Digital Commons Network^™

Anti-Arab Hate Crimes In The Aftermath Of September 11, 2001: Assessing The Influence Of Geographic And Situational Factors, Ilir Disha

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates how hate crimes in general and anti-Arab hate crimes in particular were distributed across different regions of the United States during the 2001- 2002 period. The study explores how a historical event – the terrorist attacks against the U.S. on September 11, 2001 – and county population demographics affect the rates of hate crime against Arabs, Muslims or Middle Easterners. It was hypothesized that antiArab or anti-Muslim hate crimes displaced other forms of hate crime and were characterized by open acts of violence. According to the contact hypothesis, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate crimes would be more likely …

The Influence Of Stakeholder Groups On The Decision Making Process Regarding The Dead Zone Associated With The Mississippi River Discharge, Lisa M. Fairchild

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Action Plan for Reducing, Mitigating, and Controlling Hypoxia in the Northern Gulf of Mexico represents the first national attempt to address this environmental issue. Hypoxia is the condition of low concentrations of dissolved oxygen in a body of water. This condition leads to a so-called “dead zone” and potentially threatens industries dependent on the living marine resources of this area. The potential impact of any policy or plan designed to combat hypoxia in the Northern Gulf of Mexico could have significant impacts on stakeholder groups, specifically the fishing industry in the Gulf of Mexico, and the agriculture and fertilizer …

Self-Esteem And Academic Achievement: A Comparative Study Of African American Students In A Traditional Public School And A Magnet School, Sheresa L. T Fairclough

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study evaluated whether differences existed in the academic achievement and self-esteem of African American students in a traditional public school and a choice school. The choice school selected was a technology-focused magnet school. All of the participants were in grades 3-5 and were administered the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) during the 2003-2004 school year. The FCAT was used to assess academic achievement in reading and math while the Culture Free Self-Esteem Inventories ñ Third Edition (CFSEI-3) was used to assess their self-esteem. Demographic information was also collected to identify factors other than school type that contribute to differences …

Longtime Dynamics Of Hyperbolic Evolutionary Equations In Unbounded Domains And Lattice Systems, Djiby Fall

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a contribution to the study of longtime dynamics of evolutionary equations in unbounded domains and of lattice systems. It is of particular interest to prove the existence of global attractors for solutions of such equations. To this end, one needs in general some type of asymptotical compactness. In the case that the evolutionary PDE is defined on a bounded domain Ω in space, asymptotical compactness follows from the regularity estimates and the compactness of the Sobolev embeddings and therefore the existence of attractors has been established for most of the dissipative equations of mathematical physics in a …

Bottom Albedo Derivations Using Hyperspectral Spectrometry And Multispectral Video, Andrew Scott Farmer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Remote sensing reflectance data collected with a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) were used to derive bottom albedo and optical properties for a shallow marine environment near Lee Stocking Island, Bahamas. Optical model inversion techniques were applied to hyperspectral measurements of remote-sensing reflectance to derive water absorption and backscatter coefficients. Using these derived water properties, path attenuation and radiance effects were removed from bottom observations to derive bottom albedos. Histograms from multispectral, hyperspatial video images were used to determine the albedo range of optical end members observed in scenes of sand and seagrass. Variations of spectral signatures for optical end members …

Toward Predicting Barrier Island Vulnerability: Simple Models For Dune Erosion, Laura A. Fauver

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this study is to quantify the accuracy of two engineering models for dune erosion (SBEACH and EDUNE), and to determine which of the two models is best suited for predicting barrier island vulnerability due to extreme storm events. The first model, SBEACH, computes sediment transport using empirically derived equations from two large wave tank experiments. The second model, EDUNE, theoretically relates excess wave energy dissipation in the surf zone to sediment transport. The first mechanism for model comparison is sensitivity testing, which describes the response of the model to empirical, physical, and hydrodynamic variables. Through sensitivity tests, …

Faculty Development Practices At Florida’S Public Community Colleges: Perceptions Of Academic Administrators, Faculty Development Practitioners, And Full-Time Faculty Members, Susan Sparling Finlay

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Faculty development is a means by which institutions can assist faculty in addressing the challenges they face each day in the classroom. Certainly the importance of faculty development is never more evident than within community colleges where access is provided to all students through an open-door admission policy which often produces a more diverse student body creating numerous institutional challenges. Overtime, on many campuses, faculty development practices have come to play a prominent role in attending to these challenges.

This study: (a) examined faculty development practices offered in the last three years by Florida’s 22 public community colleges and determined …

The Invisible Handshake: Interpreting The Job-Seeking Communication Of Foreign-Born Chinese In The U.S., Hongmei Gao

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Building upon Granovetter’s well-known study of the job search behaviors of white males, this research extended the degree to which his findings apply across cultures to Chinese minorities, and across time to the Internet age. Using quantitative and qualitative data collected through systematic observation, questionnaire surveys, and in-depth interviews, this research investigated the impact of culture, Internet usage, gender and age on the communication patterns of foreign-born Chinese jobseekers in the U.S.

It is found that jobseekers adopt either one or a combination of traditional (printed publications and direct application), institutional (the Internet, job fairs, and employment agencies), and personal …

Educational Outcomes For Children With Early-Onset Behavior Problems, Allison Gibson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research has consistently shown a greater likelihood of negative outcomes later in life for children with early-onset behavior problems. Understanding the educational outcomes for these children is essential information that can help educators and families to provide targeted interventions in an effort to positively impact these at-risk children’s school experiences. The current study used archival data and a causal comparative research design to examine the educational outcomes (academic achievement, suspension rates, retention rates, and dropout rates/failure to complete high school) for children identified as at-risk for early-onset behavior problems in grades 1 through 3 for a cohort of children in …

Maximizing The Benefits Of Its Deployments Based On Idas Performance Measures And B/C Ratios, Cuthbert R. Gibson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Traditional transportation planning models are not very sensitive to many of the benefits derived from Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) technologies. With the recent availability of ITS Deployment Analysis System (IDAS), there is an opportunity to conduct detailed cost-benefit analyses of ITS Alternatives. IDAS is able to estimate the impacts, benefits, and costs resulting from the deployment of many ITS components. This is accomplished by comparing the average cost of deploying and integrating the appropriate technologies, to the estimated benefits experienced by the network. The ratio of average benefits to average costs is termed the B/C ratios. While the use of …

Vowel Identification By Monolingual And Bilingual Listeners: Use Of Spectral Change And Duration Cues, Merete Mã¸Ller Glasbrenner

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recent studies have shown that even highly-proficient Spanish-English bilinguals, who acquired their second language (L2) in childhood and have little or no foreign accent in English, may require more acoustic information than monolinguals in order to identify English vowels and may have more difficulty than monolinguals in understanding speech in noise or reverberation (Mayo, Florentine, & Buus, 1997). One explanation that may account for this difference is that bilingual listeners use acoustic cues for vowel identification differently from monolinguals (Flege, 1995).

In this study, we investigated this hypothesis by comparing bilingual listeners’ use of acoustic cues to vowel identification to …

The Underdog Effect: Definition, Limitations, And Motivations. Why Do We Support Those At A Competitive Disadvantage?, Nadav Goldschmied

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

From politics to sports to business, people are quick to categorize those at a competitive disadvantage as ‘underdogs’. Moreover, there is ample anecdotal support that most people do not hesitate to align themselves with underdogs, a phenomenon called “the underdog effect”. A series of studies were conducted to examine the scope and limitations of the underdog effect. The first study explored the extent of the underdog effect and determined that resources play a crucial role in forming alliances with those whom we perceive to have the lower chance to succeed. A second series of experiments assessed whether participants, who demonstrated …

The Influence Of Pre-Existing Memories On Retrieval-Induced Forgetting, Leilani B. Goodmon

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

When people form episodic connections between memories that share a common retrieval cue, the tendency for those memories to interfere in later retrieval is often eliminated, and forgetting of the interfering information is reduced. For example, episodic integration protects memories from retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF), a phenomenon in which practicing retrieving some associates of a cue leads to the suppression of others that interfere with retrieval (Anderson, Green, & McCulloch, 2000). The purpose of this study was to determine whether semantic integration, as a result of pre-existing associations between practiced items and their unpracticed competitors, also moderates RIF. This research was …

Growth And Characterization Of Diamond And Diamond Like Carbon Films With Interlayer, Roja Gottimukkala

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Diamond and diamond-like carbon films, with their exceptionally good mechanical, chemical, and optical properties, are the best materials as protective hard coatings for electronic devices and cutting tools. The biocompatibility of these materials makes it suitable for bone implants. The wide range applications of these films are hindered because of the high compressive stresses developed during the deposition. Use of carbide and nitride interfacial layers has emerged as one of the methods to reduce the compressive stresses.

The present research focuses on the study of different materials as the interfacial layers for diamond and tetrahedral amorphous carbon films. For tetrahedral …

“Ethnographizing” Service-Learning: Creating Politically Engaged Anthropology, Wendy Ann Hathaway

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Service-Learning is a popular teaching method that is increasingly being adopted by institutions of higher learning throughout the nation and is enthusiastically promoted as a progressive method for mediating the alleged decline in civic responsibility and ameliorating subsequent social ills. Servicelearning courses are also seen as an answer to growing student disinterest by connecting students to “real world” experiences while simultaneously providing much needed community support in the face of receding social services in this “Post-Welfare” moment (Goode and Maskovsky 2001a).

Anthropological insights, born out of a liberal humanistic tradition, can be employed to critically examine this popular educational and …

Florida's Civil War Soldiers, Jennifer J. Hawley

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to chronicle the actions of the soldiers of Florida during the Civil War, both within and without Florida. As there has not been a great deal written on this topic, it is hoped that this thesis will contribute to the discussion and perhaps lead others to study this field.

The soldiers of Florida during the Civil War deserve the same attention given to the soldiers from more prominent states. Those who fought for the Confederacy and stayed to defend their state often had to fight against overwhelming odds. Abandoned for a time by the …

Fat Commentary And Fat Humor Presented In Visual Media: A Content Analysis, Susan Himes

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In order to examine the phenomenon of fat messages presented through visual media, a content analysis was used to quantify and categorize fat-specific commentary. Fat commentary vignettes were identified using a targeted sampling procedure, and 135 scenes were excised from movies and TV shows. The material was coded by trained raters. Reliability indices were uniformly high for the seven categories (% agreement ranged from .90-.98; kappas ranged from .66-.94). Results indicated that fat commentary and fat humor is often verbal, directed toward another person, and is often presented directly in the presence of the overweight target. Results also indicated that …

“The Wil Of His Wif:” Discourse, Power, And Gender In Chaucer’S The Tale Of Melibee, Sara D. Jenkins

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the Tale of Melibee, Chaucer gives us an excellent illustration of a point French theorist Michel Foucault would make centuries later: That power is something that moves and shifts between people and within institutions, that it is not fixed nor permanent, that it is used as needed toward specific ends, and that it is enacted through the medium of discourse. In Melibee, Melibee’s wife Prudence achieves a place of authority and influence in her marriage via her use of discourse, and specifically by using a more “male” way of speaking. Chaucer is often considered feminist-friendly due to …

Hydrogen Fluoride Method Development For The Ogawatm Passive Sampling Device, Ilsa Johansson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study tested the precision and accuracy of a triethanolamine (TEA) absorbent in the OgawaTM Passive Sampling Device (PSD) for detection of ambient hydrogen fluoride (HF). The project was initiated to develop a method to verify compliance with emissions regulations for Coronet. Field and laboratory trials were conducted.

Mixed cellulose ester filters were saturated with 70% TEA and placed in the PSDs. Aermod ISCT3 modeled ambient HF concentrations at Coronet to guide deployment of PSDs at 28 sampling stations, 3 PSDs per station, 500 – 3500 meters from Coronet. After 30 days of sampling, ambient HF concentrations were calculated from …

Systematic Study Of Amyloid Beta Peptide Conformations: Implications For Alzheimer’S Disease, Jeffy Pilar Jimenez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The amyloid beta peptide particularly the 40 and 42 amino acid residues are the responsible for plaque formation in Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients. Extra cellular plaque formation has been recognized after incessant investigations along with the formation of intracellular tau protein tangles as the hallmarks of AD. Furthermore, the plaque formation has been linked mostly as a cause of the disease and the tangles mostly as a consequence. Our investigation is focused on studying the formation of AD plaques. The amyloid beta (Aß) is a physiological peptide secreted from neurons under normal conditions, along with other soluble forms cleaved from …

Simulating The Electric Field Mediated Motion Of Ions And Molecules In Diverse Matrices, Joseph Hickey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Electroporation is a methodology for the introduction of drugs and genes into cells. This technique works by reducing the exclusionary nature of the cell membrane [125, 129, 186, 189]. Electroporation has successfully been used in electrochemotherapy and electrogenetherapy [57, 68, 86, 87, 110, 112, 131]. The two major components of electroporation are an induced transmembrane potential and the motion of the deliverable through a compromised cell membrane into the target cell [38, 55, 62, 114, 131]. These two components are both dependent on the electrophoretic motion of charged species in an applied electric field [45, 64, 75, 77, 177].

Currently, …

Connected Domination In Graphs, Gayathri Mahalingam

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A connected dominating set D is a set of vertices of a graph G = (V, E) such that every vertex in V − D is adjacent to at least one vertex in D and the subgraph hDi induced by the set D is connected. The connected domination number γc(G) is the minimum of the cardinalities of the connected dominating sets of G. The problem of finding a minimum connected dominating set D is known to be NP-hard. Many polynomial time algorithms that achieve some approximation factors have been provided earlier in finding a minimum connected dominating set. In …

Sorption Of Organic Vapors By Copolymers Of Poly (Styrene-Butadiene) Using A Piezoelectric Microbalance, Anant K. Upadhyayula

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Thickness shear mode (TSM) sensors, also known as quartz crystal microbalances (QCM) are a class of acoustic wave sensors that have been used for gas phase sensing. In this thesis this device is used to measure vapor-liquid equilibrium data for copolymers of poly(styrene-butadiene) at 294K.

Copolymers of poly(styrene-butadiene) with varying percentages of styrene (85%, 45% and 21 %) were studied with benzene, n-hexane, dichloroethane and chloroform as solvents. Literature data for pure polystyrene/benzene and polystyrene/chloroform and polybutadiene/benzene were obtained to complement the measured data.

Obtained experimental data were fit with a modified Flory-Huggins model and compared with the predictions of …

A Future With Hope: The Social Construction Of Hope, Help, And Dialogic Reconciliation In A Community Children's Mental Health System Of Care, Christine S. Davis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research examines the social construction of hope in a community mental health system of care. Groopman (2004) defines hope as the elevating feeling we experience when we see a path to a better future. A year-long ethnographic study of a children's mental health system of care team found that members of the mental health care team construct hope for themselves and for the family they're helping by cycling through the dialectical tensions of hegemony and equality, marginalization and normalization, relating and othering, empowerment and disempowerment, and control and emotionality. They reconcile these tensions in dialogic moments of empathy toward …

The Benefits Of Clear Speech At Normal Rates For Older Listeners With Normal Hearing, Athina Panagos Panagiotopoulos

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Clear speech is a type of speaking style that improves speech intelligibility for many individuals. For example, one study showed a 17 percentage point increase in intelligibility over conversational speech for individuals with sensorineural hearing loss (Picheny et al., 1985). The clear speech benefit also extends to children with learning disabilities (Bradlow et al., 2003), non-native listeners (Bradlow & Bent, 2002), and other populations. Although clear speech is typically slower than conversational speech, it can be produced, naturally, at normal rates with training. For young listeners with normal hearing, clear speech at normal rates (clear/normal) is more intelligible than conversational …

Performativity And The Latina/O-White Hybrid Identity: Performing The Textual Self, Shane T. Moreman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study is an exploration of Latina/o-White hybrid identity for constructions and negotiations of hybridity as performed in the lives of individuals and as rearticulated in discourse. These discourses are drawn from interviews with nine individuals, stories of my own life, and three published memoirs. Despite these different forms, all the selfidentified Latina/o-White hybrid individuals speak to the difficulty of imagining and enacting a hybrid identity within today’s discourse on race and ethnicity. This study articulates these difficulties as lived experience, theory, and performance come together to argue for and against hybridity as a model for contemporary identity. The project …

Transforming Public Spaces Through Performance, Anthony G. Valentine

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is study about how public spaces can be transformed through performance within them.

More specifically, this study involves two public venues: The Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI), Tampa, FL and The University of South Florida (USF), Tampa, FL in that within these public venues, not only do performances take place, but they transform the space they are performed in and the spaces in-between the public spaces into performance spaces.

Hope And Quality Of Life In Hospice Patients With Cancer, Cynthia Brown

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Hope is considered to have a positive influence upon health. Cancer patients may enter hospice care after a rigorous course of medical treatment, having hoped for a cure or long remission. While the hope for cure is important, hope is no less important at the end of life when the goal of care is quality of life. This study examined the relationship between hope and quality of life in hospice patients with cancer.

Thirty-one patients with cancer, who were alert, oriented, living with a caregiver, and aware of their diagnosis were sampled from a hospice program. The instruments used were …

Development Of A Ctd System For Environmental Measurements Using Novel Pcb Mems Fabrication Techniques, Heather Allison Broadbent

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The development of environmental continuous monitoring of physicochemical parameters via portable small and inexpensive instrumentation is an active field of research as it presents distinct challenges. The development of a PCB MEMS-based inexpensive CTD system intended for the measurement of environmental parameters in natural waters, is presented in this work. Novel PCB MEMS fabrication techniques have also been developed to construct the conductivity and temperature transducers. The design and fabrication processes are based on PCB MEMS technology that combines Cu-clad liquid crystal polymer (LCP) thin-film material with a direct write photolithography tool, chemical etching and metallization of layers of electroless …

The Impact Of Privatization Of Primary Care Programs In Large County Health Departments In Florida, Arlesia Lynn Brock

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Since the mid-1970s, top managers, politicians, and officials in both public and private institutions have promoted contracting-out services (privatization) as a means of increasing efficiency, flexibility, and quality. The privatization trend has occurred in many public sector organizations particularly in city services and prisons. Public health services are not immune to this trend. Today many county health departments have contracted the provision of public health services like womens health, primary care, and laboratory services. However, very few studies have analyzed the impact of these privatizations on cost, access, and health outcomes. Proponents favoring the private provision of these services argue …