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Decolonizing World History: Mis-Representations Of The Middle East In Secondary Social Studies Textbooks, Amanda Megan Schellhaas Jan 2016

Decolonizing World History: Mis-Representations Of The Middle East In Secondary Social Studies Textbooks, Amanda Megan Schellhaas

LSU Master's Theses

This study utilizes content analysis to evaluate three United States High School World History textbook’s coverage of the Middle East since 1945 in order to determine if an authentic global approach to history is being utilized. This was determined by analyzing the amount of coverage that was dedicated to the Middle East, the focus of the narrative, and the portrayal of the Middle East. Analysis of the narrative content of the texts showed that coverage of the Middle East overall did not receive an equitable representation in comparison to other regions. The focus of this coverage centered on defining the …

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Strategic Use Of Language In White House Twitter Communications, Margo L. Jolet Jan 2016

Strategic Use Of Language In White House Twitter Communications, Margo L. Jolet

LSU Master's Theses

Lippmann (1922) theorized that we understand our world through elites and the media because we cannot experience everything ourselves. We look to others to share their experiences with us. In this way, the media and elites tell us what is important in our world. Converse (1964), Zaller (1992), and Lupia (1994) argue that not only do elites and the media help us see what is important, but they draw out attributes of these issues to help us make political determinations congruent with our belief systems. In this thesis, I conduced two studies investigating candidate, party, and White House tweets about …

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Initial Development And Validation Of The Student Wellbeing Teacher-Report Scales, Anthony Joseph Roberson Jan 2016

Initial Development And Validation Of The Student Wellbeing Teacher-Report Scales, Anthony Joseph Roberson

LSU Master's Theses

Given that youth mental health is associated with their success in school and in life more broadly, it is important that school-based psychological service providers embrace best-practice prevention and intervention strategies that target mental health when working with student populations. One line of study in this area has begun exploring the incorporation of a dual-factor model of mental health within universal screening systems in schools. The dual-factor model is differentiated from the traditional unidimensional mental health model, which focuses on the presence or absence of psychopathology, by conceptualizing mental health alternatively as consisting of both psychopathology and wellbeing dimensions. The …

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An Examination Of Autism Symptomatology In Young Children With Family History Of Autism Spectrum Disorder, Jasper Abarte Estabillo Jan 2016

An Examination Of Autism Symptomatology In Young Children With Family History Of Autism Spectrum Disorder, Jasper Abarte Estabillo

LSU Master's Theses

Multiple genetic and environmental factors have roles in the etiology of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Thus, researchers have become increasingly interested in studying family members of individuals with ASD in order to examine possible risk factors and to identify early markers of the disorder. While family history of ASD may put an individual at risk for developing autism, there is limited research examining how the degree of relationship to the affected individual may be related to an individual’s presenting ASD symptomatology. Because closer familial relationships (i.e., first-degree relatives) have more shared genetic material and tend to have increased common environment …

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Constructing The Search Template: Episodic And Semantic Influences On Categorical Template Formation, Juan D. Guevara Pinto Jan 2016

Constructing The Search Template: Episodic And Semantic Influences On Categorical Template Formation, Juan D. Guevara Pinto

LSU Master's Theses

Search efficiency is usually improved by presenting observers with highly detailed target cues (e.g., pictures). However, in the absence of accurate target cues, observers must rely only on categorical information to find targets. Models of visual search suggest that guidance in a categorical search results from matching categorically-diagnostic target features in the search display to a top-down attentional set (i.e., the search template), but the mechanisms by which such attentional set is constructed have not been specified. The present investigation examined the influences of both semantic and episodic memory on search template formation. More precisely, the present study tested whether …

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Enhancing Program Soft Error Resilience Through Algorithmic Approaches, Sui Chen Jan 2016

Enhancing Program Soft Error Resilience Through Algorithmic Approaches, Sui Chen

LSU Master's Theses

The rising count and shrinking feature size of transistors within modern computers is making them increasingly vulnerable to various types of soft faults. This problem is especially acute in high-performance computing (HPC) systems used for scientific computing, because these systems include many thousands of compute cores and nodes, all of which may be utilized in a single large-scale run. The increasing vulnerability of HPC applications to errors induced by soft faults is motivating extensive work on techniques to make these applications more resilient to such faults, ranging from generic techniques such as replication or checkpoint/restart to algorithm-specific error detection and …

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Gotta Catch 'Em All, Jennifer Lynn Lombardi Jan 2016

Gotta Catch 'Em All, Jennifer Lynn Lombardi

LSU Master's Theses

The ability to imagine is essential to shaping who we are, and is an important part of our humanity. Children have the ability to use aspects of their environment as their playthings, becoming the characters in their world through their sense of imagination. We lose this ability as we grow, leaving us with only memories and sentimentality. I have come to realize that my art is an expression of the longing and search to regain that ability to become fused with my imagination and my environment. I allow myself to become lost in a world of fantasy once more, and …

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The Attentional Mechanisms Of Active Forgetting, Laura Lee Heisick Jan 2016

The Attentional Mechanisms Of Active Forgetting, Laura Lee Heisick

LSU Master's Theses

Recent work has shown that intentional forgetting of distracting, erroneous, or irrelevant information aids memory, and relies on active, effortful processes. Two experiments investigated the underlying attentional mechanisms that are active during directed forgetting (DF). Across both experiments, participants completed a modified item-method DF task, in which they received memory instructions to remember or forget individual images for a subsequent memory test. Participants studied items associated with remember or forget instructions before they were shown a subliminal presentation of target items. Finally, participants responded to probes by identifying briefly shown letters to assess how attention and item identity information are …

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“What Credit Is That To You?” The Social Context Of Moneylending In Medieval England A Comparative Study 1340-1509, Elizabeth Ann Green Jan 2016

“What Credit Is That To You?” The Social Context Of Moneylending In Medieval England A Comparative Study 1340-1509, Elizabeth Ann Green

LSU Master's Theses

This study makes use of the manorial court rolls of Dyffryn Clwyd, a cantref in Northern Wales, and the certificates of debt from London to examine the lives of two medieval usurers, Ieuan Kery and Sir William Capell, between the years 1340 to 1352 , and 1478 to 1509 . By examining the life of these two individuals who both operated one of the rarest, most socially complex occupations of his place and time, this study begins to expose the ways in which usury helped to shape the fabric of late Medieval culture in the British Isles. The singular focus …

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Control, Care, And Stress: Parenting's Effect On Child Internalizing Symptoms, Maysa Kaskas Jan 2016

Control, Care, And Stress: Parenting's Effect On Child Internalizing Symptoms, Maysa Kaskas

LSU Master's Theses

Theoretical models of childhood psychopathology suggest that the parent-child relationship serves an influential role in the development and maintenance of internalizing disorders such as anxiety and depression. However, there is a great deal of inconsistency in the research literature on the predictive power of parenting variables such as parental control and parental care. Furthermore, these parenting variables are often poorly defined and inconsistently operationalized across studies, hampering interpretation of results and limiting conclusions on the strength of the effect. Additionally, few studies have examined the role of parenting with careful attention to moderators. In order to investigate these problems, 189 …

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Quantitative Analysis Of Marine Transportation Systems Resiliency, Nafiseh Farhadi Jan 2016

Quantitative Analysis Of Marine Transportation Systems Resiliency, Nafiseh Farhadi

LSU Master's Theses

The United States Marine Transportation System (MTS) makes large contributions to the nation’s economy, security, safety, and quality of life. Strategic investment, planning, administrative and operational decisions by government at all levels are necessary to maintain the marine transportation system performance at all times, which in turn requires a technical approach and professional leadership based on research. This study describes the approach and results of an ongoing research effort to assess the resiliency of port operations following major disasters and other disruptive events. The work presented in this research uses a set of archival data from the United States Coast …

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An Evaluation Of The Utility Of Reading Curriculum-Based Measurement As Progress Monitoring Tools And Predictors Of Comprehension, Haley Elizabeth York Jan 2016

An Evaluation Of The Utility Of Reading Curriculum-Based Measurement As Progress Monitoring Tools And Predictors Of Comprehension, Haley Elizabeth York

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Many American students struggle with reading, particularly in the area of comprehension. As such, early identification of reading difficulties, use of evidenced-based interventions, and monitoring of student reading progress over time is essential. Curriculum-based measurement (CBM) is a technically adequate, efficient tool whose features and design make it a good candidate for early identification and progress monitoring purposes, especially within a response to intervention framework. However, there is still some uncertainty regarding the utility of reading CBM as progress monitoring tools. Specifically, the literature has suggested that variability in the difficulty of CBM materials may influence how well these tools …

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Silent Suffering: A Phenomenological Study Of African American Women Facing Infertility & Lessons Learned For Work-Life Balance, Kimberley Faye Williams Jan 2016

Silent Suffering: A Phenomenological Study Of African American Women Facing Infertility & Lessons Learned For Work-Life Balance, Kimberley Faye Williams

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Although African American women represent the largest female demographic in the workforce (NABCP, 2014) and have the highest rates of infertility (Chandra, Copen & Stephen, 2013), their career and life experiences remain underrepresented in scholarship. Framed through the critical lens of Intersectionality, this phenomenological qualitative study explored the lived experiences of 11 African American women as they struggled with infertility and the competing demands of work and family life. The two major themes that emerged were: (1) silent suffering, and (2) lack of sensitivity and support in the workplace. The subthemes that supported silent suffering included: (1) emotional distress and …

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Psychological And Environmental Predictors Of Test Anxiety: A Structural Equation Model, Meredith Taylor Harris Jan 2016

Psychological And Environmental Predictors Of Test Anxiety: A Structural Equation Model, Meredith Taylor Harris

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Test anxiety is a construct that includes cognitive, physiological, and behavioral symptoms occurring in response to anxiety prior to, during, or following examinations. The current literature on test anxiety has evaluated a number of possible predictors, including demographic variables, academic indicators, and self-perceptions. The movement toward school accountability and higher academic expectations of students has increased the severity of consequences occurring as a result of poor academic achievement. Thus, test anxiety is a critical concern that may impact student academic success. The current study evaluated a structural equation model to determine the strength of associations between trait anxiety, academic achievement, …

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(Re)Writing History In Maryse Condé, Femi Euba, And Reinaldo Arenas, Lázara Bolton Jan 2016

(Re)Writing History In Maryse Condé, Femi Euba, And Reinaldo Arenas, Lázara Bolton

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This comparative study asserts the centrality of spirituality to literature that explores life in the African Diaspora. Specifically, it emphasizes the importance of spirituality both to the authors and to the lives of their characters in the novels Victoire, les saveurs et les mots (2006) by the Guadeloupian author Maryse Condé, Camwood at Crossroads (2007) by Nigerian author Femi Euba, and El color del verano (1991) by Cuban author Reinaldo Arenas. A close reading of the three novels shows that they are representative of autohistoría literary works, which represent the spirituality of the writer, as well as the people written …

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The Effect Of Teacher Beliefs And Self-Efficacy On Environmental Education Program Implementation, Ashley Wilson Mullens Jan 2016

The Effect Of Teacher Beliefs And Self-Efficacy On Environmental Education Program Implementation, Ashley Wilson Mullens

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study describes the development and initial validation of a tool to measure teachers’ beliefs about environmental education (EE), perceptions about their own self-efficacy in implementing EE in their classroom, perceptions about the support they receive in regards to implementing EE in their classroom, the perceived motivators towards EE, and the perceived barriers towards EE. This instrument was then utilized to measure these five constructs and compare results between participants and non-participants of a school-based environmental education program. All respondents had positive beliefs about environmental education. Participants and non-participants did differentiate between their perceptions of self-efficacy, support, and motivators, suggesting …

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The Political Imagination Of Cormac Mccarthy, Drew Kennedy Thompson Jan 2016

The Political Imagination Of Cormac Mccarthy, Drew Kennedy Thompson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is a study in literature and politics and proceeds by tracing out the major political themes of McCarthy’s body of fiction and analyzing them toward their logical conclusions. The critical approach in this narrative-based anthropology looks at man first in profound isolation and then progresses through his novels in sequence, in an increasingly social context. McCarthy’s later fiction displays an increasingly affirmative view of the sacredness of human life and of the basic impulse toward community in even the most unreflective of characters; an essential characteristic of humans. To call any of McCarthy’s works a “political novel” would …

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Perceived Barriers To Autism Spectrum Disorder Services, Lindsey Willis Williams Jan 2016

Perceived Barriers To Autism Spectrum Disorder Services, Lindsey Willis Williams

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a lifelong neurodevelopmental disorder with hallmark symptoms that can be severely impairing to both the individual and the overall family dynamic. The path to diagnostic and therapy services is often lengthy and complex. Despite various state and federal efforts to improve service access, disparities remain evident across ethnic, socioeconomic, and geographic lines with caregivers reporting financial, cultural, geographic, and practical (e.g., transportation, scheduling) barriers. For those able to access treatment, several interventions have been proven efficacious in addressing ASD symptoms, problem behaviors, and adaptive skills deficits. Other often-used interventions include those without established merit for …

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The Multidimensional Bullying Victimization Scale: Development And Validation, Shannon Marie Harbin Jan 2016

The Multidimensional Bullying Victimization Scale: Development And Validation, Shannon Marie Harbin

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

One in three middle and high school students are victims of bullying (National Educational Association, 2012). The prevalence of bullying has increased over the past 10 years by approximately 25% (Nation Center of Education Statistics, 2013) and is now considered a public health concern. Published measures of bullying lack breadth and/or psychometric support. The present study created a psychometrically sound measure assessing bully victimization in adolescents. This measure examines three dimensions of bullying: direct, indirect, and evaluative. Items were generated based on information collected from student focus groups, as well as previously published measures and themes within recently published literature. …

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Necessary Medicine: Rethinking Health Communication At Burning Man, Raquel Irene Polanco Jan 2016

Necessary Medicine: Rethinking Health Communication At Burning Man, Raquel Irene Polanco

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study turns to the annual Burning Man Festival held in Black Rock City, Nevada as a site of cultural performance where participants negotiate health meanings. I adopt a culture-centered approach to health communication and utilize critical performance ethnography and narrative performativity as methodological and theoretical frameworks to investigate the specific communication practices that bring about health meanings at the festival. Analysis revealed the significance of everyday life practices performed through narrative for understanding how Burning Man participants understand, reinforce, and counter various health meanings with implications for the field of health communication and performance studies.

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Process Monitoring And Data Mining With Chemical Process Historical Databases, Michael Carl Thomas Jan 2016

Process Monitoring And Data Mining With Chemical Process Historical Databases, Michael Carl Thomas

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Modern chemical plants have distributed control systems (DCS) that handle normal operations and quality control. However, the DCS cannot compensate for fault events such as fouling or equipment failures. When faults occur, human operators must rapidly assess the situation, determine causes, and take corrective action, a challenging task further complicated by the sheer number of sensors. This information overload as well as measurement noise can hide information critical to diagnosing and fixing faults. Process monitoring algorithms can highlight key trends in data and detect faults faster, reducing or even preventing the damage that faults can cause. This research improves tools …

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Effects Of Premature Birth And/Or Low Birthweight On Developmental Outcomes, Rachel L. Goldin Jan 2016

Effects Of Premature Birth And/Or Low Birthweight On Developmental Outcomes, Rachel L. Goldin

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Advances in neonatal technology have improved survival rates of children born at lower and lower birthweight and after fewer and fewer weeks of gestation. However, these children are at increased risk of experiencing developmental delays. As weeks of gestation and birthweight decrease, the risk of developmental impairment and severity increases. Yet to be determined is whether premature birth and low birthweight (LBW) effect development differentially, and if the combined, have an additive effect on developmental outcomes. The first part of this study aimed to examine the independent effects of preterm birth and LBW in children at risk for developmental delays. …

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The Darkest Nation: American Melancholia In Modernist Narratives Of The First World War, Michael Von Cannon Jan 2016

The Darkest Nation: American Melancholia In Modernist Narratives Of The First World War, Michael Von Cannon

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

My dissertation, entitled The Darkest Nation: American Melancholia in Modernist Narratives of the First World War, re-conceptualizes U.S. modernism by attending to how the historical event of WWI inaugurated melancholia, or sustained grief, as the cornerstone of a new form of nationalism. Scholars have focused either on how consolatory mourning bolstered patriotism or how melancholia led to the demise of such an imagined community and to the growth of cosmopolitanism. I consider, however, an American modernist commitment to the nation of loss expressed, surprisingly enough, in narratives about noncombatants. For a country that entered the military conflict near its end, …

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Relational Effects Of Person-Centered Comfort, Andrea Jean Vickery Jan 2016

Relational Effects Of Person-Centered Comfort, Andrea Jean Vickery

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

When faced with stressful events, people seek the comfort of close others. The quality of support we receive from our friends, family members, and romantic partners, in turn, impacts our ability to cope. In addition, how we feel about our close relational partners seems intimately related to their abilities to foster appropriate, rather than maladaptive, coping. Surprisingly, however, the relational effects of support are largely ignored in literature. The two studies that comprise this dissertation incorporate tenets of two influential interpersonal communication theories, Person Centered Theory (PCT) and Relational Framing Theory (RFT), to investigate the relational effects of person-centered comfort. …

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Programmed Shifts In Reward Quality And Quantity: A Planned Positive And Negative Contrast Analysis, Michael Schafer Jan 2016

Programmed Shifts In Reward Quality And Quantity: A Planned Positive And Negative Contrast Analysis, Michael Schafer

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Two experiments were conducted in an attempt to occasion both positive and negative contrast effects. The primary purpose was to occasion both decrements and increases in responding following planned shifts in quality or magnitude of reinforcement. Participants were children ages 7 to 16 years who were receiving therapy using Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and had a prior diagnosis of autism. In Experiment I, changes in responding were measured following manipulations of reinforcer quality. Results indicated response patterns consistent with negative contrast effects following shifts from high quality to low quality reinforcers, and positive contrast effects following shifts from low quality …

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Succession In Family Owned Businesses: The Influence Of Succession Planning And Demographic Characteristics On Succession Success, Steven Thomas Perret Jan 2016

Succession In Family Owned Businesses: The Influence Of Succession Planning And Demographic Characteristics On Succession Success, Steven Thomas Perret

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the influence selected aspects of succession planning and selected demographic characteristics had on the level of success in the succession of family owned businesses (FOB¡¯s) in south Louisiana. To achieve this, the researcher designed a survey instrument to collect data. A total of 61 FOB¡¯s responded indicating they completed succession; however, only 23 or (38%) completed a planned succession to the next generation. An important finding was that having a high quality succession plan had a positive influence on the perceptions of family owned business owners and managers. Another important finding …

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Black Girl Magic: How Black Women Administrators Navigate The Intersection Of Race And Gender In Workspace Silos At Predominantly White Institutions, Allison Michelle Smith Jan 2016

Black Girl Magic: How Black Women Administrators Navigate The Intersection Of Race And Gender In Workspace Silos At Predominantly White Institutions, Allison Michelle Smith

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In choosing to look at the impact of white racially homogeneous work environments, if any, in relation to Black women higher education administrators, this research was grounded in Patricia Hill Collins’ Black Feminist Thought. Utilizing Black Feminist Thought, rooted in intersectionality, provided a sturdy foundation for one interested in conducting research specific to Black women, whether the discourse is race, gender, and/or any other intersecting identities. Black Feminist Thought conveys the message that Black women have similar yet different experiences from White women and similar yet different experiences from Black men, while simultaneously having shared yet different experiences than other …

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Developing A Mathematically Informed Approach To Musical Narrative Through The Analysis Of Three Twentieth-Century Monophonic Woodwind Works, Wesley James Bradford Jan 2016

Developing A Mathematically Informed Approach To Musical Narrative Through The Analysis Of Three Twentieth-Century Monophonic Woodwind Works, Wesley James Bradford

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This project applies mathematically informed narrative to monophonic music in the twentieth century, with a focus on three works for solo woodwinds: Debussy’s Syrinx (flute), Stravinsky’s Three Pieces for Clarinet, and Britten’s “Bacchus” from Six Metamorphoses after Ovid, Op. 49 (oboe). This music poses difficulties for traditional analytical methods due to a lack of explicit harmonies and unusual pitch language that is neither functionally tonal nor serially atonal. Additionally, these pieces present a variety of challenges due to differences in length, number of movements, and presence or absence of programmatic elements. Therefore, nontraditional methods could be beneficial for understanding these …

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Framing The Ebola Outbreak: Systemic Influences On News Coverage, Adaobi Vivian Duru Jan 2016

Framing The Ebola Outbreak: Systemic Influences On News Coverage, Adaobi Vivian Duru

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

ABSTRACT Using a media systems comparative framework, I investigated the relationship between systemic characteristics and news coverage of international events. Leveraging a highly salient event: the Ebola outbreak, I extended the Hallin and Mancini Model to non-western democracies. This dissertation explored differences in media coverage of Ebola across media systems. Findings revealed that characteristics of media systems inform how news about an event is framed by reporters. By investigating news influences, this dissertation broadly sheds light on the latent influences of politics and culture on what audiences receive as news. My results showed that liberal media systems such as those …

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The Social Contagion Of Adolescent Depression: Applying A Differential Susceptibility Model, Win Guan Jan 2016

The Social Contagion Of Adolescent Depression: Applying A Differential Susceptibility Model, Win Guan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Recent research investigating social risk factors of depression has found evidence for a social contagion effect. The research comes from a surge in popularity of using social network analyses to examine the spread of various health outcomes such as obesity, smoking, substance use, and sleep. Although the finding of depressive contagion represents a significant contribution to the literature on the social etiology of depression, this is only the first step in providing meaningful research useful for the practical application of curbing the growing rates of depression especially among adolescents. Rather than simply acknowledging the existence of contagion effects, researchers must …

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