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Structural And Molecular Pathology Of The Atrium In Boxer Arrhythmogenic Cardiomyopathy, Jorge Luis Vila Jan 2012

Structural And Molecular Pathology Of The Atrium In Boxer Arrhythmogenic Cardiomyopathy, Jorge Luis Vila

LSU Master's Theses

Arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy (AC), also known as arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC), is a disease characterized by fatty or fibro-fatty myocardial replacement, predominantly in the right ventricle and to a lower extent the left ventricle. It is recognized as a disease affecting the cardiac intercalated disc. Clinically, it is associated with ventricular arrhythmias, although atrial arrhythmias and atrial histopathological changes characteristic of AC have occasionally been reported. The full extent of atrial involvement in AC has not been investigated. Therefore, we aimed to apply histopathology, immunochemical detection, immunolocalization and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) techniques to characterize the distribution of desmosomal and …


A Syntax-Based Reading Intervention For English As Second-Language Learners, Christina Tausch Jan 2012

A Syntax-Based Reading Intervention For English As Second-Language Learners, Christina Tausch

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Students with English as second language (ESL) are typically behind monolingual peers in reading comprehension even when phonemic awareness skills, phonics and word recognition are at grade level. The lack of syntactic awareness is one of the reasons cited in multiple studies (August & Shanahan, 2010; Da Fountoura & Siegel, 1995; Lesaux & Siegel, 2003; Lesaux et al., 2006; Chong, 2009). This study investigated the effects of a six week intervention designed to increase syntactic awareness, including meta-awareness of key structures of English for young ESL students in the upper elementary grades. Twenty typically developing ESL students in the fourth …


Conduct Issues With Fraternities And Sororities: University Processes Evaluated At Four-Year Universities, Jonathan Burnard Sanders Jan 2012

Conduct Issues With Fraternities And Sororities: University Processes Evaluated At Four-Year Universities, Jonathan Burnard Sanders

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to discover the types of conduct processes that are being utilized when fraternities and sororities violate alcohol, hazing, and other policies at four-year universities. Many negative issues have been tied to Greek letter organizations and have become a national concern, such as hazing, alcohol consumption, and other types of risky behavior (Bruce & Keller, 2007). Research on the type of processes being used by universities is needed in order to analyze current practices and whether there needs to be a change in conduct processes. A survey instrument was developed by the researcher and sent …


A Single-Subject Study Examining The Effects Of A Behavioral Intervention For Verbal Recurrent Perserveration, Jenifer Juengling-Sudkamp Jan 2012

A Single-Subject Study Examining The Effects Of A Behavioral Intervention For Verbal Recurrent Perserveration, Jenifer Juengling-Sudkamp

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

BACKGROUND: Approximately 1 million people in the United States suffer from aphasia and > 50% of those people may demonstrate recurrent perseverations. No consensus has been forthcoming on whether (1) a therapy that directly confronts clients with imminent pre-articulatory automatisms (the perseverations) or (2) a more typical neuropsychological therapy that eschews any direct confrontation with automatic behaviors works best. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to determine the treatment efficacy of a non-confrontational picture naming intervention on naming ability in individuals with aphasia and recurrent perseverations. METHODS: This is a prospective single-subject ABAB multiple baseline design replicated across 3 right-handed …


Performance, Preference, Promotion: Political Mobility Of Chinese Regional Leaders, Liang Qiao Jan 2012

Performance, Preference, Promotion: Political Mobility Of Chinese Regional Leaders, Liang Qiao

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

As a study exclusively on the political elites, the dissertation studies the Chinese regional leaders and their political career mobility controlled by the central government from 1949 to 2010. The Chinese Communist Party controls its regional leaders by controlling their career movement (political mobility). This study explains why some regional leaders were promoted while some others were demoted or dismissed while most of them shared similar personal background and career experience. By providing empirical evidence with quantitative analysis, this study shows that in post-Deng Chinese politics (1997-2010) there are certain patterns and manipulated by the CCP center in demoting and …


Queer Utopian Geographies And Cold War Poetry, Brigitte Natalie Mccray Jan 2012

Queer Utopian Geographies And Cold War Poetry, Brigitte Natalie Mccray

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Queer Utopian Geographies and Cold War Poetry intervenes in the general narrative about Cold War culture, made even more famous by such recent popular shows like Mad Men and Pan Am, that describes the era as a repressed society in desperate need of liberation. While indeed Cold War America was a time of paranoia and loyalty oaths, even before the Stonewall Riots of 1969 gay men and lesbians found subtle ways to resist popular media and government discourse that perpetuated the myth that the homosexual was the anti-citizen. A number of gay men and lesbians traveled extensively to escape this …


A Performer's Guide To Stephen Paulus' Mad Book, Shadow Book: Songs Of Michael Morley, Jin Hin Yap Jan 2012

A Performer's Guide To Stephen Paulus' Mad Book, Shadow Book: Songs Of Michael Morley, Jin Hin Yap

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Stephen Paulus is a prolific American composer of the twenty-first century. Together with his primary collaborator Michael Dennis Browne, an English born, American poet, he has produced numerous compositions ranging from choral works to operatic. This document introduces Paulus’ early song cycle for tenor "Mad Book, Shadow Book: Songs of Michael Morley" (“Michael Morley Creaked,” “Falling Asleep in the Afternoon,” “I Feel Good Running,” “Morley’s Root Song,” “Calm, Calm,” and “Et in Arcadia, Morley”). Included is biographical and stylistic information about the composer and the poet, general information about the song cycle, and a performer’s guide to the songs, followed …


The Common Struggle: Locating The International Connections Of National Spaces Of Conflict In The Francophone World, Mark Huntsman Jan 2012

The Common Struggle: Locating The International Connections Of National Spaces Of Conflict In The Francophone World, Mark Huntsman

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In their 2007 manifesto, Quand les murs tombent: l’identit&236; nationale hors-la-loi, &200;douard Glissant and Patrick Chamoiseau propose that the nation-state is a stumbling block to global solidarity as it emphasizes cultural division. In order to achieve international community across borders, people must find common bonds that link them across traditional lines of conflict. My thesis applies this notion within the context of la Francophonie, an organization that has struggled with its goal of cultural rapprochement as its member nations continue to perceive each other as foreign entities rather than as like components of a larger community. I assert that la …


Projected Performances: The Phenomenology Of Hybrid Theater, David Edward Coley Jan 2012

Projected Performances: The Phenomenology Of Hybrid Theater, David Edward Coley

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Throughout the 20th century, mediatized forms gained prominence and eclipsed the theater as a site of cultural power and popularity. Because of this tension, performance theorists like Peggy Phelan framed the definition of theater through its inherent differences from film and television. Other theorists like Philip Auslander problematized this distinction, particularly due to television’s similarities to live performance. The cinema, however, has remained an opponent to performance, ignored in favor of technologies that more readily promote a sense of “liveness.” In Projected Performances, I argue that film projection is more closely related to performance than previously thought, particularly when viewed …


Imperial Consensus: The English Press And India, 1919-1935, David Lilly Jan 2012

Imperial Consensus: The English Press And India, 1919-1935, David Lilly

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Between 1919 and 1935, the lion’s share of the interwar era, the British government’s most important overriding task was constitutional reform of India. The subcontinent’s importance to Britain was undoubted: economically as an important trading partner and militarily a source of fighting men and material, as demonstrated in the Great War. However, scholars have relegated India to a relatively minor topic and instead have portrayed Britain’s interwar period as the era of appeasement. Appeasement only became an issue in 1935 and a major topic with the Munich crisis of September 1938. Voluminous press coverage of the India issue throughout the …


High-Throughput Sperm Cryopreservation Of Aquatic Species, E Hu Jan 2012

High-Throughput Sperm Cryopreservation Of Aquatic Species, E Hu

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The goal of this dissertation was to integrate multiple disciplines for application of high-throughput sperm cryopreservation to aquatic species. The blue catfish Ictalurus furcatus was selected for research due to its role in production of hybrid catfish with eggs from channel catfish Ictalurus punctatus. A high-throughput cryopreservation pathway was developed by systematically evaluating each process factor and using automated processing systems. Large quantities of cryopreserved sperm produced from this protocol were evaluated in commercial-scale hatcheries in cooperation with aquaculture producers. To develop production for commercial requirements, quality characteristics of materials and products were identified and recorded during processing and analyzed …


Perception, Power, Plays, And Print: Charles Ii And The Restoration Theatre Of Consensus, Christopher William Nelson Jan 2012

Perception, Power, Plays, And Print: Charles Ii And The Restoration Theatre Of Consensus, Christopher William Nelson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation aims to establish the importance of Charles II in the shaping and evolution of Restoration theatre. Even more so than the playwrights themselves, Charles II determined the future of the theatre, both by his conscious efforts to do so, as well as unintentionally through his own behavior and image. The tradition of Restoration theatre began in 1660 with Charles’s efforts at establishing a consensus theatre, in which it would appear that he enjoyed unanimous support for his return to England from exile. Consensus theatre was determined by the perception of Charles’s rule and character, his power to manipulate …


Factors Affecting Short-Term Oxygen Variability In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico Hypoxic Zone, Brenda Leroux Babin Jan 2012

Factors Affecting Short-Term Oxygen Variability In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico Hypoxic Zone, Brenda Leroux Babin

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Open-water continuous monitoring of DO concentrations at a single station (C6) in the Gulf of Mexico from 1989 to 2008 afforded an excellent opportunity to characterize short-term oxygen variability and to estimate the relative importance of key physical and biological factors controlling the development, persistence, and dissipation of hypoxia. I investigated temporal trends in three aspects of short-term DO variability: respiration rates (i.e., how quickly bottom waters become hypoxic), persistence of hypoxia, and the dissipation of hypoxia (i.e., re-aeration events). I identified the range of respiration rates present at the study site, and showed how these rates vary throughout the …


Constructing Wilderness: The Nexus Of Preservation And Ocean-Space In The United States, Ryan Orgera Jan 2012

Constructing Wilderness: The Nexus Of Preservation And Ocean-Space In The United States, Ryan Orgera

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The ocean has long played a minor role in human geography; imagining it as natural space rather than an extractive space even less significant. This dissertation explores the most revered kind of American nature preservation: wilderness. Despite the millions of acres set aside as wilderness in the United States, no such designation exists for ocean-space as a discrete entity. Through the analysis of congressional hearings, bills, resolutions, public laws, and maps, this dissertation uncovers the complex constructs of the production of legal wilderness. Furthermore, it uncovers a novel vein of inquiry, that of the ocean as a preserved natural space. …


A Church Musician's Resource Guide To The Available Resources From The Choral Public Domain Library For The Liturgical Year A, Michael John Trotta Jan 2012

A Church Musician's Resource Guide To The Available Resources From The Choral Public Domain Library For The Liturgical Year A, Michael John Trotta

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The Choral Public Domain Library (CPDL) represents a free resource to the church musician, and yet, as a user-edited database, has its limitations. This monograph provides a measure of quality control of the broad database presenting a usable resource guide for the church musician faced with the selection and presentation of liturgically suitable choral works every Sunday. Previous guides have been either so general that they make it difficult to locate music or so specific that they highlight individual publishers or composers. This document provides a methodology for selection and classification of freely reproducible choral literature appropriate for the various …


Regulating The Republic: Violence And Order In The Cherokee-Georgia Borderlands, 1820-1840, Adam Jeffrey Pratt Jan 2012

Regulating The Republic: Violence And Order In The Cherokee-Georgia Borderlands, 1820-1840, Adam Jeffrey Pratt

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In the two decades prior to Cherokee Removal, Georgians discussed removal as a way for the state to create and maintain order, a cluster of ideas that revolved around a social system that championed white superiority, a political system that adhered to republican thinking, and a legal system that prevented lawlessness. To create a well-ordered society, Georgia’s leaders believed that authority flowed from white settlers to civil institutions, which benignly administered over the idealized society. In the Cherokee-Georgia borderlands, no single political entity could claim sovereignty, so the Cherokee Nation, federal government, and state of Georgia each sought to impose …


Playing The Christ Card: Courting Christians Through Religious Appeals In Political Campaigns, Matthew Lee Thornton Jan 2012

Playing The Christ Card: Courting Christians Through Religious Appeals In Political Campaigns, Matthew Lee Thornton

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In spite of a corpus of work over the last three decades acknowledging the centrality of religion in politics, (see e.g. Hunter, 1991; Layman, 2001; Putnam & Campbell, 2010; Wuthnow, 1988), there remains a scarcity of research examining the consequences of religious communication in political campaigns. The current study fills this void through an empirical exploration of the effects of religious campaign appeals on prospective voters. Specifically, this interdisciplinary investigation develops a theoretical framework and subsequent expectations as to how religious appeals are likely to activate individual religiosity thereby influencing the formation of political attitudes. Hypothesized expectations are then tested …


A Study Of Turnaround Efforts In High-Poverty Schools: Characteristics Of High Reliability Organizations That Determine Why Some Efforts Succeed And Others Fail, Angela Renee Lee Jan 2012

A Study Of Turnaround Efforts In High-Poverty Schools: Characteristics Of High Reliability Organizations That Determine Why Some Efforts Succeed And Others Fail, Angela Renee Lee

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The inception of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) has focused national attention on improving the academic achievement of all students. In response to this federal legislation, educators, policymakers and others have sought remedies to turnaround chronically low-performing schools. The academic achievement outcomes of implementing such strategies have been mixed. Some schools have experienced clear, unambiguous growth. Others have remained stagnant. Others have regressed. Because of these mixed results, the research was designed to ascertain the factors that determine what makes these strategies succeed or fail. The researcher took a qualitative approach, the multiple case study design. Using the characteristics of …


Principals Matter- Principal Technology Proficiency: Creating A Culture Of Technology Competence, Tiffanye Renee' Mccoy-Thomas Jan 2012

Principals Matter- Principal Technology Proficiency: Creating A Culture Of Technology Competence, Tiffanye Renee' Mccoy-Thomas

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the role of leadership in developing a culture of technology competence within a school. Additionally, because research identifies the significance instructional leadership has on school performance, as defined by student achievement, the study sought to examine the impact principal technology proficiency has on school performance. To examine the associations amongst variables regression analyses were conducted. Quantitative study was conducted with 150 school principals and their faculties. Results indicated a strong correlation between principals that were technologically proficient, as defined by the Louisiana Department of Education’s Administrator Self-Assessment, and the percentage of …


Unit Assessments For High School Geometry, Damayanthi Srimathi Jegart Jan 2012

Unit Assessments For High School Geometry, Damayanthi Srimathi Jegart

LSU Master's Theses

Abstract Eight unit tests closely aligned with the Louisiana Comprehensive Curriculum for high school geometry were developed. Five of these were administered, each to the same 115 students spanning all ability and attainment levels in a magnet school in a semi-rural Louisiana district. The results were analyzed to determine the quality of the questions as well as to glean information about student-learning. The test scores were compared to the results of the state-administered end-of-course test for high-school geometry. The main findings were as follows: a) most students do not communicate their reasoning or justification unless directed to do so, and …


Wedding Belles And Enslaved Brides: Louisiana Plantation Weddings In Fact, Fiction And Folklore, Cherry Lynne Levin Jan 2012

Wedding Belles And Enslaved Brides: Louisiana Plantation Weddings In Fact, Fiction And Folklore, Cherry Lynne Levin

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Wedding Belles and Enslaved Brides: Louisiana Plantation Weddings in Fact, Fiction and Folklore Dissertation directed by Professor John Wharton Lowe, Robert Penn Warren Professor of English Pages in dissertation, 380, Words in Abstract, 234 Abstract Along with rites of passage marking birth and death, wedding rituals played an important role in ordering social life on antebellum Louisiana plantations, not only for elite white families but also for the enslaved. Louisiana women's autobiographical accounts of plantation weddings yield considerable insights on the importance of weddings for Louisiana plantation women before, and especially during, the Civil War. Moreover, information contained within the …


An Exploration Of Reading Methods In First-Grade: Comparing The Basal Approach And Balanced Literacy, Richelle Leblanc Acosta Jan 2012

An Exploration Of Reading Methods In First-Grade: Comparing The Basal Approach And Balanced Literacy, Richelle Leblanc Acosta

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Few topics in education have sparked as much interest and debate as the teaching of reading. Throughout the past century, instructional approaches have come and gone but one thing has remained constant: the teacher. Behind every effective classroom lies a teacher. It is ultimately the teacher’s decisions that drive daily instruction in the classroom. But what is the best way for teachers to teach children how to read? For decades, researchers have plagued studies seeking to find the best method for accomplishing this. Just as students’ physical characteristics are very diverse, so too are their academic abilities. Reading teachers must …


Focus Question Effect On Dynamic Thinking In A Concept Map, Blake John Orgeron Jan 2012

Focus Question Effect On Dynamic Thinking In A Concept Map, Blake John Orgeron

LSU Master's Theses

A concept map is an educational tool designed to help identify, represent, and categorize relationships between different ideas relating to an overall concept. Relationships or transitions between the ideas are created by students and can either be static or dynamic. Static transitions help to describe, define, and organize knowledge for a given domain. Dynamic transitions show how a change in quantity, quality, or state in one concept causes change in quantity, quality, or state in the other concept. The focus question of the map directs student input of the concepts and ultimately determines what types of transitions are used. The …


Adaptation As Anarchist: A Complexity Method For Ideology-Critique Of American Crime Narratives, Kristopher Mecholsky Jan 2012

Adaptation As Anarchist: A Complexity Method For Ideology-Critique Of American Crime Narratives, Kristopher Mecholsky

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Particularly through their relation to ideology, crime narrative adaptations expose the conflict between individuals and communities on one side and the State on the other. Adaptations take the already defamiliarizing effect of narrative and continue to defamiliarize, creating a narrative cubist effect through various audiences and discursive orderings of events. Hence, they question the ideological prefiguring that lies at the foundation of narrative understanding. Insofar as ideologies are simplified ways to legitimate actions and project images of identity, the fact that a society’s narratives necessarily inherit ideology from the State obscures that society and State’s inevitable deviations from their self-images. …


An Investigation Into Urban Elementary Teachers' Educational Beliefs In Regards To Teaching Writing: Comparing Experiences And Self-Reported Beliefs To Teacher Practices, Shalanda Stanley Jan 2012

An Investigation Into Urban Elementary Teachers' Educational Beliefs In Regards To Teaching Writing: Comparing Experiences And Self-Reported Beliefs To Teacher Practices, Shalanda Stanley

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This six week study investigated six urban elementary teachers’ educational beliefs in regards to teaching writing, comparing their personal histories as writers with their self-reported beliefs on writing and teaching writing, with that of their teacher practices. A further analysis examined how closely aligned their teacher practices were to research-validated practices. During this ethnographic case study, three questions were explored. These questions were: (a) How do teachers’ personal histories with writing inform their beliefs regarding writing in general, as well as their beliefs on teaching writing?, (b) How do teachers’ educational beliefs in regards to teaching writing inform their instructional …


Effects Of Rhyming Instruction On Learning The Alphabetic Principle, Phonemic Awareness, And Rhyming Complexity Skills With At-Risk Prekindergarten Students, Crystal Randolph Jan 2012

Effects Of Rhyming Instruction On Learning The Alphabetic Principle, Phonemic Awareness, And Rhyming Complexity Skills With At-Risk Prekindergarten Students, Crystal Randolph

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

At-risk prekindergarten students (i.e., low SES, speech-language impaired) typically lag behind their peers in phonological awareness and other emergent literacy skills such as letter knowledge and vocabulary (Duursma et al., 2008; Lundberg, 2009). However, there is a limited amount of research that has studied the efficacy of phonological interventions for at-risk children (Ziolkowski & Goldstein, 2008). Because of the long-lived debate concerning the role of rhyme versus the role of phoneme awareness, it is uncertain whether learning rhyming skills will provide the most facilitative context to learn other emergent literacy skills (e.g., letter knowledge, phonemic awareness). The current study investigated …


Southern Bellas: The Construction Of Mestiza Identity In Southern Narratives, Wendy Aimee Braun Jan 2012

Southern Bellas: The Construction Of Mestiza Identity In Southern Narratives, Wendy Aimee Braun

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This project analyzes representations and self-representations of Mestizas living in areas of the Deep South that lack a significant Latino presence. Incorporating a range of media, I take a comparative approach to Southern cultural narratives and propose a re-reading of these works through an examination of identity formation and cultural negotiation. By centering the Southern Mestiza, this dissertation advances concepts of intersectionality to address the role of region, as well as race and gender, in the representation and experiences of women often overlooked in Southern and U.S. Latino studies. The Introductory chapter summarizes the theoretical framework for the study, including …


Shades Of Grey: Slaveholding Free Women Of Color In Antebellum New Orleans, 1800-1840, Anne Ulentin Jan 2012

Shades Of Grey: Slaveholding Free Women Of Color In Antebellum New Orleans, 1800-1840, Anne Ulentin

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the economic opportunities that free women of color could derive from slaveholding, their motivations, and their impact on New Orleans’ antebellum society and economy. Another aim is to find out the role and impact of free women of color from Saint Domingue (later Haiti), whose arrival in New Orleans doubled the number of free women of color in the city. Finally, the analysis of relationships between free women of color and their slaves and with the diverse population of New Orleans plays an important part in this study. Notarial deeds (sales and purchases of slaves, mortgages of …


Moonlight Shadows And Night Thoughts (Symphony No. 1) And An Analysis Of Qigang Chen's Extase Ii, Wennan Wang Jan 2012

Moonlight Shadows And Night Thoughts (Symphony No. 1) And An Analysis Of Qigang Chen's Extase Ii, Wennan Wang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The dissertation is divided into two parts. Part One is an original composition: Moonlight Shadows and Night Thoughts (Symphony No.1). The symphony is composed of two movements. This work employs elements of two diverse cultures: (a) Chinese folk music and (b) contemporary Impressionist music by Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, and Toru Takemitsu most prominently. The musical imageries of the piece come from two Chinese poems, one written by Zhang Ji and the other written by Li Po. The beautiful sceneries in both Poems are associated with the word “moonlight.” The processing of time and the timbres is the focus of …


Visual Translation: A New Way To Design A Chinese Typeface Based On An Existing Latin Typeface, Yifang Cao Jan 2012

Visual Translation: A New Way To Design A Chinese Typeface Based On An Existing Latin Typeface, Yifang Cao

LSU Master's Theses

The visual consistency of branding makes a significant difference when successfully introduced to another culture. My study focuses on how to facilitate a smooth visual transition in western branding from Latin letters to Chinese characters. To move beyond traditional Chinese type design, Visual Translation introduces a new method for designing Chinese typefaces using existing Latin typefaces. This web-based educational tool seeks to help Chinese graphic design students and type enthusiasts, with emphasis on designers who are working in a cross-cultural environment to maintain visual consistency for branding.