Digital Commons Network^™

Measures Of Linguistic Complexity And Vocabulary Diversity As Indicators Of Oral Language Production Growth Of 4th Grade Spanish-Speaking Els, Carla T. Zayas-Santiago

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As fourth-grade students transition from learning to read to reading to learn, their ability to use language for academic purposes becomes increasingly important, particularly for Spanish-speaking English Learners (ELs). However, students often have limited opportunities to produce extended oral language during instruction. Students’ oral language production reflects both structural aspects of language use, captured through measures of linguistic complexity, and lexical aspects of language use, captured through measures of vocabulary diversity. Although prior studies have examined transcript-derived measures of oral language production, limited research has examined how these measures predict English proficiency, capture growth over time, and respond to different …

Situating Stormwater Infrastructure Through Collaborative Design: Insights From A University-Community Partnership, Serena A. Echols

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Stormwater ponds help address flooding and partially mitigate nutrient pollution while sometimes serving as a central landscape element in community parks. In underserved urban communities, however, stormwater ponds are sometimes neglected and underutilized, leading to public health and environmental justice challenges. Our research in Tampa, Florida, seeks to develop pathways for residents and other stakeholders to collaboratively co-design infrastructure interventions and pondscape redevelopment for neglected stormwater ponds. Drawing on ethnographic and participatory methods as well as environmental assessment and modeling, we are working with residents of one pond community on cleanup and redevelopment strategies. Results reveal that balancing local and …

Polygenic Risk Scores, Sex, And Socioeconomic Factors As Predictors Of Age Of Onset For Major Depressive Disorder, Kaitlyn M. Nowak

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a heterogeneous psychiatric condition influenced by genetic, sociodemographic, and environmental factors, yet the extent to which these factors jointly shape the timing of disease onset remains unclear. This study evaluated the effects of polygenic risk scores (PRS), sex, and socioeconomic status (SES) on age of onset for MDD across two independent cohorts: the Pharmacogenomics Research Network Antidepressant Medication Pharmacogenomics Study (PGRN-AMPS) (N = 486) and the All of Us Research Program (N = 8,014). Analyses were restricted to individuals of European genetic ancestry, and PRS were constructed using both European-ancestry (EA) and multi-ancestry (MA) genome-wide …

The Architecture Of Chemical Understanding: How Representation Selection, Ordering, And Feature Salience Shape Students' Conceptions In Chemistry, Isaiah Nelsen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Chemical representations play a central role in how students learn and reason aboutchemistry. While representations are routinely used in chemistry classrooms, students often struggle to extract relevant information, connect representations to underlying chemical principles, and apply this information to problem-solving. This dissertation investigates the role of representations in supporting students’ conceptual understanding and reasoning across general and organic chemistry through three qualitative studies.

The first study in this work explores how variation in chemical representation influences how students understand foundational chemistry principles. This study sought to characterize how second semester general chemistry students approach dipole–dipole interaction tasks with four distinct …

New Developments In Space-Filling Designs, Xiankui Yang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents three methodological advancements to improve the construction of space-filling designs for meeting different needs of computer experiments. Traditional space-filling designs focus on achieving uniform coverage in the input space, ensuring that design points are spread evenly throughout. However, in some scientific and engineering applications, varied density of design points may be desired for more efficient data collection when prior knowledge implies different emphases. In other cases, ensuring good coverage and/or spread of the response values allows better performance of fitted models in the next stage of applications. Many processes involve variation in response values. Therefore, incorporating variation …

Combating Β-Lactamase Resistance: From Inhibitor Design To Substrate Evolution, Lian M.C. Jacobs

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

β-lactamase production by bacteria is a major mechanism of antibiotic resistance. These enzymes hydrolyze β-lactam antibiotics, preventing them from binding to and inhibiting PBPs. Although new β-lactam scaffolds and inhibitors are continually introduced into the clinic, resistance often emerges within a few years. Therefore, the development of cross-class inhibitors with novel scaffolds is critical to mitigate this resistance. In parallel, a deeper understanding of the structural and mechanistic basis of β-lactamase resistance is essential. Together, these approaches provide an effective strategy for combating antibiotic resistance.

The first project addressed the need of effective cross-class β-lactamase inhibitors capable of targeting SBL …

Unquaint Pigs’ Stakeholder Perspectives On Wild Swine In Central Western Florida, Tyler Koerner

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Anthropocene presents important questions for how to address the continuous transferal of new species into new spaces and the cascading impacts of environmental transformations. Novel ecosystems present one such outline for conservation that acknowledges the modification of historic ecosystems and the social entanglements that arrive with new species. I argue that novel ecosystems can benefit from further anthropological integrations that aid in describing the entanglements of introduced species and the pursuit of best managerial outcomes. For wild swine in Florida, the adoption of a novel approach is especially relevant because of entanglements with historic and modern Floridian stakeholders and …

How Well Are We Preparing U.S. Youth With Down Syndrome For Health Care Transition? A Mixed-Methods Study Assessing Provider Support And Exploring Caregiver Experiences, Suman Kanti Chowdhury

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Background: Health care transition (HCT) preparation is a structured process that empowers youth to take ownership of their health care as they transition into adulthood. Youth with Down syndrome (DS), a common genetic disorder associated with a high burden of co-occurring conditions, require HCT preparation support at a higher rate than their typically developing peers. Although transition preparation has been examined across various chronic conditions, few studies have focused on youth with DS. Moreover, prior research was limited by methodological constraints, including the lack of a validated HCT index, a small sample size, outdated estimates, and a lack of a …

Motivating Lung Cancer Screening Uptake: An Experimental Test Of Didactic Versus Narrative Messages For Lung Cancer Screening Among Individuals Who Currently Smoke Or Formerly Smoked, Honor M. Woodward

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Lung cancer is the number one cause of cancer-related death in the United States and worldwide. Lung cancer screening with low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) has been associated with a 20% reduction in lung cancer-related mortality. Despite the obvious benefits of lung cancer screening with LDCT, screening is heavily underutilized compared to other cancer screening tests. Thus, it is critically important to develop strategies that help motivate screening uptake among eligible individuals. This study explored the effectiveness of narrative messages for motivating lung cancer screening uptake among individuals eligible for lung cancer screening who currently smoke or formerly smoked. Drawing from …

An Equity Analysis Of Battery Electric Vehicles During Evacuation Considering Social And Financial Disadvantage, Divyamitra Mishra

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The increasing share of battery electric vehicles (BEVs) in the transportation system is introducing new challenges to the emergency evacuation planning and management. During Hurricane Milton (2024), incidents involving BEVs, including battery fires, attributed to saltwater exposure risk, and advisories recommending relocation to higher ground, highlighted operational vulnerabilities unique to this technology. These emerging risks are likely to be experienced heterogeneously, as access to charging infrastructure, available resources, and evacuation flexibility varies across the population. This raises critical questions about how BEV-specific constraints interact with existing inequalities during evacuation. Motivated by this context, the dissertation investigated inequity in BEV evacuation …

Essays On Effect Of Remote Work Opportunities On Migration And Gender Gap, Aghairza Mammadov

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines how the expansion of remote work has reshaped key dimensionsof labor market behavior in the United States. By relaxing traditional constraints on where and how people work, remote job opportunities (RJOs) have the potential to alter both geographic mobility and labor market inequality. The first chapter focuses on how remote work affects internal migration patterns, while the second chapter examines its implications for gender differences in employment and wages.

Chapter 1 examines how the expansion of remote job opportunities shapes internal migration patterns in the United States. The expansion of remote job opportunities has decoupled employment from …

The Materiality Of Religious Syncretism And Co-Production In The Catacombs Of Sicily And Malta: Novel Techniques For The Interpretation And Dissemination Of Legacy Data, Madeleine A. Kraft

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation addresses the lengthy history of the investigations into the catacombs of Sicily and Malta. These investigations, in some cases, began as early as the 17th century. They have maintained the intrigue of archaeologists beginning in the late 19th century. In doing so, these spaces have amassed truly remarkable amounts of data and of interpretations of that data. This legacy data has proved simultaneously a barrier and an entrance to understanding these complexes. While they are valuable for descriptions of the spaces prior to mutilations and interventions as well as descriptions of evidence no longer extant due to a …

Development And Feasibility Testing Of A Video-Based Virtual Reality Bullying Safety Skills Intervention For School-Aged Children With Disabilities, Trevor C. Maxfield

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Virtual reality (VR) technology has emerged as a promising instructional tool for children with disabilities; however, research on using VR to improve safety skills in this population remains limited. The present study employed a 2-phase approach to develop and evaluate a video-based VR bullying safety skills intervention for children with disabilities. In Phase 1, bullying and applied behavior analysis experts reviewed and validated the intervention content, including the response to bullying steps, school-based scenario storyboards, and embedded behavioral procedures, rating the content as valid and technically adequate. Expert feedback informed refinements to the intervention content and the decision to transition …

Unveiling The Intersection Of Institutional Racial Identity And Student Loan Debt: An Analysis Of The State University System Of Florida’S Higher Education Institutions, Valerie Marie Moore

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Federal student loan patterns in Florida’s State University System (SUS) from 2013/14 to 2022/23 reflect differences in institutional revenue capacity rather than individual borrowing behavior. Using data from all 12 SUS institutions, this study examined how institutional wealth and revenue composition shape student loan outcomes through both race neutral and race considerate analyses informed by Ray’s (2019) theory of racialized organizations. Overall, the SUS operates as a racialized organizational field in which inequities in funding flows, access to capital, and institutional logics sustain long term disparities in wealth and debt. Results show that borrowing levels closely track how institutions assemble …

The Philosopher Of The Future: What Is It To Us That Herr Nietzsche Has Become Well Again?, Erli Mertika

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation argues that Nietzsche thought he was a genuine philosopher despite seeming at times to suggest that he was not. I arrive at this conclusion by comparing his thoughts on genuine philosophers with his thoughts about himself in an effort to show that his self-professed task is identical to theirs.

There are two types of genuine philosophers in Nietzsche’s late works: an old species that relied on a belief in “God” to legislate their values, and a new one that must do so without it. The former cannot perform their task after the death of God, which is why …

Theory And Applications Of Natural And Nature-Based Solutions In Estuarine Environments, Elizabeth L. Royer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the theory and application of Nature-based Solutions (NbS), through three unique case studies. This study explores how the broad and interdisciplinary NbS framework can be applied to mitigate common coastal hazards. This framework considers the environment, economics, and social wellbeing, equally in the design and implementation of a solution. The current paradigm, working against nature, which is commonly seen in more passive approaches to hazard mitigation, like grey infrastructure (e.g. a seawall to protect a shoreline against wave action) does not accommodate the extremely dynamic environment. As perspectives shift to “working with nature” NbS can be …

Iron Deficiency And Depressive Symptoms: Effects Of Racial And Ethnic Disparity In Two Reproductive-Aged Us Women, Alexis Monkhouse

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Problem: Reproductive- aged women are one of the populations most at risk for iron deficiency and depression in the United States. While many studies have looked at the relationship between these two illnesses, none have explored it from a biocultural framework, examining how race/ethnicity affects this relationship. Using data from NHANES, this thesis examined the relationship between iron status (total body iron) and depressive symptoms (PHQ-9) among reproductive-aged women in the U.S. and how race/ethnicity affects it. Methods. NHANES survey data from 2005-2010 were pulled. Demographic and laboratory data were used to determine eligibility, total body iron, and depressive scores. …

Merger Waves In A Small Open Economy: Industry Shocks, Behavioral Variables, Mergers And Acquisitions In Singapore, Eng Sian Quek

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As an open economy, Singapore has experienced substantial transformations in its mergers and acquisitions (M&A) market over the past several decades, alongside evolving regulatory frameworks designed to maintain its position as a competitive international hub for corporate restructuring. Over the 20 years from 1990 to 2009, Singapore was exposed to a series of major economic shocks, including financial crises, geopolitical conflicts, terrorism, sectoral downturns, oil price shocks, and public health epidemics, all of which were accompanied by pronounced fluctuations in interest rates and equity market conditions. Against this backdrop, this dissertation examines the determinants of M&A waves in Singapore by …

Prosecutorial Philosophy And Racial Disparities In Arrest Rates, Carl L. Reeds

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The prominent issue of racial disparities in arrest in the criminal justice system is well documented. One proposed mechanism for addressing these disparities in the criminal justice system is the emergence of progressive prosecutors. Progressive prosecutors are vastly different than traditional prosecution through the approach to their roles in the criminal justice system. Traditional prosecutors prioritize convictions and punishment, often seeking maximum sentences for defendants and relying on the traditional model of tough-on-crime policies. Progressive prosecutors pledge to reform the criminal justice system by declining to prosecute certain low-level offenses, expanding diversion programs, and explicitly addressing racial and socioeconomic disparities. …

District Leadership Influence On The Sustainability Of Dual Language Bilingual Education Programs, Jessica Hessler

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Dual language bilingual education programs operate within policy environments that often constrain their long term viability, despite their deep historical roots in the United States. This qualitative study examined how district/central office leadership systems supported the sustainability of these programs. While prior research has emphasized school site collaboration between principals and teachers, limited attention has been given to the district/central office level leadership systems and strategies that shaped program coherence, implementation, and endurance. Guided by a framework integrating social justice leadership with principles of sustainable leadership, the study examined the research question: How do district or central office leadership systems …

Netflix, Between Intercultural Exchange And Monopolizing Tendencies: Streaming Consumption, Production, And Distribution In Romania, Ana-Maria Calancea

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the development and involvement of the SVOD platform Netflix in Romania in the context of a global media corporation engaging with a local market. Romania’s status as a former communist country acts as a good case study highlighting the long-term consequences of diverse content deprivation. I argue that in a country such as Romania, a service like Netflix can provide a so-called indirect intercultural exchange through the production and distribution of easily accessible diverse content, whether that diversity stems from nationality, ethnicity, race, sexuality, or any unconventional form of expression that was restricted or censored in the …

Clinical Features, Laboratory Characteristics, And Outcomes Of Covid-19 Patients In A Tertiary Care Reference Hospital In Panama City, Panama. A Retrospective Observational Study, Santiago E. Hernandez Bojorge

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Latin America experienced some of the world’s highest COVID-19 mortality rates, yet data on in-hospital outcomes and their social and geographic determinants remain limited. This dissertation investigated multilevel baseline factors associated with in-hospital mortality among adults with COVID-19 at Panama’s largest public tertiary hospital (Hospital Santo Tomás), integrating survival, mediation, and spatial-temporal modeling within a causal-inference framework.

A retrospective cohort of 1,526 RT-PCR–confirmed COVID-19 hospitalizations (May 2020–November 2021) was analyzed using multivariable Cox proportional-hazards, Fine–Gray competing-risk, mediation, and Bayesian spatial models. Directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) pre-specified causal relationships and minimally sufficient adjustment sets. DAG-guided models quantified total effects without conditioning …

From Marginalization To Prime Consideration: Nuclear Energy In Fragmented Climate Governance, Polarization, And The Age Of Ai, Abdullah Al Jaberi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, nuclear energy has remained sidelined in global climate discussions despite being the world’s second-largest source of low-carbon electricity. This dissertation examined why nuclear energy should be the global priority decarbonization strategy, based on an evaluation of its unique position across the following three dimensions: fragmented international climate governance, political polarization in democratic countries, and unprecedented baseload electricity demands created by artificial intelligence infrastructure. This study does not argue causal linkages among these dimensions; rather, it demonstrates that nuclear energy succeeds concurrently across all three. A mixed-methods approach was employed, including document analysis of bilateral agreements and official …

Challenging The Deliberative Consensus: Participatory Strategies, Transparency And Citizen Trust Across Municipal Contexts, Fadel Al-Marsoumi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the relationships between participatory governance strategies and multidimensional citizen trust in municipal contexts. Although local governments have implemented deliberative forums, digital platforms and hybrid participation approaches to restore declining public confidence, inconsistencies between theoretical predictions and empirical outcomes have raised questions about participatory governance effectiveness. Motivated by this gap between deliberative democracy theory's optimistic predictions and limited empirical support, the study investigates the psychological, political and contextual mechanisms that shape trust formation through civic engagement. Drawing on an integrated framework combining organizational trust theory and deliberative democracy frameworks, the research conceptualizes trust as a multidimensional construct involving …

A New Great Game?: Great Powers Content Re-Sharing And Media Influence In The South Caucasus, Emma A. Lowery

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the new digital era of geopolitics, competing great powers support internationally oriented state-sponsored media as integral parts of public diplomacy, seeking to reach foreign publics in an increasingly digital age of information sharing. Leveraging local outlets provides an avenue to influence local publics through pre-approved news. Targeted foreign news outlets actively engage with and re-share content from said media. This research focuses on foreign-originated content from the world’s great powers - the People’s Republic of China, the Russian Federation, and the United States of America. The purpose of this project is to provide insight into how the great powers …

Military Sexual Trauma And Suicidality: An Analysis Of Interpersonal Risk Factors, Jacquelyn Burckley

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Suicide remains a major public health concern, particularly among military personnel and veterans, who experience elevated risk compared to civilian populations. Military sexual trauma (MST), defined as sexual assault or harassment during military service, is a significant risk factor for suicidality, yet less is known about how characteristics such as recency and revictimization influence suicide severity. This study aimed to examine the relationship between MST victimization and suicide severity and to evaluate whether the Interpersonal Theory of Suicide explains suicide severity among MST victims. Using data from a large military sample, logistic regression and mediation analyses were conducted to assess …

Exploiting Chaotic Antenna Arrays For Rf Fingerprint Authentication And Physical Layer Security In Wireless Communications, Joshua K. Thomas Ranstrom

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Modern wireless networks support a wide range of applications including consumer devices, healthcare monitoring, industrial automation, smart grids, and military platforms, in which transmitted information is often highly sensitive and subject to stringent confidentiality and integrity requirements. As wireless communication operates over an open broadcast medium it exposes systems to physical layer (PHY) threats such as eavesdropping, in which an adversary passively intercepts transmitted information, and spoofing, in which a forged transmission misleads the receiver about device identity. Cryptographic defenses address both threats but require computational assumptions and key management infrastructure that may not scale to dense or resource-constrained deployments. …

Geospatial Understanding Of Foundation Models: Self-Supervision, Robustness, And Resource-Constrained Learning, Gilbert Kibet Rotich

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research on large-scale geospatial understanding from satellite imagery remains relativelyunderexplored. Much of the field still relies on narrow, task-specific pipelines, and there is lim- ited work on developing true foundation models or on systematically evaluating how well these models generalize under domain shift, geographic variation, and real-world scene diversity. This dissertation advances foundation-model pretraining and evaluation for remote sensing along three complementary axes. First, we develop self-supervised multispectral pretrained models for satellite image classification by adapting BYOL, BarlowTwins, DINO, MoCo, and Simsiam to multispectral inputs, addressing the limited amount of curated satellite datasets relative to ImageNet. Pretraining on Eurosat and …

Death And Things: Toward A Theory Of Self-Holding Objects, Kirsten J. Lee

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines how material objects function as existential supports under conditions of cultural exclusion. Drawing on Terror Management Theory (TMT), minority stress theory, and José Muñoz’s concept of disidentification, it introduces the construct of self-holding objects: possessions imbued with identity-sustaining meaning that stabilize the self. Study 1 employed a qualitative photovoice design with 16 queer adults and identified five primary existential functions of meaningful objects: affirming worth, regulating the body, mirroring the self, authorizing possibility, and enabling worldmaking. These findings suggest that objects operate as material anchors within distributed systems of meaning. Study 2 experimentally tested whether imagining the …

Implementing A Brief Dialectical Behavior Therapy-Informed Skills Group In A County Jail: A Mixed Methods Approach To Understanding Feasibility And Acceptability, Meaghan E. Brown

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Correctional institutions unintentionally function as one of the largest mental health providers in the country. Short-term facilities, like jails, present an opportunity to provide mental health care to those who will quickly reenter our communities. Despite this, evidence-based practices and treatments in correctional settings have been implemented at slower rates compared to community settings and mental health institutions. Regulating emotions, refraining from impulsive maladaptive behavior, and communicating effectively are considered primary treatment needs among jail inmates. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT; Linehan, 1993) can address these deficits and is commonly implemented in a skills training group format in correctional settings; however, …