Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Workflow Modeling Using Finite Automata, Atul Ravi Khemuka

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A Workflow is an automation of a business process. In general, it consists of processes and activities, which are represented by well-defined tasks. These include 'Office Automation,' 'Health Care' and service-oriented processes such as 'Online Reservations,' 'Online Bookstores' and 'Insurance Claims,' etc. The entities that execute these tasks are humans, application programs or database management systems. These tasks are related and dependent on one another based on business policies and rules.

With rapid increases in application domains that use workflow management systems, there is a need for a framework that can be used to implement these applications. In particular, it …

Computer-Aided Diagnosis For Mammographic Microcalcification Clusters, Mugdha Tembey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths among women in the United States and microcalcifications clusters are one of the most important indicators of breast disease. Computer methodologies help in the detection and differentiation between benign and malignant lesions and have the potential to improve radiologists' performance and breast cancer diagnosis significantly.

A Computer-Aided Diagnosis (CAD-Dx) algorithm has been previously developed to assist radiologists in the diagnosis of mammographic clusters of calcifications with the modules: (a) detection of all calcification-like areas, (b) false-positive reduction and segmentation of the detected calcifications, (c) selection of morphological and distributional features …

A Novel Normal-To-Plane Space Efficient Micro Corner Cube Retroreflector With Improved Fill Factor, Rahul Agarwal

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A Corner Cube Retro-reflector (CCR) is a device that can be used as transmitters in wireless free space optical communication systems, or remote sensing instruments. A novel approach to fabricate the CCR is developed, where almost 100% of the planar chip area acts as the CCR compared to the maximum of 33% in the prior MEMS CCRs. Unlike the conventional micro machined CCRs that have two planes (mirrors of the CCR) normal to the surface of the wafer, our approach yields all the mirrors within the bulk of the wafer, ensuring very high packing densities and wide acceptance angles. The …

Feasibility And Emissions Of Compression Ignition Engines Fueled With Waste Vegetable Oil, Morgan H. Crawford

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research and experience has shown that vegetable oil can be processed, by transesterification, into a useable fuel for compression ignition engines. Earlier research examined using straight vegetable oil as a fuel, but found it to cause detrimental engine problems. Trial and error has shown that heating the vegetable oil prior to injection, is a viable option. A diesel vehicle engine was operated for over 188 hours or approximately 7,000 miles, using waste cooking oil as fuel. The longevity of the vehicle engine was limited by an undetermined engine failure.

Using stationary testing, with no engine load and various power settings, …

Design And Development Of A Silicon Carbide Chemical Vapor Deposition Reactor, Matthew T. Smith

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this thesis is to present the design and development of a chemical vapor deposition reactor for the growth of high quality homoepitaxy silicon carbide films for electronic device applications. The work was performed in the Nanomaterials and Nanomanufacturing Research Center at the University of South Florida from 8/2001-5/2003.

Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is the technique of choice for SiC epitaxial growth. Epitaxial layers are the building blocks for use in various semiconductor device applications. This thesis reports on a SiC epitaxy process where a carrier gas (hydrogen) is saturated with reactive precursors (silane and propane) which are …

Optimizing Cost And Data Entry For Assignment Of Patients To Clinical Trials Using Analytical And Probabilistic Web-Based Agents, Bhavesh Dineshbhai Goswami

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A clinical trial is defined as a study conducted on a group of patients to determine the effect of a treatment. Assignment of patients to clinical trials is a data and labor intensive task. Usually, medical personnel manually check the eligibility of a patient for a clinical trial based on the patient's medical history and current medical condition. According to studies, most clinical trials are under-enrolled which negatively affects their effectiveness. We have developed web-based agents that can test the eligibility of patients for many clinical trials at once. We have tested various heuristics for optimizing cost and data entry …

Characterization And Formation Of Particulate Nitrate In A Coastal Area, Melissa Cheryl Foster Evans

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Particulate nitrates play important roles in the atmosphere. They consist mainly of NH₄NO₃ and NaNO₃, products from the reactions of gaseous HNO₃ with gaseous NH₃ and sea salt, respectively. The gas-to-particle phase conversion of nitrate changes its deposition characteristics and ultimately changes the transport and deposition rates of the locally produced species. Studies were conducted to develop background information on the particle concentrations and size distributions and the chemistry and kinetics behind the interactions.

The predominant nitrate species in the Tampa Bay area was identified as coarse mode NaNO₃. NH_{4 …}

Assessing The Reproducibility Of Coral-Based Climate Records: A Multi-Proxy Replication Test Using Three Porites Lutea Coral Heads From New Caledonia, Christie L. Stephans

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Coral-based climate studies commonly use elemental ratios and stable isotopes of coral skeletons to address seawater temperature and hydrologic balance issues in the tropical surface oceans. Replication, or cross-checking, a standard technique used to assess the fidelity of proxy records in paleoclimatology has not been widely applied in coral-based climate studies, primarily because of the time and cost associated with generating multiple records from a single reef site. Modern and paleoclimate reconstructions based on a single proxy-coral record from a site may contain errors if individual corals from the same reef record different geochemical signals. In this study we perform …

Analysis Of Flow In A Spray Nozzle With Emphasis On Exiting Jet Free Surface, Ryan M. Mead

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A conical nozzle with two separate inlets within its top plate is analyzed. One of the inlets is in the center of the top plate, which is free to rotate, whereas the other inlet is positioned away from the center. The fluid entering through the outer inlet slot causes the top plate of the nozzle to spin. Several fluids including FC-77, FC-72, FC-87, and Methanol running at different flow rates were investigated to observe the effect that their particular properties have on the geometry of the fluid's free surface exiting the nozzle. Another variation performed was the geometry of the …

Evaluation Of Pile Driving Lead Section, Kadir Uslu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Driving piles constitute a large portion of the high-capacity foundations used today. They transfer structural loads to deep bearing strata when adequate surficial soils are not available. The mechanisms required to install these piles generally consist of a hammer, hammer lead, a crane, and various support rigging.

This study focused on lead sections, specifically, one which was manufactured by Berminghammer Foundation Equipment, Inc. The dimensions and strength of a lead section must be capable of supporting both the pile driving hammer and the longest anticipated pile for a given site. The strength of the section must be capable of withstanding …

Genetic Changes In Natural Populations Caused By The Release Of Cultured Fishes, Michael Dominic Tringali

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Genetic changes likely occur in wild fish populations as a consequence of interactions with cultured fish, but to what extent do those changes threaten the maintenance of natural genetic diversity and population viability? Following a review and categorization of numerous processes suspected of being agents of post-release genetic change in recipient wild populations (Chapter 1), I focus on risks relating to the magnitude and duration of releases -- but with a twist. That is, I assume that the mean fitness of released, cultured individuals does not differ from that of the recipient natural population. Throughout, attention is devoted to potential …

Monaural Speech-In-Noise Thresholds Using The Hearing In Noise Test (Hint), Denise Parrish

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Understanding speech in background noise is occasionally difficult for normal hearing listeners and is often impossible for the listener with sensorineural hearing loss. The ability to understand speech in noise depends upon multiple factors such as the characteristics of the speech signal, the signal-to-noise ratio, and the listener's degree of hearing impairment. A routine hearing evaluation usually does not provide ample information about a listener's functional communication abilities. The Hearing-in-Noise Test (HINT) developed by The House Ear Institute provides an efficient and reliable method for evaluating an individual's suprathreshold speech understanding ability in quiet and in noise.

The purpose of …

Perceptions Of Family Functioning Between Children With Behavior Difficulties And Their Primary Caregiver, Melissa Farino Todd

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research study compared perceptions of family functioning among preadolescent children with behavior difficulties and their primary caregivers. Participants consisted of 29 caregiver-child dyads as well as each child's classroom teacher. Eligibility for the study was based on the child's placement within a self-contained Emotionally Handicapped (EH) or Severely Emotionally Disturbed (SED) classroom in one of three elementary schools within two west coast Florida counties. Data collection included teacher rating scales pertaining to the severity of each child's behavior and the presence of Callus Unemotional (CU) traits in addition to caregiver and child interviews tapping perceptions of family functioning.

Results …

An Archaeological Study Of Architectural Form And Function At Indian Key, Florida, Kelly A. Driscoll

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Indian Key Historic State Park is a small island located on the Atlantic Ocean side of the Florida Keys, near Islamorada. Before it was bought by the state of Florida in 1970, Indian Key had been the setting for a number of historically significant activities. The most well known of these is the 1840 raid on the people and buildings that made up a small wrecking village, established on the island by Jacob Housman in the early 1830s. The limestone foundations of these structures are the main attraction to today's visitor to the park.

There is more to the story …

Mass Transfer Of Ionic Species In Direct And Reverse Osmosis Processes, Silvana Melania Stefania Ghiu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the importance of diffusional and convective fluxes for salts in reverse osmosis (RO) and nanofiltration (NF) membranes. Moreover, the physical and thermodynamic factors controlling the salt permeability are analyzed. The study utilizes direct osmosis (DO) experiments and RO experiments, the later using both flat sheet and spiral wound membrane configurations. The salts considered are chlorides and acetates of alkali metals and alkaline earth metals.

The equation governing the salt transport in DO experiments is derived and a phenomenon inverse to concentration polarization in RO is observed. The salt permeability in DO is equal to the salt permeability …

Risky Predictions, Damn Strange Coincidences, And Theory Appraisal: A Multivariate Corroboration Index For Path Analytic Models, Kristine Y. Hogarty

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The empirical testing of theories is an important component of research in any field. Yet despite the long history of science, the extent to which theories are supported or contradicted by the results of empirical research remains ill defined. Quite commonly, support or contradiction is based solely on the "reject" or "fail to reject" decisions that result from tests of null hypotheses that are derived from aspects of theory. Decisions and recommendations based on this forced and often artificial dichotomy have been scrutinized in the past.

In recent years, such an overly simplified approach to theory testing has been vigorously …

Patterns Of 4th Graders' Literacy Events In Web Page Development, Rewa Colette Williams

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study describes in-class and home literacy events that occur when students work in groups to create web pages as evidence of learning the academic content that was presented within a fourth grade classroom. The constructivist approach to learning was the underpinning idea examined as well as its connection to technology and group work. Data were collected in a variety of ways to obtain a picture, as comprehensive as possible, of the oral, listening, viewing, and written on-task communication and interactions that occurred. As the in-class and home literacy events emerged, the competencies and strategies that students used while interacting …

Effect Sizes, Significance Tests, And Confidence Intervals: Assessing The Influence And Impact Of Research Reporting Protocol And Practice, Melinda Rae Hess

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study addresses research reporting practices and protocols by bridging the gap from the theoretical and conceptual debates typically found in the literature with more realistic applications using data from published research. Specifically, the practice of using findings of statistical analysis as the primary, and often only, basis for results and conclusions of research is investigated through computing effect size and confidence intervals and considering how their use might impact the strength of inferences and conclusions reported.

Using a sample of published manuscripts from three peer-rviewed journals, central quantitative findings were expressed as dichotomous hypothesis test results, point estimates of …

Small And Large Signal Modeling Of Mm-Wave Mhemt Devices, William, Clausen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research effort advances millimeter-wave transistor modeling in a current RF/Microwave circuit simulator (Agilent's Advanced Design System-ADS) for small-signal noise and large signal simulations. The device modeled is a metamorphic High Electron Mobility Transistor (mHEMT) supplied by Raytheon RF components. Because of their structure, these new low noise devices are used in this work to test the abilities to accurately model in the sub 0.5dB noise figure territory and to study model prediction into W-band (75-110 GHz).

New modeling issues discussed in this thesis involve the effects of noise modeling in relation to the small-signal model parameters. The noise modeling …

Fpga-Based Implementation Of Concatenative Speech Synthesis Algorithm, Praveen Kumar Bamini

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The main aim of a text-to-speech synthesis system is to convert ordinary text into an acoustic signal that is indistinguishable from human speech. This thesis presents an architecture to implement a concatenative speech synthesis algorithm targeted to FPGAs. Many current text-to-speech systems are based on the concatenation of acoustic units of recorded speech. Current concatenative speech synthesizers are capable of producing highly intelligible speech. However, the quality of speech often suffers from discontinuities between the acoustic units, due to contextual differences. This is the easiest method to produce synthetic speech. It concatenates prerecorded acoustic elements and forms a continuous speech …

Crystal Engineering Of Binary Compounds Containing Pharmaceutical Molecules, Leslie Ann Morales

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The synthesis or the interaction between two or more molecules is known as supramolecular chemistry. The concept of supramolecular chemistry can be applied to the design of new pharmaceutical materials affording new compositions of matter with desirable composition, structure and properties.

The design of a two-molecule, or binary, compound using complementary molecules represents an example of an application of crystal engineering. Crystal engineering is the understanding of intermolecular interactions, in the context of crystal packing, in the design of new solid materials. By identifying reliable connectors through molecular recognition or self-assembly, one can build predictable architectures.

The study of supramolecular …

Congruence Among Mathematics Skills Used On The Job By Practical Nurses Vs. The Prerequisite Skills Required For Admission Into The Practical Nursing Program, G H. Clary

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The standard for evaluating a student's mathematic ability (grade level) for admission to many vocational-technical programs is through the administration of the Tests of Adult Basic Education (TABE). There has come forth a concern from vocational educators, that students entering programs may not be prepared for the mathematics required by the curriculum, even though the student has met the criteria for entry as established by the state curriculum frameworks as evidenced by their scores on a TABE which had recently been administered. Furthermore, questions raised among instructional, administrative and guidance personnel about the congruence of math skills required on the …

Cvd Growth Of Sic On Novel Si Substrates, Rachael L. Myers

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Silicon Carbide has been a semiconductor material of interest as a high power and temperature replacement for Silicon (Si) in harsh environments due to the higher thermal conductivity and chemical stability of SiC. The cost, however, to produce this material is quite high. There are also defects in the substrate material (SiC) that penetrate into the active devices layers which are known device killers. Silicon is a material that provides a low cost substrate material for epitaxial growth and does not contain the defects that SiC substrates have. However, the large (~22%) lattice mismatch between Si and SiC creates dislocations …

Bullying And Victimization In Middle School: The Role Of Individual Characteristics, Family Functioning, And School Contexts, Christine Marie Wienke Totura

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The present study examined the relationship between individual, family, and school variables and both bullying and victimization. Approximately equal numbers of males and females (N = 1185 and 1174, respectively) were randomly selected from classrooms in 11 middle schools across 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. Students completed questionnaires including items from each domain. Questionnaires assessed bullying and victimization, internalizing and externalizing behaviors, family factors, and school variables. In addition, teachers of the selected classrooms completed a brief rating scale on each of the students, which assessed student moodiness, behavioral difficulties, and learning problems. Achievement and discipline records data were obtained. …

The Effects Of Citizenship Performance, Task Performance, And Rating Format On Performance Judgments, David R. Coole

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The current study examined the effects of citizenship performance, task performance, and rating format on overall and task performance ratings. Levels of citizenship performance (high, medium, low), task performance (high, medium, low), and rating format (inclusion or exclusion of citizenship performance) were experimentally manipulated in a 3x3x2 between-subjects full factorial design. Ratings were provided by 360 undergraduate psychology students evaluating experimentally developed supervisory logs of first line financial managers. Targets' levels of citizenship and task performance were positively related to raters' judgments of overall and task performance. The prediction that this relationship would be moderated by task performance level was …

Force-Directed Instruction Scheduling For Low Power, Prashant Dongale

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The increasing need for low-power computing devices has led to the efforts to optimize power in all the components of a system. It is possible to achieve significant power optimization at the software level through instruction reordering during the compilation phase. In this thesis, we have designed and implemented a novel instruction scheduling technique, called FD-ISLP, aimed at reducing the software power consumption. In the proposed approach for instruction scheduling, we modify the force-directed scheduling technique used in high-level synthesis of VLSI circuits to derive a latency-constrained algorithm that reorders the instructions in a basic block of assembly code in …

Signs Of Life: Rediscovering Nineteenth Century Indian Key Through Glass Analysis, Alexis Broadbent Sykes

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Archaeological investigations of Indian Key Historic State Park in the Florida Keys have uncovered a wide range of historical artifacts from throughout the nineteenth century that reveal how the site was reused and reoccupied through time. This thesis focuses on the glass component recovered from a house cistern complex (Feature F) and a warehouse (Features A and C) during the 1998 to 2002 field seasons. Glass artifacts range from a variety of bottle glass including alcohol bottles and proprietary medicines, to cut glass such as tumblers and decanters, to window glass.

Feature F's analysis has shown that it maintained a …

Coge1.5Se1.5 : Structural And Transport Properties Characterization, Randolph Ertenberg

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Skutterudites have been of great interest for thermoelectric applications over the last ten years. Scientific interest has focused on the unique transport properties Skutterudites possess due to the unique crystal structure. Technical interest has grown since it was discovered that some compounds rival the current best thermoelectric materials. To further the understanding of this material system, and optimize its thermoelectric properties, the synthesis and characterization of polycrystalline n- and ptype CoGe1.5Se1.5 was undertaken. Structural, morphological, chemical, electrical, thermal and magnetic properties were studied. These data are compared to those of the binary Skutterudite CoSb3. The results of this study show …

Energy And Transient Power Minimization During Behavioral Synthesis, Saraju P. Mohanty

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The proliferation of portable systems and mobile computing platforms has increased the need for the design of low power consuming integrated circuits. The increase in chip density and clock frequencies due to technology advances has made low power design a critical issue. Low power design is further driven by several other factors such as thermal considerations and environmental concerns. In low-power design for battery driven portable applications, the reduction of peak power, peak power differential, average power and energy are equally important. In this dissertation, we propose a framework for the reduction of these parameters through datapath scheduling at behavioral …

Vector Flow Model In Video Estimation And Effects Of Network Congestion In Low Bit-Rate Compression Standards, Balaji Ramadoss

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The use of digitized information is rapidly gaining acceptance in bio-medical applications. Video compression plays an important role in the archiving and transmission of different digital diagnostic modalities. The present scheme of video compression for low bit-rate networks is not suitable for medical video sequences. The instability is the result of block artifacts resulting from the block based DCT coefficient quantization. The possibility of applying deformable motion estimation techniques to make the video compression standard (H.263) more adaptable for bio-medial applications was studied in detail. The study on the network characteristics and the behavior of various congestion control mechanisms was …