Digital Commons Network^™

The "Sacred Harp" In The Urban North: 1970-1995., Mark David Johnson

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

In 1994 the Sacred Harp, a southern, shape-note tunebook, entered its 150th year of continuous use. First compiled in 1844 by B. F. White and E. J. King, and updated numerous times, The Sacred Harp books in the "Denson" tradition, including The Sacred Harp: 1991 Edition, are today the most popular and widely used twentieth-century revisions of any nineteenth-century tunebook. Sacred Harp singing has been a largely rural, Southern tradition and in the years between 1844 and the early 1970s several hundred separate singings were founded, many of which continue to be active. In the early 1990s the Sacred Harp …

The Use Of Communication Facilitators With Severely Brain Injured Non-Responsive Adults., Alisa Judith Mendoza

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Slow-to-Recover (STR) individuals are a subset of the neurologically impaired population who remain non-responsive for extended periods of time before beginning to demonstrate improvement in cognitive, communicative, or motor function. This investigation focuses on the development and implementation of a facilitator-based intervention program carried out with an STR brain injured adult residing in a long-term care facility. The model involved: (1) sensory stimulation techniques to increase responses to external stimuli, (2) augmentative techniques which enabled the subject to control his immediate environment and, (3) training of qualified residents within the facility to act as communication facilitators. Ethnographic procedures were employed …

Use Of Geographic Information System Technology To Assess Vulnerability To Shallow Groundwater Contamination., Brenda G. Bruner

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Geographic Information System (GIS) technology was used to develop a local scale screening procedure for assessing shallow ground water's vulnerability to nitrate contamination. The procedure was based on the spatial distribution of ten key physical and chemical properties of soils. Both flow characteristics and attenuation capabilities of soils were incorporated into the assessment. Land surface areas were classified by the GIS to show the level of vulnerability present at a site as a result of existing natural conditions. The procedure produced a Vulnerability Index (VI), and resulted in VI ranging from 4.98 to 6.72 for the study area (with ten …

Scale, Resolution And Resampling: Representation And Analysis Of Remotely Sensed Landscapes Across Scale In Geographic Information Systems., Stephanie Jean Weigel

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Earth system scientists are increasingly using the technologies of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) in their analyses of earth system processes and patterns. These investigations take place over a wide range of scales, from the local to the global. Global change researchers focus on both the physical and human dimensions of changes in the earth's landscapes, which occur across a range of scales and may be scale dependent. The way in which landscapes are represented in GIS and RS, using specific spatial data models and data spatial resolutions, affects the subsequent analyses that can be performed. Optimally …

Performance, Cultural Identity, And Feminist Practice In The Oral History Of An African-American Domestic Worker., Elondust Patrick Johnson

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

This study analyzes the personal narrative of Mary Rhyne, an elderly African American domestic worker. The study describes the ethnographic process of collecting, transcribing and interpreting the informant's oral history. Interpretive and theoretical perspectives concerned with African American culture, domestic labor, and feminist practice are used to analyze the narrative. Further, the ethnographic process, the informant's oral "telling," and the events that she recalls and recounts are viewed as, and in terms of, performance. Performance foregrounds the collaborative and "fictional" aspects of the ethnographer-informant relationship. It directs attention toward the "performance event" as a site and situation where the teller …

The Application Of Network Analysis To The Study Of Differentially Effective Schools., Maryann Maxwell Durland

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

This study applied network analysis to the exploration of the structural characteristics of differentially effective elementary schools within the framework of school effectiveness research. The study took place in two parts: a Pilot Study, using archived data, and a Field Study, using data from a stratified sample of differentially effective schools. The Centrality-Cohesiveness Model of School Effectiveness, developed through the Pilot Study, defined a communication structure as a function of the leadership status of the principal (defined by the principal's centrality) and the cohesiveness of the faculty (defined as network density). Quantitative results from both the Pilot Study and the …

The Archaeological Site Of Port Dauphin (1mb61): Its Role In The French Colony On Mobile Bay, George W. Shorter

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The French colony in Louisiana resulted from the competition between France, Spain, and England for control of the region. France's interest, that began with the expedition of La Salle in 1682, resulted in the founding of the first French permanent colony on the Gulf coast by Iberville in 1699, Fort Maurepas. The colony was moved in 1702 to Mobile Bay. Mobile, the capital, was located 39 miles upriver for access to the Indian nations of the interior. Dauphin Island served as port. After two decades the colony was refocused on the Mississippi River, but the first 20 years of French …

“Doctor-Patient Communication: Cataract Surgery Versus Radial Keratotomy Surgery”, Mary L. Polley

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Bead Colors As Social Relations Markers At Mission Soledad, California, Lori Lee Buck

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

This thesis is an interpretive analysis focusing on the use of beads as a tool for determining social relations at Mission Soledad, California. The main indicator of social relations used in this thesis is bead distribution. Two attributes were used to classify the beads, color and type.

To understand the importance of the bead distribution, the ideologies of the three native cultures that were recruited to the mission and the Spanish missionaries who founded the mission were studied. From this information, color symbolism and sources were examined to gain knowledge of important colors. This was done with the hopes that …

Louisiana Agriculture Magazine, Spring 1995, Lsu Agricultural Experiment Station

Louisiana Agriculture

No abstract provided.

Gumbo Yearbook, Class Of 1995, Louisiana State University And Agricultural And Mechanical College

Gumbo Yearbook

The Gumbo yearbook chronicles the entire academic year at LSU. In words and especially photos, the Gumbo shows the people, places, and events that make each year unique. In addition to formal portraits of schools and departments, the book contains hundreds of snapshots of students with their friends and dozens of pages showcasing organizations.

Looking Like What You Are: Race, Sexual Style And The Construction Of Identity., Lisa Walker

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

This project explores the function of body politics in constructing minority identities, or how people's physical and stylistic attributes are invested with meanings about who they are. It is interested in how race and sexual differences are defined in the confluence of discourses around visibility and invisibility. The first two chapters set up the parameters of in/visibility with regard to sexual and racial differences in readings of two paradigmatic texts about visibility, Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness, which produces the lesbian as visible in the figure of the butch, and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, which explores the paradoxical notion …

Lords Of The Hills-Ancient Maya Settlement In The Puuc Region, Yucatan, Mexico-Dunning, Np, Andrew Sluyter

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Gene Conversion As A Secondary Mechanism Of Short Interspersed Element (Sine) Evolution, David H. Kass, Mark A. Batzer, Prescott L. Deininger

Faculty Publications

The Alu repetitive family of short interspersed elements (SINEs) in primates can be subdivided into distinct subfamilies by specific diagnostic nucleotide changes. The older subfamilies are generally very abundant, while the younger subfamilies have fewer copies. Some of the youngest Alu elements are absent in the orthologous loci of nonhuman primates, indicative of recent retroposition events, the primary mode of SINE evolution. PCR analysis of one young Alu subfamily (Sb2) member found in the low-density lipoprotein receptor gene apparently revealed the presence of this element in the green monkey, orangutan, gorilla, and chimpanzee genomes, as well as the human genome. …

Ethnicity Toward Multiculturalism: Socio-Spatial Relations Of The Korean Community In Honolulu, 1903-1940., Youngmin Lee

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

This research deals with the dynamic ethnic socio-spatial relations and the transformation of ethnic identities in the early-twentieth-century Honolulu, mainly focusing on the Korean community. Against the widely spread notion that the ethnic relations of Honolulu in those days were little associated with the racist ideology which was prevalent in the contemporary mainland cities, this research shows that white-supremacy ideology had exerted strong influence on the minority groups in Honolulu all the way through their immigration and settling-down process. Although Honolulu included a balanced population among several ethnic groups and thus had no ethnic division of "majority" and "minority" in …

Biogeographic, Ecological, And Evolutionary Aspects Of South American Austral Migration, With Special Reference To The Family Tyrannidae., Robert Terry Chesser

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

South American austral migrants are bird species that breed in temperate South America in the southern summer and migrate north, towards or into northern South America, for the southern winter. Austral migration is similar to other avian migration systems in many ways, but its uniquely South American locale is reflected geographically by the relatively short-distance migrations of most austral migrants, and taxonomically by the numerical dominance of the suboscine family Tyrannidae (the tyrant-flycatchers), of which more than 70 species migrate. Detailed examination of the distributions of austral migrant flycatchers revealed that each is to some extent unique, but that discernible …

Seen And Unseen Cities: Embodied Worlds In Epic And The Novel., Eamon G. Halpin

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

By all accounts, the city has ceased to function as a cosmos, a coherent world which can offer meaning and validity to the lives of its inhabitants. If the ancient city presented the very image of order, the city since the advent of the Industrial Revolution has appeared to us as a jungle, a wilderness, a wasteland, an endless labyrinth--all images which suggest an essentially chaotic space, one which lacks any organizing principle or rationale. Moreover, if the city once offered the individual the greatest possible realization of his freedom, it now appears as the space in which he is …

Notions Of Happiness In Rousseau's "Julie"., Peter Buttross Jr

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

This enquiry first establishes both the importance and the general meaning of the notions of happiness in Rousseau's corpus. Both private and public happiness are seen as the overarching intent of his life as a thinker. The possibility of a tertiary notion of happiness--between private and public--is presented with the introduction of the subject work Julie; or The New Heloise. Themes considered at some length are passion/virtue, happiness/duty, love/friendship, as well as the notions of Platonic and courtly love--not to mention the dichotomy motion/rest. At the end of Part One of the novel, the lovers are forcibly separated, and the …

Review Of The Cultural Landscape During 6000 Years In Southern Sweden—The Ystad Project, Edited By Björn E. Berglund, Andrew Sluyter

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Cross-Case Analysis Of Middle School Reading Teachers' Theoretical Orientations As They Relate To Classroom Practices., Shirley Theriot Fogleman

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Each interaction between teachers and students is a reflection of the theory that these professionals, sometimes unknowingly, posit about what should be occurring in their classrooms. The purpose of this study is to explore the differences between middle school language arts teachers' beliefs about how children actually read a text, and how these teachers translate these beliefs into classroom practices. The beliefs we hold about reading comprehension are essential to our understanding about how we should instruct and assess our students in our classes. Leu and Kinzer (1988) refer to two beliefs' frameworks of comprehension in reading, based on the …

Rural Industry And Rural Development In China: The Role Of Geography, Transportation, And Policy In Jiangsu Province., Shew-Jiuan B. Su

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

A significant change in China since late 1978 is the development of rural industry (also township-village enterprise, or TVE). Rural industry is particularly important in light of China's current policy of socio-economic decentralization. Rural industry not only absorbs surplus labor and pushes the increases of agricultural productivity, it also revitalizes China's previously lethargic economy. In this study, variations in employment, production value, and economic efficiency of rural industry are analyzed in terms of geographical, transportation and policy determinants at the county/city level of Jiangsu Province in China. Rural industry's contribution to agricultural and rural welfare activities, and how levels of …

The Relationship Between The Accuracy Of Certain "Generalized" Body Density Prediction Equations And Indices Of Fatness, Body Physique/Proportionality And Fat Distribution., Christopher Melancon Hearon

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

There is a need to eliminate the least accurate of the existing equations for anthropometrical body density prediction and support for the use of specific prediction equations over generalized equations. The purpose of the investigation was to examine the accuracy of the Jackson-Pollock (JP) and Durnin-Womersley (DW) generalized anthropometrical body density prediction equations in relation to indices of overall fatness, regional fat distribution and body proportionality. The relationships between prediction accuracy (predicted body density minus hydrodensitometric estimate of body density) and three mass/stature indices (total fatness indices), waist-to-hip circumference ratio (WC/HC)(android/gynoid fat distribution) and the three components of the Heath-Carter …

The Association Between Anticyclonic Weather Changes Over The Central Gulf Coast And Large-Scale Circulation Changes., Robert V. Rohli

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Trends in winter extratropical anticyclonic weather type frequencies (1961-1989) were examined for New Orleans, Louisiana, in order to identify the effects of global climatic change on regional-scale circulation changes over the central Gulf Coast. The number of days dominated by surface continental anticyclones (CH days) was found to have decreased significantly over time, while Pacific anticyclone (PH) frequency showed significant temporal increase. Therefore, 50 kPa geopotential height variability, 50 kPa geostrophic flow, and surface atmospheric variables were examined to determine whether changes in these features have accompanied the frequency changes in weather types. Prior to PH days, areas of greatest …

Performing The Community, Telling The Self: Storytelling By Members Of A Group Home For Men With Mental Retardation., Sharon Elizabeth Croft

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

This study uses an ethnographic approach to examine the stories told by members of a group home for men with mental retardation. The author contends that the culture of the group home works to constrain how group home members interact within this community. The author argues, however, that despite the cultural constraints, the men use storytelling to establish their individuality, even though the stories themselves, in their content and in the performance of their telling, often reify cultural constraints and their cultural constructions. The author recounts how she, as ethnographer, interacted within this community. After identifying, describing, and analyzing eight …

Boal And Theatre Of The Oppressed: A Performance-Centered Inquiry Of Eating And Body Image., Leigh Anne Howard

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Building upon the scholarly tradition that performance is a valuable pedagogical tool, I documented how six performers developed personal awareness, critical consciousness, and the ability to take action as a result of participating in a performance process. I designed a three-stage performance process. During the first phase of the process, focus group discussions, participants exhibited little awareness of their specific eating habits or the cultural constructedness of those habits. As they completed the first phase, they became more aware of their behaviors, and they began to identify food's social function. At the second stage, rehearsal sessions, six performers began to …

An Insider's View: The Teacher As Impetus In Literacy Acquisition., Kerry Pierce Laster

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to derive a deeper understanding of one successful kindergarten teacher, her behaviors, and her effect on students as they develop early literacy skills. This study examined the following aspects of teacher behavior as they related to early literacy development: (a) the interactions of the teacher with regular education and special education inclusion students in an inclusive kindergarten classroom with holistic, language-based curricula, (b) the behaviors of the teacher while engaging students in the literacy processes of reading and writing, (c) the behaviors of the teacher as she encouraged students to react to books using …

The Pueblo Region As A Linguistic Area: Diffusion Among The Indigenous Languages Of The Southwest United States., Catherine Bereznak

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

The goal of this dissertation is to investigate whether the Pueblo region of the Southwest United States is a legitimate linguistic area (LA). The Pueblo region has long been recognized as a cohesive culture area, but an in-depth examination of the Pueblo region as a linguistic area has not previously been done. Because a linguistic area is by definition an area in which linguistic features have spread through diffusion, traits which are widespread for other reasons (e.g., genetic inheritance or independent parallel development) must be eliminated as evidence for a Pueblo LA. The methodological approach which I adopt emphasizes the …

Louisiana's Cajun Prairie: Holocene History Of A Southern Grassland., Miriam Lee Fearn

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Pollen, phytolith, charcoal, and diatom analysis, in conjunction with sediment stratigraphy and radiocarbon dating, of sediment cores from Lake Arthur and Prien Lake, estuaries in southwestern Louisiana, provide 6000 years of data used to reconstruct the late-Holocene vegetation history of Louisiana's natural prairie and to define coastal processes which affected the sites. The Cajun Prairie is a grassland outlier in a climate which normally supports forest. Poorly drained, impermeable soils with poor water yielding capability induce summer drought severe enough to limit the success of trees, resulting in a natural tallgrass prairie. Pollen, phytoliths, and charcoal suggest that the grassland …

Text And Context Of The Suwo': Bribri Oral Tradition., Carla Victoria Jara

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation comprises the analysis of six extensive texts in Bribri, a Chibchan language spoken in Costa Rica, Central America. The theoretical framework is based mainly on M.A.K. Halliday and Ruqaiya Hasan's social-semiotic perspective of text analysis and on Joseph Grimes' analysis of discourse. In order to characterize this genre within its context of discourse, the three components of context, i.e., field, tenor and mode, have been defined for the corpus of texts. To determine how texture and structure, the basic properties of text, are displayed, one text is analyzed in detail and the results are compared with the other …

African Origin Of Human-Specific Polymorphic Alu Insertions, Mark A. Batzer, Mark Stoneking, Michelle Alegria-Hartman, Hernan Bazan, David H. Kass, Tamim H. Shaikh, Gabriel E. Novick, Panayiotis A. Ioannou, W. Douglas Scheer, Rene J. Herrera, Prescott L. Deininger

Faculty Publications

Alu elements are a family of interspersed repeats that have mobilized throughout primate genomes by retroposition from a few 'master' genes. Among the 500,000 Alu elements in the human genome are members of the human- specific subfamily that are not fixed in the human species; that is, not all chromosomes carry an Alu element at a particular locus. Four such polymorphic human-specific Alu insertions were analyzed by a rapid, PCR-based assay that uses primers that flank the insertion point to determine genotypes based on the presence or absence of the Alu element. These four polymorphic Alu insertions were shown to …