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Consumer Mutations: Mediated Subjectivities Of The Incipient Digital Age, Aaron Duplantier Jan 2015

Consumer Mutations: Mediated Subjectivities Of The Incipient Digital Age, Aaron Duplantier

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, I argue that out of postmodernity, subjectivity has seen distinct mutations inflected by consumer technology. As postmodern mediators of ordinary people, reality TV, Facebook, and YouTube are steeped in concerns about authenticity. Reality TV, for example, cannot escape its authenticity problem because of the conventional hierarchy of production it maintains, a hierarchy that prompts consumer skepticism regarding its truth value. However, seemingly democratic Internet platforms, such as Facebook and YouTube, promise consumer engagement in which users can break down those hierarchical barriers preventing authentic expression. Under the guise of presumed mediational accuracy, the resulting feedback loop between …


Measuring Primary Health Care Accessibility In Mississippi State Using An Extended Kernel Density 2sfca Method, Lijie Zhang Jan 2015

Measuring Primary Health Care Accessibility In Mississippi State Using An Extended Kernel Density 2sfca Method, Lijie Zhang

LSU Master's Theses

The accessibility of primary health care is fundamentally important to people’s life quality and wellbeing. Based on the block group level 2010 census data from the U.S. Census Bureau and primary health care data from Association of American Medical Colleges, this study focuses on measuring the primary health care accessibility using an extended kernel-density two Step Float Catchment Area method. The study area is the Mississippi State, which is ranked last state for health care. The objectives of this study are to calculate the accessibility and analyze the spatial and non-spatial disadvantages of communities in accessibility of primary health care …


Planning Towards Equal Spatial Accessibility Of Nci Cancer Centers Across Geographic Areas And Demographic Groups In The U.S., Cong Fu Jan 2015

Planning Towards Equal Spatial Accessibility Of Nci Cancer Centers Across Geographic Areas And Demographic Groups In The U.S., Cong Fu

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The Cancer Centers designated by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) form the “backbone” of the cancer care system in the United States. Awarded via a peer-review process and being re-evaluated every 3 to 5 years, an NCI Cancer Center receives substantial financial support from NCI grants. When the quality standard is not compromised, we argue that an additional criterion for improving and promoting equal accessibility should be factored into the designation and planning process of NCI Cancer Centers. With the help of regression and dummy variables, this research evaluates geographic disparities in spatial accessibility of the NCI Cancer Centers across …


Caregiver Perceptions Of Speech-Language Pathologist (Slp) Communication: Examining How Slps Talk With Caregivers About Child Language Disorders, Karmen L. Porter Jan 2015

Caregiver Perceptions Of Speech-Language Pathologist (Slp) Communication: Examining How Slps Talk With Caregivers About Child Language Disorders, Karmen L. Porter

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to identify how SLP communication regarding language disorders was perceived by caregivers. Employing a qualitative methodology, the caregivers of 10 children, identified with a language-based reading impairment, participated in semi-structured interviews concerning their experiences communicating with SLPs. As a whole, the findings showed the value caregivers place on receiving clear, concrete, and timely diagnostic information, the variability and complexity associated with caregivers’ understanding of language disorders, and the reciprocal relationship between key SLP communication practices, caregiver knowledge, and effective collaboration. Some of the key themes emphasized in regard to SLP communication practices included: recognition …


Va-Et-Vient, The Goin' And Comin' Of Infinitival 'To': A Study Of Children With And Without Specific Language Impairment In Cajun English, Andrew Mandell Riviere Jan 2015

Va-Et-Vient, The Goin' And Comin' Of Infinitival 'To': A Study Of Children With And Without Specific Language Impairment In Cajun English, Andrew Mandell Riviere

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine Cajun English (CE)-speaking children’s marking of infinitival TO. To do this, CE-speaking children’s marking of infinitival TO was compared to the marking of infinitival TO by Southern White English (SWE)- and African American English (AAE)-speaking children. Marking of infinitival TO also was examined as a function of the children’s clinical status (i.e., Specific Language Impairment, SLI, or typically developing, TD) and by the verb contexts that preceded the infinitival TO forms.

The data came from 180 kindergarteners who lived in four rural towns in Assumption Parish, Louisiana. The children’s dialect classifications were …


To Culture Or Not To Culture: Practices Implemented By Language Immersion Teachers To Teach Culture In Language Immersion Classrooms, Benterah Charles Morton Jan 2015

To Culture Or Not To Culture: Practices Implemented By Language Immersion Teachers To Teach Culture In Language Immersion Classrooms, Benterah Charles Morton

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Bilingual education has had a resurgence in the United States since the Bilingual Education Act of 1968. Since that time the number of language immersion programs across the country has increased exponentially. Although language immersion programs are a type of bilingual education there are considerable differences in the implementation and intended outcomes. Language immersion programs ascribe to three basic goals: for students to become bi-lingual, bi-literate, and develop a degree of multicultural awareness. This study seeks to begin to explore the methods teachers use to carry out the task of developing a degree of multicultural awareness. To answer this question, …


Use Of Copula And Auxiliary Be By African American Children With Gullah/Geechee Heritage, Jessica Richardson Berry Jan 2015

Use Of Copula And Auxiliary Be By African American Children With Gullah/Geechee Heritage, Jessica Richardson Berry

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to document the auxiliary and copula BE system of African American (AA) children with Gullah/Geechee (GG) heritage and to compare the findings to those from African American English (AAE)-speaking children without this heritage and to what has been documented in previous studies of Gullah and AAE. The data came from 38 children, aged five to six years. Nineteen were from rural South Carolina and classified as GG, and 19 were from rural Louisiana and classified as AAE. All were developing language typically, and the groups were matched on a number of socio-demographic variables and …


Rethinking Gender And Image Politics On Social Media In The 2016 Presidential Election: A Case Study Of Hillary Clinton’S And Carly Fiorina’S Twitter Accounts, Kira A. Schuette Jan 2015

Rethinking Gender And Image Politics On Social Media In The 2016 Presidential Election: A Case Study Of Hillary Clinton’S And Carly Fiorina’S Twitter Accounts, Kira A. Schuette

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.


Southeast Asian Youth Chamber Orchestra (Seayco): A Musical Bridge Within The Southeast Asian Region, Paraschos Paraschoudis Jan 2015

Southeast Asian Youth Chamber Orchestra (Seayco): A Musical Bridge Within The Southeast Asian Region, Paraschos Paraschoudis

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This document is presented from the perspective of the project manager of the Southeast Asian Youth Chamber Orchestra (SEAYCO) and will analyze all the necessary steps from the initial idea to the selecting of the musicians, and through the rehearsal and preparation until its first performance. The College of Music, Mahidol University in Thailand and the Goethe-Institut network of Southeast Asia formed a partnership in order to make this project possible. The sponsor of this unique endeavor was Merck KGaA, a German multinational chemical, pharmaceutical, and life-sciences company that was generous enough to fund part of this project. The main …


Thomas Davis, The Nation, And Songs Of Irish Nationalism, Timothy Mason Love Jan 2015

Thomas Davis, The Nation, And Songs Of Irish Nationalism, Timothy Mason Love

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Thomas Davis was a significant figure in the flourishing movement of cultural nationalism in mid-nineteenth-century Ireland. A cofounder of _The Nation_, Davis used the journal’s pages as a medium through which to promote a nationalist vision for Ireland distinctive for its nonsectarian appeal. Along with impassioned editorial prose, Davis employed poetry and song to carry his message to the public. “Young Ireland,” as Davis and his colleagues became known, focused their efforts especially on the traditional Irish song, elevating it as a symbol for their cultural heritage while harnessing its emotional power to strengthen their political cause. The songs printed …


Communicating Sustainability With Visuals: Issue Perception And Issue Engagement, Zeynep Melis Altinay Jan 2015

Communicating Sustainability With Visuals: Issue Perception And Issue Engagement, Zeynep Melis Altinay

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Today the list of environmental disasters threatening lives and natural resources has expanded to include many causes. Even though sustainable solutions have never been so urgent, public still issues low priority to many of these serious threats. Many impacts of environmental deprivation, such as coastal land loss, are invisible to the untrained eye, causing individuals to distance themselves psychologically from the risks. The slow pace of environmental degradation constitutes one of the biggest challenges in sustainability communication. The success of sustainable development will require the public to undergo a significant shift in thinking about environmental issues. This dissertation systemically investigates …


L'Essentiel Ou Lagniappe: The Ideology Of French Revitalization In Louisiana, Albert Camp Jan 2015

L'Essentiel Ou Lagniappe: The Ideology Of French Revitalization In Louisiana, Albert Camp

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Louisiana’s French revitalization movement has received millions of dollars in taxpayer funding through its various initiatives such as music and cultural festivals, public school French immersion programs, and academic exchange programs, among others. Over forty years ago, the state of Louisiana created CODOFIL, a government agency dedicated to the promotion of Francophone language and culture in Louisiana, yet the number of Francophones in the state has continued to decline at an alarming rate according to the most reliable data available. My study investigates the ideology and demographics of those involved in French education programs in Louisiana’s public schools. Who decides …


Spectrum Allocation In Networks With Finite Sources And Data-Driven Characterization Of Users' Stochastic Dynamics, Ahsan-Abbas Ali Jan 2015

Spectrum Allocation In Networks With Finite Sources And Data-Driven Characterization Of Users' Stochastic Dynamics, Ahsan-Abbas Ali

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

During emergency situations, the public safety communication systems (PSCSs) get overloaded with high traffic loads. Note that these PSCSs are finite source networks. The goal of our study is to propose techniques for an efficient allocation of spectrum in finite source networks that can help alleviate the overloading of PSCSs. In a PSCS, there are two system segments, one for the system-access control and the other for communications, each having dedicated frequency channels. The first part of our research, consisting of three projects, is based on modeling and analysis of finite source systems for optimal spectrum allocation, for both access-control …


Insights From Complexity: A Study Of The Implementation Of A District-Wide Literacy Initiative Through The Lens Of Complex Systems Theory, Mary Kathryn Hudson Jan 2015

Insights From Complexity: A Study Of The Implementation Of A District-Wide Literacy Initiative Through The Lens Of Complex Systems Theory, Mary Kathryn Hudson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Complexity Theory provides unique insights into the implementation and operations of a district literacy initiative. The successful and unsuccessful structures of the literacy initiative are examined through a complexity lens in order to gain insight into the relationships between elements of a complex system and its processes operating within a “top-down” educational directive and the resulting “bottom-up” resistance. This qualitative study uses a phenomenological approach to advance complex systems theory. This allows a multi-dimensional exploration of the fundamental attributes of the district initiative, its processes and the relationships within those processes. The literacy initiative in a large urban school district …


Social Functioning In Schizotypy: An Exploration Of Communicative Effectiveness Through Speech Analysis And Observer Rated Performance In A Socially Demanding Task, Tracey Lauren Auster Jan 2015

Social Functioning In Schizotypy: An Exploration Of Communicative Effectiveness Through Speech Analysis And Observer Rated Performance In A Socially Demanding Task, Tracey Lauren Auster

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Individuals with schizotypal traits have demonstrated sub-clinical symptoms of psychosis (e.g. perceptual disturbances, self-reported social functioning impairment, self-reported memory problems, and delusions). However, the evidence has been mixed regarding what impairments exist, particularly with regards to social functioning domains. As schizotypy is posited to reflect an underlying vulnerability for development of clinical levels of psychosis/risk conversion, individuals with these traits are an important group to study in order to identify these vulnerabilities. Research has indicated that current measures of social functioning (whether they are localized objective measures of verbal and non-verbal communication or global self-report of functioning) are missing some …


Essays On Corruption, Chandan Kumar Jha Jan 2015

Essays On Corruption, Chandan Kumar Jha

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Corruption is a global concern and requires attention because of its detrimental effects on economic growth and development. This dissertation includes three different essays that identify some of the instruments that can be used to fight corruption. The first essay investigates whether women's presence in economic and political arenas can have a significant impact on corruption. It finds evidence that while women's presence in parliament does reduce corruption other measures of female participation in economic activities are shown to have no effect. The second essay shows that internet and Facebook have an adverse effect on corruption. Finally, in a theoretical …


An Analysis Of Spelling Patterns Produced By Elementary School-Aged Speakers Of African American English, Lindsay Meyer Turner Jan 2015

An Analysis Of Spelling Patterns Produced By Elementary School-Aged Speakers Of African American English, Lindsay Meyer Turner

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Over the years, less attention is given to students’ spelling skills compared to other areas of literacy achievement like word reading and passage comprehension in relationship to nonmainstream dialect usage. Considering that English spelling is based on the phonological and morphological structures of Mainstream American English (MAE), it is likely that children who speak a nonmainstream dialect such as African American English (AAE) will demonstrate differences in their spelling abilities. The purposes of this study were to explore the relationship between degree of AAE dialect use and spelling for a group of first to third grade children, and to describe …


Do People With Aphasia Interpret Road Signs Differently Than People Without Aphasia?, Caitlin Elise Brown Jan 2015

Do People With Aphasia Interpret Road Signs Differently Than People Without Aphasia?, Caitlin Elise Brown

LSU Master's Theses

Purpose: This study increased our understanding of how aphasia may affect interpretation of road signs. Background: Despite aphasia’s theoretical effects on road sign comprehension and promising initial findings in studies that investigated driving and aphasia, the literature examining aphasia and road signs has been sparse. Research has shown that aphasia may have some effect on road sign interpretation. However, more study is needed regarding both accuracy and response time to road sign interpretation, which are equally important for safe driving. Methods: This was a prospective, between group study that used data collected from a larger study by Donovan, Savage, Varnado, …


Articulating Situated Knowledge And Standpoints In Our Responses To Contemporary Street Fiction: A Book Club Case Study With African American Women, Yvette Rachele Hyde Jan 2015

Articulating Situated Knowledge And Standpoints In Our Responses To Contemporary Street Fiction: A Book Club Case Study With African American Women, Yvette Rachele Hyde

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Contemporary street fiction is a form of literature that has been growing in popularity since the 1990s. Such novels are set in contemporary urban contexts and present the experiences of historically oppressed groups. Sold in venues such as independent bookstores, the Internet, barbershops, beauty salons, flea markets, street vendors, and churches (Hill, Pérez, & Irby, 2008; McClellan, 2011), this genre is especially popular among African American females. Because much of the scholarship concerning engagement with contemporary street fiction focuses on improving school literacy skills, the purpose of this study was to investigate readers’ responses in a book club held at …


Musicking New Orleans Street Musicians: A Methodology For Writing About Music, Savannah Cadi Rose Ganster Jan 2015

Musicking New Orleans Street Musicians: A Methodology For Writing About Music, Savannah Cadi Rose Ganster

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This project argues for the use of performative writing as a methodology for writing about musical performances. An analysis of recent scholarship on music and musical performances written by performance studies scholars supports the use of performative writing in texts that address musical performances. In order to further this methodological claim, this study uses performative writing to document both historical and present day accounts of musical performances of street musicians in New Orleans. Utilizing Foucault’s theories on and Roach’s model of genealogy, Bruner’s notion of reflexive ethnography, and Small’s concept of musicking, I theorize, on a meta-methodological level, that performative …


Junior Level Baccalaureate Nursing Students' Lived Experiences With Test Anxiety: Can Music Serve As A Means To Reduce Test Anxiety And Increase Self-Efficacy?, Keeley Clark Harmon Jan 2015

Junior Level Baccalaureate Nursing Students' Lived Experiences With Test Anxiety: Can Music Serve As A Means To Reduce Test Anxiety And Increase Self-Efficacy?, Keeley Clark Harmon

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Test anxiety is a pervasive problem in education programs. Nursing education is not an exception as approximately 30% of nursing students are impacted by varying levels of test anxiety that can affect their ability to succeed. This mixed methods study utilizes concepts from Bandura’s Social Learning Theory, the Cognitive-Attentional (Interference) Model, and the Georgi Lozanov method to explore the lived experiences of junior level baccalaureate nursing students with test anxiety. The 39 participants in the quantitative portion of the study were randomly assigned to one of two groups. The experimental group (n=18) listened to a nine minute and 27 second …


A Tale Of Two Cultures: A Qualitative Narrative Of Nigerian Immigrant Parenting In The United States, Chinwe Onwujuba Jan 2015

A Tale Of Two Cultures: A Qualitative Narrative Of Nigerian Immigrant Parenting In The United States, Chinwe Onwujuba

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Current demographic estimates indicate that the foreign-born population makes up about 13% (40 million) of the total U.S. population. This number consists of immigrants from all over the world, with a larger majority originating from Latin America and Asia. Research in the area of immigrant adaptation is robust and compelling; however, it is replete with studies on immigrants from the cultural regions identified above, and not as much on other regions with relatively less numerical representation, specifically Africa. From this region, Nigerian individuals and families make up a larger portion of this immigrant group. This study employs a qualitative research …


Context Aware Textual Entailment, Soha Arab-Khazaeli Jan 2015

Context Aware Textual Entailment, Soha Arab-Khazaeli

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In conversations, stories, news reporting, and other forms of natural language, understanding requires participants to make assumptions (hypothesis) based on background knowledge, a process called entailment. These assumptions may then be supported, contradicted, or refined as a conversation or story progresses and additional facts become known and context changes. It is often the case that we do not know an aspect of the story with certainty but rather believe it to be the case; i.e., what we know is associated with uncertainty or ambiguity. In this research a method has been developed to identify different contexts of the input raw …


Rhetoric And Food: The Rise Of The Food Truck Movement, Bryan W. Moe Jan 2015

Rhetoric And Food: The Rise Of The Food Truck Movement, Bryan W. Moe

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This analysis is an attempt to study the rise of a new mobile food medium the food truck. I examine the movement of rhetorical actors, the situation, the audiences, and discourses created and sustained through rhetorical practices. These include looking into contemporary controversies, the history and storytelling that helps to convey identity, a new aesthetic experience created by the medium, and specifically their sophistic character and rhetoric helping them speak on issues of social justice and change. To understand these texts, I examine each of them in light of their rhetorical situation and the convergence of a multitude of kairotic …


Language Processing And The Artificial Mind: Teaching Code Literacy In The Humanities, Jerry Scott Weltman Jan 2015

Language Processing And The Artificial Mind: Teaching Code Literacy In The Humanities, Jerry Scott Weltman

LSU Master's Theses

Humanities majors often find themselves in jobs where they either manage programmers or work with them in close collaboration. These interactions often pose difficulties because specialists in literature, history, philosophy, and so on are not usually "code literate." They do not understand what tasks computers are best suited to, or how programmers solve problems. Learning code literacy would be a great benefit to humanities majors, but the traditional computer science curriculum is heavily math oriented, and students outside of science and technology majors are often math averse. Yet they are often interested in language, linguistics, and science fiction. This thesis …


Supervisory Ratings As A Measure Of Training Transfer: Testing The Predictive Validity Of The Learning Transfer System Inventory, Vicky Katsioloudes Jan 2015

Supervisory Ratings As A Measure Of Training Transfer: Testing The Predictive Validity Of The Learning Transfer System Inventory, Vicky Katsioloudes

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The primary purpose of this dissertation was to examine the criterion-related validity of all 16 LTSI General and Specific Scales in relation to training transfer. Using an ex-post facto design the researcher analyzed secondary data that included measures of key transfer system variables, as captured by the LTSI scales, and individual training transfer as indicated by supervisory ratings. The dataset comprised of employees from diverse organizations who had participated in different types of organizational instructor-led classroom training programs. Confirmatory factor analyses supported the construct validity of the LTSI General and Specific Scales (N = 619). Hierarchical multiple regression analysis measured …


Automated Conversion Of Text Instructions To Human Motion Animation, Ravikumar Vishwanath Chimmalgi Jan 2015

Automated Conversion Of Text Instructions To Human Motion Animation, Ravikumar Vishwanath Chimmalgi

LSU Master's Theses

Text to animation is the conversion of textual instructions to animations following and depicting those instructions. Text to animation is important to fields such as crime scene investigation, military special operations and storytelling where text is utilized. It is also useful for physical therapy where a doctor can factor in disability parameters in the 3D models and determine the safest therapy exercises for patients. It can be used in robotics, where robot assistants can be instructed to perform tasks through text instructions. In this research, a system was created to generate 3D animation of workouts from their textual instructions. An …


Metamorphoses Of The Pygmalion Myth In French Literature 1771 – 1886, Carrie L. O'Connor Jan 2015

Metamorphoses Of The Pygmalion Myth In French Literature 1771 – 1886, Carrie L. O'Connor

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Writers have long explored and attempted to portray the visual artist’s challenge of creating the ideal in the real world through art. My thesis asserts that the Pygmalion myth, originally told in written form in Ovid’s 8 A.D. Metamorphoses, is the quintessential model to explore the changing, and sometimes problematic, relationships between the artist, the creation, and the creative process. The three main characters in the Pygmalion myth – the sculptor, the sculpture, and the divine intervention – each appear, albeit in different manifestations, in its later adaptations. Throughout the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in French literature, authors explored …


Social Media Networks: The Social Influence Of Sentiment Content In Online Conversations On Dynamic Patterns Of Adoption And Diffusion, Tung Cu Jan 2015

Social Media Networks: The Social Influence Of Sentiment Content In Online Conversations On Dynamic Patterns Of Adoption And Diffusion, Tung Cu

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The current study is focusing on diffusion and adoption of new digital artifacts. The goal is to explore the social role of user-generated content (UGC) during the diffusion process of digital artifacts in the context of online social networks. The study spans a wide range of analytics methods and tools such as predictive modeling, latent sentiment analysis, data retrieval, and other tools of time-series analysis & visualization. Data collection is conducted on 260 new digital products and more than 105 thousand social network nodes. Results of the study provide a deeper insight into the influence of textual UGC sentiment on …


Evaluation Of Teacher Ratings To Improve Child Language Screenings In Speech-Language Pathology, Kyomi Dana Gregory Jan 2015

Evaluation Of Teacher Ratings To Improve Child Language Screenings In Speech-Language Pathology, Kyomi Dana Gregory

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the validity of teacher ratings for screening children’s language skills. Teacher ratings were measured through the use of two tools, the Children’s Communication Checklist-2 (CCC-2; Bishop, 2006) and the Teacher Rating of Oral Language and Literacy (TROLL; Dickinson, McCabe, & Sprague, 2001). The data for this study were from 77 kindergarteners who lived in rural Louisiana and spoke a non-mainstream dialect of English; 51 were classified as typically developing and 26 as presenting with Specific Language Impairment. Convergent validity was examined by comparing the two teacher rating tools to each other and …