Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Modeling Roadside Safety Hazards To Predict Annual Crash Cost To Encroaching Vehicles In Rural Road Networks, Isidro Delgado

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Roadside crashes account for a large portion of total fatal crashes that occur annually in the United States. About 30% of those fatalities are the result of single vehicle run-off-road crashes. A large proportion of these fatal crashes occur in rural roads when vehicles depart from the travel lane and collide with trees or other roadside safety hazards. Many of these run-off-road accidents occur in local roads that carry traffic volumes between 1,000 and 20,000 vehicles per day. Many of these roads are part of the jurisdiction of county authorities faced with the dilemma of having too many "potentially dangerous" …

When Does The Straw Break The Camel's Back?: Examination Of The Exclusion-Elicited Anti-Social Behavior Model, Douglas Phillip Cooper

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Being excluded should motivate pro-social behaviors. Yet, exclusion can incite aggressive and anti-social responses. Two studies were conducted to examine how frequent experiences of exclusion impact self-esteem, perceptions that exclusion is typical of social experiences, and anti-social behaviors. In Study 1, participants completed pre and post-measures of exclusion typicality and self-esteem and reported, over eight weeks, feelings of exclusion and state self-esteem. Results supported the hypotheses in that experiences feeling excluded have direct and indirect effects on state and trait self-esteem as well as on exclusion typicality. In Study 2, participants were exposed to an exclusion manipulation and subsequent aggressive …

"Can't Buy Me Wealth": Racial Segregation And Housing Wealth In Hillsborough County, Florida, Natalie Marie Delia Deckard

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Informed by the literature regarding the gap in wealth between white and non-white households in the United States, as well as the literature on segregation and neighborhood preference, this research explores the home value component of the wealth gap in Hillsborough County, Florida. It finds that homes in Predominantly Black or Hispanic neighborhoods are not only undervalued compared to Predominantly White and heterogeneous neighborhoods, but have appreciated more slowly at least since 2000. The research also finds that buyers identifying as black or Hispanic are more likely than those identifying as white or "other" to purchase homes in Predominantly Black …

Adolescence Is An Ocean: A Biocultural Investigation Of Youth Food Consumption In Tanzania, Elizabeth J. Danforth

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates adolescents' relationships with food and other community and household members' perceptions of youth and their food consumption to understand the multifactorial dynamic processes which create nutritional outcomes among urban and rural youth in central Tanzania. Youth are an important and demographically large population in developing countries. The identities created during this distinct stage of cultural production can be reflected in youths' food consumption and relationships with food. Nutrition likely affects how youth transition through a variety of states, including their growth and development stages, primary to secondary to higher education, child to parent, or unemployed to employed. …

The Hero Soldier: Portrayals Of Soldiers In War Films, Gavin Davie

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The mythos of the hero has existed within the stories of humanity for as long as we can remember. Within the last hundred years film has become one of the dominant storytelling media of our culture and numerous films, especially war films, about heroes and their inspirational actions have been made. This study focuses on war films and the hero soldiers and their actions portrayed in those films. It uses a narrative analysis of five war films to accomplish this. The findings suggest that the hero soldier has become more human and fallible over time and that heroes are a …

More Than "Modern Day Slavery": Stakeholder Perspectives And Policy On Human Trafficking In Florida, Nathaniel Dickey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, Florida has acquired a reputation as fertile ground for human trafficking. On the heels of state and federal anti-human trafficking legislation, a host of organizations have risen to provide a range of services. In this thesis, I discuss findings from 26 interviews conducted with law enforcement, service providers, legal representatives and trafficked persons to contextualize the variability in the way anti-trafficking work is conceptualized by stakeholders across the state. Additionally, I explore how conflicting organizational policies on the local, state, and federal levels impact stakeholder collaboration and complicate trafficked persons' attempts to navigate already complex processes of …

The Integration Of African Muslim Minority: A Critique Of French Philosophy And Policy, Amber Nichole Dillender

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The numerous images of violence perpetrated by radicalized followers of Islam, has highlighted the complexities surrounding assimilation and integration of Muslims in Western society. Since the guest worker recruitment from French African colonies initiated after World War II, France has been witness to the unanticipated development of permanent communities of African laborers, many of whom are Muslim. Despite consistent promotion of French monoculture and specifically the use of the assimilation model for integration, segregation of African Muslims has occurred. Through the construction of a single country case study, I explore integration issues surrounding the French Muslim minority communities. I seek …

Elections And Tensions And Constitutions! Oh, My! A Process-Oriented Analysis Of Bolivian Democratization From 1993 To 2009, Laurel Kristin Dwyer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Many Latin American countries which underwent democratic regime transformations within the last thirst years have seemingly stalled. Unable to meet the demands of their citizens, which grow increasingly restless and confrontational, they have become subjected to a series of economic and political crises. Contemporary democratic theorists are at a loss to explain why this region has failed to deepen over time. The purpose of this paper is threefold: it questions the analytic utility of contemporary liberal and representative models, it argues for the inclusion of an alternative process-oriented model provided by Charles Tilly (2007), and tests this model through a …

Postnatal Dental Mineralization: A Comparative Analysis Of Dental Development Among Contemporary Populations Of The Southeastern United States, Meryle Akeara Dotson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Due to the strong genetic component of dental development, research has shown that mineralization patterns of the human dentition are relatively buffered against environmental influences that normally affect bone growth and development. It is because of this resistance to environmental factors and the continuous growth of the permanent dentition throughout childhood and adolescence that the evaluation of dental development patterns has become the preferred method of age estimation in living and deceased children.

Researchers (Harris and Mckee 1990; Tompkins 1996; Blankenship et al. 2007; Kasper et al. 2009) have suggested that the timing of dental development varies by …

Does D-Cycloserine Augmentation Of Cbt Improve Therapeutic Homework Compliance For Pediatric Obsessive Compulsive Disorder?, Jennifer M. Park

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

D-cycloserine (DCS), a partial agonist that acts on the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor of the glutamatergic receptor complex, may enhance fear extinction learning during exposure-based therapy. Clinical studies in adults with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and non-OCD anxiety disorders - and a recent trial in pediatric OCD - have shown that DCS can improve treatment response to exposure therapy relative to placebo and exposure therapy. Some have hypothesized that improved treatment response is a function of increased compliance and engagement in therapeutic homework tasks, a core component of behavioral treatment. The present study examined the relationship between DCS and homework compliance in …

New Media Photographic Representations Of Women`S Collegiate Volleyball: Game Faces, Action Shots, And Equipment, Alicia Pack

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Researchers consistently find that mainstream media often represent women athletes in stereotypical ways including trivialization, sexualization, infantilization, passivity, and utilization of camera down-angles. However, research on new media's visual representation of women athletes is still in its infancy. This study adds to the growing literature on new media's representation of women athletes and concurs with previous findings suggesting that new media might be an outlet that can counter old media gender stereotypes. This thesis used mixed methods of qualitative content analysis and photovoice in order to better understand how Big East volleyball players are represented in photographs on websites: Instances …

Informal Karst Education In The United States And Internationally, Leslie A. North

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite the abundance of karst terrains and the important role they play in a wide variety of roles including supplying freshwater drinking supplies, no single, comprehensive study investigates the role of informal education for the improved understanding and protection of the terrains. Commonly overlooked anthropogenic karst disturbances partially occur because of the poor dissemination of scientific information to the general populace and policymakers and budgetary and time constraints of municipalities, thus generating a need to use informal education to fill these shortcomings. The purpose of this study was to: 1) establish the status of and quantify the amount of karst-related …

My Bad Romance: Exploring The Queer Sublimity Of Diva Reception, Blake Paxton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the historic relationship between pop music divas and gay male fandom. It charts fan experiences from the early 60s with Judy Garland to contemporary times with pop diva Lady Gaga. This project also gives a description of the embodied experience of Brett Farmer’s “queer sublimity of diva reception.” Farmer (2005) argues that diva worship among gay men has become a queer sublimity, “the transcendence of a limiting heteronormative materiality and the sublime reconstruction, at least in fantasy, of a more capacious, kinder, queerer world” (p. 170). Using the methods of participant observation in drag performance and karaoke …

Palaeoclimatic Significance Of Perennial Ice Accumulations In Caves: An Example From Scarisoara Ice Cave, Romania, Aurel Persoiu Tiritu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Stable isotopes in ice cores drilled in the polar and high-mountain region have been used intensively to reconstruct past climatic changes and atmospheric dynamics. However, no similar studies have been conducted on perennial ice accumulations in caves due to a limited understanding of the links between the external and cave environments, and the way in which the climatic signal can be recorded by the cave ice.

In this thesis, we successfully designed and build a research methodology for the reconstruction of past climatic changes based on perennial ice accumulation in caves, using as example the Scarisoara Ice Cave, Romania. The …

An Investigation Into High Quality Leader Member Exchange Relationships And Their Relation To Followers' Motivation To Lead, Michael Rossi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research further investigates the motivation to lead (MTL) construct and its antecedents. While existing research has investigated culture, personality, and direct experience as an antecedent to MTL, the indirect experience of observing an effective leader has not been studied. It was hypothesized that having an effective supervisor would be related to followers' leadership self efficacy and MTL. It was also hypothesized that this relationship would be moderated by the quality of the relationship between leader and follower. Little evidence was found supporting these hypotheses. In addition, the existing research into MTL has failed to establish the link between MTL …

Relations Among Classroom Support, Academic Self-Efficacy, And Perceived Stress During Early Adolescence, Krystle Kuzia Preece

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to gain insight into the relations between support, academic self-efficacy, and stress during the transition into middle school. Research suggests that early adolescents experience an increase in stress across the middle school transition (e.g., Chung, et al., 1998), due to a mismatch between the individuals' developmental needs and the environment (Eccles et al., 1993). Stress has been found to be a risk factor for mental health disorders among adolescents (Grant et al., 2003). The current study examined if teacher and classmate support and academic self-efficacy served as external and internal resources for buffering stress …

Realizing Virtuality: Tracing The Contours Of Digital Culture, Nicholas Andrew Riggs

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

People connect digitally through social media, fusing their relationships with meaning in a non-space of relational potential--a translucent and fluctuating enclave where the self becomes elastic. This thesis explores how I have formed bonds in virtual space through ritual interaction. Looking at the ways I learned to use technology through the progression of a close personal relationship, I suggest that social media use is a performance of identity--a virtuality that exposes how people negotiate the digital enclosure of contemporary society. My story is one of digital nativity and reclaiming love through virtual performance. I show how these performances have had …

Gaming Literacy: Construct Validation And Scale Construction, Kenneth Allen Rosenberg

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is the first attempt to construct a standardized measure of literacy for the medium of video games, filling a gap in the literature by synthesizing various items of skills, behaviors, and affective components from existent studies and determining their correlations through analyzation of survey data. The five categories that were derived from conceptual review and factor analysis have high measures of internal consistency: Information and Systems Management; Exploration and Enjoyment; Teamwork; Design; and Socialization. To test for external consistency and reliability, the proposed gaming literacy model was compared to the Novak and Hoffman (1997) construction of flow, using …

The Culture Of Mean: Gender, Race, And Class In Mediated Images Of Girls' Bullying, Emily Davis Ryalls

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines narratives about female bullying and aggression through mediated images of "mean girls." Through textual analysis of popular media featuring mean girls (television shows such as Gossip Girl and films like Mean Girls), as well as national news coverage of the case of Phoebe Prince, who reportedly committed suicide after being bullied by girls from her school, this feminist examination questions how the image of the mean girl is raced and classed. This dissertation values an interdisciplinary approach to research that works to make sense of the forces that produce bodies as gendered, raced, and classed.

One of …

Visual Search For Smoking Stimuli: Detection And Distraction, Jason A. Oliver

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Extensive research has shown that the attentional systems of addicted individuals are biased towards drug-related stimuli, but despite several decades of effort these results have frequently been inconsistent. Though commonly believed to result from addiction and dependence, cognitive research would suggest that frequent exposure to drug-related stimuli could affect the attentional processing of drug-related cues even if no actual drug use occurs. The present investigation examined attentional bias for smoking cues using a novel visual search paradigm amongst smokers currently in nicotine withdrawal and fully satiated smokers, as well as a non-smoker control group. Variables related to smoking behavior, as …

The Threat To Democracy In Brazil's Public Sphere, Daniel Nettuno

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis looks at the nature of violence with its endemic, and increasingly epidemic presence in Brazil. I analyze the structure of the justice system, police force, and the many governmental security programs in order to better explain why Brazil is so violent and its government has been unable to control this violence. Living under violent conditions, Brazil has become a society where the efficient functioning of the public sphere has been undermined. This public space, shared by citizens, is what many academics believe to be a critical component of a robust and functioning democracy. In Brazil, it is shown, …

Currency Trading Using The Fractal Market Hypothesis, Jonathan Blackledge, Kieran Murphy

Articles

We report on a research and development programme in financial modelling and economic security undertaken in the Information and Communications Security Research Group (ICSRG, 2011) which has led to the launch of a new company - Currency Traders Ireland Limited - funded by Enterprise Ireland. Currency Traders Ireland Limited (CTI, 2011) has a fifty year exclusive license to develop a new set of indicators for analysing currency exchange rates (Forex trading). We consider the background to the approach taken and present examples of the results obtained to date.

An Overview Of The Low-Cost Carrier Model In The Russian Market, Tamilla Curtis, Dawna L. Rhoades

Publications

This study provides an overview of the low-cost carrier (LCC) model in the Russian market. The LCC model seeks to achieve a competitive advantage through the reduction of operating costs, below the traditional airline model. Since Russia is an emerging and developing economy, airlines face a high level of uncertainty. Despite the fact that the Russian aviation market is dominated by a few large carriers, Russian lowcost airlines such as SkyExpress and Avianova have been growing rapidly since starting their operations. While Russian LCCs follow the traditional LCC model, some differences are apparent as a result of the specifics of …

Reading Charles Black Writing: "The Lawfulness Of The Segregation Decisions" Revisited, Kendall Thomas

Faculty Scholarship

The year 2010 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Charles L. Black, Jr.'s "The Lawfulness of the Segregation Decisions." Professor Black's magisterial essay on the Supreme Court's 1954-1955 decisions in Brown v. Board of Education and its companion cases is, by any account, a foundational text in the scholarly literature on race and law in the United States. Black's short but searing defense of Brown introduced ideas and arguments about race, about law, and about the law of race that transformed the field. I can think of no better way to celebrate this inaugural issue of the Columbia …

Beyond The Veneer Of Strategic Philanthropy, Patricia Patrizi, Elizabeth Heid Thompson

The Foundation Review

· “Strategic philanthropy” has become a dominant theme among foundations in the past few decades.

· While many foundations have developed strategic plans, few have made the internal changes necessary to actually behave strategically.

· Four challenges to strategic philanthropy are identified, including strategies developed in isolation from grantees that execute them and misaligned foundation structures, processes, and cultures that do not support strategic endeavors.

· In order to get beyond the veneer of strategic philanthropy, foundation leaders need to be clearer about their own role in creating change, develop the strategic capacities to do so, and then apply those …

Learning From An Adaptive-Consultative Approach: One Foundation’S Experience In Creating Systems Change In Education, Srikanth Gopalakrishnan, Hallie Preskill

The Foundation Review

· This article describes a creative relationship between the Ball Foundation and the Rowland Unified School District. The approach was adopted by the Ball Foundation when they observed that grantees who had a closer relationship with them were more successful than those who had a more traditional relationship with them.

· Based on the concept of “adaptive leadership,” the relationship allows for flexibility and a more collaborative approach between the foundation and grantee.

· This approach requires both the funder and the grantee to be committed to learning and adapting strategies as needed to respond to both results and changing …

I'M Not Rockefeller: Implications For Major Foundations Seeking To Engage Ultra- High-Net-Worth Donors, Katherina M. Rosqueta, Kathleen Noonan, Miriam Shark

The Foundation Review

· This article describes how a group of 33 ultrahigh- net-worth philanthropists (UHNWPs) approach their giving.

· A few key areas dominated their giving priorities: education; health; poverty and social welfare; and children/youth initiatives each were a priority for more than a quarter of participants – with education expressed as an interest of 55 percent.

· A third of the 24 who responded to the question spent less than 10 percent of their full working time devoted to philanthropy, and 13 dedicated less than 20 percent of their working time.

· UHNWPs view their peers as their most trusted information …

Executive Summaries

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Exposing Real World Philanthropy To The Next Generation Of Social Work Leaders, Yoko Crume, Edgar Villanueva

The Foundation Review

· This article describes a method for instructing social work students in the art of enhanced collaboration with foundations, shifting the focus from “writing a winning proposal” and “finding alternative funding sources” to “developing collaborative partnerships for sustainable community development and social change.”

· The program consists of four major steps: charitable foundation review and case presentation, self-guided review of real-world proposals, mock grant proposal development, and side-by-side proposal review.

· Student proposals were rated similarly by the instructor and the foundation program officer, even though different criteria were used, suggesting that well-written proposals are also likely to clearly address …

Finding The Fix: Embracing Philanthropy’S Role In Transforming An Urban Education Landscape, Kristen L. Mcdonald

The Foundation Review

· Education funders have historically used a “demonstration project” approach to funding, designed to lever change by demonstrating a new program and providing technical assistance to foster broader adoption.

· Despite demonstrating success with many of its grants, the Skillman Foundation’s education reform initiatives were derailed and undone by the instability of the district leadership, political landscape shifts, and disintegrating neighborhoods.

· A complete turnaround model must address the many issues facing a failing school, including culture, curriculum, school leadership, professional development, and classroom instruction. The stability of the central administration must also be considered.

· The new look at …