Digital Commons Network^™

Effects Of Acid Hydrolyzed Chitosan Derivatives On Mhv Infection, Krishna Sharma

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Coronaviruses have recently been under significant scrutiny due to the ongoing covid-19 pandemic that began in Wuhan, China, and subsequently spread to the rest of the world. Chitosan is a common chemical from crustaceans that has several desirable properties due to being biodegradable, non-toxic, and, most importantly, cheap. It also exhibits anti-viral properties, which is the focus of these experiments. We tested the toxicity of the chitosan on cell lines to see how much chitosan the cells can tolerate. We hydrolyzed the chitosan in acid, and the chitosan fibrils added cell lines to see if the anti-viral properties increased in …

Evaluation Of Hydrodynamic Effects Of Waterway Restoration On An Estuarine Ecosystem, Megan Kramer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Estuaries are hydrodynamically complex for they are influenced by tidal forces, freshwater flows, salinity variations, and often intricate coastal land morphology. Furthermore, many estuaries are subject to constant anthropogenic stresses due to dense coastal populations, which are expected to be exacerbated by changing climate trends. The 1,800 home residential Manchester Waterway (MW) community located in Charlotte Harbor (along the Gulf of Mexico in Southwest Florida), is interested in improving boat access by restoring a previous connection between the local waterway and the harbor, separated by a barrier peninsula. The proposed connections aim to reduce boat traffic and travel time through …

Impact Of Arginine Metabolism And Sensing In Mouse Models Of Alzheimer’S Disease, Chao Ma

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) remains the most common neurodegenerative disease in the central nervous system (CNS), with amyloidosis and tauopathy as their two main hallmarks. Typical AD pathologies include cerebral plaques deposited by amyloid-β, neurofibrillary tangles aggregated by tau, and neuroinflammation caused by activated brain myeloid cells. A critical theme is centered on impaired brain metabolism. Emerging evidence showed that impaired arginine metabolism was a novel biomarker pathway for AD. The manipulation of arginine metabolism by a critical enzyme arginase 1 (ARG1) in neurons indicated therapeutic benefits in alleviating tau pathology. Balanced cellular proteostasis was governed by the mechanistic target of …

Investigations Into The Improvement Of Angelman Syndrome Therapeutics, Austin W. Nenninger

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Angelman syndrome (AS) is a rare genetic neurodevelopmental disease caused by interruption of the function of the ubiquitin ligase UBE3A gene. Patients experience an early life onset of symptoms which include pronounced intellectual disability, drastic speech impairmentor inability to speak, severe movement disorders, seizures, aggression, disruptive sleep impairment, and unusual personality traits. Estimates of prevalence show that approximately 1:15000 births are affected.

The disease is severe, and the burden can be devastating to the patients and the caregivers that they require for the duration of their relatively normal lifespan. Current treatments for the disease are lacking. Many are expensive and …

Role Of Bmi1 In Acute Lung Injury, María Helena Hernández-Cuervo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Acute Lung Injury (ALI) is a set of signs and symptoms that lead to acute hypoxemic respiratory failure characterized by bilateral pulmonary infiltrates not attributed to cardiogenic origin. It is caused by a massive innate immune response, with the migration of white blood cells (neutrophils and macrophages principally) and a cytokine storm, followed by alterations in mitochondrial function, increase in reactive oxygen species production, and oxidative stress that in turn induces more mitochondrial damage. Several studies have shown that mitochondrial alterations are key events in the mechanism of ALI and reducing mitochondrial dysfunction could be a possible target in the …

Cell-Free Dna Methylation Signatures In Cancer Detection And Classification, Jinyong Huang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Early detection of cancer is believed as one of the best solutions to improve the therapeutic outcomes and overall survival of cancer patients. Analysis of circulating nucleic acids in bodily fluids, referred to as “liquid biopsies”, is rapidly gaining prominence for this purpose. Cell-free DNA (cfDNA) methylation has emerged as a promising biomarker for early cancer detection, tumor type classification, and treatment response monitoring. Currently, most cfDNA methylation profiling technologies are based on bisulfite conversion, while enrichment-based methods such as cfMeDIP-seq are beginning to show potential. To expand the use of enrichment-based methods in cfDNA methylation profiling, here, we report …

Quantitative Assessment Of The Trophic Ecology Of The Oceanic Ctenophore, Bolinopsis Infundibulum, In Monterey Bay, California, Victoria C. Scriven

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Bolinopsis infundibulum is a wide-ranging, ubiquitous ctenophore whose fragile nature makes the collection of specimens and quantification of key predator-prey activities in controlled laboratory experiments, challenging. Thus, in situ methods often represent the best means for data collection. However, while present in surface waters, these animals can also be abundant at depths well beyond those attainable by divers. As a result, very little empirical data exist over the depth range of their natural habitats which limits our ability to assess key predator-prey interactions needed to assess their ecological role in midwater food webs. Working in Monterey Bay, California, remotely operated …

Anthropocene Fiction: Empathy, Kinship, And The Troubled Waters At The End Of The World, Megan Mandell Stowe

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Anthropocene literature features characters and environments grappling with the devastation of climate change. Donna Haraway’s term Chthulucene narrows this category further by exposing the tentacular connections between overpopulation, dependence on material goods, species loss, and other facets of global warming—such as water as a resource. Three novels of the Chthulucene exhibit these connections, centering on the importance of water to both ecologies and personal identity. As seen in the novels, place attachment brings ecology and identity together by forging a stewardship between person and location, often resulting in efforts to defend and preserve a place. In Octavia Butler’s Parable of …

Incorrect Athlete, Incorrect Woman: Ioc Gender Regulations And The Boundaries Of Womanhood In Professional Sports, Sabeehah Ravat

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Professional sports are a cornerstone of mainstream capitalist society, a site where issuesof race, class, gender, nation, and religion amongst others are produced, contested, and negotiated. In particular, gender regulation policies serve to delineate the acceptable boundaries of racialised gender and create sanctioned opportunities to surveil transgressive bodies. In this thesis, I posit that professional sports rely on and protect uniformity of gender experience to regulate and exclude trans* and intersex participation and, furthermore, that gender regulation policies delineate the boundaries of gender and particularly womanhood in a way that further marginalises nonbinary athletes. Using critical discourse analysis, a methodology …

Coral Reef Restoration Monitoring Through An Environmental Engineering And Social-Ecological Lens, Michelle C. Platz

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Florida Reef Tract (FRT) has experienced catastrophic coral cover declines since the 1970s, and active coral restoration is therefore needed to recover ecosystem integrity, preserve intrinsic values, and guarantee the provision of ecosystem services on which humans rely. While the coral restoration field’s ability to grow and outplant coral has improved extensively in the last two decades, this growth has led to the development of research gaps pertaining to restoration monitoring, specifically regarding the technical capacity to perform long term monitoring, spatial and temporal resolution, and metrics with which to quantify changes in ecosystem function resulting from restoration. The …

Crosswalking Wet Bulb Globe Temperature And Heat Index, Paul Irvin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) is a common metric to represent the environmental conditions in the assessment of heat stress. Because WBGT requires some technical expertise and sufficiently accurate equipment, there is interest in using heat index (HI) as a substitute index for the environment. Because the underlying science for understanding heat stress exposures does not exist for HI, it is necessary to crosswalk between HI and a data-driven exposure method. Expanding upon previous research, the focus of this study is the exploration of the interrelationships between WBGT and HI. The simulated weather data of Morris et. al. (2019) served …

Adrenergic Modulation Of Precursor Cells Of Ovarian Cancer, Sweta Dash

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ovarian cancer remains one of the most lethal gynecological cancer and ranks eighth in cancer-related mortality among women. The high mortality rate can be attributed to majority of the cases being diagnosed at advanced stages of the disease when the survival rate and overall prognosis are poor. There is lack of effective screening modalities to detect ovarian cancer at early stages. Hence, a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms leading to ovarian cancer initiation is required.

Epidemiological studies have reported that conditions which cause chronic behavioral stress are associated with a higher risk of developing ovarian cancer. The activation of …

Determining The Role Of Dendritic Cells During Response To Treatment With Paclitaxel/Anti-Tim-3, Alycia Gardner

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Intratumoral CD103+ dendritic cells (cDC1) are required for anti-tumor immune responses. In tumors that are poorly responsive to immunotherapeutic approaches targeting T cells, targeting cDC1 represents an alternative approach that may be useful in improving patient response rates. As such, it is critical to understand cDC1 function within tumors, and what may be preventing optimal function of cDC1. TIM-3 is a receptor that is highly expressed by cDC1 in murine and human mammary tumors, and TIM-3 blocking antibodies are currently being evaluated in clinical trials for a number of solid and hematological malignancies. In order to best design combinatorial therapeutic …

Characterizing The Impact Of Postharvest Temperature Stress On Polyphenol Profiles Of Red And White-Fruited Strawberry Cultivars, Alyssa N. Smith

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

All living organisms have developed mechanisms that help them prevent internal stress and survive under harsh conditions. For fruits, specifically strawberries, stress is fought against primarily by increasing the synthesis of polyphenols, which are secondary plant metabolites with bioactive activity. Characterizing these bioactive compounds and the differences between strawberry cultivars can be vital for strawberry breeders. Furthermore, understanding the mechanisms that trigger the synthesis of polyphenols and their levels within different strawberry cultivars will provide breeders with tools to successfully identify cultivars with higher resistance to pre- and postharvest stressors. To gain that understanding, this study aimed to characterize the …

Using Artificial Intelligence To Decipher Epigenetic Code Of Drug Resistance In The Deadliest Human Malaria Parasite, Samira Jahangiri

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Malaria remains one of the immense global public health challenges, with an estimated ~200 million cases worldwide in 2019 despite the remarkable gains in reducing this deadly disease over the past decade. The recent emergence and spread of artemisinin resistance (ART-R) in Plasmodium falciparum will increasingly impede global efforts to control and eliminate malaria. Previous studies have observed broad transcriptional changes and identified several noncoding genetic variants strongly associated with ART-R. The broad transcriptional variations suggest that the malaria parasite uses sophisticated epigenetic regulation to survive under drug pressure. Therefore, evaluating the regulatory effects of noncoding-variants in malaria parasites is …

Effects Of Exogenous Ketone Therapy On Performance, Cardiorespiration, And Seizure Genesis During Exposure To Hbo2 In The Sprague Dawley Rat, Nicole M. Stavitzski

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Hyperbaric oxygen (HBO2) is used for clinical HBO2 therapy and in undersea and aerospace medicine. HBO2 is a humanmade extreme environment and protracted exposures can cause several adverse physiological effects on the body. For example, HBO2 increases the partial pressure of oxygen (PO2) in the body leading to redox stress. Redox stress is, in part, a cause of oxygen toxicity that manifests as seizures in its most severe form (central nervous system oxygen toxicity, CNS-OT). This dissertation focuses on strategies to be employed specifically for the warfighter breathing HBO2. Currently, the only way to prevent CNS-OT is to lower the …

Listening To Queens: Ghana's Women Traditional Leaders As A Model For Gender Parity, Kristen M. Vogel

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A movement begun in 2011 inspired multilateral organizations such as the United Nations to collaborate with Ghana’s women traditional leaders on an inherently postcolonial indigenous and transnational feminist project, promoting Queens’ national recognition. Despite the initial power of the movement, it faded over time. Yet it spurred the formation of various new Queens’ associations throughout Ghana. The associations have grown and continue to grow, and the National Council of Women Traditional Leaders that spurred the first movement has returned stronger and with new strategies. As Ghana’s Queens seek their traditional right, an equal voice at all levels of leadership, it …

The Debate On Physician-Assisted Death In The United States: A Narrative Analysis Of Formula Stories, Rebecca Blackwell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Public policy discussions can be viewed as empirical windows into broadly shared culturalvalues and emotions of the social contexts in which the policy discussions take place. This project is a narrative analysis of the public debate on physician-assisted death (PAD), drawing from three data sources: newspaper articles, the websites of social movement organizations, and testimonies from a state legislative hearing. This analysis explores ways in which social actors deploy personal stories that contribute to shape the policy-making process by appealing to cultural beliefs and broadly shared emotions. The findings of this project constitute a contribution to the study of emotions …

A Biocultural Analysis Of The Impacts Of Interactions Between West Africans And Europeans During The Trans-Atlantic Trade At Elmina, Ghana, Heidi Ellen Miller

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project utilizes a biocultural approach to assess the demographics and health of the West African population from Elmina, Ghana. Elmina, selected by the Portuguese in 1482 as the site of the first European trade fort in sub-Saharan Africa, grew from a small coastal fishing village to a large settlement over the course of more than 400 years of trade and cultural entanglement. Taken over by the Dutch and then ceded to the British, the people of Elmina navigated significant cultural changes, changes and experiences that can be detected in their skeletal remains. Bioarchaeological research concerned with the effects of …

Remote Sensing And Gis Integration For Amazon Rainforest Wildfires Applications, Cong Ma

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Known as the “Lung of the world”, the Amazon rainforest produces more than 20% of the oxygen of the world, which was originally a carbon pool for mitigating climate change, but in recent years it has become a significant carbon emitter due to wildfires. In 2019, a large-scale fire occurred in the Amazon rainforest, causing serious damage to the ecosystem and to humans as well. Therefore, managing wildfires effectively has become an urgent task for fire authorities. This thesis tried to incorporate spatial analysis and spatial statistics approaches to study wildfire from two aspects, namely the temporal and spatial distribution …

Uncertainty Quantification In Deep And Statistical Learning With Applications In Bio-Medical Image Analysis, K. Ruwani M. Fernando

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Deep Learning (DL) has achieved the state-of-the-art performance across a broad spectrum oftasks. From a statistical standpoint, deep neural networks can be construed as universal function approximators. Although statistical modeling and deep learning methods are well-established as independent areas of research, hybridization of the two paradigms via probabilistic deep networks is an emerging trend. Through development of novel analytical methods under the statistical and deep-learning framework, we address some of the major challenges encountered in the design of intelligent systems which include class imbalance learning, probability calibration, uncertainty quantification and high dimensionality. When modeling rare events, existing methodologies require re-sampling …

Multifaceted Approach To Understanding Acinetobacter Baumannii Biofilm Formation And Drug Resistance, Jessie L. Allen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Acinetobacter baumannii is a multi-drug resistant nosocomial pathogen known for causing wound related- and respiratory-infections. It is currently on the WHO’s list of critical pathogens due to its broadly drug resistant nature and the constant appearance of pan-resistant isolates. A majority of the infections caused by this organism are biofilm associated, however there is limited existing knowledge regarding the mechanisms used to engage in this multicellular lifestyle. As such, we set out to explore the factors influencing this behavior using an 10,000+ isolate transposon mutant library of A. baumannii strain AB5075. Of the strains tested, 6.45% demonstrated some level of …

Hello Traitor: An Examination Of Individual Differences In Perceptions Of Technology-Related Incivility, David J. Howard

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Workplace incivility is unfortunately common among employees in today’s workplace. The increase in usage of email, texting, smartphones, and social media for interpersonal workplace communication has led to an increase of these mediums being used in an uncivil manner. While there has been a growth of general workplace incivility research conducted in the past two decades, the extant literature lacks sufficient primary studies that examine technology-related workplace incivility. This research project aims to add to the burgeoning literature in the technology-related incivility content domain. First, it examined the prevalence of email incivility reported by workers and found a much lower …

Instrumental Music Instruction And Executive Functions: A Cross-Sectional Study Of Romanian Children (10-12 Years), Adrian Sorin Iordache

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to assess the differences in verbal fluency, verbal memory, and processing speed of children (age 10-12) enrolled in a Romanian vocational music school as compared to a group enrolled in vocational visual arts school, and a group enrolled in a regular public school. This is the first study to assess children enrolled in a music school in Romania. A total of 105 participants (43 males and 62 females) 10 to 12 years old (M = 11.13, SD = .34) competed the testing. There were 36 participants (15 males and 21 females) in the music …

Decisions And How Doctors Make Them: Modeling Multilevel Decision-Making Within Diagnostic Medicine, Michelle S. Kaplan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Effective decision-making is critical and necessary for organizational success across a wide range of occupations, situations, and industries. However, decision making, by its nature, is not always a direct process of a single decision leading to a direct outcome. Rather, it can often become a multilevel process whereby one decision’s outcome leads to information that is used in subsequent larger or other types of decisions. The decision-making process then becomes progressively more complex and more difficult to navigate as these decisions compound within one another. Thus, decision-makers must find an appropriate way to approach such decisions. Understanding the multilevel nature …

Light Harvesting In Photoactive Guest-Based Metal-Organic Frameworks, Christopher R. Mckeithan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Harvesting sunlight as a clean and renewable energy source has long been a goal of the scientific community. One potential route for developing artificial light harvesters is using a bioinspired approach which utilizes the critical features found in these natural systems. Such features include a way in which to capture a broad range of the solar spectrum, fixed distance and orientation of redox pairs to facilitate efficient directional transfer of electrons, transfer of electrons to a terminal acceptor, and recovery of the systems for repeated use. Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) are attractive candidates for developing light harvesting systems due their …

Ubiquitous Yet Inconspicuous: Quantifying Trophic Impact Of A Widespread Oceanic Comb Jelly (Ctenophore), Elizabeth Potter

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The oceanic lobate ctenophore Ocyropsis spp. has a widespread distribution throughout the world’s tropical and sub-tropical oceans. While patchy, Ocyropsis spp. population densities are known to exceed one individual per m3. Studies of coastal ctenophores have shown that some species are capable of exerting strong predatory impacts on their ecosystems, but little is known about the potential trophic impacts of their oceanic relatives. Many oceanic genera such as Ocyropsis, Bolinopsis, and Eurhamphaea exhibit morphologies and prey capture mechanisms that are different from the more well-studied coastal species. Thus, existing data on coastal taxa may not apply to oceanic species due …

A Multimodal Literacy Exploration: Lived Experiences Of Haitian Immigrant Adolescent Girls In The Bahamas, Natasha Swann

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As the geographic landscape of our world increasingly changes, a constant migration is occurring, with people seeking refuge and asylum. Many of those seeking a better way of life are children and adolescents. It is important not only to consider and accommodate how children and adolescents develop and grow, but how they do so in a country that is not their home and with language and literacy practices that are often new to them. Adjusting and acculturating into host countries might compound issues youth experience during child and adolescence development. This study provided a space and a platform for immigrant …

Computationally Driven Design Of Shape-Controlled Polymeric Nanostructures, Davindra Tulsi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the realm of shape control involving synthetic soft materials, block copolymers are ubiquitously exploited due to their ability to spontaneously self-assemble into a plethora of morphologies. The growing need in areas such as drug delivery, lithography, and microelectronics to generate new nanostructures demands ever finer control of copolymer self-assembly. It is desirable to better control the shape and size of soft nanostructures, with minimal post processing techniques to assert stability.

While there is an abundance of literature on diblock copolymer assembly, few relationships exist for sequence-controlled copolymers. It is well known that biological macromolecules are highly sequence specific and …

Moving In Fluid: Exploring How Fishes Manipulate Water To Swim Efficiently, Nils B. Tack

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Moving through a dense fluid such as water presents some unique challenges to minimizing energy use and maximizing performance (i.e., speed). Due to animal-fluid interactions during swimming (drag and thrust production) fish have evolved a variety of morphological structures and locomotor mechanisms. For instance, fish rely on body bending and/or fins to interact with the surrounding water such that energy can be transferred to generate thrust. Typically, this synergy promotes morphologies and behaviors aimed at enhancing propulsive efficiency and/or minimizing metabolic activity to lessen the cost of transport (COT). This work focuses on quantifying the energetic and hydromechanical benefits of …