In this thesis, I discuss the Tampa Heights Greenprinting Initiative, an initiative to build community in a gentrifying neighborhood. I was primarily hired to find out what changes residents of Tampa Heights desired in their chosen park, observe the Greenprinting process, and write a report that could be used in future initiatives. Due to my Anthropological training, I paid attention to the wider context associated with this project. I paid as much attention to who was not there as I did to who was there. The applied nature of my program enabled me to not only document the socio-economic factors that affected the project, but to say something at the time of the project, so that change could be implemented. Research questions involved trying to figure out how residents envision their neighborhood park, as well as the broader question of how the socioeconomic situation in Tampa Heights affects the Tampa Heights Greenprinting Initiative. I asked whether a park revitalization could lead to residents uniting across various boundaries, and if so, how. I discovered that the Tampa Heights Greenprinting process highlighted some of the socioeconomic tensions in Tampa Heights. These tensions are related to the current status of the neighborhood as a gentrifying area. Perhaps, as a result of the Greenprinting process, residents will recognize that to truly build a cohesive community, they must address the implications of gentrification, outside investment (instead of community-rooted investment), the possible demolition of Robles Park Housing Village, and the lack of youth programs in their community.

Blooms of the red tide dinoflagellate Karenia brevis occur annually on the west Florida shelf. In the late summer/early fall months, background concentrations increase from 103 cells L-1 to excesses of 106 cells L-1. Blooms are most common between Tampa Bay and Charlotte Harbor, and may be maintained for months. The region’s hydrography may play a role in the initiation, maintenance and termination of blooms. The west Florida shelf is depauperate in inorganic nutrients. Inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus rarely exceed the limits of detection, whereas dissolved organic nitrogen is often present at concentrations of 15 to 20 µM. Because K. brevis exhibits the ability to utilize both organic nitrogen and phosphorus, the organic pool may serve as an important nutrient source. The source of nutrients for K. brevis blooms is the focus of much scientific research. Nitrogen is considered to be the limiting nutrient in marine waters and may have several sources. Potential sources of inorganic and organic nitrogen are estuarine outflow, atmospheric deposition, upwelling, dissolved organic nitrogen released from N2 fixing cyanobacteria, diatom blooms, decaying seagrasses, fish or other organic matter. The natural abundance stable isotopic signatures of particulate bloom material (δ15N and δ13C) associated with K. brevis blooms during 1998 to 2001 was analyzed and compared with known isotopic values of potential nutrient sources. Data was analyzed from blooms occurring from 1998 to 2001. Extensive analysis of the 2001 bloom showed that the δ15N of bloom material ranged from 2 0/00 to 5 0/00. δ13C of bloom material ranged from -22 0/00 and -17 0/00. Non-bloom material was considerably more variable in both δ15N and δ13C. δ13C values were higher near shore than offshore during the 2001 bloom, suggesting lower dissolved inorganic carbon levels due to high temperature and/or high biomass. δ15N of bloom material fell within the range of the δ15N values of potential nitrogen sources. It appears that K. brevis utilizes the available nitrogen sources opportunistically, and that isotopically more depleted sources are more important. More enriched sources such as upwelled nitrate or sewage nitrogen can be excluded as significant sources based on the isotopic data.

N-Thiolated β-lactams (1) represent a promising new group of compounds with potent inhibition effects on bacteria, like Bacillus anthracis and methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus, and onco-systems, like breast cancer and leukemia. Originally developed as part of a synthetic pathway to bicyclic lactams, N-thiolated β-lactams have been shown in this laboratory to possess intriguing biological activities. The antibacterial activities of this new class of agents rely on novel structural features unlike those of any existing family of β-lactam drugs. The lactams seem to exert their effects intracellularly, requiring passage of the bioactive species through the cellular membrane, rather than acting extracellularly on cell wall components in the manner of penicillin and related antibiotics. The lipophilic nature of these molecules, which lack the polar side chain functionality of all other microbially-active β-lactams, suggests the compounds do not target the penicillin binding proteins within bacterial membranes but instead pass through these membranes. The biological target of these compounds has been investigated. The most active members of this β-lactam class appear to be those bearing a small branched alkyl chain on the sulfur atom. The effects of stereochemistry, branching and chain length of the sulfur group on bioactivities were studied. This dissertation is divided into six chapters. A review of organosulfur anti-infectives is discussed in Chapter 1. The types of existing antibiotics and their modes of action will be discussed in Chapter 2. The synthesis of these novel agents is discussed in Chapter 3. A structure-activity relationship of these lactam analogues is discussed in Chapter 4. And Chapters 5 and 6 demonstrate a novel mode of action and biological target for these drugs using techniques which include target identification, metabolic effects, and reactivity kinetics.

The purpose of this study was to clarify and extend previous research on the comparibility of curriculum-based measurement oral reading fluency results using reading materials from outside of the students’ curriculum for repeated measurement over time. Specifically, this study evaluated the use of generic measurement materials for monitoring student reading growth and expected gains in words read correctly per minute over time at different grade levels. Sixty-four first through third grade students were assessed twice weekly using both AimsWeb and Open Court reading probes. The dependent variables in this study were the level, which is defined as the mean of the data points for each type of probe, and the slopes derived from the number of words read correctly across all of the data collection days. A 3 (grade) x 2 (probe type) repeated measures ANOVA using the three grade levels as a between group variable and the two probe types as a within group variable was conducted with slopes as the dependent measure as well as with level as the dependent measure. Analysis of levels revealed a significant (p<.05) main effect for probe type with significantly higher levels found in AimsWeb probes when compared to Open Court probes. There was also a significant (p<.05) main effect for grade with WRCPM increasing with increasing grade level. However post hoc analysis revealed that the level difference was significant between first and third grade only. The slope analysis revealed a significant main effect for grade with students in first and second grades making more progress than students in third grade. The slopes were higher for first and third graders in AimsWeb, but higher for second graders in Open Court probes. Slopes were not significantly different based on the type of probe was used to monitor progress. Both AimsWeb Open Court probes displayed sensitivity in the measurement of reading growth over time. This study provided support for the use of measurement materials from outside the curriculum for CBM progress monitoring. Specifically, generic, noncurriculum-based probes were equally as sensitive to growth over time as curriculum specific materials.

Alzheimers disease (AD) is pathologically characterized by amyloid plaques, neurofibrillary tangles, inflammation, and neurodegeneration. According to the amyloid hypothesis of AD, the central mediating event of the disease is the deposition of amyloid. The inflammation hypothesis of AD states that it is the inflammatory response to plaques and tangles, rather than the actual lesions, which causes the disease. Studies described here combine the two approaches into a single model. Four studies are presented using a basic protocol of intrahippocampal lipopolysaccharide (LPS) injection to stimulate inflammation in transgenic mice. The first study looked at alpha7 nicotinic receptors during the glial response to Abeta deposits and LPS. Reactive astrocytes which immunolabeled for alpha7 were co-localized with Congophilic deposits in APP and APP+PS1 mice, and increased after LPS injection. Unfortunately, LPS injection into alpha7 knock out mice revealed the alpha7 labeling to be nonspecific. The second study evaluated the time course of protein and gene expression after LPS injection into nontransgenic mice. This experiment identified both a transient and chronic microglial inflammatory response, with changes in cell morphology. The third study evaluated a similar time course in APP mice. Concurrent with the inflammatory response, transient reductions in Abeta burden were seen, though compact plaque load was unaffected. The fourth and final study used dexamethasone to inhibit LPS-induced inflammation in APP mice. LPS injection reduced Abeta burden, but was completely blocked by dexamethasone co-treatment. Though dexamethasone inhibited LPS-induced CD45 and complement receptor 3 levels (markers of general microglial activation), dexamethasone had no effect on scavenger receptor A or Fc gamma receptor II/III levels. An overall hypothesis regarding LPS mediated reductions in Abeta can be proposed: It is not the presence of the LPS molecule, nor the upregulation of receptors involved in phagocytosis, but rather general glial cell activation that mediates Abeta removal. Thus, a phagocytic cell must not only bind Abeta (by various receptors) but must also be capable of engulfing the material (via general cell activation). Taken together, these studies suggest that some level of inflammation in AD is beneficial and responsible for maintaining a balance between amyloid deposition and removal.

This study involves the development and validation of a measure of physical appearance-related comments, The Verbal Commentary on Physical Appearance Scale (VCOPAS). Previous research has shown that the development of body image and eating disturbances is greatly influenced by teasing and negative appearance-related feedback. The limited research on positive appearance-related feedback is likely due to the lack of an empirically validated scale of positive appearance-related commentary. Consequently, the VCOPAS was developed to assess the frequency and effect of positive appearance-related comments and other types of appearance-related comments. In Study 1, 50 undergraduate female students of ages 18 to 25 completed the revised VCOPAS and 8 of these students also attended a focus group session. The revised VCOPAS and its subscales demonstrated adequate internal consistency. This scale was subsequently modified based on the findings of Study 1. In Study 2, 320 undergraduate female students of ages 18 to 25 completed the VCOPAS. Factor analyses indicated that four factors should be retained. The VCOPAS and its subscales exhibited low to high internal consistencies. Study 3 was a confirmatory factor analysis study that used 246 undergraduate female students of ages 18 to 25. An exploratory factor analysis was also conducted to cross-validate the VCOPAS with a new sample. Given the importance of interpretability and theory in scale development, a four-factor model was retained for the final VCOPAS. The final VCOPAS consists of 26 items and contains four subscales (Negative Appearance, Positive Body, Positive General Appearance, and Exercise Commentary). The total scale and subscales demonstrated adequate internal consistency and test-retest reliability. Significant correlations were found between a number of VCOPAS subscales and measures of physical appearance-related feedback, body image disturbance, self-objectification, and self-esteem. Regression analyses indicated the utility of the Negative Appearance, Positive Body, and Positive General Appearance subscales in predicting body image disturbance. It seems that different types of appearance-related commentary influence the body image of females in distinct ways. The VCOPAS is likely to be useful in future research examining the role of appearance-related commentary, specifically positive appearance-related commentary, in the development of body image and eating disturbances among females.

Clustering large data sets recently has emerged as an important area of research. The ever-increasing size of data sets and poor scalability of clustering algorithms has drawn attention to distributed clustering for partitioning large data sets. Sometimes, centrally pooling the distributed data is also expensive. There might be also constraints on data sharing between different distributed locations due to privacy, security, or proprietary nature of the data. In this work we propose an algorithm to cluster large-scale data sets without centrally pooling the data. Data at distributed sites are clustered independently i.e. without any communication among them. After partitioning the local/distributed sites we send only the centroids of each site to a central location. Thus there is very little bandwidth cost in a wide area network scenario. The distributed sites/subsets neither exchange cluster labels nor individual data features thus providing the framework for privacy preserving distributive clustering. Centroids from each local site form an ensemble of centroids at the central site. Our assumption is that data in all distributed locations are from the same underlying distribution and the set of centroids obtained by partitioning the data in each subset/distributed location gives us partial information about the position of the cluster centroids in that distribution. Now, the problem of finding a global partition using the limited knowledge of the ensemble of centroids can be viewed as the problem of reaching a global consensus on the position of cluster centroids. A global consensus on the position of cluster centroids of the global data using only the very limited statistics of the position of centroids from each local site is reached by grouping the centroids into consensus chains and computing the weighted mean of centroids in a consensus chain to represent a global cluster centroid. We compute the Euclidean distance of each example from the global set of centroids, and assign it to the centroid nearest to it. Experimental results show that quality of clusters generated by our algorithm is similar to the quality of clusters generated by clustering all the data at a time. We have shown that the disputed examples between the clusters generated by our algorithm and clustering all the data at a time lay on the border of clusters as expected. We also proposed a centroid-filtering algorithm to make partitions formed by our algorithm better.

Relatively little is known about the existence and traits of a possible nucleus accumbens (Acc) region in non-mammals. The current project investigated a likely candidate for such a structure in pigeons, the medioventral (mvMSt) and mediodorsal (mdMSt) parts of avian medial striatum (MSt). The methods employed were threefold: 1) tract-tracing to determine anatomical connections of the MSt; 2) lesion studies to assess MSt's role in a cognitive task (reversal learning); and 3) measuring an immediate-early gene induced protein, ZENK, in striatal regions during courtship behavior in male pigeons. The MSt was found to have many forebrain (amygdala, hippocampus, dorsal thalamus) and midbrain (ventral tegmental area, substantia nigra) connections similar to those of Acc. In addition, differences in connection patterns between mvMSt and mdMSt indicated that mvMSt was comparable to the shell of Acc, while the mdMSt showed characteristics of Acc core. Effects of MSt lesions on pattern discrimination and reversal learning were assessed. Both lesion subjects and controls performed similarly on original discrimination. Furthermore, there were no significant differences in MSt lesioned birds compared to controls. However, there was a tendency for the two groups to make different types of errors. Error patterns indicated that sham-lesioned birds had deficits due to key preference, whereas lesioned birds had fixation on previous reward contingencies (perseverative errors). The performance of the lesioned birds was consistent with Acc lesion effects on reversal learning in mammals. The expression of ZENK in the mvMSt, mdMSt, lateral MSt, and lateral striatum of male birds exposed to either an empty cage or a live female pigeon was quantified. Higher ZENK expression was found in the live pigeon condition for all the striatal structures. However, the degree of difference between live and empty was much higher in the mvMSt and mdMSt than in the other areas. Therefore, mvMSt and mdMSt appear to play a role in anticipatory sexual behaviors, as has been shown in Acc. The anatomical and functional data from the current study indicate that avian mMSt has numerous similarities with mammalian Acc. These findings will contribute to understanding the evolution of mammalian Acc and identifying the functional significance of avian MSt.

With the transistor density on an integrated circuit doubling every 18 months, Moore’s law seems likely to hold for another decade at least. This exponential growth in digital circuits has led to its increased complexity, better performance and is quickly getting less manageable for design engineers. To combat this complexity, CAD tools have been introduced and are still being continuously developed, which prove to be of great help in the digital industry. One of the technologies, that is rapidly evolving as an industry standard, is the Very High Speed Integrated Circuit Hardware Description Language, (VHDL), language. The VHDL standard language along with logic synthesis tools are used to implement complex digital systems in a timely manner. The increase in the number of specialist design consultants, with specific tools accompanied by their own libraries written in VHDL, makes it important for a designer to have an in-depth knowledge about the available synthesis tools and technologies in order to design a system in the most efficient and reliable manner. This research dealt with writing VHDL code in terms of hardware modeling, based on coding styles, in order to get optimum results. Furthermore, it dealt with the interpretation of VHDL code into equivalent optimized hardware implementations, which satisfy the constraints of a set of specifications. In order to obtain a better understanding of the different VHDL tools and their usefulness in different situations, a comparative analysis between Altera’s QuartusII and Xilinx’s ISE Webpack tools, was performed. The analysis compared their Graphics User Interface, VHDL Code Portability and VHDL Synthesis constraints. The analysis was performed by designing and implementing a screensaver circuit on an FPGA and displaying it on the VGA Monitor.

Cadmium Selenide is a binary compound. It has a band gap of 1.7 eV. This is one of the suitable materials for an absorber layer in the top cell of a tandem solar cell. CIGS with a low Gallium content has a band gap of 1 eV suits well as an absorber layer for the bottom cell. CIGS cells have already attained an efficiency of 15% [1,2]. Since years, research has been done in developing the bottom cell. The results of the bottom cell are promising. So the fabrication of an efficient top cell in a tandem solar cell is a challenge. To achieve a high tandem efficiency of above 25 %, the top cell has to contribute at least 2/3 of the total efficiency, which necessitates the top cell to have at least 16 to 18 % efficiency [3]. Development of a defect free absorber layer is a crucial step in this process to achieve the above goals besides optimizing other layers. Selenium vacancies in CdSe make the absorber layer n-type. CdSe is deposited by closed space sublimation. Deposition of CdSe at higher substrate temperatures in comparison to the standard conditions was studied. ZnSe acts as an insulating layer. It is thermally evaporated in an Evaporation system. Copper acts as a metal contact on top of the insulator resulting in a MIS structure. Copper is also deposited by Thermal Evaporation. Devices are fabricated on different substrates like SnO2: F, AZO etc. Fabricated cells are characterized by J-V and Spectral response measurements. Devices fabricated on SnO2: F substrates show typical open circuit voltages of around 220 mV, short circuit current densities of 10.02 mA/cm2 and fill factors around 33 %. N-type CdS when deposited on SnO2: F below the absorber layer further improved Voc's to around 330 mV. Annealing of these devices improved Voc's to about 350 mV but Jsc's remained 7.21 mA/cm2.