American Studies Commons^™

For Better Or Worse: An Examination Of The Antecedents And Outcomes Of Mentor Commitment In Mentoring Relationships, Laura Poteat

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examined a model of the antecedents and outcomes of mentor commitment to workplace mentoring relationships. The proposed model was based on the investment model of commitment. A total of 180 pairs of mentors and their protégés completed surveys that assessed model constructs. Results indicated that mentor relationship satisfaction and investment size predict mentor commitment, whereas mentor quality of alternatives and perceptions of managerial support for mentoring do not predict mentor commitment. Additionally, mentor commitment is associated with information exchange behaviors engaged in by mentors and protégés. These findings suggest that commitment plays an important role in mentoring relationships, …

The Biomechanics Of Tongue Projection In The Frog _Rana Pipiens_: Dynamics And Temperature Effects, Paula Sandusky

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ectotherms such as frogs must either function within environments with temperatures amenable to their physiological needs, or find means to reduce the impact of temperature on their activities. Recent studies on reptile and amphibian feeding have shown convergent use of elastic recoil to drive feeding movements, thereby decoupling temperature's effects on muscle from movement and allowing the animals to feed over broader temperature ranges. Rana pipiens specimens (n=5) were exposed to three ambient temperatures (10°, 15°, and 25° C) at which feeding behavior was imaged at 6000 Hz. The image sequences yielded detailed kinematic and dynamic information for jaw, tongue, …

Fit To Lead? Supervisors' Health Behaviors, Well-Being, And Leadership Behaviors, Kristin Saboe

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study proposes a model to test the relationships amongst supervisors' health behaviors and leadership behaviors. Specifically, 107 supervisor-subordinate pairs responded to a cross-sectional survey. Supervisors provided self-reports of their health behaviors (physical activity, diet, sleep, alcohol/tobacco use) and perceived well-being. Subordinates rated the supervisors' perceived leadership style and the quality of relationships they share at work. Results were mixed with support largely being found for previously established relationships between (a) physical activity, sleep duration and quality, and well-being, and (b) leadership behaviors and supervisor-subordinate relationship quality. The primary thesis of this study--that leaders with improved health behaviors and well-being …

The Effect Of Mortgage Liberalization On Housing Patterns In Tampa Bay, Jason Richardson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study seeks to determine whether the process of mortgage finance liberalization, manifested in concurrent activities of securitization, deregulation, and neo-liberal policy, have resulted in changes to the tenure of residents in neighborhoods in Tampa Bay. It makes use of existing literature on gentrification and mortgage finance and compares those findings with three sample neighborhoods in and around the city of Tampa. To do so the thesis employs data collected from lenders pursuant to the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, court records of sales and mortgages filed with the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Hillsborough County, and interviews with stakeholders …

On The Spatial And Temporal Variability Of Upwelling In The Southern Caribbean Sea And Its Influence On The Ecology Of Phytoplankton And Of The Spanish Sardine (Sardinella Aurita), Digna Tibisay Rueda-Roa

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Southern Caribbean Sea experiences a strong upwelling process along the coast from about 61°W to 75.5°W and 10-13°N. In this dissertation three aspects of this upwelling system are examined: (A) A mid-year secondary upwelling that was previously observed in the southeastern Caribbean Sea between June-July, when land based stations show a decrease in wind speed. The presence and effects of this upwelling along the whole southern Caribbean upwelling system were evaluated, as well as the relative forcing contribution of alongshore winds (Ekman Transport, ET) and wind-curl (Ekman Pumping, EP). (B) Stronger upwelling occurs in two particular regions, namely the …

Investigation Of Reservoirs Of Fecal Indicator Bacteria And Water Quality On The Presence Of Allochthonous Pathogens And The Ecology And Virulence Of Vibrio Vulnificus, Christopher Staley

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The quality of recreational and shellfishing waters has historically been monitored using commensal, allochthonous bacteria shed in feces (fecal indicator bacteria, FIB). The fate of FIB in the environment should mimic that of bacterial, protozoan, and viral human pathogens, which may also be allochthonous (e.g. Salmonella, Cryptosporidium, or enteric viruses) or autochthonous (e.g. Vibrio spp.) to aquatic environments. FIB are contributed to water from human and animal sources; however, pollution source cannot be determined by conventional FIB measurements. Because fecal source determination is important for pollution remediation and assessment of human health risks, microbial source tracking (MST) methods are …

Natural And Anthropogenic Influences On The Morphodynamics Of Sandy And Mixed Sand And Gravel Beaches, Tiffany Roberts

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Beaches and coastal environments are dynamic, constantly shaped and reshaped by natural processes and anthropogenic modifications. The morphodynamics and influence of natural and anthropogenic factors of two different coasts at various temporal and spatial scales are discussed.

To quantify the performance of several beach nourishment projects at annual temporal and kilometer spatial scales on three adjacent microtidal low-wave energy barrier islands in west-central Florida, a total of 5,200 beach and nearshore-profiles spaced at 300 m were surveyed monthly to bi-monthly from 2006-2010. Beach nourishment performance is most significantly influenced by the interruption of longshore sediment transport by complex tidal-inlet processes. …

Autism Spectrum Disorders (Asd): Knowledge, Training, Roles And Responsibilities Of School Psychologists, Stacey Small

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The number of students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has increased over the years and therefore it seems inevitable that school psychologists will encounter these students as part of their roles in assessment, consultation, and/or intervention. There are a multitude of articles and books on the signs and symptoms of ASD, as well as suggestions for assessment and intervention, but there are no published data related to school psychologists' knowledge, training, and roles and responsibilities for students with ASD. Therefore, the current study sought to inform the field of school psychology with respect to these issues. One hundred members of …

Modulating The Pharmacokinetics Of Bioflavonoids, Adam John Smith

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

One of the largest obstacles in drug development is to overcome solubility and bioavailability problems. Preformulation strategies such as nanoparticle formation are often employed but sometimes create new issues and are limited in their effectiveness and applications. Since the majority of drugs are marketed and sold as solid forms, drug delivery systems are not always desirable. This is where solid-state chemistry becomes important. Traditional solid-state chemistry approaches are often successful but are sometimes too restrictive and cannot be applied to certain compounds. Cocrystals have emerged as an alternative solid-state technique that can be applied to a broad range of compounds. …

Musical Rhetoric And Sonic Composing Processes, Kyle D. Stedman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project is a study of musical rhetoric and music composition processes. It asks the questions, "How does the nature of music as sound-in-time affect its rhetorical functions, production, and delivery?" and "How do composers approach the task of communicating with audiences through instrumental music?" I answer these questions by turning to the history of musical rhetoric as practiced in the field of musicology and by interviewing composers themselves about their composition practices--approaches that are both underused in the rhetoric and composition community.

I frame my research participants' responses with a discussion of the different degrees to which composers try …

Emotion-Modulated Startle And The Course Of Major And Minor Depression, April Taylor-Clift

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is highly recurrent. Researchers have proposed that certain traits predispose people to repeated episodes of this disorder. The current study examined the hypothesis that maladaptive emotional responding to stimuli would predict a worse depression outcome over six months. Participants were 58 individuals--18 controls, 22 individuals with MDD, and 18 individuals with minor depression (mD; subthreshold depression)--who participated in a diagnostic interview and emotion-modulated startle procedure at time one, and who returned for a second diagnostic interview six months later at time two. An identical emotion-modulated startle procedure was then repeated at time two with 33 individuals--12 …

Sugar Consumption And Cognitive Aging In The Swedish Adoption/Twin Study Of Aging, Shyam Seetharaman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

Consumption of foods high in sugar content has been linked with the development of metabolic abnormalities such as cardiovascular disease and type II diabetes, major sources of global health concerns. Although the detrimental consequences of high intake of sugar on abnormal metabolic processes are established, it is not known how this association affects (or accelerates) cognitive aging.

The current project was based on data from the Swedish Adoption/Twin Study of Aging (SATSA) to test the hypothesis that high refined sugar intake contributes to accelerated trajectories of cognitive decline assessed longitudinally. Trajectories of cognitive change were assessed as a function …

Examining Teacher Identity And Prospective Efficacy Beliefs Among Students Enrolled In A Precollegiate Urban Teaching Academy (Uta), Marsha Simon

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Teacher recruitment and retention challenges facing urban school contexts provided the impetus for this study. High percentages of historically marginalized students, plagued by high poverty rates and low academic performance, as well as substandard facilities and inadequate material resources, serve as causative factors inhibiting recruitment and retention of credentialed teachers in urban schools (Education Commission of the States [ECS], 1999; Guarino et al., 2006; Horng, 2009; USDOE, 2003; 2004; Wirt et al, 2004). Schools and districts attempt to meet chronic teacher shortages in hard-to-staff urban schools by creating innovative teacher preparation schemes, such as the Urban Teaching Academy (UTA). This …

Analysis And Remediation Of Chlorinated Hydrocarbons In Environmental Media, Jonathan Ticknor

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The two objectives of this work were to develop a simplified method for the analysis of chlorinated organics in water samples and to improve an existing soil remediation technology. The contaminants considered for these studies were chlorinated hydrocarbons because of their relative frequency of appearance at contaminated sites. The first half of this study involved the analysis of chlorinated ethenes by gas chromatography with flame ionization detection (GC-FID). I tested the hypothesis that the FID response factor is the same for all chlorinated ethene compounds. The rationale for this investigation is that if the hypothesis is correct, a single calibration …

A Dual-Factor Model Of Mental Health In High School Students: Group Characteristics And Social Functioning, Amanda Lynn Thalji

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A dual-factor model of psychological functioning examines the presence of wellness (i.e., subjective well-being; SWB) and psychopathology (i.e., internalizing and externalizing behavior problems) in explaining youth mental health functioning. Using a dual-factor model, previous research has yielded four unique groups of elementary and middle school youth as well as college-age adults with distinct levels of wellness and psychopathology. The present empirical investigation included valid data from 500 adolescents from two high schools (grades 9 to 11). This exploratory study produced four groups of students with unique mental health profiles aligned with previous studies investigating the dual-factor model. Tukey-Kramer comparisons determined …

Cultivating An Engaged Workforce: The Roles Of Leader Personality, Motivation, And Leadership Style, Amy Marie Taylor

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study explored the links between leadership style, leader personality, and motivation to lead, with employee engagement. Transformational leadership, transactional leadership, and abusive supervision styles were examined in relation to levels of employee engagement via a sample of n=195 employees and n=130 managers. Consistent with findings from Christian, Garza, and Slaughter (2011), transformational leadership showed a positive link to employee engagement (r= .38, p< .05). On the opposite end, abusive supervision was negatively related to employee engagement (r= -.27, p< .05). Contingent reward leadership showed a positive link to employee engagement (r= .32, p< .05).

Relationships between personality and leadership style were framed according to the socioanalytic framework (Hogan & Shelton, 1998). This study did not find any significant differences in the relationships between the expected leadership behaviors and the traits …

Statistical Estimation Of Physiologically-Based Pharmacokinetic Models: Identifiability, Variation, And Uncertainty With An Illustration Of Chronic Exposure To Dioxin And Dioxin-Like-Compounds., Zachary John Thompson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Assessment of human exposure to environmental chemicals is inherently subject to uncertainty and variability. There are data gaps concerning the inventory, source, duration, and intensity of exposure

as well as knowledge gaps regarding pharmacokinetics in general. These gaps result in uncertainties in exposure assessment.

The uncertainties compound further with variabilities due to population variations regarding stage of life, life style, and susceptibility,

etc. Use of physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) models promises to reduce the uncertainties and enhance extrapolation between species, between routes, from high to low dose, and from acute to chronic exposure. However, fitting PBPK models is challenging because of …

Monstrous Dialogues: The Host And South Korean Inverted Exile, James Lloyd Turner

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Bong Joon-ho‟s monster movie blockbuster, The Host (Gweomul, 2006), is the most commercially successful film in South Korean cinema history. The film‟s popularity and significance derive from its unearthing of the ambivalence concerning South Korea‟s rapid transformation from a rural dictatorship to an urban democracy with one of the strongest economies on the planet. This ambivalence is buried beneath a veneer of "progress" blanketing contemporary South Korea and constitutes a condition I call inverted exile. The Host explicitly engages life in inverted exile through my notion of aesthetic dialogue. Aesthetic dialogue, takes influence from the work of Mikhail Bakhtin and …

Quality Of Life In Adult Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: The Role Of Moderating And Mediating Variables, Brittany Belle Speisman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Background: This study examined the contribution of various aspects of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) on quality of life (QoL) in 102 adults with a principal diagnosis of OCD from an archival database. Method: Participants were assessed for DSM-IV diagnoses by trained clinicians using the Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule, 4th Edition (ADIS-IV), the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS), and an unstructured interview. Further information was attained using the Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II), the Obsessive Compulsive Inventory Revised (OCI-R) and the Medical Outcome Study-36 (MOS-36). Results: Results indicated that obsessive-compulsive symptom severity was positively correlated with diminished emotional health, social …

Love And Risk: Intimate Relationships Among Female Sex Workers Who Inject Drugs And Their Non-Commercial Partners In Tijuana, Mexico, Jennifer L. Syvertsen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the influence of love and other emotions on sexual and drug-related HIV risk among female sex workers who inject drugs and their intimate, non-commercial partners in Tijuana, Mexico. My work on a public health study along the Mexico-U.S. border and independent ethnographic research in Tijuana suggests the importance of emotions in shaping sex workers' relationships and health risks.

Love is a universal human emotional experience embodied within broader cultural, social, and economic contexts. A growing body of cross-cultural research suggests that modern relationships have transformed to emphasize love and emotional intimacy over moral or kinship obligations. Particularly …

Experimental And Numerical Investigation Of An Electrospray Rf Ion Funnel, Eric Miguel Tridas

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Using experimental techniques along with computational fluid dynamics and electrodynamic simulations the performance of the first of three focusing elements in an electrospray macromolecular patterning system was assessed. The performance of this element, the ion funnel, was analyzed by varying the parameters and electric field applied to the system including electrospray emitter to atmosphere-vacuum interface capillary distance, temperature of the desolvating heater, injection rate of solution and the voltage applied to the jet disruption element. Results indicated that processes involved in injecting larger droplets into the chamber resulted in a less effective transmission of the ions through the funnel. Droplet …

Comparative Developmental Transcriptomics Of Echinoderms, Roy Vaughn

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The gastrula stage represents the point in development at which the three primary germ layers diverge. At this point the gene regulatory networks that specify the germ layers are established and the genes that define the differentiated states of the tissues have begun to be activated. These networks have been well characterized in sea urchins, but not in other echinoderms. Embryos of the brittle star Ophiocoma wendtii share a number of developmental features with sea urchin embryos, including the ingression of mesenchyme cells that give rise to an embryonic skeleton. Notable differences are that no micromeres are formed during cleavage …

An Interactive Guide To Self-Discovery For Women, Elaine J. Taylor

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project is a translation of ideas I have encountered in my journey through Women's Studies. With this interactive book, I offer a concise, understandable, and empowering method for self-discovery from one feminist's perspective. Traditional self-help materials often set the reader up as the one with the issue or problem and they rarely call out the functioning systems of oppression as a stumbling block or offer ways to circumvent them. With this project, I hope to shine light on the functioning systems of gender discrimination, racism, classism, and heterosexism, and to provide a framework for understanding. There are three main …

Structure And Agency: An Analysis Of The Impact Of Structure On Group Agents, Elizabeth Kaye Victor

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Different kinds of collectives help to coordinate between individuals and social groups to solve distribution problems, supply goods and services, and enable individuals to live fulfilling lives. Collectives, as part of the process of socialization, contribute to the normalization of behaviors, and consequently, structure our ability to be self-reflective autonomous agents. Contemporary philosophy of action models characterize collective action as the product of individuals who have the proper motivations to perform cooperative activities (bottom-up); or they begin with the social-level phenomena and explain this in terms of individual actions and the mental states that motivate them (top-down). One general goal …

On The Development Of The Extradosed Bridge Concept, Steven Lynn Stroh

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Extradosed Prestressed Bridge represents a relatively new bridge type. The first of this type bridge was constructed in Japan in 1994, and Japan has since built at least 29 examples of this bridge type. Throughout the rest of the world, another 34 of this bridge type have been built, with most countries having only one, or at most a few, examples. A broader application of this bridge type has been hampered by lack of design information and in particular lack design criteria for the stay cables. The purpose of this dissertation is to progress the understanding and application of …

A Head Start To Learning: Exploration Of A Parent-Directed Intervention To Promote Early Literacy Skill Development, Ashley Nicole Sundman-Wheat

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the effects of a parent-led intervention focused on developing children's early literacy skills within the home setting. The lesson plans contain scripted steps for completing activities to teach letter names and phonological awareness skills. Archival data were analyzed from a study conducted with 26 families from three Head Start centers. Thirteen families completed the intervention and thirteen families were enrolled in a control condition which provided information on shared reading strategies. Children in the intervention group performed at statistically significant higher levels on measures of letter naming, phonological awareness, vocabulary/oral language, and comprehension. Parents rated both the …

Mapping And Assessing Urban Impervious Areas Using Multiple Endmember Spectral Mixture Analysis: A Case Study In The City Of Tampa, Florida, Fenqing Weng

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The advance in remote sensing technology helps people more easily assess urban growth. In this study, the utility of multiple endmember spectral mixture analysis (MESMA) is examined in a sub-pixel analysis of Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) imagery to map urban physical components in Tampa, FL. The three physical components of urban land cover (LC): impervious surface, vegetation and soil, were compared using the proposed MESMA with a traditional spectral mixture analysis (SMA). MESMA decomposes each pixel to address the heterogeneity of urban LC characteristic by allowing the number and types of endmembers to vary on a per pixel basis. This …

Shelf-Scale Mapping Of Fish Distribution Using Active And Passive Acoustics, Carrie Christy Wall

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Fish sound production has been associated with courtship and spawning behavior. Acoustic recordings of fish sounds can be used to identify distribution and behavior. Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) can record large amounts of acoustic data in a specific area for days to years. These data can be collected in remote locations under potentially unsafe seas throughout a 24-hour period providing datasets unattainable using observer-based methods. However, the instruments must withstand the caustic ocean environment and be retrieved to obtain the recorded data. This can prove difficult due to the risk of PAMs being lost, stolen or damaged, especially in highly …

Something Is Askew In Florida's Water: Arguing For A Better Descriptive Statistic For Positively Skewed Water-Quality Data, Amie October West

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

It may be of no surprise that water quality data is right-skewed, but what appears to be overlooked by some is that the arithmetic mean and standard deviation most often fail as measures of central tendency in skewed data. When using the arithmetic mean and arithmetic standard deviation with nutrient data, one standard deviation about the arithmetic mean can capture nearly all of the data and extend into negative values. Representing nutrient data this way can be misleading to viewers who are using the statistics, and making assumptions, to understand the characteristics of those waters. Through an in-depth statistical …

Competing Narratives: Hero And Ptsd Stories Told By Male Veterans Returning Home, Adam Gregory Woolf

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study seeks to extend the existing body of scholarly literature on returned veteran civilian reintegration by exploring "hero" and "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder" narratives. The character of the hero, as a social construct located within hegemonic notions of masculinity, is widely portrayed and believed to possess highly prized, extraordinary, almost superhuman personal qualities. However, this widely disseminated belief stands at odds with some of the stories returned veterans tell. This qualitative study explores and illuminates the enigmatic intersectionality of hero and PTSD narratives.

Extant hero and PTSD narratives contain paradoxical implicit meanings embedded within them. The hero is understood …