American Studies Commons^™

An Examination Of Self-Directed Learning Readiness In Executive-Level Fire Officers, Steven G. Knight

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the self-directed learning readiness in executive fire officers in relation to the independent variables of personality type, educational attainment, and professional designation. This research utilized a quantitative design.

This study utilized the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the Self-Directed Learning Readiness Scale (SDLRS) with a sample of 250 professional firefighters. The total sample was divided equally between executive-level fire officers and firefighters at 125 each from professional departments in the Southeastern United States. Results were that the mean SDLRS score for the executive-level fire officers was 233.7 and significantly higher than the …

Examining The Economic Costs And Sources Of Potable And Nonpotable Water In Northern Mexico, Kathryn Marie Marlor

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Water availability and the cost of different water sources have been studied at great length. However, information is still needed to determine the policy directions to be undertaken by nations that have not yet achieved universal coverage of an improved water source. To further examine differences in water availability and pricing in the context of the developing world, three communities in Northern Mexico were surveyed to determine the differences in water distribution schemes and associated costs between rural and urban centers. It was observed that rural communities without a piped water supply paid 13 percent more for potable water supplies …

Design And Construction Of Functional Metal-Metalloporphyrin Frameworks, Le Meng

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Porous metal-organic frameworks are a new type of functional materials with potential applications for gas storage, gas separation, catalysis, biomedical and chemical sensors. This thesis describes several porous metal-metalloporphyrin frameworks (MMPFs), which were synthesized with a series of transition metals and 5,15-bis(3,5-dicarboxyphenyl)-10,20-bis(2,6-dibromophenyl)porphine. Among these MMPFs, the cobalt MMPF (CoBrPTC) has a fcu structure, which represents the first porphyrin-based MOF with this topology. CoBrPTC was evaluated as heterogeneous catalyst and demonstrated interesting catalytic performances.

Willingness-To-Pay For Maintenance And Improvements To Existing Sanitation Infrastructure: Assessing Community-Led Total Sanitation In Mopti, Mali, Justin Vern Meeks

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, much focus has been put on the sustainability of water and sanitation development projects. Experts in this field have found that many of the projects of the past have failed to achieve sustainability because of a lack of demand for water and sanitation interventions at a grassroots level. For years projects looked to create this demand through various subsidy schemes, with the "software" of behavior change and education taking a backseat to the "hardware" of infrastructure provision. Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) is a fairly new way of looking at the issues of increasing basic sanitation coverage, promoting …

Developing Predictive Models For Lung Tumor Analysis, Satrajit Basu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A CT-scan of lungs has become ubiquitous as a thoracic diagnostic tool. Thus, using CT-scan images in developing predictive models for tumor types and survival time of patients afflicted with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) would provide a novel approach to non-invasive tumor analysis. It can provide an alternative to histopathological techniques such as needle biopsy. Two major tumor analysis problems were addressed in course of this study, tumor type classification and survival time prediction. CT-scan images of 109 patients with NSCLC were used in this study. The first involved classifying tumor types into two major classes of non-small cell …

Evaluation Of Transfer Technologies To Preserve Shoulder Function In Sci, Karen Michelle Mann

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated a series of independent unassisted and device-assisted transfers from a wheelchair to vehicle mock-up and vice versa while simultaneously capturing kinematic, kinetic and electromyographic (EMG) data of impaired volunteers. The study provides a venue for observation and evaluation of upper extremity (UE) joint stresses, muscular force and functional demands associated with transfers in persons with spinal cord injury (SCI) to ultimately prevent UE injury, minimize excessive stress, preserve functionality and limit pain. If people with SCI lose function of their UEs, due to pain and/or degeneration, they must then rely on others for everyday tasks.

Five paraplegic …

Evidence For Viral Infection In The Copepods Labidocera Aestiva And Acartia Tonsa In Tampa Bay, Florida, Darren Stephenson Dunlap

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Mesozooplankton are of critical importance to marine food webs by transferring energy from the microbial food web to higher trophic levels and depositing energy to the deeper ocean layers through fecal deposition. While decades of research have shown that viruses have significant impacts in the oceans, and infect a wide range of organisms from bacteria to whales, there is still little known about the impacts of viruses on the mesozooplankton community. As copepods are the most abundant mesozooplankton group, this study sought to characterize the viruses present in natural populations of the calanoid copepods Acartia tonsa and Labidocera aestiva in …

Examining The Moderating Role Of Organizational Commitment In The Relationship Between Shocks And Workplace Outcomes, Kyle Groff

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Little attention has been given to the role organizational commitment plays within broader models of turnover and withdrawal behavior. Understanding and integrating organizational commitment into such models is an important step to fully appreciating the role that commitment plays in the workplace. The purpose of the current study was twofold. First, this study aimed to examine the moderating role that organizational commitment plays in the unfolding model of voluntary turnover. Second, this study set out to examine the role that the various forms of commitment play in the relationship between shocks and withdrawal-related variables. By utilizing a multidimensional model of …

Development Of An Integrated Process Model For Algae Growth In A Photobioreactor, Mehregan Jalalizadeh

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

While understanding the kinetics of algae growth plays an important role in improving algae cultivation technology, none of the existing kinetic models are able to describe algae growth when more than three growth limiting factors are involved. A model was developed in this study to describe algae growth in a photobioreactor. Two expressions were proposed based on the Monod model to relate the specific growth rate of algae to the concentration of nitrogen, phosphorus, inorganic carbon and light intensity in the culture media. Algal biomass concentration as a function of time was calculated by solving mass and energy balances around …

Speaker Recognition Using Shifted Mfcc, Rishiraj Mukherjee

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Speaker Recognition is the art of recognizing a speaker from a given database using speech as the only input. In this thesis we will be discussing a novel approach to detect speakers. Here we will introduce the concept of shifted MFCC to add improvement over the performance from previous work which has shown quite a decent amount of accuracy of about 95% at best. We will be talking about adding different parameters which also contributed in improving the efficiency of speaker recognition. Also we will be testing our algorithm on Text dependent speech data and Text Independent speech data. Our …

When Bad Things Happen To Good Mothers: Rethinking Motherhood Through The Single Mother Image In American Films From The 1930s To The 1970s, Tanna Alice Mancini

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

The single-mother figure shows up in myriad American film genres, and my thesis explores three of these genres, maternal melodrama, film noir, and horror. I argue there is a melodramatic mode that carries over from maternal melodrama to film noir and horror. This mode emphasizes emotional excess. In maternal melodrama, the emotional excess is pity. For film noir, the emotion is anxiety, and in horror, it is repulsion. Even though each genre has its own emotional excess, maternal melodrama still speaks to these other genres through its maternal sacrifice, non-heteronormative families and misreading of proper gender performances. For this …

Respiratory Monitoring System Based On The Thoracic Expansion Measurement, Fabiola Araujo Cespedes

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this reasearch was to develop a respiratory monitoring system using a reflective object sensor based belt to measure the thoracic expansion of a neonatal for future application at the medical center of the Universidad Evangelica Boliviana (UEB). This medical center, being founded by the UEB University, is dedicated to help and serve the poor and currently has no respiratory monitoring system.

The methodology used was first to build and test the respiratory sensor belt and test the relationship between the blet expansion and the voltage generated. The, to incorporate the respiratory sensor belt in a system that …

Out Of Our Depth: Hyper-Extensionality And The Return Of Three-Dimensional Media, Justin Alan Brecese

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This work theorizes the contemporary attraction to three-dimensional media. In doing so, it reframes ongoing debates surrounding digital three-dimensional media in order to critique the neoliberal social relations such media engender. I argue that the contemporary interest in dimensionality, especially regarding digital media, is symptomatic of a broad cultural shift, wherein millions of lives are now essentially being lived through two-dimensional, "flat" media, which have consequently generated a lack of spatial relationships and a craving or desire for "depth." This "desire for depth" has arisen in contemporary society because people are being "spread too thin" through a combination of the …

Postcolonial Religion And Motherhood In The Novels By Louise Erdrich And Alice Walker, Kateryna Chornokur

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a comparative analysis of the works of the Native American author Louise Erdrich (Love Medicine, Tracks) and the African American writer Alice Walker (The Color Purple). Originating from different cultural traditions, Native American and African American women writers address common themes in their novels because of their common colonial background. One of the main themes in their writings is that of religion. Despite becoming victims of Christianity used as a means of cultural colonization, both African American and Native American communities reinterpret it in terms of their traditional religious beliefs and create a new, unique hybridized form …

An Ecological Assessment Of A Juvenile Estuarine Sportfish, Common Snook (Centropomus Undecimalis), In A Tidal Tributary Of Tampa Bay, Florida, Adam Benjamin Brame

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The common snook, Centropomus undecimalis, is an estuarine dependent sport fish that relies upon subtidal wetlands as nursery habitat. Despite the economic and recreational significance of this species, there are portions of its life history and biology that are poorly understood, particularly its early life history. Understanding juvenile snook use of wetland habitats is crucial given the rapid loss and degradation of these areas to anthropogenic impacts. Young-of-the-year snook were collected in pond and creek habitats of a single wetland system to assess early life ecology and habitat use. Proxies of habitat quality were used to determine which habitats …

Overcoming Limitations Of Serial Audio Search, Isabela Cordeiro Ribeiro Moura Hidalgo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The typical approach for finding audio recordings, such as music and sound effects, in a database is to enter some textual information into a search field. The results appear summarized in a list of textual descriptions of the audio files along with a function for playing back the recordings. Exploring such a list sequentially is a time-consuming and tedious way to search for sounds. This research evaluates whether searching for audio information can become more effective with a user interface capable of presenting multiple audio streams simultaneously.

A prototype audio player was developed with a user interface suitable for both …

It's A Support Club, Not A Sex Club: Narration Strategies And Discourse Coalitions In High School Gay-Straight Alliance Club Controversies, Skyler Lauderdale

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

School reform efforts, such as those to form high school gay-straight alliance clubs (GSAs), are often met with resistance by school personnel and local community members. Using a sample of newspaper articles related to school reform GSA controversies in two Southern states (N=83) drawn from an initial sampling frame of GSA controversies receiving newspaper coverage between January 2006 and August 2011 (N=631), I use narrative analysis-- including a discourse coalitions approach--to identify common themes of resistance in the narration of characters, plot, setting, and morals which GSA members and allies must overcome to successfully form GSAs. Substantively, I locate four …

Technical And Economic Assessment Of Adobe As The Primary Building Material On The Water Yield Of A Single Basin Solar Still, Nathan Daniel Manser

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

It is estimated that only one percent of global freshwater is available to humans, with nearly three billion people living in water scarce conditions. Populations living in impoverished settings are particularly vulnerable to water related illnesses, with approximately 2.2 million people dying each year from to waterborne illnesses. This research uses modeling and field studies to assess the quantity, quality, and economics of distillate produced for drinking water from a brackish water source using two single-sloped, single-basin distillation reactors. The reactors were constructed from adobe and concrete in an arid rural community in San Luis Potosí, Mexico and tested from …

Design Methodologies For Reversible Logic Based Barrel Shifters, Saurabh Kotiyal

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The reversible logic has the promising applications in emerging computing paradigm

such as quantum computing, quantum dot cellular automata, optical computing, etc. In

reversible logic gates there is a unique one-to-one mapping between the inputs and outputs.

To generate an useful gate function the reversible gates require some constant ancillary

inputs called ancilla inputs. Also to maintain the reversibility of the circuits some additional

unused outputs are required that are referred as the garbage outputs. The number of

ancilla inputs, number of garbage outputs and quantum cost plays an important role in

the evaluation of reversible circuits. Thus minimizing these …

Performances Of Gender And Sexuality In Extreme Sports Culture, Carly Michelle Gieseler

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to expose the strategies through which extreme sports constitute gender through exaggeration, parody, queering, resistance, and transcendence of normative gendered binaries. I interrogate how extreme sports operate on the margins of sport, gender, media, and lived experience to better understand the processes and performances that retain, reinforce, and resist our notions of normative gender, bodies, and sexuality. Starting with the claim that performance is constitutive of gender and culture, I will focus on how extreme sporting performances create significant commentaries on mainstream assumptions surrounding sporting gender, sexuality, and corporeality.

These commentaries function in extreme …

Behavioral And Histological Effects Of Traumatic Brain Injury On Alzheimer's Disease Transgenic Mice, Sara Leilani Kellogg

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The main objective of this study was to elucidate the possible mechanistic link between traumatic brain injury (TBI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) using an animal model. We examined behavioral and histological effects of TBI in pre-symptomatic AD-transgenic mice (C57B6/SJL/SwissWebster/B6D2F1). In previous studies, these mice displayed AD-like behavioral deficits by 15-17 months of age and AD-like neuropathology as early as six months of age. To clarify the effects of TBI on these mice, the present study began when they were about three months of age and the study ended when they were about five months of age. As a control, non-transgenic …

A Novel Ultrasonic Method To Quantify Bolt Tension, Jairo Andres Martinez Garcia

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The threaded fasteners are one of the most versatile methods for assembly of structural components. For example, in bridges large bolts are used to fix base columns and small bolts are used to support access ladders. Naturally not all bolts are critical for the operation of the structure. Fasteners loaded with small forces and present in large quantities do not receive the same treatment as the critical bolts. Typical maintenance operations such tension measurements, internal stress checking or monitoring of crack development are not practical due to cost and time constrains. Although failure of a single non-critical fastener is not …

"Bite On Boldly": Staging Medieval And Early Modern Heretics, Cameron Hunt Mcnabb

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation explores the parodic Biblical language employed by medieval and early modern staged heretics. The plays' coupling of parody and heresy forges ideological connections between the two, as when they disrupt authorized, orthodox models of the Word, as both the Scriptures and the Host. My Introduction addresses the theological controversies over the relationship between language and meaning that arise from Lollard, Catholic, and Protestant heresies. Chapter two analyzes how, in the Chester cycle, Antichrist's theological and verbal dissents are eerily similar to orthodox models. That framework forces the audience to depend on the context of the heretic's words and …

Metal Oxide Graphene Nanocomposites For Organic And Heavy Metal Remediation, Tanvir E. Alam

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis consists of two research problems in the water decontamination area. In the first work, the main focus is to understand the structure and photocatalytic activity of titanium dioxide with graphene (G-TiO2) which is synthesized by using sol-gel method. The photocatalytic activity of TiO2 is limited by the short electron hole pair recombination time. Graphene, with high specific surface area and unique electronic properties, can be used as a good support for TiO2 to enhance the photocatalytic activity. The obtained G-TiO2 photocatalysts has been characterized by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Raman Spectroscopy, Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), FTIR Spectroscopy and Ultraviolet …

Removal Of Bisphenol A Model Compounds And Related Substances Using Octolig®, Rachael Josephine Alessio

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Bisphenol A used in the production of polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins is ubiquitous in the environment. The raw material is released to the environment during the manufacturing process and by leaching from consumer products. Recent studies are suggesting that low-dose amounts of Bisphenol A may have adverse health effects on humans. The possibility of removing Bisphenol A from natural water sources or from solvents used to extract the material from consumer products before they enter the market has been studied. The use of model compounds and related substances (4-isopropylphenol, 4-(t-butyl) phenol, and nitrophenols) have been used to study their …

Effect Of Platinum Particle Size On The Sulfur Deactivation Of Hydrogenation, Lyndsey Michelle Baldyga

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A large concern of the fossil fuel and renewable energy industries is the sulfur poisoning of catalysts. In the case of noble metals, such as platinum, it is seen that there is a size trend associated with the level of activity in the presence of sulfur. Smaller nanoparticles could be more tolerant due to sulfur surface vacancies. On the other hand, larger particles could have less deactivation because the sulfur is more attracted to the smaller particles and the sulfur molecules bind stronger to these smaller particles.

The size effect of sulfur deactivation was investigated by testing four sizes of …

Hurricane Preparedness Of Community-Dwelling Dementia Caregivers In South Florida, Janelle J. Christensen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this dissertation is to explore how informal caregivers for people with dementia (PWD), who are community dwelling (i.e., not in nursing homes), prepare and plan for disasters. The research site is a particularly hurricane-prone region of Florida, second only to New Orleans in its vulnerability. An underlying assumption of this research is that caregivers for PWD have to plan and anticipate problems that are unique to their role. The rationale for the study described here is that disaster planning and mitigation save lives (Tengs et al. 1995), but there is little or no literature on disaster planning …

Compound-Specific Stable Isotopic Analysis Of Protein Amino Acids: Ecological Applications In Modern And Ancient Systems, Greg Ellis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Stable isotopic analysis of the major biochemically important elements is an increasingly utilized tool in the study of ecology. Patterns of isotopic fractionation in carbon and nitrogen are used to determine trophic linkages, nutrient pathways, and sources of primary production in numerous contexts. Traditional techniques rely on measurements made of bulk samples such as tissue, but emerging methods using individual chemical compounds provide a means of achieving deeper understanding in a variety of inquiries.

Amino acids, as the building blocks of proteins, are the dominant nitrogen-bearing biomolecules and are a major constituent of all life. Patterns of isotopic fractionation during …

Evaluation Of Urinary Pesticide Biomarkers Among A Sample Of The Population In The United States, Alex Lance Lebeau

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Pesticide use in the United States continues to attract negative public attention. In recent years, this attention has focused on the effects that chronic, low-level pesticides may have, especially on children and various sub-populations. Over the past decade, studies have attempted to correlate negative health effects with detections of pesticide biomarkers in biological media. The current research investigates biomarker of exposure levels in a sample of the United States population. Data from the 2001-2002 NHANES dataset (n=11,039) was evaluated. The detection frequency of urinary biomarkers of exposure and the geometric mean from the NHANES pesticide dataset (n=3,152) were determined. Of …

The Creation Of A Robotics Based Human Upper Body Model For Predictive Simulation Of Prostheses Performance, Derek James Lura

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This work focuses on the use of 3D motion capture data to create and optimize a robotic human body model (RHBM) to predict the inverse kinematics of the upper body. The RHBM is a 25 degrees of freedom (DoFs) upper body model with subject specific kinematic parameters. The model was developed to predict the inverse kinematics of the upper body in the simulation of a virtual person, including persons with functional limitations such as a transradial or transhumeral amputation. Motion data were collected from 14 subjects: 10 non-amputees control subjects, 1 person with a transradial amputation, and 3 persons with …