Includes vita. / Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; contains 81 pages / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of South Florida, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: Knot theory has rapidly expanded in recent years. New representations of braid groups led to an extremely powerful polynomial invariant, the Jones polynomial. Combinatorics applied to knot and link diagrams led to generalizations. Knot theory also has connections with other fields such as statistical mechanics and quantum field theory, and has applications in determining how certain enzymes act on DNA molecules, for example. The principal objective of this dissertation is to study the relations between knots and algebraic structures called quandles. A quandle is a set with a binary operation satisfying some properties related to the three Reidemeister moves. The study of quandles in relation to knot theory was intitiated by Joyce and Matveev. Later, racks and their (co)homology theory were defined by Fenn and Rourke. The rack (co)homology was also studied by Grana from the viewpoint of Hopf algebras. / ABSTRACT: Furthermore, a modified definition of homology theory for quandles was introduced by Carter, Jelsovsky, Kamada, Langford, and Saito to define state-sum invariants for knots and knotted surfaces, called quandle cocycle invariants. This dissertation studies the quandle cocycle invariants using extensions of quandles and knot colorings. We obtain a coloring of a knot by assigning elements of a quandle to the arcs of the knot diagram. Such colorings are used to define knot invariants by state-sum. For a given coloring, a 2-cocycle is assigned at each crossing as the Boltzmann weight. The product of the weights over all crossings is the contribution to the state-sum, which is the formal summation of the contributions over all possible colorings of the given knot diagram by a given quandle. Generalizing the cocycle invariant for knots to links, we define two kinds of invariants for links: a component-wise invariant, and an invariant defined as families of vectors. / ABSTRACT: Abelian extensions of quandles are also defined and studied. We give a formula for creating infinite families of abelian extensions of Alexander quandles. These extensions give rise to explicit formulas for computing 2-cocycles. The theory of quandle extensions parallels that of groups. Moreover, we investigate the notion of extending colorings of knots using quandle extensions. In particular, we show how the obstruction to extending the coloring contributes to the non-trivial terms of the cocycle invariants for knots and links. Moreover, we demonstrate the relation between these new cocycle invariants and Alexander matrices. / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; contains 174 pages. / Thesis (M.S.)--University of South Florida, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: This study investigated the affiliation of prosody with childhood articulation disorders. The Tennessee Test of Rhythm and Intonation Patterns, T-TRIP (Koike & Asp, 1981), was used to determine if kindergartners with linguistic (i.e. phonological) speech disorders, oral-motor speech disorders, or normal speech performed differently on imitative prosody tasks. Performance was assessed perceptually with T-TRIP overall and subtest scores, and acoustically with measurements of individual prosodic variables (amplitude, duration, and fundamental frequency) on selected items from the rhythm and intonation subtests. Perceptual and acoustic data were examined for characteristic patterns of performance by individual subjects and by groups. A Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA of the perceptual scores revealed that the three groups performed differently on the T-TRIP rhythm, and intonation subtests, and on the total score. / ABSTRACT: Specifically, the oral-motor group had the lowest range of scores and was clearly separated from the other two groups. No group cut-off scores were established since the linguistic group's scores slightly overlapped the control groups' range of scores. Acoustic results generally supported the findings of earlier studies of stress and intonation. Correct responses contained a wide selection of acoustic patterns, while incorrect responses consisted of error patterns resembling those of younger children. Subjects with speech disorders demonstrated several characteristic error patterns: linguistic subjects tended to add syllables and to lexicalize items, while oral-motor subjects tended to delete syllables and to convert iambic stress into trochaic. Overall, whether T-TRIP responses were examined by perceptual or acoustic methods, the oral-motor group's imitative prosody ability was significantly different than the other groups' performance. / ABSTRACT: The clinical implications of this finding are that the T-TRIP has the potential to be used as a screening tool to identify subjects whose difficulties with imitative prosody are consistent with oral-motor speech disorders, specifically DVD. / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Includes vita. / Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; contains 190 pages. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of South Florida, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: Modernism is characterized by alienation from one's self and the processes by which one's self gets constructed. Organizational development (OD) is an activity that attempts to address the experience of work and to transform the historical alienation. OD practitioners are often optimistic that this transformation is possible and even is happening in the day-to-day work of OD. A group of critics, mostly academics, are skeptical about whether any real transformation is possible, arguing that OD practices are misguided extensions of modernism. In one thread of the OD literature, authors build an argument for the centrality of issues of identity in achieving this transformation. Proponents of this perspective argue that dialogic processes of reflection and co-construction are vital to participating in the production of one's self. In this study, I used participant-observation and interview approaches to investigate the ways OD consultants make sense of their work. / ABSTRACT: These approaches are managed through a perspective I call "first person," which aligns them with the dialogic principles of immediacy of presence; emergent, unanticipated consequences; collaborative orientation; vulnerability; and genuineness and authenticity. I found among the OD consultants a shared value for dialogue, an appreciation for people who are engaged, a preoccupation with identity boundaries, a commitment to the greater good, an understanding of the personal benefits they receive from their work, and a concern for fear among their clients and in themselves. Many OD consultants have chosen their roles as independent or internal consultants to escape from modern constructions of identity prevalent in organizations. OD consulting is a practice situated among multiple interests, creating complex tensions of identity and action for OD consultants. OD work itself requires consultants to be reflexive about their own and others' processes of identity construction. / ABSTRACT: OD consultants, when contrasted to critics of OD, show a tendency toward what Mikhail Bakhtin calls dialogue rather than dialectic. A dialogic orientation allows the OD consultants to work more productively on shaping the transition to postmodern consciousness. Reflexivity and self-participation are central to the success of an OD consultant. Education and professional groups should support greater understanding, inquiry, and practice of reflexivity and self-participation. / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; contains 83 pages. / Thesis (M.A.)--University of South Florida, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: This Master's thesis investigates one particular aspect of sexuality in colonial Anglo America--the products of non-marital intercourse. Earlier historical research emphasized the importance of economic considerations in the creation of bastardy laws and the prosecution and punishment for violators of these statutes. Undoubtedly, financial anxieties were a major concern in out-of-wedlock births, but they were only one concern of many. Class, race, and gender dynamics were prominent in colonists' conceptualization of illegitimacy and largely defined who was at risk for having an "insolent and contemptuous carriage" and the resulting punishment for the debauched act. Elite, white officials made women, servants, and Africans increasingly vulnerable to bastardy prosecution, thereby, marginalizing a large segment of the colonial populace. / ABSTRACT: Gendered relations, class biases, and racial inequities structured colonial society, and, therefore, merit consideration in a study of illegitimacy. This research aims to culturally describe and analyze bastardy within the context of the Chesapeake and New England regions. There is more to the study of colonial illegitimacy than economic concerns. Thus, applying cultural factors to a study on colonial bastardy further explores one of the many concerns that influenced colonists' understanding of illegitimacy. / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; contains 47 pages. / Thesis (M.A.)--University of South Florida, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: The current study examined the effects of citizenship performance, task performance, and rating format on overall and task performance ratings. Levels of citizenship performance (high, medium, low), task performance (high, medium, low), and rating format (inclusion or exclusion of citizenship performance) were experimentally manipulated in a 3x3x2 between-subjects full factorial design. Ratings were provided by 360 undergraduate psychology students evaluating experimentally developed supervisory logs of first line financial managers. Targets' levels of citizenship and task performance were positively related to raters' judgments of overall and task performance. The prediction that this relationship would be moderated by task performance level was not supported. Furthermore, replicating the findings of J. M. / ABSTRACT: Werner (1994), task performance ratings, assigned to targets with high levels of citizenship performance, displayed significantly more halo than ratings assigned to targets with low or medium levels of citizenship performance. Rating format did not influence raters' judgments of the targets' overall or task performance. Our findings indicate that including OCBs in job performance assessment fails to increase the accuracy of performance ratings. Study implications and limitations are discussed. / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; contains 68 pages. / Thesis (M.S.Cp.E.)--University of South Florida, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: The main aim of a text-to-speech synthesis system is to convert ordinary text into an acoustic signal that is indistinguishable from human speech. This thesis presents an architecture to implement a concatenative speech synthesis algorithm targeted to FPGAs. Many current text-to-speech systems are based on the concatenation of acoustic units of recorded speech. Current concatenative speech synthesizers are capable of producing highly intelligible speech. However, the quality of speech often suffers from discontinuities between the acoustic units, due to contextual differences. This is the easiest method to produce synthetic speech. It concatenates prerecorded acoustic elements and forms a continuous speech element. The software implementation of the algorithm is performed in C whereas the hardware implementation is done in structural VHDL. A database of acoustic elements is formed first with recording sounds for different phones. / ABSTRACT: The architecture is designed to concatenate acoustic elements corresponding to the phones that form the target word. Target word corresponds to the word that has to be synthesized. This architecture doesn't address the form discontinuities between the acoustic elements as its ultimate goal is the synthesis of speech. The Hardware implementation is verified on a Virtex (v800hq240-4) FPGA device. / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; contains 94 pages. / Thesis (M.S.Ch.E.)--University of South Florida, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: Total pressure measurements at 303.15 K are reported for the binary systems of 2-ethoxyethanol with carbon tetrachloride, chloroform, 1,2-dichloroethane and dichloromethane. Total pressure measurements for the system of hexane and 2-ethoxyethanol were also made to check the validity of the experimental apparatus and procedure. These measurements were taken according to the static method proposed by Van Ness (1975). Data reduction was accomplished using Barker's Method. The modified Margules equation was used as a model for the excess Gibbs free energy (GE) and parameter values were obtained by regression of the experimental data. The obtained data were used to test the association model developed by Kretschmer and Wiebe (1967). In its original form, the Kretschmer-Wiebe model assumes self-association between molecules of 2-ethoxyethanol. / ABSTRACT: An extended form of the Kretschmer-Wiebe model, in which cross-association of 2-ethoxyethanol with the halogenated hydrocarbon is postulated, was examined as well. The regular solution model, which results from the above theories when all association is neglected, was also examined. It was found that the Kretschmer-Wiebe model was far superior to the regular solution model. However, the extended form of the Kretschmer-Wiebe model showed less improvement over the original form. / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; contains 71 pages. / Thesis (M.S.)--University of South Florida, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: Thalassia testudinum, a stenohaline seagrass species, and Ruppia maritima, a euryhaline submerged aquatic vegetation species, were subjected to the same seven salinity levels (0 - 60) in a controlled environment. The response variables examined were the occurrence of leaf discoloration, plant growth rates, photosynthetic characteristics of blade segments (Pmax, respiration, alpha, and Ik), and osmolality changes within the plant tissues. These response variables were measured at exposure times of one, seven, and 28 days. Greater than 75% leaf discoloration occurred in Thalassia testudinum blades placed in 0, and 60 psu, while Ruppia maritima blades only became severely discolored in 60 psu. Plant growth rates were highest in 40 psu for T. testudinum and 20 psu for R. maritima. Pmax for both species was somewhat affected by salinity changes, but the plants did not appear to be photosynthetically compromised in their "optimal" ranges over time. / ABSTRACT: Salinity effects on photosynthesis were less pronounced in R. maritima than in T. testudinum, which would be expected when comparing a euryhaline species to a stenohaline species. Both intercellular and intracellular osmolality showed a pattern of increase or decrease as the treatment salinities were altered from ambient levels (30 psu for T. testudinum and 20 psu for R. maritima). After one day of exposure to a new treatment salinity, the intercellular osmolality had changed significantly from ambient value, with a second shift, occurring mostly in the salinity extremes, for both seagrass species. This second shift is most likely due to the fact that at the extremes, the plants are being compromised. Changes in these physical and physiological responses indicate that significant increases and decreases in ambient salinity levels are initially stressful for both species. / ABSTRACT: Both seagrass species had an optimal salinity as well as a range of salinities in which the long-term physiological stresses did not cause tissue death. Thalassia testudinum had the fewest stress responses in 40 psu, with an optimal range of 20 - 40 psu. Ruppia maritima had the fewest stress responses in 20 psu (growth salinity) with an optimal range of 0 - 40 psu. In this study, neither species was able to survive for 28 days in 60 psu (at which point the plants had been out of their respective optimal salinities for at least 42 days). / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; contains 64 pages. / Thesis (M.S.E.E.)--University of South Florida, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: Traditional telephony networks with their cumbersome and costly infrastructures are being replaced with voice being transmitted over the Internet. The Internet is a very commonly used technology that was traditionally used to transmit data. With the availability of large bandwidth and high data rates the transmission of data, voice and video over the Internet is gaining popularity. Voice is a real time application and the biggest problem it faces is the loss of packets due to network congestion. The Internet implements protocols to detect and retransmit the lost packets. However, for a real time application it is too late before a lost intermediate packet is retransmitted. This causes a need for reconstruction of the lost packet. Therefore, good reconstruction techniques are being researched. In this thesis a new concealment algorithm to reconstruct lost voice packets is reported. / ABSTRACT: The algorithm is receiver based and its functionality is based on Time Scale Modifications of speech and autocorrelation of a speech signal. The new techniqhe is named the Modified Waveform Similarity Overlap Add , (WSOLA) technique. All simulations were performed in MATLAB. / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; contains 69 pages. / Thesis (M.A.)--University of South Florida, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: The purpose of this paper is to provide a phenomenological examination of Otherness as it relates to the experience of being black in the America. The project begins with a summary of the Otherness theories of Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Simone de Beauvoir. I then compare these accounts to "Black Consciousness" with a criticism of Sartre from Frantz Fanon. I use this criticism to construct new concepts that will help to better understand the experience of blackness. / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.