Digital Commons Network^™

Rhetorics Of Fear, Deployment Of Identity, And Metal Music Cultures, Gregory Vance Smith

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to analyze the rhetorics of fear operating in public discourses surrounding metal music. This analysis focuses on how the public rhetorics deploy identity on listener populations through both the mediation and legislation of identities. Specifically, this mediation takes place using both symbols of fear and arguments constructed on potential threats. Texts for analysis in this study include film and television documentaries, newspaper articles, book-length critiques of and scholarship on heavy metal, and transcripts from the U.S. Senate Hearings on Record Labeling.

"Heavy metal" and "metal music" are labels that categorize diverse styles of music. …

An Autoethnographic Account: A Description Of Nine Young Children's Literacy Learning Experiences In A Summer Camp, Melinda G. Adams

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

My research assistant and I employed participant observation to study graduate tutors and children in a literacy camp setting. Research questions were: What types of literacy instruction do nine children receive from graduate education major tutors in a community of interest summer literacy camp? How do nine children respond to literacy instruction they receive from graduate education tutors in a summer literacy camp? We collected data once a week for six weeks. We observed and took notes to determine what instruction graduate tutors offered and how children responded. I used autoethnographic methods to reflect on my former teaching practices. Ellis …

Elementary School Assistant Principals‟ Decision Making Analyzed Through Four Ethical Frameworks Of Justice, Critique, Care, And The Profession, Brenda Troy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the conceptual framework of ethical reasoning of public elementary school assistant principals during decision-making. An ethical framework not only provides a descriptive way of thinking during ethical decision-making, but also provides a rationale for decisions. The purpose of this study was to determine which ethical reasoning framework, including the ethics of justice, critique, care, and the profession, elementary school assistant principals' use during decision-making. Additionally, the study determined other resources assistant principals' consult during decision-making.

This study incorporated descriptive survey research through purposeful sampling with specific participant criteria. A researcher-developed survey of hypothetical dilemmas was deployed electronically …

The Development Of A Human Polyomavirus Quantitative Pcr Assay To Assess Viral Persistence, Water Quality, And Human Health Risks, Shannon M. Mcquaig

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Microbial water quality is generally assessed using fecal indictor organisms; however host-specific microbial source tracking (MST) methodologies can be employed to differentiate sources of fecal pollution. The central goal of this research was to develop and validate a QPCR assay for the quantification of two human-specific polyomaviruses (HPyVs) in environmental water samples. These viruses are prevalent worldwide and produce lifelong, asymptomatic viruria in immunocompetent individuals.

A Taqman® quantitative PCR (QPCR) assay based on the conserved T-antigen of two HPyVs (JCV and BKV) was developed and optimized (Chapter 2). HPyVs were detected in a high proportion of human-associated waste samples (e.g. …

Determinants Of Nutrition Appointment Non-Attendance Among Male Veterans, Claire Fontenot Bell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

During fiscal years 2006 and 2007, nearly 1 in 4 Veterans failed to keep their individual nutrition appointments, impeding clinic workflow, productivity, and management of weight and nutrition related health conditions. The purpose of this study was to identify determinants of nutrition appointment attendance in the Veteran population. This study examined the cognitive and structural factors that influence nutrition appointment attendance. Specifically, the study sought to determine: Veteran reported reasons for non-attendance and factors associated with appointment attendance. The research design entailed sequential use of qualitative and quantitative methods. Individual, semi-structured interviews and a mail survey were used to identify …

Self-Fashioning, Consumption, And Japonisme: The Power Of Collecting In Tissot’S Jeunes Femmes Regardant Des Objets Japonais, 1869, Catherine Elizabeth Turner

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examines self-fashioning and the practice of collecting in Second Empire Paris as manifest in James Tissot's Jeunes femmes regardant des objets japonais (1869, Cincinnati Museum of Art). The painting, exhibited in the Salon of 1869, conspicuously portrays Tissot's own collection of exotic Asian collectibles and the artist's private luxe interior. When scholars investigate and interpret Jeunes femmes, it is regularly defined within the prescriptive realm of Tissot's later London paintings, or of his well known series, La Femme à Paris. I argue for a less circumspect engagement with the painting, by focusing on the portrayal of …

Effects Of Expectancies And Coping On Pain-Induced Motivation To Smoke, Joseph W. Ditre

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The prevalence of tobacco smoking among persons with recurrent pain is approximately twice that observed in the general population. Smoking has been associated with the development and exacerbation of several chronically painful conditions. Conversely, there is both experimental and cross-sectional evidence that pain is a potent motivator of smoking. A recent study provided the first evidence that laboratory-induced pain could elicit increased craving and produce shorter latencies to smoke (Ditre & Brandon, 2008). To further elucidate interrelations between pain and smoking, and to identify potential targets for intervention, the current study tested whether several constructs derived from social-cognitive theory influence …

Communication, Consumption And Manipulation: The Body As Language In The Films Of Jan Švankmajer, Amanda Marie Dowd

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis I will analyze and discuss the work of renowned director Jan Švankmajer. Specifically, I will examine how director Jan Švankmajer’s representation of the body creates a metaphorical language. In addition, I will address what meaning can be gathered from, or made apparent through the commentary of the body’s language and discuss the significance of the socio-political implications. Prior to my discussion of Švankmajer’s work I will give a concise socio-political history of the Czech Republic from 1968-1994; this discussion will provide a framework for the subsequent analyses. In order to provide support for my argument, I will …

From China To Cuba: Guerilla Warfare As A Mechanism For Mobilizing Resources, Jorge Barrera

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Guerilla Warfare is a weapon of the weak; it is decisive only where the actor in power fails to commit adequate resources to the conflict. The Chinese and Cuban revolutions are examples of guerilla warfare success, albeit under different conditions and employment techniques; while Mao Tse-tung utilized decentralized guerilla warfare to indoctrinate and mobilize the masses of peasants for revolutionary struggle against a stronger enemy; Fidel Castro employed a more centralized approach to create the conditions necessary for popular support of the revolution. However, in both cases guerilla warfare was simply part of a pragmatic grand strategy to build nationalism …

Globalization, Migration And The U.S. Labor Market For Physicians: The Impact Of Immigration On Local Wages, Finnie B. Cook

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The healthcare labor market has experienced some significant changes in the last half century, including the establishment of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, the emergence of managed care in the 1980s, and the worldwide mobility of labor encouraged by globalization. Currently, more than 25% of physicians working in the U.S. are foreign-born. The existing body of literature related to the impact of immigration on local wages has to date found conflicting results. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the impact of immigration of foreign physicians on local physician wages. This study employs physician survey data from the AMA …

Task Oriented Simulation And Control Of A Wheelchair Mounted Robotic Arm, Fabian Farelo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The main objective of my research is to improve the control structure for the new Wheelchair Mounted Robotic Arm (WMRA) to include new algorithms for optimized task execution; that is, making the WMRA a modular task oriented mobile manipulator. The main criterion to be optimized is the fashion in which the wheelchair approaches a final target as well as the starting and final orientation of the wheelchair. This is a novel approach in non-holonomic wheeled manipulators that will help in autonomously executing complex activities of daily living (ADL) tasks.

The WMRA is a 9 degree of freedom system, which provides …

Interrogating Virginia Woolf And The British Suffrage Movement, Gwen Trowbridge Anderson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Interrogating Virginia Woolf and the British Suffrage Movement Gwen Trowbridge Anderson ABSTRACT Much has been written about Virginia Woolf's involvement with feminism and women's rights, but there has been far less exploration about her ties to suffrage. Many of her friends and family are involved in this exploration: Vanessa Stephen Bell, Ethel Smyth, and the Pankhursts (Emmeline, Sylvia, and Cristobel). Other important figures who are relevant to Woolf's work are Sonia Delaunay, Lewis Carroll, and Edmund Spenser. Important concepts like the New Woman, the suffrage movement, feminism, and women's rights are vital to understanding Woolf's involvement with suffrage. This dissertation …

Microbial Population Analysis In Leachate From Simulated Solid Waste Bioreactors And Evaluation Of Genetic Relationships And Prevalence Of Vancomycin Resistance Among Environmental Enterococci, Bina S. Nayak

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Degradation of the several million tons of solid waste produced in the U.S. annually is microbially mediated, yet little is known about the structure of prokaryotic communities actively involved in the waste degradation process. In the first study, leachates generated during degradation of municipal solid waste (MSW) in the presence (co-disposal) or absence of biosolids were analyzed using laboratory-scale bioreactors over an eight-month period. Archaeal and bacterial community structures were investigated by denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) targeting 16S rRNA genes. Regardless of waste composition, microbial communities in bioreactor leachates exhibited high diversity and temporal trends. Methanogen sequences from a …

Effects Of Geomorphic Setting On Shallow-Groundwater Exchange And Water Temperature Of Salmon-Bearing Headwater Streams Of The Lower Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, Jason C. Bellino

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Temperature is an important physical characteristic of headwater streams that controls the presence and health of juvenile salmonids. Surface water temperature is controlled by many factors including exchanges with groundwater. A study of the hydrology of wetlands associated with headwater streams on the Lower Kenai Peninsula was conducted to determine the effect of geomorphic setting on groundwater discharge to streams and ultimately on in-stream water temperature. Attention was focused on drainage-way and discharge slope wetlands as two end-members of the geomorphic settings of the study area.

Data were collected at 18 study reaches spanning four major watersheds in the study …

Performance Analysis Of A Binary-Tree-Based Algorithm For Computing Spatial Distance Histograms, Sadhana Sharma Luetel

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The environment is made up of composition of small particles. Hence, particle simulation is an important tool in many scientific and engineering research fields to simulate the real life processes of the environment. Because of the enormous amount of data in such simulations, data management, storage and processing are very challenging tasks. Spatial Distance Histogram (SDH) is one of the most popular queries being used in this field. In this thesis, we are interested in investigating the performance of improvement of an existing algorithm for computing SDH. The algorithm already being used is using a conceptual data structure called density …

Coffins, Closets, Kitchens, And Convents: Women Writing Of Home In Gendered Spaces, Nicole Spottke

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Coffins, Closets, Kitchens, and Convents uses anthropologist Liz Kenyon's categories of home, Gaston Bachelard's theories on the importance of imagination and metaphor in home building, as well as literary criticism, sociology, and feminist theory to examine values of "home" in various literary works of the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. This dissertation's focus on the struggles within traditional home spheres highlights the female characters' need of a protected space. Yet these characters realize they must allow for connections with various individuals to bring about such a safe space. Through the creative act of writing, Mary Leapor's Mira in the poem, "Crumble …

Fireproofing The Lawn: Reclaimed Water And Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers In Tampa Bay, Ryan C. Davis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Reclaimed water has increased in popularity as a means to recycle water and thus decrease the amount of wasteful water use. This process is widely used in Tampa Bay for watering of lawns. This increase in popularity and use has raised questions as to what contaminants are in the reclaimed water.

The purpose of this study was to analyze reclaimed water for contaminants believed to be detrimental to health and conduct interviews to ascertain perceptions of risk in the local population. As water reuse grows in popularity further research will need to be conducted to address potential human health concerns. …

Running Toward The Apocalypse: John Updike’S New America, Bob Batchelor

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation explores two critical points in understanding John Updike's recent career. First, I examine him from a perspective outside the heavily-studied Rabbit tetralogy. Focusing on Updike's novel Terrorist, I attempt to counter the misperception that he offers little beyond the chronicling of middle-class, suburban America. Instead, this work digs for a deeper understanding of Updike.

Next, I consider Updike's role as an artist, professional writer, and celebrity to draw out a sense of the writer's life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Using him as a case study enables the analysis to include his changing role as a …

Mercury Perception, Community Awareness And Sustainability Implications For The Tampa Bay Region, Florida, Trina Halfhide

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Over one million acres of land and water in Florida has been classified as impaired by mercury. Approximately 80% of national fish advisories are issued due to mercury contamination. There have been a number of consumption advisories in the Tampa Bay Region for locally eaten fish such as largemouth bass (

Micropterus salmoides), bowfin (Amia calva), and alligator gar (Lepisosteus osseus). The main purpose of this study was to determine if there is adequate dissemination of mercury related risk information by government agencies to recreational and subsistence fishermen in the Tampa Bay Region. This research …

Pulsed Power And Load-Pull Measurements For Microwave Transistors, Sivalingam Somasundaram Meena

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A novel method is shown for fitting and/or validating electro-thermal models using pulsed I(V) measurements and pulsed I(V) simulations demonstrated using modifications of an available non-linear model for an LDMOS (Laterally Diffused Metal Oxide Semiconductor) device. After extracting the thermal time constant, good agreement is achieved between measured and simulated pulsed I(V) results under a wide range of different pulse conditions including DC, very short (<0.1%) duty cycles, and varied pulse widths between these extremes. A pulsed RF load-pull test bench was also assembled and demonstrated for a VDMOS (Vertically Diffused Metal Oxide Semiconductor) and an LDMOS power transistor. The basic technique should also be useful for GaAs and GaN transistors with suitable consideration for the complexity added by trapping mechanisms present in those types of transistors.

Handover Performance In The Mobile Wimax Netrworks, Yongxue Yu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Mobile terminals allow users to access service while on the move. This unique feature has driven the rapid growth in the mobile network industry, changing it from a new technology into a massive industry in less than two decades.

In this thesis, an in-depth study of the handover effects of mobile WiMAX networks is carried out. The mobile WiMAX technology is first presented as literature study and then the technologies of handovers for previous generations are introduced in detail. Further, the hard handover of the mobile WiMAX is simulated by Network Simulator-2 (NS-2). In addition, the "ping-pang" effect of handover …

Environment, Channel, And Interference Awareness For Next Generation Wireless Networks, Serhan Yarkan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Wireless communication systems have evolved substantially over the last two decades. The explosive growth of the wireless communications market is expected to continue in the future, as the demand for all types of wireless services is increasing. Beside providing higher data rates, next generation wireless networks (NGWN) are expected to have advanced capabilities such as interoperability, efficient spectrum utilization along with a wide variety of applications over different domains (e.g., public safety and military, aeronautical networks, femtocells, and so on) to the mobile users while serving as many users as possible.

However, these advanced capabilities and services must …

Shaping The Dream: A Survey Of Post-World War Ii St. Petersburg, 1946-1963, Jon L. Wilson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

St. Petersburg stood on the cusp of great change in 1946. Returning veterans sought jobs and housing, and St. Petersburg experienced its first major growth era since the real estate boom of the 1920s. The decade of the 1950s saw the city's population leap from 96,738 to 181,298, an 87 percent increase driven by boosters and national publicity about the city's leisurely ambience. Tract houses replaced remaining pockets of pasture and pine trees as subdivisions sprawled toward the city limits and beyond. On fertile truck-farming acreage called Goose Pond, developers built Central Plaza, a shopping center positioned to drain business …

Additive Latent Variable (Alv) Modeling: Assessing Variation In Intervention Impact In Randomized Field Trials, Peter Ayo Toyinbo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In order to personalize or tailor treatments to maximize impact among different

subgroups, there is need to model not only the main effects of intervention but also the variation

in intervention impact by baseline individual level risk characteristics. To this end a suitable

statistical model will allow researchers to answer a major research question: who benefits or is

harmed by this intervention program? Commonly in social and psychological research, the

baseline risk may be unobservable and have to be estimated from observed indicators that are

measured with errors; also it may have nonlinear relationship with the outcome. Most of the …

Architectures And Algorithms For Mitigation Of Soft Errors In Nanoscale Vlsi Circuits, Koustav Bhattacharya

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The occurrence of transient faults like soft errors in computer circuits poses a significant challenge to the reliability of computer systems. Soft error, which occurs when the energetic neutrons coming from space or the alpha particles arising out of packaging materials hit the transistors, may manifest themselves as a bit flip in the memory element or as a transient glitch generated at any internal node of combinational logic, which may subsequently propagate to and be captured in a latch. Although the problem of soft errors was earlier only a concern for space applications, aggressive technology scaling trends have exacerbated the …

Sugar Ethanol In Florida: Economic, Agricultural, And Environmental Aspects, Joshua F. Berger

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ethanol production has been widely perceived as a solution to the global energy crisis, with the added benefit of reinvigorating declining agricultural economies. Moves towards dedicating crop production to ethanol however have raised a number of concerns related to its economic and environmental consequences. Missing from this debate is a consideration of the ways in which sugar can be used as a feedstock for ethanol, an issue that is especially pertinent within the state of Florida. The national commitment and scale of corn ethanol production in the U.S. has largely meant a lack of focus on other feedstocks which could …

Living With Sugar: Socioeconomic Status And Cultural Beliefs About Type 2 Diabetes Among Afro-Caribbean Women, Chrystal A.S Smith

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the U.S., individuals of Afro-Caribbean and Latino descent are two to three times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than non-Hispanic whites. Caribbean and Latin America migrants, particularly minority women bear a disproportionate burden of type 2 diabetes and its risk factors. The purpose of this research is to investigate if Afro-Caribbean women share a cultural belief model about type 2 diabetes and how this belief model, along with structural barriers to health care, influence disease risk and management.

A sample of 40 women, primarily Jamaican and Trinidadian, 35 to 90 years of age previously diagnosed with type …

Medicare Part D Program: Prescription Drug Plan Copayment Structure And Premium Sensitivity, Rui Dai

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Since January 2006 Medicare beneficiaries have the option to purchase prescription drug benefits from Medicare under the Part D program. The addition of outpatient drugs to the Medicare programs reflects Congress’ recognition of the fundamental change in recent years in how medical care is delivered in the U.S. It recognizes the vital role of prescription drugs in the health care delivery system and the need to modernize Medicare to assure their availability to Medicare beneficiaries. The Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA) created the Medicare drug benefit and specified a standard plan. The law also enables …

Evaluation Of A Self-Monitoring Program To Increase Treatment Integrity Of Behavior Intervention Plans, Lela E. Taylor

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The growing number of school-aged children displaying challenging behavior has increased the need for effective interventions. School-based consultants (SBC) report using behavioral consultation to assist teachers in designing behavior intervention plans (BIP) that help students engage in appropriate behavior in the classroom. Research indicates that direct training methods increase teacher's implementation of the BIP. One commonly used direct training method, performance feedback (PF), is used to assess teachers' treatment integrity. Research also indicates that checklists (non-direct measures) are more cost efficient methods. The purpose of this paper was to evaluate a direct training method used to train teachers to self-monitor …

Portraits Of Online Teaching And Learning: The Experiences Of An Instructor And Six Graduate Students In A Course Entitled Educating Students With Autism, Sarah R. Semon

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Throughout the last decade (1999-2009) Florida's Bureau of Exceptional Education Student Services, in partnership with Institutions of Higher Education created the Florida Virtual ESE program to develop and deliver online professional development courses. The state also provided tuition support for teachers to participate in online professional development coursework to earn credentials necessary to be considered Highly Qualified. Online course delivery is thought to be a cost-effective approach to the provision of professional development for in-service teachers. However, there is a need to examine what it takes to create meaningful online learning experiences that facilitate the goals and objectives particular to …