Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Evolution Of The Karst Information Portal, Todd A. Chavez

Academic Resources Faculty and Staff Publications

The Karst Information Portal (KIP) is a digital library initiative linking scientists, resource managers, and explorers with quality information resources concerning karst, an understudied natural environment that is crucial to the health and well-being of one out of every four people on Earth. Beginning in 2006 as a partnership between the USF Libraries, the National Cave & Karst Research Institute, the University of New Mexico Library, and the Union Internationale de Spéléologie (UIS), KIP has expanded to include databases concerning cave minerals, speleothem dating, and coastal cave surveys. This presentation outlines the evolution of the project and describes ongoing developments …

Cave Mineral Database: A Joint Collaboration Between Geologists, Librarians, And Programmers, Beverly Caggiano, Bogdan P. Onac, Todd A. Chavez

Academic Resources Faculty and Staff Publications

The Cave Mineral Database (CAMIDA) is a collaborative project of the University of South Florida Libraries, UIS’s Cave Minerals Commission, the Karst Information Portal, “Emil Racoviţă Institute of Speleology (Romania), and the Karst Research Group at University of South Florida (USA). CAMIDA is an open-access collection of geological, mineralogical, crystallographical, and protection/conservation information on all minerals discovered in caves (including lava tubes) around the world. It holds and organizes large amounts of information (including polarizing, scanning, and transmission microscope photos), and makes any item immediately accessible. It also provides links to many other integrated database of Raman spectra, X-ray diffraction …

The Development Of Nationalism In The Indian Case, Sriram Madhusoodanan

Grace Allen Scholars Theses

Narratives, particularly historical narratives, frame our identities: they tell the story of our origins and provide us with direction to guide future action. Considering the numerous movements they have fostered in past 200 years, few identities have been as powerful a motor for social change or emerged as loudly on the world stage as national identities. In this context, India presents a unique case. In attempting to classify it, India could be labeled a multi‐nation state, due to the immense diversity of linguistic, cultural and ethnic groups that reside within it, each with its own particular historical narrative and myths …

How Bad Will Climate Change Get?: Factors And Mechanisms Of Global Warming, Joseph F. White

Grace Allen Scholars Theses

This report attempted to answer the question, “How Bad Will Climate Change Get?”. This was accomplished by, first, presenting a current assessment on the science of Global Warming. Factors and causes were analyzed with heavy emphasis on the paleoclimate record and the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. The report, which released in 2007, is considered by many scientists to be too optimistic and conservative as it neglects to account for various feedback mechanisms and other drivers that can impact climate. Thus, the next part of this report does a thorough and complete review of all mechanisms that can drive future climates. …

Implementation Of Low Impact Development In Modern Urbanization As Exampled Through Capstone Design, Allyson G. Risner

Grace Allen Scholars Theses

This thesis is a continuation of my Engineering Capstone Design. The design itself involves the site plan of a fictitious mixed-use development in Polk County, Florida. The initial design was completed as a group (consisting of five people) under the fabricated engineering firm Lever Engineering, LLC and was completed as if it would be submitted to the County for actual approval.

The project was designed over a 20 acre site (with an additional 10 acres available for purchase) in Winter Haven, Florida that is currently being used as a neighborhood park with several youth baseball fields. Lever Engineering was given …

A Proposal For A Student Office For Sustainability And Awareness, Frank Michael Malatesta

Grace Allen Scholars Theses

The environment has been neglected for too much of the history of industrialized society, Only now, after much damage has occurred, are nations beginning to support environmentally friendly policies and initiatives. Despite the effort, the need for change has not hit the all of thepopulation with a "Jolt." One of the best places to develop a sustainability mindset is at the University level. Universities must lead the example as the focal points of their respective communities and as the training grounds for the leaders of tommorrow. Currently, the University of South Florida falls short in the endeavor. The University lacks …

Walking The Walk: An Examination Of Āl Murrah Bedouin's Motives For Continued Nomadism, Benjamin Mehanni

Grace Allen Scholars Theses

The Āl Murrah, a Bedouin tribe in Saudi Arabia, practice nomadic pastoralism to this day. They continue to resist the pressures to settle exerted by government sponsored settlement programs, as well as the rise of a modern capitalist economy, whose growth increases the cost of living. The Āl Murrah’s motives for resisting sedentarization are based on a collectivist value system that defines a high quality of life based on accessing the desert and camels’ milk, having the freedom to decide when and where to herd their camels, and gaining the respect of their family and community. These factors are contingent …

James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, And The Confines Of Autonomous Language, David M. Vassalotti

Grace Allen Scholars Theses

The act of communication is one contingent upon successful translation. Drawings, gestures, and speech are all approximations used in order to convey ideas and information. For the most part, these methods of communication serve their purpose, but there are certain ‘things’ (for lack of a better word) which cannot be communicated through any conceivable language. Each person has their own unique set of experiences and memories. Each individual mind is unique in how it interprets a word, an action, a color, a smell, etc. If a hundred people hear the word ‘dog,’ each one will envision a different image in …

The Sustainability Of The Roman Forum, David Gargiulo

Grace Allen Scholars Theses

If walls could talk, what would the crumbling walls of the Curia Hostilia, the Temple of Venus and Roma, or any other structure in the Roman Forum tell us? Surely, tales of the glory of the Roman Empire that erected them would be told in their deserved splendor. However, the Forum Romanum tells the tales of thousands of others as well, the saga of the people who lived around those walls for more than 2000 years. For instance, the Forum’s loss of many of its marble and other stone taken by those in desperate need of building materials in the …

The Effectiveness And Efficiency Of Female Chief Executive Officers, Robin Crauthers

Grace Allen Scholars Theses

Female Chief Executive Officers lead 2.4% of the top 1000 companies in the United States (Fortune). Why does such a large gender gap exist? There are many possible reasons. However, since a public company’s goal is to increase its value and maximize its profits, the only acceptable excuse for the continued gender gap is if women CEOs are not as efficient and effective as male CEOs.

Financial ratios provide a comparison measurement of efficiency and effectiveness when compared to industry standard ratios commonly computed. This study uses current and quick ratios, inventory turnover ratios, debt to equity ratio, return on …

Quantitative Literacy On The Web Of Science, 2 – Mining The Health Numeracy Literature For Assessment Items, H. Len Vacher, Todd A. Chavez

Academic Resources Faculty and Staff Publications

A topic search of the Web of Science (WoS) database using the term “numeracy” produced a bibliography of 293 articles, reviews and editorial commentaries (Oct 2008). The citation graph of the bibliography clearly identifies five benchmark papers (1995-2001), four of which developed numeracy assessment instruments. Starting with the 80 papers that cite these benchmarks, we identified a set of 25 papers (1995-2008) in which the medical research community reports the development and/or application of health-numeracy assessments. In all we found 10 assessment instruments from which we have compiled a total of 48 assessment items. There are both general and context-specific …

Why We Do It – The University Of South Florida Tampa Library’S Commitment To Open-Access Publishing, Todd A. Chavez

Academic Resources Faculty and Staff Publications

The University of South Florida Tampa Library's support for open-access content is part of the organization's mission to advance scholarly communication generally and an important element of the Karst Information Portal initiative. As the costs associated with journal subscriptions increase and pressures to ensure unfettered access to high-quality, peer-reviewed research mount, research libraries must partner with scholars to establish sustainable open-access publishing models.

“Un Final Para La Discutible Historia”: El Eterno Retorno De Los Adioses, Pablo A.J. Brescia

World Languages Faculty Publications

Este artículo reflexiona sobre cómo el marco de lectura propuesto por Los adioses (1954) instala un juego de interpretaciones que postulan la ambigüedad y la duda. El resultado de este juego es una revisión de las actividades de la lectura y la escritura. Así, hay un eterno retorno a Los adioses, una incesante búsqueda de indicios que el texto se resiste a dar, es decir, un continuo proceso de relectura-reescritura. Hay un cíclico "volver a empezar" donde todo se repite y nada es lo mismo y, a partir de allí, un intento de organizar una estructura coherente para así inspeccionar …

Notes On The State Of Virginia And The Jeffersonian West., Thomas Hallock

USF St. Petersburg campus Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.