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The Relationship Between Socioeconomic Status And Body Mass Index On Vitamin D Levels In African American Women With And Without Diabetes Living In Areas With Abundant Sunshine, Shani Vann Davis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

OBJECTIVE: To examine the relationships between socioeconomic status (SES), body mass index (BMI), and vitamin D levels in African American (AA) women living in areas with abundant sunshine; and to explore if diabetes moderates these relationships.

SIGNIFICANCE: More AA's live in poverty, and experience obesity, diabetes, and chronic disease compared to other groups. Eighty percent of AA women are overweight or obese, and rates of type 2 diabetes is highest in this group. Minority race, obesity, and diabetes increase risks for low vitamin D, and are associated with p

DESIGN AND METHOD: A cross-sectional descriptive research design was used to …

Exploring The Motives, Perceptions And Constructed Identities Of The Facilitators For One Regional Council Of A Positive Youth Development Program: Girls On The Run, Ashley Ann Gallentine

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to explore the coaches' perceptions, motives and constructed identities by participating in a regional physical activity-based positive youth development program. There is growing evidence that suggests the success of positive youth development (PYD) programs depend on the environment that is created by caring adult mentors. These coaches are the delivery vehicles for these programs and play an essential role in the development of participating youth. As a result, the characteristics these coaches possess are critical to the success of the PYD implementation. Based on the application of anthropological methods and theory, this study seeks …

Relationship Between Dysphoric Moods, Risk-Taking Behaviors, And Toxoplasma Gondii Antibody Titers In Female Veterans, Allyson Radford Duffy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The number of female veterans is increasing daily. Previous research conducted on veterans has focused primarily on males or with small samples of females. Depression and suicidality are becoming increasingly evident in returning veterans. Toxoplasma gondii is an intracellular parasite that is common in the Middle East and has been reported to cause changes in personality and behavior.

The purpose of the current study was to examine relationships between T. gondii antibody titer and socioeconomic variables, dysphoric moods, and risk-taking behaviors in a sample of 70 female veterans. Blood samples were collected and analyzed for T. gondii antibody titer and …

African Americans And Hospice: A Culture-Centered Exploration Of Disparities In End-Of-Life Care, Patrick Dillon

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As the United States' population ages and grows more diverse, scholars and practitioners have grown increasingly concerned about persistent disparities in the cost and quality of end-of-life health care, particularly with regard to African Americans. Although a variety of factors may influence these disparities, most scholars agree that the underutilization of hospice care by this population is an important contributor. Drawing from the culture-centered approach to health communication and narrative theory, the present study explores African American patients and caregivers' experiences with hospice care and takes an initial step toward addressing disparities in end-of-life care. I begin this study, first, …

Prevalence, Predictors, And Correlates Of Patient Concealment Of A Lung Cancer Diagnosis, Brian David Gonzalez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Most cases of lung cancer have a commonly-understood behavioral etiology. Thus, individuals with lung cancer are often blamed for their illness by others and may therefore seek to avoid this blame by concealing their diagnosis from others. This study sought to determine the prevalence of diagnosis concealment, examine potential predictors of concealment, and test parts of a cognitive-affective-behavioral model of the effects of concealing a concealable stigma among individuals receiving treatment for lung cancer. With regard to predictors of concealment, it was hypothesized that concealment would be positively associated with male gender, introversion, and trait social anxiety and would be …

Virtual Screening For Inhibitors Of Anti-Apoptotic Proteins: Dck, Bcl-Xl, Mcl-1, Mdmx, And Mdm2, Courtney Jerome Du Boulay

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

←Within this dissertation the topic of virtual screening is discussed with regard to three different cancer targets and also a brief introduction of the tools used in virtual screening. In Chapter 1, the reader will be introduced to virtual screening and the programs that are used in virtual screening. In Chapter 2, the first of three projects are discussed. This project consists of the work that was done to find inhibitors of the P53 binding domain of MDMX. In this project the mobility of residues within the binding site of MDMX are discussed and the ways in which we attempted …

Knowledge, Involvement And Emergency Preparedness, Season Groves

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research formed a descriptive frame of the current levels of emergency preparedness and applied Hallahan's Issues Processes Model to examine the relationship between knowledge, involvement, and emergency preparedness among the participants. The variables were measured in the context of self-perception. The research method involved a survey of students who are just becoming responsible for their personal emergency preparedness. The results suggest that students lack overall emergency preparedness measures and show that self-perceived knowledge is positively related to self-perceived emergency preparedness. Yet, higher self-perceived knowledge is negatively related to actual emergency preparedness actions. Thus, the more knowledgeable the participants believed …

Unbearable Weight, Unbearable Witness: The (Im)Possibility Of Witnessing Eating Disorders In Cyberspace, Kristen Nicole Gay

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues that the recent erasure of digital pro-anorexia ("pro-ana") narratives by websites such as Tumblr, Pinterest, and Instagram represents an attempt to silence female self-starvers and reify the authority of medical associations to speak for female bodies. I draw parallels between these attempts and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's theory of epistemic violence, since the experiences of women are effectively discredited, through metaphors that render the thin body dangerous, to shore up professional medical authority. As an attempt to privilege the experiences of the self-starvers, I analyze one Tumblr blog with eating disorder content to listen to the letters users …

Multiple Calibrations In Integrative Data Analysis: A Simulation Study And Application To Multidimensional Family Therapy, Kristin Wynn Hall

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A recent advancement in statistical methodology, Integrative Data Analyses (IDA Curran & Hussong, 2009) has led researchers to employ a calibration technique as to not violate an independence assumption. This technique uses a randomly selected, simplified correlational structured subset, or calibration, of a whole data set in a preliminary stage of analysis. However, a single calibration estimator suffers from instability, low precision and loss of power. To overcome this limitation, a multiple calibration (MC; Greenbaum et al., 2013; Wang et al., 2013) approach has been developed to produce better estimators, while still removing a level of dependency in the data …

The Effect Of Stealth Advertising In Newscasts On Viewers' Recall, Fany Georgieva

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Product placement, also referred to as stealth advertising, raises important questions when it comes to television because a far larger audience views television than movies. Product placement in newscasts is even more controversial. Television news is expected to be free of persuasive attempts and provide citizens with basic information that is of public importance. Yet, product placement blurs the line between journalism and commercial promotion, thus destroying the integrity of the news.

Product placement in newscasts raises ethical questions about the effect it has on viewers, provided that they do not realize that they are presented with commercials, framed as …

Mother- To - Child Transmission Of Hiv And Congenital Syphilis: A Snapshot Of An Epidemic In The Republic Of Panama, Lorna Elizabeth Jenkins

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Background: Worldwide HIV is going through a feminization and rejuvenation as more women are living with HIV/AIDS, increasing the risk of vertical transmission. Despite the efforts in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) by 2010, Panama was the third most affected country in the region with HIV/AIDS, with females aged 15-24 twice as affected as men.

Methods: This descriptive epidemiological study of HIV vertical transmission in Panama reviewed clinical charts to identify health care personnel's practices during pregnancies in 2008. This study also examines the impact of interventions comparing the HIV outcome of the children at the end of …

The Translational Machinery As A Target For Radiosensitization, Thomas John Hayman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Current approaches aimed at improving the efficacy of radiation as a cancer treatment modality involve the development and application of molecularly targeted radiosensitizers, a strategy that requires a thorough understanding of the fundamental processes comprising the cellular radioresponse. Recent data indicating that radiation modifies gene expression primarily through translational control rather than transcriptional events suggests that mRNA translation contributes to cell survival after irradiation. The overall goal of this project is to determine whether the regulatory/rate-limiting components of the translational machinery provide targets for tumor cell radiosensitization. The majority of translation in mammalian cells occurs in a cap-dependent manner and …

Hearing And Echolocation In Stranded And Captive Odontocete Cetaceans, Danielle Greenhow

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Odontocetes use echolocation to detect, track, and discriminate their prey, as well as negotiate their environment. Their hearing abilities match the frequency of greatest sensitivity to the higher frequencies used for foraging and navigation. Hearing and echolocation together provide odontocetes with a highly developed biosonar system. This dissertation examines the hearing ability of several odontocete species to understand what signals they can perceive during echolocation. The variability in hearing ranges between species is examined in the context of phylogenetic and ecological differences among taxa. An autonomous hydrophone array is also developed that could be used in an expanded form in …

Evaluation Of Pulmonary Risks Associated With Selected Occupations, Stephen Casey Harbison

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Occupational health surveillance programs are designed to evaluate and reduce injury, illness, and deaths related to workplace hazards. In the state of Florida, there are numerous industries where workers are potentially exposed to airborne hazards from gases, vapors and dusts. Airborne occupational exposures to irritants, vesicants, and fibrogens have the potential to cause pulmonary function impairment if exposures are not properly controlled for high-level acute exposure as well as chronic exposure. For occupations that demand workers be exposed to substances known to be associated with pulmonary function impairment, respirators may be a principal method for exposure

control. OSHA requires pulmonary …

A Latent Mixture Approach To Modeling Zero-Inflated Bivariate Ordinal Data, Rajendra Kadel

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Multivariate ordinal response data, such as severity of pain, degree of disability, and satisfaction with a healthcare provider, are prevalent in many areas of research including public health, biomedical, and social science research. Ignoring the multivariate features of the response variables, that is, by not taking the correlation between the errors across models into account, may lead to substantially biased estimates and inference. In addition, such multivariate ordinal outcomes frequently exhibit a high percentage of zeros (zero inflation) at the lower end of the ordinal scales, as compared to what is expected under a multivariate ordinal distribution. Thus, zero inflation …

Does The Use Of Personally Relevant Stimuli In Semantic Complexity Training Facilitate Improved Functional Communication Performance Compared To Non-Personally Relevant Stimulus Items Among Adults With Chronic Aphasia?, Stephanie Karidas

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the influence of semantic complexity treatment in individuals with fluent aphasia on discourse performance. Semantic treatment is an effective way to improve semantically based word retrieval problems in aphasia. Treatment focused on the semantic application of the Complexity Account of Treatment Efficacy (CATE) (Thompson, Shapiro, Kiran, & Sobecks, 2003) promotes training of complex items resulting in generalization to less complex, untrained items. In addition, research has shown that the personal relevance of treatment material can increase treatment efficacy. This study investigated the effect of semantic treatment of atypical personally relevant items among individuals with aphasia on discourse …

The Relationship Between High School Coaches' Beliefs About Sports Injury And Prevention Practice Readiness, Siwon Jang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Although sports and other forms of physical activities are associated with numerous health benefits, adolescent sports injury has emerged as an important public health problem. As the most immediate caregivers for athletes, coaches are expected to play an important role in preventing and reducing injuries, -considering that sports medical staff, such as athletic trainers are not always available to care for athletes. However, research on coaches' beliefs and practices related to injury prevention has been limited to coaching competency issues, in which injury prevention is considered only one component. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to describe the coaches' …

The Relationship Between Gratitude And Psychological, Social, And Academic Functioning In Middle Adolescence, Michelle Denise Hasemeyer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Guided by positive psychology and broaden-and-build theoretical frameworks, this study utilized a correlational research design to explore the relationships between gratitude and adolescents' psychological, social, and academic well-being in a diverse sample of 499 high school students. Results of multiple regression analyses that controlled for potential effects of student demographic features on outcomes showed that higher levels of gratitude predicted more life satisfaction (β=.63, sr2=.40) , less internalizing symptoms (β= -.44, sr2= .19), more social support from parents (β=.50, sr2=.25), teachers (β=.28, sr2=.08), and peers (β=.34, sr2=.12), higher grades (β=.12, sr2=.014), and better academic self-perceptions (β=.30, sr2=.09). These relationships were …

Fabricating And Characterizing Physical Properties Of Electrospun Polypeptide-Based Nanofibers, Dhan Bahadur Khadka

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation has aimed to fabricate polypeptide based biomaterial and characterize physical properties. Electrospinning is used as a tool for the sample fabrication. Project focused on determining the feasibility of electrospinning of certain synthetic polypeptides and certain elastin-like peptides from aqueous feedstocks and to characterize physical properties of polymer aqueous solution, cast film and spun fibers and fiber mats. The research involves peptide design, polymer electrospinning, fibers crosslinking, determining the extent of crosslinking, fibers protease degradation study, fibers stability and self-organization analysis, structure and composition determination by various spectroscopy and microscopy techniques and characterization of mechanical properties of individual suspended …

Parent Distress In Life With A Child With Type 1 Diabetes, Lauren Nicole Johnson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Objective:

The purpose of this study was to highlight parent distress in diabetes, identify factors associated with distress and to show how public health and clinical professionals can assist parents in coping with their child's diabetes and living positively as a family unit.

Methods:

Parents of youth with diabetes (N = 41 qualitative, N = 332 quantitative) were engaged in focus groups, interviews, and survey research to understand their needs and stressors in life with a child with diabetes. Themes were examined in the qualitative data, and correlations and a regression model were run and analyzed from the quantitative data …

Media That Objectify Women: The Influence On Individuals' Body Image And Perceptions Of Others, Ross Krawczyk

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Past research has examined body image and eating-related outcomes of exposure to mass media. This research has generally found that such exposure is a significant risk factor for body image disturbance and disordered eating. However, a causal relationship has not yet been firmly established. Several theories, including objectification theory (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997), have attempted to explain this relationship with some success. The current study had two primary goals. First, it was designed to further explore the potential causal relationship between mass media exposure and body image and affect disturbance. Second, it attempted to go beyond individuals' body image and …

Biomechanics Of Patient Handling Slings Associated With Spinal Cord Injuries, Julie Kahn

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Pressure ulcers and related skin integrity threats are a significant problem in current transfer/transport systems used for spinal cord injury patients. To understand this problem twenty-three different slings with varying type, material, and features were analyzed in hopes to identify at-risk areas for skin integrity threats such as pressure ulcers. Population samples included non-disabled (otherwise referred to as "healthy") volunteers as well as SCI patients from the James A. Haley Veterans Hospital. High resolution pressure interface mapping was utilized to directly measure the interface pressures between the patient and sling interface. Overall results provide relevant feedback on the systems used …

The Role Of Acquired Capability As A Differentially-Specific Risk Factor For Disordered Eating And Problematic Alcohol Use In Female College Students: A Measure Development And Validation Study, Christa D. Labouliere

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Traditional college students are members of an age bracket noted for high levels of risky behavior, and research has shown that certain risky behaviors, such as disordered eating and problematic alcohol use, are particularly common among undergraduates. It is well established that certain events in the learning history predispose vulnerable persons to engage in maladaptive risky behaviors. What is less clear is why some persons facing these events go on to develop maladaptive behavior while others do not, or why people facing similar events develop different varieties of maladaptive behaviors. Current research has focused extensively on risk factors that are …

Exercise Barriers In Cancer Survivors: A Multi-Dimensional Approach, Morgan Lee

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The population of cancer survivors is rapidly expanding, and promotion of health and quality of life for these individuals is a priority. Exercise confers numerous general and cancer–specific benefits, yet many cancer survivors are insufficiently active. Research on perceived exercise barriers in cancer survivors has been limited by methodological and conceptual problems. Recent research suggests barriers may be multi–dimensional, and different types of barriers may be salient depending on whether or not a person intends to engage in a given behavior. Global (i.e., abstract) barriers may be negatively associated with intention, while practical (i.e., concrete) barriers may be positively associated …

The Man Behind The Mask: A Principal's Search For A Moral Leaderhip Purpose, James Franklin Lane

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this autoethnographic narrative inquiry was for the researcher to describe and explain how he discovered, constructed, and refined his sense of moral purpose as a principal during his seven-year tenure at Orange Pines Middle School. He inductively analyzed and reflected primarily on self-authored texts tied to critical professional ethical dilemmas so as to discover emergent themes, patterns, insights, and epiphanies in the development of his persona as a morally directed school leader. He then analyzed and reflected on how he applied those defined values in interactions with groups of teachers to design and implement elements of school …

Connecting Pixels To People: Management Agents And Social-Ecological Determinants Of Changes To Street Tree Distributions, Shawn Landry

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Street trees are an important component of the urban forest that can provide direct and indirect benefits to social and ecological sustainability in cities. Temporal and spatial interactions between human and non-human management agents determine the distribution and health of street tree populations in urban areas. This dissertation seeks to enhance our understanding of the spatial patterns and processes affecting street trees by investigating the agents and social-ecological determinants of changes to street tree distributions in urban residential neighborhoods. The research was guided by three primary questions: (1) Are recent changes to the spatial distribution of street trees influenced by …

Modeling Nitrogen Transformations In A Pilot Scale Marine Integrated Aquaculture System, Brian Mccarthy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Integrated aquaculture systems (IAS) are a type of recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) where the wastewater is treated and returned to the fish tanks. The important difference between the two is that in an IAS, wastes from the aquaculture component are recovered as fertilizer to produce an agricultural product whereas in an RAS, waste organics, nutrients and solids are treated and discharged. A pilot marine IAS at Mote Aquaculture Research Park in Sarasota, FL was studied for this project. Water quality monitoring, measurements of fish health and growth rates of fish and plants were performed over a two-year period to determine …

The Experiences Of Mothers Of Children With Autism In Jamaica: An Exploratory Study Of Their Journey, Angela R. Mann

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs), also referred to as Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDDs), are characterized by deficits in verbal and nonverbal communication, social interaction, and repetitive or restricted interests and behaviors. To date, much of the literature on ASDs has been conducted from a western perspective, although interest in ASDs from a global perspective has dramatically increased in recent years. Over the last decade, there have been numerous conceptual papers attempting to explain how autism might be experienced in other parts of the world. However, in actuality, little research has been conducted in this area, and further exploration of the experiences …

Factors Associated With Fear Of Breast Cancer Recurrence Among Survivors, Jean Marie Lucas

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this cross-sectional, secondary data analysis was to explore, non-modifiable (stable) trait factors and modifiable (transient) state factors associated with fear of recurrence (FOR) in breast cancer survivors. Antecedent trait factors included demographic, clinical, social/behavioral factors, postulated mediator state factors included pain, fatigue, sleep disturbances, depression, state anxiety and perceived stress, and FOR was the outcome variable. The study used baseline data from an R-21 NCI funded (grant #R21CA109168) randomized control trial that examined the effects of mindfulness based stress reduction in early stage breast cancer recovery. Instruments from this study for antecedent variables (trait factors) included a …

A Wearable Motion Analysis System To Evaluate Gait Deviations, Amanda Lynn Martori

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A Wearable Motion Analysis System (WMAS) was developed to evaluate gait, particularly parameters that are indicative of mild traumatic brain injury. The WMAS consisted on six Opal IMUs attached on the sternum, waist, left and right thigh and left and right shank. Algorithms were developed to calculate the knee flexion angle, stride length and cadence parameters during slow, normal and fast gait speeds. The WMAS was validated for repeatability using a robotic arm and accuracy using the Vicon motion capture system, the gold standard for gait analysis. The WMAS calculated the gait parameters to within a clinically acceptable range and …