Digital Commons Network^™

Antimicrobial Activity Of Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles Compared To Silver Nanoparticles Administered Towards Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus Biofilms, Kevin Núño

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO NPs), silver nanoparticles (AgNPs), and chitosan nanoparticles have strong antibacterial activity as a broad-spectrum antibiotic against multi-drug resistant (MDR) bacteria. MDR bacteria have a mechanism that increases antibiotic resistance through biofilm formations. MDR methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus BAA-1720 was chosen for an in vitro assessment to calculate the biofilm reduction rate and the median effective dose (ED50) by performing biofilm quantification. Dynamic light scattering was chosen to determine the physiochemical characteristics of ZnO NPs, silver nanoparticles (AgNPs), and chitosan NPs. Transmission electron microscopy was conducted to verify each treatment’s physiochemical characteristics. Antimicrobial susceptibility testing of broad-spectrum and …

Estimating The As-Placed Grout Volume Of Auger Cast Piles, Tristen Mee

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Augered Cast-in-Place (ACIP) piles are a geotechnical foundation element increasingly used to support large publicly funded structures as an alternative to drilled shafts or driven piles. ACIP piles are constructed by drilling an excavation to the full length of the designed pile with a continuous flight auger. Grout (cement, sand, and water mixture) is then pumped through the hollow auger stem to begin grouting the excavation. After establishing an initial head pressure, the auger is slowly extracted while the remainder of the pile is grouted. Once the auger is completely removed, the steel reinforcement cage is lowered into the grouted …

Carbon Diversion, Partial Nitritation/Anammox Enrichment, And Ammonium Capture As Initial Stages For Mainstream Ion Exchange-Deammonification Process, Sheyla Chero-Osorio

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Eutrophication is a concerning environmental problem worldwide that results in algae blooms, oxygen depletion, damages to aquatic life and public health, water quality issues, and loss of aesthetics in water reservoirs. Nutrient (e.g., nitrogen and phosphorus) discharges from wastewater, agricultural, urban, and residential runoff promote eutrophication in receiving water bodies. In terms of nitrogen removal, conventional biological nitrogen removal (BNR) is a common technique used in many wastewater treatment plants (WWTP). However, BNR requires aeration for nitrification and organic carbon input for denitrification. In WWTP, the aeration represents a considerable investment in terms of energy costs. Recent technologies involve applying …

Development Of Membrane Assisted Recovery Of Solids (Mars) Technology For Nutrient Management In Decentralized Wastewater Treatment Systems, Itzé Alejandra Kenney

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Increasing global populations will result in a rise of eutrophic wastewater and an increased need in food supply. Both problems share a commonality: nutrients. Not all communities are equipped to handle one or both of those challenges, considering that typical solutions require large and energy intensive technologies. Wastewater treatment in most major cities is done through centralized treatment plants, which is not feasible for places with limited resources. Decentralized wastewater treatment systems (DWTS) have been developed as an alternative solution for those communities, but they still struggle to sustainably treat nutrients such as ammonium (NH4) and phosphate (PO4^(3-)). Zeolite has …

Bayesian Network-Based Diagnostic Support Tool With Limited Point-Of-Care Ultrasound For Work-Related Elbow Injuries, Cristina Maria Franceschini Sánchez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The upper extremity is commonly injured at the workplace, frequently involving the elbow. Currently, there are not many diagnostic support tools for elbow injuries. Developing a clinical decision support tool would allow for narrowing differential diagnoses and guide management steps in a timely and cost-effective manner. In a descriptive retrospective cohort study, 85 non-contrast elbow MRIs were obtained from a large Workers Compensation insurer database. MRIs were either (a) greater than 2 weeks after first clinic visit, or (b) more than 6 weeks after injury, but (c) not more than 3 months after injury. A Bayesian network-based diagnostic support tool …

Using Fine-Scale Aquatic Habitat Data To Construct Dreissenid Sdms In The Laurentian Great Lakes, Grace C. Henderson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The invasion of the Laurentian Great Lakes by aquatic invasive species (AIS) has been the subject of investigation for decades, due to their dramatic alterations to the ecosystem and high economic costs. Two AIS with the largest impacts are dreissenid zebra and quagga mussels, and though these species have been studied extensively, questions remain about what factors control their distributions, and whether lake warming will alter these distributions. Species distribution models (SDMs) offer a powerful tool to examine the relationship between species presences and environmental variables, which are typically bioclimactic data. The creation of the Aquatic Habitat (AqHab) dataset containing …

An Exercise In Exceptions: Personhood, Divergency, And Ableism In The Star Trek Franchise, Jessica A. Blackman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In 1987, more than two decades after Star Trek: The Original Series aired on television for the first time, the Enterprise returned to delight audiences with an all-new crew in Star Trek: The Next Generation. With the new generation came new issues and adventures for the crew and the audience to explore, and the popularity of the show lead to the production of three successful spin-offs. These four new shows in the Star Trek franchise dealt with more complex plots and commentaries than the original series before them; three characters in particular – Lt. Commander Data, Dr. Julian Bashir, and …

Effects Of Downdrag On Pile Performance, Malaak Omelia Araujo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

All soils settle under the weight of newly constructed embankments. In the case of MSE wall-type embankments, piles are driven prior to embankment construction. Under the weight of the newly constructed embankment, the soil surrounding the piles may settle more than the piles themselves. This downward movement potentially drags the piles down and induces a force within the pile known as downdrag. The research on the downdrag phenomenon involving cohesionless granular soils is sparse, thus the focus of this study is to investigate the effects of downdrag on pile performance driven in Florida sandy soils. A site consisting of soil …

Techno-Economic And Sustainability Analysis Of Renewable Natural Gas (Rng) Production, Eesha Bhattacharjee

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Natural Gas (NG) is one of the major sources of energy currently used in the United States. Its major applications include generating electricity, domestic, and industrial heating purposes and as a transportation fuel. The largest component of NG is methane, and it contains trace amounts of hydrocarbons, some CO2 and water vapor.

Biogas (produced by anaerobic digestion (AD) of biomass) upgraded to have high purity methane (often termed as biomethane or renewable natural gas) can be used as an alternative to NG. The upgrading techniques may include CO2 separation from the biogas stream or via to a methanation facility where …

The Impact Of Land Use Change On Hydrology Using Hydrologic Modelling And Geographical Information System (Gis), Nattachan Luesaksiriwattana

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Surface and groundwater conditions in west-central Florida are highly interactive, with shallow water table and sandy soil. Land use types including forests, agricultural areas, and urbanization affect water resources differently. Change in land use, associated with expanding the urban environment to support human needs, significantly impacts surface water infiltration and runoff characteristics. Construction of infrastructures such as buildings and housing can result less water to infiltrate through the soil, with increased surface water runoff and decline in evapotranspiration. A computerized hydrologic model, Hydrological Simulation Program-FORTRAN (HSPF), couple to a spreadsheet groundwater model and a Geographical Information System (GIS) were applied …

Secure Hardware Constructions For Fault Detection Of Lattice-Based Post-Quantum Cryptosystems, Ausmita Sarker

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The advent of quantum computers and the exponential speed-up of quantum computation will render classical cryptosystems insecure, as that can solve current encryptions in minutes, resulting in a catastrophic failure of privacy preservation and data security. Through the standardizing of quantum-resistant public-key cryptography algorithms, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is evaluating potential candidates to thwart such quantum attacks. In this dissertation, countermeasures against fault attacks are proposed to secure various lattice-based cryptosystems, one of the most promising post-quantum cryptosystems. Fault detection architectures for crucial building blocks of lattice-based cryptosystems, i.e., number-theoretic transform, ring polynomial multiplication, and ring …

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 …

Assessing Changes In Actual Air Quality And Public Perceptions Of Air Quality In Kathmandu Valley Nepal Pre And Post Covid-19 Lockdown, Robin Margherita Rives

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Air pollution is a global concern. Cities around the world fail to meet air quality standards set by the World Health Organization Air Quality Guidelines, which has a significant impact on public health. As the capital city and largest metropolitan region of Nepal, Kathmandu is a hotspot for urban pollution in South Asia. Nepal faces emissions from both internal and external sources. External sources include emissions from Nepal’s neighboring countries of India and China and emissions resulting from tourism. Internal sources of pollution in the country include brick and cement factories, consumption of energy from traditional sources such as biomass, …

Humanoid Robot Motion Control For Ramps And Stairs, Tommy Truong

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Humanoid robot research and development have been an ongoing effort since the 1900sand can be broken down to two problems. A mechanical problem, getting a humanoid robot to move human-like or a software problem, getting a humanoid robot to behave human-like. These problems of moving and behaving human-like can be often solved using control theory as research advances. For the premise of this research, we explore how to balance and walk on non-flat terrain for the humanoid robot Darwin-Op. Since the focus was on the control theory, the vision control to detect the non-flat terrain was a side objective. The …

Developing Reinforcement Learning Algorithms For Robots To Aim And Pour Solid Objects, Haoxuan Li

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Pouring is one of the most commonly executed tasks in a variety of environments. Thereis less attention paid to pouring solid objects and avoiding spillage. Learning the dynamics for pouring solid objects can be a challenge because the collisions and static frictions between objects make their trajectories less predictable than liquid. Nonetheless, pouring solid objects is an important task in real life. In this work, we propose a solution to help robots aim and pour solid objects. The agents will learn how to interact with the environment and identify the optimal pouring trajectories, then manipulate the arm to aim at …

Pad Beyond The Classroom: Integrating Pad In The Scrum Workplace, Jade S. Weiss

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: The “story” format used in Scrum ticket writing is confusing to developers and leadsto insufficient ticket content, which lends to miscommunication between team members and administrators, and disrupts workflow from the bottom up. A burgeoning methodology in Technical Writing, Purpose, Audience, Design (PAD) is an alternative ticket format that is easier to teach developers and improves the aforementioned conditions than the existing “story” format. The goal of this paper is to lay out why and how PAD can benefit developers on smaller Scrum teams who are tasked with writing their own tickets. This paper does not offer solutions for …

“Fast Policy” And “Rule By Aesthetics”: A Preliminary Study Of Water Street Tampa –The “Worlding” Of An Aspiring “Icon Project”, Nousheen Rahman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the age of “global urbanism” (Sheppard et al 2015; Chen and Kanna 2013), we are witnessing a markedly increased preference for mega-gentrification policies and projects by public officials seeking to revitalize deindustrialized and abandoned landscapes within their cities. The goal of this study is to describe how neoliberal public and private actors and institutions in the City of Tampa, specifically along the newly minted “Water Street” near the old Channel District of downtown, have adopted the discourses and practices of “fast policy” (Peck and Theodore 2015), “rule by aesthetics” (Ghertner 2010) and “worlding” (Ong and Roy 2011). To that …

Accelerated Resolution Therapy (Art): A Review Of Treatments For Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Henry B. Burns Jr.

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the past, patients diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) were treated with medications that masked their conditions or through the use of various mental health treatments like Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE) or Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) with limited success. Each of these treatments, lasting weeks or months, are mentally exhausting for the patient, and, over time, contribute to burn-out for the practitioner as well. The purpose of the study was to compare mental health treatments from the practitioner’s point of view regarding burn out. Accelerated Resolution Therapy (ART) is a new form of …

Symbolic Computation Of Lump Solutions To A Combined (2+1)-Dimensional Nonlinear Evolution Equation, Jingwei He

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis aims to consider a (2+1)-dimensional nonlinear evolution equation and its lump solutions. Byusing symbolic computation, two classes of lump solutions are presented. And for two specific chosen examples, we will show three-dimensional plots and density plots to exhibit dynamical features of the lump solution, which are made by Maple plot tools.

‘Surest Guaranty Of Peace’: Rhetoric, Consumer Culture, And The Popularization Of American Naval Power, 1883 - 1909, Charles B. Harris

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project a cultural history of the U.S. Navy during an era of a major institutional and technological transformation. In it, I trace the ways that Gilded Age and Progressive Era naval advocates successfully pitched the idea of modernizing the U.S. Navy to the American people. These military promoters justified technological advancement as societal progress, arguing for a more pronounced presence for the United States on the world stage. Marketing experts then seized on the people’s increasing fascination with naval power to rekindle a sense of patriotism by sensationalizing militarism. Riding this wave of popularity and public awareness of naval …

An Edgefield Ceramic Assemblage From The Lost Town Of St. Joseph, Northwest Florida, Crystal R. Wright

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

From 1835-1842, the train depot at what is today the Depot Creek Depot site (8Gu199) served the historic town of St. Joseph in the Florida Panhandle. This town originated as a competitor to the city of Apalachicola in the cotton industry and grew into an economic boomtown. Imported goods arriving on ships in the Gulf of Mexico were delivered to the Depot Creek Depot by railway, and then were shipped up through Lake Wimico and into the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River System. Unfortunately, after 8 years of occupation, St. Joseph was destroyed by several hurricanes, a yellow fever epidemic, and fires resulting …

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 …

Chlorine Taste Threshold And Acceptability As A Water Disinfectant Among Indigenous Ngäbe And Non-Indigenous In Rural Panama, Ashley Osler

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

More than two billion people globally still lack access to safely managed drinking water (WHO & UNICEF, 2021). Although gains in access to water service over the past two decades have been large, universal access to safe and affordable drinking water (SDG 6, target 6.1) is not on track to be achieved. In Panama, safely managed drinking water access has not been measured. However, the data on basic water access illustrates the large disparities between rural and urban areas of Panama. While 98% of urban Panamanian households have basic access to water, only 86% of rural Panamanian households, and 54% …

Assistive Technologies For Independent Navigation For People With Blindness, Howard Kaplan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The necessity for individuals to navigate from location to location is essential to daily life. The majority of humans use sight as the main source for determining how to move through their environment. However, there is a large population of people who are either blind or living with low vision. Based on a 2017 National Health Survey there are around 27 million adult Americans that have experienced vision loss (National Center for Health Statistics, 2017). According to the Eye Diseases Prevalence Research Group there are 3.4 million Americans 40 years and older that are legally blind or visually impaired (EDPRG, …

A Study Of Noise Exposures For Amusement Park Employees By Positions And Ride Categories, Danielle M. Dao

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Millions of workers in the United States encounter daily noise exposures in their workplace, associated with millions of dollars in workers compensation annually. Many industries have been well studied for the presence of hazardous noise, but little exposure data exists for the amusement park industry.Major attractions found at amusement parks fall within one of three categories and in each of those categories, five employee positions are common. This thesis sought to identify if there are differences in potential employee noise exposure among the ride types and if there are differences in noise exposure among the employee positions. The analysis of …

Trajectory Optimization For Connected And Autonomous Vehicle Platooning And Split Operations: Modeling And Experiments, Qianwen Li

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Emerging connected and autonomous vehicle (CAV) platoon technology holds great potential in improving mobility, enhancing riding comfort, reducing fuel consumption, and mitigating congestion. It reduces car-following gaps via cyber connections. Further, it smooths vehicle trajectories via automated control. Smoothed trajectories and improved aerodynamic efficiency from reduced car-following gaps improve fuel and space efficiency, thus improving traffic performance.

Motivated by such promising advantages, this dissertation investigates trajectory optimization for two basic CAV platoon operations, i.e., platooning and split, which are the premise to implement this technology to benefit society. Two two-stage optimization problems are formulated to solve the platooning and split …

Factors Controlling Longshore Variations Of Beach Changes Induced By Hurricane Hermine Along Pinellas County Beaches, West-Central Florida, Wenhan Zhai

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Hurricane Hermine, 2016, impacted the coast of west-central Florida and generated high waves superimposed on elevated wave levels which caused significant beach erosion. A total of 122 profiles, spaced about 300 m apart, were surveyed 2 weeks before and one week after the storm to examine the beach changes along three barrier islands along the coast of west-central Florida. including Sand Key, Treasure Island and Long Key. In order to investigates the longshore variations of beach/nearshore changes induced by storm, several parameters were defined and calculated including beach volume changes, berm height, beach width, foreshore slope, as well as sandbar …

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 …

Examining Evidence Of Reliability And Validity In Florida’S Human Trafficking Screening Tool, Monica Landers

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Commercial sexual exploitation (CSE) involving children is understood to be a pervasive public health problem that negatively impacts individuals, families, and communities (Greenbaum, 2020). Combined efforts of the United States government, federal agencies, organizations such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, researchers, and practitioners work toward understanding risk factors associated with CSE in an effort to prevent victimization (Fong & Cardoso, 2010). Given the amount of public and political attention to trafficking over the past two decades, it is concerning that prevalence estimates widely vary and may be unreliable. Further, there is not currently a validated screening …

Infectious Disease Modeling And Intervention Planning, Shalome Hanisha Anand Tatapudi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Disease outbreaks caused by existing and emerging pathogens pose a serious threat to local and global communities in the form of epidemics and pandemics, respectively. The 2009 H1N1 pandemic and the 2019 COVID-19 pandemic are exemplars of how underprepared both the developed and developing nations are at mitigating pandemics.

Mathematical modeling and simulation of disease outbreaks has served as a powerful tool to understand disease transmission dynamics. They also aid in developing effective intervention strategies. However, existing models are usually particularized to a region, or a specific disease pathogen and interventions used in these models may not translate well to …