Digital Commons Network^™

Stat3 Contributes To Resistance Towards Bcr-Abl Inhibitors In A Bone Marrow Microenvironment Model Of Drug Resistance In Chronic Myeloid Leukemia Cells, Nadine N. Bewry

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Imatinib mesylate (imatinib) represents a potent molecularly targeted therapy against the oncogenic tyrosine kinase, BCR-ABL. Although imatinib has shown considerable efficacy against chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), displaying high rates of complete hematological and complete cytogenetic responses, treatment with imatinib is not curative and overtime advanced-stage CML patients often become refractory to further treatment. Acquired resistance to imatinib has been associated with mutations within the kinase domain of BCR-ABL, BCR-ABL gene amplification, leukemic stem cell quiescence as well as over-expression of the multidrug resistance (MDR1) gene. However, in vitro resistance models often fail to consider the role of the tumor microenvironment …

Promoting Cultural Experiences Through Responsive Architecture, Shabonni Olivia Elkanah

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Dance, costume, and music are all reflective of a heritage that has been intact over three hundred years. The street activities during carnival season on the island of St. Kitts can be described as dynamic excitement between the onlookers, the Masqueraders, a local folklore group, and other carnival players. The interactive play amongst group members of the Masqueraders is one that tells a story of the colonization and perseverance of a nation influenced by Indian, European and African past. There is often, however a disconnection between an outsider, 'the audience', and the culture of the island. Only when the interactive …

Relife: Transitional Housing For Victims Of Natural Disaster, Alexander B. Smith

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recent natural disasters around the globe have left individuals without shelter. Governments have shown slow response for these victims with examples seen from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. People are still living in structures that are hazardous to their health, insufficient for normal day activity, and socially unacceptable. With the rising numbers of victims and the slow response of governments to provide solutions, a new typology must be designed.

This thesis proposes a new typology that will create a responsive design that is efficient, aesthetic, environmentally conscious, and ready for implementation. Transitional housing can be defined as housing that is …

Aquatecture: Architectural Adaptation To Rising Sea Levels, Erica Williams

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Our world is drastically changing. Temperatures are rising, skies over cities are blanketed with smoke, and melting glaciers are raising sea levels at alarming rates. Although the destruction we face is already threatening the quality of life for billions around the world, it could just be the beginning. What is projected to come in the future could be catastrophic.

It is crucial to realize that climate change is already happening. One of the main concerns relating to climate change is that as the polar ice caps continue to melt, rising water will invade our coastal cities around the world. In …

Community Service Through Architecture: Social Housing With Identity, Karina Cabernite Cigagna

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite reasonable advances in public policies for housing in the last two decades, Brazil's current housing deficit is 5.6 million housing units. In São Paulo, Brazil's largest city, an estimated one fifth of the population of 17.5 million is currently living in inadequate housing conditions, like the "favelas" (Shanty Towns) (IBGE). The favelas' houses are made from scrap materials such as wood and metal sheeting, they do not have services such as sanitation, water or electricity, and the settlements are usually very overcrowded. The gigantic rate of illegal occupation of urban land has lead to disastrous consequences not only to …

Dyna-Mod Constructing The Modern Adaptable Home, Sarah Deardorff

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The modern home has become a static fixture in society that is not reflected in the growing populous that is becoming an ever increasing mobile society. Many are not able to stay to the same place that they call home for long periods of time. Changing jobs, markets and neighborhoods force those to continue their movement around leaving what it is that they call their home to try and reproduce it within another location. The home finds itself lost in this transition and must now function on a greater adaptability than ever before and reflect the growing demand placed upon …

An Absence Of Presence: The Voices Of Marginalized Communities In The Development And Implementation Of Cultural Resource Management Initiatives In The British West Indies: A Case Study, Kelley Scudder-Temple

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation research is the study of cultural resource management initiatives and

the extent to which archaeological surveys and excavations include or exclude African

Caribbean contemporary and historic communities, throughout these processes. Varying

types of archaeological sites identified by archaeologists, along with community

inclusionary measures are examined to determine as to the degree to which

archaeological surveys and excavations are reflective of historic and contemporary

African Caribbean communities.

Data were collected through archival research, interviews and surveys and analyzed

qualitatively to examine the degree to which stakeholders, particularly those who have

been historically marginalized, have been incorporated into these processes. …

The Sleeping Giant: Revealing The Potential Energy Of Abandoned Industry Through Adaptive Transformation, Wesley A. Bradley

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With the downfall of industry, cityscapes have become speckled with post-industrial building fragments. Skeletons, left as the evidence of a past generation are waiting patiently for their chance to reemerge as active elements. Furthermore, they are ever-present but remain out of touch within the thriving urban organism that has engulfed their surroundings. These condemned giants, rich in history, location, aesthetics, and vigor sleep underneath the growth. Their post-industrial urban sites are generally discarded and forgotten. On these sites the fragments of the massive and extraordinary crumble. These large industrial buildings have become a burden to their communities. Not realizing what …

The Politics Of Space And Place In Virginia Woolf’S The Years, Three Guineas And The Pargiters, Ángel Luis Jiménez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A critique of the social construction of space was fundamental to Virginia Woolf's overall feminist project of decentering patriarchal and imperial values. In A Room of One's Own (1929) Woolf famously emphasized that financial independence and a private space were vital to female creativity. But Woolf was concerned with the politics of space throughout her writing, an aspect of her thought that has not been widely addressed. My thesis examines Woolf's ongoing preoccupation with spatiality in two closely related works of her late career, The Years (1937) and Three Guineas (1938). In these texts, Woolf interrogates the cultural construction of …

An Intermediate Extended Literacy Routine To Support Struggling Third Grade Readers, Jeani Z. Fullard

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Large numbers of children in the United States are not functioning at adequate levels of literacy. Students who have weak reading proficiency skills are identified as at-risk; failure to acquire competency early in their schooling adversely affects performance in all academic fields and limits their potential for achievement in life. There is an extensive knowledge base about the skills and strategies children must learn in order to read well. Effective fluency and comprehension strategies need to be taught to help students become powerful, active readers who are in control of their learning.

This study evaluated a structured classroom model …

Redesigning The Megachurch: Reintroduction Of Sacred Space Into A Highly Functional Building, Javier Valencia

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

"Megachurches offer a unique way of being religious in modern society; one that fits the social and religious context of many people says Scott Tumma “Beyond Megachurch myths”. These Massive congregations of two to fifteen thousand participants occupy an undeniable space in the religious and social landscape. It is not only their massive buildings, locations, activities or television broadcasts that make these churches important. It is the role that they play in changing society (Hartford, 2006)” Architecturally the Megachurch has failed today, it has become a “big box”, a well developed building which houses thousands of members and provides them …

Striving And Surviving: The Phenomenology Of The First-Year Teaching Experience, Michael D. Smith

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite the enduring relative popularity of teaching as a career, the research literature on teacher preparation suggests that there is growing concern about the state of the field. With each passing year, the demographic realities within k-12 classrooms bring new challenges for the teacher preparation enterprise. Shortages in high need communities and increasing numbers of provisionally certified (or uncertified) teachers represent two areas of concern. Notwithstanding the extraordinarily increasing cultural and linguistic diversity now found among the student population, the teacher population has failed to diversify in kind. The number of new teachers who are ill-prepared to respond to this …

Frozen Assets: Science, Natural Philosophy, And The Quest For Arctic Gold, Justin V. Castells

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper looks at the emerging conflict between natural philosophy and empirical science in the late sixteenth century by examining the events surrounding the supposed discovery of gold in northern North America by Martin Frobisher in 1577. The discovery of gold in a region thought incapable of producing the metal, and the subsequent assays of ore mined from that region served as a catalyst for conflict between different understandings of the natural world. Proponents of natural philosophy and empirical science each used their theoretical tools to prove or disprove the value of the ore, reflecting the larger discussions taking place …

Defining A Community: Controlling Nuisance In Late-Medieval London, Natalie J. Ciecieznski

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Using municipal sources from late medieval London, this study examines nuisance as a sub-topic of social regulation. In addition to defining nuisance, it analyzes who controlled nuisance and how it was controlled from the late thirteenth through the early fifteenth centuries. During this period, nuisance comprised building and boundary disputes between neighbors, such as conveying rainwater onto a neighboring property instead of to the street; environmental issues, such as blocking passageways with rubbish and not properly disposing of waste; certain groups of people and places, such as vagrants and brothels; and certain forms of speech, such as insults and threats. …

Non-Calanoid Copepods At The Bermuda Atlantic Time-Series Study (Bats) Station: Community Structure And Ecology, 1995-1999, Hussain Ali Al-Mutairi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Zooplankton were sampled on a monthly basis at the Bermuda Atlantic Time-series Study (BATS) site from January 1995 to December 1999. Samples were collected using a 1-m², 200 µm mesh net. The net sampled the water column in an oblique manner from the surface to a mean depth of 200 m. One day and one night tow from each cruise was examined microscopically to determine the community structure of the non-calanoid copepods. In addition, a three year set of nighttime samples were examined taken by 0.5-m², 20 and 35 µm mesh nets (1995-1996 and 1997, respectively) towed obliquely to 150 …

Comparing Reef Bioindicators On Benthic Environments Off Southeast Florida, Ryann A. Williams

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A goal of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is to develop protocols applicable to coral reefs to distinguish between the effects of local water quality and those associated with regional to global environmental change. One test case is the current-dominated southeast coast of Florida where the Delray Outfall delivers 30 million gallons per day (114,000 cubic meters per day) of secondary-treated sewage into the ocean. Five study sites were established at depths between 15 and 18 m, and at distances between 1 and 18 km distance from the outfall, where the Stony Coral Rapid Bioassessment Protocol (RBP) was conducted to …

Shifting Paradigms: The Development Of Nursing Identity In Foreign-Educated Physicians Retrained As Nurses Practicing In The United States, Liwliwa Reyes Villagomeza

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A unique breed of nurses for the US market is emerging-the Physician-Nurses. They are foreign-educated physicians who have retrained as nurses. The purpose of this study was to generate a theory that can explain the development of their nursing identity. Specific aims were to discover barriers that participants perceived as problematic in their transition to nursing and catalysts that influenced how they addressed the central problematic issue they articulated. Grounded theory methodology guided by the philosophical foundations of symbolic interactionism was used. Twelve Physician-Nurses were interviewed. Transcribed interviews were imported to ATLAS.ti. Text data were analyzed by constant comparative method. …

Spatial And Temporal Trends In Water Quality In The Alafia River Watershed, Jennifer M. Aragon

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Water quality data and land use information were analyzed within the Alafia River watershed in Florida to determine spatial and temporal trends in these variables over a 16 year time period from 1991-2006. Monthly water quality data (for dissolved oxygen, turbidity, fecal coliform, total phosphorus, and total nitrogen) were statistically analyzed using the modified seasonal Kendall nonparametric test for trends that accounts for serial correlation. The statistical trend analysis was conducted for the entire study period, but monthly, seasonal, and land use trends were also examined. Land use information was examined using Geographic Information Systems to determine the percent change …

Training Teamwork In Medical Teams: An Active Approach With Role Play And Feedback, Matthew S. Prewett

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recent reports in the field of medicine have recommended the use of teamwork training to reduce the number of injuries and fatalities from human error. Teamwork training in the field of medicine appears promising, but few empirical evaluations of such programs have confirmed their effectiveness. Existing teamwork training studies have tended to use a traditional, lecture approach to training, with positive but modest results upon teamwork attitudes and behaviors. The current study developed and evaluated a more active teamwork training protocol for trauma resuscitation teams. The training protocol supplemented several medical and non-medical role plays with a lecture and guided …

Workin’ From Cain To Cain’T: Challenges Within Florida’S Gulf Coast Oyster Industry, Diane Marie Wakeman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Oyster tongers are a cultural icon of Florida's maritime heritage and geography. Challenged for generations by the vagaries of weather, including catastrophic storms and years-long droughts, and economic uncertainties this maritime heritage is fading fast. While Florida's north and west coasts produce 90 percent of the Florida oyster harvest and ten percent of oysters consumed in the United States, the industry is at risk today for reasons including a declining demand for Florida oysters because of health concerns; water pollution; population growth and its accompanying development of condominiums, gated communities, and retail shopping centers; and declining interest in the hard …

Memory - Ness: The Collaboration Between A Library And Museum, Kelsey Doughty

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Picture a historical library and a historical art museum coming together to challenge the interaction between each other to help experience, explore, and discover the past within the present. While it sounds like a good idea, it is rare to see a library and museum under one roof.

With the increasing population of tourists looking to visit places and buildings that reconnect with history, there is a higher demand for places to be able to 're-live the past' through art and literature. People enjoy visiting places where history was made and where it becomes part of a city's identity. With …

Designing Community: The Application Of New Urban Principles To Create Authentic Communities, Margaret Embry

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research is an exploratory investigation of the potential of New Urbanist planning and design principles to create thriving and successful neighborhoods. New Urbanism is an urban design movement started in the early 1980s that promotes the development of walkable, compact, and diverse neighborhoods. It is the objective of this research to shed light on the value of creating a higher quality of life and more time for ourselves and our families. I hypothesize that New Urbanism may pave the way for recapturing commute time for time with family, creating authentic and successful communities, and engaging with neighbors. Furthermore, by …

The Effect Of Corporate Social Responsibility: Exploring The Relationship Among Csr, Attitude Toward The Brand, Purchase Intention, And Persuasion Knowledge, Duangkaew Chaisurivirat

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to test the general belief that CSR leads to positive attitudes toward a brand and results in an increase in consumers' purchase intentions on the basis of the Affect Transfer Hypothesis (ATH). This study replicates and extends previous research by examining the effect of consumers' persuasion knowledge, based on the Persuasion Knowledge Model (PKM), as one variable that can affect consumers' attitudes toward CSR initiatives and brands. A post-test only experiment was conducted using stimulus materials derived from Starbuck Coffee Company. Four of the stimulus materials containing CSR messages corresponded with four CSR initiative …

Revitalization And Modernization Of Old Havana, Cuba, Mileydis Hernandez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Architecture around the world has been very influential for determining the historical background of many cities. The architecture of the city of Havana in Cuba is etched with unique historical forces and signature buildings. This architecture embodies local reproductions of Western and European styles. The superimposing of Western and European styles led to the formation of a "strange baroquism" that defined the "lasting features of the overall idiosyncrasy of the city."

Since Cuba's change of government in the 1950s, architecture has progressed very little. From the day Castro took power, Havana's skyline has hardly altered. After the fall of the …

Exploring The Effects Of Bmi Health Report Card Letters Among 6Th Grade Students And Parents: An Application Of The Social Cognitive Theory, Jenna M. Kaczmarski

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In response to the growing child and adolescent obesity epidemic, some states and local school authorities are mandating the measurement of Body Mass Index (BMI). However, there is limited research addressing whether schools are an appropriate setting and the intended as well as unintended effects of sharing this information with parents. Furthermore, there is yet to be conclusive evidence that shows that BMI screening in the school setting is an effective way to improve student BMI status. Therefore, the purpose of this research study was to explore the effects of BMI Health Report Card Letters among 6th grade students and …

Urban-Eco-Filter: Introducing New Lungs To The City Of Beijing, Carlos Gil

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

It is evident that several cities in China have experienced a variety of global impacts. Beijing for instance, has become synonymous with mass-migration over the years. The immense scale of projected rural migration, the unmanageable intervention of new housing urban developments, and the high levels of air pollution in Beijing have become a global dilemma. In order to alleviate Beijing's critical ecological conditions, the introduction of "new lungs", as an urban environmental design to the city should be examined. This thesis project illustrates how urban productive landscape and bike infrastructure can be essential in urban development through the implementation of …

Developing Pre-Literacy Skills In Preschool Children: The Utilization Of Parents As A Vital Resource, Ashley N. Sundman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the effects of a parent-implemented intervention on preschool children's development of letter-naming and phonological awareness skills. Six parent-child dyads with children enrolled in a Head Start Program in West Central Florida were selected to participate in the study. A multiple baseline across participants design was used to evaluate the impact of an intervention package that included activities focusing on: (1) using mnemonics to learn letter names and (2) developing phonological awareness of the onsets of words through parent questioning and feedback. Phonological awareness development was measured using the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills First Sound …

Leading Change In Schools: Leadership Practices For A District Supported School-Based Reform Model, Monica C. Verra

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The reauthorization of the Individual with Disabilities Education Act of 2004 strongly encourages the use of a response-to-intervention (RtI) model to reduce the number of students identified as learning disabled, to increase student achievement, and to close learning gaps between subgroups of students. RtI is based on the systematic assessment of students' responses to high-quality research-based instruction and interventions. The implementation of a research-based school-specific intervention model, such as RtI, may result in significant change for schools and districts.

The purpose of this study was to describe perceptions of the level of change the implementation of RtI represents in a …

Latent Newspaper Functions During The Impact Phase Of Hurricane Katrina, Christina A. Brown

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Media is used by audiences for more than its simple role as information provider. Audiences have been found to use news providers output in a multitude of ways. It has been found that some audience members have used such output as a way to gain social capital that aids in the generation of feelings of social cohesion with their community. This has been found to be especially true during the impact phase of a natural disaster, such as a hurricane (Perez-Lugo, 2004). Unfortunately what news providers specifically articulate that might have this latent use by audiences has not been studied …

Gender And Internal Migration In Wuhan, Hubei Province, China: Rural Hometowns, Factory Work, And Urban Experiences, Milena Urszula Janiec-Grygo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis focuses on gender and scale as key aspects of the rural-to-urban migration process in China. Its specific aim is to connect economic and social reasons for rural women's migration towards urban factory work. Contemporary large-scale migration studies show inconsistencies and contradictions concerning reasons for migration, especially as it relates to gender. Thus, migration research often emphasizes the positive social changes experienced by women workers, in effect signaling that the most important needs of women migrants can be satisfied without economic gains. In contrast, the proposed study seeks to show that social and economic reasons intertwine within women's experiences …