Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Improving Spectrophotometric Carbon System Measurements, Mark Patsavas

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This work provides improved procedures for spectrophotometric carbon system measurements. Indicator dyes used for routine spectrophotometric pH measurements in seawater suffer from impurity issues, which introduce vendor-specific systematic errors in pH determinations. The magnitude of these errors for several vendors was investigated for meta Cresol Purple (mCP) and Cresol Red (CR). Flash chromatography procedures were developed to obtain purified mCP and CR on a bulk scale in order to supply the oceanographic research community with the indicators. Easy access to the purified indicators ensures global intercomparability of spectrophotometric pH determinations.

Internal consistency of marine inorganic carbon system measurements was studied …

Design & Synthesis Of Peptidomimetics Adopting Secondary Structures For Inhibition Of P53/Mdm2 Protein-Protein Interaction And Multiple Myeloma Cell Adhesion, Hyun Joo Kil

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The protein-protein interactions (PPIs) occur when two or more proteins are bound together. Also, this protein-protein interactions (PPIs) cause the various biological processes in the body. Due to this reason, abilities of controlling or inhibiting PPIs can give us promising advantages like (1) better understanding of biological systems, (2) development of new diagnostic approaches for health or disease, and (3) establishment of novel molecular therapeutics. Many proteins adopt the secondary structures, where most of protein-protein interactions take place. -Helices and -sheets are the prevalent secondary conformations, but there are extended secondary structures such as -hairpins, -turns, 310 helix, and so …

First-Principles Atomistic Simulations Of Energetic Materials, Aaron Christopher Landerville

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is concerned with the understanding of physico-chemical properties of energetic materials (EMs). Recently, a substantial amount of work has been directed towards calculations of equations of state and structural changes upon compression of existing EMs, as well as elucidating the underlying chemistry of initiation in detonating EMs. This work contributes to this effort by 1) predicting equations of state and thermo-physical properties of EMs, 2) predicting new phases of novel EMs, and 3) examining the initial stages of chemistry that result in detonation in EMs. The motivation for the first thrust, is to provide thermodynamic properties as input …

Synthesis And Evaluation Of 3-Aryl-4(1h)-Quinolones As Orally Active Antimalarials: Overcoming Challenges In Solubility, Metabolism, And Bioavailability, Andrii Monastyrskyi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Infectious diseases are the second leading cause of deaths in the world with malaria being responsible for approximately the same amount of deaths as cancer in 2012. Despite the success in malaria prevention and control measures decreasing the disease mortality rate by 45% since 2000, the development of single-dose therapeutics with radical cure potential is required to completely eradicate this deadly disease. Targeting multiple stages of the malaria parasite is becoming a primary requirement for new candidates in antimalarial drug discovery and development. Recently, 4(1H)-pyridone, 4(1H)-quinolone, 1,2,3,4-tetrahydroacridone, and phenoxyethoxy-4(1H)-quinolone chemotypes have been shown to be antimalarials with blood stage activity, …

Lead (Pb) Contamination Of Water Drawn From Pitcher Pumps In Eastern Madagascar, David Bradlee Akers

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Access to safe water supply--a major determinant of public health--is less than 50% in Madagascar, and access to piped, treated water remains out of reach financially for many in the urban and peri-urban areas where available. The Self-supply option of the Pitcher Pump has been meeting the need for household water in coastal areas of Madagascar since the early 1960s and has proven a sustainable option for many. These pumps make use of leaded components in the construction, however, which may pose a health risk for heavy metal intoxication and therefore cause the water to be unsafe for drinking and …

Influence Of Diet On Element Incorporation In The Shells Of Two Bivalve Molluscs: Argopecten Irradians Concentricus And Mercenaria Mercenaria, William Noland Elsaesser

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recently, biogenic carbonates have received much attention as potential proxies of environmental change; however, a major pathway of elemental incorporation is often overlooked when making interpretations or designing experiments. This research experimentally examines the influence of diet on elemental composition in juvenile shells of the bay scallop, Argopecten irradians concentricus, and the northern quahog, Mercenaria mercenaria.

Exploratory trials were conducted using Argopecten irradians concentricus juveniles fed different algal diets: Isochrysis, Chaetoceros, Pavlova, Tetraselmis, or a mix of all four in a 2:1:2:2 ratio. No differences between the left and right valves were revealed, thus, subsequent analysis of the dietary influence …

Sustainable Energy And Nutrient Recovery From Swine Waste, Adib Amini

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Swine production represents approximately 40% of the world's meat production, and swine wastes contain high concentrations of organic matter, nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P). Swine production is intensifying as meat demand increases and concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are becoming increasingly common, making it difficult to treat the waste generated. A system for holistic treatment of swine waste produced in CAFOs was investigated in this study that sustainably generates energy and recovers N and P as saleable fertilizers. The system uses anaerobic digestion (AD) for methane production and solids stabilization, followed by precipitation of struvite (MgNH4PO4*6H2O) and recovery of N …

On The Classification Of Groups Generated By Automata With 4 States Over A 2-Letter Alphabet, Louis Caponi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The class of groups generated by automata have been a source of many counterexamples in group theory. At the same time it is connected to other branches of mathematics, such as analysis, holomorphic dynamics, combinatorics, etc. A question that naturally arises is finding the ways to classify these groups. The task of a complete classification and understanding at the moment seems to be too ambitious, but it is reasonable to concentrate on some smaller subclasses of this class. One approach is to consider groups generated by small automata: the automata with k states over d-letter alphabet (so called, (k,d)-automata) with …

Baseline Studies Of Selected Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers In The Air Of The Nandamojo Watershed, Costa Rica, Mary Sophia Geesey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) have been used as flame retardants in a number of common household and commercial products around the world. PBDEs enter the environment in a variety of ways, such as through emissions, leaching from end-of-life electronics in landfills, and incineration. While many countries have phased out the manufacturing of penta-, octa-, and deca-PBDEs or have banned the manufacture and use of these congeners altogether, these persistent organic pollutants (POPs) continue to be detected in humans and the environment.

This study investigates spatial and temporal variations of selected PBDEs in the air of the Nandamojo watershed area in …

Insights Into [Aacute]-Aa Peptides And Ã-Aa Peptides As Broad Spectrum Antimicrobial Peptidomimetics And As Anti-Biofilm Agents, Shruti Padhee

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The emergent resistance of bacteria against the conventional antibiotics has motivated the search for novel antimicrobial agents. Nature abounds with a number of antimicrobial peptides that are a part of our innate immune system and protect us against a variety of pathogenic bacteria. While they are broad-spectrum in their activity and show less drug-resistance induction, their intrinsic metabolic stability limits their potential therapeutic applications. Herein we describe the development of novel broad-spectrum bioactive antimicrobial peptidomimetics AA-peptides. AApeptides were designed based on chiral PNA backbone. Substitution of nucleobases yields AApeptides that are resistant to proteolysis and capable of mimicking peptides. Two …

Epibenthic Mobile Invertebrates Along The Florida Reef Tract: Diversity And Community Structure, Kristin Netchy

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Benthic mobile invertebrates are important components of coral-reef diversity and community structure, though, in most cases, their ecological contributions are poorly known. Baseline information on their diversity, prevalence, assemblages, and ecological roles is needed to aid in the conservation of coral-reef habitats. The objectives of this study are to 1) describe diversity and assemblages of epibenthic, mobile invertebrates in shallow water coral-reef communities in Florida, 2) evaluate their ecological roles by reviewing published literature on diet, and 3) measure the degree of linear dependence between mobile invertebrates and scleractinian corals. Underwater surveys were conducted in the summer of 2013 at …

Properties Of Graphs Used To Model Dna Recombination, Ryan Arredondo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A model for DNA recombination uses 4-valent rigid vertex graphs,

called assembly graphs. An assembly graph,

similarly to the projection of knots, can be associated with an

unsigned Gauss code, or double occurrence word.

We define biologically motivated reductions that act on double

occurrence words and, in turn, on their associated assembly graphs. For

every double occurrence word w there is a sequence of reduction

operations that may be applied to w so that what remains is the

empty word, [epsilon]. Then the nesting index of a word w,

denoted by NI(w), is defined to to be …

Agriculture, Environmental Restoration And Ecosystem Services: Assessing The Costs Of Water Storage On Agricultural Lands In South Florida, Kayla Ouellette

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A large part of the environmental restoration required by the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan calls for more water-storage on lands south of Lake Okeechobee in order to restore the natural water flows of the Everglades watershed. The Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) can be used for increased water storage in order to relieve coastal estuaries of excess water in the rainy season. This water storage can deliver additional ecosystem services of soil retention and reduced CO2 emissions that could compensate farmers for the cost of water storage by increasing long term farm profitability. The goals of this study were 1) to …

Still Waters Run Deep: Landscaping Practices, Community Perceptions, And Social Indicators For Stormwater Nonpoint Source Pollution Management In Manatee County, Florida, Ann Rebecca Persaud

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Stormwater nonpoint source pollution (NPSP) is a result of diffuse sources of pollutants transported by rainfall and surface runoff into stormwater ponds and drainage systems before percolating into the ground. In particular, the nutrients found in fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides applied in excess by homeowners and landscapers can cause a range of issues in stormwater ponds from fish kills to eutrophication. As a result, Manatee County, Florida has issued a fertilizer ordinance with best management practices (BMPs) and a fertilizer black out period to reduce NPSP. This study is aimed at capturing the perceptions of residents which affect stormwater NPSP …

[M3(Μ3-O)(O2cr)6] And Related Trigonal Prisms: Versatile Molecular Building Blocks For 2-Step Crystal Engineering Of Functional Metal-Organic Materials, Alexander Schoedel

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Metal-organic materials (MOMs) assembled from metal-based building blocks and organic linkers have attracted much interest due to their large pore dimensions and their enormous structural diversity. In comparison to their inorganic counterparts (zeolites), these crystalline materials can be easily modified to tailor pore dimensions and functionality for specifically targeted properties.

The work presented herein encompasses the development of a synthetic 2-step process for the construction of novel families of MOMs or 'platforms' and allow us exquisite design and control over the resulting network topologies. Examples of cationic mesoporous structures were initially exploited, containing carboxylate based centers connected by metal-pyridine bonds. …

Probabilistic Modeling Of Lava Flows: A Hazard Assessment For The San Francisco Volcanic Field, Arizona, Aleeza Harburger

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study serves as a first step towards a comprehensive hazard assessment for the San Francisco volcanic field in northern Arizona, which can be applied to local response plans and educational initiatives. The primary goal of this thesis is to resolve the conditional probability that, given a lava flow effusing from a new vent in the San Francisco volcanic field, it will inundate the city limits of Flagstaff. The spatial distribution of vents within the San Francisco volcanic field was analyzed in order to execute a lava flow simulation to determine the inundation hazard to Flagstaff. The Gaussian kernel function …

Multi Sensor System For Pedestrian Tracking And Activity Recognition In Indoor Environments, Juan Jose Marron Monteserin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The widespread use of mobile devices and the rise of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) have allowed mobile tracking applications to become very popular and valuable in outdoor environments. However, tracking pedestrians in indoor environments with Global Positioning System (GPS)-based schemes is still very challenging given the lack of enough

signals to locate the user. Along with indoor tracking, the ability to recognize pedestrian behavior and activities can lead to considerable growth in location-based applications including

pervasive healthcare, leisure and guide services (such as, museum, airports, stores, etc.), and emergency services, among the most important ones.

This thesis presents a …

Scene-Dependent Human Intention Recognition For An Assistive Robotic System, Kester Duncan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In order for assistive robots to collaborate effectively with humans for completing everyday tasks, they must be endowed with the ability to effectively perceive scenes and more importantly, recognize human intentions. As a result, we present in this dissertation a novel scene-dependent human-robot collaborative system capable of recognizing and learning human intentions based on scene objects, the actions that can be performed on them, and human interaction history. The aim of this system is to reduce the amount of human interactions necessary for communicating tasks to a robot. Accordingly, the system is partitioned into scene understanding and intention recognition modules. …

Br[O/]Nsted Acid Catalyzed Asymmetric Allylation And Propargylation Of Aldehydes, Pankaj Jain

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Carbonyl allylation and propargylation reactions have been an important tool for the stereocontrolled formation of carbon-carbon bonds for synthetic chemists. The chiral homoallylic and homopropargylic alcohols obtained from these reactions serve as versatile intermediates for the synthesis of natural and pharmaceutical products. Over the past three decades and continuing on, various synthetic groups around the globe have directed their research towards the efficient synthesis of these chiral moieties. In spite extensive research, asymmetric allylation and propargylation reactions remain an enduring challenge in organic chemistry.

Chapter 1 of this thesis describes the first phosphoric acid catalyzed asymmetric allylboration of aldehydes. We …

Investigation And Characterization Of Pt-Modified Au Catalysts And Polymer Composites By Electrochemistry, Raman And Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (Sers), Ranjani Muralidharan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation thesis consists of six chapters. The main focus of this study is the need for understanding the reaction mechanism and intermediates formed on Pt-modified Au surface as anode catalysts in the formic acid fuel cells. Chapter 1 gives an introduction to formic acid and methanol fuel cells, an overview of the current catalysts employed at the anode of the fuel cells, specifically the Pt-modified Au electrodes as potential catalysts and the different deposition methods for preparing this catalytic surface. Information about different electrochemical methods used like cyclic voltammetry and potential step method along with other characterization methods and …

A Monte Carlo Study: The Consequences Of The Misspecification Of The Level-1 Error Structure, Merlande Petit-Bois

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Single-case interventions allow for the repeated measurement of a case or participant across multiple time points, to assess the treatment¡͞s effect on one specific case or participant. The basic interrupted time series design includes two phases: baseline and treatment. Raudenbush and Byrk (2002) demonstrated that a meta-analysis of large group designs can be seen as a special case of multi-level analysis with participants (level-one) nested within studies (level-two). Raw data from a set of single case design studies have a similar structure. Van den Noortgate and Onghena (2003) illustrated the use of a two-level model to analyze data in primary …

Environmental And Energy Saving Technologies Of Vinyl Chloride Production, Mykola Kurta

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recently, because of the increase of environmental concerns in process design, the need to enhance conversion to product and prevent generation of wasteful byproducts in the reactor network has become urgent. This prevents high cost treatment and separation costs downstream in the process. Therefore, in this thesis I focus on making production of vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) more efficient and on possible ways of industrial organochlorine waste (OCW) recycling. In particular, in the first experiment, we investigate how catalyst and its structure can affect product output.

Infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction analysis were utilized to investigate the structure of the …

Location And Capacity Modeling Of Network Interchanges, Aldo D. Fabregas

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Network design decisions, especially those pertaining to urban infrastructure, are made by a central authority or network leader, and taking into consideration the network users or followers. These network decision problems are formulated as non-linear bi-level programming problems. In this work, a continuous network design problem (CNDP) and discrete network design problem (DNDP) bi-level optimization programs are proposed and solved in the context of transportation planning. The solution strategy involved reformulation and linearization as a single-level program by introducing the optimality conditions of the lower level problem into the upper level problem. For the CNDP, an alternative linearization algorithm (modified …

Algorithms And Data Structures For Efficient Timing Analysis Of Asynchronous Real-Time Systems, Yingying Zhang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents a framework to verify asynchronous real-time systems based on model checking. These systems are modeled by using a common modeling formalism named Labeled Petri-nets(LPNs).

In order to verify the real-time systems algorithmically, the zone-based timing analysis method is used for LPNs. It searches the state space with timing information (represented by zones). When there is a high degree of concurrency in the model, firing concurrent enabled transitions in different order may result in different zones, and these zones may be combined without affecting the verification result. Since the zone-based method could not deal with this problem efficiently, …

Defining And Preventing Code-Injection Attacks, Donald Ray

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis shows that existing definitions of code-injection attacks (e.g., SQL-injection attacks) are flawed. The flaws make it possible for attackers to circumvent existing mechanisms, by supplying code-injecting inputs that are not recognized as such. The flaws also make it possible for benign inputs to be treated as attacks. After describing these flaws in conventional definitions of code-injection attacks, this thesis proposes a new definition, which is based on whether the symbols input to an application get used as (normal-form) values in the application's output. Because values are already fully evaluated, they cannot be considered ``code'' when injected. This simple …

Automatic Macro- And Micro-Facial Expression Spotting And Applications, Matthew Adam Shreve

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Automatically determining the temporal characteristics of facial expressions has extensive application domains such as human-machine interfaces for emotion recognition, face identification, as well as medical analysis. However, many papers in the literature have not addressed the step of determining when such expressions occur. This dissertation is focused on the problem of automatically segmenting macro- and micro-expressions frames (or retrieving the expression intervals) in video sequences, without the need for training a model on a specific subset of such expressions. The proposed method exploits the non-rigid facial motion that occurs during facial expressions by modeling the strain observed during the elastic …

Consumer Acceptance Of Mobile Payments In Restaurants, Anna Shatskikh

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Regardless all the advantages of MPs, it has not reach the sizable customer base. In this paper, we examined the core drivers of using mobile payments (MPs) in restaurant industry from the consumers' perspective. Based on the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), we developed a six factor model to reveal the determinants of consumers' intention to use MPs in restaurant. Security, subjective norm, compatibility with lifestyle, and previous experience with MPs were added to the traditional two factor TAM model (usefulness and ease of use). 300 respondents were recruited from an online survey agency and 258 valid responses were included in …

An Application Developed For Simulation Of Electrical Excitation And Conduction In A 3d Human Heart, Di Yu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis first reviews the history of General Purpose computing Graphic Processing Unit (GPGPU) and then introduces the fundamental problems that are suitable for GPGPU algorithm. The architecture of GPGPU is compared against modern CPU architecture, and the fundamental difference is outlined. The programming challenges faced by GPGPU and the techniques utilized to overcome these issues are evaluated and discussed.

The second part of the thesis presents an application developed with GPGPU technology to simulate the electrical excitation and conduction in a 3D human heart model based on cellular automata model. The algorithm and implementation are discussed in detail and …

Novel Models And Algorithms For Uncertainty Management In Power Systems, Long Zhao

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a collection of previously-published manuscript and conference papers. In this dissertation, we will deal with a stochastic unit commitment problem with cooling systems for gas generators, a robust unit commitment problem with demand response and uncertain wind generation, and a power grid vulnerability analysis with transmission line switching. The latter two problems correspond to our theoretical contributions in two-stage robust optimization, i.e., how to efficiently solve a two-stage robust optimization, and how to deal with mixed-integer recourse in robust optimization. Due to copyright issue, this dissertation does not include any methodology papers written by the author during …

Energy Efficient Context-Aware Framework In Mobile Sensing, Ozgur Yurur

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The ever-increasing technological advances in embedded systems engineering, together with the proliferation of small-size sensor design and deployment, have enabled mobile devices (e.g., smartphones) to recognize daily occurring human based actions, activities and interactions. Therefore, inferring a vast variety of mobile device user based activities from a very diverse context obtained by a series of sensory observations has drawn much interest in the research area of ubiquitous sensing. The existence and awareness of the context provides the capability of being conscious of physical environments or situations around mobile device users, and this allows network services to respond proactively and intelligently …