Digital Commons Network^™

Pursuing Enlightenment In Vienna, 1781-1790, Heather Morrison

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Radical transformations came about in Vienna during the 1780s, as intellectuals in the city embraced the Enlightenment and explored ways in which the movement could be spread. In 1781, Joseph II and his state reformed censorship. In an instant, the Viennese had access to the great scholarly works of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe. In an instant, Vienna spawned a multitude of writers, publishing houses, reading rooms and all the accoutrements of a culture of print. The newly generated intellectual culture produced an amazing amount of pamphlets, an era termed the Broschürenflut in Austrian history. Public debate on the state, religion, …

Three Essays In Labor And Health Economics, Christopher K. Coombs

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This Dissertation is primarily focused on the study of U.S. workforce trends. Research over the past fifty years, with respect to the choices that individuals make in terms of maximizing their own well-being, has covered several areas. Additionally, the legal climate has changed dramatically over this time period and research in this area has covered the possible effects on economic outcomes, including an individual's well-being. The first essay focuses on the trend in trade union membership in the U.S. over the last few decades. We revisit what is known as the government substitution hypothesis which basically addresses the question of …

The Relationship Between The Papacy And The Jews In Twelfth-Century Rome: Papal Attitudes Toward Biblical Judaism And Contemporary European Jewry, Marie Therese Champagne

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The relationship of the papacy to the Jews in the Middle Ages, which had developed under the influences of Patristic writers, Roman law, and papal precedent, was marked in the twelfth century by toleration and increasing restriction, but also by papal protection. Between the First Crusade massacres of Jews and the restrictions and persecutions of the thirteenth century, the twelfth century is set apart as a unique era in the lives of European Jews. As Eugenius III (1145-1153) and Alexander III (1159-1181) extended their protection to the Jews of Rome and perhaps all of Christendom through the papal document Sicut …

Anglian Leadership In Northumbria, 547 A.D. Through 1075 A.D., Jean Anne Hayes

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Britain were founded in warfare beginning in the fifth century. These kingdoms developed alongside the native Romanized Britons, who attempted to reassert their authority in Britain in the wake of the Roman withdrawal. Northumbria, located north of the Humber River, the largest and most northerly of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms played a vital role in the politics of early medieval Britain. During the seventh century, the Northumbrian kings were recognized as the overkings of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, as well as the neighboring British and Pictish kingdoms. Over the course of several centuries, the leaders of Northumbria alternately …

Aspects Of The Life History, Ecophysiology, Bioenergetics, And Population Dynamics Of The Cownose Ray, Rhinoptera Bonasus, In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico, Julie Ann Neer

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The cownose ray, Rhinoptera bonasus, is an elasmobranch commonly observed throughout the Gulf of Mexico. Cownose rays appear to be sensitive to water temperature. I performed laboratory experiments and collected field data to obtain basic life history information, and used the information to configure an individual-based bioenergetics model. The bioenergetics model was coupled to a matrix projection model, and the coupled models were used to predict how warmer and cooler water temperatures, compared to current conditions, would affect the growth and population dynamics of the cownose rays. The life history study determined weight at age, maturity by weight, and fecundity …

The Iconography Of Nationalism: Icons, Popular Culture, And American Nationalism, Dallas Hulsey

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The Iconography of Nationalism: Icons, Popular Culture, and American Nationalism develops a model of cultural icons, defining icons as highly visible, culturally variable, and overdetermined auratic images. Situating icons within the context of mass reproduction technologies and American nationalism, this study seeks to demystify the simple images presented by infantile, national, and scapegoat icons in literature, film, and political rhetoric. This dissertation argues that icons participate in the American nationalist project by channeling citizens’ political and patriotic feelings through seemingly simple images. While acknowledging that icons are necessary to construct what Benedict Anderson calls “the imagined community” of the nation, …

A Case Study Inquiry Into The Relative Impact Of Balanced Reading Instruction On Hispanic Students In A Highly Culturally Diverse Elementary School, Rita Ramirez

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This research explores the relative impact of Balanced Reading instruction upon Hispanic students in a highly culturally diverse elementary school. This case study inquiry focuses on Hispanic students learning to read in English in kindergarten, first and third grade, how these Hispanic students are affected by the classroom setting within the context of the Balanced Reading instructional framework of each respective grade, and what are the similarities and differences in the learning methodologies and strategies that impact the learning curve of these Hispanic students. The researcher collects qualitative data to determine the methods and strategies found to be most effective …

Technology Adoption Into Teaching And Learning By Mainstream University Faculty: A Mixed Methodology Study Revealing The 'How, When, Why, And Why Not', Pamela Stone Nicolle

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The field of educational technology has been and continues to be an influential component within the vast array of educational strategies, pedagogies, plans, and processes designed to enhance student learning. Faculties are realizing the relevance and potential of educational technologies in their teaching and professional and personal growth. However, the distance between envisioning technological use and actual implementation is often a long, winding road for many educators.

University faculty members are in the midst of a strong emphasis by various stakeholders to travel that road and to travel it with speed and accuracy. The mainstream members of tertiary level faculties …

Illinois Legislators Revisited: A Comparison Of Legislators' Perceptions And Attitudes Toward Constituent E-Mail, Mary Louise Sheffer

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This is a follow up study to a 2000 report, which measured and compared Illinois state legislators’ attitudes and perceptions toward constituent e-mail, and its impact on personal political agendas. Along with measuring attitudes, this study sought to measure and compare the impact of advances in e-mail technology on Illinois legislators’ use of e-mail as a political tool of communication. The panel comparison consisted of 59% of respondents who participated in both the 2000 and the 2004 study. A survey conducted in February 2000 showed that 89% of Illinois legislators had an active e-mail address, but only 65% of those …

Feed Sack Fashions In South Louisiana, 1949-1968: The Use Of Commodity Bags In Garment Construction, Jennifer Lynn Banning

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In the first part of this study, 37 commodity bag garments made and worn by one woman in rural South Louisiana between the years 1949-1968 were analyzed. The garments are currently in the collection of the Louisiana State University Textile and Costume Museum. A material culture study model, originally developed by Fleming and adapted from Severa and Horswill, was used to identify, evaluate, culturally analyze and interpret the design, construction, and fabric characteristics of garments. Access to this collection provided a rare opportunity to examine the attributes of a related group of commodity bag garments. In the second part of …

Power And Memory Optimization Techniques In Embedded Systems Design, Atef Khalil Allam

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Embedded systems incur tight constraints on power consumption and memory (which impacts size) in addition to other constraints such as weight and cost. This dissertation addresses two key factors in embedded system design, namely minimization of power consumption and memory requirement. The first part of this dissertation considers the problem of optimizing power consumption (peak power as well as average power) in high-level synthesis (HLS). The second part deals with memory usage optimization mainly targeting a restricted class of computations expressed as loops accessing large data arrays that arises in scientific computing such as the coupled cluster and configuration interaction …

Ecotoxicology Of Metal-Hydrocarbon Mixtures In Benthic Invertebrates, Kurt A. Gust

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Metal-hydrocarbon mixtures are becoming increasingly prevalent in natural environments due to expanding industrial activity and urbanization. The ecotoxicology of metal-hydrocarbon mixtures in benthic environments is of particular concern because both classes of contaminants partition to sediments and can thereby exert toxic effects in benthic organisms. Mixtures of dissimilar chemicals (including metals and hydrocarbons) are broadly hypothesized to elicit independent toxic effects however; this hypothesis has little supporting data. The purpose of this dissertation was to test this hypothesis for metal-hydrocarbon mixtures using environmentally relevant exposures and to determine mechanisms for observed interactive effects. Sediment and water-only bioassays were conducted employing …

Effects Of Spaced Retrieval On Memory And Quality Of Life In Older Adults With Probable Alzheimer's Disease, Karri S. Hawley

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study was designed to explore the effects of spaced-retrieval training on memory and quality of life in older adults with probable Alzheimer’s disease. A total nineteen older adults with probable Alzheimer’s disease (AD) participated in these experiments. Experiment one was designed to determine whether the spacing effect is contributing to the success of the spaced-retrieval intervention. Participants were trained to recall a name-face association using either the adjusted spaced-retrieval method or a fixed interval retrieval method. The results showed a more consistent performance profile for the spaced retrieval group in comparison to the fixed interval group, providing evidence that …

After Scotland: Irvine Welsh And The Ethic Of Emergence, Benjamin George Lanier-Nabors

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In “After Scotland: Irvine Welsh and the Ethic of Emergence,” the author’s objective is to mirror what he argues is the Scottish writer Irvine Welsh’s objective: to chart out a future Scotland guided by a generative life ethic. In order to achieve this objective, the author lays open and reengages Scotland’s past, discovers and commits to neglected or submerged materials and energies in its past, demonstrates how Welsh’s work is faithful to those and newly produced materials and energies, and suggests that Welsh’s use of those materials and energies enables readers to envision a new Scotland that will be integral …

Broadcast In Sparse Conversion Optical Networks Using Fewest Converters, Tong Yi

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Wavelengths and converters are shared by communication requests in optical networks. When a message goes through a node without a converter, the outgoing wavelength must be the same as the incoming one. This constraint can be removed if the node uses a converter. Hence, the usage of converters increases the utilization of wavelengths and allows more communication requests to succeed. Since converters are expensive, we consider sparse conversion networks, where only some specified nodes have converters. Moreover, since the usage of converters induces delays, we should minimize the use of available converters. The Converters Usage Problem (CUP) is to use …

Dragos Tanasescu's Treaties Of Pianistic Technique, Lucian B. Zidaru

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study examines Dragos Tanasescu's fingering system and technical exercises presented in Treatise of Pianistic Technique. The Treatise contains four books, each one dedicated to a segment of technical problems. Tanasescu's main contribution to the piano technique is the applications of math permutation formulas to create all possible arrangements of fingering patterns. His treatise continues previous technical approaches of A. Kullak, F. Liszt, J. Pischna and E. Dohnanyi. Earlier methods organize the technical material by one principle: fingerings. The purpose of this study is to illustrate the characteristics of Tanasescu's fingering system presented in Treatise of Pianistic Technique, and provide …

The Diffusion Of Gis In Journalism, Ben S. Wasike

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purposes of this study were to determine the likelihood of reporters to adopt Geographical Information Systems and to predict the future of the diffusion of GIS in the journalism industry using the diffusion of innovations theory. The study used two data collection methods: in-depth interviews and a Web survey. The indepth-interviews revealed factors that will influence the diffusion of GIS, including the availability of map data, competition between media agencies, the ease of getting management to buy GIS once its functionality has been demonstrated to them, and the general use of secondary GIS products. The Web survey showed that …

Cultural Performance Of Roadside Shrines: A Poststructural Postmodern Ethnography, Rebecca Marie Kennerly

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Marking the site of death on the road with a shrine, an increasingly popular cultural practice in the United States, is a deeply personal, private affair, however, because shrines are placed in the public right-of-way, they attract attention and invite participation, comment, and criticism. These sites, the materials that mark them, how people come to build them, the messages that those who build them hope to convey, and the accumulative force these sites bring to bear in various contexts offer unique insights into our complex, fragmented, and often confounding relationships with death, living memory, and selective forgetting. This project takes …

Foreign News Coverage In Selected U.S. Newspapers 1927-1997: A Content Analysis, Cleo Joffrion Allen

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This content analysis was designed to examine, in a single longitudinal study, trends in the quantity and kinds of world news coverage in selected U.S. newspapers during times of relative peace. Using complementary proportion and absolute-item frequencies, two constructed weeks in 1927, 1947, 1977, and 1997 in three newspapers, 168 issues in all, were analyzed. The findings indicate that the percentage of foreign news coverage compared to non-foreign coverage in the three newspapers actually increased between 1927 and 1997. The amount of foreign coverage spiked in 1947 and then started to decline. But even with the decline, coverage by proportion …

An Evaluation Of The Lsu Agricultural Center's Agriculture Leadership Development Program, 1988-2004, Michele Abington-Cooper

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if participants in the LSU AgCenter’s Agricultural Leadership Development Program have increased their leadership skills and become more involved in agricultural and community issues. The target population for this study was the 252 graduates of Classes I - VIII of the LSU Ag Leadership Program. This was a descriptive study using quantitative data. The questionnaire was developed from a review of the literature and instruments from related research. It was validated by a panel of experts from the LSU School of Human Resource Education and Workforce Development and the LSU AgCenter. The …

Schoolin' Women: Hip Hop Pedagogies Of Black Women Rappers, Nichole Ann Guillory

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The curriculum studies field has much to gain from an analysis of black women rappers’ texts. The knowledge black women rappers offer through their songs is worthy of study in schooling spaces and is too valuable for educators to continue to ignore if they want to become better teachers. Through their lyrics, black women rappers situate themselves in a public context and construct texts that represent young black women’s complex identities. Black women rappers create a space in hip hop discourse from which their stories enrich and complicate the public conversation about the representation of black women’s identities. This study …

Red Rice Competition And Control In Cultivated Rice, Christopher Todd Leon

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Studies were conducted to evaluate rice competitiveness with red rice and how to utilize glufosinate- and imazethapyr-resistant rice in water-seeded rice to control red rice. In the interference study, CL 121, Cocodrie, Drew, and Jasmine were seeded to obtain 95, 190, and 290 plants/sq m. Red rice density was 0 or 20 red rice plants/sq m. Jasmine, a tall, vigorous tillering, mid-season cultivar was more competitive with red rice. With the exception of Cocodrie grown red rice free, no benefit existed from increasing the seeding rate above 190 plants/sq m. Another study examined the effect of permanent flood establishment in …

The Effectiveness Of Student Support Services At A Research Extensive University In The South, Eric Lyle Penalber

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the influence of level of participation in services provided by the Student Support Services (SSS) Program on the grade point average, retention, and the six-year graduation rate of first-time entering freshmen who also entered the SSS program at a research extensive university in the South. Participants in the study were one hundred, fifty-two (152) SSS students who entered this university in the fall of 1996 and fall of 1997. Tinto’s (1987) longitudinal model of institutional departure was used as the conceptual framework for this study. Services provided by the SSS program …

The Lived Experience Of New Graduate Baccalaureate-Prepared Registered Nurses Working In An Acute Care Hospital Setting, Jeannie Ricks Harper

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore the lived experience of new graduate baccalaureate prepared Registered Nurses (RNs) who work in an acute care hospital setting. The study was a phenomenological qualitative research design, with researcher-developed guiding questions to help direct the interviews. Participants had passed the National Council for Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses (NCLEX-RN), and had been practicing from three months to one year. Eight RNs participated in the study, with seven usable interviews. Results found that new graduate RNs experience multiple stressors as they acclimate to their new roles. The primary stressors that were identified by …

Automatic Segmentation Of Magnetic Resonance Images Of The Brain, Kirk V. N. Spence

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a technique used primarily in medical settings to produce high quality images of the human body’s internal anatomy. Each image is of a thin slice through the body, with the typical distance between slices being a few millimeters. Brain segmentation is the delineation of one or more anatomical structures within images of the brain. It promotes greater understanding of spatial relationships to aid in such tasks as surgical planning and clinical diagnoses, particularly when the segmented outlines from each image slice are displayed together as a surface in three-dimensions. A review of the literature indicates …

Effectiveness Of The 4-H Advisory Committee Process As Perceived By 4-H Professionals And Advisory Committee Members, Mark Gerard Tassin

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The 4-H advisory process is crucial to program development in the 4-H youth development program in Louisiana. Parish 4-H advisory committees in each of the 64 parishes are involved in the addressing the needs of the clientele. The primary purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of the 4-H Advisory Process as perceived by 4-H professionals in Louisiana and primary stakeholder groups of the LSU Agricultural Center’s 4-H Program. Data for the study were obtained through surveys completed by 104 4-H youth development professionals and 142 parish 4-H advisory committee members. Additionally, six parish advisory committee members were …

Effects Of Gender Role On The Judgment Of Masculine Signs, Joseph C. Mitchell

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Masculinity is a multi-dimensional, fairly pliable construct that some scholars approach from a biological perspective, others approach from a social constructionist perspective, and others approach from a unifying perspective. Part of the environment that informs the meaning of masculinity to a given culture is the mass media. This study takes the constructivist theoretical perspective, which attempts to explain the activation of schemata. The schematic process for this study concerns how people perceive, process, and judge masculine signs. This study seeks to explain gender role orientation’s influences on the development of schemata for masculinity as evidenced by differences in assessments of …

Techniques For Low Power Analog, Digital And Mixed Signal Cmos Integrated Circuit Design, Chuang Zhang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

With the continuously expanding of market for portable devices such as wireless communication devices, portable computers, consumer electronics and implantable medical devices, low power is becoming increasingly important in integrated circuits. The low power design can increase operation time and/or utilize a smaller size and lighter-weight battery. In this dissertation, several low power complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) integrated circuit design techniques are investigated. A metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) can be operated at a lower voltage by forward-biasing the source-substrate junction. This approach has been investigated in detail and used to designing an ultra-low power CMOS operational amplifier for operation at …

Denitrification And Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Cultivated And Wetland Alluvial Soils, Sami Ullah

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Agricultural development in the Mississippi River Basin has contributed to an 3-fold increase in NO3 loading of the river. Increased NO3 loading is a primary cause of eutrophication in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Identification of best management practices (BMPs) to reduce NO3 loss and wetlands restoration to remove NO3 through denitrification are critically needed. The objectives of this research were to determine factors controlling denitrification potential of different landscape units in an agricultural watershed and quantify the effects of BMPs and organic C amendments on denitrification rates of cultivated lands and restored forested wetlands. N2O, CH4 and CO2 emissions …

The Free World Confronted: The Problem Of Slavery And Progress In American Foreign Relations, 1833-1844, Steven Heath Mitton

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Enacted in 1833, Great Britain’s abolition of West Indian slavery confronted the United States with the complex interrelationship between slavery and progress. Dubbed the Great Experiment, British abolition held the possibility of demonstrating free labor more profitable than slavery. Besides elating the world’s abolitionists, always hopeful of equating material with moral progress, the experiment’s success would benefit Britain economically. Presented evidence of the greater profits of free labor, slaveholders worldwide would find themselves with compelling reason to abandon slavery. Likewise, London policymakers would proceed with little need—and no economic incentive—to promote abolition in British foreign policy. British hopes foundered on …