Digital Commons Network^™

Uprooted, Displaced, Resilient: Kosovar Women’S Narratives Of Organizing For Survival During The Kosovo War, Erjona Gashi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this dissertation is to foreground Kosovar women’s narratives and organizing properties during the Kosovo War. I examine the overlooked gendered roles and day-to-day lived experiences of Kosovar women, survivors of the Serb genocide, political violence, and oppression, and investigate their organizing properties during the Kosovo War (1998-1999). In acknowledging women’s plurality of experiences and perspectives, I challenge the currently pervasive and monolithic narrative of women as passive victims of war present in scholarship in organizational communication and instead make overt the narrative of women as critical organizational actors that sustain lives during and after the war. Using …

The Friendship Train: Peas, Politics, And Propaganda, Miller Scott

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

On a brisk fall night in November 1947, more than 100,000 people packed the streets of Hollywood to celebrate the launch of the Friendship Train. High-ranking government officials, business leaders, and a galaxy of film stars all attended the send-off ceremony. Over the next eleven days, the train traveled across the country, gathering essential foodstuffs to send to hungry Europeans. In small towns and big cities, the train received enthusiastic receptions. Its journey ended in New York City with a ticker-tape parade down the iconic Canyon of Heroes. Along the way, it collected more than 200 boxcars of food, worth …

Essays In The Econometrics Of Choice Analysis With Applications In Health Economics, Maksat Jumamyradov

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Unobserved heterogeneity is one of the main concerns for applied economists, particularly when modeling preferences for health and healthcare. Applied economists have preferred the mixed logit model due to its flexible latent structure allowing various specifications of unobserved heterogeneity. Since the model does not have a closed-form, its estimation relies on simulation-based methods, specifically the maximum simulated likelihood (MSL) estimator, which has been the dominant estimation strategy. In the first section of this dissertation, which include chapters 1 through 5, I analyze biases of MSL when applied to the bivariate normal, bivariate Poisson-lognormal and mixed logit models.

Discrete choice experiments …

Organizing Queer Civil Rights Movements: Pride Parades And Communicative Dilemmas, David J. Dooling

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Pride parades (“Pride”) are sites of communicative tension for the queer community. While the political origins of queer civil rights practiced widespread resistance to institutional heteronormativity and homophobia, Pride is a space where business owners, community stakeholders, and activists debate the political utility of queerness. This dissertation employs queer and sociomaterial theoretical traditions, and autoethnographic methodological approaches to explore the communicative strategies of Pride organizers—individuals who create, coordinate, and conceptualize the display of sexuality and gender in the public sphere. I draw on tension-centered approaches to organizational communication, feminist dilemmatic theorizing, and co-sexuality to investigate power-laden structures and decision-making in …

“A Second Chance Citizen Reintegration Program Through The Lenses Of Black And Brown Participants And Case Managers.”, Bobbie Straughter

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recidivism has been linked to a lack of education opportunities, heightened surveillance, a lack of housing stability, and limited access to resources for assistance. Because Black and Brown communities are facing mass incarceration, there is a growing concern about recidivism, as they are affected by several factors that may make them more likely to re-offend upon release. These include a lack of mental health outreach, their socioeconomic status, environmental influences, and the challenges they face regarding their masculinity and role in fatherhood. To both reduce recidivism and provide a solution to the obstacles presented above, the literature suggests providing re-entry …

Differences In Speech Patterns Produced By Spanish-English Language Learners During Single-Language And Mixed-Language Remote Academic Vocabulary Instruction, Ester Garcia

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Individuals with lower proficiency in a second language tend to produce more disfluent speech patterns in the second language. Speech disfluencies refer to interruptions in the forward flow of speech and are distinct from the colloquial use of “fluency,” to characterize knowledge of a language. Prior research indicates that some speech disfluency patterns may be more common among Spanish-English bilingual children, who tend to produce more mazes (fragments of an utterance) and syllable repetitions than their monolingual peers. These patterns have been attributed to 1) acquiring a new language; 2) the influence of Spanish as a first language (L1) on …

De La Escuela Al Hogar: Centering Latine And Hispanic Student Perspectives On Caregiver Involvement In The Well-Being Promotion Program, Nicole G. Pacateque Rodriguez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Latine students often face systemic barriers to accessing appropriate mental health support, highlighting the importance of culturally responsive school-based interventions to address mental health disparities (Gonzalez et al., 2022; Jackson, 2021). Although many interventions incorporate caregiver involvement, limited research has explored how Latine youth experience and make meaning of caregiver engagement in school-based mental health programs (Hansen et al., 2021; Wildmon et al., 2024). This mixed-methods study centers Latine student voices by examining how Latine students experienced and interpreted caregiver engagement in the Well-Being Promotion Program (WBPP), a school-based positive psychology intervention implemented during the 2023–2024 school year across six …

High School Acceleration And First-Year College Student Success: Do Advanced Placement Or Dual Enrollment Influence College Persistence Differently, Serge W. Desir Jr.

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The proliferation of Advanced Placement (AP) and Dual Enrollment taken by high school students expanded over the past few decades due concerted efforts to make the accelerated mechanisms more available to historically underrepresented groups and to reduce the cost of higher education. Supported by years of research correlating improved first-year college performance to enrollment in such programs, AP and Dual Enrollment also allow students to earn college credit prior to enrolling at post-secondary institutions, further enhanced their appeal. Despite this enhanced popularity, little research has been done on whether there are any indications of different academic outcomes by the accelerated …

Spectral Properties Of Wetlands In Michigan Using Remote Sensing To Identify And Classify Wetlands In Roscommon County, Michigan, Kolin Williamson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Biological, geological, and physical. These are only a handful of the many environmental aspects that wetlands functions maintain and protect. Unfortunately, wetlands within the United States have been razed at an alarming rate. The State of Michigan has not gone through this unscathed either, loosing over 1000 acres of wetland a year. One of the most important tools to prevent this destruction are the maps and programs that show where these essential ecosystems are located. The current, federally-created maps and imaging software in use by environmental consultants and contractors may not be up to date which can pose challenges for …

Public-Private Partnerships In Student Housing: A Qualitative Content Analysis Of Acuho-I Publications, Ana Mercé Mcdermott Hernandez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examines public-private partnerships (P3s) as represented in the Association of College and University Housing Officers – International (ACUHO-I) publications from 1951-2023 and shares themes and patterns found. P3s have been used for on-campus student housing since the 1960s, yet the method is not well represented in the discourse of the student housing profession. The purpose of this qualitative content analysis is to serve as a resource for higher education administrators to support the evaluation of the P3 methodology for future student housing projects.

Less than 2% of the 12,264 ACUHO-I publication entries reviewed were related to on-campus student …

Mathematics Teacher Preparation Reimagined: The Exploration Of Preservice Teachers Planning Culturally Responsive Mathematics Lessons Using Culturally Relevant Mathematics Tasks, Lakesia L. Dupree

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Equipping teachers with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions deemed necessary to work with students from diverse populations is a documented need that plagues teacher education. Furthermore, the influx of students from diverse backgrounds enrolled in United States schools intensifies the need to prepare the future generation of teachers to be equipped to provide learning opportunities for each and every student in their classroom. This paper highlights the importance of culture and the integral place it holds when supporting current and future teachers with planning and subsequently enacting culturally responsive mathematics and culturally relevant mathematics tasks in their middle grades mathematics …

Slot Machine Addiction: The Untold Story Of Contradictions Between Self And America's Neoliberal Risk Society, Melanie C. Falconer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The ability to take risks is nothing short of heroism in the modern United States which thrives on a diet of hyper mobility, technological progress, and globalized, deregulated “free” markets. Such relentless instability affirms scholarly contentions that the U.S. is now a “risk society.” Indeed, in Gambling with the Myth of the American Dream: The Pokerization of America, rhetoric scholar Aaron Duncan suggests that media stories of modern poker tournaments signify a collective desire to grapple with this heightened modern “chanciness” within our established gambling lore and make it cohere with our deeply cherished notions of American individualism. While Duncan …

A Republic Of Pawprints: The Rise And Reign Of The Alaskan Sled Dog, 1870-1970, Christopher David Adkins

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation charts the career of the Alaskan sled dog: how it was used as an engine of development, how it became a symbol for early American Alaska, and how it fell victim to obsolescence as newer and faster means of conveyance became available. The figure of the sled dog in the Arctic is complex. Because it was closer to the wolf in phenotype both it, and Alaska, were buffeted by the same White settler expectations and Darwinian chauvinism which afflicted its Indigenous peoples. This would intensify during the baptisms by fire of the gold rushes. Dog abuse – overwork, …

Context-Aware Affective Behavior Modeling And Analytics, Md Taufeeq Uddin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Affective computing (AC) is a sub-domain of AI that has the potential to assist people by assessing mental states and making appropriate recommendations to patients, loved ones, caregivers, and domain experts. Humans usually produce an enormous amount of data (such as face videos) every day. One of the major challenges for affective computer vision is to efficiently deal with high volumes of data to facilitate automated model development. To cope with this challenge, we developed computer vision algorithms that measure the expressivity of the human face from video data. More precisely, the developed algorithms can map complex affect information from …

Platonic Intelligence And The United States Constitution, Elizabeth M. Iglesias

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation demonstrates the Platonic logic that informs the order of value and design elements of the U.S. Constitution as defended in the Federalist Papers. The dissertation has four movements that reveal the Platonic logic of the U.S. Constitution. The first takes up the repudiation of tyranny in defense of a way of being called ordered liberty in both Plato and the Federalist. The second takes up the commitment to the supremacy of intelligence over power, an order of value that is distinctly Platonic and permeates the design logic of the U.S. Constitution. Intelligence in this context is understood as …

Seminoles, Soldiers, And Settlers: Identity And Power On The Florida Frontier, Jean Louise Lammie

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project uses an historical archaeological approach to analyze the processes of cultural negotiation between disparate social groups living in a remote borderland in the early to mid-nineteenth centuries. Florida, first colonized by the Spanish in the 1500s was passed to the United States in 1821 as part of the young nation’s nascent Manifest Destiny. The Seminoles experienced multiple colonial conflicts, dealt with new diseases, and selected aspects of European culture to incorporate into their daily practices of lifeways.

Archaeological studies of culture change tend to focus on the product of colonial interactions rather than the processes of change that …

Quandle Rings, Idempotents And Cocycle Invariants Of Knots, Dipali Swain

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Quandles are sets with self-distributive binary operations that axiomatize the three Reidemeister movesin classical knot theory. In an attempt to bring ring theoretic techniques to the study of quandles, a theory of quandle rings analogous to the classical theory of group rings where several interconnections between quandles and their associated quandle rings have been explored. Functoriality of the construction implies that morphisms of quandle rings give a natural enhancement of the well-known quandle coloring and quandle 2 cocycle invariant of knots and links.

The dissertation is structured into two main parts. In the first part, we delve into quandle rings …

Local Ecological Knowledge, Education, And Bilingualism: Ethnography Of A Stem Program For Elementary Students In Southwestern Florida, Barbara D. Herrera

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In response to the limited inclusion of cultural relevant pedagogy in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) centered educational programs, this study illustrates dynamics that encourage inclusivity and provide a space for minority students to develop self-efficacy while also exposing them to formal modes of STEM knowledge. Elementary level English/Spanish speaking children were taught local ecological knowledge (LEK) during a STEM summer program in a city in Southwestern Florida. The use of participant observation, group interviews with the students, and interviews with the educators allowed for an in-depth analysis of the program and the established goals. This study provides insight …

Comparative Analysis Of Time Series Models On U.S. Stock And Exchange Rates: Bayesian Estimation Of Time Series Error Term Model Versus Machine Learning Approaches, Young Keun Yang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study presents a comparative analysis of contemporary applications of time series models, focusing on the Bayesian approach. In contrast to many nonparametric studies, the Bayesian approach circumvents the common issue of bandwidth selection by offering systematic estimation and avoiding ad hoc methods. Specifically, we delve into the Bayesian approach for estimating the autocovariance function of a time series model’s error term. Traditional time series models often make the unrealistic assumption of a constant error term. Furthermore, models such as autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (ARCH) and general autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) address the limitation of constant variance by assuming an autoregressive …

Beach Processes Controlling Erosional Hotspots And Their Influences On Beach Nourishment Performances: A Case Study Along West-Central Florida Barrier Island Beaches, Sophia Gutierrez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the long-term performance of repeated beach nourishment over an approximately 35-year period at two barrier islands, Sand Key and Treasure Island along the west-central Florida coast, USA. Five cycles of beach nourishment on Sand Key and six on Treasure Island were conducted during the study period. Three erosional hotspots were identified along a combined 14-km stretch of the nourished beach. The processes that cause the erosional hotspot were examined through numerical modeling of nearshore wave and current fields.

The most recent three nourishments since 2006 were monitored systematically by this study. Beach profiles were surveyed bimonthly to …

"A Historic Place Of Peace And Reflection": A Critical Analysis Of Digital Methods In The Recovery Of Forgotten Black Cemeteries, Sofia M. Almeida

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a critical analysis of digital methods employed as part of a growing movement to identify, record, preserve, and research historic Black cemeteries. Through the joint partnership of the Black Cemetery Network (BCN) and the Institute for Digital Exploration (IDEx), a digital public mortuary archaeology approach was applied to digitally preserve Mount Carmel Cemetery in Pasco County, Florida. The digitization project resulted in the production of digital images, 3D models, and updated site maps of the cemetery and the memorials within. In all, ten gravestones in various conditions were identified, digitized, and turned into 3D models. The remains …

Advancing Text Summarization And Classification: Deep Insights From Transformer-Based Statistical Learning, Kun Bu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a part of human's daily life nowadays. Machine Learning (ML) as one aspect from AI has been rapidly developing during the past two decades, especially from the statistical learning approaches, which emphasized the use of probability and statistics to model data, such as Support Vector Machines (SVMs) for classification and regression tasks to the ensemble learning techniques, such as Random Forest, Gradient Boosting Machine (GBM), and stacking. Ensemble learning has evolved into a pivotal concept in contemporary machine learning, empowering practitioners to amalgamate multiple models to enhance generalization, accuracy, and robustness. As the field of machine …

Iron Isotope Transformations In Saanich Inlet, Claire Onak

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Iron (Fe) is required for many biogeochemical processes, with Fe bioavailability and chemistry being controlled by redox reactions that transform Fe between oxidation states and dissolved and particulate phases. In oxic seawater, Fe is present in the Fe(III) oxidation state, mainly as Fe oxyhydroxides. Under anoxic marine conditions, such as margin sediments under oxygen minimum zones or restricted basins with anoxic bottom water, Fe(III) is reduced to Fe(II), which is highly soluble and can be present at high concentrations ([Fe]). Fe isotope ratios (δ56Fe relative to IRMM-14) can be used to characterize Fe redox transformations, constrain Fe sources of Fe …

Effectiveness Of Contact-Based Strategies On Improving Mental Illness Stigma And Help-Seeking Behaviors Within Families, B. Michelle Wilks

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Adolescence is a developmental period that often involves extreme physical, psychological, and emotional changes and sometimes the experience of significant personal and social challenges. In addition to these challenges, youth are trying to find their place in the world and developing their identities, which depend heavily on their relationships with others. Adolescents who struggle with their mental health and also fail to develop meaningful connections with others, tend to have poor self-esteem, self-isolate, are ostracized by others, and have a poor social self-concept, all of which are associated with poor mental health and increased risk for suicidal ideation. The impact …

Density In The Coastal High Hazard Area: How Florida Local Governments Regulate New Residential Development In Flood Zones, Abdul Samad Agha

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research examines Florida local government policies that address residential development in the places where people, property, and infrastructure are most at risk from both coastal as well as inland storm surges with a purpose of identifying policy norms and variations. In Florida, these at-risk areas are categorized as Coastal High Hazard Areas (CHHA). Under Florida Statutes, the CHHA is defined as the area below the elevation of a Category 1 storm surge line and are those places most likely to be significantly damaged or submerged by sea water. Florida requires that local governments designate CHHA areas within the local …

Individual Behavioral Modeling Across Games Of Strategy, Logan Fields

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

An individual’s actions in a particular environment and with specified resources can reveal their decision-making tendencies and patterns, and by analyzing the variations in cognitive traits among individuals, it may be possible to identify trends that can foretell their future behaviors. This can be a powerful tool in various fields including cognitive modeling, player analytics, computer security, and threat detection. Collectible card games are a fruitful test space for studying cognitive differences in decision-making, as they can have clearly defined and replicable environments and large player bases. As such, in this work, I explore the potential of using two virtual …

Sociocultural Factors, Definitions, And Experiences Of Intimate Partner Violence Among Latina And Hispanic Women, Vanessa Centelles

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a pressing public health concern in the United States (US), particularly for women. Some studies have shown that Hispanic and Latina women are at an elevated risk of experiencing IPV due to a notable passiveness of violence among traditional Hispanic and Latina women. Thus, it is crucial for research to examine the effects of sociocultural variables—such as cultural orientation, gender norm beliefs, and ethnic identity—on IPV within this demographic, particularly for women in the US. Furthermore, while the experiences of IPV victimization among Hispanic and Latina women have begun to be recognized in the broader …

It's Real, It Just Hasn't Happened Yet: A Three-Article Dissertation On Emerging Technologies In Higher Education, Jeanette Abrahamsen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this three-article dissertation is to better understand the role emerging technologies are playing in learning. This dissertation explores tools on a spectrum of reality from fully immersive virtual reality (VR), semi-immersive VR, non-immersive VR, augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and extended reality (XR). Three studies focus on emerging technologies from the student, educator, researcher perspectives to develop a holistic picture of emerging technologies in higher education. I explore factors that impact new technology adoption, which includes advantages and disadvantages to deploying different digital tools. This dissertation begins with a systematic literature review of 20 research studies …

Stereotyped Non-Stereotypicality: Exploring Positive Effects Of Non-Stereotypical Gender Portrayals On Consumer Perceptions, Veronika Ponomarenko

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research attempts to identify contexts where non-stereotypical gender portrayals may have positive effects on consumer perceptions. It tests the perceived self-expressiveness of non-stereotypical gender portrayals as the mediating mechanism behind these effects as well as other alternative mechanisms in a comprehensive experiment. The analysis results show that an interpretation of gender through the theoretical lens of extravagance rather than self-expressiveness seems to be more appropriate. This study also introduces an overarching theoretical framework of metacognitive experiences that may explain the processes driving the effects of non-stereotypical gender portrayals on consumer perceptions. Finally, this research explores different types of gender …

Hidden Monstrosities: The Transformation Of Medieval Characters And Conventions In Shakespeare's Romances, Lynette Kristine Kuliyeva

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

When Shakespeare’s First Folio was published in 1623, it was entitled Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies, the title designating the three genres under which his plays would be categorized for the next 250 years. Later, Irish critic Edward Dowden took it upon himself to restructure the Shakespearean canon by adding plays that were not previously published in the First Folio, reclassifying the genres of several of the plays, and establishing a new genre to accompany the previous three: romance. Within this fourth generic category of romance, Dowden situated four of the Shakespearean plays: Pericles, Prince of Tyre; Cymbeline; …