Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Characterization Of Large Area Cadmium Telluride Films And Solar Cells Deposited On Moving Substrates By Close Spaced Sublimation, Vishwanath Kumar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With CdTe based photovoltaics developed by close spaced sublimation reaching efficiencies of over 16%, commercialization of this technology draws serious attention. Today large area industrial modules have not been able to produce the same performance of their laboratory counterparts. This work provides a means for understanding the various technical challenges in developing an effective deposition technology for large area processing.

The submodule process investigated provides a model for continuous and sequential processing of subsequent films. The system has a unique design and constructed with the provision for a moving transport module for the substrate transport. The process was developed to …

Characterization Of Cadmium Zinc Telluride Solar Cells, Gowri Sivaraman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Currently thin film solar cells have efficiencies in the range of 16-18%. Higher efficiencies of 20% or more can be achieved by two junction solar cells in which two p-n junctions are connected in series one on top of the other in a tandem structure. The ideal bandgaps for optimum efficiency in a tandem structure are about 1eV for the top cell and 1.7 eV for the bottom cell. Copper Indium Gallium di-Selenide (CIGS) with a bandgap of 1 eV is a suitable candidate for the bottom cell and Cadmium Zinc Telluride (CZT) with a tunable bandgap of 1.44-2.26 eV …

An Assessment Of Paired Similarities And Card Sorting, Theodore James Dwyer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Alcohol expectancies have been shown to be predictive of risk for alcohol problems. Experimental research studies have challenged participants' expectancies with the end result demonstrating a mediational effect on participant drinking. Cognitive research using priming and word recognition tasks have led to the theory that expectancies operate in an associative network. Using dissimilarities information this network has been mapped using multidimensional scaling. The current techniques for collecting dissimilarities information directly in alcohol expectancy research has been limited to the use of the paired comparisons tasks. In order to investigate the utility of a different similarities task a comparison was made …

A Mathematical Model For Colloidal Aggregation, Colleen S. O'Brien

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The characterization of fine particles is an area of immense significance to many industrial endeavors. It has been estimated that 70% of all industrial processes deal with fine particles at some point in the process. A natural phenomenon occurring in these processes is colloidal aggregation. This study examines aggregation in colloidal systems in order to characterize, examine, and control this occurrence in industrial processes. The study of particle aggregation has been broken into many different areas, such as collision mechanisms, interaction energy etc, but a complete model that integrates these different aspects has never been fully realized. A new model …

Development And Testing Of A Haptic Interface To Assist And Improve The Manipulation Functions In Virtual Environments For Persons With Disabilities, Rohit Tammana

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Robotics in rehabilitation provides considerable opportunities to improve the quality of life for persons with disabilities. Computerized and Virtual Environment (VE) training systems for persons with disabilities, many of which utilize the haptic feedback, have gained increasing acceptance in the recent years. Our methodology here is based on creating virtual environments connected to a haptic interface as an input device. This robotic setup introduces the advantages of the haptic rendering features in the environment and also provides tactile feedback to the patients.

This thesis aims to demonstrate the efficacy of assistance function algorithms in rehabilitation robotics in virtual environments. Assist …

Fishing-Dependent Communities On The Gulf Coast Of Florida: Their Identification, Recent Decline And Present Resilience, Yu, Huang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

U.S. fisheries legislation requires National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to attend to the critical social and economic issues surrounding the definition and identification of fishing communities, and to the effects that changes to the physical environment and regulatory decisions can have on such communities. To fulfil their mandate, National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) sponsored the research entitled "Identifying Fishing Communities in the Gulf of Mexico" to study the economic, social and cultural status of potential fishing communities along the Gulf of Mexico.

NMFS contracted the research project to Impact Assessment, Inc. to study 80 plus potential fishing communities in the …

Three Dimensional Finite Element Model For Lesion Correspondence In Breast Imaging, Yan Qiu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Predicting breast tissue deformation is of great significance in several medical applications such as surgery, biopsy and imaging. In breast surgery, surgeons are often concerned with a specific portion of the breast, e.g., tumor, which must be located accurately beforehand. Also clinically it is important for combining the information provided by images from several modalities or at different times, for the planning and guidance of interventions. Multi-modality imaging of the breast obtained by mammography, MRI and PET is thought to be best achieved through some form of data fusion technique. However, images taken by these various techniques are often obtained …

Transport And Survival Of Water Quality Indicator Microorganisms In The Ground Water Environment Of Florida: Implications For Aquifer Storage And Waste Disposal, David E. John

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ground water resources are heavily used for drinking water supply and often as a receptacle for waste water. One concern is the possible contamination of wetland areas by ground water receiving septic system infiltration. To investigate this, two tracer studies were performed using the bacteriophage PRD-1 by seeding septic systems adjacent to wetlands with the phage and monitoring migration towards wetland areas. Transport velocities were evaluated based on appearance of tracer in sampling wells at various distances from the injection point. Velocities were estimated to be 0.25 m/d and 0.4 m/d at the two sites. Some retardation with respect to …

Homosocial, Homoerotic, Bisexual, And Androgynous Bonds In Shakespeare’S Comedies, Klarisa Sokolovic-Cizmek

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the thesis I inquire into the nature of the same-sex bonds in Shakespeare’s comedies. I discuss seven pairs of characters and demonstrate how in his comedies, Shakespeare first created homosocial relationships, later homoerotic relationships, then bisexual relationships, and, finally, a couple that may be described as androgynous. I demonstrate that in the early comedies the relationships are primarily homosocial and serve the purpose of self-realization. The self-realization includes reaching of a balance between a “feminine,” and a “masculine” self, with the goal of becoming a mature, androgynous human being. Although there are some homoerotic undercurrents in both the male …

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 …