American Studies Commons^™

Incidence Of Unilateral, High Frequency, Sensorineural Hearing Loss In Shunt Treated Hydrocephalic Children Ipsilateral To Shunt Placement, Susan E. Spirakis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate further the characteristics of hearing loss in ventriculoperitoneal (VP) shunted hydrocephalus. Twelve (VP) shunt treated hydrocephalus children participated in this study. The etiology of the hydrocephalus was either intraventricular hemorrhage or spina bifida. A recent neurological examination reported the shunt to be patent in each child. Audiometric examination included pure tone air conduction thresholds, tympanometry, contralateral and ipsilateral acoustic reflex thresholds and distortion product otoacoustic emissions (DPOAEʹs). A unilateral, high frequency, sensorineural hearing loss was found in the ear ipsilateral to shunt placement in 10 (83%) of the 12 shunt treated hydrocephalic …

The Role Of Audiology Technicians In The Va System, John Terry Berardino

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Eligibility reform in the VA and the resulting increased caseloads have brought about unacceptable wait times for new audiology appointments. Mandates to decrease wait times without increased resources have brought new demands on audiology clinics. One proposed solution is the addition of audiology technicians to VA audiology clinic practice.

The first purpose of this study was to survey the attitudes of VA audiologists and service chiefs regarding the use of technicians. The second purpose was to ask the survey respondents to assign as generally appropriate or inappropriate, job duties which might be accomplished by an audiology technician. Following a pre-survey …

Women, Environment And Development: Sub-Saharan Africa And Latin America, Evaline Tiondi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Issues related to women, environment and development constitute a major global concern today. Women's roles as agents of change in the environment has increasingly become the focus of both research and policy concerns. Environmental resource management is directly linked to development, and this makes it crucial to examine the activities of women more closely. Women's role in the management of natural resources assumes a multidimensional nature. Unfortunately, the central and crucial role that women play is often both overlooked and unappreciated, rendering them invisible and greatly diminishing their contribution as both producers and active agents in sustainable development. One of …

Use Of The Client Oriented Scale Of Improvement As A Clinical Outcome Measure In The Veterans Affairs National Hearing Aid Program, Robert F. Zelski

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the present health care environment, there is an increased demand for audiologists to measure the outcomes of hearing aid intervention. In addition to the more traditional objective outcome measures, many subjective outcome measures have been developed in the last 20 years. Two such subjective outcome measures are the Abbreviated Profile of Hearing Aid Benefit (APHAB) and the Hearing Handicap Inventory for the Elderly (HHIE). These instruments consist of a series of pre-selected questions that may or may not be applicable to an individual. An alternative to the pre-selected question format is an open format design that allows the person …

Literacy, Technology, And Change: The Gates Of Hell, Janice R. Walker

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I first briefly examine the history of technology as it impacts on literacy practices, and especially the history of resistance to technological developments in the humanities. In so doing, I also briefly examine some of the possible ideological underpinnings of this resistance, including looking at some of the arguments proposed to counter it. More specifically, I consider how literacy practices, pedagogical practices, and assessment and gatekeeping practices in the field of composition studies impact on and are impacted by the intersection of computer technologies and our field. Finally, I offer some suggestions for ways in which our …

Knowledge-Guided Processing Of Magnetic Resonance Images Of The Brain, Matthew C. Clark

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents a knowledge-guided expert system that is capable of applying routinesfor multispectral analysis, (un)supervised clustering, and basic image processing to automatically detect and segment brain tissue abnormalities, and then label glioblastoma-multiforme brain tumors in magnetic resonance volumes of the human brain. The magnetic resonance images used here consist of three feature images (T1-weighted, proton density, T2-weighted) and the system is designed to be independent of a particular scanning protocol. Separate, but contiguous 2D slices in the transaxial plane form a brain volume. This allows complete tumor volumes to be measured and if repeat scans are taken over time, …

An Application Of Artificial Neural Networks In Freeway Incident Detection, Sujeeva A. Weerasuriya

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Non-recurring congestion caused by incidents is a major source of traffic delay in freeway systems. With the objective of reducing these traffic delays, traffic operation managers are focusing on detecting incident conditions and dispatching emergency management teams to the scene quickly. During the past few decades, a few number of conventional algorithms and artificial neural network models were proposed to automate the process of detecting incident conditions on freeways. These algorithms and models, known as automatic incident detection methods (AIDM), have experienced a varying degree of detection capability.

Of these AIDMs, artificial neural network-based approaches have illustrated better detection performance …

Stratigraphy And Geologic History, Bunces Key, Pinellas County, Florida, Douglas E. Crowe

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Bunces Key, a narrow, linear, barrier island on the west-central coast of Florida, was founded in 1961. Its growth and development since that time is well documented by aerial photography. Cores taken from the Key and surrounding areas reveal a stratigraphic succession of facies reflecting rapid vertical aggradation. Sedimentation began on a gently sloping platform through the landward migration of large scale bedforms (sand waves) during fair weather periods. Migration of these bedforms ceased when emergence and lack of continued overwash precluded further movement. Vertical accretion to supratidal levels resulted from the continued onshore transport of sediment and subsequent welding …