Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Restoring International Justice: Exposing The Limitations Of Retributive Justice And Proposing A Restorative Dimension, Nazek Jawad

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation exposes the limitation of international retributive justice in realizing interstate reconciliation and proposes including a restorative dimension into the existing international criminal justice system. I maintain that justice within the international criminal system is conceptualized purely on a punitive notion influenced by the liberal institutionalist understanding of the state and the international system. Hence, the current retributive structure does not engage rival stakeholders, who experience interstate wars, in the process of international justice, as it is centered on upholding international law and punishing states that violate the law. To this end, the current process is not equipped to …

Structure Of Turkey-Usa Bilateral Relations And Analysis Of Factors Affecting Bilateral Relations, Hanifi Ozkarakaya

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study focuses on understanding and explaining the factors affecting Turkey-US bilateral relations, which have been on a fluctuating course in recent years. Turkish foreign policy had a Western-centric foreign policy approach in line with Turkey’s westernization goal in previous years. However, Turkish foreign policy has undergone a major change since it became clear that the long-lasting European Union accession process would not reach a result. Therefore, Turkey's new foreign policy, which is not Western oriented and closely associated with the former Ottoman Empire geography, has also affected the bilateral relations between Turkey and the United States.

The most important …

2018 China-United States Trade War: Framing Analysis Of Online News Coverage In The United States And China As Portrayed By The New York Times And The People’S Daily, Jiangling Huang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Grounded in framing theory, this thesis explores a differential study by content analysis. The 2018 China-United States trade dispute is a major event that was officially launched by the United States and attracted worldwide attention. The ongoing trade disputes have had a huge impact on the economies of the two countries and the world economy, and a large number of news media have reported and commented on the incident. The purpose of the study was to determine the differences between news reports in the two countries depicted in the New York Times and the People’s Daily. The sample comes from …

Probabilistic Modeling Of Democracy, Corruption, Hemophilia A And Prediabetes Data, A. K. M. Raquibul Bashar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Parametric analysis of any real-world data is the most powerful tool to characterize the probabilistic behavior in social, economic, medical, epidemiological, and other areas of study. In the present study, we identify the theoretical Probability Distribution Function(PDF) for Democracy Index Scores (DIS) from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) database and estimate the maximum likelihood estimates of the theoretical PDFS. We also identify the individual PDFs for each of the clusters, Full Democracy, Flawed Democracy, Hybrid Regime, and Authoritarian Regime defined by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

A statistical model is a convenient instrument to predict the future value of any …

From C++ To Conscientiousness: Modeling The Psychosocial Characteristics Influencing Cybersecurity Personnel Performance, Rachel C. Dreibelbis

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The current study drew upon several theoretical frameworks of cybersecurity performance to evaluate distal and proximal individual attributes that may predict cyber performance in a variety of cybersecurity work roles. The proposed models in this study predicted that cognitive ability, personality (conscientiousness and openness to experience), and motivational factors like learning orientation would work through proximal attributes like technical knowledge, communication, and problem solving to influence performance. Hypotheses were tested using 139 employee responses to predictor variables and performance ratings from their supervisors across two industries and several cybersecurity work roles. Correlational analyses and path models supported that several individual …

Human Rights, Emotion, And Critical Realism: Proposing An Emotional Ontology Of International Human Rights, Ben Luongo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation proposes a critical realist framework of human rights and argues that emotion plays a foundational role in constituting a human rights ontology. I build this framework as a critical response to other IR human rights theories which have largely been developed in accordance with either empiricist or rationalist paradigms. Both empiricist and rationalist theories fail to articulate a firm ontological foundation which can support their human rights claims.

This ontological concern may not seem too important for human rights scholars interested in more substantive political issues, but it does lead to problems because no human rights theory is …

Selling White Masculinity: An Analysis Of Cultural Intermediaries In The Craft Beverage Industry, Erik Tyler Withers

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to use the craft beverage industry as a case study in which to investigate how white masculinity is reproduced within consumer spaces. This study explores the roles that cultural intermediaries in the craft beverage industry play in the reproduction and contestation of white masculinity. Cultural intermediaries can be understood as tastemakers who play a large role in assigning value and legitimacy to products, practices and people within consumer industries. Intermediaries such as marketing and advertising firms, industry writers, and critics have been widely studied in the past. However, the day to day interactional work …

Making A Case For Equity Planning In Transportation Development: Identifying Indicators And Building A Framework For Hillsborough County, Fl, Dayna J. Lazarus

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The idea that planners should work toward an equitable society has been part of the profession since the 1960s, largely based on the work of planning theorists like Paul Davidoff, Sherry Arnstein and Norman Krumholz. Transportation planning, however, has been slower than other sectors of the profession, such as housing, to embrace equity planning concepts. That has begun to change as concerns about income inequality, environmental justice and climate change have become more salient. This thesis makes the case that in order to improve social equity outcomes, transportation planners must make social equity an explicit goal and add social equity …

Character Strengths Of Ninth Grade Students In Accelerated Curricula: A Mixed-Methods Investigation, Hannah L. Gilfix

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Students in accelerated curricula tend to have greater stress when compared to students in general education (Suldo, Shaunessy, & Hardesty, 2008). It is important for stakeholders to be able to help these students reach their goals and attain happiness. One potential method to help these students is to attend to their character strengths. People who effectively utilize their character strengths have achieved numerous positive outcomes including greater levels of well-being, self-esteem, and positive affect (Proctor, Malby, & Linley, 2011; Quinlan, Swain, Cameron, & Vella-Brodrick, 2014; Wood, Linley, Maltby, Kashan, & Hurling, 2011). Unfortunately, there is a lack of research on …

Assessing The Effectiveness Of Antecedent And Consequent Interventions To Enhance Sports Performance, Merritt Schenk

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Sports research in behavior analysis is becoming increasingly popular. As the proliferation of research continues, multiple interventions have been shown to help enhance sports-related performance. However, different intervention components are rarely if ever used alone, which has created a limitation with the current body of research. To begin to address this limitation, this study had three experiments to evaluate some different components of video recording procedures and behavioral skills training (BST) to facilitate performance enhancement. Experiment 1 separated video modeling and video feedback to see which component best improved pitching form in Little League baseball players. Experiment 2 evaluated video …

Bystander Intervention, Victimization, And Routine Activities Theory: An Examination Of Feminist Routine Activities Theory In Cyber Space, Jennifer A. Leili

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Routine Activities Theory (RAT) is one of the most widely used theories to explain victimization. It has been applied to a wide range of criminal victimizations, such as property crimes (Miethe, Stafford, & Long, 1987) and urban murder (Messner & Tardiff, 1985). While traditional RAT has been used to explain violence against women, the feminist perspective of RAT developed by Schwartz and Pitts (1995) provides a better explanation by incorporating cultural factors that shape the conditions that give rise to offending. The current study draws on feminist RAT in order to explore three different types of victimization involving women: stalking, …

Validating The Construct Of Resiliency In The Health Literacy And Resiliency Scale (Hlrs-Y) With The Child And Youth Resiliency Measure (Cyrm-28), Mercedes N. Cambric

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Chronic health conditions in youth have increased over the last several decades. It is estimated that within the United States there are between 15% to 18% of youth who are living with a chronic health condition (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2010). The CDC defines a chronic health condition as an illness that lasts for three months or longer that can be managed, but not cured (CDC, 2010). Although there is some research on youth living with chronic illnesses, there are minimal studies that assess the constructs of health literacy, resiliency, and support/advocacy within this population. The current …

Understanding The Mechanisms Between Job Stress And Employee Sleep: A Daily Diary Study, Marijana L. Arvan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The present study investigated how three job stressors, workload, unfinished tasks, and mistreatment from coworkers and supervisors, manifest in sleep impairment. Using the transactional model of stress, allostatic load model, the cognitive activation theory of stress (CATS), and findings from the sleep medicine literature, each job stressor was predicted to have three distinct pathways to sleep quality: an affective path (anger or anxiety), a cognitive path (anticipatory stress or rumination), and a behavioral path (sleep hygiene behaviors). The proposed models argued for two-stage mediation, in which the cognitive and affective strains of job stressors impact sleep quality both directly and …

For The Common Defense: The Evolution Of National Security Strategy-Making Institutions & Impact On American Grand Strategy, Nathan D. Barrick

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation applies a Neoclassical Realism model to examine how the evolution of United States (U.S.) national security strategy-making institutions has resulted in a path dependent accrual of autonomy and increasing influence over the formulation of American grand strategy. Once U.S. national security strategy-making institutions were created, their existence inexorably led to increasing autonomy, the creation of new strategy-making institutions, and subtle influence in shaping American grand strategy by preferential focus on a militarized foreign policy. Additionally, the more autonomous these strategy-making institutions have become, the further they have strayed from the Constitutional mandate to create a government which provides …

Ethnic Identity As A Protective Factor In Early Adolescent Youth Depression: An Investigation Of Differences By Race And Gender, Leah Bonilla

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Adolescent mental illness is a major concern in the Unites States. The adolescent stage is a critical developmental period of physical and mental changes, thus it is important to understand protective factors associated with positive wellbeing. The current study aimed to explore: (a) the associations among race, gender, ethnic identity, and depressive symptoms among eighth grade adolescents, (b) to what extent are there differences in degree of depressive symptoms among youth based on race and gender, and (c) to what extent a strong sense of ethnic identity serves as a protective factor against the development of depression among youth with …

Examining The Effect Of Context On Responses To Social Interaction, Renee R. Hangartner

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The ambiguous nature of social interactions between coeds may lead to under reporting of sexual harassment. Sexual harassment has been studied using mostly cross-sectional methods for over 30 years. However, despite decades of research, prevalence rates of sexual harassment have been found to vary considerably across and within studies. This inconsistency in findings makes drawing conclusions about the prevalence of sexual harassment challenging. Thus, the focus of the field should shift to identifying what behaviors are perceived to be sexual harassment and how that perception may vary by context. To reduce the ambiguity surrounding the labeling of an interaction as …

Widow Narratives On Film And In Memoirs: Exploring Formula Stories Of Grief And Loss Of Older Women After The Death Of A Spouse, Jennifer R. Bender

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes narratives (written and mediated) about widows’ post-loss experiences—specifically the ways in which these women embody and adjust/adhere to their post-loss widow identities—and whether or not the canonical/formula stories about widows reflect current experiences of widowhood. I look at older widowed women—both those in well-read widow memoirs and also in media portrayals of widows on film. The canonical view of widows as not attractive, not useful, and not interesting needs to be reexamined in light of changing ideas about gender roles and increased longevity. Surely older women have experiences, desires, and goals that encompass more than being socially …

Conditions For Maximizing Expected Value In Repeated Choices From Experience, Andrea Y. Ranieri

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

It is largely expected that people can learn from past experiences and use this knowledge to make better decisions in the future. However, there are aspects inherent in experiential learning which may affect the extent to which people can extract and use information from experiential feedback to make advantageous decisions. Three aspects inherent in experiential learning were identified: (1) it is reliant on memory, (2) information is gathered exclusively through outcome feedback, and (3) outcome feedback is inherently dynamic. The current investigation explored how each of these aspects may help shape experiential decision making, and examined how the presence of …

In Another's Voice: Making Sense Of Reproductive Health As Women Of Color, Nivethitha Ketheeswaran

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The goals of this project are twofold. The first goal is to articulate my sense making of reproductive health for Women of color in the United States as a postcolonial condition; one that I trace back to the logics of elimination of settler colonialism (Wolfe, 2006) and frame as maintained through the colonial institutions, or racial projects (Omi & Winant, 2015), of the Prison Industrial Complex, the welfare system, and the health care system which create and perpetuate dominant cultural narratives of “the welfare queen”, “the negligent Black mother”, and “the wily patient”. I show how these narratives colonize the …

The Tampa Gym Study: An Ethnographic Exploration Of Gyms, Female Gym-Goers And The Quest For Fitness In Tampa, Fl, Danielle Reneé Rosen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Tampa Gym Study was an ethnographic examination of veteran women exercisers, their workout routines, and their attitudes towards the workouts that they undertake in two Tampa area gyms. The study’s principle objective was to study “fitness culture” in these facilities and the manner in which that culture is embodied in the language women use to describe themselves and their exercise behaviors.

The obesity crisis in the United States has been significantly responsible for an increase in membership in gyms and fitness facilities nationwide. The “culture of fitness” as it is embodied in these facilities has impacted women and their …

Inside The Work Of A Rookie Principal Coach: Tackling Equity In Disciplinary Practices, Olayinka A. Alege

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Hillsborough County Public Schools embarked on an ambitious goal to improve the highest-need schools by restructuring how the district supports schools and their leaders in July 2018. As part of this effort, the superintendent reduced the span of control and assigned principal coaches to support principals in a more intentional way. The purpose of this study was to explore how a principal coach engages a principal in examining inequities in disciplinary practices and how the principal coach provides the supports to prompt and sustain the principal’s efforts to reduce the disproportionate number of students of color being suspended from school. …

Statistical Learning Of Biomedical Non-Stationary Signals And Quality Of Life Modeling, Mahdi Goudarzi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Statistical learning is a set of tools for modeling and understanding complex datasets. It is a recently developed area in statistics and blends with parallel developments in computer science and, in particular, machine learning.

The classification of biomedical non-stationary signals such as Electroencephalogram (EEG) is always a challenging problem due to their complexity. The low spatial resolution on the scalp, curse of dimensionality, poor signal-to-noise ratio are disadvantages of working with biomedical signals. EEG signals are unstructured data which needs preprocessing steps to extract informative features which are measurable and predictive. In the first two chapters of this dissertation, EEG …

Prejudice Asymmetry: The Cultural Acceptance Of Sexism, Sophie Kuchynka

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Sexism tends to be a culturally accepted form of prejudice. I propose the relatively strong trivialization of societal sexism stems from the unique benefits that men receive from the gender status hierarchy, compared to other types of group-based hierarchies. Three studies examined why people, men in particular, trivialize or justify gender bias in relation to other types of group-based biases. Study 1 was a correlational study that examined whether participants downplay the existence and social harm of gender bias in relation to racial, religious, and sexual orientation bias, moderated by participant gender. Participants reported stronger trivialization and denial of gender …

Mapping Reward Values To Cues, Locations, And Objects: The Influence Of Reward Associations On Visual Attention, Constanza De Dios

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Previous work has attempted to fit reward-driven attentional selection as being exogenous (stimulus-driven) or endogenous (goal-driven). However, recent work suggests that reward’s effects on attention depend on the type of stimulus feature that the motivational information is imparted during learning (incentive salience). If true, then reward should not be limited to solely impacting early perceptual or late categorization processes attention. The current study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to test the idea that reward’s effects on attention depend on the process that the reward information is embedded – early perceptual or late categorization. Results demonstrated reward-driven effects on perceptual representation when …

Home-Based Cognitive Monitoring: The Role Of Personality And Predictors Of Adherence And Satisfaction, Nasreen A. Sadeq

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Over the last several decades, a growing awareness of the benefits of regular screening for common health conditions, such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases, has paved the way for preventative screenings to become routine in medical settings. Given that cognitive impairment is frequently reported as the number one worry of older adults, home-based cognitive monitoring may be an innovative solution that allows middle aged and older adults to take an active role in monitoring an important aspect of their health. Although several home-based cognitive monitoring programs have been validated for use in clinical and home-based settings, the Cogstate Brief Battery …

[X]Splaininggender, Race, Class, And Body: Metapragmatic Disputes Of Linguistic Authority And Ideologies On Twitter, Reddit, And Tumblr, Judith C. Bridges

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the language of “citizen sociolinguists,” everyday users of social network sites (SNS) who contribute to the discourses about language on Twitter, Reddit, and Tumblr, platforms with distinctive user demographics and technological affordances. The data were collected through keyword searches for mansplain, whitesplain, richsplain and thinsplain, metapragmatic neologisms which are lexical blends of the verb explain and one of four social categories. Disputes of macro-level ideologies are revealed by users’ creative meaning-making strategies and metapragmatic awareness of micro-level texts and utterances. Making use of the linguistic practices of the SNS, as well as the concisely-compacted semantic and pragmatic …

Supporting Persons With Dementia In Communicating Their Care Preferences, Vanessa L. Burshnic

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Person-centered care is important to the quality of life of nursing home residents with dementia. Preference assessments enable person-centered care by documenting residents’ preferred activities. Residents with severe dementia are less likely to have a role in preference assessment due to communication challenges associated with the disease. External supports (visual and text cues) are effective in improving the communication of residents with dementia, but these cues are often not used in practice. Standard assessment (verbal questioning) places greater demands on short-term memory and attention, which are known deficits in dementia.

Applying a within-subjects design, this study evaluated two conditions (standard …

Occupation And Displacement Of Palestinian Multilinguals: Language Emotional Perception, Language Practice, And Language Experiences In Palestine And In The Diaspora, Anastasia Khawaja

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the emotional perceptions, language practices, and language experiences of Palestinian multilinguals in Palestine, and the more under-studied population in the diaspora - focusing on Arabic, English, and Hebrew. A total of 47 participants filled out the adapted Bilingual Emotional Questionnaire (Dewaele & Pavlenko, 2001-2003) in order to compare and contrast positive and negative emotional perception of participant reported languages via a Likert scale, and overall language practices and experiences via open-ended questions. Several independent sample t-tests were run by location of participants in order to determine significant differences in emotional perception, and a thematic analysis was run …

A Multi-Dimensional Macrolevel Study Of Drug Enforcement Strategies, Heroin Prices, And Heroin Consumption Rates, Alexander G. Toth

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

American policy makers primarily embrace a deterrent-based policing agenda to curb illicit drug trafficking and use that relies on the principles of the economic price elasticity of demand (Boynum & Reuter, 2005). This counter-drug platform includes three fundamental programs: arresting offenders, seizing illicit drugs, and eradicating horticultural sources of illicit drugs (U.S. DEA, 2015). One of the main goals of these programs is to deter illegal trafficking and use by increasing the price of illicit substances so they are no longer attractive to consumers. The United States has weathered various drug use epidemics during its history, and currently it is …

Risk And Resilience Pertaining To Mental Health Of Youth Attending A College In Kathmandu Who Were Exposed To The 2015 Earthquakes During Their Adolescence: A Mixed Method Study, Vinita Sharma

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Background: Adverse mental health outcomes have been previously reported among survivors of natural disasters. Available studies mostly focus on risk factors and not resilience. In 2015, a series of earthquakes caused massive loss of lives and livelihood in Nepal. Epidemiological data pertaining to youth mental health in Nepal is limited. Information about the post-earthquake mental health of youth who were exposed to earthquakes during their adolescence in Nepal is scarce.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to address risk and resilience factors related to mental health among college-attending Nepali youth (18-20 years) exposed to the 2015 earthquake during their …