Digital Commons Network^™

Experiences Of Transgender Men Who Joined National Pan-Hellenic Council Sororities Pre-Transition, Sydney Epps

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The National Pan-Hellenic Council (NPHC) - affectionately known as The Divine Nine - are places of support and leadership development for students. However, these groups espouse traditional gender role themes that align with sexual orientation and gender rigidity. This paper explores how four NPHC members negotiate their identity as both nonbinary or transgender, and Greek. Using the narrative inquiry approach, the researcher will explore how sorority members who no longer identify as cisgender women are treated post-gender transition by other sorority members.

Sexually Dimorphic Oxytocin Receptor-Expressing Neurons In The Anteroventral Periventricular Nucleus Regulates Maternal Behavior, Kaustubh Sharma

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The neurohypophysial hormone oxytocin is involved in the regulation of social behaviors, including social recognition, pair bonding, and sex-specific parental behaviors in a variety of species. Oxytocin triggers these social behaviors by binding to oxytocin receptors (OXTR) in various parts of the brain. Oxytocin-induced sex-typical behavior, therefore, suggests a sexual dimorphic distribution of OXTR in the brain. In recent years, the oxytocin system in the brain received tremendous attention as a potential pharmacological target for treatment of many psychiatric disorders, such as anxiety, autism spectrum disorders, and even sex-specific psychiatric disorder like postpartum depression (PPD). An important problem and a …

Typing Tornadoes By Storm Mode In The Southeast United States, Marisa R. Karpinski

LSU Master's Theses

Existing work has noted three major, radar-derived, storm modes associated with tornadoes: supercell, quasi-linear convective systems, and tropical systems. I examine the long-term frequency and seasonality of each storm mode between 1996 and 2017 in the Southeast United States. The Southeast is chosen as a focus for this work due to its well-known and unique combination of tornado vulnerability and exposure. Expanding our knowledge of the radar presentation of tornado-producing thunderstorms in this region could assist in the operational interpretation of these events. In this study, a climatology of F/EF1+ tornadoes (1996 - 2017) is generated for the study area …

Leave It To The People: Position And Positioning Of Stakeholders In Top-Down Sustainable Development And Risk Reduction Frameworks From Global To Local Levels, Bethany Bille Garfield

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Dissertation concerning design, contents, priorities, and outcomes of development and disaster risk reduction (DRR) global indicator frameworks. Historical review of United Nations (UN) multilateral agreements and organizational dynamics precedes analysis of indicator data reported for Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets shared by the 2015 Paris Agreement and Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR). Background on the planning of UN frameworks is considered along with results of indicator data analysis to identify actors and processes that steer the focus of frameworks hence influence selection of targets and indicators, and corresponding framework agendas. Fundamental flaws in resolution frameworks preventing global goal …

Three Essays On Variation In Intergenerational Mobility And Incarceration In The United States, Vikash Dangal

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The U.S. is often called the “land of opportunity” but there are substantial disparities in the opportunity and life outcomes of children depending on where they grow up. The structural factors that shape future outcomes of children can be traced to their childhood environment. This dissertation builds upon the existing literature on childhood environment and future outcomes of children and presents three essays on the variation in intergenerational income mobility and incarceration in the US.

In the first essay in chapter 2, I employ spatial regime analysis to study how the factors affecting absolute upward mobility vary due to local …

Civil War Interventions: An Examination Of The Roles Of The Media, Political Executives, And The Domestic Opposition, Jonathan Charles Nickens

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines how media attention and domestic opposition parties affect third-party intervention in foreign civil wars. Previous research defines some of the ways that political executives in democratic states are constrained in their choice of actions, while also pointing out the influences and limitations of outside actors. This dissertation builds on existing research pertaining to opposition parties and the news media by providing new theories on how these outside actors can push a leader in taking an action he otherwise might not take, such as intervening in a foreign civil war. Using newly collected data, I argue that the …

Comparison Of In-Office Psychiatric Encounters With Out-Of-Office Psychiatric Encounters Regarding Efficacy, Presenteeism, And Self-Perceived Stigma Among Adult Recipients Of Psychiatric Treatment For Depression In Louisiana, Lawrence Sullivan Salone

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study was to conduct a clinical trial to compare the provision of psychiatric evaluation and medication interventions in a virtual out of office format (VOO) with the provision of psychiatric evaluation and medication interventions in a virtual in-office psychiatric encounter (VIO) among adults in Louisiana seeking psychiatric services for the treatment of depression. This study was classified as a pretest-posttest control group non-inferiority double-blind experimental design. Each patient took a self-rated instrument at baseline and at week 8. The study tested the two interventions (VOO and VIO) by way of changes in overall function, changes …

Comparison Of High-Tech Augmentative And Alternative Communication Interfaces: Do Age And Technology Experience Matter?, Surani Gopika Nakkawita

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Previous research has demonstrated that individuals with stroke-induced aphasia can use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) when they cannot meet their communication needs using spoken language (Dietz, Weissling, Griffith, McKelvey, & Macke, 2014; Purdy & Van Dyke, 2011). Of the various interfaces found in the different AAC systems, the grid display and the visual scene display (VSD) have been used by individuals with aphasia (Hough & Johnson, 2009; Dietz et al., 2018). However, there is a scarcity of research examining the comparative usefulness of these interfaces.

This prospective study attempted to understand how neurologically healthy individuals of different ages and …

Using Spatial Analysis And Machine Learning Techniques To Develop A Comprehensive Highway-Rail Grade Crossing Consolidation Model, Samira Soleimani

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The safety of highway-railroad grade crossings (HRGC) is still an issue in the United States of America (USA). The grade crossing is where a railroad crosses a road at the same level without any over or underpass. To improve the safety of crossings, the crossings’ condition should be explored from several aspects such as engineering design (speed limit, warning signs, etc.), road condition (number of lanes, surface markings, etc.), rail design (the type of track, ballast, etc.), temporal variables (weather, visibility, time of day, lightning, etc.), social variables (population, race, etc.), and last but not least, spatial variables (the type …

Development And Initial Validation Of The Adult Coping Inventory, Kristen Hollas

LSU Master's Theses

There are few psychometrically sound measures for assessing coping in adults. For example, a widely used measure of coping, the COPE, has highly unstable sub-scale analyses (Lyne & Roger, 2000). The scarcity of instruments developed using evidence based “best practice” is concerning as coping skills are linked to a variety of positive and negative outcomes. For example, positive coping skills have been linked to better health outcomes among various populations (Garnefski & Kraaij, 2006; Littleton, Horsley, John & Nelson, 2007). This study aimed to address the lack of psychometrically sound measures of coping for an adult population. The current study …

Readiness To Change And Smoking Expectancies Among Adult Male Substance Users Currently In Substance Use Treatment, Aaron French Waters

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The primary aims of the current study were to examine if smoking expectancies and readiness to quit smoking, important components in predicting smoking behavior and cessation, changed across time for adult smokers in substance use treatment. Participants (N = 51) were predominantly white (96.1%), adult, male smokers who were admitted to residential substance use treatment. Smoking outcome expectancies and readiness to change smoking were assessed among participants at treatment entry (n = 51), and subsequently at 30 days (n = 13), 60 days (n = 9), and 90 days (n = 3) from treatment entry. …

Louisiana Southern Flounder: Commercial And Recreational Trends, David Russell Smith

LSU Master's Theses

Southern Flounder (Paralichthys lethostigma) is a coastal flatfish species that supports recreational and commercial fisheries throughout Louisiana. The recreational and commercial sectors of the Southern Flounder fishery in Louisiana both lack current information that profiles the fishery’s ability to meet stakeholder interest. This project characterized the Louisiana Southern Flounder fishery through an evaluation of fishery-dependent data and a survey of coastal Louisiana anglers.

Fishery-dependent data was gathered to characterize the recreational and commercial Southern Flounder fisheries in Louisiana. This study had three objectives for this evaluation: 1) modeling landings data to evaluate any trends, 2) examine the seasonality of landings, …

Moderators Of Academic Performance And Symptom Severity In Adolescents With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Ryan Nicole Cummins

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Research has documented the relationship between attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptom severity and poor academic outcomes. However, few studies have focused on identifying moderating variables of academic performance specific to adolescents, especially those with ADHD. The current study seeks to address these limitations, further exploring moderators of academic outcomes in a clinical sample of adolescents with ADHD. Specifically, the present study examined adolescent ratings of routines, parent-adolescent conflict, perceptions of parental involvement, and school engagement, on the relationship between ADHD symptom severity and academic performance (GPA). The sample consisted of a total of 140 caregiver-adolescent dyads ranging from ages 11- to …

Examining Patterns Of Executive Functioning Across Dimensions Of Psychopathology, Scott Roye

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Executive functioning is a multifaceted collection of higher-order cognitive processes used to perform goal-oriented tasks. Although this construct is heavily researched, a major issue regarding the current literature stems from the influence of task impurity, which interferes with how executive functioning performance is interpreted. Additionally, while executive functioning has been previously explored in clinical populations, less work has evaluated this topic measuring dimensional psychopathology. The present study sought to examine the role of executive functioning, as it relates to dimensional psychopathology. Data was analyzed from a total of 731 individuals between the age of 18-59 years who took part in …

Factor Predicting Maternal Posttraumatic Stress Symptom Trajectories Following A Natural Disaster: Coping, Social Support, And Family Functioning, Jennifer Clare Piscitello

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Natural disasters are sudden, large-scale events that are associated with significant mental health consequences. Although, most individuals demonstrate resilience, a significant subset of the population develops significant long-term distress (La Greca et al. 2013; Lai, et al., 2015; Lowe & Rhodes 2013; Self-Brown et al., 2014). Moreover, results from emerging longitudinal research suggests that symptom patterns are heterogenous. For example, some individuals recover over time or demonstrate a delayed onset. The most commonly studied post-disaster reaction in adults is posttraumatic stress (PTS) symptoms. However, the extant literature examining elevated PTS symptoms and related risk factors in disaster research has relied …

Protestant Experience And Continuity Of Political Thought In Early America, 1630-1789, Stephen Michael Wolfe

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The debate on the continuity of American political thought from the 17^th century Puritan settlements to the 18^th century American founding assumes a bipolar spectrum, ranging from strong continuity to strong discontinuity. The degree that scholars recognize distinctively Christian, theological, or Protestant ideas operating in the founding era determines where they are placed on the spectrum. The most popular view today is the “amalgam” thesis, which is a moderate view, resulting from decades of debate. Amalgam theorists argue that the founders' political theory relied on a variety of sources, from classical to Protestant. The current debate centers on …

Generalizability Of Multiple Measures Of Treatment Integrity: Response Card Intervention, Elizabeth Kelsey Wilson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Treatment integrity is essential for the implementation of interventions in schools as it determines the accuracy or consistency with which different components of a treatment are implemented. There are no current standards regarding the best practices in treatment integrity measurement; however, higher treatment integrity is associated with enhanced student outcomes. At present, there is no database that provides information related to treatment integrity for practitioners, researchers, and policy-makers to reference when choosing an appropriate level of treatment integrity needed for a given intervention. Consequently, there is a need to establish convergent validity among different methods of treatment integrity measurement using …

Hopeless Ugly Food? Estimating Heterogeneous Treatment Effects Of Marketing Strategies On Consumer Attitude And Wtp Via Machine Learning Approaches, Ran Li

LSU Master's Theses

Around one-third of food produced for human consumption is wasted every year, partially caused by consumer's unwillingness to purchase ugly food. We explore opportunities to favorably support consumer's considerations for ugly food by analyzing survey responses from 1099 U.S. adults. We find that without any marketing strategies applied, a great discount has to be provided to sell ugly food. By using appropriate marketing strategies, consumer's attitudes and willingness to pay for ugly food can be changed positively. However, the effects of ugly food marketing attributes are heterogeneous among consumers with different attitudes towards ugly food. Consumers with negative attitudes towards …

Individual Differences In Prospective Memory Aftereffects: The Role Of Working Memory Capacity And Inhibition., Samantha Nicole Spitler

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study examined attentional control and executive function (EF) in relation to canceled intentions in two experiments. After an intention is canceled, a commission error occurs when one continues to actively fulfill the intention in response to a prospective memory (PM) cue. Aftereffects are slower response times to inactive PM cues when encountered in ongoing processing. Attentional control was indexed by working memory capacity (WMC) and EF was indexed by three measures of inhibition. In prior canceled intention PM research, attentional control and inhibition have not been extensively studied. However, two major methodological factors in PM research could implicate attentional …

Previous Experiences Drive Attention, Sunghyun Kim

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Traditionally, the allocation of attention was understood within goal-driven and stimulus-driven factors. However, the traditional approach cannot fully account for the mechanism of attentional orienting. Instead, a growing body of evidence shows that previous search experiences, irrelevant to both goal-driven and stimulus-driven factors, influence attentional allocation. For example, when contexts predict information of targets, the contexts guide attention toward the stimuli having the information predicted by the contexts: contextual cueing. In addition, more valuable stimuli attract more attention: value-driven attentional capture. However, two critical issues are present. First, contextual cueing has been found largely when the contexts and the target …

The Relative Impact Of Risk And Protective Factors On The Psychological Functioning Of Sexual And Gender Minority Youth, Ilayna Krysten Mehrtens

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Research has consistently indicated that sexual and gender minority (SGM) youth are at increased risk of psychological and emotional concerns relative to their cisgender heterosexual (cis-heterosexual) peers. A large body of research has sought to identify the risk factors that may contribute to this disparity; however, fewer studies have investigated the factors that may promote resiliency, thereby reducing risk. Subsequently, very little is known about the relative influence of risk and protective factors among SGM youth. Additionally, significant methodological concerns have been identified, which may affect the interpretability, generalizability, and clinical applicability of existing research. The purpose of this study …

Southwest Pacific Tropical Cyclone Frequency And Intensity Related To Observed And Modeled Geophysical And Aerosol Variables, Rupsa Bhowmick

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The dissertation focuses on western region of Southwest Pacific Ocean (SWPO)

basin (135E - 180, and 5S - 35S) tropical cyclone (TC) climatology using observed

and modeled data. The classification-based machine learning approach

identifies the synoptic geophysical and aerosol environment favorable or unfavorable

for TC intensification and intensity change prior to landfall incorporating

observational and satellite data. A multiple poisson regression model with varying

temporal monthly lags was used to build a relationship between the number of

monthly TC days with basin wide average dust aerosol optical depth (AOD), sea

surface temperature (SST), and upper ocean temperature (UOT). This idea …

Evaluating The Effects Of A Brief Assertiveness And Help Seeking Skill Intervention, Madeline S. Blocker

LSU Master's Theses

Children in foster care lead their lives at an increased risk for mental health issues that are often complicated by the unstable and unpredictable nature of their living arrangements and interpersonal relationships. As such, there is substantial need to examine brief therapies and interventions for use with children in foster care and children who have experienced similar trauma and instability. Mental health care providers for children in foster care often may not have sufficient periods of time to implement treatment with fidelity. The present study investigated the efficacy of a summer camp based, brief behavioral intervention targeting help-seeking behavior and …

Social Capitalization As A Positive Emotion Regulation Strategy In Individuals At-Risk For Developing A Schizophrenia-Spectrum Disorder, Elana Klein Schwartz

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Extant literature indicates that emotional deficits, such as impaired emotion expression/experience, are prominent in schizophrenia-spectrum psychopathology and linked with poorer functional (e.g. social) outcomes. Interestingly, individuals exhibiting schizotypy, an underlying personality organization that confers a vulnerability to developing schizophrenia, report more abnormalities in emotion experience compared to healthy controls and individuals with schizophrenia, a phenomenon termed the “schizophrenia-spectrum emotion paradox.” To aid in the clarification of emotional abnormalities and explore the dynamic nature of emotion experience in individuals with schizotypy, the present study enrolled 93 college-aged individuals to examine positive emotion regulation through the use of social capitalization. In social …

Components Of Psychological Flexibility And Inflexibility That Predict Risk-Taking Behaviors, Shelley Renee Upton

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Psychological flexibility is conceptualized as contact with the present moment and the ability to persist or change one’s behavior to achieve valued ends. The opposite of this process is known as psychological inflexibility, which is posited to lead to the development and maintenance of various psychological disorders. There are 6 components underlying psychological inflexibility—these are cognitive fusion, experiential avoidance, fixating on the past or future, self-conceptualization, lacking contact with values, and inaction toward valued ends, as well as 6 components underlying psychological flexibility (i.e., defusion, acceptance, present moment awareness, self-as-context, contact with values, and committed action). Psychological inflexibility may be …

The Role Of An Educational Intervention In Addressing Parent Spectator Behaviors In Louisiana Youth Sports, Jerry F. Reynolds Ii

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Contemporary youth sports environments present significant psychosocial challenges to the family system. Among the greatest challenges to address are spectator behaviors of parents, which in the public eye has deteriorated and is out of control. Spectator behaviors and their impact upon the sports environment and family system is the topic of investigation in this study. Within the state of Louisiana, the advent of Act 355 extends the consequences of parent behavior and presents challenges to families, referees, and sports organizations. To better understand how legislation impacts parent perceptions of their spectator behaviors, the author examined spectator behaviors parents are observing, …

Reconsidering The Obstetrical Dilemma: Correlations Between Head And Pelvic Size, Kelsey Catrice Fox

LSU Master's Theses

The Obstetrical Dilemma (OD) theory has become canon in biological anthropology. The OD posits that i] dystocia results from bipedal mothers and encephalized infants, ii] contrasting selection for bipedality and obstetrics hinders locomotive efficiency, and iii] the contradicting requirement of the fetus being small enough to pass through the birth canal yet being cognitively advanced enough to cling to its mother after birth. Females, theoretically, exhibit deficient gait efficiency for the sake of successful childbirth. An obstetric advantage theory has been posited where taller individuals with a larger head size have larger pelves. If the distance between the acetabulae increases …

A Comprehensive Examination Of Clinical Cutoff Scores For The Inventory Of Callous-Unemotional Traits (Icu), Emily C. Kemp

LSU Master's Theses

Youth with elevated callous-unemotional (CU) traits represent a clinically important subgroup of youth who display particularly severe conduct problems and antisocial behavior and thusly impose great costs to themselves, other individuals, and society. The recent addition of the specifier for CU traits, “with Limited Prosocial Emotions (LPE),” to major classification systems has prompted the need for comprehensive and valid assessment tools that aid in the identification of these traits. One such tool is a multi-informant questionnaire, the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits (ICU). However, a major limitation of this measure is a lack of well-validated cutoff scores. With this, the present …

A Component Analysis Of Implementation Planning: Examining Mechanisms That Underlie A Teacher Implementation Support Strategy, James Jaran Upright

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

To maximize instructional time, teachers must be able to effectively manage student behavior. However, surveys consistently reveal that a significant portion of teachers feel underprepared to address challenging classroom behavior. One of the most effective ways to reduce problem behaviors in school is with systematic classroom management strategies, such as the good behavior game. However, teachers often struggle to effectively implement such procedures. Promising evidence has emerged for implementation planning as an effective support strategy to improve teachers’ intervention implementation. Implementation planning is a one-time consultation process for intervention procedure planning (action planning) and identification and resolution of implementation barriers …

Agenda Cueing In Aggregated Newsfeeds, Kirill Bryanov

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation brings together the findings from three experimental studies that seek to understand how exposure to information in an online news aggregating portal can influence users’ perceptions of the relative importance of problems facing society. Theoretically, this investigation relies on two foundational ideas. One is that in today’s high-choice, multi-source media environment communication flows are curated by a variety of gatekeeping actors, such as algorithms and fellow users. Individuals can have varying attitudes toward and perceptions of these gatekeepers, which can influence the effects of exposure to online information, including agenda-setting outcomes. Another is that users of digital news, …