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The History And Explanation Of Stormwater Ponds In East Tampa, Natasha Sutton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The overall goal of this research was to explore and understand the history of stormwater ponds in the East Tampa Community Redevelopment Area (CRA), a 4,800-acre urban community comprising many different historic African American neighborhoods in Florida's City of Tampa. Seen as one of the most affordable stormwater management solutions in southeastern parts of the United States, stormwater ponds dot the East Tampa landscape. As the manager of CRA funds, the City of Tampa stands out as a main decision maker around the stormwater ponds within the East Tampa CRA. Over the years the stormwater ponds have generated much interest …

Hurricane Impacts On Water Resources: A Look At Nature-Based Solutions To Improve Long-Term Resilience, Fautemeh Sajadi Bami

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Severe storms are a common occurrence in the state of Florida. Hurricane events may cause hazards such as flooding, property damage, death, and many others. Such far-reaching impacts may potentially result in dangerous consequences where they occur. Of interest to this study were the impacts on water resources and water quality caused by storms. Hurricanes can bring about a deluge. An apparent excess of water may cause the notion of water scarcity to seem less significant. However, problems with potable water can be quite frequent due to storms.

This research sought to address the impacts of severe storms on water …

Modeling Studies Of An Intensified Reforming/Fischer-Tropsch Synthesis Process For Gas To Liquid Conversion, Brian Gray

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite rigorous study and advancement in fields of green energy, the world's transportation industry remains poised to continue reliance on liquid hydrocarbon fuels. To date, the primary source of diesel and jet fuels is the petroleum industry; however, continuing trends in rising greenhouse gas emissions present a need for study into processes for the production of synthetic hydrocarbon fuels. The most promising technologies to meet this goal are gas-to-liquid (GtL), biomass-to-liquid (BtL) and coal-to-liquid (CtL). The commonality of these technologies is that they utilize a feedstock to produce carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas (syngas) which becomes the building blocks of …

Routing Problems Through The Lens Of Hybrid Algorithms, Sasan Mahmoudinazlou

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores novel approaches to address complex combinatorial optimization challenges in transportation and routing scenarios. Three sets of contributions are presented, each encapsulated in a chapter. The first set of contributions introduces a pioneering hybrid genetic algorithm meticulously crafted to address the intricacies of the Traveling Salesman Problem with Drone (TSPD) and the Flying Sidekick Traveling Salesman Problem (FSTSP). These emerging problems involve the strategic use of both ground-based trucks and aerial drones for efficient package delivery. Our algorithm stands out by leveraging sophisticated chromosomes and dynamic programming, allowing for broad exploration by the genetic algorithm and effective exploitation …

Forgotten Learners: An Examination Of The Experiences Of English Language Learners In Advanced Placement And International Baccalaureate Social Studies Courses, Elizabeth Rasmussen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The number of English Language Learners (ELLs) in the United States is rapidly increasing, particularly in high schools. Although the number of ELLs is growing at a fast pace in the United States, the number of ELLs enrolled in advanced educational programming has not increased. After an in-depth review of the extant literature, it is evident that limited scholarly research on ELLs in advanced coursework exists. This is especially true in AP and IB social studies courses, where in many states where “Open Access” and “AP for All” have been adopted. This qualitative study sought to reveal the lived experiences …

Improving Medical Image Classification Accuracy Through Unsupervised Segmentation And Confounder Mitigation With Limited Data, Nikolai Fetisov

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Medical images are indispensable for assisting health care professionals to make more accurate cancer diagnosis and prognosis decisions. Several image modalities exist including, but not limited to, histopathology or whole slide images (WSI), computed tomography (CT), positron emission tomography (PET) and radiography (i.e., X-Ray), each having their own application in clinical practice.

Today, machine learning and deep learning methods have evolved to the point of being practically usable. These approaches learn and extract knowledge from data to make possible automating certain tasks. At the point of writing this dissertation, they have reached human-level performance in general image recognition tasks, became …

Interfacial Magnetism And Anisotropy In Dirac And Weyl Semimetals, Noah Schulz

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Semimetals have gained intense interest recently due to their exotic magnetic and electronic properties. One of the most widely studied semimetals is graphene, a Dirac semimetal. The utilization of graphene in devices and sensors requires interfacing it with other materials, which may induce potentially strong interfacial effects. Furthermore, graphene alone does not possess magnetic order. Studying the interfacial effects between graphene and magnetic materials is therefore of great importance in the application of graphene to meet modern technological needs. Furthermore, by understanding the fundamental interfacial physics between graphene and magnetic materials, new properties can be unlocked, broadening the possible applications …

An Analysis Of Florida Manatee (Trichechus Manatus Latirostris) Rescues (1993-2022) With Recommendations For Future Rehabilitation Program Needs, Katherine Frisch

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Florida manatees (Trichechus manatus latirostris) are threatened marine mammals that inhabit the coastal and near shore waters along the southeastern United States, primarily Florida. Manatee conservation is multi-faceted. One component of the manatee recovery program is the rescue and rehabilitation program that provides care for sick, injured and orphaned manatees. The science of conservation biology, whose goal is to maintain biodiversity using a multidisciplinary approach, can be applied to aspects of the manatee rescue and rehabilitation program.

A federally authorized, state implemented, rescue system has been in place for many years to rescue and treat injured and orphaned animals. Rescued …

Exploring The Use Of Enhanced Swad Towards Building Learned Models That Generalize Better To Unseen Sources, Brandon M. Weinhofer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Deep learning models, typically, take significant time to train. Classifier ensembles are areliable way to increase classifier accuracy and perhaps generalizability to unseen sources of data. These classifiers can be combined with a simple voting scheme. The problem is that having multiple models can very heavily increase training time. Snapshot ensembles have been shown to provide a boost in performance by creating an ensemble of classifiers with different weights during the training of a single deep learned model. This can somewhat solve the problem of the increased training time as you do not have to train separate models. As Machine …

Leveraging Systems Thinking For Global Environmental Health, Martha M. Mcalister

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Environmental health inequities such as household air pollution, inadequate water, sanitation, and hygiene, and chemical pollution persist globally and have myriad consequences on individual and societal well-being. Unfortunately, while billions of dollars and countless hours of research have been applied towards addressing these issues in development, humanitarian, and environmental justice contexts, attempts to reduce the environmental burden of disease can seem successful at first, but then backslide to pre-intervention conditions (or worse). This is indicative of policy resistance, a tendency of complex systems that makes it very difficult to enact change if the “rules” of the system are misunderstood. There …

Development And Evaluation Of Novel Applications For The Ethos Cbct-Guided Online Adaptive Radiotherapy System, Nour Nasser

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Radiation therapy (RT) is an important pillar of modern cancer treatment, in neoadjuvant, curative, adjuvant, and palliative settings. The physics underlying RT is ionizing radiation that produces charged particles, which deposit their energy in the tissues they pass through. This energy results in unrepairable DNA damage resulting in the death of cancer tissue. The aim of RT is to deliver the desired radiation dose to the tumor while maximizing normal tissue sparing. Over the past decades, physics, engineering, and computational improvements has allowed advancement of external beam RT techniques, for example from 2D RT to 3D RT to now intensity …

An Analysis Of Driven Pile Relaxation In Florida Soils, Dalton E. Knowles

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Prestressed concrete piles (PCP) are a common geotechnical foundational element employed in marine and land bridges. PCP are commonly driven by an impact diesel hammer until the desired nominal bearing resistance is reached at the end of the initial drive (EOID). At a later time, the pile resistance may be verified, but not always, via a restrike, usually with the same impact hammer. At the beginning of a restrike, the resistance of the pile is rarely equal to the resistance at the EOID either increasing, known as set-up, or decreasing, known as relaxation. Set-up is clearly beneficial, however, this thesis …

Context-Aware Data Analytics In Healthcare: A Fairness Perspective, Motahareh Pourbehzadi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The following dissertation is an accumulation of applied data analytics research in healthcare. In the first chapter, the focus is on detecting ineffective self-management in diabetic patients. Through the application of Natural Language Processing (NLP), the project investigates links between the diabetic patients' discharge notes and their compliance to exercise, dietary restrictions and medications. A bi-product of this research is the development of an online dashboard that allocates scores to six compliance categories. This tools allows healthcare provider to assess patient progress and compare it to the population averages. The dashboard also offers a patient summary generated using the Chat …

Dissolved Nitrogen Removal In Biochar Amended, High Permeability Media For Urban Stormwater Treatment, Mark Vicciardo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nutrient pollution in stormwater drives the eutrophication of inland and costal waterbodies which leads to sea grass retreat and the proliferation of harmful algal blooms (HAB). These anthropogenic effects destabilize ecosystems, and some HABs can pose direct human health risk. Bioretention, or the storage and controlled discharge of stormwater run-off in an ecologically engineered setting, is a potential solution to this problem. However, it relies heavily on the settling of particles as a nutrient removal mechanism, and thus struggles with pollutants, such as dissolved nitrogen, which is a particular problem in Florida where the geological prominence of phosphorus leaves nitrogen …

Programmable And Scalable Bit-Sliced Vlsi Architecture For Decision Tree Based Machine Learning Edge Inference, Raaga Sai Somesula

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As the volume and diversity of Internet-of-Things (IoT) data continues to grow, traditional cloud-based processing methods face significant challenges, including latency, bandwidth constraints, and privacy concerns. Our research focuses on employing decision trees (DTs) as an intelligent filtering mechanism on the edge. Preliminary comparisons across four datasets revealed DTs are significantly more efficient than multilayer perceptrons (MLP), saving 97-98\% in area and power, leading to the selection of DT for our proposed architecture for lightweight IoT devices. We propose a novel programmable and scalable custom application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) architecture designed for Decision Tree based ML inference. Each bit-slice …

Automatic Image-Based Nutritional Calculator App, Kejvi Cupa

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nutrition plays a pivotal role in shaping an individuals’ health and quality of life, making the evaluation of dietary intake crucial for promoting healthier lifestyle choices. Various solutions, particularly mobile apps, have been developed to facilitate the process of dietary estimation. Accurate nutritional intake assessment relies on two key components: ingredient recognition and food portion estimation. For a mobile app to offer a comprehensive solution for automatic nutritional assessment, it must address both components.

In this work, we focus on a mobile app pipeline: the semi-automatic pipeline which focuses on automatic food ingredient recognition. This pipeline integrates state-of-the-art models for …

Bird Strike Hazard Assessment For The Tampa International Airport, Florida, Usa, Yakubu Ogwu Isah

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Managing wildlife at airports poses a challenge for ensuring safety for aviation traffic. Airports, with their surrounding habitats and infrastructure, serve as attractants for avian species. Threats created by these species have led managers to develop management techniques in and around airports (DeVault et al 2013). One approach is the use of geographic information systems (GIS) for analyzing avian strike data and airport bird surveys. Spatial analysis of strike data identifies species of threat by categorizing strike occurrence, species sizes, phase of flight, and risk of damage. In addition, GIS can be used to map hotspots of bird strikes. These …

Semi-Automated Cell Annotation Framework Using Deep Learning, Abhiram Kandiyana

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Unbiased stereology refers to a field of applied mathematics \cite{intro-to-stereology} focused on accurate (model and assumption-free) quantification of three-dimensional (3D) objects, typically based on their appearance in 2D sections (planes) through the objects. In the biological sciences, these techniques are widely used for making unbiased estimates of arbitrary-shaped (stochastic) objects such as stained cells, blood vessels, region volumes, etc., in tissue sections through a region of interest (ROI).

This fundamental methodology is widely used for evaluating structural changes that occur in diseases, aging, and pharmaceutical interventions, thereby ensuring reliable outcomes. In terms of limitations, stereology is tedious, time- and labor-intensive, …

Effects Of Unobservable Bus States On Detection And Localization Of False Data Injection Attacks In Smart Grids, Moheb Abdelmalak

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In an era increasingly marked by sophisticated cyber-attacks, this thesis investigates the critical issue of bus unobservability in smart grids and its impact on the effectiveness of cyber-attack detection and localization models. Given that unobservability is a prevalent challenge in smart grids due to various factors, researchers have developed numerous algorithms for optimal Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU) placement under scenarios of limited observability. However, these models primarily focus on enhancing network observability, often without considering whether this placement optimally facilitates attack detection. This research is driven by the hypothesis that a deeper understanding of the effects of unobservable buses can …

Lights, Camera, Recruitment: Analyzing Dod-Hollywood Synergy And Its Effects On Attitudes And Behaviors Towards The Military, Jose-Andres Leon-Gil

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to research priming effects on DoD influenced films and uncover if there are significant effects affecting attitudes, beliefs, military support, and behaviors. This study is important because there is a lack of literature on the effects of DoD-influenced films. A portion of top grossing films are influenced by the DoD while there is little research on the effects consumers have. This study conducted an experiment testing the effects of behaviors and attitudes when a priming stimulus is presented. The priming stimulus was a military-influenced film clip and a military advertisement. Three groups were made, …

Under Pressure: The Soft Robotic Clap-And-Fling Of Cuvierina Atlantica, Daniel Mead

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Evolution over billions of years has led to unique animals of all types. The tiny sea butterfly is one that remains mostly anonymous because of its size and low place on the food chain, but it is a swimming creature that when examined closely reveals a surprise. Shockingly, it has a swimming motion nearly identical to small insects flying at intermediate Reynolds numbers, referred to as the clap-and-fling. The centimeter long pteropod flapping briskly at 5Hz escapes attention with its size and speed. Modeling the clap-and-fling motion of the sea butterfly at a larger scale allows the benefits and uniqueness …

Nutrient Removal Of Biochar Amended Modified Bioretention Systems Treating Nursery Runoff, Nicholas Richardson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Excess inputs of nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, to surface water bodies can lead to the presence of harmful algal blooms (HABs). HABs can damage their surrounding environments and the economies dependent on them. Nutrient pollution can be properly controlled and monitored at point-sources, such as wastewater treatment plants, but is more difficult to control for non-point sources, such as fertilizer runoff. One form of fertilizer runoff that remains overlooked is runoff from plant nurseries. Controlled release fertilizers (CRFs) embedded in plant containers at nurseries can leach excess nutrients into the runoff. For nurseries in Florida, best management practices …

Utilizing Machine Learning Techniques For Accurate Diagnosis Of Breast Cancer And Comprehensive Statistical Analysis Of Clinical Data, Myat Ei Ei Phyo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Breast cancer represents a formidable malignancy, presenting a substantial threat to global health and individual well-being. Conventionally, it is widely held that the prognosis for breast cancer patients hinges predominantly upon the timing of diagnosis and the extent of cancer progression, typically delineated by its stage. However, emerging evidence from robust regression and machine learning analyses challenges this prevailing notion. The results indicate that survival months cannot be solely attributed to diagnosis and socio-economic factors. Instead, additional variables such as existing diseases and treatment complexities may contribute to the intricate landscape of breast cancer outcomes.

This research aims to delve …

Risk Assessment Of Blood-Borne Pathogen Exposure For Emergency Responders, Jill A. Ireland

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Emergency responders face a significant risk of exposure to blood-borne pathogens (BBPs), such as HIV and hepatitis, due to the nature of their work environment. This study investigates this issue utilizing a dual approach of data analysis and online surveys to assess exposure rates, risk perceptions, factors that contribute to risk and prevention practices. In addressing issues ranging from personal protective equipment (PPE) usage to levels of concern surrounding blood and bodily fluid contact, the findings underscore the need for tailored safety measures, comprehensive education, and improved prevention strategies.

The examination of 346 worker's compensation exposure claims highlighted a significant …

Predicting Gender Of Author Using Large Language Models (Llms), Satya Uday Sanku

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The advent of text data from social media, blogs, movie reviews, and other textual sources has opened new avenues for research, particularly in the domain of Author Profiling. Author Profiling helps in Capturing the Stylistic features and also useful for analyzing the required elements in the written text. This Study addresses one of the tasks in Author Profiling which is termed as gender detection or Classification of Gender from Text. The main goal of this research is to obtain valuable and relevant gender characteristics that will accurately classify the Author’s gender of a review extracted from an Anime Review website. …

Interrelationships Among Local Values Of Wet Bulb Globe Temperature, Heat Index, And Adjusted Temperature, Andrea Giraldo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Occupational heat stress significantly affects outdoor workers who face challenges due to increased heat exposure. Because of the prevalence of heat illness, it is important to measure heat stress for outdoor workers. Monitoring occupational heat stress most often relies on the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WBGT) measure. Heat Index (HI) is a widely used measure to account for air temperature and humidity. Adjusted Temperature (Tadj) considers air temperature, humidity and estimates radiant heat. There is interest in predicting WBGT from HI and HI from WBGT. This study builds on previous USF research by Bernard and Iheanacho and Irvin to evaluate …

Single And Dual Cell Encapsulation Via Liquid Core Hydrogels Using Pico Injection, Jade Houston

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this project, a comprehensive microfluidic device, along with several interdependent subsystems, was designed and developed in SolidWorks, leveraging a combination of 3D resin printing with biocompatible resin and micromachining with polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA). The microfluidics chip integrated both passive and active components to facilitate its primary function: dual cell encapsulation via liquid core sodium alginate hydrogel droplets.

Integral to the microfluidics chip design were key features including a 5-convolution Archimedes spiral for particle sorting, a flow focusing junction for droplet generation, and a pico injector for injecting additional cells into passing droplets via the manipulation of an electric field.

An …

Development Of A Plant Growth And Health Monitoring System Using Imaging And Sensor Array Information For Cubesat Applications, Kat-Kim Phan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Space exploration has been a topic of interest in the scientific community, such as the planned missions to Mars. To accomplish this would require being able to provide astronauts with a steady supply of food beyond freeze-dried foods leading to the need to grow food in space. Although this is a topic still being investigated, the CubeSat platform opens the possibility of carrying out studies on plant growth under more strenuous space conditions unlike that in the International Space Station (ISS). Developing a plant-focused mission for a CubeSat, though, entails being able to develop a system to sustain plant life …

Metatranscriptomic Insights Into The Interaction Between Microcystis Blooms And Hydrogen Peroxide, Taylor L. Hancock

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

For this dissertation I studied the interactions of hydrogen peroxide and cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (cHABs) dominated by Microcystis in the Caloosahatchee River, FL. Specifically, I examined how taxonomic and functional succession relates to both natural hydrogen peroxide dynamics and hydrogen peroxide added to the environment as a cHAB treatment. Chapter 2 investigated how taxonomic succession and gene expression patterns relate to blooms and associated elevated hydrogen peroxide concentrations. The results showed that gene expressions related to cyanobacterial growth were positively correlated with hydrogen peroxide. The genes identified included enzymes capable of hydrogen peroxide generation which were expressed by blooming …

From The Patient’S Perspective: Understanding The Colorectal Cancer Patient Experience Portrayed In Edutainment Television, Allison M. Fisher

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study qualitatively examined how edutainment television portrayed the colorectal cancer (CRC) patient experience, and whether it reflects the real-life CRC patient experience. This was done by first facilitating a textual analysis of edutainment television episodes from popular medical dramas and the docuseries Country Ever After. Interviews with real-life CRC patients were then facilitated to gather perspectives on whether edutainment television’s depictions were reflective of their experiences. This study utilized cultivation theory to identify whether edutainment television reinforces stigmas about the CRC patient experience. Additionally, uses and gratifications theory was implemented to investigate how CRC patients interact with media platforms …