Digital Commons Network^™

The Effect Of Urbanization On The Embodied Energy Of Drinking Water In Tampa, Florida, Mark Vincent Eli Santana

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Increasing urbanization has serious implications for resource and energy use. One of these resources is drinking water. The increased amount of impervious surfaces associated with urban development is responsible for increased runoff during rain events, which may have a negative impact on the quality of nearby bodies of water, including drinking water sources. The growing populations associated with urbanization require a higher water demand. In addition, urban drinking water systems use energy to collect, treat, and distribute a safe reliable effluent to users. Therefore, this study focuses on the degree to which urbanization influences the embodied energy of drinking water …

“You Better Redneckognize”: White Working-Class People And Reality Television, Tasha Rose Rennels

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project documents the complex and interwoven relationship between mediated representations and lived experiences of white working-class people—a task inspired by the author’s experiences growing up in a white working-class family and neighborhood and how she came to understand herself through watching films and television shows. Theoretically guided by Foucault’s recognition that people are constituted in and through discourse, the author specifically analyzes how reality television articulates certain ideas about white working-class people and how those who identify as members of this population, including the author, negotiate such articulations. A focus on white working-class people is important considering their increasing …

Mid-Holocene Speleothem Climate Proxy Records From Florida And Belize, Anna L. Pollock

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As global temperatures rise due to anthropogenic climate change, water resources, thus economies, are threatened. A geologically recent period of increased temperatures is the mid-Holocene and an investigation of its climate may allow for a better understanding of future precipitation and changes to regional water resources. The regions of interest are tropical Northern Central America and subtropical North America with Belize and Florida representing each climate zone. By reconstructing mid-Holocene climate in Florida and Belize, I hope to provide a better understanding of how increased temperatures and a reduced latitudinal temperature gradient impacts both precipitation patterns and variability. Today, drivers …

Teaching About Race In Introductory Anthropology Courses: An Ethnographic Study, Jennifer Gilroy Hunsecker

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

American anthropology has focused on issues related to race from the start of the discipline. From past work designed to categorize humans into phenotype-based categories to current work to undo those categorizations, many anthropologists consider race to be one of the most important topics for students to learn. In this dissertation, I use in-depth ethnographic case studies consisting of interviews, observations, and focus groups, to learn about the way in which anthropologists at four institutions of higher education teach the topic to students in their introductory, four-field general anthropology class. I found that anthropologists are committed to sharing anthropological perspectives …

The Political Pilgrim: William Lithgow Of Lanark On God And Country, Philip Anthony Davis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Travel literature has been understood to comment on the expectations and impressions of the traveler as they encountered foreign spaces, customs, and people. There has been an unspoken understanding, at best, that travelers who wrote their tales used these foreign spaces to engage in debates that were meaningful to their domestic audience. However, the author has been central to much of the analysis, disconnecting travel literature from other linguistic exercises that more directly offered observations that were directly rooted in domestic culture. Author-centered analysis isolates the traveler from the wider world in which they engaged. It also ignores the other …

The Impact Of Bus Rapid Transit Implementation On Residential Property Values: A Case Study In Reno, Nv, Steven Thomas Ulloa

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Since literature that evaluates the impacts that Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) has on surrounding property values is limited, this research contributes to this research by investigating if proximity to a BRT station has an effect, either positive or negative, on residential housing values. Further, it investigates if the nature and extent of this effect varied during different stages of implementation of the BRT system and different housing market conditions. Fluctuations in sale prices were mitigated based on a six month moving median. Four hedonic price models were then used to evaluate the influence of independent variables on the dependent variable, …

Trash Talk: Understanding Food Waste At A Charter Elementary School In Florida, Steven A. Williams

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Waste as a topic for anthropological investigation has enjoyed a recent resurgence in interest, mirroring burgeoning discussion among policy-makers and the general public about questions of environmental impacts, economic costs, and social detriments of contemporary waste management paradigms. While waste management in the United States has largely focused on technical and organizational solutions typically considered the domain of environmental planning and engineering (such as source reduction, recycling, and reuse), anthropology and the social sciences have become more prominently involved in efforts to inform policy-makers and researchers about the social and behavioral factors influencing waste norms and habits, particularly in educational …

Cross-Cultural Spaces In An Anonymously Painted Portrait Of The Ottoman Sultan Mahmud Ii, Alison Paige Terndrup

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes an anonymous portrait painting of the Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II (r. 1808-1839), called by its descriptive title Seated Portrait of Mahmud II, within the context of the extensive portrait campaign commissioned by the sultan. Surviving examples from this series of diplomatic portraits share a unique set of intercultural iconographic vocabularies as a reflection of their time as well as implicit reinforcement of the sultan's political goals. By focusing on Seated Portrait of Mahmud II, I argue that a closer inspection of the campaign within a context that pays attention to Ottoman, European, and Persian visual practices reveals …

A Gramscian Analysis Of Roman Bathing In The Provinces, Diana Danielle Davis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper argues the institution of Roman bathing was an instrument of cultural hegemony, which allowed the Roman Empire to maintain hegemony over the Roman provinces. Numerous frameworks have been suggested in order to provide a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between Rome and the provinces. Roman imperialism has been a topic of debate for over one hundred years and the vicissitudes of scholarly thought are highlighted by the changes in the characterization of the theory of Romanization. In the recent past, scholars have sought a framework that could progress beyond the problematic concept of Romanization in order to better …

Risk-Taking Characteristics As Explanatory Variables In Variations Of Fatality Rates In The Southeastern United States, Jodi Anne Godfrey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Traffic fatalities accounted for 1.24 million lives lost in 2013 worldwide, and almost 33 thousand of those fatalities were in the U.S. in 2013. The southeastern region of the nation stands out for continuously having higher fatality rates per mile driven than the national average. If one can establish compelling relationships between various factors and fatality rates, then policies and investments can be targeted to increase the safety on the network by focusing on policies that mitigate those factors. In this research effort risk-taking characteristics are explored. These factors have not been as comprehensively reviewed as conventional factors such as …

Solids Accumulation Rates Of Latrines At Rural Schools In Nimba County, Liberia, Caraline M. Murphy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Access to appropriate sanitation facilities as well as access to clean drinking water are considered fundamental human rights (Carr, 2001; Bjorklund & Sjodin, 2010), yet roughly 2.5 billion people on the planet lack access to an improved form of sanitation (WHO/UNICEF, 2014). Additionally, many entities responsible for emergency excreta management and sanitation management design guidelines, specifically solids accumulation rates in latrine pits, use rates that are 30-60 years old and may be established from dated knowledge on diet and lifestyle trends (Franceys et al., 1992; Harvey et al., 2002; Harvey, 2007). Using solids accumulation rates that are dated as well …

Improving Lidar Data Post-Processing Techniques For Archaeological Site Management And Analysis: A Case Study From Canaveral National Seashore Park, Christopher James Griesbach

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Methods used to process raw Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data can sometimes obscure the digital signatures indicative of an archaeological site. This thesis explains the negative effects that certain LiDAR data processing procedures can have on the preservation of an archaeological site. This thesis also presents methods for effectively integrating LiDAR with other forms of mapping data in a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) environment in order to improve LiDAR archaeological signatures by examining several pre-Columbian Native American shell middens located in Canaveral National Seashore Park (CANA).

An Analysis Of The Reported And Unreported Baccalaureate Degree Recipients In Ipeds At A Large Public Research Institution, Mary Elizabeth Wallace

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

One of the challenges facing higher education today is to graduate undergraduate students in a timely manner. Graduation rates are reported to students, parents, and the general public as well as academic and political leaders. The rates are derived using different methodologies. The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) collects data annually by law from every institution offering federal financial aid in the United States. The "IPEDS reported" students are considered students who start in the fall semester, full-time, first-time in college, and graduate from the original institution (no transfers). The adult, part-time, returning, and transfer students, or "IPEDS unreported" …

Situating Contraceptive Practices And Public Health Strategy In The Bronx: Perspectives From Female Youth, Healthcare Workers, And Reproductive Health Leaders, Hannah Louise Helmy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the United States, concerns about adolescent childbearing and its perceived corollaries – negative health outcomes for mother and child, the disintegration of the nuclear family, and “over-dependence” on public resources – began to circulate widely in policy spheres and popular media in the 1970’s, resulting in a proliferation of policies, programs, and services designed to address its prevention. Although national birth rates among adolescents are currently at their lowest since peaking in the early 1990’s, this decline masks persistent and significant disparities between groups of young people by race, ethnicity, geography, and poverty level. The concomitant existence of social …

Quantifying The Interaction Of Wildlife And Roads: A Habitat And Movement Approach, Rebecca Whitehead Loraamm

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There is a growing need to address the effects of roadway presence on wildlife. Not only do roads directly impact gene dispersal from a movement perspective, but they limit movement of the individual animal from a habitat perspective by presenting an artificial barrier between one area of viable habitat and another. For this reason it is becoming increasingly important to quantify contact between humans and wildlife and to develop better methods for mitigating these types of conflicts. Studying habitat connectivity and animal mobility in the context of roads can provide actionable information on how, where, and when these encounters might …

Muckraking And C.O.B.Y (Cry Of Black Youth): Uncovering A History Of Organizing In Belle Glade, Raymond A. Hamilton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines a local activist group in the rural town of Belle Glade, Florida during the late 1960s and early 1970s. This research falls in line with many New Black Power studies. These New Black Power studies challenge existing notions of the Black Power and Civil Rights eras and their relationship to one another. It challenges the time frames, geography and ideology of both of the eras. This case study of a the group in Belle Glade is not the first to examine the similarities of the Black Power and Civil Rights eras, where many groups who affiliated with …

Tornado Fatalities: An In-Depth Look At Physical And Societal Influences, Heather Joann Key

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to model and determine significant predictors of tornado death index values, and to investigate these significant predictors and what makes people vulnerable to tornado fatalities through expert interviews. This study also provides an understanding of the study participant’s perceptions of their county’s vulnerability to tornado fatality and demonstrates a true integration of methods and fields by studying geographic, meteorological, and sociological phenomena by use of quantitative and qualitative methods. The study consists of two parts: 1) A quantitative exploration of variables hypothesized to predict Tornado Death Index (TDI) values, 2) A qualitative investigation to …

Documenting Perceived Effectiveness Of Community-Based Health Promotion Coalitions: A Grounded Theory Approach, Alyssa Brooke Mayer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: Community coalitions with public health-related missions are formal, semi-permanent, action-oriented partnerships comprised of community members, representatives of government agencies, policymakers, and academic partners. Despite their potential to promote sustainable change, coalitions have had mixed success in effecting long-term improvements in community health. There is a need to assist them in developing strategies for improving and sustaining their functionality. The purpose of this study was to improve understanding of the elements of coalition success and sustainability that are vital to health-related community-based participatory research.

Methods: Although the literature describes coalition functions for effecting sustainable programs and policies, most research reports …

Ecological Sanitation In Uganda: Promotion Through Demonstration Facilities And Potential For Ascaris Reduction By Free Ammonia Inactivation Using Stored Urine, John Thomas Trimmer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As Uganda works to transform itself into an industrialized, middle-income country in the coming decades, the country is faced with a number of problematic trends that could hinder this transition. High population growth and urbanization are quickly forcing small towns to deal with issues of limited space and the aesthetic conditions within sanitation systems, while declining soil fertility in surrounding rural areas calls into question the future nutritional security of the growing population. Ecological Sanitation (Eco-San) systems, which are designed to recover nutrients from human excreta, may help to address these trends.

Improved sanitation coverage in Uganda is currently estimated …

Patterns Of Consumption: Ceramic Residue Analysis At Liangchengzhen, Shandong, China, Rheta E. Lanehart

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis was to identify the different patterns of food consumption across space and time at Liangchengzhen, a Longshan (ca. 2600-1900 B.C.) site located in Shandong Province, China. The primary hypothesis of the research contended that evidence of increasing social inequality with respect to food consumption would be found from early to late phases at Liangchengzhen. In addition, rice and meat from mammals, especially pigs, were hypothesized as the most likely types of prestigious foods for daily and ritual activities. Fish and marine foods in general were hypothesized to be foods that average households could obtain since …

A Composite Spatial Model Incorporating Groundwater Vulnerability And Environmental Disturbance To Guide Land Management, Johanna L. Kovarik

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research has long recognized and studied the dynamics of groundwater processes. More recently, groundwater dependent ecosystems (GDEs) are being recognized for their diversity and vulnerability to anthropogenic impact. Groundwater in karst landscapes presents a distinctive situation where flow through the subsurface often moves rapidly on the scale of days and weeks as opposed to years or millennia in other systems. This distinctive situation of karst systems and their vulnerability to human impacts necessitate an integrated and multifaceted approach for the management of these important resources. However, development of such an approach is complicated by the difficulty of obtaining detailed data …

Glaciological Applications Of Terrestrial Radar Interferometry, Denis Voytenko

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Terrestrial Radar Interferometry (TRI) is a relatively new ground-based technique that combines the precision and spatial resolution of satellite interferometry with the temporal resolution of GPS. Although TRI has been applied to a variety of fields including bridge and landslide monitoring, it is ideal for studies of the highly-dynamic terminal zones of marine-terminating glaciers, some of which are known to have variable velocities related to calving and/or ocean-forced melting. My TRI instrument is the Gamma Portable Radar Interferometer, which operates at 17.2 GHz (1.74 cm wavelength), has two receiving antennas for DEM (digital elevation model) generation, and images the scenes …

Informing Systems, Interventions, And Innovations, William Francis Murphy Jr.

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this dissertation is to not only explain the informing system discipline, but to explore cases from the perspective of the basic tenants of informing systems. The first essay explains what informing science is, the need for a transdiscipline, the channels of the Informing Science Institute informing system, and describes the clients of the ISI. The first essay ends with an analysis of the authors, institutions, and countries of origin for every ISI paper published between 1998 and 2009, as well as reporting interviews with the Editor-In-Chiefs of each ISI journal. The second essay investigates a case study …

I Demand. . . Sorry, I Apologize: Power, Collaboration, And Technology In The Social Construction Of Leadership Across Diversity, Heather Sadler Jones

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This transformative case study used qualitative and quantitative methods to explore the social construction of collaborative and technology leadership among students in a graduate-level course on curriculum leadership. Analysis of interactions among students during an asynchronous computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) project using critical discourse analysis was completed. Student dialogue was analyzed for how students across different social groups interacted discursively to promote and inhibit the development of leadership in the domains of collaboration and technology, while socially constructing the knowledge context for learning about the societal curriculum for diverse social groups. Findings were that women more than men were verbose …

A Functional Approach To Resolving The Biogeocomplexity Of Two Extreme Environments, Haydn Rubelmann Iii

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The biodiversity of two distinct marine environments was observed to describe the biogeocomplexity of these extreme ecological systems. A shallow-water hydrothermal vent in Papua New Guinea served as a study of a thermophilic ecosystem influenced by arsenic rich vent fluids while a 60 m deep offshore primarily anoxic karst sink served as a study of an anaerobic sulfur-influenced habitat. Both environments support unique biological communities that are influenced by the physical and chemical pressures imposed on them by the harsh conditions of these systems. In Tutum Bay, Ambitle Isle, Papua New Guinea, a transect was created from a shallow hydrothermal …

Enlightenment On The Margins: The Catholic Enlightenment As Reflected In Ludovico Antonio Muratori's Il Cristianesimo Felice Nelle Missioni De' Padri Della Compagnia Di Gesù Nel Paraguai, Joshua Edward Britt

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

My research analyzes the way in which Ludovico Antonio Muratori portrayed marginal peoples of the New World in his Il Cristianesimo Felice nelle Missioni De' Padri della Compagnia di Gesù nel Paraguai, published in 1743. I argue that Muratori used his portrayal of the native people of Paraguay as a means to express his ideas of how to reform the Catholic Church, at a time when Catholicism was just experiencing the first waves of enlightened influence from the north. I engage with scholarship on the Enlightenment that has addressed specifically the cultural impact of what has been called the Catholic …

The Influence Of The Projected Coordinate System On Animal Home Range Estimation Area, Michael Barr

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Animal home range estimations are important for conservation planning and protecting the habitat of threatened species. The accuracy of home range calculations is influenced by the map projection chosen in a geographic information system (GIS) for data analysis. Different methods of projection will distort spatial data in different ways, so it is important to choose a projection that meets the needs of the research. The large number of projections in use today and the lack of distortion comparison between the various types make selecting the most appropriate projection a difficult decision. The purpose of this study is to quantify and …

Spatial Analysis Of Foreclosures In Hillsborough County, Brian Arthur Sandrock

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the spatial impact various socio-demographic and housing factors might have in the foreclosure lis pendens rate within various Hillsborough County, Florida tracts as well as comparing those results with past research. Hopefully the techniques used in this study can be implemented elsewhere in order to better study the foreclosure crisis. The methods used within this research were chosen carefully in order to best understand what is being observed. One method is OLS regression which helps see the impact of each variable and if that impact has a negative or positive effect on the rate of foreclosure. Bivariate …

An Investigation Of Methodologies For Determining Walkability And Its Association With Socio-Demographics: An Application To The Tampa - St. Petersburg Urbanized Area, Oana A. Mckinney

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Walkability research has broadened in the past few years, being performed by researchers in different fields such as urban planning, public health, and transportation planning. Definitions of walkability and methods of operationalizing the concept vary widely. Since the results of studies that incorporate walkability may well have policy implications, it is important to consider the potential impacts of different definitions and methods of measurement.

This thesis investigates to what extent walkability indices may differ when either the composition of the indices is changed or when different quantitative methods of standardization are used to summarize their component measures. The association of …

Etruscan Trade Networks: Understanding The Significance Of Imported Materials At Remote Etruscan Settlements Through Trace Element Analysis Using Non-Destructive X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometry, Patrick T. Woodruff

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Etruscan civilization was rich in local and interregional trade. Its exchange networks were vital in establishing relationships with other societies, importing exotic materials and goods, as well as disseminating and assimilating information. However, there is little understanding of the participation of smaller inland settlements in the act of exchange. This research answers questions pertaining to the purpose of trade within these self-sustaining communities, the reliability of identifying geographic locations of the clay used in ancient ceramics through the use of non-destructive X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) spectrometry without sampling current regional clay sources, and the materiality of the ceramics being exchanged …