Digital Commons Network^™

The Effect Of Racial And Ethnic Identity Salience On Online Political Expression And Political Participation In The United States, Jonathon Smith

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

How close an individual identifies with their race or ethnicity can affect how individuals behave as political actors. Racial identity can affect how individuals express their political beliefs on social media sites or participate in political activities. However, does political expression on social media, particularly Facebook and Twitter, affect levels of political participation? The purpose of the project is to examine the relationship between racial and ethnic identity, online political expression, and political participation among the three largest racial and ethnic groups in the United States. Specifically, this project aims to answer whether online political expression mediates the relationship between …

Outcomes Of A Periodic Exposure Assessment Of Workers At A University Campus, Logan M. Armagast

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Standards promulgated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)are applicable to most businesses in the private sector, however, state and local government entities are not under OSHA’s jurisdiction. Universities that receive public funding fall under the category of state and local government entities and, unless an OSHA-approved State plan explicitly states otherwise, they are not required to demonstrate compliance with OSHA standards and are not subject to OSHA inspections. Without being constrained by federal regulation, those responsible for ensuring the health and safety of employees at publicly funded universities have some leeway in their methods for evaluating the conditions …

"Are We Done?": The Minimization Of Covid-19 And The Individualization Of Health In The United States, Cassidy R. Boe

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As the death toll from Covid-19 in the United States exceeds 1 million in just over two years, more variants continue to emerge, threatening more waves of Covid-19 and ultimately, more deaths. Despite this, mask use continues to decline, and one third of Americans say that the pandemic is over. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been central in publicly disseminating biomedical knowledge using Twitter. The CDC’s Twitter account (@CDCgov) shares information related to the spread of Covid-19, including mitigation measures such as mask recommendations and vaccine information. I have conducted a narrative analysis of the replies …

Ceramide-1-Phosphate: A Novel Regulator Of Golgi Fragmentation, Golgi-Er Vesicle Trafficking, And Anaplasma Phagocytophilum Pathogenesis, Anika Nayar Ali

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Anaplasma phagocytophilum, the etiologic agent of human granulocytic anaplasmosis (HGA), is a tick transmitted obligate intracellular bacterium that infects granulocytes, bone marrow progenitor cells and endothelial cells. HGA exhibits symptoms of febrile illness including fever, chills, headache, malaise, leukopenia and elevated liver enzymes which are treatable by antibiotics. However, elderly and immunocompromised patients are at a greater risk of developing fatal complications. Inside the host cell A.phagocytophilum resides in host cell derived vacuole called A.phagocytophilum occupied vacuole (ApV) where it undergoes its biphasic lifecycle. Being an intracellular pathogen, A.phagocytophilum relies heavily on nutrient acquisition from host cell and to obtain …

Addressing Intersectional Stigma: Lgbtq+ Individuals Living With A Mental Illness, Jennifer T. Tran

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The stigma process (i.e., stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination) has profound and lasting effects on individuals within marginalized identities. Research has indicated that lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, queer, or questioning (LGBTQ+) individuals’ experiences of stigma have contributed to the development of mental illness. Therefore, LGBTQ+ individuals living with mental illness experience a unique and challenging type of stigma, intersectional stigma, due to identification within multiple marginalized communities. Populations most vulnerable to stigma include individuals who identify with more than one stigmatized identity, such as LGBTQ+ individuals living with mental illness. Therefore, there is a need to explore strategies to address intersectional …

“That’S What We Call ‘Aesthetics’”: The Social Construction Of Tap Water Mistrust In An Underbounded Community, Abby Vidmar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recent research on water insecurity in the United States has revealed that underbounded communities — urban disadvantaged unincorporated neighborhoods characterized by high-poverty and high residential density lying just outside the border of an incorporated municipality — often lack consistent access to clean and safe water. In these settings, poor water quality and inadequate infrastructure shape residents’ risk perceptions often leading to tap water mistrust. However, little is known about the broader social, political, and economic drivers of water quality in these settings and how such drivers inform the social construction of risk across different stakeholder groups. Using an underbounded African-American/Hispanic …

High School Teachers’ Perceptions Of Promoting Student Motivation And Creativity Through Career Education, Kyeonghyeon Park

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study aimed to investigate teachers’ perceptions and experiences of career education as to how career education shapes students’ intrinsic motivation and creativity in a high school in South Korea. Career education in South Korea aims to help students discover their interests, skills, aptitudes, and passions, and to help them understand what they need to achieve their goals in the future through the opportunities of various experiences. Career education can help students increase their intrinsic motivation and creativity as well as discover future occupations through various types of activities. This study was informed by two theoretical frameworks, Self-determination theory and …

Glucose Homeostasis In Human Diabetic Adipocytes: Role Of Glp1 In Sortilin Alternative Splicing, Ashley Lui

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a chronic and progressive metabolic disease defined by systemic insulin resistance. The inability of cells to respond to insulin and take up glucose results in elevated blood sugar that is detrimental to the overall health of patients. There is no cure for T2DM. Identification of new targets to alleviate hyperglycemia are crucial for treatment and prevention of metabolic diseases. Adipocytes play a central role in glycemic regulation by insulin stimulated glucose uptake, storage of excess nutrients, and secretion of adipokines. Major glucose transporter-4 (Glut4) is the main transporter responsible for postprandial clearance of glucose …

Microheater Stimulation Platform For Neural Cells, Haley Royce

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Electrical stimulation is the basis of many biomedical devices like cochlear implants,pacemakers, and retinal implants. In these systems, current is applied to a desired tissue to effectively stimulate it. Unfortunately, this is not localized as the current will spread through the tissue, limiting the spatial resolution. Thus, alternative forms of stimulation are needed to improve device precision and resolution. This project explores microheaters as a stimulation platform that can be easily integrated with existing biomedical devices. Microheaters produce heat via the Joule heating effect wherein electrical current is run through high resistance materials to output thermal energy. They are highly …

Ethnic-Racial Minoritized Adolescents’ Perceptions Of Cyberhate, School Connectedness, Ethnic-Racial Identity, And Life Satisfaction, Alexis Taylor

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Exposure to cyberhate has become an increasing trend across social media, with approximately 64% of adolescents reporting that they have seen hate speech (Common Sense, 2018). While social media is used to connect with others via likes, posts, and shares, it also allows for hateful content to spread quickly. Cyberhate is the intentional aggression or threat towards an individual or group based on their societal group association, such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and religion (Wachs et al., 2020). Ethnic-racial minoritized adolescents who experience cyberhate as racial discrimination may be at increased risk of maladaptive psychosocial adjustment (Sellers et …

Healthcare Profession Students Of Color Participating In International Service-Learning, Ellyn Katherine Couillard

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative exploratory case study investigated the healthcare profession students’ of color experience and the perceived impact of completing international service-learning (ISL). Before this study, most of the research about healthcare profession students in ISL reported had mainly White participants or reported data and findings in the aggregate. To complete this research, I performed two semi-structured interviews with each of the five participants incorporating photo-elicitation techniques. Then I performed constant comparative methods and communicated with a peer debriefer about my findings. Five participants were selected using max maximum variation based on racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds, programs of study, and …

Do Auditors Respond To Changes In Clients’ Analyst Coverage? Evidence From A Natural Experiment, Mohammad Alkhamees

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Prior research has established that analysts serve as an important monitor of managementand improve the quality of firms’ financial reporting. In this study, I utilize the natural experiment resulting from the mergers and closures of brokerage houses, to examine whether this exogenous change in firms’ information environment impacts the audit process. Specifically, I examine whether reductions in analyst coverage have an effect on auditor effort proxied by audit fees and audit report lag, as well as financial reporting quality, measured by future restatements. I find that client firms pay significantly higher audit fees following an exogenous reduction in analyst coverage …

Self-Perceptions Of Major Choice And Employability Skill Development In Sophomore Business Students, Melissa A. Kulp

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Today’s college students expect that an outcome of a college education is to be prepared to secure a well-paying job within their field of study after graduation. Within career services offices, career preparation is typically focused on upperclassmen looking for internships and jobs, leaving sophomore students to make major and career decisions on their own. The purpose of the study is to understand what on-campus experiences sophomore business students had to aid them in their major and career path choices, how they define and interpret three employability skills, and which experiences helped them develop these three employability skills needed to …

Analysis Of Prescription Drug Brand Mentions In Music: Prevalence And Consumer Perceptions, Lisa A. Blake

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Music is not only a lucrative mass reach media (Stassen, 2021) but also a deeply personal tool for self-expression (Hallam, 2019). Music listeners are exposed to a slew of branded messages within music promoting a variety of product types such as apparel, automotive, and alcohol (Craig, Flynn & Holody, 2017). Promotion in music has been proven to be an effective vehicle for building brand awareness when listeners are interested in the music (Delattre & Colovic, 2009, Hoyer & Brown, 1990; Macdonald & Sharp, 2000; Thoma & Williams, 2013). Brands promoted within music enjoy some of the benefits of promotional tactics …

Transitioning From Face-To-Face To Telehealth Speech And Language Services Due To The Covid-19 Pandemic: Perceptions Of Persons With Aphasia And Their Ehelpers, Emma Logan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research study was to investigate the perceptions of the aphasia community, as well as their caregivers, that are provided speech and language services and how their services were affected due to transitions because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The recency and novelty of the pandemic warrants research of many areas related to health care, including that of speech language pathology.

An online survey was completed by nine persons with aphasia and three eHelpers. Participants were recruited through a university clinic and by informational fliers through social media. Participants with aphasia qualified by having experiences with speech and …

Inaugural Addresses, Framing Theory, And The Impact On American Perceptions Of The Presidency, Kalin Meagan Velez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study uses the inaugural addresses given by both Donald Trump and Joseph Biden as the source texts by which to examine the sentiment portrayed by particular framed messages. Framing theory stands as the central framework in which this study was conducted. The objective was to identify how political speeches like that of the presidential inaugural address frame messages to citizens and inform the audience on what their presidency may look like. This study utilizes a quantitative analysis using LIWC software followed by a qualitative discourse analysis. A thorough examination of the history of inaugural addresses, preceding presidencies, and each …

Vulnerable Resistance In Victorian Women’S Writing, Stephanie A. Harper

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores how socially vulnerable characters, often dismissed as lacking access to agency, create space for resistance in nineteenth-century women’s writing. Central questions the dissertation addresses are, “Why is resistance by vulnerable characters not read?” and “How are women writers encoding resistance?” Working within a comprehensive historical picture of the challenges and concerns women writers of the nineteenth century had to contend with, and informed by feminist scholarship on women writers of the nineteenth century, the dissertation looks at vulnerable characters within Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Aurora Leigh, George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss, and Olive …

Metabolomic Analysis, Identification And Antimicrobial Assay Of Two Mangrove Endophytes, Stephen Thompson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Natural products have played major roles in drug discovery and provided sources for many new drugs. Secondary metabolites, also called natural products, are organic compounds that are produced from fungi, bacteria, and other living organisms. Secondary metabolites produced by endophytic fungi include alkaloids, phenols, peptides, enzymes, polyketides, and terpenes. Endophytic fungi are rich sources of secondary metabolites and demonstrate bioactivity against many human pathogens including the ESKAPE pathogens. This thesis explores the diverse roles of endophytic fungi and their production of unique secondary metabolites for potential drug discovery and development. Secondary metabolites from two endophytic fungi (EG10-21E-2-HDAC & TAP14-34A-2-HDAC), collected …

Exploring Interaction Through The Online Language Instructor Lens: Perceptions, Strategies, And Challenges, Jessica Krentzman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As our world becomes more interconnected, our learning environment and interactions continue to evolve, moving away from face-to-face meetings, toward online discussions using various forms of interaction. In the online learning environment, instructors now need to swiftly pivot their methods of instruction in order to assure student success in the online learning environment and to achieve this goal, instructors need concrete instructional and design strategies to support student interactions. To this end, I explored how online language instructors currently promote interaction in their courses, how the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework applies to their selection of instructional strategies, the instructors’ …

Outside The Boundaries Of Biomedicine: A Culture-Centered Approach To Female Patients Living Undiagnosed And Chronically Ill, Bianca Siegenthaler

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As a community who voices feeling misunderstood, unheard, and uncared for by the medical system, female patients who live undiagnosed and chronically ill and their health narratives lie beyond biomedical boundaries. To examine how chronically ill and undiagnosed female patients narrate their experiences in and with the biomedical system and how these narratives resist biomedical health standards, I employ semi-structured interviews with 20 female patients living undiagnosed and chronically ill as well as engage in critical autoethnography to recount my own health experiences living a part of this community. In utilizing the culture-centered approach to health communication as a theoretical …

Integration Of Sustainability Into Higher Education Policies: A Case Study Of The University Of South Florida, Mehmet Z. Apaydin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Sustainability and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are not new notions for higher education institutions (HEIs). However, well-organized efforts to make campuses "sustainable" are not common, and the efforts are modest compared to the institutional capabilities. This thesis, a case study of the University of South Florida (USF), was designed to explore how sustainability values and SDGs are incorporated into higher education policies. To accomplish this, the study employed a mixed method design that includes a literature review, an overview of policies and implementations, document content analysis, a program and course inventory, a keyword analysis, and semi-structured interviews. …

Mental Health And The Effects Of Stress And Violence On Migrant Farmworker Communities During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Russell Rice Manzano

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Immigrants encounter numerous vulnerabilities during the migration process and after arrival due to stressors and violence that they may experience. Many also face dangerous labor conditions, discrimination, violence, and aggressive immigration tactics in the United States. The prolonged exposure to these stressors can create suffering for these vulnerable populations, continuing to exacerbate existing inequalities.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, immigrants have also faced new challenges that often perpetuate inequities that already existed in society. Immigrants often suffer from inadequate access to healthcare, marginalization due to legal status, and fear, which was worsened during the height of …

Determinations Of Chemical Equilibria In Natural Waters Using Spectrophotometric Techniques, Katelyn M. Schockman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Accurate characterizations of chemical equilibria and thermodynamic processes in natural waters are key components for assessing the current state of our global climate and predicting future changes, especially for observations of small rates of change over long time scales. One of the most important chemical systems in natural waters is the system of inorganic carbon species comprised of carbon dioxide (CO2), bicarbonate, and carbonate. The bicarbonate dissociation constant, K2, describes the relationship between pH and the relative concentrations of bicarbonate and carbonate ions at thermodynamic equilibrium. The carbonate/bicarbonate equilibrium quotient is required in nearly all CO2 system calculations relevant to …

Data-Driven Design And Analysis Of Next Generation Mobile Networks For Anomaly Detection And Signal Classification With Fast, Robust And Light Machine Learning, Muhammed Furkan Küçük

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research focuses on machine (and deep) learning applications (including clustering,anomaly detection and signal classification) for self-organizing and next generation mobile networks in wireless communications. Specifically, this dissertation document will address the three different topics.

First, in the study titled “Performance analysis of neural network topologies and hyperparameters for deep clustering”, we explore the relationship between the clustering performance and network complexity. Deep learning found its initial footing in supervised applications such as image and voice recognition successes of which were followed by deep generative models across similar domains. In recent years, researchers have proposed creative learning representations to utilize …

Onsite Water Reuse: Fate Of Indicator Bacteria, Antibiotic Resistant Genes, Environmental Impacts, And User Perceptions, Michelle B. Henderson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Changes in water use, climate, and urbanization have shifted how water resources are used and defined. Wastewater is increasingly regarded as a viable resource to address challenges in non-potable and potable water applications. When dealing with water reuse, water quality and quantity are of the utmost importance; and the final product must be suitable for its intended purpose and acceptable to users. The first portion of this research analyzed the performance and environmental impacts of pilot-scale Hybrid Adsorption Biological Treatment Systems (HABiTS) for onsite wastewater treatment and reuse. Various configurations were investigated to increase HABiTS performance and ability to produce …

An Investigation Into The Protein Dynamics And Proton Transfer Mechanism Of Class-A Β-Lactamase (Ctx-Ms) By Nmr Spectroscopy, Radwan Ebna Noor

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Extended-spectrum β-lactamases (ESBLs) of different Enterobacteriaceae (e.g. Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae) have developed significant resistance mechanisms against antibiotics. ESBLs, like class A CTX-Ms (cefotaximases) enzymes hydrolyze the β-lactam ring of different antibiotics such as penicillins and third-generation oxyimino-cephalosporins. Although CTX-Ms are repeatedly found in many clinical and community settings, molecular-level information on their function/activity is currently limited to structural studies performed by X-ray crystallography. In order to gain further insights into the structure and functions of this class of proteins, it is also essential to fully understand their dynamic and chemical properties in solution. In order to better understand the …

Understanding Food Insecurity As A Multidimensional Construct: A Mixed Methods Approach To Assess Changes In Food Insecurity Status Among People Seeking Emergency Food Assistance, Whitney M. Fung Uy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Background: In the United States, 13.8 million households were food insecure in 2020, or 10.5% of the country’s population. Although the annual food insecurity rates remained stable between 2019 and 2020, largely due to increased COVID-19 pandemic relief efforts, many households experienced food insecurity and hardship at unprecedented rates. Food assistance provided by the largest government nutrition and food program, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and emergency food providers (EFPs) such as food banks and pantries intended to provide short-term solutions have ended up as chronic, long-term methods of survival for many of these families, especially during COVID-19 and the …

Noninvasive In Vivo Optoacoustic Imaging Of Alcohol Use Disorder Using A Mouse Model Of Alcohol Use Disorder, Augustine Meombe Mbolle

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research has two parts. The first part focuses on the use of photoacoustic imaging (PAI) to study alcohol-induced effects in the cerebral vasculature of selectively bred alcohol-preferring mice. Part two extends the application of PAI by developing a novel Photoacoustic imaging guided system for repetitive low intensity focused ultrasound (PAI-LIFU) stimulation treatment for alcohol use disorder in crossed high alcohol preferring (cHAP) mice.

Photoacoustic imaging is an emerging hybrid non-invasive optical imaging modality which relies on optical absorption contrast to visualize deep tissue structures and function. It combines the high contrast associated with pure optical imaging and the high …

An Exploratory Study Of Technology Use By Older/Senior Men For Enrichment, Communication, And Social Connectedness, Emerson Campbell Hardy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

More older adults are moving toward options for digital connection; keeping up with and learning technology is challenging. Older adults’ perceptions of the difficulty of learning to use technology may contribute to their hesitancy to adopt technology options (Barnard, Bradley, Hodgson, & Lloyd, 2013). The purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to explore the experiences of older/senior men learning and using technology for enrichment, communication, and social connectedness; and (2) to identify learning experiences and/or supports that aided these older/senior men in building knowledge, confidence, and comfort in technology use.

This was an exploratory qualitative study utilizing in-depth interviews. …

The Boy Scouts Of America Merit Badge Program And Career Development, Todd R. Van Auken

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the study was to determine whether a youth’s career development, as defined by the Career Maturity Inventory (CMI Form C), is associated with motivation, student grade level, and number of merit badges earned as a result of participation as Boy Scouts. For close to three decades there has been a call to improve career counseling for middle and high school youth. However, due to a shortage of school counselors in middle and high schools, counselors are inundated with heavy workloads of various responsibilities and do not always have the ability to focus on youth career development. Thus, …