Digital Commons Network^™

System And Method For Bio-Inspired Filter Banks For A Brain-Computer Interface, Ali Fatih Demir, Ismail Uysal, Huseyin Arslan

USF Patents

A system and method of steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) frequency detection using bio-inspired filter banks (BIFB) includes, acquiring electroencephalographic (EEG) signals from a subject in response to a repetitive visual stimulus, estimating the power spectral density (PSD) of the channel of the EEG signals including at least one SSVEP response, extracting one or more SSVEP response features from the estimated PSD of the channel using a bio-inspired filter bank (BIFB) and classifying the extracted SSVEP response features to determine if the detected SSVEP response frequency from the EEG signals acquired from the subject substantially matches the repetition frequency of …

Digital Fabrication Of A Small Diameter Polymer Optical Waveguide, Venkat Rama Bhethanabotla, Thomas M. Weller, Roger Brandon Tipton, John Townsend Bentley, Eduardo Antonio Rojas

USF Patents

A novel polymer optical waveguide and method of manufacturing is presented herein. A digitally manufactured process is described which utilizes a micro-dispensed UV optical adhesive as the contour guiding cladding, a fused deposition modeling technology for creating a core, additional optical adhesive to complete the cladding and a subtractive laser process to finish the two ends of the optical interconnect.

When Consumers Live Several Experiences In One: Syncretic Thematization And Consumers’ Productive Use Of Free Time, Damien Chaney, Fuat Firat

Marketing Faculty Publications

In a culture of experiential consumption, themed consumer experiences have become highly marketable commodities, giving birth to new types of experiences. In this research, we explore these new forms of experiences that try to escape from commodification through syncretism. We conduct an ethnography of a highly themed festival, Hellfest in France. We identify that this festival offers an experience based on cognitive, sensory, and praxeological syncretism which aims to re-enchant as well as disorient consumers. Since syncretic experiences are perceived as several sub-experiences in one, we also show how these new types of experiences are rooted in a new conception …

Is2020 A Competency Model For Undergraduate Programs In Information Systems: The Joint Acm/Ais Is2020 Task Force, Paul Leidig, Hannu Salmela

College of Computing Peer-Reviewed Articles

The IS2020 report is the latest in a series of model curricula recommendations and guidelines for undergraduate degrees in Information Systems (IS). The report builds on the foundations developed in previous model curricula reports to develop a major revision of the model curriculum with the inclusion of significant new characteristics. Specifically, the IS2020 report does not directly prescribe a degree structure that targets a specific context or environment. Rather, the IS2020 report provides guidance regarding the core content of the curriculum that should be present but also provides flexibility to customize curricula according to local institutional needs.

Characterization Of Growth Patterns And Meat Quality Characteristics Of Four Commercial Broiler Strains In Small Bird And Large Bird Programs In The United States, Clay Johnny Maynard

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Through current trends in animal protein consumption, the United States poultry industry has seen a drastic rise in production and popularity. Over the last few decades, poultry meat has surpassed both beef and pork production to become the most widely consumed animal protein. This rise may be accredited to an increased transition to more health-conscious consumers. As more consumers purchase poultry as a lean source of protein, the need for a superior quality product is of great interest to poultry integrators.

Relationships between commercial broiler lines have been well documented in previous years, but constant and intensive genetic selection in …

Projecting Water Available For Irrigation Use And Identifying Water Supply Stress Under Climate Change Scenarios In Selected U.S. Fruit And Vegetable Production Regions, Andrew Shaw

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Climate change affects water resources differently across geospatial regions in the United States (U.S). There is a concern of how water availability will be affected by changes in long-term temperature and precipitation patterns, specifically in major production regions for eight fruit and vegetable crops. The effects on surface water available for irrigation use and supply stress in five regions containing 31 Agricultural Statistics Districts (ASDs) were assessed. The Water Supply Stress Index Model was used and modified to project water available for irrigation use across nine climate scenarios driven by historical data, five General Circulation Models, two population scenarios, and …

Impact Of Monetary Policy On Inflation Rate In Nigeria: Vector Autoregressive Analysis, Eggon Ahmed Henry, Ajidani Moses Sabo

Bullion

The Nigerian monetary authorities have implemented several monetary management policies with the aim of achieving price stability and economic growth in the country, but without success. This study was conducted to examine the impact of monetary policy management on inflation in Nigeria during the 1985- 2019. Autoregressive distributed lag analysis was employed on time series data covering the period. It was found that while monetary policy rate and foreign exchange rate impacted negatively on inflation; broad money supply impact positively on it. Therefore, the study recommended that monetary authorities should fix the exchange rate at where the value of Naira …

“9/11 And The Collapse Of The American Dream: Imbolo Mbue’S Behold The Dreamers”, Elizabeth Toohey

Publications and Research

Behold the Dreamers follows a Cameroonian couple who, as newcomers to America, harbor dreams of success unavailable to them back home. Undocumented immigration, the widening gulf between rich and poor, and the thinly veiled racism of an avowedly "post-racial" culture converge in this new generation of immigrants' painful encounter with the American dream. I consider the ways Mbue's novel shares themes with a "second wave" of post- 9/11 literature—first, in centering the disillusionment of a protagonist aspiring to the American dream; next, in its representation of New York as a space haunted by 9/11, but also of resistance to the …

Gender And Change Over Time On Reading Achievement For English Learners In Grades 3-4 In Northwest Arkansas, Molly Wingfield

College of Education Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation was to determine the effects by change over time between males versus females on reading achievement measured by the NWEA MAP Growth Reading 2-5 AR 2016 for ELPA21 Beginning and ELPA21 Intermediate levels for third- and fourth-grade students from a school district in Northwest Arkansas. This study is important because serving English learners, which is the fastest growing population of students, will help close the achievement gap and eliminate gender bias. This study is rooted in the five main hypotheses of Krashen’s theory of second language acquisition (Krashen, 1981, 1982, 2002). To address each of …

Towards Pragmatic Adaptations: Orthopedic Surgery Amidst The Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic, Maryam Ehtesham, Talal Almas, Muhammad Ali Niaz, Absam Akbar

Medical College Documents

No abstract provided.

"Through A Forest Wilderness:” Native American Environmental Management At Yosemite And Contested Conservation Values In America’S National Parks, Rochelle Bloom, Douglas Deur

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Chapter 9. The philosophies and views of nature prevalent in the 19th century West shaped the early National Park Service, and continue to influence park policy today. Park-builders incorrectly viewed early parks as untouched “wilderness,” even as Native peoples continued to occupy, revere, and actively manage lands and resources on these lands. This misapprehension fostered the creation and enforcement of park regulations meant to protect wild spaces, resulting in the displacement of both Native peoples and the culturally significant habitats that they had helped sustain for millennia. Among these regulations, federally imposed restrictions on burning and other traditional plant community …

Taking Student Artists And Audiences To The West Side: Exploring The Value Of Creative Adaptation In An Arts Context Through A Case Study Of “West Side Story”, Rebecca G. Bateson-Brown

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

This project focuses on the practical application and conceptual acceptance of deliberate creative adaptation within the purview of the performing arts and arts education. More specifically, it centers this conversation around stagings of the iconic musical West Side Story, as my role as a choreographer and arts educator is used to further explore, examine, and emphasize these topics through the documentation of my production planning process, choreographic creation, and ultimate execution of performance material for a local high school production of the show. As such, this project builds with greater specificity off of my previous investigations of “adaptation” as …

Cross-Cultural Analysis Of Gamer Identity: A Comparison Of The United States And Poland, Małgorzata Ćwil, William T. Howe

Communication Faculty Publications

Who is a gamer? What kind of people are perceived to be gamers? And finally – who perceives themselves as a gamer? In this article the authors attempt to answer these three questions from a multinational perspective.

Background. Games are nowadays one of the most frequently encountered forms of entertainment and constitute an ever-increasing part of many people’s day-to-day lives. With the rising popularity of video games, there is a need to conduct a research concerning gamer identity and to find out who perceives themselves as a gamer. The aim of this study is to compare the results of …

Imparting 3d Representations To Artificial Intelligence For A Full Assessment Of Pressure Injuries., Sofia Zahia

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

During recent decades, researches have shown great interest to machine learning techniques in order to extract meaningful information from the large amount of data being collected each day. Especially in the medical field, images play a significant role in the detection of several health issues. Hence, medical image analysis remarkably participates in the diagnosis process and it is considered a suitable environment to interact with the technology of intelligent systems. Deep Learning (DL) has recently captured the interest of researchers as it has proven to be efficient in detecting underlying features in the data and outperformed the classical machine learning …

Structural Characterization And Selective Drug Targeting Of Higher-Order Dna G-Quadruplex Systems., Robert Chandos Monsen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There is now substantial evidence that guanine-rich regions of DNA form non-B DNA structures known as G-quadruplexes in cells. G-quadruplexes (G4s) are tetraplex DNA structures that form amid four runs of guanines which are stabilized via Hoogsteen hydrogen bonding to form stacked tetrads. DNA G4s have roles in key genomic functions such as regulating gene expression, replication, and telomere homeostasis. Because of their apparent role in disease, G4s are now viewed as important molecular targets for anticancer therapeutics. To date, the structures of many important G4 systems have been solved by NMR or X-ray crystallographic techniques. Small molecules developed to …

Job Satisfaction For Individuals With Disabilities: Youth One Year Out., Katherine Michelle Cooper Phd

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Even though there have been decades of research, practice, and legislative efforts in the field of secondary transition, it is believed that students with disabilities are still less likely to enroll in postsecondary education or training, secure competitive employment, and live independently than their nondisabled peers. One of the reasons for this might be the lack of understanding students’ perceptions of employment opportunities. Much of the early vocational legislation focused on the needs of adult workers injured during a war or in civil employment. The last iteration of the Rehabilitation Act in the 1990s described disabilities, even the most significant …

I Told You That To Tell You This: Metagaming And Metacognition In The Hybrid Classroom, Marc A. Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

This paper theorizes the use of play and gamified methods to foster metacognition, or strategies for learning and learning about learning, in online graduate instruction. In the process, it calls into question the determinism of “serious” games as being the only means of facilitating metacognition. Ultimately, by adopting metagame approaches—that is, approaches based on0 goals and achievements that are external to the game and/or are developed by the players themselves—metacognition can and does occur because students participate in the development of the rewards. Moreover, any metagame feature ultimately becomes a commentary so that an approach based on metagaming offers its …

The Role Of Faculty In Fostering Psychosocial Wellbeing Among University Students, Kelley Wick

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The transition to college represents a major life event, and successfully navigating this shift has implications for students’ psychosocial wellbeing. While there is ample support for the idea that social relationships can facilitate student wellbeing during the transition to college, there is limited understanding of the unique role faculty may play in supporting students. The aim of this study was to determine the relation of faculty support to student wellbeing and self-efficacy, independent of peer support and student level of stress. Additionally, the primary questions were to examine whether self-efficacy mediated the relation of faculty support to student wellbeing, and …

Micro-Credentialing: Establishing A Wyoming Framework, Ignacia Goicolea

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Micro-credentialing has become a buzz word in professional development. This new frontier has become a national trend in many areas, from business to industry. The landscape is being defined by private vendors instead of traditional educational enterprises. Vendors are competing to define and control the micro-credentialing market and take micro-credentials beyond its current context of primarily professional development to potentially, in their vision, replace testing, credentialing, and higher education overall. With the promise of expedited completion and competency, substantially lower costs, and ease of access, micro-credentialing is becoming a threat and opportunity as a disruptive and catalytic innovation for higher …

Relationship Between Personal Distress And Aggression Is Moderated By Nucleus Accumbens Volume, Yuan Ta Poh

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Studies into the relationship between empathy and aggression has found that the effect is weak (Vachon et al., 2014). This weak relationship is observed through aspects of empathy interacting with aspects of aggression in different ways depending on the types of empathy and aggression being measured. The present study utilized neuroimaging approach to examine the relationship among empathy, aggression and nucleus accumbens (NAc) volume. Forty nine college students underwent magnetic resonance imaging scans and completed the Interpersonal Reactivity Index as well as the Reactive-Proactive Questionnaire. Using FreeSurfer, bilateral NAc volumes were obtained for statistical analysis. Hierarchal regression analyses were utilized …

Through Their Eyes: Photo Stories About Family Strengths In Johannesburg, South Africa, Megan Ribbens

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

A study by DeFrain, Asay and Geggie (2010) outlines six characteristics of strong families. This qualitative case study investigates one of the six qualities. Using an adapted photovoice research method, 12 parents in Johannesburg, South Africa describe what spending enjoyable time looks like in their personal and community context. Additionally, they outline the barriers that keep families from enjoyable activities. Qualitative data for analysis included: photographs, written descriptions, compiled activity lists, and focus group discussion. Open, axial, and selective codes and theme analysis were used to analyze the data. This study hopes to contribute to the understanding of the strengths …

Assessment Of Grain Safety In Developing Nations, Jose R. Mendoza

Department of Food Science and Technology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Grains are the most widely consumed foods worldwide, with maize (Zea mays) being frequently consumed in developing countries where it feeds approximately 900 million people under the poverty line of 2 USD per day. While grain handling practices are acceptable in most developed nations, many developing nations still face challenges such as inadequate field management, drying, and storage. Faulty grain handling along with unavoidably humid climates result in recurrent fungal growth and spoilage, which compromises both the end-quality and safety of the harvest. This becomes particularly problematic where there is little awareness about health risks associated with poor …

Skinned, Jolie Vega

The Prairie Light Review

No abstract provided.

Crimes And Offenses: Proposed Constitutional Carry Act Of 2019 & Executive Order By The Governor Temporarily Extending Renewal Requirements For Weapons Carry Licenses, Kristin Harripaul, Briana A. James

Georgia State University Law Review

In March 2020, Governor Brian Kemp (R) issued an Executive Order declaring a Public Health State of Emergency due to COVID-19. The Supreme Court of Georgia also issued a Judicial Order declaring a Statewide Judicial Emergency. The Council of Probate Court Judges subsequently characterized the processing of weapons carry licenses as non-essential and temporarily suspended license issuances to limit the spread of COVID-19. HB 2 would have eliminated the license requirement and the need for probate judges to process applications. However, HB 2 never received a hearing before the 2019–20 legislative session ended. Gun rights advocates called on Governor Kemp …

Empathy And Community In The Age Of Refugees: Petzold’S Radical Translation Of Seghers’ Transit, Margarete Landwehr

Languages & Cultures Faculty Publications

Petzold’s film constitutes a radical translation of Seghers’ novel by transforming her tale of political refugees in Vichy France into an existential allegory depicting the fluidity of identities and relationships in a globalized world. The transitory existence of Petzold’s war refugee serves as an extreme example of the instability of modern life, which allows spectators to identify and empathize with migrants’ unpredictable journeys. Moreover, the director conveys the universality of his protagonist’s story by portraying him as an Everyman bereft of distinctive personality traits, by intermingling the past (Seghers’ plot) with the present (contemporary settings), and by situating his experiences …

Examining The Overlooked Complexities Of School Lunch: An Investigation Into The Juncture Of Food, Schooling, And The Developing Adolescent, Eleanor Kane

Doctoral Dissertations

School lunch is a universal experience for students everywhere and yet remains largely understudied by educational researchers. This dissertation explores school lunch through the lens of adolescent identity theory, with the purpose of investigating the unarticulated and overlooked complexities inherent in the lunch block, from issues of the developing sense of self, to social and cultural meanings surrounding food, and consequences for social reproduction. I used a combination of ethnographic observations and narrative interviews at a rural New England high school, focusing on participants’ daily habits, food practices, and choices during the lunch block. Through this, I established the normative …

White Discipline, Black Rebellion: A History Of American Race Riots From Emancipation To The War On Drugs, Jordan C. Burke

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is a comparative analysis of American race riots, within and across historical eras, from Emancipation (1863) to the War on Drugs (1972). I argue that changes in the status of African-American citizenship produced different forms of race rioting. Examining riot events across eras reveals how ethical principles at the core of democracy are undermined in specific socio-historical contexts—especially equality of participation in collective self-governance. Congressional testimony, state-sponsored riot investigations, and archival data indicate that riots have been used historically to structure racial inequality in both political institutions and economic relations. While race riots have proven instrumental in maintaining …

Characterizing Student Engagement In A Post-Secondary Developmental Mathematics Class And Exploring The Reflexivity Between Social And Sociomathematical Norms, David Fifty

Doctoral Dissertations

Traditionally, post-secondary developmental mathematics courses aspire to equip students with mathematical content knowledge needed to succeed in calculus and subsequent STEM courses. The literature shows that this goal alone is insufficient, as the emphasis on content acquisition often comes at the expense of developing higher-order skills such as argumentation, reasoning, and flexibility in mathematics problem solving (Chiaravalloti, 2009; Partanen & Kaasila, 2014; Star et al., 2015). Redesigning curricula with these additional objectives in mind requires providing students with opportunities to engage with mathematics in ways that may contrast with their past experiences or expectations. It requires changing patterns of classroom …

Bacterial Genome And Population Dynamics With Implications For Public Health, Cooper John Park

Doctoral Dissertations

Bacterial populations are extraordinarily heterogeneous. Despite growing clonally, these populations are often composed of multiple lineages distinguished by both phenotypic and genetic differences that are caused by both allelic and whole gene variation. Such genomic mosaicism and within-species variation can significantly impact a species’ response to selective pressures from antibiotic use, vaccination, immune responses and host environment. One important process that contributes to this phenomenon is recombination, the exchange of very similar DNA sequences between strains which can result to either the addition or replacement of homologous genes. Current models of microbial recombination incorporate the null expectation that recombination is …

Paid Family Leave & The Media: A Narrative Policy Framework, Nichole Angelic Horn

Public Affairs Dissertations - Archive

This study seeks to understand how paid family leave laws influence traditional gender roles and stereotypes. The mother homemaker/father breadwinner narrative, a prominent concept within feminist circles, assumes particular gendered roles that include women’s responsibility for unpaid labor within the home. The implications of these gendered roles leave women in an economically disadvantaged position. Given the media’s influence in policy making and function to echo current social values, this study utilizes the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) to investigate how the media frames these policies, and whether that framing helps to dismantle traditional gender narratives. This study finds that as these …