Digital Commons Network^™

On The Performance Enhancement Of Beamspace Mimo And Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access For Future Cellular Networks, Sinasi Cetinkaya

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The ever-growing demand for higher data rates and greater data capacity at lower cost has led the mobile cellular industry to investigate new physical layer techniques and possible utilization of unused spectrums at higher frequencies for next-generation cellular networks. Thus, exploitation of the millimeter-wave (mmWave) spectrum and non-orthogonal multiple-access (NOMA) have been envisioned as the most promising enablers in meeting capacity demand. Due to the smaller wavelengths offered in mmWave frequencies, it is possible to deploy many antennas into a relatively smaller physical space in mmWave frequencies. This property leads to a promising integration between mmWave and massive multiple-input multiple-output …

Predicting Groundwater Spring Locations From Topographic And Climatic Data Using Maxent Modeling, Ayten Ece Koc

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The World Resources Institute reveals that 17 countries face extremely high levels of water stress. Moreover, with increasing population and industrialization, the gap between water supply and demand increases day by day around the world. Groundwater is a key freshwater source, and springs are important resources as they enable to access groundwater. Therefore, it is crucial to monitor, protect, and manage groundwater springs. The first step in spring management is to recognize and define freshwater resources and to determine the locations of groundwater springs that serve as natural discharge points. Traditionally, field studies have been employed to determine the locations …

A Seismic Investigation Of Uturuncu Volcano And The Lazufre Volcanic Complex, Heather L. Mcfarlin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The following dissertation is a study of three seismological techniques used to determine the geophysical properties of two large, inflating magma bodies in the upper crust in South America: one under Uturuncu volcano and one beneath Lastarria and Cordon del Azufre volcanoes. First, I use the method of teleseismic receiver functions to image the top and bottom of the magma body beneath Uturuncu volcano. Depths to the top of this body vary between 6 and 12 km below sea level, while depths to the bottom vary between 13 and 22 km below sea level, with the thickness ranging from 6 …

Teaching Behavioral Contingencies To Young Children With Asd Using Contingency Mapping, Marqueline Cenatus

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often exhibit problem behavior in schools, which negatively impacts their educational outcomes. Unfortunately, teachers continue to have difficulty addressing problem behavior in the classroom. Contingency mapping is a visual representation of the contingencies for engaging in a desired and undesired behaviors, which has been found to improve student behavior in the classroom setting. The current study examined the use of the contingency mapping intervention for young children with ASD. Specifically, the study examined the extent to which the contingency mapping intervention result in a decrease of off-task behavior during natural classroom activities. Three young …

V2v And V2i Based Safety And Platooning Algorithms For Connected And Autonomous Vehicles, Omkar Dokur

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Connected Vehicles (CVs) make transportation safe by communicating with vehicles and the infrastructure in their neighborhood. CVs are embedded with onboard units (OBUs) which transmit basic safety messages (BSMs) containing the location, heading, and velocity information of the vehicle using either Dedicated Short-Range Communications (DSRC) or Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X) technology. These BSMs can be used to warn drivers using various vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) or vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) applications. Along with these applications, CV technology also gives rise to cooperative vehicular driving applications such as platooning. A group of vehicles can negotiate and drive jointly close to each other in a cooperative manner …

Secure Reconfigurable Computing Paradigms For The Next Generation Of Artificial Intelligence And Machine Learning Applications, Brooks Olney

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The fields of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have been popular tools for data analysis at the edge, particularly through complex deep and convolutional neural networks (DNNs/CNNs), which can learn to parameterize a function given a labeled dataset. Indeed, these technologies have enabled significant progress across a wide range of fields and are becoming ubiquitous. However, training the best model for an application and subsequently using them to evaluate data in real-time requires an immense amount of computational power. Typically, ``smart" sensors at the edge rely on the cloud to accelerate this computation due to power and compute …

Exploring Time-Varying Extraneous Variables Effects In Single-Case Studies, Ke Cheng

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The effect of time-varying extraneous variables has been studied in other statistical analyses such as using Kaplan–Meier or Cox regression analysis in survival analyses. Nonetheless, the effect of modeling versus not modeling individual specific time varying extraneous variables has not been explored in multiple-baseline single case designs through Monte Carlo simulation studies. Therefore, in my dissertation, I used simulation methods to explore for a variety of conditions (varying in the number of participants, number of observations per participant, type of extraneous variable effect, size of the true intervention effect) the impact of extraneous variables on bias and standard error of …

Matrix Models Of 2d Critical Phenomena, Nathan Hayford

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The 2D Ising model has played an important role in the theory of phase transitions, as one of only ahandful of exactly solvable models in statistical mechanics. The original model, introduced in the 1920s, has a rich mathematical structure. It thus came as a pleasant surprise when physicists studying matrix models of 2D gravity found that, coupled to quantum gravity, the planar Ising model still had an elegant solution. The methods used by V. Kazakov and his collaborators involved the method of orthogonal polynomials. However, these methods were formal, and no direct analytic derivation of the phase transition has been …

Recovering Generators Of Principal Ideals Using Subfield Structure And Applications To Cryptography, William Youmans

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The principal ideal problem (PIP) is the problem of determining if a given ideal of a number field is principal, and if so, of finding a generator.Algorithms for resolving the PIP can be efficiently adapted to solve many hard problems in algebraic number theory, such as the computation of the class group, unit group, or $S$-unit group of a number field. The PIP is also connected to the search for approximate short vectors, known as the $\gamma$-Shortest Vector Problem ($\gamma$-SVP), in certain structured lattices called ideal lattices, which are prevalent in cryptography. We present an algorithm for resolving the PIP …

Data-Driven Learning Algorithm Via Densely-Defined Multiplication Operators And Occupation Kernels., John Kyei

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Consider a nonautonomous nonlinear evolution $\dot{x}=f(x,t,\mu)$, where the vector $x(t) \in \mathbb{R}^n$ represents the state of the dynamical system at time $t$, $\mu$ contains system parameters, and $f(\cdot)$ represents a dynamic constraint. In most practical applications, the nonlinear dynamic constraint $f$ is unknown analytically. The problem of approximating $f$ directly from data measurements generated by the system is a main goal of this manuscript. In the postulates of the Nonlinear Autoregressive (NAR) framework, we show that the problem of approximating $f$ can be studied through symbols of densely defined multiplication operators over a Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Spaces (RKHS). In this …

Considerations For Curricular Reform In Undergraduate Chemistry: Cooperative Adoption Factors, Modeling Social Influence, And Focusing On Specific Populations, Jacob D. Mcalpin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation will go through the details of three projects highlighting considerations for curricular reforms in undergraduate chemistry. Improving the teaching of chemistry is facilitated by considering the problem from multiple directions, namely, faculty and students. In addition to the multiple perspectives, this dissertation also seeks to bring new methodologies into the spotlight to improve the toolbox for other chemistry or discipline-based education researchers. Additionally, this dissertation has shown in several locations how focusing in on subgroups within populations can reveal findings that would not have been apparent from a global average of the population. The three project describes in …

Rational Functions Of Degree Five That Permute The Projective Line Over A Finite Field, Christopher Sze

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Rational functions over a finite field Fq induce mappings from the projective line P1(Fq) to itself. Rational functions that permute the projective line are called permutation rational functions (PRs). The notion of permutation rational functions is a natural extension of the permutation polynomials which have been studied for over a century. Recently, PRs of degrees up to four have been determined. This dissertation is a project aimed at determining PRs of degree five.

Rational functions of degree five (excluding those that are equivalent to polynomials) are divided into five cases according to the factorization of their denominators. Our main results …

Prepare For, Respond To, Recover, And Learn From Disasters: Using Data-Driven Methods To Model And Understand Disaster Resilience, Jinwen Xu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Community resilience reflects the ability of human communities to prepare for, respond to, recover, and learn from disastrous events. Community resilience carries different meanings in different phases of disaster management (i.e., preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation). With the emergence of new geospatial data sources, human activities now can be captured through social media, mobile signals, and nighttime illuminations, which makes it possible to describe the conditions among various communities before, during, and after disasters. Therefore, this dissertation explored the use of different types of geospatial data sources (social media, nighttime light remote sensing, land-use data, and census survey data) during …

Exploring Scalability Of Multimodal User Interface Design In Virtual And Augmented Reality, Sarah M. Garcia

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Use of Extended Reality (XR) technology such as Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) has experienced significant growth, with continuous advances in mobile technology and head-mounted display (HMD) headset development. As applications that span more than one type of reality have started to emerge, there is a need for additional research regarding the user interfaces (UIs) developed for these multimodal systems. While some work exists towards the creation of UI design guidelines in AR and in VR, little to no work has been done in providing recommendations for designing interfaces that work successfully across multiple XR modalities. To explore …

Relationship Between Demographic Characteristics And Internship Participation Of Senior Undergraduate International Students, Timothy W. Gjini

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The United States higher education institutions’ mission is to support students' academic success and career development goals by preparing them to become globally competent citizens and workforce-ready graduates. With student workforce preparation at the core of their mission, there is concern that colleges and universities are not adequately investing in international students’ engagement in career-preparation practices (e.g., internships). As such, this quantitative, secondary-data study explored the relationship between senior international students’ demographic characteristics, the institutional environment (type and classification), and their internship participation behavior. Key variables were identified from three complementary theoretical strands, including Astin’s Input-Environment-Output (I-E-O) Model (1988, 1993a, …

Evaluating Foot-Drop Interventions For Multiple Sclerosis Using A Multimodal System, Laura Marie Byrnes-Blanco

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores how multimodal walking impacts quantitative and qualitative aspects of gait for persons with multiple sclerosis (pwMS) experiencing foot-drop. Foot-drop can dramatically impede mobility and clinicians routinely prescribe ankle-foot-orthosis (AFO) and functional electrical stimulation (FES) devices to alleviate its impacts on daily life. However, little is known about how these devices affect pwMS while traversing environments with real-world complexity. To explore this topic, an interventional, parallel assigned study was conducted. A realistic nature pathway containing changes in floor pitch, audiovisual stimulation, and during-trial tasks (for dual-tasking) was generated in an immersive virtual reality system called CAREN: Computer Assisted …

A Human-In-The-Loop Robot Grasping System With Grasp Quality Refinement, Tian Tan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this dissertation is to develop a grasping system for assistive robots that can help people with disabilities and the elderly to perform tasks of daily living. In developing this robot grasping system, we maximize its reliability, accuracy, and autonomy. High reliability and accuracy are required for robots to perform tasks around human users and to safely interact with objects that might be fragile or have contents that could spill. High autonomy is desired as users with disabilities are usually not dexterous enough to directly operate the robot. In this dissertation, a human-in-the-loop (HitL) robot grasping system is …

Statistical Analysis Of Ribonucleotide Incorporation In Human Cells, Tejasvi Channagiri

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

During the DNA replication process, ribonucleotides, the building blocks of RNA, may be occasionally incorporated in the newly synthesized DNA. DNA is primarily composed of deoxyribonucleotides and there exist cellular mechanisms for removing ribonucleotides from DNA, which may point towards ribonucleotide incorporation being a replication error. Further, an excess of these ribonucleotides in the genome has been known to lead to genomic instability and has been implicated in human diseases. However, there are also hypotheses that suggest that ribonucleotides may be beneficial in certain circumstances. In this study we examine ribonucleotide incorporation in the human genome in several human cell …

Music As An Instructional Modality To Increase Attending Behavior Of Elementary Students, Zachary Grossman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Audio and audiovisual cues, when used as teaching tools, result in desirable learning outcomes for young learners when compared to visual cues alone (Havy et al., 2017; Kirkham et al., 2019; Sloutsky & Napolitano, 2003). Previous research has demonstrated that music can be an effective delivery method for teaching math in the elementary classrooms (An & Tillman, 2015; An et al., 2014; Azaryahu et al., 2020). However, the effectiveness of music at increasing attending behavior specifically has not been assessed in these studies. This study evaluated the effectiveness of music based instruction on students’ attending behaviors compared to non-music based …

The Ontological Grounds Of Reason: Psychologism, Logicism, And Hermeneutic Phenomenology, Stanford L. Howdyshell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The following dissertation explains the psychologism debate as it played out in the 19thand early 20th Centuries and then shows how Martin Heidegger radicalized the debate by undermining its key themes and assumptions. First, I explain each side of the psychologism debate, starting with the psychologicists. I explore the philosophies of Jakob Friedrich Fries and John Stuart Mill in order to encapsulate the full spectrum of psychologism in the 19th Century, from Neo-Kantian to British Empiricist. The investigation will show a set of common themes within psychologism, such as the grounding of logic in the constitution of the human subject, …

Lithium And Lithium Isotope Behavior During High Temperature Solid/Fluid Exchanges: Examples From Iceland And The Izu-Bonin Forearc, Alex Maruszczak

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The development of a method for lithium isotopic measurement was developed using a quadrupole, single-collector ICP-MS. Measured precision was ±1.00‰ 2σ over a 15-month period based on measurements of international rock standards. A 1-hour leach using cold, HCl was sufficient to remove alteration-related Li in minimally to moderately altered seafloor basalts. Measurements on the Holocene ages lavas from the neovolcanic zones of Iceland suggest no systematic Li isotopic variability among the differing Icelandic sources. Felsic samples from Hekla and Pumice contain elevated Li contents of >18ug/g while the tholeiitic and alkaline basalts are <8ug/g Li. Most of the island lies around MORB values of ~+3 to +5‰ with the exception of Western Volcanic Zone samples that show evidence for seawater inputs. The RN-17 drillcore, which penetrates >3000m through a hydrothermal system in the …

Conformational Dynamics And Free Energy Studies Of Dna And Other Biomolecules, Paul B. Orndorff

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This work uses molecular dynamics simulations and enhanced sampling methods to investigate both the qualitative and quantitative properties of biomolecular systems. Conformational dynamics are critical in the study of biomolecular systems. Application of computer simulations to study dynamics of biomolecular systems allows for motions to be readily investigated at a resolution not possible in experimental techniques. In this work, the dynamics of uracil damaged and undamaged DNA is studied via molecular dynamics simulations. Uracil results in DNA from either misincorporation in the replication process or through spontaneous deamination of cytosine, and its presence in DNA can lead to mutations in …

Natural Disasters And Human Capital: Empirical Evidence From Indonesia, Lei Lv

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In developing countries, natural disasters could destroy physical capital and adversely affect human capital accumulation by disrupting individual decisions. Such decisions play a critical role in determining individuals' human capital accumulation process and have a lifelong effect on their happiness and economic prosperity. To better understand how natural disasters affect human capital in developing countries, this dissertation uses the earthquakes in Indonesia as a natural experiment to study how this earthquake affects health, child marriage, and education. For the first chapter, I study how the 2006 Yogyakarta Earthquake a affects water-related acute disease symptomsin the short and long run. By …

Fuzzy Kc Clustering Imputation For Missing Not At Random Data, Markku A. Malmi Jr.

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research has a variety of difficulties, especially when involving human subjects, and one of the most prevalent is the issue of missing data. Missing data will always be present in research due to the fact there is no perfect method for collecting data and protecting against human error or mechanical failure. This requires researchers to be able to mitigate the problems that come along with missing data; reduction in power of an analysis and bias introduced by the missing pattern. This research investigated a non-parametric method using a nested approach of fuzzy K-Modes and fuzzy C-Means clustering to impute missing …

An Analysis Of The Oil Pollution Act Of 1990: Regulatory Calibration In Anticipation Of 21st Century Environmental Disasters, Jessica S. Thornton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

After federal the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA 90) was promulgated in response to the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, it helped restructure the nation’s environmental response capabilities and modernize the commercial shipping industry to effectively decrease environmental shipping disasters. However, in the 33 years since OPA 90’s inception, the oil and gas industry has transformed, especially in the offshore realm, as industry adopts new drilling technologies to gain access to deeper and heretofore untapped maritime environments. Though there have been two catastrophic offshore drilling accidents since the turn of the 21st century, OPA 90 remains categorically unchanged, …

Apkcs Role In Neuroblastoma Cell Signaling Cascades And Implications Of Apkcs Inhibitors As Potential Therapeutics, Sloan Breedy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Neuroblastoma (NB) is a cancer that develops in the neuroblasts. It is the most common cancer in children under the age of 1 year, accounting for approximately 6% of all cancers. The prognosis of NB is linked to both age and degree of cell differentiation. This results in a range of survival rates for patients, with outcomes ranging from recurrence and mortality to high survival rates and tumor regression. Our previous work indicated that PKC-ι promotes cell proliferation in NB cells through the PKC-ι/Cdk7/Cdk2 cascade. We report on two atypical protein kinase inhibitors as potential therapeutic candidates against BE(2)-C and …

Human Spacesuit Interaction During Eva Of The Legs Using A Force Sensing System, Niraliben D. Patel

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Astronauts perform a multitude of tasks in space, both in the spacecraft and outside of the spacecraft. Extravehicular Activity (EVA) refers to any activity that is completed outside of the spacecraft, whether it is work on the actual spacecraft, spacewalks, or conducting sample collections on other planets and moons. To do this safely, a pressurized Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) or commonly known as the spacesuit is used. There have been multiple iterations of the United States EMU with advances to further optimize the astronaut safety and EVA tasks. However, there is still relatively little information on the movement of the …

Eeg Classifier Validation Methods For Neuroprosthetic Hand Development, Keigo Yamauchi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

To date, many challenges have been reported in the development of neuroprosthetic hands using EEG and neural signals. In this study, we report the results of a literature review on Brain Computer Interface (BCI) technology, an investigation of estimation methods using applications in MATLAB, and the results of Electroencephalography (EEG) classification to assist in the development of neural prosthetic hands using biological signals such as EEG. Confusion Matrix was created using Motor Imagery (MI) data as the predictive value, and the average accuracy of more than 90% was obtained for the K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) and decision tree method. The results …

Modeling Leachate Treatment Processes In Adsorbent-Amended Hybrid Constructed Wetland, Ishfaqun Nisa

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Due to their efficiency in removing ammonia nitrogen, Constructed Wetlands (CW) are currently considered a very useful method for on-site leachate treatment. In recent years, the use of adsorbent media in CWs, such as zeolite and biochar, to improve pollutant removal efficiency has been explored and these studies indicate that incorporating zeolite can improve the nitrification process, while the addition of biochar can enhance the denitrification process and the removal of organic compounds. However, studies on mechanistic/process models simulating performance of adsorbent-amended CWs for treating landfill leachate are limited. This study presents simulation results for both unamended and adsorbent-amended hybrid …

Time Series Analysis Of Pseudo-Nitzschia Species Composition, Domoic Acid, And Environmental Conditions In The Gulf Of Maine From 2013-2020, Christina Chadwick

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Phytoplankton are abundant in both fresh and marine waters and can form harmful algal blooms (HABs) by producing potent toxins that have devastating effects on human, wildlife, and economic health. The HAB-forming diatom genus, Pseudo-nitzschia, occurs globally and approximately half of the 59 currently identified species can produce the neurotoxin, domoic acid (DA). DA accumulates in shellfish and finfish and can cause Amnesic Shellfish Poisoning (ASP) in humans and DA Poisoning (DAP) in several species of wildlife, resulting in severe neurological dysfunction and mortality. Along with these health threats, DA toxicity is a major economic threat for shellfish and fish …