Digital Commons Network^™

Effects Of Anthropogenic Activity On The Green Swamp Preserve Ecosystem, Barbara Ann Nordheim-Shelt

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Green Swamp Preserve is a large geographic area that has sustained many changes since Europeans settled in Florida. There has been little published research on the impacts of anthropogenic activity on this system. This thesis research seeks to document more recent changes in the Green Swamp and to evaluate the effects of various human activities on the system. The study period is from 1985 to 2015. For this time period changes in land use and landcover were examined using neural network classifications. Changes in vegetation health were evaluated by examining Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Green Vegetation Index …

Get Ye A Copper Kettle: Appalachia, Moonshine, And A Postcolonial World, Christopher David Adkins

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

For little over a century, the American region of Appalachia was an internal mineral colony of the United States. This internal colonization produced innumerable negative environmental and economic effects, as well as – most insidious of all – the constructed stereotype of the Hillbilly that even in the Twenty-First Century refuses to die. Yet part and parcel of that same stereotype is something found all over Appalachia, representing a freedom, an identity, and an heritage so long denied to Appalachia and the Appalachian people on its own terms: moonshine, the colorless, unaged corn whiskey long produced both in Appalachia …

What Makes Water Policy Sustainable? An Analysis Of Water Policy In Us Cities, Rebecca Brady David

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation works to create a clearer understanding of sustainability in water policy. Current water policy in four US cities was compared to a matrix of recommended sustainability themes that have been presented in the literature to determine the extent of which these themes have been implemented into water policy. To best analyze policy for sustainability it is necessary to look at the policy of cities that are considered sustainable. This was determined by a city’s inclusion in “Most Sustainable US Cities” lists. The two cities that best represented sustainability were Austin, TX and San Francisco, CA. The research also …

Longshoremen's Negotiation Of Masculinity And The Middle Class In 1950s Popular Culture, Tomaro I. Taylor

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis considers mid-20^th century portrayals of working-class longshoremen’s masculinity within the context of emerging middle-class gender constructions. I argue that although popular culture presents a roughly standardized depiction of longshoremen as “manly men,” these portrayals are significantly nuanced to demonstrate the difficulties working-class men faced as they attempted to navigate socio-cultural and socio-economic shifts related to class and the performance of their male gender. Specifically, I consider depictions of longshoremen’s disruptive masculinity, male identity formation, and masculine-male growth as reactions to paradigmatic shifts in American masculinity. Using three aspects of longshoremen’s non-work lives presented in A View from …

Impact Of Health Insurance For The Poor On Labor Market Out Comes: Evidence From Indonesia., Youssef Fassi Fehri

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

I examine the impact of a health insurance program for the poor implemented in Indonesia in 2005 on labor supply and informal work measured by employment status outside of the private and public formal sector. As a first step to its ambitious plan for universal coverage, this program extended subsidized health insurance coverage to a large proportion of Indonesia’s poor and near-poor population. Using a rich longitudinal survey, I estimate the average treatment effect on the treated using a combined propensity score matching method with difference in differences. The richness of the data allows me to control for a set …

Locally Optimized Mapping Of Slum Conditions In A Sub-Saharan Context: A Case Study Of Bamenda, Cameroon, Julius Anchang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite being an indicator of modernization and macro-economic growth, urbanization in regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa is tightly interwoven with poverty and deprivation. This has manifested physically as slums, which represent the worst residential urban areas, marked by lack of access to good quality housing and basic services. To effectively combat the slum phenomenon, local slum conditions must be captured in quantitative and spatial terms. However, there are significant hurdles to this. Slum detection and mapping requires readily available and reliable data, as well as a proper conceptualization of measurement and scale. Using Bamenda, Cameroon, as a test case, this …

The Debt Burden Of Entry-Level Physical Therapists In Florida, Steven Benton Ambler

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite the education, autonomy, and high demand for physical therapists both nationally and in Florida, recent graduates have seen steadily rising education costs with disproportionate changes in income once they have graduated and entered the workforce. The growing debt burden of physical therapists entering the workforce, coupled with the growth in projected need and stagnant wages, raises concern about where and how entry-level physical therapists will practice and if these choices will be affected by their debt burden. The purpose of this quantitative, cross-sectional survey study was to identify the debt profile of entry-level physical therapists and explore the relationship …

Family Communication Concerning End-Of-Life Care Preferences, Lindsay Jo Peterson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Communication concerning the care one wishes to receive at the end of life (EOL) is central to ensuring that wishes are honored. Many studies have examined doctor-patient or doctor-family EOL communication. However, relatively few studies have focused on the occurrence of EOL care discussions among family members. This is an important topic, as research suggests that advance directives (ADs) are ineffective if patients have not involved surrogate decision-makers, most of whom are family members. This study examined EOL care discussions among family members. It used quantitative and qualitative data from a diverse sample of older adults from West Central Florida …

From Portraits To Selfies: Family Photo-Making Rituals, Krystal M. Bresnahan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

From family-style portraits to selfies, who is photographer and/or photographed varies as families engage, stage, and interpret the visual. How families participate in photo-making changes how individual family members feel about and relate to not only their photographs, but also each other. In this dissertation, I examine photographs as visual and material objects, and include the communication processes and ritual practices of producing, consuming, curating, viewing, and circulating these photos. By framing family photo-making as ritual, I explore how families do photo-making in everyday life, and identify the patterns of choice embedded in the genre of family photography, which symbolically …

Constituting Agricultural And Food Policy In Malawi: The Role Of The State And International Donors In The Farm Input Subsidy Program (Fisp), Peter Rock Nkhoma

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Numerous studies have been undertaken on the political economy of agricultural policies in developing countries. These studies have explained agricultural policies in terms of urban bias, economic reforms, and domestic politics. Recently, the emphasis has been on explanations that reference the existence of a rational-legal and patronage element within the African state. Such explanations tend to underplay the extent to which agricultural policies are devised in a context of power asymmetries between the state and international donors or financial institutions. In the Malawian context specifically, limited attention has been paid to the possibility that policies are a negotiated outcome of …

Predictors Of Associate's Degree Completion In Engineering And Engineering Technologies, Lynsey Reys-Nickel

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this ex post facto study was to describe completers and non-completers of associate’s degree programs in engineering and engineering technologies and determine whether and to what extent completion in these programs is a function of selected student-related variables and institutional variables. Data from the 2004/2009 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS: 04/09) of associate’s degree completers and non-completers in engineering and engineering technologies were accessed and analyzed through PowerStats, a web-based data analysis tool from National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).

Descriptive data indicated that, proportionally, engineering and engineering technologies completers were mostly White, married, middle income, …

The Other Earthquake: Janil Lwijis, Student Social Movements, And The Politics Of Memory In Haiti, Laura A. Leisinger

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Among increased calls for "new narratives" of Haiti, this thesis seeks to honor Haitian traditions of intellectualism and resistance, centering on the life and legacy of martyred professor Janil Lwijis in post-earthquake student social movements. Based on oral histories with student activists at the State University of Haiti (UEH), this work explores student protest in Haiti through the voices, often at odds, of those en lutte; it explores how Janil is invoked and remembered, and argues that oral history can contribute to activist research and pose a challenge to dominant narratives. A legacy that is contested, differential claims to Janil's …

A Review Of Reclaimed Water For Irrigation Use In An Urban Watershed, Anamarie Elizabeth Rivera

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

It is well established that converting wastewater, a point-source of pollution, into reclaimed water makes management of nutrients more difficult. Not all service lines measure the volume of reclaimed water used by a customer, and frequently there are no restrictions on the amount of reclaimed water that is used. Nutrients applied in excess have the potential to runoff or leach through soils and contaminate surface and groundwater resources. This research attempted to determine if corresponding surface water quality monitoring sites in reclaimed service areas reflect elevated total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorous (TP) concentrations.

The Joe’s Creek Watershed in Pinellas …

Development Of A Forecast Process For Meteotsunami Events In The Gulf Of Mexico, Leilani D. Paxton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to provide a better understanding of meteotsunamis over the eastern Gulf of Mexico along the west coast of Florida and to develop a process for forecasting those events. Meteotsunami waves develop from resonant effects of strong pressure perturbations greater than 1 hPa, moving in excess of 10 m s^-1, over water areas up to around 100 m in depth. Meteotsunami events over 0.3 m in height, as measured by three primary NOAA coastal tide gauges at Cedar Key, Clearwater Beach, and Naples, from 2007-2015, impact the Florida Gulf coastline several times per …

Analysis Of Managerial Decision-Making Within Florida’S Total Maximum Daily Load Program, Justin Barthle

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Water quality has evolved legislatively from protection of navigation routes and quantity of sources to more emphasis on impairments on water quality for surface and groundwater sources. Nonpoint or diffuse sources of impairments represents a major challenge for management due to the complexity of its sources and difficulty in tracking.

The most cited sections on public policy analysis focuses on the overall process agencies employ to understand the results the program yields. Often overlooked are finer details and mechanisms, such as decision-making and priority setting, which have a great impact on the overall process. To investigate these factors, we need …

How Mature Capitalism Turns Pollution Into Diamonds: Malagnogenesis And The Reverse-Engineering Of Harm Into Risk, Kevin P. Martyn

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, there has been a great deal of debate about the pervasiveness and persistence of neoliberal thinking. In the context of the post-2008 ‘great recession’ the resilience of neoliberalism is particularly confounding. To begin to unravel the ways in which neoliberalism is situated relative to risk, this study identifies an increasingly important neoliberal knowledge practice: malagnogenesis. Malagnogenesis is proposed herein as the production of ignorance that normalizes harm for and amongst marginalized populations. To shed light on the phenomena of malagnogenesis, this study investigated the history of leaded gasoline in the U.S. To that end, I …

Investigation Of Future Flow Reducer Sizes In Houses Added To An Existing Gravity Flow Water System To Ensure Its Sustainability, Michelle Roy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Goal 6 of the United Nations Development Program’s new Sustainable Development Goals aims to ensure availability of clean water and sustainable management practices to all by the year 2030. Peace Corps Panama partners with communities in order to help provide sustainable water solutions to communities in need. Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) Volunteers spend at least two years living in a community to identify and implement solutions to water problems and train local water committees on how to maintain their improved systems. A common solution for unequal distribution of flow in the distribution network of a gravity flow water system …

Situating Migrants In Contemporary Japan: From Public Spaces To Personal Experiences, Milena Urszula Janiec Grygo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Within the broader literature on migration, Japan is often portrayed as straddling two categories, one of a homogenous country and another of a multicultural society. The arguments on both sides are supported through the historical evidence, analysis of media resources, as well as narratives of Japanese residents. This inquiry seeks to highlight voices of migrants within these debates. This dissertation focuses on the urban – rural residential experiences of international migrants in Kanto and Tohoku regions. This inquiry treats international migration processes in terms of moving between the contexts of different countries as well as between urban – rural locations. …

Making A Place For People At A Wildlife Corridor On Chicago's South Side, Alexis Winter

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

What role do environmental conservation projects play in the transformation of American cities? How do these projects affect city residents? In this study, I ask these questions at the Burnham Wildlife Corridor, where the Chicago Park District worked with institutional and community-based partner organizations to engage city residents in the creation of a lakefront wildlife habitat and public nature area. Through ethnographic interviews and participant observation I explored how actors at various levels understand this changing landscape and their roles in shaping it. I situate the Burnham Wildlife Corridor project in the broader context of a state-level plan, the Millennium …

Media Representations Of Abortion Politics In Florida: Feminist Geographic Analysis Of Newspaper Articles, 2011-2013, Jennifer Iceton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Feminist geographers argue that gendered bodies and power are deeply entwined (McDowell 1992; Rose 1993). However, few geographers have investigated how gender and power interact in relation to the politics of abortion access. This thesis seeks to fill this gap by conducting a feminist content analysis of six newspapers from Florida’s three largest metropolitan areas to determine how articles featuring abortion are framed. Analysis of the dataset concludes that the politicization of the abortion debate results in the erasure of women from the conversation, the identification of a pregnant women trope which homogenizes all women into one category, and Planned …

Just Hospitality: Wage Theft, Grassroots Labor Organizing, And Activist Research In Nashville, Tennessee, Rachel Tyree

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This politically engaged project locally grounds the efforts of low-wage workers in the United States who are addressing the nationwide epidemic of wage theft by focusing on the particular experience of organized hospitality cleaning workers at a worker center in Nashville, Tennessee. While being both collaborative and reflexive, this activist anthropological research utilizes observant participation, in-depth interviews, and organizational and archival research to explore the issues identified by members and organizers at the worker center, illustrate the alternative theories of change being generated from grassroots labor organizing efforts in light of state mechanisms that do not protect all workers, and …

The Effect Of Home Range Estimation Techniques On Habitat Use Analysis, Brendon Quinton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The term “home range” refers to the area in which an animal spends most of its time during everyday activities. This study examined the effects of four different home range estimation techniques on the proportions of habitats located therein. The study utilized a point dataset collected for twenty individual Florida Black Bears (Ursus americanus floridanus), occurring in five different areas throughout the state of Florida. Each dataset was used to create home ranges using the following techniques: (1) Minimum Convex Polygon, (2) Kernel Density Estimation, (3) Characteristic Hull Polygon, and (4) Time-Geographic Density Estimation, a new home range …

Environmental And Community Health In South San Diego County: A Behavior Analysis Of Recreational Ocean Users Along Imperial Beach, California, Trista Brophy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Garbage & sewage runoff into the Pacific Ocean at the shoreline along the U.S./Mexico Border region poses serious health and environmental threats. The purpose of this study was to analyze the current beach users’ behavioral factors that may be linked to illness prevalence from Coronado Island to the U.S./Mexico border at Imperial Beach in San Diego County. It is a continuation of a study completed by Wildcoast and Imperial Beach Clinic in 2011. The study tried to answer the following two major questions: How have the number of illnesses reported by users along South San Diego County beaches changed in …

A Closer Look Into Remote Work: Examining Resources Within Remote Work Arrangements With Outcomes Of Job Performance And Work-Family Conflict, Kaitlin Kiburz Kiburz

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Remote work has become a popular topic within organizations and the popular press. However, academic research has been inconclusive as to whether remote work is related to benefits of increased job performance and lessened work-family conflict. This study examined remote work resources to gain an in-depth understanding of how remote work relates to job performance and work-family conflict. One hundred fifty-one salespeople participated in two time-lagged surveys regarding remote work resources (autonomy, feedback, access to information and interaction with one’s supervisor), outcomes (subjective and objective job performance and work family-conflict) and demographics. Remote work resources were not significantly related to …

Tracing The Material: Spaces And Objects In British And Irish Modernist Novels, Mary Allison Wise

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Tracing the Material considers how James Joyce’s Ulysses, Virginia Woolf’s The Years, and Samuel Beckett’s Murphy represent material spaces and objects as a way of engaging with the fraught histories of England and Ireland. I argue that these three writers use spaces and objects to think through and critique nineteenth and early twentieth-century conflicts and transitions, particularly in the areas of empire, nationalism, gender, and family. Writing in the 1920s and 1930s, in the decline of British ascendency, the rise of the Irish Free State, and between the World Wars, these writers seek to interpret their history through …

Sustainability At U.S. Urban Water Utilities: A Framework To Assess Key Attributes, Matthew Paul Ries

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Urban water utilities in the United States face challenges due to a combination of external drivers. These include urbanization and population growth, which are stressing a system of aging infrastructure. Compliance with increasing regulations is also a challenge in a fiscally-constrained economic environment. A changing climate threatens infrastructure and past assumptions for water supply and quality. Urban utilities provide clean water and sanitation services to over 80% of the country’s population and its industrial centers. Therefore, the sustainability of these water utilities are crucial to the country’s and the public’s well-being.

New operating models are emerging for a “utility of …

Preservice Teachers Engaged In Professional Learning Community To Explore Critical Literacy, Vanessa Casciola

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As demographics change, our school populations are ever changing. Preservice teachers (PSTs) need to be aware of how to meet the needs of all of their future students. Teacher education programs have been charged with the duty of preparing these PSTs for the diverse school population they will encounter. This qualitative multiple case study focused on the influence of specific work with PSTs in the inquiry process within a learning community to make sense of critical literacy. The following research questions guided this study: (1) How do elementary PSTs engaged in practitioner inquiry make meaning of critical literacy instruction within …

The Communication Constitution Of Law Enforcement In North Carolina’S Efforts Against Human Trafficking, Elizabeth Hampton Jeter

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Over the past 20 years, human trafficking has gained international attention and resulted in the creation of anti-trafficking laws in the United States. Politicians, scholars, and organizations have called for more professional efforts against human trafficking and advocated for better education and awareness to identify victims and prosecute traffickers. Local law enforcement is recognized for its ideal position in communities to combat this crime. In 2011, North Carolina implemented a statewide human trafficking training program for law enforcement. This research study examines the communication constitution of law enforcement and the use of power through this training program and as officers …

Pollutants And Foraminiferal Assemblages In Torrecillas Lagoon: An Environmental Micropaleontology Approach, Michael Martinez-Colon

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Torrecillas Lagoon in the North Coast of Puerto Rico has experienced extensive anthropogenic influence over the past 400 years. Elevated concentrations of Potential Toxic Elements (PTEs) have been reported in surficial sediments. The main goal of this dissertation was to implement in Puerto Rico the use of benthic foraminifers as a bioindicators of PTEs and to compare the impact of Cu(II) on field samples with results of experimental work using cultures.

Analyses included geochemical assessment for bulk and carbonate- soluble bioavailable concentrations of PTEs in surface, core and pore-water samples, as well as analyses of grain-size, Percent Total Organic Carbon …

Applications Of Satellite Geodesy In Environmental And Climate Change, Qian Yang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Satellite geodesy plays an important role in earth observation. This dissertation presents three applications of satellite geodesy in environmental and climate change. Three satellite geodesy techniques are used: high-precision Global Positioning System (GPS), the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR). In the first study, I use coastal uplift observed by GPS to study the annual changes in mass loss of the Greenland ice sheet. The data show both spatial and temporal variations of coastal ice mass loss and suggest that a combination of warm atmospheric and oceanic condition drove these variations. In the second …