American Studies Commons^™

Connected Domination In Graphs, Gayathri Mahalingam

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A connected dominating set D is a set of vertices of a graph G = (V, E) such that every vertex in V − D is adjacent to at least one vertex in D and the subgraph hDi induced by the set D is connected. The connected domination number γc(G) is the minimum of the cardinalities of the connected dominating sets of G. The problem of finding a minimum connected dominating set D is known to be NP-hard. Many polynomial time algorithms that achieve some approximation factors have been provided earlier in finding a minimum connected dominating set. In …

The Role Of Sensation Seeking In Children’S Ability To Learn Alcohol Expectancy Associations, Nicole M. Bekman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Sensation seeking is a personality characteristic associated with problematic alcohol use and positive alcohol expectancies, but little research has examined the relationship between sensation seeking and the acquisition of alcohol expectancy information. In a recent study (Steinberg, 2003), sensation seeking was associated with how quickly and accurately college-aged students were able to learn alcohol-expectancy word pairs in a paired associate learning task. In this age group, however, the individuals had fully developed alcohol expectancies that may have influenced their rates of learning.

The current study sought to minimize the influence of previously held alcohol expectancies by exploring this relationship in …

Sorption Of Organic Vapors By Copolymers Of Poly (Styrene-Butadiene) Using A Piezoelectric Microbalance, Anant K. Upadhyayula

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Thickness shear mode (TSM) sensors, also known as quartz crystal microbalances (QCM) are a class of acoustic wave sensors that have been used for gas phase sensing. In this thesis this device is used to measure vapor-liquid equilibrium data for copolymers of poly(styrene-butadiene) at 294K.

Copolymers of poly(styrene-butadiene) with varying percentages of styrene (85%, 45% and 21 %) were studied with benzene, n-hexane, dichloroethane and chloroform as solvents. Literature data for pure polystyrene/benzene and polystyrene/chloroform and polybutadiene/benzene were obtained to complement the measured data.

Obtained experimental data were fit with a modified Flory-Huggins model and compared with the predictions of …

Performativity And The Latina/O-White Hybrid Identity: Performing The Textual Self, Shane T. Moreman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study is an exploration of Latina/o-White hybrid identity for constructions and negotiations of hybridity as performed in the lives of individuals and as rearticulated in discourse. These discourses are drawn from interviews with nine individuals, stories of my own life, and three published memoirs. Despite these different forms, all the selfidentified Latina/o-White hybrid individuals speak to the difficulty of imagining and enacting a hybrid identity within today’s discourse on race and ethnicity. This study articulates these difficulties as lived experience, theory, and performance come together to argue for and against hybridity as a model for contemporary identity. The project …

Transforming Public Spaces Through Performance, Anthony G. Valentine

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is study about how public spaces can be transformed through performance within them.

More specifically, this study involves two public venues: The Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI), Tampa, FL and The University of South Florida (USF), Tampa, FL in that within these public venues, not only do performances take place, but they transform the space they are performed in and the spaces in-between the public spaces into performance spaces.

Polytetrahydrofuran-And Dendrimer-Based Novel Sol-Gel Coatings For Capillary Microextraction (Cme) Providing Parts Per Trillion (Ppt) And Parts Per Quadrillion (Ppq) Level Detection Limits In Conjunction With Gas Chromatography And Flame Ionization Detection (Fid), Abuzar Kabir

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Sol-gel capillary microextraction (CME) is a new direction in solvent-free extraction and preconcentration of trace analytes. CME presents significant interest in environmental, pharmaceutical, petrochemical, biomedical, agricultural, food, flavor, and a host of other important areas. Sol-gel CME utilizes advanced material properties of organic-inorganic hybrid sol-gel polymers to perform efficient extraction and enrichment of target analytes from a variety of matrices. In this dissertation, two novel sol-gel coatings were developed for CME: (a) sol-gel benzyl-terminated dendrimer coating, and (b) sol-gel polytetrahydrofuran (poly-THF) coating. A detailed investigation was conducted to evaluate the performance of the newly developed sol-gel coatings in solvent-free extraction …

The Benefits Of Clear Speech At Normal Rates For Older Listeners With Normal Hearing, Athina Panagos Panagiotopoulos

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Clear speech is a type of speaking style that improves speech intelligibility for many individuals. For example, one study showed a 17 percentage point increase in intelligibility over conversational speech for individuals with sensorineural hearing loss (Picheny et al., 1985). The clear speech benefit also extends to children with learning disabilities (Bradlow et al., 2003), non-native listeners (Bradlow & Bent, 2002), and other populations. Although clear speech is typically slower than conversational speech, it can be produced, naturally, at normal rates with training. For young listeners with normal hearing, clear speech at normal rates (clear/normal) is more intelligible than conversational …

A Future With Hope: The Social Construction Of Hope, Help, And Dialogic Reconciliation In A Community Children's Mental Health System Of Care, Christine S. Davis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research examines the social construction of hope in a community mental health system of care. Groopman (2004) defines hope as the elevating feeling we experience when we see a path to a better future. A year-long ethnographic study of a children's mental health system of care team found that members of the mental health care team construct hope for themselves and for the family they're helping by cycling through the dialectical tensions of hegemony and equality, marginalization and normalization, relating and othering, empowerment and disempowerment, and control and emotionality. They reconcile these tensions in dialogic moments of empathy toward …

The Cost Of Professionalization: A Case Study Of Osteopathic Medicine In The United States, Rochelle Harris

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the co-optation of the heterodox medical system of osteopathic medicine by the hegemonic medical system of biomedicine and its impact on the practice of osteopathic medicine in America. The study particularly explored students (n=20), practitioners (n=5), and faculty (n=5) regarding their views of osteopathic medicine. The process of professionalization of osteopathic medicine has caused DOs to become more akin to MDs, which may have led to an identity crisis within the profession. This case study took place at a private osteopathic medical school in the Southeastern U.S. A content analysis of the …

Simulating The Electric Field Mediated Motion Of Ions And Molecules In Diverse Matrices, Joseph Hickey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Electroporation is a methodology for the introduction of drugs and genes into cells. This technique works by reducing the exclusionary nature of the cell membrane [125, 129, 186, 189]. Electroporation has successfully been used in electrochemotherapy and electrogenetherapy [57, 68, 86, 87, 110, 112, 131]. The two major components of electroporation are an induced transmembrane potential and the motion of the deliverable through a compromised cell membrane into the target cell [38, 55, 62, 114, 131]. These two components are both dependent on the electrophoretic motion of charged species in an applied electric field [45, 64, 75, 77, 177].

Currently, …

A Dynamic Simulation Assessment Of English As A Second Language Students' Academic Readiness: An Initial Validation Of A University Admissions Tool, S. "Sha" G. Balizet

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigated the measurement quality of the Content Learning Experience: Academic Readiness (CLEAR) test, a new measure for university admissions decisions regarding English as a Second Language (ESL) applicants. The CLEAR test measures ability through dynamic simulation: learning opportunities are followed by testing how well students learned the academic content, all modeled on university instructional experiences.

Measured by the CLEAR is academic readiness (AR), the direct, present evidence of ability to learn academic content via the second language as demonstrated during the dynamic simulation. AR is hypothesized to comprise above-threshold academic language proficiency, personal characteristics, topical knowledge, academic skills, …

Do Expectancies Influence Outcomes For Tailored Smoking Cessation Messages? A Placebo Tailoring Experiment, Monica S. Webb

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study was an effort to replicate and extend findings from our previous research, which suggested that the efficacy of tailored messages is influenced by high levels of content personalization within the message and by individuals trait expectancies about tailored interventions. We tested whether tailoring-related expectancies regarding smoking-cessation booklets could be altered via a brief expectancy-priming intervention, and whether this would enhance the impact of the cessation materials. A 2x2 factorial design crossed personalization level and expectancy priming on evaluation of the intervention content, readiness to quit smoking, cessation self-efficacy, cognitive processing, and progress towards quitting. Smokers (N = 205) …