Digital Commons Network^™

Choice And Discovery: An Analysis Of Women And Culture In Flora Nwapa’S Fiction, Mary D. Mears

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation is in the tradition of redressing the critical imbalance that has undervalued or neglected African women writers by considering Flora Nwapa's three best-known novels, analyzing from a feminist and dialogic perspective what choice and discovery mean for Nwapa's female characters in Efuru (1966), Idu (1970), and One is Enough (1981). Flora Nwapa writes about women and their lives, issues, and concerns within a traditional Igbo culture radically affected by British colonialism. As she explores and analyzes many of the characteristics of her tribal group, she posits the women's desires for change, choice, and acceptance within a society in …

Identity Negotiation: The Perspective Of Asian Indian Women, Pangri Mehta

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Traditional Indian cultural narratives are pervasive and serve to typify personal identity and experience. These cultural narratives portray Indian women as a wife and mother, nurturing, obedient, forbearing, soft-spoken, and the primary transmitters of the ethnic culture. American culture, on the other hand, encourages independence, individualism and a more elastic view towards gender. As assimilation theory suggests, Asian Indians in the United States are likely to assimilate at least some degree into American society. Accordingly, these narratives make up the cultural identity of Indian women in the United States. The contrasting cultural narratives shape the identities of Indian women residing …

Foraminiferal Responses To Arsenic In A Shallow-Water Hydrothermal System In Papua New Guinea And In The Laboratory, Bryan Mccloskey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The tropical Indo-Pacific is the location of highest global foraminiferal biodiversity. However, the shallow-water hydrothermal system in Tutum Bay at Ambitle Island, Papua New Guinea, possesses some of the world's highest naturally-occurring [As]. Foraminifers were collected in this intriguing system in 2003 and 2005 as part of a larger project to examine the possible effects of As and other hydrothermal factors on benthic communities. Despite the high ambient [As], a diverse foraminiferal fauna was observed. Foraminferal communities were examined from surface sediment and from material adhered to rubble at locations from 1-300m from venting and from reference sites, at depths …

An Evaluation Of The Influence Of Case Method Instruction On The Reflective Thinking Of Msw Students, Marleen Milner

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Social work practice requires that graduates be prepared to deal with complex, multifaceted problems which cannot be defined completely, do not have absolute, correct answers and can be approached from multiple perspectives. This study evaluated the influence of case-based instruction on MSW students' reflective judgment, an aspect of critical thinking associated with the ability to reason through ill-structured problems. (King, Wood, & Mines, 1990). The Reflective Judgment Model, which describes a developmental continuum based upon epistemic assumptions regarding the source and justification of knowledge claims, served as the theoretical framework for the assessment of reflective thinking in this mixed methods …

Riding The Winds Of Their Interest: Exploring The Teachable Moment In College Classrooms, Nancy Fosdick Mills

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The phrase "teachable moment" has a taken-for-granted connotation of readiness to learn, but has been rarely defined and researched in the literature of higher education. This study described faculty members' experiences of teachable moments in their undergraduate classrooms. This included the conditions in which they emerge, and the decision-making processes used by faculty members to determine if and how to pursue such moments. If professors have opportunities to clarify their understandings of such moments, the ability to capitalize on otherwise unplanned teaching opportunities may be enhanced. Seventeen experienced social science and humanities faculty members teaching undergraduate classes at a large …

Giving Birth In A Different Country: Bangladeshi Immigrant Women’S Childbirth Experiences In The U.S., Mst Khadija Mitu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Immigrant women often lack the social support and help from extended family and other social relationships, which is very significant during the pregnancy, delivery, and postnatal period. This research was conducted among Bangladeshi immigrant women living in the United States, in order to understand their experiences during pregnancy and childbirth: how they coped with the settings of a different country during that period, and how they felt about this situation. While there are several studies on immigrant women and maternal health issues in anthropology, to my knowledge, there have been none that focused specifically on the childbirth experiences of Bangladeshi …

Time-Resolved Thermodynamic Studies Of Heme Signaling Proteins And Model Systems, Audrey Mokdad

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Heme-based gas sensor proteins have the ability to sense diatomic molecules such as O2 (FixL, EcDos or HemAT), CO (CooA, a CO-sensing protein of Rhodospirillum rubrum) and NO (guanylate cyclase) molecules and subsequently regulate numerous important biological processes in prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms. The sensing function of these proteins is initiated by the binding of an effector (i.e., O2, CO, etc5) to the heme iron which then leads to a cascade of conformational events which gives rise to changes in kinase activity, DNA-binding activity, etc...

In order to better understand the mechanism heme-based signaling, time resolved photothermal methods as well …

Facilitating Youth Participatory Action Research: Reflections, Strategies, And Applications At The Institute For Community Research, Aki Nakanishi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The present study investigates the instructional and organizational strategies used by participatory action research (PAR) facilitators at the Summer Youth Research Institute of the Institute for Community Research in Hartford, Connecticut (US), a six-week program that engages urban multi-ethnic teenagers in youth participatory action research (YPAR) for social change. During the last three decades, PAR has proven to be a very effective methodology for creating sustainable solutions to social problems by involving community members in the process of identifying, investigating, and collectively resolving them. In particular, YPAR provides young people with the opportunity to study social problems that affect themselves …

The Realization Of The Speech Act Of Refusal In Egyptian Arabic By American Learners Of Arabic As A Foreign Language, Nader Morkus

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated how the speech act of refusal is realized in Egyptian Arabic by intermediate and advanced American learners of Arabic as a foreign language. It also compared the performance of the learners to that of native speakers of Egyptian Arabic and native speakers of American English. The study aimed to investigate the relationship between the learners' language proficiency and their pragmatic competence. In addition, it examined the extent of pragmatic transfer from L1 and whether there was a relationship between the degree of pragmatic transfer and the level of L2 proficiency. The study also examined how refusals are …

Songs For Cripples, Michael Nelson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This work is a fragmented novel or collection of stories which attempts to commingle the profound and the profane while scrutinizing the absurdity of inexplicable hope and the endless pursuit of avoiding loneliness.

Analysis Of Mass Transfer By Jet Impingement And Study Of Heat Transfer In A Trapezoidal Microchannel, Ejiro Stephen Ojada

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis numerically studied mass transfer during fully confined liquid jet impingement on a rotating target disk of finite thickness and radius. The study involved laminar flow with jet Reynolds numbers from 650 to 1500. The nozzle to plate distance ratio was in the range of 0.5 to 2.0, the Schmidt number ranged from 1720 to 2513, and rotational speed was up to 325 rpm. In addition, the jet impingement to a stationary disk was also simulated for the purpose of comparison. The electrochemical fluid used was an electrolyte containing 0.005moles per liter potassium ferricyanide (K3(Fe(CN6)), 0.02moles per liter ferrocyanide …

Architectural Chastity Belts: The Window Motif As Instrument Of Discipline In Fifteenth-Century Italian Conduct Manuals And Art, Jennifer Megan Orendorf

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As the Italian thirst for excellence and knowledge burgeoned throughout the Quattrocento, the genre of instructional literature responded accordingly to social demands. Offering advice on a wide range of experience from the quotidian to the extraordinary, from superstition to scientific, conduct manuals appealed to readers of all Italian social classes. Investigating the relationship between this body of literature and the lives of contemporary women, this paper will focus specifically on those manuals which prescribe behaviors for women, and will investigate the reception of these precepts and the extent in which these notions informed and transformed women's lives.

In order to …

Lateral Macropore Dominated Flow On A Clay Settling Area In The Phosphate Mining District, Peninsular Florida, Natalie Pechenik

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this study was to use an applied tracer to study lateral ground water flow paths in the top ~0.5 m of clay settling areas (CSA) in order to gain better understanding of hydrologic connectivity of CSAs to the surrounding hydrologic systems. The study site was located on the non-operational Mosaic Fort Mead Mine property in Fort Meade, Polk County, Florida. This lateral tracer test study is a follow up from a vertical tracer test study performed at the same site location in 2007. The CSA is generally composed of a well developed, clay rich, subangular-blocky surface layer …

Statistical Changes In Lakes In Urbanizing Watersheds And Lake Return Frequencies Adjusted For Trend And Initial Stage Utilizing Generalized Extreme Value Theory, Shayne Paynter

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Many water resources throughout the world are demonstrating changes in historic water levels. Potential reasons for these changes include climate shifts, anthropogenic alterations or basin urbanization. The focus of this research was threefold: 1) to determine the extent of spatio-temporal changes in regional precipitation patterns 2) to determine the statistical changes that occur in lakes with urbanizing watersheds and 3) to develop accurate prediction of trends and lake level return frequencies. To investigate rainfall patterns regionally, appropriate distributions, either gamma or generalized extreme value (GEV), were fitted to variables at a number of rainfall gages utilizing maximum likelihood estimation. The …

The Examination Of The Implementation Of The Second Step Program In A Public School System, Lynn Pedraza

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As school districts integrate evidence-based prevention programs into their daily regime, they may struggle with implementing these programs with fidelity. This is a multi-method, multi-source, retrospective explanatory study of the implementation factors associated with program installation and partial implementation of an evidence-based violence prevention program, Second Step, in six elementary schools within a large urban school district. The goals of this study were to provide a better understanding of (a) the factors that support implementation of evidence-based programs in K-12 public schools, (b) the factors that constrain implementation, and (c) how developers and researchers might facilitate the application of research …

Visualizing Sound: A Musical Composition Of Aural Architecture, James Pendley

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

We depend on our collective senses in order to rationalize and negotiate space. Unfortunately, sound and acoustics has become a secondary concern to that of the visual perception in architecture. The initial design intent for many modern performance spaces and music education space, for about the past one-hundred years, has not been driven by sound or acoustics, as a consequence the visual perception has become the major infl uence. Prior to modern acoustical applications, performance spaces have been designed for the essence of sound and the form and function had no divisible lines, but with amplifi cation of sound and …

Classroom Discourse And Teacher Talk Influences On English Language Learner Students' Mathematics Experiences, Mariana M. Petkova

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the features of the classroom discourse in eight Algebra I classes from two urban high schools with diverse student populations. In particular, by using the discursive analysis perspective, the type of communication between teachers and students was examined. The study investigated to what extent teachers' patterns of discourse change as a result of the number of ELLs present or their particular teaching experiences and ESOL endorsement. Furthermore, the impact of teachers' cultural and linguistic backgrounds upon ELLs' mathematics experiences was explored, particularly the teachers' patterns of discourse and adjustments to their teacher talk, or modifications of instructions …

Effects Of Dialect Use On The Fast Mapping Skills Of African American School-Age Children, Jessica Pierre

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Previous research has shown that African American children are prone to score lower on vocabulary tests when compared to their white peers (Champion et al., 2003; Qi et al., 2006; Restrepo et al., 2006; Thomas-Tate et al., 2006; Washington & Craig, 1992). The dialect spoken by these children may be affecting their performance. However, little is known about how dialect use interacts with word learning abilities. The current study continues a project initiated by Wyatt, Bahr, and Silliman (2007) which examined dialectal influences on the fast mapping of novel stimuli in preschool children. The participants in the current study were …

Cultural Visualization Through Architecture, Fernando Pizarro

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As an important part of our lives, stories help us to form both our personal identities and the identities of the social groups that make up our society. They facilitate us to be in contact with our beliefs, our feelings, our knowledge, our perception, and what is significant to us. Similarly, we understand those very things from the stories of others. These stories are obtained through different ways: family, friends, literature, poetry, religion, teachers, movies, art, and so on. Through these, our culture is born and sustained. There is no doubt that architecture is an important defining element of our …

Depredation And Angler Interactions Involving Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops Truncatus) In Sarasota Bay, Florida, Jessica R. Powell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Typical depredation behavior by cetaceans involves stealing or damaging prey items already captured by recreational or commercial fishing gear. Depredation among cetaceans has been reported to be increasing in both severity and frequency globally. This behavior is of particular concern for small stocks of cetaceans since any interaction with fishing gear has the potential to injure or kill animals leading to unsustainable losses. In Florida, depredation became evident in 2006 when the number of bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) strandings resulting from fishing gear ingestion or entanglement sharply increased. For the resident dolphin community in Sarasota Bay, modeling showed continued mortalities …

Nature, Daylight And Sound: A Sensible Environment For The Families, Staff And Patients Of Neonatal Intensive Care Units, Ana Praskach

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In healthcare environments, elements like nature, daylight and sound have been found to significantly influence the healing process of patients, by enhancing the quality of their recovery, shortening their hospital stay and consequently reducing hospital costs. For instance, it has been shown that exposure to nature triggers positive responses in people, daylight affects human psychology, and different sounds have varying behavioral effects on different groups of people. But, while these effects have been carefully studied in adult patients, leading to clear design standards, less is known about their impact on premature infants. Interestingly, the care that many newborns receive in …

Assessing Druze Identity And Strategies For Preserving Druze Heritage In North America, Chad Kassem Radwan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research study focuses on promoting historical, religious, and cultural knowledge among transnational Druze. The Druze are a relatively small, tightly knit religious community from the Middle East who practice endogamy and accept no converts. In the diaspora, Druze have often established their own communities based on their collective ancestral and familial ties and through the establishment of groups such as the American Druze Society. This study works to allow individuals to discuss their Druze identity, identify the community's social problems, and recommend possible approaches or solutions. My research experience as an insider doing ethnography among fellow Druze has in …

From The Academy To The Streets: Documenting The Healing Power Of Black Feminist Creative Expression, Tunisia L. Riley

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

I explore through feminist content analysis how poetry, blogging, political narrative, and music are employed by Black women as a means of personal and political empowerment, healing, activism and feminist practice. I theorize the emergence of a new manifestation Black feminism represented in poetry, blogs, political narrative, and popular music-exploring its ties to the history of Black feminism. I seek to demonstrate how gender conscious Black women create poetry, blogs, political narratives, and music as the catalyst to spark anti-sexist activism in contemporary Black women who may or may not call themselves feminists.

Agriculture And Tampa Bay News: How Do Local News Media Frame Agribusiness?, Alex R. Ritzheimer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose for this thesis was to explore a dynamic between the news media, their subjects, and their audience. I investigate whether everyday news media frame the information they deliver in such a way as to potentially direct the audience on how to respond to news stories. The setting for this research question is in the Tampa Bay area of Florida and the subject matter deals specifically with agriculture, its practitioners, how they do business, and how the local news media report about it. The issue will be explored from an applied anthropological perspective, basing conclusions on field research and …

Predictors Of Cancer Caregiver Depression Symptomatology, Henry R. Rivera

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

While the duration of the cancer illness may be shorter than that of other serious diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, cancer caregivers provide many more hours of care during a week. Research directed at the intensive experience of caregiving of hospice cancer patients is needed as there is limited research of predictors of hospice cancer caregiver depression symptomatology. The purpose of the study was to examine predictors of depression symptomatology in caregivers of hospice cancer patients. A secondary analysis was conducted using baseline assessment data of patients and caregivers from a larger study of patient/caregiver dyads from two large hospices …

An Experimental Investigation Into The Impact Of Crisis Response Strategies And Relationship History On Relationship Quality And Corporate Credibility, Camille Roberts

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the influence of different crisis response strategies and relationship history on corporate credibility and the dimensions of the organizational-public relationship. The relationship dimensions examined were trust, commitment, satisfaction and control mutuality. An experiment was conducted among undergraduate students drawn from an introductory mass communication class. Results indicate that when an organization's relationship history with its publics is positive, the public is more likely to view the post-crisis relationship quality and organizational credibility as positive than negative. Additionally, more accommodative crisis response strategies have a greater impact on relationship quality than less accommodative strategies. Crisis response strategy does …

Psychosocial Outcomes Of Weight Stigma Among College Students, Sabrina Joann Robinson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Overweight and obesity are important public health issues in the United States with more than 60% of US adults overweight or obese. The social consequences of being overweight and obese are serious and pervasive. Individuals who are overweight and obese are often the targets of bias and stigma and thus susceptible to negative attitudes. Obesity and weight stigma have been linked to low self-esteem, higher rates of depressive symptoms, body dissatisfaction and poor psychological adjustment. Although weight stigma is a problem in the general population, it is more consequential among adolescents due to mental and physical developmental changes. Therefore college …

The Role Of Proactivity During Organizational Entry: Proactive Socialization Tactics, Citizenship And Counterproductive Work Behaviors, Ozgun Burcu Rodopman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Newcomers engage in proactive behaviors during organizational entry to increase their adjustment to the organization and to successfully complete their socialization. The present study investigated the links between proactive socialization tactics (i.e., positive framing, sense making and relationship building) and organizational outcomes. Specifically, organizational citizenship behaviors (e.g., assisting coworkers) and counterproductive work behaviors (e.g., verbal abuse) were investigated. The sample included 216 employees from various industries and organizations with an average organizational tenure of 9 months. The results indicated that all proactive socialization behaviors were associated with high levels of citizenship behaviors (i.e., OCB). Only positive framing was associated with …

Transdiscursive Cosmopolitanism: Foucauldian Freedom, Subjectivity, And The Power Of Resistance, Joanna Rozpedowski

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The following project will consist in the study and examination of the concepts and theories that lie in the domain of political theory. The enquiry into the dimensions and complexities of the socio-political organization and the political substance of individual human agents will be conducted with the intellectual assistance of the postmodernist turn of thought. I will interrogate and develop a specifically Foucauldian reading of international politics and the emerging global world order as well as situate Foucault's insights and theorizing in a cosmopolitan framework, which calls for a progressive re-conceptualization of the dimensions of power and the modalities of …

School Work Environment: Transition From Education To Practice, Shane Ross

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Learning how to learn as opposed to obtaining the experience to practice any field of professionalism creates a great disconnect between education and careers. Many educational programs do not have the curriculum or a building to transition students into a work atmosphere. When the design of a building and its program creates an environment that bridges the gap between school and work, the psychology and standard of an average graduate greatly increases. Students learn from being taught and personal experience. There are programs that require an internship or similar practice as a mandatory factor of the degree. Apprenticeships connect the …