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In Sickness And In Health: Experiencing Medical Spaces In Mbarara (Uganda), Kara E. Miller Jan 2010

In Sickness And In Health: Experiencing Medical Spaces In Mbarara (Uganda), Kara E. Miller

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis is a contribution to cross-cultural studies on health and medicine explored through the material and symbolic facets of health care in a region of Southwest Uganda. Research conducted in the healing spaces of Mbarara reflects traditions in the anthropology of the body and brings a lived perspective to conditions of sickness and wellness. By tracing the biographies of treatment spaces, the medical landscape is evaluated in terms of participants’ perceptions, convictions, and knowledge sets. Phenomenological methodology is employed in this exploration of ill states and curative places, which braids concepts and academic work in the areas of medicine, …

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Identifying Historic Storm Surges And Calculating Storm Surge Return Periods For The Gulf Of Mexico Coast, Hal Needham Jan 2010

Identifying Historic Storm Surges And Calculating Storm Surge Return Periods For The Gulf Of Mexico Coast, Hal Needham

LSU Master's Theses

Tropical cyclone-generated storm surges inflict natural disasters that are among the most catastrophic globally. The surges observed along the U.S. Gulf of Mexico are among the highest in the world, second only to the Bay of Bengal. Storm surge activity along the U.S. Gulf Coast remains poorly understood, however, in part, due to the absence of credible research that accurately depicts the maximum height and location of historic surge events. This research addresses this gap in the scientific literature by creating a database of storm surge observations along the Gulf Coast between the years 1880 to 2009. A total of …

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Understanding The Economic Factors That Impact The Financial Health Of Local Governments, John David Barreca Jan 2010

Understanding The Economic Factors That Impact The Financial Health Of Local Governments, John David Barreca

LSU Master's Theses

The state of Louisiana has been hit by several severe hurricanes in recent years, and these disaster events have placed a financial burden on parish budgets. As such, local governments have been compelled to bear various cleanup and recovery costs in the short and long term. Therefore, this research sought to evaluate the factors that drive the variation in the financial health of local governments in Louisiana. This research made two contributions. The first contribution sought to develop a comprehensive measure of economic activity at the county level, and the second contribution used econometric methods to estimate the effect of …

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Mapping The Digital Divide In Neighborhoods: Wi-Fi Access In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Luke Driskell Jan 2010

Mapping The Digital Divide In Neighborhoods: Wi-Fi Access In Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Luke Driskell

LSU Master's Theses

The communication made possible by the Internet has leveled the global playing field in some ways, but helped maintain traditional inequalities as well. The “digital divide” refers to disparities in telecommunication access and use from global to local scales. This study uses access point mapping to quantify local Internet access in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. A Wi-Fi access point (router) density was obtained and compared to various demographic and socioeconomic attributes in neighborhoods. Fieldwork confirmed the expectation that traditionally disadvantaged groups would have the lowest rates of Wi-Fi ownership, but median household income was unexpectedly less related than race, education, and …

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Finding The Originals: A Study Of The Roman Copies Of The Tyrannicides And The Amazon Group, Courtney Ann Rader Jan 2010

Finding The Originals: A Study Of The Roman Copies Of The Tyrannicides And The Amazon Group, Courtney Ann Rader

LSU Master's Theses

Very few bronze original Greek sculptures from the fifth-century BCE are extant today. It is through marble Roman copies that lost Greek originals are studied today. Along with the Roman copies, other media and ancient literary sources can be used to study Greek sculpture. My goal for this thesis is to study the previous scholarship and Roman copies of the Tyrannicides and the Amazon Group. When studying copies, scholars must first answer: Is it a copy? Of what is it a copy? If it is a copy, what can the copy tell about the Greek artist? To better answer these …

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Edmund Burke And His Impact On The British Political, Social And Moral Response During The French Revolution (1790-1797), Guy Brendan Gonzalez Jan 2010

Edmund Burke And His Impact On The British Political, Social And Moral Response During The French Revolution (1790-1797), Guy Brendan Gonzalez

LSU Master's Theses

Edmund Burke’s legacy has heretofore centered on his seminal work, The Reflections on the Revolution in France. However, Burke’s other contributions have been largely ignored. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to focus on Burke’s literary and political role in the British response to the French Revolution from 1790 until his death in 1797. This study is divided into four chapters. The first chapter contains a contextual background of Burke’s moral and political philosophy. It explains why Burke responded in the manner he did to the French Revolution. The remaining three chapters, in a chronological manner, trace Burke’s influence …

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Further Investigations Into The King George Island Mounds Site (16lv22), Harry Gene Brignac Jr Jan 2010

Further Investigations Into The King George Island Mounds Site (16lv22), Harry Gene Brignac Jr

LSU Master's Theses

Research at the King George Island Mounds site (16LV22) consisted of shovel testing the island on which the site is located and placing test units in two recently discovered mounds in Area B on the south side of the site (Mounds F and G). The shovel test pits were placed on the western half of the island in an attempt to locate habitational features related to the earthworks on the eastern half of the island. All shovel tests done on King George Island during this investigation were negative showing no signs of occupation near the site proper. Units were placed …

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Palynological Analysis Of Tiger And Trinity Shoals, Louisiana Continental Shelf, Russell Ryan Crouch Jan 2010

Palynological Analysis Of Tiger And Trinity Shoals, Louisiana Continental Shelf, Russell Ryan Crouch

LSU Master's Theses

Forty sediment samples taken from twenty-six vibracores collected from Holocene shoals (Tiger and Trinity) were processed for palynomorphs and analyzed to characterize the terrestrial and marine paleo-environments of southern Louisiana at the time of deposition of each shoal. Abundant and diverse pollen assemblages were recovered while marine microplankton were sparse (< 2% relative abundance). Pollen species were grouped by plants of similar environmental significances including arboreal, non-arboreal, aquatic, and shrub categories. Palynological signals were compared in detail between each core, as well as along strike and dip transects, to help determine whether or not these shoals were deposited coevally or in distinct depositional cycles. Evidence shows that Tiger and Trinity Shoals carry remarkably similar palynological profiles, indicating that sediments of these shoals areS from the same source, and that deposition extended over an interval of time such that climate change was not sufficient enough to alter the vegetation response (hence palynological signal). Pollen profiles show source sediments are predominantly from the lower Mississippi River drainage basin and exhibit species similar to those present in modern Louisiana coastal marshes and swamps (i.e., Taxodium distichum, Cyperaceae, Graminae, Chenopodiaceae, and Asteraceae), and coastal to upland hardwood forests of the Mississippi River alluvial valley (i.e., Pinus, Quercus, Carya, and Liquidambar styraciflua).

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Dry Event Trends And Frequencies In The South Central United States, Michael Roberts Jan 2010

Dry Event Trends And Frequencies In The South Central United States, Michael Roberts

LSU Master's Theses

In this study, dry spells in the southern United States are analyzed. Dry spells are defined as consecutive days with no recorded rainfall. Seventy (70) weather stations are researched in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Daily precipitation for each station identifies potential trends in consecutive dry days. Stations were selected for their completeness, longevity, and their proximity to one another. Only stations with five percent or less missing data were allowed. All 70 stations will be analyzed from 1950-2008. Twenty-four stations possess over 100 years of data and will be analyzed. The best geographical indicator for consecutive dry …

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Status Of Wintering Grassland Birds In A Post-Hurricane, Salvage-Logged Forest, Matthew Edward Brooks Jan 2010

Status Of Wintering Grassland Birds In A Post-Hurricane, Salvage-Logged Forest, Matthew Edward Brooks

LSU Master's Theses

North American grassland birds have been declining at an alarming rate. Winter habitat for grassland species in the southeastern U.S. generally occurs within forests subject to management. I studied wintering grassland bird communities in De Soto National Forest in southern Mississippi. My objectives were to: 1) Assess bird communities and vegetation structure in upland forest stands that were salvage-logged following Hurricane Katrina, in stands managed for Red-cockaded Woodpeckers (Picoides borealis, RCW), and in stands containing bogs; and 2) Determine the extent of the association between vegetation and occurrence of the common wintering grassland birds. I conducted bird and vegetation surveys …

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Using Algae To Estimate Postmortem Submersion Interval In A Louisiana Bayou, Sophia Renke Jan 2010

Using Algae To Estimate Postmortem Submersion Interval In A Louisiana Bayou, Sophia Renke

LSU Master's Theses

While algae are often used in forensic science for the determination and confirmation of death by drowning, their utility for the estimation of postmortem submersion interval (PMSI) has been underutilized. Algae are present in all water systems and will grow upon decomposing matter; yet, very little published literature exists on their use in PMSI estimation. Because PMSI is difficult to predict due to the variable nature of water, the reaction of the submerged body within water, and the lack of truly sarcophagous aquatic insects, algae are a potentially invaluable tool for the forensic anthropologist. This research investigates the utility of …

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Synoptic Circulation Of The North American Monsoon System And Precipitation Within The Lower Colorado River Basin, Jessie Frances Mccann Jan 2010

Synoptic Circulation Of The North American Monsoon System And Precipitation Within The Lower Colorado River Basin, Jessie Frances Mccann

LSU Master's Theses

The North American Monsoon System (NAMS) is an important climate phenomenon that affects the southwestern United States during the warm season, most significantly in July and August. Climatic variability associated with the NAMS impacts a wide range of both physical and socio-economic systems in this region, with a broad range of stakeholders concentrated in the Lower Colorado River Basin (LCRB) that includes portions of five southwestern states. This study examines variations in synoptic circulation patterns associated with the NAMS with respect to the LCRB. Using a manual classification, daily 500-mb geopotential height patterns were classified for monsoon seasons (July 1-September …

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The Poisonous Wine From Catalonia: Rebellion In Spanish Louisiana During The Ulloa, O'Reilly, And Carondelet Administrations, Timothy Paul Achee Jan 2010

The Poisonous Wine From Catalonia: Rebellion In Spanish Louisiana During The Ulloa, O'Reilly, And Carondelet Administrations, Timothy Paul Achee

LSU Master's Theses

Spanish rule in Louisiana was bracketed by periods of unrest. Using the criteria for rebellion developed by political scientist Claude E. Welch Jr., in Anatomy of Rebellion to compare the 1768 rebellion under Governor Antonio de Ulloa, and demonstrations of discontent in the 1790’s under Baron Francisco Luis Carondelet, one is able to draw out similarities, contrasts, and continuities in factors causal to political unrest. The most powerful of these causal factors were the economic troubles, geographic marginality, ethnic tensions, weak authority, and unsuccessful attempts to reform the colony’s commercial system. Methods employed by the Spanish administrations to contain or …

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Prejudice And The New Latino Migration: The Geographic Locus Of Anti-Latino Sentiment, Angela Caraway Jan 2010

Prejudice And The New Latino Migration: The Geographic Locus Of Anti-Latino Sentiment, Angela Caraway

LSU Master's Theses

A large body of literature on the relationship between prejudice and discrimination and the size of minority populations suggests that as a minority population increases so will incidents of prejudice and/or discrimination. This school of thought is led by Hubert Blalock who contends that large minority populations generate prejudice among the majority, who view the minority as a threat to their economic and/or political standing. Minority population size has been tested and widely confirmed as a cause of anti-black prejudice and discrimination. But the corresponding research for Latinos has generally produced inconsistent and largely inconclusive findings. The reason for this …

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School Gardens: Effects On Low Socioeconomic First Grade Students, Margo Lynn Castro Jan 2010

School Gardens: Effects On Low Socioeconomic First Grade Students, Margo Lynn Castro

LSU Master's Theses

The purpose of this study is to determine if there are any effects of school gardens on low socio-economic first grade classroom located in the Southern Region of the United States. It is crucial for students to understand food sources and where it originates. Data was gathered through interviews using qualitative research methods. Analysis consisted of examining data from themes and discriminate cases. Personal interviews were done with teachers and students involved in the garden project. Permission was received to interview the students at school. All participants will remain anonymous. The results of the study found that the garden project …

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The Effects Of Salinity On Nitrogen Cycling In Wetland Soils And Sediments Of The Breton Sound Estuary, La, Brett Whitfield Marks Jan 2010

The Effects Of Salinity On Nitrogen Cycling In Wetland Soils And Sediments Of The Breton Sound Estuary, La, Brett Whitfield Marks

LSU Master's Theses

Wetlands in the coastal zone are slowly becoming more saline under rising sea level over the long-term. However, there are a number of events in the coastal environment which lead to quick and temporary changes in the salinity of coastal marshes. Seawater driven inland from storm surge can significantly increase salinity in oligohaline wetlands over the short-term (weeks). Recent large-scale efforts to restore coastal wetlands in Louisiana have utilized Mississippi River surface water diversions to re-introduce freshwater into coastal marshes, decreasing the salinity of coastal marshes. We examined the effect of salinity changes on two important nitrogen cycling processes, potential …

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Population Genetics And Systematics Of A Species-Rich Clade Of Neotropical Reef Fishes, The Tubeblenny Genus Acanthemblemaria, Ron Israel Eytan Jan 2010

Population Genetics And Systematics Of A Species-Rich Clade Of Neotropical Reef Fishes, The Tubeblenny Genus Acanthemblemaria, Ron Israel Eytan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Neotropical coral reef fish communities are species-poor compared to those of the Indo-West Pacific. An exception to that pattern is the blenny clade Chaenopsidae, one of only three coral reef fish families endemic to the Neotropics. Within the chaenopsids, the genus Acanthemblemaria is the most species-rich. To understand the origin and maintenance of genetic and species diversity in these fishes, I characterized the population genetics for two Acanthemblemaria species, reconstructed the phylogeny of the group, and identified suites of correlated morphological characters responsible for the distinctive skull morphology of these fishes. By combining nuclear and mitochondrial sequence data I was …

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The Power Struggle Between Americans And Creoles In The First Half Of The Nineteenth Century And Its Influence On The Architecture Of New Orleans, Sylvia Starns Mince Jan 2010

The Power Struggle Between Americans And Creoles In The First Half Of The Nineteenth Century And Its Influence On The Architecture Of New Orleans, Sylvia Starns Mince

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In the first half of the nineteenth century the house types of the landscape and the footprint of New Orleans changed dramatically. Many of the changes can be attributed to the influx of the refugees from Saint Domingue and the Americans who immigrated from the North and the East Coast of the United States. Both sets of influxes reflect the impact of these two immigrant groups on the previously existing power structures in economics, politics, and society of the city. While the refugees from Saint Domingue more or less assimilated into the city, and in doing so, achieved power over …

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Artisanal Whaling In The Atlantic: A Comparative Study Of Culture, Conflict, And Conservation In St. Vincent And The Faroe Islands, Russell Fielding Jan 2010

Artisanal Whaling In The Atlantic: A Comparative Study Of Culture, Conflict, And Conservation In St. Vincent And The Faroe Islands, Russell Fielding

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Whalers from the Caribbean island of St. Vincent and the North Atlantic archipelago of the Faroe Islands hunt pilot whales and a variety of other small cetaceans for food. Vincentian whalers use harpoons, thrown by hand or fired from a modified shotgun mounted on the boat. Faroese whalers, using several dozen boats, work cooperatively to drive an entire pod of whales ashore, where shore-based whalers are waiting to complete the kill with traditional whaling knives. Vincentian whaling traces its origins to the late nineteenth century. Records of Faroese whaling date to the late sixteenth century but the practice is thought …

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Identifying And Quantifying Factors Affecting Traffic Crash Severity In Louisiana, Hong Zhang Jan 2010

Identifying And Quantifying Factors Affecting Traffic Crash Severity In Louisiana, Hong Zhang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study was conducted to identify and quantify the factors affecting highway crash severity in Louisiana. Three candidate models were fit to the crash data to compare their performance and the Ordered Mixed Logit (OML) model was selected as the crash severity prediction model of choice. The factors contributing to crash severity identified by the OML model are: age and gender of the driver, vehicle speed, whether alcohol played a role in the crash, whether seatbelts were used, whether the driver was ejected from the vehicle, whether the crash was a head-on collision, whether an airbag was deployed, and whether …

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Designing Irishness: Ethnicity, Heritage, And Imagined Connection To Place Through Language, Thomas James Sullivan Jan 2010

Designing Irishness: Ethnicity, Heritage, And Imagined Connection To Place Through Language, Thomas James Sullivan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In North America, those who are descended from "old world" immigrant groups—for example Germans, Greeks, Italians, Poles, and Irish—are thought to be assimilated or acculturated into the mainstream American culture. Since the late 1970s, however, sociologists have observed how a number of white ethnics, particularly those descended from third- and fourth-generation (and beyond) immigrants, continue to maintain a link to an ethnic group. This phenomenon—labeled symbolic or optional ethnicity—is now seen as a latter-stage development in the larger process of assimilation and ethnic-group identification. In this dissertation I show how the meaning of Irish identity has evolved in North America …

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"It's Not Just About The Buildings, It's About The People": Architecture Practice, And Preservation In Post-Katrina New Orleans, Bethany W. Rogers Jan 2010

"It's Not Just About The Buildings, It's About The People": Architecture Practice, And Preservation In Post-Katrina New Orleans, Bethany W. Rogers

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Drawing on the legacy of architectural studies in cultural geography, this dissertation integrates traditional approaches to built environments that take seriously the physical form and presence of buildings with more recent scholarship that employs performance and practice theory to address the embodied, contingent, and ongoing practices through which buildings are endowed with meaning by those who use, inhabit, or identify with them. Using ethnographic and architectural-documentation methods to carefully apprehend the interrelationships between architecture and embodied practices, this dissertation presents a set of ethno-material case studies – four buildings and their community of users that were central to New Orleans’ …

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Modeling The Impacts Of Pulsed Riverine Inflows On Hydrodynamics And Water Quality In The Barataria Bay Estuary, Anindita Das Jan 2010

Modeling The Impacts Of Pulsed Riverine Inflows On Hydrodynamics And Water Quality In The Barataria Bay Estuary, Anindita Das

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Eutrophication and coastal wetland loss are the major environmental problems affecting estuaries around the world. In Louisiana, controlled diversions of the Mississippi River water back into coastal wetlands are thought to be an important engineering solution that could reverse coastal land loss. There are concerns, however, that freshwater diversions may increase nutrient inputs and create severe eutrophication problems in estuaries and wetlands adjacent to the diversion sites. My dissertation research concerns modeling the effects of the observed and hypothetical freshwater diversion discharges on the hydrodynamics, salinity and water quality in the Barataria estuary, a deltaic estuary in south Louisiana. This …

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Sonata No.1 For Violin And Piano, Op. 80,By Sergei Prokofiev: A Guide To Interpretation, Boris Blagoev Jan 2010

Sonata No.1 For Violin And Piano, Op. 80,By Sergei Prokofiev: A Guide To Interpretation, Boris Blagoev

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Sergei Prokofiev was an extremely prolific composer whose career brought him success throughout Europe and the U. S. as well as Russia and the Soviet Union. He wrote for nearly every genre, and his most popular works today include operas, ballets, symphonies, and concertos. As a pianist, most of the concertos and sonatas that Prokofiev wrote were for the piano. However, his contributions to the violin repertoire are significant. Prokofiev wrote two concertos and two sonatas for solo violin. Of these, Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano, Op. 80 is unique for many reasons. The piece took Prokofiev eight …

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"Teach Us Incessantly": Lessons And Learning In The Antebellum Gulf South, Sarah L. Hyde Jan 2010

"Teach Us Incessantly": Lessons And Learning In The Antebellum Gulf South, Sarah L. Hyde

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Before 1860 people in the Gulf South valued education and sought to extend schooling to residents across the region. Southerners learned in a variety of different settings – within their own homes taught by a family member or hired tutor, at private or parochial schools as well as in public free schools. Regardless of the venue, the ubiquity of learning in the region reveals the importance of education in Southern culture. In the 1820s and 1830s, legislators in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama sought to increase access to education by offering financial assistance to private schools in order to offset tuition …

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Factor That Influence The Critical Thinking Skills Of Public School Teachers In A Parish In Southwest Louisiana, Dale Beglis Schanz Jan 2010

Factor That Influence The Critical Thinking Skills Of Public School Teachers In A Parish In Southwest Louisiana, Dale Beglis Schanz

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to determine the influence of selected personal and professional demographic characteristics on the critical thinking abilities of teachers in a parish in Southwest Louisiana. The study is a correlational design using a descriptive survey technique with questions for the data collection. The examiner looked at attribute independent variables – characteristics that a subject has before a study begins such as gender, age, race, highest level of education completed, and years of teaching experience. Three hundred and twenty-four teachers in twelve public schools (three high schools, four middle schools, and five elementary schools) participated in …

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Writing About The South "In Her Own Way": Gender And Region In The Work Of Southern Women Playwrights, Casey Kayser Jan 2010

Writing About The South "In Her Own Way": Gender And Region In The Work Of Southern Women Playwrights, Casey Kayser

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines how identity—gender, race, sexuality, regional affiliation—intersects with considerations of the dramatic genre, commercial and critical factors in the American theatre, and understandings about the American South to complicate how contemporary southern women playwrights represent region. In light of the always-already "performative" nature of the South, and geographical, commercial, and ideological factors that set the South in opposition to the North, southern women playwrights face additional difficulties in navigating issues of authenticity and simulacra, the universal versus the specific, ideas about southern "backwardness" versus northern sophistication, and audience participation in fetishizing or distancing the South. Using drama as …

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The Influence Of Computer User Knowledge And Selected Demographic Characteristics The Academic Achievement Of High School Seniors, Michael E. Brown Jan 2010

The Influence Of Computer User Knowledge And Selected Demographic Characteristics The Academic Achievement Of High School Seniors, Michael E. Brown

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study was to identify the influence of computer user knowledge as measured by the Computer User Knowledge Survey (CUKS), and the personal demographic characteristics of Gender, Age, and Race on academic achievement as measured by the Graduation Exit Examination-21 (GEE-21), among high school seniors in public schools in a parish in South Louisiana. The CUKS and the Gender and Race data were collected from the self-perceived CUKS survey administered to 295 seniors registered in English IV classes at a school in South Louisiana. The academic achievement data and the ages of the student subjects were …

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Three Essays On The Role Of Amenities As An Economic Development Strategy, Junpyo Hong Jan 2010

Three Essays On The Role Of Amenities As An Economic Development Strategy, Junpyo Hong

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

It is well known that an amenity is a key driving engine to regional economic growth. However, the site-specific nature of an amenity can characterize them as public goods. Due to this characteristic, local governments have difficulty optimally supplying amenities. This dissertation tries to find relationships between an amenity and economic growth. Three empirical papers comprise the original research in this dissertation. The findings of the meta-analysis in the first essay suggest little methodological diversity exists among researchers linking amenities to economic growth., I do find that employment growth is more likely related to man-made amenities even in research on …

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Revitalizing The Suburban Dream: Disaster, Displacement And Resilience In Eastern Orleans Parish, Meredith Morgan Feike Jan 2010

Revitalizing The Suburban Dream: Disaster, Displacement And Resilience In Eastern Orleans Parish, Meredith Morgan Feike

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Hurricane Katrina tested the disaster resiliency of communities throughout the city of New Orleans. More than four years after breaches in levees led to the flooding of one hundred forty square miles of the Crescent City, some residents are still struggling to reclaim their neighborhoods one block at a time. Eastern Orleans Parish is a portion of the local landscape whose long-term sustainability remains uncertain. Rebuilding is extremely slow with only a fraction of residents returning to the area. Development in New Orleans East began after World War II as a result of urban sprawl. Many New Orleanians desired a …

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