Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Integration Of Algae And Biomass Processes To Synthesize Renewable Bioproducts For The Circular Economy, Jessica Martin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Rapid population growth and global industrialization have substantially heightened the demand for fossil-based fuels and products in various sectors of the global economy, including energy production, transportation fuels, and as raw materials for petrochemicals. The intense consumption of fossil fuels has caused immense environmental impacts, especially pertaining to carbon dioxide emissions. Shifting to renewable feedstocks (raw materials) is expected to reduce these emissions by lowering the carbon footprint of fuels and products compared to traditional fossil-derived alternatives. This transition aligns with the goal of creating a sustainable and circular economy, emphasizing efficient resource use, and reducing waste generation through recycling …

Coupling Chemical And Genomic Data Of Marine Sediment-Associated Bacteria For Metabolite Profiling, Stephanie P. Suarez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Marine sediment-associated bacteria house many new and exciting novel secondary metabolites. These metabolites can be tested for bioactivity against various types of cancer and fungal, bacterial, and viral infections. In this thesis, we investigated the combination of biosynthetic gene cluster information with mass spectra to perform a chemical profiling of sediment- associated bacteria. Furthermore, we utilized a scoring technique to provide an identification and confidence score to each annotated compound. The sediment was collected from east Arthur Harbor, Palmer Station, Antarctica, at depths of 20 ft and 60 ft. After plating on agar, 52 unique bacterial strains were isolated, with …

Development Of Antiviral Peptidomimetics, Songyi Xue

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Protein-protein interactions (PPIs) are essential for biological processes and are associated with a number of diseases, including cancer, infectious diseases, and neurodegenerative diseases. As a result, modulation of PPIs has been recognized as one of the most promising strategies to develop the novel drugs. Peptide modulators always exhibit higher specificity and affinities with targets than small compounds or monoclonal antibodies, but their broad medicinal effectiveness is constrained by their poor bioavailability and biostability. Peptidomimetics, which have been developed to mimic the structure as well as function of bioactive peptides and proteins, have shown excellent potential in protein surface mimicry and …

Apkcs Role In Neuroblastoma Cell Signaling Cascades And Implications Of Apkcs Inhibitors As Potential Therapeutics, Sloan Breedy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Neuroblastoma (NB) is a cancer that develops in the neuroblasts. It is the most common cancer in children under the age of 1 year, accounting for approximately 6% of all cancers. The prognosis of NB is linked to both age and degree of cell differentiation. This results in a range of survival rates for patients, with outcomes ranging from recurrence and mortality to high survival rates and tumor regression. Our previous work indicated that PKC-ι promotes cell proliferation in NB cells through the PKC-ι/Cdk7/Cdk2 cascade. We report on two atypical protein kinase inhibitors as potential therapeutic candidates against BE(2)-C and …

Farmer Adoption Of Advanced Technology In Agribusiness, Justin W. Belcher

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Normally, family-owned farms are slow to adopt advanced technologies though these technologies can provide several benefits to the farm and have the potential to increase farm production volumes to help meet future population growth. The goal of this study was to document the factors that influence the adoption decision of advanced technologies by family-owned farms and what strategies can be used to motivate adoption. Case study research was conducted to gather data in a more structured way from family-owned farms typically excluded from past research for the purpose of comparing similarities across similar and dissimilar farms. For generalizing similarities, a …

Association Between Use Of Remdesivir And Bradycardia, Gibret Umeukeje

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Remdesivir received the first emergency use authorization from the FDA for the treatment of COVID-19. Multiple adverse drug reactions (ADR) have been reported since its approval in October 2020. Bradycardia, defined by a decrease in heart rate has been reported as an adverse event for patients receiving remdesivir for COVID-19 treatment. The purpose of the research is to systematically investigate the frequency of occurrence of bradycardia in adults receiving remdesivir using clinical data derived from the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS) database. Patients receiving remdesivir were compared to those receiving Paxlovid, Regen-Cov, and Dexamethasone for COVID-19 treatment to see …

The Effects Of Temperature And Oxygen Availability On Aerobic Performance In Three Coastal Shark Species; Squalus Acanthias, Carcharhinus Limbatus, And Carcharhinus Leucas, Alyssa M. Andres

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Anthropogenically driven climate changes are altering marine habitats globally. Rising sea surface temperatures and coastal eutrophication, arising from global warming and coastal nutrient loading, have resulted in progressive ocean deoxygenation. This may restrict available habitat of marine organisms as studies suggest that the balance between metabolic oxygen demand and environmental supply plays an important role in limiting viable habitat and species fitness. As ectothermic predators, with temperature-dependent metabolism and high metabolic demands, coastal shark species may be susceptible to shifts in ocean temperature and oxygen. Such environmental changes may alter metabolic performance and ultimately success and survival within shark habitat. …

A Protein-Based Therapeutic Combination For The Treatment Of Hard-To-Heal Wounds, Graham L. Strauss

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Chronic wounds present many clinical challenges in relation to the successful treatment and closure of the damaged tissue. Most current treatment methods focused on one or two aspects to drive wound closure, while most chronic wounds are multifactorial environments with many of those dependencies relying on the termination of one another to effectively gain tissue construction, closure, and full skin thickness and composition. Natural wound healing processes allude to potential biologics that can impede the chronic breakdown of tissue, while restoring deposition of new tissue, and effectively leading to a healed wound. Proteases secreted by the body’s immune system lay …

Assessing The Human-Health Risk Of Exposure To Pathogens From Beach Sands, Javier Federico Gallard-Góngora

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Fecal contamination at recreational beaches impacts the health of beachgoers, through the introduction of disease-causing microorganisms, and the well-being of communities dependent on income from recreational beach activities. Beach ecosystems are also impacted by sewage through the introduction of nutrients that can cause abnormal increases in autochthonous microorganisms which can impact the population of larger organisms in the ecosystem. Fecal contamination is introduced into sand via untreated sewage, direct deposition of human feces into sand, runoff, and deposition of animal feces into sand. The introduction of fecal contamination into sand exposes individuals to pathogens (disease causing microorganisms) which can result …

Antibiotic-Resistant Escherichia Coli And EnterococcusSpp. In Sand And Water At Tampa Bay Beaches, Jennifer K. Sabater

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As antibiotic resistance in the environment continues to rise there is an increased concern that infections may become harder to treat as bacteria acquire genes for multidrug resistance. Recreational beach waters in the Tampa Bay area are routinely monitored by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection for the presence of fecal indicator bacteria (FIB) such as Escherichia coli and enterococci. Exceedances of beach action values (BAV) 235 CFU/100 mL (E. coli) and 70 CFU/100 mL (enterococci) indicate the presence of fecal contamination which is associated with an increased risk of disease for beachgoers. Antibiotic-resistant E. coli and Enterococcus spp. have …

Assessing Environmental Sensitivity In San Diego County, California, For Bird Species Of Special Concern, Eda Okan Kilic

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

It is widely recognized that desertification constitutes one of the biggest environmental problems on Earth. Desertification negatively impacts the future of humans and other living things all over the globe. Therefore, the assessment of desertification is essential to both monitor and combat desertification. A number of models are routinely applied to assess desertification. The MEDALUS model is one of the most popular approaches, identifying desertification risk based on an environmentally sensitive area index (ESAI) that integrates climate, vegetation, soils, groundwater, and socio-economic factors to obtain an overall rating. The goal of this study was to measure the potential impacts of …

Using Fine-Scale Aquatic Habitat Data To Construct Dreissenid Sdms In The Laurentian Great Lakes, Grace C. Henderson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The invasion of the Laurentian Great Lakes by aquatic invasive species (AIS) has been the subject of investigation for decades, due to their dramatic alterations to the ecosystem and high economic costs. Two AIS with the largest impacts are dreissenid zebra and quagga mussels, and though these species have been studied extensively, questions remain about what factors control their distributions, and whether lake warming will alter these distributions. Species distribution models (SDMs) offer a powerful tool to examine the relationship between species presences and environmental variables, which are typically bioclimactic data. The creation of the Aquatic Habitat (AqHab) dataset containing …

Quantitative Assessment Of The Trophic Ecology Of The Oceanic Ctenophore, Bolinopsis Infundibulum, In Monterey Bay, California, Victoria C. Scriven

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Bolinopsis infundibulum is a wide-ranging, ubiquitous ctenophore whose fragile nature makes the collection of specimens and quantification of key predator-prey activities in controlled laboratory experiments, challenging. Thus, in situ methods often represent the best means for data collection. However, while present in surface waters, these animals can also be abundant at depths well beyond those attainable by divers. As a result, very little empirical data exist over the depth range of their natural habitats which limits our ability to assess key predator-prey interactions needed to assess their ecological role in midwater food webs. Working in Monterey Bay, California, remotely operated …

Machine Learning For Species Habitat Analysis, Abigail Lavallin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Management and conservation initiatives will always be controlled by finite resources, whether financialor temporal. Understanding a species’ spatial ecology, and how its requirements vary across habitats and locations is key to a successful species management plan. During recent decades, it has been noted how many species populations have declined, despite conservation practices working to increase their numbers. The most prevalent impacts affecting fauna populations have come from anthropogenic change in the form of habitat loss and destruction, along with fragmentation, and global climate change. There is a clear need for management practices to now operate on an entire landscape instead …

Investigation Of Immobilized Enzymes In Confined Environment Of Mesoporous Host Matrices, Xiaoliang Wang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Enzyme immobilization in metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) as a promising strategy, is attracting the interest of scientists from different disciplines with the expansion of MOF’s development. Different from other traditional host materials, their unique strengths of high surface areas, large yet adjustable pore sizes, functionalizable pore walls, and diverse architectures make MOFs an ideal platform to investigate hosted enzymes, which is critical to the industrial and commercial process. In addition to the protective function of MOFs, the extensive roles of MOFs in the enzyme immobilization are being well-explored by making full use of their remarkable properties like well-defined structure, high porosity, …

A Constitutive-Based Deep Learning Model For The Identification Of Active Contraction Parameters Of The Left Ventricular Myocardium, Igor Augusto Paschoalotte Nobrega

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Modern breakthroughs in biomedical engineering, computer science, and data mining have created new opportunities for detecting important mechanical properties of soft tissues that can be employed to identify possible signs of diseases or physiological difficulties. However, the scarcity of different mechanical properties obtained through noninvasive testing emphasizes the importance of incorporating authentic biological data into computer models capable of replicating the behavior of soft tissues.

The field of continuum theory of large deformation hyperactivity permits the formulation of highly descriptive mathematical research and computational models capable of perfectly describing the minute mechanical characteristics of soft materials. By including features about …

An Automated Framework For Connected Speech Evaluation Of Neurodegenerative Disease: A Case Study In Parkinson's Disease, Sai Bharadwaj Appakaya

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Neurodegenerative diseases affect millions of people around the world. The progressive degeneration worsens the symptoms, heavily impacting the quality of life of the patients as well as the caregivers. Speech production is one of the physiological processes affected by neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Parkinson’s disease (PD). Speech is the most basic form of communication, and the effect of neurodegeneration degrades speech production, thereby reducing social interaction and mental well-being. PD is the second most common neurodegenerative disease affecting speech production in 90% of the diagnosed individuals. Speech analysis methods for PD in clinical methods …

A Macro Analysis Of Illegal Hunting And Fishing Across Texas Counties: Using An Economic Structural Approach, Leo J. Genco Jr.

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this disseration is to examine the distribution of illegal hunting and fishing violations across Texas counties in respect to the economic structure. Illegal hunting plays a part in the extraction of resources that are overly withdrawn, and criminologists have ignored this form of deviancy that has large ramifications for the environment. To view this criminal phenomenon, the study uses the Treadmill of Production theory to determine economic structural factors and whether those factors explain the distribution of illegal hunting and fishing. Using regression analyses and SatScan, the findings suggested that while there are significant factors related to …

Shorebird Response To Human-Induced Changes At Three Pinellas County Beaches, Rebecca J. Ruthberg-Campagna

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Worldwide, shorebird habitat is being destroyed and degraded by development and sea level rise. Shorebirds depend on availability of pristine, undisturbed coastal habitats for resting and feeding during migration as well as for reproduction. Migratory shorebirds using the East Atlantic Flyway visit the Gulf of Mexico Beaches of Pinellas County, Florida as a stopover site during Fall and Spring migration. In addition to hosting migratory species, Pinellas County beaches are home to several year-round resident species that breed during Summer. Pinellas County is the most densely populated county in Florida, and its Gulf Coast is heavily developed with commercial and …

Modeling Early Life: Ontogenetic Growth And Behavior Affect Population Connectivity In Gulf Of Mexico Marine Fish, Kelly Vasbinder

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is an examination of growth, behavior, and dispersal during the early life stages of marine fishes in the Gulf of Mexico. Understanding movements of early life stages is a key part of managing exploited fish populations. Position in the water column can impact larval dispersal, since it determines those currents to which larvae are exposed. First, I investigated the relationship between length and age in early life stages of marine fishes. I found that demersal fish taxa tend to be represented by exponential models, while pelagic fish tend to be represented by linear models. I suggest this may …

Maternal Social Status, Offspring 2d:4d Ratio And Postnatal Growth, In Macaca Mulatta (Rhesus Macaques), Juan Pablo Arroyo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Early life exposure to stressors can disrupt growth and development, resulting in long-term compromised function and increased risk for disease throughout the lifecourse. Maternal exposure to psychosocial stressors (i.e., stressors derived from social status, social inequalities, and social interactions) during pregnancy has been associated with reduced fetal growth, adverse birth outcomes, and increased morbidity for the offspring later in life. Maternal hormonal responses to stress, such as fluctuations in glucocorticoids (e.g., cortisol) and androgens (e.g., testosterone), can result in increased developmental instability, interfere with offspring growth in-utero, and may alter developmental processes of sexual dimorphism. Second digit to fourth digit …

Discrete Models And Algorithms For Analyzing Dna Rearrangements, Jasper Braun

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this work, language and tools are introduced, which model many-to-many mappings that comprise DNA rearrangements in nature. Existing theoretical models and data processing methods depend on the premise that DNA segments in the rearrangement precursor are in a clear one-to-one correspondence with their destinations in the recombined product. However, ambiguities in the rearrangement maps obtained from the ciliate species Oxytricha trifallax violate this assumption demonstrating a necessity for the adaptation of theory and practice.

In order to take into account the ambiguities in the rearrangement maps, generalizations of existing recombination models are proposed. Edges in an ordered graph model …

The Use Of Spanish Moss As A Biological Indicator To Examine Relationships Between Metal Air Pollution, Vegetation Cover, And Environmental Equity In Tampa, Florida, Yousif Abdullah

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Studies of inequality in exposure to less common air pollutants, like metals, are often limited by the costs of high spatial resolution measurements. Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) is a promising bioindicator for measuring air pollution due to its lower cost, enabling capture of time-average environmental concentrations at high spatial resolution. This study had three major aims. First, I aimed to use Spanish moss as a bioindicator to characterize ambient concentrations of selected metals (Ti, Cr, Mn, Co, Ni, Cd, Hg, Pb, As, and Sb) in Tampa, Florida. My second goal was to determine the impact of vegetation cover on metals …

Feature Selection Via Random Subsets Of Uncorrelated Features, Long Kim Dang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The role of feature selection is crucial in many applications. A few of these include computational biology, image classification and risk management. In biology, gene expression micro array data sets have been used extensively in many areas of research. These data sets typically suffer from an important problem: the ratio between the number of features over the number of examples is very high. This problem mainly affects prediction accuracy because it is best to collect more labeled examples than features. A correlation based random subspace ensemble feature selector (CCC_RSM) was proposed to handle this problem [5]. In this approach, first …

Biogeochemical Cycling Of Nutrients And Carbon In Subtropical Wetlands, Lauren N. Griffiths

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As human development intensifies, ecosystems around the word are being exponentially destroyed and degraded. Wetlands have the capacity to mitigate some of the possible problems by retaining nutrients and carbon, keeping them from harming downstream ecosystems or being released into the atmosphere. This project focuses on the processes that make wetlands successful by studying two unique ecosystems: 1) a created urban stormwater treatment wetland and 2) mangrove wetlands in Florida and Puerto Rico that were affected by hurricanes in 2017.

The first phase of this study investigates the role of sedimentation and vegetative and algal uptake of nutrients to retain …

Spatiotemporal Changes Of Microbial Community Assemblages And Functions In The Subsurface, Madison C. Davis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The subsurface hosts diverse microbial community assemblages and functions. These communities play an important role in biogeochemical cycling and groundwater purification. Many physicochemical factors affect microbial communities and can cause short-term or long-term perturbations. Subsurface microbes are susceptible to anthropogenic changes in the environment, which can be caused by nutrient inputs or municipal groundwater extraction. Despite the importance of the subsurface microbiome, these microbial communities are poorly characterized. This dissertation describes the characterization of spatiotemporal drivers of subsurface microbial communities through a variety of techniques that include eDNA analyses, bioinformatics, hydrochemical analyses, stable isotope geochemistry, and multivariate statistics. Three coastal …

The Ecology And Conservation Of An Urban Karst Subterranean Estuary, Robert J. Scharping

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Sulphur Springs is an artesian spring and part of the limestone karst topography of metropolitan Tampa, Florida, USA. Underlying this spring is an extensive cave system that hosts saltwater vents and conspicuous microbial biofilm communities. For decades, water from Sulphur Springs has been extracted and used to supplement public water supply and dry season flows in the Hillsborough River Estuary. This dissertation describes research conducted at Sulphur Springs to determine the impacts of urban land use on the underlying cave and downstream estuary ecosystems, and presents the use of this system as a model to fill certain ecological knowledge gaps. …

Isotope-Based Methods For Evaluating Fish Trophic Geographies, Julie L. Vecchio

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Data on the movement and diets of fish during a variety of life stages are important inputs to fisheries stock assessments and marine ecosystem models. Stable isotopes may provide previously inaccessible information on movement and diet of a variety of managed and forage fish species. Here I used several novel means of interpretation for stable isotope data to infer diets and movements of several important fisheries species over both short (weeks to months) and long (lifetime) timescales. To calculate a constant partitioning offset (CPO) between the δ¹⁵N of muscle and of liver tissue, I conducted a literature search …

The Peculiar Nature Of Florida’S Sandhill Wetlands, Ponds & Lakes— Their Ecohydrology, Relationship With The Regional Aquifer & Importance Within The Landscape., Renae Starr Nowicki

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the ecohydrology of Florida’s peculiar and poorly studied sandhill wetland and water features, particularly those located in west-central Florida. The primary research goals include: compilation and summarization of the available ecohydrologic information for features across Florida; comparison of water level and water geochemistry data between sandhill wetlands and waters and the regional aquifer to provide evidence of regional hydrologic control; and use of geophysical applications to examine the hydraulic connections between sandhill wetlands and waters and the regional aquifer.

From this research, a natural history of sandhill wetland and water ecohydrology is presented, highlighting: the differences between …

Untapped Potential Of Gorgonian Octocorals For Detecting Environmental Change In Biscayne National Park, Florida, Usa, Selena A. Kupfner Johnson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

One consequence of dramatic stony-coral loss has been recognition that gorgonian octocorals (Anthozoa: Octocorallia) have emerged among the dominant reef fauna. However, gorgonians are notoriously difficult to field-identify and consequently have been underrepresented in most monitoring efforts resulting in a lack of long-term data. The rich diversity of habitats, close proximity to the urban center of Miami, and connectivity to other areas of Florida have made Biscayne National Park an active location for reef research since its establishment in 1968. As such, a plethora of data (e.g., museum specimen and species abundance data) has been collected and stored in archives …