied form.

The HgI₂ films are deposited on TEC-15 LOF glass with a Tin Oxide (SnO₂) coating which acts as the growth surface and front contact. The back contact, Palladium (Pd), is deposited by sputtering through a shadow mask. The films are circular in shape with an approximate diameter of 2.5 cm and thicknesses ranging from 50-600 …

Microglia Activation In Alzheimer's Disease, Kirk Phillip Townsend

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The work detailed in this dissertation has an overarching theme of modulating microglia activation in both in vivo and in vitro models relevant to AD. The premise is that understanding microglia function in this context may lead to a better understanding of AD pathogenesis and thus to effective therapeutic interventions. In chapter 3, we employ a well-defined model of microglia activation whereby the intraperitoneal delivery of LPS results in CNS microglia activation and TNF-α production. Having previously identified that CD45 signaling pathways antagonized microglia TNF-α production in vitro and given that immunotherapy with anti-CD45 antibodies are already in clinical trials …

Analysis Of Flow In A 3d Chamber And A 2d Spray Nozzle To Approximate The Exiting Jet Free Surface, Chin Tung Hong

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this investigation is to analyze the flow pattern of cooling fluids in the 3D "twister-effect" mixing chamber and to approximate the free surface behaviors exiting the 2D spray nozzle. The cone angle and free surface height located at the end of the free surface are two significant factors to determine the spraying area on a heated plane. This process is a reasonable representation of many industrial cooling application. The whole system consists of 4 inlet tubes connected to the top of the mixing chamber, and the spray nozzle is located under the chamber. Four different refrigerants, like …

Relation Between Weight Status, Gender, Ethnicity And The Food And Activity Choices Of Adolescents, Heather Leanne Curtiss

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The present study examined the relationship between the variables weight status (expected weight, overweight), ethnicity, and gender and the dependent variables dietary intake and physical activity behaviors among adolescents. The data presented in this study were collected using the Nutrition Questionnaire for High School Students, which was completed by 199 adolescents in a high school in southwest Florida in February of 2004. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was used to identify differences in dietary intake and physical activity behaviors between weight status groups.

The primary questions in this study related to interactions and main effects between the variables weight category, …

The Effects Of Graphic Display And Training In Visual Inspection On Teachers' Detection Of Behavior Change, Allana Duncan Luquette

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Although a number of researchers have attempted to evaluate the variables that affect teacher's acceptability of behavioral interventions, few have examined the influence of treatment effectiveness on teacher decision making. Interestingly, effectiveness information in the form of graphic feedback has been shown to improve treatment integrity, however little has been done to assess the effects of graphic feedback on teacher's ability to accurately recognize behavior change. This study assessed the effects of graphic display and training in visual inspection of graphed data on the ability of teachers to accurately recognize and report changes in student behavior. In addition, the researcher …

Imitation And Its Reciprocity In The Treatment Of Autism, Roxana I. Nedelcu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examined, within a multiple baseline design, the development of generalized imitative repertoires and the occurrence of contingency testing in children with autism. Generalized imitation refers to an imitative response class maintained by a conditioned reinforcer: similarity. In the case of imitation, a response class is established by reinforcement of sufficient exemplars of different imitations; the results is a general repertoire of imitating novel responses on their first presentation. Generalized imitation was facilitated through reinforcement procedures involving shaping and fading. Multiple experimenters and multiple settings have been involved to promote the generalization of imitation. Contingency testing, which has been …

Using Multiwavelength Uv-Visible Spectroscopy For The Characterization Of Red Blood Cells: An Investigation Of Hypochromism, Akihisa Nonoyama

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Particle analysis using multiwavelength UV-visible spectroscopy provides the potential for extracting quantitative red blood cell information, such as hemoglobin concentration, cell size, and cell count. However, if there is a significant presence of hypochromism as a result of the concentrated hemoglobin (physiological value of 33%), successful quantification of red cell values would require a correction.

Hypochromism has been traditionally defined as a decrease in absorption relative to the values expected from the Beer-Lambert Law due to electronic interactions of chromophores residing in close proximity of one another. This phenomenon has been suggested to be present in macroscopic systems composed of …

Predicting Low Income Children's Kindergarten Readiness: An Investigation Of Parents’ Perceptions Of Their Children's Development And Connections To The Educational System, Nakeba N. Finlayson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The current study sought to explore the relationship between four parent variables and children's Early Screening Inventory-Kindergarten (ESI-K) scores among families from low socioeconomic status backgrounds. The four parent variables were 1) parents' perceptions of school readiness, 2) parents' education, and 3) parents' attitudes towards their child's school, 4) the child's early development. The participants were 63 parents and their kindergarten children from three schools in Hillsborough County Florida. Results showed that parents are relatively good predictors of their children's readiness for school, with that variable alone accounting for 18% of the variance in ESI-K scores. The four variables together …

Influence Of The So3 Content Of Cement On The Durability And Strength Of Concrete Exposed To Sodium Sulfate Environment, Amin A. Hanhan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this investigation was to assess the influence of the SO₃ content on the durability and strength of portland cement.

Four portland cements were used in this study. The cements had a variable tricalcium silicate, tricalcium aluminate, and alkali contents, as well as differences in the amount and form of calcium sulfates. The SO₃ content of the cements was increased by replacing part of the cement by gypsum according to ASTM C 452-95.

Mortar bars and cubes were prepared for the as-received as well as for the cements with an SO₃ content of 3.0% and …

A Radial Basis Neural Network For The Analysis Of Transportation Data, David P. Aguilar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis describes the implementation of a Radial Basis Function (RBF) network to be used in predicting the effectiveness of various strategies for reducing the Vehicle Trip Rate (VTR) of a worksite. Three methods of learning were utilized in training the Gaussian hidden units of the network, those being a) output weight adjustment using the Delta rule b) adjustable reference vectors in conjunction with weight adjustment, and c) a combination of adjustable centers and adjustable sigma values for each RBF neuron with the Delta rule. The justification for utilizing each of the more advanced levels of training is provided using …

Relationship Between Curriculum-Based Measurement Reading And Statewide Achievement Test Mastery For Third Grade Students, Erin Elizabeth Ax

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The ability to read is highly valued in American society and important for social and economic advancement. One of the best strategies to prevent reading difficulties is to build basic literacy skills, thereby ensuring that all children are readers early in their educational careers. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between third-grade students' oral reading rate and scores on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.

The present study examined the relationship between the independent variables of Curriculum-Based Measurement Reading (R-CBM), ethnicity and socioeconomic status and the dependent variable of performance on the reading portion of the Florida …

Effects Of Participant Engagement On Alcohol Expectancies And Drinking Outcomes For A Computerized Expectancy Challenge Intervention, William Michael Hunt

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the present study was to examine the effect of varying the amount of participant engagement on alcohol expectancy and drinking outcomes during a social/sexual expectancy challenge based on Darkes and Goldman's (1993, 1998) protocol. This study was also intended to provide a test of the efficacy of administering an alcohol/placebo expectancy challenge outside of a live drinking scenario through video presented as part of a computerized intervention.

One hundred fifty-eight male participants across three sites were randomized into a no-intervention control group that received non alcohol-related information in a minimally interactive computerized format, a low-level engagement experimental …