Digital Commons Network^™

“You‟Re Going To Hollywood!”: Gender And Race Surveillance And Accountability In American Idol Contestant‟S Performances, Amanda Leblanc

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines how the reality competition television program American Idol serves to reinforce gendered, racialized and heteronormative stereotypes, particularly for female contestants. Through its "democratic" style of public audience voting, those competitors who not only sing well, but also perform their gender and race to standards which have been deemed by the judges to be appropriate mainstream American culture, prove to be the most successful on the program. Through a content analysis of the show's first four seasons, I find that those female contestants who begin their tenure in the contest by fitting into categories which would be considered …

Social Network Web Sites And Intra-Organizational Relationships: Using Facebook To Build Employee Relationships At Serena Software, Rianna K. Lee Sing

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the use of Facebook as a tool to build relationships at work among employees of global technology company Serena Software. Email interviews with 13 Serena Software employees demonstrated that the social network site is in fact building relationships among them. Participants attributed information sharing as the element that most helped them to build relationships with each other. The interviews revealed evidence of the characteristics of relationship quality: trust, commitment and satisfaction. However, participants expressed a different definition of the fourth characteristic - control mutuality - in their Facebook relationships. The results showed that participants did not define …

Numerical Heat Transfer During Partially–Confined, Confined, And Free Liquid Jet Impingement With Rotation And Chemical Mechanical Planarization Process Modeling, Jorge C. Lallave-Cortes

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Investigation Into The Rate-Determining Step Of Mammalian Heme Biosynthesis: Molecular Recognition And Catalysis In 5-Aminolevulinate Synthase, Thomas Lendrihas

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The biosynthesis of tetrapyrolles in eukaryotes and the alpha-subclass of purple photosynthetic bacteria is controlled by the pyridoxal 5?-phosphate (PLP)-dependent enzyme, 5-aminolevulinate synthase (ALAS). Aminolevulinate, the universal building block of these macromolecules, is produced together with Coenzyme A (CoA) and carbon dioxide from the condensation of glycine and succinyl-CoA. The three-dimensional structures of Rhodobacter capsulatus ALAS reveal a conserved active site serine that moves to within hydrogen bonding distance of the phenolic oxygen of the PLP cofactor in the closed, substrate-bound enzyme conformation, and simultaneously to within 3-4 angstroms of the thioester sulfur atom of bound succinyl-CoA. To elucidate the …

Afro-Colombian Welfare: An Application Of Amartya Sen’S Capability Approach Using Multiple Indicators Multiple Causes Modeling – Mimic, Paula Lezama

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research analyzes welfare conditions of Afro-Colombians vis-à-vis non Afro-Colombians using Amartya Sen's Capability Approach as the theoretical framework, and the latent variable modeling as the empirical method. Multiple Indicators Multiple Causes (MIMIC) models are estimated using data from the Colombian Quality of Life Survey, 2003. Two latent constructs, namely, 'knowledge' and 'being adequately sheltered', represent the two 'Capability' dimensions to be analyzed. Ethnic background appears to have a consistently negative influence after controlling statistically by a set of relevant variables (e.g. being poor, area, marital status, age and gender, among others) included in the models as exogenous "causes" or …

Initial Identity Level And Cooperation In Face-To-Face And Computer-Mediated Contexts, Matthew C. Lineberry

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Organizations today are increasingly encouraging employees to engage in pro-social behaviors at work, though this effort may be hindered by the increasing reliance on computers to mediate workplace interpersonal interactions. While much research has been directed at computer-mediated teams performing highly interdependent tasks, there is a need to examine the effect of computer mediation on individual vs. collective identification and cooperation for employees in less overtly interdependent tasks. This study examined the role of group members' conscious and non-conscious identity level in the relationship between physical context and cooperation with a work group. 50 groups of 4 participants each worked …

Synthesis And Characterization Of A Novel Poly(Methyl Methacrylate) Composites Using Copper-4, 4’- Trimethylenedipyridine Metal-Organic Framework As Fillers, Shisi Liu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A novel Poly (methyl methacrylate) Composites using Copper-4, 4'- Trimethylenedipyridine Metal-Organic Framework as Fillers (CTMOF) had been synthesized and analyzed. The CTMOF structure had been characterized by X-ray crystallography. The thermal and mechanical properties of CTMOF-PMMA composites had been examined via optical microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), microhardness, and dynamic mechanical thermal analysis (DMTA). The results showed the increase of Glass transition temperatures and the improvement of mechanical properties of the PMMA composites as the concentration of CBMOF loading increased.

Maternal Knowledge, Attitudes And Practices And Health Outcomes Of Their Preschool-Age Children In Urban And Rural Karnataka, India, Angela Lloyd

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This cross-sectional, community-based study was designed to compare the health outcomes of 2 - 5 year-old children in different types of preschools. The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), run by the government of India, created a system of preschools, called anganwadis, to combat malnutrition, provide health education for mothers, and preschool for children 2 - 6 years old in 1975. Many children attend their local anganwadis, while others attend private schools, and others do not attend school at all. A pre-tested questionnaire was used to interview 125 urban and 130 rural mothers regarding their knowledge, attitudes, and practices about acute …

Character Strengths And Virtues Of Young Internationally Adopted Chinese Children: A Longitudinal Study From Preschool To School Age, Troy Loker

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Shifting from traditional deficit-based psychological research, the current study aimed to broaden the understanding of post-adoption development through a strength-based approach and further explore the recently developed Values in Action (VIA) Classification of Character Strengths among a particularly resilient population of young children-internationally adopted Chinese children. Archival longitudinal data of parents' descriptions about their adopted Chinese children's positive characteristics were analyzed from two time points two years apart. Data on 179 children ages 4 - 5 years old (M = 59.67 months SD = 6.60 months) in Time 1 from 172 families were analyzed with content analysis coding procedures.

Overall, …

Condition | Recondition: Reconstruction Of The City And Its Collective Memory, C Lopez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Worldwide, dense urban spaces have been organized and transformed by cultural values. However, in many cases, changes in economic and social conditions have resulted in fragmentation of neighborhood typologies, in terms of their physical characteristics and uses. Such spaces are a manifestation of development, expansion, dislocation and marginalization; a condition that can be improved through an architectural and urban strategy which inscribes emerging forces into the neglected zones of marginal territories. The contemporary context calls for a re-evaluation of public space. To fully engage the people, it is a necessary function of public space to blur landscape, architecture and infrastructure, …

Multiple Approaches To The Validation Of The Scores From The Study Anxiety Inventory, George Douglas Lunsford

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Study Anxiety Inventory (SAI), consisting of the factors of worry and emotionality, was developed to measure college students' self-reported levels of anxiety while studying for an exam. Data from 2002 undergraduate students from four colleges (Arts and Sciences, Engineering, Business, and Education) at a southeastern state university were used to evaluate the validity of the scores from the 16-item Study Anxiety Inventory. Results of confirmatory factor analyses for the two factor model, conducted separately for each college, indicated marginally acceptable fit for the data (median fit measures across the four colleges: CFI =.915, SRMR=.049, RMSEA=.098), a pattern that was …

The Neoconservative War On Modernity: The Bush Doctrine And Its Resistance To Legitimation, Ben Luongo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Bush Doctrine represents a paradigm shift in international security policy. Never had a foreign policy demonstrated such will through unilateralism, preemptive militarism, and a sense of exceptionalism. I argue that this shift in policy resists modern international order in an attempt to reestablish ancient modes of power and control. The international system maintains order through rules and institutions which are perceived to be legitimate because they have the consent of the governed. An example of this would be the UN, where member states engage in a democratic deliberation geared towards reaching understanding and consensus. However, order breaks down when …

Mixture Distributions With Application To Microarray Data Analysis, O'Neil Lynch

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The main goal in analyzing microarray data is to determine the genes that are differentially expressed across two types of tissue samples or samples obtained under two experimental conditions. In this dissertation we proposed two methods to determine differentially expressed genes. For the penalized normal mixture model (PMMM) to determine genes that are differentially expressed, we penalized both the variance and the mixing proportion parameters simultaneously. The variance parameter was penalized so that the log-likelihood will be bounded, while the mixing proportion parameter was penalized so that its estimates are not on the boundary of its parametric space. The null …

Architecture Of Materialism: A Study Of Craft In Design Culture, Process, And Product, Logan Mahaffey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

It is estimated ten thousand hours of experience are required to master any given process (Sennett 20). Whether it is wood joinery, music, culinary arts or weaving, it is about making something that can be seen, heard, touched, and/or used. Society seems to be losing an appreciation for craft as an idea. Especially in the US, materialism has reduced quality and craftsmanship to merely a luxury to those that can afford a $10,000 Maloof chair or an $8000 Amish table. Developers build for maximum profit while buyers seek maximum square footage. Yet it seems while mainstream society continues to "progress", …

Photography’S Creative Influence On Lewis Carroll’S Alice’S Adventures In Wonderland And Through The Looking Glass And What Alice Found There, Bridget Mahoney

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Lewis Carroll's novels Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There share many characteristics with the author's photographs. Both Carroll's portraits and literature utilize dreamlike imagery to move beyond the present time and space into a dream world. The similar imagery demonstrates an important creative link between Carroll's novels and photographs. The creation of Carroll's masterpiece, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, creatively depended on the photographic images Carroll produced. Utilizing the four step process of creativity generally accepted by psychologists, Carroll's photographs are …

Incorporating Solar Technology To Design In Humid Subtropical Climates, Andres Mamontoff

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research will strive to establish a design methodology to achieve an ideal balance or ratio between solar energy available at a given site and the electrical energy requirement of a residence in a humid subtropical climate. Solar technology should be considered as an important element of the design and not a mere energy source added after the design has been completed. The introduction of this technology should be established at the conceptual stage and evolve through the whole design process of the project. Solar energy is without doubt the best choice as an alternate to fossil fuels in Florida's …

Functional Characterization Of Cytochrome B5 Reductase And Its Electron Acceptor Cytochrome B5 In Plasmodium Falciparum, Lucio Malvisi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Malaria is a disease of major public health importance, killing approximately one million people and causing about 250 million cases of fever annually. It mostly affects children under the age of five and pregnant women in many developing countries, making it a prominent issue in international health and maternal and child health. The most aggressive form of malaria is caused by the parasite Plasmodium falciparum which is responsible for 80% of infections and 90% of deaths from malaria, and is most prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa. Public Health interventions include the implementation of prevention programs, health education, and chemotherapy. The latter …

Heat Transfer Enhancement Of Spray Cooling With Nanofluids, Christian David Martinez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Spray cooling is a technique for achieving large heat fluxes at low surface temperatures by impinging a liquid in droplet form on a heated surface. Heat is removed by droplets spreading across the surface, thus removing heat by evaporation and by an increase in the convective heat transfer coefficient. The addition of nano-sized particles, like aluminum or copper, to water to create a nanofluid could further enhance the spray cooling process. Nanofluids have been shown to have better thermophysical properties when compared to water, like enhanced thermal conductivity. Although droplet size, velocity, impact angle and the roughness of the heated …

Using Staff Management Procedures To Improve Staff Adherence With A Toileting Program At An Intermediate Care Facility For Individuals With Developmental Disabilities, Paula A. Matos

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to evaluate feedback systems for improving staff adherence to a toileting program at an intermediate care facility for individuals with developmental disabilities. The facility uses interoffice memos in order to provide their staff with feedback. Following baseline, we evaluated the effectiveness of the memo (B), memo plus in-service (C), and memo plus feedback (D) in an ABCDBD reversal design across 4 residences. The results showed that memo plus feedback was the most effective intervention.

Cars, Collisions, And Violence In Southern Literature, Bryan Thomas Mccabe

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Southern literature, from the first half of the twentieth century, deals primarily with the transition from an agrarian to an industrial society. The conflict in the Southern novel is a result of the protagonist's inability to transition from the structure of the Old to the New South. The Southern protagonist is often quite unconscious of his inability to adapt to the modern world because he suffers from a "diffusion of time perspective." As the protagonist struggles to find a harmonic balance between traditional and modern, he is ultimately unable to avoid a tragic fate. The "violence" that must take place …

A Novel Antibody Based Capture Matrix Utilizing Human Serum Albumin And Streptococcal Protein G To Increase Capture Efficiency Of Bacteria, Christie Renee Mccabe

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A novel capture matrix utilizing human serum albumin (HSA) and streptococcal Protein G (PG), which possesses an albumin binding domain (ABD), was used to immobilize antibodies for improved bacterial capture efficiency in immunoassays. Enzyme linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) were used to characterize and optimize a specific protocol for the HSA-PG capture matrix; which revealed several critical factors that should be considered. The Fc binding domain, on PG, should have high affinity for the species of capture antibody used in the assay. Goat and rabbit species antibodies bound strongly to the Fc binding domain of PG. Displacement of the capture antibody, …

“Desirable Images”: Sexual Mapping In William S. Burroughs’S Naked Lunch And Samuel R. Delany’S Dhalgren, Patrick Mcgowan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In "Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism," Fredric Jameson describes the disappearance, within postmodernism, of an objective framework for mapping the social totality. In order to illustrate this concept, Jameson draws upon the ideas of urban planner Kevin Lynch as formulated in his seminal work, The Image of the City. For Lynch, the design of the postwar alienated city results in varying and fragmentary "cognitive maps" used by its inhabitants to negotiate urban space, a problem that can be rectified by "good" urban planning, which aims to create mappable public space through the implementation of external orientation markers. …

‘Adding Wisdom To Their Natures’: British Victorian And Colonial Educational Practices And The Possibility Of Women’S Personal Emancipation In Charlotte Brontë’S Jane Eyre, Buchi Emecheta’S Joys Of Motherhood And Tsitsi Dangrembga’S Nervous Conditions, Megan Mcintyre

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Popular opinion suggests that education is the 'silver bullet' to end poverty, famine, and all the worlds' ills. The reality of education for women, however, is not as easily classified as transformative. This paper seeks to illuminate, through historical research and literary analysis, the connections between the charity education of Victorian Britain, a system examined in Jane Eyre, and the missionary education which comprised the majority of the educational systems in the British colonies, including Nigeria and Zimbabwe, the settings of Emecheta and Dangarembga's works.

Beginning with Charlotte Brontë's Victorian classic, Jane Eyre, and moving through time, space and situation …

The Financial Literacy Of University Students: A Comparison Of Graduating Seniors‟ Financial Literacy And Debt Level, Vandeen M. Mckenzie

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The level of university students' financial literacy has been discussed in Congress, opinion pieces in the media and the increasing level of student debt has been used to suggest their financial illiteracy. This study investigated the financial literacy of graduating university seniors by comparing their financial literacy level with their debt level. The difference in financial literacy levels of business majors, minors and non-business majors was assessed. The relationship between graduating university seniors' financial literacy level and their credit card and student loan debt was also reviewed. Gender, employment status, ethnicity, family income and college major were similarly examined to …

“Re-Homing”: Sustaining Housing First, Jennifer Mckinney

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The problem of homelessness is an issue in every city of America. Increasingly there are more individuals and families that find themselves without a permanent residence due to varying factors. Traditionally, the approach to this crisis has been to shuffle from emergency shelters to transitional shelters towards temporary housing. However, this lengthy, regulated process prohibits a large portion of the homeless population from ever settling back into housing. It is also merely a stop gap for the issue and this process absorbs a large sum of resources in land, money and manpower. However, there is a new model emerging to …

Tthe Rad9-Rad1-Hus1 Complex And Bif-1 Regulate Multiple Mechanisms That Affect Sensitivity To Dna Damage, Cheryl L. Meyerkord

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The resistance of cancer cells to traditional chemotherapeutic agents is a major obstacle in the successful treatment of cancer. Cancer cells manipulate a variety of signaling pathways to enhance resistance to anticancer agents; such mechanisms include disrupting the DNA damage response and hyperactivating survival signaling pathways. In an attempt to better understand the molecular mechanisms that underlie resistance to chemotherapeutic agents, we investigated multiple processes regulated by the Rad9-Rad1-Hus1 (9-1-1) complex and Bif-1. The 9-1-1 complex plays an integral role in the response to DNA damage and regulates many downstream signaling pathways. Overexpression of members of this complex has been …

Teaching Social Studies In An Age Of Globalization: A Case Study Of Secondary Social Studies Teachers’ Participation In The Una-Usa’S Global Classrooms Curriculum Program, Kelly R. Miliziano

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The researcher found few studies that explore decisions of social studies teachers as they plan what and how to teach their classes. Over a century, social studies educators have adapted and responded to political, social, and economic changes. From educating immigrants a century earlier to addressing contemporary cross-border issues, social studies educators inherit unique challenges in today's increasingly globalized world. In addition to these external forces, constraints are placed on teachers which prescribe what content must be included in an already crowded curriculum. This qualitative approach using a case study provides a better understanding of the influence a globally oriented …

Characterization Of Electrowetting Systems For Microfluidic Applications, Pradeep K. Mishra

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Electrowetting is the change in apparent surface energy in the presence of an electric field. Recently, this phenomenon has been used to control the shape and location of individual droplets on a surface. However, many microfluidics researchers have acknowledged unexplained behaviors and performance degradation. In this work, electrowetting systems are characterized with different methods. The electrowetting response is measured by measuring contact angle for different applied voltages. A novel technique for direct measurement of Electrowetting Force (EWF) using nano indenter is proposed in this work. The EWF measurements show that, for aqueous solution the EWF is more as compared to …

Gallium Nitride Sensors For Hydrogen/Nitrogen And Hydrogen/Carbon Monoxide Gas Mixtures, Christopher Nicholas Monteparo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As hydrogen is increasingly used as an energy carrier, gas sensors that can operate at high temperatures and in harsh environments are needed for fuel cell, aerospace, and automotive applications. The high temperature Fischer-Tropsch process also uses mixtures of hydrogen and carbon monoxide to generate synthetic fuels from non-fossil precursors. As the Fischer-Tropsch process depends upon particular gas mixtures to generate various fuels, a sensor which can determine the proper ratio of reactants is needed. To this end, gallium nitride (GaN) has been used to fabricate a resistive gas sensor. GaN is a suitable semiconductor to be used in hydrogen …

Data Acquisition For Modeling And Visualization Of Vascular Tree, William Lafayette Mondy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Data can be acquired from tissue's vascular structure and used for modeling and visualization. To acquire data from a vascular tree, we make its structure available for the gathering of data by separating it from the structures of surrounding tissues, which includes the capillary structure. The capillary structure contains important information, but, because of its size, is the most difficult to acquire data from. In this work, we look at methods for contrasting the vascular structure from surrounding tissues, and focus on the use of corrosion casting for this procedure. We collected image data using micro-computer tomography (micro-CT) and converted …