Digital Commons Network^™

Effects Of Age And Stimulus Frequency On Gap Discrimination, Alan Carlton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Objective: Deficits in temporal resolution may be one element underlying the speech understanding difficulties experienced by older listeners in degraded acoustic environments. In real listening environments, important temporal cues are surrounded by stimuli of varying frequencies. This study was designed to assess temporal resolution as a function of frequency region, frequency-disparity, and age in listeners with normal hearing.

Design: Gap duration difference limens (GDDLs) were measured using leading and trailing markers that were fixed at the same frequency (fixed-frequency) or at frequencies one-half octave apart (frequency-disparate) for two groups of listeners with normal hearing: (1) 18-22 years and …

Biological Indicators Of Wetland Health: Comparing Qualitative And Quantitative Vegetation Measures With Anuran Measures, Shannon M. Gonzalez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Understanding wetland responses to human perturbations is essential to the effective management of Florida's surface and ground water resources. Southwest Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD) Rules (Chapter 40D-2.301(c) FAC) prohibit adverse environmental effects to wetlands, fish and wildlife caused by groundwater withdrawal. Numerous studies have documented the responses of biological attributes across taxa and regions to human disturbance. Biological assessment can provide information about ecological condition. Based on long-term monitoring conducted by the SWFWMD, the anthropogenic changes observed on the Starkey Wellfield are attributed to groundwater withdrawal.

Biological indicators are species, species assemblages, or communities whose presence, abundance, and condition …

Use-Wear Experiments With Sardinian Obsidian: Determining Its Function In The Neolithic, Teddi J. Setzer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study focuses on identifying the function of obsidian tools from the Late Neolithic archaeological site of Contraguda on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia. The information obtained from use-wear analysis can provide information about changes in subsistence patterns, craft specialization, social differentiation and technology.

This research began by collecting geological samples of obsidian from two of the most exploited sources in the Monte Arci volcanic complex of Sardinia. Subsequently, an experimental set of tools was made from these samples, and they were used to work various raw materials that were presumably available in Sardinia during the Neolithic. Wear patterns were …

The Effects Of Overlearning On Long-Term Retention, Kelli M. Taylor

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Overlearning is defined as the continued study of an item immediately after it has been correctly recalled once. Based on past studies, the effectiveness of overlearning is uncertain. In the present study, the effectiveness of overlearning was tested in 3 experiments. In Experiment 1, participants studied 10 city-country pairs (e.g. doba, chad) to either a low or high degree of learning and were tested 1, 3, or 9 weeks later. In Experiments 2 and 3, participants studied varying numbers of word-definition pairs (e.g. vizard, mask) for a constant total study time. They were tested between 1 and 4 weeks later. …

Near-Death Experiences, Religion, And Life After Death, Holly Wallace

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates current scientific literature on near-death experiences (NDE), focusing on two common types of models used to explain the NDE: biological models and spiritual models. Four biological models and two spiritual models are presented and evaluated. During the evaluation, particular emphasis is placed on how these models accommodate veridical evidence. I found that, of the biological models, only one could account for veridical evidence, whereas both of the spiritual models provided explanations of these strange occurrences. From this conclusion, the implications of NDE research on human survival are explored.

Organizational Uncertainty Management: Developing A Framework For Public Relations Practitioner Involvement, Marcia L. Watson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the concept of organizational uncertainty and the involvement of public relations practitioners. Understanding organizational uncertainty is imperative to the success of an organization, but the effects of uncertainty have been relatively undertheorized within public relations.

To close the gap, this study blended multidisciplinary theories pertaining to uncertainty with a triangulated methodological approach. First, this study took a macro-organizational look at uncertainty by analyzing trends in the literature and conducting qualitative in-depth interviews with members of management and employees in an organization. The results of this portion of the study found uncertainty to be multi-layered and the most …

The 24th Of July: A Novel-In-Progress, Kimberley A. Hanna

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

"The 24th of July" is a fictional novel set in the present day. The story centers around Michelle, an eighteen year old girl from Warm Springs, Idaho, who fears the sexual games she has played with her cousin Edna have tainted her for a Temple marriage. She meets Duke, a charismatic fundamentalist polygamist, who believes polygamy is part of the plan for eternal salvation as set down by the original doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the prophet Joseph Smith. Michelle sees Duke as her chance to put her relationship with Edna in the past …

The Development And Validation Of The Verbal Commentary On Physical Appearance Scale, Sylvia Herbozo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study involves the development and validation of a measure of physical appearance-related comments, The Verbal Commentary on Physical Appearance Scale (VCOPAS). Previous research has shown that the development of body image and eating disturbances is greatly influenced by teasing and negative appearance-related feedback. The limited research on positive appearance-related feedback is likely due to the lack of an empirically validated scale of positive appearance-related commentary. Consequently, the VCOPAS was developed to assess the frequency and effect of positive appearance-related comments and other types of appearance-related comments.

In Study 1, 50 undergraduate female students of ages 18 to 25 completed …

Symbolic Regression Of Thermo-Physical Model Using Genetic Programming, Ying Zhang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The symbolic regression problem is to find a function, in symbolic form, that fits a given data set. Symbolic regression provides a means for function identification. This research describes an adaptive hybrid system for symbolic function identification of thermo-physical model that combines the genetic programming and a modified Marquardt nonlinear regression algorithm.

Genetic Programming (GP) system can extract knowledge from the data in the form of symbolic expressions, i.e. a tree structure, that are used to model and derive equation of state, mixing rules and phase behavior from the experimental data (properties estimation).

During the automatic evolution process of GP, …

The Effects Of Seasonal Change On Copepods And Euphausiids Off The Western Antarctic Peninsula: Results From Biochemical Assays And Respiration Studies, Joël Laurent Bellucci

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

We compared four metabolic indicators of nutritional state: citrate synthase activity (CS), malate dehydrogenase activity (MDH), lactate dehydrogenase activity (LDH) and percent body protein to each other and to respiration measurements. These comparisons were made for four species of copepods (Calanoides acutus, Metridia gerlachei, Paraeuchaeta antarctica and another form of Paraeuchaeta that was unidentifiable to species due to its early life stage), three species of Euphausids (Euphausia crystallorophias, Euphausia triacantha, Euphausia superba (including both F6-furcilial and adult stages)) and Thysonessa macrura which were collected off the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) during Spring/Summer and Fall/Winter. …

School Functioning Of Children With Asthma: A Study Of The Elementary And Middle School Years, Shannon Elizabeth Johansen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the school functioning of children with asthma compared to the school functioning of children without asthma over a 9-year time span. The present study was a secondary analysis of data from one large school district in a southeastern state. Information was gathered from multiple sources, including student records and parent and teacher surveys. Variables related to academics, behavior, and teacher perception were examined. A total of 646 participants were initially included in the study. These participants included 296 students identified as having asthma and 350 students identified as not having asthma. Participants were matched on gender, race, …

Educational Choices Of Undergraduate Women In Public Relations: A Quantitative Study, Moira K. Davis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Public relations is one of the fastest growing majors chosen by college students throughout the United States, and most of these students are women. This thesis attempts to define the important role that women play in the practice of public relations and to determine why female students choose this major as their desired field of study more often then men. There is a need for such a study because in 1996 women accounted for only 37 percent of managers in marketing, advertising, and public relations, although they comprised 62 percent of all public relations specialists in this country. This research …

The Essay In The Postmodern Era, Xiqiao Wang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The overarching goal of this study is to suggest that the essay as a genre, although seeming to manifest the epistemological conceptions of the modern, possesses certain qualities from its origin that justify and strengthen its position in the paradigm of the postmodern condition. It is my argument that misconceptions about such qualities have led to its mistreatment by writing teachers in accordance with two dominant pedagogical approaches, formalism (current-traditionalism) and romanticism (expressivism). My argument requires a detailed examination of the political, historical and cultural reality that cultivated and nurtured the genre of the essay, and a major focus of …

Structural Diversity In Metal-Organic Nanoscale Supramolecular Architectures, Heba Abourahma

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Supramolecular synthesis has gained much attention in recent years. Such an approach to synthesis represents an attractive alternative to traditional, multi-step synthesis, especially for making complex, nanoscopic structures. Of particular interest, in the context of this work, is the use of metal-organic interactions to direct the self-assembly of nanoscopic architectures. These interactions are highly directional, relatively "strong" (compared to other supramolecular interactions) and kinetically labile, which allows for "self-correction" and in turn the production, often in high yield, of defect-free products. This also means that a number of related, yet structurally diverse products (supramolecular isomers) could be isolated.

The work …

Fabrication And Testing Of A Cylindrical Ion Trap Microarray For Tunable Mass Spectrometers, Mangesh Telrandhe

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research presents a novel microfabrication approach and testing methodology for cylindrical ion trap (CIT) microarray tunable for mass- spectrometers. The growing interest in cylindrical ion trap (CIT) mass-spectrometers is primarily due to ease with which cylindrical geometry can be realized as compared to hyperbolic surfaces found in conventional quadrupole ion traps. Also due to the fact that the potential at the center of hyperbolic electrode in quadrupole ion trap and cylindrical electrode in cylindrical ion trap (CIT) does not differ significantly[2].

Since the RF voltage required to eject a given mass-to-charge ion scales as the square of the ion …

Learning From Spatially Disjoint Data, Divya Bhadoria

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Committees of classifiers, also called mixtures or ensembles of classifiers, have become popular because they have the potential to improve on the performance of a single classifier constructed from the same set of training data. Bagging and boosting are some of the better known methods of constructing a committee of classifiers. Committees of classifiers are also important because they have the potential to provide a computationally scalable approach to handling massive datasets. When the emphasis is on computationally scalable approaches to handling massive datasets, the individual classifiers are often constructed from a small faction of the total data. In this …

Georeferencing Digital Camera Images Using Internal Camera Model, Alok Nagdev

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The NASA Airborne Topographic Mapper (ATM) is a laser scanning instrument which is used mainly to collect dense topographic data over much of the conterminous US coastline. The inclusion of two digital cameras in consonance with the ATM instrument now gives 3-band (RGB) imagery apart from a very rich topographic data. This imagery, in its crude form, has limited applications due to it being not georeferenced and having a heavy camera lens distortions. As thesis, a processing system - Park-View - is developed to bring this imagery into a more suitable format for the scientists for analytical and interpretational purposes. …

Real Time Digital Signal Processing Adaptive Filters For Correlated Noise Reduction In Ring Laser Gyro Inertial Systems, David A. Doheny

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Existing opportunities in advanced interceptor, satellite guidance and aircraft navigation technologies, requiring higher signal processing speeds and lower noise environments, are demanding Ring Laser Gyro (RLG) based Inertial Systems to reduce initialization and operational data latency as well as correlated noise magnitudes. Existing signal processing algorithms are often less than optimal when considering these requirements. Advancements in micro-electronic processes have made Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC) a fundamental building block for system implementation when considering higher-level signal processing algorithms.

Research of real time adaptive signal processing algorithms embedded in ASICs for use in RLG based inertial systems will help to …

Characterization Of Cadmium Zinc Telluride Films And Solar Cells On Glass And Flexible Substrates By Rf Sputtering, Jagadish Gaduputi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

High performance multijunction solar cells based on polycrystalline thin films will require a wide bandgap top cell with at least 15% efficiency. With the bottom cell being CIGS which have already demonstrated the required efficiencies, this work aims to study the complete fabrication and performance of Cd_1-xZn_xTe solar cells with a bandgap of 1.7eV on glass and flexible polyimide substrates.

Cd_1-xZn_xTe films were deposited by RF magnetron co-sputtering with CdTe and ZnTe sources. By varying the composition of Cd_1-xZn_xTe being deposited the required bandgap of 1.7eV was achieved. …

Where The Palm Grows: The Ybor City Revitalization Project, Alexandra Fitos

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Increasingly there has been a new model for inner-city redevelopment and revitalization, in which an urban area is commodified and turned into a festival market and an exclusive shopping district referred to as a shopertainment area. Ybor City in Tampa, Florida, is typical of this new model of redevelopment where urban entertainment and shopping with an active nightclub and dinning scene, entices new visitors to area, and most recently a growing residential population. The residential population that is developing is one of exclusivity and privilege, exceedingly far removed from Ybor City's humble beginnings as a company town or the blighted …

She Fell To Her Knees And Other Stories, Karen Brown Gonzalez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

These collected stories represent a culling from a portion of work that shares a similar theme of loss--its manifestation, its channeling, by various fictional characters, into the palpable and sensate, into the physical world of the body. They are people, mostly women, who have lost their hold on the world to which they are accustomed, who become entangled in situations where their bearings are skewed, their judgment faulty, their decisions based solely on a physical, most often sexual, attraction that simultaneously depletes a sense of worth, while providing its semblance.

The loss stems, at times, as in "Manifold," from beyond …

Development Of A Direct Type Road Roughness Evaluation System, Fengxuan Hu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Roughness is an important indicator of pavement riding comfort and safety. It is a condition indicator that should be carefully considered when evaluating primary pavements. At the same time, the use of roughness measurements plays a critical role in the pavement management system.

There are many devices used for roughness evaluation. The major tools used for road roughness quantify are the road profilers. In the thesis research, in order to obtain useful pavement surface condition data for pavement evaluation, two direct type road roughness evaluation systems were developed with the combination of modern sensor technology and computer technology.

The thesis …

The Story Behind Service With A Smile: The Effects Of Emotional Labor On Job Satisfaction, Emotional Exhaustion, And Affective Well-Being, Hazel-Anne M. Johnson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The present study examines the process of emotional labor as performed by customer service employees. This research investigates some of the consequences of performing emotional labor such as emotional exhaustion, affective well-being, and job satisfaction, and attempts to determine which individual and organizational variables play moderating roles in these relationships. One hundred and seventy-six participants from 10 customer service organizations, ranging from retail stores to call centers, completed a 126-item survey. Correlation and regression analyses were conducted to test the proposed hypotheses. Results indicate that gender, emotional intelligence, and autonomy are key moderator variables in the relationship between emotional labor …

From Just War To Just Peace: Re-Visioning Just War Theory From A Feminist Perspective, Naomi Malone

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper studies the history of just war theory and critiques it from various feminist perspectives. Using a definition of war as inseparable from the system within which it is embedded, the paper contends that just war theory has been incorporated into the realist paradigm that predominates current political thought, making it susceptible to manipulation. Most importantly, this usurpation has shifted just war theory's focus from jus ad bellum to jus in bello considerations, seriously weakening its deterrent effects on war. The paper proposes its replacement with a just peace theory, discussing several existing frameworks and explaining the important part …

Concerning Theories Of Personal Identity, Patrick, Bailey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to provide a brief examination of the historical accounts of philosophical theories of personal identity and show the influence that each has had on the development of contemporary theories. In doing so, the thesis explores the problems associated with these theories, attempting to establish a meta-theory (i.e. a theory about theories) of personal identity. What is demonstrated is that the fundamental problems of personal identity arise from issues related to the use of language, as well as assumptions involving the concept of personhood.

By demonstrating that our understanding of personhood is relative to frameworks …

The Politics Of Being An Egg “Donor” And Shifting Notions Of Reproductive Freedom, Elizabeth A. Dedrick

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As an Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) that has been available for over twenty years, the transfer of healthy eggs from a presumably fertile woman into the womb of a woman diagnosed as infertile has become a common part of the landscape of human reproduction in the United States. Yet the general societal acceptance of this practice commonly known as "egg donation" oversimplifies the complex medical, ethical, and societal issues ignited by its use. In light of the limited critical discussions presently occurring about egg transfer, I will interrogate some of the silences and more ambiguous issues invoked by its practice. …

Ultrasound Hardware Setup For Cmp Pad Characterization, Bhaskar Vijay Kumar Reddy Tadi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Chemical Mechanical Polishing, (CMP), pads made of polyurethane material are utilized in the Integrated Circuit, (IC), industry to planarize wafers between successive process steps. The properties of such pads and their behavior must be known in order to determine under what conditions and for how long they can be used efficiently. This research involved the development of a system to study the properties of such pads. The system developed during this research enabled the pads to be tested under varying physical conditions.

The setup used a combination of several instruments to provide excitation to the pad and acquire a measure …

A Control Layer Algorithm For Ad Hoc Networks In Support Of Urban Search And Rescue (Usar) Applications, Venkatesh Ramarathinam

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ad hoc networks have gained significant importance and gathered huge momentum within the wireless network research community. We explore the novel idea of applying ad hoc networking for urban search and rescue operations. Several algorithms have been proposed and implemented for routing in ad hoc networks and their performance have been thoroughly analyzed. But none of the prior work deals specifically for search and rescue operations, which entail certain specific criteria such as prevention of node loss, maximizing the area of coverage and constant and instantaneous access to a main controller.

In this thesis, we propose a centralized and adaptive …

Performance Evaluation Of Tcp Over Optical Channels And Heterogeneous Networks, Jianxuan Xu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Next generation optical networks will soon provide users the capability to request and obtain end-to-end all optical 10 Gbps channels on demand. Individual users will use these channels to exchange large amounts of data and support applications for scientific collaborative work. These new applications, which expect steady transfer rates in the order of Gbps, will very likely use either TCP or a new transport layer protocol as the end-to-end communication protocol.

This thesis investigates the performance of TCP and newer TCP versions over High Bandwidth Delay Product Channels (HBDPC), such as the on demand optical channels described above. In addition, …

An Analysis Of Characteristics Of Long And Short Commuters In The United States, Srikanth Vaddepalli

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

An in-depth-analysis was carried out on short, medium and long commuters using the National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) of 2001 and American Community Survey (ACS) of 2000 to determine the role of individual,household, trip and area related characteristics on commute length. The individuals with commute time less than or equal to 15 min were considered as short commuters and individuals with commute time greater than 15 min but less than 60 min were considered as medium commuters and the individuals with commute time 60 min or more were considered as long commuters. The commute time is considered as a link …