American Studies Commons^™

Rubo, Aileen (Fa 490), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid for Folklife Archives Project 490. Taped interviews conducted by Aileen Rubo about one-room school houses in Adair County, Kentucky. Includes transcirptions, photographs, and typescripts. To see transcripts of three interviews from this collection, click on the "Additional Files" below.

Waggener, Tom (Fa 491), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 491. Taped interviews conducted by Tom Waggener about the "Giles House." Includes transcriptions, photographs, and typescripts.

Topology Control In Wireless Sensor Networks, Pedro Mario Wightman Rojas

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) offer a flexible low-cost solution to the problem of event monitoring, especially in places with limited accessibility or that represent danger to humans. WSNs are made of resource-constrained wireless devices, which require energy efficient mechanisms, algorithms and protocols. One of these mechanisms is Topology Control (TC) composed of two mechanisms, Topology Construction and Topology Maintenance.

This dissertation expands the knowledge of TC in many ways. First, it introduces a comprehensive taxonomy for topology construction and maintenance algorithms for the first time. Second, it includes four new topology construction protocols: A3, A3Lite, A3Cov and A3LiteCov. These protocols …

Two Essays On Information Ambiguity And Informed Traders’ Trade-Size Choice, Ziwei Xu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Defining ambiguity as investor's uncertainty about the precision of the observed information, Chapter One constructs an empirical measure of ambiguity based on analysts' earnings forecast information, and finds that the market tends to react more negatively to highly ambiguous bad news, while it tends to be less responsive to highly ambiguous good news. This result supports the theoretical argument of Epstein and Schneider (2003, 2008) that ambiguity-averse investors take a worst-case assessment of the information precision, when they are uncertain about the information precision. In addition, Chapter One shows that returns on stocks exposed to highly ambiguous and intangible information …

Constraining The Geometry And Evolution Of The Maneadero Basin, Baja California, Mexico, Sean Callihan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Maneadero Basin is identified as a transtensional sedimentary basin along the Agua Blanca Fault (ABF) in the southern limit to the "Big Bend" Domain of the North American-Pacific plate boundary zone. The ABF exhibits both the dextral and normal components of slip. This creates an interesting setting for the formation of the Maneadero Basin because structures with orientations similar to the ABF are typically contractional (e.g.: Puente Hills Fault, Whittier Fault, and Rancho Cucamonga Fault). The question if this basin is evidence of plate-scale transtension or local extension associated with bends/stopovers along the ABF is addressed by this study …

Powell, Janet Sharli (Fa 17), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Folklife Archives Project 17.  Collection consists of interviews with Bonnie G. (Cole) Willis and Johnnie Mae (Elkins) White, Bowling Green, Kentucky, conducted by Janet Sharli Powell about quilting.  Includes sample Mexican Star quilt block.  Project was completed for a folk studies class at Western Kentucky University.

Livable Streets: Establishing Social Place Through A Walkable Intervention, Jeffrey T. Flositz

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Some streets tend to lack a social sense of place. Since the invention of the automotive assembly line and post World War II development, street designs have shifted from centering around people and social situations to vehicular traffi c solutions. Streets are typically not thought of as social places, but rather as a means to effi ciently move automotive traffi c. The environment of these unlivable streets discourages social interaction. The majority of buildings are disconnected from the street with often nothing more than a parking lot.

A new model of streets is necessary, one that transforms streets into places …

Utilizing Contextualized Reading In Career And Technical Education To Enhance Reading Skills, Alan Duane Darr

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The traditional education system in the United States developed a goal of sending a high number of students to post secondary schools. The expectation of going to college starts at elementary school and continues through high school and is pushed by the school district’s hierarchy. Schools annually publish numbers through the Department of Education at state and national levels of students moving to college. College progression has become such a priority that many students feel they have failed if not college bound.

Students not considered academic often move toward vocational education with the intent of post-secondary education to support a …

Ann Marie Chua Lee Interview, Jasmin M. Ortiz

Asian American Art Oral History Project

2010 Interview with cosplay costume designer Anne Marie Chua Lee by Jasmin M. Ortiz

A Generalized Framework For Automatic Code Partitioning And Generation In Distributed Systems, Viswanath Sairaman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In distributed heterogeneous systems the partitioning of application software to be executed in a distributed fashion is a challenge by itself. The task of code partitioning for distributed processing involves partitioning the code into clusters and mapping those code clusters to the individual processing elements interconnected through a high speed network. Code generation is the process of converting the code partitions into individually executable code clusters and satisfying the code dependencies by adding communication primitives to send and receive data between dependent code clusters. In this work, we describe a generalized framework for automatic code partitioning and code generation for …

Kentucky Building - Guest Book (Sc 2167), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2167. Guest book kept for the Kentucky Building at its opening in 1939 and for special events. The book was donated by the Western Kentucky State Teachers College class of 1935. It is housed in a tooled leather slipcover featuring the seal of Kentucky and inscribed "Distinguished Guests, The Kentucky Building."

Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai Interview, Flor Sigaran

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai is a Chicago-born, Brooklyn-based Chinese Taiwanese American spoken word artist who fights for cultural pride and survival through how she spits and how she lives.

Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai has been featured in over 400 performances worldwide at venues including the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, the House of Blues, the Apollo Theater, Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, and three seasons of the award-winning “Russell Simmons Presents HBO Def Poetry.” The author of Inside Outside Outside Inside (2004) and Thought Crimes (2005) and the CD Infinity Breaks (2006), Tsai has shared stages with Mos Def, KRS-One, Sonia Sanchez, Talib Kweli, Erykah …

Refinement Of A Chemistry Attitude Measure For College Students, Xiaoying Xu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This work presents the evaluation and refinement of a chemistry attitude measure, Attitude toward the Subject of Chemistry Inventory (ASCI), for college students. The original 20-item and revised eight-item versions of ASCI (V1, V2, V3 and V3.1) were administered to different samples. The evaluation for ASCI had two main foci on the psychometric properties: reliability and validity. Both psychological theory and factor analysis techniques were applied to guide instrument refinement. Evidence for good reliability and validity was established for ASCI V2 score interpretation. The two-factor correlated structure was supported by confirmatory factor analysis. The two subscales, intellectual accessibility and emotional …

Assessing The Effectiveness Of The Roaring Branch Bmp Retrofit Using Macroinvertebrate Bioassessment, James L. Banning

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Using benthic macroinvertebrates to measure stream health has been widely used and accepted around the world. Macroinvertebrates are resident monitors of chronic impairment in a stream since they are relatively sessile and most commonly respond to disturbance by drift but can recolonize a restored stream reach very quickly. This study tested the effectiveness of macroinvertebrate metrics developed through the Rapid Bioassessment Protocol (RBP) to detect changes in stream integrity as the result of placement of a best management practice (BMP), installed on a tributary of Roaring Branch, located in Columbus, Georgia. The BMP was designed to attenuate flow to reduce …

Johnston, Annie Fellows, 1863-1931 (Sc 2163), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and full text of letters (click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2163. Letters of Annie Fellows Johnston to Ruth Clement in Tokyo, Japan. Johnston responds to Clement's praise of "The Little Colonel" and her gift of a Japanese book, and sends Clement a copy of her story "The Three Weavers."

Stephenson, Bertha C., 1885-1977 (Sc 2159), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid for Manuscripts Small Collection 2159. Letters (some incomplete) to Bertha C. Stephenson, of Milton, Trimble County, Kentucky, from friends, relatives and sweethearts in Kentucky, California and Florida. They write of gifts and photographs exchanged, mutual friends, travel, romances, and Stephenson's upcoming wedding. Includes a handwritten notice from the Board of Health requiring Stephenson and her pupils to be vaccinated in order to conduct school (click on "Additional Files" below for scan).

Where Christ Dies Daily: Performances Of Faith At Orlando‘S Holy Land Experience, Sara B. Dykins Callahan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This manuscript focuses on performances of place and faith inside the Holy Land Experience (HLE), an edutainment complex nestled in the fantasy nexus of Orlando, Florida. A self-proclaimed living-history museum, the HLE includes animatronic Bible characters and musical dramas. The HLE enacts and embodies evangelical narratives of Christianity and Christian faith, and visitors to the park are asked to join the performances, blurring the distinctions between spectators and professional actors. I argue that visitors' performances of faith invest the space of the HLE with sacredness, while the location and design of the HLE infuses the space with elements of the …

Aretē And Physics: The Lesson Of Plato's Timaeus, John R. Wolfe

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Plato's Timaeus is traditionally read as a work dedicated to the sole purpose of describing the origin and nature of the cosmos, as a straightforward attempt by Plato to produce a peri phuseos treatise. In accord with this reading, the body of Timaeus' monologue is then seen as nothing more than an attempt by Plato to convey his own cosmological doctrines.

I propose an alternative to the view that the Timaeus is nothing more than a textbook of Platonic physics. The Timaeus is rather squarely focused on the human being, in her moral and political dimensions, and on her relation …

From Husserl And The Neo-Kantians To Art: Heidegger's Realist Historicist Answer To The Problem Of The Origin Of Meaning, William H. Koch

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this work I present both a historical and philosophical argument. First, I use Martin Heidegger's early interest in the argument that concepts are furnished to the mind directly by experience, as found in Edmund Husserl's categorial intuition and Emil Lask's principle of the material determination of form, to build an interpretation of Being and Time and "The Origin of the Work of Art" which provides a unified understanding of Heidegger's consistent underlying position throughout his career as one of realist historicism. My interpretation of Heidegger as a realist historicist rejects the reading of Being and Time as a transcendental …

Mayes Family Papers (Sc 2153), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2153. Miscellaneous materials, primarily deeds and recording clerks' certificates, relating to the Mayes family of Barren County, Kentucky and associated families. Includes Memorial Day gravesite photo and 1903 school program. Also includes Civil War soldier's letter written from Davidson County, Tennessee, 16 March 1862 (Click on "Additional Files" below for scan).

Looking Good And Taking Care: Consumer Culture, Identity, And Poor, Minority, Urban Tweens, Elizabeth Edgecomb

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Looking Good and Taking Care: Consumer Culture, Identity, and Poor, Minority, Urban Tweens is an ethnographic examination of how poor, minority, urban tweens (age 7-14) use consumer culture to create and perform their personal and social identities. Although portrayed in mass media as selfish and hedonistic, this work finds tweens creating profoundly social, giving, and caring identities and relationships through consumption. Their use of consumer culture is also a form of political resistance that subverts their place in the age, class, and race hierarchy. These tweens use “looking good” (attention to grooming, style, and behaving respectably), and not name brand …

Avery, James Russell, 1921-2018 (Sc 2128), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2128. "My Story," the autobiography of James Russell Avery, a Hardin County native, prepared as a project of WKU gerontology student Shaylin Gimborys. Includes illustrations and genealogical information on the Avery family.

Walking Box Ranch Custodianship Quarterly Progress Report: Period Ending January 10, 2010, Margaret N. Rees

Walking Box Ranch

• UNLV provides stewardship of Walking Box Ranch (WBR) by providing a caretaker who oversees the property, facilitating use of the property by researchers and educators, developing a use and research policy for the property, and coordinating these activities with BLM and in accordance with TNC restrictions.
• UNLV currently addresses security issues for the property through the presence of the caretaker and three Metro Officers who reside on the property in two recreational vehicles, in rotation. UNLV has prepared a draft document outlining this agreement that will be signed by UNLV and participating officers and this agreement is now under review …

Watkins, Dianne (Winkler), 1941-2024 (Sc 2141), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 2141. Oral interviews done with Appalachian writer Verna Mae Slone in which she discusses her life, her family, and her writing. Slone was a dollmaker, quilter, and quintessential storyteller.

Miller, Emmitt E., 1907-1985 (Sc 2130), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scans (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2130. Miscellaneous deeds, will, tax receipts, stock certificate, and school trustee's report relating primarily to the Miller family of Muhlenberg County.

(Un)Natural Bodies, Endangered Species, And Embodied Others In Margaret Atwood's Oryx And Crake, Marcy Galbreath

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The developing knowledge of life sciences is at the crux of Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake as she examines human promise gone awry in a near-future dystopia. This thesis examines aspects of posthumanism, ecocriticism, and feminism in the novel's scientific, cultural, and environmental projections. Through the trope of extinction, Atwood's text foregrounds the effects of human exceptionalism and instrumentalism in relation to the natural world, and engenders an analysis of human identity through its biological and cultural aspects. Extinction thus serves as a metaphor for both human development and human excesses, redefining the idea of human within the context of …

“The Superman Exists, And He Is American”: Graphic Novel Film Adaptations And Masculine Heroism In Post-9/11 Culture, Richard Charles Abate

Film Studies Honors Papers

This senior thesis paper discusses the representation of masculinity and heroism in post-9/11 culture and how filmic adaptations of graphic novels have helped to shape these representations. Following the events of September 11th, the cultural definitions of the masculine hero shifted, allowing the average, working class man to become the embodiment of American heroism. This new understanding of the American hero was marked by sexual difference and a redefinition of the masculine “hard-body” that allowed for the possession of a heroic masculine identity to appear more attainable. This thesis primarily examines the filmic adaptations of works by Frank Miller and …

Archeological Survey And Survey-Level Testing For The Proposed Juan Seguin Park Plaza Project, Harris County, Texas, Herbert G. Uecker, Nacy F. Porter, Mark B. Wagner, Janet K. Wagner, Carol N. Bookout, Steve Griffin

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

J. K. Wagner and Company, Inc. was retained by Harris County Precinct 2 to provide archeological investigations and historic research for the proposed Juan Seguin Park Plaza Project. The project area is owned by Harris County, and the project will be financed with county funds. The project will consist of new construction to update and modify the existing park.

The proposed Juan Seguin Park Plaza Project area is located on the west side of Texas Highway 134 at the south Lynchburg Ferry landing in east Harris County, Texas, and is approximately two acres in size. As the investigation revealed, the …

National Register Of Historic Places Eligibility Testing Of Site 41le326 Lee County, Texas, Andrea Stahman, Candace Wallace, Linda Ellis, Chris Helligenstein

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

Between March 5 and 12, 2007, PBS&J conducted National Register of Historic Places eligibility testing at site 41LE326, under contract to the Texas Department of Transportation Environmental Affairs Division (TxDOT ENV) (CSJ No. 0211-03-032). This investigation was conducted in advance of proposed improvements to U.S. Highway 77 in central Lee County, Texas, under regulations of the National Historic Preservation Act, as amended (16 USC §470 et seq.) and the Antiquities Code of Texas (Title 9, chapter 191, Texas Natural Resource Code). Site 41LE326 is a prehistoric campsite that was initially recorded by PBS&J in October 2006 during a cultural resources …

Intensive Cultural Resources Survey Of The Proposed Wurzbach Parkway Extension Project From Blanco Road To Wetmore Road, Bexar County, Texas, Mary Jo Galindo, Kevin A. Miller, Al Mcgraw

Index of Texas Archaeology: Open Access Gray Literature from the Lone Star State

SWCA Environmental Consultants (SWCA) conducted an intensive cultural resources survey on behalf of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), of the proposed Wurzbach Parkway Extension Project in San Antonio, Texas. TxDOT proposes to extend the existing Wurzbach Parkway approximately 5.3 miles between Farm-to-Market Road (FM) 2696 (Blanco Road) and Wetmore Road. The undertaking involves the new construction of a four-lane divided roadway within an approximately 250-foot right-of-way (ROW) that is state-owned property. Overall, the Area of Potential Effects (APE) is 27,984 feet long, 250 feet wide, and maximally 10 feet deep. Additionally, the APE covers roughly 51.77 acres of permanent …