Digital Commons Network^™

Nanocrystalline Diamond For Rf Mems Applications, Srinath Balachandran

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nanocrystalline diamond (NCD) due its outstanding thermal, mechanical and tribological properties is an ideal candidate for MEMS/NEMS devices. NCD offers the possibility to increase the reliability and life time of RF-MEMS switches and by mitigating the problems of stiction, charge trapping, surface wear and cold welding found in traditional all metal MEMS devices.

In this work, nanocrystalline diamond cantilever beams and bridges have been fabricated on a low resistive silicon substrate by using standard micromachining techniques. The diamond structures are then integrated onto alumina and aluminium nitride substrates upon which microwave transmission lines in the microstrip and coplanar waveguide (CPW) …

Blogs: Balanced Local And Global Search For Non-Degenerate Two View Epipolar Geometry, Aveek Shankar Brahmachari

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The problem of epipolar geometry estimation together with correspondence establishment in case of wide baseline and large scale changes and rotation has been addressed in this work. This work deals with cases that are heavily noised by outliers. The jump diffusion MCMC method has been employed to search for the non-degenerate epipolar geometry with the highest probabilistic support of putative correspondences. At the same time, inliers in the putative set are also identified. The jump steps involve large movements guided by a distribution of similarity based priors while diffusion steps are small movements guided by a distribution of likelihoods given …

Automatic Red Tide Detection Using Modis Satellite Images, Wijian Cheng

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Red tides pose a significant economic and environmental threat in the Gulf of Mexico. Detecting red tide is important for understanding this phenomenon. In this thesis, machine learning approaches based on Random Forests, Support Vector Machines and K-Nearest Neighbors have been evaluated for red tide detection from MODIS satellite images. Detection results using machine learning algorithms were compared to ship collected ground truth red tide data. This work has three major contributions. First, machine learning approaches outperformed two of the latest thresholding red tide detection algorithms based on bio-optical characterization by more than 10% in terms of F measure and …

Toward Understanding Low Surface Friction On Quasiperiodic Surfaces, Keith Mclaughlin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In a 2005 article in Science [45], Park et al. measured in vacuum the friction between a coated atomic-force-microscope tip and the clean two-fold surface of an AlNiCo quasicrystal. Because the two-fold surface is periodic in one direction and aperiodic (with a quasiperiodicity related to the Fibonacci sequence) in the perpendicular direction, frictional anisotropy is not unexpected; however, the magnitude of that anisotropy in the Park experiment, a factor of eight, is unprecedented. By eliminating chemistry as a variable, the experiment also demonstrated that the low friction of quasicrystals must be tied in some way to their quasiperiodicity. Through various …

Lrfd Design Of Double Composite Box Girder Bridges, Purvik Patel

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Conventional continuous steel bridges only exhibit composite behavior in the positive moment region. Similar composite action may also be achieved in the negative moment region by casting a bottom concrete slab between the points of inflection. Such a section is referred to as "double composite" since it is composite in both the positive and negative moment regions. Savings in double composite bridges arise because expensive steel is replaced by inexpensive concrete to carry compressive loads. Although double composite bridges have been designed and constructed since at least 1978 there has been limited research. Thus, current designs rely on existing provisions …

Algorithms For Simple Stochastic Games, Elena Valkanova

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A simple stochastic game (SSG) is a game defined on a directed multigraph and played between players MAX and MIN. Both players have control over disjoint subsets of vertices: player MAX controls a subset V_MAX and player MIN controls a subset V_MIN of vertices. The remaining vertices fall into either V_AVE, a subset of vertices that support stochastic transitions, or SINK, a subset of vertices that have zero outdegree and are associated with a payoff in the range [0, 1]. The game starts by placing a token on a designated start vertex. The token is moved …

The Neuron-Silicon Carbide Interface: Biocompatibility Study And Bmi Device Development, Christopher L. Frewin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Damage to the central nervous system (CNS) leads to the generation of an immune response which culminates with the encapsulation of the damaged area. The encapsulation, known as a glial scar, essentially breaks neural signal pathways and blocks signal transmissions to and from the CNS. The effect is the loss of motor and sensory control for the damaged individual. One method that has been used successfully to treat this problem is the use of a brain-machine interface (BMI) which can intercept signals from the brain and use these signals to control a machine. Although there are many types of BMI …

Uv Laser And Led Induced Fluorescence Spectroscopy For Detection Of Trace Amounts Of Organics In Drinking Water And Water Sources, Anna V. Sharikova

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A UV Laser Induced Fluorescence (LIF) system, previously developed in our laboratory, was modified and used for a series of applications related to the development and optimization of UV LIF spectroscopic measurements of trace contaminants in drinking water and other water sources. Fluorescence spectra of a number of water samples were studied, including those related to the reverse osmosis water treatment and membrane fouling, domestic and international drinking water, industrial toxins, bacterial spores, as well as several fluorescence standards. Of importance was that the long term detection of the trace level of Dissolved Organic Compounds (DOC) was measured, for the …

An Empirical Analysis Of Public Perception Of Reclaimed Water Applying The Situational Theory Of Publics, Jessica Voss

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Utilizing J.E. Grunig's (1989a, 1997) situational theory of publics and Fishbein and Ajzen's (1975) theory of reasoned action, this empirical study examined the public's perception of reclaimed water. Specifically, the three independent variables - problem recognition, constraint recognition, and level of involvement - were separated into internal and external variables to determine their influences on behavioral intention. The independent variables were also used to determine the public's communication behavioral intention.

The findings of this study support the basic premise of the situational theory of publics and contribute to the extension of the theory through the inclusion of some of the …

Recombinant Aav Gene Therapy And Delivery, Nikisha Christine Carty

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Alzheimer's disease (AD), first characterized in the early 20th century, is a common form of dementia which can occur as a result of genetic mutations in the genes encoding presenilin 1, presenilin 2, or amyloid precursor protein (APP). These genetic alterations can accelerate the pathological characteristics of AD, including the formation of extracellular neuritic plaques composed of amyloid beta peptides and the formation of intracellular neurofibrillary tangles consisting of hyperphosphorylated tau protein. Ultimately, AD results in gross neuron loss in the brain which is evidenced clinically as a progressive decline in mental capacity. A strong body of scientific evidence has …

Ionic Liquid-Mediated Sol-Gel Sorbents For Capillary Microextraction And Challenges In Glass Microfabrication, Anne M. Shearrow

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Three ionic liquids (ILs), trihexyltetradecylphosphonium tetrafluoroborate (TTPT), N-butyl-4-methylpyridinium tetrafluoroborate (BMPT), and 1-methyl-3- octylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate (MOIC), were utilized to prepare sol- gel sorbent coatings. Non-polar polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and polar poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG), poly(tetrahydrofuran) (PolyTHF) and bis[(3-methyldimethoxy-silyl)propyl] polypropylene oxide (BMPO) polymers were employed to develop novel ionic liquidmediated sol- gel hybrid organic- inorganic sorbents. The novel sorbents were first tested as coatings for capillary microextraction off-line hyphenated to gas chromatography. To gain an understanding of the role of the ionic liquids in the sol-gel process, the preconcentration abilities of these novel coatings were investigated for several classes of compounds utilizing CME-GC. This …

Blind Signal Detection And Identification Over The 2.4ghz Ism Band For Cognitive, Omar Zakaria

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

'It is not a lack of spectrum. It is an issue of efficient use of the available spectrum"--conclusions of the FCC Spectrum Policy Task Force.

There is growing interest towards providing broadband communication with high bit rates and throughput, especially in the ISM band, as it was an ignition of innovation triggered by the FCC to provide, to some extent, a regulation-free band that anyone can use. But with such freedom comes the risk of interference and more responsibility to avoid causing it. Therefore, the need for accurate interference detection and identification, along with good blind detection capabilities are inevitable. …

Blind Synchronization And Detection Of Nyquist Pulse Shaped Qam Signals, Evren Terzi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis proposes a blind receiver for the Nyquist pulse shaped quadratureamplitude modulation (QAM) signals. The focus is on single carrier signals. The blind receiver includes the estimation of the symbol rate, the roll-off factor of the filter, the optimal sample phase, the frequency offset, the phase offset and as well as the correction of frequency and phase offsets.

The blind receiver is proposed for the cognitive radio applications. Cognitive radios are intelligent devices which can adapt themselves according to its user and its environment, i.e. they are aware of the user and the environment. Another importance of cognitive radios …

Non-Contact Characterization Of Dielectric Conduction On 4h-Sic, Helen N. Benjamin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Consistent charge or defect control in oxide grown on silicon carbide (SiC) continues to be difficult to achieve and directly impacts the electrical performance of SiC-based metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) devices. This research applied non-contact Corona-Kelvin metrology to investigate the charge transport in oxides grown on n-type 4H-SiC epitaxial substrates. The cost and engineering science impact of this metrology are significant as device fabrication is avoided leading to quick determination of electrical characteristics from as-grown oxide films. Non-contact current-voltage (I-V) measurements of oxide on SiC were first demonstrated within this work and revealed that Fowler-Nordheim (F-N) current emission was the …

The Role Of Trust In Judgment, Christophe Sage Hudspeth

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation I defend five claims about trust: 1) trusting and trustworthiness are conceptually but not causally connected; 2) trust is risky; 3) trust requires good will; 4) trust is a two-part relation; and 5) trust is an interpretative framework.

A concern for trust often appears in discussions about testimony and the expectation of truthfulness; Bentley Glass, John Hardwig, and Jonathan Adler each address the role of trust in science while assuming a necessary connection between trusting and trustworthiness. I argue that this conception is untenable because a justification for one fails to suffice as a justification of the …

Associate In Science (As) To Bachelor Of Science In Applied Science (Bsas) Transfer Students: An Analysis Of Student Characteristics, Engagement, And Success, Jerry C. Collins

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study sought to examine and comprehensively describe transfer students who have earned a two-year technical or occupational Associate in Science (AS) degree at the community college and entered the university to pursue the Bachelor of Science in Applied Science (BSAS).

The BSAS degree is a specialized baccalaureate degree program created to allow AS degree holders an opportunity to efficiently transfer into the university affording them full recognition of their two-year degree. This statewide articulated program at the University of South Florida is the first of its kind in the state of Florida. The program only began admitting its first …

Social Shopping, Rebecca Anderson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Social shopping is one of the latest trends on the Internet. Websites dedicated to social networking with a focus on shopping have been emerging on the web for a few years. The basic idea is that consumers are looking for product information on the Internet and social shopping sites provide a place for consumers to find this information from other consumers. These sites provide a place for their users to engage in socialization and shopping simultaneously, sometimes following recommendations of premier users, who are labeled from other users. However, purchases aren't made through these sites. So, there may still be …

Ivcon: A Gui-Based Tool For Visualizing And Modularizing Crosscutting Concerns, Nalin Saigal

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Code modularization provides benefits throughout the software life cycle; however, the presence of crosscutting concerns (CCCs) in software hinders its complete modularization. This thesis describes IVCon, a GUI-based tool that provides a novel approach to modularization of CCCs. IVCon enables users to create, examine, and modify their code in two different views, the woven view and the unwoven view. The woven view displays program code in colors that indicate which CCCs various code segments implement. The unwoven view displays code in two panels, one showing the core of the program and the other showing all the code implementing each concern …

“According To Wikipedia…”: A Comparative Analysis Of The Establishment And Display Of Authority In A Social Problems Textbook And Wikipedia, Alexander A. Hernandez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this study, I aim to examine (1) how authority is established and (2) how it is displayed. Through the use of content analysis, I investigate how the topics of "gender" and "race" within a contemporary social problems textbook compares and contrasts to corresponding Wikipedia articles. Through my research I wish to shed light on the social construction of knowledge within our modern society while also shedding light on the role that authority plays within knowledge. In order to examine how authority is established I examined the number of citations found in each topic, the publishing date of each reference …

Evaluation Of The Impact Of Membrane Change At A Membrane Softening Water Treatment Plant, Michael Keen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

At the water treatment plant in Dunedin, Florida, reverse osmosis membranes remove the hardness from groundwater sources. Reverse osmosis membranes remove salts, pathogens, and organics from the feed water but can create an aggressive permeate. The membranes strip most ions in the process and the resulting permeate, if not subjected to blending on post treatment, has a tendency to leach metals from lead and copper pipes in the distribution networks. To prevent such problems, the permeate needs to be blended with partially treated raw water or to be chemically treated to re-mineralize and add alkalinity back into the water. In …

The Effects Of Diameter Fluctuations And Coiling On The Sensitivity Of Sapphire Single Crystal Optical Fiber Evanescent Wave Fluorescence Sensors, Jimmy Ray Gamez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to determine the effect of diameter fluctuations on the sensitivity of sapphire multimode optical fibers used as evanescent wave fluorescence sensors. It was predicted that fluctuations in the diameter of the fiber would act as a series of bi-tapers converting lower order modes to higher order modes increasing the evanescent wave penetration depth thereby increasing the excitation of a cladding of fluorescent fluid. Induced fluorescence from the fluid cladding would then couple back into the fiber more efficiently increasing the sensitivity of the sensor.

The effect of coiling the fiber on the sensitivity of …

Enzymatic And Chemical Synthesis Of Polyesters And Polycarbonates Derived From Ltartaric Acid And Synthesis Of Polycaprolactones Initiated By Cavitands, Ruizhi Wu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Due to the excellent properties of biodegradability and biocompatibility, aliphatic polycarbonate and polyesters are very promising either as biomaterials or as environmentally friendly materials to address growing ecological concerns. The first chapter describes an overview of ring-opening polymerization, enzymatic polymerization and their application on the polymerization of cyclic carbonate and lactones.

The second chapter describes the synthesis of enantiomerically pure functional polycarbonate from a novel seven-membered-cyclic carbonate (5S, 6S)- Dimethyl 5,6- isopropylidene-1,3-dioxepin-2-one (ITC) derived from naturally occurring L-tartaric acid. The monomer was synthesized in three steps and screened for polymerization with four commercially available lipases.

Block co-polymerization of ITC with …

Social Implications Of Fair Trade Coffee In Chiapas, Mexico: Toward Alternative Economic Integration, Joseph J. Torok

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The coffee trade in Chiapas, Mexico is a unique approach of sustainable development and economic integration, demonstrating that local social movements can change behaviors in international trade regimes. The Zapatista community of Chiapas, Mexico, has an impact on the global trade system, where resultant changes begin at the local level. In the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, factors contributing to the Zapatista rebellion have led actors within civil society to form new socio-political organizations capable of changing participation, norms, and economic outcomes during the post-rebellion period (1994 - present). This study explores the dilemmas facing the autonomy of actors in …

Fantasies Of Metal And Wires: Battling Corporate Hegemony And The Achievement Of Posthuman Masculinity In Recent Superhero Cinema, Joseph J. Cook

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

During the summer of 2008 many movies were released with superhero protagonists. Combining textual readings and theoretical accounts to provide a phenomenological analysis of the representation of the counter-hegemonic struggle against corporate control and the achievement of posthuman masculinity in these recent superhero films, this thesis compares and contrasts specific visual and thematic elements that consistently appear in four of these films: The Dark Knight, Wanted, Iron Man, and Speed Racer. Providing intertextual exploration of the cultural status of specific cinematic superheroes, this project explores possible relationships between culture, society, and cinema, treating popular superhero cinema …

Statistical And Data Mining Methodologies For Behavioral Analysis In Transgenic Mouse Models Of Alzheimer’S Disease: Parallels With Human Ad Evaluation, Ralph E. Leighty

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder and the leading cause of human senile dementia. Alzheimer’s represents a significant public health concern, having widespread social and economic implications. Consequently, protocols for early detection and therapeutic intervention (both behavioral and pharmacologic) constitute important targets for medical investigation. Furthermore, contemporary research depends upon comprehensive neurobehavioral assessment and advanced statistical and computational analytic methodologies for characterizing AD-associated sensorimotor and cognitive impairment, as well as evaluating therapeutic efficacy. This dissertation introduces data mining-based techniques (decision trees, neural networks, support vector machines) for behavioral analysis in both nontransgenic and Alzheimer’s transgenic mice, to evaluate …

Communication As A Cultural Construct At The United Nations Arabic Translation Service, Amina Iraqi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I examine the practical challenge of constructing communication at the Arabic Translation Service (ATS) of the UN through the process of translation. Unlike in English in which "communication" has only one equivalent, in Arabic it has many depending on the context. My analysis focuses on analyzing the occurrence of two translation equivalents, namely ittissal and tawassul given that their use in translation sometimes proves to be cultural.

I conducted participant observation over the course of a two-month internship at the UN Headquarters in New York. Using grounded theory, I pieced together insights from a database of occurrences …

Assessing The Performance Of Water Bodies In Hillsborough County, Florida Using Data Envelopment Analysis (Dea), Geoffrey George Fouad

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to describe the relationship between surface water quality and land use. Water management recommendations will be divulged based upon the interaction of lake water quality and land use. The methodology developed for this research applied Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), a performance measurement tool, to evaluate lake water quality in relation to surrounding land use. Lake performance ratings were generated by DEA software that assessed multiple variables describing surface water nutrient loads and surrounding land use. Results from this analysis revealed a significant trend between lake water quality and land use within the study area. …

Indoor Environmental Quality Within An Elementary School Classroom: Measurements Of Felis Domesticus I, Dermatophagoides Pteronyssinus I, Dermatophagoides Farinae I, And Blatella Germanica In Carpeting, Jennifer Fowler

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The United States Environmental Protection Agency acknowledges that indoor environments can impact the health of students and can affect concentration, attendance, and student performance (USEPA 2008). In a school year, children are required by the Florida Department of Education to be in school for a total of 180 days, which is 795 hours spent in a classroom (FLDOE 2008). In the elementary school setting, kindergarten classes typically spend a portion of the school day with floor-based activities. The American Lung Association (ALA) states that over 6.8 million children under the age of 18 are affected by asthma (ALA 2008). Allergic …

Natural Audiotopias: The Construction Of Sonic Space In Dub Reggae, John Baker

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Dub reggae is widely regarded as an early form of the remix. Dub artists modify previously recorded reggae songs by manipulating a song's individual tracks with a mixing board and layering them in aural effects such as reverb and echo. These effects are fundamentally spatial in quality, giving the listener an impression of vast open space. This paper is an analysis of the techniques utilized in dub's construction of sonic space as well as an investigation of the cultural meaning of those spaces. My analysis utilizes Josh Kun's theories about "audiotopias" (temporary aural spaces created through music) in order to …

Ant Clustering With Consensus, Yuhua Gu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Clustering is actively used in several research fields, such as pattern recognition, machine learning and data mining. This dissertation focuses on clustering algorithms in the data mining area. Clustering algorithms can be applied to solve the unsupervised learning problem, which deals with finding clusters in unlabeled data. Most clustering algorithms require the number of cluster centers be known in advance. However, this is often not suitable for real world applications, since we do not know this information in most cases. Another question becomes, once clusters are found by the algorithms, do we believe the clusters are exactly the right ones …