Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Self-Assembly Of Metallo-Supramolecules Based On Terpyridine And Its Derivatives, Yu Yan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

By studying coordination complexes in nature, such as chlorophyll, heme, and Enterobacter, we have learned that the structures of coordination complexes are closely related to their functions. However, it remains a challenge to achieve elaborate structures and sophisticated functions of complexes through synthetic methods. In the supramolecular chemistry field, coordination-driven self-assembly as a bottom-up approach are used to construct diverse supramolecules with well-defined structures and desired functions. The ways to achieve the goal including (1) rearranging components through coordination; （2）linking metal ions and organic frameworks to complete energy transfer; (3) converting between assembly and disassembly due to detection of stimuli. …

Frequency Domain Diffuse Optics Spectroscopies For Quantitative Measurement Of Tissue Optical Properties, Sadhu Moka

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Tissue oxygen saturation, blood flow and blood volume are physiological bio-markers of tissue health. Diffuse Optical Spectroscopy(DOS) and Diffuse Correlation Spectroscopy (DCS) are two complementary approaches to measure tissue oxygen saturation and blood flow respectively. Quantitative Diffuse Optical Spectroscopy (DOS) uses multi-spectral intensities of near-infrared light that have been modulated at RF frequencies to estimate static tissue optical properties and hence concentrations of oxygenated and de-oxygenated hemoglobin. Diffuse Correlation Spectroscopy estimates tissue dynamics - i.e., blood flow, by measuring temporal intensity auto-correlation function of backscattered light diffusing through the tissue. Conventionally, DCS instruments use coherent light sources with constant intensity. …

Reducing Instrumentation Barriers Of Diffuse Correlation Spectroscopy For Low-Cost Deep Tissue Blood Flow Monitoring, Arindam Biswas

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Cerebral blood flow (CBF) is a good indicator of brain health as blood carries necessary nutrients, oxygen, and metabolic byproducts. Quantitative blood flow information can be used in several clinical and therapeutic applications such as stroke detection, measuring autoregulation, evaluating brain injury, or determining neuronal activity. Over the past few decades, light-based deep tissue hemodynamic detection modalities have become popular for non-invasive CBF measurements. In particular, noninvasive Diffuse Correlation Spectroscopy (DCS), has become a tool of choice for research and clinical applications due to its depth sensitivity (>1 cm), portability, validity against other technologies such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging …

Data-Driven State Estimation For Improved Wide Area Situational Awareness In Smart Grids, Md Jakir Hossain

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Wide area situational awareness (WASA) in smart grids includes automatic monitoring, perception and detection of anomalies in these systems. The goal of WASA is to make smart grids aware of their physical and operational state for more effective operational decisions and control. As such, tracking the system's state or state estimation is one of the key objectives of WASA. The extensive integration of cyber elements into smart grids, such as large deployment of various monitoring and measurement devices, provides new opportunities to improve WASA. However, the tight coupling of power grids with cyber components introduces vulnerabilities to cyber and physical …

A Multiple Input Multiple Output Framework For The Automatic Optical Fractionator-Based Cell Counting In Z-Stacks Using Deep Learning, Palak Dave

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Quantifying cells in a defined region of biological tissue is critical for many clinical and preclinical studies, especially in pathology, toxicology, cancer, and behavior. Unbiased stereology is the state-of-art method for quantification of the total number and other morphometric parameters of stained objects in a defined region of biological tissue. As part of a program to develop accurate, precise, and more efficient automatic approaches for quantifying morphometric changes in biological tissue, our group has shown that both deep learning-based and hand-crafted algorithms can estimate the total number of histologically stained cells at their maximal profile of focus in extended depth …

Quantifying A 21-Year Surface Water And Groundwater Interaction In A Ridge And Valley Lake Environment Using A Highly Constrained Modeling Approach, Richard T. Bowers Jr.

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Karst lakes are ubiquitous in ridge terrain settings in limestone aquifer coastal plain environments. In west-central Florida, these lakes are frequently connected to the Upper Floridan aquifer and have unique aquifer recharge characteristics. They have been selectively studied because they commonly have no or very limited surface water discharge and limited drainage areas, have appreciable surface water and groundwater interaction and leak to the deep aquifer. An innovative modeling approach was developed to collectively understand and more precisely quantify this vertical leakage, both from a lake-specific and regional water budget standpoint, for a 21-year study period (2000-2020). A unique, calibrated …

Optimizing Lake Okeechobee Watershed Management And Reservoir Operations For Water Quality Improvement, Osama Mahrous Mossad Tarabih

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Rivers around the globe have been altered as people have constructed water resources infrastructure to store water for different human needs, causing negative impacts on ecosystem processes and functions. Environmental flows have been introduced to restore deteriorated riverine ecosystems; however, environmental flows have not always been practical or adequate to restore environment conditions in rivers globally. Lake Okeechobee is a large subtropical lake that plays a pivotal role in South Florida water system providing various water demands for the surrounding communities as well as providing crucial services to the ecosystem of South Florida. However, hydrologic alterations and nutrient (phosphorus and …

Volcano And Tectonic Hazard Modeling Using Interdisciplinary Geophysical And Geodetic Methods, Mitchell Scott Hastings

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Volcanic and tectonic hazards such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and tsunamis present risks to about ~45% of the global population. They have caused at least 1.5 trillion dollars in damages worldwide since the start of the 20th century, and the costs are accelerating as population increases. In this dissertation, new data are combined with existing information and novel modeling approaches to quantify volcanic, earthquake and tsunami hazards.

The Blackfoot Reservoir Volcanic Field (BRVF) is a bimodal volcanic field on southeastern margin of the Eastern Snake River Plain in Idaho. In the BRVF, gravity anomalies reveal two shallow silicic intrusions that …

Using Gis-Based Land Use Strategies To Minimize The Impacts Of Urbanization On Agricultural Land And Forest Cover: Case Study Of The City Of Limbe, Cameroon, Lucy Ebude Deba Enomah

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Urbanization is one of the most dominant phenomena of the 21st century; it is propelled by natural growth and rural-to-urban migration. This latter is typically a product of rural residents moving to urban centres in search of economic opportunities. This phenomenon is accompanied by immense land use and cover changes – predominantly agricultural and forest lands to urban land uses such as buildings and infrastructure. The goal of this research was to contribute to efforts to minimize the impacts of urbanization on agricultural land and forest cover in Limbe, Cameroon, and to develop GIS-based strategies to allocate suitable land for …

Development Of Lipidated Antimicrobial Polycarbonates, Ruixuan Gao

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Antimicrobial resistance is a global challenge owing to the lack of discovering effective antibiotic agents. Antimicrobial polymers containing the cationic groups and hydrophobic groups which mimic natural host-defense peptides (HDPs) show great promise in combating bacteria. Herein, we report the synthesis of lipidated polycarbonates bearing primary amino groups and hydrophobic moieties (including both the terminal lipid alkyl chain and hydrophobic groups in the sequences) by ring-opening polymerization. The hydrophobic/hydrophilic group ratios were adjusted deliberately and the lengths of the lipid tails at the end of the polymers were modified to achieve the optimized combination for the lead polymers, which exhibited …

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 …

Surviving A Broken System: Synergies Between Solidarity Economies And Sustainable Development Goals, Julie Beach

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Capitalism has created problems including wealth polarization, rapid depletion of natural resources, and pervasive systemic societal issues. Hard work is not enough to solve the unequal distribution and barriers preventing access to necessities. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were created to remedy the harsh reality of global inequities and negative environmental impacts by working towards a more just and equitable future for all. Solidarity Economies (SE) offer an alternative framework to achieve these goals.

This research used multiple qualitative methods to investigate the synergies between SE and SDGs in a growing urban environment. St. Petersburg, FL struggles with affordable housing, food …

Designing A Messaging Strategy To Improve Information Security Policy Compliance, Federico Giovannetti

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Lack of employee compliance with information security policies is a key factor driving security incidents. Information security practitioners struggle to enforce policy compliance while employees try to curtail safeguards in favor of expediency and other perceived business goals. Several studies have shown individual and organizational factors influencing this type of employee behavior. However, few have recommended management-level interventions that can be used as a solution framework by information security practitioners.

This research utilized the Design Science Research (DSR) methodology to develop a management-level intervention based on a messaging strategy that aims to help information security practitioners improve the information security …

Development Of An Automated Platform For Sensing And Differentiating Vapor-Phase Btex Constituents, Jonathan Samuelson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Light aromatic hydrocarbons are an inevitable byproduct of fossil fuel extraction, refinement, distribution, and use. The four lightest and most prevalent of these are benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene, which are known collectively as BTEX. In spite of their chemical similarity these species have markedly different effects on human health and substantially different concentrations are permitted by OSHA in workplaces and by the EPA in ambient air and groundwater. Real-time detection, identification, and quantification of these species is therefore of great importance wherever they see industrial use.This work represents the continuation and advancement of a line of research in which …

Statistical Methods For Reliability Test Planning And Data Analysis, Oluwaseun Elizabeth Otunuga

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation develops several statistical methods to advance the techniques and applications in the fields of reliability test planning and data analysis as well as statistical modeling and analysis in survival analysis.

The first project focuses on developing new demonstration test plans for lifetime data based on considering multiple objectives. Reliability demonstration tests have been broadly used for assuring reliability performance at the desired confidence level. We consider lifetime data that follows a Weibull distribution which has been broadly used for modeling a variety of shapes of lifetime distributions. When planning a demonstration test, there are often multiple aspects to …

Task Progress Assessment And Monitoring Using Self-Supervised Learning, Sainath Reddy Bobbala

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Robotic manipulation for cooking requires a thorough understanding of the cooking environment. The robot must understand the cooking objects and their states at each intermediate level as the process continues. To understand these states, we need frame-level annotations. To overcome this frame-level dependency, we introduce a self-supervised learning method to obtain the frame-level state representation with ”temporal video alignment” and ”contrastive learning.”In this work, we use self-supervised learning to train a model using multiple videos of the same action being performed in various settings. This model can extract frame-level embedding space and align videos via simple distance-based matching. We show …

Generative Spatio-Temporal And Multimodal Analysis Of Neonatal Pain, Md Sirajus Salekin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Neonates can not express their pain like an adult person. Due to the lacking of proper muscle growth and inability to express non-verbally, it is difficult to understand their emotional status. In addition, if the neonates are under any treatment or left monitored after any major surgeries (post-operative), it is more difficult to understand their pain due to the side effect of medications and the caring system (i.e. intubated, masked face, covered body with blanket, etc.). In a clinical environment, usually, bedside nurses routinely observe the neonate and measure the pain status following any standard clinical pain scale. But current …

Study On New Strategy Toward Gold(I/Iii) Redox Catalysis, Shuyao Zhang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation mainly contains three parts: 1) the study of ligand assisted gold oxidative addition toward aryl iodide to achieve the alkene difunctionalization. 2) The selective arylation reaction via electrochemical anode oxidation promoted gold redox chemistry. 3) The π acid reactivity of gold redox chemistry under electrochemistry conditions.

In the first part, the gold-catalyzed intermolecular oxyarylation of alkene is reported. This work employed the oxidative addition of aryl iodide to Me-DalphosAu+ for the formation of Au(III)-Ar intermediate. The better binding ability of alkene over O nucleophiles ensured the success of intermolecular oxyarylation, giving desired products with broad substrate scope and …

Magnetism In Doped And Hybrid Two – Dimensional Transition Metal Dichalcogenides, Nalaka Kapuruge

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, spintronics has gained increasing interest due to the possibility of storing and processing information through the manipulation of both the charge and spin of an electron. Dilute magnetic semiconductors are ideal for the fabrication of such devices as they display carrier-mediated ferromagnetism which allows the electronic control of magnetism. Transferring these properties into the two-dimensional (2D) realm is very attractive for both fundamental research and novel applications. The recent discovery of long-range magnetic order in 2D materials has attracted a growing effort in the search for new functional 2D materials that can display ferromagnetic properties at room-temperature. …

Preventing Variadic Function Attacks Through Argument Width Counting, Brennan Ward

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Format String attacks, first noted in June 2000 [1], are a type of attack in which anadversary has control of the string argument (the format string) passed to a string format function (such as printf). Such control allows the attacker to read and write arbitrary program memory. To prevent these attacks, various methodologies have been proposed, each with their own costs and benefits. I present a novel solution to this problem through argument width counting, ensuring that such format functions cannot access stack memory beyond the space where arguments were placed. Additionally, I show how this approach can be expanded …

Exploring The Vulnerability Of A Neural Tangent Generalization Attack (Ntga) - Generated Unlearnable Cifar-10 Dataset, Gitte Ost

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nowadays, a massive amount of data is generated and stored on servers and cloudsfrom various applications daily. Preventing these data from unauthorized use often becomes necessary and critical in various real-world applications. Many researchers have studied this crucial problem and developed different methods for this purpose. Among them, Neural Tangent Generalization Attack (NTGA) is one of the most efficient methods to make a dataset unlearnable, which means that the dataset is not learnable by machine learning/deep learning methods. That is, the NTGA-generated dataset is protected against unauthorized use. In this thesis, we explore the vulnerability of an NTGA-generated unlearnable CIFAR-10 …

Sports And Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Building A Better Framework For Sustainable Sports Operations, Austin Anahory

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the approach to sustainability of American soccer leagues and provides a Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Inventory of the Tampa Bay Rowdies. Sustainability and climate change are rising concerns for most industries, especially the sports industry as it will face many immediate and long term impacts. To address these issues, a sustainability analysis was done of each USL Championship team to assess prominence of sustainability topics from their website. To conduct the GHG inventory, the GHG Protocol was followed and resulted in assessing Scope 1, 2, and 3 of the given soccer team. Assumptions were used to estimate missing …

Measurement In Chemistry, Mathematics, And Physics Education: Student Explanations Of Organic Chemistry Reaction Mechanisms And Instructional Practices In Introductory Courses, Brandon J. Yik

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The work in this dissertation is presented in two parts. The first part (Chapters 3 and 4) details work relating to students’ explanations of reaction mechanisms in organic chemistry. The second part (Chapters 5 and 6) details work relating to the evaluating the uptake of research-based instructional practices in introductory chemistry, mathematics, and physics courses.

To evaluate learning of organic chemistry reactions, instructors must ask students to construct written explanations of reaction mechanisms. Written assessments should focus on what is happening and why it is happening to promote deeper student understanding. However, for instructors to gain insight into students’ understanding, …

Accelerating Multiparametric Mri For Adaptive Radiotherapy, Shraddha Pandey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

MR guided Radiotherapy (MRgRT) marks an important paradigm shift in the field of radiotherapy. Superior tissue contrast of MRI offers better visualization of the abnormal lesions, as a result precise radiation dose delivery is possible. In case of online treatment planning, MRgRT offers better control of intratumoral motion and quick adaptation to changes in the gross tumor volume. Nonetheless, the MRgRT process flow does suffer from some challenges that limit its clinical usability. The primary aspects of MRgRT workflow are MRI acquisition, tumor delineation, dose map prediction and administering treatment. It is estimated that the acquisition of MRI takes around …

Social Media Time Series Forecasting And User-Level Activity Prediction With Gradient Boosting, Deep Learning, And Data Augmentation, Fred Mubang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the overall history of technological innovations, social media has only existed for a brief time, however its influence is undeniable. Researchers have found that it can be used to influence elections, spread health misinformation, and aid with financial pump-and-dump schemes. Keeping all this in mind, it is clear that more research is needed to predict the spread of information on social media in order to combat its malicious use.

To that end, in this dissertation, we explore the use of Machine Learning algorithms to perform time series forecasting and user-level activity prediction in social media. We address the different …

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 …

Adaptive Multi-Scale Place Cell Representations And Replay For Spatial Navigation And Learning In Autonomous Robots, Pablo Scleidorovich

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Place cells are one of the most widely studied neurons thought to play a vital role in spatial cognition. Extensive studies show that their activity in the rodent hippocampus is highly correlated with the animal’s spatial location, forming “place fields” of smaller sizes near the dorsal pole and larger sizes near the ventral pole. Despite advances, it is yet unclear how this multi-scale representation enables navigation in complex environments.

In this dissertation, we analyze the place cell representation from a computational point of view, evaluating how multi-scale place fields impact navigation in large and cluttered environments. The objectives are to …

Towards High Performing And Reliable Deep Convolutional Neural Network Models For Typically Limited Medical Imaging Datasets, Kaoutar Ben Ahmed

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is “The science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs”. Artificial Intelligence has been applied in a wide range of fields including automobiles, space, robotics, and healthcare.

According to recent reports, AI will have a huge impact on increasing the world economy by 2030 and it's expected that the greatest impact will be in the field of healthcare. The global market size of AI in healthcare was estimated at USD 10.4 billion in 2021 and is expected to grow at a high rate from 2022 to 2030 (CAGR of 38.4%). Applications of AI in …

An Enterprise Risk Management Framework To Design Pro-Ethical Ai Solutions, Quintin P. Mcgrath

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The effective use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has immediate business benefits for an organization and its stakeholders through efficiency and quality gains, and the potential to explore and implement new business models. However, there are risks of unintended ethical consequences. Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) focuses on managing risk while maximizing business value from exploiting opportunities. Using applied ethics as a basis and the perspective that ethics includes both enabling human flourishing and not violating accepted norms, I argue that greater business value is achieved when an organization simultaneously targets the maximization of benefits and the minimization of harms for the …

Chemical Investigation And Drug Discovery Potential Of Terpenoid Secondary Metabolites From Three Deep-Sea Irish Soft Corals, Joshua Thomas Welsch

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Secondary metabolites produced primarily by terrestrial plants and animals have provided the basis for treatments and cures of human diseases as far back as historians have been able to probe. However, recent technological advances including the self-contained underwater breathing apparatus, and even further remotely operated vehicles, have allowed researchers a unique opportunity for targeted collection of marine organisms at depths previously thought to possess conditions unsustainable for life as was understood. This has afforded a glimpse into the potential for not only life, but the potential for new biochemical adaptations developed over billions of years that have been evolutionarily developed …