American Studies Commons^™

Improved Methodologies For Modeling Storage And Water Level Behavior In Wetlands, Kenneth Allan Nilsson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Wetlands are important elements of watersheds that influence water storage, surface water runoff, groundwater recharge/discharge processes, and evapotranspiration. To understand the cumulative effect wetlands have on a watershed, one must have a good understanding of the water-level fluctuations and the storage characteristics associated with multiple wetlands across a region. An improved analytical method is presented to describe the storage characteristics of wetlands in the absence of detailed hydrologic and bathymetric data. Also, a probabilistic approach based on frequency analysis is developed to provide insight into surface and groundwater interactions associated with isolated wetlands. The results of the work include: 1) …

Davis, Anne Pence, 1901-1982 (Sc 2213), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2213. Letter, 15 December 1975, from Anne Pence Davis to Dorothy Edwards Townsend responding to her request for biographical material, probably for inclusion in Kentucky in American Letters, vol. III, 1913-1975. Includes two news clippings about Davis' novel The Top Hand of Lone Tree Ranch.

Fabrication And Characterization Of Surfactant-Free Pbse Quantum Dot Films And Pbse-Polymer Hybrid Structures, Gayan S. Dedigamuwa

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This work describes an experimental investigation of methods of synthesis, determination of structural and physical properties, and analysis and correlation of the properties to the structures of semiconductor quantum dots and quantum dot-polymer hybrid structures. These structures are investigated for applications in flexible solar cell devices. The main synthesis process used in the work was a Laser-Assisted Spray (LAS) process that was developed in our laboratory to deposit surfactant-free PbSe quantum dot (QD) films directly on a substrate. The QD films formed by this technique are in close contact with each other forming a percolation path for charge transport. Analytical …

Feral Cats And The People Who Care For Them, Loretta Sue Humphrey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Sociologists have described the characteristics of individuals who become involved in social movements, their motivations for becoming involved, and the methods used to recruit participants. One group that has been underrepresented in the existing literature is feral cat caretakers. The purpose of this study is to examine the traits of this group, information which would be valuable to groups dedicated to educating the public about the plight of feral cats, groups which offer information and resources to caretakers, individuals wishing to network with other feral cat caretakers, and policy makers in need of knowing what options exist to deal with …

The Fiction Of The Rime: Gaspara Stampa’S “Poetic Misprision” Of Giovanni Boccaccio’S The Elegy Of Lady Fiammetta, Ellan B. Otero

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study maintains that although Gaspara Stampa's Rime (1554) appears to straddle two popular literary genres-lyric poetry and autobiography-analysis of the Rime within its cultural context demonstrates that while Stampa (1523-1553) used Petrarchan conventions, she also both borrowed and swerved from Giovanni Boccaccio's Elegy of Lady Fiammetta (1334-1337) to imagine a non-Petrarchan narrative of an abandoned woman. In the Renaissance, lyric poetry and autobiography were distinguished not only by their style-prose vs. verse-but, more importantly, by the treatment of their distinctive subject matter. Lyric poetry focused on those emotions involving love, whereas Renaissance autobiography shunned emotions. A comparative analysis of …

Development Of Uhf Micromechanical Resonators And Arrays Based On Silicon-Oninsulator (Soi) Technology, Mingke Xiong

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A novel micromachining technology on SOI substrates is presented that is capable of producing on-chip high-Q resonators and resonator arrays equipped with high aspect-ratio (30:1) microstructures and nano-gap capacitive transducers filled with high-k dielectrics. The newly developed IC-compatible MEMS microfabrication process consists of merely three standard photolithography steps, which is much simpler than the other SOI-based resonator device technologies. In order to achieve the optimum performance and yield of the resonators and resonator arrays, this SOI-based fabrication process has been carefully designed and investigated step by step.

For capacitively-transduced extensional mode (e.g., radial-contour and wine-glass mode) resonators, formation of …

Design, Synthesis And Post-Synthetic Modifications Of Functional Metal-Organic Materials, Farid Nouar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Porous solids are a class of materials of high scientific and technological significance. Indeed, they have the ability to interact with atoms, ions or molecules not only at their surface but also throughout the bulk of the solid. This ability places these materials as a major class involved in many applications such as gas storage and separation, catalysis, drug delivery and sensor technology.

Metal-Organic Materials (MOMs) or coordination polymers (CPs) are crystalline compounds constructed from metal ions or clusters and organic components that are linked via coordination bonds to form zero-, one-, two or three-periodic structures. Porous Metal-Organic Materials (MOMs) …

The Effect Of Land-Use Controls On Urban Sprawl, Marin V. Geshkov

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Chapter 1 provides a discussion of definitions, criticisms, and measurements of urban sprawl. Land-use controls are surveyed in Chapter 2. In Chapter 3, we present the monocentric urban model, followed by a discussion of extensions of that model to include land-use controls. Chapter 4 is a survey of previous empirical analysis of the monocentric model, while Chapters 5 and 6 present our own empirical work.

In general, our empirical results support the theoretical predictions as well as providing support for policies to control sprawl. In particular, the results support the use of maximum lot-size zoning, urban growth boundaries, and density …

Testimony Of Trauma: Ernest Hemingway’S Narrative Progression In Across The River And Into The Trees, Kathleen K. Robinson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Specifically, the study of the progression focuses on examining Hemingway's Across the River and into the Trees for evidence of traumas' effects on Hemingway's development of narrative structure. Throughout his career, Hemingway pinpoints the importance of witnessing and experiencing war on a writer. I endeavor to demonstrate-in detail, achieved by close reading, and with solid evidence-how the imbrication of trauma in Across the River and into the Trees represents a vital moment in Hemingway's progression as a writer. My assertion, a new calculus of subjectivity and objectivity appearing in the narrative structure via the protagonist, viably counters previous critical dismissal …

Metal-Organic Materials: From Design Principles To Practical Applications, Mohamed H. Alkordi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The works presented herein outline rational design approaches towards construction of solid state materials with great potentials to answer some of current demanding applications. Specifically, the materials targeted are metal−organic materials with desirable structural features and functional properties. Metal−organic materials are constructed from organic linker molecules and metal ions under relatively mild solvothermal reaction conditions that preserve the structural features of the relatively simple building blocks. Therefore, it is feasible to conceive a retrospective pathway of the reaction and thus deconstruct the desirable structures into simple, chemicallyrelevant, building blocks in an approach known as the molecular building block approach. Due …

Understanding Organizational Adoption Theories Through The Adoption Of A Disruptive Innovation: Five Cases Of Open Source Software, Delmer Nagy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation seeks to understand how organizations adopt a disruptive technology, open source software. Five cross-sectional case studies at municipal governments were performed using a theoretical model based off of eight organizational adoption theories. Results of the case studies highlight how each construct from each theory was present at the organizations. However each construct was of variable influence based upon organizational characteristics and the time or stage of adoption.

Ground Family Graveyard - Warren County, Kentucky (Sc 2203), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and full text (click on Additional Files below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2203. Record book listing burials of Ground and related family members in Ground family graveyard, Three Forks, Warren County, Kentucky. Includes diagram of graveyard and genealogical material about those buried within.

Taylor, Carrie (Burnam), 1855-1917 (Sc 2206), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2206. Correspondence relating to the Mrs. A. H. Taylor Company, a Bowling Green, Kentucky dressmaking firm. Includes letters from customers and a measurement questionnaire. A letter by an unidentified writer recommends the wages paid by Mrs. Taylor. Includes transcriptions of the letters made by Western Kentucky University student Theresa L. Jureka for her 1983 thesis on Taylor, and one unrelated letter from a father to his son.

Oliverio, Myles W., B. 1988 (Fa 489), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid and full text (click on "Additional File" below) for Folklife Archives Project 489. Folklore material classified by genre. Information collected by Myles W. Oliverio related to folklore genres for a folk studies class at Western Kentucky University.

Mass-Marketing "Beauty": How A Feminist Heroine Became An Insipid Disney Princess, Marc Dipaolo

Faculty Books & Book Chapters

Originally published in Beyond Adaptation. Ed. Phyllis Frus & Christy A. Williams. McFarland, 2010

Mass-Marketing "Beauty": How a Feminist Heroine Became an Insipid Disney Princess by Marc DiPaolo

To see more or purchase works by Marc DiPaolo, visit his Amazon page here: https://www.amazon.com/Marc-DiPaolo/e/B004LV7W6Y%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share

Spelling Errors In Children With Autism, Khalyn I. Wiggins

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this study was to examine the spelling errors of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) when asked to spell morphologically complex words. Specifically, this study sought to determine if percent accuracy across morphological areas would be similar to patterns noted in typical developing children, correlate with participant age, and correlate to performance on standardized measures of achievement. Additionally, the study wanted to highlight the types of errors made by children with ASD on homonyms and the specific linguistic patterns noted when spelling derivational and inflectional word types.

Participants included 29 children diagnosed with Autism, PDD-NOS, and Asperger’s …

Improving Ground Penetrating Radar Resolution Of Features Of Active Sinkholes, Bradley Tyler Gooch

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ground penetrating radar (GPR) is widely used to identify locations of sinkholes in covered karst terrain in Florida. Some sinkholes serve as hydraulic conduits between the surficial and underlying aquifers. Their role is critical in determining the surficial aquifer response to pumping in deeper aquifers. Improved methods for discriminating between hydraulically active sinkholes and plugged sinkholes could help regional water management. In the covered karst of west-central Florida a clay-rich weathering horizon forms over the limestone. The clay-rich layer is in turn overlain by surficial sands. Ground penetrating radar profiles typically show a strong reflector from the top of clay-rich …

Tango Panopticon: Developing A Platform For Supporting Live Synchronous Art Events Based In Relational Aesthetics, Michael Edward Stillo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Tango Panopticon project merges art with technology to create a live and synchronous art experience which is just as much about the participants as it is about the observers. The goal of this project is to create a dialogue between observers of the event in the hopes of creating new social connections where there were none before. This goal is achieved by allowing observers to view the event from anywhere around the world on a computer via the internet and participate in a dialogue with other users on the website.

The other objective of this project is to create …

Perceptions Of Teachers In Their First Year Of School Restructuring: Failure To Make Adequate Yearly Progress, Sharon Moser

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The 2007-2008 school year marked the first year Florida's Title I schools that did not made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for five consecutive years entered into restructuring as mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. My study examines the perceptions of teachers entering into their first year of school restructuring due to failure to achieve AYP. Four research questions guided my inquiry: What are the perceptions of teachers regarding their school's failure to make Adequate Yearly Progress? What are the understandings of teachers regarding the restructuring process? What are the perceptions of teachers regarding the restructuring process? …

I Know I Shouldn’T Generalize, But…: A Rhetorical Critique Of Ethnography In Composition Studies, Micheal W. Taber Jr.

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis looks at Stephen North's 1987 claim of the limits of ethnography in composition research and looks at modern, published research studies to see how they have heeded North's warnings.

In 1987 Stephen North claimed that the future of ethnographic methodology in composition research was doomed unless those who would adopt this qualitative technique understood its limitations. North argued that each ethnography is only valuable as an individual study, that individual studies are not cumulative towards some absolute and discoverable positivistic model of knowledge. This warning of the problem and limitations of modern qualitative ethnography was issued over 2 …

Mercury In The Environment: Field Studies From Tampa, Bolivia, And Guyana, Joniqua A'Ja Howard

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Tampa (US), Guyana (SA), and Bolivia (SA), are geographically, socially, economically, and politically unique which make them ideal sites to study issues of mercury and sustainability. Mercury’s innate ability to bioaccumulate and biomagnify in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems poses a severe threat to both human and environmental health. The most vulnerable populations affected by mercury consumption include coastal communities, children, women of child-bearing age, the indigenous poor and persons with high environmental/occupational exposure factors. Communities in the regions of Florida, Bolivia, and Guyana whose diets are high in fish and are environmentally/occupationally exposed to mercury may be at a higher …

A Potential Tumor Suppressive Role Of Sirt1 In Cancer, Neha Kabra

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The NAD-dependent deacetylase SIRT1 regulates several factors involved in stress response and cell survival but its function in cancer is largely unknown. Research suggests that SIRT1 influences several transcription factors and molecules that are important components of pathways often deregulated in cancer. Our experiments have shown that SIRT1 knock down by short hairpin RNA accelerates tumor xenograft formation by HCT116 colon cancer cells, whereas SIRT1 overexpression inhibits tumor formation. We have also found that, pharmacological inhibition of SIRT1 stimulates cell proliferation under conditions of growth factor deprivation suggesting a tumor suppressive function of SIRT1. Paradoxically, SIRT1 inhibition sensitizes the same …

Harris, Sophronia (Campbell), 1833-1925 (Sc 2195), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2195. Letter, 11 March 1867, from Sophronia Harris, Madisonville, Kentucky, to Nell A. Durkee, Paw Paw, Michigan. She expresses sympathy over the death of Durkee’s father, notes other incidents of death and illness, gives news of family and mutual friends, and asks about Durkee’s sweetheart.

Probabilistic Error Analysis Models For Nano-Domain Vlsi Circuits, Karthikeyan Lingasubramanian

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Technology scaling to the nanometer levels has paved the way to realize multi-dimensional applications in a single product by increasing the density of the electronic devices on integrated chips. This has naturally attracted a wide variety of industries like medicine, communication, automobile, defense and even house-hold appliance, to use high speed multi-functional computing machines. Apart from the advantages of these nano-domain computing devices, their usage in safety-centric applications like implantable biomedical chips and automobile safety has immensely increased the need for comprehensive error analysis to enhance their reliability. Moreover, these nano-electronic devices have increased propensity to transient errors due to …

Evaluation Of Behavioral Skills Training For Teaching Functional Assessment And Treatment Selection Skills To Parents, Rachel K. Graves

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There have been many studies on teaching behavior analytic skills to parents for addressing problem behavior exhibited by their children. However, very few studies have addressed the issue of teaching parents to conduct a functional assessment and design a treatment for the problem behavior. The present study utilized behavioral skills training to teach parents how to conduct ABC recording, write a summary statement based on the data collected, and determine the proper treatment choices. The 8 participants participated in one 3 hour class in which a trainer used instructions, modeling, rehearsal, and feedback to teach these three skill sets. Prior …

Gatekeeping And Citizen Journalism: A Qualitative Examination Of Participatory Newsgathering, Amani Channel

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

For nearly sixty years, scholars have studied how information is selected, vetted, and shared by news organizations. The process, known as gatekeeping, is an enduring mass communications theory that describes the process by which news is gathered and filtered to audiences. It has been suggested, however, that in the wake of online communications the traditional function of media gatekeeping is changing.

The infusion of citizen-gathered media into news programming is resulting in what some call a paradigm shift. As mainstream news outlets adopt and encourage public participation, it is important that researchers have a greater understanding of the theoretical implications …

His Name Was Don Francisco Muro: Reconstructing An Image Of American Imperialism, Mark Rice

American Studies Faculty/Staff Publications

Visual culture played a significant role in the debates surrounding American colonialism in the Philippines in the early twentieth century. One of the most important photographers working the Philippines at that time was Dean Conant Worcester, who also served as a colonial administrator. Worcester's three-part sequence of photographs supposedly showing an Igorot man becoming civilized through his contact with Americans is one of the more iconic sets of images from that time period.

In recent years, many historians have reprinted the "Igorot sequence" to illustrate American imperial ideologies. However, neither the identity of the subject, nor the circumstances surrounding the …

The Powerful Mythology Surrounding Bugsy Siegel, Larry Gragg Ph.D.

Occasional Papers

Journalists, authors, filmmakers, and historians have been interested in Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel for over six decades. Collectively, they have crafted a cohesive mythological narrative of Siegel’s life one focused upon “rags to riches” success and his contributions to the development of Las Vegas, Nevada. Most attribute to Siegel the inspiration for not only the Flamingo Hotel‐Casino, but also for the glamorous, classy, flashy resort city Las Vegas became after World War II. This paper describes the development of the myth since Siegel’s murder in 1947 as well as how it has been sustained.

Depression In Lung Cancer Patients: Role Of Perceived Stigma, Brian D. Gonzalez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Previous research suggests that lung cancer patients are at an increased risk for depressive symptomatology; however, little is known about the possible etiology or correlates of depression among these patients. This study examined the relationship between perceived stigma and depressive symptomatology among lung cancer patients, and sought to find potential mediators of this relationship. It was hypothesized that more perceived stigma would be related to greater depressive symptomatology and that perceived stigma would contribute unique variance to depressive symptomatology above and beyond that contributed by clinical, demographic, and psychosocial variables. A sample of 95 participants receiving chemotherapy for stage II-IV …

Table Of Contents

The Dark Man: The Journal of Robert E. Howard & Pulp Studies

"The Shadow of the Beast:" A Closer Look, by Charles Hoffman

"Marchers of Valhalla," Creation, and the Cult of Castration, by Jeffrey Kahan

Celtic Influences in the Works of Robert E. Howard, by Philip Emery'

A Second Look: "The Lost Land of Lemuria," by Morgan Holmes

Visualizing Howard's World: "The Savage Sword of Conan," by Charles Hoffman

The Good, the Bad, and Howard in the "Cross Plains Universe," by Morgan Holmes

Remembering "Wolfshead," by Charles Hoffman