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Feeding Specificity Of The Photosynthetic Sacoglossan Sea Slug Elysia Papillosa, Kourtney Sui Barber

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The sacoglossan sea slug, Elysia papillosa is associated with two species of the siphonaceous green alga, Penicillus, which co-occur in mixed macrophyte beds at Tarpon Springs, FL, USA. Field collections revealed that Elysia papillosa is frequently collected from the alga, P. capitatus, but is also present in much lower abundance on P. lamourouxii. Past studies have shown that some species of sacoglossans consume algal species that differ from the algae from which they are collected so, in order to determine whether E. papillosa was consuming either or both species of Penicillus, total DNA was extracted from individual slugs collected from …

Protease Resistant Growth Factor Formulations For The Healing Of Chronic Wounds, Tabitha Boeringer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Chronic wounds are those wounds which are refractory to treatment, often taking years to heal. These wounds are complex and may present with elevated protease levels, resulting in rapid degradation of growth factors, both native and augmented via treatment. This study’s focus was the development of a system to protect growth factors from protease mediated degradation.

The protective system consisted of chimeric fusion proteins developed to contain both a growth factor or known protease inhibitory peptide and an Elastin-Like-Peptide (ELP)component. The unique phase transitioning abilities of the ELP component allowed for the self-assembly of these chimeric fusion proteins into a …

On The Importance Of Context: Examining The Applicability Of Infertility Insurance Mandates In The United States Using A Mixed-Methods Study Design, Nathanael B. Stanley

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Accessibility of infertility services is disproportionately experienced in the United States. Although there exist state-based health insurance mandates for infertility services, these mandates contain language that disqualify people from using them. In order to better understand why these mandates are not able to reduce the financial burden and bridge the income disparity for using infertility services, the purpose of this study is to add context to the applicability of these insurance mandates through qualitative and quantitative inquiry. Using the Glass and McAtee model of risk regulators as an operational paradigm, this research explores the role of environmental context, or “place”, …

The Impacts Of Membrane Modulators On Membrane Material Properties At Microscopic And Nanoscopic Levels, Chinta Mani Aryal

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Peptide-membrane interactions depict the cell’s response to an external molecule. This is a critical event to evaluate the peptide’s function and effect as well as the response of target molecule. The understanding of the mechanism of action of peptide in a molecular level is important, for example, this may be useful in developing the therapeutic strategy. Peptides are the functional macromolecules which are actively researched among bio-related fields. Model membrane systems that mimic the real cell have been useful platform to test the perturbation upon peptide addition. In this thesis, we investigate the membrane modulation behavior of three peptides (modulators) …

Role Of Ceramide-1 Phosphate In Regulation Of Sphingolipid And Eicosanoid Metabolism In Lung Epithelial Cells, Brittany A. Dudley

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ceramide 1-Phosphate (C1P) is a sphingolipid metabolite which plays a large role in inflammation, cell survival and proliferation¹. C1P is known to have both pro- and anti-apoptotic roles in lung cancer cells, governed by ceramide kinase (CERK), upstream of precursor ceramide (Cer)². Previous work reveals C1P serves as the liaison between sphingolipid and eicosanoid synthesis, by decreasing the dissociation rate of group IVA cytosolic PLA₂ (cPLA_2α) from the Golgi membrane, C1P directly activates this phospholipase for downstream eicosanoid synthesis and subsequent inflammatory response³. CERK has been discovered to modulate eicosanoid synthesis, …

Swimming Of Pelagic Snails: Kinematics And Fluid Dynamics, Ferhat Karakas

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Pteropods (also known as sea butterflies or sea angels), are holoplanktonic marine snails which swim by flapping a pair of extremely flexible wings. The wings are modified from the molluscan foot and the wing motions are supported by the fluid pressure without any rigid support. Sea angels (gymnosome pteropods) are completely naked; in contrast, sea butterflies (thecosome pteropods) have negatively buoyant aragonite shells which vary in geometry and size among different species. Pteropods are seasonally abundant in the ocean, and an important food source for the other zooplanktons, fishes, and whales. Though studies have been conducted regarding their biology, ecology, …

Covalent Organic Frameworks As An Organic Scaffold For Heterogeneous Catalysis Including C-H Activation, Harsh Vardhan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Linking small organic molecules into an extended solid usually afford disordered amorphous polymers. The instigation of order into such a material is of profound interest to induce inherent fine control of the overall structure. Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) are new class of porous crystalline material prepared by connecting organic building blocks via strong covalent bonds. The judicious choice of organic monomers can give rise to highly ordered and predictable frameworks with high crystallinity, surface area, and thermal/chemical stability. The role of connecting linkages such as B─O, C─C, C─N extends the principle of fundamental molecular covalent chemistry to the formation of …

Feature Selection Via Random Subsets Of Uncorrelated Features, Long Kim Dang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The role of feature selection is crucial in many applications. A few of these include computational biology, image classification and risk management. In biology, gene expression micro array data sets have been used extensively in many areas of research. These data sets typically suffer from an important problem: the ratio between the number of features over the number of examples is very high. This problem mainly affects prediction accuracy because it is best to collect more labeled examples than features. A correlation based random subspace ensemble feature selector (CCC_RSM) was proposed to handle this problem [5]. In this approach, first …

Establishing Topological Data Analysis: A Comparison Of Visualization Techniques, Tanmay J. Kotha

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

When visualizing data, we would like to convey both the data and the uncertainty associated with it. There are many incentives to do this, ranging from hurricane path projection to geographical surveys. Important decision making tasks rely upon humans perceiving a clear picture of the data and having confidence in their decisions. Topological Data Analysis has the potential to visualize the data as features or hierarchies in ways that are familiar to human intuition, and thus could help us convey the variation associated with uncertainty.

In this thesis, we evaluate four visualization techniques: color maps, isocontours, Reeb graphs, and persistence …

Development Of Ultrasonic-Based Ambient Desorption Ionization Mass Spectrometry, Linxia Song

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ambient desorption/ionization techniques (ADI) have drawn significant attention in mass spectrometric instrumentation development. The analyte classes that are successfully studied by any ADI mass spectrometry (MS) method strongly depends on how gas-phase ions are generated. Spray-based techniques may ionize molecules across a wide range of mass-to-charge ratios, but are commonly used for polar analyte, however, suffers from severe matrix effect. Contrastingly, methods employing electric (or laser) plasmas are capable of ionization of polar and nonpolar analytes suffering from less matrix effect, but primarily targeting those with low molecular masses. Thus far, developments of universal ionization methods, which do not depend …

Exploring The Association Of Academic Psychological Capital And Experiential Learning With Academic Performance, Diane Kutz

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research study expands upon the body of research seeking to define the effect of Academic Psychological Capital (Academic PsyCap) and student Participation in Experiential Learning on one success measure of students, Academic Performance, as measured by grade point average (GPA). It also seeks to investigate the moderating effect of Experiential Learning on the relationship between Academic PsyCap and Academic Performance. The study argues that Social Cognitive Theory and Broaden and Build Theory supported a reciprocal relationship between Academic PsyCap and Participation in Experiential Learning Activities and the positive relationship between both constructs and Academic Performance.

The study was conducted …

The Impact Of Myeloid-Mediated Co-Stimulation And Immunosuppression On The Anti-Tumor Efficacy Of Adoptive T Cell Therapy, Pasquale Patrick Innamarato

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Adoptive T cell therapy (ACT) in combination with lymphodepleting chemotherapy is an effective strategy to induce the eradication of tumors, providing long-term regression in cancer patients. However, only a minority of patients that receive ACT with tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) exhibit durable benefit. Thus, there is an urgent need to define strategies that potentiate anti-tumor activity conducted by adoptively transferred T cells. In these studies, we aimed to identify novel strategies to enhance the therapeutic efficacy of ACT. Accordingly, we describe the disparate roles of myeloid cells in the context of ACT characterized by the augmentation of TIL proliferation in …

Soil Characteristics Associated With Horse Cases Of Eastern Equine Encephalitis Virus In Florida, Fulya Guzelkucuk

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Eastern Equine Encephalitis virus (EEEV) is a mosquito-borne virus found in Florida that affects humans and horses. Also, EEEV is an agricultural land management issue in Florida, as it causes mortality in large numbers of horses each year and sometimes humans. This study investigates the characteristics of soils associated with horse cases of EEEV in the State of Florida, focusing on differences in soil characteristics between summer and winter cases. This study analyzed a total of 676 EEEV cases during 2005-2018, including 611 summer cases and 65 winter cases. Soil characteristics that were examined include: soil texture, drainage class, hydrology …

Civic Engagement Amid Civil Unrest: Haitian Social Scientists Working At Home, Nadège Nau

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Unlike many of the autoethnographic accounts in world anthropologies discourse, this study employs critical educational ethnography to both address the geopolitics of Haitian anthropology while also spotlighting an understudied group: university faculty. This study addresses: What are the conditions of academic labor for anthropology professors working in Haiti? Moreover, what is the price of being an anthropology professor at the School of Ethnology at the State University of Haiti (UEH), and how do professors add meaningful value to their labor through sacrifice, ingenuity, and civic engagement? Despite professors’ work-related challenges and Haiti’s severe “brain drain” levels, for many professors, their …

Using A Systems Thinking Approach And Health Risk Assessment To Analyze The Food-Energy-Water System Nexus Of Seaweed Farming In Belize, Estenia J. Ortiz Carabantes

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Certain macroalgae, commonly referred to as seaweed, have traditionally been used as a food source for many coastal communities around the world. In Belize, residents of the Placencia Peninsula cultivate two seaweed types, Eucheuma isiforme and Gracilaria spp. at Little Water Caye located 19 miles offshore. The dried seaweed is sold at the Placencia Producers Cooperative Society Limited (PPCSL) where community members process it into a variety of value-added products such as soaps, cosmetics, hair products, and food additives.

The overall goal of this research was to understand the existing food-energy-water system (FEWS) infrastructure landscape for seaweed production in Placencia, …

A Chemical Investigation Of Three Antarctic Tunicates Of The Genus Synoicum, Sofia Kokkaliari

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Marine invertebrates, mainly sponges, tunicates and corals, have in the past few decades attracted the interest of the scientific community in regard to their secondary metabolites and their potential as leads in drug discovery. The genus Synoicum is comprised of multiple organisms found in both deep and shallow waters, tropical and cold environments around the world. The majority of the members of this genus that have been investigated can be found in shallow tropical waters due to the ease of accessing and collecting them. Of the cold environments, Antarctica is a representative of the environments where members of the Synoicum …

Chemical Investigation Of Floridian Mangrove Endophytes And Antarctic Marine Organisms, Bingjie Yang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nature creates diseases and illnesses for mankind, however, nature also provides therapeutics by making biological systems produce secondary metabolites. Although the secondary metabolites originally play roles in chemical defense or evolution, researchers have been working on them for drug discovery. Plants, fungi and marine organisms have been mostly explored by natural products chemists over the century and contributed most drugs to the market. With the increasing need of new drugs resulting from drug resistance and pathogen evolution, the natural products area has been focused on developing innovative methodologies to achieve higher efficiency of isolating new bioactive compounds.

This dissertation herein …

Sustainable Nutrient Management Through Technology-Level Evaluation And System-Level Optimization, Xiaofan Xu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The need for wastewater and stormwater quality control, especially the control of nutrients, has been recognized due to the widespread problem of water eutrophication. Sustainable nutrient management is essential to reduce nutrient-related impacts and supply the growing nutrient demands.

This research focused on the nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) in the urban water environment with nitrogen as the nutrient of interest since nitrogen is the primary nutrient responsible for eutrophication in the coastal areas. It aimed to enhance the sustainability of urban nutrient management through technology-level evaluation and system-level optimization of technology implementation with consideration of life cycle environmental impacts and …

The Participation Of Children With Multiple Disabilities In The Florida State Alternate Assessment: Parent Perspectives, Lora Reese

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The perspectives of parents of children with multiple disabilities regarding their understanding and involvement in their child’s participation in the Florida State Alternate Assessment (FSAA) Performance Task and Datafolio are explored in this study. In the United States, federal policies require all students to participate in state-wide formal assessments, including students with multiple disabilities. Current research literature examines the perspectives of teachers and other education professionals regarding the many facets of formalized assessment. However, the perspective of parents of children with multiple disabilities and their child’s participation in formal alternate assessment is scant. Throughout this study, the reflections of six …

An Ethnography Of Wash Infrastructures And Governance In Sulphur Springs, Florida, Mathews Jackon Wakhungu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation describes the forces that shape the perceptions and practices in Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WaSH) services in the community of Sulphur Springs, Tampa, Florida. It also explores how these forces, perceptions, and practices produce adverse experiences and inequalities in water, sewer, drainage, and laundry services. This ethnographic study combines participant observation, ethnographic interviewing, freelisting, oral history, and GIS to uncover the context, experiences, and perceptions about WaSH in Sulphur Springs. The study finds that the present conditions and perceptions about WaSH are embedded into the historical contexts—especially racial segregation, the construction of the interstate, and multiple economic downturns …

Deep Learning Predictive Modeling With Data Challenges (Small, Big, Or Imbalanced), Renhao Liu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the real world, data used to build machine learning models always has different sizes and characteristics. These size and characteristic features, including small datasets, big datasets, imbalanced datasets, often lead to different challenges when training machine learning models. Models trained on a small number of observations tend to overfit the training data and produce inaccurate results. When it comes to big data, efficiently learning from "huge" size data in a short time becomes important. With an imbalanced dataset, learning is usually biased towards the majority class in the data and appropriate measurements are needed to check model performance.

As …

Facilitators And Barriers To Treatment Engagement In A Behavioral Parent Training Program, Holland Hayford

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This quantitative study sought to analyze caregivers’ perspectives regarding facilitators of, and barriers to, attending the behavioral parent training programs (BPTs) known as Helping Our Toddlers, Developing Our Children’s Skills (HOT DOCS) and Developing Our Children’s Skills K-5 (DOCS K-5). Participants included 43 caregivers who successfully completed their respective DOCS program. These caregivers answered two questionnaires which contained items addressing demographic variables (i.e., gender, race, ethnicity, household income, level of education, number of children, and program attendance) and logistic factors of the DOCS programs (i.e., course location, class length, time of day, course duration, availability of transportation, availability of childcare). …

Novel Long Non-Coding Rna Cdlinc Promotes Nsclc Progression, Christina J. Moss

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the leading cause of cancer death worldwide with a low 5-year survival rate of only around 21%. This low 5-year survival rate is due to two main reasons. First, NSCLC is often diagnosed at the later stages when it has already metastasized. Second, NSCLC is an incredibly diverse, heterogenous disease making it very hard to target the true molecular oncogenic drivers. New targets for personalized therapeutics are needed based on the expression status of each individual lung cancer tumor.

One way of looking for these new therapeutics is to begin by identifying the oncogenotype …

K–12 Teachers’ Experiences “With Or Without” Breastfeeding/Pumping Policy In The School Workplace, Michelle Mae Phillips

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the experiences of classroom teachers who are lactating and expressing milk in a situation with or without school/district policies related to lactation and breastmilk expression. As there is little in the published literature that describes postpartum K–12 teachers' experiences while pumping breastmilk in the workplace. There is a need for studies that highlight these experiences and explore how policies impact breastfeeding teachers. The study was guided by three research questions: (1) How do classroom teachers who are, or have been, lactating and expressing milk during their workday experience school/district policies related to lactation and breastmilk expression? (2) …

The Culture Of Learning Disabilities, Race And Athletics: An Examination Of Student-Athlete Experiences In Predominantly White Institutions Of Higher Education’S Division One College Football Programs, Ashley L. White

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Students’ educational experiences vary. The differences in these experiences can be attributed to a variety of factors, including but not limited to geographic location, socio-economic status, age, gender, race, ability, and individual experiences before and during schooling. In this study, the researcher examined the intersectionality of race and disability in the context of postsecondary education and student-athletes through the experiences of participants who identified themselves within select categories, namely as Black/African American and student-athlete. Of equal importance, participants struggled to meet normalized standards of learning during their P-12 educational experiences and/or were identified with a categorical learning disability. As will …

Using Optimization Methods For Solving Problems In Sustainable Urban Mobility And Conservation Planning, Zulqarnain Haider

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation considers three separate optimization problems related to sustainable urban and environmental systems. The first problem relates to the nightly relocation and recharging operations for Free-floating electric vehicle sharing (FFEVS) systems. Such operations involve a crew of drivers to move the shared electric vehicles (EVs), and a fleet of shuttles to transport those drivers. Mixed integer programs are used to model the relocation and recharging operations. Two approaches are devised: sequential and synchronized approaches. In the sequential approach, the movement of EVs is first decided, then the routing of shuttles and drivers is determined. In the synchronized approach, all …

Changing The Culture Of Consent: Teaching Young Children Personal Boundaries, Marlesha C. Bell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Currently, eight states and Washington D.C. mention consent education in their sex education standards (Naide, 2020). Most school-based consent education curricula focus on teaching pre-teens through adults consent within the context of sexual contact (Planned Parenthood, 2016). However, consent may be relevant for behavior outside the context of sexual contact. Young children could develop a repertoire for consent skills and use it to set and respect boundaries. Furthermore, behavior analysis has teaching technologies that could be used to inform a curriculum for teaching consent, such as behavioral skills training (Johnson et al., 2006) and video modeling (Charlop & Milstein, 1989). …

A Health Evaluation Of Gulf Of Mexico Golden Tilefish (Lopholatilus Chamaeleonticeps) And Red Snapper (Lutjanus Campechanus) Following The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Kristina Leigh Deak

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A lack of baseline heath indices for offshore Gulf of Mexico (GoM) teleosts complicated impact assessments of the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill. While measurement of contaminant levels in fish after a pollution event can document exposure, such data fail to provide meaningful information about how this contact affects an animal's physiology. Controlled exposure studies have highlighted the utility of biomarkers that may indicate deleterious, long-lasting effects of pollutant exposure on various life stages of fish, however, their extrapolation to wild-caught, non-model species is challenging. In an increasingly chemically-saturated environment, it can also be difficult to separate the influence of …

Development Of An Integrated Direct Membrane Filtration (Dmf) And Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactor (Anmbr) System For Dilute Municipal Wastewater Treatment, Ahmet Erkan Uman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The total electricity consumption due to municipal wastewater treatment in the US accounts for 1.3% of total demand. Also, a significant portion of biodegradable constituents in wastewater is converted into biomass, which needs further processing. On the one hand, an excessive amount of energy and chemicals are being used to treat wastewater, but on the other hand, resources (such as nitrogen and phosphorus, energy, and water) in wastewater are being discharged or removed rather than recovered. From this perspective, new wastewater treatment technologies are sorely needed to facilitate resource recovery from wastewater for a better, more sustainable future.

Anaerobic membrane …

A Process-Based Approach To Evaluating The Role Of Organic Ligands In Trace Metal Cycling In The Marine Environment, Travis Mellett

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In addition to control by major nutrient elements (nitrogen, phosphorous, and silicon) growth and community composition of marine phytoplankton is also regulated by trace element nutrients (iron, copper, manganese, zinc, cobalt, nickel, and cadmium). Of these, iron is the most influential in the modern ocean, regulating phytoplankton growth and carbon export in high-nutrient low-chlorophyll regimes and exerting an important control on the marine nitrogen cycle through its role in di-nitrogen fixation. The distributions of these metals has the capacity to control primary production and phytoplankton community composition through differences in cellular quotas or metal sensitivities amongst species. The relationship between …