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A Comprehensive Assessment Of Rape Myths, Hookup Culture, And Social Structure Among Heterosexual Individuals, Timothy Thomas Reling

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation study is an examination of the relationship among rape culture, hookup culture, and social structure (i.e. regular and patterned forms of interaction over time which crystalize ideological constructs and channel behavior in specific ways). Since few efforts have examined female-on-female rape myth acceptance, I first explore collegiate perceptions of female-on-female rape to denote the influence of heteronormative discourse in guiding myths regarding survivor culpability, offender culpability, and situational contexts. Second, I develop, pilot, and validate a psychometric instrument to exclusively assess female-on-female rape myth acceptance. Finally, I comparatively assess the mediating influence of heteronormativity on the association between …

Sacroiliac Joint Fusion In Nulliparous And Parous Females And Males, Meredith Aulds

LSU Master's Theses

Previous research shows that sacroiliac (SI) joint fusion is age and sex dependent. Older individuals—specifically starting in the fifth or sixth decade of life—are more likely to develop SI fusion. Females have a lower frequency of SI joint fusion than males, perhaps due to pregnancy or parturition. This study examines the relationship between SI joint fusion with both sex and parity status in females. The issue is whether the prevalence of SI fusion in nulliparous females is more similar to that of males or parous females. The sample consists of 46 nulliparous females, 119 parous females, and 158 males from …

American Waste, Jason Allen Christian

LSU Master's Theses

American Waste is an interlinking story cycle told in the first person by a character called Rice. The stories follow Rice from his childhood (in rural Oklahoma) into adulthood, first when lives in a “punk house” with other young punk rockers in Oklahoma City, and later as he travels by freight train around the country. While he travels he reports on what he sees and experiences in the subculture that he is part of, whose members are called gutter punks and crusties. Theirs is a lifestyle bent on risk and adventure and also often plagued with drug and alcohol addiction. …

"Sir, I Cannot Entertain You": Tour Guides As Agents Of Truth And Transformation At The Whitney Plantation, Sarah Latham

LSU Master's Theses

According to the Louisiana office of tourism, one out of every nine workers in Louisiana relies on the state’s tourism industry for their wages, of which plantation tourism is a growing part (2016). This research examines the experiences of tour guides at the Whitney Plantation. How do tourists’ expectations and concepts of heritage affect the way tour guides do their jobs? What are tour guides’ experiences of being objectified by visitors? How are tour guides’ experiences shaped by race and racialized expectation? Specifically, I examined tour guides at The Whitney Plantation Museum in Wallace, Louisiana. This project drew on participant-observation …

Parents’ Perspectives Of Cultural Competence In Schools: The Initial Development Of The Culturally Competent School Community Scale, Aijah Kai Baruti Goodwin

LSU Master's Theses

Diversity in school settings is continuously changing with an increase of minority students in the United States school systems. The present study uses a phenomenological approach to gain parents’ experiences related to culturally responsive and competent practices in their child(ren)’s schools. Interviews were conducted with 10 culturally diverse parents with children in preschool and/or elementary school. The interviews were transcribed verbatim, coded for common themes and analyzed for the frequency and prevalence of the themes in preschool vs. elementary school settings. An analysis of the interviews revealed 6 themes related to culturally competent and responsive practices in school settings. The …

A Retrospective Analysis And Method Validation Of Postmortem Interval Estimation In Louisiana, Sophia Reck

LSU Master's Theses

Forensic anthropologists are often called upon to assess the postmortem interval (PMI; i.e. time since death) of remains in varying states of decomposition and skeletonization. These assessments rely on familiarity with general taphonomic sequences and processes, in addition to experience with how these processes present in local environments and conditions. Assessment using such qualitative methods is a subjective process. Therefore, some researchers have developed formulae whose purpose is to estimate PMI in an objective format. In these instances, the resultant PMI estimation formulae were developed using local data and therefore have the potential for local applicability. Additionally, for some regions, …

Effects Of Dietary Sugars And Sugar Alcohols On Mortality And Thermal Tolerance In Culex Quinquefasciatus And Aedes Aegypti, Madeleine Chura

LSU Master's Theses

Aedes aegypti (L. 1762), the yellow fever mosquito, and Culex quinquefasciatus Say 1823, the southern house mosquito, are prevalent in tropical and subtropical areas worldwide and are responsible for the spread of a number of devastating diseases to humans and livestock. The development of new control methods, as well as continued study of mosquito biology, is vital for improving human health. This study aimed to examine the efficacy of sugar alcohols as a novel means for mosquito control, as well as how sugar alcohols and other factors are involved in thermal tolerance in mosquitoes.

No-choice tests with the sugar alcohols …

Naus, Justin Greene

LSU Master's Theses

A collection of poems and nonfiction vignettes, naus entails a navigation of my experience with Tourette Syndrome and, consequently, what it can mean to have a noisy body. Rather than situate noise as a negatively construed iteration of sound, I contend that, following the work of Michel Serres, it is instead a disruption within a system, a parasitical interception, an affective force that has the potential to alter the positions and orientations of a given constellation of bodies, human or otherwise. Similar to how sound, as a verb, can be understood as “to fathom” or “to make sense of,” naus …

Environmental Controls On Dissolved Carbon Export And River Geochemistry - A Case Study In The Mississippi-Atchafalaya System, Jeremy Reiman

LSU Master's Theses

Rivers serve as an important medium for the exchange of elements between land, ocean, and atmosphere. This thesis consists of three interconnected studies with the overarching goal of analyzing the environmental factors influencing dissolved carbon dynamics and river geochemistry in large rivers. These studies utilized river water samples and in-stream measurements collected from the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers at hourly to monthly intervals between 2013 to 2018, along with ambient river and meteorological data downloaded from public-access databases. Results indicate substantially higher dissolved organic carbon concentrations (DOC, 611 ±181 µmol L^-1) but lower concentrations of dissolved inorganic carbon …

Estimating Sex Using The Human Mandibular Canine, Brittney Blevins

LSU Master's Theses

Sexual dimorphism can be quantified in human mandibular canines; therefore, these teeth can be used to estimate sex of skeletonized individuals. This study complements and expands previous research by comparing mesiodistal diameter (MD), buccolingual diameter (BL), and crown area of human mandibular canines. Measurements were taken from a sample of skeletal individuals from the Terry Collection (n=677), the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology Skeletal Collection (n=86), and a random sample of dental casts from the James K. Economides Orthodontic Case File (JKE, n=624), for a total study sample of 741 males and 677 females. Both left and right canines were measured, …

The Lowly Ones, Cassie Meredith Benson Grillon

LSU Master's Theses

The Lowly Ones is a collection of short stories that interrogates the meaning of beatitudes written about in Luke 6:20–23 in the Bible. The characters in these stories navigate complex moral situations that examine the meaning behind the values presented in the beatitudes: mercy, sorrow, persecution, etc. These women face the challenges of faith in surprising ways, through the notoriety of a dead sister, the fascination with a lower-class neighbor, and the mysterious purchase of an exotic bird. This collection thoroughly erases the fictitious line religion and society draw between saints and sinners.

Using Entheseal Length To Infer Locomotor Type, Antonio R. Otero

LSU Master's Theses

An enthesis is a marking (tuberosity or impression) on bone where a muscle or tendon attaches and it can be influenced by age, sex, physical activity, and muscle size. This study ascertains whether entheses, long bones, and their respective ratios can be used as an indicator for mode of locomotion in four primate species: Ateles geoffroyi (Geoffroy’s spider monkey), Colobus guereza (mantled guereza), Hylobates lar (lar gibbon), and Macaca mulatta (rhesus monkey). Seven entheses on four long bones were chosen based on importance of the muscle in relation to specific locomotor types, use in other studies, and …

Evaluation Of Reproductive Phenology And Ecology Of Eastern Wild Turkey (Meleagris Gallopavo Silvestris) Across The Southeastern United States, Nicholas W. Bakner

LSU Master's Theses

Avian reproduction is known to be a driver of population dynamics across species and systems. Behavioral decisions during incubation such as habitat selection and nest attentiveness are thought to affect nest success. The incubation process is a costly period during which individuals are sedentary and must balance survival with reproductive success and overall fitness. Current understanding of Eastern wild turkey incubation behavior provides a limited view of the incubation period. Using GPS data collected from Eastern wild turkeys (n = 220), I evaluated nest fate as it relates to recess frequency, distance travelled during recess, and habitat selection during …

Disentangling The Role Of Future Orientation And Callous-Unemotional Traits In The Prediction Of Offending In Justice-Involved Youth, Toni Walker

LSU Master's Theses

Future Orientation and callous-unemotional (CU) traits are well established predictors of future offending. A more positive outlook on one’s future goals seems to protect youth from engaging in antisocial behavior, whereas elevated CU traits predict more severe and persistent forms of delinquency. The relationship between CU traits and other aspects of psychopathy, such as grandiose self-worth, is not consistent with a pessimistic outlook towards the future. This study explored the associations among these variables in a sample of male first-time juvenile offenders (N = 1,216). Results indicated that future orientation predicted delinquency over a 5-year follow-up period, and this …

Surface Gravity Waves In The Gulf Of Mexico And Their Role In Ocean-Atmosphere Coupling, Ehsan Abolfazli

LSU Master's Theses

This study provides an overview of the surface gravity wave dynamics in the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) using numerical simulations. The focus is on the effects of ocean currents on waves, and the geographic distribution of a set of wave statistics and parameters related to the role of waves on both sides of the ocean-atmosphere interface. Simulations are performed using the Simulating WAves Nearshore (SWAN) model with and without coupling with the Regional Ocean Modeling System (ROMS) model within the Coupled Ocean Atmosphere Wave Sediment Transport (COAWST) framework. In the GoM, currents alter the climatological significant wave heights (H …

Impacts Of Anthropogenic Activities On Coastal Wetland Microbes And Microbially-Mediated Processes In Coastal Louisiana, Jessica Vaccare

LSU Master's Theses

Louisiana contains 40% of the nation’s coastal wetlands, but accounts for 80% of the nation’s coastal wetland loss. This loss is attributed to eustatic sea level rise (SLR), regional land subsidence, and sediment starvation. The relative SLR in coastal Louisiana (~13 mm yr^-1) puts this area within the predicted level of SLR for most other coastlines in the next 65-85 years; and makes current coastal Louisiana an ideal proxy for studying the future impacts of SLR, wetland loss, and anthropogenic activities on coastal ecosystems worldwide.

There are approximately 1,500 oil spills reported for Louisiana every year and the …

Adaptation To Climate Change Through Genetic Accommodation And Assimilation Of Plastic Phenotypes, Morgan Kelly

Faculty Publications

© 2019 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved. Theory suggests that evolutionary changes in phenotypic plasticity could either hinder or facilitate evolutionary rescue in a changing climate. Nevertheless, the actual role of evolving plasticity in the responses of natural populations to climate change remains unresolved. Direct observations of evolutionary change in nature are rare, making it difficult to assess the relative contributions of changes in trait means versus changes in plasticity to climate change responses. To address this gap, this review explores several proxies that can be used to understand evolving plasticity in the context of …

Blueberry Pectin-Anthocyanin Binding Kinetics And Stability Under In Vitro Digestion, Jee Won Koh

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Blueberry pectins were sequentially extracted from highbush blueberry powder and precipitated in alcohol to obtain water soluble fraction (WSF) and chelator soluble fraction (CSF). WSF was high methoxyl pectin (degree of esterification: 53), rich in in neutral sugars (40 mol%), and had less negative charge (-21 mV) whereas CSF was low methoxyl pectin (degree of esterification: 21), rich in uronic acids (92 mol%), and had lower negative charge ( -26 mV).

The stability of blueberry pectin-anthocyanin complex was investigated under simulated in vitro digestion. Binding of blueberry pectins with three anthocyanin standards (malvidin-3-glucoside; M3G, cyanidin-3-glucoside; C3G, and delphinidin-3-glucoside; D3G) and …

Infrared Laser Ablation For Biomolecule Sampling, Kelin Wang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this research, an infrared laser at a wavelength of 3 µm was used to ablate material from tissue sections for biomolecule analysis. Pulsed infrared (IR) irradiation of tissue with a focused laser beam efficiently removed biomolecules, such as proteins, enzymes, DNA, and RNA from tissue sections for further analysis. In a proteomics project, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry imaging (MALDI-MSI) was used to determine regions of interest (ROI) for laser ablation. The matrix was then washed off. By overlaying the MSI generated heat-map, the section was sampled using IR laser ablation and custom stage-control software. Two ROI were selected …

Development Of Sheath Blight-Resistant Breeding Lines For Southern U.S. Environments And Morphological And Genetic Survey Of Giant Salvinia Populations In Louisiana And Texas, Dominique Clark Galam

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The southern US environment is a very conducive environment for agriculture and fisheries. Rice farming, shrimping and water related activities help drive the local economy. However, there are several factors that impede the success of these activities. Sheath blight (SB) disease caused by Rhizoctonia solani is one of the major biotic constraints to high grain yield and quality for most commercial U.S. rice varieties. Although different breeding lines with high levels of "partial resistance" have been developed none has been used directly as a commercial variety. The first research objective of this research was to identify and develop advanced breeding …

The Tripartite Interaction Between Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi, Rice, And Insects, Lina Bernaola Alvarado

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Losses caused by pests remain an important limitation to achieving high rice yields in the United States. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AM fungi) are able to modify plant physiology by increasing plant growth or inducing defense responses against insect herbivores. However, studies of the role of AM fungi in agroecological factors, including natural occurrence, plant resistance, soil dependency, and plant tolerance, with specific regards to pests that feed on rice plants have not been conducted before. A three-year study revealed natural occurring colonization by AM fungi on rice roots sampled in four rice-producing areas in the southern United States. Overall, rice-AM …

Spatial And Temporal Patterns Of Ecological Succession And Land Development Along A Coastal Deltaic Floodplain Chronosequence, Anika Abena Campbell Aarons

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Coastal deltaic floodplain development occurs when riverine sediment delivery to coastal margins facilitates land accretion at a rate that exceeds the combined effect of eustatic sea level rise and geologic subsidence, leading to an actively prograding deltaic landscape. In a coastal setting environmental conditions are driven by river discharge, winds, tides and vegetation. The combination of these physical and biological forces over time creates a spatial heterogeneity in the landscape, which determines patterns of ecological succession. These successional changes are recorded in the soils and sediments of the delta and occur along age and elevation gradients. I described spatial and …

Health Information Seeking As A Coping Strategy To Reduce The Stress Of Informal Caregivers Of Individuals With Alzheimer’S Disease And Other Forms Of Dementia, Nia Francis Mason

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study explored the relationship between information seeking and the perceived stress levels of informal Alzheimer’s and dementia caregivers. An additional component was added to determine whether health literacy and emotional state moderated the relationship.

The study involved conducting qualitative interviews followed by collecting survey data to answer the following research questions: 1) What motivating factors lead informal AD caregivers to seek out information? How do their information needs change? Why do informal caregivers choose to utilize certain resources more than others? Is there a correlation between information seeking and resulting stress levels? Does health literacy moderate the association between …

The Rhetoric Of Sickle Cell Anemia, Raquel Mcfarland Robvais

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

My dissertation examines the rhetorical treatment of sickle cell anemia as synecdoche, representing a preoccupation with racialized discourses of disease and the affective registers manifested in public life. From its inception SCA has taken on cultural meanings to satisfy ideological arguments about the nature of black bodies.

It has been appropriated to create “categories of difference and belonging” (Schramm et al). I examine how SCA is gathered by rhetors to serve varying ideological purposes and cultural communities. It is utilized to invite different readings that conceptualize the black body as an object of scientific experimentation, as an agent for resistance …

Sensory Analysis For Determining The Influence Of Visual Stimuli Upon Eating Experiences, Pitchayapat Chonpracha

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Consumers are currently more conscious about salt and sugar intake than they were in the past. Visual cues have been shown to impact consumers’ cognitive and their taste perceptions. Current research information about visual cues enhancing human’s tastes expectation of saltiness and sweetness is limited. The sophisticated sensory analysis for products containing a reduced amount of salt and sugar is undoubtedly time–consuming and costly if the sensory experiment is designed with many samples. Therefore, the following three studies were achieved: I) an examination of how intrinsic and extrinsic visual cues affect the overall consumer eating experiences; II) a comparison of …

Fate Of Selected Pollutants Of Concern On Particulate Matter (Pm) Surface, Ajit Ghimire

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This research focuses on the environmental fate of particle associated pollutants such as Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBDEs), Polyaromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs), and Environmentally Persistent Free Radicals (EPFRs) with a special emphasis on their transformation due to interaction with a matrix or co-pollutants. It encompasses two approaches to the stated problems: analysis of samples collected in the environment and laboratory simulation of the molecular transformations.

The PBDE studies relied on the ambient air Particulate Matter (PM) samples collected from Bangkok, Thailand. Results showed the presence of various PBDE homologs from tri- to hepta-PBDEs on both PM_2.5and Total Suspended Particle (TSP) …

The Drosophila Neuroblasts: A Model System For Human Ribosomopathies, Sonu Shrestha Baral

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation describes the use of Drosophila neuroblasts (NBs) to model human ribosomopathies; the overall goal is to understand why specific stem cell and progenitor cell populations are the primary targets in nucleolar stress as seen in the ribosomopathies. Chapter 1 provides an overview of relevant literature. Chapter 2 describes nucleolar stress in Drosophila neuroblasts as a model for human ribosomopathies. For this, we induce nucleolar stress by using the UAS-GAL4 system to express RNAi that depletes Nopp140 transcripts, and we also employ homozygous, CRISPR-Cas9-generated Nopp140 gene disruptions with a systemic null phenotype (Nopp140-/-). Embryonic lethality was observed …

Disaster Vulnerability And Social Capitals In The Gulf Coast And Flint, Michigan, Vanessa Parks

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, I explore the migration intentions, self-rated physical and mental health, and alcohol use of people living in regions facing environmental stressors. In my first chapter, I examine factors that predict willingness to move away from southeast Louisiana, a region threatened by land loss, hurricanes, and environmental pollution. Specifically, I assess the relationships risk perceptions, place attachment, and fishing employment have with willingness to move. I find that risk perceptions are positively related to willingness to move and that place attachment and fishing employment are negatively related to willingness to move. In my second chapter, I show the …

Effect Of Environmental Factors And Residual Sanitizers On Survival And Attachment Of Indicator Organism And Human Pathogens On Fresh Produce, Vijay Singh Chhetri

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

A comprehensive understanding of the behavior of microbial contaminants on produce surfaces in agricultural farms and during post-harvest activities is essential for the development of produce safety risk management strategies. Our studies investigated the survival and the attachment of E. coli on watermelon surfaces in agricultural settings with different levels of vegetation, and the effect of residual sanitizers on the survival and the attachment of E. coli O157: H7 and L. monocytogenes on spinach leaves. The attachment strength (S_R) of the E. coli cells on watermelon surfaces significantly increased (P<0.05) from 0.04 to 0.99 in the first 24 h, which was primarily due to the decrease in loosely attached population, given that the population of strongly attached cells was constant. The daily die-off rate of E. coli ranged from -0.12 …

Cationic Cobalt (Ii) Hydroformylation, Drew Michael Hood

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

While investigating a bimetallic cobalt hydroformylation catalyst a new class of monometallic cationic cobalt (II) hydroformylation catalyst were discovered. These newly discovered catalyst proved to be very unique with high hydroformylation activity under mild conditions. The pre-catalyst were characterized using various methods including NMR, EPR, MS, and X-ray crystallography. Similarly the active catalyst was also investigated using NMR, EPR, FTIR, and X-ray crystallography. Various catalyst modifications were investigated for their effects on hydroformylation activity. Likewise various reaction parameters were probed to determine their effect on hydroformylation activity. Finally the best cationic cobalt (II) catalyst were directly compared to industry standards …