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Lipoproteins And Health Outcomes: Cognitive And Physical Function In Older Adults, Marianne Chanti-Ketterl

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cardiovascular health is a major determinant of quality of life and mortality, especially in older adulthood. With the world’s oldest population increasing at expedited rates, challenges from cardiovascular conditions and its implications are spawning. Although it is well known that dyslipidemia may lead to cardiac events, less is known about the effects on cognitive and physical function in older adults. Epidemiological studies show that optimizing current preventive strategies even at older ages may reduce the incidence of cardiovascular comorbidity (e.g. hypertension, stroke) and increase quality of life. Determining the association between lipoproteins and cognitive and functional performance in older adults …

Engaging Overqualified Employees: The Role Of Job And Nonwork Crafting, Soner Dumani

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The present study examined the relationship between perceived overqualification and work engagement through basic need satisfaction at work and further incorporated job crafting and nonwork crafting to understand the indirect role of need satisfaction. In study 1, a new measure for targeted nonwork crafting was developed and validated. The final scale provided adequate reliability and validity evidence, and predicted life satisfaction and job satisfaction above and beyond the measures of intrinsic motivation and recovery experiences. The main study included a total of 321 full-time employees who had been working in their current job for at least 3 months and represented …

A Comparative Analysis Of Portable X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometry And Stable Isotopes In Assessing Ancient Coastal Peruvian Diets, Theresa Jane Gilbertson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores a cross-cultural analysis of the dietary signatures of four coastal cultures of prehistoric Peru. A combination of elemental analysis based on portable x-ray fluorescence spectrometry (pXRF), testing trace elements presented in 209 individuals’ skulls representing the Nazca (38), Cañete (33), Lima (40), and Moche (98) valleys and/or cultures of the first millennium AD, is weighed in conjunction with isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS) to analyze human bone collagen and bone apatite derived from a portion of the individuals represented in the Nazca, Cañete, and Lima cranial samples.

Evidence from the results of both tests are weighed using …

The Efficacy Of Child Parent Relationship Therapy When Conducted In An Online Format On Levels Of Parental Acceptance, Brenna Michele Hicks

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Children’s mental health is a topic of concern, not only in the escalating number of children who meet diagnostic criteria for disorders, but also for the practitioners desiring to treat them effectively. Parental involvement in treatment results in more favorable outcomes with longer treatment gains observed, thus reducing mental health issues.

An additional factor in children’s mental health is the effect of levels of parental acceptance toward the child. Parental acceptance is a positive outcome that has been observed in previous studies conducted with Child-Parent Relationship Therapy (CPRT).

There are many reported barriers to seeking treatment for mental health issues, …

An Investigation Of The Relationship Between Face-To-Face Orientations, Instructor Verbal Immediacy Behaviors, And Persistence In Online Courses, Donald Painter, Jr.

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The persistence rate in online classes remains significantly lower than in comparable face-to-face classes. There is a lack of research on strategies to help learners persist in online classes. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between face-to-face orientations, instructor verbal immediacy behaviors, and persistence in online classes. It also explored the relationship between verbal immediacy and student satisfaction. Due to the disagreement in the literature, this study also investigated the relationship between student demographic variables, grade point average, and persistence.

This quantitative study combined both causal-comparative and correlational research methods. The study took place at a …

Characterization Of Two Novel Gene Regulatory Systems In The Zoonotic Bacterium Bartonella Henselae, Nhan Tu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The genus Bartonella contains Gram-negative arthropod-borne bacteria that are found in many small animal reservoirs and are capable of causing human disease. Bacteria utilize a general stress response system to combat stresses from their surrounding environments. In α-proteobacteria, the general stress response system uses an alternate σ factor as the main regulator and incorporates it with a two-component system into a unique system. Our study identifies the general stress response system in the α-proteobacterium, Bartonella henselae, where the gene synteny is conserved and both the PhyR and alternate σ factor have similar sequence and domain structures with other α-proteobacteria. …

Investigation Of The Mechanisms For Mobilization Of Arsenic In Two Asr Systems In Southwest Central Florida, Gregg William Jones

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) is a strategy in which water is injected into an aquifer when it is plentiful and pumped from the aquifer when water is scarce. An impediment to ASR in Florida is leaching of naturally-occurring arsenic from limestone of the Upper Floridan Aquifer System (UFAS) into stored water. The concentration of arsenic in surface water, which serves as the recharge water for many ASR systems, and native groundwater is usually much less than 3.0 µ/L. However, data from ASR wells in Florida show that arsenic in recovered water frequently exceeded the 10 µg/L maximum contaminant level …

Targeting Autopalmitoylation To Modulate Protein S-Palmitoylation, Laura Dawn Hamel

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Palmitoylation refers to the covalent attachment of fatty acids, such as palmitate, onto the cysteine residues of proteins. This process may subsequently alter their localization and function. Nearly all of the enzymes that catalyze palmitoylation, zDHHC protein acyl transferases (PATs), are implicated in neurological disorders, infectious diseases, and cancer in humans. Of particular interest to those who study palmitoylation are Ras family GTPas and zDHHC9-GCP16, the zDHHC PAT that palmitoylates Ras proteins. Erf2-Erf4 is the zDHHC PAT that palmitoylates Ras proteins in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Currently, there are no methods to therapeutically target palmitoylation for the treatment of disease. One …

From Adolescence To Adulthood: Analyzing Multiple Perspectives On The Transition From High School To Post-School Life Through A Multi-Case Study Design, Gregory Knollman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore the transition experience of three individuals with intellectual disabilities, members of their family, their former transition program coordinator, and members of their support network including current employers or support service providers. This qualitative study used Bronfenbrenner’s (1977) ecological model and Kohler’s (1996) Taxonomy for Transition to frame three case studies designed to capture the transition experience of young adults with disabilities who exited a university-based, school district funded, transition program.

Using Bronfenbrenner’s (1977) ecological perspective, which focused on a behavior or interaction of people across multiple environments, the aim was to interview …

Thinking Nature, "Pierre Maupertuis And The Charge Of Error Against Fermat And Leibniz", Richard Samuel Lamborn

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to defend Pierre Fermat and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz against the charge of error made against them by Pierre Maupertuis that they errantly applied final causes to physics. This charge came in Maupertuis’ 1744 speech to the Paris Academy of Sciences, later published in different versions, entitled Accord Between Different Laws Which at First Seemed Incompatible. It is in this speech that Maupertuis lays claim to one of the most important discoveries in the history of physics and science, The Principle of Least Action. From the date of this speech up until the end …

Molecular And Phenotypic Studies Validating The Role Of The Ecdysone Receptor In The Human Parasite Brugia Malayi, Amruta Mhashilkar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Filariasis and onchocerciasis are debilitating diseases affecting 120 million people globally. The massive socio-economic impact of these diseases energized the international community to declare a goal of eliminating filariasis 2020. This resulted in a dramatic increase in the efforts to eliminate filariasis and onchocerciasis, employing a strategy of mass drug administration (MDA). However, these programs rely upon the small arsenal of drugs. This leaves these programs vulnerable to failure in the face of developing resistance and local intolerance to the current drug regimens. Thus, new drugs against these infections are critically needed. A homologue of the ecdysone receptor (EcR), a …

Pathogen Removal In Natural Wastewater Treatment And Resource Recovery Systems: Solutions For Small Cities In An Urbanizing World, Matthew Eric Verbyla

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Sanitation, renewable energy, and food security are among the most pressing global development needs of the century, especially for small cities with rapid population growth. Currently, 53% of the world’s population either lacks access to improved sanitation or discharges fecal waste to the environment without treatment. Furthermore, 80% of food consumed in developing regions is produced by 500 million small farms, and while many of them are still rain-fed, irrigated agriculture is increasing. The post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals, recently adopted by the United Nations, include targets to address the water-energy-food nexus. Wastewater reuse in agriculture can be an important solution …

The Effect Of Colorist Images On Appearance Concerns Of Black Women, Leah Boepple

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

American culture supports a colorist system that values lighter skin tones in women of color, and these norms are communicated in some part by images present in our society. Previous research has not explored the impact that colorist images may have on the psychological health and appearance concerns of women of color. The purpose of the current study was to determine whether exposure to images of Black women who more closely meet colorist beauty standards (i.e., lighter skin) would negatively impact women’s psychological health and general appearance concerns. It was hypothesized that participants exposed to colorist images of Black women …

Use Of Spirometry For Medical Clearance And Surveillance In Occupations Requiring Respirator Use, Ushang Prakshbhai Desai

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Medical certification of workers for respirator use is an important activity of occupational medicine health professionals. Spirometry is a diagnostic tool to evaluate respiratory distress/insufficiency that may affect respirator use. In this study, we analyzed the pulmonary function data of 337 workers from different occupations which required medical evaluation to wear a respirator. The American Thoracic Society and National Fire Protection Association criteria were used to evaluate employees. Of 337 workers who were cleared for respiratory use on the basis of medical questionnaires for respirator compliance, 14 (4.15%) failed to pass respirator compliance on the basis of NFPA criteria and …

Content Abuse And Privacy Concerns In Online Social Networks, Md Imrul Kayes

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Online Social Networks (OSNs) have seen an exponential growth over the last decade, with Facebook having more than 1.49 billion monthly active users and Twitter having 135,000 new users signing up every day as of 2015. Users are sharing 70 million photos per day on the Instagram photo-sharing network. Yahoo Answers question-answering community has more than 1 billion posted answers. The meteoric rise in popularity has made OSNs important social platforms for computer-mediated communications and embedded themselves into society’s daily life, with direct consequences to the offline world and activities. OSNs are built on a foundation of trust, where users …

#Networkedglobe: Making The Connection Between Social Media And Intercultural Technical Communication, Laura Anne Ewing

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Preparing students of technical communication in the twenty-first century means training them to rhetorically utilize a wide variety of online tools. Technical communicators are now required to employ social media applications on a daily basis to communicate with clients, consumers, colleagues, and other organizations. These online modes have also opened the door to global communication wider and continue to present opportunities and challenges to technical communicators worldwide. Using Japan as a model, this dissertation sought to demonstrate a rhetorical exigency for teaching intercultural social media communication strategies to future technical communicators in the United States. The goal of this dissertation …

Kinematic Control Of Redundant Mobile Manipulators, Mustafa Mashali

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A mobile manipulator is a robotic arm mounted on a robotic mobile platform. In such a system, the degrees of freedom of the mobile platform are combined with that of the manipulator. As a result, the workspace of the manipulator is substantially extended. A mobile manipulator has two trajectories: the end-effector trajectory and the mobile platform trajectory. Typically, the mobile platform trajectory is not defined and is determined through inverse kinematics. But in some applications it is important to follow a specified mobile platform trajectory. The main focus of this work is to determine the inverse kinematics of a mobile …

Cognitive Load Of Registered Nurses During Medication Administration, Sarah Faith Perron

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Over 4 million avoidable hospital admissions result from medication errors (IMS Insitute for Healthcare Informatics, 2013). Human error accounts for 80% of all medical errors (Palmieri, DeLucia, Peterson, Ott, & Green, 2008). Medication administration is a complex process. It is important to understand the cognitive load (CL) of Registered Nurses (RNs) working in an electronic health record environment to identify the risk factors of medication errors. The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors that influence the CL of RNs during medication administration who are working in an electronic health record environment. Simulated medication administration scenarios with varying …

Elucidation Of The Role Of Poly(Adp-Ribose) Polymerase In Drug-Induced Toxicity, Kambria Haire

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Drug toxicity may cause liver injury, resulting in damage to cells and tissues. This damage can lead to cytotoxic events that may result in an activation of poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP). A study was conducted to determine if cocaine and acetaminophen toxicity lead to DNA damage and to the activation of the repair protein, PARP in the liver using the hepatotoxicants: cocaine and acetaminophen (APAP).

A dose-response analysis for cocaine concluded that a dose as low as 20 mg/kg resulted in elevated ALT levels. A higher dose of 60 mg/kg was tested for analyses but resulted in severe hemorrhaging. The …

Now, We Hear Through A Voice Darkly: New Media And Narratology In Cinematic Art, James Anthony Ricci

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the intersection of new media and narrative, as it is presented through a cinematic aesthetic. The narrative language of film is analyzed through the theoretical framework of Bakhtin’s concepts of Heteroglossia, Chronotope, and Dialogism. Bakhtin’s ideas of classifying language act as strong tools for demonstrating how cinematic narrative can inform and alter the perception of its spectators. Lev Manovich’s principles of New Media, specifically Variability, Modularity, and Automation are also utilized to demonstrate how cinema is a constantly evolving paradigm.

Chapter one focuses on the theoretical terminology, outlining the conceptual definitions and illustrating their relevance in precise …

Exploratory Study Of Counseling Professionals’ Attitudes Toward Distance Clinical Supervision, Brittani Fiore Munchel

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Many forms of distance clinical supervision (DCS) have been used in the last decade, but a sparse amount of research addressing (DCS) in counselor education exists to date. The author used random and snowball sampling to survey American Counseling Association members, with a analytic sample total of 96 participants. In the sample, 54.2% of participants were licensed counseling professionals and 39.6% were student or post-masters level interns. The average participant age was 43, ranging from 23 to 74 years. Participants had a mean of 8.1 years of experience. A total of 37.5% of participants had used DCS at some point …

Estimating Likelihood Of Having A Brca Gene Mutation Based On Family History Of Cancers And Recommending Optimized Cancer Preventive Actions, Mehrnaz Abdollahian

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

BRCA1 and BRCA2 are gene mutations that drastically increase chances of developing breast and ovarian cancers, up to 20-fold, for women. A genetic blood test is used to detect BRCA mutations. Though these mutations occur in one of every 400 in the general population (excluding Ashkenazi Jewish ethnicity), they are present in most cases of hereditary breast and ovarian cancer patients. Hence, it is common practice for the physicians to require genetic testing for those that fit the rules as recommended by the National Cancer Comprehensive Network. However, data from the Myriad Laboratory, the only provider of the test until …

Novel Enzyme Perspectives: Arylalkylamine N-Acyltransferases From Bombyx Mori & 1-Deoxy- D-Xylulose-5-Phosphate Synthase From Plasmodium Falciparum And Plasmodium Vivax, Matthew R. Battistini

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is dedicated to the research and investigation of novel enzymes and the methods used to study them, with physiological roles ranging from isoprenoid biosynthesis to neurotransmitter production. Using a combination of bioinformatics, recombinant cloning, enzymology, and proteomics, we have contributed to the understanding and exploration of several human illnesses, including malaria, cancer, and endocrine dysfunction.

Our first project involved studying the enzymes responsible for N-acylarylalkylamide biosynthesis in Bombyx mori. Very little is known how these potent signaling molecules are produced in vivo, however, one possible pathway is the direct conjugation of an acyl-CoA to a corresponding …

An Animal Model Of Flashbulb Memory: Insights Into The Time-Dependent Mechanisms Of Memory Enhancement, Laura Ashley Bullard

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The vivid memory of an emotional event, as well as memory for incidental details associated with the arousing event, has been referred to collectively as a “flashbulb memory”. An important aspect of flashbulb memory in people is that an emotional event enhances memory of contextual details, such as the weather, or clothes one was wearing at the time of the event. Therefore, an emotional event not only produces a detailed memory of the event, itself, but also enhances memory for contextual details that would otherwise not be remembered. The first goal of this work is to describe the development of …

A Case Study Of Four Female Electrician Technicians In A Male-Dominated Occupation, Maniphone S. Dickerson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to understand the reasons the four female participants decided to pursue electrician technician training, their perspectives of the apprenticeship program, their perceptions of successful employment in a male-dominated occupation, and differences in treatment based on their gender. The exploratory questions that guided the study were: what led the females to make the decision for applying to the electrician technician apprenticeship; what was the nature of the education and training experiences of the participants in the electrician technician apprenticeship program, what were the participants’ perceptions of being successful in advancement within the workforce as a …

Acceptance And Commitment Training To Enhance A Behavioral Parent Training With Parents Of Children With Autism, Jillian Defreitas

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Behavioral Parent Training (BPT) is an effective teaching package that is often used to teach new parenting skills. While BPT has been established as efficacious in teaching parenting skills, performance often returns to baseline levels. There may be myriad reasons for this; however, it is possible that competing contingencies in difficult behavioral interactions, and long histories of practices that solve behavioral issues in the short term, affect parents’ ability to implement what they were taught. This study sought to impact parental treatment integrity of a common set of parent training practices via an Acceptance and Commitment Training protocol. Parents were …

Using Behavioral Skills Training And A Warning Sticker To Teach Children Household Poison Safety Skills, Jackalynne Jean Delong

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to assess if Behavioral Skills Training (BST) can be used to train a sticker to function as a discriminative stimulus (Sᴰ) for engaging in household poison safety skills and assess whether this skill generalized to untrained household chemicals that bear the Sᴰ in the form of a sticker. Three typically developing children ages 3 and 5 and their parents participated in this study which took place in their homes. BST effectively taught children to engage in household poison safety skills when they come into contact with the trained household poison(s) labeled with the sticker …

Comparison Of Otolith-Based Growth Rates And Microchemistry In Red Drum Before, During, And After The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Brock Charles Houston

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Oil from the Deepwater Horizon blowout reached the Gulf of Mexico coast in the summer of 2010 and potentially exposed species living in those areas to toxic chemicals. The purpose of this study is to examine otoliths from Red Drum (Sciaenops ocellatus) for evidence of oil exposure that could be related to reduced growth rates. Because otolith growth and somatic growth are directly related, differences in annulus measurements can indicate differences in annual somatic growth, which is a good indicator of overall fish condition, and translates into changes in survival and lifetime reproductive potential. This study assessed variation …

A Study On The Integration Of Multivariate Metocean, Ocean Circulation, And Trajectory Modeling Data With Static Geographic Information Systems For Better Marine Resources Management And Protection During Coastal Oil Spill Response – A Case Study And Gap Analysis On Northeastern Gulf Of Mexico Tidal Inlets, Richard Ray Knudsen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 requires the development of Regional and Area Contingency Plans. For more than 20 years, the State of Florida, under both the Department of Environmental Protection and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, has worked closely with the U.S. Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to develop these plans for coastal and marine oil spill response. Current plans, developed with local, state and federal stakeholder input, use geographic information systems (GIS) data such as location and extent of sensitive ecological, wildlife, and human-use features (termed Environmental Sensitivity Index data), pre-defined protection priorities, …

Understanding How Young People Experience Risk With Online-To-Offline Sexual Encounters: A Second Qualitative Phase For The Ch@T Project, Elizabeth Vp Marwah

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates how heterosexual young people understand and manage risks related to meeting sexual partners online in the United States. The purpose of this study is to help inform the development of culturally-appropriate sexual risk communication and health promotion messages for young people by linking public health knowledge of adolescent sexual health and eHealth with anthropological theories of risk. With qualitative data from two rounds of semi-structured interviews and two group interviews with university students in central Florida, this study shows how young people experience and prioritize more social-emotional risks in meeting online-to-offline sexual partners compared to physical risks. …