Digital Commons Network^™

Africanisms And Cultural Modifications: A Study At Southall Quarter, Williamsburg, Virginia, Jessie Chaiya Cohen

LSU Master's Theses

Archaeological studies at sites of enslaved Africans and African-Americans have been intensely undertaken in recent years. In particular, the search for Africanisms and cultural processes has become a common trend within these studies. I analyzed previously recorded investigations of Southall Quarter (44JC969), an eighteenth-century enslaved African and African-American site in James City County, Virginia. Dominating anthropological themes of slave resistance, owner-imposed hegemony, and agentic actions guided my search for Africanisms at Southall Quarter. I hoped to prove that the distance of the quarters from Southall’s residence and therefore the lax owner supervision provided the enslaved inhabitants with opportunities to express …

Vassilis Alexakis: Exorciser L'Exil Déplacements Autofictionnels, Linguistiques Et Spatiaux, Marianne Bessy

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores the writings of contemporary Francophone writer Vassilis Alexakis. I interpret Alexakis’s œuvre as an attempt by the writer to exorcize his own exile. The author left Greece in the 1960s, settled in France, and started to publish novels in French in the mid-1970s. By looking closely at the patterns of cultural dispossession, language loss, estrangement, and identity crisis in his writings, I show that Alexakis constructs an aesthetic of displacement that allows him to free himself cathartically from the angst of exile. A close analysis of Alexakis’s eleven novels, his autobiographical text, and his collection of short …

Species Boundaries, Biogeography, And Intra-Archipelago Genetic Variation Within The Emoia Samoensis Species Group In The Vanuatu Archipelago And Oceania, Alison Madeline Hamilton

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Speciation, geographic variation, and genetic differentiation are fundamental processes that generate diversity, and understanding these processes are major goals of evolutionary biology. Evolutionary phenomena may be more observable on islands as compared to continental landmasses as a result of small population sizes, unoccupied niches, and the relative simplicity of island systems and their populations: physical isolation, shorter (and often well documented) geologic time scale, reduced faunal diversity, and lack of outside faunal influence. Yet, despite their incredible diversity, Pacific island faunas have received little research attention relative to other tropical regions. Using molecular data from several species of scincid lizards …

A Pedagogical Analysis Of Selected Pieces From Preludes, Op. 38, By Dmitri Kabalevsky, Sayaka Kanno

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Dmitri Borisovich Kabalevsky (1904-1987) is considered one of the composers who made the greatest contribution to the teaching repertoire for the piano. His interest in young people and devotion to music education has resulted in books and articles, as well as widely used pedagogical works including Childrenfs Pieces, Op. 27, Twenty-Four Little Pieces, Op. 39, and Five Sets of Variation, Op. 51. Many teaching materials in beginning to early intermediate levels include Kabalevskyfs accessible and imaginative pieces from these collections. In comparison, his advanced works are rarely performed in concerts or used for teaching among educators.@@ This research focuses on …

A 5000-Year History Of Caribbean Environmental Change And Hurricane Activity Reconstructed From Coastal Lake Sediments Of The West Indies, Jason Thomas Knowles

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

A ~5000 yr history of modern and prehistoric hurricane landfall and environmental change has been reconstructed from coastal lake sediments of the northern West Indies. Hurricane overwash layers and environmental shifts were identified by changes in biological and sedimentary stratigraphies, core lithology, and loss-on-ignition techniques. 14C and 137Cs were used to establish a chronology of events. Many hurricane-induced overwash layers were identified within the lake sediments. Evidence indicates distinct periods of temporal shifts in hurricane activity for the Northern Caribbean islands of Anguilla, Barbuda, and Acklins Island, Bahamas, providing the first paleotempestological records for the region. The northern Caribbean record …

Environment, Labor, And Race: An Historical Geography Of St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, 1878-1956, Amy Rhiannon Sumpter

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, is known as a white suburb of New Orleans. It also has a well-known history as a health resort for wealthy New Orleanians during the summer months, particularly during yellow fever outbreaks in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth centuries. This research investigates the historical geography of this parish in terms of race and attempts to answer the question of how St. Tammany became an attractive place for the development of white subdivisions in the 1950s. I uncover the connections between race, labor, the environment, and political culture of the parish from 1878—the year Reconstruction ended—to …

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

Faculty Publications

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

The Barbarous Voice Of Democracy: American Captivity In Barbary And The Multicultural Specter, Jacob Rama Berman

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Characterization Of Polymorphic Microsatellite Loci For The Invasive Monk Parakeet (Myiopsitta Monachus), M. A. Russello, V. Saranathan, S. Buhrman-Deever, J. Eberhard, A. Caccone

Faculty Publications

Microsatellite loci were characterized for the monk parakeet (Myiopsitta monachus) from a GTn-enriched genomic library. Twelve of 14 microsatellite loci were polymorphic, averaging 6.7 alleles per locus across the 20 individuals genotyped. Mean expected heterozygosity was 0.72, with locus-specific values ranging from 0.53 to 0.90. An equally high multilocus probability of identity (2.48 × 10-12) was revealed for this set of loci. In addition, all 12 loci were demonstrated to cross-amplify to varying extents within three additional parrot genera suggesting their potential utility for population-level studies in a broad range of Neotropical psittacines. © 2007 The Authors.

F07rs Sgb No. 15 (Anthropology Society), Delery

Student Senate Enrolled Legislation

No abstract provided.

Footprints On Water: The Genetic Wake Of Dispersal Among Reefs, M. E. Hellberg

Faculty Publications

Analysis of genetic data can reveal past and ongoing demographic connections between reef populations. The history, extent, and geography of isolation and exchange help to determine which populations are evolutionarily distinct and how to manage threatened reefs. Here the genetic approaches undertaken to understand connectivity among reefs are reviewed, ranging from early allozyme studies on genetic subdivision, through the use of sequence data to infer population histories, to emerging analyses that pull the influences of the past connections away from the effects of ongoing dispersal. Critically, some of these new approaches can infer migration and isolation over recent generations, thus …

A Soldier To The Last: Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler In Blue And Gray, Warren E. Grabau

Civil War Book Review

Joe Wheeler's Cavalry

An Unembellished Account

West From Appomattox: The Reconstruction Of America After The Civil War, Michael W. Fitzgerald

Civil War Book Review

The Idealized West and Reconstruction

Controversy No Matter The Colors: The Confederate Battle Flag And Southern Identity, Matthew C. Juneau

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

An Exploratory Study Of Hurricane Rita On The Food Supply And Food Availability In Women Living In Rural Southwest Louisiana, Natalie Kristine Davis

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Understanding Louisiana Patent Production And The Role Of Knowledge Stocks On Economic Growth, Cynthia Ann Dubois

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Biogeochemical Stoichiometry Of Antarctic Dry Valley Ecosystems, J. E. Barrett, R. A. Virginia, W. B. Lyons, D. M. Mcknight, J. C. Priscu, P. T. Doran, A. G. Fountain, D. H. Wall, D. L. Moorhead

Faculty Publications

Among aquatic and terrestrial landscapes of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica, ecosystem stoichiometry ranges from values near the Redfield ratios for C:N:P to nutrient concentrations in proportions far above or below ratios necessary to support balanced microbial growth. This polar desert provides an opportunity to evaluate stoichiometric approaches to understand nutrient cycling in an ecosystem where biological diversity and activity are low, and controls over the movement and mass balances of nutrients operate over 10-106 years. The simple organisms (microbial and metazoan) comprising dry valley foodwebs adhere to strict biochemical requirements in the composition of their biomass, and when activated …

Landscape Context Outweighs Local Habitat Quality In Its Effects On Herbivore Dispersal And Distribution, Kyle J. Haynes, Forrest P. Dillemuth, Bryan J. Anderson, Alyssa S. Hakes, Heather B. Jackson, S. Elizabeth Jackson, James T. Cronin

Faculty Publications

Past studies with spatially structured herbivore populations have emphasized the primacy of intrinsic factors (e.g., patch quality), patch geometry (e.g., patch size and isolation), and more recently landscape context (e.g., matrix composition) in affecting local population abundance and dispersal rate. However, few studies have examined the relative importance of each factor, or how they might interact to affect herbivore abundance or dispersal. Here, we performed a factorial field experiment to examine the independent and interactive effects of patch quality (plant biomass, leaf protein, leaf phenolics) and matrix composition [mudflat or non-host grass (Bromus inermis)] on planthopper (Prokelisia crocea) emigration from …

A Mobile Element-Based Evolutionary History Of Guenons (Tribe Cercopithecini), Jinchuan Xing, Hui Wang, Yuhua Zhang, David A. Ray, Anthony J. Tosi, Todd R. Disotell, Mark A. Batzer

Faculty Publications

Background: Guenons (tribe Cercopithecini) are a species-rich group of primates that have attracted considerable attention from both primatologists and evolutionary biologists. The complex speciation pattern has made the elucidation of their relationships a challenging task, and many questions remain unanswered. SINEs are a class of non-autonomous mobile elements and are essentially homoplasy-free characters with known ancestral states, making them useful genetic markers for phylogenetic studies. Results: We identified 151 novel Alu insertion loci from 11 species of tribe Cercopithecini, and used these insertions and 17 previously reported loci to infer a phylogenetic tree of the tribe Cercopithecini. Our results robustly …

Emergency Transportation Preparedness, Management, And Response In Urban Planning And Development, Brian Wolshon

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Long-Term Freshwater Inflow And Sediment Discharge Into Lake Pontchartrain In Louisiana, Usa, Kangsheng Wu, Y. Jun Xu

Faculty Publications

Freshwater and sediment are crucial to the development and health of aquatic and wetland ecosystems in deltaic coastal regions. This study examines the long-term freshwater inflow (1940-2002) and total suspended solid loading (1978-2001), and their relationships with climate variables in three major river watersheds to Lake Pontchartrain, the largest inland estuary in the USA. The results show an average total annual freshwater inflow of 5.04 km3 and an average total annual sediment loading of 210 360 t, with the highest contributions from the Amite River watershed. Over 69% of annual inflow occurred within the six months from December to May. …

Managing Coastal Resources In The 21st Century, M P. Weinstein, R C. Baird, D O. Conover, M Gross, M P. Weinstein, D K. Loomis, Z Naveh, S B. Peterson, D J. Reed, E Roe, R L. Swanson, J A. Swart, J M. Teal, R. Eugene Turner, D E. Van, H J. Windt

Faculty Publications

Coastal ecosystems are increasingly dominated by humans. Consequently, the human dimensions of sustainability science have become an integral part of emerging coastal governance and management practices. But if we are to avoid the harsh lessons of land management, coastal decision makers must recognize that humans are one of the more coastally dependent species in the biosphere. Management responses must therefore confront both the temporal urgency and the very real compromises and sacrifices that will be necessary to achieve a sustainable coastal ecosystem, one that is economically feasible, socially just, and ecologically sound.

Landscapes Of Power And Identity: Comparative Histories In The Sonoran Desert And The Forests Of Amazonia From Colony To Republic, Andrew Sluyter

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Intellectual Relations Between Historical Geography And Latin Americanist Geography, Andrew Sluyter, Kent Mathewson

Faculty Publications

Content analysis of Geography in America (Gaile and Willmott 2003), which collects forty-seven chapters written by representatives of each of the specialty groups of the Association of American Geographers (AAG), reveals much about the recent intellectual structure of the discipline (Sluyter et al. 2006). One striking feature of that structure is the lack of intellectual connectivity, measured in practitioners named and publications cited, between the chapters of the Latin Americanist Specialty Group (LASG) and the Historical Geography Specialty Group (HGSG). Detailed comparison of the HGSG chapter and the Historical and Cultural Perspectives section of the LASG chapter addresses the character …

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

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Louisiana Survey 2007, Lsu Reilly Center For Media & Public Affairs

Reilly Center Louisiana Surveys

The 2007 Louisiana Survey was the first to note the beginnings of a shift from the intense rebuilding focus that had characterized the state since hurricanes Katrina and Rita ravaged the southern regions of the state. Instead, focus shifted to ongoing issues both affected by the hurricanes and independent from them in the state in general, such as:

• majority of Louisianans expressed the opinion that the state was heading in the wrong direction
• relocation, voting, and issues for displaced Louisianans
• ethics reform
• attitudes towards insurance companies and insurance reform
• uses for the Louisiana budget surplus

In Their Own Image: The Public Library Collection As A Reflection Of Its Donors, Suzanne Marie Stauffer

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

On Symplectic 4-Manifolds With Prescribed Fundamental Group, Scott Baldridge, Paul Kirk

Faculty Publications

In this article we study the problem of minimizing aχ + bσ on the class of all symplectic 4-manifolds with prescribed fundamental group G (χ is the Euler characteristic, σ is the signature, and a, b ∈ ℝ), focusing on the important cases χ, χ + σ and 2 + 3σ. In certain situations we can derive lower bounds for these functions and describe symplectic 4-manifolds which are minimizers. We derive an upper bound for the minimum of χ and χ + σ in terms of the presentation of G. © Swiss Mathematical Society. χ

Book Reviews

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

No abstract provided.

The Architecture Of Ancient Maya Saltmaking; Distribution And Analysis Of Preserved Wooden Posts At The John Spang Site In Paynes Creek National Park, Belize, Elizabeth Cory Sills

LSU Master's Theses

Archaeological investigations were undertaken at the John Spang Site, a Late Classic Maya saltwork, in Punta Ycacos Lagoon, in Paynes Creek National Park, southern Belize. The field survey mapping yielded over 149 wooden architectural posts preserved below the sea floor in mangrove peat. The presence of briquetage indicates the wooden architecture is associated with the infrastructure associated with production and distribution of salt. The mapped survey areas, including the wooden architecture, artifact boundaries, and site boundaries, as well as the wooden post measurements were combined in a GIS to analyze the spatial distribution. I compare and contrast the patterns observed …