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Detecting The Socioeconomic Conditions Of Urban Neighborhoods Through Wavelet Analysis Of Remotely Sensed Imagery, Guiyun Zhou
Detecting The Socioeconomic Conditions Of Urban Neighborhoods Through Wavelet Analysis Of Remotely Sensed Imagery, Guiyun Zhou
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
Wavelet analysis is an efficient approach to studying textural patterns at different scales. Artificial neural networks can learn very complex patterns in the data and could be an efficient classifier. However, whether wavelet analysis, in combination with artificial neural networks or other classifiers, can be used to detect the social-economic conditions of urban neighborhood is a key research question that needs further study. The hypotheses of this study were: 1) neural networks yielded higher classification accuracy than linear discriminant analysis and the minimum-distance classifier based on wavelet measures of urban land covers; 2) wavelet textural measures could be used to …
Evaluating The Spatial Ecology Of Anthrax In North America: Examining Epidemiological Components Across Multiple Geographic Scales Using A Gis-Based Approach, Jason Kenna Blackburn
Evaluating The Spatial Ecology Of Anthrax In North America: Examining Epidemiological Components Across Multiple Geographic Scales Using A Gis-Based Approach, Jason Kenna Blackburn
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation explores the spatial ecology and potential pathways of infection of anthrax, Bacillus anthracis, in North America. A multi-scale approach was used to evaluate the components required for disease agent survival in the environment, interactions with wildlife, and the potential role that vectors play in anthrax transmission. First, ecological niche modeling with the Genetic Algorithm for Rule-set Production (GARP) was used to predict the geographic distribution of anthrax in the continental U.S. using case data from outbreaks between 1957 and 2005. These results were then used to produce the first quantitative, continental scale predictions of anthrax in Mexico. At …
Socrates As Citizen?: The Implications Of Socratic Eros For Contemporary Models Of Citizenship, Jeremy John Mhire
Socrates As Citizen?: The Implications Of Socratic Eros For Contemporary Models Of Citizenship, Jeremy John Mhire
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation evaluates the appropriateness of using Socrates as a model for contemporary citizenship. I examine the question of Socrates' civic character by inquiring about the relation of the philosopher (or political scientist) to the city (that is, to political life) without taking for granted that they share a common aim or purpose. Instead, I prepare the discussion with an examination of the treatment of Socrates by the comic poet Aristophanes in the Clouds. I suggest that Socrates' famed eros, his unwavering love of wisdom, was a problem, one that threatened the very foundations of political society. By conceiving of …
Re-Examining The Subculture Of Violence In The South, Timothy Curt Hayes
Re-Examining The Subculture Of Violence In The South, Timothy Curt Hayes
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
The Southern region of the United States historically has a high rate of violent crime, especially homicide. This has led to a number of studies tackling the issue by relying on subcultural theory or by using structural correlates of crime to account for the South versus non-South difference in homicide. Macro level research has focused on pitting culture (usually measured by a dummy variable for South) against structural characteristics such as poverty and measures of income inequality, but suffers from a lack of direct cultural measures needed to successfully evaluate the subcultural thesis. Micro level research tends to focus on …
The Influence Of A School-Based Substance Abuse Prevention Program In Reducing Smoking Among Sixth Grade African American Students In Louisiana, Alan J. Nichols
The Influence Of A School-Based Substance Abuse Prevention Program In Reducing Smoking Among Sixth Grade African American Students In Louisiana, Alan J. Nichols
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
Youth tobacco smoking is one of the major public health problems of this society. Although, by some reports, adult cigarette smoking has been declining, teen smoking rates continue to remain unacceptably high. Current data indicates that smoking rates among minority youth which had declined in the past few years are beginning to rise again. The current increase in teen smoking and subsequent health dangers associated with smoking demonstrates a need for more effective, empirically based youth smoking prevention strategies. The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of a substance abuse prevention program in reducing smoking among sixth …
Income Inequality And Economic Growth, Nor Azam Abdul Razak
Income Inequality And Economic Growth, Nor Azam Abdul Razak
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
A central issue in the growth literature is whether initial conditions matter for income disparity among nations. If they don't, then countries will converge to a single regime once the structural features of the economies are controlled for. If they do, then countries will converge to multiple regimes even if the structural features are controlled for. This dissertation is designed to investigate whether the world is characterized by a single or multiple regimes. The first paper investigates whether the predictions of a particular multiple-regime model due to Galor and Zeira (1993) are borne out by the data. The baseline analysis …
The Rate Of Decline Of Social Skills Across Dementing And Non-Dementing Individuals With Intellectual Disabilities: A Longitudinal Study, Julia D. Lott
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
This study sought to establish rate of decline of adaptive skills in a population of individuals with intellectual disability (ID) and dementia compared to similar persons without dementia, as well as examining the variability of positive and negative social behaviors across diagnostic classes. Among the general population, differential rates of functional decline have been established for normal aging and dementia. This knowledge assists in making differential diagnoses of dementia, establishing prognosis, and long-term planning. For this study, participants in each group were individually matched for age, gender, Down’s syndrome status, and level of ID. Participants in the matched control group …
Impact Of A Stage-Matched Weight Loss Intervention On Stage Of Change Progression In Predominantly African-American Female Primary Care Patients, Jamie Sue Bodenlos
Impact Of A Stage-Matched Weight Loss Intervention On Stage Of Change Progression In Predominantly African-American Female Primary Care Patients, Jamie Sue Bodenlos
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
Obesity is associated with several chronic medical conditions. Certain individuals are at higher risk for obesity including low-income African American females. Despite the many benefits to weight loss, many individuals do not seek treatment. Individuals are likely to attend primary care appointments where obesity can be targeted. Although stage matched interventions based on the Transtheoretical Model (TM) have been used successfully to aid in health behavior change, few studies have examined the use of stage matched weight loss interventions in African American females. There is also a paucity of research examining the effects of stage matched weight loss interventions on …
Development Of Spanish L2 Competence In A Synchronous Cmc (Chat Room) Environment: The Role Of Visually-Enhanced Recasts In Fostering Grammatical Knowledge And Changes In Communicative Language Use, Francisco Ramon Lluna-Mateu
Development Of Spanish L2 Competence In A Synchronous Cmc (Chat Room) Environment: The Role Of Visually-Enhanced Recasts In Fostering Grammatical Knowledge And Changes In Communicative Language Use, Francisco Ramon Lluna-Mateu
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
Taking into consideration some gaps observed in SLA research –noticing, recasts, input enhancement (IE),…– and in CALL/CMC research, a study was conducted among 12 advanced FL Spanish learners to assess whether and how, by communicating with a Spanish native speaker in 5 chat-room sessions, their language competence would develop in the following areas: 1) communication strategies; 2) communicative acts; and 3) grammatical knowledge of verb tense-aspect-mood (TAM) assignation. Subjects were assigned to a specific feedback condition/group (A: +recast, -enhancement; B: +recast, +enhancement; and C: no feedback) under which their TAM errors were treated in the sessions. Few research studies have …
Essays On Group Lending: Evidence From Jordan, Moh'd Al-Azzam
Essays On Group Lending: Evidence From Jordan, Moh'd Al-Azzam
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
Group lending has received a great attention from economists and policymakers for its successful delivery of credit to poor borrowers and its role in alleviating poverty in the developing countries. The success of group lending in providing credit to poor borrowers has been attributed to its ability to mitigate the asymmetry of information and enforcement problems in credit markets. The ability of group lending institutions to overcome the asymmetry of information and enforcement problems has been theorized to be the driving force behind their outreach to the poor, their sustainability, and their repayment performance. While there is a host of …
How Cue-Dependent Is Memory?: Internal Reinstatement And Cueing Effects In Recognition And Source Memory, Jeffrey Joseph Starns
How Cue-Dependent Is Memory?: Internal Reinstatement And Cueing Effects In Recognition And Source Memory, Jeffrey Joseph Starns
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
This study explored the role of internal context reinstatement in masking the effects of external context cues on recognition and source memory. Participants studied words paired with pictures of male and female faces. Following the study phase, participants completed either a source test in which they decided whether each test word was studied with a male or female face (Experiments 1, 3, and 4) or a recognition test in which they decided whether each test word appeared in the study phase (Experiment 2). On selected trials, a studied face was reinstated at test to serve as a cue for the …
Public Affairs Advertising: Corporate Influence, Public Opinion And Vote Intentions Under The Third-Person Effect, Anita Grace Day
Public Affairs Advertising: Corporate Influence, Public Opinion And Vote Intentions Under The Third-Person Effect, Anita Grace Day
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
This study examined corporate public affairs and brand awareness advertising under the third-person effect. Third-person effect studies examine the interaction between the media and its effect on public opinion. Past research in third-person effect indicates that individuals perceive that the media is more influential on others than oneself. However, recent studies find a reverse effect, where individuals perceive a greater effect on oneself when compared to others when media messages are positive and desirable to be influenced by. Findings from this study indicate that ExxonMobil public affairs advertisements are found to be socially desirable to be influenced by and that …
Essays On The Bayesian Estimation Of Stochastic Cost Frontier, Xia Zhao
Essays On The Bayesian Estimation Of Stochastic Cost Frontier, Xia Zhao
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation consists of three essays that focus on a Bayesian estimation of stochastic cost frontiers for electric generation plants. This research gives insight into the changing development of the electric generation market and could serve to inform both private investment and public policy decisions. The main contributions to the growing literature on stochastic cost frontier analysis are to 1. Empirically estimate the possible efficiency gain of power plants due to deregulation. 2. Estimate the cost of electric power generating plants using coal as a fuel taking into account both regularity restrictions and sulfur dioxide emissions. 3. Compare costs of …
Investigating The Influence Of Anti-Racist Education In Achieving Prejudice Reduction Among Secondary Education Students, Joseph Edward Wilson
Investigating The Influence Of Anti-Racist Education In Achieving Prejudice Reduction Among Secondary Education Students, Joseph Edward Wilson
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation investigates the influence of participation in an anti-racist educational (ARE) program upon the perceptions of, critical assessments of, and self-reported behaviors toward institutional racism in a sample of 11th-grade students enrolled in a public school district that had recently undergone compulsory, court-ordered desegregation. This quasi-experimental study measured hypothesized differences between the scores of a group of high school students on a quantitative data-gathering instrument before their participation in an Undoing Racism curriculum, with their scores on that same instrument re-administered three months after their completion of that course. It then compared the degree of pre-intervention/ post-intervention changes in …
The Intersection Of News Frames: Examining The Top Two Health Problems In The United States, Lesa D'Anne Hatley
The Intersection Of News Frames: Examining The Top Two Health Problems In The United States, Lesa D'Anne Hatley
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
This research tests the public health model of reporting to discover if changing the way newspaper stories frame the top two health concerns in the United States – cancer and obesity – affects readers’ view of the problem. Using an experimental design, this study manipulated the context of newspaper stories about cancer and obesity. Applying thematic (broader context) and episodic (individual or event) framing concepts and gains (emphasizes benefits – e.g. lives saved) and losses (emphasizes costs – lives lost), this research revealed how the differences in framing affect public opinion about cancer and obesity. This research expands framing theory …
The Relationship Of Crime And Oil Development In The Coastal Regions Of Louisiana, Asha D. Luthra
The Relationship Of Crime And Oil Development In The Coastal Regions Of Louisiana, Asha D. Luthra
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
This project examines the relationship between patterns of crime and the development of the oil and gas extraction industry in the coastal regions of Louisiana. The suggestion of a link between these phenomena has often been made, but little systematic research has been conducted to determine if there is indeed a crime-oil development nexus. Limited previous research has focused primarily on the issue of “boom and bust” cycles on some forms of deviant behavior, but the data and the methods used were inadequate, and thus, the resulting conclusions were often misleading or possibly erroneous. During the course of this project, …
Do Overweight Inactive Parents Raise Overweight Inactive Children? Examination Of The Influence Of The Home Environment On Weight Status Of Children Over Time, Emily York-Crowe
Do Overweight Inactive Parents Raise Overweight Inactive Children? Examination Of The Influence Of The Home Environment On Weight Status Of Children Over Time, Emily York-Crowe
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
The primary aim of this study was to test whether body mass index (BMI), psychosocial, and behavioral parental variables were associated with similar variables in children at baseline, and whether these variables also served as significant predictors of overweight status in children after two years. While there have been several cross-sectional studies examining the impact of parental behaviors and characteristics on similar variables in children, and several longitudinal studies predicting weight status, BMI percentile, and risk factors of disease in children over time, there is a paucity of research that has identified (cross-sectionally) and then tested (longitudinally) significant parental variables …
Jack Kerouac's Spontaneous Prose: A Performance Genealogy Of The Fiction, Justin Thomas Trudeau
Jack Kerouac's Spontaneous Prose: A Performance Genealogy Of The Fiction, Justin Thomas Trudeau
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
This study analyzes Jack Kerouac’s writing method of spontaneous prose and articulates how the method can be understood as performative writing. Kerouac’s “Essentials of Spontaneous Prose,” On the Road, Visions of Cody, and Doctor Sax are explored to evaluate both the successes and failures of the author’s attempts to break literary boundaries and create a new writing method based upon spontaneous tenets. These three novels, which were written in succession from 1950 to 1953 when Kerouac was in his most productive period, represent both the emergence and dissent of the author’s use of performative writing. To explicate the cultural genesis …
Vegetational Change And Land Degradation In The Lake Baringo Area, Kenya, During The Late Holocene: Evidence From The Paleorecord And Remote Sensing, Lawrence Morara Kiage
Vegetational Change And Land Degradation In The Lake Baringo Area, Kenya, During The Late Holocene: Evidence From The Paleorecord And Remote Sensing, Lawrence Morara Kiage
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation investigates the history of vegetational changes and land degradation in the Lake Baringo area, Kenya, East Africa, during the Late Holocene. It uses 14C -and 210Pb-dated fossil pollen, fungal spores, microscopic charcoal, and stratigraphic record from lake-sediment cores to reconstruct the paleoenvironment in the East African region. More recent changes in the Lake Baringo are examined using remote sensing imagery. These data provide one the first high-resolution late Holocene pollen records from the semi-arid region of Kenya (and one of only a handful from East Africa in general). Lake Baringo records a sedimentation rate of 1 cm yr-1, …
An Examination Of The Differential Outcomes Effect When Teaching Discriminations To Children With Autism And Other Developmental Disabilities, Laura Addison
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
The differential outcomes effect (DOE) refers to the finding that performance in discrimination training improves when different behaviors produce different reinforcers. In the current study, the effects of two DOE procedures on the acquisition of receptive language skills were compared. Participants were four children with autism and/or developmental delay/speech and language impairment. The children were presented with two toy or food items and asked to give the experimenter the item named. The names consisted of three-letter nonsense syllables. Correct responses were followed by one of the following consequences: (a) The opportunity to manipulate or consume the item to which the …
Socioeconomic Characteristics Of Cancer Mortality In The United States Of America: A Spatial Data Mining Approach, Srinivas Kumar Vinnakota
Socioeconomic Characteristics Of Cancer Mortality In The United States Of America: A Spatial Data Mining Approach, Srinivas Kumar Vinnakota
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States of America. Though it is generally known that cancer is influenced by environment, its relation to socioeconomic conditions is still widely debated. This research analyzed the spatial distribution of cancer mortalities of breast, colorectal, lung, and prostate, and their associated socioeconomic characteristics using association rule mining technique. The mortality patterns were analyzed at the county and health service area levels that corresponded to the years between 1999 – 2002 and 1988 – 1992, respectively. Distinct socioeconomic characteristics of cancer mortality were revealed by the association rule mining technique. …
Evaluation Of Cost Effective Preference Assessments For Use In General Education Settings, Jennifer Luella Resetar
Evaluation Of Cost Effective Preference Assessments For Use In General Education Settings, Jennifer Luella Resetar
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
This study investigated the effectiveness of various preference assessments when used in a general education setting. Three separate experiments were conducted to elucidate the usefulness of various forms of preference assessments with the elementary general education population. The first experiment compared the outcomes of a teacher survey, teacher ranking, child survey, and brief multiple stimulus without replacement (MSWO) preference assessment. A Spearman rho correlation found that the indirect assessments either did not or only weakly correlated with the preference assessments. The second experiment utilized a single subject alternating treatments design to compare the reinforcing effectiveness of items identified as the …
Lock'em Up And Throw Away The Key: Racial Attitudes And The Structural Determinants Of Support For Crime Policy Among White Americans, Amanda J. Abraham
Lock'em Up And Throw Away The Key: Racial Attitudes And The Structural Determinants Of Support For Crime Policy Among White Americans, Amanda J. Abraham
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
This study investigates support for the death penalty and federal crime spending among white Americans. Data from the American National Election Studies (ANES) series (1992-2000) are matched with census tract level indicators of demographic and community characteristics from the 1990 and 2000 Census Bureau Summary File Tape 3A and county level crime data supplied by the Federal Bureau of Investigation�s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR). Ordered logistic regression is used to investigate five general research questions: (1) Are racial attitudes the most salient individual level predictors of support for crime policy among whites as suggested by prior research? (2) Are whites� …
Generation "X" Professional Women Leaving The Workforce To Become Full-Time, Stay-At-Home Mothers: A Qualitative Analysis Of Motivation, Meaning, And Mindful Parenting, Monisa Shackelford
Generation "X" Professional Women Leaving The Workforce To Become Full-Time, Stay-At-Home Mothers: A Qualitative Analysis Of Motivation, Meaning, And Mindful Parenting, Monisa Shackelford
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
Using qualitative data gathering and analysis, the current trend of professional women leaving workforce to rear their children full-time is examined. Women in the second generation to enter the labor force in large numbers indicate that there are factors that push them out of the workforce, such as a non-family friendly workplace, and factors that pull them back home, such as a profound need to rear their own children. While the transition from professional to stay-at-home mother is a complex process, the women in this study deal with this identity shift, and its attendant resistance, by framing their change in …
Who Said "Words Can Never Hurt?": An Investigation Of Child Weight Status, Childhood Psycosocial Variables, And Later Adult Quality Of Life, Holly Spencer Kihm
Who Said "Words Can Never Hurt?": An Investigation Of Child Weight Status, Childhood Psycosocial Variables, And Later Adult Quality Of Life, Holly Spencer Kihm
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
The first purpose of the research project was to examine the relationship between child weight status and adult quality of life. The second purpose of the research project was to test psychosocial variables as mediators of the relationship between child weight status and adult quality of life. A total of 164 undergraduate and graduate students from Louisiana State University participated in the study. The students completed five online questionnaires that were used to assess variables such as child weight status, adult weight status, history of childhood teasing experiences, child self-concept, and adult quality of life. Several statistical analyses were employed …
Training Parents In Consequence Delivery And To Initiate School Communication Using An Electronic Home-Based Reinforcement Program To Modify Students' Classroom Behaviors, Kashunda Lynn Williams
Training Parents In Consequence Delivery And To Initiate School Communication Using An Electronic Home-Based Reinforcement Program To Modify Students' Classroom Behaviors, Kashunda Lynn Williams
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
Existing research has shown that when parents and teachers work together, everyone benefits; students tend to earn higher grades, perform better on tests, attend school more regularly, have better behavior, and show more positive attitudes toward themselves and toward school (Canter, 2004). This study builds upon these findings by examining the effects of parent training and a parent implemented intervention (parent initiated home-school note via email) on students’ maladaptive classroom behavior and teachers’ ratings on Achenbach’s Teacher Report Form and Conner’s Ratings Scales. In addition, the effects of emailing parental performance feedback on parents’ adherence to intervention procedures (parent initiated …
Spatial Characteristics Of The Remotely-Sensed Surface Urban Heat Island In Baton Rouge, La: 1988-2003, Lynn Copeland Hardegree
Spatial Characteristics Of The Remotely-Sensed Surface Urban Heat Island In Baton Rouge, La: 1988-2003, Lynn Copeland Hardegree
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
Our understanding of urban effects on local climate remains unsatisfactory due to several difficulties: 1) the inherent complexity of the city-atmosphere system, 2) lack of a clear conceptual theoretical framework for inquiry, and 3) the high expense and enormous difficulties of acquiring a sufficient quantity of high-quality, high-resolution (both spatially and temporally) observations in cities. Using remotely-sensed data, this study analyzes urban heat islands (UHI) that are manifested through an elevation in the surface thermal emissions within urban regions known as surface heat islands (SHI). The study area for this research endeavor is Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Whereas the surface air …
Dynamics Of Globalization In Philippine Scientific Communities, Marcus Antonius Hidalgo Ynalvez
Dynamics Of Globalization In Philippine Scientific Communities, Marcus Antonius Hidalgo Ynalvez
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
This research attempts to shed light on the simultaneous influence of scientifically strong countries on Internet use and knowledge production at the global periphery. Using survey data from interviews of 312 Filipino scientists, this study answers the following questions: (1) Does place of graduate education (i.e., Australia, Japan, the United States and the Philippines) configure scientists’ Internet use? (2) Does Internet use shape scientists’ professional network? (3) Does place of graduate education, Internet use and professional network influence collaboration and research productivity? and (4) How does collaboration relate to productivity when professional network is accounted for? Results show that digital …
Statewide Public Affairs Television: Expanding The C-Span Model To The State Level And Achieving Institutional Status In The Process, Karen M. Rowley
Statewide Public Affairs Television: Expanding The C-Span Model To The State Level And Achieving Institutional Status In The Process, Karen M. Rowley
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
A study of 10 states that have statewide public affairs television networks finds that these systems have become an integral part of the state governmental process in the same way that C-SPAN has become an institution in Washington, D.C. That is, lawmakers, legislative staff members, lobbyists, and statehouse reporters ignore it at their peril. At the same time, the content produced by these state versions of C-SPAN has altered the way in which the members of these groups do their jobs by providing a monitoring capacity that makes it easier for them to be more productive. This study uses a …
Anti-Americanism: An Exploration Of A Contested Concept In Western Europe, Gregory Johnston
Anti-Americanism: An Exploration Of A Contested Concept In Western Europe, Gregory Johnston
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
Despite its popular currency and salience, anti-Americanism is understudied and misunderstood by social scientists. Even within academia, studies of anti-Americanism are often polemic, and logically or methodologically flawed. Focusing on Western Europe, we argue that anti-Americanism is a public opinion phenomenon, and present a definition of anti-Americanism based on social psychology, and demonstrate how cognitive psychological processes shape anti-Americanism. We outline several predictors of anti-Americanism, processes of internal cognition, responses to international political events, patterns of interpersonal communication and information diffusion, and the contextual role of ideology. We also observe the important implications European anti-Americanism has for support international institutions, …