American Studies Commons^™

Comparative Life Cycle Assessments Of Lignocellulosic And Algae Biomass Conversion To Various Energy Products Through Different Pathways, Maria Juliana Pinilla

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Bioenergy has the potential to reduce the world's dependence on fossil fuels, and to decrease the CO2 emissions due to fossil combustion. Lignocellulosic and algae biomass have been presented as promising feedstocks for bioenergy production.

In this study, a comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been developed to evaluate the environmental impacts associated with different energy products via different routes across the whole life of algal and lignocellulosic bioenergy. Results were compared per energy basis, the production of 1 million BTU of energy products.

For the development of the comparative algae biomass conversion LCA, algal biomass was converted to liquid …

Stuart, Jesse Hilton, 1907-1984 (Sc 2486), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Manuscript Collection Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 2486. Letter from Jesse Stuart to Riley Handy, 8 February 1975, confirming Lee and Joy Pennington as the subjects of a work which he names as "Which Tree Would You Rather Be," and its suitability as a morality tale for children.

Religion As Aesthetic Creation: Ritual And Belief In William Butler Yeats And Aleister Crowley, Amy M. Clanton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

William Butler Yeats and Aleister Crowley created literary works intending them to comprise religious systems, thus negotiating the often-conflicting roles of religion and modern art and literature. Both men credited Percy Bysshe Shelley as a major influence, and Shelley's ideas of art as religion may have shaped their pursuit to create working religions from their art. This study analyzes the beliefs, prophetic practices, myths, rituals, and invocations found in their literature, focusing particularly on Yeats's Supernatural Songs, Celtic Mysteries, and Island of Statues, and Crowley's "Philosopher's Progress," "Garden of Janus," Rites of Eleusis, and "Hymn to Pan." While anthropological definitions …

Teacher's Perception Of Their Principal's Leadership Style And The Effects On Student Achievement In Improving And Non-Improving Schools, Brenda Kay Hardman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Teachers' perceptions of their school leaders influence student achievement in their schools. The extent of this influence is examined in this study. This quantitative study examined teachers' perceptions of the leadership style of their principals as transformational, transactional or passive-avoidant in improving and non-improving schools in relation to student achievement. The study population was a purposeful sample of 143 teachers in 16 schools in one school district. Leadership behaviors, as perceived by the teachers, were measured using the Multi-factor Leadership Questionnaire. Student achievement was measured with the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test results for each school using three years of results. …

"Not If, But When": Sex, Risk, And Trust In Timing Gardasil Vaccine Decisions, An Exploratory Study Among Healthcare Providers And Middle-Class Parents In The U.S., Kathleen Marie Brelsford

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation research explores how values regarding sexuality, morality, responsibility, protection, trust, and risk — expressed through parent, daughter, and healthcare provider relationships and interactions — inform parental decisions regarding the Gardasil® vaccine. In particular, the research examines the competing and conflicting meanings that parents and providers ascribe to vaccination and how actors position the vaccine within a wider set of negotiated, value–laden discourses. Because these narratives are situated within a larger structural field that shapes the landscape in which providers and parents interact, relevant historical and structural factors, including vaccine policy, cost, and compensation are discussed.

Identification Of Novel Stat3 Target Genes Associated With Oncogenesis, Rachel Haviland

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cytokine and growth factor signaling pathways involving STAT3 are frequently constitutively activated in many human primary tumors, and are known for the transcriptional role they play in controlling cell growth and cell cycle progression. However, the extent of STAT3's reach on transcriptional control of the genome as a whole remains an important question. We predicted that this persistent STAT3 signaling affects a wide variety of cellular functions, many of which still remain to be characterized.

We took a broad approach to identify novel STAT3 regulated genes by examining changes in the genome-wide gene expression profile by microarray, using cells expressing …

The Writing On The Stall: Graffiti, Vandalism, And Social Expression, Brett Wolff

Kaleidoscope

Graffiti and vandalism are everywhere in the modern city; they seem to be part of the typical urban background. While graffiti are usually associated with concrete walls, bridges and train cars, one particular area of focus of vandalistic writing is the walls and stalls of public bathrooms. This area, for both obvious, and sometimes unclear reasons, is a popular forum for anyone wanting to write. This project was conducted with the intent of better understanding these somewhat ubiquitous and seemingly mundane scribbles. As the first step toward this goal, a literature review of approaches to vandalism was conducted. This theoretical …

A Sociocultural-Theory-Based Study Of The Impact Of Mediation During Post-Observation Conferences On Language Teacher Learning, Jane Harvey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The post-observation conference offers a potentially fecund context for promoting language teacher learning, but very little research has been conducted into how this actually happens. Taking Vygotskian sociocultural theory as its theoretical framework, this study examined the mediational discourse of a series of post-observation conferences between a mentor and two practicing English language teachers to investigate the nature of the discourse and the relationship between the mediational discourse and the language teachers` learning. Features of mediational discourse identified a priori (such as intersubjectivity, graduated and contingent help, and externalization of reasoning) were present in the data, but were found to …

Prophylactic, Risk-Reducing Surgery In Unaffected Brca-Positive Women: Quality Of Life, Sexual Functioning And Psychological Well-Being, Sharon Tollin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Women with an inherited BRCA mutation are at significantly increased risk for breast and ovarian cancer, often diagnosed at an earlier age than sporadic cancers. Prophylactic surgery, with bilateral mastectomy and/or bilateral prophylactic salpingo-oophorectomy, represents an option for risk reduction. The purpose of this study was to explore quality of life, sexual functioning, menopausal symptoms, psychological well-being and satisfaction with risk management decisions for BRCA-positive women ages 21 to 50 (M = 38.4 years), without a personal history of cancer. A web-based, cross-sectional study design was utilized to compare women opting for any prophylactic surgery (n = 160) with those …

Investigating The Role Of The Internet In Women And Minority Stem Participation: A Case Study Of Two Florida Engineering Programs, Arland Nguema Ndong

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite our awareness of the fascination modern humans have with the Internet, little is known about how and why colleges and universities create and maintain Websites. At the most general level, in this case study, I hypothesize that university Websites serve as communication and marketing tools in attracting students. At the most specific level, I postulate that civil engineering programs with Web pages depicting images of women and minorities would be more successful in recruiting and retaining women and students of color than civil engineering programs with Web pages displaying fewer or no images of women and minorities. The primary …

Lg Ms 020 Equal Protection/Portland Archives Finding Aid, Maeve Wachowicz

Search the Manuscript Collection (Finding Aids)

Description:

Equal Protection/Portland (EP/P) was a volunteer organization formed in Portland, Maine in 1992 that campaigned to uphold a Human Rights Ordinance passed by Portland’s City Council. Ultimately the ordinance was upheld in a referendum vote on November 3, 1992. That year was contentious for LGBT issues around the country and gay rights figured prominently in a presidential election for the first time in the race between Bill Clinton and George Bush. The Archives contains EP/P administrative files and campaign materials, such as flyers, brochures, press releases, survey results, audio recordings, and a bus banner. Articles reflecting national attention to …

Table Of Contents

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

Prefatory Remarks, by Mark E. Hall

Jeffrey Catherine Jones (1944 - 2011), rememberance by Charles Hoffman

"Ode," poem in memoriam by Charles Hoffman

Howard's Escape?, letter by Barbara Barrett

Castration Anxiety, letter by Jeffrey Shanks

Acknowledgements

Faction and Fiction in "Barack the Barbarian," by Jeffrey Kahan

Gloria, by Rusty Burke and Rob Roehm

Theosophy and the Thurian Age: Robert E. Howard and the Works of William Scott-Elliot, by Jeffrey Shanks

"Howard's Horror," review by Jason Ray Carney

"Black Wings:" Lovecraft's Widening Gyre, review by John Goodrich

"Malygris, Malnéant, and Malinbois, Nut No Malfeasance," review by Steve Tompkins

Briefly Noted, by …

Practicing What They Preach? Lynching And Religion In The American South 1890 - 1929, Amy Kate Bailey, Karen A. Snedker

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

This project employs a moral solidarity framework to explore the relationship between organized religion and lynching in the American South. The authors ask whether a county’s religious composition affected its rate of lynching, net of demographic and economic controls. The authors find evidence for the solidarity thesis, using three religious metrics. First, their findings show that counties with greater religious diversity experienced more lynching, supporting the notion that a pluralistic religious marketplace with competing religious denominations weakened the bonds of a cohesive moral community and might have enhanced white racial solidarity. Second, counties in which a larger share of the …

From Cosmogony To Anthropogony: Inscribing Bodies In Vedic Cosmogony And Samskara Rituals, Christine Boulos

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis argues that the inscription of bodies is necessary in order to constitute the cosmos, gender and sex. A study of the Vedic cosmogonic mythologies of the deities Purusha and Prajapati illustrates the ways in which sacrifice, as a form of inscription, constitutes the cosmos by ordering and fashioning the boundaries of the bodies of the deities through differentiation and unification. An analysis of samskaras, or consecratory rites of The Law Code of Manu, show that they operate as regulatory norms in order to constitute sex and gender. But the instability and unnaturalness of the categories of gender and …

Sorting Through The Junk Box: Dickens's Objects And The Great Exhibition Of 1851, Audrey Raymi Grounds

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In Bleak House , Dickens satirizes contemporary conditions in London in order to diagnose what he sees as social and industrial ills to prescribe a solution to the "Condition-of-England" question. Beginning with a review of the topicality in the novel, I use Dickens's personal letters, the text of Bleak House , and articles from Household Words to explain his contempt with the Great Exhibition, misguided philanthropy, and sanitary conditions, among others. Ultimately, it is his anathema to the Great Exhibition which drives both Dickens's plot and the issues he explores. Dickens's mockery of England is refracted and emphasized through his …

Cuban Medical Internationalism: A Case For International Solidarity In Foreign Policy Decision Making, Eric James Fiske

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Since the beginning of the Revolutionary government in Cuba, a comprehensive foreign policy involving medical personal and equipment has been implemented worldwide. Known as medical internationalism, thousands of doctors have been sent to developed and less developed nations in the spirit of solidarity and humanitarian aid. Even more, thousands of students have been given free medical education in Cuba at its world renowned university, the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM). Often, no monetary or direct political gain is made by Cuba and the doctors simply receive their normal government salary. While the success of Cuba's medical internationalism is well …

What Do Professional Conference Planners Consider The Most Important Elements For Continuing Professional Education Conference Planning?, Virginia B. Phillips

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Many adults attend and rely on continuing professional education (CPE) throughout their careers, and CPE is big business for associations. One way associations deliver CPE is through educational conferences. While adult education theories and frameworks offer developmental and operational guidance and advice, there is little practice data to understand what meeting planning professionals actually do as they implement adult education conferences in practice. The purpose of this study was to identify the elements that practicing meeting planning professionals in associations utilize in CPE conference planning and which elements are considered the most important. This study accessed a senior group of …

The Maghreb Maquiladora: Gender, Labor, And Socio-Economic Power In A Tunisian Export Processing Zone, Claire Therese Oueslati-Porter

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study is about Tunisian women's work and lives in the present era of economic neoliberalism. The focus is women in the city of Bizerte, Tunisia, both those who work in Bizerte's export processing zone (EPZ), as well as those who work outside it. This study is a qualitative examination of formal and informal employment, set inside and outside of women's traditional political and economic domain, the home. Through ethnography of women's work and lives, this study's purpose is to contribute evidence against conflating women's "empowerment" with incorporation into global production. However, this study also lends itself to considerations of …

Shaping Topographies Of Home: A Political Ecology Of Migration, Carylanna Kathryn Taylor

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Even from afar, transnational migrants influence how their households and communities of origin use natural resources. This study depicts the circulation of people, funds, and ideas within transnational families that extend from a Honduran village to the United States. Developing a "political ecology of migration" approach, I show how these circulations can reshape resource use practices and the socio-economic and bio-physical topographies of emigrants' former homes. The project advances anthropological thought by linking rich literatures on political ecology and transnationalism through a multi-method ethnography of transnational families. The study is also relevant to emigrants, community members, and practitioners interested in …

Dengue Fever In Tegucigalpa, Honduras: Use Of The Explanatory Model In A Sample Of Urban Neighborhoods To Contextualize And Define Dengue Fever Among Community Participants, Jose Enrique Hasemann

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project elucidated the explanatory model of dengue fever held by members of urban communities in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The study was conducted over a four-month period from May-August of 2011, and it was divided into two stages. The first stage of the project consisted of volunteer participation with dengue fever surveillance brigades in the three communities with the highest incidence of dengue fever during the beginning of 2011. This initial stage employed participant observation as its research method. The second stage was conducted in a different community within Tegucigalpa. The primary research methods employed during the second stage of the …

High Stakes Play: Early Childhood Special Educators' Perspectives Of Play In Pre-Kindergarten Classrooms, Joanne Scandling Manwaring

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examined Early Childhood Special Educators' perceptions of play as a developmentally appropriate practice in special education prekindergarten classrooms in one southeastern school district. Through purposeful sampling, eight prekindergarten special educators were identified because they held multiple teaching certifications and some held National Board certification. The participants had many years of experience in pre-kindergarten special education, and were professional development trainers, teacher mentors and or leaders in the prekindergarten special education community. These eight accomplished pre-kindergarten special education teachers were interviewed using an informal, semi-structured format about their beliefs concerning play, how they implement it in their classrooms as …

Prospects For Political Reform In China, Jody Lee Tomlin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study is intended to analyze levels of institutional confidence in China. The purpose is to measure the relationship between changing political and cultural values with modernization and levels of institutional criticism. To analyze institutional criticism modernization and political culture theories are used. Using these theories together offers explanatory power as to what political and cultural values may change and why changes in confidence in governance may occur. These theories include socioeconomic, traditional, and political values to measure institutional confidence in 1990 and 2007. The examination of traditional versus modernization values imply that individuals possessing these opposing values display different …

Accuracy Of Educator Nominations In Identifying Students With Elevated Levels Of Anxiety And Depression, Jennifer Cunningham

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Internalizing disorders, specifically depression and anxiety, affect up to 18% and 33% of youth, respectively (Costello, Egger, & Angold, 2005b). Schools have become a major provider of mental health services to children, primarily in attempts to overcome barriers to receiving community services (Farmer, Burns, Philip, Angold, & Costello, 2003). As such, it is important that schools have effective mechanisms in place to accurately identify students who may be in need of such services. The current study examined the accuracy of one such method, educator nominations (including from both teachers and school-based mental health professionals) in identifying students who self-report elevated …

A Psychoanalytical Approach To Bich Minh Nguyen's Stealing Buddha's Dinner, Wenying Xu

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

Racial minorities in the U.S. are often tormented by the tension between the corporeal and the ontological, with the former experienced as confining and the latter expansive. Such ambivalence often expresses itself in one's relationship with food. Here I propose to illustrate how Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytical theory on desire can assist us in understanding ethnicity as a bodily performance, which I venture to call an embodied ontology, applying this concept to Bich Minh Nguyen's Stealing Buddha's Dinner (2007).

The Role Of Male Partners In Childbirth Decision Making: A Qualitative Exploration With First-Time Parenting Couples, Sharon Dejoy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Fathers' attendance at childbirth is almost universal in the United States, but few researchers have addressed the role that males play in childbirth decision making. The number of technological interventions available to birthing women is increasing, as is the utilization of those interventions. The degree to which women choose or agree to these interventions plays a major role in individual and societal health outcomes. Therefore, health care policy makers and educators must find ways to help childbearing couples navigate the complex maze of decisions related to childbirth. However, policies and programs to increase shared decision making may not function as …

Social Landscapes Of Transegalitarian Societies: An Analysis Of The Chipped Stone Artifact Assemblage From The Crystal River Site (8ci1), Citrus County, Florida, Richard William Estabrook

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The research undertaken in this dissertation was designed to explore how the institutionalized social inequalities in prehistoric Woodland society are reflected in the differences in the procurement, in the life history, and the final discard locations of the flaked chert stone tools from the Crystal River site (8CI1). The Woodland period (1000 BC to AD 1000) was a time of both stability and change in Native American society. Many of the core institutions such as subsistence, hunting and ceramic technology, and residence remained relatively constant while religious and political institutions underwent dramatic changes. This study focuses on how these social …

Volume 4 - Issue 1: La Créole - A Journal Of Creole History & Genealogy, Karen Becnel Moore Ph.D, Fernin Eaton, Shandria Smith, Fatima Shaik, Alexander Tureaud Jr., Beverly Jacque Anderson, Sybil Kein, Rachel Emanuel, A.P. Tureaud Jr.

La Créole - A Journal of Creole History & Genealogy

The Louisiana Creole Research Association, Inc., known as LA Creole, was founded on August 21, 2004 as a New Orleans-based, non-profit family research and educational organization. Its purpose is to assist Creoles of Color in researching their ancestry, to educate the general public about Creole history and culture, and to celebrate the contributions and legacy of a unique, sometimes forgotten people. La Créole, the Association’s journal is published annually.

Quasi 3-Dimensional Electrical Resistivity Mapping Of Air-Filled Karst Conduits And Policy Implications, Charles W. Mccrackin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study assesses the capability and practical applications of quasi 3-Dimensional (3D) electrical resistivity surveying (ER) for mapping air-filled karst conduits. Vadose zone caves within the Brooksville Ridge of West Central Florida are relatively similar in architecture, with N-S elongation, and do not consist of an interconnected network of conduits. A high resolution quasi-3D ER survey was performed over two mapped cave systems on the Brooksville Ridge. The resultant survey verified the general effectiveness of quasi-3D ER in locating the two known near-surface cave features. Several other locations in the survey show similar or stronger resistivity anomalies trending in a …

Walking Box Ranch Custodianship Quarterly Progress Report: Period Ending October 10, 2011, 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 two Metro Officers who reside on the property in two recreational vehicles.
• Visits to the ranch this quarter included: Dr. Diedra Clemente, history professor for UNLV, visited the ranch to determine research possibilities for students in the history department …

Diversity Week 2011 - Rhode Island And The Slave Trade - Bringing History To Life, Multicultural Center

Multicultural Student Services Center

Rhode Island and the Slave Trade: Bringing History to Life. Paul Davis, Reporter, Providence Journal. Prize-winning Providence Journal reporter Paul Davis will talk about his newspaper series on the Rhode Island slave trade. A transplanted Southerner, Davis will explore the myth of the abolitionist north versus the slave-holding south and talk about the half year he spent in New England’s historical societies and libraries exploring the state's dark past. He'll also explain why he was thrown off some of Rhode Island’s best-known historic sites. The talk will reveal the north’s deep ties to slavery and the slave trade, and will …