Digital Commons Network^™

Vocal And Instrumental Musicians: Electrophysiologic And Psychoacoustic Analysis Of Pitch Discrimination And Production, Dee Adams Nikjeh

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Neurological evidence indicates that instrumental musicians experience changes in the auditory system following skill acquisition and sensory training; yet, little is known about auditory neural plasticity in formally trained vocal musicians. Furthermore, auditory pitch discrimination and laryngeal control are recognized as essential skills for vocal musicians; however, the relationship between physiological variables, perceptual abilities, and vocal production is unclear. Electrophysiologic and psychoacoustic measures were used to examine pitch production accuracy as well as pre-attentive and active pitch discrimination between nonmusicians and two classes of musicians. Participants included 40 formally trained musicians (19 vocalists/21 instrumentalists) and 21 nonmusician controls. All were …

The Acquisition Of Spanish Through Videoconferencing And Video-Based Lessons By Individual Fifth Graders, Annette L. Norwood

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to provide an in-depth examination of the language learning experiences of four fifth-grade students learning Spanish through videoconferencing and video-based lessons. This interpretive qualitative study involved intensive data collection over a period of 7 months through participant observation, audio and video recording of classes with subsequent transcription, and interviews of the students and their teachers. The following points of focus guided this research: (a) What instances of interaction and output are observed in the different instructional settings?; (b) Are patterns of change observed in learners' language production during the period under study?; (c) What …

Breast Cancer: Relationship Between Acculturation And Barriers To Breast Cancer Screening In Southwest Florida Latinas, Patricia Patino

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite multiple campaigns by the American Cancer Society, reports indicate that Latinas living in the United States who contract breast cancer are more likely than Anglos to die. These findings correlate with low participation in breast cancer screenings among Latinas. The objective of this study was to identify key obstacles that influence Latinas' low participation in breast cancer screenings, based on their health beliefs, knowledge of screenings, acculturation, and socio-economic factors.The study was a face-to-face informal interview, combined with a survey questionnaire conducted at churches, social clubs and/or at the participants' homes in a southwest Florida urban community. The sample …

How To Hear The Unspoken: Engaging Cross-Cultural Communication Through The Latin American Testimonial Narrative, Elena Flores Ruiz-Aho

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project seeks to address issues in cultural politics brought on by difficulties in cross-cultural communication, particularly as these problems manifest themselves in twentieth century Latin American testimonial narratives. By developing a critical line of questioning drawn from Gayatri Spivak's influential article "Can the Subaltern Speak," one aim herein is to analyze and describe the ways in which the narrative, Me Llamo Rigoberta Menchú Me Nació la Conciencia, translated into English as I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala, exemplifies the incommensurable nature of cross-cultural discursive attempts. This is done through a twofold method: one, by placing heavy emphasis …

Using Fuzzy Logic To Enhance Control Performance Of Sliding Mode Control And Dynamic Matrix Control, Edinzo J. Iglesias Sanchez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Two application applications of Fuzzy Logic to improve the performance of two controllers are presented. The first application takes a Sliding Mode Controller designed for chemical process to reject disturbances. A fuzzy element is added to the sliding surface to improve the controller performance when set point change affects the control loop; especially for process showing highly nonlinear behavior. This fuzzy element, , is calculated by means of a set of fuzzy rules designed based on expert knowledge and experience. The addition of improved the controller response because accelerate or smooth the controller as the control loop requires. The Fuzzy …

Preservice Teachers’ Responses To An Interactive Constructivist Model For Web-Based Learning, Cherry O. Steffen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

College and university teacher education programs are not, and should not be, exempt from the growing demand for distance education opportunities. Science teacher education is no exception to this growing demand. While there are some distance-learning courses and even complete programs for teacher education, the majority of these are offered as continuing education or post-graduate education opportunities. The number of programs offered specifically in science teacher education (either undergraduate or post-graduate) is extremely limited. Those distance-learning classes that are available for teacher education rarely reflect the instruction expected from teachers by the National Science Education Standards when they enter the …

Icon, Representation And Virtuality In Reading The Graphic Narrative, David Steiling

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

"Icon," "representation," and "virtuality," are key elements to consider when reading multi-modal narratives, including graphic narratives. By considering in detail how these elements are realized in various examples, the author shows how the study of the comics can lay groundwork for critical reading across the technological continuum of storytelling.The author looks at how icon, representation, and virtuality interact in a reading of William Hogarth's A Harlot's Progress. He then examines each term in more detail through readings of a variety of graphic narratives including Max Ernst's, Une Semaine de Bonte, Winsor McCay's Little Nemo in Slumberland, Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of …

"Mingling Incantations": Hart Crane's Neo-Symbolist Poetics, Christopher A. Tidwell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The largest impediment to appreciating Hart Crane as a symbolist modern American poet derives from the fragmentary critical attention paid to his borrowings from and familiarity with French Symbolists like Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, and Stéphane Mallarmé. Almost equally important, the early career of T. S. Eliot exerted a profound impact on Crane's poetic development and indeed served as the primary introduction to many nineteenth-century French poets for Crane and many other American poets of his generation. This dissertation initially examines contemporary critical definitions of the symbolist method and explores the extent to which Hart Crane's familiarity with the French …

“Trust Yourself To God:” Friar Francisco Pareja And The Franciscans In Florida, 1595-1702, Albert William Vogt

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Friar Francisco Pareja represented the pinnacle of the achievement for the Franciscans in Florida during the Spanish colonial period. But who were the Franciscans? Why were they, and Friar Pareja in particular, so successful as missionaries? The bulk of the writing done thus far on the mission system in Florida has concentrated on retelling the lost story of the native peoples who once inhabited the land. The impact of the missions and the Spanish colony weighed heavily on native cultures and the Franciscans role in this has been discussed. However, little has been said about the religious order itself, and …

Interrupting Danto's Farewell Party Arrangements: Comments For Grigoriev, Kalle Puolakka

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

This paper is a response to Serge Grigoriev's article "Living Art, Defining Value: Artworks and Mere Real Things" (Contemporary Aesthetics Volume 3, 2005) in which he develops Joseph Margolis' provocative Danto-criticism. He especially criticizes Danto's art-philosophical starting point, the problem of indiscernibles, claiming that it presupposes an objective value judgment that cannot be maintained and that it misrepresents the way in which people interact with art. In this article, Grigoriev's argument is found lacking mainly on two grounds. First, it overlooks where the source of Danto's starting point lies; and second, I argue that it does not lead to the …

A "Social Dimension" In European Private Law?: The Call For Setting A Progressive Agenda, Ugo Mattei, Fernanda Nicola

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Brief Of Constitutional Law Professors David L. Faigman And Ashutosh A. Bhagwat, Et Al., As Amici Curiae In Support Of Respondents In Gonzales V. Carhart And Gonzales V. Planned Parenthood, Nos. 05€€Œ830, 05€€Œ1382 (Introduction And Published Brief To United States Supreme Court), Ashutosh Bhagwat, David L. Faigman, Kathryn M. Davis

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Book Review Of Aristotle On Truth, By P. Crivelli, Owen Goldin

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Conceptual Art East And West: A Base For Global Art Or The End Of Art?, Curtis L. Carter

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

The Fit Between Task And Medium In Sending Equivocal And Unequivocal Messages: How Self-Reported Skill Creates Self-Reported Attitude In Using The Medium, Teresa Merritt

Theses

Communication channels selected by members of an organization can have an impact on the outcome of the messages sent. The media richness theory proposes that task performance can be optimized when task information is matched with the medium's ability to convey information richness. The current study surveyed 25 support staff within the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences at Rochester Institute of Technology to evaluate the best media fit between task and medium for sending equivocal (ambiguous) and unequivocal (clear and concise) messages. The findings supported the media richness theory, and employees report positive attitudes associated with media use.

Exploring Implicit Versus Explicit Methods Of Teaching Phonemic Awareness Instruction To Kindergarten Students, Sue Antoinette Abshire

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This research explored whether there was a difference between two methods of phonemic awareness instruction. Two groups of kindergarten students were selected. One group received an implicit method of phonemic awareness instruction. A second group received an explicit model of phonemic awareness instruction. Of particular concern were these questions: What is the impact of phonemic awareness instruction on reading achievement? How does phonemic awareness instruction delivered via an implicit instructional method differ from an explicit, scripted method of instruction in their respective impact on reading achievement? Triangulation between the qualitative and quantitative data support the finding that an explicit method …

Repression And Reduction: The Apparatchik's Discourse In The Works Of Ammianus Marcellinus, Denis Diderot, Victor Serge And George Orwell, Jason Paul Juneau

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In monopolizing political power, the state claims to possess the best idea towards leading a society and solving its problems. While these claims may vary according to regime, all face the eventual failure of expectation on the part of its subjects. No regime can master all the variables in running the country, and so it must convince their subjects otherwise of its legitimacy, despite the reality of their failure. The apparatchik’s discourse is the interaction of the state’s discourse and that of its institutions. This discourse is used to uphold the state’s legitimacy through the expertise of its institutions. The …

Culturally & Linguistically Diverse Populations : Difference Or Disorder?, Whitney Warkentin

Undergraduate Theses and Senior Projects

No abstract provided.

The Acquisition Of Japanese As A Second Language And Processability Theory: A Longitudinal Study Of A Naturalistic Child Learner, Junko Iwasaki

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The aim of this study was to investigate longitudinally how a child learner acquired verbal morpho-syntax in Japanese in a naturalistic second language (L2) context. Specifically the points of emergence for three verbal morpho-syntactic structures, namely verbal inflection, the V-te V structure and the passive/causative structure, were investigated within a framework of Processability Theory (PT) (Pienemann, 1998b). The subsequent development of these structures was also examined. Unlike earlier research about morpheme orders and developmental sequences in language acquisition which was criticised because of its apparent lack of theoretical underpinnings, Pienemann’s Processability Theory (PT)(1998b) connects the processability of morpho-syntactic structure to …

Attention Driven Reference Resolution In Multimodal Contexts, John D. Kelleher

Articles

In recent years a a number of psycholinguistic experiments have pointed to the interaction between language and vision. In particular, the interaction between visual attention and linguistic reference. In parallel with this, several theories of discourse have attempted to provide an account of the relationship between types of referential expressions on the one hand and the degree of mental activation on the other. Building on both of these traditions, this paper describes an attention based approach to visually situated reference resolution. The framework uses the relationship between referential form and preferred mode of interpretation as a basis for a weighted …

Evaluation Of The Effect Of Vehicle Performance On Consumer Satisfaction, Elizabeth A. Cudney

Doctoral Dissertations

"Value is the relationship of functionality or benefit to the cost of a product or service. Consumers appear to seek value, but not all consumers are alike in their needs and wants. Common characteristics that consumers desire in automobiles include a high level of value relative to the product's cost. Consumers measure vehicle performance in terms of twenty-three attributes such as roominess, ride, reliability, handling, brake pedal feel, visibility, interior noise, acceleration, etc. Problems arise when automakers try to translate these characteristics into vehicle performance specifications and capabilities.

Quality is an essential element for both the consumer and producer since …

Conflict At End Of Life: A Growing Need For Dispute Resolution Practices, Debra Gerardi, Jacquelin N. Font-Guzman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

International Decisions–Guatemala Genocide Case, Naomi Roht-Arriaza

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Techniques Of The Sacrifice Of Animals In Ancient Israel And Ancient Mesopotamia: New Insights Through Comparison, Part 1, Joann Scurlock

Andrews University Seminary Studies (AUSS)

No abstract provided.

The Cambridge Encyclopedia Of The World's Ancient Languages [Review] / Edited By Roger D. Woodard., Martin T. Probstle

Andrews University Seminary Studies (AUSS)

No abstract provided.

The First Encounter Between Saul And David: According To Josephus, Christopher Begg

Andrews University Seminary Studies (AUSS)

No abstract provided.

Iridescence In Ezekiel, Ross E. Winkle

Andrews University Seminary Studies (AUSS)

No abstract provided.

Deconstructing Evangelical Theology?, Fernando L. Canale

Andrews University Seminary Studies (AUSS)

No abstract provided.