Digital Commons Network^™

Oocyte Production In The Early Postpartum Cow, Oscar Perez

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The postpartum period has been the focus of numerous studies; however, there is no information available relating to oocyte production in early postpartum cows. Ovaries of early postpartum cows were stimulated with FSH to produce follicular development and oocytes. The objectives of these studies were: (1) to evaluate the use of FSH for oocyte production in early postpartum beef cows, (2) to evaluate follicular response and oocyte quality of beef cows treated with FSH shortly after calving, (3) to evaluate FSH for oocyte production in early postpartum dairy cows, (4) to evaluate responses of FSH-treated, early postpartum beef cows in …

How To Make A Girl: Female Sexuality In Young Adult Literature, Ann Elizabeth Younger

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Young Adult literature is an important source of information for young readers, and this genre makes a distinct contribution to the cultural and social construction of femininity and female sexuality in its pages. How to Make a Girl: Female Sexuality in Young Adult Literature analyzes representations of female sexuality in more than fifty texts. By examining these texts in relation to each other and in terms of historical development, this project creates a literary history of female sexuality in Young Adult fictions. By depicting young women in varying stages of adolescence and young adulthood, these fictional texts offer unique representations …

Career Counseling For College Students: The Influence Of A Computer-Assisted Career Decision-Making Program On The Stability Of College Major Selection At A Research-Extensive University, Mary D. Feduccia

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the influence of Career Discovery I, the first module in a computer-assisted program for career decision-making, on the stability of the choice of college majors. This study sought to determine whether any differences existed in the stability of college majors between students who entered a Research-Extensive University with undeclared majors, used Career Discovery I, and declared a major by the end of the first semester of enrollment and students who entered the same University with declared majors and did not use Career Discovery I during the investigation. In addition, the study …

The Effects Of Signals On Responding During Delayed Reinforcement, Michael E. Kelley

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Functional communication training (FCT) is a commonly used intervention for severe behavior disorders (e.g., Carr & Durand, 1985; Wacker et al., 1990). This treatment is designed to provide individuals with developmental disabilities with a repertoire of responses to attain reinforcement. However, caregivers may be unable or unwilling to provide immediate reinforcement when the treatment is implemented in the natural environment. Recent applied research on responding during delayed reinforcement suggests that responding may not persist when delays exceed 30 s (e.g., Fisher, Thompson, Hagopian, Bowman, & Krug, 2000; Hanley, Iwata, & Thompson, 2001). In contrast, results of basic research suggest that …

Rainfall-Runoff Control: Variably Saturated Transport For An Infiltration System Controlling Water Quality And Quantity, Zheng Teng

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Rainfall-runoff impacted by anthropogenic activities transports significant quantities of particulate, aqueous and complexed constituents. These diffuse, unsteady and stochastic event-based loadings are unique challenges for water quality and quantity control. The design, water quality and quantity functions of a partial exfiltration reactor (PER) utilizing Fe-coated-sand and porous pavement (CPP) is examined specifically across three representative rainfall-runoff events. Total concentrations and mass for metals (Zn, Pb, Cu and Cd), suspended solids, and Chemical oxygen demand were reduced significantly. Rainfall-runoff volume and peak flow were reduced and time to peak was extended. Influent dm/dp ratios based on particle analyses suggest that the …

An Investigation Of The Factors That Influence Electronic Information Sharing Between State And Local Agencies, Asli Yagmur Akbulut

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study investigates the factors that influence local government participation in electronic information sharing with state agencies. Although electronic information sharing has the potential to help government agencies to increase productivity and performance, improve policy-making and provide better public services to the citizens, there is still little information available about the factors that antecede electronic information sharing between local and state agencies. Synthesizing the pertinent literature on interagency information sharing and well-established theories such as diffusion of innovations theory, critical mass theory and social exchange theory, this study proposes that local government participation in electronic information sharing with state agencies …

Dashiki Project Theatre: Black Identity And Beyond, Stanley R. Coleman

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

At a cast party following a Dillard University theatre production in 1965, Guy West, a senior in theatre, stated that one of his dreams was to perform in his own theatre. These remarks by West proved to be the inspiration that began New Orleans' Dashiki Project Theatre. Prior to 1965, Free Southern Theater was the only theatre of the black experience in New Orleans. Through Dashiki Project Theatre, the black community found another opportunity to relate to black experience through the medium of theatrical performance. In the mid-sixties Theodore Gilliam, a Dillard University professor, and his associates founded Dashiki Project …

Program Participants' Knowledge And Perceptions Of Effectiveness Of The French Quarter Formosan Termite Program, Alan L. Morgan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine program participants’ knowledge and perceptions of the effectiveness of the French Quarter Formosan Termite Program. The management of the Formosan subterranean termite is critical to the economic well-being of not only Louisiana, but the U.S. Estimates of property damage, repairs, and control measures exceed $1 billion per year in the U.S., of which $500 million is in Louisiana and $300 million is in the New Orleans area. In 1998, the LSU Agricultural Center, a statewide agricultural research and extension campus of Louisiana State University, in cooperation with the Agricultural Research Service, began …

Influences Of Selected Demographic Variables On The Career Decision-Making Self-Efficacy Of College Seniors, Mary Edith Whitehead Stacy

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The study was designed (1) to describe college seniors demographically, (2) to assess college seniors perceived level of career-decision making self-efficacy (CDMSE), (3) to examine the relationship between the participant’s CDMSE scores, as measured by the subscales of the Career Decision Self-Efficacy Scale – Short Form© (CDSE-SF), and selected demographic characteristics, and; (4) to determine if a model existed to explain a significant portion of variance in CDMSE based on the selected demographic characteristics. The sample consisted of 382 college seniors attending a four-year public university completing the application for graduation process in the 2002 fall semester. Along with the …

Black Willow (Salix Nigra) Use In Phytoremediation Techniques To Remove The Herbicide Bentazon From Shallow Groundwater, Robert Mark Conger

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Wetland environments have been impacted by the activities of man over the past several hundred years in North America. Industrialization into wetland areas has brought with it anthropogenic compounds that have been released into soils and groundwater. The use of phytoremediation to detoxify soil and groundwater began in the mid 1990's and has become a popular remediation technology. In 1994, a feasibility study for using phytoremediation in such an industrialized wetland area was conducted at a petrochemical facility at BASF Corporation, located about 20 kilometers south of Baton Rouge, Louisiana in Ascension Parish. The test site consisted of low level …

Control Of Transport Dynamics In Overlay Networks, Qishi Wu

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Transport control is an important factor in the performance of Internet protocols, particularly in the next generation network applications involving computational steering, interactive visualization, instrument control, and transfer of large data sets. The widely deployed Transport Control Protocol is inadequate for these tasks due to its performance drawbacks. The purpose of this dissertation is to conduct a rigorous analytical study on the design and performance of transport protocols, and systematically develop a new class of protocols to overcome the limitations of current methods. Various sources of randomness exist in network performance measurements due to the stochastic nature of network traffic. …

The Trouble With Girls: Autoethnography And The Classroom, Pamela Kay Autrey

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Recent research suggests that many young women are undergoing a particularly difficult time during early adolescence, beginning with the transition to middle school (The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University [CASA], 2003; Albert, Brown, & Flanigan, 2003; American Association of University Women, 1992). Employing autoethnography, I studied my experience as girl and woman, student and teacher, in elementary and middle schools and how these informed my pedagogical practices and knowledge as an elementary school teacher. Drawing upon feminist theory and cultural studies as well as research narratives, I argue for the inclusion of "kinderculture" in the …

Quantitative Inheritance Of Calpastatin Activity As An Assessment Measure For Meat Tenderness In Brahman Steers, Fuad Mohammad Tawfiq Odeh

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Calpastatin activity at 24 h postmortem is inversely proportional to postmortem tenderization and accounts for a greater proportion of the variation in beef tenderness. Tenderness was determined by measurement of 24 h postmortem longissimus muscle calpastatin activity (CA) and Warner-Bratzler shear force after 7 and 14 d of steak aging. The quantitative inheritance of tenderness in Brahman steers was investigated phenotypically by Multiple Trait Derivative-Free Restricted Maximum Likelihood (MTDFREML) procedures and genotypically by using restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLP), a microsatellite marker, and DNA sequence analyses. In experiment 1, MTDFREML was used to obtain the genetic parameters of tenderness traits …

Introduction Of The 305Arg→305Ser Mutation In The Large Extrinsic Loop E Of The Cp43 Protein Of Synechocystis Sp. Pcc 6803 Leads To The Loss Of Cytochrome C550 Binding To Photosystem Ii, Terry M. Bricker, Andrew Young, Laurie K. Frankel, Cindy Putnam-Evans

Faculty Publications

CP43, a component of Photosystem II (PSII) in higher plants, algae and cyanobacteria, is encoded by the psbC gene. Previous work demonstrated that alteration of an arginine residue occurring at position 305 to serine produced a strain (R305S) with altered PSII characteristics including lower oxygen-evolving activity, fewer assembled reaction centers, higher sensitivity to photoinactivation, etc. [Biochemistry 38 (1999) 1582]. Additionally, it was determined that the mutant exhibited an enhanced stability of its S2 state. Recently, we observed a significant chloride effect under chloride-limiting conditions. The mutant essentially lost the ability to grow photoautotrophically, assembled fewer fully functional PSII reaction centers …

Infection Outcome And Cytokine Gene Expression In Brugia Pahangi-Infected Gerbils (Meriones Unguiculatus) Sensitized With Brucella Abortus, Sharon R. Chirgwin, Philip H. Elzer, Sharon U. Coleman, Jena M. Nowling, Sue D. Hagius, Matthew D. Edmonds, Thomas R. Klei

Faculty Publications

Filarial infections have been associated with the development of a strongly polarized Th2 host immune response and a severe impairment of mitogen-driven proliferation and type 1 cytokine production in mice and humans. The role of this polarization in the development of the broad spectra of clinical manifestations of lymphatic filariasis is still unknown. Recently, data gathered from humans as well as from immunocompromised mouse models suggest that filariasis elicits a complex host immune response involving both Th1 and Th2 components. However, responses of a similar nature have not been reported in immunologically intact permissive models of Brugia infection. Brucella abortus-killed …

Identification Of A Streptolysin S-Associated Gene Cluster And Its Role In The Pathogenesis Of Streptococcus Iniae Disease, Jeffrey D. Fuller, Alvin C. Camus, Carla L. Duncan, Victor Nizet, Darrin J. Bast, Ronald L. Thune, Donald E. Low, Joyce C.S. De Azavedo

Faculty Publications

Streptococcus iniae causes meningoencephalitis and death in cultured fish species and soft-tissue infection in humans. We recently reported that S. iniae is responsible for local tissue necrosis and bacteremia in a murine subcutaneous infection model. The ability to cause bacteremia in this model is associated with a genetic profile unique to strains responsible for disease in fish and humans (J. D. Fuller, D. J. Bast, V. Nizet, D. E. Low, and J. C. S. de Azavedo, Infect. Immun. 69:1994-2000, 2001). S. iniae produces a cytolysin that confers a hemolytic phenotype on blood agar media. In this study, we characterized the …

Louisiana Agriculture Fall, 2002, Lsu Agcenter

Louisiana Agriculture

No abstract provided.

Heca, A Member Of A Class Of Adhesins Produced By Diverse Pathogenic Bacteria, Contributes To The Attachment, Aggregation, Epidermal Cell Killing, And Virulence Phenotypes Of Erwinia Chrysanthemi Ec16 On Nicotiana Clevelandii Seedlings, Clemencia M. Rojas, Jong Hyun Ham, Wen Ling Deng, Jeff J. Doyle, Alan Collmer

Faculty Publications

Erwinia chrysanthemi is representative of a broad class of bacterial pathogens that are capable of inducing necrosis in plants. The E. chrysanthemi EC16 hecA gene predicts a 3,850-aa member of the Bordetella pertussis filamentous hemagglutinin family of adhesins. A hecA::Tn7 mutant was reduced in virulence on Nicotiana clevelandii seedlings after inoculation without wounding. Epifluorescence and confocal laser-scanning microscopy observations of hecA and wild-type cells expressing the green fluorescent protein revealed that the mutant is reduced in its ability to attach and then form aggregates on leaves and to cause an aggregate-associated killing of epidermal cells. Cell killing also depended on …

The Nature Of Interchain Excitations In Conjugated Polymers: Spatially-Varying Interfacial Solvatochromism Of Annealed Meh-Ppv Films Studied By Near-Field Scanning Optical Microscopy (Nsom), Richard D. Schaller, Lynn F. Lee, Justin C. Johnson, Louis H. Haber, Richard J. Saykally, John Vieceli, Ilan Benjamin, Thuc Quyen Nguyen, Benjamin J. Schwartz

Faculty Publications

The nature of interchain excitations in conjugated polymers was discussed. The spatially-varying solvatochromism of annealed poly(2-methoxy-5-(2′-ethylhexyloxy)-1,4-phenylene vinylene) (MEH-PPV) films were studied by near-field scanning optical microscopy (NSOM). The solvatochromic spectral shifts of the interfacial luminescence were measured as a function of solvent polarity. The results were analyzed with an interfacial dielectric continuum model to determine the dipole moment of emissive excited states.

Little Qualitative Rna Misexpression In Sterile Male F1 Hybrids Of Drosophila Pseudoobscura And D. Persimilis, Jane Reiland, Mohamed A.F. Noor

Faculty Publications

Background: Although the genetics of hybrid sterility has been the subject of evolutionary studies for over sixty years, no one has shown the reason(s) why alleles that operate normally within species fail to function in another genetic background. Several lines of evidence suggest that failures in normal gene transcription contribute to hybrid dysfunctions, but genome-wide studies of gene expression in pure-species and hybrids have not been undertaken. Here, we study genome-wide patterns of expression in Drosophila pseudoobscura, D. persimilis, and their sterile F1 hybrid males using differential display. Results: Over five thousand amplifications were analyzed, and 3312 were present in …

Comparative Proteome Analysis Of Brucella Melitensis Vaccine Strain Rev 1 And A Virulent Strain, 16m, Michel Eschenbrenner, Mary Ann Wagner, Troy A. Horn, Jo Ann Kraycer, Cesar V. Mujer, Sue Hagius, Philip Elzer, Vito G. Delvecchio

Faculty Publications

The genus Brucella consists of bacterial pathogens that cause brucellosis, a major zoonotic disease characterized by undulant fever and neurological disorders in humans. Among the different Brucella species, Brucella melitensis is considered the most virulent. Despite successful use in animals, the vaccine strains remain infectious for humans. To understand the mechanism of virulence in B. melitensis, the proteome of vaccine strain Rev 1 was analyzed by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and compared to that of virulent strain 16M. The two strains were grown under identical laboratory conditions. Computer-assisted analysis of the two B. melitensis proteomes revealed proteins expressed in either 16M …

Annotations, Cwbr_Editor

Civil War Book Review

No abstract provided.

Louisiana Agriculture Summer, 2002, Lsu Agcenter

Louisiana Agriculture

No abstract provided.

Relaxation Through Homogenization For Optimal Design Problems With Gradient Constraints, R. Lipton

Faculty Publications

The problem of the relaxation of optimal design problems for multiphase composite structures in the presence of constraints on the gradient of the state variable is addressed. A relaxed formulation for the problem is given in the presence of either a finite or infinite number of constraints. The relaxed formulation is used to identify minimizing sequences of configurations of phases.

Design Of Functionally Graded Composite Structures In The Presence Of Stress Constraints, Robert Lipton

Faculty Publications

In this work new homogenization results are used to introduce a methodology for the design of structural components made from composite materials in the presence of stress constraints. A numerical method is developed for finding functionally graded materials that provide the maximum torsional rigidity while keeping the mean square stress inside the composite structure below a prescribed level. © 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

S02rs Sgb No. 24 (Sfoc), Fisher, Buller, Tomlinson, J. Ducote, Wesley

Student Senate Enrolled Legislation

A BILL

creating the Student Fee Oversight Committee, editing all necessary documents and establishing its duties

Louisiana Agriculture Spring, 2002, Lsu Agcenter

Louisiana Agriculture

No abstract provided.

Two Splice Variants Of Nopp140 In Drosophila Melanogaster, John M. Waggener, Patrick J. Dimario

Faculty Publications

The Nopp140 gene of Drosophila maps within 79A5 of chromosome 3. Alternative splicing yields two variants. DmNopp140 (654 residues) is the sequence homolog of vertebrate Nopp140. Its carboxy terminus is 64% identical to that of the prototypical rat Noppl40. DmNopp140-RGG (688 residues) is identical to DmNopp140 throughout its first 551 residues, but its carboxy terminus contains a glycine/arginine-rich domain that is often found in RNA-binding proteins such as vertebrate nucleolin. Both Drosophila variants localize to nucleoli in Drosophila Schneider II cells and Xenopus oocytes, specifically within the dense fibrillar components. In HeLa cells, DmNopp140-RGG localizes to intact nucleoli, whereas DmNopp140 …

Lsu General Catalog 2002-2003, Louisiana State University And Agricultural And Mechanical College

LSU General Catalog

The LSU General Catalog describes all undergraduate and graduate departments and programs with degree requirements and courses offered for each one. The General Catalog includes information on registration and financial aid as well as academic services offered to all students.

Trends In The Job Market For Librarians: 1985-2000, Kelly D. Blessinger

Faculty Publications

This article discusses the major influence that the information age has had on librarianship. Computer-related technology has changed the way librarians do their jobs, their duties, and has created a whole new realm of opportunities for librarians. Data from the Library Journal annual salary surveys and the ALA Placement Center are included in charts and figures to track job market trends from 1985-2000. Issues such as salary, job mobility and education are also discussed.