American Studies Commons^™

Edwards, Jennifer L. (Fa 220), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 220. Paper: "Folk Medical Beliefs Concerning Colds or the Flu" written by Jennifer L. Edwards for a Western Kentucky University folk studies class.

Cecil, Pam (Fa 222), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 222. Paper: "Thanksgiving" written by Pam Cecil for a Western Kentucky University folk studies class.

Manatee Sound Localization: Performance Abilities, Interaural Level Cues, And Usage Of Auditory Evoked Potential Techniques To Determine Sound Conduction Pathways, Debborah Colbert

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Three experiments investigated the ability and means by which Florida manatees determine sound source directionality. An eight-choice discrimination paradigm determined the sound localization abilities of two manatees within a 360° array of speakers. Five conditions were tested including a 3,000 and 200 ms, 95 dB, 0.2-24 kHz signal, a 3,000 ms, 80 dB, 18-24 kHz signal, a 3000 ms, 110 dB, 0.2-1.5 kHz signal and a 200 ms, 101 dB, 4 kHz tonal signal. A sixth condition attenuated the level of the 3,000 ms, 95 dB, 0.2-24 kHz signal in 3 dB increments until accuracy reached 75%. Subjects performed above …

Grant, Erin M. (Fa 235), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 235. Paper: "Goal Posts and Parking Lots" written by Erin M. Grant for a Western Kentucky University folk studies class.

Black Beauty As Antebellum Slave Narrative, Bonnie L. Blossom

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Published in November 1877, Black Beauty is one of the most popular and enduring works of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The book, in which the eponymous narrator relates his life's story, sold well following its publication in England and in the United States; by 1985, sales were estimated at over forty million. While usually regarded as entertaining, Black Beauty has a strong crusading purpose: Anna Sewell herself said she wrote to improve the treatment of horses.

This study springs from an intuitive notion. While reading the 1845 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, I could not shake …

Effects Of Bilingualism On Speech Recognition Performance In Noise, Mitzarie A. Carlo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the effects of bilingualism on speech recognition in noise performance of young normal-hearing Spanish-English bilinguals across several signal-to-noise ratios (SNR). The estimated signal-to-noise ratio needed for 50% correct recognition performance obtained for bilingual listeners was compared to young normal-hearing monolingual listeners of both English and Spanish. The estimated mean SNR needed for 50% correct recognition was significantly higher (i.e., poorer) for the bilingual than for the monolingual English listeners. The Spanish language performance of the bilingual listeners did not significantly differ from that of the monolingual Spanish listeners. The bilinguals were then divided into subgroups based on …

Role Of Culture In Economic Development: China Study Of China And Latin America, Amira Fellner

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of my thesis is to demonstrate the economic development of China and Latin America. My reason for choosing these two regions for my study is because they are both Third World Nations. My intention on writing this thesis is to prove that culture and the informal business networks of China are the major forces of what is driving the Chinese economy ahead of Latin America.

I will explain how the definition of culture ties in with the economic society of both regions. In writing about culture, I will attempt to explain if there really is a difference between …

Boundary And Longing: Narrative Modes In Mary Shelley’S Frankenstein And The Last Man, Marie Hendry

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Boundary and desire surround the relationships in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and The Last Man. The narrative modes of Captain Robert Walton relate his separation to the rest of the world and his need for companionship. Yet, not any companionship will satisfy his longing for connection with a human being; his search revolves around the need of common understanding. This further separates the character of Lionel in The Last Man from humanity in that he is unable to find anyone left on earth after a series of plague, war, and atmospheric anomalies apparently wipe out the human race. His survival …

Poetry And Ritual: The Physical Expression Of Homoerotic Imagery In Sama, Zachary Holladay

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Sufi poetry of the Abbasid Caliphate (750-1258 CE/132-655 AH) exhibited a particular penchant for highlighting the relationship between humankind and God with homoerotic language. While the homoerotic nature of Sufi poetry has received considerable scholarly attention, the ritual expression of such literature has not. The ritual of sama was a practice that occurred in the Sufi institutions and incorporated various elements of the poetry examined. By listening to the poetry, in the form of song and often with accompanying instrumentation, the mystics would experience transient moments of altered state experiences, usually interpreted as moments of union with God.

This thesis …

Secret Servants: Household Domestics And Courtship In Eliza Haywood’S Fiction, Marisa C. Iglesias

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In Eliza Haywood's fiction, as in eighteenth-century Britain, social restrictions repress the sexual desires of upper class women and men. Therefore, the secret desires of this social class often rely on a different group: domestic servants. Sometimes acting as confidants and other times as active players in the scheming, these servants are privy to the inner secrets of the households in which they live. In Haywood's Love in Excess (1719), Lasselia (1723), Fantomina (1725), and The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless (1751), the servant class plays significant roles in the narratives.

Since the role of the servant is the central …

Crystal Engineering Of Flavonoids, Padmini Kavuru

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Crystal engineering is attracting attention in the pharmaceutical industry because the design of new crystal form of drugs can improve their stability, bioavailability and other relevant physical characteristic properties. Therefore, crystal engineering of nutraceuticals such as flavonoids by exploring their hydrogen bonding interactions can generate novel compounds such as pharmaceutical cocrystals. Flavonoids are polyphenolic secondary plant metabolites that are present in varying levels in fruits, vegetables and beverages. The "French paradox", low cardiovascular mortality rate in spite of high intake of saturated fat among the Mediterranean populations made flavonoids an appropriate target for therapeutic researchers.

The work herein deals with …

Creative City And Fields Of Cultural Production: Ethnographic Perspectives Of “The Arts” In Tampa, James Kuzin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Stimulated by the economic theories of Richard Florida (2005), the City of Tampa established the Office of Creative Industries (OCI) to oversee efforts to strengthen the presence and visibility of "the arts." This thesis presents ethnographic research focused on practices, and perspectives among members of the OCI's service population. From July 2006 to July 2007, I conducted fieldwork among a diverse group of stakeholders possessing a unique connection to the aims of the OCI. The central problem addressed in this research looks at the degree to which cultural change occurs from participatory, grass-roots initiatives, rather than ones emanating from "the …

(Re)Defining Relationships In A Mediated Context: Graduate Student Use Of Synchronous Computer-Mediated Communication, Michael P. Nicholas

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study consists of qualitative interviews with 8 graduate students about the use of synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC), or instant message (IM), programs in their interpersonal relationships. Participants were interviewed twice, once via an instant message program and once in a face-to-face setting. They were asked about their frequency of use, their use of multi-tasking, and the types of conversations they have via IM. Results of the interviews are discussed, with a concentration on the paradoxical nature of IM communication as impersonal, but at the same time, conducive to personal disclosure and intimacy.

Attractions And Negotiations Of Film Noir In American Cinema And Culture, James Ricci

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

America's embrace of film noir came swift and furiously, the popularity of noir exists even in contemporary cinema. I would like to explore the implications as to why film noir has become one of the truest forms of American Cinema, perhaps even exceeding the western, as well as the reasoning as to why the American people have exalted a type of genre which is known primarily for its ties with human vice and depravity. In this investigation of the populations intrigue with noir I will address instances in select noir films that illustrate specific moments of the philosophical frame works …

The Abyss In Allen Tate’S The Fathers: What Can Be Seen In The Darkness Of American Literature?, Barry T. Wireman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There is a thread of darkness that seems to run through much of the canon of U.S. authors. There are, at the heart of us all, the questions we ask ourselves about who we are and what we mean to ourselves and others and to the places where we have lived. I believe that most of the body of writings produced in this country attempt to answer these questions in some form. Allen Tate wrote The Fathers in 1932, nearly seventy years after the Civil War, or the War Between the States. Perhaps one of the most critical moments in …

Isolation And Functional Characterization Of A Dioxin-Inducible Cyp1a Regulatory Region From Zebrafish (Danio Rerio), Gary T. Zeruth

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cytochrome P4501A1 (CYP1A1) is a phase I bio-transformation enzyme involved in the metabolism of xenobiotics via the oxygenation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) including the carcinogen, benzo(a)pyrene. Induction of the CYP1A1 gene is regulated at the transcriptional level and is ligand dependent with the prototypical 2,3,7,8,-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) being the most potent known inducer of CYP1A1 transcription. This process is mediated by the AHR/ARNT signaling pathway whereby ligand binds AHR in the cytoplasm allowing its translocation to the nucleus where it binds with its hertrodimerization partner, ARNT and subsequently binds DNA at cognate binding sites termed xenobiotic …

Garden Doors: Tempting The Virtuous Heroine In Clarissa And Betsy Thoughtless, Jamie Kinsley

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Gardens in Eliza Haywood's The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless, and Samuel Richardson's Clarissa, or a History of a Young Lady provide a place for the characters to gain knowledge; but without preparation to receive this knowledge - if restrained behind the veil of decorum - they come to harm, rather than constructive awareness. A fine line exists between innocence and experience in these works. The ways in which the characters negotiate this line illustrates the complexities involved in the eighteenth-century understanding of virtue and how society attempted to mediate this issue. This negotiation can be seen largely in …

Detecting Financial Statement Fraud: Three Essays On Fraud Predictors, Multi-Classifier Combination And Fraud Detection Using Data Mining, Johan L. Perols

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this dissertation is to improve financial statement fraud detection using a cross-functional research approach. The efficacy of financial statement fraud detection depends on the classification algorithms and the fraud predictors used and how they are combined. Essay I introduces IMF, a novel combiner method classification algorithm. The results show that IMF performs well relative to existing combiner methods over a wide range of domains. This research contributes to combiner method research and, thereby, to the broader research stream of ensemble-based classification and to classification algorithm research in general. Essay II develops three novel fraud predictors: total discretionary …

Frye, Lori Ann (Fa 391), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 391. Paper: "An Architectural Survey in the Vicinity of St. Joseph's National Register District in Bowling Green, Kentucky" written by Frye, a student intern at the Landmark Association.

Ferguson, Joseph W. (Fa 236), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 236. Paper: "Folklore in Greeting Cards" written by Joseph W. Ferguson for a Western Kentucky University folk studies class. Nine greeting cards demonstrating folklore motifs are included with the paper.

Indian Agent Gad Humphreys And The Politics Of Slave Claims On The Florida Frontier, 1822-1830, Kevin D. Kokomoor

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project examines the intimate role slave claims played in the animosities which quickly developed from the acquisition of the Florida territory to the outbreak of the Second Seminole Indian War. By focusing on the Indian Agency and its first administrator, Gad Humphreys, this connection is made by suggesting that the territory's legislators were unwilling to allow the coexistence of Seminoles and blacks on the Florida frontier. The presence of these communities threatened developing Middle Florida plantations with significantly increased risks of both slave runaways and insurrection. In response, settlers and government officials pressed Humphreys to see not only that …

Mathematical Modeling And Analysis Of Options With Jump-Diffusion Volatility, Irena Andreevska

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Several existing pricing models of financial derivatives as well as the effects of volatility risk are analyzed. A new option pricing model is proposed which assumes that stock price follows a diffusion process with square-root stochastic volatility. The volatility itself is mean-reverting and driven by both diffusion and compound Poisson process. These assumptions better reflect the randomness and the jumps that are readily apparent when the historical volatility data of any risky asset is graphed. The European option price is modeled by a homogeneous linear second-order partial differential equation with variable coefficients. The case of underlying assets that pay continuous …

Capitalism, Consumerism, And Individualism: Investigating The Rhetoric Of The Secret, Carolina Fernandez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

I am investigating a New Age spiritual movement called the Law of Attraction that has been the source of recent media attention due to the recent publication of a self-help book called The Secret. The book investigates this phenomenon, which is a theory that takes positive thinking to the extreme. The theory states that reality can be literally manifested through one's thoughts. I am interested in this trend because it supports consumerist values, entrepreneurship, and self-actualization while using socialist rhetoric to promote capitalist values. I am also interested in the implications that this rhetoric holds for women and marginalized groups. …

Bullington, Mose (Fa 207), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Finding Aids

Finding aid and full-text scan of paper (Click on “Additional Files” below) for Folklife Archives Project 207. Paper: "Personal Narratives Related to Natural Disasters" written by Mose Bullington for a Western Kentucky University folk studies class.

“Smole Trifeles“: The Itinerant In British North America, David Michael Davisson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The earliest attempt to form a confederation among the British colonies in North America occurred with the creation New England confederation in 1643. For the next one hundred thirty-four years various attempts would be made to organize British America colonies into a confederacy. "Smole Trifeles": The Itinerant in British America moves beyond traditional histories which analyze how the social and political elite worked to bring the colonies together. This work focuses on the peddlers, the hawkers, petty chapmen, and the itinerant preachers who roamed the primitive roads and highways of early America. These wanderers knit together a nation and helped …

“Pleasant Episodes” Of Gastronomy: Food And Drink In F. Scott Fitzgerald’S The Beautiful And Damned, Melissa Faith Dullaghan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the motif of gastronomy in Fitzgerald's critically undertreated second novel, The Beautiful and Damned. Within the discussion of the leisure class, Fitzgerald scholars often focus on Jay Gatsby's parties, but they seem to neglect Anthony Patch and company's fancy for food and drink in Ivy League supper clubs of Manhattan, vaudeville theaters, and houses of languor in Upstate New York. Building upon George J. Searles's article "The Symbolic Function of Food and Eating in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and Damned," this thesis examines the meaning of Fitzgerald's pervasive "prandial allusions" and character psychology with …

The Spatial Distribution Of Geoprivacy Concerns In Florida: A County Level Analysis, Joshua W. House

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Certain types of spatial data maintained and distributed by counties at taxpayer expense can be used with powerful mapping and analysis software, called Geographic Information Systems (GIS), to compromise an indvidual's locational privacy. The kind of privacy at threat here is referred to as geoprivacy, which is concerned with the rights to prevent disclosure of the location of one's home, workplace, or daily activities. While the availability of accessible and accurate geospatial data has increased geoprivacy concerns in recent years, this threat remains virtually unknown to the general public.

Although previous research has explored various components of the geoprivacy …

An Evaluation Of Conduit Conceptualizations And Model Performance, Melissa Estelle Hill

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The karst research community has known that traditional numerical groundwater flow codes ignore the non-Darcian, dual-permeability components of flow that can occur in karst aquifers. In this study, the potential limitations of using such tools are quantified by evaluating the relative performances of 3 groundwater flow models at a test-site near Weeki Wachee, Florida, in the dual-permeability Upper Floridan aquifer. MODFLOW-2005 and MODFLOW-2005 Conduit Flow Process (CFP), a Darcian/non-Darcian, dual-permeability groundwater flow code recently developed by the U.S. Geological Survey, are used in this study.

A monitoring program consisting of discharge measurements and high frequency data from 2 springs and …

Parametric, Non-Parametric And Statistical Modeling Of Stony Coral Reef Data, Armando Hoare

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Like coral reefs worldwide, the Florida Reef Tract has dramatically declined within the past two decades. Monitoring of 40 sites throughout the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary has undertaken a multiple-parameter approach to assess spatial and temporal changes in the status of the ecosystem. The objectives of the present study consist of the following:

In chapter one, we review past coral reef studies; emphasis is placed on recent studies on the stony corals of reefs in the lower Florida Keys. We also review the economic impact of coral reefs on the state of Florida. In chapter two, we identify the …

Major League Baseball Franchises And Their Minor League Players, Maintaining A Relationship On And Off The Field, Michelle Keating

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In today's professional arena, organized sports have grown to become institutionalized and highly organized through corporations in a multi-billion dollar industry. Through the use of in depth interviews completed online, this study investigated the role franchise communication plays in the development of nineteen minor league players' relationships within the Major League Baseball (MLB) sports industry. Results found that players feel their organizations disproportionately help some players achieve success over others and withhold information. As players, they felt they have a limited voice regarding the direction of their careers. Despite a difficult working environment, the players' desire to achieve success and …