American Studies Commons^™

The Characterization Of Non-Ionic Surfactant Vesicles: A Release Rate Study For Drug Delivery, Kristina Ok-Hee Dearborn

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Drug delivery methods for the treatment of brain tumor cells have been both inefficient and potentially dangerous for cancer patients. Drug delivery must be done in a controlled manner so that the effective amount of medication is delivered to the patient and ensure over-dosage does not cause adverse side reactions in the patient. The focus of this investigation is to design a drug delivery system that would allow for site-specific administration of the drug, protection of the drug from the surrounding environment, and controlled sustained release of the drug. We have proposed a model that incorporates a niosome, which is …

Stormtroopers Among Us: Star Wars Costuming, Connection, And Civic Engagement, Dava L. Simpson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine the bonds that form between people as consumers of popular visual media and to discuss the relationship and impact of the resulting subcultures on the larger culture. Star Wars costumers offer a magnified glance at some of the ways in which people engage with images. As reflections of popular culture, costumers display their textual devotions and opinions; they embody spectatorship by reincarnating their favorite characters and contexts from text-bound sources. Moreover, they embrace modes of visual representation by performing the roles of both image consumer and image producer. I strive to understand …

The Effects Of A Parent Training Course On Coercive Interactions Between Parents And Children, Lezlee Powell

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Coercion within parent/child relationships can have lasting effects on the behavior

of children. The Family Safety/Applied Behavior Analysis Initiative at the University of

South Florida is part of a statewide project designed to serve foster parents and the

children in the foster care system, has developed a training program entitled .Parenting

Tools for Positive Behavior Change.. To date, the effectiveness of the parenting course

has been evaluated in two ways. First, parents have been tested in role-play situations

before and after training, and have shown improvements in their use of positive parenting

skills. Second, frequency of foster home placement disruptions …

Response Cards In The Elementary School Classroom: Effects On Student And Teacher Behavior, Shannon Mckallip-Moss

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Previous research has examined the effects of response card use at various grades levels including elementary, middle, high school, and community college. These studies provide convincing evidence that incorporating response cards into group instruction helps improve learning outcomes. However, the majority of these studies focused solely on learning outcomes, typically assessed through the administration of tests and/or quizzes. The present study examined the effects of response cards on learning, and expanded the research by assessing effects on disruptive student behavior and the quantity and quality of interactions between teachers and students. A second grade teacher and two students were exposed …

Secondary Seed Dispersal Of Longleaf Pine, Pinus Palustris, And Sand Live Oak, Quercus Geminata, In Florida Sandhill, Shannon Elizabeth Ansley

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Studies of secondary seed dispersal by small mammals have largely been focused on the interaction between nut-bearing tree species and sciurid rodents such as squirrels, and on heteromyid rodents in the southwestern United States. However, there is now evidence that wind-dispersed tree species such as pines also undergo a process of secondary seed dispersal, where animals redistribute (cache) seeds that have already fallen to the ground, often in microhabitats more suitable for successful seed germination. In Florida sandhill, where fire suppression has threatened wind-dispersed longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) by encouraging the encroachment of hardwoods such as sand live oak (Quercus …

Modeling The Advantages And Disadvantages Of The Coral-Algal Symbiosis, Dana Joy Gaydos

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Coral reefs thrive in nutrient-deficient environments yet function among the most productive ecosystems on Earth as a consequence of the symbiosis between coral hosts and their symbiotic zooxanthellae. The symbiotic unit (holobiont) can utilize both inorganic and organic sources of nutrients for the accumulation of carbon and nitrogen required for metabolism, growth, and reproduction. An iterative model was created to describe the flux of carbon and nitrogen between a host and its algae. The model design is based on a previously published conceptual model of algal symbioses; functions and values of input parameters are based on published studies of the …

The Application Of A Modified Human Development Index: Spatial Modeling Of Socioeconomic Well-Being For Florida Counties, Clay Kelsey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis uses the United Nations Human Development Index as a model for comparing a selected set of socioeconomic indicators across Florida’s sixty-seven counties. Whether for urban planning, hazards mitigation, transportation forecasting, or other county-level and state-level functions, information and understanding of socioeconomic conditions are keys to efficient planning and policy making, both in the early development stages as well as during implementation. A summary overview of socioeconomic well-being and its distribution across a given area offers a distinct advantage in terms of deciding where planning or policy changes are most needed and where they will prove most beneficial.

This …

The Mucilage Of Opuntia Ficus Indica: A Natural, Sustainable, And Viable Water Treatment Technology For Use In Rural Mexico For Reducing Turbidity And Arsenic Contamination In Drinking Water, Kevin Andrew Young

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The use of natural environmentally benign agents in the treatment of drinking water is rapidly gaining interest due to their inherently renewable character and low toxicity. We show that the common Mexican cactus produces a gum-like substance, cactus mucilage, which shows excellent flocculating abilities and is an economically viable alternative for low-income communities. Cactus mucilage is a neutral mixture of approximately 55 high-molecular weight sugar residues composed basically of arabinose, galactose, rhamnose, xylose, and galacturonic acid. We show how this natural product was characterized for its use as a flocculating agent. Our results show the mucilage efficiency for reducing arsenic …

“Fit For The Reception Of Ladies And Gentlemen”: Power, Space, And Politeness In Eighteenth-Century Anglo-Atlantic Playhouses, Troy Thompson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Eighteenth-century English men and women ventured to the playhouse for a night of festive revelry and entertainment. Despite the raucousness (compared to our vision of a night at the theatre), theatergoing was a polite endeavor and as such equipped with the material pleasantries of bourgeois society. But unlike other spaces reserved for the middle and upper classes, all manner of people could and did attend the theatre. Thus, particular methods of physically and visually separating social classes arose within the eighteenth-century playhouse.

In this thesis, I investigate these material phenomena, particularly the ways in which theatre managers, players, as well …

The Effect Of Dem Resolution On The Computation Of Hydrologically Significant Topographic Attributes, David Alexander Crosby

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Terrain attributes computed from Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) are widely used in hydrology and hydrologic modeling. It is important to consider that the values of the attributes can be different depending on the resolution of the DEM from which they are derived. The question arises as to how much exactly the high-resolution DEMs created through LIDAR remote sensing techniques change the values of the terrain attributes when compared to lower resolution DEMs.In this thesis a LIDAR-derived DEM of 20 feet resolution was resampled using a nearest-neighbour algorithm to various coarser resolutions to examine and quantify the effect of DEM resolution …

Precipitative Softening And Ultrafiltration Treatment Of Beverage Water, Jorge T. Aguinaldo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Lime softening, chlorination, clarification and filtration have been long recognized treatment processes for beverage water specifically the carbonated soft drink (CSD) because it provides consistent water quality required for bottling plants, however these processes are becoming uneconomical and causes more problems than the benefits they offer. These processes require very large foot print, occupy large plant volume, and generate large volume of sludge which causes disposal problems. Chlorination produces trihalomethanes (THMs) and other by-products which are detrimental to health and imparts tastes to the final products. Using the newly developed submerged spiral wound ultrafiltration membranes in conjunction with lime softening …

Antibiotic-Conjugated Polyacrylate Nanoparticles: New Opportunities For Development Of Anti-Mrsa Agents, Yang Wang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

N-Thiolated β-lactams represent a novel family of antibacterial agents, whose in vitro activity is confined largely to Staphylococcus species, including multidrug-resistant forms of S. aureus. N-Thiolated β-lactams have recently been shown to possess intriguing biological activities which are addressed in Chapter II. Current development of nanoparticles as a new drug delivery vehicle is described in Chapter III. Chapter IV and V described the current research in our laboratories focusing on the synthesis and characterization of emulsified polyacrylate/polyacrylamide nanoparticle antibacterials for drug delivery of water-insoluble antibiotics. These nanoparticles can be prepared in aqueous media directly from acrylate/acrylamide monomers through free …

Temporal And Spatial Distribution Of Chlorophyll On The West Florida Shelf, Danylle N. Ault

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The West Florida Shelf (WFS), typically characterized as being oligotrophic, is one of the most productive continental shelves in the United States. In addition to supporting a large fishing industry, the WFS also supports high biomass blooms of the toxic dinoflagellate Karenia brevis. Because of the large ecological and economic impacts these blooms have on the area, the ECOHAB: Florida program was developed to gain a better understanding of red tides and their initiation, maintenance, and dispersal. This interdisciplinary program consisted of monthly cruises from June 1998 through December 2001, with a hiatus from January through March of 2001. Hydrography, …

Rethinking The Monumental: The Museum As Feminist Space In The Sexual Politics Exhibition, 1996, Devon P. Larsen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Rethinking the monumental suggests not only a reconsideration of Judy Chicago’s controversial installation The Dinner Party (1979)--as displayed in the group feminist art exhibition, Sexual Politics: Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party in Feminist Art History--but also refers to an unfixing of the monumental position of power afforded the museum and a re-invigoration of the debate in feminist visual art regarding the use of the female body. I use the Sexual Politics exhibition, curated by Amelia Jones for the University of California at Los Angeles Armand Hammer Museum and Cultural Center (1996) as an indicator of the museum as feminist space. Sexual …

An Exploratory Analysis Of The Effects Of A Statewide Mandatory Grade Retention Policy And Student Academic Achievement, Larry J. Porter Jr.

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The literacy skills of students have become a significant concern among legislators and educators. The federal government has responded to this by enacting legislation that increases state accountability to provide evidence-based interventions to struggling readers. In response, the State of Florida has mandated mandatory retention for third-grade students who are at risk for reading failure. Third-grade students who do not pass the Florida comprehensive Assessment Test-Reading (FCAT) are retained. Students who score at Level 1 are retained, and students who scored at Levels 2 through 5 are promoted.

Research has indicated that retention has been an ineffective intervention to improve …

An Inquiry Concerning The Teaching Of Critical Thinking In An Advanced Placement Literature And Composition Class, Minnette Northcutt

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project is intended to serve as an exploratory investigation of inquiry-based teaching in an Advanced Placement (AP) literature and composition course. The rigid curricular constraints of AP courses and the assessment-based guidelines for teaching such courses can challenge the value placed in teaching students to think critically. This project seeks to draw attention to the difficult terrain that teachers navigate when trying to foster environments that facilitate inquiry-based learning while at the same time holding students to the standards set by the curriculum. As an exploratory study, the project aims to identify important issues and questions concerning inquiry-based learning …

The Effects Of Role-Playing On The Development Of Adaptive Skills In A Parent Training Program, Chantell A. Rodriguez-Del Valle

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Parent training programs are widely used to remediate ineffective strategies being

used by parents of children with maladaptive behaviors. While there are a multitude of

parenting workshops available, it has been estimated that over half have no established

effectiveness. The purpose of this study was to advance our knowledge regarding the

effects of modeling and role-playing (in an experimentally controlled design), used to

supplement the parent workshop called “Winning at Parenting” and enhance development

of adaptive parenting skills of participants.

This study trained parents in the behavioral techniques of clear communication,

differential attention, and time-out procedures via modeling by the …

The Influence Of Roads On The Florida Panther, Autumn C. Schwab

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Florida panther (Puma concolor coryi) is a relatively well studied species, but some aspects of its habitat requirements remain poorly understood. While it has been well established that the most important threat to panthers include limited habitat area and continued habitat loss and fragmentation, the importance of roads in this context has not been determined. The goal of this research is to determine the influence of roads on the movement patterns of the Florida panther. Panther telemetry data from 1981 until 2003 was used, as well as detailed road networks and vegetation maps. The influence of roads on individual …

Reach Out: The Newsletter Of Maine Speakout Project (Spring 2006), Maine Speakout Project, Community Counseling Center

Reach out : the newsletter of Maine Speakout Project (2004-2006)

No abstract provided.

The Jackson - Werner Family Of Bangor, Maureen Elgersman - Lee (Ed.)

The Griot

No abstract provided.

The John Muir Newsletter, Spring/Summer 2006, The John Muir Center For Environmental Studies

Muir Center Newsletters (1981-2015)

John Muir's World Tour (part III) Introduction by W. R. Swagerty Director, John Muir Center In this issue, we resume John Muir's unpublished notebooks from his World Tour, 1903-1904. This double issue covers the dates August 18 through November 2, 1903, all recorded in notebook number fifty of the John Muir Papers at University of the Pacific. The transcription by Pulizer-prize winner and Muir-biographer Linnie Marsh Wolfe (1881-1945) is part of her papers, also at Pacific in Holt-Atherton Special Collections, a subset of.. ' the Muir Papers. The Wolfe Papers are described thus in the on-line catalog to Holt-Atherton Department …

Family Affairs Newsletter 2006-04-01, Jean Vermette

Family Affairs newsletter (2004-2016)

FAMILY AFFAIRS was a free, twice-a-month, social activities newsletter for the GLBTQI (gay/lesbian/bisexual/trans/queer/intersex) community, sent out around the 1st and 15th of each month. It covered the State of Maine only. The list was begun and maintained for many years by Jean Vermette in Bangor, and later operated by Zack Paakkonen of Portland. Over the years it evolved from a social activities newsletter into a business directory, classified ad service, and community bulletin board.

Spaces Of Encounter: The Cultural Labor Of Class Difference, Ardis Cameron

American and New England Studies [Discontinued]

This article explores the complicated relationship between narratives of working-class America and formations of national Otherness. Arguing that class, sex, and ethnicity are deeply relational, it seeks to map the symbolic terrain and emotional depth of class difference as it circulates in the American imaginary. It ask how we might think about the cultural poetics of class difference in ways that make a difference-in ways that register class narratives as participants in constructions of the Nation and the "normal," the irregular and the queer? Attending to the kinds of emotional and conceptual services stories of class perform, it locates "class" …

Reforging The White Republic: Race, Religion, And American Nationalism, 1865-1898 (Book Review), R. Bryan Bademan

History Faculty Publications

Book review by R. Bryan Bademan.

Blum, Edward J. Reforging the White Republic: Race, Religion, and American Nationalism, 1865-1898. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005.

African American Literature: Books To Stoke Dreams, Jane M. Gangi, Aimee Ferguson

Education Faculty Publications

In addition to market forces, unconsciously damaging trends in many textbooks for teacher education have resulted in classroom trade book collections that represent children who are primarily white and middle class. While all children—whether from Argentina, Afghanistan, or Algeria—deserve to see themselves and their families in books, the focus of this article is on new publications that depict African Americans.

Teachers who are committed to learning all they can about multicultural literature and culturally and gender relevant pedagogy become agents of change.

Includes significant bibliography of Resources and list of Children’s Literature That Picture Children of African Descent.

Race, Nation, And Religion In The Americas, Edited By Henry Goldschmidt And Elizabeth Mcalister, R. Bryan Bademan

History Faculty Publications

Book review by R. Bryan Bademan.

Goldschmidt, Henry and Elizabeth McAlister, eds. Race, Nation, and Religion in the Americas. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.

ISBN 978-0195149197

On Chris Lehmann's Revolt Of The Masscult, George Ciccariello Maher

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

The good folks at Prickly Paradigm are certainly doing their job. Their stated objective is “publishing challenging and sometimes outrageous pamphlets,” and Lehmann's short piece fulfills this claim brilliantly, evoking intellectual mood swings that span from shouting for joy at a particularly lucid formulation to shouting angrily at the deftness with which Lehmann transforms his lucidity into suspiciously wrongheaded and reactionary assessments. The clinical bipolarity of this work, as we will see, is no coincidence: it is precisely the political entanglement of the subject of mass culture (“masscult”) that leads to both respect for one's opponents and suspicion …

A Joint Rolled In Toilet Paper: Funkadelic’S Funky Soul, Joseph T. Thomas Jr.

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

Through an examination of Parliament-Funkadelic’s lyrics and music, this paper explores shit, dirt, and the funk, investigating their relationship to George Clinton and his band’s desire to darken the Humanistic project of Enlightenment, their desire to soil language, and thereby question conventional, bourgeois values. The author argues that Funkadelic participate in what Mikhail Bakhtin calls the “peculiar logic” of the carnivalesque, detourning status quo notions of culture and society, creating complex contortions through the blurring of the good and the bad, the cerebral and the carnal, the sublime and the mundane. In essence, Funkadelic are a musical carnival that exists …

An Analysis Of The United Nations: Two Peace Operations In The Congo, Sofia Fargo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis studies the peacekeeping, peace enforcement and peace-building efforts undertaken by the United Nations (UN) in the Congo. Part one investigates the UN mission in Congo 1960 to 1964 and the second part looks at the current mission that started in 1999 which is currently ongoing. The final part makes a comparative analysis of the two case studies.

Peacekeeping, peace enforcement and peace-building are some of the approaches the UN uses in order to manage and settle conflict. While these concepts are often related to one another, they possess certain characteristics making them distinguishable. I solemnly use these concepts …

Production And Perception Of Place Of Articulation Errors, Adrienne M. Stearns

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Speech errors have been utilized since the beginning of the last century to learn more about how speech is produced, both physically and cognitively. Collection of speech errors has progressed from writing down naturally occurring speech errors to recording experimentally induced speech errors to current studies, which are using instrumentation to record acoustic and kinematic information about experimentally induced speech errors. One type of instrumentation being used in articulatory research is ultrasound. Ultrasound is gaining popularity for use by those interested in learning how speech is physically produced because of its portability and noninvasiveness. Ultrasound of the tongue during speech …