Digital Commons Network^™

Teachers' Perspectives Of Implementing Restorative Justice, Antonio G. Smith

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The use of restorative justice in the school system is an emerging philosophy for handling student discipline that seeks alternative methods for solving problematic behavior than traditional or retributive approaches that are detrimental to the education and well-being of students. Student discipline is a controversial topic in education circles, resulting in many school districts looking to implement restorative practice program initiatives. Responses that are restorative, largely decrease the chances of recidivism. Zero-tolerance policies that were originally enforced to keep schools safe, have proven to not have the desired effect as intended, most arguably making schools less safe. There is a …

Experiences Of Saudi Arabian Mothers Of Young Children With Disabilities: An Exploratory Study, Samirah Bahkali

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Saudi Arabia is one of the countries that seeks to provide and develop services for children with disabilities and their families. As times have progressed, regulations and laws have placed an emphasis on providing suitable and better services for children with disabilities and their families. However, a gap exists in the literature regarding the overall experiences of Saudi Arabian mothers of children with disabilities in the early childhood years from birth to age ten (Al Otaibi & Al Sartawi, 2009; Alazemi, 2010). This study explored the experiences of Saudi Arabian mothers of children with disabilities. A qualitative interview approach, utilizing …

Automated Identification Of Stages In Gonotrophic Cycle Of Mosquitoes Using Computer Vision Techniques, Sherzod Kariev

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this paper, we design Computer Vision techniques to determine stages in the Gonotrophic cycle of mosquitoes. The dataset for our problem came from 125 adult female mosquitoes - each of which belonged to one of three species - Aedes aegypti, Culex quinquefasciatus, and Anopheles stephensi. The mosquitoes were raised in a lab and passed through all fourGonotrophic stages (Un-fed, Fully-fed, Semi-gravid, and Gravid). At each stage, their images were captured on a plain background via a Xiaomi smartphone, resulting in a dataset of 1784 images. The images were then augmented using standard techniques to generate a larger dataset of …

Synthesis Of A Multimodal Ecological Model For Scalable, High-Resolution Arboviral Risk Prediction In Florida, Sean P. Beeman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

West Nile virus (WNV) and Eastern Equine Encephalitis virus (EEEV) represent the two greatest endemic arboviral risks to the state of Florida. Currently, no approved human vaccine exists for the prevention of either virus. In the absence of a vaccine, effective disease surveillance is paramount for public health. In Florida, WNV and EEEV sentinel chicken surveillance is conducted by mosquito control programs operated at the county, municipality, or special taxing district level. This program was implemented in 1978 following human outbreaks of St. Louis Encephalitis virus (SLEV) that occurred between 1959 and 1977, with initial sentinel coops placed in proximity …

Constructing Frameworks For Task-Optimized Visualizations, Ghulam Jilani Abdul Rahim Quadri

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Visualization is crucial in today’s data-driven world to augment and enhance human understanding and decision-making. Effective visualizations must support accuracy in visual task performance and expressive data communication. Effective visualization design depends on the visual channels used, chart types, or visual tasks. However, design choices and visual judgment are co-related, and effectiveness is not one-dimensional, leading to a significant need to understand the intersection of these factors to create optimized visualizations. Hence, constructing frameworks that consider both design decisions and the task being performed enables optimizing visualization design to maximize efficacy. This dissertation describes experiments, techniques, and user studies to …

The Development Of Bioactive Peptidomimetics Based On Γ-Aapeptides, Minghui Wang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Peptidomimetics are small protein like chains which can mimic primary, secondary or eventertiary structures of peptides. They have been attracting more and more attention because of their special advantages, such as high tolerance to proteolytic degradation and thousands of chemical diversities. γ-AApeptides were developed by our group as a kind of peptidomimetics that represent γ-substituted-N-acylated-N-aminoethyl amino acids. Many biological functions of γ-AApeptides have already been discovered. To expand the potential application of γ-AApeptides, I designed and synthesized three series of antimicrobial derivatives with broad-spectrum of antibacterial activity. A one-bead-two-compound thioether bridged macrocyclic γ-AApeptides library was built and screened against NRF2 …

Unintended Consequences? Testing The Effects Of Adolescent-Targeted Anti-Vaping Media Upon Adult Smokers, Leslie E. Sawyer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A great deal of controversy surrounds e-cigarettes, with some arguing that protection of youth and non-users is paramount and others maintaining that these products are beneficial from a harm reduction perspective for use by adult smokers for switching from combustible cigarettes and for smoking cessation. Opponents of e-cigarettes have allocated tremendous funds toward advertising campaigns aimed at youth deterrence; however, to date, the effects of these ads upon adult smokers have yet to be examined. The current study used a between-subjects experimental design to investigate the effects of an FDA-distributed youth-targeted anti-vaping PSA, “Vaping is an Epidemic,” upon adult smokers …

Dynamical System And Parameter Identification For Power Systems, Abdullah Abdulrahman Alassaf

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The complexity of dynamical analysis has been growing to suffice the understanding and modeling of dynamical systems. Besides its nonlinearity and high-dimensionality, the dynamics of power systems contain uncertainty that complicates its analysis. Recently, dynamical modeling has been categorized into three types: white-box, black-box, and gray-box. White-box modeling has the accessibility of all system components. Black-box modeling has the observability of the system measurements without knowing the actual system. Gray-box modeling has the observability of the system measurements with the reachability to some of the system components. The scope of this dissertation focuses on black-box and gray-box models to achieve …

Who To Choose? Rating Broker Best Practices In The Medicare Advantage Industry, Darwin R. Hale

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to help navigate the U.S. Healthcare system in a way that maximizes value and minimizes risk to Medicare Beneficiaries. We do this through the creation of a tool that will aid in the selection of an independent health broker. Brokers are the trusted resource who have the responsibility and expertise to optimize client value through needs analysis, education, and expectations setting. Beneficiaries need help with life impacting health and wellness decisions and ongoing support across the continuum of care. The qualitative research included interviews of industry experts with combined Medicare experience of more than …

Impacts Of Automated Vehicle Technologies On Future Traffic, Xiaowei Shi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recently manufactured commercial vehicles are increasingly equipped with automated driving features. The adaptive cruise control (ACC) system, arguably the most common automated vehicle (AV) driving feature, is available on many new models of commercial vehicles in recent years. The ACC system is composed of a series of onboard sensors (e.g., millimeter-wave radars), computing and control units, which enables the commercial AVs to automatically maintain a safe headway between the subject AV and the lead vehicle by dynamically control the AV speed with real-time sensor information. Note that such commercial AVs are controlled by exact, prescriptive, and fast-responding computer-mechanical dynamic models …

Impacts Of Model Misspecification On Individual-Level Differential Item Functioning Detection In Multilevel Data Using Hierarchical Generalized Linear Model, Yue Yin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Hierarchical generalized linear modeling (HGLM) has become more and more popular in detecting differential item functioning (DIF) items in multilevel contexts due to its flexibility and efficiency. This dissertation aims to investigate and compare four different HGLM DIF detection models under various DIF conditions with multilevel data. Three studies were conducted in this dissertation. The first two studies were simulation studies and the third one was an empirical study. Simulation Study One compared the performance of two-level HGLM and three-level HGLM with the individual-level covariate (HGLM-IL) on detecting individual-level DIF items with two-level and three-level data structures. Simulation Study Two …

Employees Breaking Bad With Technology: An Exploratory Analysis Of Human Factors That Drive Cyberspace Insider Threats, Marcus L. Green

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As implementation of computer systems has continued to grow in business contexts, employee-driven cyberspace infractions have also grown in number. Employee cyberspace behaviors have continued to have detrimental effects on company computer systems. Actions that violate company cybersecurity policies can be either malicious or unmalicious. Solutions, by and large, have been electronic and centered on hardware and software. Those proposing solutions have begun to shift their focus to human risk vulnerabilities.

This study was novel in that its focus was identification of individual, cultural, and technological risk factors that drive cyberspace insider threat activities. Identifying factors that reduce insider threat …

Development Of Carbon And Silicon Carbide Based Microelectrode Implantable Neural Interfaces, Chenyin Feng

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The use of neural modulation techniques to treat nervous system disorders, as well as neural recording to study brain function, continues to be of intense interest around the world. Due to the need to treat diseases such as Parkinson’s, dementia, depression and return normal function to patients suffering from nervous system damage and trauma, neural implants continue to be developed globally. One of these devices, the microelectrode implantable neural interface (mINI), has been rapidly developed, thanks to advanced semiconductor fabrication processes. However, the long-term reliability of present-day devices has still to be demonstrated and is delaying the application of this …

Retaining And Supporting Graduate Racially Minoritized Students: A Critical Analysis, Patricia Y. Gills

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study aimed to critique the racial status quo of a school psychology graduate training program by gaining the perspectives of former and current racially minoritized students from the program. Additionally, this study aimed to utilize this information to provide implications for how to dismantle the racist and oppressive structures within the school psychology program. This study also aimed to analyze the success of research recommendations in helping racially minoritized students defeat the systemic barriers to completing a school psychology program. I conducted one-hour, semi-structured interviews of eight school psychology graduate racially minoritized students from the school psychology program. I …

Public Budgeting As Moral Dilemma, Ben Wroblewski

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Government budget managers are responsible for the proper stewardship of public funds and facilitating the business transactions necessary to meet the public’s needs. Sometimes, during these decisions, managers can experience pressure to make an unethical decision. A better understanding of this issue can help organizations prevent misallocation of funds and adverse effects within the community. The problem is that the general pressure model lacks a framework to explain the decision-making process. Moral utility theory can provide insight into how people weigh or score choices with ethical considerations. This study found that government budget managers included their self-interests when experiencing tension …

From River To Sea: Improving Carbon System Measurement Methods For Use In Rivers, Estuaries, And Oceans, Ellie Hudson-Heck

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Over the last 30 years, spectrophotometric methodologies have been developed, with increasing rigor, to accurately measure all four carbon system parameters: total alkalinity (A_T), total carbon (C_T), partial pressure of CO₂ (pCO₂), and pH. Spectrophotometric measurements of carbon system parameters rely on quantitative characterizations of the response of sulfonephthalein indicator dyes (e.g., meta-cresol purple (mCP), thymol blue (TB), and bromocresol purple (BCP)) to changing solution pH, as well the response of indicator physical-chemical characteristics to key environmental variables (salinity (S_P), temperature (T), and pressure). Until recently, the physical-chemical properties …

External And Internal Factors Of Sports Sponsorship Selling Cycles In North American Professional Sports, Dan Kaufmann

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In sports sponsorship, sellers and management seek to shorten their sales cycles to renew, upsell, and close new business. This research covers what professional sports organizations can do to help shorten the sales process. The study includes an industry analysis, literature review, and a mixed method survey of 212 people within the North American Sports Sponsorship Industry. The surveyed individuals are C-suite sponsorship salespeople and managers. These individuals work in the following professional sports leagues in North America: The National Football League (NFL), National Basketball League (NBA), National Hockey League (NHL), Major League Baseball (MLB), and Major League Soccer (MLS). …

Comprehensive Leadership Development: Principal Characteristics, Experience And Performance, Gregory Basham

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The significance of the principal’s role in creating a generative learning environment to influence student achievement is well documented in research (Davis et al., 2017; Hitt & Tucker, 2016; Leithwood, 2012; Leithwood, & Jantzi, 2008; Sebastian et al., 2017). This research has led to the creation of frameworks for developing leaders and constructs identifying effective leadership practices (Leithwood, 2012; Murphy et al., 2006; Sebring et al., 2006), but very little research has been done to investigate the relationship between prior roles and principal performance. Research designed to focus on the professional background of effective principals, the relationship of how prior …

Social Constructivism In Chemistry Peer Leaders And Organic Chemistry Students, Aaron M. Clark

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Social constructivist learning is a goal in many STEM programs. The goal of this dissertation is to shed light on what that pedagogy looks like in the context of organic chemistry courses and by peer leaders whose job is to implement this pedagogy with general chemistry and organic chemistry students. Learning is complex; the social constructivist ideas presented in this dissertation, however, are a straightforward means for promoting learning. Qualitative and quantitative methods used to explore social constructivist learning are outlined.

Three investigations were conducted: First, approaches to learning by students completing the first semester of a yearlong organic chemistry …

Human-Centered Cybersecurity Research — Anthropological Findings From Two Longitudinal Studies, Anwesh Tuladhar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cybersecurity is a pressing issue. Researchers have proposed numerous security solutions over the years in order to combat security issues but it is still common to find known, well understood security issues in production environments. In this thesis, I seek to find the underlying reasons to why existing security solutions and best practices are not consistently applied and how to improve the utilization of secure best practices. To this end, I adopt the anthropological research method of long term participant observation and embed myself in real-world settings in order to understand the existence of security issues and the perception of …

Synthesis Of Small Molecules For The Treatment Of Infectious Diseases, Elena Bray

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Drug discovery’s impact on modern healthcare cannot be measured. In the past year, the world has watched scientists all around the globe work together to help protect the public from the novel coronavirus pandemic. Although sometimes slow and costly, drug discovery is important for advancing modern society. Drug discovery is at the core of treating diseases and in particular, infectious diseases. In the first chapter an overview of drug discovery will be discussed in a brief manner.

The second chapter will introduce infectious diseases. In modern society, the development of small molecule treatments for treating bacteria, viruses, and fungi has …

The Is Social Continuance Model: Using Conversational Agents To Support Co-Creation, Naif Alawi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With the rise of Agentic IS Artifact and the increasing integration of this technology within organizations, our understanding of the impact of this technology on individuals remains limited. Although IS use literature provides important guidance for organization to increase employees’ willingness to work with new technology implementations, the utilitarian view of prior IS use limits its application in light of the new evolving social interaction between humans and Agentic IS Artifacts. To that end, we contribute to the IS use literature by implementing a social view to understand the impact of Agentic IS Artifacts on an individual’s perception and behavior. …

Learning From The Seed: Illuminating Black Girlhood In Sustainable Living Paradigms, Toni Powell Powell Young

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The contemporary image of sustainable living presents a culturally narrow view of its participants and the manner of engaging in sustainable living paradigms. Through crystallization (Ellingson, 2009) I present a mixed methods approach that emphasizes participant observation, visual, mediated, and discursive analyses, as well as demonstrates the efficacy of Culture Centered Black Feminist Auto/Ethnography. This project seeks to highlight and place within historical context, the ways in which African American girls, who are largely left out of the prevailing image of sustainability, perform and articulate sustainability for themselves, in their homes, and throughout their home communities.

In their everyday lives, …

Adaptive Mobile Eeg Noise Cancellation Using 2d Convolutional Autoencoders For Bci Authentication, Tyree Lewis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Electroencephalography (EEG) signals can be used for many purposes and has the potential to be adapted to various systems. When EEG is recorded from users, these studies are performed primarily in an indoor environment, while the user is stationary. This is due to the levels of noise that are experienced when recording EEG data, to minimize errors in the data. This thesis aims to adapt tasks that are performed indoors to an external environment by removing both noise and artefacts in EEG, using a 2D Convolutional Autoencoder (CAE). The data is recorded from subjects is passed into the 2D CAE …

Computational Fluid Dynamics (Cfd) Analysis Of The Hydraulic Performance And Bio-Kinetics In A Full-Scale Oxidation Ditch, Kiesha C. Pierre

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

An oxidation ditch is a biological wastewater treatment unit process where microorganisms are utilized to transform organic matter, and nitrogen from wastewater to meet the desirable effluent concentrations. Mechanical aerators are part of these biological reactors facilitating oxygen transfer for the aerobic microorganisms, while agitating and circulating the phase constituents within the ditch. Modeling the performance of an oxidation ditch involves combining hydrodynamics, oxygen mass transfer, and bio-kinetics and is one of the grand challenges that is of paramount importance in optimization of design and operations of these facilities in an energy efficient way while meeting the targeted effluent concentrations. …

Screening Next-Generation Fluorine-19 Probe And Preparation Of Yeast-Derived G Proteins For Gpcr Conformation And Dynamics Study, Wenjie Zhao

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

GPCR regulates numerous diverse physiological processes relevant to diabetes, obesity, Alzheimer's diseases, and several central nervous system disorders and targets proteins in signaling pathways. It has created nearly 200 billion profits from its derivative drugs in 2018. There are near 400 structures of over 70 GPCRs have been resolved by X-ray crystallography, cryo-electron microscopy, and NMR spectroscopy. One of the current challenges that remain in the conformational transition and dynamics study using NMR spectroscopy is to obtain sufficient quantities of the G proteins and GPCRs. Pichia pastoris has shown its tremendous promise in expressing the GPCRs in a high yield, …

Fiber-Based Supercapacitor For Wearable Electronics, Rohit Lallansingh Yadav

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Supercapacitors are significant devices that are used for energy storage and also have the capability of delivering energy at a faster rate than batteries. The increase in the significance of portable and wearable electronic equipment giving rise to pace in the development of flexible supercapacitor and flexible electrodes in recent years. A fiber-based supercapacitor (FSCs) is one of the most significant devices which have even helped us give pace knowing the properties of supercapacitor. These FSCs are said to have excellent electrochemical properties and flexibility. This did make function it in different forms of individual fibers or integrated textiles which …

Development And Validation Of A Scale To Measure Songwriting Self-Efficacy (Sses) With Secondary Music Students, Patrick K. Cooper

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Social cognitive theory was developed to explain how individuals learn, in part, by witnessing the behavior of others. Self-efficacy is a construct within social cognitive theory which indicates the beliefs that an individual can be successful at a task under specific situational demands. The sources of self-efficacy include self-evaluating past experiences to predict future success, comparing our abilities to those around us, the verbal and social feedback we get from others, and the physiological feelings we experience when engaged in or thinking about the task. Measures of self-efficacy have been shown to be accurate predictors of successful learning outcomes, achievement, …

Multidimensional Well-Being Across Time Scales In Caregivers And Non-Caregivers, Victoria R. Marino

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Contemporary research on informal caregiving recognizes that, though stressful, providing care for a disabled family member or friend can bring psychological benefits, such as increased meaning or purpose in life, growing closer to the care recipient, and learning new skills. Scales of eudaimonic well-being (EWB – e.g., meaning in life, personal growth, and positive relations with others) developed in positive psychology literature offer an innovative solution to incorporating caregiving benefits into between-groups comparisons of caregiver and non-caregiver well-being, which have typically focused on cross-sectional assessment of hedonic well-being (HWB – i.e., negative/positive affect and life satisfaction). Moreover, using daily using …

Security Attacks And Defenses In Cyber Systems: From An Ai Perspective, Zhengping Luo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Security of real-world cyber systems has drawn a lot of attention in recent years, especially when machine learning techniques are widely deployed into different layers of cyber systems. With the technology of machine learning, especially adversarial machine learning techniques, the attacks and defenses in cyber systems have shown a lot of new characteristics. In this dissertation, two major works regarding the attacks and defenses in real world cyber systems including dynamic spectrum sensing systems and High Performance Computing (HPC) systems and software systems are discussed.

In the first work, we revisit this security vulnerability of cooperative spectrum sensing as an …