Digital Commons Network^™

Recurring Scream: Trauma In Wes Craven's Slasher, Ben Muntananuchat

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates trauma representation in the horror film trilogy Scream, by director Wes Craven and based on the story and characters by screenwriter Kevin Williamson. The franchise is a satirical body of work that uproots the formulaic narrative aspects of the slasher film subgenre, of which it belongs to. Craven and Williamson’s method of critiquing the subgenre employs the usage of its cinematic tropes, though elevating them to a level of postmodern parody. I analyze traumatic representation within the franchise’s layers of mediation and postmodern narrative elements, which are often highlighted in academic discussion. The trauma observed revolves around …

An Experimental Investigation Into The Impact Of Crisis Response Strategies And Relationship Management In The Pharmaceutical Industry, Nikoletta Pappas

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates how millennials view their relationship with the pharmaceutical industry and if that relationship changes when exposed to different crisis messaging strategies. The pharmaceutical industry is currently dealing with a preventable crisis because of companies in the industry, such as opioid companies, causing death, distrust, and lawsuits. Coombs suggests the rebuild message strategies will result in a stronger relationship between the industry and their publics. This study will test that theory. The millennial participants that contributed to this study were all born between 1980-1996. Their relationships were measured through the variables of trust, satisfaction, control mutuality, commitment, communal …

Using Geophysical And Geodetic Data To Improve Natural And Human-Induced Hazard Assessments, Fanghui Deng

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

I use geophysical and geodetic data to study dynamics of the Earth System, including volcanoes and induced seismicity, aiming to improve related hazard assessment at different time and space scales. My dissertation consists of the following three projects: 1) Geophysical model for the origin of volcano vent clusters (Deng et al., 2017). We developed a conceptual model to simulate long-term magma transport to explain the origin of volcanic vent clusters in Quaternary Colorado Plateau volcanic fields. We used density contrast inverted from gravity data to constrain the magma transport model. The development of vent clusters appears to be influenced by …

Potential Roles Of Speech-Language Pathologists In Advancing Early Intervention And Prevention Within A Multi-Tiered System Of Supports (Mtss) Framework, Meaghan A. Mckenna

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) is a framework that promotes school improvement through tiered deployment of research-based academic and behavioral practices. MTSS employs a systems approach whereby data-based problem solving integrates effective assessment and instruction designed to meet the academic, behavioral, and social emotional needs of all students. Many speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are interested in better understanding their role within MTSS and others have a desire to lead efforts at their school site or the district level, but are unsure of where to begin. This dissertation includes three papers that explore potential roles and responsibilities of SLPs within a multi-tiered …

A Case Study On Black Twitter’S Reactions To The Framing Of Blacks In Dove’S 2017 Facebook Advertisement, Shereena Farrington

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Insensitivity to racial issues has long been one of the main causes of controversy in the marketing field. Among many brands to have caused outrage across social media, is the notable brand, Dove. The criticism that the veteran brand received has shown that even experienced marketers can still find themselves being accused of insensitivity or even racism (Ma, 2018). The gaffe of an advertisement released by Dove in 2017, serves as the impetus for the need for diversity in brands. Given today’s complex society, the purpose of this study is to identify themes that emerged in Black Twitter’s responses to …

An Analytical Approach To Information And Communication Technologies, Sahir Hismiogullari

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The twentieth century was a century of scientific and technological development. Especially the fact of information and communication technologies, beyond being a technological leap, has led to different levels of development and changes / transformations. Therefore, developments, possibilities, changes and problems emerging in the Internet and other digital contexts have attracted the attention of communication scientists, sociologists, historians and philosophers, and have become a field of research that leads to interdisciplinary studies. Along with the mass media developed for the last two centuries (from the spread of newspapers to the invention of the internet), every social development or transformation is …

Between Soledad And Attica Brothers: The Raiford Protests And Prison Activism In Florida, Alexander Obermueller

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In February of 1971 prisoners staged a weeklong protest at Florida’s largest prison near the rural town of Raiford. Prior to the Raiford sit-in and hunger strike, George Jackson had only recently published his prison letters and six months after the Raiford uprising a similar protest would rock Attica Correctional Facility and bring prisoners’ rights into national news. This thesis situates Raiford prisoners’ protests in the context of an emerging prisoners’ rights movement. Prisoners made use of various protest forms, retracted their labor, and engaged in litigation to fundamentally challenge prison and achieve some improvements to their lives behind bars. …

Development Of A Benthic Foraminifera Based Marine Biotic Index (Foram-Ambi) For The Gulf Of Mexico: A Decision Support Tool, Bryan O'Malley

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Gulf of Mexico (GoM) is an economically important region (e.g. oil and gas, fisheries) and with the expansion of oil drilling, harmful algal bloom events, oil blowouts, dead zones, anthropogenic eutrophication and contaminant loading, it is important that the ecological quality statuses (EcoQS) of different localities in the Gulf are closely monitored. The EcoQS, as implemented by the European Water Framework Directive, is an effective tool for monitoring ecological health and developing reference conditions. One such index used to define EcoQS is the AZTI Marine Biotic Index (AMBI), which pairs species abundance with environmental stressors. Benthic foraminifera are ideal …

Bayesian Reliability Analysis For Optical Media Using Accelerated Degradation Test Data, Kun Bu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) 10995:2011 is the inter-national standard providing guidelines for assessing the reliability and service life of optical media, which is designed to be highly reliable and possesses a long lifetime. A well-known challenge of reliability analysis for highly reliable devices is that it is hard to obtain sufficient failure data under their normal use conditions. Accelerated degradation tests (ADTs) are commonly used to quickly obtain physical degradation data under elevated stress conditions, which are then extrapolated to predict reliability under the normal use condition. This standard achieves the estimation of the lifetime of recordable media, …

Development Of An Organic Processor Assembly (Opa) For Sustainable Resource Recovery To Enable Long-Duration, Deep-Space Human Exploration (Loddshe), Talon James Bullard

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Long-Duration, Deep-Space Human Exploration (LoDDSHE) missions demand robust and reliable technologies to ensure crew health, safety, and mission success. In situ food production will become essential for these missions for crew nutrition, morale, and in the event of delays or failures. At a current estimated cost $10,000/lb, mass and volume limitations will restrict necessary resources. For an anticipated thirty-month mission to Mars, these costs will increase due to more frequent resupply shipments and lengthened transit times, creating additional financial and logistical challenges (Pickett et al., 2019). Increased resource and waste recovery to achieve nearly closed-loop systems will mitigate many of …

Rhetorical Roundhouse Kicks: Tae Kwon Do Pumsae Practice And Non-Western Embodied Topoi, Spencer Todd Bennington

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examines Tae Kwon Do practitioner manuals as sites for better understanding the way diverse rhetorics can become embodied through technique. This dissertation understands martial arts in a Foucauldian sense as rhetorical institutions which discipline practitioners both physically and ideologically. A theory of “embodied topoi,” a term coined here to describe the process by which cultural commonplaces are incorporated into a material, carnal, or performed identity is presented alongside a review of how athletic or martial bodies have been previously studied. Seven popular Tae Kwon Do technical manuals are analyzed for moments when 1. Commonplaces are described, 2. “Daoist …

A South Florida Ethnography Of Mobile Home Park Residents Organizing Against Neoliberal Crony Capitalist Displacement, Juan Guillermo Ruiz

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The cyclical inflations of real estate values right before the 2008 housing crisis in the United States enticed mobile home park landowners, especially in California and Florida, to sell their land in the search for spectacular profits displacing many low-income residents. This thesis uses an engaged anthropological ethnographic approach to explore the struggle in organizing against neoliberal crony capitalist displacement in the South Florida metropolitan area. The study focuses on Davie, a suburb of Fort Lauderdale, where at the time of fieldwork a third of residents lived in mobile homes. In 2007, the Davie town council attempted to soften the …

Redefining Representations Of Trauma & Modes Of Witnessing In Damon Lindelof’S The Leftovers, Mariana Delgado

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project aims to better understand how and why traumatized subjectivity is framed by The Leftovers’ fictional narrative in a visual and sonic form that rejects these modes of representations of trauma that they themselves have become conventional tropes. This thesis proposes to further examine the way the moving image, specifically the televised image, contributes to our perceived notions of trauma aesthetics through The Leftovers’ use of monologues, along with how and why suffering is sonically framed by the exchange of silence and Max Richter’s minimalist score.

Modernist aesthetics have become the disruptive expectations of contemporary Western cinematic audiences as …

Hyaluronic Acid Coated Targeted Lipid Micellar Nanoparticle As A Delivery Vehicle For Lapatinib And Ketoconazole In Egfr Mutated Lung Cancer, Nadia Tasnim Ahmed

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Background: According to the American Cancer Society, lung cancer was accountable for over 142,000 deaths in the USA in 2019. Common mutations related to lung cancer mainly occur in TP53, EGFR, and KRAS genes. Lapatinib is a small molecule tyrosine kinase inhibitor which acts reversibly on both epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2). Overexpression of EGFR leads to increased production and signaling of proteins that cause upregulation of cellular proliferation, cholesterol synthesis and resistance to apoptosis. Ketoconazole is an imidazole antifungal agent which works principally by inhibiting the enzyme cytochrome P450 14α-demethylase (CYP51A1) …

İyo Luché!: Uncovering And Interrupting Silencing In An Indigenous And Afro-Descendant Community, Eileen Cecelia Deluca

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this applied project is to uncover and interrupt the silencing of memories through the production of public narratives, specifically, the documentation of heritage of members of an indigenous and Afro-descendant community in Waspán, Nicaragua. The project is informed by interviews with seven women ex-combatants in the Contra War (1980-1990). Oral histories, transcribed interviews, and field notes are the source for the content of a book of heritage stories that I produced as one output about the former combatants utilizing their own words. In this thesis, I argue that the values of the “conquering” group of Nicaragua (i.e. …

Developing Design Elements For A Parkinson’S Disease Informative Website: A Social Marketing Approach, Emilie R. Madsen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative disease with no known cause or cure. No two cases are identical, meaning that every individual will present different symptoms and will have a different progression of the disease. Me Over PD is an initiative created to aid newly diagnosed PD patients and care partners in navigating the complexities surrounding the disease and live a more informed life with PD. Considering Me Over PD, the present research works to understand the experiences of PD patients and care partners upon diagnosis and after, and gauge what elements and information would be most beneficial to these individuals …

Aligning Voice And Communication With Identity – A Survey On Transgender And Gender Diverse Populations, Rachel T. Chalom

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: This research has two goals. The first goal is to examine transgender (TG) and gender diverse (GD) voice and communication functioning and the impact of voice on their everyday lives. The second goal is to examine the knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs speech-language pathologists (SLP) have about the TG and GD community and to investigate the relationship between self- and listener-perception and its correspondence to quality of life (QoL).

Methods: A total of 59 participants took part in this research. The research was separated into two parts, the first included 24 TG and GD individuals who participated in a Qualtrics …

Sentiment Analysis In Peer Review, Zachariah J. Beasley

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Sentiment analysis, a widely popular subfield of natural language processing, has recently been used in the classroom to predict student attrition or to determine the mood of students, teacher strengths and weaknesses, or student perception of internship experience. These are all helpful indicators for the enhancement of students' academic experience but none improve the information gathered from or the reliability of peer review. This is particularly important in large courses with complex assignments (e.g., essays, software projects, and presentations) where scalable grading is requisite. In this dissertation, we apply sentiment analysis not on an assignment itself, but on the meaningful …

A Dangerous New Era: Analyzing The Impact Of Cyber Technology On International Conflict, Kenneth Brown

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines the causal relationship between cyber technology’s deep global integration and changes in how states struggle for power in the international system. Specifically, it argues that cyber technology has changed international conflict by providing external actors the ability to penetrate states’ grand strategy decision-making and implementation processes to an unprecedented degree and scope. As a result, the meaning of power has changed from a material-centric metric to one that is more nuanced and difficult to measure.

To explore this hypothesis, the study follows a three-step process. First, it examines the history of cyber technology, how it has become …

The Role Of Threat And Efficacy In Anti-Vaping Ads: A Test Of The Extended Parallel Process Model, Ryan Noone

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Often thought of as a safer alternative to traditional cigarettes, electronic cigarette use among youth and young adults has steadily increased over the past 10 years. With over 34 percent of high school students and over 7.8 percent of young adults using electronic cigarettes, organizations like the CDC and the FDA have created campaigns and advertisements to combat the epidemic (Truth Initiative). This study uses a 2x2 between subject factoral experiment to gain insights into how varying levels of anti-vaping advertisements’ threat and efficacy elements effect college age students’ perceptions and behaviors towards e-cigarettes. While several of the study’s hypotheses …

Students’ Experience With Interleaved Homework In High School Mathematics, Carrie Toreky

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There has been discussion for many years about how much homework teachers give or whether they ought to give it at all. Some studies have shown that homework has a positive effect on high school students’ learning as measured by achievement tests or course grades. Additionally, there is an increasing interest among educators, policy makers, and researchers to identify instruction that can raise achievement levels and promote equity.

This study used an exploratory embedded comparative case design. The case study approach was used to explore students’ overall experiences with interleaved homework in high school mathematics classes. The subunits for this …

Cancer Biomarker Detection In Human Plasma By Integrating Surface Acoustic Wave And Metal-Enhanced Fluorescence, Yuqi Huang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis includes data and discussion about the technique of metal-enhanced fluorescence (MEF) to lower the detection limit of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA). The detection limit goes down to 100pg/mL level when using MEF substrate made by rapid thermally annealed silver film covered by silica, which has great promise in diagnosing certain types of cancer that uses CEA as detection biomarker, such as pancreatic cancer and colon cancer. To further address the issue of background noises from non-specifically bound proteins (NSB) in complex media, such as plasma, serum, urine and blood, MEF is integrated with surface acoustic wave (SAW) streaming in …

Nurses And Needlesticks: Perceptions Of Stigma And Hiv Risk, Bethany Sharon Moore

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Health-care providers (HCPs) are vulnerable to occupational health hazards, including dirty needle-stick injuries (DNSIs), which increase the risk for infection with HIV and other blood-borne pathogens. This study examines the perceptions of nurses and nurse practitioners who work in various health care settings regarding HIV-risk and DNSIs, in order to ascertain how these perceptions inform their decision-making regarding their health and nursing practice. I utilize a phenomenological approach to analyze the lived reality and embodiment of the DNSI experience by HCPs. The study explores the personal and institutional level factors that may influence the timely reporting and treatment of DNSIs, …

Exploring The Potential Of Nutrient Retention And Recycling With Wetlaculture Systems In Ohio With Physical And Landscape Models, Bingbing Jiang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Significant expansion of agricultural land use has been widely recognized for leading to global and regional negative environmental impacts, especially increased eutrophication of surface water systems for the last half-century. The landscape-scale environmental problem of overloading nutrients to lakes and streams by excessive fertilizer use and increased human-caused N-fixation is in urgent need of a sustainable landscape-scale solution. Wetlands have long been considered as an effective way to remove nutrients from surface water. However, the influence of regional seasonality and hydrologic conditions on agricultural runoff treatment wetlands still needs more investigation. A new approach, “wetlaculture,” has recently described as a …

Red-Green Rows: Exploring The Conflict Between Labor And Environmental Movements In Kerala, India, Silpa Satheesh

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Popularly referred to as “blue-green” conflicts, the stand-off between labor and environmental movements is often understood as a class-based conflict between working-class labor unions and middle-class environmental movements. Such singular conceptions fail to explain labor-environmental conflicts in the context of countries in the Global South, where working-class participants constitute both these movements. In this backdrop, my dissertation seeks to explore the conflicts between labor and green movements surrounding an issue of industrial pollution in Kerala, a south Indian state with a unique trajectory of development and working-class movements.

I adopt a qualitative methodological approach to understand the nature and dynamics …

Non-Invasive Sex Determination And Genotyping Of Transgenic Brugia Malayi Larvae, Santiago E. Hernandez Bojorge

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Lymphatic filariasis is a very painful and disfiguring helminth disease caused by the tissue nematodes Wuchereria bancrofti, Brugia malayi, and Brugia timori. This parasitosis is considered a Neglected Tropical Disease and it is a major public health burden for 72 tropical countries of Africa, Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, and South America. Despite the effectiveness of many control programs, there remains the need to develop new pharmacological agents to treat lymphatic filariasis, as most programs rely on a limited variety of drugs that are expensive, logistically difficult to obtain, and can lead to drug resistance. The Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic …

Ghostly Entanglements: Exposing Temporal Matter(Ing)S In Social Studies Education With (Re)Photography, Bretton A. Varga

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Visual resources offer a variety of pedagogical advantages. Regardless of content, images can be leveraged to build critically analytical skills and used to cultivate dialogic literacies (i.e., articulations of thinking) about the social world. Further, images can be used to introduce and grapple with complex/abstract ideas. Given the relationship that social studies has to temporality (i.e., subjective engagements with the past, present, and future), visual resources also present teacher(s) (educators) with the opportunity to explore (theoretical) concepts foregrounding manifold relationships making up the social world (i.e., a world consisting of complex entanglements between non/human entities).

The purpose of this research …

‘It’S Been A Huge Stress’: An In-Depth, Exploratory Study Of Vaccine Hesitant Parents In Southern California, Mika Kadono

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In 2015, the US experienced a widespread measles outbreak that originated at Disneyland, California and spread to six other states, Mexico, and Canada. That year, California passed Senate Bill 277 (SB 277), which eliminated the personal belief exemption for vaccinations required for school entry; California became the third state in the country to eliminate nonmedical exemptions. In 2019, Washington, Maine, and New York followed suit eliminating all nonmedical exemptions amid the largest measles outbreak in the US in 25 years. Many countries, including the US, are experiencing a rise in vaccine preventable diseases due, in part, to increasing vaccine hesitancy, …

Editing The Self Away: The Effects Of Photo Manipulation On Perceptions Of The Self, Roxanne N. Felig

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The use of editing applications to manipulate photos of one’s self prior to sharing them on social media has skyrocketed over the past decade, particularly among women. However, there is little research examining the consequences of such behavior. In this research, we experimentally examined the consequences of editing a photo of one’s self on self-objectification and self-concept clarity in a sample of 231 women. A correlational Pilot Study provided preliminary evidence for a relationship between self-objectification, self-concept clarity, and photo manipulation, and my Thesis was conducted to further explore this relationship. We anticipated that when women were exposed to objectifying …

Anorexia Nervosa And Bulimia Nervosa As Expressions Of Shame In A Post-Feminist, Emily Kearns

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Anorexia nervosa and Bulimia nervosa are heavily gendered conditions affecting women to a far greater degree than men in a post-millennium Western setting. The psychologistic and medicalized approaches to studying and treating these disorders do not account for socio-cultural and epistemic preferences. This paper draws a connection between shame (as emotion and affect) and these gendered disorders. Further, this work analyzes neo-liberalism, post-feminism, and consumerism as predatory elements of Western culture especially affecting women.