Digital Commons Network^™

Patterns Of Reef Fish Larval Supply To Petroleum Platforms In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico., James Marvin Tolan

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

Surveys of ichthyoplankton assemblages were conducted from four oil and gas platforms located in the northern Gulf of Mexico from November 1994 through July 1997. Diurnal collections, supplemented with light trap collections from the surface and -20 m depth, were taken quarterly during 1994 and 1995. Quarterly ichthyoplankton sampling at dawn and dusk only during 1996 and 1997 were supplemented with surface "lighted plankton net" collections. Of the 36,676 individuals collected, epipelagic (neretic and oceanic Clupeiformes, neretic Carangidae and Lutjanidae, as well as oceanic Scombridae) and mesopelagic (Myctophidae and Gonostomatidae) families comprised the majority of the ichthyoplankton. Reef-dependent (e.g., Pomacentridae, …

"A New Town Will Appear On Charleston Neck": North Charleston And The Creation Of The New South Garden City., Dean Thrift Sinclair

LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses

In 1912, five residents of Charleston, South Carolina purchased 5,000 acres of land in the area called "the Neck," a marshy and pestilential portion of the peninsula connecting the City of Charleston with the balance of South Carolina. On this property these leaders, tied to the progressive spirit sweeping America and the effort to create the New South, planned a new city called North Charleston. The 1,000-acre city was to be a complete community, with industrial, commercial, and residential activities to serve a population of 30,000 residents. An adjacent 4,000-acre tract was planned as an agricultural development to revitalize farming …

An Improved In Vitro Model For The Study Of Mycobacterium Leprae/Schwann Cell Interactions, Deanna Alisa Hagge

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Globally, millions of leprosy patients suffer irreversible peripheral nerve damage resulting in blindness or other disabilities as a consequence of Mycobacterium leprae infection. Schwann cells, the neural target of M. leprae, have a central role in leprosy histopathology including axonotrophy, altered myelin architecture and demyelination. The mechanisms of nerve damage have not been fully elucidated but appear to be the direct result of M. leprae within Schwann cells or a combined effect with an aggressive immune response to M. leprae within the nerves. There is no standardized in vitro model for the study of M. leprae interactions with the Schwann …

The Synthesis Of Deuterated Arylamine Dna Adducts For Use In The Development Of An Isotope Dilution Lc/Ms/Ms Method, Philip Dmitri Olsen

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Polycyclic aromatic amines (arylamines) are a class of chemical carcinogens that are prevalent in environmental and industrial settings. In order to study the mechanism of their toxicity a quantitative and qualitative detection method was developed to measure the C8-adenine adducts of benzidine and 2-aminofluorene in DNA samples. To do this a novel synthetic method using a palladium catalyst was developed to prepare authentic and deuterated arylamine adducts to serve as standards. These standards were then used to develop a high performance liquid chromatography, electrospray, tandem mass spectrometry, isotope dilution, detection method. To demonstrate the validity of this method two spike …

"Encourager Le Commerce Et Répandre Les LumiʹEre" : The Press, The Provinces And The Origins Of The Revolution In France: 1750-1789, Stephen Auerbach

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the political, intellectual, and cultural significance of France's provincial newspaper press, called affiches, published between 1750-1789. Combining the histories of the press, provincial life, and the public sphere, this dissertation explores the ways in which the affiches became an indispensable part of local economic, cultural, and intellectual life while at the same time articulated a world view that was antithetical to the tenets of monarchical absolutism. The first part of the dissertation focuses on the origins, form and contents of the provincial press. Faced with the twin obstacles of laws governing censorship and privilege, provincial newspapers eschewed …

Analysis Of Inorganic Materials Using Advanced Nmr And Nqr Techniques, Anthony Adrian Mrse

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Several advanced solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and nuclear quadrupole resonance (NQR) techniques have been applied to inorganic materials of commercial interest. The specific techniques applied to each system were chosen to solve specific obstacles which impeded the flow of industrial science.

First, the dispersion of brominated flame retardants in polymers is monitored using pulsed ⁸¹Br NQR (nuclear quadrupole resonance) techniques. The NQR spectrometer consists of a homemade NMR console and an automatically tuned loop-gap resonator probe. The two factors which affect the ⁸¹Br NQR transition frequencies of brominated aromatics are: electron-donating and withdrawing substituents on the ring …

Analysis Of Near-Infrared Dye-Labeled Sanger Sequencing Fragments With Gel Electrophoresis Using The Time-Resolved Flourescence Lifetime Indentification Methods, Suzanne Jeanel Lassiter

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The research presented in this dissertation involves the identification of sequencing fragments with time-resolved methods. For this application, near-infrared heavy-atom tricarbocyanine dyes were developed in our laboratory, which can be excited with a single laser and emission collected using a single detection channel. The dyes have four spectroscopically unique, but relatively short lifetimes that can be altered by the intramolecular heavy-atom they contain. The work described here involves the optimization of dye-primer chemistry for preparing Sanger sequencing reactions for longer reads and the optimization of the separation matrix for capillary gel electrophoresis that produces favorable statistical analysis of the aforementioned …

Numerical Simulations Of Dynamical Mass Transfer In Binaries, Patrick Michael Motl

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

We present results from investigations of mass transfer instability in close binary star systems. By unstable mass transfer we mean the exchange of material where the response of the binary to the initial Roche lobe overflow causes the donor to loose even more material. Our work is guided by approximate arguments that dictate the stability boundaries for binary star systems. To proceed further one must explicitly treat extended mass and velocity distributions that are both nitially, and through their subsequent evolution in time, self-consistent. In this dissertation, we present the first three-dimensional, fully self-consistent treatment of mass transfer in close …

Bounding The Wild Set (Counting The Minimum Number Of Wild Primes In Hilbert Symbol Equivalent Number Fields), Marius M. Somodi

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation makes a contribution to the study of Witt rings of quadratic forms over number fields. To every pair of algebraic number fields with isomorphic Witt rings one can associate a number, called the minimum number of wild primes. The situation is particularly nice when this number is 0; often it is not 0. Earlier investigations have established lower bounds for this number. In this dissertation an analysis is presented that expresses the minimum number of wild primes in terms of the number of wild dyadic primes. This formula not only gives immediate upper bounds, but can be considered …

Artin-Schreier Families And 2-D Cycle Codes, Cem Guneri

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

We start with the study of certain Artin-Schreier families. Using coding theory techniques, we determine a necessary and sufficient condition for such families to have a nontrivial curve with the maximum possible number of rational points over the finite field in consideration. This result produces several nice corollaries, including the existence of certain maximal curves; i.e., curves meeting the Hasse-Weil bound.We then present a way to represent two-dimensional (2-D) cyclic codes as trace codes starting from a basic zero set of its dual code. This representation enables us to relate the weight of a codeword to the number of rational …

The Effects Of Wild Pigs (Sus Scrofa) On Woody Understory Vegetation In Lowland Rain Forest Of Malaysia, Kalan Leonard Ickes

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

An increasingly urgent task in the field of conservation biology is to identify changes in abiotic and biotic interactions that result when large areas of forest are converted to small fragments surrounded by anthropogenic landscapes. My research, conducted in lowland dipterocarp rain forest at the 2,500-ha Pasoh Forest Reserve in Peninsular Malaysia, investigated a novel but strongly negative edge effect - namely, a tremendous increase in the density of wild pigs (Sus scrofa) and the resulting deleterious impacts on the understory plant community. The absence of feline predators due to the small size of the reserve and the presence of …

Heavy Metal Distribution For Aqueous And Solid Phases In Urban Runoff, Snowmelt And Soils, Donald W. Glenn Iii

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

At the start of the third millennium, over 50% of the world’s population lives in urban areas. Anthropogenic activities associated with urban development such as traffic generate significant particulate and heavy metal mass loadings. Ten urban highway sites located throughout the metropolitan area of Cincinnati, Ohio were studied. Storm water, snow and transportation land use soil/residual complexes (RSCs) were collected at each site. For the storm water, results are presented for a series of eight rainfall runoff events over a two-year period and included analyses between dissolved and particulate-bound fractions of heavy metals (Pb, Cu, Cd and Zn), and water …

Grave Matter: Contestations In Actress Burial, Christine Courtland Mather

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Death disrupts. The social space accorded to rituals of death and memorialization differs from all other spaces. Actresses disturb. Society contests, determines, and enacts the burial of an actress as her final performance. This study explores the actress burial as a site of meaning. Contestations over the fate of the actress body reveal power structures and the motivations of cultural institutions. This study highlights four actresses—Lecouvreur, Oldfield, Bernhardt, and Duse—whose burials cover a wide range of circumstances. Each chapter gives the relevant biographical information for the actress and the social background for the cultural contestation over the actress body. Traditional …

Age At Death In The Human Skeleton: A Combined Analysis Of Four Phase-Based Aging Systems To Determine Effieciency And Accuracy In Multifactorial Age Range Assignments, Jennifer Carol Giesecke

LSU Master's Theses

Analyses of human skeletal remains by physical anthropologists necessitate precise methods for the determination of age at death. Physical anthropologists recognize that the most accurate estimations of age at death are produced from evaluation of multiple indicators of age. To this end, three skeletal sites, the auricular surface, pubic symphysis, and right fourth sternal rib end, are often evaluated for age in adult skeletal remains. However, as of yet, no standardized method of combining the respective estimates of age provided at these sites has been reported. The above mentioned skeletal sites of 49 females and 77 males from the Hamann-Todd …

Dynamic Scheduling, Allocation, And Compaction Scheme For Real-Time Tasks On Fpgas, Shobharani Tatineni

LSU Master's Theses

Run-time reconfiguration (RTR) is a method of computing on reconfigurable logic, typically FPGAs, changing hardware configurations from phase to phase of a computation at run-time. Recent research has expanded from a focus on a single application at a time to encompass a view of the reconfigurable logic as a resource shared among multiple applications or users. In real-time system design, task deadlines play an important role. Real-time multi-tasking systems not only need to support sharing of the resources in space, but also need to guarantee execution of the tasks. At the operating system level, sharing logic gates, wires, and I/O …

Palm Community Development And Influence On Seedling Establishment In A Tropical Moist Forest, Panama, Krista Lynn Farris Lopez

LSU Master's Theses

Plants often modify microsite conditions important for seedling establishment. Palms may reduce light levels and produce deep leaf litter; both may suppress seedlings, affecting the local abundance, distribution, and species composition of tree seedlings. The abundance and composition of palms were examined along a tropical forest chronosequence at the Barro Colorado Nature Monument, Panama. Palms were sampled along transects in secondary (20, 40, 70, and 100 y in fallow) and old-growth forests. Palm abundance and basal area significantly increased with forest age. Palm distribution was driven by the most abundant palm, Oenocarpus mapora, which accounted for 60% of the total …

Auto Shop Boys: A Collection Of Short Stories, Daniel T. Mcnamara

LSU Master's Theses

Not applicable.

Evaluation Of In Situ Bioremediation Approaches In Meeting International Standards For Organic And Residual Metals Toxicity In Soils, Jason Allan Mcdonald

LSU Master's Theses

Drilling fluids and muds are an essential component of the rotary drilling process used to drill for oil and gas on land and in offshore environments. However, the bioaccumulation of petroleum contaminated soils/drilling mud due to oil and natural gas exploration has posed a major environmental concern due to its prolonged environmental persistence and its leachability below the rhizosphere. The main objectives of this research were: (i) To assess initial toxicity of drilling mud and related contaminated soils from an agricultural setting in Galliano, Sicily (Phase one) and (ii) To develop a low intervention bioremediation approach using bioplug technology to …

Towards Establishing A Process For Preserving Historic Landscapes In Mexico: The Casa Cristo Gardens In Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, Marcela De Obaldia

LSU Master's Theses

Landscape Architecture is a field that is in process of development in Mexico. However, although empirically, the landscape was considered in the past as part of the human's environment, and this is the Mexican heritage. Thus, this heritage is important to considered because is part of the people's identity, and therefore, vital to protect. However, Mexico focuses its attention to the preservation of its' national heritage in the fields of architecture and fine arts, leaving without protective regulations and guidelines the field of landscape architecture. The following thesis intends to create awareness in people of the importance of the landscape …

A Textual Analysis Comparing The Content Of "Black Enterprise," "Forbes," And "Fortune" Magazines And The Message Each Presents To Its Readers, Karen M. Rowley

LSU Master's Theses

A study of Forbes, Fortune, and Black Enterprise magazines finds that the two mainstream business publications—Forbes and Fortune—provide virtually no coverage of Blacks and the black business community, thereby helping to perpetuate the white-dominated view of society that places minorities in general—and Blacks in particular—outside the norm. Black Enterprise, on the other hand, continues in the long tradition of the black press, providing an alternative view of society through its focus on the black business community.

The Effectiveness Of Sports Sponsorhips: A Study Of The New Orleans Zephyrs, Amy Marie Boyle

LSU Master's Theses

Despite the pervasiveness of sports in American society and the ever-increasing role of sponsorship in the marketing mix, sponsorship marketing as a discipline currently lacks the rigorous academic study and theoretical foundations that exist in other marketing disciplines. The purpose of this study is to determine whether or not sponsorship of New Orleans Zephyrs baseball is an effective way of increasing awareness of a product or brand. Using intermediate measures of recognition testing, fans at three New Orleans Zephyrs games were surveyed to test sponsor recognition. The study examined various elements of sponsorship marketing including the effects that gender, age, …

Trans-Mississippi Southerners In The Union Army, 1862-1865, Christopher Rein

LSU Master's Theses

Men from throughout the Trans-Mississippi South enlisted in the Union army during the Civil War both in existing northern regiments and in units raised specifically for the purpose of enlisting southerners. The men who joined and fought represented almost every social and ethnic division within the region and contributed substantially to the success of Union arms during the war. Examining a single regiment from each state or territory in the region (except Louisiana, where one white and one black unit were chosen due to segregation) reveals similarities of background, experience and purpose. Louisiana's contributions to the Union army were primarily …

Optimization Of Apex-Mediated Dna Transformation In Rice, Marsha Natalie Samuels

LSU Master's Theses

Genetic transformation using the rice shoot apical meristem, derived from germinating seedlings, was established in this study for commercial varieties of Oryza sativa. To optimize apex-mediated DNA transformation in rice several parameters were tested to improve the efficiency and reliability of isolation of the shoot apices and regeneration of vegetative shoot apices. Results from these experiments indicated that certain factors were important in increasing the frequency of survival rate of the apex, co-cultivation and co-transformation. These factors included: the starting size of the apex had to range between 1.0 mm and 1.2 mm for maximum survival of the apex, concentration …

Investigation Of The Differences Between Inertial And Cadence Effects On Neuromuscular Coordination During Cycling, Brian Svercauski Baum

LSU Master's Theses

Muscular activity and coordination may be influenced by movement speed and the inertial properties of the limbs. Some observed effects from investigations using cycling have been attributed to inertia, especially at greater pedaling speeds (cadences); however, in these investigations, movement speed and inertia were coupled. Therefore, the purpose of this experiment was to investigate and distinguish between the effects of cadence and inertial influences on lower extremity neuromuscular coordination during cycling. This was achieved by subjects cycling at different cadences and with different loads attached to the distal ends of their thighs. Electromyographic (EMG) data of seven lower extremity muscles …

The Evaluation Of Pcr-Based Techniques For The Detection Of Fecal Indicator Organisms In Environmental Samples, Quinesha Laticia Perry

LSU Master's Theses

Escherichia coli is the indicator organism of choice for the detection of fecal contamination. Standard methods for detecting fecal contamination often rely on detecting fecal coliforms. While this practice if highly efficient in most applications, when used with the sediment-laden waters of Louisiana, free-living soil bacteria, such as Klebsiella pneumoniae were shown to inflate the fecal coliform counts. An accurate assessment of the contamination problem requires methods that detect E. coli. To detect E. coli, several of species-specific genes were tested before the gadAB genes were selected. The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was chosen to detect these genes using a …

Multiple-Access Interference Suppression In Cdma Wireless Systems, Jianqiang He

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis presents techniques that suppress the multiple access interference (MAI) in CDMA wireless systems. MAI is the main factor that influences the communication quality and the capacity in CDMA wireless systems. Hence the suppression of MAI is essential to the performance of a CDMA wireless system. For conventional CDMA systems where matched filters are used as receivers, the only MAI suppression method available is the power control, which allocates each user in the system an appropriate transmitter power level such that the transmitter power is minimized to decrease the MAI, while at the same time each user maintains a …

Attribute Agenda-Setting In An Open Primary: An Examination Of Press Coverage And Political Ad Effects, Scott Hobbs

LSU Master's Theses

Creating a favorable candidate image is one of the more difficult tasks a political consultant faces. Besides researching which issues their client will address, the consultant must analyze what attributes voters find most appealing in a candidate. Then, through a complex process, a candidate image is finally packaged and presented to the public. This thesis looks at the end result of the packaging process for a Mayoral candidate in East Baton Rouge parish. By examining the press coverage and campaign ads in a local election in a mid-size city, this study expands on previous second level agenda-setting research. Literature in …

Healing The Whole Person: A Post Occupancy Evaluation Of The Rooftop Therapy Park At Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center, Knoxville, Tennessee, Brad Edward Davis

LSU Master's Theses

This study used a post occupancy evaluation to assess the impact of an existing hospital garden on its users. Previous studies of hospital gardens have been of passive garden use. This study addressed gardens including physical therapy, while also considering the emotional, spiritual, and social aspects. The POE included behavioral observation, interviews with the designer and lead therapist, a staff survey, and a patient questionnaire. In light of historical information and contemporary theory, the results revealed issues to be addressed in the design process of future healing gardens, specifically those including physical therapy. The major issues included: the need for …

"Of One Kind Or Another": Rape In The Fiction Of Eudora Welty, Nicole M. Donald

LSU Master's Theses

"Of One Kind or Another:" Rape in the Fiction of Eudora Welty explores the ways in which Eudora Welty's repeated inclusion of rape in her fiction reveals and questions southern society and women's roles in it. Despite the vague, even confusing language with which she describes the incidents of rape. Welty offers a rich, forceful commentary upon the culture and women's roles in it. The ambiguity with which she describes rape reveals ambivalence toward the society that Welty may be said at once to protect and to expose. An examination of Welty's use of rape in her fiction reveals a …

The Role Of Experience And Active Learning In Web-Based Training For Applying Knowledge, Deborah L. Dunaway

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to test a new method for presenting information on the internet in a format that enhances adaptive learning and transfer to real-world applications. This web-based training method, called Cognitive Toolboxes (Mathews, 2001) involves analyzing course content into goal-based categories (toolboxes) linked to sets of knowledge facets (tools) and applications (cases). Three experiments examined the effects of internet access to different aspects of toolbox content (tools, toolbox names and cases) on subsequent application of the material to real-world problems. Results show that access to the organizational aspects of the method (tools organized into toolboxes) facilitated …