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Ripping The “Paper Ceiling”: How Social Studies Teachers Conceive And Enact The Integration Of Gender And Women’S Experiences In Their Curriculum, Andrea Watson-Canning

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the intentions of teachers who report incorporating gender and women’s experiences into their social studies curriculum and how those intentions are manifested in the classroom. I examine how teachers talk about the purposes of social studies education, their reasons for incorporating gender and women’s experiences into their curriculum, and their descriptions of incorporation (the intended curriculum). Then, I analyze how the intended curriculum is enacted in the classroom.

Using educational connoisseurship and criticism and portraiture, I construct narrative portraits of the phenomena analyzed. Both educational connoisseurship and criticism and portraiture consider the …

Modeling Of Interaction Of Ions With Ether- And Ester-Linked Phospholipids, Matthew W. Saunders

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Phospholipids are present in all parts of cells and are used in many signalling and struc- tural roles. As structural molecules they act as the main component of cellular membranes. Bilayer properties are heavily influenced by the structure of their component polar lipids, and different lipids are found in different organisms. A distinguishing feature of Archaeal plasma membranes is that their phospholipids contain ether-links, as opposed to bacterial and eukaryotic plasma membranes where phospholipids primarily contain ester-links. In our work we examine the effects of salt on bilayer structure in the case of both ester- and ether-linked lipid bilayers. We …

The Combined Effect Of Heat And Corona Charge On Molecular Delivery To A T-Cell Line In-Vitro, Molly A. Skinner

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Gene therapy and immunotherapy are new up and coming fields in cancer treatment. In August of 2017, the first gene therapy was FDA approved called CAR-T cell therapy("FDA approval brings first gene therapy to the United States," 2017). This therapy uses the patient’s

own T-cells that are genetically modified to attack the cancerous cells. Currently, it takes 4-6 weeks to genetically modify these T-cells, which can be the difference between life and death for a cancer patient (Cheng, Jun, Jiang, & Xi, 2017). There is evidence that gene electrotransfer can help expedite the genetic modification process by having an easy …

Controlling Turnover In An Inside Sales Organization: What Are The Contributing Factors, Dennis H. Kimerer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The turnover rate for inside sales team, particularly in Central Florida, is exceedingly high. I have experienced this negative scenario managing inside sales teams for two major Telecom companies over the past 11 years, having as many as 40% of the salesforce resign within 30 days. Organizational costs to hire a new salesperson can be as high as 300% of the replaced employee’s salary and take as long as eight months to reach full productivity. The purpose of this research is to determine the internal and external factors that impact a salesperson’s propensity to leave a company. This qualitative research …

Roma Girls Expressing Identity, Aspirations, And Voice Through Participatory Arts-Based Research, Crista Kaye Banks

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The methods by which Roma girls are studied and represented, do not account for their individual expressions of identity, aspirations or voice. Experiences and voices of Roma girls have rarely been seen or heard and have been consistently defined and represented by non-Roma individuals throughout history and within academia, which has perpetuated stereotypes. Interpretations of the image and lives of the Romani are permeated with misperceptions, myths, and assumptions based on stereotypical definitions.

This study uses the arts-based method of mixed media collage with Roma girls in London, England, to understand their expressions of identity, aspirations, and voice. This arts-based, …

Phenomenological Study Of Toxic Leadership In The U.S. Military, Anthony L. Hinen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The current literature shows toxic leadership is surprisingly more prevalent than previously believed. This subset of organizational leadership studies revolves around leadership styles that poison the employee, the organization, or both. This study captures a common phenomenon for toxic leadership (symptoms) useful for diagnosing or addressing toxic leadership in organizations. My goal is to better understand toxic leadership to inform potential mitigation techniques that are applicable to business and military environments. My research suggests toxic leadership exists because senior leaders, those leaders above the toxic leader, allow it to exist, either unwittingly or knowingly. Furthermore, leaders can create toxic environments …

2018 China-United States Trade War: Framing Analysis Of Online News Coverage In The United States And China As Portrayed By The New York Times And The People’S Daily, Jiangling Huang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Grounded in framing theory, this thesis explores a differential study by content analysis. The 2018 China-United States trade dispute is a major event that was officially launched by the United States and attracted worldwide attention. The ongoing trade disputes have had a huge impact on the economies of the two countries and the world economy, and a large number of news media have reported and commented on the incident. The purpose of the study was to determine the differences between news reports in the two countries depicted in the New York Times and the People’s Daily. The sample comes from …

Exploring The Disconnects Between Cpa Firms And Millennials As It Relates To Tax Preparation, Dustin Micah Grant

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Small Certified Public Accountant (CPA) firms are facing a demographic market shift as baby boomers leave the workforce and are replaced by millennials. Today, small CPA firms rely on tax services from baby boomers and older clients for the majority of revenue, but millennials now represent the largest percentage of the workforce. This growing disconnect suggests a potential issue for small CPA firms. The following research explores the issues and opinions of millennial-aged tax filers and partners in small CPA firms on compiling and filing individual federal income tax returns in the United States.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with both …

Hybrid Fusion Protein For Inhibition Of Multiple Proteases For Chronic Wound Healing, Graham L. Strauss

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Many diseases display a multitude of relevant factors that contribute to the persistence of the disease and difficulty treating it. The multifactorial characteristics of some diseases lead to the requirement of combination of treatments in order to restore health. The latter may necessitate the mixing of treatments, medications, and therapeutics to first halt the disease, then assist the human body in returning itself to a state of normality. For example, chronic wounds exhibit this multifactor characteristic in which there exist many factors that lead to the body’s inability to properly heal in a timely manner. This presents a further threat …

Phenomena Of Social Dynamics In Online Games, Essa Alhazmi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Online communities exhibit dynamic social phenomena that, if understood, can both influence the design of technical platforms and inform theories about general social dynamics. With increasing popularity, online games provide a rich recording of social dynamics that can contribute to understanding human behavior. This dissertation studies two phenomena of social dynamics at large scale using data traces from online games. The first phenomenon is team formation and the second is players mobility between gaming servers.

This dissertation first presents a framework for collecting data from online gaming through crawling. It includes the data sources and the tools used for data …

For The Common Defense: The Evolution Of National Security Strategy-Making Institutions & Impact On American Grand Strategy, Nathan D. Barrick

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation applies a Neoclassical Realism model to examine how the evolution of United States (U.S.) national security strategy-making institutions has resulted in a path dependent accrual of autonomy and increasing influence over the formulation of American grand strategy. Once U.S. national security strategy-making institutions were created, their existence inexorably led to increasing autonomy, the creation of new strategy-making institutions, and subtle influence in shaping American grand strategy by preferential focus on a militarized foreign policy. Additionally, the more autonomous these strategy-making institutions have become, the further they have strayed from the Constitutional mandate to create a government which provides …

Bystander Intervention, Victimization, And Routine Activities Theory: An Examination Of Feminist Routine Activities Theory In Cyber Space, Jennifer A. Leili

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Routine Activities Theory (RAT) is one of the most widely used theories to explain victimization. It has been applied to a wide range of criminal victimizations, such as property crimes (Miethe, Stafford, & Long, 1987) and urban murder (Messner & Tardiff, 1985). While traditional RAT has been used to explain violence against women, the feminist perspective of RAT developed by Schwartz and Pitts (1995) provides a better explanation by incorporating cultural factors that shape the conditions that give rise to offending. The current study draws on feminist RAT in order to explore three different types of victimization involving women: stalking, …

An Exploration Of Turkish Kindergarten Early Career Stage Teachers’ Technology Beliefs And Practices, Ozge Ozel

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore Turkish kindergarten early career stage teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs towards technology and their technology integration practices in their classrooms by answering: What are self-efficacy beliefs of Turkish kindergarten early career stage teachers towards technology? How do Turkish kindergarten early career teachers integrate technology into their classrooms’ instructions? The study was designed as a qualitative multiple case study and guided by Bandura’s (1986) social cognitive theory and Mishra and Koehler’s (2006) TPACK conceptual framework. I conducted this study in Istanbul, where is the most crowded and metropolitan city in Turkey. The schools were chosen …

An Insight Into The Biological Functions, The Molecular Mechanism And The Nature Of Interactions Of A Set Of Biologically Important Proteins., Adam A. Aboalroub

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Characterization of protein structural properties is crucial to determine its role in normal and pathological conditions. In this dissertation, we have employed NMR spectroscopy in a combination of other biochemical and biophysical techniques to investigate the catalytic function, the molecular mechanism, and nature of the interactions of bmAANAT3, Cdc37, and TIMP2, respectively.

In the first project, we have employed an arylalkylamine N-acetyltransferases (AANATs) from Bombyx mori (bmAANAT3) to determine the role of the acetyl-group in coordinating the catalytic cycle in this family of enzymes. We have found that the occupancy of the acetyl-moiety in the catalytic funnel of these enzymes …

Intrinsically Disorder Proteins And Liquid-Liquid Phase Transitions In Neurodegenerative Diseases, April Lynn Darling

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Neurodegenerative diseases have a negative impact on health and economics, effecting more than 20 million people in the United States and costing around $800 billion in 2018. Additionally, most neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD), and several others are fatal and have no cure or effective treatment. Many of these diseases have a common theme of protein aggregates being present in disease tissue. These aggregates are thought to be toxic to the cell and prevention of pathological aggregation and elimination of these cellular aggregates may serve as a potential therapeutic approach to …

Mitigating Barriers To Chronic Disease Risk Factor Prevention And Management In Disadvantaged Communities, Krys M. Johnson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Background: The incidence and prevalence of chronic disease (CD) has increased in recent decades due to the advent of CD management and life-extending technologies. To address this burden on the population and healthcare system, evidence-based CD prevention programs have been developed to reduce the incidence and therefore the prevalence of these diseases. Despite the development and dissemination of effective interventions, African-Americans and Hispanics have disproportionately higher prevalence of CD and associated risk factors and disproportionately lower participation in CD prevention programs. Overweight/obesity and CDs may have intergenerational effects, with overweight adults being more likely to have overweight children who are …

Validating The Construct Of Resiliency In The Health Literacy And Resiliency Scale (Hlrs-Y) With The Child And Youth Resiliency Measure (Cyrm-28), Mercedes N. Cambric

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Chronic health conditions in youth have increased over the last several decades. It is estimated that within the United States there are between 15% to 18% of youth who are living with a chronic health condition (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2010). The CDC defines a chronic health condition as an illness that lasts for three months or longer that can be managed, but not cured (CDC, 2010). Although there is some research on youth living with chronic illnesses, there are minimal studies that assess the constructs of health literacy, resiliency, and support/advocacy within this population. The current …

Examining The Effect Of Context On Responses To Social Interaction, Renee R. Hangartner

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The ambiguous nature of social interactions between coeds may lead to under reporting of sexual harassment. Sexual harassment has been studied using mostly cross-sectional methods for over 30 years. However, despite decades of research, prevalence rates of sexual harassment have been found to vary considerably across and within studies. This inconsistency in findings makes drawing conclusions about the prevalence of sexual harassment challenging. Thus, the focus of the field should shift to identifying what behaviors are perceived to be sexual harassment and how that perception may vary by context. To reduce the ambiguity surrounding the labeling of an interaction as …

Widow Narratives On Film And In Memoirs: Exploring Formula Stories Of Grief And Loss Of Older Women After The Death Of A Spouse, Jennifer R. Bender

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes narratives (written and mediated) about widows’ post-loss experiences—specifically the ways in which these women embody and adjust/adhere to their post-loss widow identities—and whether or not the canonical/formula stories about widows reflect current experiences of widowhood. I look at older widowed women—both those in well-read widow memoirs and also in media portrayals of widows on film. The canonical view of widows as not attractive, not useful, and not interesting needs to be reexamined in light of changing ideas about gender roles and increased longevity. Surely older women have experiences, desires, and goals that encompass more than being socially …

The Left Behind Generation: Instructional Practices To Increase The Technological Literacy Of Older Adults, Daphne Pace Phillips

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study sought to explore the utilization and perception of best practices by community-based technology training programs when instructing older adults to become technologically literate. The target population included adults age 55 years and older of the Baby Boomer generational cohort who ranged academically from possessing a high school diploma or General Education Diploma (GED) through a college degree and had enrolled in a local technology training program to improve their technological skill level with the goal of obtaining employment and/or to remain functionally independent. This study was conducted at three community technology training centers located in the southeast that …

An Eye Opener In Stroke: Mitochondrial Dysfunction And Stem Cell Repair In Stroke-Induced Retinal Ischemia, Hung Vu Thien Nguyen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Stoke is a leading cause of disability and mortality across the globe, making it a global health crisis. However, treatments for stroke remain limited with narrow therapeutic time window. Visual impairment negatively affects patients’ quality of life. During stroke, the disruption in blood flow might affect both brain and eye resulting in cerebral and retinal ischemia. Currently, there is a lack of treatment option that targets both cerebral and retinal ischemia. Ischemic stroke pathology is complex and multiphasic. The ischemic event is followed by a secondary cascade of inflammatory cytokines exacerbating the initial focal injury and expanding into the penumbra. …

Queer Authority In Old And Middle English Literature, Elan J. Pavlinich

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

I argue that select early English texts queer normative authorizing conventions to authorize Old English and Middle English literatures. During the European Middle Ages, Latin cultures and literatures were privileged with authority that extended to and subverted the cultural capital of the inhabitants of England at the edge of the known Western world. I identify four exceptional English texts that employ authorizing conventions to disrupt normative networks of power that traditionally privilege Latin and to authorize English literature instead. The Norman Conquest had altered the English language and social structures; still, these altered networks of power continued to marginalize English …

The Tampa Gym Study: An Ethnographic Exploration Of Gyms, Female Gym-Goers And The Quest For Fitness In Tampa, Fl, Danielle Reneé Rosen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Tampa Gym Study was an ethnographic examination of veteran women exercisers, their workout routines, and their attitudes towards the workouts that they undertake in two Tampa area gyms. The study’s principle objective was to study “fitness culture” in these facilities and the manner in which that culture is embodied in the language women use to describe themselves and their exercise behaviors.

The obesity crisis in the United States has been significantly responsible for an increase in membership in gyms and fitness facilities nationwide. The “culture of fitness” as it is embodied in these facilities has impacted women and their …

In Another's Voice: Making Sense Of Reproductive Health As Women Of Color, Nivethitha Ketheeswaran

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goals of this project are twofold. The first goal is to articulate my sense making of reproductive health for Women of color in the United States as a postcolonial condition; one that I trace back to the logics of elimination of settler colonialism (Wolfe, 2006) and frame as maintained through the colonial institutions, or racial projects (Omi & Winant, 2015), of the Prison Industrial Complex, the welfare system, and the health care system which create and perpetuate dominant cultural narratives of “the welfare queen”, “the negligent Black mother”, and “the wily patient”. I show how these narratives colonize the …

Supporting Persons With Dementia In Communicating Their Care Preferences, Vanessa L. Burshnic

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Person-centered care is important to the quality of life of nursing home residents with dementia. Preference assessments enable person-centered care by documenting residents’ preferred activities. Residents with severe dementia are less likely to have a role in preference assessment due to communication challenges associated with the disease. External supports (visual and text cues) are effective in improving the communication of residents with dementia, but these cues are often not used in practice. Standard assessment (verbal questioning) places greater demands on short-term memory and attention, which are known deficits in dementia.

Applying a within-subjects design, this study evaluated two conditions (standard …

A Small Rna And Dna Binding Protein Contribute To Biofilm Development In Bartonella Henselae, Udoka Okaro

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A biofilm, which is associated with 80% of chronic infections in humans, is formed when bacteria aggregate, attach to a substrate and secrete a matrix protecting the bacteria from host cell defenses and antibiotics. Bartonella henselae (B. henselae) is the causative agent of cat scratch disease, persistent bacteremia, and one of the most frequently reported causes of blood-culture negative endocarditis (BCNE) in patients. The ability of B. henselae to adhere to the heart valve, form a biofilm and vegetation to cause endocarditis increases the morbidity and mortality rate in infected patients. The presence of a trimeric autotransporter adhesin (TAA) called …

[X]Splaininggender, Race, Class, And Body: Metapragmatic Disputes Of Linguistic Authority And Ideologies On Twitter, Reddit, And Tumblr, Judith C. Bridges

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the language of “citizen sociolinguists,” everyday users of social network sites (SNS) who contribute to the discourses about language on Twitter, Reddit, and Tumblr, platforms with distinctive user demographics and technological affordances. The data were collected through keyword searches for mansplain, whitesplain, richsplain and thinsplain, metapragmatic neologisms which are lexical blends of the verb explain and one of four social categories. Disputes of macro-level ideologies are revealed by users’ creative meaning-making strategies and metapragmatic awareness of micro-level texts and utterances. Making use of the linguistic practices of the SNS, as well as the concisely-compacted semantic and pragmatic …

A Machine Learning Approach To Predicting Community Engagement On Social Media During Disasters, Adel Alshehri

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The use of social media is expanding significantly and can serve a variety of purposes. Over the last few years, users of social media have played an increasing role in the dissemination of emergency and disaster information. It is becoming more common for affected populations and other stakeholders to turn to Twitter to gather information about a crisis when decisions need to be made, and action is taken. However, social media platforms, especially on Twitter, presents some drawbacks when it comes to gathering information during disasters. These drawbacks include information overload, messages are written in an informal format, the presence …

“It’S A Broken System That’S Designed To Destroy”: A Critical Narrative Analysis Of Healthcare Providers’ Stories About Race, Reproductive Health, And Policy, Brianna Rae Cusanno

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Constructions of race, reproductive health, and gender have been inextricably linked in the United States since the beginning of the nation. Today, these linkages remain evident in the marked racial and gender inequities in reproductive health outcomes that persist in the U.S. To better understand how these meanings and material outcomes are negotiated and produced by actors on the ground, this study asked: “How do reproductive healthcare providers (RHPs) communicate about the intersections of race, reproductive health, and policy?” I conducted semi- structures interviews with 24 RHPs, resulting in over 35 hours of recorded interviews. Drawing on critical-cultural communication, Reproductive …

Risk And Resilience Pertaining To Mental Health Of Youth Attending A College In Kathmandu Who Were Exposed To The 2015 Earthquakes During Their Adolescence: A Mixed Method Study, Vinita Sharma

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Background: Adverse mental health outcomes have been previously reported among survivors of natural disasters. Available studies mostly focus on risk factors and not resilience. In 2015, a series of earthquakes caused massive loss of lives and livelihood in Nepal. Epidemiological data pertaining to youth mental health in Nepal is limited. Information about the post-earthquake mental health of youth who were exposed to earthquakes during their adolescence in Nepal is scarce.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to address risk and resilience factors related to mental health among college-attending Nepali youth (18-20 years) exposed to the 2015 earthquake during their …