Digital Commons Network^™

School Experiences Then And Now: Are Parents' Perceptions Of Their Own School Experiences Related To Their Perceptions Of Their Child's Middle School?, Roxana M. Sanchez-Horn

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The current study explored the relationship between parents perceptions of their childs middle school and parents perceptions of their own school experiences. Additionally, it was important to research how these relationships differed among variables. The variables explored were (1) race, (2) parents own educational backgrounds (level of education), and (3) socio-economic status. Based on scales commonly used in the study of parent involvement, a survey (i.e., Parent Perceptions of Schooling) was developed. The survey consisted of two parts (i.e., Part I, How I Feel About My Childs School and Part II: Parents Own School Experiences Questionnaire) and a demographic section …

Dissertations: Past, Present, And Future, Matthew D. Barton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Current policies and traditions regulating the dissertation process are responsible for a devaluation of dissertations and fail to recognize the economic and technological developments wrought by the emerging Internet. Some of the problems with the current process involve ideology, such as the insistence that dissertations be single-authored, original, and owned by someone. Others involve adherence to traditions that no longer serve a useful purpose, such as forcing authors to conform to a format better suited to a printed book than an online project. Finally, economical considerations such as the costs involved with purchasing and training authors to use advanced technology …

The Voices Of Sex Workers (Prostitutes?) And The Dilemma Of Feminist Discourse, Justine L. Kessler

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The existence of prostitution has been a longtime concern for many societies. It has also been a complicated issue within feminist discourse. Some women choose sex work as a viable economic option while others are forced into prostitution by traffickers and pimps and some are forced into it due to disadvantaged circumstances. The presence of sex work and prostitution is one of the occurrences that accompany a patriarchal capitalist system. Many feminists indeed argue that prostitution is a byproduct of a patriarchal capitalist system. The migration of women for sex work and the trafficking of women into prostitution cannot occur …

Gender And Generational Differences In The Self-Ratings Of Leadership Practices By Elementary School Administrators Within Four Florida Counties, Michele E. Polk

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Considerable research has been conducted over time on possible gender differences, with varying results regarding the existence and/or degree of differences. In particular, research on differences in leadership practices of men and women have abounded since the 1970s as women began to make their way into management and supervisory positions.

In todays work force, several generations can be found working together within a single work setting. Possibly, differences in leadership may be more generational than gender related; however, little research has considered both gender and generation as variables. This study adds to literature relating to the existence of gender and/or …

Establishing A Farmers Market For A Low-Income Latino Community, Ann L. Bretnall

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

For the past decade, Florida’s Latino population has significantly increased and is now the third largest in the United States. The same trend has also occurred in Hillsborough County. Social and economic disparities are significant as Latinos earn less than non-Hispanic whites and many live in poverty. A major concern of this population is the lack of access to inexpensive fresh fruits and vegetables. Findings from prior research show that the diet of immigrants often change quickly upon their arrival to the United States, with an increased emphasis on fast food and soft drinks and a reduction in the consumption …

Hiv/Aids Workplace Interventions In South Africa And The United States, Joel Christian Reed

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis focuses on the private sector response to the human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) in the Republic of South Africa (RSA) and the United States (US) in multinational businesses and corporations. From an epidemiological perspective HIV/AIDS and its co infections cause acute and chronic illness in the workforce leading to programs and interventions of various complexity and effectiveness. Workforce HIV/AIDS epidemiology in South Africa and the US is reviewed and discussed. From a critical medical anthropology perspective multinational corporations are political and economic entities with immense resources and power over people, communities, and governments globally. …

In Poland World War I Ended In 1923, Kazimierz Robak

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Poland was erased from European political maps in 1795 and fought in vain for freedom for the next century, until World War I provided another chance for independence. On November 11, 1918, the creation of the Polish Republic was proclaimed, but in an atmosphere of uncertainty, particularly relative to frontiers.

The border with Germany was established in 1920-21 after plebiscites. While peaceful in Masuria, Ermland and Pomerania, there were three violent uprisings of the ethnic Poles in Upper Silesia. The status of Gdansk as a Free City was confirmed at Versailles in 1919. The Southern border with Czechoslovakia was settled …

Metallic To Insulating Transition In Disordered Pulsed Laser Deposited Silicide Thin Films, Houssam Abou Mourad

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A metal-to-insulating transition has been observed in iron, iron oxide, iron silicide and cobalt silicide thin films when deposited on Si substrate with a native SiOx layer. This transition produced a change in resistance of 5 orders of magnitude at a temperature of 250 K. To the best of the author's knowledge, this effect has not been reported in the literature prior to this study. This work reports a systematic experimental investigation carried out to understand the fundamental mechanism involved in the manifestation of this metal-to-insulator transition. The films were deposited using the pulsed laser deposition technique (PLD) in a …

Exhaled Breath Nitric Oxide: Is There A Baseline Difference Due To Ethnicity?, Sunita I. Patel M.D.

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The air that humans exhale contains various chemical markers whose levels have been associated with various respiratory disorders. Therefore, measurement of these markers offers a potential method of examining airway disease status. Furthermore, exhaled breath offers the advantage of being easy to collect and non-invasive. Hence, these exhaled breath markers are potentially of significant clinical use in examining airways. Therefore, examination of exhaled breath has become the subject of intense study. Current research is targeting the development of methods and parameters for looking at these markers.

The goal of this cross-sectional pilot study was to consider the variability in the …

Ocean-Atmosphere Interactions On The West Florida Shelf, Jyotika I. Virmani

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ocean-atmosphere fluxes on the West Florida Shelf (WFS) coastal ocean region are investigated using observations and derived surface fluxes from an array of buoys deployed between 1998 and 2003. The observed annual cycle shows that water column temperatures increase and are stratified when heat flux is positive, and they decrease and are well mixed when it is negative. Water temperature is minimum (maximum) when heat flux switches sign from negative (positive) to positive (negative) in early spring (autumn). Tropical and extra-tropical events help define the seasonal characteristics of the water temperature. Despite considerable daily and synoptic variability in relative humidity, …

Effect Of Age On 11- To 18-Year-Olds’ Discrimination Of Nuances In Instrumental And Speech Phrase Interpretations, Andrew Sioberg

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation was a continuation of study on a theory of a learning window for the perception of expressive qualities in music and speech. The proposed theory suggested that a practice window must overlap a learning window before it closes around the age of 10. This dissertation sought to determine whether children older than the proposed learning window continued to improve in speech and musical discrimination skill, or leveled off in this ability. It also examined the impact of gender and private lesson experience on discrimination ability.

Instrumental music students (n = 292) attending a public magnet school for visual …

Isabel Undone, Lynne Berggren

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Isabel, a forty-year-old woman, measured her successes and failures against her perfect sister Natalie’s. But after Natalie is murdered by her husband, Isabel’s identity unravels as she picks up the pieces of her sister’s life and becomes the mother substitute for Natalie’s daughter.

While Isabel tries to understand how Natalie’s life spiraled out of control, she develops feelings for a horse trainer named Sam. As Isabel discovers that her sister was having an affair, Isabel and Sam begin a relationship of their own. However, conflicts arise when clues implicate Sam as Natalie’s lover. Isabel retreats, and realizes she will have …

A Quantitative Assessment Of Internal Publics Perception Of Their Relationship With The Organization, Lindsay C. Smith

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study focuses on relationships. Specifically, it measures the relationship between the administration of a large public university in the southeastern United States, USF, and its primary internal public the faculty. The purpose of this study is to measure the quality and type of relationship between an organization and it public, as perceived by the public. This study seeks to replicate and extend previous relational research by examining how the variables of trust, commitment, control mutuality, and satisfaction are related to the quality of relationships in organizations. In addition, the type of relationshipcommunal or exchangethat the faculty has with the …

Associations Between Maternal Depression And Child Social Competence And Display Of Problem Behaviors: A Longitudinal Investigation Of Direct, Indirect And Moderating Effects, Lauren B. Zapata

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Postpartum depression is a significant public health problem facing women, children, and families in the United States with an estimated 10-15% of U.S. mothers experiencing an episode of non-psychotic depression within six months of delivery. The purpose of this study was to investigate the associations between maternal depression during the first three years postpartum and child social competence and display of problem behaviors at first grade. The impact of several characteristics of maternal depression were examined including general exposure, timing of initial onset in the postpartum period, severity of symptoms along the trajectory of initial onset, and chronicity of symptoms. …

From Courtly Curiosity To Revolutionary Refreshment: Turkish Coffee And English Politics In The Seventeenth Century, Alexander Mirkovic

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Why was coffee so fashionable yet so divisive a political symbol during the latter half of the seventeenth century? Historians have offered several answers, including the suggestion that the nascent Orientalism generated its popularity. Undeniably seventeenth century England imported exotic commodities, including coffee and tea, and began to appropriate them for the English culture. Did that also imply maintaining the cultural superiority over the natives? I argue that coffee was symbolically transformed during the political and revolutionary turmoil of the seventeenth century. Coffee was first introduced in the early part of the century to the Stuart court where it was …

“They Say That This Clinic Is For Migrants”: Cultural Sensitivity In A Rural Health Center, Nadine I. Ohlinger

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The growing number of minority populations living in the United States makes it mandatory that all health care organizations seek to be culturally sensitive. There is no consensus on the definition of the term cultural sensitivity. The goal of this thesis is to define what cultural sensitivity means in a rural health center, from the perspective of the staff as well as the Hispanic patient. Anthropological methods, such as participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and archival data analysis, show that the qualities that Hispanic patients value in a clinic are 1) attention, 2) availability of Spanish language, 3) financial assistance, 4) …

General Education Teachers And Classroom-Based Interventions: Knowledge, Training, And Building-Level Influences, Jenine M. Sansosti

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Intervention assistance (IA) programs have been developed as a mechanism for avoiding costly special education referrals and for supporting teachers in their instruction of students with varying needs within the general education classroom (Safran and Safran, 1996). Although IA programs are designed to be consultative, multidisciplinary approaches to assisting teachers, some studies report that teachers conduct the majority of classroom-based interventions for a given student on their own prior to referring students to an IA team (Wilson, Hagen, Gutkin, and Oats, 1998). It is important to determine what interventions or strategies teachers commonly consider and what factors are associated with …

Experience And Inquiry In John Dewey’S Contextualism, Christopher C. Kirby

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper will focus on two elements, viz. experience and inquiry, which are central to John Deweys philosophy and their relation to the movement known as pragmatism. Although each of these concepts has received extensive treatment by other schools of thought, the pragmatists, and particularly Dewey, did much to redefine each in hopes of alleviating the tension between conflicting philosophical viewpoints. An explication of Deweys view on experience is the first step in understanding his application of the pragmatic method towards reconstructing philosophical thinking. Therefore, this paper will explore the meaning that Dewey gave to each and how that meaning …

Association Between Area Socioeconomic Status And Hospital Admissions For Childhood And Adult Asthma, Tomas Tamulis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite an improved understanding of the disease, the prevalence of asthma and asthma-related morbidity continue to rise, particularly among minority and inner-city populations. Despite the growing epidemic of asthma, the surveillance of disease at the state or even local levels is very limited. Such information is very important to identify high-risk population groups and to design more effective community-based preventive interventions or risk management programs that may modify these trends.

The study provided important information about spatial differences by the geographical area of residence and changes in asthma hospital admissions over time in the selected area. Environmental exposure to ambient …

Fantastic Visions: On The Necessity Of Feminist Utopian Narrative, Tracie Anne Welser

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Works of feminist utopian literature project longing for and predict political change while confronting current social inequities. Often, they effectively interrogate Western models of citizenship and the institutions which reify them, suggesting alternate models. Here, I define Western citizenship as determined by the maintenance of the nation-state through gendered social roles that restrict women to the private sphere and men to the public. This thesis asserts that feminist utopian literature, like politically conscious music, art, and other forms of feminist praxis, is a politically necessary component of feminist consciousness because it facilitates much-needed visions of a more equitable future for …

Pervasive Sensing And Computing For Natural Disaster Mitigation, Daniel H. Quintela

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research proposed the use of state-of-the-art wireless communications and networked embedded systems technologies to provide environmental sensing for the early detection of natural disasters. The data is acquired, processed and transmitted, from the location where the disaster originates, to potentially threatened conurbations in order to promptly notify the population. The acquired data is transformed from its raw form into information that can be utilized by local authorities to rapidly assess emergency situations and then to apply disaster management procedures. Alternatively, the system can generate alerting signals without human intervention. Furthermore, recorded historical data can be made available for scientists …

More Than Man’S Best Friend: A Look At Attachment Between Humans And Their Canine Companions, Samantha E. Kennedy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, there are currently more than 60 million pet dogs in the United States. This is an increase of nearly eighteen percent since 1991, coinciding with a growing area of research on human’s relationships with companion animals and companion animals’ place in society.

For years dogs have been thought of as “man’s best friend” because of their loyalty and faithfulness. The increasing popularity of activities such as canine daycare and puppy school suggests that dogs have become more than a best friend to some and even an integral part of the American family unit. …

Cognitive Load Theory And Programmed Instruction, Michael L. Brazas

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Programmed Instruction was a dominant force in educational research during the 1960’s and early 1970’s. During this period a new cognitively oriented psychology of education arose that eventually replaced the behaviorally driven research into programmed instruction. For some reason little work was done on integrating these two approaches. This study was designed to test a programmed instructional system based on the intrinsic programmed instructional technology of Crowder (1961) but incorporating design elements derived from cognitive load theory (Sweller, 1988). Specifically, this study tested a multimedia programmed instructional system (CLT-PI) based on work by Mayer (2001) against a text based system …

Two Models Of Consensus, Sudarsan Padmanabhan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation titled Two Models of Consensus is based on five arguments. 1. Consensus is asymmetrical. 2. Consensus is partial or limited unanimity. 3. Consensus and democracy do have a concomitant relation. 4. Consensus is not organic to political systems. 5. Consensus depends upon civil society, subsidiarity, and the dominant cultural paradigm of society.

In the first chapter titled "Historical Specificity of the Western Conception of Civil Society" I argue that concept of civil society evolved under certain conditions in a liberal democratic tradition such as shared social imaginaries. As an example of how diversity could lead to hypostatization of …

Teaching Inclusivity: Preservice Teachers’ Perceptions Of Their Knowledge, Skills And Attitudes Toward Working With English Language Learners In Mainstream Classrooms, Philip C. Smith

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the effect of one semester of ESOL education on preservice teachers by examining their perceived knowledge and skill in working with English Language Learner (ELL) students, their attitude toward having ELL students in their mainstream classrooms, and what classroom methods they perceive as effective in their ESOL preservice education courses.

Data for this study were collected from pre- and post-course attitudinal surveys during one semester of course work, from participants at two specific points in their educational experience; participants in the (1) introductory and (2) final TESOL course.

There were 293 participants who took the pre-, and …

The Effects Of Moisture On Thin Film Delamination And Adhesion, Patrick Waters

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Significant drops in adhesion have been measured for copper and diamond like carbon (DLC) films with the introduction of water at the film/substrate interface. A 1 thick tungsten superlayer with high compressive residual stress was deposited on the films of interest to help induce interfacial debonding by indentation. Modifications were made to the superlayer indentation technique to introduce water at the interface while performing indents. Film adhesion dropped by a factor of 10 to 20 for the copper films and 50 to 60 for the DLC films. The reduction in adhesion is believed to be caused by a combination of …

The Effects Of Interracial Interaction On Behavior As A Function Of Prejudice And Race, Jason R. Read

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In a series of two experiments, the first involving 121 participants and the second 114, I investigated whether level of racial prejudice is related to performance on a cognitive task and helping behavior in participants who had just interacted with the target of their prejudice. The moderating effect of control was tested and, unlike previous research, the responses of African-American participants were studied too. It was proposed that when people interact with the target of their prejudice, they will experience stress and the aftereffects of stress will lead to a decrement in Stroop task performance and a lower likelihood of …

The Effects Of A School-Based Social Skills Training Program On Children With Adhd: Generalization To The School Setting, Tricia C. Rudolph

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A diagnosis of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder is given when a child exhibits developmentally inappropriate levels of inattention, impulsivity and hyperactivity. In addition to academic and behavior problems, these children often have significant social problems. Since social problems are associated with a greater risk for developing problems later in life, a number of interventions have been attempted to normalize the social interactions of children with ADHD. These have included stimulant medication, cognitive-behavioral interventions, behavior modification, and social skills training. Additionally, attempts have been made to maximize the benefits of these interventions by combining them. Typically this involves combining stimulant medication with one …

A Phylogenetic Approach For The Study Of Variation And Determination Of Population Affiliation Of Indigent Human Skeletal Remains, Hattie Bea Wetherington

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) has played a major role in human population studies over the past decade due to its maternal inheritance and negligible recombination (Macaulay, 1999). The mtDNA control region has been the focus of these studies due to the highly polymorphic nature of this non-coding region. Forensic scientists also use mtDNA to help determine the identity of missing individuals when nuclear DNA is not present. However, when skeletal remains are unclaimed, identification becomes near impossible. Therefore, mtDNA can play a valuable role in identification in terms of population affiliation, especially in conjunction with morphological analysis.

The goals of this …

Integrated Scheduling And Information Support System For Transit Maintenance Departments, Paula Andrea Lopez Alvarado

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The projected increase of population in the United States and particularly in the state of Florida shows a clear need of improvement in mass transportation systems. To provide outstanding service to rides, well maintained fleet that ensures safety for riders and other people on the streets is imperative.

This research presents an information support system that assists maintenance managers to review and analyze data and evaluate alternatives in order to make better decisions that maximize efficiency in operations at transportation organizations. A system that consists of a mathematical scheduling model that interacts with a forecasting model and repair time standards …