Digital Commons Network^™

Mobile Dna Elements In Primate And Human Evolution, Jinchuan Xing, David J. Witherspoon, David A. Ray, Mark A. Batzer, Lynn B. Jorde

Faculty Publications

Roughly 50% of the primate genome consists of mobile, repetitive DNA sequences such as Alu and LINE1 elements. The causes and evolutionary consequences of mobile element insertion, which have received considerable attention during the past decade, are reviewed in this article. Because of their unique mutational mechanisms, these elements are highly useful for answering phylogenetic questions. We demonstrate how they have been used to help resolve a number of questions in primate phylogeny, including the human-chimpanzee- gorilla trichotomy and New World primate phylogeny. Alu and LINE1 element insertion polymorphisms have also been analyzed in human populations to test hypotheses about …

Rediscovering Civil War Classics: Civil War Books Not Yet Written, David Madden

Civil War Book Review

Civil War Books Not Yet Written

Trauma, Myth, And History In William Faulkner’S Absalom, Absalom! And E.L. Doctorow’S The Book Of Daniel, Alex Hargroder

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

In Black And White: The Effect Of Race On Listener Judgments Of Cajun And Creole French, Alison Landry

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Introduction To A Poetics Of Diversity: English Translation Of Édouard Glissant’S Introduction À Une Poétique Du Divers, Julee Rebecca Laporte

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

When In Rome An Examination Of Women And Political Rhetoric, Christina Grace Juneau

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

The Spirituality Of Trees In Later Seventeenth-Century Horticulture, Sandra Sherman

1650-1850: Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era

No abstract provided.

Montesquieu's Persian Chain Letters A New Solution To The Riddle, Randolph Runyon

1650-1850: Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern Era

No abstract provided.

A Study Examining The Impact Of Scaffolding Young Children's Acquisition Of Literacy In Primary Grades, Judith Rollins Burch

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This case study explores the implementation of scaffolding in literacy learning in a first grade classroom setting. The complexities and nuisances of scaffolding present in the elementary school classroom context during reading and writing instruction are examined. Ten first graders, five from a pilot study an five from the case study, are followed in reading and writing in a public school classroom. Themes indicate that students in lower elementary grades benefit from reading and writing instruction that include the following strategic elements: 1) leveled predictable texts; 2) small group guided reading and writing instruction; 3) systematic, strategic instruction based upon …

Displacement And The Text: Exploring Otherness In Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea, Maryse Condé'S La Migration Des Coeurs, Rosario Ferré'S The House On The Lagoon, And Tina De Rosa's Paper Fish, Melody Boyd Carriere

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is a study of how some displaced Caribbean and Italian American women examine identity within a literary tradition that considers them "Other." I have chosen four culturally diverse novels to explore, each one written by a different female author: Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea, Maryse Condé's La migration des cœurs, Rosario Ferré's The House on the Lagoon, and Tina De Rosa's Paper Fish. I identify the causes of the protagonists' displacement, and analyze the actions they take to make themselves heard in a tradition that has formerly silenced them. The role of the mother is especially important in …

Production Well Operations Optimization In Water Distribution System Using Genetic Algorithm, Vineet Katiyar

LSU Master's Theses

The City of Chandler, Arizona lies in semi-arid area and the water resources management has been a major concern by the State citizen. There is always a need of optimizing the available water resources when the rate of demand constantly beats the rate of replenishment. In this study we have developed a management model to link the Chandler water distribution model (EPANET) with the Chandler groundwater flow model (MODFLOW) under an optimization framework (Genetic algorithm). The EPANET model supplied by the Chandler city municipal authority has several improper setting (pumping schedules, valves settings, pressure zones etc.). The original model has …

University Of Pennsylvania Ms Codex 436: A Description And Analysis Of Contents, Jeannette Di Bernardo Jones

LSU Master's Theses

The University of Pennsylvania Ms. Codex 436, an Italian manuscript dated 1682, is a handbook containing alphabets, linguistic treatises, a computus for calculating the date of Easter, mathematical tables, and rules for music theory and singing the liturgy. The manuscript's contents make it possible to identify the compiler as a student; the contents, along with their mode of presentation and the manuscript's general appearance, make it possible to situate him within the culture of humanism and more specifically within book culture in the transition from manuscript to print. The contents indicate who the compiler is in terms of his social …

"I Hear You, But I Don't Understand You": The Effects Of Peer Tutoring For Helping Secondary Esl Students Achieve Academic Success, Mary Pyron

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

When I began teaching 11th grade English in Houston, Texas, I quickly discovered that students who speak English as a second language are sometimes drastically under-prepared for the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) test, the state’s high stakes test required during the 11th grade year. The result of their inability to pass the test is that they do not graduate, which limits their future career and academic choices. In a semester-long research study at a typical high school in Houston, Texas, I explored the possibility of assisting ESL/LEP students transplanted to Houston as they struggled with English proficiency …

Expectation In Visual Symbolic Processing Of Environmental Symbols In People With Fluent Aphasia, Amanda Stead

LSU Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine aspects of visual symbolic processing in those individuals with fluent aphasia, and how it compares to that of their lexical ability. Two groups of participants were examined: a group with fluent aphasia, and a group of non-neurologically damaged controls. Participants were administered four computer based expectation tasks, two of which were symbolic, and two which were lexical. Each task contained a simple and a complex level. Participants were required to determine if the final stimulus, within a set of four, was congruent or incongruent. The measures taken included both reaction time and …

Computer-Aided Weld Inspection By Fuzzy Modeling With Selected Features, Sean Najm Ghazavi

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis develops a computer-aided weld inspection methodology based on fuzzy modeling with selected features. The proposed methodology employs several filter feature selection methods for selecting input variables and then builds fuzzy models with the selected features. Our fuzzy modeling method is based on a fuzzy c-means (FCM) variant for the generation of fuzzy terms sets. The implemented FCM variant differs from the original FCM method in two aspects: (1) the two end terms take the maximum and minimum domain values as their centers, and (2) all fuzzy terms are forced to be convex. The optimal number of terms and …

Georges De La Tour's Flea-Catcher And The Iconography Of The Flea-Hunt In Seventeenth-Century Baroque Art, Crissy Bergeron

LSU Master's Theses

This essay performs a comprehensive investigation of the thematic possibilities for Georges de La Tour's Flea-Catcher (1630s-1640s) based on related artworks, religion, and emblematic, literary, and pseudo-scientific texts that may have had a bearing on it. The results of my research are grouped into two categories that embrace the range of interpretations for the work: religion and sexuality. While religious iconography characterizes most of La Tour's extant creations, the hypothetically religious content of his Flea-Catcher is difficult to discern. However, it is possible to analyze the iconography, as well as some of the ancillary motifs found in La Tour's painting, …

Parenting Experiences Of Eastern European Immigrant Professionals In The U.S.: A Qualitative Study, Olena Nesteruk

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In 2004, the nation’s foreign-born population numbered approximately 35 million comprising about 12% of the total U.S. population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2005). Most studies of immigrants primarily research the two largest immigrant groups, those from Latin America and Asia, while little has been done with the less visible population of immigrants from Eastern Europe. Also, we know much about the experiences of low-income immigrants of color, but little about the experiences of white immigrant families in the professional ranks. A qualitative study was conducted with immigrant professionals from Eastern Europe to explore their experiences with raising children in a new …

A Study Of Auxiliary Be In African American English: A Comparison Of Children With And Without Specific Language Impairment, April W. Garrity

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study’s purpose was to examine the use of auxiliary BE forms in African American English (AAE)-speaking children with and without language impairment. The impetus for this work was a lack of information in the literature about BE use in AAE as a function of form, language status, and tasks, and the relevance of this type of data for testing one theoretical model of childhood language impairment, the Extended Optional Infinitive account (EOI; Rice, Wexler, & Cleave, 1995). Thirty African Americans participated: 10 six-year-olds with specific language impairment (SLI); 10 age controls (AM); and, 10 language controls (LM). All of …

Alphabetic And Phonemic Awareness In Toddlers, Pamela A. Terrell

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The ability of 20-24 month-old toddlers to recognize graphemes and phonemes was investigated by reading a Phonic Faces (PF) alphabet picture book. Phonic Faces iconically picture a letter in the mouth of a character producing the sound (the curve of the P looks like the top lip popping the /p/ sound). The book was composed of nine letters and was read individually to experimental subjects three times weekly for six weeks. The control group received no treatment, but engaged in individual play activities for comparable time. Following six-weeks the groups alternated so the former control group now received the alphabet …

The Effects Of 3-Dimensional Cadd Modeling Software On The Development Of The Spatial Ability Of Ninth Grade Technology Discovery Students, K. Lynn Basham

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine if there is a difference in the development of spatial abilities of ninth grade Technology Discovery students in Mississippi as measured by the Purdue Visualization of Rotations Test. Students experienced one of three differing instructional methods utilizing Pro/Desktop® 3-D CADD solid modeling software. Participants were students in Mississippi schools operating on a 4 x 4 block schedule during either fall or spring semesters during the 2005-2006 school year, and a control group of students whose schools did not offer CADD. Instructional material designed by the researcher was used for two instructional …

Local Norms And Innovations Within The System Of Locative Prepositions In Cajun French, Sibylle Maria Noetzel

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Cajun French presents variable use of linguistic features, as any other variety of French does. Many Cajun French features are considered as deviant from the French norm or triggered by attrition although fluent speakers of Cajun French have always used them. In this sociolinguistic study, we analyze the use of locative prepositions. We add two important dimensions to existing studies: real-time evidence for a diachronic descriptive perspective, and a methodological tool, measuring the degree of exposure to French (MDI). This approach allows us to establish the local prepositional norm of Cajun French and phenomena due to attrition. Large amounts of …

Synaptic Boojums: Lewis Carroll, Linguistic Nonsense, And Cyberpunk, Jennifer Kelso Farrell

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Tracing a line from Lewis Carroll to 20th-century science fiction and cyberpunk, this project establishes an alternate genealogy based on the use of linguistic nonsense. Science fiction, rather than being merely a genre defined by specific narrative devices or character traits, is instead a language in and of itself. And like any language, it must be learned in order to be understood. Carroll used nonsense as a means of subverting conventional 19th-century opinions of language and, and by extension, society. Carroll was so successful at this that in 1937 American psychiatrist Paul Schilder discussed the dangers to a child's mind …

Franc̦Ais Acadien, Franc̦Ais Cadien: Variation Stylistique Et Maintenance De Formes Phonetiques Dans Le Parler De Quatre Generations De Femmes Cadiennes, Carole Lucienne Salmon

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is a sociolinguistic study examining the phonetic variation in the speech of four generations of Cajun French women, living in four Louisiana parishes: Avoyelles, Lafourche, St Landry and Vermillon. Based on the Gold 1975 corpus and the Dubois 1997 Cajun French corpus available at LSU, a sample of 29 speakers was chosen for the analysis of five traditional phonetic variables: O in front of nasals MM/NN and liquids R and L, Œ in front of R, E in front of R and at the third person ending of the imparfait, J in lexical words, personal pronoun JE, and …

A Non-Traditional Traditionalist: Rev. A. H. Sayce And His Intellectual Approach To Biblical Authenticity And Biblical History In Late-Victorian Britain, Roshunda Lashae Belton

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The relationship between science and religion was a dominant topic in late-Victorian Britain. This is exemplified in the debate over biblical authenticity and bible history. After 1860 higher criticism, the textual examination of the biblical texts became a prominent issue of discussion in British society. Higher critics brought into question the authorship and authenticity of the Pentateuch, particularly that of Genesis. One significant contributor to this debate was Oxford educator and Assyriologist Rev. Archibald Henry Sayce, who firmly believed that philology, history and, particularly, archeology provided the evidence necessary to validate the accuracy of biblical texts. Supporters of orthodoxy embraced …

Rate Change Effects On Acoustic Duration Measures On An Adolescent Who Stutters, Valerie Jean Courville

LSU Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to determine if reduced rate techniques have an effect on speech motor coordination of an adolescent. A literature review revealed that a reduced rate technique consistently promoted more fluent speech; however, the cause of that increase in fluency is not known. This study proposed three specific questions to determine if there was a shortening of the /s/ phoneme in clustered contexts when compared to singletons, if reducing the rate would cause the adolescent to produce more adult-like shortening patterns, and if the reduced rate technique caused a decrease in stuttering events. One eleven year …

The Genealogy Of Morals: Contemporary Empirical Accounts, Franklin Donald Worrell

LSU Master's Theses

In the late twentieth century, moral realists began to resurrect a type of argument that emerged during the Enlightenment. These realists appealed to moral progress as evidence for moral facts, and their arguments took the form of inferences to the best explanation. Recently, the argument style has emerged again. This time, the inference to the best explanation is being used by empirically-informed sentimentalists to argue that their theories can provide accounts of moral evolution that have greater explanatory and predictive power than the accounts offered by the moral realists. This thesis examines the arguments to the best explanation of such …

Nueva Orleans: Hispanics In New Orleans, The Catholic Church, And Imagining The New Hispanic Community, Katie Judith Berchak

LSU Master's Theses

New Orleans, Louisiana, is a city with a rich Hispanic history which is often overlooked. Likewise, the role the Catholic Church has played in assisting the immigrant groups that have settled in New Orleans in the building of their communities has also often been ignored. The first part of this work will seek to trace the different Hispanic groups that have come to the city, their often unacknowledged legacies, and examine what role the Catholic Church played in their communities and history. During Spanish rule of colonial Louisiana from 1762 to 1803, Spanish colonists and recruits from the Canary Islands …

The Clinical Utility Of Mlu And Ipsyn For Aae-Speaking Children, Emily Lee Jones

LSU Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine the clinical utility of two assessment measures for one group of nonstandard English dialect speakers, that of African-American English- (AAE) speaking children. The measures were mean length of utterance (MLU) and Index of Productive Syntax (IPSyn). The clinical utility of these measures was examined by comparing MLU and IPSyn values of three different groups of AAE speakers to determine if these measures are influenced by a child’s socio-economic status, dialect status, and/or clinical language status. An item analysis was also completed for IPSyn to determine if the items on this tool are …

Korean Hurricane Media Discourse Analysis, Youngae Lee

LSU Master's Theses

Presented within this thesis, I have analyzed a particular TV broadcast news discourse called Korean Hurricane Media Discourse (KHMD), which was presented online from YTN, a Korean cable TV news station. The data presents the topic of the Korean refugees who were forced to evacuate to Baton Rouge from New Orleans, after facing the destructions of Hurricane Katrina on August 2005. The methods are Ron Scollon’s TV news frames (1998), van Dijk’s superstructure (1988a and 1988b) and macrostructure (1980), Allan Bell’s news structure (1991), Dell Hymes’s SPEAKING model (1974), and Erving Goffman’s frameworks (1986). Since KHMD is a spoken, plannable …

I Want To Know You I Want To Understand You, Jeane Dos Santos Alves Cooper

LSU Master's Theses

I want to know you I want to understand you is a new media work that uses the World Wide Web to discuss the issues of traditional and new methods of communication, as well as exploring the concepts of collaborative and interactive art.